Ep. #228 - Collateral Beauty

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Collateral Beauty.

[0:03] So if this was an X-rated movie, it would have been called Collateral Booty, right?

[0:08] And if kids made it, it would be called Collateral Dooty.

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

[0:41] I'm Stuart the Hustlin' Hoosier Wellington.

[0:46] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[0:47] And kind of thrown off by the not-perfect timing of Stuart's beer opening there,

[0:52] but still admiring that new nickname you gave yourself.

[0:55] I'm Elliot Comments on Everything Kalen.

[0:57] Nice sip of a beer, Dan, while I was talking.

[1:00] And Stuart, great pins on your jacket.

[1:03] We're here in Dan's apartment.

[1:04] Cleaner than usual.

[1:05] A lot less cat debris on the floor than I'm used to.

[1:08] And what are those in the corner?

[1:09] A pair of shoes.

[1:10] Can't wait to hear what kind of adventures Dan's been having.

[1:12] Walking around in those in the big city.

[1:14] New York.

[1:15] Gotham.

[1:16] The Big Apple.

[1:18] Batman's home.

[1:19] Superman's dome.

[1:19] I'm just going to check my phone.

[1:20] Spider-Man's place.

[1:22] The country's face.

[1:23] The financial center of the world.

[1:25] Theater, capital of America.

Dan McCoy

[1:27] I can get the nap that I really wanted during the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30] And right now.

[1:31] So guys, what do you think of that nickname I put out there?

[1:33] I think I'm going to take it for a walk.

[1:36] No, I like it.

[1:36] I like it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37] What I like about it is, one, it tells us a little bit about your backstory.

[1:39] Yeah.

[1:39] And that you were a male hustler.

[1:41] And two, it tells us the name of your favorite movie, Hoosiers.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44] And also, you know, something, a little known fact about Stuart is that he's like a corn-fed

[1:51] Midwestern boy.

[1:52] Give me that yummy corn.

[1:54] Yum, yum, yum.

[1:55] Feed me more of it.

[1:57] On the cob?

[1:58] In a big bowl with butter?

[2:00] Mash it up?

[2:01] Unmash it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:01] Maybe on pizza if you're in Europe.

[2:02] Who cares?

[2:03] Here's the thing, though.

[2:04] Can you say that someone is corn-fed anymore when corn is by far the largest crop in the

[2:09] United States?

[2:10] It's subsidized at such a rate that it actually would be more expensive not to grow it.

[2:16] Yeah.

[2:16] Yeah, I mean, I can say whatever I want.

Stuart Wellington

[2:17] Judge Dredd's not going to kick down the door and send me off to the fucking solitary

[2:22] cells, the isolation cubes.

[2:26] Which one is it?

[2:27] Arkham.

Dan McCoy

[2:27] Arkham Asylum.

[2:29] Just freeze you up and put you in a...

Elliott Kalan

[2:31] That's Demolition Man.

Dan McCoy

[2:33] All right.

[2:34] Sorry.

[2:34] What if Demolition Man...

Elliott Kalan

[2:36] Okay, I'm with you.

[2:37] ... from the Stavos Sloan movie Judge Dredd, and they had to fight Dredd from the movie

[2:41] Dredd?

Stuart Wellington

[2:42] Okay, I mean, is that the pitch for a movie or a comic book?

[2:47] It's called Too Many Dudes.

[2:49] Or like a Tumblr story?

Elliott Kalan

[2:51] A Tumblr story.

Stuart Wellington

[2:54] Dred versus Dredd.

[2:55] A Tumblr story.

[2:56] I feel like Too Many Dudes, like that's pretty ambiguous of a title.

[2:59] I think you're underselling your property.

[3:01] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[3:01] I wanted to call it Too Many Dredds, but I thought people might think it was about a Jamaican

[3:06] hair...

Elliott Kalan

[3:06] Dreadlock.

[3:06] Yeah, Jamaican hair place.

Stuart Wellington

[3:07] Yeah, they're like, where's Dredd Scott?

Elliott Kalan

[3:10] Where's huge movie star Dredd Scott of the Supreme Court decision of the same name?

[3:18] Because you know he spun that into a movie career.

[3:20] Yeah, yeah.

[3:22] He was in Club Dredd, the movie.

[3:24] And Judge Dredd Scott.

[3:26] Dan, what do we do on this podcast, aside from offend people?

Dan McCoy

[3:29] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:32] And tonight we watched a movie called Collateral Beauty, which is a thing that was explained several

[3:37] times in the movie and I still don't know what it's supposed to be.

Elliott Kalan

[3:41] Here's my thinking on it.

[3:43] Collateral Beauty is the beauty around other stuff.

[3:50] Okay.

[3:50] All those years of improv really showing off, Elliot.

[3:53] We're like, it's the beauty that's cast into sharp relief.

[3:57] You finally see it when something bad happens.

[3:59] You become more present and more aware of the beauty in the world because you're raw.

Dan McCoy

[4:03] I feel like that's what they want you to think it is, but it is so poorly explained in the

[4:09] movie that...

Stuart Wellington

[4:11] Well, let's talk about what the movie's about, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[4:13] Who are the stars in this movie?

[4:14] Because there's big name stars.

Dan McCoy

[4:15] There's big stars like William Smith.

[4:18] Yep, Will.i.am.

[4:19] Smith.

[4:20] There's Ed Ward Norton.

[4:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] Weird way to pronounce it.

[4:26] Wow, yeah.

[4:26] That's great.

[4:27] Yeah, keep going.

Dan McCoy

[4:28] Kate Winsley.

Elliott Kalan

[4:29] Okay, this bit continues to roll.

[4:31] Let's give us some more names.

Dan McCoy

[4:32] I'm Michael Pena, who I will say correctly, lest I seem racist.

Stuart Wellington

[4:38] I mean, just by saying that, yeah.

[4:40] I feel like, yeah.

[4:41] Yeah, you're...

[4:42] And Naomi Harris, another Academy Award nominee.

[4:46] Helen Mirren is in it.

[4:47] Helen Miram.

[4:48] Kira Knightley.

[4:49] Kira Knightley.

[4:50] Little KK.

[4:53] That's like, guess what people call her.

Elliott Kalan

[4:55] Hey, KK.

[4:57] Great work, Ben and Lake Beckham, KK.

[4:59] Hey, KK.

[5:01] You gonna make any more Caribbean movies, KK?

[5:03] This guy keeps interrupting me.

[5:05] Hey, KK.

[5:07] What you atoning for?

[5:09] Atonement.

[5:10] KK.

[5:11] What else was Kira Knightley?

[5:12] Why do you keep walking away, KK?

[5:13] Hey, KK.

[5:14] Hey.

[5:15] Oh, I'm so sorry.

[5:15] I thought you were Kira Knightley.

Stuart Wellington

[5:17] You're doing a great job as the face of Chanel.

[5:20] Balfour, we're KK.

Elliott Kalan

[5:21] And King Kong is like, me?

[5:23] No, not you.

[5:25] Oh.

Dan McCoy

[5:27] Same initials.

[5:27] For a moment, Kong thought that he was the face of Chanel.

Elliott Kalan

[5:30] He was like, finally.

[5:32] Oh.

[5:33] Kong beautiful.

[5:35] My beautiful punum.

[5:36] He's Jewish.

[5:37] A lot of people don't know that about King Kong.

Stuart Wellington

[5:38] Oh, I mean, that explains a lot of the story.

Elliott Kalan

[5:40] Yeah.

[5:40] He's just like Larry King and Alan King.

[5:42] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[5:43] So this is a movie about a very sad Willie Will Smith.

[5:50] Big Willie style Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[5:52] Dan, I want you to do the summary this time.

[5:54] Yeah, yeah.

[5:54] Because I love the way you're going and I want more of it.

[5:57] Look, wherever this crazy taxi takes me, I want to get out and I'll pay $100 extra in tip.

Dan McCoy

[6:04] He's so sad that his kid died that he plays with dominoes all day.

Elliott Kalan

[6:08] Tell me more.

[6:09] Where does he work?

Dan McCoy

[6:10] He works at an advertising agency.

Elliott Kalan

[6:12] How long into the movie did it take us to figure out that's where he worked?

[6:15] 30, 40 minutes?

[6:16] 30 minutes maybe at least.

[6:17] Now, who does he share this ad agency ownership with?

Dan McCoy

[6:20] Edward Norton.

[6:21] Uh-huh.

[6:21] Of TV's The Honeymooners.

Elliott Kalan

[6:23] Kate Winslet and Michael Peña.

[6:25] Of TV's Titanic and Michael Peña of the movie's Chips.

[6:28] Mm-hmm.

[6:28] Yeah.

[6:29] And so.

[6:29] And now they're worried about him, right?

[6:31] Mm-hmm.

[6:32] Because he's so grievy boy.

[6:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:34] He's not able to do basic things in his life.

[6:38] I mean, he comes into work every day, but as he does it, he doesn't play the

[6:41] set up the aforementioned fancy dominoes things to knock down.

[6:46] And he can't seem to work up the energy to even pay for his rent, which Kate Winslet

[6:52] discovers when she comes to visit him.

Elliott Kalan

[6:54] Now, we know that he was not always this way because we see in the first scene, he's like

[7:00] a charismatic boss.

[7:01] Mm-hmm.

[7:01] He gave him like a funny, motivating speech.

[7:03] And Dan, what does he emphasize and highlight as the three things that drive all human action?

[7:08] He says, he goes.

[7:10] He says, first you get the money.

[7:11] He goes, then you get the power.

[7:13] And then, of course.

[7:14] You get the women.

[7:15] The women.

[7:15] Mm-hmm.

[7:16] Now, maybe.

[7:18] And they're like, you plagiarized that dude, but you're such a great boss.

[7:21] We'll roll with it.

[7:22] And he's like, and that's right.

[7:23] Highest sales.

[7:24] Get a DVD copy of The Women, the remake.

[7:28] Starring.

[7:29] Who is in that?

[7:30] Oh, I fucking don't know.

[7:32] Let's say KK was in it.

[7:34] Yeah, KK.

[7:35] Hey, were you in this?

[7:36] KK.

[7:37] Hey.

[7:38] Sign this.

Stuart Wellington

[7:39] Sign this DVD.

Elliott Kalan

[7:41] Anyway, he gives a speech in which he identifies the three.

[7:44] He says, what's your why?

[7:45] And he identifies the three motivators of human action.

[7:48] And they are, Stuart.

[7:50] Time.

[7:51] Mm-hmm.

[7:52] Love.

[7:53] Mm-hmm.

[7:54] And death.

[7:55] Oh, kind of a twist ending there.

[7:57] Mm-hmm.

[7:58] Spooky.

[7:59] And so now he is mad at time, love, and death.

[8:02] And his friends slash business partners, Michael Pena, Edward Norton, and Kate Winslet,

[8:08] they, what do they do, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[8:09] The three Mouseketeers, let's call them.

[8:11] Sure.

[8:11] No reason to.

[8:13] They decide.

Elliott Kalan

[8:15] So they discover.

[8:16] They've already hired a private eye to follow him.

[8:18] Yeah.

[8:19] And they want to.

[8:20] This is some kind of Paul Auster novel.

[8:22] Who?

[8:22] And this is all set in New York.

Stuart Wellington

[8:23] The character actor who plays the private eye is like, she's always a nanny in things,

[8:30] right?

[8:31] She seems like.

[8:32] She's using her with Mrs. Doubtfire.

[8:34] Mrs. Doubtfire.

[8:34] Oh, okay, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[8:36] Maybe, was she Mrs. Doubtfire in that movie?

[8:39] You know why they.

[8:39] She played Mrs. Doubtfire's mom.

Elliott Kalan

[8:44] Mrs. Doubtfire.

[8:44] Okay, where were you?

[8:46] Call me Elvira.

[8:48] Elvira Doubtfire.

[8:49] You know why they call it, how she got that name?

[8:51] No.

[8:52] Because her house was on fire.

[8:53] Okay.

[8:54] And she refused to believe it and died and came back as a sort of nanny spirit.

Stuart Wellington

[8:58] Oh, so it's like an old English, like you get named after your profession.

[9:03] Exactly.

[9:03] You're the person who doubts fires are happening.

[9:07] How that person was supported in the village economy, who knows?

Elliott Kalan

[9:12] She was one of those holy fools who was taken care of by charitable works.

[9:16] As it's also known, the GOP health plan.

[9:19] Oh!

[9:20] Oh, wow.

[9:21] Topical.

[9:21] Dan, so they hire this private eye, and what does she discover?

[9:26] Well, the reason they hire this private eye.

Dan McCoy

[9:27] She's watching him, watching him, watching him, watching him.

[9:31] There's a chance for them to sell the company and all make mucho Dolores.

[9:36] And so.

Stuart Wellington

[9:37] Lots of Dolores.

[9:38] You also get the feeling like the company is failing without, you know, a firm hand at the tiller.

Elliott Kalan

[9:45] Apparently it takes the three of them to equal one pinky finger of Will Smith.

[9:48] He's the Don Draper of this movie in that he is, one, an advertising genius.

[9:52] Two, ruining his business partner's business.

[9:56] And three, very depressed and unwilling to.

[9:58] And driven by his whims, basically.

Dan McCoy

[10:00] Yeah, his whims and his loss in equal measure.

[10:03] And Will Smith owns the controlling interest in the company, so they need to prove that he is mentally unstable to wrest control of the company from him.

Elliott Kalan

[10:13] And sell it so that it can stay in business.

[10:15] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[10:16] Mm-hmm.

[10:17] And, which is not such a terrible motivation for them, but they come up with the most evil plan to put into effect afterwards.

Elliott Kalan

[10:25] Now, this plan comes about Edward Norton, he takes a shine to an actress who is lined up to audition for a commercial.

[10:33] Uh-huh.

[10:33] By the aforementioned KK!

[10:36] KK!

[10:38] He doesn't want to come over.

[10:39] No.

[10:40] She's too busy.

Dan McCoy

[10:41] She's pretending that she can't hear you.

[10:43] She's reading over.

Elliott Kalan

[10:43] She's starting KK's delivery service.

[10:45] Oh, no.

Dan McCoy

[10:47] No.

[10:48] I refuse.

Elliott Kalan

[10:49] I forgot your anti-Studio Ghibli joke rule on the show.

Dan McCoy

[10:55] Oh, brother.

[10:57] I'm sorry that I'm a little slow tonight, guys.

[11:00] No, it's okay, Dan.

[11:01] I'm very tired.

Stuart Wellington

[11:02] The thing is, Dan, you and I, we got a little bit twisted last night at the MaxFunDrive meetup.

[11:08] It's true.

[11:10] And I, at one point in the night, when Dan's waiting for his Uber, I said,

[11:14] Hey, Dan, I'll see you tomorrow, because we're recording.

[11:17] And Dan looks at me and he goes, What?

Dan McCoy

[11:20] And his eyes bugged out like large marks.

[11:22] Yeah.

[11:22] That's an accurate depiction of what happened.

Elliott Kalan

[11:24] Now, Dan, does this mean you're revoking your anti-Studio Ghibli joke rule because you're

[11:29] so slow and I can still finally do my neighbor Toblerone one act?

[11:34] It's a whole one act?

[11:35] I've expanded it.

[11:37] All right.

[11:38] Oh, wow.

[11:38] If you would let me release these jokes one at a time over 100 episodes, it'd be different.

[11:42] But now I have a 40-minute one act play.

[11:44] All right.

Dan McCoy

[11:46] Now I'm trying to think of other Studio Ghibli things, but I actually don't like Studio Ghibli

[11:49] that much.

[11:50] I can't think of other titles.

[11:51] Wow.

[11:52] Wow.

[11:52] I know.

Elliott Kalan

[11:53] So send all your hate mail to us, everybody in the world.

[11:56] I guess you hate beauty and elegance.

[11:58] Is it about World War II, Dan?

[11:59] He doesn't like...

[12:00] Let it go.

[12:00] That was a long time ago.

Stuart Wellington

[12:01] Dan doesn't like the concept of flight.

[12:03] I can't justify my dislike.

Elliott Kalan

[12:10] I just know what I feel.

[12:11] And there goes my other one act, Princess Mononokia.

[12:14] There you go.

[12:15] It's the whole thing if it was about cell phones.

[12:20] So he bumps into this actress, Keira Knightley, and she impresses him with, one, her attractiveness,

[12:27] and two, an idea she has for making their ad slogan better.

[12:30] But then...

[12:30] Which male advertising executives love to hear from women.

[12:34] They love it when younger women tell them how to improve their work.

[12:38] They're very open to ideas from women and very open to ideas from other people.

[12:42] But she then flees, and he follows her to a little theater where she is rehearsing a play

[12:49] that, frankly, seems kind of pretentious, with two other actors.

[12:53] Helen Mirren and another actor whose name I don't remember.

Dan McCoy

[12:55] It seems like this is supposed to be an original piece, this play that they're producing,

[12:59] but it's all written in sort of Shakespearean dialect.

[13:04] So I'm kind of confused by why this modern play sounds the way it is.

[13:09] It's possible.

Elliott Kalan

[13:09] It's an existing play, and we just didn't recognize it.

Stuart Wellington

[13:12] Or maybe it's written that way as like a goof dude.

Dan McCoy

[13:15] Yeah, a goof dude.

[13:19] Stewart's new character that he plays after The Hustlin' Hoosier.

Stuart Wellington

[13:23] Yeah, a goof dude.

[13:24] He's like a cool version of Goofy.

[13:26] Put him on fucking t-shirts and give me a million dollars.

Elliott Kalan

[13:30] The Looney Tunes had their time in the sun wearing totally cool, you know,

[13:34] like, wrapped clothes on shirts, time for Goofy's slot.

Stuart Wellington

[13:37] Put some wraparound shades on Goofy.

[13:39] I don't know, give him a cigarette to smoke?

[13:41] Because he doesn't give a shit.

[13:45] So, Goof dude.

Elliott Kalan

[13:46] So he finds these three actors, and they come up with a plan.

Stuart Wellington

[13:50] So he walks in, and he sees them rehearsing for like a second, and he's like,

[13:53] oh my god, that was amazing.

[13:55] And I have seen a lot of theater.

Elliott Kalan

[13:58] And he does say that.

[13:59] Now, oh, here's some things that we didn't mention.

[14:01] One, what the private eye did discover about William Smith is that he has been writing letters to love, time, and death, and just mailing them, which is one, a waste of a stamp.

[14:10] That's $1.50 in postage he just wasted.

[14:13] Because he doesn't even write an address.

[14:14] He just writes love, time, or death.

[14:16] Stamps it.

[14:17] Puts it in a mailbox.

[14:17] Doesn't put his return address on it.

[14:19] So some mailman has been wandering the eternal abstract cosmos with a platonic realm trying to find these concepts.

[14:27] And he's like, I guess I'll ask the Endless if they can show me where to.

[14:31] He's trapped.

[14:31] I mean, I'll find death there.

[14:33] I guess destiny could be controlling time.

[14:35] And I don't know about love.

[14:36] Delirium, maybe?

Dan McCoy

[14:37] And then they bring in bags of mail to the courtroom, and they go, thousands of letters, all for death.

Elliott Kalan

[14:43] And this chattering skeleton who has been telling people he's death at a department store, you're free to go, Grimmie.

Dan McCoy

[14:52] Yeah, so he's been writing letters to entities.

Elliott Kalan

[14:55] It's called tragedy on 34th Street.

[14:58] He's been writing letters to these entities, and we learn that each of these people also has a thing going on with them.

Stuart Wellington

[15:04] Ed Norton, he's having trouble connecting with his daughter.

[15:06] His daughter is still mad at him for cheating on her mom and causing a divorce.

[15:11] And she's like, keeps bringing it up.

[15:13] She's like, can I smell your dick?

[15:16] I haven't heard that song in a long time.

[15:19] That's an actual song?

[15:21] Mm-hmm.

[15:21] You never heard that song before?

Elliott Kalan

[15:22] Yeah, but risque.

[15:23] I think that was before your time that it was a Daily Show Office favorite, and we would listen to it a lot.

[15:28] Okay.

[15:29] Why are you coming home?

[15:31] Five in the morning, something's going on.

[15:34] Can I smell your dick?

[15:36] And it's because, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[15:37] I mean, you added a syllable to yo, but that's okay.

[15:40] You're pretty close.

[15:41] Look, I'm trying to.

[15:43] You're trying to make sure that Dan understands by enunciating more than the original song.

Elliott Kalan

[15:48] Look, I know there's a cultural barrier here between Dan and all of culture.

[15:54] Mm-hmm.

[15:54] But yeah, that was when we used to listen to it a lot.

[15:56] So she, yeah, she's suspicious.

[15:58] Let me explain the song to you.

[15:59] Okay.

[15:59] She's suspicious that her husband is cheating on her.

[16:03] Mm-hmm.

[16:03] And the only way.

[16:04] She's been hearing stories.

[16:06] Yeah.

[16:06] The only way to figure this out is the aforementioned dick smelling.

Dan McCoy

[16:11] Now, does sex smell?

[16:12] I've never had any, so.

Elliott Kalan

[16:13] Well, according to the song Sex and Candy, it smells, and even the scent of candy can't

[16:18] cover it up.

[16:19] Oh, no.

[16:19] Mm-hmm.

[16:19] Now, what does candy smell like?

[16:21] And I don't mean John Candy.

[16:22] I can pretty much guess what he smells like now, which is a decomposing horse.

[16:29] Oh, yum.

[16:30] Well, what does regular candy sound like?

[16:32] Sound like?

[16:33] Yeah, what does it sound like?

[16:34] It sounds like this.

Dan McCoy

[16:34] Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle.

[16:35] What does it smell like?

[16:39] Well, what kind of candy are we talking here?

[16:40] Are we talking a hard candy?

[16:42] A soft candy?

[16:43] I don't know what a soft candy is.

[16:45] I guess like a fruit roll-up?

[16:46] Like a marshmallow?

[16:47] That's a kind of candy.

[16:48] Is that candy?

Stuart Wellington

[16:49] Elliot, I don't think, is actually expecting an answer.

[16:52] He's just trying to hold up a mirror towards society.

Elliott Kalan

[16:55] These are all Zen Coens.

[16:56] Oh, I get it.

[16:57] One, I don't expect an answer.

[16:58] It's a way to clarify.

[16:59] And two, they're Jewish.

[17:00] Clear my head.

[17:01] Zen Coen is the son of Jewish hippies.

[17:05] Actually, that reminds me of, I've been trying to think if this is racist for me to do a Twitter joke about this.

[17:10] There's an ad in the subway.

[17:11] All right, by all means.

[17:12] Might as well work it out.

[17:13] We're in this workshop in here.

[17:14] This is a safe space.

[17:14] In front of thousands of people.

[17:16] There's an ad.

[17:17] In the New York subways right now, there are ads for the 2nd Avenue subway line, which just opened up.

[17:21] Why the subway feels the need to advertise another part of the subway is confusing to me.

Stuart Wellington

[17:26] Yeah, it's like drinking a can of Coke.

[17:27] And at the bottom of that can of Coke, there's a like, why not drink Coke sticker.

[17:31] And you're like, why don't I drink Coke?

Elliott Kalan

[17:33] Well, it's like there was somebody who had a, I think it was Marc Maron years ago who had an, or maybe it was somebody else, who had a joke about why the post office advertises.

[17:42] Like there's no other competitors.

[17:43] You're going to like, you're going to, if you may, if you just tape pennies to a, to an envelope, they're not going to get there.

[17:48] You have to go to the post office and buy stamps.

[17:50] This was of course before stamps.com.

[17:52] This was years ago.

[17:53] But anyway, but it always, it's weird to me, but there's an ad that shows, it's all these different people whose businesses and things are now easier to get to because the 2nd Avenue subway line.

[18:03] And for those outside of New York, this is a subway line that's been talked about for many decades.

[18:06] Like a bunch of fucking grandmas?

[18:07] Like who is it?

[18:09] Well, kind of, yeah.

[18:10] And there's.

[18:11] Like Sloan Kettering?

[18:12] And one, one of the ads is a Zen master from a Zen temple, Zen Buddhist temple.

[18:17] And the quote is something like, the opening of the subway is, really ends a lot of anxieties we had about the opening of the subway.

[18:24] And it's like, dude, if you're really anxious about when the subway is going to open, maybe you're not the Zen master I should be going to.

[18:31] You need, physician, heal thyself, buddy.

[18:34] Whoa, you took him down a couple of notches.

[18:36] But I don't want to.

[18:36] So wait, is that the racist thing?

[18:38] Yeah, I don't know if that's culturally insensitive or not.

Dan McCoy

[18:40] I don't think so.

[18:41] Stuart, you're a Zen master.

Elliott Kalan

[18:44] Yeah, man.

[18:46] What are we talking about?

[18:48] Anyway, let's go back to the movie, shall we?

[18:50] Collateral Beauty.

[18:51] So he's been writing letters to love, death, and time.

[18:54] And each of his partners have an issue that's related to the same.

[18:58] Ed Norton is having trouble re-winning back the love of his daughter.

[19:00] Kate Winslet is worried she's too old to have a baby.

[19:03] She's running out of time.

[19:03] And Michael Pena has cancer that he hasn't told anyone else about.

[19:06] He's dying.

Stuart Wellington

[19:06] About 20 minutes into the movie, he lets out a cough.

[19:09] And we're like, that dude's dying.

[19:11] Mm-hmm.

[19:12] It's like any time a woman gets sick in a movie or TV show and you're like, I guess she's pregnant.

[19:17] What's she going to do with that baby?

Dan McCoy

[19:19] Well, I mean, they all had the most obvious scenes setting up what their wants and desires were.

[19:26] They might as well have had signs on them during the scenes being like, this is my goal.

[19:31] This is my screenwriter's goal.

[19:32] Where the first one where Ed Norton is talking to his daughter downstairs.

[19:39] He's in a lobby inside.

[19:41] Yeah.

[19:41] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[19:42] I believe probably in the screenplay it's an interior high-rise lobby.

[19:45] Yeah.

[19:46] Day.

Dan McCoy

[19:47] And she doesn't want to come with him over Christmas and they have a big conversation about that.

[19:52] Very clear what he wants.

[19:53] Then we have a scene out of nowhere where Kate Winslet is looking at artificial insemination on the-

Elliott Kalan

[19:58] On her work computer.

[19:59] On her computer.

[19:59] In an office in the middle of the floor that has glass walls.

[20:02] Everyone in the office knows that she wants it.

[20:05] That she needs a baby in her tummy.

Stuart Wellington

[20:07] Yeah, she needs a baby in her tummy.

[20:08] It's like guys that'll go to the library and look at porn and you're like, really?

Elliott Kalan

[20:13] I'd say they're not exactly the same situation.

Stuart Wellington

[20:15] One of them is a little bit more acceptable.

[20:17] Pictures of babies are porn to some people.

Elliott Kalan

[20:20] Yeah, horrible people.

[20:22] Like monsters.

Dan McCoy

[20:23] Yeah, you're right.

[20:24] That was insensitive.

[20:25] And then there's the aforementioned obvious cough, which as Stuart said, is just secondary to

[20:32] someone throwing up in a movie indicating that they're pregnant as the most obvious signifier

[20:37] in a film.

Stuart Wellington

[20:38] It reminds me of one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in a movie in, what,

[20:44] about 10 minutes into Synecdoche, New York, when Philip Seymour Hoffman is peeing into

[20:48] a sink or something and he pees out blood and you're like, this is the worst thing I've ever

[20:52] seen.

[20:54] I hope you don't ever pee out blood.

[20:55] What a horror movie.

Elliott Kalan

[20:56] As somebody who's had blood come out in their pee, it's not-

Stuart Wellington

[20:59] Were you passing stones?

[21:00] I was passing stones, yeah.

[21:02] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[21:02] It was the second time I passed a stone.

[21:04] You weren't like attacked by a werewolf.

[21:05] He was passing a DVD of a family stone.

[21:07] No, no.

[21:07] A werewolf got into my penis and was just ripping it up.

[21:10] Like in interspace?

[21:11] Yeah.

[21:11] I don't know why the government shrunk a werewolf, put him in a capsule and then injected him

[21:15] into my body.

[21:16] It didn't help me.

[21:17] Sometimes you do it just to see what happens.

[21:19] It was like one of them experiments the CIA pulls where they're just pouring radiation

[21:23] into a town's water supply to see what happens.

Dan McCoy

[21:24] I mean, there's two types of science, Elliot.

[21:27] There's science with a goal and there's science just to explore the universe.

Elliott Kalan

[21:30] I thought you were going to say there's normal science and there's weird science.

[21:32] There's normal science.

[21:33] This is very much of the weird variety.

Stuart Wellington

[21:35] That's true.

[21:36] Yeah.

[21:36] It was performed by guys with bras on their heads.

[21:39] Okay.

[21:40] Now, did they ever get to-

[21:41] I feel like if we were going to do a remake of Weird, that'd be crazy.

[21:45] Of Innerspace.

[21:47] You could-

[21:47] Oh, not less excited.

[21:49] You would certainly be the lead in the Martin Short role.

[21:53] I'm, of course, you know, what's his name?

[21:55] Dennis Quaid.

[21:56] Robert Picardo.

[21:57] I'd be great.

[21:57] You could be Robert Picardo, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[22:01] Now, and you raise a good point.

[22:03] If we did do a remake of Weird Science, you better believe we're not doing the sequence

[22:06] where they go to that blues bar.

[22:08] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:09] That's not happening.

[22:10] And they all smoke pot in there.

[22:12] Yeah.

[22:12] He talks in jive language.

[22:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:14] But here's the thing.

[22:15] Do you think Wyatt and-

[22:16] What was the other guy's name?

[22:19] Andrew?

[22:20] Was that it?

[22:21] No.

[22:21] Andrew Wyeth?

[22:22] Andrew Wyeth.

[22:23] Andrew Wyeth.

[22:23] The famous painter.

[22:24] Do you ever think that those two guys got to write up their experiment for the Journal

[22:28] of Weird Science?

[22:29] Because they got to peer review that stuff.

[22:31] Someone has to replicate those results or else it can't be considered actual.

[22:35] Yeah, that's fair.

[22:36] Actual factual.

[22:37] Now, okay.

[22:38] Let's get back to the movie.

[22:39] So everyone has their deal.

[22:40] They decide they're going to hire these three actors to portray love, death, and time and

[22:46] kind of ambush Will Smith so that they can-

[22:50] At first it seems like they're doing it for therapeutic reasons, but then it's so that

[22:54] they can just make him look crazy.

[22:56] Yeah.

[22:56] The ultimate plan is to provoke him to such an extent that he yells at them and then they'll

[23:01] have video of it secretly taped and they'll digitally remove the actors.

[23:04] So it looks like Will Smith's just losing it in the streets at nobody.

Dan McCoy

[23:08] Now let's just losing it.

[23:09] Reiterate this.

[23:11] As in the film, loosen it.

[23:13] Because this is the dumbest thing in the world, let's just reiterate it so make it clear,

[23:17] make sure the audience gets it.

[23:19] They're hiring three actors, again, to pretend that they're death, time, and love-

[23:25] To gaslight.

[23:26] To gaslight Will Smith.

[23:27] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:28] And they go to a huge amount of unnecessary effort to explain what gaslighting-

[23:33] Oh no, they don't even explain what gaslighting is.

[23:36] Helen Mirren uses the term gaslight and the other characters don't know what it is.

[23:40] And I feel like that term has become such a common term, even in political discussions,

[23:46] that they would just-

[23:47] You know those guys all read liberal blogs all day.

[23:49] They live in New York.

[23:49] They're rich.

[23:50] You know.

Dan McCoy

[23:51] I reach for the arts and leisure section first.

Stuart Wellington

[23:54] Of the blogs?

[23:55] Yeah.

[23:56] I look for the funnies.

Dan McCoy

[23:59] I want to see what Slylock Fox is up to.

Stuart Wellington

[24:02] And I go straight to the obituaries.

Elliott Kalan

[24:05] What's for dinner tonight?

[24:08] Wait, am I a ghoul?

[24:09] Yep.

[24:11] So they do this, and their actors go and confront Will Smith and say very pseudo-profound things.

[24:17] But they also help each of the other people deal with their personal problems in stupid, pseudo-profound ways.

[24:22] Yeah, they're all matched up perfectly.

[24:24] Meanwhile, each one of the people is coaching, or is the liaison, I guess, for the actor that is portraying the thing that is their problem.

[24:31] Uh-huh.

[24:31] And I almost wish there was a scene where they divided it up deliberately that way, because it's so on the nose.

[24:36] That Kate Winslet was like, okay, well, I feel like I'm running out of time, so I'll take time.

[24:40] And Michael Pena, you're dying, even though you haven't told us about it.

[24:42] So you take death, and clearly you have issues with your daughter, Ed Norton's.

[24:45] And they all call each other by their real names, too.

[24:47] That's really weird.

[24:48] We've got to convince everyone that Will Smith is crazy.

Dan McCoy

[24:50] I mean, acting is about strong choices, so I think that that's a really bold choice.

[24:55] To ignore the character names?

[24:57] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[24:57] Meanwhile, Will Smith seems to be finding a much healthier outlet for his grief, which is a support group for parents who have lost children.

[25:05] He's been grieving over the loss of his daughter, and these other people are—

[25:09] And there's a great scene where—I mean, not great, but a kind of weird scene where this woman gives a long monologue about the death of her son.

[25:17] And when she realized that her young son knew he was not going to survive.

[25:21] And then when she finishes and she's crying, Will Smith walks in, and the woman running the support group immediately turns to Will Smith and starts asking him to introduce himself and talk to him.

[25:30] And he doesn't want to talk, and he sits down.

[25:32] And then she turns to the woman who's been crying and is like, well, thank you for sharing that with us.

Stuart Wellington

[25:35] And it's like, how insensitive was that?

Elliott Kalan

[25:38] Yeah.

[25:38] And what a sign of the double standard of society.

[25:40] This woman is clearly in pain.

Stuart Wellington

[25:41] Yeah, it's this super intense scene of the camera hugging this woman's face as she's crying and telling a terrible story.

[25:49] And then it's immediately undercut by like, oh, forget about you.

[25:53] You're a nobody.

[25:54] Will Smith is a somebody.

Elliott Kalan

[25:55] The star of Hitch just walked in.

[25:56] Hello.

[25:58] The Willennium has begun.

[26:00] Sorry for your loss, lady.

[26:02] The exit's over there.

[26:03] Let's talk about Men in Black 3.

Dan McCoy

[26:05] Yeah, one of the Galaxy Defenders came in.

[26:07] Come on.

[26:10] He won't let you remember about your dead son.

Elliott Kalan

[26:13] No.

[26:13] Sit down and tell us all about how your life got flipped, turned upside down.

[26:16] If you could take a minute and just sit right there, tell us all about the death of your young daughter.

[26:22] He starts to build a relationship with this, the woman who runs the support group.

Stuart Wellington

[26:27] Played by Academy Award nominee Naomi Harris.

Elliott Kalan

[26:30] Who is much better in the movie she was nominated for an Academy Award for, but she's given a lot more to do there.

Stuart Wellington

[26:36] Yeah, she's a lot more crack to be addicted.

[26:40] Addicted to?

Elliott Kalan

[26:41] That's technically correct.

Dan McCoy

[26:43] We don't know how much crack she could be addicted to in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[26:47] She could be a very functional crack addict, like in Half Nelson.

Stuart Wellington

[26:50] I mean, he's not that functional.

[26:52] He can do his day job.

[26:53] And I mean, he's pretty good looking.

Elliott Kalan

[26:55] Oh, for sure.

[26:56] Yeah.

[26:58] So she, they, it's her that gives Will Smith the idea of collateral beauty.

[27:04] And it is one of many speeches in the movie that sounds like it means a lot.

[27:09] And I'm sure it meant a lot to whoever was writing them.

[27:12] But to you, the audience, it's like, these are just gossamer threads of smoke.

[27:16] And every time I try to grasp onto them and understand what they're meaning, it just, it slips through my fingers.

[27:21] I can't figure it out.

[27:22] It's like a rope made out of sand.

Stuart Wellington

[27:24] And when you say the audience, you mean like the movie critics who were forced to see the movie and nobody else because nobody went to see this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[27:33] According to Wikipedia, this movie outdid its budget.

[27:35] Really?

[27:36] Quite a bit.

[27:37] Had a budget in the 30s of millions and made 80s of millions worldwide.

[27:42] Yeah.

[27:42] People love that Ed Norton.

[27:44] Yeah, he's probably the biggest star in the movie.

[27:47] He's the big draw, is Ed Norton.

[27:49] People are like, oh, I mean, he never really reached the full potential that he showed in Primal Fear.

[27:53] But I guess I'll keep watching his movies.

[27:55] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[27:57] So the movie continues for a while.

[28:00] And then stuff happens.

[28:01] I mean, not much more.

Elliott Kalan

[28:02] Not that much happens except everyone has their epiphanies about their lives.

Stuart Wellington

[28:06] They confront him with the doctored videos.

[28:10] And he signs away stuff.

[28:11] And then at the same time, he drops a little bit of info about each of his three partners' various problems.

Elliott Kalan

[28:18] And he shows them maybe he's so not mentally incompetent that he's identified their problems.

[28:23] And tells them what they need to do.

[28:25] But again, he does it in a way that isn't really that concretely helpful for them.

[28:29] Mm-hmm.

[28:29] They pay the actors.

Dan McCoy

[28:31] And in case you're wondering, this is the point in the movie where I was dozing off and jerking my head back up to say,

[28:38] as if to say, shit, I have a podcast that I do.

[28:41] I should really be paying attention to this thing.

[28:43] Mm-hmm.

[28:44] And I was jerking my phone.

Elliott Kalan

[28:45] So.

[28:46] And so.

[28:47] But we're getting to the two big twists of the movie.

[28:51] Uh-huh.

[28:52] KK, you want to tell them what the twists are?

Stuart Wellington

[28:55] She keeps walking.

Elliott Kalan

[28:57] She's not paying attention.

Stuart Wellington

[28:57] Apparently, KK also stands for catcall.

Elliott Kalan

[29:01] If it was super cool.

[29:03] Yeah.

[29:03] But it's not.

[29:04] Catcalling's not cool.

[29:05] Unless you are literally calling for a lost cat.

[29:07] And you go, meow.

Stuart Wellington

[29:09] Buttons.

[29:10] Meow.

[29:11] Buttons.

[29:11] Come here, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[29:12] Buttons.

[29:12] I'm glad that you're saying it in both languages.

[29:15] We know.

[29:17] Maybe the baby Buttons only knows a little bit of English,

[29:19] but everyone speaks cat.

[29:20] Mm-hmm.

[29:21] Because everybody wants to be a cat.

[29:23] The Aristocats.

[29:24] Anyway, so.

[29:25] They.

[29:27] I'm just trying to shake Dan out of his torpor.

[29:29] Yeah, I'm sorry.

[29:30] So here are the two twists.

[29:32] Twist.

[29:32] Everyone's happy again.

[29:33] Kind of.

[29:34] They've come to peace with things.

[29:36] Michael Peña tells his wife he's dying.

[29:37] She knew already.

[29:38] Everybody did.

[29:38] Yeah, he was fucking Ralphing all the time.

[29:40] Yeah.

[29:42] But first twist.

[29:45] Will Smith goes to the home of the head of the support group.

[29:48] Turns out because she lost a daughter too.

Stuart Wellington

[29:50] He walks into the.

[29:51] He ruins her Christmas Eve by coming to her apartment.

[29:54] And we're like, wow, she's got a really nice place.

[29:57] She's got a great house.

[29:57] And it's the sort of thing like.

[29:59] I've been thinking about people's apartments and homes on TV and movies a lot lately.

[30:04] I was watching Big Little Lies, the HBO show, which has a bunch of very nice Monterey homes.

[30:10] And then you finally see the one poor character's house.

[30:13] And I was like, wow, that's a nice place.

[30:16] It's a.

[30:17] That's a stern rebuke to the quality of housing in Brooklyn, I guess.

[30:22] In real life.

[30:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:23] But he goes to her house and he's.

[30:25] And she tells him about.

Stuart Wellington

[30:26] She lost her daughter to a rare brain cancer.

Elliott Kalan

[30:29] And then she starts playing.

[30:32] Like, I forget.

[30:33] Does he play the video?

[30:34] Does she play the video?

[30:34] He has video.

[30:35] The video is on, I think.

[30:37] Oh, in her house.

[30:38] In her house.

[30:38] Of him and the little girl.

[30:39] And he tells.

[30:40] She says, tell me about your daughter.

[30:42] His daughter had the same name and died of the same thing.

[30:45] You.

[30:45] And you're thinking.

[30:46] This is the most amazing coincidence.

[30:48] This is bad screenwriting.

[30:49] That their lives are so similar.

[30:51] But it turns out.

[30:52] It was his wife all along.

[30:54] They become estranged after the death of their daughter.

[30:57] And he started going.

[30:58] He had been haunting this support group.

[31:00] Because he didn't know how to.

[31:02] Yeah.

[31:02] Communicate with her anymore.

[31:03] And the only way they could do it.

Dan McCoy

[31:04] Was to pretend that they were strangers.

Elliott Kalan

[31:06] Much as many married couples do.

[31:09] Oh, I fucking just got that.

[31:11] They'll go to a motel.

[31:12] Or they go to a hotel bar.

[31:13] Yeah, yeah.

[31:14] And pretend to be different people.

[31:15] Yeah, yeah.

[31:15] And they're like, excuse me.

[31:16] And pretend that their kids are dead.

Stuart Wellington

[31:18] Do you like pina coladas and having a dead child?

Elliott Kalan

[31:22] It really spices up the marriage.

[31:25] If you pretend you're in an extreme stage of grief.

[31:27] Oh, man.

[31:28] And you're strangers.

[31:30] Yeah.

[31:30] That they have just pretended to be strangers.

[31:32] And they come back together.

[31:34] And they're crying.

[31:35] And I have to assume then that the sex they had that night was amazing.

[31:38] Because they're both.

[31:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[31:39] Because it's both.

[31:39] Yeah, they were edging for years.

Elliott Kalan

[31:42] It's both the sex of strangers.

[31:43] Who have found that they have a lot in common.

[31:46] And they're kind of.

[31:46] They never fell this before.

[31:48] And the sex of a couple that knows each other's bodies extremely well.

[31:52] And knows exactly what pleasure buttons to push.

[31:54] So I guess that's kind of the best sex you can have, right?

[31:57] I don't like hearing about it.

[31:58] I don't like your understanding of sex.

Dan McCoy

[32:01] It bothers me.

[32:02] I don't like to think of you as a sexual being.

Stuart Wellington

[32:03] It's like seeing a Dr. Oz clip.

Elliott Kalan

[32:05] I have a child.

[32:06] I know.

[32:06] You know I had sex at least once.

[32:08] Yeah, but you don't.

Dan McCoy

[32:09] I don't look at your child and think, oh, they fucked to get that.

[32:12] That's not.

Elliott Kalan

[32:13] I do every day.

[32:14] And it's hot.

[32:16] Oh, gross.

[32:18] I mean, it's not hot.

[32:18] Looking at him is not hot.

[32:20] I'm not turned on by your child.

Stuart Wellington

[32:20] Yeah, you're not like, oh, your curly hairs remind me of the curly tail of the sperms that

[32:24] shot out of my weenus.

Elliott Kalan

[32:26] I hope the tails are not that curly.

[32:28] Like, sperms should have pretty straight tails.

[32:30] No, but they use the tail to, like, go real fast.

Stuart Wellington

[32:32] Yeah, they go.

[32:33] Yeah, like a propeller.

[32:35] Yeah, Dan liked what Dan did.

Elliott Kalan

[32:40] They're like little piggies.

[32:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[32:44] Anyway, the second twist.

[32:46] Twist numero dos.

[32:48] And maybe this is the reason that Edward Norton keeps striking out when he's trying to hit

[32:52] on KK.

[32:53] Is we see the actors have helped everyone with their problems.

[32:57] The play they were rehearsing has been called off.

[33:00] Will Smith and his now reunited wife are walking through Central Park smiling.

[33:04] They're reunited and it feels so good.

[33:05] Above them on a bridge, one of the many beautiful bridges that Olmsted and Vox put into Central

[33:13] Park.

[33:14] The first park they ever designed and yet it's one of the greatest in the world.

[33:17] It's amazing.

[33:18] I guess it all goes down to their original theories of park design, which were not kind

[33:22] of the English box garden, very man-made and artificially manicured.

[33:28] That's crazy.

[33:28] But instead the idea of a more natural setting.

Dan McCoy

[33:30] This is the art of suspense.

Elliott Kalan

[33:32] That Olmsted believes that you always wanted to be able to turn a corner and see a new

[33:35] band.

[33:35] You're bringing a desire to hear the end of this sentence.

[33:38] And so they're on a bridge watching down to them.

[33:40] Camera cuts over to Will Smith and his wife.

[33:43] Cuts back.

[33:44] Cat's eyes.

[33:49] Bam, bam, bam, bam.

[33:50] Bam, bam, bam.

[33:50] No.

[33:50] It turns out and they've disappeared.

[33:53] And you're like, wait, what?

[33:55] Was that?

[33:55] Well, hold on a second.

[33:56] Were they?

[33:58] So was that really love, time, and death that took time out of their busy schedules of running

[34:04] of the universe to help the ad agency help their grieving friend to get back together with his

[34:11] wife?

[34:12] And you're left to wonder, don't they have better things to do?

[34:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[34:17] I always see a movie like this and I'm just like.

Elliott Kalan

[34:20] You always see a movie like this?

[34:21] I always see a movie.

[34:22] You should watch some other better movies.

Dan McCoy

[34:24] I always see a movie like this and I'm like.

Elliott Kalan

[34:25] Always?

[34:26] Like, go watch that.

[34:27] Like the movie always.

[34:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[34:29] Why don't these magical figures ever intervene in my life?

[34:33] Like, apparently that's what they do.

[34:34] They just like.

Elliott Kalan

[34:36] It's a movie.

[34:37] Oh, okay.

[34:38] The same reason that you've never met Freddy in your dreams.

Stuart Wellington

[34:42] And like, you don't turn on your fucking radio and you're like, a person from a frequency

[34:47] or destiny or some shit.

Elliott Kalan

[34:50] The same reason that you should stop being scared that you're going to be invited to

[34:53] the opening of a dino park and the dinos are going to get loose.

[34:57] Oh, yay.

Stuart Wellington

[34:58] No, but it seems like if.

[35:01] By the way, you would totally get killed if you got invited to Jurassic Park.

[35:04] No offense, dude, but you're not like a little kid or, you know, like the hero.

Elliott Kalan

[35:08] You're certainly not knowledgeable about dinosaurs to the extent that, say, Dr. Alan Grant is.

Stuart Wellington

[35:13] I don't have the cool factor of a.

[35:16] Of a Goldblum type?

[35:17] Yeah.

[35:18] I'd be more of like a Newman type.

[35:21] Where I'd be like, why is this dinosaur spitting acid in my eyes?

Elliott Kalan

[35:24] I like to believe I'm the guy who says, hold on to your butts before a dinosaur kills me.

[35:28] Mm-hmm.

[35:29] Spoiler alert for Jurassic Park.

[35:31] Samuel L. Jackson doesn't make it through the movie.

[35:34] He gets turned into one of the fakest fake ripped off arms you've ever seen in a movie.

[35:38] Yeah.

[35:39] So, Dan, yeah, you wonder, these forces never intervene in your life.

[35:42] Well.

[35:43] Maybe you're not rich enough.

[35:44] Yeah.

[35:45] Because in a lot of movies where destiny or an angel intervenes, it's to show a rich person that they should like be with their family more.

[35:53] And poor people don't tend to get that much help from angels in the movies or from abstract concepts.

Stuart Wellington

[35:58] I mean, we're talking about people who have no, the only element of reality interceding in these people's lives is, I guess, the mortality of their children and person.

[36:12] Which is a pretty big thing.

[36:13] Which is terrifying.

[36:14] But, like, there's, other than that, they're just, like, you know, wealthy Manhattan people.

[36:19] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:19] I just figure that if, like.

[36:21] WMPs.

[36:21] Yeah.

[36:22] If magical, like, cosmic entities are going to personally interfere, like, they're going to intervene in people's lives, then maybe we would, I don't know, hear about this more often?

[36:33] If they've got the time to go around doing this?

Elliott Kalan

[36:35] Dan, this brings me back to something I've talked about on the podcast that I call the Teen Wolf Hypothesis.

[36:42] Right.

[36:43] Okay.

[36:43] Which is that, or the Teen Wolf Paradox.

[36:46] Yeah.

[36:46] Which is that, that's better.

[36:48] Not about the same thing.

Stuart Wellington

[36:48] It's your essay you sent into Weird Science Magazine.

Elliott Kalan

[36:50] Yeah, the Journal of Weird Science, not published.

[36:52] Yeah.

[36:53] That in a world in which a werewolf is playing basketball for a high school basketball team, this news would make it into papers beyond the local school paper.

[37:03] Yeah.

[37:03] That an openly werewolf basketball player, let's disregard the fact that this team got turned around from being one of the worst to one of the best because of one star player.

[37:14] That would attract scouts at the very least.

[37:16] Yeah, that would attract national attention.

[37:17] Like, LeBron was well known in high school, you know.

[37:20] He was, he was already being scouted.

[37:22] Wow.

[37:22] Have you been spending time with David lately?

[37:24] What's going on?

[37:26] But, but tie on top of that, the fact that he is a werewolf.

[37:30] Not just proving, one, that werewolves are real, which is something that has, we've all, we all agreed to.

[37:36] Well, we've all wondered for years.

[37:37] For years.

[37:38] I mean, we've all agreed to the social fiction that there are no real werewolves just to keep society moving.

[37:43] But, so this opens up two doors.

[37:45] One, two doors down, you might say.

[37:47] One, if werewolves are real, what about vampires?

[37:50] What about mummies?

[37:51] What about Gilman?

[37:52] What about ghosts?

[37:53] What about Frankenstein monsters?

[37:54] What about Dibbicks?

[37:56] What about banshees?

[37:57] Foolies, critters, munchies, gremlins, and I can't believe gremlins were the last of that list after munchies.

[38:04] Number two, what, how do we not, what is it, okay, something with the amazing morphology that it can grow hair overnight and then I guess shed that hair.

[38:14] Yep.

[38:14] And teeth will lengthen and then go back.

[38:17] Biologically, we don't have an explanation for that.

[38:19] DNA doesn't really cover it.

[38:21] So this werewolf would be the biggest story.

[38:24] Sorry, sorry Trump being an agent of Russia.

[38:26] You're going on second page because werewolves are real.

[38:30] Yeah, that's fair.

[38:30] So anyway, you make a good point, Dan.

[38:33] We would have heard about this at some point.

Stuart Wellington

[38:36] So is it like when we were watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon together and you're like,

[38:40] why am I never flying around like that and falling in love?

Dan McCoy

[38:49] You never answered that question for me, Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[38:51] I know, I was totally enraptured by the magic of the movie.

[38:54] How come I never get trapped in a Groundhog Day?

Elliott Kalan

[38:58] Yeah.

[38:59] I would love to relive the same day over and over again until I get it right.

Dan McCoy

[39:03] I have tickets, by the way, for the Broadway production of Groundhog Day.

[39:07] I got them free.

[39:08] Whoa.

[39:09] Got them free.

[39:10] Yeah.

[39:11] I've got press tickets.

[39:12] Whoa.

[39:13] So next time I'll report back on that.

[39:16] Please do.

[39:17] It'll be Flophouse and theaters.

Stuart Wellington

[39:18] Are you writing up the review for Variety or something?

[39:21] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:22] So here's the thing about this movie.

[39:25] It was trying for very meaningful.

[39:27] It fails to that.

[39:29] It's instead very treacly.

[39:31] I have a question, but Stuart, you said it looks like you want to say something.

[39:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:35] I mean, I think the elephant in the room tonight, guys, is a certain little cat burglar.

[39:43] Yeah.

[39:44] By the name of Seven Pounds.

[39:47] So he's a cat burglar?

[39:49] Right?

[39:50] I thought that was his...

[39:50] I guess he's a thief in general.

[39:51] Cat burglar.

[39:52] I mean, when Batman drops him off at Arkham Asylum and he fills out the paperwork...

Elliott Kalan

[39:57] He certainly isn't.

[39:58] Well, the only options they give you on the form are cat burglar, murderous clown, and...

[40:06] That covers Zaz.

Stuart Wellington

[40:08] And murderers.

Elliott Kalan

[40:10] Zaz is not really a clown.

Stuart Wellington

[40:12] I mean, he's covered in, like, scars, right?

[40:14] That's pretty funny.

[40:15] Which is pretty funny.

[40:15] Okay, I'll give you that.

[40:16] It's either cat burglar, murderous clown, or...

Elliott Kalan

[40:20] Alligator man.

[40:22] Yeah.

[40:22] Or alligator man.

[40:24] Because it's just the one dude.

[40:26] Killer cop.

[40:26] I mean, Clayface can be an alligator man.

[40:28] Yeah, he could change into an alligator.

[40:29] True.

[40:29] And Penguin has a sharp nose.

[40:31] He's kind of an alligator.

Stuart Wellington

[40:31] Yeah, I mean, let's just say animal man.

[40:34] Who?

[40:35] Just say animal man, not animal man.

[40:37] Oh, okay.

[40:37] You can't say that.

[40:38] Animal man, Buddy Baker, who's a hero.

[40:39] Why is he in Arkham?

Elliott Kalan

[40:40] But animal men.

[40:41] Yeah, animal people.

[40:42] Manimals.

[40:43] Manimals.

[40:43] So you could either be a cat burglar, a psychotic murderous clown, or a manimal.

[40:47] Mm-hmm.

[40:48] And they're like, we gotta make more bubbles on this form to fill out.

[40:51] Well, we'll add other.

[40:52] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[40:53] That's how you can fit poison ivy on there.

[40:55] Yeah, that's where Condiment King goes or whatever.

[40:59] Condiment King?

[41:00] Yeah.

[41:01] I mean, there's Clock King.

[41:02] No, there's also a condiment guy.

Elliott Kalan

[41:04] There's no way.

[41:05] Yeah.

[41:06] And he's the king?

[41:07] Look, I want listeners to prove me wrong on this.

[41:09] I don't remember a condiment-themed Batman villain.

Stuart Wellington

[41:12] What is...

[41:12] Relish is on there.

[41:14] Well, yeah, he relishes crime.

[41:17] He's gotta catch up to the other villains.

[41:20] He's using mustard gas.

Dan McCoy

[41:22] I think it was one of those Joker villains that was like a one-shot thing.

[41:28] I've read about him, though.

Elliott Kalan

[41:29] Okay.

[41:30] I'm not familiar with him.

[41:32] I mean, Batman has a villain who's literally a ventriloquist dummy with a tiny gun.

[41:36] So maybe he has a condiment-themed villain.

Stuart Wellington

[41:38] The character that Bruce Timm made terrifying.

[41:41] Yeah, that's true.

[41:43] Okay, so...

[41:44] But what I'm trying to say is that the previous Will Smith movie, Seven Pounds, had a similar,

[41:50] like, overly saccharine, overly, like, sentimental tone.

[41:56] Yeah.

[41:57] This was gonna be the most important movie you ever saw.

[41:59] What's going on with our boy Will Smith?

[42:01] Why is he...

[42:02] Why is Will Smith doing this, guys?

Dan McCoy

[42:05] Yeah, I mean, we've seen Mr. Smith in...

[42:08] Go to Washington.

[42:09] Yeah.

[42:10] In a number of movies.

[42:12] After Earth, Seven Pounds, something else.

[42:16] Yeah, name another.

[42:19] The Incredible Mr. Lippet.

[42:24] Here's, I think...

[42:25] He's just, like, smothered his natural charm recently.

Stuart Wellington

[42:29] And it feels like the sort of movie that would be made by somebody who is, like, kind of out

[42:34] of touch with...

[42:35] Winter's Tale.

[42:36] Winter's Tale.

Elliott Kalan

[42:36] Oh, he was actually really good in that.

[42:38] Yeah, the devil in Winter's Tale.

[42:39] He was the best thing in it.

Stuart Wellington

[42:40] But, like, it feels like the kind of movie made by somebody who does not...

[42:44] It has lost touch with what people are actually like.

Elliott Kalan

[42:48] Yeah, there's a sense in it of, yeah, famous people trying to connect to emotions that they...

[42:57] Like, everyday things that they're not really...

[42:59] Are not necessarily a part of how they exist anymore.

[43:03] Yeah.

[43:03] Will Smith exists in a very strange plane right now where he just thinks...

[43:08] He seems to think and comprehend the universe in a different way than most people.

Stuart Wellington

[43:12] Yeah.

[43:13] Now, I was reading trivia...

[43:15] Not to bring the podcast about a movie about...

[43:17] Not to brag.

[43:19] Not to brag.

[43:20] But I can read.

[43:20] I was reading trivia on the Internet Movie Database.

[43:24] And it was talking about how Will Smith was dealing...

[43:28] While he was making this movie, he was also dealing with the loss of his father.

[43:31] Ah.

[43:33] Which, I guess, on some level, I understand the idea of using...

[43:37] As an artist, he's using this as a way to, like, work through his personal shit.

[43:43] And I guess that makes sense.

[43:46] I just wish the movie was better.

[43:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:49] Yeah.

[43:50] I don't...

[43:50] Well, we can go into final judgments and I'll say what I...

Elliott Kalan

[43:52] I had one thing I wanted to say.

[43:54] Okay.

[43:54] Well, I can say it as part of my final judgment, actually.

Dan McCoy

[43:56] So, go ahead.

[43:57] Final judgments.

[43:58] Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

[43:59] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you actually liked?

[44:03] I'm going to say it's a bad, bad movie.

[44:07] It's placed in a real-world context, but the contrivances of it are so crazy that it only

[44:15] would have worked if you had created a heightened reality.

[44:19] And I don't feel like...

[44:20] What I was going to say is, like, I don't feel like it's the actor's fault for what's

[44:23] going on.

[44:23] I think, by and large, they're all doing the best they can with what they're given.

[44:27] It's just a crazy fucking script that is maudlin and filled with stupid tricks.

Stuart Wellington

[44:34] It's not odd enough to work as, like...

[44:37] I know.

[44:38] And this movie's not for kids.

[44:39] That's the thing.

[44:40] No, true.

[44:40] It's not odd enough for it to be...

[44:42] Like, I feel like, had this been a French movie, the, like, exoticism of, like, French

[44:49] cinema might have...

[44:50] If what's his name who did Amelie did this.

[44:52] Yeah.

[44:52] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[44:53] Or if it was...

[44:54] I could see...

[44:55] If this was in French, Spanish, or Italian.

[44:57] Yeah, it would...

[44:58] I could see it working better.

[44:59] Or Japanese.

Stuart Wellington

[44:59] Like, the otherness of it would elevate it to a different...

[45:03] Like, it would feel divorced enough from, like, everyday reality for it to seem like a bigger...

[45:11] Like, a grand story.

Elliott Kalan

[45:14] There are lines of dialogue in this that, if they...

[45:16] I was reading them in a subtitle, I think, would affect me more than hearing them spoken

[45:20] in English.

[45:21] Mm-hmm.

[45:22] Because I'd be like, people don't talk that way.

[45:23] Come on.

[45:24] That doesn't make any sense.

[45:25] That if I was reading them in a subtitle, I'd be like, hmm, I don't know.

[45:28] Maybe.

[45:28] I don't know.

[45:30] Sure.

[45:30] Here's...

Elliott Kalan

[45:30] I would say this is a bad, bad movie.

[45:33] Uh, you know, it's trying its darndest.

[45:36] Uh, here's my question.

[45:37] Has there ever been a good movie with beauty in the title?

Stuart Wellington

[45:41] I mean, American Beauty was...

[45:42] Didn't it win the Best Picture?

[45:44] Well, come on.

[45:45] What does that mean?

[45:45] Okay, you're right.

Elliott Kalan

[45:47] American Beauty, it's not the worst movie in the world.

[45:50] I feel like that's a movie people have tarred more than they need to.

Stuart Wellington

[45:53] It is certain people, audiences have soured on it.

[45:57] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[45:57] It's one of many movies that won Best Picture and then audiences disperned it immediately.

Dan McCoy

[46:02] Mm-hmm.

[46:02] Was stealing beauty any good or was it just that there were naked people in it?

[46:06] There's nudity in it.

Elliott Kalan

[46:07] To be honest, haven't tried to watch it since I was 16 and was not interested in anything

[46:11] other than the Beast.

Stuart Wellington

[46:12] I mean, number one of the box office right now is Beauty and the Beast.

[46:15] Okay, there you go.

Elliott Kalan

[46:16] Beauty and the Beast.

[46:17] I haven't seen the current version, but surely the Disney version.

[46:19] And the Cocteau.

[46:21] The Cocteau version is wonderful.

Stuart Wellington

[46:22] The current movie, which famously a moviegoer at the Alamo Drafthouse in New York City asked

[46:28] another moviegoer, what's his dick like?

[46:34] Famously.

[46:35] There was an article in the New Yorker talking about it, and I guess a screenshot of that New

[46:42] Yorker article was going around where a woman was like, what's his dick like?

[46:48] Were they asking Belle?

Elliott Kalan

[46:50] How would anyone know?

[46:52] I mean, I don't know.

[46:53] I think at that point it's...

[46:54] You got on that.

[46:55] What was that like?

Stuart Wellington

[46:56] I mean, I think at that point it's like a brainstorming sesh.

[47:00] And she goes home and she just puts a dildo on a rug to try to figure out what the sensation

Elliott Kalan

[47:04] was like.

[47:04] Is it barbed?

[47:06] I mean, I would hope not.

[47:08] Yeah.

[47:09] I would hope not too.

[47:10] I think we can all hope that.

[47:11] Okay, so you answered my question.

[47:12] Beauty and the Beast.

[47:12] All right.

[47:13] Because there's a hard...

[47:13] I was having trouble thinking of a movie with beauty in the title that was not a movie

[47:17] I cared...

[47:18] I did not want to watch.

[47:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:20] Oh, beautician and the Beast doesn't actually have beauty in it.

Dan McCoy

[47:28] So, no sponsors this week, but...

Stuart Wellington

[47:32] We are unpopular.

Dan McCoy

[47:34] No, that's because MaxFunDrive just ended.

[47:37] And we wanted to thank everyone who donated to MaxFunDrive this year.

Stuart Wellington

[47:42] Yeah.

[47:42] Well, our show, like all the shows on the Maximum Fun Network, are almost exclusively listener

[47:49] supported.

[47:50] Yeah.

[47:50] Like, predominantly listener supported.

Elliott Kalan

[47:51] Though we have sponsors, they are a pittance compared to what we get from our listeners,

[47:56] which is what keeps us going.

Stuart Wellington

[47:58] Keeps my boy in Cheerios.

[47:59] Yeah.

[48:00] And Underpants.

[48:03] And Captain Underpants books.

[48:04] And keeps us...

[48:05] He is not reading those, thank you.

[48:07] And keeps us financially, emotionally supported.

Elliott Kalan

[48:12] Yeah.

[48:12] I mean, that...

[48:14] Keeps our genitals supported through Mack Weldon underwear.

[48:17] Yep.

[48:18] Yep.

[48:18] In many ways...

[48:19] I mean, that's a sponsor thing, but...

Stuart Wellington

[48:20] And my hands, because I hold up to hands, wiener and testes.

Elliott Kalan

[48:24] All right.

[48:25] Well, I was going to say something sincere, but now I feel like I can't.

[48:27] In many ways, just as...

[48:30] Even though the money is...

[48:31] Often feels necessary to us and is a wonderful supplement to our day-to-day incomes and makes

[48:36] it a little easier for us to live and do the podcast.

[48:38] Uh-huh.

[48:39] It is, in a larger sense, for me at least, seeing that money coming in from the pledge

[48:45] drive is such an emotional support because it shows us how much you, the listeners, care

[48:50] about what we're doing.

[48:51] Uh-huh.

[48:51] And want to support it and want to hear more about it and don't take it for granted.

[48:56] And that really means a lot to us.

[48:58] And so don't think we take you for granted in making those pledges.

[49:01] It really means a lot to us and we're thankful for it.

Dan McCoy

[49:04] And it was a very fun time.

[49:07] Obviously, I had a lot of fun last night based on my...

[49:10] Why are you winking at me right now, dude?

[49:12] ...demenor this morning.

[49:13] Did you guys sleep together last night?

[49:14] Well...

[49:15] I think it was on the table.

[49:18] Together is a strong word.

Stuart Wellington

[49:21] I don't know what I mean by that.

Elliott Kalan

[49:22] So you both slept in several places?

[49:24] Yeah, that's right.

[49:24] That's a less strong word.

Stuart Wellington

[49:25] So that's every night.

[49:27] Dan stormed off and then me and Mark Gagliardi from We Got This just kept drinking and bullshitting

[49:36] about Dan leaving early.

[49:38] Mm-hmm.

[49:40] Classic bit.

[49:41] So, Dan, did you have something nice to say or do we just want to razz on you for leaving

[49:45] early?

[49:45] Yeah.

[49:46] I wasn't even there and I'm still going to razz on Dan for leaving early.

[49:49] Elliot stayed up until four in the morning and he wasn't even at the party.

[49:53] No.

[49:53] He just wanted to stay up to show he could do it because he's a big boy.

Elliott Kalan

[49:57] Yeah, who's going to tell me no?

[49:58] Nobody.

[49:59] That's who.

[49:59] I can eat cereal whenever I want.

[50:01] I'm going to have pizza for breakfast.

[50:03] Get out of here.

[50:04] And I'm going to have candy for dinner.

[50:06] And I'm going to have pizza with eggs on it?

[50:06] Yeah.

[50:07] I didn't say that.

[50:09] Dan, explain yourself.

Dan McCoy

[50:12] No, I agree with everything that was said before.

[50:14] It's a great support.

[50:16] We get a lot of support in the way of messages from listeners, which are also well appreciated

[50:24] telling us how much they love the show, how much it means to them, how it's helped them

[50:30] through a hard time.

[50:31] But money, too.

[50:32] But money is money, money, money makes the world go round.

[50:36] So thank you for that.

Stuart Wellington

[50:37] And the money goes also toward the MaxFun Network.

[50:40] The money goes to the network.

Elliott Kalan

[50:41] Being part of the MaxFun Network for us has been a wonderful experience.

[50:44] It's been a great community for us to be a part of.

[50:47] And it feels like we reached another level of podcasting, I don't know, confidence and quality.

[50:54] Sure.

[50:55] Considering the other shows.

[50:56] This episode not was ending.

[50:57] Not so much this one, but considering the shows that we're brethren to now.

[51:02] Mm-hmm.

[51:02] So thank you very much for pledging.

[51:05] If you didn't pledge this year, then next year is coming around.

Stuart Wellington

[51:09] And by the time you're listening to this, there's a chance that my fate will be sealed.

[51:14] That I will be boxed up and sent off to the Grand Canyon to ride a burrow out into the

[51:22] middle of nowhere to what I have heard is one of the most beautiful places in the United States

[51:29] to record a special podcast.

Dan McCoy

[51:32] And one last note on this.

[51:35] When this gets released, the MaxFun Drive will be officially over.

[51:39] But it'll be over by a day.

[51:42] I'm pretty sure that if you decided to get in a last donation or two, you probably will be

[51:48] counted as part of the MaxFun Drive.

[51:51] I would imagine.

[51:52] So try it.

[51:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:54] Try it as an experiment.

[51:56] Yeah.

[51:56] See what happens.

[51:58] So if we've finished thanking the listeners and asking them to continue donating, I have

[52:02] a correction I'd like to make.

Stuart Wellington

[52:04] All right.

[52:05] And I'd like to, can we go to the beginning of the episode and apologize that we made jokes

[52:11] about a movie that the main point is a guy getting over the loss of a child?

[52:15] I mean, it's not...

[52:16] I feel like we should throw that out up front.

[52:17] It didn't really happen.

[52:18] It's a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[52:19] I guess that's right.

[52:20] I mean, speaking as a father, which...

[52:22] Which I can do because I have a child.

[52:24] It is.

[52:26] You had sex.

[52:26] And it's just so wonderful.

[52:28] It's just such a wonderful thing.

[52:30] You seem really fulfilled.

[52:32] I mean...

[52:32] For having sex that one time.

[52:34] That's all I needed.

[52:35] It is.

[52:37] It is the thing I fear the most.

[52:40] And it is something that...

[52:41] It's one of those things where it's such a horrifying thought that you find your mind drawn to

[52:46] it in a way...

[52:47] In the way that something really terrible that you don't want to think about attracts your

[52:51] thinking.

[52:52] And then you worry that by thinking about it, you're making it more likely to happen.

[52:55] And even having that be a fear I live with every day, watching this movie, I was still like,

[53:01] come on, movie.

Stuart Wellington

[53:02] And like, I'm not going to name specific movies, but a couple of the Academy Award nominees

[53:08] for Best Picture this year that I thought were pretty good were movies that dealt with the

[53:13] loss of a child on various stages.

[53:15] And it only sets this movie in stark relief about how bad it is.

[53:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[53:21] I mean, if you're going to watch a movie about loss of a child, this is not the one to do.

[53:25] There's a couple of movies from this year, or just go watch The Sweet Hereafter.

[53:28] How about that?

[53:29] Mm-hmm.

[53:31] That's a movie that kind of gets at similar things in a way, in a much deeper way.

[53:35] But, okay.

[53:37] I should have saved that for recommendations.

[53:38] I want to make a correction for something I said a couple episodes ago.

[53:41] Uh-huh.

[53:41] I referred to an unpublished Marvel story of mine.

[53:44] Oh, okay.

[53:45] Called Old Man Spider-Ham.

[53:47] And I erroneously misremembered the name of the artist who drew the book.

[53:51] It was not Scotty Young, as I said.

[53:53] It was Eric Caney.

[53:54] Okay.

[53:55] Who was drawing in a very Scotty Young style.

[53:57] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[53:58] Because when you said Scotty Young, my eyeballs popped out of my head and I had to stuff them

[54:02] back into my head.

Elliott Kalan

[54:04] But no, if Scotty Young had drawn it, they probably would have.

[54:07] They probably would have published it because he's a bigger name than me.

[54:10] What's the name of the artist again?

[54:11] Eric Caney, who's also a really good artist.

[54:13] Cool.

[54:13] He's really great.

[54:14] And he has a couple books out now.

[54:15] Great.

[54:17] And maybe someday Marvel will see fit to print up that story now that Spider-Ham is more relevant

[54:23] than ever.

Stuart Wellington

[54:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[54:26] Out on the heels of Deadpool 2 going to production.

Elliott Kalan

[54:29] I would love it if they worked it out somehow for Spider-Ham to appear in Deadpool 2.

Stuart Wellington

[54:35] That would be amazing.

[54:36] Who would do the voice of Spider-Ham?

[54:38] Because, of course, he's a CGI character.

Elliott Kalan

[54:40] Yeah, oh no.

[54:41] Yeah, you can't just hire an actual pig man to do it.

[54:44] No.

[54:44] They're uncommon.

[54:45] Yeah, they're difficult to find.

Stuart Wellington

[54:47] And to find one that also has the acting chops, unlikely.

[54:50] Yes.

[54:50] So who's going to do the voice of Spider-Ham, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[54:54] The late Gary Marshall.

[54:57] Okay.

[54:57] Well, they're going to do it Peter Cushing style.

[55:01] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[55:02] I mean, it's already a CGI character.

[55:04] You don't need to do a recreation of Gary Marshall for a character that is a pig man.

[55:09] Which Gary Marshall was not one of.

[55:11] It leads me to believe you were not listening to what we were saying.

[55:16] That's a good question because it should not be too cartoony a voice.

[55:19] It's not like a rocket.

[55:20] It's not a rocket raccoon type character because he's Peter Porker.

[55:23] He's a mild-mannered pig who becomes Spider-Ham.

[55:25] But it should be a little cartoony.

[55:27] Uh-huh.

[55:28] So I'm going to say, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[55:32] Now, when you guys were watching Collateral Beauty tonight and they kept calling Will Smith's character Howard, were you ever thinking, is he Howard the Duck?

Elliott Kalan

[55:41] I was not thinking that.

Stuart Wellington

[55:44] And Dan's checking the Flophouse Recommends wiki, so he'll answer later.

Elliott Kalan

[55:48] So who would do the voice of Spider-Ham?

[55:51] I'm going to say, grown-up Jonathan Lipnicki.

Stuart Wellington

[55:57] Wow.

[55:58] I mean, you know, I think he's ready to get back in the spotlight.

Elliott Kalan

[56:01] He's super buff these days, and I don't know what he sounds like, so it's a wild card.

Dan McCoy

[56:05] Oh, wow.

[56:06] I like it.

[56:07] Casting unheard.

[56:09] Let's move on to letters from listeners.

[56:13] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[56:14] Let's move on to letters.

[56:17] L-E-T.

[56:18] Let's.

[56:18] L-E-T.

[56:20] Letters.

[56:20] There are two words that both have L-E-T in them.

[56:24] And what does that stand for?

[56:26] L.

[56:28] Strength of a lion.

[56:29] E.

[56:30] Memory of an elephant.

[56:32] T.

[56:33] Strength of a termite.

[56:35] Proportionately.

[56:36] Stronger than a lion.

[56:38] Combine those two strengths, and it's pretty strong.

[56:41] An elephant's memory, I've heard, is very strong.

[56:46] Let's do the other letters.

[56:48] T.

[56:49] Greatness of a tiger.

[56:51] Tony specifically.

[56:54] E.

[56:56] Richness of an emir.

[56:59] Rules a whole country, you see.

[57:02] And R stands, of course, for Roy Rogers.

[57:05] Roy Rogers.

[57:07] Fried chicken chain.

[57:09] Roast beef sandwiches.

[57:10] Hard to find unless you're on a highway in New Jersey.

[57:15] Letters.

[57:15] The S stands for you, Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[57:21] Can I lick your stamp?

[57:23] That's all right.

Dan McCoy

[57:27] So this one is from Graham, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[57:31] Graham Norton.

[57:32] Graham Cracker.

Dan McCoy

[57:33] Can you think of any films where the version you watched made a substantial difference to how much you enjoyed it?

[57:38] Speaking from my own experience and opinions, I could not understand the universal popularity of Blade Runner from the earlier cuts, which I felt lacked coherency, but I enjoyed the final cut far more, despite being almost the same film.

[57:53] Having grown up on the longer T-1000 edition of Terminator 2 made watching the theatrical version somewhat jarring, as scenes I thought were integral to the plot were absent altogether.

[58:05] The critically maligned Daredevil films actually somewhat watchful in its R-rated form.

[58:10] And most obscurely, the original Japanese version of The Adventures of Milo and Otis only shares about 60% of its footage with the later English version.

[58:18] They show a lot more of the stunt dogs being killed.

[58:20] If you watch it, you'll see why 40% was changed for Western audiences.

Stuart Wellington

[58:26] It's mostly them.

[58:26] It's all tea ceremony.

[58:31] So what movies.

Elliott Kalan

[58:33] It's mostly them bowing to each other in ever more elaborate ways to show respect.

Stuart Wellington

[58:38] You must not receive a gift three times in a row, Otis, before eventually accepting it.

Dan McCoy

[58:46] So what movies would you recommend one version of?

Stuart Wellington

[58:48] Milo has to make a pilgrimage to a specific shrine.

Dan McCoy

[58:52] What movies would you recommend one version of, but not the other?

[58:55] And for Stuart, what was it like re-watching Castle Freak and not seeing a scene you remembered so vividly?

[59:00] Love your show.

[59:01] Keep on flopping.

Elliott Kalan

[59:02] Does the imaginary version count as a version of that movie?

Stuart Wellington

[59:05] First off, I don't know.

[59:07] I mean, the version I saw must have been a little different than the version I saw originally.

[59:10] But I want to go back to Blade Runner.

[59:12] I'm going to tell you right now.

[59:13] I would like to talk about that too.

[59:14] Right now, I'm going to tell you why the original version was popular.

[59:18] And also, your later version is popular.

[59:20] Because people don't give a shit about the narrative coherence of a movie that I don't actually think is very coherent at all.

[59:26] I don't think it's a particularly great movie.

[59:29] The reason why people like it and the reason why I will still say it's all right is because it's a beautiful movie.

[59:36] It looks great.

[59:37] It's a beautiful movie that has a great score.

Elliott Kalan

[59:40] Here's what I'm going to say, and this is going to be controversial.

[59:42] Blade Runner is...

[59:43] You're going to ruffle a few feathers.

[59:44] I'm going to ruffle a lot of feathers.

[59:45] Get your chickens out of the room unless you want their feathers ruffled the fuck up.

[59:49] Okay.

[59:49] Chicken?

[59:50] Okay, they're out.

[59:50] They're out of here.

[59:51] Bladerunner is the hunger of science fiction movies.

[59:56] Ah.

[59:56] It is a stylistic feast where the plot does not really make any sense.

[1:00:05] And that is why I like the original theatrical cut with the voiceover on it more than the director's cut.

[1:00:10] Wow.

[1:00:10] Because at least you have Harrison Ford telling you what the hell is going on in the movie.

[1:00:14] Mm-hmm.

[1:00:14] Even though it's lead in and it's just describing things.

[1:00:18] Without that, I grew up with only the director's cut of the movie.

[1:00:22] And it was a long time before I saw the theatrical cut.

[1:00:24] And I read all the stuff about how terrible the theatrical cut was, how bad the voiceover was.

[1:00:27] When I finally saw it, I was like, oh, I know what's happening from scene to scene in this movie now.

[1:00:33] Now I know why the studio put this voiceover on it.

[1:00:35] But it looks beautiful.

[1:00:36] Yeah.

[1:00:37] A movie, I'll say the versions are very different.

[1:00:39] Uh-huh.

[1:00:40] Growing up with Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

[1:00:43] Mm-hmm.

[1:00:43] And then finally as an adult, when it was released in theaters briefly, again,

[1:00:47] the original Gojira, which is a very different movie.

[1:00:51] One is a monster movie and the other is about the horror of a city under massive attack by a force it can't stop.

[1:01:01] And losing Raymond Burr, just kind of looking out of windows and kind of like sleepily talking about what he was seeing,

[1:01:08] really improved the movie.

[1:01:09] It's a very different movie.

[1:01:11] Uh, I remember...

[1:01:13] Which is not to say that I didn't grow up loving Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:16] No one would ever accuse you of that, Elliot.

[1:01:18] Okay, good.

[1:01:18] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:19] The first time I saw Aliens, and I think this is the version that I taped off of television and had for many years.

[1:01:25] Mm-hmm.

[1:01:25] It was the director's cut.

[1:01:27] The VHS that said sports on it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:30] Why are you hiding aliens?

Dan McCoy

[1:01:33] It was the director's cut that included, uh, a lot of scenes.

[1:01:39] The stuff about her daughter?

[1:01:40] Yeah.

[1:01:40] Well, the scenes that it had that...

[1:01:43] All right.

[1:01:43] First, it had a scene that's unnecessary, which was the...

[1:01:47] That dance party at the end?

[1:01:48] You see the columnists on, like, what is it, LU-486 or something like that?

[1:01:53] No, LU-486.

[1:01:55] Mm-hmm.

[1:01:56] Uh, you see the columnists.

[1:01:58] The columnists.

[1:01:59] You see Hedda Hopper and Luella Parsons.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:02] Trying to get an interview with this xenomorph.

[1:02:04] Rumors going around that this xenomorph might be gay.

[1:02:06] Let's blow the lid off this thing.

[1:02:08] The studios are trying to cover it up.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:11] No, uh, the colonists were...

[1:02:14] You see them...

[1:02:14] Mr. and Mrs. America and all the spaceships at sea.

[1:02:18] Uh, getting attacked.

[1:02:19] And we don't need to see that.

[1:02:20] It's good.

[1:02:21] It's better not to know what happened to the columnists, even though you know what happened

[1:02:24] to the columnists.

[1:02:24] The movie's called Aliens.

[1:02:25] Yes.

[1:02:26] But it's better not to see that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:28] You're like, oh, do they just give up on their dreams of finding a new colony?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:32] I guess it was climate change.

[1:02:34] It's better for the movie not to start that way, though.

[1:02:36] You want to wait on the mystery of what occurred.

[1:02:39] You want to edge you a little bit.

[1:02:40] Yeah.

[1:02:41] But, there are two scenes that I think make the movie a lot better.

[1:02:45] And one is the one where she sees that...

[1:02:47] Ripley sees that her daughter has died during the time that she was in hypersleep.

[1:02:52] Uh, which adds, you know, a little backstory, emotional backstory to why she's so attached

[1:02:56] to Newt.

[1:02:57] And two, there's...

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:58] Because Newt's a precocious, cool old kid.

[1:03:00] Yeah.

[1:03:01] She's like a monkey bruise.

[1:03:02] She's like an audience surrogate.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:04] Mm-hmm.

[1:03:04] Go on.

[1:03:06] Affirmative.

[1:03:07] Uh, and there's the...

[1:03:09] Bug Hunt Man Game Over.

[1:03:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:10] I'm in the pipe five by five.

[1:03:13] There's...

Dan McCoy

[1:03:13] There's a scene where they set up automated guns to, uh, the aliens are coming down the corridors

[1:03:22] at them.

[1:03:23] And they set up these automated guns that are slowly going down.

[1:03:27] You see the countdown of their ammunition slowly going out.

[1:03:32] And, uh, and you don't know what's going to happen.

[1:03:34] And I won't spoil it for people who haven't seen Aliens, but it's a very tense scene.

[1:03:38] And it's one that I miss very much when I see the theatrical version.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:42] Yeah, I mean, Aliens is a great movie.

[1:03:44] Yeah.

[1:03:45] It is.

[1:03:45] So, let's see.

[1:03:48] Uh, the extended versions of Lord of the Rings, uh, obviously I prefer the extended versions.

[1:03:53] I think the extended version of Return of the King, eh, maybe...

[1:03:57] I feel like that's the only one where it's a toss-up between the theatrical or the extended

[1:04:01] version.

[1:04:01] But the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers, I think, are essential.

[1:04:06] That's the preferred version.

[1:04:08] Uh, I would say the TV Comedy Central edit of Coming to America is hilarious.

[1:04:13] If only for all the swapping of, uh, fuck you to forget you.

[1:04:19] Uh, that's hilarious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:20] That's, I was going to say, uh, about the version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off that we had on

[1:04:24] tape as a kid was off TV.

[1:04:26] And there was a lot of, there was a few moments of that.

[1:04:28] It's like, if you, I'm not saying Cameron is uptight, but if you took a piece of coal

[1:04:33] and shoved it in his fist, in two weeks you'd have a diamond.

[1:04:36] And of course, it took me, it was a long time before I learned that the line was up his

[1:04:39] ass.

[1:04:40] And I was, and I was, I was like, why don't come when he says in his fist, his voice sounds

[1:04:43] totally different.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:44] Like he's in a different room even.

[1:04:46] I remember in, I remember in college, I, a buddy of mine had a VHS tape of, uh, the Peter

[1:04:52] Jackson movie, Bad Taste.

[1:04:53] And he's like, oh, you got to watch this.

[1:04:54] It's from the guy who made Dead Alive.

[1:04:56] And I had seen Dead Alive previously, but I had seen the R-rated version.

[1:05:01] Oh yeah.

[1:05:02] And first off, it's like fucking like 64 minutes long.

[1:05:06] It's super short.

[1:05:07] And they just edited all the awesome gore out.

[1:05:10] And I'm like, this movie is dog shit.

[1:05:12] So that didn't, uh, and then I ended up having to track down and finding the, the unrated

[1:05:17] version, which is amazing.

[1:05:19] And it's super great.

[1:05:20] So, and it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

[1:05:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:23] Definitely only see the unrated version of Dead Alive.

[1:05:27] That's a good one.

[1:05:28] Mm-hmm.

[1:05:29] Uh, should I move on?

[1:05:31] Sure.

[1:05:32] Uh, this is from, let me look.

[1:05:35] Joseph, last name withheld.

[1:05:36] Gordon Levitt.

[1:05:37] Oh, wow.

[1:05:39] Wow, Robin.

[1:05:40] Wow, Robin.

[1:05:40] Dear Mr. House Duflop, your biggest gay-ass fan again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:45] Hey, recently I noticed.

[1:05:47] Yes, sorry.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:48] Recently I noticed Elliot using yet again a descriptive term that subjectively, personally, in my head

[1:05:53] is particularly grating.

[1:05:55] He described a character's development in the film as their journey.

[1:05:59] He's also used this odd therapeutic epithet to describe plot as well.

[1:06:04] Now, I find Elliot as cute and cuddly and as wonderful as I find Dan sturdy and as well

[1:06:09] extant or as hot as Stuella DeVille.

[1:06:12] But this word is loathsomely overused in general, but particularly as applied to movies.

[1:06:18] I only prefer it to be applied to reality shows.

[1:06:22] This made me realize that there are many such filler words regularly used by critics and reviewers.

[1:06:28] I would call journey to be a totally apt word.

[1:06:33] But continue.

[1:06:34] Some good, some not so good.

[1:06:36] Which I find corny in the sense of being lame.

[1:06:39] Some of these include visceral, balletic, tactile, and the dread academicized, sorry, filmic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:51] Are there...

[1:06:51] Balletic is definitely when it's referring to violence or something.

[1:06:55] Because I'm always like, have these guys seen a ballet?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:59] I saw Equilibrium, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:02] That's a ballet, right?

[1:07:04] Because all they're really saying is that this violence was well choreographed.

[1:07:07] But it's not really balletic.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:09] I saw that scene in Boondock Saints where Willem Dafoe is flipping out.

[1:07:15] Oh, that movie sucks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:17] End it and then I've got an answer for the question.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:20] Are there any of these grayish shorthand words that you dislike?

[1:07:24] The male gaze?

[1:07:26] Fetishization?

[1:07:27] I suspect Stuella has a high disdain for Hustler's old Peter meter.

[1:07:31] Joseph's last name with hell.

[1:07:34] Yep, overused a bit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:37] I mean, it's really only used by the one guy, but...

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:41] I do like any time a movie has any element of synthesizer in the score and or neon in the movie,

[1:07:49] it's going to get lurid in the review somewhere.

[1:07:53] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:53] If there's anything through Venetian blinds, then yeah.

[1:07:56] Yeah, yeah.

[1:07:57] Here are the words that, in reviews, the term American classic bothers me because just called a classic,

[1:08:05] you're then saying that this movie says something uniquely true about America, which is rarely the case.

[1:08:11] I remember in the ads for Fight Club, they were always quoting Peter Travers as calling it an American classic, and that really bothered me.

[1:08:18] In ads for movies, visionary, we've talked about this, of course.

[1:08:22] And even if it comes to visionary, I guess, because they can see.

[1:08:25] And this is something I was complaining about on Twitter not too long ago.

[1:08:29] Woefully miscast.

[1:08:31] I've never seen a movie where someone has...

[1:08:34] I've seen movies where people are miscast.

[1:08:35] Never so miscast that I have felt woe, which is literally like Edgar Allen Poe level melancholy and sadness.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:44] Yeah, you haven't been watching a movie and you're like, oh, no, a pox upon my house for this casting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:51] George Clooney shouldn't be playing Batman.

[1:08:53] Oh, God, there is no God.

[1:08:56] I guess I'll just live in a decaying manor.

[1:09:00] And worry that my sister was buried alive.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:04] I don't know that I have any of these, honestly.

[1:09:08] They're ones that are specific to certain reviewers.

[1:09:13] Anything Matt Singer says, I'm like, fuck that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:16] That asshole.

[1:09:17] Go back to eating branded fast food menus.

[1:09:21] He's eating the menus?

[1:09:23] I mean, if it gets close enough to his King Kong burger, it'll get eaten.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:29] So, Dan, what are some words you don't like?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:32] Well, I was saying that I didn't...

[1:09:34] Trust, honesty.

[1:09:35] Yeah.

[1:09:37] Forthrightness.

[1:09:37] Affection.

[1:09:39] Love, time, death.

[1:09:43] And everything in between.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:44] If this movie had been made in the 90s and it was an indie film, it would have been called Love, Time, Death, and Everything in Between.

[1:09:50] Or like, Love, Time, Death, and Some Other Great Flavors.

[1:09:53] Or some shitty, like, winky title like that.

[1:09:56] Everything in the 90s had to have shitty, winky titles.

[1:09:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:01] Love, time, death, and a duffel bed.

[1:10:03] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:04] Love, time, death, and other fun things to do.

[1:10:08] And other catastrophes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:09] I'd be in Blockbuster Video and I'd be like, this looks good.

[1:10:14] Mom, can I rent this?

[1:10:15] I'll try it.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:17] I didn't have anything good to say about this, so we should just move on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:20] Cool, let's just move on.

[1:10:21] Okay.

[1:10:22] Let's get moving on.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:23] I think we're only going to do three letters this night, so this will be our last one.

[1:10:28] Okay, the third act.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:30] The denouement.

[1:10:32] This one.

[1:10:32] That's French for last letter.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:34] This one is from Riley, middle name withheld Quinn, who writes,

[1:10:39] Hey, Flop Kings, when I was 80% asleep, I muttered something to my girlfriend and asked her to take it down so I could send it in to you guys as a letter.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:47] How lazy.

[1:10:49] Write it yourself.

[1:10:50] He's dating her from the movie Her.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:52] Oh, okay.

[1:10:53] Here follows her note.

[1:10:54] Either help me make sense of it or let me resign myself to worshipping Nyarlathotep.

[1:10:59] Or she.

[1:11:01] Nyarlathotep.

[1:11:01] I don't know.

[1:11:01] The crawling chaos.

[1:11:03] Is it creeping chaos or crawling chaos?

[1:11:04] Crawling chaos.

[1:11:05] Crawling chaos.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:07] Although I don't know a way to worship him.

[1:11:09] He's really more of a servant of the Elder Gods.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:11] She sent a, or he sent, he?

[1:11:15] He sent girlfriend, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:16] Or she.

[1:11:17] Whoa, whoa, Dan.

[1:11:17] Whoa, Dan.

[1:11:18] Could be a lesbian, I said.

[1:11:19] Don't make that assumption.

[1:11:20] Just say they.

[1:11:22] That's acceptable now.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:24] Riley is just.

[1:11:26] Ace of spies.

[1:11:27] What did Riley say?

[1:11:28] Okay.

[1:11:30] Yes, what did Riley say?

[1:11:32] Riley sent a nice screenshot of it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:35] Which shouldn't make it harder to read.

[1:11:37] I don't know why you're showing it to Ellie and like, look at this stuff.

[1:11:40] Exhibit A.

[1:11:42] The printed out letter.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:43] I got proof.

[1:11:44] I'll enter this into evidence.

[1:11:45] It says exhibit A.

[1:11:49] Riley writes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:50] Just tell us.

[1:11:51] Oh, my God.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:53] Oh, God.

[1:11:55] Sound it out phonetically if you have to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:59] Flophouse letter.

[1:12:00] If you had said Riley tells us one more time, I think it would have left.

[1:12:04] KK, I'll come with you.

[1:12:06] KK.

[1:12:06] Yeah, I'll come with you.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:08] Flophouse letter.

[1:12:09] Dash.

[1:12:10] Houses of Parliament.

[1:12:11] Dash.

[1:12:12] Commons and Lords.

[1:12:14] Dash.

[1:12:15] And a Slobs v.

[1:12:16] Snobs film with a cool teen maid PM.

[1:12:19] Sewell convention.

[1:12:21] Speakers dais skateboard tricks.

[1:12:24] Challenge the flop guys to come up with a name.

[1:12:27] I think that's the word dais.

[1:12:28] Dais.

[1:12:28] Like, rock me, I'm a dais.

[1:12:29] No.

[1:12:31] And so continue.

[1:12:33] Riley says.

[1:12:34] Challenge the flop guys to come up with a name.

[1:12:36] That was it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:36] Oh, so, okay.

[1:12:37] So it's a Slobs v.

[1:12:38] Snobs comedy where I guess the House of Commons and the House of Lords are in a fight.

[1:12:42] And they, and a.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:43] With a cool teen maid PM, apparently.

[1:12:45] Makes sense.

[1:12:46] Okay.

[1:12:46] And there's a skateboard trick.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:48] Uh, speakers dais skateboard tricks.

[1:12:51] Okay.

[1:12:52] Sewell convention.

[1:12:53] Is that Rufus Sewell?

[1:12:54] I'm not sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:55] He's gotta be the bad guy.

[1:12:56] I mean, you sure maybe it's a misspelling of Sewell convention?

[1:12:59] And there's a, like a Ghostbusters angle to it?

[1:13:01] Or are you saying that?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:02] That would be a hell of a misspelling.

[1:13:03] I mean, look.

[1:13:05] They sound alike, but they don't, they're not spelled alike at all.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:07] I've had enough times when I've typed a word into my phone and it's thought it was some other cockamamie word I didn't want.

[1:13:12] Like cockamamie.

[1:13:14] Yeah.

[1:13:14] Type in cockamamie and it thinks I want cockamamie Eisenhower.

[1:13:19] This is not my maybe Eisenhower erotic fan fiction.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:23] Uh, well, that's a, that's a lot of pressure to come up with a good name on the spot, but that's pressure that we can handle because we're professionals.

[1:13:28] I think I'd call it London thrashing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:31] Oh, cool.

[1:13:33] So you got the skateboard angle in there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:35] I would say.

[1:13:38] Houses and Lords and everything else.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:42] And Dan, what would you go?

[1:13:44] Keep in mind, I'm now taking bringing down the houses off the table.

[1:13:48] Extra Anarchy in the UK.

[1:13:50] Okay.

[1:13:51] Interesting.

[1:13:51] More than the regular size.

[1:13:53] Yeah.

[1:13:53] When you need a little bit more Anarchy, that's the one you get from behind the counter.

[1:13:56] Yeah.

[1:13:58] Extra Strength Anarchy in the UK.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:00] Okay.

[1:14:00] So we did like a B plus job on this, this assignment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:04] That's generous.

[1:14:05] I'm giving us an A for trying.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:07] Oh, wow.

[1:14:09] Uh, but yeah, if you have any notes that you've written yourself or had dictated at late at night and don't understand anymore, please send them to us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:18] Send them to us.

[1:14:18] We'll come up with a title for them, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:21] Um, but, uh, now we move on to our final segment of the evening or whenever you're listening to this podcast.

[1:14:27] And that is recommendations.

[1:14:30] Sure.

[1:14:30] Movies that we like instead of collateral beauty, which I keep wanting to call collateral damage because that's a phrase and collateral beauty is not.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:40] Okay.

[1:14:41] Dan coming out, uh, strongly against the phrase collateral beauty.

[1:14:47] I hope people listen to this episode long into the future and realize that like far into the future where collateral beauty is like a thing that everybody says.

[1:14:56] Yeah.

[1:14:56] And we'll seem totally, uh, totally.

[1:15:00] Divorced from.

[1:15:01] Yeah, exactly.

[1:15:02] Like that G.I. Joe retaliation episode where I was like, there's no way that American people would, uh, elect a man with silly hair like Jonathan price.

[1:15:11] And then people keep tweeting me about it.

[1:15:13] And every time I'm like, oh, I feel bad about saying that thing.

[1:15:17] And I feel worse about our, the current state of our country.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:19] I mean, yeah, it's like, that is to, to say, uh, before it happened that America would never elect like a bad person president, I think is, or supervillain.

[1:15:30] I think it's totally okay to have been, to be like, you know what?

[1:15:34] I was wrong.

[1:15:34] I'm not going to feel bad about assuming that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:36] Like you guys are idiots because you didn't think the American people would hire, uh, elect Cobra commander to be the commander in chief.

[1:15:43] Uh, I don't know.

[1:15:45] Commander experience.

[1:15:46] That's true.

[1:15:47] That's very hard to get to.

[1:15:49] But that's the thing.

[1:15:50] That's why they wouldn't elect him is because they're suspicious of somebody with previous experience in being a commander.

[1:15:57] Like they want an outsider.

[1:15:58] He's establishment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:58] Let's just say Cobra commander is establishment and they want an outsider like Globulus.

[1:16:03] Like Globulus.

[1:16:06] Couldn't even say it with a straight face.

[1:16:09] Resident Globulus, which is kind of what we have.

[1:16:12] But, uh, anyway.

[1:16:13] That's where I got that name.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:18] Uh, so I was sitting here, you know, we've done.

[1:16:22] What do we do now, Dan?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:23] Like I said already, recommendations.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:25] We've done this for nearly 10 years.

[1:16:28] This podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:28] When's our anniversary?

[1:16:29] When's our 10 year anniversary?

Dan McCoy

[1:16:30] Keep in mind, I wasn't here for the originals.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:32] Well, me and Dan, our anniversary is in August.

[1:16:35] I don't know.

[1:16:35] When did we do I Know Who Killed Me?

[1:16:37] That was your first year.

[1:16:38] That would have been, I don't know.

[1:16:40] That was episode eight.

[1:16:42] So.

[1:16:43] I mean, we can check iTunes.

[1:16:44] I think it tells you when it came out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:46] So we'll have to figure out if we want to do a 10th anniversary.

[1:16:48] We'll just do both.

[1:16:49] 10th anniversary of the show and then a mini 10th anniversary for when the original Peaches came together.

[1:16:53] Okay.

[1:16:53] Ironically, not as the original members of the show.

[1:16:56] Yeah.

[1:16:56] Uh-huh.

[1:16:57] Maybe people could write in.

[1:16:58] I think you're explaining the joke for me.

[1:17:00] Could write in, explain, and with suggestions about how to celebrate 10 years of the Flophouse, which seems crazy now that I've just said that.

[1:17:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:07] God.

[1:17:08] But I say that just to say that we've been doing recommendations that entire time.

[1:17:14] There were a fixture of the show from the very beginning.

[1:17:17] And I still forgot that I was supposed to come up with a movie until halfway through the podcast tonight.

[1:17:23] I thought you were going to say that you had run out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:25] Oh, that's why you were so quiet, Dan?

[1:17:26] I thought it was because you were half asleep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:28] I thought you were going to say that you're like, we've gone through a lot of movies, so it's hard to think of another one.

[1:17:33] And I was going to make fun of you.

[1:17:34] Like, yeah, there's only been 240 movies in the history of filmmaking.

[1:17:38] But no, that makes sense.

[1:17:39] It's actually, I should make fun of you for forgetting the thing we do every episode for 10 years.

[1:17:45] But it just makes me worry about you a little bit.

[1:17:47] You didn't cough at all tonight, did you?

[1:17:50] I have been coughing a little bit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:52] Pregnant.

[1:17:53] One thing I will say is doing this, doing the recommendation section of the podcast, at this point, it genuinely puts pressure on me to watch movies that aren't just the movie we watch for the Flop.

[1:18:05] Oh, yeah, for sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:07] Well, that's what I was, I haven't seen a new movie since we were last together, certainly.

[1:18:15] So, like, part of me was just like, what if I just recommended a book?

[1:18:19] And then I'm like, no, that's cheating.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:21] We will make fun of you forever.

[1:18:23] But.

[1:18:23] Is it a book about movies, at least?

Dan McCoy

[1:18:24] No, it's not a book about movies.

[1:18:26] But it led me to a movie.

[1:18:27] Not permissible.

[1:18:28] It led me to a movie.

[1:18:30] Okay.

[1:18:30] Because I read the Yiddish Policeman's Union recently.

[1:18:33] I enjoyed it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:33] Are you going to recommend Orson Welles' Heart of Darkness, which is mentioned in the book?

[1:18:36] That movie does not exist.

[1:18:38] No.

[1:18:39] That's the one thing I want to ask Michael Chabon.

[1:18:40] Anyone listening, if you have the chance to ask Michael Chabon a question, I want you to ask him for me.

[1:18:45] In the alternate universe where the Jews of Europe were resettled in Alaska, how did it also change whether Orson Welles made a movie of Heart of Darkness or not?

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:53] I mean, he follows Hodgman on Instagram, so there's a decent chance Hodgman could ask him.

[1:18:58] John Hodgman.

[1:18:59] Yeah.

[1:18:59] If you're listening.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:00] He's not.

[1:19:01] He's not.

[1:19:02] Well, somebody tell Hodgman this because he's not speaking to me right now.

[1:19:06] That's not true.

[1:19:06] Maybe I'll ask him.

[1:19:08] But it's always been like, it's just an interesting kind of the other difference of this alternate universe.

[1:19:13] Because he was going to make a movie of Heart of Darkness.

[1:19:15] Yeah.

[1:19:15] But it was going to be too expensive.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:18] So, okay.

[1:19:18] So, you're reading Yiddish Policeman's Union.

[1:19:20] No, I enjoyed it very much.

[1:19:22] But that led me to think.

[1:19:24] Of Police Academy 4.

[1:19:25] I should recommend a Michael Chabon movie, which is Wonder Boys.

[1:19:29] Oh.

[1:19:30] Wonder Boys is a film.

[1:19:31] About wonderful boys.

[1:19:32] That I enjoy very much.

[1:19:35] It was not particularly lauded at its time of release.

[1:19:42] I mean, the critics liked it okay.

[1:19:44] They slept for Razzies.

[1:19:46] Critics liked it okay, but no one went and saw it.

[1:19:49] And that's because it's like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:50] Is the movie about a college professor and a creative writing student?

[1:19:52] Who are having issues that they help each other out with?

[1:19:55] That wasn't a huge hit?

[1:19:57] That didn't rock the box office for 19 whenever?

Dan McCoy

[1:20:01] It's sort of a melancholy comedy, but it's very funny.

[1:20:05] In spite of having this kind of.

[1:20:07] Also known as every comedy on cable or Amazon.

[1:20:10] Well, apparently Elliot's not a fan of Wonder Boys.

[1:20:13] Oh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:13] It's fine.

[1:20:14] Just this new wave of melancholy comedies.

[1:20:16] Sorry.

[1:20:17] I shouldn't interrupt so much.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:18] No, I don't have a whole lot to say other than it's a movie about a.

[1:20:23] Michael Douglas plays a college professor who's been trying to write a book for years and years and years.

[1:20:30] And his.

[1:20:33] Protégé.

[1:20:34] In the movie.

[1:20:37] Fuck.

[1:20:37] What's who?

[1:20:38] Tommy McGuire.

[1:20:40] Peter Parker?

[1:20:42] Yeah.

[1:20:42] Seabiscuit?

[1:20:46] Is.

[1:21:02] Is.

[1:21:03] Roger Ebert said about it.

[1:21:04] I think that's very accurate.

[1:21:05] So I'm not going to try and get into all of the ins and outs of it.

[1:21:08] It's just a beautifully shot film.

[1:21:12] It.

[1:21:13] There's just gorgeous stuff in it.

[1:21:16] And I forget which.

[1:21:17] I think it's in Pittsburgh that it's set.

[1:21:19] And they managed to make this like rundown factory town look magical.

[1:21:24] And again, it's got a great cast.

[1:21:26] It's got Frances McDormand in it, too.

[1:21:29] And she's great, along with Michael Douglas, probably putting in his best performance, I think.

[1:21:35] So I recommend Wonder Boys.

[1:21:37] If you like the works of Michael Chabon, you should watch this film,

[1:21:41] which captures it pretty well, even though in the book, the professor is decidedly Jewish and not Michael Douglas.

[1:21:50] I mean, Michael Douglas is half Jewish.

[1:21:52] Is he?

[1:21:52] He's Kirk Douglas's son.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:53] Kirk Douglas is Jewish.

[1:21:55] Well, he doesn't.

[1:21:56] He certainly doesn't come off as Jewish in anything he does.

[1:22:00] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:00] What about Wall Street?

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:03] He might be Jewish.

[1:22:04] I don't know who his mother is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:06] Oh, my God.

[1:22:07] I just remembered the movie we watched tonight is like a sad version of the game.

[1:22:15] That's hilarious.

[1:22:17] Dan, I'm going to look up and see if Michael Douglas is Jewish.

[1:22:19] So while Dan's – well, Dan.

[1:22:21] While Elliot's doing that, I'm going to recommend a handful of movies, I guess.

[1:22:25] So –

[1:22:26] A whole handful?

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:27] So –

[1:22:27] No, yeah.

[1:22:28] Only his father is Jewish.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:29] Kirk Douglas.

[1:22:30] Dan had mentioned an episode or two ago that he had seen Get Out, and I finally saw it.

[1:22:35] And I think it's great.

[1:22:36] You should totally go see it.

[1:22:38] It manages to be a successful horror movie, like a schlocky horror movie.

[1:22:44] But at the same time, I think the political message it's putting out there is well thought out and deepens the horror movie-ness of it.

[1:22:55] And it's a movie where, as things are revealed, it actually becomes a more interesting movie as opposed to being demystified and less interesting, which is often the case with that kind of movie.

[1:23:06] Get Out.

[1:23:07] It's just a great, strong first feature for a director.

[1:23:11] So boo on Dan for not recommending it.

[1:23:14] So you're saying get out and see Get Out.

[1:23:16] Get Out and see Get Out.

[1:23:17] Before Dan can respond, I'm going to keep going.

[1:23:19] I'm also going to recommend – last time when we were doing the show, John Hodgman was playing me off the stage, and I didn't get to bring up the fact that the movie I was recommending, Manborg, which is great, has at the end a trailer for a fake movie called Biochemist.

[1:23:37] BioCop, which is amazing.

[1:23:40] And that's available on YouTube.

[1:23:42] So if you have any time at all, go on to YouTube and watch a five-minute trailer for a movie that doesn't exist called BioCop.

[1:23:49] You'll feel better about yourself.

[1:23:51] Go do that.

[1:23:52] I don't want to talk too much about it because I don't want to ruin it, so go see that, and then I'm going to recommend the movie I'm actually going to recommend.

[1:24:00] Although, actually, no, you know what?

[1:24:01] I'm just going to say Get Out is my recommendation.

[1:24:03] It's awesome.

[1:24:04] Wow.

[1:24:04] You should go see that.

[1:24:05] It's got a lot of great performances.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:08] Yeah.

[1:24:09] Save that other one for another time.

[1:24:11] You're going to need it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:11] Let me just open up my little pouch and put it back in there.

[1:24:15] Your movie pouch.

[1:24:16] Mm-hmm.

[1:24:17] And when you open it, it's like, wow, wow, wow.

[1:24:18] Movie pouch.

[1:24:19] Get back in there, gross movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:22] What did you say, Dan?

[1:24:23] I know.

[1:24:23] That sounds like his Turner Classic movie show.

[1:24:26] Stuart Wellington's movie pouch.

[1:24:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:28] Wouldn't that be great if I was able to trump Elliot's bid to be a Turner Classic movie host with Stuart's movie pouch?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:35] Movie sack.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:37] I got a sack full of movies.

[1:24:39] My request is very simple.

[1:24:42] Just put me on, like, do a little thing on Shudder where I introduce fucking movies.

[1:24:47] I'd gladly do that.

[1:24:48] Oh, that'd be great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:49] Here's, okay, anyone who's listening to this, if you work at Turner Classic Movies, you know somebody who works at Turner Classic Movies.

[1:24:55] One of my career goals is to be a Turner Classic Movies movie host.

[1:25:00] Mm-hmm.

[1:25:01] Hook me up with it.

[1:25:02] It's something that I'm pretty sure I can do.

[1:25:04] Thank you.

[1:25:04] That's very nice to say.

[1:25:06] And I would do it in a very respectable way.

[1:25:09] I'm not looking to slag any movies on there.

[1:25:11] I'd really like to do it.

[1:25:13] I'm more than willing to share an apartment with Baymankiewicz, if that's how it works.

[1:25:17] Because I assume he shared an apartment with Robert Osborne, and that's where they shoot all the intros, in that apartment.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:20] I feel like if, like, I think I'm pretty likely to get offered that gig, Elliot.

[1:25:26] And, you know, I'm just up front, I'm going to say, you'd be better at it than me.

[1:25:30] Like, I'm really charming, and I'm really funny and everything, but I think you'd be better at it than me.

[1:25:34] So just offer it to Elliot instead.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:35] I mean, Stuart's more handsome than me, so they're probably going to give it to Stuart.

[1:25:39] Yeah, that's true.

[1:25:41] I'm tall, too.

[1:25:42] And he's tall.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:43] Isn't it kind of like a bad boy image?

[1:25:44] Uh-huh.

[1:25:45] And, you know, I can dance when I have to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:49] Usually doesn't enter into it, but maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:51] No, but if I had to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:53] Like, if someone had to put a gun to your head?

[1:25:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:25:56] Is the only way to save a bus full of people that's falling off a cliff if you danced?

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:00] Like, okay, I'm going to give you a hypothetical.

[1:26:03] We're on a planet, and Ronan the Accuser pops out, and he's got one of them Infinity Stones, and you're like,

[1:26:08] Dude, I'd dance and win the day.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:12] Okay.

[1:26:13] I'm kind of confused about how your dancing wins the dance contest.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:16] You haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:17] That's what basically happens.

[1:26:19] I mean, what I remember from Guardians of the Galaxy is the unnecessary amount of swear words.

[1:26:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:25] It was not necessarily called Ronan the Accuser a bitch.

[1:26:27] You were really mad because Danielle had her hands over your ears so you didn't have to hear those swears.

[1:26:33] I was like, oh, I want to hear the bad words.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:36] I am disappointed that Ronan the Accuser, who has become a kind of complex character in the comics,

[1:26:40] was made just the regular Marvel movie two-dimensional bat.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:44] I thought he was much more interesting than that, but that's my...

[1:26:47] Mostly.

[1:26:48] I think Lee Pace did what he could do.

[1:26:49] I love the idea that that movie, most of it seems like a happy-go-lucky, goofy space movie,

[1:26:54] and then all the scenes on Ronan the Accuser's ship is super grim and gross.

[1:27:03] It seems like it's part of a completely different movie, and I love that about it.

[1:27:06] That's fair.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:07] Well, we'll see what happens with the second one since I'm hoping...

[1:27:10] Well, we'll talk about it later.

[1:27:11] The storyline they're doing in the second one has, I hope, one from the comics that I like.

[1:27:15] Who, I'm going to recommend a movie that I feel like was kind of trying to do the thing that this movie was trying to do

[1:27:21] and achieved it much more.

[1:27:23] And it's a movie from 1986 called Promise with James Garner and James Woods,

[1:27:28] which was technically a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie.

[1:27:31] Wow.

[1:27:32] But it's available on...

[1:27:33] This is a real first for Elliot.

[1:27:34] But it's available...

[1:27:35] I mean, I saw it on Turner Classic Movies.

[1:27:37] It's available, I think, on DVD.

[1:27:39] And it is about...

[1:27:40] James Garner is a man who is in middle age but doesn't want to...

[1:27:44] He doesn't live like he's in middle age.

[1:27:45] He lives like a much younger man.

[1:27:46] And his brother, played by James Woods, is a paranoid schizophrenic.

[1:27:51] And their mother passes away, and he had promised his mother years ago,

[1:27:54] I'll take care of my brother if anything should happen to you.

[1:27:56] And he's finding it now very hard to live up to that promise

[1:28:00] in a way he didn't realize it would be because he never really thought about it before.

[1:28:04] And for the most part, it's a pretty understated movie.

[1:28:09] There's, of course, a scene where James Woods flips out completely,

[1:28:12] which is a little over the top.

[1:28:14] Does he stick anything in his fucking tummy?

[1:28:17] No, he doesn't enter the new flesh.

[1:28:21] But it's a movie about two brothers who really have nothing in common

[1:28:27] and have trouble living with each other in a way that they can never really overcome.

[1:28:33] And the best that they can do is kind of come to an understanding about each other

[1:28:36] in a way that they love each other but they can't fix each other.

[1:28:40] And I found that there was an...

[1:28:42] Especially for a Hallmark TV movie.

[1:28:44] Oh, this was at the time when they were putting out really, really quality TV movies.

[1:28:49] That...

[1:28:49] For that, it really got to that point in an honest way,

[1:28:54] in a way that something like Collateral Beauty did not do.

[1:28:57] And the score in it is done by David Shire, who did the score for my favorite movie,

[1:29:00] Taken of Pelham 123.

[1:29:01] And it is light years different from the score for that movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:04] For the score of Taken of Pelham 123 or Collateral Beauty?

[1:29:08] Taken of Pelham 123.

[1:29:09] Because Collateral Beauty sounds like it was scored by, like, Atticus Ross's nephew.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:13] There's a surprise about a beeps and boops in the soundtrack of it.

[1:29:17] Not in Collateral Beauty, I mean.

[1:29:18] So, Promise, I would recommend as just a solidly made family drama type movie that I liked.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:25] Alright, guys.

[1:29:26] Bunch of recommendations.

[1:29:27] Yep.

[1:29:28] That's an accurate summation of what just happened.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:31] Now, what's the next thing that we're going to do?

[1:29:33] The next thing we do is we...

Dan McCoy

[1:29:35] Do we do, like, prizes or...

[1:29:37] No.

[1:29:38] I'm curious about Stuart doing one of those famous dances of his.

[1:29:40] I hit stop on the recorder and we all go home to our snug little beds.

[1:29:45] Uh-huh.

[1:29:45] And we go shuffle off to Dreamland.

[1:29:48] What if I need to shuffle off to Buffalo?

[1:29:50] You're free to do that.

[1:29:51] What if I just want to dream about a buffalo?

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:53] The free country for now.

[1:29:56] Uh, too topical.

[1:29:58] Yeah.

[1:29:59] Okay, Air America.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:00] I'm getting too saucy.

[1:30:01] We should probably sign off for the Flophouse.

[1:30:03] I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:05] I've been Stuart, the Quaken Quaker Wellington.

[1:30:09] Not actually a Quaker.

[1:30:11] I was going to ask about that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:13] And, friends, who are we really when it looks...

[1:30:18] When we get down to it.

[1:30:19] There's really only three constants in life.

[1:30:20] Uh-huh.

[1:30:20] Love, death...

[1:30:22] Just a bunch of meat and bones.

[1:30:24] And time.

[1:30:24] We're just sacks of flesh with maybe a little bit of spark and who knows who put it there.

[1:30:29] Can you put a name on it?

[1:30:30] Can you really put a name on the thing that makes us us?

[1:30:33] Put a name on it.

[1:30:35] I guess if I had to put a name on it, for me, I'd say Elliot Kalin.

[1:30:40] Good night, everybody.

[1:30:41] Good night.

[1:30:41] Let's start this show.

[1:30:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:30:56] The show that we do.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:58] Let's call it a podcast.

[1:30:59] Let's do the intro first, and then we'll do the second part second.

[1:31:02] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:03] Love it.

[1:31:05] So the second part is the show.

[1:31:07] Yeah.

[1:31:08] So you decided the show is the second part.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:11] Uh, in three, two, one.

[1:31:14] On this episode...

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:16] I don't know why you looked at me like I was about to unleash a cape on you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:21] Three, two, one, they'll look at you like, I did something bad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:25] I'm a naughty little boy.

[1:31:27] If I count it down...

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:29] Oh, can you believe me?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:31] Numbers usually go the other way.

[1:31:37] Maximumfun.org

Dan McCoy

[1:31:38] Comedy and culture.

[1:31:39] Artist owned.

[1:31:40] Listener supported.

Ep. #228 - Collateral Beauty

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