The Flop House: Episode #153 - G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Dan McCoy

[0:00] In this episode, we discuss G.I. Joe retaliation, in which the Joes and Cobra enact brutal retaliation against the audience.

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

[0:38] Beep boop, I'm Stuart Wellington, robot.

Elliott Kalan

[0:41] And I'm Elliot Kalin, super happy and proud of how Stuart's robot impression has come along.

[0:47] Stuart, you've graduated from Robot Impression College.

[0:50] Stuart almost...

[0:51] You've graduated from the Rich Little Bot School of Robot Impression.

Dan McCoy

[0:55] Stuart almost sprayed out one of the two Coors Lights he has in front of him.

[1:00] It almost came out of my exhaust port.

[1:02] Back up, of course.

[1:04] Yeah, he's like a fucking bender. He runs on alcohol.

[1:07] Right in my disk drive.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08] That's his fun fuel.

Dan McCoy

[1:11] So, welcome to the Flophouse.

[1:12] Welcome to the Flophouse.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13] Just a message, don't pour beer into the disk drive of your computer.

[1:16] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[1:18] What is this a Flophouse thing that we're doing, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:19] It's a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we chat about it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24] If you're new to the show, turn it off and go back to an earlier episode that makes more sense.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28] And if you're new to the show, we don't know. Keep listening.

[1:32] Yeah, man. There's no way we can know.

[1:34] And that's your secret thrill.

Dan McCoy

[1:37] Knowing that you're nude.

[1:39] And we have no idea.

[1:40] Yeah, yeah. Come on.

[1:42] But in this particular case, we watched a little movie called G.I. Joe colon Retaliation.

[1:52] Which is not a little movie.

[1:53] Retaliation.

[1:54] It was a very big movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:55] Huge.

[1:56] Some would say too big.

[1:57] Biggish.

Stuart Wellington

[1:58] Very successful.

Elliott Kalan

[2:00] Financially.

[2:00] It was financially successful.

Stuart Wellington

[2:02] I mean, it wasn't like a huge success like Overnight Sensation.

Dan McCoy

[2:06] Now, this is a sequel to G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra, which I'll let you in on a little secret,

[2:12] guys.

[2:13] It's a movie I kind of like.

[2:15] Don't get me wrong.

[2:16] It's deeply stupid.

[2:18] Not very good.

[2:19] But it has that...

[2:20] Let me guess.

[2:21] You watched it on a plane.

[2:22] It's got that Stephen Summers charm.

[2:24] That mummy deep rising charm where it embraces its own idiocy.

[2:30] In Van Helsing.

Elliott Kalan

[2:31] I wish it had more of a Mark Summers charm where the Joes are like, have to find a red flag

[2:36] inside of a big nose full of gross green slime.

[2:38] I wish it had more of a...

[2:40] So they don't really like to...

[2:41] Well, that part of the Mark Summers charm I like to leave out.

Stuart Wellington

[2:43] Or like a summer school charm where there's a bunch of montages.

[2:47] Dean Cameron's in it.

[2:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:50] Mark Harmon is wooing Kirstie Alley.

[2:55] She was in it, right?

[2:56] Probably.

[2:57] Love interest?

[2:57] I can't even remember.

[2:58] I don't think...

Stuart Wellington

[2:59] She wasn't one of the students, though.

Dan McCoy

[3:00] She was a fun teacher.

[3:01] There was that blonde girl who was in all those 80s sitcoms.

[3:04] Christina Applegate.

[3:05] No.

[3:06] Well, this has not been a fruitful avenue, so let's change it.

[3:10] I said Apple.

Elliott Kalan

[3:10] And Apple was an Applegate.

[3:12] How much more fruits do you need?

[3:13] Yeah.

[3:14] Okay, anyway.

[3:14] So G.I. Joe Retaliation.

[3:16] So you liked the first movie because it's stupid.

Dan McCoy

[3:18] Yeah.

[3:18] I mean, you know, it's just...

[3:20] It's a flavor of dumb that's enjoyable.

Stuart Wellington

[3:22] I found the first movie very boring.

[3:23] Okay.

[3:24] This movie...

[3:25] I didn't remember very much of it, but luckily Elliot remembered a bunch.

[3:29] About nanomachines and Cobra Commanders.

Elliott Kalan

[3:32] The first movie is all about nanobots that eat the Eiffel Tower.

[3:35] Yeah.

[3:35] And Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns out to be Cobra Commander at the end and gets his face all

[3:39] screwed up.

[3:40] His face is taking off.

[3:41] The movie ends with Cobra and Destro...

[3:44] Cobra Commander and Destro escaping, and they're caught about three minutes later.

[3:48] Yeah.

[3:48] So the rise of Cobra is represented by them almost immediately being caught and thrown in

[3:52] prison.

Stuart Wellington

[3:52] This movie, as Elliot's plot summary will show, probably should have been called the rise

[3:58] of Cobra because they totally rise up in this one.

[4:00] Yeah.

[4:01] But this is...

[4:01] I mean, like...

[4:02] Their titular namesake, they rise up from the ground and spread their hood.

[4:07] And then they bite and a mongoose kills them.

[4:10] They spray poison everywhere.

Elliott Kalan

[4:12] Until a charmer with a flute plays a beautiful melody which causes them to dance.

[4:18] They are entranced.

[4:19] And then retreat back into their wicker basket to entertain another crowd of tourists.

Dan McCoy

[4:24] This movie is a direct sequel in one sense, which is that at the end of the first movie, the

[4:31] president, Jonathan Price, is being impersonated by...

[4:36] He gets kidnapped and impersonated...

[4:37] Shapeshifting Cobra...

[4:39] Well, he's a master of disguise.

[4:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:41] And he uses his nanobots to shapeshift.

[4:43] But this is also...

[4:44] Take two...

[4:44] And his name is Zartan.

Dan McCoy

[4:46] Yeah.

[4:46] But this is also not a direct sequel and almost a complete reboot in the other sense,

[4:50] which is that Channing Tatum is the only Joe to bridge both movies and he gets killed.

[4:56] What are you talking about?

[4:56] What about Snake Eyes?

[4:57] Oh, yeah.

[4:58] Well, Snake Eyes is behind a mask the whole time.

[5:00] You don't really think about him as being...

Elliott Kalan

[5:03] Well, I don't know.

[5:04] He's kind of everyone's favorite character.

Stuart Wellington

[5:05] Yeah.

[5:06] He's a ninja in a black outfit and he doesn't talk.

Elliott Kalan

[5:08] Storm Shadows in both movies.

Dan McCoy

[5:09] And he has a pet wolf named Timber.

[5:11] Okay.

[5:12] I mean, that seems like an unimaginative name for a pet wolf.

[5:14] It's kind of on the nose.

[5:16] You're one step away from just naming your wolf Wolfie.

[5:19] Hey, Fuzz, Fuzzes, come over here.

[5:23] Hey, Furt Ball.

[5:24] Yep.

[5:24] Hey, Feral Dog.

[5:26] Come on.

[5:26] This is my bulldog.

[5:27] His name's Bull.

[5:28] Come here, Claus.

Elliott Kalan

[5:30] Santa Claus.

[5:31] Yeah.

[5:32] The patron saint of wolves.

Dan McCoy

[5:34] All the little wolf cubs put their stockings up and say, wait, why do we wear stockings?

[5:40] We're wolves.

[5:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:41] Guys, I don't know about you, but I love Jonathan Pryce.

[5:44] Me too.

[5:44] But there is no way a guy with that crazy haircut would be elected president of the United States.

Elliott Kalan

[5:49] It's not that crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[5:50] It's all over the place.

Elliott Kalan

[5:51] It's messy.

[5:52] You know who also had a messy haircut?

[5:53] Zartan.

[5:54] Little man named Jesus Christ.

[5:56] No, Abraham Lincoln is what I was going to say, who was elected president twice.

[6:00] Yeah.

[6:00] Anyway, Jonathan Pryce, yeah.

[6:03] He, for me, was the saving grace of this movie because he really seems to enjoy playing Zartan,

[6:09] who is pretending to be the president but still says goofy one-liners and calls people like

[6:15] dude and stuff like that.

Dan McCoy

[6:16] Why wouldn't you enjoy, like, if you're playing a character named Zartan, you know that you're

[6:19] in for a good time.

Elliott Kalan

[6:21] I mean, maybe if you think it's an anagram of Tarzan, I don't know why.

[6:26] Zartan could easily be, if this was a Star Wars movie and a character walked down and said,

[6:29] I am Zartan, you'd be like, all right, I'm ready for this to be a shitty character.

[6:34] What?

[6:34] What race is this a stereotype of?

[6:37] You could be anything.

[6:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:38] But if you're a classy English actor slumming it in an American movie and you're, like,

[6:43] told that your character's name is Zartan, you're like, great, I know exactly what I'm

[6:47] doing.

Elliott Kalan

[6:47] No, again, there's nothing about the name Zartan.

[6:50] It's going up to 11.

[6:51] Zartan would make us, Jonathan Pryce is like, all right, I'm playing some sort of intergalactic

[6:55] warlord named Zartan.

[6:57] I'm not saying it explains.

[6:58] Or maybe he's a caveman of some kind.

[7:00] I'm not saying it explains what kind of character it is.

[7:01] No, he's a timeless shapeshifter.

[7:03] But you know the tone that you need to take.

[7:05] Yeah, you know it's, well, the minute you sign up for a movie called G.I. Joe Retaliation,

[7:09] you know the tone of the movie.

[7:11] It's not going to be a chamber drama.

[7:14] It's not going to be like the time I saw Jonathan Pryce on stage in The Caretaker, a pinter play.

[7:20] Oh, man.

[7:20] Which he was fantastic in.

[7:22] Let me tell you, as good as he was as Zartan, as hard as it is to believe he was even better

[7:27] in this Harold Pinter play.

Dan McCoy

[7:29] They're saying it was worth the price of admission.

[7:33] Yeah.

[7:33] Oh, it's a pun.

[7:35] I get it.

Stuart Wellington

[7:35] That was the Kalen Culture Corner.

Elliott Kalan

[7:38] Yeah.

[7:38] Yeah, Kalen.

[7:39] Well, it's one of the many times on this.

[7:41] You should really rebrand that.

[7:42] No, I like it.

[7:43] I'm trying to reclaim the initials.

[7:45] It's one of the many times on this podcast that I've mentioned seeing an actor in a stage

[7:49] play.

[7:50] Yeah.

[7:51] It's a good production, too.

[7:52] Brooklyn Academy Music.

Dan McCoy

[7:53] But we've given you no idea of what this movie's about so far.

Elliott Kalan

[7:55] G.I. Joe, retaliation.

[7:56] Who's retaliating?

[7:57] Who are the Joes?

[7:58] Perhaps we've forgotten.

[7:59] Let's explain.

[8:01] The G.I.

[8:02] Joe unit is...

Dan McCoy

[8:03] G.I.

[8:03] Joe stands for Giraffe Intelligence Joe.

Elliott Kalan

[8:07] Yep.

[8:08] It's Joe Camel's unit where he tries to figure out how smart giraffes are to see if they'd be

[8:13] better mascots for selling cigarettes to kids.

[8:15] Yep.

[8:16] Because giraffes are already the Toys R Us mascot.

[8:18] If they could push cigarettes in Toys R Us, they'd have a lock on the market.

[8:21] And so Joe Camel puts together a unit of the best giraffe psychologists and the best tobacco

[8:28] marketing execs to find out how smart giraffes are.

Stuart Wellington

[8:31] Are they like a wacky motley crew like the Weasels and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

[8:35] Even better.

[8:36] They're motley crew.

Elliott Kalan

[8:38] Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, the whole gang.

[8:41] Name the other two.

[8:42] I don't know.

[8:43] And the rest.

[8:46] And friends.

[8:47] Motley crew are, as I know it, Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, and pals.

[8:52] They're the head...

[8:52] And boy, are they causing too much rock and rolling and too much partying when Joe Camel

[8:57] has some work to do.

[8:58] And so they have no choice but to kidnap the Queen of England.

[9:03] Okay.

[9:04] To ransom her for the secret files held by the British government about giraffe intelligence

[9:09] by MI6, the mammal intelligence six-pack.

[9:14] Which is...

[9:15] Six different mammals?

[9:17] Or...

[9:17] Yes, exactly.

[9:18] A beaver, a badger, a bear...

[9:20] A manatee.

[9:21] A boar.

[9:21] You need an aquatic one.

[9:22] A manatee and a dugong.

[9:24] There's two aquatic mammals.

[9:27] A manatee...

[9:27] They're so similar.

[9:29] Yes.

[9:29] And that's the problem because...

[9:30] That's part of the joke.

[9:31] Everyone keeps mixing them up and can't tell them apart to the exasperation of the sea

[9:35] cow, the manatee, who thinks he should be easier to recognize since manatees are so much

[9:38] more famous than dugongs.

[9:41] Anyway, it all comes to a head at a big breakdancing competition in, where else, the center of the

[9:47] earth.

Stuart Wellington

[9:48] Which is not part of Germany, apparently.

Elliott Kalan

[9:50] No, no.

[9:50] So let's talk about G.I. Joe Retaliation, which is not as fun as the movie that I just

[9:55] outlined for you.

[9:56] Not at all.

[9:57] So G.I. Joe is a special branch of the military.

[10:00] In the last movie, they seem to be some kind of international ops network.

[10:04] But here, they're just part of the American military that operates independently of everybody

[10:08] else and is both a secret covert strike squad and also world famous.

[10:13] Everybody knows their names, faces, their code names.

Dan McCoy

[10:16] And also, I find it very delightful at one point when Jonathan Pryce, he's a bad guy playing

[10:24] the president, but at this point, we don't know that.

[10:26] We just think he's the president.

[10:27] It's a richly layered performance.

[10:29] But he goes, get me the G.I.

[10:31] Joes.

[10:31] And I'm like, I don't think you need to say that as president.

[10:34] You're the commander in chief.

[10:35] You're just like, they're a division of the army.

[10:37] You can just be like, so the G.I.

[10:39] Joes, this is my orders for them.

[10:41] Their place in the chain of command is never quite the phone call.

[10:45] They're probably in the fucking Bahamas on vacation.

[10:48] Well, anyway, the point is.

Stuart Wellington

[10:49] Why are you looking at me?

[10:50] Was that because I just got back from the Bahamas?

[10:52] Yeah.

[10:52] Like the jag off.

[10:53] He was trying to connect to you.

[10:55] Sure.

[10:56] Let's wrap.

[10:56] Do a little bit of crowd work.

Elliott Kalan

[10:57] He's like, let me do some of my Stuart material.

Dan McCoy

[11:01] So, anybody here work at a German-themed bar?

[11:05] Oh, I do.

[11:06] Stuart's are always wearing those Frankenstein's monster-looking shoes.

[11:09] Am I right?

[11:10] Those hilarious.

[11:11] Roasted.

Elliott Kalan

[11:12] So, what's with being married to Stuart's wife?

[11:16] Am I right?

[11:17] And Stuart's like, I totally get that.

[11:19] Anyway, the movie.

[11:20] He speaks to me at my level.

[11:21] Let me get one minute into the movie.

[11:24] I don't think so.

[11:25] The president of Pakistan has been assassinated.

[11:28] And in the ensuing chaos, the Pakistani nuclear warheads are up for grabs.

[11:32] Yep.

[11:32] So, the president, breaking all rules of sovereignty, which, who cares?

[11:36] We already broke Pakistan's sovereignty when we killed Osama bin Laden.

[11:39] Yeah.

[11:39] Sends the Joes in.

[11:40] That at least is accurate.

[11:41] The president sends the Joes in to secure these nuclear weapons.

[11:45] But, it's really part of a trick.

[11:48] They're actually framing the Joes for the murder of the Pakistani president, prime minister?

[11:52] President, I think.

[11:53] No, prime minister.

[11:54] For the murder of the head of state of Pakistan and stealing of the nuclear weapons.

[11:59] So, the president, Jonathan Pryce, who's actually Zartan in disguise, the real president

[12:03] is kept in a bunker under...

[12:06] The White House.

Dan McCoy

[12:07] I don't know if it's the White House or if it's just some old house somewhere.

[12:10] I think it's like the White House basement.

Elliott Kalan

[12:13] I think it's the White House basement, too.

[12:15] He gets beneath the bowling alley.

[12:16] He's sitting in the White House basement and Zartan just goes down there every now and

[12:17] Keep your enemies close.

[12:18] And your enemies closer.

[12:19] It doesn't make any sense.

[12:22] But, Zartan just goes down there every now and then to punch the president in the face

[12:25] and torture him.

[12:26] And to be able to intimate that he's sleeping with his wife.

[12:29] Yeah.

[12:30] But, so the president, Zartan in disguise, sends a unit of the military.

[12:33] He says, the Joes have gone rogue.

[12:35] Sends some helicopter gunships over.

[12:38] Blows up all the Joes.

[12:39] Kills Channing Tatum, who we've already seen as a great guy palling around with his buddy,

[12:43] Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

[12:44] Terrible at video games.

[12:46] And by the way...

[12:47] We've learned that he's an excellent combat guy.

[12:49] Terrible at video games.

[12:50] And now he's been killed.

Stuart Wellington

[12:52] And other than Jonathan Pryce, he's the only returning actor other than him and Ray Park.

[12:55] Right.

Elliott Kalan

[12:55] And Ray Park.

[12:56] Ray who?

[12:58] Ray Park, who's playing Snake Eyes.

[13:00] Toad?

[13:00] And isn't this the same guy who's playing Storm Shadow, right?

Dan McCoy

[13:03] Oh, yeah.

[13:04] But Channing Tatum, a perfectly charming actor.

[13:08] Very good in Magic Mike and in the 21 Jump Street.

[13:13] In this big step up, right?

[13:15] Yeah.

[13:15] But they've delayed this movie in part because Channing Tatum became a much bigger star in

[13:22] between when they first shot it and when they released it.

[13:25] And so, like, there's a lot of scenes at the beginning with Channing Tatum that don't

[13:30] necessarily have a lot of bearing on where the movie goes.

[13:33] They're Channing Tatum filler.

[13:34] Later.

[13:34] Yeah.

[13:35] And it's like, well, he's...

[13:37] It's weird because you're like, okay, on the one hand, he's one of the more charming

[13:41] actors that are in this movie.

[13:43] Like, he actually has some charisma, unlike the guy who plays Flint, who makes no impression

[13:47] there's about the film.

Stuart Wellington

[13:48] Jonathan Price, Adrian Padalicki.

[13:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:52] Playing the part of Lady Jane.

[13:54] The Rock, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[13:55] And then Channing Tatum.

[13:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:57] And then way down at the bottom below, the guns and the vehicles used in the movie.

[14:01] And the RZA.

[14:01] And a sleeping Bruce Willis.

[14:04] There is the charisma of Flint, who is a kid.

[14:07] Okay.

[14:07] So, let's say who the characters are.

[14:09] So, let's just say that the Joes are framed for everything.

[14:12] All of them are killed except our three heroes.

[14:14] Yep.

[14:14] Dwayne the Rock Johnson as Roadblock.

[14:16] Mm-hmm.

[14:16] Adrian Padalicki as Lady Jane.

[14:18] And whoever plays Flint as Flint.

[14:20] And Flint is a guy who is there to be the third guy in scenes where...

[14:25] A guy to drive the car for the Joes.

[14:27] Exactly.

[14:27] So that Roadblock and Lady Jane can have a conversation.

[14:31] They need Flint to drive the car.

[14:32] Sorry, Lady Jane.

[14:33] Not Lady Joan, who I guess would be...

[14:34] J.

[14:35] Joan of Art.

[14:35] It's not Jane.

Dan McCoy

[14:36] I thought it was Jane.

[14:37] No.

[14:37] Lady J.

[14:38] It's Lady J.

[14:39] J-A-Y-E.

[14:41] I apologize.

[14:42] I just say that because...

[14:43] You know what?

[14:43] Out there, there is...

[14:44] Let me write up an apology to Adrian Padalicki.

[14:46] Out there...

[14:47] To Larry Hama.

[14:48] I just know that in our audience...

[14:50] I would love to talk to Larry Hama, yeah.

[14:51] In our audience, there exists G.I. Joe nerds who are very upset.

[14:56] What?

Elliott Kalan

[14:56] I have to say this.

[14:58] I'm a nerd about a lot of stupid things, a lot of childish things.

[15:01] But a G.I. Joe nerd is a nerd I cannot respect.

[15:04] Let me just say that.

Stuart Wellington

[15:05] So this is like a Cobra Commander shaped gauntlet being thrown down?

Elliott Kalan

[15:09] Exactly, yeah.

[15:10] Now, if you were a Cobra Commander fan, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[15:12] No, I understand what you...

[15:13] This comes from a guy who has his Facebook picture is wearing a Cobra Commander outfit.

Elliott Kalan

[15:17] Well, Cobra Commander's great.

[15:18] But that's also...

[15:19] I'm not wearing it because I love G.I. Joe so much.

[15:21] I'm wearing it because it's goofy.

Stuart Wellington

[15:23] You were wearing it because you're the enemy of G.I. Joe.

Elliott Kalan

[15:25] Well, that too.

[15:25] But I was wearing it because it's fun to walk around your office dressed like Cobra Commander.

Dan McCoy

[15:29] No, but you were saying this as we were watching the movie.

[15:32] And it's trenchant and I agree that the only people watching this movie are people who have misplaced nostalgia for the shitty cartoons of their youth.

Elliott Kalan

[15:44] It's fine to have nostalgia for it, but to then say, like, I need a grown-up version of this to justify my liking of this thing.

Dan McCoy

[15:52] Right, to inflate it into something that is then deserving of or needing of a millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, like, big budget Hollywood film.

Elliott Kalan

[16:01] Or alternately, like, I like this thing, but I'm ashamed to like its original form because it's a children's cartoon.

[16:08] Right.

[16:08] So for me to be able to justify as an adult that I like this thing, I need, like, a grown-up version of it.

[16:13] I feel the same way about, like, the Transformers or the Ninja Turtles.

[16:17] Exactly.

[16:17] If they ever make a Thundercats movie, which they threaten every now and then, like, there's...

[16:22] Just have your nostalgia for that thing.

[16:24] But then how is that that different from, like, Spider-Man stuff?

[16:29] I would argue that Spider-Man has a depth of character and theme that G.I. Joe or Transformers don't have.

[16:38] And that's purely...

Stuart Wellington

[16:39] I mean, I could partially be based on one was originally created to tell stories and one was created to sell toys.

Elliott Kalan

[16:45] But also the artistry that's been put into the character.

[16:47] But I'm sure...

Stuart Wellington

[16:48] And one of them has a spider ham.

[16:50] Yeah, if there were ham formers.

[16:52] There's a Peter Porker.

Elliott Kalan

[16:52] If there were ham formers or G.I. pigs, then you are.

[16:56] Or, I guess, would P.I.G. Joes.

[16:58] But it's like, one of them, a sense of a greater attempt at creative artistry has been placed into.

[17:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:07] Whereas...

[17:07] That's what separates comic book movies from the toy...

[17:11] No, just individual characters.

[17:13] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[17:13] You know, like Ninja Turtles made in a lot of ways as a cartoon to sell toys.

[17:17] Okay, that's fair.

[17:18] But they put a little more effort into it than some of the other ones.

[17:20] But anyway, we don't need to get into that.

[17:21] Because I've alienated so many of our listeners who love their Transformers movies and their G.I. Joes.

Stuart Wellington

[17:26] Burning tiny little effigies of Elliot and Kayla.

[17:29] As I burn bridges to the nerd community.

Elliott Kalan

[17:32] Well, I guess it's academia for me now.

[17:34] I can only be around literary nerds.

[17:36] Ew, gross.

[17:38] So anyway, the Joes are three Joes heroes.

[17:40] Let's talk about the mill on the floss.

[17:42] Ew, I don't want to floss.

[17:45] With a mill?

[17:46] What am I, a giant?

[17:48] Anyway, so the Joes are on the run.

[17:50] They've been framed.

[17:52] And the president, Zartan, goes on television to announce that the Joes are criminals.

[17:57] And it's one of these things where it's like, wait, so does everyone in the world know who the Joes are?

[18:01] Yeah, the world knows them as Joes.

[18:03] He mentions Snake Eyes.

[18:04] By their weird codenames.

Dan McCoy

[18:05] So is Snake Eyes famous?

[18:07] Yeah, Snake Eyes was Time's Man of the Year last year.

Elliott Kalan

[18:10] He's supposed to be like a covert ninja.

[18:12] It seems like it would get in the way if people recognized him and knew who he was.

[18:15] But anyway, at the same time...

Stuart Wellington

[18:16] Everybody knows who everybody is, except when they don't want people to know who they are.

Elliott Kalan

[18:20] At the same time, Snake Eyes, who has just been announced on TV as a terrorist, is arrested, we think, and taken to a prison overseen by Walt Goggins.

Dan McCoy

[18:29] Who you may know as Boyd Crowder from Justified, or he was on The Shield.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] He turns in my second favorite performance in the movie after Jonathan Pryce.

[18:38] He's super charismatic as the warden of this underground super villain prison.

Stuart Wellington

[18:42] Who delights in delivering exposition.

Elliott Kalan

[18:45] He loves...

[18:45] He gets so much fun out of explaining to what the man he thinks is Snake Eyes, how his underground prison works, where people are put into tanks of a liquid that keeps them awake, but paralyzes their muscles.

Dan McCoy

[18:57] Yeah.

[18:57] What?

[18:58] I said you're welcome after you said tanks.

Elliott Kalan

[19:01] I got it.

[19:02] Oh, wow.

[19:04] Really?

[19:05] Why does it feel like someone just punched me really hard in the gut?

[19:09] Ouch.

[19:10] So anyway...

[19:11] That's your funny bone breaking.

[19:14] Look, Dan, if the funny bone bends, it's funny.

[19:16] If it breaks, I need a doctor.

[19:19] So this underground prison that is super cooled, because they're at the center of the earth almost.

[19:24] It is super cool.

[19:25] They're so far underground that Boyd Crowder mentions that they are a warden Crowder.

[19:29] It mentions they're so far underground that they're no longer in German territory, but in international territory.

[19:35] And I didn't realize...

Stuart Wellington

[19:36] So it's totally legal to put dudes in giant fucking freezing back to tanks.

Elliott Kalan

[19:39] I didn't realize that there was a depth you could go where you were no longer bound by law.

Dan McCoy

[19:43] Oh, man.

[19:44] You can waterboard the shit out of people as long as you're at the center of the earth.

Elliott Kalan

[19:47] As long as you're in Mole Man country.

[19:50] Welcome to Mole Man country.

[19:53] That's for mole barrel cigarettes?

[19:55] Yep.

[19:57] So this huge prison has been set up to hold three prisoners.

[20:02] Cobra Commander, Destro, and two before Prisoner TBD.

[20:07] And that's it.

[20:09] That's totally it.

[20:09] They have no more space for tanks.

[20:11] And the whole time the warden is like, so happy that Snake Eyes is there.

[20:14] They finally caught Snake Eyes.

[20:16] And they take on...

Dan McCoy

[20:17] Can you give me my signature Snake Eyes?

Elliott Kalan

[20:20] And did I mention that the entire time Snake Eyes is in his signature armor and helmet?

[20:24] Yeah.

[20:24] So they let him keep on his superhero costume as they brought him to jail.

[20:28] And they brought his fucking katanas with him, too.

[20:30] Yeah.

[20:30] Like, you would think those would go into evidence.

[20:32] For some reason, his whole armory is with him.

[20:34] And it's not until they're prepping him to put him in the tank

[20:38] that they take his helmet off and realize it's Storm Shadow.

[20:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:41] They're like, oh, well, I mean, as an afterthought, maybe we should just remove this helmet.

Elliott Kalan

[20:46] What the?

[20:47] That's a different guy than the prisoner we thought we had.

Dan McCoy

[20:49] Well, put him in the tube.

Elliott Kalan

[20:51] Put him in the tank.

[20:52] The same way that, like, let's say Dan robbed a bank wearing a gorilla mask.

[20:56] And I was at a Halloween party with a gorilla mask on.

[20:58] And the police arrested me.

[21:00] I went to trial.

[21:01] They were walking me to prison.

[21:04] And then maybe Dan killed someone.

[21:06] So I'm on death row.

[21:07] I'm about to be brought to the electric chair.

[21:09] And they're like, you know what?

[21:09] Before we give you the chair, let's take this mask off.

[21:12] They see it's me.

[21:12] And they go, you're not the guy that was supposedly the murderer.

[21:16] Strap him in, boys.

[21:16] We got the chair.

Stuart Wellington

[21:18] Strap him in and kill him.

[21:19] I got the work order.

[21:19] It says one guy in gorilla mask.

Elliott Kalan

[21:21] The work order just says man in gorilla mask.

[21:23] And that's what you had on.

[21:24] So they.

[21:25] It's not my job to sort gorillas.

[21:30] Get a gorilla sorter for that.

[21:32] But we can't.

[21:32] All the best gorilla sorters were hired by Joe Camel as part of his gorilla intelligence

[21:37] Joe operation.

Stuart Wellington

[21:40] But anyway.

[21:41] That's a good union to get in, by the way.

[21:42] Oh, the gorilla sorters?

[21:43] Oh, yeah.

[21:44] It's great pay, great benefits.

[21:46] Did you just say grape benefits?

[21:49] Yeah, grape ape.

[21:50] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:50] Grape ape benefits.

[21:52] If you don't pay overtime, then grape ape comes and attacks you.

[21:56] What?

[21:57] He's so benevolent.

[21:58] A benefit?

[21:59] It's a benefit to the union.

[22:01] I guess that's true.

[22:02] So they throw Storm Shadow in this tube.

[22:04] And they fill him up with this liquid that paralyzes you.

[22:07] But I guess since he's a super ninja, it doesn't affect him.

[22:10] And he fights his way out.

[22:11] And he's got tons of shurikens that he's just crawling all over the place.

[22:14] He hides his shits all over him, dude.

[22:15] Well, he's fighting.

Stuart Wellington

[22:16] When you're that good of a ninja, you can turn anything into a shurikens.

[22:18] So he's just like.

Dan McCoy

[22:19] They did not pat him down before they put him in the tube.

[22:21] I assume.

Elliott Kalan

[22:22] So you have to.

[22:23] Yeah, he's just came in with all those weapons.

[22:24] You don't pat down a ninja.

Dan McCoy

[22:25] There's going to be like little sleep darts and shit on them.

[22:28] No, just put them in.

Elliott Kalan

[22:29] He's got throwing stars hidden in his rectum, I guess.

[22:32] But he just takes out and throws at them.

[22:33] Covered in blowfish toxin.

[22:34] Yeah.

[22:35] Which you really don't want to store in your rectum.

[22:37] That is going to get into your blood.

[22:38] When you're a great ninja, you can do whatever you want.

[22:40] Apparently.

[22:42] So while he's fighting out from the inside to free Cobra Commander, Firefly, a former Joe,

[22:49] who's now a bad guy.

[22:50] Played by Ray Stevenson.

[22:51] Played by Ray Stevenson.

[22:51] Punisher Warzone.

[22:52] He's fighting in from the outside and he does this with his tiny little robot fireflies

[22:56] that explode.

[22:57] And also his motorcycle that he rides up, then jumps off of.

[23:01] It splits into pieces and then explodes against the door to open up an entrance.

[23:06] So he's got no ride home.

[23:08] But it was super cool the way he lost his ride home.

[23:12] And there's no one alive to watch him do it.

[23:14] That's the thing.

[23:15] They literally, and they look at Destro and assume.

Stuart Wellington

[23:16] Security cameras.

Elliott Kalan

[23:18] Oh yeah, I guess you're right.

[23:18] And they go, Destro, you're out of the band.

[23:22] And then they leave and then blow the place up.

[23:24] So I guess Destro is dead now.

[23:26] Yeah, probably.

Stuart Wellington

[23:27] The best thing is that Walton Goggins' character was explaining all the weaknesses of this place.

[23:33] And Elliot's like, great, he's explaining the weaknesses so that this guy can break out.

[23:37] And then Walton Goggins is the one who utilizes those weaknesses to blow everybody up.

Elliott Kalan

[23:41] Yeah, and he manages to heavily burn the back of Storm Shadow as he does so.

[23:47] But Cobra Commander gets out.

[23:49] And here's where the movie, okay.

[23:50] The movie was kind of bland and boring up to this point.

[23:53] Great performance by Walton Goggins.

[23:57] Fun performance by Jonathan Bray.

[23:58] R.I.P.

[24:00] But rest in peace, the warden.

[24:02] But here's where, and this is going to go back on what I said before about people wanting adult versions of their cartoon characters.

[24:09] And I realized when, like, the new Michael Bay Ninja Turtles trailer came out and I didn't give a shit.

[24:14] I was like, oh, I guess I don't really care when they change stuff about stuff I liked as a kid.

[24:18] Because the version I liked as a kid is still there.

[24:21] But Cobra Commander starts speaking and he has a super deep voice.

[24:24] And for some reason at the core of my being, this really bothered me.

[24:28] Yeah.

[24:28] So I guess I'm a hypocrite is what it comes down to.

Dan McCoy

[24:30] Yeah, he should be like two notches down from Crypt Keeper.

Elliott Kalan

[24:33] He should have, yeah.

[24:34] He should have a really high-pitched, scratchy voice because he's supposed to sound like a snake.

[24:37] Yeah.

[24:38] Snakes wouldn't have low-pitched voices.

[24:40] Yeah, no way.

Dan McCoy

[24:41] Yes, when snakes speak, they're always super squeaky.

[24:44] And they go like this.

Elliott Kalan

[24:45] Yes.

[24:46] They always, the S's are drawn out.

[24:48] Like that drug-dealing snake man from that anti-drug commercial.

[24:51] You remember the one.

[24:52] Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

[24:53] Yeah, that PSA from the late 80s.

[24:56] Anyway, the point is, I don't know who's a bit great idea.

Stuart Wellington

[25:00] I'm trying to remember the Jungle Book.

Elliott Kalan

[25:02] Yeah, he has kind of a high-pitched voice, right?

[25:04] Yeah.

[25:05] What's his name?

[25:06] Ka?

[25:06] Yeah, Ka.

[25:09] The point is, Cobra Commander is the one G.I. Joe character who's really fun.

[25:15] And why would you defund him by taking away his high-pitched, silly voice?

[25:18] And not once in the movie have him go, retreat!

[25:21] Which was his thing.

[25:23] Because it turns out Cobra Commander is really bad at what he does.

Dan McCoy

[25:27] Yeah, but he's very good at keeping his people alive by retreating.

[25:31] But no, he's not.

[25:31] And by having them eject from planes.

Elliott Kalan

[25:34] His retreat always is him in an escape pod with the Baroness.

[25:37] And the rest of his men are killed by lasers.

Stuart Wellington

[25:40] Yeah.

[25:40] Major Blood might get away in a hiss tank, but that's about it.

Elliott Kalan

[25:43] And like, Zartan will get away.

[25:45] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[25:45] Dr. Mindbender's going to hang out with his weird outfit.

[25:47] What are the twin names again?

[25:48] Momon, Nadon?

[25:49] Tomax and Zaymot?

Elliott Kalan

[25:50] Yeah, that's Zaybars and Zagats.

[25:53] They usually get away.

[25:54] But basically, if you have a name, you'll escape.

[25:58] But if you're just one of the faceless Cobra Legion.

Stuart Wellington

[26:00] Yeah, or a bat.

[26:02] Usually the bats are the ones that all get shot.

[26:04] The Robits?

[26:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:05] Beep Boop.

Elliott Kalan

[26:06] Thanks for bringing us back around with that.

[26:09] So anyway, Storm Shadow breaks them out, which leads us to plot number three.

[26:14] Oh boy.

[26:15] Which is that Snake Eyes, the real Snake Eyes, is taking commands from his master, played by

[26:20] the RZA, that he has to go catch...

Stuart Wellington

[26:22] In the most convincing performance of the movie.

[26:25] The RZA channeling his best Mads Mikkelsen impression.

[26:28] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:28] Snake Eyes, in that he is doing food-based puns.

[26:32] Snake Eyes and his apprentice Jinx, who's a lady, they have to go catch Storm Shadow because

[26:37] Storm Shadow killed everybody's sensei, Hardmaster.

[26:40] Which sounds like he got his name...

[26:42] From the cartoon, dude.

Dan McCoy

[26:44] He got his name from a translated condom wrapper.

[26:50] Yeah.

[26:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:52] Applicate Hardmaster, please, on private stick area for best safe...

[26:59] For best fun times.

[27:00] For best fun times safety virus.

[27:06] But yeah.

[27:07] It was just called a no baby wrapper.

[27:09] Hardmaster, no baby wrapper.

[27:12] But yeah.

[27:14] And this is a plot that doesn't really line up with the rest of the movie, but somehow

[27:18] I must have missed the scenes where everybody communicates, because without much communication

[27:23] between these three Joes who are on the run and Snake Eyes, they all meet up at the same

[27:28] place and are working on the same plan.

[27:30] Yeah.

[27:30] But so Roadblock and Flint and Lady J...

Dan McCoy

[27:32] Probably Facebook or Twitter or something.

[27:34] Yeah.

[27:35] They're all following each other on Instagram.

[27:36] They snapchatted their plans to each other.

Elliott Kalan

[27:38] They all were in Google Glass and doing a Google Hangout.

[27:41] What are they, babies?

Dan McCoy

[27:42] Goo Goo Glasses?

[27:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:44] Goo Goo Glasses, which is the glasses that babies wear so that they can, I guess, see things

[27:50] like an adult sees.

Stuart Wellington

[27:51] Yeah, like in that movie Brain Scan where...

[27:54] Oh, wait.

[27:55] You know, where he plays a video game and kills people?

[27:58] Sure.

[27:58] What does that have to do with babies?

[28:00] Are you thinking of Jim Henson's Brain Scan Babies?

[28:02] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[28:03] Between little Eddie Furlong?

[28:05] But so...

Elliott Kalan

[28:06] So anyway, the three Joes come back to America and they set up shop in an abandoned

[28:11] gym.

[28:12] Yeah.

[28:13] And they do a little bit of like James Bond-y, Mission Impossible type sending Lady J...

[28:21] Well, that Lady J seduces and then they kidnap an assistant to the president so that they

[28:28] can then sneak Lady J into some kind of fancy ball that the president's at so they can steal

[28:32] a hair off of his head and catch... check the DNA to make sure he's not a Zartan, which

[28:37] it turns out he is.

Stuart Wellington

[28:38] So what's great is that a warden in a top secret prison can recognize like all these secret

[28:44] agents on site.

[28:45] But the president can't recognize Lady J as one of the Joes.

[28:48] Who is a cobra?

[28:49] Yeah.

[28:50] He's Zartan.

Elliott Kalan

[28:51] Regardless that he's the president and he's met all these Joes, I guess, he's Zartan and

[28:55] he's fought them all.

[28:56] Yeah.

[28:57] But he...

[28:58] But I did like...

[28:59] And also James Carville is at the event because one, he will do anything for money and appear

[29:03] in anything.

[29:04] And two, he is the most cobra-y looking character in the whole movie.

[29:09] Yeah.

[29:09] James Carville...

[29:09] He looks like a cobra snake.

[29:11] Much more...

[29:12] James Carville looks like...

[29:13] Put a hoodie on him.

[29:15] He looks like a cobra.

[29:16] It looks like Globulus used his snake-making gas on James Carville and that's why he's...

[29:21] That's why he's the snake man from Jonah Hex, basically.

[29:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:24] I think in the credits he was listed as Nemesis Enforcer.

Dan McCoy

[29:28] But meanwhile, Snow Baby or whatever the fuck his name is...

[29:32] Snow Baby?

Elliott Kalan

[29:34] I don't know who you're referring to.

[29:35] Storm Shadow?

[29:35] Storm Shadow.

[29:36] So Snake Eyes and Jinx go and get Storm Shadow from the mountain ninja refuge that he's

[29:42] killing at.

Dan McCoy

[29:42] He's been burnt up.

[29:43] Of course, they've got to put him in some pagodas on the edge of a mountain to heal him.

[29:48] A combination of ancient magics and high technology.

[29:51] Yeah.

[29:52] And they have a big repelling fight.

[29:53] And it is repellent.

Elliott Kalan

[29:55] They have a fight through the mountains that involves a lot of zip lines and grappling hooks,

[29:59] which sounds great.

[30:00] But the geography of it is...

[30:02] And let's say one thing.

[30:03] So the director of this movie directed a bunch of dance movies.

Dan McCoy

[30:05] Yeah.

[30:05] He made the two Justin Bieber concert films.

[30:09] He made Step Up 2 and Step Up 3.

Elliott Kalan

[30:12] And the Step Up movies...

[30:12] And a bunch of dance TV shows.

[30:14] I assume in the Bieber movies and in the Step Up movies, he's really good at capturing

[30:18] choreography dance on film.

[30:20] Yeah.

[30:20] So that you know where all the dancers are in relation to each other.

[30:23] You see the moves.

[30:24] He is so bad at doing that with action scenes.

[30:26] Yeah.

[30:26] You don't know where anyone is in relationship to anybody else.

[30:28] You don't know what's going on.

[30:30] There's no sense of them being in a physical space.

[30:33] So they're fighting on the side of a mountain, but the whole thing feels like if their rappelling

[30:38] lines got cut, they could just walk up the side of the mountain and walk around.

[30:41] There's no sense that any of the heroes are ever in danger at any point.

Stuart Wellington

[30:45] And when people's rappelling lines get cut, they kind of float there for a second, look

[30:50] around, hold up a sign, and then fall.

[30:52] It says, uh-oh.

[30:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:54] There's that scene where Zartan paints a tunnel on a wall and runs into it, and then the

[31:00] good guys slam into it afterwards because it's just a tunnel wall.

Dan McCoy

[31:03] But meanwhile, we've met Bruce Willis, who's very sleepy.

Elliott Kalan

[31:07] So Snake Eyes and Jinx Catcher Storm Shadow, it turns out he was framed for the murder of Hardmaster

[31:14] by Zartan, who apparently is 85 years old.

[31:17] Because he was an old man when these ninjas were kids.

[31:21] So they all meet up and they go, we're going to need some help.

[31:25] Let's get the reason we're called G.I.

[31:28] Joe.

[31:29] And it turns out it's this old retired General Joe, played by Bruce Willis, yeah, in the sleeviest

[31:33] performance since, I guess, the last thing he did.

Dan McCoy

[31:36] General I.

[31:37] Joe.

Elliott Kalan

[31:38] General Ignatius Joe.

Dan McCoy

[31:39] And he's just got a bunch of, basically he's got weapons hidden behind every part of

[31:46] his house.

[31:48] Like, it's just like a montage of like, I'm opening this cupboard and there's guns.

[31:51] And now if this was the tone of the whole movie.

[31:53] You know, I'm opening this other thing and there's guns.

Elliott Kalan

[31:55] So here's part of the problem with the movie.

[31:56] The tone is not silly enough to be like popcorn fun.

[32:01] And not serious enough to be like a Bourne movie where it's fun but you believe that there's

[32:06] some kind of realistic action going on.

[32:09] It's not, it's both not smart and serious enough to be taken seriously as a thriller and it

[32:14] is not goofy crazy enough to be like a cartoon movie.

Stuart Wellington

[32:17] Well yeah, because it doesn't feel comfortable being as goofy as I think it wants to be because

[32:22] they don't want to insult the fans.

Elliott Kalan

[32:24] Yeah, I guess so.

[32:26] But that, so like, the one of the few moments that worked for me as a goofy moment is when

[32:30] they reveal that literally everything in Bruce Willis' house.

[32:34] The cupboards, the closets, just his kitchen drawers, they all hide guns and knives and other

[32:40] weapons.

[32:40] Yeah.

[32:41] And at one point he opens up a closet door and he pulls out this 10, 11 foot long rack

[32:46] of guns.

[32:47] It's like, how did that fit in that closet?

[32:49] Like, he opens up his garage.

[32:50] He's got Mary Poppins bag in there.

[32:52] He opens up his garage and there's just a tank in it.

[32:54] So it's like.

Stuart Wellington

[32:55] A fucking bag of holding.

Elliott Kalan

[32:56] And if the, you know, and if the tone of the movie was, this is the kind of movie where

[33:02] a guy has guns hidden in every panel of his house.

[33:06] I'd be, because he's a, he's a retired soldier who I guess never got out of the covert ops

[33:10] game.

[33:11] And I'd be like, okay, this is a silly movie.

[33:12] I could deal with that.

Dan McCoy

[33:13] Most importantly, he's got General George S. Patton's gun.

Elliott Kalan

[33:16] Yeah, which is in a velvet lined box.

Stuart Wellington

[33:17] It's like the, there's a, one of the Lupin animated movies.

[33:21] There's like an evil tin pot dictator who loves knives.

[33:24] And when Fujiko like breaks into his office, every drawer she pulls open is full of just

[33:30] loose knives.

Dan McCoy

[33:33] That's kind of what this was like.

[33:35] But we're, I mean, we're, we're getting to my favorite part of the movie.

[33:38] Like the part that was goofy.

Elliott Kalan

[33:40] The part where Lady J is in running shorts and she bends over.

Dan McCoy

[33:43] No, we've passed that already.

[33:44] That was also a good part of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[33:45] The part where Lady J takes off her dress and changes into other clothes.

Dan McCoy

[33:48] That was also a good part of the movie.

[33:49] But I was going to say the goofy thing that I like is when we finally get to know what

[33:53] Jonathan Price's plan is.

[33:56] And it is crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[33:57] So yeah.

[33:58] So Jonathan Price has asked all the nuclear nations in the world to come to Fort Sumter

[34:02] for a nuclear summit.

[34:03] Here's the thing.

[34:04] Even North Korea is invited and they show up, which is crazy.

[34:08] Israel is invited.

[34:09] Israel has denied having nuclear weapons for decades.

[34:12] Everyone knows they have them.

[34:14] They never officially announced it.

[34:15] But I guess if there's a summit, I'll just show up, whatever.

[34:18] Yeah, man.

Dan McCoy

[34:19] Free, free crab cakes.

Elliott Kalan

[34:20] They want to see it.

[34:21] Yeah.

[34:22] Because the Jewish state is going to go for the crab cakes, Dan.

[34:27] It's a forbidden treasure.

[34:28] Okay.

[34:29] Throw some bacon on those crab cakes while you're at it.

[34:31] They're in a different zip code.

[34:33] They don't care.

[34:33] They don't care what's trep or not.

[34:35] God totally doesn't notice.

[34:37] Hey, all I look at is if you're eating at home.

[34:40] You know, that doesn't matter to me.

[34:42] These commandments, they only apply to one country.

[34:46] Crab cakes.

[34:49] Now I imagine like the prime minister of Israel comes over to your house and you're like,

Dan McCoy

[34:54] can I get you a shrimp cocktail?

[34:56] Perhaps a cheeseburger?

[34:59] Yeah.

[35:01] I've just blended up some milk and some beef in this blender.

Elliott Kalan

[35:04] I've made you some hyrax parmesan because hyraxes are also not kosher.

[35:08] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[35:09] That's pretty borscht belty in front of a Jewish prime minister.

[35:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[35:13] Well, just offer him a belt full of borscht, why don't you?

[35:16] Sure.

[35:17] But the point is that...

[35:18] So he brings them all there and he says, I want to imagine a world with no nuclear weapons.

[35:23] So everybody, if you don't get rid of all your nuclear weapons, I'm going to launch America's

[35:28] nuclear weapons at you.

[35:29] And they're like, that's crazy.

[35:30] And he goes, okay, and presses the launch button.

[35:33] So all of the nuclear warheads in America launch.

Dan McCoy

[35:37] In this movie, the nuclear football isn't just a thing that has the launch codes in it.

[35:42] It's a traveling briefcase that can literally launch all of the weapons from that briefcase

[35:48] just by pushing a button.

Elliott Kalan

[35:50] And also we learned that if you launch nuclear weapons, it appears on a big TV screen above

[35:55] you, even if you're from another country.

[35:57] So all the other countries are like, what?

[35:59] We retaliate.

[36:00] They launch their nuclear weapons.

[36:00] They all bring out their briefcases.

[36:02] They all bring out their briefcases and launch their weapons.

Dan McCoy

[36:03] They're all labeled in their own languages with a little label maker.

[36:07] It's pretty launchy button.

[36:08] They label somebody else's languages?

[36:10] I know.

[36:11] But it's just like, they're in really fancy things.

[36:14] They're just like someone pulled out one of those grocery label things.

Elliott Kalan

[36:17] If you try to put something on too nice, it might hit the button and you launch the codes.

Dan McCoy

[36:23] I just imagine them mistakenly putting the launch label on the wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[36:27] I would just love to talk to the prop designer who put the effort into designing each different fucking briefcase for this stupid movie.

Elliott Kalan

[36:37] What would a Russian briefcase look like compared to a French briefcase?

[36:41] So all the nations in the world that have nuclear weapons launch their nuclear weapons.

[36:45] And Jonathan Pryce says, now the world's going to die unless one of us unilaterally destroys the nuclear weapons.

[36:52] Anyone want to do it?

[36:53] Fine, I'll do it.

[36:54] And he destroys all the American nuclear weapons with one button.

[36:57] Yeah.

[36:57] And then, so everybody else destroys theirs too.

[36:59] They're like, oh, I guess we better follow suit now that this is happening.

Stuart Wellington

[37:02] I guess there's hot shrapnel raining down on the planet.

Elliott Kalan

[37:05] We're going to look like a bunch of goofs if everybody shoots off their missiles against America.

[37:10] So then there's just missile parts.

[37:12] And I assume the radioactive cores of the missiles just falling down.

[37:16] We'll just forget the part where this asshole just launched all his nuclear weapons at us.

[37:20] And Jonathan Pryce goes, welcome to a world without nuclear weapons.

[37:23] Even though, like, there's still thousands of nuclear weapons that are just not on the launch pads.

[37:28] But meanwhile...

Stuart Wellington

[37:28] Meanwhile, arriving by fan boat...

Elliott Kalan

[37:31] It's Cobra Commander.

[37:33] Uh-oh, with ninja...

[37:34] And his ninja brigades.

[37:35] And nobody seems to bat an eye at this.

[37:38] Because I guess the president just rolls with a bunch of ninjas usually.

[37:41] I thought they were at a Comic Con.

[37:42] Cobra Commander says, now that you don't have any nuclear weapons, we have our weapons.

[37:46] The Zeus satellite project.

[37:48] And these satellites basically just drop big metal tubes.

[37:53] Yeah, spikes.

[37:53] And because of gravity, I guess, they strike with more power than a nuclear weapon.

[37:58] But without the radioactive fallout.

[38:00] So they're actually not as bad as nuclear weapons.

[38:02] Not as scary.

[38:03] And Cobra takes a moment to destroy London.

[38:05] Which is kind of shocking in this movie.

[38:08] Within about 20 seconds, you just see all of London destroyed.

[38:12] And it's like, alright, I guess they just killed millions of people.

[38:15] And G.I. Joe...

[38:16] We're not really talking about that for the rest of the film.

[38:18] And that's when G.I. Joe strikes.

[38:20] Yeah.

[38:21] And...

Stuart Wellington

[38:22] Well, you gotta wait until one country's exploded.

Elliott Kalan

[38:24] And as Dan said while we were watching, they couldn't have done it before...

[38:27] It'd be in time to save London.

[38:29] Well, they gotta draw first blood.

[38:31] You don't want to go in...

Dan McCoy

[38:32] Yeah, you need to be able to accuse them of something.

Elliott Kalan

[38:34] Yeah, justifiable.

[38:35] I don't even think the British Prime Minister, who I assume is there as a nuclear weapon holding country,

[38:41] even cares that much.

[38:42] Yeah.

[38:43] But London is...

[38:43] There's no woman...

[38:44] You would imagine you would be in tears.

[38:45] Yeah.

[38:46] My entire family!

[38:47] Everyone I know is dead.

[38:48] So much history.

[38:49] Oh, God.

Elliott Kalan

[38:49] The Queen.

[38:50] Oh, Lord.

[38:51] My whole culture.

[38:52] He's just like, what?

[38:54] Come on, man.

[38:57] So Cobra Commander says, we'll launch these satellites at everybody.

[39:00] Well, these satellites are already automatically launched.

[39:03] So, but we'll only stop them if you give me total allegiance.

[39:06] The Joes attack.

[39:08] There's a bunch of explosions.

[39:09] It's a really...

[39:09] Storm Shadow, it turns out he's with the heroes, which we already knew.

[39:14] So he, again, rather than...

[39:15] Yeah, why didn't he save London?

[39:17] The plan involves Storm Shadow getting the president and taking the nuclear suitcase, but

[39:24] he waits until after the nuclear missiles are launched, disarmed, and London is destroyed

[39:28] before he decides to break out his part of the planet.

Stuart Wellington

[39:31] By these satellites that were shot into space, how?

Elliott Kalan

[39:35] This all must have happened while Cobra Commander was in his tube.

[39:38] So did he set up this plan ahead of time, or have they been doing it without his supervision?

[39:43] And here's the thing.

[39:45] Zartan is the president.

[39:47] Zaytunes.

[39:48] Zaytunes.

[39:50] Zatarans.

[39:52] Look, Zingbat is...

[39:55] Ziggy.

[39:56] Ziggy.

[39:56] How much better would it be if Ziggy had impersonated the president, and he just can't get anything

[40:00] to work for him?

[40:01] Can't get a break.

[40:02] Can't catch a break.

[40:03] Ziggy, uh...

[40:05] Actually, he's just President Ziggy.

[40:06] Forget about impersonating.

[40:07] President Ziggy, you got that peace summit coming up with the Russians?

[40:11] Oh boy, I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[40:14] Vice President Parrot isn't giving me any respect.

Elliott Kalan

[40:16] Vice President...

[40:17] Well, it would be Vice President Silent Dog who looks kind of like Ziggy, and it would

[40:22] be the leader of the opposition would be that sassy parrot, like the Republican leader

[40:26] is the sassy parrot.

Stuart Wellington

[40:27] The complaint office is closed by executive order.

Dan McCoy

[40:31] Let's see how they like it.

Elliott Kalan

[40:33] Uh...

[40:34] So that all happens.

[40:36] Of course, Wallace Shawn plays Ziggy, President Ziggy.

[40:38] So that's the sequel to Ziggy, the movie I pitched five years ago.

Dan McCoy

[40:41] The sequel's called Ziggy in Chief.

Elliott Kalan

[40:44] Yeah, okay.

[40:44] Ziggy in Chief, I can say that.

[40:45] What about, uh, Hail to the Zig?

[40:47] Sure.

[40:47] Fuck Ziggy in Chief.

[40:48] It's called Hail to the...

[40:49] No, no.

[40:49] The tagline is Hail to the Zig.

[40:51] Mm-hmm.

[40:52] Here's...

[40:52] Okay.

[40:53] Here's the trailer.

[40:54] So...

[40:55] Commander in Grief.

[40:56] Here's the trailer.

[41:00] Commander in Y-Me.

[41:01] So here's the trailer.

[41:02] You see news stories of, like, terror attack at such and such, Russia invading Crimea,

[41:07] da-da-da, all these problems, all these problems.

[41:09] And then you just see a shot at the White House and, like, an aide rushing through the

[41:13] hallway.

[41:13] And he slaps a file on the president's desk.

[41:15] Of course, the chair is turned with his back to us.

[41:18] He slaps a file on the desk.

[41:19] Sir, we've got a crisis on our hands.

[41:21] The chair turns...

[41:22] Bass drop.

[41:23] Bass drop.

[41:24] It's Ziggy in the chair and he goes, why me?

[41:27] And then cue rap music.

[41:29] And then it's, like, shots of Ziggy, I guess, like...

Dan McCoy

[41:31] It takes two to make a thing go.

Elliott Kalan

[41:33] Wow, Rob Bass.

[41:34] I never thought being the president would be so difficult.

[41:37] But there's also, like, a sexy, like, speaker of the house that Ziggy's gonna flirt with.

[41:43] And then...

[41:43] And then at the end it says, Hail to the Zig.

[41:46] Mm-hmm.

[41:47] Ziggy in Chief, Hail to the Zig.

[41:48] This summer, Hail to the Zig.

[41:50] But anyway, that's a different movie.

[41:52] That's not G.I. Joe.

[41:53] Retaliation.

[41:55] So the point is, Cobra's plan is crushed almost instantly as soon as these four Joes get into

[42:00] action.

[42:00] And these four Joes, again, are The Rock, Lady J, this guy Flint, who has no charisma personality,

[42:06] and old Bruce Willis.

[42:08] Yeah.

[42:08] And Snake Eyes.

[42:09] And Snake Eyes.

Stuart Wellington

[42:10] Who walks down a flight of stairs just firing Uzis.

Elliott Kalan

[42:13] Just firing Uzis in the air.

[42:15] I guess probably killing some presidential aides.

[42:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:18] And a couple of the leaders of those other nations.

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] And I love...

[42:22] My favorite moment, also this...

[42:24] And Lady J...

[42:24] Actually, that's bullshit.

Stuart Wellington

[42:25] He can shoot Shuriken out of the air.

[42:27] He won't shoot anybody he doesn't want to shoot.

Elliott Kalan

[42:28] He's Boosies that fire Shurikens, probably.

[42:30] Probably.

[42:30] It's like that Ninja Turtles pizza shooter guy that shot those plastic discs.

[42:35] What a delicious way to die.

[42:39] I used a pizza bullet.

[42:41] That way there's no evidence.

[42:43] I ate the evidence.

[42:44] The victim devoured his own means of death.

[42:45] They just think he ate some pizza.

[42:49] And his kidney.

[42:51] They thought he ate pizza in the head.

[42:55] That's the only way he eats pizza.

[42:58] Hold on.

[42:59] Let me figure this out.

[43:00] Policeman picks up pizza slice, spits into mouth.

[43:02] Yep.

[43:03] This is how we do it.

[43:04] All right.

[43:06] So...

[43:06] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[43:06] It was in his forehead.

[43:07] It migrated.

Elliott Kalan

[43:09] But the best part of this plan is that Cobra Commander is so cocky that he has the Cobra

[43:13] flag pulled up the flagpole at the White House and two big Cobra banners are dropped.

[43:18] They're just waiting for the sign.

[43:19] And it's like, one, when do they print those banners up?

[43:23] Joanne Fabrics must have been slammed that day when they bought all that stuff.

[43:26] I need them by next Tuesday.

[43:30] 40 foot banners with this terrorist insignia on it.

[43:33] I don't know what we should do.

[43:34] I'll pay you extra.

[43:35] Just rush the order.

[43:38] We got a lot of print jobs.

[43:39] Please.

[43:40] I have a plan.

[43:41] This is very important.

[43:42] And so...

[43:43] And what's great is that Cobra's not even at the...

[43:45] Cobra banners not at the White House when they do this.

[43:47] So I guess he's just imagining what it's going to look like.

[43:50] And then since the Joes defeat them almost instantly, I guess the Cobra operatives at the

[43:56] White House just give up and take the banners down.

Stuart Wellington

[43:59] We got to hold on to this.

[44:00] No, no, no, no.

[44:00] We were on your side the whole time.

[44:03] We did this as a gag.

[44:04] We're double agents just like Snow Baby.

[44:06] That's why we didn't...

Elliott Kalan

[44:07] Snow Baby.

[44:10] Snow Baby would be such a great name for a character.

[44:14] So anyway, the Joes win.

[44:16] They kill everybody in a long action sequence that is not choreographed very well.

[44:20] Surprise, surprise.

Stuart Wellington

[44:22] There's this great scene of the rock driving something around.

Elliott Kalan

[44:26] The rock drives around this tank.

Stuart Wellington

[44:27] Driving like a tank dune buggy.

Elliott Kalan

[44:29] That fires missiles, but not before he gets in a fan boat chase with a firefly.

[44:34] Because of course you've got to be in a fan boat.

[44:36] Why?

[44:36] Why not?

[44:37] Because he's a Cajun, I guess.

[44:39] And he manages to get the Cobra briefcase and hit the abort button in time to stop the

[44:44] satellites from destroying other cities.

[44:45] But the abort button also blows up all the satellites, which seems like a weird feature

[44:49] to build into your death weapon.

Stuart Wellington

[44:52] Yep.

[44:52] And then the satellites rain down on the planet.

Elliott Kalan

[44:55] And Cobra Commander escapes in a helicopter, never to be seen again.

[44:59] I bet there was an after credits sequence and we just didn't even wait for it.

[45:01] Yeah, we didn't bother.

[45:02] That probably a Cobra Commander like meeting with Nick Fury or something like that.

[45:05] Yeah, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[45:06] Or a scene of Bruce Willis' wife finding all these guns on accident.

Elliott Kalan

[45:10] You know what it was?

[45:11] Honey!

[45:12] I bet it was you go through the wreckage of the base and you go to the tube that Destro's

[45:16] in and like Destro opens his eyes and then smiles.

Dan McCoy

[45:19] There's so many options.

[45:20] We're going to have to watch this when we get in.

Elliott Kalan

[45:21] We've got to watch the whole movie over again.

[45:23] No, we just...

[45:24] It's on Netflix, guys.

[45:26] No, no.

[45:27] We've got to watch the whole movie over again to see it in contact.

[45:28] So the president has been saved.

[45:30] The Joes have been cleared.

[45:32] They all get medals.

[45:33] And Snake Eyes is still in his ninja full body with helmet outfit and he's getting a medal,

[45:38] which is weird.

[45:40] And it's just weird that Snake Eyes is like a well-known guy and he just walks around in

[45:45] his full armor.

[45:46] That was a cool dude.

[45:47] Snake Eyes.

[45:48] I know that guy.

[45:49] It's a well-known guy.

Stuart Wellington

[45:50] He's a well-known member of the, what, Arishikage ninja squad or whatever?

Elliott Kalan

[45:54] This famous ninja squad led by...

[45:56] Anyway, but it doesn't work.

[45:56] And so...

[45:58] And Bruce Willis gives...

[46:00] He has one of George Patton's pistols.

[46:02] He gives it to...

[46:03] Dwayne The Rock Johnson says, for when you catch up with Cobra Commander.

[46:06] Because I guess Cobra Commander killed Patton?

[46:09] I don't know why.

[46:10] Somehow that's revenge for something.

Stuart Wellington

[46:11] Yeah, I guess he's giving him the license to kill.

Elliott Kalan

[46:15] And in...

[46:15] This is my second favorite moment in the movie.

[46:17] The last shot of the movie, literally, is Dwayne The Rock Johnson after just having a

[46:22] medal pinned on him by Bruce Willis in the presence of the president.

[46:26] And this is appearing live on television.

[46:28] Just points the Patton pistol at the sky and fires.

[46:32] And it's like, one...

Dan McCoy

[46:34] This isn't Fourth of July.

Elliott Kalan

[46:35] This is one...

[46:36] So Bruce Willis is just carrying around a loaded gun in a velvet-lined case all this

[46:39] time.

[46:39] Usually historical memorabilia guns are not loaded, but...

[46:42] I thought he pulled the ammunition out of the box.

[46:46] Oh, did he?

[46:47] I missed that then.

[46:48] If that's the case, he still...

[46:49] He just fired a loaded weapon...

[46:50] You'll allow it?

[46:51] I'll allow it then.

[46:52] He fired a loaded weapon just in the presence of the president, which is kind of against the

[46:57] rules, I'm guessing.

Dan McCoy

[46:59] Yeah.

[47:00] So, but...

[47:01] End of movie.

[47:02] Ready for G.I. Joe 3D.

[47:03] Yeah.

[47:04] Rock and metal tune.

[47:05] Probably a couple of after credits.

[47:06] No, it goes straight to How You Like Me Now.

[47:08] Oh, that's right.

Stuart Wellington

[47:09] Yeah, the most bland credits music you could think of.

[47:12] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:12] And the credits are just showing us scenes from the movie.

[47:15] Scenes from a mall.

[47:17] Scenes from a marriage.

[47:17] For some reason, it's a montage of scenes from a mall with, what was it, Woody Allen and

[47:22] Bette Midler?

[47:23] Yeah.

[47:24] And a mine.

[47:24] And then scenes from a marriage with Liv Ullman, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:28] Is it Liv Ullman in scenes from a marriage?

[47:29] Yes, I think so.

[47:31] So let's go directly to Final Judgments.

[47:34] Was this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked?

[47:37] Elliot, what do you have to say about this?

Elliott Kalan

[47:38] It like, it's just such a bland, kind of dull movie.

[47:41] I wanted it to be a good, bad movie.

[47:43] And there are moments when it was like, oh, here's the good, bad movie.

[47:45] It could have been.

[47:46] But it wasn't even like, didn't even reach the level of bad, bad movie.

[47:49] It's just kind of like, there, you know?

[47:52] Yeah.

[47:52] It's kind of like trying to judge like, a piece of wood you see in the street.

[47:56] Like, I guess it's there.

[47:57] I can't deny it exists.

Stuart Wellington

[47:58] You can't say that's a good, bad piece of wood.

Elliott Kalan

[48:00] No, seeing it, I can't.

[48:02] As pieces of wood go, it's fine.

[48:03] It's just there.

[48:04] I know it's, I mean, there's no way to, it's just lying there, doing nothing.

[48:07] Yeah.

[48:08] And seeing as I watched a little bit of Tangling Cash on TV today, which really showed

[48:13] me what a good, bad movie could be, this didn't.

[48:16] Yeah, I thought that mostly it was a bad, bad movie.

Dan McCoy

[48:20] The good, bad sequence in it, as I said, that I liked the most was when Jonathan Pryce

[48:25] had his plan, which was just counting on the fact that if he unleashed a bunch of nukes,

[48:31] everyone else would follow suit.

[48:32] And then if he disarmed the nukes, everyone else would follow suit.

[48:35] And then there were no more nukes in the world after that.

[48:38] There's this great moment where everyone's disarmed their nukes.

Stuart Wellington

[48:40] He's a student of human beings.

Elliott Kalan

[48:42] Yeah.

[48:43] Zartan must know people in order to become them.

[48:45] There's, everyone's destroyed their nukes except North Korea.

[48:48] And they're like, North Korea.

[48:51] And the North Korean guy's like, mm, okay, and turns them off.

[48:55] And it's like this weird peer pressure moment.

[49:00] Yeah.

[49:00] Like if this movie had, if you could accurately encapsulate this movie by the Cobra banners

[49:05] being unveiled at the White House, then it would have been a good, bad movie.

[49:09] Or even a movie I kind of liked, but it's not.

Stuart Wellington

[49:11] Stuart.

[49:11] Yeah.

[49:11] I mean, I think we are all agreeing it's a bad, bad movie.

[49:15] And I feel like when I saw the trailers, I thought maybe this could be either a movie I kind of liked

[49:21] or maybe even a good, bad movie.

[49:22] But it feels like the entire movie was just cut to be trailers.

[49:26] Yeah.

[49:27] Like everything's so rapidly cut.

[49:29] It's just, yeah, it's so bland.

Elliott Kalan

[49:31] Yeah, it feels like they built the trailer first and then they built the movie out of trailer parts.

Dan McCoy

[49:36] Yeah.

[49:38] So we have a sponsor again this week.

[49:40] This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy

[49:46] to create your own professional website, portfolio, and online store.

[49:52] For a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com slash flophouse and enter offer code FLOPHOUSE at checkout.

Elliott Kalan

[50:01] Ironically, Squarespace, not a space for squares.

[50:03] No.

Dan McCoy

[50:04] It's for cool people.

[50:05] It's for cool dudes like you.

Elliott Kalan

[50:07] You know.

[50:08] Don't pander.

Dan McCoy

[50:09] All right.

[50:10] Don't want to say that.

[50:12] We've said before, look, if you're living in this modern world and you don't have a website.

[50:16] Tom Tomorrow's Comics.

[50:17] What's going on?

[50:18] What's happening?

[50:20] You need a website.

Elliott Kalan

[50:21] It's the 21st century.

[50:22] You need a website, Tommy.

[50:23] Start your website.

[50:24] I don't care what it is.

[50:25] Maybe it's part of the Morgan Fairchild fan ring.

[50:29] Sure.

[50:29] Just put it up.

[50:30] Put up your website.

[50:31] Yeah.

[50:31] What are you waiting for?

[50:32] You waiting for someone else to put up your website for you?

Stuart Wellington

[50:34] The guy who started aquafan.com got a website.

Dan McCoy

[50:37] Yeah.

[50:38] Come on.

[50:38] Squarespace makes it easy with beautiful designs, with drag-and-drop content, with 24-7 support

[50:45] via live chat and email.

[50:48] Dragons.

[50:49] And plans start at a mere $8 a month, including a free domain name if you sign up for a year.

[50:55] Usually, you've got to buy those things separately, hosting and domain.

[50:58] And it also has responsive design.

[51:01] That means that if you're looking at it on a mobile device, like a phone or a tablet, it

[51:06] will reconfigure for you.

[51:09] So why don't you start a trial with no credit card required and build your website today.

[51:14] Go to, again, squarespace.com slash flophouse and enter flophouse to get 10% off your first

[51:21] purchase.

[51:22] And to show your support for us, the Flophouse.

[51:26] Flophouse.

Elliott Kalan

[51:26] And you know what else you don't know to do with your website that you're getting from

[51:28] Squarespace?

[51:29] Make it a Flophouse fan site.

Stuart Wellington

[51:30] Yeah, why not?

[51:31] Come on, guys.

[51:33] There aren't enough of those out there, right?

[51:34] Pump up the jams.

[51:35] Not yet.

[51:35] There'll never be enough.

[51:37] As Dan said.

[51:38] Don't know how to apply it.

[51:38] Straight from the ad copy.

[51:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:42] Make sure you say pump up the jams in the ad.

[51:44] They'll understand.

[51:49] Anyway, Stuart, I believe you had something you wanted to say.

Stuart Wellington

[51:51] Yeah.

[51:52] I know you guys are trying to put on a brave face.

[51:56] I guess we are.

[51:57] We got to let everybody know that the Flophouse is in trouble.

[52:00] We are coming up on our busy season, the summertime.

[52:05] And I don't know if you guys have been reading the paper, but local land developer Reginald

[52:11] Bucksworth.

[52:12] No.

[52:13] That asshole.

[52:14] Yeah, that asshole.

[52:14] Pardon my language.

[52:15] I just, you know.

[52:15] Brooklyn land developer Reginald Bucksworth is planning on demolishing the Flophouse.

[52:21] No.

[52:21] To make way for some fucking condos or something.

Dan McCoy

[52:24] No, but that's where the kids hang out.

[52:25] And you know what I don't like about that Reginald Bucksworth guy?

[52:28] His snootiness.

[52:29] He's the snootiest guy.

Elliott Kalan

[52:32] And, you know, we...

[52:32] Always wearing his white suit and driving around in the back of his Lincoln Town car.

Stuart Wellington

[52:35] We tried to do some bikinis optional Jeep tours around Brooklyn, but it was just so expensive.

Elliott Kalan

[52:41] And frankly, it's weird to drive and do a Jeep tour around Brooklyn.

Stuart Wellington

[52:44] Exactly.

[52:44] It's too slow.

[52:45] And when we said bikinis optional, too many people just chose not to wear a bikini and

[52:49] wore their normal clothes.

[52:50] Yeah.

[52:51] And that was kind of a bummer.

Elliott Kalan

[52:52] And the breakdance competition we thought would save it, we forgot and put Dan Nones McCoy

[52:57] in as our contestant.

[52:58] And I broke my dance.

Stuart Wellington

[53:01] Oh, boy.

[53:03] So you, the listeners, can actually help us save the Flophouse.

[53:08] Hashtag save the Flophouse.

[53:11] By contributing, you need to go to astoymerchandise.com and buy a t-shirt that says the Flophouse on

[53:21] it has our faces to show your support and show that you're standing up against snooty ass

[53:25] wipes like Reginald Bucksworth.

[53:26] Like Reginald Bucksworth.

[53:27] The third.

[53:28] They're 25 bucks and it'll make you look like you are a courageous, brave, G.I. Joe style

[53:35] human being.

Elliott Kalan

[53:36] Wow.

[53:36] That's quite a lot of pressure to put on a t-shirt, but these t-shirts can hold up to it.

Dan McCoy

[53:41] But now, now that the business has been taken care of.

[53:44] And business is good.

[53:45] We can, okay, move on to a little interactive segment with you, the listener, that we call

[53:53] what we call the Flophouse makes love to you.

[53:58] Sit around while you try and call in, I guess.

[54:00] We're outside your home.

[54:02] Unlock your door.

[54:03] We're coming in.

[54:04] No, this is Letters from Listeners.

[54:06] Oh, the Letters segment.

Elliott Kalan

[54:08] Phew.

[54:09] What a relief.

[54:10] It was only the letters, not Dan sexually harassing the listeners.

[54:15] Listeners write in, reprimand Dan.

[54:18] Dan can't do that.

[54:19] It's not okay.

[54:21] No means no, Dan.

[54:22] No means no.

[54:23] Even if that no is written in a letter from a listener harassed by Dan.

[54:31] Letters is brought to you by Dan's restraining order.

[54:35] Thank you, Elliot.

[54:36] If you see Dan, report him to a cop.

Dan McCoy

[54:40] This first letter.

[54:43] Thank you for that Foley.

[54:46] That James Foley.

Stuart Wellington

[54:47] This is James Foley.

[54:50] That's not even a kid in the hall.

Dan McCoy

[54:52] This is titled Spooktacular Flophouse Dream.

[54:58] I like the pronunciation of that.

[55:01] Dear Dan and Dudes, I kind of had a dream.

[55:05] I've been upgraded to dude.

[55:06] I kind of had a dream that featured you guys last night.

[55:09] Creepy, right?

[55:11] The original Peaches, the house cat and I had to spend a night in Dracula's house for a million dollars.

Elliott Kalan

[55:16] Wait, so not Dracula's castle, his house?

Dan McCoy

[55:18] Well, literally.

[55:18] Was it like a bungalow?

[55:19] Literally his next sentence.

[55:21] It wasn't a castle.

[55:22] It was a house.

[55:23] Pretty nice though.

[55:24] It's like a ranch style?

[55:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:25] It was an open floor ranch house.

[55:28] You know, Frank Lloyd Wright style.

Dan McCoy

[55:29] Dracula woke up and he was pretty angry.

Elliott Kalan

[55:31] Wait, so we were spending the night but Dracula didn't know we were there?

Dan McCoy

[55:36] I asked him what he dreamt about and he replied, sounding a lot like Elliot, poison as always.

[55:43] A spectacular melee ensued.

[55:45] How do you defeat Dracula?

[55:47] You put him in a sleeping bag and beat the shit out of him.

[55:50] Thanks for the laughs and the spookily good bad dream.

[55:54] That's Auntie, last name withheld from Finland.

Elliott Kalan

[55:56] Well, thank you for listening and for dreaming about us, I guess, and having the single wussiest Dracula, I think, ever in history in your dream.

[56:06] So I like to think this is a retired Dracula living in like Taos or something.

Dan McCoy

[56:10] Yeah, this is like the gay bad Dracula who's just...

[56:13] Oh, gay bat Dracula.

[56:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:14] From...

[56:15] From Food Fight.

[56:16] At least I said gay bad Dracula and I don't know what that means.

[56:19] From Dracula...

Stuart Wellington

[56:20] That's Frankenstein insulting Dracula.

[56:23] Yeah.

[56:24] I mean Frankenstein's a monster.

[56:25] Gay bad Dracula.

Elliott Kalan

[56:26] Dr. Frankenstein would run in fear from Dracula.

[56:30] Unless it's like Dr. Frankenstein is sitting there and he can insult Dracula because there's monsters right behind him.

Stuart Wellington

[56:35] Do you just call him Doc Frankenstein?

[56:37] Like you're like his...

[56:38] Maybe.

[56:38] Like his intern or something?

Elliott Kalan

[56:40] Well, we'll check the tape later.

[56:41] It's like a My Bodyguard type situation.

Dan McCoy

[56:44] Yeah.

[56:46] And Igor's like, Dr. Frankenstein, come on.

[56:49] Calling someone gay is an insult?

[56:51] That's no good.

[56:51] That's offensive.

[56:52] Yeah.

[56:53] Next you're gonna make fun of my hump.

[56:55] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:55] Let's wrap.

[56:56] Mummy, can you talk about how Dr. Frankenstein has offended you today?

[57:01] The mummy says nothing.

Stuart Wellington

[57:02] No.

[57:02] The mummy does not talk.

[57:04] Only the voice of ages coming from his sandy mum.

[57:07] He opens his mouth and just a bunch of scarabs fly out.

Dan McCoy

[57:11] So I hope that answers your question that you didn't ask.

[57:15] What a mummy sounds like.

[57:17] So this next letter is titled, Everyone Needs a Second Chance.

[57:21] Dear Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello, you know who is who.

[57:25] We do, yeah.

[57:26] I'm 34 years old and have been a loyal listener to the Flop House for over 20 years.

[57:31] Your loyalty will be rewarded.

[57:33] I've never had the courage to send in a question, but fortune favors the seized day, so here goes.

[57:41] Is there a movie that you disliked on first viewing, but it had just enough to warrant a second viewing, and you subsequently came away from that viewing actually liking the movie?

[57:49] In my case, it was The Hobbit.

[57:51] I hated it the first time, but upon seeing it a second time, I enjoyed it.

[57:54] 15 minutes singing and dishwashing sequence included.

[57:58] Sincerely, Jesse, last name withheld.

[58:00] Well, I'll speak real quickly about The Hobbit, because I actually like it.

Stuart Wellington

[58:05] I feel like that's a movie that definitely rewards seeing at home, when you can just sit down and take pee breaks and whatnot.

[58:12] I feel like when all those movies, people seem to complain a lot about the length, but I feel like when all three of them are out,

[58:18] or people can watch all three of them at home, people will just binge watch them like a fucking TV show

[58:23] and won't complain about how long they are anymore.

[58:26] To actually answer your question, I kind of felt that way about Scott Pilgrim.

[58:31] The first time I saw it, I didn't really like it, but second viewing, I liked it a lot.

Dan McCoy

[58:36] I would say the thing that came to mind when reading this is a movie that I actually liked the first time,

[58:43] but didn't love, and that was Miller's Crossing.

[58:46] The first time I saw it, you know, I kind of, it was enjoyable, but it felt very surfacy to me,

[58:53] and I, of course, didn't follow the plot, because it's notoriously intricate,

[58:59] but the second time, when I kind of knew all the ins and outs of it,

[59:03] I could focus on the levels of emotion that actually do exist in that movie,

[59:08] but aren't necessarily like right on the surface, and now it's actually one of my most highly rated Coen Brothers movies.

Elliott Kalan

[59:19] What do you?

[59:20] It's hard for me to think of one, but this is not quite the same, but I think I would say probably Dirty Dancing,

[59:28] because when I watched it when I was younger, I did not like it,

[59:32] but it was a big favorite of my wife's when she was growing up,

[59:35] and she really likes it.

[59:36] And you're watching it through her eyes now.

[59:37] Exactly.

[59:38] Like, seeing it through her eyes, I can see things in it that I didn't see before that are enjoyable,

[59:42] and there are things about it that, like, the, like, 60s Jewish Borscht Belt, like, Adirondacks Resort locale,

[59:50] which I didn't know anything about when I was growing up,

[59:52] knowing some of that history, like, I appreciate the movie a little bit more.

Stuart Wellington

[59:56] You like it because you like history.

Elliott Kalan

[59:59] Well, no, but it's a setting that, like, where I can see, like, oh, I understand totally the setting they were recreating,

[1:00:05] and, like, what a good portrait it is of that type of place,

[1:00:08] whereas when I was a kid, I was like, I don't know what they're doing or where they're going, so.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:11] I don't like dancing, let alone dirty dancing.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:13] The cleaner the better, please.

[1:00:15] Well, I have to say, like, I'm not a particular fan of dirty dancing,

[1:00:18] but having this, having last summer gone to your house and watched it in your backyard,

[1:00:26] projected on a sheet for your wife's birthday, I really enjoyed it.

[1:00:33] In that context, also seeing it, I guess, through your wife's eyes.

[1:00:37] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:38] I mean, it helped me get over the fact that I hate that I had the time of my life song,

[1:00:41] which also is forever associated in my mind with Chuck E. Cheese.

[1:00:45] Because you had the time of your life at Chuck E. Cheese.

[1:00:48] When I was a kid, we would have birthdays at Chuck E. Cheese, and it seemed they always played that song,

[1:00:53] because I guess dirty dancing had just come out.

[1:00:54] But anyway.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:57] This next letter is titled, The Deep Psy Cause.

[1:01:00] Or should I say, Dear Smelliet Killen, Boort Skellington, and Dan Macabra.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:06] Why is my scary name Smelliet?

[1:01:09] Like, unless it's the smell of a rotting corpse.

[1:01:11] I don't understand why.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:12] This letter was written during Shocktober.

[1:01:15] Sorry, Dan, I couldn't remember your Shocktober moniker, so I made one up.

[1:01:18] I've noticed you often criticize the movie by saying it suffered from bad screenwriting rather than bad directing,

[1:01:23] and vice versa.

[1:01:25] How do you make such a distinction?

[1:01:26] Is it based solely on poor dialogue, or are there other indicators?

[1:01:30] Since this question is mostly aimed at Elliot, I've prepared additional questions for Dan and Stuart to answer as well.

[1:01:38] Stuart, what is the Flophouse Housecats party drug cocktail of choice?

[1:01:42] Or is the Housecat teetotaling Popeyes addict like Elliot?

[1:01:48] Dan, if you could eat any fake food from a movie or television show, what would you choose?

[1:01:53] Examples include Slurm from Futurama, Krabby Patties from Spongebob Squarepants.

[1:01:59] Spongebob.

[1:02:00] Spongebob's mom.

[1:02:02] Spongebob's.

[1:02:03] Short for Spongebob.

[1:02:05] Or dehydrated Pizza Hut from Back to the Future Part 2.

[1:02:08] Thanks.

[1:02:08] Keep up the good flopping.

[1:02:09] Sincerely, Kate, last name withheld.

[1:02:11] P.S.

[1:02:11] I just wanted to mention that I, like Dan, suffer from a deep sigh affliction.

[1:02:16] For years, my parents, bosses, friends, and teachers have thought I was expressing exasperation

[1:02:20] when I was actually just breathing.

[1:02:22] I'm glad that us deep siers finally have Dan to bring awareness of a necessary deep sighing to the world.

[1:02:28] So I guess you are entirely responsible for the substance of this letter and we have this silly...

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:33] So it's kind of how do you tell when it's bad writing or bad directing?

[1:02:36] Yeah.

[1:02:37] I think it's not so much dialogue is maybe a part of it, but like storytelling structure and

[1:02:42] how the plot moves or fits together or how the characters are developed seems like more

[1:02:47] of a writing thing.

[1:02:47] The director affects that, but that's more the underlying script, whereas like the style

[1:02:53] of a movie...

[1:02:55] Like you can have a movie that makes no sense, the characters are really thin, but the style

[1:02:58] is really cool.

[1:02:59] And that's the good direction, bad script.

[1:03:02] Or you could have a movie that's really blandly shot.

[1:03:05] Maybe the performances are not so strong.

[1:03:07] It's not paced quite right, but there's...

[1:03:09] Give me an example.

[1:03:11] Off the top of my head, it's hard to think of a movie that's well written and poorly directed

[1:03:16] because those tend to just come out bad anyway.

[1:03:19] Yeah.

[1:03:19] Like a bad...

[1:03:20] It's an old saying that I am not taking credit for that a good director can save a bad script,

[1:03:25] but a good writer cannot save a bad director.

[1:03:28] That like the director has the final imprint and you're watching it.

[1:03:32] It's a visual movie.

[1:03:33] So a really stylish and well shot movie or well edited or excitingly paced movie that has

[1:03:38] a crappy script can still be enjoyable, but it's rare for...

[1:03:42] But a director can really sink a good script.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:44] Yeah.

[1:03:44] I mean, there's a lot of these scripts that are on the blacklist or whatever that end

[1:03:50] up being made into movies and end up being shitty.

[1:03:52] Terrible.

[1:03:52] Yeah.

[1:03:52] Like Suspect Zero.

[1:03:54] Was that the movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:55] I don't know, but like The Beaver was one that was on one of those.

[1:03:58] Like a lot of those blacklist scripts, maybe there's something in the script that just

[1:04:03] doesn't come through, that is mangled in translation of the screen.

[1:04:07] But you can find...

[1:04:09] Sometimes there's like a really well written scene in an otherwise not particularly interesting

[1:04:14] movie and I like to think that that's a little bit of a better screenplay coming through.

[1:04:19] But hard for me to come up with an example off the top of my head.

[1:04:21] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:23] To answer your question, well, I mean, the house cat is a big beer guy.

[1:04:27] He drinks a lot of beer and that's going to catch up with him later in life when he's...

[1:04:30] Is he maybe a silver bullet man?

[1:04:32] Oh, well, yeah.

[1:04:33] I mean, he likes cheap beer.

[1:04:34] For a while, he drank a lot of Four Loko when he was a pitch man for that product.

[1:04:39] Yeah.

[1:04:39] I don't know that short lives.

[1:04:40] Yeah.

[1:04:41] And he, you know...

Dan McCoy

[1:04:42] He would go into bars and start parties.

[1:04:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:44] If he's at a...

[1:04:45] You know, he likes his Jager bombs.

[1:04:48] I was trying to speak of the parlance of...

[1:04:50] That's...

[1:04:51] Yeah.

[1:04:51] And if he's at a nice dinner or a dinner party, he usually drinks like an oyster stout.

[1:04:57] Okay.

[1:04:58] Because the seafood, he's a cat, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:00] And if I was going to eat any...

[1:05:03] Soylent Green.

[1:05:04] That's what I was going to say.

[1:05:05] Of course.

[1:05:08] So...

[1:05:09] That's what you...

[1:05:09] You need to come up with another one real quick.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:11] So if you could have any movie food, you'd have processed human corpses.

[1:05:14] Yeah.

[1:05:15] I mean...

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:15] You'd have imaginary dessert from Hook.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:18] Yeah.

[1:05:19] Hang on.

[1:05:20] Hold on.

[1:05:21] Maybe I would...

[1:05:22] Maybe I would have that lickable wallpaper from the Willy Wonka.

[1:05:26] Okay.

[1:05:27] Yeah.

[1:05:27] Willy Wonka.

[1:05:27] That's a pretty safe one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:29] You wouldn't...

[1:05:30] Because I imagined you were going to say the sushi that was on the nude woman in Rising Sun.

[1:05:33] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:34] It's not an imaginary food.

[1:05:36] That's a food that exists.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:37] I have trouble believing that actually exists.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:41] So last letter.

[1:05:44] It goes like this.

[1:05:45] Sorry that I took your...

[1:05:45] No.

[1:05:46] No.

[1:05:46] It's fine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:46] I said it as a joke.

[1:05:47] Not thinking you were going to reveal you had a cannibal inside you.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:50] No.

[1:05:51] I mean the whole bit was going to be that I didn't know what Soylent Green was.

[1:05:54] Well, I ruined your plan.

[1:05:55] Oh.

[1:05:55] Okay.

[1:05:55] That's good.

[1:05:55] Okay.

[1:05:56] Yeah.

[1:05:56] That would have taken time.

[1:05:57] Anyway, keep moving.

[1:05:59] So the next letter and last letter goes like this.

[1:06:03] Hey, Floppers.

[1:06:03] Last letter.

[1:06:04] I've been going through your back catalog.

[1:06:06] Finish it.

[1:06:07] Most impressive.

[1:06:08] And I had a couple of thoughts.

[1:06:09] Wall-less letter reading.

[1:06:11] Number one.

[1:06:12] Do you know your multi-episode guest host and Elliot replacer Brock something?

[1:06:16] Brock Handlebar, maybe?

[1:06:18] Yeah, Brock...

[1:06:19] No, Brock Mahan.

[1:06:20] Not Brock Handlebar.

[1:06:21] When I first heard him on an old episode, I was certain that Mr. Handlebar,

[1:06:26] was actually Elliot doing a voice.

[1:06:27] I figured that Elliot had picked the obviously fake name Brock so he could do some sort of

[1:06:32] bit where he finally got to act all manly.

[1:06:34] Brock Mahan.

[1:06:35] But as the episode went on, Brock didn't do anything particularly manly.

[1:06:38] Whoa.

[1:06:39] I thought he might threaten to lift you up by your undies, Dan, or at least challenge Stuart

[1:06:42] to arm wrestling.

[1:06:43] Maybe he'd talk about eating beef burgers, but nothing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:46] Brock is actually a vegetarian, too.

[1:06:48] That's the weird thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:49] Why did Elliot pick Brock Handlebar if he wasn't going to use the opportunity to talk

[1:06:53] about doing wheelies and to steal Dan's computer?

[1:06:55] Lame.

[1:06:56] I realized, though, when Brock returned that he probably isn't a character.

[1:06:59] But then they made a movie about the clumps, so even baffling characters can get sequels.

[1:07:04] What?

[1:07:06] Anywho, the takeaways are, A, tell Brock, character man, that he's a walking missed opportunity,

[1:07:11] but that he can fix that still.

[1:07:12] And B, Elliot, I think he could sound like Brock if you wanted to.

[1:07:16] You should stick with classic Elliot, though.

[1:07:18] Number two.

[1:07:18] Thanks.

[1:07:20] Apparently Stuart sounding like Seth Rogen is a thing.

[1:07:23] I don't see it.

[1:07:24] What I have seen from the first episode I listened to is that...

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:26] We've established with the Brock-Elliot comparison, this person's ears do not work properly.

[1:07:33] Letter writer, I apologize.

[1:07:34] Get your ears checked out.

[1:07:35] That's fair.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:35] You may have used a Q-tip a little too far in.

[1:07:38] From the first episode I listened to is that Dan sounds like Martin Starr.

[1:07:42] What a coincidence.

[1:07:44] I think that you should push the idea that Elliot...

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:45] That's why I read this letter.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:47] That Elliot also sounds like...

[1:07:48] I mean, it's not a compliment, necessarily.

[1:07:50] Elliot also sounds like a Freaks and Geeks cast member.

[1:07:52] Then you guys could role-play for classic episodes or make up your own.

[1:07:56] The obvious choice for Elliot is Franco.

[1:07:58] I don't think that's true.

[1:07:59] James Franco.

[1:08:00] But if he's not comfortable with that, Sam Levine could work, too.

[1:08:03] Sam Levine is obvious.

[1:08:04] Yeah, that's an obvious one.

[1:08:05] I don't understand how...

[1:08:05] Like, 100%.

[1:08:07] This person's...

[1:08:08] 100%.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:08] This lovely person who wrote a letter and took the time to write us...

[1:08:11] He probably were more wrong about everything.

[1:08:15] The Mr. Magoo of listening.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:19] Anyway, John, last name withheld.

[1:08:21] P.S.

[1:08:22] Dan, you can read this part silently in your head.

[1:08:23] You're my favorite flopper.

[1:08:25] P.P.

[1:08:25] Dan, since I know that if you read this letter at all, you will have read that last postscript

[1:08:28] out loud.

[1:08:29] Yeah.

[1:08:29] My actual favorite flopper is when Elliot and Stuart team up to make fun of you.

[1:08:33] To mix cartoon metaphors, it's like a two-person Voltron teasing Leonardo.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:38] Sure.

[1:08:38] It's like two kids, one on the other's shoulders, wearing a trench coat, trying to sneak into

[1:08:43] an adult's party.

[1:08:44] Yeah.

[1:08:44] But the party is...

[1:08:45] Always works.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:46] It's Dan's party, and we're just sneaking in to make fun of him.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:48] Yeah.

[1:08:48] But we...

[1:08:49] Yeah.

[1:08:50] We feel very sorry for your ear problems.

[1:08:53] Yeah, get that checked out.

[1:08:54] There are...

[1:08:54] You should probably stop listening to this podcast.

[1:08:56] The earbuds that you have in your ears are probably...

[1:08:58] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:59] Don't be hasty.

[1:09:00] Come on.

[1:09:00] Don't be hasty, little hobbit.

[1:09:01] You should keep listening, but maybe use different headphones.

[1:09:03] I just imagine this person walking down the street and the dog barks at them.

[1:09:07] Like, that duck of yours seems a little strange.

[1:09:10] What?

[1:09:11] It said quack, quack, clearly.

[1:09:14] But thanks for...

[1:09:15] Hey, buddy, watch out.

[1:09:16] Thanks for taking the Mr. McEwen thing and running with it.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:20] Thank you.

[1:09:21] There's a flying grandma.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:23] I don't think so.

[1:09:24] Piano crushes him.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:26] All of you for writing in.

[1:09:27] But now is the last segment of the show.

[1:09:30] What's that?

[1:09:30] About time, I say.

[1:09:31] The least popular segment.

[1:09:32] Recommendations of movies that we actually liked.

[1:09:36] It's the part where people turn off the podcast.

[1:09:40] Stuart, what's a movie you would like to recommend?

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:43] I'm going to recommend the first Brian De Palma movie I ever saw.

[1:09:48] It's called Snake Eyes.

[1:09:49] It's called...

[1:09:51] Raising Cane.

[1:09:52] It is Raising Cane.

[1:09:54] I was going to recommend Raising Cane.

[1:09:55] Partly...

[1:09:55] I don't think it's actually really that great, nor does it really fit that well into the De Palma.

[1:10:01] It's fun, though.

[1:10:01] But it's fun, and I think...

[1:10:03] And John Lithgow plays a...

[1:10:05] I mean, this is not a secret at all, but John Lithgow plays a guy with multiple personalities.

[1:10:10] And I like seeing John Lithgow...

[1:10:12] Crazy.

[1:10:13] Get to...

[1:10:13] Not just crazy, but also kind of scary.

[1:10:15] Yeah.

[1:10:16] Like...

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:16] He's...

[1:10:16] It's a very underused thing that John Lithgow can do is be scary.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:20] And I think the movie has a number of sequences that are genuinely creepy and tense and scary.

[1:10:26] So if you like a Brian De Palma thriller that's a little bit lower in his catalog, and you like John Lithgow, I'd recommend giving that a chance.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:33] That was the movie, I think, where a guy saw it and he said, I gotta create a serial killer show, do like two okay seasons, then one really bad season with Jimmy Smits, and then do a season with that guy as a serial killer.

[1:10:46] Because he is creepy.

[1:10:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:50] So I've seen actually...

[1:10:52] In that show?

[1:10:52] Game of Thrones.

[1:10:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:56] Not even the same channel.

[1:10:58] The Red Viper himself, Jimmy Smits.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:02] Yep.

[1:11:03] Senator Bail Organa, the Red Viper.

[1:11:05] Talk about missed opportunities.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:07] I've seen a few movies recently that I...

[1:11:10] Give us your life story, what I don't think.

[1:11:11] ...enjoyed.

[1:11:12] You've been flying around?

[1:11:14] Flying a lot?

[1:11:15] No.

[1:11:16] He's been doing a lot of flight simulators while he watches movies.

[1:11:19] Honestly, it's been that my wife has been out of town a fair amount, so I've had more time to just waste on movies.

[1:11:24] But I watched Hell Baby.

[1:11:28] I enjoyed that.

[1:11:29] It's a very sloppy movie.

[1:11:30] The prequel to Hellboy.

[1:11:31] It's a very, very sloppy comedy.

[1:11:34] It's the one with the poster with a chick's cleavage, right?

[1:11:37] I don't know about that.

[1:11:38] But it feels like a bunch of sketch comedies strung together.

[1:11:42] You think of Boob's the movie?

[1:11:44] Excellent.

[1:11:44] I'm up for that.

[1:11:45] Hard bodies, right?

[1:11:46] But it's a Tomlin and Robert Ben Grant movie, but not in their Night at the Museum mode.

[1:11:53] In their more crazy, zany, low-budget, scrappy mode.

[1:11:57] And they both play, they both basically play two different Father Guido Sarduchis.

[1:12:05] And it's about Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb.

[1:12:07] Father Guido Sarduchis.

[1:12:10] Moving into a home.

[1:12:11] That's good stuff.

[1:12:12] And Leslie Bibb has a devil baby inside her.

[1:12:15] And Keegan-Michael Key is very funny in it.

[1:12:17] He's probably the funniest part.

[1:12:18] Not a great movie, but fun.

[1:12:21] I also saw the new Godzilla.

[1:12:22] I enjoyed it.

[1:12:23] It was a lot of fun.

[1:12:24] But the movie I will recommend is a movie that needs no recommendation.

[1:12:27] So you're not recommending the other two movies?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:29] No.

[1:12:29] So why did...

[1:12:30] Why were they mentioning?

Dan McCoy

[1:12:30] Like you have never done this before.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:33] But I recommend...

[1:12:34] I say, I'm going to recommend two movies.

[1:12:35] I don't go, let me go through the other movies I saw that I'm not...

[1:12:38] No, I said that I like those movies.

[1:12:39] Before I get to the recommendation, let me go through the...

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:40] The thing is, he's giving you a taste, and then he's giving you a full meal.

[1:12:43] Yeah.

[1:12:43] Why are you complaining?

Dan McCoy

[1:12:45] These are other movies you can see.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:47] Hell Baby was in a moose-boosh.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:48] Yeah, man.

[1:12:50] In a moose-baby.

[1:12:51] It's like we were watching Hannibal, man.

[1:12:54] Kind of.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:55] But we were watching four episodes when we thought we were only getting one episode.

[1:12:58] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:59] It's a supersized episode.

[1:13:01] Yeah, it's supersized and then it's four hours long.

[1:13:03] It was during that NBC period where they supersized episodes of Hannibal.

[1:13:08] And you're like, it's only 39 cents, I might as well watch it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:13] There's kind of a story here for like five minutes more of Hannibal,

[1:13:18] but then they stretched it out with kind of unrelated gag scenes.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:21] Hannibal got in an elevator with a monkey.

[1:13:24] It's weird.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:25] It seems like a regular Hannibal's plot.

[1:13:28] No, what I...

[1:13:28] Oh, no, okay.

[1:13:29] He's eating the monkey.

[1:13:30] All right.

[1:13:31] Maybe it is.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:32] So, the movie that I want to recommend is a movie that we've discussed here before

[1:13:36] and probably needs no recommendation for our fans,

[1:13:39] but I re-watched Videodrome.

[1:13:42] Great movie.

[1:13:44] I mean, The Dissolve did a lot of pieces on that recently

[1:13:47] that were all worth reading.

[1:13:49] Good stuff.

[1:13:49] Good sight.

[1:13:52] It's a movie that's very prescient in a lot of ways,

[1:13:54] but what I actually kind of...

[1:13:55] Yeah, it totally predicted the trend of growing guns out of your hand

[1:14:01] and shoving videotapes in your belly.

[1:14:03] No, but I mean, there's a lot of talk about how it predicted

[1:14:06] like growing fascination with...

[1:14:08] It's a Rob Layfield character, right?

[1:14:11] Growing fascination with like...

[1:14:13] My name's Blood Video.

[1:14:14] Living your life...

[1:14:15] Living your life through screens with like the internet.

[1:14:19] But for me, what was interesting watching it was actually not looking forward,

[1:14:24] but looking like at the sort of like nostalgia to the period it was made

[1:14:29] and the way it was when I was growing up

[1:14:32] and like sort of cable was new

[1:14:34] and on like the upper limits of the cable dial

[1:14:37] you would find weird things that were on there

[1:14:40] just because like people needed to fill airtime

[1:14:43] and sometimes in the middle of the night

[1:14:45] you would see something inexplicable.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:47] That would shock or frighten you or disgust you.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:51] During a time that like, you know, like now on the internet

[1:14:53] like you were moments away from something shocking and frightening

[1:14:57] and disgusting at any time.

[1:14:59] Like the weirdest stuff...

[1:15:00] Especially where we were.

[1:15:00] ...is all there.

[1:15:02] But at the time it was just like...

[1:15:04] The strange seediness of being able to stumble upon that

[1:15:07] is something that Videodrome captures beautifully

[1:15:10] and that's what I kind of found most charming

[1:15:13] watching it again recently.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:15] But there's something...

[1:15:16] I think there's something comforting about the way

[1:15:18] that you can find terrible things on the internet

[1:15:20] but like you don't feel...

[1:15:22] You feel so connected.

[1:15:23] Whereas back in the day,

[1:15:25] if you found like some fucked up weird VHS tape

[1:15:28] that somebody's like,

[1:15:29] you should watch this weird black and white thing I have.

[1:15:32] Yeah, you feel super alone and you can't turn to anyone.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:35] And you also may never find out what it is.

[1:15:38] There are plenty of times when...

[1:15:40] You saw something young.

[1:15:41] You'd see something on cable young

[1:15:42] and you'd never find out what it was.

[1:15:44] What was that half-remembered thing?

[1:15:46] An image.

[1:15:47] Like it took me a long time to identify

[1:15:49] having seen a little bit of the Julie Taymor movie

[1:15:53] Fool's Fire on PBS

[1:15:55] and it's this creepy puppet movie.

[1:15:58] Oh, right.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:58] That's the adaptation of Hop Frog.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:01] Hop Frog, I think.

[1:16:02] Yeah.

[1:16:02] And it's like not...

[1:16:03] And for years just didn't know what it was

[1:16:05] and just had the images from it in my head.

[1:16:07] And that one eventually I found out what it was

[1:16:09] thanks to the internet.

[1:16:10] But like there are things...

[1:16:11] You could just stumble on something and see it

[1:16:13] and it'd be weirded out and be like,

[1:16:14] what?

[1:16:14] There wasn't even like a TV Guide channel.

[1:16:17] The TV Guide only covers some channels

[1:16:19] and not all of them.

[1:16:20] You know, like you just end up not knowing

[1:16:22] what the hell you saw, you know?

[1:16:24] It's kind of like how there are those little clips

[1:16:26] of public access shows and being there.

[1:16:28] Yeah.

[1:16:28] You're like, well, never going to find out what that was.

[1:16:30] This guy doing just yelling martial arts chants, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:16:35] That's why I like...

[1:16:36] I remember loving that show Night Flight,

[1:16:39] which was just like a bunch of like weird

[1:16:40] like public domain like clips

[1:16:43] and old like private stampo cartoons

[1:16:45] and stuff like that where it's just like,

[1:16:47] okay, well this was basically the internet at that time

[1:16:50] except where you weren't overloaded with that shit.

[1:16:53] So like if something was weird,

[1:16:54] it carried that much more impact

[1:16:56] because you're like, what the hell is this?

[1:16:58] I have no context to put this in.

[1:17:02] Was it my turn or do you have eight more movies?

[1:17:04] No, that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:05] Anyway, Videodrome's a good movie.

[1:17:06] You'll wait until you're done.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:08] You're like angry and then you're like,

[1:17:09] but I have to admit Videodrome.

[1:17:10] No, it's a great movie.

[1:17:11] I didn't know what you did as a preamble,

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:13] but you know.

[1:17:14] So I watched about five movies recently

[1:17:17] and first I'll talk about the ones I didn't like.

[1:17:19] Oh boy.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:20] You always recommend three movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:22] I'm going to recommend one movie this time.

[1:17:24] I'm going to recommend a spaghet western

[1:17:27] from 1969 in the United States.

[1:17:31] I think it was earlier in Italy

[1:17:32] with Lee Van Cleef called Death Rides a Horse.

[1:17:37] May have seen it.

[1:17:38] It's one that I knew the music from for a long time,

[1:17:41] but had not actually seen.

[1:17:44] You'll recognize the main theme if you watch it from Kill Bill.

[1:17:48] It's used in that.

[1:17:49] But this guy is,

[1:17:52] it opens with the kind of scene I don't like,

[1:17:54] which is women being assaulted by bandits.

[1:17:56] But that is the origin story of this kid

[1:17:59] who sees his family killed and attacked by bandits.

[1:18:03] But each one of them...

[1:18:04] Like Silent Night, Deadly Night?

[1:18:06] Kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:06] Except each one of them has either an earring or a necklace

[1:18:10] that's very identifiable.

[1:18:12] One has a tattoo on his chest

[1:18:13] and he remembers them

[1:18:15] and he grows up to be a great gunfighter

[1:18:17] and he's going to track down each of these men and kill them.

[1:18:19] At the same time,

[1:18:20] Lee Van Cleef,

[1:18:21] who is a gun...

[1:18:22] who is a bandit who was betrayed by his gang,

[1:18:24] is out for revenge

[1:18:26] and it seems the two of them want revenge on the same men.

[1:18:28] So they're both hunting the same people

[1:18:31] but also in conflict with each other

[1:18:32] because both want to be the ones who take out these guys.

[1:18:35] And they gain...

[1:18:37] It's one of those spaghetti westerns

[1:18:38] where they gain a grudging respect for each other

[1:18:41] and like take turns basically leaving the other one in the desert

[1:18:44] to fend for himself.

[1:18:46] And it ends with a really big action scene at the end.

[1:18:48] There's a lot of good smaller action scenes.

[1:18:50] Lee Van Cleef is totally awesome in it.

[1:18:52] And it's got a great Neo Morricone score

[1:18:54] so you can't go wrong with it.

[1:18:56] Death rides a horse.

[1:18:58] Playing at...

[1:19:00] Wherever you decide to rent it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:01] Wherever you decide to rent it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:04] It's rated probably...

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:07] PG? I don't know.

[1:19:08] Do they have ratings back then?

[1:19:10] General audiences?

Dan McCoy

[1:19:12] So we watched one of the most nothing movies

[1:19:15] we've ever watched

[1:19:16] and I think this is probably the longest we've ever gone.

[1:19:18] By far.

[1:19:19] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:20] Body slam.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:21] I guess you can just...

[1:19:22] Apologies audience.

[1:19:23] Go Joe, I guess.

[1:19:25] Yeah.

[1:19:25] G.I. Joe that is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:26] Hopefully you've already stopped

[1:19:27] and moved on with your life.

[1:19:29] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:30] Hopefully you got through the

[1:19:31] giraffe intelligence Joe bit

[1:19:33] at the very beginning of the episode.

[1:19:35] If you did.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:36] You decided to throw away your podcasting equipment,

[1:19:38] your podcast listening equipment

[1:19:39] and hug your child instead.

[1:19:42] Live your life, man.

[1:19:43] Go out there.

[1:19:44] Go on, fall in love.

[1:19:45] Why are we making this episode longer?

[1:19:47] I'm sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:49] We've been...

Dan McCoy

[1:19:50] The Flophouse.

[1:19:51] Playing at...

[1:19:52] Here.

[1:19:53] But not...

[1:19:54] There.

[1:19:56] Starring...

[1:19:56] Me.

[1:19:57] Dan McCoy.

[1:19:58] And me.

[1:20:00] Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:01] And you.

[1:20:02] Elliot Kalin.

[1:20:04] Good night.

[1:20:05] Everybody.

[1:20:11] Dan McCoy's robots.

[1:20:14] They're sexy robots with butts.

[1:20:16] So like this vodka robot, pretty much?

[1:20:19] Yeah.

[1:20:19] And all the robots are somebody's wife,

Dan McCoy

[1:20:21] so it's extra sexy.

[1:20:22] All the robots in that, like, art book

[1:20:24] that I remember from the 80s

[1:20:26] that was always in, like...

[1:20:27] What, your Suryama art book?

[1:20:29] Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:30] Like that Aerosmith cover.

[1:20:31] There's that one painter who does just sexy robots.

[1:20:34] Yeah.

[1:20:34] Everybody loves robots.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:35] His name is Boris Vallejo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:36] No, it's not.

[1:20:37] Boris Vallejo does fantasy paintings.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:39] Uh, my fantasy.

[1:20:41] You're saying that those sexy robots

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:42] aren't a fantasy?

[1:20:42] I'm saying he does

[1:20:44] strapping muscular men

[1:20:46] wearing tiny underpants

[1:20:48] with swords in their hands.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:49] With a lady clinging to their...

[1:20:50] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:51] Or sexy ladies fighting dragons,

[1:20:53] much like the art of his wife, Julie Bell.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:56] Accentuated pubises.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:58] Isn't that the name of your band?

[1:21:00] Yeah.

[1:21:01] Stuart Wellington,

[1:21:01] the accentuated pubises.

[1:21:03] This is sensual pubises.

The Flop House: Episode #153 - G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Chapters

Transcript

In this episode

Description