Ep. #179 - Mortdecai

[0:00] On this episode of the podcast, we discuss Mordecai.

[0:04] Oh, I saw posters for that movie.

[0:06] Yeah, Johnny Depp's in it, and he has a mustache, and he's in the movie on the poster, and it's called Mordecai, and Johnny Depp is in it with a mustache on the poster.

[0:13] The movie's called Mordecai. Who's in it? Mr. John Depp. And what's he wearing? Mustache on the face.

[0:19] Name of the movie? Mordecai. I haven't seen it.

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

[0:51] Hey, guys. I'm Stuart. Stuart Wellington.

[0:55] Can opening sound. I'm Elliot Kalin. Sorry, I stepped on your last name, Stuart, which is Wellington.

[1:00] It's okay. I wish you guys at home could see the way that Stuart—

[1:03] And girls.

[1:04] The pregnant pause as Stuart waited for his chance to say his name so he could open his Modelo. Modelo, sorry. Modelo.

[1:15] Nelson Modelo.

[1:17] That's the female version of him, Modelo.

[1:19] Nelson Modelo. I don't know if to be offended by that or impressed.

[1:24] An important beer. An important beer.

[1:28] Dan is literally—he's two for two in misreading what it says on Stuart's beer can.

[1:36] Oh, Modelo is an important beer. Well, I should give it a good seat in my restaurant.

[1:42] Away from the kitchen.

[1:44] You have a 100% perfect record in mispronouncing beer text.

[1:50] Hold on.

[1:51] This was an eye test at a bar. You have failed.

[1:54] Cerveza especial.

[1:57] That's pretty good, man. I can do it better in Spanish.

[2:00] He's got you.

[2:01] Are you sure—is Spanish your native language?

[2:05] Aida me. I don't know.

[2:08] So no is what you're saying.

[2:09] You need a lot of body acting there, people listening.

[2:11] Dan, knowing it's an audio podcast that he's been doing for, what, eight years now, decided to do an exaggerated shrug.

[2:18] Since what, we would hear the air occurrence passing over your shoulders?

[2:22] I'm creating a theater of the mind.

[2:25] There's an audio space that is being heard and sensed.

[2:30] Between your ears.

[2:33] Wait, we're in a haunted house of some kind?

[2:35] Yeah, I'm just making a theater.

[2:38] No theater is complete without a haunted house chainsaw.

[2:40] A home theater of the mind.

[2:42] So what do we do on this podcast?

[2:43] Apparently we just say junk.

[2:45] We watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:48] How do we talk about it?

[2:49] Quickly.

[2:51] With a lot of digressions and some jokes.

[2:56] Okay, that sounds pretty fun.

[2:57] We probably summarize the movie.

[3:00] Yeah.

[3:01] Not always.

[3:02] All right, I'll take one, please.

[3:03] I'll ride this podcast.

[3:05] Okay, well, why don't you take a seat right there.

[3:07] You got it, sitting down.

[3:08] Okay, you want to spread your napkin on your lap.

[3:10] You might get a little bit of splatter on you.

[3:12] Okay, I don't know why just on my napkin, my lap.

[3:15] I'll just strap myself in right now so I get wet on this ride.

[3:20] Yeah, your napkin's there.

[3:22] Yeah, my napkin's on my lap.

[3:24] Sir, sir, sir, sir, you're being awfully aggressive about this napkin.

[3:29] Sir, sir, please spread it on your lap.

[3:33] I did, I did.

[3:34] The napkin is on the lap.

[3:36] All right, this is for your safety, sir.

[3:38] I don't care.

[3:39] I don't care if you die.

[3:41] This is just a job to me.

[3:42] This is for you, sir.

[3:44] Is this the ride?

[3:45] Do I just get abuse?

[3:47] Yeah, this is the ride.

[3:48] It's for people who get off on abuse.

[3:50] Okay, I'd like to get off this ride, please.

[3:53] Unstrap me.

[3:54] No, you sign up for the entire podcast.

[3:57] We'll unstrap you in about, how long is this podcast?

[3:59] Like two hours long?

[4:00] Yeah, we do.

[4:01] Yeah, sometimes.

[4:02] Okay, so we're talking about a movie we watch.

[4:04] It's the Dana Gould Show.

[4:05] That's a long podcast for podcast fans.

[4:08] The Dana Gould Show?

[4:09] Yeah, the Dana Gould Show.

[4:11] Dana Gould.

[4:12] The Dana Gould Show.

[4:13] It's a Gould who just really likes to get a signed fan.

[4:16] It's a daytime show for Goulds.

[4:18] It's like Ellen.

[4:19] The Gould dances up the aisles, dances down the aisles,

[4:21] interviews Kristen Bell or something.

[4:23] Anyway, so, Dan.

[4:25] Yeah, that's me.

[4:26] Hold on, I know that name.

[4:27] What movie did we watch on this fad movie podcast?

[4:29] We watched Mordecai.

[4:31] It's about Johnny Depp and his most famous...

[4:34] Yeah, the movie's about Johnny Depp.

[4:36] Yep.

[4:37] It's a biopic.

[4:38] Who plays Johnny Depp in this movie, Dan?

[4:41] Gwyneth Paltrow.

[4:43] I mean, I'd buy it.

[4:44] Gender-blind casting.

[4:45] It's interesting.

[4:46] It's a switch-em-up.

[4:47] They both peed in a fountain.

[4:50] They both peed in a fountain.

[4:52] Yeah.

[4:53] It's like that.

[4:54] Vice versa.

[4:55] It's like that song.

[4:56] Two peas in a fountain.

[4:58] No, that's about the game of pinochle when you're playing it over a fountain

[5:01] and the peas fall in.

[5:02] Okay, I get it.

[5:03] So, Mordecai is a comedy, right?

[5:05] Yep.

[5:06] Ostensibly.

[5:07] Now, this seems to have been made, we should say, directed by David Koepp.

[5:12] Is that how it's pronounced?

[5:13] Who we all like, I think.

[5:15] Off to a great start.

[5:16] Yeah.

[5:17] I like a lot of his stuff.

[5:18] His previous movie was Premium Rush, right?

[5:21] One of his previous movies.

[5:22] I don't know if it's his last directorial movie.

[5:24] I feel like that was the last one before that.

[5:25] But I liked that a lot.

[5:26] Yeah, I got a kick out of that.

[5:27] Michael Shannon is very funny in that movie.

[5:29] Yep.

[5:30] Yep.

[5:31] There's a lot of good, bad-ass jokes.

[5:33] New York geography is somewhat accurate.

[5:36] Yeah, that's an interesting thing in a movie.

[5:37] You rarely see a movie that takes that much care

[5:40] in actually getting the geography of the city down.

[5:44] Yeah, it's a pulse pounding through a ride for the senses

[5:47] that's as funny as it is heartbreaking.

[5:49] Yeah.

[5:50] Anyway.

[5:51] I don't know if it's heartbreaking, but yes.

[5:53] So, that's Premium Rush.

[5:54] But we're watching Mordecai.

[5:55] Yeah.

[5:56] Which is not a premium rush.

[5:57] This seems to be based on some kind of high-key rush.

[6:00] There's plenty of rush available.

[6:02] This is the budget rush.

[6:05] Not premium.

[6:06] Yeah, readily available.

[6:07] This is the sort of rush that they give to students and prisoners.

[6:12] Okay.

[6:13] So, it's not the kind of rush that…

[6:14] It's a telling comment on the rush distribution system in our country.

[6:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[6:19] Something like that.

[6:20] It's like Eric Schlosser's book, Rush Food Nation.

[6:23] You're making this harder for us to do to end.

[6:27] How am I doing that?

[6:28] I'm just doing the normal gibberish.

[6:29] Yeah, I know.

[6:30] Yeah, but it's somehow gibberier.

[6:33] So, let's talk about what this movie is about.

[6:35] So, it's based on some series of English comedy novels,

[6:38] which seem to be themselves kind of like violent…

[6:41] Loosely…

[6:42] …Jeeves and Wooster type things.

[6:43] Yeah.

[6:44] And Johnny Depp plays an unscrupulous art dealer,

[6:48] Lord Charlie Mordecai,

[6:50] who has a curled-up mustache that he just grew.

[6:54] There's only one…

[6:55] That is a huge plot point.

[6:56] Yeah, there's a couple flashbacks to his mustache list before,

[6:59] but everyone feels the need to comment on his mustache.

[7:02] His mustache has a fucking arc in this movie.

[7:05] Yeah, that's true.

[7:06] It's really the central conflict of the film.

[7:08] Yeah, the mustache has a lot more character than many of the characters in the movie.

[7:11] But we're introduced to him in a kind of knockoff of the opening of Temple of Doom,

[7:15] where he is trading a vase he hopes for money to a Chinese art buyer.

[7:22] Yes, you know.

[7:24] Asian.

[7:25] I mean, I think it's keeping in the sensitivity of Mordecai

[7:28] that we don't know exactly what ethnicity this character is.

[7:33] Well, they're in Hong Kong, so I'm guessing he's Chinese.

[7:34] Sure.

[7:35] But things almost go bad.

[7:37] This is a guy he's swindled in the past, this Hong Kong gangster,

[7:41] and they're going to cut off Mordecai's finger,

[7:43] but luckily he's saved by his manservant, Jock, played by Paul Bettany.

[7:47] What's the full name of this character?

[7:50] Jock?

[7:51] Wait, you know the full name?

[7:52] Yeah.

[7:53] The full name of this character is get ready to hold your sides.

[7:56] Why?

[7:57] Is someone going to shoot me and punch me?

[7:59] Holding on to your sides will prevent the bullet from entering your body.

[8:03] Am I holding on to a side of beef because it might fall down and get dirty?

[8:06] It is Jock Strap.

[8:09] Oh, okay.

[8:10] That's the character's name.

[8:11] I don't think that's ever said in the movie, though.

[8:14] No.

[8:15] You're nervous that if they said it in the movie, people would laugh so hard they'd die of aneurysm.

[8:19] They'd just explode.

[8:20] Their brains would say, like, I can't do it, and just explode.

[8:23] Their socks would be knocked off with such force that they would propel themselves through the movie-goer in front of them.

[8:29] Killing them.

[8:30] And meanwhile,

[8:31] Maybe a big hole through their chest.

[8:33] And the movie-goer who had lost the sock, the sock would burst off.

[8:36] Yeah, the force would leave their feet shredded in tatters.

[8:39] Yeah.

[8:40] Just mangled bones.

[8:41] It's a double homicide from one joke.

[8:43] They would slide their knees so hard as to literally knock the kneecap off of their leg, tearing the flesh, bleeding.

[8:51] The kneecap would go spinning into the air, and several people would misreport it as a UFO.

[8:56] Mass hysteria would rock the nation, and the government would fall apart.

[9:00] The tickling of the funny bone would occur at such force that the human body would vibrate to the point of blood leaking out of every pore.

[9:07] To just liquification.

[9:09] So that's what would happen if you knew his name was Jock Strap.

[9:12] But he's played by Paul Bettany, and he's kind of a combination bodyguard, manservant.

[9:17] He's kind of like a Brock Samson.

[9:19] Yeah, he's Brock Samson plus a little bit of Kato from the Pink Panther movies, plus Jeeves from Jeeves and Wooster.

[9:26] He's your kind of all-service thing.

[9:28] And I'm just going to go out on a limb and say right now, I really enjoy this character a lot.

[9:32] Yeah.

[9:33] He is one of these characters who is always very subservient to his boss even though he's clearly smarter than him and better than him at everything, but he's very protective of his boss.

[9:44] And they gave – the one thing I don't like about him is they gave him the character trait of the ladies love him, and he's always having sex with ladies.

[9:50] And it feels like it makes the character –

[9:52] Jealous.

[9:53] Well, certainly, of course.

[9:54] Jealous.

[9:55] As any – as I would have any man who is just catnip to ladies.

[9:58] Since I am – what's the opposite of catnip?

[10:00] And if what drives cats away, um,

[10:02] I'm citrus.

[10:03] They don't like the smell of citrus.

[10:05] I'm like, I'm like a,

[10:06] like a water bottle flip change being shaken to cats

[10:10] or like just being sprayed a water bottle

[10:12] being sprayed at a cat to ladies.

[10:13] Fire. They don't like fire either.

[10:15] Yeah. Yeah.

[10:16] I'm like a flamethrower, but the dogs,

[10:19] I feel like it makes some dogs

[10:21] depends on the animal friends of the internet.

[10:24] They were pretty adorable.

[10:25] I think it's, there's, it's funnier to me

[10:27] for a character to be super competent

[10:29] but not getting any respect then to see a character

[10:31] who is super competent, also a ladies man.

[10:34] And yet for no reason chooses to stay with his stupid boss.

[10:39] You know, it's funnier to me if he's devoted to his boss

[10:41] and doesn't realize almost how much better he is.

[10:44] But that's in the Jeeve and Worcester tradition though.

[10:47] Like the, was Jeeves got constantly getting ladies.

[10:51] We don't know his success rate with ladies.

[10:53] That was not addressed.

[10:54] I'm going to bet that maybe put PJ would

[10:57] wrote them under his pseudonym, penis, giant wood house

[11:01] with wood spelled W O O D a line of t-shirts.

[11:05] Right.

[11:06] Yeah. It's called Jeeves and Worcester.

[11:09] I'm just saying where he was worcestering all the ladies.

[11:11] It's the same situation where a hyper-competent

[11:14] character is, is serving a less than competent.

[11:17] No, I like that.

[11:18] And I like that set up a lot.

[11:19] I just don't like the constant lady banging.

[11:22] Yeah.

[11:22] Cause it feels like this, the more this character

[11:25] is rewarded for his competency, the less funnier,

[11:27] the less funny it is to me.

[11:28] Yeah.

[11:29] The same way that like Jeeves and Worcester

[11:30] would stop being funny to me if like Jeeves became rich.

[11:33] Did that ever happen?

[11:34] No. I mean, like, I mean, that was a very, very specific.

[11:36] Yeah, he won the lottery or something.

[11:37] Like Jeeves won the lottery or like if it turned out.

[11:40] Like in Roseanne.

[11:40] Or like in that final season of Roseanne,

[11:43] when, when Jim Varney showed up as that English Duke.

[11:47] Well, that was very, Jeeves and Worcester is a very,

[11:50] is very specifically a play on like the class system

[11:52] showing the supposed lower class being more competent

[11:55] than the upper class.

[11:56] I mean, here in Mordecai, it doesn't necessarily translate.

[11:59] It's just a little bit of that, but not quite as much.

[12:01] It's just a couple of wacky guys being wacky together.

[12:04] Anyway, they go back to London.

[12:05] Like wacky guys do.

[12:07] Yep.

[12:07] They go back to London.

[12:08] I would describe this movie as wacky.

[12:09] You're right.

[12:10] It is wacky.

[12:11] Madcap. It's a zany romp.

[12:12] This is very much in the style of those 60s zany romps

[12:16] that they made.

[12:17] Casino Royale.

[12:19] Thousands of.

[12:19] What's new Pussycat.

[12:20] It's basically like almost every movie Peter Sellers made

[12:23] that when you watch it, you're like,

[12:24] oh, this isn't very good.

[12:26] Like it's in the style of those movies.

[12:28] Alice Toklas, whatever that.

[12:29] I love you Alice B. Toklas.

[12:30] Yeah.

[12:31] Which is not.

[12:32] The party.

[12:33] Very like swinging 60s.

[12:34] Swinging Madcap mod 60s.

[12:38] 60s swinging so high and so low.

[12:41] You're swinging all the way around the swing set.

[12:44] Wow, that's pretty swinging.

[12:46] So they try to emulate that by.

[12:49] By not having jokes.

[12:50] I would say we're having.

[12:52] It's a an over the top cartoonish style.

[12:55] Having the.

[12:56] In the movie.

[12:57] Costumes more interesting than anything said by any character.

[12:59] Yes.

[13:00] And but I'm going to go on.

[13:01] And having cameos by stars who would then exit the movie very quickly.

[13:05] Huge stars of yesterday like Jeff Goldblum.

[13:08] Yes, huge stars of yesterday.

[13:10] Of all the blooms.

[13:11] Yeah, the golden age of Hollywood and Jeff Goldblum.

[13:14] Former husband of Marlena Dietrich.

[13:17] Jeff Silverblum.

[13:19] I'm sorry, you have placed and you will receive the Jeff Bronze Bloom.

[13:23] Why don't I even enter the competition?

[13:26] I don't know, but you can enjoy this performance of Jeff Goldblum

[13:29] playing jazz piano, which is something he does with the hand of a fly.

[13:36] Now, let's start now.

[13:38] Let's talk a little about the plot.

[13:39] And I'm going to tell you a shocking secret that I have about this movie.

[13:44] They so they they extricate themselves from trouble.

[13:47] They go back to London.

[13:49] Mordecai's wife, Joanna, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, does not like his new mustache.

[13:53] And every time every time she tries to kiss him, she gags, which makes him gag.

[13:57] It is a gag that is not funny and makes the audience gag.

[14:03] They are deeply in debt because they're a bunch of drunk layabouts.

[14:07] He's Mordecai is kind of like an an incompetent Nick Charles.

[14:12] He's like a drunken party boy with a mustache who is not good at his job.

[14:16] Yeah. As opposed to Nick Charles, who gets better at solving crimes.

[14:18] The more he drinks and gets less funny, the less he drinks in the later movies.

[14:22] And she is a less ditzy Nora Charles, who solves everything for her husband.

[14:27] I don't think that's. Oh, no.

[14:28] In this movie, she's OK.

[14:30] Yeah, I think they're saying the thin man.

[14:31] No, the thin man movies.

[14:32] They are I mean, they're fairly equal partners.

[14:36] Nick is probably Nick is the one who solves the crime.

[14:38] There's always a part of the end where Nora is like,

[14:40] hmm, just explain to me who did it and he's playing it out.

[14:44] But here's the story.

[14:46] Ewan McGregor, a government.

[14:47] Ewan McGregor's in this.

[14:49] He is, which means Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[14:53] The man who originated the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[14:56] The man everyone thinks of.

[14:57] And I think in other words, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[15:00] And took over Alec Guinness's role in Trainspotting.

[15:03] Ewan McGregor, I found myself addicted to heroin.

[15:08] That's my kind of little puddly in Alec Guinness.

[15:10] Yeah, Luke.

[15:15] It's a suppository.

[15:16] What? Trainspotting.

[15:18] Anyway, it's called Jedi spotting.

[15:20] It's like Trainspotting, but they're all Jedis,

[15:22] but they're still sprung out on heroin.

[15:24] OK, why do you think they turn to the dark side?

[15:27] They didn't even do death sticks.

[15:28] You just doing heroin.

[15:29] They go straight to heroin.

[15:30] Yeah, because the force is such a high.

[15:33] You need a really hard drug to beat it.

[15:35] You have so many many chlorines in your body.

[15:37] You need something really hard.

[15:39] OK, Steven, feel just even to get to zero

[15:43] just to reach normal, just to get well.

[15:47] You're less than zero when you're a Jedi, less than zero.

[15:52] So they're in debt.

[15:53] Ewan McGregor, Zero the Hut.

[15:55] Zero the Hut.

[15:57] That's the version of Star Wars where they digitally erase Jabba the Hutt.

[16:00] It's just and it's just they're talking to an empty pedestal.

[16:04] Yep, Salacious Crumb is sitting on thin air.

[16:08] There's just a hat for some reason.

[16:10] What's the original job of wearing a hat?

[16:12] It was the same.

[16:13] I never noticed.

[16:13] Sequel to the other famous George Lucas erasing film Zero the Greek

[16:17] where they removed Anthony Quinn from all the scenes.

[16:22] It's George Lucas's art project from his THX 1138 days.

[16:27] Well, he said, I with the special editions, I added in a lot of nonsense

[16:31] shit in the backgrounds.

[16:32] I know I tried to remove something necessary to the scenes

[16:35] as a way of taking it in the opposite direction.

[16:37] You see, as an artist, I have to always be revolutionizing myself.

[16:40] It's an experiment of pure film.

[16:45] All right, George,

[16:47] I guess you got all the money.

[16:50] Do whatever you want.

[16:51] Why not? You're a billionaire.

[16:52] Genius. Genius.

[16:54] Nate, Nate, Newt Gunray.

[16:56] That's a great name.

[16:57] No, I took the original print of Casablanca and I replaced Rick with Jar Jar.

[17:04] I replaced Rick with a potted orchid.

[17:07] Just to see if anyone would tell the difference.

[17:09] It turns out they could.

[17:10] The orchid failed to have the charisma of Humphrey Bogart at his finest.

[17:16] And I replaced Peter Lorre with kind of a small owl.

[17:20] Now that that was harder to that was harder for me.

[17:23] When the owl screeched, it sounded like Peter Lorre screeching.

[17:26] Now, again, when I replaced Claude Rains, the owl,

[17:29] the most Peter Lorre like of the birds of prey,

[17:32] when I replaced Claude Rains with this collectible glass

[17:35] with a picture of Grimace from the McDonald's cast on it again, people noticed

[17:40] it was very hard to believe that the Grimace glass was making women

[17:44] sleep with him in order to get out of to get to get out of Casablanca.

[17:48] But at the end, it was quite touching when the Grimace glass

[17:50] and the potted orchid walk through the fog,

[17:53] talking about the friendship they're going to have,

[17:56] because despite their differences, one, of course, being a flower

[17:58] and the other being a collectible glass,

[18:01] they can be friends.

[18:03] You think you really struck on something about George Lucas is his craziness is lovable.

[18:08] Even when he does things that are totally wrong.

[18:10] There's something there's something appealing about

[18:12] there's something kind of like puppy dog ish about him and his flannel shirts

[18:15] and his high pitched voice and his love of old hot rods.

[18:19] CGI haircut. Yeah.

[18:21] Now, again, when I replaced Cindy Greenstreet with a Teddy Ruxpin,

[18:24] harder to tell the difference.

[18:26] Many people thought that I had actually improved the performance.

[18:30] Who, George? Who?

[18:31] Well, the makers of Teddy Ruxpin, Mr.

[18:35] Theodore Ruxpin.

[18:39] Oh, I forgot that in Flophouse lore.

[18:42] What is Teddy Ruxpin is like son?

[18:44] Well, much as Frankenstein's monster is now known as Frankenstein.

[18:48] Yeah. Teddy, he couldn't have a child.

[18:49] So he created this monstrous robot bear.

[18:54] Now, but I forgot that in Flophouse lore,

[18:56] Teddy Ruxpin is the son of Alan Ruck and the female bear.

[19:02] So go back to whatever episode that was in Labor Day.

[19:07] There's a Labor Day.

[19:08] I think so. The Alan Ruck stuff was in labor to tell stories.

[19:14] He taught it.

[19:14] He gave it the magic power of being able to repeat the words

[19:17] on cassette tapes shoved into his butt.

[19:21] They called it Teddy Ruxpin.

[19:22] Putting them in the wrong place.

[19:26] The Teddy Ruxpin didn't seem to mind.

[19:27] Anyway, we're not really into the movie here.

[19:29] Let's do the plot fast.

[19:30] There's a secret painting by previously unseen painting

[19:34] by Francisco Goya, the famous painter,

[19:36] which has been stolen in the murder of the entrepreneur,

[19:41] founder of the Bean Empire.

[19:43] Go, Goya.

[19:44] They used to shout at him, the bullies, as they taunted him.

[19:47] And he said, I'll show you.

[19:48] I'll make that a sign of pride.

[19:51] You won't have to you won't have to soak your chickpeas anymore.

[19:54] Thanks to me.

[19:55] I wish I was Jupiter and you were my children so I could devour.

[19:59] Oh, it's not Jupiter.

[20:00] It's Kronos, right, who devoured his children?

[20:02] Yes.

[20:03] Yeah, I wish I was Kronos and you were my children so I could devour you as if I could

[20:06] devour you.

[20:07] Jupiter broke that cycle.

[20:08] That's true.

[20:09] Jupiter was the one who killed Kronos because Kronos couldn't tell the difference between

[20:10] a god and a rock in swaddling clothes.

[20:13] Exactly.

[20:14] So he deserved it.

[20:15] I don't know how Kronos managed to stay on top for so long.

[20:18] Now there's this Goya painting.

[20:20] It was stolen in the murder of an art restorer.

[20:22] McGregor is with MI5 and he believes that an international terrorist named MI5, reminding

[20:33] us of the worst catchphrase of the first decade of the 20th century, never has a movie gone

[20:41] from I think this is the cutting edge of comedy to please stop now, so fast in my mind as

[20:47] Borat did.

[20:48] I saw it when it opened and I was like that was great and then I heard the catchphrase

[20:51] I think for three straight days and I was like this movie sucks.

[20:55] Anyway they think this terrorist has stolen it so that he can I don't know sell it or

[21:00] something.

[21:01] Mordecai agrees to get it in exchange for having I guess his debt to the country wiped

[21:05] out and 10% of the insurance money or something.

[21:11] Anyway Mordecai goes all over the place, gets into a lot of crazy shenanigans.

[21:15] There's a shootout at a car garage.

[21:18] There are some jokes there.

[21:20] There's a meeting between Gwyneth Paltrow and a guy named the Duke who played the bad

[21:25] guy in Last Crusade, which means the main bad guy and I mean he's a Nazi dude.

[21:30] How bad do they get?

[21:31] He's a major bad guy.

[21:32] Donovan is the lead bad guy in Last Crusade.

[21:34] He's the guy who was in that tank and there's that weird like push in on his face as he

[21:40] goes over the cliff in the tank.

[21:41] If you go over a cliff in a tank, your face is going to be crazy.

[21:46] You're going to get a case of what they call crazy face.

[21:50] He was also a Dick Tracy villain.

[21:52] Goran, was that his name?

[21:54] Yeah, Herman Goering was his name and he was a much bigger guy than in the movie.

[22:00] But he's also a returning Flophouse actor it turns out.

[22:03] Like many of the actors in this movie.

[22:05] This movie is full of returning Flophouse faves.

[22:08] Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, who's been in three or four Flophouse movies at this point,

[22:12] went for Gwyneth Paltrow and of course Michael Byrne as the Duke and guess what Flophouse

[22:19] movie he was in?

[22:20] You'll never guess because I forgot we did it and I forgot the movie existed.

[22:23] Blood, The Last Vampire.

[22:25] Now was Jeff Goldblum in a previous Flophouse movie?

[22:27] Dan?

[22:28] Not that I know of.

[22:30] Okay, first-timers.

[22:31] Check the archives.

[22:32] Hammond, Ewan McGregor, first-timers.

[22:34] Yeah, a couple first-timers.

[22:35] We'll be gentle with them.

[22:36] And Olivia Munn, who's also a Flophouse first-timer.

[22:39] Okay.

[22:40] So, the...

[22:43] Vogel was his name.

[22:45] Vogel.

[22:46] Vogel like a bird.

[22:47] Vogel was very Vogel when he fell off that cliff going, ah!

[22:51] Anyway, so the painting apparently has written on the back of it a bank account in which

[22:57] a Nazi bigwig, I forgot, it was Goering I think, put...

[23:01] I thought it was Goebbels.

[23:02] Was it Goebbels?

[23:03] I don't remember.

[23:04] It's one of the big-name Nazis.

[23:05] One of your name-brand Nazis.

[23:06] One of your last Nazis.

[23:07] Not one of your brand-X Vogel Nazis.

[23:09] One of your name-brand Marquis Nazis.

[23:12] Like a Nazi that could open a picture.

[23:14] Top Nazi.

[23:15] Top Nazi.

[23:16] I remember when I was a college student and I was so poor all I could afford was Top Nazi

[23:19] to eat.

[23:21] I mean, it's so cheap.

[23:22] You just add water and you heat it up a little bit.

[23:24] Tasted terrible.

[23:26] You use water?

[23:27] I just poured the flavor packet inside, smashed it up, and ate it like that.

[23:32] Nazi bits.

[23:34] Again, one of the worst cereals of all time.

[23:36] You got little swastikas, little skulls, little mustaches.

[23:42] No marshmallows at all.

[23:43] No.

[23:44] Because it was the city for...

[23:46] For work, not play.

[23:48] It was called Breakfast and Mocked Fry.

[23:52] Anyway, let's stop with the Nazi jokes, shall we?

[23:54] Mordecai is kidnapped by a bunch of Russians who want to find out where the painting is.

[23:58] Jacques saves him.

[23:59] We have that great open your balls joke.

[24:01] Mordecai almost gets his testicles electrocuted and the Russian thugs tell him to open his balls.

[24:06] Open your balls, Quaid.

[24:08] And he doesn't know what it means.

[24:09] And there was a line that I thought was funny where they're escaping and Mordecai says to Jacques,

[24:14] Open your balls.

[24:15] What does that mean?

[24:16] It's like, I don't know, sir.

[24:17] Really?

[24:18] I have no idea what it means.

[24:19] I don't know, sir.

[24:20] Do you really know and you just don't want to tell me?

[24:22] Yes, sir.

[24:24] And here's my secret that I'm going to reveal.

[24:26] I think I kind of like this movie.

[24:29] It was so dumb and not very funny, but when it was funny, it was funny in a way that I was like,

[24:34] Okay, I found that genuinely funny.

[24:36] And I was not as bored as I was watching Fifty Shades of Grey, for instance.

[24:41] Because at least it's a colorful looking movie.

[24:43] It usually moves fast.

[24:44] And it earns its hard R rating.

[24:46] Well, I mean, they say the F word a couple of times.

[24:49] That's about it.

[24:50] Oh, wow.

[24:52] Oh, wow.

[24:53] Wowzers.

[24:54] It's a soft R.

[24:55] Like the R is made out of butter left out on a counter for hours to keep it soft.

[24:59] Like the French girls do.

[25:03] So Ewan McGregor's character wants to win over Gwyneth Paltrow's character.

[25:08] He's always been in love with her.

[25:09] And in college, Mordecai stole her from him.

[25:11] Yeah, there's that great flashback with Spin Doctor Song.

[25:13] That was a good joke, actually.

[25:15] To place it in the 90s, two princesses just laying in the background.

[25:18] Which in this movie feels like an anachronism because this movie exists out of time.

[25:24] Well, it exists nowadays, but everyone kind of acts like it's the 60s.

[25:28] And this isn't one of those Austin Powers type movies.

[25:31] They weren't frozen.

[25:32] Like a Goldmember is going to show up, right?

[25:34] Yeah, yeah.

[25:35] A Goldbloom shows up, though.

[25:36] One of those Goldmembers.

[25:37] Speaking of which, they go to Los Angeles, sent by MI5,

[25:40] where they stay in a trendy hotel where everyone has mustaches

[25:43] in a scene that almost is a joke, but isn't a joke.

[25:48] They meet Jeff Goldbloom, whose Rolls-Royce car has the painting inside it.

[25:53] And also Jeff Goldbloom's, is it his wife or his daughter?

[25:56] His daughter.

[25:57] His daughter played by Olivia Munn, who is a sex fiend.

[26:00] You know she's a sex fiend because she's named Georgina.

[26:03] If you're named Georgina in a movie, you're a sex fiend.

[26:05] Really? What other movie Georginas are there?

[26:07] I think Head of the Family is the only other one I could think of.

[26:10] The limited...

[26:11] Because it's a very unsexy name, I'll give you that.

[26:13] It's not like...

[26:14] Your sample size is very small.

[26:15] Like Veronica is a pretty sexy name.

[26:16] I haven't seen that many movies, dude.

[26:18] Well, like, what's another sexy name?

[26:20] Sapphire.

[26:21] Sapphire.

[26:22] Yeah, super classy.

[26:24] Is she a jewel thief or is she a sex bot?

[26:27] Or is she the jewel?

[26:28] Yeah.

[26:29] Yeah, there's no reason she has to choose.

[26:31] Georgina doesn't seem like a sex bot to me.

[26:34] Georgina seems like an awkward attempt to turn a man's name into a woman's name.

[26:38] Well, that's what it was.

[26:39] Felicia is a sexy name for a cat burglar.

[26:42] It's the name George Lucas uses on internet forums.

[26:47] When it says, age, sex, location.

[26:49] I'm Georgina, age 22, sex, female, location Skywalker Ranch.

[26:58] When he's undercover...

[26:59] Everyone in line is like, are you George Lucas?

[27:01] No, no, I'm Georgina Luquicia.

[27:04] I'm a 22-year-old hottie.

[27:06] My, uh, feathers are very wet for you right now.

[27:12] I'm just wearing a plaid shirt.

[27:14] And nothing else.

[27:15] And nothing else.

[27:16] Except I could use computers to add more clothes later, if that's what you're into.

[27:20] Do you like hot rods?

[27:22] Do you enjoy collecting Norman Rockwell paintings?

[27:25] That's a deep cut for George Lucas.

[27:27] Anyway, uh, there's a whole lot of shenanigans.

[27:30] There's a big party at Jeff Goldblum's house.

[27:33] And during it, Jock and...

[27:35] As always.

[27:36] Jock, famous party animal.

[27:39] Jeff, party animal Goldblum.

[27:41] I was trying to think of something that rhymed with Jeff, and I couldn't think of anything.

[27:44] Jeffrey G. Blum.

[27:45] Jeff Heff Goldblum.

[27:46] They call him that because he's like a Hugh Hefner times two.

[27:49] I'm shaking my head.

[27:51] Stuart did not like that.

[27:52] Thanks for narrating that.

[27:53] Because they cannot see it at home.

[27:55] Why are you catching on?

[27:57] Wow, you realize that finally?

[27:59] How come you didn't know at the beginning of the episode?

[28:01] Mr. Shrugs.

[28:02] It's a learning curve.

[28:04] Shrugs McKenzie over here.

[28:06] Nancy and Shruggo over here.

[28:10] Shrugs Bunny.

[28:12] Hey, I got one.

[28:13] Shrugs Meanie.

[28:14] How about that?

[28:15] Yeah, that's alright.

[28:16] I'm not that into it.

[28:19] So, Jock and Mordecai are going to steal the painting during the party.

[28:23] Uh-oh, Gwyneth Paltrow shows up.

[28:25] She had a big argument with Mordecai earlier about his mustache.

[28:28] Shows up while he's being seduced through dance by Georgina.

[28:32] It's not what it looks like.

[28:34] He goes with, and he gets out of that situation pretty easily.

[28:37] He and Jock go to steal the painting, but it's already been stolen and Jeff Goldblum has been killed.

[28:41] After two scenes.

[28:42] He has about two and a half scenes in the movie, one of which he is dead in.

[28:45] It is a waste.

[28:46] Put him on the poster.

[28:47] I gotta say, when compared to Jeff Goldblum death scenes, not as good as Grand Budapest Hotel or The Fly.

[28:54] What about when he dies in Earth Girls Are Easy?

[28:58] He does die in Earth Girls Are Easy.

[29:00] He got totally murdered by alien hunters.

[29:02] I think you're thinking of Jurassic Park, the book, in which he dies.

[29:06] Not the movie, which he doesn't.

[29:08] I didn't know Jeff Goldblum was in the book.

[29:10] Yeah, yeah, he plays himself in the book.

[29:12] The thing is, the people they invite to the opening are Sam Neill, the paleontologist, Alan Grant.

[29:17] Also, the mathematician, Ian whatever his name is.

[29:21] McDermott, let's say.

[29:23] And Ian Malcolm.

[29:25] Ian McDermott.

[29:26] And Jeff Goldblum, who is following Ian Malcolm around,

[29:28] because he's going to play him in a movie called Jurassic Park,

[29:30] about the successful opening of the Jurassic Park.

[29:33] The movie is going to be called Jurassic World.

[29:37] How many raptors are in it, Elliot?

[29:39] Like 40 billion, and they all look super fake.

[29:41] Jurassic Girls Are Easy.

[29:43] And it's about a guy who's having sex with a dinosaur.

[29:46] Because they're so easy.

[29:48] They're not actually that easy.

[29:50] Yeah, they're animals.

[29:52] You gotta drug them up.

[29:53] They're going to be ripped apart.

[29:55] Because they're clever girls.

[29:57] Yeah, there you go.

[29:59] You got it.

[30:00] let's go on this guy gets so uh... they thought try to find the painting

[30:04] that they find it but it turns out georgina's in cahoots with the

[30:07] terrorist

[30:09] they finally track them down to a hotel

[30:11] and you know gregor burns the painting rather than letting it and its financial

[30:14] secrets fall into the hands of a bad guy a terrorist is going to fund is

[30:18] terrorism

[30:18] but then it turns out that painting was a fake it turns out

[30:22] the nazi from last crusade will have the real one in his bathroom the whole time

[30:27] uh... they the mordecai's steal it

[30:30] and they are

[30:31] gonna get it

[30:32] by putting it up for auction

[30:34] to get money

[30:35] to pay off their debts and they're going to hide it as a painting they have

[30:39] but then actually sell the painting they have when they think they're selling

[30:43] the famous painting to the bad guys

[30:46] let's just say this

[30:47] there's a lot of nonsense at an auction house does it make us forget the auction

[30:51] scene in north by northwest certainly not

[30:54] uh... but it might be right up there with the auction scene in vincent and

[30:56] theo

[30:57] which is very boring because it's just footage of an actual auction this movie

[31:00] desperately wants to be a screwball comedy and it has

[31:04] like the switchbacks of a screwball comedy but it does not because it's a

[31:07] steep hill it does not make us care about any of it so well i mean it just

[31:12] turns into like convoluted you don't even necessarily have to care

[31:15] or be able to keep track i'll say that there are a lot of funny

[31:19] screwball comedies or farces where if you were asked

[31:21] what happened two scenes ago to make this happen you'd be like what? i don't know but while

[31:26] you're following it it makes some sort of logic. Why are you asking me this in the middle of a movie?

[31:29] I'm trying to finish watching noises off can you please stop bothering me

[31:33] it doesn't have the crackerjack plotting

[31:35] that a real screwball has. Yeah there are no crackerjacks. It's just complicated

[31:40] it's certainly not screwballs

[31:42] you know the famous screwball comedy screwballs

[31:46] it does not end

[31:47] with a freeze of like a topless lady it's not a freeze you get to see it

[31:51] blowing in the wind

[31:53] what's the it blowing in the wind?

[31:55] it being what?

[31:57] a woman's bosoms

[32:01] that here depersonalized to an it. Famed feminist Stuart Wellington

[32:06] he used the word bosoms

[32:09] it's pretty much just it's glorious

[32:11] he didn't call them like glorious biscuits or something. Stuart Wellington

[32:16] now uh...

[32:17] so they in the end Mordecai wins and his wife wins hooray they get

[32:22] enough money to pay off their back taxes everything's okay

[32:25] Mordecai's going to shave off his mustache to win back his wife and she says you know what

[32:29] keep it

[32:30] the fact that you were

[32:31] willing to shave it off for me is enough and they have a bath together

[32:34] she tries to kiss him and she gags and then Mordecai gags

[32:37] the end. And then the audience

[32:39] gags with laughter

[32:40] uh... well in some way

[32:41] so I'm going to say this not a good movie not not that enjoyable but I kind of liked it

[32:46] yeah wait are we into Final Judgements already? You're the boss I don't know what else did you want to say about it?

[32:49] I feel like you kind of are. Let's just go to it. What were you going to say?

[32:53] anything I was going to say we could say it in

[32:56] I'm just happy they didn't play that Smash Mouth song at any point

[33:00] I will say the music was

[33:02] too loud and crazy

[33:04] Mickey Mouse and that shit all over the place

[33:06] yeah they were Mickey Mouse-ing it up

[33:08] so let's do Final Judgments

[33:12] ka-splash

[33:14] was this a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie you kind of liked? Elliot kind of liked it

[33:17] I'm on record

[33:18] kind of like I'm ashamed to say it but I have to be... just throw that shit on the poster

[33:23] look as Robert Warshaw said in the immediate experience I must admit that I'm a man

[33:26] watching a film having an

[33:28] a non-conscious reaction to the film

[33:30] kind of liked it

[33:31] here's what I'll say about the movie... put it on the poster

[33:33] kind of liked it Elliot Caleb with La Paz... here's what I'll say about the movie the movie bored me

[33:37] for huge long stretches of it

[33:39] uh... people can uh... people can attest

[33:42] yeah the two people in the room... who can name them all?

[33:47] who has the time? Elliot and Stuart can attest

[33:49] that I spent a fair amount of the movie staring at my phone because I got

[33:53] uninterested in the machinations of the plot there were too many

[33:57] double crosses and switch em ups and your switcheroonies... yeah and Andy Rooney

[34:02] Mickey Rooney's and... I didn't like the mechanics of the plot

[34:06] bored me

[34:07] but um... I kind of enjoyed

[34:09] that there are a bunch of good actors giving their all to some really shitty

[34:13] material... it's not great material

[34:15] but nobody in the movie is

[34:17] sleeping through it and nobody's half-assing it they are yeah they're

[34:20] really going for it... I feel like all the actors and the director are giving it their all

[34:24] and the script is terrible... there are a few funny lines in the script but mostly it's not very good

[34:28] but that's an interesting experience and like if you have any fondness

[34:33] for terrible comedies of the sixties which I don't really

[34:36] but I kind of do because they baffle me so much like I stare at them

[34:41] and my brain tries to wrap themselves... my brain rejects them... while we were watching it

[34:45] your brain is like... this is in the form of comedy but nothing is funny

[34:50] I don't understand... while we were watching it we were talking about

[34:53] the scene in the original Casino Royale where he has to match strengths with

[34:57] the Scottish clansman and it's

[34:59] totally boring and long and not funny but it goes on forever or

[35:03] there's the little car race at the end of What's New Pussycat

[35:07] and where it's like this is not funny and it's going on forever

[35:11] and the movie seems to be wanting to tell me that this is funny... even funny

[35:15] comedies from the sixties even like

[35:17] like good Pink Panther movies have long stretches that are just like

[35:21] interminable like what is going on... why am I being forced to

[35:26] watch this just for like

[35:27] the fifteen minutes of this movie where Peter Sellers is going to be hilarious

[35:31] I mean I like more of those movies than I think you do

[35:34] I'm just saying that like

[35:37] Shot in the Dark is the only one that's really solid and then like

[35:41] I like Return of the Pink Panther a lot

[35:44] but anyway what I'm going to say is from scene to scene

[35:48] it alternated between bad bad movie and movie I kind of like to keep going back and

[35:52] forth

[35:52] so that's what my feeling is... Stewart... yeah I guess I'm with you

[35:57] more with you Dan than Elliot there was a you know there's a couple jokes I like

[36:01] but in general

[36:02] it was it was not tight enough for me to give it a

[36:06] movie I kind of like... now look am I ever going to watch this movie again? no

[36:09] you're not going to go buy it? no I'm not going to run out... I'm not going to run out of the blu-ray

[36:13] I'm not going to run... don't walk to buy it... we did watch the R rated version and not the PG-13

[36:17] rated cut that you can also... yeah we saw those Mordecai heads out there

[36:21] who are too young to watch Mordecai... I think like

[36:25] a 13-year-old might enjoy a de-sexed version of this more than an adult

[36:30] yeah I mean this is like what like who's Harry Crumb?

[36:33] because this was too erotic in it's current form

[36:36] it's a who's Harry Crumb... it's a regular delirious

[36:39] it's a regular second sight... two movies I like better than Mordecai

[36:43] second sight yeah... it's a regular Dr. Detroit

[36:47] that movie is weird

[36:50] that movie baffles me... how did that movie get made?

[36:55] Dan Aykroyd plays like a robot pimp in Chicago

[36:59] he's like a fake pimp... yeah a pimp superhero I don't understand

[37:03] you can't in a world... Howard Hessman is in it... in a universe where nothing but trouble exists

[37:08] I can't ask why any other movie was ever made

[37:12] in a world, in a universe, in a multiverse where someone saw the script for

[37:16] nothing but trouble and was like

[37:18] yeah I would pay to have this made... what kind of idiot god would allow this?

[37:24] Azathoth dancing to the mad sounds of

[37:27] blind pipers... what

[37:31] tribulation did he seek to visit upon humanity?

[37:35] that he greenlit nothing but trouble

[37:38] so we all agree Mordecai was fantastic

[37:42] yeah A+++. Hello I'm Tarku the Elephant Magician

[37:47] Moral High Church here, the master of clerical magic

[37:50] I'm Magnus Burnside, the fighter... did you guys like that?

[37:54] did you the listener like that? you were just swept up in a world of high fantasy

[37:59] magic where anything can happen and anything is possible

[38:02] I am Griffin McElroy, dungeon master for the Adventure Zone, a new podcast on Maximum Fun

[38:07] in which magic and mystery intertwine for a very erotically charged role playing experience

[38:13] you can catch it every other Thursday here on MaximumFun.org or iTunes

[38:16] it's Dungeons and Dragons but with family

[38:20] moving on to letters from listeners

[38:24] that's the traditional next segment in the show

[38:27] yeah yeah as legend tells, passed down generation for generation

[38:31] of letters and the first letter... there is a prophecy

[38:35] a prophecy of missives from the outside

[38:39] what the elders call the Wasted Land

[38:43] two poisonous from after the nuke war

[38:46] for regular travelers to voyage across and yet

[38:50] strange communications from intelligences unknown

[38:54] are received by the last surviving members of humanity known as

[38:58] the House of the Flopping Inn

[39:01] the House of the Flopping Inn where the three

[39:05] now elderly survivors and caretakers of the memory of humanity

[39:10] sit in ancient silence, too frightened to speak

[39:14] for fear of being interrupted by one of the other two

[39:18] and lo, the prophecy foretells

[39:21] that a message shall be received, a youth shall be discovered

[39:25] and a new world abhorn in the aftertimes

[39:31] after the cataclysm of the nuke war

[39:34] there came a people, the Flock People

[39:37] a mighty tribe, a massive tribe

[39:40] a wise tribe

[39:45] spreading the gospel of thought

[39:48] across the wasteland to mutants and ghosts and zombies and skeletons and

[39:52] aliens and robots

[39:53] and gator men and ant people

[39:56] and bear dogs

[40:00] Just a few more letters, yeah.

[40:05] I've been writing on sheets of white.

[40:09] Just trying to get it right.

[40:11] That's a weird prog rock introduction to-

[40:14] That actual rose.

[40:15] That's actual rose.

[40:17] Actual rose.

[40:19] Not a simulation.

[40:21] That's like something like your grandma is like,

[40:23] Stuart, I got you that actual rose album you wanted.

[40:27] And it's just a photo album of pictures of roses.

[40:30] Grandma, it's supposed to be Axl Rose with guns and roses.

[40:34] Oh, a gun at your age?

[40:35] I don't think so.

[40:39] So this first letter, this is clearly

[40:42] in response to something that we said in a previous episode.

[40:45] Who can remember?

[40:46] That I can't remember.

[40:47] Lost through the sands of time.

[40:50] The minute Dan says recording over,

[40:52] I click, drag my memories to the recycle bin, and delete.

[40:56] Yes, I don't know what specifically this

[40:57] was in reference to, but it was interesting enough on its own

[41:00] that I was going to read it.

[41:02] It goes like this.

[41:03] Gents, although Godzilla has never

[41:05] fought either Frankenstein or Frankenstein's monster-

[41:08] Well, well, well.

[41:10] Let's just say right here.

[41:12] In Frankenstein Conquers the World,

[41:13] Frankenstein's monster fights Baragon.

[41:15] Well, hold on.

[41:16] We're getting there.

[41:17] OK.

[41:17] He got closer than you expect.

[41:18] OK, there you go.

[41:19] Thanks, letter writer.

[41:20] During 1960, Miriam C. Cooper actually

[41:22] tried to sell Toho in a movie where King Kong would

[41:24] fight a Frankenstein-style monster.

[41:26] This somehow metamorphosized into King Kong fighting Godzilla

[41:30] in Godzilla versus King Kong, which in Japan

[41:33] was actually mostly a weird working-class comedy

[41:35] with monsters in it.

[41:36] Then Toho made Frankenstein Conquers the World,

[41:40] where Nazi scientists attempt to take

[41:42] the heart of Frankenstein's monster to Japan.

[41:45] Unfortunately for Japan, they take the heart to Hiroshima,

[41:48] where it is irradiated when the Allies bomb the city.

[41:50] This obviously results in the heart regenerating

[41:53] into a giant dude who then fights

[41:55] a monster called Baragon.

[41:56] OK, thank you.

[41:57] Baragon would go on to fight alongside Godzilla

[41:59] against King Ghidorah and destroy all monsters.

[42:02] Yeah, yeah.

[42:03] Also, Frankenstein's monster sort of

[42:04] ended up splitting into two giant hairy twins

[42:07] who fought one another.

[42:08] And wore the gargantuas.

[42:09] Although that is not terribly relevant here.

[42:12] So by the transitive property, Godzilla

[42:14] has not only fought Frankenstein's monster,

[42:16] he's done it twice.

[42:17] Also, Toho has made some absurd movies.

[42:19] Yours and Flop, Lawrence's last name withheld.

[42:21] I've seen all those movies and I love them all.

[42:24] When I was a kid, I watched the Godzilla movies

[42:27] almost in order over and over again.

[42:29] Yeah?

[42:30] Yeah, I loved them.

[42:31] I'd even sit through the boring talkie scenes

[42:33] because I knew guys in monster suits

[42:35] were going to be punching each other on tiny city sets.

[42:37] I'd always get up during the talkie scenes and leave.

[42:41] I mean, that's a good way to do it, too.

[42:41] Or like, build a fort out of Legos.

[42:45] A fort for my Lego, man, not for me, that'd be crazy.

[42:47] Those twins were on.

[42:49] The Mother Twins?

[42:51] Saying things.

[42:53] That falls under the boring category.

[42:54] Singing a beautiful song that went,

[42:56] ♪ Mothra, Mothra. ♪

[43:00] ♪ Anang kata kuya, hindayu. ♪

[43:04] I don't know the actual words, it's just my transliteration.

[43:06] That's a lullaby you use for your baby, right?

[43:11] I totally should, I didn't even think about that.

[43:14] Well, that's the song they sing to get Mothra

[43:16] to calm him down and everything.

[43:18] So, here's what I'm going to say about that.

[43:19] Also, I just finished watching the other day

[43:22] the new version of Godzilla,

[43:24] which I missed when it was in the theaters.

[43:26] Didn't care for it.

[43:27] You said, nude version of Godzilla?

[43:28] Well, all versions of Godzilla are nude.

[43:30] He never wears clothes.

[43:31] I didn't like that new Godzilla movie,

[43:32] and I was really looking forward to it.

[43:34] You liked it, okay.

[43:35] I found the human plot line uninteresting.

[43:38] Yeah, that's fair.

[43:39] And I found the new monster uninspiring.

[43:43] All right.

[43:44] Also, is it just me, or did Godzilla get kind of fat?

[43:47] That was a chunky Godzilla.

[43:49] The internet went crazy about that.

[43:51] They were making fun of how fat he was.

[43:52] He was kind of fat.

[43:53] I kind of like that, though.

[43:54] No, I like, yeah, it made him more vulnerable.

[43:56] He was fat like my cat.

[43:57] Well, that was the thing is, I found it-

[43:59] Adorably fat, exactly.

[44:00] It was braver of Godzilla to be nude in those scenes

[44:03] because he's so out of shape.

[44:06] There was an about Schmidt,

[44:07] Kathy Bates honesty about the scenes.

[44:09] Yeah, okay.

[44:11] I get you.

[44:13] This next letter.

[44:14] So, why did that person write it?

[44:16] I don't know.

[44:17] I'm saying, I must have been in reference

[44:19] to something that we said in the previous episode,

[44:20] but I don't remember.

[44:22] And I don't care to remember.

[44:25] Now I want to see a series of shorts you do

[44:28] called I Don't Remember,

[44:29] where you're sitting in a chair,

[44:30] he goes, ah, yes.

[44:31] January 6th, 2007.

[44:33] I don't remember.

[44:35] That's the whole thing.

[44:36] It's like an NPR series.

[44:39] Dan McCoy in I Don't Remember.

[44:40] It's like the opposite of StoryCorps.

[44:43] I don't know what happened on April 5th, 1992,

[44:49] and I don't care.

[44:50] Something could have happened.

[44:51] I don't know.

[44:53] I prefer the Crypt Keepers NPR show, GoryCorps.

[44:56] Also, StoryGorps.

[44:57] Or StoryGorps, yeah, exactly.

[45:00] Not ToryGorps, that's too political for me.

[45:05] ToryGorps is also, I guess,

[45:06] the Tales from the Crypt nickname for Terry Gar.

[45:09] That'd be TerrorGore.

[45:15] When the Crypt Keeper at his local news channel

[45:17] is what, reviewing Young Frankenstein?

[45:19] Or Manos' TorgoGore.

[45:23] This one goes like this.

[45:24] Hello, peaches.

[45:26] Dan and Elliot can take a breather on this one,

[45:29] because this email is directed toward Stuart.

[45:32] Is this from my mom?

[45:34] Stuart, at your wedding,

[45:36] did your wife write her own vows

[45:37] and include a parody of Casey and JoJo's All My Life,

[45:41] featuring the lyric,

[45:42] all my life, I've prayed for someone like Stu?

[45:46] Do you think that if you had been marrying Weird Al Yankovic,

[45:49] that he would have done that?

[45:51] Probably.

[45:51] Do you wish you had married Weird Al Yankovic?

[45:54] I'll hang up and listen.

[45:56] Chris, last name withheld.

[45:57] Well, the advantage of being married to Weird Al Yankovic

[46:00] would be, of course, financial security.

[46:04] He's very successful.

[46:06] And the security of knowing

[46:08] that he has a fortune of parody jokes.

[46:11] And you can run your hands through those long-

[46:14] Run my hair through his hair.

[46:15] I wish that we could intermingle our hair.

[46:19] And then just whip each other around the room.

[46:21] Exactly.

[46:22] Like some kind of martial arts duo in a Shaw Brothers film.

[46:26] I wish it had said,

[46:27] do you wish you married Weird Al Yankovic?

[46:29] Signed, Weird Al, last name withheld.

[46:32] I can say, as someone who's known Stuart for years,

[46:36] that he has sung plenty of songs

[46:37] that have the word you in them

[46:39] and replace Stu in the lyrics.

[46:42] Die without Stu.

[46:44] Yeah.

[46:45] There's probably others.

[46:46] I've been waiting for a girl like Stu.

[46:49] Yeah.

[46:50] Stu, Stu got what I need.

[46:53] Like that one.

[46:54] Yeah.

[46:55] We could go on for a while.

[46:56] Elliott, there's not a lot of Elliotts.

[46:57] Stu make me feel,

[46:58] no, Elliott fits into almost no songs.

[47:01] Whereas Dan fits into a lot.

[47:02] It's raining Dan, hallelujah, it's raining Dan.

[47:07] However, there's very few songs

[47:08] that actually have my name in it.

[47:10] The only one I can think of is,

[47:11] Daniel is leaving tonight on the plane.

[47:14] I don't even know that song.

[47:15] Who's that by?

[47:15] Elton John.

[47:16] Oh.

[47:17] Danny boy.

[47:19] Oh yeah, that's a classic.

[47:20] I'm a soul Dan.

[47:22] Okay.

[47:23] Do do do do, do do do do.

[47:25] So, what's the answer to that?

[47:27] Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan.

[47:29] The answer is yes, maybe, probably.

[47:33] Thanks, Stu.

[47:35] So, last letter of the evening.

[47:39] Last letter.

[47:40] Final letter.

[47:41] Last letter is titled, think of the ratings.

[47:45] Okay, podcast ratings.

[47:47] Peaches, babies, I've been following your work

[47:50] for some time and I've gotta tell you,

[47:51] I like what I hear.

[47:53] But we all know that after 170 some episodes,

[47:56] the schtick has become a little played out.

[47:58] You're telling us.

[47:59] That's right, the bits, Stuart.

[48:03] Sure, you've attempted.

[48:04] This guy's coming on real strong.

[48:06] Whoa, full court press is what David Cailin would call it.

[48:11] Sure, you've attempted to mix it up

[48:13] with tried and tested tropes.

[48:15] The time Stuart tried to get out of jury duty,

[48:17] for example, by ripping his own ding dong off.

[48:20] Didn't work.

[48:21] Didn't work.

[48:22] Or when the ding dong.

[48:22] My hand got ripped off instead.

[48:24] Or when Dan mournfully sighed the precise frequently

[48:26] to shatter the encasing of the world famous

[48:28] seven pound jewel, aiding and abetting a known supervillain.

[48:32] And let's not forget the short-lived spin-off series,

[48:34] Flophouse Babies, in which Elliot rigs the school's

[48:37] spelling bee to include his personal vocabulary

[48:40] of words that sound like other words.

[48:42] Mr. Cailin used the word go-to-bulls in the sentence.

[48:46] Enter the house cat.

[48:48] Wait a minute, babies go to school?

[48:50] That's what I was wondering.

[48:51] Babies are not good at spelling bees.

[48:53] Pre-K.

[48:54] Enter the house cat.

[48:55] Again, this is, can't spell.

[48:57] While fast becoming the most popular character,

[49:01] the Flophouse house cat brought little more to the meow mix

[49:04] than the internet's most annoying catchphrase, rah-rah,

[49:07] inspiring a new generation

[49:09] of Bart Simpson knockoff t-shirts.

[49:11] The most irritating internet catchphrase has gotta be,

[49:14] we could be like this, but you, what is it?

[49:17] You trippin'.

[49:18] You trippin', yeah.

[49:18] I couldn't even remember it was so irritating.

[49:20] You've made some bold choices over the years

[49:22] as the world has watched on anxiously,

[49:24] praying for that rekindling spark.

[49:26] But there's one thing your stories have missed,

[49:28] a love interest.

[49:29] Gentlemen, that's where I come in.

[49:32] What I'm proposing is just that, a Flophouse proposal.

[49:36] The primetime special lifetime

[49:38] of it extravaganza episode we've been waiting for.

[49:40] In fact, as a show of good faith

[49:42] in our perspective arrangement,

[49:44] I'd like to make an offering of personal humility.

[49:47] Allow me to address the woman

[49:48] who has long studied your work by my side,

[49:51] an honorary Flopster who has chimed in

[49:53] with every episode's conversation,

[49:55] regardless of whether you've addressed her.

[49:57] She's your greatest champion

[49:59] and my associate in life.

[50:00] Love and our history together is as stored as this program.

[50:03] Tracy, the love and happiness we've shared so far

[50:06] is something I thought only existed in bad movies.

[50:09] Yet six years in, I'm amazed you will still

[50:11] suffer me so gracefully.

[50:14] We've shared an adventure and misadventure

[50:16] and some of my favorite moments of the mundanity in between.

[50:20] But I've yearned for a life greater

[50:21] than these flop house reruns.

[50:23] Every day I get to wake up with you

[50:25] feels like the start of something new

[50:26] with limitless possibilities ahead.

[50:29] It's time to focus 100% of our brains on the future.

[50:33] It's time to begin a new venture.

[50:36] So I ask you this, Tracy, not as the resident Dan McCoy,

[50:40] but as humble letter writer Cohen.

[50:42] Tracy, last name withheld, will you marry me, please?

[50:47] Well, that's all I have for now.

[50:48] Regardless of your decision, baby,

[50:50] I think our work here is done.

[50:52] I got a feeling these peaches will be just fine.

[50:55] Let's focus our attention now

[50:56] on the next potential spinoff, The Last Name Withhelds.

[51:00] I have some thoughts you might like to hear

[51:01] that depend on the star power of one flop house house cat.

[51:05] See you at home, baby, don't delay.

[51:07] Keep on flopping.

[51:08] Cohen, last name withheld.

[51:10] So if there's a Tracy out there

[51:12] who's dating a Cohen, last name withheld,

[51:14] I hope there's not more than one.

[51:16] Because otherwise, we've fucked you.

[51:20] Whoa, whoa, did you just, wait,

[51:21] were you telling the guy,

[51:22] you just helped him with the proposal

[51:24] and then you're just telling him that you.

[51:25] No, I'm saying the other person,

[51:26] the other one who did not.

[51:27] I do like the idea of.

[51:28] The guy wasn't ready for a commitment like that.

[51:31] He did bring up the idea of mundanity,

[51:33] which I think is a good,

[51:35] a sitcom starring Dan McCoy and Olivia Munn.

[51:38] Shut the fuck up.

[51:39] Wait, I'm saying you were starring in a sitcom.

[51:42] I think you'd be great.

[51:43] With Olivia Munn.

[51:44] Can we not bicker among ourselves for one moment

[51:48] and let the moment settle that's just happened,

[51:51] that our fan, Cohen, has just chosen,

[51:54] possibly the weakest vessel or instrument, Dan,

[51:58] to propose to his girlfriend, Tracy.

[52:02] Dan, this is the first fan-to-fan

[52:04] via the podcast proposal.

[52:05] This is the very first proposal, yeah.

[52:07] Very exciting.

[52:08] And that means that if they get married and have a baby,

[52:10] they have to name that baby either,

[52:12] Flophouse, Housecat, or Studaniate.

[52:15] So if you want Tracy to say yes,

[52:19] write in A to Radio Zork.

[52:22] If you want her to say no,

[52:24] write in B.

[52:24] And also, you're heartless.

[52:27] And if you want her to say,

[52:29] give me a moment with kind of like a twinkle in her eye

[52:32] and then say yes, write in C.

[52:34] And if you'd like to push the door open slightly,

[52:37] slightly more, okay, stop, write in D.

[52:42] We'll get this door open someday.

[52:44] This door needs some oil.

[52:47] Well, perhaps next week,

[52:48] we can give an option that people can try oil on it.

[52:50] So, Tracy, I think Cohen has shown his total lack of judgment

[52:57] in using Dan as his instrument,

[52:59] but I think you should overlook that.

[53:00] Yeah, look, I mean, I'm sure he's romantic

[53:03] in plenty of other ways.

[53:05] So I think-

[53:06] You said that so gross.

[53:07] I don't know why we threw him under the bus so quickly.

[53:11] Because he chose to propose via us.

[53:13] Chose to propose.

[53:14] And we are touched and we are honored by that.

[53:17] We are totally touched.

[53:19] We're hiding how much we're touched by, you know,

[53:21] all these jokes.

[53:22] That's true, classic flop bro behavior.

[53:24] Yeah, we're deflecting.

[53:26] You can't let the real emotions sink in.

[53:27] Let's have a moment of real sincerity.

[53:31] Let's get real.

[53:31] You know what?

[53:32] Everybody turn your baseball caps backwards.

[53:34] Let's turn your chairs around, let's rap about this.

[53:37] You two, hope everything works out.

[53:41] You seem like a great couple.

[53:42] I don't know much about either of you,

[53:43] but one of you can write in to the podcast.

[53:47] One of you writes a funny letter.

[53:48] I know both of you are fans.

[53:49] He didn't pick that many big words in that letter.

[53:51] Yeah.

[53:52] That's forethought.

[53:53] Yeah, because he knows Dan's stupid tongue

[53:54] will just trip on him.

[53:56] The other one is a lady,

[53:58] and he seems to love you.

[54:01] So you got that going for you.

[54:03] Dan, did you propose to your wife?

[54:05] Yeah.

[54:07] I can't remember.

[54:07] It's a long time ago.

[54:08] I mean, my words were not too well either.

[54:10] Yeah.

[54:11] Look.

[54:12] My words were not too well either.

[54:14] Classic Elliot.

[54:15] Yeah.

[54:16] Classic not speaking right.

[54:18] So letters, right?

[54:19] So I think we're all overwhelmed by the emotion of that.

[54:22] Yeah.

[54:23] And I guess we're all invited to the wedding now?

[54:24] Sure, of course.

[54:25] Yeah.

[54:27] Or we could crash it.

[54:28] What kind of open bar are we talking here?

[54:30] While we're riding high on these letters,

[54:32] I want to give a quick shout out

[54:33] to the three year anniversary of Chris and Steph.

[54:37] Listeners, Chris and Steph.

[54:38] They were in the bar the other day

[54:40] and told me their three year anniversary.

[54:42] That's very nice.

[54:43] So I guess we've now instituted the precedent

[54:45] that the Flophouse cares about your marriages.

[54:48] Yeah, I'm not comfortable with this.

[54:50] No, no, no.

[54:50] I prefer to be a cold, distant goddess.

[54:51] You would rather that...

[54:53] You would rather...

[54:54] Did you say God?

[54:54] I did.

[54:55] I think you are overestimating your place in the cosmos.

[54:56] You would rather split up marriages

[54:58] so people then marry someone else

[55:00] and spread the Flophouse love to other people.

[55:02] But Dan, without marriages, our source of wives,

[55:06] where will wives' butts come from?

[55:07] Okay, this is a misnomer.

[55:09] I like all butts.

[55:10] I don't really care what the marital status is.

[55:12] You don't prefer them to be on wives?

[55:14] Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, I prefer them...

[55:16] Look, just because I'm straight,

[55:18] not because I have anything against...

[55:21] This got weird.

[55:22] This got weird for no reason.

[55:24] I personally prefer them to be on wives

[55:25] than on husbands as a matter of personal sexual preference.

[55:29] But you'll take what you can get.

[55:30] But I'll take unmarried women as well, is all I'm saying.

[55:33] And dudes?

[55:34] Sometimes dudes.

[55:35] Depends on the dude.

[55:36] I mean, if they're really sexy butts, yeah, why not?

[55:39] Danny Glover, yes.

[55:40] Jon Voight, no.

[55:42] How did Danny Glover get on there?

[55:45] He's got a great butt.

[55:46] Is he famous for his butt?

[55:47] That's Lethal Weapon 2, dude.

[55:48] Check out that badonk, man.

[55:49] What do you think that Lethal Weapon was referring to?

[55:51] Yeah.

[55:53] I'm just saying...

[55:54] They call him Badonkled Glover.

[55:56] I'm just saying that that toilet in Lethal Weapon 2

[55:58] could have exploded and he would have been fine.

[56:00] Yeah.

[56:01] That doesn't make any sense.

[56:02] It would have absorbed into his butt.

[56:05] It's like he's got two airbags back there.

[56:07] I really hope that as soon as the letter

[56:09] was finished being read...

[56:09] Not just one, like a normal person.

[56:12] ...that the husband-to-be turned off the podcast.

[56:16] We can only hope.

[56:17] And that they haven't just been like hugging and kissing

[56:19] and talking to each other and then suddenly...

[56:20] No.

[56:21] ...they hear something about Danny Glover's butt.

[56:23] I like to think they are making love

[56:25] to what we're saying right now.

[56:26] I don't like that at all.

[56:27] Right now.

[56:28] I don't like that.

[56:29] Right now.

[56:30] What do you mean?

[56:31] He like zapped her clothes off and then they...

[56:32] Yeah, like on a kitchen floor or something like that?

[56:34] Sure, why not?

[56:35] It happens in the movies sometimes.

[56:36] All the time, yeah.

[56:38] That's what I hear.

[56:39] Like on a staircase in the history of violence

[56:40] and it looks really uncomfortable.

[56:42] Yeah, man.

[56:43] There's 60, 90?

[56:44] That happened in the history of violence.

[56:46] I don't think so.

[56:47] I think it did.

[56:49] Let's check the tape.

[56:52] Still didn't anybody write in on that one.

[56:54] No, not interested.

[56:55] So what do we do next?

[56:57] What's the next part?

[56:58] Do we watch Mordecai again?

[56:59] Yeah.

[57:01] It's a grand hog day situation.

[57:02] Somebody let me out of this.

[57:04] This is the part of the podcast

[57:06] where we recommend movies that we actually liked

[57:08] in contrast to Mordecai

[57:09] which some of us kind of liked

[57:11] but there's still better movies.

[57:12] Not really enough to recommend.

[57:13] I would never recommend it to anybody.

[57:15] Let me jump in here.

[57:16] Yeah, do it.

[57:17] Time to recommend a movie.

[57:18] I think we might recommend the same movie this week.

[57:20] So this is a movie,

[57:21] I'm gonna take the wheel on this one.

[57:23] Thematic.

[57:24] Rev my engines and recommend a movie

[57:26] that the internet has already kind of championed

[57:29] but in some ways it might not have gotten

[57:31] the financial backing that it deserves,

[57:34] nay, has earned by quality.

[57:37] I'm going to recommend a little movie called Castle Freak.

[57:41] What?

[57:42] Whoa.

[57:43] Directed by Stuart Gordon.

[57:45] You know what, Stuart,

[57:46] when I said same movie, I was wrong.

[57:50] I just want to say that Castle Freak

[57:52] after its Blu-ray release has gotten much more attention

[57:56] and also possibly the street level support

[57:59] from yours truly.

[58:01] Castle Freak has started to get a little more attention

[58:03] but I recommend that you guys either go buy the Blu-ray

[58:08] or write your congressman

[58:09] to maybe make full moon streaming available to everybody.

[58:14] To proclaim it National Castle Freak Day.

[58:19] I like that,

[58:20] I think it's on the Wikipedia entry for Castle Freak

[58:22] that says see also head of the family in Missile Maniac.

[58:25] Movies that are not related to it at all

[58:27] except through Stuart.

[58:28] Quality sometimes.

[58:30] They're related because they're both Oscar winners,

[58:32] I'm assuming?

[58:34] No.

[58:35] So Stuart, what movie do you really recommend?

[58:38] I was going to recommend Castle Freak.

[58:40] What are you going to recommend?

[58:41] I was going to recommend,

[58:42] as I thought you were going to

[58:43] with your car racing metaphors,

[58:46] a little movie called Mad Max Fury Road.

[58:49] Now what is this Max so angry about?

[58:51] I'll tell you what,

[58:52] well it's more mad,

[58:53] well he started out mad angry in the first Mad Max

[58:55] because his family had been killed by bikers

[58:57] but this is three movies later,

[58:58] we're on the fourth film,

[59:00] it's long past the nuclear apocalypse,

[59:02] now he's more mad insane.

[59:04] 46 years in fact.

[59:05] And he is,

[59:07] let's just say one thing,

[59:09] you may have,

[59:10] if you're a Flophouse listener

[59:11] you probably saw this movie already.

[59:12] I really loved it,

[59:13] it was everything I wanted from that movie.

[59:14] You should have already seen,

[59:15] if you haven't seen this movie you're crazy,

[59:17] turn off this stupid podcast

[59:18] and go watch the movie.

[59:19] What the fuck are you doing?

[59:20] Tracy, stop saying yes to the marriage proposal,

[59:23] go see Mad Max Fury Road.

[59:26] Mad Max Fury Road is nonstop Mad Max action

[59:30] for the most part.

[59:31] Don't watch Mad Max Furry Road.

[59:33] It's a different thing.

[59:34] I mean you can watch that

[59:35] only after you've watched the original.

[59:37] We're in an even more extreme,

[59:39] grotesque and delightful nuclear wasteland

[59:42] than in the previous Mad Max movies.

[59:44] Tom Hardy I find to be a more than fitting replacement

[59:47] for Mel Gibson,

[59:48] especially as the character has become simplified

[59:52] and kind of gone.

[59:53] Less important to his own story.

[59:55] Well he's gone crazy to the point

[59:56] that he's now just this kind of

[59:58] being running on instinct for the most part.

[1:00:00] most part and communicating very briefly, if at all.

[1:00:04] With the strangest accent in the world.

[1:00:06] Yes, with an accent that's not quite English

[1:00:08] or Australian or American.

[1:00:09] It's somewhere in between.

[1:00:11] Charlize Theron is great as Imperator Furiosa.

[1:00:14] Yep.

[1:00:15] And there's so many great crazy character designs.

[1:00:19] There's so much grotesque stuff.

[1:00:20] The action scenes are amazing.

[1:00:22] It's almost nonstop thrills, chills, and spills.

[1:00:25] The art book is really great too.

[1:00:26] The designs are fantastic.

[1:00:30] And many of them, as well as the script,

[1:00:33] being co-written by a comic artist, Brennan McCarthy,

[1:00:36] who actually illustrated my first ever Marvel story.

[1:00:38] Oh, wow.

[1:00:39] My Captain America story years ago.

[1:00:41] So I felt a little bit of pride there.

[1:00:43] Well, no, the script was originally

[1:00:44] written all storyboards, right?

[1:00:47] But it's just a really fun, intense action movie.

[1:00:51] When I saw it, literally, I sat down through the entire credits

[1:00:53] and didn't get up because I was so vibrating from having just

[1:00:57] seen this that I felt like I couldn't stand up right away.

[1:01:00] But I would fall over.

[1:01:01] It creates an altered state in you that is not

[1:01:03] unlike taking drugs.

[1:01:05] Kind of.

[1:01:07] We took a cab ride back from the screening afterwards.

[1:01:12] And we were both in this phase where we're just like,

[1:01:15] we are so hyped up.

[1:01:17] And we do not know what to do with this energy.

[1:01:19] Yeah, this movie is like just amphetamines

[1:01:21] being shot into your system.

[1:01:23] You know from all your experience of amphetamines.

[1:01:25] Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:27] From all my experience reading Hunter S. Thompson.

[1:01:29] He's an amphetomaniac.

[1:01:31] I'm an amphetomaniac.

[1:01:32] I think I actually saw it twice within a 12-hour time period.

[1:01:36] And I do not regret that.

[1:01:38] Yeah, it was the perfect choice.

[1:01:40] I kind of want to see it under altered states a little bit.

[1:01:43] I think that might be.

[1:01:44] I don't know.

[1:01:45] It's so much fun without it.

[1:01:46] I don't know.

[1:01:47] Here's the moment where I went from liking the movie a lot,

[1:01:52] to loving the movie.

[1:01:53] Or rather when I went from loving it to worshipping it.

[1:01:55] Which is when Max and Charlize Theron are on the run

[1:01:58] from all the bad guys who are in their giant truck war rigs.

[1:02:02] And there's a truck that's just got rows of drummers on the back of it

[1:02:06] just beating war drums.

[1:02:08] And the camera is moving around this group of trucks.

[1:02:11] And it gets to the front of that drum truck.

[1:02:13] And there's just a guy in red long underwear

[1:02:16] with his head wrapped up so he can't see.

[1:02:18] Strapped to a wall of amps.

[1:02:21] Just shredding away on an electric guitar on the top of a truck

[1:02:25] as everything zooms down the highway across a nuclear desert.

[1:02:28] And I was like,

[1:02:29] Yep, this is exactly the movie I've been dreaming about all this time.

[1:02:33] You did it, Hollywood.

[1:02:34] You cracked the code.

[1:02:35] Hollywood didn't do it.

[1:02:36] It's all George Miller.

[1:02:37] And the people we worked with.

[1:02:39] That's what I want to say about this movie.

[1:02:41] I read so many.

[1:02:42] I feel like we all three would be recommending this movie

[1:02:47] if we didn't know that

[1:02:50] Yeah, I mean, I was recommending Cancel Free.

[1:02:53] If we weren't aware that all of us were going to be recommending this movie,

[1:02:57] we all would recommend this movie.

[1:02:59] Yeah, I didn't see any other movies.

[1:03:00] If a movie tops this movie for my favorite movie of the year,

[1:03:04] this will be the best year of movies of my life.

[1:03:07] Yeah, it would be a gift of the move guy situation.

[1:03:11] You would all be recommending.

[1:03:13] Gift of the move guy?

[1:03:15] I bought you combs for your movies,

[1:03:18] but you've already destroyed the movies,

[1:03:20] so your combs are wasted.

[1:03:21] I bought you a new Blu-ray player,

[1:03:22] but you sold all your Blu-rays to buy me

[1:03:26] A movie fob,

[1:03:28] so you don't lose your movies from your pocket.

[1:03:32] to buy me a binder for the discs.

[1:03:34] Yeah, but what I was going to say about this movie is like,

[1:03:38] I read a bunch of reviews of this movie

[1:03:40] that were all praising it as an action film,

[1:03:42] and praising how it's a triumph of practical special effects,

[1:03:47] and a triumph of old-school action filmmaking,

[1:03:49] where you actually have a sense of the geography of things.

[1:03:54] All these things that are true about the movie,

[1:03:57] but what none of these reviews really said,

[1:04:01] which baffles me because it is so front and center,

[1:04:04] is how bonkers crazed balls this movie is.

[1:04:07] Plenty of the reviews I think mentioned that.

[1:04:09] But they didn't really get into how this movie is.

[1:04:12] It's crazy.

[1:04:13] It is an Australian exploitation movie

[1:04:16] made with $200 million.

[1:04:21] Everyone is just shouting at each other

[1:04:23] in weird Australian actions.

[1:04:25] They're just pointing at each other.

[1:04:28] It's all fast motion weird.

[1:04:30] They've under-cranked the camera.

[1:04:34] Except for Tom Hardy and these four young women

[1:04:36] that he's trying to save in it,

[1:04:37] every character is grotesquely deformed or maimed

[1:04:41] or just hideously ugly in some way.

[1:04:44] And the old ladies that come in later.

[1:04:45] They're not ugly.

[1:04:46] The Volvalini?

[1:04:47] Yeah.

[1:04:48] George Miller has not changed though, is the thing.

[1:04:51] No, he's just got more resources to do a bigger...

[1:04:57] There were parts of this where I'm like,

[1:04:59] this is basically Road Warrior again,

[1:05:01] but bigger and crazier.

[1:05:03] More stagecoach-y.

[1:05:04] Yeah, and there's other differences.

[1:05:08] In that they're getting chased one way

[1:05:10] and then they get chased another way.

[1:05:13] It's so crazy.

[1:05:15] Yeah, and I feel like a lot of the reviews

[1:05:17] have been trying to dignify this movie

[1:05:19] or at least treat it with dignity.

[1:05:21] It's a zany cartoon of a movie.

[1:05:23] But it is a movie that is dignified

[1:05:25] and deserves dignity,

[1:05:26] but they seem to be missing out the fun.

[1:05:28] You have the fact that it is crazy balls insane-io.

[1:05:31] It feels like the closest thing you'll ever get

[1:05:33] to a filmed 2000 AD strip.

[1:05:36] Not just because Brandon McCarthy was involved

[1:05:38] and the look of the film,

[1:05:40] but the structure is very much like a comic book.

[1:05:43] Yeah, someone did an underground cartoon

[1:05:46] and was like,

[1:05:47] we're going to film this in all of the weirdness of it.

[1:05:50] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[1:05:54] If you stay through the credits

[1:05:55] and just look at the characters' names,

[1:05:57] all these characters who are not mentioned

[1:05:59] by name in the movie

[1:06:00] and have the most amazing names.

[1:06:02] Did you see film critic Matt Singer's article

[1:06:06] where he mixed up a list of

[1:06:09] Mad Max characters

[1:06:11] and just crazy bullshit names he made up?

[1:06:13] And it was a quiz to see

[1:06:14] if he could pick out which ones were right.

[1:06:16] One of the characters is named Rictus Erectus.

[1:06:18] And then there's the doctor characters

[1:06:21] referred to as the organic mechanic.

[1:06:23] They have great rhyming names, a lot of it.

[1:06:26] I can't remember most of the really good names.

[1:06:29] But they're really great.

[1:06:31] It's worth sitting through the credits.

[1:06:32] So I'm going to recommend a movie that...

[1:06:34] Mad Max Fury Road.

[1:06:37] It's a high-octane thrill ride.

[1:06:39] Let's be clear.

[1:06:41] Take your favorite blood bag.

[1:06:43] Let's be clear.

[1:06:44] If I was not totally sure

[1:06:46] that one of my co-hosts

[1:06:48] was not going to recommend Mad Max Fury Road,

[1:06:50] I would recommend Mad Max Fury Road.

[1:06:52] But thematically...

[1:06:53] Are you trying to say

[1:06:54] you don't like Mad Max Fury Road?

[1:06:56] The opposite.

[1:06:57] But thematically,

[1:06:58] I'm going to recommend something

[1:07:00] that kind of plays into

[1:07:02] the whole Mad Max Fury Road thing.

[1:07:03] It's called Road Warrior.

[1:07:04] Which is...

[1:07:05] No, I watched a movie

[1:07:07] that I will not make any arguments

[1:07:09] for is great cinema.

[1:07:11] I'll make an argument for it

[1:07:13] as something that hovers perfectly

[1:07:16] in that zone between good, bad movie

[1:07:18] and movie I kind of like,

[1:07:20] which was I watched Need for Speed,

[1:07:22] which is another car racing movie,

[1:07:25] another chase movie.

[1:07:27] Is that the one with the kid

[1:07:30] from Breaking Bad in it?

[1:07:31] Yeah.

[1:07:32] The guy who plays Jesse

[1:07:34] in Breaking Vlad.

[1:07:36] Breaking Vlad, yeah.

[1:07:37] Breaking Vlad, blah, blah.

[1:07:39] Breaking Vlad.

[1:07:41] I need to sell meth

[1:07:42] to support my family.

[1:07:44] I have cancer.

[1:07:46] No, you're undead.

[1:07:47] You'll never die.

[1:07:48] You're immortal.

[1:07:49] All right.

[1:07:50] He turns out I'm just a bad guy.

[1:07:52] He remembers that?

[1:07:53] Blah.

[1:07:54] Walter White.

[1:07:56] That's good, I like that.

[1:07:57] Yeah, no.

[1:07:58] Aaron Paul.

[1:07:59] Breaking Vlad.

[1:08:00] Who played Jesse in Breaking Bad.

[1:08:01] You got Dominic Cooper,

[1:08:02] who was the elder Stark.

[1:08:06] Tony Stark's father.

[1:08:07] Who am I thinking of?

[1:08:08] Who's in the wire?

[1:08:09] Dominic Cooper.

[1:08:10] Oh, the guy who's going to be Preacher?

[1:08:11] Yeah, I don't know.

[1:08:12] You got Imogen Poots.

[1:08:13] And he was in...

[1:08:14] Imogen Poots?

[1:08:15] We got two flop people there.

[1:08:17] Dominic, what's his name,

[1:08:18] was in Dracula.

[1:08:19] And Imogen Poots was in what,

[1:08:21] that awkward moment?

[1:08:22] Yep.

[1:08:23] Oh, she's going to be in the new...

[1:08:25] She's going to be in the green room.

[1:08:26] Well, you got three flop people

[1:08:27] because Dakota Johnson is also in it.

[1:08:29] Wow.

[1:08:30] Wow.

[1:08:31] Dan, this is a flop trove.

[1:08:32] But also Michael Keaton is in it

[1:08:35] playing basically...

[1:08:37] Imagine the Warriors radio DJ character.

[1:08:41] Okay.

[1:08:42] A character who's narrating the events of the movie

[1:08:45] but also is in charge of the big final race.

[1:08:48] Can I imagine he's the Vanishing Point radio character?

[1:08:51] Oh, sure.

[1:08:52] Okay.

[1:08:53] Whatever you're imagining,

[1:08:54] imagine that Michael Keaton came in for one day of filming.

[1:08:57] He's like, I'll do it all in one room

[1:08:59] talking into a computer.

[1:09:01] Can I do that?

[1:09:02] And they're like, sure, whatever, Michael Keaton.

[1:09:04] We're glad to have you.

[1:09:05] But this is a movie that takes about 20 minutes to set itself up,

[1:09:10] which is 20 minutes too long.

[1:09:12] But once it gets into...

[1:09:14] And all that 20 minutes is to establish

[1:09:16] that Aaron Paul needs to win this race,

[1:09:19] one, to save his family's garage.

[1:09:23] Okay.

[1:09:24] Two...

[1:09:25] Why didn't he just do a bikini car wash?

[1:09:27] Two, because the guy that stole his girlfriend is a dick.

[1:09:32] And three, because the dick who schooled his girlfriend

[1:09:35] framed him for the manslaughter killing of his best friend.

[1:09:40] And so he has to clear his name, I guess, by winning a race.

[1:09:44] And so he has to get from New York to California in 48 hours,

[1:09:48] and then he has to enter this race and win it.

[1:09:51] And it has a lot of good practical special effects

[1:09:54] because, like John Wick, it was directed by a stunt person.

[1:10:00] be called stunted Americans. So there's a little more care put into the effects

[1:10:05] and the like geography of the effects. So if this was a bear what kind of bear would it be?

[1:10:10] No I don't. Kodiak? Like a care bear? Whoa. What? I don't. Because he said care was put

[1:10:16] into it. Oh. Keep up guys. Was it a black bear? Grizzly? Was it a panda bear?

[1:10:26] Polar bear? I don't know what this bear can do. Answer the question Dan. Was it a polar bear?

[1:10:31] Yeah it was a polar bear. Polar bear directed a movie that's a... you buried the lead. Was it one

[1:10:35] of those coca-cola polar bears? They seem smart. Point is it's a dumb movie but it's a dumb movie

[1:10:40] that I had a lot of fun watching. So if you if you're if you're coming home from Mad Max Ferry

[1:10:46] Road. Two for two. Lucy and Need for Speed. And you want to see you want to see a movie that's

[1:10:50] much worse than Mad Max Ferry Road but also has cars racing around going zoom. Yeah because Mad

[1:10:55] Max Ferry Road is not gonna fill your need for cars racing around. That's what I'm saying. Like if

[1:10:59] you want a methadone from it. You want to come down I see. Yeah you could do worse from Need

[1:11:03] for Speed. I think it was it was unfairly. You could do worse says Dan McCoy. Watch the Hitcher

[1:11:09] instead. It was a movie that got a lot of bad reviews. I think it's a lot more fun than the

[1:11:14] reviews it suggests is all I'm saying. Okay Need for Speed give it a try. Yeah. But Mad Max Ferry

[1:11:18] Road. Yeah that's the number one. And Castle Freak. We covered it. Three for three guys. I just want to say one

[1:11:25] thing. It is an exploit. Mad Max Ferry Road is a big-budget exploitation movie but it's great.

[1:11:29] Yeah it's a great movie. I was just trying to capture the zaniness. No but I agree yeah. Which

[1:11:35] I feel like a lot of the reviews in the yeah as you say like in there and like need to like dignify

[1:11:40] it. Like did not sort of paper over the fact that it is a Looney Tunes movie. And a lot of and not

[1:11:48] of course not a real Looney Tunes movie with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. They haven't made a movie

[1:11:51] since Looney Tunes back in action. What about the one where they're on the island? Daffy Duck's

[1:11:57] Fantasy Island. That was more of a repack thing where they had some original animation between

[1:12:04] old cartoons like Daffy Duck's Quack Busters was the same thing. And a thousand one Arabian

[1:12:08] bunny tails whatever it's called. That sounds like a porno. But there's a lot of not to keep

[1:12:20] talking about Fury Road but like it does feel like a lot of reviewers from prestigious publications

[1:12:25] saw it and liked it and were like I can't like this just because it's a crazy bonkers thrill

[1:12:30] ride. I'm going to come up with some reason why I like it. So three recommendations for Fury Road.

[1:12:39] And one for Castle Freak. And sleep don't run to see Need for Speed says Dan McCoy.

[1:12:46] It's all right. That's all right boss raves Dan McCoy in offensive Italian accent. Wow I'm sorry

[1:12:56] that I'm coughing right when I need to go into the next thing which is to say we're just one part

[1:13:02] of the Max Fun Podcast which I was reminded of when I was out. My Max Fun Podcast Network sorry

[1:13:08] which I was reminded of yet again when I was in LA. La La Land. Babe City. And I had some drinks

[1:13:18] with Jordan Morris of Jordan Jesse Goh. Name dropping. Travis McElroy of My Brother and My

[1:13:24] Brother and Me. Two of. I would dare say. What kind of drinks did you have? Two other favorite

[1:13:29] podcasts on the Max Fun Network. I'm picking favorites. Sure why not. I don't care. Vernon

[1:13:35] Bridges. Come at me bros. I had some old fashions. Okay. But I met Jordan before. It's my first time

[1:13:43] meeting Travis. Meeting McElroy. The middle-est brother of the McElroy brothers. Yeah you tell

[1:13:48] him I want to be on their D&D podcast. I did tell him that. Okay good. And Travis and I bonded over

[1:13:53] the fact that we both agreed that we were like people have tried to map the three of us. You

[1:13:59] Stuart, Elliot and me onto other characters in pop culture. Yeah I feel like I'm more of a Huey.

[1:14:06] You're more of a Dewey and Stuart's a real Louis. Exactly. And we were mapping us onto the McElroys

[1:14:11] and Travis and I agreed that we were the same. You didn't touch each other. They put handstands and

[1:14:17] you're not so different you and I. Yeah and then we exploded. And melt into each other. But he was

[1:14:27] a delightful person in person as you would imagine him to be. His wife was equally delightful and so

[1:14:34] you should listen to his podcast. My Brother, My Brother and Me. He also has other podcasts. Bunker

[1:14:40] Buddies being one of them. The Adventure Zone. All good stuff. My Brother, My Brother and Me.

[1:14:46] I'm just saying check out Bunker Buddies. Yeah. A lot of great MaxFun podcasts. Even ones that

[1:14:51] don't have McElroys in them. Yeah. Jordan, Jesse Go. Things that I can't remember right now. Things

[1:14:58] that I can't remember right now. Is that a podcast? Starring Dan McCoy. I don't remember. Why don't

[1:15:03] you fucking help out by promoting our benevolent podcast overlords. Yeah MaxFun. We got tons of

[1:15:12] great shows. Throwing Shade. Yeah there you go. That's one. Elliot. Judge John Hodgman. Perfect.

[1:15:18] Sure. Bullseye. Are we just doing rounds? Yeah. Let's see how long we can keep this going. Too

[1:15:25] much pressure now. Yeah. There you go. I can't. Yeah I can't. Look Dan there's too many people

[1:15:30] watching me. The Flop House. Okay. Yeah. Boom. We did it. Brought it around. The point is go to

[1:15:34] MaxFunFun.org. Check out other shows on the network. I think that you'll find that they're

[1:15:41] from our show and other shows. Mm-hmm. There's a sensibility that runs through the Maximum Fun

[1:15:46] Podcast. A sense and sensibility in that we're all based on the works of Jane Austen. Yeah. The Flop

[1:15:52] House is a loose adaptation of Northanger Abbey. Very loose. Mm-hmm. Very loose if you know what

[1:15:58] I mean. Anyway the point was just thank you for Jordan and Travis for being hospitable when I

[1:16:05] was in their city. And check out MaxFunPodcast. It's just like a weird way of inviting other

[1:16:11] MaxFun people to New York so we can buy them drinks. Yeah. Why not? My bar will probably be

[1:16:16] open soon. Let's all hang out. Yeah let's have a MaxFun hangout. It's a weird way to invite other

[1:16:22] MaxFun hosts to hang out. We'll have an Algonquin round table at your bar. Algonquin pod table. Is

[1:16:29] Jordan and Jesse go named after what I assume their shared father said when he threw them out

[1:16:33] of the house? Jordan and Jesse go. Yeah. I have no hosts. So Dan who are we and what are we from

[1:16:43] and what are we doing now? This is the Flop House podcast. Uh-huh. We're from the MaxFun

[1:16:49] Network. We're podcasters primarily. Brooklyn, New York. I'm trying to set you up to end the

[1:16:54] podcast. Forget about it. It's insane. Goodbye to all of you. So what are we doing? For the Flop

[1:17:03] House, I've been Dan McCoy. And I have been Stuart Wellington. And yours in Mad Max Fury

[1:17:12] Road. I am Elliot Kaelin. Good night everyone. Mordecai! Like I love Premium Rush. Premium Rush

[1:17:29] great. Premium Rush great. That's what JR Havlin has to say. Take that JR Havlin. Premium Rush great.

[1:17:39] So says Ogg on Caveman Review. Michael Shannon performance nuance. Thog and Grock in the aisle.

[1:17:47] Ogg and Thunk go to the movies. I give this one one thumb type finger up.

[1:17:57] So they know the word thumb but they don't have one yet. They're not smart enough to know.

[1:18:03] They don't have opposable thumbs. They're hominids. Homonyms. No, they're not homonyms.

[1:18:10] Like in Gulliver's Travels. That's a cat. That's when a cat sounds like another cat.

[1:18:18] All right. Let's do an introduction first. My name's Stuart. I've been on the podcast for like

[1:18:25] a million years and I never want to stop doing it. I love cats. What about you? If you're interested

[1:18:31] in meeting up, just write to me at Stuart at meow.com slash edu. Let's get a little weird. Who cares?

[1:18:43] Hey, everybody. I'm Emily. And I'm Lisa. We co-host Baby Geniuses every other Monday

[1:18:46] on Maximum Fun. We interview comedians, musicians, cartoonists, circus clowns,

[1:18:50] and experts in the field of... Vacation, theater life, food, recipes, self-improvement,

[1:18:53] fashion, candy, beach boys, girls, turtles, pop quiz, women, dating, fitness, presidents,

[1:18:56] air mobile, conflict resolution, Santa, meditation, babies, modern dinosaurs,

[1:18:58] bullying, crop circles with beetles, middle-aged men, experts, teens, life hacking, rhyming,

[1:19:01] baby talks, personal organization, the name Dexter, Frasier, extreme eating, groceries,

[1:19:04] being a best friend, movement, jam, art education, America's Funniest Home Videos,

[1:19:07] stockbroking, spooky stories, genealogy, riddles, Pinterest, IT, magic, revenge,

[1:19:10] mothering, dogs, ayahuasca, Hollywood legends, street racing, fitting in, celebrity sex,

[1:19:13] the occult, personal training, the ocean, Dennis Lamentis, modern poetry, sugar gliders,

[1:19:16] Jimmy Buffett, pranks, The Tonight Show with Guns, Johnny Carson, Mountain Dew,

[1:19:18] theme park safety, dinner parties, butterflies, raccoons, pasta shapes, and Bob Dylan.

[1:19:21] Join us every other Monday. Yay.

Ep. #179 - Mortdecai

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