The Flop House: Episode #104 - Atlas Shrugged

Dan McCoy

[0:00] In this episode, we get a little Ayn Randi with Atlas Shrugged.

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

Elliott Kalan

[0:33] I'm Elliot Kalin.

Dan McCoy

[0:34] And I'm Jubin Parang.

[0:35] Hold on.

Zhubin Parang

[0:36] What did you do with Stuart?

[0:38] Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

[0:40] Stuart and I are switching places for a while in life.

[0:43] He's going to do my thing. I'm going to do his thing.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] So more like a wife swap switch and not like a Pete and the same magic fountain switch.

[0:49] I would say more like a Prince and the Pauper thing.

Dan McCoy

[0:52] I mean, I didn't see Stuart at work today.

[0:55] So, I mean, I guess he's slacking off already in this, like, switching lives.

[0:59] You may not have a job when you come back.

Zhubin Parang

[1:02] Oh, because, yeah, I'm doing most of his work and my own work at the same time.

Dan McCoy

[1:06] I think Stuart may be running some sort of grift on you or a con.

Zhubin Parang

[1:11] Or a grift or a gun.

[1:14] No, no. He's doing it to pay for his sick grandmother.

[1:17] Oh, the old sick grandma.

[1:20] You poor, sweet lamb.

[1:21] I mean, it made a lot of sense when he said it.

[1:23] It was really, oh, man.

Dan McCoy

[1:25] Well, still, we're happy to hear you here at the podcast.

[1:28] Have you here, too.

[1:29] Yeah.

[1:30] I hear you.

[1:30] Pleasure to be here.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] It's important that we hear you because it's an audio podcast.

[1:33] No, it's a pleasure to hear you.

[1:34] If we could only see you, it would be a problem for the listeners at home.

[1:37] Yeah.

[1:38] Although you are doing some hilarious stuff.

[1:41] Yeah.

[1:43] Nope, that's a lie.

[1:44] He's just sitting there talking into a microphone.

[1:47] We have to establish trust between us and the listeners.

Dan McCoy

[1:50] Yeah, that's true.

[1:50] Oh, no, an elephant.

[1:52] Listeners, all of you at once, fall backwards and we will catch you.

[1:57] Yeah.

[1:59] Oh, sorry.

[2:00] We were distracted for a moment.

[2:02] We never intended to do it, though.

[2:04] Let's just be honest about it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:04] Yeah, we're liars.

[2:05] We're assholes.

Dan McCoy

[2:06] Well, it was our own rational self-interest, which leads us to tonight's movie.

Elliott Kalan

[2:12] That doesn't really explain why we did that.

[2:14] Not really.

[2:14] So what was our movie tonight, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[2:15] It was a movie called Atlas Shrugged.

[2:17] Part one.

[2:19] You know.

[2:19] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[2:19] It was a movie about Atlas being like, eh.

[2:22] Hold on.

[2:23] Eh.

[2:24] More like Atlas Shrugged fart one.

[2:27] Oh.

[2:29] My award review.

[2:30] My award review.

Dan McCoy

[2:32] L.A. Kaelin.

Elliott Kalan

[2:34] But yeah, so do your Atlas Shrugging impression again?

[2:37] Eh.

Zhubin Parang

[2:39] Okay.

[2:40] That's him.

[2:41] It actually was intended to be part one of two or three.

[2:46] Of three.

[2:47] Of three.

Zhubin Parang

[2:47] Of three.

[2:48] Of three.

Elliott Kalan

[2:48] Of three.

[2:49] Of three.

[2:50] Of three.

[2:51] Of three.

[2:52] Of three.

[2:52] Yeah, the exact opposite of a trilogy.

[2:53] Because this was maybe the least thrilling movie we've watched.

[2:57] Yeah.

[2:57] Although, I think this maybe was not quite as boring as White Out.

Dan McCoy

[3:02] I don't know.

[3:03] You know, you were much more bored by White Out.

[3:05] I mean, they did have Kate Beckinsale running away from a killer.

[3:09] But it was still super boring somehow.

[3:10] I mean, this movie was mostly about metallurgy and trains.

[3:13] And the train industry.

[3:14] Yeah.

[3:15] I.

[3:15] People saying people's names over and over again.

Zhubin Parang

[3:18] I remember the last time I stepped in for Stuart with you guys.

[3:22] We watched that Nicolas Cage movie, Trapped or Taken.

[3:27] No.

[3:28] Hostage.

[3:29] Trespass.

[3:30] Trespass.

[3:31] Trespass.

[3:31] Which was great.

[3:32] And it was a pretty good movie.

[3:34] That was a lot of fun.

[3:34] I had a good time watching it.

[3:35] And I sort of assumed this would be the same.

Elliott Kalan

[3:38] Yeah.

[3:38] You assumed.

[3:38] No, you shouldn't have.

[3:39] I did not have a good time watching it.

[3:40] That was the rare Flophouse movie where we enjoyed watching it, even though it was stupid.

[3:44] Yeah.

Zhubin Parang

[3:45] Wow.

[3:45] I did not know that was part of the exception last time.

[3:48] Mostly it's a slog.

[3:49] Mostly.

[3:50] The slog house.

[3:50] We should be beginning.

[3:51] The slog house.

[3:52] Yeah.

[3:52] Well, you should call it that.

[3:53] It's a thankless job.

Elliott Kalan

[3:54] Well, I mean, we were going to call it the slog house.

[3:55] We were afraid it was too close to the slog house, our podcast about slaws.

[3:59] Coal slaw.

[4:01] I think it's just a matter of pronouncing that hard G, just making sure you hate it.

Zhubin Parang

[4:05] Are there any other kind of slaws?

[4:07] Cabbage slaw?

[4:08] Is that?

[4:09] It's the coal variety of slaw.

[4:11] And you guys are on your 100th episode of the slog house, too.

[4:14] We have really fun to talk about coal.

Dan McCoy

[4:16] We keep thinking we're going to get on to other slaws, but we keep having more things to say.

[4:21] About coal.

[4:21] And I guess we just never really.

[4:22] Slaw, comma, coal.

[4:24] So, Elliot.

[4:26] Yes.

[4:26] I really need you to do your usual job and sell this movie.

[4:29] I need you, too, Dan, in my life.

Elliott Kalan

[4:31] Thanks for being my friend.

[4:32] I appreciate it.

[4:34] Sure.

[4:34] You've been, you're all right, too, I guess.

Zhubin Parang

[4:35] Hey.

[4:36] I'm just glad to be part of this whole thing, you know?

[4:38] And thanks to all our fans who showed up last week at our live show.

[4:42] Well, you weren't there.

[4:43] You were not.

[4:45] We're all part of the same group here.

[4:48] I mean, you're part of the flop of hers, certainly.

[4:50] When you switched with Stuart, you didn't get Stuart's pass.

[4:52] Big thanks to the fans.

[4:53] I'm just, maybe you guys don't want to thank them, but I appreciate all of our fans.

[4:56] No, no, we always want to thank them.

Elliott Kalan

[4:57] We thank them all the times.

[4:58] That's what I'm doing.

Dan McCoy

[5:01] I mean, I guess, I think that Jubin is trying to supplant Stuart in that he's sucking up to the fans.

Elliott Kalan

[5:08] Jubin, Al Madrigal, everyone wants to be Stuart.

[5:10] He seems like a pretty put-together guy.

[5:12] He does have a pretty blessed life.

Dan McCoy

[5:13] I was watching the photos from that live show you guys had.

[5:15] We were just talking about how on Facebook there was a lot of chatter about how handsome Stuart is.

[5:23] Yeah, it didn't make us feel good.

Elliott Kalan

[5:24] No, it did not.

[5:25] The consensus seems to be that Stuart is handsome and I am short and Dan is some sort of default human.

Dan McCoy

[5:30] Yeah, I'm just average.

[5:31] I'm just 100% I am like the baseline of what a man.

Elliott Kalan

[5:35] If there was a mold, if there was like a blank mannequin and God molds it to be an individual, Dan somehow escaped the factory.

[5:42] Not too good, not too bad.

Dan McCoy

[5:44] I mean, I thought that at least with America's obesity epidemic that I would have shot up in the rankings, but apparently I'm still at, you know, base zero.

[5:52] No, you still move.

[5:53] Yeah, you move along with the average.

[5:54] It's weird.

[5:55] It's a moving curve.

Elliott Kalan

[5:57] Speaking of moving curves.

[6:00] Railways.

[6:00] Railway trains.

[6:01] Railway trains.

[6:02] Reared in metal.

[6:03] So is it what you were saying, Dan, is you're going to need me to summarize this plot?

Dan McCoy

[6:06] Yeah, because I honestly, for a movie that in the broadest outlines is very simple, I could not follow the intricacies of the business intrigue.

Elliott Kalan

[6:17] Well, there was a lot of talk about the strength of different metals and legislation and companies, but it's all pretty simple at the base.

[6:25] The year is 2016.

[6:26] Okay.

[6:27] And due to something, oil is not available.

[6:31] As a result, planes don't go and neither does cars.

[6:36] All right.

[6:38] And so trains are the new huge mode of transportation.

Zhubin Parang

[6:41] Now, how are these trains powered?

[6:43] That's, I don't understand.

[6:44] Oil.

[6:45] But that's.

[6:45] Okay.

[6:46] Colorado oil, no less.

[6:47] Like, there's a lot of oil in Colorado in this world.

Elliott Kalan

[6:50] Apparently, yeah.

[6:50] In the world of Atlas Shrugged, Colorado might as well be called Colorado oil.

[6:54] Colaroidal?

[6:56] Colaroiled.

[6:56] Sounds like Colorado is like really juiced up on.

[6:59] They should just call it oil city.

Zhubin Parang

[7:00] Saudi Colorado.

[7:01] Just call it oil city.

[7:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:04] There's a lot of, and oil at one point they mentioned gas is at $37 a gallon or something like that.

[7:09] Very expensive.

[7:11] Now, this is to explain why trains are the rail, the mode of transportation of the future.

[7:16] Since this is a book that was written in the 50s, I believe.

[7:18] I think, yeah.

[7:18] When trains were still pretty cutting edge.

[7:20] As opposed to now when trains are kind of like the horse and buggy of transportation.

[7:25] Although, I guess the horse and buggy of transportation would be the horse and buggy.

[7:28] Trains are the trains of transportation.

[7:30] Yeah, that's a good metaphor.

[7:32] So, we're introduced to.

Dan McCoy

[7:34] Why couldn't they have updated this from a modern, you know, like these are jets that need like super, super strong steel.

[7:40] Or even like make it a monorail.

[7:42] Just make it like slightly futuristic.

Zhubin Parang

[7:44] That is, even at one point, because the whole point of this, the plot, the engine on which this plot turns is that this innovative entrepreneur creates a new type of metal four rail lines.

[7:54] This guy, Reardon.

Elliott Kalan

[7:54] Hank Reardon has a new type of metal that is stronger and lighter and cheaper than steel.

[8:00] But, for some reason, the government and other companies are worried it's going to put other companies out of business.

[8:07] So, they're trying to stop him from using it.

[8:09] And there's a grand conspiracy for scientists to say that this metal is unsafe.

Zhubin Parang

[8:13] Because these scientists are funded by the government, which at one point, our hero, who we haven't mentioned her name yet, Dagny Taggart, finds out when she's in what looks to be a science church.

[8:24] It looks to be like this huge –

Elliott Kalan

[8:25] It's the Institute of Science or Science Institute of Science Instituting.

[8:28] And it's like a church slash courtroom for science.

[8:31] And they're like, it's the best metal we've ever seen, but we have to say it's bad.

[8:36] Or they'll pull our funding and then our science.

[8:39] What will happen to our precious science?

[8:41] And so, Dagny Taggart is one of the two co-heads of Taggart trains.

[8:47] And her brother is the other co-head.

[8:50] He is a nincompoop who believes in cooperation and fairness in helping out people who are poor.

Dan McCoy

[8:56] Sounds like a real loser.

Elliott Kalan

[8:57] And he is.

[8:58] He's running their train company into the ground, which is hard to do when the trains are on rails that are on the ground.

[9:03] You have to dig a hole, run the rail into the hole, and then, I guess, jump out of the train as it jumps into the hole.

Dan McCoy

[9:10] Yeah, and those rails have to be vertical at that point.

[9:13] Yeah.

[9:13] And it's hard to not derail.

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] You have to have artificial gravity to keep – or magnets to keep the train attached to the down rails.

[9:19] In a way, he's a genius.

[9:20] He's just pursuing destructive ends with it.

[9:22] A mad genius.

Zhubin Parang

[9:23] The thing of it is, though, despite his nincompoopery, he has a lot of friends in Washington, which is a phrase the movie uses all the time to –

[9:30] Friends in Washington, they say over and over.

[9:31] To explain any lobbying influence is just friends in Washington, which up to now I'd never heard outside of a negative political ad.

[9:36] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[9:38] And it's just like – well, that's because this is basically a negative political ad stretched to feature length, but we'll get to that.

[9:45] Let's finish with the exciting story of Dagny Taggart.

[9:47] Right.

[9:47] The very believable name of Dagny Taggart, she is a genius who is tired of having to suppress her own strengths and individual will for what other people consider as the greater good.

[9:59] She wants to bring this train company back.

[10:01] So she's going to make a deal with Riordan to relay hundreds of miles of train track and start up a new train line.

[10:08] These other train lines, the El Norte and the Phoenix El Dorado or something like that.

[10:13] The Phoenix Durango?

[10:15] Phoenix Durango.

[10:15] That's right.

[10:17] For some reason, they are failing.

[10:20] So she's going to start – she wants to bring the train lines back, but the government is coordinating with businesses to crush her business in particular in order to keep things cooperative so that people don't succeed.

[10:34] It's all very – it's like trying to hold on to smoke.

[10:37] Like I'm trying to remember what happened in this movie and it's disappearing.

Dan McCoy

[10:39] This is like a Harrison Bergeron sort of society where no one can be better than the others.

Elliott Kalan

[10:45] Yeah.

[10:45] They're trying to – and the government institutes a law that makes it illegal for anyone to own more than one business.

[10:51] And they have a law called the Anti-Dog Eat Dog Act that makes it so that trains have to cooperate with each other, I guess.

[10:59] But Dagny Taggart decides, I'm going to leave Taggart trains.

[11:02] I'm going to start my own company.

Dan McCoy

[11:05] Dagny Taggart.

[11:06] By the way, anyone named Dagny Taggart should be an adorable female cop.

[11:11] You know, like just like a rookie, but she's got a lot of sass.

[11:15] Yeah.

[11:15] Dagny Taggart.

Elliott Kalan

[11:16] It can be two different types of shows.

[11:17] There's the comedy version, Dagny Taggart, Wednesdays at 8.

[11:20] But there's also Dagny Taggart.

[11:23] Can a rookie survive life?

[11:26] And then at 9, there's, I guess, a totally different show.

[11:31] Scrubs reruns probably.

[11:33] Now she calls this –

[11:33] Scrubs reruns?

[11:34] It's a network.

[11:36] They're going to run an hour of reruns of some other network show?

Dan McCoy

[11:39] NBC is desperate right now.

[11:41] Just scrubs reruns.

[11:42] There's a good Wednesday night lineup for NBC.

Elliott Kalan

[11:46] The great thing about the different Dagny Taggart shows, too, is that she's played by a different person in both shows.

[11:51] But the rest of the cast is exactly the same.

[11:54] So Dagny Taggart's going to call her new train line the John Galt's line.

[11:58] Now what does that mean?

[11:59] Well, throughout the film –

[12:01] Elliot, who is John Galt?

[12:02] That's a good question.

[12:03] A question we hear 40 million times throughout the film.

[12:06] Everyone's asking, who's John Galt?

[12:08] And sometimes it's just a response to a question that has no answer.

[12:12] Like, you go, like, who's John Galt?

[12:14] Like, as a way of saying, like, hey, there's no way to answer that.

[12:16] But sometimes it's like a code password between people who know that there's some thing going on.

[12:22] There's some shadowy, mysterious figure in a trench coat and a hat who walks up to businessmen on the street and goes,

[12:28] how would you like to live in a world where individual creativity is rewarded?

[12:31] I can take you to a place where you can be – where you can work for your own good and not have to worry about working for somebody else's.

[12:38] And they're – instead of them being like, what are you, crazy person?

[12:41] Like, I don't even understand why you're talking that way.

[12:43] They're all intrigued and they disappear.

[12:45] So all these businessmen are going missing.

[12:48] They don't even ask for follow-up.

Zhubin Parang

[12:49] They're gone with him that very first meeting.

Elliott Kalan

[12:52] They don't even –

[12:52] You have to assume they leave their families behind, their houses, their pets.

[12:56] Like, really –

[12:56] One of the guys sets fire to his business.

[12:58] He just lets it burn.

[13:00] There's a guy named –

[13:00] Like, that's not my life anymore.

[13:02] Yeah.

[13:02] A guy named Ellis Wyatt who is, like, the last of the independent oil drillers.

[13:07] And he discovers this big sea of oil in Colorado and the government –

Zhubin Parang

[13:11] Above another sea of natural gas, too.

[13:13] Yeah.

[13:13] That's the way he describes it.

[13:14] It's just nothing but profit all the way down.

Elliott Kalan

[13:16] All the way down to the core of the earth, which is made out of, I guess, like –

[13:19] Just gold, baby.

[13:20] Sweet bullion.

[13:23] It's made out of super gold.

[13:25] Super gold.

[13:25] Worth more than regular gold because you can eat it, too.

[13:28] Because you can eat it.

[13:29] Yeah, it's like gold cheese.

[13:32] But it tastes delicious because it's been aging in the center of the earth naturally.

[13:38] He is working with Taggart and Reardon.

[13:41] Reardon and Taggart also have something of a romance.

[13:43] Taggart is in a loveless marriage to a woman who does not understand how important his new metal is to him.

[13:49] And he supports –

Dan McCoy

[13:50] For God's sakes, he gives her a bracelet made out of his new metal.

Elliott Kalan

[13:53] I have to admit, he makes a bracelet out of the first ever pouring of new Reardon metal and gives it to her as a gift.

[14:01] And that really is a very – like, that should be a gift to cherish.

[14:04] Like, what he's saying to her is, this is my deepest dream is this new metal.

[14:09] This is the culmination of all my work.

[14:11] I'm sharing it with you.

[14:12] I'm sharing it with you, the very first example.

[14:14] I want it to be yours as well as mine.

[14:16] And she's like – everyone else in this movie is a bitch or an asshole.

[14:19] She's like, this is a present.

[14:21] A real husband would have gotten her husband – a woman diamonds.

[14:25] Oh, oh.

[14:26] Well, it's the thought that counts, I guess.

[14:27] Oh, blah, blah.

[14:29] And later on, Dagny –

Zhubin Parang

[14:30] That is only a slight exaggeration of that scene.

[14:32] No, she's in with – she's there with house guests in Hank Reardon's own house.

[14:36] In his mansion.

[14:37] And they're all openly insulting him.

[14:38] Yeah, they're all agreeing.

[14:39] What an idiot you are.

[14:39] What a terrible gift.

Elliott Kalan

[14:41] Just like, right in his own house.

[14:43] How selfish.

[14:43] And she trades Dagny Taggart that bracelet for a diamond necklace.

[14:48] And she's like, I was just going to give it to my maid.

[14:50] You're going to throw it in the fire.

[14:51] It's like, wow.

[14:52] With Hank Reardon right there, too.

[14:54] Like, this doesn't let up.

[14:55] And that's the one time I feel bad for Hank Reardon because he is a dick and an asshole the whole time.

[15:00] And he's like a rich man.

[15:02] He has this huge company.

[15:03] He has a mansion that he lives in.

[15:06] And he throws these big parties.

[15:08] He throws one big party, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[15:09] But he's like, meh, people don't like me.

[15:12] Meh.

[15:12] Everyone's out to get me.

[15:14] I'm rich.

[15:15] Meh.

Elliott Kalan

[15:15] But when he gives her that bracelet and she doesn't appreciate it, you do feel bad for him.

[15:20] Anyway, so Taggart and Reardon fall in love.

[15:23] They do it once.

[15:24] And then they go on a cross-country trip to find – I haven't finished with Wyatt Ellis.

[15:28] So Wyatt Ellis is – they get into a business partnership.

[15:32] It's Ellis Wyatt, I think, right?

[15:33] Ellis Wyatt, yeah.

[15:34] Ellis Wyatt.

[15:34] Ellis Wyatt and the two of them go into a business partnership.

[15:36] There's a lot of crappy names in this.

[15:37] A lot of first names as last names in this thing.

[15:41] Ellis Wyatt then disappears.

[15:44] John Galt takes him away.

[15:45] Or this shadowy figure takes him away.

[15:47] And meanwhile, Taggart and Reardon go on like a cross-country trip.

[15:51] They go to an abandoned motor factory and find a new kind of motor that was abandoned that uses atmospheric pressure to create static electricity.

[16:00] And they go to great lengths to explain how this thing works.

[16:03] They take about three minutes of just talking to each other.

[16:06] And it's like one of those conversations on the West Wing where Aaron Sorkin's like, I need to explain how this one legislative maneuver works.

[16:13] I could show it happening.

[16:15] I'll just have two characters explain it to each other.

[16:17] And they'll just alternate lines from a paragraph.

[16:20] Yeah.

[16:20] Like from a textbook.

[16:21] So they have one of those conversations.

[16:23] And they go on a long trip to try to find the man who invented this.

[16:27] And it means talking to a woman at a horse ranch.

[16:29] Talking to a woman hanging up laundry.

[16:31] Talking to a scientist who now runs a diner.

Zhubin Parang

[16:34] And talking to some guy just in a farm and just sort of hanging out like at a table eating cheese.

[16:39] There's some guy who was just – at one point they walked by just some old guy who's with a beard sitting on like what looks to be a picnic bench.

[16:46] I don't remember that part.

[16:48] Maybe there was another scene in the movie.

[16:50] A lot of stuff bleeds together.

Elliott Kalan

[16:52] Well, and you have to assume that John Galt stole this guy away so he can use his magic technology wherever all these famously rich people are going.

[17:01] And as the movie ends, Dagny Taggart – Reardon goes back to try to run his company.

[17:06] He's had to spin off all of his subsidiaries because the government has outlawed the owning of more than one company at once.

[17:12] And as this evil senator has become the new head of this office of coordination.

[17:18] Which is going to run the nation's economy.

Dan McCoy

[17:20] Played by the actor who brings Barton Fink out to write a wrestling picture in Barton Fink.

Elliott Kalan

[17:25] Yeah, and John Pulido also from Barton Fink and The Last Godfather is in this movie also as an evil government type.

[17:31] And all the evil people look kind of ethnic for the most part.

[17:36] But the – and John Pulido is the most ethnic of all of them.

[17:41] But Dagny Taggart finds that Wyatt Ellis has – Ellis Wyatt has – Wyatt Ellis is a name.

[17:48] Ellis Wyatt is not a name.

[17:49] That Ellis Wyatt has set fire to his enormous Colorado oil well and disappeared.

[17:55] And that's his last fuck you to America, I guess.

[17:58] And the movie ends and it says end of part one or something like that.

[18:04] But what I've just told you – so that's about – but we've spent about what?

[18:09] Six minutes?

[18:10] Ten minutes talking about it?

[18:11] That is stretched out over an hour, almost an hour and 40 minutes of people talking about the various strengths of metals, what legislation could do to their companies, how their company is going to be run out of business.

[18:24] And that's stitched together with so much footage of trains.

[18:28] Like tons of trains.

[18:30] Like I thought – like this is a movie – you could take out all the dialogue and this would just be a train spotting movie.

[18:35] And I could just imagine elderly English people just watching this movie, stamping their booklet to say that they've seen the trains in the movie and then going back to their tea and their scones.

Dan McCoy

[18:45] Yeah, well, even that almost impenetrable summing up that you gave filled with names of random folks is more exciting than the movie we just watched,

[18:57] which took place in a series of lobbies made up to look like offices and restaurants and just people having meetings about things.

[19:07] Yeah.

[19:07] And interspersed with them going to look at, I don't know, metal being made.

Elliott Kalan

[19:13] Yeah.

[19:14] There's a lot of – it's almost like the movie was shot guerrilla style.

[19:20] Like, okay, we're in the lobby of this building.

[19:23] Like, sit at that table, pretend it's a restaurant.

[19:25] We've got five minutes until security kicks us out.

[19:27] Like, oh, right, we found this stock footage of metal being made.

[19:30] Like, just stick it in there.

Zhubin Parang

[19:32] There were so many landscape shots too.

[19:34] Every time they would get in a train, they would just sort of shoot to mountains, just tree-covered mountains just for like 30, 40 seconds without the train in the shot even at all.

Elliott Kalan

[19:43] Yeah, not even shots of the train sometimes, just shots of scenery.

Zhubin Parang

[19:46] Yeah, time here was a real – was very badly paced out.

[19:52] It was very badly marked off.

[19:54] Like, at one point they took an hour and a half train ride.

[19:57] That felt like it took multiple hours.

[19:59] It felt like it took days.

[20:01] Yeah, maybe even days.

[20:02] The whole point of it was that they were going to go over a bridge that was going to be –

Elliott Kalan

[20:05] A new bridge that was made out of Reardon metal.

[20:08] And now, because of the science conspiracy, everyone except Taggart and Reardon was sure this metal would break and kill everybody on the train.

[20:15] But instead it held up and they went over this bridge.

[20:17] So it was like – and the national news is covering breathlessly that a new train line has opened and it's going to go over a bridge.

Zhubin Parang

[20:24] There are reporters at the point where they get on the bridge.

[20:26] There are reporters when they get off the train.

[20:28] There are reporters – this is a huge event.

[20:31] There's nothing else going on in this world but trains.

[20:33] But then later after this hour and a half train ride that feels like it takes multiple days to cover, they then go on this country-spanning road trip to find out who made that engine.

[20:43] Which takes them at the very least from Wisconsin to D.C. to Wyoming and at one point back to Wisconsin.

[20:49] I think they might go to Texas at one point.

[20:51] To Texas at one point and by car, not even by like a high-speed train, by car.

[20:54] And that seems to take over the course of one day.

[20:57] It seems to be –

[20:58] Well, it's like a long afternoon.

[20:59] It definitely seems to be something that does not seem to take as long as you would think it does.

Elliott Kalan

[21:03] And also she says to – at one point she says to Reardon, I need the metal.

[21:07] Can you get me the metal to build this bridge in six months?

[21:10] And he goes, I'll do it in three months.

[21:11] And then like two scenes later, the bridge is finished.

[21:13] And nothing seems to have happened in that span of three months.

[21:17] It's a – yeah, time works very weirdly in this movie.

[21:20] It's kind of like they forgot that – or maybe the movie – it feels like when they were making it, they assumed the movie was real time.

Zhubin Parang

[21:30] You know, I don't actually have a strong sense of that when I watch a movie until seeing this movie.

[21:35] I've never really thought too much about how time is demarcated in a film.

[21:39] But this for the first time made me think, wow, other films must have a sense of how to pace out time.

[21:44] Because they are doing it wrong.

[21:47] It was so egregious.

[21:48] It suddenly made me realize that there's actually a science.

Elliott Kalan

[21:50] There's an art to doing this.

[21:51] It's amazing because it's like – this was a $20 million movie, which is not a lot for a big movie.

[21:56] But $20 million is a lot of money.

[21:57] And you can make a really good movie for far less than $20 million.

[22:01] And it's a $20 million movie.

[22:04] It has real professional actors in it.

[22:05] But everything in it feels super – like student film.

[22:10] Like it feels like a student film or super cheap and low budget.

[22:14] And there are times when I thought I was watching Birdemic.

[22:17] Like that's how cheap it looked to me.

[22:19] Wow.

[22:19] And the film stock was nicer than Birdemic.

[22:22] But otherwise, like it just felt like the person behind – the people behind this had no idea what they were doing in making a movie, it felt like.

[22:31] And maybe part of that was wanting to stick to the book so much that they had to distort storytelling to fit this book.

[22:36] Well, let's talk about a little bit like the elephant in the room of this is that like –

[22:42] I mentioned earlier in the podcast that there was an elephant in the room.

[22:44] There is an elephant in this room.

Zhubin Parang

[22:46] Yeah.

[22:46] What?

[22:46] Literal elephant.

[22:47] Elliot mentioned that.

[22:47] Yeah.

[22:48] Oh, that's true.

[22:48] It would be dishonest to the audience to pretend this elephant is not.

[22:50] Well, let's talk about the other –

Elliott Kalan

[22:51] His name is Jojo and I brought him over.

Dan McCoy

[22:55] All right.

[22:56] Well, we've talked about that elephant in the room.

[22:57] Okay.

[22:57] Let's talk about something else, which is that this book is based on the Ayn Rand –

[23:03] this movie is based on the Ayn Rand book that is taken seriously as a political tome, especially nowadays.

[23:14] Like it's had this resurgence.

Elliott Kalan

[23:15] Yeah, it's had a big resurgence politically and it's one of those things where like I'd rather judge this –

[23:20] it's very easy to judge this movie on its politics because its politics are really crazy.

[23:23] But it's – I'd like to judge it on its merits as a film, which are almost zero.

[23:28] Which are terrible.

[23:29] But you should bring up.

[23:30] That's a good thing to mention.

Dan McCoy

[23:32] But it is crazy.

[23:33] This movie exists in a crazy world where like it's a – like the big complaint is that these people,

[23:41] these very wealthy people who own companies are being held back and punished by the government for innovation.

[23:51] And like the real power resides in the hands of scientists who have colluded with the government to keep back individual achievement.

[24:03] What part do you have a problem with?

[24:04] Because that's obviously true.

[24:05] Yeah, there's all – I mean –

[24:06] Okay, well, I clearly misjudged the room here.

[24:09] I'm sorry.

[24:10] I'm just going to back away from the microphone.

Elliott Kalan

[24:12] I guess the thing is like you can tell with every frame of the movie that the purpose of this movie was not like this is a story we love.

[24:21] We've got to tell it.

[24:22] Like this is something that arouses a passion in me because of the drama and the characters.

[24:27] It's a – like you've seen movies sometimes where like a director or a screenwriter adapts a story that – a book they loved and still kind of fucks it up.

[24:35] But you can tell that the passion is there, that like they did this – it was like a dream project for them.

[24:40] Even something like Across the Sea, which is such a shitty movie.

[24:43] But like you can tell that playing Bobby Darin for God knows what reason was like a passion.

[24:48] Beyond the Sea.

[24:48] Oh, Beyond the Sea.

[24:49] Not Across the Sea.

[24:49] I'm sorry.

[24:50] Yeah.

[24:50] Beyond the Sea that like playing Bobby Darin was a passion.

Zhubin Parang

[24:52] Across the Sea is that movie where Bobby Darin takes a solo flight across the Atlantic.

[24:56] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:56] Where he was playing Charles Lindberg.

[24:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[25:00] You can tell Kevin Spacey really wanted to do this.

[25:02] But here like –

Zhubin Parang

[25:03] Even though he was way too old.

Elliott Kalan

[25:04] Yeah.

[25:05] Well, I think he'd wanted to do it for about 30 years.

[25:07] But in this it feels like they're doing this because they have to get this message out.

[25:11] The important message that Rand had in her book.

[25:14] And this is the time for it.

Dan McCoy

[25:16] But it's such a weird message because like the thing about this movie is all the main characters – like basically this movie is about a bunch of main characters who are totally awesome people.

[25:25] And their main problem is other people just aren't recognizing how awesome they are.

[25:29] Hey, man.

Elliott Kalan

[25:29] It's hard to soar with eagles when you're being brought down by turkeys.

Dan McCoy

[25:33] You should probably make some sort of like t-shirt about that or something.

[25:35] Or a mug.

[25:36] Yeah.

[25:37] Yeah.

[25:38] A t-shirt mug.

Elliott Kalan

[25:39] A t-shirt you can drink coffee out of.

[25:42] Of course.

[25:43] I haven't think all out of this before.

[25:45] It's brilliant.

Zhubin Parang

[25:46] It's a great innovation.

[25:47] There needs to be some sort of tax on your product.

[25:49] Well, but I'm just trying to –

[25:50] To distribute to Dan and me who have suffered very much.

[25:52] But you guys didn't come up with the idea.

[25:54] I came up with it.

[25:55] The equality dictates that we should all –

[25:56] Yeah.

Zhubin Parang

[25:56] It's against our human rights for you to employ us at your factory.

[26:00] It seems like I'm being punished for my success.

[26:02] At a very high wage, which I assume –

[26:04] That's one thing that I was actually very surprised by because I thought that this movie would at the very least give a really good summary of the Ayn Rand principles and what her underlying philosophy is.

[26:15] But it did not really seem to do that very well.

[26:18] The movie just sort of assumed you were on board with what she believed at the beginning, which is not an unfair assumption to make for this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[26:23] If you're watching this movie, if you paid money to see it, you probably already believe it.

[26:27] But what that also means, though, is that the characters already believe this when the movie starts.

[26:32] They have no – they don't have a journey to discover this for themselves.

Dan McCoy

[26:36] Well, it also has like the main characters saying things like – in what is clearly, by the way, ADR.

[26:42] Like it's like over like a shot of a car driving somewhere.

[26:46] It's like her being like, what's with these people and their stupid altruistic instincts nowadays?

[26:51] Yeah.

[26:51] It's like, that is such a crazy thing for a movie to say.

Zhubin Parang

[26:55] That's – you know, the weird thing, like in the book, that statement, like that altruistic instincts, that attacking, that comes after a good bit discussing why altruism is ultimately destructive.

[27:06] And, you know, you don't need to go into that too much.

[27:08] But it lays out pretty regularly, that book, about why altruism is ultimately more destructive than helpful.

[27:16] But in this one, they just flat out say this, though they assume you know it, and if you don't already – if you're not already on that side, they sound like huge dicks.

[27:23] Yeah, they just sound like jerks.

[27:25] There's other points where like Hank – when someone says, you don't really care about anybody but yourself, do you, Hank?

[27:29] And he's like, no, why should I?

[27:31] And not only is that kind of a dickish thing to say, but later on in the movie, he's –

[27:35] Not kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[27:36] The most dickish thing you can say, I don't care about other people.

Zhubin Parang

[27:39] But it's also later on in the movie is he is asked, like, why do you work so hard for all these people when you know they're parasites?

[27:47] And he just says, because I don't really care what they think.

[27:51] I care what I do.

[27:52] And that conversation itself is discussed a lot more in the book, and you understand why he's doing that in the book.

[27:58] But in the movie, it's all jumbled together and compressed so much that it does not make any sense.

[28:03] It's what Hank Reardon believes, why he's doing what he's doing, where he has to go in order to come more closer to the Ayn Rand philosophy.

[28:10] It's basically like someone just wrote like a one-page paper on the Ayn Rand novel, assuming you already read it and you were just sort of like going to be on board with whatever you're talking about.

Dan McCoy

[28:21] So, Jibin, what you're doing is you are recommending the book Atlas Shrugged as the finest work.

[28:27] You love it.

[28:28] Thought.

Zhubin Parang

[28:29] That it changed your life.

[28:29] I mean, I don't think you can really talk about art without talking about Atlas Shrugged.

[28:35] I don't think – I mean, it's sort of like once that book came out, like sort of everything reset.

[28:40] Yeah, kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[28:40] There was no reason to read a book that was written before it.

Zhubin Parang

[28:42] Yeah.

[28:43] Like it said everything that was worth saying before.

Elliott Kalan

[28:46] I think it's the first recorded instance of a zombie because William Shakespeare burst from his grave and said,

[28:52] that's what I was trying to say in all my plays and I never achieved it, this level of beauty.

[28:57] And then he kissed Ayn Rand and then he went to heaven, I guess.

[28:59] His work on earth was done.

Zhubin Parang

[29:01] Yeah.

[29:01] No, it was all leading up to that moment.

[29:03] It was all leading up to that moment.

[29:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:04] I mean, this is actually like really my first experience with this story.

[29:08] I don't really know a lot.

[29:10] I mean, I have sort of like a broad strokes idea of objectivism, but I don't beyond that have much at all.

[29:18] And now you're convinced.

[29:19] You've been converted.

[29:20] Yeah.

[29:21] Now you believe A is A.

[29:23] Who is John Galt?

Elliott Kalan

[29:25] No, but I don't know.

[29:26] They didn't tell us.

[29:28] That's the other thing is the movie is setting up this mystery and they do it in such a shitty way that you're supposed to be like,

[29:33] who is John?

[29:34] When are we going to find out about what happened with John Galt and where those guys are going?

[29:37] But instead at the end you're just like.

Zhubin Parang

[29:37] No, the movie stopped.

[29:38] Oh, we didn't learn.

Elliott Kalan

[29:39] Yeah, exactly.

[29:40] But instead at the end you're like, all right.

[29:42] Like, whatever.

[29:44] I guess it works for that guy to go with John Galt.

[29:46] I guess those guys are what, dead now?

Dan McCoy

[29:48] What I was going to say though is like you guys were talking about it during the movie.

[29:51] I'm like, it is clear to me that this movie only, like this story only makes sense in the context of knowing that Ayn Rand lived through communism herself.

Elliott Kalan

[30:02] That her family's, all of her family's property was taken by the communist government.

[30:05] Right.

[30:06] They had to flee Russia to the United States.

Dan McCoy

[30:07] And so that she imagines that this is a potential future for the U.S.

[30:14] The U.S.

Elliott Kalan

[30:14] Well, in four years when Obamacare has turned us all into slaves.

[30:18] I know, right?

[30:18] I mean, come on.

[30:18] It's a repression.

[30:19] Yeah.

[30:20] One thing actually.

Dan McCoy

[30:21] Forcing us all to be covered by healthcare is the first step.

[30:24] Slippery slope, guys.

[30:25] One thing that actually shows this.

[30:26] I don't know when.

Elliott Kalan

[30:27] Here's the thing.

[30:28] People talk about how bad slippery slopes are all the time.

[30:30] But you know what a slippery slope is?

[30:31] A water slide.

[30:32] It's pretty fun.

[30:32] It sounds awesome.

[30:33] It's fun to slide down.

[30:33] Does anyone not like a water slide?

[30:35] No.

[30:35] If you don't.

[30:35] And sledding.

[30:36] Exactly.

[30:37] It's great.

[30:37] Slippery slopes are fun as all get out.

[30:39] Have you ever.

[30:40] Okay, let's set Atlas Shrugged aside for a second.

[30:44] Slippery slope.

[30:44] Would you rather have a non-slippery slope so it like hurts and your body's getting rubbed?

[30:49] Like have you ever gone down a slide and like you weren't quite sliding right?

[30:53] Maybe you're a little too big for it.

[30:54] Maybe they're chasing you because you're not allowed to be in that playground because you're

[30:57] not a kid.

[30:58] You're an adult and you've been taunting some of the other kids but you just want to use

[31:01] a slide.

[31:02] You're just telling them move faster.

[31:03] Get out of my way so I can use the slide.

[31:05] I have to get to work.

[31:07] And they're going to find me again.

[31:09] Maybe fire me if I don't get to work.

[31:10] Yeah.

[31:10] But I need to ride this slide.

[31:11] You kids are taking forever.

[31:12] And the slide's maybe not big enough for you so you start to fall down it but like your

[31:17] arms rub along the sides and it really hurts.

[31:19] It's not slippery enough so there's a lot of friction.

[31:21] Oh yeah.

[31:21] It really.

Dan McCoy

[31:22] And they kept and like you got to start pushing yourself down even faster because the guard

[31:26] from the park is right behind you.

[31:28] I feel like I should tell you that I have called the police and reported you as a possible

[31:32] sex offender during this.

[31:35] I know what you're talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[31:35] Just because I didn't have pants on when I was on that slide does that make me a sex

[31:38] offender.

Dan McCoy

[31:38] It's a child's playground.

Elliott Kalan

[31:41] What is a child?

[31:42] I believe I'm young at heart.

[31:43] Okay.

[31:44] I'm younger than a 70 year old.

[31:45] To them I'm a little kid.

[31:47] Fair enough.

[31:48] So if I bring an old man with me to the park.

[31:51] It evens out.

Zhubin Parang

[31:53] Look I know what you're talking about but I think the underlying problem of this thing

[31:57] is that a lot of – one thing that I thought was really funny about it was that when it

[32:01] was showing who was disappearing with John Galt, the first guy who disappears with John Galt

[32:05] is a banking CEO.

[32:08] And we were saying this earlier in the movie that like that would be the last person on

[32:10] earth who would be missed if he disappeared from the earth.

Elliott Kalan

[32:13] That knowledge is not necessary.

[32:15] Because the assumption is that the people who are holding society together, the movers and

[32:19] the shakers and the doers and the thinkers are disappearing.

[32:21] And the first guy to go is he has a banking CEO.

[32:23] It's like all right.

[32:25] Like none of those guys know how to run their businesses.

[32:28] You need to rebuild society guys.

Dan McCoy

[32:30] We're building a spaceship to Mars.

[32:33] We need to get the most important people on board immediately.

[32:36] Number one, banking CEO.

[32:37] Well, it's like the guy who puts the derivatives together.

Elliott Kalan

[32:41] Well, it's like the part in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the radio series, restaurant

[32:45] at the end of the universe.

[32:46] We're talking about the books.

[32:47] With the Golgothringen Arc B, which is this planet wanted to get rid of all the people

[32:53] who don't do anything.

[32:54] So they told them that the planet was about to be destroyed.

[32:56] They were going to send out three arcs.

[32:58] Arc A was going to have the leaders and the visionaries.

[33:01] And Arc C was going to have like the inventors and the workers.

[33:04] And Arc B was going to have the middlemen.

[33:06] And they just send Arc B off into the, you know, hopefully it'll just die off in space.

[33:12] And it's all like marketing executives and telephone sanitizers, which is something I'd

[33:17] never heard of until I read that book as a kid.

[33:19] And like it kind of feels like John Galt is doing that.

[33:22] Like banking executives and CEOs who get a lot of money but don't do very much.

[33:28] Why don't you just come with me to this.

[33:29] We'll live in a valley somewhere.

[33:31] And you guys can like pump your own water out of the ground and feel like you're doing

[33:35] something great.

[33:35] It's like a good film scene.

[33:36] It's the old double twist.

Zhubin Parang

[33:38] Yeah.

[33:38] And they go to Galt.

Elliott Kalan

[33:39] They all thought they were going to get made by Galt.

[33:41] They go to his garage and they just shoot him in the head.

Zhubin Parang

[33:44] Well, actually, I would actually like the idea of up until that moment in the movie,

[33:49] Galt had actually been building a really great society of workers and innovators.

[33:52] And then once a banking guy gets there, within like three or four months, the whole place

[33:55] is collapsing or dead.

[33:57] And like it's own loss.

Elliott Kalan

[33:58] John, it seems like we could create a number of financial products that will enhance the

[34:02] value.

[34:03] And like suddenly.

Zhubin Parang

[34:04] I bundled these train derivatives together.

Elliott Kalan

[34:06] Why are shoes suddenly selling for $400 a pair?

[34:09] I understand.

[34:10] I've increased the value through optimum spending by bundling those with this dirt.

Dan McCoy

[34:18] This dirt is worthless.

[34:20] Someone's going to buy this dirt.

Elliott Kalan

[34:21] It's securitized.

[34:22] So it's a revolutionary financial product.

[34:26] I'm really making.

[34:26] Maybe they're not.

[34:27] Maybe it's worthless.

[34:28] Maybe it's worth a lot.

[34:29] I'm really making Galt's Gulch into a wonderland.

Zhubin Parang

[34:32] This is like, this is the sixth attempt at creating a new society John Galt has done.

[34:36] Every time he does, the bankers eventually come in.

Elliott Kalan

[34:38] Listen, John, maybe we just leave the bankers out next time.

Zhubin Parang

[34:41] I don't know if we need them, but we need the men who run the world.

[34:45] Listen, John.

[34:46] Look, they have the most money, so they must be the most productive.

[34:49] It just falls to reason.

Elliott Kalan

[34:51] Well, the other thing is that the implication is that obviously the people who are at the

[34:56] top of the social and economic chain are the most accomplished because they're the

[35:00] best and they're the most innovative when the history of man is littered with innovators

[35:06] and inventors who created what we now – like the building blocks of our society and civilization

[35:12] but were not – did not become rich, savvy businessmen.

[35:16] Yeah.

Zhubin Parang

[35:17] Those incentives were not financial that they drove them.

Elliott Kalan

[35:21] The idea that one, only financial benefits and personal gain will drive someone to do something and two, that in a totally free society, the best is always rewarded the most.

[35:32] Like it's just a crazy –

[35:34] One thing that actually –

[35:34] And they really don't get across that idea well with the endless scenes of trains and people

[35:37] talking in hushed tones in restaurants.

Zhubin Parang

[35:40] Yeah.

[35:40] One thing that actually – this occurs in the book and I remember laughing so hard when I

[35:43] read this because towards the end of the book, Hank Reardon and some other guy, I think Wyatt

[35:48] Ellis or Ellis Wyatt, Mr. Wyatt Sellett was –

[35:52] It was at one point an oil well burst into flames.

[35:56] And – oh, it must have been Wyatt because he's a CEO of the oil company.

[35:59] And he and Hank Reardon jump onto a burning oil rig and begin to repair it as it's burning.

[36:06] The implication being like this CEO is a man who understands every aspect of his oil business

[36:11] and that's how he became CEO.

[36:12] And I remember thinking that like Ayn Rand essentially predicting that like would this

[36:16] happen with Dick Cheney like five feet away from an oil rig?

[36:18] Dick Cheney would jump on that oil rig and just wrap his tie around his head and just

[36:22] go to town on fixing the oil rig.

[36:24] Wrap his tie around his head?

[36:25] Is he drunk at a party?

[36:26] No.

[36:27] The sweat off.

[36:27] The oil rig's on fire.

[36:28] He's sweating a lot.

[36:29] It's a Rambo type thing.

[36:30] I've thought this through a lot.

[36:31] The idea of Dick Cheney just fixing an oil rig that's on fire.

[36:35] Shirtless.

[36:36] His sweat glistening.

[36:38] It's like CEO means that you can do.

[36:39] Just pale skin.

[36:40] I mean I've got watercolors if you guys want to look at them here.

[36:42] I've got some.

[36:43] Why did you bring those with you?

[36:44] I just got some.

[36:44] It usually comes up when I'm in a conversation.

[36:46] Your skin tones are beautiful.

[36:47] Thank you.

[36:48] Thank you very much.

[36:48] Yeah.

[36:49] I spent a lot of time just sort of working on these things.

Elliott Kalan

[36:52] So I guess what I'm saying, what we're all saying is this is a really boring movie.

Dan McCoy

[36:56] Yeah.

[36:56] We should wrap it up.

[36:57] I think that we can all agree.

[36:59] I don't even think we need to go through final judgments.

[37:01] I think we can all agree this is a bad, bad movie.

[37:03] Can we all just.

Elliott Kalan

[37:04] I would say and it's so easy to say it's a bad, bad movie because it pushes a political viewpoint

[37:09] I don't agree with.

[37:10] But then again, there are many movies that push political viewpoints that I don't agree

[37:14] with that I love.

[37:15] Like almost any action movie or.

[37:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:18] Your Dirty Harry's say.

Elliott Kalan

[37:20] Your Dirty Harry's.

[37:21] Your Straw's Dog.

[37:23] Actually, that's not.

[37:24] I wouldn't put that in that category.

[37:25] Straw's Dog.

[37:26] Of movie that I love.

[37:27] But like if a movie.

[37:30] Parts of The Dark Knight.

[37:33] Oh yeah.

[37:33] Almost all The Dark Knight.

[37:34] Yeah.

[37:34] Like if.

Dan McCoy

[37:35] But like.

[37:35] I mean I think that that has a ambivalent feeling about a lot of what it presents.

Elliott Kalan

[37:40] Sure.

[37:41] But.

[37:41] About his politics?

[37:42] Yeah.

[37:43] A movie has to work on a.

Dan McCoy

[37:44] I think there's a push pull on that.

[37:45] But anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[37:46] I was looking at politics.

[37:47] Yeah.

[37:48] Here's.

[37:48] Here.

Elliott Kalan

[37:48] Here.

[37:48] I'm going to.

[37:48] I'm going to go out on a limb.

[37:49] Say there's four levels that a movie has to operate on at least one if not at least

[37:54] two of.

[37:55] Character.

[37:56] Story.

[37:57] Spectacle.

[37:58] And thrills.

[37:59] And by thrills I just mean like.

[38:01] Spills and chills.

[38:02] Spills and chills.

[38:02] I don't necessarily mean just like thrills as in you know like action.

[38:07] But thrills as in like.

[38:08] Boobs.

[38:08] Something that gets your heart moving a little faster.

[38:11] Whether that's boobs.

[38:12] Boobs.

[38:12] Or editing.

[38:13] Or camera work.

[38:15] And this fails.

[38:16] Or well edited boobs.

[38:17] From spectacle.

[38:18] Yeah.

[38:19] Spectacle I would say is more like scope and color.

[38:22] Spectacle is more the visual.

[38:23] Thrills could be just the momentum or speed velocity of a film.

[38:27] Or the way it's constructed.

[38:29] These are just.

[38:29] I'm coming up with these categories off the top of my head.

[38:31] So.

[38:31] I'll refine it later and I'll put up a blog post on my blog that doesn't exist.

[38:34] And then everyone can unlike it on Facebook.

[38:37] And we can have a comment battle.

[38:39] Or a flame war.

[38:40] But anyway.

[38:40] Detweet it.

[38:41] It fails.

[38:42] Detweet it.

[38:43] Detweet it.

Zhubin Parang

[38:44] This fails on a.

Elliott Kalan

[38:46] Fails on a story level.

[38:47] Story level.

[38:48] Character level.

[38:48] There's no spectacle.

[38:50] And there's no thrills.

[38:51] Like there's nothing to grab you.

[38:53] And it's just like.

[38:54] It feels like watching a film strip.

[38:56] Or like a.

[38:58] It feels.

[38:58] Or reading like a Jack Chick comic book.

[39:00] Where like.

[39:01] There isn't even the most basic rudiments of entertainment.

Dan McCoy

[39:03] The Jack Chick comic books have more thrills.

Elliott Kalan

[39:05] Because like.

[39:06] People are burning in hell.

[39:07] It always ends with somebody getting burned by Satan.

Dan McCoy

[39:09] I mean like there's some sort of terrible sinning that happens at the beginning.

[39:13] Which is exciting.

[39:13] And then there's the hell burning.

[39:15] Okay.

[39:15] You know what this actually reminds me.

Zhubin Parang

[39:16] Jack Chick Chick has a share of titillation.

[39:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:17] There's no doubt about that.

[39:18] I retract that comparison.

[39:20] I'll compare it instead to.

[39:21] There's a comic that was put out in I believe the 40s.

[39:24] Where Dick Tracy.

[39:25] It was supposed to be a comic to teach you about sales.

[39:28] But it's in the form of a Dick Tracy comic.

[39:31] Where he solves a crime and a mystery.

[39:32] But in the middle.

[39:33] There's like an eight or nine page section.

[39:35] Where he's just talking to a manager at the restaurant.

[39:37] About how important it is to customer service.

[39:39] The importance of customer service.

[39:41] That's what it is.

[39:42] That was like.

[39:43] Watching this was like reading that.

[39:45] It was like.

[39:45] Okay we're going to do a Dick Tracy movie.

[39:48] But it's mostly going to be him.

[39:49] Explaining the important points.

[39:51] The finer points of customer service.

[39:52] And the philosophy behind that.

[39:55] And then at the end he'll punch a guy.

[39:56] So a bad bad movie all around.

[39:58] I think we can agree.

[39:59] Yeah.

Zhubin Parang

[40:00] Yeah.

[40:00] By very far.

Elliott Kalan

[40:01] Oh well.

[40:02] Let's blood brother it.

[40:03] Everybody cut your palms open.

[40:05] Alright.

[40:06] This didn't hurt at all.

[40:08] Okay.

[40:09] Suckers.

[40:11] My palms are fine.

[40:13] I mean they're kind of sweaty.

Dan McCoy

[40:14] I don't know why.

[40:15] We would do that to friends and coworkers.

Elliott Kalan

[40:17] Just become blood brothers now.

[40:19] You see us so frequently.

Dan McCoy

[40:21] And now we're going to.

[40:22] Every time we see you.

[40:23] We're going to be thinking about that.

Elliott Kalan

[40:25] Yep.

[40:26] Yep.

[40:26] And eventually you're going to come to like it.

[40:28] Okay.

Zhubin Parang

[40:29] I don't know why.

[40:31] There was a lot of pleasure with that pain.

[40:32] I'm not going to lie about that.

[40:33] It felt really good.

Dan McCoy

[40:35] So.

[40:36] I'm going to pull up some.

[40:39] Flophouse mailbag letters here.

Zhubin Parang

[40:42] Some letters from our fans.

[40:43] Yeah.

[40:43] Well no.

[40:44] Again.

[40:45] Very nice.

[40:45] I'm sure they like you.

[40:46] Thank you for writing in.

Elliott Kalan

[40:47] You have an entry I think in the Flophouse wiki page.

[40:50] Well yeah.

[40:50] I'm part of the Flophouse.

[40:51] This is just your second appearance.

[40:53] Again.

[40:53] Thank you.

[40:53] You're part of the Flop-a-verse.

Zhubin Parang

[40:55] One thing that I would like to suggest.

[40:57] I like to request that our fans when they do write in.

[40:59] You don't have fans.

[41:00] To just write.

[41:00] Make sure the writing is a little more concise than how it's usually been.

[41:03] Don't ramble too much.

[41:04] Whoa.

[41:05] I feel like a lot of our fans sort of write.

[41:07] You know.

[41:07] This is not the way to get on the good side of the fans.

[41:09] They load a lot of their life on to us.

Dan McCoy

[41:12] I mean.

[41:12] I see where you're going with this.

[41:14] I feel like your problem eventually is going to end up that there's a lot of talk about me.

[41:18] And a lot of talk about Elliot.

[41:19] And not a lot of talk about Jubin.

Zhubin Parang

[41:21] Well that's one thing.

[41:22] Yeah.

[41:23] There's one thing.

[41:23] I don't appear in these emails near as much as I'd like to appear.

[41:26] Well you never do.

[41:27] I'm also good.

[41:28] You know.

[41:28] I'm also a good person to ask questions too.

[41:30] I can answer them.

[41:30] You're not going to be here though.

[41:31] Stuart's going to be back.

[41:32] Well I can always.

[41:33] In other ways.

[41:33] In other times.

[41:34] I can answer.

[41:35] I can answer through my own Facebook page.

[41:36] I can be an administrator on the Flophouse page.

[41:39] Why would we make you an admin on that?

[41:40] Fans can contact me directly.

[41:42] How would they do that?

[41:43] That's so fun.

[41:43] However our fans want to get in touch with me.

[41:45] At a later date.

[41:45] I'm happy to get in touch.

[41:46] We'll revisit this.

[41:48] Let's table it.

Dan McCoy

[41:48] I think we will not revisit it.

[41:50] So this is.

[41:51] Sir.

Dan McCoy

[41:52] Titled Giant Robot Anime or Anime.

[41:57] It's from Paige and Devon.

[41:58] Last name Withhelds.

[42:01] Last names Withheld.

[42:02] And it says.

[42:03] Dear Flophouse.

[42:04] No one says Withhelds.

[42:05] Just wanted to clarify a minor error made by Stu and Elliot in the Three Musketeers episode.

[42:10] Is this about like Neon Genesis?

[42:12] The anime you thought you were referencing in the mailbag portion when you were talking about

[42:16] Real Steel and Evangeline Lilly's name was actually a mashup of two different anime.

[42:21] In Neon Genesis Evangelon.

[42:23] Evangelion.

[42:24] In Evangelion.

[42:25] The characters use giant robots to fight angels with the fate of all existence being ultimately

[42:29] decided by an emo kid with daddy issues.

[42:32] The anime with the transforming robots that fight gigantic humanoid aliens and space bugs

[42:36] with a song is called Maycross.

[42:39] Oh.

[42:40] Okay.

[42:40] Furthermore, these two very real shows should not be confused with the other real anime

[42:45] where the robots are powered by still beating Dragonheart and need to suck your blood to

[42:49] move, which in turn should not be confused with the anime where the pilot of the robot

[42:52] is the Japanese Bruce Wayne who wants to have sex with his android maid and is either in

[42:57] the Matrix the whole time or might be a tomato.

[42:59] And of course these bear no resemblance to the anime where the robots ride waves of light

[43:03] through the air on metal surfboards and the main character is in love with a girl that

[43:06] was crapped out by a giant sentient sea sponge.

[43:10] Not to forget the anime.

Zhubin Parang

[43:11] Which I want to know the titles to this.

Dan McCoy

[43:13] Where the robots are literally driven by hope and the power of spirals and become bigger

[43:17] by drilling and embedding themselves into other robots.

[43:20] Or the anime where when the smaller robots combine into a giant robot, all the pilots orgasm

[43:25] simultaneously.

[43:26] That's Voltron.

[43:26] Or the anime in which the cockpit is located in the pit of the robot's cock.

[43:31] Might we suggest the creation of your own Flophouse giant robot anime?

[43:36] Each Flophouse member with their own color scheme and shouted catchphrase would turn into

[43:41] a giant Flophouse robot.

[43:42] They would all fight crime on the mead streets of Duckburg.

Elliott Kalan

[43:45] Wait, we would crush Duckburg.

[43:47] There's no one of giant size there.

Dan McCoy

[43:49] Keeping them safe for Scrooge McDuck and his lucky dime.

[43:51] You think that the Beagle Boys are going to be able to stand up against one mech, let alone

[43:55] three mechs?

[43:56] From the secret base under a Popeye's chicken.

[43:59] Yes.

[43:59] They are directed by a psychic alien, the Flophouse house cat, who is secretly Elliot from the

[44:03] future, which is why he's allergic to himself in the present.

Elliott Kalan

[44:08] Intricate.

[44:09] I like it.

[44:09] What would it be called, though?

[44:11] Flopcross?

[44:12] Flopjellion?

[44:12] Mm-hmm.

[44:14] Flopbots?

[44:14] Maybe just Flopbots.

[44:16] I want to know the titles to all those other mech...

[44:18] If anyone knows the titles to those other crazy Japanese cartoony shows, please send them in,

[44:23] because I want to know them.

[44:24] Please send them to Elliot.

[44:25] Send them to Elliot, courtesy of Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[44:28] You send them to me.

[44:29] Like, yeah.

[44:30] Please send them to me, courtesy of your trash can, located in the corner of your room.

[44:37] Wait, so they have to print it out and then put it in the trash can?

Elliott Kalan

[44:42] Yep.

[44:42] 123 Crap Street, Garbage Town, USA.

[44:45] So, I appreciate that.

[44:47] I like this Flopbots summary.

[44:50] I wonder if we'll be able to get the DuckTales license from Disney to do it.

[44:54] Because if Stewart's involved, there's going to be a lot of sex in that cartoon.

Zhubin Parang

[44:58] Yeah, this...

[44:59] You're going to be Japanese anime robots just sort of hanging around Duckburg?

Elliott Kalan

[45:03] No, no.

[45:03] We're the pilots and we're fighting crime in Duckburg.

Zhubin Parang

[45:05] Okay, but separate from...

Elliott Kalan

[45:06] It's, I think, entirely just the Beagle Boys.

Dan McCoy

[45:08] Yeah, Jube and Life is like a hurricane here in Duckburg.

[45:12] Yeah.

[45:13] I guess I...

[45:13] Riding in an airplane?

[45:14] No, race cars lasers aeroplanes.

Zhubin Parang

[45:17] It's kind of a letdown.

[45:18] It's a Duckbler.

[45:18] I recognize that it's like solving a mystery, but I still don't believe why there would be...

[45:24] It almost seems like there's a separate world going on in Duckburg if you're also mechs fighting crime.

Elliott Kalan

[45:30] Yeah, it's called a city.

[45:32] There's lots of people going...

[45:33] Things happening there.

Zhubin Parang

[45:34] I thought Duckburg was just like...

[45:36] It was basically just Scrooge McDuck's mansion and his money pit.

Elliott Kalan

[45:39] It is a bustling metropolis.

[45:41] Yeah.

[45:41] It's the main economic and cultural center for the United States of Duckmerica.

[45:46] Duckmerica?

[45:46] What I don't understand is why it's called Duckburg.

Dan McCoy

[45:47] You've got Jaro Gearloose who invented a new metal that would be great for trains.

Elliott Kalan

[45:52] Yeah, but the government of Duckburg doesn't want him to use it because it's unfair competition.

Zhubin Parang

[45:57] I don't...

[45:58] Does Uncle Scrooge just abandon Duckburg then?

[46:01] Well, one...

[46:01] It's Scrooge McDuck is not called Uncle Scrooge.

[46:04] I...

[46:04] He is called Uncle Scrooge.

[46:06] I guess he is called Uncle Scrooge.

[46:08] They call him...

[46:08] Yeah.

[46:09] Huey, Louie, and Dewey call him Uncle Scrooge.

[46:11] And Donald does.

Dan McCoy

[46:12] Huey, Louie...

[46:12] They have Uncle Donald.

[46:13] Should we call him...

[46:15] No, they call him...

[46:15] Should we call him Great Uncle Scrooge?

[46:16] Yeah.

[46:17] Uncle Donald is...

[46:18] Like, that's the weird thing.

[46:19] Well, maybe Donald and Scrooge are brothers.

Elliott Kalan

[46:22] And Donald has just aged much better than Scrooge.

[46:25] But then Donald says Uncle Scrooge.

Dan McCoy

[46:26] Yeah, Donald says Uncle Scrooge.

Elliott Kalan

[46:28] I don't know that they're really related to Uncle Scrooge.

[46:29] There are...

Dan McCoy

[46:29] No, there...

[46:30] I mean, like, in the Karl Barks comics, there are certain plots where it seems like Donald

[46:34] is just waiting around for Scrooge to die to inherit his...

[46:37] Well, who wouldn't?

Elliott Kalan

[46:38] Scrooge is a...

[46:38] Scrooge is a jerk and a miser, and he's rich.

[46:41] So I hope that answers your question about Scrooge McDuck.

[46:45] And just...

[46:46] And Scrooge eventually goes to Gyro's Gulch, where he can start his own society.

Dan McCoy

[46:50] So, this letter is titled,

[46:53] Hodgemania Running Wild.

[46:55] Uh-oh.

[46:57] I was reading John Hodgman's new book, That Is All, when I came across a startling passage

[47:02] sandwiched in between his proposal for a competitive hoarding reality show and a profile of the

[47:06] great actor and professional sinister facial hair model Ian McShane.

[47:11] I found this entry for his End of the World Day calendar for the date of April 28, 2012.

[47:18] For those of you playing the Flophouse Home Edition,

[47:20] this is located on page 728.

[47:23] Or 26, sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[47:24] It's weird that the Flophouse Home Edition involves having to own a copy of John Hodgman's book.

Zhubin Parang

[47:30] I would have thought the nude paintings of you guys were the weirdest part of it.

[47:33] Page 726.

[47:33] You have to paint them yourself.

[47:34] That's the weird part.

[47:35] That's the weird thing.

Dan McCoy

[47:36] And I quote,

[47:37] Contrary to predictions, the 10-day night ends after only four days.

[47:41] Dr. Elliot Kalin, author of the popular Ragnarok denial blog, InSkeptic, writes that this is proof of the coming global super apocalypse is nothing but a liberal mind hoax.

[47:52] Yes, I agree.

[47:52] It makes you wonder what their real agenda is.

[47:55] Why do they want us to abandon our homes so that the minds can live in them?

[47:58] If this was any other minor television personality, I would have passed it off as a playful name drop.

[48:04] But given Elliot's rough and tumble history with Mr. Hodgman, it makes me fear that he is only stepping up the level of sophistication exhibited in his bullying.

[48:14] Gone are the days of the Hodge simply stealing Elliot's lunch money and defacing his Marvel Comics action figures, making his tenure with The Daily Show a daily battle of wills.

[48:23] Yeah, he did throw his shoes at me once, too.

[48:25] He's now gone so far as to misappropriate Elliot's very identity for his own greedy purposes.

[48:31] I fear that if this is not addressed soon, it will escalate until one day Elliot wakes up groggy and confused and handcuffed to a radiator in the basement of Hodgman's observatory.

[48:42] Maybe the Flophouse should invest in a Flophouse junkyard guard dog to keep its host safe from the wiles of deranged millionaires.

[48:50] That's from Aaron, his last name withheld, and he says,

[48:53] P.S. Dan may be the Cyclops of the group, but let's not forget that Cyclops gets both Jean Grey and Emma Frost.

[49:01] And also gets to wear cool sunglasses all the time, even at night, which is the coolest time for wearing sunglasses.

Elliott Kalan

[49:07] Very true.

[49:08] And in fact, I want you not to worry.

[49:10] Hodgman and I do have a somewhat sinister game of cat and mouse going on.

[49:16] But I was flattered that when he put me in his book and it was very nice to finally have my anti-Ragnarok views put into print and given some kind of credence in the lamestream pro end of the world media.

[49:31] But mostly I want to talk about that sunglasses at night thing, which I guess is true.

[49:35] Here's the question, though.

[49:36] It's already harder for Cyclops to see anything because everything looks red to him.

[49:40] It's like he's wearing Bono's sunglasses.

[49:41] At night, wouldn't it be even harder, Dan?

Zhubin Parang

[49:44] Doesn't Cyclops always see red, though?

[49:46] Because he's always blasting out that red beam.

Elliott Kalan

[49:48] But I don't know what that looks like to him.

Zhubin Parang

[49:51] But I feel like it can't look clear.

Elliott Kalan

[49:53] So you're saying everything looks red to him all the time anyway?

Zhubin Parang

[49:55] I feel like regardless of his glasses, he'd always be seeing red, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:57] It's possible.

[49:58] I mean, that's also because he's just mad all the time.

Zhubin Parang

[50:00] That's also, yeah, literally unmetaphorically.

Elliott Kalan

[50:02] That's why his catchphrase, you've got me seeing red, and I don't mean lasers.

Zhubin Parang

[50:09] It's a really confusing catchphrase.

Elliott Kalan

[50:11] Yeah, a little bit, because you have to know who he is and all his stuff before that.

Zhubin Parang

[50:15] He says that just the bartenders, people who aren't aware of what he is.

[50:18] I like the idea of a Flophouse Home Edition, where I imagine it's some sort of Fireball Island-style game that has nothing to do with movies at all.

[50:26] It's really expensive and never works right.

[50:27] Yeah, you guys just have some sort of island adventure that involves a lot of pieces, has nothing to do with movies whatsoever.

Elliott Kalan

[50:34] Yeah, let me reveal the secret of the Flophouse Home game.

[50:36] All you need for it is a movie and someone else to talk to afterwards.

Dan McCoy

[50:40] That's the extent of it.

[50:41] And I like the idea of me bagging Emma Frost, a supervillainess who just wears lingerie around.

Elliott Kalan

[50:47] Yeah, Jean Grey you're not interested in.

Dan McCoy

[50:49] No, I'm interested in her, too.

Elliott Kalan

[50:51] Oh, okay.

[50:51] We could work something out.

Zhubin Parang

[50:52] Emma Frost is played by January Jones, though.

[50:54] Yeah, yeah.

[50:57] That is a problem.

[50:58] Very quiet, still the conversation.

Elliott Kalan

[51:00] You could just assume that Emma Frost looks like Hollywood from Cool World, because they're both cartoons.

[51:06] This last one is from Carl, last name withheld.

Dan McCoy

[51:09] I assume the last name is Junior.

[51:11] Carl Junior.

[51:12] And it addresses, it has to do with our...

Elliott Kalan

[51:15] Both of those need an S that we did not provide.

Dan McCoy

[51:20] It has to do with our recent live show.

[51:22] And I want to read it so we can give special thanks to him.

[51:26] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[51:26] I also want to thank everyone who came out for the live show, which was a lot of fun.

[51:29] And I hope everyone enjoyed it.

[51:30] As I do.

Zhubin Parang

[51:31] No.

[51:32] See, we're not there.

[51:33] No, I just want to thank the fans.

[51:34] He says...

[51:35] I apologize for not making it.

Dan McCoy

[51:37] He says, what's the address for sending U.S. mail to the floppers?

[51:39] I tried mailing my pet parcel to the 123 Fake Street address from the Cowboys and Aliens podcast.

[51:45] But the package was returned.

[51:47] Parentheses.

[51:47] I didn't really try that.

[51:50] And I didn't really think you thought I'd really try that.

[51:53] I just thought it'd be funny to hear Dan try to stumble over the parentheses when he tried to read this letter.

[52:00] Mission accomplished.

[52:01] Yeah, he nailed it.

[52:02] Please be timely in your response as I have in my possession an item vital to the success of your upcoming live show.

Zhubin Parang

[52:10] Is your tongue drunk?

Dan McCoy

[52:12] Which, alas, I won't be able to attend.

[52:15] Oh.

[52:16] From reports of your last live show, which, alas, I also wasn't able to attend, I'm given to understand that you host a Flophouse trivia contest at the event.

[52:25] I have the perfect prize for you and I'm willing to part with it for nothing.

[52:28] You see, my great love of the show convinced me that owning an authentic prop from Sorority Row was a good idea for all of ten minutes.

[52:36] Which, unfortunately, was just long enough for me to bid on such an item on eBay.

[52:41] Thus, in a way, it's your fault that I am now the not-proud-of-owner of Mickey's, parentheses, Max Hennard's, screen-used cell phone, complete with certificate of authenticity.

[52:53] And in a different, but real and legally binding way, you're obligated to take this cell phone from me, sign it, and or its accompanying certificate, and give it out as a prize at the live event.

[53:03] Or, I guess, if this email or the prop doesn't get you in time, you can always make it part of the prize package for choosing Stuart's new sound.

[53:11] On a lighter note, I suggest Stuart make the sound from that lollipop song from the movie Stand By Me whenever he's unsuccessful at halting a bad bit by asking,

[53:19] Is this a bit? Kind of an audible wink slash shrug to the listeners to say,

[53:23] Hey, don't look at me. I tried.

Elliott Kalan

[53:26] What sound is that?

[53:27] The, like, pop?

Dan McCoy

[53:30] I don't know if the microphone would be that.

[53:32] I don't know if the microphone would be that.

[53:32] But it sounded like pop.

[53:34] Yeah.

[53:35] Well, uh...

[53:36] We did receive that.

[53:38] And we wanted to thank Carl, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[53:40] Yeah, thank you very much for donating what I assume you paid thousands of dollars for.

[53:43] The real screen-used cell phone.

Dan McCoy

[53:46] A priceless piece of Hollywood history.

Elliott Kalan

[53:49] Yeah.

[53:49] In the film's row.

[53:51] Right on there.

Elliott Kalan

[53:51] Chaplin's hat and Mary Pickford's jockstrap.

[53:54] Ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

[53:56] And the ruby swiffers from the maintenance closet of The Wizard of Oz.

[54:04] But we did give that out.

[54:05] All the way from the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

[54:10] To, uh, Dolores.

[54:13] It's really hard to think of a rhyme for Dolores.

[54:14] Dolores the cleaning lady.

[54:16] From the set of Back to the Future.

[54:18] Darth Vader's helmet.

[54:22] To Mark Maber.

[54:24] The plumber on the set of Star Wars.

[54:27] Um...

[54:27] Yeah.

[54:27] It's weird that the people who work in maintenance on movies become props.

[54:31] But it's...

Dan McCoy

[54:32] And their names rhyme with actual props.

Elliott Kalan

[54:35] Yeah, but if you go to Planet Hollywood, you'll see right there, uh...

Dan McCoy

[54:38] Their money...

[54:39] Their mummified remains.

Elliott Kalan

[54:41] Sometimes they're still alive and you can...

[54:43] You know, you tap on the glass and they go...

[54:45] Rah!

Dan McCoy

[54:46] Yeah.

[54:46] Rah!

[54:47] The monsters do it.

Elliott Kalan

[54:47] I swept up the cut hair on Ghostbusters!

Dan McCoy

[54:50] There's a sign saying, please don't tap on that glass, Elliot.

[54:52] I mean, come on.

[54:53] Sure.

[54:54] You see glass, you're gonna tap on it.

[54:55] No.

[54:56] That's Elliot's motto.

Zhubin Parang

[54:57] You always say, I'd tap that.

[54:58] And then you do.

Dan McCoy

[54:59] That's why Elliot's always tapping on our glasses.

[55:01] Yeah.

[55:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[55:02] It's irritating.

[55:02] Sees it's gotta tap.

[55:03] Ah!

[55:04] Ah!

Zhubin Parang

[55:04] Ah!

[55:05] Ah!

[55:06] But, um...

[55:07] Glasses are all fogged up.

[55:07] My hands all cut open with a blood pact.

[55:10] I forgot I made you very end up.

[55:11] Injurious.

Dan McCoy

[55:12] Carl, thank you for purchasing a prize that we did, in fact, hand out at the live show.

[55:18] We did.

Elliott Kalan

[55:18] We asked a Flophouse trivia question that got a correct answer.

[55:23] And, uh...

[55:24] Yeah, and some lucky owner now has a Flophouse-owned phone.

Dan McCoy

[55:29] And we did a hilarious sorority-row-related bit.

Elliott Kalan

[55:34] About how we couldn't remember who that character was, or when they used the phone.

Dan McCoy

[55:38] Yeah.

[55:39] But you, at home, can now, if you have that prop, reenact scenes from Sorority Row.

[55:45] I mean...

[55:45] To your heart's content.

[55:46] I guess you could reenact them with any phone.

Elliott Kalan

[55:48] You could reenact that one scene.

[55:50] Shh, quiet.

[55:51] But thank you very much for sending us that.

[55:53] And in return, Dan, what are we gonna do for him?

[55:56] Uh, we're gonna thank him on this episode of the Flophouse.

[55:59] Thanks a lot, buddy.

[56:01] You were all about thanking people today.

[56:03] And now, suddenly, you're blank.

[56:05] Well, honestly, I kind of felt like you guys have been resisting that so much that I just

Zhubin Parang

[56:08] feel kind of...

[56:09] Kind of want it now.

[56:11] I don't feel like a part of this regular podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[56:13] Oh.

[56:13] Well, Flophouse listeners, write in.

[56:15] Tell us if you want Jumin to be a part of the Flophouse podcast.

[56:18] And if you say yes, then we'll kick Stuart out.

[56:20] It'll be me from now on.

[56:20] No, that's not how it works.

[56:21] I think that's...

[56:22] That's...

[56:22] I didn't realize that the Stuart Wellington gig was one of the most coveted in show business.

Zhubin Parang

[56:26] Everyone wants it.

[56:27] And I want it more than most.

[56:29] Not more than everyone else.

[56:31] Just more than most.

[56:31] Well, what are you willing to do for it?

[56:33] I'm willing to do most anything.

[56:35] Not everything, but most anything.

Dan McCoy

[56:38] I mean, within reason.

[56:39] I'm not...

[56:39] It's vague.

[56:40] I mean, it's very all-encompassing, but very vague.

[56:43] Powerfully vague.

[56:44] Powerfully vague.

[56:45] Yeah.

[56:46] So, Quigley.

[56:49] Quigley.

[56:49] Quigley Down Under.

[56:50] Quigley Down Under.

[56:51] We should recommend films that we actually liked.

[56:54] Like Quigley Down Under.

[56:55] Yeah.

[56:58] Instead of Atlas Shrugged.

Elliott Kalan

[56:59] If you're going to see any Australian Western starring Tom Selleck, make it Quigley Down Under.

[57:03] Yeah.

[57:05] If you wish that Tom Selleck was a couple of mice, make it The Rescuers Down Under.

[57:09] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[57:11] If you wish that he was a guy who invented the theory of relativity, make it Young Einstein.

Elliott Kalan

[57:20] And if you want to see Einstein die, make it Old Einstein.

[57:28] If you don't want to see Einstein die, but you still want to see him old, make it IQ with Walter Matthau.

[57:35] And if you want to see Walter Matthau, not as Einstein, but just as a guy, but still old, make it I'm Not Rappaport.

[57:43] Now, if you want to see a movie with Michael Rappaport in it, I'm Not Rappaport is not the movie to go to.

[57:48] Depending on what you want to see him do.

[57:50] If you want to see Michael Rappaport drown in the backyard pool, make it Copland.

[57:54] But if you'd rather he was the guy who was taunting Patton Oswalt over sports trivia, make it...

[58:01] Was it Big Fan?

[58:03] Yes.

[58:04] Make it Big Fan.

[58:06] Now, if you're interested in fans, there's a number of movies you can see,

[58:09] but I'd recommend watching episodes of Saturday Night Live from the early to mid-90s,

[58:13] where the music guests play in front of giant fans.

[58:18] So, um...

[58:20] If you're interested in guests in movies, I'll recommend Christopher Guest.

Dan McCoy

[58:26] I feel like recommending actual movies is almost extraneous at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[58:31] Well, I do want to recommend one actual movie.

[58:32] All right.

[58:33] I recently watched the first time Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,

[58:36] the early Martin Scorsese movie with Ellen Burstyn and Chris Christofferson,

[58:40] and Jodie Foster as a young girl has a very funny part in it.

[58:43] Uh, and it was really good.

[58:44] Uh, I've been not interested in seeing it for a long time, but now I wish I'd seen it earlier,

[58:48] because I think it might be one of my favorite Martin Scorsese movies now, to be honest,

[58:52] after having seen it.

[58:53] Wow.

[58:54] Dan, do you have anything?

[58:56] Um...

[58:56] Since Alice doesn't live here anymore.

Dan McCoy

[58:58] I don't know that I actually do have any...

[59:00] I...

[59:01] I see fewer and fewer movies nowadays.

[59:04] I did, uh...

[59:05] I did see Prometheus,

[59:07] and I know that that's been getting a lot of sort of mixed feelings on the internet,

[59:11] but I think on balance, it's definitely a movie worth seeing.

[59:14] There's a lot of weird character choices that people make.

[59:17] It does not hold together necessarily as a story or as a prequel to the movie Alien,

[59:24] but as a movie that, uh, creates a consistent, uh, creepy mood and has beautiful images in it

[59:33] that I'm still thinking about.

[59:35] Uh, it's a good one.

[59:37] Mm-hmm.

[59:37] So I think it's definitely worth seeing.

Zhubin Parang

[59:40] So I'll say that.

[59:42] Uh, I haven't seen a movie recently that I've enjoyed.

[59:45] I've seen, uh, I saw The Dictator,

[59:47] and I saw, um, another, another not very good movie

[59:51] that I literally just forgot the name of right now as I'm talking.

[59:54] It just came out last week, and I want to say that it was...

[59:57] Snow White and the Huntsman?

[59:57] It was not, it was the other one that came out.

[59:59] Moonrise Kingdom?

[1:00:00] Yes, it was Moonrise Kingdom, which I thought did not, uh,

[1:00:03] which I thought is beginning to show stagnation in Wes Anderson's style.

[1:00:06] Uh, it's still good, but sort of the same.

[1:00:09] So kind of a backhanded recommendation.

[1:00:11] Not really recommendation.

[1:00:12] I would recommend, if I can, can I recommend classics on this?

[1:00:15] Sure.

[1:00:15] I would recommend whatever you want.

[1:00:16] I just recommended a movie from almost 40 years ago.

[1:00:18] That's a good point.

[1:00:19] I keep confusing Alice doesn't live here anymore

[1:00:21] with that movie where that girl flies out the window.

[1:00:25] Alice.

[1:00:25] No, that's that after-school special with Helen Hunt.

[1:00:28] Yeah.

[1:00:28] Yeah, who is that?

[1:00:29] That's still from years and years ago.

[1:00:31] I don't understand.

[1:00:31] Alice is involved in there somewhere.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:33] I mean, like, there's also not a movie that's in it.

[1:00:35] That's a TV show.

[1:00:36] That's true.

Zhubin Parang

[1:00:36] My misinterpretation also doesn't follow the logic.

[1:00:38] But I, every time I hear that, I always think of that scene.

[1:00:41] What is that scene?

[1:00:42] That doesn't matter.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:42] I don't remember the name of it.

[1:00:43] It's an after-school special.

[1:00:44] That's what it was.

[1:00:44] She's on like Angel Desk.

Zhubin Parang

[1:00:45] I recommend that after-school special where Helen Hunt jumps through a window after being on PCP.

[1:00:50] I'll recommend that.

[1:00:51] It's got a lot of lessons in not using acid.

[1:00:55] No, acid is a totally different thing.

[1:00:57] But I think just in general, the lessons you learn from that can be applied.

[1:01:00] You can extrapolate.

[1:01:01] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:01] And also windows, how breakable they are.

Zhubin Parang

[1:01:03] How breakable they are, how you should not run through them, especially if you're above one-story floors.

[1:01:07] I think a lot of that stuff is timeless.

[1:01:10] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:12] So, guys, I guess this is it.

[1:01:15] Hey, let's shrug this one off, huh?

[1:01:17] Mm-hmm.

[1:01:18] With my new dance, the shrug.

[1:01:21] Do it.

[1:01:22] I'm doing it right now.

[1:01:24] Can you see it, listeners?

[1:01:25] Look at it.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:25] No, the elephant does not like that dance.

[1:01:28] He's mad.

[1:01:29] He's mad at me.

[1:01:29] I'm going to stop now.

[1:01:31] So much deep shoulder action, though, in those few seconds before the elephant got enraged.

[1:01:38] And the elephant got pretty enraged, too.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:41] It's just like that hit porn film, Deep Shoulder.

[1:01:43] The woman who has her clitorises in her shoulders.

[1:01:46] So people have to give her deep tissue to massage this for her to have orgasms.

Zhubin Parang

[1:01:50] Good value, though.

[1:01:52] I mean, you just go to, you know.

[1:01:53] I mean, it teaches you how to do a massage.

[1:01:55] Yeah.

[1:01:55] It teaches you how to.

[1:01:56] It's a really good instructional video.

[1:01:57] It's not very erotic.

[1:01:58] Good value for the movie, too.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:58] It's like 80 hours long.

[1:02:00] Yeah.

[1:02:00] But it just costs the same amount as a normal movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:03] All right.

[1:02:04] Well, this has evolved into total nonsense.

[1:02:07] So before we just start making sounds, we should probably sign off.

[1:02:12] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:02:14] I'm still Elliot Kalin.

Zhubin Parang

[1:02:15] I'm Shubin Parang, sitting in permanently for Stuart Wall.

[1:02:18] No, I don't.

[1:02:18] Not at all.

[1:02:19] See you next week.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:20] No, not.

[1:02:21] Good night.

[1:02:40] Okay.

[1:02:41] I actually saw a trailer for that movie, I think, because I remember seeing the part where

[1:02:46] she has a gun coming out of her butt.

The Flop House: Episode #104 - Atlas Shrugged

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