Ep. #241 - Pass Thru

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Pass-Thru.

[0:03] Normally I'd have like a joke here, or Stuart would have a joke here, but it's a Neil Breen movie.

[0:09] It's... I... What do you... How can you even... How can you even talk about it? It's...

[0:14] Ugh!

[0:15] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:44] Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:49] And hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:55] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:56] Uh, thanks for that dose of energy, Elliot. Uh, that was...

[1:00] Well, I decided to add kind of a carnivalesque, you know, Fellini atmosphere to it.

[1:05] Sure.

[1:06] And, uh, tightropes and trapezes and lions and horrifically grotesque acts of all sorts, but I realized it's audio, so I just shouted.

[1:15] Horrific, like, lions.

[1:18] Yeah, horrific, grotesque lions, because they all have heavy makeup on them, because it's a Fellini movie.

[1:23] Oh, okay. Uh, I thought they just had, like, mange or something.

[1:27] Ugh!

[1:28] Anti-mange?

[1:29] Yeah.

[1:30] Ugh!

[1:31] Stuart's not having any of it today.

[1:35] He's not into it.

[1:36] Okay, what do we do on this here podcast?

[1:38] Okay, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

[1:41] Yeah, great, we established that. Thanks, genius.

[1:45] Did I go too far by calling you a genius, sarcastically? I think so.

[1:49] Uh, we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it, and this time of year is one of the most magical times of year.

[1:55] It's small-timber, where we watch...

[1:57] Small-vember.

[1:58] Small movies. Movies that normally would not be enough for us to even pay attention to.

[2:06] Uh-huh, they are but a dust-moat in the galactic scale.

[2:10] In the eye of God, which in this case is, what, Roger Ebert?

[2:14] I guess so, yeah. Yeah, the ghost of Roger Ebert.

[2:17] When you say small movies, you don't just mean we're watching Avatar on our phone, right?

[2:21] Mm-hmm.

[2:22] No, that's not what I mean. That would be absurd, Elliot. Absurd.

[2:26] I've seen it done many times.

[2:28] If we did that, Christopher Nolan would personally come and slap us in the face.

[2:33] He would say, spend more money on movies.

[2:37] I kind of get the feeling that Christopher Nolan just greets people by slapping them in the face very severely.

[2:43] I mean, it sets the stone. It sets the stone. It sets the stage.

[2:47] I don't know why I'm thinking about stones.

[2:52] Now, here's what kind of stone. This is something I want the listeners to write in on.

[2:56] Is that simple? What kind of stones is Stuart thinking of?

[2:59] Is he thinking of Emma Stone, the Rolling Stones, or the magical Norn Stones?

[3:03] Mm-hmm.

[3:04] I think we know which one it is.

[3:05] Or am I thinking the video game Power Stone?

[3:08] Probably that one.

[3:10] Sly and the Family Stone.

[3:12] Yeah, or Sticks and Stone, which would be the band Sticks and a stone.

[3:17] Mm-hmm. I still think I'm probably thinking of Keith Stone, the brief promoter of Keystone Light.

[3:23] Okay. That character that they introduced?

[3:26] Yeah, Keith Stone.

[3:27] All right. Not Stone Phillips?

[3:29] No. So, guys—

[3:32] Now, what was Keith Stone's deal? He was just like a dude, right?

[3:35] Wait, wait, wait. Let's talk about Keith Stone for a moment.

[3:37] Well, okay. I mean, when I pitched him as an ad exec,

[3:42] I was pitching him on the premise that, like, he's just kind of an everyman,

[3:46] but he was also, like, kind of a trickster spirit.

[3:49] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[3:51] Like the Loki next door.

[3:52] Mm-hmm. Exactly. Like the Loki next door.

[3:54] But, like, just take those fucking sleeves off, Loki.

[3:58] Like, you don't need to wear sleeves.

[4:00] Not if you're drinking a couple of beers, just hanging out with your buds, playing some jokes.

[4:04] I mean, here's the thing, Stuart.

[4:06] If he doesn't have sleeves, where will he keep his tricks up?

[4:10] I mean, probably in his pants.

[4:12] Good point. Good point.

[4:14] What if he's wearing jean shorts?

[4:16] I mean, you could put him in one of those pockets that sticks out down the frayed bottoms of the jean shorts.

[4:21] That's what I was—that's what I was just going to get at.

[4:23] If he puts all his tricks in those,

[4:25] people are going to see the tricks bulging out of his pockets that are hanging below his shorts.

[4:28] Now, we're talking about trick cereal, right?

[4:32] Yeah, yeah. Loki walks around just with handfuls of trick cereal, just to taunt that rabbit.

[4:37] That would be funny if Loki was the spokesperson for trick cereal.

[4:41] I mean, it would make sense. I mean, Marvel's all over the place. It's huge right now.

[4:45] The, uh, I wonder—

[4:47] Every commercial ends with him denying trick cereal to Balder and then killing him with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.

[4:54] Yeah, and every commercial begins with Suter hammering that, what, magic sword he's building to kill Thor with.

[5:01] Yep, just 13 commercials in a row that start with that until we get to the real commercial,

[5:06] which is when Suter finally shows up with the sword.

[5:09] Dan, you know what we're talking about, right?

[5:11] Uh, so the movie Pass Through that we watched, it was a Neil Breen movie.

[5:17] Now, we watched—

[5:18] Should we reacquaint people with Neil Breen?

[5:20] Yes. That's what I was about to try and do. My best, at least.

[5:23] Okay.

[5:24] Uh, Neil Breen—

[5:25] Okay, so, yeah, you're pulling up Wikipedia on—

[5:28] So, for all those Breeniacs listening at home,

[5:33] Dan's trying to really get into the spirit here by recording this podcast on a laptop that's stacked up on top of a second laptop.

[5:41] That's true. That is happening.

[5:43] And, of course, the only way to finish it, then, is to sweep those laptops off the desk.

[5:47] Yeah, that's how you save the file, right?

[5:49] Yeah.

[5:50] Now, Dan, uh, Neil Breen, who is he?

[5:53] Is he some kind of, like, a sea creature?

[5:56] Uh, yeah, is he the thing that filters out krill in a whale's mouth?

[6:01] You would think so, but no.

[6:03] Neil Breen is actually the number one realtor in Las Vegas.

[6:08] Incorrect, Dan.

[6:09] He's an architect who briefly worked as a real estate agent.

[6:12] Oh, really?

[6:13] I've been lying to people this whole time.

[6:15] That's what you're calling a butt model.

[6:19] Yeah.

[6:21] Because his naked ass is in most of his movies, and part of the back of his ball sack.

[6:26] Wait, what?

[6:27] Yeah.

[6:28] In most of his movies, there's a naked Neil Breen and back of ball sack.

[6:31] I was actually going to read a letter about this later on.

[6:34] Okay, we'll save it. I'm sure we can delay our gratification.

[6:39] I have to say, though, I haven't remembered any of that at all.

[6:43] Wait, did Blockbuster Video edit out Neil Breen movies?

[6:48] Well, they didn't carry any of them.

[6:50] Well, when you watch them on a plane, certainly, you don't get all the…

[6:55] There's that Neil Breen channel on Delta.

[6:58] Yeah, because they were worried about if they're flying a plane with all the Neil Breen bottom and back ball sack,

[7:07] the orgone levels would rise to scary heights and everybody would just start fucking like maniacs.

[7:13] No, so Neil Breen, okay, he worked as a realtor, but he's not one anymore.

[7:19] Is this what you're saying to me, Elliot?

[7:21] He's an architect now, but really his calling is he's a filmmaker.

[7:25] How does he have enough money as an architect to make these films?

[7:29] That's the real question.

[7:30] Have you seen those movies?

[7:32] They don't cost a lot of money.

[7:34] Well, he rented a drone for this one.

[7:36] I mean there's that at least.

[7:38] That's production value.

[7:39] You mean the consumer electronic that's available to everyone?

[7:42] Yeah.

[7:43] It was so funny.

[7:44] So this movie, we'll get to it.

[7:46] There's a lot of what I thought at first were helicopter shots, and then I'm like, no, wait a minute.

[7:50] He just strapped a GoPro to a drone.

[7:52] That's not the same thing.

[7:53] Yeah, and he's based out of Las Vegas, a place where helicopter tours are fairly affordable, right?

[8:01] Yeah, I would think so.

[8:04] It's a tourist economy.

[8:05] Now, Neil Breen, he's made a lot of movies that are baffling, and we reviewed one of his earlier movies, Faithful Findings, right?

[8:14] Yeah, yep.

[8:15] I'm glad you're looking to us for confirmation.

[8:20] Well, I have Mementos Syndrome where I only remember things that happen in Mentos commercials.

[8:27] Wow, okay, yeah.

[8:28] So I can tell you all about the time that I snuck into the backstage of a concert by tying a bandana around my head and pretending to be a roadie?

[8:34] Or that time you convinced those brawny construction workers to move that person's car.

[8:41] Exactly.

[8:42] Oh, that was one of my real triumphs in life.

[8:45] Yeah, and then there was—

[8:46] So you forget everything about the podcast and all the weird esoteric knowledge that you mention on there.

[8:52] Oh, is that something that happens?

[8:54] Yeah.

[8:55] No, I wasn't aware.

[8:57] So Faithful Findings, how would you describe that movie, Dan, in four words?

[9:02] A writer tries to expose secret government secrets.

[9:07] So many extra words, Dan.

[9:10] Neil Breen—

[9:15] You shouldn't have used up two of the words just with the name Neil Breen.

[9:18] Neil Breen Messiah Complex.

[9:20] Okay, you did it, all right.

[9:22] Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good.

[9:23] That seems to be a theme between all of his movies.

[9:26] Neil Breen presents himself as the one purveyor of truth and, like, honest reality in his movies,

[9:33] and everybody else is corrupt and openly horrible.

[9:38] That's one of the—well, we should just start talking about the movie,

[9:40] because one of my favorite things in Neil Breen movies is that the bad guy characters just openly state how bad they are.

[9:46] Yes.

[9:47] They have casual conversations about how corrupt and evil they are.

[9:51] But okay, let's talk—so this movie, that was Faithful Findings,

[9:54] which was about a writer with magic psychic powers who hacks into government secrets

[9:58] and convinces all the bad people in the world—

[10:00] commit suicide. Elliot, is there a plane flying over your house? What's going on over there?

[10:04] A very low-flying helicopter just flew by. Sure. Is Neil Breen hanging out of it?

[10:11] It's possible. As I was saying, it was probably 30 feet above the ground this helicopter flew by.

[10:17] That was crazy. But I live in L.A. It's like a movie every day. Yeah, brag about it.

[10:22] Why are you looking at me? Go on. I remember when we watched Fateful Findings,

[10:29] I was like, I don't understand this man's brain or his movies. This looks so cheap and shoddy,

[10:35] and yet the scope is so enormously ambitious in a foolhardy way.

[10:40] Pass-through is like that times, what, a million? Yes, I think you're right.

[10:48] It's like both a million times cheaper and less coherent, and yet a million times more

[10:53] ambitious in what it's trying to say to the world. So let's just get into it, right? Let's just try

[10:58] to summarize the plot of a movie that is seemingly daring you to believe that there's a plot in it.

[11:06] I'm trying. We watched this a couple of days ago, and oh boy, Elliot, please take me back to that

[11:12] place. Okay, well, I'll take you back to the beginning, which is there's kind of a heavenly

[11:17] choir over some kind of geometric shape in space, which looks like the kind of poster that a pothead

[11:23] who is also a computer science or an astrophysics student would have in their dorm. And then

[11:30] suddenly you're just in the desert. You're just in the desert looking at rocks through a GoPro

[11:35] attached to a drone, lots of rocks and ominous piano music. And then the title comes up,

[11:40] Pass Through, and then a Neil Breen film. Usually that comes up sometimes before. He plays with the

[11:45] way credits go. And you see, and this is his, I guess, attempt to be like 2001, A Space Odyssey.

[11:51] You see a rock with kind of Aboriginal designs painted on it. And from the side of the frame,

[11:57] an arm with like really poorly attached fake fur holding a paintbrush paints this symbol on.

[12:05] And it looks like it's supposed to look like, I think, some kind of proto hominid arm. But what

[12:10] it looks like is somebody just shoved their arm into the lint filter of a dryer and then painted

[12:16] something. And then you see above this cave where these rocks are the worst composited in tiger

[12:22] I think I've ever seen in a movie. It looks terrible. And this is a tiger effect we'll see

[12:30] many times. Next, Neil Breen symbolizes the passage of time by showing clocks sitting

[12:36] on the ground in the desert. Yeah. And that's what that was representing. Thank you, Elliot.

[12:42] I think the fact that so it very shortly you see in succession with no dialogue, you see rocks,

[12:49] you see some kind of furry person's hand painting a stone, you see a tiger, and then you see clocks

[12:54] sitting on the ground in the desert. I have to assume that it's supposed to be about the

[12:59] evolution of man. Well, but man's not in a great place because we cut to a chain of what appears

[13:03] to be at first to be possibly hikers or possibly migrants trying to cross the border into the

[13:10] United States. Now, here's the thing. They're a wonderfully diverse group of migrants. Yeah.

[13:16] I was like, they look they're dressed like migrants. They're going through the desert.

[13:20] I've seen this footage on the news many times, but I don't remember Latin American

[13:24] migrants crossing the border in the news footage, at least to be so white and also black. And also,

[13:29] there may have been an Asian person there and everyone speaking in kind of like California,

[13:34] Las Vegas accents. Yeah. There's a certain central casting element to it or a certain

[13:41] anyone Neil Breen could find to be in his damn movie element to it. Yeah. I feel like there's

[13:46] a certain whoever was hanging out at the mall that day, elements of casting. But we don't see

[13:52] the hikers for long because for a little bit we are cutting between and cutting almost randomly,

[13:57] it seems, between three storylines, these migrants in the desert, a bunch of kids who love space,

[14:03] studying at computers and talking to each other on the phone. Yep. There's an old man looking

[14:07] at a book and Neil Breen as a kind of dirty hobo collecting cans. It turns out that the

[14:15] teens are tracking some sort of signal that the old man predicted, but they keep finding it's a

[14:21] false. It feels like it feels like every time they cut from the kids room to the old man's

[14:28] hospital room, the exact same posters in the same configuration are on the walls, Elliot.

[14:34] Now, would you be suggesting, OK, there's only two possibilities there. One is that they just

[14:39] wheeled out the child's bed and wheeled in a hospital bed to shoot those scenes or and this

[14:44] is what I posit is more in line with the movie's theme. Yeah. The old man and the kid either are

[14:50] in such psychic synchronicity that they unknowingly put their posters up in the same places or that

[14:56] the old man and the kid are the same person at different points in their lifespan, somehow

[15:00] emerging into space and time at the same. It's like the inner Sandman video where you're like,

[15:05] is the little kid the old man now? What is going on? Because Neil Breen is kind of like Stanley

[15:12] Kubrick with the shining. No detail is is beyond. I can't believe that he would just so casually use

[15:18] the same room for two different sets and two different locations if it wasn't part of his

[15:23] grand design, because as we'll see, he is a very intricate director with who has a reason for

[15:29] everything. Like, for instance, Hobo Neil Breen isn't just sleeping on a dirty mattress in a

[15:34] trailer for no reason. He's been hired by the coyotes who move the migrants to clean up their

[15:39] trash after them. So there's no evidence. Now, here's how here's how I would have solved that

[15:45] problem. If I was a coyote, just bring a garbage bag with you, pick up the trash as you go along

[15:49] and then throw it away at some point. But no, they I just guess decided that it was easier to get

[15:53] drugs with which to pay Neil Breen, who we find is a drug addicted hobo. Yep. To clean up this.

[15:58] Now, when when you say he's a drug addicted hobo, you mean that he takes his syringe and he squirts

[16:06] out some sort of liquid on top of his arm like there's a scene of him like also that he

[16:11] theoretically injecting it into his arm. But it's clear that he's just I mean,

[16:15] fucking drugs are no joke now, man. Half that shit is transdermal anyway, like he's getting so high.

[16:22] He also cooks. He cooks his drugs by taking the powder, putting on a piece of foil,

[16:26] just laying it on the ground and then sucking up the powder with the syringe. So either the rocks

[16:31] of that desert are so hot that you can really cook whatever drug he's using on it, cook his

[16:36] heroin or whatever, or he's just got it. He doesn't he doesn't like his his drugs running.

[16:41] Yeah, I mean, there is a little more solid, you know, I think there's a scene that he cut out

[16:45] where he actually fries up a little breakfast on the rocks, but just by just cracking cracking

[16:51] eggs on that rock because it's so hot, Elliot. And I think that would have explained the scene

[16:55] that you're talking about a little better. Yeah, I have to imagine. I mean, he must have

[16:59] cut that scene because he's like, wait a minute, my character who looks just like me, but slightly

[17:03] dirtier, looks like he hasn't eaten a good meal in probably 30 years. So maybe it would be

[17:09] unrealistic for me to show him eating a breakfast. But he's like the breakfast scene is important to

[17:14] me because breakfast is the most important meal of the movie. Right. Is that is that the popular

[17:21] phrase saying that's the popular saying? Yeah. So that's why they sneak it in. That's why all

[17:26] the best movies that you've ever seen have a breakfast scene like idle hands. Bring it on.

[17:34] Dan, what are some other top tier movies? Citizen Kane is a famous breakfast scene.

[17:39] Yeah. You watch the crumbling of a marriage over breakfast. Let's not forget the most famous

[17:44] breakfast scene maybe, which was the poster for Dan in real life when Steve Carell has his head

[17:50] on top of a pile of paint. Yeah, we're talking we're talking S tier movies right now, like

[17:55] Lawrence of Olivier, Lawrence of Arabia, where Peter O'Toole's just, you know, crushing some

[18:06] fucking breakfast and BKFST and somebody's like, hey, hey, why are you putting out that match with

[18:11] your fingers? And he's like, I don't give a fuck. Right. You remember that part. Yeah,

[18:16] I remember it. Now. Now, what would Lawrence of Olivier be?

[18:19] Is that Peter O'Toole? He's Lawrence of Arabia, but he's been shrunk and he's inside Lawrence

[18:26] Olivier's body. Yep. Yep. I mean, that's exactly what it's about. And he lights a match and

[18:34] someone's like, hey, put that out. You're inside one of the greatest living actors. Oh, I'm so

[18:38] sorry. And he puts it out with his fingers. And then they insert a tiny evil spy character

[18:44] that's in a robot suit. And he's like, I'm going to crush you. And he like he's like,

[18:48] not so fast, dude. And he tossed him in the stomach acid and the dude totally gets roasted.

[18:54] It's so gross. Think about that little dead body in the in that floating around Lawrence Olivier's

[19:00] body. Does he shit him out? Yeah, if it's in his stomach, it's just going to come out in his.

[19:04] Is he so tiny? He's not even going to know. But is he a cannibal then?

[19:09] If it's a robot, then no. No, but there's like a dude inside the robot.

[19:13] Now, that's an interesting question, because cannibalism, it implies a certain motivation

[19:18] and intent, I think, OK, gently eat a tiny person and you never even know it's there.

[19:23] The same way that, like all the food we eat has a certain amount of insect parts in it.

[19:27] We never know. Does that mean we're insectivores without knowing it?

[19:30] I mean, I am. I I this sounds like just a way of justifying being a cannibal,

[19:36] like, oh, I didn't know that that was a human being that I.

[19:39] Yeah, when you when you when you turn into a fucking Wendigo, you're like,

[19:43] I didn't know about the tiny scientist in my belly.

[19:46] When you when when Lawrence Olivier appeals in Wendigo,

[19:52] I'd like to I'd like to file a writ of didn't know.

[19:56] And I guess Judge Wendigo is like, oh, yeah.

[20:00] Yeah. Oh, man, he's he has to apply to the governor for a pardon.

[20:05] Let's just take let's just take a moment and step back and appreciate

[20:09] the absurdity of the picture we've painted where Lawrence Olivier

[20:13] has had a spy injected into his stomach who has eaten and become a Wendigo.

[20:17] So he has to go to Wendigo Court to object to this transformation.

[20:22] Yep. And it gets even more absurd, Dan, because who shows up but Peter Pan

[20:26] to take Wendigo to Wendigo to never, never land to meet the Lost Boys.

[20:31] And they think she's a Wendigo bird.

[20:33] Oh, oh, another helicopter.

[20:35] There's another helicopter going by.

[20:38] So where are we at in the movie again?

[20:42] OK, so this is when the movie the movie cuts to the one well-framed shot

[20:47] in the whole film, and it actually startled me.

[20:49] The first time that I saw there was an actual shot

[20:52] that could have been in a real movie.

[20:54] I like I literally jumped like it struck me so hard.

[20:58] I was like, yeah, accidentally find a good shot because Neil Breen,

[21:02] he seems to have died of a drug overdose.

[21:04] That's when Neil Breen number two gets up,

[21:07] walks out of that body and just goes goes to his house.

[21:11] And we will find out that this second Neil Breen is not everything that it's

[21:16] not everything he seems is a little bit more.

[21:18] And it's essentially the movie The Hidden at a certain point.

[21:20] But anyway, the teens who were looking for that mysterious signal,

[21:25] they've been writing songs.

[21:26] That storyline doesn't go anywhere about how great their songs are.

[21:30] Neil tries to cross a barbed wire fence and his hands get all bloody.

[21:33] That symbolism, I don't have to explain to you guys.

[21:35] You know what bloody hands means, right?

[21:38] Bloody hands means he goes through a lot of gloves.

[21:43] All right, I was going for more of a Christ stigmata thing, but yeah, also gloves.

[21:48] The migrants make it across the border by knocking down a fence,

[21:52] which has been weakened by the silliest CGI blowtorch effect you can imagine.

[21:58] It's like, how cheap is your movie that you can't even have a real blowtorch go on for a moment?

[22:05] Instead, you have a little CGI flame that comes out.

[22:08] It's amazing.

[22:08] I thought the special effects in last week's movie, Sicilian Vampire,

[22:15] were going to be the silliest special effects that I'd watched that year.

[22:19] But no, no, no.

[22:19] That blowtorch is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

[22:22] Yeah, yeah, it was.

[22:25] It was great.

[22:26] Like, I feel like it should win an award for its silliest special effect.

[22:30] Is it would that be at the Sillies or the Special Effects Awards?

[22:34] The Special Effects Awards, hosted by Joe Pesci.

[22:39] It's me, Joe Pesci.

[22:40] Once again, I'm hosting the Special Effects Awards.

[22:43] Your favorite award show for special effects and Pesci effects.

[22:49] So the migrants get into America.

[22:51] Hooray.

[22:52] The teens talk on the phone with the old man in his hospital bed.

[22:54] All the migrants have drugs hidden under their shirts, which are ridiculously.

[22:59] And here's where, OK, so they get brought across the border.

[23:03] It seems like the drugs are being stolen from them.

[23:05] But by the people who already brought them across.

[23:08] And yeah, by the coyotes.

[23:11] Yeah, the coyotes.

[23:12] And they're dividing the drugs up into bags.

[23:14] And they're like, this is for the politicians.

[23:17] This is for the stockbrokers.

[23:19] This is for the CEOs.

[23:21] This is for the lawyers.

[23:23] Like all of Neil Breen's enemies get asked right off the bat as drug dealers,

[23:27] drug users who the drug, not even just the big drug dealers

[23:31] know who their customers are.

[23:33] The mules and everybody know who the customers are like an open secret,

[23:36] I guess, that everybody uses.

[23:37] This is also one of Neil Breen's favorite tropes

[23:42] where his enemies are referred to in the most vague way possible, too, though.

[23:46] Like it's just like the bankers are the bad guys or,

[23:51] oh, the lawyers are doing something.

[23:54] It's never any specific bank or specific lawyer or specific crime that's

[23:58] talked about.

[23:59] It's just like they're just doing their bad big business stuff.

[24:02] Well, it's a specific it's a tactic that artists,

[24:05] the great artists have used for a long time where you just make vague references.

[24:09] And if you get offended, it's like guilty conscience much.

[24:16] Or the whole thing is like a bad political cartoon

[24:19] where everything's labeled really explicitly.

[24:21] Yeah. Who's that fucking asshole?

[24:24] Who's that one fucking right wing cartoonist?

[24:26] He does that fucking terrible shit.

[24:28] Oh, God, the one who does the stuff in the post.

[24:30] Yeah, he's the worst.

[24:33] He's the worst.

[24:34] Anyway, the the leader of the gang is a black woman,

[24:37] which just shows that Neil is woke or because his casting is diverse

[24:41] or it shows that black women are bad guys.

[24:43] I don't know. I don't know.

[24:44] Neil, where do you fall on the spectrum?

[24:46] Although I like that.

[24:48] And of course, yeah, I like that.

[24:49] We have a strong female character at this point.

[24:52] Oh, yeah. She's like the Imperator Furiosa.

[24:54] So I think at this point, we've already probably been introduced

[24:58] to some additional characters.

[24:59] Maybe you're going to get to this, Elliot.

[25:01] But we have we have a pair of migrants

[25:05] who are escaped, who have escaped, and they are

[25:09] they appear to be of the same age.

[25:11] But no, no, no.

[25:12] We are introduced to them as they loudly shout

[25:16] their relationship to each other, being you're my niece.

[25:21] You're my sister's daughter.

[25:24] We've got to run.

[25:26] We have to keep running.

[25:27] You're my mother.

[25:29] Your mother is my sister.

[25:30] You're my niece.

[25:31] I would love that if one of them is and one is black

[25:34] and the other appears to be Latino.

[25:35] So it's it's a you know, but you're saying, Dan, you love what I just love.

[25:39] If that was the way that that that character just said everything.

[25:43] They they said something and then they had to define it afterwards.

[25:45] Like we need to keep running.

[25:47] Webster's Dictionary defines running as a motion.

[25:51] But I mean, it's great.

[25:54] Yeah, it's the woman gang.

[25:56] Why are they escaping?

[25:57] Because the female gang leader has shot a boy and his grandma

[26:00] and locked all the other migrants into trailers.

[26:02] So this woman and her sister and her sister's daughter, her niece,

[26:07] they're on the run.

[26:08] Neil Breen, meanwhile, he finds the painted rocks from earlier,

[26:11] which are just sitting out there.

[26:12] Yeah. And also the tiger.

[26:14] He and the tiger stare at each other.

[26:16] There's a glowing dot on a painted hand.

[26:18] Now, when they when they stare at each other, Elliot,

[26:22] does it look to you like that tiger is sitting in a field of snow

[26:27] and Neil Greene's Neil Greene?

[26:29] Oh, I just put my foot in my mouth.

[26:33] Neil Breen's face looks like it's just superimposed

[26:35] over this image of a tiger sitting in snow.

[26:39] That is exactly what it looks like.

[26:40] Or is that snow supposed to represent the drugs

[26:43] that are being muled over the border every day?

[26:45] Oh, interesting read.

[26:47] I think that that snow represents that Neil could most easily get stock footage

[26:51] of a tiger in the snow and decided that it was good enough

[26:54] because he seems to be first seems like maybe he and the tiger

[26:57] are challenging each other.

[26:58] No, they're communing their spirits, communing together,

[27:01] but really more that he's sharing a very sensitive moment

[27:03] with stock footage of a tiger.

[27:05] And at a certain point, it just seems like he's standing

[27:08] in front of stock footage of a tiger in voiceover.

[27:11] Here's where the voiceover comes in.

[27:12] Neil Breen begins to narrate, says, just states it outright.

[27:16] He's a robot from the future who's come to cleanse the human species.

[27:19] Oh, OK. So it's one of those tropes where.

[27:22] OK, buckle up, guys.

[27:24] Yeah. Oh, boy.

[27:25] One of those tropes where an alien or robot or whatever has take

[27:29] or time traveler has taken the form of a dead person

[27:32] and will now go about their mysterious business.

[27:35] Meanwhile, the kids are searching the desert

[27:38] for the thing the old man thought they'd found.

[27:40] They pass Breen as a bum and

[27:43] they it's and they just kind of like just keep walking.

[27:46] The migrants are like, don't look at the dead hobo.

[27:49] Just let it lie.

[27:50] The kids are super.

[27:52] I mean, there's a whole movie about kids trying to go out of their way

[27:54] to see a dead body.

[27:57] These kids could not give a shit about this dead body.

[28:00] They couldn't care less.

[28:01] It is, if anything, it's just an inconvenience to their day.

[28:06] There's then you get to all the migrants are thrown in.

[28:09] The men are thrown into a bus.

[28:10] The women are thrown into a bedroom.

[28:12] One very poignantly places a rose into a can.

[28:16] And the gang lady yells at them.

[28:18] The women on the run, the woman and her niece,

[28:21] they find Neil Breen's gross trailer.

[28:23] And it is blessed.

[28:25] Dan, how would you describe this trailer?

[28:26] Is it the ultimate bachelor pad?

[28:29] Yeah, it's a real man cave.

[28:30] It's it's got it's got that one standing lamp

[28:34] that all single guys have in the corner.

[28:37] Now it's got like your.

[28:40] Oh, wow.

[28:41] Another helicopter.

[28:43] Now they're how did you move to a helicopter pad?

[28:45] Yeah. Your house.

[28:47] Yeah. Yeah. Did you move to a landing?

[28:52] I feel like we should have called it.

[28:54] I feel like we should have some sort of musical sting

[28:56] whenever a helicopter goes by or something.

[28:58] Mm hmm. But did it.

[29:01] Yeah. Yeah.

[29:03] I have a company now called Kaila Copter,

[29:06] where you don't I don't own the helicopter,

[29:08] but I do give you permission to fly it by myself.

[29:10] OK, why do they want to do that?

[29:13] I don't see what they're getting out of that deal.

[29:16] I will. I will.

[29:17] Hey, I don't know, but it's the money is good.

[29:19] Dirty deeds done dirty, you know, whatever.

[29:21] I don't know.

[29:21] But the I will say living in L.A.

[29:23] sometimes does feel like you're in a movie.

[29:25] We had some people over for dinner

[29:27] and my house looks out on the Silver Lake Reservoir at night.

[29:30] You see the cars driving by on the other side.

[29:31] And it was literally like we witnessed a police chase

[29:34] going by across the across the water and then helicopters flying over.

[29:38] And it was just like we were we were literally the bystanders in a movie

[29:41] that you cut to for a minute to show that other people exist

[29:44] in this world of car chases and the danger of the car, right?

[29:47] Much more real.

[29:48] And it was like, oh, I just I was just an extra in my own life.

[29:52] That was amazing.

[29:53] Did you guys all do spit takes at the same time when you saw the cars racing by?

[29:58] And and a dog went.

[30:00] Yeah, and I didn't even know I had a dog and the weird thing is you were you were

[30:03] Carrying a big paint of glass at the time to which shattered as the cars went through

[30:08] But the glass just shattered out of surprise. Yeah, that's the that's the strange thing. Yeah, everybody did a spit-take onto the glass and then it

[30:16] So hard that it shattered

[30:19] Revealing a DVD copy of the movie shattered glass starring Hayden Christensen. Now was this the point in the movie?

[30:26] I'm still so distracted by this helicopter. We talked. Sorry. I'll tell it to quiet down. Oh, whoa. It's so low

[30:34] This is crazy. Oh, you know what? It's doing. It's a fire copter and I think it's picking up water from the reservoir

[30:40] Oh, okay, so there might be a fire in the hills, which is maybe the most exciting thing

[30:44] I've ever most dramatic movie thing I've ever said. Yeah in real life. There might be a fire in the hill

[30:50] Now is this the point in the movie where no brain is trying to get the woman to trust him and

[30:57] come into his

[30:59] Yes, he has to clean up his clean up that bachelor pad

[31:03] He lives in a bachelor pad

[31:05] That's essentially a dirty mattress on the trailer with not which doesn't even have full walls around it

[31:11] So if ever there was a place that a murderer would lure you into this is it?

[31:16] Like this is the place it's the human equivalent of like when a scorpion hiding under a rock or something like that

[31:22] But he's like no. No, no, he's telling them it's safe when and he goes I'll clean it

[31:27] Which just means a shot of him taking cans one by one and throwing them out the out just throwing them outside the tree

[31:33] Yeah

[31:33] but the best part is

[31:34] there's a the woman is standing outside the trailer and you get these reaction shots as like cans fly past her like they and she's

[31:41] just like

[31:43] Like she's just like so creeped out by the idea of trash that she has to react to every single thing that flies past her

[31:50] as he throws it I

[31:52] Want to take a moment to talk about this woman who I don't know the name of the actress. I don't remember it

[31:55] She is so like

[31:58] She's got such heavy makeup for someone who has just been crossing the desert

[32:02] Yeah on the run for their lives and she like but you can tell that

[32:07] She and Neil have a real connection. Uh-huh. You know, oh cool. Okay wonder if they're going out. Do I hear wedding bells?

[32:14] Maybe I could just be the helicopter. Yeah, that's a good point up the helicopter has bells

[32:21] But it's wedding bells

[32:23] It's a

[32:25] Bellicopter, okay, but I mean there is a helicopter called a bell helicopter, right? Okay, Huey

[32:32] Helicopter expert nor have ever claimed to be one

[32:35] Your business card says comedy writer slash helicopter X. That's helicopter parenting. Oh

[32:42] I'm sorry. Yeah, I get it now. Okay, I apologize. That's on me. You know what from everybody here?

[32:50] I was a me a culpa

[33:01] He may have a special relationship with this woman because unlike most of his female leads

[33:05] He does not make her to be half topless at any point in the film

[33:10] She does later on lift up her shirt so you can see her back and see there's a tattoo of a tiger there

[33:15] Yeah, yeah, she doesn't wait a minute

[33:17] She has a tattoo of a tiger and there's also a tiger in the movie

[33:22] No, that's that's that's just got to be a coincidence guys

[33:27] And I actually think it's that it's just supposed to be telling us that she really liked the movie wanted

[33:33] Tiger tattoo on Angelina Jolie's back. She's like, I want a tattoo like that. Mm-hmm. But uh, anyway, it's all symbols that symbols within symbols

[33:40] So we see the girl migrants at their house

[33:43] They talk very openly about being addicts being weak how much they hate the corrupt politicians of their home countries

[33:49] Which are never named one of them just goes I'm pregnant

[33:53] And it felt like a community theater production of orange is the new black just like diverse women in a room just

[34:00] Just talking out loud their problems

[34:02] And on meanwhile the bus two guys fight over a water jug and it is hilarious

[34:06] It is like the pissiest least dramatic fight over life-giving water

[34:12] Yeah that I think I've ever it's like if the entire movie water world was just two guys on a bus

[34:18] Arguing like just mad at each other because they don't like seeing next

[34:22] Yeah

[34:23] Okay, brain wanders the desert talking about like how we shall all be one and things like that

[34:28] There's a lot of Neil Breen

[34:31] Philosophical voiceovers that are just kind of nonsense throughout the movie over shots of him wandering through the desert

[34:38] They meanwhile at the migrant house one of the one of the migrant women hangs herself in the shower and the leader of the gang

[34:43] The lady she goes

[34:48] Neil has more monologues about how only the laws of the spirit realm remain the same human laws are constantly changing

[34:55] Neil the niece falls asleep in the desert and Neil Breen. Does he like a merge out of a rock and talk to her?

[35:01] It's very she calls. I don't remember

[35:04] Yeah, I mean what then Breen goes tries to approach the aunt and she throws a rock at him in self-defense

[35:10] But then apologizes and cleans the wound on his head with a tissue and by clean

[35:14] So I mean just kind of like smears at it. Yeah the tissue

[35:16] She already with what you have to assume is a filthy tissue

[35:19] She's been carrying it with her filthy with either she's with the makeup that she's had to remove before she reapplies every morning

[35:26] Either that or she found it on the floor of Neil Breen's trailer, which means who knows what?

[35:31] parasites

[35:33] Crawling on that thing terrible later. She asked him how he's doing and he says I'm fine

[35:39] she says herself who is this guy and

[35:42] He names himself introduced himself as till and spells it th g il

[35:47] And it's only a little later that she realizes he saw the word light on a on a package

[35:53] I want that he threw out of his trailer and took that as his name. Yeah, but it made it back

[35:58] I love that he in order to facilitate this realization of hers

[36:02] He made a point of spelling out the name that he just came up with by looking at a thing

[36:07] Because till doesn't does not I mean if you saw that those letters you'd be like, oh, my name's thug ill

[36:12] Yeah, like that would make more sense. But this is also we're like at that point

[36:16] I think we're almost halfway through the movie and this is when the characters start getting names

[36:20] Yeah up till now. They've they've just been anonymous fake. Well, you know

[36:24] yeah, I thought we were introduced to the the the two women Kim and

[36:30] Roll know what's their nieces name? It's like her name is Kim

[36:35] Like they have the most like I don't know like mundane

[36:39] Like that's my like a person you'd bump into the mall

[36:43] name

[36:45] You mean like like Bedelia? Yeah. Yeah, but totally normal name that you you get sick of here and like Zarelda

[36:53] Yep, I know a name that's so common that when they're on and on a season of The Bachelor you're like that's Bedelia

[36:59] This is Bedelia to this is this is BD

[37:05] Okay, like Xanthi yep, yeah

[37:08] Like that, okay

[37:10] Like Zenobia a name like that. Okay. Yeah like a normal lady name

[37:14] More voiceover from Neil Breen about how in taking on human form

[37:18] He takes on human feeling and is vulnerable to human traits don't know what that means never gets explained

[37:23] He also says that everything that power does it does in a circle and he starts just spinning around in circles among

[37:29] Ringstones and that goes on for a while now

[37:32] I think those I feel like I feel like that's where the the ringstones are

[37:38] Listeners can write in and tell me but I feel like that's the place where they shot some of the scenes from Bone Tomahawk

[37:45] Some of the early stuff would like Sid Haig and stuff where the crazy cannibals are living, but oh good. Yeah

[37:52] I'll tell you what. Those were not the cannibals. You want to be around the bone the

[37:57] That does Tomahawk cannibals. They were crazy cannibals. They were neither fine nor young

[38:01] Around a cannibal I wanted to be a fine young cannibal. Mm-hmm

[38:05] Yeah, yeah, cuz they they drive you crazy or whatever

[38:10] Now would you call Hannibal Lecter as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins a fine old cannibal because he's no longer young but he's very elegant

[38:17] Yeah, I mean, I think he's pretty fine. He's delicate. Yes. He's like a fine old cannibal

[38:23] He's like a fine wine kind of fine. Yeah

[38:27] But what now what would a coarse young can

[38:31] I mean, that's where you have you have whole grains of cannibal mixed in

[38:38] So it's grittier the mouthfeel is different but it's actually healthier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why is it healthier? Does it help you?

[38:46] Help you do movements easier

[38:48] Like yeah, I think so like what I'm talking about. I'm talking about BAMS, dude. Okay

[38:55] Like wait the Brooklyn Academy of Music like a dance movement, uh

[38:58] Kinda, I think all the cool folks out there

[39:01] I mean, I don't want to be too explicit because this isn't a this isn't an R-rated podcast

[39:13] Yeah, this is this is a PG rated podcast and the whole time right yeah

[39:18] Yeah, Dan the podcast version of Jack Valenti is very unhappy with you

[39:22] I'm very distressed. By the way, whenever I hear of parents letting their kids listen to this podcast. I

[39:30] Don't want to be responsible for that. I I worry about what I'm putting out into the world

[39:36] You don't have to worry, but you're not Charles Barkley. You're not a role model. Okay. I'm certainly not a role model

[39:40] That's true

[39:41] Just because just because you dominate the court doesn't mean that yeah

[39:44] I should look to you for how to take care of their kid. Yeah, just because he beat the shit out of Godzilla

[39:50] Uh-huh doesn't mean he's a role model

[39:53] On the court on the court not in like it wasn't not in person

[39:58] In a fight Godzilla would win

[40:00] because he has fire breath, and Charles Barkley has at best, what, like, cold breath, maybe?

[40:05] Yeah.

[40:05] Maybe.

[40:06] Maybe.

[40:06] Godzilla can't dribble with those little arms of his.

[40:10] Come on.

[40:10] He dunks in the commercial.

[40:12] Yeah.

[40:13] And I mean, think of all the obstacles that Godzilla has to overcome in order to learn how to dunk with those little arms.

[40:19] First off, his body is not designed for dunking.

[40:22] No.

[40:23] Although maybe he can use...

[40:25] It's hard to get vertical leaps with those legs.

[40:27] Although maybe he uses his tail, like when Godzilla does that, like, sliding drop kick attack, where his tail is still attached to the ground.

[40:36] Yeah.

[40:37] I'm assuming, like, propelling him forward, like a slug might propel a human body forward.

[40:42] Right.

[40:44] Wait, what?

[40:45] Yeah.

[40:46] So, like, you know, when you're standing on a bunch of slugs, and the slugs undulate their muscular body mass, and you slide forward super quickly?

[40:57] You know, when you're at a roller rink.

[41:00] Oh, when you're at a roller rink and they run out of roller skates and you start standing on lots of slugs.

[41:05] Yeah, and you're like, I want to impress this girl, make her my steady, so I'm going to slide up holding a fucking Malted and a thing of disco fries.

[41:16] I'm glad you asked for clarification on this, by the way, Elliot, because I was willing to just accept it on its face.

[41:22] I was amazed at it.

[41:24] I was amazed at how easily you let it pass.

[41:27] You were just like, yeah, slug, look at it, yeah, propel you, sure, okay.

[41:30] Now, the problem is that the roller rink, that's a place where salted food is very common, so you have to be careful when you navigate using your slug skates.

[41:40] That's one of two problems.

[41:42] One, you could accidentally slug over a French fry and they'd die.

[41:45] Yeah.

[41:46] The other is, at the end of the sluggy Hawkins skate, the girls choose skate, the rink is just so coated in that ooze.

[41:53] It's just like, you got to clean it up afterwards, and that's when they bring out, what, a Zamboni?

[41:57] Yeah, they scoop it all up, they feed it to the Ninja Turtles so they get big and strong.

[42:02] Wait, they put it on a pizza? Because that's what Ninja Turtles do.

[42:06] Yeah, of course they do.

[42:07] I mean, I said they feed it to fucking Ninja Turtles.

[42:09] How do you think they fed it to them?

[42:11] With fucking, like, Dippin' Dots?

[42:13] They're not from the future, Elliot.

[42:14] Yeah.

[42:15] That's true.

[42:16] No, some of the turtles are from the future, like that robot turtle.

[42:19] Okay, I guess you're right.

[42:22] Guys, can I issue a retraction to my earlier statement that Ninja Turtles are not from the future?

[42:28] What if Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, they came out with a statement, they held a press conference, they're like,

[42:34] by the way, all the people who are eating pizza, that was just a visual metaphor for them choking down a lot of slugs.

[42:41] Yeah, all the news channels change, they interrupt, all the TV channels interrupt their programming for this press conference with Kevin Eastman.

[42:49] They interrupt this coverage, this live coverage of the Super Bowl, to go direct to this press conference where Ninja Turtle creators no longer own the rights,

[42:57] they sold it to Nickelodeon, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and you just go there and Julie Strain is just introducing them.

[43:03] Yeah, this is set in the future, so I'm assuming they're interrupting a screening of the TV show Young Sheldon, the most popular television show in history.

[43:13] Okay, here's my problem with Young Sheldon.

[43:15] Okay, what's that?

[43:16] That's my only problem with it, otherwise it's flawless.

[43:18] Young Sheldon wears a bowtie, right, to signify that he's a nerd?

[43:21] Uh-huh.

[43:22] Grown-up Sheldon doesn't wear a fucking bowtie, he wears, like, superhero t-shirts.

[43:26] That's the thing, at the end of season one, you're gonna find out when he stopped wearing bowties.

[43:31] Oh, I see, so that's, the ads are supposed to raise questions in my mind of, like, it's like a Better Call Saul type thing?

[43:37] That's the thing.

[43:38] Oh, when did he turn into Saul?

[43:40] It introduces stakes you didn't expect it would have, okay, that's what's so impressive about it.

[43:45] Like, in Young Sheldon, it opens up, Sheldon is a fucking awesome dude, he's partying all the time, he's not weird with anybody.

[43:52] By the end of that first season, he's a fucking maniac.

[43:56] Now, here's my question, are they gonna show him testing out different catchphrases?

[44:00] Yeah.

[44:01] Like, zoinga!

[44:02] Yeah, bazingo!

[44:03] Baroongle!

[44:04] Bazingo!

[44:05] You know, guys, we were just making jokes, and then Elliot told a joke, and now I wanna die forever.

[44:13] I thought you were gonna be like, we were just making jokes, and it just came over the wire that Young Sheldon died.

[44:19] Oh, no!

[44:21] Oh, no!

[44:22] What a tragedy.

[44:23] Oh, he had so much left to give, literally, in that now there's a time paradox, he's not gonna become grown-up Sheldon.

[44:29] Okay, so, Stuart, you said you wanna die forever.

[44:32] Let's do the next best thing, the closest equivalent, and talk some more about Neil Breen movies.

[44:36] Okay, so we're talking about a man from the future, or a Ninja Turtle from the future.

[44:42] Neil Breen's character says he's from the future, a future that I'm presuming nobody laughs at all because PC culture has killed comedy.

[44:50] Oh, well, we'll get to, yeah, because, well, first, before we get to Neil Breen's thesis statement,

[44:56] Neil Breen makes an abandoned desert piano play music again, and explains that music is magical, it's timeless.

[45:03] He talks a lot about you can't travel the path without becoming the path, blah, blah, blah.

[45:07] The ant realizes he made up his name, he says he's from the future, blah, blah, blah.

[45:11] Let's just skip.

[45:12] He shows that he has the magic ability to make cans rise into the air through an obvious reverse shot of cans falling down.

[45:19] Hangs out with that stock footage tiger again.

[45:21] Talks about how he can manipulate the planes of space and time and bend time.

[45:25] It all makes sense.

[45:26] He talks a lot about how he can bend time.

[45:27] Yeah.

[45:29] So here's where it starts in.

[45:30] He says he's going to eliminate humans who hurt other humans.

[45:33] That's what he was sent on the earth to do.

[45:35] That's why he's been wandering the desert talking to a tiger all this time.

[45:38] Now we start seeing news anchors at what is the first of many virtual sets.

[45:44] They were clearly in front of a green screen and a CGI room was put in behind them, and the news anchors badmouth politicians when they're off the air, but they kiss his ass when they're on camera, and they call themselves out as biased.

[45:57] Is it because he uses – does he use magic to make them tell the truth?

[46:01] No, no.

[46:02] I think we're meant to see that as their hypocrisy.

[46:04] Oh, okay.

[46:05] They just don't give a fuck.

[46:06] They just like chatting about how they – yeah, they're hypocrites.

[46:09] That's their favorite.

[46:10] About how they're biased and they're putting across their corporate parents' message even though it's not the truth.

[46:15] But then they report stunningly, and they have no footage to back this up and no sound bites to back it up, that the president and, quote, the prime minister of which country we're never told are missing as have many management people.

[46:28] And one of them literally says it's as if all the harmful people on earth are disappearing.

[46:33] Now, again, that's one, editorializing completely.

[46:37] If a news anchor said on camera the president is missing, I guess all the harmful people in the world are gone.

[46:43] That would be crazy.

[46:45] That's not journalistic objectivity even with our current president who is a bad person who hurts people.

[46:50] A journalist can't just go out and be like president is missing.

[46:53] I guess all the bad people in the world are going away.

[46:56] Yeah, let's just move forward with our day.

[46:59] It's also a hell of a logical leap to be like I've figured it out.

[47:05] I've cracked it, guys.

[47:07] All the bad people are going now.

[47:09] It's like, hey, I don't want to be a sly lock fox or anything, but I know that four people have disappeared, so I'm going to assume all the people who are bad in the world are disappearing.

[47:17] I mean that's a faster logical leap than the fucking leftovers where they're like a bunch of people disappeared.

[47:21] I guess everybody got raptured, dude.

[47:24] Yeah.

[47:25] Like if the president disappeared, I mean even if our current president disappeared, I feel like half the people in the country would be like, oh, I guess the rapture is happening.

[47:34] I guess he was good anyway.

[47:37] I guess he was the best of us because he's the only one who disappeared.

[47:41] Neil Breen takes it into his own hands to free all those migrants we saw earlier.

[47:45] He makes the gang members just disappear, and he yells, this is my universe, and he gets very mad at the gang lady and dissolves her into nothingness.

[47:53] He tells the women, go back to your country, stop being lazy, and overthrow your governments.

[47:59] Start revolutions.

[48:00] The time is now, and the migrants are all like, well, we escaped violence and persecution and economic inequality in our own nations, and for this grueling escape to another country, we have nothing right now.

[48:12] We're at the lowest ebb a human being can be at.

[48:14] But yeah, you're right.

[48:15] I guess we'll just go back and overthrow our government.

[48:17] This handsome, muscular alien shows up and tells them to go back.

[48:24] Handsome, muscular, very dark-haired, beautiful man sends them back.

[48:30] They're like, sure, let's do it.

[48:31] Nothing so much as like Jeff Goldblum after a bender, and maybe his eyesight is very bad now.

[48:38] What is up with – having watched this right after Sicilian Vampire, I'm struck by the idea that both these guys so obviously dye their thinning hair and like, man, I get it.

[48:51] You get old.

[48:52] You want to stay looking young, but I feel like it's such a symbol of these guys who are writer-director stars of their own movies that they're like, I got to stay young forever.

[49:03] There is a – go on.

[49:06] I was just saying it's like that little touch of real-life everyday vanity among this enormous vanity project.

[49:11] But Dan, what were you going to say?

[49:12] Oh, just that the going home and overthrowing your government also like raises like a weird question of the plot because Neil Breen is theoretically getting rid of all of the bad people on earth.

[49:24] So why do they have to go back and overthrow some people?

[49:27] Like aren't those people gone by now?

[49:29] There are those people who are like they aren't really bad, but they were in a bad situation.

[49:34] I think it's two things.

[49:36] I think one is that he's trying to empower them and feel like they have some kind of ownership of their own revolution even though he's secretly doing it.

[49:44] I think he's also kind of testing them because I think he's sending them back with this mission and they might accidentally or on purpose kill somebody who is not a bad person, in which case they'd be outing themselves as a bad person.

[50:00] Yes, yep, it's entrapment the movie

[50:05] Now now we get to the one of this is I think my favorite scene in the whole movie to be on okay

[50:14] When he goes to this when he goes to the rich people

[50:18] He goes to a mansion makes the guards disappear. He changes with through magic

[50:22] he changes his dirty jumpsuit into a tuxedo or like a bit a suit and then

[50:28] This is just scene after scene of him and different

[50:31] People in front of very clearly like green screen

[50:36] Composited in fancy rooms and in each one a different person is talking about how openly evil they are how open like they bribe

[50:44] Politicians they're doing things for their companies that hurt people

[50:47] They're ruining other people's lives and they're so cheerful about it

[50:50] And it's also artificial that it feels like Neil

[50:53] Breen like walked into a like a game of The Sims where everyone's like corrupt

[50:57] Yeah, it's like it is and it goes on forever

[51:01] Like he wants to make sure you really know all these people are bad

[51:04] But as Dan was saying earlier, they talk about what they're doing in the vaguest possible term

[51:07] Yeah

[51:08] They're like my corporation and it's affiliated banks have been bribing politicians and judges

[51:14] For decades to get what we want and we're going to raise health care costs for ordinary people

[51:20] Like that's this is the these are conversations that they're yeah

[51:23] And then after each of those things Neil Breen goes, but isn't that unethical?

[51:29] Isn't that betraying the public's trust do you think it do you think he made it this way?

[51:33] Do you think he made it vague or ambiguous so that he could go back in later?

[51:38] When when he sells this movie to different markets, they can just insert their own regional villains. Yeah. Oh

[51:46] That's a very just like how in in other countries in demolition, man

[51:50] It wasn't Taco Bell that won the the the restaurant wars

[51:54] It was Pizza Hut because Taco Bell wasn't available in certain markets. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah

[52:00] Yeah, you can learn a lot when you just go on YouTube and look up demolition

[52:07] You certainly can learn a lot

[52:16] Let's see, let's see what Simon Phoenix would do with that. Oh, we'd put some dynamite in it. Okay

[52:22] Okay, I'll try it. He'd use three shells somehow unexplained

[52:27] They and this goes on for a long time this cycle of repetitive scenes and then he leaves and they all go who was that?

[52:33] Guy and then Neil Breen is outside the mansion and he blows it up

[52:38] So

[52:40] It's like why do he bought he like it this endless scenes of people talking about how evil they are him going

[52:45] But isn't that corrupt and then walking outside and blowing up the building?

[52:49] The reporters are announcing more disappearances of harmful people worldwide. It's very repetitive

[52:55] Apparently they go out of the way to mention that reality show casts have also disappeared and then they say the wars have stopped and those

[53:02] Causing the wars have vanished and they announced that whole judicial systems cannot be found

[53:07] like it's the way they're phrasing it is crazy, and they're so

[53:12] not

[53:13] Excited or worried like if this was really happening and again

[53:16] There's no point in a Neil Breen movie that you can ever say if this was really happening

[53:20] It's so exists on a different plane of of reality

[53:22] But if this is really happy you've got happening

[53:24] I'd imagine there'd be some sort of panic even if they weren't prominent people who were disappearing

[53:28] This means that thousands if not millions of people are just disappearing worldwide

[53:33] And I want to mention that this to also just this is a another Neil Breen trope is there's always some sort of a reaping

[53:39] in his movies like

[53:42] he is

[53:43] Clearly a guy who has deep bitterness towards something

[53:48] I'm not sure exactly what but he always went like he just like wants to kill bad people in his movies

[53:53] I don't know about you guys

[53:55] The idea that the idea that he's a guy who is able to

[54:00] Fund his vanity project movies like he should be on top of the fucking world, dude

[54:06] Why does he have this chip on his shoulder? Yeah

[54:10] Look at what he loves. He's he's able to express himself creatively. Isn't that what we all want?

[54:15] Very true, but he has this message and he wants to change the world for the better and he's got to get that

[54:20] You know, it's just the weight of the world is on his shoulders because no one understands the way he does

[54:25] What needs to be done, which is apparently the murder of most of the human population?

[54:30] So it's it gets a little unclear at this point whether Breen is an alien or a robot from the future

[54:35] And it was around this point that I started realizing I think Neil Breen might be an alien or robot

[54:40] It seems to have never heard a human being speak and doesn't know how to replicate those those vocal patterns

[54:46] He appears on the news set makes the anchors disappear sits down which I find hilarious that he then is like well now

[54:53] It's my turn to

[54:58] I've been disappearing people all over the world got arrest my dogs

[55:02] And then he just explains the plot to the camera for a while

[55:06] He talks about how human evolution has ended. We've reached our genetic and psychological limits

[55:11] He says and we have an inability to be honest and fair and all the media has been sullied and he talks about corruption

[55:17] He throws political correctness in and says that it has ruined the human species. Mm-hmm. It's like that is

[55:24] Huge buy-in to say that political correctness

[55:27] Which you have to assume at this point just means not saying things that are intolerant to LA

[55:32] You have to understand that young upcoming comedians

[55:36] are

[55:38] under attack because they can't use the same jokes older comedians got away with decades ago and

[55:45] Older comedians when they play at colleges can no longer use material that used to work in Vegas

[55:50] Perfectly well for drunk middle-aged. Are you saying older comedians that are?

[55:54] Are you saying older comedians that are about as old as my fucking dad aren't relevant to college kids anymore big fucking surprise?

[56:03] Yeah, that's what I'm saying, but it's also that's ruined the human speech

[56:07] Yeah, and then he says I have eliminated 300 million humans from the planet today, which

[56:13] Percentage wise is not that much. There's over what set six billion on the planet seven billion people

[56:19] But 300 million people like that's almost the population of the United States Neil Breen apparently was wandering the earth just disappearing on his own

[56:25] Yeah, well this you know, I just want to yeah reiterate. This is our hero. This is the hero of the movie

[56:32] Kill 300 million people. I'm so glad that you just said that because when when you interrupted Elliot

[56:37] I was worried you were about to start railing against PC culture again, Dan

[56:43] Yeah

[56:44] The listeners are never subjected to the ransom and subjects us to off the mic Dan's like look

[56:49] Is it my inability to make fun of trans people if anything more intolerant than their inability to use public bathrooms in some states?

[56:57] Yeah

[56:59] He's like these are my First Amendment rights, I guess I guess Ellie you're not interested in pushing boundaries and moving the medium forward

[57:10] Family guy can't do it Elliot. What are we as a society to do?

[57:16] Nowadays, you couldn't put the Chappelle show out

[57:20] What could we do?

[57:22] It's as if all of humanity's works are dust

[57:25] Which is interesting because Neil Breen literally says about all the bad and dishonest people in the world

[57:31] I have turned them all to dust and he talks about how we need to overthrow our failed bureaucratic system and all the corporations

[57:37] We need to violate laws and regulation like he turns into cosmic Alex

[57:41] Yeah

[57:41] And goes that and he says the cleanse has begun and it was at this point that like to be honest the movie stopped being

[57:49] Fun for me to watch like fatal findings. I found so fun and vital findings

[57:55] Was it what I say I don't find eggs. Oh fateful fateful

[58:01] Fateful fateful findings. Are you okay over there? Elliot when I was watching Final Fantasy?

[58:07] I

[58:08] Felt there were time. I was like, this is hilarious

[58:10] This guy's so crazy blah blah is at this point where he is and maybe and I know not maybe it's because of where we are

[58:15] As a country right now that watching this crazy man sitting on a news anchor set saying to the camera

[58:20] We're not on a set. I'm sorry in front of a poorly composited image of a news

[58:26] channel

[58:27] saying

[58:28] We need to are all these things are ruining humanity. We need to overthrow them. The cleanse has begun

[58:33] I was like, oh like this is a fascist movie like this is not a movie for me anymore

[58:38] Even knowing that nobody watches this movie like no the only people who watch this movie are watching it to make fun of it

[58:44] But it was knowing that Neil Breen like feels these things deeply enough that it is now this open in his films

[58:52] I was like, uh, I like it's less fun to me to make fun of him

[58:56] Although if anyone was listening to this episode, they know I'm having a great. I

[59:00] Mean, that's so I guess not as much as I thought I mean that that's kind of how we feel after reviewing a Frank D

[59:05] Angelo movie like Sicilian vampire where you're like, oh, yeah, he's a total shithead who?

[59:12] Like took legal actions against a woman who accused him of what like sexual abuse or something

[59:18] Yeah, something like that sexual. Yeah, like that is the thing. It's like this guy's crazy. Look at this crazy movie

[59:23] Oh also, he used his money to basically buy off by his way out of sexual assault charges or out of a conviction even I think

[59:30] If I'm remembering I can't remember correctly

[59:32] But like that was the story about like then the judge and I think the prosecutor read a party at Frank D

[59:36] Angelo's restaurant afterwards

[59:38] It's like so it's I guess and they're like, you know about those charges forget about it

[59:46] Seen from the movie exactly

[59:49] Now here's the thing

[59:51] I guess what it is is that not everyone who makes bad movies is a good person and it really makes me value the people

[59:57] who make big Hollywood bad movies because

[1:00:00] because they don't seem to be bad guys and ladies.

[1:00:04] They're just sell-outs, or people

[1:00:08] who lost control of a production,

[1:00:09] or sometimes they're bad guys.

[1:00:11] But it seems like it's always jarring

[1:00:14] to watch a thing for fun and be like,

[1:00:16] oh, the person who made this in their real life

[1:00:19] is something of a monster.

[1:00:21] Yeah, it's something of a monster.

[1:00:22] And on some level, you've supported them financially.

[1:00:25] Yeah.

[1:00:26] Or helped get their message out.

[1:00:30] Chilling, really, which is why next time

[1:00:32] we'll be talking about Boss Baby.

[1:00:34] Exactly.

[1:00:35] I guess, I don't know.

[1:00:36] Oh, dude, you don't want to know

[1:00:37] the things that Boss Baby did.

[1:00:39] Oh, no.

[1:00:41] Any time a baby gets into power,

[1:00:43] they're just, you know, I would like to,

[1:00:47] what if it was, now this is something I should say.

[1:00:49] What if the end of Boss Baby

[1:00:50] was Boss Baby killing 800 million people?

[1:00:53] Oh, no.

[1:00:55] I mean, that would be more than any person

[1:00:58] has ever killed ever.

[1:00:59] So for a baby, that's pretty impressive.

[1:01:01] But the idea that Boss Baby is,

[1:01:04] he's charged with sexual harassment

[1:01:06] and for grabbing a woman's breasts.

[1:01:09] And then his defense is, I'm a baby.

[1:01:11] I was hungry.

[1:01:12] What are you supposed to do?

[1:01:14] Come on.

[1:01:15] I'm just a baby.

[1:01:17] And of course, it turns out that he's just like an escaped,

[1:01:19] you know, a short convict.

[1:01:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah, the fucking plot of Little Man over here.

[1:01:26] Which was itself a ripoff of a Bugs Bunny.

[1:01:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:01:31] But anyway, so that's what Boss Baby

[1:01:33] turns out to be about, I guess.

[1:01:34] Anyway, the teens pick up their signal.

[1:01:36] They can see it clearly.

[1:01:37] They bring their professor out to the desert.

[1:01:39] Neil Brain, he's back out in the desert again.

[1:01:41] He says, it does not require many words to speak the truth.

[1:01:44] And this is after he's given like a six minute long speech

[1:01:46] about how terrible the world is.

[1:01:50] They take their old man into the desert,

[1:01:52] but they say, oh no, the authorities

[1:01:54] might be on the way too.

[1:01:55] They must have picked up the signal.

[1:01:56] It feels like his wheelchair

[1:01:59] wasn't designed for off-road travel.

[1:02:02] No, I don't think so.

[1:02:04] Well, they had just watched Bloodsport

[1:02:06] and they were like, if Jean-Claude Van Damme's

[1:02:08] wheelchair-bound mentor can be in the jungle in that one,

[1:02:11] then our wheelchair-bound mentor can go in the desert.

[1:02:14] That's probably right.

[1:02:16] That was Bloodsport, right?

[1:02:17] I think it was.

[1:02:19] They go, they meet Neil Brain and they love him.

[1:02:22] They're like, take us with you.

[1:02:24] And it made me imagine a teen magazine

[1:02:26] for fans of Neil Brain called Breen Teens.

[1:02:31] There's always a pinup of Neil Brain

[1:02:33] and just like stories about him and quizzes.

[1:02:36] And I feel like there's probably a market

[1:02:38] for that magazine, right?

[1:02:39] Yeah, I mean, clearly we were just talking about

[1:02:42] how he has kind of crazy fascist beliefs.

[1:02:45] So I bet there's probably people who'd like to read it.

[1:02:51] Yeah, or it's called like Tiger Brain

[1:02:53] or something like that.

[1:02:54] Which makes sense.

[1:02:56] There's tigers all over this movie.

[1:02:57] Just a bunch of pinups of his taint.

[1:02:59] Breen explains to them.

[1:03:01] Did you say pinups of his taint, Dan?

[1:03:03] This was a PG podcast before that.

[1:03:07] Taint pushes it up to PG-13.

[1:03:09] Didn't you read the rules?

[1:03:14] Dan, now we can only say the F word once

[1:03:16] before our rating gets pushed up again.

[1:03:18] I'm sorry, guys.

[1:03:19] I didn't know that we were restricting the quadrants

[1:03:24] that our podcast could play to.

[1:03:26] Yeah, that's okay.

[1:03:27] This used to be a four-quadrant podcast.

[1:03:31] Teens, grown-ups, manatees, and also trees.

[1:03:35] What about manatees?

[1:03:37] It's a one-quadrant movie, just trees.

[1:03:41] Manatees or manatees?

[1:03:43] Either one, dude.

[1:03:44] I think they're both assholes.

[1:03:49] No, no, those are our listeners, Stuart.

[1:03:51] What are you, come on.

[1:03:53] Guys, let me tell you something about manatees.

[1:04:00] But Neil, before you think that there's gonna be

[1:04:01] like a shootout with the police,

[1:04:02] so Neil Breen says, no, I blocked the signal.

[1:04:05] Nobody can see it but you.

[1:04:07] But here's how people will believe you met me.

[1:04:09] Here's some future jewels that you can use as proof.

[1:04:11] And he just gives them like shiny sequins.

[1:04:14] He just dumps them into their hand.

[1:04:18] Now, what the teens are supposed to tell people

[1:04:21] about meeting Neil Breen, I have no idea.

[1:04:23] And how those future jewels that he's done.

[1:04:25] I mean, we're having a difficult enough time

[1:04:27] describing Neil Breen today on this podcast.

[1:04:31] And he's not even an alien robot and we're not teens.

[1:04:35] And then the niece goes missing and they find her.

[1:04:41] The aunt screams, we have to find her like 10,000 times.

[1:04:44] They track her to an abandoned mine.

[1:04:46] There's a guy there who you think at first

[1:04:47] is gonna be a threat, but no, he's just a guy

[1:04:49] who likes to hang out and make fake ghost shadows

[1:04:51] on the wall to scare people away.

[1:04:53] And he's there suffering from PTSD, right?

[1:04:58] Yes, and with a wave of his hand,

[1:05:00] Neil Breen frees him of his PTSD.

[1:05:02] Now, that's more plot than I think

[1:05:04] the rest of the movie contains.

[1:05:05] And they pack it into like two and a half minutes.

[1:05:08] Oops, sorry, sorry, Elliot.

[1:05:10] I got a cat bumping into the microphone.

[1:05:13] Okay, go on, continue.

[1:05:16] That's, Neil Breen welcomes back the spirits

[1:05:20] of people he killed earlier.

[1:05:23] And he brings people back to life.

[1:05:25] I forgot about that, Jesus.

[1:05:28] That he has the power of life and death, I like that.

[1:05:30] Did you mention that the aunt's ex-husband

[1:05:35] comes after her with a gun and kills her?

[1:05:40] You know what it was?

[1:05:41] I couldn't remember who that,

[1:05:42] I didn't know who that character was.

[1:05:45] Just a random person, yeah, it's her ex-husband?

[1:05:48] Yep, who we haven't heard about, I feel like,

[1:05:51] for the rest of the movie.

[1:05:52] Yeah, he's tracked her down over the border,

[1:05:54] over that fence that the migrants knocked over.

[1:05:58] And he, I guess, shoots her, right?

[1:06:01] Yeah, in the head.

[1:06:02] In the head, yeah.

[1:06:04] And then luckily, Neil Breen makes him shoot himself

[1:06:08] and then he brings her back to life.

[1:06:10] I guess he decided he didn't wanna use

[1:06:12] his disappearing powers on that one, not worth it.

[1:06:15] I'll just let you shoot yourself in the head.

[1:06:17] And the aunt and the niece can't agree

[1:06:19] on whether they're gonna go with Neil Breen

[1:06:20] to wherever he's going.

[1:06:22] And Neil Breen and the aunt's hands in close-up,

[1:06:25] they lightly touch pinkies, very tentatively,

[1:06:28] for a long time.

[1:06:30] And it's the closest the movie has to a sex scene,

[1:06:32] it's just two pinkies kind of touching

[1:06:35] and then moving away, and then touching again

[1:06:37] and moving away, and I cannot imagine

[1:06:39] what it's supposed to be communicating.

[1:06:42] I mean, in this crazy world,

[1:06:44] that's about all the human contact we really have, right?

[1:06:48] Yeah.

[1:06:49] Just pinkies.

[1:06:50] Just pinkies.

[1:06:51] I mean, I guess what he's saying is the only true bond

[1:06:53] between humans is the pinkie swear.

[1:06:55] That's exactly what he's saying.

[1:06:58] Which is why in this new world that he's creating,

[1:07:01] Michelle from Full House will be the true leader

[1:07:03] and divine inspiration.

[1:07:06] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1:07:08] And now, okay, we're wrapping up the end of the movie.

[1:07:10] The teens stumble on a vast field of dead bodies

[1:07:14] and Neil Breen claims the cleanse has begun.

[1:07:16] Yeah.

[1:07:17] And it's like, what the, what?

[1:07:19] It seems sort of inconsiderate of him.

[1:07:22] Like, knowing that he can make people just disappear,

[1:07:24] that he left his killing fields there.

[1:07:27] Like, there's just, corpses are rotting in the sun there.

[1:07:32] I kind of assume that that's where they go

[1:07:34] when he makes them disappear.

[1:07:36] Right.

[1:07:37] Like, he kind of-

[1:07:37] Let me go out to the desert.

[1:07:39] Thornfield.

[1:07:40] Yeah, he just wishes them into the desert.

[1:07:41] And the teens are pretty happy about this.

[1:07:45] They've just stumbled on, as far as the eye can see,

[1:07:48] it's the horizon, it's just dead human bodies.

[1:07:50] Formerly living people rotting in the sun.

[1:07:53] Yeah, so, I mean, they appear to be happy.

[1:07:55] I'm assuming at this point their minds are completely broken

[1:07:58] at the scale of the loss, yeah.

[1:08:01] And they're like-

[1:08:02] At the scale of the loss and also-

[1:08:04] And like, what do they have to do

[1:08:06] to keep from being amongst the dead?

[1:08:09] Well, that-

[1:08:10] Do they have to pretend to like that pile of shitty glitter

[1:08:13] that Neil Breen poured into their hands?

[1:08:17] They're like, okay, I'm being confronted

[1:08:20] with a homicidal robot alien from the future

[1:08:22] that can bend space and time and can kill with a thought.

[1:08:25] And he's just filling my hand with crappy sequins.

[1:08:28] I gotta play along with it.

[1:08:29] Because what, at the other thing is,

[1:08:31] Neil Breen, all he says is, don't harm other people.

[1:08:34] Well, what does that mean?

[1:08:35] So they're like, well, I hurt his feelings

[1:08:38] by saying I don't want these glittery rocks.

[1:08:41] And then he'll be like, oh, you hurt a person,

[1:08:43] and he'll disappear me?

[1:08:45] Everyone's gonna live on the edge of doubt at all times

[1:08:48] that they could be disappeared at any moment

[1:08:50] by this arbitrary cosmic judge of human behavior.

[1:08:53] Yeah, it's that Twilight Zone, the movie sequence, right?

[1:08:57] With the little kid?

[1:08:58] Yeah.

[1:08:59] Yeah, yeah, it's a good life?

[1:09:00] It basically that.

[1:09:01] Yeah, where everyone's like, huh,

[1:09:02] it's a good thing you made all those people disappear,

[1:09:04] Neil Breen.

[1:09:05] Oh, it's a good thing you poured all these sequins into-

[1:09:07] It's a good thing you rented a drone

[1:09:09] for all those shots, Neil Breen.

[1:09:11] It really captures the majesty of the painted desert.

[1:09:15] It's a very convincing tiger, Neil.

[1:09:17] Oh no, it very much looks like there's a real tiger there.

[1:09:21] And of course, Neil Breen walks off

[1:09:22] through the field of dead bodies,

[1:09:24] and the dead bodies disappear behind him,

[1:09:25] and explains again, the humans must cleanse

[1:09:29] to survive as a species.

[1:09:31] And then he gets sparkly green effects thrown on him,

[1:09:35] which I guess means that he's also dissolving into space.

[1:09:39] And the northern lights get superimposed on the sky,

[1:09:42] but they're also green, and that's the end of the movie.

[1:09:45] Yeah.

[1:09:46] So when you said Neil Breen earlier,

[1:09:49] I think maybe you just knew a little bit more

[1:09:51] than we thought.

[1:09:52] Yeah, I think you're right.

[1:09:53] I think this movie was not very good, guys.

[1:09:57] Oh, spoiler alert.

[1:10:00] All the things, it's got all the like worst,

[1:10:03] it's so cheap looking, it's so nonsensical.

[1:10:06] Everything in it is bad.

[1:10:07] The message is horrifying and terrible.

[1:10:10] It's like, I felt like the fateful findings

[1:10:12] I was seeing inside the mind of a weirdo.

[1:10:14] And now I'm like, oh no, no, I'm seeing much deeper

[1:10:16] into that mind that I wanted to see.

[1:10:18] Like, his message is a little too clear for me

[1:10:21] and I want to step back a little.

[1:10:22] Yeah.

[1:10:23] When we were watching it, when we were watching the movie,

[1:10:25] Dan, I mean, I think it's been described before,

[1:10:28] it is like watching a movie by David Lynch

[1:10:31] if David Lynch had no talent,

[1:10:33] but also if David Lynch was a crazy fascist weirdo.

[1:10:39] Instead of a sort of a jolly Midwestern type.

[1:10:43] Yeah, apparently a very congenial weirdo.

[1:10:45] David Lynch, like.

[1:10:47] Yeah, whose only real message

[1:10:48] is that people should meditate.

[1:10:49] Yeah, what a nice guy.

[1:10:51] Yeah.

[1:10:53] Anyway, we should do our final judgments

[1:10:55] whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

[1:10:57] or a movie we kind of liked.

[1:10:58] Elliot, you're shaking your head.

[1:11:00] You look like you have to unburden yourself.

[1:11:02] It's so, like, this is a difficult one

[1:11:04] because on the face, this is,

[1:11:08] it's like, it's a Neil Breen movie.

[1:11:09] It's a good, bad movie.

[1:11:10] It makes no sense.

[1:11:11] You got to dig a little harder on this one

[1:11:12] because there's so much less going on

[1:11:14] and it's so, it's crazy and it's so cheap looking,

[1:11:17] but it's so, like, toxic on a certain level

[1:11:21] that it's like, oh, I don't know.

[1:11:24] I don't know what to tell you, audience.

[1:11:26] Neil Breen, maybe he needs to go

[1:11:28] for, like, a romantic comedy next time,

[1:11:30] you know, a little lighter.

[1:11:31] Yeah, what would that look like?

[1:11:34] I think it would look like his bare ass.

[1:11:36] And yet, and somehow in the romantic comedy,

[1:11:40] he would still end up killing, like, 10 people

[1:11:42] he decided don't deserve to kill.

[1:11:44] You know what it is?

[1:11:45] Neil Breen is like if Steve Ditko

[1:11:48] had never created Spider-Man

[1:11:50] and he'd just gone, and also was not talented.

[1:11:52] I mean, Steve Ditko is also one of the most talented

[1:11:55] comics artists there ever was,

[1:11:56] just in terms of sheer layout and everything.

[1:11:58] But if Steve Ditko was talented.

[1:12:00] Did you hear that Steve Ditko never sold

[1:12:02] any of his original artwork?

[1:12:05] Yeah, he uses it as cutting board.

[1:12:07] That's insane.

[1:12:08] Like, because he's so, I mean, he's just too pure.

[1:12:11] He won't do, that work, he sees no value in.

[1:12:14] But if Steve Ditko never created Spider-Man

[1:12:17] and just went straight to, like, Mr. A

[1:12:20] and all his characters that let criminals die,

[1:12:23] like, that's what Neil Breen is kind of like.

[1:12:26] But in movie form.

[1:12:26] Yeah, I say this is a good, bad movie.

[1:12:28] Like, if you enjoy the work of Neil Breen,

[1:12:31] then boy, howdy, is this the brainiest movie you can see?

[1:12:35] And keep your peepers peeled,

[1:12:38] because they snuck a little Easter egg

[1:12:39] in the back of one of the shots

[1:12:41] where you can see his denim vest

[1:12:43] from I Am Here dot, dot, dot.

[1:12:45] Now?

[1:12:46] No, no, no, it's I Am Here dot, dot, dot, dot.

[1:12:49] He can't even do it on ellipses correctly.

[1:12:51] His four dots in his title.

[1:12:54] But, yeah, I would say that.

[1:12:56] Well, that's Neil, everything takes place,

[1:12:57] because everything takes place in the Breeniverse,

[1:12:59] or the Breen Cinematic Universe, VCU.

[1:13:01] Yeah, but I would say that this movie is,

[1:13:05] like, Fateful Findings is, in a weird way,

[1:13:07] his most accomplished film.

[1:13:09] Like, having seen them all now,

[1:13:13] that's the one with the closest thing

[1:13:14] to a traditional narrative that you can hang your hat on.

[1:13:16] And I feel like more stuff happens, like.

[1:13:19] Yeah.

[1:13:20] In both, this is, I'm with you guys,

[1:13:23] I think this is a good, bad movie.

[1:13:25] But I don't feel like there's quite as much

[1:13:28] meat on the bone here.

[1:13:29] Yeah.

[1:13:30] That meat is tender and delicious,

[1:13:32] but there's just not as much of it as in Fateful Findings.

[1:13:34] Yeah, so I guess what I'm saying is,

[1:13:36] if you haven't seen either of them,

[1:13:38] start out with Fateful Findings.

[1:13:39] That's the fun one.

[1:13:41] Yeah, so you won't be able to appreciate

[1:13:42] the other ones as much.

[1:13:43] That makes perfect sense, Dan,

[1:13:45] as opposed to building yourself up to the best one.

[1:13:47] Well, you can do it however you want to do it, Ben.

[1:13:51] I think you should,

[1:13:52] what I call the Neil Breen machete method,

[1:13:54] which is you watch the first half of Fateful Findings,

[1:13:57] then you watch his other movies,

[1:13:58] and then you finish Fateful Findings.

[1:13:59] All right.

[1:14:01] Okay, I think we've cracked it, guys.

[1:14:03] Okay.

[1:14:05] How could we ever have cracked that movie?

[1:14:08] It's still a riddle too harshly constructed

[1:14:13] for us to even get through it.

[1:14:15] I feel like it's the equivalent

[1:14:16] of the puzzle box from Hellraiser.

[1:14:20] Yeah, the Lamershan configuration.

[1:14:22] Except it's so complicated that nobody ever finishes it.

[1:14:26] Yeah.

[1:14:28] Yeah, that would be a really boring Hellraiser, dude.

[1:14:32] That's my Hellraiser sketch for a sketch comedy show.

[1:14:36] That's my pitch is someone finds that

[1:14:38] and they just can't seem to solve it,

[1:14:39] and Pinhead is in the other dimension

[1:14:41] watching this being like,

[1:14:42] come on, just like, turn.

[1:14:44] He's like, it's so obvious.

[1:14:45] Just turn in that.

[1:14:46] Turn that part.

[1:14:47] The circle part matches up with the other circle.

[1:14:51] I wish I could just go in there and do it for you.

[1:14:53] Like, oh God.

[1:14:53] And the guy's like, this sucks.

[1:14:55] And just puts it aside.

[1:14:56] He just can't figure out how to solve it.

[1:15:00] And Pinhead turns to CD head and says,

[1:15:02] we're gonna need a simpler puzzle box.

[1:15:05] Yep.

[1:15:11] How's it going, everyone?

[1:15:12] I'm Oliver Wang.

[1:15:13] And I'm Morgan Rhodes.

[1:15:14] We have a brand new show on the Maximum Fun Network

[1:15:16] that we'd love to share with you.

[1:15:18] It's called Heat Rocks.

[1:15:19] Morgan, we should probably explain what a heat rock is.

[1:15:21] It is a banger, a fire track, true fire.

[1:15:24] Right, dope album.

[1:15:25] Each episode, we will bring on a special guest

[1:15:28] to join us to talk about one of their heat rocks.

[1:15:30] It might be a musician.

[1:15:31] A writer.

[1:15:32] Maybe a scholar.

[1:15:33] I mean, I would have been happy to just talk to you

[1:15:34] about your heat rocks, but this is a different show.

[1:15:37] Yeah, I think people might enjoy

[1:15:38] hearing maybe the guests instead.

[1:15:40] To do that, you'll have to go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:15:42] So if you wanna talk about hot music,

[1:15:43] you should check us out.

[1:15:44] Heat Rocks.

[1:15:46] Every week on Inside Pop,

[1:15:48] we take turns recommending something great

[1:15:50] from the world of pop culture to each other.

[1:15:52] And in the month of October,

[1:15:53] we're going big, very big with the Big Cell 30.

[1:15:57] Every day for 30 days,

[1:15:58] we're going to suggest some type of pop culture to check out.

[1:16:01] Things that may not be on your radar,

[1:16:03] but will be well worth trying.

[1:16:05] From TV to music to movies and more,

[1:16:07] the Big Cell 30 is as irresistible as a Jedi mind trick.

[1:16:11] As convincing as an Annalise Keating closing argument.

[1:16:15] And as seductive as Miguel singing a ballad

[1:16:18] shirtless and slightly sweaty.

[1:16:20] Follow us on Twitter at Pop Insiders for daily Big Cells

[1:16:23] and listen to Inside Pop every week

[1:16:25] for Big Cells from some special guests.

[1:16:28] The Big Cell 30 starts October 1st

[1:16:30] and runs every day of the month on Inside Pop.

[1:16:36] So we have a sponsor.

[1:16:39] Yay!

[1:16:40] For the show.

[1:16:41] And that's-

[1:16:41] I like it when we have sponsors for the show.

[1:16:43] That's great.

[1:16:44] It makes me feel less like we're not part of society.

[1:16:46] Keeps the light on, you know?

[1:16:48] Yeah, the single light.

[1:16:49] The single bare light bulb we have here in Flophouse Central.

[1:16:54] Now our sponsor tonight is Squarespace.

[1:16:57] With Squarespace, you can create a beautiful website

[1:17:01] to turn your cool idea into a new website,

[1:17:04] showcase your work, or, I don't know,

[1:17:07] sell products and services of all kinds.

[1:17:10] Squarespace does this by giving you the ability

[1:17:12] to customize the look and feel,

[1:17:15] the settings of products of your website,

[1:17:18] and more with just a few clicks.

[1:17:21] Now, you can check out squarespace.com for a free trial,

[1:17:25] and when you're ready to launch,

[1:17:26] you can use the offer code FLOP

[1:17:28] to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:17:33] So if you want to make your own website-

[1:17:34] It sounds like a really good deal, Elliot.

[1:17:35] Use the offer code FLOP.

[1:17:37] It does.

[1:17:38] Actually, I'd love to use it,

[1:17:39] because, you know, guys, I have a website idea,

[1:17:41] and I was wondering if Squarespace

[1:17:43] would be able to help me with it.

[1:17:44] It's kind of inspired by today's movie,

[1:17:48] and it's called menscleanse.com,

[1:17:51] and now, men's cleanse, let's just face it.

[1:17:55] There's a lot of things inside a man's body that harm them,

[1:17:58] and there's a lot of men who harm other people,

[1:18:01] and so what men's cleanse does

[1:18:03] is it tries to stop people from harming others

[1:18:05] by removing the harmful things from their body.

[1:18:07] You'd be surprised how many dictators

[1:18:10] and just, like, corrupt people

[1:18:12] and serial killers are caused because of,

[1:18:15] let's just call it what it is, a backed-up colon.

[1:18:18] Oh.

[1:18:19] When you're constipated, nothing feels right.

[1:18:20] Yeah, you're right.

[1:18:21] And you just want to,

[1:18:22] you're trying to get it out of your system,

[1:18:23] and so what menscleanse.com does

[1:18:25] is it uses secret robot-from-the-future technology

[1:18:29] to make, I don't know, whatever beef

[1:18:32] or other things are backing up your system

[1:18:34] and make them disappear.

[1:18:36] Now, the only problem with the technology

[1:18:38] is that everything that comes out of your colon

[1:18:40] does appear in a desert in Las Vegas.

[1:18:42] Oh.

[1:18:43] And we've been having some trouble with the permits,

[1:18:45] with getting permission to just basically

[1:18:47] fill up the Las Vegas desert with,

[1:18:50] you have to do this.

[1:18:51] Oh, kind of like the Prestige, right?

[1:18:52] Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[1:18:55] There's some top hats in there, too.

[1:18:56] Yeah.

[1:18:57] The top hats that people eat.

[1:19:00] Yeah, of course.

[1:19:01] People do that all the time.

[1:19:03] Yeah, what are you fucking supposed to do with it?

[1:19:05] Well, what do you think's backing them up?

[1:19:06] You think it's that easy to pass a hat through your system?

[1:19:08] No. No way.

[1:19:09] And when you've got a hat keeping you from pooping normally,

[1:19:12] keeping you from being regular,

[1:19:13] you're going to get mad

[1:19:14] and you're going to take it out on society

[1:19:15] by sending a picture of your penis

[1:19:17] to somebody who doesn't want it.

[1:19:18] So what menscleanse.com does

[1:19:20] is it tries to eliminate that whole problem.

[1:19:22] We're helping save the earth one bowel at a time.

[1:19:25] And do you think Squarespace would be able to help me

[1:19:27] get that website up?

[1:19:28] And I also want it to look the same on,

[1:19:29] I want it to scale for mobile apps as well,

[1:19:32] mobile platforms.

[1:19:32] Is it going to do that?

[1:19:33] Well, you're in luck

[1:19:34] because Squarespace has responsive design

[1:19:36] that will do just that.

[1:19:38] Yeah, that's great.

[1:19:40] That's a very logical, practical question

[1:19:42] for a very practical website.

[1:19:46] I mean, because that's the thing

[1:19:47] is the technology of making things disappear

[1:19:49] from bad people's colons

[1:19:50] and appear in the Las Vegas desert.

[1:19:52] We've worked that out,

[1:19:53] but we're still figuring out how to put a website together.

[1:19:56] We don't have coding experience.

[1:19:57] Sounds like Squarespace is what we need.

[1:19:59] What's that promo code again?

[1:20:00] It's FLOP. F-L-O-P. FLOP.

[1:20:04] Like what's gonna flop into the desert.

[1:20:08] Yep.

[1:20:09] Yeah, gross.

[1:20:12] So, what else? And do we have any other sponsors? I believe we've got a couple of Jumbotrons I sent to you guys.

[1:20:18] Yep, we got a J-J-J-Jumbotron.

[1:20:25] Okay, so, this message is from the, uh, this is from, uh, let me just fucking start the message. Man, I just messed this up.

[1:20:34] Okay.

[1:20:35] The Infinite Bad is a comedy-horror role-playing podcast set in the 1920s.

[1:20:41] From the creators of Mars Corps, the show mixes H.P. Lovecraft and Agatha Christie, starring a bunch of silly Brits and one token American.

[1:20:52] The first six-part adventure is a murder mystery in an old English manner.

[1:20:57] The second adventure features monsters and madness on the River Nile.

[1:21:02] A new episode every week.

[1:21:05] So, search for The Infinite Bad wherever you get your podcasts. And on Twitter, at TheInfiniteBad.

[1:21:13] Okay, check it out. That sounds fun. That sounds up my alley. That's why Dan had me read it.

[1:21:17] Yeah.

[1:21:18] That's a, and that was a business Jumbotron. Dan assigned to me a personal Jumbotron because I'm all about people.

[1:21:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're a personality.

[1:21:28] I'm a personality who loves persons.

[1:21:31] Thanks for clarifying.

[1:21:33] Wessonality.

[1:21:36] And a lot of Kate and Ality.

[1:21:39] So, this Jumbotron message is for Josh, last name withheld, and it's from Jamie, last name withheld.

[1:21:45] So, if you are Jamie, you sent this, and if you're Josh, you're getting it from Jamie.

[1:21:49] And the message says, happy anniversary.

[1:21:51] I thought this message would be best coming from your three favorite peaches, especially your Patronus, Elliot.

[1:21:57] Now, just a note, I don't know if they mean Patronus in the Roman or Harry Potter terms.

[1:22:02] Read it, Josh, as much as you, whichever.

[1:22:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for clarifying.

[1:22:08] I thought this message would be best coming from your three favorite peaches, especially your Patronus, Elliot.

[1:22:12] During the segment, I sometimes skip, but you always love.

[1:22:15] Our love has lasted longer than the amount of time the Brats weren't friends,

[1:22:19] and will hopefully continue for many Cajemuses to come.

[1:22:22] Love you.

[1:22:23] That was very sweet.

[1:22:24] That's really sweet, and I like that she snuck in some puzzle elements.

[1:22:28] So, I'm like, how long has it been?

[1:22:31] If they had two apples at the beginning of the day,

[1:22:34] they should take the chicken over first so the fox doesn't eat it.

[1:22:39] Because it's traveling 30 miles per hour west.

[1:22:41] Yep.

[1:22:42] Yeah.

[1:22:44] But so, yeah, happy anniversary, you two crazy kids, or senior citizens, I don't know.

[1:22:50] We have some live shows coming up.

[1:22:51] We should talk about those.

[1:22:53] Yeah.

[1:22:53] Oh, yeah.

[1:22:54] Plug central.

[1:22:55] I'm very excited about them.

[1:22:56] The easiest way to get tickets to these live shows is just to go to Flophouse.

[1:23:02] Wait, wait, what's our website?

[1:23:03] Is it Flophouse Podcast?

[1:23:05] Yes.

[1:23:06] Damn.

[1:23:08] Yeah, it's FlophousePodcast.com.

[1:23:10] So, go into your web browser, Bing, I'm assuming,

[1:23:14] and search for Flophouse Podcast, and just go to that website.

[1:23:18] Yeah, I believe it's FlophousePodcast.com, and go to-

[1:23:24] Look, it's FlophousePodcast.com.

[1:23:26] Like, let's- Dan, how long have we had this site for?

[1:23:30] I don't know.

[1:23:32] This is also the kind of information you could always write down ahead of time,

[1:23:35] just so you have it-

[1:23:35] I forgot to write down anything about our live shows.

[1:23:39] Dan had a rough night last night, dude.

[1:23:41] Take it easy, Elliot.

[1:23:42] That's true.

[1:23:43] He had a very rough night of, I don't know, whatever he does.

[1:23:45] Okay, Dan, I'll take-

[1:23:46] If you go to FlophousePodcast.com slash events, because these are live events,

[1:23:51] you'll see listings for our upcoming three live shows.

[1:23:55] Those shows are, one, in Los Angeles on October 8th at 7 p.m.

[1:24:00] at the Regent Theater.

[1:24:03] Tickets are amazingly somehow still available, but they're going very fast,

[1:24:06] so I would buy them now, because that show's coming up soon,

[1:24:09] and it's going to be a lot of fun.

[1:24:10] It's our first West Coast show, so everyone's going to have extra energy

[1:24:14] because you gain those three hours when you're in New York.

[1:24:17] Then, just a couple weeks later, we've got, on October 21st,

[1:24:22] our first ever international show.

[1:24:24] That's right.

[1:24:25] The Flophouse is traveling the world.

[1:24:27] Ba-ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[1:24:30] Hey, give me some of that poutine!

[1:24:32] Okay.

[1:24:34] All the way to Canada.

[1:24:36] We're going to be in Toronto.

[1:24:37] That's right, Toronto.

[1:24:39] The home of the Ronto, everyone's favorite prequel-based Star Wars animal.

[1:24:44] That's going to be at the Royal Theatre, October 21st,

[1:24:47] which is a Saturday at 8 p.m. in Toronto, Canada.

[1:24:51] I'm excited about that because it means I get to use my Canadian money

[1:24:54] from the last time I was in Canada.

[1:24:55] Oh, great.

[1:24:57] And then, later in the year, December 9th, just six days after my birthday,

[1:25:02] we're going to be in San Francisco.

[1:25:05] Concrete Jungle where dreams are made.

[1:25:07] San Francisco at the Marines Memorial Theatre, December 9th at 8 p.m.

[1:25:11] That's a Saturday.

[1:25:12] These are all weekend shows, everybody, so don't worry.

[1:25:15] You don't have to miss work unless you work on the weekend,

[1:25:18] but most people are working for the weekend

[1:25:20] because, logically, it's when they're not working,

[1:25:23] and so you can make it to the shows.

[1:25:24] So, once again, that's October 8th, Sunday in LA, Los Angeles,

[1:25:29] the Big Easy, October 21st in Toronto, the Windy City,

[1:25:33] and December 9th in San Francisco.

[1:25:38] Yeah, it's not known as anything.

[1:25:40] It's not known as anything.

[1:25:42] They have no city-branded treats there.

[1:25:45] So, I'm really excited about these shows.

[1:25:46] I'm excited to have Dan and Stuart with me in my new hometown of Los Angeles.

[1:25:50] I'm excited for all of us to go to a place in Canada that I've never been to.

[1:25:53] It'll be great.

[1:25:54] I can't wait to go to LA so we can hang out with you,

[1:25:57] and you can be our local guide, right,

[1:26:00] to take us to all the spots that locals go to.

[1:26:03] I mean, I can take you to all the restaurants that are kid-friendly.

[1:26:07] Oh, great.

[1:26:08] Because that's kind of all I've learned so far.

[1:26:10] There is one taco place I'm going to take you guys to

[1:26:12] that I think you're going to like a lot.

[1:26:14] It's great because it's served to you by a clown,

[1:26:17] and you get a balloon after you eat all your tacos and clean your plate.

[1:26:21] And if you're under 12, you pay your way.

[1:26:24] Oh, wow.

[1:26:25] That's going to be expensive.

[1:26:29] I think you're underestimating how heavy kids weigh.

[1:26:33] I'm paying for Sammy, and I'm like,

[1:26:34] $33 for these chicken fingers?

[1:26:37] All right, pay your way.

[1:26:38] I kind of thought it was cents, but okay, it's dollars, yeah.

[1:26:41] And I'm excited to do the San Francisco show because San Francisco is great,

[1:26:44] and I feel like that's my wife's territory.

[1:26:47] That's her home area.

[1:26:48] So you can claim it, yeah.

[1:26:51] I kind of want to show all her friends and family

[1:26:52] that I'm not a big loser like they think I am.

[1:26:55] So that show better go well, guys.

[1:26:56] There's a lot of pressure.

[1:26:57] You're not going to come to the show, right?

[1:27:00] Probably not.

[1:27:01] So flophousepodcast.com slash events to buy tickets for all these shows.

[1:27:07] If you're even thinking about going to the LA one,

[1:27:09] you should buy your tickets now because you're running out of time.

[1:27:12] You're just going to lose the opportunity.

[1:27:14] Toronto, you got a little bit more time.

[1:27:15] San Francisco, you got lots of time, but why not just buy the tickets now?

[1:27:18] Yeah, Elliot, hold their feet to the fire on this one.

[1:27:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on.

[1:27:23] And yeah, those shows are all going to be really fun.

[1:27:25] We're going to be doing presentations.

[1:27:27] I just met someone the other night who said,

[1:27:30] hey, when you talk about the presentations on the show, what is that?

[1:27:34] And I was like, well, you got to see it to find out.

[1:27:36] Come on.

[1:27:37] That's the whole point of it is to come to live shows.

[1:27:40] So if you're curious about them, then you definitely need to come.

[1:27:43] Yeah.

[1:27:43] Guys, anything I'm forgetting about these shows other than that they're going to be super fun?

[1:27:46] No, I think you covered it all.

[1:27:47] I think you nailed it, dude.

[1:27:49] It is.

[1:27:49] I'm actually really looking forward to going to the West Coast and Toronto.

[1:27:53] I'm looking forward to all the shows.

[1:27:54] I don't know what I'm specifying.

[1:27:57] No, no.

[1:27:57] No, I think the West Coast ones will be a little special just because, like,

[1:28:01] now the West Coast is so much a part of the flop life with me being out here.

[1:28:04] And it's it'll be a nice, a nice and a nice splash for everybody.

[1:28:09] Yeah.

[1:28:09] But the oh, and also I think this will be our first live Shocktober episode, right?

[1:28:14] Oh, yeah.

[1:28:14] What are we watching, Dan?

[1:28:16] We're watching Rings.

[1:28:17] Rings.

[1:28:18] Yeah.

[1:28:19] We're going to be a bunch of fucking Sonic the Hedgehogs.

[1:28:23] Dr. Robotnik, we're going to kill you.

[1:28:26] OK, Dan, you have to be Tails.

[1:28:28] Oh, so wait, you're wait.

[1:28:30] Who's Sonic?

[1:28:31] You're Sonic.

[1:28:32] I get to be Sonic.

[1:28:33] Yeah, but he's going to get me pregnant.

[1:28:36] Yeah, I guess I will as Knuckles.

[1:28:41] OK, well, be gentle.

[1:28:43] Dan, what do we do next?

[1:28:44] Next, we talk about letters or we we don't talk about letters.

[1:28:48] We read letters.

[1:28:50] Hey, what are your guys' favorite letters?

[1:28:52] Mine?

[1:28:53] I know it's a little egotistical.

[1:28:54] Mine is E because it's the first letter of my surname.

[1:28:57] But it's a very versatile letter in the English language.

[1:29:00] And that's because there's so much it's the Swiss Army knife of letters.

[1:29:03] Now, you get a letter like Q. Very difficult.

[1:29:06] But when it's used properly, wonderful.

[1:29:08] Q is kind of like a fugu fish in listening, where it's like only the only someone

[1:29:13] with a lot of skill should use a Q.

[1:29:15] But when they use it right, there's just nothing better.

[1:29:17] You know?

[1:29:18] Yeah, I do know.

[1:29:19] So we're not talking about letters, though?

[1:29:20] No, we're reading letters from listeners that they've sent in.

[1:29:24] OK.

[1:29:25] And the first letter is from Ryan.

[1:29:28] Hey, everybody, we're talking about letters.

[1:29:30] OK, I can go to the bathroom, I guess.

[1:29:33] But why talk about letters when we can sing?

[1:29:36] We can sing about anything, but we're singing about the letters.

[1:29:41] And my song hurt Dan somehow.

[1:29:44] Is it possible that music can hurt?

[1:29:47] Well, the Army is looking into it now.

[1:29:49] The first test subject was Dan right now because I'm singing about letters.

[1:29:54] And it hurt Dan.

[1:29:54] He said, ow.

[1:29:55] That was Dan's reaction to my song about letters.

[1:30:00] Actually, Archie, I was scratching my leg, and Archie apparently didn't know that that meant that my hand was connected to my body and swiped at me.

[1:30:09] Anyway.

[1:30:11] So Archie thought your hand was attacking you?

[1:30:13] Yeah, I think so.

[1:30:15] So he was defending Dan by scratching this arm.

[1:30:19] Oh, wow, what an adventure we had.

[1:30:21] Okay, first letter.

[1:30:23] There's a very special tone of voice that Stuart gives.

[1:30:28] It's like, let's move it along.

[1:30:30] This special tone that says, let's cut this part out.

[1:30:34] Alright.

[1:30:35] So Dan, what's the first letter and how does it go and what can I sing about it?

[1:30:38] It says, it's from Ryan, last name withheld.

[1:30:41] And Seacrest.

[1:30:43] He says, I can't remember exactly when, but you once read a letter describing Neil Breen's first cinematic masterpiece, Double Down.

[1:30:51] You can find the whole film on YouTube, but there's only one scene that matters.

[1:30:54] When Neil Breen's super hacker slash spy slash fighter pilot slash maybe terrorist character watches his very sunburned girlfriend shot in front of him.

[1:31:03] And she winds up floating face down in a pool.

[1:31:05] And he, for some reason, joins her.

[1:31:07] And then you see his taint.

[1:31:09] For what feels like forever.

[1:31:11] Please see the enclosed screenshot because I had to see this so so do you.

[1:31:14] Love the podcast and keep on flopping in the free world.

[1:31:17] And so he does indeed include a picture of his taint.

[1:31:22] I'm putting this up so Ellie can see it.

[1:31:24] I hold it over a little bit.

[1:31:26] Okay.

[1:31:27] Yeah.

[1:31:28] Okay.

[1:31:29] Stuart, you've seen it.

[1:31:30] Now I've seen it before.

[1:31:31] It looks great.

[1:31:32] Yeah.

[1:31:33] So you get a little.

[1:31:34] I see a little scrotum there.

[1:31:35] Picking.

[1:31:36] Picking out.

[1:31:37] I have to assume that he saw Eastern Promises and he was like, this is the future of filmmaking.

[1:31:41] Taints.

[1:31:42] This is the last.

[1:31:44] You got to push boundaries somehow, dude.

[1:31:46] Yeah.

[1:31:48] So this is the I think this is the only actual nudity in one of Neil Breen's films because

[1:31:54] you do like it's it's both him and his girlfriend's butt as they float in the water.

[1:31:59] And usually he's just tastefully suggests nudity.

[1:32:03] By having but usually the camera pans down to the feet of the two people making out standing

[1:32:08] up in a woman's shirt will just fall to the.

[1:32:10] Yes.

[1:32:11] Now, Dan, when I talked about that denim vest before, I think I confused it.

[1:32:15] Is that in Double Down or is that in I am here?

[1:32:18] Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

[1:32:19] Now, I think it's in I am here.

[1:32:21] Dot, dot, dot, dot.

[1:32:22] Now, I'm not a Neil Breen historian.

[1:32:25] You're not a Breen machine.

[1:32:27] No, I'm not a brain machine in the Double Down is when he does.

[1:32:30] His jacket is made out of two pieces of fried chicken.

[1:32:32] All right.

[1:32:33] Right, right, right, right.

[1:32:34] Yeah.

[1:32:35] That makes sense.

[1:32:36] Yeah.

[1:32:37] Yeah.

[1:32:38] They and they use fried chicken because it it's it's easier to handle with your hands

[1:32:44] instead of fucking bread instead of bread, which is greasy and hot.

[1:32:49] Elliot, your Skype is frozen in the most appealing screenshot of you.

[1:32:54] Yeah.

[1:32:55] Yeah.

[1:32:56] It's your face.

[1:32:57] But you you're caught.

[1:33:00] Your eyes are closed.

[1:33:01] It's you know, we're kind of looking up your nose and you got this kind of goofy smile

[1:33:06] going on.

[1:33:07] It's just really great.

[1:33:08] It's really great.

[1:33:09] OK, well, you should put it on.

[1:33:11] You should put it on a T-shirt for the fly.

[1:33:14] Yeah.

[1:33:15] Yeah.

[1:33:16] Yeah.

[1:33:17] Yeah.

[1:33:18] For some reason in this picture, this unflattering picture, you're also wearing a T-shirt that

[1:33:22] says you support Gamergate.

[1:33:24] Yeah.

[1:33:25] It's really weird.

[1:33:26] No, no.

[1:33:27] Anyway.

[1:33:28] So this next slide.

[1:33:29] And now what would now what would that T-shirt say?

[1:33:32] Would you say I support Gamergate?

[1:33:34] There's no there's no clever way to say that.

[1:33:38] Also, wait.

[1:33:39] So you support.

[1:33:40] So does that mean you support?

[1:33:41] So is Gamergate the bad activities or was it the calling out of the bad activity?

[1:33:45] I don't know.

[1:33:46] You bought the fucking T-shirt, dude.

[1:33:47] Yeah, man.

[1:33:48] Come on.

[1:33:49] Good point.

[1:33:50] I'm not explaining it to you.

[1:33:51] Good point.

[1:33:52] I'm as confused as you are.

[1:33:54] Did you just buy it from a fucking Kroger because he needed a shirt and you're in a

[1:33:59] tough situation because he spilled chili all over your last shirt?

[1:34:03] Similar.

[1:34:04] I was with I was with my partner.

[1:34:05] We're both hit men, and we accidentally killed somebody in a car and got blood all over us.

[1:34:09] And that was just the shirt that the guy whose house we stopped at happened to have.

[1:34:12] And now I have to walk around in it.

[1:34:14] Even though you don't maybe support that ideology, whatever it may mean, because we, as we've

[1:34:18] explained, don't quite understand what the T-shirt means.

[1:34:21] The T-shirt's message is a little unclear, and that's just one of the reasons I'm unhappy

[1:34:25] to be wearing it instead of my normal attire, which is a black suit with a white shirt and

[1:34:29] a very skinny top.

[1:34:30] Yeah.

[1:34:31] You're one of the Beatles from Hard Day's Night.

[1:34:35] Anyway, so this next letter is from Cam, last name withheld.

[1:34:40] Cam Kennedy, the Star Wars.

[1:34:42] Cam, go change it.

[1:34:43] Yeah.

[1:34:44] And it says, hey, guys, for what it's worth, I'd love to hear more book recommendations

[1:34:49] along with the usual movie suggestions.

[1:34:51] I'm actively making time to read as much as I can.

[1:34:53] And Elliot's recommendation of The Sympathizer was gold.

[1:34:57] Oh, awesome.

[1:34:58] Glad you liked it.

[1:34:59] That was a great book.

[1:35:00] I live in your vents.

[1:35:01] Cam, last name withheld.

[1:35:02] Last name withheld.

[1:35:03] Well, that's creepy.

[1:35:06] Like an underground organism or a deep sea organism?

[1:35:10] Is that what he means?

[1:35:11] Mm-hmm.

[1:35:12] Or is it like a parasite that lives inside of a fish's gills?

[1:35:16] Yeah, Dan, which one?

[1:35:17] I think he's just living in our vents.

[1:35:19] I don't think you need to put any extra...

[1:35:22] Oh, like he's crawling around lighting a lighter, talking in his Bruno voice like Bruce Willis?

[1:35:29] Yeah, taking us, taking out the terrorist in our bloodstream one by one?

[1:35:33] Listen to Floppers.

[1:35:34] Have a few laughs.

[1:35:35] Mm-hmm.

[1:35:37] So should we recommend some books?

[1:35:40] Yeah.

[1:35:41] Let's do that.

[1:35:42] Okay.

[1:35:43] Why not?

[1:35:44] Well, I just finished reading a book called Lincoln's Virtues, an ethical biography,

[1:35:49] which I actually found it may be my new favorite Lincoln book.

[1:35:56] It goes through Lincoln's life from his youth up to...

[1:36:00] Lincoln's Virtues, an ethical biography by William Lee Miller, as I take it off the shelf,

[1:36:04] and it goes through his life up to becoming president and then talking about some of his stuff as presidency,

[1:36:09] looking at how his life and, in larger sense, all of our lives are a series of ethical choices

[1:36:16] based on what we think we can accomplish in the world

[1:36:19] and how to balance that with our larger kind of like moral principles,

[1:36:25] but also the idea that his moral principles and his ethical qualities kind of grew over time.

[1:36:31] And I thought it was a really, really like interesting and inspiring for me look at like how a person's ability of what they...

[1:36:39] how a person's understanding of what they can accomplish in the world can change and grow over time.

[1:36:44] So I like that a lot.

[1:36:45] It's called Lincoln's Virtues.

[1:36:47] Interesting.

[1:36:49] What are you guys reading lately?

[1:36:50] I'm re-reading a book that I remember loving as a child, the Deptford Trilogy.

[1:36:57] It's called 101 Creepy Creepys.

[1:37:01] No, I read that a little later than that.

[1:37:04] I read this, I think, when I was about 13 or 14.

[1:37:08] It's written by Robert Robinson Davies, who's kind of the most significant Canadian literary figure, I think.

[1:37:18] More than Margaret Atwood?

[1:37:20] Well, okay, that's a good one.

[1:37:21] She's so hot right now, dude.

[1:37:25] That's why they call her Margaret Hotwood.

[1:37:27] Robertson Davies is an interesting guy.

[1:37:31] I realized I couldn't go through his biography because I was kind of vague on it.

[1:37:38] I was like, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Robert Robinson Davies.

[1:37:41] Then I'm like, no, wait, hold on.

[1:37:42] I don't actually know that much about him.

[1:37:45] I believe he was a newspaper man at one point.

[1:37:47] That's about all I can give you.

[1:37:50] So what's the book?

[1:37:51] The book, the Deptford Trilogy, is made up of three books.

[1:37:56] Fifth Business, World of Wonders, and The Manticore.

[1:38:00] I'm in Fifth Business right now.

[1:38:02] They're all sort of centering around the idea of who killed the death of Boy Staunton.

[1:38:11] They each have totally different protagonists.

[1:38:17] They add up to kind of this portrait when taken together.

[1:38:23] Robertson Davies is really interested in a lot of things that I find interesting,

[1:38:27] like magic and newspapers and theater and religion.

[1:38:35] He's kind of this mystic version of Charles Dickens, I would say.

[1:38:41] He writes in a very sort of similar way these buildings roman,

[1:38:47] but he has kind of a, like I said, more of a mystical view on the world than Dickens did.

[1:38:58] The first book, Fifth Business, is about a character who is fifth business

[1:39:04] in sort of the life of this person.

[1:39:09] Fifth business being defined as the character who is not the lead

[1:39:13] or is not all these other things, but is nevertheless integral to the turn that a play takes,

[1:39:22] the integral to the, I can't talk apparently right now.

[1:39:28] But I think that this was a thing that Robertson Davies made up.

[1:39:31] I think this is much like the prestige, a term of art that is not actually real,

[1:39:36] but it's kind of an interesting idea.

[1:39:39] This guy who is not the important character necessarily,

[1:39:43] but the one who brings about the action in a life.

[1:39:48] And so that's the first book, and I'm in the middle of that and enjoying it very much.

[1:39:53] I think the last book I remember really enjoying was

[1:40:00] a series of short novels that I read about a year ago,

[1:40:05] Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy,

[1:40:09] which are, the first one's Annihilation,

[1:40:12] and then I don't remember the names of the other ones,

[1:40:17] but they're really great.

[1:40:20] I've liked Jeff VanderMeer's writing for a long time,

[1:40:22] and I think he's getting to a really interesting point

[1:40:27] in his career, and his Southern Reach Trilogy

[1:40:32] are these awesome little, it's this awesome little

[1:40:36] sci-fi story kind of set in a kind of ambiguous

[1:40:44] modern era, it's not specifically America,

[1:40:48] but it kind of feels like it, and a group of scientists

[1:40:53] are sent into a similarly ambiguous area

[1:40:59] that has been quarantined off, this area of wilderness

[1:41:02] that's been quarantined off, and they are tasked

[1:41:07] with exploring it, and it is a place that is,

[1:41:11] like, rigidly defies classification,

[1:41:15] and the story goes in very strange places,

[1:41:21] and the second book picks up and is very different

[1:41:25] than the first, and I think they're really great.

[1:41:29] If you are a fan of some of the, like, themes of,

[1:41:35] well, some of the, yeah, some of the themes

[1:41:38] of, like, H.P. Lovecraft, minus the social elements,

[1:41:42] the social themes of H.P. Lovecraft,

[1:41:44] I think you would like it, and it's just this

[1:41:49] really interesting kind of sci-fi horror

[1:41:52] with a, like, an eco-bent, so check that out.

[1:41:57] This next letter is from Tyan Lastname Withheld,

[1:42:02] and she writes, hiya, peaches.

[1:42:05] Huge fan of you three fellows.

[1:42:06] I've listened to every episode of your delightful podcast

[1:42:08] and still get excited when a new one comes out.

[1:42:10] Anyway, to answer the question Elliot posed

[1:42:13] on your Sicilian vampire episode, yes,

[1:42:16] I have opened a box of bananas and had an animal come out.

[1:42:19] Stuart, you were right about the stock boys

[1:42:22] being the main victims of banana box stowaways.

[1:42:24] I work in a co-op grocery store,

[1:42:26] though I'm a stock girl, Stuart, geez.

[1:42:28] Oh, wow, sorry for gendering it.

[1:42:30] And a few years ago, we had a massive,

[1:42:33] beautiful spider arrive with some bananas,

[1:42:36] and before I thought to Google the palm-sized arachnid,

[1:42:38] I thought, I caught it in a plastic container,

[1:42:40] thinking I might be able to save it somehow,

[1:42:43] when a coworker suggested looking it up

[1:42:45] before I decided on a name for my new pet,

[1:42:47] I discovered that what I had in my hands

[1:42:49] was a Brazilian wandering spider,

[1:42:52] the world's most deadly spider.

[1:42:55] Not being a complete idiot, I ended up killing the thing,

[1:42:58] though it did take multiple attempts,

[1:42:59] including suffocating, freezing,

[1:43:00] and eventually death by flushing.

[1:43:03] Oh, the Rasputin of spiders.

[1:43:04] Another fun fact about the co-op where I work.

[1:43:06] You should have seen that spider's dick, Elliot.

[1:43:09] Another fun fact about the co-op where I work,

[1:43:11] Jesse Eisenberg is a regular customer.

[1:43:14] He's about as quiet and awkward as you could imagine,

[1:43:16] much smaller than you'd expect,

[1:43:18] and has the least annoying baby of all our customers.

[1:43:22] Did he also crawl out of a box of bananas?

[1:43:26] This is the point I was making

[1:43:27] when we were talking about it.

[1:43:28] If ever an animal's gonna come out of a banana box,

[1:43:31] it's gonna be a spider.

[1:43:31] As we all know from the Banana Boat song,

[1:43:34] parentheses, Deo, or maybe it's the other way around,

[1:43:36] that there's a big tarantula in that bunch of bananas,

[1:43:39] but I've never heard of a bat fly out of a banana box.

[1:43:42] That's in the second verse of that song.

[1:43:45] Oh, I see.

[1:43:46] If it was a box of Rice Krispies, yeah, a bat would fly out.

[1:43:48] Bats fly out of that shit all the time.

[1:43:50] But a banana?

[1:43:51] I don't think so.

[1:43:52] Yeah, well, this was basically my nightmare,

[1:43:54] so I wanted to read it on the air.

[1:43:55] I am terrified of spiders, mostly because of,

[1:43:59] I think I had these flashcards of poisonous spiders

[1:44:02] when I was a kid, and they warped my brain.

[1:44:05] And so to have literally the most dangerous spider

[1:44:08] in the world come out of a box of bananas

[1:44:10] in the course of my job would be harrowing.

[1:44:15] Yeah, you crack open that box,

[1:44:16] you're like, I'm about to have some breakfast.

[1:44:18] Unless. What?

[1:44:20] I mean, you're not gonna have breakfast,

[1:44:22] are you really gonna have a whole

[1:44:24] unpacked crate of bananas in your house for breakfast?

[1:44:26] Come on.

[1:44:27] I was gonna say, unless your job was,

[1:44:29] you're a banana box spider finder.

[1:44:32] Sure.

[1:44:32] In which case, it should happen on your job.

[1:44:34] That means you're doing your job right.

[1:44:36] Dan, you might not wanna come to my house in LA,

[1:44:39] which is crawling with, there's spiders everywhere.

[1:44:41] Oh God.

[1:44:42] Like, there's spider webs all over the place,

[1:44:44] and I never realized Los Angeles was so full of spiders.

[1:44:46] Yeah.

[1:44:47] I mean, I know that they're like,

[1:44:49] good for the world and whatnot.

[1:44:51] Like, they're killing other insects,

[1:44:53] so I've come around on them a little bit,

[1:44:55] but I just.

[1:44:57] And don't they have such cute little faces?

[1:44:59] No, they don't.

[1:45:00] With those weird.

[1:45:01] Yeah, with all those eyes.

[1:45:02] Yeah, and those weird little mouth things.

[1:45:04] Their mouths are really cute.

[1:45:06] And the way they have eight legs and move

[1:45:09] in that very alien way, as if they're not of this world.

[1:45:12] And if you drop them from a high enough height,

[1:45:14] their torso just cracks open.

[1:45:16] Oh God.

[1:45:17] Great.

[1:45:18] I mean, that's kind of weird.

[1:45:21] Yeah, I guess.

[1:45:22] I guess, yeah, there's,

[1:45:24] I'm sure there's some kind of scientific formula

[1:45:27] that factors out the height that each species

[1:45:29] needs to be dropped from for their torso to split open.

[1:45:32] Yeah.

[1:45:34] Anyway, that was from Diane.

[1:45:36] Rhymes with Diane, but is not Diane.

[1:45:39] Last name withheld.

[1:45:41] Good to know.

[1:45:42] Very helpful.

[1:45:43] And this last letter is from Kyle,

[1:45:45] last name withheld, who writes.

[1:45:46] Kyle Katarn.

[1:45:47] Here, Dan.

[1:45:49] From the Dark Forces game?

[1:45:51] When Elliot sings, with whom does he make eye contact?

[1:45:54] Or does he just stare at the table, the wall,

[1:45:56] Archie, question mark, best kisses, Kyle?

[1:46:01] That's a good question.

[1:46:02] I feel like Elliot usually stares off

[1:46:03] into the middle distance,

[1:46:04] channeling some kind of strange spirit.

[1:46:08] Yeah.

[1:46:10] Because I have to hear the song vibrating

[1:46:12] from the far reaches of the universe,

[1:46:14] the places that evil dwells.

[1:46:16] But also, Stuart usually gets up during the song,

[1:46:19] so I can't look him in the face.

[1:46:21] Yeah, and if I looked at Elliot in the face

[1:46:23] while he was singing, it would turn too sexual.

[1:46:25] Yeah, Dan's like, I'm just gonna avert my gaze

[1:46:28] to my phone, where I will engage the Pornhub app.

[1:46:32] Got to have the app.

[1:46:34] Is there an app?

[1:46:35] Yeah, you got to get the app.

[1:46:36] You get so much quicker access.

[1:46:38] Yeah, better.

[1:46:39] Scaled for mobile better?

[1:46:40] Okay, I have two questions.

[1:46:43] One is, what benefits would come with the app?

[1:46:47] That it would make it worth having everyone

[1:46:49] who owns a Pornhub app just on your home screen?

[1:46:53] Well, it's a shortcut.

[1:46:55] And the thing is, the icon for the app is disguised,

[1:47:00] so the only people that would recognize it

[1:47:02] are other people who have the app.

[1:47:04] Yeah.

[1:47:05] Oh, I see, so they can't say anything

[1:47:06] because it would out them.

[1:47:07] Exactly, that's the thing.

[1:47:08] And also, it makes it a lot easier

[1:47:10] to review the porn clips.

[1:47:12] I'm really into reviewing porn clips, guys.

[1:47:15] Yeah, well, you're into engagement.

[1:47:17] Yeah, leaving those notes being like,

[1:47:19] man, her face at 140.

[1:47:22] Yeah.

[1:47:26] She's like, what in the world?

[1:47:28] Yeah.

[1:47:29] This is such a specific criticism

[1:47:31] of porn websites,

[1:47:32] the kind that could only come from personal experience.

[1:47:35] Yeah.

[1:47:36] Anyway.

[1:47:37] Okay.

[1:47:39] I think it's time for our last segment.

[1:47:40] I think we answered those,

[1:47:40] yeah, we answered all those questions.

[1:47:42] We answered all those questions.

[1:47:43] So what do we do now?

[1:47:43] There weren't that many questions.

[1:47:45] We actually answered just one question, pretty much.

[1:47:47] But we did them all.

[1:47:48] One for one.

[1:47:51] 100%.

[1:47:52] This last section on the show

[1:47:54] is where we recommend movies that you should watch,

[1:47:57] let's say before pass-through.

[1:48:02] If you are making a list of priorities,

[1:48:04] maybe go out and see these ones

[1:48:05] before saying any old briefing.

[1:48:07] If you have like two to three hours left in your life,

[1:48:09] maybe watch this instead of.

[1:48:10] Okay.

[1:48:14] I'll go.

[1:48:14] I recently watched a movie that I did not like that much,

[1:48:18] but it reminded me of a movie I did like.

[1:48:19] Okay.

[1:48:20] I went and saw Ex Libris,

[1:48:22] the three and a half hour Frederick Weissman documentary

[1:48:26] about the New York Public Library.

[1:48:28] And surprise, surprise, it gets a little boring, guys.

[1:48:33] Three and a half hours of library talks

[1:48:36] and administrative meetings,

[1:48:39] not the most exciting movie.

[1:48:41] Although-

[1:48:42] You weren't the target audience for that one?

[1:48:43] I think I am the target audience for that one.

[1:48:46] If I didn't like it, then I'm not sure.

[1:48:48] Like a three and a half hour movie about libraries.

[1:48:50] How many scenes were there of?

[1:48:51] Yeah?

[1:48:52] How many scenes were there of librarians

[1:48:53] having to tell old people

[1:48:54] not to look at porn on the computer?

[1:48:56] There was a sequence where they were talking

[1:48:58] about homeless people and how to deal with that issue.

[1:49:03] Uh-huh.

[1:49:04] The answer is you have to encourage charitable giving,

[1:49:08] and then you give them a hand up, dude, not a handout.

[1:49:12] Right.

[1:49:13] Job training, and also mental health care, you know?

[1:49:17] But this reminded me of a movie that I liked a lot more

[1:49:21] by also a documentary legend, The Maisels Brothers.

[1:49:27] The movie is Salesman about traveling Bible salesmen,

[1:49:33] and it's an interesting movie

[1:49:35] because the very subject of it kind of suggests

[1:49:38] this intersection between capitalism and religiosity.

[1:49:44] These men having to go out and sell these fancy Bibles

[1:49:48] to people who, honestly,

[1:49:50] most of them probably should not be spending money

[1:49:52] on a fancy Bible.

[1:49:54] No, they cannot afford to be buying a fancy Bible.

[1:49:56] Exactly.

[1:49:57] And just the grinding.

[1:50:00] sadness of these men's lives is fascinating but it's it's beautifully

[1:50:08] shot it's like this beautiful black-and-white cinematography it's 90

[1:50:12] minutes long unlike the three and a half hour monster I watched and it's just

[1:50:18] fantastic salesman is what I recommend that sounds pretty good I'm going to

[1:50:23] that's it oh shit sorry I was just saying that sounds good dude that's a

[1:50:29] good movie can I do next I'm gonna make a qualified recommendation not because

[1:50:35] the movie needs to be qualified but because I think the movie viewer should

[1:50:40] self-select ahead of time you guys might know what movie I'm getting yeah it's a

[1:50:47] little movie called mother which it's the story of Glenn Danzig with the

[1:50:54] greatest song and rock and roll movie so I'm sure you guys are all aware of it

[1:50:58] Darren Aronofsky's new movie with J-law and J-bard that's Javier I I haven't

[1:51:04] seen it yet so keep them spoilies tight okay I will not tell you anything then

[1:51:10] except that I mean that it's one of those movies where the less you know

[1:51:13] about it going in the better but go it but you should know ahead of time before

[1:51:17] going in whether you're the type of person who's gonna enjoy this movie I

[1:51:21] thought it was amazing like on that on a technical level on a tension level and

[1:51:26] also like it's the kind of it's the kind of creepy brutal allegory that I

[1:51:34] love that I like I get a lot out of thematically and also like emotionally

[1:51:39] it's a real grind like it is a movie that is always at high pitch of emotion

[1:51:43] and does not let up the entire movie but it's one of those movies where it's like

[1:51:47] if you're not if you don't care for a movie like like possession then maybe

[1:51:53] don't go see this movie like I was watching the movie and for most of it I

[1:51:57] was like this is really great I don't see why people are walking out of this

[1:52:00] film and the last 20 minutes I'm like oh now I get it this is this is like it

[1:52:04] gets very it gets very like it's always intense but then he gets extremely

[1:52:10] intense in a way that is both can be both derided as too intense and also

[1:52:17] kind of pretentious but that's Darren Aronofsky I love his stuff partly

[1:52:21] because he is willing to be pretentious in a way that you can tell is very

[1:52:26] strongly felt by him but yeah yeah I mean I don't feel like you I don't feel

[1:52:31] like you ever make I don't feel like he ever makes like boring movies and it's

[1:52:40] one of those things where I'm like I'm surprised that people are surprised when

[1:52:42] they go and seeing it because but I guess there's probably a lot of people

[1:52:45] who like don't don't when they hear Darren Aronofsky they don't immediately

[1:52:48] think oh this is gonna be insanely intense and they just see that it's

[1:52:53] Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer and they're like I'm

[1:52:56] just hoping for an easy scare yeah exactly they're like oh this will maybe

[1:53:01] when I'm watching this my date will jump and her like I like this of this

[1:53:10] fit the straw man we're creating he's like Ed Harris looks enough like a

[1:53:15] skeleton I'm sure this movie's scary well then the way it's set up you could

[1:53:21] very easily be lulled into thinking like oh this is probably like a ghost movie

[1:53:26] or a haunted house huh but it is something so much stranger and so much

[1:53:30] more intense and so much more effect yeah and I thought like at times

[1:53:34] genuinely disturbing and at times genuinely beautiful and like it was I

[1:53:38] could I totally see that guy this unnamed straw straw teen going with his

[1:53:43] girlfriend to see this movie hoping for like a little bit of scares to get her

[1:53:46] in the kissing mood and then they're both like so for anyone who anyone who

[1:53:55] has a let's call it a strong stomach and an interest in large themes on a

[1:54:03] expressed on an interesting scale I would say and and go to mother and like

[1:54:08] technically yeah a technical point of view it's amazing I'd go see mother but

[1:54:12] if you are in the interest of a film that is not going to either be

[1:54:16] pretentious or possibly shake you to your core then don't go see this movie

[1:54:20] I uh like I they did that uh they did that new ad campaign where they're the

[1:54:26] new posters have lists they like all the pull quotes are kind of negative things

[1:54:32] about the movie to kind of like challenge you and they actually took one

[1:54:36] of my buddies pull quotes from his GQ review that just says people are going

[1:54:41] to fucking hate this movie like I totally get it watching the movie I

[1:54:46] thought it was a step like it blew me away but I and I really liked it a lot

[1:54:50] but I could see how most people will not like yeah at all and it's it's the film

[1:54:57] reviewers that have been so against it that I don't understand but I get why

[1:55:00] like cinema score gave it an F like if ever there was a movie that's not really

[1:55:04] meant for wide release it's this one but uh it's but it's really good if you like

[1:55:09] if you like crazy stuff go see it but if it like for instance my wife and I

[1:55:15] were talking about seeing it and I really want to see it and the more I

[1:55:17] heard about it the more I was like one worried that that she wasn't gonna like

[1:55:21] it and she's out of town and so I was like can I just go see mother and fellow

[1:55:26] max fun host Jordan Morris invited me to go to a screening with him and I went

[1:55:31] and she was like that's fine you can go and I went and I was like I'm so glad I

[1:55:35] did you did not like this is not I would not have been a bit good and she's

[1:55:39] looking at you and she's like but Elliot I'm a mother shouldn't I like it

[1:55:43] it seems like it's made for me it would also be even harder for her to take but

[1:55:49] uh yeah I can't I can't say it strongly enough I highly recommend this movie but

[1:55:54] the vast majority of people will not it's kind of like our recommendation for

[1:55:57] only God forgives yeah no very similar yeah where it's like you need to self

[1:56:03] select ahead of time it's likely you will not like this movie but if you like

[1:56:06] this kind of movie you'll really yeah so we're in the recommendation section

[1:56:12] so I'm gonna recommend a TV show okay I'm gonna recommend a show that I'm only

[1:56:18] finally getting around to watching it's a show called inside number nine it's a

[1:56:24] show on the BBC two of the creators are Steve Pemberton and Reese Shearsmith of

[1:56:29] the League of Gentlemen another TV show that I've recommended on here League of

[1:56:34] Gentlemen being possibly my favorite show of all time it's such a League of

[1:56:41] Gentlemen is this perfect balance of like strange comedy and horror that I

[1:56:47] think is just is awesome and inside number nine kind of continues that

[1:56:53] tradition it's an anthology series and at least all the episodes I've only seen

[1:56:59] the episodes from the first season and they've had a couple seasons but the

[1:57:04] each each episode takes place in a single location and they they're all

[1:57:11] funny and they also have these dark elements to them and so if you're

[1:57:17] looking for something that is both you know what is a little uncomfortable and

[1:57:22] funny I would totally recommend checking them out it's on it's streaming on

[1:57:27] shutter now the horror streaming service and I'm sure you could probably buy it

[1:57:32] in various other places as well you typing something Elliot yeah I was

[1:57:39] looking something okay are you uh you eating a caramel sorry oh I I apologize

[1:57:45] that my brief typing will interrupt a podcast that routinely has cat I just

[1:57:51] I'm just trying to keep up our professional standards trying to Elliot

[1:57:55] why don't you uh why don't you put that hair shirt on again I'm trying to fend

[1:57:59] off the inevitable I'm complaints that we're gonna get from from people that's

[1:58:05] all I don't care okay okay thank you okay what do we do now what what do we

[1:58:13] do now Dan now we sign off okay it's it's everyone's favorite part of the

[1:58:16] podcast uh-huh we're gonna leave on a high note energy is pumping yeah with me

[1:58:22] reprimanding Elliot best way to end a podcast huh Dan's like with someone

[1:58:28] feeling bad about so Elliot we've been doing this show for 10 years we have

[1:58:32] never had a audio problem we've had a perfect record with all your stuff we

[1:58:36] don't want you to fuck it up yeah yeah sorry yeah I took us down from an a

[1:58:41] plus-plus-plus to an a plus-plus-plus my oh no sorry uh no that's not that's on

[1:58:47] our permanent record yeah which is a record that's made of everything we've

[1:58:51] ever said and then it's put on a satellite and shot into space for

[1:58:54] alien stuff okay so they'll know what it sounds like when humans waste time

[1:58:58] yeah speaking of wasting time we're putting off the inevitable which is

[1:59:02] saying goodbye which is all do it now isn't that Dan isn't life all about

[1:59:06] putting for the flophouse I've been Dan McCoy I've been Stewart Wellington and

[1:59:14] this is Elliot Kaelin over here saying see you kale heads until next time when

[1:59:20] we'll be Elliot Kaelin in a round of all the latest news reviews and updates

[1:59:24] from me Elliot Kaelin bye Elliot sounded cooler I hope you keep in

[1:59:31] Stewart saying Elliot sounded cooler

[1:59:37] happy birthday to you happy birthday no it's the lag I'm doing it exactly on the

[1:59:46] right time this time not for you maybe I'm well I'm listening to it and it's

[1:59:50] syncing up on my end so there's there's like a lag the thing is Elliot it is a

[1:59:55] like he's gonna edit it together to make you look like an asshole

[2:00:00] man yeah yeah that's like usual just like just like on reality programs you

[2:00:05] gotta have a villain and it's got to be you and that has to be me just like when

[2:00:10] I was on Daily Show Apprentice that season The Apprentice where it was all

[2:00:14] Daily Show staffers sure and John John got to do is uh you're fired impression

[2:00:19] a lot yeah that's our president's name right is you're fired

[2:00:26] maximumfund.org comedy and culture artist owned listener supported

Ep. #241 - Pass Thru

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