The Flop House: Episode #164 - 300: Rise of an Empire

[0:00] Tonight we watched 301 Dalmatians.

[0:06] Now, Stuart, it was 300 Rise of an Empire.

[0:10] And boy did it ever.

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

[0:41] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:42] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:44] And I'm Elliot Kalin, with a little bit of a stuffed nose.

[0:47] All right.

[0:48] Well, right off the bat, I just want to say there's been a lot of controversy.

[0:51] What is that?

[0:52] Whoa.

[0:53] Hey, buddy, let us settle into this.

[0:54] Settle in a little bit.

[0:55] You don't just dive into a hot bath.

[0:57] There's no time.

[0:58] Right off the bat, there's been a little controversy.

[1:00] Is this about Mosember or whatever?

[1:02] No, no, it's about...

[1:03] Look.

[1:04] Escape, parentheses, the Pina Colada song.

[1:07] Not a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:08] No, I told you it wasn't a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:10] But here's the thing.

[1:11] In my mind, as far as I'm concerned, all tropical songs become Jimmy Buffett songs over time.

[1:17] I've got three syllables for you, dude.

[1:19] Kokomo.

[1:20] Kokomo.

[1:21] Not a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:22] Kokomo is just two years away from becoming a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:25] Any song that could conceivably be played at a Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville restaurant is a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:31] That's not how that works.

[1:32] It's the way that Xerox was a product.

[1:35] So you're saying Jimmy Buffett has now become a genre.

[1:39] Jimmy Buffett is no longer a brand name, but in fact a common word like Q-tip, Xerox, Kleenex.

[1:45] Yeah, aspirin, all these things.

[1:47] Yeah.

[1:48] So I'm guessing you've got a lot of letters about this.

[1:50] I'm guessing aspirin is some kind of wife's butt magazine you get.

[1:53] Like it's your ass princess.

[1:55] Princess, yeah.

[1:57] Yeah, it's ass princess with the sass ripped off.

[2:00] That sounds pretty good.

[2:01] Now, yeah, did you get – there was some chatter about this.

[2:04] There was a lot of chatter on the Facebook page.

[2:06] But, hey, you know what else there was chatter about before we get into the show?

[2:08] What's that?

[2:09] Our Yonkers show was a smashing success.

[2:11] Yeah, smashing.

[2:12] Let's thank all of our fans who came out to Yonkers from all over the country and other countries to see us perform.

[2:17] Yeah.

[2:18] They were really great.

[2:19] It was a great audience.

[2:20] In the armpit of America, they came to see us.

[2:22] And, guys, I just want to – I know I might get some flack for this, but I also want to thank all those fans who couldn't make it out because they aren't able to make it to Yonkers.

[2:30] Hey, yeah.

[2:31] You guys are great too.

[2:32] Because they're ghosts?

[2:33] You're all heroes in your own way.

[2:34] Because you're all ghosts.

[2:37] So let's –

[2:38] I mean a lot of people made it a point to come to Yonkers.

[2:40] It seems like the only reason you wouldn't come is you're dead.

[2:42] So that concludes the –

[2:43] Oh, okay.

[2:44] That concludes the old business.

[2:46] We covered that.

[2:47] Thanks for coming to Yonkers.

[2:48] It was a great show.

[2:49] And we hope to see you at our January show.

[2:51] We're glad you made it to Yonkers.

[2:53] Dan explained his bizarre theory that every song is a Jimmy Buffett song.

[2:58] I guess we didn't start the fire as a Jimmy Buffett song.

[3:01] So, like, the Tiki Bird song is then a Jimmy Buffett song?

[3:04] The Tiki Bird song is a genre.

[3:07] I refuse to live in that world.

[3:08] I refuse to live in that world.

[3:10] Tell me genre is what I'm saying.

[3:11] Once he gets his, like, pineapple juice and gross ketchup-stained fingers all over the place.

[3:17] Is that for the cheeseburger of paradise?

[3:21] So this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:26] Tonight we watched a sequel.

[3:29] A squeakquel, if you will.

[3:31] No, we won't because it was not a squeakquel.

[3:33] There was no squeaking.

[3:34] It was called 300 Colon Rise of an Empire.

[3:39] You probably already know that, though, because when you download the episode on your talking box or whatever.

[3:44] Yeah, and then I say it in the introduction, too.

[3:47] Yeah, it's never a shock.

[3:48] It's not a big...

[3:49] This is not when people find out for the first time.

[3:50] This is for people who have not been paying attention, honestly.

[3:52] Okay.

[3:53] So, you and Stuart, basically.

[3:54] I'll tell you three times.

[3:55] Shame on you.

[3:57] What?

[3:58] So, this was a sequel to 300, a movie that Stuart and I both really like, genuinely.

[4:03] And I thought was, eh, all right.

[4:05] And I'm not the biggest Zack Snyder fan, but I'll admit, 300 is a lot.

[4:08] Visionary directors to Zack Snyder, you don't like?

[4:10] He's a visionary, that's true.

[4:11] Jack Snyder?

[4:12] Jack Snyder.

[4:14] Jump in Jack Snyder.

[4:16] He was Jack Snyder before the change.

[4:19] Wait, did we change his name to Zack?

[4:21] Yeah.

[4:23] Now, wait, Snyder's Pretzels.

[4:25] Yeah.

[4:26] Now, he's the son of Tom Snyder.

[4:27] Yeah.

[4:28] As far as I'm concerned, Zack Snyder, the best thing that Zack Snyder has done is the pre-credit sequence.

[4:36] No, pre-credit.

[4:37] Whatever, baby Huey.

[4:38] The pre-credit sequence.

[4:41] I'm not a huge fan of Zack Snyder, but the watchmen credit sequence is very good.

[4:46] I was going to say the pre-credit sequence to the Dawn of the Dead remake.

[4:49] Oh, okay.

[4:51] Yeah, your baby voice lost it near the end there.

[4:53] Yeah, that's okay.

[4:55] It was the zombie baby from Dawn of the Dead.

[4:57] Wait, from?

[4:58] The baby was in the opening?

[5:00] No, no, that Dan was doing the voice.

[5:01] Oh, okay.

[5:02] I mean, every baby is in an opening at some point.

[5:05] It's how you get them out of there.

[5:08] You show me a baby.

[5:09] I'll show you one who's been through an opening.

[5:10] It's an exit for the baby.

[5:12] It's really an exit for the baby.

[5:16] It opens, doesn't it?

[5:17] Yes, it does open.

[5:18] Yeah, because it's closed.

[5:20] That's how a baby gets out of it.

[5:21] Because you know what about exits?

[5:22] They don't open.

[5:23] You're right.

[5:25] I'm going to just go.

[5:26] Please do.

[5:27] Walk.

[5:28] Walk away.

[5:29] Walking.

[5:30] Gone.

[5:31] Dan gone.

[5:32] Chain rattle, chain rattle, door closed.

[5:34] Yeah, boogans, etc.

[5:35] Thunder sound.

[5:36] So, 300.

[5:37] It's a stupid movie, but I find it pretty fun.

[5:40] It is high operatic cornball.

[5:43] It looks like a movie made out of heavy metal covers just tossed together.

[5:48] And for the most part, the people acting in it understand this and are way over the top.

[5:54] They're at the right pitch of like, yeah, goofy, over-the-top spectacle.

[5:58] Whereas, just spoiler alert, 300 Rise of an Empire, instead of having Gerard Butler in

[6:04] what's still his best role by far, right?

[6:07] Better than Bad Soccer Dad.

[6:09] Soccer Dad, Bad Dad.

[6:10] The ugly truth.

[6:11] Come on.

[6:12] Yeah, so he's been bad in everything except 300.

[6:15] He is replaced here with some guy whose name I don't even know who is –

[6:20] From Strike Back.

[6:21] The guy from Strike Back.

[6:22] Is he the guy in Strike Back who catches the nuclear weapon like a football?

[6:26] Well, I don't know what a nuclear weapon is.

[6:28] It's a nuclear weapon.

[6:29] I've heard of a nuclear weapon.

[6:31] Identic.

[6:32] I've never seen it.

[6:33] What was his name in this?

[6:34] Missed a lot of knees.

[6:35] No, he's the Mystic Knees, which is a real person.

[6:38] The Mystic Knees.

[6:39] No, the Mystic Knees.

[6:41] The Mystic Knees, the old blues song.

[6:44] Oh, the Mystic Knees.

[6:46] Yep.

[6:47] They're Mystic Knees.

[6:49] They sure got me.

[6:53] I'm old Jack Sparta.

[6:57] Mississippi Delta blues man who sings about ancient Greece.

[7:01] I play down at the hot gates.

[7:05] Sing a little bit of the Thermopylae blues.

[7:08] Just 300 of us here.

[7:11] And Xerxes coming round.

[7:13] Oh, there's 300 of us here.

[7:15] And Xerxes coming round.

[7:17] You make a good point.

[7:18] Better tell my woman.

[7:21] There's some bad stuff to be found.

[7:24] Every blues song.

[7:25] You make a good point.

[7:26] Why is that blues song so terrible?

[7:27] The blues is bad.

[7:29] It's bad for liking it.

[7:30] If you enjoy it, you're wrong.

[7:32] That's a little far.

[7:33] That's a little too far.

[7:34] You're a bad person.

[7:35] Because out of the blues came something great.

[7:36] Zydeco.

[7:38] We all love Zydeco.

[7:39] With it's accordions and it's whatever it does.

[7:42] Whatever else it does.

[7:43] You know, and the Knuckles.

[7:44] You play your Knuckles.

[7:45] Yeah, Sonic and Knuckles.

[7:46] Classic Zydeco duo.

[7:48] And Tails.

[7:49] Tails broke up with the group.

[7:51] Tails died.

[7:52] Tails died.

[7:53] Go to DeviantArt.

[7:54] There's probably a shitload of pictures of it.

[7:56] Of dead Tails.

[7:59] Sonic was weeping.

[8:00] Sonic in mourning.

[8:01] Sonic's all in black.

[8:02] Black veil.

[8:03] Yeah.

[8:04] Sure.

[8:05] Because he was Tails' wife.

[8:06] Anyway, let's talk about it.

[8:07] So this is a sequel to 300.

[8:08] But it happens both before and concurrently and after 300.

[8:12] So it's like the Godfather Part 2 of 300 movies.

[8:15] Where it's bouncing around in time.

[8:17] We open.

[8:18] Okay.

[8:19] It's a parallel sequel.

[8:20] In the last movie, it was the Battle of Thermopylae.

[8:23] 300 Spartans and about a ton of other Greek guys.

[8:25] But let's not talk about them.

[8:26] Yeah.

[8:27] 300 Spartans versus the army of Xerxes.

[8:28] The Persian emperor.

[8:29] And he has monster gang.

[8:30] Who is a monster man.

[8:31] He's got an army of monster people.

[8:32] He does have a monster squad.

[8:33] He does have a monster squad.

[8:34] And here's one of the things I love about 300.

[8:35] The first movie.

[8:36] Okay.

[8:37] It is bonkers crazy 8 myth stuff.

[8:38] They are fighting an army of monsters.

[8:39] Xerxes is like 18 feet tall.

[8:40] And talks in this like low core of the earth voice.

[8:41] Like everything about it is totally ridiculous.

[8:42] A guy.

[8:43] A rhinoceros is charging at them.

[8:44] And a guy throws his sword at them.

[8:45] And he's like.

[8:51] additional 300, cuz.

[8:52] I don't.

[8:53] And I'll tell you why.

[8:54] They're kind of gay monsters.

[8:55] Well, yes.

[8:56] There is a.

[8:57] Well, I don't know if it's gay so much as sexually decadent.

[8:58] Yeah.

[8:59] Coz imply that.

[9:00] They're gay..

[9:01] They're having that..

[9:21] Yeah.

[9:22] You have amputees and scarred women.

[9:23] Yeah.

[9:24] And things like that.

[9:25] I mean, let's get one thing straight.

[9:26] These are a racist bunch of movies.

[9:27] Yeah.

[9:28] It's a xenophobic series.

[9:29] These are movies about white, English-accented Greeks with relatively light hair versus monsters.

[9:36] Versus Persian monsters.

[9:37] Or attacking the homeland.

[9:39] But here's the thing.

[9:40] At its heart, it is about a bunch of he-men.

[9:43] It's about love.

[9:44] It's the closest we're gonna get to it.

[9:46] No.

[9:47] It's a tale.

[9:48] At its heart.

[9:49] It's a tale of a boy and his dog.

[9:50] It's a tale as old as time.

[9:51] Well, a couple thousand years old.

[9:53] It's about..

[9:54] It's the closest you're gonna get to a he-man movie.

[9:55] It's these buff guys fighting monster men.

[9:58] Who would be Ram Man then?

[10:00] The Orko unfortunately is not in it and as we said watching this movie, it could have

[10:05] used a kind of wisecracking wizard because here's the problem with 300, Rise of an Empire,

[10:11] they cut out most of the monsters and I think they tried to tack more towards real history

[10:16] to a point but then they did it in a stupid way.

[10:19] So let's talk about what's going on.

[10:20] The movie opens with Lena Headey's character Queen Gorgo of Sparta and I wish she was Gorgo

[10:25] the British Godzilla who you may remember from the movie Gorgo.

[10:28] It was the British knockoff of Godzilla and he's basically Godzilla but he's got fins

[10:35] for ears.

[10:36] There's baby Gorgo and there's mama Gorgo but we don't need to get into that.

[10:39] Then there's Gorgonzola which of course is a Greek cheese that fought the Persians.

[10:45] So she's like, hey, you guys remember that King Leonidas and all his men died?

[10:52] Let me give you some backstory.

[10:53] It seems 10 years ago we had the Battle of Marathon and this guy Themistocles killed

[10:58] King Darius of Persia but he should have killed King Darius' son Xerxes because his eyes had

[11:03] the stink of fate about them or whatever it is they say.

[11:07] Now historically –

[11:08] A common phrase, his eyes had the stink of fate.

[11:10] But at this point in this opening monologue and we get a battle sequence and this is not

[11:17] terrible.

[11:18] It's shot okay.

[11:19] I mean –

[11:20] It's a 300 style dumb battle sequence with lots of slow-mo and blood flying everywhere.

[11:26] It was like fake CGI blood and the colors were all way overblown and everything.

[11:30] Like you said, it's Mortal Kombat blood.

[11:32] Yeah.

[11:33] The blood in this gets seemingly faker and faker as it goes on and there are parts where

[11:36] it does –

[11:37] I don't know if that's because of the 3D.

[11:41] Like they wanted to make it shinier so it would pick up the 3D but I don't know how

[11:44] that shit works.

[11:45] It could be.

[11:46] Someone mentioned on the Facebook page about Dracula 3D when we watched last episode that

[11:49] it was lit so brightly to compensate for the light you lose when you do it in 3D.

[11:53] Which made sense.

[11:54] I'm surprised we didn't think about it.

[11:56] It still looked like shit.

[11:57] Here it's like they need more stuff to throw at you because it's 3D and much like the

[12:00] Hercules movie we watched, in ancient times apparently there was always like pollen and

[12:04] cinders and feather and shit just flying around in the air all the time.

[12:08] Yeah, stuff that gives you a sense of depth.

[12:11] Just happens to be in the air.

[12:12] But also like ancient people must have had terrible lungs.

[12:16] Like they're just breathing in crap all the time.

[12:18] Apparently industrialization was the best thing that ever happened when it came to clean

[12:22] air.

[12:23] Because ancient air was dirty.

[12:24] All of Greece that we see is like black lava rocks.

[12:28] Like why does Persia want it so bad, dude?

[12:31] It just blasted cliffs against an unrelenting, unsympathetic sea.

[12:36] Because it's a crucible for forging warriors?

[12:37] I guess so.

[12:38] But anyway, she tells the tale still about how Xerxes now became emperor and he took

[12:44] on Darius's top commander, Artemisia.

[12:48] Darius Artentos.

[12:49] Top commander.

[12:50] Thank God not.

[12:52] So Artemisia, Eva Green's character, is your classic story in these movies.

[12:57] She is a little girl who was sold into slavery, repeatedly raped, left for dead, picked up

[13:03] by a Persian general and trained to be the world's greatest badass warrior queen.

[13:09] She's basically like Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy or like, you know, Xena or Mara

[13:15] Jade.

[13:16] Mara Jade from the Star Wars Extended Universe.

[13:18] I don't know.

[13:19] Mara Jade?

[13:20] Mara Jade.

[13:21] Mara Jade.

[13:22] She married Luke Snowwalker eventually.

[13:23] What?

[13:24] She's the most popular addition to the Star Wars canon made by Timothy Zahn.

[13:29] Sorry.

[13:30] Call Timothy Zahn real quick.

[13:31] Hello.

[13:32] Timothy Zahn?

[13:33] Oh no, sorry.

[13:34] It's your brother Steve.

[13:35] Steve Zahn.

[13:36] Tell your brother Timothy you wrote the Star Wars books.

[13:37] Dan doesn't know what he's talking about.

[13:38] You're getting an angry letter from Steve Zahn.

[13:40] I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the Star Wars canon consists of the Star Wars movies.

[13:44] No, the Star Wars canon is a canon that shoots Star Wars DVDs of people.

[13:49] Very ineffective in a siege situation, but Leonardo da Vinci invented it.

[13:53] People are really disappointed when they get episode one.

[13:56] Yeah, it's terrible for Mirai.

[13:59] It's like throwing the heads of your enemies at them.

[14:02] Yeah.

[14:03] So anyway, Artemisia is the, let's just say it, the best character in the whole movie.

[14:07] She's great.

[14:08] The only interesting character.

[14:09] And Eva Green has that type of performance you were talking about.

[14:11] She's got it.

[14:12] She is.

[14:13] She has got it.

[14:14] And by it, it is scenery-chewing ham-boneness.

[14:16] Just total ham.

[14:17] And the willingness to have a fight-slash-sex scene topless.

[14:20] Yeah.

[14:21] Both of those things make her pop off the screen.

[14:24] Because it's 3-D boobs, is that what you're saying?

[14:26] That's exactly what it is.

[14:27] Yeah.

[14:28] Make it, all right.

[14:29] Sergei Popov.

[14:30] There's something, there's just something ineffable about her.

[14:33] It could be the fact that she's fighting topless.

[14:36] It could be.

[14:37] Who knows?

[14:38] But anyway.

[14:39] Science will tell us.

[14:40] And now this is, this sequence is the best part of the movie as far as I'm concerned.

[14:43] It tells the backstory of Artemisia goading Xerxes into going through a mystical rite

[14:48] in the cave of a hermit in the desert, where he walks into a pool of magic gold liquid

[14:53] and walks out as the 18-foot-tall, chain-covered, totally hairless, androgynous monster king

[15:00] that we know from the first movie.

[15:01] And the hermit says, gold!

[15:02] You're taking my gold!

[15:03] It's all over your body!

[15:04] Give me back my gold!

[15:05] There's gold in them there, Xerxes!

[15:06] Why am I a hermit if I have all the gold?

[15:07] Rich!

[15:08] Rich, I tells you!

[15:09] Rich!

[15:10] Rich!

[15:11] He's ancient Persian!

[15:13] He-he-he!

[15:14] Ho-ho-ho!

[15:15] Da-da-le-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo!

[15:16] What a great character.

[15:17] You had the Persian gold prospecting hermit?

[15:18] I wanna see that.

[15:19] 303.

[15:20] Hermit.

[15:21] A hermit's tale.

[15:22] A hermit's tale.

[15:23] So is it the tale of how he became a hermit or is it how he stops becoming a hermit?

[15:38] Or is it just him in his cave just eating his own scabs for sustenance?

[15:42] Telling stories.

[15:43] Him in his cave occasionally shooting a shotgun above the heads of people who come close to

[15:48] his cave.

[15:49] Stay away from a cave!

[15:50] Xerxes!

[15:51] A traveler shows up and the hermit delights him with erotic adventures and tales.

[15:56] A thousand and one of them.

[15:59] What are you talking about?

[16:01] The Red Hermit Diaries.

[16:06] Dear Hermit.

[16:07] Nobody's reading it out loud.

[16:08] Dear Hermit, I have a story to tell you.

[16:11] Well, I don't know how this guy got my address, but I'll read it.

[16:14] I live in a cave.

[16:18] I guess I'll read it in a state of undress.

[16:22] While touching myself.

[16:23] No one can see me.

[16:24] I'm a hermit.

[16:25] I'm a hermit.

[16:26] Get those cameras out of here.

[16:29] Call us Showtime.

[16:32] Zalman Hobo King's The Red Hermit Diaries.

[16:36] Not even Zalman God King, I think, would be more appropriate.

[16:39] No, no.

[16:40] Xerxes is the god king in this one.

[16:42] So basically, at that point, the movie then shifts and it becomes concurrent with the

[16:50] Battle of Thermopylae.

[16:51] Themistocles is fighting a bunch of battles.

[16:55] After Marathon, when he kills Darius, he fights battles against Xerxes.

[16:59] They fight the Battle of Artemisium, which is this big naval battle.

[17:03] They fight the Battle of Salamis later on.

[17:06] The Battle of Salamis.

[17:08] They're hitting each other with big salamis.

[17:10] Oh, yeah.

[17:11] I remember that from our old Three Stooges.

[17:13] And at this point, it kind of becomes like a classics illustrated shitty history of the

[17:20] Persian Wars.

[17:21] It's just battle after battle, speech after speech.

[17:23] The characters are cardboard as all get out.

[17:26] Occasionally, even Green will show up and liven things up.

[17:28] But there aren't even any monster men for most of it.

[17:31] It's like the last half hour, they're like, oh, yeah.

[17:34] Were there monsters in this thing?

[17:36] You're saying that if TNT's Monster Vision was interested in this movie, they would have

[17:41] to pass it over.

[17:42] Yeah, entirely.

[17:43] Well, I mean, Monster Vision showed a lot of movies without monsters in them.

[17:46] What?

[17:47] They've gone way off message.

[17:48] Uh-oh.

[17:49] You better talk to Joe Bob Briggs.

[17:51] This wasn't in your remit, Joe Bob.

[17:53] You have to send it to his hermit's cave.

[17:58] JBB.

[17:59] Hermit Joe Bob Briggs, today we've got lonely foo, solitary foo, talking to nobody foo, no boobs.

[18:08] Hermit Joe Bob is giving the ratings for that day's nothing.

[18:17] Yeah, he's telling it to the picked over skull of a cow that he has in his cave.

[18:24] Artemisia and Themistocles, because this is a movie, they have a sort of romantic savage rivalry,

[18:31] which comes to a head when they come to a head and have sex with each other while fighting.

[18:36] She offers to have him join her because he's a brilliant general who's been outwitting her,

[18:41] and she is a brilliant generaless who is a hellcat in the sack.

[18:45] He says no.

[18:46] And a little rough sex, which does not get consummated because he denies her.

[18:51] Well, I mean, sex is the consummation, right?

[18:53] I mean, clearly the sex does not continue to either of theirs.

[18:58] To completion.

[18:59] To completion.

[19:00] Oh, yeah, sure.

[19:01] Well, we don't know that about him.

[19:02] I guess that's true.

[19:04] As soon as he pulled out, he might have been like, oh, oh, oh.

[19:06] Anybody got a Band-Aid?

[19:09] We see him clutching it.

[19:11] Yeah, how do you guys do it?

[19:13] Urethra?

[19:14] Yeah.

[19:15] I don't like when he does it.

[19:16] Stop it from coming out.

[19:17] I don't understand.

[19:18] Just dodge the flow.

[19:20] He's never had sex before, so he's like, I've got a leak.

[19:23] My soul essence is leaking out.

[19:25] I'm bleeding white, gooey blood.

[19:27] Okay, stop.

[19:28] Stop, please.

[19:29] Stop right there.

[19:31] Please stop.

[19:32] But we do see him clutching a cape to his crotch, so maybe he's just kind of trying to mop up.

[19:36] Yeah.

[19:39] There's like more and more fighting.

[19:41] And at a certain point, we're like, so did they forget that Lena Headey was telling this story?

[19:45] Because then we get to the Battle of Salamis where they're fighting on a bunch of ships, and it just becomes a video game.

[19:51] You're just behind a CGI Themistocles on a horse as he rides around across ships slashing guys and going through fire.

[19:57] And then he's having a…

[20:00] complete with like shots of zooming in on uh

[20:03] artemisia across the sea and then cutting back to him

[20:07] and then he decides to go on a different route it's garbage yeah

[20:10] and uh it looks like you're watching someone play shenmue remember that game

[20:13] yeah yeah dream dream cast that was for yeah

[20:17] uh anyway remember uh remember mario kart guys

[20:21] remember that one yeah yeah this was a lot like mario kart yeah yeah because he kept

[20:24] throwing shells at people yeah shells those bananas banana peels

[20:29] oh tons of banana peels dan all right is dan okay

[20:33] just trying to relate i think he's having a stroke

[20:36] trying to relate to us to the young people yeah banana peels

[20:41] joust you guys remember i don't like where this

[20:44] again this is just old video games now okay so there's a big battle there's a

[20:48] big battle and they're fighting and then you hear lena heady

[20:51] you haven't heard her narration oh there's also a part in the middle where

[20:54] where one of the characters starts telling themistically is artemisia's

[20:57] backstory so it's a nice nested flashback where

[21:00] you're like all right so what is going on here now

[21:03] after this point i feel like you need a diagram this movie

[21:06] off camera the bat the battle of thermopylae happened now this is after

[21:09] the battle of thermopylae artemisia and thomastocles have met up

[21:12] for their final duel and they got swords to each other's necks

[21:15] and you hear lena heady a wind rustled caressed her hair like a

[21:20] lover's hand blah blah blah and you see that lena

[21:23] heady is standing on an approaching ship with a bunch of spartan soldiers

[21:26] she's the queen of sparta and whatever and it's like wait so the whole movie

[21:30] was her telling them a story as they got to

[21:32] this battle but she was narrating the battle that was happening that they

[21:36] hadn't gotten to yet and then they seems like it dude

[21:39] artemisia forces the mystically's hand he kills her after offering to let her go

[21:43] and the smart star groans of consternation because she's the best

[21:47] character and then the and the spartans come and

[21:49] attack everybody and that's the end in western civilization to save from the

[21:52] evil monster persians but here's the thing i would have liked

[21:55] this movie more if lena if uh artemisia had killed the

[21:58] mystically's oh totally killed everybody else then got into a

[22:02] spaceship and like had a bunch of space adventures yeah i mean

[22:05] as i said while we were watching it you could easily do a crossover between 300

[22:08] and stargate and it wouldn't be weird it would look

[22:11] totally normal because they both have the same villain too yeah

[22:14] yeah because xerxes looks like a uh a guawul is what they're called

[22:18] dan now i really like it now i really want to see this movie

[22:21] though where like there's just like awesome assassin

[22:24] persian princess and i would feel like she's actually greek she just works for

[22:28] the person oh yeah you know but she's this she's this

[22:30] awesome assassin and if it was a crossover a stargate she could have sex

[22:33] with james spader it would be really rough in a car crash

[22:38] yeah what are these stargate 300 crash

[22:42] star crash no star crash is a different movie whoa that doesn't have any

[22:47] very disappointed and then she's james spader's secretary and he spanks her

[22:50] when she gets the the don't be creepy what just i'm doing

[22:54] other oh but i thought it would be creepy and

[22:58] then he'll part of me is just tough and then he'll blacklist everybody

[23:01] he'll blacklist everyone yeah fedora around

[23:04] and be puffy on the cover of magazines yeah

[23:08] so here's the thing this is a very boring movie for a lot of it

[23:12] but it's got this one performance in it that's really exciting

[23:17] you wonder like why didn't they make this just about her why did they have to

[23:20] make the greeks the heroes why couldn't they made her the hero i

[23:24] mean she loses in the end but but i mean that says that like

[23:27] you write a movie and you don't necessarily know what's going to go on

[23:30] with the casting like the thing is like they got lucky with

[23:34] the casting of her and apparently did not know how to cast anyone else i guess

[23:38] but her character is even written more interestingly than

[23:41] the other ones like instead it's this it's the old

[23:44] villain has more fun thing like yeah the hero gives a lot of speeches about

[23:48] we need to be free men democracy the united greece to have freedom and

[23:52] liberty but he never really seems to believe any of it he's just kind of like

[23:56] yelling things at his men to get them to fight all oiled up and shirtless

[23:59] meanwhile she seemed she's written in a way that it's like

[24:02] yeah okay she has a motivation like she was thrown away by the greeks

[24:06] now she wants to get revenge but also she has a lust for power and she likes to

[24:10] use people and she had the and she in a way like rose

[24:13] xerxes the power and he even has the opportunity to like

[24:17] go against his wishes which is cool like is she

[24:20] she is a more interesting character everything about her is more interesting

[24:24] than this guy who is just battle after battle speech after speech

[24:28] but he we don't give a shit about him you know

[24:30] he has no nothing to interest us other than in theory he's

[24:33] the hero no i'm totally with you and telling it from her perspective

[24:40] would tie it closer to the original 300 with the idea of the hero dies at the

[24:46] yeah but it felt so much like when you take

[24:51] the 300 story and you change well we i mean you're not taking the

[24:55] exact story but when you're taking that that era of time and then you just

[24:59] change all the things that would conveniently make a more positive movie

[25:03] like instead of having them sacrifice their lives

[25:07] you know for no appreciable effect instead they have the uh

[25:13] they have the good guys winning at the end at the end of the day i mean they

[25:15] did the greeks did win that battle in real life no i know but if uh and

[25:20] there's even like a like a boss fight at the end yeah well

[25:24] that's 300 never had that moment of like it's not like release i guess

[25:28] xerxes and and gerard butler didn't have like a

[25:30] hand-to-hand combat scene which aside from that they never would

[25:34] have been fucked because xerxes has that giant magic axe that he's carrying in

[25:37] this movie that he just cuts people's heads off with

[25:40] where did he get a horse big enough to carry him around because he's so huge

[25:44] well he must have bred it it's like a destroyer or you know some kind of

[25:46] dreadnought horse or something one of those horses that they used to

[25:49] breed in medieval times that were strong enough to carry a man on in armor

[25:53] but they were so expensive you never actually rode him into battle was that

[25:56] the medieval times in new jersey or yeah yeah

[25:59] the medieval times of bayon yeah but here's the thing they took a movie

[26:04] that was goofy as i'll get out yes removed the stuff that made it fun

[26:07] and goofy most of the stuff for a little bit

[26:09] except for a little bit uh and then took it for granted that the audience was

[26:12] just along for the ride there was a lot of like

[26:15] goodwill fumes from 300 that this movie used up yeah i hate to say that like

[26:19] basing the original 300 on frank miller's graphic novel

[26:23] in some ways was a benefit because it they managed to throw in a ton of extra

[26:26] shit like the like the weird uh temple of the

[26:30] oracles and all that other weird stuff that at least added flavor and

[26:34] character like hermit caves but also that's the

[26:38] first the best part of it is in the beginning

[26:39] they have the hermit cave and stuff but it felt like while we watched the movie

[26:42] i said this feels like we're watching if ancient

[26:44] greeks had had movies and they made a movie about this this is

[26:48] the movie they would make heroic bare-chested greeks fighting

[26:51] monster men who use evil magic and then the movie like forgot about

[26:55] all that stuff what would you say dan i said this while

[26:58] we're watching the movie but also too i feel like

[27:01] this movie actually suffered from um not being a adaptation of a

[27:07] and adaptation and adaptation of a comic in that

[27:10] the first 300 um kind of took advantage of its fakeness

[27:15] um in the backdrops to really mirror the uh panels of a comic strip like it

[27:21] had a certain two-dimensional quality like

[27:24] and all the action progressed along a two-dimensional

[27:27] line that made it very easy to follow whereas this movie

[27:31] had the fakeness of the cgi backgrounds but it was untethered by that kind of

[27:35] like comic panel look that's what you meant

[27:38] when you were saying it's two 3d yes it's it's like that third dimension was

[27:43] not time by the way no no yeah i mean like it when i say it's

[27:48] two 3d it doesn't make it mean it makes it look more realistic i just mean that

[27:51] the stylization is worse yeah like it's not as clear

[27:58] you know i mean it also doesn't help that like the visuals were really murky

[28:01] and dark and somebody would turn from a human to a

[28:04] cgi figure back to a human within a back and forth within a couple seconds and

[28:08] the camera's always spinning around ah you know these young kids with their

[28:11] movies with the cameras moving around and the people jumping all over them

[28:14] they're like wooshu and whatnot kind of like that last hercules movie we

[28:18] watched that where they seem to just hit the bullet time button at random

[28:21] points yeah like you're watching your friend play max pain and you're like

[28:25] dude you're doing it totally wrong but it's i really wanted to like this

[28:30] movie because i liked the first one and i had heard that even green had a

[28:33] nude sex scene in it so i said okay sure i'm on board maybe a bunch of monsters

[28:37] cut people's heads off but alas the monsters were missing

[28:41] yeah we're we're we're there already but let's do final judgments

[28:45] uh this is a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie you kind of liked i say

[28:49] it's a bad bad movie i was bored by it almost more than

[28:54] like this is in the like 80th or 90th percentile of flop house movies i was

[28:58] bored by i don't know what that number means yeah

[29:02] you know uh you have a calculator where's the yeah

[29:06] is more board or less board running the numbers i need silver over in here

[29:10] no more board this is one of them more door yeah more door more door more dork

[29:14] it looks like i want to throw it in the disc world books

[29:18] and more door because that's the only way we can rescue the move

[29:21] the world from the evil of this film okay yeah

[29:25] well you better be ready to have golem bite your finger off because i'm not

[29:27] ready to do it why don't they just have the eagles drop

[29:30] for us yeah there's a lot of questions in those luthering stories

[29:34] why doesn't they when the old the old one why don't they just hand the ring to

[29:37] tom bombadil and let him lose it in his couch somewhere

[29:40] no one will ever find it in his magic hermit cabin

[29:44] because that's not what he's for dude

[29:48] he's too busy banging goldberry and hanging out with fatty lumpkin

[29:52] my favorite part of the books is when they're like why don't we just give the

[29:55] ring to tom bombadil he's like eh he'll just forget it somewhere

[29:58] like that tolkien introduced

[30:00] this god-like character and then you have to realize like uh... i guess i'll

[30:03] make him like a real do you think so that they can trust him

[30:06] because otherwise he solves every problem in the whole thing

[30:10] uh... but you know it's uh... it's a bad man it was it was really boring and

[30:14] disappointing

[30:16] and i have to say that like

[30:17] there's a good movie like there's a good straightforward history movie to be made

[30:20] about

[30:21] the persian wars

[30:22] and there's a good over-the-top crazy movie as was neither of them

[30:26] and it just makes me wonder when they finally make the movie about the battle

[30:30] of canada i want them to make so badly

[30:32] how is it going to be

[30:34] or bad

[30:35] hollywood choice as you want that to be over the top and crazy months i mean

[30:39] either way either over the top or loved ever realistic version of it is that

[30:43] that will have to see what it is super over the top like waterloo would like

[30:47] mhm monster friends

[30:49] uh...

[30:50] and the polio not a drag it

[30:53] napoleon is twelve feet tall

[30:56] and in a group of respiring room non-plussed wellington drug is a sign

[31:01] here is your son

[31:04] so like waterloo two point out the house uh...

[31:07] i mean that they don't know is once once things are a certain amount of time in

[31:10] the past it you know it's ok just make stuff up

[31:13] you know

[31:14] so they there is a uh...

[31:16] there's a bunch of

[31:17] movie ideas that my old writing partner brock and i used to have that like

[31:20] sure is that the end

[31:21] just send the idea of the really cool whatever to send the idea of

[31:25] the past

[31:26] like as long as it was a long time ago you could throw it in

[31:28] ends and i feel like there's movies that could do that type of thing that don't

[31:33] uh... before move on to letters

[31:35] uh... we should do

[31:37] plugs

[31:38] okay or up like i don't know that there's more

[31:41] they supplied in this one thing but it is

[31:44] the one thing that we should plug is we've got

[31:47] another live show coming up not

[31:50] right away but in january but it's gonna sell out so buy your tickets

[31:54] and it's at the bell house in brooklyn

[31:57] it's uh... the opening night of podfest twenty fifteen here in new york city

[32:01] it's january ninth

[32:03] yeah ten p m yeah the doors open nine thirty shows a ten

[32:07] uh... cost is ten dollars if you buy ahead of time twelve dollars at the door

[32:12] buy it ahead of time save two bucks

[32:14] uh... give that money to us

[32:16] put it in our tip cups

[32:19] in our tin cups? in our tin cups? in our dvd copy of tin cup?

[32:23] uh... that's

[32:25] about all there is to say about that

[32:27] we're also going to plug

[32:29] a uh... something for comic book fans out there

[32:33] you should hustle down to your local comic book retailer

[32:36] bang on the counter

[32:39] and say shopkeep

[32:40] i would like to pre-order

[32:42] a copy of the flash gordon holiday special available from dynamite comics

[32:47] now why would they want to do that? because it features three stories for

[32:51] the price of one and each story is written by... three stories? there's three of us

[32:56] seems like a weird coincidence that's the thing dan we each wrote a story

[33:00] what i did? each focusing on a different holiday

[33:04] uh... so it's gonna be it's really great it's uh... it's a special one-shot issue

[33:09] you don't need to have read anything beforehand but you should because that

[33:12] the flash gordon series is really good

[33:14] uh... and if

[33:16] you do not have a local comic book shop which is sad i feel bad for you

[33:20] you should instead go on to the internet which is everywhere

[33:24] and even in your house even in that pocket computer open your mouth that's internet in there

[33:31] uh... and go on and pre-order from the dynamite website

[33:35] so that's the flash gordon holiday special number one

[33:39] and get tickets now for the january ninth show

[33:42] the flop house live

[33:44] new york city podfest 2015 at the bell house in brooklyn new york

[33:49] you gonna plug your twitter account? i just remembered there's another thing i should mention

[33:55] i had a brief

[33:57] guest spot on wham bam pow one of our fellow

[34:00] max fun network shows

[34:03] uh... talking about something that i've talked about many times but on this show

[34:08] uh... return of the living dead

[34:10] merkins then i guess

[34:13] so you probably heard me talk about it already if you're a fan of this show but if you

[34:16] want to know what it sounds like when i'm talking when i'm not being interrupted by elliot and stew

[34:21] check out wham bam pow that was a little pointed sounds great do you have anything else to plug elliot?

[34:27] i plugged that book that i had an essay in last episode

[34:31] never can say goodbye

[34:33] plug up your fucking pie hole

[34:35] wow but since slate even plugged it for you

[34:40] slate ran an excerpt

[34:42] uh... so dan

[34:44] how did you feel about uh...

[34:47] three hundred rise of an empire

[34:48] i already said i didn't like it

[34:50] well was it a scarily spook-a-nying or a snorkely stupefying or was it a giddily good groke?

[34:57] giddily good groke?

[34:59] that's the classification

[35:02] so he's gotcha, what kind of a groke is it? is it a phazzleberry?

[35:07] no it's a noidvember

[35:10] the month we celebrate the noids or rather the avoidance of him

[35:15] those fucking pizzas

[35:16] he ruins them

[35:19] excuse me i am a hunter of pizzas

[35:23] the pizza will hide

[35:26] the hawk looks where the hawk would hide he looks in the attic he looks in the

[35:30] belfry

[35:32] i look where the pizza would hide in the basement in the cellar

[35:36] in the wooden pizza oven

[35:38] i mean i'm eric

[35:41] i would not call myself a pizza hunter

[35:45] we've done a very good job of avoiding the noid over the past decade

[35:49] or fifteen years or twenty years

[35:53] you gotta thank the national security state for that yeah enjoy your surveillance dude if it's worth being

[35:57] noid free to have all your emails read by the NSA have a fucking drone watching you every day

[36:01] brushing your teeth through the bathroom window yeah enjoy your pizza dude

[36:05] keywords pepperoni

[36:07] pizza

[36:09] it comes in thirty minutes or less where your pizza is not free

[36:13] just like you

[36:14] look actually guys look wow that was a stretch but i like it

[36:18] it's just like george orwell said in nineteen eighty four big brother is feeding you

[36:22] pizza

[36:24] two plus two equals noid

[36:29] uh... hey man

[36:30] and then they put your face in a cage where noids eat it all

[36:34] they just ruin it

[36:35] hey wake up pizzas

[36:39] she pizzas

[36:42] she pizza? she pizza that's when pizza's cousin got a transfusion from him and became

[36:47] she pizza

[36:49] i'm just saying it's time for occupy pizza

[36:53] sounds good

[36:54] uh... so does the noid even exist has anyone ever seen this noid

[36:58] and yet

[36:59] i've gotta take my pizza off when i go to the airport

[37:02] yeah it's a false flag

[37:04] yeah noid

[37:06] uh... so it's time to read a few letters

[37:10] from you

[37:11] the listeners

[37:12] to write letters

[37:13] to us the hosts

[37:15] seems like a weirdly stilted introduction as if you were expecting something no i'm just gonna

[37:20] just gonna go right in dive right in

[37:21] so this first letter is from brian last name

[37:26] withheld brian wrote us a letter

[37:29] letter number one's from brian today hey brian

[37:33] quit frying

[37:34] in your hate

[37:36] for guys who don't read your letters cause dan's gonna

[37:38] right now

[37:40] read the letter

[37:41] and how

[37:42] it's your letter brian hey stop crying

[37:45] brian

[37:46] this day's for you

[37:49] letter number one

[37:51] maybe it'll be fun maybe it'll be done soon but let's make it last forever

[37:59] this letter

[38:00] together

[38:02] those are three words that don't really rhyme but i pretended they did for brian

[38:07] p.s.

[38:09] brian was filmed in front of a live studio audience

[38:12] so this letter goes whatever happened to predictability the milkman the letters

[38:17] page

[38:19] brian's thing

[38:20] for us everywhere you read there's a letter

[38:25] i reached

[38:28] never met brian before

[38:30] who cares

[38:32] letter from brian

[38:35] night court

[38:39] it's night court

[38:42] so uh...

[38:43] brian's letter

[38:46] do do do do do do brian's letter

[38:50] okay so the podcast just sang a bunch of

[38:53] old t.v. themes thank you for writing a letter unsubscribe sitting at your

[38:59] computer and write a letter

[39:01] your fandom's true you're a pal and you wrote a letter

[39:06] and if you sent a letter

[39:10] invited everyone you knew

[39:13] what we want to see your letter would be for us without letters

[39:18] what would we do? brian's letter reads well there's a time for brian and a time for letters

[39:23] i like when you guys get right to the point don't bullshit around with silly songs so this letter goes like this

[39:29] show me that letter again

[39:31] show me that letter don't waste another minute on this song bit

[39:37] okay so it goes like this i recently acquired

[39:40] a role as a monster in a major motion picture well i wanted to hear about that why did you wait so long

[39:45] i hope it's the next three hundred movie

[39:46] three hundred rise of monsters

[39:48] i'm concerned slash excited it may eventually get viewed

[39:52] hermit's tale greeks versus dracula's

[39:55] i'm concerned slash excited that it may eventually get viewed for the show

[39:59] i don't want to specify

[40:00] think about the movie but I know that I but know that I personally have no

[40:03] acting chops despite me being six foot seven and a hundred and seventy pounds

[40:08] is unfortunately not a movie about slender man anyway hopefully I'll have a

[40:12] reason to contact you guys once the movie comes out and you make fun of the

[40:16] stupid monster in it Ryan last name without not come on I don't know what

[40:19] the movie is confident about yourself the stupid monster in it that's you

[40:22] that's you man yeah yeah yeah no he might be playing a stupid monster yeah

[40:29] no like a like what I mean like a monster I'm a monster door door door the

[40:37] Beastmaster Mark Singer everybody like a king Kong like a big ape King Kong is

[40:45] pretty smart for a monster yeah before I mean more like Gilman Gilman is dumb as

[40:49] a bag of rocks yeah all right don't let me start on the metal Luna mutant he's

[40:55] got a big brain but he's stupid as hammers but this guy is more hammer man

[41:02] though super smart and not a monster he's a heroic rapper with magic shoes

[41:06] this guy's taller than six and a half feet okay yes is he is he weighs less

[41:14] than I do yeah he's real skinny so let's he must be playing like a pumpkin

[41:18] he's like a Skeletor that's saying yeah I mean he's writing an essay yeah maybe

[41:25] he's like a like a ant or something like a real yeah yeah an intern ant or a

[41:30] spindly monster yeah like an insect monster pumpkin head as Elliot said yeah

[41:35] it's a kind of spindly monster I know do you look like that what what a daddy

[41:39] longlegs monster yeah yeah sure yeah that's not a spider that's an insect

[41:43] yeah I didn't say it was a spider the implication was clear and I was pretty

[41:49] offended by it sorry guys not Danny long legs to the

[41:53] daddy long legs and his children they lost their mommy like long legs in an

[41:58] accident he's a single dad just like on a full house whatever happened to

[42:03] predictability the milkman the baby boy the evening TV ah what a weird song it

[42:10] doesn't make sense what they're really angry about why don't they just throw a

[42:14] fucking Beach Boys song probably Kokomo my favorite though is still the Perfect

[42:20] Strangers song which is so grandiose for that show standing tall on the wings of

[42:27] my dreams which is a lot for a show about a goofy guy with a funny accent to

[42:31] live up to yeah all right well and then it's got that plaintive harmonica at the

[42:35] end really touches your heart as they run up to the cub stadium right yeah

[42:40] Wrigley Wrigley Wrigley Field so Wrigley Wrigley Field

[42:47] rounded by Barnabas Wriglesby this next letter okay talk slower this oh it's

[43:00] from Finn last name withheld who writes last night I had a dream in which I was

[43:05] a shark man I had a dream in which I was visiting an elderly relative Dan

[43:10] Stewart and Elliot were hanging out in her kitchen Dan explained that the three

[43:14] of you had started a private detective slash mercenary business together called

[43:18] NYU M which stands for not your usual mayhem it's really good it's pretty

[43:24] fantastic goal and it said you say it yum because it's delicious the goal in

[43:30] Stewart's words was to make some money kick some ass and maybe get to ride in

[43:35] a helicopter Dan explained that things were quote off to a slow start and the

[43:43] current gig was organizing my aunt's utensils it seems like a small job for

[43:49] mercenaries New York utensil manipulators other yum jobs get a repair

[43:57] and walking someone's dog Stewart and I talked about really count as mercenaries

[44:02] we're more handyman Stewart and I talked about gene wolf novels and it was only

[44:07] after I woke up that I realized Elliot had been wearing a flak jacket and

[44:11] aviator shades the entire time he looked pretty cool thank you that's from Finn

[44:16] last name withheld yeah you'd be our you'd be like we call you specs or

[44:22] something well what's the brains or something I'd be brains but straight or

[44:25] like nerd nerd a bottom or something I'm the only one of us who's been in

[44:30] like a real military combat situation which is weird you don't know anything

[44:34] about me do you know I did not shoot anybody I shot a lot of bullets though

[44:38] yeah at targets mm-hmm and I was very worried at least those guns were bears

[44:44] those targets yeah we're famous superstore you know that guy who's

[44:50] shooting up all those target superstores shh wink all right Stewart I

[44:55] don't know anything about you is that part of your record has been redacted

[44:59] expunged by an order of the president sure okay so this next letter is all I

[45:05] know is you have that plaque that says from a grateful universe exactly yeah I

[45:10] haven't shot as many bullets as you cuz knives aren't bullets dude I shoot them

[45:15] by throwing you're a regular Drex so I'm looking at this as a three it's a

[45:20] three page long letter I would like to discourage people from writing three

[45:24] page long letters well don't read them then well this is a pretty good one okay

[45:27] so it goes like this should settle in or dear Stuart Dan and Elliot in the order

[45:33] I imagine you standing on an imaginary staircase after listening to your recent

[45:37] episode on gangster squad I was surprised that you made no mention of

[45:41] the fact that the movie was based albeit loosely on a comic book property

[45:44] especially since your entire podcast seems to reference that comic book and

[45:48] its characters using catchphrases animal sidekicks names etc I refer of course to

[45:54] the old FC publications characters the peerless pranking peaches I'm attaching

[46:01] a scan of the cover image from issue 32 of the flop cat comics title prankster

[46:05] squad one of the many FC titles which fear featured the peerless pranking

[46:09] peaches by that time simply known as the original peaches also below is an excerpt

[46:14] from Hal Finkelstein's chapter on the peaches from his book floozies flop cats

[46:18] and fedoras the best forgotten age of comics which is now unfortunately out of

[46:22] print it goes quote it was in 1952 that flop cat comics editor-in-chief Mort

[46:28] Flegel decided to team up three of his poor selling characters into one team

[46:32] Duke Wellington the dapper detective had been a moderately successful crime

[46:37] strip featuring the adventures of a blue-blooded cravat wearing sleuth and

[46:42] his trusty feline sidekick Sir Minton's Mewington the third laughing boy Stan

[46:48] McCoy Hoover's happiest g-man took a more slapstick slant with the lead

[46:53] character who employed an arsenal of gags jokes and light-hearted hijinks to

[46:56] capture criminals and Quentin Elliott Devereaux Kaelin or QED Kaelin boy

[47:02] investigator was a backup feature that even at the time was seen as a cheap

[47:06] Encyclopedia Brown knockoff despite the fact it predated Encyclopedia Brown by

[47:10] 19 years in teaming these three characters together first as the

[47:15] peerless pranking peaches then after a threatened legal action from pranking

[47:19] Pete's perfectly peerless peach soda a popular soft drink and hair oil the day

[47:23] simply as the original pages popular soft drink and hell hair oh yeah words

[47:28] okay legal would give FC had interrupted you in a while so I decided legal would

[47:34] give FC publishing its most successful franchise soon the original peaches were

[47:38] featuring in over 15 flop cat comics titles from the crime themed prankster

[47:43] squad the whore title fiendish tales from the flop house of horror title Oh

[47:48] horror sorry yeah Jesus Christ use context clues use

[47:53] contact crayons guys it seemed readers of the trio's mix of intrigue humor and

[48:04] educational adventure in his autobiography that was something I did

[48:08] more flea remembers in those days the original peaches were everywhere you

[48:12] couldn't pass a street corner or school playground without hearing a group of

[48:16] kids argue over which of them had to pretend to be QED Kaelin in which of

[48:20] them got to be QED Kaelin at the height of their popularity the peaches would go

[48:24] up against gangster Mickey Cohen open a house painting business with

[48:28] Frankenstein fight over star the monster wait what do you say about maybe

[48:33] mentor fight over starlet maybe Van Doren and famously sock Fidel Castro in

[48:37] the kisser but their success could not last public taste was changing and by

[48:41] the early 60s the current trend was for spandex clad superheroes despite legals

[48:46] attempt to cash in on the craze by having a magical leprechaun genie named

[48:49] Shazam O'Neill bestows superpowers and outlandish costumes on the trio it seemed

[48:54] the peaches days were numbered in 1963 Rotherford then a day later the day

[49:01] after that who persuaded Duke Wellington on the original peaches pelican

[49:05] patrolling an excitement hour shot himself in the head 17 times and the

[49:09] show is canceled no and how do you do that and the peaches were explicitly

[49:16] cited in dr. Herbert Wormstrong's seduction of the civil-minded for

[49:20] leading lifestyles which were according to Wormstrong in opposition to all

[49:23] things decent and completely convicted or contradictory to wholesome living

[49:27] that's okay fair suddenly parents were asking if the original peaches were

[49:31] indeed suitable role models for the impressionable offspring after all

[49:34] despite many references to girlfriends fiance's and eventually even wives none

[49:39] ever appeared in the peaches many adventures and the three men always

[49:42] seemed happiest in their own company the original peaches were all but forgotten

[49:50] when only their spin-off character the reformed jewel thief and feline from

[49:54] philanderer Franklin Leopold Oscar Prentiss cat better known as the flop

[49:59] cat

[50:00] remained in the public eye thanks to a national advertising campaign for a topical hemorrhoid cream

[50:05] which used the flop cat as a mascot. Although this proved to be a blow to the character's cult

[50:10] credibility, the original party animal was cited by Robert Crumb as a major inspiration for his

[50:15] character Fritz. Crumb said, I was originally going to call it Fritz the dog and then I saw

[50:20] this ad for hemorrhoid cream. In the late 80s, visionary British comic scribe Adam Moorcock,

[50:26] a self-confessed Peaches fan, penned the 12-part deluxe limited maxi series How Peels the Peaches,

[50:34] a dark reimagining of the characters which proved extremely controversial with fans.

[50:38] Wellington, once a suave and cultured man about town, was now a beer and boobs obsessed

[50:43] blue-collar everyman. The always upbeat McCoy, the upbeat McCoy, is revealed to suffer from

[50:51] Jim Belushi type. Crippling depression, his trademark quips and little laughs were placed

[50:57] with mournful sighs and nihilistic fatalism. And as for QED Kaelin, the boy with a computer brain,

[51:02] traits that once seemed endearing were now simply insufferable. Instead of a sharp-witted

[51:08] repository of useful facts and figures, it became a trivia-obsessed bore, constantly quoting obscure

[51:14] data, referencing long-forgotten movies, bursting into song in inopportune moments,

[51:18] and trying the patience of all but the most indulgent of fans.

[51:49] You almost killed Dan. If he had read that in a normal state, his tongue would have

[51:54] jumped down his esophagus and strangled himself. He would have choked on his own vocal cords.

[52:19] That was bullshit. Let me just tell you that. That was like if he slipped $20 into your underpants

[52:26] while you were wearing them. And he was like, pretty nice, right? I gave you $20. No, but you

[52:30] put your hand in my underpants. CDs cost $20 now? Thanks, Obama. Seems like you get two benefits

[52:38] there. $20 and a hand on your pants. I don't want Bono's hand. No, it's not a good place, though.

[52:44] Oh, okay. You're talking the butt.

[52:49] Look, let's leave it up to the listener's imagination. Whatever you're part of your

[52:52] bathing suit area you least like having touched by Bono. So when you stick a hand between somebody's

[52:57] butt cheeks, it's called a wedgie, I think. Yeah. No, no, it's called Bono.

[53:00] Do your flabbity flabbity. We established this last time.

[53:05] I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now.

[53:07] I want to apologize to all the listeners on regards of decency.

[53:14] I thought you were going to get a pot apology. You jumped all over.

[53:16] Wow, wow. Hoist on my own batard.

[53:26] Dan, are you okay? I don't know. That was the point.

[53:29] You seem to be descending into madness. And I don't mean the good madness, the English ska band.

[53:35] No. I looked upon something out of a Lovecraft tale, and now...

[53:40] But you couldn't come up with a specific reference, could you?

[53:42] No, I couldn't. I don't know.

[53:44] Couldn't even say Necromanticon. The Dunwitch core, I don't know.

[53:46] The Dunwitch core. There's some kind of lurker on the doorstep.

[53:49] I'm done with this witch. Dunwitch.

[53:51] It's about a tan witch. She's dun colored.

[53:54] Dun colored, yeah.

[53:56] Yeah, I'll take a Dunwitch. It's a sandwich, but it's a fish man.

[54:02] Yeah, it's all tentacle based.

[54:05] That's the Innsmouth look.

[54:06] All right, so what are we doing? We recommend a movie that we actually

[54:12] liked in opposition to the movie that we watched tonight.

[54:15] Wait, here on the podcast?

[54:16] Yeah, that's...

[54:17] We recommend a movie we liked.

[54:18] Yeah, this is a recommendation segment.

[54:19] Do we like movies?

[54:21] Sometimes.

[54:22] We love them.

[54:22] Elliot, why don't you recommend something?

[54:23] Don't we hate movies, just like the title of our podcast?

[54:26] No, that's a different podcast.

[54:27] Oh, how did this get made?

[54:30] Hold on.

[54:31] The Dissolve Podcast?

[54:34] Slate Culture Crabs? What's your podcast called?

[54:37] Yeah, WTF.

[54:38] Slate Culture Crab Festival.

[54:41] So that was, yeah, WTF dudes.

[54:43] Hey, who charted?

[54:44] Hey, welcome to Night Vale, you know? Am I right?

[54:49] Doug loves movies.

[54:51] Keith and the girl.

[54:52] And my brother, your brother, and him.

[54:55] Well, that's a...

[54:56] That's not...

[54:57] Wait, what?

[54:58] Podcast that's on our network.

[55:00] Well, I mean, we're not talking...

[55:01] Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes.

[55:06] We're not tarring anything.

[55:07] We're just naming things.

[55:10] We're naming things and doing make-em-ups.

[55:13] Well, so, this is...

[55:14] Listicles.

[55:15] Dan's got...

[55:15] Yeah, we're doing an audio...

[55:17] It's an audio listicle.

[55:19] We're buzzing.

[55:20] We're buzzing and we're feeding, you know, in the buzz house.

[55:23] Okay, we can still salvage this podcast.

[55:25] I don't think so.

[55:26] Let's just talk about our...

[55:27] Let's give it a...

[55:28] Let's give her a chance.

[55:29] An edit mark and here.

[55:31] So I'll start.

[55:33] Here's a movie I like.

[55:35] And I saw recently, it's a movie called The Plumber.

[55:39] And it's a movie that Peter Weir made for Australian television.

[55:42] Christopher Plumber.

[55:42] Yeah, it's the story of Christopher Plumber.

[55:44] And it's how he started as a plumber.

[55:48] I was actually talking about Peter Weir movies yesterday.

[55:51] And I didn't realize he directed Picnic at Hanging Rock.

[55:54] Yeah, yeah.

[55:55] That's one of his...

[55:56] That's my favorite of his.

[55:57] Top films.

[55:58] And Master and Commander.

[56:00] Yeah.

[56:01] He's...

[56:01] And other shit.

[56:02] Directed many...

[56:03] I mean, directed those roughly 35 years apart.

[56:05] And Master at Hanging Rock.

[56:07] And Picnic and Commander.

[56:09] No, but I'm saying he's had a really long...

[56:10] Commander's Picnic at the Edge of the World.

[56:11] He's had a really long career, but you don't...

[56:13] I don't know, you don't hear about him a lot.

[56:14] He's not someone you think of as like,

[56:16] like, oh, the new Peter Weir movie is out.

[56:18] Yeah, exactly.

[56:18] But he's been making movies, you know, consistently for many years.

[56:22] But this is one he made after...

[56:24] Green Card.

[56:25] He directed Green Card, right?

[56:27] I think he did, yeah.

[56:28] Yeah, that's a weird one.

[56:29] Yeah, the movie that introduced Gerard Depardieu to America.

[56:32] So that he could become our father, the hero.

[56:35] And eventually bogus.

[56:36] It was sad when America realized that Gerard Depardieu was bogus.

[56:40] Totally bogus, in fact.

[56:42] And they said, and like Frankenstein's monster from Monster Squad,

[56:46] they said, bogus, and threw him away.

[56:50] And they said, they kicked him in the nuts and said,

[56:52] Gerard Depardieu has nads?

[56:54] Just like in Monster Squad.

[56:56] Wine-soaked pouch hanging between his legs.

[57:00] Oh, that's too descriptive.

[57:02] That's where he keeps his wine.

[57:03] Too descriptive.

[57:04] His scrotum.

[57:05] It's a wine skin, yeah.

[57:08] Oh, man.

[57:10] Of course, his name means Gerard of Pardieu.

[57:15] Now...

[57:16] Pardieu.

[57:18] So the movie is called The Plumber.

[57:19] It's a movie that Peter Weir made after Picnic at Hanging Rock for Australian television.

[57:23] And the thing about it is, it's ostensibly a thriller.

[57:29] This guy is a professor at an Australian college in Sydney, I think.

[57:34] And his wife is an anthropology grad student who's working on her master's.

[57:38] Maybe it's a doctorate.

[57:40] And one day, this guy who says he's the plumber for their university housing

[57:44] comes in and he's like, oh, you've got a problem in the bathroom.

[57:47] I got to go in there and fix it.

[57:48] And the wife is like, we never called you.

[57:50] I didn't call the plumber.

[57:51] He goes, you've got a big problem.

[57:52] This place is going to flood.

[57:53] It's these old buildings.

[57:54] And the plumber is this very talkative, very overbearing blue-collar guy

[57:59] who wears on his sleeve the hates elites, hates intellectuals.

[58:02] He considers himself like a folk singer, man of the people.

[58:06] And there's something very creepy and overbearing about him.

[58:09] And without him ever doing too much that's openly threatening,

[58:13] you get this very creepy vibe from him.

[58:15] And so does the wife.

[58:16] And nobody will listen to her that this guy is dangerous

[58:19] as he continues to come in every day, screw up their bathroom more and more,

[58:23] and kind of impose himself on her life more and more

[58:26] until she's forced to do what she can to get him out of her life.

[58:30] And it's one of these movies where, like, looking back on it,

[58:32] there's no scenes that are, like, scare scenes.

[58:34] But there's this level of thriller paranoia that lasts

[58:37] throughout the whole thing that Peter Weir does.

[58:40] And it's almost like if he said, I'm going to take a similar feel

[58:43] to Picnic at Hanging Rock.

[58:44] And I'm going to make a sitcom about a woman and a crazy plumber.

[58:48] But I'm going to treat it like it's this suspense thriller

[58:51] with an almost eerie overtone to it.

[58:53] And I really liked it a lot.

[58:54] So The Plumber, directed by Peter Weir,

[58:57] and starring a number of Australian soap opera actors of the time.

[59:01] Natalie Imbruglia?

[59:02] Nope.

[59:04] That is the one Australian soap opera actor.

[59:06] This is not it.

[59:07] Keith Ledger?

[59:08] One of those Hemsworths.

[59:10] There aren't soap operas, too?

[59:12] And Thor?

[59:13] I feel like there's the one that no one talks about.

[59:16] There's, like, the third one no one talks about.

[59:18] I feel like he's a soap opera guy.

[59:19] They have a sister that's going to be female Thor, right?

[59:22] Yeah, Lady Thor.

[59:24] Her name is Lady Thor Hemsworth.

[59:26] Low Thor of the Thor people.

[59:28] She Thor.

[59:29] Okay.

[59:30] So The Plumber.

[59:33] So I'm going to recommend a movie that needs no recommendation.

[59:37] So don't recommend it.

[59:38] But it's a movie that I watched, re-watched recently.

[59:40] Eraserhead.

[59:42] It's about a guy who has a baby.

[59:45] That's pretty much what it's about, yeah.

[59:46] It's a bunch of yucks.

[59:47] And, uh...

[59:48] When you just, really?

[59:49] Eraserhead and Three Men and a Baby have the same synopsis.

[59:52] A man who's unprepared to take care of a child has a baby.

[59:55] There's a ghost in the background of Eraserhead?

[59:58] You didn't notice?

[59:58] There's a ton of weird shit.

[1:00:00] around in the back of that movie yeah there's the angel with the big cheeks

[1:00:03] and the radiator who sings that weird song yeah and then the sperm fall on her

[1:00:07] and she's stomping on him with her high-heeled shoes no it's a weird dream

[1:00:11] of a movie that is both unpleasant and unforgettable hilarious in another way

[1:00:18] oh it's really funny scary and gross so if you want to have a real nightmare of

[1:00:24] an experience watch racer head and the most recent Criterion DVD release has a

[1:00:31] bunch of short David Lynch films I have not been able to watch all of them yet

[1:00:36] mostly because the granny is like half an hour long which to me is pretty long

[1:00:41] well the granny but or the grandmother I think it's but that's the length of a

[1:00:47] television show I know I just haven't had time let me half-hour shows do watch

[1:00:51] the I was watching it on the same I was trying to watch on the same night I

[1:00:53] watched racer head so I didn't I could not get well that's a fool's errand but

[1:00:57] um I did watch the alphabet was a great five-minute short that's creepy and

[1:01:07] inexplicable it's also a great way to form words yeah you know for

[1:01:11] communication whether speaking or writing yeah and the alphabet tried

[1:01:15] today for math I recommend numbers oh yeah you can't go wrong that's your top

[1:01:20] choice recommending the TV show numbers numb the three years murder by numbers

[1:01:27] with Sandra Bullock or just the police song murder by numbers yeah that was

[1:01:33] based on that was it's weird that that police department decided to release an

[1:01:37] album but I guess after Ferguson they had to do something to get their

[1:01:41] popularity back so a racer head okay erase her head what's she gonna eat with

[1:01:50] this is my secret message to kill somebody erase her head you know I'm

[1:01:56] talking about Barry wink wink Barry wink wink baby Barry wink wink one of the

[1:02:10] top babies in the country but anyway you're saying Stuart you had a movie to

[1:02:13] recommend so I'm gonna recommend the movie I'm gonna recommend a movie called

[1:02:16] witching and bitching I think that's the English title the Spanish title is

[1:02:23] I believe los brujas day is a guru Mooney I'm gonna fuck this shit up you

[1:02:29] already did so this is a this is a the most recent movie by Spanish director

[1:02:34] Alex de la Iglesia I've had the glacier yep I've seen a couple of this guy's

[1:02:43] movies but I I'm not a big crazy fan he's one of the Spanish directors from

[1:02:51] the same school as in your ritu and quad on and my brain is totally so long takes

[1:03:01] but he's uh he's made a lot of movies he made his early he got a fair amount of

[1:03:10] notoriety for movies his debut axiom utante and the day of the beast and then

[1:03:16] kind of more recently I saw 800 bullets which was quite good and his movies are

[1:03:22] and witching and bitching is similar to a lot of his movies and that it's it

[1:03:27] manages to balance the intended tone of the movie in this case kind of like a

[1:03:32] horror movie with a lot of silliness the plot is a couple of guys a couple of

[1:03:39] desperate guys steal jewelry from a pawn shop and in their escape attempt

[1:03:45] they end up in a famous witch town in Spain near the border of France and of

[1:03:54] course they run afoul of a coven of cannibal witches and they there's some

[1:04:02] obvious horror beats that come up and they get wrapped up in this big they get

[1:04:07] wrapped up in and the detectives that are following them get wrapped up in a

[1:04:11] big ritual to find some chosen one but it manages to be a fairly effective

[1:04:18] horror comedy and it there the conclusion ends up running a little bit

[1:04:25] long and not every single beat hits but it manages to be charming enough that it

[1:04:30] works and of course like like a lot of his other movies it manages to feature a

[1:04:36] conclusion where both like the the villains have lost and the good guys

[1:04:41] have won but they're all kind of happy at the end and it has a very it has a

[1:04:46] very jovial tone so yeah yeah check it out

[1:04:52] all right guys interrupt me at all we were both riveted both riveted by it

[1:04:58] riveted with exhaustion that too and very tired and yet somehow I seem to

[1:05:03] find energy to interrupt Dan I don't know what it is yeah it's weird it's

[1:05:07] like you know like if a car was on your child you'd have the strength to lift it

[1:05:11] up you've got ever joke about that boy is a treasure and to joy yeah you can

[1:05:17] threatening him what like the tire is on him or like you see any part of the car

[1:05:22] it's crushing him no okay like it's just kind of touching him he's in a car

[1:05:29] crawl under the car maybe go get him yeah like a baby's day out officers we

[1:05:38] got a classic baby's day out scenario there's a baby on the loose he's

[1:05:42] causing hijinks almost getting hurt but then not yeah he's like a real mr.

[1:05:47] magoo of babies I said I'd never deal with something like this since the

[1:05:50] jungle to jungle scandal all right well thank you for listening yet again who

[1:05:58] knows why you keep tuning in but we appreciate certainly don't for the flop

[1:06:03] out 300 rise of Empire rise of an Empire rise of the Empire back I've been Dan

[1:06:14] McCoy you I am Stuart Wellington and I will always be Elliot Kalin to my

[1:06:21] eternal shame never forget it hi and Lois hi hi and Lois oh yeah Trixie is

[1:06:37] sitting in the Sunbeam I am Lois because people wanted to know what's

[1:06:43] beetle Bailey is a sister up to I forgot that was a spinoff yeah wait which one

[1:06:49] was beetle Bailey's sister Lois Lois okay is high a person high is the

[1:06:56] husband yeah okay it's like short for Highland or something is there is there

[1:07:01] a high and low is where they get a letter about beetle Bailey being killed

[1:07:05] in the war yes there is still alive he the Bailey's

[1:07:10] serves at Camp Swampy which is back on American soil no no no no all those

[1:07:15] stories are from before he shipped off and died okay yeah I thought he got

[1:07:19] killed from friendly fire in Camp Swampy no because he couldn't peel potatoes

[1:07:23] fast enough the general general half-track was too busy chasing miss

[1:07:28] Buxley around the desk and his gun went off and shot beetle Bailey through a

[1:07:31] window it was actually Sarge's dog who did it he was killed for treason he was

[1:07:42] stealing secrets for the Chinese actually much like Jacob's Ladder all

[1:07:47] the beetle Bailey comes trip is happening in beetle Bailey's mind in

[1:07:50] the moment he's killed it's like an incident in Isle Creek Bridge exactly

[1:07:53] yeah

The Flop House: Episode #164 - 300: Rise of an Empire

Transcript

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