The Flop House: Episode #118 - Total Recall

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the remake of Total Recall, a film that everyone grudgingly acknowledged was a thing that existed.

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

[0:38] You're not even letting him finish?

Elliott Kalan

[0:40] You said you wanted to finish early.

[0:42] That's true, let's speed up. Okay, mailbag, let's read some letters. Recommendations, let's go.

Stuart Wellington

[0:48] So you were Dan McCoy, I'm Stuart Wellington, of course.

Elliott Kalan

[0:51] Who does that leave me? I believe it leaves me as Elliot Kalin.

[0:54] And this is the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:56] Yeah, first Flophouse of 2013.

[0:58] Off to a cracking start.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00] The Mayans were wrong, God.

[1:01] They were wrong, God. I meant guys.

[1:03] The Mayans were wrong, guys.

[1:05] They prophesied the end of the Flophouse in December 2012.

[1:08] But that was just their Flophouse calendar coming to a natural end.

[1:12] Turns out the Flophouse continues in 2013.

[1:15] Take that, Mayans, you jerks.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17] 2012 was slashed to death by Jason Voorhees.

Dan McCoy

[1:21] Turns out maybe the Mayans just thought,

[1:25] Hey, you know what? Our calendar covers a couple millennia.

[1:28] We can stop here.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29] We'll make the next calendar sometime in the next 600 years.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32] I'm sure no one will assume that this means that the world is coming to an end.

[1:35] And we will also not be completely wiped out by conquistadors in this time.

[1:39] Definitely.

[1:40] Alien conquistadors?

[1:42] No, just regular conquistadors.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43] I mean, they were kind of like aliens to them, though, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:45] With their advanced technology and animals, yeah.

[1:48] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48] So speaking of advanced technology.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50] It's like what Arthur C. Clarke said about magic.

[1:51] It is exactly what Arthur C. Clarke said about magic.

[1:54] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[1:55] So what did we watch?

Stuart Wellington

[1:57] Talking about magic, technology, excitement.

[2:00] Conquistadors.

[2:01] We watched Total Recall.

Elliott Kalan

[2:03] We watched a little movie called Recall Total.

[2:05] Total.

[2:06] As you would say, if you were a conquistador.

[2:09] 2012.

[2:10] The new version of Total Recall.

[2:11] Not the beloved old Paul Verhoeven version where Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots a million people.

[2:19] But the new version with Colin Farrell where a million people get killed, but many of them are killed by robots.

Stuart Wellington

[2:24] Do we have to preface this review with the statement that we all love Total Recall, the original?

Dan McCoy

[2:30] Do we love it?

Elliott Kalan

[2:32] I mean, I do.

[2:33] It's a movie I have a mixed relationship with.

[2:35] I enjoy it, but I don't love it the same way I love certain other things like Robocop.

[2:41] But I like it more than, say, like Big Trouble in Little China, which other people love but I don't care for.

Dan McCoy

[2:47] I love Big Trouble in Little China more than Total Recall.

[2:50] But I love Total Recall more than most stupid action films.

[2:54] It still has a bit of that Paul Verhoeven flavor.

[2:56] But it's not like Starship Troopers or Robocop, which I love.

Elliott Kalan

[2:58] Well, the thing about Total Recall is it is a bad movie, the original.

[3:02] Okay.

[3:02] It's really fun.

[3:03] There's a lot of memorable stuff in it.

[3:05] Spoiler alert.

[3:06] Spoiler alert.

[3:07] You will have fun.

[3:08] But there are a lot of people now who are like, no, it's a really good, like, funny movie.

[3:12] And I think at this point I can tell the difference between a movie that's goofy on purpose and a movie where there's some jokes in it,

[3:19] but, like, it's not a satire in the same way that Paul Verhoeven's other science fiction movies are.

[3:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:25] It's not a satire to that degree.

[3:27] But, I mean, it is still a Paul Verhoeven movie.

[3:29] It is.

[3:29] The goofiness is intentional.

[3:31] But I don't always know that.

[3:32] No matter how crappy it is.

Elliott Kalan

[3:33] It's a super goofball crap fest at times, but it's still enjoyable.

Dan McCoy

[3:36] Well, I mean, what's goofy about Schwarzenegger's eyes bugging out like Roger Rabbit at the end?

[3:41] Then he's totally fine after the air comes wishing out.

[3:44] The part when...

[3:44] What happens?

[3:45] Science, man.

[3:46] There's a lot of...

Stuart Wellington

[3:47] I think that was in the novel, right?

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] There's a lot of things that I think are supposed to be cool or scary, but they're goofy.

[3:53] Like Quado, for instance.

[3:55] That was both cool and scary.

[3:57] Okay.

[3:58] But anyway, but that's the old Total Recall, which I think we can all admit we enjoy.

[4:01] Yeah.

[4:02] It has a place in our hearts.

[4:03] Okay.

[4:03] Stuart loves it.

[4:04] I fucking love that shit.

[4:05] I like it, and Dan hates it.

[4:07] No, wait.

[4:08] Hold on.

[4:09] I like it.

[4:11] I watch Total Recall multiple times every year, I think.

Stuart Wellington

[4:14] I think I've seen that movie multiple times.

[4:16] Every Christmas.

[4:16] Every year.

[4:18] Yeah.

[4:18] You gather the fucking Wellington family around the Yule log.

Elliott Kalan

[4:21] It's a Hanukkah thing.

[4:22] He watches it every night of Hanukkah.

[4:24] Yeah, of course.

[4:24] Like it says in the Talmud.

Stuart Wellington

[4:25] And you notice something different each time.

Elliott Kalan

[4:28] You don't.

[4:28] That's the thing about Total Recall.

[4:29] There's no layers to it.

[4:31] There's tons of layers.

[4:32] So...

[4:33] New Total Recall.

[4:34] You watch new Total Recall, though.

[4:35] Yeah.

[4:35] Total Recall 2.

[4:37] Electric.

[4:37] Total Recall Alu.

[4:38] Okay.

[4:39] Wait.

[4:39] But it wasn't a sequel, right?

[4:41] It was not a sequel.

[4:42] But here's the thing about it.

[4:43] It was a remake.

[4:44] It's just an out-and-out remake.

Stuart Wellington

[4:46] What's the story?

[4:46] Should we talk about like the differences or talk about the story first?

Elliott Kalan

[4:49] I think let's talk about the story first.

[4:50] But the thing I'll mention is there are a lot of moments in the movie that really only work as references to the original movie.

[4:57] And they're a little too glaring for me.

[5:00] And we'll get into that later.

[5:01] But it's what I would like to call the Prometheus Effect.

[5:04] Bum, bum, bum.

[5:06] TM.

[5:07] Copyright.

[5:07] Right's reserved.

[5:08] All rights intended.

Dan McCoy

[5:10] Throughout the universe.

Elliott Kalan

[5:11] So Ridley Scott, start paying it forward, right?

[5:13] Any form of technology created now or in the future.

[5:16] Yeah, Ridley Scott, start paying it forward.

[5:18] Yeah, Ridley Scott, start contributing to charities.

[5:20] That's what I mean.

Dan McCoy

[5:21] I think you should explain the Prometheus Effect.

[5:23] You just left that out there.

[5:25] Well, we can get to it.

[5:26] You just made a bunch of sound effects and we laughed about it.

[5:28] And then you dropped it.

[5:29] Good point.

Elliott Kalan

[5:29] To me, the Prometheus Effect is a movie that is a remake of a previous movie where scenes in it work more because they reference scenes in the earlier version of the movie than because they work on their own.

[5:43] Like in Prometheus, this is something that I've talked about on the Facebook page for all those people who aren't members of our Facebook group where it's – there were scenes in the movie that I enjoyed and I was never sure.

[5:53] Do I enjoy this because it's genuinely a good scene or because it reminds me so much of this scene in Alien when it was done better?

[5:59] And Total Recall is not good enough for me to worry about that conflict.

[6:03] But there are moments in it like that should be like in-joke references to the previous version if you want to do that.

[6:10] But there are scenes that play off of stuff in the first movie more than they actually seem to have a reason to exist in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[6:17] Let's make it clear too that you're right, Elliot.

[6:19] This is definitely like an out-and-out remake because it is not like, say, Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which went back to the original book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and included things that say –

[6:34] A lot more Johnny Duck, basically.

[6:35] Well, no, but it did include things that actually existed in the book that Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory did not have.

[6:39] Had taken out.

[6:40] Whereas this movie, like the original short story, we can remember it for you wholesale, is very different from –

[6:46] By Philip K. Penis.

[6:47] Yes.

[6:48] It's very different from the original Total Recall.

[6:51] And this movie is much more like the –

[6:54] The movie.

[6:54] The movie than the short story.

Elliott Kalan

[6:56] Or it's similar to how Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes was basically an out-and-out remake of Planet of the Apes, whereas Rise of the Planet of the Apes was kind of a new way to tell that story that had references to the older movies.

[7:12] Right.

[7:12] But you didn't need to know those references to even give a shit about those moments in the movie.

[7:17] Like that was a more successful version of this, I think.

Dan McCoy

[7:20] Yeah.

[7:20] What we're saying is there is a three-breasted prostitute.

[7:23] Oh, there's a three-breasted prostitute.

Elliott Kalan

[7:25] There's a woman in a yellow coat who says she's going to be there for two weeks.

[7:29] Like they basically – we kept waiting for the Johnny Cab moment when Johnny Cab would show up.

Stuart Wellington

[7:34] Or the get your ass to Mars.

[7:36] All that stuff.

[7:36] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:37] Quatto, he wasn't in there.

[7:38] Screw you, Benny.

[7:39] Who knows?

Stuart Wellington

[7:40] See you at the party.

Elliott Kalan

[7:42] Yeah.

[7:42] See you at the party.

[7:43] None of that stuff.

[7:43] Or consider this a divorce.

[7:45] There's none of that.

[7:46] But Stuart kept waiting for consider this a divorce.

[7:48] I said it like a million times.

Dan McCoy

[7:51] So here's the plot.

[7:52] And it would be much more appropriate in this film where the Sharon Stone character from the earlier film, as you pointed out, was combined with a Michael Ironside character.

[8:02] Which is not a bad idea.

[8:03] Which sounds beautiful.

[8:04] Like those two beings.

[8:06] If only they had children.

[8:08] The babe that would come from that union.

Elliott Kalan

[8:10] Or the hunk.

[8:11] Come on.

[8:12] Imagine the offspring, yeah, of Sharon Stone and Michael Ironside.

[8:18] If you dare.

Stuart Wellington

[8:18] I just imagine that creature has delicious smelling breath.

[8:23] Creature.

Elliott Kalan

[8:25] It would still be –

[8:26] I imagine that castle freak is wonderful.

[8:29] It would still be a person.

[8:31] It's not like they would make a mutant.

[8:33] They're a man and a woman.

[8:34] They'd make a human baby.

Dan McCoy

[8:35] No, Sharon Stone is going to go into a transporter that has a little bit of Michael Ironside in it.

[8:40] And then when she gets on the other side.

[8:41] Oh, horrible.

Elliott Kalan

[8:42] Oh, horrifying.

[8:43] But does she have just the head and arm of Michael Ironside?

[8:46] Or is it in her DNA and she's totally –

[8:48] She's turning into an Ironside stone.

[8:50] It's more of a cancer metaphor.

[8:51] Or a Brundlefly thing.

Stuart Wellington

[8:52] Yeah, yeah.

[8:53] Ironstone, sure.

[8:55] Michelle Ironstone.

[8:57] We got it.

[8:58] Michelle.

Elliott Kalan

[9:00] That's good to make it female.

[9:02] Why does she not get to keep her own first name?

Stuart Wellington

[9:05] Michelle Ironstone.

[9:06] We got it.

[9:07] Michelle.

Elliott Kalan

[9:08] That's a pretty good name.

[9:09] So that's the plot of Total Recall.

[9:12] So the new Total Recall, here's the basic story.

[9:15] Okay.

[9:16] We are in a world where most of the earth has been poisoned by a war of some kind.

[9:20] Sounds right.

[9:21] You'd think it would be radiation, but no.

[9:22] It's like poison gas or something like that.

[9:25] And there's really only two countries left on earth.

[9:27] The United British Federation in the UK.

[9:30] Because Great Britain is such a world power right now.

[9:34] They can't even make the case that it was far away enough from other countries that it existed.

[9:42] And maybe just – they did rule the earth at one point.

Dan McCoy

[9:45] Dan.

[9:45] No, I understand.

[9:46] But right now, I mean like – yeah, it would make more sense if you were doing your thing where it's like, okay, they were isolated enough.

[9:52] Like Greenland was suddenly a world power because it was spared or something.

Elliott Kalan

[9:55] Because the other country is Australia or as it's now known, the colony.

[10:00] But it's so – they never are really clear on is the colony a colony of the United British Federation?

[10:07] Are they two separate countries or is it – is one like a state, a client state of the other one?

[10:13] Is one – like who's the government?

[10:15] They never make it clear and this means that all the –

Dan McCoy

[10:18] Well, they do at the end, but then that seems to contradict the bad guy's evil plot.

[10:22] But we'll get to that.

Elliott Kalan

[10:23] The colony – but so the colony is where all the workers live.

[10:27] It's the poor place.

[10:29] And United British Federation is where all the rich stuff is.

[10:31] And how do they get the workers from Australia all the way to England to commute to their daily jobs?

[10:37] How would they do that?

[10:37] There's only one –

[10:38] No, there's only one way to do it.

[10:40] You can't do it any other way but to have a tunnel through the earth with one elevator that holds like 60 people.

[10:48] It holds like 60 people at a time.

[10:50] Yeah.

[10:51] And it goes from Australia to Britain in like five minutes, six minutes.

[10:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[10:58] I don't – I mean –

[10:58] Yeah.

[10:59] It's like the demon drop at Cedar Point.

Dan McCoy

[11:02] I mean it doesn't seem like the –

[11:03] It's like the Tower of Terror.

[11:04] Yeah.

[11:04] It certainly doesn't seem longer than any like subway ride.

[11:07] Apparently –

Elliott Kalan

[11:07] It seems much shorter than most subway rides.

[11:10] And now keeping in mind that you do get extra speed by going through the earth I guess.

[11:14] Like gravity I guess.

[11:15] Because you hit all the power-ups.

[11:17] But it's one of these things that's kind of a neat science fiction idea until you start thinking about it and you're like wait a minute.

[11:24] That doesn't make any sense.

[11:26] It seems completely unnecessary.

Stuart Wellington

[11:27] Why don't they just get a job and wherever the fuck they're at.

[11:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:31] Yeah.

[11:31] I mean I guess it's faster to go through the center of the earth until you start thinking about having to build that tunnel through the center of the earth.

Stuart Wellington

[11:39] It makes a lot more sense than having a colony on Mars for instance.

[11:43] It does not make more sense than that.

Dan McCoy

[11:45] But if they have like center of the earth technology it seems like they could build a fucking rocket jet that'll take you across the world.

Elliott Kalan

[11:51] Well it's just – I mean they have the technology to go through planets not to go between planets.

Stuart Wellington

[11:54] Or maybe even the technology to I don't know suck up all the fucking poison gas around the rest of the world.

Elliott Kalan

[11:59] You would think that the trillions if not quadrillions of dollars that were spent first boring a tunnel through the earth.

[12:05] Getting Bruce Willis and co. to drill a hole through the fucking planet.

[12:08] Exactly.

[12:09] Then building the elevator mechanism and then the maintenance of it because you've got –

[12:14] Oh man.

[12:15] If that thing shuts down like in the middle of the earth.

[12:18] It would be terrible.

[12:19] People got to climb down there.

[12:21] Yeah.

[12:22] That's the only way you got to walk out.

Dan McCoy

[12:23] You got to have like really like shielded like ice suits or something.

[12:27] That's hundreds of miles too.

Stuart Wellington

[12:29] Okay.

[12:29] Let's take this idea and run with it.

[12:31] Shielded ice suits Dan.

[12:32] What's that look like?

[12:33] Like with giant ice crystals on it or –

Dan McCoy

[12:35] Like ice pirates would wear.

[12:37] Yeah.

[12:37] It's like those glasses that have like water in the middle of them so you freeze.

[12:42] What are you talking about?

[12:43] What?

[12:43] They've got like two layers.

[12:45] There's like a layer of liquid inside.

[12:46] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[12:46] So you freeze that.

[12:48] Either Dan is on the cutting edge of drinking technology or he is a madman.

[12:52] Check out Sharper Image over here.

[12:54] Check out SkyMall.

[12:55] Check out McCoy Kershlemmer over here.

[12:58] Okay.

[12:59] So –

Dan McCoy

[12:59] I'm not going to cut you guys in on my ice suit profits.

Elliott Kalan

[13:01] So yes, they could have put those resources towards depoisoning the rest of the world.

[13:06] Instead, they built the elevator that goes through the core of the earth.

[13:09] Here's the thing.

[13:11] We already live in a world where some countries are poorer than other countries.

[13:15] Okay.

[13:15] And workers come from the poor countries to the rich countries and like send money back.

[13:20] They don't commute every day.

[13:22] Yeah.

[13:22] And the idea behind the movie is that –

[13:23] But what if they could, Elliot?

[13:24] I guess they would.

[13:25] Why not?

[13:26] Save them money and rent, I guess.

[13:28] But the whole idea is that there's so much – there's so little livable space on the earth that these are the only two places people can live and they're running out of livable space.

[13:35] So –

Stuart Wellington

[13:36] You can either live in like weird Blade Runner land or weird like Minority Report – yeah.

[13:42] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:43] Britain is basically Minority Report iRobot and Australia is Blade Runner.

[13:46] Yeah.

[13:48] So Colin Farrell, our hero, whose name is Dougie.

[13:53] That's important.

[13:54] He is a worker in a police robot factory.

[13:58] Yeah.

[13:59] That's the other thing.

[14:00] They have both –

Dan McCoy

[14:00] They're making robo-cops, if you will.

Elliott Kalan

[14:02] They have both –

[14:03] They're robot cops.

[14:04] They have both human police and robot police because they couldn't decide which is which.

[14:10] They're both – which to go with.

[14:11] They're both equally crappy in the world of this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[14:14] Their armor does not protect them except when it needs to.

[14:18] Yeah.

[14:18] Except for when the movie needs it to.

Elliott Kalan

[14:19] And the robot police are just like people but robots to the point that – I'm just going to give it away.

[14:26] At the end of the movie, Colin Farrell has a fist fight with a robot and the robot is doing like karate moves on him.

[14:32] He could just grab his head and crush it.

[14:34] Which means robot hands.

[14:35] He has karate programming.

Stuart Wellington

[14:37] And then Colin Farrell totally –

[14:38] It comes with a conflict rip.

[14:39] And totally fucking –

[14:40] General Grievous is him.

Elliott Kalan

[14:41] And rips his fucking heart out.

[14:43] With his bare hands, rips off the robot's chest plate, which seems like a screw malfunction.

[14:47] At that point, the problem is a tiny screw.

[14:49] He probably built it wrong.

[14:50] Yeah.

[14:50] On purpose.

[14:51] Yeah.

[14:51] He knew it.

[14:53] I could have used a flashback to that.

[14:54] And then rips out the robot's heart.

[14:56] Okay.

[14:56] So Colin Farrell has a dream where he's being kidnapped by some kind of police forces and Jessica

[15:02] Beal is with him and they get shot through the hand.

[15:05] Okay.

[15:06] They're holding hands and a bullet goes through both hands at once.

[15:08] He wakes up.

[15:09] Nope.

[15:09] Now they're blood brothers.

[15:10] He's married to Kate Beckinsale who looks almost identical to Jessica Beal in this movie.

[15:14] That's terrible.

[15:15] Really good casting.

[15:16] And he works at a robot cop factory.

Dan McCoy

[15:19] Sounds like he's got a pretty good life.

[15:20] What a horrible dystopian future.

[15:21] He works at a robot cop factory and he's married to Kate Beckinsale.

[15:25] That sounds pretty sweet.

Stuart Wellington

[15:27] Sounds kind of like the life of director Len Wiseman right now.

Elliott Kalan

[15:30] And he has a big studio apartment.

[15:31] Let's not forget that.

[15:33] His life is – his friend is always telling him how terrible his life is.

[15:37] Bokeem Woodbine.

[15:37] Bokeem Woodbine is telling him, oh, your life – our lives really stink, whatever.

[15:41] But he's got a beautiful wife in this big apartment by New York standards, I guess.

[15:45] And he makes robots for a living.

[15:46] Like what's the – anyway.

[15:47] Yeah.

[15:48] There's a company called Recall that can input like an adventure module into your head so

[15:54] you have memories as if you've lived through some kind of crazy adventure.

[15:57] Yeah, they can strange daze you.

[15:59] Basically, yeah.

[16:00] They went for a strange dazing.

[16:02] That's what it's like.

[16:03] It's like Strange Days.

[16:05] This movie actually is a lot like Strange Days.

[16:09] I wonder if they actually accidentally made a Strange Days remake and not a Total Recall remake.

[16:15] But Colin Farrell is thinking about going in for one and he finally does and it's run

[16:19] by – what's his name from –

[16:20] John Cho.

[16:21] John Cho, who does not offer him a White Castle hamburger, which is disappointing.

[16:26] And he says, now here's the thing.

[16:28] Nothing in your fantasy can be the same as in your real life because that would cause problems

[16:32] in your brain or something.

Dan McCoy

[16:35] Yeah, it caused too much confusion.

[16:36] That makes a little sense.

Elliott Kalan

[16:37] It caused too much confusion.

[16:38] But you wanted a secret agent mission.

[16:40] Let's just double check and make sure you're not cheating on your wife.

[16:42] Boop, boop.

[16:42] No, you're not.

[16:44] So we can run that.

Stuart Wellington

[16:45] When the tech is sticking a needle in his arm and she says, hey, in the future, this is

[16:49] still the easiest way to get fluids in your body or whatever the fuck.

[16:52] She doesn't say it's in the future.

[16:54] There is a point where –

Dan McCoy

[16:55] She doesn't say it's still the easiest way to get chemicals in your body, which does

[16:58] not make sense except for if you're watching a movie about the future.

Elliott Kalan

[17:02] No, I'm like, hey, now in the present, it's still the easiest way.

[17:06] She looks like –

Dan McCoy

[17:06] She looked at the camera and winked.

Elliott Kalan

[17:08] It's like if – it's like if it's – yeah, a movie where someone gets into a car that's

[17:14] just a regular car and then starts driving around going, well, we have flying cars too,

[17:19] but we also have ground cars.

[17:22] To a person living in that world, it would not seem weird to have a ground car.

[17:25] Like it's – that's a dumb moment, but I kind of like it because it's like – they're

[17:30] one step away from that point from saying like, that'll be a thousand future bucks.

[17:36] That's so much money.

[17:38] What are they buying?

[17:39] A fucking alien skin vest?

[17:41] I got to go to my astro job.

[17:43] I guess I'll take the space train.

Dan McCoy

[17:46] That's crazy.

[17:47] You know the train goes through the center of the earth.

Elliott Kalan

[17:49] I live in New Angeles, that kind of thing.

[17:51] Yeah.

[17:52] Anyway, so unfortunately, they're checking his psychological memory profile or some shit,

[17:58] and it turns out he is a secret agent.

[18:01] So they – and it's at that point that a ton of policemen run in and start shooting all

[18:06] the everybody's.

Dan McCoy

[18:06] They're just hanging out outside until it happens.

[18:07] I guess so.

Elliott Kalan

[18:09] Yeah.

[18:09] I guess the recall chair machine has a secret agent alert.

Stuart Wellington

[18:14] It is the first of many moments where something happens and it cues bad guys jumping in.

[18:19] Instantly.

[18:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:20] Where instantly an army of bad guys jumps in as if they were waiting for a thing they

[18:24] could not have possibly have known was going to happen.

Stuart Wellington

[18:26] Like you can imagine two guys standing outside and the other guy being like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[18:29] Wait, wait, wait.

[18:30] We got to wait for the signal.

Elliott Kalan

[18:32] Or two cops burst in and saying like, we just got an alert signal.

[18:36] What's going on in here?

[18:37] Or something like that.

[18:38] But no, they go and guns blazing.

[18:40] Like ten guys.

[18:41] They kill all the Asian people, which is kind of weird, but not Colin Farrell, who then

[18:46] suddenly, unknown to himself, whips out a bunch of secret agent skills and kills everybody,

[18:50] all the cops in the room.

[18:52] It turns out he's some kind of secret badass.

[18:54] Maybe he is a secret agent.

Stuart Wellington

[18:56] I mean, I knew that.

[18:57] Like, he's super ripped, right?

Elliott Kalan

[18:58] He's super ripped.

[18:59] For a factory worker, he's a, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[19:01] Yeah, we were talking about this.

[19:02] Like, just on a casting level, aside from maybe not casting two women who look almost

[19:06] exactly alike, also.

Stuart Wellington

[19:08] You should have cast Tom Noonan in the lead role.

Dan McCoy

[19:10] Well, here's the thing.

[19:11] You cast a schlub in the lead role, you believe like, oh, I have an unsatisfying life, and

[19:17] it's more exciting when he's suddenly a secret agent.

Elliott Kalan

[19:19] And also, when Kate back, he goes back home, and he escapes the police, and he gets a phone

[19:23] call on his handphone, which it turns out he has one of, that all secret agents have.

[19:27] Okay, that's weird.

[19:27] And it's another agent named Hammond who's telling him, oh, man, you're back.

[19:32] Well, you need to find the key.

[19:33] That's all you told me before you disappeared.

[19:35] Gotta go.

[19:36] And Colin Farrell takes a piece of glass and cuts his hand open and pulls the phone out.

[19:40] Colin Farrell goes back home.

Stuart Wellington

[19:41] That by itself wouldn't bother me.

[19:43] Like, the idea of, like, a futuristic thing where you have a fucking phone in your hand.

[19:47] No, that's cool.

Elliott Kalan

[19:47] There's nothing wrong there.

[19:48] There's a lot of, like, future tech in this movie that would be cool if it was in a better movie.

[19:54] But it's like, because nothing is going on except the future tech or a guy running around

[19:58] and jumping.

[19:59] Colin Farrell does a ton of jumping.

[20:00] Most of the movie is him jumping off of things, landing on other things.

[20:04] He is great at jumping off rooms, man.

[20:05] Jumping out of things.

[20:06] Apparently, I guess, in high school, he was, like, on the jumping team.

[20:09] Because he jumps everywhere.

[20:11] And there's a chick.

[20:11] He goes home.

Dan McCoy

[20:12] There's a lot of times when he jumps out a window, not knowing what will be there.

[20:15] And lo and behold, there's something there to catch him.

Elliott Kalan

[20:17] Like a flying car or a building or a boat or something.

[20:20] So Kate Beckinsale, he goes home to.

[20:22] And he says, I killed all these people.

[20:24] And she's like, what?

[20:25] And then starts fighting him.

[20:28] It turns out that she's a secret agent who was set up to pretend to be his wife.

[20:33] His mind has been erased and replaced with fake memories.

[20:37] And she says, how else do you think a guy like you could marry a woman like me?

[20:42] And it's like, he's super handsome and ripped.

[20:45] Like, that's why you need a schlubby guy.

[20:47] We were saying, I mean, in my dream world, it would be Tom Noonan.

[20:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:51] Seems weird.

[20:51] He seems a little old for the part.

Elliott Kalan

[20:53] Like a young Tom Noonan.

[20:54] You know, like Manhunter era Tom Noonan.

[20:56] Older Tom Noonan.

Dan McCoy

[20:58] Older Tom Noonan.

Elliott Kalan

[21:00] So he has old age makeup on.

[21:02] Ten years in the future.

[21:04] Or like, how much better would it be if like Wallace Shawn was the star of this movie?

[21:07] Then I believe it's weird that Kate Beckinsale is married to him.

[21:11] But they have a running and jumping.

Dan McCoy

[21:12] I thought you liked me because of my plays.

[21:15] I thought you were just a fan of Aunt Dan and Lemon.

[21:17] Aw.

[21:19] Wallace Shawn.

[21:20] Poor Wallace Shawn.

[21:21] What do you mean poor Wallace Shawn?

[21:22] He's a successful working actor and playwright.

[21:24] In this fantasy world that we've created.

Elliott Kalan

[21:26] He's married to Kate Beckinsale.

[21:28] Right.

[21:28] True.

[21:29] And he's a secret agent.

[21:30] Plus, he gets to play Ziggy someday.

[21:32] Right.

Dan McCoy

[21:32] Wallace Shawn has it.

Elliott Kalan

[21:33] But it's sweet.

[21:34] He's pretty sweet.

Stuart Wellington

[21:35] Or was it that he played Ziggy in the past?

[21:37] Who knows?

[21:38] Okay.

[21:38] Continue with the jump thing.

Elliott Kalan

[21:39] Wallace Shawn has a pretty nice life.

[21:41] And I know because I was in a restaurant.

[21:43] And he was eating there.

[21:44] It was a good restaurant.

[21:45] I've seen two plays where he was in the audience.

[21:48] And one of them was a very good play.

[21:50] The other one was not so great.

[21:51] He wasn't even eating the market menu.

Stuart Wellington

[21:53] He was eating off of the market menu.

Elliott Kalan

[21:55] He was eating off the market menu.

[21:56] And it wasn't like he was digging through the garbage or anything.

[21:59] You know, Stuart.

[22:00] He was the customer.

[22:01] He was sitting in a towel.

[22:02] Stuart.

Dan McCoy

[22:02] It seems to me that.

Elliott Kalan

[22:03] Throwing that shit on a pizza and eating it.

Dan McCoy

[22:05] What's happening here, actually, is that Elliot is just bragging that he has as good a life as well as Sean.

Elliott Kalan

[22:10] Yeah.

[22:10] Oh, to say I'm on Gossip Girl.

[22:12] Yeah, all that stuff.

[22:13] I voice a dinosaur for Pixar.

[22:15] Yeah, everything.

[22:16] So anyway, let's make a long story short because we're getting very long.

[22:20] And we've gotten very not into the movie.

[22:22] Kate Beckinsale chases Colin Farrell around.

[22:24] Okay.

[22:25] He goes through a bunch of running and escaping.

[22:28] Jumping onto stuff.

[22:29] There's a car chase with magnetic cars on a highway.

[22:32] And he meets up with Jessica Biel.

[22:34] It turns out that dream he had, it was real.

[22:37] She's another secret agent.

[22:39] She's part of the resistance.

[22:40] She's part of this resistance led by a mysterious man named Matthias.

[22:44] And the resistance is against the government, which is run by Bryan Cranston.

[22:49] Now, the government, I guess, is evil because it has robots and stuff.

[22:53] Like, they never, I don't, they never really.

Dan McCoy

[22:55] I guess they're subjugating, like, the poor people.

Elliott Kalan

[22:58] Like, it's never quite clear what the resistance is against.

[23:00] Yeah.

[23:01] Because the bad guy has an evil plan, but they don't quite know what it is yet.

[23:04] But it turns out.

Dan McCoy

[23:05] Or the bad guy was faking terrorist attacks against his own government.

Elliott Kalan

[23:10] Oh, I missed that the terrorist attacks were fake.

Dan McCoy

[23:11] Yeah, like, the resistance were not blowing things up.

[23:14] So what was the resistance doing then?

[23:15] What were they resisting?

[23:17] Just hanging out.

[23:17] Like, they're mostly, like, hippies.

[23:19] They're just like, man, we gotta put the means of production in the workers' hands.

[23:23] Let's just hang out, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[23:24] So Colin Farrell takes her back after this big car chase.

[23:28] Takes Jessica Biel.

[23:29] You'd think it's Kate Beckinsale because they look alike.

[23:32] No, it's, it's, and Kate Beckinsale, at this point, wants to catch Colin Farrell really bad.

[23:37] She's running after him.

[23:38] Want to catch that, Colin?

[23:39] She wants to bag that Farrell, catch that Colin.

[23:43] And Bryan Cranston keeps saying, catch him, but don't kill him.

[23:46] Keep him alive.

[23:47] But she wants to kill him.

[23:48] She is the, yeah, she's the Michael Ironside, basically.

[23:51] She's chasing after him.

[23:52] She's the, you know, the bad guy who's chased him.

[23:56] Sure.

[23:57] So I'm trying to think of another example of that in a movie.

[23:59] It's like Tommy Lee Jones.

[24:00] Yeah, exactly.

[24:00] The Tommy Lee Jones in that movie Valley of Ela.

[24:04] Anyway, so.

[24:07] When he was chasing a fugitive.

[24:09] Like in that movie, The Executioner's Song.

[24:13] Like in that Tommy Lee Jones movie, Hope Springs.

[24:15] When he's chasing that fugitive.

[24:17] And there's magnetic cars.

[24:19] Anyway, they go back to Colin Farrell's old apartment.

[24:22] Where he finds the key is a piano key.

[24:25] Which unlocks.

Dan McCoy

[24:26] Fairly Spartan, but well appointed.

[24:27] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[24:28] Which unlocks a.

[24:29] Or a secret agent?

Dan McCoy

[24:30] Yeah.

[24:30] A government salary?

[24:31] He's doing all right.

Elliott Kalan

[24:32] This is the kind of secret agent who lives in luxury.

[24:34] Like Jimmy Bond.

[24:35] Or, you know, the man from Uncle A.

[24:38] Jason Bourne?

[24:39] Jason, yeah, Jimmy Bourne.

[24:40] The.

Dan McCoy

[24:41] Not your Michael Caine style secret agent.

Elliott Kalan

[24:44] No, this is not your Tinker Taylor soldier Harry Callahan type thing.

[24:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[24:47] He plays a radical song on his piano.

[24:49] Yeah.

[24:50] And that makes a hologram of himself, but with a goatee appear.

Elliott Kalan

[24:54] Because this is the old Colin Farrell.

[24:55] It turns out he was an agent for the government set to infiltrate the rebellion.

[25:00] But he became sympathetic with the rebellion.

[25:02] The scales fell from his eyes.

[25:05] The resistance.

[25:05] Whatever.

Dan McCoy

[25:06] Mainly because.

[25:07] They're synonyms.

[25:08] One's on.

Elliott Kalan

[25:09] One's on.

[25:09] I guess one's.

[25:11] One's passive and one's aggressive, I guess he could say.

Dan McCoy

[25:13] But also mainly because he fell in love with Jessica Biel's sweet body.

Elliott Kalan

[25:16] And who wouldn't?

[25:17] Come on.

[25:18] Sure.

[25:18] As far as bodies go, there's few sweeter.

[25:20] That's true.

[25:21] In the movies, at least.

[25:22] That's part of your wedding vows, right?

[25:24] Yep.

[25:25] I said.

[25:25] Well, I said to my wife.

[25:27] I said.

[25:28] For richer, for poorer.

[25:30] As far as bodies go, there are few sweeter.

[25:32] Sickness and health.

[25:33] Than Jessica Biel's.

[25:34] Than.

[25:35] I said.

[25:36] On a scale from zero to Biel, you're a Biel.

[25:38] So anyway.

Dan McCoy

[25:39] You've got real a Biel.

[25:41] Is what you said.

Elliott Kalan

[25:42] Get out.

[25:43] Go on.

[25:43] Get out.

[25:44] So it turns out Brian Cranston wants to invade the colony and kill all the people there and

[25:51] steal its land because land is so valuable.

[25:53] And he wants to replace all the workers with robots or as they call them here.

[25:57] Robots.

[25:58] They call them like fabricants or something.

[26:00] Yeah.

[26:00] I don't know.

[26:01] Anyway.

[26:02] But there's a secret code that Colin Farrell should have somewhere buried in his head that

[26:07] shuts off every robot in the world.

[26:10] And he needs to get that to the rebellion.

[26:13] Or to the resistance.

[26:15] To Matthias.

[26:16] So he and Jessica Biel, they chase around a lot.

[26:19] They run around again.

[26:20] And they go into the poison zone and find the resistance led by Bill Nighy.

[26:25] Hey.

[26:25] It's Bill Nighy, everybody.

[26:26] Hey, everyone's favorite Bill Nighy.

[26:27] He's the leader of the resistance.

[26:28] They strap Colin Farrell into it.

Dan McCoy

[26:29] I'm looking forward to him being in this movie for a long, long, long forever.

[26:32] He's certainly an actor of that caliber.

Elliott Kalan

[26:34] They're not just going to have him show up for one scene.

[26:36] No.

[26:36] He's going to stay in it.

[26:37] So they strap Colin Farrell into a recall chair.

[26:40] And they say, we're going to erase these fake memories and bring back your original memories.

[26:44] But it turns out to be a trap.

[26:45] It's a trap.

[26:46] Oh, no.

[26:47] Brian Cranston deliberately wanted Colin Farrell to get caught by the resistance so that they

[26:52] could lead him back to find him where the resistance was.

[26:55] Which makes no sense because they've spent a lot of time trying to kill Colin Farrell.

[27:00] And killing a lot of people accidentally while trying to kill him.

Dan McCoy

[27:04] Like, even if you believe that Kate Beckinsale is a loose cannon because she was the one who

[27:09] was like, forgive what he said about capturing this guy.

[27:11] We've got to kill him.

[27:12] Like, capturing him wouldn't help either.

[27:14] No.

[27:14] Because they want him to escape and lead them to the resistance.

Elliott Kalan

[27:17] There's a whole scene that we skipped past where Colin Farrell's friend is sent in

[27:22] by the police to convince him that Jessica...

[27:23] Bokeem Woodbine of the movie Blackmail.

[27:26] Yes.

[27:27] We're...

[27:27] To send in to convince him that this is all a delusion Colin Farrell's having.

[27:31] And that he has to shoot Jessica Biel so that he can wake up from the still-

[27:35] Yeah, like in the original movie.

[27:35] Just like in the original movie.

[27:36] Exactly.

[27:37] But, instead Colin Farrell shoots his friend and they escape.

[27:41] But that whole scene and that ploy and that gambit makes no sense if you want Colin Farrell

[27:46] to escape and take you to the resistance.

[27:49] Like, basically...

[27:49] You're totally right.

[27:50] Basically, none of the movie makes sense once you get to this point in the movie.

[27:54] Yeah.

[27:54] And so, Bryan Cranston is there.

[27:56] He kills Bill Nighy.

[27:57] But, luckily, the rest of the movie makes sense, right?

[27:58] Yeah, right?

[27:59] Which makes perfect sense.

[28:00] There's a brief moment between Bryan Cranston and Bill Nighy, two great actors.

[28:04] Let's see what sparks are going to fly.

[28:05] Toddler Craft.

[28:06] None.

[28:07] Yeah.

[28:07] He shoots him and that's it.

[28:09] Bill Nighy is dead in the movie.

[28:11] And...

[28:11] He says, maybe...

[28:13] But not in real life.

Dan McCoy

[28:14] Maybe 30 words in the entire film.

[28:17] I perked up immediately upon him appearing and then was sad.

[28:23] It's similar to John Cho.

Stuart Wellington

[28:24] Like, John Cho was in it for a few more lines than Bill Nighy and then he gets shot by faceless goons.

Elliott Kalan

[28:30] I think we all know what this was, guys.

[28:31] This is what Al Madrigal would call a cash grab.

[28:33] Yeah.

[28:34] This is just an out-and-out cash grab on the parts of these guys.

[28:37] You get in, you get out, you get your check.

[28:39] So, and I'm sure just like...

[28:42] Wait a minute.

Stuart Wellington

[28:43] Wait, they weren't fully invested in the idea of Total Recall, the remake?

[28:47] I think Bill Nighy was not.

Dan McCoy

[28:50] I think maybe...

[28:51] Bill Nighy was in those Underworld movies directed by Len Wiseman.

Elliott Kalan

[28:53] I think those are also cash grabs.

[28:55] That might be why he agreed to do this, actually.

Dan McCoy

[28:58] Yeah, there was like a deal where he's like, okay, I'll be in two of your movies.

[29:02] Like, okay, all right, Nighy, two of my movies plus a cameo.

Elliott Kalan

[29:05] I think what actually happened was Len Wiseman said, hey, do you want to be in another one of my movies?

[29:09] And he said, sure, I like you, plus you'll pay me, right?

[29:12] Yes, we will.

[29:13] Okay, well, I'm a working actor, so I'll take this paycheck.

[29:16] It only...

[29:16] It's going to, what, take a day of shooting?

[29:18] Yeah, sure, I'll go.

Dan McCoy

[29:19] If I understand it, the pay I will receive for this will be exchanged for goods and services.

[29:23] Yeah, that's your choice.

[29:24] Whatever you want to do, Bill Nighy.

[29:25] Whatever you want to do, Bill Nighy.

Elliott Kalan

[29:27] Or, alternately, I could save it for a future date that's accruing interest or invest it to make more money to exchange for other goods and services that are more expensive than the money I originally got for this job.

[29:38] Yes, Bill Nighy.

Dan McCoy

[29:38] You have put your finger on the way that money works.

[29:43] You have proven yourself a master of economics.

[29:46] And potentially an elder vampire, according to those movies.

Elliott Kalan

[29:50] So, at this point, the bad guys seem to have won.

[29:53] It turns out the whole idea of a code that turns off the robots, not true.

[29:58] But the invasion of the colony and the liquidation of its residents, totally true.

Dan McCoy

[30:02] They're going to send a shitload of robots through the center of the earth.

[30:05] In the core elevator.

Elliott Kalan

[30:07] In their dumb elevator.

[30:09] They're going to send them to the colony and just kill everybody.

Stuart Wellington

[30:11] So, that sounds great, though.

[30:12] An elevator full of killer robots to go to Australia to murder everybody.

[30:16] But also, let's go back.

Elliott Kalan

[30:17] In the hands of George Miller, that would be an amazing movie.

[30:21] Maybe you'd have a talking pig in it.

Dan McCoy

[30:23] Let's dial it back, Elliot, and go back to your previous concern about the way the politics of this movie worked.

[30:28] Yes.

[30:28] Now, apparently, this place called The Colony is a colony of this richer...

Elliott Kalan

[30:36] Much the same way that, say, Haiti was once a colony of France.

[30:40] Or our own United States of America, as hard as it is to believe, was once a series of colonies of Great Britain itself.

[30:45] Until they sent a bunch of killer robots after us.

[30:47] That's exactly what happened because they wanted our land.

[30:49] For some reason...

[30:50] Actually, that's what we did with the Indians, really.

Dan McCoy

[30:51] For some reason, the president needs to send a bunch of killer robots to this colony to clear out space for more people.

[30:57] And they refer to it as an invasion.

Stuart Wellington

[30:59] He doesn't need to send those killer robots.

[31:01] He needs to accompany an armody of killer robots.

Elliott Kalan

[31:04] Because he does go in person to lead...

[31:06] He does say, literally, I've got an invasion to lead.

[31:09] Which leads me to think he needs to learn how to delegate.

[31:12] Because this is one of those movies where this corrupt, evil government has three people in it.

[31:17] He's taking command of the people, literally.

[31:19] Kate Beckinsale and Colin Farrell, who's undercover.

[31:23] And two of those people were pretending to be husband and wife just living in an apartment.

[31:28] So Bryan Cranston has been running the whole world all by himself.

[31:31] Under this strain, it's no wonder he cracked and came up with this terrible invasion plan.

[31:35] I wouldn't be surprised if he dug that earth elevator hole himself.

Dan McCoy

[31:39] Yeah, I mean, as the president, can't he just be like, we need you guys to move out of this area to make room for more rich people?

[31:46] Why does he have to have robots do this?

[31:47] Awesomer.

[31:49] It's...

Stuart Wellington

[31:49] What?

[31:50] It's way more awesome to send an army of robots to do your dirty work than to defeat them through, like, economics and things like that.

[31:58] And things like, exactly.

[31:59] And, like, making them...

[32:00] Through eminent domain.

[32:00] And making them drink...

[32:01] Yeah, well, doesn't it?

Elliott Kalan

[32:02] All you gotta do is pass a law that makes it so they have to leave.

Stuart Wellington

[32:05] Yeah.

[32:05] And get them to drink a bunch of, you know, fatty sodas and stuff.

[32:10] Get them to do it.

[32:11] Yeah.

[32:12] It's hard to persuade people to drink sodas.

[32:13] Sell a bunch of fatty sodas.

Elliott Kalan

[32:15] Wow.

[32:15] So you're talking about economic imperialism now.

[32:17] Yeah, I like it.

[32:18] Okay.

[32:19] I didn't realize Stuart had such a red heart.

[32:20] Yeah.

[32:21] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[32:21] In truth, though, I much prefer robot imperialism.

Elliott Kalan

[32:25] So he's got a...

[32:27] They've got...

[32:27] Now, Jessica Biel's been captured.

[32:29] Colin Farrell has also been captured, I guess, and is gonna be killed or something.

[32:33] He gets out.

Stuart Wellington

[32:34] They go on the...

[32:35] There's this awesome action scene on the space elevator thing.

Elliott Kalan

[32:39] Yeah.

[32:39] This is also...

[32:40] There was an earlier action sequence with regular elevators.

[32:43] So there's a lot of jumping, a lot of elevators.

[32:45] If you like movies about jumping in elevators,

[32:47] and you want a little bit of robots,

[32:49] this is the movie for you.

[32:51] They go...

[32:52] They blow up the elevator full of robots.

[32:56] Kate Beckinsale's chasing after him.

[32:58] They manage to...

[32:59] There's a...

[33:00] Colin Farrell has a fist fight with a robot,

[33:02] then a fist fight with Bryan Cranston.

[33:04] Against all logic, Bryan Cranston is winning

[33:07] until...

[33:09] I guess the explosion blows up everything.

[33:10] I think he stops paying attention or something.

[33:13] Yeah.

[33:13] Colin Farrell stabs him with Bryan Cranston's own knife.

[33:16] And the good guys win.

[33:19] Everything blows up.

[33:21] And the colony, which has just seen its entire economic livelihood destroyed,

[33:26] celebrates.

[33:27] And it's like the Ewoks...

[33:28] Yeah, yub yub.

[33:29] Yubbing it up.

[33:30] Yubbing it up.

[33:31] It's like the moment in Return of the Jedi Special Edition

[33:33] where the Emperor has died seconds ago.

[33:38] And instantly, people are toppling statues of him.

Dan McCoy

[33:41] Well, also, apparently they're super excited

[33:43] that this core elevator is gone.

[33:47] That would be the easiest thing to sabotage.

[33:49] Just blow it up.

[33:50] Just put some bombs in it.

[33:52] Yeah, just like if they don't want people coming from the other side,

[33:54] like they don't want to cut it off,

[33:55] just like fill that fucking hole in.

[33:57] Like start dumping some dirt in there.

[33:59] That's a lot of...

Elliott Kalan

[33:59] That's a big hole, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[34:01] I don't know if that's exactly how it works.

[34:03] But if you got a little dirt in there,

[34:04] like that elevator can't get through.

Elliott Kalan

[34:06] I think you misunderstand elevators.

Stuart Wellington

[34:10] Just start throwing all your Blade Runner-y bullshit down there.

[34:13] All right, just jam them up.

[34:14] Your neon signs and your umbrellas and whatnot.

Dan McCoy

[34:17] Whatever, put like a big fucking sheet of metal over it.

[34:19] Just put some plywood over that.

[34:21] You know, like when you got a broken window.

[34:25] I mean, like, yeah, it's not hard.

[34:27] That's all I'm saying.

[34:27] If that's the one thing that connects your place to the other place,

[34:31] sabotage that one thing.

Elliott Kalan

[34:32] It is weird that airplanes seem not to exist in this world.

[34:35] It's like they just threw them out.

[34:37] Don't eat them.

[34:38] Maybe there's not enough land.

[34:38] Down the elevator.

[34:39] You know what?

[34:39] I'm going to say there's not enough ground land for landing strips.

[34:42] That's what it is.

[34:43] Oh, wow, you did it.

[34:44] Even though they have magnetic highways in the sky,

[34:46] and they can create floating things,

[34:49] they don't have floating landing strips.

[34:51] But anyway, so it's, hey, we did it.

[34:54] We saved the world.

[34:54] Colin Farrell passes out or something.

[34:56] He wakes up, and Jessica Biel's like, hey, how's it going?

[35:01] Oh, you're back.

[35:02] That's great.

Stuart Wellington

[35:03] They did the weakest attempt at trying to make you think, like,

[35:06] oh, wait, was this whole thing just part of the whole Total Recall simulation?

[35:09] It goes black, and then you hear John Cho's voice.

Elliott Kalan

[35:12] And you hear some voices.

[35:13] And then Colin Farrell wakes up in a hospital bed.

Stuart Wellington

[35:15] And they kind of try and make Jessica Biel look like, what's the other one's name?

[35:19] Evangeline Lilly?

Elliott Kalan

[35:22] I think Angie Everhart.

[35:24] That's who you're thinking of.

[35:24] Kate Beckinsale.

Stuart Wellington

[35:25] So they try to make it for, like, a second, and then it goes back to Jessica Biel.

[35:29] And then...

Elliott Kalan

[35:29] And then, double twist.

[35:31] He notices she doesn't have the scar on her hand from the bullet that passed through their hands.

[35:36] Bum, bum, bum.

[35:37] And it turns out it's Kate Beckinsale with a hologram head on that makes her look like Jessica Biel.

[35:42] And there's a fight scene for very briefly inside this meta hatch.

[35:45] Somebody get my wife one of those, you know what I mean?

Stuart Wellington

[35:48] Get her the hologram head so that she'll look like Jessica Biel?

[35:51] Isn't that what dudes want?

[35:53] No.

[35:54] I know your wife.

[35:54] Know what I mean?

[35:55] Yeah, this is awkward.

[35:56] Okay, I'm just fucking joking around here, guys.

[35:58] Cheer up.

Elliott Kalan

[35:59] I don't like it.

[36:01] We should have mentioned earlier he used a hologram head to get through some security.

[36:04] It's not like they just suddenly introduced a hologram head out of nowhere.

[36:07] It's true.

Dan McCoy

[36:08] So, yeah, it works within the movie.

[36:10] They follow a good screen, right?

Elliott Kalan

[36:10] Yeah, they lay the cracks for that.

[36:12] Chekhov said, if you introduce a hologram head in Act 2, you gotta have Kate Beckinsale use it in Act 3 to look like Jessica Biel.

Stuart Wellington

[36:18] But they did introduce a hologram head that was faulty.

[36:20] It didn't work the first time.

Elliott Kalan

[36:22] Because that whole scene was literally just a play on the scene in the original Total Recall where he's disguised as an old lady.

[36:29] And his robot head malfunctions.

Stuart Wellington

[36:31] So, he then shoots this woman and everybody thinks it's okay.

Elliott Kalan

[36:35] He beats Jessica.

[36:37] He basically literally kicks Kate Beckinsale out of a room and shoots her in the chest.

[36:42] And everyone's like, what?

Dan McCoy

[36:44] Oh, no, it's cool.

[36:45] Yeah.

[36:45] Oh, yeah.

[36:46] It's Cole Hauser.

[36:47] We all know who she is.

Elliott Kalan

[36:48] Oh, I forgot we got to mention that Colin Farrell's actual name is not Dougie, but Carl Hauser.

[36:53] Which is ridiculous because it sounds so much like Cole Hauser.

[36:55] So, everyone in the movie, it sounds like they're calling him Cole Hauser, which is the name of a real person.

Stuart Wellington

[37:00] Yeah, that's a name of a real person, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[37:03] It's like if they named him George DiMaggio.

[37:07] But everyone was talking real fast and like, hey, George DiMaggio.

[37:10] So, it sounded like they were calling him Joe DiMaggio.

[37:12] Yeah.

[37:13] At least Google search Carl Hauser to make sure Google doesn't say, did you mean Cole Hauser?

[37:19] Because that's an easy way to check the fusion.

[37:20] Usually, I mean Cole Hauser, yeah.

[37:22] Almost always.

[37:23] Because Cole Hauser is a real person.

[37:25] When I'm working on my paparazzi fanfic.

[37:28] So, when the movie ends with Colin Farrell and Jessica Biel are now, I guess, unemployed secret agent resistance fighters in a utopian dystopia.

[37:40] Yeah.

[37:40] Time for them to stop resisting and start accepting.

Stuart Wellington

[37:43] Okay.

[37:43] So, movie over.

[37:45] Two thumbs up.

Elliott Kalan

[37:47] But it is a movie that is hard to get much out of.

[37:53] I mean, it's a pretty standard boilerplate sci-fi action movie.

[37:58] But it keeps reminding you of the earlier Total Recall in a way that doesn't help it at all.

[38:04] It doesn't complement it.

Stuart Wellington

[38:05] Which is, I'll say, probably just as dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[38:09] But easily more fun.

[38:11] I would say Total Recall, the original one, is dumber, but in a fun way.

[38:15] Like, when Colin Farrell has his kung fu fight with the robot at the end, that was the only moment where it really seemed to be approaching the kind of enjoyable dumbness of the original Total Recall.

Dan McCoy

[38:25] There's like a real like pop art feel to Total Recall.

[38:28] Like, it's just like everything is so like overblown and colorful.

[38:29] It's really colorful.

Stuart Wellington

[38:31] The original Total Recall.

[38:32] Look at the colors.

[38:33] What?

[38:34] It's all the great colors.

Elliott Kalan

[38:36] Isn't that, wasn't that your argument for I know who killed me?

[38:38] Why it was great?

[38:39] Well, that's not why it was great.

[38:40] Why it's, people would think it was great if it was in another language.

[38:43] Because it uses blue a lot.

[38:45] But that's the thing is, the original Total Recall is really colorful and like popcorn fun.

[38:50] And this is Len Wiseman's style of everything being very grim and grainy.

[38:55] Everything's made out of gray concrete.

[38:57] It's always raining.

[38:58] There's no, almost no color in the world.

[39:00] It's been entirely drained of color to the point where it looks like, I don't know, it's really boring.

[39:07] Except I guess for the scenes where you're walking through neon lit The Colony, which just looks like cheapo Blade Runner, you know.

Dan McCoy

[39:13] But I mean like that's, I feel like that's also, now there's this idea in modern movies, modern like stupid action movies that the way to make them good is to make them serious.

[39:25] It's the same thing.

[39:26] And like that, I felt like that, like, I was glad when like Spider-Man came out.

[39:30] Because like, that was so like goofy in like a fun way.

[39:34] Yeah.

[39:34] And I was like, oh, finally this is going to die off.

[39:36] Like this like trend towards making everything gritty.

[39:38] And I think that maybe the fact that people didn't like Spider-Man 3 kind of like swung the pendulum back in the other direction again.

Elliott Kalan

[39:46] I don't know, except the Avengers is really colorful and goofy.

Dan McCoy

[39:48] And in a fun way.

[39:49] I think.

[39:50] I think there is more room for it than there was for a period there.

Elliott Kalan

[39:53] Well, what you're talking about is something that happened in comic books also.

[39:55] Yeah.

[39:56] Where everyone assumed these stories are too silly.

[39:59] They're too like dumb.

[40:01] Like who's going to believe this?

[40:02] Unless everyone's murdered all the time.

[40:04] And you can see the seams on their costumes and their boots have treads on the bottom.

[40:08] Of course we made it.

Dan McCoy

[40:10] We did it.

[40:10] Now it's believable.

[40:11] It sounds pretty great.

Elliott Kalan

[40:12] Once I can see the seams in their costume, it's totally believable.

Dan McCoy

[40:15] But that also like came from like, oh, okay, Watchmen came out and the Dark Knight Returns came out.

[40:23] And they're like, oh, okay, what we got to do is the comic, you asshole.

[40:28] Well, the same thing that happened.

[40:29] The same thing happened.

[40:30] Like this is good because it's gritty rather than being like, no, this is good because it's good.

[40:33] And like you can make a silly thing.

Elliott Kalan

[40:34] And you can say the same thing happened in movies.

[40:35] The Bourne movies came out and everyone decided to make everything look like a Bourne movie.

[40:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:40] I kind of, I got to admit in this movie, I kind of liked the bit where they're running around the elevators.

[40:46] And they're like jumping on top of elevators.

[40:48] And there's a Kung Fu fight inside an elevator with robots.

Elliott Kalan

[40:50] It was like an action movie sequence of the end of Monsters, Inc. basically.

[40:53] Yeah, that was okay.

[40:54] But I will say some of the action sequences in this were a lot better than I thought they were going to be.

[40:59] Like the movie around them was kind of bland and boilerplate.

[41:02] But like that sequence was kind of fun.

[41:05] He Kung Fu fights a robot.

Stuart Wellington

[41:07] I mean, Colin Farrell just didn't bring that much to it.

[41:09] Yeah.

[41:10] Like, and he's an actor who has brought, who has definitely brought more to smaller roles, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[41:16] It seems like he's an actor who needs something to hook his teeth into.

[41:19] Like he's not going to come up with an idea of how to play a boring character.

[41:23] But if you give him a character like the lead in In Rouge, or I know you liked Fright Night.

[41:27] I haven't seen it yet.

[41:27] The vampire in Fright Night.

[41:28] It's fun.

[41:29] Or like, even like his boss in Horrible Bosses.

[41:32] You know, like, if you give him a character who has a little bit of a hook, he can do a lot with it.

[41:37] Instead, he's just going to go for a quick cash grab.

[41:39] Exactly.

[41:39] A CG cash grab.

[41:41] But he, like, he could have played the character as a real, like, nebbish.

[41:43] And in Bruges, he's a totally insecure, kind of nebbishy type guy for the most part.

[41:48] And if he had played this character that way, it would have instantly been a better movie.

[41:53] Either that, or if he played it to the hilt as, like, gung-ho action guy, like Guy Pearce in Lockout.

[41:59] Space Jail?

[42:00] In Space Jail.

[42:01] Yeah.

[42:01] Like, that's the other way he could go with it.

[42:03] Instead, he would just hang in the middle and almost try to play this person as a real person, which didn't work.

[42:09] You know, it was too boring.

[42:10] So I think we got a...

Stuart Wellington

[42:11] It was such a believable world that he didn't want to take you out of it by playing a wacky character.

Elliott Kalan

[42:16] Yeah, you're right.

[42:17] This underworld minority report Blade Runner mashup.

Dan McCoy

[42:20] So I think we got to skip to Final Judgments.

[42:23] Was this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you liked?

[42:26] Allie, what do you have to say for yourself?

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] I would say it's a bad, bad movie, but there are things about it I liked.

[42:32] But overall, it's, like, kind of a nothing.

[42:35] Like, I didn't care enough about it to really hate it.

[42:39] But if you're going to watch this movie, why not just go watch Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger?

[42:43] Yeah.

[42:44] Which does everything in this better.

Dan McCoy

[42:46] I would say that this is a bad, bad movie, but it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be.

Elliott Kalan

[42:50] I thought it was going to be really deadly terrible.

[42:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[42:53] There's some stuff in it all.

[42:54] I mean, the first half an hour I found actually much more, like, sprightly than it became.

[43:01] Like, I felt like it...

[43:03] Like an old Irishman?

[43:05] Like a spring-heeled Jack?

[43:07] I just feel like so many Flophouse movies we watch have, like, a serious case of, like, second-act droop.

[43:13] Like, where it just gets really boring all of a sudden.

[43:16] And I felt like this was no different in that case.

[43:18] What do you think, Stu?

Stuart Wellington

[43:18] Yeah, I'm kind of the same way.

[43:19] I mean, it's hard for me to say it's actually a good, bad movie because I feel a good, bad movie is something that you would want to watch with friends and have some laughs.

[43:27] Yeah, and this is not that.

[43:27] And I don't think this really gave you any laughs.

[43:29] If this is on late-night TV and you have nothing else to do other than, I don't know, play video games or masturbate, I guess you could watch this.

Elliott Kalan

[43:36] I would say masturbate.

[43:37] Yeah, masturbate first.

Stuart Wellington

[43:37] And then maybe watch this.

[43:39] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[43:39] But it's like...

[43:40] Not at the same time.

[43:41] I mean, if you...

[43:42] I don't...

[43:42] I mean, if you really like Colin Farrell anymore...

[43:44] I do.

[43:46] Considering Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel are in this, not a lot of masturbation fodder.

Stuart Wellington

[43:50] Yeah.

[43:50] So I'd probably say bad, bad movie then, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[43:53] This is like a...

[43:54] I would call it like a two, two and a half star movie.

Stuart Wellington

[43:56] But I think you hit the nail on the head.

[43:58] Like, I feel that Total Recall is such a perfect example of a good, bad movie.

[44:02] Yeah, yeah.

[44:02] That it seems unnecessary to watch this one.

Elliott Kalan

[44:05] When Total Recall, the original...

[44:07] If Total Recall, the original, had been erased by some cosmic accident...

[44:11] Which would be terrible.

[44:13] Which would be awful.

[44:13] And they had to try to reconstruct it based on what the old people who had seen the movie remembered about it.

[44:20] Then I could understand watching this movie as like a very poor substitute.

[44:24] But when...

[44:24] You can just watch the original Total Recall instantly.

[44:27] Literally.

Stuart Wellington

[44:28] I do have to say I did like the director's touch at Verhoevenism.

[44:32] By having the villain...

[44:34] The villainess just gunning down civilians with a machine gun at a point.

[44:38] Yeah.

[44:38] Trying to kill Colin Farrell.

[44:39] But that was so brief that it didn't really...

[44:41] It really didn't last long.

[44:42] And there wasn't a ton of blood, so it didn't really count.

Elliott Kalan

[44:44] But I assume this is going to be like the RoboCop remake.

[44:46] Where it won't be awful.

[44:48] Wait, they're remaking RoboCop.

[44:50] Oh, I hate...

[44:50] I didn't want to break it to you this way.

[44:52] Wait.

[44:52] Where it'll be probably...

[44:53] Is he still a robot?

[44:55] He's still...

[44:55] He's actually...

[44:57] He's still a cop.

[44:57] It's actually a dance movie now.

[44:58] Is it still in Detroit?

[44:59] It's called Step Up 5, The RoboCop.

[45:02] But I...

[45:03] He plays Ed 209.

[45:04] Where it's going to be a movie that is not like horribly laughably bad, but is...

[45:10] Just the original's right there.

[45:11] Just watch it.

[45:11] It's not going to be as good.

Dan McCoy

[45:13] So before we get on to letters, I've got no specific plugs on behalf of our friends at All Things Comedy.

[45:20] But I will say, why don't you start out the new year by stopping by allthingscomedy.com?

Elliott Kalan

[45:24] Let's call this the New Year New Podcast initiative.

[45:27] Where you try a new podcast every week, maybe every month from ABC.

Stuart Wellington

[45:31] There's some really good stuff over there.

[45:33] Give them a listen.

[45:33] Walking the Room, Minivan Men.

Elliott Kalan

[45:35] What's it going to hurt you?

Stuart Wellington

[45:37] Long Shot.

[45:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[45:38] I think we've mentioned a lot of them before, but they're all great.

[45:40] Yeah, we've mentioned trying them out.

[45:40] Give a heads up to them.

[45:42] And also, February 1st, we do have something to plug.

[45:45] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:45] We should plug this.

[45:47] Usually, there's a little more space between our live appearances, but Hurricane Sandy pushed

[45:52] back the last one.

[45:54] Yeah.

[45:54] And so they're stacking up.

[45:56] Stacking like, like, Krakens?

[45:59] No.

[45:59] Do Krakens stack?

[46:01] Like flapjacks.

Elliott Kalan

[46:02] Stacking like jacks.

[46:04] Do Jack stack?

[46:06] Jack stacking with the flop house.

[46:08] Our next live appearance is February 1st.

[46:10] We'll be showing the film with our I Love Bad Movies compatriots, Matt Xenia, showing

[46:14] the film Don't Tell Her It's Me.

[46:17] The Boyfriend School?

[46:18] A.K.A.

[46:18] The Boyfriend School.

[46:20] Steve Guttenberg, Shelley Long, right?

[46:23] And Jamie Gertz.

[46:24] Jamie Gertz.

[46:24] Kyle McLaughlin.

[46:25] And Kyle McLaughlin.

Dan McCoy

[46:26] I always forget he's in it.

[46:27] Imagine Amick.

[46:28] The film that I once saw in a blockbuster video with a sticker on it that said, Guaranteed

[46:32] Entertainment.

Elliott Kalan

[46:33] And it was, but not for the reasons that sticker thought.

[46:36] That's true.

[46:37] So we're going to be watching that February 1st at our old home, 92Y Tribeca.

[46:42] Tickets are on sale right now.

[46:44] Tickets are on sale and already selling.

[46:45] So if you want to go, make a point to get your tickets early and often.

[46:50] Because it's going to sell out, hopefully.

Stuart Wellington

[46:52] It's going to be weird because we're probably not going to be able to talk much during the

[46:55] movie because we're going to be enjoying it.

Elliott Kalan

[46:56] We're just going to be, our mouths are just going to be hanging open.

[46:59] Filled with popcorn.

[47:00] Filled with popcorn.

Dan McCoy

[47:01] That's how you tell that you're enjoying a film?

[47:04] Is it how popcorn is in your mouth?

[47:05] You fill your mouth with popcorn so you don't speak and interrupt the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[47:09] And then you put your penis in the popcorn in the bucket, I guess.

[47:12] But we all know that doesn't work.

[47:14] So penises.

Dan McCoy

[47:15] Unless you want to fuck popcorn.

[47:16] Unless that's what you're interested in.

Elliott Kalan

[47:18] Maybe that's what that scene in Diner was about.

[47:20] Was the woman interrupting the guy having sex with his popcorn.

Dan McCoy

[47:23] Yeah, she was his beard.

[47:25] He's actually a popcorn sexual.

[47:26] He's a popophile, yeah.

[47:29] So anyway.

[47:30] Poposexual.

[47:31] The first letter tonight comes to us.

[47:34] February 1st.

[47:34] Don't tell me.

Stuart Wellington

[47:34] The biography of Orville Redenbach, right?

Dan McCoy

[47:37] Poposexual, yeah.

[47:42] Peter, last name withheld, writes a letter titled New York.

[47:48] And he says, Dear the Flophouse.

[47:49] New York sucks.

[47:51] I have a flophouse.

[47:52] Philly rules.

Elliott Kalan

[47:54] We've been burned again.

[47:56] Peter, last name withheld.

Dan McCoy

[47:58] Damn you, Peter.

[47:59] This comes back from October.

[48:02] And I have to apologize.

[48:03] We have a real backlog.

[48:04] Shocktober.

[48:04] Yeah, shocktober.

[48:05] We have a backlog of letters.

[48:06] Thanks for playing with me.

[48:07] I try and mix old and new stuff.

[48:11] Yeah, great.

[48:11] Let's just read it.

[48:12] I just want to apologize sometimes for not getting to these things in a timely fashion.

[48:16] Fucking email them back.

Elliott Kalan

[48:17] Let's get this done.

[48:18] We have lives to live.

[48:19] We can't answer every letter right away.

Dan McCoy

[48:20] So this is, he goes, Dear the Flophouse, I've been listening to your podcast for the past

[48:25] three months, and I'm currently listening to your back catalog for the second time.

[48:28] I've listened to the podcast so much, in fact, that although this may derail my life and ruin

[48:32] me forever, I've inadvertently come to think of you as role models of a sort.

[48:36] That's a terrible idea.

[48:38] Good God, why?

[48:39] I barely know why, but I'll try to explain.

[48:41] I don't know why either.

[48:42] From the bits and pieces of your lives that I've picked up listening to your show, it seems

[48:45] you've fulfilled three of my biggest goals in life.

[48:47] B. Stuart Wellington.

[48:50] You live in New York.

[48:51] It was hard.

[48:52] You live in New York.

[48:53] You write comedy for an Emmy-winning television show.

[48:56] The two of us do.

[48:56] I'm assuming that Stuart does this too, and he's too modest to admit it.

[48:59] And you host live shows.

[49:00] Yeah, he actually writes Herman's Head spec scripts, in the hope that that show will come

[49:03] back.

[49:05] So we keep telling him, Stuart, I don't think it's going to be good.

Stuart Wellington

[49:07] I've been talking to Netflix about it.

Elliott Kalan

[49:12] Reuniting the original cast.

Stuart Wellington

[49:13] But fucking Michael Cera's fucking holding out for more money.

[49:16] He's not in it.

[49:17] What?

[49:17] He wasn't the head?

[49:18] No.

Dan McCoy

[49:19] Stuart's been emailing Yardley Smith.

[49:21] He calls it Herman's Head of the Family.

[49:23] He thinks he's been emailing Yardley Smith.

[49:25] He's been emailing YardleyS at gmail.com in the hopes that that's her email address.

[49:31] Anyway, and you host live shows about bad movies.

[49:35] February 1st.

[49:36] Oh, and the podcast.

[49:37] That's great too.

[49:38] As far as I'm concerned, oh, my iPad went to sleep.

[49:42] As far as I'm concerned, you're living the dream.

[49:45] Quit me to sleep, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[49:46] Let's finish up the letter, huh?

Dan McCoy

[49:49] Maybe you didn't interrupt me.

[49:50] Or a dream.

[49:51] Maybe we're all living in a dream and life is an illusion.

[49:53] So I thought I'd ask you all.

[49:54] Total recall.

[49:55] What should I do if I want to move to and survive in New York?

[49:58] If I do stand up and improv and want to continue, who should I be getting in touch with?

[50:02] Big Brother Elliot.

[50:03] Will I be able to get a job somewhere, anywhere, with only two years of proofreading experience

[50:07] on my resume?

[50:08] Little Brother Stuart.

[50:09] Can I crash on your couch?

[50:11] Weird maternal figure, Dan.

[50:13] I visited New York enough to know that I want to live there, and maybe all I need is some

[50:16] reassurance that it's not a terrifying hellhole that will swallow me up and take all my

[50:20] savings away from me, sucking out my soul and turning me into a deadite in the process.

[50:25] Has this happened to anyone you've known?

[50:26] That guy in Last Action Hero.

[50:28] If this line of questioning is too overwhelming and or boring to the average listener, hey,

[50:33] who would you cast in a remake of Face Off?

[50:35] Would you pick two actors who are less likely to become laughingstocks in the next 10 to

[50:38] 15 years?

[50:39] Or would you just bring back Cage and Travolta, but have them switch roles?

Elliott Kalan

[50:42] Well, it would be called Face Off 2, and they're old.

[50:45] But I would actually cast Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale, so they could switch faces and

[50:49] nobody would notice.

Dan McCoy

[50:50] To answer your most important question first, no, you can't sleep on my couch.

Elliott Kalan

[50:54] You don't want to.

[50:55] It's covered in cat hair and chicken grease.

[50:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[50:57] Popeye's farts.

Elliott Kalan

[50:59] Years of Popeye's farts.

Dan McCoy

[51:02] I would say...

[51:02] This is why I'm apologizing, though, for not getting to this in a timely fashion, because

[51:06] maybe this man...

[51:06] Because he's probably waiting by a train station.

[51:09] He has his ticket ready to go.

[51:10] With his fucking steak and bindle.

[51:11] He keeps pushing it back, just waiting for word from the flop house.

Elliott Kalan

[51:14] It's a hard question to answer in a short fashion.

[51:17] Yeah.

[51:17] I would say that if you want to try to make it in comedy, the most important thing is

[51:22] to start writing or performing...

Stuart Wellington

[51:24] Listen to a lot of WTF.

Elliott Kalan

[51:25] Listen to a lot of AT...

[51:27] All Things Comedy podcasts.

[51:29] But I would say start writing and performing wherever you are first.

[51:33] New York is...

[51:34] Basically, there are two places you can...

[51:35] Three places you can do comedy in America.

[51:38] Two of them make television shows.

[51:40] L.A. and New York.

[51:42] One of them makes more.

[51:43] L.A.

[51:43] Chicago is a comedy place that makes no television shows.

Dan McCoy

[51:46] But it's a good place to learn if you want to...

[51:47] It's a good place to learn, but it's hard to get a job.

[51:49] But eventually you need to move someplace after that.

Elliott Kalan

[51:52] But it's a tough...

[51:53] It's a very tough business.

[51:54] New York is not the hellish pit that many people worry about.

[51:57] There are millions of people who live here at all different levels of intelligence, income,

[52:02] ability, dream, and so forth.

Dan McCoy

[52:04] I want to say that before I moved here, I was terrified of New York because my conception

[52:10] of New York...

[52:11] Was that Jason was taking it.

[52:13] Well, I realized that my conception of New York was largely based on movies that had been

[52:17] made in the 70s.

[52:18] Yeah.

[52:18] And so I didn't realize that New York is actually a quite nice place to live right now.

[52:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:22] I think I benefited from living in New Jersey and having family in New York.

[52:26] So I spent a lot of time here as a kid.

[52:28] And I never had that like, that like, gee golly, awe, like wonder or fear of it.

[52:33] Yeah.

[52:33] But I kind of wish I had had that experience a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[52:36] It's just a series of small neighborhoods.

[52:38] Series of tubes.

Stuart Wellington

[52:39] Yeah.

[52:40] But no, that's...

[52:40] My advice is to just hang out with some guys who do write comedy and watch a lot of movies

[52:46] with them.

[52:46] Yeah.

[52:46] Well, that's the thing is...

[52:47] And you're making a lot of money off of this podcast, dude.

[52:49] Dude, I am making a ton of money.

Elliott Kalan

[52:52] And the thing I would say to...

[52:53] Well, first, you have to get a job somewhere to...

[52:56] But not necessarily a comedy job.

[52:57] Just if you're going to make it in New York, you got to be able to support yourself.

[53:00] Yeah.

[53:00] But...

Dan McCoy

[53:01] I worked for 10 years in shithole administration.

[53:04] Maybe in a robot building factory.

[53:05] Who cares?

Elliott Kalan

[53:06] And I worked for 10 years in an Emmy-winning TV show.

[53:08] It was rough.

[53:08] Son of a bitch.

[53:09] But the thing is to find a place where people are doing comedy.

[53:12] That could be UCB.

[53:13] That could be The Pit.

[53:13] That could be other places that comedy is being done.

[53:16] And literally, it is hanging out and getting to know people.

[53:19] And the best way to network in comedy is to write or perform comedy, get up at stand-up

[53:24] shows, hang out at stand-up clubs if stand-up is what you want to do, and get to know

[53:28] people.

[53:28] And you'll make friends with people whose sensibilities are similar to yours.

[53:32] And that becomes your network of people that you can work with, that you can rely on, that

[53:37] you can help out when you get the chance.

[53:39] And when people say comedy community, like, that's what it is.

[53:42] It's a real community.

[53:43] And you just have to become part of it.

[53:45] And they're nicer than you think they are.

[53:47] Yeah.

[53:47] They're unhappy people, but they are nice people, many of them.

[53:51] Some of them are assholes.

[53:52] Most are not.

Dan McCoy

[53:53] Follow your dream.

[53:54] I mean, the worst that will happen is that you'll realize you don't actually want to do

[53:57] this, and you'll have racked up incredible debt trying to.

[54:00] But, well, that's true.

[54:02] Oh, so that's not that bad.

[54:03] But you eventually paid off that debt.

Elliott Kalan

[54:06] Yeah.

[54:06] But here's...

[54:07] I mean, I got lucky, but yeah.

[54:08] What I said to...

[54:10] This is something I said in the keynote address that I gave at my middle school's career day

[54:14] when they asked me to go back next year and give one, is that you might as well try, because

[54:19] if you try and you fail, the worst that happens is nothing.

[54:23] Absolutely nothing happens, and you remain where you were when you started.

[54:26] If you try and you succeed, then you succeed.

[54:29] So you literally have nothing to lose except for the debt that Dan was talking about.

[54:33] So you might as well try, and it's a matter of not waiting for the moment that's right

[54:37] to strike, but going and doing it, and not making excuses and just doing it, and getting

[54:43] out and doing what you want to do, and building up that way.

Dan McCoy

[54:48] This letter is titled Centurion, and it's from Michael, last name withheld.

[54:55] He says,

[54:55] I think I recommended Centurion.

[55:04] I think you did, yeah.

[55:05] There's a misconception out there.

[55:07] That we just love ding-dong violence?

[55:09] That we want violence against ding-dong.

[55:10] I apparently do, because it seems to be my recommendation.

Elliott Kalan

[55:13] And it was the best part of Immortals, right?

[55:15] When that guy got hit in the crotch with a sledgehammer?

[55:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:19] But I think that Stuart's love for Castle Freak has put something out into the world.

[55:25] And that Lorena Bobbitt TV movie, right?

[55:27] We don't necessarily want to support.

Elliott Kalan

[55:30] I want to add something that I meant to say the last letter that I forgot to.

[55:35] This isn't about ding-dongs, right?

[55:36] This is not ding-dong related, but we can make it that way if you want.

[55:39] Sure, okay.

[55:39] Which is that I would say if you want to be in comedy, you have to do it.

[55:44] You have to make it possible.

[55:45] But be ready for it to be very, very hard to get what you want in comedy.

[55:51] And be ready to put up with obstacles and try to overcome them and take a long time to

[55:55] do it.

[55:56] Like, to be in comedy, and it's the same with being a writer or anything or an artist of

[55:59] any kind, you have to really need it because there's going to be so many obstacles to get

[56:03] past that if you don't need it, you're going to give up.

[56:06] And in a way, those obstacles exist to weed out the people who don't need it.

[56:10] So just know that this is what you want to do and be ready to have to put up with a lot

[56:14] to eventually do it.

Dan McCoy

[56:15] And also know that once you do get a job in comedy, it is still a job.

[56:21] Yeah, you've got to go in and go to work.

[56:22] Don't get me wrong.

[56:23] I love my job.

[56:24] But it's not going to solve every problem in your life.

[56:27] You know, like, you mean me after...

Stuart Wellington

[56:28] Yeah, you're still kind of a sad bastard.

[56:30] Yeah.

[56:31] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[56:31] Yeah, it's true.

[56:32] A guy who sighs a lot.

[56:33] Working comedy writers are no less depressed.

[56:35] Well, I mean, a little less depressed, but still depressed than unemployed comedy writers.

[56:39] Just better fed.

[56:41] But it's a career.

[56:41] It's not a lottery ticket.

[56:43] You know, even when you get that job, it's just a job and you need another one eventually.

[56:47] It's a career.

[56:48] But, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[56:50] So I saved that letter for a little while, knowing that it would take a little longer than

[56:53] the normal.

[56:54] But I'm glad we finally got to it.

Elliott Kalan

[56:55] He put his dreams on hold for you.

[56:57] Yeah, I'm sorry.

[56:58] How long was he supposed to wait, Dan?

[56:59] When were you going to come back?

[57:01] Wait in the rain at that train depot.

[57:04] In any town USA.

[57:06] I would say go for it.

[57:07] Just a small town boy.

[57:08] Go for it, but be realistic about your chances and don't give up if you don't get it right

[57:12] away.

[57:13] Or in another way to put it, keep your feet on the ground, but keep reaching for the stars.

Dan McCoy

[57:18] All right.

[57:20] This is the part of the podcast where we recommend movies that we actually liked in contrast to

[57:25] the movies that we watched for the podcast.

[57:27] Yeah, which we usually don't like except for Journey to the Mysterious Island.

[57:30] So, Elliot, is there something that you've seen lately that you would like to recommend

[57:34] to the Flophouse listeners out there?

Elliott Kalan

[57:36] I will recommend a movie I just watched very recently.

[57:40] It's on Netflix Instant right now.

[57:42] Maybe it will be still when this episode goes up.

[57:44] And it's called Bernie.

[57:45] It's a Richard Linkletter movie that he came out with last year starring Jack Black and Matthew

[57:50] McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine.

[57:52] And it's a black comedy-ish story based on a true story about this very, very charismatic,

[57:59] popular undertaker who befriended an old lady.

[58:04] And I don't know if I should tell you, but I'll just tell you.

[58:07] Eventually kills her.

[58:09] I mean, I knew it going in.

[58:12] And it's a movie that is, it's one of these movies, it's kind of like Reds, the movie I

[58:19] recommended I think last time in that they have interview segments with real people who

[58:23] actually knew these people.

[58:24] Right.

[58:24] Interspersed with Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey playing the characters in the movie.

[58:28] And Jack Black gives, like, watching it, I was like, this totally makes up for Jonathan

[58:33] Swift or whatever, Gulliver's Travels, whatever the movie was that he made that was so shitty.

[58:36] And like all his crap that he made.

Stuart Wellington

[58:38] Jonathan Swift had all those tiny little fucking little poems.

Elliott Kalan

[58:41] It was based on a true story, right?

[58:42] Like how Edgar Rice Burroughs is in John Carter.

[58:44] Sure.

[58:45] So it totally makes up for his, like, cash grab movies in a way that it reminds you that

[58:50] Jack Black is a really good performer.

[58:52] Like, he sings in it, he acts in it, and he's really good in it.

[58:56] And it's a really, like, it's a good, like, comedy that's not always a ha-ha comedy, but

[59:01] is very, gets to some deeper places while not being too sad, you know.

[59:07] But I enjoyed it a lot.

Dan McCoy

[59:08] I'm going to continue with theme here, and I'm going to recommend a dual-

[59:12] Bernie.

[59:13] You're going to recommend the same movie.

[59:15] I'm going to do a dual recommendation of the other two films that Matthew McComhey

[59:19] got a lot of attention for recently.

[59:23] On New Year's Eve-

[59:24] Angels in the Outfields?

[59:24] On New Year's Eve, I watched Magic Mike, and on New Year's Day, I watched Killer Joe.

[59:29] Oh, you saw Killer Joe already?

[59:30] Yeah.

[59:31] Oh.

[59:31] You said that a little while ago.

[59:32] I missed it.

[59:34] And they're great.

[59:35] Killer Joe is a very sleazy movie, and is kind of-

[59:40] Magic Mike, not so sleazy.

[59:42] Well, it's weird.

[59:44] The movie with the male stripping is less sleazy than Killer Joe.

[59:49] There's some-

[59:50] And it has a Flophouse favorite in it.

Stuart Wellington

[59:52] The guy who-

[59:53] Well, no.

[59:54] Let me get to that in a second, actually.

Dan McCoy

[59:55] I was actually wanting to address that.

[59:57] Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

[59:59] You know, Killer Joe, Tracy Letts play-

[1:00:01] Recorder, strike that from the record.

[1:00:03] William Friedkin, director, the same team who did Bug.

[1:00:07] A lot of fun.

[1:00:09] A film noir pushed past normal film noir.

[1:00:12] I think that's how they advertised it was.

[1:00:14] From the makers of Bug.

[1:00:15] Yeah.

[1:00:16] From the minds that brought you Bug.

[1:00:18] But Magic Mike-

[1:00:18] Expect a lot of fun.

[1:00:20] Magic Mike was a lot of-

[1:00:22] Was a lot of fun.

[1:00:23] And I wanted to address what I think you were getting to, was that Alex Pettifer is in-

[1:00:27] Serious cum gutters on that guy.

[1:00:29] Boo, Alex Pettifer.

[1:00:30] From Beastly and I Am Number Four.

[1:00:33] Ugh.

[1:00:34] And I just want to make it-

[1:00:35] Like, no, but I want to highlight his work in Magic Mike.

[1:00:38] That he does it.

[1:00:39] He's good in Magic Mike.

[1:00:40] He's good in Magic Mike.

[1:00:41] I feel like sometimes I feel bad that this whole podcast is about shitting on people.

[1:00:48] Because, like, I don't think-

[1:00:49] I thought that was our German podcast that we do.

[1:00:52] I feel like-

[1:00:53] I mean, we all love movies and we want them to succeed.

[1:00:55] Oh, yeah.

[1:00:56] And we don't want to be, like, part of, like, I think that the internet snark complex.

[1:01:00] So I want to make it clear that, like, in the case of Alex Pettifer,

[1:01:03] maybe he was just in bad movies before.

[1:01:05] Like, he's very good in Magic Mike.

[1:01:07] And Channing Tatum, who you wouldn't expect to be that great, you know,

[1:01:10] is great in Magic Mike as well.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:12] They're both great as sets of abs and dancing shoes.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:16] But they handle what the movie needs them to do as actors.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:18] I guess what you're saying is these people are in movies for a reason.

[1:01:23] And the movies we see don't necessarily provide the reason.

[1:01:26] Alex Pettifer, if you just see Beastly and I Am Number Four, as I only have,

[1:01:30] comes off as there's no reason to ever put this person in a movie.

[1:01:34] Right.

[1:01:34] And he comes off as unlikable.

[1:01:36] But it could be the, yeah, like you're saying, just bad movies.

[1:01:39] And there's a reason people give them a shot at being in movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:41] But I would recommend both of those films.

[1:01:43] Both, again, with a great Matthew McConaughey performance, too.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:46] So Magic starring Anthony Hopkins and Beautiful Joe the video game.

[1:01:50] Yeah.

[1:01:52] That's right.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:54] Stuart, what do you got?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:56] I watched Ted the other day, and I really like that.

[1:01:59] The movie where, you know, Seth MacFarlane climbs into a tiny little teddy bear suit.

[1:02:04] I don't think that's right.

[1:02:05] And he acts opposite Marky Mark.

[1:02:07] So they shrink him down like Mike TV and Willy Wonka?

[1:02:11] But no, I mean, I think that Ted kind of highlights, I mean, it's a movie about a fucking talking teddy bear.

[1:02:17] I thought it was about a conference.

[1:02:19] And it, I think, I mean, I think it kind of highlights what makes Seth MacFarlane's comedy work.

[1:02:27] And they managed to throw in enough asides and kind of inside jokes with Flash Gordon to keep his rabid old person fan base excited.

[1:02:37] I'm more intrigued now that I know that Flash Gordon is involved.

[1:02:40] And it actually, it has pretty good performances from Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, who actually seem to have some chemistry together.

[1:02:48] They're not bad actors.

[1:02:48] No, but I mean, it's a, I mean, it's a silly movie about a guy with a teddy bear.

[1:02:52] And I think it manages to, like, they have some fairly good chemistry between all three lead actors.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:58] But I've also heard, like, a lot of good things about Ted from people who wouldn't necessarily like Family Guy.

[1:03:03] Yeah.

[1:03:03] Which gets, you know, shit on a fair amount in comedy circles, I feel like.

[1:03:07] And I, you know, like.

[1:03:08] There's some snobbery about it.

[1:03:09] I don't like it.

[1:03:09] I don't love Family Guy.

[1:03:10] But, like, you know, I also think it has some good jokes sometimes.

[1:03:13] Like, I don't hate it either, so.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:15] And I mean, not everything about it works.

[1:03:18] But, I mean, you get some good Giovanni Ribisi dancing out of it.

[1:03:22] So, hey, it's a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:24] Is that your definition of a movie?

[1:03:26] Yeah.

[1:03:27] That Giovanni Ribisi dances in it?

Dan McCoy

[1:03:29] I think that was in the ads.

[1:03:31] He's like, hey, there's some Giovanni Ribisi dancing in it.

[1:03:35] So, hey, it's a movie.

[1:03:36] So, the only two movies that exist.

[1:03:38] It's a movie, not a TV show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:38] The only two movies that exist for you are Ted and the other sister.

[1:03:44] Wow.

[1:03:44] I'm impressed that you had a movie where Giovanni Ribisi dances cute up in it.

[1:03:49] I actually don't remember if he dances or if he just dresses up in a dog costume, but.

[1:03:52] Either way.

[1:03:53] Either way.

[1:03:53] He's got to dance.

[1:03:54] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:54] Okay, that's four movies you recommended.

[1:03:56] We like movies, see.

[1:03:57] Wait, four movies?

[1:03:58] Oh, yeah, you recommended two.

[1:03:59] Yeah, high fives, guys.

[1:04:00] Yay.

[1:04:00] Woo!

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:01] Slap, slap.

[1:04:02] Why are we high-fiving for doing the same thing we do every time?

[1:04:05] We were successful.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:06] We did four this time, whatever.

[1:04:07] We didn't die in the middle of the podcast.

[1:04:08] I think that's some reason to celebrate.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:10] Stuart, you usually recommend three movies.

[1:04:12] Head of the Family, Invisible Maniac, and Castle Freak.

[1:04:16] I mean, I do recommend all three of those movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:18] Thanks for bringing it up.

[1:04:19] Anything that raises the average eBay price on those three movies is good for me.

[1:04:23] Do you own stock of those three movies?

[1:04:25] I do, yeah, yeah.

[1:04:26] Is that possible?

[1:04:26] He gets a commission.

[1:04:27] I am vice president of Full Moon Entertainment.

[1:04:31] All right.

[1:04:33] You should see my collection of puppets.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:35] Well, on that reference to a semi-obscure exploitation production company.

[1:04:41] Or Vidmark.

[1:04:42] I'd like to sign off for the Flophouse.

[1:04:44] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:04:45] I'm Stuart Wellington, president of Vidmark.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:49] And I'm Elliot Kalin, who now wants to be a share owner in Vidmark.

[1:04:53] Good night, everyone.

[1:05:07] What doesn't make sense about it?

[1:05:09] Name one thing about it that doesn't make sense.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:11] Are you trying to say that the idea of the Jebediah Morningside is this crazy, interdimensional necromancer?

[1:05:16] Is there some sort of Stargate?

[1:05:18] Of course there is.

[1:05:19] That's in the first movie.

[1:05:20] Tooting forks.

[1:05:20] Tooting forks, man.

[1:05:21] He makes all dwarf zombies.

[1:05:23] It all makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:24] And he has floating globes with blades that come out of him and stuck into people's foreheads.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:27] Yeah, his spheres that have brains inside them.

[1:05:30] What doesn't make sense?

[1:05:32] What doesn't make sense?

[1:05:33] You don't understand that?

[1:05:34] You guys have convinced me.

[1:05:35] And at one point, Reggie Bannister combines two shotguns into a four-barreled shotgun.

[1:05:41] That makes perfect sense.

[1:05:43] Yeah, perfect sense.

[1:05:43] The quad shotgun.

[1:05:44] Come on, quad gun.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:45] Quad gun gin.

[1:05:47] Thank you.

The Flop House: Episode #118 - Total Recall

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