The Flop House: Episode #141 - Last Ounce of Courage

[0:00] It's a Flophouse holiday extravaganza as we discuss the War on Christmas movie, Last Ounce of Courage.

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

[0:36] Hey guys, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] Hiya pals, I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:40] We did it.

[0:41] We succeeded. Okay, call it a day everybody.

[0:43] Quit in time, punch out.

[0:46] We can punch out and then the fucking wolf can come and hit the sheepdogs or whatever.

[0:51] Yeah, Harvey Keitel, yeah.

[0:52] Yeah, Winston.

[0:53] I don't want Harvey Keitel to show up.

[0:55] I imagine sexual misadventures would be in the offing.

[0:59] Yeah, from the sexual misadventures of Harvey Keitel, chapters 1 through 8.

[1:02] Only if this is a Jane Campion-directed film would that be the case.

[1:05] But this is The Flophouse.

[1:08] It's a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we discuss it for your ears.

[1:11] So a podcast is something you download off the internet.

[1:14] So let's start watching that bad movie.

[1:16] Turn it on.

[1:16] No, we watched it already.

[1:18] It's gone off the rails already.

[1:20] It appears my brain has deleted my memory of the film.

[1:23] You want to pop some corn?

[1:24] Some popping corn.

[1:25] Maybe some Skittles?

[1:27] Let's just eat corn on the cob like the Pilgrims did when they went to the movies.

[1:32] They called them flickers.

[1:35] And they burned the projectionist as a witch.

[1:40] Because Pilgrims were defending their right to be able to watch whatever movies they wanted.

[1:45] It's the subject of those rights that we are going to talk about today, guys.

[1:49] Yeah, we watched a serious movie about serious issues tonight.

[1:53] And that movie was, Dan?

[1:55] It was called Last Ounce of Courage.

[1:58] Now, that Last Ounce of Courage is such a stirring, dramatic title.

[2:01] I assume this was about a battle of some kind, maybe a struggle, a war even.

[2:06] What war would this be?

[2:07] Like a Not Without My Daughter.

[2:09] Yeah.

[2:09] It is the—

[2:10] You know, like a Revenge of the Nerds?

[2:12] Most dramatic war, a war that has claimed millions and millions of lives.

[2:15] It's the war on Christmas.

[2:17] So by millions of lives, you meant zero.

[2:19] Yeah.

[2:20] Well, Jesus.

[2:22] But I guess that wasn't part of the war on Christmas.

[2:24] per se. It was more of a war

[2:27] on early Christianity. It was more of a one-man war

[2:28] on Christ. Waged by

[2:31] Pontius Pilate in my new Vigilante film.

[2:32] Early Romans being unhappy with

[2:35] these dissidents and their

[2:36] myths. In fact, I believe I know a song about it.

[2:38] What then to do about

[2:41] Jesus of Nazareth? Miracle

[2:43] wonder man, hero of fools.

[2:44] No fighting, no slow

[2:46] rise, etc. If I had any

[2:49] fear that Andrew Lloyd Webber listened

[2:51] to this show, I would be terrified that

[2:53] ASCAP would be after us right now.

[2:54] So let's just do a...

[2:55] ASCAP, the weekly improv show of Racism Brigade.

[2:58] It's a good thing for you that Hallie's not here,

[3:00] or else we would do that whole song from the beginning.

[3:02] So this movie lasts...

[3:05] So it's The War on Christmas.

[3:06] And what I didn't like about this movie,

[3:08] aside from the fact that the acting and everything else in it is bad,

[3:11] was that it conflated The War on Christmas

[3:15] with The War on Terror

[3:17] and The War for Freedom and America

[3:20] in a way that I found offensive more as an American

[3:24] than as a non-Christian.

[3:25] I think before we get into you being offended,

[3:28] because I don't actually care about that at all.

[3:31] So what was this movie about, Elliot?

[3:34] Well, we open with a home...

[3:37] Smash cut.

[3:37] Not to get a smash cut from nothing.

[3:40] At first there was darkness,

[3:42] and then there was a quote from one of the presidents.

[3:45] There's a quote from Ronald Reagan in the 60s

[3:48] laid over Vietnam footage as if...

[3:50] And it said 1961 and then Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, which seems to be implying that he was president in the 60s, which is not true at all.

[3:58] Okay.

[3:59] Whatever, revisionist historian.

[4:01] No, that's just a historian.

[4:03] Yeah.

[4:04] Take your textbooks about evolution and put them in the tar pits.

[4:09] You mean the place where we found much of our evidence for evolution, Dan?

[4:13] High five.

[4:14] Have over here.

[4:15] Yeah.

[4:15] I don't understand.

[4:16] Take it away.

[4:18] Take your Judaism and go.

[4:20] I mean, I don't have to take it.

[4:21] I thought we were going to wait before we brought up Elliot's shooting.

[4:24] Yeah, this really seems like I'm being singled out for being the one Jewish guy here.

[4:28] Last House of Courage really hyped me up.

[4:30] Dan really took this movie to heart.

[4:33] And at the end, in the rousing rooftop speech about freedom,

[4:36] he really, after the characters had just hoisted an enormous cross to the side of a historic building.

[4:42] I took a menorah and I shoved it up Elliot's ass.

[4:44] Wow.

[4:45] Yeah, we call that the ninth night of Hanukkah.

[4:47] Boo!

[4:48] Boo!

[4:50] Anyway, continuing.

[4:51] So then we go straight to home video footage of these two friends and one of the friend's girlfriend hanging out.

[4:58] They're regular, all-American.

[5:00] Almost found footage type movies.

[5:01] Yeah, it's like Apollo 19, whatever that's called.

[5:04] Chernobyl's Diaries.

[5:05] Yeah, you're Blair's Witch's Projects.

[5:08] You're Paranormal's Activity.

[5:11] You're Rex.

[5:13] Or you're Rex.

[5:16] He's right, he's right.

[5:19] I thought you meant Theodore Rex at first.

[5:20] And I was like, that's a found footage film.

[5:23] I think it is.

[5:24] Whoopi Goldberg shot the whole thing with a game recorder.

[5:29] Yeah, yeah, a handy cam, yeah.

[5:31] And they used a real dinosaur that was really a wisecracking guy.

[5:34] Exactly, before they put him in a time capsule and sent him back to the future.

[5:38] To stop his parents from not getting together.

[5:41] Wait, hold on.

[5:42] Is that what Theodore Rex is about?

[5:45] Is the dinosaur in a time capsule?

[5:46] No, it's the future where dinosaurs are back again and they're cops.

[5:50] Are they better than ever?

[5:51] You better believe it.

[5:52] He is a no-holds-barred party dude, a real fun-o-saurus.

[5:57] He does not play by the rules, despite being a cop.

[6:00] And also, Whoopi Goldberg is a future cop.

[6:02] Now this theater wrecks.

[6:04] Does he wear sneakers?

[6:05] You better believe he does.

[6:07] However, they are not made for his feet, so his claws just burst right through.

[6:11] Pop right out.

[6:11] He does not wear regulation clothes.

[6:13] Like Wolverine's claws.

[6:13] Exactly.

[6:14] Not at all.

[6:17] You mean like Wolverine?

[6:18] He goes, snicked.

[6:19] Nope, and no.

[6:21] Yeah, Wolverine's always running around with gloves on and with the fingers all blasted

[6:25] out because his claws are extended.

[6:26] Wolverine, I'm like, dude, I gave you that catcher's mitt for Christmas.

[6:30] Why are you trying to put it on?

[6:31] That's when they're trying to play baseball against the Avengers.

[6:34] I wouldn't have gotten you real leather gloves if I knew you were just going to ruin them

[6:37] with your claws on the business of what I do.

[6:40] What I do is ruining gloves.

[6:41] Can I return these gloves?

[6:43] Sir, there are three big holes in the back of both these gloves.

[6:46] Oh, I bought them that way, bub.

[6:49] No, you didn't, Logan.

[6:50] And I know your name because you've tried to return gloves so many times.

[6:53] Nope, don't try and put that eye patch on.

[6:56] We got a call from the Madripoor branch.

[6:58] We know Patch and Logan are the same person.

[7:00] Well, what if I say my name's James Howlett?

[7:03] Again, same guy.

[7:04] The best I can do is store credit.

[7:06] And it reminds me of a sketch that my old sketch partner Brock and I once wrote

[7:13] in which uh hulk hogan is trying to return a t-shirt saying it was already ripped when he

[7:17] bought it and the clerk doesn't believe him because he's trying to return so many ripped

[7:22] t-shirts and he proves him wrong by taunting him into revealing hulkamania and of course

[7:27] ripping the shirt off his back uh anyway so three blonde haired blue-eyed teens hanging out

[7:34] uh then we quickly fast forward through time the girl and the boy get married there's the other boy

[7:40] is a friend. They get married

[7:42] and the now-grown man

[7:44] leaves his pregnant wife and his father, who we've

[7:46] seen as a biker. He's a

[7:48] middle-aged biker who has a big

[7:50] American flag on the back of his motorcycle.

[7:51] And it says America on the bike.

[7:54] And he has a

[7:55] denim jacket with the best patches

[7:58] ever. Yeah, his cut.

[7:59] His motorcycle gang cut.

[8:01] He's from the Hellfighters, which

[8:04] sounds like a tough war group, but

[8:06] they're just like Christians, I guess.

[8:08] And he has one patch that says Satan sucks.

[8:13] And he has another patch that says 666 with a cross through it, like the Ghostbusters sign.

[8:16] And he has another patch that says my other patch is a Porsche.

[8:19] It doesn't make much sense.

[8:21] No, there's one that says if you can read this, then Jesus fell off my bike.

[8:26] Because I guess Jesus was riding behind him.

[8:29] Well, there was only one set of tire treads, and that was when Jesus was carrying him.

[8:34] I see.

[8:34] And his bike.

[8:36] Wait, and Jesus has like a tire per feet like Gizmoduck?

[8:39] Yeah, exactly.

[8:40] So it's like Gizmo Christ.

[8:41] Except in his off time he isn't, what, like an inventor?

[8:47] What the fuck was Gizmoduck?

[8:48] He was a bean counter.

[8:49] Oh, okay.

[8:50] And he just found a magic robot suit?

[8:52] No, no, no, no, no.

[8:53] The scientist said...

[8:54] Wait, did Jairo Gearless?

[8:55] Jairo Gearless made it, I think, and he used a...

[8:58] He said, I'm going to use a word...

[8:59] I'm going to use a code word...

[9:00] He's the forge of this universe.

[9:01] I'm going to use...

[9:02] No, he's a Native American.

[9:03] I'm going to use a code word...

[9:05] He's like a Q character.

[9:06] said i'm gonna use a code word no one would ever say and i think it was like jumping jelly beans

[9:09] or something like that but that's something that gizmoduck in his civilian identity said as his

[9:14] regular catchphrase you know expostulation like in uh comic book hundred bullets with

[9:19] croatoa is the safe word exactly and so he said it the greatest american hero where he lost the

[9:24] instruction manual not like no it's not like that at all it's exactly the same no he knows it it's

[9:30] like it's like captain america because as soon as the gizmoduck armor go on him a nazi spy shoots

[9:35] gyrogear loose, ensuring they can

[9:37] never build another one.

[9:38] Another gyrogear loose? Yes.

[9:40] He can't pass on his genetic

[9:43] information. Okay, that's good. Anyway, we're like

[9:45] 35 seconds into this movie.

[9:47] Anyway, so there's a family. There's a mom and dad.

[9:49] The dad is a veteran of the Vietnam War, and he's

[9:51] a biker who's also a pharmacist

[9:53] and the mayor.

[9:54] Man who wears many hats. And he also, when he's a

[9:57] biker, he looks like

[9:58] Peter Fonda from

[10:00] Easy Rider. No, he looks like Peter

[10:03] Fonda now, with like a gut

[10:05] No I know

[10:05] And using like Cialis

[10:07] But he's got that Captain America biker look

[10:09] But he's the opposite of a hippie is all I'm saying

[10:11] He looks like the kind of guys you see riding motorcycles around

[10:14] On the weekends where you're like

[10:16] Fuck you like just get off that bike

[10:18] And like get back into the car you own

[10:20] So you can go to your job

[10:21] Like you're not a tough biker

[10:23] You're just some guy who owns a bike

[10:24] Okay real judgmental this guy

[10:27] Look I'm very judgmental

[10:28] That's why they gave me that show Judge Judy

[10:30] I had to change my name to Judy

[10:33] Which I was not happy about

[10:34] But hey, for my own show, then they changed it to Punch and Judge Judy, and Punch just

[10:40] hits me all the time.

[10:41] I do not like it.

[10:42] Terrible bailiff.

[10:44] Anyway, so the son goes off to war, leaving behind his pregnant wife, and at the last

[10:50] minute, they give him a camcorder so that he can, I guess, record his war fun.

[10:53] Yeah, yeah, they want some DIY footage.

[10:56] All of his adventures.

[10:57] And unfortunately, they receive, the baby grows up a little bit, time passes, they miss

[11:03] him they get letters from him about how important it is that he's fighting for freedom and unfortunately

[11:07] one day they get the worst news that a family can receive that there's their son has been lost in

[11:12] battle they get a teddy gram delivered to them it's a callback to an old episode very old episode

[11:17] about world war ii telegram delivery men bringing teddy grams to the to the widows of the war dead

[11:25] it takes the sting out a little bit yeah now this is and so they bring uh they their son has died

[11:30] in battle they have a funeral it's really sad and the mother moves away with uh with her son who's

[11:37] still a baby uh leaving behind the family when they most need her uh to keep this connection

[11:42] with their son flash forward 14 years which means we're technically in the future yeah uh yes which

[11:49] is like and the only thing that's different about this future is that christmas seems to have been

[11:53] outlawed in some way and everybody looks the same so that when there's like flash forwards and

[11:57] flashbacks you're like what time am i in what's going on yeah you're like billy pilgrim you don't

[12:02] you're unstuck in the chronology yeah exactly uh but christmas hasn't really been outlawed and

[12:08] that's a big point the movie keeps making which we'll get to it's kind of like the purge but with

[12:12] chris christmas yeah and crime i mean you say it's the future but i think it's the future because

[12:18] it's literally exactly the same no no it's it's it has to be the future because it's 14 years

[12:23] after now.

[12:24] Maybe it's not 14 years

[12:27] into our future. Maybe the beginning of the movie is

[12:29] 2003, 2002.

[12:31] They're just invading Afghanistan or Iraq.

[12:33] And so it's like 14

[12:35] years from then, which is still three or four

[12:37] years in our future. They use intentionally vague

[12:39] terms to refer to war because

[12:41] they want it to be timely.

[12:43] So that in 300 years...

[12:45] When we're fighting the Zontarans

[12:47] on Nebula 5.

[12:49] People watch this on their hologram players.

[12:51] Yeah, and they're like, wait, that doesn't look like Zontar.

[12:53] they're like wait a minute you're right we should be celebrating botmas in the open because we'll

[12:58] all be robots by then okay uh after we're done talking about the movie i want you to explain

[13:03] botmas well it's a robot jesus it celebrates the manufacturing of robot genius or as he's also

[13:09] known robot genius those robots aren't geniuses well that was that baby genius the baby was a

[13:17] baby robot genius uh or as he's also known the christazoid okay uh but that's in the future

[13:23] when we're still under attack by the Zontarans.

[13:25] Okay.

[13:25] So it's 14 years and the mom and her now-grown son, Christian,

[13:29] who looks like some kind of...

[13:32] And I don't want to make fun of a kid's appearance.

[13:33] He's a teenager.

[13:34] But he looks kind of like a mannequin whose cheeks melted in,

[13:40] and his hair is always frozen in mid-windswept.

[13:43] Like it's this blonde, highlight, shaggy, one-direction haircut.

[13:46] Yeah, he's got these streaks, too.

[13:47] It was the old classic Bieber-do.

[13:50] Yeah, but it's so shaped that it, like you were saying, Stuart, it looks like he's always standing in front of a fan, or there's always wind right behind him.

[13:56] It would have looked really hip about eight years ago.

[13:59] Yeah, and when I said it, I meant that it looked amazing.

[14:02] Yeah, you meant it as the highest compliment a Wellington can deliver.

[14:05] So they move back into town, and they find that the grandfather is really surly.

[14:12] He's withdrawn from life.

[14:14] He's withdrawn from all life except for his job as a pharmacist, where he provides free health care for members of the Hyenas Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle gang run by a dwarf.

[14:22] Kind of like a criminal doctor, it seems.

[14:25] Yeah, since a motorcycle guy comes in with what's clearly a stab wound on his side, and he goes, I'll help you, but you have to tell me what happened.

[14:32] And he's like, I don't know.

[14:33] And he makes up some story, and the pharmacist is like, ha ha, well, I'll fix you up, and nobody has to know about it.

[14:38] Look, I play both sides of the law now.

[14:40] Where's a little scratch for the mayor?

[14:41] Mayor wants a little taste.

[14:43] As we find out much farther into the movie than we should have to, he's also the mayor of this town, which is in Colorado, I think.

[14:49] Yeah, I don't know.

[14:50] But, like, it is very strange.

[14:51] He's introduced.

[14:52] Mount Columbus, named after the hero, Christopher Columbus.

[14:54] And his mountain.

[14:55] He's introduced as a pharmacist doing surgery on a biker.

[14:59] And then later on, you're like, wait, he's the mayor?

[15:01] Yeah.

[15:02] Clearly, they don't know about his secret life as the crime doctor.

[15:06] Yep.

[15:06] So, the family comes back.

[15:09] He's surly.

[15:11] And it turns out that he's still kind of mad over the loss of his son, but he sees that his freedom to celebrate Christmas is slipping away.

[15:20] There used to be a big Christmas tree on the public square, and they're not allowed anymore.

[15:25] There's some building called The Mission, so it's clearly like a Christian mission.

[15:29] Yeah, it's like a private Christian institution.

[15:31] That had a big cross on it that said, Jesus saves, and that was taken down because of, I guess, public disapproval.

[15:38] But he has it in his garage.

[15:39] Like, it doesn't make any sense.

[15:40] I think the real turning point is when the grandparents and mother are called into the high school because Christian is in trouble because he brought a Bible into school.

[15:51] He brought his dead father's Bible into school.

[15:53] His dead father's Bible.

[15:53] So it's probably haunted or something.

[15:55] That was probably it.

[15:56] It makes perfect sense.

[15:56] It was that the ghosts were bothering students when they were trying to study in study hall.

[15:59] So he's super in trouble for this thing that is not illegal.

[16:03] Not against – and this is a point the movie keeps making.

[16:05] The principal says to the grandfather – no, no, the Leonard, the kindly black janitor, says to the grandpa, this isn't – again, they're not even a law against it.

[16:15] They're just afraid about lawsuits, and he goes into the principal and he's like, is this true?

[16:19] And the principal's like, hey, everyone wants to sue us these days because who knows what crazy stuff this school is doing that everyone wants to sue them.

[16:25] But everyone wants to sue us, so it's just better to play it safe.

[16:28] If there's no rules against it, and the movie keeps making this point that the government has taken away your right to celebrate your religion and there isn't even a law against it, which makes no sense as a message.

[16:40] Like the message is they're stopping you from doing this, but there's not even a law stopping you from doing it.

[16:47] Like it's very weird.

[16:48] So he decides that – Christian – they decide to watch some old videos of the dead son slash father.

[16:58] Christian is inspired by it.

[17:00] Tom is his name.

[17:01] Tom Revere.

[17:02] Oh, that's right.

[17:03] And Bob Revere is the mayor.

[17:04] Because they revere Christmas.

[17:06] And Christian Revere.

[17:08] Everything's right there in his name.

[17:09] Yeah.

[17:10] And it's also like Paul Revere.

[17:11] Who?

[17:12] And the Raiders.

[17:13] What?

[17:13] Oh, okay.

[17:14] You know, the band?

[17:15] Made up of former Oakland Raiders players?

[17:18] Well, if you say so, Elliot.

[17:23] Believe me, I know both football and music.

[17:26] two things i don't know um so they he christian is like what are we doing and he's like well i

[17:33] fought in vietnam and your dad fought more but what are you doing now for our freedoms now and

[17:38] the grandfather's like hey you know what you're right so with his mayor powers he's gonna christmas

[17:43] the shit out of the town and he actually puts up a sign on the water tower declaring this christmas

[17:47] city okay that's going a little far he's gonna paint the town christmas and he does this does

[17:53] not and everyone seems to be unhappy about this until they're happy about it uh but it brings up

[17:58] the ire of fred williamson i mean most people seem to be happy about it other than there are like

[18:04] uh some protesters who show up on the uh town square lawn and they're representing no christmas

[18:10] and christmas separation of church and state like christmas busters and there's one reporter who i

[18:15] guess represents like the liberal media except she comes around to christmas pretty quick and

[18:20] there's a great scene where she's interviewing the mayor while he's in a cherry picker because

[18:23] he was putting up christmas snowflakes or something and he just doesn't get out of it

[18:27] to answer her questions he just is he's in the upper left hand corner of the screen tilted

[18:33] talking to a woman standing straight in the bottom right hand corner he's enthroned upon

[18:38] this cherry picker now everyone's like you can't do this you'll get in trouble it's unconstitutional

[18:43] he's like just watch me show me the constitution and he just kind of bulldozes over everyone with

[18:48] his strength of will.

[18:49] It's a real triumph of the will, if you will.

[18:51] I've never heard that phrase before.

[18:55] But then we see in Washington that he's pissed off

[18:59] somebody in a building with pillars.

[19:01] He's pissed off Fred Williamson,

[19:03] who you may know as the star of thousands of Italian low-budget films.

[19:07] Yeah.

[19:07] Blaxploitation movies.

[19:10] Blaxploitation star.

[19:11] He was also in Mars Attacks.

[19:12] Yeah, he's in a lot of stuff.

[19:13] He's also in this movie.

[19:16] And he's also in this as working a cigar and glowering.

[19:19] As the villain.

[19:20] He plays the leader of some kind of atheist organization, and it's never made clear.

[19:24] Clearly the ACLU.

[19:25] They don't say it explicitly.

[19:26] But he seems to have the force of the government behind him.

[19:29] There's a part where the mayor goes, you don't have.

[19:31] Yeah, like the ACLU.

[19:32] Wake up, Elliot.

[19:32] Wake up.

[19:33] The mayor goes, you don't have any jurisdiction.

[19:35] Wake up, King Obama.

[19:36] Sheeple.

[19:36] The mayor goes, you don't have any jurisdiction here.

[19:39] And if it's the ACLU, they don't have jurisdiction anywhere.

[19:41] They're not a legal organization.

[19:42] You know, they have no policing abilities.

[19:44] And they have jurisdiction everywhere because they're a private organization that operates within the United States.

[19:50] But he decides he's the champion of anti-Christmas.

[19:54] And what's weird is that this is clearly a pro-Christmas, anti-secular movie.

[20:00] It is pro-putting Christmas in the town square.

[20:02] And yet every time Fred Williamson gives his arguments, they are so reasonable and rational.

[20:06] And they're like, look, I'm here to protect civil rights.

[20:10] Freedom of religion is the same for everybody.

[20:12] Everybody has to be treated fairly and equally.

[20:14] Look, you're the mayor of everyone in your town.

[20:17] You should represent all people.

[20:19] And the mayor is like, we just want the freedom to celebrate Christmas forever, all the time, everywhere, with everybody.

[20:26] And there's a great part where – oh, another thing they keep pointing out is, you know Christmas is a federal holiday?

[20:32] They're trying to stop us from celebrating a federal holiday signed in by Ulysses S. Grant.

[20:37] U.S. Grant?

[20:38] U.S. Grant.

[20:39] The president who literally has the same initials as our country?

[20:42] But those weren't even his real initials.

[20:44] His name was Hiram Ulysses Grant.

[20:45] No.

[20:46] Anyway, it's a transcription error when he entered West Point.

[20:49] But anyway, that's besides the point.

[20:50] What I like is that they have a clip from the O'Reilly Factor where O'Reilly says this.

[20:55] It's a federal holiday signed into law by U.S. Grant.

[20:59] And then during the credits at the end, it says special appearance by Bill O'Reilly.

[21:04] It's like, no, you just used a clip from his show.

[21:06] Like, that's not a special appearance.

[21:08] Yeah, that's like playing a Beatles song and being like, special appearance by Paul McCartney.

[21:12] Now, Phil O'Reilly showed up and sang Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie.

[21:17] That would be a fucking special appearance by Bill O'Reilly.

[21:19] Yeah, so wait.

[21:20] Is this on David Bowie's Christmas special?

[21:22] He's passing along the tradition he picked up from Bing Crosby?

[21:25] Yeah.

[21:26] You and I, Bill, we...

[21:29] You and I, Bill, we're going to sing a little drummer boy.

[21:33] That was him with...

[21:34] Do you want to see me go O'Reilly?

[21:35] Yeah, and that was David Bowie with a call.

[21:37] Yeah, he's one of the Peanuts adults.

[21:42] so anyway so anyway they keep saying that and it's a this is okay let's just get this straight

[21:49] i hope everybody's listening to the flop house who's fighting the war on christmas federal

[21:53] holiday basically just means a day people can take off from work if they work for the federal

[21:57] government it doesn't mean the government officially recognizes this as the birth of the

[22:01] lord it just means because so many people celebrate it we're not going to work this day

[22:05] but they seem to mean that by making they seem to think that by making it a federal holiday it means

[22:10] This is a day for everybody.

[22:11] This is a pretty serious rap session we're having here.

[22:13] LA is dropping knowledge on people.

[22:15] I'm just dropping knowledge about how federal holidays work.

[22:17] Shouldn't you be sitting backwards next year?

[22:19] How do you know I'm not?

[22:20] It's the radio.

[22:21] Kids, turn your hats around.

[22:23] Take out that cigarette and put in some gum.

[22:26] Wait, hold on.

[22:28] Now take the gum out.

[22:29] That's rude while you're in class.

[22:31] Put in a carrot.

[22:32] It's good for your teeth.

[22:33] And your eyesight.

[22:34] Okay, now take out that carrot.

[22:36] Put in a candy bar.

[22:38] Tastes better, doesn't it?

[22:39] Who gives a shit if it's bad for you?

[22:40] It tastes good, right?

[22:41] Pull out your Trapper Keepers.

[22:43] And put in...

[22:44] Get one of those squiggle-writing pens.

[22:45] And put in your retainer.

[22:47] Because your Trapper Keepers should not be in your mouth.

[22:49] Now pull out your textbook and turn to page 83.

[22:54] I want answers to all the questions by Monday.

[22:58] Number one, who's pervasoid number one?

[23:00] The answer is Dan McCoy.

[23:01] Number two...

[23:02] Signing homework already?

[23:03] That's kind of weird.

[23:03] We haven't even started the rap session.

[23:05] Why are you giving the answers?

[23:06] Oh, because I want them to pass the test, Dan.

[23:08] My salary depends on this.

[23:10] Look, we're just teaching to the test,

[23:12] and if that means giving them the answers.

[23:13] Anyway.

[23:14] No child left behind.

[23:15] So he keeps his crusade on Christmas,

[23:17] and Fred Williamson is just kind of

[23:19] generally causing trouble by

[23:21] Smoking cigars in hotel rooms.

[23:23] Smoking cigars in hotel rooms

[23:24] and complaining to the town council.

[23:25] Which in the town,

[23:26] There's a lot of glowering.

[23:27] They put up the Christmas tree,

[23:28] and there's a part where

[23:30] they throw a Christmas party,

[23:32] and it's supposed to be

[23:33] in their own private home.

[23:34] The mayor and his wife throw the Christmas party.

[23:35] And the wife is like,

[23:37] Oh, it's so good to send out invitations for this

[23:41] that say a Christmas party rather than a holiday party

[23:44] like we've been doing for so many years.

[23:45] Yeah, it's like she's had to pull the chains off her arms.

[23:50] It really feels like they wrote...

[23:51] Regular Harrison Bergeron.

[23:52] In the first draft of this script,

[23:57] there must have been some kind of Gestapo future dystopian police force

[24:01] that policed everyone's Christmases,

[24:03] and then they were like, you know what, that's going to be too expensive.

[24:05] We'll just set it kind of nowadays, but we'll keep most of the other stuff.

[24:08] So there are these scenes where people act as if they've been literally unable to privately celebrate Christmas in their homes, which makes no sense.

[24:17] Well, the Grandpa Mayer character was originally like the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in Total Recall, I would imagine.

[24:22] And he's living in that.

[24:24] And he doesn't know if he's dreaming this war on Christmas?

[24:27] He really was a secret agent?

[24:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[24:29] And instead of going to Mars, he's going to Bethlehem.

[24:32] I see.

[24:33] The people need prayer.

[24:35] That's what he's saying, instead of the people in the air.

[24:36] There's a prostitute with three crosses instead of just two.

[24:39] And there's a biker with a little biker in his belly

[24:41] who tells him he's got to start a revolution.

[24:44] We're actually not that far from that part.

[24:45] But for a while it looks like there's going to be

[24:49] no visitors for this holiday party, no guests.

[24:54] And then one of the mayor's best friends shows up

[24:56] with what seems to be a crowd of homeless people

[24:58] and brings them in.

[24:59] To the mayor, the richest man in town.

[25:02] And then an angel gets his wings.

[25:04] Yep. All these letters for Santa Claus.

[25:06] You know what?

[25:08] Yes, Virginia, there is one.

[25:09] Jack Skellington, you did do a good job of delivering presents.

[25:12] Rudolph, you can drive my sleigh tonight.

[25:15] Herbie the love bug, you're going bananas.

[25:17] Ernest, stop making faces and keep delivering presents.

[25:21] It turns out it was Norman dressed as his mother.

[25:23] The cranks are going to celebrate Christmas this year.

[25:26] The croods are going to celebrate Christmas, even though it's before Christ was born.

[25:30] Literally, BC.

[25:32] Never stop BC.

[25:33] PC Comics.

[25:34] The Christian caveman comic.

[25:36] It doesn't make any sense.

[25:37] Don't worry, characters from Bugs Life.

[25:39] I'll stop eating you.

[25:40] What?

[25:42] You eat bugs?

[25:44] We were just saying stuff about movies.

[25:47] Didn't really make any sense what you just said.

[25:50] Don't worry, Fern Gully.

[25:52] Turns out you're not the last rainforest.

[25:53] Don't worry, dragon.

[25:57] It turns out you're not the last dragon.

[25:59] He was, though.

[26:02] He what?

[26:03] Hey, everybody, the Jedis are returning.

[26:05] I wish that was the last line of Return of the Jedi.

[26:09] And he holds up a crudely Photoshopped newspaper that has a picture of Jedis on it and ghosts.

[26:18] Just like how the mayor holds, and this holds up a newspaper where they've clearly just pasted a photograph of the actor playing the mayor onto a real newspaper.

[26:25] The best is when the mayor is looking at that newspaper kind of over his own face, and then he lowers it, but it's like his own face is being lowered.

[26:32] And someone says, hey, you're famous, dude.

[26:34] And he goes, dude?

[26:35] But they never explain why the hell he's in the newspaper.

[26:38] But anyway, so while they're having the party, somebody, but we know it's Fred Williamson because we see his shoes, uses a truck to literally pull down the Christmas tree in town.

[26:49] And this is where what was a really boring movie, so boring we haven't even gotten into the best subplot because there was so little of it.

[26:55] We'll get to that.

[26:56] A really boring movie found a moment of magic because they decided this Christmas tree falling down is not spectacular enough.

[27:02] Let's use Adobe After Effects to add little explosions to it

[27:07] so that it looks like the Christmas tree lights are sparking and break-exploding, I guess.

[27:12] Like miniature fireworks, basically.

[27:14] Yeah, it's like a screensaver got overlaid on top of the film.

[27:17] And then Fred Williamson's boots trampling ornaments, including the angel that was atop the tree.

[27:24] It's literally the animation level of the opening credits of Night Court, basically.

[27:28] And that color scheme.

[27:30] but anyway it's a little it's a beautiful little moment meanwhile there's a subplot going on we

[27:35] haven't even touched on the school christmas play it doesn't exist it's called the school

[27:39] winter space play and it's about what it's basically about aliens talking about how christ

[27:45] is born on earth and it's a king that will accept all people a very hammy very a feat director yeah

[27:52] he's dressed like a hecuba from kids in the hall he seems to get gayer with every scene

[27:56] most of the film is just him sitting in a chair doing his best impression of cam from modern

[28:00] family telling these kids how to act in this play the kids don't like it that they're not being able

[28:05] to do christmas stuff so they started a mission they call operation sabotage let's take a moment

[28:11] to say that the play that they're doing is a play about aliens but it's a thinly veiled uh nativity

[28:17] it's not even thinly veiled they say a king will be born on earth who will who accept all people

[28:22] like yeah that's not even and then as told in the scrolls of jupiter or something like that

[28:26] Basically what you're saying is aliens believe in Christ too, which is, if anything, more Christian than a standard Christian play.

[28:33] Yeah, that it transcends all boundaries of planet, dimension.

[28:37] This isn't just an Earth nativity.

[28:39] Just accept your fucking alien Jesus allegory.

[28:42] All the planets bow towards the son of Galilee.

[28:45] That's what it's saying.

[28:46] But they think it's not Christian enough.

[28:48] And I've got to tell you, there's two great actors in this movie.

[28:51] One is the guy playing the theater director who hams the shit out of it.

[28:55] And the other we'll get to later, but let's just call him Cowboy Christ Ghost.

[28:59] Anyway, he wanders around in the background until the end when he comes into play, so we'll save him.

[29:04] But the kids decide they're going to save Christmas themselves by changing this play with Operation Sabotage.

[29:11] And there's an excruciating scene where they meet in an attic and discuss what the name of their mission is going to be.

[29:17] Which for a moment I was excited because it reminded me of this Disney made-for-TV movie about kids rescuing dogs from a dog pound.

[29:24] Parent Trap 3.

[29:25] But, no, they didn't save any puppies.

[29:28] Motel for Dogs.

[29:30] The new Parent Trap?

[29:30] No, it was none of those things.

[29:32] It had the guy who played the police chief

[29:35] in Mashes of the Universe

[29:36] as the evil dog pound operator.

[29:38] The Shaggy Parent Trap.

[29:39] The Shaggy Parent Trap.

[29:41] I think actually Dan's onto something.

[29:42] I think it might have been the Shaggy Parent Trap.

[29:44] But who was Shaggy?

[29:46] The Trap or the Parents?

[29:47] No, he was played by Shaggy, the R&B artist.

[29:49] Nice, the guy who wore a lot of, what were those?

[29:52] He just kept going, it wasn't me.

[29:54] And then, like, winking at the audience.

[29:56] And then the police chief was like,

[29:57] Likely story, Shaggy. Likely story.

[30:00] Take him away, boys.

[30:01] Police Chief O'Mulligan?

[30:03] Yes, Police Chief Sauce O'Mulligan.

[30:06] And the ghost of Dean Jones showed up

[30:10] and said, Merry Christmas to all of us.

[30:12] Okay, wait, there's a ghost in this movie.

[30:14] I don't remember it at all.

[30:15] Okay, it wasn't really a ghost.

[30:16] We'll get to it.

[30:17] So, meanwhile, the mayor is taking his stand,

[30:22] And he decides that he's, and there's a lot of stuff about the sacrifice his son made.

[30:27] A big story comes out that the mayor is not actually a war hero, which he always said he was.

[30:32] Which he clearly is since he has a fucking medal of honor in a box in his attic.

[30:36] He could have made that, dude.

[30:37] With what?

[30:38] His medal press?

[30:39] It could have been made for him by the opposing side in the war he was fighting in.

[30:43] He's a sleeper agent.

[30:45] Have you ever seen Homeland?

[30:46] I recommend it.

[30:47] You're saying he's a brainwashed Viet Cong.

[30:49] Yeah.

[30:50] I don't want to set a time period to whichever war he was fighting in.

[30:54] I mean, it's very clearly Vietnam.

[30:55] He's pretty much fighting in a deciduous forest, Elliot, in all the flashbacks.

[30:59] In the flashbacks, it does appear that most of the Vietnam War took place in a park in Connecticut.

[31:05] Like a dry creek bed somewhere.

[31:06] Somewhere in Pennsylvania or perhaps Kentucky.

[31:09] Whereas all of his son's fighting takes place in some warehouse.

[31:13] In the same dusty warehouse.

[31:14] And let me just tell you this.

[31:15] Dusty warehouse.

[31:17] Great artist from the 60s.

[31:18] Dusty warehouse.

[31:19] Oh, his songs really got to the heart of what warehousing was like.

[31:23] Let me just tell you this.

[31:26] You're going to tell us your war stories.

[31:27] No, I don't like to say that I have any sort of understanding about what it's like to be in a war.

[31:32] I spent six days in a war zone, definitely not enough to really know what it's like,

[31:38] not enough to feel the fear or the worry or the anxiety, the excitement, any of those things.

[31:44] But you were a master with a Bowie knife.

[31:46] Well, that was before I left.

[31:49] Those were the special skills they needed and that I brought on the USO tour when I did my night missions, which was doing Bowie knife throwing tricks.

[31:56] You know, by day it was comedy and by night it was all knife tricks.

[31:59] But let me just say it didn't feel like I spent most of the time inside of a dusty warehouse.

[32:05] But apparently that's where the entire war for freedom has been taking place.

[32:09] The dusty warehouse is an allegory, Elliot.

[32:12] For what?

[32:13] The soul?

[32:14] The non-dusty warehouse.

[32:17] It's an allegory for a working warehouse.

[32:20] But it's dusty because they have not accepted Jesus into their lives or Christmas.

[32:26] Oh, I see.

[32:28] Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

[32:30] So you're saying at the end when there was that shot of a clean warehouse.

[32:33] Yeah, now you're getting it.

[32:34] There wasn't, though.

[32:35] So there's a story that comes out in the paper that the mayor is not a war hero.

[32:38] And it turns out that there's a mission he never told them about.

[32:42] He says that his job in Vietnam was leading a special unit that was rescuing POWs.

[32:47] so he's basically like a chuck norris rambo type yeah man uh but he talks about a mission he never

[32:53] told about where because he was pushing his men too hard he or one of them tripped a trip wire

[32:59] which triggered an ambush and his men got killed and he's never told anyone about that mission and

[33:04] it's like i guess that's a mistake and he i can understand his guilt but it doesn't mean he's not

[33:08] still a war hero for all the war fighting he did like it's a weird thing to come out who found out

[33:13] this story all of a sudden I assume anyone who looked in the public records of the U.S. military

[33:18] like and there's they have to do a report about basically every battle it doesn't matter because

[33:22] uh he's been disgraced the town council has removed him from his they literally fire

[33:27] because he's not a war hero but they well that he does not have the strength to lead them it was

[33:33] just the last straw that broke the camel's back and that camel was an nativity scene which was

[33:37] really bad if it had been a regular secular camel we would not have had a problem but it was an

[33:44] activity scene camel uh it was a real a mall in the night visitors scenario anyway so uh he's

[33:51] removed from office in what i can only call a municipal coup and he decides he's gonna strikes

[33:57] back the only way he can by hoisting a giant cross to a private building front and he's

[34:03] single-handedly doing it until his biker friends from the hyenas and his son christian help him

[34:08] yeah and this somehow is against the law and he's thrown in jail if he hadn't patched up that

[34:14] overweight biker from the stab wound yeah that overweight same overweight biker wouldn't have

[34:18] been able to help him place that i mean that's good screenwriting he's like the the lion that

[34:23] hercules pulled the thorn from exactly he's like i think you've he's like two different stories he's

[34:28] like an apple tree that johnny apple it was like the goose that pecos bill gave a massage

[34:35] he's like a monkey that paul bunyan

[34:42] the gifts of the magi he's like he's like the tortoise that raised the happy hooker

[34:49] you're getting all the stories mixed up he's like when uh persephone uh oh boy gave thor

[34:57] Excalibur. Nope, all wrong

[35:01] All wrong

[35:02] Though you're drawing some interesting parallels between different

[35:05] mythologies, Dan

[35:06] Let's touch on that

[35:07] This comparative religions class is getting a little

[35:11] bit interesting

[35:11] Oh boy. The point is

[35:14] I wish the Hercules story was about him befriending the lion

[35:16] rather than murdering it

[35:18] So you're saying the grandpa gets sent to

[35:20] jail and you're talking about

[35:23] magical figures

[35:24] Well, but first the grandpa gives a speech about freedom

[35:26] that lasts about four hours uh it's very rousing and very wrong and it's captured on the the front

[35:33] of the dvd box right i i don't know i haven't seen that okay i'll pull up the poster okay uh

[35:38] it's not a chick's butt or anything awesome like past movie posters we've looked at yeah like the

[35:42] fucking dybbuk movie would be amazing if the if there was like the the cover for this movie this

[35:47] family movie about saving christmas was like a teen sex romp painting where like it's all there

[35:53] It's like a Mort Drucker-style thing or a Jack Davis-style thing

[35:56] where they're all racing around the title,

[35:58] and there's like a cheerleader with her top off that's running,

[36:02] and the grandfather's chasing her, and the grandson is running,

[36:05] but there's like a big fat woman who's trying to kiss him.

[36:08] And it says, the halls aren't the only thing that are going to get decked.

[36:11] Yeah, beautiful.

[36:12] Last ounce of courage.

[36:13] Spring break.

[36:15] Last ounce of spring break.

[36:17] But anyway, he gives the speech.

[36:19] He gets arrested, I guess, for speech-giving and cross-pudding-upping,

[36:21] which are crimes in Obama's America.

[36:24] Oh, exactly.

[36:24] Or it's the future, so I guess Hillary Clinton's America?

[36:26] Future crimes.

[36:27] Future crimes.

[36:28] You better watch out.

[36:29] Ed 209 is going to fucking blast him.

[36:31] You've been found guilty of future crimes.

[36:32] So says time judge Judy.

[36:37] Anyway, so he gets thrown in jail, but the movie's not over yet.

[36:42] There's still Operation Sabotage to go through.

[36:44] And in jail, he gets to hear his grandson's Christmas play

[36:49] because a helpful cowboy angel

[36:51] in the form of a white-haired, long-haired cowboy with a beard

[36:56] has a magic radio which allows him to hear

[36:59] what's going on within the school auditorium.

[37:02] He looks like an old good guy version of The Undertaker from WWE.

[37:05] Yeah, yeah, or like those evil Edgar Winter Brothers

[37:07] from that one Jonah X comic.

[37:09] Was that Riders of the Worm and such?

[37:11] Yeah, that's right.

[37:11] So he's like Willie Nelson in The Undertaker

[37:16] combined into one guy.

[37:17] He's a Sam Neill from Big Lebowski Jesus, is what he is.

[37:20] Exactly, very much so.

[37:22] Or Sam Elliott, because if it was Sam Neill...

[37:24] Sam Elliott, sorry.

[37:25] No, no, Sam Neill in the director's cut

[37:27] where he's playing his character Alan Grant from Jurassic Park.

[37:30] And he just looks...

[37:32] It's a Sam Neill from Siren sort of character.

[37:34] So Sam Neill in...

[37:35] He's painting a bunch of naked Australian ladies.

[37:37] Sam Neill in The Omen 3, Dominion,

[37:39] or whatever that was called.

[37:40] Sam Elliott, oh boy.

[37:41] Except my Sams.

[37:46] A real Thunderbolt Ross type.

[37:48] Sam Neill, I know you're listening.

[37:49] I'm apologizing for Dan for getting you confused with Sam Elliott.

[37:52] Yes, thank you.

[37:53] You're very different people.

[37:54] I apologize to Sam Elliott for getting you confused with Sam Neill.

[37:57] And I apologize to Sam the Eagle for not being mentioned in this bit.

[37:59] We'll get to you later, bud.

[38:01] Okay, so Operation Sabotage goes off without a hitch.

[38:04] This involves one literally forcing the gay director into

[38:09] and then trapping him in a closet,

[38:11] which is a metaphor I don't know that the filmmakers were going for,

[38:15] But it does seem like what they're saying is it's very imperative for us to save Christmas by forcing gay people into closets.

[38:21] Then they take off their alien robe costumes, and they're in angel costumes and wise men costumes.

[38:27] They tell the story of Christmas and sing Silent Night.

[38:30] And then Christian, for some reason, decides to project his father's last video on a big screen, which literally ends with his father dying in an explosion, which asks two questions.

[38:40] One, how did his camcorder survive that explosion?

[38:43] And two, home editing software is so cheap and available.

[38:48] Why did you not edit out the gruesome death of your father

[38:51] before projecting it in front of the entire town phone?

[38:53] Well, he's a teenage filmmaker, you know?

[38:56] He's into the shock, the gore effects.

[38:58] Oh, so you're saying it was a real cry for attention.

[39:02] So it wins everybody over.

[39:05] They all come out.

[39:06] The mayor is released from jail on bail, I assume.

[39:10] They'll hum-hark the Herald Angels sing.

[39:12] They sing it and the mayor sees cowboy Jesus, saint of killers, just walk away from the crowd and literally fade away in white light.

[39:22] So it was, this movie had no supernatural elements until the very end.

[39:26] And the only way it could have gotten better is if Fred Williamson had then disappeared in a puff of brimstone.

[39:31] You won again, son of man.

[39:34] I'll go back to my lair.

[39:36] But secular humanism will have its day.

[39:38] Presumably this movie is made for people that strongly follow the Christian faith.

[39:43] And if I was one of those people, I would be offended if I had dedicated my life

[39:48] to upholding the virtues and the beliefs of Christian faith

[39:51] only to see a movie where a biker mayor guy who saves Christmas

[39:57] is visited by a fucking angel from God.

[40:00] Wait, but wouldn't you be so excited to see that your God, it turns out,

[40:04] is kind of a cool hippie cowboy?

[40:06] I guess I might be excited if I was like, hey, yeah, I've dedicated my life to Christianity.

[40:11] I've seen that guy all the time.

[40:12] He shows up all the time.

[40:14] I'm glad they finally called him for a movie.

[40:16] Tell him the truth.

[40:17] Instead, I'm assuming I could be wrong, but a lot of people don't see that.

[40:21] I don't know.

[40:23] I mean, speaking as someone who is not a Christian, the portrayal of Christianity didn't bother me because whatever, I don't have a stake in that.

[40:30] But it did bug me just that – just the assumption that like, look, I – like the important thing about freedom is that I get to do whatever I want all the time no matter what anybody else wants.

[40:42] It's this weird kind of selfish sort of freedom.

[40:45] Yeah, this bothered me, and we talked about it during the movie.

[40:48] We're like –

[40:48] We should talk about the quality of the film too, which was very poor.

[40:51] But the kid was like –

[40:52] This is not the MSNBC podcast.

[40:55] The whole point of the movie was like the kid being like, what did my dad die for?

[41:00] What freedom did he die for?

[41:02] And it's just like, well, your dad died fighting for the United States of America,

[41:08] which as one of its founding principles separates church and state.

[41:11] Literally one of the first ones.

[41:13] One of the two first ones.

[41:15] It's very strange.

[41:16] Well, Dan, actually that phrase, separation of church and state,

[41:20] a wall between church and state, only appears in a letter by Thomas Jefferson.

[41:24] It's not in the Constitution.

[41:25] Okay.

[41:25] All right.

[41:26] All right, history house.

[41:28] He's free to have that awesome haircut that he has.

[41:30] yeah yeah able to wear that weird upside down cross pendant he's wearing at the end of the

[41:34] kid wears a cross that where the top and the bottom are almost equal size so it looks like

[41:38] it's upside down and i guess he's a satanist he's totally a satanist uh well but he wants that

[41:43] freedom you know who knows but i think we could all overlook this if the movie was of a high

[41:48] quality because speaking as for myself someone who has no religious connection with the christian

[41:53] faith i often find myself moved by christian works of art that are of a very high quality

[41:58] you know or of a high caliber or speak to a real human emotion and this does none of those things

[42:03] or even um pop christian works of arts of high caliber such as your charlie brown's christmases

[42:10] yeah yeah exactly uh but this yeah this is a terribly made movie it's so and really it it's

[42:17] so cheap like just amateurish in a lot of ways but i think my favorite ways that it's amateurish

[42:23] are the, well, I don't know if I can choose.

[42:29] There's the bad acting, which is really bad.

[42:32] There's the bad editing where you just suddenly get a shot of something random.

[42:36] All of a sudden you're now in the bathroom

[42:37] where two characters are having a conversation

[42:39] and you're like, how'd they get there?

[42:40] Do you follow them in?

[42:42] It's the first day of school for a young Christian

[42:44] because he moved to town like the day before school started.

[42:48] And it's literally a shot of the outside of the school

[42:50] then like half a second of a hallway where two girls are talking and then instantly we're in

[42:54] gym class it was like why did we just see that shot of the hall like just to prove this was a

[42:58] school with more than one room i don't understand why did why are we seeing flashback overlaid on

[43:03] flashback overlaid on flashback over here is it to hide the fact that the vietnam sequences were

[43:08] shot in a public park of some kind well i do like the uh the subplot that we didn't touch on of the

[43:14] widow of...

[43:17] Oh, that's right. There's a romantic subplot.

[43:19] Yeah, the widow who is, I guess, having

[43:21] a brief romance with her...

[43:24] A brief encounter.

[43:24] It's Christian's mother

[43:27] who doesn't age a day

[43:29] in that 14 years. No, she looks amazing.

[43:31] She looks great. It's like the Bratz.

[43:33] Like the Bratz, not

[43:35] aging. She's a total milf. She smeared her face

[43:37] with Bratz juice. She's a total milf.

[43:39] Mother I'd like to have faith with.

[43:41] She spills

[43:43] She looks at her stuff with Bratz juice.

[43:44] So is that saliva or blood or what?

[43:46] No, it's a mixture.

[43:47] Do you just take a Bratz and just grind it up?

[43:49] A Bratz mortar and pestle.

[43:51] And rubs the slurry over.

[43:53] Just smashing Jade's face with a mortar until she can rub it on her skin to be eternally youthful.

[43:59] It's like the dumpling story in Three Extremes.

[44:02] It's that kind of chemistry that Jade would appreciate.

[44:05] There's a romantic subplot here.

[44:07] Jade would like the science of it.

[44:09] I like the romantic subplot and how, as you pointed out, Dan, how awkward and crappy the flirting is.

[44:16] She's falling in love slowly with her husband's best friend, who's now a police officer.

[44:21] And, Dan, you made the point that flirting might be the thing that bad movies fuck up the most.

[44:26] Yeah, everyone seems so awkward and so weird when they flirt.

[44:30] And it seems like that should be something that...

[44:34] Unlike normal flirting, when I do it, it's totally natural.

[44:37] Oh, smooth as silk.

[44:38] Exactly.

[44:39] Yeah, it's like oil poured onto set.

[44:41] Well, when Stuart does it...

[44:42] Women's hair sometimes catches flame.

[44:44] It's so potent.

[44:45] The women sometimes don't even know what happened.

[44:47] It just feels like normal conversation.

[44:48] And Stuart winks and walks away.

[44:49] And the women are like, oh my God, I'm in love.

[44:52] And I didn't even realize it.

[44:53] And then the next day they wake up in Stuart's bed.

[44:55] And they're like, wait, I went to bed in my bed.

[44:57] And Stuart's like, yes, well, I have a ladder.

[45:00] Exactly.

[45:01] And you have a second floor window.

[45:02] Then I give Nemo a high five for transporting them in his flying bed.

[45:09] Nemo from Slumberland?

[45:10] Yeah.

[45:10] Or Nemo the fish?

[45:12] Captain Nemo.

[45:13] Oh, Captain...

[45:14] Is Flying Bed the Nautilus?

[45:17] Nautilus.

[45:19] So, yeah, that's...

[45:21] He ferries them over.

[45:22] That's powerful.

[45:23] But it's easy to tell...

[45:24] Like a Charon of sex.

[45:25] Like, it's easy to tell how wrong it is

[45:27] just because it's an experience

[45:29] that we've all had in life

[45:31] of, like, talking to someone

[45:32] who you're interested in, but, like...

[45:34] And you're kind of testing the waters,

[45:36] but you're being playful

[45:36] and you're realizing there's an attraction there.

[45:38] But as you said, Elliot, it's also a subtle interaction.

[45:41] So if you're a bad screenwriter, you can't capture it.

[45:43] It's a very subtle and a very delicate thing and hard to do in real life.

[45:46] So, like, I can understand why it would be hard to get on the page.

[45:49] But when you're a bad writer especially, when you can't even write a rousing speech about freedom,

[45:54] maybe the single easiest thing to write a rousing speech about,

[45:57] I don't expect you to be able to write down the delicate interplay between a widow and her dead husband's best friend

[46:05] as you find your mutual attraction at the basketball court.

[46:09] All right, so we've been going for a while.

[46:12] We should just move on to our final judgments.

[46:14] This is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,

[46:16] or a movie you kind of liked.

[46:17] Elliot, what do you have to say?

[46:18] It's a bad bad movie.

[46:19] It offended me on a political level,

[46:21] not because I'm a liberal,

[46:22] but because I have certain feelings about America's

[46:25] basic core values that this movie doesn't share.

[46:28] Yeah, you're un-American. You're a communist.

[46:29] Yeah, yeah, because I'm a total commie pinko

[46:31] who believes that I don't, not to limit me.

[46:33] Believe in golems and dibbicks.

[46:35] Who doesn't want to have Christmas shoved down my throat as it has been for every year of my life on this godforsaken planet.

[46:41] Anyway.

[46:41] No, God blessed planet, Elliot.

[46:44] God blessed planet.

[46:46] Yeah.

[46:46] There's a little thing called War and Hunger, Dan.

[46:49] All right.

[46:49] Look into it.

[46:50] I think you'll like it.

[46:51] But it's just poorly made.

[46:53] And this made Fireproof look like a really good movie.

[46:57] Which we actually talked about Fireproof, which we watched recently.

[47:00] Where it was like, Fireproof was just dumb and silly, whereas this is, like, wrong on a basic level.

[47:06] Where Fireproof was about one man using religion in his private life, which is totally okay,

[47:11] and this was about the need for religion to be a part of our government, which was not.

[47:15] So what you're trying to say is Fireproof, good, good movie.

[47:18] No.

[47:18] What I'm saying is the private quality of that and Kirk Cameron's stunning performance really lifted that one,

[47:25] Whereas Mayor Bob, the pharmacist who sows up stabbed bikers, did not really carry this movie.

[47:32] What do you think, Stu?

[47:33] Normally I would say it's a good, great movie because it features a magical ghost that disappears at the end when his job is done.

[47:40] Sure.

[47:40] But no, Elliot's right.

[47:43] I mean, as much fun as I watch kids coming up with plans to sabotage the play, a couple of Kimmy Gibblers hanging out.

[47:51] Yeah, it's not very good.

[47:54] And I don't recommend anybody watching it ever

[47:57] I don't even think people who agree with the message

[47:59] Of the movie would enjoy this movie

[48:00] No that's the thing

[48:01] It would make me even more offended if I agreed with the message

[48:04] Because it's so crappily done

[48:05] It makes me feel dumb by association

[48:08] Like they should just go watch It's a Wonderful Life again

[48:10] Or like RoboCop

[48:11] I'm going to give it a bit of a good bad movie

[48:14] Because like

[48:14] You keep giving them good bads

[48:18] No I don't

[48:18] We watch so many movies

[48:21] Thanks to our particular purview

[48:24] as a podcast that are just mediocre.

[48:27] This is a movie that is incompetent.

[48:30] The curse.

[48:30] Yeah, it is incompetent.

[48:32] And I laughed more at the stupidity of this movie

[48:36] than I normally do.

[48:37] I also got angry at some of the political views.

[48:40] It made me angrier than I like a good, mad movie to make me.

[48:42] Yeah, that's the one thing.

[48:44] You swayed me on Food Fight.

[48:45] I don't think you're going to sway me on Last Downs of Courage.

[48:47] But if there was more disappearing ghosts,

[48:50] if there was more crappy Christmas ornament special effects,

[48:53] I would have been all over this

[48:54] I would actually argue that part of what makes a good bad movie

[48:58] Is that you kind of

[48:59] It doesn't actually remind you of anything

[49:01] In the real world

[49:02] It's kind of disposable escape

[49:04] And I feel this just makes me mad

[49:06] And I think you guys should feel that way too

[49:08] Since your day job deals with this shit

[49:11] Well I think that's part of the problem

[49:12] If I was not as exposed to this at work

[49:15] This type of like War on Christmas stuff

[49:18] I think maybe it wouldn't have made me so mad

[49:19] But watching it made me feel like I was at work

[49:21] Well it's been exposed

[49:23] We gotta quarantine

[49:24] Oh no

[49:25] To Christmas disease

[49:26] Ho ho ho guys

[49:29] Oh no

[49:29] I'm manifesting the symptoms

[49:31] Should we

[49:33] Should we

[49:33] Before we

[49:34] Yeah before we get into letters

[49:35] Before I sing my song

[49:35] We should thank

[49:36] The AV Club

[49:38] At the Onion

[49:39] At

[49:40] Well I mean

[49:41] I feel like there's

[49:42] There's enough of a

[49:43] Here we go again

[49:45] Independent energy

[49:46] I just wanted

[49:46] People to know

[49:47] It wasn't the AV Club

[49:48] At like George Washington

[49:49] High School

[49:50] Yeah we want to

[49:50] Although we thank them too

[49:51] Thank our local high school's AV club for giving us these great microphones.

[49:56] But also, thank the Onion AV club.

[49:59] I think they're separate from the Onion, Dan.

[50:01] We don't need to mention that.

[50:02] God damn you.

[50:03] So we want to thank the Onion AV club for a big honor they bestowed upon us.

[50:07] Yeah, we got the fifth best podcast of 2013.

[50:10] Tied for fifth best.

[50:10] We tied for fifth with the Bugle.

[50:12] Something called the Bugle.

[50:13] Who cares about that thing?

[50:15] All right, guys?

[50:16] It meant a lot to me, partly because the AV Club has been a real champion of us for a while now, but also because everyone else, for the most part on the list, and especially Five and Up, were much bigger names than us.

[50:30] We were tied with The Bugle, which stars some English guy from television.

[50:34] Right above us was Dan Savage's podcast.

[50:37] Above that was Marc Maron's podcast.

[50:39] These are podcasts by named people that have much bigger profiles, so to be in that company was quite inspiring.

[50:46] they're great podcasts

[50:47] and they're great podcasts

[50:48] that's true

[50:48] everything on the list

[50:50] is a great podcast

[50:50] especially a podcast

[50:52] called the Flophouse Podcast

[50:53] check it out

[50:54] tied for fifth

[50:55] should have been first

[50:56] yeah so thank you

[50:59] yeah thanks very much

[51:00] AV Club

[51:00] and thank you Dan

[51:02] for being a friend

[51:03] and thank you Stuart

[51:05] hey guys

[51:05] aren't you gonna thank me

[51:06] for anything

[51:07] no

[51:07] I'm gonna thank

[51:08] you've been a real pain lately

[51:09] I'm gonna thank

[51:11] what Dan's about to read

[51:12] which is a letter

[51:12] so um

[51:15] thank you letter

[51:15] is titled

[51:17] Scary Stuff.

[51:21] No, no, Scary Stuff.

[51:24] It's not Scary Stuff, it's Stuff Instead.

[51:27] But what is stuff?

[51:28] Let's find out what stuff is.

[51:31] Is stuff the stuff that's under your bed?

[51:35] Is stuff the stuff that's on top of your head?

[51:37] Is stuff the stuff inside of the dead?

[51:40] We'll never know.

[51:43] just where it goes it's stuff it's stuff what is this stuff stuff it's all it's give it a stop

[51:53] stop it around stop it in town stop it upside down it's stop brought to you by dan mccoy's

[52:01] stupid mouth that can't say things right beware the beware the warlock and his scary stuff

[52:08] right okay i am stoff the spirit that eats dreams this letter is titled our captain stoff here the

[52:19] letter's titled scary stuff we get scary stuff and not scary movies hey damn stewart elliott

[52:26] yesterday i caught that's us if we were one organism yesterday a human centipede

[52:31] I call it middle

[52:33] wait I mean Dan's middle

[52:36] Dan's middle not middle I'm touching my nose

[52:38] yesterday I caught the second half

[52:40] of the sci-fi comedy romp

[52:42] Inner Space on TV

[52:43] which I have not seen since I was a child

[52:46] where it aired pretty much every Sunday on Comedy Central

[52:48] I still enjoyed the film

[52:50] and was pleased to recognize a pre-Voyager's

[52:52] Dr. Robert Picardo

[52:54] as the flamboyant illicit technology

[52:56] dealer the cowboy

[52:57] but when I was watching it

[53:00] I was anxiously awaiting the one scene in this goofball Martin Short-Dennis Quaid vehicle

[53:06] that scared the living shit out of me as a child.

[53:08] In the climax of the film, the main bad guy's robot-armed Heavy

[53:12] also invades Martin Short's inner space

[53:15] and dukes it out with Dennis Quaid in the lungs and at the top of the stomach.

[53:19] The Heavy is defeated when he and Dennis Quaid fall into a churning sea of stomach acid

[53:23] as he had to eject from his super goofy-looking exosuit

[53:27] and was unprotected from intestinal juices.

[53:29] after the plunge you get any of that stuff was in the first draft of inner space

[53:33] at what point did robot henchman exosuit get into this movie after the plunge you get a brief

[53:39] glimpse of the heavy's melting faceless body bumping up against d quaid's subs windows

[53:43] this scared the ever-living shit out of me when i was a child when i first saw this i had to run

[53:48] out of the room and sit outside trying to get the horrifying image of a gory disintegrating body out

[53:53] of my mind. So I ask you,

[53:55] what non-horror, non-gory

[53:57] films have you seen as a child or otherwise

[53:59] that have an out-of-place, super-scary

[54:01] or horrible moment in them that made

[54:03] a terrible impact on you?

[54:05] Keep on flop, flippity, flop, flop,

[54:07] wormy, ding-dong, flop, whatever.

[54:09] Alex, last name with L.

[54:10] I think I'm going to answer for everybody and say

[54:13] the beginning of Ghostbusters

[54:15] totally fucking freaked me out.

[54:17] That wasn't what I was going to say, but it totally did.

[54:19] There were two moments of Ghostbusters that freaked me out.

[54:20] When I saw Ghostbusters in the theater, my mother covered my eyes

[54:23] and just told me it looked like Skeletor.

[54:25] You know, to put it in a reference for me.

[54:27] Put it in context.

[54:28] That moment in Ghostbusters

[54:29] and also the cab driver ghost at the end

[54:32] when they release all the ghosts from the...

[54:34] It's like a horrible rotting zombie.

[54:35] It looks like the Crypt Keeper, basically.

[54:37] But like way fatter and grosser.

[54:39] And grosser and more graphic.

[54:40] I think we talked about this.

[54:41] You did, and I found it very gross.

[54:42] Yeah, Crypt Keeper's brother.

[54:43] We got into that.

[54:44] But for me, maybe I speak for you guys too,

[54:46] maybe not, when I say two words.

[54:48] Large Marge.

[54:49] There's a certain moment in...

[54:50] We've never ever talked about Large Marge

[54:52] There was a certain moment in Pee-wee's Big Adventure that I think we did talk about where it's like totally goofy to look at now, but as a kid, totally scarified me.

[54:59] Yeah.

[55:01] And I think it was just the suddenness of it.

[55:02] And because I just saw something and it covered my eyes, I didn't know how goofy it looked, you know, until I was older.

[55:09] When I was a kid, my mother showed me a lot of movies that I probably shouldn't have seen.

[55:13] Campbell Holocaust.

[55:14] Yeah, she thought I'd love RoboCop, which I did.

[55:16] How long ago were you when you saw RoboCop?

[55:18] I don't know.

[55:19] It was just out on VHS.

[55:20] Because that's when I was 50 years old.

[55:22] kids add that shit up

[55:23] because that's when

[55:24] I saw it too

[55:25] and I remember

[55:25] in the beginning

[55:26] and the bit where

[55:26] the guy gets all

[55:27] well that part was awesome

[55:28] ED-209

[55:29] that's what got me

[55:30] and the bit where

[55:30] the guy gets all

[55:31] melty with the acid

[55:32] and then RoboCop

[55:33] just runs him right over

[55:34] and his head pops off

[55:35] even as a kid

[55:35] I was totally freaked out

[55:36] the guy who gets

[55:38] his chest blown

[55:39] the fuck up

[55:40] by ED-209

[55:41] in the beginning

[55:41] with all the gunshots

[55:42] that

[55:42] I covered my eyes

[55:44] but the guy with the

[55:45] that stuck with me

[55:46] because now

[55:46] I never want to work

[55:47] for a big corporation

[55:48] just for that reason

[55:50] but the radioactive guy

[55:51] who gets plastered

[55:52] by that point in the movie i was like yeah come on more stuff more grossness the thing that occurs

[55:57] to me and this is meant to be creepy but it's in a non-horror movie film which is uh uh in temple

[56:03] of doom when they go through the fucking like tunnel of bugs oh that was totally scare balls

[56:08] for me what scared me in temple of doom as a kid was the eyeball coming up out of the soup yeah

[56:12] sure that was really gross to me now yeah it's such a great scene the scene where they just do

[56:17] a bunch of exposition and show a bunch of gross shit it is like maybe you won't notice that this

[56:22] is all exposition if we have a bunch of gross food for you it is it is the movie equivalent of

[56:28] going to a haunted house but someone is giving you directions on how to drive home from the haunted

[56:33] house while you're at the haunted house so it's like then you take a left at the gas station

[56:37] here's some witch's hair and stick your hand into some spaghetti then you're gonna go about five

[56:42] Why is his hair so thick and wet?

[56:44] She never washed it.

[56:47] Or maybe she just washed it.

[56:49] Most wishes know that you should only wash your hair every other day.

[56:56] And here is a bowl of brains.

[56:58] These feel like tomatoes.

[56:59] They're small brains from tiny people.

[57:02] This nest letter is titled...

[57:05] Nest letter, huh?

[57:06] It's a letter in a nest?

[57:07] Did a bird write it?

[57:09] Tweet, tweet, dear Flophouse.

[57:11] Can you find me shiny objects to decorate so I can attract a mate?

[57:14] It goes like this.

[57:15] I'll regurgitate food into your mouth.

[57:17] Love, a bird.

[57:18] Titled Mr. Wellington, I presume.

[57:21] It goes like this.

[57:22] Spotlights on me, guys.

[57:23] Just got a fancy new pair of high-quality earbuds.

[57:26] And boy, howdy, the frequency, response, and overall audio quality is that much better than that cheap jack junk from Singapore I was using before.

[57:34] Which sounds like I was talking about heroin.

[57:36] I'm not, of course.

[57:37] Everyone knows that Singapore junk is decidedly not cheap.

[57:40] Anyway, I did notice that I can hear a lot more ambient noise on podcasts, most notably yours.

[57:45] And what I noticed was that what I initially thought was the clinking of ice in a glass.

[57:49] Then I realized that you all are much too professional to drink during your highly intellectual discussions of world cinema.

[57:55] Stuart hears as he literally grips a giant mug full of a brown liquid.

[58:00] It must be Stuart in moments of elevated emotional distress,

[58:04] accidentally losing his eyelid grip on his monocle,

[58:08] Causing it to clatter down onto the water-filled crystal bottom of the glass-bottomed boat from which you record each episode.

[58:14] That, my friends, is sheer class.

[58:17] Cheers, Rob, last name withheld.

[58:19] Rob, you're exactly right.

[58:21] Exactly.

[58:21] My wig flips up off of my head and the monocle falls out of my eyeball.

[58:26] Your dickie curls up.

[58:28] In shock.

[58:30] And we all remember Stewart's classic phrase, why I never, as he rips his own ding-dong off in dismay.

[58:38] The ding-dong, in this case, is clearly the sign of the dean of a popular university.

[58:42] We all remember all the classic two-wheelers that Stewart did back in the golden days.

[58:50] Oh, yeah, yeah, as elegant welligans.

[58:51] The rich guy who's always being surprised.

[58:56] And his sidekick, Dirty Dan McCoy.

[58:59] The lovable roustabout who's always trying to catch a glimpse of other men's wife's bottoms.

[59:04] And for fuck's sake, can't pronounce words.

[59:07] It's a good thing they were silent films.

[59:08] Oh, yeah, that is great.

[59:09] But on the title cards, the words were written incorrectly.

[59:11] So, Dan, what word are you going to mispronounce in this letter?

[59:13] All right, well, this letter is titled,

[59:16] Those with non-debilitating leg injuries need your sympathy and respect.

[59:19] Oh, that's pretty good.

[59:21] I'm amazed you got that out.

[59:22] I'm amazed.

[59:23] I've heard a lot of talk on the podcast lately making light of Dan's knee injury.

[59:26] Dan is a good host, and he's played along,

[59:28] but I believe that the jibes and mockery hurt him more than he lets on.

[59:32] I've been in a position, and I know the hidden pain of leg injury,

[59:35] that no one takes seriously.

[59:37] in 2008 my special forces team was leading 100 afghan commandos okay let's just stop right there

[59:43] dan does not have anything any story that exciting he was on a ski but anyway you're saying we thank

[59:48] you for your service uh commandos on the slopes of vermont commandos up a steep terraced ridgeline

[59:54] toward a hostile taliban controlled village as the point man my buddy john wade and walding

[1:00:00] entered the village the entire valley opened up on us walding's knee was shot off the bone

[1:00:06] The bone and joint were blown away, but the bottom of his leg was still held on by muscle and skin.

[1:00:11] John took his lower leg and bent it up by his thigh, tying the limbs together with his belt.

[1:00:16] He used a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

[1:00:18] In that situation, he then crawled back down 200 vertical feet of terraced rice fields.

[1:00:23] He has a robot leg now, and he's fine. Don't worry about him.

[1:00:26] He's very used to getting attention and sympathy for his awesome story and badass injury.

[1:00:31] Here's my beef.

[1:00:32] At the same time, I was also shot through the leg, albeit a few inches lower in my calf.

[1:00:37] Does anyone give a shit?

[1:00:38] No.

[1:00:39] Walden gets all the leg injury blowjobs while I can't even complain about my leg pain without everyone calling me a pussy.

[1:00:45] That's true.

[1:00:45] Women love giving blowjobs to cyborgs.

[1:00:47] Dan, my minor leg injury brother, I stand with you.

[1:00:50] Our wounds may be bearable and highly treatable, but the mockery which an unfailing populace heaps upon us can never be cured.

[1:00:59] Someday all of the silent heroes of non-debilitating leg trauma will be able to show their faces in the sun.

[1:01:03] We will receive the accolades and sympathy which are deservedly ours.

[1:01:06] People will praise us, not just for living with these wounds, but for overcoming the minor inconveniences of daily life.

[1:01:12] Annoyances which, I'm sure Dan will agree, prove there's either no God or that he hates us all.

[1:01:17] Dan knows what I mean.

[1:01:18] Adjahar, last name withheld.

[1:01:20] Alright, well, I get what you're laying down, Adjahar.

[1:01:23] No, no, I get it.

[1:01:24] Dan, I've been wrong, and I'd like to present you with a medal I'm calling the Purple Leg.

[1:01:28] For people who won't stop complaining about their minor injuries.

[1:01:30] I think we should invite the author of that letter over.

[1:01:34] We should do a soccer game, and the two of you guys will be on one team,

[1:01:38] and Elliot and I will be on the other.

[1:01:39] And yet, Stuart and I will still lose somehow.

[1:01:41] We shouldn't have put you in goal, Elliot.

[1:01:44] I can't run.

[1:01:46] That's the only place I can be.

[1:01:48] I'm so tiny, though.

[1:01:49] I get where you're laying down here, but I still remind you of the old adage

[1:01:53] that uh uh comedy or like tragedy is when i started to stub my toe comedy is when you fall

[1:02:00] down a manhole and break your neck yep um the old mel brooks saying mangled and mutilated yeah by a

[1:02:06] drunk dan mccoy uh yes it's manageable but look guys why not why not just have sympathy across

[1:02:16] the board for people who are hurt no that's rather than stacking up injuries against some

[1:02:21] sort of injury death match that's a very good point i would i would counter though by saying

[1:02:25] there's a certain respect that comes to those who stoically bear their injuries without you know

[1:02:29] telling me about them all the time on the other hand uh you you would be surprised at the at the

[1:02:37] brief amount of time that comes between sympathy and are you still talking about that good point

[1:02:43] good point yet i would counter over by saying i see you a lot and so no that's a fair point

[1:02:48] uh but i'll take that one thank you for writing in and no thank you for your service when dan

[1:02:53] hurt his leg i was very very concerned and i still am to this day uh but thank you so much

[1:02:59] for good save dude writing in and giving dan the support he needs because his leg certainly isn't

[1:03:04] well thank you that's true stan mccoy and i would uh i would say also just trying out nicknames

[1:03:12] dude in a movie that that callously um you know took people's military service uh as a fucking

[1:03:19] tear-jerking nonsense and used it for a purpose that is unfair to the people who are actually

[1:03:25] serving we appreciate hearing from someone who um has actually had that uh experience and uh

[1:03:32] it has a crazy story crazy story and also a story that inspired because of your mention of

[1:03:37] blowjobs for robot legs

[1:03:39] my new porn movie

[1:03:40] Roblo Cop

[1:03:40] about a cyborg

[1:03:42] with a robot penis

[1:03:44] the thing is

[1:03:45] you don't want to give him

[1:03:46] a blowjob

[1:03:46] when it's really cold

[1:03:47] and when he says

[1:03:48] your move creep

[1:03:49] you should probably

[1:03:49] change creep

[1:03:50] to something nicer

[1:03:51] for the woman

[1:03:52] yeah yeah

[1:03:52] it'll be like

[1:03:53] your move babe

[1:03:55] that works better

[1:03:56] but anyway

[1:03:57] thank you so much

[1:03:57] for writing it

[1:03:58] yeah yeah

[1:03:58] and thanks to everyone

[1:04:00] who wrote it

[1:04:01] yeah thank you so much

[1:04:02] for coming

[1:04:03] also at uh

[1:04:03] this is

[1:04:04] this is probably dirtier

[1:04:05] than we need to go

[1:04:06] But at the end of RoboCop, when he defeats the bad guy, the boss goes, nice fucking son, what's your name?

[1:04:18] And he goes, Murphy, and then walks off.

[1:04:20] Slowly, because he's got a robot life.

[1:04:24] Yeah, yeah, very slowly.

[1:04:25] And he's getting blown.

[1:04:26] At the same time?

[1:04:28] Yeah.

[1:04:28] I guess that explains how great he is.

[1:04:31] Directed by Paul Verbloven.

[1:04:33] this is the last segment on the show,

[1:04:36] and it is the segment where we recommend movies

[1:04:38] that we actually liked,

[1:04:40] unlike, say, the movie we watched tonight,

[1:04:44] Last Dance of Courage.

[1:04:45] Which Stuart and I didn't like, and Dan loved.

[1:04:47] Last O.Z. of Courage.

[1:04:48] Hey, for once, I'll go first.

[1:04:52] Okay.

[1:04:52] Is he going to fucking one-up us?

[1:04:54] He's going to tell us some...

[1:04:56] Well, I don't even know.

[1:04:57] I don't know.

[1:04:57] He's not going to do the movie I want to do.

[1:04:59] Hey, let's sit back and watch.

[1:05:00] I'll recommend a movie that I actually recommended

[1:05:03] today on our Flophouse

[1:05:05] Facebook page. If you're not a member, why not go

[1:05:07] and join? Which is

[1:05:09] Targets is on Netflix streaming

[1:05:11] now. Good movie. Is that Hard Target?

[1:05:13] No. No. It's the Peter Bogdanovich

[1:05:16] movie.

[1:05:16] His first movie, I believe. Is that right?

[1:05:19] I think so. I think that's his directorial

[1:05:21] debut. And it was

[1:05:23] produced by Roger

[1:05:25] Corman and had the odd

[1:05:26] requirement that he had to use a bunch of

[1:05:29] unused footage from a Roger Corman

[1:05:31] production he had to get it in under a certain amount of budget he had boris karloff for two

[1:05:35] days i think and he had to use footage from another movie that corman had been trying to

[1:05:39] make with roger with boris karloff and he cleverly did it by it was it's sort of a like a kind of a

[1:05:45] deconstruction of horror movies he shows uh this like cheesy corman-esque uh boris karloff

[1:05:52] uh horror movie and it's contrasted with the real life horror of this uh guy in texas

[1:05:58] snapping for no reason that the movie

[1:06:01] particularly explains

[1:06:03] going up to a water tower

[1:06:05] and starting to shoot random people

[1:06:06] and it all comes down

[1:06:09] to kind of a showdown

[1:06:11] at a drive-in movie theater

[1:06:13] where this Karloff movie is playing

[1:06:15] and Bogdanovich

[1:06:17] you know, he's a guy who

[1:06:18] made some really great movies at the beginning

[1:06:21] of his career

[1:06:22] Paper Moon

[1:06:27] paper moon this is the last picture show last picture show um but uh later on did not sort of

[1:06:34] sort of fade it out a little bit well he still does stuff but he well he i mean he never totally

[1:06:38] recovered from his fiancee getting murdered right and his career suffered for some bad projects

[1:06:43] he did the cat's meow not that long ago which is not bad it's pretty mediocre i like it i think i

[1:06:49] like it better than you but uh but you know he shows up on a lot of dvd commentaries and he is

[1:06:55] now like the keeper of orson welles flame yeah anything about orson welles you have to have peter

[1:06:59] bogdanovich come along and tell story he and he's okay so i've seen him speak in public more than

[1:07:05] once and i saw him speak before a showing of targets and he was supposed to speak for about

[1:07:09] 15 minutes and he said he went on for about 45 minutes i think they had to possibly delay or

[1:07:14] maybe cancel a later showing of targets because he went on so long but uh he told a lot of stories

[1:07:19] where famous people told him how good he was and things and he did it pulled a move that i thought

[1:07:23] It was so amazing where he would say, one last question, and then he'd answer the question.

[1:07:27] And before – there's that film form.

[1:07:29] Before the film form representative would cut him off, he'd go, one last question again.

[1:07:32] So he's answered about 15 one last questions.

[1:07:35] Anyone have a question about where I get my ass cuts?

[1:07:37] Anybody?

[1:07:38] Anyone want to know?

[1:07:39] But it's a great –

[1:07:40] But it's a fantastic movie.

[1:07:41] It's a great movie.

[1:07:42] And his great movies are really great.

[1:07:44] Yeah.

[1:07:44] No, he was a very great film director, at least at the beginning of his career.

[1:07:48] And Targets is one of his finest.

[1:07:51] So see it on Netflix Instant.

[1:07:53] Just drag it into your queue and click play.

[1:07:56] That's how it works.

[1:07:58] You don't even have to drag it into your queue.

[1:07:59] And you don't drag them into your queue.

[1:08:01] You don't drag them anymore?

[1:08:02] No.

[1:08:02] Okay, well, do whatever Ellie just said.

[1:08:05] I mean, just click play.

[1:08:06] Stuart, would you like to go next?

[1:08:09] Yeah, sure.

[1:08:09] I'm going to recommend a movie I watched this past weekend.

[1:08:12] It's the movie Stoker, directed by Park Chan-wook or Chan-wook Park, I don't know.

[1:08:18] It depends on what country you're in.

[1:08:20] Yeah, a Korean director who directed the Vengeance trilogy.

[1:08:23] He directed JSA, Joint Security Area,

[1:08:28] which I recommended earlier in the podcast,

[1:08:30] or on an earlier podcast.

[1:08:33] This was his American debut,

[1:08:36] which was interesting to watch after The Last Stand,

[1:08:41] which was also an American debut by a Korean director,

[1:08:45] the guy who directed Good, Bad, and Weird.

[1:08:48] But Stoker is kind of a gothic horror story about a young girl who's introverted.

[1:08:55] And just after her 18th birthday.

[1:08:58] She's kind of a Winona Ryder and Beetlejuice type.

[1:09:00] Yeah, exactly.

[1:09:00] One of those.

[1:09:01] A Lydia Dietz.

[1:09:03] A Lydia Lunch type.

[1:09:04] And it's loosely based on Shadow of a Doubt in a weird way.

[1:09:09] Or inspired by.

[1:09:10] Inspired by, I would say.

[1:09:11] Yeah, I think it's a screenplay by Wentworth Miller from Prison Break.

[1:09:17] Oh, I didn't realize that.

[1:09:18] And her father passes away and a mysterious yet sexy uncle shows up.

[1:09:26] And the things I like about it are things that I wasn't surprised I liked about it.

[1:09:31] It's shot beautifully.

[1:09:33] It has some really interesting transitions from scenes.

[1:09:36] And the use of sound in the movie is really great.

[1:09:40] It both isolates you and also makes you feel very aware of the environment.

[1:09:45] So I really liked it.

[1:09:47] stoker stoker rated r yeah it was rated r is playing at your house if you choose times

[1:09:58] whatever wow it's pretty pretty vague i mean there's no schedule printed up for your house

[1:10:06] whatever you want what am i gonna tell you what to do leave me alone make it your way

[1:10:11] right away at Burger King.

[1:10:13] So I'll recommend

[1:10:15] a movie as well. So I feel like Dan,

[1:10:17] you recommended a kind of

[1:10:19] late stage deconstruction

[1:10:21] of the horror movie, and Stuart, yours

[1:10:23] is kind of a play on other

[1:10:24] previous horror elements. Mine is

[1:10:27] a movie that also plays on pre-existing film

[1:10:29] elements, but not horror this time.

[1:10:31] With a title together.

[1:10:32] It's a theme week. I'd like to recommend

[1:10:35] a movie called My Name is

[1:10:37] Nobody, which is...

[1:10:39] My Name is Earl. It's called My Name is

[1:10:41] We were all thinking it, people.

[1:10:42] It's a television show about a crazy guy with some crazy problems.

[1:10:46] So My Name is Nobody, it is a spaghetti western.

[1:10:49] That's a pretty good summary of My Name is Earl, to be honest.

[1:10:51] Thank you.

[1:10:53] It's My Name is Nobody, which is a spaghetti western, but it's a comedy spaghetti western.

[1:10:57] And the best of the ones I've seen of those, and it's one I've been meaning to see for a long time,

[1:11:02] it's very heavily Sergio Leone influenced and worked on, but he didn't direct it officially.

[1:11:10] He directed a few sequences in it, and there's a few sequences that stack up with just about any of his best work, I think, that very much bear his trademarks.

[1:11:19] There's a scene where the main character, Terrence Hill's character, Nobody, who's kind of a cunning gunman who acts like a kind of ignorant bumpkin to get people unawares.

[1:11:33] He has to drink and then shoot a series of drinks in smaller and smaller glasses, and the tension of it is drawn out very long in the way Leon liked to do in the sequences where he was really pouring a lot of his effort into.

[1:11:48] But the movie is all about nobody's quest to become friends with Henry Fonda, who is an aging, legendary gunslinger, and nobody has this dream of seeing him have a final battle worthy of his talent, which would be Henry Fonda against this group called the Wild Bunch, which is 150 gunmen and outlaws, who seem to just ride their horses around the West, not really doing much of anything, but just constantly, ominously riding their horses around.

[1:12:15] Is it just the use of a lot of stock footage?

[1:12:17] No, no, it's very much footage that was shot for the film.

[1:12:19] And at the end, he does set up this showdown.

[1:12:22] It's a relatively big-budget movie, or at least looks like it.

[1:12:27] And there are some comedy scenes that are not that good,

[1:12:31] but there are some comedy scenes that are very funny

[1:12:33] and some good action scenes in it.

[1:12:35] There's an Ennio Morricone score that ranges from great to ridiculously annoying.

[1:12:40] I thought you were going to say great to ridiculously great.

[1:12:45] And it's just a really fun movie and I really enjoyed it.

[1:12:48] If you like Spaghetti Westerns and you haven't seen it, I think you'll enjoy it a lot.

[1:12:51] It plays with a lot of those elements and exists in this mythic fantasy West that never really existed.

[1:12:57] But they pull it off really well and there's a lot of fun moments.

[1:13:01] And it'll leave a smile on your face if you like Spaghetti Westerns.

[1:13:06] And the song in your heart.

[1:13:07] And the song in your heart, which will be the annoying title theme.

[1:13:11] But there's some music in it that kind of functions as a reference to movies that hadn't been made yet.

[1:13:18] When the Wild Bunch is riding around, he injects a little bit of Ride of the Valkyrie into the song.

[1:13:23] And I was like, oh, like in Apocalypse Now.

[1:13:25] Except this movie came out six years before Apocalypse Now.

[1:13:28] But it works even better as a joke to use that opera music for them because of a later movie, which I found just interesting.

[1:13:34] But that really has nothing to do with the movie.

[1:13:37] It's not like they were like, we'll use this as a song now because in 60 years it'll be an indelible part of an iconic scene.

[1:13:43] Work on the music, Ennio.

[1:13:46] We got our pizzas to make.

[1:13:48] It's like Room 237, man.

[1:13:50] So My Name is Nobody.

[1:13:53] It's a fun little film.

[1:13:53] All right.

[1:13:54] Well, we should sign off so you don't have to listen to Stuart and me surreptitiously coughing off microphones since we both are recovering from colds.

[1:14:04] What Dan's trying to say is we're recovering from colds.

[1:14:06] Yeah.

[1:14:06] And meanwhile, my immune system is super strong.

[1:14:09] Go fuck yourself.

[1:14:10] Exactly.

[1:14:10] Elliot only gets chipmunk diseases.

[1:14:12] What?

[1:14:13] I have to be kept away from chipmunks.

[1:14:15] He has to avoid small rodents.

[1:14:17] Unlike most people who seek out small rodents, I guess.

[1:14:20] He has rescue ranger syndrome.

[1:14:22] Yep, I got it when I had sex with Monterey Jack.

[1:14:25] Oh.

[1:14:26] Sure.

[1:14:28] Did I go too far somehow when I talked about having sex with a cartoon mouse?

[1:14:33] Some kind of a fondue party got kind of crazy.

[1:14:35] Fondue party.

[1:14:36] They like cheese, that's why.

[1:14:38] And Monterey Jack is obsessed with cheese.

[1:14:40] I mean, his mustaches go all crazy.

[1:14:42] That's true.

[1:14:43] We'll talk more about sex with mice off the microphone.

[1:14:46] But for now...

[1:14:47] It's like a sanitizer liquid or something.

[1:14:49] For The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:14:52] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:14:53] And not sick over here is Elliot Kalin.

[1:14:55] Goodbye, everyone.

[1:15:06] What are you guys up to?

[1:15:10] We're just going to...

[1:15:12] Are we going to record this thing?

[1:15:15] No, we're doing a little bit of

[1:15:16] getting it popping.

[1:15:18] Friend-friend catch-up?

[1:15:19] No thanks.

[1:15:21] Hey, congratulations on the AV Club thing.

[1:15:23] That's crazy.

[1:15:24] Let's talk about it on the air.

[1:15:25] I don't want to talk about it.

[1:15:27] We'll just thank the...

[1:15:29] It's just crazy that we weren't number one, idiots.

[1:15:32] Assholes.

[1:15:33] Mic drop.

[1:15:34] I'm hilarious, you're not hilarious

[1:15:37] I'm the best, see ya

The Flop House: Episode #141 - Last Ounce of Courage

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