Ep.# 214 - Victor Frankenstein

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Victor Frankenstein.

[0:05] Just the guy?

[0:06] Yeah.

[0:07] Yeah, we're just like, what's up with him?

Elliott Kalan

[0:09] I haven't seen him since college.

[0:10] I mean, I see him on Facebook and he's like, still working on this corpse and I like it.

[0:15] You know, I don't really like it, but I give him a like because I feel bad for him.

[0:18] Yeah, it's a pity like.

[0:18] And he always tags the corpse and he makes a Facebook page for the corpse.

[0:22] And you're like, dude, if you spent less time on your social media marketing campaign

[0:27] and more time on your studies and your research, maybe you'd have brought that corpse back to life by now.

[0:32] But instead he's got fucking Instagram feeds for every project.

[0:35] And it's like, come on, stop putting the cart before the corpse.

[0:38] Am I right?

Stuart Wellington

[0:38] Yeah, but he's verified on Instagram now.

[0:40] So he's got that going for him.

[0:43] True.

[0:43] I mean, what do you have to show for it on Instagram?

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] I don't even have an Instagram account.

Dan McCoy

[0:49] Movies.

[0:57] Hey, everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[1:25] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:26] And I'm Stuart Wellington, 6'1", hard bodied.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] And I'm Elliot Kalin, 5'4", soft like silly buddy.

[1:35] Wow, I didn't know we were doing this, guys.

[1:37] I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[1:38] Well, I mean, it's called yes anding.

[1:39] Yeah, you want to do your bit now?

[1:40] Yeah, start over.

[1:41] You do yours.

[1:42] I'm Dan McCoy, mediocre buddy.

[1:46] All right.

[1:46] Okay, cool.

[1:47] You're part of the cool guy club.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48] Yeah, default human.

[1:49] Yeah.

[1:49] Super awesome rad.

[1:50] What are we doing?

[1:51] What is this and what do we do on it?

Dan McCoy

[1:53] This is a podcast, number one.

[1:55] First principles.

[1:56] It's not a hot dog.

[1:57] No.

[1:57] And it's not a unicorn.

[1:58] You've not inserted a hot dog into your ear.

[2:00] I mean, even though.

[2:01] Please don't.

[2:02] It's very tempting.

[2:03] No.

[2:03] Because your hot dog is about ear insertion sized.

[2:08] And your ear is a hole that you can put things in.

Elliott Kalan

[2:10] I mean, your ear does have a hole you can put things in.

[2:12] And that thing is called sound.

Stuart Wellington

[2:14] How is a hot dog ear insertion sized?

[2:17] Because Dan has three dish ears.

[2:18] Hey, I want to know what ears you have.

[2:20] And B, what kind of hot dogs you've been looking at.

[2:21] They could meet those little mini friends.

Dan McCoy

[2:23] I'm looking at your ears right now.

[2:24] And I could put a hot dog in there.

[2:25] No way.

[2:26] A tip of a hot dog.

[2:27] With work.

[2:28] That's what I'm talking about.

Stuart Wellington

[2:29] Yeah, with work.

[2:30] I mean, maybe if you slather in mustard and mayonnaise.

Elliott Kalan

[2:33] Like, it's going to take effort.

[2:35] It's not like you just accidentally slip it in.

[2:37] No, I could slip it in anywhere.

[2:39] I can.

Dan McCoy

[2:40] You know what?

[2:41] Forget I ever mentioned hot dogs.

[2:42] Okay.

[2:43] So what do we do on this podcast?

[2:45] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

[2:46] So it's not a hamburger.

[2:48] No, it's not a hamburger.

[2:50] It's not Hot Dog the movie.

[2:51] It's not Hamburger the movie.

[2:52] Okay.

[2:53] It's a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

[2:55] And then we talk about it.

Stuart Wellington

[2:56] Is Hamburger the movie about downhill skiing?

[3:01] It's actually a Holocaust picture.

Elliott Kalan

[3:02] Oh.

[3:03] Yeah.

[3:03] I'm sorry.

[3:04] Yeah, it takes place in Hamburg.

[3:06] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[3:07] It's actually Hamburger.

[3:08] I was going to ask how it connected.

[3:10] But then you got there first.

Elliott Kalan

[3:12] Well, that's why they call me the get there firster.

[3:16] Elliot, the get there firster.

[3:17] Sounds like a really well-defined character.

Dan McCoy

[3:21] Fastest get there in the West.

[3:23] Mm-hmm.

[3:24] Nobody gets there firster.

[3:26] That's my slogan.

[3:28] Yeah.

[3:29] That's how you got rid of the Pony Express with your slogan.

[3:32] Nobody gets there firster.

Elliott Kalan

[3:34] Yeah, because I'm an immortal who's walked the earth for centuries.

[3:38] Thanks for blowing my cover, Dan.

[3:39] Anyway.

[3:40] You blow up your spot.

[3:41] So on this podcast, we talk about bad movies.

Dan McCoy

[3:43] And, and, guys.

[3:46] And it's Shocktober.

Elliott Kalan

[3:48] What?

[3:48] The scariest time of the year?

Stuart Wellington

[3:50] Yeah.

[3:51] Well, we didn't have scary intro music that I got to hear.

[3:54] But maybe the people.

[3:56] Oh, I'm doing a shitty job here.

[3:58] You didn't play scary intro music for us, Dan.

[4:01] You don't need to evaluate in real time what's going on.

Elliott Kalan

[4:04] Yeah, I don't know.

[4:05] I mean, the only reason we would need it is because technically we're recording this at

[4:09] the tail end of Smallvember for release in Shocktober.

[4:12] Yeah.

[4:13] There's a little peek behind the curtain, a little podcast magic.

Stuart Wellington

[4:16] Yeah, you know, I guess this is a good way to kind of ease ourselves into the season.

[4:20] Probably the scariest season of the year.

[4:22] I don't know.

[4:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:23] I think the scariest season of the year to me is tax season.

[4:27] Oh, brother.

[4:28] This guy.

[4:29] He's got a real skewed take on modern life.

Elliott Kalan

[4:33] I take the ordinary, everyday kind of like irritations of modern life.

[4:37] And I apply my unique viewpoint.

[4:38] It's in a series of books called Everything I Need to Know I Learned Right Now From You.

[4:44] Wow.

[4:44] The books are blank.

[4:45] They cost $25.

[4:47] Fill them out.

[4:48] Send them to me.

[4:49] I got to start learning.

[4:52] What a great scam.

[4:54] So what do we do with Shocktober?

Dan McCoy

[4:55] Shocktober is the part of the year that we watch scary movies or movies that are macabre in some way.

[5:05] Yeah, yeah.

[5:05] Because I wouldn't guess.

[5:06] Ty Macabre, the great baseball player.

[5:07] I wouldn't necessarily say that the movie we watched tonight was particularly scary.

[5:11] No, but it was gross at times.

[5:12] It was in the Halloween tradition.

[5:14] It had one of the classic monsters in it.

Elliott Kalan

[5:16] One of the classic Halloween stories.

[5:18] Now, what story is it?

[5:19] Well, the movie's called Victor Frankenstein.

[5:21] So guess.

[5:22] You're right.

[5:23] The mummy.

[5:24] Good work, Einstein.

[5:26] Yeah.

[5:27] M.O.

[5:27] Taps back.

[5:28] Famous literary detective, Einstein.

[5:32] If you've got a story, you don't know what it is.

[5:34] There's only one man you can call on, and he works at the patent office in Bern.

[5:40] He's not good at math, but he's a genius.

[5:43] At story.

[5:44] Yeah.

[5:45] He was actually, I mean, he was better than the average person at math.

[5:48] Oh, okay.

[5:49] Math was not his strongest suit as a theoretical physicist, but he would get help from other

[5:55] people to do the math work with him, but he was better at math than like we are.

Stuart Wellington

[5:58] Sure.

[5:58] Yeah.

[5:59] If he had like a Marvel card on the back, if it had like power ratings, he would still

[6:03] be superhuman at math, but he wouldn't be like as good as he is at physics.

Elliott Kalan

[6:08] I mean, at math, he would be like, let's say it's a one to 10 scale with one being normal

[6:11] math.

[6:12] Yeah.

[6:12] No, math, one would be subnormal math.

[6:15] The same way there's that one checklist.

Stuart Wellington

[6:16] So that's like what the rhino would be at in math.

Elliott Kalan

[6:18] Yes, exactly.

[6:19] There's this one checklist card.

[6:21] Yeah.

[6:21] Spider-Man villain.

[6:22] Spider-Man villain.

Dan McCoy

[6:22] Okay.

[6:23] Or rhino.

Elliott Kalan

[6:23] Except for that one tangled web storyline.

Dan McCoy

[6:26] Notably not good at math?

Elliott Kalan

[6:28] He's just kind of a big dumb dude.

[6:30] Okay.

[6:30] He's a fucking rhino.

[6:32] What, is he going to be good at two things, smashing into stuff and math?

Dan McCoy

[6:35] That's right.

[6:36] Anyway.

[6:36] You only go to one thing at once.

Elliott Kalan

[6:37] Thank you.

[6:38] I don't like this modern day, this ties into the movie, modern day thing where everyone's

[6:42] good at everything.

[6:43] Look, yeah, we all get a trophy.

[6:45] But anyway, so Einstein would get like a four in math, but he'd have a 10 in like conceptual

[6:53] imagination.

[6:54] Okay.

[6:55] Oh, wow.

[6:55] That's an interesting stat.

Stuart Wellington

[6:57] Him and Doc Ock share a stat.

Dan McCoy

[6:59] I mean, thanks for the teaching moment, Einstein, but I was just using-

[7:06] They got me.

[7:07] I was just using the popular conception of Einstein for comedic purposes.

Elliott Kalan

[7:11] Yeah, but it's not true and I don't like it.

[7:12] All right.

[7:12] Comedy should be based on truth, unless it's really funny when it's made up.

[7:16] All right.

[7:16] Thanks, Del Close Einstein.

[7:19] Delbert Einstein.

[7:20] The mix of Del Close and Albert Einstein.

[7:23] Truth is comedy.

[7:24] It's just Albert Einstein with a heroin addiction.

[7:26] Anyway, here's the thing.

[7:27] We watched this movie, Victor Frankenstein.

[7:30] It's a retelling of the classic Frankenstein tale.

[7:34] Hollywood would probably refer to it as a legend, but I would refer to it as a novel written by Mary Shelley at a very specific point.

[7:40] More accurate.

[7:41] Right?

[7:41] The same way that there were the ads for Heart of the Sea where they referred to the true story

[7:45] behind the legend of Moby Dick.

[7:47] And I was like, bullshit, dude.

[7:48] That was a novel Herman Melville wrote.

Dan McCoy

[7:50] You can call that a legend.

[7:51] Come on.

[7:52] Yeah.

[7:52] It wasn't like whalers were like, Moby Dick roams these seas.

[7:56] It doesn't go back thousands of years.

[7:59] On stormy, legend tells that on stormy nights, you can see his blowhole blowing through the air.

Elliott Kalan

[8:05] You can still see that dick's hole, they say.

[8:08] If you look hard enough, look hard enough for the dick hole.

[8:11] Mm-hmm.

[8:12] Spray in.

[8:13] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[8:13] Speaking of dick hole, young Pete.

Elliott Kalan

[8:16] Um, what?

[8:17] I don't like where this is going.

Dan McCoy

[8:18] You're at sea for a long time, I'm just saying.

[8:21] Yeah.

[8:21] Let's not go there.

Stuart Wellington

[8:23] So do you think Herbert Melville, Herman Melville.

[8:26] Herbert Melville.

[8:27] Herbert Melville.

[8:28] Yeah.

[8:28] Frank Herbert Melville.

Elliott Kalan

[8:29] What?

[8:29] Author of Moby Dune.

Stuart Wellington

[8:32] But do you think Herman Melville, like, heard all these stories of the legends of Moby Dick?

[8:39] And then, but he was, like, moved to write the story down in novel form because Moby Dick would come to him at night in his attic and force him to tell the story or he'd chop his head off?

[8:49] Yeah, that was probably it.

[8:50] Like Robert Howard and Conan?

[8:51] That was probably it, yeah.

[8:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:54] Probably it.

[8:55] That's probably exactly what happened.

[8:57] Okay.

[8:58] Uh, cool.

[8:59] So, write that down.

[9:00] Crack that one.

[9:01] So, this is.

Stuart Wellington

[9:02] I hope that's in the movie that we didn't watch and we're, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[9:04] I mean, hard to see, I think, is framed by the narrative of someone telling Herman Melville the story.

[9:08] But I haven't seen it.

[9:10] Uh, but Vinker Frankenstein is what we watched.

[9:11] It's the latest in a long line of Frankenstein reboots.

[9:14] At this point, why even call it a reboot?

[9:16] It's just a new adaptation.

[9:17] It's a new spin on the classic legend, nobody knows who wrote it, of Dr. Frankenstein and his creation, the monster.

Stuart Wellington

[9:25] And we went into this assuming it was part of Universal's attempt to build a cinematic universe like the Marvel.

[9:31] With Dracula Untold.

Elliott Kalan

[9:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:33] And it turns out it was not.

[9:34] This is a 20th Century Fox film.

Stuart Wellington

[9:36] Mm-hmm.

[9:36] Although it does feature Charles Dance in a small, uh, small role.

[9:41] Just like he was in Dracula Untold.

[9:42] And they're set in.

[9:43] A very small role.

[9:44] He shows up for one scene.

[9:45] I even made a joke that he was never gonna, he just shows up to be a dick and leaves.

[9:49] And that's totally all that happens.

Elliott Kalan

[9:51] Exactly what, I mean, there may have been other material with him.

[9:53] He dances in and he dances out.

[9:55] Yep.

[9:55] That's almost exactly a quote from Tango and Cash.

[9:58] Really?

[9:58] He tangos in and he tangos on out with our money and our drugs.

Stuart Wellington

[10:05] But, uh...

[10:05] So a key part of that Jack Balance impression is Elliot's wide eyes roaming the room.

Dan McCoy

[10:11] Yeah.

[10:12] Uh...

[10:12] There's not enough heavy breathing in that Jack Balance impression.

[10:15] Oh, sorry, yeah.

[10:16] Ah, the tango and cash.

Elliott Kalan

[10:20] Cash and tango.

[10:22] Tango makes three.

[10:24] Where did you get those...

[10:24] It's about a gay penguin.

[10:26] Where did you get those mice that you're playing with, Elliot?

[10:29] In a maze table I keep next to my miniature wall of mirrors that I use for shootouts.

[10:36] It's a somewhat whimsical office.

[10:38] You're becoming a crib keeper, Jack.

[10:40] James Hong, why are you each edging away from me?

[10:44] So, we talk about every movie but Victor Frankenstein.

[10:47] Yep.

[10:48] So, 20th Century Fox maybe was trying to steal Universal's thunder.

[10:51] Uh-huh.

[10:51] Charles Dance is in Dracula Untold as the character who's eventually assumed going to be the big bad that all the monsters have to face.

[10:58] Uh-huh.

[10:58] But I don't even know if they're still making those.

[10:59] Yeah.

[11:00] But this is...

[11:01] It's a new spin told from Igor's point of view.

[11:04] Victor Frankenstein.

[11:05] What?

[11:05] Like a fucking Nick Carraway.

[11:08] Nick Carraway's name.

[11:10] I mean, Victor Frankenstein is to Gatsby as Igor is to Nick Carraway in this.

[11:15] It's pretty clear, I guess.

[11:17] And there's a Daisy character.

[11:19] I know.

[11:19] The Tom Miller character.

[11:20] Yep.

[11:21] They're all there.

[11:22] See?

[11:23] It holds up.

[11:24] Now, we begin, I don't know, because I was running late and you guys started the movie without me.

[11:28] So, as a beginner.

[11:28] You missed almost nothing.

Stuart Wellington

[11:30] Okay, Elliot, why don't you guess how the movie begins?

[11:33] My guess would be...

[11:35] You get one guess, and if you're right, Dan will give you $100.

[11:39] Wow, I'll take those odds.

[11:41] And what happens if I guess wrong?

Elliott Kalan

[11:43] Dan will give you $50.

[11:45] Okay, that sounds great.

[11:46] And a lap dance.

[11:47] That's worth 50 bucks right there.

[11:48] I'm breaking even.

[11:49] My guess, seeing as this is a retelling of a monster story, and this is the year 2016, and nobody's learned their fucking lesson, is my guess is that it opens with some kind of cryptic scene from future in the movie with a voiceover talking about how, like, some stories people think they know.

[12:10] But you don't know.

[12:10] But you don't really know the real story behind the story.

[12:14] You are 100% correct.

Stuart Wellington

[12:17] They literally show shots of the monster hanging up during the storm, while Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Igor in this movie, tells you, like, you know him as this dude, but he was actually my friend.

[12:33] Do you think you know the story, et cetera, et cetera?

Elliott Kalan

[12:35] Oh, I hate that stuff so much.

[12:36] All right, well.

[12:38] One.

[12:39] Count it out.

[12:39] Two.

Dan McCoy

[12:40] Give it to me in pennies.

[12:41] Three.

[12:42] We'll do this after the show.

Elliott Kalan

[12:43] Yeah, maybe later.

[12:44] But I appreciate you paying up on the bet.

[12:47] Because here, like, and again, I only don't like it because I've seen it so many times before.

[12:52] If it had never been done before, then if I guessed that and you told me it was right.

Stuart Wellington

[12:57] If you had seen a totally original concept on film, you would have liked it?

[13:02] Exactly.

[13:02] That's super weird.

[13:03] It's strange, right?

[13:04] If you experience a brand new sensation, you'd be up for that?

Elliott Kalan

[13:07] I guess what I'm saying is there's nothing inherently wrong with opening a story that way,

[13:11] except that it's been done thousands of times before.

[13:13] The same way that Hallelujah, a perfectly mediocre song, is only hateful because it's been used

[13:19] a hundred million ways.

[13:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[13:21] But what if it's sung by Katie Seagal while the characters of Sons of Anarchy are getting

[13:25] into some kind of motorcycle hijinks?

Elliott Kalan

[13:27] I mean, I like Katie Seagal.

[13:28] She started as a singer.

[13:30] She's got the chops.

[13:32] She'll always be Peg Bundy to me, though.

Stuart Wellington

[13:36] Okay.

[13:36] Oh, wow.

[13:37] That's a firm stance you're taking over there.

[13:38] No matter what else she plays.

[13:39] Dan, do you want to say something about Lila?

Dan McCoy

[13:41] Yeah.

[13:42] Well, I was going to say that I would appreciate it more if Lila sang hallelujah in some mournful

[13:46] episode of the drama.

Elliott Kalan

[13:48] As it shows the other Zoidberg being murdered and the Jamaican accountant, whatever his name

[13:52] was, being killed.

[13:53] Hermes.

[13:54] Hermes.

[13:54] Hermes Conrad.

Stuart Wellington

[13:56] And I'll always remember Katie Seagal as the, I'm assuming she's a witch on Bastard

[14:00] Executioner.

[14:02] You'll never know.

Dan McCoy

[14:03] I think that show ended.

[14:04] Stuart's going to be like, I'll always remember Katie Seagal as the older woman who took my

[14:09] virginity.

Stuart Wellington

[14:10] And threw it out the window to be devoured by crabs.

[14:15] What?

[14:16] It was at a beachside resort.

Elliott Kalan

[14:18] Oh, I see.

[14:19] Anyway, let's get back to the movie.

[14:21] So Daniel Radcliffe plays Igor, who starts out as a tortured hunchback without even a name

[14:26] to his name in a circus.

[14:28] Yep.

[14:28] And I assume he was sold to the circus as a child, as deformed.

[14:31] He's mistreated.

[14:32] They've made him up like a clown.

[14:34] Everyone makes fun of him.

[14:35] He's got a crush on an acrobat lady who's nice to him.

Dan McCoy

[14:38] Yeah, she's played by the, arguably the hot.

Elliott Kalan

[14:43] Why would you, this is something you said during the movie.

[14:45] I don't know why you'd commit it to recording.

Dan McCoy

[14:48] From Downton Abbey.

Elliott Kalan

[14:49] You have now opened up an unnecessary debate, one, about the hotness of the sisters on Downton

[14:54] Abbey, and two, on whether we as men are judging these characters only on their hotness.

[14:59] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:59] Now, did you say arguably because you're covering your own ass?

[15:04] Lady Mary has her charms.

[15:07] I don't even want to open this.

[15:09] Look.

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Let's not do it.

[15:10] I don't even watch Downton Abbey.

Stuart Wellington

[15:12] Is that Maggie Smith?

[15:13] Because she's amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[15:13] All I know is that Maggie Smith is Downton Krabby in that show.

[15:16] That's all I know about.

[15:17] Down grabby?

[15:19] She's very grabby.

[15:22] He and one day the acrobat.

Stuart Wellington

[15:24] And he also, not only does he have a crush on this acrobat woman, but he's also a tender

[15:28] soul who spends his time doing super amazing drawings of human anatomy.

[15:33] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[15:34] And studying medical texts that he, I guess, scavenges.

[15:37] Oh, so he was studying medical texts.

[15:39] Yeah.

[15:39] Oh, I missed that part too.

[15:40] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[15:40] Yeah.

[15:41] Because I thought he was just like naturally gifted at knowing bodies.

[15:43] I mean, he is too.

[15:45] It's both these things.

[15:46] And once they took him to the bodies exhibit.

[15:48] He's got gifted hands.

[15:49] And he saw all those Chinese corpses with their skin taken off.

Stuart Wellington

[15:51] Like what's his face?

[15:52] He has all those incredible cross sections.

Dan McCoy

[15:54] That's what it is.

[15:55] He what?

[15:56] I said he has gifted hands.

[15:57] Like, you know, what's his face?

[15:59] The guy who wrote gifted hands.

Elliott Kalan

[16:01] The guy who was.

[16:05] Ben Carson?

Dan McCoy

[16:06] Yeah, Ben Carson.

[16:06] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[16:07] I mean, you work for The Daily Show.

[16:08] Yeah.

[16:09] You should remember these names.

[16:10] I haven't worked there in like a year.

Dan McCoy

[16:12] I do.

[16:12] I get one of those Eternal Sunshine brain wipes at the end of the day.

[16:16] Every week.

[16:17] Just to try and keep things clean in there.

Elliott Kalan

[16:19] Oh, that's a good idea.

[16:20] Yeah.

[16:20] Mm-hmm.

[16:21] So, yeah.

[16:22] So we have Magical Hunchback.

[16:25] Magical Hunchback.

[16:26] And one day there's a trouble at the circus.

[16:29] The acrobat falls.

[16:30] She seems to be dead.

[16:31] Luckily, there's a doctor in the.

[16:32] He said, is there a doctor in the house?

[16:35] Classic Bugs Bunny gift.

[16:36] Is there a doctor in the house?

[16:37] Is there a doctor in the house?

[16:38] Silhouette walks up and gets up in the end.

[16:39] I'm a doctor.

[16:40] And what's up, doc?

[16:42] Then on to the next gag.

[16:44] It turns out.

[16:45] Solid stuff, Bugs Bunny.

[16:46] James McAvoy, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, is in the audience.

[16:50] And together he with.

Stuart Wellington

[16:51] Though he appears to be somewhat eccentric.

[16:53] He seems like.

[16:54] He knows his stuff.

[16:55] He has his chops.

Elliott Kalan

[16:55] He's a little goofy.

[16:57] Like he has this ability.

Stuart Wellington

[16:59] Where if he stares at a organic body in motion.

[17:03] He'll see like it's bone structure.

[17:05] Like sketched out over it's silhouette.

[17:07] It is not.

Dan McCoy

[17:08] A real Sherlock doc.

[17:09] It's.

[17:09] Yeah.

[17:10] Sure doc.

Stuart Wellington

[17:11] Which is appropriate.

[17:12] Sure doc.

[17:12] The show was directed by a guy who's directed a bunch of episodes of Sherlock.

[17:16] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[17:16] And they really.

[17:18] Like they have Sherlocked up.

[17:19] They lay the Sherlock on.

[17:20] They Sherlocked up these characters.

[17:22] And let me just say one thing.

[17:23] I'm going to be a little.

[17:23] I'm going to reveal a little bit.

[17:24] Okay.

[17:25] The first third of this movie.

[17:27] I really enjoyed a lot.

[17:29] Uh huh.

[17:29] And we'll get into it.

[17:31] It's super gross at times.

Stuart Wellington

[17:32] You're totally eating a bunch of chicken at that point.

[17:34] So maybe you're just predisposed to liking it.

[17:36] You have like umami splattered all over your face.

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] I mean the fact that I was eating the most delicious food that existed.

[17:43] I mean usually though that just serves to heighten how shitty what I'm seeing is.

[17:46] Because I eat the same thing every movie.

[17:48] So I think we can just eliminate that as an element.

[17:52] Oh yeah.

[17:52] Because it's the same condition every single time.

[17:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:55] After a while even ambrosia loses its flavor.

[17:59] No that's not what I'm saying.

Elliott Kalan

[18:01] What I'm saying is that because that environmental factor is the same for every single film.

[18:06] We cannot take it to be an influence on my feelings about this film.

[18:10] For else we'd have to take it as an influence on my feelings for films like Food Fight.

[18:14] Which again I was eating Popeyes while watching.

[18:16] And yet it was a horrifying experience.

[18:18] Only the solace of Popeyes in my mouth was what got me through it.

Stuart Wellington

[18:23] Uh I thought it was because we had you chained to the chair you were sitting in.

Elliott Kalan

[18:27] I mean and you had my eyes pulled open.

[18:29] Uh huh.

[18:30] Like Claude Regan style.

[18:31] Yeah.

[18:31] Uh huh.

[18:31] What's that therapy called?

[18:33] Uh the what the Ludovico treatment.

[18:35] Yeah the Ludovico treatment.

[18:36] That's what you're doing.

[18:37] The food of eco treatment.

[18:38] Oh.

[18:39] Heyo.

[18:40] Okay so let's get back to this fucking turn.

[18:42] Yeah because we're like what 10 minutes into the movie.

[18:43] Yep.

[18:44] So uh they're able to save the acrobats life by doing one of those movie medical things where

[18:49] James McAvoy looks at her sees the bone structure drawn as if it's in a medical textbook and says

[18:54] like hit her right there and they like slam their fists into her chest.

Dan McCoy

[18:58] Yeah but uh actually Igor like like McAvoy like knows what's going on but Igor is the one who's

[19:05] like we gotta like punch her like medical style.

Stuart Wellington

[19:09] Yep he's like I have a secret crush on her so I'm I want to be the one punching her chest.

[19:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:14] Uh McAvoy is really impressed and he's like Igor except he doesn't have a name.

[19:19] You and me buddy.

[19:19] Unnamed hunchback we gotta get you out of here.

[19:22] The hunchback is locked up by his evil circus captors.

[19:25] Uh huh.

[19:25] James McAvoy uses science to help him escape and then uses punching and kicking to fight

[19:29] their way through the circus of crime and it was at this point it was like a choose your

[19:33] own adventure.

[19:34] If I wanted to be pissed off that just like in every other movie this character who's

[19:39] already a mad scientist who wants to bring back the dead is also some kind of fighting

[19:44] genius.

[19:44] Yeah he's great at kick punching.

[19:45] And be mad about that because it's not necessary and whatever happened to movies where people

[19:49] had a strength that was balanced by a weakness.

[19:52] And whatever happened to Baby Jane?

[19:53] She got crazy.

[19:55] Oh okay.

[19:55] It's all actually explained very well in the movie.

[19:57] All right.

[19:58] Turn to page 20.

[19:59] But if I want to just buy into the zaniness of it all and say hey you know what instead

[20:04] of applying good movie terms to this I'm going to apply crazy movie terms to this and

[20:09] this is two guys one of them a hunchback dressed like a clown fighting their way through

[20:13] an evil circus.

[20:14] Yeah a hunchbacked Robert Smith from The Cure.

[20:16] Yeah.

[20:17] But like turn to page 45 and I turned to page 45.

[20:21] Yeah yeah yeah.

[20:21] I chose that adventure of saying you know what movie I'm going to buy into it which is why

[20:24] it was always that much more of a disappointment when the movie fell apart later.

[20:28] But anyway they fight their way through the circus they get out everything's okay right?

[20:33] It looks to be that way at first because James McAvoy has a cool bachelor pad full of crazy

[20:37] steampunk invention inventions and he shows.

Stuart Wellington

[20:42] We get to see this really awesome scene where we realize that Igor who is named Igor at

[20:48] this point we get a name.

Elliott Kalan

[20:49] Because he's going to he says my landlord is named Igor he's not around if anyone asks

[20:53] you're Igor.

Stuart Wellington

[20:54] Mm-hmm.

[20:55] And of course they pause so the audience can be like whoa this is a huge moment we're witnessing

Dan McCoy

[21:00] in history.

[21:01] That's how it happened.

[21:02] Yep.

[21:03] I would have just assumed that like.

[21:04] I thought this was a different hunchback.

[21:06] Yeah.

[21:07] In a Frankenstein movie.

[21:09] I figure that maybe like just someone would give him that name like I don't know his parents

[21:13] or somebody.

Elliott Kalan

[21:14] I thought maybe he could have just been named Igor from the beginning of the movie and that

[21:18] maybe we didn't need an origin for a name that is not a crazy.

[21:21] It's not like he got the name Flash Lightning Berg or like or like Google eyes Buffy like

[21:26] that a crazy name we need an origin for.

Dan McCoy

[21:29] The Jewish speed superhero.

Elliott Kalan

[21:33] He's he's yeah he's Jewish and he has the power to get be guilted by his parents in the

[21:39] blink of an eye.

Stuart Wellington

[21:39] I always assumed that Igor was an acronym based on some kind of physical attribute of

[21:44] his.

[21:44] Yeah.

[21:44] I got.

[21:46] Yep.

[21:47] Orange.

[21:48] Ostrich.

Dan McCoy

[21:49] Ostrich.

[21:51] Ribs.

[21:52] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[21:52] Yep.

[21:52] I got ostrich.

[21:53] That's what I always assumed was the case.

[21:55] That it was like intelligent guardian for operational research.

[21:59] Something like that.

[22:00] Like it's an acronym like wild cats.

[22:03] Yeah.

[22:03] You know or mask.

[22:05] What was wild cats?

[22:06] Covert Action Team Squad.

[22:08] Oh that makes sense.

[22:09] I think it was just covert action teams.

[22:11] Wild was not an acronym.

Stuart Wellington

[22:13] Just cats.

[22:14] There's a descriptor.

[22:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:16] Do I want the sane cat or the wild cat?

Stuart Wellington

[22:19] Well the wild cat's $50 cheaper so might as well take that.

[22:22] Yeah.

[22:23] Yeah.

[22:23] It'll go better up against wet works.

Elliott Kalan

[22:26] But.

[22:26] Also an acronym.

[22:28] I don't think that it was.

[22:29] I know it wasn't.

[22:30] So.

[22:30] So there were and he and James McAvoy cures Igor of his hunch.

[22:35] He says you're not really a hunchback.

[22:36] You have an enormous abscess full of pus.

[22:39] And he stabs him in the back with a tube.

[22:42] And then.

[22:43] That.

[22:43] And then starts pumping it out.

[22:45] But then to really prime it.

[22:46] He sticks his mouth on the other end of the tube.

[22:49] And siphons it out.

[22:50] And has to spit out all this abscess pus.

[22:52] Yeah.

[22:52] And it was at this point that I was like.

[22:54] I made the right decision by deciding I like this movie.

[22:56] Because this is disgusting.

[22:57] And it's not what I expected at all.

[22:59] And here's the main strength of this movie.

[23:01] Which does not.

[23:02] Unfortunately the movie doesn't continue with.

[23:04] After a certain point.

[23:05] But it like.

[23:06] Really gets across.

[23:07] How disgusting the human body is.

[23:10] And how gross it would be to be working with dead body parts.

[23:13] And trying to put them together.

[23:14] And zap them with electricity.

[23:16] Yeah.

[23:16] All the other Frankenstein movies that I've seen.

[23:18] I've never seen like Flesh for Frankenstein.

[23:20] Which I guess is more of a sex movie.

[23:22] But like.

[23:23] The.

[23:23] All the other ones are pretty sanitary and clean.

[23:26] Considering the main characters are literally.

[23:28] Ripping organs apart.

[23:30] And stuffing them together.

[23:31] And sewing things.

[23:32] And like.

Stuart Wellington

[23:32] Yeah.

[23:32] Our heroes are grave robbers.

Elliott Kalan

[23:34] Yeah.

[23:34] And to really get across like.

[23:36] How viscerally gross that is.

[23:39] Like.

[23:39] I was saying Stuart while we were watching.

Stuart Wellington

[23:40] And how like rudimentary the science is.

Elliott Kalan

[23:42] Yes.

[23:43] That if Stuart Gordon had been making this movie.

[23:46] It would have been a really fun movie.

[23:47] It would have been disgusting.

[23:48] And even.

Elliott Kalan

[23:48] Grosser.

[23:49] Like it would have been really disgusting.

[23:50] So he sucks all the puss out.

[23:51] And he fixes Igor's back with a back brace.

[23:53] And then he shows him.

[23:54] I had this experiment.

[23:55] I have a pair of human eyes.

[23:57] I've kept preserved in this briny liquid.

[23:59] And using electricity.

[24:00] I can make it.

[24:01] For fun.

[24:02] I can make it so that they open and wink.

[24:04] And if I put fire up to them.

[24:06] They close because of the brightness.

[24:08] I've.

[24:08] These eyes I've kept alive.

[24:09] And we're going to do that.

[24:11] These eyes.

[24:12] These eyes.

[24:14] Are briny.

[24:15] These eyes.

[24:16] They've seen a lot of brine.

[24:17] But they'll never see a pickle like you.

[24:19] So.

Stuart Wellington

[24:20] I don't know about you guys.

[24:21] I've interviewed a lot of roommates.

[24:23] Okay.

[24:24] And I usually.

[24:25] And they're usually like.

[24:26] Do you have eyes preserved in brine?

[24:28] Because if so.

[24:29] Then we'll have two of them in this apartment.

Elliott Kalan

[24:31] Because here's mine.

[24:33] Private eyes.

[24:34] Are watching you.

[24:36] From a briny place.

[24:37] Nice.

Stuart Wellington

[24:39] I thought.

[24:40] Briny eyes are watching you.

[24:41] Oh.

[24:42] That's even better.

[24:42] Damn.

[24:43] Damn.

Elliott Kalan

[24:44] Your Hall and Oates parody abilities are way better than mine.

[24:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:47] Yeah.

[24:48] Briny eyes.

[24:50] Whoa.

[24:50] Here they come.

[24:51] She's a brine eyer.

[24:53] Oh boy.

[24:54] Anyway.

[24:54] You're saying.

[24:55] That doesn't even have eyes in it.

Stuart Wellington

[24:56] You're a stitch girl.

Elliott Kalan

[24:59] Briny Davis eyes.

[24:59] She's got briny.

[25:01] Damn it.

[25:01] Oh.

[25:03] Nobody knows what it's like.

[25:05] To be briny.

[25:08] To be slimy.

[25:11] Behind brine eyes.

Dan McCoy

[25:14] My brine eyes girl.

Elliott Kalan

[25:17] Sha la la la la la la.

[25:20] La la la.

[25:21] La briny eyes.

[25:22] It's the eye of the briner.

[25:25] It's the eyes in the brine.

[25:27] And they're sitting in a vat of gross brine.

Stuart Wellington

[25:31] Do you guys already turn around brine eyes?

[25:34] No.

Elliott Kalan

[25:35] Why are you not taking part in this, Stuart?

[25:37] Why don't pretend you're above this, but clearly you're jonesing to be a part of it.

[25:42] You're the cool kid standing off by himself seeing the nerdy kids dancing looking dumb.

[25:46] And you're like, I wish I could have fun like them, but I just can't do it.

[25:50] I don't admit that.

[25:52] So you've been interviewing roommates.

[25:53] Interviewing roommates.

Stuart Wellington

[25:55] Wait, what are we talking about?

[25:56] I'll pretend that what Dan just said was English.

[25:58] What were you saying about interviewing roommates?

[26:00] Yeah, yeah.

[26:01] I normally show them my brine eyes.

[26:03] Now, meanwhile, we cut to a police detective who's investigating.

Elliott Kalan

[26:08] Played by Sherlock Moriarty.

[26:10] Don't remember his name.

Stuart Wellington

[26:11] Yeah.

[26:12] Which is one of the many people from TV Sherlock who make an appearance in this movie.

[26:18] Who's investigating the murdered Carney who was killed while they were escaping.

[26:24] Carney Wilson was murdered.

Elliott Kalan

[26:26] Very sad.

[26:27] Terrible.

[26:28] One of the Carnies was killed by another Carney.

[26:31] But the carnival owner says that this evil hunchback and this madman who helped him escape did it.

[26:37] The cop sees through this pretty quickly, but he still wants to arrest them.

[26:41] Because he knows that someone has been stealing animal parts.

[26:45] And is using them for nefarious, ungodly purposes.

Stuart Wellington

[26:48] Yeah, he's a real god walloper, this guy.

[26:50] He's really religious.

[26:50] He's like, Austin 316, this and that.

Elliott Kalan

[26:53] Austin 316.

[26:55] He's like, know your role, Frankenstein.

[26:58] And he also has, the walls of his office are covered in written, like, grease pencil on glass notes.

[27:06] Because it's like steampunk Minority Report.

[27:10] Or Beautiful Mind.

[27:11] Or Sherlock.

[27:12] It's all stuff we've seen before.

[27:14] But Victor...

Stuart Wellington

[27:14] And the guy who plays Moriarty who is playing not Moriarty.

[27:18] Moriarty in this movie is basically reprising his role.

[27:22] It's the same...

[27:23] Andrew Scott.

[27:23] Yeah, it's the same performance of like...

[27:25] Just call him Moriarty.

[27:26] I will call him Moriarty.

[27:28] Like, monotone delivery.

[27:31] And the thing is, is that as much as, you know, it's funny that he's basically reprising his role.

[27:37] He and our two leads actually fucking go for it.

[27:42] Like, they are not, they're not playing around in this movie.

[27:44] No, they're all acting up a storm.

[27:45] They're really, like...

[27:47] Daniel Radcliffe, after they fix his back and drain the abscess, it seems like he's like, well, I still kind of want to play a hunchback.

[27:54] So I'm going to walk super weird the rest of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[27:57] And Daniel Radcliffe, he kind of loses his weirdness.

[27:59] The movie loses its weirdness as it goes along, which is disappointing.

[28:03] But James McAvoy is always chewing screenery.

[28:05] It's the screenery.

[28:06] He's always chewing the screenery.

[28:07] That's what it's like.

[28:08] The screenery.

[28:10] And Moriarty's always chewing the screenery.

[28:12] And like, in a movie like this, that's great.

[28:15] Like, I'm already watching a movie about a 19th century scientist who's trying to bring back dead bodies.

[28:22] Like, chew it up.

[28:24] Go for it.

[28:25] Like, be in the tradition of, like, Colin Clive and Basil Rathbone and, like, all the guys who are not afraid to chew scenery, you know?

[28:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:35] And Frankenstein was written, like, Mary Shelley is associated with, like, the romantic poets.

[28:41] Like, you can be a little bit over the top here, guys.

[28:44] A little florid.

Elliott Kalan

[28:45] It's very much a, yeah, like, it's a romantic, not, yeah.

[28:51] It's very romantic.

[28:52] We all know how we're using romantic.

[28:53] Not to mean love, but to mean, like, German romanticism.

[28:56] You know, high romanticism.

Dan McCoy

[28:57] It's a little romantic between Igor and Victor Frankenstein.

Elliott Kalan

[29:00] Yeah, it is.

[29:01] There's some real homoerotic tension there.

[29:03] It's also called friendship.

[29:05] Yeah.

[29:06] It's more of a bromance.

[29:07] They're a little close.

Dan McCoy

[29:09] I guess.

[29:10] I mean, they touch a lot.

[29:10] I feel like there's an undercurrent.

[29:14] There's a sizzling.

[29:14] Of electricity?

[29:15] Sizzling undercurrent of electricity.

Elliott Kalan

[29:17] I guess so, but that's fine.

[29:19] I mean, that's in the source material.

[29:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:21] Not really, actually.

[29:22] It's not.

[29:22] Well, Igor doesn't exist in the source material.

[29:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:24] But I would, if by a source material, I would say the original Frankenstein movies, I guess.

[29:29] Sure.

[29:30] There's not a sexual element there, but there is an element of a relationship in which there's

[29:35] a dominant and a passive member, you know?

[29:37] Mm-hmm.

[29:38] And that reminds me of...

Stuart Wellington

[29:40] Like old Pinhead says, sometimes the lines of pleasure and pain get blurred.

Elliott Kalan

[29:44] For a long time ago, I wanted to write a Frankenstein story where a bunch of people get their car breaks

[29:51] down or whatever, and they have to go stay at the Frankenstein castle.

[29:55] Mm-hmm.

[29:56] And Frankenstein wants them to watch his big experiment.

[29:59] That happens to be the night when he's going to bring the dead back to life, and it doesn't

[30:03] work, and he goes crazy and goes on a rampage and tries to kill them because they've seen

[30:08] him fail.

[30:09] And in the end, Igor has to calm him down and says to them, like, just go.

[30:14] This happens all the time.

[30:16] And they're like, why do you stay?

[30:18] And he's like, I love him.

[30:19] That's why I stay.

[30:20] And that's the Frankenstein story I always wanted to do, where Frankenstein's just a failure,

[30:24] and Igor's the one who is really the dominant one in the relationship and allows Frankenstein's

[30:29] delusion to continue that he is a scientist.

[30:32] But I don't have the time to write that shit, so I guess I just did.

[30:36] Deal with it.

[30:36] Somebody else write it up.

[30:37] Yeah.

[30:38] Slap my name on it.

[30:39] We'll say story by Elliot Kalin.

[30:40] Anyway, the...

Dan McCoy

[30:43] Traditional fee of $700,000.

Stuart Wellington

[30:45] $700,000, please.

[30:47] That's great.

[30:48] See, I've been working on a screenplay idea myself where it's just, I got a nugget.

[30:53] Okay, let's hear it.

[30:54] The idea is that, you know, it's a training scene where you're like heroes being trained

[31:00] by his old mentor.

[31:02] Okay.

[31:02] For, I don't know, to kill vampires or survive the apocalypse.

[31:05] One of those things.

[31:06] And, you know, they don't have access to proper training facilities, so they're like, we've

[31:10] got to go train outside in the park.

[31:13] But they don't want people to see them training out in the park to kill zombies or some shit,

[31:17] so they have to dress up to look like those crazy guys who perform martial arts in the

[31:21] park.

[31:22] So people see them and they're like, you know, when you see those guys and you glance at

[31:27] them and you're like, do not make eye contact.

[31:29] There was a guy in Prospect Park.

[31:30] He has got a boom box and he is practicing his kata with this, I don't know, war fan or something.

Dan McCoy

[31:36] Were you there the day that we saw that guy in Prospect Park?

Stuart Wellington

[31:38] Where the guy had a shopping cart full of weapons, including a war fan and a bunch of sod.

[31:42] Yeah.

[31:42] And he was throwing knives into the ground.

Elliott Kalan

[31:44] It was awesome.

[31:45] Like 10 feet away from a baby picnic party.

[31:48] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[31:49] That was so weird.

[31:51] Now imagine a story where he's the hero and he's actually a normal guy.

[31:54] He just dresses and acts like a weirdo because he's like, this is the only way I can train.

Elliott Kalan

[31:58] If I looked normal, people would think the jig is up.

[32:00] If I look like a crazy person, maybe it'll work.

[32:02] So I think I got something there.

[32:03] Yeah, maybe, maybe.

[32:04] You got a couple of good movie ideas.

[32:05] Yeah, it's like a Remo Williams type movie.

[32:07] The adventure begins.

[32:09] Has to continue.

[32:10] Now, by this point, Frankenstein and Igor, they're working together as a team.

[32:15] They're partners.

[32:15] They're both providing valuable insights and necessary knowledge.

[32:21] They have gotten to the point where they can bring to shuddering life for a few moments or like an hour,

[32:27] a horrible, desiccated, half-fleshed chimpanzee corpse with other species sewn to it.

Dan McCoy

[32:35] This is a real creep show of a chimpanzee.

[32:37] Just imagine when they say the joke of, I shouldn't be.

[32:43] I should not be alive.

[32:44] Well, this is that.

[32:45] Yeah.

[32:46] Yeah, that's a hilarious joke.

Elliott Kalan

[32:47] Yeah, yeah.

[32:47] And then he's like, it's a living.

[32:49] Yeah, that's right.

[32:51] But like when they first showed it, I did not realize that was a chimpanzee.

[32:55] That's how mangled it was.

Stuart Wellington

[32:56] No, I just thought it was like a pile of hamburger meat.

[32:59] With teeth.

[33:00] With electrodes.

Elliott Kalan

[33:01] But they managed to make it kind of come to life.

[33:04] So they say, it's time.

[33:05] We're going to go to the medical college where the stodgy old fuddy-duddies won't let me do my real research.

[33:10] And we're going to do a demonstration.

[33:11] And this was another touch that I liked is that it's not in like a huge lecture hall attended by the professors.

[33:17] It's like they rented one of the rooms and there's seven people in the audience.

[33:23] And it felt very much like Victor.

Dan McCoy

[33:25] Well, they had someone in Times Square handing out things.

[33:27] Do you like science?

[33:29] Do you like science?

Elliott Kalan

[33:29] You like tampering in God's Domain?

[33:32] You like it?

[33:33] Yeah, do tonight.

[33:34] You know, we got comedians who appeared on Comedy Central tampering in God's Domain here.

Stuart Wellington

[33:39] It's a small room.

[33:40] And even so, with that tiny audience, it looks empty.

[33:44] Yeah.

[33:44] Kind of like one of our early Flophouse live shows.

[33:49] Not really.

Elliott Kalan

[33:50] We've always been pretty as a customer of those.

[33:51] But it did remind me of like my early days doing sketch comedy when I was performing in a strip club for audiences of up to two to three people at midnight.

Dan McCoy

[33:59] Or when I was in an improv group that performed in a place that was a yoga studio by day.

[34:05] And we regularly had more performers on stage than we had people in the audience.

[34:09] Classic.

[34:10] Classic experience.

Elliott Kalan

[34:12] So that was kind of a nice touch.

[34:15] And there's one student there who's, you can tell, he's super rich and super obnoxious.

[34:19] Yeah, yeah.

[34:20] He's like a Draco Malfoy.

[34:21] Who's like, hurry up, hurry up.

[34:23] I have a coach waiting.

[34:24] And it looks like it's not working.

Dan McCoy

[34:26] He's just there to laugh at Victor Frankinson.

[34:28] He's like, ha, ha, ha.

Elliott Kalan

[34:29] Oh, Victor, you do amuse with your science.

[34:32] With your failures and incompetence.

[34:34] And Igor, who at this point, we've skipped over the romantic subplot.

[34:38] James McA...

[34:39] Frankenstein is...

[34:40] Because of his wealthy father who doesn't approve of him, he's a member of...

[34:43] Played by Charles Dance.

[34:43] Played by Charles Dance in one scene.

[34:45] He's a member...

Stuart Wellington

[34:46] I think his contract was like, I'll only do the movie if I get to show up and slap James McAfford.

[34:52] He knows what he did.

[34:56] He, they are members of his...

[34:57] Not in the script, Charles, but I guess you can.

[34:59] The director goes, I'll allow it.

[35:01] You were supposed to...

[35:02] Your character is supposed to show up and give your son a hug, but I guess we can rewrite it.

Elliott Kalan

[35:05] What is a slap but a sharp hug to the cheek?

[35:09] I suppose, Charles Dance.

[35:10] Yeah, why not?

[35:13] You know, originally, Tywin Lannister was supposed to be a really nice guy.

[35:16] And Charles Dance met George R. R. Martin.

[35:18] He said, I might play this character someday.

[35:19] Make him a real shit.

Dan McCoy

[35:21] What is a slap but a sharp hug to the cheek?

[35:24] It's like something an abusive father would say to a child.

Elliott Kalan

[35:27] Yeah, I'm hugging you real hard to the face.

[35:30] They're members of an exclusive social club where James McAvoy is not taken seriously.

[35:35] But the acrobat who has healed from her injuries and is now the...

[35:41] Like, she's been taken under the wing of a gay aristocrat who uses her as a beard.

[35:45] She meets Igor and it's love at first, whatever, you know.

[35:50] And they've slowly become more and more lovey-dovey.

[35:52] And he invites her to this exposition.

[35:55] Yeah, he's like, you want to see a chimpanzee corpse?

[35:58] You want to see a gross half-zombie monkey shudder around on a table because we're zapping it with electrodes?

[36:04] He knows what the ladies like.

[36:05] L-L-Cool-Z-E-C.

[36:08] Ladies love cool zombie chimps.

Stuart Wellington

[36:10] Now, if this movie really wanted to lean into the horror side, there would have been a moment where she would see what they've made and how horrible it looks.

[36:19] And for him to look like, look, isn't it great?

[36:24] Like, a moment of stark reality?

[36:26] But no, it doesn't do that.

Elliott Kalan

[36:27] No, instead, well, I mean, they show it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:28] She just seems sort of worried.

Elliott Kalan

[36:30] She's just like, well, what are they doing with that hamburger meat?

Dan McCoy

[36:32] She seems maybe like she just has like a stomachache, like a mild stomachache.

Elliott Kalan

[36:36] And they zap it and a bunch of flies come out of it.

[36:38] And it looks like they're failures until they give it maximum power.

[36:41] And Richie Rich is heckling them.

[36:43] And once they zap it with max power, it starts breathing and it gets up and it's running.

[36:48] This chimp zombie is running around and screeching at people.

[36:50] It's like, I'm not practical effects anymore.

[36:52] And before this point, there's been a ton of great practical effects.

[36:56] Like real gross looking zombie bodies.

[36:59] Yeah, meat faces.

[36:59] Yeah, and meat faces.

[37:00] Brown meat.

[37:01] And now it's CGI.

[37:03] But it would be hard, to be honest, it would be hard to do, even with today's practical effects,

[37:07] like without it costing a ton more money, a realistic looking zombie chimp racing around.

Stuart Wellington

[37:13] Yeah, yeah.

[37:13] It's like, even when he was alive, you couldn't get Kenny Baker in there to pilot the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[37:19] Oh, maybe Billy Barty.

[37:21] Maybe.

Dan McCoy

[37:21] They have a pretty great zombie chimp, Chase, where Daniel Radcliffe is like, there's kind of a funny moment where the chimp is like running towards a door where like people are like walking behind it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:32] And like Daniel Radcliffe goes like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, they can't see our shame.

[37:36] Because he's so much more worried about embarrassment than he is that this zombie chimp will bite his face off.

[37:41] But there's a point where the zombie chimp.

Stuart Wellington

[37:43] There's multiple points where they're like wrestling with it, and it makes me physically disgusted.

Elliott Kalan

[37:48] Because it's so gross.

[37:49] And here's the Stuart Gordon difference.

[37:51] With Stuart Gordon, he would have had a close-up.

[37:53] When they're grappling with it, he would have had close-ups of the fingers sinking into the goopy like wish that it's made out of.

[37:59] And pulling their hands away, and there'd be like a sticky strand of goose.

[38:02] Like Hank Goo.

[38:03] It would be like when.

[38:04] Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson would have done the same.

[38:07] And the monkey then would have like vomited in someone's mouth, and they would have vomited.

[38:11] And everyone would have vomited like in Stand By Me.

[38:14] Or like in Hateful Eight, that one big vomit scene.

[38:18] Which is what my wife and I went to see, and her eyes were closed during the whole like blood-killing stuff.

[38:23] And then there's a part where he's just vomiting torrents of blood.

[38:27] Spoiler alert.

[38:28] I don't want to tell you what character.

[38:29] I went, whoa!

[38:30] And she opened her eyes again, and then shut the nose.

[38:32] And I was like, why'd you open your eyes?

[38:33] She goes, you laughed at it.

[38:34] I thought it was over.

[38:36] I thought the gore was over because he laughed.

[38:38] I do that all the time.

Dan McCoy

[38:38] You're like, do you understand me at all?

Stuart Wellington

[38:41] We've been married for, at that point we've been married for five years.

[38:43] Come on.

[38:44] But that's, and I mean, I'm assuming you guys are the same way.

[38:47] But any time I see something horribly gross on the screen, especially in a theater full of people.

[38:53] You laugh at it.

[38:54] I totally crack up.

[38:55] When we saw Green Room, there were parts where I'm like, oh shit.

Elliott Kalan

[39:00] It's not even that convincing an effect.

[39:02] But the first time I saw Taxi Driver, when the guy goes, hey!

[39:06] And Travis Pickle just blows his fingers off.

[39:08] I laughed at that because it was like, I don't know how to process this.

Stuart Wellington

[39:11] I'm like, I gotta rewind this and watch this thing like five times in a row.

Elliott Kalan

[39:15] I gotta funny games this and rewind it and watch it again.

[39:19] But so there's a point.

[39:21] And so she is edging closer to the zombie chimp.

[39:24] The zombie chimp for a moment is tranquilized by her beauty.

[39:28] And then snarls.

[39:29] And Daniel Radcliffe, for some reason, thinks it's a good idea to throw a lamp at it so that the fire forces it to jump towards his love.

[39:38] But it runs out the door.

[39:39] And there is a really good kind of chimp grapple chase where Igor's just gotta wrestle this chimp to the ground.

[39:45] Sometimes you gotta wrestle a chimp.

[39:47] I mean, that chimp had an eagle on his back.

[39:50] And get it to the point where James McAvoy can smash its head in to kill it.

[39:56] And it was at this point that the movie reached its height.

[39:59] Like, that was the most success.

[40:01] Like, the movie was at its height of success.

[40:03] And from that point on, it just became a pretty boilerplate.

[40:06] The cops are looking into it further.

[40:09] They decide they're gonna make a human.

[40:11] James McAvoy is mad that Daniel Radcliffe is spending time with this girl instead of working on their project.

Stuart Wellington

[40:17] They interact with the cop.

[40:18] The cop shows up and explains, like, I'm on to you.

[40:21] And they're like, you don't have a warrant.

[40:22] And he's like, I'm gonna go get a warrant.

Elliott Kalan

[40:24] Because apparently that's how the fucking law works back then.

[40:27] I mean, I don't know anything about 19th century London law.

[40:30] But I kind of, I don't know that, I mean, maybe it's in the Magna Carta.

[40:35] You need a warrant.

[40:37] And there's all these 16th century police things where they're like, open up.

[40:43] You have the jewels.

[40:44] Holds up a copy of the Magna Carta.

S4

[40:46] Get a warrant, coppa.

Elliott Kalan

[40:47] You can't search me oval.

Dan McCoy

[40:50] Yeah, they've got the fucking Miranda rights.

[40:53] You have the right to remain silent.

[40:55] You have the right to a barrister.

[40:56] If you have no barrister, then one will be appointed to you.

Elliott Kalan

[41:00] And the rich kid is like, I misjudged you, Frankenstein.

[41:04] I want you to, I'm gonna fund your work.

[41:06] I want you to build me an army of these gross chimps.

[41:08] An army of zombie chimps.

[41:10] Because that's the closest I'm ever gonna get to being Danny DeVito in Batman Returns.

[41:13] Uh-huh.

[41:14] When he had an army of penguins with missiles strapped to their backs.

[41:17] So do this for me, Dr. Frankenstein.

[41:19] Unfortunately, the police get, the police inspector, even though he's obsessively obsessed with the case,

[41:25] uh, he, uh, or because of it, he decides, I gotta take him down.

[41:28] What they're doing is blasphemy against God.

Dan McCoy

[41:31] Yeah, Victor Frankenstein was working in his lab late one night when his eyes beheld a dreadful sight.

[41:36] And it was Moriarty banging on the door trying to get in.

Elliott Kalan

[41:39] And two cops doing the most lackadaisical battering ram work.

[41:43] Now, Igor gets there in the midst of it because he was just first banging with his girlfriend.

Stuart Wellington

[41:49] Which, that's when we realize, why does she have a tattoo on her shoulder?

[41:55] It's really weird.

[41:56] It feels like a makeup mistake where they're like, uh, let's just leave it.

[42:00] I guess she was a sailor.

Dan McCoy

[42:01] She's like, uh, she's like an acrobat.

[42:04] That's kind of a, that's a saucy profession.

Elliott Kalan

[42:05] Like that society is just going to accept her?

Stuart Wellington

[42:08] Yeah, I don't, I can't, I don't, I don't see that.

Elliott Kalan

[42:10] It's a weird movie set in 19th century England that seems to have no sense of the class system of England.

[42:17] Except that some people are rich.

[42:18] Or the legal system, as we just mentioned.

[42:19] Or the legal system.

[42:20] Some people are rich.

[42:21] Some people aren't as rich.

[42:22] What are you going to do?

[42:23] Also, some people are slaves to circuses.

[42:26] But it's what, it's classic movie shorthand.

[42:29] We know that Daniel Radcliffe has had sex because we've seen him with his shirt off with the girl.

[42:32] And the next scene, he's not wearing a tie and a hat anymore.

[42:35] And he's fucking strutting.

[42:36] And he is laid back.

[42:38] Yeah, he is like, this guy has gotten drained for the first time.

Stuart Wellington

[42:43] Oh boy.

[42:43] He could have basically like snatched an apple off like a passing cart and fucking chomped on it.

[42:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[42:48] Looks in a shop window and just kind of gives himself a, hey, nice going there, guy.

Dan McCoy

[42:53] You're walking down the street singing, what a day it has been.

[42:56] What a rare mood I'm in.

Elliott Kalan

[43:01] You know how it goes.

[43:02] Yeah, yeah.

[43:02] It's almost like being inside of a woman.

[43:05] Yeah, exactly.

[43:06] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[43:06] He passes a, like a, like a peasant woman that he, they had peasants back then, right?

[43:12] Most of them.

[43:13] I mean, they didn't call them peasants.

[43:14] And he like dances with her for a second and spins her.

Elliott Kalan

[43:17] She goes, hee hee hee hee.

[43:19] Buy me apple, sir.

[43:21] Here's a, here's a, here's 10 bob.

[43:23] How much is that?

Stuart Wellington

[43:24] Thank you, sir.

Elliott Kalan

[43:26] Bites coin.

[43:27] Runs off.

[43:27] Hee hee hee.

[43:28] To the ale house with me.

[43:31] Uh, Apple Annie.

[43:32] To the opium den.

[43:33] To chase the dragon.

Stuart Wellington

[43:34] I want to follow Apple Annie's story now.

Elliott Kalan

[43:37] To the opium.

[43:38] This is fun.

[43:39] To the opium den.

[43:40] To play double dragon.

[43:42] They got an arcade game there.

Stuart Wellington

[43:44] Oh no, beware of the Peaky Blinders and the abobos.

Elliott Kalan

[43:48] And so Igor gets there and he's like, huh?

[43:51] He gets in through the secret trap door because everywhere that this movie takes place, there's

[43:55] always a secret trap door.

[43:56] In the, in the below a circus tent, there's a secret trap door that they escape through.

[44:00] In the lab, there's a secret trap door that leads to their like organ freezer.

[44:04] And so later there's a castle with a secret trap door.

[44:07] Anyway.

[44:08] Uh, and he says to James McAvoy, we got to get out of here.

[44:10] James McAvoy goes, no, I'm going to destroy my equipment.

[44:12] Then I'll escape.

[44:13] No one's going to have it.

[44:14] Uh, Moriarty breaks in.

[44:16] They have a fight.

[44:17] In the middle of it, uh, James McAvoy manages to stick Moriarty's hands between some gears,

[44:22] thus destroying the hand.

[44:24] And the sparks blind him in one eye.

[44:26] That's pretty great.

[44:27] And, and, uh, but it's one of those weird things where it was like,

[44:30] did they think, cause like young Frankenstein takes off of son, son of Frankenstein,

[44:34] where there's a police officer who has a wooden arm because the monster tore it off of him

[44:39] when he was a child.

[44:40] Did they feel like they had to nod to that?

[44:42] Like, well, of course it's part of the established Frankenstein canon.

[44:45] Now that there's a police officer with a wooden arm.

[44:48] That just goes without saying.

[44:49] I feel like the movie does.

[44:50] Or did they, by some process of convergent evolution, did they just get, like, is it a wink to that or is it not?

Dan McCoy

[44:55] I think it's a wink.

[44:56] Cause I feel like there were a lot of winks to like Frankenstein.

[44:59] To past movies.

[45:00] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:00] I mean, there's even a point where, uh, the, the acrobat calls Frankenstein Frankenstein.

[45:06] And he has a joke.

[45:07] Yeah, that's true.

[45:08] Uh, although I'm disappointed.

Elliott Kalan

[45:09] Which makes me wonder if the people who made this know that the.

[45:11] Just watched young Frankenstein.

[45:12] Yeah.

[45:13] And I thought that was the movie they were rebooting.

Stuart Wellington

[45:16] I don't, if you're gonna, if you're gonna have a scene where a kind of bad guy gets his hand stuck between some gears and it gets mangled off.

[45:25] Like, why not do at least one shot of that thing squirting blood and bones and crap all over the place?

[45:30] Yes, show us the mangling.

[45:31] And then go like, ah, ah.

Elliott Kalan

[45:33] Like a real face with one long spurt of blood coming out of it.

[45:37] Yeah, yeah.

[45:38] Like, that's just saying, there are the hoses.

[45:39] That would have been great.

Stuart Wellington

[45:40] That's all I want.

[45:41] Like, even fucking Romancing the Stone has that.

[45:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[45:44] Even Romancing the Stone.

[45:46] Which otherwise is the pinnacle of special effects.

[45:48] I don't understand.

[45:50] Which otherwise what is.

[45:51] Which otherwise is the gentlest movie.

[45:53] Yeah.

[45:53] Otherwise.

[45:55] It's just a romp through a tea room.

[45:59] Even my dinner with Andre.

[46:02] But, uh, I guess flash forward a little bit.

[46:05] They're at the rich guy's house and the rich kid says, my family has a castle.

[46:09] Go there.

[46:10] I'll set you up.

[46:11] Make me a monster man.

[46:13] And Igor's like, I don't want to do that.

[46:14] Igor's also found out that the original Igor, uh, Frankenstein froze, froze his body and took his eyes for that eye experiment.

[46:22] And Igor's like, you took his eyes?

[46:24] And it's like, dude, where did you think he got a pair of human eyes for his experiment?

[46:27] He had to take them out of a human head.

[46:28] He didn't mold them out of clay.

[46:30] Yeah.

[46:30] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[46:32] He went down to the eye store for, uh, the new eye bone.

[46:37] Keep juggling it?

[46:38] He couldn't go.

Elliott Kalan

[46:39] I was trying to vamp.

[46:40] He couldn't go down to the eye works in New Los Angeles of Blade Runner.

[46:44] Yeah.

[46:44] And order a bunch of eyes for Mr. Chew, whatever his name was.

[46:48] Mm-hmm.

[46:48] But, uh, they, so he, so they split their ways.

[46:52] This is the part in Shrek where Shrek and the donkey get mad at each other and go their separate paths.

[46:56] For reasons.

[46:57] And, uh, so Igor, I guess is just hanging and banging with his girlfriend.

Stuart Wellington

[47:02] No, the, uh, the rich guy throws a bag over his head.

[47:05] Oh, you're right.

[47:06] You know too much.

Elliott Kalan

[47:06] We're going to chuck you in the water.

[47:07] I forgot about that.

[47:08] The rich guy tries to kill Igor.

[47:09] Igor escapes.

Dan McCoy

[47:10] Yeah, because he's a circus guy.

[47:11] So he knows how to escape from being thrown into the water.

[47:14] Like the boring, stupidest digression.

Elliott Kalan

[47:15] That's what happens to a circus guy every day.

[47:17] You learn that stuff.

[47:18] He's an escape artist.

[47:20] Uh, he's a Mr. Miracle.

[47:21] He says, I got to warn Victor that this rich kid's probably going to kill him and take his

[47:26] technology, which at this point, not the most marketable.

[47:30] No.

[47:30] All you've been able to show is that you can turn perfectly dead chimpanzees into maniac

[47:36] monster zombie chimpanzees.

[47:38] Again, not on the open market.

[47:40] I don't know how much that's worth.

[47:41] So they go to the castle and they have to evade the police because even though the inspector

[47:45] has been kicked off the force.

Stuart Wellington

[47:46] He's been kicked off the force due to improperly filing paperwork, it seems.

Elliott Kalan

[47:49] And because he has this crazy wooden hand now with individual fingers as if he's going to be able

[47:54] to move it like Ash in Army of Darkness style.

[47:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:58] Or maybe he just wants to have a hand that he can pose for life drawing.

Elliott Kalan

[48:02] Could be.

[48:02] Yeah.

[48:02] Or he wants to be able to flip people the bird.

[48:04] So he needs individually articulated fingers.

[48:06] He's like, hold on.

Dan McCoy

[48:07] Let me, hold on.

[48:08] He's like curls each finger down individually.

Stuart Wellington

[48:11] He's like, give me a second.

[48:13] What's the hand symbol for Rip Em from No Holds Barred, the Hulk Hogan movie?

Elliott Kalan

[48:18] So Igor has to evade the cops.

[48:20] He gets to the castle.

[48:22] It's the night of the big experiment.

[48:24] Yeah, it's the night of the big prom.

[48:26] And Igor doesn't have a date.

[48:28] I don't remember.

Dan McCoy

[48:28] He has two dates, actually.

Elliott Kalan

[48:29] And he has to rush back and forth between H1.

[48:31] Oh, no.

[48:32] And one of them's a real monster.

[48:33] Literally.

[48:34] Now, I couldn't, I can't remember how much time is supposed to have elapsed.

[48:37] I guess he had to recover.

[48:38] So that's given Dr. Frankenstein time to like get his stuff together.

[48:41] Get an army of goons.

[48:42] Because at the castle, he has got a huge staff of people.

[48:45] They have, it's enormous, all these electrodes.

[48:48] There's an open fire pit for some reason.

[48:50] Yeah, yeah.

[48:51] Because I guess Hephaestus was working on the project.

[48:53] Or maybe once they brought the monster to life, they were going to celebrate with s'mores.

Dan McCoy

[48:57] They're all wearing steampunk leather gear, wandering around.

Elliott Kalan

[49:00] Some people just have goggles and leather aprons.

[49:02] Some people have like full leather face masks.

[49:04] Like, uh.

[49:05] Like, kind of like, uh, Cobra Commander when he's not wearing the silver face.

[49:09] Yeah, kind of.

[49:09] Yeah.

[49:10] It's a little, it's like a cross between the really scary place in that David Lynch one

[49:15] minute long movie I recommended a while ago.

[49:17] Premonition of a, some of a, uh.

[49:20] Yeah, premonition of a shit.

[49:22] Something with a crime.

[49:23] Yeah.

[49:24] Uh, but it, well, anyway.

[49:26] But, uh, I can't believe I forgot the name of it.

[49:27] And it's, or like they've wandered into every bad guy's lair from every Hellboy story.

[49:32] Yep.

[49:32] Where it's like a castle with like a bunch of electrodes and guys in leather masks.

Stuart Wellington

[49:36] And a head floating around in a suspensor chamber.

[49:39] Yeah, going like.

[49:39] Ach wound, ach tung, ach mine of a gazelle, ach imzoff.

[49:42] And you're like, oh man, there's going to be a fucking robot gorilla around the next corner.

Elliott Kalan

[49:45] At some point, because Mike Vidal just loves to draw those.

[49:48] And at some point, Hellboy's going to be like, damn, crap.

[49:50] And punch somebody with his big rock fist.

[49:53] Oh, what a great comic book.

[49:54] Yeah.

[49:54] Anyway, uh, Igor gets there.

[49:56] It's the night of the big, uh, going to bring a guy back to life.

[49:59] Uh, it's very elaborate.

[50:01] Igor manages to sneak in and finds Dr. Frankenstein and says, your rich buddy's crazy.

[50:05] He's going to kill you when this is all done.

[50:07] This isn't you.

[50:08] You're not crazy.

[50:09] Which ignores all the evidence we've seen throughout the entire movie.

[50:12] Which shows us he is a crazy madman who wants to bring people back to life.

[50:16] There's a whole backstory about his brother died because he was saving him from some snow.

[50:20] That's why he wants to balance the charts.

Stuart Wellington

[50:23] Yeah, the movie tries for a moment to have a, have this epiphany where Igor has, you know,

[50:29] is remembering something that, uh, Dr. Frankenstein said about, uh, and like a story that involves

[50:36] his brother dying and he draws some kind of correlation.

[50:38] And then when he relates this analogy or the, the story to Frankenstein, Frankenstein's like,

[50:45] no, you drew the wrong conclusion, which is a fun device.

[50:48] Like, uh, like that reminds me of, uh, there was an issue of Preacher where somebody was like,

[50:53] oh, you felt this way because of this thing.

[50:56] And the guy's like, that's not true.

[50:57] Blah, blah, blah.

[50:58] Now you're dead.

[50:59] Bang.

Elliott Kalan

[50:59] It's like, ever since I saw this, this dead girl in this massacre.

[51:02] Yeah.

[51:02] And, oh, and you wanted to protect people like that.

[51:04] What was it?

[51:04] Like, no, I thought it was stupid.

[51:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:07] Classic Garth and a story.

[51:08] Or whatever.

[51:09] I don't know what Hairstar says.

[51:10] No, I know.

[51:10] Uh, yeah.

[51:11] I mean, you, you flesh out that story better than I did.

[51:14] But, uh, it, I mean, it, it felt a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[51:17] But here in the movie, like, it was basically like, it was not so different.

[51:22] Like, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:22] The two stories, it was, you want to stop people from having to feel pain about death.

[51:27] No, no, no.

[51:28] I want to atone for my brother's death.

Stuart Wellington

[51:30] Okay.

[51:30] That's not that different.

[51:32] You would have been.

[51:32] By balancing the scales.

Elliott Kalan

[51:34] It would have been, the way I would have done it is, I mean, is that, we wouldn't have

[51:37] gotten to that point anyway, but I would have been much better.

[51:40] Sorry, Max Landis.

[51:41] You've written, you've written many more screenplays than me, but whatever.

[51:44] But, uh, the, the way, what I would have done at that point is he would have said, I

[51:48] know you, your brother died and you blame yourself and you don't want other people to go through

[51:51] that pain.

[51:52] And him to be like, what?

[51:53] My brother was weak.

[51:55] My brother was, is dead.

[51:57] I don't want that to happen to me to be weak like him.

[52:00] I want to be strong.

[52:02] I want to come back.

[52:03] So I'm going to do, I'm going to bring back as many other people as it takes so that I

[52:07] never have to die.

[52:08] And then he, like that, he's crazy.

[52:10] And that hit, that's a real misreading of it.

[52:12] That like, oh, you think I feel sad that my brother died.

[52:15] I just pity him.

[52:16] That's pathetic.

[52:17] He was older than me.

[52:18] He should be cooler than me.

[52:19] Literally.

[52:20] He was cooler than me.

[52:21] He died of hypothermia in the snow, saving me.

[52:23] And it's like, dude, check your own self.

Stuart Wellington

[52:26] You're splitting hairs, Victor.

[52:27] Keep going with your story.

Elliott Kalan

[52:28] And I apologize.

[52:30] Tangent.

[52:30] Anyway.

[52:31] And especially in my big moment.

[52:32] But here's the thing.

[52:33] I was like, this guy who I looked up to, he's so uncool, he died.

[52:40] Cool people never die.

[52:41] Michael Jackson, he's going to live forever.

[52:43] And Igor's like, I got some bad news for you.

[52:46] Ooh.

[52:47] He's dead now.

[52:48] Oh, well.

[52:49] But David Bowie, surely.

[52:51] But David Bowie is super cool.

[52:52] He can't even be held by gender.

[52:54] Certainly mortality is.

[52:55] No, again, sorry, it happens to everyone.

Dan McCoy

[52:57] But Prince, of course.

[52:58] He's the.

Elliott Kalan

[52:59] I got so much.

[53:00] You've really been working on this project for a long time.

[53:02] You really missed a lot of the news.

[53:04] But Kurt Cobain?

[53:06] I really would have thought you'd have heard of that one.

[53:08] No, that's.

Dan McCoy

[53:10] That's a little taste of some of the stuff we lost from the DC show.

[53:13] Oh, yeah.

[53:13] I forgot about that.

[53:14] Wait, the big bopper?

Elliott Kalan

[53:16] Oh, boy.

[53:18] That was somehow before you were born, even though this is the 19th century.

[53:22] But please tell me the big bopper Buddy Holly and Richie Valens are still with us.

[53:27] It's interesting that you chose those three specifically.

[53:30] But what about the members of Leonard Skinner that didn't survive the plane crash?

[53:35] They're still with us, right?

[53:37] I mean, do you not know their names?

[53:38] Is that why you referred to them that way?

[53:40] Kind of.

[53:41] Kind of breaking the conceit here.

[53:42] If you know they died.

[53:45] Oh, brother.

[53:46] I'm going to list off some names to you.

[53:48] Sure.

[53:48] Paul McCartney, George Harrison.

[53:50] No.

[53:51] Dead.

[53:52] Dead.

[53:52] McCartney's still with us.

[53:53] Oh, sorry.

[53:54] What was I saying?

[53:54] I meant, uh...

[53:55] Don't.

[53:56] Unless...

Dan McCoy

[53:57] Between us recording this and it gets released, Paul McCartney dies.

[54:02] I hope not.

[54:02] In which case I'll feel terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[54:03] I meant to say John Lennon.

[54:04] Look, listen to this episode 30 years from now.

[54:06] He's bound to be dead by then.

Dan McCoy

[54:08] Oh, bro.

[54:08] Oh, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[54:09] Oh, I'm sorry.

[54:10] You'll be 100 years old.

[54:12] I apologize, Dan.

[54:14] For saving Paul McCartney in my world from the fate of being a decrepit old, just shambling

[54:19] thing made of bags of bones, occasionally playing the mandolin.

Stuart Wellington

[54:23] Yep.

[54:23] By then I'll have his wings.

[54:25] Angel wings.

[54:28] Anyway.

[54:28] That was the stupidest joke I made tonight.

Elliott Kalan

[54:30] I hope my dad doesn't listen to this episode.

[54:32] Paul McCartney's his hero.

[54:33] Yeah.

[54:34] That's what...

[54:35] That's what...

[54:35] That's his living will.

[54:36] It just says that.

[54:37] Yeah.

[54:37] Oh, well, Paul McCartney is technically brain dead.

[54:41] We could keep his body alive on these machines.

[54:43] Let's check his life care plan.

[54:46] Just says live and let die.

[54:48] It's pretty confusing, Paul.

[54:51] Really don't...

[54:51] So do you want to let us die?

[54:53] Or do you want to let us die?

[54:54] Or do you want to live?

[54:55] Really?

[54:55] Shit of and clear.

[54:56] It says right here...

[54:57] Well, I'm not sure if he's saying here this ever-changing world in which we live in or in which we live in.

[55:04] One is redundant and one is not.

[55:05] You've got to be clear with us, Sir Paul.

Dan McCoy

[55:07] And this is just weird where it says, Admiral Halsey notified me he had to have a drink or half a cup of tea.

Elliott Kalan

[55:14] Something about a butter pie?

Dan McCoy

[55:16] Butter pie?

[55:17] The butter wouldn't melt so he poured it in the pie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:19] Is that...

[55:20] That's the accident that led to his being in this coma?

Dan McCoy

[55:22] I think I got the lyrics a little bit wrong, but you get the idea.

Elliott Kalan

[55:25] Hands across the water.

[55:26] Who cares?

[55:26] Anyway.

[55:27] So there's a big showdown and a throwdown.

[55:30] They manage to bring the monster who they named Prometheus to life.

[55:33] And guess what?

[55:35] He's a dumb monster who's just pushing things over.

[55:38] The policeman rushes in, tries to shoot and kill him.

[55:41] The monster doesn't like that.

[55:42] Chokeslam.

[55:42] Starts chokeslamming everybody.

[55:44] Kills the inspector.

[55:46] Everybody's dying everywhere.

[55:47] There's explosions.

[55:48] Everybody's dying.

[55:49] There's a ton of explosions.

Stuart Wellington

[55:50] At some point, Mark Gattis gets exploded.

[55:53] Mark Gattis, who is in a non-speaking role.

Elliott Kalan

[55:55] He's a glorified extra.

[55:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[55:58] And Stuart was so excited every time.

[55:59] I got so excited when he came out.

[56:02] You're like a major character.

Stuart Wellington

[56:03] Yeah.

[56:04] He had a great mustache.

[56:06] Oh, of course he had a great mustache.

[56:07] He had a great everything, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[56:08] It ends up that just being the only people alive, left alive, or the only lovers left alive are Igor, Dr. Frankenstein, and the monster.

[56:19] And let's just say this.

[56:20] This movie had set a bar for grossness.

[56:23] And they really, they want to make it a big reveal when you see the monster for the first time.

[56:26] And this monster did not cut it.

[56:29] Yeah, it was super generic.

[56:30] Super generic, like this was the Frankenstein's monster you see in front of the Halloween store.

[56:36] No, not even in front of the Halloween store.

[56:38] They put the good one in front of the Halloween store.

[56:40] This is the one you see in the back of the Halloween store, where they're like, if anyone gets back here, they're going to see more Halloween stuff.

[56:46] So we'll put this super generic Frankenstein's monster that just kind of has a flattish head, and it's kind of like got bolts and stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[56:52] You go to see it, and there's a guy waiting by there, and like, I know it's not very scary, but think about it.

[56:56] He's got two hearts.

Elliott Kalan

[56:58] Yeah, that's right.

[56:59] They also made him with two hearts and four lungs.

[57:02] Two of hearts.

[57:04] Which I thought.

[57:05] Four of lungs.

Dan McCoy

[57:06] Stuart and Elliot were talking about comics, so they missed it, but I thought that was a pretty funny moment.

Elliott Kalan

[57:11] We weren't just talking about comics, we were talking about Prophet, which is a great comic.

[57:13] That's a great comic.

Dan McCoy

[57:13] They thought that Frankenstein's monster was dead, and Victor Frankenstein was like, Igor, two hearts.

Elliott Kalan

[57:22] And he has to stab him with a second heart.

Dan McCoy

[57:24] That's a pretty good moment.

[57:26] Pretty good joke.

Elliott Kalan

[57:27] Wow, I didn't realize that Mark Gattis' character has a name.

Dan McCoy

[57:31] What is it?

[57:32] Grimsby?

[57:32] Sure, it's called Awesome Mustache, dude.

[57:34] It's Detweiler.

[57:35] Oh, wow.

[57:36] But, uh...

[57:37] So...

[57:38] So he...

[57:38] You know, everyone ends relatively happily.

Elliott Kalan

[57:42] It ends with being a big fight between Dr. Frankenstein, Igor, and the monster, and that is a good joke,

[57:48] that they stab it through the heart, but then it's got another heart still living.

[57:52] But it's another one where suddenly they have superhuman Superman fighting skills,

[57:56] and it's like, oh, so this monster's not really that scary if two dudes,

[58:00] one of whom only learned to walk normally a few months ago, can just defeat it.

Stuart Wellington

[58:06] But his knowledge of the human or monster anatomy is so good that that thing's just screwed.

[58:11] He's like four or five moves ahead.

Elliott Kalan

[58:13] Yeah, yeah, it's his master chess.

[58:15] And so they all...

[58:16] They survive.

[58:17] The girl shows up in the middle of the wreckage the next morning, takes Igor away, and has a note that Dr. Frankenstein wrote him,

[58:23] where Dr. Frankenstein says,

[58:25] you'll always be my greatest creation, Igor.

[58:28] Well, friends, you know what?

[58:29] We may...

[58:30] We should part for a little while.

[58:31] But I may need your help again sometime in the future.

[58:34] Until then, I remain.

[58:36] And then the title Victor Frankenstein comes up.

[58:38] Ow!

[58:39] Bump, bump, bump, bump.

[58:40] Slide on sunglasses.

[58:42] CSI Miami.

Stuart Wellington

[58:43] I do love that he's like, I may need your help in the future.

[58:45] And it cuts to him looking at a crude drawing of a head with the top cut off, and it says brain with an arrow.

Elliott Kalan

[58:52] There's an arrow pointing at a brain.

[58:54] It says brain.

[58:55] He was like, right, that's what I forgot.

[58:57] Brain goes in the head.

[58:58] I put it in the butt.

[58:59] That's why it was so dumb.

[59:01] There is a moment where he sees the monster for the first time, and he's like, I did it, brother.

[59:05] I brought you back.

[59:06] And he sees no spark of intelligence in this being.

[59:09] And he's like, no, this isn't life.

[59:10] And it was one of those things where it was like, what did you think you were making, dude?

[59:13] Like he was going to start drinking tea and talking?

[59:16] Like at the very least, he is a baby with the body of a giant.

[59:21] You know?

[59:22] Yeah.

[59:22] That's best case scenario.

[59:23] You're going to have to teach him how to talk.

[59:25] Yeah, like Dauber from Coach.

Dan McCoy

[59:28] Yeah, perfect analogy.

Elliott Kalan

[59:29] That's pretty rough, but.

Dan McCoy

[59:32] We're running super long again.

[59:34] Sorry.

[59:35] So final judgments.

[59:36] Let's do final judgments.

[59:37] Is this a good, bad movie?

[59:38] Wait, hold on.

[59:39] Is this totally scarifying?

[59:42] Thank you.

[59:43] Is it totally snorifying?

[59:46] Or is it frighteningly funny?

[59:48] Stuart, what do you have to say?

[59:49] Worst categories.

[59:50] They never.

Stuart Wellington

[59:51] So there's a chance that this movie was going to be frighteningly funny.

[59:56] But it ended up being snorifying.

[59:58] The first like half an hour is all right.

[1:00:01] And then it just kind of falls apart and gets really boring.

[1:00:04] I don't say this a lot, but the fact that there's only one woman with a speaking role just seemed weirdly more pronounced in this specific movie.

[1:00:13] I don't know why.

[1:00:14] She barely had any personality.

[1:00:15] Yeah, it was just so.

[1:00:16] She was pretty, Dan.

[1:00:17] That was the personality.

[1:00:19] Yeah.

[1:00:20] I mean, I don't know.

[1:00:22] I mean, I don't know what could have saved this movie, but not a great movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:26] Might as well just not have a female character in it.

[1:00:28] Kind of.

[1:00:29] Yeah.

[1:00:29] I mean.

[1:00:30] It was like by including one, it highlighted how unnecessary and just token she was.

[1:00:36] Yeah.

[1:00:37] Like Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross's shit.

[1:00:38] Just make it a bunch of angry guys yelling at each other in a high pressure situation.

[1:00:43] Get Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, the late Jack Lemmon.

[1:00:48] And it feels like.

[1:00:49] Alan Arkin.

[1:00:50] Alan Arkin.

[1:00:50] Jeff.

[1:00:51] John.

[1:00:52] Jonathan Price.

[1:00:53] I was going to say Jeffrey Price.

[1:00:54] That's not his name.

[1:00:57] Alec Baldwin for a scene written just for the movie, not in the original play, Glenn Gary, Glenn Frankenstein.

[1:01:02] I think Paul Rudd.

[1:01:05] Yeah.

[1:01:05] Nope.

[1:01:06] I'm going to say negatory to that one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:08] No, there's that one scene where he's just like non-speaking role.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:11] He sucked his head in and he winked.

[1:01:13] Yeah.

[1:01:14] He said, gotta go.

[1:01:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:15] Gotta go be a kid right now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:17] It feels like she was included and a couple of the characters seem like they were included

[1:01:21] exclusively to force very brief discussions of like the metaphysical and ethical ramifications

[1:01:30] of trying to bring a dead body back to life.

[1:01:32] Yeah.

[1:01:33] In conversations that felt pretty out of place for like, oh, you're an acrobat.

[1:01:37] You know a lot about morals and stuff.

[1:01:41] I mean, don't limit her.

[1:01:42] Okay.

[1:01:42] I guess you're right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:43] But I would say this was a movie, not to go by our dumb Shocktober rating system.

[1:01:48] What?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:48] Dumb?

[1:01:49] Sir.

[1:01:50] Sir.

[1:01:51] I apologize.

[1:01:51] Sir.

[1:01:52] Not to go for our shitty Shocktober ratings.

[1:01:54] Okay.

[1:01:55] This is the first like 30, 40 minutes.

[1:01:58] This was, I was like, this is gonna be a movie I kind of like.

[1:02:01] I'm, it's not great, but I'm enjoying this as kind of like a crazy gross spin on the Frankenstein

[1:02:07] story.

[1:02:08] And then it just became snorifying.

[1:02:10] Like around the time that, when that zombie chimp died, the movie spirit died with it.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:16] You know, I have enough goodwill from the first hour of this movie, the zombie chimp

[1:02:21] hour of this movie to give it a marginally, uh, totally scarifying.

[1:02:25] Cause.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:25] I mean, it's not scary.

[1:02:27] No, it's not scary.

[1:02:27] Scarifying just means quality is what you're saying.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:29] Yeah.

[1:02:30] I mean.

[1:02:31] It was certainly better than I, Frankenstein, which was a piece of garbage.

[1:02:34] Even when it gets boring, it's still kind of fun because the actors are so good and like

[1:02:39] there's stuff like, we didn't even get into the fact that the, um, the, uh, Moriarty

[1:02:45] character basically just, just dies by getting like slammed into a big like electrode where

[1:02:51] the, he gets like, he's like swings into where the, uh.

[1:02:55] Frankenstein monster had been like throws him at it.

[1:02:58] Suspended from the ceiling.

[1:02:59] Yeah.

[1:03:00] And he gets lightning applied and it's the last point.

[1:03:03] You're like, hooray.

[1:03:04] He can be with his wife.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:06] Yeah.

[1:03:06] That's a happy ending for him.

[1:03:07] This is a movie where every, well, the main three characters all have like a dark backstory

[1:03:13] and they have to bring it up.

[1:03:15] Like it's a police detective has a dead wife.

[1:03:18] Frankenstein has a dead brother.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:20] I wish there was less backstory.

[1:03:22] Just have the characters do what they're doing.

[1:03:23] We don't need to know it all.

[1:03:24] But I wish there's like that stretch between zombie chimp and the Goddardammerung at the

[1:03:29] end where they, everything goes to balls.

[1:03:32] Like that long stretch really kills it.

[1:03:36] But then it picks up energy at the end.

[1:03:37] If that Frankenstein monster had had a more interesting design, then the ending might have

[1:03:41] saved it for me.

[1:03:42] Yeah.

[1:03:42] If it was like some lumbering, disgusting thing, I would have been like, oh, this movie's

[1:03:46] back.

[1:03:47] You know, they brought it back from the dead with lightning and gross stuff.

[1:03:49] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:49] And then Igor pulls out a whip and he basically becomes Simon Belmont from the Castlevania

[1:03:54] series.

[1:03:54] And he like slashes open his guts.

[1:03:56] Yeah.

[1:03:56] And then like a second baby Frankenstein comes out of the guts.

[1:03:59] And he's like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:01] Now it's now it's three men and a baby.

[1:04:03] And they got to feed it.

[1:04:04] What are you going to do with this thing?

[1:04:05] Like put lightning in a bottle and then give it to him.

S5

[1:04:15] I love forget me not.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:18] I'm Jesse.

[1:04:19] I'm Jordan.

[1:04:20] And we've been doing Jordan Jesse Go for almost 10 years now.

[1:04:23] And it's not gotten any easier to describe.

[1:04:25] So we asked our fans to do it for us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:28] Jordan Jesse Go is a weekly conversation with two best pals.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:32] Two hilarious friends.

[1:04:33] The hilarious smart kids.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:35] Talking about hilarious stuff that happens to them.

[1:04:37] Mostly really stupid stuff.

S4

[1:04:39] Awkward anecdotes.

[1:04:40] Insane tangents.

[1:04:42] Heartfelt stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:43] It's like being thrown in the middle of a hilarious conversation between you and your

[1:04:47] best pals.

[1:04:48] It's a show that makes me laugh every week.

S4

[1:04:49] Which is pretty rare and wonderful.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:51] Might be the best thing on the internet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:53] One of the funniest things you will hear.

S4

[1:04:55] And it's the best part of my week.

[1:04:57] And has kept me company for the past seven years through all sorts of life.

[1:05:02] I love those guys.

S5

[1:05:03] That's Jordan Jesse Go, the comedy podcast that's been named Best of iTunes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:08] Every Monday on MaximumFun.org or your favorite podcasting software.

S5

[1:05:11] I'll hug you and kiss you and love you.

[1:05:13] Love you.

[1:05:14] Love you.

[1:05:15] Love you.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:16] Uh, but we gotta move on.

[1:05:18] Do we have to?

[1:05:20] And by moving on, I mean we have...

[1:05:23] Slowly unfolding a piece of paper.

[1:05:25] A couple of...

[1:05:25] Slower.

[1:05:27] Of advertisers.

[1:05:29] Maybe unfold them before the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:32] Really unfolding those papers still.

[1:05:35] Well now you're just...

[1:05:36] Taking my time.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:39] Um...

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:39] Were you keeping them a secret from us?

[1:05:41] Is that why they were folded up?

[1:05:42] That's right.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:43] It's a Shocktober surprise.

[1:05:45] And the surprise is that the Flophouse is supported in part by Mack Weldon.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:49] Ooh.

[1:05:49] What?

[1:05:50] I'm wearing a Mack Weldon undershirt right now.

[1:05:52] I had a big meeting today and I wanted to feel my best.

[1:05:55] That's why you look so confident.

[1:05:56] Thank you.

[1:05:57] So I wore my Mack Weldon undershirt.

[1:05:58] And I didn't feel anywhere near as sweaty and gross as I do in my other undershirts.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:02] I've got my Mack Weldon underwear on.

[1:06:05] My Malk, Malk, Malk.

[1:06:06] That's why you look so super confident too, Dan.

[1:06:08] I can't.

[1:06:09] I can't.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:09] I can't.

[1:06:10] I can't.

[1:06:10] Look, guys.

[1:06:12] Mack Weldon believes in smart design, premium fabrics, and simple shopping.

[1:06:17] And it's certainly very simple.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:19] Scanning.

[1:06:20] Scanning.

[1:06:21] Mm-hmm.

[1:06:21] It was just the, uh...

[1:06:23] You really launched into that ad copy strong and then kind of pulled to Barack Obama.

[1:06:28] Acquiring.

[1:06:30] Acquiring.

[1:06:31] Buffering.

[1:06:33] Mack Weldon believes in smart design and easy shopping.

[1:06:37] Buffering.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:39] I was trying to remember my Mack Weldon shopping experience.

[1:06:42] That was what the buffering was.

[1:06:43] But the thing is, the fact that I can't remember it suggests that it was very easy.

[1:06:47] It was super simple easy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:48] You put a bunch of underwear in your cart.

[1:06:50] Mm-hmm.

[1:06:51] You pay for it.

[1:06:52] You get it and you wear it.

[1:06:52] And you're like, this is super comfortable.

[1:06:54] I feel a lot less sweaty and gross.

[1:06:55] Yeah.

[1:06:56] And I can wear it all day, even longer than normal underwear.

[1:06:59] I may not take it off ever.

[1:07:01] Treat yourself.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:02] They want you to be comfortable.

[1:07:03] So if you don't like your first pair, you can keep it.

[1:07:05] And they will refund you, no question asked.

[1:07:08] And, uh, you know, you keep that underwear because, you know, no one wants used underwear.

[1:07:12] You don't want to send that stuff back.

[1:07:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:14] The knitting machine's full of it in Japan.

[1:07:15] That's true.

[1:07:17] Uh...

[1:07:17] Or so the legend goes.

[1:07:19] Mack Weldon's underwear.

[1:07:21] Legend of movie dick.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:22] Socks and shirts are good for all sorts of things.

[1:07:25] Working out, going to work, going on dates.

[1:07:27] Just everyday life.

[1:07:28] They look good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:29] Ladies like the way that men look in them.

[1:07:32] Mm-hmm.

[1:07:33] Men do the way they look.

[1:07:37] I mean, I only...

[1:07:38] My only experience is with ladies, so I'm sure men like them, too.

[1:07:42] Uh...

[1:07:42] If you want to look good...

[1:07:42] Even in college?

[1:07:45] Pretty early on, I knew what I was into.

[1:07:46] All right.

[1:07:47] There's no judgment there.

[1:07:48] It's just like, hey, certain types of music I don't like either.

[1:07:51] Go ahead and listen to it.

[1:07:52] I don't care, but it's just not my thing.

[1:07:54] Just checking out.

[1:07:55] Although, I listen to a lot of Reggae now.

[1:07:56] He's looking for a chink in that armor.

[1:07:58] I listen to a lot of Reggae now.

[1:07:59] I'm looking for a chance.

[1:08:00] Yep.

[1:08:01] My son really likes Bob Marley, so we end up listening to a lot of Bob Marley in the house.

[1:08:04] Now I'm developing a taste for it I never had before.

[1:08:07] Maybe if my son is gay, I'll start being into dudes.

[1:08:09] I don't know.

[1:08:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:13] Yeah, you want to have something to talk about around the old fire.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:15] I mean, that's one of the great things about having children is that their interests open

[1:08:19] up new worlds for you.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:20] Yeah, yeah.

[1:08:21] Maybe that involves man on man.

[1:08:22] I don't know.

[1:08:23] Yeah.

[1:08:23] And the moral of all this is...

[1:08:25] Mack Weldon.

[1:08:26] Buy it.

[1:08:26] Mack Weldon.

[1:08:27] Go to MackWeldon.com and get 20% off using the promo code FLOP.

[1:08:32] Get ready to wear the best underwear you've ever worn.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:35] You want to talk to us about Casper mattresses?

[1:08:39] I would love to.

[1:08:40] Now we're also supported in part by Casper, the online retailer of premium mattresses for

[1:08:44] a fraction of the price that you'd pay in the store for a non-premium mattress.

[1:08:49] It's obsessively engineered.

[1:08:51] They have obsessed over the engineering, much like Dr. Frankenstein, obsessed over bringing

[1:08:55] life back from the dead.

[1:08:56] Except instead of tampering in God's domain, they're tampering in your bedroom's domain.

[1:09:00] And I think you're going to like the tampering that they did.

[1:09:01] It's a shockingly fair price.

[1:09:03] Now, Dan, you have more personal experience with Casper mattresses than I do.

[1:09:06] I do have a Casper mattress.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:08] It's a delight for sleeping on and sleeping on.

[1:09:13] And dot, dot, dot.

[1:09:14] Yep.

[1:09:14] Tell us less.

[1:09:15] And sleeping on.

[1:09:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:18] Whether you're sleeping out of tiredness or sleeping out of depression, Casper mattresses...

[1:09:22] Both of those things I have experience with.

[1:09:25] Now there's a risk-free trial and turn policy.

[1:09:27] Try sleeping on it for 100 days.

[1:09:29] Use your Casper mattress for 100 days.

[1:09:31] That's slightly more than three months.

[1:09:33] Mm-hmm.

[1:09:33] And you know what?

[1:09:34] If you don't like it, it's free delivery and painless returns.

[1:09:38] The mattresses are made in America by Americans.

[1:09:41] So you know it's both high quality and patriotic.

[1:09:44] And it's $500 for a twin-size mattress, $950 for a king-size mattress.

[1:09:48] That is, excuse me, that is a lot less than I paid for my current mattress, which makes

[1:09:52] me mad that I didn't wait for Casper to exist.

[1:09:54] Because when I bought my mattress, Casper didn't exist yet.

[1:09:56] Yeah.

[1:09:57] And they send it to you in a box, and it pops out when you open up the box, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:10:00] And you'll sleep like the dead.

[1:10:02] Like Erica, like the other day.

[1:10:03] Shocked over, shocked over.

[1:10:04] Under siege.

[1:10:05] It pops right out.

[1:10:07] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:09] Again, I don't really...

[1:10:10] There's a certain sexist bent to your references these days.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:12] No, it's not.

[1:10:13] It's just a reference.

[1:10:16] It's not a...

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:16] I mean, it is the most paused part of Under Siege.

[1:10:20] It's the part of video rentals.

[1:10:22] Now, Flop House listeners get a special offer.

[1:10:24] That's $50 toward any mattress purchase by visiting www.casper.com slash flop and using

[1:10:31] the promo code FLOP when you check out.

[1:10:34] Now, again, that's www.casper.com slash flop.

[1:10:38] Use the promo code FLOP.

[1:10:39] That's $50 off of your mattress.

[1:10:41] It's already a low price, and that's going to be even lower.

[1:10:43] Try it for 100 days.

[1:10:44] You don't like it.

[1:10:45] Send it back.

[1:10:45] Terms and conditions apply.

[1:10:47] I don't know what that means.

[1:10:49] You'll have to do the work on that one for your listeners.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:52] But now that all the business is taken care of, we can get on to letters from listeners.

[1:10:58] Listeners like you?

[1:10:59] Question mark?

[1:11:00] Maybe.

[1:11:01] Listeners like who?

[1:11:02] Could you send a letter?

[1:11:04] If you did, this could be your letter.

[1:11:06] Letters from listeners on Chucktober.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:08] La, la, la, la, la, la.

[1:11:09] La, la, Danny Elfman-style music.

[1:11:11] Shocked over letters.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:13] Nice.

[1:11:14] So this is from First Name Withheld, Last Name Withheld.

[1:11:18] Okay, so nobody sent this.

[1:11:20] Who writes,

[1:11:20] Hello, I'm a pretty recent listener, but I love your show and have been burning through

[1:11:24] your back catalog at about two episodes a day.

[1:11:26] That's a lot.

[1:11:27] I was so excited when I saw you guys had finally broken down and reviewed Nothing But Trouble

[1:11:31] with the great John Hodgman, no less.

[1:11:33] I have a bit of a weird perspective on that movie.

[1:11:36] I had never seen it until a few years back when my girlfriend excitedly picked up a DVD copy

[1:11:40] out of a department store clearance bin and insisted we watch it that night.

[1:11:44] Come to find out, this film is a favorite of her family.

[1:11:48] What?

[1:11:48] Just as some families get together and watch It's a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story,

[1:11:52] The Last Name Withheld gather around the TV in delight in Nothing But Trouble, laughing

[1:11:57] heartily to each other and courting their favorite lines later at the dinner table.

[1:12:02] It's quite a thing to experience.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:03] Their miniature train bedecked dinner table where they eat huge francs.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:09] You know what?

[1:12:09] When I read this email for the first time, I imagined the same thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:12] We live the Nothing But Trouble lifestyle.

[1:12:15] I hope you'll be a part of it.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:17] It's quite a thing to experience being the only one in a room full of people who doesn't

[1:12:21] think Nothing But Trouble is a cinema classic.

[1:12:23] So he's dating Dan Aykroyd's daughter, I assume.

[1:12:25] Yeah.

[1:12:26] Well, he says, from this upbringing, you might be imagining my girlfriend turning out to

[1:12:29] be a dangerous lunatic.

[1:12:31] But oddly enough, she and her whole family are otherwise quite pleasant and normal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:34] I'm trying to imagine what lines from that movie they're quoting.

[1:12:38] I mean, it's basically just what those two little crazy baby characters are talking about,

[1:12:42] right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:43] Yeah, Bad Boy and Toonsbo or whatever their names are.

[1:12:46] Little Devil.

[1:12:47] Little Devil and Biel's a baby.

[1:12:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:51] Yeah.

[1:12:52] I would normally advise you to break up with this person immediately.

[1:12:57] Study this person.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:59] No, yeah.

[1:12:59] You've got a front row one-way ticket to the rarest of all breeds, a clan of nothing but

[1:13:07] troublers in the wild.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:10] So yeah, find out what they like about it so much.

[1:13:13] Yeah.

[1:13:14] Report back.

[1:13:15] Observe them.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:16] Take notes.

[1:13:18] Be wary.

[1:13:19] Be wary.

[1:13:19] Because when you study monsters, be worried that you may become one.

[1:13:25] I think Dylan Thomas said that.

[1:13:26] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:28] So many errors.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:30] Dear Dan, Salacious Stew, and Exuberant Elliot.

[1:13:33] I'm...

[1:13:33] I don't get a nickname.

[1:13:36] Apparently...

[1:13:36] Oh, Dear Dan.

[1:13:37] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:38] Dear Dan.

[1:13:38] Salacious Stew is that guy who sits on Jabba's tail.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:41] I'll take it.

[1:13:41] Yeah.

[1:13:42] This past weekend...

[1:13:43] Apparently Stan Lee wrote us this letter.

[1:13:45] I...

[1:13:45] This past weekend I went to see Scarface with the flop cult I've assembled here in New Zealand

[1:13:50] based on your teachings.

[1:13:52] Although I'd obviously seen clips of the movie before.

[1:13:55] I'd never watched the whole thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:56] Now, which...

[1:13:57] From context, can you tell which Scarface is this?

[1:13:59] Is this the original Howard Hawks, or is this the later one?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:02] From context, I believe it's the later one.

[1:14:05] I'm assuming.

[1:14:07] Based on...

[1:14:08] As a philosopher, I assume nothing.

[1:14:11] Although I'd obviously seen clips of the movie before, I'd never watched the whole thing

[1:14:14] in its entirety.

[1:14:16] And what amazed me most about it was how many hundreds of references to and parodies of

[1:14:21] Scarface I've seen in my life...

[1:14:23] Okay, so it's the later one.

[1:14:24] Without knowing...

[1:14:24] Nobody parodies the first one.

[1:14:25] Exactly what they're from.

[1:14:27] Do you think Scarface is the most referenced or parodied movie of all time?

[1:14:30] What would be the other contenders?

[1:14:32] What movie have you watched that made you go, oh, so that's what that is?

[1:14:36] Hope you're all well.

[1:14:38] Dre, last name was L.

[1:14:39] I would put Wizard of Oz and...

[1:14:41] Citizen Kane is pretty up there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:42] I would put Wizard of Oz and The Godfather as the two I can think of that I feel like I've

[1:14:45] seen parodied the most.

[1:14:47] The Godfather was definitely one of those ones where as a kid, I saw references to it.

[1:14:51] Like the horse head in the bed, I knew about long before I ever saw the movie.

[1:14:54] There were jokes for it everywhere.

[1:14:57] And like a lot of the lines in it and things.

[1:14:59] Like Marlon Brando's performance, it actually took me a long time to not think of as a joke

[1:15:04] because I had seen parodies of it and other things.

[1:15:07] Yeah.

[1:15:08] Those are good ones.

[1:15:11] And probably like Smurfs 2 or like that Alvin the Chipmunk's Road Chip movie.

[1:15:16] That's been parodied a lot, right?

[1:15:18] I saw...

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:18] It's a part of our culture, you know?

[1:15:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:22] It's part of the landscape.

[1:15:23] It's part of the shared heritage.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:26] Yeah.

[1:15:27] The oral tradition.

[1:15:28] I saw the Bobo episode of The Simpsons before I saw Citizen Kane.

[1:15:33] And so it was a much richer experience once I knew that the whole episode was pretty much

[1:15:39] a straight parody of Citizen Kane.

[1:15:43] Although Citizen Kane doesn't end with a robotic Citizen Kane in the future, a monkey future,

[1:15:49] taking his sled.

[1:15:51] Maybe it would have been a success if it had.

[1:15:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:53] Now, I remember it took me a long time to realize that Silence of the Hams was a parody of Silence

[1:15:59] of the Lambs.

[1:16:00] You thought it was just a great Tom DeLuise vehicle.

[1:16:03] Yeah.

[1:16:04] I was like, Dom's done it again.

[1:16:07] Dom DeLuise.

[1:16:08] More like Dom De La Laughs.

[1:16:09] Now, on the other hand, you've got a movie like Airplane, which at this point has completely

[1:16:14] surpassed the movies that it was parodying in terms of cultural relevance and people remembering

[1:16:21] it and now you see references to Airplane, whereas Airplane was very closely parodying.

[1:16:28] Zero Hour.

[1:16:28] Zero Hour, yeah.

[1:16:29] And the idea of the airport movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:31] Do you think the scary movie guys were really kind of shooting for that with their trilogy?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:39] Maybe.

[1:16:40] I mean, if they had been like, you know what?

[1:16:42] Someday people are going to think Scream was a ripoff of us.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:45] They might have thought that.

[1:16:47] Our movie that features a guy getting impaled through the head with a penis through the head.

[1:16:50] Penis through the year.

[1:16:52] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:53] I mean, the way you describe it, it sounds really good.

[1:16:55] Yeah, I guess you're right.

[1:16:58] If Takashi Amike directed it, we'd be like, that's great.

[1:17:00] We've got to go see you.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:02] What an auteur.

[1:17:04] This one is from Adam, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:17:08] Hey, Elliot, slash Stuart, slash Dan.

[1:17:10] Adam, the first man, also known as Frankenstein's monster.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:13] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:13] I mean, what is God but the original Dr. Frankenstein?

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:17] Elliot, Stuart, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:19] Can we really say that the real man that God created has done that much better than Frankenstein's monster?

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:24] No, just an idiot raging at an unforgiving chaos.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:28] We're just violent idiots shambling around punching stuff for no reason.

[1:17:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:34] Hey, Elliot, Stuart, Dan, in order of what I assume is your interest in kaiju films.

[1:17:39] Yeah, maybe.

[1:17:40] Yeah.

[1:17:40] Anyways, I have a couple of questions for you.

[1:17:43] Number one, I have big God...

[1:17:45] What's a kaiju film?

[1:17:47] Number one, I'm a big Godzilla fan.

[1:17:50] And having recently re-listened to your old episodes...

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:52] Now, do you mean you're a big fan of Godzilla or you're a fan of when Godzilla's big

[1:17:55] and not that Marvel Comics storyline where he shrunk down?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:57] Or you're a fan who is big, who enjoys Godzilla.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:01] Yeah, like you're a little boy who casts a spell on yourself and you're going to fuck some old lady.

[1:18:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:07] Old lady?

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:08] I mean, I guess she was...

[1:18:09] She's probably like 30 chills.

[1:18:10] Okay, chill out.

[1:18:12] Who's sexist now?

[1:18:13] I'm saying old in comparison because he was a fucking little boy, man.

[1:18:17] A little boy, man.

[1:18:18] Exactly.

[1:18:19] He was an apt descriptor.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:21] What's the name of the machine they found?

[1:18:24] It's not Zardoz.

[1:18:25] I keep wanting to say Zardoz.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:27] I was about to say Jombie, but I think that's wrong.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:30] Zul?

[1:18:30] Zoltan.

[1:18:31] Zoltan.

[1:18:32] That's what it is.

[1:18:33] So, the ambiguous sentence again.

[1:18:36] I'm a big Godzilla fan.

[1:18:38] And having recently re-listened to your old episodes, I have heard Elliot make quite a few references

[1:18:44] to the old Godzilla movies.

[1:18:47] Like, specifically, the almost incomprehensible moral message of Godzilla 2000 being that

[1:18:51] there's a little bit of Godzilla in all of us.

[1:18:53] Oh, beautiful.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:54] As he's destroying the city.

[1:18:56] Yeah.

[1:18:57] They look happily on.

[1:18:59] It's wonderful.

[1:18:59] It's a great ending.

[1:19:00] I mean, he has just defeated an alien invader using kick fighting.

[1:19:04] But still.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:05] The guy and the kid, like, looking on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:07] He goes, why is Godzilla always saving us?

[1:19:10] As he's burning down a city.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:13] That's his right.

[1:19:14] His right after killing the giant alien.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:16] He's the protector and shepherd of this earth.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:19] Now I have to ask all three of you.

[1:19:21] Which is your favorite Godzilla movie?

[1:19:23] The original 1954 Gojira 1956 Godzilla King of the Monsters is off the table because everyone

[1:19:30] loves that one.

[1:19:31] Number two question.

[1:19:33] The Adventure Zone crossover is one of my favorite episodes that you guys have done.

[1:19:37] Now I don't know your levels of experience with D&D are different between the three of you.

[1:19:41] Stuart reigns supreme here.

[1:19:43] But what are your favorite classes to play?

[1:19:45] I look forward to hearing your responses and whatever humorous tangents they lead to.

[1:19:49] Well, don't put too much pressure on us.

[1:19:50] Come on, dude.

[1:19:50] You can't ask for it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:52] Now it's not going to happen.

[1:19:53] Adam, last name would help.

[1:19:54] It's like going into a date and you're like, I'm looking forward to the sex we'll have tonight.

[1:19:57] It's like, well, you just made it not going to happen.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:00] And if it does happen, it's going to be mechanical and workmanlike.

[1:20:03] Yeah, because you're going out with a robot, dude.

[1:20:05] Because I consider the sex that I'm giving you, sir, as payment for the Olive Garden you put in my belly.

[1:20:11] Wow.

[1:20:13] I'm pretty mercenary when it comes to dating, Dan.

[1:20:15] When it comes to Olive Garden.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:17] You're here, you're family.

[1:20:19] And when I'm here, it's just to get some sweet breath sink before I bone down.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:23] It's a carbo load before I bone down.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:25] When you're here, you're a prostitute.

[1:20:28] My favorite Godzilla movies, I'll just get right off the bat, of the modern era, Godzilla Final Wars is super fun.

[1:20:35] There's a little bit too much fighting between humans and humanoid aliens where it's just Matrix-style martial arts.

[1:20:41] Some of that is good, goes a little too far.

[1:20:44] And I like that the morality of that movie is also weird.

[1:20:46] And that it seems to end with Godzilla and Minya forgiving America for dropping the atomic bomb on Japan.

[1:20:52] Not something they really have the right to do.

[1:20:55] But when I was a kid, for some reason I really loved Terror of Mechagodzilla.

[1:20:59] Which has Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, and Titanosaurus.

[1:21:02] And, I don't know, it's not particularly good.

[1:21:05] But for some reason I really liked it a lot as a kid.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:08] I don't really have a wide experience.

[1:21:10] So I saw Godzilla 2000 in the theaters and I had a ball.

[1:21:15] So I'm going to go with that because I don't have, as I said, a big frame of reference.

[1:21:20] Although, non-Godzilla kaiju, I enjoy watching Mystery Science Theater episodes with Gamera.

[1:21:27] With Gamera, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:29] There's this new Godzilla movie that's coming out that looks like it could be really good.

[1:21:33] What are you going to say, Stu?

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:35] I'm also going to pick a non-Godzilla kaiju movie.

[1:21:38] I was a sucker for Mothra for some reason growing up.

[1:21:42] I don't know if it was those little girls that were singing the Mothra song.

[1:21:44] I'd still call that a Godzilla movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:45] It's in the Godzilla-verse.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:46] But what I would also like to recommend is if you like kaiju and you like comics,

[1:21:51] run, don't walk to your local comic shop and pick up the comic book Kaiju Max by Xander Cannon.

[1:21:58] I'm a huge fan.

[1:22:01] It's a story about kaiju in a world where kaiju are kept on a prison island.

[1:22:09] So it manages to be very cartoony and colorful, but also a very dark prison drama.

[1:22:14] It's a pretty harrowing prison story.

[1:22:16] Yeah, exactly.

[1:22:17] And the writing manages to fit a lot of fun jokes and references to kaiju movies and monsters and stuff like that.

[1:22:25] And Xander Cannon's a great artist.

[1:22:26] Oh, and he's great.

[1:22:27] So if you get a chance, go check that out.

[1:22:28] And it's pretty, I think the first trade's only $10.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:32] But the second question was, what are favorite classes to play in D&D?

[1:22:36] And I don't know that Elliot and I have much to say about this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:40] To me, D&D is dinosaurs and diners.

[1:22:41] That's what I grew up with.

[1:22:42] So, Stu, you take this one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:45] So Elliot's obviously loves playing bards.

[1:22:48] He loves having to cease to talk and sing.

[1:22:50] That's pretty obvious.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:51] If I didn't play a druid, I think I would want to play a rogue.

[1:22:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:55] Maybe your druid could become a rogue.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:58] He became a bit of a rogue in an upcoming episode that we won't talk about because we're just teasing it now.

[1:23:07] But his personality underwent a radical shift.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:12] Very abrupt shift halfway through the adventure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:15] Perhaps he's finding that mystery that he's searching for.

[1:23:18] Yeah.

[1:23:18] That dark mystery of the universe.

[1:23:19] I would say I really like playing paladins because I like playing, I have a tendency to like playing really strong, really charismatic dudes.

[1:23:31] That might be a little bit dumb.

[1:23:33] Okay.

[1:23:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:35] That's adorable.

[1:23:38] Last letter of the evening.

[1:23:41] From Patrick Henry, last name withheld.

[1:23:44] Hey, floppos.

[1:23:45] I recently was flooded with terrible memories of times I showed girls movies I thought would make me seem interesting.

[1:23:51] Like when I was a freshman in high school and tried to impress me.

[1:23:54] I was a fresh man.

[1:23:58] I was going to let it go that he said freshman weird, but you passed on it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:02] You called me Prometheus.

[1:24:05] Someday we'll be a Soph Moore.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:07] I'll tell you something.

[1:24:08] I overpronounced it because this person wrote, like when I was a freshman in high school.

[1:24:14] So I was correcting a mistake in the letter.

[1:24:17] Like M-I-N?

[1:24:18] M-I-N.

[1:24:19] Yeah, like men of the fucking Mississippi dudes.

[1:24:22] Like multiple men.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:24] Okay.

[1:24:25] Oh, like multiple men.

[1:24:25] Jamie Madrox.

[1:24:26] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:27] So I was doing him a favor, but you called me out on it.

[1:24:31] I didn't.

[1:24:32] Stuart did.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:33] Don't look at me, sir.

[1:24:34] Take your accusing eyes and turn them to other way.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:38] Perhaps I'm simply an agent of Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:44] Who's really in charge of Stu?

[1:24:46] Stu or me?

Dan McCoy

[1:24:47] Like when I was a freshman in high school and I tried to impress a British girl by showing

[1:24:52] her Guy Ritchie's snatch.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:53] Just going to let him press go?

[1:24:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:57] Or later when I thought I would seem edgy by making a prospective mate sit through Darren

[1:25:03] Aronofsky's pie because Requiem for a Dream was too mainstream.

[1:25:08] Needless to say, these attempts were fruitless.

[1:25:10] Do you guys have any memories of times you tried to show someone you were romantically interested

[1:25:14] in a movie and in retrospect it was a poor choice?

[1:25:17] Patrick Henry's last name was held.

[1:25:19] P.S.

[1:25:19] The first movie me and my now partner for six years watched together was The Big Lebowski

[1:25:23] while my brother was passed down on the couch.

[1:25:25] So it all works out in the end.

[1:25:28] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:28] I mean, I certainly like, remember in high school showing a girl that I like.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:32] So wait, are we going to lay some ground rules and say this isn't an opportunity for us

[1:25:36] to just brag about all the times we totally hooked up with chicks while watching movies?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:40] No, we're only talking about times we didn't hook up with chicks.

[1:25:42] Okay.

[1:25:42] That like, when I was in high school I showed a girl Brazil because I was like, this movie

[1:25:47] is amazing.

[1:25:48] And she thought it was really weird.

[1:25:49] And I remember two times now I've taken women to see 2001 A Space Odyssey and have them

[1:25:56] one fall asleep during it and the other time my then girlfriend, now wife, we went to see

[1:26:03] the movie The Fall, which the...

[1:26:06] Yeah, your favorite movie.

[1:26:07] The Tar Sim movie, which is one of my favorite movies.

[1:26:08] And then I was like, 2001's playing at midnight, same theater, let's go to that.

[1:26:13] And the whole time she's like, ugh, like why are we sitting through this movie?

[1:26:17] It's so late and I'm so tired.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:20] Sarah and I, our taste movie was very close together.

[1:26:23] But I do remember one time when I was describing the plot of Audition to her and I was like making

[1:26:31] a point about, I was like explaining how this movie about torture was actually a movie about

[1:26:36] like feminism.

[1:26:37] Why did you ruin that movie for somebody?

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:39] Let them go into it fresh, dog.

[1:26:42] So she'll hate you for real.

[1:26:44] Yes.

[1:26:44] Why don't you watch it and then right at about the middle point you turn and just focus on

[1:26:48] watching the reactions.

[1:26:50] Put a camera on her.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:52] She almost immediately...

[1:26:53] Two girls, one cup this.

[1:26:54] She almost immediately was like, I'm not interested in hearing about this.

[1:26:57] I'm not interested in this movie.

[1:26:59] I don't care.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:00] No, but then she keeps saying deeper, deeper and you're like, what?

[1:27:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:06] Actually, the other night I was just, for some reason, Audition came up in conversation

[1:27:09] and I literally, all I told Danielle was that, oh yeah, and halfway through it turns out

[1:27:14] she's a crazy person.

[1:27:15] I won't tell you what happens at the end.

[1:27:17] And she said, thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:19] That's my favorite thing is when you're explaining something that you know the other person isn't

[1:27:23] interested in and you have that moment of realization.

[1:27:25] I think I was describing the plot of a Rick and Morty episode to my wife and I'm like, I should

[1:27:31] probably stop doing this, but I need to have some kind of like, I need to like wrap it up somehow.

[1:27:38] I need to give her a beginning, middle and end to this story.

[1:27:41] Because the lack of closure will be even worse than the time I'm taking for her life.

[1:27:44] Which episode?

[1:27:45] I think it was the Mr. Poopy butthole episode.

[1:27:48] Okay, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:49] Which is a great episode.

[1:27:50] There was a time at my old job when I was a production assistant where I somehow found

[1:27:54] myself going into a monologue with a couple of my coworkers about the greats of stop motion

[1:28:00] animation.

[1:28:02] And while I'm talking about how Willis O'Brien mentored Ray Harryhausen, in my head I'm like,

[1:28:09] why are you talking about this?

[1:28:10] They don't give a shit.

[1:28:12] Look at their faces.

[1:28:13] This is a waste of their time that I couldn't pull out of the dive.

[1:28:18] They're just like, no, I have to see this through.

[1:28:20] I'm going to tell them about Phil Tippett and then I'll just stop there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:23] To actually answer the question, I know at least two different women have fallen asleep

[1:28:28] while I showed them Conan the Barbarian.

[1:28:31] I, of course, stayed up for the entire movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:34] You weren't trying to impress them with Conan the Barbarian.

[1:28:37] You just like Conan the Barbarian.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:38] I think it's an awesome...

[1:28:39] I mean, I don't know.

[1:28:40] I don't want...

[1:28:41] I mean, I don't show women movies to impress them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:44] I mean, it's not...

[1:28:45] With this, I don't necessarily try to impress them.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:47] But you're like, this is cool.

[1:28:49] I want to share something that I love and I think it's cool.

[1:28:52] And I obviously could expound at length about why it's cool.

[1:28:56] But I never had the opportunity because they'd fall asleep.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:59] And I've told the story on here.

[1:29:01] I think this is not the same thing.

[1:29:02] But when I showed my wife the Iron Giant when we were first going out and I warned her ahead

[1:29:06] of time, like, I'm going to cry at this movie.

[1:29:07] And she was like, that's fine.

[1:29:08] That's okay.

[1:29:09] And then afterwards, she was like, I didn't think you were going to cry that much.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:15] It's like that much.

[1:29:16] I thought you were going to, like, tear up.

[1:29:17] But your face is all wet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:20] Still does it to me.

[1:29:21] Just think about that movie and it makes me cry.

[1:29:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:23] Yeah.

[1:29:23] It's like when I watch the end credits of Return of the King.

[1:29:26] I'm like, Charlene, get out of the room.

[1:29:29] Just don't look at me ever again.

[1:29:32] It can't be over.

[1:29:33] I'm going to be a mess.

[1:29:34] It can't be over.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:35] Take The Hobbit, which has almost no plot, and turn it into three movies, please.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:38] It's when they start doing the credits and they show, like, the, like, sketches of the

[1:29:43] different, oh, my God, I lose it every time.

[1:29:45] Oh, fuck.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:48] That's what we do now, Dan.

[1:29:49] The letters are done.

[1:29:50] Gone the sun.

[1:29:51] From the hills, from the whatever.

[1:29:53] This is.

[1:29:53] Off to the Gravens.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:56] Along with, I think, Bilbo.

[1:29:58] Yeah, this is the point in the Flophouse where we recommend movies that we actually like.

[1:30:03] Movies that might be a better way to spend your time than watching Victor Frankenstein.

[1:30:09] Although, again.

[1:30:10] That almost rhymed.

[1:30:11] I kind of liked it.

[1:30:12] But, let's go.

[1:30:16] Stewart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:17] Good turn.

[1:30:18] Sure.

[1:30:18] As Dan saw when I was yawning, he was looking at me, waiting for me to finish to answer.

[1:30:22] He then decided, you know what?

[1:30:24] I'll go to Stewart.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:26] It's not worth it.

[1:30:28] This guy can finish his involuntary.

[1:30:33] You guys going to vamp some more before I go?

[1:30:34] Stewart, go ahead.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:36] Your turn.

[1:30:37] So, at least, this movie is something that I'm surprised that I haven't recommended.

[1:30:42] But, I'm going to trust in the Flophouse recommends wiki, which is great.

[1:30:48] That shows that it hasn't been recommended.

[1:30:50] I'm going to recommend a Shocktober movie called The Howling, directed by Joe Dante.

[1:30:54] This kind of a horror classic about a couple.

[1:30:59] It's a reporter who goes through a traumatic experience.

[1:31:05] And she and her husband, as a means to kind of repair her emotional state and get her ready to go back to work,

[1:31:15] they go to a retreat up in the woods.

[1:31:19] And the people in the town and at the retreat slowly turn out to be more than what they seem.

[1:31:27] And it's definitely a very, like, kind of 70s, kind of gritty, little bit trashy movie.

[1:31:35] It's got some, I mean, it's called The Howling, so you know it's a fucking werewolf movie.

[1:31:39] So, no spoilers there.

[1:31:40] But it's got some really great practical werewolf effects.

[1:31:46] It's got a great sense of humor.

[1:31:48] It's a little bit sexy.

[1:31:50] So, you know, hey, date night's coming up.

[1:31:53] And, yeah, so check it out.

[1:31:54] The Howling.

[1:31:55] Oh, and a little bit of an update for those following this podcast, The Flophouse.

[1:32:00] I now watched a little bit more of Hard Target 2, including I just watched a scene where Scott Adkins riding a motorcycle shoots a net and then a missile at Rona Mitra

[1:32:12] while she pulls out two crossbow pistols and shoots crossbow darts at him.

[1:32:17] I'm not going to tell you how that scene ends.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:20] But are you still enjoying the movie?

[1:32:22] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:23] I'm totally enjoying it.

[1:32:24] I've got to dole it out in small portions.

[1:32:27] The ongoing saga of Stuart watching Hard Target 2.

[1:32:30] It's kind of like I'm edging myself a little bit.

[1:32:32] I don't want to give myself completely over to the pleasure.

[1:32:36] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:36] Dan, what are you going to recommend?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:38] I wish I had a Shocktober movie.

[1:32:42] I should have thought about this beforehand.

[1:32:45] I should have thought about this beforehand in a couple of different ways.

[1:32:48] I should have had a movie to recommend.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:51] I don't have a horror movie, but you want me to recommend a movie while you're doing that?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:55] The most recent movie that I watched that I enjoyed, and this is, as so often, a qualified recommendation from me,

[1:33:05] is a movie called Mr.

[1:33:11] Nice.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:13] Possibly featuring Jackie Chan.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:16] Possibly featuring one Jackson Chan.

[1:33:18] Mr. Right.

[1:33:19] This is the movie that I thought of last week when I was thinking of Mr. Nice Guy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:25] I don't mean to interrupt, Dan, but I kind of have to.

[1:33:27] Is Jackie Chan in this movie?

Dan McCoy

[1:33:29] Jackie Chan is not in this movie.

[1:33:34] Okay, good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:34] At least we had a...

[1:33:36] It took you a little bit of time to get there, but at least we have a real answer.

[1:33:39] A concrete idea of what the Jackie Chan quotient word J.C.Q. is of this film.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:45] Now, you know me.

[1:33:46] I'm a little easier on movies than I think either of you are, so take this with a grain of salt.

[1:33:51] But if you're looking for a very, very light movie to watch, if you're, I don't know, lazing around on the couch, need a pick-me-up, Mr. Right is a good one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:04] On a Sunday afternoon.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:07] It stars Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell, two people who are professionally good at being charming.

[1:34:16] And that's what they do in the movie.

[1:34:18] Stuart is putting his hand over his face.

[1:34:20] I don't know what it is about what I just said.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:22] I'm realizing what movie it is.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:23] And the moment when you thought about that movie and were like, is Jackie Chan in that movie?

[1:34:28] I didn't think it's Jackie Chan in that movie.

[1:34:30] I just got the title of it wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:32] Maybe he was like a side character.

[1:34:34] I got the title of it wrong.

[1:34:36] Maybe he had a cameo?

[1:34:38] Okay, sorry.

[1:34:39] No, they're great.

[1:34:40] I like Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.

[1:34:42] They're both really fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:43] Do they dance and or sing?

[1:34:45] Sam Rockwell does a bunch of dancing.

[1:34:47] Because he's Sam Rockwell.

[1:34:48] Because that's what he loves to do and he's good at it.

[1:34:51] And the main problem with the movie is it's one of these movies about a charming hitman.

[1:34:56] And as Elliot, yeah, Elliot is against that.

[1:35:00] Not a fan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:01] Again, if there had never been a movie about a charming hitman or a hitman with real problems,

[1:35:06] I'd be like, oh, that's an interesting twist.

[1:35:08] But there's been so many of them.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:10] What about, is it Tommy Flanagan?

[1:35:12] What's the name of hitman from DC's comics?

[1:35:15] That sounds about right, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:16] What about him?

[1:35:17] Do you like that guy?

[1:35:19] I mean, the thing about him is that his character is treated as someone who is morally compromised

[1:35:25] in a way that you haven't seen in like a superhero comic necessarily.

[1:35:29] So because it's a different medium.

[1:35:31] What about Taskmaster?

[1:35:32] Is he a hitman?

[1:35:33] Taskmaster is a trainer of other mercenaries and sometimes a mercenary himself.

[1:35:39] But he's also a skeleton.

[1:35:41] No, he just wears a mask.

[1:35:43] Okay.

[1:35:43] His original roots were he's the guy who trains thugs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:46] And he wears like buccaneer boots.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:48] He doesn't anymore again, but I like the old-fashioned one.

[1:35:51] Cape, buccaneer boots, skull mask.

[1:35:53] And he's got like a bone arrow and a sword and everything.

[1:35:56] And a shield.

[1:35:57] Yeah.

[1:35:57] But when Hitman the comic came out, we were not quite so overwhelmed with Hitman stuff.

[1:36:05] We were on our way.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:07] We weren't quite there.

[1:36:08] Let me just say, though, that if you remove the Hitman stuff from the equation, which you

[1:36:13] can't because it's a major part of the movie.

[1:36:16] But if this was just a movie about a scatterbrained woman falling in love with a really weird dude,

[1:36:26] it would be a lot of fun because those two, as I said, are charming as hell.

[1:36:32] And they do a really good job being charming together.

[1:36:37] But the Hitman plot does allow Tim Roth to have a role in the movie.

[1:36:42] And he's always fun to see.

[1:36:43] Oh, a united passion.

[1:36:44] So it's a movie that didn't get very good reviews.

[1:36:49] And I understand why.

[1:36:50] But it's got its own like offbeat charm that I responded to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:55] Mine is also kind of qualified recommendation.

[1:36:58] In fact, I'd almost like to make an assignment out of it for our more intrepid listeners.

[1:37:02] There is no deadline for this.

[1:37:04] And maybe there's a prize someday.

[1:37:06] But take your time with it.

[1:37:07] I'd like to recommend a movie that the first hour or so of it, first half of it, roughly,

[1:37:12] maybe 45 minutes, I was like, this movie is great.

[1:37:16] Why have I never watched it before?

[1:37:17] And then the second half, I was like, this movie doesn't know what the fuck it's doing.

[1:37:21] And that movie is The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, starring Paul Newman, directed by John Huston, written by John Milius.

[1:37:28] Of Conan the Barbarian.

[1:37:29] Of Conan the Barbarian fame.

[1:37:31] And the first, like I'm saying, first half of the movie is great.

[1:37:36] And like both, like funny, but also troubling.

[1:37:40] And there's an action scene where Paul Newman, as Judge Roy Bean, he's been attacked and left for dead by some people.

[1:37:46] He goes to their like hideout shack in the middle of this, you know, village that in the middle of nowhere.

[1:37:52] And murders all of them, but he's like running through the shack, then running around it, jumping in through another window, running back.

[1:37:59] And the way it's shot is so immediate and so visceral.

[1:38:02] It's something that, it's really exciting to see John Huston, who's a director from the golden age, you know, who's not, who didn't grow up with that kind of thing, doing more like handheld movement and things like that.

[1:38:12] It's really exciting.

[1:38:14] And there's, Anthony Perkins has a really fun role for a couple scenes in it.

[1:38:17] And it's, I can pinpoint the moment the movie goes bad.

[1:38:21] And it's the moment when John Huston shows up as Grizzly Adams and gives a lovable drunk bear to Judge Roy Bean as a pet.

[1:38:29] And Judge Roy Bean decides he's going to fall in love and it becomes not interesting.

[1:38:34] And then from that point on, it's jumping around into the future and stuff like, like the movie kind of doesn't know what to do after a certain point.

[1:38:41] And so my assignment to you, the listener, if you want to take it up, if you don't, that's fine too.

[1:38:45] Watch the life and times of Judge Roy Bean.

[1:38:47] Stop it at the moment Grizzly Adams shows up with his cart with a bear at it.

[1:38:51] Or watch the rest of the movie.

[1:38:53] But I would say stop at that point and then just say like, hmm, that was a good, very short movie.

[1:38:57] Or tell me what should have happened from that point on in the film to make it a more satisfying film.

[1:39:02] Because I honestly don't know.

[1:39:04] I've been trying to figure it out and I can't figure it out.

[1:39:06] So send in your answers to the Flophouse whenever you want.

[1:39:10] And send in the clowns.

[1:39:11] And send in the clowns.

[1:39:12] Mm-hmm.

[1:39:13] Those Laffy Daffy Clowns.

[1:39:15] Send in those soulful and doleful schmaltz by the bowlful clowns.

[1:39:23] That's the Simpsons version of it.

[1:39:26] And because it's Shocktober, why should I?

[1:39:29] I've been talking about how much I want.

[1:39:30] Wish Victor Frankenstein was directed by Stuart Gordon.

[1:39:33] Why not just go watch the next best thing?

[1:39:35] And that's Reanimator.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:36] Yeah, I mean.

[1:39:37] I'm sure you've seen it.

[1:39:38] Watch it again.

[1:39:38] It's great.

[1:39:38] This movie hits all of the story beats of Reanimator in a less good way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:44] Yeah.

[1:39:45] And so Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean if you want a challenge.

[1:39:49] But Reanimator, if you just want to sit there and watch a really great, fun, gross horror movie.

[1:39:53] Mm-hmm.

[1:39:53] That has one of the best jump cuts in film history.

[1:39:56] It's right up there, I think, with the ape man throwing a bone in the air and it turns into a space station in 2001.

[1:40:01] Which is when What's-His-Name is with his girlfriend teasing her.

[1:40:05] And she's going, no, no, no.

[1:40:07] And then it cuts to them having sex.

[1:40:08] And she goes, yes, yes, yes.

[1:40:10] It's such a ridiculous cut.

[1:40:13] So it's right up there with the smash cut that ends They Live.

[1:40:19] So.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:20] What's the matter, baby?

[1:40:21] Yeah.

[1:40:22] Cut to credits.

[1:40:23] And I feel like Reanimator has one of the best horror movie performances from, I guess, a villain with Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:33] Like, it's a star-making turn.

[1:40:36] And very much, he's playing what James McAvoy should have been in this movie, which is a character who is kind of the villain, but also kind of the main, the protagonist driver of the plot.

[1:40:48] Mm-hmm.

[1:40:48] In that, it's Herbert West's story, even if he's a crazy person who goes off the rails and does bad things, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:54] Yeah, he's a crazy person who has, like, you have to dial back the charm a little bit.

[1:41:02] Yeah.

[1:41:02] I don't know.

[1:41:03] There's something, because it's not like you are like, oh, I want to spend time with Herbert West.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:07] No, but he's so complete in himself.

[1:41:10] He's a character who doesn't care if the audience likes him.

[1:41:13] Yeah.

[1:41:13] And I really like that a lot.

[1:41:15] Like, he's, the contempt he feels towards everyone else in the movie, he also feels towards the audience.

[1:41:21] Yeah, that's fair.

[1:41:22] Anyway, yeah, go see Reanimator.

[1:41:24] It's Halloween times.

[1:41:25] Spooky.

[1:41:26] Regain Rattle.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:27] Spooky scary.

[1:41:28] Boogans.

[1:41:29] Clearable far mitzvah.

[1:41:31] So, yeah, this is the first, this has been the first Shocktober episode.

[1:41:35] There's two others to come in this Shocktober season.

[1:41:38] What?

[1:41:39] It's one of those rare three-episode Shocktovers.

[1:41:41] It only happens once every, I don't know.

[1:41:42] And all the twists and turns.

[1:41:44] Mm-hmm.

[1:41:45] Ups and downs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:45] Who knows how many more scenes from Paraturing 2.

[1:41:48] We'll see as Shocktober wends its way across the river Styx into the afterlife.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:55] What surprises does Shocktober hold?

[1:41:57] A couple.

[1:41:58] A couple.

[1:41:58] So, for the fly house.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:05] Yeah.

[1:42:06] Sell it.

[1:42:06] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:42:08] And I've been Stuart Wellington, seated, sultry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:13] And I'm the dearly departed Elliot Kalin, risen once more by the power of lightning.

[1:42:19] We should give ourselves spooky parody names like they do in the Halloween episodes.

[1:42:22] Yeah, next time.

[1:42:23] Next time.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:24] Surprises for next time.

[1:42:25] Bye.

[1:42:26] Bye.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:35] Hey, Dan, did you ever figure out if that was Jackie Chan in that movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:39] Here's the thing that I realized about that is that it's not like Jackie Chan makes more

[1:42:45] than one kind of movie.

[1:42:47] It's not like, oh, yeah, it was one of the musical romantic comedies that Jackie Chan did.

[1:42:54] That's why I got it mixed up.

[1:42:55] No, he only makes one kind of movie.

[1:42:58] Yeah.

[1:42:59] Martial arts films with a greater or lesser degree of comedy.

[1:43:01] He doesn't make locked room thrillers.

[1:43:05] He didn't.

[1:43:05] It was not like a science fiction epic about a world where dinosaurs have supplanted people.

[1:43:11] Like, he doesn't make those movies.

[1:43:12] He doesn't make those movies.

[1:43:13] He called Planet Chan.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:16] Chan it.

[1:43:17] Jackie Rassic Park.

[1:43:19] So, first we do the intro, and then we do the show.

[1:43:22] That's how it works.

[1:43:23] Sounds easy to me.

[1:43:24] Let's fuck it up.

[1:43:28] Maximumfun.org

[1:43:29] Comedy and culture.

[1:43:30] Artist owned.

S5

[1:43:31] Listener supported.

[1:43:33] The great questions of your life.

[1:43:35] The great questions of your life.

[1:43:37] Should you put ketchup on a hot dog?

[1:43:39] Put ketchup on a hot dog.

[1:43:40] Toilet paper.

[1:43:41] Over or under.

[1:43:43] Toilet paper.

[1:43:44] Star Wars.

[1:43:45] Star Wars.

[1:43:45] Or Star Trek.

[1:43:46] Or Star Trek.

[1:43:47] Fear not, my friends.

[1:43:49] Fear not, my friends.

[1:43:49] Mark and Hal always reach the definitive answer.

[1:43:52] Simply listen to We Got This with Mark and Hal every Tuesday at 9 p.m. Pacific on Maximum Fun.

[1:43:57] We Got This.

[1:43:59] Your better self is right around the corner.

[1:44:01] Namaste.

Ep.# 214 - Victor Frankenstein

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