The Flop House: Episode #159 - Walking with Dinosaurs

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we open the door, get on the floor, and review Walking with Dinosaurs.

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

[0:35] Hey, Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

S2

[0:38] I'm not Elliot Kalin.

[0:40] What the? Oopah!

[0:41] I'm sorry.

[0:42] I did not look over this third chair until now.

[0:46] This Elliot Kalin disguise worked all too well.

[0:50] I waited until after the movie to tell you I'm Kevin Marr.

Dan McCoy

[0:53] Yeah, well, we should...

[0:54] Hey, Kevin Marr.

[0:55] Originally, let's be honest here.

[0:58] Originally, this was going to be a forehand, or one of the rare forehand Flophouses.

[1:02] Oh, the rarest of pleasures.

[1:05] But what happened was Elliot was called away.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11] This is the TMI portion of the episode.

[1:13] His child was ill.

Dan McCoy

[1:14] Sure.

[1:15] I don't know whether it's too early to call Sammy the Yoko of the Flophouse.

[1:20] Oh, wow. Sammy Flophouse Ruin or Kalin?

Stuart Wellington

[1:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:24] But, no, we...

[1:26] The poor child.

[1:27] We feel bad for him, but luckily...

[1:29] Yeah, dude, I hope he's okay.

[1:30] No, I...

[1:31] Yeah.

[1:31] No, I fucking egg on my face if he's very sick.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36] More than that.

[1:37] You're terrible.

[1:38] But, no...

[1:40] Elliot couldn't be here due to family issues.

[1:42] Yeah, luckily...

[1:43] Let's put it that way.

Dan McCoy

[1:43] We were already going to have a guest, so...

[1:45] It all worked out well.

[1:47] And, Kevin...

[1:47] Yes.

[1:49] I would say that we know you from your Kevin Geeks Out live show, which all of us have appeared

[1:56] on.

[1:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:57] I was on Sharks.

[1:59] Your Sharks...

[1:59] You did...

[2:00] You've got Jaws.

[2:01] Yeah, my Jaws, the Nintendo game PowerPoint.

[2:04] PowerPoint thing.

[2:05] Elliot, who's not here, has done his Nuki...

[2:08] I've had Kevin Geeks Out about aliens.

[2:10] Many times, and I appeared on your show talking about when...

[2:15] The wrestling one, right?

[2:16] Ron DeScheer tweeted at me.

[2:18] But, in a larger sense, tell us about yourself.

[2:22] Who are you?

[2:23] Why are you in my apartment?

S2

[2:25] Why are you looking at us weird?

[2:26] I'm a writer-comedian who fell into that traffic lane of knowing about pop culture and movies

[2:34] and weird science fiction and horror stuff, and then that led to...

[2:39] You know, the more you do it, the more you take on that identity and...

Dan McCoy

[2:44] Now you're trapped by it.

S2

[2:46] Now I'm trapped by it.

[2:47] It's like wearing too many sweaters.

[2:49] I always say, like, I was doing...

[2:52] I was hired by AMC to do a web series about science fiction movies called the Sci-Fi Department,

[2:56] and it was always supposed to be this tongue-in-cheek thing of the, you know, the horror movie

[3:01] shirts I would wear.

[3:03] And I went to Comic-Con in one episode, and it was called the obligatory Comic-Con episode,

[3:09] and I go to the press room, and the room is filled with all these guys who are going to be on camera

[3:14] doing this thing that I'm always kind of, like, sort of doing a parody of, and I'm surrounded by them,

[3:19] and it was like, oh, God.

[3:21] But now I'm here with them.

[3:22] Oh, God, the joke is on me.

[3:23] I've become one of them by doing this kind of thing.

Dan McCoy

[3:27] I'm a valuable persona.

[3:28] In this internet world, like...

[3:30] Yeah, with, like...

[3:30] Big Bang Theory's huge, bro.

Stuart Wellington

[3:32] Mm-hmm.

S2

[3:33] People love that stuff.

[3:34] Yeah.

[3:35] You know?

[3:36] So, yeah, I'm like a Brooklyn grassroots...

[3:40] Yeah, like a Big Bang Theory kind of...

[3:42] Cool guy.

[3:43] ...comedy cool guy.

[3:44] Cool dad.

[3:44] We'll get to that later.

[3:45] Yeah, you're a cool dad.

Stuart Wellington

[3:46] Yeah.

[3:47] Like a Liam Neeson.

Dan McCoy

[3:48] Yeah, did it hurt you inside to make me...

[3:51] to hear me make fun of Elliot?

[3:53] No, what's fascinating is it's great that having a kid,

S2

[3:57] you're going to be forced to watch so many horrible movies.

[4:00] You're going to...

[4:01] Elliot's going to have to see The Smurfs 3.

[4:04] He's going to have to see so many terrible films.

[4:07] And now his son is actually preventing him from watching tonight's movie.

[4:12] Which is a movie that you actually saw with your children.

[4:15] My children demanded we see it.

Dan McCoy

[4:17] And which Elliot totally would have hated, but Doug, in a weird way,

[4:21] because he is the biggest dinosaur guy.

[4:23] He loves Adinosaurus.

[4:25] Yeah, we should say one movie we watched tonight.

[4:27] We watched Walking with Dinosaurs.

Stuart Wellington

[4:29] Walking with all of the dinosaurs.

Dan McCoy

[4:31] And there was a lot of walking in this movie, I've got to say.

[4:34] Yep, aptly named.

[4:35] Probably as much walking as there was dinosaurs.

[4:39] But, Stuart, you thought, hey, let's get Kevin on this show.

Stuart Wellington

[4:44] Yeah, well...

[4:44] Explain a little bit.

[4:45] Kevin saw it with his children and then began a...

[4:49] About a year ago, a little...

[4:50] Less than a year ago.

[4:51] And then you put on some kind of a vigilante garb and began a one-man war through social media against this movie.

S2

[4:59] Oh, yeah.

[5:00] It was the most traction I've ever gotten.

[5:03] And now I'm being booked on podcasts and being invited on.

[5:06] And it's going to be...

[5:07] Yeah, I rewatched that shit.

[5:08] That would be my parenthetical.

[5:09] Kevin Marr, hater of Walking with Dinosaurs.

[5:13] Well, though.

[5:13] Well, you're rebranding yourself at this point.

[5:15] It was really one of those things.

[5:16] It's so...

[5:17] It's such a pleasure for me to finally watch it with other people because it's the thing, you know, anytime you see something horrible, you can go online and you can say, ah, this is terrible.

[5:24] And all these people can chime in.

[5:25] I know, right?

[5:26] But it was this unique situation that I saw at opening weekend with my kids.

[5:30] And I would talk about how horrible no one had seen it.

[5:34] So it was so isolated.

[5:35] Because we knew.

[5:36] So I just had to keep putting it out there in the world.

[5:40] And the world responded.

[5:41] And it was one of those things people loved.

[5:43] People were so amused by my hatred.

[5:45] They loved seeing me suffer talking about the horror.

Stuart Wellington

[5:48] I think you tweeted a picture of a guy selling a bootleg copy on the subway.

[5:52] And you were like, get away from me.

Dan McCoy

[5:55] Yeah, everywhere you look.

[5:56] Were you worried?

[5:57] Is that like...

[5:58] It was just like...

[5:59] No, you...

[5:59] Like, is it only my madness?

[6:02] Is it just me?

[6:03] Like, did you need the confirmation of, like, sharing it with you?

[6:06] Did you have to share the disease?

Stuart Wellington

[6:07] Are you worried that it closed a lot of occupational doors for you?

[6:12] Like, do you think you lost a lot of opportunities due to your...

S2

[6:15] It totally has the setup that, like, this guy was up for writing Walking with Dinosaurs.

[6:22] Hashtag sour grapes.

[6:24] But, um...

[6:25] No, I think...

[6:26] I think the reason it hit me so hard was that I've worked in kids' television and kids' movies

[6:33] and I've done that kind of writing.

[6:35] So I'm seeing structurally so many things that pissed me off that I think the casual mom

[6:41] and dad who go to the movies theater, that go to the Court Street, Court Street UA and

[6:46] have their phones out and they're not really quite paying attention.

[6:49] There's a local Brooklyn reference about the bad.

Stuart Wellington

[6:51] That's the place you go for audience participation.

[6:54] And bed bugs.

[6:54] And bad bugs.

S2

[6:56] Yeah.

[6:58] That I don't think people were as tuned into how horrible it was in all the different ways.

[7:03] Because for me, it's not just the movie itself.

[7:04] It's the cultural forces that made this compromise movie where you're watching the notes.

[7:09] We'll get to that.

[7:09] Well, let's...

[7:10] You are uniquely prepared to hate this movie.

[7:13] I didn't go into it knowing the reaction I was going to have, you know?

[7:17] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[7:18] So, but before we get into the...

[7:20] You were an unsuspecting father who thought, hey, I like dinosaurs.

Stuart Wellington

[7:23] I got a free Saturday afternoon.

[7:26] Let's do this.

[7:27] Let's get some popcorn.

[7:28] Some popped corn.

[7:30] Some popped corn.

[7:31] Maybe one of them giant sodas.

[7:33] Watch them.

[7:34] I don't know.

[7:34] You're in Brooklyn, so it's like a bag of granola and like, I don't know, juice.

[7:40] Yeah, like a...

[7:41] Whatever kids in Brooklyn drink.

[7:42] Like a...

[7:42] Some kombucha.

[7:43] Artisanal ginger beer.

[7:45] Some kind of artisanal child tea.

[7:48] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[7:49] If John Hodgman was here, he would say a moxie, maybe.

[7:53] Okay.

[7:54] Mm-hmm.

[7:54] But what is this movie?

[7:57] Explain it.

Stuart Wellington

[7:58] Well, so this movie feels a lot like...

[8:01] I think you...

[8:01] As you described it, Kevin, it feels like they made this awesome museum movie.

[8:06] Like a 3D museum movie with dinosaurs.

Dan McCoy

[8:09] Yeah, your best...

[8:10] Your best case IMAX film, maybe.

[8:12] Yeah.

S2

[8:12] It was based on a British miniseries, which was the most expensive BBC production.

[8:17] Ever made.

[8:18] Oh, yeah.

[8:18] That it was this lavish CGI dinosaurs in front of...

[8:24] It was called perambulations with dinosaurs.

[8:27] But they went to the locations.

[8:29] They went to real locations and they filmed it.

[8:31] Right.

[8:31] And then they layered it with dinosaurs.

[8:34] Oh.

[8:34] The walking dinosaurs.

[8:36] In the most scientifically accurate, like, provable way.

[8:38] That's why the locations look so nice.

[8:40] The locations look so nice.

[8:41] And the CGI is...

[8:43] Not bad.

[8:43] They clearly put a lot of money into it.

Dan McCoy

[8:45] You were saying the flames looked sick.

[8:48] Yeah.

[8:48] Pretty good flames.

[8:49] I mean, CGI knows how to do flames.

[8:52] Yep.

[8:52] But when it was...

Stuart Wellington

[8:53] Tomb Raider video games taught me anything.

S2

[8:55] Yep.

[8:56] When it was brought to America, they made some changes.

[8:58] They wanted to reach a wider audience.

[9:00] Add a little bit of zazz to it.

[9:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:03] That zazz was named John Leguomo.

[9:07] The pest.

[9:09] He was bugging out.

Stuart Wellington

[9:12] Yeah.

[9:12] You got any more in there?

[9:14] Summer Sam.

[9:15] Summer Sam.

[9:15] Yep.

[9:16] Yeah.

[9:16] That's it.

[9:16] Perfect.

[9:17] That's all I got.

[9:18] Yeah.

[9:18] So this movie...

[9:20] Wait.

[9:20] Hold on.

[9:21] Spawn.

[9:22] It was, yeah.

[9:23] The clown.

[9:24] The violator in that.

[9:25] Yeah.

[9:25] Right.

[9:26] So this movie begins...

[9:29] Smash cut.

[9:29] No, wait.

[9:30] It's...

Dan McCoy

[9:30] Yes.

[9:32] Smash cut to the opening of this movie.

[9:35] Smash cut from black to the opening of Walking with the Innocent.

Stuart Wellington

[9:39] We have a really cool Jeep being driven by the world's coolest uncle, Zach, the paleontologist,

[9:45] played by Carl Urban.

[9:47] You might know him as Dredd.

Dan McCoy

[9:48] Yeah.

[9:49] Or Jay.

[9:49] He's almost human.

[9:51] He's not the one who's almost human.

[9:53] He's the human.

[9:53] He's not almost human.

[9:54] I mean, he's got a cyborg leg in that.

[9:57] So he's almost human.

[9:58] Spoiler alert, dude.

[9:59] Like, most of them is human, and then he's got cyborg legs.

S2

[10:02] So when you say he's a paleontologist, I'm thinking he's in some kind of a stiff white

[10:06] lab coat.

[10:06] Yeah.

[10:06] He's got his hair parted down the middle.

[10:08] Oh, no, my friends.

[10:09] Coindexter glasses, right?

Stuart Wellington

[10:10] Yeah, he's totally some kind of nerd, but no.

Dan McCoy

[10:12] He's badical.

[10:13] What?

[10:13] Wait, what?

[10:14] Wait.

[10:14] Define that again.

[10:15] Well, it's a combination.

[10:16] It's a portmanteau.

[10:17] Oh, shit.

[10:17] You combine bad and radical.

[10:19] Okay.

[10:20] But bad is in good in this case.

[10:21] Radical.

[10:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[10:23] The kids use bad to mean good.

[10:25] That's the type of thing that the audience for Walking with Dinosaurs would know because

[10:28] they're kids and they're cool.

Dan McCoy

[10:29] And it's, you know, they were like, let's get an anti-Devilian actor to do this.

[10:35] Let's get somebody from down under.

[10:38] Sure.

[10:38] To bring to mind Sam Neill from Jurassic Park.

[10:44] You know, like he's the Jurassic Park Sam Neill stand-in, Carl Urban.

Stuart Wellington

[10:48] Okay.

[10:49] I mean, he does a passable American.

[10:51] Yeah, sure.

[10:51] Like he was a good Bones.

[10:53] Not from the show Bones.

[10:55] No.

[10:56] A good.

[10:57] Not.

[10:57] What's it?

Dan McCoy

[10:58] What's with that, Chanel?

Stuart Wellington

[11:00] Yeah, no, he doesn't do that.

[11:01] No, from Star Trek.

[11:02] Sure.

[11:03] So, yeah.

[11:03] So, he's the cool uncle.

[11:05] He's taking his, like, sour teenage nephew and very enthusiastic teenage niece.

[11:13] Uh-huh.

S2

[11:14] And we know he's sour because he's got the hood up on his hoodie.

[11:18] Okay.

[11:18] And he's not looking up from his mobile device.

Stuart Wellington

[11:21] Yep.

[11:22] Screens.

[11:23] Uh-huh.

[11:24] That's shorthand for a teenager, I guess, at this point.

[11:27] That's how you know.

Dan McCoy

[11:28] Yeah.

[11:29] And he looks like a, I don't know, from the 90s goth guy.

Stuart Wellington

[11:32] Yeah.

[11:32] He's got his hair combed forward.

[11:34] He's got a lot of eyebrows, I think.

[11:36] I don't remember.

Dan McCoy

[11:37] He's got more than the usual number of eyebrows.

Stuart Wellington

[11:40] He's got, like, eight eyebrows.

[11:42] So, this teenage kid, he is uninterested in checking out dinosaurs.

[11:45] He's way too old for that.

[11:47] He wants to, I don't know, play Mario Kart.

[11:49] What do they do on these things?

Stuart Wellington

[11:51] He's sexting.

[11:52] He's busy.

Dan McCoy

[11:53] He's Snapchatting.

[11:55] He's playing nudie touch or whatever kids play.

Stuart Wellington

[11:57] What's that thing?

[11:59] And so, he is unimpressed by this dinosaur tooth that his uncle shows him.

[12:04] Mm-hmm.

[12:04] His uncle goes off to look.

Dan McCoy

[12:06] Is this dinosaur tooth a spear tooth?

[12:07] Is that?

Stuart Wellington

[12:08] No, that's a mammal, dude.

[12:10] The spear tooth is a saber tooth type.

[12:11] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[12:11] A manix.

[12:12] No, that's also a mammal.

[12:13] Okay.

[12:15] So, he's uninterested.

[12:16] 2000 BC.

[12:17] Yep, that was a movie we watched.

[12:20] So, Carl Urban, the paleontologist, paleontologist Zach, heads off to go check out whatever, digging

[12:27] a hole or something.

[12:28] And the teenager hangs out by himself, totally disinterested, until.

S2

[12:32] But wait, before we get to that, the uncle is clearly, they're going to go on a long hike

[12:36] and then they're going to do a dig.

[12:37] And he says, all right, you can just hang out here in front of the jeep.

Stuart Wellington

[12:42] He's just going to abandon him in the woods.

[12:44] I think he was expecting him to chase after.

[12:48] Yeah, he was.

Dan McCoy

[12:49] I mean, as a non-father, unlike you or Elliot, I feel like as an uncle, I would do that.

[12:57] I'd be like, all right, you're not coming with me?

[12:59] Stay here with the car.

Stuart Wellington

[13:02] Forge for yourself.

[13:03] I don't think Zach is used to people not being interested in hanging out with him.

[13:07] Yeah, man.

Dan McCoy

[13:08] He's got a sweet life, Zach does.

[13:13] But he leaves.

S2

[13:15] And then a bird shows up.

[13:16] Do you think Zach normally takes the ladies out there?

[13:19] That's why it's a well, he knows the path to the dig.

[13:24] Yeah, and then he.

[13:25] Because he's taking his chicks out.

Stuart Wellington

[13:26] Yeah, the night before he covers up the dinosaur bones.

[13:30] And then when they show up, he's like, oh my God, we just found this.

[13:32] Awesome.

[13:33] Oh, and the tooth matches.

[13:34] Perfect.

[13:35] Spoiler alert.

[13:35] We should probably have sex on top of these bones.

[13:38] Sure.

S2

[13:39] And she says, there's one more bone I'd like to see.

Stuart Wellington

[13:42] Yep.

[13:44] One more dinosaur I'd like to walk with.

[13:50] Everybody walk the dinosaur.

[13:52] That's what he says.

[13:55] Okay, so a bird shows up and just starts talking to this kid.

[14:00] He does it, I'm guessing telepathically, because he doesn't really move his mouth that much.

[14:06] Yeah.

[14:06] That bird, played by John Leguizamo.

Dan McCoy

[14:08] It's more of a Marmaduke did that, right?

[14:11] Where the mouth didn't move?

Stuart Wellington

[14:12] No, they use CGI for the mouth.

[14:15] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[14:15] So it's more of an old time.

Stuart Wellington

[14:18] Or maybe not.

[14:19] I don't remember Marmaduke that well.

[14:21] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[14:21] I feel like it's like an old time Disney movie situation where the mouth didn't move.

[14:25] Not a new time.

S2

[14:26] Or they put peanut butter in the horse's mouth and you get a good lip flap going.

[14:32] They did not put peanut butter in the fake ravens.

Stuart Wellington

[14:36] Yeah, we just smeared some CGI peanut butter in his CGI mouth.

S2

[14:41] Yeah, but this bird apparently.

[14:43] The reason is that it was made as a silent movie and it was after the fact that they're like.

[14:49] Not the whole thing.

[14:50] I imagine the opening was probably not.

[14:51] The opening was, yeah, the opening was.

[14:53] It was all pantomime.

[14:54] One more thing that was designed to get people excited for this experience.

Dan McCoy

[14:59] Yeah, in a larger sense.

[15:00] Before we go on, like in a larger sense.

[15:03] We are like two seconds into this movie.

[15:05] This is a movie that was an educational film.

[15:09] At one point.

[15:10] Yeah, that did not have words.

Stuart Wellington

[15:14] And don't worry, it's still pretty educational.

Dan McCoy

[15:17] Maybe it had narration.

[15:19] But it did not have characters saying things.

[15:21] Which is all that the rest of the movie has.

Stuart Wellington

[15:24] Yeah.

[15:25] I mean, it has.

[15:27] It feels like somebody took an animated movie about dinosaurs and then they had like Bob Saget

[15:33] from America's Funniest Home Videos do voices for everybody.

[15:35] Yeah.

[15:36] But not as funny.

[15:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:37] They're doing everything that everyone's saying like Garfield style with like the word balloons.

[15:42] Sure.

[15:42] Like thought balloons, but you hear what they're thinking.

S2

[15:45] But you can't introduce any new information because if a character is on screen for two

[15:49] and a half seconds, you just have to say like, oh, I'm scared.

[15:53] Or it's just bringing the subtext to the surface.

[15:56] It's like what you already know is being said out loud for you in funny character voices.

[16:01] It's clear by their...

Stuart Wellington

[16:03] There was quotes around funny there, by the way, listeners at home.

Dan McCoy

[16:07] But what I...

[16:07] Before we pass this...

Stuart Wellington

[16:09] So, of course, this raven catches this kid's attention because this raven is speaking to

[16:13] his mind.

Dan McCoy

[16:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:15] But before we pass over like this raven...

[16:17] That's one way to take a teenager out of their screen for a second.

[16:20] Am I right, parents?

Dan McCoy

[16:21] Yeah.

[16:21] To have a fucking raven talk to them?

Stuart Wellington

[16:24] Yeah.

[16:24] He's like, are you a portent of my death?

S2

[16:26] God!

[16:27] Don't do drugs!

[16:28] God!

Dan McCoy

[16:29] All right.

[16:31] I guess...

[16:32] Whatever, man.

[16:33] God!

Stuart Wellington

[16:33] Don't text and drive!

[16:34] God!

Dan McCoy

[16:35] Don't tell me what to do, raven.

[16:36] You're not my dad.

[16:39] But the weird thing to me about this whole like framing device of this movie is the idea

[16:43] that this bird thinks that this teenager really needs to learn a lesson about dinosaurs.

[16:49] Like, this bird is like pulling a fucking like Christmas carol.

[16:54] Like, oh, like your life is going to go off the rails if you don't learn a lesson about

[16:58] how important dinosaurs are.

Stuart Wellington

[17:00] Yeah, he's seen a flash forward.

[17:01] I mean, this bird has existed through all of time as we're going to learn.

S2

[17:05] Well, it's his ancestors.

[17:07] He morphs into his own...

[17:09] He goes from being a standard black crow.

[17:13] He morphs into his prehistoric ancestor.

[17:15] An earlier bird.

Dan McCoy

[17:17] Yeah.

[17:17] But like the weird thing about that too, though, is like, you know, like scientists pretty much

[17:21] agree that like modern birds are the ancestors of dinosaurs.

[17:26] But it's not a case in this case where like this bird morphs back into a dinosaur from

[17:31] the past.

[17:32] The bird just morphs into a different, more colorful bird.

[17:35] A bird with a unibrow.

[17:36] Yeah.

[17:37] That's always code name for a caveman type.

Stuart Wellington

[17:42] He morphs into a bird with teeth.

[17:45] Yeah.

[17:45] He retains everything about his sassiness.

Dan McCoy

[17:49] Yeah.

[17:49] He's got this Latin John Leguizamo accent.

[17:52] Exactly.

[17:54] Because I guess he's a...

Stuart Wellington

[17:56] So this bird that has existed through all times.

[17:59] Sure.

[18:00] Beginning and end till the world is destroyed, I'm assuming.

[18:04] He, I guess, takes this kid on a mind journey.

[18:07] I don't know what happens.

[18:08] All of a sudden, we're in the past.

[18:09] It doesn't tell us how far.

[18:11] He just flies through the air.

[18:13] And then all of a sudden, there's dinosaurs all over the place.

[18:15] We're assuming the kid's following along and not just looking at his phone again.

S2

[18:19] Oh, and at one point...

[18:21] That would have been a great twist ending that at the end, the bird finishes a dramatic

[18:26] tale to emphasize how insignificant we all are in the giant endless quilt of history.

Stuart Wellington

[18:35] You have his best rust coal impression.

S2

[18:39] And the kids...

[18:40] The little spots of light in the darkness.

Dan McCoy

[18:42] The kids playing Bubble Bobble.

[18:43] Yeah, sure.

[18:44] Well, you can get that on your iPhone now.

[18:46] Wow.

[18:46] I would love Bubble Bobble on iPhones.

[18:49] Oh, wishful thinking.

Stuart Wellington

[18:50] Oh, yeah.

[18:51] And before this happens, I guess...

[18:53] I mean, I think the catalyst here is the kid picks up that dinosaur tooth and it starts

[18:57] to glow through the cracks in the tooth like there's magic inside.

[19:01] Now we're in the past, okay?

[19:02] Maybe that's like a magic tooth.

[19:04] We'll find out later.

[19:06] So we go to the past.

[19:07] We're introduced to...

[19:09] What type of fucking dinosaur are they?

[19:13] Didn't what do you guys have the...

[19:14] Pachyrhinosaurus.

[19:16] They look like triceratops without all the horns.

Dan McCoy

[19:19] Yeah, they're triceratops without a horn's bigger nose.

Stuart Wellington

[19:21] They're not your daddy's triceratops.

[19:24] Yeah.

[19:24] And we're introduced to a baby, the runt of the litter.

[19:28] Pachy?

[19:29] Pachy?

[19:29] What's his name?

[19:30] Pachy.

Dan McCoy

[19:31] Pachy is offensive.

Stuart Wellington

[19:33] Pachy.

[19:34] Pachy, not offensive.

[19:35] Yeah.

[19:35] So Pachy, named I'm guessing after his species, is played by Justin Long.

[19:41] He's the runt of the litter.

[19:42] And he gets into some adventures right away.

[19:45] He doesn't get any of his mom's vomit food.

[19:48] He gets attacked by another dinosaur that is described to us by a disembodied little girl voice.

Dan McCoy

[19:54] Yeah.

[19:55] This is...

[19:56] Whenever a new dinosaur appears on the screen, there's a freeze frame.

[20:01] The Latin name of the dinosaur comes up.

[20:03] Little girl says what the dinosaur is.

[20:06] And this is like the vestigial, like, tale of the educational part of this movie.

[20:13] It's the webbing between the fingers.

[20:15] Yeah.

[20:15] It's the one part that's just like, hey, maybe you want to know what these dinosaurs actually

[20:20] were before we anthropomorphize them into, like, they might as well be in Madagascar animated

[20:26] film, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[20:27] You are doing a disservice to Madagascar right now.

Dan McCoy

[20:30] No.

[20:31] I think that I probably would have enjoyed watching Madagascar more than...

S2

[20:34] It's what I imagine those direct-to-DVD Madagascar copycat films are like, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[20:42] What do they call it?

[20:43] What, like, Tasmania?

[20:45] No, I guess that's actually a thing.

[20:47] Murder Gascar.

[20:49] Nope, that's the horror movie.

[20:52] One of you killed a zebra.

[20:55] Which one?

[20:56] Welcome to my dinner party.

[20:59] One of you lemurs is about to die.

[21:01] You've just ingested poison.

[21:05] So, some fucking other dinosaur attacks Patchy and gives him his trademark hole in his frill.

[21:14] And he's got the little frill, like a triceratops.

[21:17] Puts a hole in it.

[21:18] Now we can identify him from all the other dinosaurs that look the same.

Dan McCoy

[21:21] Like Portlandia?

[21:22] Put a hole on it?

[21:23] You know what I'm talking about.

[21:25] Put a hole on it.

[21:26] Take a drink of your beer.

[21:28] Yeah.

[21:28] What was the line we were laughing at?

S2

[21:30] Like, nice hole?

Dan McCoy

[21:31] There are many hole jokes.

[21:33] It was something like, put something in my hole.

[21:38] That's weird.

[21:39] That's a weirdly sexual kind of thing.

Stuart Wellington

[21:40] I think it was later on when Justin Long's character, Patchy, meets Juniper, the love of his life, who is also a dinosaur.

[21:47] And he says, she likes me and she likes my hole.

[21:50] Yeah, that's right.

[21:51] That goes on the DVD box.

[21:55] Yep.

[21:56] So, yeah.

[21:58] So there's a bunch of, we get introduced to this tribe of dinosaurs.

S2

[22:03] It establishes the world of the dinosaurs.

[22:05] Okay, that's fair.

[22:06] We see there's no people walking around.

[22:08] There's only CGI dinosaurs.

Dan McCoy

[22:10] There's no one walking with the dinosaurs.

[22:12] The dinosaurs are walking with themselves.

[22:13] They're walking with each other, yeah.

S2

[22:15] They're learning to eat.

[22:16] There's a lot of poop jokes up top.

[22:18] Poop and barf jokes, right.

[22:19] Yeah.

[22:19] To make sure the kids are interested.

[22:21] Patchy gets pooped on by a much larger dinosaur and they get a lot of jokes out of that.

[22:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:27] I'm sure you saw this in a theater full of, I'm assuming, very excited children and they were totally into it.

Dan McCoy

[22:37] What would they have been more excited to see?

[22:40] What?

[22:41] Was there something else out at the same time that maybe they were keener on?

[22:48] No.

[22:48] But their parents were like, this is educational.

[22:51] We're going to take you to walking with the dinosaurs.

S2

[22:52] But it's educational.

[22:53] We were saying it's educational as the healthy choice, the way McDonald's would give you apple slices.

[23:01] Where it really, this is not the place to go for healthy options and educational.

[23:05] It's like apple slices covered with caramel and hot fudge.

[23:10] And a kid gets to say, well, this is the healthy choice.

[23:13] Any, whatever.

[23:14] Vitamin water.

[23:15] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[23:15] It's just sugar water.

[23:16] Yeah.

S2

[23:17] But the sugar's a vitamin, bro.

[23:19] Vitamin's in there.

[23:20] But at the same time, it's like, no, no, this is a hip, cool movie with a lot of wisecracking

[23:25] dinosaurs.

[23:26] Yeah, John Leguizamo.

[23:27] Kids love that guy.

[23:27] And a soundtrack that the adults are going to get into.

Dan McCoy

[23:30] It's true.

[23:31] We'll get into that later.

[23:32] The Navy Rock soundtrack.

Stuart Wellington

[23:35] So we're introduced to our hero, Patchy.

[23:38] His brother, who's like big and tough, but not very smart.

[23:43] Skylar?

[23:44] What's his name?

[23:44] Skylar.

[23:45] Skylar.

[23:46] That was his brother?

[23:47] Yeah.

[23:48] Who do you think?

[23:49] Like, you thought he was his best friend or something?

Dan McCoy

[23:50] No, I just thought he was another dinosaur.

[23:53] Dinosaur.

[23:54] I didn't know that there was an intro.

[23:56] It's the classic jerk older brother.

S2

[23:59] You know, the movie is drawing upon a lot of good kids movie archetypes.

[24:05] Buzz from Home Alone.

Stuart Wellington

[24:06] Mm-hmm.

[24:07] Yeah, exactly.

[24:07] Bill Paxson from Weird Science.

[24:10] Sure.

S2

[24:12] Similar ending.

[24:12] Because he does tell the female dinosaur he'd like to butter her muffins.

Stuart Wellington

[24:18] We're jumping ahead because there is a female dinosaur, the love interest Juniper.

[24:23] Named after the berries.

[24:24] Yep.

[24:24] After the, I guess, thing they eat.

[24:27] I guess.

[24:28] Yep.

[24:30] We'll get to eating that dinosaur later.

[24:32] He falls in love with her.

[24:34] Patchy, that is.

[24:35] Then they go on a big migration.

[24:37] She can't be with Patchy because she's part of a different tribe.

[24:41] Classic story.

[24:42] Mm-hmm.

[24:44] Capulets and Romulans or whatever.

[24:46] Romeo and Patchy story.

[24:48] Upworld, downworld.

[24:49] Sure, yep.

[24:52] And they go on, they have to go south because shit's getting cold.

[24:57] And then somewhere in the process, there's a big storm.

[25:03] The forest catches on fire from lightning.

Dan McCoy

[25:05] Yeah, it's a real Bambi situation.

[25:07] Yep.

[25:08] They got to run out of the fiery forest.

Stuart Wellington

[25:10] Mm-hmm.

[25:11] But the fire was caused by a bunch of Tyrannosaurus Rexes or something?

[25:15] No, it was lightning.

[25:16] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[25:17] Lightning that struck the ground.

[25:19] Okay.

[25:19] I was wondering how the T-Rex started the fire.

[25:21] They're just smoking.

S2

[25:23] Yeah.

[25:24] The balloon filled with kerosene and a time-released alarm clock.

Stuart Wellington

[25:32] Yeah.

[25:33] So the fire begins.

[25:36] Our hero and his family get separated.

[25:40] The hero's father saves his life, only to be murdered by a dinosaur.

[25:47] Our hero.

S2

[25:47] Because Patchy and his brother's dad, they had the dinosaur who was the leader of their tribe.

[25:53] He was like the head guy of their pack.

Stuart Wellington

[25:57] He even had a name, though I don't remember what it was.

[26:00] And he totally got murdered in front of their eyes.

[26:03] Yeah.

[26:03] Which, you know, that's traumatizing, but it's also character building.

S2

[26:07] But John Legazamo sets you up in the narration.

[26:10] He says, every story always has a scary part.

[26:12] Now it's time for the scary part.

Dan McCoy

[26:13] You know, there are trigger warnings for children who've survived forest fires.

Stuart Wellington

[26:19] Sure.

[26:20] You can send your child out into the lobby where they can not have to witness this.

Dan McCoy

[26:24] Where they can get kidnapped.

[26:26] It's fine.

[26:28] Don't worry about it.

Stuart Wellington

[26:30] That's the scary part.

[26:31] Totally cool.

[26:33] So after this, it turns out that Juniper's father, the two tribes marry into each other.

[26:41] They mend a little.

[26:41] They come out of the ashes and meet up with Juniper.

[26:43] And Juniper's father, I don't know, Slammo, what's his name?

[26:47] Dragon Face?

[26:48] Yeah.

[26:50] Awesome sauce.

[26:52] He takes charge of the tribe.

[26:54] Man, this is where it's going to get rough.

[26:55] They start wandering around.

[26:57] We're introduced to the villains of the movie at this point.

[27:00] This movie.

[27:01] Gorgazor.

[27:02] Gorgazons.

Dan McCoy

[27:02] This film was so low on plot.

[27:05] It was kind of hard to focus on.

[27:07] It's really hard to do the plot summary.

S2

[27:09] What was happening.

[27:09] Because we could breeze right through it.

[27:11] And it seems like nothing happened.

[27:13] But for us, it was just.

Stuart Wellington

[27:15] Yeah, it's like a mumble boy movie.

[27:17] Time slowing down.

[27:20] We were walking with those dinosaurs.

[27:21] It's a mumble sore movie.

[27:23] Eh?

[27:24] Eh?

[27:25] All right.

[27:25] I don't.

[27:26] It's not here.

[27:26] I've got to make that kind of joke.

[27:28] Yeah.

[27:28] The Duplassasauruses were really good in this.

[27:32] Mm-hmm.

[27:33] Uh.

[27:34] So.

[27:36] You got one?

[27:37] Yeah.

[27:38] Okay.

[27:38] So then we're introduced to the villains of the movie.

[27:40] They look like Tyrannosaurus rexes, but they're called Gorgazors.

[27:43] One of them's blue.

[27:44] He's, I guess, the big bad.

[27:46] Yeah.

[27:47] Uh.

[27:48] He's like the white orc from the Hobbit movies.

[27:50] Yep.

[27:51] And, uh.

Dan McCoy

[27:52] It's just necessary.

Stuart Wellington

[27:54] He.

[27:55] He and the other carnivores chase the tribe of dinosaurs into, uh.

[28:01] Up against the river.

[28:03] Mm-hmm.

[28:04] And then the baby dinosaurs fall into the river.

[28:07] That includes our hero, Patchy, Juniper, and his brother, Skylar.

S2

[28:12] They go.

[28:13] Skylar.

[28:13] They go, uh.

[28:15] Floating down the river for a while.

[28:16] In an exciting scene where, you know, you're getting CGI water on the camera's lens.

Stuart Wellington

[28:21] You're getting CGI water on the camera lens.

[28:24] We get some rewinter and fast forward.

[28:26] It's about whether Patchy intentionally dove into the river or just fell.

[28:31] And this is coming hot on the heels of some hilarious jokes about how the bad guy dinosaur

[28:35] has tiny and affectionate arms.

[28:37] Now, you gotta understand.

Dan McCoy

[28:38] Like, this whole movie, if you've read, like, I think it was Patton Oswalt, like, wrote about

[28:45] how, like, he, as a stand-up comic, uh, was paid, uh, to come in on an animated movie

[28:52] to just, like, come up with ADR gags, like.

[28:56] Punch up the script.

[28:57] Yeah, punch up the script.

[28:58] Like, they've already done the animation.

[29:01] So, like, maybe, like, something that someone can yell from off screen.

[29:04] That would be funny.

[29:06] Uh, and it's, like, the whole movie is that.

[29:09] This whole movie is that.

[29:11] Like, they were like, oh, it doesn't matter whether anyone's talking at the time.

S2

[29:15] And you could, even if you come up with a sensible, good, character-driven bit, it's like,

[29:21] well, the character only appears on screen for, you know, three seconds, so the joke has

[29:25] to fit for the three seconds that we see the bird or whoever.

[29:30] Um, and they're just.

[29:30] So you gotta make that short and sweet.

[29:32] Which means, in order to go for those jokes, they're kind of, like, throwing any kind of

[29:36] continuity out the window where, where Patchy compares himself to a ninja.

[29:40] Yeah.

[29:41] Which is ridiculous.

[29:42] Uh, they, they refer to future events that the dinosaurs couldn't possibly know about.

[29:47] They acknowledge that they're telling a story in a movie.

[29:50] I mean, the whole thing, it just, and it, it's.

Stuart Wellington

[29:52] And Dan's favorite gag, when the mammal shows up on screen and the dinosaurs are happy to

[29:59] know that that mammal will become extinct someday.

[30:02] Yeah.

[30:02] Whereas we, the audience, know that it's not the case.

Dan McCoy

[30:04] Yeah, any gag that relies on the irony of a person in the past saying something about

[30:09] the future that we, in the future, know not to be true is always hilarious.

[30:15] But it's, it's, it's, it's weirdly, it's weirdly the difference that in, in some kind

S2

[30:18] of, like, uh, early 90s gag, you'd have, I just got this new CD by Milli Vanilli.

[30:25] These guys really are the real deal.

Dan McCoy

[30:27] You know, then you get the joke that, oh.

[30:28] And I'm like, why is this cabbie telling me the story?

[30:31] I don't understand the comparison you're making, because that joke is awesome.

S2

[30:34] But the difference being, one character being embarrassed by the Milli Vanilli, uh, reveal

[30:40] compared to an entire species dying and becoming extinct.

[30:46] That the hero of your movie, the hero of your kid's movie is making a joke, not realizing he's

[30:52] going to die.

[30:53] And everything, life is going to die.

Stuart Wellington

[30:56] My actions are meaningless.

[30:57] For everything I do is ineffectual.

[30:59] We are all dead in the end.

[31:01] Nothing but dust.

Dan McCoy

[31:02] I look into the eyes of the dinosaurs and I see nothing.

[31:07] I see nothing but desire for food.

Stuart Wellington

[31:12] I think the entire time, I think we were hoping that John Leguizamo had been replaced with

[31:17] Werner Herzog right before the end.

S2

[31:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:20] I hope the DVD has, like, audio options.

[31:24] That would be, like, honestly.

[31:27] I would buy that.

[31:28] If that was the solution they came up with, rather than having John Leguizamo, they were

[31:32] like, we don't need to hire John Leguizamo, we don't need him to hire Justin Long, we don't

[31:35] need to hire all these other no-name people that we rounded up the cast with.

[31:39] Just get Werner Herzog to come.

Stuart Wellington

[31:41] And do a shitload of voices.

[31:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:44] And play all the characters.

[31:45] He's a real Michael Winslow.

Stuart Wellington

[31:47] Do some sound effects.

Dan McCoy

[31:48] I am the cute little dinosaur.

[31:50] Oh, no, I've fallen into the river.

[31:52] This is terrible for me.

Stuart Wellington

[31:54] She likes me, and she likes my horn.

Dan McCoy

[31:59] She likes the hole in my horn, which matches the hole in my heart.

Stuart Wellington

[32:04] So, um, where were we at?

[32:09] I think...

[32:09] They're in the river now.

S2

[32:10] They climb out of the river.

[32:11] A little girl's voiceover identified a dinosaur during a freeze frame.

[32:16] Sure.

[32:16] And back to the plot.

Stuart Wellington

[32:18] Our heroes are out of the river.

[32:20] They wander around in the woods for a little while.

[32:23] I think they beat up on some smaller dinosaurs.

[32:26] Uh...

[32:26] Then they reach the coast, where they are introduced to some giant dinosaurs.

[32:32] They're very hungry.

[32:34] Mm-hmm.

[32:34] Uh...

[32:35] This is where the giant dinosaurs walk up, and they play Fleetwood Mac's Tusk.

[32:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:41] Which is probably my favorite part of it.

[32:42] I think Dan got up and did a little dance.

[32:44] I'm like, I like this song.

[32:45] Tusk.

[32:46] I can get behind that.

Stuart Wellington

[32:49] So...

[32:50] Uh...

[32:50] I guess they meet up with the rest of their tribe.

[32:52] I don't remember what happens.

[32:54] Yeah.

[32:54] Uh...

[32:54] The movie jumps forward.

[32:55] Yeah.

[32:56] And that's when we do a big jump forward, where we...

Dan McCoy

[32:58] Rat style.

Stuart Wellington

[32:59] Yeah.

[32:59] Except they don't tell us how...

[33:01] They don't really tell us how far...

[33:02] Rat style.

S2

[33:02] Guys, guys, let's...

[33:04] Let's...

[33:04] Brat style.

[33:05] Let's...

[33:06] Let's track the character arcs here.

[33:08] Patchy and Juniper are kind of...

[33:11] They're becoming a little more than friends.

[33:13] Mm-hmm.

[33:13] He's...

[33:13] She's really warming up to him.

[33:15] They're surviving together.

[33:16] His big brother took off, abandoned them, left them, and returned to the tribe.

[33:21] So the two of them were on their own, and I think it brought them a little bit closer.

[33:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[33:25] I know that Juniper is not a girl, not yet a woman.

[33:27] No.

[33:27] I know that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[33:29] Yeah, but, you know, he's kind of in the first place.

[33:32] Friend Zone, but at some point, he's hoping that he'll, you know, he'll be able to, I

[33:36] don't know, do with her?

[33:37] What do they do?

[33:38] Like, do they mate?

[33:39] What happens?

[33:39] Like, do they become mate for life?

[33:41] What's...

[33:41] How do dinosaurs do it, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[33:44] Like, like a...

[33:45] A humping?

Stuart Wellington

[33:46] No, I don't need to know that.

[33:47] But, like, do they get married?

[33:48] Are they...

[33:49] Yeah.

[33:49] Are they monogamous?

Dan McCoy

[33:50] Dinosaurs got married in a...

Stuart Wellington

[33:52] It was a beautiful...

[33:53] It was a beautiful ceremony.

Dan McCoy

[33:56] They've got...

[33:57] They've got flower teradons.

[34:01] Yep.

[34:01] They come by and drop flowers from the sky.

[34:05] You got a...

[34:06] You got a best raptor.

Stuart Wellington

[34:08] I know.

[34:09] Best raptor.

[34:10] Fucking no.

S2

[34:10] Yeah, was that on the groom side or the bride side?

[34:13] Depends.

[34:14] Sure.

[34:14] A brontosaurus voiced by...

[34:17] A brontosaurus wedding planner voiced by Jennifer Lopez.

[34:21] Sure.

[34:21] For the adults.

[34:23] That's...

[34:23] That's great.

Stuart Wellington

[34:24] Traditional dinosaur wedding.

[34:27] That's how it works.

[34:28] Some kind of a dinosaur rabbi character.

[34:31] Mm-hmm.

[34:31] Performing the ceremony.

[34:33] They step on a coconut.

[34:33] Sure.

[34:34] They step on a coconut.

[34:36] Okay.

[34:36] So, yeah.

[34:37] Fast forward.

[34:38] We have a...

[34:40] We have older dinosaurs.

[34:43] They look basically the same, but I guess they're bigger.

[34:46] This is where we're introduced to the...

[34:48] The challenge for dominance between two males, which involves ramming each other's heads

[34:54] together until one gives up and the other one's the leader.

[34:59] Skylar takes over the tribe after a bunch of headbutts.

[35:05] And then...

[35:06] I guess that means that Juniper is his girlfriend now.

S2

[35:09] He defeats Juniper's dad.

[35:11] No, I don't...

[35:11] Yeah.

[35:12] And she's...

[35:13] She really has no reaction to that.

[35:16] They're totally together for a while.

[35:18] Her dad was just defeated by her best friend's big brother.

[35:22] And then he basically exits the movie.

Dan McCoy

[35:25] No, no, no, no.

[35:26] He's there for a while.

[35:27] This is dinosaur law, though.

[35:28] Like, the toughest dinosaur gets the lady.

[35:32] Yeah.

[35:32] And so we can only assume that, like, Scowler and Juniper are, like, doing it for a while.

[35:37] Am I right, guys?

[35:38] You gotta...

Stuart Wellington

[35:39] Yeah, I mean, there's probably pictures on the internet somewhere like that.

[35:42] Go to DeviantArt.

Dan McCoy

[35:44] I gotta say, like, Scowler was kind of my favorite character in the movie because...

Stuart Wellington

[35:47] At that point, he got...

Dan McCoy

[35:48] He takes over the movie for a while and he is, like, such a poochy character.

[35:51] Yeah, very...

Stuart Wellington

[35:52] He's like a tin pot dictator of a dinosaur.

Dan McCoy

[35:54] He's totally radical.

[35:55] He's, like, a radical dude.

[35:59] But, you know, we're supposed to hate him.

[36:00] No, but I like that we...

[36:02] But I kind of like him just because he has, like, an attitude.

[36:04] At least he has some personality.

Stuart Wellington

[36:05] So earlier in the movie, our hero, Panchi, and his brother witness their father, after saving their life, get devoured by a dinosaur.

[36:13] Mm-hmm.

[36:13] Later on, Juniper's father gets defeated in a challenge for dominance, and then that character disappears.

[36:19] We don't see that character, her dad, ever again, nor does she mention him.

[36:22] He's shamed.

[36:22] Yeah.

[36:23] After that point, she doesn't care anymore.

Dan McCoy

[36:25] Yeah, he goes off to die in the dinosaur graveyard.

Stuart Wellington

[36:29] Which is the entire world, apparently.

[36:31] Yeah.

S2

[36:31] But up until that point, she was Juniper wanted.

Stuart Wellington

[36:33] For Carl Urban to find, and then use as a means to boning ladies, I guess.

[36:38] And impressing nephews.

Dan McCoy

[36:42] But that, I mean, like, Scowler takes over for a while, and then...

[36:46] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[36:47] That's when the movie gets a little exciting.

[36:49] We got, uh...

[36:50] So a lot of it is them walking back, like, north to south.

[36:53] Because they migrate.

[36:54] They have to do the migration.

S2

[36:55] So it gives you a natural plot device.

Stuart Wellington

[36:58] Exactly.

[36:59] And at one point, uh, Skyler leads them in the wrong direction.

[37:02] They go over a frozen lake.

Dan McCoy

[37:04] You keep saying Skyler, like it's fucking Walter White's wife in Breaking Bad.

Stuart Wellington

[37:09] Uh, you bring...

[37:11] It's less cleverly named.

Dan McCoy

[37:12] I think it's very...

[37:13] It's a bad guy, because his name's Scowler.

[37:16] You bring what you wish to my jokes.

[37:18] Scowl.

Stuart Wellington

[37:19] Now, which came first, the name Scowler or the Scowl?

[37:23] Sure, yeah.

[37:24] They're damning him by naming him Scowler.

[37:26] You really are.

[37:27] Just like by naming Patchy after their entire race.

[37:31] Of course he's going to be the hero of the story.

[37:33] I'm sure they're...

S2

[37:34] Well, I always find that strange in any kind of kid's thing.

[37:36] It's always like, oh, my name's Joe Gorilla.

[37:39] This is my mom, Mrs. Gorilla.

[37:41] It's like everyone just had your last name.

[37:44] But like, then how do you distinguish yourselves from the thousands of other people in your school?

Stuart Wellington

[37:47] How does Joe Gorilla distinguish himself?

[37:50] Is he the smartest gorilla in the truck?

S2

[37:52] He wears a baseball cap backwards.

[37:54] Sure, of course.

[37:55] By the way, he rides a Razor scooter.

Stuart Wellington

[37:58] Okay.

[37:58] Does he save them from poachers or...

[38:01] Oh, I don't know.

[38:01] We're writing the story now.

Dan McCoy

[38:03] This is reminiscent of something that I asked Elliot recently.

[38:07] I came into work.

[38:08] I'm like, something just occurred to me about Star Wars.

[38:12] So, Jabba the Hutt.

[38:14] Hutt is the type of creature he is.

[38:17] Chewbacca the Wurkey.

[38:18] Because there are other Hutts.

[38:19] Yeah.

[38:20] So, like, that would be like me being like, my name is Dan the Human.

[38:24] Yeah.

[38:24] What kind of fucking name and convention is that?

[38:27] That's terrible.

[38:28] That seems a little weird.

S2

[38:29] It's as though it's introducing your name for a third party to witness your adventures.

[38:35] I would say you're not familiar with my race.

Dan McCoy

[38:39] My name is Jabba the Hutt.

[38:41] Is that your actual name?

[38:42] Let's just say it is.

Stuart Wellington

[38:45] I mean, I'm assuming it's like a Jimmy the Greek sort of thing, though.

Dan McCoy

[38:49] That's what Elliot said.

[38:51] But, like...

[38:51] We are...

[38:52] There are other Hutts...

[38:53] We're the same.

[38:53] There are other Hutts...

[38:54] Yeah, I don't think other Hutts call him that, though.

[38:57] There are other Hutts out there who are not, like, in, like, the organized crime game.

[39:02] Isn't there a...

[39:03] No, I think everyone...

[39:05] Do we ever see other Hutts?

Stuart Wellington

[39:06] I think in one of the Clone Wars...

[39:07] That Clone Wars movie, there's one with, like, a bunch of makeup on.

Dan McCoy

[39:11] Yeah, I mean, like...

Stuart Wellington

[39:13] Listeners write in to tell Kevin what the name is.

Dan McCoy

[39:15] I don't know about the expanded universe here.

[39:17] I'm just...

Stuart Wellington

[39:17] I don't know if that's expanded.

[39:19] I mean, I think it's canon if it's in a...

[39:21] It's a movie.

[39:22] It's just animated.

[39:23] It's not like fucking Timothy Zahn wrote it.

Dan McCoy

[39:25] It just seems weird.

[39:26] It seems like a weird way to, like, introduce yourself to anybody.

S2

[39:30] But it's Chewbacca the Wookiee, and we know there's a whole race of Wookiees, and they have a planet.

[39:35] Yeah, he's not like...

[39:35] Kashiach is filled with them.

[39:36] Pardon me.

[39:37] I'm Chewbacca the Wookiee.

[39:39] For all we know, that's what those sounds mean.

[39:41] Okay.

[39:42] I don't think that's a fair way of doing it.

Dan McCoy

[39:45] For all we know.

S2

[39:46] I think it would be...

[39:47] We have a solid defense against this.

[39:48] If it was Chewbacca the Wookiee.

[39:51] The classic middle initial.

[39:54] Jabba T.

[39:55] Wild E.

Dan McCoy

[39:56] Coyote.

[39:58] Anyway, let's get back to dinosaurs.

[39:59] What's he staying for?

[40:00] Excellent.

[40:01] He's an excellent coyote.

Stuart Wellington

[40:04] Not based on performance.

Dan McCoy

[40:07] But he can talk sometimes.

Stuart Wellington

[40:09] That's true.

[40:10] Depending on the cartoon.

[40:11] That's actually pretty excellent.

[40:13] And he can order things.

[40:15] I mean, he's got a job.

[40:17] He's good at filling out.

[40:18] Magazine forms.

S2

[40:20] Nice.

[40:20] A catalog.

[40:21] It's all mail fraud.

[40:24] That's his real skill.

Stuart Wellington

[40:26] I guess that's excellent.

[40:28] He should stick to that, though.

[40:29] He should stop trying to kill that roadrunner.

[40:34] Skip to the end.

[40:35] Okay.

[40:36] So Patchy and Skylar get in a couple fights.

[40:41] Skylar takes over the tribe again.

[40:42] Patchy almost gets eaten by a bunch of scavengers.

[40:46] He realizes that he's in love with Juniper, and she gives him the power love, which allows

S2

[40:52] him to feed scavengers.

[40:53] Because at one point he's in a fight where Scowler knocks a tree down.

[41:00] And when Patchy falls into a ditch, the tree kind of goes over his neck.

[41:05] Like berries.

[41:05] Just trapping him.

[41:06] Just trapping him.

[41:07] There is no way out.

[41:08] He is stuck there.

[41:10] His brother leaves him there to die.

Stuart Wellington

[41:12] It's like when you get caught in the guillotine or Brutus the Barber beefcake's headlock.

S2

[41:17] But a log that's never going to get tired.

[41:20] And in all of this, Juniper's always like, sorry, it's the rules.

[41:24] So it's like, on the one hand, you have the idea that Patchy is all about the true love

[41:28] that empowers him to do whatever he needs to do.

[41:30] And she's like, look, man, let's not rock the boat.

Stuart Wellington

[41:33] What, are you a fucking robot, Juniper?

Dan McCoy

[41:37] Look, they're like...

Stuart Wellington

[41:39] Like the sign says, two men enter, one man leaves.

[41:44] That's the way dinosaurs work.

[41:45] Them's the brakes.

[41:45] Bust the deal.

[41:46] Spin the wheel.

[41:47] Come on, Patchy.

Dan McCoy

[41:48] When you walk with dinosaurs, you know the deal.

[41:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:53] So Patchy then, he rejoins the tribe.

S2

[41:58] Well, he gets superpowers of love because the bird gives him a flashback to his own father's death.

[42:04] And he says, Patchy, your father died for something.

[42:07] If you're going to die, let your death have meaning.

[42:11] Which gives him the power to get out from under the log, race by all the previous bullies.

[42:17] Not unlike Jody at the end of Phantasm encountering the bug and the lady in Lavender

[42:24] and all the characters he's met along the way that Patchy now has the confidence to run right by

[42:29] with just enough screen time to get a quick stand-up comic right in line in there.

[42:34] Out of my way.

Stuart Wellington

[42:36] Move it, jerks.

[42:37] Stuff like that.

[42:38] In a way, he's become the thing he hates.

[42:40] A bully.

[42:41] He really is.

[42:42] He's pulling those trees.

[42:43] What I like is that that flashback reminded him that love, you know, he's in love with Juniper

[42:48] and that gives him the strength.

[42:49] And it's not just the adrenaline of possibly getting eaten to death by a bunch of scavengers.

[42:53] Yeah.

S2

[42:54] I also like the subtext.

[42:55] It's like your father died protecting you.

[42:57] He died for a reason.

[42:59] Unlike your mom who just plain died.

Stuart Wellington

[43:02] Wait, do we find out what happens to his mom?

[43:04] Does she die?

[43:05] She gets baked alive?

S2

[43:07] They never give it a moment's notice.

[43:08] They never give it any attention or any emotion.

Stuart Wellington

[43:10] One of the great travesties of this movie, the great crimes the screenwriter perpetrated

[43:14] is by not telling us what happens to Dino Mom.

Dan McCoy

[43:16] Shame that this movie does not pass the Bechdel test.

[43:20] Walking with dinosaurs.

[43:22] Wait.

[43:22] No, yeah, you're right.

[43:23] It does not.

[43:25] Wait.

[43:25] That's a bit.

[43:26] Yeah.

[43:27] So, anyway, the point is love conquers all, et cetera.

Stuart Wellington

[43:32] No, I mean, the point is then he meets up with Juniper.

[43:35] He's about to tell her that he loves her.

[43:37] Mm-hmm.

[43:39] And I guess she'll be into it.

[43:41] She's really, she's kind of a stickler for the rules.

[43:43] She's irrelevant.

S2

[43:45] Doesn't matter.

[43:46] The girl's feelings.

[43:47] Not important.

[43:47] It's all about his journey and his quest and his ability to articulate how he feels about

[43:51] the girl.

[43:52] Exactly.

[43:53] Dino-law.

[43:53] He's a runt no more.

Stuart Wellington

[43:57] Yeah.

[43:57] So, right then, the herd gets attacked by that same fucking blue asshole and his other

[44:04] gorgazores.

[44:06] With their dino-swords.

[44:09] First off, you're referencing the property dino-swords that I've been working on featuring

[44:15] robot cowboys dueling in the future using dinosaur swords led by, of course, the hero, Dusty

[44:23] Sprockets.

[44:26] And, uh...

[44:27] I apologize.

[44:28] So...

[44:28] My patent infringement.

[44:31] Copyright.

[44:32] Yeah, exactly.

[44:32] It's copywritten.

[44:33] We've talked about you using this patent troll character.

[44:38] I'd rather he not show up again.

[44:41] So, Dusty Bot...

[44:43] Wait, no.

[44:45] Sorry, I got really excited about dinosaurs.

Dan McCoy

[44:47] Point is, everything turns out fine for our hero.

S2

[44:50] But, given the choice between leaving Scowler to die so he can lead the tribe himself and

[44:55] go off with the woman of his dreams...

[44:59] Dinosaur.

[45:00] Dinosaur woman of his dreams.

[45:02] He does decide to stay and defend his brother, who's been just an asshole throughout the whole

[45:08] movie.

[45:08] Who's left him to die multiple times.

Stuart Wellington

[45:10] I mean, the only thing his brother's done is he sacrificed himself for the tribe, which

[45:14] is what any good leader should do.

[45:16] Right, right.

[45:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:17] But Patchy says, turn that scowl upside down.

Stuart Wellington

[45:22] Patchy's like, I could leave you to die, but I'd rather you live forever in shame as

[45:27] I am now going to defeat this guy and become the leader of the tribe and be with your girl

Dan McCoy

[45:31] again.

[45:32] But then...

[45:33] But so they, you know, like, they're all happy together.

[45:35] And then we flash forward back to the future where, like, the teenager's like, I was wrong.

[45:40] Dinosaurs are awesome.

[45:43] I've learned my lesson.

Stuart Wellington

[45:45] He's like, the best part about Patchy is that he and everybody he knows is dead.

Dan McCoy

[45:50] I've learned my lesson based on this one anthropomorphized dinosaur that I guess really existed in

[45:57] the past.

[45:58] And his magic bird friend.

Stuart Wellington

[46:02] And he realizes that the tooth he holds is one of the tooth of that blue asswipe who got

[46:08] his fucking teeth knocked out by Patchy's forehead.

[46:12] Because he matches that broken tooth up to a jawbone that...

[46:17] It's the missing piece.

[46:18] That paleontologist Zach has unearthed to show off in front of his kids.

[46:24] Probably unearthed for the first time, I'm sure.

[46:27] And then John Leguizamo says some more fucking jokes.

[46:31] Flies away then disappears because his work is done.

[46:34] Like, he's got a magic ghost.

Dan McCoy

[46:36] And then a dinosaur bursts through the screen, which probably was pretty awesome when it was

[46:39] done in 3D.

[46:39] This whole thing was in 3D.

Stuart Wellington

[46:41] I mean, if you're going to end the movie anyway, end it with a dinosaur bursting through

Dan McCoy

[46:46] the screen.

[46:47] I'm not...

[46:47] I'm like...

[46:48] Look, I'm going to argue with anything in this movie.

[46:49] That's going to be the last thing.

[46:51] But, um...

[46:54] Yeah, we've talked a long time.

[46:56] We should move straight to Final Judgments, whether this was a good-bad movie or a bad-bad

[47:00] movie.

Dan McCoy

[47:00] I think I know what it's going to be.

[47:01] Or a movie you kind of liked.

[47:04] Dan?

[47:05] I'm good.

[47:05] Oh, yeah, sure.

[47:06] I'll start.

[47:07] I feel like, look, if I had kids, and I don't, but if I did, I wouldn't necessarily, like,

[47:15] hate this compared to the other shit that kids could be watching, because I've seen some

[47:20] of the terrible shit that kids can be watching.

[47:22] However...

Stuart Wellington

[47:23] Yeah.

[47:23] Two girls, one cup, et cetera.

[47:26] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:26] The animated children's version of two girls, one cup.

[47:32] And this, as an adult, this infuriates me, this, like, weird hybrid of supposed edutainment

[47:41] and just total bullshit nonsense, like, bad, sub-Shrek-level, like, reference comedy.

[47:52] Yeah, I just, I did not like this movie at all.

[47:53] It's a bad, bad movie.

[47:56] I wonder if you can go.

Stuart Wellington

[47:57] Yeah, so it was a bad, bad movie.

[47:59] They didn't, so, it was so clearly that they added the dialogue afterwards.

[48:05] You don't even see any dinosaur lips moving, and they don't make any effort to distance,

[48:10] add any distance to the vocals, so you don't know, there's, like, there's no levels to the

[48:16] sound, so it just sounds like a bunch of voices are yelling in your ear.

[48:19] The only time they modulate the sound is when the giant dinosaurs are walking past, and

[48:24] the Fleetwood Mac song fades out into the distance along with them, like they're carrying a boombox.

[48:29] Yeah.

[48:30] So, yeah, it's a bad, bad movie.

[48:32] I guess it's a good punishment movie if you want to punish your kids.

S2

[48:35] I don't know the kids would see it as punishment.

[48:37] My kids didn't find it to be punishment.

[48:38] They seem to enjoy themselves on some level.

[48:40] Okay.

[48:40] For me, it was exactly, to your point, Dan, that it tries to get the best of both worlds

[48:46] by being this sort of, like, in the spirit of a DreamWorks comedy.

[48:49] It's got all these elements, and I think it does not succeed on that level.

[48:53] It also tries to give you a little bit of science along the way.

[48:56] You know, you'll learn a few things, but not enough to actually get a preschool college

[49:02] credit or what have you to actually, you know, have any real takeaway.

[49:07] So it's worse than so many things I've seen, because it's like, even if you see some horrible

[49:11] Christmas special, it's like, oh, well, that simply was not doing one thing, and that was

[49:18] not entertaining.

[49:20] This was not doing multiple things at once.

[49:22] I thought it was incredibly condescending.

[49:24] I just, it's one of the most, it just makes me so angry.

Stuart Wellington

[49:29] So it'd be, if you're going to, if you want to punish an adult, you can show them this

[49:34] movie.

[49:35] Yes.

[49:35] Which we just made you do a second time.

[49:37] Yeah.

[49:38] Thanks.

[49:39] But moving on.

[49:40] So the next segment is?

Dan McCoy

[49:42] Letters.

[49:43] Letters.

[49:43] From?

[49:44] From listeners.

[49:45] Thanks, Stuart.

[49:46] Wait.

[49:46] Stuart.

[49:47] Is there a song?

[49:48] No, there's no song, because Elliot's not here.

[49:50] So, uh.

[49:51] Do you want to call him?

[49:52] Do you want to?

[49:53] We can do a dial-in.

[49:53] We probably could do it over the phone, but I don't want to.

[49:56] But then we'd have to pause.

[49:57] We'd have to learn.

[49:58] We'd have to listen to the call.

[50:00] That's the problem.

[50:01] We'd have to actually listen to the song.

[50:02] Yeah, we'd have to listen to that.

[50:03] We'd have to just talk for a while.

[50:04] Let's move on.

[50:05] Let's pretend that there was a song here.

Stuart Wellington

[50:07] Yeah, just plug in.

[50:08] Listeners.

[50:08] Just turn on your iPad.

[50:09] iPad, iPod, and play a letter song.

Dan McCoy

[50:12] Guys, pause the tape right now.

[50:15] It's a tape, right?

[50:17] Yeah.

[50:17] Pause it, and make up your own letter song.

[50:20] And then imagine that I'm saying while that letter song is going on.

Stuart Wellington

[50:23] All you have to do is record it and then email it to Elliot, because he loves letter songs.

Dan McCoy

[50:27] He loves them so much.

[50:29] But the first letter goes like this.

[50:34] I recently attended a screening of the 1983 version of La Traviata.

[50:42] It was pretty good.

[50:43] If nothing else, it at least makes you appreciate why Placidota Bingo became a megastar.

[50:48] But ultimately, it is too flawed to be considered truly great.

[50:53] This experience got me thinking that, as far as I know, no really good opera movies have ever been made.

[50:59] Zeffirelli made some nice tries.

[51:01] Bergman's version of The Magic Flute is as good an attempt as I can think of.

[51:05] And Kenneth Branagh's version of the same play and Cosper Holton's version of Don Giovanni are decent attempts from recent years.

[51:12] But none of them can be said to be really good movies.

[51:14] And of course, there are all the ones that are just plain bad.

[51:20] Can you guys think of another type of movie which has been attempted frequently, but has never been done just right?

[51:27] Martin, last name withheld.

[51:29] P.S.

[51:30] In case you were wondering which character each of you are in my non-existing Flophouse opera crossover fan fiction,

Stuart Wellington

[51:38] Elliot is Figaro from the Barber of Seville, always making jokes and getting into trouble.

Dan McCoy

[51:43] Stu is John Giovanni, obviously, popular with ladies and always hanging out with supernatural creatures.

[51:49] And Dan is Siegfried, pervy but ultimately a good guy.

[51:54] I just realized in reading this that I selected all of these letters, not realizing that Elliot would not be here.

[52:02] Because Elliot is the guy who is an actual opera aficionado.

[52:08] He goes to the opera.

[52:09] Is that right?

[52:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:11] So the three of us are not opera aficionado.

[52:13] Well, I don't know anything about him.

S2

[52:14] I know a few rock operas that have been...

Stuart Wellington

[52:17] And have they been translated to the screen properly?

S2

[52:19] Yeah, I don't know if that's properly.

[52:21] I think Tommy is a little garrish.

[52:24] Sure.

[52:25] Sure.

[52:26] We think of Phantom of the Paradise.

[52:28] Phantom of the Paradise, yeah.

[52:30] The opera within the opera in some of these, within Amadeus, sure.

[52:35] But that was not built for film.

Dan McCoy

[52:37] No, but in a larger sense, I guess the question is really like, is there a genre or a type of movie that has been tried?

S2

[52:46] Well, I think what we have to pay attention to is that the opera already existed in a previous medium, so it's an adaptation.

[52:54] I know the trading card genre has been attempted a couple of times with the Garbage Pail Kids.

[53:02] And Mars Attacks.

[53:03] Mars Attacks.

[53:04] Haven't gotten Dinosaurs Attacks.

[53:07] Clue is a board game turned to movie.

[53:10] I'm going to argue.

[53:10] But I thought that was great.

[53:12] No, but it's great.

[53:13] But it's great.

[53:15] But I'm just trying to think of other adaptations.

Stuart Wellington

[53:17] Well, I think video game movies is probably the best.

[53:20] That's probably honestly the thing.

[53:21] But the closest being, shit, I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[53:25] Super Mario Brothers.

[53:26] Super Mario Brothers.

[53:27] Probably the finest.

Stuart Wellington

[53:29] That Legend of Zelda movie they came out with, right?

[53:31] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[53:32] That Q-Bert film was pretty good.

Stuart Wellington

[53:35] I remember when they were pitching that Doom movie, and they're like, oh, there's this great section of first-person shooter-ness also featuring Carl Urban.

[53:45] Not a good movie.

[53:47] No.

Dan McCoy

[53:47] Big surprise.

[53:48] Big surprise.

[53:48] Turns out that it's not actually exciting just to see someone's hands in front of them with a gun walking around corners.

[53:57] Yeah, not as exciting as when you're not controlling anything.

[54:01] Yeah, I mean, I think that people should have been able to realize that that's not exciting from the experience of watching another person play a first-person shooter, which is a common experience.

[54:10] Yeah.

[54:11] The experience of that is usually like, oh, okay.

[54:13] Can you give me the controller now?

[54:15] Could I get in on this?

[54:17] No, no, no.

Stuart Wellington

[54:17] You're going to fuck up my save file.

[54:19] But could I just, uh...

[54:20] All right.

[54:21] No, just let me show you how to kill this abobo or whatever.

Dan McCoy

[54:23] But moving on, this next letter is titled, Re the Crypt Keeper's Genitals.

[54:33] Dear Flophouse, I was recently catching up on some old episodes and came across a discrepancy that demands exploration and potentially Stewart's immediate termination with prejudice.

[54:47] With prejudice, okay.

[54:49] During the Dream House episode from 2012, during a discussion of the Crypt Keeper's privates, Stewart rather definitively stated that the Crypt Keeper's genitalia was perfectly preserved and looked like, quote, a begging strip that you give your dog.

[55:05] Further discussion was short-circuited by Mr. McCoy giggling like a schoolgirl for 38 uninterrupted minutes.

[55:13] Less than a year later, discussion again turned to this vital question of science.

[55:18] During the letter section of Attack of the Clones, a Scandinavian listener asked Stewart to describe a wormy boner.

[55:25] Stewart responded that a wormy boner is a curlicue like a pig's tail, then claimed that the Crypt Keeper had a wormy boner.

[55:33] Unless the Crypt Keeper's flaccid preserved penis transforms into a curlicue when he becomes aroused, this makes no sense.

[55:43] Dead to rights.

[55:44] Please clarify.

[55:45] Dan, last name withheld, not McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[55:48] Oh, wow, Dan, you got me.

[55:51] Geez.

S2

[55:51] There's more than one version of the Crypt Keeper.

[55:54] There's the comic book.

[55:55] There's the HBO series.

[55:58] There's the animated series.

Dan McCoy

[55:59] Kevin is my representation here, I guess.

[56:01] But I also don't understand.

[56:02] I mean, like, the first time, you don't state.

[56:05] I mean, I think.

[56:06] It could have been a flaccid penis we were talking about earlier.

[56:11] And when the boner, boner style, it could spin around.

[56:15] Yeah, when he gets you up.

Stuart Wellington

[56:16] I mean, I don't think it spins around.

[56:18] It turns into, like, a corkscrew.

[56:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[56:21] I'm not saying, like, there's a fucking breakdance.

[56:23] Like the boner.

[56:25] Yeah, like a pinwheel or something.

Stuart Wellington

[56:27] Puts down some cardboard.

[56:29] You're like a guy wearing a bow tie who gets sexually turned on.

[56:35] Yeah.

[56:38] Well, I think you got me.

[56:41] I was probably wrong.

[56:42] I think the real answer is it looks like a bully stick that you feed your dog,

[56:48] which is a dried bull's penis that looks basically like a Slim Jim.

Dan McCoy

[56:53] I think the important thing is that any ladies out there who have slept with a Crypt Keeper

[56:59] need to write in and let us know what his junk is like firsthand.

[57:06] We need a primary source on this.

[57:08] Or fellas.

[57:10] Sure.

[57:10] Yeah, we don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[57:11] Yeah, and no judgments, man.

[57:14] Yeah.

[57:15] We're pro-

[57:16] This is science.

[57:18] Crypt Keeper marriage.

[57:20] Or not marriage.

[57:21] Maybe you just-

[57:22] Yeah, whatever.

[57:23] Having fun.

Dan McCoy

[57:23] It's a fun night.

S2

[57:25] You want to be able to tell your friends.

Dan McCoy

[57:28] Just two corpses.

[57:29] You got it on with the Crypt Keeper.

Stuart Wellington

[57:33] Just doing what your corpse wants to do.

[57:36] Just doing what your body wants.

[57:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:38] So I hope that helps you.

[57:41] I think that probably answered the question.

[57:42] Yeah, I think that's 100% what they want to hear.

[57:46] It would be great to sleep with the Crypt Keeper to get the pun when he's finished.

S2

[57:51] Make it all worthwhile.

Dan McCoy

[57:54] I thought I'd give a dog a bone.

[57:57] Oh, man.

S2

[58:04] Because it's an unattractive woman that he just slept with.

[58:07] Oh.

[58:08] Context is everything.

Dan McCoy

[58:11] I don't know whether I'm coming or decomposing.

[58:16] So this letter is from Lawrence, last name withheld.

[58:21] He writes-

[58:21] Of Arabia.

[58:22] Dear Flapicanus africanus.

[58:25] Your name if you were a hominid fossil.

[58:28] So you guys have fairly-

[58:29] Perfect letter choice.

[58:30] You guys have fairly idiosyncratic taste in films.

[58:35] Elliot loves old, terrible movies and doesn't seem to give a shit about quality so long as they're in black and white.

[58:40] That was a sick burn.

[58:41] And also the only explanation-

Stuart Wellington

[58:42] Luckily he's not here to hear it.

[58:44] Yeah.

[58:45] And thus fucking cry, dude.

[58:47] So thanks.

[58:47] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[58:49] The only explanation of his love of the old dark house.

[58:53] Now, I gotta say, in the absence of Elliot, I watched the old dark house.

[58:57] I like the old dark house.

[58:59] Dan apparently just loves legitimately awesome movies.

[59:01] Hey, Dan.

[59:02] Miss 45 just got the draft house treatment.

[59:05] Also, I love you as much as one straight dude can love another.

[59:08] Well, thank you, Lawrence, last name withheld.

[59:10] And Stuart seems to go for tits, gore, and despair.

[59:14] I ran a mat-led simulation.

[59:16] It is literally the only criterion that includes Head of the Family and Beyond the Pines.

[59:23] So, what movie review sites do you guys legitimately trust?

[59:27] For me, it's 1000misspinhours.com, which may not be amazing, but strangely syncs with my tastes.

[59:33] But I'd love to know where you guys go to pick movies.

[59:36] Yours, Lawrence, last name withheld.

[59:39] I mean, I think we've all talked about our enjoyment of The Dissolve.

[59:43] Yeah, I mean, I think we can all agree on that one.

[59:46] Obvious pick.

Stuart Wellington

[59:48] For horror movies, I often make an effort to check out The Arrow in the Head, which is a Canadian horror movie review site.

[59:58] And it's been going for a really long time.

[1:00:00] I don't always agree with the reviews, but I mean, he does break down whether or not there's a lot of gore or TNA.

[1:00:06] So that's the important part.

[1:00:08] I need to know what is going to be in Wishmaster 3 before I watch it.

[1:00:12] Yeah.

S2

[1:00:13] Kevin?

[1:00:14] Oh, I like The Dissolve a lot.

[1:00:17] I'll use a site called dailygrindhouse.com.

[1:00:21] They got a lot of good reviews up there and keep me current with what's new, what's coming out.

[1:00:27] What I'm not going to be able to see for a long, long time, because it's rare that I get a chance to watch a drive-in type grindhouse movie at home.

[1:00:37] Like, kids, it's 7 o'clock, time for bed.

[1:00:40] I hear everything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:40] It's a small Brooklyn apartment.

S2

[1:00:42] You can't put on like a...

[1:00:43] I had to turn off Psychomania.

[1:00:45] The music was too scary.

[1:00:47] Scary music.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:49] You got to get some of those headphones.

[1:00:53] I, when it comes to critics, I don't know.

[1:00:56] I like David Edelstein of New York Magazine.

[1:01:02] I don't necessarily always agree with her, but I find Stephanie Zakariak interesting to read.

[1:01:08] I don't even know whether I'm saying her last name right.

[1:01:11] But I think that she has a unique take on movies.

[1:01:16] I like critics who have kind of an idiosyncratic sense of taste.

[1:01:24] Like, I don't know.

[1:01:25] I feel like the worst critics are the ones who are 100% in line with kind of the conventional wisdom all the time.

[1:01:33] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:34] You prefer more of an Armand White sort of thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:36] I don't want to troll.

[1:01:39] Glenn Kenney is always interesting.

[1:01:40] People who...

S2

[1:01:41] Bilge, Iberia, Vulture.

[1:01:42] He's like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:43] Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:44] People who's like...

[1:01:44] Someone who, like you can tell, has an intelligent and specific point of view.

[1:01:50] They're fun to read, even if you don't always agree.

[1:01:54] I hope that answers your question somewhat.

[1:01:58] But the last letter of the night is from Patrick, last name withheld, who writes...

[1:02:05] Patchy?

[1:02:05] Patchy the dinosaur?

[1:02:07] Yep.

[1:02:08] He says, recently I fell asleep while re-listening to the Star Wars Episode 2 podcast.

[1:02:13] Not a judgment on you wonderful guys.

[1:02:15] I sometimes listen to podcasts when I'm feeling panicky at night.

[1:02:19] Because of this, I had a very strange dream about Elliot.

[1:02:22] The dream was that Elliot was the size of a Star Wars figurine.

[1:02:26] And he requested that I place him in the cockpit of various Star Wars vehicle models.

[1:02:31] When I complied, he would make Star Wars noises while pretending to pilot the ship.

[1:02:38] Then eventually request that he be moved to another model to do the same thing again.

[1:02:43] He pretended to do this inside an X-Wing, a TIE fighter, and the Millennium Falcon.

[1:02:48] I do not know what this dream means exactly, but I was glad I could help Dream Elliot achieve his goals.

[1:02:54] Sincerely, Patrick's last name was held.

S2

[1:02:56] In the comedy sketch version of this, the letter ends with,

[1:03:00] And when I woke up, I was covered with chafe marks all over my penis.

[1:03:06] I had an inverted Hasbro imprint on the head of my penis.

[1:03:12] What does it mean?

[1:03:13] I had been fucking the Millennium Falcon.

[1:03:17] I'm not saying this guy did this.

[1:03:19] I'm saying in the absurd, you know, in the tradition of,

[1:03:23] I dreamt I was eating a giant marshmallow kind of bazooka joke.

[1:03:28] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:28] I feel like this letter suffers the most from Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:34] Well, I think if Elliot was any Star Wars figure, he'd probably be an Ugnaught.

[1:03:39] You think so?

[1:03:40] And I could be a Gamorrean.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:43] I think it would be the Power Droid.

[1:03:45] Me?

[1:03:45] Or he would?

[1:03:46] He would be.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:47] Okay, I thought you were going to say I was going to be the Rancor Keeper,

[1:03:49] and I'd say that's okay, I'll allow it.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:51] Like a squat square.

[1:03:53] Just like a squat square with like rubber legs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:56] I remember when I was a kid, somebody got me the Power Droid for one of my birthdays,

[1:04:01] and he was really like, he was like, no, it's an awesome droid.

[1:04:06] It's called the Power Droid.

[1:04:08] It means it's the most powerful.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:10] You remember him for those three seconds in the movie, just kind of walking down the hall.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:15] I thought that was the droid that they flipped over and roasted his feet.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:18] You got to wonder, like, I assume that the Power Droid is basically just like a battery that moves around,

[1:04:25] that they use to charge other things.

[1:04:27] Like, why do they give this battery droid, like, legs?

[1:04:30] Why couldn't they just, like, put them on wheels?

S2

[1:04:32] Don't they put drinks on his head?

[1:04:35] I don't know.

[1:04:35] Do they do that to R2-D2?

[1:04:36] Yeah.

[1:04:37] Yeah.

[1:04:38] So they're coasters.

[1:04:39] They're mobile coasters.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:42] But R2-D2's basically got wheels.

[1:04:44] The Power Droid walks.

[1:04:45] That's a terrible idea.

[1:04:46] He's going to knock those fucking drinks all over the place.

[1:04:48] He's better for a bowl of cocktail peanuts.

[1:04:51] Yes.

[1:04:52] Or that weird fishy thing.

[1:04:54] And you can fucking walk over.

[1:04:55] You can get your drink.

[1:04:56] Plug your fucking cell phone into him.

[1:04:58] Uh-huh.

[1:05:00] Et cetera.

[1:05:01] Kindle.

[1:05:01] Yep.

[1:05:02] Plug in your Kindle.

[1:05:04] Like, yeah, whatever, Java.

[1:05:05] I got to check my screens.

[1:05:07] Oh, yeah, dinosaur.

[1:05:08] Sure, whatever.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:10] So, uh...

[1:05:12] Pray dragons.

[1:05:12] That's all for letters for this episode.

[1:05:17] And now, your last and least favorite segment of the show.

[1:05:22] Recommendations.

[1:05:23] Oh, okay.

[1:05:23] Movies that we saw recently that we actually liked.

[1:05:28] In lieu of, you know...

[1:05:32] What?

[1:05:32] To replace Walking with Dinosaurs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:35] Yeah, so don't watch Walking with Dinosaurs.

[1:05:36] Watch the movie Dan's about to recommend.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:38] Oh, I'm going to go first.

[1:05:40] Here's the thing.

[1:05:42] I've got...

[1:05:42] Hey there, guys.

[1:05:43] I've got three recommendations.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:44] Let's do some real talk.

[1:05:45] But they're linked.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:46] I've got three recommendations for the only.

[1:05:48] Oh, okay.

[1:05:49] So, I recently re-watched the Tim Burton Sweeney Todd.

[1:05:57] Okay.

[1:05:58] Which I enjoyed a great deal.

[1:06:00] I know that people who are real Sweeney Todd aficionados don't love that movie because,

[1:06:08] number one, a lot of stuff is cut from it.

[1:06:11] And number two, you know, you've got Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter who are not real musical theater voices who maybe can't handle the Stephen Sondheim music as well as people who are real Broadway stars.

[1:06:28] But as a movie adaptation of a musical, it's one of the better musical films that have come out, certainly in like the last, you know, couple decades, which has been a kind of a dry spot for musical theater on film.

[1:06:48] However, that made me curious to go watch the Angela Lansbury production that is available on DVD.

[1:06:58] And that production is, you know, like a film stage production.

[1:07:02] It has Angela Lansbury from the...

[1:07:05] She plays Sweeney Todd?

[1:07:07] She's Mrs. Lovett.

[1:07:08] It's weird casting.

[1:07:09] I believe that she's from the original cast.

[1:07:13] I may be wrong on this.

[1:07:14] But Sweeney Todd is not from the original cast.

[1:07:17] Like, the capturing of this stage production does not capture the full original cast of that production.

[1:07:26] So it's maybe, in and of itself, not like the greatest record of the stage version.

[1:07:34] But she's great.

[1:07:35] And if you're wanting to see a complete version of the musical, it's certainly great.

[1:07:43] It has kind of the problems that you usually have when you watch a filmed version of a stage production.

[1:07:49] It just doesn't capture the full magic of it.

[1:07:53] But if you're interested, it's certainly great.

[1:07:55] It's certainly great.

[1:07:56] And it's kind of interesting to watch, you know, the Tim Burton Sweeney Todd and watch that and think about how, like, that's kind of the way that theater is.

[1:08:05] Like, there's no one definitive version of a theatrical production.

[1:08:11] And likewise, there's no now, like, really definitive good Sweeney Todd you can get on DVD necessarily.

[1:08:20] I thought that Tim Burton one.

[1:08:22] Okay.

[1:08:22] Good point.

[1:08:24] But the third linked recommendation I want to make.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:28] Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:29] Is the great performances of Into the Woods, which is, I believe, the original Broadway cast of Into the Woods that has Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleeson.

[1:08:43] And that is one of the few cases where I actually do watch a filmed version of a stage play and think, this is great.

[1:08:52] Yeah.

[1:08:53] I'm totally entertained by everything that's happening here.

[1:08:56] So I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to watch a Sondheim musical, why don't you want to go check out, above all, the Into the Woods DVD.

[1:09:08] But also the Sweeney Todd ones are pretty good, too.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:11] So those are my recommendations.

[1:09:12] Three big recommendations.

[1:09:14] All to be watched on airplanes.

[1:09:17] Yeah.

[1:09:17] Thanks.

[1:09:19] I'm going to...

[1:09:20] So I've seen a bunch of movies this summer.

[1:09:22] I've seen a lot of big movies.

[1:09:23] But the movie I'm going to recommend tonight is a little quiet movie called Drinking Buddies.

[1:09:30] It's directed by Joe Swanberg, who's part of that whole little crew of mumblecore, mumblecore horror directors.

[1:09:40] And...

[1:09:40] Not just mumblecore horror.

[1:09:42] But he's done a lot of mumblecore horror, like that group of dudes made, like Ty West and all those guys.

[1:09:48] Sure.

[1:09:49] But...

[1:09:50] So this is a little movie.

[1:09:52] Not very much happens.

[1:09:55] It features Jake Johnson, is that his name, from The New Girl?

[1:10:00] Or is it Jake Johansson?

[1:10:01] I don't know.

[1:10:01] I think it's Jake Johnson.

[1:10:02] Okay.

[1:10:03] One of them.

[1:10:05] She's good.

[1:10:05] Olivia Wilde, who's great in it.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:09] I've always said that I kind of think that she's a good actress who's been stuck in shitty roles.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:15] Yeah, that's true.

[1:10:16] And what's her name?

[1:10:18] The singer from...

[1:10:20] Whatever.

[1:10:21] So it's a great little movie.

[1:10:24] I mean, I liked it.

[1:10:25] It was a pretty good little movie.

[1:10:27] And yeah, so not much happens.

[1:10:30] It's about...

Dan McCoy

[1:10:31] It's about drinking and buddies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:32] Yeah, it's about two friends who are in relationships with other people.

[1:10:39] And they obviously have chemistry.

[1:10:41] But for whatever, you know, for their own fears or societal pressures, they end up not getting together.

[1:10:49] But, you know, their friendship, in a way, kind of hurts their individual relationships, the relationships they have with other people.

[1:10:57] And it, I don't know, it felt fairly honest to me.

[1:10:59] Although not much happens.

[1:11:00] So don't watch this movie expecting a comedy like all the people on Amazon seem to, if you read the reviews.

S2

[1:11:08] All right.

[1:11:08] Kevin, what do you have to recommend?

[1:11:10] Well, if you want something to counter Walking with Dinosaurs, you know, for parents out there, I really think the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is terrific.

[1:11:19] Oh, yeah.

[1:11:19] It's got a lot of great stuff for kids, but adults too.

[1:11:22] It's just such a smart, fast, funny movie.

[1:11:25] Really terrific.

[1:11:26] So you can show that with the kids, and that's not going to be torture for you.

[1:11:29] Those are the guys who, like, went on to do, like, 21 chapters in the Lego movie.

[1:11:33] And I think that's probably some of their best work is in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

[1:11:39] And then, you know, full disclosure, Justin Long, Vassar grad, he and I did theater plays together.

[1:11:46] We did Sam Shepard play together.

[1:11:47] We did True West.

[1:11:48] We played the brothers.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:49] Really?

[1:11:50] In college.

[1:11:51] So you would have known him fairly well.

S2

[1:11:53] And I ran into him after my, when I was doing all my social media against Walking with Dinosaurs,

[1:11:59] I ran into him and I was like, do I say, nope, not going to bring it up.

[1:12:03] Just going to catch up and say, hey, see how he's doing.

[1:12:07] And not say, oh, by the way, I've devoted a portion of my life to trashing that thing

[1:12:11] where you got a really nice paycheck to just ad lib while your character's running.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:16] I've got to say, like, there's, like, a weird, there's a weird, like, portion of the internet

[1:12:21] who has their guns out for Justin Long in the same way that I feel like there's a weird

[1:12:24] person.

S2

[1:12:24] I think that's totally unfair.

[1:12:26] He's so talented.

[1:12:27] He's incredible.

[1:12:28] Yeah, no, I agree with you.

[1:12:29] He makes a lot of projects where he makes a lot of money, Alvin with the chip bunks

[1:12:33] and a lot of the live action things.

[1:12:35] But the fact is, he's super talented.

[1:12:37] No, I think in The Right Thing, he can be very funny.

[1:12:40] Oh, he's terrific.

[1:12:41] He's in The Right Thing.

[1:12:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:42] Yeah, but, like, I, you know, like, I liked him in Walk Hard.

[1:12:46] I liked him in, like, the movie's not great, but I think he carries, like, accepted, like,

[1:12:52] as much as that movie is funny at all.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:54] That's a movie that you came up with that idea and then they...

S2

[1:12:58] Well, that was an old Saturday Night Live skit with Billy Crystal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:01] Was it?

[1:13:02] Oh, man.

[1:13:02] Scooped.

S2

[1:13:02] Fake college.

[1:13:04] And they describe on visiting day there will be a large cardboard cutout building that

[1:13:11] you can take your photo in front of, but don't let anyone stand behind it.

[1:13:15] Yeah.

[1:13:15] That idea's been around for a while.

[1:13:16] Awesome.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:18] Yeah, Justin, I think he's okay.

[1:13:20] Like, I feel like he always, he tries to bring something, except for this movie where he didn't

[1:13:25] bring anything.

[1:13:26] Well, he brought what he could.

[1:13:27] No one could.

[1:13:28] Yeah, no.

[1:13:28] I guess that no one's going to salvage it.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:30] No one's going to fix this movie.

[1:13:32] Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to, like...

[1:13:33] Producers of Walking with Dinosaurs, no one was going to fix your movie.

S2

[1:13:36] So if you want a good Vassar grad movie as an alternative to this, I'd say check out

[1:13:42] Detonator, an indie film starring Ben Fine, class of 98, I believe.

[1:13:48] Wow.

[1:13:48] It's an indie movie about a washed-up punk rock singer who's at a crossroads in his life.

[1:13:55] And I think it's very enjoyable, and you can see it, you know, on demand in various iTunes

[1:14:01] and other formats.

[1:14:03] Cool.

[1:14:03] For Vassar grads.

[1:14:04] Yeah.

[1:14:05] Not me.

[1:14:06] I can't watch it.

[1:14:07] And then if you just want a good movie, I finally saw an unmarried woman.

[1:14:09] It took Paul Mazursky's death to get me to finally see an unmarried woman.

[1:14:13] It's fantastic.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:15] So, I'm the only one with only not three recommendations.

[1:14:20] Yeah.

[1:14:21] Those you feel better.

[1:14:21] You see Guardians of the Galaxy twice then, I guess.

[1:14:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:25] They already have.

[1:14:26] Probably, yeah.

[1:14:27] According to numbers.

[1:14:29] Well, guys.

[1:14:31] This has been good.

[1:14:32] Thanks for being here.

[1:14:33] Thanks for...

[1:14:34] I hate it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:34] Thanks for being here, bro.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:35] Thanks for being like a fucking precog, knowing that Elliot was not going to be here.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:40] In a way, is this like putting a pin in this part of your life?

[1:14:44] I hope so.

[1:14:45] Yeah.

[1:14:45] That's the only way I can make sense of this.

S2

[1:14:47] Because it was the longest...

[1:14:47] For my kids, it was the longest joke about how I would...

[1:14:50] We would do all these jokes about me being in a Manchurian candidate style situation.

[1:14:54] I get hypnotized and they say, you will betray your country.

[1:14:58] And I say, yes, master.

[1:14:59] You will kill your family members.

[1:15:02] I say, yes, master.

[1:15:03] You will watch Walking with Dinosaurs again.

[1:15:05] No!

[1:15:06] Like it was always the joke, I'm chained to a wall.

[1:15:08] We came up with all these great gags.

[1:15:10] Because my kids love needling me about Walking with Dinosaurs.

[1:15:14] And now, here I actually saw it again.

[1:15:18] And it was just as terrible as I remember.

[1:15:20] So the only good thing to come out of it is that this is the end.

[1:15:26] We've poured some holy water over the TV set.

[1:15:29] Bury it with Freddy Krueger's bones and John Saxon in the graveyard.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:34] He'll never come back ever.

[1:15:36] No.

S2

[1:15:37] That's it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:37] That's probably not a good...

[1:15:38] Why do they bury him with his sweater?

[1:15:42] Well.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:43] We're going to have to say goodnight.

[1:15:45] But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:48] I've been Stuart Wellington.

S2

[1:15:50] And I'm Kevin Marr, at Kevin Geeks Out on Twitter.

[1:15:53] That's Kevin Geeks Out on Twitter.

[1:15:56] That's a good plug.

[1:15:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:58] Goodnight, everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:11] Man, we are going to set the night on fire.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:14] Because we are not that young anymore.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:17] Yep.

[1:16:18] You're going to hear me roar.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:20] Let's do this shit.

[1:16:23] Yeah, let's fuck this up.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:25] Let's fucking tear the new fucking thing.

[1:16:31] And dinosaurs.

[1:16:33] Three, two.

[1:16:35] Dinosaurs.

The Flop House: Episode #159 - Walking with Dinosaurs

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