Ep.#451 - Better Man, with Hallie Haglund

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[0:03] I guess we can find a better man.

[0:07] That's pretty good.

Stuart Wellington

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

[0:34] Hey, Dan McCoy. And listeners, I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:38] Hey, Stuart Wellington and Dan McCoy.

[0:40] My name, which is on my driver's license, is Elliot Kalin.

[0:44] And joining us today is...

Hallie Haglund

[0:46] Hallie Haglin!

[0:47] Woo!

[0:48] And star of the share of the ones.

Elliott Kalan

[0:50] Oh, she's got her...

[0:51] I didn't realize Hallie has like a ragtime sting that she now uses.

[0:56] Yeah, that was good.

[0:57] So you hired Scott Joplin to write that for you, for your appearances on podcasts?

[1:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:02] Everyone's stepping up. I appreciate that Hallie had a theme.

[1:04] I appreciate that Stuart specified that he was talking to the listeners.

[1:08] Yeah, instead of just Dan.

[1:09] When you addressed them. Yeah.

[1:10] It's good stuff.

[1:12] Yeah, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:15] Now, hold on.

[1:17] You might be saying the straw man that Stuart claims I'm always talking to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22] I'm listening.

[1:24] Yeah.

[1:25] So, Dan, tell us...

[1:26] Wait, before you get in, tell us about this straw man you're always worried about who always takes issue with everything you say.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31] It's like he's in the audience of the podcast and he's saying, Dan, you suck.

[1:36] I want to kill you.

[1:37] I hate you.

[1:37] I'm going to kill you.

[1:38] I'm a scarecrow.

[1:39] I'm going to get you.

[1:40] I'm going to come in your home at night.

[1:41] It would be...

Elliott Kalan

[1:42] It was kind of like an evil Dan is what you're saying.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44] Yeah, and then...

[1:44] But it looks just like a younger version of Dan and then Dan has to jump off the podcast stage and do like a battle?

[1:50] Oh, right.

[1:51] Do a battle with all the other versions of Dan that are wearing the clothes we've seen Dan wearing throughout the movie.

[1:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:55] The one of me that's just viscera from the rock DJ...

[2:00] That was an Easter egg for the true fans.

[2:03] Which video was that from?

Elliott Kalan

[2:04] So, we're referring, of course, to the movie we watched, Better Man, which has a lot of Easter eggs for little Robbie Williams moments.

[2:09] So, for someone like me who is not super versed on the career of Robbie Williams, there were times I was like, I guess that's a thing he wore once.

[2:16] Like, I guess that's a thing he said once.

Stuart Wellington

[2:17] Elliot's an outlier for all Americans, though.

[2:20] Americans love Robbie Williams.

[2:21] They love Robbie Williams.

Dan McCoy

[2:22] Before we get into that, though, let's wrap up the thing that I needlessly introduced, which is to say that this got a lot of pretty good reviews.

[2:29] You know, this is not our usual...

[2:32] Usually we, you know, tend towards the critical flop rather than commercial flop.

[2:38] This was a commercial flop, though, while being a largely a critical success.

Hallie Haglund

[2:43] Someone told me it made like $700 in the US.

[2:47] I think it made a little more than that, but not much more.

Elliott Kalan

[2:49] Yeah, not much more.

Stuart Wellington

[2:51] And that includes popcorn sales.

Elliott Kalan

[2:53] That's like...

[2:54] So, one popcorn.

Stuart Wellington

[2:57] Thanks, Trump.

Elliott Kalan

[2:58] I was listening to a podcast recently about the making of Donnie Darko, a movie that I saw in the theaters.

[3:03] And they talked about what a tiny amount of money it made in the theaters.

[3:06] It made me feel really special.

[3:08] That I was part of this elite, I guess, smaller than I realized, exclusive crew of people that saw it in the theaters.

[3:13] So, anyone out there who saw Better Man in the theaters, you are part of like a real kind of exclusive club of people who can say, yeah, I went to the theater.

[3:22] And I paid money to sit in a private business that functions as a public place to watch a chimp be Robbie Williams and live out the life of Robbie Williams.

[3:32] Because not a lot of people can say that, it turns out.

Dan McCoy

[3:34] And it's interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[3:35] So, this movie, Robbie Williams...

[3:37] No, wait.

[3:38] We should make it clear to Americans.

[3:40] This is not a movie about Robin Williams.

[3:42] Yeah.

[3:42] The much more famous celebrity in America and I think the rest of the world who has a similar name.

[3:46] This is about Robbie Williams who is short for Robert Williams, I think.

[3:50] Yes.

[3:50] Who is a singer, a singer and dancer, a showman, you know, as opposed to Robin Williams who is more of a force of nature, you know.

[3:56] Also a showman.

Dan McCoy

[3:58] One of the greatest.

[4:01] That's an Easter egg for this director.

[4:04] No, this, I mean, he's huge in the UK, Robbie Williams.

[4:09] In Europe.

[4:11] But the funny thing is, this was not even that successful.

[4:14] No, even in the UK.

[4:14] Oh, I didn't know that.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] So, I thought I was going to see, I looked at it and I was like, oh, this was probably a huge smash hit in the UK and it just didn't translate.

[4:20] Oh, no, they didn't like it over there either.

[4:21] Or they didn't go to see it, you know.

[4:22] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[4:23] He did a big swing.

[4:24] You know what?

[4:25] He did it his way.

Stuart Wellington

[4:26] He did do it his way.

[4:27] He did, yeah.

[4:28] As he sings.

[4:30] A song that was popularized by singer Robbie Williams and no one else.

Hallie Haglund

[4:34] Have you guys heard that song?

[4:35] That's Robbie Williams.

Elliott Kalan

[4:36] He's not even, it's not even, it's not as if it's not even the first time it's been sung by a figure in a musical biopic.

[4:42] You know, it's, I'm referring to Sid Vicious and Lucy Sid Nancy, who also sings My Way.

Stuart Wellington

[4:46] My preferred version.

Dan McCoy

[4:48] My wife's preferred.

[4:49] Well, because it's the only one that cuts through the fucking treacle.

[4:52] Like, let's all, let's be honest.

[4:55] One of the worst Sinatra songs.

Stuart Wellington

[4:57] I'll just ask Charlotte.

[4:59] My wife's a huge Sinatra fan.

[5:00] She even saw him in Las Vegas at the Desert Inn.

[5:03] Really?

[5:04] Which is a story that I will not share.

[5:05] She, it's her story, but she, she was very young.

[5:08] Her story.

[5:09] Yeah, exactly.

[5:09] She did it her way.

Dan McCoy

[5:10] I think it can't help being like, like when he gets going, it can't help but being like a little rousing.

[5:15] But the message of that song is just so dumb to me.

[5:18] It's like, we all do it our own fucking way.

[5:21] And it also sounds like shitty.

[5:23] Like, no, I didn't take advice from anybody.

[5:25] I'm right.

Elliott Kalan

[5:26] Me.

[5:27] It's a song that work.

[5:28] It's a song that on bass level is a, is a jerk, um, justify himself.

[5:33] But it works when it is an older jerk like Sinatra who has been through things and made mistakes.

[5:38] The point of that song is I made a lot of mistakes, but look, this is the only way I knew how to do it.

[5:42] I had to do it my way and it, and it screwed me up.

[5:44] That works when it is an older man singing it who can look back on things.

[5:48] But I feel like Robbie Williams, for all the mistakes he's clearly made as seen in the movie, it still seems weird for someone who is not in their 60s to be singing my way.

[5:56] And also in America.

[5:57] He's in what, early 50s, right?

[5:58] Early 50s now.

[5:59] Yeah.

[5:59] But by the time in the movie, he must be in, his parents are still alive and not looking that old.

[6:04] So he must be in like his 30s.

[6:05] Well, not both of his parents.

[6:06] What?

[6:07] Not by the end.

[6:08] One of them looks old by the end.

[6:09] There's a whole song about it.

Stuart Wellington

[6:11] No, that's his grandma who dies.

[6:12] Oh, really?

[6:13] Yeah, yeah.

[6:13] Oh, wow.

[6:15] Whoa.

[6:15] Oh, man.

Hallie Haglund

[6:15] Did you watch this movie?

Elliott Kalan

[6:17] I don't think he did.

[6:19] Well, Dan thinks that Gran is what English people call Mom, which is not true, Dan.

[6:23] They didn't call her Gran, though.

[6:26] That's true.

[6:26] They didn't really call her Gran, no.

[6:29] Thank you, Hallie.

[6:31] Hallie's the only one who did her homework.

[6:33] It is an interesting move that the dad, as he gets older, becomes more and more caked with old age makeup.

[6:38] And the mom, they don't really do much to it.

Dan McCoy

[6:40] Actually, that's just Steve Pemberton's real face.

[6:42] Oh, they de-aged him for the earlier one.

[6:44] No, that makes a lot more sense looking back on the movie.

[6:47] But the thing is—

Elliott Kalan

[6:49] This is a real in-time situation where, for people who don't remember that old episode, we didn't realize that one character was supposed to be another character's mother.

Dan McCoy

[6:56] The dad is made up, even when he's young, looks so old that it made more sense to me that those two were together, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[7:03] Oh, man.

[7:04] Yeah, like, the father in this movie—we'll actually start the movie in a second.

[7:10] We're going to watch it?

[7:11] Yeah, we're going to watch it together.

[7:12] I'll hit play on the VHS tape.

[7:13] The father's played by Steve Pemberton, longtime member of the League of Gentlemen, longtime English comedy guy.

[7:19] And I'm so used to seeing him wearing, like, crazy wigs and, like, with tons of weird makeup on.

[7:26] So I feel like this all tracks.

[7:28] And, yeah, I love him in everything he's in.

[7:30] And he plays such, like, a piece of shit.

[7:32] And he's so good at doing it in every performance.

Elliott Kalan

[7:34] He's playing the classic—I feel like we have this in America, too.

[7:37] But I feel like it's very classic in England, which is the bad dad who's kind of, like, a music hall-type performer, super low-level, super never going to be famous.

Stuart Wellington

[7:46] Yeah, a real Rolling Stone.

[7:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:49] And he's just—I feel like there's—I've seen so many British movies, especially, about this kind of guy.

[7:55] But there's—maybe the hitman of England, there's probably, like, seven of them, but they make so many movies that it seems like this is the number two job in England after, like, I don't know, working in a factory and getting your hands cut off or something like that.

[8:05] The what?

[8:06] Chimneys.

[8:06] Yeah.

[8:07] That's one of the top ones.

[8:08] If you're in England, you're either a chimney sweep, you are a low-level entertainer who abandons your family for a long time, or you are the king.

[8:14] Like, those are basically the jobs.

[8:16] Are you that guy with the big hat?

[8:17] The guy with the big hat?

[8:18] But, like, I feel like—

[8:19] The friend of the palace.

[8:20] Oh, right, right.

[8:20] The guard, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:21] I feel like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins crosses off, like, four of those boxes.

[8:26] Awesome.

[8:26] That's true.

[8:27] You know he's got, like, at least one family somewhere that he's not paying attention to.

[8:31] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[8:31] As I said online, too, if you're a reformer in the UK, you either end up on a comedy panel,

[8:37] or you get to be a detective.

[8:39] Those are two paths.

[8:40] Yeah, that's what you get to be.

[8:41] Stick around long enough.

Stuart Wellington

[8:42] Yeah.

[8:43] Okay, so let's get into Better Man.

[8:45] Now, let's jump in here right up top.

Elliott Kalan

[8:49] Let's jump in the way Robbie Williams was because he does a lot of jumping in this movie, a lot of jump-based dancing.

[8:53] Because he's a monkey.

Stuart Wellington

[8:54] He's not a monkey, Dan.

[8:55] He's a chimpanzee.

[8:56] Very different.

[8:57] As we mentioned a bunch of times, this movie makes the interesting choice to replace its human performer with a—what Dan informed me was a digital chimp character, a chimpanzee.

Elliott Kalan

[9:09] They didn't really train a chimpanzee to walk on its hind legs exclusively and sing Robbie Williams songs and do a Robbie Williams impression.

[9:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[9:16] I think they can do it, dude.

[9:17] To grow to man's size.

[9:18] They can use tools.

Elliott Kalan

[9:19] To grow to man's size.

[9:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[9:21] So it's an interesting choice and one that didn't financially pay off.

[9:27] Yeah, it's a brave choice.

Elliott Kalan

[9:28] I think it's one of those things where it's a double-edged sword because it is the one thing that made us interested in talking about this.

[9:34] I can see how it would bring in—

[9:35] It certainly made me interested.

[9:36] Yeah, that's the thing that might bring in the curious.

[9:38] But for the Robbie Williams fan, I think it's probably off-putting to not recognize the person that the movie is about.

[9:45] And as we've seen from Bohemian Rhapsody, people love it.

[9:49] People love a performer who is made up to be an exaggerated almost physical caricature of the person they're performing.

[9:55] But they do not like a different species.

[9:57] And there's only one scene where you see the chimp in bed with women.

[10:01] And just for that moment, it is weirdly off-putting.

[10:04] But I had the same feeling watching this that I've had with other things where I'm like, I had to keep reminding myself, oh, yeah, in real life, this scene is happening with a person and not a chimp doing it.

[10:14] And so the movie is much more interesting if it's about a performing chimp than about a performing person.

Stuart Wellington

[10:19] Yeah, I mean, how—like, I don't know about you guys, but I find it slightly off-putting to see a chimpanzee snorting like mountains of cocaine.

[10:27] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[10:28] Well, because then it's going to rip someone's face off is my worry.

Elliott Kalan

[10:31] The only place you should see that is a roadside carnival in Florida.

[10:35] And you should only see it because you're walking past that room to the bathroom and you accidentally catch a glimpse of it.

Stuart Wellington

[10:40] Yeah.

[10:40] Okay.

[10:41] Well, the movie begins in a little town called Stoke-on-Trent, what a small town in the north of England.

[10:48] We are introduced to Robert, who is a young chimpanzee boy who claims that he can play goalie in a pickup soccer game.

[10:58] He does terribly.

[10:59] Flip ball, they call it.

[10:59] But this shows his inability to understand his own limitations.

Dan McCoy

[11:04] Let's—

[11:04] No.

Stuart Wellington

[11:05] But he's cheeky.

Dan McCoy

[11:06] And he's cheeky.

[11:07] He's assigned to being goalie.

[11:10] This is the thing that I thought was weird.

[11:12] Like, they're all like, you're shit, Robbie.

[11:15] Be goalie.

[11:16] One of the most important things here.

[11:17] Thank you.

[11:18] As a former goalie, I appreciate this, Dan.

[11:20] If you're playing, like, soccer as—certainly as kids play it, just put him in the middle.

[11:24] Like, one of the people who runs around, like, they're not staying tight to their, like, roles.

[11:28] Like, just let him get lost in the—

Stuart Wellington

[11:29] What's that name of that position, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[11:31] You're a big footballer.

[11:32] There's, like, a wing and another wing and a forward.

[11:35] Usually there's at least one wing.

Elliott Kalan

[11:37] If you only have one, you're not going to get far.

[11:38] You know what I'm talking about.

[11:39] Like, I found this right off the bat.

[11:40] Perhaps it could be a striker.

[11:42] You're not going to fly.

Stuart Wellington

[11:43] Yeah, it's in, like, that famous Stevie Nicks song, Edge of 17, just like a one-wing dove.

Elliott Kalan

[11:50] Sings a song, sounds like she's singing.

[11:52] Where's my wing?

Hallie Haglund

[11:56] Is that a joke or are those the words?

Elliott Kalan

[11:58] No, no.

[11:59] No, it's a white-wing dove.

[12:00] It's a white-wing dove, not a one-wing dove.

[12:02] Oh, I was going to say.

Hallie Haglund

[12:02] I was like, I thought it was a white-wing.

Elliott Kalan

[12:04] Yeah.

[12:05] So she's not afraid of changes because she's built her life around goo all this time?

[12:10] I thought that was the lyric.

[12:11] Yeah.

[12:13] Okay, so.

[12:13] She works at Nickelodeon.

[12:15] So children get balder?

[12:17] Is that the line?

Stuart Wellington

[12:18] So young Robert, he doesn't do particularly well in soccer.

[12:23] People kind of razz him a little bit.

[12:25] This doesn't, we don't really see much more of this relationship with the other kids in the neighborhood.

[12:29] But it shows that he has a desire to be someone.

[12:33] And he has a, he lives at home with his mother.

Dan McCoy

[12:36] It shows his bluster.

Stuart Wellington

[12:37] Yeah, his bluster and his cheek.

[12:39] This is what's going to get him through life.

[12:40] And eventually be his downfall.

[12:41] He's a little cheeky bastard.

[12:42] He never knows when to die.

[12:43] He's a cheeky monkey.

Elliott Kalan

[12:45] He's not a monkey, Dan.

[12:46] He is a cheeky monkey.

[12:46] He's not.

[12:46] He's a chimpanzee, Dan.

[12:48] A chimpanzee and a monkey are two different things.

Dan McCoy

[12:50] Are we sure he is, though?

Stuart Wellington

[12:52] Yeah, he's not like a capuchin.

Elliott Kalan

[12:54] No.

[12:54] He's not like Dr. Watson.

[12:56] I mean, we never saw that.

[12:57] Well, he doesn't have a tail.

[12:58] You're right.

[12:58] He doesn't have a tail.

[12:59] This is the difference between a monkey and other apes.

[13:01] Or I guess apes and monkeys are different.

[13:03] Monkeys have tails.

[13:04] Chimpanzees do not have tails.

[13:05] Gorillas don't have tails.

[13:06] Oranguans don't have tails.

[13:07] And we do see his butt during the surprisingly ass-bearing girl-boy band world of Britain in the 1990s.

[13:16] Yeah.

[13:17] Where I was always like, throughout that sequence, I was like, this is a lot more skin than I'm used to American boy bands showing.

[13:22] But we do see that he does not have a tail.

[13:24] So, Dan, I'd like you to, I'm going to keep correcting you.

[13:26] This is the kind of straw man you should worry about, a zoological straw man who does not like it when people confuse monkeys and chimpanzees.

[13:33] Stuart, continue.

[13:34] Don't let Dan stop you.

[13:35] Just let me stop you.

Stuart Wellington

[13:36] Whoa.

[13:37] So, his home life, he lives at home with his grandmother, who's very nurturing, or his nan.

[13:43] Or mother, as Dan says.

[13:45] Thank you.

[13:45] Yep.

[13:46] His mom, who is a hardworking lady who is trying to pay the bills, and then he has his-

Dan McCoy

[13:52] Or his dad thinks a roommate, who I guess is just renting rooms from the-

[13:55] She is such a non-entity in this movie.

[13:59] Nan.

[13:59] It's nan.

Elliott Kalan

[14:00] She's such a nan entity.

[14:02] You know, the mom thing.

[14:03] She was a mom entity in this movie.

[14:05] Mom entity.

Dan McCoy

[14:05] Oh, yeah.

[14:06] That, like, I, yeah, no, I feel foolish.

[14:08] But at the same time, they really do not put any importance on the mom compared to the nan or the dad.

[14:14] Yeah.

[14:14] She does cry at the end, and he says some nice things.

[14:17] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[14:17] She's there.

[14:18] That's what moms do.

[14:19] We're just there.

Elliott Kalan

[14:20] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[14:20] We're there, and nobody gives us the credit, but we're always there.

Elliott Kalan

[14:23] Yeah, Hallie, how would you feel if you're, if one of your sons, I won't mention their names for their privacy on this podcast.

[14:28] If one of them eventually made a movie where they were a chimp-

[14:31] Robbie Williams.

[14:31] If your son, Robbie Williams, achieved stardom as a chimp, and you were barely in the movie, how would you feel about that?

[14:38] I'd be pissed.

[14:40] Okay.

[14:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:41] Like, would you disown him?

[14:42] I also think this episode comes out right before Mother's Day, right?

Elliott Kalan

[14:46] This is the episode that comes out, I think, the day before Mother's Day.

Stuart Wellington

[14:48] Yeah, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[14:49] So, everybody, tomorrow, take care of your moms.

[14:52] Put them in your movie.

Dan McCoy

[14:54] Make sure to show their important parts of your chimp-performing career.

[14:57] Get them a gift.

[14:58] Happy Mother's Day.

[14:58] Get them a nice workout set.

Elliott Kalan

[15:00] So, let me-

[15:01] Mom, I know that you listen.

Dan McCoy

[15:02] I find that confusing and distressing, but I love you.

[15:06] Okay, let me just-

Elliott Kalan

[15:07] Now, Dan, are you sure that's your mom and not your grandma you're talking to?

[15:09] Because I know you have trouble telling them apart.

Dan McCoy

[15:11] Now, oh, it's like the end of the usual suspects.

Stuart Wellington

[15:14] Just check the timestamp on where we're at in the movie.

[15:17] Two seconds in.

Dan McCoy

[15:18] Oh, sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[15:19] Oh, wow, okay.

[15:21] Cool, okay.

[15:21] Buckle up, guys.

[15:22] I mean, it's a-

[15:23] Has everybody peed?

[15:24] Do we need to pee before this trip?

[15:26] It's the most basic plot.

[15:27] We don't need to get, like, you know, it's-

[15:29] He's trying to establish some fucking foundations here.

[15:32] So, and his dad is this, like, as we said, he's a small-level performer.

[15:37] He's very selfish.

[15:39] He's not around very much.

[15:41] He runs away at the first opportunity.

[15:42] He's a bad dad, singer dad.

[15:45] Yeah.

[15:45] And he's obsessed with the legends, as he calls them.

[15:49] This is your Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and, of course, Frank Sinatra.

[15:53] Yeah.

[15:54] So, and he, at the first opportunity, he runs away.

[15:58] He does not show up for Robbie when Robbie is part of a school production of Pirates of Penzance.

Elliott Kalan

[16:03] Which, I have to say, that is an intense production for kids to have to pull off.

[16:08] Gilbert and Sullivan is hard even for professional adult performers that rapid-fire very complicated dialogue.

[16:14] Yeah.

[16:14] Who's singing modern major general in that?

[16:16] Yeah.

[16:17] I mean, I guess, I mean, Robbie's playing a pirate.

[16:19] I guess he's not.

[16:19] He's the pirate thing.

[16:20] But for kids to pull off Gilbert and Sullivan is harsh.

[16:22] This must be one of the toughest, non, the toughest schools in all of England.

Hallie Haglund

[16:27] This is like the fame school, but in England.

[16:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:29] It's like, but that's the thing.

[16:31] Yeah, that's what they call the fame school.

[16:33] I mean, England puts way more effort into teaching kids the arts than the U.S.

[16:37] So, maybe that's the difference.

[16:38] And that's why they get Robbie Williams and we don't.

Elliott Kalan

[16:41] Yeah.

[16:41] That's why we have no boy bands in this country.

[16:44] Not a single one.

[16:44] We're losing ground to Korea so fast every single day in the boy band market.

[16:49] That's true.

[16:49] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:50] And I think this is a good time, as any, to say, sorry for not winning any Tony nominations.

[16:57] Current performance of Pirates of Penzance, now on Broadway, right?

[17:01] David Heisner.

[17:02] Yeah.

[17:02] I didn't even know that was happening.

Dan McCoy

[17:05] Potential snub is what New York One told me.

[17:09] Okay.

[17:09] I mean, we know by now.

[17:11] Well, I mean, you know.

[17:12] Was he nominated?

[17:13] It was not nominated.

[17:14] But he thought it was going to get nominations.

[17:16] Well, he said potential snub.

[17:18] And I'm like, well, we know it's a snub.

Stuart Wellington

[17:20] But I haven't seen any of the productions, so I can't tell whether it's a real snub.

Elliott Kalan

[17:24] Maybe they, I feel like potential snub just means whether it was deliberate or not.

[17:28] Or whether it was like, oh, they just didn't deserve it.

[17:30] You know.

[17:30] Yeah.

[17:31] Okay.

[17:31] When Better Man was snubbed by audiences.

Stuart Wellington

[17:34] Mm-hmm.

[17:34] So his father runs away, leaving Robbie to young Robert to sing a Robbie Williams song to kind of commemorate this loss.

[17:45] And he still clutches onto various trinkets and artifacts that his father left behind because he still loves his dad despite him being a bad dad's hinger dad.

Elliott Kalan

[17:53] In some ways, the more distant your dad is, the easier it is to love them because there's that yearning.

[17:58] You know, it becomes a very strong thing.

[18:00] Whereas if your dad's kind of always around and wants to help you, it's easier for a kid to say, eh, no thanks.

[18:05] I'll just sit in my room and not interact with you.

[18:07] It all seems very personal.

[18:09] No, it's all hypothetical.

[18:10] It's all hypothetical.

[18:10] Not at all true.

[18:11] But, you know, sometimes the dad reaches out and is like, hey, let's play catch.

[18:14] And they're like, I'm good.

[18:15] And you're like, but this is the kind of thing I always wanted my dad to do with me.

[18:18] All right.

[18:19] And then they go, hey, mom, want to play catch?

[18:20] And you're like, what?

Stuart Wellington

[18:24] Yep.

[18:24] And then you put on cats in the cradle.

[18:27] And they turn it off.

[18:28] They're like, I don't want to hear that shit.

[18:31] I'm just drunk.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] My kids are like, dad, I was really hoping for more of a cats in the cradle relationship with you.

Stuart Wellington

[18:39] Okay.

[18:40] So teenage Robbie now has ambitions to be a singer and performer and kind of like a cabaret style.

[18:46] Like that's his foundation.

[18:48] He wants to be like the Rat Pack.

[18:49] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[18:50] Not to be confused with the Brat Pack.

[18:53] He does not want to be like that.

Stuart Wellington

[18:55] He does.

[18:55] He expressly says that at the time.

[18:58] It's like most of them didn't go, you know, live up to their potential.

[19:01] But some of them hit some quite highs.

[19:02] The Grindr.

[19:03] What a show.

[19:04] High highs, low lows.

[19:05] Yeah.

[19:08] Yeah.

[19:08] That was what?

[19:09] The Curacao film?

[19:10] Uh-huh.

[19:11] So.

[19:12] Yeah.

[19:13] The Curacao film about the Brat Pack.

Elliott Kalan

[19:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[19:15] Yeah.

[19:15] So young Robert hears an ad on the radio for a upcoming boy band audition.

[19:23] That is being put together by the actor who played Dewey Crow from Justified.

[19:27] Which he plays it as creepy as possible.

Dan McCoy

[19:30] I will say that this movie for me like really loses something as soon as that sleazy producer leaves the movie.

[19:36] Sleazy producer leaves the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[19:37] Yeah.

[19:37] I agree.

[19:37] Especially because they really seem to make a meal out of his facial hair and regular hair.

[19:42] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:43] They make a big point of talking about like hinting out what a jerk he is.

[19:49] Yes.

[19:50] And then it never – I mean he's not nice to them.

[19:51] But I feel like in the animals of boy band managerdom, there's so much worse.

Dan McCoy

[19:55] Well, I mean they make a joke of it.

[19:57] But like literally the first thing is like, you know, for legal reasons, he was a real sweetheart.

[20:01] And like I wonder if that's sort of genuine.

[20:03] Like there's a limit to how far he wanted to go.

Elliott Kalan

[20:06] But then they undercut that because they say – it goes end of right C word.

[20:10] Yeah.

[20:10] And it's like – so it's like if you're going to do that bit, do it.

[20:12] It means something different in England.

[20:14] Yeah.

[20:14] In England, it's a nice thing.

[20:16] Terms of endearment.

[20:17] It's a term of endearment.

[20:18] Yeah.

[20:18] That's what the movie Terms of Endearment is about.

[20:20] It's about C word.

[20:21] That's right.

[20:21] Yeah.

[20:23] This is the word – speaking of me and my children where my older son, he's out of that phase now.

[20:28] But for a while, like a year to go, he was very enamored of showing off what bad words he knew.

[20:32] And he'd be like, I know the F word.

[20:35] I know the S word.

[20:36] He goes, I know the worst word, which of course is a different kind of word.

[20:40] And I'm like, you don't know the second worst word.

[20:42] And he'd be like, just tell me what letter it starts with.

[20:44] And I'm like, it's a word you're not even going to hear.

[20:46] Don't worry about it.

[20:47] He's like, I just want the letter.

[20:48] Just give me the letter.

Stuart Wellington

[20:49] Mr. Policeman, I gave you all the –

[20:50] Yeah.

[20:50] If you even speak it, it will destroy your mouth.

[20:55] Yeah.

[20:56] It's a Lovecraftian word.

[20:57] It's a nuncia.

[20:59] So he – so it's – I think it's important to say that this is a –

[21:05] this is a musician biopic, my least favorite genre of movies.

[21:08] But it's a musician biopic where the –

[21:09] So you'd rather see a real-life snuff film?

[21:11] Yeah.

[21:12] Yeah.

[21:12] I consider that a genre of movie.

[21:15] Although it's funny, Stuart.

[21:16] You're the one who really sold this movie.

[21:18] I was – yeah.

[21:19] Sometimes –

[21:19] I mean, literally, Stuart was the marketing exec who was on the movie.

[21:22] So you did a great job, Stu.

Dan McCoy

[21:25] Weirdly enough, I got promoted.

Stuart Wellington

[21:26] That's why he's a podcaster now.

[21:28] I think it's because –

[21:29] Failing upward, that's the Stuart Wellington story.

Elliott Kalan

[21:31] They said, Stu, you took one for the team.

[21:33] You got pinched.

[21:33] You didn't talk.

[21:34] We're going to kick you upstairs.

[21:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[21:36] Yeah.

[21:36] But – so it – I think it suffers from the fact that many of the people that are featured in this movie are still alive, so they are a little bit careful to not be too honest about things.

[21:47] And we occasionally get voiceovers from real-life Robbie Williams himself, not a chimp, which like he'll give you little insights into the moments of the story.

[21:58] Not as good as, say, 24-hour party people, which is much better.

Elliott Kalan

[22:03] I mean, well, that's a great movie.

[22:04] That's a genuinely great movie.

[22:05] Just a great movie.

[22:06] I think this movie suffers a little bit from – and we can talk about this more later, I guess, but like from coming relatively soon after a bunch of other music biopics.

[22:14] Like I'm trying to remember what other ones there were besides – in the last few years, like Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody.

[22:18] But like it is telling a very similar story and –

[22:22] Complete Unknown.

[22:23] Yeah.

[22:24] Complete Unknown.

[22:25] Although I guess, yeah, it's a – although this came out before Complete Unknown, right?

[22:28] Or no.

[22:29] I mean within like a few months, right?

[22:31] Yeah.

[22:32] And they're the same kind of performer pretty much.

[22:33] So it's like if you're going to see one, you're not going to see the other.

Hallie Haglund

[22:37] I do think – I texted Dan this already, but I do think this is like the better version of Maestro.

Dan McCoy

[22:43] Oh.

[22:43] Oh, okay.

[22:44] I never saw Maestro.

[22:45] This is an interesting take, but I didn't really dig into it on text because I wanted you to explain more here.

Hallie Haglund

[22:53] It's got – you know, like –

Dan McCoy

[22:54] How many chimps are in Maestro?

Hallie Haglund

[22:55] Well, I feel like the chimp is akin to the prosthetic nose.

[23:00] Yeah.

[23:01] Oh.

[23:01] And then they have these fantastical scenes, at least in my memory.

[23:07] Don't they have like dance scenes in Maestro?

Dan McCoy

[23:09] I didn't see Maestro.

[23:10] I don't know.

[23:10] I thought it was about Maestro.

[23:11] Dan, did you see Maestro?

[23:11] I did see Maestro.

[23:13] I don't remember like fantastical, but I remember it being like extremely stylized.

Hallie Haglund

[23:20] Yeah.

[23:20] I think this – yeah.

[23:21] But the dance scenes in this – I never am that into like dance in movies.

[23:26] But I thought the dance was so – the dancing was so fun in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[23:28] The dance scenes in this movie are very good.

[23:30] Yeah.

[23:30] I mean there's one scene in particular, the rock DJ scene.

[23:33] We're not even there yet.

[23:35] We're not there yet.

[23:35] Yeah.

[23:35] But I just want to – I mean we brought it up.

[23:38] I'm just saying that's like a five-star scene in a otherwise – you know, not five-star movie.

[23:42] Like two-and-a-half-star movie.

[23:43] Maybe three-star movie.

Hallie Haglund

[23:44] I remember the dancing that he – when he did the dancing with Nicole on the yacht.

[23:48] Yeah.

[23:49] That's great.

[23:49] Excellent.

Stuart Wellington

[23:50] Yeah.

[23:50] So let's get – let's put the pedal to the metal and get there fast.

[23:53] So he aces his audition.

[23:55] He doesn't sing particularly well, but he has just a kind of – I think the kid's called Riz.

[24:00] Yeah.

[24:01] A little bit of cheek, a little charm.

[24:03] He specifically – he specifically talks about his success being tied in with a specific wink he does.

[24:10] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[24:11] It looks like he's failed the audition and then he turns around and goes, should I tell the other guys just to give up because you've already found me?

[24:16] And then winks.

[24:17] And he's like, if I hadn't winked, I never would have been here today.

[24:20] You know, whatever.

Hallie Haglund

[24:21] And then when he leaves, the guy's like, cheeky bastard.

Elliott Kalan

[24:24] Yeah.

[24:25] That's exactly what we need for our boy bond.

[24:28] We need someone who's a real cheekster.

Dan McCoy

[24:30] But I respect him.

Stuart Wellington

[24:32] I mean, every boy band needs a bad boy.

[24:34] Like in the boy band of the Flophouse, I'm the bad boy.

[24:37] Dan's the cute one.

Elliott Kalan

[24:41] I'll take it.

[24:42] I don't know about that.

[24:43] Elliot's the smart one.

[24:44] I guess I'm the artistic genius that leaves and creates even bigger things.

[24:48] Okay, I'll take it.

[24:49] You're not the quiet one.

[24:51] That's for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[24:52] I am bound for reality television.

[24:55] Okay, so –

[24:57] And Hallie is the guest one.

[24:58] Mm-hmm.

[25:00] I'm the girl.

[25:03] She comes in and does like a hot like solo or chorus that we really need to bump that.

[25:09] Yeah, yeah.

[25:10] She contributes the hook.

[25:11] Yeah.

[25:12] Yeah.

[25:13] So he is invited to join.

[25:16] He joins Take That, a hot new boy band that starts out by playing shows in the gay club scene in England before graduating to more, I guess, cishet normative venues.

Elliott Kalan

[25:28] I mean to specifically teenage girl-directed venues.

[25:33] Yeah.

[25:33] But that's something that – so this was the one insight of the – the insights about like when you get everything you want, it leaves you empty inside.

[25:40] You know, people are important.

[25:41] That insight did not – I've heard that before.

[25:43] But something that I had never like thought about.

[25:47] Every other movie –

[25:48] Spider-Man comics.

[25:49] Oh, okay.

[25:49] Yeah, yeah.

[25:50] The movie Family Man with Nicolas Cage.

Stuart Wellington

[25:52] Episode of Family Guy.

[25:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:55] The –

Stuart Wellington

[25:55] Quagmire says it and they say giggity.

[25:57] The –

[25:58] He sure does.

Dan McCoy

[26:00] He sure does.

[26:00] The guy says giggity a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[26:02] Oh, boy.

[26:03] No wonder that show has ran for 29 years or whatever it is.

[26:06] One of the top people who says giggity.

[26:08] Yeah.

[26:09] Name it –

[26:09] Top three.

[26:10] Top three.

[26:11] Easy.

[26:11] Name someone who does giggity.

[26:14] Yeah.

[26:14] Undeniable.

[26:15] Name someone who's better at giggity than him.

[26:18] But the insight that you can create a teen girl-oriented boy band by first testing them out in the gay club scene was one where I was like, you know what?

[26:28] That made a connection for me that I had not made internally before.

[26:31] And I liked – that was the kind of thing where I'm like, okay, that's a different point that I'm seeing.

[26:37] That makes sense to me but I haven't heard it before.

[26:39] But first before they did that, I was like – he's like, first, we started on the gay club scene.

[26:43] I'm like, is there enough money in the underground gay club scene for a boy band to be like – to build a whole career off of that?

[26:50] And then it was like, oh, that was just your testing lab for the teen girl scene.

[26:53] That makes sense.

[26:54] But yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:55] And so they are very successful but Robbie individually isn't particularly successful.

[27:02] A lot of the money goes to their manager or to their like front man, Gary Barlow.

Elliott Kalan

[27:08] Because Gary writes the songs so he gets the royalties on the songs whereas they do not.

[27:12] They just get their, I guess, session and performance fees, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[27:14] Robbie develops a pretty severe cocaine and drinking problem by the age of 21.

Elliott Kalan

[27:19] Even though he has no money.

[27:21] He's somehow swimming in cocaine.

Stuart Wellington

[27:22] I don't think that – I think that tracks because the manager just keeps giving them those things for free.

[27:27] Oh, is that it?

[27:28] All right.

[27:29] Yeah.

[27:29] That makes sense.

[27:30] Because you got to get them amped up to go perform.

[27:31] I also assume, you know, like – I mean, look, I've never been in a boy band.

[27:36] But podcasting is pretty similar.

[27:39] I figure –

[27:39] I know.

[27:40] I only shocked.

[27:41] I think she just did a bazooka joke when Dan said –

[27:43] Hey, come on.

[27:45] Hey.

[27:45] She's doing the mental math.

[27:46] Hey, come on.

Dan McCoy

[27:47] Don't sell yourself short.

[27:48] You have.

[27:49] You've got time.

[27:50] You've got time, Dan.

[27:51] You have been.

[27:52] Don't say –

[27:53] Remember?

[27:55] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:56] No, but I –

[27:57] Remember when you were in three for all?

[28:01] The three boy boy band?

[28:05] It was weird.

[28:06] You were the one who would run out on stage and go, it's a total three for all.

[28:09] And then the other two guys would come out and join you?

Dan McCoy

[28:11] Yeah.

[28:11] It was weird though because I was 30 and the other two guys were 18.

Stuart Wellington

[28:15] Well, it's important because 30, there's a three in there.

[28:17] So it works.

Dan McCoy

[28:19] No, no.

Hallie Haglund

[28:19] You have to be an age that's divisible by three, which is really tricky because you can only perform every three years.

Elliott Kalan

[28:26] Oh, yeah.

[28:26] That year when you were 31 and they were 19 and you could not perform legally, that was harsh.

[28:31] That was harsh.

Stuart Wellington

[28:32] Terrible business model.

[28:33] You prepared you a cast on England and you worked on your next two years.

Dan McCoy

[28:37] The point was originally – I assume that also this is a job where people give you a lot of drugs.

[28:45] Yeah, probably.

[28:46] Yeah, yeah.

[28:46] As Stuart's saying.

Elliott Kalan

[28:47] Now, the – this is what struck me here when he's like –

Hallie Haglund

[28:50] You don't get it your way.

[28:53] That's a reference to the song.

Dan McCoy

[28:55] I did it.

[28:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[28:56] It's good stuff.

[28:57] You know what?

[28:57] I was going to say –

[28:58] I'm imagining like a Burger King for drugs.

[29:00] I want to have it my way.

[29:03] Please, no sauce on top of my –

[29:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:07] Or an outback commercial like no rules just right and yeah, no rules please.

Elliott Kalan

[29:12] Yeah, and you deserve a break today and that break I guess is drugs.

[29:15] When you're at a point, that's the McDonald's one.

[29:17] A lot of drugs.

Stuart Wellington

[29:17] I mean that's when I take my drugs is when I'm on a break.

[29:20] Not when I'm at work.

[29:21] I'm loving it.

[29:22] Drugs.

[29:25] I'm loving it.

[29:26] Dot, dot, dot.

[29:27] Drugs.

[29:29] Oh, man.

[29:30] Slide that T-shirt.

[29:31] Yeah, that Ronald McDope fiend says that.

Hallie Haglund

[29:34] Do you guys know that like BK, Have It Your Way is my son's favorite song ever or watching TV.

[29:43] Like if that commercial comes on, he like stops whatever he's doing and like double takes to the TV.

Elliott Kalan

[29:50] It's amazing.

[29:52] How does your son feel about – because my sons love that song, but the thing they love even more are insurance company slogans.

[29:57] So they'll just walk around going, liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.

[30:01] Can we get like a single for that?

[30:04] Yeah.

[30:04] Yeah, I don't know.

[30:05] It means when I sing the ring pop song to them from those old commercials, it's like a Gilbert and Sullivan Pirates of Pennzins thing because the lyrics are so much more complicated than just liberty, liberty, liberty.

[30:14] But yeah, you're like you won't get it yet.

[30:16] You'll get it when you're a little bit older.

[30:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:20] Yeah, just don't play the Cars for Kids song for them or it'll drive them insane.

Elliott Kalan

[30:25] Oh, boy.

[30:25] Yeah, that's what they're going to want my ringtone to be.

[30:27] They'll just be rocking back and forth singing.

Stuart Wellington

[30:29] Well, they'll want cars.

[30:30] They'll be like, the song says we can have them.

[30:32] Yeah.

[30:34] Yeah.

[30:34] People are just giving them to kids.

[30:36] Do they do the Cars for Kids song in L.A.?

[30:39] Is that a thing?

[30:40] Oh, it's nationwide.

[30:40] It's nationwide.

[30:41] Yeah.

[30:41] It's nationwide.

[30:42] It's on your side.

[30:43] Yeah.

[30:43] Oh, man.

[30:45] Our brains.

[30:48] So Robbie is unsatisfied being in the group, so it leads him to greater acts of rebellion.

[30:53] He gets kicked out of the group.

[30:54] Oh, yeah.

[30:55] He gets kicked out of the group.

[30:56] He wishes that he could take a bigger part in it.

[31:00] He claims that he has all these lyrics, which having heard a lot of Robbie Williams songs

[31:04] after the end of this movie, I don't think that's true.

[31:07] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[31:08] I can be a hater.

[31:09] That's fine.

[31:09] You can be a hater.

[31:10] You're allowed.

[31:11] I'm allowed.

Dan McCoy

[31:11] Yeah, legally.

[31:12] Yeah, nobody.

Elliott Kalan

[31:13] Take me to a hater jail.

[31:14] What if you were a bill hater?

[31:15] You'd have Barry on your resume.

Stuart Wellington

[31:18] You'd be, you know, people love to work.

[31:19] You would have made Barry.

[31:19] Yeah.

[31:20] I would probably have a pretty good Robbie Williams impression in my back pocket.

[31:23] Oh, for sure.

[31:24] For sure.

[31:25] That would be wonderful.

[31:26] Can we get him?

[31:27] Is he available for this episode?

[31:28] Let's see.

[31:29] No.

[31:31] So he gets kicked out of the group.

[31:34] That leads him to drinking more.

[31:35] He takes a watermelon with him like he's the jerk.

[31:38] He's like, all I need is this watermelon.

Elliott Kalan

[31:39] That was an interesting choice, and I was not sure what he was going to do with that watermelon,

[31:43] and the answer was nothing.

[31:45] Yeah, he saved it for like 30 years until he brought him back.

[31:48] He says, I'm sorry, message that he carved into it.

[31:50] But there's a scene where he really screws up partly when they're about to go on stage

[31:54] for a concert.

[31:55] They're on like an elevated platform, and he's passed out on the platform, but then the show

[31:59] starts, and I was like, so when did he get in his costume?

[32:02] Like, did he just pass out a minute ago?

Dan McCoy

[32:05] Yeah.

[32:05] Guys, I'm sorry.

[32:06] Let's actually, and I know, Stuart, you'll hate this, but let's skip backwards because

[32:10] we've gone past the point that you were like, we're not there yet.

[32:14] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[32:15] Which is, there is a fantastic dance sequence right in the middle of the movie to Rock DJ,

[32:22] Robbie Williams, probably biggest hit in the U.S., that or Millennium.

Elliott Kalan

[32:26] I was going to say, yeah, Rock DJ I'm not familiar with, but Millennium is just a very good one.

Hallie Haglund

[32:30] You didn't know Rock DJ?

[32:31] I don't want to rock.

Elliott Kalan

[32:32] I did not know that one.

[32:33] Oh, my gosh.

[32:34] But I knew Millennium.

[32:36] But, like, this is a really.

[32:38] We've got smiles direct to our face.

Dan McCoy

[32:40] I don't know the lyrics, but.

Stuart Wellington

[32:42] A genuinely great sequence in the middle, and I thought it was interesting the way that,

[32:46] Millennium was the theme song to the TV show.

Elliott Kalan

[32:48] Yes, it was.

[32:49] Yeah, but Lance Henriksen did a cover of it for that.

[32:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:51] Yeah, cool.

[32:53] Like he's going to see grammar or some shit.

Dan McCoy

[32:56] You know, just exploring his lined face as Millennium plays.

Elliott Kalan

[33:01] What it is is you think you're looking over kind of like a desert wasteland,

[33:06] and then it pulls back at the very end, and you see that it was Lance Henriksen's face the whole time.

[33:09] Yeah, yeah.

[33:10] Great actor.

Dan McCoy

[33:11] A lot of modern.

[33:12] No idea what you guys are talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[33:14] You may remember him best from the day Lincoln was shot, the TV movie where he played Abraham Lincoln.

[33:18] He was.

[33:19] That's probably.

Stuart Wellington

[33:20] He was Bishop in Aliens.

[33:22] Oh, he's in Pumpkinhead.

[33:23] He doesn't play Pumpkinhead, but he's the guy who summons Pumpkinhead.

Elliott Kalan

[33:26] It's just like credit after credit that we have no reason to expect Hallie to be familiar with.

[33:31] I mean, I thought Aliens maybe.

[33:33] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[33:33] He plays Ace in Quick and the Dead.

[33:36] Oh, you may remember best of the star of the show, Millennium.

Dan McCoy

[33:38] He comes back in Aliens vs. Predator.

[33:42] Anyway.

[33:43] No, the rock DJ scene.

[33:46] A lot of modern musicals like cut things all to hell.

[33:50] And this is like clearly digitally stitched together from a bunch of different stuff.

[33:55] And I'm sure a lot of it was on green screen anyway.

[33:57] But it is done as if it's one continuous dance.

[33:59] It's presented as a continuous shot where you can see the full bodies a lot of the time.

[34:04] And it goes all the way like through the streets of London into different like, you know, it goes into stores.

[34:09] It goes on top of a bus.

[34:11] Like it's a really genuinely great sequence.

[34:13] And they're great dancers.

Elliott Kalan

[34:15] And they're great dancers.

[34:16] Yeah.

[34:16] And how many deckers is that bus, Dan?

[34:19] Oh, it's a double.

[34:21] Yeah, that's right.

[34:22] They pulled out all the stops.

[34:24] But this is a really well done scene.

[34:27] And it's really exciting.

[34:28] Like it really gets you into the energy that they want you to get you into.

[34:31] It's really good.

Stuart Wellington

[34:32] Yeah.

[34:32] Unfortunately, this hits about a third of the way through.

[34:35] And I feel like the movie has difficulty recapturing this.

Dan McCoy

[34:38] No, it never hits that high again, which is a problem.

[34:41] But it did.

[34:42] I'm like, oh, well, this is a way forward for a movie musical where it's like this is modern Flash.

[34:47] But you're still getting to see like a big, genuine dance musical number that's not cut to hell.

[34:54] Like it looks more like a music video, honestly, but in a good way.

Hallie Haglund

[35:00] But it seriously did make me wonder like if he had not been a chimp.

[35:06] Go on.

[35:07] It reminded me of so many things that get so much critical acclaim.

[35:12] You know, I said maestro, but it was also like, oh, this is like also a way better version of La La.

[35:17] La La Land.

[35:17] Like all movies that were nominated for Oscars.

[35:21] And then this made $700.

[35:22] La La London.

Elliott Kalan

[35:23] So you're saying it's anti-chimp racism is part of it.

[35:26] I think so.

Hallie Haglund

[35:26] I think the backlash, they just, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[35:29] I will say I did find the – I thought of La La Land 2 while I was watching this because there's that first scene in La La Land where they're dancing in the streets.

[35:35] Yeah, La La Land 2.

[35:36] La La again.

[35:38] La La La.

[35:39] La La Land 2.

[35:41] La La La La.

[35:41] Yeah.

[35:42] And the – it's called La La Lands.

[35:45] It's like, oh, no, now there's more of them.

[35:47] Dollar Sign, yeah.

[35:47] But I will say I thought of that first scene where they're kind of dancing on the freeway or whatever.

[35:52] And I was like, I like this scene more.

[35:53] And the only part of La La Land that's really exciting to me is the part when he's supposed to be selling out and he plays that great keyboard solo.

[36:00] And I'm like, yeah, this keyboard solo rocks.

[36:01] Like why are we supposed to see this as the nadir of his artistic career?

[36:05] And this captured that energy really nicely.

[36:07] So I think probably the difference is – here's how – here are my theories for why this didn't get the same kind of acclaim.

[36:12] One, it's a chimp doing it.

[36:14] Two, Robbie Williams.

[36:17] And three, like it being like yet another biopic, which I think give people reasons to turn away from it, you know, or to treat it as lesser.

[36:28] I mean, it did not get bad reviews.

Hallie Haglund

[36:30] This came out after the Queen one?

Stuart Wellington

[36:33] Yes.

[36:34] I think part of it, yeah, is because we don't have a single person to kind of hang this on.

[36:40] Like we don't have Taron Egerton doing Elton John.

[36:42] We don't have Rami Malek doing Freddie Mercury.

[36:45] That being said, like the –

Dan McCoy

[36:46] We have Andy Serkis doing –

[36:48] That's what I assumed.

Elliott Kalan

[36:50] It's not Andy Serkis.

[36:51] It's somebody else.

[36:52] But we do have that chimp.

[36:54] But I think it does make it – it makes the movie feel like a novelty act rather than like a real story.

[36:59] And I will say, you know, cutting ahead slightly as a spoiler to my final judgment, it's a very well-made movie in a lot of ways.

[37:06] And yet I could never quite get over my intense lack of interest in the life story of Robbie Williams.

[37:11] And the movie did not find the angle – it got the angle to get me in through the door, which is there's a chimp dancing.

[37:18] But it did not get me into the – it didn't get into my heart to the point where I'm like, oh, I care about this guy and I care about what he's doing.

[37:24] And I think that's the real weakness of it.

[37:25] Whereas maybe with Bohemian Rhapsody, like it's partly because people have such – a lot more audiences wanting with affection for Freddie Mercury.

[37:33] Like his story is genuinely also tragic in a way because he died young.

[37:36] Whereas Robbie Williams is just like, and then I did great and I'm doing good now.

Dan McCoy

[37:40] Too bad that Bohemian Rhapsody told a completely bullshit version of his story.

[37:43] I mean it's totally made up also.

Elliott Kalan

[37:44] It's not true.

[37:45] Which is too bad because Queen is genuinely one of the strangest bands in the history of the world.

[37:49] And it would have been amazing to see their real – because the stories you hear about them are just bonkers.

Stuart Wellington

[37:53] It's just like very weird.

[37:55] But I think that –

[37:56] It's another downfall of the fact that we're talking about many people who are still alive.

[38:01] Yeah, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[38:01] Yeah, maybe.

[38:02] But also it feels like – maybe you guys didn't feel this way.

[38:05] But I never quite got over feeling like this was kind of a vanity production in the way that Rocketman feels a little bit to me.

[38:11] Like if you're –

[38:12] Yes, it's exactly a vanity production.

[38:14] Yeah, if you're producing your own biopic basically, then either you got to really pull out the stops to show that you're telling the story or digging deep.

[38:22] And I guess he's kind of digging deep here.

[38:24] He's saying I'm depressed.

[38:25] I see myself as ugly and weak and bad.

[38:28] But there's always the thing of like I think I'm so interesting.

[38:32] You should see my whole life here.

[38:35] And that's a hard hurdle to get over maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[38:37] Speaking of his whole life, should we go through the movie or do we just want to skip to a final judgment?

Elliott Kalan

[38:41] No, no, let's go through the movie.

[38:43] Okay.

[38:44] Sorry, Stu.

[38:45] I forgot that we rigidly adhere to structure on this podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[38:49] No, I mean it just sounded like you were wrapping up.

Elliott Kalan

[38:51] Yeah, yeah.

[38:51] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[38:52] Anyway, I've been already –

[38:53] We've got a little Gary on our hands over here.

Stuart Wellington

[38:55] Have a what on our hands?

[38:56] Gary.

Hallie Haglund

[38:57] Sorry about that.

Stuart Wellington

[38:59] So Robbie is floundering a little bit.

[39:03] He wants to do his own solo album and he bumps into Nicole – what's her last name?

[39:08] Nicole Appleton from the band All Saints.

[39:12] Owner of a ton of apples.

[39:13] All Saints was a popular UK girl group.

[39:18] When I was living in Germany and Austria, their song Black Coffee was on MTV a lot and I always kind of associate my time over there with that song.

[39:26] Oh, okay.

[39:27] Was that in the movie?

[39:29] No.

[39:30] No.

[39:31] But I was surprised.

[39:32] I'm like, oh, I'm familiar with this girl group.

[39:35] So they hit it all up.

Hallie Haglund

[39:37] But their hit, their number one hit, the one that went number one in the movie, everybody knows that song, right?

[39:42] Wait, which song was it?

[39:43] Which one's that?

[39:44] It's like, you know,

[39:45] And it never felt so low when you're going to get me out of this black hole.

Elliott Kalan

[39:52] Oh, I think you mean,

[39:53] Black hole sun, won't you come and wash away the rain?

Hallie Haglund

[40:01] No, that's not what I mean.

[40:03] Oh, oh, oh.

Stuart Wellington

[40:04] Never mind then.

[40:05] Oh, okay.

[40:06] So they start a romance.

[40:08] The two of them have a musical number, a duet with a little dance on a yacht.

[40:13] It's pretty good.

[40:15] It's good.

[40:15] It's one of the better parts of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[40:17] Their romance builds while they're having this dance.

[40:20] And also some of the lows of their relationship.

Hallie Haglund

[40:22] She is a really good dancer also.

[40:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:24] Yeah.

[40:25] And through the montage of flashing forward,

[40:30] you get, it's sort of obliquely shown in the,

[40:34] I mean, they say it outright later on,

[40:35] but it's obliquely shown in this montage in a way that like,

[40:38] I'm like, oh, I'm glad I read the Wikipedia page for what's going on here,

[40:42] that the, her label pressured her to have an abortion of their child,

[40:48] which then leads to kind of the divide in their relationship.

Elliott Kalan

[40:52] Because that was definitely very obliquely done in a way that I thought

[40:56] maybe she had a miscarriage.

[40:57] Because you see them putting a crib together

[40:59] and then it's just kind of things are not good after that.

[41:02] And they're sad.

[41:02] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[41:03] No, but you see the manager like yelling at her and she's like, no, no.

[41:07] And then you see the manager taking her.

Stuart Wellington

[41:09] Yeah, and point to a baby and then like cross it off.

Hallie Haglund

[41:12] He brings out a doll and then he just goes.

Stuart Wellington

[41:22] So they, their relationship starts to deteriorate.

[41:25] He keeps doing too many drugs.

[41:28] He's very cheeky on television.

[41:30] He has some successful albums.

[41:32] He seems to be sleeping around quite a bit,

[41:34] which that means we get at least one shot of a chimpanzee in bed with some naked ladies.

Elliott Kalan

[41:40] Dan, that must have been like seeing your search results just come to life in a movie.

Dan McCoy

[41:45] I did.

[41:45] I was, I mean, you know, this movie was not something where I expected to see that.

[41:50] I will say that.

[41:51] Really?

[41:51] The movie about.

Stuart Wellington

[41:52] Dan was like, wait a minute.

[41:53] Am I still watching the movie or did I accidentally switch browser windows?

[41:56] Like this is a very like.

Dan McCoy

[41:57] How did my fantasy get on the screen?

[42:00] I guess there's a lot of.

[42:01] I guess there's a lot of swearing, but like.

[42:03] Am I the length of heaven?

[42:04] Because it is such a basic story.

[42:06] It like read to me as like PG in a way that I'm like, oh, there's like three nude ladies in bed with a chimpanzee.

[42:14] That I did not expect.

Elliott Kalan

[42:15] Yeah.

[42:16] No, that's fair.

[42:16] Yeah.

[42:17] I mean, that's, yeah, that is fair.

[42:18] That is fair.

[42:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:19] Do you think that's one of those things where they hadn't quite, they hadn't quite thought of when they started the process of making a movie about a Chimperabi Williams?

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] It's very possible that they didn't realize it would cut down on the amount of kind of like scandalous love scenes they'd be able to do.

[42:33] There's, it reminds me of a.

[42:35] So my younger son has really gotten into the original Planet of the Apes movies recently.

[42:39] And we skipped beneath the Planet of the Apes because I was worried the mutants would scare him.

[42:43] And I was talking to my wife about the making of it.

[42:46] And I was saying how like, yeah, the original version of it, they were going to have an ape human hybrid to show that maybe there's a way for the apes and the humans to get along.

[42:53] And they even went as far as to do a makeup test with a kid in ape human makeup.

[42:57] And then they realized the implication is that a human had sex with an ape.

[43:00] And they, and that it was too late in the process for them to not have spent the money on the makeup, but they cut it out of the movie.

[43:05] And it feels like this is a similar thought process here where they're like, we'll show him as a chimp.

[43:09] It'll be amazing.

[43:10] And we'll show all his bad boy exploits.

[43:12] Oh, you mean like when he slept with women?

[43:13] So you want to show him as a chimp having sex with women?

[43:15] And they were like, uh, ooh, okay.

[43:18] Wow.

[43:19] I wish we weren't on day 49 of the 50 day shooting schedule.

Hallie Haglund

[43:22] You know, this, this moment did not, I mean, it stuck out to me because there were naked ladies, but like the, uh, the inter species.

[43:31] Yeah.

[43:32] That did not affect me as much as seemingly.

Dan McCoy

[43:34] I had so accepted him as just Robbie, Robbie Williams at that point.

[43:37] Like I didn't really think about it.

Elliott Kalan

[43:38] See, maybe it's because I'm a visual learner.

[43:39] I kept having to remind myself, oh yeah, he's a person.

[43:41] He's not a chimp.

Dan McCoy

[43:43] Yeah.

[43:43] I have amnesia.

[43:44] So I keep forgetting what's happening.

[43:47] Because I brought up planet, because you brought up planet of the apes though.

[43:50] Um, so I, you know, I finally recently got a new phone to get ahead of our, uh, idiot presence, uh, disastrous tariffs and such.

[43:58] Can't wait to find out how this has to do with planet of the apes.

[44:01] I mean, it's going to get there.

[44:02] We're on a journey.

[44:02] Your, your impatience will be, uh, slapped down when you, um, no.

[44:08] So I, I was like, you know, I, I hate AI for all sorts of applications, but I, you know, I'm like across the board.

[44:17] I'm not like, well, this has no use whatsoever.

[44:19] You know, like I was like, oh, well it has this, like the phone has this function pointed at a thing.

[44:24] It'll tell you what the thing is, you know, I'll try that.

[44:29] That's my favorite function.

[44:31] The one that's, uh, put everyone out of work.

[44:33] Uh, no, uh, but I'm like, let me put it up to a better man and see what happens.

[44:37] And sure enough, it says, you're watching planet of the apes.

[44:40] I'm like, oh, AI, even for the things I kind of accept you for.

[44:44] Technically correct.

Elliott Kalan

[44:45] Dan, Dan, I'm going to, I'm going to do you even one better.

[44:48] I have a new children's book out.

[44:49] I'll plug it later called Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House.

[44:51] And I had to look up the date of an author event I'm doing so I could talk about this podcast.

[44:55] And when I Googled Sadie Mouse once upon a time, which is the name of the store, the AI said,

[44:59] this may refer to the book Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House or Sadie such and such of the Manson family as portrayed in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

[45:05] And I'm like, I guess they did wreck that house.

[45:07] Yeah.

[45:07] Google AI.

[45:08] I guess they did.

Dan McCoy

[45:09] Have you seen that thing where, like, people just, like, put in totally made-up phrases into, like,

[45:14] chat GPT and asked them to explain it.

[45:16] And chat GPT confidently, like, claims, like, oh, that's what this means.

[45:19] It's like, fuck you.

Hallie Haglund

[45:21] So I guess we know chat GPT is a man.

[45:24] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[45:25] Whoa, whoa.

[45:26] Air horns.

[45:27] Oh, wait.

[45:28] I don't know how I can.

[45:30] I'm so roasted here.

[45:31] I don't know how to pick up my phone.

Elliott Kalan

[45:32] They're going to have to fix that by stealing Scarlett Johansson's voice and just sticking it on there.

[45:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:37] Oh.

[45:38] Okay.

[45:39] So Robbie manages to, what, he nets a big, he nets a big.

[45:45] Like a huge fish.

[45:46] Yeah.

[45:46] He nets a huge festival appearance at Nebworth.

[45:50] Were you guys familiar with Nebworth?

[45:52] I was not.

Elliott Kalan

[45:53] So when they kept saying Nebworth, we got to do Nebworth, I was like, I got to look what this is.

[45:58] Don't know what they're talking about.

[45:59] You know.

Stuart Wellington

[45:59] It sounds like a nerdy villain or like a butler character.

[46:03] Yeah.

[46:04] A little Nebworth.

Elliott Kalan

[46:06] Stop bothering us, Nebworth.

[46:08] You're too small to play the piccolo.

[46:10] I'll show you.

Stuart Wellington

[46:12] So leading up to this point, every time Robbie.

[46:14] How can you be too small to play the piccolo?

[46:16] He is so small.

[46:18] Every time Robbie is performing on stage, he looks out into the audience and he sees past versions of himself saying horrible, violent threats to him, basically.

[46:31] Like, you're going to fail.

[46:32] I'm going to kill you.

[46:33] All these things.

Hallie Haglund

[46:34] The I'm going to kill you is weird.

[46:35] Like, I get, like, the self-doubt.

[46:37] Like, you know, like, you're ugly.

[46:39] You're stupid.

[46:40] But, like, I'm going to kill you?

[46:42] Yeah.

[46:42] Does that seem like something you say to yourself?

Stuart Wellington

[46:45] Yeah.

[46:45] No, not particularly.

[46:46] Yeah.

[46:46] I mean, although he was in many ways trying to kill himself with drugs and then later on with, I think, a razor blade.

[46:54] Yeah.

[46:55] On a frozen pond.

[46:56] So the whole time I'm like, every time he's performing, I'm like, something bad's going to happen.

[47:00] But I'm not that worried because I've seen Smile 2, the worst possible concert performance thing in a movie.

[47:06] So, but he, this is, this seems to be his big.

Elliott Kalan

[47:10] I mean, Trap was a pretty bad outcome for a concert performance, too.

[47:12] You end up at a serial killer's house.

[47:14] You should watch Smile 2, Dan.

[47:15] Yeah, Dan.

[47:15] You can't see it.

Dan McCoy

[47:17] The actual concert goes off without a hit, Trap.

[47:20] Oh, I see.

Stuart Wellington

[47:22] And it's amazing.

[47:24] You can buy her album somewhere, I bet, right?

[47:26] M. Night Shyamalan's daughter.

[47:28] So Lady Raven.

[47:30] Lady Raven.

[47:30] Yeah, cool.

[47:31] I remember.

[47:31] I mean, she doesn't perform in real life as Lady Raven.

[47:33] That's her character in the movie.

[47:34] She doesn't?

[47:35] I think she performs in stuff.

[47:36] Yeah, she should do that.

[47:37] Yeah.

[47:38] So, what I'm saying is that this is like, his, like, relationship with himself and his addiction

[47:47] and his relationship with his father, that's his big challenge that he has to overcome.

[47:51] Yes.

[47:52] And he, his stress leading up to this big festival forces him to push everyone away.

[47:58] It's turning into more of a stress-tival.

[48:00] Yeah, thank you.

[48:01] He destroys his relationship with Nicole.

[48:05] His grandmother.

[48:07] Grandmother, not mother, Don.

[48:09] Yes, thank you.

[48:10] And he wrecks his relationship with his best friend, who is a guy that he's known for years.

Dan McCoy

[48:14] This guy, like, I was like, are we supposed to, was, did it?

[48:17] Yeah, we were, I think they showed up earlier.

Elliott Kalan

[48:19] They were drinking together when he said, I'm going to go be in a boy band.

[48:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[48:22] They were, like, sitting on a-

Elliott Kalan

[48:23] On a billboard or something?

[48:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[48:24] But, like, he was not a big part of the movie.

[48:27] Like, they made it out, like-

[48:28] He's like a conscience.

[48:29] This is, like, a huge thing.

[48:30] And I'm like, this guy was barely here for the whole rest of the film.

Elliott Kalan

[48:33] Dan, did you really want to see a lot of scenes with him hanging out with his old buddy?

[48:36] Or did you want to see this chimp dancing on a double-decker bus?

[48:38] No, you're right.

[48:39] Do you think that old buddy really exists?

[48:41] I want more medicine.

[48:41] Less ice cream, please.

Stuart Wellington

[48:42] Or he was invented for the movie?

[48:44] Do you think what?

[48:44] Do you think this character actually existed in real life?

[48:47] Or if this was just, like, a straw man?

[48:49] I bet he's a composite of the people he knew.

[48:52] I think he's real.

Hallie Haglund

[48:53] I think he's real.

[48:53] And I think Robbie was like, I got to put him in the movie.

[48:57] Yeah.

[48:57] Then he'll know how much I love him.

[48:59] That's how the-

Elliott Kalan

[49:00] People are going to get mad if I don't put this guy in the movie.

[49:03] It would be like making a Beatles movie and not putting in-

[49:06] Who's a Beatle?

Stuart Wellington

[49:07] Yoko.

[49:08] Yeah.

[49:08] Yeah, there you go.

[49:10] So he strains all his relationships.

[49:12] He even-

[49:14] His father, who had come back into his life when he became successful,

[49:19] he even pushes his father away,

[49:21] which at this point we're like, yeah, your father's a piece of shit.

[49:24] Like, we all know this.

[49:25] He deserves it.

[49:26] Yeah.

[49:27] So he does the festival.

[49:29] Not a better man.

[49:30] It goes off without a hitch,

[49:31] except for the fact that he jumps off the stage

[49:34] and he battles digital versions of former selves,

[49:38] slaughtering them in quite a battle.

Dan McCoy

[49:41] Yeah, but we presume that the audience probably doesn't see that happening.

[49:44] My guess is that if you look at the archival footage

Elliott Kalan

[49:47] of his actual performance at Knebelworth,

[49:49] that he doesn't jump off the stage

[49:51] and just start fighting people, you know?

[49:53] But it ends with him stabbing through the chest.

[49:56] Or I guess not ends.

[49:57] One of the big moments is him stabbing through the chest

[49:59] his Pirates of Penzance younger kid self.

[50:02] Childish.

[50:02] It's really sad.

[50:03] Which really was sad.

[50:05] Yeah.

[50:05] And it was a-

Hallie Haglund

[50:05] And he gave a little whimper.

Dan McCoy

[50:07] Yeah.

[50:08] It was rough.

[50:08] It seems like that version of himself didn't really do anything bad to him.

Elliott Kalan

[50:13] No, not particularly.

[50:14] But I will say, this was one of those moments where I'm like,

[50:17] I don't really buy this as a scene,

[50:20] but I love seeing this kind of chimp fight free-for-all.

[50:22] It's all CGI.

[50:23] It doesn't look like real chimps,

[50:24] but I love seeing all these different chimps

[50:26] in different costumes fighting each other.

[50:27] That's why they made the movies.

Hallie Haglund

[50:28] It was like 300.

[50:30] Is that the number?

[50:31] Yeah, yeah.

[50:33] That's what I thought.

[50:34] Yeah, it was like 300 chimps.

Stuart Wellington

[50:35] Yeah.

[50:35] Uh-huh.

[50:36] 300.

[50:36] Yeah, they stood against Persia in the hot gates.

[50:39] Yeah.

[50:40] The thing is-

Elliott Kalan

[50:41] Now, how would the movie 300 be different

[50:42] if all the Spartans were chimps?

[50:44] That would feel different to him.

[50:45] Not that much.

Stuart Wellington

[50:46] I guess that's true.

[50:46] Yeah.

[50:47] They would all be ripped.

[50:49] Super ripped chimps.

[50:50] Yeah.

[50:50] Now, I'm not the biggest fan always of like a mishmash

[50:56] of CGI characters battling each other,

[50:59] but I will say I much prefer that

[51:00] than seeing actual chimps having to hit each other with things.

[51:03] For sure.

[51:03] Oh, for sure.

[51:04] That would have made me upset.

[51:05] I think we can all agree that this is a better movie.

[51:07] I'm just trying to make a stand here.

Elliott Kalan

[51:08] It's a better movie for not Lancelot Link style

[51:10] using a real chimp in a costume

[51:12] and like putting peanut butter on his lips

[51:13] so that his mouth moves

[51:14] and not having real chimps fighting each other.

[51:16] I think we all agree with that.

[51:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:18] Now, for people who aren't as old as us

[51:20] and didn't see it in this indication,

[51:23] Lancelot Link was a secret chimp.

Elliott Kalan

[51:26] Now, that implies that you think he's a chimp in secret

[51:29] like Robbie Williams in Better Man.

[51:31] No, no, no.

[51:32] He's actually a secret agent who's a chimp

[51:33] in a world of chimps where everyone is a chimp.

Stuart Wellington

[51:36] Yeah.

[51:36] See, I like my chimps playing baseball with Matt LeBlanc

[51:38] and that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:40] Yeah.

[51:40] In which case, I don't think that was a real chimp

[51:42] in that movie.

[51:43] I think that's a person in a costume.

[51:44] So, all the better.

[51:45] Yeah.

[51:45] What?

Dan McCoy

[51:46] Sorry.

[51:47] Sorry, Stu.

[51:47] Stuart's innocence has been shattered.

Elliott Kalan

[51:49] Maybe you need to watch Dunstan Checks In,

[51:51] which I guess is also maybe not a real one.

[51:53] Magic of the movie is fucking the real one.

[51:55] Is Dunstan a real one?

[51:56] That Dunstan, he's a real one.

[51:58] I'll tell you this about Dunstan.

[52:01] Old heads, no.

[52:03] Dunstan is a real one.

[52:04] That orangutan, or I don't remember,

[52:05] it's an orangutan or a gorilla.

[52:06] He is a real one.

[52:07] A hundred percent.

[52:08] He gives a hundred percent all the time.

Dan McCoy

[52:10] He will check in.

[52:10] You doing bad?

[52:11] He'll check in.

Elliott Kalan

[52:13] He's not afraid of it.

[52:14] That's what it's about, right?

[52:16] So, after his performance, after his performance.

[52:19] If it was, I wish it was, I hope it's a real ape,

[52:21] so that I can go back in time and write a review of that ape's performance

[52:24] and say, Dunstan checked out halfway through the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[52:30] Oh, man.

[52:30] Dunstan's going to be so fucking bummed when he reset the trees.

[52:34] So mad.

[52:34] Yeah.

[52:35] He made Dunstan cry.

Elliott Kalan

[52:38] This is what it sounds like when apes cry.

Dan McCoy

[52:43] Anyway.

[52:44] You go with when Dunstan cries.

[52:46] It's not the right number of syllables.

[52:48] But it's the same beginning sound as doves.

Elliott Kalan

[52:50] Dan, Dan, Prince was one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

[52:52] I do not want to ruin his scansion,

[52:54] but trying to fit Dunstan in where doves goes.

[52:56] When Dunsts cry.

[52:58] You're right.

[52:59] Much better.

[52:59] Dunsts.

[53:00] Much better.

Stuart Wellington

[53:02] It's only his turn friends can call him that.

Elliott Kalan

[53:04] By the time we take this on the road, we'll have it.

[53:07] I mean, it's still better than my Raspberry Brape parody.

[53:13] So after battling himself.

[53:14] Again, no disrespect to Prince.

[53:15] One of the greatest songwriters of all time.

[53:17] Okay, Stu, continue.

Stuart Wellington

[53:18] After all this, Robbie contemplates self-harm,

[53:22] but he stops himself and he checks himself into rehab.

[53:25] He cleans himself up and then his first big step,

[53:31] well, only step, is that he reconnects

[53:34] with all the people that he's pushed away in his life.

[53:37] And he makes showy amends with everybody, right?

[53:42] He gives Gary Barlow back a watermelon

[53:45] with a penis crudely carved in it.

Elliott Kalan

[53:48] I love the idea that he's been mad at him all these years

[53:50] because he never paid him back for that watermelon.

[53:53] This is all it took, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:54] You know, the watermelon symbolizes something?

[53:59] I guess drug use?

Elliott Kalan

[54:00] But you've got to imagine those are expensive in England too.

[54:02] Like you're not growing watermelons in England.

[54:04] Those are all imported, you know.

Dan McCoy

[54:06] Yeah, that's true.

[54:07] Where do you grow watermelons?

[54:09] Yeah.

[54:09] You can grow them here.

Elliott Kalan

[54:10] We grow them in the United States.

[54:11] Yes, we grew them.

Hallie Haglund

[54:12] That's my husband.

[54:13] And he grew them in our yard.

Elliott Kalan

[54:14] Yeah, we've grown watermelons in ours too.

[54:16] Yeah, they grow a lot in Mexico.

[54:17] They grow a lot in Japan.

[54:19] It's where they grow the square ones.

[54:20] You know how to make a square watermelon?

[54:22] They just put it in a box.

Dan McCoy

[54:22] It sounds so exotic to me to live a place

[54:25] where you can grow your own watermelon.

Elliott Kalan

[54:27] So Dan, so are you going to try to grow your own watermelons now

[54:30] in your window box?

[54:31] I think you could do it, yeah.

[54:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:33] I don't think the temperature is here.

Elliott Kalan

[54:35] Well, you can figure it out.

[54:36] You're smart.

[54:36] I bet you could do it.

[54:37] Yeah, I bet you could figure it out.

[54:38] Maybe just get some grow lights and, you know.

[54:40] You can do it inside.

[54:41] Yeah.

[54:42] You should grow it like under your bed.

[54:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[54:45] Put grow lights under your bed

[54:46] so it also looks like your bed is like a race car.

Dan McCoy

[54:49] Yeah.

[54:49] Yeah, that'd be cool.

[54:50] I think it's pretty cool.

[54:52] The bed just like slowly like goes up higher

[54:54] as the watermelons grow up.

[54:55] Yeah, it's a real little Nemo type scenario.

Elliott Kalan

[54:57] I love it, yeah.

[54:58] Down by the bay.

[54:59] That's where they grow also.

[55:01] Down by the bay.

[55:02] Yeah, that's true.

[55:03] They do, but don't talk to your mom about it.

[55:06] She's going to ask you if you've seen some crazy things.

Stuart Wellington

[55:09] So the movie concludes.

[55:10] Robbie does a big performance at the Royal Albert Hall

[55:14] and he does a kind of like a cabaret style show

[55:19] where I'm assuming he does some of his own songs.

[55:22] He also does a tribute to his mother.

[55:24] He brings his father up on stage

[55:26] and they sing My Way by Sinatra.

[55:28] Again, is that a Sinatra original

[55:31] or is that a standard before that?

Elliott Kalan

[55:32] No, he, I think, you know what?

[55:35] He didn't write it.

[55:35] Like, I don't think.

[55:36] Sinatra didn't write his songs,

[55:38] but I think it was, it was his,

[55:40] I think he may have introduced it.

[55:42] Like it was his signature song for sure.

[55:44] That is like-

Dan McCoy

[55:44] He did it his way.

Elliott Kalan

[55:46] He did do it his way,

[55:47] which means usually extending all the syllables

[55:49] as long as possible.

[55:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[55:51] And that's kind of the end of the movie.

[55:53] He, like, I think he says something cheeky at the end.

[55:56] Yeah.

[55:57] And that's it.

[55:58] He literally ends saying like,

Elliott Kalan

[55:59] that's my story.

[56:00] I'm an entertainer.

[56:01] I'm the best in the world.

[56:02] Fuck you.

[56:02] And then the movie ends.

[56:03] And it's like, I just watched your whole movie.

[56:05] Why are you mad at me?

Stuart Wellington

[56:05] I don't understand.

[56:07] And I'm like, if you have to say that,

[56:09] I don't think it's true.

[56:11] If you have to tell me you're the best in the world.

Dan McCoy

[56:14] At least he's a cabaret entertainer.

[56:17] He's copping to like being corny,

[56:19] I think a little bit.

[56:20] Like, you know, like,

[56:21] this is what I really like is this stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[56:23] It is interesting.

[56:25] Like they're, the,

[56:26] it is interesting that like,

[56:27] I wonder if there's a,

[56:28] this is not a more interesting version of the movie,

[56:30] I guess,

[56:30] but like about a guy who's a pop star,

[56:32] but really wants-

[56:33] Two chimps.

[56:34] Two chimps.

[56:35] Chimps that will adore you.

[56:38] The whole movie is him.

[56:40] He's a pop star,

[56:41] but he really wants to do kind of old fashioned,

[56:44] those kinds,

[56:44] he wants to do Seth MacFarlane style,

[56:45] big band and,

[56:47] and,

[56:47] and cabaret songs.

[56:50] And I wonder if,

[56:51] if that would have been like,

[56:54] in some ways,

[56:55] a more interesting thing than fame is tough.

[56:57] You get everything you want and it,

[56:58] and it hurts.

[56:58] It's like,

[56:59] I'm performing,

[57:00] I'm a performer who's doing work

[57:02] that is not what I want to do.

[57:03] Although he writes the songs.

[57:04] So I don't,

[57:05] Maybe I'm wrong.

Dan McCoy

[57:05] You know.

[57:06] He writes the songs that make Robbie Williams sing.

[57:08] But there's also,

[57:09] there's also a,

Stuart Wellington

[57:10] there's a theme that he feels like he is doing,

[57:13] he is doing everything,

[57:15] but he doesn't really want to.

[57:17] Like he,

[57:18] throughout the whole movie,

[57:19] even when he's doing,

[57:20] like when he's performing his own stuff,

[57:22] he feels like he is doing it for someone else.

[57:24] Yeah.

[57:25] In this case,

[57:25] for most of it,

[57:26] it's like he's trying to live out his father's fantasy

[57:28] to get some kind of approval from his father.

Hallie Haglund

[57:30] Yeah.

[57:31] But it's also like,

[57:32] very weird that the whole running theme is like,

[57:35] I did it my way.

[57:36] Cause the,

[57:36] also the,

[57:37] the whole theme of the movie is like,

[57:38] I was just doing it for everyone else.

[57:40] And I,

[57:41] I,

[57:42] I just cared about what the other people thought of me.

[57:44] So he really wasn't doing it his way.

[57:48] Well,

[57:48] we're,

[57:48] I feel like we're in,

[57:50] we're so,

[57:51] final judgments,

Dan McCoy

[57:51] so let's do final judgments,

[57:54] whether this is a good,

[57:55] bad movie,

[57:56] bad,

[57:56] bad movie or movie.

[57:58] We kind of liked,

[57:59] uh,

[57:59] I kind of liked this one.

[58:01] It is,

[58:02] it is a kind of like,

[58:03] I enjoyed the first half,

[58:05] uh,

[58:06] when things were fun,

[58:07] better than the inevitable,

[58:09] like sink into the mire of like drugs and alienating people.

Elliott Kalan

[58:14] It's the weird,

[58:15] I guess actually this is the way it is that a lot of these movies,

[58:16] that when things get better for the character,

[58:19] the movie gets kind of sadder and grimmer and more boring,

[58:22] you know,

[58:23] that like,

[58:23] it's fun to see someone dissolving and,

[58:26] and being hedonistic,

[58:27] but it's not so fun to see someone recognizing the trouble and,

[58:30] and reconnecting with other people.

[58:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[58:32] Anora.

[58:33] Yeah.

[58:33] Um,

[58:34] I will say that there was one funny moment in the getting,

[58:37] that we should have mentioned in the reconnecting with people montage,

[58:40] where he goes to his grandmother's grave through the TV and they,

[58:43] and a VCR and watches the old shows they love to watch together with her tombstone.

[58:48] And it's.

[58:48] Chips.

[58:49] And,

[58:49] and some chips.

[58:50] And it was,

[58:50] I thought it was so funny because it was.

[58:51] Crisps.

[58:52] Crisps.

Elliott Kalan

[58:52] Yeah.

[58:52] I thought it was so funny because I was like,

[58:54] so does he think his grandmother is enjoying this?

[58:56] Like this is making up for lost time.

[58:58] And also anyone else walking through that cemetery would just see a famous man laughing his head off at a,

[59:02] in the middle of a cemetery watching a TV show,

[59:04] which seems super disrespectful.

[59:06] What is going on in this scene?

[59:07] But anyway,

[59:08] I just thought it was a funny thing to put in.

Dan McCoy

[59:09] I would say.

[59:10] Oh yeah,

[59:10] go Dan.

[59:10] Oh yeah.

[59:11] I think there's going to be a split decision on the chimpanzee decision.

[59:17] For me,

[59:18] I think that it takes what is just a basic biopic.

[59:23] And it's like,

[59:24] okay,

[59:25] you know,

[59:25] I wouldn't necessarily be sympathetic to this guy who's like just destroying his own life without having any like particularly large problems that he's raging against.

[59:36] Normally,

[59:38] uh,

[59:39] if not for the fact that the,

[59:41] it sort of literalizes how alienated he feels in a way that like is hard to ignore.

[59:46] And I felt more sympathy for this chimpanzee man than maybe I would have for Robbie Williams.

[59:52] Yeah.

[59:53] Uh,

[59:54] so,

[59:54] but,

[59:55] you know,

[59:55] it,

[59:55] it does kind of lose a lot of steam.

[59:57] I,

[59:57] I didn't love it,

[59:58] but I kind of,

[59:59] I kind of liked it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:00] Stuart.

[1:00:00] Yeah,

[1:00:00] I would say,

[1:00:01] so I'm,

[1:00:02] uh,

[1:00:03] as I've said before,

[1:00:04] I greatly dislike musician biopics.

[1:00:07] Uh,

[1:00:07] I don't care.

[1:00:09] I just don't give a shit.

[1:00:10] I don't need to hear a rags to riches story where he gets famous very young and is famous.

[1:00:17] And the thing he has to overcome is his beat like doing too many drugs and whatnot.

[1:00:23] Uh,

[1:00:23] I,

[1:00:24] yeah,

[1:00:24] just,

[1:00:24] I,

[1:00:24] I couldn't,

[1:00:25] I couldn't care less.

[1:00:26] Um,

[1:00:27] the,

[1:00:27] uh,

[1:00:28] there's a couple of things,

[1:00:28] uh,

[1:00:29] moments in the movie,

[1:00:30] like obviously the,

[1:00:31] that big dance number I thought was a lot of fun.

[1:00:33] Uh,

[1:00:34] I really liked the scene when his dad tries to reunite with him when they are,

[1:00:39] um,

[1:00:39] when he's famous again and he brings some woman into the,

[1:00:42] into Robbie's hotel room and she's like,

[1:00:44] can I use your bathroom?

[1:00:46] It's a number two.

[1:00:47] I was like,

[1:00:47] great scene.

[1:00:48] Perfect.

[1:00:50] Uh,

[1:00:50] but yeah,

[1:00:50] this is,

[1:00:51] uh,

[1:00:51] I think the,

[1:00:53] the choice to make him a chimp,

[1:00:54] I found kind of fascinating and like every once in a while I would just be reminded of it.

[1:00:59] And I'm like,

[1:01:00] why the fuck are they doing this?

[1:01:02] Um,

[1:01:03] but I thought it was,

[1:01:04] you know,

[1:01:04] I,

[1:01:04] I thought that was a fun choice that made it,

[1:01:07] I feel like it would be almost insufferable without,

[1:01:09] without the,

[1:01:10] the chimp character.

[1:01:11] Um,

[1:01:12] so I'm going to say,

[1:01:12] I think this is a bad,

[1:01:13] bad movie.

[1:01:14] It's not for me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:15] I'm going to call this also a movie.

[1:01:18] I didn't like it,

[1:01:19] but damn it.

[1:01:19] I respected it.

[1:01:20] I'm going to call this a movie.

[1:01:21] I kind of respect in that it is well-made.

[1:01:24] I think at,

[1:01:24] at heart,

[1:01:25] it never gets,

[1:01:27] I was never interested in Robbie Williams and I never felt emotionally connected with him or,

[1:01:31] or anything like that.

[1:01:32] So I think it fails at its number one job,

[1:01:34] which is to get me to care at all about the main character.

[1:01:37] But I think it succeeds in being like really watchable and a lot of the scenes work well and the dance numbers are really,

[1:01:43] are really fun.

[1:01:44] The fact that I don't know the music and don't like that music particularly was not as big a hurdle as I thought it would be because those scenes are well done.

[1:01:53] Um,

[1:01:54] but it does feel like that chimp thing.

[1:01:56] Like I said,

[1:01:56] it's a double-edged sword.

[1:01:57] It is both the only interesting thing about the movie.

[1:01:59] And it also shows you how not interesting to me,

[1:02:02] at least the rest of the movie is because the whole time you're like,

[1:02:05] there's a chimp doing this stuff.

[1:02:07] this should be more,

[1:02:08] they should be doing,

[1:02:08] what's other stuff you can do?

[1:02:09] What are your other ideas?

[1:02:10] And it feels like the movie had one idea basically,

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:12] you know?

[1:02:13] At one point,

[1:02:13] uh,

[1:02:14] he runs into,

[1:02:15] uh,

[1:02:16] the Gallaghers from,

[1:02:17] uh,

[1:02:17] from Oasis.

[1:02:18] Yeah.

[1:02:18] And I was like,

[1:02:19] Gallagher one and Gallagher two.

[1:02:20] I'm like,

[1:02:21] Speaking of watermelons.

[1:02:23] And the movie does portray them as,

[1:02:25] you know,

[1:02:26] assholes,

[1:02:26] uh,

[1:02:27] which famously they are assholes,

[1:02:29] right?

[1:02:29] Yeah,

[1:02:29] famously they're really bad guys.

[1:02:31] And I thought like,

[1:02:32] I feel like it would have been great if they were the only other animal characters in the movie.

[1:02:37] Like a couple of storks or something or,

[1:02:40] I mean,

[1:02:40] I would have liked it more if the,

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:43] if it was,

[1:02:43] if they just went full mouse and everyone was an animal,

[1:02:45] you know,

[1:02:46] uh,

[1:02:46] except for him,

[1:02:47] except for,

[1:02:48] or,

[1:02:48] or if they had got,

[1:02:49] I was weighed,

[1:02:50] I kind of wanted him to start when he's a kid.

[1:02:52] I kind of wanted him to see him as a person and then have him either,

[1:02:56] he cut and he's an,

[1:02:57] he's a champ or he changes into a champ.

[1:02:59] Something to really make it clear that the filmmakers know that this is not a story about a talking,

[1:03:04] singing champ that is a human family.

[1:03:06] It's not Stuart Little,

[1:03:07] but a chimp instead of a mouse,

[1:03:08] you know,

[1:03:08] a human family with one animal member.

[1:03:10] But it felt like,

[1:03:11] um,

[1:03:12] once you've taken a swing that big to then make the rest of the movie taking no big swings,

[1:03:16] you know,

[1:03:17] there's good sequences in it,

[1:03:17] but to play the rest of it pretty safe,

[1:03:19] it feels really disappointing.

[1:03:21] And I just,

[1:03:21] um,

[1:03:22] his Robbie Williams story was just not quite interesting enough to me to,

[1:03:27] uh,

[1:03:27] in some ways to justify taking such a big swing that,

[1:03:30] you know,

[1:03:31] this,

[1:03:31] you shouldn't judge a movie by its budget.

[1:03:32] You should judge it by its,

[1:03:33] um,

[1:03:34] by what it does,

[1:03:35] but you know that that added millions and millions of dollars to the budget that every scene had to be performed by a CGI champ.

[1:03:41] And I think that was mostly money well spent in this case,

[1:03:44] except do more with it.

[1:03:45] You know,

[1:03:45] that's,

[1:03:46] that's what I would say anyway,

[1:03:47] uh,

[1:03:47] from a story perspective,

[1:03:48] Hallie,

[1:03:48] what did you say?

[1:03:49] What do you think?

[1:03:50] I liked it.

[1:03:51] I loved it.

[1:03:53] You lived it.

[1:03:55] She wants some more of it.

Hallie Haglund

[1:03:57] But no,

[1:03:58] but I thought that I,

[1:03:59] you know,

[1:04:00] everyone keeps saying like,

[1:04:02] well,

[1:04:02] I'm not that into Robbie Williams.

[1:04:04] I don't like his music.

[1:04:05] So the story inherently wasn't that interesting to me,

[1:04:07] but I actually thought that the reason why it was interesting is because he's sort of like this side character of fame.

[1:04:16] Like when you see him,

[1:04:17] like with the Oasis people,

[1:04:20] you're like,

[1:04:21] oh yeah,

[1:04:21] this guy is also famous,

[1:04:23] but I have no respect for him as like a musician.

[1:04:26] And it's kind of interesting to like watch a whole movie about someone who like you don't take seriously,

[1:04:31] but they are themselves.

[1:04:33] So they obviously take themselves seriously.

[1:04:36] I don't know.

[1:04:37] I thought,

[1:04:37] I thought it was sort of like fascinating to,

[1:04:39] to like be really invested in a silly famous person.

[1:04:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:46] You know?

[1:04:47] And I want to say like,

[1:04:48] I,

[1:04:48] you know,

[1:04:48] I don't have any sort of breadth of Robbie Williams musical knowledge because he wasn't famous in the US,

[1:04:53] but the songs I do know,

[1:04:54] I actually,

[1:04:55] I actually like the good pop songs.

[1:04:56] I mean,

[1:04:57] his songs are fine,

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:58] but nobody is like,

[1:04:59] he's the best.

[1:05:00] I don't think,

[1:05:00] I don't think anyone is like,

[1:05:01] he,

[1:05:02] he's doing the best work in this form.

[1:05:04] They're fine.

Hallie Haglund

[1:05:04] Yeah.

[1:05:04] No,

[1:05:05] but I think they're fine,

[1:05:06] but they're,

[1:05:07] I don't know.

[1:05:09] I feel like there's like,

[1:05:10] there are,

[1:05:11] there's like,

[1:05:12] um,

[1:05:14] high,

[1:05:14] low brow.

[1:05:15] And then there's Robbie Williams,

[1:05:17] like Robbie Williams.

[1:05:18] I wouldn't say,

[1:05:18] I wouldn't say I like have a ton of like respect for his music,

[1:05:22] but if I'm at the disco,

[1:05:25] I,

[1:05:25] I'm happy when I,

[1:05:27] would you go to the disco?

[1:05:30] Well,

[1:05:30] that's actually how I know all these Robbie Williams songs,

[1:05:34] because when I was,

[1:05:35] when I was like,

[1:05:36] went abroad to Argentina,

[1:05:37] that's where I would hear them was like going to like dance clubs.

[1:05:41] Yeah.

[1:05:43] But I,

[1:05:44] so I loved it.

[1:05:44] And I thought,

[1:05:45] I thought it was like,

[1:05:46] I,

[1:05:47] I did think it was more ambitious than just the monkey choice because it did

[1:05:52] have,

[1:05:52] you know,

[1:05:53] like all of these crazy,

[1:05:55] like the big fight scene,

[1:05:56] the big dance scenes.

[1:05:57] Like I,

[1:05:58] I thought it was like a really ambitious movie that kept me very

[1:06:01] entertained.

[1:06:02] I did hate,

[1:06:03] I did,

[1:06:04] I did feel the way you guys felt about like it losing steam.

[1:06:09] Uh,

[1:06:09] the more he descends into,

[1:06:11] uh,

[1:06:12] addiction because it just felt like there was no way to heighten.

[1:06:15] Like you just kept getting these scenes of him losing his mind.

[1:06:17] And it was like,

[1:06:18] okay,

[1:06:18] like you can't lose your mind anymore than you already lost your mind.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:21] He gets addicted so early in his life.

[1:06:23] And maybe that's just the way that it was,

[1:06:25] but it does feel like,

[1:06:25] okay.

[1:06:26] And now he's still addicted,

[1:06:27] you know?

[1:06:28] Yeah,

[1:06:29] you're right.

[1:06:29] There's no,

[1:06:29] uh,

[1:06:30] you want to see a bill there.

[1:06:31] That's a really good point.

[1:06:32] I mean,

[1:06:32] and you want it to build to the point where he has a,

[1:06:34] uh,

[1:06:34] all out chimp battle.

[1:06:36] And then the movie ends.

[1:06:37] Like,

[1:06:38] I don't know why the movie keeps going after that,

Dan McCoy

[1:06:39] you know?

[1:06:40] Kind of the most striking,

[1:06:41] uh,

[1:06:42] part of him,

[1:06:42] like,

[1:06:43] uh,

[1:06:43] losing it is early on when he takes the watermelon.

[1:06:46] And there's like,

[1:06:47] uh,

[1:06:47] another cool sequence where he's like driving at full speed in the rain.

[1:06:51] And the world's exploding around fantasy,

[1:06:54] like driving into the water and almost drowning,

[1:06:57] you know,

[1:06:58] it's really,

[1:06:58] that was a great.

[1:07:00] That's a really great sequence.

[1:07:01] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:01] And that,

[1:07:02] that this director also did greatest showman,

[1:07:04] a movie that has its fans.

[1:07:07] We,

[1:07:08] I mean,

[1:07:09] I'm somewhat mystified,

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:11] but similarly,

[1:07:12] the greatest showman has some great,

[1:07:14] great produced sequences in it.

[1:07:16] Some great like vision.

[1:07:17] It's got great sequences to watch and especially the musical numbers,

[1:07:21] but at that,

[1:07:22] that's another one where the story you're like,

[1:07:24] what?

[1:07:24] Like there's nothing,

[1:07:25] there's very little to,

[1:07:26] to dig into.

[1:07:27] Although there.

[1:07:27] Like Zac Efron's like climbing a rope or something.

[1:07:30] I don't remember.

[1:07:30] Well,

[1:07:30] it's also,

[1:07:31] it's that one is so completely inaccurate.

[1:07:33] And I feel like,

[1:07:34] I wish they'd taken a little bit of that and put it into this movie to like,

[1:07:37] like if they were like,

[1:07:38] oh,

[1:07:38] that's the,

[1:07:38] that's the point when I got arrested for trying to kidnap the queen or

[1:07:41] something like that.

[1:07:42] I wish they'd done bigger with it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:43] Cause part of it is like Robbie Williams is sold on his like charm and like

[1:07:48] cheek.

[1:07:49] And like,

[1:07:50] I would like to see more of that injected into the storytelling.

[1:07:53] It's like braggadocio.

Hallie Haglund

[1:07:54] It made me want to be more cheeky.

[1:07:56] I was like,

[1:07:57] maybe that's all I need.

[1:07:58] Maybe that is what you need.

[1:07:59] You should try it out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:59] So Hallie,

[1:08:00] be a little cheeky,

[1:08:00] do something cheeky.

Hallie Haglund

[1:08:02] Wouldn't you like that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:05] Look at her.

[1:08:06] Look at her.

[1:08:06] Look at that face.

[1:08:07] Yeah.

[1:08:07] You can't see the face listeners,

[1:08:08] but it's a very cheeky face.

[1:08:11] One thing this movie did hit home for me,

[1:08:12] which is something that I,

[1:08:13] I wish I like to see is those glimpses of British culture that we don't always

[1:08:19] get in the United States.

[1:08:20] Cause we tend to get the more sophisticated British culture,

[1:08:22] not always,

[1:08:23] but over here and how so much of British culture is lowest,

[1:08:26] crassest,

[1:08:27] dumbest stuff.

[1:08:28] And like,

[1:08:29] like he said,

[1:08:30] boom.

[1:08:30] And they're all laughing.

[1:08:31] Like it's just to be reminded that,

[1:08:33] that England has this strain of just the dumbest stuff.

[1:08:36] I really like a lot.

[1:08:37] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:08:37] And I also will say,

[1:08:39] I actually don't usually,

[1:08:41] I don't usually like dancing or singing in movies.

[1:08:44] I don't usually like fight scenes.

[1:08:46] And I really,

[1:08:47] I really liked all of that in these movies.

[1:08:50] Okay.

[1:08:50] So,

[1:08:51] or in this movie.

[1:08:52] So I don't,

[1:08:52] I think it was done really well.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:54] I don't know.

[1:08:54] You don't like dancing,

[1:08:55] singing or fight scenes.

[1:08:56] This was like some of the top things that can be in movies.

[1:08:58] Stephen Chow is crying.

Hallie Haglund

[1:09:01] No,

[1:09:01] I feel like usually it's like,

[1:09:03] ugh,

[1:09:03] like that's how I feel about it.

[1:09:05] In La La Land,

[1:09:06] I was like,

[1:09:07] ugh,

[1:09:07] you're embarrassing yourself,

[1:09:08] guys.

[1:09:09] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:11] Someone needs to go in there and tell these people that people are watching them.

[1:09:14] Jackie Chan,

[1:09:15] stop it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:16] Yeah.

[1:09:17] Hey.

[1:09:19] Jackie Chan,

[1:09:20] Gene Kelly,

[1:09:21] Fred Astaire,

[1:09:22] quit it.

[1:09:22] Just don't.

[1:09:23] Just who cares?

[1:09:23] Don't.

[1:09:24] Dance out there.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:27] You know,

[1:09:27] the Flophouse is sponsored mostly by the wonderful listeners,

[1:09:32] members of MaxFun.

[1:09:34] Thank you for being a member if you are.

[1:09:36] But we also have a couple of sponsors.

[1:09:39] And one of them this week is Aura Frames.

[1:09:41] Are you ready to win Mother's Day?

[1:09:42] Are you ready to prove to your mom that you know the difference between her and your grandmother?

[1:09:48] Well, why not?

[1:09:51] Why not show that you're the best gift giver in your family by giving your mother an Aura digital picture frame?

[1:09:58] And maybe it could be one that's preloaded with decades of family photos.

[1:10:01] Like,

[1:10:02] that's the beauty of these frames is you can preload them and from a distance,

[1:10:08] using the power of the internet,

[1:10:10] add new photos.

[1:10:11] So,

[1:10:12] your family is up to date on all the great things in your life.

[1:10:16] And it's,

[1:10:16] you know,

[1:10:17] you can do it from afar.

[1:10:20] I have one of these frames.

[1:10:22] It's a wonderful thing because we have all of our wedding photos on there.

[1:10:26] Stuff that otherwise maybe would go in a,

[1:10:29] you know,

[1:10:30] an album that you take down once every few years and take a look at.

[1:10:34] But instead,

[1:10:34] we get to be reminded of all our great friends.

[1:10:38] I have photos of these two Flophouse co-hosts,

[1:10:42] jokers.

[1:10:44] Toplets.

[1:10:45] Pop up regularly.

Hallie Haglund

[1:10:47] I was invited to the wedding.

[1:10:48] I couldn't go because I was too pregnant.

[1:10:50] But I was invited just so the listeners know.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:52] Yes,

[1:10:53] I know that Hallie would have been there.

[1:10:54] Dan said,

[1:10:55] nobody's going to upstage me at my wedding.

[1:10:57] Especially not a pregnant lady.

[1:10:58] Keep that belly away,

[1:10:59] I said.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:01] It was named the best.

[1:11:02] This wedding has a four drink minimum.

[1:11:05] So,

[1:11:05] Hallie,

[1:11:05] you're not going to.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:10] That would be wild.

[1:11:11] We have to take advantage of the open bar.

[1:11:12] Four drinks minimum.

[1:11:15] It was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter.

[1:11:17] It's easy to see why.

[1:11:19] It's got unlimited storage.

[1:11:20] So,

[1:11:20] you can add as many photos,

[1:11:22] videos.

[1:11:23] Hey,

[1:11:24] why not some funny memes?

[1:11:25] Throw those in there.

[1:11:26] If you can find.

Hallie Haglund

[1:11:28] You can put videos on that?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:30] Yeah.

[1:11:31] I didn't know that.

[1:11:32] That's the magic.

[1:11:33] That's the magic of this modern world.

[1:11:35] So,

[1:11:35] if you want to take advantage of this,

[1:11:37] Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day for a limited time.

[1:11:40] Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com.

[1:11:45] That's A-U-R-A.

[1:11:48] Frames.com.

[1:11:48] To get $35 off,

[1:11:50] plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver Matte Frame.

[1:11:55] That's A-U-R-A.

[1:11:56] Frames.com.

[1:11:57] Promo code FLOP.

[1:11:58] Support the show by mentioning us at checkout.

[1:12:01] Terms and conditions apply.

[1:12:03] Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:04] Hey,

[1:12:04] y'all.

[1:12:05] This podcast is also brought to you by Squarespace.

[1:12:09] Squarespace is an all-in-one platform for creating a website.

[1:12:14] Hey,

[1:12:14] do you want a website?

[1:12:15] Maybe for your small business?

[1:12:17] Well,

[1:12:17] one of the great things about Squarespace,

[1:12:19] they offer a complete library of professionally designed website templates.

[1:12:22] So,

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[1:12:26] You can be a business person who might just need a little bit of help with the artistry.

[1:12:31] There is some intuitive options like drag and drop editing,

[1:12:35] styling options,

[1:12:37] visual design effects.

[1:12:38] You don't have to be a website coder or anything like that.

[1:12:42] Like,

[1:12:42] I don't even know if what I said was real.

[1:12:44] I don't know if those were real jobs.

[1:12:46] Also,

[1:12:46] once you get that website set up,

[1:12:48] they also offer plenty of options and easy to use ways to sell services and also do billing

[1:12:56] and receive online payments,

[1:12:58] which is really helpful.

[1:13:00] It's easy to set up and easy to use.

[1:13:01] So,

[1:13:02] head over to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:13:07] And when you're ready to launch,

[1:13:08] use offer code FLOP to save 10%.

[1:13:12] off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:16] We also have a couple of Jumbotrons.

[1:13:19] That's right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:20] Jumbotrons.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:20] Not just regular Trons,

[1:13:22] but Trons that are Jumbo.

[1:13:23] And the first one is from Laura,

[1:13:25] last name withheld.

[1:13:26] She says,

[1:13:26] For years,

[1:13:27] my husband,

[1:13:27] Brendan,

[1:13:28] and I have been listening to The Flophouse.

[1:13:30] Our new video game,

[1:13:31] Skin Deep,

[1:13:31] is a comedy stealth game inspired by immersive sims like Thief,

[1:13:35] Prey,

[1:13:35] and Dishonored,

[1:13:36] and by classic action movies like Die Hard.

[1:13:38] Play as Nina Pasadena,

[1:13:40] a human insurance commando who saves talking cats from space pirates.

[1:13:44] You can flush a pirate's head down a toilet,

[1:13:46] use deodorant as a weapon,

[1:13:47] and drive a mech.

[1:13:48] It's on Steam right now.

[1:13:49] To buy or wishlist,

[1:13:51] check out our slapstick stealth game,

[1:13:53] Skin Deep,

[1:13:54] on the Steam store.

[1:13:55] So that's one Jumbotron.

[1:13:56] That sounds pretty fun to me.

[1:13:58] Next Jumbotron.

[1:13:59] This is a message for Dylan,

[1:14:01] last name withheld,

[1:14:02] and this message is from Melissa,

[1:14:04] Morgan,

[1:14:04] Harper,

[1:14:05] and Charlie,

[1:14:06] last names also withheld.

[1:14:07] And that message is,

[1:14:08] Happy 40th birthday to you and Kellen.

[1:14:10] You are a wonderful brother and uncle.

[1:14:12] Thank you for introducing us to some of our favorite things,

[1:14:14] Flophouse included.

[1:14:16] Here's to many more years of Nuggets Championships

[1:14:18] and video games with the kids.

[1:14:19] This place may be a prison,

[1:14:21] but we will always love you,

[1:14:22] even Harper,

[1:14:23] despite her note.

[1:14:25] Do you think they're really in prison?

[1:14:27] I have to assume so.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:28] And Nuggets Championships are when you try to eat as many chicken nuggets as possible in one sitting, right?

[1:14:33] I mean,

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:34] I can't think of any other way to take that phrase.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:36] Or when you're listening to Nuggets,

[1:14:39] that psychedelic songs collection.

[1:14:42] Not familiar,

[1:14:43] but okay,

[1:14:44] sure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:44] Okay,

[1:14:44] you know what,

Dan McCoy

[1:14:45] I'll pretend I get that reference.

[1:14:46] And what's the championship aspect of it?

[1:14:49] Just how long you can,

[1:14:50] just like,

[1:14:50] let's do it on a loop.

[1:14:51] Oh,

[1:14:52] I see,

[1:14:52] okay.

[1:14:52] Yeah,

[1:14:52] yeah.

[1:14:54] Hey,

[1:14:55] maybe you want to mention your book.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:56] That's exactly what I was going to do.

[1:14:57] I don't have a book.

[1:14:58] Thank you,

[1:14:58] Dan.

[1:14:59] You've got a book in your studio someday,

[1:15:01] someday,

[1:15:01] Confessions of a Bartender.

[1:15:02] Hey,

[1:15:03] don't sell yourself short.

[1:15:04] You've got a bunch of books.

[1:15:05] You could do it.

[1:15:06] Yeah.

[1:15:07] That's a real,

[1:15:08] that's a real chicka marks way to do it.

[1:15:10] Oh,

[1:15:10] I don't have a book.

[1:15:11] Hey,

[1:15:11] you've got a lot,

[1:15:11] you've got a bunch of books.

[1:15:12] I've seen them on your shelves.

[1:15:13] Yeah.

[1:15:14] I have a new children's picture book that is out right now.

[1:15:17] It's called Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House by me and with art by Tim Miller.

[1:15:22] It is about a good girl mouse who is tired of doing the chores and decides she's going to do them bad,

[1:15:27] so she never has to do them again,

[1:15:28] and she wrecks her house.

[1:15:30] You can pick it up in bookstores now.

[1:15:32] It's a really fun book for kids.

[1:15:33] It's a picture book,

[1:15:34] as I said,

[1:15:34] for children,

[1:15:35] and I am going to be making a public appearance,

[1:15:38] appearance,

[1:15:39] appearance.

[1:15:39] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:40] Wear your bulletproof vest.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:43] Are you saying that to the audience?

[1:15:44] Because,

[1:15:45] you know,

[1:15:45] my children's things,

[1:15:46] I like to,

[1:15:46] they're just,

[1:15:47] they're just pellets.

[1:15:48] They're just pellets.

[1:15:48] It's not,

[1:15:49] you know.

[1:15:49] So,

[1:15:50] Saturday,

[1:15:51] May 17th,

[1:15:52] one week after this episode is released,

[1:15:54] I believe,

[1:15:54] at 11 a.m.,

[1:15:55] I will be at Once Upon a Time Bookstore in Montrose,

[1:15:58] California.

[1:15:59] Once Upon a Time is one of the oldest children's bookstores in the state,

[1:16:04] possibly in the country,

[1:16:05] I'm not sure.

[1:16:06] It's a great little store.

[1:16:07] I love it there,

[1:16:08] and I'm going to be doing a story time,

[1:16:09] reading Sadie Mouse to anyone who shows up at 11 a.m.,

[1:16:13] Saturday,

[1:16:14] May 17th.

[1:16:14] So,

[1:16:15] please come by to Once Upon a Time in Montrose,

[1:16:17] California.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:18] If no one shows up,

[1:16:19] will you still read it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:20] I will still read it.

[1:16:21] I've done book readings where no one showed up,

[1:16:22] and I just read it for the people who work at the store.

[1:16:25] So,

[1:16:26] that will happen.

[1:16:27] But please,

[1:16:27] don't,

[1:16:27] don't force the people who work at the store to listen to me.

[1:16:30] Come by,

[1:16:31] Saturday,

[1:16:32] May 17th,

[1:16:33] at 11 a.m.

[1:16:34] at Once Upon a Time Bookstore to hear Sadie Mouse wrecks the house.

S5

[1:16:42] Hey,

[1:16:42] we're the Eurovangelists,

[1:16:43] and it's the most wonderful time of the year,

[1:16:45] because the Eurovision Song Contest is next week.

[1:16:48] 37 countries will face off in Basel,

[1:16:50] Switzerland,

[1:16:51] to determine who has the best song in Europe.

[1:16:53] On our show,

[1:16:54] we've argued about all the songs,

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:55] and we are heading to Europe to bring you our reactions straight from Switzerland.

S5

[1:16:58] And on our next episode,

[1:16:59] we're going to predict who's going to survive the semifinals,

[1:17:02] compete in the grand final,

[1:17:03] and ultimately win Eurovision 2025.

[1:17:06] Albania,

[1:17:06] baby!

[1:17:06] It's Malta.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:08] Latvia.

[1:17:08] But we won't be alone.

[1:17:10] Glenn Weldon of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour will be with us,

[1:17:12] sharing his own predictions,

S5

[1:17:14] and telling us why we're wrong.

[1:17:15] So make sure you're ready for Eurovision by listening to Eurovangelists on Maximum Fun,

[1:17:19] available everywhere you get podcasts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:23] You never know what you'll learn more about on the celebrity trivia show Go Fact Yourself.

S5

[1:17:28] For over 150 episodes,

[1:17:30] we've welcomed guests like DJ Jazzy Jeff,

[1:17:32] Audie Cornish,

[1:17:33] and Andy Richter to tell us why they love what they love,

[1:17:36] and then get quizzed on it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:37] And past quizzes have included some pretty unexpected topics like...

S5

[1:17:41] Reverse painting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:42] The perfect flip turn while swimming.

S5

[1:17:44] Prince's house party playlist from that one episode of New Girl.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:47] And so much more.

S5

[1:17:49] Plus, our guests meet surprise experts in their topics.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:52] Like the time we met an actual celebrity cow.

S5

[1:17:55] So listen to Go Fact Yourself twice a month,

[1:17:57] every month on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:59] Do it for the cow!

[1:18:00] No!

[1:18:04] Let's, uh, let's, uh, read some letters from listeners.

[1:18:09] Why not?

[1:18:09] Hey, fuck it.

[1:18:10] For a treat.

[1:18:10] Yeah, sure.

[1:18:11] Only live once, right?

[1:18:13] Uh, this is from...

[1:18:13] Depending on your religion.

[1:18:15] This is from Elise, last name withheld,

[1:18:18] who writes,

[1:18:19] Long ago, in 1998,

[1:18:22] I went to see Armageddon in the theater with my best friend.

[1:18:25] Cool.

[1:18:25] As a 14-year-old girl,

[1:18:27] I was enthralled.

[1:18:28] I laughed,

[1:18:29] I cried,

[1:18:30] and I walked away with a huge crush on

[1:18:32] Steve Buscemi.

[1:18:34] Yeah.

[1:18:35] Probably not what Michael Bay intended.

[1:18:37] When the movie came out on video,

[1:18:38] I begged my parents to rent it for family movie night,

[1:18:41] assuring them that it was a great movie

[1:18:42] and they would love it.

[1:18:43] You're gonna love this hunk.

[1:18:45] As middle-aged adults with fully grown frontal lobes,

[1:18:49] they did not love the movie.

[1:18:50] This has stuck in my mind as my first experience

[1:18:53] with hyping something up as great

[1:18:55] and then learning that it was actually pretty stupid.

[1:18:58] I actually haven't re-watched Armageddon since then

[1:19:00] because of the residual embarrassment attached to that memory.

[1:19:04] I have two questions for you to choose.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:06] What a tragedy.

[1:19:08] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:19:08] I'm sorry.

[1:19:09] If it's a movie you like, you should watch it.

[1:19:10] Looking uncool in front of your parents?

[1:19:13] Yeah.

[1:19:13] They're just your parents.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:15] They're the least cool people there are.

[1:19:16] Exactly.

[1:19:17] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:19:17] I have two questions.

[1:19:18] I'm not mine, but...

[1:19:21] I'm sorry, Mom.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:23] I have two questions for you to choose between.

[1:19:26] One, what was the first time you shared a movie

[1:19:28] you really liked with someone

[1:19:29] and they thought it was dumb?

[1:19:31] Did it change the way you felt about the movie?

[1:19:33] Two, are there any movie characters you crushed on

[1:19:36] when they were clearly not intended to be

[1:19:38] on the movie's roster of crushable characters?

[1:19:43] Thanks.

[1:19:43] Elise, last name withheld.

[1:19:46] Dan, you can answer both.

[1:19:47] Don't worry.

[1:19:48] I'm able to.

[1:19:49] I'm allowed.

[1:19:49] You're allowed to.

[1:19:49] Yeah, I'm going to give you a laugh.

[1:19:51] I mean, I have...

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:52] I'll answer the first.

[1:19:52] Yeah, you do.

[1:19:53] I'm going to answer first.

[1:19:54] I'm just going to answer the first one first

[1:19:55] while I think of an answer to the second.

[1:19:57] Sure.

[1:19:57] But I remember introducing my friend Nigel,

[1:20:02] who is from ye olde England.

[1:20:05] Oh, home of Robbie Williams.

[1:20:06] Home of Robbie Williams.

[1:20:07] Wow.

[1:20:08] Yeah, if I told him we watch Better Man,

[1:20:10] he'd be like,

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:10] oh yeah, that's me favorite guy.

[1:20:13] My mate, Robey.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:14] Yeah.

[1:20:16] Dead on impression.

[1:20:17] He, I introduced him to,

[1:20:21] I loaned him my DVD copy of Wet Hot American Summer.

[1:20:23] And I'm like, this movie is so funny.

[1:20:25] I love it.

[1:20:26] And he watched it.

[1:20:27] He's like, this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

[1:20:29] And I'm like, is this,

[1:20:31] is it just that he has bad taste,

[1:20:32] which is possible,

[1:20:33] or that he, like,

[1:20:35] it just didn't translate to the type of comedy he likes,

[1:20:38] which is like Benny Hill running around and that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:41] Oh yeah, classic English comedy,

[1:20:42] the sophisticated English comedy that they love.

[1:20:44] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:45] But I was like a little shocked also,

[1:20:47] because this,

[1:20:48] that was one of those relationships

[1:20:49] where I kind of viewed him like a cool older brother.

[1:20:51] And I, you know, it hurt my feelings.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:54] Certainly when I was in,

[1:20:55] when I was in high school,

[1:20:56] there was a girl that I crush on

[1:20:58] and she came over and we,

[1:20:59] no, I went to her house and we watched Brazil,

[1:21:01] which I had seen multiple times.

[1:21:03] And I was like, this movie's amazing.

[1:21:04] And afterwards she was like,

[1:21:06] yeah, that was a weird movie.

[1:21:09] And it otherwise made no impression.

[1:21:10] And I was like, oh, okay, I guess I felt,

[1:21:13] and then I felt dumb afterwards.

[1:21:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:15] Yeah.

[1:21:16] I'm having trouble thinking,

[1:21:17] like, you know,

[1:21:18] I'm secure in like how I feel about my own things

[1:21:21] that I like, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:23] Have you always felt secure in the things that you like?

[1:21:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:26] Yeah, I'm not secure in.

[1:21:26] Dan's always struck me as someone

[1:21:28] with a very healthy amount of self-esteem.

[1:21:30] Well, good thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:31] I'm not secure about myself.

[1:21:33] Necessarily.

[1:21:34] But, like, why should I give a shit

[1:21:36] what your tastes are if they're not mine?

[1:21:38] Chill.

[1:21:39] Sounds healthy.

[1:21:40] But, I mean, there are occasions where, like,

[1:21:43] I'm a little sad that someone doesn't like a thing

[1:21:46] that I like or whatever.

[1:21:48] And the thing that's springing to mind,

[1:21:50] even though it's not exactly right,

[1:21:51] is, like, I feel like Audrey just got

[1:21:54] the wrong impression about a thing.

[1:21:56] I showed her the outtakes for

[1:21:58] Emmett Otter's Jug Bad Christmas

[1:21:59] because I was like, oh, you'll like this.

[1:22:01] This is funny.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:02] And they're hilarious.

[1:22:03] I mean, like, you know.

[1:22:04] I've seen those outtakes.

[1:22:05] They are fun outtakes.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:06] There's nothing funnier than outtakes of puppets.

[1:22:10] You know, like, staying in character,

[1:22:12] reacting to stuff.

[1:22:14] And, you know, she loved the outtakes.

[1:22:16] And then, you know, one Christmas,

[1:22:17] we're like, let's watch Emmett Otter.

[1:22:19] And her main reaction was she found it so sad.

[1:22:24] And I'm like, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:25] Yeah, it's sad that the fucking Riverbottom Nightmare

[1:22:27] Man doesn't win.

[1:22:29] I'm like, it ends up happy.

[1:22:30] Everyone's happy at the end.

[1:22:31] She's like, yeah, but it's sad for so much of it.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:33] She just wasn't prepared to watch something bittersweet,

[1:22:36] I think, after, you know, these fun outtakes.

[1:22:42] I don't know.

[1:22:43] What about you, Hallie?

Hallie Haglund

[1:22:44] Well, I'm trying to think of something.

[1:22:46] I feel like the opposite usually happens with me,

[1:22:48] where someone shows me something that they really like,

[1:22:51] and I don't like it,

[1:22:52] and I have to pretend like I like it.

[1:22:54] I feel like I'm not secure enough in my own taste

[1:22:58] that I'm willing to reject the thing that I don't like.

[1:23:01] So I'm always like, yeah.

[1:23:03] And usually it's whatever it is,

[1:23:05] is very, very long,

[1:23:07] and it's my husband who likes it.

[1:23:09] And so it's a lot of wasted time.

[1:23:11] Give us one.

[1:23:12] Give us one.

[1:23:13] So one of our first dates we went on,

[1:23:16] we saw that movie, The Great Beauty,

[1:23:18] which now that I'm thinking about it,

[1:23:20] I might have even like recommended it on this podcast

[1:23:23] because that's how Stockholm Syndrome I am.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:26] Cemented your relationship, yeah.

[1:23:27] Yeah.

[1:23:27] I feel like I remember this, yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:23:29] Yeah, and if I'm being totally honest with myself,

[1:23:32] I didn't really like the movie.

[1:23:33] It was really long and kind of boring.

[1:23:36] The only thing that was cool

[1:23:37] was that there was one scene with like a really big giraffe,

[1:23:39] which I found interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:41] I'm very happy you say this, Hallie,

[1:23:43] because that's a movie I also did not like very much,

[1:23:45] but it was one of those movies where people were like,

[1:23:46] oh, a ravishing love letter to Italy,

[1:23:48] you know, and stuff like that.

[1:23:49] And I'm like, all right, I don't know.

[1:23:50] It's kind of boring.

[1:23:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:52] And to, yeah, do we have answers for the second question?

[1:23:55] I do.

[1:23:56] Yeah, I got one.

[1:23:57] Dish, Hal, dish.

[1:23:58] Dish, dude, dish.

Hallie Haglund

[1:23:59] I got John Malkovich in both Con Air and Mary Riley.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:03] I love this.

[1:24:03] Oh, and Mary Riley.

[1:24:04] Wow.

[1:24:06] Okay, somebody likes a bad boy.

[1:24:10] I would say Ursula from Little Mermaid.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:14] Interesting.

[1:24:15] Oh, for sure.

[1:24:16] Yeah, yeah.

[1:24:19] I feel like anything I come up with is like the most like surface level,

[1:24:24] like, oh, not like other guys or other girls, you know,

[1:24:28] like sort of like –

[1:24:28] Oh, it's Kitty Pryde.

[1:24:29] Oh, you know, yeah.

[1:24:32] Because like I was really –

[1:24:33] I'm sure that there's a more interesting one,

[1:24:35] but, you know, in a movie where like all the other women are like made up

[1:24:42] to be like the most conventionally attractive,

[1:24:45] I remember in Mean Girls being like,

[1:24:46] who's this Lizzie Kaplan?

[1:24:48] But she's like a gorgeous woman.

[1:24:49] Yeah.

[1:24:49] You know, so it's not like that weird.

[1:24:51] That's the hard thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:52] Even in movies, like even John Malkovich has a magnetic like charisma about him.

[1:24:56] Yeah.

[1:24:57] I know.

[1:24:57] It's why he's a movie star.

[1:24:58] But the first things that came to mind to me were –

[1:25:02] I mean, mentioning Kitty Pryde opened up a whole world of other characters.

[1:25:06] It's like I've always had a crush on the character Spiral,

[1:25:08] who is an X-Men character who is –

[1:25:09] That's a cool one.

[1:25:10] She dances.

[1:25:11] She's got a samurai helmet.

[1:25:12] She has six arms.

[1:25:13] Oh, yeah.

[1:25:14] You know, she changes people's bodies in weird ways.

[1:25:17] Like she's amazing.

[1:25:18] I love her.

[1:25:19] But the first thing that came to mind was I always used to think like,

[1:25:23] well, in Teen Wolf, I'm really into Boof.

[1:25:25] I'm not into the other girl.

[1:25:26] But the movie is into Boof.

[1:25:28] Like obviously she's the one he's supposed to end up with.

[1:25:30] But I realized who I really have a crush on are those two girls that hang out with Stiles

[1:25:33] who have no dialogue in the movie.

[1:25:35] Yes.

[1:25:35] And they always are rolling their eyes at him.

[1:25:37] They always look like they hate everyone else that they're around.

[1:25:40] Yeah.

[1:25:40] And I'm like, these are exactly the girls in high school I would have had a crush on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:42] That's the level of confidence you aspire to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:45] Yes, exactly.

[1:25:46] Like they're like, we're not even a part of this world.

[1:25:49] We're just here.

[1:25:50] We're going through it.

[1:25:52] And that they're, yeah.

[1:25:53] So that's who I have a crush on is those girls from Teen Wolf.

Hallie Haglund

[1:25:55] What about that little dancing girl from Mac and Me?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:59] Well, that's Nikki Cox.

[1:26:01] I didn't have a crush on her.

[1:26:03] I just always felt bad because I was like, she's trying so hard.

[1:26:05] Like she wants to be a professional.

[1:26:07] You can tell.

[1:26:08] And it's just she's in this shitty movie.

[1:26:09] But then I found out it was Nikki Cox.

[1:26:10] I'm like, oh, she had a whole career.

[1:26:11] Great.

[1:26:11] Okay.

[1:26:12] I didn't feel bad anymore.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:13] And I don't know if this is a fair answer since this might be the sexiest a woman has ever been in a movie.

[1:26:18] But obviously Joan Cusack in Adam's Family Values is Debbie.

[1:26:21] Oh, I mean, yes, of course.

[1:26:23] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:24] That's the one where, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like she's presented as a femme fatale the whole time.

[1:26:29] So they know she's sexy.

[1:26:30] But I don't think they realize how much she is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:32] Give me a kiss.

[1:26:33] Give me a what?

[1:26:34] Give me a 15.

[1:26:35] What'd you say?

[1:26:35] Give me a 20.

[1:26:36] I love it.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:37] Okay.

[1:26:38] Well, our second and final question from Benny, last name with help.

[1:26:42] Benny Hills.

[1:26:43] Or letter.

[1:26:44] Benny N.T.

[1:26:45] Jets.

[1:26:47] Benny writes, when listening to your Venom The Last Dance episode, I was dumbstruck that none of you mentioned the underlying metaphor of an adult man who reflects on a life of retreating into escapist superhero fiction instead of pursuing family or career goals.

[1:27:03] But his best friend feels partially and selfishly responsible for his lack of ambition.

[1:27:08] My question is this.

[1:27:09] That's a lot of credit given to Venom 3.

[1:27:11] I love it.

[1:27:11] Well, here we go.

[1:27:12] My question is this.

[1:27:13] Have you ever been so confident in an interpretation of a film as universal only to later find said interpretation was merely a window into your own messy psychology and dysfunctional relationships?

[1:27:25] So, this is a complex question.

[1:27:28] Believing your interpretation, of course, is the obvious one and then being like, oh, maybe that's just me.

[1:27:34] And I don't really have a good one.

[1:27:36] I thought this was a great question.

[1:27:37] I don't really have a good one for this.

[1:27:38] The only thing that came up and it is not a reflection of anything in my life.

[1:27:43] But I remember I saw the recent Music Man revival and it was the first time when I'm like, oh, like Winthrop's obviously like her kid, right?

[1:27:57] Like she got pregnant by this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:59] You finally cracked the code, Dan.

[1:28:00] You finally got it.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:02] Well, but then it's like – and to me, like then it seemed so obvious.

[1:28:06] But then I would – I like went online for like confirmation that like, oh, I was just an idiot all these years.

[1:28:11] And they're like so many people like saying like no, like look at the ages of the characters.

[1:28:16] No, like Meredith Wilson didn't necessarily like speak to that.

[1:28:21] Like it seemed like he didn't have that view.

[1:28:24] But it seems so obvious to me like that like of course like the whole thing is about her being the sadder but wiser girl.

[1:28:30] Like she has this child that is actually her child.

[1:28:33] But that's not a reflection of me per se.

[1:28:37] That's just like me realizing subtext.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:40] You'd be the child in that situation, right?

[1:28:41] The child who doesn't realize that his parents have had this life before he was around or, you know, what that means.

[1:28:47] Interesting.

[1:28:48] Yeah.

[1:28:49] So the first thing that came to mind for me was something that I've actually talked about before on a different podcast.

[1:28:54] On the Being Seen podcast, I talked about my relationship with the movie Taxi Driver where when I was – I first saw that movie when I was like 14 years old.

[1:29:02] And very depressed and very lonely.

[1:29:04] And I continued to be depressed and lonely for basically the next six to seven years.

[1:29:10] And feeling such sympathy and empathy with an identification in a way that I now think is bad with Travis Bickle and his loneliness and his inability to really understand how the rules of human life, you know, how to be a human and how to interact with other people.

[1:29:26] And it was only when I got older and had grown up a little bit that I saw it and I'm like, oh, I think you're supposed to feel bad for him a little bit, but you're not supposed to identify with him.

[1:29:35] Like you're supposed to watch the movie being like, this guy's a weirdo.

[1:29:38] This is strange.

[1:29:39] As opposed to looking at him being like, I hear you, man.

[1:29:41] It's hard to know how to talk to people.

[1:29:43] So that was a real shift in the way I looked at that movie.

[1:29:46] And it helped a little bit.

[1:29:48] I think it was last year reading Quentin Tarantino's book where he talks about watching Taxi Driver when it came out when he was young in an all-black theater.

[1:29:55] And how the audience just laughed through the whole movie being like, can you believe this guy?

[1:29:59] Can you believe the stuff he's doing?

[1:30:01] This guy's an idiot.

[1:30:02] You know, that they fully saw the other side of that character, which is from the outside looking at him, what are you doing, man?

[1:30:08] Whereas I was looking at it from the inside of like, yeah, I get it.

[1:30:10] I get it.

[1:30:10] No one tells you the rules when you're born into this world, you know.

[1:30:14] What about you, Hallie?

Hallie Haglund

[1:30:15] I don't really, I can't think of, I don't have a good answer for this.

[1:30:20] You're allowed.

[1:30:21] I'm always right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:22] I don't particularly.

[1:30:24] I always get it.

[1:30:25] I don't have any good answers either.

[1:30:29] I mean, I'm going to piggyback on Elliot's, which is just the idea of like, so many movies I watched as a teenager, I sympathized with the wrong character, or I used things to justify, based on like my own feelings, like my own feelings of alienation, or how I'm the most important person in the universe.

[1:30:48] You know, that kind of sociopathic teenager thinking.

[1:30:51] But as an adult, I like to think I've become a little better.

[1:30:56] But I'm sure I'll think of a better answer and then be dumb.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:00] No, I mean, there are certainly things like high fidelity, where I realize that this is not like supposed to be like a great guy, but it was only like later in life.

[1:31:09] I'm like, oh, like, I realize like what a sharp critique it is of a certain type of nerd and their blinkered like, you know, the difficulties with empathy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:20] Yeah, that's a good one.

[1:31:21] Yeah.

[1:31:22] There are a lot of movies that involve guys of a certain type, where if you were a guy of that type, you buy into it.

[1:31:29] I mean, I feel like I didn't, I never liked this guy, but I feel like I knew people who were really into Rushmore, and without recognizing like, what a little shit he is for much of the movie.

[1:31:41] I didn't understand why anyone else was recognizing that, you know?

[1:31:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:44] Well, he's kind of a big shit.

[1:31:46] Yeah.

[1:31:46] Wait, which one is it?

[1:31:47] Sorry, I missed it.

[1:31:48] Bill Murray.

[1:31:49] Yeah, you're talking about Bill Murray.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:50] Yeah.

[1:31:51] Well, I mean, the other thing of like, it's the, there's that moment in your life.

[1:31:54] There's two sides of shit.

[1:31:55] There's the moment.

[1:31:55] That learn to be better from each other.

[1:31:57] Big, little, yeah.

[1:31:58] That famous kid's book, Big Shit, Little Shit.

[1:32:00] Yeah.

[1:32:01] There's that moment, there's that moment when you grow up, when you cross the Bill Murray understanding barrier, when you go from being like, this is the coolest man in the world, to being like, okay, this guy, like, what is this guy's deal?

[1:32:11] Like, why does he think he can get away with anything?

[1:32:12] It's not fair, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:13] Well, there is a thing about like, media literacy, where as a kid, if you, if you grow up with an actor or performer and you have like, deep emotional connection to him, that like, you have trouble identifying them at like, identifying them as a bad person in a movie.

[1:32:29] Yeah, yeah.

[1:32:30] Like, you're like, oh, but I love, I love Michael Keaton.

[1:32:32] Why would he be a serial killer trying to kill Andy Garcia?

[1:32:36] Yeah, a lot of kids had that, had that strange realization.

[1:32:39] It happened to me.

[1:32:40] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:32:41] I guess.

[1:32:41] Why is Batman doing that?

[1:32:42] I don't know.

[1:32:43] I don't know if this is exactly, if this exactly fits, but I think it was very hard for me to wrap my head around in the Winona Ryder Little Women, in the 90s Little Women.

[1:32:54] Like, it never made sense to me when I saw that movie seven times in the theater, why Joe wasn't supposed to wind up with Laurie and why Amy was supposed to wind up with Laurie.

[1:33:06] It's like, it seemed like that was big miss.

[1:33:11] Like, it was like, we spent, we invested this entire movie in rooting for this particular couple to work out and then they don't work out.

[1:33:21] Why, why did that make sense?

[1:33:22] And I'm, but I'm not sure I have an answer.

[1:33:25] I'm not sure that I now understand why it did work that way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:30] Why they did, why they didn't wind up together.

[1:33:33] I mean, I don't know that version of the movie that well.

[1:33:35] In the book, I think it's a matter more of like, they actually aren't, they actually aren't the right match for each other.

[1:33:39] You know, she needs someone who's going to play a different role.

[1:33:42] And that's why she ends up with the professor who, I think if they, I think they made a big mistake in the Greta Gerwig one by making that professor so handsome.

[1:33:48] But like, because I think you're supposed to read that book and be like, Joe, why aren't you with Laurie?

[1:33:53] He's handsome and rich.

[1:33:54] Why are you with this kind of like older, not attractive professor guy?

[1:33:58] But it's like, but that's, that's the, that's the relationship that she needs in her life rather than, you know.

Hallie Haglund

[1:34:02] Well, but I think they made it, it made more sense in the Greta Gerwig one because Timothy Shalman was like such a kid.

[1:34:09] Yeah.

[1:34:10] Yeah.

[1:34:10] And so you understood why she wouldn't want to, why he would represent the past rather than like the future to her.

[1:34:19] But in the Winona Ryder one, freaking, what's his name is so hot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:25] John Malkovich, your favorite.

[1:34:28] No, no.

Hallie Haglund

[1:34:28] You know, what the.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:30] Who is that?

[1:34:31] Skeet Ulrich, Stephen Dorff.

[1:34:32] No, no.

[1:34:33] It was the 90s.

[1:34:34] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:34:34] You know, the little.

[1:34:36] Macaulay Culkin.

[1:34:36] Oh my God.

[1:34:37] I can't believe I'm not remembering.

[1:34:38] Kieran Culkin.

[1:34:39] No, he's the one from The Machinist.

[1:34:41] The one from what?

[1:34:42] The Machinist.

[1:34:42] Adrian Brody.

[1:34:42] Christian Bale.

[1:34:43] Christian Bale.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:44] Oh, Christian Bale.

[1:34:45] Yeah.

[1:34:46] There's a moment in the recent season of Righteous Gemstones where Stephen Dorff says the word nards and it's the funniest thing I've ever seen.

[1:34:57] You said that wolf man?

[1:34:59] Unfortunately, no, but it's, oh man, it was like, oh.

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:04] I love, I love Righteous Gemstones.

[1:35:06] And I thought this season, at the beginning of the season, I was like, every season I like this less.

[1:35:11] But then by the end, I was like, this is great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:13] It's best ensemble cast on television right now.

[1:35:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:17] There's a little show called Tracker.

[1:35:19] Oh, my mistake.

[1:35:20] I forgot about Colter Shaw and his tracking.

[1:35:22] It's about a guy who tracks.

[1:35:24] He does track.

[1:35:25] That tracks, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:26] Yeah, it sounded like Colter Shaw was knocking on your door so that he could get in on the action.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:30] No, no, that's, my family is currently building a kind of gardening cage around our blueberry bushes so that the birds and squirrels can get to them.

[1:35:38] And they're doing it right outside the window where we're recording.

[1:35:41] So they're hitting the window every now and then.

[1:35:43] Cool.

[1:35:43] The best part is seeing my wife's face so she knows that we're hearing the sounds and just is like, sorry.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:51] Let us, well, let's, in that case, move on to the next segment, which is recommend movies.

[1:35:57] There's still more?

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:57] What an amazing value for the dollar we give with this show.

[1:36:00] I know.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:00] It's really, I mean, considering also that you don't have to give the dollar.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:05] Dan, don't tell people you don't have to.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:07] Look, we love that you give the dollar.

[1:36:09] Yeah.

[1:36:10] So this is.

[1:36:11] It's a trick.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:12] GTD, give the dollar.

[1:36:14] That's what we're always saying.

[1:36:14] That's why all the Flophouse merchandise has GTD and Blazendon.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:17] Yeah.

[1:36:18] Yep.

[1:36:19] Don't check that.

[1:36:21] Unless you're asking AI, in which case they'll say, yep, it does.

[1:36:24] It sure does.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:25] AI is in some ways the worst improv partner.

[1:36:28] They're just like, I will yes and whatever question you ask me, but not in a way that builds a scene.

[1:36:32] Just in a way that confuses you.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:33] In a way that adds to the general misinformation in the world.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:40] And ends up gaslighting me out and catfishing me out of all of my money.

[1:36:45] Yeah.

[1:36:45] That's the worst part.

[1:36:46] Yeah.

[1:36:46] That's why he got a GTD.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:48] Because Stu keeps getting catfished by AI.

[1:36:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:51] Let's recommend movies.

[1:36:53] Oh.

[1:36:53] That's what I'm trying to get to.

[1:36:54] Okay.

[1:36:54] Movies that you might enjoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:56] Dan's going to recommend AI.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:58] Well, I don't think, I think that Stuart made a little video with me recommending this movie,

[1:37:05] but I don't think on main, I don't think we recommended this.

[1:37:08] Yeah, yeah.

[1:37:08] No, we didn't.

[1:37:09] Stu and I went and saw another Ridiculous Sublime.

[1:37:12] We always plug these Ridiculous Sublime movies.

[1:37:14] Your favorite series.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:15] If you live in Brooklyn, go to the, run, don't walk to the Nighthawk Cinema for their Ridiculous Sublime series.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:21] It's the best.

[1:37:22] Great stuff.

[1:37:23] And we watched Ninja 3, The Domination from 1984.

[1:37:27] I haven't seen that in a long time.

[1:37:29] Very silly.

[1:37:30] Very fun.

[1:37:31] Like, honestly, it starts out with an action sequence that I'm like, holy crap.

[1:37:35] Like, for a movie that is like a low-budget movie, this is one of the most amazing action sequences.

[1:37:41] Yes.

[1:37:41] Like, the bang for your buck in this is so much bigger than any, like, blockbuster you're going to see.

[1:37:45] But the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:47] Bigger bang for your buck than a blockbuster, says Ben Bacoy.

[1:37:50] That opening scene, I've said it before, but it's like, it is like a five-star Grand Theft Auto rampage caught on cinema.

[1:37:57] It's so wild.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:59] It is, essentially, a ninja kills a guy and some other people on a golf course.

[1:38:06] And then is chased down by a bunch of cops.

[1:38:09] Eventually, he is shot a ridiculous number of times.

[1:38:13] And then the spirit of that ninja inhabits a woman who works on the telephone wires.

[1:38:20] She's from –

[1:38:21] Lucinda Dickey.

[1:38:22] Yeah.

[1:38:22] It's the director of Breaking 2 Electric Boogaloo.

[1:38:25] And Lucinda Dickey was in that film.

[1:38:27] Staria.

[1:38:28] And so she becomes the ninja.

[1:38:30] She's possessed by the ninja as he wants to kill all the cops that killed him.

[1:38:36] And it is –

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:37] They should have called it Ninja 3 Possession.

[1:38:38] I don't know why it's Ninja 3 Domination.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:40] Even though she decides to start dating the hairiest of the cops.

[1:38:44] Yeah.

[1:38:46] A man who's so hairy that you're like, am I in a different dimension where you can be that hairy in a movie and still be the love interest?

Dan McCoy

[1:38:52] All the audience cheered when she's like, I don't date cops.

[1:38:56] And then like, boo, she started to date that cop.

[1:38:59] But it's a perfect movie of its type in that like it's really silly but also kind of amazing.

[1:39:06] Like it's genuinely like entertaining and great in a lot of ways while also being the goofiest shit you ever saw.

[1:39:12] So that's what I recommend.

[1:39:14] Ninja 3 The Domination.

[1:39:15] Stuart, what do you recommend?

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:16] I'm going to recommend a movie that is hot in the theaters right now.

[1:39:19] So hot it will burn your flesh with flames.

[1:39:23] I'm going to recommend Ryan Coogler's Sinners.

[1:39:27] It is one of the, like, I would argue probably one of the biggest box office successes of the year.

[1:39:34] It is an original kind of horror movie that is set in Prohibition era South.

[1:39:41] It stars two Michael B. Jordans.

[1:39:43] You get double your Michael B. Jordan for the dollar where they play, where he plays two twin brothers who are setting up a juke joint near their hometown.

[1:39:54] And then there's some vampire violence.

[1:39:56] It is so fun.

[1:39:58] Rate it R for vampire violence.

[1:39:59] It is, it's so fun.

[1:40:01] It is a movie that I kind of went in expecting it to be a fair, you know, like a really intense horror movie.

[1:40:09] And I feel like the horror movie elements while done well are kind of not the thing the movie is most interested in.

[1:40:15] It's a total blast.

[1:40:17] It's all the performances are great.

[1:40:18] The music is great.

[1:40:20] And it is the kind of, like, in-theater experience that I've been looking for.

[1:40:25] I think it's great.

[1:40:26] If you haven't seen it, you should go check that out.

[1:40:27] They brought it back to IMAX and it crashed Fandango.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:32] Yeah, I can see it.

[1:40:33] It's great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:35] I'm going to recommend a movie that is kind of not, it's not really related to Sinners, but it is directed by the writer of Creed 2, which Ryan Coogler didn't direct, but it is, but Ryan Coogler did direct Creed, so it's kind of similar.

[1:40:49] And this is someone who, their work has been on The Flav House before because they were a writer of Space Jam, A New Legacy.

[1:40:54] But they made a movie called-

Dan McCoy

[1:40:56] Interesting bona fides for this recommendation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:59] This is a movie directed by Jewel Taylor, who wrote those, called They Cloned Tyrone that came out, like, the year before last.

[1:41:06] And it's a science fiction, it's like a science fiction movie that is, science fiction kind of mystery action movie that is, has like, blaxploitation kind of style touches to it.

[1:41:18] And it has to do with a drug dealer in this kind of, in this bad neighborhood, predominantly black neighborhood that is economically depressed.

[1:41:29] And he gets killed and then wakes up the next day totally fine.

[1:41:32] And it leads to a plot that, I won't tell you too much about what happens, but involves a, you know, secret government plots and people being used for experiments and things like that.

[1:41:43] And I thought it was really fun.

[1:41:45] It's a really funny movie.

[1:41:46] And it was real.

[1:41:46] It had some real good action scenes in it.

[1:41:49] Jamie Foxx appears in it as Slick Charles, a pimp who becomes one of the hero group.

[1:41:54] And he's great in it.

[1:41:55] I watched this not too long after watching, finally seeing Collateral for the first time, which I'd never gotten around to seeing.

[1:42:00] And I was like, this is the kind of Jamie Foxx I want to see though.

[1:42:03] I don't want to see serious Jamie Foxx who's just trying to build his limo business.

[1:42:06] I want to see Jamie Foxx as a, as a kind of larger than life character.

[1:42:10] And it's really great.

[1:42:11] Tiena Paris is in it as this character, Yo-Yo, who's the, kind of takes the lead in the mystery and in figuring out what's going on.

[1:42:20] And it was, it's not, it's kind of lives in a similar world in terms of being a science fiction satire on black themes.

[1:42:30] A similar world to Sorry for Bothering You, but.

[1:42:34] Sorry to bother you.

[1:42:35] Sorry to bother you.

[1:42:36] But it's not as, it's not quite as incisive as that one.

[1:42:38] It's much more fun than that one.

[1:42:40] But I really enjoyed it.

[1:42:41] So that's They Cloned Tyrone, which I think it's on Netflix right now.

[1:42:45] I think it's a Netflix exclusive movie.

[1:42:47] Allie, what about you?

[1:42:48] What's your recommendation?

Hallie Haglund

[1:42:49] Well, I'm going to recommend a movie that could very well be the answer to the previously asked question about being really embarrassed when you reveal something that you like because it turns out it actually sucks.

[1:43:06] Because I haven't seen this movie since I was probably like 14.

[1:43:09] But for some reason, it's just been on my mind recently.

[1:43:12] The movie Dangerous Beauty.

[1:43:15] Did you guys see that in the 90s?

[1:43:18] Starring Rufus Sewell.

[1:43:21] I've been thinking about it a lot because I recently watched The Diplomat and I was like, this guy never stops Ian smoking.

[1:43:28] He is so hot.

[1:43:30] And he was so hot in Dangerous Beauty.

[1:43:33] The story of a courtesan in a historical time.

[1:43:41] During the...

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:42] This is one of Hallie Haglund's classics.

[1:43:44] No research movie reviews.

Hallie Haglund

[1:43:47] No, but it was during both the Black Plague and the Inquisition because both of those were featured within the movie.

[1:43:56] And it was great.

[1:43:57] I rented it over and over and over again.

[1:44:00] I thought maybe when I grow up, I'll be a courtesan.

[1:44:03] But I didn't really know what that was.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:04] You know, I never saw this movie, but I remember seeing the poster for it.

Hallie Haglund

[1:44:07] Yeah.

[1:44:07] Well, it was good.

[1:44:09] Okay.

[1:44:09] Wait, Stu, you gave a knowing nod.

[1:44:13] Do you remember this movie?

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:14] A little, yeah.

[1:44:15] I mean, I remember seeing it years ago, but I couldn't give you too many details on it.

Hallie Haglund

[1:44:21] Do you remember if you liked it?

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:23] I remember liking it, yeah.

[1:44:24] Okay.

[1:44:25] Okay.

Hallie Haglund

[1:44:25] I remember being like a little horny, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:44:28] Yeah, yeah.

[1:44:28] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:29] And I liked Rufus Sewell.

[1:44:31] Like, I'd get stuck in a dark city with him.

[1:44:32] You know what I mean?

[1:44:32] I gotta tell you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:33] I gotta tell you.

[1:44:34] He...

[1:44:34] It works in person, too.

[1:44:36] That Rufus Sewell attraction.

[1:44:37] I saw him on stage in the play Rock and Roll, and he was very handsome.

[1:44:40] Oh, my God.

[1:44:40] Very handsome.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:41] I saw him on stage in Richard III, and...

[1:44:45] Who did he play?

[1:44:46] The titular Richard III.

[1:44:49] The titular III.

Hallie Haglund

[1:44:51] He played all three of them?

[1:44:53] It's even better than two Michael B. Jordans.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:55] Richard III is like multiplicity, but it's set in England's past, yeah.

[1:44:59] Yeah.

[1:44:59] Better than two Michael B. Jordans.

[1:45:00] What would be better, two Michael B. Jordans or three Rufus Sewells?

[1:45:04] Who knows?

Dan McCoy

[1:45:04] Yeah.

[1:45:05] Hard to choose.

[1:45:07] I just looked up Dangerous Beauty on Letterboxd.

[1:45:09] The most popular review, the top review...

[1:45:12] Paul Schrader.

[1:45:13] Did she peg the king of France?

[1:45:17] So, that's the thing that might happen in this movie, if you wanna...

Hallie Haglund

[1:45:21] I don't remember that part.

[1:45:23] I guess I've gotta go see it again.

[1:45:24] I guess I'm recommending it to myself.

[1:45:26] Maybe that's a director's cut.

[1:45:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:28] I mean, I do find that, like, sometimes recommending a movie I haven't seen in a long time, I'm like,

[1:45:33] you know what?

[1:45:34] I'm gonna watch that fucking thing again.

[1:45:35] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:45:37] Is it available on streaming since you just looked it up?

[1:45:39] Could you help us out with that?

[1:45:40] Yeah, man.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:42] Pull up Just Watch real quick.

[1:45:44] Yeah.

[1:45:44] Okay.

[1:45:44] Well, it's connected to Just Watch, so it shouldn't take as long as it does.

[1:45:48] Where to watch?

[1:45:50] You can...

[1:45:51] Oh, it just says Hallie's House.

[1:45:52] It just says rent or buy, so I don't think it's streaming.

[1:45:55] No.

[1:45:56] You can still rent it.

[1:45:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:45:57] Yeah, it's still available.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:58] I mean, there was a time in the past when you always rented or bought things.

[1:46:01] Yeah, I know, I know.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:01] But there were places to go to do that in the past.

[1:46:04] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:04] And there aren't anymore.

[1:46:05] You know what?

[1:46:05] I bet there's a place.

[1:46:06] I bet you could go to Vidiots and rent it.

[1:46:08] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:09] I will.

[1:46:10] And a new DVD store just opened up.

[1:46:14] A DVD purchase and rental store just opened up in Williamsburg.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:17] I don't know why Letterboxd linking to Just Watch doesn't work as well.

[1:46:22] It's just going to Just Watch itself.

[1:46:23] But if you go directly, yes, it's on Hulu.

[1:46:26] You can see it on Hulu.

[1:46:27] Oh, wow.

[1:46:28] I have Hulu.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:29] There you go.

[1:46:30] You can have a Hulu hoop.

[1:46:33] I don't know what that means in this context, but...

Dan McCoy

[1:46:35] Not sure.

[1:46:36] Not sure.

[1:46:38] Hey, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:38] I just feel bad that Stuart had an Ace Lathe of Heaven reference earlier.

[1:46:43] And I thought it was so funny.

[1:46:43] And the best I can do is Hulu hoop in my band song parodies.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:49] It's always a shot in the arm, Hallie, when you're here.

[1:46:53] And a delight to see you again.

[1:46:54] Dan looks down and around bashfully.

[1:46:56] I hope not a gunshot.

[1:46:59] I miss seeing you regularly.

Hallie Haglund

[1:47:02] Hey, you know what, you guys?

[1:47:03] This is real.

[1:47:05] I had a moment a couple weeks ago where I was like,

[1:47:08] I don't laugh anymore.

[1:47:10] I just don't laugh.

[1:47:12] Nothing makes me laugh anymore.

[1:47:13] And I thought, I'm so glad I'm doing the flop house.

[1:47:15] Because when I do the flop house, I laugh.

[1:47:18] So thank you guys for that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:19] So I think we should probably have you on more often just for your own mental health.

[1:47:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:24] And you have a delightful laugh.

[1:47:27] So that's also good for us as well.

[1:47:30] Oh, yeah.

[1:47:30] But thank you.

[1:47:31] Ha, ha, ha.

[1:47:33] That's the one.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:37] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:40] A lot of people don't know, Hallie makes most of her money off of doing Halloween sound effects.

[1:47:44] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:45] Zoom's like, that Halloween sound effect is copyrighted.

[1:47:48] We gave you that.

[1:47:49] No, yeah, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:50] Yeah, that's why we had to stop using that chain rattle sound.

[1:47:52] We get sued, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:54] Anything you want to say before we do our sign off, Hallie?

[1:47:58] Thanks for having me.

[1:48:00] Great.

[1:48:00] That's all.

[1:48:02] Hallie, why don't you plug your sub stack?

Hallie Haglund

[1:48:04] We should have mentioned earlier.

[1:48:05] Yeah, sign up, you guys.

[1:48:07] Read my sub stack.

[1:48:09] Check it out.

[1:48:09] It's called, That Hurts My Feelings.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:13] I'm glad it's still going because honestly, I read the last one.

[1:48:17] I'm like, does this mean she's stopping?

[1:48:19] No.

[1:48:19] There's a sense of finality about it.

[1:48:23] I know, I know.

[1:48:24] Goodbye forever or something.

[1:48:25] Yeah.

[1:48:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:26] But I'll recommend, Hallie, if you are continuing, That Hurts My Feelings.

[1:48:30] It's the thing I read right away when it shows up in my email inbox.

[1:48:33] I always think it's great.

[1:48:34] It's both funny and also kind of meaningful and touching and revealing in ways that I think—

[1:48:40] Very revealing.

[1:48:41] A lot of nude pictures.

[1:48:42] A lot of nude pictures, yeah.

[1:48:43] Dangerous beauty.

[1:48:45] It was originally called That Hards My Feeling, right?

[1:48:47] It was just much more of a porn newsletter.

[1:48:51] But it's a—no, it's like—Hallie's doing such amazing writing on it, and someone's got a—

[1:48:58] I wish there was more newspapers with syndicated columns because it shows me that Hallie would do an amazing job with that.

Hallie Haglund

[1:49:04] Oh, thank you.

[1:49:05] Thanks.

[1:49:05] Yeah, so if any newspapers are listening—

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:08] If you're listening, USA Today, and I know you are.

Dan McCoy

[1:49:13] Mr. USA Today.

[1:49:15] Is there a missus?

[1:49:19] Mr. Ulysses Samson Arthur Today.

[1:49:23] Thank you to Hallie.

[1:49:25] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith, both for producing the show and being on our Unfrosted episode recently.

[1:49:33] And if you don't subscribe to Flop Secrets, our newsletter, the most recent one was devoted to Alex's side project.

[1:49:41] So look that up.

[1:49:41] You can—it's an easy way to see what Alex is up to.

[1:49:45] Thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:49:46] Go to MaximumFun.org to find other great shows on the MaxFun Network.

[1:49:52] And for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:49:54] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Hallie Haglund

[1:49:55] I've been Elliot Kalin.

[1:49:56] And I've been Hallie Haglund.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:59] And thank you to us.

[1:50:00] Oh, thanks.

Hallie Haglund

[1:50:02] I got—don't worry, guys.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:15] I got a real hot one.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:16] Oh, boy.

[1:50:17] Not just warm, but hot.

[1:50:18] Okay, let's hear it.

[1:50:18] Okay, what's this—okay.

[1:50:20] I remember what the movie's called, so that's the important thing.

[1:50:22] Here we go.

[1:50:24] On this episode, we discuss Better Man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:50:27] And if your number one celebrity crush is Robbie Williams, prepare to be confused.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:34] That's pretty good.

[1:50:35] Great.

[1:50:35] That is a hot one.

[1:50:37] Maximum Fun.

[1:50:38] A worker-owned network.

[1:50:40] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:50:42] Supported.

[1:50:43] Directly.

[1:50:43] By you.

Ep.#451 - Better Man, with Hallie Haglund

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