Ep. #241 - Pass Thru

Elliott Kalan

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

[0:03] Normally, I'd have like a joke here.

[0:06] Stuart would have a joke here, but it's a Neil Brain movie.

[0:09] It's, what do you, how can you even, how can you even talk about it?

[0:13] It's, oh.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:42] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:44] Hey, everyone, welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:47] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

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

[0:55] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:56] Thanks for that dose of energy, Elliot.

[0:59] Well, I decided to add kind of a carnival-esque, you know, Fellini atmosphere to it.

[1:05] Sure.

[1:05] And tightropes and trapezes and lions and horrifically grotesque acts of all sorts.

[1:12] But I realized it's audio grotesque, so I just shouted.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15] Horrific like lions.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18] Yeah, horrific grotesque lions.

[1:19] Because they all have heavy makeup on them.

[1:21] Because it's a Fellini movie.

[1:22] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:23] I thought they just had like mange or something.

[1:28] Anti-mange?

[1:29] Yeah.

[1:30] Ugh.

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

[1:34] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41] We established that.

[1:42] Thanks, genius.

Dan McCoy

[1:44] We watch a bad movie.

Elliott Kalan

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

[1:48] I think so.

Dan McCoy

[1:49] We watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:51] And this time of year is one of the most magical time of year.

[1:55] It's Small Timber where we watch...

[1:56] Small-vember.

[1:58] Small-vember.

[1:58] Small movies.

[1:59] Movies that normally would not be enough for us to even pay attention to.

[2:05] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[2:06] They are but a dust moat in the galactic scale.

Elliott Kalan

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

[2:14] I guess so, yeah.

[2:15] Yeah, the ghost of Roger Ebert.

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

[2:21] right?

[2:21] Mm-hmm.

[2:22] No, that's not what I mean.

[2:23] That would be absurd, Elliot.

[2:25] Absurd.

[2:25] I've seen it done many times.

Stuart Wellington

[2:27] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[2:36] I kind of get the feeling that Christopher Nolan just greets people by slapping them in the

[2:40] face very severely.

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

Stuart Wellington

[2:44] It sets the stone.

[2:46] It sets the stage.

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

[2:48] I don't know why I'm thinking about stones.

Elliott Kalan

[2:51] Now, here's what kind of stone...

[2:53] This is something I want the listeners to write in on.

[2:56] It does take a poll.

[2:56] 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] I think we know which one of them.

[3:04] Or am I thinking of the video game Power Stone?

[3:08] Probably that one.

Stuart Wellington

[3:09] Sly and the Family Stone.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[3:16] Mm-hmm.

[3:17] I still think I'm probably thinking of Keystone, the brief promoter of Keystone Life.

[3:21] Right?

Elliott Kalan

[3:23] Okay.

[3:24] That character that they introduced?

[3:25] Yeah, Keystone.

Dan McCoy

[3:27] All right.

[3:28] Not Stone Phillips?

[3:29] No.

[3:31] So, guys...

[3:32] Now, what was Keystone's deal?

Elliott Kalan

[3:33] He was just like a dude, right?

[3:34] Wait, wait, wait.

[3:35] Let's talk about Keystone for a moment.

[3:36] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[3:37] Well, okay.

[3:39] I mean, when I pitched him as an ad exec, I was pitching him on the premise that he's just

[3:45] kind of an everyman, but he was also like kind of a trickster spirit.

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] Mm-hmm.

[3:50] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[3:50] Mm-hmm.

[3:51] Like the Loki next door.

[3:52] Mm-hmm.

[3:52] Exactly.

[3:53] Like the Loki next door, 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

[4:03] jokes.

[4:04] No, come on.

Elliott Kalan

[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] Oh.

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

[4:12] Good point.

[4:13] Good point.

[4:13] What if he's wearing jean shorts?

Stuart Wellington

[4:15] I mean, you could put him in one of those pockets that sticks out down the frayed bottoms

[4:20] of the jean shorts.

Elliott Kalan

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

[4:23] If he puts all his tricks in those, people are going to see the tricks bulging out of

[4:26] his pockets that are hanging below his shorts.

[4:29] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[4:29] We're talking about trick cereal, right?

Elliott Kalan

[4:32] Yeah.

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

Dan McCoy

[4:36] That would be funny if Loki was the spokesperson for trick cereal.

Stuart Wellington

[4:41] I mean, it makes sense.

[4:42] I mean, Marvel's all over the place.

[4:44] It's huge right now.

Elliott Kalan

[4:44] The, uh, I wonder...

[4:46] Every commercial ends with him denying trick cereal to Baldr and then killing him with a

[4:52] mistletoe-tipped arrow.

Stuart Wellington

[4:54] Yeah.

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

[5:00] Thor with.

Elliott Kalan

[5:02] Yep.

[5:02] 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?

Dan McCoy

[5:10] Uh, so the movie Pass Through that we watched, it was a Neil Breen movie.

[5:16] Now, we watched...

Elliott Kalan

[5:17] Should we reacquaint people with Neil Breen?

Dan McCoy

[5:19] Yes.

[5:20] That's what I was about to try and do.

[5:22] My best, at least.

[5:23] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[5:24] Uh, Neil Breen.

[5:24] Okay, so yeah, you're pulling up, you're pulling up Wikipedia on...

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

[5:32] Yeah.

[5:33] Dan's trying to really get in the spirit here by recording this podcast on a laptop that's

[5:38] stacked up on top of a second laptop.

Elliott Kalan

[5:41] That's true.

[5:42] That is happening.

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

Stuart Wellington

[5:46] Yeah, that's how you save the file, right?

Elliott Kalan

[5:49] Yeah.

[5:49] Now, Dan, uh, Neil Breen.

[5:52] Who is he?

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

[5:55] Uh...

Dan McCoy

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

[6:00] That, you would think so.

[6:02] But no.

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

Elliott Kalan

[6:08] Incorrect, Dan.

[6:08] He's an architect who briefly worked as a real estate agent.

[6:12] Oh, really?

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

Stuart Wellington

[6:15] Before he found his true calling, a, uh, a butt model.

[6:19] Yeah.

[6:20] Because his naked ass is in most of his movies.

[6:23] And part of the back of his ball sack.

Dan McCoy

[6:25] Wait, what?

[6:26] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:27] In most of his movies, there's a naked Neil Breen and back of ball sack.

Dan McCoy

[6:30] I was actually going to write, read a letter about this later on.

Stuart Wellington

[6:33] Uh...

[6:34] Okay, we'll save it.

[6:35] We'll...

[6:35] I'm sure we can, we can delay our gratification.

Elliott Kalan

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

[6:41] Have I been watching the Blockbuster video editions of Neil Breen's movies?

[6:44] Wait, did Blockbuster video edit out Neil Breen movies?

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

Dan McCoy

[6:50] Well, when you watch them on a, on a plane, certainly.

[6:53] You don't get all the...

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

Stuart Wellington

[6:59] Yeah, because, uh, they were worried about, uh, if they're flying a plane with all the

[7:04] Neil Breen, uh, bottom and back ball sack, the orgone levels would rise to scary heights

[7:10] and everybody would just start fucking like maniacs.

[7:13] Uh, no.

Dan McCoy

[7:14] So, Neil Breen, okay.

[7:15] He's not...

[7:16] 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 he really, his calling is he's a filmmaker.

[7:24] How does he...

[7:25] All right.

[7:26] How does he have enough money as an architect to make these films?

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

Elliott Kalan

[7:30] Have you seen...

[7:30] Have you seen those movies?

[7:31] They don't cost a lot of money.

Dan McCoy

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[7:39] The consumer electronic that's available to everyone.

[7:42] Yeah.

[7:42] It was so funny.

[7:43] So there's a lot...

[7:44] This movie, we'll get to it in the same way.

[7:46] There's a lot of what I thought at first were helicopter shots.

[7:48] Yeah.

[7:49] And then I'm like, no, wait a minute.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[7:51] Yeah.

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

Stuart Wellington

[7:53] Yeah.

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

[7:59] right?

Elliott Kalan

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

[8:03] It's a tourist economy.

[8:04] Now, Neil Breen, he's made a lot of movies that are baffling.

[8:09] And we reviewed one of his earlier movies, Fateful Findings, right?

[8:13] Yeah.

[8:13] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[8:14] I'm glad that you're looking to us for confirmation.

Elliott Kalan

[8:19] Well, I have Memento's Syndrome.

[8:21] Oh, okay.

[8:22] Where I only remember things that happen in Memento's commercials.

[8:26] Wow, okay, yeah.

[8:27] So I can tell you all about the time that I snuck into the backstage of a concert by tying

[8:32] a bandana around my head and pretending to be a roadie.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[8:41] Exactly.

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

Stuart Wellington

[8:45] Yeah, and then there was...

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

[8:50] mention on there.

Elliott Kalan

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

[8:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[8:56] Okay.

[8:56] So Fateful Findings.

[8:58] How would you describe that movie, Dan, in four words?

Dan McCoy

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

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

[9:10] Neil Breen...

[9:11] You shouldn't have used up two of the words just with the name Neil Breen.

[9:17] Neil Breen Messiah Complex.

Elliott Kalan

[9:20] Okay, you did it.

[9:21] All right.

[9:21] Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[9:38] And that's one of the...

[9:38] Well, we should just start talking about the movie.

[9:40] Because one of my favorite thing in Neil Breen movies is that the bad guy characters just

[9:44] openly state how bad they are.

[9:46] Yes.

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

[9:50] But okay, let's talk...

[9:52] So this movie, that was Fateful Findings, which was about a writer with magic psychic powers

[9:56] who hacks into government secrets and convinces all the bad people in the world to commit

[10:00] suicide.

Stuart Wellington

[10:01] Elliot, is there a plane flying over your house?

[10:03] What's going on over there?

Elliott Kalan

[10:04] A very low-flying helicopter just flew right by the side.

Stuart Wellington

[10:08] Sure.

[10:08] Is Neil Breen hanging out of it?

Elliott Kalan

[10:11] It's possible.

[10:12] As I was saying that, it was probably 30 feet above the ground this helicopter flew

[10:17] by.

[10:17] That was crazy.

[10:18] But I live in LA.

[10:19] It's like a movie every day.

Stuart Wellington

[10:21] Yeah.

[10:22] Brag about it.

[10:24] Why are you looking at me?

Elliott Kalan

[10:26] Go on.

[10:27] I remember when we watched Fateful Findings, I was like, I don't understand this man's brain

[10:32] or his movies.

[10:32] 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?

Stuart Wellington

[10:44] Yeah.

[10:45] Yes.

[10:46] I think you're right.

Elliott Kalan

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

[10:54] in what it's trying to say to the world.

[10:56] So let's just get into it, right?

[10:57] Let's just try to summarize the plot of a movie that is seemingly daring you to believe

[11:03] that there's a plot in it.

Stuart Wellington

[11:04] Yeah.

[11:06] I'm trying.

[11:06] We watched this a couple days ago.

[11:08] Oh boy.

[11:10] Elliot, please take me back to that place.

Elliott Kalan

[11:13] Okay.

[11:13] Well, I'll take you back to the beginning, which is there's kind of a heavenly choir over

[11:18] some kind of geometric shape in space, which looks like the kind of poster that like a pothead

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

[11:29] And then suddenly you're just in the desert.

[11:31] You're just in the desert looking at rocks through like a GoPro attached to a drone.

[11:37] Lots of rocks and ominous piano music.

[11:39] And then the title comes up, pass through.

[11:41] And then a Neil Breen film.

[11:43] Usually that comes up sometimes before.

[11:45] He plays with the way credits go.

[11:47] 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.

[11:54] And from the side of the frame, an arm with like really poorly attached fake fur.

[12:01] Yeah.

[12:01] Holding a paintbrush.

[12:03] Paints this symbol on.

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

[12:10] But what it looks like is somebody just shoved their arm into the lint filter of a dryer.

[12:14] And then painted something.

[12:17] And then you see above this cave where these rocks are, the worst composited in tiger I think I've ever seen in a movie.

[12:24] It looks so, it looks terrible.

[12:27] And this is a tiger effect we'll see many times.

[12:31] Next, Neil Breen symbolizes the passage of time by showing clocks sitting on the ground in the desert.

[12:37] Uh-huh.

[12:37] Yeah.

[12:39] And, uh.

Stuart Wellington

[12:39] That's what that, that's what that was representing.

[12:41] Thank you, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[12:42] I think.

[12:43] The fact that, so it very shortly, you see, in succession with no dialogue, you see rocks, you see some kind of furry person's hand painting a stone.

[12:52] You see a tiger, and then you see clocks sitting on the ground in the desert.

[12:56] I have to assume that it's, that it's supposed to be about the evolution of man.

[13:00] Well, but man's not in a great place because we cut to a chain of what appears to be at first to be possibly hikers, uh, or possibly migrants trying to,

[13:09] cross the border into the United States.

[13:10] Now, here's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[13:12] They're a wonderfully diverse group of migrants.

[13:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:16] I was like, they look, they're dressed like migrants.

[13:19] 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 migrants crossing the border, in the news footage at least, to be so white and also black, and also there may have been an Asian person there.

[13:31] Yeah.

[13:31] And everyone speaking in kind of like California, Las Vegas accents.

Stuart Wellington

[13:35] Yeah.

[13:36] There's a certain central casting element to it.

Dan McCoy

[13:40] Or a certain anyone Neil Breen could find to be in his damn movie element to it.

Elliott Kalan

[13:45] Yeah.

[13:46] I feel like there's a certain whoever was hanging out at the mall that day element to the casting.

[13:51] Uh, but we don't see the hikers for long because for a little bit, we are cutting between, cutting almost randomly, it seems, between three storylines.

[13:59] These migrants in the desert, a bunch of kids who love space, studying at computers and talking to each other on the phone.

[14:05] Yep.

[14:05] Uh, there's an old man looking at a book and Neil Brain as a kind of dirty hobo collecting cans.

[14:11] Uh, it turns out that the teens are tracking some sort of signal that the old man predicted, but they keep finding, uh, it's a false.

Stuart Wellington

[14:21] It feels like, it feels like every time they cut from the kid's room to the old man's hospital room, the exact same posters in the same configuration are on the walls.

[14:33] Yes, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[14:34] Now, would you be suggesting, okay, there's only two possibilities there.

[14:37] One is that they just wheeled out the child's bed and wheeled in a hospital bed to shoot those scenes.

[14:43] Or, and this is what I posit is more in align with the movie's themes.

[14:47] Yeah.

[14:47] The old man and the kid either are in such psychic synchronicity that they unknowingly put their posters up in the same places, or that the old man and the kid are the same person at different points in their lifespan, somehow emerging into space and time at the same space.

Stuart Wellington

[15:02] It's like the inner Sandman video where you're like, is the little kid the old man now?

[15:08] What is going on?

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Because Neil Breen is kind of like Stanley Kubrick with The Shining.

[15:13] No detail is, is beyond his eye.

[15:16] I can't believe that he would just so casually use the same room for two different sets and two different locations if it wasn't part of his grand design.

[15:24] Because as we'll see, he is a very intricate director who has a reason for everything.

[15:30] Like, for instance, Hobo Neil Breen isn't just sleeping on a dirty mattress in a trailer for no reason.

[15:35] He's been hired by the coyotes who move the migrants to clean up their trash after them so there's no evidence.

[15:43] Now, here's how I would have solved that problem if I was a coyote.

[15:46] Just bring a garbage bag with you, pick up the trash as you go along, and then throw it away at some point.

[15:51] But no, I just guess decided it was easier to get drugs with which to pay Neil Breen, who we find is a drug-addicted hobo, to clean up this trash.

Dan McCoy

[15:59] Now, when you say he's a drug-addicted hobo, you mean that he takes his syringe and he squirts out some sort of liquid on top of his arm?

[16:09] Like, there's a scene of him, like, theoretically injecting it into his arm, but it's clear that he's just squirting it all over.

Stuart Wellington

[16:15] I mean, dude, fucking drugs are no joke now, man.

[16:17] Half that shit is transdermal anyway.

[16:19] Like, he's getting so high.

Elliott Kalan

[16:21] He also cooks his drugs by taking the powder, putting on a piece of foil, just laying it on the ground, and then sucking up the powder with the syringe.

[16:30] So either the rocks of that desert are so hot that you can literally cook whatever drug he's using on it, cook his heroin or whatever, or he doesn't like his drugs runny.

[16:41] Yeah, I mean, there is—

[16:42] He makes their eggs a little more solid, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[16:43] I think there's a scene that he cut out where he actually fries up a little breakfast on the rocks by just cracking eggs on that rock because it's so hot, Elliot.

[16:53] And I think that would have explained the scene that you're talking about a little better.

Elliott Kalan

[16:57] Yeah, I have to imagine.

[16:58] I mean, he must have cut that scene because he's like, wait a minute.

[17:01] My character, who looks just like me but slightly dirtier, looks like he hasn't eaten a good meal in probably 30 years.

[17:07] So maybe it would be unrealistic for me to show him eating a breakfast.

Stuart Wellington

[17:11] But he's like, the breakfast scene is important to me because breakfast is the most important meal of the movie, right?

[17:19] Is that the popular phrase?

Elliott Kalan

[17:21] That's the old saying.

[17:22] That's the popular saying, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:24] So that's why they sneak it in.

[17:25] That's why all 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?

Elliott Kalan

[17:37] Citizen Kane is a famous breakfast scene.

[17:39] Yeah, yeah.

[17:39] You watch The Crumbling of a Marriage Over Breakfast.

[17:43] Let's not forget the most famous breakfast scene, maybe, which was the poster for Dan in Real Life when Steve Carell has his head on top of a pile of pancakes.

Stuart Wellington

[17:51] Yeah, we're talking S-tier movies right now, like Lawrence of Olivier.

[17:57] Lawrence of Arabia.

Stuart Wellington

[18:01] Where Peter O'Toole's just, you know, crushing some fucking breakfast.

[18:06] Some BKFST.

[18:07] And somebody's like, hey, hey, why are you putting out that match with your fingers?

[18:12] And he's like, I don't give a fuck.

[18:13] Right?

[18:14] You remember that part.

Elliott Kalan

[18:15] Yep.

[18:16] I remember it.

[18:17] Now, what would Lawrence of Olivier be?

[18:22] Is that Peter O'Toole, he's Lawrence of Arabia, but he's been shrunk and he's inside Lawrence Olivier's body?

[18:27] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[18:28] Yep.

[18:29] I mean, that's exactly what it's about.

Elliott Kalan

[18:33] And he lights a match and someone's like, hey, put that out.

[18:35] You're inside one of the greatest living actors.

[18:38] Oh, I'm so sorry.

[18:38] And he puts it out with his fingers.

Stuart Wellington

[18:40] And then they insert a tiny evil spy character that's in a robot suit.

[18:45] And he's like, I'm going to crush you.

[18:47] And he's like, not so fast, dude.

[18:50] And he tosses him in the stomach acid and the dude totally gets roasted.

[18:54] It's so gross.

[18:56] Think about that little dead body floating around Lawrence Olivier's body.

[19:00] Does he shit him out?

Elliott Kalan

[19:02] Yeah, if it's in his stomach, it's just going to come out in his throat.

Stuart Wellington

[19:04] It's so tiny, he's not even going to know it.

[19:06] But is he a cannibal then?

[19:09] If it's a robot, then no.

[19:10] No, but there's like a dude inside the robot.

Elliott Kalan

[19:14] Now, that's an interesting question because cannibalism, it implies a certain motivation, an intent, I think.

[19:20] Okay.

[19:21] You accidentally eat a tiny person and you never even know it's there.

[19:24] The same way that like all the food we eat has a certain amount of insect parts in it.

[19:27] We never know.

[19:28] Does that mean we're insectivores without knowing it?

[19:30] I mean, I am.

Dan McCoy

[19:32] 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 ate.

Stuart Wellington

[19:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[19:40] When you turn into a fucking Wendigo, you're like, I didn't know about the tiny scientist in my belly.

Elliott Kalan

[19:46] When Lawrence Olivier appeals in Wendigo court, he says, I'd like to file a writ of didn't know.

[19:56] And I guess Judge Wendigo is like, I'll allow it.

Stuart Wellington

[20:01] Oh, man.

Elliott Kalan

[20:02] He has to apply to the governor for a pardon for being a Wendigo.

Dan McCoy

[20:06] Let's just take a moment and step back and appreciate the absurdity of the picture we've painted where Lawrence Olivier has had a spy injected into his stomach who he's eaten and become a Wendigo.

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

[20:22] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[20:23] And it gets even more absurd, Dan, because who shows up but Peter Pan to take Wendigo to Never Neverland to meet the Lost Boys.

[20:30] And they think she's a Wendigo bird.

[20:33] Oh, oof.

[20:34] Is that another helicopter?

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

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

[20:42] Okay, so this is when the movie cuts to the one well-framed shot in the whole film, and it actually startled me.

[20:49] The first time that I saw, there was an actual shot that could have been in a real movie.

[20:54] I literally jumped.

[20:56] It struck me so hard.

[20:58] I was like, wait, did we accidentally find a good shot?

[21:00] Because Neil Breen, he seems to have died of a drug overdose.

[21:04] That's when Neil Breen number two gets up, walks out of that body, and just goes to his house.

[21:11] And we will find out that this second Neil Breen is not everything that, it's not everything he seems needs 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, they've been writing songs.

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

[21:29] 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?

[21:37] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[21:37] Uh-huh.

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

Elliott Kalan

[21:43] All right.

[21:43] Okay, I was going for more of a Christ stigmatic thing.

[21:47] But yeah, also gloves.

[21:49] The migrants make it across the border by knocking down a fence, which has been weakened by the silliest CGI blowtorch effect.

[21:57] Oh, yeah.

[21:57] You can imagine.

[21:58] Yeah, that's one of the...

[21:59] This guy holds up a blowtorch.

[22:01] 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] Yeah.

[22:08] It's amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[22:08] I thought the special effects in last week's movie, Sicilian Vampire, were going to be the silliest special effects that I had watched that year.

[22:18] But no, no, no.

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

[22:22] Yeah.

[22:23] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:24] It was crazy.

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

[22:30] Is it...

[22:30] Would that be at the sillies or the species?

[22:32] The species.

[22:33] So the special effect awards.

[22:34] The species.

[22:35] We're hosted by Joe Pesci.

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

[22:40] Once again, I'm hosting the species.

[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...

[23:01] Okay.

[23:01] So they get brought across the border.

[23:03] It seems like the drugs are being stolen from them, but by the people who already brought them across.

[23:09] Yeah.

[23:09] Yeah, by the coyotes.

[23:10] 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 bounced right off the bat as drug dealers, drug users who the drug...

[23:30] Not even just the big drug dealers know who their customers are.

[23:33] The mules and everybody know who the customers are.

[23:35] Like, it's just an open secret, I guess, that everybody uses drugs.

Dan McCoy

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

[23:50] Or, oh, the lawyers are doing something.

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

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

Stuart Wellington

[24:02] Well, it's a specific...

[24:03] It's a tactic that artists...

[24:05] That 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.

[24:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:16] Or the whole thing is like a bad political cartoon, where everything's labeled really explicitly.

[24:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[24:22] Who's that fucking asshole?

[24:24] Who's that one fucking right-wing cartoonist who does that fucking terrible shit?

[24:28] Oh, god damn it.

[24:29] The one who does the stuff in the post?

[24:30] Yeah.

[24:31] He's the worst.

Elliott Kalan

[24:33] He's the worst.

[24:34] Anyway, the leader of the gang is a black woman, which just shows that Neil is woke.

[24:39] Or, because his casting is diverse.

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

[24:43] I don't know.

[24:44] I don't know, Neil.

[24:44] Where do you fall in the spectrum?

[24:46] Although, I like that...

[24:48] And, of course, the others.

Stuart Wellington

[24:49] I like that we have a strong female character at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[24:52] Oh, yeah.

[24:53] She's like the Imperator Furiosa of the world.

Stuart Wellington

[24:54] So, I think at this point, we've already probably been introduced to some additional characters.

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

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

[25:08] And they appear to be of the same age.

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

[25:13] We are introduced to them as they loudly shout their relationship to each other being,

[25:19] You're my niece.

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

[25:23] We've got to run.

Elliott Kalan

[25:26] We have to keep running.

[25:27] You're my mother.

[25:28] Your mother is my sister.

[25:30] You're my niece.

[25:31] I would love that if...

[25:32] And one is black and the other appears to be Latino.

[25:36] So, it's a...

[25:37] You know.

Dan McCoy

[25:37] But you were saying, Dan.

[25:38] You love one.

[25:39] No, I would just love if that was the way that that character just said everything.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

[25:48] Webster's Dictionary defines running as a motion between...

Elliott Kalan

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

[25:54] Yeah.

[25:55] The woman gang...

[25:56] Why are they escaping?

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

[26:01] other migrants into trailers.

[26:02] So, this woman and her sister's daughter, her niece, they're on the run.

[26:08] Neil Breen, meanwhile, he finds the painted rocks from earlier, which are just sitting out there.

[26:12] Yeah.

[26:12] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[26:18] Now, when they stare at each other, Elliot, does it look to you like that tiger is sitting in a field of snow?

[26:27] And Neil Green's...

[26:28] Neil Green.

[26:29] Ugh.

[26:29] Woof-a-duf-a.

[26:31] I just put my foot in my mouth.

[26:33] Neil Breen's face looks like it's just superimposed over this image of a tiger sitting in snow.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[26:40] Or is that snow supposed to represent the drugs that are being muleed over the border every day?

Elliott Kalan

[26:45] Oh.

[26:46] Interesting read.

[26:47] I think that that snow represents that Neil could most easily get stock footage of a tiger in the snow.

[26:52] Uh-huh.

[26:52] And decided that it was good enough because he seems to be...

[26:56] First, it seems like maybe he and the tiger are challenging each other.

[26:58] No.

[26:58] They're communing.

[26:59] Their spirit's communing together.

[27:01] But really more that he's sharing a very sensitive moment with stock footage of a tiger.

[27:05] At a certain point, it just seems like he's standing in front of stock footage of a tiger.

[27:10] In voiceover, here's where the voiceover comes in.

[27:13] Neil Green begins to narrate.

[27:14] 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, okay.

[27:20] So it's one of those tropes where...

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[27:24] Yeah.

[27:25] Oh, boy.

[27:26] One of those tropes where an alien or robot or whatever has taken...

[27:29] Or time traveler has taken the form of a dead person and will now go about their mysterious business.

[27:35] Meanwhile, the kids are searching the desert for the thing the old man thought they'd found.

[27:39] They pass Breen as a bum and they just kind of like just keep walking.

Stuart Wellington

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

[27:49] Just let it lie.

Elliott Kalan

[27:50] The kids are super...

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

[27:55] It's called Stand By Me.

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

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

[28:02] It is, if anything, it's just an inconvenience to their day.

[28:05] Uh, there's...

[28:06] Then you get to, uh, 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] Uh, and the gang lady yells at them.

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

[28:21] Yeah.

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

[28:23] And it is...

[28:24] Let's do...

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

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

Dan McCoy

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

[28:30] It's, uh...

[28:31] It's got...

Stuart Wellington

[28:32] It's got that one standing lamp that all single guys have in the corner.

Dan McCoy

[28:37] No, it's got like your, uh...

[28:40] Oh, wow.

[28:41] Uh-oh.

[28:41] Yeah, another helicopter.

[28:43] Another helicopter.

[28:43] Did you move to a helicopter pad?

[28:45] Yeah.

[28:46] Is that your house?

[28:47] Yeah.

[28:47] Yeah, did you move to a...

[28:49] I'm on a helicopter landing pad.

[28:50] Okay.

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

[28:53] It's called...

[28:54] It...

[28:54] I feel like we should have some sort of musical sting whenever a helicopter goes by or something.

[28:58] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[28:59] Ba-da!

[29:00] Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[29:02] Yeah.

[29:02] Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[29:03] Yeah, I have a company now called Kalicopter.

[29:05] Mm-hmm.

[29:06] Where you don't...

[29:07] I don't own the helicopter, but I do give you permission to fly it by myself.

[29:10] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[29:11] Why do they want to do that?

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

Elliott Kalan

[29:16] I will...

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

[29:18] The money is good.

[29:19] Dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

[29:20] Yeah.

[29:20] You know?

[29:20] Whatever.

[29:21] But the...

[29:22] I will say living in L.A. sometimes does feel like you're in a movie.

[29:25] We had some people over for dinner, and my house looks out on the Silver Lake Reservoir.

[29:29] At night, you see the cars driving by on the other side, and it was literally like we witnessed

[29:33] a police chase going by across the water, and then helicopters flying over, and it was just

[29:38] like we were literally the bystanders in a movie that you cut to for a minute to show

[29:43] that other people exist in this world of car chases, the danger of the car chase

[29:47] that much more real.

[29:49] And it was like, oh, I just...

[29:50] I was just an extra in my own life.

[29:52] That was amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[29:52] Mm-hmm.

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

Elliott Kalan

[29:58] And a dog went, huh?

[30:00] Yeah.

[30:00] And I didn't even know I had a dog.

Dan McCoy

[30:01] And the weird thing is you were carrying a big pane of glass at the time, too, which shattered

[30:07] as the cars went through.

Elliott Kalan

[30:09] But the glass just shattered out of surprise.

[30:10] Yeah.

[30:11] That's the strange thing.

Stuart Wellington

[30:13] Yeah.

[30:13] Everybody did a spit take onto the glass, and then it shattered.

Elliott Kalan

[30:16] It's so hard that it shattered.

[30:18] Mm-hmm.

[30:19] Revealing a DVD copy of the movie Shattered Glass starring Hayden Christensen.

[30:22] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[30:23] Now, was this the point in the movie, uh, I'm still so distracted by this helicopter?

Elliott Kalan

[30:29] We talked...

[30:30] Sorry.

[30:30] I'll tell it to quiet down.

[30:32] Oh, whoa!

[30:33] It's so low.

[30:34] This is crazy.

[30:35] Oh, you know what it's doing?

[30:37] It's a fire copter, and I think it's picking up water from the reservoir.

[30:40] Oh, okay.

[30:41] So there might be a fire in the hills, which is maybe the most exciting thing I've ever...

[30:45] Most dramatic movie thing I've ever said.

[30:46] Yeah.

[30:47] In real life.

[30:48] There might be a fire in the hills.

Dan McCoy

[30:51] Now, is this the point in the movie where Neil Breen is trying to get the woman to trust

[30:57] him and come into his, uh...

Stuart Wellington

[30:59] Yeah, so he has to clean up his...

[31:01] So he cleans it up?

[31:02] Yeah, clean up that bachelor pad.

Elliott Kalan

[31:03] So he lives in a bachelor pad that's essentially a dirty mattress on the floor of a trailer,

[31:08] which doesn't even have full walls around it.

[31:11] Mm-hmm.

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

[31:16] Yeah.

[31:16] Like, this is the place.

[31:17] It's the human equivalent of, like, when a scorpion hiding under a rock or something

[31:21] like that.

[31:22] But he's like, no, no, no.

[31:24] He's telling them it's safe.

[31:25] And he goes, I'll clean it, which just means a shot of him taking cans one by one and

[31:30] throwing them outside the trailer.

Dan McCoy

[31:33] Yeah, but the best part is the woman is standing outside the trailer and you get these reaction

[31:38] shots as, like, cans fly past her.

[31:41] And she's just like, ah!

[31:42] Ooh!

[31:43] Ah!

[31:44] Like, she's just like, so creeped out by the idea of trash that she has to react to every

[31:49] single thing that flies past her as he throws it.

Elliott Kalan

[31:52] I want to take a moment to talk about this woman who, I don't know the name of the actress,

[31:55] I don't remember it.

[31:56] She is so, like, she's got such heavy makeup for someone who has just been crossing the desert

[32:02] on the run for their lives.

[32:05] And she, like, but you can tell that she and Neil have a real connection.

[32:09] Uh-huh.

[32:10] You know?

[32:10] Oh, cool.

[32:11] Okay.

[32:11] I wonder if they're going out.

[32:12] Do I hear wedding bells?

Stuart Wellington

[32:14] Uh, maybe.

[32:15] It could just be the helicopter.

Elliott Kalan

[32:16] Yeah.

[32:17] That's a good point.

[32:18] Oh, the helicopter has bells hanging on it.

[32:20] Yep.

[32:20] No, that's what it is.

Stuart Wellington

[32:21] But it's wedding bells.

Elliott Kalan

[32:23] It's a bellicopter.

[32:26] Okay.

[32:27] But.

[32:27] I mean, there is a helicopter called a bell helicopter, right?

Dan McCoy

[32:30] Like a Huey?

[32:31] I am not a helicopter expert, nor have I ever claimed to be one.

Elliott Kalan

[32:35] Sir.

[32:35] Dan, your business card says comedy writer slash helicopter expert.

[32:39] That's helicopter parenting.

[32:42] Oh, I'm so sorry.

[32:42] Yeah.

[32:44] I get it now.

[32:45] Okay.

[32:45] I apologize.

[32:46] That's on me.

[32:47] You know what?

[32:47] From everybody here at the podcast.

[32:50] I was a mea culpa.

[32:52] I was about to say.

[32:53] It's not the same thing as mea culpa.

[32:55] It's manja manja.

Dan McCoy

[32:59] I mean, they may have.

[33:00] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[33:15] Yeah, she doesn't.

[33:16] Wait a minute.

Stuart Wellington

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

[33:23] No, that's just got to be a coincidence, guys.

Elliott Kalan

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

[33:32] Oh, right.

[33:33] She saw that tiger tattoo on Angelina Jolie's back.

[33:36] She's like, I want a tattoo like that.

[33:37] But anyway, it's all symbols within symbols.

[33:41] 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, which are never named.

[33:50] One of them just goes, I'm pregnant.

[33:52] And it felt like a community theater production of Orange is the New Black.

[33:57] Just like diverse women in a room just talking out loud their problems.

[34:02] And meanwhile on the bus, two guys fight over a water jug.

[34:05] And it is hilarious.

[34:06] It is like the pissiest, least dramatic fight over life-giving water that I think I've ever seen.

[34:13] It's like if the entire movie Waterworld was just two guys on a bus arguing, like just mad at each other because they don't like sitting next to me.

[34:22] Yeah.

[34:23] Okay.

[34:24] Breen 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 philosophical voiceovers that are just kind of nonsense throughout the movie over shots of him wandering through the desert.

[34:38] Meanwhile, at the migrant house, one of the migrant women hangs herself in the shower and the leader of the gang, the lady, she goes, oh, damn.

[34:48] Neil has more monologues about how only the laws of the spirit realm remain the same.

[34:52] Human laws are constantly changing.

[34:56] The niece falls asleep in the desert and Neil Breen, does he like emerge out of a rock and talk to her?

[35:02] It's very, she calls him.

[35:03] I don't remember.

[35:05] Yeah.

[35:05] Meanwhile, then Breen goes, tries to approach the ant and she throws a rock at him in self-defense, but then apologizes and cleans the wound on his head with a tissue.

[35:13] Uh-huh.

[35:13] And by cleans, I mean just kind of like smears at it.

[35:16] Yeah.

[35:16] The tissue she already, with what you have to assume is a filthy tissue.

[35:19] She's been carrying it with her.

Stuart Wellington

[35:21] Filthy with the makeup that she's had to remove before she reapplies every morning.

Elliott Kalan

[35:27] Either that or she found it on the floor of Neil Breen's trailer, which means who knows what parasites and bacteria are crawling on that thing.

[35:35] Terrible.

[35:36] Uh, later she asks him how he's doing and he says, I'm fine.

[35:39] Uh, and she says to herself, who is this guy?

[35:41] And, uh, he names himself, he introduced himself as Till and spells it T-H-G-I-L.

[35:48] And it's only a little later that she realizes he saw the word light on a, on a package that he threw out of his trailer and took that as his name.

Dan McCoy

[35:56] Yeah, but it.

[35:57] But made it back.

[35:58] I love that he, in order to facilitate this realization of hers, he made a point of spelling out the name that he just came up with by looking at a thing.

Elliott Kalan

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

[36:12] Yeah.

[36:12] Like, that would make more sense.

[36:14] But this is also, we're like, at that point, I think we're almost halfway through the movie and this is when the characters start getting names.

[36:20] Yeah.

[36:21] Up till now, they've, they've just been anonymous figures.

[36:23] Well, you know, they're allegorical figures.

Stuart Wellington

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

[36:30] Scrawl.

[36:31] No, what's their niece's name?

[36:33] It's like, her name is Kim.

[36:35] Like, they have the most, like, I don't know, like mundane, like, that's my, like a person you'd bump into the mall name.

Elliott Kalan

[36:45] You mean like, like Bedelia?

Stuart Wellington

[36:47] Yep.

[36:48] Yep, a totally normal name that you, that you get sick of hearing.

Elliott Kalan

[36:52] Like Zerelda?

Stuart Wellington

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

[37:00] This is Bedelia 2.

[37:02] This is, this is BD.

[37:05] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[37:06] Like Xanthippe.

[37:07] Yep.

[37:07] Yeah.

[37:08] Like a name like that.

[37:08] Okay.

[37:10] Like Zenobia, a name like that.

[37:12] Okay.

[37:12] Yeah, like a normal lady name.

[37:14] More voiceover from Neil Breen about how in taking on human form, he takes on human feeling and is vulnerable to human traits.

[37:22] Don't know what that means?

[37:23] Never gets explained.

[37:24] He also says that everything that power does, it does in a circle.

[37:27] And he starts just spinning around in circles among ringstones.

[37:30] And that goes on for a while.

Stuart Wellington

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

[37:38] Uh, 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] Uh, some of the early stuff with like Sid Haig and stuff where the crazy cannibals are living.

[37:50] But.

[37:51] Oh, could be.

[37:51] Yeah.

[37:52] I'll tell you what.

Elliott Kalan

[37:53] Those were not the cannibals you want to be around.

[37:56] The bone, the, the, that those Tomahawk cannibals, they were crazy cannibals.

[37:59] They were neither fine nor young.

[38:01] Nope.

[38:02] I want to be around a cannibal.

[38:03] I want to be a fine young cannibal.

[38:05] Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[38:06] Because they, they drive you crazy or whatever.

[38:10] Now, would you call Hannibal Lecter as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins a fine old cannibal?

[38:14] Because he's no longer young, but he's very elegant.

Stuart Wellington

[38:17] Yeah.

[38:18] I mean, I think he's pretty fine.

[38:20] He's delicate.

Elliott Kalan

[38:21] Yes, he's, he's like a fine old cannibal.

Dan McCoy

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

[38:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:27] But what, now what would a coarse young cannibal be?

[38:29] I guess that's the opposite of a fine young cannibal.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[38:36] Oh, I see.

[38:38] So it's grittier.

[38:39] The mouthfeel is different, but it's actually healthier.

[38:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[38:42] Yeah.

[38:43] Yeah.

[38:43] Why is it healthier?

[38:44] Does it help you, uh, help you do movements easier?

[38:48] Like.

[38:49] Uh, yeah, I think so.

[38:51] Like what kind of.

[38:51] I'm talking about, I'm talking about BAMs, dude.

[38:53] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[38:58] Uh, kinda.

[38:59] I think all the cool folks out there.

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

[39:07] It isn't?

[39:08] Oh, shit.

[39:09] Wait, Dan.

[39:10] I've got so much re-editing to do.

[39:14] Yeah, this is, this is a PG-rated podcast, Dan, the whole time, right?

Elliott Kalan

[39:18] Yeah.

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

[39:22] Uh, I'm very distressed, by the way.

Dan McCoy

[39:25] Whenever I hear of parents letting their kids listen to this podcast, I don't want to be

[39:30] responsible for that.

[39:32] I, uh, I worry about what I'm putting out into the world.

[39:36] You don't have to worry about it.

Elliott Kalan

[39:36] You're not Charles Barkley.

[39:38] You're not a role model.

[39:38] Okay.

[39:39] I'm certainly not a role model.

[39:40] That's true.

[39:41] You know, just because, just because you dominate the court doesn't mean that people should look

[39:45] to you for how to take care of their kids.

Stuart Wellington

[39:46] Yeah, just because he beat the shit out of Godzilla doesn't mean he's a role model.

[39:53] On the court.

[39:54] On the court.

[39:55] Not in like, not in person.

Elliott Kalan

[39:58] In a fight, Godzilla would win because he has fire breath.

[40:01] And Charles Barkley has at best, what, like cold breath, maybe?

[40:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:05] Maybe.

[40:06] Maybe.

[40:06] It's not fair too.

[40:07] 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] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:13] And I mean, think of all the obstacles that Godzilla has to overcome in order to learn

[40:17] how to dunk with those little arms.

[40:19] Exactly.

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

[40:22] No.

Elliott Kalan

[40:23] No.

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

Stuart Wellington

[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

[40:31] kick attack where his tail is still attached to the ground.

[40:35] Yeah.

[40:36] I'm assuming like propelling him forward like a slug might propel a human body forward.

[40:42] Right.

Elliott Kalan

[40:43] This.

[40:44] Wait, what?

[40:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:45] So like, you know, when you're standing on a bunch of slugs and the slugs undulate their

[40:51] muscular body mass and you, and you slide forward super quickly.

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

Elliott Kalan

[41:00] Oh, oh, when you're at a roller rink and they run at a roller skit.

[41:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:03] And you're like, and you're like, I want to, I want to impress this girl, make her my steady.

[41:10] So I'm going to slide up holding a fucking malted and a thing of disco fries.

Dan McCoy

[41:17] And I'm glad you asked for clarification on this, by the way, Elliot, because I was willing

[41:20] to just accept it on its face.

Elliott Kalan

[41:23] I was amazed at it.

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

[41:26] You were just like, yeah, slugs.

[41:28] I get it.

[41:28] Yeah.

[41:29] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[41:29] Okay.

[41:30] Now the problem is that the roller rink, that's a place where salted food is very common.

[41:35] So you have to be careful when you navigate using your slug skates.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[41:45] The other is at the end of the sluggy Hawkins skate, the girls choose skate.

[41:49] Yep.

[41:50] The rink is just so coated in that ooze.

[41:53] It's just like, you got to clean it up afterwards.

[41:55] And that's when they bring out, what, a Zamboni?

[41:58] Yeah.

[41:58] They scoop it all up.

[41:59] They feed it to the Ninja Turtles.

[42:01] So they get big and strong.

[42:03] Wait, they put it on a pizza?

[42:05] Because that's what Ninja Turtles do.

Stuart Wellington

[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 that 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.

[42:20] Okay, I guess you're right.

[42:21] Guys, can I issue a retraction to my earlier statement?

[42:25] The Ninja Turtles are not from the future.

Elliott Kalan

[42:28] What if Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, they came out with a statement.

[42:32] They held a press conference.

[42:33] They're like, by the way, all the people who are eating pizza, that was just a visual metaphor

[42:38] for them choking down a lot of slugs.

Stuart Wellington

[42:41] All the news channels change.

[42:43] They interrupt all the TV channels that are up there programming for this press conference

[42:47] with Kevin Eastman.

Elliott Kalan

[42:49] They interrupt this coverage, this live coverage of the Super Bowl to go direct to this press

[42:53] conference for Ninja Turtles creators no longer own the rights.

[42:57] They sold it to Nickelodeon, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

[43:00] And you just go there and Julie Strain is just introducing them.

Stuart Wellington

[43:03] This is set in the future, so I'm assuming they're interrupting a screening of the TV show

[43:09] Young Sheldon, the most popular television show in history.

Elliott Kalan

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

[43:14] Okay, what's that?

[43:15] That's my only problem with it.

[43:16] Otherwise, it's flawless.

[43:18] Young Sheldon wears a bow tie, right, to signify that he's a nerd.

[43:21] Uh-huh.

[43:22] Grown-up Sheldon doesn't wear a fucking bow tie.

[43:24] He wears, like, superhero t-shirts.

Stuart Wellington

[43:25] That's the thing.

[43:26] At the end of season one, you're going to find out when he stopped wearing bow ties.

Elliott Kalan

[43:31] Oh, I see.

[43:32] So that's, the ads are supposed to raise questions in my mind of, like, it's like a Better Call

[43:36] Saul type thing?

[43:37] That's the thing.

[43:38] Oh.

[43:39] When did he turn into Saul?

Stuart Wellington

[43:40] It introduces stakes you didn't expect it would have.

[43:43] Okay, that's what's so impressive about it.

[43:45] Like, in Young Sheldon, it opens up, Sheldon is a fucking awesome dude.

[43:49] He's partying all the time.

[43:50] He's not weird with anybody.

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

Elliott Kalan

[43:56] Now, here's my question.

[43:58] Are they going to show him testing out different catchphrases?

[44:00] Yeah.

[44:00] So I'm going to be like, Bazoinga.

Stuart Wellington

[44:02] Yeah, Bazingo.

[44:03] Barungal.

[44:05] Bazingo.

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

[44:11] to die forever.

Dan McCoy

[44:14] I thought you were going to be like.

[44:15] All right.

[44:15] So we were just making jokes, and it just came over the wire that young Sheldon died.

Elliott Kalan

[44:20] Oh, no.

[44:21] Oh, no.

[44:22] What a tragedy.

[44:23] Oh, he had so much left to give.

[44:25] Literally, in that now there's a time paradox.

[44:27] He's not going to become grown-up Sheldon.

[44:30] Okay.

[44:31] So, Stuart, you said you want to die forever.

[44:33] Let's do the next best thing, the closest equivalent, and talk some more about Neil Breen

[44:36] movies.

[44:36] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[44:37] So we're talking about a man from the future, or a Ninja Turtle from the future.

[44:42] Uh-huh.

[44:43] Neil Breen's character says he's from the future.

[44:45] A future that I'm presuming nobody laughs at all because PC culture has killed comedy.

Elliott Kalan

[44:51] Oh, well, we'll get to, yeah, because, well, first, before we get to Neil Breen's thesis

[44:56] statement, Neil Breen makes an abandoned desert piano play music again and explains that music

[45:01] is magical.

[45:01] It's timeless.

[45:02] Uh, he talks a lot about you can't travel the path without becoming the path, blah, blah,

[45:07] blah.

[45:07] The ant realizes he made up his name.

[45:10] He says he's from the future, blah, blah, blah.

[45:11] Let's just skip.

[45:13] He shows that he has the magic ability to make cans rise into the air through an obvious

[45:17] reverse shot of cans falling down.

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

[45:22] Talks about how he can manipulate the planes of space and time, uh, and bend time.

[45:26] It all makes sense.

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

[45:28] Yeah.

[45:28] He says he's, and 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, uh, 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.

[45:49] And the news anchors bad mouth politicians when they're off the air, but they kiss his ass

[45:53] when they're on camera and they call themselves out as biased.

[45:56] Uh, they, but then they were talking.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[46:02] No, no.

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

[46:05] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

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

[46:07] They just like chatting about how they, uh, yeah, they're hypocrites.

[46:10] That's their favorite.

Elliott Kalan

[46:11] About how they're biased and they're putting across their corporate parents message, even

[46:14] 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

[46:20] to back it up, that the president and quote, the prime minister of which country we're

[46:24] never told are missing, as have many management people.

[46:29] 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] Two, if a news anchor said on, said on camera, the president is missing, I guess all the harmful

Dan McCoy

[46:42] people in the world are gone.

Elliott Kalan

[46:43] That would be crazy.

[46:45] That's not journalistic objectivity.

[46:47] Even with our current president, who is a bad person who hurts people.

[46:50] That's it.

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

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

Stuart Wellington

[46:57] Yeah, let's just move forward with our day.

Dan McCoy

[47:00] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[47:08] It's like, hey, I don't want to be a slylock fox or anything, but I know that four people

[47:14] have disappeared, so I'm going to assume all the people who are bad in the world are disappeared.

Stuart Wellington

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

[47:21] of people disappeared.

[47:22] 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

[47:30] feel like half the people in the country would be like, oh, I guess the rapture's happening.

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

Elliott Kalan

[47:37] I guess he was the best of us.

[47:39] Yeah.

[47:39] Because he's the only one who disappeared.

[47:42] 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

[47:50] very mad at the gang lady and dissolves her into nothingness.

[47:53] He tells the women, go back to your country.

[47:56] Stop being lazy and overthrow your governments.

[47:59] Start revolutions.

[48:01] The time is now.

[48:02] And the migrants are all like, well, we escaped violence and persecution and economic inequality

[48:07] in our own nations.

[48:08] 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.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

[48:17] I mean, when this handsome, muscular alien shows up and tells them to go back.

Elliott Kalan

[48:23] I don't know if those are such actual words.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[48:31] It resembles nothing so much as like Jeff Goldblum after a bender.

[48:35] Yep.

[48:35] And maybe his eyesight is very bad now.

Stuart Wellington

[48:38] What is up with having watched this right after Sicilian Vampire, I'm struck by the idea

[48:43] that both these guys so obviously dye their thinning hair.

[48:48] Uh-huh.

[48:49] And like, man, I get it.

[48:51] You get old.

[48:52] You want to stay looking young.

[48:54] But like, I feel like it's such a symbol of these guys who are writer, director, stars

[48:59] of their own movies that they're like, I got to stay young forever.

Elliott Kalan

[49:03] There is a...

[49:04] It's like...

[49:05] Go on.

[49:06] No, no.

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

[49:10] vanity project.

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

Dan McCoy

[49:12] Oh, just that the going home and overthrowing your government also like raises like a weird

[49:18] 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?

Elliott Kalan

[49:30] Well, you know, they're those people who are like, they aren't really bad, but they were

[49:33] in a bad situation.

[49:35] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[49:35] I think it's two things.

[49:37] I think one is that he's trying to empower them and feel like they have some kind of

[49:41] 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

[49:50] might accidentally or on purpose kill somebody who is not a bad person, in which case they'd be

[49:57] outing themselves as a bad person.

[49:59] So he could remove.

[50:00] Yeah, it's.

[50:01] Yep.

[50:01] It's entrapment.

[50:02] The movie.

Elliott Kalan

[50:05] Now we get to one of the, this is, I think, my favorite scene in the whole movie, to be honest.

[50:11] Okay.

[50:11] Neil Breen goes to.

[50:12] Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

[50:14] When he goes to this, when he goes to the rich people's bar.

[50:16] Yes.

[50:18] He goes to a mansion, makes the guards disappear.

[50:20] He changes, with Through Magic, he changes his dirty jumpsuit into a tuxedo or like a

[50:26] suit.

[50:27] And then this is just scene after scene of him and different people in front of very clearly

[50:34] like green screen composited in fancy rooms.

[50:38] And in each one, a different person is talking about how openly evil they are, how open, like

[50:43] they bribe politicians.

[50:44] They're doing things for their companies that hurt people.

[50:47] They're ruining other people's lives.

[50:48] And they're so cheerful about it.

[50:50] And it's also artificial that it feels like Neil Breen like walked into a, like a game of

[50:55] the Sims where everyone's like corrupt.

[50:57] Yeah.

[50:58] It's like it is.

[50:59] 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

[51:07] terms.

[51:08] Yeah.

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

[51:14] for decades to get what we want.

[51:17] And we're going to raise health care costs for ordinary people.

[51:20] And like that's, this is the, these are the conversations that they're having.

[51:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

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

Stuart Wellington

[51:29] Isn't that betraying the public's trust?

[51:31] 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

[51:43] villains.

[51:44] Yeah.

[51:45] Oh, that's a very clever.

[51:47] Just like how in, in other countries in Demolition Man, it wasn't Taco Bell that won the, the, the restaurant

[51:54] wars.

[51:54] It was Pizza Hut because Taco Bell wasn't available in certain markets.

[51:58] Oh, I didn't know that.

[52:00] Interesting.

[52:00] Yeah.

[52:01] You can learn a lot when you just go on YouTube and look up Demolition Man.

Dan McCoy

[52:07] You certainly can learn a lot.

[52:10] Tip from a pro.

Elliott Kalan

[52:12] Like, oh, I really need to figure out how to unclog my dishwasher.

[52:15] I'll go on YouTube.

Stuart Wellington

[52:16] Let's see.

[52:17] Let's see what Simon Phoenix would do with that.

[52:19] Oh, he'd put some dynamite in it.

[52:21] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[52:22] Okay.

[52:23] I'll try it.

[52:24] He'd use three shells somehow.

[52:25] Unexplained.

[52:27] They, and this goes on for a long time, this cycle of repetitive scenes.

[52:30] And then he leaves and they all go, who was that guy?

[52:34] And then Neil Breen is outside the mansion and he blows it up.

[52:40] So it's like, why did he bought, he like it, this endless scenes of people talking about

[52:44] how evil they are, him going, but isn't that corrupt?

[52:47] And then walking outside and blowing up the building.

[52:49] The reporters are announcing more disappearances of harmful people worldwide.

[52:53] It's very repetitive.

[52:55] Apparently they, they go out of the way to mention that reality show casts have also disappeared.

[52:59] And then they say the wars have stopped and those causing the wars have vanished.

[53:04] And they announced that whole judicial systems cannot be found.

[53:07] Like it's the way they're phrasing it is crazy.

[53:10] And they're so not excited or worried.

[53:14] Like if this was really happening.

[53:16] And again, there's no point in a Neil Breen movie that you can ever say if this was really

[53:19] happening, it exists on a different plane of, of reality.

[53:22] But if this was really happy, you've got happening.

[53:24] You got to imagine there'd be some sort of panic, even if they weren't prominent people

[53:27] who were disappearing.

[53:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

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

[53:33] And I want to mention that this too, also just, this is a, another Neil Breen trope is

[53:38] there's always some sort of a reaping in his movies.

[53:41] Like he is clearly a guy who has deep bitterness towards something.

[53:47] I'm not sure exactly what, but he always want, like, he just like wants to kill bad people

[53:52] in his movies.

Stuart Wellington

[53:53] I don't know about you guys, but the idea that the idea that he's a guy who is able to fund

[54:01] 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?

[54:09] Yeah.

[54:10] Look.

[54:10] He's getting what he loves.

[54:11] He's, he's able to express himself creatively.

[54:13] Isn't that what we all want?

Elliott Kalan

[54:16] Very true.

[54:16] But he has this message and he wants to change the world for the better.

[54:19] 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

[54:24] the way he does what needs to be done, which is apparently the murder of most of the

[54:28] human population.

[54:29] Uh, so it's, it gets a little unclear at this point, whether Breen is an alien or a robot

[54:34] from the future.

[54:35] Uh, and it was around this point that I started realizing, I think Neil Breen might be an alien

[54:39] or a robot because he seems to have never heard a human being speak and doesn't know how to

[54:44] replicate those, those vocal patterns.

[54:46] He appears on the news set, makes the anchors disappear, sits down, which I find hilarious

[54:51] that he then is like, well, now it's my turn to use the anchor down.

[54:55] Time to take a load off.

[54:59] I've been disappearing people all over the world.

[55:01] Gotta rest my dogs.

[55:02] Uh, and then he just explains the plot to the camera for a while.

[55:06] He talks about how human evolution has ended.

[55:08] We've reached our genetic and psychological limits, he says.

[55:12] And, uh, we have an inability to be honest and fair and all the media has been sullied.

[55:16] And he talks about corruption.

[55:17] He throws political correctness in and says that it has ruined the human species.

[55:21] It's like, that is a huge, that's a 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 other people.

Stuart Wellington

[55:32] Elliot, you have to understand that young upcoming comedians are under attack because they can't use the same jokes older comedians got away with decades ago.

Elliott Kalan

[55:44] And older comedians, when they play at colleges, can no longer use material that used to work in Vegas perfectly well for drunk middle-aged people.

Stuart Wellington

[55:52] Are you saying older comedians that are-

[55:54] That's ruining the human species.

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

[56:01] Big fucking surprise!

[56:04] That's what I'm saying.

[56:05] But it's also, that's ruined the human species.

Elliott Kalan

[56:07] And then he says, I have eliminated 300 million humans from the planet today, which, percentage-wise, is not that much.

[56:15] There's over, what, 6 billion people on the planet?

[56:18] 7 billion people?

[56:19] Yeah.

[56:19] But 300 million people, like, that's almost the population of the United States.

[56:22] Neil Breen apparently was wandering the earth, just disappearing on his own.

[56:26] Yeah, well, this, you know.

Dan McCoy

[56:27] I just want to, yeah, reiterate, this is our hero.

Stuart Wellington

[56:30] This is the hero of the movie has killed 300 million people.

[56:34] Oh, I'm so glad that you just said that, because when you interrupted Elliot, I was worried you were about to start railing against PC culture again, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[56:42] Oh, yeah.

[56:43] Look.

[56:44] I hope the listeners are never subjected to the rants that Dan subjects us to off the mic.

[56:48] Dan's like, look, isn't 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.

Stuart Wellington

[57:01] I guess, Elliot, you're not interested in pushing boundaries and moving the medium forward.

Elliott Kalan

[57:08] No, good point.

[57:09] I want to move it backwards.

Stuart Wellington

[57:10] If family guy can't do it, Elliot.

[57:12] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[57:26] Which is interesting, because Neil Breen literally says about all the bad and dishonest people in the world, I have turned them all to dust.

[57:32] 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 regulations.

[57:39] Like, he turns into Cosmic Alex Jones.

[57:41] Yeah.

[57:42] And goes, and he says, the cleanse has begun.

[57:45] And it was at this point that, like, to be honest, the movie stopped being fun for me to watch.

[57:50] Like, Final Findings, I found so fun.

[57:53] Final Findings?

[57:55] What was it?

[57:56] What did I say?

[57:56] Final Findings.

[57:57] Oh, fateful.

[57:58] Fateful.

[58:00] Fateful.

[58:01] Fateful.

[58:01] Fateful Findings.

[58:02] Are you okay over there, Elliot?

[58:04] When I was watching Final Fantasy Findings, I was like, this is hilarious.

[58:10] This guy's so crazy, blah, blah, blah.

[58:12] Is at this point where he is, and maybe, and I, no, not maybe.

[58:14] It's because of where we are as a country right now.

[58:16] That watching this crazy man sitting on a news anchor set saying to the camera, or not on

[58:21] a set, I'm sorry, in front of a poorly composited image of a news channel saying, we need to,

[58:29] all these things are ruining humanity.

[58:31] We need to overthrow them.

[58:32] The cleanse has begun.

[58:33] I was like, oh, like, this is a fascist movie.

[58:36] Like, this is not a non-movie for me anymore.

[58:38] Even knowing that nobody watches this movie.

[58:41] Like, the only people who watch this movie are watching it to make fun of it.

[58:45] But it was knowing that Neil Breen, like, feels these things deeply enough that it's now this

[58:51] 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 time.

[59:00] I mean, that's...

[59:01] So I guess not as much as I thought.

Stuart Wellington

[59:02] I mean, that's kind of how we feel after reviewing a Frank D'Angelo movie, like Sicilian

[59:07] Vampire, where you're like, oh, yeah, he's a total shithead who, uh, like, took legal actions

[59:14] against a woman who accused him of, what, like, sexual abuse or something?

Elliott Kalan

[59:18] Yeah, something like that.

[59:19] Sexual assault.

[59:19] Yeah.

[59:20] That, like, you know, that is the thing.

[59:21] It's like, this guy's crazy.

[59:22] Look at this crazy movie.

[59:23] Oh, also, he used his money to basically buy his way out of sexual assault charges.

[59:28] Or out of a conviction, even, I think.

[59:30] Uh, if I'm remembering.

[59:31] I can't remember correctly.

[59:32] But, like, that was the story about, like, then the judge and I think the prosecutor were

[59:35] at a party at Frank D'Angelo's restaurant afterwards.

[59:38] Uh-huh.

[59:38] And stuff, it's like...

Dan McCoy

[59:39] So it's...

[59:40] I guess I can't remember that.

[59:41] And they're like, you know about those charges?

[59:43] Forget about it.

Stuart Wellington

[59:44] Oh, great one.

[59:46] Yeah, yeah.

[59:46] Scene from the movie.

[59:47] Yeah.

[59:48] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[59:55] And it really makes me value the people who make big Hollywood bad movies because they

[1:00:00] seem to be, you know, not...

[1:00:02] They're not...

[1:00:02] Don't seem to be bad guys and ladies.

[1:00:04] They're just, you know, sellouts or people who lost control of a production or sometimes

[1:00:10] they're bad guys.

[1:00:11] But it seems like there's...

[1:00:12] It was just like...

[1:00:13] It's always jarring to watch a thing for fun and be like, oh, the person who made this

[1:00:18] in their real life is someone...

[1:00:19] It's a monster.

[1:00:20] I don't...

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:26] Or gotten their...

[1:00:27] Helped get their message out.

[1:00:29] Yeah.

[1:00:30] Chilling, really.

[1:00:30] Which is why next time we'll be talking about like Boss Baby or something.

[1:00:34] Exactly.

[1:00:34] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:36] Oh, dude.

[1:00:36] You don't want to know the things that Boss Baby did.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:39] Oh, no.

[1:00:41] And all the...

[1:00:41] Anytime a baby gets into power, they're just, you know...

[1:00:45] I would like to...

[1:00:47] What if it was...

[1:00:48] Now, this is something I should say.

[1:00:49] What if the end of Boss Baby was Boss Baby killing 800 million people?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:53] Oh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:54] I mean, that would be...

[1:00:55] That would be more than any person 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 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] Oh, 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, you know, a short convict.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:22] Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:23] The fucking plot of Little Man over here.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[1:01:31] But anyway, so that's what Boss Baby 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 about how terrible the world is.

[1:01:50] They take their old man into the desert, but they say, oh no, the authorities might be on the way too.

[1:01:55] They must have picked up the signal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:56] It feels like his wheelchair wasn't designed for off-road travel.

Elliott Kalan

[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 wheelchair-bound mentor can be in the jungle in that one, 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 Breen, and they love him.

[1:02:22] They're like, take us with you.

[1:02:23] And it made me imagine a teen magazine for fans of Neil Breen called Breen Teens.

[1:02:28] Mm-hmm.

[1:02:29] Where there's always a pin-up of Neil Breen and just like stories about him and quizzes.

[1:02:35] And I feel like there's probably a market for that magazine, right?

[1:02:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:40] Yeah, I mean, clearly we were just talking about how he has kind of crazy fascist beliefs.

[1:02:45] So I bet there's probably people who'd like to read it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:51] Yeah, or it's called like Tiger Breen or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:53] Tiger Breen.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:54] Which makes sense.

[1:02:55] There's tigers all over this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:57] Yep, just a bunch of pin-ups of his taint.

[1:02:59] Breen explains to them.

[1:03:00] Did you say pin-ups of his taint, Dan?

[1:03:03] Yeah, I did.

[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?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:14] Dan, now we can only say the F word once before our rating gets pushed up again.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:18] I'm sorry, guys.

[1:03:19] I didn't know that we were restricting the quadrants that our podcast could play to.

[1:03:26] Yeah, that's okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:27] This used to be a four-quadrant podcast.

[1:03:31] Teens, grown-ups, manatees, and also trees.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:36] What about manateens?

[1:03:38] One-quadrant movie, just trees.

[1:03:41] Manatees or manateens?

[1:03:42] Manatees, 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] Come on.

[1:03:52] I don't.

[1:03:53] Guys, let me tell you something about manatees.

[1:03:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:59] But Neil, before you think that there's going to be like a shootout with the police or something,

[1:04:03] 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 secrets.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:14] He just dumps them into their hand.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:18] Now, what the teens are supposed to tell people about meeting Neil Breen, I have no idea.

[1:04:23] And how those future jewels that he's dumped their hand.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:25] I mean, we're having a difficult enough time describing Neil Breen today on this podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[1:04:43] They track her to an abandoned mine.

[1:04:46] There's a guy there who you think at first is going to be a threat.

[1:04:48] But no, he's just a guy who likes to hang out and make fake ghost shadows on the wall and scare people away.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:53] And he's there suffering from PTSD, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:58] Yes, and with a wave of his hand, Neil Breen frees him of his PTSD.

[1:05:02] Now, that's more plot than I think the rest of the movie contains.

[1:05:05] And they pack it into like two and a half minutes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:08] Oh, sorry.

[1:05:09] Sorry, Elliot.

[1:05:10] I got a cat bumping into the microphone.

[1:05:13] Okay, go on.

[1:05:14] Continue.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:18] Neil Breen welcomes back the spirits of people he killed earlier.

[1:05:21] Yep.

[1:05:23] And he brings people back.

[1:05:24] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:25] I forgot about that.

[1:05:26] Jesus.

[1:05:27] That he has the power of life and death like that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:30] Did you mention that the aunt's ex-husband comes after her with a gun and kills her?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:39] You know what it was?

[1:05:40] I couldn't remember who that...

[1:05:42] I didn't know who that character was.

[1:05:43] Yeah.

[1:05:44] So, yeah.

[1:05:45] Just a random person.

[1:05:47] Yeah, it's her ex-husband.

[1:05:48] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:48] Who we haven't heard about, I feel like, for the rest of the movie.

[1:05:52] Yeah, he's tracked her down over the border, over that fence that the migrants knocked over.

[1:05:58] And he, I guess, shoots her, right?

[1:06:01] Yeah.

[1:06:01] In the head.

[1:06:02] In the head, yeah.

[1:06:04] And then, luckily, Neil Breen makes him shoot himself.

[1:06:07] And then he brings her back to life.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:10] I guess he decided he didn't want to use his disappearing powers on that one.

[1:06:13] Not worth it.

[1:06:14] I'll just let you shoot yourself in the head.

[1:06:16] Yeah.

[1:06:16] And the aunt and the niece can't agree on whether they're going to go with Neil Breen to wherever he's going.

[1:06:22] And Neil Breen and the aunt's hands in close-up, they lightly touch pinkies very tentatively 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 and then moving away and then touching again and moving away.

[1:06:37] And I cannot imagine what it's supposed to be communicating.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:42] I mean, in this crazy world, that's about all the human contact we really have, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:48] Yeah.

[1:06:49] Just pinkies.

[1:06:50] I mean, I guess what he's saying is the only true bond between humans is the pinkie swear.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:55] That's exactly what he's saying.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:57] Which is why in this new world that he's creating, Michelle from Full House will be the true leader and divine inspiration.

[1:07:05] 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 explains, the cleanse has begun.

[1:07:17] And it's like, what the?

[1:07:18] What?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:19] It seems sort of inconsiderate of him.

[1:07:22] Like, knowing that he can make people just disappear, that he left his, like, killing fields there.

[1:07:27] Like, there's just, corpses are rotting in the sun there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:32] I kind of assume that that's where they go when he's, like, when he makes them disappear.

[1:07:36] Like, he kind of.

[1:07:37] When he goes out to the desert?

[1:07:38] Wishing him to the.

[1:07:39] Cornfield.

[1:07:39] Yeah, he just wishes them into the desert.

[1:07:41] Yeah.

[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, it's the horizon.

[1:07:48] It's just dead human bodies.

[1:07:50] Formerly living people.

[1:07:52] Rotting in the sun.

Stuart Wellington

[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] The scale of the loss and also.

[1:08:04] And, like, what do they have to do to keep from being amongst the dead?

[1:08:09] Do they have to pretend to like that pile of shitty glitter that Neil Breen poured into their hands?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:17] They're like, okay.

[1:08:19] I'm being confronted with a homicidal robot alien from the future that can bend space and time.

[1:08:24] 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.

[1:08:31] The other thing is, 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.

[1:08:36] If I hurt his.

[1:08:37] Well, I hurt his feelings by saying I don't want these.

[1:08:39] These.

[1:08:40] 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.

[1:08:44] What.

[1:08:45] Like, everyone's going to live on.

[1:08:46] On the edge of.

[1:08:47] Doubt at all times that they could be disappeared at any moment.

[1:08:50] By this arbitrary cosmic judge of human behavior.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:53] Yeah, it's that Twilight Zone, the movie sequence, right?

[1:08:57] With the little kid?

[1:08:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:58] Yeah, yeah.

[1:08:59] It's a good life.

[1:09:00] It's basically that.

[1:09:01] Yeah, everyone's like, ah.

[1:09:02] Yeah, it's a good thing you made all those people disappear, Neil Breen.

Stuart Wellington

[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 for all those shots, Neil Breen.

[1:09:11] It really captures the majesty of the painted desert.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:14] It's a very convincing tiger, Neil.

[1:09:17] Oh, no.

[1:09:17] It very much looks like there's a real tiger there.

[1:09:21] And, of course, Neil Breen walks off 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 to survive as a species.

[1:09:31] And then he gets sparkly green effects thrown on him, which I guess means that he's also dissolving into space.

[1:09:39] And the northern lights get superimposed in the sky, but they're also green.

[1:09:43] And that's the end of the movie.

[1:09:45] Yeah.

[1:09:45] So when you said Neil Breen earlier, I think maybe you just knew a little bit more than we thought.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:59] Spoiler alert.

[1:10:00] It's got all the things.

[1:10:01] It's got all the, like, worst.

[1:10:03] It's so cheap looking.

[1:10:04] 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 with fateful findings, I was seeing inside the mind of a weirdo.

[1:10:14] And now I'm like, oh, no, no.

[1:10:15] I'm seeing much deeper into that mind that I wanted to see.

[1:10:18] Like, his message is a little too clear for me, and I want to step back a little bit.

[1:10:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:23] When we were watching it, when we were watching the movie, Dan, I mean, I think it's been described

[1:10:27] before, but it is like watching a movie by David Lynch if David Lynch had no talent, but

[1:10:33] also if David Lynch was a crazy fascist weirdo.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:39] Instead of a sort of a jolly Midwestern type.

[1:10:43] Yeah, apparently very congenial weirdo.

[1:10:45] David Lynch.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:46] Yeah, whose only real message is that people should meditate.

[1:10:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:50] Oh, what a nice guy.

[1:10:51] Yeah.

[1:10:52] Anyway, we should do our final judgments, whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad,

[1:10:56] bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked.

[1:10:58] Elliot, you're shaking your head.

[1:10:59] You look like you have to unburden yourself.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:02] It's so, like, this is a difficult one, because on the face, this is, it's like, it's a Neil

[1:11:09] 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, because there's so much less going on, and

[1:11:14] 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 that it's like, oh, I don't know, I don't

[1:11:24] know, I don't know what to tell you, audience.

[1:11:26] It's Neil Breen, maybe he needs to go for, like, a romantic comedy next time.

[1:11:30] You know, a little lighter.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:31] Yeah, what would that look like?

[1:11:33] I think it would look like his bare ass.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:37] And yet, and somehow in the romantic comedy, he would still end up killing, like, ten people

[1:11:42] he decided don't deserve to leave.

[1:11:44] Yeah.

[1:11:44] You know what it is?

[1:11:45] Neil Breen is like, if Steve Ditko had never created Spider-Man, and he'd just gone, and

[1:11:51] also was not talented.

[1:11:52] I mean, Steve Ditko is also one of the most talented comics artists there ever was, just

[1:11:56] in terms of sheer layout and everything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:58] But if Steve Ditko was not talented, and never sold any of his original artwork.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:05] Yeah, he uses it as cutting board.

[1:12:07] That's insane.

[1:12:08] Like, because he's so, he's, I mean, he's just too pure.

[1:12:11] He won't do, he, that work, he sees no value in.

[1:12:14] But, uh, the, but if Steve Ditko never created Spider-Man, and just went straight to, like,

[1:12:19] Mr. A, and all his characters that let criminals die.

[1:12:22] Yeah.

[1:12:22] Like, the, uh, that's, that's what Neil Breen is kind of like.

[1:12:25] But in movie form.

[1:12:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:26] I, I say this is a, a good, bad movie.

[1:12:28] Like, if you enjoy the work of Neil Breen, then, boy howdy, is this the Breeniest movie

[1:12:34] you can see.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:35] And, and, and, and keep, uh, and keep your peepers peeled, because they snuck a little

[1:12:38] Easter egg in the back, uh, back of one of the shots where you can see his denim vest

[1:12:43] from I am here, dot, dot, dot, now.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:46] No, no, no, no.

[1:12:47] It's I'm here, dot, dot, dot, dot.

[1:12:49] He can't even do it on ellipses correctly.

[1:12:50] Oh, shit.

[1:12:51] His four dots in his title.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:54] But, uh, yeah, I would say.

[1:12:56] Well, that's Neil.

[1:12:56] Everything takes place, because everything takes place in the Breeniverse, or the Breen Cinematic

[1:13:00] Universe, VCU.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:01] Yeah, but I, I would say that this movie is, uh, like, Faithful Findings is, in a weird

[1:13:07] way, his most accomplished film.

[1:13:09] Like, having seen them all now, uh, that's the one with the closest thing to a traditional

[1:13:14] narrative that you can hang your hat on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:16] And so, and I feel like more stuff happens.

[1:13:19] Like, yeah, I, in both, this is, I'm, I'm with you guys.

[1:13:23] I think this is a good, bad movie.

[1:13:24] Uh, but I don't feel like there's quite as much meat on the bone here.

[1:13:29] Yeah.

[1:13:30] That meat is tender and delicious, but there's just not as much of it as in Faithful Findings.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:35] Yeah, so I guess what I'm saying is, if you haven't seen either of them, start out with

[1:13:38] Faithful Findings.

[1:13:39] That's, that's the fun one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:41] Yeah, so you won't be able to appreciate the other ones as much.

[1:13:43] That makes perfect sense, Dan, as opposed to building yourself up to the best one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:47] Well, you can do it, do it however you want to do it, Ben.

[1:13:51] I think you should, you should, what I call the Neil Breen machete method, which is you

[1:13:55] watch the first half of Faithful Findings, then you watch his other movies, and then you

[1:13:58] finish Faithful Findings.

[1:13:59] All right.

[1:14:01] Okay.

[1:14:01] I think we've cracked it, guys.

[1:14:03] Okay.

[1:14:04] How could we ever have cracked that movie?

[1:14:07] It's like, it's still a, it's a, it's a riddle too, too harshly constructed for us to

[1:14:13] even get through it.

[1:14:14] I feel like it's, it's the equivalent of, um, 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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:28] Yeah, that would be a really boring Hellraiser, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:31] That's my sketch.

[1:14:33] That's my Hellraiser sketch for a sketch comedy show that is, uh, that's my pitch is someone

[1:14:37] finds that and they just can't seem to solve it.

[1:14:39] And Pinhead is in the other dimension watching this being like, come on, just like.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:44] Turn it.

[1:14:44] He's like, it's so obvious.

[1:14:45] Just turn it in that.

[1:14:46] Turn that part.

[1:14:47] Cut.

[1:14:47] The circle part matches up with the other circle.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:50] 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, uh, this, this sucks.

[1:14:55] And just puts it aside.

[1:14:56] He just can't figure out how to solve it.

[1:14:59] Uh, we've got.

[1:15:00] And, and Pinhead turns to CD head and says, we're going to need a simpler puzzle box.

[1:15:04] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:10] How's it going, everyone?

[1:15:11] I'm Oliver Wang.

S4

[1:15:12] And I'm Morgan Rhodes.

[1:15:14] We have a brand new show on the Maximum Fun Network that we'd love to share with you.

[1:15:17] It's called Heat Rocks.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:19] Morgan, we should probably explain what a heat rock is.

S4

[1:15:21] It is a banger, a fire track, true fire.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:24] Right.

[1:15:25] Dope album.

[1:15:25] Each episode, we will bring on a special guest to join us to talk about one of their heat

[1:15:29] rocks.

[1:15:30] It might be a musician.

[1:15:31] A writer.

S4

[1:15:31] Maybe a scholar.

[1:15:32] I mean, I would have been happy to just talk to you about your heat rocks, but this is a

[1:15:36] different show.

[1:15:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:37] I think people might enjoy hearing maybe the guests instead.

S4

[1:15:39] To do that, you'll have to go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:15:42] So if you want to talk about hot music, you should check us out.

S5

[1:15:44] Heat rocks.

[1:15:46] Every week on Inside Pop, we take turns recommending something great from the world of pop culture

[1:15:51] to each other.

S6

[1:15:52] And in the month of October, we're going big, very big, with the Big Cell 30.

[1:15:57] Every day for 30 days, we're going to suggest some type of pop culture to check out.

[1:16:01] Things that may not be on your radar, but will be well worth trying.

S5

[1:16:04] From TV to music to movies and more, the Big Cell 30 is as irresistible as a Jedi mind trick.

S6

[1:16:11] As convincing as an Annalise Keating closing argument.

S5

[1:16:15] And as seductive as Miguel singing a ballad shirtless and slightly sweaty.

S6

[1:16:19] Follow us on Twitter at Pop Insiders for daily Big Cells and listen to Inside Pop every week

[1:16:25] for big cells from some special guests.

S5

[1:16:28] The Big Cell 30 starts October 1st and runs every day of the month on Inside Pop.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:32] So, we have a sponsor for the show.

[1:16:41] I like it when we have sponsors for the show.

[1:16:43] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:44] It makes me feel less like we're not part of society.

[1:16:46] It keeps the light on, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:16:48] Yeah, the single light.

[1:16:49] The single bare light bulb we have here in Flophouse Central.

[1:16:54] No, our sponsor tonight is Squarespace.

[1:16:57] With Squarespace, you can create a beautiful website to turn your cool idea into a new website,

[1:17:04] showcase your work, or, I don't know, sell products and services of all kinds.

[1:17:10] Squarespace does this by giving you the ability to customize the look and feel,

[1:17:15] the settings of products of your website, and more with just a few clicks.

[1:17:21] Now, you can check out squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch,

[1:17:26] you can use the offer code FLOP 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:35] Use the offer code FLOP.

[1:17:37] It does.

[1:17:38] Actually, I'd love to use it, because, you know, guys, I have a website idea,

[1:17:41] and I was wondering if Squarespace would be able to help me with it.

[1:17:44] It's kind of inspired by today's movie, and it's called menscleanse.com.

[1:17:50] Sure.

[1:17:50] Okay.

[1:17:51] And now, menscleanse...

[1:17:53] 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] Okay.

[1:17:58] And there's a lot of men who harm other people.

[1:18:01] And so what menscleanse does 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 and just, like, corrupt people and serial killers

[1:18:13] are caused because of...

[1:18:15] Let's just call it what it is, a backed-up colon.

[1:18:18] Oh.

[1:18:18] You're masturbated, nothing feels right.

[1:18:20] Yeah, you're right.

[1:18:21] And you just want to...

[1:18:21] You're trying to get it out of your system.

[1:18:23] And so what menscleanse.com does is it uses secret robot-from-the-future technology

[1:18:29] to make, let's...

[1:18:30] I don't know, whatever beef or other things are backing up your system and make them disappear.

[1:18:35] Now, the only problem with the technology is that everything that comes out of your colon

[1:18:39] does appear in a desert in Las Vegas.

[1:18:42] Oh.

[1:18:42] And we've been having some trouble with the permits, with getting permission to just

[1:18:47] basically fill up the Las Vegas desert with...

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:49] You have to just...

[1:18:50] Oh, kind of like the Prestige, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:53] Yeah, exactly.

[1:18:54] Exactly.

[1:18:55] There's some top hats in there, too.

[1:18:57] But top hats that people have eaten.

[1:19:00] Yeah, of course.

[1:19:01] People do that all the time.

[1:19:02] 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 way.

[1:19:09] And when you've got a hat keeping you from pooping normally, keeping you from being regular,

[1:19:13] you're going to get mad and you're going to take it out on society by sending a picture

[1:19:17] of your penis to somebody who doesn't want it.

S4

[1:19:18] So what menscleanse.com does is it tries to eliminate that whole problem.

Elliott Kalan

[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 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, mobile platforms.

[1:19:32] Well, you're in luck.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:34] Because Squarespace has responsive design that will do just that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:38] Yeah, that's great.

[1:19:39] That's a very logical, practical question for a very practical website idea.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:46] I mean, because that's the thing.

[1:19:47] It's the technology of making things disappear from bad people's colons and appear in the

[1:19:51] 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.

[1:19:55] 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, Dan?

[1:20:00] It's flop.

[1:20:00] F-L-O-P.

[1:20:03] Flop.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:04] Like what's going to flop into the desert.

[1:20:07] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:09] Yeah.

[1:20:10] Gross.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:12] So what else?

[1:20:13] And do we have any other sponsors?

Dan McCoy

[1:20:14] I believe we've got a couple of Jumbotrons I sent to you guys.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:18] Yep.

[1:20:18] Let me...

[1:20:19] We've got a J-J-J-Jumbotron.

[1:20:21] Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

[1:20:23] F-tron!

[1:20:25] Okay.

[1:20:26] So this message is from the...

[1:20:30] This is from...

[1:20:31] Let me just fucking start the message.

[1:20:33] 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.

[1:20:44] 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.

[1:21:04] So search for The Infinite Bad wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:21:08] And on Twitter, at TheInfiniteBad.

[1:21:12] Okay.

[1:21:13] Check it out.

[1:21:14] That sounds fun.

[1:21:14] That sounds up my alley.

[1:21:15] That's why Dan had me read it.

[1:21:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:18] That's a...

[1:21:19] And that was a business Jumbotron.

[1:21:21] Dan assigned to me a personal Jumbotron because I'm all about people.

[1:21:24] Yeah, yeah.

[1:21:24] You're a personality.

[1:21:27] I'm a personality who loves persons.

[1:21:31] Alex.

[1:21:31] Thanks for clarifying.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:33] You've got a lot of Wessonality.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:35] And a lot of Kate and Alady.

[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.

[1:21:47] 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.

[1:21:58] I don't know if they're mean Patronus in the Roman or Harry Potter terms.

[1:22:02] We'll eat it, Josh, as much as you...

[1:22:06] 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 Bratz weren't friends.

[1:22:19] And will hopefully continue for many Cagemases to come.

[1:22:22] Love you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:23] That's really sweet.

[1:22:24] And I like that she snuck in some puzzle elements.

[1:22:28] So I'm like, how long has it been?

[1:22:30] If they had two apples at the beginning of the day, they should take the chicken over first so the fox doesn't eat it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:39] Because it's traveling 30 miles per hour west.

[1:22:42] Yeah.

[1:22:43] But so, yeah, happy anniversary, you two crazy kids or senior citizens.

[1:22:47] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:49] 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.

[1:23:03] What's our website?

[1:23:03] Is it Flophouse Podcast?

[1:23:05] Yes.

[1:23:06] Damn.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:07] Yes.

[1:23:08] It's flophousepodcast.com.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:10] So go into your web browser, being, I'm assuming, and search for Flophouse Podcast and just go to that website.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:18] Yeah.

[1:23:18] I believe it's flophousepodcast.com.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:23] It's flophousepodcast.com.

[1:23:26] Like, let's sit down.

[1:23:27] How long have we had this site for?

[1:23:30] I don't know.

[1:23:31] This is also the kind of information you can always write down ahead of time just so you have it at your time.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:35] I forgot to write down anything about our live show.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:39] Dan had a rough night last night, dude.

[1:23:41] Take it easy, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[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, 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. at the Regent Theater.

[1:24:02] Tickets are amazingly somehow still available, but they're going very fast, so I would buy them now.

[1:24:08] Because that show's coming up soon, 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, because you gain those three hours.

[1:24:15] Oh.

[1:24:17] New York.

[1:24:18] Mm-hmm.

[1:24:19] Then, just a couple weeks later, we've got, on October 21st, our first ever international show.

[1:24:25] That's right.

[1:24:26] The Flophouse is traveling the world.

[1:24:28] Ba-ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:31] Hey, give me some of that poutine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:34] Okay.

[1:24:34] All the way to Canada.

[1:24:36] We're going to be in Toronto.

[1:24:39] Toronto.

[1:24:39] The home of the Ronto.

[1:24:41] Everyone's favorite prequel-based Star Wars animal.

[1:24:44] That's going to be at the Royal Theater, October 21st, which is a Saturday at 8 p.m. at Toronto, Canada.

[1:24:50] I'm excited about that, because it means I get to use my Canadian money from the last time I was in Canada.

[1:24:55] Oh, great.

[1:24:56] And then, later in the year, December 9th, just six days after my birthday, we're going to be in San Francisco.

[1:25:05] Concrete jungle where dreams are made.

[1:25:07] San Francisco.

[1:25:08] Yep.

[1:25:09] At the Marines Memorial Theater, December 9th at 8 p.m.

[1:25:11] That's a Saturday.

[1:25:12] These are all weekend shows, everybody.

[1:25:14] 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, because, logically, it's when they're not working, and so you can make it to the shows.

[1:25:24] Yeah.

[1:25:24] So once again, that's October 8th, Sunday in L.A., Los Angeles, the Big Easy, October 21st in Toronto, the Windy City, and December 9th in San Francisco.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:37] Yeah, it's not known as anything.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:54] I've never been to Toronto.

[1:25:54] I can't wait to go to L.A. so we can hang out with you, and you can be our local guide, right, to take us to all the spots that locals go to.

Elliott Kalan

[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 that I think you're going to like a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:14] It's great because it's served to you by a clown, and you get a balloon after you eat all your tacos and clean your plate.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:20] And if you're under 12, you pay your weight.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:23] Oh, wow.

[1:26:24] That's going to be expensive.

[1:26:27] I think you're underestimating how heavy kids weigh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:33] I'm paying for Sammy, and I'm like, $33 for these chicken fingers?

[1:26:37] Pay your weight.

[1:26:38] I kind of thought it was cents, but okay, it's dollars.

[1:26:40] Yeah.

[1:26:41] And I'm excited to do the San Francisco show because San Francisco is great, 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.

[1:26:50] I kind of want to show all her friends and family 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.

[1:27:06] If you're even thinking about going to the LA one, 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?

[1:27:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:18] Elliot, hold their feet to the fire on this one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:22] 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, hey, when you talk about the presentations on the show, what is that?

[1:27:33] 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] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[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 I'm specified.

[1:27:57] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:57] No, I think the West Coast ones will be a little special just because like 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 is gonna be our first live Shocktober episode, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:14] Oh, yeah.

[1:28:14] What are we watching, Dan?

[1:28:15] We're watching Rings.

[1:28:18] Rings.

[1:28:18] Yeah.

[1:28:19] We're gonna be a bunch of fucking Sonic the Hedgehogs.

[1:28:23] Dr. Robotnik, we're gonna kill you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:26] Okay.

[1:28:26] Dan, you have to be Tails.

[1:28:28] Aw.

[1:28:29] So wait, you're wait.

[1:28:30] Who's Sonic?

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:31] You're Sonic.

[1:28:32] I get to be Sonic?

[1:28:33] Yeah, but he's gonna get me pregnant.

[1:28:36] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:38] I guess I will as Knuckles.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:41] Okay.

[1:28:42] Well, be gentle.

[1:28:43] Dan, what do we do next?

Dan McCoy

[1:28:44] Next, we talk about letters.

[1:28:47] Are we?

[1:28:47] We don't talk about letters.

[1:28:48] We read letters that listeners have sent.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:50] Hey, what are your guys' favorite letters?

[1:28:52] Mine, I know it's a little egotistical.

[1:28:54] Mine is E because it's the first letter of my first name.

[1:28:57] But it's a very versatile letter.

[1:28:58] Yeah, it's the most used letter.

[1:28:59] The most used letter in the English language.

[1:29:00] And that's because there's so many.

[1:29:01] It's the Swiss Army knife of letters.

[1:29:03] Now, you get a letter like Q.

[1:29:05] Very difficult.

[1:29:06] But when it's used properly, wonderful.

[1:29:08] Q is kind of like a fugu fish listening.

[1:29:11] Where it's like only someone 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.

[1:29:18] I do know.

[1:29:19] So we're not talking about letters now?

Dan McCoy

[1:29:20] No, we're reading letters from listeners that they've sent in.

[1:29:24] Okay.

[1:29:25] And the first letter is from Ryan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:28] Hey, everybody.

[1:29:29] We're talking about the letters.

[1:29:31] Ooh, okay.

[1:29:33] I can go to the bathroom.

[1:29:34] But why talk about letters when we can sing?

[1:29:36] Ow.

[1:29:37] 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.

[1:29:52] 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.

[1:29:59] letters.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:00] Actually, Archie, I was scratching my leg.

[1:30:03] And Archie apparently didn't know that that meant that my hand was connected to my body

[1:30:06] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:14] Oh, so he was defending Dan by scratching this arm.

[1:30:19] Oh, wow.

[1:30:20] What an adventure we had.

[1:30:21] Okay.

[1:30:21] First letter.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:23] There's a very special tone of voice that Stuart gives when he's like, let's move it along.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:30] This special tone that says, let's cut this.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:34] So Dan, what's the first letter and how does it go?

[1:30:36] And what can I sing about?

[1:30:37] It says, it's from Ryan, last name withheld.

[1:30:41] And Seacrest.

[1:30:42] He says, I can't remember exactly when, but you once read a letter describing Neil Breen's

[1:30:47] first cinematic masterpiece, Double Down.

[1:30:50] You can find the whole film on YouTube, but there's only one scene that matters.

[1:30:53] When Neil Breen's super hacker slash spy slash fighter pilot slash maybe terrorist character

[1:30:59] watches his very sunburned girlfriend shot in front of him.

[1:31:03] And she winds up floating face down in a pool and he, for some reason, joins her.

[1:31:07] And then you see his taint for what feels like forever.

[1:31:10] Please see the enclosed screenshot because I had to see this.

[1:31:13] So, so do you.

[1:31:13] 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 Elliot can see it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:25] Hold it over a little bit.

[1:31:26] Okay.

[1:31:26] Yeah.

[1:31:26] I see.

[1:31:27] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:27] Stuart, you've seen it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:28] Now I've seen it from both sides.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:30] It looks great.

[1:31:31] Yeah.

[1:31:31] So you get a little.

[1:31:32] I see a little scrotum there picking, picking out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:36] I have to assume that he saw Eastern Promises and he was like, this is the future of filmmaking.

[1:31:41] Mm-hmm.

[1:31:41] Taints.

[1:31:42] That's it.

[1:31:43] This is the last front.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:44] You got to push boundaries somehow, dude.

[1:31:46] And yeah.

[1:31:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:47] So this is the, I think this is the only actual nudity in one of Neil Breen's films.

[1:31:53] Because you do, like, it's both him and his girlfriend's butt as they float in the water.

[1:31:58] Mm-hmm.

[1:31:59] And usually he's just tastefully suggests nudity.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:03] By having, by usually the camera pans down to the feet of the two people making out, standing

[1:32:08] up, and a woman's shirt will just fall to the ground.

[1:32:09] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:10] Now, Dan, when I talked about that denim vest before, I think I confused it.

[1:32:14] Is that in Double Down or is that in I am here dot dot dot dot dot dot now?

[1:32:19] Uh...

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:20] I think it's in I am here dot dot dot dot dot now.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:22] I'm not a Neil Breen historian.

[1:32:25] You're not a Breen machine.

[1:32:26] No, I'm not a Breen machine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:27] Because in the Double Down is when he does, his jacket is made out of two pieces of fried

[1:32:31] chicken.

[1:32:32] Oh, right, right, right, right, right, right.

[1:32:34] Yeah.

[1:32:34] That makes sense.

[1:32:35] That's what's called the Double Down.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:36] They, they, and, uh, they, they use fried chicken because it, uh, it's, it's easier to handle

[1:32:42] with your hands.

[1:32:43] By the way.

[1:32:44] Instead of, instead of fucking bread.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:46] Instead of bread, which is greasy and hot.

[1:32:48] Elliot, your Skype has frozen in the most unappealing screenshot of you.

[1:32:54] Yeah.

[1:32:55] It's my face.

[1:32:56] Yeah, it's your face.

[1:32:57] But, uh, you, uh, you're caught, your eyes are closed.

[1:33:01] It's, you know, we're kind of looking up your nose and, uh, you got this kind of goofy

[1:33:05] smile going on.

[1:33:06] It's just really great.

[1:33:08] It's really great.

[1:33:08] Oh, okay.

[1:33:09] Well.

[1:33:09] We should put it on a, we should put it on a t-shirt for the fly.

[1:33:13] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:16] The, uh, yeah.

[1:33:17] For some reason, yeah, in this picture, this unflattering picture, you're also wearing

[1:33:21] a t-shirt that says, you support Gamergate.

[1:33:23] Yeah.

[1:33:23] It's really weird.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:24] No, no.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:27] Uh, anyway.

[1:33:28] Uh, so this next.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:29] Now, what would, now, what would that t-shirt say?

[1:33:31] It would just say, I support Gamergate.

[1:33:33] There's no, there's no clever way to say that.

[1:33:37] And also, wait, so you support, so does that mean you support, so is Gamergate the bad

[1:33:43] activities or was it the calling out of the bad activities?

[1:33:45] I don't know.

[1:33:45] You bought the fucking t-shirt, dude.

[1:33:47] Yeah, man.

[1:33:48] Come on.

[1:33:48] Good point.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:49] I'm not explaining it to you.

[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 were in a, in a tough

[1:33:59] situation because he spilled chili all over your last shirt?

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:02] Similar.

[1:34:03] I was with, uh, I was with my partner.

[1:34:05] We're both hit men.

[1:34:06] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:13] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:21] The t-shirt's message is a little unclear.

[1:34:23] And that's just one of the reasons I'm unhappy to be wearing it instead of my normal attire,

[1:34:27] which is a black suit with a white shirt and a very skinny tie.

[1:34:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:31] Uh, you're one of the Beatles from Hard Day's Night.

[1:34:34] Anyway.

[1:34:36] So this next letter is from Cam, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:41] Cam Kennedy, the Star Wars one?

Dan McCoy

[1:34:42] Cam Gajangit.

[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 along

[1:34:49] 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.

[1:34:59] I live in your vents.

[1:35:01] Cam, last name withheld.

[1:35:02] Well, that's creepy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:04] Creepy.

[1:35:05] Like a, like a, like a sea, like a, 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?

Dan McCoy

[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, you know, put any...

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:21] Oh, like he's, uh, he's crawling around, lighting a lighter, talking like, uh, talking in

[1:35:26] his Bruno voice, like Bruce Willis.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:29] Yeah, taking us, taking out the terrorists in our bloodstream one by one.

[1:35:33] Listen to Flop House, have a few laughs.

[1:35:36] Mm-hmm.

[1:35:38] Uh, so, uh, I, 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, uh, an ethical biography,

[1:35:49] which, uh, I actually found it may be my new favorite Lincoln book.

[1:35:55] Uh, it goes through Lincoln's life from his youth up to, uh, Lincoln's Virtues, an ethical

[1:36:01] biography by William Lee Miller, as I take it off the shelf.

[1:36:04] Uh, and it goes through his life up to becoming president and then talking about some of his

[1:36:08] stuff as presidency, looking at how his life and as a, you know, and in larger sense, all

[1:36:14] of our lives are a series of ethical choices based on what we think we can accomplish in

[1:36:18] the world and how to balance that with our larger kind of like moral principles, but also the

[1:36:25] idea that his, his moral principles and his ethical qualities kind of grew over time.

[1:36:30] And I thought it was a really, really like, uh, interesting and, and inspiring for me look

[1:36:36] at like how a person's, uh, ability of what they, how a person's understanding of what they

[1:36:41] can accomplish in the world can, 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:48] Uh, what are you guys reading lately?

[1:36:49] I'm rereading a book that I remember loving as a child, uh, the Deptford trilogy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:57] It's called 101 Creepy Creeps.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:01] No, I read that.

[1:37:02] It's a little later than that.

[1:37:04] I, uh, it's, I read this, I think when I was about 13 or 14, uh, it's written by Robert,

[1:37:09] Robinson Davies, who's, uh, the kind of the most significant Canadian literary figure, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:17] Uh, uh, more than Margaret Atwood.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:19] Well, okay.

[1:37:20] That's a good one.

[1:37:21] She's so hot right now, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:23] Uh, but that's why they call her Margaret Atwood.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:27] Robertson Davies is an interesting guy.

[1:37:29] He, uh, I can't go through his, uh, 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 Robertson Davies.

[1:37:41] And then I'm like, no, wait, hold on.

[1:37:42] I don't actually know that much about him.

[1:37:44] The, uh, I, I believe he was a newspaper man at one point.

[1:37:48] That's about all I can give you.

[1:37:50] So what's the book?

[1:37:51] Uh, the book, the Deptford trilogy is made up of three books.

[1:37:56] Uh, Fifth Business, World of Wonders, and The Manticore.

[1:38:00] And I'm in Fifth Business right now.

[1:38:02] And they're all sort of centering around the idea of, uh, who killed the boy Staunton, um, or the death of boy Staunton.

[1:38:10] And, uh, they each have totally different, um, protagonists.

[1:38:16] And, uh, they add up to kind of this portrait when I'm taking together.

[1:38:22] And, uh, Robertson Davies is really interested in a lot of things that I find interesting, like magic and newspapers and theater and religion.

[1:38:34] And he's kind of this, uh, mystic version of Charles Dickens, I would say.

[1:38:40] Like he writes in a very sort of similar way, these buildings roman, but he has kind of a, yeah, like I said,

[1:38:51] more of a mystical view on the world than Dickens did.

[1:38:55] And, um, he, the, the first book, Fifth Business is about a character who is, uh, fifth business in sort of the life of, uh, of this person in fifth business being defined as the character who is not the lead or is not all these other things, but is nevertheless, um,

[1:39:19] integral to the, uh, integral to the turn that a play takes.

[1:39:22] The, the, the integral to the, I can't talk apparently right now.

[1:39:27] Um, 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] Uh, but it's kind of an interesting idea.

[1:39:39] This guy who is not the important character necessarily, but the one who brings about the action in a life.

[1:39:47] Uh, and so that's the first book and I'm in the middle of that and enjoying it very much.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:53] Uh, I think the, the, the last book I remember really enjoying was, uh, uh, a, a series of short novels that I read about a year ago.

[1:40:04] Uh, Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy.

[1:40:08] Uh, which are the first ones, Annihilation.

[1:40:12] And then I don't remember the names of the other ones, but they're really great.

[1:40:18] Uh, I've, I've liked Jeff VanderMeer's writing for a long time.

[1:40:22] And I think he's getting to, uh, like a really interesting point in his career.

[1:40:28] Um, and his, uh, his Southern Reach trilogy are these awesome little, it's this awesome little sci-fi story.

[1:40:38] Um, kind of set in a, uh, kind of ambiguous, uh, modern era.

[1:40:46] It's not specifically America, but it kind of feels like it.

[1:40:49] And, uh, a group of scientists are sent into, uh, a similarly ambiguous, uh, area that has been quarantined off.

[1:41:01] This area of wilderness that's been quarantined off.

[1:41:04] And, uh, they are, have to, are tasked with exploring it.

[1:41:08] And it is a place that is, uh, like rigidly defies, uh, classification.

[1:41:15] And, uh, the story goes in very strange places.

[1:41:21] And, uh, the second book picks up and is very different than the first.

[1:41:27] And I think they're really great.

[1:41:29] If you are a fan of some of the, like, themes of, well, some of the, yeah, some of the, some of the themes of, like, H.P. Lovecraft.

[1:41:39] Um, minus the social elements, the social themes of H.P. Lovecraft, I think you would like it.

[1:41:45] Um, and it's, it's just this really interesting kind of sci-fi horror with a, uh, like an eco bent.

[1:41:55] So, check that out.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:57] Uh, this next letter is from Tyann Lastning with Held.

[1:42:02] And she writes,

[1:42:03] Hiya, Peaches.

[1:42:05] Huge fan of you three fellows.

[1:42:06] I've listened to every episode of your delightful podcast and still get excited when a new one comes out.

[1:42:10] Anyway, to answer the question Elliot posed on your Sicilian vampire episode,

[1:42:15] Yes, I have opened a box of bananas and had an animal come out.

[1:42:19] Stuart, you were right about the stock boys being the main victims of banana box stowaways.

[1:42:24] I work in a co-op grocery store, though I'm a stock girl, Stuart.

[1:42:28] Geez.

[1:42:28] Oh, wow. Sorry for gendering it.

[1:42:30] And a few years ago, we had a massive, beautiful spider arrive with some bananas.

[1:42:36] And before I thought to Google the palm-sized arachnid, I thought I caught it in a plastic container,

[1:42:40] thinking I might be able to save it somehow.

[1:42:42] When a co-worker suggested looking it up before I decided on a name for my new pet,

[1:42:47] I discovered that what I had in my hands was a Brazilian wandering spider,

[1:42:52] the world's most deadly spider.

[1:42:54] Not being a complete idiot, I ended up killing the thing,

[1:42:57] though it did take multiple attempts, including suffocating, freezing, 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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:06] You should have seen that spider's dick, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:21] Did he also crawl out of a box of bananas?

[1:43:25] This is the point I was making when we were talking about it.

[1:43:28] If ever an animal's going to come out of a banana box,

[1:43:30] it's going to be a spider.

[1:43:31] As we all know from the banana boat song,

[1:43:34] Francis Deo, or maybe it's the other way around,

[1:43:36] that there's a big tarantula in that bunch of bananas.

[1:43:38] But I've never heard of a bat fly out of a banana box.

[1:43:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:42] That's in the second verse of that song.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:51] Yeah.

[1:43:52] Well, this was basically my nightmare,

[1:43:54] so I wanted to read it on the air.

[1:43:55] I'm terrified of spiders, mostly because of,

[1:43:59] I think I had these flashcards of poisonous spiders when I was a kid,

[1:44:03] and they warped my brain.

[1:44:05] And so to have literally the most dangerous spider in the world

[1:44:08] come out of a box of bananas in the course of my job would be harrowing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:14] Yeah, you crack open that box, you're like,

[1:44:16] I'm about to have some breakfast.

[1:44:18] Unless?

[1:44:18] What?

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:20] I mean, you're not going to have breakfast.

[1:44:22] Are you really going to have like a whole unpacked crate of bananas

[1:44:25] in your house for breakfast?

[1:44:26] Come on.

[1:44:27] I was going to say, unless your job was you're a banana box spider finder.

[1:44:31] Sure.

[1:44:32] In which case, it should happen on your job.

[1:44:34] That means you're doing your job right.

[1:44:35] Yeah.

[1:44:36] Dan, you might not want to come to my house in LA,

[1:44:38] 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.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:47] I mean, I know that they're like 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, but I just.

[1:44:56] And don't they have such cute little faces?

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:04] Uh-huh.

[1:45:04] Their mouths are really cute.

[1:45:06] And the way they have eight legs and move in that very alien way,

[1:45:10] as if they're not of this world.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:18] I mean, that's kind of weird.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:20] Yeah, I guess.

[1:45:21] I guess, yeah.

[1:45:23] I'm sure there's some kind of scientific formula

[1:45:26] that factors out the height that each species needs to be dropped from

[1:45:30] for their torso to split open.

[1:45:32] Yeah.

[1:45:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:34] Anyway, that was from Ty-Anne.

[1:45:36] Rhymes with Diane, but is not Diane.

[1:45:38] Last name withheld.

[1:45:41] Good to know.

[1:45:42] Very helpful.

[1:45:42] And this last letter is from Kyle, last name withheld, who writes.

[1:45:46] Kyle Katarn.

[1:45:47] You're Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:48] From the Dark Forces game?

Dan McCoy

[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, Archie, question mark?

[1:45:58] Best kisses, Kyle.

[1:46:00] That's a good question.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:02] I feel like Elliot usually stares off into the middle distance, channeling some kind of strange spirit.

[1:46:08] Yeah.

[1:46:08] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:10] Because I have to hear the song vibrating from the far reaches of the universe, the places that evil comes.

[1:46:15] Yeah.

[1:46:16] But also, Stuart usually gets up during the song, so I can't look him in the face.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:21] Yeah.

[1:46:21] And if I looked at Elliot in the face while he was singing, it would turn too sexual.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:25] Yeah.

[1:46:25] Dan's like, I'm just going to avert my gaze to my phone where I will engage the Pornhub app.

[1:46:33] You got to have the app.

[1:46:34] Is there an app?

[1:46:35] Yeah.

[1:46:35] You got to get the app.

[1:46:36] You get so much quicker access.

[1:46:38] Yeah.

[1:46:38] Better experience?

[1:46:39] Scale for mobile better?

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:41] Okay.

[1:46:41] 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 who lives on their phone to see a Pornhub app just on your home screen?

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:53] Well, it's a shortcut.

[1:46:55] And the thing is, the icon for the app is disguised, so the only people that would recognize it are other people who have the app.

[1:47:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:05] I see.

[1:47:06] So they can't say anything because it would out them.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:07] Exactly.

[1:47:08] That's the thing.

[1:47:08] And also, it makes it a lot easier to review the porn clips.

[1:47:12] I'm really into reviewing porn clips, guys.

[1:47:15] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:15] Well, you're into engagement.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:17] Yeah.

[1:47:17] Leaving those notes being like, man, her face at 140.

[1:47:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:25] She's like, what in the world?

[1:47:28] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:29] This is such a specific criticism of porn websites.

[1:47:32] The kind that could only come from personal experience.

[1:47:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:36] Anyway.

[1:47:37] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:38] I think it's time for our last segment.

[1:47:39] I think we answered those.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:40] Yeah, we answered all those questions.

[1:47:41] We answered all those questions.

[1:47:42] So what do we do now?

Dan McCoy

[1:47:43] There weren't that many questions.

[1:47:44] We actually answered just one question pretty much.

[1:47:47] We did.

[1:47:47] We did them all.

[1:47:48] One for one.

[1:47:51] 100%.

[1:47:52] This last section on the show is where we recommend movies that you should watch, let's say, before

[1:47:58] pass-through.

[1:48:01] If you are making a list of priorities, maybe go out and see these ones before seeing a Neil

[1:48:06] Breen film.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:07] If you have like two to three hours left in your life, maybe watch this instead of.

[1:48:10] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:13] I'll go.

[1:48:14] I recently watched a movie that I did not like that much, but it reminded me of a movie

[1:48:18] I did like.

[1:48:19] Okay.

[1:48:20] I went and saw Ex Libris, the three and a half hour Frederick Wiseman documentary about the

[1:48:26] New York Public Library.

[1:48:27] Uh-huh.

[1:48:28] And surprise, surprise.

[1:48:31] It gets a little boring, guys.

[1:48:33] Three and a half hours of, you know, library talks and administrative meetings.

[1:48:39] Not the most exciting movie.

[1:48:41] Although...

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:41] Aren't the target audience for that one?

Dan McCoy

[1:48:43] Uh, I think I am the target audience for that one.

[1:48:45] If I didn't like it, then I'm not sure.

[1:48:48] Like a three and a half hour movie about libraries.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:50] Which are the scenes where there of...

[1:48:51] Yeah?

[1:48:51] How many scenes were there of librarians having to tell old people not to look at porn on

[1:48:55] the computer?

[1:48:55] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:56] There was a sequence where they were talking about homeless people and like how to deal

[1:49:02] with that issue.

[1:49:03] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:04] The answer is you have to encourage charitable giving.

[1:49:08] Uh-huh.

[1:49:08] And then you give them a hand up, dude.

[1:49:10] Not a handout.

[1:49:11] Right?

[1:49:12] Mm-hmm.

[1:49:13] Job training.

[1:49:14] And also mental health care, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:49:16] But, uh, this reminded me of a movie that I liked a lot more by also a documentary legend,

[1:49:24] uh, The Maisel Brothers.

[1:49:26] Um, the movie is Salesman about, uh, traveling Bible salesman.

[1:49:33] And it's an interesting movie because the very subject of it kind of suggests this intersection

[1:49:39] between capitalism and religiosity.

[1:49:43] Uh, these men having to go out and sell these fancy Bibles to people who, honestly, most of

[1:49:50] them probably should not be spending money on a fancy Bible.

[1:49:53] Like...

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:54] No, they cannot afford to be buying a fancy Bible.

[1:49:56] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:57] And just the grinding sadness of these men's lives, uh, is fascinating.

[1:50:06] Uh, but it's, it's, it's beautifully shot.

[1:50:08] It's like this beautiful black and white cinematography.

[1:50:11] Um, it's 90 minutes long, unlike the three and a half hour monster I watched.

[1:50:17] And, uh, it's just fantastic.

[1:50:19] Salesman is what I recommend.

[1:50:22] That sounds pretty good.

[1:50:23] I'm going to...

[1:50:24] That's a...

[1:50:24] Oh, shit.

[1:50:25] Uh, sorry, you're gonna say something.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:26] I was just saying that sounds good, dude.

[1:50:28] Oh, it's a good movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:30] Uh, can I go next?

[1:50:32] Yeah.

[1:50:32] I'm gonna make a qualified recommendation, not because the movie needs to be qualified,

[1:50:37] but because I think the movie viewer should self-select ahead of time.

[1:50:42] You guys might know what movie I'm getting to.

[1:50:44] Yeah.

[1:50:46] It's a little movie called Mother.

[1:50:48] Mother.

[1:50:50] Which, it's the story of Glenn dancing and how he came up with the greatest song and rock

[1:50:55] and roll movie.

[1:50:56] Um, so I'm, I'm sure you guys are all aware of it.

[1:50:58] It's Darren Aronofsky's new movie with J-Law and J-Bard.

[1:51:02] That's Javier.

[1:51:03] I, uh, I, I haven't seen it yet, so keep them spoilies tight.

[1:51:07] Okay, I will not tell you anything then except that, I mean, the, it's one of those movies

[1:51:12] where the less you know about it going in, the better, but go, but you should know ahead

[1:51:17] of time before going in whether you're the type of person who's going to enjoy this movie.

[1:51:20] I thought it was amazing.

[1:51:23] Like, on a, on a technical level, on a tension level, and also, like, it, it's the kind of,

[1:51:30] uh, it's the kind of creepy, brutal allegory that I, that I like.

[1:51:36] I, I get a lot out of thematically and also, like, emotionally, it's a real grind.

[1:51:40] Like, it is a movie that is always at high pitch of emotion and does not let up the entire

[1:51:45] movie.

[1:51:45] But it's one of those movies where it's like, if you're not, if you don't care for a movie

[1:51:49] like, uh, like possession, then maybe don't go see this movie.

[1:51:54] Like, I was watching the movie and I, for most of it, I was like, this is really great.

[1:51:58] I don't see why people are walking out of this film.

[1:52:00] And the last 20 minutes, I'm like, oh, now I get it.

[1:52:02] This is, this is, like, it gets very, uh, it gets very, like, it's always intense, but

[1:52:09] then it gets extremely intense in a way that is both, uh, can be both derided as too intense

[1:52:17] and also kind of pretentious.

[1:52:18] But that's Darren Aronofsky.

[1:52:20] I love his stuff, partly because he is willing to be pretentious in a way that you can tell

[1:52:25] is very, uh, strongly felt by him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:52:28] But yeah, I mean, I don't feel like you, I don't feel like you ever make, I don't feel

[1:52:34] like he ever makes like boring movies.

[1:52:38] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:52:39] And it's 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 who like,

[1:52:46] don't, don't, when they hear Darren Aronofsky, they don't immediately think, oh, this is

[1:52:50] going to be insanely intense.

[1:52:51] And they just see that it's Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer in it.

[1:52:55] And they're like, I'm just hoping for an easy scare.

[1:52:59] Yeah, exactly.

[1:53:00] They're like, oh, this will, maybe when I'm watching this, my, my date will, will jump

[1:53:04] and, uh, her.

Stuart Wellington

[1:53:06] Like, I like this, this, this straw man we're creating.

[1:53:13] He's like, Ed Harris looks enough like a skeleton.

[1:53:16] I'm sure this movie's scary.

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:19] Well, and the way it's set up, you could very easily be lulled into thinking like, oh,

[1:53:24] this is probably like a ghost movie or a haunted house.

[1:53:27] But it is something so much stranger and so much more intense and so much more effective.

[1:53:32] Yeah.

[1:53:33] And I thought like, at times genuinely disturbing and at times genuinely beautiful.

[1:53:37] And like, it was, I can, I like, I totally see that guy, this unnamed straw, straw teen

[1:53:42] going with his girlfriend to see this movie, hoping for like a little bit of scares to get

[1:53:45] her in the kissing mood.

Stuart Wellington

[1:53:46] And then they're both like, whoa, what are we watching?

[1:53:49] What is happening in front of us?

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:52] So for anyone who, anyone who, uh, has a, let's call it a strong stomach and, uh, an interest

[1:53:59] in, uh, large themes on a expressed on an interesting scale, I would say, and, and go to mother.

[1:54:07] And like, technically, from a technical point of view, it's amazing.

[1:54:10] Uh, I'd go see mother.

[1:54:12] But if you are in the interest of a film that is not going to either be pretentious or possibly

[1:54:18] shake you to your core, then, uh, don't go see this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:54:20] I, uh, like I, they, they did that, uh, they did that new ad campaign where they're the new

[1:54:26] posters have lists.

[1:54:28] Uh, they, like all the pull quotes are kind of negative things about the movie to kind

[1:54:33] of like challenge you.

[1:54:34] And they actually took one of my buddies pull quotes from his, uh, GQ review that just says

[1:54:40] people are going to fucking hate this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:54:44] Like, I totally get it.

[1:54:45] Watching the movie.

[1:54:46] I thought it was a step like it blew me away, but I, and I, I really liked it a lot, but I

[1:54:51] could see how most people will not like it at all.

[1:54:54] And it's, it's the film reviewers that have been so against it that I don't understand,

[1:55:00] but I get why like cinema score gave it an F.

[1:55:02] Like if ever there was a movie that's not really meant for wide release, it's this one.

[1:55:07] But, uh, it's, but it's really good.

[1:55:09] If you like, uh, if you like crazy stuff, go see it.

[1:55:13] But if it like, for instance, my wife and I were talking about seeing it and I really

[1:55:16] wanted to see it.

[1:55:17] And the more I heard about it, the more I was like, one worried that, that she wasn't

[1:55:21] going to like it and she's out of town.

[1:55:23] And so I was like, can I just go see mother?

[1:55:25] Uh, and fellow Max fun host, uh, Jordan Morris invited me to go to a screening with him.

[1:55:30] And I went and she was like, that's fine.

[1:55:32] You can go.

[1:55:33] And I went and I was like, I'm so glad I did.

[1:55:35] You did not have like, this is not, I would not have been a good experience.

Stuart Wellington

[1:55:39] And she's looking at you and she's like, but Elliot, I'm a mother.

[1:55:42] Shouldn't I like it?

[1:55:44] It seems like it's made for me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:55:46] It would also be even harder for her to take.

[1:55:49] But, uh, yeah, I can't, I can't say it strongly enough.

[1:55:52] I highly recommend this movie, but the vast majority of people will not.

Stuart Wellington

[1:55:55] It's kind of like our recommendation for only God forgives.

[1:56:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:56:00] No, very similar.

[1:56:01] Yeah.

[1:56:02] Where it's like, you need to self-select ahead of time.

[1:56:04] It's likely you will not like this movie, but if you like this kind of movie, you'll

[1:56:07] really like it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:56:09] Uh, so, uh, we're in the recommendation section, so I'm going to recommend a TV show.

[1:56:14] Okay.

[1:56:15] Uh, I'm going to recommend a show that I'm only finally getting around to watching.

[1:56:20] Uh, it's a show called inside number nine.

[1:56:23] It's a show on the BBC.

[1:56:25] Uh, two of the creators are Steve Pemberton and Reese Shearsmith of the league of

[1:56:30] gentlemen, another TV show that I've recommended on here.

[1:56:33] league of gentlemen being, uh, possibly my favorite show of all time.

[1:56:39] It's such a, uh, league of gentlemen is this perfect balance of like strange comedy and

[1:56:46] horror that I think, uh, is just, is awesome.

[1:56:50] And, uh, inside number nine kind of continues that tradition.

[1:56:53] It's an anthology series.

[1:56:56] Um, and at least all the episodes I've only seen the, uh, episodes from the first season

[1:57:01] and they've had a couple seasons, but the, uh, each, each episode takes place in a single

[1:57:07] location and they, uh, they're all funny and they also have these dark elements to them.

[1:57:15] Uh, and so if you're looking for something that is both, you know, what is a little uncomfortable

[1:57:22] and funny, I would totally recommend checking it out.

[1:57:25] Um, it's on, it's streaming on shutter now, the horror streaming service.

[1:57:30] And I'm sure you could probably buy it in various other places as well.

Dan McCoy

[1:57:35] You typing something, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:38] Yeah, I was looking something.

[1:57:40] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:57:40] Are you, uh, you eating a caramel?

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:43] Sorry.

[1:57:43] Oh, I, I'm, I apologize that my brief typing will interrupt a podcast that routinely has cat.

[1:57:50] I just, I'm just trying to, I'll keep up our professional standards from this.

[1:57:54] Trying to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:57:55] Elliot, why don't you, uh, why don't you put that hair shirt on again?

Dan McCoy

[1:57:58] I'm trying to fend off, trying to fend off the inevitable complaints that we're going

[1:58:03] to get from, from people.

[1:58:05] That's all.

[1:58:06] I don't care.

[1:58:07] Okay.

[1:58:08] Okay.

[1:58:09] Thank you.

[1:58:09] Okay.

[1:58:10] What do we do now?

Elliott Kalan

[1:58:10] We're fending off complaints.

Dan McCoy

[1:58:11] Uh, what?

[1:58:12] What do we do now, Dan?

[1:58:13] Now we sign off.

[1:58:14] Okay.

[1:58:14] It's, it's everyone's favorite part of the podcast.

[1:58:17] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:58:18] We're going to leave on a high note.

[1:58:20] Energy is pumping.

[1:58:21] Yeah.

[1:58:22] With me reprimanding Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[1:58:24] Best way to end a podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[1:58:26] Uh-huh.

[1:58:27] Dan's like.

[1:58:27] With someone feeling bad about something.

[1:58:29] Elliot, we've been doing this show for 10 years.

[1:58:31] We have never had a audio problem.

[1:58:34] We've had a perfect record with audio stuff.

[1:58:36] We don't want you to fuck it up.

[1:58:37] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:58:39] Yeah.

[1:58:39] Sorry.

[1:58:40] Yeah.

[1:58:40] I took us down from an A plus plus plus plus to an A plus plus plus minus.

Dan McCoy

[1:58:43] Oh, no.

[1:58:44] Sorry.

[1:58:45] Uh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:58:46] That's on, that's on our permanent record.

[1:58:48] Yeah.

[1:58:49] Which is a record that's made of everything we've ever said and is put on a satellite and shot

[1:58:53] into space for aliens to find.

[1:58:55] Okay.

[1:58:56] Uh.

[1:58:56] So they'll know what it sounds like when humans waste time.

Dan McCoy

[1:58:58] Yeah.

[1:58:59] Speaking of wasting time, we're putting off the inevitable, which is saying goodbye.

[1:59:02] So I'll do it now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59:04] Isn't that, Dan, isn't life all about putting off the inevitable?

[1:59:06] Oh, God.

Dan McCoy

[1:59:07] Uh, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:59:11] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59:15] And this is Elliot Kalin over here saying, see you, Kalheads.

[1:59:19] Until next time, when we'll be Elliot Kalin in a round with all the latest news, reviews,

[1:59:23] and updates from me, Elliot Kalin.

[1:59:26] Bye.

Stuart Wellington

[1:59:27] Elliot sounded cooler.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59:30] I hope you keep in, Stuart, saying Elliot sounded cooler.

[1:59:38] Happy birthday to you.

[1:59:40] To you.

Dan McCoy

[1:59:42] Happy birthday.

[1:59:43] Happy.

Dan McCoy

[1:59:43] Happy.

[1:59:43] God damn it.

[1:59:44] No, it's the lag.

[1:59:45] I'm doing it exactly on the right time this time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59:48] For you, maybe.

Dan McCoy

[1:59:49] Well, I'm listening to it and it's syncing up on my end.

[1:59:52] So there is like a lag.

Stuart Wellington

[1:59:54] The thing is, Elliot, he's going to edit it together to make you look like an asshole.

[1:59:59] Oh, man.

[2:00:00] Yeah.

[2:00:01] Yep.

[2:00:02] Just like usual.

[2:00:03] Just like on reality programs.

[2:00:05] You got to have a villain and it's got to be you.

[2:00:07] Yeah.

[2:00:08] And that has to be me.

Elliott Kalan

[2:00:09] Just like when I was on Daily Show Apprentice.

[2:00:12] It was that season, The Apprentice, where it was all Daily Show staffers.

Stuart Wellington

[2:00:15] Sure.

[2:00:15] And John got to do his You're Fired impression a lot.

[2:00:20] Yeah.

[2:00:21] That's our president's name, right?

[2:00:23] Is You're Fired.

Elliott Kalan

[2:00:25] I'm Fired.

[2:00:26] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[2:00:27] MaximumFun.org.

[2:00:29] Comedy and culture.

[2:00:30] Artist owned.

[2:00:31] Listener supported.

Ep. #241 - Pass Thru

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