Ep. #184 - Drive Hard

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] On tonight's show, we watched Drive Angry with Nicolas Cage.

[0:05] We watched Drive Hard with John Cusack.

Stuart Wellington

[0:08] It was a white line nightmare.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:40] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:41] We did it, guys.

[0:42] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:44] We continue to do something.

[0:45] I don't know what we did, but I'm going to be a Kalen.

Dan McCoy

[0:47] Stu, every time you're really proud of something.

Stuart Wellington

[0:50] Slam dunk.

Dan McCoy

[0:52] What did we accomplish when we started?

Elliott Kalan

[0:55] Slam dunk.

[0:57] Sure.

[0:58] We got a grand slam.

[1:00] For our South American listeners, what he's saying is,

[1:02] Goal!

Dan McCoy

[1:08] So this is...

Elliott Kalan

[1:09] Id, comma, City Slickers 2, The Legend of Curlies.

Dan McCoy

[1:15] A lot of people don't know that.

[1:16] That's what they're all saying?

[1:17] That's what they're saying.

[1:17] You never hear them finish it.

[1:18] They go, Goal!

[1:19] Yeah, everyone is too excited by the goal that just happened and the crowd noise.

[1:23] Comma, City Slickers 2, The Legend of Curlies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25] Are they talking about the movie Gold starring Roger Moore?

[1:27] No, not at all.

[1:28] Roger Moore.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29] It's got an awesome opening credit sequence, though.

[1:31] Yeah.

[1:31] It's awesome.

Dan McCoy

[1:32] The movie The Folks.

[1:35] The movie that stutters its title.

[1:38] But we didn't watch any Roger Moore movie tonight, sadly.

[1:42] No, we watched Roger-less.

[1:44] This movie was Roger-less.

[1:47] We watched...

[1:48] There might have been someone named Roger involved.

[1:50] Probably.

[1:51] Roger Sterling from Mad Men?

[1:52] Well, that's a fictional character, so no.

[1:54] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:55] Roger Zelazny.

[1:58] This is...

[1:59] Of the Ambers books?

[2:01] Yep.

[2:02] He wrote the original story.

[2:04] Short story that was adapted to the screenplay of...

[2:06] Drive Angry.

[2:08] 3D.

[2:09] No.

Elliott Kalan

[2:09] Rated R.

[2:11] Number one, Matt.

[2:12] That's not the movie that we watched.

[2:15] What movie did we watch, Dan?

[2:16] All right.

Dan McCoy

[2:16] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[2:19] And in this case, we watched a movie called Drive Hard.

[2:24] Drive Hard.

[2:25] Doesn't sound like a movie.

[2:26] Hard.

[2:26] Now, here's the thing.

[2:28] Drive Erect.

Elliott Kalan

[2:29] Ah, that's why you picked it.

[2:31] Three things about this movie.

[2:32] One, it's technically not out in theaters yet.

[2:34] We watched it on demand before it's released.

[2:36] It comes out in October.

[2:36] I don't think it's ever going to get released.

Dan McCoy

[2:39] Release date is listed, dude.

[2:40] October 3rd.

[2:40] I feel like this movie, I saw trailers for it years ago.

Elliott Kalan

[2:43] Drive Hard, not Soft.

[2:44] It's Drive Hard.

[2:45] Yeah, yeah.

[2:46] When you were a kid, you had a vision of it.

[2:48] It was a real Freddy 3 Dream Warriors type situation.

Dan McCoy

[2:51] It's getting pushed back and it's been on demand for quite some time.

[2:56] So for them to put it out theatrically now.

[2:57] People keep demanding it.

[2:58] Would be very strange.

Stuart Wellington

[2:59] Yeah, they're just trying to find that perfect window.

Elliott Kalan

[3:01] Now, Drive Hard.

[3:03] Right after Ricky and the Flash.

[3:05] Oh.

[3:06] Sorry, Meryl Streep.

[3:07] Meryl Streep, yeah.

[3:08] Yeah.

[3:08] It's all about a mom who's also a rock star and she teams up with superhero The Flash.

[3:13] That is not what we just watched.

[3:14] No, that's not.

[3:15] We watched Drive Hard, which is perhaps the softest driving movie I've ever seen.

[3:21] Yeah, downy soft.

[3:22] As I said to Stuart while we're watching it, this is the warm bath of action movies.

[3:28] It never wants to make you too thrilled or too worried.

[3:31] It's pretty easy going.

[3:33] The kind of movie where it's got Drive Hard.

[3:36] The name's Drive Hard.

[3:37] The main character is a race car driver.

[3:40] Played by Thomas Jane.

[3:41] Played by Thomas Jane, the man whose name backwards is a girl's name, Jane Thomas.

[3:46] And he doesn't.

[3:48] Oh, that's really interesting.

[3:48] He never drives particularly fast.

[3:51] No.

[3:52] But it's also got John, parentheses, not Joan, Cusack.

[3:58] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[3:59] John Cusack, who is kind of a, he's kind of like, if you took Thomas Jane and John Cusack

[4:06] and mashed them together, you'd kind of have one Nicolas Cage.

[4:08] You'd have some leftovers.

[4:10] In real life.

[4:10] I'm not saying that would only make one Nicolas Cage.

Elliott Kalan

[4:12] There'd be some little generic bits.

[4:14] Or you're saying there'd be extra Nicolas Cage they weren't taken care of.

Stuart Wellington

[4:17] Yeah, it'd be served in a little sidecar class.

Dan McCoy

[4:19] There'd be extra parts of them would be left over.

[4:22] Like, you know, like there's waste products.

[4:24] Like Thomas Jane's hair.

Stuart Wellington

[4:25] Yeah, he's only got ten fingers.

[4:26] He doesn't need twenty fingers.

[4:28] That's crazy.

Dan McCoy

[4:29] Some kind of double cage.

[4:30] Now you said there were four things that you wanted to do.

[4:32] I don't remember what the other things were.

[4:33] Okay.

[4:33] Well, we're off to a roaring start.

Elliott Kalan

[4:35] So, Nicholas Cage, so John Cusack is playing the, well, yeah, they're both kind of playing

[4:39] the Nicolas Cage parts in this.

[4:41] It's about a former race car driver who is now.

[4:43] Oh my God.

Stuart Wellington

[4:44] Wouldn't this have been great if Nicolas Cage played both parts?

[4:47] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[4:48] But every movie would be better if Nicolas Cage played both parts.

[4:51] Name a movie that wouldn't be better if Nicolas Cage played both parts.

[4:54] Rain Man?

[4:55] Better.

[4:55] King Kong vs. Godzilla?

[4:57] Better.

[4:57] Is this Girl Friday?

[4:59] Better.

[5:00] Yeah.

[5:01] I could see it.

[5:02] Twins?

[5:03] Not as good because the joke that they're twins that aren't alike would be ruined because

[5:07] they'd both be Nicolas Cage.

[5:08] Unless you use prosthetic makeup and computer generated effects to make one a super strong

[5:13] Nicolas Cage and one a little kind of stout fat Nicolas Cage.

Dan McCoy

[5:16] And everyone's like, this is a weird prequel to Adaptation.

[5:19] It doesn't seem to make any...

Stuart Wellington

[5:20] Dirty Dancing would have been great with two Nicolas Cages.

Elliott Kalan

[5:24] Where he's both Baby and Patrick Swayze and Baby's dad, Jerry Orbach.

Dan McCoy

[5:28] No one puts me in the corner.

[5:32] Unless it's me, I guess.

[5:35] I suppose I could put me in the corner.

[5:38] If I sat over here on part...

[5:40] Wait, hold on.

[5:41] I have to lift myself up at the end of the dance and I'm not sure how I'm going to do

[5:45] that.

[5:45] Let me think about the physics of this.

[5:48] This is a terrible impression of Nicolas Cage.

Elliott Kalan

[5:50] Yeah, they all are.

[5:51] Yeah, they're all pretty bad.

[5:53] One of their movies would be better if Nicolas Cage was in it.

[5:55] Kind of all of them, right?

Stuart Wellington

[5:56] Yeah.

[5:57] We'll revisit this later at the end of the show.

[5:58] It's kind of hard.

Elliott Kalan

[5:59] We won't revisit this in our dreams forever.

Stuart Wellington

[6:01] Listeners, call in and we'll update the podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[6:05] Yeah, just as we did that run of...

[6:07] We'll do an erotic later on.

[6:09] Erotic erotic.

[6:10] Erotic.

[6:12] Just a correction.

[6:14] Stuart was wearing pants.

Stuart Wellington

[6:16] Wow, that is not very erotic.

Elliott Kalan

[6:18] Well, it was a correction of the erotic content.

[6:21] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[6:21] It's more erotic for me.

[6:22] I get to imagine what's under there.

Elliott Kalan

[6:25] Sure.

[6:25] Because the sexiest thing is what you can't see.

[6:27] That's why the sexiest movie ever made is The Invisible Man.

Dan McCoy

[6:32] Is...

[6:32] I was going to say Casper, but then that's a child ghost.

[6:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:37] So...

[6:38] Nice self-added.

[6:39] Yeah.

[6:40] And the sexiest author is H.P. Lovecraft.

[6:43] Yeah, because everything is indescribable.

[6:46] Oh, I was like, why?

Elliott Kalan

[6:48] Because of his...

[6:48] I mean, a certain number of his elder gods are...

[6:50] Weird racism, I don't know what's here.

[6:51] A certain number of his elder gods are essentially ambulatory, super powerful vaginas.

[6:56] So, I mean, what can you do?

[6:57] Sexy.

[6:58] He had his issues.

[6:58] It's weird that a guy whose last name is Lovecraft is not an erotic author.

[7:03] Sure.

[7:04] Yeah.

[7:05] So, anyway...

[7:06] Hop penis Lovecraft.

Dan McCoy

[7:08] You know what?

Elliott Kalan

[7:09] Why don't we just call you H.P.?

[7:11] Everyone's going to think I'm a Hewlett Packard Lovecraft.

[7:13] That's not my name.

[7:15] People are going to make fun of me.

Dan McCoy

[7:17] They're going to think I'm...

[7:18] Me?

[7:19] H.P. Lovecraft?

[7:20] They're going to make fun of my name.

Elliott Kalan

[7:22] That's from the H.P. Lovecraft story starring Jimmy Stewart.

Stuart Wellington

[7:25] Not a respectable name like Hump Penis.

Elliott Kalan

[7:27] I think of immigrants and other minority groups as kind of subhuman.

[7:32] Are me their real life indications of cosmic horrors?

[7:38] Tell me this.

[7:40] Tell me this, Madeline.

[7:41] What's scarier than a force so malevolent and powerful?

[7:45] It crushes you not out of malevolent feeling itself, but just because it doesn't even notice you.

Dan McCoy

[7:50] It always goes to Don Knotts before ending on Sean Conner.

Elliott Kalan

[7:55] That was one of my better Jimmy Stewart's, too.

[7:57] I want to take the moon down from the stars.

[8:00] You can swallow it and let the light shine out your fingertips so you can scare away Nyarlathotep

[8:05] from crawling chaos.

Dan McCoy

[8:06] I was talking about It's a Wonderful Life recently.

[8:12] Then let's get back on time.

[8:13] No, wait.

[8:13] Hold on.

[8:13] There's that scene where they open up the pool under the people dancing.

[8:19] And they do it because the one guy's been jilted by Mary.

[8:23] Not really jilted, but Jimmy Stewart has...

[8:26] Stolen her away.

[8:27] Stolen her away.

[8:28] And it's not that he knows that there's a pool under there.

[8:32] There's a guy standing down there being like, stole your girl, huh?

[8:37] Might interest you to know that there's a pool under it.

[8:39] And it's just like, is he just there waiting to stir the shit?

[8:42] Have there been five guys before him with the same problem?

Stuart Wellington

[8:45] I assumed that was a person.

[8:45] Caring hamburgers, I would imagine.

[8:47] After their namesake, five guys.

[8:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:50] I assumed that was Satan himself coming to play a trick on old George Bailey.

[8:56] Yeah.

[8:56] Now I'm starting to think that Harvey is some kind of a shoggoth on another plane of reality.

[9:00] And maybe that's why nobody could see him.

[9:02] Except Jimmy Stewart, who had used that machine from From Beyond.

[9:06] Yep.

[9:07] Oh, man.

[9:08] My name's Herbert West.

[9:10] I'm like, you might call a reanimator.

Stuart Wellington

[9:14] That's way more Don Knotts.

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] Yeah, that is still Don Knotts.

[9:16] That's from...

[9:16] He would have been a great Herbert West, though.

[9:18] That's from The Ghost and Mr. Cthulhu.

[9:20] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[9:22] Well, it is a tragedy that Jimmy Stewart was never forced to say the word shoggoth.

Elliott Kalan

[9:27] Now I really, like, I regret that the Golden Age of Hollywood didn't see an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation.

[9:32] There wasn't an H.P. Lovecraft-based movie until, what, the 60s?

[9:34] I feel like F.W. Murnau could have done a really good one.

[9:36] Yeah, except that he died before sound came in.

[9:39] All right.

[9:40] H.P. Lovecraft, his best work was still ahead of him.

[9:42] Kind of, I think.

[9:43] I don't remember how the timeline works out.

[9:46] We should probably get back to the movie actually.

[9:48] So we watched this movie, Hard Drive.

[9:49] No, Drive Hard.

[9:50] According to Wikipedia, Drive Hard was originally titled Hard Drive.

[9:53] Exactly.

[9:54] So that's why at the end, Thomas Jane says, it's been a hard drive.

Dan McCoy

[9:57] But if someone, someone late in the process was like, uh, this means something else now with computers.

[10:02] Oh, well, let's be familiar with that.

Stuart Wellington

[10:04] When the script was originally written, computers didn't exist.

Elliott Kalan

[10:06] And the director, Brian Treasuresfield, was like, well, let's do the old Alabaruga Switchamadu.

[10:13] We'll just take the words and put them around.

Dan McCoy

[10:17] Anyway, I'm doing terrible impressions.

[10:18] Australian Paul McCartney.

Elliott Kalan

[10:22] But, uh, so Drive Hard is the story of Thomas Jane playing the Steve Zahn type character.

[10:29] And John Cusack playing the very specific Bill Murray in We're the Buffalo Rome type character.

[10:34] Like, uh, Thomas Jane is a former race car driver who gave up his dangerous career for his wife and child.

[10:40] Now he's a driving instructor married to a lawyer who doesn't respect him.

[10:43] And he has a daughter who goes to an uppity private school where she dresses like she just walked out of Madeline or Mary Poppins or something.

Stuart Wellington

[10:50] And his wife kind of looks like one of those Nagel prints you see in the window of a hair salon.

Elliott Kalan

[10:54] A little bit.

[10:55] Yeah, like a blonde, very severe Nagel print.

[10:57] Except, whereas Nagel girl, always like she's, she looks like she's up for some Duran Duran and cocaine.

[11:01] This woman does not.

[11:03] She is up.

[11:03] Too dangerous.

[11:05] Too dangerous.

[11:06] Please get those, get those, uh.

[11:08] Drive softer, please.

[11:10] Get those pink neon triangles and purple squiggles away from me, please.

[11:13] You can poke an eye out with those 80s graphic elements.

[11:16] Uh, so the, uh, of course, uh, Thomas Jane shows up to work after driving his daughter to school.

[11:23] And he finds that there's a client that's asked for him specifically.

[11:25] It's John Cusack smoking an electronic vape cigarette thing.

[11:29] Looking for all the world like Uncle Duke from Doonesbury just showed up in a car.

[11:34] And here's the thing about those vape cigarette things.

[11:37] They always look like a Java the Hutt space hookah.

[11:40] So every character looks like they just stopped off at like the space tobacconist for some Astro Juice or something.

Dan McCoy

[11:46] This space tobacconist is full of space eels.

Elliott Kalan

[11:51] Is that space money by thought?

Dan McCoy

[11:52] That is space money by thought.

Elliott Kalan

[11:54] My space nipples explode with space delight.

Stuart Wellington

[11:57] Ministry of Silly Walks in space.

[11:59] Would have been great.

Elliott Kalan

[12:01] I mean, the main thing that makes the Silly Walk an accomplishment is gone because gravity is no longer fighting you.

Stuart Wellington

[12:07] But think about how silly those walks could be.

Elliott Kalan

[12:09] That's true.

[12:10] They could be really silly.

[12:12] Uh, we...

[12:12] Because in space, no one can hear you walk.

[12:16] I just want to take a moment...

[12:17] Just edit that one out.

[12:18] And talk about...

[12:19] What, for sponsors?

[12:22] We barely started the movie.

[12:23] All right.

Dan McCoy

[12:24] You keep going.

[12:25] I'll get to what I'm going to say.

[12:26] Wait, what were you going to say?

[12:27] Say it so you don't forget.

[12:28] No, no, no.

[12:28] Where are we?

Elliott Kalan

[12:28] Well, you remember.

[12:29] Well, we were about ten minutes in.

[12:30] We started a movie called Drive Hard.

[12:32] Okay.

[12:33] So, John Cusack...

[12:34] We're in Australia.

[12:34] And I'm going to just say this.

Stuart Wellington

[12:36] Cut to a shot of guys windsurfing.

Elliott Kalan

[12:38] Yeah, for no reason.

[12:40] Thomas Jane and John Cusack have delightful chemistry.

[12:43] And fully, half their scenes seem to be almost completely ad-libbed.

[12:47] Where it's just them...

[12:48] Like, there's a scene that goes on forever of John Cusack trying to buckle his seatbelt.

[12:52] And it not working for a long time.

[12:54] That's great.

[12:55] John Cusack takes Thomas Jane on a wild ride in the car, breaking all the rules.

[12:59] Even breaking him to electric boogaloo, you might say.

[13:02] Although, I guess that implies it's an electric car, and it's not.

[13:05] It's not a Tesla or anything.

[13:07] It turns out that he's done his research on Thomas Jane.

[13:11] He knows he was a former race car driver, gave everything up, and now he regrets it.

[13:15] John Cusack says, hey, if you can just drive...

[13:18] Thomas Jane doesn't like it.

[13:19] He feels creeped out.

[13:20] So, John Cusack says, drive me back to the driving school.

[13:23] But first, let's stop at the bank.

[13:25] I just need to make a withdrawal.

[13:28] But, what, Thomas Jane doesn't know, but he should have known, considering his client for the day is dressed like Hunter S. Thompson is wearing black driving gloves.

[13:36] And they're like Under Armour gloves.

Stuart Wellington

[13:38] They look like the kind of gloves you'd wear to play football or, I don't know, strangle somebody.

[13:42] Or to drive pretty hard.

Dan McCoy

[13:43] Well, yeah, I mean, it's Hunter S. Thompson crossed with John Cusack's own character from Gross Point Blank.

[13:47] Yeah.

[13:48] I mean, to the degree that I wouldn't be surprised if John Cusack is like, you know what?

[13:54] This is my...

[13:55] My secret is this is an unofficial sequel to Gross Point Blank.

[13:58] Yeah.

[13:58] I'm playing the same character.

[14:00] Grosser Point Blanker.

[14:02] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:02] And so much of his scenes with Thomas Jane is just him babbling nonsense.

[14:05] And Thomas Jane kind of taking it seriously.

[14:08] Yeah.

[14:08] I'd be like, oh, wow, really?

[14:10] Oh, man, that's crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[14:13] You're never sure when the cameras stop rolling or start rolling.

[14:16] It might just be Thomas Jane and John Cusack hanging out in the car set that was built.

[14:20] Well, it feels like...

[14:21] Because here's the other thing.

[14:22] John Cusack spends most of the movie sitting down in a car.

Dan McCoy

[14:25] John Cusack feels like he's like the world's first hipster robber.

[14:29] Like, he's doing this as just sort of like a fun project.

[14:31] Yeah.

[14:32] Like, the fuck with this guy?

[14:33] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[14:34] There's the bank robberies.

[14:35] He goes and he drops off the bank and he robs the bank.

[14:38] And the bank robbery scene is a masterpiece of being very obviously in a low-budget movie.

[14:45] Wherein John Cusack just kind of like glides into the front door.

[14:48] Cut to...

[14:49] He's already at the vault in a room by himself.

Dan McCoy

[14:51] Yeah, a desaturated film of him opening the vault.

Elliott Kalan

[14:54] He opens the vault in very tight close-ups.

[14:56] And then there's like an alarm goes off.

[14:58] There's a tight shot of people's feet running on the ground.

[15:01] John Cusack fires into the air.

[15:03] You don't know if any of these people are in the same room.

[15:05] And John Cusack leaves the building and you're like, all those shots could have been shot in different years for all I know.

[15:11] On different continents.

Dan McCoy

[15:12] This is the first heist I've ever seen done entirely in insert shots.

Stuart Wellington

[15:16] Scott McCloud would be super impressed with the economy of storytelling here.

Elliott Kalan

[15:20] The viewer is doing so much of the work in building up what this heist is.

[15:24] I mean...

Dan McCoy

[15:25] You see almost none of it.

[15:26] The super fun cognitive dissonance of this movie, though, is that it's completely chock full of those like,

[15:32] I'm a film student making a movie on like $500, like tricks.

[15:37] But it also has Thomas Jane and John Cusack in it, who you've seen in real actual movies before.

Elliott Kalan

[15:42] In actual...

[15:42] Well, John Cusack's a big star.

[15:44] Thomas Jane never quite made it to that next level, you know.

[15:47] He was always about to break through.

Stuart Wellington

[15:49] He was always a Punisher, never a Punisher war zone.

Elliott Kalan

[15:52] Exactly.

[15:52] He's kind of like the Gretchen Maul of actors, as opposed to actresses,

[15:56] in that everyone was like, this is the next big guy, and it just never really happened.

[16:00] Well, maybe he'll have his Betty Page.

[16:03] Maybe, yeah.

[16:04] Maybe he'll...

[16:04] The movie where you watch it because he's nude in it?

[16:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:08] He'll do the...

[16:09] Wait, he gets nude in a movie?

Elliott Kalan

[16:11] I think he's...

[16:12] Is he nude in Stander?

Dan McCoy

[16:13] Is there like a men's health bodybuilding magazine from like the 50s?

[16:19] He's like, sort of like closeted gay magazine.

[16:21] Is there a model he could play?

[16:24] Yeah, probably.

[16:25] A biopic.

[16:25] I have to assume so.

[16:26] Mary Herron biopic.

Elliott Kalan

[16:26] Yeah, the notorious Bernie Page.

[16:28] Yeah.

[16:31] Who's got a big mustache and like kind of a pot belly.

[16:34] He was a bank manager by day.

[16:35] But anyway, so John Cusack's like, uh...

[16:38] He's just shooting at cops, and he's like, okay, now you're my getaway driver.

[16:43] You are gonna...

[16:44] You're gonna drive me around.

[16:46] I've stolen all this...

[16:48] A suitcase full of $9 million.

Dan McCoy

[16:49] We're gonna drive around this town and let the cops chase us around.

Elliott Kalan

[16:52] Which they kind of do, but the chase never really exceeds more than what, like...

[16:57] 35, 40 miles an hour.

[16:58] Yeah, 35 miles an hour.

Stuart Wellington

[16:59] I don't know what that is in kilometers per hour, but that's what they probably use.

[17:02] It's probably like a million, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[17:03] A million kilometers an hour.

[17:05] Kilometers are very small.

[17:07] They...

[17:07] This movie is so...

Stuart Wellington

[17:09] They drive around a couple sets that they obviously rented for the weekend.

Elliott Kalan

[17:12] That's the thing.

[17:12] It's so low budget that it's like, okay, now it's the sequence at the marina docks.

[17:17] Drive around, drive around, drive around.

[17:18] We'll cut this footage together later.

[17:20] It'll look like a chase sequence.

Stuart Wellington

[17:20] It'll be the same spot, but we're gonna throw water all over it.

Elliott Kalan

[17:24] Okay.

[17:25] Now we're in the storage...

[17:26] Now we're in the storage lockers area.

[17:28] Drive around, drive around.

[17:29] Fire the gun out the window every now and then.

[17:31] We'll just cut it together.

[17:31] We'll cut it together later.

[17:33] It reminds me of a story I think John Ford used to tell where if they were waiting for

[17:39] script pages or when he was first starting out making westerns, not later, but when he

[17:43] was making kind of cheaper westerns earlier, maybe it was Alan Juan.

[17:46] You know, I think it was Alan Juan who told the story.

[17:48] They were like, we're waiting for the script.

[17:51] All you guys, ride your horses up the street this way.

[17:54] Okay, now ride them back that way.

[17:56] We'll cut that footage in somehow later.

[17:58] Like, as long as I'm shooting footage of horses running somewhere, we can use it later.

[18:02] It feels like that with cars in this one.

[18:04] I think I've told the story...

[18:06] Well, John Cusack and Tom Jane just babble at each other.

[18:09] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[18:09] No, I think I've told the story maybe on the podcast before.

[18:12] So this is a twice told tale.

[18:14] I just can't remember.

[18:15] But I remember reading that, like, every episode of the Rockford Files had a car chase in it

[18:20] because they didn't know how long the scripts were going to come in.

[18:23] So they could just expand or shrink the car chase sequence to make sure they're exactly

[18:27] one hour.

[18:29] So this, you know, this sort of technique has been passed down.

[18:32] Well, through the generations.

[18:33] Through the generations.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] From the early days of silent westerns to the Rockford Files to Drive Hard.

[18:39] Truly a...

[18:40] A torchbearer.

[18:42] Yeah.

[18:43] So it's not long before the news hits the news that Thomas Jane and John Cusack are on

[18:49] the run.

[18:50] The police are after him, but then they're called off because it turns out John Cusack stole

[18:54] the money from a corrupt mafia bank that also once hired him to steal a diamond.

[19:01] And at this point, I thought, they're going to try to steal that diamond back.

[19:03] Nope.

[19:04] This movie doesn't have the budget for a fake diamond.

[19:06] No.

[19:06] Instead, they're just stealing...

[19:07] He went to jail because they sold him out.

[19:09] And so now he's stealing money he feels...

[19:11] A bunch of bearer bonds.

[19:12] Nine million dollars in bear bonds, which I assume entitles you to a bear when you turn

[19:16] it into a bear bank.

[19:17] Yeah.

[19:18] I mean, at least one.

[19:19] Nine million of them?

[19:20] Nine million bears.

Dan McCoy

[19:21] This has got to be a pretty good bear.

[19:23] This has got to be one of those top bears.

[19:24] I don't even know if there's that many bears in the world.

[19:26] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[19:26] Yeah, well, what would a top bear be?

[19:28] Pandas are the rarest, right?

Dan McCoy

[19:29] I would imagine a Teddy Ruxpin because he can talk and tell stories.

[19:32] Pandas is not actually a bear, though.

Elliott Kalan

[19:35] What is it, then?

[19:35] It looks like a bear.

[19:36] I mean, it's bear-like.

[19:39] It's bear-esque.

Dan McCoy

[19:39] Oh, you're saying it's barely a bear?

[19:42] No, I'm saying you didn't say that.

[19:43] You just said that.

[19:44] That's terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[19:45] That magazine is barely legal, which is about bears that have not committed crimes.

Dan McCoy

[19:48] It's about bears that barely look like bears.

[19:51] They mostly look like very young women.

[19:55] But they look a little bit like bears.

Elliott Kalan

[19:57] That's weird.

[19:59] I guess.

[19:59] It's a very specific fetish that I'm sure actually exists.

[20:03] And of bear-like women.

[20:05] Or I guess they'd be like anthropomorphic female bears.

[20:09] Yeah, it's like one of those furry magazines.

Stuart Wellington

[20:10] Yeah, it's like the No Girls Allowed Berenstain Bears book.

[20:15] Wait, what?

[20:16] You didn't read that Berenstain Bears book where girls weren't allowed in the boys' clubhouse?

Dan McCoy

[20:19] Now you're getting gross about a child fictional character.

Stuart Wellington

[20:22] He was talking about anthropomorphized bears.

[20:25] Yeah, but he wasn't talking about underage bears.

[20:27] But in a sexy way.

Elliott Kalan

[20:27] We never get to see what's under mama bears.

[20:28] You don't know how old those bears are.

[20:31] They call them kids, but...

[20:33] In bear years, they could be centuries old.

[20:36] Sure.

[20:36] You don't know a bear doesn't...

Stuart Wellington

[20:37] You gotta cut them in half and count the rings.

Dan McCoy

[20:41] You don't know what the mental age of those bears are.

[20:43] Those bears could have old souls.

[20:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:48] They're mature beyond their years.

[20:50] And really, isn't that what it counts?

[20:51] That character is creepy bear.

[20:53] Creepy pedophile bear lover.

[20:56] Which I assume is what John Muir was, maybe.

[20:58] I don't know.

[20:59] Anyway.

[21:00] Just kidding.

[21:00] John Muir's a great man.

[21:01] Anyway, so...

[21:02] Long story short, the head of the bank calls off the police because they're corrupt.

[21:07] But that doesn't stop the federal police, represented by a tough, sexy lady, from getting into arguments with the state police.

[21:18] And at this point, we're introduced to the least interesting subplot of the movie, which is there's a corrupt policeman who's in conflict with this woman FBI type agent.

[21:28] This, the movie just forgets about for long periods of time.

Dan McCoy

[21:31] It would be better if it just wasn't there.

[21:32] To the most hilariously abrupt ending, too.

[21:34] Where they just all shoot each other.

[21:36] Yeah.

[21:37] There are certain things that happen in this movie that are genuinely...

Stuart Wellington

[21:40] And we don't see if any of them survive.

[21:41] We have to assume they all die.

[21:42] No, I think they're all dead.

Dan McCoy

[21:43] There are things in this movie that are genuinely shocking, and it's not necessarily that they're so inherently shocking.

[21:49] It's that you don't expect them out of this movie.

[21:51] The thing is, Australia is a dangerous place, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[21:54] Yeah, we all saw the Mad Max movies, and...

Stuart Wellington

[21:56] There's like spiders that'll kill you if they look at you wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[21:59] Wake and Fear.

Dan McCoy

[22:00] But I feel like most of the tone of this movie, like this movie might as well be...

[22:04] It's called Wake and Fear in my head.

[22:06] Wages of Wake and Fear.

[22:08] This movie might as well be like one step above the Apple Dumpling Gang for most of it.

Elliott Kalan

[22:12] But then every now and then a character will get his head blown off.

[22:14] Yeah.

[22:15] So, for instance, there's a couple of little mini quests that our heroes go on as they try to reach some drop-off point that John Cusack needs to go to, which is very poorly defined.

[22:25] And even after watching the movie, John Cusack keeps going, just gotta drive me where I need to go.

[22:29] I'm not sure where he ended up needing to go.

[22:30] Just to a boat somewhere?

[22:32] Like, I'm not sure.

[22:33] But they go to...

Stuart Wellington

[22:35] I think the journey is the real thing, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[22:36] Yeah, that's true.

[22:37] Each hard drive starts with a thousand miles on the speedometer.

[22:43] See, even now, I was like, why is he talking about hard drives?

[22:47] It's called Drive Hard.

[22:50] So the first of these mini-adventures is the tale of the wedding winery.

[22:55] They stop off at a winery where a lesbian wedding is gonna happen.

[22:58] We see a banner that's...

Stuart Wellington

[22:59] They have to stop because the muscle car they're driving turns out to be...

[23:03] It's overheated.

[23:04] Yeah, it's a junker.

Elliott Kalan

[23:04] Yeah, John Cusack at a certain point has switched out the driving school car they were in for a muscle car.

[23:11] He convinces Thomas Jane to keep driving him by shooting him several times with rubber bullets in the butt and the legs.

[23:19] That's what you sit on when you're in a car.

[23:21] Sure.

[23:21] That would impair his driving ability.

[23:23] Your butt.

[23:24] Well, the best drivers, it's really their glutes that are doing most of the work.

Dan McCoy

[23:28] Well, your leg, you also use that for a car.

Elliott Kalan

[23:31] Because what happens if he breaks his arms and he has to drive with his butt?

Dan McCoy

[23:34] Yeah, I guess you use pretty much all your body for driving.

[23:37] Not your tongue.

[23:38] Yeah.

[23:39] Well, your tongue.

[23:40] Your torso just sort of like...

[23:42] It's kind of like an intermediate part of the...

[23:45] I mean, it's engaged.

[23:46] You engage your core while you're driving.

[23:49] But it's not like you're on a yoga ball or anything while driving.

Elliott Kalan

[23:52] I mean, you could be.

[23:53] You could be a yoga ball car.

[23:54] Yeah, like in Richard Scarry's busy town, healthy place.

[23:58] We're all doing yoga.

[23:59] Like the yoga Flintstones.

Dan McCoy

[24:00] You're together rolling along while your little feet's going.

Elliott Kalan

[24:04] So the whole car is a yoga ball?

[24:06] Yeah, that's right.

Dan McCoy

[24:07] You're just sitting on a ball at that point.

[24:09] It's not a car.

Stuart Wellington

[24:10] Yeah.

[24:11] You can't hang a giant rack of ribs on the side of that ball.

[24:14] No, it'll fall right over.

[24:15] Yeah.

[24:16] So anyway...

[24:16] Fair enough.

Elliott Kalan

[24:18] I don't even know what we're talking about anymore.

[24:19] So the first...

Stuart Wellington

[24:20] Oh, they go to the winery.

Elliott Kalan

[24:21] The first adventure, they go to the winery.

[24:22] They say they're guests at this wedding that hasn't started yet.

[24:24] It's run by an old man and an old lady who bicker with each other.

Stuart Wellington

[24:28] Inconveniently own a muscle car.

Elliott Kalan

[24:30] Yes.

[24:31] They bicker with each other lewdly.

[24:33] They use a lot of swear words.

[24:34] The old lady sees on the TV...

[24:36] Everyone in the movie is all...

[24:37] Whether on the TV, the internet, the radio, whatever.

[24:40] They're always tuned into the news pertinent to the plot of the movie channel.

[24:44] Where they find out that the people they've just seen are robbers and go after them.

[24:48] So the old lady sees that there's a reward for these robbers and just starts shooting a handgun at them.

[24:53] Thomas Jane has a fist fight.

Stuart Wellington

[24:54] She didn't even see it was alive only.

[24:56] That she wouldn't get the reward if they were dead.

Elliott Kalan

[24:58] Yeah, yeah.

[24:59] She was just...

[25:00] Her eyes, she was blinded by dollar signs.

Stuart Wellington

[25:02] Sure.

[25:03] And blood rage.

[25:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:05] And she's swearing and shooting a gun and Thomas Jane has a fist fight with her.

[25:09] And here's...

[25:10] There's a...

[25:10] I'm going to come clean.

[25:12] There's a lot of jokes in this movie I enjoyed.

[25:13] One of them is John Cusack runs to the car and sits in it.

[25:16] And while Thomas Jane is struggling with this old lady, John Cusack's just honking the horn as if his friend is dawdling at the house that they're trying to leave.

[25:25] Thomas Jane is just wasting time.

[25:28] And so it's...

[25:29] He's fighting this old lady and John Cusack's just like, honk, honk, let's go, hurry it up.

[25:34] Like Thomas Jane forgot they needed to run away somewhere.

[25:36] Yeah.

[25:37] They escape after the old lady accidentally shoots her husband, thus ending the tale of the wedding winery.

[25:44] On to the next minisode.

Dan McCoy

[25:46] Please, Chaucer, tell us the next tale.

Elliott Kalan

[25:48] And then there was the tale of the gas station attendant.

[25:52] Gather ye round the fire, and as we go to Beckett's grave, I shall tell thee the tale.

[25:58] It seems our two heroic gentlemen, rogues though they may be, Thomas of Jane and Cusack of John,

[26:07] stopped at a petrol relief station so as to fuel their horseless carriage for the journey anon.

[26:16] The man at the station, of course, because his computer is set to a desktop screensaver of the current news,

[26:25] shows him that there is a reward for these two brigandist gentlemen.

[26:29] He takes out a pumped action shotgun and just starts shooting left and right.

[26:36] John Cusack sneaks around the back and puts his gun to the gas station attendant.

Stuart Wellington

[26:39] After the wackiest chase around the inside of this tiny little gas station.

Elliott Kalan

[26:43] There's literally like a pile of sacks in the middle of the room, and this guy is just chasing Thomas Jane around it.

[26:50] It's like a Bugs Bunny routine.

Stuart Wellington

[26:52] It's not that far off from the scene where Thunder is chasing the guy at the end of Big Trouble in Old China,

[26:58] where Thunder is chasing Wong back and forth and just stuff keeps flying out from the signs.

Elliott Kalan

[27:05] John Cusack shows up and says, hey buddy, just put the gun down.

[27:10] He puts his guns at the guy.

[27:11] The guy starts putting his pump action shotgun down and jostles it too much on the floor and it blows his head off.

[27:17] That was a moment, I think, that was the Christina Hendricks getting it in drive of the movie where I was like,

[27:22] whoa, I didn't expect that to happen so bloody.

Dan McCoy

[27:24] Yeah, well, because the cops get killed later on in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[27:28] But Oscar Isaac is okay, right?

[27:31] Nothing bad happens to him, right?

[27:33] Yeah, sure, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:35] I mean, imagine the scene where the kid gets his head blown off in Pulp Fiction.

[27:40] Or even Planet Terror?

[27:42] No, Pulp Fiction.

[27:43] That's not like a kid.

[27:43] Planet Terror is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

[27:45] That's like a young guy.

[27:45] Yeah, a young guy.

[27:46] But imagine the shock of that the first time you saw that, but in a movie, unlike Pulp Fiction,

[27:53] that hasn't been filled with violence up until that point.

Elliott Kalan

[27:55] Yeah, a movie that's been pretty, relatively bloodless.

[27:59] Yeah.

[27:59] This has been a, except for language.

[28:01] This is a PG-13 movie.

[28:03] And then a guy's head just gets blown off.

Dan McCoy

[28:06] As an accident, as a joke.

[28:08] Which is pretty great, honestly.

[28:10] Like, I did not expect it.

[28:11] Yeah.

[28:12] Yeah, it's out of tone.

Elliott Kalan

[28:14] Thomas Jane, everyone's all crazed about it.

[28:16] Thomas Jane calls his wife, has a couple of different phone calls with his wife that go,

[28:20] oh, there's a lot of fucking phone calls, dude.

[28:23] Thus ends the quest of the gas station.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:26] The quest of the doomed attendants.

[28:29] Now, there's a lot of-

Stuart Wellington

[28:30] I think somewhere in there we get to know, like, the villain, the head of the bank,

[28:34] who's also got another, like, evil crime boss that's, like, pressuring him to get the money back.

[28:39] We don't see what happens to him.

[28:40] And there's this funny scene where he's, you know, where we basically find out what the villain's motivations are,

[28:45] and the villain tries to entreat his boss to a drink.

[28:48] And he motions to two glasses of scotch that have already been poured and are sitting on his desk.

[28:54] Which is just a great little bit of set dress.

[28:56] Sorry, I love that shit.

Dan McCoy

[28:57] I love scotch from the night before, but I'm sure it's still good.

Elliott Kalan

[29:00] I mean, you don't need to put it in the fridge or anything.

[29:02] You don't just put out some ice nip.

[29:03] Just leave it out.

[29:04] Why not?

[29:04] It disinfects itself.

[29:06] That's the great thing about scotch.

[29:08] Your mouth is dirtier than those glasses are right now.

[29:11] There's also the scene earlier where I think it's that same boss is in a meeting,

[29:15] and he's just asking questions to this room full of people, and he's like,

[29:18] where's the double points?

[29:19] What's the SNP on this?

[29:21] Who's got the profit drive?

[29:24] And it's clear that-

Stuart Wellington

[29:25] We're an important business.

[29:26] Who's involved in this business?

Elliott Kalan

[29:28] Business stuff, money things.

[29:29] And you can tell that everyone in the room is an extra who is not being paid to say dialogue,

[29:34] so he's just barking out questions that nobody answers to make it look like a meeting is in progress.

Dan McCoy

[29:39] Yeah, but instead it makes it look like he's a madman.

[29:42] Like there are a bunch of psychologists who have been assembled to make a judgment on him.

Elliott Kalan

[29:46] They were his kidnap victims, and he has a bizarre fantasy about being the CEO of Kill Corps or something like that.

[29:54] You just sit there and smile.

[29:55] All right.

Stuart Wellington

[29:56] I thought it was-

[29:57] We work for you.

[29:58] We work for you.

[29:59] I thought it was Black Triple X Security.

Elliott Kalan

[30:01] It is.

[30:01] It's called Black Triple X Security, which sounds like a porn site that has a security arm.

Stuart Wellington

[30:07] Have Nightstick, we'll travel.

[30:10] Nightstick.

Dan McCoy

[30:11] Once you go security, you'll never go-

Elliott Kalan

[30:15] Hubberity.

[30:16] Yep.

[30:17] That's the saying, right?

[30:18] Yep.

[30:19] Just like Wesley Snipes in Bastard 57.

[30:22] Bastard 57.

[30:24] Bastard 57.

[30:25] Yeah.

[30:25] It's the story of the illegitimate child who founded the Heinz Ketchup Empire.

[30:32] Just like he said in Passenger 57, always bet on security.

[30:36] Always bet on tomatoes.

[30:38] Always bet on tomatoes mixed with vinegar.

Stuart Wellington

[30:41] Good things come to those who wait.

Elliott Kalan

[30:45] I'll see you in hell.

[30:47] Shoots them with ketchup.

[30:49] Yep.

[30:52] There's something dripping from the ceiling, and they go, is that ketchup?

[30:55] It's dripping too fast.

[30:56] That's blood.

[31:00] Could be watered down ketchup.

[31:02] No, no, it's blood.

[31:03] Trust me.

[31:03] Why would blood be dripping from here?

[31:05] Look, let's just investigate.

[31:06] Maybe there's a murder at 1600 or something.

[31:08] It could be.

Dan McCoy

[31:08] It starts just drinking it.

[31:09] Oh, it is ketchup.

[31:10] No.

Elliott Kalan

[31:13] Okay, so.

[31:14] So another great tangent.

[31:16] Wesley Snipes' ketchup rolls.

[31:18] Let's deal with that later.

Stuart Wellington

[31:20] Wait, he sells rolls with ketchup on them?

Elliott Kalan

[31:23] Put it in the big thing.

[31:23] Yeah, Wesley Snipes' ketchup rolls.

[31:25] They're Dutch potato rolls with ketchup in the middle.

[31:29] Oh, wow.

[31:29] That's delicious.

Elliott Kalan

[31:29] Yeah, they're, you know, it's, after the IRS heavily garnished his salary, because he

[31:35] also backsacks his ketchup.

[31:36] Garnished it with ketchup.

[31:37] He needed to find a business to stink some money into.

[31:40] And so he came up with Wesley Snipes' ketchup rolls.

[31:45] It all ties into his movie Blade, which is about a guy who uses a knife to break the vacuum

[31:50] seal on ketchup bottles so that it pours out better.

Dan McCoy

[31:52] Now, I spaced out, so maybe you, uh.

[31:56] Surface tension, I guess you'd call it.

[31:57] Maybe you covered this, but I assume these are like Cinnabon style.

Elliott Kalan

[32:01] Yeah, I covered this in my elaborate thesis.

[32:04] No, I don't even mean by Cinnabon style.

[32:06] It's a Dutch potato roll.

[32:07] Yeah, they're in all of it.

[32:08] In a pork in the middle.

Dan McCoy

[32:09] I thought it was like, you know.

[32:10] It's like a pork bond.

[32:11] The ketchup is rolled up.

[32:13] Oh, no, no, no.

[32:13] It's just injected in with a swirl.

Stuart Wellington

[32:15] Oh, you mean like a Swiss roll?

[32:16] Because a Cinnabon is completely different.

Dan McCoy

[32:19] I guess they pour most of the frosting over us.

[32:22] Hey guys, want to hear a stupid joke?

[32:23] Yeah, it's like a drizzle.

Elliott Kalan

[32:23] Want to hear a stupid joke?

[32:24] What's that?

[32:25] The name is Bon.

[32:27] Cinnabon.

[32:29] Doesn't get stupider than that.

Dan McCoy

[32:30] Does what it says on the label.

Elliott Kalan

[32:34] No more, no less.

[32:35] So, okay.

[32:36] There's a lot of phone conversations in this.

[32:38] Thomas Jane calls his wife and they argue, however, John Cusick has convinced Thomas Jane

[32:43] that his wife doesn't respect him and no one respects him because he gave up his career

[32:47] when she asked him to.

[32:48] And he needs to show his wife that he means business by being a bank robber, talking back

[32:52] or whatever.

[32:53] Every time John Cusick finishes a phone conversation, he throws the phone away and shoots it.

[32:57] Or he just fires his gun in that direction.

Stuart Wellington

[32:59] And this is kind of evidenced by the fact that his wife, who claimed to have made him quit

[33:02] because she was frightened for his safety, does not seem that concerned about his safety

[33:06] when it comes to robbing banks.

[33:08] She seems more annoyed.

Elliott Kalan

[33:09] Also, there's a scene where she's discovered that her husband is alleged as a bank robber

[33:14] and is still on the lam.

[33:15] He might be in danger.

[33:16] The cops are chasing.

[33:17] She takes her daughter off school and goes home and proceeds to make a salad.

[33:21] Now, is this the activity of a woman who's worried about her husband's life?

[33:24] I ask the jury, is this what a woman would do when worried that the man of her life is in

[33:30] danger?

Stuart Wellington

[33:31] Did you just affix your suspenders just then?

[33:33] I did, but I didn't have any, so I just pulled my shirt and it looked weird.

Dan McCoy

[33:37] She's slicing up a tomato.

[33:39] Maybe for ketchup, we don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[33:40] A tomato, yeah.

[33:41] Maybe she's trying to do a homemade Wesley Snipes ketchup roll.

Stuart Wellington

[33:45] Or drizzled on that salad she's making.

[33:49] Heinz ketchup's great on a salad.

[33:51] I've never heard of that before.

Elliott Kalan

[33:54] That's even worse than the family I grew up with, a friend who his family used to put

[33:58] ketchup on spaghetti.

Dan McCoy

[34:00] I mean, Thousand Island dressing, that's basically just...

[34:03] White ketchup?

[34:04] That's ketchup and what?

[34:05] Like mayo and...

[34:06] And secret spices?

[34:09] And relish.

[34:09] Oh, relish.

[34:10] And thousands of islands.

[34:11] So basically, you're just putting what you would put on a hamburger, like glooping that

[34:15] all over your salad.

[34:16] Maynays on a hamburger?

[34:18] Yeah.

[34:19] A lot of people do that if you're wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[34:20] Yeah, they do it in Europe, Elliot, and they're way advanced and stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[34:23] I forgot.

[34:25] That's where history comes from.

[34:26] Their attitude towards nudity and hamburgers is so far advanced, so sophisticated compared to

[34:31] America.

[34:32] So, anywho, did we mention this movie in Australia?

[34:35] I don't know if we ever mentioned that.

[34:37] Sometimes the movie seems to forget that.

[34:38] Considering Thomas Jane and John Cusack are the stars, Thomas Jane, despite having done

[34:42] an Australian accent in other movies, does not bother with one in this.

[34:46] He's an American.

[34:47] And...

[34:47] They cover that.

[34:49] But everything about the movie, it's like...

Stuart Wellington

[34:50] His kind of strange daughter is also American.

Elliott Kalan

[34:54] Yeah.

[34:54] Well, she's half American.

[34:55] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[34:56] Or ha-merican.

[34:57] I think, yeah, and I think American comes from the father's side.

Elliott Kalan

[34:59] Yeah.

[35:00] Now, let's mention a couple scenes.

[35:01] What were you going to say, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[35:02] I was just going to say, the reason this is in Australia, though, is it's directed by

[35:05] Brian Trenchard-Smith, who directed a previous recommendation of mine, Dead End Drive-In,

[35:12] which I really loved.

[35:14] I just sort of randomly chose to watch it on Netflix because I liked other Ozploitation

[35:18] movies.

[35:19] But this guy has been in the business for a long time.

[35:22] He also did BMX Bandits.

[35:24] He did...

[35:24] Oh, shit.

[35:26] I forget the other one.

Elliott Kalan

[35:27] I think he did Omega Code 3.

[35:29] Did he?

[35:29] I believe so.

[35:30] He did a couple of the Leprechaun movies.

[35:31] Is Casper Van Dien in that?

[35:32] He did Leprechaun 3.

[35:34] Casper the Friendly Ghost Van Dien, I think.

[35:36] Yeah.

[35:36] He's a fun director.

[35:36] He died?

Dan McCoy

[35:37] But he's very friendly.

[35:39] He seems to have fallen upon hard times based on the budget for this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[35:44] He's never really worked that far above a certain type of budget that I know of.

[35:47] I mean, he is...

[35:48] This is a guy who's made his living, I assume, for like 40-some odd years.

[35:51] I mean, he did like Stunt Rock, I think.

[35:53] He did a lot of low-budget movies.

[35:56] So I don't think this was him being like, oh, once I was at the top, and now this, you

[36:00] know.

Dan McCoy

[36:02] I mean...

[36:02] Yep.

[36:03] I mean, he was a young guy back then, but Dead End Drive-In is like...

[36:06] Has a lot of...

[36:06] It's like a beautifully shot movie in a way that this...

[36:09] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[36:09] Well, I mean, he was working with a different cinematographer then, probably.

[36:12] Yeah.

[36:13] Unless they brought the whole Dead End Drive-In team.

[36:15] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:15] I think I looked up that guy.

[36:16] I think he went on to work with Christopher Nolan later, so he was like a good cinematographer.

[36:19] That's moving up.

Elliott Kalan

[36:20] But anyway.

[36:21] Moving on up.

[36:23] To the deluxe Batman movies.

Stuart Wellington

[36:25] Because Danny, if that's moving up, then I'm moving up.

[36:29] Do-do-do-do-do.

Elliott Kalan

[36:30] Wait, did you say that?

[36:31] I'm moving up.

Dan McCoy

[36:33] That's not how the song goes.

[36:36] Moving up.

[36:37] All of a sudden, we learned that this has all been a backdoor pilot for Stuart being in

[36:42] that Billy Joel musical.

[36:44] I guess it was moving out.

[36:45] Moving out.

Elliott Kalan

[36:45] Yeah.

[36:46] Because the name of the song is moving out and not moving up.

[36:49] A bottle of red.

[36:51] A bottle of wine.

[36:52] A bottle of ketchup.

[36:54] A bottle of mustard.

[36:56] You can have anything you want in our diner restaurant.

Stuart Wellington

[37:00] Oh, boy.

[37:01] This is Stuart's.

[37:02] Don't cheapen my joke.

Elliott Kalan

[37:03] Stuart's musical, Moving Up, which is, he changed Billy Joel's songs just enough not to get sued.

[37:09] Yep, Willie Joel.

[37:10] We didn't start a thingy.

[37:13] I don't know what it was.

[37:14] Don't sue me.

[37:15] You can't.

[37:17] In the middle of the evening.

[37:18] That's a lot of changes right there.

Dan McCoy

[37:19] I go walking while I'm dozing.

Elliott Kalan

[37:25] Oh, man.

[37:27] Now I'm just thinking Billy Joel songs.

[37:30] So.

[37:31] Come on, the up western Alexa.

[37:34] Anyway.

[37:35] So there's a.

[37:36] So John Cusack has a scene where he calls up the head of the bank for no reason other than to taunt him and tell him his wife is terrible.

[37:42] But he had sex with her anyway and he didn't like it.

[37:44] Yeah.

[37:44] He's just really mean.

[37:46] And it's one of.

[37:48] It's one of any pointless phone calls in the movie.

[37:50] Leading us all to the final of the minisodes.

[37:54] The tale of the beat up bikers.

[37:58] Oh, yeah.

[37:58] That was great.

[37:59] It's a team of bikers are briefly hired by the bank to follow them.

[38:02] They have a low speed engagement.

[38:05] Like 10 miles an hour.

Stuart Wellington

[38:06] Involves.

[38:07] I think some swearing maybe.

[38:08] They swear.

[38:09] And some aggressive driving.

Elliott Kalan

[38:10] Thomas Jane changes gears and drives around them.

[38:14] Stops at a hotel for a drink.

[38:16] The bikers show up.

[38:18] And John Cusack.

[38:19] It's one of those things where John Cusack pulls a gun.

[38:21] Thomas Jane is in a fist fight.

Stuart Wellington

[38:23] Even before that, there's a moment where Thomas Jane is having an interaction with the bikers.

[38:28] And yet again, he's talking to them.

[38:29] And instead of actually responding to him, they just shake their heads or nod their heads.

Elliott Kalan

[38:35] They don't have a lot of.

[38:36] They can't say lines.

[38:37] They can't do lines.

[38:38] They start firing at the ground, making Thomas Jane jump in the air.

[38:42] It's very Pee Wee Harmony.

[38:43] And then it's one of those types.

[38:45] And then it gets into a fist fight where someone holds Thomas Jane.

[38:48] A woman biker goes to punch him.

[38:49] He moves his head and she accidentally punches the guy holding him.

[38:52] And the guy holding him isn't like, you didn't mean to hit me.

[38:55] You meant to hit Thomas Jane.

[38:56] I saw what happened.

Dan McCoy

[38:57] If he was a reasonable man, he wouldn't be in this biker game.

Elliott Kalan

[38:59] We're all on the same team here.

[39:01] That's why we're wearing jackets with the same logo on the back.

[39:03] We're all part of the Queensland Skull folks.

[39:06] Look, we're all on the same team.

[39:08] Instead, he's the-

[39:09] The Sunshine State?

[39:10] Queensland?

[39:10] Queensland, which as a license plate tells us, is the Sunshine State,

[39:13] which is bullshit.

[39:14] There's one Sunshine State.

[39:16] It's called Flo Rida.

[39:18] And it's a rapper.

[39:19] Wow.

[39:20] Yeah.

[39:20] It does that song about the boots with the fur.

[39:23] Oh, okay.

[39:23] And that's all I know.

[39:24] I like that one.

Stuart Wellington

[39:25] Yeah, you sure do.

[39:26] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[39:27] It briefly almost-

[39:28] Makes me get low.

[39:28] Like it almost turns-

[39:30] Low, low, low, low?

[39:31] Yep.

[39:31] It almost turns in-

[39:32] I'm getting low.

[39:34] Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

[39:38] We all have a low.

[39:41] Some is higher, some is lower.

[39:43] Did you ever sue a guy who sang a song so different from yours?

[39:48] Don't sue me now, Billy Joel.

[39:50] I changed a lot of the song.

Dan McCoy

[39:53] Only the good guys are young.

[39:55] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[39:58] Do, do, do, do, do.

[40:00] Bop, bop, bop.

[40:00] Only good guys are young.

[40:03] Only good guys are young.

Elliott Kalan

[40:05] Bad guys are old and only good guys are young.

Stuart Wellington

[40:10] Mr. Miyagi down on Mulligan Street.

Dan McCoy

[40:18] Billy Joel said, I'm looking into legal action.

Elliott Kalan

[40:22] Who remembers where it all can ban?

[40:25] Out there in some guy's place.

Dan McCoy

[40:28] It's no man's land.

[40:30] By the way, I was wrong about the cinematographer,

[40:33] but the guy who wrote Dead and Drive-In is Peter Carey,

[40:37] the novelist who wrote Oscar and Lucinda, among other things.

[40:39] Oh, okay.

[40:40] I never saw that.

[40:41] I know there's two people in it named Oscar and Lucinda.

Elliott Kalan

[40:44] Whoa, you had to be a great shot, did ya?

[40:48] Shooting things really great.

[40:50] You had to be a great shot, oh yeah.

[40:54] Shooting up the robots, oh yeah.

[40:56] Yeah, yeah.

[40:57] Don't shoot those robots.

[41:01] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[41:02] Billy Joel.

[41:03] So bikers.

[41:04] Anyway, the bikers.

[41:05] So we get into a real fracas.

[41:06] We get one of these.

[41:07] It's all rocking chairs to me.

[41:09] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[41:10] Just had to get one.

[41:11] Everybody's talking about those new chairs, buddy,

[41:14] but I'll tell you, rocking chairs to me.

Dan McCoy

[41:17] Oh boy.

[41:18] What other Billy Joel songs are there?

Elliott Kalan

[41:23] Admiral Trips will get you high tonight.

[41:27] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[41:28] Yeah.

[41:29] Anyway.

[41:29] You have a surprisingly deep knowledge of Billy Joel songs.

[41:32] I grew up in New Jersey.

Elliott Kalan

[41:33] My parents listened to a lot of Billy Joel songs.

[41:35] I was trying to think of one off of Pressure,

[41:37] but I'm having trouble.

Stuart Wellington

[41:38] My dad was big on the Simply Red.

[41:40] I'm just remembering.

[41:41] Simply Red and Steely Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[41:43] My family has been on Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen,

[41:47] but not Bon Jovi.

[41:48] We weren't that type of New Jersey.

[41:50] Sure.

[41:51] I mean, Billy Joel is really a Long Island musician.

[41:54] New Jersey claims him somewhat,

[41:56] but he's a Long Island musician.

[41:58] We're living here in Albert Town.

[42:01] We're living here in Allen's town.

[42:04] Allen owns it and he lets us live here.

[42:07] Oh, wow.

Dan McCoy

[42:08] I'm glad he specifies.

Elliott Kalan

[42:10] It's a different song.

[42:12] Different song with William Joel.

Dan McCoy

[42:14] Are we done with the synopsis yet?

[42:16] No, we're not done.

[42:17] We're still fighting bikers.

Elliott Kalan

[42:19] There's this biker fight that almost turns into-

Dan McCoy

[42:21] With biker mice from Mars?

Elliott Kalan

[42:22] No, no cowboys from Mesa.

[42:25] None of them.

[42:25] No street sharks.

[42:26] Leather goddesses of Phobos?

[42:27] No, no Hollywood chainsaw hookers.

[42:30] All right.

Stuart Wellington

[42:31] Is there a bowl of Rama possibly filled with bimbos?

Elliott Kalan

[42:34] With a slime ball?

[42:35] Wait, sorority babes?

[42:37] Oh, yeah, sorority babes in a slime ball.

Stuart Wellington

[42:38] Wait a minute.

[42:39] I saw a different movie.

Elliott Kalan

[42:40] What's that Rollerbladers movie?

Dan McCoy

[42:43] Rollerbabies?

Elliott Kalan

[42:44] No, that's-

[42:45] That's Solar Babies.

[42:46] Rollerbabies probably would have been a better name.

[42:49] There's like the Rollerblade 7 or something.

[42:51] Airborne?

[42:52] No, Air Bud.

[42:53] That's what they-

[42:53] Well, Airborne is a rollerblading movie.

[42:55] Oh, Joanna Man.

[42:57] That's what I'm thinking of.

[42:59] So, this almost turns into a kind of Hal Needham bar fight scene where everybody's punching

[43:04] everybody until John Cusack comes in with his guns.

[43:07] The bikers pull out-

[43:08] Oblazen.

[43:09] The bikers pull out their guns.

[43:11] John Cusack and Thomas Jane hide behind the bar and the bikers take that as the cue to

[43:14] leave because the scene has to be over.

[43:16] Let's go, everybody.

Dan McCoy

[43:18] And it feels like-

[43:20] Actually, one of the bikers gets a phone call and they get distracted and they walk off.

Stuart Wellington

[43:23] I expect a fucking whistle to blow and it'd be like quitting time.

Elliott Kalan

[43:26] It's one of those old sheepdog and wolf cartoons from Looney Tunes.

[43:30] They're at each other's throats and they're-

[43:32] See you tomorrow, Frank.

[43:34] See you tomorrow, Ralph.

Stuart Wellington

[43:35] Time to go back to that gas station and eat one of those meat pies that look so good.

Elliott Kalan

[43:39] This did look good.

[43:40] They were some big meat pies.

[43:41] Michael Maltese with the gags.

[43:43] I don't know if that's him.

[43:45] It might have been.

[43:45] Yeah.

[43:46] I mean, he did a lot of those gags.

[43:47] They called him the Maltese Falcon.

[43:49] Did they?

[43:49] No.

[43:50] All right.

[43:50] Why would they call him that?

[43:52] He's not a bird.

[43:56] So the, but it is, it is, there are many scenes where it feels like the movie ran out of money for that scene.

[44:01] So it just ends.

[44:02] That's one of them.

[44:03] The bikers, maybe they planned a big shootout and it's like, just realized that John Cusack is doing overtime right now.

Stuart Wellington

[44:10] Yeah, there's going to be a bunch of like, like the bikers start getting shot.

[44:13] One of them hides behind the pool table and somebody else is like, don't you fucking die on me, man.

Elliott Kalan

[44:18] Someone shoots the billiard balls back and they all get knocked into the holes.

[44:21] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[44:21] It's like a raid sort of situation where they, you know, they get, it's like, it's all about the environment and somebody pulls out a machete.

[44:29] Oh, I thought you meant a raid situation.

[44:30] Cause like cockroaches start running around going, raid.

[44:34] And then someone sprays them.

[44:35] Yep.

[44:36] That would be the most, that would make it more like life less ordinary.

Elliott Kalan

[44:40] Yeah.

[44:40] This movie, it was around this time that I think Stuart, you were mentioning it, but this felt like, like a nineties movie where people are just running around shooting each other.

[44:48] Like basically this is a life ordinary life.

[44:50] Yeah.

[44:51] A life somewhat ordinary.

[44:53] Uh, the, so let's just cut to the chase, which the movie rarely does for a movie called drive hard.

[44:59] Very little chasing in it.

[45:01] Uh, they end up at a Marina.

[45:03] The good guys defeat the bad guys.

Stuart Wellington

[45:05] Don't worry.

[45:05] I think it's been rented out for the weekend so they can do whatever they want.

Elliott Kalan

[45:09] As long as they clean up after themselves.

[45:11] Yeah.

[45:11] And it's one of those fight scenes where John Cusack has chained up the main bad guy and is just babbling some story about a monastery to him.

[45:19] Well, Thomas Jane drives around while a guy chases him just shooting in the air wildly.

[45:24] Chases him on foot.

[45:26] Yeah.

[45:26] That's right.

[45:27] On foot.

[45:27] Well, and then Thomas Jane eventually just kind of like.

[45:29] Bust a car.

[45:29] Just bumps him with the car and knocks him down.

Stuart Wellington

[45:31] Yeah.

[45:32] The, the, the, the bad guys hired goons are basically like kids at a laser tag arena.

[45:37] Just running around blasting indiscriminately.

[45:40] Uh.

[45:41] While Thomas Jane like circles around like a fucking shark.

Elliott Kalan

[45:43] The good cops and the bad cops meet up on a, on a abandoned road and shoot each other.

[45:48] Never to be found.

Dan McCoy

[45:49] Yeah, they have a Mexican standoff that ends in them just like shooting simultaneously.

[45:52] Which was also kind of hilarious because like this has been a major, uh, like subplot for the entire movie.

[45:59] And it's just like, oh, we got some extra characters that we just, I, we don't know what to do with.

[46:03] So just, we'll get rid of them.

[46:04] I guess they'll feed the dingoes.

[46:06] We got extraneous stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[46:09] The, and we could cut their scenes from the movie.

[46:11] No, leave it in.

[46:13] Even though it never really intersects with the main plot.

[46:16] Just deal with it.

[46:17] Uh, they beat the bad guys and Thomas Jane lets John Cusack go.

[46:22] John Cusack handcuffs him to the car and beats him up to make it look like he was a hostage the whole time.

[46:26] Even though by now they become friends.

[46:29] And Thomas Jane has, Jane had chosen to continue the mission in order to impress his wife with his badassery.

Stuart Wellington

[46:34] They're not as close as Charlie Sheen and Christy Swanson in The Chase.

[46:38] No.

[46:39] Because in that movie those characters have sex.

Elliott Kalan

[46:41] Yeah.

[46:42] Maybe they had sex off camera.

Dan McCoy

[46:44] Well, that would have been.

[46:44] Charlie Sheen is driving.

Stuart Wellington

[46:45] Yeah.

[46:46] It's really great.

[46:47] And they're not as close as Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin.

[46:49] While being chased by Henry Rollins and two of the red hot chili peppers.

[46:53] I guess.

[46:53] Pick any two.

[46:54] Yeah.

[46:54] A jalapeno, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[46:59] Yeah.

[47:00] Ghost and jalapeno.

[47:01] Two of the peppers.

[47:02] The, uh, and they're not as close as Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin at the end of Midnight Run.

[47:06] No.

[47:07] Did they have sex?

Dan McCoy

[47:08] Yes.

[47:08] They're not as close as John.

[47:09] It was very loving.

Elliott Kalan

[47:10] As Steve Martin and John Goodman in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles who don't have sex, but one of them puts their hand in the other one's butt.

Dan McCoy

[47:15] Yeah.

[47:16] And they share Thanksgiving together.

Elliott Kalan

[47:18] It's implied.

[47:19] We don't know that John Goodman actually, John, that, uh, John Candy.

[47:23] Sorry, not John Goodman.

[47:23] John Candy.

[47:24] We know that John Candy actually sticks around.

[47:26] He's just at the door crying to himself.

[47:28] Oh, my wife died.

[47:29] Oh, I'm annoying.

[47:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:31] And Steve Martin's wife is like, you get that, uh, you get that shower ring salesman out of here.

[47:36] You get Uncle Buck the fuck out of our house.

[47:39] Yep.

[47:40] He came in with a drill.

[47:42] He drilled the door open.

[47:44] I forgot he was.

[47:44] Who does that on Thanksgiving?

[47:46] I forgot he was a shower ring salesman.

[47:48] Yeah.

[47:49] Yeah, he makes money for them by selling the shower rings as earrings.

[47:52] Ah, that's true, right?

[47:53] The old earring showering grift.

Elliott Kalan

[47:57] Oldest trick in the book.

Stuart Wellington

[47:58] So they're not as close as the little kid and Ed O'Neill at the end of Dutch?

Elliott Kalan

[48:02] Not, well, I mean, that's literally his stepdad, I think, so, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:06] They don't have sex in that, either.

[48:07] No!

Elliott Kalan

[48:08] But they do look at nudie playing cards, and at one point, the boy falls asleep with his face on a girl's boob.

[48:14] Mm-hmm.

[48:15] That's where, uh.

Dan McCoy

[48:15] Sounds like a great adventure they had together.

Elliott Kalan

[48:18] Nope, not until the end when they went to Great Adventure, a Six Flags theme park.

Stuart Wellington

[48:22] Very specifically, not Wally World, as that would be.

[48:26] No, but also has John Candy in it.

[48:29] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[48:29] So we're back around.

[48:31] Anyway, in the end, everybody's happy.

[48:33] Thomas Jane turns down John Cusack's offer of money.

[48:36] Thomas Jane becomes.

[48:36] He doesn't need it anymore.

[48:37] He becomes a local hero.

[48:39] Mm-hmm.

[48:40] Because that's a movie set in that part of the world.

[48:42] He becomes a local hero and gets sponsorship money to become a race car driver again.

[48:46] His wife now respects him and has sex with him again because he's now a badass.

[48:50] And doesn't cut his hair, though.

[48:52] And the movie just kind of keeps going.

[48:53] And the same reporter that we've seen reporting the story throughout the film, because she's

[48:57] on call 24 hours a day, wraps up the tale.

[49:01] The tale, I drive hard.

Stuart Wellington

[49:03] Speaking of tales, the end of the movie ends with a shot of race cars driving around a track,

[49:08] which is the opening shot of the movie.

[49:10] So it's like a full circle.

[49:11] Yeah.

[49:12] Yeah.

[49:13] It's like how life is a circle of us running around in circles on a track.

Elliott Kalan

[49:18] Okay.

[49:19] That's a weird metaphor.

Stuart Wellington

[49:21] If only it could be less ordinary and somebody could be claymation or something.

Dan McCoy

[49:28] So we started late and we're going along.

[49:31] This movie, was it a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked?

[49:36] I'm going to go first.

[49:37] This is between good, bad in the scenes that don't have Cusack and Thomas Jane and movie

[49:44] I kind of liked in the scenes that had both of them.

[49:47] Because the funny thing to me is like Thomas Jane is supposed to be the straight-laced normal

[49:52] hero.

[49:53] And I feel like he walked onto set, saw John Cusack, and he's like, oh, you're going to

[49:57] play it that way?

[49:58] Well, I'm going to ham it up too.

[50:00] I'm going to out-ham you, even though I'm supposed to be the normal one in this situation.

Elliott Kalan

[50:04] And John Cusack was like, you out-ham me, get me a vape smoker.

Dan McCoy

[50:08] So I really, there seems to be that.

Stuart Wellington

[50:11] They only had enough money for one e-cigarette in the budget.

[50:16] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Elliott Kalan

[50:16] I'm with Dan.

[50:17] I actually am just going to give it a full-force movie.

[50:19] I kind of liked the stuff.

[50:20] Like you were saying, when John Cusack and Thomas Jane were not on camera, it was very

[50:24] boring.

[50:25] But there's not, those, I mean, for the most part, it's them just kind of improvising scenes

[50:30] for the most part with each other.

[50:31] We're just like treating the script as cavalierly as possible and hamming it up as much as possible.

[50:36] The scene where John Cusack is trying to get his seatbelt out and just can't do it while

[50:40] they're driving is so goofy.

[50:42] And it really-

Dan McCoy

[50:43] It goes on and on.

[50:45] It's the same gag of him not being able to put his seatbelt on.

Elliott Kalan

[50:47] It really does feel like they said, you know what?

[50:52] Why are we taking this movie seriously?

[50:53] Come on.

[50:53] Let's just do this thing.

[50:55] Yeah, we're on vacation in Australia.

[50:56] It's the first time I've seen John Cusack in a movie in years where it looks like he's

[50:59] enjoying himself at all.

[51:01] Like, and he's not being super creepy or serious or something.

Stuart Wellington

[51:04] You guys, I'm going to blow your mind because I totally agree with both of you.

Elliott Kalan

[51:10] Hey!

[51:11] We're going to Australia!

[51:13] What?

Stuart Wellington

[51:14] Dave Josh does two days to get to Australia, which is okay.

Elliott Kalan

[51:18] It's like a 24-hour flight.

[51:19] They can make it.

[51:21] Okay, well-

[51:22] So, but yeah, this was-

[51:24] I've had good luck in the past with movies from Australia, and I had it again.

Stuart Wellington

[51:28] Yeah.

[51:28] It was just the moment when the-

[51:29] Thanks, you goofy comment.

[51:31] When Thomas Jane got into the car with John Cusack, I think the three of us looked at each

[51:36] other and were like, this is going to be good.

[51:39] Also, when we saw that it was a 99 cent rental.

[51:42] That's the other thing.

[51:43] The unreleased in theaters movie was a 99 cent rental.

Dan McCoy

[51:47] You read something from Amazon-

[51:49] Usually it's 3.99 minimum.

[51:51] Usually HD, yeah.

[51:52] That's SD.

[51:53] Yeah, it said-

[51:53] It's 4.99.

[51:54] This was 99 cents.

[51:56] Both.

[51:56] HD and SD.

Elliott Kalan

[51:57] I think SD, they're just giving it away.

[51:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:59] SD, I said plus 99 cents.

Elliott Kalan

[52:02] We're going to credit your account 99 cents for watching this.

[52:05] So, I would say best Flophouse value, certainly.

[52:08] Oh, yeah.

[52:09] Of course.

Stuart Wellington

[52:09] So, use that 99 cents to buy, I don't know, fishing lures or something?

[52:13] Consumer Reports?

Elliott Kalan

[52:14] This is a movie that's a mix of low-budget ingenuity and not giving a shit.

[52:17] There's a scene where a car flips over because of an explosion and you can totally see the jack underneath the car that makes it flip.

[52:24] And there's something beautiful in that.

[52:28] Again, there's no thrills to this movie.

[52:30] As a heist movie and an action movie, it is terrible.

[52:34] But as a movie where Thomas Jane and John Cusack hang around in a car-

Stuart Wellington

[52:37] Where they hired a biker gang to drive around a car and then that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[52:42] I mean, you could recut this movie, make it 60 minutes long, and it would be essentially the trip, but with John Cusack and Thomas Jane instead of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, and it would be a much better movie.

Dan McCoy

[52:54] Yeah.

[52:55] So, five stars.

[52:57] Best of the year.

Elliott Kalan

[52:58] Oh, 500 stars.

[52:59] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:00] So, let's move on to letters from listeners.

Elliott Kalan

[53:03] Better than Fury Road, says Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[53:05] Yeah.

[53:07] The best thing to come out of Australia, full stop.

[53:11] That's what I said.

[53:13] Do we have any sponsors or anything tonight?

[53:14] No, not tonight.

[53:15] I know you like that sweet cheddar.

[53:17] I do.

Elliott Kalan

[53:18] Well, I like mild cheddar.

[53:20] No, I'm not a sweet cheddar, yeah.

[53:21] Like honey baked into the cows or something, so the milk comes out sweet.

[53:25] Well, you don't bake into a cow.

[53:27] Next thing you told me, you can't get a roll with some ketchup in the middle.

[53:32] So, it's letters time.

[53:34] There you go.

[53:36] We're running late.

[53:37] Let's do it, people.

[53:38] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[53:38] First letters from David Lasting.

Elliott Kalan

[53:39] I come from a letter down under.

Dan McCoy

[53:42] He writes to it.

[53:43] Where words write N, people write letters.

[53:45] You're flopped mic.

Elliott Kalan

[53:46] Can you hear, can you hear, can you hear the letters?

[53:49] In a big letter.

[53:51] It's not even trying.

[53:51] Letters stay with you like the melting sun on a mountain thing.

Dan McCoy

[53:58] Stay awake.

[54:01] Sorry.

[54:02] What's another song in Australia?

Stuart Wellington

[54:02] Because our beds are letters.

[54:06] Wait, which ones did you sing?

Elliott Kalan

[54:07] Big Country and Land Down Under.

Stuart Wellington

[54:12] I just did Midnight Oil.

[54:13] Oh, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[54:14] So, what other ones are there?

[54:15] Oh, Jesus.

[54:16] You can letter if you want to.

[54:18] You can write us all a letter.

[54:20] Because your friends don't, I don't know if they're Australian.

[54:21] Australian?

[54:22] I don't even know.

[54:22] I know they don't have hats.

[54:24] Yeah.

[54:24] Which you would need in Australia because the hot sun rejects down on your head.

[54:26] Hatless.

[54:28] Repeat.

[54:29] Hatless.

[54:30] Is that the Simpsons?

[54:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:34] So, this is from...

[54:35] This goes like this.

[54:36] Dear Flopmeisters.

[54:38] Working my way slowly through the back catalog...

[54:39] Flopmeisters.

[54:41] Provides a nice context to understand...

[54:42] Master Flopmeisters since 1647.

[54:45] To understand the intangible chemistry that makes the original Peaches work so well together.

[54:50] Like Rock, Paper, and Scissors.

[54:52] The Three Stooges.

[54:53] The Holy Trinity of Star Wars movies.

[54:55] The Marx Brothers, not counting Zeppo.

[54:57] The Three Musketeers, etc.

[54:59] Or Gummo.

[55:00] The sum is greater than its parts.

[55:02] Which brings me to my main question.

[55:04] Who would be the best like-for-like replacement host?

[55:07] I could see comic and movie fan Patton Oswalt as super talkative and name-dropping Manic

[55:12] Pixie stand-in for Elliot.

[55:14] We all know that Stuart has a switch-the-cours-for-dope doppelganger in Seth Rogen.

[55:19] Sorry, Stu.

[55:20] Even Dad, the pot...

[55:21] Dan, the pot-o-maker, has to take a break.

[55:24] That's not his name.

[55:28] I'm trying to get through this before you interrupt me.

Elliott Kalan

[55:31] Oh, drab, I guess.

[55:33] If there's one sound humans can make that you should know how to make, it is the one that

[55:39] denotes you.

[55:41] Me, drab McBoy.

Dan McCoy

[55:43] Even Dan, the pot-o-maker, has to take a break sometimes.

Elliott Kalan

[55:47] What's a pot-o-maker?

[55:48] Pod POD?

[55:49] Yeah.

[55:49] Oh, like podcast.

Dan McCoy

[55:50] Yeah.

[55:51] If only there was someone with basic digital audio skills and a mournful sigh.

Elliott Kalan

[55:57] Yeah, DJ Eeyore.

[55:59] The Electronica donkey.

Dan McCoy

[56:01] Down with OPP, David Lastname withheld.

[56:03] I feel like we should suggest replacements for each other rather than for ourselves.

Stuart Wellington

[56:11] Well, I thought Jordan Morris from Jordan Jesse Go was a lovely Elliot stand-in.

Dan McCoy

[56:17] He did a very good job.

[56:18] He doesn't have Elliot-smatic energy.

Elliott Kalan

[56:20] He's not as irritating as I am.

[56:22] That's true, he isn't.

[56:23] He brings a level of professionalism that I refuse to work towards.

[56:26] Yeah, a level of non-interrupting-ness.

[56:29] For Stuart, I think I would suggest one of those Easter Island heads.

[56:34] Okay.

[56:35] Handsome.

[56:36] He doesn't say as much as you'd like.

[56:37] Okay.

[56:39] And for Dan, I guess you should have done Stuart.

[56:43] You know, you do Stuart.

[56:44] Forget it.

Stuart Wellington

[56:45] Yeah, to me.

[56:46] To me, Dan.

[56:48] George Lazenby.

[56:50] Oh, interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[56:51] And for Dan, I'm going to say Rhea Perlman.

[56:56] Thanks.

Dan McCoy

[56:57] I think of myself as sort of a sassy Italian-American sort of character.

[57:01] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[57:02] So we'd all be actors from Cheers.

[57:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:09] Cheers with an Easter Island head.

Elliott Kalan

[57:10] And Jordan Morris.

[57:14] Great casting.

[57:15] So almost nobody from Cheers.

Stuart Wellington

[57:19] Almost nobody from Cheers.

[57:21] That's going to be on Rhea Perlman's Tombstone.

Elliott Kalan

[57:25] But I also just love that.

[57:27] Yeah, well, Rhea Perlman's grave will have almost nobody from Cheers in it.

[57:30] Just get it one person.

Dan McCoy

[57:32] But I love that as a description of anything.

[57:35] We can't do partial people.

[57:37] You see, like, a Broadway musical it's advertised as starring almost nobody from Cheers.

[57:43] But it means there's got to be someone from Cheers in it.

[57:46] It's the guy who played Paul.

[57:48] He's in it.

[57:49] Paul?

[57:50] The guy who barely said anything.

[57:55] He was Cliff's friend.

[57:59] Cliff didn't have any friends.

[58:00] He was one of the barflies.

[58:02] Maybe Cliff did have friends.

[58:05] We all have friends, Elliot.

[58:06] Yeah.

[58:06] Even though sometimes we don't feel like we do.

[58:09] You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Elliott Kalan

[58:11] Yeah.

[58:12] Because sometimes you don't know your name.

[58:14] And you think your name is, what was it?

[58:15] Dab?

[58:16] Yeah.

[58:16] Dad?

Dan McCoy

[58:17] I said Dad.

Elliott Kalan

[58:19] That is some psychological Freudian shit right there.

Dan McCoy

[58:25] So this is titled, Letter from the Grave.

[58:28] Huh?

[58:29] Dear Elliot, Dan, Halley, and Stuart, in order of who's most least culpable for my death.

[58:34] Well, Halley's the star.

[58:36] I ignored the first hard ask Elliot made for us to become MaxFun members, quote, right

[58:42] now.

[58:42] Because I thought, surely, he didn't mean right now.

[58:45] You were wrong.

[58:46] By the second demand, it became clear that Elliot did mean right now.

[58:49] And Dan seemed to back this up.

[58:51] So I went to the MaxFun website right now.

[58:54] And my car's in the Hudson and I'm dead now.

[58:56] Are you satisfied?

[58:57] You will be hearing from my ghost attorney.

[58:59] Hauntingly yours.

[59:00] Remy, last name provided because I'm dead now.

[59:02] What harm can it do?

[59:03] May settle.

[59:04] Of course, it's our pal Remy.

[59:06] Yeah.

[59:07] Who shows up.

[59:08] I guess it's a ghost now.

Elliott Kalan

[59:10] Yeah.

[59:10] She's a diehard Flophouse fan in that she's dead now.

[59:14] She died hard driving hard.

Dan McCoy

[59:16] What were we saying?

[59:17] The sexiest things are the things that you can't see?

Stuart Wellington

[59:19] What?

[59:20] You can't see?

Dan McCoy

[59:22] So you and Casper can get together is what I'm saying.

[59:24] Oh, okay.

[59:25] I thought you were saying.

Elliott Kalan

[59:26] She's an adult.

[59:28] Casper's still a kid.

[59:30] Casper will never.

[59:32] Casper's still a little boy.

Stuart Wellington

[59:34] It's later than when we talked.

[59:36] A little boy.

[59:36] Does he have legs or is he like a not me?

Elliott Kalan

[59:39] No, no.

[59:39] He has legs.

[59:40] It's those other ghosts that don't have legs.

[59:42] He doesn't age because he's a ghost.

[59:43] He's like a stock clock.

[59:45] What kind of weird universe would it be where you would die and your ghost would keep aging?

Stuart Wellington

[59:51] Yeah.

[59:51] What kind of terrible purgatory does he live in?

[59:54] Come on.

Elliott Kalan

[59:55] So you got all these decrepit thousand year old ghosts wandering around.

[59:59] Falling down and breaking their ghost hips.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:01] That's the thing I should be made up for.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:05] So yeah, everybody should go out and become donors for the MaxFun.

[1:00:11] And blood.

[1:00:11] Just donate right now.

[1:00:12] Yeah, right now.

[1:00:14] Literally right now.

[1:00:15] Or I don't know, in class.

[1:00:17] Yeah.

[1:00:18] Performing surgery.

[1:00:19] Getting arraigned.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:20] I guess what I want to say is right now.

[1:00:23] Hey.

[1:00:24] We're here tomorrow.

[1:00:26] Right now.

[1:00:27] MaxFun.

[1:00:28] It's everything.

[1:00:30] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[1:00:32] Oh, wow.

[1:00:33] He's the edge and Bono.

[1:00:35] Boom, boom.

[1:00:37] Um.

[1:00:37] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:41] Notice that that Van Halen song is so shitty.

[1:00:44] I've confused it with a U2 song.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:46] I was not going to call attention to it.

[1:00:48] Yeah.

[1:00:49] Uh.

[1:00:50] So this last letter.

[1:00:52] For Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:54] I'm seeing quadruple here.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:56] For and loan words.

[1:00:58] A lot of Simpsons references.

[1:00:59] For and loan words in Japanese and Huttese.

[1:01:03] Note.

[1:01:03] It may be necessary for Elliot and Stuart to assist Dan with his pronunciation of the foreign

[1:01:08] words in this letter.

[1:01:10] Hello, floppers.

[1:01:11] Long time listener.

[1:01:12] First time writer.

[1:01:12] I have an answer to a statement Elliot pondered over a long time ago about why the Hutts do

[1:01:17] not have their own phrase for Jedi mind trick.

[1:01:21] And that actually links to a similar statement Elliot made in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

[1:01:24] episode.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:25] Oh yeah, that the Japanese have no word for turtle soup.

[1:01:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:28] He refused to believe that turtle soup in Japanese would simply be tatoro soupo.

[1:01:33] That is to say, the English phrase said with a Japanese accent.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:37] As an English man living in Japan, I can tell you the Japanese use a combination of English

Dan McCoy

[1:01:40] and Japanese words for everyday life.

[1:01:42] The Japanese actually have an entire script used for writing foreign words called

[1:01:46] katakana, which is very often just the English word said in Japanese syllables.

[1:01:52] For example, Japanese has its own word for chicken, tori, and rice, gohan.

[1:01:57] But the phrase chicken rice is transliterated as chicken riceu.

[1:02:02] Likewise, rentakar is simply rentaka.

[1:02:05] So while the Japanese do have their own words for turtle and soup, the phrase turtle soup

[1:02:08] was likely introduced to them by Americans, and hence they would use the transliterated

[1:02:12] English phrase rather than translating it into Japanese.

[1:02:16] Because they're what, lazy?

[1:02:17] I guess.

[1:02:18] They're too lazy to use their own language?

[1:02:19] Do they go to the trouble of using another language?

[1:02:22] So it's entirely possible that the Huttese does have its own word for mind and trick,

[1:02:26] but the Hutts choose to keep the foreign phrases phonetically intact.

[1:02:29] I'm not a Star Wars expert, so I cannot be certain, but I hope Elliot enjoys this interpretation.

[1:02:34] Love your show, keep on flopping.

[1:02:36] Graham, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:39] Huh, it's an interesting interpretation.

[1:02:41] I'm just going to go ahead and say that I don't believe the Japanese, who are an industrious

[1:02:45] people, would do that.

[1:02:47] But I do believe the Hutts, who are big, fat, lazy slobs, who lie around on daises with

[1:02:51] ladies and clocky monkey lizards just crawling all over them, would just be too lazy to

[1:02:56] use their own words.

[1:02:57] But then every other word he uses is Huttese.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:00] Yeah, Bantha Poodoo, et cetera.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:02] Bantha Poodoo, maybe Bantha's a Huttese word, no jabalanga, except then he uses the word

[1:03:08] no.

[1:03:09] Maybe no is also Huttese the same way it's both English and Spanish.

[1:03:12] Yeah, that makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:14] I mean, it's a deep well, guys.

[1:03:17] We could go down this hole forever.

[1:03:19] Let's go down this hole.

[1:03:20] The hut hole.

[1:03:22] Gross.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:23] Just cuddle.

[1:03:23] I guess that's the Sarlacc.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:25] Yes, the Sarlacc is the hut hole.

[1:03:27] It's like a giant space anus lined with teeth.

[1:03:30] Or spainous.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:32] So, Dan, what do we do now that the letters are over?

[1:03:34] Not a lot of letters tonight.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:36] Well, we were running.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:37] We are running very long.

[1:03:39] So we had to bump a couple.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:40] Yeah.

[1:03:41] So this is the part of the podcast where we recommend movies, movies that we liked.

[1:03:47] This is the part nobody likes.

[1:03:48] Except us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:50] Elliot, why don't you go first?

[1:03:51] Me?

[1:03:51] You've been going last a lot lately.

[1:03:53] That's true.

[1:03:54] So let's save the best for first.

[1:03:56] And just kidding.

[1:03:57] Roasted.

[1:03:57] I'm going to recommend two movies, both Australian.

[1:04:00] Why two?

[1:04:01] K.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:03] What?

[1:04:04] I said K.

[1:04:05] So that's Spanish?

[1:04:06] After you said Y2K.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:07] Oh, I see.

[1:04:08] I thought you were saying K, like in Spanish.

[1:04:10] It was even dumber than that.

[1:04:12] But not as dumb as my Bon, Cinnabon joke.

[1:04:16] That's true.

[1:04:17] I guess you're winning this episode?

[1:04:19] Yeah.

[1:04:19] Yep, in terms of stupid.

[1:04:21] Uh, there's two.

[1:04:23] I'm going to recommend two movies.

[1:04:24] Both of them I liked, but one's for the ladies and one's for the dudes.

[1:04:28] Both Australian.

[1:04:29] For the ladies, a little movie.

[1:04:31] But guys can watch the lady movie and ladies can watch the guy movie.

[1:04:34] I'm just saying.

[1:04:35] Stereotypical wise.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:36] It's like Outback Steakhouse in Australia.

[1:04:38] It's no rules just right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:39] Yeah.

[1:04:40] Exactly.

[1:04:40] You could murder someone at Outback Steakhouse.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:43] I mean, there's no rule against it.

[1:04:45] Yeah, you can have a giant fried onion.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:48] The rules say I can't have a giant fried onion.

[1:04:51] So for ladies, I'm going to recommend a movie called My Brilliant Career.

[1:04:58] Yeah.

[1:04:58] Which is a period film starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill when they were both young, kind of beginning actor and actress.

[1:05:06] And, uh, about a high spirited young woman who is being pressured to marry in turn of the century Australia.

[1:05:13] But she wants to be a writer.

[1:05:15] She doesn't want to play by anybody's rules.

[1:05:16] She's got a prankish sense of humor.

[1:05:18] In many ways, it is Anne of Green Gables in Australia.

[1:05:21] Uh, and it's a good, solid woman who wants to make her own way in the world but falls in love type movie.

[1:05:27] And the cinematography in it is beautiful.

[1:05:29] There's a number of scenes shot in different types of daylight or twilight that are really pretty.

[1:05:35] And the acting is really good in it.

[1:05:36] So, My Brilliant Career for the Ladies and for the Men, a male subject, war.

[1:05:42] Awesome.

[1:05:42] Australian classic, Breaker Morant.

[1:05:45] Uh, the film about the Boer War and three Australian soldiers who are court-martialed for massacring prisoners of war.

[1:05:54] Uh, is it really their fault that they committed these acts?

[1:05:57] Or is it the inhuman system that has led them to this point?

[1:06:00] Who knows?

[1:06:01] But it's, uh, really well-directed and well-acted and, again, beautifully shot.

[1:06:06] Uh, so for the Ladies, My Brilliant Career.

[1:06:09] And for the Men, Breaker Morant.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:11] Or switch them up if they want.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:13] Or do it the other way around, yeah.

[1:06:15] Guys, get in touch with your feminine side.

[1:06:16] And ladies, watch some Australians shoot the shit out of some boar settlers.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:22] Sounds great.

[1:06:23] Dan?

[1:06:23] Uh, I want to recommend, I re-watched recently The Dirty Dozen, which is just a very enjoyable movie.

[1:06:30] The real Dirty Dozen or like a porn movie?

[1:06:32] No, The Dirty Dozen.

[1:06:33] The, uh, Robert Aldrich movie.

[1:06:35] Uh, he directed the porno?

[1:06:37] He did.

[1:06:37] He was hard on his luck, yeah.

[1:06:39] Uh, I am a great fan of...

[1:06:40] I am a great fan of, uh, what Quentin Tarantino and others have called the, uh, Men on the

[1:06:45] Mission, Men on a Mission movie.

[1:06:48] Your, uh, Dirty Dozen, your Guns of Navarons.

[1:06:51] Mm-hmm.

[1:06:52] Uh, I guess The Great Escape is, is also sort of that, although that's kind of...

[1:06:56] Sure.

[1:06:56] What about your seven, seven Samurais?

[1:06:59] And like, I mean, their mission is escape.

[1:07:01] Is to escape.

[1:07:01] It's kind of a heist movie in a way.

[1:07:03] Uh, the reverse is.

[1:07:04] Your Armageddon.

[1:07:05] Yeah.

[1:07:05] Your Magnificent Sevens.

[1:07:07] Well, that's the thing.

[1:07:07] Like, Armageddon is actually probably the modern equivalent, which is irritating that we've

[1:07:14] fallen so far.

[1:07:15] But, um...

[1:07:16] Have you ever seen The Professionals?

[1:07:18] Uh, what's that?

[1:07:19] The Lee Marvin?

[1:07:20] Oh, yeah.

[1:07:20] Yeah, that's a great one.

[1:07:21] That's a good one.

[1:07:21] That's a good man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:21] What about the Fantasy Mission Force with Jackie Chan?

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:25] Um, I don't know.

[1:07:27] I've seen that one.

[1:07:27] It's really great.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:28] But I think that you're right that Armageddon is a descendant of this type of movie because

[1:07:33] the great thing about these classic...

[1:07:36] It's amazing.

[1:07:37] Crazy.

[1:07:38] That's not what I'm getting at.

[1:07:41] Walk this way, dude looks like a lady.

[1:07:43] The great thing about these old Men on the Mission movies is...

[1:07:48] Just press play.

[1:07:49] They were a mix of great Hollywood tough guys and great Hollywood character actors.

[1:07:56] Yeah.

[1:07:56] Um, and that's kind of what got passed down to modern, uh, action movies is stocking up

[1:08:03] on these character actor side.

[1:08:04] But you got in Dirty Dozen, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes,

[1:08:11] Jim Brown, you got George Kennedy, you got Telly Savalas.

[1:08:15] Uh, it's just a...

[1:08:17] Uh, Donald Sutherland.

[1:08:18] It's a crazy lineup of just fun people to watch.

[1:08:23] And, uh, Robert Aldrich, uh, directed...

[1:08:26] Other great, uh, very, like, masculine movies, like...

[1:08:30] But in addition, he also did...

[1:08:31] Kiss Me Deadly.

[1:08:32] But he also did Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, which is like...

[1:08:34] And Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.

[1:08:35] Yeah.

[1:08:35] Which is like...

[1:08:36] But he did...

[1:08:36] The campiest ladies' pictures you could, uh...

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:38] But he did, like, Flight of the Phoenix.

[1:08:40] He, there's a certain sort of, like, high-class, uh, filth.

[1:08:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:45] The Robert Aldrich movie, which is really great.

[1:08:47] And, you know, Dirty Dozen has a classic setup.

[1:08:49] You know, it's...

[1:08:50] It's 12 military prisoners given the chance at, uh, you know, getting their freedom by going

[1:08:56] on this suicide mission, which is, you know, just a great pulp, uh, set up for an action

[1:09:02] movie.

[1:09:03] And it's just fun to start to finish.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:04] Yeah, it's like Wages of Fear.

[1:09:06] And they got a...

[1:09:06] Um, a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:08] I mean, kind of.

[1:09:08] It's a little less existential than Wages of Fear.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:10] And there's, uh, there's a lot of great character scenes in it, and a lot of great...

[1:09:14] It's a pretty funny movie, too.

[1:09:16] Yeah.

[1:09:16] The scene when Donald Sutherland has to pretend to be a general.

[1:09:18] Oh, it's terrific.

[1:09:18] It's fantastic.

[1:09:19] Where are you from, soldier?

[1:09:20] He says the town, never heard of it.

[1:09:22] He's walking around, like, he's just saying all the stupid things he's heard generals

[1:09:26] say before.

[1:09:26] He goes, so he's looking at this, this formation of guys, he's like, very pretty, Colonel, but

[1:09:31] can they fight?

[1:09:32] And it's like, all these stupid-ass things that generals say in movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:36] And, I mean, like, the funny thing, too, is, like, his character is, has been

[1:09:39] shown to be a halfwit through most of the movie, so you know instinctively that he's

[1:09:45] just imitating these other generals that he's seen.

[1:09:49] But, uh, yeah, that's about right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:51] I'm going to recommend another Australian movie.

[1:09:53] Before you make jokes, I'm going to recommend a movie called The Interview.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:59] You didn't make any jokes?

[1:10:00] You mean starring Seth Rogen and James Franco?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:02] No, I'm recommending a movie called The Interview from 1998.

[1:10:04] Uh, it's an Australian thriller starring Hugo Weaving, Elrond himself.

[1:10:10] Mr. Smith.

[1:10:11] Elrond Hubbard?

[1:10:12] Wait, Agent Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:14] Uh, Elrond Hubbard.

[1:10:15] I think he's best known as Tom Hanks' top-hatted, top-hatted, hallucinatory bad guy in Cloud Atlas.

[1:10:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:22] Uh, oh man, he's terrifying in that movie.

[1:10:24] In the future, where he's in, like, yellow face?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:26] Yeah, as the, uh, Cajun slash from Guns N' Roses with reptile skin.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:31] Sure.

[1:10:32] Um, so, yeah.

[1:10:34] Uh, so The Interview is a...

[1:10:37] He's one of the few actors whose name is also a description of an action.

[1:10:41] Hugo Weaving.

[1:10:43] Hugo Weaving.

[1:10:44] Yeah.

[1:10:45] Uh, so, it's a movie where Hugo Weaving gets picked up, uh, by a detective.

[1:10:51] And at first, it seems like he's being interviewed about a relatively minor crime.

[1:10:57] And you can, at the same time, you're seeing the detective has a lot of pressure on him.

[1:11:00] And it's slowly revealed that, uh, that it's a much bigger case.

[1:11:05] And it involves a serial killer.

[1:11:08] And you're seeing the detective has a lot of pressure on him.

[1:11:10] And you start to wonder, really, what's going on with, uh, you initially feel sympathy for Hugo Weaving.

[1:11:16] And then, over time, you wonder whether or not that sympathy is misplaced.

[1:11:19] Uh, it's a great, tense little thriller.

[1:11:21] And I recommend it.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:24] So.

[1:11:24] Sounds good.

[1:11:26] Three great recommendations.

[1:11:28] Along with...

[1:11:29] Four, actually.

[1:11:30] Try the part.

[1:11:30] Me too.

[1:11:31] You probably won't like, because you haven't been...

[1:11:35] Watching bad, bad, bad, bad, terrible movies for years and years and years.

[1:11:39] It definitely...

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:40] This movie, you enjoy it more when you've been watching a bunch of boring, bad movies before it.

[1:11:44] Yeah.

[1:11:44] But if you got a...

[1:11:45] If you got...

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:46] Watching John Cusack try and put on a seatbelt for 20 minutes.

[1:11:50] It's fucking great, man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:51] Two guys really panning it up.

[1:11:52] Cops throw a party, man.

[1:11:54] Watching Thomas Jane taking every line and doing it as if he's, like, just trying to remember

[1:12:00] what the next word in the sentence is for minutes at a time.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:04] Yeah.

[1:12:04] If you like that stuff, this movie's for you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:06] It's like Thomas Jane saw Bill Paxton in Aliens and was like, I want to hold that pitch

[1:12:10] through the whole movie.

[1:12:11] Through the whole movie.

[1:12:11] Just game over, man.

[1:12:12] Game over.

[1:12:13] Constantly.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:16] But everything has to come to an end and that applies to this podcast as much as it does

[1:12:21] the heat death of the universe.

[1:12:22] So, on that note...

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:24] So you're putting the podcast on a cosmic scale?

[1:12:27] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:27] Because then we're literally just moats in the eye of God.

[1:12:30] I mean, we are masters of the mystic arts, all of us.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:33] Sure.

[1:12:35] I'm a Doctor Strange.

[1:12:37] Ali, it's a Dormammu.

[1:12:38] I'm more of a Baron Mordo.

[1:12:40] I wish I was a Dormammu.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:41] Give me a funny name.

[1:12:43] Funny name.

[1:12:43] These are beloved and hallowed characters.

[1:12:46] When Benedict Cumberbatch is playing one of them, you'd be like, oh, I always knew who

[1:12:49] Baron Mordo was.

[1:12:50] I know who Doctor Strange is.

[1:12:51] I don't know the other one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:53] You don't know who Dormammu is?

[1:12:54] Dormammu?

[1:12:54] You can be Mephisto, dude.

[1:12:56] All right.

[1:12:57] That's a cool name.

[1:12:58] Mephisto dude.

[1:12:59] The surfer version of Mephisto.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:00] Hey!

[1:13:01] My flaming hair looks great!

[1:13:02] Why don't I tempt your soul, Silver Surfer?

[1:13:04] I can surf too!

Dan McCoy

[1:13:06] Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

[1:13:08] This podcast is over.

[1:13:09] I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:10] That was Dan McCoy.

[1:13:12] Over there is Elliot Kalin.

[1:13:13] And just saying that is Stuart Wellington next to Dan McCoy.

[1:13:17] Good night, everyone.

[1:13:18] McCoy!

[1:13:20] Moving up!

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:26] Yeah, we want to keep it nice and cool.

[1:13:29] Oh, yeah.

[1:13:30] That's what Mayor de Blasio has told everybody.

[1:13:35] Keep it cool.

[1:13:36] Go to your cooling stations in Dan's apartment.

[1:13:40] All right.

[1:13:43] Just hang out there.

[1:13:45] Drink a lot of agua.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:47] Yeah, let's do this.

[1:13:47] And...

[1:13:48] We should have called it agua.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:49] Yeah, because he's been taking Spanish for mayors.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:52] Spanish for mayors.

[1:13:54] We've been a lot of crime in the calles.

[1:13:59] Hi, everybody.

[1:14:00] I'm Justin McElroy.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:01] I'm Travis McElroy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:02] I'm Griffin McElroy.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:04] And we host the first podcast ever made, my brother, my brother made.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:07] Every Monday, we put out the first ever advice comedy podcast ever.

[1:14:10] They found our podcast on Dead Sea Scrolls.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:13] We're the Hammurabi Code of podcasts, and we're ready to entertain you with jokes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:17] That we invented the first jokes.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:19] So join us every Monday on MaximumFun.org.

[1:14:22] You'll never crack our code, Dan Brown.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:23] Just try me.

[1:14:24] It's history in the making.

[1:14:25] And in the faking.

[1:14:27] And it's all yours for the taking.

[1:14:29] And good girls, do you wanna just say, hey, I wanna?

[1:14:34] Just say, hey, I wanna.

Ep. #184 - Drive Hard

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