Ep. #173 - Transcendence

[0:00] And this episode we watched a little movie called the transcendence little movie it was actually medium size.

[0:10] It was pretty long okay thanks guys nailed it.

[0:40] Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house i'm dan mccoy hey dan great opening i'm stewart wellington hey guys you're doing a bang up job so far i'm elliot and i think we're on a super what road we're on a super road to nowhere why did you say your full called root 66 by some i said my full name you didn't say your full name i think you just said stewart no i said dan mccoy you said

[1:07] stewart wellington and you said i'm elliot oh kaelin is the last name very clearly great job dan i'm stewart wellington i'm elliot kaelin all right great job guys um we're a little stupider than normal which weirdly we watched a movie about man increasing his intelligence through computers and it made us dumber it made us way dumber yep like dumb and dumber too

[1:31] uh i mean i'm assuming that's dumber than the original i haven't seen i haven't seen either of them the dumbness quotient just joked when i saw the first one

[1:40] there's gonna be a weird hill to stand on so we don't want to defend that statement that you'd never see dumb and dumber

[1:46] should we start over or no let's keep going just keep going look we can't look backwards this we only

[1:51] go forward there's no brakes on this car is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk

[1:56] about it and in this case the bad movie that we watched was titled transcendence and let me tell you

[2:03] guys i found it transcendentally stupid oh turn around high five critics slap slap 100 points

[2:13] super excellent awesome power you have unlocked the secret of great it was uh it was uh directed

[2:22] by wally feister fester fester fist fist twisted fester just like wally sounds dirty to certain

[2:31] people it was it's someone who sticks their fist into the butt of the cute robot from the pixar

[2:36] movie wally right wally fester and it's wait a minute that i thought he has like a front butt

[2:41] right because he squirts out little uh trash cubes yeah yeah you stuck his but your fist in his front

[2:46] and spelled with a pf so it looks like pfizer but it's fister i mean if you only read the first three

[2:51] letters of the name it looks like pfizer but once you hit the s that's not a z then you're like

[2:57] oh hold on a second it's a different word hold on what am i doing if i'm watching a movie

[3:01] i don't know what's happening let's see how this turns out oh yeah i like the idea that you read

[3:06] every word slowly letter by letter yeah and i was trying to predict what's gonna happen just pick

[3:11] up a book sometimes i'm confirmed sometimes i'm plugged in see a car so it's probably something

[3:17] about cars no an l then another l call interesting a callow gentleman oh nope space the word is

[3:23] ended call is the first word okay m call mother i think that's what no an e okay and another space

[3:29] call me great this book is really revving it up i mean i can't wait to finish reading what is this

[3:36] m o modus operandi nope a b something about the mob wait a y moby the musician i assume a space

[3:43] yes that fits that theory no no a d hold on moby died there's a di oh no a c

[3:51] moby space dic i assume it's about deke the old animation studio that made kids cartoon

[3:57] nope okay and okay is it about someone named dickerman no no no okay another space moby dick

[4:03] it's called well on to the next word b okay could be anything y okay bye and after that is some more

[4:11] letters i mean the funny thing about that is like i don't think that's entirely inaccurate

[4:17] about the way that people like that reading works it just happens it's such a fast it happens so

[4:21] much faster than you did it with wally fitzer's name okay it starts with a p okay explain an f

[4:30] that's the next letter that was all i was saying so wally fitzer is best known as a cinematographer

[4:36] yeah for christopher nolan he worked on many other movies too but he's best known for his

[4:40] movies for uh christopher nolan's director of the bratman films the appearance of uh

[4:47] mogran freeman he uh freeman and of course he made that movie interception yeah he made

[4:55] inscription he made uh the the prestigious prestigious i don't know if he worked on momentum

[5:04] or the frolloming insomniac

[5:12] yeah that david tell movie interstellar nerds

[5:17] but uh he's a big shot director in hollywood the dark knight pfizer's that's the one where

[5:22] batman has an erection that lasts more than four hours and he beats a villain to death with it

[5:28] wow that version of batman not only is way more pornographic but also kills people

[5:34] is different look it's not the it's not the boner gotham wants but it's the boner gotham deserves

[5:43] so wally fitzer is a cinematographer and does he have good storytelling skills in this movie

[5:49] is it the script's problem well that's i mean that's a question this is a blacklist script

[5:53] elliot that's a question for the age yeah james spader wrote it whose fault was this movie was

[5:58] it wally fitzer or was it the screenwriter because there's a there's a uh it's not a good

[6:03] movie no it's not a good and it is anchored by one of maybe the laziest johnny depp performance

[6:09] i've ever seen where it's like he is channeling marlon brando at his worst like it's johnny

[6:14] depp always wanted to be marlon brando here he is lazy fat apocalypse now marlon brando where he

[6:20] didn't show up having read the lines or even gotten into shape and he's just kind of mumbling

[6:24] in a dark room while a light plays on him uh he probably is wearing sweatpants most of this movie

[6:30] yeah he's either wearing sweatpants or he's just standing looking into a camera some kind of like

[6:35] the kind of pants that like a genie would wear he spends a lot of the movie in bed

[6:40] but also he's got an accent in the movie that is totally unplaceable yeah it might be british

[6:47] it might be just mumbles we don't know but the thing is about this movie uh johnny depp is playing

[6:53] a quote-unquote normal character and for johnny depp normal character means guy who was uploaded

[6:59] into a computer and there's a computer guy but that even being the case average joe like he

[7:05] seems so uninterested in it like johnny depp would rather be playing you know the fucking mad hatter

[7:13] with the scottish accent for some reason he doesn't have a crazy voice and like a shitload of

[7:17] pancake makeup on his face he doesn't give a shit about what he's doing he doesn't even get out of

[7:21] bed unless there's a prosthetic nose attached i almost didn't recognize it was johnny because

[7:25] he's not wearing like a three-tiered hat in this movie like a bright yellow waistcoat yeah you're

[7:32] like there are no scarves to be seen on this man exactly um but yeah this is a science fiction movie

[7:40] that explains the lack of scarves now what's now yeah because scarves don't exist in the science

[7:44] fiction universe this is a movie that's based in science but it's fiction now what is science

[7:48] fiction yeah is it it is i'm not familiar with the term it's speculative it is speculative

[7:56] science could be applied to the fictional world so this movie begins in like

[8:05] this movie begins on like cybertron or something the transformers are fighting the

[8:10] fighting the mega megabots which are just big bots yeah

[8:20] and average bots are another race more bots than meets the eye

[8:25] the more bots are the really morbid robots in the new movie transformers 5 lots of bots

[8:32] so many bots too many lots of plenty it's called lots of poppin transformer 6 bots of poppin

[8:41] olson and bots hands on hot bots so let's talk about this movie match bots 20 let's talk about

[8:48] this movie so uh it starts off in a world strangely like our own except computers are used as like

[8:54] doorstops and electricity seems to have fled the earth we're in berkeley california that's right

[9:01] the berkeley california that's silicone valley uh not really

[9:07] you're wrong in multiple ways silicone valley no i just met berkeley is home is home of the

[9:15] silicone it's a new kind of ice cream cone made out of gummy very hard old yeah very sticky

[9:23] so uh all the electricity has disappeared and that means q paul bettany to walk in

[9:28] and give us a little voiceover narration that electricity is available in some cities they

[9:33] think but none here and it's all because of the work of his old pal jonathan depp let's flash

[9:39] back five years earlier okay johnson depson is a computer scientist he's totally normal human

[9:45] yeah totally normal mumbly joe guy with a mustache and glasses and just walk around

[9:50] with a real plain jane wife yeah yeah and who plays this who plays this wife rebecca hall who

[9:56] as elliot pointed out is often uh possibly

[10:00] still aided in movies as

[10:03] Ordinary lady. She's like a sensible alternative like in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She is the like friend

[10:09] Who's not as sexy in?

[10:11] Obviously as Scarlet Scar Joe. Yeah, please give she is Amanda Pete's like dowdy sister

[10:17] She is a beautiful all this ignores the fact that she is a ridiculously gorgeous human

[10:22] This is like a she just needs to work on her posture, you know

[10:26] But it is a

[10:29] Zookeeper level of in other movies not in this one

[10:32] but other movies a zookeeper level of pretending a beautiful woman is not noticeable like how

[10:37] It takes Kevin James half the movie to realize Rosario Dawson is gorgeous doesn't make sense. Mm-hmm. Anyway, he's too busy

[10:47] Cuban miracle is that they've been able to keep an economy sustained for 60 years with our embargo. Yeah. Wait who?

[10:54] Or if the flop house has an embargo on Cuba, yeah, they can't listen to us there. Yep until they give us more of their

[11:09] You called her the Cuban miracle

[11:11] A

[11:19] Cuban miracle is the cube at first. I was like, which is one of the top sandwiches

[11:24] Mark Cuban one of the different one of the sharks from the shark

[11:29] Dan the Cuban sandwich is the top sandwich. I don't I mean the main sandwich the Reuben is a shit sandwich

[11:37] No, you are wrong no good kill the podcast

[11:41] We're not talking about movies in overtime at sandwiches now wrong Dan as a human and as a Jewish man as a Cuban

[11:48] You should understand the charms of a nice smoked meat sandwich on rye I love smoked meat

[11:54] They're not proud don't prefer the Reuben. He had some cheese melted on there

[11:59] I don't like what thousand Islanders of money put on that shit. You got thousand line aggression. Okay

[12:03] Hey, if your sandwich is a little down the dumps throw some thousand Island on there

[12:09] Yeah, eat the secret ingredient. Every drop has a thousand islands in it, okay?

[12:15] The actually islands are running out across the globe the most expensive sauce there is

[12:22] The most expensive sauce there is

[12:29] The original sauces yeah by some French saucier

[12:35] You're saying it's not a bechamel. Yes, it's not that it's not a what's that cheese cheese sauce

[12:40] I don't know what that means. It's like milk and and honey butter and I was right and the flour so we

[12:46] Begin

[12:48] Five years earlier Johnny Depp is a scientist. He's married to Rebecca Hall

[12:52] He's interested in creating a sentient AI

[12:55] That will have a soul and answer all of life's questions

[12:58] And she's interested in how to use technology to clean up the earth and make it better

[13:02] a disturbed Lucas

[13:05] Opposite the track situation. Yeah, that's she's the she's the she's the Paul Ebnol to his emcee scat to his doctor professor

[13:13] Yep

[13:14] A disturbed Lucas Haas the audience demands, you know, I mean, that's good casting

[13:22] But I think this is one of the first chances that we see that

[13:25] That Wally Pfister is really pulling back pulling on his Nolan cred to get a to get Lucas Haas in there

[13:32] Then he gets Morgan Freeman was Lucas Haas in he was an inception

[13:37] That's my shit. Yeah

[13:39] he's the guy in the beginning who gets taken away by a

[13:42] Ken Watanabe's goons. Oh, yeah, I think I remember I haven't seen in that movie since it came out. Okay

[13:49] But but we see a cast of actors Leonardo da Vinci Aprio in it, right? Yeah, that's Leonardo Caprio Leonardo da Vinci in person

[13:56] No, but in in this movie, so it's got Morgan Freeman Morgan free

[14:02] Yeah, Morgana the kissing bandit Freeman and

[14:06] Lucas Haas accuses him of wanting to create a god

[14:09] And then later in a hallway shoots him with a bullet meanwhile at the same time

[14:19] Special bullet like it does turn out to be a special. It was a bullet. What is it with Johnny Depp killing poison?

[14:25] It turns out that it was one of those cartoon bullets for movie Marajorana. Yeah, it zooms by the camera and goes

[14:33] As it's going like

[14:35] As it's going like R2-D2

[14:40] That he shoves in a gun, yeah

[14:43] Yeah, so wow. Yeah, I know R2. I'm gonna shoot you at that guy

[14:49] So at the at the same time

[14:51] Terrorists blow up a bunch of computer labs. It turns out they're part of something called rift, which is like

[14:57] Repulse in fading for technology or something like that

[15:01] rejections inferior

[15:03] Fucking technology anyway, they're anti tech they're anti AI zealots and

[15:09] It turns out the bullet. They shot Johnny Depp with was coated in polonium. So he starts dying of radiation poisoning

[15:16] He was working on a big

[15:17] Supercomputer called pin that can talk in a kind of a Sigourney Weaver ish voice that I think was Sigourney Weaver

[15:23] Polonium is named after Bill Pullman, right? No, no, and it doesn't make

[15:27] Things

[15:30] Yeah, but so Rebecca Hall's like how do I fix this? Oh, I know I'll upload my husband into a computer

[15:37] Yeah, I can't say what I don't know. So I'll save his brain

[15:41] We miss some of the early parts of this movie where they explain relationships. No, they're married

[15:46] I'm not some kind of weird polygamous relationship with Paul Bettany. No, Paul Bettany is just a hanger-on third-wheel friend

[15:52] But what about Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman is an old man who is should not be in this movie

[15:57] He has literally no character role in this that makes any sense was necessary

[16:01] Yeah, it's a stand around Killian Murphy is a government representative. He works for the FBI or something

[16:06] okay, and for some reason the government really wants to see this artificial intelligence technology continue and then they don't at the end later, but

[16:15] Morgan Freeman is around mainly to just talk to people and witness things. It almost feels like

[16:21] He just showed up on set one day and was like, well, I'm in the movie

[16:25] Get me my costume write me a part and they're like

[16:31] Morgan Freeman didn't take his medication just play along with his psychosis. He thinks he's in the movie

[16:37] He's having some sort of Las Vegas. Look, yeah, I got a man in here. That's how he probably ended up in Las Vegas

[16:44] It was in my bucket list to be in a movie about

[16:48] Transcending what character is this voice coming? It doesn't sound like Morgan Freeman. That's for sure

[16:53] All my voices eventually become Sean Connery anyway

[16:58] So

[16:59] He they upload his brain to a computer at first

[17:02] He's hit they don't think it worked and then it does and he's like, hey and his kid. There's this kind of print

[17:08] Hey, what's up?

[17:10] Hey girl, you up just cuz I'm a computer doesn't mean I don't appreciate you for who you are. Hey, babe

[17:16] We could be all like this

[17:21] Playing video games on my computer. Stop it so I can talk to you. Sure. Stop grabbing my joystick

[17:26] He instantly is like hey Evelyn Rebecca Hall's character

[17:29] Plug me into the Internet so I can talk to every computer that has money or power and she's like

[17:36] Perfect sense. I'm just a girl and Paul Benny's like don't do that. That sounds evil and she says get out

[17:42] He's like don't do that that sounds evil and she says get out and does it anyway, yeah

[17:48] these because of love the Johnny Depp gives her 90 million billion dollars and

[17:54] in the computer world and she goes on the run while these

[17:58] anti-technology terrorists kidnapped Paul Bettany and

[18:01] beat him up a lot and ask him to help them stop the computers meanwhile, Rebecca Hall and

[18:07] Johnny Depp computer face like by a town out of the desert. Yeah, they buy a town just like Kim Basinger did that one time and

[18:15] they turn it into a

[18:17] Technological experimental utopia where people who get injured or were born with with defects are fixed through nanobots

[18:24] Because Johnny Depp being a computer has accelerated the development of technology by a million percent

[18:30] And now there's nanobots flying around fixing people's eyes and shit and making people super strong

[18:36] Around yeah, there's just tendrils nanobots floating around the government. They don't likey. Yeah, they're afraid and so they like

[18:44] Team up with the terrorists or are just kind of using the terrorists as a front to attack the town clear. It gets really

[18:51] boring it gets too boring to pay attention to until

[18:56] Eventually Paul Bettany's thrown in with the anti-technology guys. The government wants to throw wants to throw out Johnny Depp from the earth and

[19:06] Space

[19:08] Well, it's as good as the phantoms are good as solutions

[19:10] They come up with that what happens to the nanobot guy and like Tom Strong

[19:14] He sends it to another planet the modular man goes to another planet that he can take over for himself a modular, man

[19:20] He could be a desk. He could be an end table

[19:23] You know, he could put plants on him. He could fit whatever your lifestyle demands. Yeah, I love that guy very useful

[19:31] But what better than the mod jeweler man who just makes kind of like British swing in 60s themed jewelry

[19:38] But the man though I I like that guy the mint julep man is less of a villain and more

[19:44] More of a food service industry mainstay. Yeah, it just shows up with a nice julep when you're waiting to shows up

[19:50] He doesn't have like a card or anything

[19:58] Magic mint mirror

[20:00] You say, he doesn't have a card or doesn't have a cart?

[20:02] I said a cart.

[20:03] No, he lives in...

[20:04] No, you fucking turn the lights off, look in the mirror and say,

[20:06] I want a mint julep, please.

[20:08] And he squirts out of the faucet.

[20:09] He sheds some of his handlebar mustache and those,

[20:11] and those garters around his arms that they wear, you know, those straps.

[20:16] He lives inside of some woman's derby hat.

[20:20] The hearts of Louisville-ian teenagers everywhere.

[20:23] He lives in a pewter cup.

[20:27] And if you find it, he owes you two wishes.

[20:29] One of them has to be for mint juleps, though.

[20:32] The other one has to be for a mint julep accessory of some kind.

[20:36] Yeah, extra mint or something.

[20:38] The trick is, more wishes count as a mint julep accessory.

[20:44] But you can't wish to know the winner of the next Kentucky Derby.

[20:49] That's against his rules.

[20:50] No, unless the winner's name is Mint Julep.

[20:52] But then you'll never know if he's saying the name of a horse

[20:54] or just the name of the delicious drink that he specializes in.

[20:57] It's a hard patronizing name to name your horse.

[21:01] I name it Derby Winner.

[21:04] The name of my horse is Best Horse.

[21:07] Runs the fastest.

[21:10] Yeah, so I don't know what happens.

[21:12] So they go to the town.

[21:13] Explosions or something.

[21:14] Let me explain.

[21:15] OK.

[21:16] The town turns into a forest of solar cells.

[21:18] Let's give transcendence the minimal respect it doesn't deserve.

[21:22] So, yeah, it's this.

[21:23] They just build solar cells all over the place to power their computer place.

[21:28] And it turns out Johnny Depp is not just healing people's bodies with his nanobots.

[21:33] He is getting into their brains, and he can control them from afar.

[21:37] From Jafar, even, the villain from Aladdin.

[21:40] And how much better would the movie have been if Johnny Depp was playing Jafar from Aladdin

[21:45] and you had, like, a nanobot Gilbert Gottfried Iago parrot flying around?

[21:49] I mean, it would be pretty confusing, but I guess I would like it.

[21:52] It would be a musical.

[21:53] Let's not forget that.

[21:54] Confusical.

[21:55] The most confusing musical ever made.

[21:59] Wait, those actors were brother and sister before.

[22:02] Why are they married now?

[22:03] Hold on a second.

[22:05] Is this happening in the song world, or is it happening in the real world?

[22:09] Dreams within dreams in Confusical.

[22:14] Characters that change names mid-scene.

[22:16] Are they singing about a thing that happens, or are they singing about their emotions,

[22:20] or are they singing about the way they feel about their emotions?

[22:22] Hold on a second.

[22:23] Did I even buy a ticket?

[22:24] What am I doing here?

[22:26] Am I in bed?

[22:28] The last two songs were just e-Zimbra-style nonsense poetry.

[22:32] I don't know what's going on in this movie.

[22:34] The letter said I had to come here to pick up my hot dog.

[22:39] Of course I couldn't let a clue like that go to waste.

[22:42] Time for another adventure.

[22:44] Confusical by Julie Taymor and Salvador Dali.

[22:50] It's Salvador Dali.

[22:51] The second hour of the movie is Salvador Dali going,

[22:54] You're confused, right?

[22:56] You're so confused.

[22:58] This is confusing.

[22:59] Be honest.

[23:00] Have you ever seen such a confusing musical?

[23:03] Don't lie.

[23:04] I know you're going to say, I know he's Italian.

[23:08] Salvador Dalino.

[23:09] That's part of what's so confusing about it.

[23:11] You know I'm Spanish, but I talk with an Italian accent.

[23:15] It's me, Salvador Dali.

[23:18] Why am I so confusing?

[23:20] It's me, Salvador.

[23:22] It's in Super Dalio Brothers.

[23:25] Salvador Dalio and his brother Luigi Dalio have to save the princess

[23:31] who actually is a lobster telephone.

[23:34] I don't know that you can actually surreal up Super Mario Brothers

[23:39] further from where it is at.

[23:41] Sure, just make everybody ants wearing cakes on their head or something.

[23:45] Mushrooms and turtles kidnap a princess for reasons unknown.

[23:49] Why wouldn't you kidnap a princess?

[23:51] And a plumber has to fix it all through his jumping and pipe going through skills.

[23:56] And if he hits a box with his head, there's a money comes out of it.

[23:59] Or sometimes he turns into a weird furry character who can fly.

[24:03] That wasn't until the third part, but sure.

[24:05] Are you saying it's non-canon at this point?

[24:08] There's only one non-canon game, and that's Super Mario Brothers 2.

[24:11] Or as it's also known,

[24:12] Doki Doki Panic.

[24:14] Yeah, I guess that is. I was going to say a joke name, but that's the real name.

[24:17] No, that's the actual one.

[24:19] So that's our Super Mario cast.

[24:23] There's probably like five of those, I would say.

[24:26] So Rebecca Hall becomes afraid of Johnny Depp because he's become too powerful

[24:30] and too inhuman, and he started growing his own body parts.

[24:33] Which is weird because he's not the most human dude on the planet.

[24:36] To begin with, yeah.

[24:39] Her type is clearly weird computer guys.

[24:42] Around the time that he uses his powers to control another man's brain

[24:46] so that he can come onto her and she's creeped out by that,

[24:49] she starts thinking twice, so she leaves.

[24:51] And he didn't even pick like a hunky dude or a dude that she was interested in.

[24:55] No, he wasn't a terrible looking guy.

[24:57] I'm not saying he's gross, but you described him as like Tommy Wiseau

[25:01] before he turns into a vampire.

[25:03] If we could see what Tommy Wiseau looked like before Count Orloff bit him.

[25:07] Yeah, because you want to guess spot on fucking angel or something.

[25:12] Before Count Yorga had his way with Tommy Wiseau, he looked like this guy.

[25:16] Not so bad.

[25:17] So anyway, she shows up with Paul Bettany and the anti-technology people.

[25:25] They've come up with some kind of – she has some – whatever.

[25:31] They build a virus that when uploaded to Johnny Depp

[25:35] will destroy all technology and thus stop him.

[25:38] And she says, put it in me.

[25:40] I'll go in there.

[25:41] He'll try to upload my consciousness and it'll kill me, but it'll get it to him.

[25:44] She's like, put it in me.

[25:45] I haven't been with a man in months, I'm assuming.

[25:48] In years, yeah.

[25:49] I'm married to a fucking computer screen.

[25:51] And you thought your family was weird.

[25:54] So I guess in the scenario of the virus,

[25:58] is it a good thing that she turns it on?

[26:00] Yeah, why not?

[26:02] Okay, all right.

[26:03] Well, she's got this weird kind of David Cronenbergian fetish

[26:06] for the dissolution of the body.

[26:08] Right.

[26:09] It's a real existent situation.

[26:11] Whereas most of us are turned on by a healthy human figure.

[26:15] She's turned on by decay or maybe even –

[26:17] Entropy.

[26:18] Deformity, yeah.

[26:19] Because it kind of reminds her about the thin line between life and death

[26:23] and that excites her.

[26:24] And the difference between humanity and cold, unthinking synthetics.

[26:27] Exactly.

[26:28] It makes her realize what's special about us

[26:30] and therefore what is to be desired.

[26:33] We're working on some slash –

[26:36] Between that character and Optimus Prime.

[26:41] We were working on a movie that hopefully we could imagine

[26:44] H.R. Giger and the director of Tetsuo the Iron Man could collaborate on.

[26:50] So she gets this virus put in her.

[26:54] But it's like the military is like, hey, you know what?

[26:56] Let's hedge our bets and just shoot a bunch of mortars at them also

[26:59] and try to blow up his solar panel farm.

[27:01] Yeah, so she gets a real shot up.

[27:03] Johnny Depp has –

[27:04] At this point, he's totally created a body for himself, including a handsome waistcoat.

[27:08] A very lovely tailored outfit.

[27:11] As you mentioned, he looks like he walked right out of There Will Be Blood.

[27:16] There might be blood or there's going to be blood.

[27:19] There's a 50 percent chance of blood.

[27:21] Cloudy with a chance of blood.

[27:23] With a chance of blood balls.

[27:27] So he meets her in his new Johnny Depp body.

[27:30] She gets all blown to pieces.

[27:32] He takes her to his lair, his computer lair to fix her.

[27:35] But he knew the whole time that she had this virus inside.

[27:38] His nanobots picked up on the plan, and so he makes the conscious choice

[27:43] to upload herself into him to get the virus, and in an instant,

[27:48] he accomplishes her dream of cleaning up all the world's oceans and lakes and trees,

[27:54] and then all electricity and technology is destroyed.

[27:57] How great would it have been if a tiny little nanobot would have jumped up on his shoulder

[28:01] and went like –

[28:03] and he would have been like, wait a minute.

[28:05] They're trying to kill me with a virus?

[28:09] And then like another nanobot jumps up on his other shoulder.

[28:14] You guys can never get along.

[28:16] You're just a couple of rascals and jokers.

[28:20] And so we see at the end Paul Bettany goes back to their old house,

[28:24] to the garden that we didn't talk about with the sunflowers that we didn't bother to mention,

[28:27] and finds that there is a wire framework around,

[28:32] which was some kind of Faraday cage or something to block out electromagnetic pulses.

[28:37] He discovers there are some sunflowers growing there and water is dripping from them,

[28:41] and there are nanobots in the water.

[28:44] He set up a place where his computer self could survive,

[28:48] forever entwined with the computer personality of his beloved Rebecca Hall.

[28:52] So I guess it's kind of a happy ending.

[28:55] Yeah, I don't know how to feel about anything that happens in this movie.

[28:59] It's one of the problems.

[29:01] Well, maybe that's the signal that it's good art.

[29:04] I mean, I think that the movie is trying –

[29:06] the movie is trying to do that, where you're not supposed to believe.

[29:09] You're supposed to wonder what Johnny Depp's motivations are through the whole movie

[29:13] and whether he really is Johnny Depp.

[29:15] I mean, they did that so well that you're wondering what he's saying half the movie

[29:18] because he doesn't talk clearly.

[29:19] Yeah, but it's not a compelling confusion.

[29:24] It's just confusion.

[29:26] And then at the end you're like, okay, well, a bunch of stuff happened,

[29:29] and I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about it.

[29:31] So great, thanks, Transcendence.

[29:33] A lot like life.

[29:35] Okay.

[29:36] But, yeah, the main problem for me is not that it's confusing

[29:40] or I don't care about the characters,

[29:42] but that it was just the cardinal sin of being very dull a lot of the time.

[29:46] Well, but part of that is not caring about the characters.

[29:48] Part of that is they introduced like –

[29:50] there's like eight major characters in this movie,

[29:53] and none of them do you have any sense of who they really are.

[29:57] Yeah.

[30:00] wrote literally like okay so like

[30:02] billion murphy and morgan freeman is just standing around

[30:05] there's a good i don't think that i don't know what i thought that's part

[30:09] of the ever they're standing on a roof of building

[30:11] in mind a cloudy day and a little insist on wearing their sunglasses while

[30:15] looking through their but i'm not going to look in through that would buy my

[30:19] not killers by noxia there there's

[30:22] is still the same as i like nox

[30:24] well it's really night time over there

[30:26] it was really dark where we're looking

[30:28] that people like

[30:29] well one of the one of the problems of the movies that like a lot of times

[30:33] high-minded science stuff doesn't translate very well to movies

[30:38] uh... like the movie opens with johnnie depp's character giving on the way get

[30:42] ted talker something

[30:43] and it just sounds so like cliched and like a ted talk

[30:48] yes

[30:50] and i said to you and so they got to make sense and i have a boring enemies

[30:55] uh...

[30:56] has ever read there's a new york article you awhile back about this guy planning

[31:00] to do it so yeah it was like i got a look at the wild factor so as well

[31:04] factors just brought a cow on stage you know it's the same well-factored you

[31:08] would get a like a four-year-old

[31:11] well it is a bigger you expect to see and i don't have a four-year-old i got

[31:16] a cow on a stage i've never seen such a good you're brilliant let me give you

[31:20] millions of dollars how they usually in field

[31:24] ted talker

[31:27] halloween

[31:29] nick

[31:33] jr dude

[31:38] really does a very good way so you can get

[31:41] that

[31:42] it will be basic actually picked and i think a little

[31:46] out of the non-state

[31:50] just like the king kong so

[31:51] was like

[31:52] we're going to a broadway theater and then we just look at a gorilla strapped to a metal

[31:55] frame for like an hour. I think gorilla didn't sing, he just strained against his restraints

[32:02] if carl denim had taught king kong to sing opera

[32:05] now that's a show

[32:07] now that's a show, a show fit for me, salvador dali, in confusical

[32:14] uh...

[32:15] yeah

[32:16] all right, hey kate maher is in this guys

[32:19] he has a character that doesn't really do anything and doesn't really have a point to be there

[32:23] she's running that anti-technology terror group

[32:25] that group doesn't really do anything other than injure him in the first place

[32:30] my sister runy mara was the girl with the dragon tattoo maybe this is the way

[32:34] that i will again overcome as the top mara

[32:38] andy runy mara

[32:39] why does it have to be a dragon tattoo

[32:43] what if it was a dragon with a girl tattoo

[32:46] i've got a tattoo of a girl on my arm that i got during the war

[32:50] it's not a girl that i know

[32:52] just kind of an idealized hula girl

[32:54] i've never seen anyone actually hula but

[32:57] on my tattoo it looks pretty good

[32:59] that's andy runy mara

[33:01] sailor jerry

[33:04] uh...

[33:05] so you like the movie

[33:06] no let's move to final judgments where we talk about whether it's a good bad movie

[33:10] a bad bad movie or a movie we actually kind of like

[33:13] when all the nanobots were flying around making people i like strong none

[33:16] of this movie i wish that that had been

[33:18] i didn't like the cubes flying around in transformers but i like that more

[33:22] than the kind of wispy nanobots here

[33:25] you had a good point when we were watching the movie that it might have been more

[33:27] interesting if the movie just started with like

[33:31] people living in this weird in this little town all of a sudden i think if

[33:34] someone if we had been dropped into this situation where in the middle of town in

[33:38] the middle of nowhere where this weird kind of super high-tech lab that nobody

[33:43] knows much about is being set up

[33:46] and it seems to be employing some local people yeah

[33:49] it comes out that it was right it's being run by this famous computer

[33:53] scientist

[33:54] who hasn't been seen in a long time but like i guess he's been working on this

[33:57] project or something

[33:58] and then we eventually find out that he has

[34:01] since died and uploaded his

[34:04] personality to into a computer and the computer is now

[34:07] running into in a direction that

[34:09] his work logically goes into but which is

[34:12] divested of emotion

[34:13] and maybe maybe one of our main characters gets like recruited by this

[34:17] anti technology

[34:19] uh... terrorist group or something

[34:21] yet or they're working together working there and they get recruited in

[34:24] at first it seems crazy but then maybe not like

[34:26] if this movie had more

[34:28] of an element of like surprise to it

[34:31] or more of it like

[34:32] i recently finally got to see edge of tomorrow which was a really fun

[34:36] enjoyable movie

[34:38] if that movie didn't have any sort of like

[34:41] mystery at the beginning it would have lost a lot if it was just like

[34:45] you news right from the top

[34:46] everything that was going on you know

[34:48] and it's not like it was a mystery that was impenetrable

[34:51] it's just enough to get to treat you like this needed that

[34:55] see that i think they thought the mystery of

[34:57] how did the world lose its machines would

[35:00] keep you going

[35:01] but it's not the trailer tells you exactly what's going to happen and

[35:05] that's really going to become fucking max had ronan everybody ever had ron

[35:09] and i think i'm running for the top ron

[35:12] so it's like i wish that it

[35:14] that the that the main character was not the scientists the main character was

[35:18] someone

[35:18] countering these people

[35:21] it started with you within this weird situation

[35:24] rather than

[35:25] telling you everything that led up to it it's like

[35:27] similar to my problem with the imitation game where

[35:30] you are

[35:31] you're told too much imitation

[35:33] not a game this this uh... where it's like

[35:36] we're investigating this guy who had a break-in at his house but he hasn't

[35:39] reported he doesn't want to report it

[35:41] let's find out who this weird guy is

[35:43] flashback his entire life up to the point where the police getting interested

[35:47] so by the time you see the police interrogating him you're like

[35:50] what the fuck do i give a shit when the police find out like i already know

[35:52] everything

[35:53] why does this guy hassle him he just fucked a pig on tv

[35:57] haha

[35:59] i think you're confusing two different characters for two different things

[36:02] i didn't realize until you said that that was the same guy

[36:05] yeah the policeman is the prime minister who has sex with that pig

[36:08] p.m. pig fire

[36:10] from black myroar by the way this movie was like

[36:13] just a really long not good like this would be the worst episode of black

[36:17] mirror

[36:18] yes

[36:18] yeah exactly

[36:20] and this uh...

[36:21] but it's also one of those movies that is

[36:23] science fiction that is deeply anti-science at its heart

[36:26] yeah it's like

[36:27] which is all about the power of computers what could possibly happen

[36:30] they're evil don't do it

[36:33] well that's and that's what people said about black mirror was great about it is

[36:36] not that the technology is like totally out of control it says working fine and

[36:40] it's just how it impacts human yeah

[36:43] uh... so that's three bad bads is uh... is how i want to get a new and new

[36:47] rating

[36:48] planned bad

[36:50] uh... yeah this is

[36:51] if this is a lot of our man to lawnmower man

[36:56] all the lawns in the universe

[36:58] might have thought it was uh... was okay there was a lawnmower man to was what

[37:02] was it all

[37:03] cyberbodies i don't know

[37:05] uh...

[37:07] come out of flowers for a cybernetic mormon to robot in the family

[37:12] uh... man robot in the family there's a stupid movie

[37:15] lawnmower man to moment

[37:17] uh...

[37:20] the lawnmower man just needs to get laid

[37:24] he goes down to cyber tijuana

[37:26] to lose it

[37:27] to shelly long

[37:33] i'm biz and i'm theresa and we host a comedy podcast about parenting where we

[37:38] remind you that despite what the internet says no one really cares what

[37:42] kind of parent you are

[37:44] one bad mother

[37:45] we're the friends with kids you want to hang out with

[37:48] check us out on itunes and maximum fun dot org

[37:53] before we move on we do have a

[37:55] computer show

[37:57] we do have a sponsor tonight i'd like to uh...

[38:00] to say that the flop house is brought to you in part

[38:03] by square space

[38:05] the all-in-one website platform that makes building your own website simple

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[38:10] if you want to build a website and you

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[38:18] computers of the future we're only living in cyberspace eventually

[38:21] bopping around with bits and bytes

[38:23] downloading things into our wet brains

[38:26] living in a dyson sphere or some shit

[38:29] economy 2.0 anyway

[38:31] the point is

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[38:35] twenty second and so forth centuries

[38:37] that's right in a way even us meat puppet organics can understand

[38:41] uh... square space has

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[38:45] has beautiful templates the call from x one is like

[38:48] can you not use the word flash banks in the future spots anymore

[38:51] but anyway it has beautiful templates yeah it has integration of google apps

[38:55] and getty images uh... so you can get your

[38:59] stock images if you like you know that you need a picture of a still getty

[39:02] square space is there

[39:03] responsive design

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[39:26] and uh...

[39:27] while we're at it

[39:29] i would ask that listeners marker calendars for the twenty fifteen

[39:33] max fund ride next one drive yet a lot of the maximum fun overdrive

[39:39] the last two weeks of march of the best time of the year support your favorite

[39:42] podcast because beginning which is this one on march sixteenth

[39:47] we'll be pulling out all the stops

[39:49] producing some of the best shows of the year on maximum fun

[39:52] uh... with great guests great topics offering exclusive thank you we were

[39:56] gonna have a great guest

[39:58] uh... i was trying to get that seat

[40:00] Okay, we have a great guest.

[40:02] We don't have to say the name of the guest just yet, but we have a great guest coming up.

[40:05] Offering exclusive thank you gifts to entice you to become a new or, if you're already a member, an upgrading member of MaximumFun.org.

[40:14] Now, how does this, this is a pledge drive?

[40:16] This is a pledge drive. Now, you might know the pledge drives from your NPR listenings.

[40:22] Or your PBS watchings.

[40:24] But this is better than those because, I don't know, MaxFun's cooler?

[40:29] Yeah, MaxFun's hipper and cooler. It's got better stuff.

[40:32] It's Maximum Fun for Maximum You.

[40:35] And there's a lot of great podcasts to support over on Maximum Fun.

[40:38] Sure.

[40:39] Us.

[40:40] Yeah, us and others.

[40:42] No, you got Judge John Hodgman.

[40:45] George S.E. Goh.

[40:47] You got Bullseye, right?

[40:49] My Brother and Me.

[40:50] Bullseye, yeah.

[40:51] Adventure Zone.

[40:52] You got Wham! Bam! Pow!

[40:55] You got Stall Bones.

[40:57] A lot of stuff. Pop Rockets. All kinds of things.

[41:01] Go over to MaximumFun.org.

[41:02] Bunker Buddies.

[41:03] And take a look.

[41:05] But the MaxFun drive starts on March 16th and runs for two weeks.

[41:09] It's the most exciting time of the year here at Maximum Fun.

[41:12] You said that in a very Nicolas Cage way.

[41:14] So, that's it.

[41:15] It's the most exciting time of the year.

[41:17] It's the most wonderful time of the year.

[41:22] That got creepier.

[41:24] And it spiked the football.

[41:26] So, MaxFun Pledge Drive, March 16th to the end of March.

[41:30] Listen, donate, pledge, wodge, and pluge.

[41:36] Won't you?

[41:37] For Maximum Fun.

[41:38] For me and you.

[41:40] Gross.

[41:41] So, moving on.

[41:44] What's the next part of the show?

[41:45] The next part is where we read letters from listeners.

[41:48] Letters from listeners.

[41:50] Wait, hold on.

[41:51] Keep going. I love it.

[41:52] I love the sound.

[41:55] Letter, letter, letter, letters from listeners.

[42:01] A little pitchy, Doug.

[42:04] You got your letters here.

[42:06] You got your letters there.

[42:08] Hand them in.

[42:09] Hand them in.

[42:10] We'll read them.

[42:11] We're at the Flophouse mailbag.

[42:13] It's the Flophouse mailbag.

[42:16] Put your Flophouse letters in the Flophouse mailbox.

[42:19] Flophouse postal service takes it straight to us in the Flophouse mailbag.

[42:24] It's a bag of mail for the Flophouse.

[42:28] With Dan, and Stu, and me, and you.

[42:34] Flophouse mailbag.

[42:37] Don't get sad.

[42:39] It's the Flophouse mailbag.

[42:41] For me and you.

[42:42] For he and who.

[42:44] For she and you.

[42:47] Stuart, you know what?

[42:49] For God's sake.

[42:51] You know what? Forget it.

[42:52] The song is over.

[42:54] Bring out that opera singing cow.

[42:56] Maybe they're used to performing in a barnyard, but I am not.

[43:01] I got them to stop singing, Dan.

[43:03] By any means necessary.

[43:05] Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

[43:08] The first letter is from Cat Last Name With Hells.

[43:10] I would say that this letter is content light, but very charming.

[43:15] Wow.

[43:16] That is the meanest compliment.

[43:18] No, you'll see.

[43:20] Cat Dennings, I apologize for dancing.

[43:22] It is a delight.

[43:23] From Cat.

[43:24] She writes,

[43:25] Hi, Flophouse friends.

[43:26] I'm very drunk.

[43:27] I think you're great.

[43:29] One.

[43:30] Dan's the best, and I've torn my ACL before, so I empathize with him.

[43:33] Two.

[43:34] Elliot is so clever and funny.

[43:36] Three.

[43:37] Stuart is good, too.

[43:38] I'm a lesbian, but I still think he's hot.

[43:41] I train horses for a living, so I have a lot of free time to listen to podcasts while I'm at the barn.

[43:46] I don't understand how that tracks.

[43:48] I would assume training horses takes a lot of time.

[43:51] I have a lot of free time to listen to podcasts while I'm at the barn,

[43:54] so I'm pretty much a podcast connoisseur.

[43:57] A pot-a-seer, if you will.

[43:58] But yours is the best.

[43:59] Like, better than cereal, even.

[44:01] Sorry, NPR.

[44:02] Thanks for making me laugh at work in between screaming at idiot horses.

[44:08] You guys are real human beings and real heroes.

[44:11] I love you.

[44:12] Kat, last name with an L.

[44:13] Thanks, Kat.

[44:14] That was very sweet.

[44:15] Dan, I like that you read that in a way that a drunk person would.

[44:18] Yeah, well, it's not a stretch.

[44:20] And I agree we're better than cereal, and I'll tell you why.

[44:24] I agree.

[44:25] Those horses are dumb.

[44:27] Number the first.

[44:28] If horses weren't so stupid, where are their hands?

[44:31] Why didn't they think of hands?

[44:33] If wishes were horses, everyone would ride them to heaven.

[44:38] Number the two.

[44:39] Why horses are dumb.

[44:40] Have you ever heard a horse talk?

[44:42] Once.

[44:43] Well, yeah.

[44:44] Twice, if you count hot to trot.

[44:46] Okay, three times, racing stripes.

[44:48] Okay, four times.

[44:49] What about the first one with Mr. Ed?

[44:51] Of course.

[44:52] And the most recent was our recent flop-ass collaborator, Seabiscuit.

[44:57] That's me, Seabiscuit.

[44:59] Most popular horse in the world.

[45:02] Hey, Seabiscuit, thanks for showing up, buddy.

[45:04] Gotta go.

[45:06] Where are you racing off to, Seabiscuit?

[45:09] I always gotta go somewhere.

[45:12] Got a lot of appearances, because I'm the most popular horse.

[45:16] Seabiscuit out.

[45:18] Wow, he's got a new catchphrase, I guess.

[45:20] Well, we'll have to ask him about that next time.

[45:23] So anyway, next time we can't demand him into existence.

[45:28] This next letter, I gotta say, this next letter may be my favorite letter we've ever gotten.

[45:34] I don't want to oversell it.

[45:36] You just did.

[45:38] Better than Mads Mikkelsen likes you guys, because that was pretty great.

[45:42] This is from Matt, last name withheld.

[45:44] Is there a picture of Krang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles peeing on somebody?

[45:52] It's titled, Thanks a lot, my students think I am a weirdo.

[45:56] And it goes like this.

[45:57] I am a teacher at a private girls' school in Australia.

[46:00] Uh-oh, you may have written into the wrong forum.

[46:03] Recently, we had to take the students on a camping trip.

[46:06] All was going well.

[46:08] Dear Flophouse, I never thought your letters were real.

[46:12] But then, something happened to me I had to tell you about.

[46:15] I'm just a normal guy with a three-foot penis.

[46:18] I am a professor at a school for girls who are 18 or older, but look like they're 16.

[46:24] Creepy, right? That's what I thought, until I had sex with all the girls.

[46:29] All was going well, until they had to sit down.

[46:32] I'm just a professor at F.U.C.K. Academy.

[46:36] Good old F.U.

[46:38] All was going well.

[46:40] It's a university.

[46:42] No, it's spelled A-cademy, U-H-cademy.

[46:48] All was going well, until they had to sit down to eat the dinner they had cooked.

[46:53] And the camp leader said, quote,

[46:56] Can all the girls please hop on the tarp now?

[46:59] When they didn't immediately respond over the bullhorn,

[47:02] Girls, get on the tarp straight away.

[47:05] I need all girls on the tarp.

[47:07] Thanks for my favorite podcast.

[47:09] All I could think about was Misty Monday and other tarp stars.

[47:13] Tarp stars?

[47:16] I could not stifle my laughter.

[47:19] Yeah, I was a star in the tarpies.

[47:22] I was asked why I was laughing by staff, students, and camp leaders.

[47:26] And I could not give an answer.

[47:28] You might have gotten in trouble.

[47:31] But I also could not stop laughing.

[47:33] So thanks to your perversoidedness, I am now seen as a weirdo.

[47:36] Thanks for the laughter.

[47:38] It helped me get through some tough times.

[47:40] And quick question, what do you think of the 80s film, The Last Dragon?

[47:43] Great, isn't it?

[47:44] Matt laughs at me.

[47:45] I don't remember it that well, but I remember being charmed by it when I saw it when I was a kid.

[47:49] I don't think I've ever seen it.

[47:51] It's a sequel to Pete's Dragon, right?

[47:53] No.

[47:55] Where humans are hunting down Elliot the dragon?

[47:58] No, it's sort of a comedic...

[47:59] You've mixed Pete's Dragon and Dragonheart.

[48:01] It's like a faux-blasphemous Kung Fu movie.

[48:05] But there's a cartoon dragon in it, right?

[48:07] No, there's no cartoon dragon.

[48:08] Where does the dragon come into it?

[48:10] Oh, goddammit, there is no dragon, guys.

[48:12] Is there like an Eastern mythology sort of thing?

[48:14] Yeah, like a wisdom dragon?

[48:17] Point is sex tarps. That's the point.

[48:19] That's hilarious.

[48:20] I like how many times people tell me they listen to the show and it has made them look crazy or stupid in a public setting.

[48:26] It's pretty much what we set out to do.

[48:28] Yeah.

[48:29] We're just...

[48:30] This is an elaborate punking of all of our listeners.

[48:32] Yeah, Punking Brewster.

[48:34] He's a million.

[48:35] Punking Brewster.

[48:37] Yeah, why didn't they ever do Punking Brewster's Millions, where I guess Punking Brewster died and left her money to somebody, but they have to spend it all?

[48:44] She died under anesthesia when getting her boobs scolored.

[48:48] Too far, Stuart.

[48:49] She died because she was locked in an old-fashioned refrigerator.

[48:53] Oh, but the public service announcement told her not to do that.

[48:56] I'm glad nobody made fun of me for using the term smollered.

[49:01] So this is from Randolph, last name withheld, and he says...

[49:06] Carteris.

[49:07] Floppers, I recently discovered your podcast after Glenn Weldon recommended it on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.

[49:13] Thanks, Glenn.

[49:14] It quickly became my favorite...

[49:16] Why would you do that?

[49:18] Totally disrespectful and unnecessary.

[49:21] You're such a friend to us.

[49:23] It quickly became my favorite podcast and all that I listened to over the holidays.

[49:27] I had to stop listening to your podcast while drinking beverages because I kept doing spit takes with eggnogs or mulled cider all over my wife.

[49:35] Only the stickiest of beverages go into my mouth and then immediately out of it.

[49:40] If there was some way I could liquefy a candy apple, I'd drink that.

[49:44] Because I am a recent immigrant to Flophouse land, I ended up binge listening to almost your entire back catalog this past month.

[49:52] That's a lot of episodes in a short period of time.

[49:55] That's a lot of horses to train.

[49:57] I can say with absolute certainty...

[49:59] I'm a flop horse.

[50:00] Enjoyed every minute of your podcast with one notable exception.

[50:03] Elliot's horrific singing introductions to the Flophouse Mailbag segments.

[50:08] Hey, DWI, deal with it.

[50:09] You may have seen that bumper sticker, which reads,

[50:12] if you can walk, you can dance.

[50:13] If you can talk, you can sing.

[50:15] Elliot has proven the second half of the edge to be a bald-faced lie.

[50:19] I'm sure Guantanamo guards could repurpose Elliot's singing.

[50:23] Editor's note, Dan, please make air quotes with your fingers

[50:25] when you say that word.

[50:26] That's part of their enhanced interrogation techniques.

[50:30] I found Elliot's singing so grating that after one episode,

[50:33] I decided to put out my eyes like Oedipus Rex.

[50:36] Or Sam Neill in Event Horizon.

[50:38] Then I remembered, one's eyes have nothing to do with one's sense of hearing.

[50:42] And I continued to suffer through the mailbag introductions.

[50:44] As I would like to continue...

[50:45] He gave himself a little bit of the punishment they were going to give

[50:48] in Princess Bride, where they cut off his eyes, then his nose, then his hands,

[50:52] but they leave the ears.

[50:53] To the pain.

[50:55] As I would like to continue listening to this podcast

[50:57] and not lose any more body parts, I'm sending Elliot a Groupon

[51:01] for $25 off a one-hour voice lesson at a vocal school in New York City.

[51:05] So Elliot can, and I'm quoting from the Groupon description here,

[51:08] unfold your true potential in an extremely supportive environment.

[51:12] I fully expect that after this one lesson, Elliot's reedy, atonal,

[51:16] stream-of-consciousness quasi-song will transform into a beautifully crooned,

[51:20] thoughtfully crafted composition sung tenderly and in correct pitch

[51:24] with full diaphragm support and proper breathing techniques.

[51:27] Elliot, I love you, man. You're a funny dude.

[51:29] But time to hit the woodshed and work on those singing chops.

[51:32] Practice. For the love of God, please practice.

[51:34] Yours in music, Randolph, last name withheld.

[51:36] And here's your Groupon.

[51:37] Thank you, Randolph. I appreciate that.

[51:40] And to paraphrase, you're great, but you suck.

[51:44] Yeah, when I saw this thing, when I saw the paper for one-hour vocal lesson

[51:48] behind the emails Dan was reading, I thought he had just accidentally printed out

[51:51] a Groupon he had bought for himself.

[51:54] Yeah, to improve his karaoke.

[51:56] Yeah. Well, I think I will take advantage of this.

[51:58] I know that I can't sing, and that's why I do sing.

[52:01] To show people that nothing is impossible.

[52:04] Oh, Chase Your Dreams?

[52:05] Yeah.

[52:06] To dream the impossible song.

[52:10] To sing the thing that I am singing.

[52:13] To Dan and to Stuart and that cat over there.

[52:17] This thing is the Flophouse of stuff.

[52:20] To singing. To singing.

[52:23] I would also say, in Elliot's defense, I don't think he's trying that hard when he's singing the letters.

[52:27] I would say not trying at all.

[52:29] I mean, from a singing point of view, there's zero trying.

[52:32] I've heard Elliot sing better, I'm saying.

[52:34] It's also, we record this at the end of the day.

[52:37] I've done a lot of singing at the office during the day.

[52:40] Yeah, a lot of singing about the foods that we're eating in the lunch line.

[52:43] And what meeting is starting.

[52:45] You guys getting a lunch line?

[52:46] Yeah, well, you got a little catered.

[52:48] Do you have like a lunch lady that puts the slop on your tray?

[52:51] No, it's barf from, you can't do that on television.

[52:53] Self-serve, but Elliot's like, that's where he went.

[52:56] There's a lot of like, does he serve Canadian food or?

[52:59] No, no, it's regular food.

[53:00] There's a lot of like, Elliot's like, cauliflower.

[53:03] Do I want it?

[53:04] Yeah, why not?

[53:05] I'll have some cauliflower.

[53:07] I assume everyone would be, everyone's lives would be improved by my stream of consciousness,

[53:12] out loud decision making through song about what I'm going to eat that day.

[53:16] If it's the 315 meeting, there's a lot of,

[53:18] hey everybody, what meeting is happening right now?

[53:22] At 315, it's the 315 meeting that's happening right now.

[53:27] That kind of stuff.

[53:27] This is a peek behind the curtain, huh?

[53:29] Yeah, there's a lot of singing that goes on at The Daily Show.

[53:32] And dogs.

[53:33] Yeah, the dogs sing too.

[53:35] But for this last letter, let's say it's a repost, the previous.

[53:42] Like a Perry?

[53:44] Like a Perry, like a Steve Perry.

[53:47] Yeah, it goes like this.

[53:50] Oh, Sherry.

[53:51] Hey there.

[53:52] Hey there, house back of Flopstradame.

[53:55] I was listening to the latest episode of The Flop House

[53:58] whilst trying to attach a hat and a skateboard

[54:01] to a stray cat and a pair of nerdy glasses to another

[54:05] when I started wondering why there was no attempt

[54:07] at remixing a male song.

[54:09] So as I have no work, I took it upon myself

[54:12] to lazily slap one together.

[54:14] You can find the result of two hours of my time here

[54:17] and there's a link to the song.

[54:18] Two hours, not well, Spencer, though I appreciate it.

[54:21] Not because what you did is bad.

[54:23] I haven't heard it yet, but because.

[54:26] I mean, it's inherently a waste of time.

[54:29] To do anything involving my singing is a waste of time.

[54:32] But he says, I did see you had a competition

[54:33] for songs in the autumn, but unfortunately at the time

[54:35] I was not a member of the Flop House audience,

[54:38] aka Flop House collective, big up me Flop House brethren,

[54:42] big up me brethren.

[54:43] Still kicking it, where my boys at?

[54:46] Wag one, Flop House.

[54:48] Name pinning approval.

[54:50] So I missed out on this contest.

[54:52] Still, I hope you can find it in your hearts

[54:54] to give it a listen and maybe even play it on the show

[54:56] as it's not very long because again, I'm very lazy.

[55:00] Keep up the good work, everyone.

[55:01] And Stuart, the beer you drink is garbage.

[55:03] Thanks for the laugh.

[55:05] Baz, last name withheld.

[55:06] Starting a fight right at the end.

[55:09] It's like you're leaving a party and you're like,

[55:10] great time, thanks for inviting me.

[55:12] I loved it.

[55:13] Baz is the name of a fellow in a tracksuit.

[55:15] Punch somebody and then walks out.

[55:16] Baz?

[55:17] Baz is the director of like a Great Gatsby spectacular.

[55:21] I think for our.

[55:21] He still wears a tracksuit.

[55:23] I think for our outro.

[55:25] An image of Baz Lohrman directing Australia

[55:29] while wearing like a tracksuit and gold chains.

[55:33] For our outro for the show, I think I'm gonna have

[55:35] to put on this song so we can all enjoy it.

[55:37] Spoiler alert.

[55:38] I think you owe it to America.

[55:41] I don't know if that's a spoiler so much.

[55:42] I mean, I guess we'll hear it in a minute.

[55:44] Thanks for putting the work into it

[55:45] and thanks for listening.

[55:46] And thanks to everybody who wrote in

[55:48] and everybody listening.

[55:49] We appreciate it.

[55:50] Despite all the critiques of Elliot.

[55:52] Yeah, I mean, I can take criticism.

[55:55] Pretty even though.

[55:57] Sure.

[55:57] One for, one against.

[55:58] That's true, yeah.

[56:00] We still need the tiebreaker.

[56:03] The president pro tem.

[56:04] So somebody write in whether or not you love

[56:06] or totally hate Elliot.

[56:08] And also if you'd like to use the key on the lock.

[56:12] Just write in.

[56:12] Radio Zork continues.

[56:16] But now.

[56:16] What's the next part?

[56:17] For the final and least popular segment of the Flophouse.

[56:21] It's time for chest hair report.

[56:24] Everybody, we've shaved our chest hair

[56:26] as we do every episode into a different shape.

[56:28] Let's reveal it now and we'll see if we can figure out

[56:31] exactly what it is.

[56:32] All right.

[56:33] Zip, unbutton.

[56:34] Unbutton, unbutton, unbutton, and zip and unbutton

[56:37] the other layer and zip the last layer.

[56:38] As you can see, this is a carefully manicured dollar sign.

[56:42] Very well done.

[56:43] Yeah, very nice.

[56:44] Mine is sort of boring.

[56:45] It is just a rhombus.

[56:48] A rhombus of chest hair.

[56:50] The lines are very straight.

[56:51] That's good.

[56:52] Yeah.

[56:53] Anyway, as you guys can see,

[56:54] I've completely reproduced a Surratt's Sunday in the park.

[57:00] It's amazing.

[57:01] And in chest hair on my chest.

[57:02] I don't know how you do pointillism in chest hair,

[57:04] but you've captured it.

[57:05] A lot of tweezing, my friend.

[57:07] A lot of tweezing.

[57:08] Okay, so that's that segment.

[57:11] And now on to a much more popular segment,

[57:14] Recommendations.

[57:16] Movies that-

[57:16] And I know the title of that painting's really like

[57:17] Sunday on the Grand Jod or whatever.

[57:20] Yeah.

[57:21] Whatever the Grand Jod is.

[57:22] Sunday on Jabba the Hutt's sail barge by Surratt.

[57:31] Everybody's inside.

[57:32] Nobody goes on the fucking roof deck.

[57:34] It's lovely out there, bro.

[57:36] It's really beautiful out in the hot Tatooine sun.

[57:38] Don't you want to see the herds of Banff walking around?

[57:40] They're out there having fun.

[57:42] Get a whiff of Sarlacc.

[57:44] The hot Tatooine sun.

[57:46] But no, this is Recommendations.

[57:48] Movies that we watched that we actually liked.

[57:51] Stuart, what do you want to recommend?

[57:55] So this Christmas, my wife got me a membership to-

[58:02] This Christmas, believe in miracles again.

[58:06] Stuart's Tale, the movie.

[58:08] It's the last Christmas you play with my heart.

[58:11] The very next day.

[58:12] This Christmas, my wife was kind enough

[58:16] to give me a membership to Full Moon Streaming,

[58:20] which is the streaming service for Full Moon Productions,

[58:23] the production company that has brought you

[58:25] such great movies as Puppet Master,

[58:28] Retro Puppet Master,

[58:31] Doll Man,

[58:32] Doll Man vs. Demonic Toys,

[58:34] Puppet Master 2,

[58:36] Subspecies 2,

[58:38] Subspecies 1,

[58:40] et cetera.

[58:41] You didn't even mention any of the-

[58:42] Femalien?

[58:43] Yes, Femalien 2 and Femalien 1.

[58:45] Trancers and Trancer Cop.

[58:47] Trancer Cop, Trancers 2,

[58:50] Femalien.

[58:53] Femalien vs. Trancer Cop.

[58:54] There's a couple other movies.

[58:57] Puppet Master is a Femalien.

[58:59] It's kind of a, you may have heard of it.

[59:00] It's called Castle Freak.

[59:02] Whoa.

[59:03] I'm the head of the family.

[59:06] I am a robot now for some reason.

[59:08] I've transcended the sad human flesh.

[59:11] Johnny Depp is like,

[59:12] I'm going to turn all of humanity into perfect beings,

[59:15] but first let me catch up

[59:16] on Full Moon Entertainment's slate of titles.

[59:19] So I recently watched something on there

[59:22] that hasn't been available for a long time.

[59:25] It's a short film, so it's kind of a cheat,

[59:27] but it's Charles Band directed an adaptation

[59:32] of The Evil Clergyman,

[59:33] starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton.

[59:36] And it also has David Warner in it.

[59:39] And it's a great adaptation

[59:41] and it manages to be kind of creepy and kind of sad.

[59:45] And it's just, it's fun to see,

[59:46] any time to see more young Jeffrey Combs

[59:49] and Barbara Crampton getting to act together.

[59:52] And David Warner is a big get for Full Moon.

[59:54] Yeah, it's huge.

[59:55] He's great.

[59:56] And it was part of a, like an anthology movie.

[1:00:00] I can't remember what it was called. You can look it up.

[1:00:04] Stewart's recommendation. You do the work.

[1:00:06] And I think the only way you can see it is by joining that streaming service,

[1:00:09] but I thought it was genuinely cool to get to watch.

[1:00:13] I would like to recommend, and I may have recommended this before, I don't know.

[1:00:19] Castle freak.

[1:00:21] I don't know. Look it up on the Flophouse recommends page.

[1:00:23] Maybe I forgot. I don't care.

[1:00:25] Do some work for once in your life.

[1:00:28] But we watched a science fiction movie that I did not like that involved Killian Murphy.

[1:00:35] So I'm going to recommend a movie that I did like that's a sci-fi film with Killian Murphy,

[1:00:40] and that's the movie Sunshine.

[1:00:43] I had him.

[1:00:44] Except for the end, it's awesome.

[1:00:45] Chris Evans was in it.

[1:00:47] Now here, I'm also going to, like I wanted to address this.

[1:00:50] A lot of people feel like, oh, this movie is great except for the end.

[1:00:54] Well, first off, it's a Danny Boyle movie.

[1:00:57] First off, false.

[1:00:58] It's about a world where the sun is dying, and so there's a mission.

[1:01:03] This is actually the second mission to attempt to try and go up and kick-start the sun by—

[1:01:09] By collecting $20,000 in donations.

[1:01:12] But if they don't make that money, they don't get to keep the stuff that they—the sun loses it all.

[1:01:16] Now, $50 prize—

[1:01:18] I want to see more Veronica Mars, Elliot.

[1:01:20] No, but we really need the sun. It's the source of all life, all heat, all warmth and light.

[1:01:25] I don't have as much nostalgia for the sun.

[1:01:27] I mean, you should.

[1:01:28] Now, for $50, you get a signed photo of the sun.

[1:01:30] Okay.

[1:01:31] For $20,000, you just feel old, and you get an executive producer credit on the sun.

[1:01:35] Oh, wow. That's not bad.

[1:01:37] No.

[1:01:38] For $10,000, the sun will critique your light-producing effects.

[1:01:41] Okay, so I can get some skills out of the deal.

[1:01:43] Exactly.

[1:01:44] So, Sunshine?

[1:01:45] No, they're going up there to blast a huge nuclear payload into the sun,

[1:01:49] and they've got a big sun shield, so the closer they get to the sun—

[1:01:52] So you don't get any splash damage?

[1:01:54] Well, they don't get burnt up by the sun rays and everything.

[1:02:00] But I think somebody gets crispy in this movie, though.

[1:02:03] Oh, super.

[1:02:04] Super crispy.

[1:02:05] Super crispy. Extra crispy.

[1:02:06] But a lot of people—

[1:02:08] I don't get crispy at all.

[1:02:10] I feel like the conventional wisdom on this movie—

[1:02:12] It gets really burnt.

[1:02:14] The conventional wisdom on this movie is what Stuart said, that people love the first two-thirds,

[1:02:20] and they don't like the last third.

[1:02:22] I actually also like the last third.

[1:02:24] People complain that the last third turns into a slasher movie.

[1:02:28] What I like about it—

[1:02:29] That's not my problem.

[1:02:30] What I like about it is it turns into a slasher movie that is super trippy,

[1:02:36] that the movie talks about as they approach the sun, there's this time distortion,

[1:02:43] there's this effect of the gravity of doing this thing just warps reality.

[1:02:51] And I like how the movie also mirrors that.

[1:02:55] The movie gets very trippy towards the end as they're running around trying to avoid this mysterious killer

[1:03:05] who comes in in the last third.

[1:03:07] It's Jason.

[1:03:08] I like it all through the whole thing.

[1:03:10] Yes, Jason X.

[1:03:11] I guess I just think that rather than being trippy and interesting, it just makes it hard for me to watch.

[1:03:19] It gets very visually interesting and also visually hurts your eyes.

[1:03:24] But you guys can watch it at home and tell us what you think.

[1:03:27] But I like all the hurts-your-eyes stuff.

[1:03:29] So, yeah, it's up to you.

[1:03:31] It's up to you.

[1:03:32] We're not going to make the decisions for you, Flop Nation.

[1:03:34] Choose your own adventure, humans.

[1:03:36] Use the key on the door.

[1:03:38] Are you going to use the key on the door?

[1:03:40] Write in and tell us.

[1:03:42] I'm sorry.

[1:03:43] The key did not work.

[1:03:44] You have five keys left.

[1:03:47] Do you use the next key or skip to the key after that?

[1:03:51] Or do you want to pay $5 to get the right key right away?

[1:03:55] Send that money to Stewart Wellington.

[1:03:57] Micro transactions.

[1:04:00] Make a micro loan.

[1:04:05] Is it my turn?

[1:04:06] Yeah, sure.

[1:04:07] I'd like to recommend a different kind of movie.

[1:04:10] I'm going to recommend an old movie.

[1:04:12] A pornographic film.

[1:04:13] Yeah, I'm going to recommend a pornographic film.

[1:04:16] It's a movie I made with my brother and some animals we found.

[1:04:20] Anyway, it's called New Bile Teens, Volume 3.

[1:04:24] So I'm going to recommend a movie from 1947 called The Woman on the Beach,

[1:04:29] which is one of the few English-language American movies that Jean Renoir made.

[1:04:36] Is it Jean Renoir?

[1:04:37] I don't remember.

[1:04:38] Anyway.

[1:04:39] Who the fuck cares?

[1:04:40] I mean—

[1:04:41] Who the fuck cares?

[1:04:42] Anyway, it's a movie that stars Robert Ryan and Joan Bennett and Charles Bickford,

[1:04:47] who is one of these actors who people don't really remember but was nominated for multiple Academy Awards in his heyday,

[1:04:54] where Robert Ryan is a—

[1:04:57] The days when he made hay.

[1:05:01] That's why on Hay Day every year,

[1:05:03] we celebrate Charles Bickford by eating hay with dumb horses.

[1:05:09] But it's about Robert Ryan as a guy who's in the Navy, who's stationed on this beach area,

[1:05:15] and he has a perfectly lovely fiancée.

[1:05:19] It's a totally Betty and Veronica situation because he begins to become almost obsessively paranoid in love

[1:05:25] with this woman played by Joan Bennett that he meets on the beach one day,

[1:05:28] and she is married to a man who was once a great painter but has gone blind,

[1:05:32] and they're in a very toxic, codependent, torturing-each-other relationship,

[1:05:37] and their relationship is drawn in a pretty complicated way, especially for a 40s movie,

[1:05:43] in that they definitely hurt each other openly but kind of feed off each other.

[1:05:48] They have an understanding with each other about how painful they're going to be to each other,

[1:05:52] but they're both trying to pull away from each other while they can't,

[1:05:55] and Robert Ryan becomes kind of trapped in the wake of this toxic relationship.

[1:06:01] Is that what a Betty and Veronica relationship is like?

[1:06:04] No, a Betty and Veronica relationship is because there's a really nice down-to-earth blonde woman

[1:06:08] who wants to marry him, but he's stuck on this weirdo dark-haired girl.

[1:06:12] Oh, Veronica is clearly the hotter one.

[1:06:15] Exactly, dude.

[1:06:17] They have the same face and body with different hair.

[1:06:19] You settle for Veronica.

[1:06:21] Wait, which one is the hot one?

[1:06:24] Veronica is the hot one, and she's got all that Veronica money.

[1:06:27] The only thing that makes her different is she's loaded in dough,

[1:06:30] but then you've got to spend all your holidays with fucking Mr. Lodge.

[1:06:33] Come on, and his little mustache.

[1:06:35] She's got that dark hair with the brown eyes.

[1:06:38] Roger Lodge?

[1:06:40] Big brown eyes.

[1:06:41] Anyway, Robert Ryan becomes obsessed with the idea that Charles Bickford is faking his blindness

[1:06:46] and wants to try to disprove it, and it's a movie that was tampered with a lot by the studio,

[1:06:51] and so it's not totally satisfying.

[1:06:53] It's not a great movie, but it's a really interesting, good movie,

[1:06:57] and there's a dream sequence at the beginning where Robert Ryan has a nightmare

[1:07:04] where he's in a ship that explodes, and he's sinking to the bottom.

[1:07:07] Because it's too close to the sun?

[1:07:09] No, it's a sea ship, and there's a woman at the bottom of the ocean that is reaching for him,

[1:07:14] and it's so kind of primitively done special effects-wise that there's something beautiful about it.

[1:07:20] It's almost like a Guy Maddin type of thing in that scene,

[1:07:24] except not ironically or reaching back to some past style.

[1:07:28] That's just the way they were doing it.

[1:07:30] So it's a curious little movie that has a lot to recommend it.

[1:07:33] It's interesting to watch, and it's like 70 minutes long.

[1:07:36] It doesn't take a lot of time.

[1:07:38] So the woman on the beach, I'd recommend it.

[1:07:41] What, guys?

[1:07:44] Nailed it. Out of the park.

[1:07:46] Into some other park.

[1:07:48] Can you go over to the fence in that park to get it?

[1:07:51] Yep, into the sand lot.

[1:07:53] No, it's the sun.

[1:07:56] Well, I guess the only time left.

[1:07:58] Wait, if we get into the sand lot, are we the big dog that eats baseballs?

[1:08:03] Yep, and we're like, hey, kids.

[1:08:05] Are we like James Earl Jones?

[1:08:08] He was the guy, right?

[1:08:09] Yeah, he was the guy.

[1:08:10] What?

[1:08:11] In the sand lot.

[1:08:12] Yeah.

[1:08:13] Really?

[1:08:14] He was the angry old guy.

[1:08:15] I thought he was the guy who made the Field of Dreams.

[1:08:17] He's both guys.

[1:08:18] He's all over baseball.

[1:08:19] What's going on?

[1:08:20] James Earl Jones has a rich legacy with baseball in those two movies.

[1:08:23] He's Mr. Baseball.

[1:08:24] No, that's Tom Selleck.

[1:08:25] No, that's Tom Selleck with Mr. Baseball.

[1:08:26] Was he in A Field of Their Own?

[1:08:28] A Field of Their Own?

[1:08:30] That's a movie about a potter's field.

[1:08:32] That's not Mr. 3000.

[1:08:33] That's Bernie Mac.

[1:08:34] No, that's Bernie Mac.

[1:08:35] That's where you pick a Lori Petty off the vine.

[1:08:38] Fresh off the tree.

[1:08:40] Don't let that Geena Davis with those giant teeth eat it.

[1:08:43] He's not Mr. Payback, because that was that weird robot dude.

[1:08:46] I don't know what's happening.

[1:08:47] I've lost control.

[1:08:48] That's Chappie.

[1:08:49] Chappie.

[1:08:50] Chappie Payback.

[1:08:51] Well, I don't know if Chappie's going to get paid back.

[1:08:55] The ad campaign's been really expensive.

[1:08:57] Or the flop house.

[1:08:59] Chappie.

[1:09:00] The story of a chapstick that decides to take the law into its own hands.

[1:09:03] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:09:05] I guess I've been Stuart Wellington then.

[1:09:09] Why not?

[1:09:10] And I know I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:09:11] I just know it, and I can prove it.

[1:09:13] I can prove it.

[1:09:14] I'm him.

[1:09:15] The man in there is an imposter.

[1:09:17] Good night?

[1:09:19] Chappie.

[1:09:21] Rated R.

[1:09:27] Letters.

[1:09:28] We get letters.

[1:09:29] We get lots and lots of letters.

[1:09:32] Letter time.

[1:09:34] Let's read some letters.

[1:09:35] Talk about them.

[1:09:38] Get in touch with the fans.

[1:09:39] What do they think?

[1:09:41] Let's read some letters tonight.

[1:09:44] Tonight's the night for letters.

[1:09:46] Let's get some letters and read them.

[1:09:49] Read them and weep with laughter.

[1:09:53] Letters.

[1:09:57] Welcome to Oh No Ross and Carrie.

[1:09:59] Ross.

[1:10:00] What do you think is creepier?

[1:10:01] Okay.

[1:10:02] You jump into a swimming pool.

[1:10:04] All of a sudden, the water goes away, and instead of water,

[1:10:08] there is the bones of your dead ancestors.

[1:10:11] Ew.

[1:10:11] Or our show.

[1:10:13] That's pretty tough, because we visited a live exorcism.

[1:10:16] We joined the Ordo Templi Orientis, where we had to worship a naked lady.

[1:10:20] Oh, and we joined that Tony Alamo cult.

[1:10:22] They were scary.

[1:10:23] Super creepy.

[1:10:24] We joined the Ethereal Society.

[1:10:25] We tried penis enlargement, or at least I did.

[1:10:27] Boy, I tried breast enlargement.

[1:10:29] We have basically done every creepy, weird, fringe thing,

[1:10:33] except for thousands more, which we will get to if you listen to our show.

[1:10:37] I'd still say the swimming pool of my ancestors' bones.

[1:10:39] Well, and I don't even know if people should listen.

[1:10:41] I guess they shouldn't.

[1:10:42] But if you want to, we're at Maximum Fun, and the show's called Onorosican Cary.

Ep. #173 - Transcendence

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