Ep. #187 - Fateful Findings

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] On tonight's episode, we watched Indie Darling,

[0:04] Fateful Frightenings.

[0:05] No, Fateful Findings.

[0:07] Fateful Findings.

Dan McCoy

[0:09] No, Fateful Findings.

Stuart Wellington

[0:13] Five-O-Goes West.

[0:14] What?

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:43] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:44] As always, I am Stuart Wellington.

[0:48] And sometimes I'm not me, but today I am.

[0:50] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:51] Great.

[0:53] So if you're tuning in for the first time,

[0:56] this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

[0:59] Hey, thanks for tuning in.

[1:00] And then we talk about it.

[1:03] It's a weird time to interject that, Stuart.

[1:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06] Hey, friends, and new friends.

[1:08] Old friends, and you friends.

[1:12] Thanks, Theodore Geisel.

Dan McCoy

[1:14] Poet laureate of the Flophouse, Stuart Wellington.

[1:18] Hey, for new listeners,

[1:20] maybe you can shut off your brains for a moment,

[1:22] but for old listeners, I just...

Stuart Wellington

[1:24] So much is directed to new listeners.

[1:26] Were you just encouraging them to commit suicide?

[1:29] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30] Just...

[1:30] Well, we'll get back to that later on in Fateful Findings.

[1:33] What...

[1:34] Spoiler alert.

[1:34] What did we watch?

[1:35] Spoiler alert.

[1:36] You heard it already in the intro.

[1:38] But, yeah.

[1:40] For old listeners, I just...

[1:41] I have a little thing I want to address off the top.

[1:46] I wanted to just take a moment to say one personal thing,

[1:49] and that's that my wife and I are separating,

[1:53] and I only share this with you guys briefly,

[1:56] so I don't have to talk around the changes in my life

[1:58] and pretend they haven't happened,

[2:00] which I think would be weird.

[2:02] But otherwise, this is obviously a very private thing,

[2:04] and I like to keep it that way.

[2:06] But just because the Internet has a tendency to be a cruel place

[2:11] where people take sides on things,

[2:13] I just want to iterate that there are no sides to be taken here.

[2:18] My wife, soon to be ex,

[2:21] but my wife Sarah is the best person I know,

[2:24] and we remain great friends,

[2:26] and we always will.

[2:28] And so I just wanted to say that off the top

[2:30] before we get back to being funny.

[2:33] And also, just, you know,

[2:34] we've had a lot of people write in and say

[2:36] that the podcast has helped them through bad times,

[2:40] and I want to say that the podcast is helping me through bad times, too.

[2:44] So I appreciate it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:46] But that's that.

[2:47] I think I speak for everyone here at Flophouse Co.

[2:51] when I say that.

[2:52] You mean me and you?

[2:53] Yeah, the two of us.

[2:54] We say that we love you very much,

[2:57] and we're here for you.

[2:59] And what that means in practical terms is

[3:01] if people want to go on the Facebook page

[3:04] and make jokes about this being because Dan's boring or something,

[3:08] then we'll probably blow up your house and kill your pets.

[3:11] So maybe don't do that, okay?

[3:12] You're going to kill Dan's pets?

[3:14] No, not Dan's pets,

[3:15] although I don't like his cat.

[3:17] The people who say those things.

[3:18] But that's just because you're allergic.

[3:20] Let's keep it clean.

[3:21] Yeah.

[3:21] Let's keep it clean, Facebook friends.

[3:23] Above the belt.

[3:24] Keep it above the belt.

[3:24] Above the belt.

[3:25] Maybe be human beings on this one.

[3:27] That's not for everybody on the page,

Dan McCoy

[3:28] just for a few people who are jerks.

[3:31] But we don't need to dwell on that.

[3:33] I just...

[3:34] Dan, we didn't watch a movie tonight.

[3:36] What?

[3:37] This is all we're going to talk about.

[3:38] Oh, boy.

[3:41] Now we can get back to being funny.

[3:43] I wanted to address that off the top

[3:44] so we can take the bad taste of it out of our mouths

[3:46] by then doing our regular show.

[3:49] Kind of a lot of pressure.

[3:49] So let's take the top off and talk about...

Stuart Wellington

[3:52] Much like this movie threatens to do many times.

[3:55] No, it takes plenty of tops off.

[3:57] You just don't see what's underneath those.

[3:58] And it drops them on the ground outside of frame.

Elliott Kalan

[4:02] Because, Dan, look, let's just say one thing.

[4:05] Yeah.

[4:06] I'm just going to kill the suspense on this one

[4:09] about whether I liked this movie.

[4:10] The movie we watched tonight was Fateful Findings.

[4:14] It was Fateful Findings,

[4:15] a movie I've wanted to see for over a year now, I think,

[4:18] since I first saw it advertised online.

[4:20] And it was amazing.

[4:23] Look, you can have your roomses and your birdemics.

[4:27] Now I'm a Fateful Findings man.

Dan McCoy

[4:29] Welcome to Smallvember, everybody.

[4:30] Yeah, that's the thing.

[4:31] This is definitely a small-temper movie.

[4:34] This is...

[4:34] No, it's a Smallvember movie

[4:35] because small-temper doesn't exist.

[4:37] This is a movie that I have to tell a little story,

[4:40] which is that...

[4:41] So gather round the hearth, kinder.

Elliott Kalan

[4:45] Another one of Dan McCoy's movie tales.

Dan McCoy

[4:48] Actually, hold on for a second.

[4:50] Sorry, I had to briefly pause the recording

[4:52] to grab a letter, which was...

Elliott Kalan

[4:55] Way to pull back the curtain, wizard.

[4:57] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[4:59] I had planned to...

[5:00] Wizards in their curtains.

[5:02] I really wanted to watch this movie

[5:04] for Smallvember after seeing the...

[5:07] Smallvember.

[5:08] ...the trailer.

[5:09] And I tried buying it from the person who made it.

[5:14] What's his name?

[5:14] Mr. Neil Breen.

[5:15] Neil Breen.

[5:16] It is the...

Elliott Kalan

[5:16] It was written, directed, produced by,

[5:18] and stars Neil Breen,

[5:19] who in his spare time is an architect.

[5:21] And a handsome hard body.

[5:23] Yeah.

[5:23] All the time.

[5:24] The movie would have you believe a handsome hard body

[5:26] who is catnip to the ladies.

[5:28] Mm-hmm.

[5:28] Even though the ladies in the movie kiss him

[5:30] as kind of chastely

[5:32] and with as little pleasure on their faces as possible.

[5:34] That's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[5:35] They're worried that they might cut themselves

[5:36] on his diamond-like, chiseled features.

Dan McCoy

[5:39] But I went on the Fateful Findings website

[5:42] and tried to purchase it direct from the source.

[5:45] And I paid the money,

[5:47] and the DVD never showed up,

[5:49] which is very appropriate to the movie Fateful Findings.

[5:52] Yeah.

[5:52] But, as if by magic,

[5:55] Flophouse fan Josh Hollis,

[5:58] the guy who...

[6:00] Oh, I like that, dude.

[6:00] He's done a bunch of great Flophouse Photoshop.

[6:04] He did copies of the Flophouse Inquirer

[6:06] with a bunch of great Flophouse in-jokes.

[6:10] But he mailed a copy of the DVD

[6:13] for Fateful Findings to us,

[6:16] unbeknownst...

[6:16] Like, he did not know

[6:17] that it was something that we wanted to watch,

[6:20] and it just magically appeared right before...

[6:22] Hey, so in a way,

[6:23] didn't you get the DVD you bought?

[6:25] Yeah.

[6:25] As if by Kismet.

Stuart Wellington

[6:26] Yep.

[6:27] It's almost like...

[6:27] It all came together.

[6:28] A mushroom magically morphed into that DVD.

Dan McCoy

[6:30] Yeah.

[6:31] Which leads us into, I guess, the...

Elliott Kalan

[6:33] Well, let's just say

[6:33] this was a case of serendipity,

[6:35] when fate has a sense of humor.

[6:37] Mm-hmm.

[6:38] Starring John Cusack.

[6:40] So, Neil Brain is an independent filmmaker

[6:42] and also architect.

[6:43] The most independent filmmaker.

[6:46] Independent from logic, skill, talent,

[6:49] storytelling ability, and let me...

[6:51] Often alone in the shots that he shoots.

[6:53] Let me just say that the subtitle

[6:55] on the poster for Fateful Findings is...

[6:58] This is the subtitle on the poster.

[6:59] A paranormal thriller

[7:00] where a computer hacker

[7:01] exposes worldwide secrets.

[7:03] Mm-hmm.

[7:03] That only just...

Dan McCoy

[7:04] That is much more succinct than the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[7:06] It describes about two or three

[7:08] of the six or so plots

[7:10] that are going on in this movie,

[7:11] which include...

[7:12] It's gonna be so hard to talk about this movie

[7:14] in chronological order, but let's see.

[7:15] Mm-hmm.

[7:15] So I'm just gonna mention off the top...

[7:16] We're gonna try.

[7:18] Just mention off the top

[7:18] that there's a novelist computer hacker

[7:21] who exposes secret government

[7:23] and corporate secrets,

[7:24] as he calls them.

[7:25] Uh, his drug-addicted pill-popping wife,

[7:28] his drunk neighbor,

[7:30] Mm-hmm.

[7:30] whose wife does not want to have sex with him.

[7:32] Which is crazy.

[7:33] His teen neighbor...

[7:34] The teen daughter of his neighbors

[7:35] who is trying to seduce him.

[7:37] Also, he...

[7:38] There's a ghost

[7:39] and also magic stone powers.

Dan McCoy

[7:41] Mm-hmm.

[7:42] Uh, let's not...

[7:42] And disappearing people.

[7:43] Just a bunch of random disappearing people

[7:45] who we don't quite understand.

[7:47] Disappearing people.

[7:47] Two psychotherapists.

Elliott Kalan

[7:48] Two psychotherapists,

[7:49] one of whom is some sort of paranormal ghost spirit.

[7:52] Yeah, like an old gypsy woman.

[7:54] And the other one is just not very good at his job.

[7:55] Yep.

[7:56] And so, let's start from the beginning, shall we?

[7:58] We begin sometime in the past.

[8:00] Mm-hmm.

[8:00] There are two kids are tromping through the woods,

[8:02] as kids do,

[8:03] and they find a mushroom on the ground

[8:05] which dissolves into a magic box of stones.

[8:07] Yep.

[8:08] So we're in, like, Russo-Finnish folktale territory already.

Dan McCoy

[8:12] It doesn't do the normal thing that a mushroom does,

[8:14] which is either make someone larger or smaller

[8:16] or make Super Mario more super.

[8:19] That's...

Elliott Kalan

[8:19] Well, it makes them bigger.

[8:20] Yeah, I guess it's traditional.

[8:21] That's just science.

[8:22] Yeah.

[8:23] Well, the thing is, you want to get the right mushroom.

Dan McCoy

[8:25] Some mushrooms make you bigger and smaller.

[8:27] Some turn you super.

[8:28] One gives you, like, an extra guy or something, right?

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] Yeah.

[8:31] Yeah, yeah.

[8:31] There's a one-up mushroom.

Dan McCoy

[8:33] Mm-hmm.

[8:33] And some of them just make you real nice.

[8:36] I don't know what that means.

[8:37] Make you real nice.

Elliott Kalan

[8:40] I don't understand.

[8:41] You know.

[8:42] Like a mushroom that teaches you etiquette?

[8:44] Politeness?

[8:45] Wink!

Stuart Wellington

[8:46] Why's your eye making that sound every time you wink, eh?

[8:49] That's radio licking.

[8:50] I've got a disease.

Elliott Kalan

[8:54] So, they find this magic mushroom, which is not a drug.

[8:57] It's an actual mushroom that's magic.

[8:59] Yeah.

[8:59] They take stones from it, and the girl writes in her diary...

Stuart Wellington

[9:02] It turns into a little box in a bag, and they just keep pushing the, like, rope that ties the bag over...

[9:08] And then they cover it up with grass, and it turns back into a mushroom.

Elliott Kalan

[9:11] And, uh...

[9:11] Oh, either way, there was a cattle skull that kind of, like, just kind of nodded towards it.

Stuart Wellington

[9:15] And after finding this magical box mushroom, the young girl writes in her diary, it's a wonderful day.

[9:21] It's a magical day.

Dan McCoy

[9:22] Oh, shit.

[9:23] She writes it like a...

[9:23] I watch a different movie.

Elliott Kalan

[9:24] That's the one thing she writes on the page, like...

[9:27] Like, diagonally.

[9:28] Across the lines.

[9:29] Mm-hmm.

[9:30] It's a magical day.

[9:31] Unfortunately, she and her family are moving away, and a voiceover tells us that...

[9:37] She has a bracelet.

[9:39] A voiceover...

[9:39] That's important for later.

[9:40] A voiceover from the boy, now a grown man, played by Neil Breen, tells us that he never heard from her again, and he never saw her again at the end of that magical summer.

Dan McCoy

[9:48] And there's, like, eight shots of the car driving away, and the kid running after waving at it.

[9:54] Mm-hmm.

[9:54] And the distance that the kid is from the car keeps shifting from shot to shot.

[10:01] And the car is moving at three miles an hour as it drives away.

[10:04] Let's just...

Stuart Wellington

[10:05] And it's as if he found two children who have never waved before in their life.

[10:09] Yeah, they don't know how to...

[10:10] And then he had a dog teach them how to do it.

[10:12] They're waving like a companion.

Elliott Kalan

[10:16] Let's just right at the top mention that everything in this movie is done at the lowest level of competency possible.

[10:22] Everything this movie does is wrong.

[10:24] But it's, like, in a great way.

[10:26] Like, I could not...

[10:28] If I was trying desperately hard to make a movie that was poorly made and made that was terrible in no sense, I would never be able to achieve it.

[10:36] I would have to unlearn so much basic film grammar.

[10:39] No, Tim and Eric could only dream of making this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[10:42] Yeah.

[10:42] They hope one day to sit at the feet of this Buddha of filmmaking.

Elliott Kalan

[10:46] Like, compared to this guy, Tommy Wiseau is, like, Hitchcock, you know, basically.

[10:50] And that is not an exaggeration.

Dan McCoy

[10:53] The room is much more competently made than this film is.

Elliott Kalan

[10:55] So we flash forward to the present.

[10:57] A guy is walking down a sidewalk.

Stuart Wellington

[11:00] It cuts to a woman...

[11:01] And this is intercut with shots of just random shit that doesn't seem to make any sense.

Elliott Kalan

[11:05] There's a long panning shot...

[11:08] Or a long tracking shot, I'm sorry.

[11:09] Down the hallway of a storage locker facility.

Stuart Wellington

[11:12] Apology accepted.

[11:13] Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[11:13] To a magic book on a pedestal of some kind.

[11:16] Mm-hmm.

[11:16] That gold dust is falling on.

[11:18] Okay.

[11:19] Cut away from that.

[11:19] We're not interested anymore.

[11:21] The guy's walking down the street.

[11:22] Turns out he's on the phone with his wife, even though we don't hear him talking or see

[11:27] him talking.

[11:28] And she is glad that he's coming home soon.

[11:31] She is at her kitchen sink, which is beautifully decorated with a potted plant and three bananas.

Stuart Wellington

[11:36] A giant outdoor potted plant.

Elliott Kalan

[11:38] It's like they wanted the room to look lived in, so they just added the kind of potted plant

[11:43] you would put outside a back door and three bananas on a plate.

Stuart Wellington

[11:46] They're like, what kind of clip art can I drag over into this shot?

Elliott Kalan

[11:51] He is hit by a car, a Rolls Royce, driven by a very busty lady whose face we never see.

[11:58] Yeah, we never see.

Dan McCoy

[11:59] But she is certainly nipply.

[12:02] That's what we know about her.

[12:03] And now this-

[12:04] That's what the APB for the police put up for her.

[12:07] Suspect is nipply.

Elliott Kalan

[12:08] I repeat, headlights are on.

[12:11] This begins with the major theme of the movie, which is teasing the viewer with the idea that

[12:15] they might get to see breasts and then not showing them.

Dan McCoy

[12:17] There are like four at least busty women in this movie that they keep-

[12:22] Four at least busty.

[12:25] Like they keep showing scenes where they are topless, but-

Elliott Kalan

[12:29] They're lying on their chest.

[12:30] They're lying on their chest.

[12:30] So you see their side or their back is too new.

[12:32] Or there's two different scenes where a woman's shirt comes off and you just see her feet

[12:36] and the shirt falls down.

[12:38] And in one of them the shirt makes a thump sound.

[12:41] Like a thump.

[12:42] Like there's some hilarious sound effects in here.

[12:45] So he's hit by a car.

[12:46] There's blood everywhere on his face.

Stuart Wellington

[12:49] And he's lying perfectly still on his back.

[12:52] Desperately trying to reach his flip phone.

Elliott Kalan

[12:56] But it's one of those razor phones where like it's open sideways.

Stuart Wellington

[12:59] Yeah, because he's a famous novelist, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[13:03] He goes to the hospital.

[13:04] He has a magic stone in his hand.

[13:07] I don't remember if he's given it or not.

[13:08] They take him to the hospital very slowly.

[13:11] They spend so much time putting an oxygen mask on his face.

[13:14] Like if this was an instructional film about applying oxygen masks to the faces of coma victims,

[13:20] like they would do it with more speed.

Dan McCoy

[13:22] Well, there are also just like five people standing in a line saying,

[13:25] is he dead?

[13:26] Is he breathing?

[13:27] And each time that someone says something,

[13:29] it's intercut with a slow panning shot of their feet as they stand there.

Elliott Kalan

[13:32] And there's a shot of a guy going, he was hit by that Rolls Royce.

[13:36] I'm a witness.

[13:37] I saw it.

[13:38] The Rolls Royce is right there.

[13:39] It's still there and it's still got blood all over the front of it.

[13:41] So thanks.

[13:42] You're a great witness.

[13:43] Great.

[13:44] There's so many shot scenes where it's a cut.

[13:47] It's a closeup of someone saying a line.

[13:49] Then either a cutaway to a panning shot of something unrelated or a closeup of another person having a totally unrelated conversation.

[13:56] Like it's like waiting for Godot level like ambiguous dialogue at times.

[14:03] Anyway, so he goes to the hospital.

[14:05] He's got a, he's like got a Phantom of the Opera of gauze all over his face.

[14:09] Just like covering half his face.

[14:11] Some people who we figure out are his wife and a friend.

[14:16] I can't believe this has happened to him.

[14:19] They're there.

Dan McCoy

[14:20] The doctor takes a long time before he says anything.

Elliott Kalan

[14:24] There's literally a long shot of the doctor, the wife and the friend and the doctor is just looking around.

[14:30] And I guess the idea is supposed to be that he's examining the patient, but he's just kind of looking at all the stuff in the room.

[14:35] And he tells them it's, there's nothing he can do.

[14:39] He's very, he's a, there's very little brain activity.

[14:42] The neurologist comes over.

[14:44] She says, he's not my client, but I'll take a look.

[14:46] She feels his pulse and then says, there's nothing, you know, he's, he suffered severe brain.

[14:50] He's comatose.

Dan McCoy

[14:51] She's as good a doctor as Sean Connery was in Guardians of the Highlands.

Elliott Kalan

[14:56] One Guardian of the Highlands.

[14:58] There's just one Guardian.

[14:59] Oh, yeah.

[15:00] But you're right.

[15:00] She, she'd bring, maybe she studied under him like Lorraine Bracco in Medicine Man.

[15:04] And so she took his, his philosophy of, I'm going to stand next to people and talk about how bad it could possibly be and hope that that shocks them into getting better.

[15:14] He, fortunately though, has a magic rock in his hand and that heals him, I guess.

[15:20] He gets up and walks away on his own.

[15:22] Although maybe he's a ghost based on later things that happen in the movie.

[15:25] Could be.

Stuart Wellington

[15:25] Yeah, a magic wind blows by like the wind in the willows or something.

Elliott Kalan

[15:29] Cut to his hallway at home where his, oh, he gets up and we see his butt through his hospital gown.

[15:34] Yeah.

[15:35] This is the only nudity you see in the movie despite all the tees.

[15:38] Is his hospital gown open in the back?

[15:39] Because like Tommy Wiseau, low budget auteurs believe they have the greatest hinders in the universe.

[15:45] And you've got to see him.

Stuart Wellington

[15:46] I mean, when a guy spends this much time in his body, you got to, he should show it off.

[15:50] It's a waste of, you don't want to cover up that treasure.

Elliott Kalan

[15:54] He's a little bit like a guy who, he's just a normal guy who doesn't really take great care of himself but jogs every now and then.

[16:01] And someone once said to him, hey, if you squint a little, you look kind of like David Duchovny.

[16:05] And he was like, I should be a movie star.

Stuart Wellington

[16:07] He's like, if you squint a little, you look like Bob Shea from New Line 2.

[16:12] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[16:13] If you, you know, if I don't, if I look like a little bit, you could be, you know, the lead singer from Rush.

Dan McCoy

[16:20] He's kind of a, he's kind of an Alan Rickman without the dangerous like sexiness that Alan Rickman brings.

[16:27] Like more puffiness.

Elliott Kalan

[16:28] Except he's got a very sharp cheekbones.

[16:31] Yeah.

[16:32] And his eyes glow with an inner animation that gets more and more as the movie goes on.

[16:36] Anyway, cut to his hallway at home where his hospital gown and his bloody bandages are just littered the floor and he's in the shower.

[16:43] Which implies that he walked home in his hospital gown.

[16:46] Yep.

[16:47] Like nobody stopped him.

[16:48] His wife is like, oh, you're home.

[16:50] And they embrace the shower.

Stuart Wellington

[16:53] Yeah, out of concern, she gets to the shower with him.

Elliott Kalan

[16:55] And they slow dance.

[16:56] They just kind of slowly turn in each other's arms.

[16:57] While he wears that like half mask bandage thing.

Stuart Wellington

[17:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:00] He still has the bandage on his face.

[17:01] He's otherwise naked.

[17:02] She is in a shift that's becoming see-through with the water.

[17:05] With bloody pink water.

[17:06] And they just kind of hold each other and turn slightly from side to side.

[17:11] And that begins another theme in the movie, which is the lead actor's romantic interest in the movie not wanting to touch him very much.

[17:21] Yeah.

[17:21] And wanting to kind of keep their distance in the love scenes.

Dan McCoy

[17:23] That's another similarity between him and Tommy Wiseau.

[17:26] I think it's pretty clear that the romantic leads do not want to get involved with him.

[17:31] No.

Elliott Kalan

[17:32] Well, they're sexually intimidated.

[17:34] Now, you're going to have to help me.

[17:35] I believe that then cut to the scene where the neighbor, their best friends.

[17:40] Yeah.

[17:40] Their neighbor is having a drunken argument with his wife who does not care for wearing bras.

[17:45] Yeah.

[17:45] She likes to wear loose halter tops that she can just kind of, you know, bounce around in.

[17:51] She lounges around talking about how bad her job is at the bank.

[17:54] In the office at the bank.

Stuart Wellington

[17:56] Oh, I just got that relationship now.

Elliott Kalan

[17:59] He complains that they haven't had sex in a long time.

[18:03] Their daughter overhears this, or his daughter, who's her stepdaughter, overhears this.

[18:07] And she is just despondent over it.

[18:10] Cut to, again, now...

[18:13] There's so many cuts.

[18:14] Here's where I'm not sure where the order of things happens.

[18:16] Now, we find out that...

[18:18] This movie...

Dan McCoy

[18:18] This movie...

[18:19] For a movie that's ostensibly about secret government secrets and ghosts...

[18:25] And magic powers.

[18:26] Magical things.

[18:27] Like, most of it is interpersonal relationships and people hitting on the main character.

Elliott Kalan

[18:32] It kind of feels like there's a guy who saw Donnie Darko.

[18:35] Yeah.

[18:36] And he also saw, like, a John Cassavetes film marathon.

[18:42] And he's like, why can't I do it all?

[18:44] Why can't I have some kind of supernatural conspiracy thriller?

[18:48] And also, you know what?

[18:49] Throw in these real relationship arguments.

[18:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:51] And at times it also feels like a David Lynch movie.

[18:54] The way that, like, there's something seedy and creepy going on.

[18:57] But it's mostly, like, soap opera stuff.

[19:00] But it's not intentionally that, I don't think.

Stuart Wellington

[19:03] Yeah, I mean, it feels like he directly lifts Angelo Badalamente's Twin Peaks score for most of these scenes.

Dan McCoy

[19:08] Well, crossed with, like, weird, like, Irish flute music from Titanic.

[19:12] There's a lot of lilton Irish flute.

Elliott Kalan

[19:13] That's true.

[19:13] And also that he does...

[19:15] Has dream sequences where he's in, like, an oozy black room.

[19:18] That's never really explained.

Stuart Wellington

[19:20] Which, like we were talking about,

[19:22] that there's something about incredibly inept filmmaking

[19:25] that can be inadvertently super creepy

[19:28] because nobody acts like humans at that point.

[19:31] They all act like weird mannequins or reptile people

[19:34] that are wearing the skin of humans.

Elliott Kalan

[19:36] It feels like we eavesdropped on a suburb

[19:39] where everyone's an undercover alien,

[19:41] but they're all from different alien species.

[19:43] So none of them know how humanity operates,

[19:45] but they don't want to blow their cover even to each other.

[19:48] Yeah.

[19:49] So here, I'm just going to talk about what happens in the movie

[19:51] in a general sense.

[19:51] I don't remember the order of it.

Stuart Wellington

[19:52] So a lot of the next, like, half hour of the movie, roughly,

[19:55] seems to take place in his weird office,

[19:57] which is we only see the corner of,

[20:00] and it's just a desk covered in four or five of the same book

[20:04] and five open laptops that are never turned on.

[20:07] They're never turned on.

Dan McCoy

[20:07] They're all the same Sony laptop.

Elliott Kalan

[20:09] But he types on them, and he breaks them,

[20:11] and then he uses them again later.

[20:12] They're great laptops.

Stuart Wellington

[20:14] They're so durable.

[20:15] They don't even have to be turned on,

[20:16] and you can do some hacking.

Dan McCoy

[20:18] You don't even have to type normally.

Elliott Kalan

[20:19] You can just bang at them randomly.

[20:22] Now, we learn he's a computer scientist

[20:23] who somehow became a best-selling novelist,

[20:25] but he's tired of writing novels.

[20:27] He's hacked into government and corporate secrets.

[20:29] That's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[20:29] When he's realized that he has no more worlds to conquer

[20:32] in the novel game.

Elliott Kalan

[20:34] Yeah, he becomes a super hacker.

[20:36] But he mentions that he's hacked into these secrets to his wife.

[20:40] Then he mentions it to her again,

[20:41] and she's shocked by it the second time.

[20:44] And she says, oh, you're in trouble.

[20:45] Then we forget about that plot for a long time

[20:48] as we get involved with the wife's addiction

[20:50] to the husband's pills

[20:52] that his psychoanalyst has been prescribing to her.

Stuart Wellington

[20:56] Yeah, there's some kind of addictive pain pills

[20:58] that his psychoanalyst prescribes.

Elliott Kalan

[21:00] We get into that.

[21:01] We get into the alcohol problem of the neighbor.

Stuart Wellington

[21:04] His psychoanalyst who meets him in a conference room.

Elliott Kalan

[21:07] He walks up a stairway in a mansion

[21:09] and ends up in a conference room.

Stuart Wellington

[21:11] It's a weird mansion, though,

[21:12] because if you look down the hall,

[21:13] there's clearly like an exit sign.

[21:16] So maybe it's not a mansion.

[21:17] So I feel like it's like a massage parlor or something.

Elliott Kalan

[21:21] It certainly doesn't look like an office building.

[21:24] No, it's not an office.

[21:24] Like it could be a hotel or a spa, maybe.

[21:27] Yeah.

[21:27] And he goes, the sign on the psychoanalyst door says,

[21:31] Sweet 1111, Dr. So-and-so.

[21:34] And it's like, you couldn't even think of an interesting number for the room.

[21:38] It's just one after, it's just four ones.

Dan McCoy

[21:40] But also he does his therapy.

[21:41] Like there's a long conference table.

[21:43] There's like eight chairs in between them.

[21:45] And they each sit on the opposite end of the table.

[21:47] Like that scene in Citizen Kane that's supposed to indicate how far Kane and his wife have gone across.

Elliott Kalan

[21:53] It's like if in Network, Peter Finch was going to his therapist when he went to see Ned Beatty.

[21:59] And Ned Beatty yelled at him about the order of the universe.

[22:02] Like that's what this room is set up like.

[22:05] Like maybe it's a new radical form of therapy where you pretend you're at a meeting.

[22:10] But the distance you sit from each other represents,

[22:13] is a physical representation of the emotional distance between the two of you.

Stuart Wellington

[22:16] Sure, or like each chair is filled with one of the monkeys that's on your back.

Elliott Kalan

[22:21] He goes, come in the room.

[22:23] Now let's populate this room with all the people you have issues with in your life.

[22:26] We're going to have a meeting right here.

[22:29] I call it terrible therapy.

[22:33] So the doctor's really pushing these pills.

[22:35] I think because the wife is asking him to so she can get to them.

[22:38] That's never really clear or not.

[22:40] He says no more pills and throws them in the toilet.

[22:42] But she pulls them out again.

[22:44] Yeah, she scoops them out.

[22:45] They have some conversations that are like eight conversations condensed into one conversation.

Dan McCoy

[22:53] But they keep going back and forth about like how she can't take it anymore.

[22:58] And then they reconcile and then she can't take it anymore in the next scene.

[23:01] They have sex on his desk.

[23:02] Oh, that's the most hilarious scene.

Elliott Kalan

[23:04] He starts throwing his computers on the floor and then his papers.

Dan McCoy

[23:08] Super slowly.

[23:10] It's not like he sweeps everything off his desk in a fit of passion.

Elliott Kalan

[23:14] One at a time.

[23:15] And she thinks this is hilarious.

Stuart Wellington

[23:16] Yeah, never breaking eye contact with her.

[23:18] He sweeps shit off his desk onto the floor.

Elliott Kalan

[23:22] It's like that scene.

Dan McCoy

[23:23] And he's sweeping laptops off his computer.

[23:25] Like he's breaking his things.

[23:27] It reminded me more of that scene in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels where Steve Martin is playing Ruprecht.

[23:31] And he's like upset.

[23:33] And he slowly drops one thing after the other off the mantle.

[23:36] Like that's how he's doing it.

Elliott Kalan

[23:38] Once he's done clearing the desk.

[23:39] I guess he still does efforts.

[23:40] They start tearing at each other's shirts as if they're trying to take them off.

[23:44] But they're just kind of ripping them.

[23:46] And that's when the...

[23:47] They're like playful monkeys.

Stuart Wellington

[23:50] Well, it certainly feels like she didn't realize that this was going to be a love scene.

Elliott Kalan

[23:55] She thought...

[23:56] At first she thinks it's a scene where he's trying to attack her.

[23:59] And she's just fighting back.

[24:00] And then she's like, oh no, no, wait.

[24:01] Okay, this is your idea of making love because you're a weirdo.

Stuart Wellington

[24:04] So we're going to do these super awkward kisses.

[24:07] Because she couldn't handle the raw masculinity that Neil Breen is bringing to the scene.

Dan McCoy

[24:11] They're kissing both on the side of their mouths and ramming them together.

Stuart Wellington

[24:15] Maybe it's a situation where like the time Jackie Chan had a love interest in a movie and all these women killed themselves.

[24:21] Maybe Neil Breen wanted to spare the rest of...

Elliott Kalan

[24:23] Except he has three to four love interests in this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[24:26] But all those kisses seem very forced.

[24:28] So they couldn't think there's actual passion there.

Elliott Kalan

[24:31] The kisses are done with all the realistic passion of a reluctant first time lesbian porn actress.

[24:38] Who is not interested in being in this lesbian scene.

[24:41] But you've got to pay the bills.

[24:42] So she's going to kiss as little as possible.

[24:44] The tarp's on the ground.

Stuart Wellington

[24:45] You better do something with it.

[24:47] That's the most horrible thing I've ever heard.

[24:50] That tarp doesn't get picked back up until it's been...

[24:54] What are you going to do?

Dan McCoy

[24:56] Rake some leaves onto it?

[24:57] No.

Elliott Kalan

[24:59] It's on the ground.

[25:00] We can't put it over a pool.

[25:03] So you better make some use of it.

[25:05] So the...

[25:06] Make sweet love.

[25:09] They...

[25:09] The daughter from next door comes over...

[25:13] Oh, so there's a big barbecue.

[25:15] Oh, and it is big.

Dan McCoy

[25:16] It's so big.

[25:17] It's so big that several shots are repeated.

[25:19] As if the director doesn't think that we'll notice that they just did the same shot over again.

Elliott Kalan

[25:24] They have a beach umbrella with a sponsor company name on it set up at the head of the stairs of the pool.

[25:30] Which makes no sense why you'd have an umbrella there.

Stuart Wellington

[25:32] And every scene of the party has like six people in it, but the background sound effect sounds like Final Fantasy 7 where Cloud is at like a fucking bar or something.

Dan McCoy

[25:43] Or like the sound effects from The Beatles.

[25:46] You know my name.

[25:46] Look up the number.

[25:47] Like the party center.

Elliott Kalan

[25:50] He wants you to think there's at least, well, more than five people at the party.

[25:54] Yep.

[25:54] When it doesn't make sense.

[25:56] I mean, I don't even know why he wants you to think that.

[25:59] Like what he's attempting.

Stuart Wellington

[26:01] Oh, boy.

[26:02] So the party scene, that's when the movie starts getting interesting.

[26:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:06] It really kicks into gear.

[26:07] So the drunk neighbor hits on the wife.

[26:10] She doesn't want anything to do with it.

[26:11] And to show how drunk he is, she goes, you're drunk.

[26:12] He's like, no, I'm not.

[26:13] And then he knocks over a plate full of corn.

[26:16] This is after the wife has taken the main character's whole ear of corn from his plate.

[26:22] So the stealing of corn is really a big similar year.

Stuart Wellington

[26:25] It's one of those great shots where normally the director would be like, that was super awkward.

[26:30] Let's do it again.

[26:31] But instead he's like, no, let's just keep it.

[26:33] It's weird the way she takes an entire ear of corn off my plate and I awkwardly adjust it so all the chicken doesn't fly off.

Elliott Kalan

[26:40] Also, like when the drunk guy knocks the plate of corn over, you don't see his face.

[26:44] It's like a shot from the neck down from an angle pointing down.

[26:47] Extreme close up like the rest of this movie.

[26:49] Of the corn.

[26:50] And then he knocks it over and knocks another thing over.

[26:52] And then he just waves his hands around.

Dan McCoy

[26:54] It looks like he's doing a little shimmy like he's dancing.

Elliott Kalan

[26:58] Like he was supposed to have more of a drunk bedlam scene, but they only had two plates to knock over.

[27:04] So he's just kind of waving his hands.

[27:05] You don't notice he's not knocking anything over.

Stuart Wellington

[27:08] They only had two plates and he had to stay in frame the whole time.

[27:11] So they're like, be drunk within a very specific set of confines.

[27:15] But more importantly, the neurologist that saw him in the hospital shows up.

[27:18] The one who, he wasn't her patient, but she would see him anyway?

Elliott Kalan

[27:21] Yes, and I think we find out why.

[27:22] She's wearing the bracelet that the girl...

Stuart Wellington

[27:25] She killed Leah and took the bracelet?

Elliott Kalan

[27:27] No, that is not the inference you're supposed to have.

[27:30] She is Leah.

Stuart Wellington

[27:32] But she looks so much younger than our lead.

Elliott Kalan

[27:34] Well, and here's the...

[27:35] This is...

[27:35] Okay, so this is my theory about that.

[27:37] In addition to being...

[27:38] She was a neurologist on the International Space Station.

[27:41] She spent some time in space, maybe flying at light speed.

[27:44] Okay.

[27:44] Because of the laws of relativity, she has aged at a slower rate than our hero, who is clearly

[27:49] 15 to 20 years older than her.

Stuart Wellington

[27:51] I would think it might be exposure to the magical energies of the black rock that he holds in

[27:56] his hand.

Elliott Kalan

[27:56] That it's aged him somehow?

Stuart Wellington

[27:58] Yeah.

[27:58] That it's absorbing his life energies.

[28:00] I see.

Elliott Kalan

[28:01] It's like Elric's sword.

Stuart Wellington

[28:03] Stormbringer?

[28:04] Yeah.

[28:05] It's exactly like that.

Elliott Kalan

[28:06] Where she found the bracelet of life, which gives her eternal youth.

Stuart Wellington

[28:10] Yeah, like the weird gem bracelet she wears.

Elliott Kalan

[28:12] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:13] So he realizes...

[28:14] Gem and the Holograms?

[28:15] Maybe.

[28:16] I don't know.

[28:16] Does she have...

[28:17] I'm assuming she has a bracelet.

[28:18] She has a ton of bracelets.

[28:19] It's the 80s.

[28:20] Everyone was wearing bracelets.

Elliott Kalan

[28:21] But the Misfits, their songs are better.

Dan McCoy

[28:23] That's what I know.

Elliott Kalan

[28:24] Yeah, especially when Danzig was still with them.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:27] Afterwards, not so much.

[28:28] I never understood why Gem and the Holograms, the cartoon, would pick a name for their villain

[28:32] band that is a real band's name.

[28:34] It's not like the Misfits named themselves after the Gem and the Holograms band.

[28:38] They've been around since, like, 79.

Dan McCoy

[28:42] They just never heard of it?

[28:43] It's like she...

[28:44] Let's get the creator of Gem on the phone.

Elliott Kalan

[28:45] Look, I just want to say the creator of Gem and the Holograms, I'm disappointed in your

[28:48] lack of knowledge about the horror punk genre.

Stuart Wellington

[28:50] Yeah, why don't you pick a brand new name that nobody's used, like the Riverbottom Nightmare

[28:54] Band.

[28:56] Yeah.

[28:58] Nobody's ever used that.

[29:00] Or Spin Doctors.

[29:01] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[29:02] If you want to be, you know, super great.

Elliott Kalan

[29:06] So, he recognizes her and immediately is so happy and is holding hands with her constantly

[29:14] throughout the party, right in front of his wife.

[29:16] There's a great part where he's holding her hand and it cuts to the wife noticing and then

[29:20] it cuts back to their hands, pulling away from each other real fast.

[29:23] But the timing is just bad enough that everything is super unnatural.

[29:27] Yeah.

[29:27] So, he has found her.

[29:30] They will eventually go frolicking in the woods and have another one of these weird lovemaking

[29:34] things where a shirt falls on the ground.

[29:36] While his wife...

[29:39] Well, I'm getting ahead of myself because his wife dies of a painkiller overdose, knocking

[29:43] over a glass of water on the bed.

[29:45] Yeah, which we're supposed to read, I guess, as white wine, but it is clearly just water.

[29:49] But this is only after, so his best friend is always tooling around on his Ferrari, by which

[29:56] I mean polishing the mirror because that's all he knows how to do with his car.

[29:59] Yep.

[30:00] His wife comes in and they argue.

[30:02] Then the wife leaves and then comes back with a gun.

[30:05] Yep.

[30:05] She says, I'm going to shoot holes all through that car, but then shoots her husband.

[30:08] The daughter runs in and sees that she did it and the mother is like...

[30:13] Don't go in there.

[30:14] Don't go in...

[30:14] You didn't see anything.

[30:15] You don't look at it.

[30:15] You didn't see anything.

[30:16] And then the daughter goes, you killed him really calmly.

[30:20] And she says, you didn't see anything.

[30:21] And then the daughter goes, dad, dad, and is running towards him.

[30:24] And it's like, did you reverse the order of those shots when you were editing?

[30:28] Because she seems to get...

[30:30] She goes from calm to super...

[30:31] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:32] Elliot, have you ever been in that fucking situation, dude?

Elliott Kalan

[30:35] That is a good point.

[30:36] I cannot judge.

Stuart Wellington

[30:36] Where your stepmom shoots your dad while your dad was, I guess, massaging his Ferrari Testarossa?

Elliott Kalan

[30:42] You know what?

[30:43] I don't have...

[30:44] I have a stepmom, but my dad doesn't have a Ferrari, so I don't think I'll ever be in that.

Dan McCoy

[30:46] And then the mom lays the gun down near the dead husband.

[30:50] The perfect crime.

[30:51] The perfect crime.

[30:52] Without wiping it for prints or anything.

[30:55] Or putting the gun in his hand or anything like that.

[30:58] And says, oh, he committed suicide.

Stuart Wellington

[31:00] She already burned her fingerprints off in an accident years ago.

Dan McCoy

[31:03] And other than the daughter telling our hero, oh, my mom killed him.

[31:08] It wasn't a suicide.

[31:10] This is not revisited at all.

[31:11] No.

[31:11] There's no resolution.

Elliott Kalan

[31:13] Never again.

[31:14] Oh, I should mention about the daughter.

[31:15] We forgot to mention that.

[31:16] She appears in one of the many almost topless scenes when she just shows up at their pool after the barbecue

[31:21] and is just standing at the top of the pool stairs with, like, kind of knee-deep in the water,

[31:27] just splashing water at nothing.

[31:30] Yeah.

[31:30] Then she takes her top off and...

[31:31] From the back.

[31:32] We see her from the back.

[31:33] And calls for Dylan, the hero, and he goes, oh, no, you can't do this.

[31:37] Stop it.

[31:38] And then she takes...

[31:39] And she puts her top immediately back on.

[31:40] She puts her top on it and then goes to take a bubble bath.

Stuart Wellington

[31:42] I mean, he's a grown, handsome man.

[31:45] There's no way this teenage girl could handle that.

Elliott Kalan

[31:48] No, no.

[31:48] That's why he says no to her, because she's just not ready.

[31:51] He would destroy her.

[31:51] He would ruin her.

[31:52] She wouldn't be able to walk for a month.

[31:54] Nor would she ever be satisfied with another man.

[31:56] No, she'd never find that sort of joy again.

[31:58] I don't think that's the moral of what happened.

[32:00] It's like the movie that the guy mentions to Woody Allen in Manhattan, where the woman

[32:07] is so satisfied by her orgasm that she dies instantly.

[32:10] That's what would have happened.

[32:12] Okay.

[32:13] What Elliot said.

[32:14] He says no, no.

[32:17] She tries to take a bubble bath.

[32:19] Classic poison ivy new seduction move.

[32:21] Mm-hmm.

[32:21] He's not falling for it.

[32:23] And his wife...

[32:24] And then he's cut to...

[32:25] He's on the couch with his laptop working.

[32:27] His wife's like, oh, was Allie here?

Stuart Wellington

[32:29] And he's like, I can't talk.

[32:30] I'm too busy working.

Elliott Kalan

[32:33] Slap, slap, slap.

[32:34] You know what she did?

[32:35] She was swimming in the pool topless.

[32:37] And then she tried to take a bath.

[32:39] And the wife goes, I'll call my friend.

[32:42] And the neighbor gets on the phone and goes, thank you for telling me about that.

[32:45] She shouldn't do that.

[32:46] I'll talk to her about it.

[32:47] Oh.

Dan McCoy

[32:47] Cut to the daughter in her room grounded, crying.

[32:50] But also, our hero said, I told her that she couldn't come back here again without permission.

Elliott Kalan

[32:56] Without calling first.

[32:57] It's like, what?

[32:58] I don't understand how that would have changed the situation.

[33:03] This is after we've had...

[33:04] Or before the scene, I don't remember, where he's arguing with his wife.

[33:08] And he's on the laptop.

[33:09] And she's like, I'm having a hard time at work.

[33:11] And he's like, I'm busy.

[33:13] And then cut to her talking.

[33:14] Cut back to him.

[33:14] The laptop's gone.

[33:15] And he's cross-legged on the couch with bare feet, just kind of rapping with her, you know?

[33:21] Like girlfriends.

[33:22] There's...

[33:23] Anyway, so he reconnects with his...

Dan McCoy

[33:27] You're doing a great job, by the way.

[33:28] Yeah, this is a hard movie.

Elliott Kalan

[33:30] This is a tough one.

[33:30] Like, I've forgotten...

[33:31] This movie is a real collapse.

Stuart Wellington

[33:33] You've forgotten more about this movie than you remember.

Elliott Kalan

[33:35] They took a bunch of scenes, put them in a sack, and just shook it up.

[33:39] And just emptied that onto some film.

Stuart Wellington

[33:41] So many shots will have a character, like a close-up of a character saying something super weird.

[33:46] And then it will immediately cut to a close-up of that character wearing different clothes, doing something different.

[33:51] And you're like, how much time passed?

[33:53] I don't know what's going on.

[33:54] Is this the same scene?

[33:55] There's a scene where they have dinner with their friends.

[33:58] Oh, it's...

Dan McCoy

[33:59] Yeah, it's all shot in one shot.

Stuart Wellington

[34:01] It's all one shots, and they are...

[34:02] I don't think it's dinner, because at no point do we see food.

[34:06] She says, I'll go get the food now.

[34:08] But the...

[34:09] Yeah, but yeah, that's the cheapest way to get around a big dinner.

Elliott Kalan

[34:14] But they are having so many different conversations with each other, and there's the...

[34:18] Each line is completely unrelated to the next.

Stuart Wellington

[34:20] That teenage daughter wants to talk about her fucking stupid elephants class.

Elliott Kalan

[34:24] Her project about...

[34:25] She's almost done with school.

[34:26] They're doing a great project about elephants.

[34:28] It's like, are you in elementary school?

[34:30] Like, what?

[34:31] Shit.

[34:32] The whole...

[34:33] Anyway, so let's skip ahead to...

[34:35] He's reconnected with his childhood girlfriend.

[34:37] Leah.

[34:38] Leah.

[34:39] Who...

[34:40] They go out to the forest to find their magic mushroom place again, and they find it,

[34:44] and it turns into a box with some strings or tassels or something in it.

[34:47] His wife kills herself with pills while he's...

[34:50] Then they do.

Dan McCoy

[34:51] While they're making love.

[34:52] While he's out...

[34:53] Their shirts hit the floor again with a thump.

Elliott Kalan

[34:55] Well, yeah, he's out patting her face.

[34:57] He's got to move, dude.

[34:58] Patting her face with his lips as if checking it for lice in some way, you know?

[35:04] It's like her face is a minefield, and he's worried that if he kisses too hard, she's

[35:09] going to explode.

[35:10] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[35:11] For her, it's almost she's worried that if she touches too much of his face, she'll be

[35:16] reduced to cinders and ashes from the sheer heat of his passion.

Elliott Kalan

[35:20] And he pushes her shirt down in a weird way, and then it falls...

Stuart Wellington

[35:26] Anyway, their shirt falls to the ground.

[35:27] Just over his shoulder.

[35:27] Just over the shoulders for a little while, and you're like, do they think that we can't

[35:32] see the top of her shirt peeking out of the bottom of the frame?

Dan McCoy

[35:35] Are we supposed to think that she's nude?

Elliott Kalan

[35:38] And instead of thinking she's nude, they're going to have sex.

[35:41] What you think is...

[35:42] Or they're in love.

[35:43] What you think is, before this shot, they negotiated how far he could pull her shirt down.

Stuart Wellington

[35:48] And the great thing about it is, right after that, it'll immediately cut over to a shot

[35:51] of him with his shirt pushed most of the way down, so that the girls in the audience have

[35:56] something to watch.

[35:56] Something for the ladies.

[35:57] I want to reiterate...

Dan McCoy

[35:58] That's the Han Solo for the crowd.

[36:00] I want to reiterate that we may seem super pervy for focusing on this so much, but the

[36:06] movie drove us to it.

[36:07] The movie is constantly...

[36:09] It was kind of like it was trolling us.

[36:11] It was like the movie was playing a joke.

[36:14] This was entrapment.

[36:14] Look.

[36:14] Where it's like, let's see how close we can get to having someone be naked without it

[36:18] being naked.

Elliott Kalan

[36:19] The only way this movie could be more entrapment is if Catherine Zeta-Jones slid under some

[36:22] lasers.

[36:23] With a pair of pants on.

[36:24] Yeah, with leather pants on.

[36:25] With a pair of pants on.

[36:28] Because if she did it in like a skirt, that's not entrapment.

Stuart Wellington

[36:30] No, that's not the same movie.

Elliott Kalan

[36:33] So, yeah.

[36:34] So, okay.

[36:34] So, life kills herself.

[36:35] This is around the time we get back to the storyline of the secret government and corporate

[36:39] secrets that he hacked into.

[36:41] He has a lot of loud arguments with, I guess, his publisher on the phone about how they're

[36:45] not respecting him and they keep asking for deadlines.

Dan McCoy

[36:48] And he throws around the same three copies of his book in the same way that he throws around

[36:52] his laptops.

Elliott Kalan

[36:52] He has three laptops and four copies of his book and he's just always throwing them or

[36:58] tapping them on things.

Stuart Wellington

[37:00] Anyway.

[37:01] There's definitely a scene where he accidentally throws the book at his laptop and it flips

[37:06] over to reveal the spine.

[37:08] And you know that wasn't in the plan because it doesn't say his name on it.

[37:15] Sometime before this.

[37:16] What about the scene where he passes out and spills coffee on his face?

[37:19] Oh, I'm kidding.

[37:20] We forgot that.

[37:21] And then he starts making a face like he loves it and he can't get enough.

Elliott Kalan

[37:24] After the car accident, he's having headaches because, of course, he would.

[37:28] He was hit by a car.

[37:29] Sure.

[37:29] And yet, he's like, oh.

[37:31] And he's got coffee precariously placed on the keyboard of his laptop.

[37:35] And he knocks it over and he falls.

[37:37] It's like his head falls on the paper and then he knocks the coffee over the thing.

Dan McCoy

[37:41] Well, his head falls down and then he's regaining consciousness and he sees his coffee

[37:46] and he's like, oh, that's what I want, coffee.

[37:47] And he tries to drink it and tips it all over his face.

Elliott Kalan

[37:50] He spills over everything.

[37:51] But yeah, instead of being like, ah, hot coffee on my face, his look is like, oh.

Stuart Wellington

[37:56] He's like, my skin is absorbing this precious caffeine.

[37:59] I love it.

Elliott Kalan

[37:59] I needed one of my patented facial caffeine baths.

[38:03] That's what will make me feel better.

[38:05] He's also begun seeing another therapist by this point.

[38:08] A woman who sits on folding chairs so close to him, their knees are interlaced.

[38:12] Yeah, it seems like they're going to start making out at any second.

Stuart Wellington

[38:15] It's supposed to be different than his other psychotherapist.

[38:18] It is.

[38:20] Who's all about medication.

[38:21] She's all about being magic.

Elliott Kalan

[38:23] In that she fades away at the end of it as if she was a ghost or alien or whatever.

[38:27] But she tells him he has a special power.

[38:29] The things he's learned are very important.

[38:32] It's up to him.

[38:33] It's all super vague.

[38:34] It's like if Yoda never really explained anything to Luke and never taught him how to do flips and balance rocks and just died and disappeared at the end.

[38:43] But it was all vague mumbo jumbo.

[38:44] That's what this character is like.

[38:46] Okay.

[38:47] And they –

Stuart Wellington

[38:48] Exactly like Yoda, says Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[38:51] This woman's performance is just like Frank Oz.

[38:54] But I guess I didn't even see that.

[38:56] He must say like I'm going to show how far apart he is from this other therapist by having him sit on opposite ends of a room.

[39:02] I'm going to show how in tune these people are by having them sit with their crotches almost touching.

[39:07] Yeah.

[39:07] That's the closest to a smart directorial choice he made.

[39:10] It's so –

[39:11] I was thinking about this earlier today that like you read like kind of readings of films and you're like by showing him from below they emphasize how powerful he is as he looms over.

[39:20] And you're like yeah, that's kind of obvious.

[39:22] I don't know if you needed to state that in words.

[39:25] But it just shows you how like symbology in a movie can be either simple and strong and simple and incredibly stupid.

[39:32] In this case, it's incredibly stupid.

[39:34] Look, I'm no semiotician, okay?

[39:36] Yeah.

[39:36] This is just what I – this is just how it gets me.

[39:38] But anyway, so he decides to reveal these government secrets.

[39:43] There's a ghost that's floating around every now and then.

Dan McCoy

[39:46] There's a dream sequence where like a weird like ghost like – or like a transparent man like walks into the house and then blood falls on the floor and then he fades away.

[39:56] I don't know what that's all about.

Elliott Kalan

[39:57] We've seen this character a couple times where he's just a pair of black shoes and black pants who fades away and dissolves.

[40:02] I don't know what he represents exactly.

[40:04] There's a mirror that's shaking.

[40:06] There's a bunch of scenes where the director, star, writer, producer is nude in that black room.

[40:12] Yeah, and that's the most like Twin Peaks-y part of it.

[40:14] And he's hugging a nude woman whose hair is covering her face and it seems pretty clear that that woman represents Leah, the girl he's reconnected with, but that Leah did not want to do a nude scene.

[40:24] And so he hired someone else like Edward Bela Lugosi Plan 9 style, hired someone else and then covered their face with something.

[40:31] That's my guess.

[40:32] Yeah.

[40:32] Anyway, even though his wife just died –

Stuart Wellington

[40:35] Well, like Scott McCloud always says, he expects that the audience is going to be able to fill in the blanks between the two shots.

Elliott Kalan

[40:42] Yeah, that's just filling in the gutters.

[40:45] His wife died.

[40:46] He comes home and he has two great grappling with someone's death scenes.

[40:50] One with his friend where he's holding his friend's bloody head and he wipes the blood on his face for no reason.

[40:56] And he's like, I'm not going to be able to help you out of this one.

[41:01] He's like, yeah, dude, he's dead.

Dan McCoy

[41:03] What do you think he's going to make a deal with the – he's going to – like Daniel Webster Satan about this?

Elliott Kalan

[41:09] Yeah.

[41:09] And he goes – he cradles his dead wife's body and he just was saying like, what, it was you, it was you or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[41:15] And then the music swells and he seems to be saying something, but they cut the audio track out.

Elliott Kalan

[41:21] Well, at one point he's clearly yelling, no, no, Darth Vader episode three style.

Stuart Wellington

[41:26] I want to talk a little bit about how this movie makes a lot of weird cuts to people's close-ups of face while they're talking.

[41:32] And in a lot of those cuts, they don't try and match up the background sounds that well.

[41:37] So in some shots, you'll be like, oh, wow, they turned the air conditioning on for this shot.

[41:42] But then a second later, you're like, oh, they turned it off.

Dan McCoy

[41:46] It must have gotten too chilly in that room.

[41:48] It's kind of like –

[41:48] You have to take any room tone in this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[41:50] It's like the opposite of the movie Hustle and Flow where they make a big deal about like turning off the fan before they record their rap songs.

[41:59] In this case, they turn nothing off.

[42:01] And you – like it's like they bring in a couple extra refrigerators to have running in the background.

Elliott Kalan

[42:06] Well, much – like we've – this movie feels like someone who wants to be David Lynch and is really bad at it at times.

[42:11] It also feels like someone who wants to be making Enemy of the State and is bad at it.

[42:15] But like when you look at David Lynch's movie –

Stuart Wellington

[42:17] I would love to see David Lynch make Enemy of the State.

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] When you look at David Lynch's movies, like his sound design is so important.

[42:25] Like so much of the power of a racer head is in the sounds that you're hearing and how consistent and how, you know, just like overwhelming they are.

[42:34] And this is the exact opposite of that where he was like, sound?

[42:38] Yeah, we're recording the dialogue.

[42:39] Move it along, people.

[42:41] We'll cover up all that other stuff with this Irish flute music.

[42:44] So his wife is dead.

[42:45] He's taken up with Leah.

[42:46] She's already sleeping in his bed.

[42:48] Face down so you can see the side of her boobs but not the front.

[42:51] There's a scene where – before his neighbor gets killed, there's a scene where his neighbor wakes up in bed with his wife and they are awkwardly not talking to each other.

[42:59] But they're both asleep lying face down with their arms up on the pillow in the same pose.

[43:04] It's like –

[43:04] Like they're getting couples massages.

[43:06] Yeah.

[43:07] Like the married couple slept in the exact same pose.

Dan McCoy

[43:10] I feel like it was the director being like, all right, you be in this position so we can see most of your boob but not all of it.

[43:17] And I guess you be in the same position so it's not obvious what you're doing.

Stuart Wellington

[43:22] You be in the same position because I don't want to show the audience that you have better pecs than I do.

Elliott Kalan

[43:27] Now, I want to get back to how there's a ghost in this movie.

[43:30] When I say ghost, I mean kind of an animated plastic bag that floats through the air that's composed on scenes while –

[43:35] A ghost is nothing but a memory, Elliot.

[43:38] Yes.

[43:40] There's just ghost – this thing just pops up and pops out and doesn't signify very much.

[43:46] It shakes a mirror at one point and that gives him the inspiration to finally reveal these secrets.

[43:51] He sneaks out of bed so as not to wake up Leah in maybe the funniest shot in the movie where it looks like he is escaping a one-night stand or something like that.

[44:01] He goes to the desert.

[44:04] Oh, she's been kidnapped too.

[44:06] Did I forget to mention that?

[44:07] That at one point she's kidnapped.

[44:09] I forgot that that even happened.

[44:10] She is chloroformed and kidnapped and taken to a van at a storage locker place.

[44:15] She's not even in one of the storage lockers.

Stuart Wellington

[44:16] Luckily, during her struggle, she knocks loose a business card from her assailant's pocket that has the directions of where she should take her.

[44:25] That takes her to this place.

Elliott Kalan

[44:27] Which makes me realize that the assailant probably spent a lot of time on the phone with the guy who hired him being like,

[44:31] I lost the card.

[44:32] Tell me where I'm supposed to take her again.

[44:34] I can't put an address into MapQuest.

[44:36] I don't have – no one uses MapQuest.

[44:38] So the hero Dylan shows up and he sees her bag on the ground and he calls her and leaves a long message on her voicemail.

[44:45] It's like, where are you?

[44:47] I'm worried.

[44:48] I see your bag.

[44:49] It's lying on the walk to the house.

[44:51] I looked in the house.

[44:52] You're not in the house.

[44:54] Where are you?

Stuart Wellington

[44:54] Why is your bag on the walkway from the front of the house to the rear of the house?

Elliott Kalan

[44:58] And then he sees – and it's only after he leaves this long message that he looks three millimeters over and sees the card that says,

[45:05] I think, oh, I think, oh, I think her too, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[45:07] Immediate cut to a shot that's night for day or day for night.

[45:11] He goes – and what is he like?

[45:13] Kill a guy there or something?

[45:14] He has magic powers now.

[45:15] He helps her escape with his ability to walk through doors and walk through walls.

Stuart Wellington

[45:20] Well, he runs up and hits the guy in the head with a bottle, right?

Elliott Kalan

[45:22] Oh, that's right.

[45:22] He hits him with a bottle.

[45:24] But then he teleports into the room.

[45:26] Some street justice.

[45:27] He teleports her out of, like, a fucking, like, trailer.

[45:30] Court is adjourned.

Dan McCoy

[45:31] It would not have been hard to get her out of that trailer without using his magic walk-through-walls powers.

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] It's locked.

[45:36] He doesn't know how to get in there.

Stuart Wellington

[45:37] Yeah.

[45:38] Yeah, he has the black rock.

[45:39] If you have the black rock, you use it.

Elliott Kalan

[45:41] That's right.

[45:41] He's got that black rock.

[45:42] He's the chosen one.

[45:43] Later on, it's a flash drive or something.

[45:45] Anyway, so he – skipping ahead a little bit.

[45:49] He goes out to the desert.

[45:50] He talks to some ghosts and a magic book, and they tell him nothing.

[45:55] So he decides he's going to reveal these secrets.

[45:57] Cut to –

[45:58] These fateful findings, if you will.

[46:00] To coin a phrase.

[46:01] He – cut to he's standing in front of the worst green screen of the Supreme Court you have ever seen.

[46:08] Ever.

[46:08] In front with a microphone stand.

Stuart Wellington

[46:10] You guys both work for The Daily Show and use a lot of green screen and shit.

[46:15] I don't work for The Daily Show.

[46:16] But you have worked for The Daily Show.

[46:18] Super true.

[46:19] And The Daily Show backdrops are so much more believable than this bullshit fake one.

Elliott Kalan

[46:26] Yes, because we put just the most minimum effort into it.

[46:30] And so he's –

[46:31] A comedy show.

[46:32] He announces – well, this movie is pretty funny.

[46:35] It's a pretty comedy show.

[46:36] Like this is the funniest comedy I've seen in a long time.

[46:39] I think, Dan, you said it's the funniest comedy movie in years.

[46:42] But he's announcing his findings in the most vague way possible.

[46:49] All these secrets.

[46:50] Governments have committed secrets.

[46:52] There's been hypocrisy and crime and corruption.

[46:54] All these companies.

[46:55] We've got to hold them to justice.

[46:56] The justice system has failed.

[46:57] We've cut to a lot of shots of cameras set up to watch him with crowd noise laid over it.

Dan McCoy

[47:03] Yeah, but no visible people.

[47:05] So it seems like the microphones are making all these noises.

Elliott Kalan

[47:09] They're cheering and clapping.

[47:11] At one point he goes, I have all the documents.

[47:13] And you hear applause.

[47:15] And he says, I have the documents here.

[47:18] And he holds up that black stone.

[47:19] And like, I'm going to release them.

[47:21] So he seems like a crazy person.

[47:23] But you cut to –

Dan McCoy

[47:24] Yeah, you cut to reaction shots of, I guess, like bankers.

Elliott Kalan

[47:28] Well, we don't even know that.

[47:29] They're just a bunch of people in suits who are nodding.

[47:31] And they look on their face like, yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about.

Dan McCoy

[47:34] But unless I'm wrong, it's the same backdrop.

[47:37] Yes, it's the same Supreme Court background.

[47:39] So the reverse shot is the same as the front shot.

Elliott Kalan

[47:42] He is clearly standing in some place where two alternate dimension Supreme Court buildings stare at each other across a portal of some kind.

[47:52] Someone's opened up a viewing screen between alternate SCOTUSes.

[47:57] And they – now this cuts to – okay, this is my new favorite part of the movie.

[48:01] I have so many favorite parts of this movie where each of the people that we've seen nodding reveals that they work at –

[48:07] they're either senators or they're the head of a corporation or they work at the bank or this one guy.

[48:11] That's literally what they say.

Dan McCoy

[48:12] I work at the bank.

Elliott Kalan

[48:13] I'm resigning as president of the bank.

[48:16] And then one guy literally says, I and other insurance companies have been cheating people.

[48:21] So you're an insurance company, I guess?

[48:23] Each of them admits their wrongdoing and then kills themselves.

Dan McCoy

[48:27] Two of them, two separate of them, just pull out a gun and shoot themselves on the Supreme Court steps.

Stuart Wellington

[48:33] And you would think that somebody –

[48:34] They're like, okay, let's broom and sweep them off there.

[48:37] Okay, next person, come on up.

[48:38] Oops.

Elliott Kalan

[48:38] Someone would rush in and stuff them.

[48:39] And you know the second guy was like, I was going to shoot myself.

[48:42] Now I look like I'm a copycat.

[48:44] And you cut to the rest of them.

[48:45] One guy hangs himself.

[48:47] One slashes his wrists in a hilarious scene.

[48:50] One guy –

Stuart Wellington

[48:51] The guy who slashes his wrists is the only one they actually show getting zipped up in a body bag.

Elliott Kalan

[48:57] Well, that's because he was fighting a guy from Cobra Kai.

[48:59] Oh, okay.

[49:00] And they literally put him in a body bag.

Stuart Wellington

[49:02] Oh, that's –

[49:03] Wait, is that going to get him disqualified?

[49:05] I think so, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:05] Yeah.

[49:06] One guy takes pills in his car and then smiles as if dreaming the sleep of –

[49:11] Sleeping and having the dream of fairies and angels as his head slowly falls to the stream wheel.

[49:16] It is like –

[49:18] It's like in The Godfather, the baptism slash massacre scene, if that was so super crappy.

[49:27] Like that's the way this is done.

[49:28] It's so funny.

[49:29] Anyway, that having been accomplished –

[49:31] That was hilarious.

[49:32] We were fucking cracking up.

[49:34] We were laughing so hard.

[49:36] That being accomplished, he and Leia return to the woods and remember their childhood selves.

[49:41] And that's it.

[49:42] Everyone's saved.

[49:44] Evil has been wiped out of the world.

[49:45] A bunch of innocent people died.

Dan McCoy

[49:47] I guess they walked to Valhalla or something.

Elliott Kalan

[49:50] Yeah, they crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

[49:53] Yeah, Boromir was –

[49:54] No, Boromir's not Asgardian.

Stuart Wellington

[49:55] I mean, Boromir should be in fucking Valhalla, dude.

[49:58] He killed all those orcs.

[50:01] He admitted his wrongdoing.

Elliott Kalan

[50:02] I just want to say, this episode of The Flophouse has had the fewest tangents, I think, of any.

[50:07] Yeah, because the movie sold me.

Stuart Wellington

[50:09] We're trying to wrap our brains around it.

Elliott Kalan

[50:11] Like, we should have watched this movie at Christmas.

[50:15] Or any other gift-giving holidays.

[50:17] Because, like, I cannot advise you enough to turn off this podcast right now and go watch this movie.

Dan McCoy

[50:22] I think we need to go straight to Final Judgment.

[50:24] Good, good, good movie?

[50:26] This is a good, bad movie.

[50:27] A bad, bad movie.

[50:27] A movie kind of like –

[50:29] I say that this is –

[50:30] Yeah, move over the room and Burdenic.

[50:33] I can't.

[50:34] Like, I –

[50:34] Like, this is a good, bad movie.

[50:36] I was –

[50:36] While I was watching it, I'm just like –

[50:38] All I was thinking about was, like, the people I want to introduce this movie to.

Stuart Wellington

[50:42] Yeah, I can't wait to show this movie to my parents.

[50:46] Like, my parents will have no understanding of what they're watching.

Elliott Kalan

[50:51] It is the goodest, bad movie I think maybe I've ever seen.

[50:54] Like, it's –

[50:55] There were –

[50:57] Ugh, I can't even –

[50:57] Like, I feel like we've gone through the whole movie and we've barely scratched the surface of how –

[51:01] It's like –

[51:01] I've never thought I'd say to someone in describing a movie,

[51:04] It's like The Room if Tommy Wiseau was bad at making movies.

[51:07] Like, that's what it feels like to me.

[51:09] Like, it lacks the polish of Burdenic.

Stuart Wellington

[51:11] Watching this movie was like that moment when Baby Houseman gets picked up by Johnny Castle at the end of Dirty Dancing.

[51:19] And she's flying for but a moment and she thinks maybe in her head, maybe I'll fly off into outer space.

[51:24] I think you're reading a lot into that movie.

Dan McCoy

[51:27] Well, I was thinking about –

[51:27] Like, while I was watching this movie, I was thinking about, like, what makes the difference between a bad, bad movie and a good, bad movie.

[51:32] And the thing about a truly, like, great, good, bad movie is if a movie is really bad, you have no idea what's going to happen next.

[51:41] Yeah, that's true.

[51:41] Like, a mediocre movie, you always know what's going to happen next.

[51:45] Here, like, it's just like, this is done by a madman.

Elliott Kalan

[51:48] Only in a truly great movie or a truly bad movie are you constantly surprised.

[51:54] There's such a thin line.

[51:55] The two sides of the same coin, really.

[51:56] There's –

Stuart Wellington

[51:57] If you had told me halfway through that the movie was going to end with him on the steps of the Supreme Court building

[52:04] admonishing the government and big business and then a montage of them killing themselves, many of them with smiles on their face as they greet the Grim Reaper.

[52:17] I wouldn't believe you.

Elliott Kalan

[52:19] It's like, the only way to explain it is if he literally was trying – he's like one of those guys who makes new languages in his spare time and he's like, I'm going to invent a new way of making films.

[52:28] And maybe I'm going to have to grope in the dark for a time as I reinvent the primitive history of filmmaking to create a new type of storytelling grammar.

[52:37] But I think, you know what, I'll do it as long as it takes.

[52:40] And this was his first try.

[52:42] Like, oh, man.

[52:44] You – like, it really – I feel like we've said this about other movies, but it feels like a guy who was – had a movie described to him.

[52:51] And was like, yeah, okay, I can make that.

[52:53] And then just tried to do it.

[52:55] Oh.

[52:56] Neil Breen, like, you're my hero now.

S4

[52:57] Neil Breen, like, you know what, I'm going to do it as a dog owner.

[53:27] We met this week.

[53:29] Join us every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org for new episodes of Can I Pet Your Dog?

Dan McCoy

[53:36] I want to say that tonight the Flophouse is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform.

[53:44] Squarespace's sites look professionally designed regardless of your skill level with no coding required.

Elliott Kalan

[53:51] Now, Dan, can I ask you a question about – okay, now as we've established in previous episodes, I'm trying to get some websites off the ground.

[53:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[53:57] I haven't had the chance to use Squarespace yet, and I'm having trouble with other companies trying to get my Christopher Lee fan site, PenguinFarts.com.

[54:08] Again, I think that's a weird name for it.

[54:10] I don't think people are going to understand.

[54:11] I'm having trouble with that project.

[54:13] I'm setting it aside.

[54:14] Yeah, sure.

[54:14] Okay.

[54:14] I've got a new website.

[54:17] It's called monkeypenis.com.

[54:19] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[54:19] And it's an exploration of the work of Guy de Maupassant.

Elliott Kalan

[54:22] Oh, wow.

[54:23] Sure.

[54:23] The necklace?

[54:25] That's – yeah, I think you're right.

[54:26] That's right.

[54:26] Sure, yeah.

[54:27] Anyway, what I really like about him most is that his name is Guy, but it's pronounced Guy.

[54:31] Like a karate Guy.

[54:32] Yep.

[54:33] It's the outfit of karate Guy that wears.

Dan McCoy

[54:35] That's used in Indian food.

Elliott Kalan

[54:37] Sure.

[54:38] Anyway.

[54:39] So is Squarespace the place I want to – I need a simple all-in-one solution.

[54:42] I want my website to look the same on phones and laptops and iPads without me having to recode it every time.

Stuart Wellington

[54:49] You were just telling me the other day you really want responsive design.

Elliott Kalan

[54:52] Incredibly responsive design.

[54:53] I want to be as responsive as a lover who knows every inch of your body almost better than you know it.

Dan McCoy

[54:59] Well, you're in luck because that is Squarespace.

[55:02] And you can start your free trial today with no credit card required at squarespace.com.

[55:07] That's another thing I wanted to ask you.

[55:09] My credit cards were taken away from me.

[55:11] Okay.

[55:11] Well, I mean, eventually you're going to be in trouble.

[55:13] I think at some point you're going to need to have to pay for this.

Elliott Kalan

[55:16] No, but I want to start it up without a credit card.

[55:18] Can I do that?

[55:19] You can.

[55:19] No credit card required.

[55:20] Because as I said, what happened was I went to a snooty restaurant.

[55:22] Okay.

[55:23] And when I went to pay, I must have overdrawn on my account because they literally cut up the card in front of me with scissors.

[55:29] What was crazy was that they were charging so much and there were like three sprouts on that plate.

Stuart Wellington

[55:33] Yep.

[55:33] And it was the evening of Force Friday where Elliot spent all his fun bucks on Star Wars dudes.

Elliott Kalan

[55:39] I had to buy every one of the Lego Star Wars sets or some shit.

[55:44] Because it's all that some people have in their lives.

[55:47] Anyway.

[55:47] Calm down.

[55:49] Sorry.

[55:50] I read an article about Force Friday that got me really mad.

[55:52] So, Dan, Squarespace can help me with that.

[55:55] I can get it easy and see if it's the right thing for me.

[55:58] It sounds like it's really great.

[55:59] Is there some kind of code that I could use for discounts?

Dan McCoy

[56:01] Indeed.

[56:01] You can use the offer code FLOP.

[56:03] That's F-L-O-P to get 10% off your first purchase.

Elliott Kalan

[56:09] Now, I want to start a website that's a tribute to Neil Breen, writer, director, producer of Faithful Findings.

[56:14] That's called almosttopless.com.

[56:17] You think Squarespace is the place I could do that?

Dan McCoy

[56:19] You can do that easily with Squarespace.

Elliott Kalan

[56:21] Responsive design?

[56:22] Yep.

[56:22] And I don't need to know coding?

Dan McCoy

[56:24] No.

[56:24] You don't need a credit card.

[56:25] How's their tech support?

[56:27] It's excellent.

[56:28] And you can use the offer code FLOP to get 10% off your first purchase.

[56:32] But I don't need a credit card, right?

[56:33] No.

[56:33] Squarespace.

[56:34] Can I pay by money order?

[56:35] You can.

[56:37] I don't know if that's true.

[56:38] That seems like a promise you should be making.

Elliott Kalan

[56:41] That's a...

[56:41] I'm trying to get you to shut up.

Dan McCoy

[56:43] I'm trying to get you to shut up.

Elliott Kalan

[56:44] So, Squarespace.com, offer code FLOP.

Dan McCoy

[56:47] Yeah.

[56:47] Build it beautiful.

[56:49] But moving on.

[56:50] No, no.

[56:50] You should say it like this.

[56:52] Like you're a detective.

[56:55] So, we should move on to the letters from...

[56:58] Guys, I just want to say, this has been great so far.

[57:00] Oh, thanks.

Elliott Kalan

[57:01] Thanks.

[57:01] I think, Dan, that's what I would have said to Elizabeth Warren Roebling, the woman who

[57:05] was really responsible for making sure the Brooklyn Bridge happened.

[57:08] She'd be like, ah, my husband, he's stuck in bed now and he won't leave bed for years

[57:13] after his nervous collapse and the bends probably.

[57:15] And I have to oversee this major construction project.

[57:18] What should I do?

[57:19] And I'd say, build it beautiful.

[57:21] Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Dan McCoy

[57:25] Okay.

[57:26] So, Dan, what do we do now?

[57:27] We read letters from listeners.

[57:29] A little segment we call the Flothouse Movie Mailbag.

[57:33] I mean, we haven't called it that for a while.

[57:34] Do we really call it that?

Stuart Wellington

[57:35] I think we have in the past.

[57:36] You can call it whatever you want.

Dan McCoy

[57:38] Call it whatever you want.

[57:39] Just don't call it late for dinner.

[57:40] Just trust your body, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[57:41] Why would you call it late for dinner?

[57:42] It doesn't tell the audience what it is.

[57:44] Is this some kind of cooking segment for people with busy schedules?

Stuart Wellington

[57:50] Why are you so touchy about being late for dinner?

Dan McCoy

[57:54] Look, the letters are very hungry.

[57:56] They're so hungry.

[57:56] Wow.

[57:58] Hungry for a song?

[58:00] Hungry for souls.

Elliott Kalan

[58:02] You mean songs, right?

[58:03] Yeah.

[58:04] Open that mailbag.

[58:06] Open it wide.

[58:07] And dive inside.

[58:09] There's letters inside.

[58:10] Hey, don't hide from the letters inside.

[58:13] There's letters inside the mailbag.

[58:16] Who are these letters for?

[58:18] Let's take a look.

[58:19] It's my neighbor's mail.

[58:21] Open it up.

[58:22] I'm a nosy guy.

[58:24] Huh.

[58:25] They're in arrears.

[58:26] They're losing their house.

[58:28] This is sad news.

[58:29] And I wish I didn't know it.

[58:31] Glue that letter back shut.

[58:33] Slide it under their door.

[58:36] When the house goes up for auction, buy it up.

[58:39] And then sell it for more.

[58:42] Flippin' houses.

[58:43] That's where the money is.

[58:45] Flippin' houses in today's market.

[58:48] Buy a house cheap.

[58:49] Fix it on up.

[58:51] Sell it for more.

[58:52] The business runs itself.

[58:55] If you know how to fix a house.

Dan McCoy

[58:58] With letters.

[59:00] Brought to you by Property Brothers.

[59:02] HGTV.

[59:03] That was one of the songs that sounded mostly like a TV theme.

[59:06] I was going to say that, but even before.

Stuart Wellington

[59:07] I was going to say they all seem to have the same tempo.

Dan McCoy

[59:10] They're all pretty much the same.

Stuart Wellington

[59:11] Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Dan McCoy

[59:17] So this letter goes, I'm a big fan of your show.

[59:20] My favorite flopper is Elliot.

[59:22] Thank you.

[59:23] Yay.

[59:23] I'm hesitant to say this because I'm afraid it will lead to this letter not being read because of Dan's jealousy.

[59:29] If I say that I'm a wife and that I have a butt, will that win me over in the eyes of Purpzoid number one?

[59:34] I hope so.

[59:35] Anywho, I'm not sure about Dan and Stuart, but I've heard Elliot say he's not a fan of Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Judd Apatow.

Elliott Kalan

[59:46] I mean, they're okay.

[59:47] I mean, I'm not, they don't float my personal boat.

Dan McCoy

[59:50] I feel that between those three people.

[59:52] Which floats on the waters of Lake Champlain.

[59:53] You get a majority of the comedies that are released in theaters today.

[59:57] What are some of your favorite comedies that have come out in recent years, and what current comedians are you fans of?

[1:00:02] Thanks.

[1:00:02] Mallory, last name withheld.

[1:00:04] P.S.

[1:00:04] Thank you for continuously mentioning the film Baby Secret of the Lost Legend.

[1:00:08] I completely forgot about that film and was glad to be reminded of the movie from my youth about a baby dinosaur.

[1:00:14] A lost legend.

[1:00:16] Now found.

[1:00:18] Modern.

[1:00:19] At your local video store.

[1:00:20] Modern comedies.

[1:00:22] Other than Fateful Findings that we enjoyed.

[1:00:24] Are there any?

[1:00:25] I mean, I like the trip movies.

[1:00:28] Yeah, I think that we've mentioned before that we all enjoyed the Edgar Wright.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:33] Yeah, the Cornetto trilogy stuff.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:35] Sure.

[1:00:35] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:36] Those are good ones.

[1:00:37] I guess recently, to reference Judd Apatow, I liked Trainwreck quite a bit.

[1:00:43] I still haven't seen that yet.

[1:00:44] And I like Spy a lot, too.

[1:00:45] I've heard good ones about that, too.

[1:00:46] I felt that was like the people involved's probably best work.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:51] Yeah, when I watched that movie, I sort of thought at the beginning, I'm like, okay, well, this is not as good as it was advertised.

[1:00:57] It felt very rote, and then as it went on.

[1:00:59] Yeah, they wrote it.

[1:01:01] How many times have I done that joke now?

[1:01:02] Like ten?

[1:01:02] At least once before.

[1:01:06] But as it went on, I appreciated it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:08] But Jason Statham makes a face-off joke.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:10] No, she's terrific.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:11] I liked Rose...

[1:01:13] Rose Bernie?

[1:01:14] Rose Bernie.

[1:01:15] McGowan?

[1:01:15] Bern?

[1:01:16] Bernie?

[1:01:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:17] I have to admit...

[1:01:18] Yeah, Bernie, starring Jack Black.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:20] And Allison Janney's in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:22] She's great.

[1:01:23] I have to admit that I don't see a lot of modern comedies these days, partly because I've had so many experiences of not enjoying them,

[1:01:30] and that keeps me from going to new ones, and I should break that habit.

[1:01:34] I should be willing to risk my time on a modern comedy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:37] You just stick with old-timey comedies like Revenge of the Nerds, starring nerds.

[1:01:42] Old-timey comedies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:43] Old-timey comedies.

[1:01:43] Starring the nerds.

[1:01:45] And featuring Revenge.

[1:01:47] Also starring Cameo Beards by Of.

[1:01:53] I'm trying to think of...

[1:01:54] There's a recent comedy that I thought was really, really funny, and there's...

[1:01:58] I mean, What We Do in the Shadows was fucking great.

[1:02:00] But I haven't seen that yet.

[1:02:01] But you should.

[1:02:02] It's great.

[1:02:03] I want to see it.

[1:02:06] My TiVo's full of Check New Wave films.

[1:02:09] I gotta watch those first.

[1:02:09] That's not comedies.

[1:02:11] Some of them are very funny.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:13] Just like TBS.

[1:02:15] Do you like me?

[1:02:16] Check New Wave.

[1:02:19] So this letter goes like this.

[1:02:22] It says, listen here.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:23] Doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon.

[1:02:24] I think this letter goes a little something like this.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:26] Listen here, Kalen.

[1:02:28] What?

[1:02:29] This is such a turnaround from the last one.

[1:02:31] You said your dream was to be a Popeye's spokesman.

[1:02:34] Well, buddy, here's your chance.

[1:02:35] I'll make this quick.

[1:02:37] Spokesman.

[1:02:38] I woke up on the day of my wedding and I was running late.

[1:02:40] I want to know how these sentences connect.

[1:02:42] My groomsmen and I had to stop somewhere to get breakfast, but it was pouring rain.

[1:02:46] We ended up at Burger King.

[1:02:48] It was 1030 a.m.

[1:02:49] And they were like, no, we don't have breakfast anymore.

[1:02:51] And you'll have to wait a million years before we're ready for lunch.

[1:02:54] So I dashed across the busy street to Popeye's.

[1:02:57] Popeye's.

[1:02:58] I asked if they were serving breakfast still.

[1:03:00] They said no.

[1:03:01] I said, okay, then I'll take the most breakfasty thing you have for lunch.

[1:03:04] So they made me a Cajun po' boy.

[1:03:06] I ate it quickly and then ran off to get married.

[1:03:09] During the entire ceremony, reception, and night, my stomach was tumultuous.

[1:03:15] The Cajun po' boy was begging to be released.

[1:03:18] My question's for you, Kalen.

[1:03:20] One, how dare you?

[1:03:21] And two, what is Popeye's stance on Cajun po' boys for breakfast?

[1:03:25] Alex's last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:27] Well, Alex, one, I had Popeye's on my wedding day, too.

[1:03:31] And it was delightful.

[1:03:32] And it sat in my stomach like a beautiful cat on a taffeta pillow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:37] Did you eat that in the movie theater when we were watching Piranha 3D?

[1:03:40] No, it was after we went to Piranha 3D.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:43] I think you were in the car, Dan, with my brother.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:45] Yeah.

[1:03:45] David was like, I know where there's a Popeye's near here.

[1:03:48] Or somehow he searched for one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:50] Yep, like Monterey Jack seeking out cheese.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:53] He closed his eyes and floated along the scent.

[1:03:56] And so after that, before I got changed for the wedding into my suit, we sat outside his hotel room and ate Popeye's for lunch.

[1:04:04] Just one of many reasons that that was the best day of my life.

[1:04:06] Well, number one, the wedding.

[1:04:08] Number two, it was a great scene in front of 3D with my pals.

[1:04:11] Three, Popeye's for lunch.

[1:04:13] Like, greatest day of my life.

[1:04:16] Okay, let's get a few things straight.

[1:04:18] One, I just want to say I do not endorse anything at Popeye's other than the chicken.

[1:04:23] I don't order anything other than the chicken.

[1:04:25] I don't care for their other stuff.

[1:04:27] What about their Nalan-style red beans and rice?

[1:04:29] Well, that I eat as a side dish every time, yes.

[1:04:32] But that's...

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:32] To quiet your tumultuous stomach filled with chicken.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:36] Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with your tender tummy that you couldn't handle that food.

[1:04:40] But also, dude, where are you getting married that there were fast food restaurants and no bathrooms?

[1:04:45] Deal with it before the ceremony, you guy.

[1:04:47] Come on.

[1:04:48] Mm-hmm.

[1:04:49] Or at any point during the reception, step aside and use the toilet.

[1:04:53] It's your day.

[1:04:54] No one can tell you no.

[1:04:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:57] Maybe he didn't want to have to unlimber all of his wedding equipment that he was wearing.

[1:05:01] Yeah, yeah.

[1:05:01] Undo his whalebone corset.

[1:05:03] Wedding equipment?

[1:05:04] Yeah, yeah.

[1:05:05] Like a codpiece?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:05] Yeah, why not?

[1:05:07] You know, like one of those proton packs that you wear.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:11] Yeah.

[1:05:12] Some kind of steampunk gizmo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:14] Some kind of death lock armor.

[1:05:16] Sure.

[1:05:17] Yeah.

[1:05:17] So, your experience was not a good one.

[1:05:22] I take it.

[1:05:22] Try Popeye's again.

[1:05:23] Get the fried chicken.

[1:05:25] Mm-hmm.

[1:05:26] And deal with it.

[1:05:26] And as a breakfast food, fried chicken is great.

[1:05:29] I've eaten cold Popeye's fried chicken for breakfast many times.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:33] You mean the...

[1:05:34] Put it on some waffles.

[1:05:36] You should just go up and order the Kalen Special, which is a four-piece mild.

[1:05:39] Thank you.

[1:05:40] With rice and beans.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:41] No drink.

[1:05:42] Red beans and rice on the side.

[1:05:44] No drink.

[1:05:44] Biscuit.

[1:05:45] And then also...

[1:05:46] And as a man who has often picked up Popeye's for Elliot.

[1:05:50] It's...

[1:05:51] On the way over to record this, actually, it was funny.

[1:05:53] A guy stopped me on the street and said, are you Elliot Kalen?

[1:05:56] And I was like, yeah.

[1:05:57] And he said, he's a Flap House listener.

[1:05:59] And I go, oh, thanks.

[1:06:00] He goes, yeah, the Popeye's was a giveaway.

[1:06:02] I said, I had a bag of Popeye's in my hand.

[1:06:05] Here's the thing.

[1:06:05] When I was young...

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:07] And the, like, goody-goody look on your face where you're so excited.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:10] That I was licking my chops and rubbing my hands together.

[1:06:13] Yeah.

[1:06:14] Like a cartoon wolf.

[1:06:15] Yeah.

[1:06:16] Staring at Red Hot Riding Hood.

[1:06:18] The, uh...

[1:06:19] When I was a young man before there was a lady in my life, I would frequently on weekends get a box of fried chicken on Friday night.

[1:06:26] That's my food for the weekend.

[1:06:28] So I'm having it for breakfast two days in a row, and it was fantastic.

[1:06:31] Am I alive today to tell the tale?

[1:06:33] Somehow.

[1:06:34] Yeah.

[1:06:34] So continue.

[1:06:35] That malcontent has been disposed of.

[1:06:37] Yeah.

[1:06:38] This next letter...

[1:06:39] Popeye's forever.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:40] Goes, help me be better at being dumped.

[1:06:43] Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[1:06:44] Dear Flophouse, I recently got dumped and I'm grateful to your podcast for helping me not act like an insane person.

[1:06:50] Whenever I want to call my ex-boyfriend, I instead make myself listen to a Flophouse episode.

[1:06:55] Soon I am laughing and don't care about my ex-boyfriend anymore because he was not as funny as you are.

[1:07:00] Especially Dan, who is my favorite, and Elliot, who is my other favorite.

[1:07:04] Sorry, Stuart.

[1:07:05] It's okay.

[1:07:06] I'm the garbage one.

[1:07:07] Unfortunately...

[1:07:08] Usually the ladies love cool Stuart.

[1:07:10] She says, the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode was not up to standard, in my opinion.

[1:07:15] I got distracted and ended up calling my ex-boyfriend, who now thinks I am crazy.

[1:07:19] This is too much pressure to put on us.

[1:07:21] Please help me be better at being dumped.

[1:07:23] By only having A++++ episodes.

[1:07:26] For example, the Transformers episode.

[1:07:28] Or the That's My Boy episode.

[1:07:30] Thank you in advance, Maggie Lastname withheld.

[1:07:32] Maggie, you're too good for that guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:34] Yeah.

[1:07:35] You kick him to the curb and forget about him because there's plenty of fish in the sea.

[1:07:38] I don't even know why you're listening to this episode.

[1:07:40] You should be watching Fateful Findings.

[1:07:42] You watch Fateful Findings, you'll be laughing so hard, you'll be like, boyfriend who doesn't exist.

[1:07:47] Boyfriend what?

[1:07:48] I want to be with that Neil Breen.

[1:07:50] Yeah.

[1:07:50] Who all the ladies want to lightly peck.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:53] And you should only be dating boyfriends from the Boyfriend Academy.

[1:07:57] Are they even the Boyfriend School?

[1:07:57] As taught by Shelley Long.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:59] A.K.A.

[1:08:00] Don't tell her it's me, university.

[1:08:02] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:04] I guess she is the teacher.

[1:08:06] I always kind of viewed her as like a sensei type.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:09] I mean, that's another word for teacher.

[1:08:11] Like a seafood type.

[1:08:11] It literally means teacher.

[1:08:15] A teacher, huh?

[1:08:16] I always thought of her as more of a professor.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:20] More of an adjunct professor.

[1:08:24] An instructor sort of position.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:28] Some sort of instruction provider.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:31] Glad we were able to help you, I guess.

[1:08:34] I assume we were.

[1:08:35] I don't know.

[1:08:36] This episode's super great, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:38] We'll do our best to try to be funny so that you laugh and don't think about them.

[1:08:41] But hey, I hope by the time you listen to this episode, you're already awash on a sea of dudes.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:48] Gross.

[1:08:50] Are you gross?

[1:08:51] So, last letter.

[1:08:53] It goes like this.

[1:08:54] Dear Radio Zork, apply grease to door hinge.

[1:08:58] Push open door.

[1:08:59] Throw dynamite at Gru.

[1:09:01] Matt, last name withheld.

[1:09:03] That's a lot of motions for one turn.

[1:09:05] Yeah, I don't know if you can make that many.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:06] I think it kind of disqualifies it.

[1:09:09] Yep.

[1:09:10] You become unstuck in time because you're moving too fast.

[1:09:13] You are dead.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:16] You are a harsh game master, Stuart.

[1:09:18] A nice try.

[1:09:22] But thanks for playing.

[1:09:23] You cheat a good game, boy.

[1:09:25] But now you Zork.

[1:09:27] Thanks for playing the most popular radio adventure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:30] Radio Zork.

[1:09:31] Brought to you by Dan.

[1:09:34] Brought to you what?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:36] And Elliot.

[1:09:37] What was it actually brought to you by?

[1:09:38] Delicious penises?

[1:09:40] I can't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:41] Yeah, I forgot what it was.

[1:09:43] I forgot what old-timey vulgar product it was.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:46] Greasy penises.

[1:09:47] Yeah.

[1:09:48] Is there any other kind?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:49] Yeah.

[1:09:50] It's time for our genital health corner, right?

[1:09:52] Every episode we have a new tip about genital health.

[1:09:55] Check your penis.

[1:09:56] Is it greasy?

[1:09:57] Well, that's the thing.

[1:09:57] Stuart has reminded me that always keep your penis well greased.

[1:10:01] Yeah.

[1:10:01] If you don't have a penis, grease someone else's.

[1:10:03] Oil can.

[1:10:04] They'll appreciate it.

[1:10:06] Oil can.

[1:10:07] That squeaking isn't the hip.

[1:10:09] Aren't your hip hinges.

[1:10:10] No, it's your penis asking for oil.

[1:10:12] Oil can.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:15] You want to get a smooth erection?

[1:10:17] You got to grease that thing up.

[1:10:19] Otherwise, it's super spiky.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:22] Yeah.

[1:10:22] It's going to creak its way up.

[1:10:23] Or gritty.

[1:10:25] Yeah.

[1:10:25] So, the next step of this podcast is not talking about gross stuff.

[1:10:29] That was super gross.

[1:10:29] It's talking about fun stuff.

[1:10:31] Movies we actually liked.

[1:10:33] Boing.

[1:10:33] Dan's going to start.

[1:10:35] Oh, I am?

Dan McCoy

[1:10:35] All right.

[1:10:36] I was watching.

[1:10:38] Bounce pass.

[1:10:39] We just.

[1:10:39] It was just a coup d'etat.

[1:10:41] Stuart is now the host.

[1:10:41] A coup de gras.

[1:10:43] I was watching.

[1:10:44] I'm hanging with Mr. Coup d'etat.

[1:10:46] I was watching a thing called television the other day.

[1:10:50] And I was flipping.

[1:10:51] Tell me more.

[1:10:52] I was flipping past the channels.

[1:10:55] Which is what the kids are doing.

[1:10:56] The story gets even better.

[1:10:58] And I came across the second.

[1:11:00] Well, the last third, actually.

[1:11:02] Of a little movie called Death Trap.

[1:11:05] Which I watched several times.

[1:11:06] I was growing up.

[1:11:07] It is a good movie.

[1:11:07] I was growing up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:07] Because it was on HBO all the time.

[1:11:10] As you waited for what Sheena to be on?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:12] Yeah.

[1:11:13] But I like that movie quite a bit.

[1:11:15] It stars Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, and Diane Cannon in the three major roles.

[1:11:22] There's about five major roles.

[1:11:26] There's like five roles in the whole movie, basically.

[1:11:28] And it's just a twisty.

[1:11:32] It was based on a play by Ira Levin.

[1:11:36] It's directed by Cindy Lumet.

[1:11:38] He does not open up the play particularly.

[1:11:40] He just directs it well.

[1:11:44] And when you've got people like Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve and Diane Cannon, they are able to play the thriller elements of the story.

[1:11:52] But they're also able to play the light comedy elements of it.

[1:11:54] Because it is a silly movie at its heart.

[1:11:57] It's full of twists and turns that kind of take advantage of the thriller plotting while sort of also making fun of it at the same time.

[1:12:07] And it's a very enjoyable movie.

[1:12:09] It's about a failed writer of thriller plays who engages in a plot to try and get rid of his wife.

[1:12:21] And then many twists and turns come afterwards.

[1:12:24] And so if you're looking for just a fun time, I recommend Death Trap.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:29] More than Fateful Findings?

Dan McCoy

[1:12:31] I mean, maybe equally in different ways.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:36] Others?

[1:12:37] That sounds great.

[1:12:38] You know, guys, the other day I popped on a movie on the old digital video player.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:43] Am I the only one who's not going to explain the circumstances in which you watched his movie?

[1:12:47] The media?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:48] I fired it up.

[1:12:50] And boy, did I have the time of my life.

[1:12:54] Now I cracked a couple of beers.

[1:12:55] Is that a reference to a song?

[1:12:56] Yeah, he did his dirty dancing.

[1:12:58] I never felt that way before.

[1:13:01] Nobody put this movie into corner.

[1:13:03] This movie was like the wind.

[1:13:04] It's out of my league.

[1:13:05] I looked through every open door.

[1:13:07] And I watched Spike Lee's Inside Man.

[1:13:11] Not what I expected.

[1:13:12] Which is a great little thriller.

[1:13:14] It's got an amazing show-stopping performance from my man, Clive Owen.

[1:13:22] Clive the Chive Owen.

[1:13:25] Clive Owen.

[1:13:26] Hello.

[1:13:26] Is it me?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:27] It's me, Clive Owen today, Governor.

[1:13:29] That's a good movie.

[1:13:29] It shows a path for Spike Lee's career that he decided not to take.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:33] It is.

[1:13:34] I mean, it's super impressive that the guy turns out what is basically a Hollywood thriller,

[1:13:39] and it's just super great, competent, and fun to watch.

[1:13:43] I mean, it's not as good as...

[1:13:45] Denzel Washington is draped in the best Steve Harvey suits.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:51] I want to say it's not as good, obviously, as The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3, but it's got...

[1:13:56] The remake.

[1:13:57] Certain...

[1:13:57] It's got some of the same flavor in that it's really like a New York thriller.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:01] I would say Inside Man is the closest to a remake in terms of spirit of The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3,

[1:14:07] because it is a crime movie that has a really good thriller plot, and it's really suspenseful,

[1:14:13] but it does give you a picture of what life in New York at a certain time is like.

[1:14:16] Like, it captures little things about kind of post-September 11th New York in a way that no other movies,

[1:14:25] I feel like, really have, except, what, like, The 25th Hour, which is all about post-September 11th New York.

[1:14:29] Yeah, and also Spike Lee.

[1:14:31] And it's also Spike Lee.

[1:14:32] And it's got a great cast.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:34] I don't know if I mentioned it has Clive Owen in it.

[1:14:37] Denzel, Jodie Foster, Christopher, my man Plummer.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:43] Just Raw Dog in it.

[1:14:46] She would tell...

[1:14:47] Z to the P.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:49] She would tell that G4 is also in it.

[1:14:51] He is totally in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:53] People say ICP means Insane Clown Posse, but for me there's only I, Christopher Plummer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:02] So...

Dan McCoy

[1:15:03] Jodie Foster's in it doing a really weird performance that's better than her weird performance in Elysium.

[1:15:08] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:09] So...

[1:15:10] I think Jodie Foster's really good in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:11] No, I know, but she's, like, it's very mannered.

[1:15:14] She is borderline, omniscient, mystical being in some ways, but...

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:18] She's like a wind elemental, like Dame Judi Dench in that Riddick movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:22] It's like Jodie Foster is playing a non-crazy version of Gillian Anderson's character in Hannibal.

[1:15:28] Yeah.

[1:15:28] Where there's just something off about her.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:31] So, to summarize, I'm going to recommend Dirty Dancing.

[1:15:35] Okay, thanks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:37] I'm going to recommend a different movie.

[1:15:39] This is a movie that we started talking about at the beginning of Fateful Findings,

[1:15:43] because there's a long shot of the storage locker area, and that's Primer.

[1:15:48] Primer?

[1:15:48] I feel like Fateful Findings is an example of how one man can write, direct, star, and produce

[1:15:53] a movie on a very low budget, and it is terrible.

[1:15:57] But it's possible for one man to...

[1:15:59] It's terrible for anyone to try and imitate such a great movie.

[1:16:02] Yeah, yeah, it's inimitable.

[1:16:03] It's inimitable.

[1:16:05] There's a...

[1:16:05] It is possible for one man to write, direct, star, and produce a very low budget movie,

[1:16:09] and have it come out really good.

[1:16:11] Like Bad Taste.

[1:16:14] Yeah, sure.

[1:16:15] I mean, that's an example, too.

[1:16:16] It's not the one I'm going to talk about.

[1:16:17] The one I'm going to talk about is Primer.

[1:16:18] Primer.

[1:16:19] Which came up because a lot of it takes place in a storage...

[1:16:22] Like a rental storage space.

[1:16:23] But it's for people who are not aware of it, and probably most of our listeners are at

[1:16:27] this point, it's a time travel movie that was made for a very minimal budget.

[1:16:32] It's like $7,000 or something like that.

[1:16:34] Like, it's El Mariachi-level budget.

[1:16:37] But it's...

[1:16:38] And the one main way you can tell that is that the sound recording in some scenes is not ideal.

[1:16:43] But it's a really good time travel paradox science fiction movie.

[1:16:47] That does not rely on special effects, and just relies on...

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:50] I mean, it's arguably the best time travel movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:53] Yeah.

[1:16:54] I think you could make a really good case that it's the best time travel movie there is.

[1:16:58] And I was not a fan that much of Shane Carruth, the writer-director, stars other movie Upstream

[1:17:02] Color.

[1:17:02] I found that a little too abstract for me.

[1:17:05] But I did...

[1:17:06] But Primer, I feel like, is just in that right place of being mysterious, but also a movie

[1:17:13] with a plot that you can...

[1:17:14] Maybe you have to puzzle out some of it later, but you can follow it.

[1:17:17] Whereas Upstream Color, it felt like he wrote a movie, and then he decided to, like, remove

[1:17:21] random pages of dialogue.

[1:17:23] And that, I didn't love so much.

[1:17:26] I like Upstream Color.

[1:17:27] There are things I like about it.

[1:17:29] It's one of the...

[1:17:29] It's...

[1:17:30] Upstream Color, what I like about it are the parts that have to do with their relationship

[1:17:33] only.

[1:17:34] And I don't like any of the stuff that has to do with the, like, conspiracy to get that

[1:17:38] chemical that makes people experience the same thing, or whatever it is, you know?

[1:17:42] But Primer, I recommend.

[1:17:43] It's definitely...

[1:17:44] Low budget dreams.

[1:17:44] Live them.

[1:17:45] Make the movie.

[1:17:46] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:47] I think Upstream Color is definitely, like, a movie that you kind of want to let wash over

[1:17:51] you and not think about it too hard.

[1:17:53] Whereas Primer...

[1:17:54] A real check-your-brain-at-the-door thrill ride.

[1:17:56] No, no.

[1:17:56] A real Valhalla rising.

[1:17:58] Like, it's so moody, and, like, you get a sense of what it's about without, like, trying

[1:18:03] to need to puzzle it out.

[1:18:05] Whereas I think Primer, like, actually rewards a little more engagement with what's going on.

[1:18:11] I can see that.

[1:18:12] Even though you don't necessarily need to understand everything that happens to enjoy it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:16] You don't have to, say, go on the internet and find those, like, crazy...

Dan McCoy

[1:18:19] Those crazy diagrams.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:21] Mm-hmm.

[1:18:21] Which I'd like to see a crazy diagram about the movie we watched tonight, Fateful Findings.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:25] Oh, man.

[1:18:26] There's...

[1:18:27] You could make a Venn diagram of the plots of this movie and none of the circles would

[1:18:31] touch.

[1:18:32] Like, the plots were so disconnected from each other.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:36] But thank you again for listening.

[1:18:40] Are we done now?

[1:18:42] What's going on?

[1:18:42] We don't appreciate you enough, the listener.

[1:18:45] We read their letters.

[1:18:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:47] That's the least we can do.

[1:18:49] Look, I know you're in a vulnerable place right now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:52] He's, uh...

[1:18:52] Like a raw wound, soaking in delicious salt.

[1:18:56] I don't...

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:57] Mm!

[1:18:58] Tastes great!

[1:18:59] Yummy!

[1:19:00] Thank you, guys.

[1:19:02] Real great.

[1:19:03] Well, thanks to the listeners, and thanks to you, Stuart, and thanks to you, Dan.

[1:19:06] Hey, Elliot, thanks.

[1:19:07] Hey.

[1:19:08] Because I had the time of my life, and I owe it all to you.

[1:19:15] To stew.

[1:19:16] To stew.

[1:19:17] Bam, bam, ba-dum, bam, ba-dum, bam.

[1:19:18] All right.

[1:19:19] That song is forever linked in my mind with Chuck E. Cheese, because I guess I went to

[1:19:23] Chuck E. Cheese a lot as a kid when that song was big, and I heard it all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:25] Yeah, you love fucking pizza, bro.

[1:19:26] You're crazy for it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:27] Look, if I can have pizza served to me by a guy in a mouse costume while the same mouse

[1:19:31] character is a robot on stage in front of me...

[1:19:34] That's insane.

[1:19:35] ...which leads me to ask the question, are these brothers or clones, or is this a primer type

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:40] situation?

[1:19:41] Are they moving so quickly that they appear to be in two places at once?

[1:19:44] Chuck E. Cheese is a real mindfuck.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:46] Anyway, Dan, take it away.

[1:19:48] Yeah, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:51] And one of them is moving super jerky like he's a robot.

[1:19:53] The other one clearly seems to be a college kid in the suit.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:56] That guy's Stuart Wellington.

[1:19:58] And who am I?

[1:19:59] He's Elliot Kalin, the lovable scamp.

[1:20:02] America's favorite rascal.

[1:20:03] Trace Amigos.

[1:20:04] Or the Flophouse.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:06] It's us.

[1:20:07] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:20:08] I've been Elliot Kalin Wellington.

[1:20:11] And that's a weird guy.

[1:20:13] All right, good night, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:26] It's okay.

[1:20:27] How are our levels?

[1:20:29] Uh, fine to me.

[1:20:30] I'm on the wood level in Mega Man 2.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:32] Whoa, that's dope.

[1:20:34] With Leaf Man?

[1:20:35] Yeah, Leaf Man.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:36] I suggest that you use the whatever fire thing on the wood thing.

[1:20:40] Yeah, thanks, dude.

[1:20:40] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:42] Thanks, Nintendo Power.

[1:20:44] For that insider's tip.

[1:20:46] Yeah.

[1:20:47] If I could beat the fire level, I would have done that first.

[1:20:51] The wood level is the one you beat before that because it's easier.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:55] Maximumfun.org.

[1:20:56] Comedy and culture.

[1:20:58] Artist owned.

[1:20:59] Listener supported.

[1:21:00] Hi, this is Dave Hill from Dave Hill's Podcasting Incident on the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:21:06] I'm here with my lovely and talented secretary, Ms. Shana Feinberg.

[1:21:10] Shana, I understand you've been doing a bit of research to find out what listeners think of the show.

[1:21:15] Yes, I have, Dave.

[1:21:16] And what have you found?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:17] Well, people that love it say they love it because it's just Dave hanging out with someone in his apartment.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:23] Awesome.

[1:21:23] What do people that hate it say?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:25] They hate it because it's just Dave hanging out with someone in his apartment.

S4

[1:21:29] Oh.

[1:21:29] Listen to Dave Hill's podcast dancing on the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:21:34] Mother f***.

[1:21:35] Was that too much?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:36] No, I think it was perfect.

Ep. #187 - Fateful Findings

Transcript

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