Ep. #202 - Burnt

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[0:03] Which is how you're going to feel after you watch the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[0:06] Oh, brother.

[0:07] Well done.

[0:30] Hey, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[0:38] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:39] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:40] Welcome to the Flopcast Podhouse.

[0:42] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:43] Flop come well boho.

[0:44] I'm Elliot Kalin.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] That was just the three of us doing a thing called a podcast.

[0:50] And we heightened the bit each time.

[0:52] Dan, what does this podcast do?

[0:54] Or what is a podcast?

Dan McCoy

[0:55] Well, a podcast.

[0:56] There's a thing called Really Simple Syndication.

[0:59] Or RSS.

[1:00] You already lost me.

[1:02] All right.

[1:02] Well, anyway, this is a podcast.

[1:03] Is it related to Simple Syrup?

[1:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06] Too many tongue twisters.

Dan McCoy

[1:08] Really Simple Syndication is a syndication made up of equal parts sugar and water.

[1:13] Interesting.

[1:14] We call it Sugar Water.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17] Also the name of my ranch.

[1:20] Dressing?

Stuart Wellington

[1:22] My ranch dressing.

[1:24] Sugar Water brand ranch dressing.

[1:26] He still gets to wear a cowboy hat, even though it's just a dressing.

Dan McCoy

[1:30] I've tried to tell you that your salads are not healthy when you put that stuff on it, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35] That's covered in sugar, just like a salad should be.

[1:37] We call it candy salad.

Dan McCoy

[1:40] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:45] Candy corn would be in that salad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46] You know it.

[1:47] Candy corn, candy lettuce, candy radishes, candy garbanzos.

[1:51] There aren't existing things there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:52] Candy cucumbers.

Elliott Kalan

[1:55] What I'm doing is I'm taking candy and I'm sponge sugar and I'm putting it into a salad form,

[2:01] kind of tricking your eye and your tongue the way a chef would do.

[2:05] Why am I doing that?

[2:06] Molecular gastronomy.

[2:07] Exactly.

[2:07] Why am I indulging in this Cuisinart, if you will?

[2:11] I won't.

[2:13] Because I'm an asshole.

[2:14] Much like the lead character of our film, Bert.

[2:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[2:19] You said our film.

[2:22] We didn't make it.

[2:22] No, we didn't.

Dan McCoy

[2:23] In fact, I don't want any ownership stake.

[2:25] Can you prove you didn't make it, Stuart?

[2:27] Or should I say director John Wells?

Stuart Wellington

[2:30] There was a period of time where I blacked out and I don't remember very much.

[2:35] All I remember is...

[2:36] I'm covered in blood and receipts for making the movie burnt.

Elliott Kalan

[2:41] I have a vague memory of telling Bradley Cooper to kiss the Nazi soldier from Inglourious Bastards.

Dan McCoy

[2:48] My God, I made burnt!

[2:49] That's the main thing a director does.

[2:51] He just tells them to do a thing that's in the script.

Elliott Kalan

[2:56] I mean, kind of.

[2:57] Yeah, I guess.

[3:00] What part of directing is not that?

Dan McCoy

[3:01] It just seems like the script is really the driving force behind that scene rather than the director.

Elliott Kalan

[3:07] You think that because you're a writer, but you're so naive.

[3:10] The script is but toilet paper for the director and the actors to wipe their butts with as they make up a new story called Burnt.

[3:22] Rated R.

[3:23] It was right.

[3:24] For use of the word fuck twice.

[3:28] So, we watched this movie tonight.

[3:31] So, this was a Bradley Cooper vehicle.

[3:33] How many Bradley Cooper films have we seen on this show now?

[3:36] At least three.

Dan McCoy

[3:36] We saw the one about where he didn't have any limits.

[3:39] Mm-hmm.

[3:39] Valentine's Day.

Stuart Wellington

[3:41] The one where he took a pill.

[3:44] The one where he bid hello and goodbye to Hawaii in Aloha.

[3:49] Limitless.

[3:49] Shit.

[3:50] I forgot about Aloha.

[3:52] Yeah, me too.

[3:53] It's a great word.

[3:54] It means two things.

Dan McCoy

[3:56] So, Aloha.

[3:58] We just did that like four episodes ago.

[4:01] How did I forget?

Elliott Kalan

[4:02] Yeah, you had a pretty severe blow on the head from that pineapple afterwards, though.

Dan McCoy

[4:07] Why did I take a nap under that pineapple tree?

[4:10] I told you it was a bad idea.

Stuart Wellington

[4:12] But I wanted an upside down cake.

[4:15] And part of the recipe was have a guy sleep under it?

Elliott Kalan

[4:20] What magic cookbook is this?

Dan McCoy

[4:23] That reminds me of a cookbook that was sent in by a listener.

[4:31] And I don't have the person's name.

[4:33] I will thank them next episode.

[4:35] But a listener sent me a Williamsburg, a colonial Williamsburg cookbook.

[4:40] And I'm very charmed by these old cookbooks where they have things like turtle soup.

[4:48] If you're making turtle soup in the summer, kill the turtle at dawn.

[4:54] In the winter, kill the turtle at night.

[4:57] And I just love these old recipes.

Elliott Kalan

[4:59] Only find a turtle that has crawled across a crossroads where a burglar was hung.

[5:05] That's right.

[5:06] I mean, turtle soup is delicious.

Stuart Wellington

[5:08] And their flesh tastes way better depending on when you kill it.

[5:12] Okay.

[5:13] I mean, yeah, kind of.

[5:14] Like humans.

[5:16] I wouldn't know, Dan.

[5:17] You gotta get them when they're young.

[5:19] So we watched this movie Burnt with our boy.

[5:21] Only kids.

[5:23] With our boy Brad Coops.

[5:24] Yeah, yeah.

[5:25] A guy who, I mean, he has been in a lot of movies we've watched.

Elliott Kalan

[5:28] To put it in shorthand, we were hanging with Mr. Cooper.

[5:31] As is our want to do.

[5:33] Now, this movie, let's just say this.

[5:37] Like the other Bradley Cooper movies we've seen in the show, except for Limitless, there

[5:41] was no fantastical element.

[5:43] There was no horror or science fiction or action theme to it.

[5:46] It was just the story of one chef trying to claw his way back to the top by being a total

[5:52] douche to everybody.

Dan McCoy

[5:54] Yeah.

[5:54] And apparently his problem was, in the past, he was a douche.

[5:59] And the only way he can fix this is by being a different kind of douche.

[6:03] Yeah.

[6:04] A literal douche.

[6:05] What?

[6:06] He opens up a vagina cleaning place.

[6:11] He opens up a vagina cleaning place.

Elliott Kalan

[6:15] What if that was a Three Stooges short?

[6:17] Like instead of being plumbers, they were professional doogers.

[6:21] That dowager would have a lot more to complain about.

Dan McCoy

[6:26] I'm just imagining like a strip mall that just has like a sign that says,

[6:33] The Vagina Cleaning Spot.

[6:36] Yep.

[6:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:37] Honey, I'm going to step into Lens Crafters if you want to go into the Vagina Cleaning Spot.

[6:40] I'm going to go into Beyond Vape.

[6:43] You can go into there.

[6:45] Beyond Vape.

Dan McCoy

[6:46] I'm going to go step into Bed, Bath, and Beyond Clean Vagina.

[6:50] Because that's what you get.

[6:52] In the bath.

[6:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:54] Let's talk about the movie.

[6:55] So we open.

[6:56] Bradley Cooper is living in New Orleans.

[6:58] Uh-huh.

[6:58] And he's a fry cook somewhere.

[7:00] He's shucking oysters away.

[7:02] He's shucking oysters and he counts in a little book all the oysters that he shucks.

Stuart Wellington

[7:06] Now somewhere, Nicolas Cage is dealing with some stolen money.

[7:11] He's stolen gold and his daughter was kidnapped.

[7:14] My mistake.

[7:15] But I thought he burned the money.

Dan McCoy

[7:17] That was.

[7:18] He did burn the money.

[7:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] Yeah.

[7:20] He burnt the money early in the flashback.

[7:22] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[7:22] Which forces him to steal the gold.

[7:24] Yeah.

[7:24] Which is to get the girl.

Stuart Wellington

[7:28] Yeah.

[7:28] To catch the kid.

[7:29] To save the kingdom.

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] To swallow the fly.

[7:34] I don't know why he swallowed the fly.

Dan McCoy

[7:37] I guess he'll die.

[7:38] Eventually.

[7:39] I mean, we all will.

[7:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:41] A chilling reminder from L.A.

[7:43] So he's.

[7:44] Hey, it makes every moment that much sweeter.

[7:46] Wait.

[7:46] This moment.

[7:47] Hold on, guys.

[7:47] Don't talk.

[7:49] We just experienced a moment of life.

[7:51] And it's most basic.

[7:53] No talking.

[7:54] No thinking.

[7:54] Just existing.

[7:56] And we only have a limited number of those.

[7:57] It's gone now.

[7:58] And I guess.

[8:00] MaxFun.org slash donate.

[8:04] Is that still a thing that's happening?

[8:06] Yeah.

[8:06] I mean, sure.

[8:07] They can still do that.

[8:08] Okay.

[8:08] So.

[8:10] Bradley Cooper.

[8:11] He shucks his one millionth oyster.

[8:13] And then abruptly.

[8:13] He's been keeping a tally.

[8:14] Keeping a tally.

[8:15] Like.

Dan McCoy

[8:15] Moleskine.

[8:16] Was it literally a million oysters?

[8:18] He couldn't have shucked a million oysters.

[8:19] It was a million oysters.

[8:20] No one can shuck a million oysters.

[8:21] It took him a long time.

[8:22] Well.

[8:23] He didn't do it like one day.

Elliott Kalan

[8:24] Shuckifying machine.

[8:25] Like in Dr. Seuss's unpublished.

[8:28] Unpublished failure.

[8:30] Bartholomew blinks.

[8:31] Oster shucking machine.

Stuart Wellington

[8:35] You would have thought he would have come up with a better name.

Elliott Kalan

[8:37] This is why it was never published.

Dan McCoy

[8:40] Dr. Seuss's unpublished shuck a fuck of oysters.

Elliott Kalan

[8:43] His adult way.

[8:45] He briefly worked and it went into adult poetry.

[8:48] And oyster all shuck.

[8:49] And then she I will fuck.

[8:50] Said the man.

[8:51] With the aphrodisiac grin.

[8:53] From Canarka Canuck.

[8:55] And then there was the man from Gnorgula Hex.

[9:02] Who thought about nothing all day but just sex.

[9:05] It's very easy to write dirty Dr. Seuss rhymes.

Dan McCoy

[9:08] You can make up whatever.

[9:10] It's easy.

[9:10] It turns out it's easy to be a poet.

[9:11] You can make up whatever word you want.

Elliott Kalan

[9:13] When you're not restricted to the actual words in the English language.

[9:17] It opens up a world of possible rhymes.

[9:19] Just kidding.

[9:20] He was a genius.

[9:21] Anyway.

[9:21] So he walks out on his job.

[9:23] And then apparently walks from New Orleans to England.

[9:25] Yep.

[9:26] In London he meets up with a whole cast of characters that he knew in his previous life

[9:31] as a superstar bad boy chef.

[9:32] A whole cast of actors who are kind of slumming it I guess in this movie.

[9:37] I don't.

[9:37] I mean it's not.

Dan McCoy

[9:38] I mean this movie was supposed to be I think a big prestige.

[9:40] It's not a good movie.

Elliott Kalan

[9:42] But I don't even know about that.

[9:43] This is a throwback movie.

[9:44] Okay.

[9:44] The one thing I like about it.

[9:46] This is a throwback movie.

[9:47] It's a throwback to the era of like movies about people.

[9:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:52] It is a throwback to an era of movies about people.

Elliott Kalan

[9:54] Movies about people where there's no action.

[9:56] There's no like the stakes are relatively low and that it's just a person's life.

[10:00] Yeah.

[10:00] Like the kind of movies that James L. Brooks made so well.

[10:03] Yeah.

[10:04] That's true.

[10:04] Like it's a throwback.

[10:05] I don't think this was supposed to be like a $500 million movie.

[10:09] But it's not very good.

[10:10] Like they're not slumming it.

[10:11] No.

[10:11] But it's not very good.

Dan McCoy

[10:12] They thought.

[10:12] I mean I just meant they thought it was going to be maybe an awards contender.

[10:17] I feel like.

[10:17] Oh maybe.

[10:18] That's the only reason why these movies get made anymore is that they think that they

[10:22] might get awards.

[10:23] Acting awards.

Stuart Wellington

[10:24] I mean do you think that's.

[10:25] Do you think that's the case or that's just like our percent.

[10:27] Like are we just being pessimists and assuming that.

Elliott Kalan

[10:29] I mean I'm sure that the actors like being in movies where they can play parts and don't

Stuart Wellington

[10:33] have to do stunts.

[10:34] Like as soon as you see a drama for adults you're like oh yeah whatever.

[10:38] Just pandering to the.

[10:39] I don't.

[10:40] I feel like.

Elliott Kalan

[10:40] And then the joke is on them because you win Oscars for getting attacked by a CGI bear.

Dan McCoy

[10:43] I genuinely feel like that that might be true these days though with like the economics

[10:48] of movie making.

[10:49] It's either an indie movie or it's a blockbuster movie or it's a movie that's designed to try

[10:54] and get some sort of awards attention.

[10:56] And that.

[10:57] That.

[10:58] I'm not upset about that.

[10:59] Like that's why I don't mind that awards exist because that means that we get movies

[11:03] that are a different kind of movie.

Elliott Kalan

[11:05] I mean that's not that different from the way the old studio system worked where you would

[11:08] have.

[11:09] They would make their blockbuster films and their money making films and then they'd have

[11:12] their prestige pictures that were just meant to make the studio look good and not necessarily

[11:17] make a ton of money.

[11:19] Like they'd pour money into like a Shakespeare adaptation or something.

[11:23] No you're right.

Dan McCoy

[11:23] I'm being guilty of that thing that I hate.

[11:26] Which is like.

Elliott Kalan

[11:27] Well not thrown of blood.

[11:28] It's a Japanese movie.

[11:29] It's a different system.

Dan McCoy

[11:30] I'm being guilty of that thing that I hate which is believing that there was a time that

[11:34] was better than this time.

Elliott Kalan

[11:35] Oh in terms of filmmaking there were many times that were better than this time.

[11:39] Yeah.

[11:39] Listen to Elliot's fucking recommendations for a change.

[11:42] Thank you.

[11:42] I mean the difference is that back during that studio system the studios churned out so

[11:46] many dozens if not hundreds of movies that there was a higher average of movies

[11:51] that were good.

[11:52] Right.

[11:53] Whereas now and there was a lot of crap but there was more that was good and all the best

[11:57] talent was locked into slave like seven year contracts where they had no control over what

[12:02] they could make.

[12:04] The movies then you had the later eras where there was more freedom in filmmaking or even

[12:08] supposedly but now it's the era where it's just like everything's got to make a billion

[12:12] dollars or win an award or not get made.

Stuart Wellington

[12:15] So winning an award is part of I'm assuming the purpose of making a movie that wins an award

[12:20] is that it will also help it make money.

Elliott Kalan

[12:21] It definitely it's supposed to goose the money that it makes but it's you can also it's there's

[12:27] that belief that like this one doesn't necessarily make money but if if someone's billed as Academy

[12:33] Award winner Academy Award nominee in this other movie that'll help that one get attention.

[12:37] Like awards are a marketing thing.

Stuart Wellington

[12:39] Yeah I guess that makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[12:42] But anyway Burnt didn't win any awards.

[12:44] It was nominated for none.

[12:45] It's not very good.

[12:46] So he comes back to Bradley Cooper comes back to London where all these people he knew

[12:51] in Paris are now living.

[12:53] He was the what I guess executive chef.

[12:57] I don't know.

[12:57] A hot dog bad boy chef.

[12:58] A hot dog bad boy chef at a restaurant by a famous older chef named Jean-Luc.

[13:03] I think you're right.

[13:04] What was the name of that waiter in Paris?

[13:07] Jean-Luc.

[13:09] I haven't seen that commercial in so long.

Dan McCoy

[13:11] Well it hasn't aired in a long time.

[13:13] Was that for coffee or tea?

[13:14] Coffee.

[13:16] Coffee.

[13:17] I don't think.

[13:17] You don't just watch old commercials on YouTube anymore?

[13:20] I do all the time though.

Elliott Kalan

[13:21] Actually if I had more time there was a period when there were a bunch of compilations on

[13:25] YouTube that were just called 80s commercials and I would watch like 20 minutes worth at

[13:31] a time just being like I remember that one.

[13:33] Oh man that one.

[13:34] Every now and then a 70s commercial would slip in and I'd be like you didn't do your homework

[13:38] you do.

Stuart Wellington

[13:38] Lately I just keep seeing commercials for fucking Time Warner Cable where they basically

[13:44] are saying hey you know you used to be able to make a date with the Time Warner guy and

[13:50] you could do whatever you wanted because it took him forever.

[13:53] Well now you're not off the hook anymore.

[13:55] Now you have to go to work lazy slobs.

[13:57] And it's like fuck you dude.

[13:59] You were shitty at your jobs and now you think you're less shitty.

[14:03] Don't put that on me bro.

Dan McCoy

[14:05] Don't make me the bad guy.

[14:06] That's like the commercial I hated the most recently where they were like all through February

[14:10] Subway's footlongs are only six dollars.

[14:14] He's like fuck you.

[14:15] Like we don't remember that there were five dollars all the time before.

Elliott Kalan

[14:19] Don't try and make this like it's a special deal.

[14:22] I'm trying to think what commercials nowadays I hate but I just fast forward through all

[14:25] of them.

[14:26] Yeah.

[14:27] Those Zoom Zoom ads.

Stuart Wellington

[14:28] Do they still do those where the kid goes Zoom Zoom.

[14:31] At least Domino's had the goddamn fucking balls to admit their pizza was shitty.

Elliott Kalan

[14:37] Hats off to you Domino's.

[14:39] Tip of the cap to you guys.

[14:42] You can pour as much money into anti-abortion causes as you want now Domino's.

[14:47] I guess that was just the founder of Domino's who does that.

[14:49] Yeah.

[14:50] Yep.

[14:51] It's not like when you give the money to the delivery guy who puts it in a tube which

[14:56] takes it to like someone who blows up abortion clinics.

Dan McCoy

[14:59] Someone who's about to commit an abortion and he gets the money and he's like oh sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[15:04] Never mind.

Dan McCoy

[15:04] Maybe if you could pay me a little more.

Stuart Wellington

[15:07] The Noid is clearly a fiddly veiled abortionist stereotype.

Elliott Kalan

[15:12] Anyway.

[15:13] We've touched on a lot during this episode but very little on the movie.

[15:18] A lot of feelings.

[15:19] A lot of thoughts.

[15:19] He goes to London and first he goes to a hotel run by a guy named Tony played by the Nazi soldier from Glorious Bastards.

[15:27] And Tony is one of many old cohorts that he's going to try to corral into helping him get back to where he was.

[15:34] It turns out he's been sober for two years and now he's ready to go after the third Michelin star because he was a two star Michelin chef.

[15:43] Now I always thought that.

[15:43] Given out by the Michelin man.

[15:44] Well at one point they do go when the Michelin man comes into the restaurant it's like do not promise something the movie will not fulfill.

[15:52] Which is that Bibendum will walk into the restaurant with like a trench coat and glasses and a hat like the fucking thing in disguise.

Stuart Wellington

[16:01] Like a model.

[16:02] I'm late for my poker game.

Elliott Kalan

[16:05] The big stogie cigar.

[16:08] You throw around those five dollar words big brain.

[16:11] Anyway get me some duck confit.

[16:13] I gotta test it for my road guide.

Dan McCoy

[16:16] Give me some rubber confit.

Stuart Wellington

[16:19] Why is he eating what he's made out of?

[16:22] Why would he eat duck?

[16:24] Because it's delicious.

[16:25] Why does a tire eat a duck?

Elliott Kalan

[16:28] Didn't you ever see that movie Rubber?

Dan McCoy

[16:30] Oh okay.

[16:31] Who knows what that tire's gonna do.

[16:33] That's right yeah.

[16:33] Who knows what that wacky tire might do next.

[16:37] That was kind of the subtext of the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[16:39] Yeah I think that was the line on the poster.

[16:43] It was called Tires Day Out.

[16:48] Anyway look who's tired now.

[16:51] Feeling tired?

[16:52] Not yet.

[16:53] Watch Rubber.

Elliott Kalan

[16:54] It will put you too slizzy.

[16:58] It says Snoop Dogg.

[17:00] In his genre movies review column.

[17:02] In Cinescape I guess.

[17:06] Anyway so.

Dan McCoy

[17:07] It's Fangoria.

Elliott Kalan

[17:09] What a huge get that Snoop Dogg is writing this column for Fangoria.

[17:14] Cinescapes.

Dan McCoy

[17:16] It's called High Art.

[17:17] Didn't he sponsor those horror movies?

[17:21] Yeah he sponsored them.

[17:23] Yeah.

[17:23] He told those horror movies.

[17:24] His name was all over their cars.

[17:26] He told those horror movies that if they wanted to.

[17:27] He walked a certain number of miles.

[17:29] He would.

Elliott Kalan

[17:29] He put a dollar in a can.

[17:33] But Snoop Dogg had those horror movies right?

[17:35] Yeah yeah.

[17:36] It was.

[17:36] It wasn't.

[17:36] Just like he had Girls Gone Wild.

[17:38] Was it like Tales from the Dog Pound or something like that?

[17:41] Or Tales from the.

[17:42] He had his hand in a lot of pies.

Stuart Wellington

[17:44] Well there was Bones the movie he's in.

[17:47] Maybe I'm thinking of Bones.

[17:48] And the murder was.

[17:49] And the murder was the case video.

Elliott Kalan

[17:53] Anyway so.

[17:55] He finds the head of this hotel.

[17:57] Who is.

[17:59] Was he this.

[18:00] I don't remember what his relationship was.

[18:01] They all worked at this restaurant.

[18:03] Yeah.

[18:03] The legendary Jean-Luc who has since died.

[18:06] Is now.

[18:07] Was running.

[18:08] And his daughter was going out with Bradley Cooper.

[18:11] Bradley Cooper skipped out of town.

[18:13] After some kind of blow up.

[18:15] Involving.

Dan McCoy

[18:15] He's clearly like a figure of legend.

Elliott Kalan

[18:17] He's.

[18:17] Yeah.

[18:18] He's.

[18:18] Everyone remembers him.

[18:19] Everyone's like I thought you were dead.

[18:20] I thought you killed yourself by now.

[18:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:22] He was like a drunk and a heroin addict.

[18:24] Or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[18:24] He's slowly throughout the movie.

[18:25] He starts putting on a leather jacket.

[18:27] And then at one scene.

[18:28] He's riding a motorcycle.

[18:29] And it's like.

[18:29] Okay.

[18:30] So he's just kind of shelf Wolverine.

[18:32] Yeah.

[18:32] Because Wolverine already has knives that come out of his hands.

[18:34] Just go all the way and make him a chef.

[18:36] Who has knives that come out of his hands.

[18:37] For cutting things.

[18:38] But he's.

[18:39] He wants.

[18:40] He's a.

[18:40] Here's the thing.

[18:41] He's driven by his demons.

[18:43] The reason he did all those drugs.

[18:45] And that he.

[18:46] Seduced the boss's daughter.

[18:48] And then broke up with her.

[18:49] And ran out of the country.

[18:50] Is that he's driven to find perfection in food.

[18:53] And whenever he's confronted with the imperfect quality of reality.

[18:57] He can't take it.

[18:57] And he collapses.

[18:59] Sounds like an interesting character.

[19:00] Right?

[19:00] You'd be wrong.

[19:01] He's very boring.

[19:02] Instead he smugs.

[19:03] Not easy to sympathize with.

[19:04] Not at all.

[19:05] He smugs his way through every scene.

[19:07] Anything he wants.

[19:08] He almost instantly gets.

[19:10] Characters who have every reason to be mad at him.

[19:12] Just kind of roll over for him.

[19:13] Only one of whom is planning an elaborate revenge plot.

[19:16] That will unfold later.

[19:17] And so over the.

[19:18] One of them is a guy who.

[19:20] His sous chef.

[19:21] Michel.

[19:22] From the restaurant.

[19:23] Who's.

[19:23] It's a man's name.

[19:24] It's French.

[19:24] He's not.

[19:25] It's not Mary.

[19:26] Kate and Ashley Olsen.

[19:27] Thanks for reminding me.

Stuart Wellington

[19:28] I mean I'm talking to listeners.

[19:30] More even though I'm looking at you Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[19:32] He goes.

[19:34] He goes.

[19:34] On the opening night of my restaurant in Paris.

[19:36] You called the health inspector.

[19:37] And then released rats in my restaurant.

[19:39] And Bradley Cooper's like.

[19:40] Ha ha.

[19:41] I was a scamp.

[19:42] Which is crazy.

[19:44] And Bradley Cooper does a lot of pontificating about food.

[19:46] And how important it is.

[19:48] At one point he tells his chefs.

[19:49] I want people.

[19:50] After they eat here.

[19:51] To never want to eat again.

Dan McCoy

[19:53] Yeah.

[19:53] Which is.

Stuart Wellington

[19:54] It seems like a weird goal.

[19:56] No.

[19:56] You don't.

[19:57] You don't.

Stuart Wellington

[19:57] You don't repeat business.

[19:58] That's for sure.

[19:58] You want to.

[19:58] You want to tear your tongue out.

[20:00] Because you never want.

[20:02] Less good food to cross it.

[20:04] In the future.

Elliott Kalan

[20:04] It's like.

[20:05] You're like Sam Neill in Event Horizon.

[20:07] But with your tongue instead of your eye.

[20:08] Where are we going?

Dan McCoy

[20:09] We won't need tongues.

Stuart Wellington

[20:11] What a weird line that would have been.

Dan McCoy

[20:14] Where are we going Sam Neill?

Stuart Wellington

[20:16] Why are you saying that?

[20:17] Because you're clearly talking with a tongue.

[20:19] It's not like he's speaking in.

[20:21] Well I needed the tongue to tell you this.

Elliott Kalan

[20:22] And then I was going to take it out.

[20:24] He decides he's going to start his own restaurant.

[20:27] He's in.

[20:29] He's in competition with.

[20:30] What's his name from the Americans.

[20:33] Matthew Reese.

[20:34] Who was always like.

[20:35] Who was always the Salieri to his Mozart.

[20:37] Which they literally say.

[20:38] And now because I guess he wasn't a drug addicted fool.

[20:41] He has a big restaurant.

[20:42] That looks like heaven.

[20:43] Because it's all white walls and white plates.

Dan McCoy

[20:45] Or a genius bar.

Elliott Kalan

[20:47] One or the other.

[20:48] Have you ever had a genius bar?

[20:50] It's delicious.

[20:50] And you feel.

[20:51] And you feel smarter afterwards.

[20:52] The secret.

[20:54] It's full of limitless.

[20:57] The secret ingredient is limitless.

Stuart Wellington

[20:59] Okay.

[21:00] You got me with the limitless reference.

[21:02] He also.

Elliott Kalan

[21:04] Limitless.

[21:04] He meets a lady chef.

[21:06] Uh huh.

[21:07] Played by.

[21:08] Sienna Miller.

[21:09] Who at first does not want to work for him.

[21:11] Because he's a jerk.

[21:12] But then.

[21:13] She has to work for him.

[21:14] Because he arranges for her to be fired by her boss.

[21:16] To go work at his restaurant.

[21:19] And.

[21:19] Long story short.

[21:21] He's a jerk to everybody.

[21:23] He assembles his team of chefs.

[21:25] Uh.

[21:26] As if he's putting together a heist.

[21:28] For a very boring movie.

[21:29] Which this is.

Stuart Wellington

[21:30] The movie he references.

[21:32] Seven Samurai.

Elliott Kalan

[21:33] He says he wants his chefs to be like Seven Samurai.

[21:35] Meaning I assume that.

[21:35] He references.

[21:36] By the end of the film all but three will have died.

[21:38] Mm hmm.

Dan McCoy

[21:38] He references this to Emma Thompson by the way.

[21:40] Who is employed to make sure that he stays off the drugs.

Elliott Kalan

[21:44] Yeah.

[21:44] She's a therapist.

[21:45] And she gives him drug tests.

[21:47] And.

[21:48] Yeah.

[21:48] Picks up a paycheck for probably like three days.

Dan McCoy

[21:50] Which I just mentioned to show how overqualified the cast for this movie is.

[21:55] Laurence Olivier is in this movie.

[21:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:57] And he doesn't even appear on camera.

[21:59] You just know he's around.

Dan McCoy

[22:02] They just had his bones on set.

Elliott Kalan

[22:04] Yeah.

[22:04] Just like the show Bones.

[22:05] Or that Snoop Dogg movie Bones.

[22:07] Mm hmm.

[22:07] Starring Laurence Olivier.

[22:09] As the bones.

[22:11] Uh.

[22:12] They.

[22:13] They put the restaurant together.

Stuart Wellington

[22:15] We learned.

[22:15] Uh.

[22:15] We learned what a sous vide machine is.

[22:17] Yeah.

[22:18] He's been so out of the game.

Elliott Kalan

[22:19] He doesn't know what sous vide is.

[22:21] Yeah.

[22:22] He is.

[22:23] He doesn't seem to know that much about being a chef.

[22:26] For being a like.

[22:28] Superstar chef.

[22:30] Uh.

[22:30] Unfortunately when they're about their.

[22:31] When they're about to open the restaurant.

[22:33] A reporter.

[22:35] Got a leaked copy of his menu.

[22:37] And wrote a bad review of the menu.

[22:39] And so a couple tables don't show up.

[22:41] And the.

[22:42] The staff of the restaurant is not yet a fully cohesive team.

[22:46] And Bradley Cooper loses his shit.

[22:48] And he starts throwing plates all over the place.

[22:50] And getting really mad.

[22:52] Is that when he throws the plates around?

[22:54] Or is it later?

[22:54] Yeah.

[22:54] That's when he throws the plates around.

[22:55] He's throwing plates around.

[22:56] It's one of a couple different blow ups that he has.

[22:59] Uh.

[22:59] Allah the film blow up.

[23:00] Another better movie than this one.

[23:02] And.

Elliott Kalan

[23:02] He's.

[23:03] Uh.

[23:05] He.

[23:06] Then he.

[23:06] He says I'm going to apologize to everybody who dined here.

Stuart Wellington

[23:10] And then.

[23:10] And give them a full refund.

[23:12] Yeah.

[23:12] Which.

[23:12] They don't address exactly how much these people are being charged for their crazy.

[23:17] Uh.

[23:17] Like.

[23:19] Uh.

[23:19] Like sauce splattered plates.

[23:21] But.

[23:21] I'm assuming it's a shitload of money.

Elliott Kalan

[23:23] Hundreds.

[23:23] If not thousands.

[23:24] Uma Thurman's in the movie very briefly.

[23:26] He has a restaurant critic who he wows and then fails to wow.

[23:30] Uh.

[23:30] Then.

[23:31] Everything's okay again.

[23:33] The restaurant goes back to business.

[23:35] And everything's going fine.

[23:36] They get a good review on their second day.

[23:38] And so.

[23:39] Everything's good for a little bit until.

[23:42] What they think are some Michelin judges come in.

[23:46] Uh huh.

[23:46] The Michelin men.

[23:47] There's an.

[23:48] Yeah.

[23:48] There's an elaborate code.

[23:50] Where they order half a bottle of wine.

[23:52] And two bottles.

[23:53] A glass of tap water.

Dan McCoy

[23:54] Different color of bandanas.

[23:55] That they wear in their back pockets.

Elliott Kalan

[23:56] And yellow bandana means you're a Michelin star judge.

[23:59] And red bandana means you're a top.

[24:03] That spins around.

[24:04] Yeah.

[24:05] You're a whirling dirt.

[24:06] What did you think I meant?

[24:07] Like a dreidel.

[24:08] Yeah.

[24:08] Exactly.

[24:09] And so.

[24:10] Uh.

[24:11] And.

[24:12] The.

[24:12] And black means you're a bottom.

[24:15] In Midsummer Night's Dream.

[24:16] Oh.

[24:17] Congratulations.

Dan McCoy

[24:18] Yeah.

[24:18] We got the part.

Elliott Kalan

[24:19] Yeah.

[24:19] William Shakespeare's immortal comedy of love and magic.

[24:22] Perhaps the most.

Dan McCoy

[24:22] In the woods of ancient Greece.

Elliott Kalan

[24:25] Perhaps the most enjoyable part in the play.

[24:27] Bottom.

[24:28] For sure.

[24:29] Yeah.

[24:29] I mean.

[24:30] If you don't count Puck's speech at the end.

[24:32] Then yes.

Stuart Wellington

[24:33] Now guys.

[24:34] I don't know if I've ever told you this.

[24:35] But when I was.

[24:36] But a little baby.

[24:38] Uh huh.

[24:39] My mother was the head of her English department.

[24:40] And the theater department.

[24:42] And she.

[24:43] Was.

[24:44] Uh.

[24:44] She was the director for the high school play.

[24:46] Okay.

[24:46] Which was Midsummer Night's Dream.

[24:48] And I got to be the baby in it.

[24:50] Oh.

[24:50] That's cool.

[24:51] Wearing a golden diaper.

[24:53] Wait.

[24:53] Where's the baby?

[24:54] Which is soiled.

[24:54] I forget where the baby is.

[24:55] Oh.

[24:55] Fucking know.

[24:56] I was a baby.

Elliott Kalan

[24:56] The baby's the whole reason that Oberon and Titania are mad at each other.

[25:00] I assume it's that baby.

Stuart Wellington

[25:02] No it was the other cooler baby that skateboards across the fucking stage.

[25:06] It was baby Herman.

Elliott Kalan

[25:08] It was baby Huey who shows up.

[25:12] It was the Lindbergh baby.

[25:14] Sir William.

[25:15] That's what happened to him.

[25:16] You've got to remove the part when enormous retarded duck baby in the diaper waddles across

[25:22] the stage and knocks all the scenery down.

[25:24] But it's the heart of the play.

[25:26] That's the other thing.

[25:27] We've got to change the name.

[25:27] We don't use that word.

[25:28] It's not a Midsummer Night's Huey's Dream.

[25:30] They can say retarded because it's Elizabethan England.

[25:32] They were very, very offensive back then.

[25:35] Tasteless.

[25:35] Now, he gets really mad because things don't go right with the Michelin men.

[25:43] They send their food back.

[25:46] He didn't taste the food that went out.

[25:47] He just asked Michelle if it was good.

Stuart Wellington

[25:49] He was too busy having suffered a beating at the hands of some drug dealers.

[25:54] One of his many sins of the past.

Elliott Kalan

[25:57] The drug dealers want their money back and they show up every now and then.

[26:00] And this one time they beat him up.

Dan McCoy

[26:02] It's just $2.

[26:03] It's like you're better off dead.

[26:04] Yeah.

[26:05] He will not give it back.

Elliott Kalan

[26:06] It's the principal, he keeps saying.

[26:07] The principal of the thing.

[26:09] That's when Principal Belding shows up.

Dan McCoy

[26:11] Me?

[26:12] No, not you, Dennis Haskins.

[26:13] Get out of here.

Elliott Kalan

[26:16] He gets beaten up.

[26:17] And so he's kind of like, oh, what?

[26:19] Oh.

[26:20] Michelle sends the food out.

[26:22] They send it back.

[26:23] They say it's too spicy.

[26:24] It turns out Michelle put pepper in the food as revenge for the rat trick.

[26:31] Not hat trick, which would have been a great achievement.

[26:34] Three points?

[26:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:36] In what sport?

Elliott Kalan

[26:38] Hokai.

[26:39] Hokai.

[26:40] Right?

[26:41] Oh, sorry.

[26:41] Yokai.

[26:42] Yeah.

[26:42] The Japanese demons.

[26:44] Mm-hmm.

[26:45] And he walks out.

[26:48] Uh-oh, this is bad.

[26:49] And Bradley Cooper goes on another bender.

[26:52] He wanders off into the night, gets drunk somewhere, shows up at his rival's restaurant,

[27:00] and attempts to kill himself by sous-vying his own head.

Dan McCoy

[27:02] Yeah, he sticks his head in a sous-vied bag and just, you know, he just clamps it down,

[27:08] basically.

Stuart Wellington

[27:08] It's one of many.

[27:09] They're just like wrestling to get this bag off his head.

[27:12] It's one of many tantrum scenes from Bradley Cooper.

[27:15] And, you know, he does an admirable job of freaking out.

[27:19] He's not bad at that.

Dan McCoy

[27:21] If he had been allowed to kill himself, his head meat would be so tender.

Elliott Kalan

[27:25] Well, there's a different version of this movie where, I guess the Brian Fuller version of

[27:28] the movie, where he sous-vies his own head and his enemy serves it and has a bunch of puns

[27:35] about it.

[27:36] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[27:37] Well, and then the critic eats it and is like, a million Michelin stars.

Elliott Kalan

[27:43] A million Michelin stars.

[27:45] How ironic he finally achieved his dream in one form or another.

[27:49] That's the weirdest Kripke bro-impression I've ever heard from you.

[27:52] It was not Kripke bro-impression.

Dan McCoy

[27:53] It was just kind of like an ironic thing.

[27:55] He was at the head of his profession.

[27:59] That's pretty good.

[28:01] Yeah, I guess so.

[28:03] I'm just staring off at his face.

[28:04] You can't see me on the podcast, but I'm committing.

[28:08] I'm committing.

[28:09] I didn't know I ordered the head of cheese.

Stuart Wellington

[28:12] I'm glad I was sat at the head of the table.

Elliott Kalan

[28:17] I guess the problem was he didn't have his head in the game.

[28:21] Wipe out.

[28:26] That is the song that I have a great video of my son dancing to while I sing it in an annoying

[28:32] way that way.

[28:34] And he refused to let me stop singing it.

[28:36] And I got tired of it before he did.

[28:39] So I guess they say the DNA gets purer with every generation.

Dan McCoy

[28:42] I'm almost sure I can imagine exactly how he's dancing to that song.

[28:46] I think you've seen it.

[28:47] You've seen his pants off kitchen dance, right?

[28:49] That makes it sound a lot weirder than it was.

Elliott Kalan

[28:52] Just because my two-year-old son after dinner will often ask me to take his pants off so

[28:56] he can dance in the kitchen before his bath.

Stuart Wellington

[28:59] That's the best part is that he needs you.

[29:01] He requires you to remove those pants.

Elliott Kalan

[29:03] He gets really mad if I'm not home when he gets home from playing in the afternoon to

[29:07] take his shoes off.

[29:08] And I'm like, what kind of monster have I created?

Dan McCoy

[29:11] But anyway.

[29:12] I wish that...

[29:13] I mean, I guess I might...

[29:15] Who wouldn't want someone to take their shoes off when they get home?

[29:17] I guess that I have the power.

Elliott Kalan

[29:20] Of Grayskull.

Dan McCoy

[29:20] I'm an adult.

[29:21] If I want to do a pants off kitchen dance, I can do it.

[29:24] Anytime you want.

[29:25] Yeah.

[29:26] Go right now.

[29:27] But, uh...

Stuart Wellington

[29:29] Yeah, you can do it right now.

[29:30] Nobody will know.

[29:32] Except Jess.

[29:32] You wouldn't judge me.

[29:33] No, I mean, I'll put...

[29:35] I'll cover my eyes probably.

[29:36] Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna vine it.

[29:37] It'll be distracting.

[29:39] Hold on, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[29:41] Look at him go.

[29:42] Oh, he's doing it.

[29:45] Oh, propeller, huh?

[29:47] Okay.

[29:48] Yeah, I didn't realize you were commandoing it, Dan.

[29:52] So, he...

[29:53] That was refreshing, guys.

[29:55] But he does not succeed in cooking his own head.

[29:59] What's the story that's in that Poe trilogy that Fellini...

[30:03] Was it the man who sold his own head or the man who bet his own head?

[30:06] Never bet your head to the devil?

[30:07] Something like that.

[30:08] Jesus, I don't know.

[30:09] The one with Terrence Stamp in it.

Dan McCoy

[30:11] Oh, isn't that Toby, dammit?

[30:14] That's the...

[30:15] No, that's a different...

[30:16] That's a different movie.

Elliott Kalan

[30:18] Anyway, I can't remember the name.

[30:19] There's a three...

[30:20] There's an anthology Poe movie and Fellini did one of them.

[30:22] I think it's...

[30:24] Yeah, I can't remember what it is.

[30:25] Something about your head and betting or the devil or something.

Stuart Wellington

[30:27] Anyway, the...

[30:28] Terrence Stamp.

[30:29] It was probably Star Wars Episode I of Phantom Menace.

[30:34] Exactly.

[30:34] That's exactly what it was.

[30:36] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[30:38] So, was it Terrence Stamp?

[30:40] No, I can't.

[30:41] No, I'm not even sure.

[30:43] So, he does not kill himself.

[30:45] Instead, his enemy says,

[30:46] Hey, I made you some scrambled eggs.

[30:48] So, you slept it off.

[30:49] It's the morning out.

Dan McCoy

[30:49] Yeah, it was a real big night situation.

Elliott Kalan

[30:51] And you know what?

[30:52] Our rivalry is good because it pushes me to try harder.

[30:55] Because you're the better chef, but you're forcing me to challenge myself.

[30:57] So, good on you.

[30:59] And Bradley Cooper goes back and he learns a valuable lesson about family because his Sienna Miller chef makes him cook a cake for her daughter.

[31:08] Bake a cake for her daughter's birthday because she has to work on her daughter's birthday.

[31:12] And they find out it wasn't actually the Michelin judges that night.

Stuart Wellington

[31:16] Well, that's that great scene where he flirts with her daughter by licking, frosting off his fingers over and over.

Elliott Kalan

[31:22] He serves her a cake and she gives him a piece.

Dan McCoy

[31:25] Daughter is, by the way, like eight, I would say, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[31:28] Eight and a half.

[31:29] Another Fellini reference.

[31:30] Anyway.

[31:31] Yeah, she's a little kid.

[31:33] And he's like, look.

[31:34] The thing is, Bradley Cooper.

[31:35] Oh, here's what I was going to say before.

[31:37] I'll say Bradley here.

[31:38] Bradley Cooper doesn't know how to play adorable.

[31:40] He just knows how to play smoldering.

[31:41] So, he's just got his heavy-lidded blue eyes looking up at this little girl as he licks frosting off his fingers.

[31:46] It's disgusting.

[31:48] I think it's supposed to be playful.

[31:50] It does not come off like that.

[31:51] No, it comes off as like Humbert Humbert would be like, you're grossing me out.

[31:55] This is disgusting.

Dan McCoy

[31:57] I mean, inherently licking frosting off.

[31:59] I don't know if there's a...

[32:00] I mean, like...

[32:01] The way he does it.

[32:02] An adult looking at a child licking frosting off of the fingers.

[32:06] I don't know if there's a way of doing that that's not...

[32:08] Creepy?

Elliott Kalan

[32:09] Creepy.

[32:09] But here's the thing about Bradley Cooper.

[32:11] He plays a man who is losing control in a rage-filled way very well.

[32:18] Like, I don't know anything about his personal life, but he plays it like a guy who knows what it feels like to do that.

[32:23] And is able to channel it for roles.

[32:25] And like, I think he was so good in Silver Linings Playbook.

[32:28] Partly because he seems to know what it feels like to not totally be in control of yourself.

[32:34] And be able to relive that experience.

[32:35] And that's really good acting.

[32:37] I wish he had brought some of that to Aloha.

[32:39] Which he didn't.

[32:40] And that was like one of the big weaknesses of that movie.

[32:43] Yeah.

[32:44] But he brings it...

[32:46] And the script.

[32:46] Yeah.

[32:47] Whereas here, the weakness is mainly just the script.

[32:50] Yeah.

[32:51] But he finds that it wasn't the real Michelin ones.

[32:53] It's already been established that Tony, who is the guy who...

[32:56] Tony, Tony.

[32:56] Who runs the hotel where the restaurant is.

Stuart Wellington

[33:00] What?

[33:00] It feels good.

Elliott Kalan

[33:02] Tony, Tony, Tony.

[33:03] That he has a crush on Bradley Cooper.

[33:06] He tells Bradley Cooper they weren't Michelin judges.

[33:08] They were software engineers from Birmingham.

[33:10] And Bradley Cooper's so happy he kisses Tony.

[33:12] Which is kind of cruel.

Dan McCoy

[33:13] Which is the cruelest thing you can do to someone who has a crush on you.

[33:16] It's like, you're gay.

[33:16] You have a crush on me.

Elliott Kalan

[33:17] I'm going to kiss you once.

[33:18] Just know it's never going to happen again.

Dan McCoy

[33:20] Like, this is...

[33:21] I'm throwing you a bone, buddy.

[33:22] Here you go.

[33:23] This is what you could have.

[33:23] No, it's the opposite of throwing him a bone.

Stuart Wellington

[33:25] He just...

[33:25] Well, not the opposite.

[33:27] But it's like...

[33:27] He just throws him a lips.

[33:29] Yeah, that's right.

[33:30] He throws his lips at him.

Elliott Kalan

[33:32] Bradley Cooper falls in love with Sienna Miller's sous-chef character.

[33:36] Uh-huh.

[33:36] Or whatever she is.

[33:37] Chef to whatever.

[33:38] Yeah, Kelsa Parise, dude.

[33:40] Just call her sous-chef.

[33:42] Over the...

[33:42] Terrible.

[33:44] I wish I had thought of it.

[33:46] Over the course of the next montage, he learns to be a better person.

[33:50] He starts working as a teammate with his chef guys.

[33:53] And then...

[33:54] Chef guys.

[33:55] The real...

[33:56] His chef team.

[33:56] His chef's...

[33:57] Five chef guys.

[33:58] Yeah.

[33:59] He...

[34:00] The real Michelin judges come in.

[34:03] And they...

[34:03] He says, what do they do?

[34:04] What do we do?

[34:05] And Bradley Cooper says, we're just gonna do what we do.

[34:08] Like we do every day.

[34:10] And...

Stuart Wellington

[34:10] So he's not chasing that star anymore, right guys?

[34:12] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:13] He's chasing...

[34:13] He realized, you know what this is about...

[34:15] Food is about people.

[34:16] Because he's Hannibal the cannibal.

[34:18] Oh, okay.

[34:19] And he's gonna cook his own head and eat it himself.

[34:21] The ultimate decadence would be to eat your own head.

[34:25] Mm-hmm.

[34:26] But he realizes, you know what?

[34:28] It's okay to rely...

Dan McCoy

[34:28] Mess with the head and your fed.

[34:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:34] It's okay to rely on people.

[34:36] And this is what family is all about.

[34:38] Hey, everybody.

[34:38] Let's make ourselves a big meal in the kitchen.

[34:40] Because we're great chefs.

[34:41] We should eat some of it.

[34:43] The end.

[34:44] Do we...

[34:44] And we do...

[34:45] I don't think we find out if he gets the Michelin stars.

[34:47] No, we do.

[34:47] We can...

[34:48] There's just like a wordless scene where like...

[34:50] You just get the idea that something good happened.

[34:53] Yeah.

[34:53] But they could just as well be smiling because they had a good night working together.

[34:57] Yeah.

[34:58] A big night, if you will.

Stuart Wellington

[34:59] Go watch Big Night instead of this movie.

[35:01] Yeah, that's what he was telling them.

[35:02] He's like, hey, buddy.

[35:03] I watched Big Night last night.

[35:05] He's like, oh, I love that movie.

[35:09] Yeah, this is...

Elliott Kalan

[35:10] So you got a movie about a character who has a history of drug addiction and anger and rage problems.

[35:17] And is trying to reestablish himself professionally.

Stuart Wellington

[35:21] And we meet that character after he has theoretically gotten over that stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[35:25] He's hit rock bottom and he's gone through his repentance in Atonement, which I assume is this shucking of a million oysters.

[35:31] Yeah.

[35:32] And so now he should be well on the road to being a better person.

[35:36] He is not.

[35:37] And yet we don't see him when he's at his worst.

[35:39] And yet we don't see him struggle to become better.

[35:43] He just...

[35:43] Everything just kind of happens.

Stuart Wellington

[35:45] Do you think if this was a heist movie instead of a chef movie, his weird overconfidence and like...

[35:53] Like glibness would work?

Elliott Kalan

[35:57] Uh, I don't think so.

[35:59] Because my problem with the movie isn't even his overconfidence and his glibness.

[36:03] It's that there are little to no obstacles in his path.

[36:06] And any that arise, he overcomes almost instantly.

[36:10] Sometimes by throwing a tantrum.

[36:11] Yeah.

[36:12] I mean, the total lack of steaks bothered me.

Stuart Wellington

[36:14] I wish they'd...

[36:15] He keeps mentioning the team.

[36:16] He never cooks steak.

[36:17] Yeah, exactly.

[36:19] Uh, yeah.

[36:20] What's going to get burned if all you're doing is throwing shit in a fucking water bath?

[36:24] Uh, so...

[36:26] But...

[36:26] So, part of the point is that this character has realized that his, like, team are his family.

[36:34] But aside from Sienna Miller's character, we don't really see anybody else outside work, really.

Elliott Kalan

[36:39] No, there's a couple scenes where he picks people up to join the team.

[36:42] And we never see him interact with them in a meaningful way again unless he's yelling at them.

Stuart Wellington

[36:47] The only person who, like, the story of this movie seems to really affect is him.

[36:53] Yeah.

[36:54] We don't know what would happen if they don't do well in the kitchen.

[36:58] Like, are people going to starve?

[37:01] Is the restaurant going to go out of business?

Elliott Kalan

[37:03] I mean, I'm glad that they didn't set up the steak so high that everyone in the restaurant needed this.

[37:07] And there was, like, ten stories of woe or something.

[37:10] But yeah, it would have been...

[37:11] It would have been...

[37:12] Sounds like a Will Eisner comic.

[37:16] The restaurant, colon, ten stories of woe.

[37:20] And everyone's Yiddish.

[37:22] That's a Jewish deli.

[37:24] I don't know why I was thinking that it was ten stories of woe.

Dan McCoy

[37:26] Like, an apartment with ten stories.

Elliott Kalan

[37:29] Yeah, yeah.

[37:30] It's a super sad apartment building.

[37:31] Yeah.

[37:32] All right.

[37:34] But...

[37:34] It's like a sideways stories from Wayside School.

Stuart Wellington

[37:36] That would be a Will Eisner thing.

[37:37] Sad stories from Wayside School.

[37:39] Sad wise stories.

Elliott Kalan

[37:40] This student killed themselves.

Stuart Wellington

[37:42] Sad stories from Wayside School.

[37:45] Is that one of the whole stories?

[37:48] Like, on one page, that's all it says?

[37:50] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:52] But there's just...

[37:53] There's never a moment when you don't...

[37:56] When you worry about any of the characters.

[37:59] But especially not the hero.

[38:00] And, like, if he was an asshole, but the movie made him pay for it, I would be okay with that.

[38:06] And yet, even the fact that he gets beaten up by drug dealers and almost doesn't get a Michelin star.

[38:13] Like, it never felt like he was being punished for his sins or working to really improve himself.

Stuart Wellington

[38:18] I was surprised at how sympathetic the Tony character was.

[38:23] Yeah.

[38:24] Like, that character I cared about a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[38:26] The two characters, honestly, that I felt an emotional connection to were Tony, who is reluctantly pulled back into Bradley Cooper's orbit and wishes he knew how to quit him.

[38:37] Yeah.

[38:37] And his rival...

[38:41] Matthew Rhys.

[38:42] I can never remember Matthew Rhys' first name.

Dan McCoy

[38:43] Who you're sympathetic with because he had such a terrible goatee.

[38:47] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[38:47] Because they had to ugly him up because he's such a charismatic actor with that gross mustache and stubble.

[38:53] But I feel like in the few scenes he's in, he sketched in a character of someone who has always been second place and could only become first when the other guy destroyed himself.

[39:06] That it was like, oh, this is a guy who is living with the disappointment of, like, he's never going to be the best.

[39:13] He is the Dave Mustaine of these characters.

Stuart Wellington

[39:16] Thanks for putting in words I understand.

Elliott Kalan

[39:18] Like, Megadeth is great, but they're never going to be as big as Metallica.

[39:22] And he could have been in Metallica if he hadn't pissed everybody off and been so mean to...

[39:28] Was it Hetfield's dog?

[39:29] Somebody's dog.

[39:30] Yeah.

[39:30] Or was it Dave Mustaine's dog who was attacking them?

Stuart Wellington

[39:32] The joke is that he was a mean drunk and everybody else in the band was a fun drunk.

Dan McCoy

[39:37] Yeah.

[39:37] We should wrap things up.

[39:38] We should get on to Final Judgments.

[39:40] Let's wrap it up in a pastry shell.

[39:42] Good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or movie kind of like.

[39:45] I'll start and say, like, I had a hard time with this episode.

[39:51] I don't know that there's, like, a lot of, like, funny shit to say about it.

[39:56] We had some intentions.

[39:57] No, it probably was terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[40:00] Well, no, I just, I don't know.

[40:01] I kind of like this movie, guys.

[40:03] Hey, that's okay.

[40:04] You should have spoken up for it.

[40:06] No.

[40:06] You were slagging it.

[40:07] I mean, look, they came for Burnt and I said nothing because I was not burnt.

[40:12] Then they came for, what's another movie you like that you're ashamed of?

[40:17] Probably some sex movie.

[40:18] Then they came for The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure.

[40:20] Yeah.

[40:20] And I said nothing because I was not The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure.

[40:23] And then they came for me.

[40:24] And I'm not a movie.

[40:25] I'm Dan.

[40:26] Wow.

[40:27] Twist ending.

[40:29] The twistiest.

Dan McCoy

[40:30] He's Dan the whole time.

[40:32] No, I kind of liked it.

[40:33] I thought that all of the acting was good.

[40:35] I understand that the main character was totally unlikable.

[40:41] But for some reason, I still, like it was.

[40:44] I mean, no, I get what you're saying.

[40:45] This is not a bad movie and it's not a good movie.

[40:47] It went down kind of easy for me.

[40:49] And like, I think that if you are someone who cooks a lot, which I do, it's.

[40:54] Like the Knights or Cooks a Lot.

[40:56] No, I just, like the food looks good.

[41:00] Yeah.

[41:00] And all of like the stuff surrounding the food, like.

[41:04] I think it definitely hurt.

[41:05] Is appealing.

Elliott Kalan

[41:06] It hurt my liking of it that I am done with the overdone, if you will.

[41:11] With the idea of like a bad boy chef.

[41:14] And watching a lot of like food porn scenes of food being cut up and cooked.

[41:18] Like I don't like food enough that I get, still get a thrill out of that.

[41:23] Yeah.

[41:23] And I don't, I'm not enamored of the idea of like celebrity chefs or bad boy chefs.

[41:28] So like it had some marks against me right there.

[41:31] A lot of that stuff I still like, so.

[41:33] I mean, there's plenty of movies about jobs and worlds that I'm not interested in.

[41:37] I find the movie interesting.

[41:38] But this wasn't a terrible movie.

[41:41] It's just, it's just like a two star movie, you know.

[41:43] Yeah.

[41:44] If you watch it with your mom on a rainy day, it's going to be fine.

Stuart Wellington

[41:47] And maybe, I mean, maybe if I had seen this movie before that Jon Favreau chef.

[41:55] Chef.

[41:55] Which I thought I think handles that, the, basically the exact same arc.

[42:00] Yeah.

[42:00] A little bit better and it's a little bit.

[42:02] It's more fun.

[42:03] It's funnier.

[42:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[42:05] Jon Favreau is not a, like essentially an Adonis who everybody is in awe of in every scene.

[42:12] So like that helps too.

Stuart Wellington

[42:13] He also had more, he had more scars on his, on his hands.

[42:18] They put more makeup effect burns and scars on his arms.

[42:21] And every time he tweets, it flies away.

[42:23] Yep.

[42:24] And yeah, Bradley Cooper's character didn't have enough tattoos.

Elliott Kalan

[42:28] Almost, very few people in the movie had tattoos, which is weird because chefs are covered in tattoos.

Stuart Wellington

[42:33] Yeah.

[42:33] That's how, it's like a hobo code.

[42:36] I would say.

[42:36] Ray Bradbury is the illustrated man was about a chef.

[42:39] I would say, I would say this is a bad, bad movie, but I can like, I could see if, if,

[42:46] if I had heard that this movie had been like actually had been nominated for an award, I would

[42:52] kind of get it, but I don't, I didn't particularly care for it.

Elliott Kalan

[42:57] There you go.

[42:58] Bad, bad kind of liked.

[42:59] And I don't know that it falls into our classification system.

S4

[43:08] Hello, Brent.

[43:10] Travis.

[43:11] Welcome to Trends Like These.

[43:13] What's Trends Like These, you ask?

[43:14] Well, it's a podcast where we take the, the news trending on the internet and we cover it

[43:19] in podcast form.

[43:21] We go beyond the headlines, beyond the memes to bring you the real story so that when your

[43:25] friends bring it up, you can look real smart.

[43:28] We take things that need to be debunked and we debunk them.

[43:31] And then we take things that need to be re-bunked and we re-bunk them.

[43:34] We bring you all the details and we give you a spin on it.

[43:37] Our opinions, our thoughts.

[43:39] And we also try to dig up some positive things to talk about.

[43:42] So it's not all bummers.

[43:43] Just a couple of real life friends talking internet trends.

[43:46] So join us every Thursday on MaximumFun.org and wherever podcasts are found.

Dan McCoy

[44:03] We do have a couple of sponsors who help to keep the lights on around the old Flophouse.

[44:09] Snoop Dogg.

[44:10] Much like those horror movies that sponsored this.

[44:13] He says, no, he doesn't say anything.

[44:18] I was going to do something.

Elliott Kalan

[44:18] Yeah, Snoop Dogg doesn't say anything.

[44:20] He's a rapper, Dan.

[44:21] His mouth is his instrument.

Dan McCoy

[44:24] You're right.

[44:24] That's where he puts his mouth on it.

[44:26] I'm ashamed.

[44:27] No, the Flophouse.

[44:27] And where he drinks out of a goblet.

[44:30] The Flophouse is supported in Sparta.

[44:33] In Sparta.

[44:34] The Flophouse is supported by it.

[44:35] Supported in Sparta.

[44:36] By that big hole that they throw all the Persians into.

[44:40] They say, this is a shitty movie.

[44:42] And they throw them.

Elliott Kalan

[44:43] What, 300?

Dan McCoy

[44:45] That's a fun movie.

Elliott Kalan

[44:47] This is usually about a movie where a guy hurls a spear into a rhinoceros' eye.

[44:50] And then it slides across the sand and just stops at his feet.

Stuart Wellington

[44:54] Zack Snyder is a visionary director, according to movie posters, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[45:01] No, the Flophouse is supported in part by Squarespace.

[45:06] The simplest way to create a compelling website.

[45:10] From the strange to the downright bizarre, great stories define us.

[45:13] You should tell yours.

[45:15] With simple tools and templates, Squarespace helps you capture your story with a captivating website.

[45:21] You should start your free trial today.

[45:23] Visit squarespace.com slash flop.

[45:27] You should Squarespace.

Stuart Wellington

[45:29] Now, Dan, I have a question about a website.

[45:31] Now, Elliot, I want to interrupt you for a second.

[45:33] Because you always have one of these crazy website ideas.

[45:37] No, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[45:37] Not this time, my friend.

[45:39] This time it's a guaranteed moneymaker.

[45:41] Okay, I like the sound of that.

[45:43] Now, did you have anything you wanted to talk about?

Stuart Wellington

[45:45] Yeah, what I wanted to talk about was this great idea you're going to pitch me.

Elliott Kalan

[45:48] Now, it's called chimpshowers.com.

[45:50] Okay.

[45:51] Dan, has this ever happened to you?

[45:52] And I'm sure it has.

[45:54] If you're like me, you want a place where you can always reliably turn on a webcam with a chimp.

[46:00] Where you can turn a shower on by the internet and it will get the chimp wet.

[46:05] It's called chimpshowers.com.

[46:07] The chimps love it because they love getting clean.

[46:09] But here's the thing.

[46:10] I have a terrible feeling that this is sexual in some way.

[46:13] Nothing sexual about it, Dan.

[46:14] This is purely about using the power of the information superhighway to keep chimps clean and have a little bit of fun while you do it.

[46:21] Now, I've been having trouble putting the site together.

[46:24] So who turns the water on?

[46:26] It's connected to the internet.

[46:28] So you click on.

[46:29] Okay.

[46:30] And it pours on the chimp and the chimp's smiling.

[46:32] Oh, he's going crazy.

[46:33] Yeah, he just takes a shower.

[46:34] And you can turn it on and off.

[46:35] They hate that.

[46:36] Turn it on and leave it on until they're done with the shower.

[46:38] Now, will Squarespace help me build that site?

[46:42] It will.

Dan McCoy

[46:43] I mean, I think that some of the technical things, like being able to connect a website to a shower that turns on.

Elliott Kalan

[46:50] I have that technology.

[46:51] I just don't know how to put it on the internet.

Dan McCoy

[46:53] Oh, yeah.

[46:54] If you just need the HTML coding, then Squarespace is the place for you.

[46:58] Do I need to know coding?

[46:59] You don't need to know coding.

Stuart Wellington

[47:00] I think the key would be if I'm going to want to see a chimp taking a shower and controlling the water flow, I'm going to want to be able to do that on the go.

[47:08] I'm going to want to be able to use that on my mobile device.

[47:10] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[47:10] Well, you are in luck because Squarespace has responsive design.

[47:14] That means that any website looks great on any device, a tablet, a phone, your laptop, if you're jacked into the matrix.

[47:22] So, yes, Stuart.

[47:23] My VR goggles.

Elliott Kalan

[47:24] Say you're walking to work.

[47:26] You're like, I don't know how I'm going to get through today.

[47:27] Oh, wait.

[47:28] Let me watch a chimp take a shower.

[47:29] Boom.

[47:29] On your phone.

[47:30] Now, there's also the spinoff site, ChimpGoldenShowers.com.

[47:33] We've rented out Uncle Scrooge's actual money van.

[47:36] Oh, wow.

[47:36] And we've turned it into a big shower for chimps to use.

[47:40] Okay.

[47:40] It's a little weird that chimps find it cold to be standing on all those cash coins, but I think they'll get used to it.

[47:47] Like cold in a spiritual sense or in a physical sense?

[47:49] Because they feel like life is not about material possessions and filthy lucre.

[47:53] Life is about, you know, keeping clean spiritually and also with your fur in a shower.

[47:59] And so, Squarespace, where would I go to get like a discount on my first month or something?

Dan McCoy

[48:04] I don't actually know that we have one of those, but we might if you go to Squarespace.com slash flop.

[48:12] Well, for the free trial, that's good enough.

[48:14] It's possible that there's a discount.

[48:17] Okay.

[48:17] But you might have gotten a little too excited and said a thing that might actually not be true.

Elliott Kalan

[48:23] All right.

[48:23] Well, forget that part.

[48:25] You can cut that out, right?

[48:27] I could, but I'm probably too lazy.

[48:28] Well, for a free trial, I can go to Squarespace.com slash flop, right?

[48:32] You can.

[48:32] Okay.

[48:33] Chimpshowers.com.

[48:34] It's the way of the future for bathing chimps.

[48:36] That's for sure.

[48:36] Let's say you got a chimp at home.

[48:38] You're at work.

[48:39] I do.

[48:40] Your chimp's dirty.

[48:40] You can't drive home to wash it.

[48:42] No.

[48:43] Hook it up to your home chimp shower.

[48:45] And we don't know how to do that yet, but we're trying to set up the technology.

[48:48] Yeah, baby steps.

[48:49] Yeah.

[48:50] And as they always say, bathe that chimp, Squarespace.

Dan McCoy

[48:54] We do have one more sponsor tonight.

Elliott Kalan

[48:58] Chimpshowers.com.

[48:59] What the fuck?

[49:01] You've been scooped.

[49:03] Oh, man.

[49:04] This is just like Facebook all over again.

[49:06] Mine was a book of faces.

[49:08] Mm-hmm.

[49:09] From my enemies.

Dan McCoy

[49:12] It's called a yearbook.

Elliott Kalan

[49:14] Because I hated all the kids at school.

Dan McCoy

[49:17] The Flophouse tonight is supported in part by Casper, an online retailer of premium, obsessively-engineered mattresses for a fraction of the price.

[49:26] Casper has a risk-free trial and return policy.

[49:29] You can try sleeping on a Casper mattress for 100 days with free delivery and painless returns.

[49:35] Flophouse listeners can get $50 toward any mattress purchase.

[49:39] You can go to Casper.com slash flop and use promo code FLOP at checkout.

[49:44] Now, terms and conditions do apply, as they always will.

[49:49] But that's a great deal because I, myself, sleep on a Casper mattress.

[49:53] And how do you like it?

[49:54] It is a delight.

[49:55] You look well-rested.

[49:56] You do?

[49:57] Mm-hmm.

[49:58] I...

[49:58] How much do you bench?

[50:00] I don't know, man.

[50:02] Oh, well, let's talk about the mattress then.

[50:05] I probably could bench the mattress.

[50:07] Okay.

[50:07] Is it that light?

[50:08] Yeah, it is that light.

Elliott Kalan

[50:09] Man, I hear the way you open it and it kind of folds out.

[50:12] Yeah.

[50:12] How did that work?

[50:13] Did it make cool noises like...

Stuart Wellington

[50:15] Did it bust open the windows of the car that you opened it in?

[50:22] It comes in a big old box.

[50:24] Because this was what?

Elliott Kalan

[50:24] A Fat Brothers movie?

[50:26] Yeah.

[50:26] Or Fat Boys?

[50:27] Not Fat Brothers.

[50:28] They weren't brothers.

[50:29] They were just boys.

Dan McCoy

[50:31] Comes in a box that...

[50:33] Whoa, whoa, slow down, Poindexter.

[50:35] Way too small to contain a mattress and you take it out.

Stuart Wellington

[50:38] And it shows up and you're like, this can't be my mattress.

[50:41] No, you're like...

[50:41] This must be an apology.

[50:45] Apology for not having my mattress?

[50:46] Yeah, it's out of stock.

[50:47] You gotta wait on it.

[50:48] But luckily, it's never out of stock.

[50:50] It shows up.

[50:50] And then when it expands, does it make a noise like...

[50:53] Yeah, it goes...

[50:55] You know it's working when you hear that.

Elliott Kalan

[50:59] Caw, caw, caw, caw.

[51:00] Wait, what?

[51:02] And so, Dan, how would you...

Dan McCoy

[51:03] That's the seagull that's trapped inside your mattress.

[51:05] Ah, production of the seagull.

[51:07] Jonathan Livingston seagull.

Elliott Kalan

[51:10] Chekhov's...

[51:11] Jonathan Livingston Chekhov's the seagull.

[51:14] So...

[51:14] So what does it feel like?

Dan McCoy

[51:16] It feels like...

[51:17] To touch a woman.

[51:17] Angels, rings, and other things.

Elliott Kalan

[51:21] And Archie seems...

[51:22] That could mean anything, though.

[51:25] And does Archie like it, too?

[51:26] Archie's a cat.

Dan McCoy

[51:27] Archie seems to like it.

[51:28] Archie sleeps with me on the bed and he seems well-rested.

[51:32] Because he's a little fucking scamp.

[51:34] It causes a lot of trouble.

Elliott Kalan

[51:36] Yeah, that's the thing about scamps.

[51:38] They're very well-rested.

[51:39] Dennis the Menace never saw bags under his eyes.

[51:42] No.

[51:44] He flipped to rise to the neighborhood, but he always got ten hours of sleep.

[51:46] Yeah, the sleep of the just.

Dan McCoy

[51:47] He's running around like a maniac, so he probably got some sleep.

[51:50] I don't have the energy that Archie has, so...

Elliott Kalan

[51:52] Well, he is a young cat and you are an old man.

[51:55] That's true.

[51:56] Casper mattresses.

[51:57] So Casper mattresses.

Dan McCoy

[51:59] The young, the old, the cat, the human, they all love it.

[52:01] Use the promo code FLOP at checkout to get $50 toward your mattress purchase.

[52:06] That's a good discount.

[52:07] That's huge.

[52:07] That's a great discount.

[52:08] Yeah.

[52:10] We have, before we move on, we have a couple of other messages.

Stuart Wellington

[52:13] We have some messages on the Jumbotron.

[52:17] Jumbotron.

[52:17] Kiss Cam.

[52:18] Jumbotron.

[52:19] Dan and Archie kiss.

[52:21] You probably do kiss Archie, but that's okay.

[52:24] He's your pet.

[52:24] I kiss Archie all the time.

[52:26] Yeah.

[52:27] Not on the lips, though.

[52:28] He's got fishy breath.

[52:30] He's got cat herpes.

Elliott Kalan

[52:33] Oh, no.

[52:34] Oh, I got that now, too.

[52:35] He's got curpes.

[52:36] Curp your enthusiasm.

Stuart Wellington

[52:41] Jumbotron.

[52:41] This first Jumbotron message is from Love Ya Like Crazy Podcast.

[52:46] Now, Carrie and Jake are two friends who, every so often, give each other a call and talk about

[52:52] young adult fiction, then release the resulting freewheeling conversations as a podcast.

[53:00] The Flophouse is definitely an inspiration.

[53:02] In their first episode, they talked about Awoken, which is like Twilight, except instead of the male

[53:08] lead being a vampire, he's Cthulhu, a sort of squid monster, old god monster guy.

[53:16] So, why don't you go down and subscribe to Love Ya Like Crazy Podcast.

[53:21] That's love spelled like the word love.

[53:23] Ya spelled like the divine ya-ya sisterhood.

[53:27] Just one ya.

[53:29] Like crazy.

[53:30] Like the gods must be crazy.

[53:32] Podcast on iTunes or wherever.

[53:34] Or listen to it on loveyalikecrazy.com.

Elliott Kalan

[53:39] We've got another Jumbotron message.

[53:41] This one is more of the personal type.

[53:43] Ooh.

[53:44] Do we say who the message is for and who it's from?

Dan McCoy

[53:46] Yeah, you should.

Elliott Kalan

[53:47] This message is for Devin Ruland.

[53:50] Ruland?

[53:50] It's spelled R-U-E-L-L-A-N-D.

[53:52] Ruland.

[53:53] Ruland.

Dan McCoy

[53:53] The Dark Tower.

[53:55] Serious.

[53:56] This is serious, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[53:57] I'm trying to do this man's name justice.

Stuart Wellington

[54:00] And he probably doesn't want you to talk about your own gunslinger fanfic that you've been writing.

[54:06] Where Roland finds the, what's the guy, the man in black?

[54:10] And they settle their problems through a game of Yu-Gi-Oh.

[54:15] Wait, what?

[54:17] Yu-Gi-Oh, the collectible card game.

Elliott Kalan

[54:21] Wait, is that what happened in the Dark Towers?

Stuart Wellington

[54:24] Dan's version.

Elliott Kalan

[54:27] Now, if Devin is not a man and is a woman, I apologize.

[54:31] Yeah.

[54:31] I've both mispronounced the name and whatever.

[54:33] Anyway, Devin Ruland.

[54:35] Who is this message from?

[54:36] His lady love, Emily.

[54:37] Says his right there.

[54:39] Turns out Devin's a man.

[54:41] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[54:42] I'm peeling the layers of this fucking onion.

Elliott Kalan

[54:45] I'm learning it step by step.

[54:48] Now, Emily says to Devin, although it is deeply flawed in many ways, I will concede that Interstellar is a rather fine film.

[54:55] Happy birthday, Dev.

[54:56] You make my life brighter every day.

[54:58] P.S.

[54:59] I thought this would be the best way to wish you a happy birthday since you were the one who introduced me to the flop house in the first dang place.

[55:05] That's very sweet.

[55:06] Thanks for using the Jumbotron, Emily.

[55:08] Devin, happy birthday.

[55:10] Interstellar, it sounds like you guys had an argument about it.

[55:12] So did me and my wife, who I love deeply.

[55:15] So I guess Interstellar is the movie that brings people together through arguments.

[55:17] Your wife, Christopher Nolan.

Dan McCoy

[55:22] I'm genuinely curious who took which position on the Interstellar.

[55:25] Oh, I liked it and she didn't like it.

[55:27] Yeah.

[55:27] Right.

Stuart Wellington

[55:29] Yeah.

[55:29] My wife and I were both kind of lukewarm on it.

[55:31] And then the next day we're like, oh, wow, we're still thinking about this, huh?

[55:34] Mm-hmm.

[55:34] Stuck with you.

[55:35] It's a way homer, you know?

[55:36] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[55:37] In that it's out of the park.

Elliott Kalan

[55:40] Sports joke.

Dan McCoy

[55:41] Now is the time on the podcast where we read some letters from listeners.

[55:48] Listeners like you, question mark?

[55:51] Could be.

[55:52] Did you send something in?

[55:54] Then you might be one of these people.

[55:56] But if not, probably not because I don't have psychic powers.

[56:00] Anyway, that's my introduction to the concept of reading letters.

[56:04] No song necessary.

[56:08] So this first Elliot's truck dumb.

[56:11] This first letter is from Jim, last name with held.

Elliott Kalan

[56:14] I want Devin to write in and tell me how to pronounce his last name.

[56:17] I feel like I want to get that pronunciation right.

Dan McCoy

[56:19] All right.

[56:20] I mean, sure.

[56:22] He can send in one of those WAV files.

[56:25] No, just spell it phonetically.

Stuart Wellington

[56:27] I guess that would be easier.

[56:31] So if you're listening, Devin, call in with a WAV file.

[56:34] To 1-800-FLOP-NUMBER.

[56:36] We'll just be quiet and wait by the phone because I don't want to miss the call.

Dan McCoy

[56:40] Yep.

[56:41] We don't have answering machines.

[56:44] So this is from Jim, last name with held.

[56:46] Hey, Jim.

[56:47] My boyfriend says that Ask Prudence gets a ton of mail.

[56:50] So I'm asking you too.

[56:52] My parents have invited my...

Elliott Kalan

[56:53] Asking us if Ask Prudence gets a ton of mail?

[56:55] I assume it does.

[56:56] Yeah.

[56:56] Hugely popular.

Dan McCoy

[56:58] My parents have invited my agnostic boyfriend to church a couple of times and he's declined

[57:03] each time.

[57:04] I'm a Christian and I think he should not go because he's not interested in church and I'm

[57:08] not interested in converting him.

[57:10] Unfortunately, my parents will probably...

[57:11] That's very open-minded.

[57:12] My parents will probably discourage our relationship if they find out he's agnostic.

[57:16] My boyfriend is willing to pretend he's Christian, but I don't think he should have to.

[57:20] I have doubts that he will be convincing.

[57:23] I can tell my parents the truth or continue making my excuses for why he can't make it,

[57:28] but this isn't going away.

[57:30] Tonight, my mom invited him to a nativity performance.

[57:33] What should I do, Flophouse?

[57:34] Also, my boyfriend loves the podcast and introduced me to it.

[57:36] Way too late.

[57:37] I'm working my way through the archives, listening to you guys at work.

[57:40] We're both huge fans of the show and watched Castle Freak together.

[57:43] Thanks, guys.

[57:43] Jim, last name with held.

Elliott Kalan

[57:44] I mean, if you still believe in a god after watching Castle Freak and that god's name

[57:48] isn't Jeffrey Combs, I don't know what's going on.

Stuart Wellington

[57:51] Now, be careful with going back through our back catalog because it gets a little seamy.

Elliott Kalan

[57:56] A little.

Dan McCoy

[57:58] I like this.

[57:59] I have doubts that he'll be convincing.

[58:00] It's like, I like this Jesus of yours.

Elliott Kalan

[58:05] Good wine.

[58:05] Another, please.

[58:08] Hit me again, Barkeep.

[58:10] Here's the thing.

[58:11] I'm going to say a couple things.

[58:12] Good book.

[58:12] I thought it was a great book.

[58:13] First, thanks for listening to the show and enjoying it, and thanks for writing in.

[58:18] As an agnostic, it means he's not sure, right?

[58:21] He doesn't know if there's a god.

[58:23] So shouldn't he expose himself to religion as a way of trying to kindle the fire and see

[58:28] if there's anything in faith there?

Dan McCoy

[58:29] We're not talking Richard Dawkins here.

[58:31] You're not dating Ricky Gervais.

[58:34] I feel like...

[58:35] Name another guy named Rich or Ricky.

[58:37] Who's an atheist?

[58:38] Ricky Martin.

[58:40] Not an atheist.

[58:41] Maybe.

Dan McCoy

[58:41] It's Ricky Martin.

Elliott Kalan

[58:42] Ricky Ricardo?

Dan McCoy

[58:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[58:45] Give it a...

[58:46] I'd say...

[58:46] Ravishing Rick Rude?

[58:49] Rick Rubin?

[58:51] Give it a shot, and he should go once.

[58:54] See if it touches him at all, spiritually.

[58:58] It might help him understand your faith better as well.

Stuart Wellington

[59:02] And why it's important in your life.

Dan McCoy

[59:03] Yeah, I don't think he needs to pretend he's Christian, but, you know, he can go once or twice.

Stuart Wellington

[59:08] I think that's the concern, though, is that if he doesn't...

[59:10] If her parents find out that he is agnostic, they might discourage the relationship, which

[59:16] would be too bad.

Elliott Kalan

[59:17] Which would be too bad.

[59:18] And at that point, you'd probably have a hard decision to make, and it's difficult.

Stuart Wellington

[59:22] But I guess if he goes...

[59:23] If he's going to one of these things as a way...

[59:26] If he goes to one of these things...

[59:28] One of these things.

[59:29] But if he's going as a way to, like, deepen their relationship and understand her faith

[59:36] better, if they don't understand that, you need to get one of those parental...

[59:41] Divorces?

[59:42] Divorces.

Elliott Kalan

[59:43] You've got an irreconcilable differences situation on your hands, my man.

Dan McCoy

[59:48] What if he goes...

[59:48] What if he goes and he pretends to be super Christian?

[59:52] Like he has...

[59:53] But like...

[59:53] Like a big giant foam finger that says, Jesus number one.

[59:56] Yeah, he's a fucking shaker and he starts flipping out.

Elliott Kalan

[59:58] He starts making chairs and shit.

[1:00:01] He's carving furniture for him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:03] I think you're thinking of a Quaker.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:05] Shakers make furniture too.

[1:00:07] There's nothing...

[1:00:07] But if they're always shaking...

[1:00:09] When you're totally abstinent, you've got to find things to do.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:13] Now...

[1:00:13] I'm just saying that he laps them.

[1:00:14] You know?

[1:00:15] He just...

[1:00:15] He goes all in.

[1:00:17] He calls their bluff.

[1:00:18] Calls their bluff?

[1:00:19] That's right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:21] I thought I believed in Jesus.

[1:00:22] You think you're Christian?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:22] I'm Christian.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:23] I thought I had faith in the everlasting life promised by Christ, but I didn't think that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:28] I'm not up to his level.

[1:00:29] That's going to backfire because her parents will see him being a crazy Christian and they'll

[1:00:33] be like, oh wow, we have to be crazy Christians now.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:37] There's that sketch, Crazy Christians, that aired on Studio 60 and it made me feel so bad

[1:00:42] about everything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:43] Here's the other thing.

[1:00:44] Is he going to go to a live nativity?

[1:00:46] Yeah.

[1:00:46] There's going to be real animals on stage, right?

[1:00:49] That's what it means, right?

[1:00:50] I assume there's going to be like a camel and a donkey up there.

[1:00:53] Go see him.

[1:00:53] Is there going to be a baby?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:54] I bet that baby won't act as good as I did.

[1:00:56] Yeah.

[1:00:57] It's like...

[1:00:57] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:57] He's not going to be wearing a gold diaper.

[1:00:59] He's being born in a manger for crying out loud.

[1:01:01] There's no Oberon.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:01] There's a petting zoo that makes you feel good about humanity.

[1:01:04] I don't know how good about humanity.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:07] Wow.

[1:01:07] Makes you interested in it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:09] Interested in it?

[1:01:10] A petting zoo?

[1:01:11] Wait, so people go on stage...

[1:01:12] I wasn't sure about humanity before, but now...

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:15] Is it before or after the wise men come in and Jesus is born that people come up on stage

[1:01:20] and pet the animals?

Dan McCoy

[1:01:21] I was thinking about after the service, you go up and pet the animals.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:25] You're like, I love your performance.

[1:01:28] You were very convincing.

[1:01:30] Don't give the donkey time to relax and decompress after a show.

[1:01:34] No, go up and pet him.

[1:01:35] Yeah, he's going to flip out.

[1:01:37] He doesn't want to go to the bar with the rest of the cast.

[1:01:39] No, no.

[1:01:39] Keep him on stage so everyone can touch him with their hands.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:41] You're like, can I take a picture with you, Mr. Donkey?

[1:01:43] He's like, no.

[1:01:43] No, I don't do that.

[1:01:44] No pictures.

[1:01:45] Wait outside by the entrance.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:46] Maybe he'll sign your playbill.

[1:01:48] My handler will have to take that carrot because I'm a Scientologist.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:56] I don't know what that means.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:57] So I think the real thing is, what does it mean for your relationship?

[1:02:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:03] I hope we were helpful.

[1:02:05] We turned into Baben Bam there for a second.

[1:02:07] Into Baben Bam?

[1:02:08] The Michelin Man?

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:09] Oh, no.

[1:02:10] All three of us were one Baben Bam?

[1:02:13] Right.

[1:02:13] I guess I'll be a leg.

[1:02:15] I call the head.

[1:02:16] Dan, you're the belly.

[1:02:17] Aw.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:20] So this.

[1:02:21] That's the star part.

[1:02:24] Email.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:25] Is from.

[1:02:25] Snail.

[1:02:26] More like snail mail the way he's reading it.

[1:02:29] This is from Miss First Name Withheld Rogers.

[1:02:33] Who says.

[1:02:33] Kenny.

[1:02:34] I was listening to the Passion Play episode being discussed.

[1:02:38] And I had a revelation about a confusing celebrity encounter I had a few years back.

[1:02:43] Since you guys caused that revelation, I was excited to share it.

[1:02:46] I was at a bar late in the evening in my hometown.

[1:02:49] I was leaving the bathroom and I accidentally ran into another patron.

[1:02:53] When I looked up to apologize, I was surprised to be looking at Bill Murray.

[1:02:56] I did the super cool response of.

[1:03:00] Oh.

[1:03:01] B-b-b-b-Bill Murray from Caddyshack?

[1:03:04] And then I went back to my friends.

[1:03:06] I mentioned seeing them and they said that there was a private party in one side of the room

[1:03:11] consisting of him, Mickey Rourke, and Megan Fox.

[1:03:15] This seemed like the weirdest grouping of people I could imagine having a get together.

[1:03:18] I thought to myself.

[1:03:20] Why were these people hanging out?

[1:03:21] And why were they hanging out in our small local bar?

[1:03:24] I assumed this would always be a mystery to me.

[1:03:26] When I heard in your podcast that they were all together in Passion Play, I thought that

[1:03:30] must be the reason they were together.

[1:03:32] The timing of my encounter matched to when the movie would have been filmed.

[1:03:36] Then a tiny bit more research showed the movie was filmed partially in my town.

[1:03:39] The entire thing made sense after that.

[1:03:42] Thanks for helping me make sense of my life.

[1:03:45] Felicitations, Miss First Name Withheld Rogers.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:47] I'm glad we could help solve that history mystery.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:49] Yeah.

[1:03:51] We're three real encyclopedia rounds.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:53] I mean, not in that we solve the mystery ourselves.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:57] It sounds like you got more joy out of Passion Play than I remember getting, but it was a

[1:04:01] long time ago.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:03] Yeah, no, I think by having encountered Bill Murray, she is the person who got the most

[1:04:07] out of Passion Play.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:09] I just can't imagine what it would be like to have no context for it and go into a bar and

[1:04:17] see that Bill Murray and Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox were all hanging out together.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:22] I would have at the very least ordered a-

[1:04:23] As if they were best friends.

[1:04:24] I would have ordered like an appetizer platter and sent it over to them.

[1:04:29] Some calamari, Bill Murray?

[1:04:31] That would have been such a-

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:31] A box and a-

[1:04:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:04:32] They look like they're in appetizers.

[1:04:34] I don't know if this is a bar necessarily as calamari.

[1:04:39] It's a bar food.

[1:04:40] What kind of-

[1:04:41] It doesn't design-

[1:04:41] In Italy, maybe.

[1:04:44] In Italy?

[1:04:44] Yeah, let me go down to-

[1:04:45] In Italy.

[1:04:46] At Italy, definitely.

[1:04:47] At the seafood counter.

[1:04:49] Speaking of, Mario Batali of Italy fame, the executive chef consultant for brands.

[1:04:56] Oh, he was.

[1:04:58] That's why Bradley Cooper was always wearing orange Crocs.

[1:05:01] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:03] He had orange crocodiles on his feet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:05] That would be a smooth move to send him over a nap platter.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:08] No, I thought, just send him over some orange Crocs.

[1:05:12] Put these on, you're going to feel like a million bucks.

[1:05:15] You're going to feel like Mario Batali.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:17] Here you go, Murray, Rourke, and Fox.

[1:05:19] Have a few mozzarella sticks.

[1:05:23] What a weird law of us that would be Murray, Rourke, and Fox.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:27] Have some mozzarella sticks on me.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:30] Get him some extra dipping sauce.

[1:05:32] Yeah.

[1:05:32] Put a big tub of marinara on there.

[1:05:35] Not just the little cup.

[1:05:37] Not the little one.

[1:05:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:38] Mickey Rourke's fingers are weird, so he has trouble getting in there.

[1:05:42] Bring him the five-gallon bucket of marinara.

[1:05:47] Give him a little syrup pitcher.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:50] So this last letter of the evening is from Wyatt Notzenak, who writes,

[1:05:57] Warning, contains spoilers for Friday the 13th, part three,

[1:06:03] a movie that came out over 30 years ago.

[1:06:05] Okay.

[1:06:06] Spoil away.

[1:06:07] Dear Peaches,

[1:06:08] Recently I have been very sick and thus stuck at home.

[1:06:11] There's nothing left to do except watch all 12 Friday the 13th movies in succession.

[1:06:16] Like you do.

[1:06:17] So that's what I'm doing.

[1:06:19] I'm sure all three of you know,

[1:06:21] the canon of the Jason universe is not exactly airtight.

[1:06:25] But a few things in particular stuck out to me.

[1:06:27] It's one of those old antique canons with a crack in it that explodes when you try to use it.

[1:06:31] First of all, who is that zombie woman who jumps out and grabs the final girl off the boat at the end of part three?

[1:06:37] It can't be old lady Voorhees because she got her head cut off.

[1:06:41] Second, how does Jason come back to life the first time after he drowns as a child?

[1:06:45] On the wiki, it says he, quote,

[1:06:48] Somehow comes back to life.

[1:06:50] But in an extended universe comic book where Jason, Freddy, and Ash from Evil Dead meet,

[1:06:55] it is revealed that Mrs. Voorhees used the Necronomicon to resurrect him.

[1:06:59] I was wondering if you guys had any thoughts on this.

[1:07:01] That's a goof-em-up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:02] Also,

[1:07:03] I mean, it's speculation.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:05] Also, we have Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator.

[1:07:08] Will we ever see Freddy vs. Jason?

[1:07:11] Jason?

[1:07:12] Sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:15] It's an alien that got through Jason's chest and now there's a hockey mask.

[1:07:19] Oh, no.

[1:07:19] It's an alien that took the form of Jason.

[1:07:22] Will we ever see...

[1:07:23] Jason.

[1:07:25] What will we have to do on that test, Jason?

[1:07:29] Jason.

[1:07:30] Jason, Jason.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:31] That's what they call me because I get A's on every test.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:34] You are the least cool boy in school, Jason.

[1:07:37] Jason, Jason.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:38] Will we ever see...

[1:07:39] Let me snap the sunglass addition to my regular glasses.

[1:07:44] All right.

[1:07:45] Feeling cool.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:46] Jason, I'm not going to the prom with you.

[1:07:49] Will we ever see Freddy vs. Alien or Jason vs. Predator?

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:54] It'd be interesting because the alien, I assume, has no dreams.

[1:07:57] So how is Freddy going to get to them?

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:59] Yeah, I feel like Freddy vs. Predator would make more sense

[1:08:02] because the Ya-oot-ja alien race, I'm assuming, has some kind of dreams.

[1:08:08] Yeah, they seem...

[1:08:08] Dreams of hunting.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:10] Also, are you guys excited for the Friday the 13th video game?

[1:08:13] It's supposed to be like Evolve, except one player is Jason

[1:08:16] and the others are counselors.

[1:08:18] Sincerely, Wyatt, not Sinek.

[1:08:19] Now, Stuart, I assume you have some feelings on various questions

[1:08:23] that have been asked.

[1:08:24] Let me remind you.

[1:08:26] You're under oath.

[1:08:26] Number one.

[1:08:27] Number one.

[1:08:30] Who's the old lady zombie woman who jumps out and grabs the final girl off the boat

[1:08:35] at the end of part three?

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:36] I mean, I think that's supposed to be Jason's mom because part three is fucking stupid

[1:08:39] and it's like the worst one of the batch.

[1:08:41] Okay.

[1:08:42] Next takes Manhattan, which is probably the total worst.

[1:08:44] What about In Space?

[1:08:46] In Space is better than those.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:49] So you reject...

[1:08:51] Yes, you're right.

[1:08:51] In Manhattan is pretty bad.

[1:08:53] Yeah, Manhattan's not very good.

[1:08:54] You reject the idea that it can't be old lady Voorhees because she's got her head cut off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:58] I'm saying it is old lady.

[1:09:00] It's meant to be her.

[1:09:01] It shouldn't be, though.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:02] If Jason can be both a little zombie kid and a huge hulking death demon,

[1:09:06] then she can be a headless woman and a headed woman.

[1:09:09] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:11] So how does Jason come back to life the first time after he drowns as a child?

[1:09:15] For some reason, right?

[1:09:18] Yeah, he somehow comes back to life.

[1:09:20] Yeah, somehow comes back to life.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:22] It's written there in the text.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:24] Asked and answered.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:26] Yeah, that's the problem with people just trying to comb through and create subtext.

[1:09:31] It's pretty clear.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:32] Here's the thing about the Friday the 13th movies.

[1:09:35] They're not meant to be taken literally.

[1:09:37] They're metaphors for how we should live life.

[1:09:41] How so?

[1:09:42] By killing people.

[1:09:44] With hockey masks on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:45] And talking about a video game, I wonder what the video game part of playing it is.

[1:09:49] Sure, Mario Kart.

[1:09:50] Great game.

[1:09:50] I'm talking about a video game.

[1:09:52] Mario Batali Kart, where it's full of baguettes.

[1:09:54] And I don't know.

[1:09:55] Yeah.

[1:09:56] Spugettes.

[1:09:56] And who's Mario Batali's evil brother?

[1:09:58] Wario Batali?

[1:10:00] I don't think they're brothers, are they?

[1:10:01] I think they're just enemies.

[1:10:02] I don't remember how they're related.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:03] Luigi's their brother.

[1:10:04] Luigi Batali is his brother.

[1:10:06] Yeah.

[1:10:06] And there's Batali Toads.

[1:10:07] He wears green Crocs.

[1:10:09] Green Crocs, yeah.

[1:10:10] He's a little taller.

[1:10:11] And Batali Toads.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:12] And when he jumps, he floats around a little bit.

[1:10:14] I'm trying to make a Battletoads joke.

[1:10:16] Oh, okay.

[1:10:17] You know, I wanted to apologize.

[1:10:20] You know what?

[1:10:20] This podcast is over.

[1:10:21] I wanted to apologize for a previous episode where I said Gary Shandling was going to be

[1:10:26] cast as an elderly Battletoad in the Battletoads movie.

[1:10:31] Because Gary Shandling has passed away.

[1:10:33] He's passed away.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:34] He hadn't yet passed when you said that.

[1:10:37] It's totally okay.

[1:10:38] Everyone's going to die at some point.

[1:10:40] If you're going to take back every joke you've made about somebody after they die, it's just

[1:10:43] going to be every joke.

[1:10:44] Only make jokes about babies because they're going to outlive you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:47] So, I hope in a perfect world that's correct.

[1:10:51] Yeah.

[1:10:53] So, Gary Shandling, if I see you.

[1:10:55] And then, yeah, they got thick skins.

[1:10:56] If I see you at the crossroads, Gary, I'm sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:01] Somebody can't play.

[1:11:02] Anything I find that more offensive.

[1:11:03] Oh, yeah.

[1:11:03] Play Crossroads, Dan.

[1:11:05] Can you edit in Crossroads by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony right there?

[1:11:08] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:09] So, you won't be lonely.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:12] Why do we have to die?

[1:11:13] So, you won't be lonely.

[1:11:16] Okay.

[1:11:17] So, we've had a lot of goof-em-ups tonight, guys.

[1:11:20] We have had a lot of goof-em-ups.

[1:11:22] Now, what's the next part of this podcast?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:24] Good segue.

[1:11:26] The next part of this podcast is where we recommend movies that we actually kind of like, or even

[1:11:32] more than kind of like, that you should watch with your eye holes.

[1:11:37] Or your eyes.

[1:11:38] Put some eyes in those holes.

[1:11:42] You know, I have not had a chance to watch much in the way of movies since the last time

[1:11:51] we were together recording.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:52] Why don't you pick a movie you've watched at some point in the distant past?

[1:11:55] What's your favorite movie?

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:57] What's my favorite movie?

[1:11:59] Mm-hmm.

[1:12:01] If you say stop making sense, I will crush this beer can.

[1:12:05] Did I?

[1:12:06] We all know it's the Ruttles.

[1:12:08] Have I ever recommended?

[1:12:10] It's Chairman of the Board starring Carrot Top.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:14] It's Cops and Robbersons.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:16] Let's say that I'm going to recommend.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:18] Was it Man of the House?

[1:12:19] The Chevy Chase John Taylor Thomas blockbuster?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:24] It's Mr. Wrong, the Bill Pullman, Ellen DeGeneres movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:27] It's Getting Even with Dad starring Macaulay Culkin and Ted Danson.

[1:12:30] Did he ever get even with him?

[1:12:33] He did.

[1:12:33] He did in the end, yeah.

[1:12:35] In some way.

[1:12:36] Years of neglect.

[1:12:37] It's hard to get even with.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:38] I'm sure I recommended this before, but.

[1:12:41] It was Life with Mikey starring Michael J. Fox.

[1:12:43] In case I haven't, let me recommend then His Girl Friday.

[1:12:48] My favorite of the screwball comedies.

[1:12:50] Hmm, interesting.

[1:12:51] It's got Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, based on the Ben Hecht play.

[1:12:58] And Charles MacArthur play.

[1:13:00] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:00] Everyone forgets Charles MacArthur.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:02] Yeah, well.

[1:13:03] Because he didn't do as much as Ben Hecht.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:07] Great.

[1:13:07] Doesn't mean he didn't write the play.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:11] It's, uh, I, look, a lot of people like Bringing Up Baby.

[1:13:15] That's fine.

[1:13:15] You can like Bringing Up Baby.

[1:13:16] No, you can't.

[1:13:17] I'm not such a fan of Bringing Up Baby.

[1:13:19] And that's because in Bringing Up Baby, everyone is crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:23] Stop Bringing Up Bringing Up Baby.

[1:13:25] And if there's a crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:30] But listeners couldn't see the eyebrow raise.

[1:13:33] Just one eyebrow went out when Stuart said baby.

[1:13:35] And that sold the bit.

[1:13:37] That put the stake through the vampire's heart, as far as I was concerned.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:41] If you're living in a world where everybody's crazy, then nothing's crazy and then nothing's funny.

[1:13:47] You gotta live in a world where there's rules and you press against those rules to make comedy.

[1:13:53] And the great thing about His Girl Friday is it has an airtight, farcical plot that helps put over the screwball comedy.

[1:14:03] And I'm not going to say a lot more about it, but if you haven't seen it, it's a treat.

[1:14:09] So, Cary Grant is super charming.

[1:14:13] Check it out.

[1:14:14] His Girl Friday.

[1:14:16] Howard Hawks.

[1:14:17] One of the greatest American directors of all time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:22] A real jerk, though.

[1:14:23] Was he?

[1:14:24] Apparently.

[1:14:25] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:27] Can he sue us for libel?

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:28] Nope.

[1:14:29] Dead for almost 40 years at this point.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:31] Famously, on His Girl Friday, he timed the dialogue with a stopwatch and had people overlap their dialogue, which was not a thing that was done at the time.

[1:14:44] So, that's an innovation you can trace back to that, huh?

[1:14:48] That's something.

[1:14:49] Sure.

[1:14:50] Yeah.

[1:14:50] If that won't get someone to watch it, I don't know what will.

[1:14:53] So, it's like I'm running out of steam, guys.

[1:14:56] I think you can see it in my eyes.

[1:14:59] So, speaking of overlapping dialogue.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:00] Dialogue was timed with a stopwatch, raves Dan McCoy of the plot house.

[1:15:05] That's an innovation, right?

[1:15:09] Come on.

[1:15:11] Come on.

[1:15:13] I'm giving you all I got here.

[1:15:16] Go see His Girl Friday.

[1:15:18] Dan McCoy says, that's something, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:23] I'm running out of steam, says Dan McCoy.

[1:15:25] So, I finally got around to watching a Western from 1971 that I'd never seen before called McCabe and Mrs. Miller, directed by a fellow named Robert Altman, which means old man in German.

[1:15:42] Alternate man.

[1:15:43] Oh, I never thought about that.

[1:15:46] So, this Altman fellow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:47] It sounds like a low-budget science fiction movie from like Full Moon Entertainment, Robert the alternate man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:52] He slapped together low-budget Full Moon Entertainment.

[1:15:55] What are you talking about?

[1:15:56] Slapped together.

[1:15:58] So, he put together this little Western based on a novel named McCabe.

[1:16:04] And this is a story of a gambler type with a mysterious past who ends up forming an alliance with a woman of ill repute.

[1:16:19] A madam.

[1:16:21] A madam, yeah.

[1:16:22] So, played by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.

[1:16:26] They both play the madam?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:28] Like one of them is the front, one's the back?

[1:16:30] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:31] Why she's on his shoulders in a trench coat?

[1:16:33] Mm-hmm.

[1:16:34] And they set up their various enterprises in a burgeoning town in the West.

[1:16:42] And while their enterprise kind of starts to flourish, the town around them flourishes.

[1:16:49] And his past kind of comes to the fore when a rival enterprise kind of moves in.

[1:16:57] You guys have seen this movie.

[1:16:59] It's great, right?

[1:16:59] It's a great movie.

[1:17:00] I've never seen it before.

[1:17:01] Can you fill in anything that I totally missed?

[1:17:03] Robert Oldman is another one of the greatest American writers.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:05] I mean, it's a great example.

[1:17:06] The sound in it is a little muddy.

[1:17:08] Overlapping dialogue there, too.

[1:17:09] Yes, but the sound is a little muddy and the image is a little muddy because it was not

[1:17:14] processed properly when the film was literally made.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:17] I thought that was a choice by them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:19] It was not completely a choice, but it works for the movie.

[1:17:22] And the score is by Leonard Cohen.

[1:17:24] There's a bunch of songs by him that are really good.

[1:17:25] Yeah.

[1:17:26] And the acting's great.

[1:17:28] The story's great.

[1:17:29] The characters are really rich.

[1:17:30] And it's one of the few Altman films that finds a really tight structure by the end of it.

[1:17:37] And the ending I find so affecting and so beautiful.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:40] And it's a movie that, I mean, having read up on the movie since watching it, it's referred

[1:17:47] to as an anti-Western.

[1:17:48] And I think that kind of fits in that it takes the traditional idea of that smaller conflict

[1:17:54] of the gunfighter up against rival gunfighters.

[1:17:58] And it kind of makes the story of the hero less important than the story of the town as a whole.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:06] It starts out as a story of a con man trying to get ahead any way he can.

[1:18:11] And it ends up being the story of a community being born.

[1:18:15] And it's a really beautiful movie.

[1:18:16] It's really good.

[1:18:17] And it's got a ton of Robert Altman's stable cast, Shelley Duvall.

[1:18:21] And Odo from Deep Space Nine.

[1:18:24] Rene Yabbergenois.

[1:18:25] Yeah.

[1:18:26] And Keith Carradine.

[1:18:27] And Keith Carradine's first role.

[1:18:29] Yeah.

[1:18:30] And it's just a really good, like that's top five Westerns.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:34] And Warren Beatty's character, McCabe, is such a great, like such an awesome Western hero

[1:18:39] that I don't know if I've seen that character be the lead in a Western before.

[1:18:44] A character who seems very confident until he's kind of alone and kind of out of his element.

[1:18:51] And he's kind of revealed to be kind of a man of indecision.

[1:18:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:57] It's a really good movie.

[1:18:59] The Cave and Mrs. Miller.

[1:19:02] Elliot.

[1:19:03] I'll recommend a movie too.

[1:19:05] Hey.

[1:19:06] What a surprise.

[1:19:07] A movie I recently saw that I had been putting off seeing for a long time, but I liked a lot

[1:19:12] when I saw it, is The Tin Drum.

[1:19:14] The German movie.

[1:19:15] Die Blechstrommel?

[1:19:16] Mm-hmm.

[1:19:16] Die Blechstrommel.

[1:19:18] Directed by Volker Schlondorf.

[1:19:21] And it's, for people who aren't, I've never read the book, but I liked it now.

[1:19:24] I know Stuart's a fan of it.

[1:19:24] It's great, yeah.

[1:19:25] It's the story of a boy who at age three.

[1:19:28] Volker Schlondorf.

[1:19:30] That's his name.

[1:19:31] The most German name.

[1:19:33] Unless it was like Gustav Heinholz.

[1:19:37] But the, Fritz Krautdeutsche.

[1:19:43] But he is, it's about a boy who is born around the time of the first, no, and actually, what

[1:19:51] time, like after the first world war, but before the second world war.

[1:19:54] He's born in like the early twenties.

[1:19:55] And at age three, he makes the decision that he is not going to grow anymore because adults

[1:20:01] are dumb.

[1:20:02] And the world of adults is crazy and irrational.

[1:20:05] And instead, he will stay a three-year-old and communicate mainly by banging a tin drum

[1:20:11] and screaming so high-pitched and loud that glass shatters.

[1:20:15] And over the course of the next 15 years or so, the film follows, the book, I guess, goes

[1:20:23] longer, but follows his life as he is, everything is turned upside down, both by his choice to

[1:20:29] remain a small child and also by the horrible events going on in the world and in Germany as

[1:20:35] the Nazis come to power.

[1:20:36] And it's one of these movies that was shot in Europe in like the seventies, eighties period,

[1:20:42] late centuries, that looks really good.

[1:20:44] Like the colors are really good.

[1:20:46] There's a lot of great visuals and shots in it.

[1:20:49] There's some very strange scenes because he becomes interested and attracted to a female

[1:20:56] love interest, even though he's still in the body of a kid.

[1:21:00] Yeah, he's a little boy.

[1:21:00] And I know that that scene got it briefly banned on video in Oklahoma.

[1:21:05] I think it was for a few months or a couple of years, but it's okay to watch it now.

[1:21:10] But it's just a real...

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:11] Well, and it's...

[1:21:12] It's a really...

[1:21:13] It's only weird in context.

[1:21:16] Well, it's only weird out of context.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:18] Oh, I guess you're right.

[1:21:19] If you see the scene in context, it makes perfect sense.

[1:21:22] But scene out of context, you're like, why is that kid doing that?

[1:21:24] But it's a surprisingly funny movie in a lot of places, but overall sad movie.

[1:21:30] But it's that European kind of grim humor.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:34] Yeah, and with definitely a touch of magical realism.

[1:21:39] Very much so, yeah.

[1:21:40] There's a...

[1:21:41] Which is, as we've talked about in the show, is very difficult to capture in a film.

[1:21:46] And I think the Tindrum kind of does it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:49] Yeah, they managed to pull it off very nicely in the way that a movie like...

[1:21:53] Winter's Tale that we talked about.

[1:21:56] Winter's Tale was the one that came to mind.

[1:21:57] But that's more of an out-and-out fantasy.

[1:21:59] But, like, there's a lot of movies that try for it and don't quite pull it off.

[1:22:04] I know that, like, Almodovar is someone who goes for it.

[1:22:06] And I feel like he pulls it off some of the time, but not all the time.

[1:22:10] But so the Tindrum...

[1:22:12] But of all these movies, go see McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

[1:22:15] Yeah.

[1:22:16] Stewart's got the strongest recommendation.

[1:22:17] Then His Girl Friday.

[1:22:18] Like usual.

[1:22:19] For a laugh.

[1:22:19] Wait, hold on.

[1:22:20] And then Tindrum number three.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:23] I mean, I could argue that, but that's fine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:26] I'm just saying personal choice.

[1:22:27] But that's only partly because I've seen His Girl Friday probably 15 times at this point.

[1:22:32] Yeah.

[1:22:35] So, now what do we do, Dan?

[1:22:37] Is this the part where we talk about the movie we saw tonight?

[1:22:39] It's called Burnt.

[1:22:40] And boy, was it.

[1:22:42] Oh, howdy.

[1:22:43] Everybody, order some Chinese and put some coffee on.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:45] It's going to be a long night.

[1:22:47] No, this is the part of the podcast where we say,

[1:22:51] hey, we're going to stop this podcast.

[1:22:54] It's not going to be in your ears in a few seconds.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:56] Or more than a few seconds.

[1:22:58] But you get the idea.

[1:22:59] You can drag it over to the little garbage icon.

[1:23:01] So, Dan, what are some ideas for...

[1:23:02] And slip it right in there.

[1:23:03] What are some ideas for...

[1:23:04] Just slip it right in there.

[1:23:06] I don't like where it's going.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:08] So, what could people do after they finish listening to the podcast?

[1:23:11] So, we're going to end the podcast in about a minute, 30 seconds or so.

[1:23:13] Go over to FlophousePodcast.com

[1:23:15] and leave a review on Yelp or something.

[1:23:18] Maybe they should leave a review on iTunes.

[1:23:19] We're so close to a thousand reviews on iTunes.

[1:23:22] I just want it to happen.

[1:23:24] Nice.

[1:23:25] Yeah.

[1:23:25] Put one star, super shitty podcast.

[1:23:27] No.

[1:23:28] Done.

[1:23:28] Give us eight Michelin stars.

[1:23:30] Wow.

[1:23:31] Then we can stop being boozy badass, you know, bad boys.

[1:23:35] Not me.

[1:23:36] I'll never stop being a boozy bad boy.

[1:23:39] And then maybe when they're done with the podcast and they leave their review, they can just go on with their lives.

[1:23:43] You know, experience the perpetual pageant that is reality.

[1:23:47] Just get out there, man.

[1:23:48] The wondrous surprises that are in store for you.

[1:23:50] Yeah, just get out there.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:51] You can't live your life through your ears.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:55] That's for sure in many ways.

[1:23:57] Just try stuffing a pizza in that thing.

[1:23:59] It's not going to get to your tummy.

[1:24:03] Yeah, so, you know.

[1:24:05] Just like go out there and live.

[1:24:07] Just live life, man.

[1:24:08] Find the next person you see and say like, hey, I want to relate to you from one human being to another.

[1:24:13] Yeah.

[1:24:14] They're going to want to leave.

[1:24:15] I want to give you a kiss if you're into it.

[1:24:19] And they won't be.

[1:24:20] But you'll have given them the option and that's okay.

[1:24:23] The important thing is consent.

[1:24:24] By offering it, you'll only be marginally creating an atmosphere of fear and tension.

[1:24:30] Guys, just go out there and live.

[1:24:32] Just live.

[1:24:33] Just be.

[1:24:34] Be like Jim Carrey in Yes Man and just say yes to everything.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:37] Yeah, but don't be like Jim Carrey in Yes Man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:39] Be better than that.

[1:24:41] I thought that was liar, liar.

[1:24:42] No, that's where he couldn't lie.

[1:24:44] Oh, but why is it called liar, liar?

Dan McCoy

[1:24:46] It's ironic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:48] Oh.

[1:24:48] The same reason Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all their minds were full of spots and it was nighttime.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:54] But most importantly, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:25:00] Well, I've been Stuart Wellington, partner.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:03] And awed by Stuart's John Wayne impression.

[1:25:06] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:25:08] Good night, everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:26] This is not a good night.

[1:25:27] Stop playing.

[1:25:28] That's Elliot's ad for the sex website that we're out of.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:32] Fuck it.

[1:25:33] Archie is now literally throwing himself against the door to try to get out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:37] I mean, you can let him out as long as he doesn't jump on my lap and claw at my legs.

[1:25:40] I can't guarantee that.

[1:25:40] He makes no promises.

[1:25:41] I don't know why he does that.

[1:25:43] Is my penis made out of mice, Dan?

[1:25:45] Why does this cat want to be in my lap so badly?

[1:25:48] Take a look.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:50] Oh, wow.

[1:25:51] That's a very mouse-generated penis.

[1:25:56] Your penis is squeak, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:59] Like mine?

[1:26:00] Squeak, squeak, squeak.

[1:26:01] And you feed it cheese?

Dan McCoy

[1:26:06] Optimumfun.org.

[1:26:08] Comedy and culture.

[1:26:09] Artist owned.

[1:26:10] Listener supported.

[1:26:11] Hi, I'm Mark.

[1:26:12] And I'm Hal.

[1:26:13] And we're the hosts of We Got This.

[1:26:15] The show that offers definitive answers to dumb debates that you suggest.

S4

[1:26:19] Every Wednesday, we discuss the hot-button topics you never knew you cared so much about.

[1:26:23] Like whether you should pick ketchup on a hot dog.

[1:26:26] What's the best Star Wars movie?

[1:26:27] Whether it's better to be too hot or too cold.

[1:26:30] Coke or Pepsi?

[1:26:31] Best Marvel movie?

[1:26:32] Which is the best religion?

[1:26:33] I told you we're not doing that one.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:35] So join us every week on MaximumFun.org.

[1:26:39] And don't worry, everyone.

[1:26:40] We got this.

[1:26:41] We got this.

Ep. #202 - Burnt

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