Ep.#220 - The Trust

[0:00] Ho ho ho! Merry Cagemas! What has Nicolas Cage brought us this year? Why, it's the Trust!

[0:08] And a happy Cageica!

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

[0:41] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:43] I'm Elliot Kalin. Hey, what's wrong, Stuart?

[0:46] Why are we still doing this, guys?

[0:48] The whole thing?

[0:50] Yeah.

[0:51] Life or the Flophouse?

[0:53] Yeah, why are we doing it? Well, I guess life and the Flophouse.

[0:56] Stuart, you should be triumphant.

[0:57] After all, I said, happy cage-a-cut,

[0:59] and you immediately afterwards, when we were done with the intro,

[1:02] corrected me by saying, shouldn't it have been on a cage?

[1:04] So you were right and I was wrong.

[1:06] I should be exultant, but Dan's probably going to leave that

[1:08] on the old cutting room floor.

[1:09] No, no, no.

[1:10] That's where he goes in and cuts the computer.

[1:13] That's where he cuts a hole in the floor to get to the safe underneath it.

[1:16] Spoiler alert for the movie.

[1:17] This imagines that I cut anything from any episode ever.

[1:21] Or that I've listened to the podcast before.

[1:25] So, Stu, what's got you down?

[1:26] Yeah, come on.

[1:27] It's the most wonderful time of the year.

[1:29] I mean, it's winter out.

[1:31] Leaves are falling.

[1:32] Children calling.

[1:34] Yep.

[1:35] What else?

[1:35] Bros balling.

[1:37] One, two, Freddy's coming for you.

[1:39] Three, four, better lock the door.

[1:41] Well, yeah, I mean, five, six, get a crucifix.

[1:45] Wait, what?

[1:47] Seven, eight?

[1:48] Seven, eight.

[1:49] Better stay up late.

[1:51] Nine, ten?

[1:52] A big fat hand.

[1:55] If the story checks out, your math adds up.

[1:58] Hold on, let me check the Christmas calculator.

[2:00] Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

[2:01] Yep, good holiday cheer.

[2:03] So, Dan, what is this show and what do we do on it?

[2:07] This show is called The Flophouse.

[2:09] Yep.

[2:10] It's a podcast.

[2:11] If you thought you were listening to 99% Invisible or Radiolab or something that has actual factual content.

[2:19] Then you have some weird aphasia.

[2:21] You have chosen the wrong one because you're about to enter a world of nonsense.

[2:25] yep here's some pain stuff you should know uh well wait it actually you should know that you're

[2:30] listening to a bad podcast about dumb stuff not a bad podcast a pointless podcast and dan what do

[2:36] we do on this pointless stupid podcast we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it or we watch

[2:41] a movie let's say and then we talk about it all right interesting split hairs and dan now it is

[2:48] as you mentioned the happiest time of the year why is that what time of the year is it is it

[2:52] the summer solstice is it flag day is it secretary's day i assume that these are rhetorical

[3:00] questions because if they aren't you're an idiot dan i've come unstuck in time is this

[3:04] a minute ago i was a minute ago i was 60 years old and i was in a space cage and then two minutes

[3:11] ago i was a toddler so i what time is it what year is it where am i elliot is that you sitting

[3:16] over in that chair as an old man while a childlike version of you is fitfully sleeping worried the

[3:22] Sandman's going to show up?

[3:23] Is that the same guy, right?

[3:25] Yeah, I'm not quite sure what's...

[3:28] I love

[3:30] that music video in Enter Sandman

[3:32] where they manage to

[3:34] time the truck

[3:36] smashing into that bed

[3:37] when James Hetfield goes,

[3:39] You know that they have editing, right?

[3:42] That's how they did it.

[3:43] The guy was driving

[3:45] and he's like, okay.

[3:47] Now we only have one take.

[3:49] We only have one shot at this,

[3:51] James, do not screw up the timing

[3:53] and truck driver, what's your name?

[3:55] Just do it right. Yep, Metallica

[3:57] showed up at the bed store and they're like

[3:58] hey, we gotta buy a bed, ooh

[4:01] That's not very good

[4:03] The bed store's like

[4:05] fuck you guys, I'm selling you one

[4:07] bed, no more shenanigans here

[4:09] guys. We gotta either ride

[4:11] the lightning or a race car bed

[4:13] Mm-hmm

[4:14] So

[4:15] We wanna fade to sleep

[4:18] show us your best bed that's why they're sleeping with one eye open to make sure that that timing

[4:26] gets right yeah i've mentioned before on the on the show that i say that to my son when he's going

[4:30] to bed right what i got i uh i tell him i say uh sammy sleep with one eye open clutching your pillow

[4:39] tight enter night exit light and and my wife says stop saying that to him i have i ever told you that

[4:48] When I was in high school, I took this class where it was like a film and video class.

[4:54] And our final project, in addition to watching a bunch of great movies like Ferris Bueller,

[4:58] we got to do a final project where we got to make a music video based on a scene from Ferris Bueller.

[5:06] So you take some song and you got to make a music video.

[5:09] I swear I've told this story on the podcast before, but I don't care.

[5:12] You will hear it again.

[5:15] After we were working on our projects a little bit, the teacher showed us some of the best examples of videos from the years before us.

[5:21] Of course, these were all from the late 80s.

[5:23] So there was a ton of awesome hair metal videos like Skid Row's I'll Remember You with a couple hanging out by a lake.

[5:31] Is that the one that goes, I will remember you?

[5:35] It's a little bit like it.

[5:40] But there was one music video where these dudes made a video for Metallica's Seek and Destroy.

[5:46] Oh, I love that song.

[5:48] And they got one super buff dude to be a cop.

[5:52] And the idea is that these kids were being real assholes.

[5:55] And this cop decided to take the law into his own hands.

[5:59] So he had a scene of him taking his badge off and ripping his cop uniform off.

[6:04] Wait, he sure wasn't a stripper?

[6:05] I mean, he's a high school kid.

[6:09] he might also be a stripper like in summer school and then there so there's the the video ends with

[6:14] him uh tracking the kids down the punks down at the top of a parking garage and picking a kid up

[6:20] throwing him off the top of the parking garage and they use this like really hilarious dummy for it

[6:26] but the effects were so good it's still my favorite movie i've ever seen long story short

[6:31] reminds me of a complaint that an old co-worker of mine had where he would be he would volunteer

[6:35] to be a judge for his alma mater's student film program and he was i remember walking on him

[6:41] watching some of these and he was like ah he's like why when will these students stop making

[6:46] movies about mobsters i can't take serious a movie where someone goes to borrow money

[6:50] from a 19 year old gangster because they were just college students playing all the parts so

[6:56] you'd have like that's great be the top kingpin of the city but he's clearly like a sophomore

[7:00] i like this new anecdote based direction this podcast is headed yeah because what we normally

[7:05] watch bad movies

[7:05] than we talk about.

[7:06] We watch bad movies

[7:07] than we talk about.

[7:07] That was what we were

[7:07] getting to.

[7:08] We were talking about

[7:08] movies that we really like

[7:10] like the Seek and Destroy

[7:11] video.

[7:12] I hope somebody

[7:14] put this on YouTube.

[7:15] I would only assume

[7:17] the notorious litigious

[7:18] Metallica would have

[7:19] forced them to take it down.

[7:19] Metallica's pretty cool

[7:20] about their fan base

[7:21] just doing whatever.

[7:22] But if my teacher

[7:25] whose name I don't remember

[7:26] can put that video

[7:28] up on YouTube

[7:29] I will watch it.

[7:30] It's amazing how

[7:31] I'll give you some clicks, buddy.

[7:32] It's amazing how

[7:33] I remember the great

[7:34] Napster Metallica hunt

[7:36] when like my brother

[7:37] had his Napster account shut down

[7:39] because he was one of the millions of people

[7:40] who downloaded Metallica songs

[7:42] and now all that stuff is available on YouTube

[7:44] and like multiple many videos

[7:47] and it's like at a certain point

[7:48] everyone just threw up their hands

[7:49] and were like whatever I don't know

[7:52] but also like I have purchased

[7:54] so many Metallica albums now

[7:56] because I first listened to them

[7:57] in full on YouTube

[7:58] when I was getting back into metal

[8:00] yeah we get it

[8:01] information wants to be free

[8:02] No, but then I buy them afterwards.

[8:04] They're making moolah off of it.

[8:06] That's how they can afford all the...

[8:07] Yeah, we get it.

[8:08] You have money to buy albums.

[8:11] It's how Kirk can afford all those custom mummy poster guitars.

[8:16] Is that the uncle of the guy from Monopoly?

[8:21] The Monopoly board?

[8:21] Yeah, Uncle Pennybags.

[8:22] Wait, that's the guy or that's the uncle of the guy?

[8:26] No, that's the Monopoly man.

[8:28] I don't know whether that means if you're playing Monopoly, he's your uncle.

[8:31] I think so.

[8:32] I think that's the implication.

[8:33] You're the nephew of rich Uncle Pennybags.

[8:36] And he's pitted all of his progeny against each other in this game to the death.

[8:43] Oh, yeah.

[8:43] Well, he's like Arcade from the X-Men.

[8:45] It's just a game he plays until the last one's alive.

[8:48] Do they win anything?

[8:49] Like a taunting?

[8:50] Yeah, taunting.

[8:51] They just ride it around on Hoth.

[8:53] And then you slit it open and sleep in it.

[8:56] And you thought it smelled bad on the outside.

[8:57] Dan, you said this was the happiest time of the year.

[8:59] Why is that?

[9:00] Oh, that's right.

[9:01] Because it's the time that St. Nicholas Cage comes down from, I don't know.

[9:05] His German castle?

[9:06] Yeah, from Valhalla.

[9:07] He floats in from New Orleans, and he bestows upon us the gift of his—

[9:14] Presence?

[9:16] Beneficent performances.

[9:20] Yeah, you got there.

[9:21] So let's make one thing.

[9:24] So every year we celebrate Cagemas.

[9:25] Well, really twice a year, because there's Cagemas in July.

[9:28] Let's make one thing clear.

[9:30] And I feel like we've talked about this a lot on the podcast, but we should always reiterate it.

[9:33] This is not an ironic appreciation of Nicolas Cage.

[9:36] Yeah, we're not making one of those shirts that has a bunch of faces of Nicolas Cage on it that you can wear to your fucking Williamsburg bar.

[9:42] I think I have one of those.

[9:46] You asshole with your Hanksy graffiti, with your celebrity puns, you piece of garbage.

[9:52] You know what?

[9:53] Bring a garbage bag to throw this piece of shit in and dump it in the ocean.

[9:57] Yeah, why don't you climb on top of your giant wheeled velocipede and ride off into a toxic waste pill.

[10:03] It's like that No Toxie, No Deposit line.

[10:08] Yeah, that's what I was trying to remember what it was.

[10:10] Bring a stretcher for this good man.

[10:13] Bring the garbage bags for these pieces of shit.

[10:16] No Deposit, what a great, terrible movie.

[10:20] Look, we are not waxing our handlebar mustaches and playing with our suspender braces while we drink our old 19th century cocktails or nothing about Nicolas Cage.

[10:30] We're not drinking one of those Adrian Grenier beers that you need a church key to get inside.

[10:34] Yeah, well, one thing, use that to get into a church and save your soul, dude, because it's time for you to pray for forgiveness from Lord Cage.

[10:40] Because Nicolas Cage, as we all agree, I think, in this room, is a genuinely great actor.

[10:46] Yeah.

[10:47] Like one of the greatest actors, and he has been unfairly maligned by the Iranisizers.

[10:52] That made it sound like I was talking about the nation of Iran.

[10:55] I was talking about ironic and irony.

[10:56] No, no, that's good.

[10:58] You're just prejudiced against the Middle Eastern people.

[11:02] Dan, well, that's kind of racist to say Middle Eastern people when Iranians are Persian.

[11:07] Many of the other countries are Arab, and there are other ethnicities too.

[11:10] So to lump them all together as Middle Eastern people is astoundingly ignorant.

[11:15] He's got you there, dude, hoisted by your own petard.

[11:18] You're right.

[11:18] Hey, look, it's Jean-Luc Petard over here.

[11:21] In the tradition of Jesse Thorne and Jordan Jesse Go,

[11:24] I ask that you tweet all of your complaints to at Ted Cruz.

[11:28] Well, in the tradition of Jesse Pinkman, you're a meth dealer now.

[11:33] Anyway, so, Dan, let's, so we'll make it clear.

[11:38] Nicolas Cage, we love him, we actually like watching him,

[11:41] and today, as we always do, we watch a Nicolas Cage movie, right?

[11:45] Hoping against hope that he would bring us a performance with that rare combination of manic energy, but realistic emotion and outsized style that is the hallmark of the great Nicolas Cage performances.

[12:02] Yeah, we all remember the first time our hearts were stolen.

[12:06] Nice.

[12:08] Good stuff.

[12:09] Nice.

[12:11] we couldn't wait to see the next

[12:14] Nicolas Cage movie.

[12:16] When we left Las Vegas

[12:18] because we were moonstruck

[12:20] by how we were honeymooned

[12:22] in Vegas.

[12:23] He's got that Bangkok

[12:26] dangerous edge to him.

[12:27] Kind of. I mean, now we're scraping

[12:30] the bottom of the barrel. And the Sorcerer's Apprentice

[12:31] with a side of

[12:34] Zarely?

[12:36] What was that movie called? Zandaly.

[12:38] With Judge Reinhold.

[12:40] That was the name of the movie, Zandali with Judge Reinhold?

[12:42] Yeah, that's right.

[12:43] So, Nicolas Cage has made a number of movies set in Las Vegas now.

[12:49] Yeah.

[12:49] This one that we watched today is set in Las Vegas.

[12:51] There's Leaving Las Vegas, there's Honeymoon in Vegas, there's Con Air, which is around

[12:55] Las Vegas.

[12:56] Yep.

[12:56] What other Vegas movies are there?

[12:57] I don't know, but it's...

[12:59] Not Stolen, that was New Orleans.

[13:01] It's probably...

[13:01] Vegas and New Orleans are his haunts.

[13:03] I'm guessing he is in the background of some scenes of episodes of NBC's Las Vegas featuring a title character named Danny McCoy.

[13:13] Coincidence?

[13:15] A title character?

[13:15] So his name is Las Vegas in the show?

[13:17] Danny Las Vegas McCoy.

[13:19] I mean, I said it pretty clearly.

[13:21] And I think he was probably in Six String Samurai where they go to Las Vegas.

[13:26] But this movie, what do we watch today?

[13:29] We watch a movie called The Trust.

[13:31] The title is so generic.

[13:32] I keep forgetting

[13:33] it has nothing to do

[13:34] with the movie

[13:35] no

[13:35] is it about like

[13:37] managing a trust

[13:38] yes

[13:39] it's about Nicolas Cage

[13:40] he's a rich

[13:41] he's a rich boy

[13:42] he puts on

[13:43] he plays

[13:44] if I were a rich boy

[13:46] deedle-eedle-eedle-eedle-eedle-ee

[13:49] that was the goiest way

[13:51] that song could be sang

[13:53] by both of you

[13:54] yeah he plays a little

[13:57] a little rich boy

[13:59] who is not gonna get any money

[14:00] until he turns 25

[14:01] And he just can't wait

[14:03] Nicholas Cage is playing

[14:06] A younger than 25 year old

[14:08] In this

[14:08] It's a real Martin Short

[14:09] In Clifford type performance

[14:11] So Oscar worthy

[14:14] Oh I remember seeing Clifford

[14:18] In the theater

[14:19] Where I snuck

[14:20] Liter bottles of Jolt

[14:22] In my Jolt Cola

[14:24] In the cargo pockets

[14:26] Of my shorts

[14:27] For some reason

[14:27] I thought you were going to say

[14:28] Where I snuck my fingers

[14:30] Inside the vagina

[14:31] oh my god dude dan oh man wait i was like i was like 14 well yeah i was 14 dan all right i'm not

[14:41] okay you should be sorry i want to apologize to everybody i apologize to everyone uh those with

[14:47] vaginas those without vaginas you're digging a deeper hole just apologize in general and move on

[14:52] i can't now it's in my head what just vaginas yeah just in general okay we gotta move on we

[15:00] We've got to get this train back on the track.

[15:03] This is a movie that does open with nudity, which is rare for a Flophouse movie.

[15:09] Yeah, well, I mean, if you're watching Nine Lives, which is a family film about a cat, it's not going to have nudity in it.

[15:13] That cat was naked the whole time.

[15:15] Okay, good point.

[15:16] The cat is totally nude the whole time.

[15:17] Yeah, and I guess a lot of movies we watch are either family films or, like, studio.

[15:22] A lot of PG-13s.

[15:24] Yeah.

[15:25] We don't watch a lot of hard R's, and we certainly don't watch a lot of X-rated movies.

[15:29] Dan, I've put the note in the complaint box and the suggestion box for the Flophouse Industries.

[15:34] Then maybe we add more X-rated movies.

[15:36] Then maybe we just watch more X-rated movies.

[15:38] That's where the real stories are being told.

[15:40] There was the time that we did consider, seriously for a moment, watching the Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure.

[15:46] Percent of mental value.

[15:47] Percent of mental value.

[15:48] But then we thought, no, it probably wouldn't make for a great podcast.

[15:52] No, we're not really going into that assuming maybe this could be a good movie.

[15:56] Yeah.

[15:58] A movie I've recommended a couple times on this podcast.

[16:01] Good point.

[16:03] So, The Trust.

[16:04] We're in Las Vegas.

[16:05] Nicholas Cage and Elijah Wood both work for the evidence collection and protection arm of the Las Vegas PD, or LVPD.

[16:15] Which, what is that in Roman numerals?

[16:17] What does that mean?

[16:17] Is that like 55 PD?

[16:19] Yeah, that's right.

[16:21] Now, I imagine, being in Las Vegas, those guys probably have some really wacky stories to tell.

[16:29] Oh, sure.

[16:29] Well, everyone in Las Vegas has a crazy story to tell.

[16:32] Like, I'm surprised that the evidence collection room isn't filled with, like, tigers and showgirls and Gina Gershon.

[16:40] And Ed Helms with a tattoo on his face in the evidence collection room.

[16:45] I thought he got that tattoo when they were in Hong Kong or something.

[16:47] He gets tattoos all over.

[16:50] Hong Kong phooey.

[16:51] We're talking about Las Vegas in the trust.

[16:54] Now, they are not happy with their jobs.

[16:57] Elijah Wood just drifts through life in a haze of drugs and one sex scene.

[17:01] He doesn't really seem to be that into it.

[17:03] Nicolas Cage, on the other hand, is supporting both himself and his elderly father, Jerry Lewis, in a very surprising role in that you don't really need Jerry Lewis to play the role.

[17:13] There's nothing about it that gives Jerry Lewis a time to shine.

[17:16] Yeah, it's not a meaty role.

[17:19] But I was surprised to learn that Jerry Lewis in the movie is a 90-year-old man.

[17:24] He seems pretty spry for 90.

[17:27] Kind of.

[17:28] I mean, he seems addled and confused the whole movie.

[17:31] Like, if, yeah, I mean, he showed up and opened his eyes and said his lines.

[17:36] Do you think he was hoping for, like, a new springtime of his career?

[17:42] Like, Louis Anderson's experiences?

[17:43] This is my baskets.

[17:46] This is my Bill Murray and Rushmore.

[17:49] finally i just gotta be in an indie film and then suddenly i'll jerry lewis will be back on top and

[17:55] then i can do that cinderfella reboot that i've been so excited about it's a gritty cinderfella

[18:01] where he works with the internet uh wait is that where there's a guy who's cinderella

[18:07] get uh i think you can deduce that from the title of the film that's the whole that's the whole

[18:13] thing well it's about it's a remake of the movie goodfellas but they're guys instead of gangsters

[18:18] they're guys who collect cinders and clean out fireplaces and chimneys okay literally cinder

[18:23] fellows yeah and it's like it starts out with jerry lewis playing himself as a kid much as we

[18:28] were saying nicholas cage does and he goes he's like ever since i was a kid i wanted to clean

[18:33] chimneys he's hanging out at the local chimney parlor and uh the police catch him for cleaning

[18:39] chimneys without a license and he doesn't talk and they're really proud of him so they give him

[18:42] a carton of brooms that they can use to sweep out chimneys uh one chim chim tree later he's

[18:48] hopped up on cocaine cooking meatballs and hallucinating helicopters debbie mazar is there

[18:53] and then it's off to the suburbs cinder fellas rated r anyway so back to this movie that's a

[18:59] pretty good summary of good fellas thank you i've seen it uh so they go so nicholas cage and elijah

[19:06] wood they feel like they are not really being made the most of in their roles they're not respected

[19:11] by the policemen, nobody listens

[19:13] to them, and everyone's

[19:14] making fun of them. But Nicolas Cage notices

[19:16] something a little strange

[19:18] in a file on a perp.

[19:20] A seemingly, what would you say?

[19:22] This normal perp

[19:24] is bailed out. Now, perp is short for purple.

[19:27] Yeah. Because

[19:28] when you commit a crime,

[19:30] your hands turn purple. That's why they fingerprint you.

[19:33] They give you a copy of that Stone Temple

[19:34] Pilots record, Purple. That's right.

[19:36] So this normal purple

[19:38] is

[19:40] Remember when everyone was piloting Stone Temples

[19:44] Why don't people do that anymore

[19:47] This perp has been bailed out

[19:49] For $200,000

[19:51] In cash

[19:53] And Nicolas Cage is like

[19:55] Hmm that's strange

[19:56] I'm Nicolas Cage

[19:58] That sparked something in my brain

[20:00] Does this seem suspicious to you

[20:02] This guy's got a friend with deep pockets

[20:05] I don't know where you get $200,000

[20:07] In cashless

[20:08] The ATM will only let me take out

[20:10] like 800 bucks in a day and i have to go to a bunch of different atms to even do that i don't

[20:15] i don't know what what i'm supposed to do and i'm now i'm jimmy stewart and i'm also noticing

[20:20] something strange oh wow they got jimmy stewart as well as uh i got a giant rabbit as a friend

[20:27] you can't even see him that's crazy i'm tom brokaw the only thing stranger than this file is

[20:34] a little book called dune it's a story of intergalactic political shenanigans

[20:42] powerful resource in the galaxy the shenanigans i think is overlooked usually when people talk

[20:49] about dude but all the tradies son of duke lito finds himself on dune one cocaine ride later and

[20:57] And he's making meatballs, hallucinating helicopters, and living out in the Arrakis suburbs in the Freeman Witness Protection Program.

[21:08] It's called, I call it Dunefellas.

[21:12] And I hope that you're interested in producing.

[21:15] So, Nicolas Cage.

[21:17] I'll direct and star.

[21:18] Wow.

[21:19] It's called Tom Brokaw's Mary Shelley's Frank Herbert's Dunefellas.

[21:25] Nicholas Cage starts staking out this guy

[21:27] to try and figure out

[21:29] what's going on here.

[21:30] What's going on?

[21:31] How does this guy have access to this much money?

[21:33] Yeah, you gotta put peepers on the perp.

[21:34] And he's doing it with the help of his friend Ewood, Elijah Wood.

[21:38] And there's a big montage of

[21:40] Nicholas Cage having a ball

[21:41] being undercover.

[21:43] He takes a bunch of vacation days

[21:46] to go undercover working at the same place

[21:48] at the same casino that this drug dealer

[21:50] also works as a waiter

[21:52] and he is having the time of his life

[21:54] and it is like you see a sort of charisma with nicholas cage here that we've missed in a bunch

[21:59] of movies and let me just say this right off the bat the first half to two-thirds of this movie

[22:04] was like was a lot better than i expected it to be where he is discovering this case and he starts

[22:13] investigating it with elijah wood and elijah would nicholas cage have fantastic chemistry together

[22:17] they're both kind of weird guys but they're weird in different ways and elijah would nicholas cage

[22:23] is his high energy

[22:24] Nicolas Cage weird.

[22:25] But not super high energy.

[22:27] Not super high energy.

[22:28] He's like higher

[22:29] than normal energy.

[22:29] You never quite know

[22:30] what he's going to say.

[22:31] Elijah Wood is kind of like...

[22:33] He's a little bit haunted maybe.

[22:34] Yeah.

[22:34] It's like he is

[22:35] seeing things

[22:36] that nobody else

[22:37] is seeing around them

[22:38] and so you have...

[22:40] And he reacts

[22:41] in a weird way.

[22:41] He's always a little bit

[22:43] weirded out

[22:44] by whatever

[22:45] Nicolas Cage is doing

[22:46] and they have this great

[22:47] dynamic energy together

[22:48] and like I wish

[22:49] there was a big budget movie

[22:51] that had room

[22:52] for Nicolas Cage

[22:52] and Elijah Wood

[22:53] to be in it together because like i would watch 10 movies starring these guys together like they

[22:59] could easily be a you know a serious abbott and costello who make movies together or this would

[23:05] be like a good like limited series like yeah yeah an eight episode like a night manager yeah with

[23:13] these two uh bouncing off each other i mean a better plot than this movie probably but uh i

[23:18] I mean, if you stretch this, I mean, the movie was a stretch even at 90 minutes.

[23:21] It was a 90-minute film.

[23:22] And even that felt like you were pulling taffy to get to the full length.

[23:27] 80 minutes, I think, would have been a nice, handsome length for this film.

[23:31] But, like, I would love to see, like, a miniseries that's more complicated than this,

[23:34] but it has Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood as the lead.

[23:37] So, Hollywood, do it up.

[23:38] And Nicolas Cage is able to bring a certain energy that's almost like an office dad

[23:43] who is on vacation for the first time in a long time.

[23:47] is like away from his family and is like kind of loving it.

[23:50] Nicolas Cage strikes me these days as being like,

[23:53] similar in that way, the dad of a friend of yours

[23:57] who you are sleeping over at his house for the first time,

[23:59] and his dad seems like a cool, nice guy, but kind of weird.

[24:02] Then his balls fall out of his shorts, and you're like,

[24:05] whoa, should I say something, or do I have to keep looking at him?

[24:08] Because those things are the size of bowling balls.

[24:09] Does he have elephantiasis?

[24:11] He's got to go to the doctor.

[24:12] He's got to get that looked at.

[24:14] Sir.

[24:16] Sir, friend's dad, I apologize for calling attention to you.

[24:20] When you guys, thank you for the Funyuns.

[24:22] I gotta go.

[24:24] I appreciate the za.

[24:26] When you guys were in school.

[24:29] Testicularly.

[24:30] Testicularly yours, me.

[24:33] And you had to spend time in the library.

[24:35] Had to, wanted to.

[24:37] But like when you spent, yeah, thanks Hermione.

[24:39] Yeah, reading is fundamental.

[24:40] Barbara Bush said that.

[24:41] So, when you spent time in the library, you guys looked up pictures of dudes with elephantiasis, right?

[24:48] Not really.

[24:49] No? That was like the first thing we did.

[24:51] There was one time...

[24:52] I mean, I looked in photography books for naked ladies. Is that...

[24:57] Kind of, but it's not like... You're not laughing at human misery.

[25:00] No, I'm not doing that.

[25:01] There was one time when I remember going to my high school library to use the computer for research something.

[25:06] Probably some amazing topic like elephants or, I don't know, a president or something.

[25:11] and the screen it's pressing a button so the screen saver would go off and someone had just

[25:15] opened page after page of really gory like crime scene photos accident photos and i was like this

[25:23] was not something i was ready for at the moment more because less because of what was in the

[25:28] photos and more because like who was just sitting at a public computer in the library in the middle

[25:33] of the day looking up these pictures but now looking back there's probably like two teens

[25:37] were egging each other on, you know, like,

[25:39] like, oh, whoa, gross.

[25:41] Like, whereas in my head, I immediately went to there

[25:43] being like, there's a serial killer who goes to the school.

[25:45] And he needed a midday fix.

[25:47] Or you have like a brick-like

[25:49] detective who's solving a crime.

[25:51] Brick-like in the movie

[25:54] Brick. Not just like a detective that's like a brick.

[25:56] Not a detective who is a brick.

[25:57] Who's just compacted into a... He's a brick with a badge.

[25:59] Hey.

[26:00] Hey. He smashes crime.

[26:03] He goes, he always jumps

[26:05] through the window. That's how he gets to places.

[26:07] uh what was the crime mortar one because he's a brick yeah no the when you're talking about uh

[26:16] the idea of a bunch of college kids playing all the parts uh that's the first thing i thought

[26:21] was brick brick was pretty great but that takes place at a high school no i know that is a great

[26:27] movie um anywho so we were stop trying to get on ryan johnson's good side i know that star wars

[26:33] episode 8, title to be

[26:35] determined. That's the title?

[26:37] Yeah, it's crazy, right?

[26:38] Attack of the TBD.

[26:41] Yeah. I know you're trying to get on his

[26:43] good side and try and get him on as a guest

[26:45] on this podcast. I've been trying to get on his good side

[26:47] for a long time. He's someone I've wanted to meet for a long time.

[26:49] I've loved all of his movies. Yeah, like I was

[26:51] talking shit about Brothers Bloom because it isn't very

[26:53] good, but you were like super defending it.

[26:55] I mean, I like Brothers Bloom a lot. Yeah, and I'm like

[26:57] that doesn't make sense because it's not a very good movie

[26:59] and you guys were both like, oh, anything to get

[27:01] ryan johnson on here i mean i don't love the narration of it i think that's a little too

[27:05] twee as much as i love ricky jay who does the narration in that right but i think it's a good

[27:09] movie i like it brother come on ryan johnson come on the podcast and tell stewart he's wrong about

[27:13] brothers come on ryan johnson i know you've been on film spotting what do they got that we don't

[27:18] look i know you like looper and it's tie-in merchandise fruit looper that's when that's

[27:22] when Toucan Sam had to go back and kill himself.

[27:26] Oh, shit.

[27:27] Yeah, we watched Tony the Tiger's arms and legs disappear.

[27:33] This isn't great.

[27:35] Fruit Looper is like,

[27:38] if you want to murder yourself, just follow my nose.

[27:42] You're like the Mad Magazine parody, Pooper.

[27:46] Sure, I love that.

[27:48] Damn, we're better than that.

[27:49] Come on.

[27:49] I don't think we are.

[27:50] No, we were doing a great...

[27:52] I hadn't even got to the point where they were talking about that one assassin who's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

[27:58] No one wants to work with him.

[28:00] Yeah, but what happens next?

[28:04] I forget.

[28:04] Where were we in the movie?

[28:06] So we weren't very far.

[28:06] So they've figured out that.

[28:09] Nicolas Cage says to Elijah Wood, hey, there's this weird thing.

[28:12] We've got to figure it out.

[28:13] It becomes pretty clear to Elijah Wood, wait, are you trying to find out where this guy is getting his money from so that you can rob him?

[28:19] And Nicolas Cage is like, no, no, that's not.

[28:21] Come on.

[28:22] It's a strange, weird case.

[28:24] We've got to look into it.

[28:24] It's just a mental exercise.

[28:26] I'm just trying to keep my mind sharp as a senior.

[28:29] It's like a Sudoku.

[28:31] I do a lot of word games, a lot of Sudoku.

[28:34] It's just all about keeping yourself busy because it's like a knife blade.

[28:39] You've got to keep sharpening it.

[28:40] The unused mind, that's what gets dull and blunt.

[28:42] So anyway, I've been taking a salsa class.

[28:45] You've just got to keep busy in your retirement.

[28:47] It's not what you think of.

[28:48] We make salsa.

[28:49] It's not a dancing class.

[28:51] We make salsa.

[28:52] You'd be surprised.

[28:53] The main components are just tomato, onions, and chili.

[28:57] But I've got to tell you, it's opened my eyes to how the same simple components can be arranged in so many different ways to make so many different combinations.

[29:06] So there's the salsa class.

[29:08] That's Monday nights.

[29:08] Sounds like you're confusing metaphor with real life when you say you keep the knife blade sharp, meaning your mind, but you're also keeping the knife blade sharp for your salsa.

[29:16] That's a good point because you're not going to be able to cut through the tomato unless your knife is sharp.

[29:20] You want one of those Ginsu knives that can cut both a tomato and a can into a shoe because what if you want to make a salsa with a shoe in it or a salsa with a can in it?

[29:28] You can do that.

[29:29] It just means sauce.

[29:30] I call it goat salsa.

[29:31] It just means sauce, so you can do anything in it.

[29:33] You just put anything in it.

[29:34] Did you know that?

[29:35] Salsa means sauce?

[29:36] All this time I thought salsa.

[29:37] It's like sopa.

[29:38] It means soup.

[29:39] I thought they were serving me soap.

[29:40] That's why I never ordered it on the menu because I don't want soap.

[29:43] That's not something you eat.

[29:44] It's something you wash with.

[29:45] So I was like, why?

[29:46] And I go to this restaurant.

[29:47] I'm not going to order something to wash with.

[29:49] Do they have a shower in the back?

[29:50] Because I didn't see it when I used the restroom or the banyo, as they would call it.

[29:54] It's the fucking Nicolas Cage monologue.

[29:56] So I guess what I'm saying is you're always learning something new in this life, and that's how you stay eternally young, forever young, like Mel Gibson in that movie.

[30:07] So you freeze yourself.

[30:08] Is that the one where his face got all burned up?

[30:11] No, I think you're probably thinking of Mr. Melty Face, which was a sequel to The Man Without a Face,

[30:18] where he gets a surgery to have a face

[30:20] and unfortunately they give him a melty face

[30:22] and he changes his name to Mr. Melty Face

[30:24] to kind of own it.

[30:25] And we were really inspired by that

[30:27] when we made Face Off

[30:28] because I thought about how Mel Gibson

[30:30] would probably want to take that face off.

[30:32] And I went to my friend John Woo,

[30:34] or as I call him, Johnny Woo,

[30:35] and I said,

[30:36] well, I think there's a real movie in here

[30:38] about a guy who takes his face off.

[30:39] And John says,

[30:40] this is what makes him a genius.

[30:41] What if he put the face on somebody else's face?

[30:44] And I was like, that's an amazing idea.

[30:47] Before that, you were just going to take it off and put it in a bowl?

[30:50] Yeah, just make an object to art out of it.

[30:54] Because what if that bowl started committing crimes?

[30:56] And then it's like, my face is committing these crimes on the bowl.

[31:00] And I don't know what to do.

[31:01] People are going to be like, hey, there's Nicolas Cage over there.

[31:04] And you're like, that's just a bowl with my face on it.

[31:05] I'm like, no, no, that's just my face.

[31:06] Look at me.

[31:07] It's hard to look at me because I don't have a face.

[31:08] My wife is confused.

[31:09] Is that my husband or a bowl with a face on it?

[31:11] And you've got to bring in Brick Detective because it takes an inanimate object to catch an inanimate object.

[31:18] And so they start working together and they realize that he is involved with some kind of criminal laundromat.

[31:24] You do that so long it's weird to hear your normal voice.

[31:26] It feels weird to talk in this way.

[31:29] And imagine if I just kept talking like that and I go home, I walk in, it's late, because we record this late at night.

[31:36] My wife is asleep.

[31:37] Thanks for, you want to paint the rest of the picture?

[31:39] We're in Dan's apartment.

[31:40] It's a little dim, kind of a sexy way.

[31:43] Yeah.

[31:44] In fact, Dan, turn on that saxophone music over there.

[31:47] oh wait baker street it's just jerry raverty that's not that's not sexy it speaks to me of

[31:55] regrets all right who says i mean it makes me think of like wet pavement underneath a street

[32:03] light no one when being sexier than that the only only sexier saxophone is that shirtless guy in

[32:09] the lost boys who plays a saxophone on the beach the only other saxophone thing that anyone knows

[32:15] That's way sexier

[32:20] That's sexier yeah

[32:21] So anyway I'm going to walk in

[32:24] And I'm going to say to my wife

[32:25] She's going to be half asleep

[32:26] Honey I'm back I'm just going to get into bed

[32:29] And she would be so scared

[32:30] She'd have no idea who was talking to her

[32:33] This is just how I talk now

[32:34] She stabs you with that knife that she keeps underneath her pillow

[32:38] Yeah her bed knife

[32:38] Well that's just where the knife fairy can come and bring her a nickel

[32:41] do you think do you think police academy's michael winslow ever has that kind of trouble

[32:49] where he gets into bed and he has a dropped character and he's like there's a helicopter

[32:53] getting in bed with me how many bleeps and creeps are getting in here that was michael

[33:00] was it he did do that part uh so uh so elijah wood and nicholas cage find that it's all this

[33:08] some laundromat that has

[33:11] a meat freezer place

[33:13] there's some place that things are being

[33:15] criminal stuff is being delivered to

[33:17] and they recently

[33:18] Elijah Wood everything goes in nothing goes out

[33:21] like the Roach Motel and Elijah

[33:23] Wood has bribed his way into finding blueprints

[33:25] for the place that show all those bloops

[33:27] bloops

[33:28] in the biz

[33:30] he gets some bloops from practical jokes

[33:32] he finds that they've recently installed

[33:35] an enormous vault

[33:36] so they're hiding something good

[33:38] of horror

[33:39] and the only way

[33:40] to get in

[33:40] is for them to buy

[33:41] a special diamond

[33:42] tipped drill

[33:43] from Germany

[33:44] and to get the money

[33:44] to do that

[33:45] Elijah Wood

[33:47] has to go with

[33:47] a dirty cop

[33:48] played by

[33:49] Ethan Supley

[33:50] Ethan Supley

[33:51] to shake down

[33:53] a butterfly effect

[33:53] right

[33:54] my name is Earl

[33:55] my name is Earl

[33:56] I mean I think

[33:57] butterfly effect

[33:58] was what

[33:58] put him on the map

[34:00] yeah that's right

[34:01] I guess so

[34:01] I remember when

[34:02] Supley Mania

[34:03] swept the nation

[34:03] what was great about that

[34:05] is that it gave him

[34:05] an opportunity to play

[34:07] that character

[34:07] in a bunch of different outfits.

[34:09] Yeah.

[34:09] There's like a goth version.

[34:11] So I heard I was going to make a movie with Soup Lee,

[34:13] and I was like, that sounds delicious.

[34:14] I love soup.

[34:15] And it turns out it was a guy.

[34:17] So like sopa means soup.

[34:19] It's not soap, but Soup Lee is not soup.

[34:20] It's a guy.

[34:21] I can't, it's like you're always learning new things.

[34:24] You can't take anything for granted in this world.

[34:26] I guess that's how you stay young, right, Nick?

[34:28] Yeah, it's how you really keep your mind fresh.

[34:30] I guess the only cage is the one you build around your mind.

[34:33] So do you think Jerry, just wondering, Jerry Lewis,

[34:36] Do you think he did the movie just so he could meet Frodo Baggins?

[34:39] Yeah, probably.

[34:41] Yeah, I assume Jerry Lewis is a huge...

[34:43] Why do you change voices?

[34:44] You ruined the illusion.

[34:45] I assume Jerry Lewis is a huge Lord of the Rings fan.

[34:49] I can actually just imagine Jerry Lewis and Lord of the Rings

[34:55] being like, what is this bullshit?

[34:56] I don't have time for that.

[34:59] I mean, that was essentially my dad's reaction.

[35:02] Short people in a ring.

[35:04] You can't make a movie about short people who've got to dispose of a ring.

[35:07] They just want to throw the ring in the trash.

[35:11] Jerry Lewis is like, just give it to Tom Bombadil.

[35:15] They're like, no, Jerry, we've got to explain to you why you can't really do that.

[35:20] He's so absent-minded.

[35:21] Nice hobbits.

[35:23] Neither of us is doing great, Jerry Lewis.

[35:26] No, we're not.

[35:27] That was Jackie Gleason you were just doing.

[35:29] That's good hobbits.

[35:32] That's Johnny Carson doing Jackie Gleason.

[35:34] Yeah.

[35:36] All right.

[35:37] This is not a rich vein.

[35:38] It's a rich little.

[35:40] Anyway, moving on, because they're impressions.

[35:42] They decide they're going to bust into this vault.

[35:46] But they're both doing things that are compromising them ethically and morally.

[35:50] Yeah.

[35:51] Busting doesn't necessarily make them feel good.

[35:54] Elijah Wood is shaking down another drug area for money.

[35:59] Nicolas Cage buys some illegal guns and then just shoots and kills the gun dealer.

[36:03] That's kind of when we see a turn.

[36:05] Yeah, up until this point, you're like, this is a lighthearted caper where there's these—

[36:11] And a very enjoyable one.

[36:11] I'll just say, a very enjoyable one.

[36:13] The offbeat characters are going to rip off some criminals, and because they're robbing criminals, you don't feel too bad about it.

[36:20] It's almost like a faceless criminal enterprise.

[36:22] And we're rooting for them because they're kind of doofs.

[36:25] Like, Nicolas Cage is not slick.

[36:27] He's not cool.

[36:28] He's just kind of a doof.

[36:29] But at the moment he kills that gun dealer, you're like, wait a minute.

[36:32] And we're starting to get the impression that some of Nicolas Cage's weirdness could be an act.

[36:38] Well, yeah, he's an actor.

[36:39] Yeah, I guess you got me there.

[36:44] You know he wasn't really robbing a place, right?

[36:48] It was a movie.

[36:49] Wait, so it wasn't just a camera crew following him around?

[36:51] No, no, this wasn't like a Man Bites Dog situation.

[36:55] I'm glad both our minds went to Man Bites Dog.

[36:58] Any number of real documentaries about people being followed by camera crews.

[37:03] So, but like there's some great little moments like when there's a confusion as to who picked up the van and Elijah Wood's freaking out because he's like, I thought you were supposed to pick up the van.

[37:14] You were supposed to do this tomorrow and you didn't pick up the van.

[37:17] And Nicholas Cage reveals that he was messing around all along.

[37:20] It was just a classic Cage mess around.

[37:22] Just a pre-heist joke.

[37:25] joke just jokes and so nicholas cage is seeming less on the ball the character as we go forward

[37:32] and elijah wood is getting a little creeped out but he's still drawn to doing it and it's coupled

[37:37] with elijah wood's performance up to this point the whole time is a little bit like he he's acting

[37:43] like he's on fucking lsd the whole time and seeing things that nobody else is seeing a little bit

[37:47] like yeah like he like like dr gonzo was waiting off off screen to be like hey dude let's go do

[37:54] this thing uh so they go to perform this heist which involves them going to the building where

[38:02] the vault is breaking into or i guess getting into the apartment above it and drilling down

[38:08] through the top of the vault now there's two people in that apartment an older guy and a woman

[38:12] and things go bad almost instantly in that nicola elijah wood goes out to get something and when he

[38:18] comes back he finds nicholas cage has killed the man yeah the man spit on nicholas cage we see this

[38:24] and uh elijah wood comes back in and nicholas cage is like did you hear anything and we know

[38:30] immediately nicholas cage has shot the guy and is testing to see whether elijah would hurt him

[38:36] shoot him with the silencer and nicholas cage rather than being like oh he spit on me so i

[38:41] shot i'm like he's like oh he tried to escape yeah and things get from go from tense to tensor

[38:49] as they try to break into this vault they got a drill through a floor the woman is not happy that

[38:53] they're there and killed someone she shares an apartment with and so that's tense and things

[38:58] are just not as friendly between elijah wood and nicholas cage it's a tense situation you know

[39:02] you gotta have a foundation built on communication trust and respect and it is so hard for me not to

[39:09] start singing the mega death song trust which story i sang a couple times while we were watching

[39:13] the movie cryptic writings uh and so things are a little tense between them and long story short

[39:21] they get into the vault and it turned there's a long real bank job on it there's a long sequence

[39:26] of them cracking the safe with looking at the tumblers and yeah it goes on forever i mean

[39:32] you were losing interest but i would say it's pretty suspenseful little sequence it's like okay

[39:37] If you were not watching it with the three of us

[39:41] The three of us

[39:42] The two of us

[39:43] The three total

[39:45] So if I was watching it just as a disembodied soul

[39:48] Without me or you guys

[39:50] Exactly

[39:51] If you were on the astral plane watching it

[39:53] So Stephen Strange just pulled me out of my body

[39:56] So we could watch The Trust together

[39:57] Yeah, and you could focus on it more

[39:59] I think you would have enjoyed it more

[40:01] That's why he goes into the astral plane

[40:03] So he can focus on movies better

[40:05] that's so i will admit that in heist movies the actual heist is usually my least favorite part

[40:11] of the movie i love seeing them planning and bringing the team together you love seeing when

[40:16] they bring a team together where they're like i guess we're gonna go to the savage land and get

[40:20] this dinosaur cowboy we need the best damn dinosaur cowboy to go line this heist you know

[40:26] it uh this is my favorite part but like it's the the the movie sexy let's go to mars and find this

[40:33] moon man that's this our heist needs a dinosaur cowboy this moon man gambler a mermaid who's also

[40:39] a cop and we need a gazelle that knows how to how to deal blackjack and we need three alligators

[40:45] two of whom are deaf and one of whom is a priest okay and then we can pull off the greatest heist

[40:51] in the history of heists but like one of the things i like about sexy beast is that the heist

[40:54] takes up almost none of the movie it's about the it's about the dynamic between these characters

[41:00] but

[41:01] so that's just on me

[41:03] that I was not that

[41:04] interested in the mechanics

[41:05] of the heist

[41:05] once they were pulling off

[41:06] that's mainly just

[41:06] Ray Winstone

[41:07] hanging out by a pool

[41:08] right

[41:09] which is pretty

[41:09] and a boulder

[41:10] falling down

[41:11] broiling

[41:12] thank you

[41:14] with the exception

[41:15] of

[41:16] Rafifi

[41:17] yeah

[41:17] where there's that

[41:19] 30 minute

[41:19] no dialogue

[41:21] heist sequence

[41:21] which is actually

[41:22] really cool

[41:22] but

[41:23] anyway

[41:25] besides all that

[41:26] so

[41:26] things are going crazy

[41:27] they get into the safe

[41:28] finally

[41:28] and what do they find

[41:29] in there

[41:30] like white

[41:31] walls. Yeah, it's like

[41:33] they walked into a fucking alien

[41:35] space ship. And there was part of me that was like

[41:38] is this going to turn into a spaceship?

[41:39] Because I would kind of like that. But no,

[41:41] it's just full of diamonds.

[41:43] They're all like panels where you press on

[41:45] them and they open up and there's diamonds and diamonds

[41:47] and diamonds in there. Sleep press on diamonds.

[41:49] Yeah, Elizabeth Taylor

[41:51] walked by and said, these have always brought

[41:53] me luck and took her earrings off and put them in the

[41:55] vault.

[41:56] And she did that like 10,000 times.

[42:00] Because they need a lot of luck, you know.

[42:03] And, yeah, what stakes is that fucking dude playing cards for

[42:07] when he can just throw those fucking diamonds in there?

[42:10] He should just take the diamonds and walk off with them, yeah.

[42:12] Yeah, I'm assuming the other people are like, fuck, I fold.

[42:15] You've got Elizabeth Taylor.

[42:17] You win automatically.

[42:17] Luck diamonds.

[42:18] This place is so lousy with diamonds that Elijah Wood is like,

[42:23] uh, okay, this seems a little more serious than I expected.

[42:29] He starts thinking like, Nicolas Cage, you must have known something ahead of time.

[42:34] Yeah, this is too perfect.

[42:35] He gets cold feet.

[42:36] That doesn't, I guess, surprise me in some level when you consider the enormity of the crime.

[42:41] And he realizes, if these kinds of diamonds are here and these numbers, this is a richer, more powerful gang than we realized.

[42:51] And they're not going to just let us walk away with these diamonds.

[42:53] So he starts telling Nic Cage, let's just leave it.

[42:56] Let's not keep any of it.

[42:58] Let's just go.

[42:59] And that leads to an argument, of course.

[43:01] Yeah.

[43:02] A friendly argument.

[43:03] Just an exchange of words.

[43:05] And a friendly argument which involves Nicolas Cage pointing a gun at Elijah Wood.

[43:08] Yeah.

[43:09] As we've all wanted to do when we've seen those Wilfred commercials.

[43:12] Yeah.

[43:14] Yeah.

[43:15] Just point it at the camera.

[43:16] Or wait, the TV.

[43:18] The television.

[43:18] Or my 35mm camera that I have sitting around.

[43:22] You're like, stop taking bad pictures of me.

[43:28] Long story short.

[43:29] You're like, camera, add 10 pounds, will you?

[43:31] I'll shoot 10 pounds off of you.

[43:34] I'll add 10 pounds of leg.

[43:36] Wow, that's what they said to RoboCop.

[43:39] They said to Alex Murphy, right?

[43:41] That's right.

[43:42] He'll shoot 10 pounds off you.

[43:43] Then they blasted way more than 10 pounds off him.

[43:45] They removed his arms and legs.

[43:47] That is the most absurd beginning to a movie.

[43:49] Oh, the first time I saw RoboCop, I was so disgusted by that.

[43:54] That whole scene is gross.

[43:56] That is amazing.

[43:57] They are setting, they're giving you an understanding of what the bad guys are capable of.

[44:01] I would consider it genius.

[44:02] I mean, it is genius, but the fact that...

[44:04] It's possibly the best way to open a movie.

[44:06] When they blast his limbs, his limbs fly off like he's a crash test dummy.

[44:13] Oh, I'm sorry you're like a master of physics slash anatomy, Elliot.

[44:17] I mean, I love how crazy Paul Verhoeven is, but at the same time, you watch it and you're like,

[44:22] my God, that they've salvaged anything from this man.

[44:27] yeah that's the wonders of modern science yeah it makes it all the desire to be a really good

[44:32] cop and dad just kind of holds him together it makes him all the worse make it all worse when

[44:36] they remove his other arm while he's still incapacitated when he's in the lab you know

[44:40] that's why you don't feel that that's why you're a lot you kind of forgive him for blowing the

[44:45] dude's dick off later on because you're like he knows what that's like yeah he's he's got a pretty

[44:50] rough who has never had his limbs blown off cast the first stone on this he's gonna shoot that

[44:55] purple's dick right off i forgot that perp stands for purple and then that's and then and then that

[45:00] scene in showgirls when they blast all of elizabeth berkeley's limbs off that was just going too far

[45:05] too yep but when she came back as lady terminator wait no lady the robo stripper i guess i don't

[45:13] know nice nice stripping son what's your name berkeley like that's the actress's name

[45:21] wait so are you elizabeth can we take that over again i thought your name was naomi take it from

[45:27] the top what's your nice nice sound speed nice tripping son what's your name jesse spano no

[45:34] that's okay it's at least a character you played i understand how you'd get you'd be hard to get

[45:39] out of that role since you played it for years on television as part of the tnbc lineup wow what an

[45:44] understanding uh for a second as director i guess it's paul verhoeven is saying oh i understand how

[45:50] You played the character for so long on the TNBC lineup before California Dreams.

[45:55] I don't know what Paul Verhoeven sounds like.

[45:58] I assume like that.

[46:00] Yeah, like somebody who loves California Dreams.

[46:02] So they were a band?

[46:03] So they were such a talented band.

[46:05] If I did say in school, was it because they wanted a fallback career in case the music industry did not recognize their genius?

[46:15] Or possibly just like America's love affair with California would have maybe went away.

[46:20] Would have went away?

[46:23] Yeah, maybe people are tired of like California style, like avocado on everything.

[46:29] Oh, don't get me started on that.

[46:31] That's a crime against burgers.

[46:33] For a second, I was like.

[46:37] Are we talking about the trust?

[46:38] For a second, I was like, can I actually remember Elizabeth Berkley's character?

[46:44] It's Naomi, right?

[46:45] Yeah, it's Nomi Malone.

[46:45] Oh, Nomi.

[46:46] She's playing Klaus Nomi Malone.

[46:48] She's playing the kind of androgynous robot man.

[46:52] I was like, can I remember?

[46:53] Then I'm like, of course I can remember.

[46:54] Come on.

[46:55] How many times have you seen that movie?

[46:56] Of course, I 100% can remember.

[46:57] Now, what was the name of the show that she stars in?

[46:59] You're like 10 beers deep, right?

[47:01] It's like Spectacle or something or Volcano.

[47:04] It's like, oh, God.

[47:06] Avocado.

[47:07] It's like Aphrodite or something like that.

[47:10] Yeah.

[47:10] Now, here's what I don't.

[47:12] I've never seen like a Las Vegas showgirl show.

[47:14] never been las vegas uh so that let's rectify that right now keep rolling the podcast so the show has

[47:21] both like a volcano dawn of time number and also some kind of leather motorcycle it's the 80s of

[47:28] the future yeah you know number what kind of show is this is there a story or it's just random scenes

[47:33] it's just tableaus and those are the only two scenes we see right so is that the whole show

[47:38] it's all about titillation dude like you you take your squeeze to the show you get a little bit

[47:43] Worked up watching them volcanoes, and then you head back to your room.

[47:46] Yeah, I don't imagine there's a story that links those things.

[47:49] I mean, when I was in Vegas, I saw Penn & Teller.

[47:52] I didn't see some like...

[47:54] So did they take their clothes off?

[47:55] They were not topless.

[47:56] I actually did see Penn & Teller do a show where they took their clothes off.

[48:00] Really?

[48:01] Yeah.

[48:01] They did a bit where they wanted to prove that they weren't hiding anything on their bodies.

[48:05] So they had a thing in front of them, and they took off all their clothes,

[48:10] And they brought up an elderly couple that was in the audience to go behind the kind of half curtain like that that was covering them from the waist down to attest to the fact that they were naked.

[48:19] And I just remember Penn saying, you want to check under Little Houdini?

[48:22] Let me lift up Little Houdini.

[48:25] You want to check under Little Houdini?

[48:26] And my mother, who had taken my brother and my sister and I to see the show, because we'd seen Penn and Teller before.

[48:30] We loved them.

[48:30] My mother being like, that's too far.

[48:32] She didn't care for the Little Houdini line.

[48:35] But your brother David was loving it.

[48:37] Oh, he was loving it.

[48:38] He was lapping that shit up.

[48:38] He was like, this is even better than sports.

[48:40] He was like, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

[48:41] So funny.

[48:42] I love naked magic.

[48:43] Anyway, so tension is at an all-time high between Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood.

[48:49] They are really representing our nation in that they're divided.

[48:52] And so Elijah Wood takes pity on the woman hostage that they have

[48:58] and allows her to call someone because she says she has, what, a child?

[49:01] She has a child, and she's like, I've got to call his father and let him know.

[49:05] And when Nicolas Cage comes back, he's talked to Elijah Wood

[49:09] about how i already bought the plane tickets for the two of us to go fly off on a beach vacation

[49:13] together we're best buds now it's gonna it's a real george and lenny relationship in some ways

[49:17] and elijah wood shoots nicholas cage is not having any of it he does not believe that nicholas cage

[49:24] is his friend like he believes that nicholas cage is going to set him up yeah and that there's more

[49:30] to this than meets the eye than maybe nicholas cage is a transformer and he shoots him and

[49:34] nicholas cage falls down dead and he's got the plane tickets in his hand oh he was telling the

[49:41] truth the whole time elijah wood uh decides he's gonna drive this hostage out to the middle of

[49:46] nowhere and let her go i mean until he's not gonna take any of the fucking diamonds and he puts all

[49:51] the fucking show and he puts all the diamonds back but hey it wouldn't matter if he did take

[49:55] the diamonds anyway because while he's out in the middle of the highway his car is surrounded by

[49:59] vans and he's shot to death and the woman gets out of the stuff that they tied her up in and

[50:04] it's clear she was part of this gang the whole time yeah no the yeah the the the phone number

[50:09] that uh elijah wood had written on his hand to let this woman call uh is the same as the phone

[50:16] number on the back of this van so the woman has signaled these people to uh to come to come stop

[50:22] Elijah Wood, and then their belongings are taken by the evidence people

[50:28] and put away in the very evidence management locker they themselves worked in.

[50:34] By top men, I'd imagine.

[50:36] Thus, the ironic end to the trust.

[50:41] So, wait a minute.

[50:42] So, Nicolas Cage got Elijah Wood a plane ticket.

[50:48] Wouldn't he have to find out a shitload of information about it?

[50:50] Yeah, like his birthday, his travel number.

[50:53] Who knows?

[50:54] Yeah, he wants to get those miles, right?

[50:56] Yeah, he wants to find out whether he's like...

[50:58] It's all about miles, double miles, yeah.

[51:00] Does he have that global pass?

[51:01] Does he want the kosher meal?

[51:03] Yeah.

[51:04] I mean, they're going to the Bahamas.

[51:06] You want the kosher meal when you fly to the Bahamas.

[51:08] So you're saying there's a scene where...

[51:08] Are they going to Nassau?

[51:10] Yeah, the Nassau Coliseum.

[51:11] So there's a scene where Nicolas Cage is at his computer being like,

[51:16] so what? Hold on.

[51:17] Is he going to want an aisle seat or a window seat?

[51:20] Nobody wants to remember.

[51:21] That would not be out of place in the first two-thirds of this movie.

[51:24] That's true.

[51:25] In the first two-thirds of this movie, should we just go to final judgments?

[51:29] We're going to the final judgments.

[51:30] Is this a good-bad movie, a bad-bad movie, or a movie you kind of like?

[51:35] For the first two-thirds, this is a movie I kind of liked.

[51:38] It was Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood playing characters who are not so quirky that it was obvious and artificial,

[51:44] but they were bringing their own personal styles to these characters.

[51:48] Yeah.

[51:49] And it was kind of like a – and it was a light heist setup movie.

[51:52] And then when it took a turn into the more intense and serious, it lost me more out of it just feeling more generic at that point.

[52:00] It wasn't like, oh, I've betrayed.

[52:02] I came to love these characters and now they're bad.

[52:05] It was more like, oh, okay.

[52:07] Like I've seen this movie before.

[52:08] I haven't necessarily seen a Nicolas Cage, Elijah Wood, goofy guy heist movie before.

[52:13] I'm going to go ahead and say that this is a movie that I liked.

[52:17] I wouldn't even say kind of liked.

[52:18] Yeah, I genuinely liked the parts that I liked.

[52:21] I would say, you know what?

[52:22] And they were enough for the whole movie.

[52:23] I agree with Dan.

[52:24] I mean, like the ending of the movie is a little too generic.

[52:28] Like, you know, like I feel bad because I did like the movie.

[52:33] I kind of feel bad giving spoilers for it because it's a movie that I kind of feel like

[52:38] if you're into B-level thrillers, like very stripped down, silly thrillers,

[52:45] like I could see you actually having an enjoyment of this movie.

[52:48] this is a good sick home from work movie yeah so i feel a little bit bad spoiling it but at the end

[52:56] where everyone dies like i kind of feel a little meh whatever you know they're trying to do like

[53:07] a blood simple neo-noir where it's a downbeat ending one of your red rock west's yeah but it

[53:13] also starring nicholas cage yeah there you go it doesn't quite gel i mean i enjoy the ironic end of

[53:20] the stuff being bagged up that's fine although you can kind of see it coming from a mile away

[53:25] but other than that i had a really good time watching this movie actually i so there's some

[53:32] really great little moments in the the early uh the early scenes of the movie like i love the

[53:37] scene where they're having a conversation in that like weird casino diner or something yeah and

[53:44] elijah wood's wondering whether or not the guy at the end of the bar is getting a hand job from the

[53:49] woman and he's like uh it's hard to tell because he's eating right now which is just a kind of you

[53:55] know it's a funny moment um there's a part where he's he's laid out in tape a layout of the building

[54:01] they're trying to which is kind of great i like that scene too and nicholas cage is like well

[54:04] what's this over here?

[54:05] And he goes,

[54:06] a bee flew in my face

[54:07] while I was doing that part.

[54:07] That's nothing.

[54:09] Like that stuff's pretty good.

[54:11] Yeah.

[54:11] I'd like to,

[54:12] if they're really trying

[54:14] to sell the idea

[54:15] that Elijah Wood's character

[54:18] has become a little bit too...

[54:21] Cool?

[54:22] No,

[54:23] he's not too cool for school.

[54:25] Too cool for stool?

[54:26] It's that he's...

[54:27] What about stool?

[54:28] He stops going to the bathroom.

[54:29] He's just constipated.

[54:30] Yeah, he's just,

[54:31] he's all clogged up.

[54:32] Hey, my doctor says

[54:32] I'm too cool for stool.

[54:33] No, you're backed up.

[54:34] Too school for cool, that's me.

[54:38] I'm too school for cool, I'll just say it.

[54:40] Yep, LA used a time turner to get a nicer glasses.

[54:43] Too cool for tool, the rock band.

[54:47] That's fucking insane, dude, what a band.

[54:49] They're a little bit heavy, they're a little bit melody.

[54:53] He's too cool for schmooly, Bo Teach.

[54:55] What a singer, that Maynard James Keenan fella.

[54:56] Is his name Maynard?

[54:58] Maynard James Keenan.

[54:59] I mean Maynard G. Krebs.

[55:02] I guess, yeah.

[55:03] I mean, it's a similar first name.

[55:04] Yeah, like your first name's Daniel,

[55:09] and there's also a Daniel Craig, a Daniel Webster.

[55:11] Wait, wait, Daniel McCoy, like Daniel Tiger?

[55:13] The cartoon tiger?

[55:15] Are you guys related?

[55:18] Oh, boy.

[55:20] Like the book of Daniel?

[55:22] Did you write that?

[55:23] Yeah.

[55:24] That he's become, like, isolated and caught up in his head,

[55:28] and he's jumping at shadows.

[55:30] I don't feel like they didn't really sell that enough for me to make him turn on somebody who at this point we're supposed to assume is his friend.

[55:39] And who he's really not had any reason to doubt up till this point.

[55:43] Like he's, the idea that he.

[55:45] I guess he did kill, Nicolas Cage did kill someone.

[55:47] He doubts some of his motivations, but the idea that he hasn't really had a moment of like, dude, you got to stop killing people.

[55:54] Yeah.

[55:55] And there's a great little scene where they're eating sandwiches by the giant drill while they're drilling into the building.

[56:02] And he's like, they changed the sandwich.

[56:05] I approve.

[56:06] There's a lot of the overall plot is nothing special, unique, but there's a lot of little moments in it that are genuinely funny.

[56:14] And Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood sell those really well.

[56:16] Yeah.

[56:17] There's a part in the beginning.

[56:19] Also a movie I kind of like.

[56:20] They're at a crime scene, and Elijah Wood just starts playing, what, like a drumbeat on something he finds there?

[56:27] Yeah.

[56:28] Anyway.

[56:29] Yeah, movie we liked.

[56:30] And now it's time for letters from listeners.

[56:35] Listeners like you, perhaps, did you write a letter?

[56:38] Then you might be one of the letters, but probably not.

[56:41] Wait, they'll be one of the letters?

[56:43] Yeah, they'll be one of the letters.

[56:44] So, wait, is this a Flat Stanley type situation where they folded themselves up into an envelope and mailed themselves to us?

[56:50] Is that so that Flat Stanley could murder people and he came out of the envelopes?

[56:54] It's interesting.

[56:55] They couldn't find a way for the killer to get in except this mail slot.

[56:59] But who could fit through a mail slot?

[57:01] Police are on the lookout for a Flat Stanley, an F Stanley.

[57:07] Subject is Flat.

[57:11] And they finally catch him.

[57:13] They do the facing forward mugshot and the profile mugshot,

[57:16] and you can't even see him in the profile mugshot.

[57:19] Yeah, it's great.

[57:19] and they put him in a regular-style cage,

[57:21] and he just fucking slips right out, bro.

[57:23] Put him in a regular-style Nicolas cage.

[57:25] So I've got to swallow this guy so he can't escape?

[57:28] Whatever you need, officer.

[57:29] I'm here to serve you as a citizen.

[57:32] It's back to Flatland with you, my boy.

[57:34] The conceptual...

[57:37] Tell it to Abbott.

[57:38] ...novella.

[57:38] You'll be telling bored middle schoolers

[57:44] about different dimensions soon.

[57:47] I don't know if my Irish cop is turning into a Swedish chef.

[57:50] Anyway, the point is, it's time for letters from listeners.

[57:54] Letter time, letter time.

[58:00] It's letter time with Cagemist.

[58:04] Silver bells, write us letters.

[58:10] We got a letter from a bell.

[58:14] Wow.

[58:15] Cagemist time.

[58:16] Poorly thought out rhymes

[58:20] Making it up

[58:23] As I go along

[58:25] Wait, you don't write these down?

[58:27] Cage is time

[58:28] Letter slime

[58:30] That is the end

[58:33] Of the song

[58:34] Well, Stuart and I can stop looking at the alcohol

[58:37] by volume on our beers.

[58:38] Oh yeah, that's not bad.

[58:40] So the first letter of the night

[58:45] is from aj last name withheld uh who says i love your show and i think dan is fucking handsome

[58:54] that's clearly just pandering to get on the show and it worked apparently you know dan's job apple

[58:59] jack dan's vulnerability his horrible vanity i just watched captain america civil war again and

[59:06] man it made one half as much sense as i remember how could a movie with so much going for it have

[59:11] a plot this bad how would you change the marvel cinematic universe if you could fewer portal

[59:17] climaxes what heroes would you dump or add any actors you would switch out where in the story

[59:22] would you work in an obligatory blue sky beam is jeff goldblum in there someplace why not put him

[59:28] in peachfully aj last name withheld i would love to have jeff goldblum in there but what character

[59:34] would he be right for a hero a villain yeah that's a good question it would be a little different

[59:39] visually from the comics but i would cast him i think as the mad thinker except he's probably

[59:45] part of the fantastic four family of characters and so 20th century fox mcu not part of the mcu

[59:50] um we almost said mpcu i know what stewart's answer is just when the marvel characters went

[59:57] to politically correct university and jeremy vivin shows up what's up stewart says gambit

[1:00:03] over everything yeah just plaster gambit all over part of the x-men family of characters we can't

[1:00:10] call him now yeah oh i guess there's like smash a crystal on his face and turns into an inhuman

[1:00:15] netterogen mists now you're an inhuman throw some cards around dude go on remy laboe uh i think if

[1:00:21] i would like the marvel movies to have a greater variety of plot lines and climaxes i feel like

[1:00:27] they've established a template that template worked great a bunch of times let's mix it up

[1:00:32] a little bit let's do it a little differently and fewer portals and blue lights you want more

[1:00:37] arcade and mojo verse and shit right those are all x-men characters they're all owned by fox

[1:00:43] right now it is a rich universe of thousands of characters why are all your suggestions in the x-men

[1:00:49] family savage land can they go to savage land no i don't think so they can probably go no they

[1:00:58] can't even go to latveria because that's the fantastic four universe maybe they can go man

[1:01:01] they could fight mole man the problem with mole man is that your climax is again going to be

[1:01:06] the characters no mole man's a fantastic four character what am i talking about what who do

[1:01:10] the fucking avengers fight then dude other than ultron ultron loki zemo which they've used loki

[1:01:15] loki which they used they fight like loki cool hand more cool hand comics name or second comic

[1:01:20] they fight name it's a good question uh no no the second one's where they fight uh the hulk uh yes

[1:01:27] I mean, if you're going to go back to the early ones, there's the Living Eraser, the Space Phantom.

[1:01:31] Yeah, the Space Phantom.

[1:01:33] You can do those characters.

[1:01:34] The Magma Man.

[1:01:35] Who's going to play Space Phantom?

[1:01:36] Fucking Hugh Laurie?

[1:01:37] They'll bring him back.

[1:01:38] Apparently, they can't use Kang for some reason.

[1:01:40] Lame.

[1:01:41] What about Kodos?

[1:01:43] Why, I ought to.

[1:01:44] The Avengers don't have an amazing rogues gallery for the most part.

[1:01:49] That's why I love Spider-Man, dude.

[1:01:52] Spider-Man's got the best rogues gallery.

[1:01:54] but you could they could fight the wrecking crew you know like the wrecker and his backup band for

[1:01:59] all those classic motown they can they can fight them i guess uh i think they'll probably beat

[1:02:05] them i mean they're just musicians but i think that's one of the reasons that i mean they could

[1:02:09] fight the grim reaper they could fight enchantress the executioner i mean any of the masters of evil

[1:02:15] characters who's that guy with the skull face who has a shield and a sword that's uh taskmaster

[1:02:22] yeah can they fight that guy i would love it he would be great right i've been a favorite fan of

[1:02:27] his for a long time yeah uh but my main thing would be mix up the plots it's the same way that

[1:02:32] at the end of a force awakens which i was enjoying greatly they're like here's what they're cooking

[1:02:37] up it's an even bigger death star and i was like oh really this is the third time we've seen a

[1:02:43] death star climate i did love that they hung a lantern on it where han solo was just like oh

[1:02:48] It's just a bigger Death Star.

[1:02:49] There's always a way to explode those.

[1:02:51] Even better than calling it out is just like do something different.

[1:02:54] Yeah.

[1:02:55] I feel like here's what I want to see in a Marvel movie.

[1:02:57] I want to see the characters not dealing with a big army of things jumping at them or a portal.

[1:03:03] And in Star Wars movies, what I'd love to see in a future Star Wars sequel is like the bad guys have figured out a way to get into people's minds.

[1:03:11] Like there's a telepathic through the dark side of the force threat.

[1:03:14] So it's not a big thing they have to blow up.

[1:03:17] but it's something that they have to try to outwit

[1:03:20] even though it's inside their own head.

[1:03:22] Something that is...

[1:03:23] You could still have action sequences.

[1:03:25] I'm not a huge fan of heroes fighting each other plot lines,

[1:03:28] but you could do that with this.

[1:03:29] You don't know who to trust.

[1:03:30] But with the Marvel movies,

[1:03:33] they've got to figure out some way to do it

[1:03:34] that it's not just the heroes standing in one place

[1:03:37] while an army of aliens or robots flies at them over and over again.

[1:03:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:41] You cannot pass like the...

[1:03:43] We draw the line here, that sort of thing.

[1:03:45] Like a Rourke's Drift sort of situation.

[1:03:47] Unless it's going to be the executioner on that bridge

[1:03:50] in that one Thor comic

[1:03:52] where he stands there to fight the army of the dead

[1:03:55] with two automatic weapons in his hands,

[1:03:58] Jorg-O-Rum-Rum-Rum, or whatever it's called.

[1:04:00] It's got some Norse name.

[1:04:01] And it becomes his legend that he perished at that bridge

[1:04:05] holding off thousands of undead.

[1:04:06] That's pretty cool.

[1:04:08] Yeah.

[1:04:08] Although I think it's funny that you bring up

[1:04:11] changing up plot lines in third acts

[1:04:13] when he's talking about Civil War,

[1:04:16] which was a huge change from the other Marvel movies.

[1:04:21] That's true, it was different.

[1:04:22] And it doesn't feature a big battle.

[1:04:24] There's no portal.

[1:04:25] I mean, there's a big battle at the end of the second act

[1:04:28] between the two groups of heroes.

[1:04:29] Yeah, where they're like,

[1:04:30] hey, we're going to give you everything you've ever dreamed of.

[1:04:32] Enjoy this.

[1:04:33] Oh, that was so great.

[1:04:34] Spider-Man's there, and Ant-Man turns into Giant-Man

[1:04:37] and rips the wing off a plane.

[1:04:37] Hall Road's great, yeah.

[1:04:38] Like, that was maybe my favorite scene in any of those movies, I think.

[1:04:42] Mm-hmm.

[1:04:44] But some mix it up, mix them up.

[1:04:45] Variety, variety, variety, you know.

[1:04:47] Put more Craven in there.

[1:04:48] Viva Variety.

[1:04:49] Yeah, Craven could be in there now.

[1:04:50] Spider-Man's part of the MCU.

[1:04:52] Not Barry Blue Jeans.

[1:04:55] That's from Adventures of.

[1:04:56] I think his name is Johnny Blue Jeans.

[1:04:57] Johnny Blue Jeans.

[1:04:58] Yeah.

[1:04:58] I'm Johnny Blue Jeans.

[1:05:00] Yeah.

[1:05:01] There was that song he had called

[1:05:05] I Just Want to Make Out With You, Babe.

[1:05:06] These things are going over to that one corner

[1:05:09] of the roller rink.

[1:05:13] This next letter, speaking of Marvel, it's titled Elliot Asks and I Deliver.

[1:05:19] From Chris, last name with L.

[1:05:20] Is it Pratt?

[1:05:21] Is it Evans?

[1:05:23] Go see that movie where it's me and Jennifer Lawrence in space.

[1:05:26] It's not.

[1:05:26] It's titled Elliot Asks and I Deliver.

[1:05:32] Yeah, it's a robo bartender.

[1:05:33] It's from Nora, last name with L.

[1:05:35] Nora Charles.

[1:05:35] My greatest enemy is a robo bartender.

[1:05:37] It's going to put me out of business.

[1:05:40] Wait, hold on.

[1:05:43] It's a new voice I'm working on.

[1:05:44] She writes,

[1:05:45] Oh, Elliot, baby, you shouldn't ask for sexual fantasies on the internet.

[1:05:49] You don't really want to know.

[1:05:50] No.

[1:05:51] I don't remember doing that.

[1:05:53] The Marvel Universe, you asked for Marvel sexual fantasies.

[1:05:56] I did?

[1:05:57] The Marvel Universe is one of sexy, sexy, impossible beings.

[1:06:00] And how can a girl resist that?

[1:06:02] I want to share a hotel room with MCU Black Widow and Hawkeye

[1:06:06] and have a party in our underwear

[1:06:07] while Weird Al's party in the CIA plays on the stereo.

[1:06:10] If you don't think that's a sexual fantasy,

[1:06:13] you're thinking about it all wrong i want thor but from the late 90s with the leather and the

[1:06:20] belts and the hair and then i want to put so like when it was when it was thunderstrike uh i don't

[1:06:27] know i i don't know enough about the history of thor all right forget it then the leather and the

[1:06:32] belts and the hair and then i want to put him in a give him a makeover and braid his ridiculous 90s

[1:06:37] hair and put them in heels i want to be sandwiched between tommy shepherd and david elaine you know

[1:06:43] those two are fucked right am i right or am i right i don't even know who those are i want to

[1:06:48] make tacos with the 616 hawkeyes and feed one to pizza dog that was not sexual it just seems really

[1:06:54] nice they deserve nice things i'm learning asl i bet clint would help me practice imagine us eating

[1:07:00] on the couch sunlight streaming in through the windows lucky laying with his head on her on my

[1:07:05] feet this is so wrapped up in current continuity maybe kate would let me play with her hair gosh

[1:07:10] that sounds nice oh my god are we talking about the fucking current hawkeye book no we're talking

[1:07:15] about not the current jeff lemire book we're talking about the previous matt fraction oh i

[1:07:18] hate that book mind you just don't like matt fraction i like matt fraction my teenage years

[1:07:23] my teenage years were spent furiously reading every dc comic i could get my hands on

[1:07:28] so i have like hundreds of fantasies about clark kent and hal jordan and cas cane but that's not

[1:07:34] what you asked for so i'll save those for another day that's the direct competition right yeah that's

[1:07:39] the yeah this is the house of ideas lots of that's brand eh lots of love and thanks for making a fan

[1:07:45] girl happy with your silver surfer erotic role play fantasy oh that's what it was nor our last

[1:07:49] name with hell i remember that now complaining about hawkeye yeah i mean growing up reading

[1:07:54] comics in the 90s myself but almost all marvel my fantasies were all about like psylocke you know

[1:07:59] or Rogue.

[1:08:00] Which Psylocke, dude?

[1:08:01] I want to touch Rogue,

[1:08:02] but I can't do it.

[1:08:02] Which Psylocke?

[1:08:03] Yeah.

[1:08:04] Betsy Braddock's mind

[1:08:05] in Quannon's body.

[1:08:07] Oh, okay.

[1:08:07] See, I like the old Psylocke.

[1:08:09] Oh, like 80s Psylocke

[1:08:11] when she was still

[1:08:11] in Betsy Braddock's body.

[1:08:12] Rogue was like...

[1:08:13] No, no, no.

[1:08:13] I want an English woman's brain

[1:08:15] in an Asian woman's body.

[1:08:17] That's the Psylocke for me.

[1:08:18] The one that was trying

[1:08:19] to seduce Cyclops

[1:08:20] for a couple months

[1:08:21] and then gave up on it

[1:08:22] and no one ever talked

[1:08:22] about it again.

[1:08:23] Yeah, that was weird.

[1:08:24] Rogue was like so obvious

[1:08:26] it was like barely even subtext.

[1:08:28] What?

[1:08:29] Like, you want to touch this, but you can't.

[1:08:32] You can't touch it, but you want to.

[1:08:35] And from her point of view, she wants to be touched, but she can't.

[1:08:37] When it's bad for Remi LeBeau, her beau.

[1:08:39] We've talked about the idea that male X-Men readers

[1:08:44] or female X-Men readers who like women

[1:08:47] usually fall into either the shadow cat or rogue category.

[1:08:51] Yeah, I mean...

[1:08:52] Those are the two available fantasies.

[1:08:54] I feel like you are...

[1:08:55] And Psylocke, I don't know what you're talking about.

[1:08:57] Her costume is just a thong bathing suit.

[1:09:00] But with Shadowcat, that was very much, it was like all these ex-women characters you want to, you just want to fling with.

[1:09:06] But Kitty Pryde, you want to marry.

[1:09:08] Shadowcat has a, she's a developed character.

[1:09:10] Kitty Pryde, you want to marry.

[1:09:11] That's a girl you can take home to mom.

[1:09:13] Because you're Jewish and so is your mom.

[1:09:15] So you're not interested in like magic?

[1:09:17] Well, magic's kind of creepy and weird.

[1:09:20] Like if I start dating her, suddenly what?

[1:09:22] I've got to go, I've got to go have dinner at Belasco's house in limbo?

[1:09:26] sounds great not interested she's a wild card dude or maybe you know what maybe i just want to

[1:09:32] have kind of a no strings attached relationship with lila cheney she's always touring the universe

[1:09:37] the strong guy my favorite character in the marvel universe lila intergalactic rock star

[1:09:41] lila cheney oh my god i love that shit but she's related to that's what the fucking marvel movies

[1:09:46] need is more of that shit but she's in the x-men well guardians of the galaxy volume 2 is coming

[1:09:51] out so that's where the cosmic stuff is yeah yeah and they're gonna put all the uh are they gonna

[1:09:57] put what what is it cosmo the telepathic dog uh are they maybe here's jeff goldblum's part i would

[1:10:03] have him as maybe the living tribunal who's long been a favorite character of mine he's the one

[1:10:09] he's the he's the judge of the cosmos who has three faces the living tribunals they reference

[1:10:14] that in dr strange oh they do really because he's a dr strange character too he would they would

[1:10:20] always be like steven strange eternity is in trouble and then he'd have to go you know save

[1:10:25] eternity from dormammu or something not eternia dan no that's where he come on it's basically a

[1:10:32] cut rate kids hyperborea i'm sorry for whatever i did to you guys you started this podcast robert

[1:10:40] howard's spinning his grave thinking of eternity i mean he-man is a pretty blatant ripoff of conan

[1:10:48] It's like, what if we, nobody will notice.

[1:10:50] What if like a nerdy wimp got to break a sword

[1:10:52] and turn into a giant awesome dude?

[1:10:53] What if we took that one scene from the heavy metal movie

[1:10:56] and did a kid series about that where he's nerdy,

[1:10:59] but then he turns into a big barbarian guy?

[1:11:01] You're talking about Den, right?

[1:11:02] Den.

[1:11:02] And then they all have lasers.

[1:11:04] Yeah, we're John Goodman, right?

[1:11:06] John Candy.

[1:11:06] Is it John Candy?

[1:11:07] John Candy.

[1:11:08] The world of Den is still, if I was going to name a,

[1:11:12] so if you could live in any fantasy world,

[1:11:16] which fantasy world would you live in?

[1:11:18] My response is always obviously the world of Den from Heavy Metal

[1:11:21] where you get to murder orcs and be an awesome dude.

[1:11:24] You get to be a Richard Corbin character.

[1:11:26] Yeah, basically.

[1:11:26] I've heard living in Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls is a suitable answer

[1:11:33] because you just eat food all the time and hang out.

[1:11:36] Wait, that counts as a fantasy world?

[1:11:37] That's totally a fantasy world.

[1:11:39] Dan, you were right.

[1:11:40] I don't know why I thought John –

[1:11:41] even though knowing John Candy did other parts in that movie,

[1:11:43] I don't know why I thought it was John Goodman.

[1:11:44] My friends Jen and Scott bring this up almost every time they're at the bar.

[1:11:47] Bring up what?

[1:11:49] If you could live in any fantasy world, what fantasy world would you live in?

[1:11:52] Or a world from fiction.

[1:11:54] Fictional world.

[1:11:55] Fictional world.

[1:11:56] Okay.

[1:11:56] Good question.

[1:11:57] Hmm.

[1:11:58] Hmm.

[1:11:59] Hmm.

[1:12:00] Hmm.

[1:12:01] I mean, all of the worlds that I think of are like Charlie Brown.

[1:12:06] Why would I?

[1:12:08] No, that's the world I'm doomed to live in already.

[1:12:13] That's not the world that I want to live in.

[1:12:14] I want to live in the world of the corrections.

[1:12:18] I want to live in perpetual melancholy.

[1:12:21] And the infinite sadness, yeah.

[1:12:23] No, all of the worlds that I feel like immediately sprang to mind

[1:12:27] are very tweety, comforting English worlds.

[1:12:33] Oh, like the Wind in the Willows?

[1:12:35] Like Wind in the Willows, exactly.

[1:12:37] That's what I was thinking of.

[1:12:38] Or, like, Hobbiton before any, like, you know, like, stuff actually happens.

[1:12:43] Just like the state.

[1:12:45] But it's just when it's all just.

[1:12:46] Before Sharky and his ass wipes show up.

[1:12:48] When it's all just making seed cakes for people's birthdays.

[1:12:51] And having multiple breakfasts.

[1:12:53] That is a very good response, by the way.

[1:12:57] Yeah.

[1:12:59] I think there's a lot of people that agree with you.

[1:13:00] Who wouldn't want to live in the Shire before those dwarves come and start screwing up your life?

[1:13:05] Singing and throwing your dishes around and making you go on quests.

[1:13:08] What did Bilbo do up till that point?

[1:13:11] He was just kind of independently wealthy?

[1:13:12] Did he have a job?

[1:13:13] No, I think he was just independently wealthy, dude.

[1:13:16] Okay.

[1:13:16] All the fictional worlds I can think of are horrifying,

[1:13:20] and I don't really want to live there.

[1:13:22] I just...

[1:13:22] But they're dramatic.

[1:13:23] But I guess they're Marvel Universe.

[1:13:25] Not Blade Runner?

[1:13:26] Yeah, I don't want to live in Blade Runner.

[1:13:27] I don't want to live in Road Warrior.

[1:13:29] I don't want to live in Call of Cthulhu.

[1:13:30] Wait, you don't have, like, a weird power fantasy

[1:13:33] where you're, like, the lord of the wasteland?

[1:13:35] Oh, for sure, but I don't really want to do that.

[1:13:38] they call him the accountant.

[1:13:40] Wasn't that that Ben Affleck movie

[1:13:44] that just came out recently?

[1:13:45] Yeah, but I mean, come on, dude.

[1:13:49] If somebody looked at you

[1:13:52] and then the Beantown bad boy, Ben Affleck,

[1:13:54] they would think you're the accountant and not him.

[1:13:58] Good point, good point.

[1:13:59] I've thought about what superpower I wanted.

[1:14:01] Beantown bad boy.

[1:14:02] I've thought about what superpower I wanted before.

[1:14:05] Also applicable, Beantown bad boy.

[1:14:08] And I came up with Wolverine's Healing Factor, not because...

[1:14:13] You are such a boring person, Dan.

[1:14:16] Not because...

[1:14:17] Now I'll never have to worry about getting sick.

[1:14:19] Thanks, Logan.

[1:14:19] Exactly.

[1:14:20] That's the thing.

[1:14:21] It's not because of anything exciting.

[1:14:23] It's because...

[1:14:24] No arthritis for me.

[1:14:25] I'm such a hypochondriac that I'm just like, oh boy, if I could just heal all the time,

[1:14:30] if I could be at peak physical condition without doing anything, any work, that would be the

[1:14:35] greatest thing in the world.

[1:14:36] Let's hope this works on my feelings, too.

[1:14:38] All right, too far.

[1:14:42] Now I'm imagining a PSA with Wolverine where he's bullied,

[1:14:49] and then he's like,

[1:14:50] I'll tell you one thing, my healing factor doesn't work on her feelings.

[1:14:53] Yeah, I mean, the answer for a super driver is simple.

[1:14:55] You want to be able to fly and also have x-ray vision

[1:14:57] so you can look at the answers to tests and look at naked ladies.

[1:15:00] The answers to tests, how?

[1:15:02] I don't know.

[1:15:02] If the teacher's got it in, like, a manila folder,

[1:15:06] I can look right through that shit, dude.

[1:15:08] And the teachers went like holding it up in the air while you're taking the test?

[1:15:11] Flying is so much less useful than a healing factor.

[1:15:14] What are you talking about?

[1:15:15] Yeah, I can go anywhere I want, dog.

[1:15:17] Say goodbye to buying a MetroCard.

[1:15:20] Yeah.

[1:15:21] Unless it's raining.

[1:15:23] I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess, I don't know, teleportation would be better than flying.

[1:15:28] Teleportation and mind reading are always the ones that I would want.

[1:15:31] Oh, that'll drive you insane, dude.

[1:15:33] Well, the real one to drive you insane is if you were like the Purple Man, because you'd never know if people really liked you or if you were just making them like you.

[1:15:41] That's why the Purple Man's a good guy, right?

[1:15:43] Yep, that's where the term perp comes from.

[1:15:46] I think this is officially the nerdiest conversation we've ever had on this podcast.

[1:15:49] And that's saying something, because this is a podcast.

[1:15:52] Yeah, right off the bat.

[1:15:53] We're doing a podcast, dudes.

[1:15:54] Let's move to the next letter, shall we?

[1:15:56] This is from Jack, last name withheld.

[1:16:00] I'm working on a Doctor Who collage.

[1:16:03] i'm working on a doctor who adult coloring book i have an algorithm set up to figure out which is

[1:16:10] the best volume of volume of azek asimov's foundation series yeah this goes based on

[1:16:16] my stratomatic baseball league that i've been playing in for many years here's now i've taken

[1:16:22] all the major baseball players and i've randomly given them the powers of fictional characters

[1:16:27] so for instance uh does derrick jeter have the abilities of say uh sandra clegane for fighting

[1:16:38] yes and here daryl strawberry has the investigative abilities of hercule

[1:16:44] the investigative ability and of course the infield is all your various shagas

[1:16:53] all right so jack last name withheld says stock dear elliot stephen and the other guy whose name

[1:17:02] i forgot i'm an avid fan of you peaches but alas my wife is not a listener understandably

[1:17:08] yeah if you listen to this show we're morons she's the one responsible for your names and

[1:17:13] the salutation and she's the one who never listened who sorry she's the one who listens

[1:17:17] to the entire ziggy pitch only to make me promise that i'd never make her her listen to you again

[1:17:22] you gotta divorce her just kidding she sounds sensible despite all that she was watching a

[1:17:28] classic bad movie twilight and insisted that i bring a glaring plot hole to your attention

[1:17:32] in the movie our heroine bella is trying to learn about you gotta say like this

[1:17:38] bella bella is trying to learn about baby bella uh quayute legends oh that's that mushroom

[1:17:48] everybody's so into nowadays i have no idea how you pronounce this word but i'm gonna say

[1:17:52] cuyote legends a native american tribe well how would you say this oh i don't know quiet it

[1:18:00] actually looks like it looks more french than spanish to me quiet legends a native american

[1:18:05] tribe that became werewolves to fight vampires in her search she takes the internet to explore

[1:18:11] the legend she skips over the first several results only to choose a website featuring a

[1:18:16] book on the legend rather than order online she opts to head to a local bookstore to pick up the

[1:18:21] book instead oh yeah because because she's trying to support local independent retailers

[1:18:25] that's exactly what the parenthetical says after that okay good uh presumably she believes in

[1:18:32] supporting local businesses she buys the book book court just closed and i'm still kind of

[1:18:37] unhappy about it yeah she buys the book takes it home opens it to a random page and reads the

[1:18:42] caption of the picture that mentions the cold ones rather than read sorry rather than continuing

[1:18:48] reading the book she turns back to the internet enters coyote and cold ones and continues her

[1:18:54] research online so it works sometimes i mean i'm what i'm seeing is that she's able to synthesize

[1:19:00] multiple streams of data this is obviously nonsense so i ask you dear peaches two questions

[1:19:06] one what's your favorite no prize sorry what's your no prize explanation for this insanity and

[1:19:13] two what are your favorite nonsense moments in a movie's plot keep on flopping in the free world

[1:19:18] jack last name withheld so what's your explanation for this insanity and she's a millennial she's

[1:19:24] more comfortable on the internet than she is with dead print but why did she go get the book if

[1:19:28] she's just going to turn back to the internet maybe she's trying something new i don't know

[1:19:32] maybe she needs to get out of the house walk around she's been looking at the computer for

[1:19:35] too long look they needed to stretch out the sequence uh i think here's the thing sometimes

[1:19:43] when you're researching and i'm learning this for my new series presidents are people too

[1:19:47] on itunes and also audible originals and amazon prime sometimes when you're researching something

[1:19:52] you don't realize that you've got a key to what you need until you go somewhere else or you're

[1:19:59] looking for information you can only find in a book but then that helps you find something online

[1:20:03] I actually was dealing with something like that today as I researched a piece about William Howard Taft's time as governor general of the Philippines, and there was a quote that I found a partial version of in a book that I didn't know about until I read it in the book, and then I looked up online to find the original source for it, and I found it.

[1:20:22] So what I'm saying is multiple streams of information.

[1:20:25] It's the future of research.

[1:20:27] Join me, won't you, on a fun and imaginative journey to research skills.

[1:20:32] It's Research Skills Learner with Elliot Kaelin.

[1:20:35] Time to improve your research skills.

[1:20:38] Volume one, basic research.

[1:20:41] So I was about to make a joke about how I...

[1:20:45] It means to search again.

[1:20:46] So I was about to make a joke about how I zoned off,

[1:20:51] and then Elliot just kept fucking talking, dude.

[1:20:54] This is a group comedy show.

[1:20:57] So what's your favorite nonsense movie?

[1:20:59] I don't think so.

[1:21:00] nope it's called elliot and pals oh man i yeah what's a nonsense moment

[1:21:06] that you i mean there's a i mean there's a million of them so it's tough to say

[1:21:11] i think my favorite is it's similar to this in ringu when they're looking up information on the

[1:21:19] ghost and they're like we only have a week to live well let's call it off for the night

[1:21:25] getting pretty late and then they just stop researching for the night and go have dinner

[1:21:30] And I guess go to bed

[1:21:31] And I remember watching and being like

[1:21:33] You don't have a lot of time left

[1:21:34] Like burn the candle at both ends dude

[1:21:36] I mean I don't know

[1:21:37] Like I think if you only have a little bit of time left

[1:21:40] You're going to want a delicious dinner

[1:21:41] That's true

[1:21:42] You're going to enjoy every element of life

[1:21:44] Yeah

[1:21:45] What do you think Dan?

[1:21:47] All I can think of is plot holes

[1:21:50] Which is not the same thing as like a nonsense moment

[1:21:52] Like I've talked about the Back to the Future 2 plot hole before

[1:21:57] Which one is that?

[1:21:59] It's that...

[1:22:00] How Max Headroom was not that popular?

[1:22:02] Once Biff goes back in time to give the sports almanac to his younger self,

[1:22:10] he cannot return to the original timeline.

[1:22:13] Well, that's not a plot hole.

[1:22:14] It's a time paradox.

[1:22:15] Yeah, it's a plot hole.

[1:22:17] Because if he returned to the future,

[1:22:20] he would be returning to the future on the new timeline where Biff is a success.

[1:22:24] How do you know he didn't do that?

[1:22:26] Because he comes back with the time machine,

[1:22:30] and that's how they get back to the past.

[1:22:32] So wait a minute.

[1:22:34] Are you saying that when he hands that sports almanac,

[1:22:36] he should immediately morph into an older, wealthier version of himself?

[1:22:40] Or he should just disappear?

[1:22:42] Wait, he died?

[1:22:44] A little thing called conservation of matter, Dan.

[1:22:49] Matter just can't disappear.

[1:22:50] Nor can it exist at the same space at the same time.

[1:22:53] A la Time Cop.

[1:22:55] Look at Time Cop.

[1:22:56] I'll look at the medical research journal Time Cup in the case of one R Silver.

[1:23:02] Yeah, a human being that does the splits will totally avoid lightning.

[1:23:06] Dan, let's move on to the next letter.

[1:23:09] I'm having trouble coming up with a really nonsense one.

[1:23:11] I think the real plot hole here is that Dan read this letter and was like,

[1:23:15] hmm, this is good.

[1:23:16] I'll include this in the show, but didn't come up with an example himself.

[1:23:19] Nor did he.

[1:23:20] Last time we did this, he told us the questions ahead of time

[1:23:23] so we could come up with examples.

[1:23:25] Yeah, but you didn't read them, so I was like, well, that experiment didn't work.

[1:23:29] Oh, it didn't work once.

[1:23:31] Have you ever heard of Try Try Again?

[1:23:33] Yeah, the imitation game?

[1:23:35] All right, we'll do it.

[1:23:37] I don't remember that movie that well.

[1:23:38] Well, we didn't crack the German code once.

[1:23:42] I guess we'll never try.

[1:23:44] All right, so the last letter of the evening is from Natalie, last name withheld.

[1:23:49] Portman.

[1:23:50] A merchant.

[1:23:51] And she writes.

[1:23:52] A Portman merchant.

[1:23:54] Dear Flophouse, I need to talk to you about something.

[1:23:57] Okay.

[1:23:58] Butts.

[1:23:59] Oh, now we know why Dan picked this letter.

[1:24:02] Lately, I've been a bit obsessed with staring at perfectly shaped butts due to my career.

[1:24:06] I'm a wardrobe dresser.

[1:24:08] Oh.

[1:24:09] I thought you were a butt sculptor.

[1:24:11] My latest job has me dressing dancers who, more likely or not, have the most perfect butts of anyone on the planet.

[1:24:19] Men, women, all shapes and sizes.

[1:24:23] I think my obsession started with my love for Gene Kelly.

[1:24:26] I watched An American in Paris nonstop when I was in high school, and it's never stopped.

[1:24:31] A few years ago, I even came across this Tumblr page dedicated to Gene Kelly's butt.

[1:24:36] And if you want to look at it at home, it's genekellysbutt.tumblr.com.

[1:24:41] I've seen that Tumblr.

[1:24:41] As you can see, his butt is glorious at every angle.

[1:24:45] First of all, how can I help myself from staring at butts while at work?

[1:24:49] I'm afraid that the dancers will eventually catch me staring.

[1:24:53] Second, what or who possesses your favorite butts in TV or film and why?

[1:24:57] Dangerous territory.

[1:24:58] Dan, it doesn't necessarily have to be wives' butts.

[1:25:00] Elliot, it can be from a theater performance you saw.

[1:25:03] Oh, okay.

[1:25:04] Well, that's different then.

[1:25:05] Stuart, you're good.

[1:25:06] I love the show.

[1:25:07] I don't even know what that means.

[1:25:08] We know Stuart's answer.

[1:25:09] And it's the highlight of every fortnight.

[1:25:11] It's going to be what?

[1:25:11] Tiffany Shepard?

[1:25:12] People on the flopping.

[1:25:13] I almost said it at the same time as you.

[1:25:16] I don't know.

[1:25:22] That's a good question.

[1:25:23] No, it's not a good question.

[1:25:24] It's a terrible question.

[1:25:26] It's not a good question.

[1:25:27] It can only lead to trouble.

[1:25:28] Yeah.

[1:25:29] Although I would say that male gymnasts arguably have crazier butts.

[1:25:37] Than male dancers?

[1:25:38] When you see them little dudes up on those rings, like, that butt, what the heck, dude?

[1:25:44] No, male dancers have the best.

[1:25:47] Male-wise, she's right that Gene Kelly has the best butt.

[1:25:51] Probably in history.

[1:25:52] Yeah.

[1:25:52] There's a lot of...

[1:25:55] It's the definition of Calipagian.

[1:25:56] There's junk in that trunk, but it's well-formed.

[1:26:00] No, it's all high-quality merchandise.

[1:26:01] It's well-formed junk.

[1:26:02] It's not junk.

[1:26:02] Why are you staring at me like this, Dan?

[1:26:06] I just want some validation.

[1:26:09] Yeah.

[1:26:11] Dan has dedicated his life to the study of butts.

[1:26:14] He's so happy to get someone validating that.

[1:26:17] I'm a buttologist, if you will.

[1:26:18] Yeah.

[1:26:19] I mean, there's a proctologist.

[1:26:21] That's basically a butt.

[1:26:22] I mean, that is someone who actually has dedicated their lives to studying butts.

[1:26:24] Or is that somebody who studies...

[1:26:26] That's just the inside.

[1:26:27] If you're unwilling or unable...

[1:26:29] Proctor and Gamble?

[1:26:30] Commander Harris's buddy.

[1:26:31] Proctor and Gamble, they're cops.

[1:26:34] If you're unwilling or unable to say which is the best butt...

[1:26:39] I'll say it.

[1:26:40] Just say Gene Kelly in conversation.

[1:26:42] Gene Kelly or Carla Gugino, it's going to have Gene in the name.

[1:26:45] Yeah, those are good butts.

[1:26:49] I'd say I like Tiffany Shepis or Nicole Kidman.

[1:26:53] Those are good butts.

[1:26:54] And Gene Kelly.

[1:26:55] Throw them in there.

[1:26:58] I don't want to be, I don't want to just.

[1:27:01] I already feel so gross that we're even discussing this.

[1:27:04] I don't want to stick to my cisgender, you know.

[1:27:07] Wait, what is that?

[1:27:08] That's not.

[1:27:08] My heterosexual.

[1:27:10] Yes, thank you.

[1:27:11] You're using cisgender.

[1:27:12] No, no, it's not true.

[1:27:13] I mean, like, my cisgender heterosexual, I don't want to.

[1:27:19] I mean, the fact that cisgender just means you haven't changed gender.

[1:27:22] Yes, but it also, let's not get into this on the air.

[1:27:27] Well.

[1:27:27] Yes, let's discuss it later.

[1:27:29] Do you guys feel gross because farts come out of butts?

[1:27:31] Do I feel gross because of that?

[1:27:34] No, it's natural.

[1:27:34] No, but the more.

[1:27:37] That's what I tell people.

[1:27:38] The more important question is, how do we get her to stop staring at butts?

[1:27:42] I mean, it sounds like it's part of her job.

[1:27:46] She's fitting their clothes, right?

[1:27:48] Mm-hmm.

[1:27:49] Do you think maybe throw a compelling magazine in between her eyeline and the butt?

[1:27:55] I think it's clear what the answer is.

[1:27:57] She has to start staring at groins.

[1:27:59] It's a short-term solution.

[1:28:03] Oh, wow, yeah.

[1:28:03] I feel like at that point, though, you're dealing with potentially greater evil.

[1:28:10] Yeah, I feel like that's a slippery slope, and you're going down.

[1:28:14] I don't understand.

[1:28:14] Yeah, from there you go down to the back of the knees.

[1:28:17] Uh-oh.

[1:28:18] because then people are going to be like,

[1:28:20] oh, my butt's back here.

[1:28:21] Pardon me.

[1:28:24] Dan, why did we have to end on the butts letter?

[1:28:26] I don't know.

[1:28:26] It's because it was literally the...

[1:28:29] Well, because I wanted to separate it out

[1:28:32] from the Marvel sexual fantasies letter

[1:28:35] because I felt like they were too similar.

[1:28:37] Dan just turned his chair around

[1:28:39] and then he put a baseball cap on.

[1:28:41] Real talk, guys.

[1:28:42] Oh, boy.

[1:28:43] I just wanted to keep the gross letters, you know...

[1:28:47] This has been a weird episode.

[1:28:48] part from each other. We barely talked about

[1:28:50] Nicolas Cage in this episode, but we talked a lot

[1:28:52] about sex and butts and things, and I'm

[1:28:54] uncomfortable about that.

[1:28:55] Not me, baby. Bring it on.

[1:28:58] This is a sex talk starring

[1:29:00] Steve Balls.

[1:29:01] So what else do we

[1:29:06] do on this JizzCast?

[1:29:07] Wow, don't say that.

[1:29:10] It's too late. Now I'm uncomfortable.

[1:29:12] This is truly the midnight of the soul.

[1:29:13] I was cool with everything else that was happening,

[1:29:16] and then JizzCast

[1:29:18] came out of Stuart's mouth.

[1:29:19] What are you saying?

[1:29:20] Whoa!

[1:29:22] Don't pin this on me.

[1:29:24] Don't pin this on me, copper.

[1:29:26] Don't pin the tail on this donkey.

[1:29:28] Bang, bang, bang, bang.

[1:29:29] Oh, no, it's a shootout.

[1:29:30] So what else do we do here, dude?

[1:29:33] We just talked about...

[1:29:34] We recommend...

[1:29:36] What am I going to go over?

[1:29:36] Oh, boy.

[1:29:39] This is how we're ending the year.

[1:29:42] This is how we're ending the year.

[1:29:44] Yep.

[1:29:44] To be fair,

[1:29:45] kind of everybody wants to say goodbye to this year.

[1:29:46] Kind of a whimper, yeah.

[1:29:48] AV Club was right not to put us on our best of 2016 list.

[1:29:52] Hot take.

[1:29:54] Well, let's wrap that bandage back over that wound, Dan.

[1:29:57] Let's talk about some movies that we actually liked.

[1:30:00] Kind of like the movie we watched tonight.

[1:30:02] And in fact, I'm going to recommend a movie that is not super far from the movie we watched tonight.

[1:30:06] I'm going to recommend a movie called Heller High Water.

[1:30:10] About my middle teacher, Mrs. Heller.

[1:30:13] Heller High Water came out this year.

[1:30:16] It is a movie about two brothers who, due to a position they're put by the bank, turn to robbing banks.

[1:30:28] Oh, they're like a couple of Newton boys.

[1:30:30] Yep, in West Texas.

[1:30:31] Born and raised.

[1:30:33] And they have come up with a scheme that's going to allow them to rob some banks and, in theory, hopefully get away with it.

[1:30:40] And they're being pursued by a Texas ranger played by Jeff Bridges.

[1:30:44] This is a movie that is written by Taylor Sheridan, who wrote the script for Sicario, another movie I really liked.

[1:30:52] And I feel like kind of watching this movie almost makes Sicario a better movie.

[1:30:59] I think it adds a little bit of definition to it because this is a movie that is not very subtle.

[1:31:05] It's a movie that clearly has an agenda.

[1:31:07] It's not afraid to play up some of its feelings on the disparity of wealth in America.

[1:31:16] And it is a movie that treats every scene,

[1:31:22] even if they're just scenes that are mainly for exposition or to build out the plot,

[1:31:29] it treats those scenes as if they are interesting little mini stories.

[1:31:36] and every character is given a little bit of extra definition.

[1:31:39] So it ends up being a very fun movie to watch.

[1:31:42] Chris Pine gives one of his best performances,

[1:31:44] and Jeff Bridges is fucking great as always.

[1:31:47] And it's kind of a reminder as to why he's such a great actor

[1:31:51] and he's kind of so important to the American film scene.

[1:31:55] And it also highlights a great performance by Ben Foster, who...

[1:32:00] Australian for Ben Beer.

[1:32:01] Yeah, that's the thing.

[1:32:05] Who is great in almost every movie he's in, even if it's the remake of 310 to Huma.

[1:32:10] He's awesome.

[1:32:12] He said that as if that was the worst movie ever made.

[1:32:14] That is the worst movie I've ever seen.

[1:32:16] So if you get a chance, go see, watch Hell or High Water.

[1:32:22] It's great.

[1:32:23] Dan?

[1:32:26] Do you have a movie you want me to go to?

[1:32:28] I'm going to recommend a little movie.

[1:32:32] You say the word but.

[1:32:34] Called.

[1:32:35] Why are you making a weird face?

[1:32:36] Stop making sense.

[1:32:37] So you don't have a movie to recommend this week is what you're saying.

[1:32:41] No, hold on.

[1:32:42] I'm going to recommend a movie.

[1:32:43] It's a sequel.

[1:32:44] It's called Start Making Sense.

[1:32:45] Castle Freak.

[1:32:46] Okay, go on.

[1:32:48] I've heard good things.

[1:32:49] Do you want to pass on this one?

[1:32:50] Dan hasn't been on planes lately, guys.

[1:32:54] He's still working.

[1:32:54] Dan hasn't been on a motor transportation, so he hasn't seen any movies.

[1:32:57] I haven't had a chance to see anything else.

[1:33:00] You know what?

[1:33:02] I did a bunch of runner-up movies last week.

[1:33:05] Yeah, you wasted a lot of movies last week.

[1:33:07] I wasted a lot of movies.

[1:33:08] Let's just say that Elle, the Paul Verhoeven movie, is definitely worth seeing.

[1:33:13] The movie hinges on a rape, so if that is something that is a deal-breaker for you in terms of watching a movie,

[1:33:21] maybe it's not the movie for you, but Isabelle Huppert is fantastic in it.

[1:33:31] It's fantastically directed.

[1:33:33] It's just I'm not quite sure what the movie is saying.

[1:33:36] It's a movie where...

[1:33:40] It's in English, right?

[1:33:42] No, it is not.

[1:33:45] Stuart winked at me and I appreciated it.

[1:33:47] It's a subtitled film.

[1:33:49] No subtitles? Was that the problem?

[1:33:51] It's a subtitled film.

[1:33:52] It's a movie where the rape victim steadfastly refuses to behave as a victim

[1:33:59] whether it be by um seeming victimized or whether it be by seeking revenge in an obvious way

[1:34:09] um it's a movie where like she actually ends up sort of engaging in a weird sexual cat and mouse

[1:34:19] with the person who was her rapist.

[1:34:22] And it's a definite provocation from Verhoeven.

[1:34:29] Yeah, as it dealt with his classic subtle Verhoeven touch.

[1:34:34] It's more subtle than Verhoeven usually is, I will say that.

[1:34:37] And it's definitely worth watching.

[1:34:40] I mean, the guy who made a movie where a Jewish woman goes undercover in Nazi Germany

[1:34:45] and there's a scene where she dyes her pubes blonde.

[1:34:49] Yes.

[1:34:52] Or the mayor of Detroit steps over

[1:34:54] a dying homeless person in the street.

[1:34:56] Actually, I don't think he made RoboCop 2, right?

[1:34:59] No, no, he didn't make RoboCop.

[1:35:00] He's not known for...

[1:35:01] But if he had, then yes.

[1:35:03] Nuke.

[1:35:04] I mean, RoboCop is not particularly subtle either.

[1:35:07] It sounds like something that could take place

[1:35:09] in a Veriland movie.

[1:35:09] He's an interesting guy

[1:35:12] and I'm not quite sure what to make of Al,

[1:35:15] But I also know that it was good and worth watching and worth wrestling with, even if you're not quite sure what it's saying and you're not quite sure whether it's saying it in a responsible way.

[1:35:29] It's a smart and interesting movie.

[1:35:32] So it'll make you think?

[1:35:33] It'll make you blink.

[1:35:35] Well, I feel like Paul Verhoeven is one of those filmmakers who is, I mean, generally will make interesting movies.

[1:35:43] And also someone where you are being – you are not buying into what he's selling if you take everything at face value in his films.

[1:35:50] Correct.

[1:35:51] I feel like that you can take things at face values, but you'll be missing what he's actually saying through it.

[1:35:57] Yeah.

[1:35:58] It's up to you to puzzle that out.

[1:36:00] It's like Total Recall.

[1:36:02] Yeah.

[1:36:03] So my movie that I'm going to recommend –

[1:36:07] Is Total Recall?

[1:36:07] Is not Total Recall.

[1:36:08] It's an old movie.

[1:36:09] It's Scrotal Recall.

[1:36:10] The TV show that just changed its name.

[1:36:13] name they changed the name of the show why do they change the name because scrotal recall is

[1:36:17] a terrible name but it makes it's for fans of total recall it's not it's neither of those

[1:36:23] things that's why they changed it so it's not like one of those veggie tales type movie but

[1:36:27] instead of veggies it's a pair of testicles going through the story of total recall scrotal recall

[1:36:32] the treasure of the lost lamp so i'm going to recommend a movie now it's a movie directed by

[1:36:41] carol reed who directed one of my favorite movies of all time the third man and this is one that i

[1:36:47] actually was not even familiar with until i recently read an old interview with him and it

[1:36:52] came up and it was really really good and i really liked it a lot it's called outcast of the islands

[1:36:56] and it's an adaptation of joseph conrad's and outcast of the islands joseph conrad being one

[1:37:02] of my favorite authors it's strange that i had not familiar with this movie and yet i wasn't until i

[1:37:07] read it mentioned and it's got an all-star english cast ralph richardson trevor howard

[1:37:13] robert morley who you may remember as the english guy the muppets meet when they first land in

[1:37:17] england in great muppet caper oh yeah uh george coloris uh and it's all being a joseph conrad

[1:37:23] story it's all about life both on the sea and in tropical isles uh trevor howard plays imperialism

[1:37:30] yes and that's the one thing i don't like about joseph conrad is you have to grapple with

[1:37:34] uh basically imperialism and his own feelings on that um and the one flaw in this is that

[1:37:43] there's a fair amount of english actors playing these kind of either there's they're kind of

[1:37:49] sri lankan or javanese or some kind of you know non-white characters so that's not so great but

[1:37:54] what are you gonna do it's a movie from the 50s uh and everyone's really good in it but trevor

[1:37:59] Howard plays this kind of

[1:38:01] ne'er-do-well blaggard

[1:38:03] rogue. He is a real steer

[1:38:05] bike. Remy LeBeau type.

[1:38:07] Who is in

[1:38:08] Singapore working as a trader

[1:38:11] and has

[1:38:12] pissed off his boss and he has to leave.

[1:38:15] Years ago he was the protege of a

[1:38:17] captain played by Ralph Richardson and

[1:38:19] this captain has a

[1:38:21] special route only he knows about

[1:38:23] to this village that he can trade

[1:38:25] in and where he can exchange things and

[1:38:27] get valuable things. Everyone wants to know

[1:38:29] this route because they all want to get to this trading territory but ralph richardson's the only

[1:38:33] one who knows how to get there and because years ago he took trevor howard under his wing he decides

[1:38:38] he's going to try to do it again and try to save this man from his own sins again and brings him

[1:38:44] to that village and everything goes wrong trevor howard doesn't get along with the guy running the

[1:38:48] place for the captain and he falls under the spell of the daughter of a rival village headman and

[1:38:57] she essentially drives

[1:38:59] him into a state of madness and he betrays

[1:39:01] everyone he knows and has to

[1:39:03] face up to the consequences and

[1:39:05] you know it's a tale of

[1:39:07] men going insane and

[1:39:09] fighting tooth and nail for things that don't

[1:39:11] really belong to them in the first place

[1:39:13] and I really liked it a lot it was super

[1:39:15] intense it reminded me of like

[1:39:17] kind of a men version of black

[1:39:19] narcissists in some ways

[1:39:20] and I liked a lot Outcast of the

[1:39:23] Islands if you like the third man give it a try

[1:39:25] how's the uh zither in it uh no it's not zither music fuck that it's not not exactly like the

[1:39:33] third man okay but it is like the third man in that it looks great and the actors are great and

[1:39:38] the story is really interesting there's good dialogue but there's no zither it's a hard

[1:39:43] cotton's not in it uh elita valley is not in it no thanks the closest you get is karima

[1:39:50] Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

[1:39:52] Yeah, exactly

[1:39:55] So, three great recommendations

[1:40:00] Dan, are we heading to the end of the episode?

[1:40:03] We are heading, we are hurtling towards the end

[1:40:06] Dan, I was wondering

[1:40:07] We're slouching toward the end of this year, guys

[1:40:09] I wondered if I could end this episode

[1:40:11] End this year with a short prayer

[1:40:13] Sure

[1:40:14] I guess saying saving Christmas last episode

[1:40:17] And knowing that

[1:40:18] Elliot's pulling out a gun for some reason

[1:40:19] Did Cage miss at all?

[1:40:21] I felt like I just wanted to say a few things.

[1:40:23] So, dear Nicolas Cage, this year was really difficult for a lot of people, a lot of our listeners, a lot of people who don't listen to us.

[1:40:32] And I worry that the future may be difficult too.

[1:40:34] So, I ask you, Nicolas Cage, please use your power from where you sit high above us in that castle in Germany to please help us bring the best to this world that we can and to make things a little better.

[1:40:49] Please give us at least three movies we can watch next year because your output has not been what it once was, and it's making it more difficult for us to do two Cage Misses a year.

[1:40:58] I mean, there's three Nicolas Cage movies on demand right now.

[1:41:00] That's a good point.

[1:41:02] You know what, Nicolas?

[1:41:03] Stuart makes a good point, so forget that I said that last part.

[1:41:07] But St. Nicolas, please continue to be a beacon for us in these times of misunderstanding.

[1:41:13] It is inspiring to me that a great artist such as yourself can shoulder past the misunderstanding of others and their misreading of your work and instead continue to do what you do at the level of energy and enthusiasm you do it at.

[1:41:28] May we all take an example from this Nicolas Cage and in these future times really push forward with as much energy as we can.

[1:41:35] Just as boring as regular church.

[1:41:37] You know, it reminds me of a reading in Face Off, Book 3, Verse 2.

[1:41:43] i could eat a peach for hours oh yay did he see next

[1:41:49] let us all eat a peach for hours

[1:41:55] and let us push forward being the best that we can as our lord nicholas cage is the best

[1:42:03] he can be may his movies continue to be a symbol of his individuality and belief

[1:42:08] and personal freedom

[1:42:10] nice may we all say

[1:42:12] reference oh i got it oh man

[1:42:15] oh man

[1:42:16] so thank you

[1:42:18] for the flop house i've

[1:42:21] been dan mccoy that's been

[1:42:23] elliot calen and over there is stewart wellington

[1:42:25] boy

[1:42:26] good night

[1:42:29] everyone and happy holidays

[1:42:31] price of my love's not a price

[1:42:38] that you're willing to pay.

[1:42:40] You cry in your tea

[1:42:45] which you throw in the sea

[1:42:46] when you see me ride by.

[1:42:48] Why so sad?

[1:42:51] No, no, it's like this.

[1:42:52] Why so serious, King George?

[1:42:57] Yep.

[1:42:58] Well, Commissioner Hamilton.

[1:43:01] That's from Dark Knight-alton.

[1:43:06] The Hamilton Dark Knight mashup.

[1:43:08] That would be huge.

[1:43:10] MaximumFun.org.

[1:43:13] Comedy and culture.

[1:43:14] Artist owned.

[1:43:15] Listener supported.

[1:43:17] I'm Hal Lublin.

[1:43:20] I'm Danielle Radford.

[1:43:21] I am Michael Eagle.

[1:43:22] And we are the hosts of Tights and Fights, Maximum Fun's newest podcast dedicated to all things wrestling.

[1:43:27] We'll be talking about Sasha Banks, the Women's Revolution, Sasha Banks, the brand split, and Sasha Banks' wigs.

[1:43:34] And we'll also be talking about wrestler fashion.

[1:43:36] Some wrestlers wear too many clothes.

[1:43:38] Some wrestlers don't wear enough clothes at all.

[1:43:40] And I'll be doing impressions of all your favorite wrestlers.

[1:43:43] New episodes Thursdays on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:43:48] Oh, yeah.

[1:43:49] Dig it.

[1:43:50] Dice and Bites Podcast.

[1:43:53] Dice and Bites.

[1:44:08] andrew wk have in common they've all been speakers and performers at past max fun cons

[1:44:14] every max fun con is a murderer's row of amazing stand-up comedians thoughtful cultural leaders

[1:44:20] and skilled artists and max fun con and max fun con east 2017 will be no different visit

[1:44:26] maxfuncon.com for dates and more information and to grab your ticket before they're gone

Ep.#220 - The Trust

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