The Flop House: Episode #104 - Atlas Shrugged

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

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flop House.

[0:32] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:33] I'm Elliot Kalin.

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

[0:35] Well, I know.

[0:37] What did you do? It's too crazy.

[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] Well, I want to do my thing. I'm going to do his thing.

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

[0:49] I was a more like a prince in the pauper thing.

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

[0:54] So, I mean, I guess he's slacking off already in this like switching lives.

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

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

[1:05] Yeah, I think Stuart may be running some sort of grift on you.

[1:10] All right. I don't think he's doing it.

[1:12] A grift or a gun.

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

[1:16] Oh, for her heart surgery.

[1:19] You poor sweet lamb.

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

[1:23] It was really.

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

[1:28] Have you here to hear you here?

[1:30] You know, it's important that we hear you because it's an audio podcast.

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

[1:34] We can only see you.

[1:36] It would be a problem for the listeners.

[1:37] Yeah. Although you are doing some hilarious stuff.

[1:41] Yeah, no, that's a lie.

[1:44] So just sitting there talking into a microphone.

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

[1:49] Yeah, that's true.

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

[1:54] All of you at once fall backwards and we will catch you.

[1:57] Yeah. Oh, sorry.

[2:01] We were distracted.

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

[2:04] Let's just be honest. Yeah, we're liars.

[2:05] We're assholes.

[2:06] Well, it was our own rational self-interest, which leads us.

[2:10] Oh, no, it doesn't really explain why we did not really.

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

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

[2:17] Part one.

[2:19] You know, it was a movie about, you know, like being like, hold on, hold on.

[2:25] More like Atlas Shrugged.

[2:26] Part one. Oh, a review.

[2:32] Elliot Kalin.

[2:34] So. So.

[2:35] So do your Atlas Shrugging impression again?

[2:39] OK, that's him.

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

[2:47] Sure. Trilogy.

[2:48] Yeah, because I looked it up on on Wikipedia trilogy.

[2:51] It was going to be.

[2:52] Yeah, the exact opposite of a trilogy, because this is maybe the least

[2:55] thrilling movie we've watched.

[2:57] Yeah. Although I think this maybe was not quite as boring as Whiteout.

[3:02] I don't know.

[3:02] I, you know, you were much more bored by Whiteout.

[3:06] I mean, they did have Kate Beckinsale running away from a killer,

[3:09] but it was still super boring.

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

[3:13] and the train industry. Yeah.

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

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

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

[3:27] No hostage.

[3:29] Trespass. Trespass.

[3:30] Trespass, which was great.

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

[3:34] Like I had a lot of time watching it.

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

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

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

[3:40] That was a rare.

[3:41] That was the rare flop house movie where we enjoyed watching it,

[3:43] even though it was stupid.

[3:44] I wow. I did not know that that was part of the exception.

[3:47] Last time. Mostly it's a slog.

[3:49] Mostly a slog house.

[3:50] We should be. Yeah.

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

[3:53] Well, I mean, we're going to call it the slog house.

[3:55] We were afraid it was too close to the slaw house.

[3:57] Our podcast about slaws, coleslaw.

[4:02] I think it's just a matter of announcing that hard.

[4:04] Just making sure you are there.

[4:05] Any other kind of slaw?

[4:07] Cabbage slaw.

[4:08] Is that the coal variety of slaw?

[4:11] And you guys are on your 100th episode of that of the slaw.

[4:13] I know we have really got to talk about coal.

[4:16] Yeah, we keep thinking we're going to get on to other slaws,

[4:19] but we keep having more things to say.

[4:21] And I guess it's never really slaw, comical.

[4:24] So, Elliot. Yes.

[4:26] I really need you to do your usual job.

[4:29] And so I need you to, Dan, in my life.

[4:31] Thanks for being my friend.

[4:32] I appreciate it.

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

[4:35] Hey, I'm just glad to be part of this, 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 were you were you were not.

[4:44] I mean, we're all we're all part of the same same same group here.

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

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

[4:52] Big thanks to the fans.

[4:53] I'm just OK.

[4:54] Maybe you guys don't want to thank them, but I know we always

[4:57] want to thank them. We thank them all the time.

[4:59] But I'm doing.

[5:01] I mean, I guess I think I think the human is trying to supplant

[5:04] Stewart in that everyone wants to be sucking up to the fans.

[5:08] You've been Al Madrigal.

[5:09] Everyone wants to be Stewart.

[5:10] He seems like a pretty good guy.

[5:12] It's a pretty blessed life.

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

[5:15] You guys were just talking about how like Facebook

[5:20] there was a lot of chatter about how handsome Stewart is.

[5:22] Yeah, it didn't make us feel good.

[5:24] No, did not.

[5:25] The consensus seems to be that Stewart is handsome and I am short.

[5:28] And Dan is some sort of default human.

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

[5:31] I'm just 100 percent.

[5:33] I am like the baseline of what a man.

[5:35] If there was a mold that if there was like a blank mannequin

[5:38] and God molds it to be an individual, Dan somehow escaped the factory.

[5:43] That's good. Not too bad.

[5:44] I mean, I thought that with at least with America's obesity epidemic

[5:47] that I would have shot up in the rankings.

[5:49] But apparently I'm still at, you know, base zero.

[5:52] You still move. Yeah, you move along with the average.

[5:54] Yeah, weird. It's a moving curve.

[5:56] Yeah. But speaking of moving curves,

[6:00] railways, railway trains, trains reared in metal.

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

[6:06] Yeah, because I honestly for a movie that in the broadest outlines is very simple.

[6:12] I could not follow the like the the intricacies of the the the business entry.

[6:17] There was a lot of talk about the strength of different metals and legislation and companies.

[6:23] But it's all pretty simple at the base.

[6:25] The year is twenty sixteen.

[6:26] OK. And due to something

[6:29] 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.

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

[6:43] That's oil.

[6:44] But that's OK.

[6:46] Colorado oil, no less.

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

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

[6:54] Colorado. Colorado.

[6:56] It sounds like Colorado is like, let's just call it juiced up on a Colorado.

[7:01] Just call it oil city. Yeah.

[7:04] There's a lot of oil.

[7:06] At one point they mentioned that gas at thirty seven dollars a gallon or something like that.

[7:09] Very expensive.

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

[7:15] since this is a book that was written in the 50s, I believe.

[7:18] I think, yeah, when trains were still pretty cutting edge, as opposed to now

[7:21] when trains are kind of like the horse and buggy of transportation.

[7:25] Although I guess the horse and buggy of transportation with the horse and buggy

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

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

[7:32] So we're introduced.

[7:34] Why couldn't they have updated this from a modern, you know, like these are jets

[7:38] that need like super, super strong steel or even like make it a monorail,

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

[7:44] That is even at one point, because the whole point of this

[7:47] the plot, the engine on which this plot turns is that this innovative

[7:51] entrepreneur creates a new type of metal for real.

[7:54] This guy's Reardon.

[7:55] Hank Reardon has a new type of metal that is stronger and lighter and cheaper

[8:00] than steel, but for some reason, the government and other companies

[8:05] 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

[8:14] because these scientists are funded by the government, which at one point

[8:17] our hero, we haven't mentioned her name yet.

[8:19] Dagny Taggart finds out when she's in what looks to be a science church.

[8:24] It looks to be like this huge institute of science or science

[8:26] 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.

[8:35] But we have to say it's bad or they'll pull off funding.

[8:37] 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

[8:54] and helping out people who are poor.

[8:56] Sounds like a real loser.

[8:57] And he is he's running their train company into the ground,

[9:00] which is hard to do when the trains are on rails that are on the ground.

[9:03] But you have to dig a hole, run the rail into the hole

[9:07] and then I guess jump out of the train as it as it jumps into the hole.

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

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

[9:15] You have to have artificial gravity to keep the magnets,

[9:17] to keep the train attached to the down rails.

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

[9:20] He's just doing destructive ends with a mad genius.

[9:23] The thing of it is, though, despite his nincompoopery,

[9:25] he has a lot of friends in Washington,

[9:27] which is a phrase the movie uses all the time.

[9:29] Friends in Washington, they say over and over.

[9:31] To explain any lobbying influence is just friends in Washington,

[9:34] which up to now I'd never heard outside of a negative political ad.

[9:36] Yeah. And it's just like, well, that's because this is basically

[9:41] a negative political ad stretched to feature length.

[9:44] But we'll get to that.

[9:44] Yeah, let's finish with the exciting story of Dagny Taggart.

[9:47] Right. The very believable name of Dagny Taggart.

[9:51] She is a genius who is tired of having to suppress her own

[9:55] strengths and individual will for what other people consider is the greater good.

[9:59] She wants.

[10:00] bring this train company back. So she's going to make a deal with Riordan

[10:04] to relay hundreds of miles of train track

[10:07] and start up a new train line. These other train lines, the

[10:10] El Norte and the Phoenix Eldorado or something like that?

[10:13] The Phoenix Durango? Phoenix Durango, that's right.

[10:16] For some reason they are failing.

[10:20] So she's going to start, she wants to bring the train lines back, but the

[10:23] government is

[10:24] coordinating with businesses to crush her business in particular

[10:28] in order to keep things cooperative so that people

[10:32] don't succeed. It's all very, like, it's like trying to hold on to smoke, like

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

[10:40] This is like a Harrison Bergeron sort of society, where like no one can be

[10:43] better than the others. Yeah, it's like they're trying to, and

[10:47] the government institutes a law that makes it illegal for anyone to own more

[10:50] than one business, and they have a law called the Anti-Dog

[10:53] Eat Dog Act that makes it so that trains have to

[10:57] cooperate with each other, I guess. But Dagny Taggart decides, I'm going to

[11:01] leave Taggart Trains. I'm going to start my own company.

[11:05] Dagny Taggart. By the way, anyone named Dagny Taggart should be an adorable

[11:09] female cop. You know, like, just like a rookie, but

[11:13] she's got a lot of sass. Yeah, Dagny Taggart. It can be two

[11:16] different types of shows. There's the comedy version,

[11:18] Dagny Taggart, Wednesdays at 8. But there's also Dagny Taggart,

[11:24] Wednesdays at 10. And then at 9, there's, I guess, a totally

[11:29] different show. Scrubs reruns, probably. Now, she calls

[11:33] this... Scrubs reruns? It's a network. You can run an hour of

[11:38] reruns of some other network's show. NBC is desperate right now. Just Scrubs

[11:41] reruns. There's a good Wednesday night lineup out for NBC.

[11:45] But the great thing about the different Dagny Taggart shows, too, is that

[11:48] she's played by a different person in both shows.

[11:51] But the rest of the cast is exactly the same. So, Dagny Taggart's going to call

[11:56] her new train line the John Galt line. Now, what does that

[11:59] mean? Well, throughout the film... Elliot, who is John Galt? That's a good

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

[12:06] Everyone's asking, who's John Galt? And sometimes it's just a response

[12:10] to a question that has no answer. Like, you're like,

[12:13] who's John Galt? 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

[12:20] who know that there's some thing going on. There's some shadowy, mysterious

[12:24] figure in a trench coat and a hat who walks up to businessmen on the

[12:27] street and goes, how would you like to live in a world

[12:30] where individual creativity is rewarded? I can take you to a place where you can

[12:33] be as... where you can work for your own good

[12:36] and not have to worry about working for somebody else's. And they're...

[12:39] instead of them being like, what are you, crazy person? Like, I don't even understand

[12:42] why you're talking that way. They're all intrigued and they disappear.

[12:45] So all these businessmen are going missing. They don't even ask for follow-up.

[12:49] They're gone within that very first meeting. They don't even...

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

[12:56] Like, really... One of the guys sets fire to his business. He just

[12:59] lets it burn. There's a guy named... Like, that's not my life anymore.

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

[13:06] drillers, and he discovers this big sea of oil in Colorado

[13:10] and the government... Above another sea of natural gas, too. Like, the way he describes

[13:14] it, it's just like, it's nothing but profit all the way down. All the way down

[13:16] to the core of the earth, which is made out of,

[13:19] I guess, like... Gold, baby. Sweet bullion.

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

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

[13:28] Because you can eat it? Yeah, it's like gold cheese.

[13:33] 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. Reardon and Taggart also have something

[13:42] of a romance. Taggart is in a loveless marriage to a woman who does not understand how important

[13:47] his new medal is to him. Yeah.

[13:49] And he supports... For God's sakes.

[13:50] He gives her a bracelet made out of his new medal.

[13:53] I have to admit, he makes a bracelet out of the first-ever pouring of new Reardon medal

[14:00] and gives it to her as a gift, and that really is a very...

[14:03] Like, that should be a gift to cherish. Like, what he's saying to her is,

[14:06] this is... My deepest dream is this new medal. This is the culmination of all my work.

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

[14:12] The very first example, 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. A real husband would have gotten a woman diamonds.

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

[14:29] And later on, Dagny Taggart... That is only a slight exaggeration of that

[14:32] scene. No, she's there with houseguests in

[14:35] Hank Reardon's own house, and they're all openly insulting him.

[14:38] Yeah, all agreeing that this is a terrible gift.

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

[14:43] She trades Dagny Taggart that bracelet for a diamond necklace,

[14:47] and she's like, I was just going to give it to my maid.

[14:50] Here, throw it in the fire. It's like...

[14:52] Wow. 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

[15:00] the whole time, and he's, like, a rich man. He has this huge company.

[15:04] He has a mansion that he lives in, and he throws these big parties.

[15:08] Throws one big party, I guess. But he's like, people don't like me.

[15:11] Meh, everyone's out to get me. I'm rich.

[15:16] 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. They do it once,

[15:24] and then they go on a cross-country trip to find...

[15:27] I haven't finished with Wyatt Ellis.

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

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

[15:33] Ellis Wyatt, yeah.

[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.

[15:38] A lot of first names as last names in this thing.

[15:41] Ellis Wyatt then disappears.

[15:44] John Galt takes him away, 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

[15:57] 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

[16:08] where Aaron Sorkin's like,

[16:10] 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, 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, and...

[16:34] Talking to some guy just in a farm,

[16:36] just sort of hanging out at a table eating cheese.

[16:38] There's some guy who was just...

[16:40] At one point, they walk by just some old guy who's with a beard,

[16:43] sitting on what looks to be a picnic bench.

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

[16:48] Maybe there wasn't a scene in the movie.

[16:51] A lot of stuff bleeds together.

[16:52] Well, and you have to assume that John Galt stole this guy away

[16:56] so he can use his magic technology

[16:58] wherever all these famously rich people are going.

[17:01] And as the movie ends,

[17:02] Dagny Taggart, Reardon, goes back to try to run his company.

[17:05] He's had to spin off all of his subsidiaries

[17:07] because the government has outlawed the owning of more than one company at once.

[17:11] 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...

[17:19] Played by the actor who brings Barton Fink out

[17:22] to write a wrestling picture in Barton Fink.

[17:24] Yeah, and John Pulido, also from Barton Fink,

[17:26] and the Last Godfather is in this movie also,

[17:28] as an evil government type.

[17:30] And all the evil people look kind of ethnic, for the most part.

[17:34] But, and John Pulido is the most ethnic of all of them.

[17:39] But Dagny Taggart finds that Wyatt Ellis has...

[17:43] Ellis Wyatt has...

[17:45] Wyatt Ellis is a name.

[17:46] Ellis Wyatt is not a name.

[17:47] That Ellis Wyatt has set fire to his enormous Colorado oil well and disappeared.

[17:53] And that's his last fuck you to America, I guess.

[17:56] And the movie ends, and it says,

[17:59] and part one, you know, end of part one or something like that.

[18:02] But what I've just told you, so that's about...

[18:06] But we've spent about, what, six minutes, ten minutes talking about it?

[18:09] Yeah, I don't know.

[18:10] And that is stretched out over an hour,

[18:14] almost an hour and 40 minutes of people talking about

[18:16] the various strengths of metals,

[18:18] what legislation could do to their companies,

[18:21] how their company is going to be run out of business.

[18:23] 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,

[18:32] you could take out all the dialogue,

[18:33] and this would just be a train spotting movie.

[18:36] And I could just imagine elderly English people

[18:38] just watching this movie, stamping their booklet

[18:40] to say that they've seen the trains in the movie,

[18:42] and then going back to their, you know, tea and their scones.

[18:45] Yeah, well, even that almost impenetrable summing up that you gave

[18:50] filled with names of random folks is more exciting

[18:56] than the movie we just watched,

[18:57] which took place in a series of lobbies made up

[19:01] to look like offices and restaurants,

[19:04] and just people having meetings about things,

[19:08] and interspersed with them going to look at,

[19:12] I don't know, metal being made.

[19:14] Yeah, there's a lot of...

[19:16] It's almost like the movie was shot guerrilla style.

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

[19:22] Like, sit at that table, pretend it's a restaurant.

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

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

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

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

[19:34] Every time they were getting a train,

[19:36] they would just sort of shoot to mountains,

[19:38] just in tree-covered mountains, just for like 30, 40 seconds,

[19:41] without the train in the shot even at all.

[19:43] Not even shots of the train sometimes,

[19:44] just shots of scenery.

[19:46] Yeah, time here was a real...

[19:48] was very badly paced out.

[19:51] It was very badly marked off.

[19:55] At one point, they took an hour and a half train ride

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

[20:00] It took days. Yeah, maybe even days. The whole point of it was that they were going to go over a bridge

[20:05] that was going to be... A new bridge that was made out of Riordan metal.

[20:08] And now, because of the science conspiracy, everyone except Taggart and Riordan

[20:12] 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.

[20:18] And the national news is covering breathlessly

[20:21] that a new train line has opened and it's going to go over a bridge.

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

[20:27] there are reporters when they get off the train, there are reporters...

[20:30] This is a huge event. There's nothing else going on in this world but trains.

[20:33] But then later, after this out-and-out train ride that feels like it takes multiple days to cover,

[20:38] 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,

[20:48] and at one point back to Wisconsin. I think they might go to Texas at one point.

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

[20:55] That seems to take over the course of one day.

[20:58] It's like a long afternoon.

[21:00] It seems to be something that does not seem to take as long as you would think it does.

[21:04] And also, at one point she says to Reardon,

[21:07] I need the metal. 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.

[21:12] And then like two scenes later, the bridge is finished.

[21:15] And nothing seems to have happened in that span of three months.

[21:18] Yeah, time works very weirdly in this movie.

[21:21] It's kind of like they forgot that – or maybe the movie –

[21:27] it feels like when they were making it, they assumed the movie was real time.

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

[21:34] until seeing this movie.

[21:36] I've never really thought too much about how time is demarcated in a film,

[21:40] but this, for the first time, made me think, wow,

[21:42] other films must have a sense of how to pace out time because this –

[21:46] Because they are doing it wrong.

[21:48] It's so egregious. It suddenly made me realize that there isn't actually a science.

[21:51] There's an art to doing this.

[21:52] It's amazing because it's like – this was a $20 million movie,

[21:54] which is not a lot for a big movie, but $20 million is a lot of money,

[21:58] and you can make a really good movie for far less than $20 million.

[22:02] And it's a $20 million movie. It has real professional actors in it,

[22:06] but everything in it feels super in – like student film.

[22:11] Like it feels like a student film or super cheap and low budget.

[22:15] There are times when I thought I was watching Birdemic.

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

[22:19] Wow.

[22:20] And the film stock was nicer than in Birdemic,

[22:22] but otherwise like it just felt like the person behind –

[22:26] 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.

[22:37] Well, let's talk about –

[22:38] For the talent to fit this book.

[22:39] 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.

[22:45] There is an elephant in this room.

[22:46] Yeah.

[22:47] A literal elephant. Elliot mentioned that.

[22:48] Yeah.

[22:49] Oh, that's true.

[22:50] It would be dishonest of the audience to pretend this elephant.

[22:51] Let's talk about the other –

[22:52] His name is Jojo, and I brought him over.

[22:54] All right. Well, we've talked about that elephant in the room.

[22:57] Okay.

[22:58] Let's talk about something else, which is that this book is based on the Ayn Rand –

[23:03] This movie.

[23:04] 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.

[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,

[23:24] but I'd like to judge it on its merits as a film, which are almost zero.

[23:29] Which are terrible.

[23:30] But you should bring up –

[23:31] But it is crazy.

[23:33] This movie exists in a crazy world where 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,

[23:50] and like the real power resides in the hands of scientists who have colluded with the government to –

[24:00] That part's true.

[24:01] Keep back individual achievement.

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

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

[24:06] OK.

[24:07] Well, I clearly misjudged the room here.

[24:10] I'm sorry.

[24:11] I'm just going to back away from the microphone.

[24:13] 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.

[24:28] Like you've seen movies sometimes where like a director or screenwriter adapts a story that –

[24:33] a book they loved and still kind of fucks it up.

[24:36] 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.

[24:49] Oh, Beyond the Sea.

[24:50] Not Across the Sea.

[24:51] I'm sorry.

[24:52] Yeah.

[24:53] Beyond the Sea that like playing Bobby Darin was a passion.

[24:54] Across the Sea is that movie where Bobby Darin takes a solo flight across the Atlantic.

[24:56] Oh, yeah, where he was playing Charles Lambert.

[24:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[24:59] You can tell Kevin Spacey really wanted to do this.

[25:02] But here like –

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

[25:04] Yeah.

[25:05] Well, I think he had 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, the important message that Rand had in her book.

[25:15] And this is the time for it.

[25:16] But it's such a weird message because like the thing about this movie is all the main characters –

[25:20] Like basically this movie is about a bunch of main characters who are totally awesome people and their main problem is other people just aren't recognizing how awesome they are.

[25:30] It's hard to sort with eagles when you're being brought down by turkeys.

[25:32] You should probably make some sort of like T-shirt about that or something.

[25:36] Or a mug.

[25:37] Yeah.

[25:38] Yeah.

[25:39] A T-shirt mug.

[25:40] A T-shirt you can drink coffee out of.

[25:42] Of course.

[25:43] Who haven't they called out of this before?

[25:45] It's brilliant.

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

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

[25:49] Well, but I'm just trying –

[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] Quality dictates.

[25:56] Yeah.

[25:57] 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] 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.

[26:16] 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.

[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 –

[26:33] Right.

[26:34] They don't have a journey to discover this for themselves.

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

[26:42] 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.

[26:52] It's such a crazy thing for a movie to say.

[26:55] That's the weird thing.

[26:56] Like in the book, that statement, like that altruistic instincts, that attacking that comes after a good bit discussing why altruism is ultimately destructive and you don't need to go into that too much.

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

[27:16] But in this one, they just flat out say this so 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.

[27:24] There's other points like when someone says, you don't really care about anybody but yourself, do you, Hank?

[27:29] He's like, no.

[27:30] Why should I?

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

[27:35] Not kind of.

[27:36] That's the most dickish thing you can say.

[27:38] That's true.

[27:39] I don't care about other people.

[27:40] But it's also – later on in the movie, 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] Yeah.

[28:04] What Hank Green 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 going to be on board with whatever you're supposed to say.

[28:21] So what you're doing is you are recommending the book Atlas Shrugged as the finest work of thought in history.

[28:27] You love it.

[28:28] That it changed your life.

[28:30] 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, sort of everything reset.

[28:39] Yeah, kind of.

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

[28:42] Yeah, like it said everything that was worth saying before.

[28:46] I think it's the first recorded instance of a zombie because William Shakespeare burst from his grave and said, that's what I was trying to say in all my plays and I never achieved it.

[28:56] This level of beauty and then he kissed Ayn Rand and then he went to heaven I guess.

[29:00] His work on earth was done.

[29:01] Yeah.

[29:02] It was all leading up to that moment.

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

[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?

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

[29:27] 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, when are we going to find out about what happened with John Galt, where those guys are going?

[29:36] But instead at the end you're just like –

[29:37] No, the movie stopped.

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

[29:39] Yeah, exactly.

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

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

[29:47] I guess those guys are what?

[29:48] Dead now?

[29:50] What I was going to say though is like you guys were talking about it during the movie and like it is clear to me that this movie only – like this story only makes sense in the context of knowing that Ayn Rand lives in the future.

[30:00] through uh... communism herself families

[30:03] all of her family's property was taken by the communist government they had to

[30:06] flee russia to the united states so that she imagines that

[30:10] this is a potential future for the u s the u s well in twenty years when uh...

[30:16] obamacare has turned us all into slaves i know right i mean obama

[30:19] yeah

[30:20] one thing actually forcing us all to be covered by health care is uh...

[30:24] it's the first step slippery slope guys one thing that actually shows this i

[30:26] don't know when here's the thing people talk about how bad slippery slopes are

[30:29] all the time you know slippery slope is a water slide it's pretty sounds also

[30:33] like that does anyone not like a water slide if you don't have sledding

[30:36] exactly great slippery slopes are fun is all get out

[30:39] have you ever

[30:40] okay let's

[30:42] set atlas shrugged aside for a second

[30:44] slippery slope would you rather have a non-slippery slope

[30:46] so it like

[30:47] hurts and your body's getting rubbed like have you ever

[30:50] gone down a slide and like you weren't quite sliding right maybe you're a little

[30:54] too big for it maybe they're chasing you because you're not allowed to be in that

[30:56] playground because you're 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 a slide

[31:02] you're just telling them

[31:02] move faster

[31:03] get out of my way so i can use the slide i have to get to work

[31:07] and they're gonna find me again maybe fire me if i don't get to work but i need to

[31:11] ride the slide 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

[31:17] your arms rub along the sides and it really hurts it's not slippery enough

[31:20] there's a lot of friction and they catch you and like you gotta

[31:24] start pushing yourself down even faster because the guard from the park is right

[31:27] behind you feel like i should tell you that i have called the police and

[31:30] reported you as a possible uh... sex offender

[31:34] during this i know just because i didn't have pants on when i was on that slide

[31:37] does that make me a sex offender it's a child's playground what is a child i believe i'm

[31:42] young at heart

[31:43] okay i'm younger than a seventy-year-old 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

[31:53] look i know what you're talking about but i think the underlying problem of this

[31:56] thing is that

[31:58] uh... a lot of

[31:59] one thing i thought was really funny about it was that when they were showing who was

[32:02] disappearing with john gold early in the first guy who disappears john gold

[32:06] is a banking ceo

[32:08] and we're saying this earlier in the movie that like that would be the last person on earth

[32:11] who would be missed if he disappeared from the earth that knowledge is not necessary

[32:15] because the assumption is that

[32:16] the people who are holding society together the the movers and the shakers

[32:19] and the doers and the thinkers are disappearing and the first guy to go is he

[32:23] as a banking ceo

[32:25] all right like

[32:26] none of those guys know how to run their businesses you need to rebuild society guys

[32:29] we're building a spaceship to mars we need to get the most

[32:33] important people on board immediately number one banking ceo

[32:39] well it's like the part in uh... hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy the radio

[32:44] series uh... restaurant at the end of the universe we're talking about the books

[32:47] with the golgafringen arc b

[32:49] which is

[32:50] they this

[32:51] planet wanted to get rid of all the people who don't do anything

[32:54] so they told them that the planet was about to be destroyed they're going to

[32:57] send out three arcs

[32:58] arc a was going to have the leaders and the visionaries and arc c was going to

[33:02] have

[33:02] like the inventors and the workers

[33:04] and arc b was going to have the middlemen and they just send arc b off

[33:08] into the you know if they hopefully it'll just die off in space

[33:12] and it's all like

[33:13] marketing executives and telephone sanitizers which is something i'd never

[33:17] heard of until i read that book as a kid and like it kind of feels like john

[33:21] galt is doing that like

[33:23] uh... banking executives and uh... ceos who get a lot of money but don't do

[33:27] very much why don't you just come with me to this

[33:29] we'll live in a valley somewhere and uh...

[33:32] you guys can like pump your own water out of the ground and feel like you're

[33:34] doing something great i don't know it's the old devil twist

[33:38] yeah and they go to galt they all thought they were going to get made by galt and they go to his garage and they just shoot him in the head

[33:44] 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

[33:53] and then once the banking guy gets there within like three or four months the whole place

[33:55] has collapsed and they're dead and like it's unlawful

[33:58] well john it seems like we could create a number of financial products that will

[34:01] enhance the value and like

[34:04] uh... bundle these train derivatives together

[34:06] why are shoes suddenly selling for four hundred dollars a pair

[34:10] i've increased the value through uh... optimum spending by bundling those with

[34:15] with these this dirt

[34:18] this dirt is worthless

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

[34:23] it's a revolutionary financial product i'm really making

[34:27] maybe it's worthless maybe it's worth a lot i'm really making galt's gulch into a

[34:31] wonderland this is like the sixth attempt at creating a society john galt has done

[34:36] every time he does the bankers eventually come in listen john maybe we just leave the bankers out next time

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

[34:46] listen john they have the most money so they must be the most productive

[34:50] galti i don't know the other thing is that the implication is that

[34:55] obviously the people who are at the top of the social and economic chain

[34:58] are the most accomplished because they're the best and they're the most innovative

[35:03] when the history of man is littered with innovators and inventors who

[35:07] created what we now

[35:09] like the building blocks of our society and civilization

[35:12] but did not become rich savvy businessmen

[35:15] yeah those incentives were not financial that drove them

[35:21] the idea that one only financial benefits and personal gain

[35:24] will drive someone to do something and two

[35:28] that in a totally free society

[35:30] the best is always rewarded the most like it's just a crazy

[35:34] one thing that i really don't get across that idea well with the endless scenes of

[35:37] trains and people talking in quiet hush tones in restaurants yeah one thing

[35:40] 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

[35:45] uh... hank reardon and some other guy i think wyatt ellis or ellis wyatt

[35:50] but mr wyatt ellis

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

[35:56] and it must have been wyatt because he's the CEO of the oil company

[35:59] and he and hank reardon jump onto a burning oil rig and begin to repair it

[36:05] as it's burning

[36:06] the implication being like because this CEO is a man who understands every

[36:10] aspect of his oil business and that's how he became CEO and i remember thinking

[36:13] that

[36:14] i ran essentially predicting that like it would this happen with dick cheney like

[36:17] five feet away from an oil rig dick cheney would jump on that oil rig and

[36:21] just wrap his tie around his head and just go to town on fixing the oil rig

[36:24] wrap his tie around his head is he drunk at a party? no he had to get the sweat off

[36:28] the oil rig's on fire he's sweating a lot it's a rambo type thing i thought this through a lot

[36:31] dick cheney just fixing an oil rig that's on fire shirtless

[36:36] his sweat glistening

[36:38] there's like CEO memes that you can do

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

[36:43] why did you bring them? i think it comes up when i'm having a conversation

[36:46] your skin tones are beautiful thank you thank you very much yeah i spent a lot of time

[36:50] uh... just sort of working on these things

[36:52] uh... so i guess what i'm saying overall saying is this is a really boring movie

[36:56] yeah we should wrap it up i think that we can all agree i don't even think we

[36:59] need to go through final judgments i think we can all agree this is a bad bad movie

[37:03] can we all just uh... i would say and it's so easy to say it's a bad bad movie

[37:07] because it

[37:07] pushes a political viewpoint i don't agree with

[37:10] but then again

[37:11] there are many movies that push political viewpoints that i don't agree

[37:14] with that i love like almost any action movie

[37:17] or yeah your dirty harry's say

[37:20] your dirty harry's

[37:21] your uh... your straws dog actually i wouldn't put that in that category

[37:26] of movie that i love

[37:27] but uh... like

[37:29] if a movie parts of uh... the dark knight

[37:33] i almost all the dark knight yeah like if but like the movie i mean i think that has an

[37:37] ambivalent feeling about a lot of what it presents sure sure

[37:41] but uh... about it's politics yeah

[37:43] that a movie has to work on it i think there's a push pull on that but anyway well that's

[37:46] different i was looking at politics and yeah here's here i'm gonna go on a limb say there's four

[37:50] levels that a movie has to

[37:52] operate on at least one if not at least two of

[37:55] character

[37:56] story

[37:57] spectacle

[37:58] and thrills and by thrills i just mean like

[38:01] spills and chills spills and chills i don't necessarily mean just like

[38:05] thrills as in

[38:06] you know like action but thrills as in like

[38:08] something that gets your heart moving a little faster whether that's boobs or

[38:13] editing or camera work

[38:15] uh... and this fails or well edited boobs from spectacle yeah spectacle i would say

[38:19] 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 these are just i'm coming up with these categories off the top of my head so 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 uh... we could have a comment battle or a flame war but anyway de-tweet it

[38:41] de-tweet it

[38:44] this fails on a

[38:46] fails on a story level

[38:48] character level there's no spectacle and there's no thrills

[38:51] like there's nothing to grab you and it's just like

[38:54] it feels like watching a film strip or

[38:57] like a if you're reading like a jack chick comic book

[39:00] where like

[39:01] there isn't even the most basic rudiments of entertainment the jack chick comic books have more thrills

[39:05] because like people are burning in hell

[39:08] that would end with somebody getting

[39:09] burned by satan like there's some sort of terrible sinning that happens at the beginning

[39:13] which is exciting and then there's the hell burning you know what this actually reminds me

[39:16] jack chick chick had their share of titillation yeah there's no doubt about that i retract that comparison

[39:20] i'll compare it instead to there's a comic that was put out in i believe the forties

[39:24] 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 where he solves a crime and a mystery

[39:33] but in the middle there's like an eight or nine page section where he's just talking to a manager

[39:36] at the restaurant about how important it is to customer service

[39:39] the importance of customer service is what it is

[39:42] that was like watching this was like reading that

[39:45] it was like what okay we're going to do a dick tracy movie

[39:47] uh... and but it's mostly going to be him explaining the important points

[39:51] the important points of customer service and the philosophy behind that

[39:54] and then at the end he'll punch a guy so a bad bad movie all around i think we can agree

[40:00] Yeah, by very far.

[40:01] Oh well, let's blood brother it.

[40:03] Everybody cut your palms open.

[40:05] Alright.

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

[40:09] Okay.

[40:10] Suckers.

[40:11] My palms are fine.

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

[40:15] I don't know why you would do that to your friends and coworkers.

[40:18] Just become blood brothers now.

[40:19] You see us so frequently and now every time we see you we're going to be thinking about that.

[40:25] Yep, yep, yep.

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

[40:28] Okay.

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

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

[40:33] I'm not going to lie about that.

[40:34] It felt really good.

[40:35] So I'm going to pull up some Flophouse mailbag letters here.

[40:42] Some letters from our fans.

[40:44] Very nice.

[40:45] Very nice.

[40:46] I'm sure they like you.

[40:47] Thank you for writing in.

[40:48] You have an entry I think in the Flophouse wiki page.

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

[40:52] This is just your second appearance.

[40:53] Again, you're part of the Flopiverse.

[40:55] I don't know that you're part of the Flophouse.

[40:57] I'd like to request that our fans, when they do write in, to just 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, whoa.

[41:05] I feel like a lot of our fans sort of write in ways that sort of unload a lot of their life onto us.

[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 and a lot of talk about Elliot and not a lot of talk about Jubin.

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

[41:23] The one thing is I don't appear in his emails near as much as I'd like to appear.

[41:26] Well you never do.

[41:27] I'm also a good person to ask questions to.

[41:30] I can answer them.

[41:31] You're not going to be here though.

[41:32] Stuart's going to be back.

[41:33] Well I can always, in other ways, in other times, 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?

[41:41] Fans can contact me directly.

[41:42] How would they do that?

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

[41:45] We'll revisit this.

[41:47] Let's table it.

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

[41:50] So this is titled Giant Robot Anime or Anime.

[41:56] It's from Paige and Devin, last name Withhelds.

[42:00] Last names Withhelds.

[42:02] And it says, 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 Real Steel and Evangelion Lily's name

[42:18] was actually a mashup of two different anime.

[42:21] In Neon Genesis Evangelion,

[42:24] Evangelion.

[42:25] Evangelion, the characters use giant robots to fight angels

[42:28] with the fate of all existence being ultimately decided by an emo kid with daddy issues.

[42:32] The anime with the transforming robots that fight gigantic humanoid aliens and space bugs with a song is called Maycross.

[42:39] Oh, okay.

[42:41] Furthermore, these two very real shows should not be confused with the other real anime

[42:45] where the robots are powered by a still beating dragon heart

[42:48] and need to suck your blood to move,

[42:50] which in turn should not be confused with the anime

[42:52] where the pilot of the robot is the Japanese Bruce Wayne

[42:54] who wants to have sex with his android maid

[42:56] and is either in the Matrix the whole time or might be a tomato.

[42:59] And of course these bear no resemblance to the anime

[43:02] where the robots ride waves of light through the air on metal surfboards

[43:05] and the main character is in love with a girl that was crapped out by a giant sentient sea sponge.

[43:10] Not to forget the anime

[43:12] which I wonder the titles of these

[43:14] where the robots are literally driven by hope and the power of spirals

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

[43:20] or the anime where when the smaller robots combine into a giant robot

[43:24] all the pilots orgasm simultaneously.

[43:26] That's Voltron.

[43:27] 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,

[43:41] would turn into a giant Flophouse robot.

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

[43:46] Wait, we would crush Duckburg? There's no one of giant's size there.

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

[43:52] You think that the Beagle Boys are going to be able to stand up against one mech?

[43:55] Let alone three mechs?

[43:57] From the secret base under a Popeye's chicken.

[43:59] They are directed by a psychic alien, the Flophouse house cat,

[44:02] who is secretly Elliot from the future,

[44:04] which is why he's allergic to himself in the present.

[44:07] Intricate. I like it. What would it be called, though?

[44:11] Flopcross? Flopgelion?

[44:13] Flopbots? Maybe just Flopbots.

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

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

[44:22] please send them in, because I want to know them.

[44:24] Please send them to Elliot.

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

[44:28] Please send them to me, courtesy of your trash can, located in the corner of your room.

[44:36] Whatever your street address is, USA.

[44:41] 123 Crap Street, Garbage Town, USA.

[44:45] 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.

[44:55] Because if Stuart's involved, there's going to be a lot of sex in that cartoon.

[44:58] Yeah, so you're going to be Japanese enemy robots just sort of hanging around Duckburg?

[45:03] No, no, we're the pilots and we're fighting crime in Duckburg.

[45:06] Okay, but separate from...

[45:07] Crime, which is, I think, entirely just the Beagle Boys.

[45:09] Yeah, human life is like a hurricane here in Duckburg.

[45:13] Riding an aeroplane.

[45:15] No, race cars, lasers, aeroplanes.

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

[45:18] It's a duck blur.

[45:19] I recognize that it's like solving a mystery,

[45:22] 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,

[45:28] if you're also max fighting crime.

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

[45:32] There's lots of people going, things happening there.

[45:34] I thought Duckburg was basically just Scrooge McDuck's mansion and his money pit.

[45:39] It is a bustling metropolis.

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

[45:45] Duckmeric?

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

[45:48] You know, Gerlus, who invented a new metal that would be great for trains.

[45:53] Yeah, but the government of Duckburg doesn't want him to use it

[45:56] because it's unfair competition.

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

[46:01] Well, Scrooge McDuck is not called Uncle Scrooge.

[46:05] He is called Uncle Scrooge.

[46:07] I guess he is called Uncle Scrooge.

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

[46:11] Huey, Louie, and Dewey call him Uncle Donald.

[46:14] Huey, Louie, and Dewey should be calling him Great Uncle Scrooge.

[46:17] Uncle Donald, that's the weird thing.

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

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

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

[46:27] Yeah, Donald says Uncle Scrooge.

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

[46:30] I mean, like in the Karl Marx comics,

[46:32] there are certain plots where it seems like

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

[46:38] Well, who wouldn't?

[46:39] Scrooge is a jerk and a miser, and he's rich.

[46:42] So I hope that answers your question about Scrooge McDuck.

[46:46] And Scrooge eventually goes to Gyros Gulch,

[46:48] where he can start his own society.

[46:50] So this letter is titled,

[46:53] Hodgemania Running Wild.

[46:55] Uh-oh.

[46:56] I was reading John Hodgman's new book, That Is All,

[47:00] when I came across a startling passage

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

[47:06] and a profile of the great actor and professional sinister facial hair model,

[47:11] Ian McShane.

[47:12] I found this entry for his end of the world day calendar

[47:15] 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 226, sorry.

[47:24] It's weird that the Flophouse Home Edition

[47:26] involves having to own a copy of John Hodgman's book.

[47:30] I don't know if the nude paintings of you guys are the weirdest part of it.

[47:33] Well, yeah, you have to paint them yourself.

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

[47:36] And I quote,

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

[47:41] Dr. Elliot Kalin, author of the popular Ragnarok denial blog InSkeptic,

[47:46] writes that this is proof of the coming global super-apocalypse

[47:50] is nothing but a liberal mind hoax.

[47:52] Yes, I agree.

[47:53] 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?

[47:59] If this was any other minor television personality,

[48:02] I would have passed it off as a playful name drop.

[48:05] But given Elliot's rough-and-tumble history with Mr. Hodgman,

[48:08] it makes me fear that he is only stepping up the level of sophistication

[48:12] exhibited in his bullying.

[48:14] Gone are the days of the Hodge simply stealing Elliot's lunch money

[48:17] and defacing his Marvel Comics action figures,

[48:20] 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

[48:29] for his own greedy purposes.

[48:31] I fear that if this is not addressed soon,

[48:33] it will escalate until one day Elliot wakes up groggy and confused

[48:37] 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

[48:46] to keep its host safe from the wiles of deranged millionaires.

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

[48:52] P.S. Dan may be the Cyclops of the group,

[48:55] but let's not forget that Cyclops gets both Jean Grey and Amber Frost

[49:01] and also gets to wear cool sunglasses all the time, even at night,

[49:05] which is the coolest time for wearing sunglasses.

[49:07] Very true, 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 when he put me in his book

[49:20] and it was very nice to finally have my anti-Ragnarok views put into print

[49:27] 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.

[49:42] At night, wouldn't it be even harder, Dan?

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

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

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

[49:50] But I feel like he can't look clear.

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

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

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

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

[50:02] It's like a bull.

[50:04] That's why his catchphrase,

[50:06] you've got me seeing red, and I don't mean lasers.

[50:10] It's a really confusing catchphrase.

[50:12] Yeah, a little bit, because you have to know who he is and all his stuff

[50:14] before that.

[50:16] He says they're just the bartenders, people who aren't aware of what he is.

[50:18] I like the idea of a Flophouse

[50:20] home edition, where as I imagine it's some

[50:22] sort of Fireball Island

[50:24] style game that has nothing to do with

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

[50:28] Yeah, you guys just have some sort of

[50:30] island adventure that involves

[50:32] a lot of pieces, has nothing to do with movies

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

[50:36] All you need for it is a movie

[50:38] and someone else to talk to afterwards.

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

[50:42] And I like the idea of me bagging Emma Frost,

[50:44] a supervillainess

[50:46] who just wears lingerie around.

[50:48] Yeah, Jean Grey you're not interested in.

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

[50:52] We can work something out. Emma Frost is played by January Jones, though.

[50:54] Yeah.

[50:56] That is a problem.

[50:58] Very quiet, still the conversation.

[51:00] You could just assume that Emma Frost looks like

[51:02] Hollywood from

[51:04] Cool World because they're both cartoons.

[51:06] This last one

[51:08] is from Carl, last name withheld.

[51:10] I assume the last name is Junior.

[51:12] Carl Junior. It has to do

[51:14] with our...

[51:16] Both of those need an S.

[51:18] That we did not provide.

[51:20] It has to do with our recent live show

[51:22] and I want to

[51:24] read it so we can give special thanks

[51:26] to him. I also want to thank everyone

[51:28] who came out for the live show, which was a lot of fun

[51:30] and I hope everyone enjoyed it. As I do.

[51:32] You were not there.

[51:34] I just want to thank the fans. I apologize

[51:36] for not making it. He says,

[51:38] What's the address for sending U.S. mail to the floppers?

[51:40] I tried mailing my pet parcel to the

[51:42] 123 Fake Street address from the Cowboys

[51:44] and Aliens podcast, but the package

[51:46] was returned.

[51:48] I didn't really try that.

[51:50] I didn't really think you thought I'd really try that.

[51:52] I just thought it would be

[51:54] funny to hear Dan try and stumble

[51:56] over the parentheses when he tried

[51:58] to read this letter.

[52:00] Mission accomplished.

[52:02] Please be timely in your

[52:04] response as I have in my possession

[52:06] an item vital to the success

[52:08] of your upcoming live show.

[52:10] Is your tongue drunk?

[52:12] Which, alas,

[52:14] I won't be able to attend.

[52:16] From reports of your last

[52:18] live show, which, alas, I also wasn't

[52:20] able to attend, I am given to

[52:22] understand that you host a Flophouse

[52:24] trivia contest at the event.

[52:26] I have the perfect prize for you, and I'm willing to part

[52:28] with it for nothing. You see, my great love

[52:30] of the show convinced me that owning

[52:32] an authentic prop from Sorority Row

[52:34] was a good idea for all of

[52:36] ten minutes, which, unfortunately,

[52:38] was just long enough for me to bid on such an

[52:40] item on eBay. Thus,

[52:42] in a way, it's your fault that I am now

[52:44] the not-proud-owner of

[52:46] Mickey's, parentheses, Max

[52:48] Laird's, screen-use

[52:50] cell phone, complete with

[52:52] certificate of authenticity. And

[52:54] in a different, but real and legally binding

[52:56] way, you're obligated to take this cell phone

[52:58] from me, sign it, and or

[53:00] its accompanying certificate, and give it out as a

[53:02] prize for the live event. Or, I guess,

[53:04] if this email or the prop doesn't get

[53:06] you in time, you can always make it part

[53:08] of the prize package for choosing Stuart's

[53:10] new sound. On a latter note,

[53:12] I suggest Stuart make the sound from that

[53:14] lollipop song from the movie Stand By Me

[53:16] whenever he's unsuccessful at halting

[53:18] a bad bit by asking, Is this a bit?

[53:20] Kind of an audible wink-slash-

[53:22] shrug to the listeners to say,

[53:24] Hey, don't look at me. I tried.

[53:26] What sound is that?

[53:28] Pop!

[53:30] I don't know if the

[53:32] microphone will pick that. But it sounded like pop.

[53:34] Yeah. Well, uh...

[53:36] We did receive that.

[53:38] And we wanted to thank Carl last time withheld.

[53:40] Yeah, thank you very much for donating what I assume

[53:42] you paid thousands of dollars for.

[53:44] The real screen-used cell phone.

[53:46] A priceless piece of Hollywood

[53:48] history.

[53:50] It's right on there. Chaplin's hat

[53:52] and Mary Pickford's jockstrap.

[53:54] Ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

[53:56] And the ruby

[53:58] Swiffers from the maintenance

[54:00] closet of The Wizard of Oz.

[54:04] But we did give that out.

[54:06] From the DeLorean from Back

[54:08] to the Future.

[54:10] To, uh...

[54:12] Dolores.

[54:14] It's really hard to think of a rhyme for Dolores.

[54:16] From the set of Back to the Future.

[54:20] Darth Vader's helmet

[54:22] to Mark Naber,

[54:24] the plumber, on the set of

[54:26] Star Wars.

[54:28] It's weird that the people who work in maintenance on movies

[54:30] become props.

[54:32] And their names

[54:34] rhyme with actual props.

[54:36] Yeah, but if you go to Planet Hollywood, you'll see right there

[54:38] their mummified

[54:40] remains.

[54:42] Sometimes they're still alive and you can

[54:44] tap on the glass and they go,

[54:46] I swept up

[54:48] the cut hair on Ghostbusters!

[54:50] There's a sign saying, please don't tap on my glass,

[54:52] Elliot. I mean, come on.

[54:54] You see glass, you're going to tap on it.

[54:56] That's Elliot's motto. You always say,

[54:58] I'd tap that, and then you do. That's why Elliot's

[55:00] always tapping on our glasses.

[55:02] Ding, ding, ding!

[55:04] It's my eye!

[55:06] My glasses are all fogged up,

[55:08] and my hand's all cut open with a blood pact.

[55:12] Carl,

[55:14] thank you for purchasing a prize

[55:16] that we did, in fact, hand out at the live show.

[55:18] We did. We asked a

[55:20] Flophouse trivia question that got

[55:22] a correct answer,

[55:24] and some lucky

[55:26] owner now has a Flophouse

[55:28] owned phone.

[55:30] And we did a hilarious sorority row

[55:32] related bit.

[55:34] About how we couldn't remember who that

[55:36] character was, or when they used the phone.

[55:38] But you

[55:40] at home can now, if you

[55:42] have that prop, reenact

[55:44] scenes from sorority row to your

[55:46] heart's content. I guess you could reenact them with any phone.

[55:48] You could reenact that one scene.

[55:50] Quiet. But thank you very much for

[55:52] sending us that, and in return

[55:54] Dan, what are we going to do for him?

[55:56] We're going to thank him on this

[55:58] episode of the Flophouse. Thanks a lot, buddy.

[56:02] You were all about thanking people today,

[56:04] and now suddenly you're blank.

[56:06] Honestly, I kind of felt like you guys have been resisting that

[56:08] so much that I just feel kind of

[56:10] wanted now. I don't know. I don't feel like a part

[56:12] of this regular podcast.

[56:14] Well, Flophouse listeners, write in. Tell us if you want

[56:16] Juman to be a part of the Flophouse podcast.

[56:18] And if you say yes, then we'll kick

[56:20] Stuart out. It'll be me from now on.

[56:22] I didn't realize that the Stuart

[56:24] Wellington gig was one of the most coveted in show business.

[56:26] Everyone wants it, and I want it more than

[56:28] most.

[56:30] Not more than everyone else, just more than most.

[56:32] What are you willing to do for it?

[56:34] I'm willing to do most anything.

[56:36] Not everything, but most anything.

[56:38] Within reason.

[56:40] It's vague.

[56:42] It's very all-encompassing, but very vague.

[56:44] Powerfully vague.

[56:46] So,

[56:48] Quigley.

[56:50] Quigley Down Under.

[56:52] We should recommend films

[56:54] that we actually like, like Quigley Down Under.

[56:58] Instead of Atlas Shrugged.

[57:00] Any Australian western starring Tom Selleck,

[57:02] make it Quigley Down Under.

[57:06] If you wish that Tom Selleck was a couple of mice,

[57:08] make it The Rescuers Down Under.

[57:12] If you wish that he was a guy

[57:14] who invented

[57:16] the theory of relativity,

[57:18] make it Young Einstein.

[57:20] And if you

[57:22] want to see

[57:24] Einstein die, make it Old Einstein.

[57:26] If you don't want to see Einstein die,

[57:28] but you still want to see him old,

[57:30] make it IQ with Walter Matthau.

[57:34] And if you want to see Walter Matthau,

[57:36] not as Einstein, but just as a guy,

[57:38] but still old,

[57:40] make it I'm Not Rappaport.

[57:42] Now, if you want to see a movie

[57:44] with Michael Rappaport in it,

[57:46] 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

[57:52] in the backyard pool, make it Cop Land.

[57:54] But if you'd rather he was the guy

[57:56] who was taunting

[57:58] Patton Oswalt

[58:00] over sports trivia, make it

[58:02] was it Big Fan?

[58:04] Make it Big Fan.

[58:06] Now, if you're interested in fans,

[58:08] there's a number of movies you can see,

[58:10] but I'd recommend watching episodes of Saturday Night Live

[58:12] from the early to mid-90s,

[58:14] where the music guests play in front of giant fans.

[58:20] If you're interested in guests in movies,

[58:22] I'll recommend Christopher Guest.

[58:26] I feel like recommending actual movies

[58:28] is almost extraneous at this point.

[58:30] I do want to recommend one actual movie.

[58:32] I recently watched the first time

[58:34] Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,

[58:36] the early Martin Scorsese movie

[58:38] with Ellen Burstyn and Chris Christopherson,

[58:40] and Jodie Foster as a young girl

[58:42] has a very funny part in it,

[58:44] and it was really good.

[58:46] I've been not interested in seeing it for a long time,

[58:48] but now I wish I'd seen it earlier,

[58:50] because there aren't Scorsese movies now,

[58:52] to be honest, after having seen it.

[58:54] Wow.

[58:56] Dan, do you have anything?

[58:58] Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

[59:00] I don't know that I actually do have any.

[59:02] I see fewer and fewer movies nowadays.

[59:04] I did see Prometheus,

[59:06] and I know that that's been getting

[59:08] a lot of mixed feelings on the internet,

[59:10] but I think on balance,

[59:12] it's definitely a movie worth seeing.

[59:14] There's a lot of weird character choices

[59:16] that people make.

[59:18] It does not hold together

[59:20] necessarily as a story

[59:22] or as a prequel to the movie Alien,

[59:24] but as a movie

[59:26] that creates

[59:28] a consistent creepy mood

[59:30] and has

[59:32] beautiful images in it

[59:34] that I'm still thinking about,

[59:36] it's a good one.

[59:38] I think it's definitely worth seeing.

[59:40] I'll say that.

[59:42] I haven't seen

[59:44] a movie recently that I've enjoyed.

[59:46] I saw The Dictator

[59:48] and I saw another

[59:50] not very good movie

[59:52] that I literally just forgot the name of

[59:54] right now as I'm talking.

[59:56] It just came out last week.

[59:58] Snow White and the Huntsman?

[1:00:00] Yes, it was Moonrise Kingdom, which I thought is beginning to show stagnation in Wes Anderson's style.

[1:00:06] It's still good, but sort of the same.

[1:00:09] So kind of a backhanded recommendation.

[1:00:11] Not really a recommendation. I would recommend, can I recommend classics on this?

[1:00:15] Yeah, whatever. I just recommended a movie from almost 40 years ago.

[1:00:18] That's a good point. I keep confusing Alice in Wonderland anymore with that movie where that girl flies out the window.

[1:00:25] No, that's that after school special with Helen Hunt.

[1:00:28] Yeah, what is that?

[1:00:29] That's still from years and years ago. I don't understand.

[1:00:32] Alice is involved in there somewhere.

[1:00:33] I mean, like that's also not a movie.

[1:00:35] That's true. My misinterpretation also doesn't follow the logic, but every time I hear that, I always think of that scene.

[1:00:41] What is that scene?

[1:00:42] I don't remember the name of it. It's an after school special.

[1:00:44] That's what it was.

[1:00:45] She's on like Angel Desk.

[1:00:46] I recommend that after school special where Helen Hunt jumps through a window after being on PCP.

[1:00:50] I'll recommend that. It's got a lot of lessons in not using acid.

[1:00:55] 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.

[1:01:02] And also windows, how breakable they are.

[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.

[1:01:09] Okay.

[1:01:11] 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.

[1:01:20] Do it.

[1:01:22] I'm doing it right now.

[1:01:23] Oh.

[1:01:24] Can you see it, listeners?

[1:01:25] Look at it.

[1:01:26] The elephant does not like that dance.

[1:01:28] He's mad.

[1:01:29] He's mad at me.

[1:01:30] 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] Yeah.

[1:01:39] It was pretty enraged, too.

[1:01:41] It's just like that hit porn film, Deep Shoulder.

[1:01:44] The woman who has her clitorises in her shoulders.

[1:01:46] So people have to give her deep tissue massages for her to have orgasms.

[1:01:50] Good value, though.

[1:01:52] I mean, you just go to a massage parlor.

[1:01:55] Massage, yeah.

[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.

[1:01:59] It's like 80 hours long.

[1:02:00] Yeah.

[1:02:01] But it just costs the same amount as a normal movie.

[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.

[1:02:15] I'm Shubham Parang, sitting in permanently for Stuart Williams.

[1:02:18] No, I don't.

[1:02:19] Not at all.

[1:02:20] See you next week.

[1:02:21] No, not.

[1:02:22] Good night.

[1:02:23] Alright.

[1:02:24] Bye.

[1:02:25] Bye.

[1:02:26] Bye.

[1:02:27] Bye.

[1:02:28] Bye.

[1:02:29] Bye.

[1:02:30] Bye.

[1:02:39] Okay.

[1:02:41] I actually saw a trailer for that movie, I think.

[1:02:44] I remember seeing the part where she has a gun coming out of her butt.

The Flop House: Episode #104 - Atlas Shrugged

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