The Flop House: Episode #102 - Cowboys & Aliens

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss one of the mash-em-ups, Cowboys and Aliens.

[0:31] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:34] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:35] And hello, I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:37] Hey, we're all back. We're all back.

[0:38] We're all back again, yeah.

[0:40] See, you've returned.

[0:41] Back from the slammer.

[0:42] Puerto Rico?

[0:43] That's what they call it.

[0:44] Yeah, they call it Puerto Rico Jail.

[0:46] Yeah, I'm back. I'm not on vacation anymore.

[0:49] And you rested...

[0:50] Dry your eyes.

[0:51] You rested your place in The Flophouse back from Mr. Al Madrigal.

[0:54] Would you...

[0:55] Wait, what?

[0:56] Al was...

[0:57] Oh, did you guys get another celebrity to replace me?

[0:59] Yeah, and he wanted to stay, but apparently you were too much for him.

[1:02] Yeah, I mean, only a celebrity can plug the Stewart-sized hole in America's hearts.

[1:08] Okay, well, Al Madrigal's from that show you guys work on, right?

[1:11] Madrigal, yeah.

[1:12] Madrigal?

[1:15] It's true. He is from that show we work on.

[1:17] And he's in those commercials, right?

[1:18] Which is, what, Bewitched?

[1:19] Which shows that F-troop?

[1:22] So, Stuart, you're back.

[1:23] Would you say you're badder than ever?

[1:27] I think the audience can answer that.

[1:30] So, I'm going to wait for them to call.

[1:33] It's not a phone-in show.

[1:34] This is actually recorded.

[1:35] I mean, they can still call me.

[1:36] It's pre-recorded.

[1:37] Are you going to release your number on the air?

[1:40] 555-22444.

[1:42] That's made up.

[1:43] And you live in Anytown, USA.

[1:44] 123 Main Street.

[1:46] Yep, 123 Fake Street.

[1:48] It runs parallel to Main Street.

[1:50] Now, they say that once you go black, you never go back.

[1:54] You're back, so you obviously didn't go black, right?

[1:57] Well, yeah, I guess.

[1:58] Okay.

[1:59] Logically.

[2:00] I can't argue with that logic.

[2:01] Okay.

[2:02] I just wanted to test Snipes' theorem.

[2:04] I'm going to call it.

[2:05] So, we thought...

[2:08] Theorem 57, is that?

[2:10] Theorem 57, yeah.

[2:11] Well, this is the codicil to Theorem 57, which is,

[2:13] always bet on black.

[2:15] We thought that to honor our big return with all of us,

[2:20] the first show with all of us, post our 100th episode,

[2:24] we should do a...

[2:25] This is, what, a 102nd episode?

[2:27] Yeah.

[2:28] There was a one-episode gap.

[2:29] Yeah.

[2:30] You're making it like this is this Dean Martin,

[2:32] Jerry Lewis reunion.

[2:33] A big Hollywood film.

[2:36] A film that everyone went out and didn't see.

[2:39] Yep.

[2:40] A movie that was a huge lack of success.

[2:43] That took Hollywood by drizzle.

[2:47] And swept the knowies, the awards that don't exist.

[2:51] Cowboys and aliens.

[2:53] Cowboys and aliens.

[2:55] So, to celebrate me coming back, we watched a really fun,

[2:59] big explosive movie, right?

[3:00] With tons of energy and aliens and cowboys.

[3:03] If you were judging the movie by the title, yes.

[3:07] Okay.

[3:08] It's got everything you like.

[3:09] Cowboys, you love them.

[3:10] Wild Olivias.

[3:11] Aliens, you love them.

[3:13] Ampersands, you love them.

[3:15] Oh, man.

[3:16] Is this the thing you guys were fucking working on when I was gone?

[3:19] Nope.

[3:20] Dan and I have just become one.

[3:22] We've become one.

[3:23] Sure.

[3:24] In the void.

[3:25] Like a cowboy and an alien merged.

[3:27] Which would have been an interesting thing to have happen in this movie.

[3:29] It didn't.

[3:30] Yeah.

[3:31] I would have liked to see something where one of the...

[3:33] An alien cowboy?

[3:34] That would have been amazing.

[3:35] Yeah.

[3:36] There's one alien that joins the team of the cowboys,

[3:38] and he wears a hat and a six-gun.

[3:40] And they call him, like, Space Tex.

[3:42] Yeah, exactly.

[3:43] They're teaching him earth expressions.

[3:45] I think this is getting ahead of ourselves a little bit,

[3:47] but I think they're the largest.

[3:48] Basically, he'd be like Rango or something, right?

[3:50] Yeah, exactly.

[3:51] He'd be like Rango, a lizard, who's a cowboy.

[3:53] I think we can all agree, like, this is getting ahead of ourselves.

[3:56] He'd be like Drawsucker, Beep Boop.

[3:58] He's a robot, I guess, too.

[4:00] Sorry, I should have said...

[4:01] It's a little Westworld-y.

[4:02] I should have said Drawsucker, Gleep Glorp.

[4:04] That's how aliens talk.

[4:06] And if he said Beep Glorp, he'd be a robot alien.

[4:09] You know it.

[4:10] That's a bridge too far, Stuart.

[4:12] A robot alien cowboy.

[4:13] You can't combine all of those things.

[4:15] Says who? Says who?

[4:16] That's like a Neapolitan ice cream.

[4:18] You don't want that.

[4:19] Wow.

[4:20] Anti-Italian slur from Dan McCoy.

[4:22] They don't make good ice cream.

[4:24] They're lazy.

[4:25] All those flavors don't go together.

[4:26] That's what I say.

[4:27] Wow.

[4:28] Anti-multiculturalism and anti-melting pot Dan McCoy.

[4:30] So it's a movie that you would think would have a sense of zazz,

[4:36] a sense of verve.

[4:37] And what I was about to say was for a movie called Cowboys and Aliens,

[4:40] it was very drab.

[4:42] Yes.

[4:43] There's not a lot of sense of fun to it.

[4:44] And when you read about it, they make a point over and over again,

[4:47] the people who made the movie,

[4:48] of talking about how they went really far to not have it be a movie

[4:52] people would laugh at.

[4:53] They didn't want it to be too goofy.

[4:54] They didn't want people to get the wrong idea that this was a silly movie.

[4:57] And it's like any movie where cowboys fight aliens,

[5:02] if you're going to do it in a way that's not silly,

[5:05] you have to work so much harder than they did when making this movie.

[5:09] Well, also, I mean, I understand the impulse.

[5:12] Like I would have hated this movie probably as much if it was campy.

[5:16] Yeah.

[5:17] But there's a way of doing this with a spirit of fun, like tongue in cheek,

[5:20] paying homage to old westerns and old sci-fi movies at the same time.

[5:27] Or just not even paying homage, just doing it in a way that's fun,

[5:30] as opposed to like overly serious.

[5:34] Well, and I hate to point out the obvious,

[5:37] but if you're trying to make a serious movie,

[5:39] don't just name it cowboys and aliens.

[5:42] Don't just name two things that are in the movie.

[5:44] Yeah.

[5:45] It seems very –

[5:46] No, that's the way most serious movies are named.

[5:48] Schindler's List, two things.

[5:50] There's a guy, he's got a list.

[5:51] Saving Private Ryan, Private Ryan, and Great Savings.

[5:56] Name it.

[5:58] There's a great value in that movie.

[6:00] You get tons of berry pepper.

[6:02] It's a Memorial Day sale.

[6:04] So you're getting savings on Private Ryan?

[6:06] Yes, and in addition, savings on other merchandise in the department.

[6:11] So Private Ryan is sort of like a loss leader.

[6:13] It gets you in the door.

[6:14] Well, you're saving on products that are equal or lesser value than Private Ryan.

[6:18] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[6:22] Stu, you worked in retail.

[6:23] You couldn't get anything about this.

[6:25] Well, so wait, could I get a Colonel Ryan or would Colonel Ryan be worth more?

[6:29] Colonel Ryan is greater value, so no.

[6:31] For this sales offer, it would not work for this event.

[6:34] Okay.

[6:35] But the Private Ryan-a-thon is going on throughout the month of June.

[6:38] Hilarious.

[6:39] See anything you like on the shelves.

[6:40] Don't stop.

[6:41] Keep it up.

[6:42] Feel free to come in.

[6:43] He's a new character.

[6:44] Here's my card.

[6:45] Come in anytime.

[6:46] I like the sales, but okay.

[6:47] We've got a lot of great privates on here, Ryan and otherwise.

[6:49] Do you get commission out of this or?

[6:51] Technically, yes, I do work on commission, so I'd appreciate if you would.

[6:54] I would love to make a sale.

[6:55] But, again, this is about getting you and the right Private Ryan in the room together.

[6:59] That's fine.

[7:00] I'm not buying the extended warranty on one of these Private Ryans.

[7:03] Because it is a great machine.

[7:04] Yes, you won't experience a lot of problems, but safety is never too expensive.

[7:08] I mean, his manager makes him ask that.

[7:10] I know.

[7:11] The upsell.

[7:12] The upsell bothers me.

[7:13] Oh, the computer is showing me that that's already been included.

[7:15] I'm so sorry.

[7:17] I can talk to my manager, but usually he's not so crazy about special offers.

[7:21] This is my ass on the line, I know, but I'm willing to do it for you.

[7:25] So saving Private Ryan.

[7:28] Dan, the manager is looking at you now.

[7:30] I know.

[7:31] Oh, my God.

[7:32] I think he's coming over.

[7:34] So, I heard you.

[7:36] The man of two voices.

[7:38] The L.A. Cayman.

[7:39] You don't want this warranties?

[7:42] It's called a Wellington setup.

[7:45] So, Cowboys and Aliens, big cast, big stars.

[7:48] Daniel Craig, who I believe sounds like.

[7:50] Hello, hello, it's me, Daniel Craig.

[7:53] Beautiful.

[7:54] Harrison Ford, who sounds like.

[7:57] It's me, Han Solo.

[7:59] Sounds pretty good.

[8:00] Olivia Wilde, who sounds like.

[8:04] Yeah, that's good.

[8:05] Hello, it's me, Olivia Wilde.

[8:08] Let's not forget also Sam Rockwell, Paul Dato, Keith Carradine.

[8:11] It's weird how everyone says their name.

[8:14] Well, Harrison Ford listed a character he's best known for.

[8:17] Okay.

[8:18] That's a good point.

[8:19] They didn't all say their name.

[8:21] I think Harrison Ford's real name is Han Solo.

[8:23] He's got a short attention span.

[8:25] So, big cast, big, a lot of big people.

[8:28] Steven Spielberg was a producer of this movie.

[8:30] Jon Favreau, hot off of the Iron Man.

[8:33] Hot off of the Iron Man.

[8:34] Iron Man success, yeah.

[8:36] It took seven people at least to write the screenplay.

[8:39] You'd think this movie would be just jam-packed with great jokes, dialogue, character moments, exciting thrills.

[8:45] And they were working on it for.

[8:46] Scary chills.

[8:47] They were working on it for like 18 years, right?

[8:49] Maybe a couple guys named Will.

[8:52] Why not?

[8:53] And they were working on it for 14 years.

[8:54] So, that's like a slow-roasted piece of meat.

[8:57] True.

[8:58] This movie should have been dripping off the bone, just self-pulled.

[9:01] Yeah, a lot of flavor.

[9:03] But yeah, this movie was in development for roughly 14 years.

[9:06] Juicy.

[9:09] But yet, what comes to, it really is the blandest, most boring way this movie could be.

[9:14] So, not juicy at all.

[9:15] Should we bother going through the plot of it?

[9:17] If you could do it as fast as possible.

[9:21] But not furious.

[9:23] We're not allowed to do it furious.

[9:25] I'll try to calm down.

[9:26] I'll find my Zen space before I recap the synopses.

[9:29] So, Daniel Craig is a stranger.

[9:31] He wakes up in the middle of the desert, no memory.

[9:33] And he's got a gaudy metal bracelet on his wrist.

[9:36] Three drifters come along and try to attack him.

[9:40] He kills all of them.

[9:41] He's a tough guy.

[9:42] He knows how to fight.

[9:43] Walks into a town.

[9:44] The town's being run by this cattle baron, played by Harrison Ford.

[9:49] Yep.

[9:50] The cattle baron's son, Paul Dano, is a big asshole who walks in and shoots up the town.

[9:53] Sort of a dissolute, drunk character who's just like a petulant teen.

[9:58] I mean, these are all your characters.

[10:00] Classic western tropes, you have the mysterious drifter, you have the kind of bad guy cattle

[10:06] baron who is good at heart, you have his ne'er-do-well spoiled son, you have the noble sheriff, you

[10:12] have the mysterious lady who you think might be a prostitute, but in fact she's not, might

[10:20] be wearing her pajamas the whole time, the pacifist barkeep who learns to be a man, pacifist

[10:24] barkeep, you got the toughest nails preacher who's also kind of a doctor, the pacifist

[10:28] barkeep's Mexican wife, the little kid who's the grandson of the sheriff, he has to get

[10:35] over his fear of the outside world, and that's most of the characters from the first third

[10:42] of the movie.

[10:43] We never get to know them any more than those two line descriptions would suggest.

[10:47] Occasionally we get little details, but they're basically very boilerplate characters, they

[10:51] don't have a lot of soul, they don't have a lot of heart, eventually they run into a

[10:54] gang of outlaws that the mysterious stranger, it turns out, used to ride with, it turns

[10:58] out he was a wanted outlaw, Jake Lonergan, and when they're going to take him to see

[11:11] a judge, because there's a price on his head, he's a criminal, when they're attacked by

[11:16] aliens, they call them demons, but they're aliens in spaceships.

[11:23] I mean, they call them demons for like a minute, and then they just get over it.

[11:25] And then again later in the movie they bring that back.

[11:27] So these are like super smart aliens that come down with their tractor beams and they,

[11:31] you know, they've got a clever plan.

[11:33] They're kind of big, brutish aliens that don't seem to have a spoken language of any type,

[11:38] and run around like gorillas and bite people, but they also have these kind of fluttering

[11:41] planes that shoot grappling hooks out at people and pull them up into the sky and kidnap them.

[11:46] So the aliens are going around kidnapping people.

[11:48] What's their M.O.?

[11:49] What's going on?

[11:50] What are they trying to do?

[11:51] Oh, we don't know, it's a mystery, but we'll find out.

[11:53] So basically the characters band together to find the missing townspeople who were taken

[11:57] during the alien attack.

[11:58] They run into Jake's old outlaw band.

[12:01] They get attacked by aliens a couple more times.

[12:03] They run into an Injun tribe.

[12:06] Basically every time you have lost interest in the movie, they dump 20 more characters

[12:11] into your lap, and those characters fail to bring any interest to the movie.

[12:14] It turns out, you learn more and more that Jake was going to leave the gang, and he wanted

[12:19] to take up with this prostitute he'd fallen in love with when aliens attacked them and

[12:22] stole their gold.

[12:23] Kidnapped...

[12:24] Wait, what?

[12:25] We'll get to that.

[12:26] The aliens are here to get gold.

[12:27] Okay, so didn't they like melt the gold and vacuum it up into the sky?

[12:36] Yes, that's exactly what they did.

[12:38] Then they kidnapped...

[12:39] Because that's easier than just taking some coins up into the sky.

[12:42] Well, you know, they had a...

[12:43] And melt it first.

[12:44] They tried to work on liquid, I guess.

[12:45] Suck it up.

[12:46] Like a big straw.

[12:48] Jake has been framed for the murder of his woman he fell in love with.

[12:53] It's kind of complicated how they'd even know she existed.

[12:55] And he's running around with this bracelet that turns into a laser blaster.

[12:58] Well, it's because he escaped from the aliens.

[13:01] He's kind of a master blaster, you might say.

[13:03] I'd describe him as a master blaster.

[13:05] I think that's the only way you can describe him, or perhaps a blaster master.

[13:08] But he saw before his very eyes the woman he loved turn into ash by an alien on a operating

[13:15] table.

[13:16] Then that same alien attacked him and he took the alien's laser wrist blaster and attacked

[13:21] him and escaped.

[13:22] It's almost like he actually just like accidentally flailed his arm out and the blaster leaped

[13:27] onto it.

[13:28] Yeah, well the blaster seems to like him and do what it wants.

[13:31] Like, it's a weapon on his wrist that seems to function like a magical object in a fantasy

[13:36] story.

[13:37] I'm listening.

[13:38] It leads him along his way.

[13:40] It acts when he doesn't know he needs to act at that moment.

[13:44] The wrist blaster knows what he wants to do before he knows it.

[13:47] It's like a sentient item.

[13:49] You're saying that the blaster is a more active protagonist than Daniel Craig.

[13:52] I would say the blaster is the most charismatic character in the entire movie.

[13:55] I mean, it accomplishes more than he does.

[13:57] Yes.

[13:58] He is basically just a mounting for the wrist blaster.

[14:01] This movie should have been told from the point of view of the wrist blaster.

[14:03] It should have been called Wrist Blasters and Aliens.

[14:05] It should have been called Laser Wrists.

[14:07] How great would that poster have been?

[14:09] Again, Daniel Craig is Laser Wrists this summer.

[14:12] Get wristed.

[14:15] Wristy business this summer.

[14:17] I took it too far, dude.

[14:18] Yeah, come on.

[14:19] What?

[14:20] He was talking about a serious movie.

[14:22] Yeah, come on.

[14:23] This is not a goofy movie.

[14:24] They were trying to make a serious movie about a wrist blaster.

[14:25] A serious movie called Laser Wrists about a laser wrist.

[14:28] Okay.

[14:30] So, all these characters team up in the end to destroy the aliens and save the people

[14:35] who have been kidnapped.

[14:36] It turns out that Olivia Wilde, she reveals way later than she really should have.

[14:41] She is actually an alien who has taken human form to get revenge on these other aliens.

[14:45] She explains that these aliens go from planet to planet stealing gold and kidnapping the

[14:52] inhabitants of planets to learn their vulnerabilities.

[14:54] So, basically, they are just like Daniel Craig.

[14:57] Kind of.

[14:58] In a way.

[14:59] No, that is good.

[15:00] Parallel.

[15:01] What we did to the Native Americans, these aliens want to do to us.

[15:04] What?

[15:05] Which is a parallel that is really never made super clear in the movie, but it is kind of

[15:10] jumping out at you the whole time.

[15:11] But what I did not get was the aliens are trying to learn our vulnerabilities.

[15:15] They learn pretty quickly that humans are vulnerable to lasers, fire, electricity, getting

[15:20] stabbed, blowing up, having things fall on us.

[15:23] Yep.

[15:24] How much do they need to study us?

[15:26] They have got lasers.

[15:27] Basically, normal stuff.

[15:28] I mean, the funny thing is that is all stuff that the aliens appear to be vulnerable to

[15:31] themselves.

[15:32] So, they are like, oh, okay.

[15:33] Yeah.

[15:35] Like, destroying their bodies will kill them.

[15:37] I would like to see a couple of scenes of them testing out things that do not work at

[15:41] all, like tickling a human.

[15:43] Just splashing them with water.

[15:47] Maybe some simple mind play to see if they can make us laugh, etc., etc.

[15:52] Splitting a pie in our face.

[15:53] Yep.

[15:54] At the end of the movie, though, they are fighting the aliens.

[15:56] Yeah, most of the aliens get killed by having their heads blown off with guns or being speared

[16:00] with spears.

[16:01] Yeah.

[16:02] It is not like you need a special...

[16:03] This is not...

[16:04] Usual style stuff.

[16:05] You are talking about aliens that are covered in almost like an armored shell.

[16:07] Yeah.

[16:08] Except, in the middle of their chest, they can open up their armor to release these two

[16:12] weird little arms and expose their heart.

[16:16] By the way, that is a bad idea.

[16:18] Yeah, I do not know why Evolution selected for people exposing their internal organs

[16:22] like that.

[16:23] It was like a party trick.

[16:25] It is probably part of their intercourse, too.

[16:27] Yeah.

[16:28] You think so?

[16:29] Evolution is all about...

[16:30] I got two little hands.

[16:31] I am using them to jack off another alien.

[16:33] Okay.

[16:34] Wait.

[16:35] That is not intercourse.

[16:36] I mean...

[16:37] Wait.

[16:38] What?

[16:39] I mean, there is no reproduction.

[16:40] Third base.

[16:41] It is intercourse.

[16:42] There is no reproduction value to jerking off.

[16:43] Unless you are jerking him off into your eggs.

[16:46] I do not...

[16:47] Wait.

[16:48] What?

[16:49] Like scrambled eggs?

[16:50] Yeah.

[16:51] Come on.

[16:52] Like an omelet?

[16:53] Dan, that is not a seasoning.

[16:54] Come on.

[16:55] All right.

[16:56] Do not...

[16:57] I tried it.

[16:58] That is all I am saying.

[16:59] So, when we release the Flophouse cookbook, I do not want to see Dan McCoy's famous sperm

[17:04] eggs in that book.

[17:07] All right.

[17:08] So, we are talking about a movie.

[17:09] So, Cowboys and Aliens.

[17:11] In the end, Olivia Wilde gives her life to blow up the wrist blaster inside the alien

[17:16] spaceship and destroy it.

[17:18] And everyone is happy.

[17:19] And they got the gold that the aliens stole, which revitalizes their little town.

[17:24] And every character that had a shortcoming, they have kind of...

[17:28] Everyone grows.

[17:29] Yeah.

[17:30] They have all gotten over that.

[17:31] Harrison Ford stops being a crusty curmudgeon and becomes kind of...

[17:33] And he gets a new hat.

[17:34] An open-hearted person.

[17:35] Sam Rockwell is not so much of a pussy anymore.

[17:37] Yeah.

[17:38] Sam Rockwell...

[17:39] Because he totally blasted off an alien's face.

[17:40] He is the classic character of the, like, wimpy guy who is a pacifist who learns he has to

[17:43] use a gun and shoot an alien in the head.

[17:45] He is basically Darlene's boyfriend from Saving Private Ryan.

[17:48] Yeah.

[17:49] To bring us back to some great savings that I really think you should take a look at again.

[17:52] Look.

[17:53] I do not think...

[17:54] Do not leave.

[17:55] Look.

[17:56] I do not think I need a new Private Ryan right now.

[17:57] What do I need to do to see...

[17:58] I am getting my knees.

[17:59] What do I need to do to see you walk out of here with a Private Ryan?

[18:00] I really...

[18:01] I have got to talk to my wife before I make any Private Ryan decisions.

[18:03] She...

[18:04] Look.

[18:05] Hey.

[18:06] What better surprise is there?

[18:07] You go home.

[18:08] You go, Honey, look what the dog left in the driveway.

[18:09] She is going to think it is poop.

[18:10] She is going to have to clean it up.

[18:11] She is mad at you.

[18:12] She is making some good points here.

[18:13] She walks out.

[18:14] She sees a Private...

[18:15] She sees a Private...

[18:16] I am your friend here in the store, remember?

[18:17] Thank you, sir.

[18:18] I feel like you are splitting commissions.

[18:19] She walks out.

[18:20] She sees a Private Ryan with a bow on it in the driveway.

[18:23] Oh, my God.

[18:24] You remembered our anniversary or whatever.

[18:25] Wait, like a giant, novelty-sized bow?

[18:26] Yeah, of course.

[18:27] Those are great.

[18:28] Of course.

[18:29] Thank you, sir.

[18:30] Ladies love those.

[18:31] And Mother's Day is right around the corner.

[18:32] Oh.

[18:33] Mothers love Private Ryans.

[18:34] We don't have a child.

[18:35] Okay.

[18:36] No.

[18:37] You have a mother, though, don't you, sir?

[18:38] Yes.

[18:39] Or are you so heartless?

[18:40] I don't know.

[18:41] Did you spontaneously generate from some seeds?

[18:42] All right.

[18:43] I just got a lot to think about.

[18:44] Look.

[18:45] I gave it like two seconds before I brought up midichlorians.

[18:46] All right.

[18:47] I am growing, guys.

[18:48] So all the characters have their arcs.

[18:49] The little kid kills an alien and proves himself that way.

[18:50] Indians and Americans and settlers learn they can get along.

[18:51] You know, it's the aliens.

[18:52] Fighting these aliens has really brought everyone together.

[18:53] Yeah.

[18:54] The end.

[18:55] Yeah.

[18:56] Fighting guerrilla aliens with wrist blasters.

[18:57] And Daniel Craig rides off into the sunset, sunrise.

[18:58] Yeah.

[18:59] Having had both his love interests.

[19:00] His lady loves pills.

[19:01] Had a total of two of them.

[19:02] Yeah.

[19:03] And Daniel Craig is like, I don't know.

[19:14] Had a total of two of them.

[19:15] Having had both his love interests.

[19:16] His lady loves pills.

[19:17] Had a total of two babes at one point and now has no babes.

[19:22] He has lost 200% of babes.

[19:28] One's reduced to ash.

[19:29] One is blown up all over the world.

[19:30] One of them, according to Stewart, was merely hamburger.

[19:33] To another world.

[19:36] That was before I knew she was an alien.

[19:37] We should quit.

[19:38] Who gets brought back to life by being set on fire.

[19:40] We should, we should...

[19:41] That was before Stu knew that she was a mom.

[19:42] Now, now he's turned on.

[19:43] I wish we could put an asterisk next to, next to that reference.

[19:47] Go, see the in time episode, flop fans, smile and stand.

[19:52] But yeah, so you, you feel differently about Olivia Wilde now, now that she can, you know,

[19:56] she can be revived from death by fire.

[19:58] Yeah.

[19:59] There's that really great scene where...

[20:00] Uh, Daniel Craig saves Olivia Wilde from being grappling hooked, they climb out of the river

[20:05] that they were just sunk in, and they're sitting on the, on the riverbank, and a giant alien

[20:09] pops up, and he sees a guy with a wrist blaster and a small woman, and the alien decides to

[20:16] just punch the shit out of the woman, like he hits her out of the frame, and then of

[20:21] course he gets wrist blasted to death.

[20:23] Well, maybe that might be a clue that, uh, that she's an alien, because we don't know

[20:26] at that point.

[20:27] Maybe.

[20:28] I mean, sure.

[20:29] He's, he's, he's doing his, uh, risk analysis, and he's like, this is the real thing.

[20:32] That one's an alien.

[20:33] But she never seems to have any special abilities other than fire revival.

[20:36] Yeah.

[20:37] Rising like a phoenix.

[20:38] We also didn't mention-

[20:39] And she can speak, and she can speak, uh, Chiricahua.

[20:41] Yeah, Chiricahua, she can speak, uh, because she speaks to the Indians.

[20:45] We also, I didn't mention the part where Daniel Craig gains his memory back by having a spirit

[20:50] walk with a spirit animal, which is a hummingbird.

[20:54] This happens after Olivia Wilde is brought back to life by the magic of fire.

[20:57] Yep.

[20:58] And then we see that hummingbird later, so it wasn't, I mean, at that point, do we know

[21:02] it's in his head, or-

[21:04] That's your, it was all a dream, or was it, moment.

[21:07] I was just checking on Wikipedia to make sure that there wasn't any sort of post-credits

[21:11] scene, uh, because we did stop as soon as the credits rolled, because it seems like

[21:15] Olivia Wilde should come back.

[21:17] If she got burned up earlier in the movie and regenerates-

[21:19] No, but I mean this time-

[21:20] Because she explodes.

[21:21] She was exploded in, in midair.

[21:23] She's in tiny vaporized pieces.

[21:25] I don't think she, what do you think?

[21:26] The last part's going to be just, the camera's going to sweep over the alien wreckage and

[21:30] then she's going to be there and her eyes are going to open and then she's going to

[21:32] wink and go, Cowboys and Aliens 2, 2014.

[21:35] Guitar squeal.

[21:36] Wheeew!

[21:37] Cowboys!

[21:38] And aliens!

[21:39] And of course-

[21:40] Okay, so that's an original song, I like it.

[21:41] The original title song for the movie, um, performed by AC-DC, I assume.

[21:47] Oh, okay, nice.

[21:48] Your song seems to be-

[21:49] GOT SOME COWBOYS!

[21:50] Your song seems to be kind of like Stewart's, uh, impressions of people that just sang the

[21:55] thing.

[21:56] That it is.

[21:57] I mean, many songs-

[21:58] That's probably why I was drawn to it, Elliot.

[21:59] Yeah.

[22:00] It was really good.

[22:01] It really spoke to him.

[22:02] Uh, so this was an exciting movie, right?

[22:04] No, it was not.

[22:05] It was, uh, there was-

[22:06] Full of thrills, chills, spills, mills, and bills, a lot of talking.

[22:11] Elliot barely brought up that, uh, Daniel Craig's, uh, body double got a lot of, a lot

[22:15] of screen time riding a horse around.

[22:17] Yeah, there were a lot of, a lot of scenes padded out by just shots of a Daniel Craig-like

[22:21] figure in the distance riding a horse.

[22:23] I mean, I really feel like there should have been more clever ways to mash up the genres

[22:29] if they were going to do that.

[22:30] There's one scene where Daniel Craig leaps from his horse onto a spaceship, like one

[22:36] of the tiny little drone things.

[22:37] And there's one scene where an alien gets lassoed, but, uh, like I feel like there should

[22:42] be more of, you know, like there should be Native Americans, like, shooting, like, more

[22:47] arrows.

[22:48] I mean, they did shoot arrows at him.

[22:49] Yeah, but I think I know what you're talking about.

[22:51] Like, I, I don't know if I'm going to say campier, but like if they had made more of

[22:55] an effort to play up conventions of both of the two separate genres.

[23:00] I mean, part of it, I think one of the big problems with the movie is that the aliens

[23:05] are basically gorillas.

[23:06] Yeah.

[23:07] They, they're...

[23:08] This would have been a better movie if it was called Cowboys and Gorillas, and it was

[23:11] about gorillas kidnapping people.

[23:12] But I guess the movie Congo, right?

[23:14] Like a circus train.

[23:15] Yeah.

[23:16] A circus train, uh, overturns in the Old West.

[23:19] It kills everyone but the gorillas.

[23:21] There's a bunch of rabid gorillas running loose.

[23:22] This is a great movie.

[23:24] Yeah.

[23:25] Yeah.

[23:26] It's the, the, well, it's, it felt like the movie would do a scene in the cowboy movie,

[23:29] then a scene in the alien movie, then a scene in the cowboy movie.

[23:32] It's never integrated.

[23:33] Especially, especially if you're playing on the idea that, like, the aliens are to the

[23:37] humans what the humans are to the Native Americans.

[23:40] Well, Native Americans are also humans.

[23:42] Well, okay.

[23:43] My mistake.

[23:44] So, if the aliens are to the white man what the white man is to the Native Americans.

[23:47] Okay, yeah.

[23:49] If you play up this, like, distance more aloof, uh, I don't know, like, less, I don't know.

[23:54] Well, also the idea that...

[23:56] Do you know what I mean?

[23:57] Yeah, no, I know exactly.

[23:58] Like, they, they had an interesting theme there that they didn't do anything with and

[24:02] that would have at least given the movie some kind of, like, made you think.

[24:05] It would have had a concept behind it beyond, well, we got some cowboys and then we throw

[24:09] some aliens in there.

[24:10] Yeah, yeah.

[24:11] Well, and we talked about all of this while we were watching the movie, like...

[24:13] About how boring it is?

[24:14] The idea that the aliens are here specifically to steal gold is hilarious, like, and if this

[24:20] was a sillier movie, that would be a really fun idea, like, okay.

[24:22] I really wish there had been a shot of, like, an alien just grabbing a handful of gold coins

[24:26] out of somebody's...

[24:27] And, like, an alien would be like, gold, gold!

[24:28] Like, pouring gold.

[24:29] I told you.

[24:30] An alien pouring gold from one hand to the other, you know?

[24:33] Or, like, a shot of a miner in a mine and he's like, I struck gold!

[24:36] And then you see a silhouette behind him in an alien shape.

[24:40] Yeah.

[24:41] And then, like, dun dun dun.

[24:42] That would have been great.

[24:43] The alien gang's in town.

[24:46] Intergalactic gold rush.

[24:47] I mean, I think we could have...

[24:48] That would have been a way better title.

[24:51] Intergalactic gold rush.

[24:52] It would have been great.

[24:53] And I can already see Daniel Craig, bag of gold in his hand, just running for his life

[24:56] while he's being chased by aliens, maybe some pretty girls, the sheriff.

[25:02] Space prospectors.

[25:03] Yeah, basically one of those...

[25:04] So, like, a Jack...

[25:05] A Jack Davis poster.

[25:06] Basically a Jack Davis poster with caricatures of every one of the actors, kind of, and it's

[25:11] a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad world type thing.

[25:13] And with, like, a glittery trail of gold dust behind them all.

[25:16] Oh, of course.

[25:17] And stars.

[25:18] Yeah.

[25:19] I think we could have overlooked these conceptual flaws if the movie had been exciting, but

[25:23] it was, in fact, very boring.

[25:25] The action scenes were incredibly, like, kind of dully paced and shot.

[25:30] Everything was just boring and this is something I mentioned to the other floppers while you're

[25:34] watching it.

[25:35] I'm a big Western fan.

[25:36] I love Westerns from your silent Westerns, like the Iron Horse, your 30s, 40s Westerns,

[25:41] your John Fords, your psychological Westerns, the Gunfighter and what have you, your spaghetti

[25:45] Westerns, you know, whatever, your 70s, later Westerns, like the Culpeper Cattle Company.

[25:49] I've established my Western bonafides, but there's nothing...

[25:52] Silverado.

[25:53] Yeah.

[25:54] Your Silverados, your Young Guns IIs.

[25:56] There's nothing more...

[25:57] Having said that, that I love Westerns, there's nothing more boring than a boring Western.

[26:02] A boring drama, a boring science fiction movie, a boring thriller, all way more exciting than

[26:07] a boring Western.

[26:08] And this is a boring Western.

[26:10] True.

[26:11] Yeah.

[26:12] But there's that scene in the overturned boat where they sat around and talked a long time.

[26:17] Yeah, and there was also the scene where they were in the saloon and they were talking for

[26:20] a while.

[26:21] Uh-huh.

[26:22] There's that...

[26:23] Don't forget that scene...

[26:24] That non-tent scene where a bunch of people surround Daniel Craig and then they get in

[26:26] a fight.

[26:27] Yeah.

[26:28] Or that scene where they are with the Indians and there's a lot of tension and it could

[26:33] erupt at any moment and Harrison Ford just kind of squabbles like an old man with one

[26:37] of them.

[26:38] I like that Harrison Ford gets to play the reformed racist character in the movie as

[26:43] he begins by hating Indians and then by the end, you know, he kind of respects them.

[26:49] Similar to Donald Logue in The Patriot.

[26:52] When this movie started, I was enjoying it more than you guys a little bit.

[26:56] You were ready to like it a lot.

[26:58] I was ready to like it and then actually, I liked it the most when it was just a straight

[27:04] up Western at the beginning.

[27:06] It's a rare movie that like gets worse as soon as the aliens show up.

[27:10] Yeah, it certainly was better earlier when there were no aliens.

[27:15] But um...

[27:16] It's like the opposite of Earthgirls are easy.

[27:18] Right.

[27:19] Yeah.

[27:20] Which gets better as soon as you see aliens.

[27:21] Which gets better as soon as you see aliens.

[27:22] Yeah, the opposite of most...

[27:23] Which is in the first frame, I think.

[27:27] Most movies with aliens...

[27:28] So you're saying just like it starts off at ten and just goes...

[27:32] Yeah.

[27:34] Actually gets to thirty somehow.

[27:37] Around the time that Julie Brown sings a song about being blonde.

[27:43] Yeah.

[27:44] What's great about Earthgirls are easy is that those aliens are super into Earthgirls

[27:49] right from the beginning.

[27:50] Yeah, they're Earthbabes.

[27:51] Even though they have no problem with the fact that these Earthbabes aren't covered

[27:53] in cat hair.

[27:54] Like Vader.

[27:55] I mean, we're an advanced alien race.

[27:58] I mean, to bring it back to Cowboys and Aliens, Daniel Craig doesn't seem to be that concerned

[28:03] that Olivia Wilde is an alien.

[28:04] Because she looks like Olivia Wilde.

[28:05] If she had three eyes, maybe we'd differ.

[28:06] I mean, she's hamburger, but who cares?

[28:07] So the...

[28:08] Horrible.

[28:09] But Earthgirls...

[28:10] Terrible thing to say.

[28:11] And to be honest, in the Old West, she's steak.

[28:17] She's not...

[28:18] I mean, she's...

[28:19] Wow.

[28:20] Horrible.

[28:21] Earthgirls are easy, though.

[28:22] On the other hand, a movie that makes a virtue out of the fact that its aliens are stupid.

[28:25] Exactly.

[28:26] Yeah, sure.

[28:27] And here, if it was like...

[28:28] It would have been...

[28:29] It would have been one of those things where it's like, these are the...

[28:32] Maybe these are the early ground troops of a sophisticated alien race.

[28:36] They're pretty...

[28:37] They're not great thinkers.

[28:39] They're kind of dumb.

[28:40] They're like drones.

[28:41] Like we never really learn a lot about the aliens.

[28:44] And when you read...

[28:45] I was reading the Wikipedia entry afterwards.

[28:46] They put a lot of thought into the design of these aliens and into like how they interact

[28:50] with the environment.

[28:51] But we don't really see any of that in the movie.

[28:54] Like they put a lot of thought into things that never factor into the plot or the characters

[28:58] or anything.

[28:59] And I wonder if they got too caught up in like...

[29:01] Hard sci-fi.

[29:02] When the aliens get wounded, they're not used to this environment, so there's a yellow fungus

[29:06] that grows on them.

[29:07] It's like, all right, well, like, I guess I kind of saw that for one frame when one

[29:11] of them got shot.

[29:12] But like, I don't know anything about these aliens except they love gold and they're kind

[29:15] of stupid.

[29:16] They seem to have no language and they just run around like gorillas biting people.

[29:19] They grow, yeah.

[29:20] And they have like...

[29:21] They put a lot of thought into details that do not play into the plot.

[29:22] I think they really...

[29:24] I think they really drop the ball when Olivia Wilde dies and then comes...

[29:28] Is reborn in flames and we realize that she's an alien by not making her look more like

[29:33] an alien.

[29:34] Yeah.

[29:35] She just comes back as Olivia Wilde.

[29:36] I would have been more interested to see, you know, have an alien woman with a cowboy

[29:40] hat running around.

[29:41] You wanted her to have three boobs.

[29:42] With like seven arms.

[29:43] Yeah, okay, three boobs.

[29:45] But don't look at me like that.

[29:47] Both of you, if she had three boobs all of a sudden would have given me a high five.

[29:51] Well, I mean it certainly would have improved the movie.

[29:54] Why would he give you a high five?

[29:56] Well, because...

[29:57] You didn't?

[29:58] I mean, maybe you missed me.

[30:00] He would be the closest, uh, geographically the closest party dude to either of us.

[30:05] Yeah, that's true.

[30:06] And I sit in between you during the movie.

[30:08] That's true, yeah.

[30:09] You gotta give somebody a high five.

[30:10] You're not gonna like run into the other room and give Dan's wife a high five while she

[30:14] scowls at us.

[30:15] She'd be like, you're mischaracterizing my wife.

[30:19] Okay, fine.

[30:20] She would not scowl.

[30:21] She would be confused by why she was getting this high five all of a sudden.

[30:24] Well I would run in and I would yell.

[30:25] Sarah Scowlington-Wellington.

[30:26] I would run in and I'd yell, three boobs!

[30:28] High five!

[30:30] And then I'd leave.

[30:31] Yeah, and she would give you that high five.

[30:32] Oh yeah, of course.

[30:33] She would be a little mystified.

[30:34] Scowling all the while.

[30:35] No!

[30:36] There's no scowling.

[30:37] No scowling.

[30:38] Uh, so, it's hard to say, like, this is a very boring movie.

[30:44] There's not a lot to dig into.

[30:47] I mean-

[30:48] They try to tap into the craze of cowboys that America was obsessed with for a while

[30:53] there.

[30:54] Well, the thing is, western movies are not, haven't had like this huge comeback, but you

[30:59] have seen like a steady number of western movies each year, like, and some of them,

[31:02] like 310 to Yuma did well, and some of them don't do so well.

[31:06] True Grit.

[31:07] True Grit did well.

[31:08] I mean, this is tapping into America's sudden craze for mashups.

[31:11] Yeah, that's true.

[31:12] I mean, with fucking, like, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter coming out.

[31:16] You must love that.

[31:17] You love history.

[31:18] Oh, God.

[31:19] Yeah, you're a big history fan.

[31:20] You must be leaning forward to this.

[31:21] I may have talked about this on the podcast already.

[31:23] And it's probably based on a comic, and you love comic books.

[31:27] I may have touched on this on previous podcast entries, but I like Abraham Lincoln a lot.

[31:32] I'm actually tomorrow leaving on a trip to Springfield, Illinois to visit his house,

[31:36] tomb, law offices, and where he announced his candidacy for the presidency and all that.

[31:41] Where you just eat lunch.

[31:43] I love vampires.

[31:45] They're great.

[31:46] Neither of those two things-

[31:47] Like all vampires?

[31:48] I don't mean not all vampires.

[31:50] I like the concept of vampires.

[31:51] Some of them, like Dracula, hold a special place in my heart.

[31:55] Or, you know, Count Yorga or whatever.

[31:57] But neither of those two things gains anything by being combined.

[32:02] Abraham Lincoln is this singular historical figure of great nobility and character

[32:08] who accomplished amazing things and was also an amazing speaker and writer.

[32:13] I don't see what he gains by becoming, like, an ass-kicking martial arts vampire fighter

[32:18] when what he accomplished was so much more interesting than fighting vampires.

[32:22] I don't see what they gain by being shoehorned into the history of the Civil War, you know.

[32:27] But the Raven, though.

[32:28] The Raven right around Poe is solving crimes based on his-

[32:33] Nicolas Cage is on there, right?

[32:34] That's pretty awesome, right?

[32:35] I mean, you gotta like that.

[32:36] It's John Cusack.

[32:37] Doing a Nicolas Cage impression, I guess.

[32:39] It's the laziest type-

[32:40] Doing a Nicolas Cage impression in that he's taking a job for money.

[32:44] Yeah.

[32:45] It's more of a meta impression.

[32:47] What would Nicolas Cage do?

[32:50] Because he needs the money.

[32:51] It's the laziest type of storytelling which is,

[32:55] let's take a thing that exists and have it solve crimes.

[32:58] And they do it in television all the time where it's like,

[33:01] Grimm is like a fairy tale guy who solves crimes.

[33:04] Or like, you know, Forever Night or Moonlight or any of those where it's like,

[33:08] it's a vampire who solves crimes.

[33:10] Oh yeah, Forever Night.

[33:12] That existed.

[33:13] But like, to do the Raven where it's like,

[33:14] well, Edgar Allan Poe was this bizarre character, great poet, strange man.

[33:19] There's any number of stories we could tell with him.

[33:21] Let's have him solve a serial killer.

[33:23] Alright, like, why would you do-

[33:25] I'm sure at some point there's gonna be another attempt at a movie where like,

[33:29] Harry Houdini solves a serial killer.

[33:31] Or like-

[33:32] I'm sure it's already in development.

[33:34] Yeah, I mean it was announced a while back.

[33:35] Or like, there are two, I think, two competing movies where Arthur Conan Doyle

[33:39] is up against a serial killer.

[33:41] That actually makes a little more sense because Arthur Conan Doyle

[33:45] did help solve a few crimes when he was-

[33:47] Well, Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective story, you can say that.

[33:49] Yeah, no, I know, I know.

[33:50] But it's just a lazy thing to do to be like,

[33:52] we'll take this historical figure-

[33:54] If they're gonna do that-

[33:55] And solve crimes.

[33:56] Like, why not do like, a movie about how Conan Doyle

[33:59] actually solves some real life crimes and just like,

[34:01] do those actual historical crimes.

[34:03] Because they've gotta come up with like, the gimmick that the serial killer has.

[34:06] Yeah.

[34:07] And vampires and stuff, right?

[34:09] So my point is, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter,

[34:11] you're taking two great things, mashing them up in a way that doesn't work

[34:15] and it's, uh, former Flophouse guest co-host Hallie Hadlen once said to me,

[34:19] I like spanakopita and I like chocolate,

[34:22] I don't need them combined in one dish.

[34:24] That wouldn't work.

[34:25] Yeah.

[34:26] That's how I feel about Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunters.

[34:28] That's not how I feel about Cowboys and Aliens.

[34:29] It could still be done.

[34:30] Okay, so-

[34:32] In fact, I'm working on-

[34:33] So this is part of your attempt to prevent people in general

[34:37] from seeing Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunters.

[34:39] I don't care if people go see it.

[34:41] You're working on the smear campaign, right?

[34:43] Yeah, I'm going to put a lot of negative ads.

[34:45] Abraham Lincoln says he's a vampire hunter.

[34:50] Like, if it was Abraham Lincoln Alien something,

[34:54] that would be more interesting to me because it's like,

[34:57] what would-

[34:58] Alien negotiator.

[35:00] How would someone like Abraham Lincoln interact with an alien intelligence, you know?

[35:04] Rather than Abraham Lincoln knows kung fu somehow and is like a badass fighter

[35:09] or something like that.

[35:11] So we're-

[35:13] Long tangent about Abraham Lincoln, I apologize.

[35:15] He learned in the Orient.

[35:16] He was never in the- He never left the United States.

[35:18] Like, come on.

[35:20] And I think Chicago has a pretty large Chinatown, didn't he?

[35:25] Well, he didn't really spend a lot of time in Chicago.

[35:27] Well, just a little bit in the Chinatown part.

[35:29] He really was more in Springfield.

[35:32] I don't really think it has that much of a Chinatown either.

[35:34] I mean, every large city has a Chinatown.

[35:37] Yeah.

[35:39] Forget it, Dan. It's Chinatown.

[35:40] The bustling fish markets of Springfield.

[35:44] That's where he learned his wushu.

[35:47] The dusty plains of Springfield.

[35:49] Speaking of someone who's been to Springfield,

[35:51] something bustling about that town.

[35:52] Well, I'm going to go there. I'm excited.

[35:54] There's also- I'm not a big- This is a different subject,

[35:57] but I'm not a big fan of the, like, badassing of everything,

[36:01] that every character has to be a badass.

[36:03] And like Cowboys and Aliens, it makes sense.

[36:05] The main character is going to be a badass because he has to fight aliens later.

[36:07] Mysterious stranger.

[36:08] But he's also such a good fighter

[36:10] that no one ever seems to be much of a threat to him.

[36:13] Yeah.

[36:14] Including the aliens.

[36:15] Yeah, as soon as he gets that fucking wrist blaster-

[36:17] He's also got a wrist laser.

[36:18] Yeah, they're done.

[36:19] Like, they just keep popping up and he keeps slaying them.

[36:22] Yeah, he never seems to have to try very hard.

[36:25] I think it's time to move along

[36:28] and give our final judgments on Cowboys and Aliens.

[36:30] This is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,

[36:32] a movie you kind of like.

[36:33] Stewart, go!

[36:34] I'm going to surprise both of you by saying it's a bad bad movie.

[36:38] Oh, God, my heart.

[36:40] I thought you were going to say good great movie.

[36:42] Yeah, it's just so slow and long

[36:46] and filled with scenes that don't matter

[36:49] or really advance anything.

[36:53] Yeah, no.

[36:54] And the fact that I made a joke about a reformed racist

[36:56] and they actually had one.

[37:00] Yeah, and, oh man, this is terrible.

[37:02] Yeah, I said during the film,

[37:05] they managed to make a movie where Indians are spearing an alien.

[37:09] Boring.

[37:10] And also, I mean, this movie has people I like in it.

[37:13] I mean, like, I like Daniel Craig,

[37:15] despite him being in other flop-ass films in the past.

[37:18] I like Harrison Ford.

[37:20] How could you not like Harrison Ford?

[37:21] Walton Goggins is in this.

[37:23] Sam Rockwell, always entertaining.

[37:25] Clancy Brown, come on, Clancy Brown.

[37:27] Not entertaining.

[37:28] He's only in serious non-B movies, right?

[37:32] Sure.

[37:33] So, yeah, bad, bad movie.

[37:35] Yeah, and I'm also going to agree, bad, bad movie.

[37:37] Just a wasted potential and just boring.

[37:41] They never found what was exciting about this concept.

[37:43] Instead, they just kind of went through the motions

[37:45] and went by the numbers and it was dull.

[37:48] So, Dan, did you pull out your iPad so you can play, like?

[37:52] Are you going to play Sonic again?

[37:54] Sorry, if you hear the noise that's from my iPad

[37:59] because I'm at home.

[38:01] I did not print out letters.

[38:04] I'm going to be reading them off of the iPad.

[38:06] Dan's gone paperless, everybody.

[38:07] He's entered the 21st century.

[38:09] But before we move on to letters,

[38:13] I want to thank, for donations,

[38:15] I want to thank John K.

[38:18] I want to thank Evan M.

[38:22] And lastly, I want to thank, one second,

[38:27] Demetri T.

[38:29] You said for donations.

[38:31] No, I said I wanted to thank people for donations.

[38:33] Oh.

[38:34] That makes sense.

[38:35] Yeah, that's...

[38:37] Well, thanks, everybody.

[38:39] Thanks, guys.

[38:40] We really appreciate it.

[38:41] Thanks for helping keep the Flophouse going.

[38:43] You know, it's pledge time.

[38:45] If you enjoy the Flophouse

[38:46] and want to receive more Flophouse-like things like this,

[38:49] why not stop into your local Private Ryan store,

[38:52] pick up one of the great savings on sale right now.

[38:55] We're running our Private Ryan sales event all through June.

[38:58] I did not authorize this.

[39:00] Well, it's just side business.

[39:02] I'm working on it.

[39:03] Just got to drum up some publicity.

[39:06] No, but thank you very much for your donations.

[39:08] Appreciate it.

[39:09] Every donation, you get a lock of Stuart's hair.

[39:11] Yep.

[39:12] Not his hair on his head, though.

[39:13] No.

[39:14] So...

[39:15] Definitely not.

[39:16] You can opt out of receiving that.

[39:17] Everyone has.

[39:18] I have a message here from Kenny, last name withheld.

[39:23] Logins.

[39:25] Something about a danger zone, but he's all right.

[39:27] Nobody worry about him.

[39:29] The title...

[39:31] He's playing with the boys.

[39:32] Is he footloose?

[39:33] The title is...

[39:34] Explaining that my mama don't dance.

[39:36] Good movies ruined by shitty endings.

[39:39] He says,

[39:40] Hello there, fellow Shelbyvillians.

[39:42] Been listening for a couple of years,

[39:43] and I'm a huge fan of the Flophouse Ice Cap.

[39:46] I'm a huge flan.

[39:47] Oh, my God,

[39:48] a sentient bowl of flan.

[39:50] Sent it in email.

[39:52] Huge flan.

[39:53] Anyhoo, I'm curious about what you think are really good or even great movies.

[40:00] that are ruined by awful-slash-stupid endings.

[40:02] For me, it's The Wages of Fear,

[40:05] an incredibly tense French flick

[40:06] about truckers smuggling nitroglycerin

[40:08] through the rugged South American jungle

[40:10] that's all but unraveled by its cheap bullshit final scene.

[40:14] What say you, floppers?

[40:16] I actually have an answer for this

[40:17] already queued up in my brain, coincidentally enough,

[40:20] which is the movie Hell in the Pacific

[40:23] with Lee Marvin and Tashir Mahfuni,

[40:24] which is directed by John Borman, I think,

[40:27] which is a really great movie

[40:28] about an American soldier and a Japanese soldier

[40:31] who are trapped on a deserted island together

[40:33] during World War II and go through a series

[40:35] of ambushing each other and taking each other prisoner

[40:38] until they realize they have to work together.

[40:40] And the movie literally is great

[40:43] up until maybe the final 35 seconds, 50 seconds,

[40:47] when it has one of the cheapest,

[40:48] most slapped-on crappy endings.

[40:51] And it's a really disappointing way

[40:52] for an otherwise really good movie to end.

[40:54] So Hell in the Pacific, I'd say watch it,

[40:57] and then don't watch the last minute.

[41:02] Yeah, I mean, I think the closest thing

[41:04] that immediately comes to mind is Unbreakable,

[41:09] which, you know, a Night Shyamalan movie,

[41:11] which I like a lot of the stuff leading up to the very end,

[41:14] and then they have the twist,

[41:17] and then they explain a bunch of shit

[41:19] in just text on the screen. Via text, yeah.

[41:21] Like, we could show it,

[41:23] but we're kind of bored of this, let's get out of here.

[41:25] Well, it seems like they set it up

[41:27] in case they wanted to have a sequel

[41:28] or just to have an ironic ending.

[41:30] And then it was almost like,

[41:32] they were like, audiences want to know

[41:33] that the bad guy was brought to justice.

[41:35] So they just threw text up on the screen

[41:36] that says, like, you know,

[41:38] Mr. Glass was brought to justice.

[41:39] Yeah, it's weird.

[41:40] Like, when that movie came out, I was much more-

[41:42] Unbreakable, Mr. Cheetah went to college and graduates.

[41:45] Unbreakable made a fortune in dry goods.

[41:48] When that movie came out,

[41:49] I was much more apt to give him Night Shyamalan

[41:52] the benefit of the doubt

[41:53] because he hadn't screwed us over yet.

[41:55] So at the time I was like, oh, that's kind of a funny ending.

[41:58] Like, it's like this guy has set himself up

[42:01] as this mastermind criminal,

[42:03] but it is a complete anticlimax.

[42:05] Like, no, this is just a regular fucking guy

[42:07] who then the police came and arrested him.

[42:09] And I thought that was kind of cool in a way.

[42:12] But now that M. Night Shyamalan has proven-

[42:16] Has revealed his true self to be not very good.

[42:18] Yeah, I'm more inclined to take Stewart's view on it.

[42:22] I mean, on some level, Signs is equally bad, but I mean-

[42:26] Signs has a couple of good moments in it,

[42:28] but it's uneven throughout.

[42:30] And the ending is just dumb because it implies

[42:32] that millions of people have been afflicted

[42:35] with asthma throughout centuries

[42:37] because Mel Gibson's son needed to survive

[42:39] getting gassed in the face by an alien's wrist, you know?

[42:43] Yeah, there's so many problems with-

[42:45] There's a lot of-

[42:45] Based on aliens that are allergic,

[42:47] like violently allergic to water coming to a planet

[42:50] that's pretty much all water.

[42:52] Yeah.

[42:53] And also that his wife's dying words in a car crash

[42:58] were planted there by God so that years later

[43:00] he could tell his brother-in-law to hit an alien

[43:02] in the head with a baseball bat.

[43:04] Like, as if he's just staring at the alien

[43:07] and staring at the baseball bat,

[43:08] and he's like,

[43:09] I don't know what to do with these two things.

[43:11] No, this is why my wife years ago said this.

[43:13] She had to die.

[43:14] She had to die.

[43:15] So you would know that a good way to hit an alien

[43:17] is with a baseball bat.

[43:20] Yeah, I don't have anything queued up in my brain

[43:22] although I do agree that-

[43:23] You have a lot of cute things up in your brain.

[43:25] Thanks.

[43:26] I do love Wages of Fear,

[43:28] and I think that the ending-

[43:29] It is a good movie, yeah.

[43:29] Is like sort of French nihilist bullshit.

[43:33] But it's easy to-

[43:35] I think it's easiest to see this kind of thing

[43:37] in movies with twists.

[43:39] Like, I think that the movie Identity

[43:40] isn't necessarily that good a movie,

[43:43] but like up until the twist,

[43:45] like it's kind of a solid-

[43:45] It's the one with all the killers

[43:47] in John Cusack's brain, right?

[43:48] Yeah.

[43:49] Well, John Cusack's also in another guy's brain.

[43:50] Oh, okay.

[43:51] Up until the twist,

[43:52] it's kind of like a solid, fun, like beam movie.

[43:54] Like, oh, we got a bunch of great character actors.

[43:56] We're gonna put them in a motor lodge.

[43:58] They're all gonna get killed off.

[43:59] This is fun enough.

[44:00] And then it's just like, wait,

[44:01] they're all personalities in this other guy's brain,

[44:05] and this kid is running around killing them off

[44:08] to be the only personality.

[44:09] Like, brains don't work that way.

[44:11] No.

[44:12] That's not the way-

[44:12] My favorite thing about that shitty ending

[44:14] is that it's revealed this is all happening

[44:17] inside the head of a crazy person,

[44:19] and that the personality

[44:20] who's killing the other personalities

[44:22] is this little kid.

[44:23] Then it flashes back to the kid

[44:24] manually killing each of these people.

[44:26] And it's like, well,

[44:27] if it's all happening in someone's brain,

[44:28] he doesn't actually have to be doing anything.

[44:30] Like, oh, wait, he couldn't have been here

[44:33] because he was over there at the time killing that person.

[44:35] No, it's all imagined anyway.

[44:37] Like, he can do whatever he wants.

[44:39] He's in a world of pure imagination,

[44:40] just like in Willy Wonka.

[44:43] So-

[44:43] That movie identity would have been better

[44:45] if he had picked a flower off the ground

[44:46] and eaten it, like in Willy Wonka.

[44:47] The audience needs to know

[44:49] how a child could kill grown people.

[44:52] But it's not-

[44:53] None of them are real.

[44:54] That's how the brain works.

[44:56] Yeah.

[44:57] I don't think so.

[44:58] Science.

[44:59] This is from Scott, last name withheld,

[45:02] and it's titled, Uh-Oh.

[45:05] So it's about Stuart, I'm guessing.

[45:08] It says,

[45:08] Hi, floppers.

[45:09] Congrats on making it to 100 episodes.

[45:11] May you reach 100 more.

[45:13] Thank you.

[45:14] I was re-listening to the Jonah Hex podcast,

[45:16] better known as the secret origin

[45:17] of the Flophouse house cat,

[45:19] when Stuart broke out one of his trademark

[45:22] Flophouse soundbites, a drawn out,

[45:24] uh-oh, whenever anyone, parentheses Dan,

[45:28] made a mistake.

[45:31] Given that Dan mispronounces basic words

[45:33] on a near constant basis-

[45:35] Yeah, he can't talk.

[45:36] Lindsay Lohan, anyone?

[45:38] I was looking forward to many more uh-ohs

[45:41] in the Flophcasts of the future.

[45:43] But though the house cat managed to claw his way

[45:45] out of Jonah Hex into both future podcasts

[45:48] and Flopper Hearts, the uh-ohs have been

[45:50] nowhere to be found.

[45:52] Stuart, embrace your role as the Michael Winslow

[45:54] of the Flophouse and bring back the uh-ohs.

[45:56] Maybe you could even add a few more soundbites

[45:59] as a 100th Flopversary present.

[46:02] Maybe a hubba hubba when Elliot makes a lewd reference

[46:05] to former flame Anne Hathaway.

[46:07] For a flan?

[46:08] Again, Dan, can you not tell the difference

[46:11] between people and Mexican desserts?

[46:14] Anne Hathaway.

[46:15] Or a foghorn every time you or Elliot interrupts Dan.

[46:19] Thanks for the laugh, Scott.

[46:21] Wait, so we'd interrupt you and then Stuart

[46:22] would interrupt himself or me with a foghorn?

[46:25] We gotta workshop some of these ideas.

[46:27] Thank you, Scott, for the suggestions, but I don't know.

[46:31] Yeah, well, okay.

[46:32] So I smell a contest.

[46:35] The prize will be TBA, and it's, I don't know,

[46:40] I can't think of a new thing for me to shout.

[46:44] What should Stuart's new shouty catchphrase be?

[46:47] Or should uh-oh just come back into the regular rotation?

[46:50] I mean, I like uh-oh coming back

[46:51] because it sounds like a little kid.

[46:55] Who cares?

[46:56] Let's go on.

[46:57] But the Flophouse house cat is, of course, a fan favorite.

[47:01] Or, as Dan would say, a flan favorite.

[47:05] When would he say that?

[47:06] Like, when we're recording all the time?

[47:07] Yeah, constantly.

[47:10] You may not know that Dan's actually has outforced.

[47:13] Outforced as he calls them.

[47:14] Dan actually doesn't have a tongue

[47:16] and hires somebody else's tongue, so.

[47:18] He can't, it's a little quality control problem.

[47:20] Happens when you hire somebody else to do your tongue's job.

[47:23] I've got a very rare kind of lisp

[47:25] where instead of adding like an extra S sound,

[47:27] I just add an L where it does not belong.

[47:29] Or mispronounce things in other ways.

[47:31] Hector Elizondro, that kind of thing.

[47:35] All right, well, this one is from Andrew,

[47:38] last name withheld.

[47:38] It's titled Ghost Hunters.

[47:40] Okay, now we're talking.

[47:42] Dear Flophouse, I write this as I finish

[47:43] listening to the 100th episode.

[47:45] As usual, the podcast was hilarious.

[47:47] However, that's not why I'm writing in.

[47:50] After hearing you mention a series of YouTube videos

[47:52] that you starred in, I had to investigate.

[47:54] The first one I laid my eyes upon was this,

[47:57] and then there's a YouTube link,

[47:58] in which you pursue the Jersey devil inside a house.

[48:01] Oh, that's technically the third in that series, but.

[48:03] Two things.

[48:05] Dan looks like a more handsome version of Brendan Fraser,

[48:07] and Elliot looks and sounds like an annoying child.

[48:10] Wow.

[48:12] Especially when lying belly down on the floor,

[48:13] playing Mario Kart 64.

[48:15] And wearing a big Mets cap, it's too big for me.

[48:18] I imagine slash hope that as you read this out loud,

[48:20] your fellow floppers will at this point accuse you

[48:22] of having written yet another self-aggrandizing letter.

[48:25] Well, that was my first thought, yeah.

[48:27] Nothing can be further from the truth.

[48:28] More handsome Brendan Fraser.

[48:30] And, and, Drew, Dan, and Dan, and Dan.

[48:37] You puzzled out another one, Puzzle Master.

[48:40] They just high-fived.

[48:43] The letter goes, nothing can be further from the truth.

[48:45] Wink.

[48:46] Dan, you should also wink at this point.

[48:48] Anyway, keep up the good work.

[48:49] I'll review your other Ghost Hunter parody videos

[48:51] when I have more spare time.

[48:55] Wait, this is not.

[48:56] I'm glad that he was, like, the first one

[48:58] got him so worked up that he wrote the letter.

[49:00] But they're, what, like, two minutes long?

[49:02] Yeah, well, they're about four minutes long,

[49:03] and there's three of them.

[49:04] Would you appreciate being called

[49:06] a more handsome Brendan Fraser?

[49:07] That's one of the nicer things.

[49:08] Oh, you really, you appreciate being called that?

[49:10] No, it's one of the nicer things anyone's said.

[49:12] Yeah, I mean.

[49:13] You know what, I like this compliment.

[49:14] Well, look, Stuart gets so much time

[49:17] being the dreamboat of the Flophouse.

[49:19] Yeah, true.

[49:19] It's nice to spread that around a little.

[49:20] How long ago did we make those videos?

[49:22] About four or five years ago?

[49:23] It's gotta be a little, I don't know.

[49:25] Even five or six.

[49:26] Five or six years ago.

[49:27] So, yeah, you've aged terribly since then.

[49:29] Yeah.

[49:30] Now you're kind of like a.

[49:30] I'm a wreck of a man.

[49:31] Peter Cushing.

[49:34] More handsome Peter Cushing.

[49:35] You're like a less handsome Peter Cushing.

[49:39] And we're not talking young Peter Cushing.

[49:41] This is Star Wars Peter Cushing.

[49:43] Wow.

[49:44] I mean, he's got a certain dignity.

[49:45] Like, he's got a commanding presence.

[49:48] I mean, that's the only thing that's,

[49:49] I mean, that's a real difference there between.

[49:52] No, you don't have the presence,

[49:54] but the skeleton face.

[49:57] You do have the skeleton face, okay.

[50:00] Yeah, but that was another series that we did for your live show when I used to yeah

[50:04] I used to have the new kalen show. That's one of the was that the primetime kalen

[50:08] I don't know, but along with the Superman series. That's the other yeah series of videos that we did the ghost hunter series

[50:14] yeah that one and by the way flop fans and

[50:17] Was named drew who wrote in that house is my mom's actual house that I grew up in so you can just imagine me as

[50:23] An actual kid living in that house playing Mario Kart 64 you better believe it. Yeah

[50:28] Okay, well the last email for this episode is from Chris last name withheld it's titled movie novelizations

[50:37] Greet greetings flop master flex the floppy bunch. I'll let you three decide who gets to be flop master flex probably dance

[50:43] Yeah, I was inspired by Stuart Wellington

[50:46] He's like a more handsome

[50:49] More hand of George Frazier. I was inspired by sure more handsome Frazier crane well

[50:54] I

[50:55] Mentioning he once wrote a paper about the novelization of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie to share a brief factoid with you in ninth

[51:02] Grade that book rules

[51:05] In ninth grade I was required to bring

[51:11] In ninth grade I was required to bring a book to my English class

[51:16] Once a week for silent reading

[51:17] I brought the same book each and every week the story tome the novelization of d2 the Mighty Ducks are back

[51:25] I also have a couple of quick questions for Stuart regarding the Turtles book

[51:29] Was it the novelization of the first movie or secret of the ooze or turtles in time?

[51:34] Second if you were to first movie of course if still was doing book reports around the time that turtles in time came out

[51:43] Second was there any original material in the book the novelization of d2 had a handful of stuff in it that wasn't in the movie

[51:48] Therefore I suppose I need to read the book to get the full canon. You are the wind beneath my wings

[51:54] The answer is yes, there's a ton of extra shit in there well

[51:57] There's that whole sex scene between Raphael and April O'Neill. I didn't want to bring that up. Wait. That's the part

[52:02] Well, that's where where Casey Jones watches on

[52:09] Sorry I apologize to everyone I apologize to earth for that

[52:15] So

[52:18] That's the secret of the ooze all right

[52:21] But a lot of times those novelizations are based on early drafts of the script, and that's why they have different material

[52:26] I didn't know that mm-hmm, and then they get like our a Salvatore or somebody to write it for

[52:31] Foster I think trademarked Elliot Kalin

[52:34] Hollywood factoid the end

[52:38] Yeah, this is the most times we've used the word factoid

[52:41] Podcast so factoid pod van except for the catalog this under factoid episode yeah, and the fact house wait

[52:46] What our podcast about facts?

[52:50] I've never done

[52:53] You get really drunk

[52:55] We've been sneaking into your apartment and doing it while you're asleep. Yeah

[53:00] It's a very broad based

[53:02] Podcast though just about facts

[53:04] Yeah, we just say things we think are true not a lot of research goes into it

[53:09] So now we move on to our final segment of the show final segment

[53:14] Recommendations movies that we think those are explosion listeners might enjoy being on a big door to actually watch

[53:23] Movies not like Cowboys and Aliens movies that are good not enjoy

[53:27] Ellie do you have a recommendation you wanna? I do I don't think this is the movie. I recommended last time right

[53:34] So I can't tell you

[53:37] I kind of don't either, but I'd recommend to move a kind of

[53:41] It's more a serious ish comedy from Norway that I saw recently called a somewhat gentle, man

[53:49] With Stellan Skarsgård you may know him as the scientist from Thor yeah, he's very good in it

[53:54] He's the older brother of Peter Skarsgård right no no Peter Sarsgaard

[53:59] Names and families and nationalities, but it's about a guy who has just gotten out of jail also Peter Stormare is a different man

[54:08] Yeah, and yeah

[54:11] It's about a guy who has been in jail for 12 years for killing someone

[54:15] He was kind of a low-level soldier for a local crime boss now

[54:19] He's just gotten out of jail, and he kind of needs to get his life back together

[54:22] He has a grown-up son who wants nothing to do with him

[54:25] He his the crime boss has arranged for him to live in the crime boss's sister's spare kind of basement room

[54:33] and

[54:34] He gets a job at a local mechanics, and it's just kind of this series of him

[54:39] Incidents of him trying to get his life back on track confused by

[54:44] How people are treating him and eventually having to make a decision about whether he's gonna go back into crime or not

[54:49] And it's a very low-key movie, but there are a lot of

[54:52] Funny moments in it. I liked Stellan Skarsgård's performance a lot and there are some very funny

[54:59] Sex scenes that I don't want to say too much about but uh he's really his relationship with his landlady

[55:05] Becomes based mainly around her demanding sex from him and him

[55:10] Giving it to her and then her acting as if he he demanded it from her, but in a way that

[55:16] Starts out really kind of gross and funny, but becomes kind of touching as it goes on

[55:21] And I just enjoyed the movie a lot so

[55:24] It's called a somewhat gentle man. Okay. It's a Norwegian release from about two years ago

[55:29] Well recently I watched

[55:32] Tinker Taylor's soldier spy

[55:34] Which I that's a mouthful, huh?

[55:38] enjoyed

[55:39] It was as advertised

[55:42] Difficult to understand like I don't believe that I fully

[55:48] Could parse the plot

[55:50] And I doubt that anyone who hasn't read the book which I haven't

[55:54] Could understand everything that goes on it, but doesn't matter it's it's a it's a movie. That's based mostly on

[56:02] Atmosphere and that atmosphere is

[56:05] How I imagine spying really is a mix of nitrogen oxygen carbon dioxide and other gas

[56:11] But there's also a lot of sitting around in drab rooms

[56:16] Just sort of waiting for things to happen a lot of ugly paint paper

[56:23] I like that movie a lot and

[56:26] Considering Cowboys and aliens is a movie about Cowboys fighting aliens and Tinker Taylor's soldier spy is about unhappy people sitting in grim rooms

[56:33] Lying to each other Tinker sales soldier spy is way more exciting. It's a gripping movie Cowboys and aliens

[56:39] But it's got you know, it's got a real rundown of great British actors. You got your Gary Oldman. Mm-hmm. You got your John Hurt?

[56:47] Mm-hmm. Yeah, Colin Firth. Mm-hmm. Toby Jones TV's Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch

[56:53] Cumberbatch is in it Kieran Hines

[56:56] Tom Hardy Toby Jones. Yeah, and Toby Jones. I think I said Toby Jones Tom Hardy

[57:02] Yeah, I mentioned what's-his-name from Bridget Jones's thing Colin Firth Colin Firth and Toby Jones. I think he's in there

[57:10] Yeah, but TV Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch a

[57:15] Movie that sort of operates on that Gary Oldman's and I think he's the man. Yeah, Toby Jones

[57:20] It operates on the same principle as

[57:23] TV's the wire in that you may not understand everything but the storytelling is so

[57:30] Confident and well done that you will understand enough by the end of it. You'll get it. Yeah, and they use a lot of real spies

[57:41] Yeah, it's a movie where you will have moments where you're like

[57:44] I'm not sure what this character is referring to but I will it's I will eventually you know

[57:48] I'm supposed to not be sure at this point in the movie

[57:52] Mr. Well, oh, it's my turn. Okay

[57:55] I'm gonna recommend a gritty revenge movie called lies and illusions

[58:02] stars

[58:03] Stars Kristen Slater and Cuba Gooding jr. And I believe al magical. Well, okay the two of them are

[58:11] radio hosts to their disc jockeys and they bring in a substitute disc jockey played by a

[58:18] played by al magical he's a

[58:21] Struggling comedian and he's replacing

[58:24] Like a really awesome disc jockey played by I don't know like somebody cool like Powers Booth, I guess

[58:31] And it's pretty great the Powers Booth characters like Oh stud

[58:39] What kind of things does the Powers Booth character do well, I mean his name is what Woolworth Stellington well

[58:46] That's not a name

[58:49] So it's not named like Powers Booth. So you like, you know, you know, he's picking up chicks going to parties being hilarious

[58:56] but you know, so al madrigal's guy ends up taking his job, so

[59:02] yeah, the powers booth has to get revenge and he totally beats him up and

[59:07] Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Was that a confession or a recommendation? No, it's a recommendation. It's a great movie

[59:12] Lies and illusions, I think you can find it at a gas stations

[59:21] Well

[59:23] Unless

[59:24] Unless anyone has anything else to say I think that it's time to time to sign off

[59:29] Yeah time to put this cowboy to bed. Mm-hmm with an alien

[59:33] Yeah

[59:37] Well, they get the extra arms or

[59:40] You know because the aliens have extra extra arms in their chest a little quattro arms

[59:46] Quattro arms that they grip their hearts with all the time. Yeah. All right. Well for the flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy

[59:53] I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm

[59:55] Elliot Kalin

[59:57] Good night, everyone. Boom

[1:00:00] Glamo!

[1:00:09] In 3... 2... 2... 3... 1...

[1:00:13] Zero.

[1:00:16] That ruined the whole reason for counting.

[1:00:19] Oh, sorry.

[1:00:20] In 3... 2...

[1:00:22] Hey everyone, and welcome...

[1:00:24] Jesus fucking Christ.

[1:00:26] Say it again.

[1:00:28] In 3... 2...

The Flop House: Episode #102 - Cowboys & Aliens

Transcript

Description