Ep.#446 - Kraven the Hunter

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Kraven the Hunter.

Elliott Kalan

[0:03] No prey is too powerful for Kraven.

[0:06] In this movie, he kills an entire family of non-Spider-Man-related movies.

[0:12] That's pretty good.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:38] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:41] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:42] And wait, do you guys feel that in the air?

[0:45] A sort of sense of endless possibility?

[0:47] A rush of pure joy and excitement?

[0:50] The anticipation that someone of the three of us will spend today asking other people for money?

[0:55] Yes, yes, all those things and more.

[0:57] Because it's Max Fun Drive, everybody.

[0:59] Yay!

[1:00] It's Max Fun Drive, the one time of the year when Max Fun shows celebrate those generous,

[1:05] brilliant, and sexually attractive listeners who become members of Max Fun.

[1:09] Whoa.

[1:09] And we remind them.

[1:10] Dan, are you saying they're not attractive?

[1:12] I'm not saying anything.

[1:13] And we remind them.

[1:14] Strategically.

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[1:20] You, you generous, brilliant, sexually attractive Max Fun member.

[1:23] You support it for at least $5 a month or more.

[1:26] We'll talk more about the Max Fun Drive, what it means to us, what it means to you.

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[1:37] Slash join.

Dan McCoy

[1:38] Yeah.

[1:39] In honor of our founder, Maxwell Fun.

[1:41] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44] So.

[1:45] Maxwell Funker Bean of the Funky Winker Beans.

[1:47] The name was scrambled at Ellis Island.

[1:49] Yeah.

[1:50] So we're doing, what do we do here on this?

Dan McCoy

[1:51] This is a podcast.

[1:52] Yep.

[1:53] All right.

[1:53] We watch a movie that has either the audiences or the critics rejected or both.

[1:59] Or neither.

[2:00] And we talk about it.

[2:00] And of course, as we announced, because of Max Fun Tribe, we're doing our special theme month,

[2:07] which is No Spider-Mans.

[2:09] Uh-huh.

[2:10] Movies that do not feature any Spider-Mans.

[2:12] Featuring no Spider-Men.

Elliott Kalan

[2:14] And do we want to mention each of the movies that we'll be doing as part of this series?

Dan McCoy

[2:18] Yeah.

[2:18] Of course, there's Kraven the Hunter, the one we're talking about now.

[2:22] Venom, The Last Dance.

[2:23] And Heartbeats.

[2:25] Heartbeats.

Stuart Wellington

[2:26] Classic Paul Schrader director.

Elliott Kalan

[2:29] Heartbeats.

[2:30] Starring Andy Kaufman and Brenna Peters.

[2:32] And it fits the theme.

[2:33] There's no Spider-Man in it.

Dan McCoy

[2:34] It's still one of the most baffling bits to me why it was decided that Heartbeats was Paul Schrader.

[2:41] This is one of my favorite Stuart bits.

[2:43] It's all going to make sense when we watch our games.

[2:46] It'll be a, yeah, look for that listener.

[2:48] A perfect payoff to this long movie.

Elliott Kalan

[2:51] This is going to turn out Heartbeats is about a robot who falls in love and keeps a journal

[2:54] and kills somebody or tries to kill somebody at some point.

Stuart Wellington

[2:58] And straps some bombs to him to save the environment.

[3:01] Yeah, to save the environment.

Elliott Kalan

[3:03] This happens in every Paul Schrader movie.

[3:05] Well, one I can think of.

Dan McCoy

[3:07] This is a movie, of course, particularly notable for its lack of Spider-Man.

[3:12] It's part of Sony's, hey, we don't have the rights to Spider-Man per se universe.

[3:18] And so, yeah, they've been trying to make all this happen.

Stuart Wellington

[3:21] But they do, they own a lot of names and some kind of like vague relationship.

Dan McCoy

[3:26] Just rumors of a Spider-Man.

[3:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:29] They have, so Sony has the rights to the Spider-Man family of characters.

[3:34] Characters that fall under it.

[3:35] But they have made an agreement with Marvel, or with Disney rather, that Spider-Man himself

[3:40] would appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

[3:42] What does that mean?

[3:43] It means they've got to create their own universe of all these other characters whose only reason

[3:47] for existing in the comics is because they fight Spider-Man.

Dan McCoy

[3:50] And they also have to flip them all into, you know, at least anti-heroes.

[3:54] Yeah, lethal protectors.

Elliott Kalan

[3:55] And they were, the original plan, I don't know when they dropped this plan, was to make

[3:59] a Sinister Six movie where these characters would all kind of come together.

[4:02] But again, the Sinister Six is a team that only exists to kill Spider-Man.

[4:05] That's all that they do.

Stuart Wellington

[4:07] I mean, I would argue every single one of these characters is defined by their relationship

[4:13] to Spider-Man and are made more interesting by that.

[4:17] Yes.

[4:17] And when removing a Spider-Man, they become kind of bland.

Elliott Kalan

[4:21] It's very, well, it's like if you, it's like.

Stuart Wellington

[4:22] With the exception of Madam Web, which is a perfect movie.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] Which is, yeah, which is wonderful.

[4:26] And it's not, doesn't, doesn't in any way feel like it's missing a connection to Spider-Man.

[4:30] Also, does not fit this theme because Spider-Man's in that movie.

[4:33] Because in the movie, because Peter Parker is born in that movie.

Dan McCoy

[4:36] I was just thinking that to remove a Spider-Man sounds like a lost Harper Lee novel.

[4:41] Yeah.

[4:42] Sorry, go on.

Elliott Kalan

[4:43] No, it's, I was going to try to come up with another example of like how you could try to

[4:48] remove the central, most essential character from a world and then try to make something

[4:53] around it.

[4:54] And I feel like there's some, there's some places you can do it.

[4:56] Star Wars at one point, you're able to do that.

Stuart Wellington

[4:58] Yeah, you just yank Godot out of that bitch and it's going to be tons of fun.

Elliott Kalan

[5:02] That's what happens.

[5:03] So you do the Vladimir movie, the Etrigan or Estragon movie.

[5:07] You do the Potso movie and then they all come together finally in the Waiting for Godot movie.

[5:13] Yeah, yeah.

[5:13] That makes sense.

[5:14] Like how did Potso get that servant who only, who has talks in those weird speeches?

[5:18] We don't know.

[5:19] I don't remember his name, the character.

[5:20] But so I believe that Stuart, you'll be doing the summary day for Kraven the Hunter.

[5:27] First, should we talk at all about our relationship to the character of Kraven the Hunter?

[5:30] Did you guys-

Dan McCoy

[5:30] I was going to ask you to do this.

Stuart Wellington

[5:32] Okay.

[5:32] Well, as I mentioned in a most likely deleted pre-show bit, my relationship with Kraven is mainly like, I was a big Spider-Man fan.

[5:44] Not as big as Elliot, obviously.

[5:46] No, no one is.

[5:46] Well, a couple people.

[5:47] You know, I've read all the Sinister Six stuff.

[5:49] I read a bunch of his various appearances, including Kraven's Last Hunt, which is kind of like, is one of the great Spider-Man stories.

[5:58] Yes.

[5:59] In my opinion.

[6:00] And I was, which I was looking up and apparently it started, it's like not a Spider-Man story.

[6:05] It started out as a Wonder Man story, which is kind of funny.

Elliott Kalan

[6:07] Well, even before that, it was- originally it was pitched as a Batman story to DC and by the writer of it, J.M.D. Mateus, I think was the writer of it.

[6:18] And then he brought it over and made it a Spider-Man Kraven story.

[6:21] But it's so good that you kind of wonder how it could be a story for any other character because it fits so well into the Spider-Man themes and the Kraven themes.

[6:29] Here's the thing though.

[6:30] I would call Kraven's Last Hunt perhaps the one great Kraven story.

[6:35] And if you were being a real stickler, maybe the one good Kraven story, which is not fair.

[6:40] Since then, there have been a couple of good Kraven stories.

[6:42] There was one called The Grim Hunt for years ago that I actually enjoyed a lot.

[6:49] And Kraven for a little while became a supporting character in the Squirrel Girl comic where he was like a more positive version of himself.

[6:55] But up until Kraven's Last Hunt.

Stuart Wellington

[6:57] Which would probably fit as a lead in a movie better than what we get.

Elliott Kalan

[7:03] Squirrel Girl or that version of it?

Stuart Wellington

[7:04] No, I mean like that version of Kraven.

[7:06] Like a more positive, like slightly silly.

[7:09] I'm assuming.

Elliott Kalan

[7:10] Yeah, he's a slightly silly.

[7:11] He's still Kraven, but he cares about the environment.

[7:14] And that's where he and Squirrel Girl, you know, share a common bond.

[7:17] He can't stop Kraven.

[7:19] But I would say until – yeah, he loves White Castle.

[7:22] He's always getting those Crave Sacks.

Stuart Wellington

[7:24] Was there a movie tie-in?

[7:25] Call up Matt Singer.

[7:26] Was there a movie tie-in with White Castle for this thing?

[7:28] I don't think so.

Elliott Kalan

[7:29] Yeah, they had – it was a Crave Sack of 10.

[7:32] And each one of the – each one had a different animal's meat in the burger.

[7:36] I love that.

Dan McCoy

[7:37] Are there any particular Dan fans out there who are dismayed by how little I've been talking?

[7:41] I'm just letting these two run because –

[7:44] What about –

[7:45] They're trying to work themselves out, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[7:46] So here's the last thing I want to say about Kraven.

[7:48] Until Kraven's last hunt, he's a pretty – in my opinion at least, he's a pretty mediocre character.

[7:52] Yeah, yeah.

[7:53] The idea of this big game hunter.

[7:54] He's the kind of guy who goes out and captures animals and he's always looking for the biggest thing.

[7:58] He looks like a really cool wrestler also.

[8:01] And he's a silly – even in his earliest appearances I think is kind of a silly character.

[8:05] Yeah.

[8:06] And the idea – I'm just kind of baffled by which Spider-Man characters they chose for these movies because it feels like – except for Venom who is hugely popular.

[8:17] It feels like they kind of went out of their way at times to pick characters who they could graft onto preexisting story formats rather than characters that had a lot of name recognition or big fan base or even were cool characters.

[8:31] This is me.

[8:31] I've never found Kraven a cool character partly because of his clothes.

[8:34] He wears these funny tight capri pants.

[8:36] Cool.

[8:36] And these little slip-on shoes and he has a vest that seems to be made out of a lion's face, which I don't know how you do that.

[8:41] But Stuart –

[8:42] It's very cool.

[8:43] He looks like a wrestler.

[8:44] He does look like a wrestler.

Stuart Wellington

[8:46] Now before – there's one other Kraven story I do want to talk about.

[8:51] Yeah, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[8:52] No, no, no.

[8:52] I thought you were – no, I didn't know if you were leaving this topic at all because I wanted to say my relationship to the character.

[8:58] Oh, please.

[8:58] As I was queried and it is that I read the Wikipedia plot summary of Kraven's last dance when I –

[9:05] You mean Kraven's last hunt?

Stuart Wellington

[9:07] Kraven's last hunt.

[9:08] It's kind of a dance.

[9:09] Kraven's last dance.

Elliott Kalan

[9:10] It's a dance between him and Vermeer.

Dan McCoy

[9:11] Very Kraven's last dance.

[9:14] No, when I learned that this was going to be a character that a movie was going to be made out of it, I was like, okay, what's the deal with this Kraven?

[9:21] And that's the main thing that got referenced.

[9:23] So I was like, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[9:25] You're like, whoa, he like unalives himself because he killed Spider-Man, he thinks?

[9:29] That's nuts.

[9:30] Yeah, that's steady.

Elliott Kalan

[9:31] But that's the thing is Kraven's last hunt is – this thing, the defining moment for this character, spoilers for the comic storyline, the 40-year-old storyline, Kraven's last hunt.

[9:40] The defining moment for this character is when he kills himself having succeeded in defeating Spider-Man, he thinks, in his mind.

[9:47] So it's always a problem when your supervillain-turned-antihero's defining moment in the comics is when he takes his own life rather than like does a cool thing or does something impressive.

Stuart Wellington

[9:58] Well, that shows courage of his convictions.

[10:01] I don't think so.

[10:02] But then for me, like I didn't initially – I didn't initially get to Kraven's last hunt.

[10:10] My first – I'd been exposed to Kraven before but also it was the –

[10:14] In a public bathroom, yeah.

[10:16] Yes.

[10:16] It was the Spider-Man, the new Todd McFarlane Spider-Man series.

[10:22] Yes.

[10:22] The first arc, the Torment arc.

[10:24] With Calypso.

[10:25] Introduces Calypso and also introduces like moments of – visions of Kraven as like a zombie guy.

Elliott Kalan

[10:32] So Calypso was a pre-existing character before that storyline but so little had been done with her I feel like that Todd McFarlane kind of made her his own in that.

[10:40] But that's the one where like the lizard becomes a servant of Calypso, right, and all that?

[10:44] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[10:45] And I remember – I don't remember it being like particularly good but it was like, you know, it's classic McFarlane.

[10:51] There's webs all over everything.

Dan McCoy

[10:53] Yeah.

[10:53] There is like every panel is made out of webs.

[10:54] He's constantly contorting himself.

[10:56] Let's move into discussion of the movie, a thing that I know something about.

Elliott Kalan

[10:59] Yeah, let's jump into this.

[11:01] Sure, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[11:01] So wait, wait.

[11:02] I just want to say if people think, oh, Elliot's going to dump on this because he hates Kraven the way he hates Morbius.

[11:07] No, no, no.

[11:08] Kraven was never one of my favorite Spider-Man villains but he was never so far down on the bottom as Morbius or as I've mentioned my least favorite Spider-Man villain, Molten Man.

[11:16] Continue.

Stuart Wellington

[11:17] But, Elliot, at the end of the episode, I'm going to have to ask you –

[11:21] For a definitive ranking?

[11:22] No, I was going to – we're doing definitive ranking after Venom, I'd imagine.

[11:26] Oh, I see.

[11:26] But I was going to say think of any Spider-Man rogues gallery characters who would make good solo movie non-Spider-Man related.

[11:35] I'm going to try to think about it.

[11:36] That's a tough one.

Elliott Kalan

[11:37] That's a hard one.

[11:37] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[11:38] So movie begins.

[11:39] We have a bunch of logos.

[11:41] The movie opens with a prison transport truck driving through Siberia, heading to an isolated prison.

[11:49] Stowed aboard this truck in disguise is our hero, Kraven the Hunter.

[11:55] He gets taken into the prison.

[11:58] He meets his new roommate who's a large man who seems to suffer from some kind of deformity, which I'm not always happy with.

[12:03] It's constantly like, hey, the joke is the guy's got some deformity.

Dan McCoy

[12:08] I think he's just supposed to look like a big threatening guy.

Stuart Wellington

[12:10] Yes.

[12:11] He picks a fight with some gangsters in order for them to take him to their leader, who the lead gangster is this like arms dealer operating out of the prison.

[12:20] Turns out he reveals that was his plan all along.

[12:24] He wanted to be captured because he's a hunter and he kills this gangster like Rorschach style.

[12:29] Not – doesn't kill him Rorschach style, but, you know, the locked up thing here with me sort of thing.

[12:34] Yeah.

[12:34] So he kills this gangster with a tooth from a tiger carpet, a tiger fur carpet.

[12:41] And then he escapes using –

Dan McCoy

[12:42] Which he had foolishly been allowed to keep in his jail cell.

Stuart Wellington

[12:45] Yeah.

[12:45] Well, I mean, I feel like the guy is basically – he's one of those like criminal masterminds who is in prison more for the protection of being in prison and less as an impediment.

[12:57] Yeah.

[12:58] Yeah.

[12:58] I could see that.

[13:00] So he kills this guy and then he escapes using superhuman parkour skills.

Dan McCoy

[13:06] Now, Elliot, as I said, I was not a Kraven connoisseur.

[13:11] I did not know anything about this gentleman other than presumably he hunted.

[13:16] Yeah.

[13:16] As said in the title.

[13:17] Yeah.

[13:18] You know, tracking down information online – correct me if I'm wrong.

[13:22] So in the comics, it's not like Kraven has like these like animal powers.

[13:28] He has a serum that gives him strength basically and he's just a good hunter.

Elliott Kalan

[13:32] He has kind of like potions and like, you know, he knows the secrets of the jungle that can enhance your abilities in some way.

[13:39] There's always –

[13:40] I see.

[13:40] There's always like kind of berries or herbs you can take in comic books that make you a slightly tougher person.

[13:46] But the idea that he could – there are parts of this movie where he is essentially just running along sheer walls as if gravity doesn't affect him.

[13:55] And that's not a thing.

[13:56] And not being damaged at all.

[13:58] Yeah.

[13:59] And the fact that he gets so knocked around in this movie and it doesn't hurt him at all.

[14:03] And that is not the Kraven I know.

[14:04] And also he has super zoom vision, which I don't believe Kraven has.

[14:09] I don't remember that many of the stories.

Stuart Wellington

[14:10] Like the eyeballs become like lion eyeballs.

Elliott Kalan

[14:12] Yes.

[14:12] Yeah, exactly.

[14:13] So there's a – in this movie he is clearly the product of an unholy combination of some kind of voodoo and also lion blood as we'll see later.

[14:22] And so that gives him the amazing powers to do a superhuman thing.

[14:25] But in the comics he's one of these many characters who is – the serums they take put him at peak human condition like Captain America or something like that.

[14:33] As opposed to the man with the power of the animals.

[14:36] That would be Animal Man, a DC character.

Dan McCoy

[14:39] Yeah.

[14:39] Although most peak humans I know get crushed under like rubble that falls on them.

Elliott Kalan

[14:43] That's true.

[14:44] Most of them when they're exploded, it hurts them.

[14:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:48] Yeah.

[14:48] I mean I feel like he – in this movie he's presented as basically like a slightly tougher than Captain America type character.

[14:56] Yes.

[14:56] Yeah.

[14:57] Okay.

[14:57] So he escapes using these super abilities.

[14:59] He runs off into a giant snowstorm.

[15:01] He faces down a really cool CGI wolf.

[15:04] And then he boards a waiting cargo plane that is piloted by a pilot friend who we never really see ever again.

[15:11] And I mean I think –

[15:12] I don't know if this is –

[15:13] I don't know if this is a reference to –

Elliott Kalan

[15:13] She shows up again but you know.

[15:14] Yeah.

[15:15] He just has like a pilot on call.

[15:17] And I think this is supposed to be making him seem like kind of a cool James Bondy type who has like a network of support people or something.

[15:24] Or just a pilot that he can talk to regularly but nothing is made of this character.

[15:28] I don't know if this is a character loosely based on any one of the comics the way that a lot of the others are.

[15:32] It just seems like an easy way for him to get around is he just Indiana Jones style has a friend for the plane.

Stuart Wellington

[15:38] He can like pop around the world.

[15:40] Yeah.

[15:40] At will.

[15:41] Like Orville Redenbacher, he's popping around the world.

[15:44] He is.

Elliott Kalan

[15:45] That's not the only similarity.

[15:46] I remember that slogan.

[15:46] We'll get to that though.

Stuart Wellington

[15:48] Okay.

[15:48] So guys, you know what time it is?

[15:51] It was originally called Craven the Popcorn.

[15:53] It's time for a little bit of a flashback.

[15:56] Now, you know, this is a long movie.

[15:57] There's like – it's over two hours.

[15:59] It's a long movie.

[15:59] It's over two hours.

[16:00] It's too long.

[16:01] But similar to its lead actor, there is not an ounce of fat on this thing.

[16:08] I think that is not necessarily true.

[16:11] Aaron Taylor Johnson is –

Stuart Wellington

[16:11] Aaron Taylor Johnson is –

[16:13] Aaron Taylor Johnson is sliced up.

[16:15] He is shredded.

[16:17] For a guy who's described as nature's perfect predator, I'm like, if this guy has any sugar, it will fuck him up.

Elliott Kalan

[16:23] He is too skinny.

[16:25] You have to imagine if he was lost in the woods or the jungle and did not have access to food, he would die.

[16:30] Like he has no – his body has no stores of energy to draw on.

Stuart Wellington

[16:33] He needs to eat like seven little protein-packed meals a day.

Elliott Kalan

[16:38] He has to like have a meal at 4 a.m. just to survive.

[16:41] Just to keep going.

[16:42] He's like a little baby.

[16:44] When little babies literally can't hold enough food in their body to last through the night.

[16:48] Yeah, which is –

Stuart Wellington

[16:49] Which is –

[16:50] You know, speaking of Aaron Taylor Johnson, that was one of the fun jokes in The Fall Guy when Ryan Gosling is making jokes about how this guy is too skinny.

[17:00] He needs to eat carbs.

[17:01] Your body needs glucose to survive, et cetera.

[17:04] Okay.

[17:04] So flashback 16 years.

[17:07] We meet Sergei and Dimitri Cravenoff, two brothers – well, half brothers – who are attending an American prep school.

[17:18] They are taken out of school because their mother has died.

[17:21] She's committed suicide.

Dan McCoy

[17:22] Now, I want to ask you a question here and whether you guys had the same experience I did.

[17:27] because they're informed that their mother died by their father, Russell Crowe.

[17:34] Nikolai Cravenoff.

[17:35] In his late period.

[17:36] Russell Crowe playing Nikolai Cravenoff, not Russell Crowe as himself.

[17:39] His late career extravagant accent period that he's in that we all love.

[17:45] Yes.

[17:45] Elevates every scene he's in.

[17:47] Everything he does.

Stuart Wellington

[17:49] No question.

[17:50] If he's done to my head, I'd be like, he's the best thing in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[17:52] He is self-evidently like a supervillain.

[17:56] So him just like appearing and telling that his wife is dead, like, were you set up for like some kind of reveal?

[18:04] Either that he is like lying about that and she's still alive and he's just doing this to like cart the kids away

[18:12] or like that there was something really insidious going on with the mom rather than like –

[18:18] it seems like maybe she was killed by him but also maybe it's just true that that's what happened.

[18:24] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[18:25] I think maybe I was just so happy to see Russell Crowe show up that I'm like anything –

[18:29] I'm just taking –

[18:30] I just feel like I had these expectations.

[18:31] Anything you say, beautiful.

Dan McCoy

[18:32] To be honest –

[18:32] There'll be some payoff for that.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] Yeah.

[18:35] I think it was just supposed to be a tragic backstory.

[18:36] I think that I had a different feeling where later on I thought it was going to be –

[18:39] I thought that Russell Crowe would be involved in a bigger twist than he was.

[18:43] There's a minimal twist.

[18:44] Minimal twist.

[18:44] But I thought he was going to be involved in a much bigger twist.

[18:46] They squander Russell Crowe.

[18:47] He does – he is evil right off the bat.

[18:50] Everything in the bat is evil.

[18:51] I thought you were going to say –

[18:52] Which is kind of charming.

[18:53] Did you have the same experience I had where I could not quite figure out how Russian or how American these characters were supposed to be because their accents were a little malleable at times?

[19:03] And for much of it, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is doing the same kind of like mumbly, cool guy, vaguely New York-y, vaguely Marlon Brando-y voice that like a lot of guys –

[19:15] Especially after watching this right after Venom, The Last Dance, where with each movie, Tom Hardy's voice has gotten more cartoonish as Eddie Brock.

[19:21] I was like, oh, okay.

[19:22] He's doing a similar kind of voice.

Stuart Wellington

[19:23] Having watched these two – this movie very close to Venom 3, it is not – it's not good for Aaron Taylor-Johnson because Tom Hardy is so much more fun.

[19:33] In that movie.

Elliott Kalan

[19:35] I feel like Tom Hardy has nothing to prove anymore in the Venom movies.

[19:38] So he's just like, whatever.

[19:39] I'm a slob.

[19:40] I'm walking around.

[19:40] I'm mumbling.

[19:41] I'm crazy.

[19:42] Whereas Aaron Taylor-Johnson has to get across that he's cool in this, which is hard to do when you're craven.

[19:47] An uncool character.

Stuart Wellington

[19:48] An uncool character.

[19:49] So yes.

[19:50] So these two boys are the sons of a Russian oligarch gangster who lives in a mansion outside of London.

[20:01] Their dad picks them up and he's like, you know what?

[20:04] Your mom's dead.

[20:05] It's time for you guys to reconnect with nature.

[20:08] Let's go on a hunting trip to Ghana.

[20:09] So they go to Ghana because there has been reports of a legendary lion named Zar.

Elliott Kalan

[20:15] And they go, this lion has killed 2,000 to 3,000 men over the years.

[20:19] It's like, no way.

[20:20] That's impossible.

[20:22] No way.

Stuart Wellington

[20:23] The way they said it, I thought it was like, it sounded like the subtitles were wrong.

[20:29] I'm like, it can't be 1,000.

Elliott Kalan

[20:31] That's not, there's no way that's possible at all.

Dan McCoy

[20:35] This lion is the most prolific serial killer known to man.

Stuart Wellington

[20:37] Yeah, he's the real suspect zero.

Elliott Kalan

[20:40] Unless this lion is rounding people up into concentration camps.

[20:43] There is no way he's killing that many people.

[20:45] This lion is both the ghost and the darkness.

[20:47] Oh, wow.

[20:49] He's a man killer.

[20:50] How many has he killed?

[20:51] Mm, 3,000.

[20:52] What?

[20:53] Okay, so this hunting trip.

[20:54] I'm in out of this country.

Stuart Wellington

[20:56] This hunting trip.

[20:57] Like, the other lions are like, damn.

[20:59] Like, I feel like young lions are like, I have to live up to this guy.

[21:03] No, they're like-

[21:04] The pressure's enormous.

Dan McCoy

[21:04] This is unrealistic expectations.

[21:06] Yeah, yeah.

[21:06] You're getting all us other lions a bad name.

[21:08] Yes.

[21:09] I'm cool, man.

[21:10] Yeah, teach me, dude.

[21:12] Okay, so-

Elliott Kalan

[21:13] Yeah, so this lion went through a small town and just murdered everybody in it.

[21:17] Yeah.

[21:18] Really?

[21:18] And no one tried to stop him at any point?

[21:20] No, couldn't do it.

[21:21] Too good a lion.

Stuart Wellington

[21:24] Yeah, he's just too good to be a lion.

[21:27] Lions are known for their jumping.

[21:29] Yeah.

[21:30] Just like Kraven.

[21:31] Yeah.

[21:31] So, this hunting trip, it's, you know, there's a bunch of other guys along.

[21:36] There's also a guide.

[21:38] There's a native guide who, like, adds a little bit of flavor to the specifics of their hunt.

[21:44] And there's also another, a young gangster who seems to be struggling with some kind of, like, asthma stuff who we will later know is known as the rhino.

[21:52] Yeah.

[21:52] But also-

Elliott Kalan

[21:54] This is Alessandro Nivola, who I thought was pretty fun in this movie.

[21:57] He was the most fun, I think.

[21:58] It was pretty fun.

Dan McCoy

[21:59] Yeah.

[21:59] Russell Crowe, though, dismisses him so heartily that I'm like, no, man, you're creating an Iron Man 3 villain right now.

[22:07] Yeah.

[22:07] It's a classic situation.

[22:09] Or an Oppenheimer villain.

Elliott Kalan

[22:11] Like, all these guys in movies are so, so, have such poor self-esteem that one negative comment turns them into villains.

[22:19] They must crush them.

[22:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:20] Which I would think is-

[22:21] They gotta become the Joker.

[22:23] And I would think that was crazy, except that our president and the shadow president behind him are basically the same guy.

[22:28] Yes.

[22:28] Like, one insult so wrecked them that they were like, well, now I have to hurt everybody.

[22:32] This is terrible.

Stuart Wellington

[22:32] Okay, so, yeah, as we said, Rhino makes overtures to join with Nikolai Kravinov, but he is rebuffed and humiliated verbally.

[22:43] Yeah.

[22:44] Meanwhile-

[22:45] But quietly.

[22:45] I don't think anyone else heard it.

[22:47] Yeah, I don't know.

[22:47] I feel like everyone's listening, you know.

[22:49] Okay.

[22:50] Meanwhile-

[22:51] The lions heard it.

[22:52] Nearby, we are introduced to a young girl named Calypso who's visiting her grandmother.

[22:57] Her grandmother is some kind of magic.

[22:59] And she introduces her-

Dan McCoy

[23:01] Everyone's grandmother is some kind of magic.

Stuart Wellington

[23:02] She introduces her to the magic of tarot cards.

[23:06] And then some kind of old family secret potion.

[23:10] Yeah.

[23:11] Unspecified.

[23:12] Just a magic potion that will maybe help somebody, bring them back to life.

[23:17] Give them animal powers.

[23:18] Yeah.

[23:18] They read the tarot cards and it basically explains what's going to happen over the course of the next, the rest of the movie.

[23:24] There is a lion attack.

[23:27] Sergei and Dimitri find Zar.

[23:30] And Sergei almost seems to be cowing Zar with his natural, what, riz.

[23:35] And then his dad-

[23:36] Pretty much.

[23:37] His dad blasts the lion with a shotgun and the lion attacks Sergei and drags him off, bleeding into the underbrush.

[23:46] Calypso sneaks away from her parents who are on safari and she finds the lion and Sergei.

[23:53] The lion is bleeding into Sergei's wounds.

[23:56] Oh, that's how it happens.

[23:57] Yeah.

[23:58] And then the lion leaves and then she gives him a taste of this magic potion and puts the tarot card for strength, which features a fucking lion in his hand.

[24:09] Oh, shit.

[24:10] Now, things look bad for Sergei.

[24:12] Yeah.

[24:13] Things look bad for Sergei.

[24:15] They take him to a nearby hospital.

[24:17] He's pronounced dead.

[24:17] But then he almost immediately revives miraculously.

[24:20] But I think they say he was dead for three minutes.

Elliott Kalan

[24:22] Three minutes.

[24:22] Much like the three days that your lord was dead before reviving.

[24:25] Not mine.

[24:26] My lord?

[24:28] Yeah, yeah.

[24:28] Well, Dan's maybe.

[24:29] Dan's family's lord.

[24:30] My lord, Krom of the mountains?

[24:32] Krom gives you only the strength to get to survive and that's all.

[24:38] So do you guys think this was on purpose that they're making Craven into kind of a Christ parable?

[24:42] And a parallel and they're saying that Christ should track down Russian oligarchs?

Stuart Wellington

[24:46] He's got like a little beard and cool hair.

Elliott Kalan

[24:47] And you know that Christ was ripped too because he didn't get a lot of food.

[24:50] He was also pretty skinny, but like you knew there were muscles coming through, right?

Stuart Wellington

[24:54] I've been to some churches in Bay Ridge and he is looking fucking tight.

[24:57] I mean the one difference is that.

Elliott Kalan

[24:59] How much do you think he benches?

[25:00] How much do you think Christ benches?

Stuart Wellington

[25:01] Oh man, at least 315.

[25:03] The one difference is.

Elliott Kalan

[25:04] So when people say could God make a rock so heavy even God couldn't lift it?

[25:07] He probably can't.

Dan McCoy

[25:08] Yes.

[25:09] Just a little theological, you know, teachings here.

[25:14] Like the one difference is once Christ was risen, he didn't make a list of people he then had to kill.

[25:19] Didn't he, Dan?

[25:20] Didn't he?

Elliott Kalan

[25:21] Where's Pontius Pilate today?

[25:22] Answer me that.

[25:23] I guess that's true.

[25:24] Just walking around.

Stuart Wellington

[25:25] He got a blow dart to the neck.

[25:30] Okay, so let's see.

[25:35] His dad takes him back home to London where they have a confrontation and Sergei gets mad.

[25:42] And we see his father has given him the gift of Tsar the lion's head, which is stuffed and mounted.

[25:49] He doesn't want it.

[25:50] He doesn't want to be part of this family.

[25:52] So in the middle of the night, he runs off leaving his brother Dimitri, who's a little bit weaker but has a knack for doing impressions, leaves him to the mercies of his dad and runs off.

Elliott Kalan

[26:03] Let's talk about this for a moment.

[26:04] Dimitri is very much the Fredo brother.

[26:06] You know, he's the weaker one.

[26:07] He's the half-brother who is the product of an affair.

[26:10] The father doesn't respect him.

[26:12] He can imitate anyone's voice.

Stuart Wellington

[26:14] So like that is like the laziest, shittiest fucking writing to make the half-brother just like weaker.

[26:21] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[26:22] Like I hate that kind of like eugenics weird garbage.

[26:25] But here's the thing.

[26:26] He can imitate anyone's voice perfectly because they're just playing the audio from someone else's voice when he lip syncs it.

[26:32] But they go, you always were a chameleon.

[26:35] Now, guys, are chameleons known for their mimicry of voices and sounds?

[26:40] I mean parrots are, but I don't really think of chameleons as being voice mimics.

[26:45] What do you think, Dan?

[26:46] Do you have any experiences with chameleons?

Dan McCoy

[26:48] I mean I understand it as a metaphor.

[26:50] Like you can blend in.

Elliott Kalan

[26:52] It only exists because that character eventually becomes the – he eventually becomes the Spider-Man villain, the chameleon.

[26:58] But the idea that he can do anyone's voice and they're like, what a chameleon.

[27:01] Like that's not the word you would use.

Dan McCoy

[27:03] I guess, yeah.

[27:04] No, he wouldn't really like – it doesn't indicate that you're fitting in and people think that you're a person just because you do the voice.

[27:09] It's like, oh, good impression, dude.

Stuart Wellington

[27:11] To pull the curtain back a little bit, years ago I was potentially being set up with a young woman to go on a date.

[27:18] Oh, take a fall.

[27:20] So I looked at her MySpace page to prepare, I don't know, to look at her bio.

[27:25] Yeah, cyberstalk, yeah.

[27:27] Yeah, of course.

[27:29] Cyberstalking hadn't been invented yet.

[27:31] This was 20 years ago or something.

Elliott Kalan

[27:32] Only silk stockings had been invented.

Stuart Wellington

[27:34] Yeah, that's true.

[27:34] But under her bio, she was describing herself and one of the things – it was like a questionnaire.

[27:41] And one of the questions was like, what kind of animal would you say you are?

[27:45] And she said, I would say I'm a Cammy lion and it took me like 10 minutes to realize she was trying to say chameleon.

[27:53] We did not go on a date.

[27:54] I just – I couldn't – yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:55] You thought she meant a lion that was dressed like Cammy from Street Fighter?

[27:59] Which I'd be like, yes, sign me up.

[28:02] So this character, Dimitri, is – spoiler alert, he will become by the end of the movie the chameleon, a different Spider-Man villain.

[28:10] Different Spider-Man villain.

[28:10] These are two characters that were always kind of linked in the comic books, but it wasn't many years after they were introduced that it was revealed that they were actually half-brothers.

[28:18] So this is from the comics that they're half-brothers.

Stuart Wellington

[28:20] It continues the theme of animal characters in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[28:25] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[28:26] Everybody's got an animal inside of them as the rhino later explains.

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] Everyone has two animals inside of them.

[28:31] A rhino, a chameleon, and a lion.

[28:34] I guess that's three.

[28:34] Those are the three animals.

Stuart Wellington

[28:35] So Sergei runs off.

[28:39] He boards a steamship to Russia and he runs off to live on the land that his mother owned, I guess, in like eastern Russia.

[28:50] Which is basically like untouched wilderness filled with one giant herd of wildebeests and a couple of like snow leopards.

[28:59] I think they're like – I think they're like oxen or something like that or mussels.

Elliott Kalan

[29:03] I don't know if they're wildebeests, but –

[29:04] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[29:04] Well, I mean, hey, listeners, write in if you know what they are.

[29:07] Write in to Dan McCoy, real street address to come.

Elliott Kalan

[29:11] Brooklyn, New York.

[29:12] Write to K.T. Hunter.

Stuart Wellington

[29:13] Yeah.

[29:14] That's a special Max Fun Stretch goal is Dan shares you his actual address.

Dan McCoy

[29:19] How about some feet pictures?

[29:21] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[29:22] Oh, man.

[29:23] Okay, so he –

[29:24] More privacy in it.

[29:26] So young Craven goes off to the woods.

[29:28] There's like a little training montage where he learns about his superhuman abilities that he has gained from lion blood and magic potion.

Elliott Kalan

[29:36] And then he goes and starts killing poachers.

[29:38] What?

[29:38] Now, he does a leap in this and it really showed to me a kind of – there's a lot of leaps in this movie where it's very clearly wire work where they've erased the wires.

[29:47] That's okay.

[29:47] That's cool.

[29:48] I don't expect them to literally launch someone into the air or to – or for him to have to climb up a tree.

[29:52] Or for him to learn how to jump that high.

[29:54] Or for him to learn how to jump across a crevasse.

[29:57] But when he jumps – and this is something they do in a lot of these movies.

[29:59] You don't see like his legs bend and then push off.

[30:03] Instead, he just kind of lifts into the air while his legs are still pinwheeling as if he's running.

[30:08] And it looks very silly.

[30:09] And I realized like, oh, they do this a lot in movies and it looks particularly silly here.

[30:13] This is not how a jump works.

[30:14] It's not like you're just running in the air.

Stuart Wellington

[30:16] I mean I wonder if that's part of the way that the like stunt effects work or the way that like – I don't know.

[30:22] But you're right.

[30:23] I mean it does look silly.

Elliott Kalan

[30:24] It's possible.

[30:24] It looks silly.

[30:25] But maybe that's the safest way to do it in which case do it that way.

[30:27] Do it the silly way if it's safe.

[30:28] Yeah.

[30:29] But it looks more like he's being jerked into the air by a wire than it is that he's jumping under his own power.

Stuart Wellington

[30:35] Yeah, yeah.

[30:36] That he has made some kind of contract with Aeolus, the lord of the winds.

[30:40] And those winds have just looked him off the ground.

[30:43] Exactly.

[30:44] Okay.

[30:45] So years later, he is still doing the same shit.

[30:49] He's living in the woods, killing poachers, and he's looking at that tarot card with a lion on it.

[30:54] Go on, Daniel.

Dan McCoy

[30:54] Now, the words years later roused me from my slumber to make a point that I wanted to –

Elliott Kalan

[31:01] Yeah, please.

[31:02] Yeah, because Dan sleeps in Ralea at his house dreaming for the moment that someone says years later, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:07] Now, this whole opening sequence, this like long flashback.

[31:13] Do we need it?

[31:14] The answer is no, Daniel.

[31:15] Absolutely not, Daniel.

[31:16] Yeah, we don't need it.

[31:18] And arguably, like – I don't know how you guys feel about this.

[31:22] I love it.

[31:23] Arguably, I feel like if you're going to have it, which I would not recommend keeping it.

[31:27] If you're going to have it, arguably for me, I'm so sick of the cold open in a lot of movies where like, we have to show you what it's going to be like eventually.

[31:37] Because in a way, when things slow down for a bit, I'm like, why can't we just go back to that exciting thing I just saw?

[31:43] Why are we suddenly like hitting the brakes?

[31:46] I almost, if you're going to have it, like would prefer a shorter version that just starts with him as kids and we just do it that way.

[31:53] Or the best option again, cutting it.

[31:55] And if we need any of this information, it can be smaller flashbacks scattered in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[32:00] Well, Dan, you texted something to us while you were watching it, which was that you said the biggest mistake the movie made was that it acted like it's supposed to be a serious movie.

[32:08] Yeah.

[32:08] That wants us to take it seriously.

[32:09] And I think that's – they're telling this like it's a serious story about fathers and sons and –

[32:15] Fathers, sons, being Jewish.

[32:17] Being a rhino.

[32:18] Being a rhino, exactly.

[32:19] And it shouldn't be.

[32:21] It's a story about a super-powered poacher, a super-powered hunter who fights poachers and wears a lion's head vest.

[32:28] So it should be kind of silly.

[32:30] And the movie is, at its most fun, kind of the sillier it gets.

[32:35] But you're right.

[32:36] They spend a lot of time trying to build up as characters so you're going to care about Kraven the hunter.

[32:41] And it's like – it should not be working at that level.

[32:44] It should be working on a much more surface fun level probably.

[32:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:47] By the end, at the moment, there's a part where like a literal rhino man is fighting him in a stampede.

[32:54] I'm like, yes, finally something that feels like it should be in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[32:58] I was waiting for it.

[32:59] Although I have some issues with that one.

[33:00] We'll talk about that scene when we get to it.

Stuart Wellington

[33:02] Okay.

[33:03] So Kraven, now all grown up and looking hot, heads back to London where he tracks down Calypso and they have – they reunite.

Elliott Kalan

[33:13] Played by the second Academy Award winner in the movie, Ariana DeBose.

Dan McCoy

[33:18] So there's two Academy Award winners in this movie, which is also silly.

[33:22] I don't like being hard on actors.

[33:24] Like I've liked her in other things.

[33:26] I find her performance here very strange.

Elliott Kalan

[33:29] My guess is that this was not a role – I mean her role barely exists in this movie.

[33:35] They don't give her much to do.

[33:36] And who knows, maybe there was such a focus on the action stuff in the filmmaking that she wasn't getting the support she deserves.

[33:42] This movie is directed by J.C. Chandor, who also did Margin Call, which I think is a great movie.

[33:47] Yeah.

[33:47] And All is Lost, which is an interesting movie too.

[33:50] And it's just a very – it's a very weird – it's a weird choice.

[33:55] It's a weird choice to have him doing this because it feels like the movie is fighting between who's in control, him or the idea of a superpowered hunter.

[34:06] And it gets – and so I think Arnett DeBose's character kind of gets lost in the whole thing.

[34:11] I mean in Wikipedia it describes her as a voodoo priestess who aids Kraven.

[34:16] No, she's not.

[34:17] She's a lawyer who works at a high-class London law firm and helps him track down people.

[34:22] At one point she uses a bow and arrow.

[34:25] But like it would be more fun if she was a voodoo priestess.

Dan McCoy

[34:27] She dabbled in having a potion once when she was a kid.

Elliott Kalan

[34:31] You have one potion, suddenly you're a voodoo priestess.

Stuart Wellington

[34:35] Don't worry.

[34:36] We'll see that voodoo potion again.

[34:38] So he also – he has another reason for going back to London.

[34:41] That's because it's his brother Dimitri's birthday.

[34:44] So he parkours up the side of his brother's apartment building.

[34:49] So he swam down like a fish using his fish powers.

[34:52] They reunite.

[34:54] They go out in the town.

[34:55] Now his brother at this point, grown up, is played by what?

[34:57] Fred Hetchinger?

[34:58] Hetchinger?

[34:59] He's had a great run.

[35:01] He was in White Lotus.

[35:02] He was the dopey grandson in Thelma.

[35:06] He was one of the two twin emperors in Gladiator 2.

[35:10] Yeah, he's just killing it right now.

[35:12] And in this one, he gets to, you know, borrow people's voices for a little while as the chameleon.

Elliott Kalan

[35:19] And he basically – does he own or run this nightclub where he just performs there?

[35:24] He performs at a nightclub where he sings in the style of other singers.

Stuart Wellington

[35:28] Yes, I think he owns it.

[35:30] I would imagine.

[35:32] It's like his nightclub that his dad hangs out at.

[35:35] Because that's what you want when you run your own nightclub is your dad there all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[35:41] And for you to be the only performer who has to do multiple shows a night, I guess.

[35:46] But I guess maybe that's the fun of it, you know.

[35:48] He was there for the performing.

[35:49] He's not that interested in whether the nightclub operates perfectly well, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[35:52] Around now, Rhino starts to make some moves.

[35:55] He's taking advantage of the –

[35:56] Yeah, of the gangster that Kraven killed back in the prison.

[36:00] And he starts consolidating power.

[36:02] And then he makes a play to try and take out Nikolai Kravenoff at that nightclub.

[36:07] Doesn't work.

[36:08] Nikolai Kravenoff is a tough old bear.

[36:11] Not literally.

[36:13] I'm worried I missed a big plot point.

Elliott Kalan

[36:16] You'd be mistaken if you could understand it.

[36:18] I mean he does have a run-in with a big old bear later.

[36:21] So maybe he was a big old bear.

[36:22] It would be better for him, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:23] So, yeah.

[36:25] He's making a play.

[36:26] He's making moves.

[36:28] And then after Dimitri and Sergei celebrate his birthday,

[36:34] Sergei has to go sleep out in a park because he just can't handle being cooped up inside an apartment building.

Dan McCoy

[36:40] Guys, I got to admit, I spaced out for a minute when bears were being mentioned to think about the country bears.

[36:47] Yeah, okay.

[36:48] Sure, yeah, okay.

[36:49] Is Kraven killing them?

[36:51] Well, you said that there was a bear and I thought a country bear, but I didn't say it.

[36:55] But then I got onto the thought of country bears.

[36:57] And I was like, man, if country bears had been a hit, 100% the sequel would be called City Bears, right?

[37:03] It would be fish out of water, bear stuff.

[37:04] Oh, my God.

[37:06] Like we got to revive the franchise just so we can do that.

Stuart Wellington

[37:10] Dan, slap a TM on that bad boy so we can take advantage of this.

[37:14] I mean, there's so many more you could do.

Elliott Kalan

[37:16] Me on Disney property.

[37:17] City bears, jungle bears, underwater bears.

[37:20] You could do all sorts of – you send them anywhere and it's good.

[37:22] Mountain bears, space bears.

Dan McCoy

[37:24] There are bears in space.

[37:25] But the saying, it's perfect.

[37:27] It's perfect for the – anyway.

[37:28] Yeah, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[37:29] It's fun that you bring up Country Bears because that's a movie that we talked about during the Max Fund Drive.

[37:34] We did a commentary during –

[37:36] Oh, that's true.

[37:37] We did do that.

[37:37] For the Max Fund Drive a little bit ago.

[37:39] Elliot, you were saying something about the Max Fund Drive at the start of the episode.

Elliott Kalan

[37:42] I was.

[37:43] This is a great time to take a break from all this action, all this Russian gangster animal action to talk about the Max Fund Drive.

[37:50] What's the Max Fund Drive?

[37:51] I'm so glad you asked.

[37:51] It's the one time of year when we come to you hat in hand and invite you to support our show by becoming a Max Fund member or boosting or upgrading your membership.

[37:59] Membership support is key to keeping our show alive.

[38:02] It's the single greatest source of funding we have, and it allows us to keep putting out episodes week after week after week.

[38:08] Not only that, because we have your support backing us up, we don't have to go after alternative funding methods that might force us to compromise the show either creatively or –

[38:17] Fracking.

[38:17] Morally.

[38:18] Yeah, fracking.

[38:18] Exactly.

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Elliott Kalan

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[40:26] But for now, let's get back to the story of the Kraven brothers, the brothers Kravenov-Voznoff.

[40:31] The brothers Karis Kravenov.

Stuart Wellington

[40:34] And we're at the chapter titled Rhino Makes a Move.

[40:37] So as I said, Rhino makes a move.

[40:40] Not Rhino, busts a move, yeah.

[40:41] He consolidates power.

[40:43] He tries to kill Nikolai Kravenov.

[40:46] And he also enlists the aid of a superhuman assassin called the Foreigner, played by Christopher Abbott, which I was very excited by.

[40:54] I was hoping this meant he was going to be abused by a woman in a hotel room over and over since that seems to be his specialty these days.

Elliott Kalan

[41:02] Oh, see, I know him best still as Marnie's ex-boyfriend from Girls.

[41:06] So it's very funny to see him as a—

Dan McCoy

[41:08] I have some movies I could introduce you to.

[41:09] I know one of the movies you're talking about.

[41:12] What's the other one?

Stuart Wellington

[41:13] Or ones?

[41:15] What was the one that was based on like a Murakami book where he's—

Dan McCoy

[41:22] That one was fun.

[41:23] He was in that one that was like, is this like role-playing or not, right?

[41:28] Yeah, with Margaret Qualley.

[41:29] Yeah, what was that called?

[41:30] Sanctuary.

[41:31] Okay.

[41:32] Yeah, I saw him in Possessor.

[41:35] And I saw him in like a—

Stuart Wellington

[41:36] Yeah, he's great in Possessor.

[41:37] Yeah, and he's in a—

[41:38] That's a fun one.

[41:39] That's a real fun one.

[41:40] This is fun.

[41:41] Yeah, let's go back and forth.

[41:42] He's just a good weird—like if you need a weird dude, and I think he brings the goods in this movie, he's a weird dude in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[41:48] He is a weird dude in this one.

[41:50] He is a weird—he—and so the Farner in the comics is just another one of these guys who's just like, he's the greatest assassin of all.

[41:55] He's the greatest martial arts expert.

Stuart Wellington

[41:57] Oh, yeah, he's great in poor things as the like weird husband at the end.

[42:01] Oh, I forgot that was him.

Elliott Kalan

[42:03] That's right.

[42:03] But the Farner in this movie has some sort of strange superpower where he kind of starts counting.

[42:10] Piercing is the movie where he also gets beat up.

[42:14] I can't—I couldn't figure out.

[42:16] Maybe you guys could figure it out.

[42:17] Is his power that he can then move faster than time?

[42:20] Or is it that he puts someone in a trance and they don't notice him moving?

Dan McCoy

[42:24] I think it's the trance thing because otherwise, like, what's the one, two, three—like, they seem to be, like, getting, like, queasy or whatever.

[42:31] So I think that we're kind of seeing it from their perspective.

[42:34] It seems like he can move fast because they black out kind of.

Elliott Kalan

[42:37] Elliot, doesn't he have this superpower in the comic books, the Farner?

[42:40] He does not know.

[42:41] This is one of several characters in the movie who are—or in Marvel movies in general who are very loosely based on the characters whose names they supposedly share.

Dan McCoy

[42:49] I thought the Farner was Jackie Chan, right?

[42:51] Yeah, I think you're right.

[42:52] He was bedeviling Pierce Brosnan.

Elliott Kalan

[42:54] No, the Farner wants to know what love is and he wants you to show it.

[42:57] Oh, that's right.

[42:58] Oh, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:59] I got in trouble last time I showed it.

[43:03] It's not like that.

[43:06] Okay, so—and also Rhino makes the play.

[43:09] He has his guys go and break into Dimitri's flat and they capture Dimitri.

[43:15] They were hoping to capture Sergei, we later learned, but Sergei was sleeping in the park.

[43:21] Sleeping in the park, yeah.

[43:22] So we get a little action sequence where Kraven is chasing after his brother and these goons in a van.

[43:29] I like this sequence.

[43:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:30] I gotta say, like, you know, you gotta find the wheat and the chaff or whatever.

[43:35] And I thought the sequence was kind of genuinely exciting.

[43:38] And maybe it's because it's the first time in the movie that I feel actual, like, urgent stakes for anything.

Stuart Wellington

[43:45] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[43:45] Because before that, like, yeah, I hate illegal poachers, so it's kind of fun getting them all, like, murdered by Kraven.

[43:51] But it doesn't have the same sort of, like, personal investment or, like, reason, like, Kraven might be worried about something.

Elliott Kalan

[43:59] And this is the first time that we see an action sequence where Kraven does not handily just destroy everybody.

[44:03] Exactly, yeah.

[44:04] With no challenge.

[44:05] Where he...

[44:05] Don't worry, Ellen, there's gonna be more of those.

[44:07] That's true, yeah, oh, thank goodness.

[44:09] But this is one where Kraven is on the back foot and he is at a disadvantage, even if he can absorb unlimited hit points of damage.

[44:16] And at times it seems like the car that he's chasing stops for a couple seconds so that he can catch up to it.

[44:21] But overall, he has a disadvantage here and it's a fun chase for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[44:25] He's got super armor every time he jumps.

[44:28] Yeah.

[44:28] Okay.

[44:29] So, they managed to get away after dragging him through the, what, river with a helicopter?

Dan McCoy

[44:36] Yeah.

[44:36] He made the odd choice in my mind to, like, use that netting to try and pull the helicopter back rather than climb up to the helicopter.

Elliott Kalan

[44:42] I also wondered why he didn't climb up the helicopter.

[44:46] He was in the moment.

[44:48] He was all caught up.

[44:49] Do all helicopters, it seems like they only do two things, which is they fly up in the air and they all have a beeping thing that goes off when the bad guys are being chased by a good guy.

[44:59] And as soon as that net hits the helicopter, immediately there's that, like, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Dan McCoy

[45:03] We got a net alert here.

[45:06] The old helicopter alarm is flashing.

[45:09] Thank God, Thomas T. Helicopter.

Elliott Kalan

[45:12] Or else we wouldn't know that Craven was chasing us.

Dan McCoy

[45:16] Crazy coincidence.

[45:17] The name.

Elliott Kalan

[45:19] So, it's like Outer Bridge?

[45:21] The bridge that's named after a guy who's named Outer Bridge?

Stuart Wellington

[45:24] That blew my fucking mind when I first learned that.

[45:28] I mean, that guy for years was like, I got to do something with this name.

[45:33] So, he had to do this on the bridge.

[45:35] I've got to.

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] The Outer Bridge Baby Food Company is not making the most sense.

[45:38] I've got to drop that and do something else.

[45:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:41] Cool.

[45:42] So, they get away.

[45:44] But Craven has.

[45:45] Dan, now, sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[45:46] Now, for some reason, I'm thinking about the story of Jezadiah Whoopi, inventor of the Whoopi Cushion.

[45:55] Yeah.

[45:55] And the Whoopi Pond.

Dan McCoy

[45:56] And everyone else with that name is like, our name used to mean good cheer, Whoopi.

[46:00] You ruined it with your invention.

Elliott Kalan

[46:02] Yeah.

[46:03] All the family reunions were big battles from that point on.

[46:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:06] So, they managed to get away, but Craven got a good.

Elliott Kalan

[46:09] Mr. Whoopi, when was the last time you talked to your son?

[46:12] I have no son.

Stuart Wellington

[46:15] The bad guys get away, but Craven manages to get a good look at the leader and the type of cigarettes he smokes.

[46:21] Not the leader, the Marvel character who is in Captain America Brave New World.

[46:25] No.

[46:25] Oh, I didn't know that.

[46:25] The leader of the.

[46:26] Yeah.

[46:27] Although, they don't call him the leader.

Dan McCoy

[46:28] Is it Tim Blake Nelson?

[46:29] Tim Blake Nelson, yes.

[46:30] Oh, brought him back.

[46:31] It's nice to see him back.

[46:32] They really wasted him.

[46:34] Oh, just like the first time he showed up.

[46:36] Yeah.

[46:36] He helped.

Stuart Wellington

[46:38] Okay.

[46:39] So, Calypso, he uses the aid of Calypso to track down these mercs, these mercenaries.

[46:47] Turns out that they are operating out of a, what, a Turkish monastery castle or something in Turkey?

Elliott Kalan

[46:52] She's like, I tracked him down to his family-owned Turkish monastery castle.

[46:55] And I'm like, all right, whatever, sure, whatever, whatever, whatever reason you're going to set a set piece at this place.

Stuart Wellington

[47:01] But it turns out this whole thing was a trap that the rhino and the foreigner are trying to trap, trap Craven.

[47:10] Yep.

[47:11] Which is kind of weird.

Elliott Kalan

[47:12] We should mention that, we should mention they make a point out of how his name is Sergei Cravenoff, but he started calling himself Craven.

[47:18] And at multiple times, characters are like, Craven?

[47:20] I guess that's what he's calling himself now.

[47:22] And it's very silly to me that they bothered to call attention to that and make a point out of it.

Stuart Wellington

[47:25] It's also funny that at one point, somebody calls him Craven, and he's like, how do you know that name?

[47:30] I'm like, well, you are Cravenoff.

Elliott Kalan

[47:32] Like, I don't know.

[47:33] It's not that difficult.

[47:34] But, and he's, did we ever talk about how he is a mythical figure among these characters that they call the hunter who hunts down bad guys?

[47:41] And they literally have the dumb line that's in every single one of these goddamn movies where they go, the hunter, that's a fable.

[47:48] It's a myth.

[47:49] It's a story to scare criminals.

[47:51] And can we just ban that line of dialogue when someone says the such and such?

[47:55] It's a fable.

[47:55] It's not real.

[47:56] It's a myth.

[47:57] I hate it.

[47:57] I've heard it so many times in movies now.

[47:59] It's so lazy.

Stuart Wellington

[48:00] It has lost whatever power it once had to make you to, like, help juice up a character so that you think they're cool before they do anything.

[48:07] Yeah.

[48:08] Okay.

[48:09] So, it turns out this whole thing's a trap, but it doesn't matter.

Elliott Kalan

[48:13] It's actually a concert that he's taking his daughter to so they can capture him there.

[48:17] Yeah, it's a trap.

Stuart Wellington

[48:18] Fucking only, dude.

Dan McCoy

[48:20] Luckily, he locates a friendly concessions man who...

Stuart Wellington

[48:25] Stop making me think of that movie.

[48:27] So, he heads to this monastery.

[48:30] He does some hunting and kills a whole bunch of mercenaries.

[48:34] There's a couple of fun bits where he's, like, sneaking around, like, crawling around on all floors.

[48:38] I like those bits.

Elliott Kalan

[48:39] They're both fun and also silly that he is just behind some guys crawling around on all floors, and they just don't notice him because he's behind them, you know?

[48:46] He gets to the...

[48:46] It's like the scene in the movie Three Iron where the guy learns the secret of how to always be in somebody's blind spot.

[48:51] So, he is stalking behind people, just going, just kind of, like, always turning his body slightly.

[48:56] So, he's always in their blind spot.

Stuart Wellington

[48:57] It would have been really funny if there was one shot of a guy kind of sitting in another room as they went by and, like, see this guy, like, shadowing and be like, what the fuck?

[49:05] And he could say, what the fuck, because this is an R-rated movie.

[49:08] This is an R-rated movie.

[49:08] And they would just go, shh, and be like, I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[49:12] I guess it's their thing.

Elliott Kalan

[49:13] It's as if the movie realizes as it's going that it's an R-rated movie because characters start to swear more and more as the movie goes on.

Stuart Wellington

[49:20] Yep.

[49:21] So, he cuts his way through all these mercenaries.

[49:25] He captures the leader just in time for them to blow up the monastery with a missile launcher.

[49:31] He gets just enough information from this guy that the rhino is the one who set him up and has doomed them to death.

[49:39] Of course, Kraven's fine.

[49:40] He gets hit by a bunch of masonry, but he's okay.

[49:44] Calypso.

[49:44] Turns out Calypso is being tracked down by the rhino's guys as well.

[49:48] She has to escape.

[49:49] She's on the run.

[49:50] So, Kraven uses his pilot friend just burning through fuel nonstop.

[49:57] I guess he doesn't care about the environment.

[49:59] I guess he's got this movie.

[50:01] Yeah, I got it.

[50:02] Boom.

[50:03] Take that, Kraven.

[50:03] He flies Calypso to his land in Russia where he now has an airstrip because I guess he's in and out all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[50:13] And he lives in like a geodesic dome.

[50:15] Yeah, like a cool little greenhouse.

[50:16] Yeah.

[50:17] And his kitchen has flipped down panels full of hunting knives and swords and things like that.

[50:23] Which is insane because it's like, are you having guests a lot, dude?

[50:27] If people are here, they probably –

[50:29] Oh, you're saying there's no need to disguise.

[50:30] Yeah, there's no need to hide it.

[50:31] Like just leave it out.

[50:32] I think it's all tiny home type stuff.

[50:34] It's just about using the space the best, you know.

[50:36] Yeah, I guess you're right.

[50:37] This table is also a bed.

[50:38] Like this bed is also a chair.

[50:40] The sink is also a toilet.

[50:42] It's a tiny home.

[50:43] You know, everything has a double use, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[50:46] Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Elliott Kalan

[50:48] The toilet is also a shower.

[50:50] If you stand underneath me and I pee on you and Krips is like, I don't think that's how it works.

[50:56] It's okay.

[50:57] I have the world's greatest environmental diet.

[50:59] So my pee is super pure and clean.

[51:01] I drink so much water because, again, I'm always working out that my pee is just pure water at this point.

[51:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:07] Yeah, I don't know.

[51:08] I feel like with all the protein powders he has to be eating, it's got to be messing with his stream.

[51:13] That's probably true, yeah.

[51:14] So they have a little bit of time where they're just like hanging out in the woods and he's like showing her stuff.

[51:20] You know, they're connecting, but it doesn't really reach like actual romantic interest.

[51:26] Meanwhile, the rhino and the foreigner manage to, you know, they intimidate Dimitri.

[51:32] They chop off one of his fingers.

[51:34] We found out that they tried to get money out of his dad and his dad's not interested.

[51:39] He doesn't care.

[51:40] He's like, they're going to kill him anyway.

[51:42] Russell Crowe's accent is way more fun.

[51:44] Yeah.

[51:45] I want to suck your blood.

[51:46] Oh, blah, blah.

[51:48] So they, but they, using the foreigner, find some trace poison from one of Craven's blow darts.

[51:56] And he tracks down where that flower is from.

[52:02] This pee is only a very small part, small forest in Russia.

[52:06] So they're like, we got him.

[52:08] So they fly over there with Dimitri and they're going to track down Craven.

Dan McCoy

[52:12] Like Sherlock Holmes.

[52:12] He wrote a monograph on that particular plant.

[52:15] So he happened to know that.

Stuart Wellington

[52:17] So they bring a bunch of mercenaries and they go to track down Craven.

[52:21] Craven gets all his gear on and they, we get a little bit of a fight.

[52:26] Craven murderizes a whole bunch of mercenaries with a bunch of Ewok style traps.

Elliott Kalan

[52:32] They all step in exactly the right places that they need to step to set off the traps.

[52:36] He's a super hunter.

[52:38] He's a super hunter.

[52:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:40] He knows exactly where someone's going to set their boot.

[52:42] Eventually he runs afoul of the foreigner who attacks him with his nightmare gun, which has some kind of poison that gives you nightmares before killing you.

[52:54] Of course, his nightmares are all spiders.

[52:56] You know why it's spiders?

[52:59] You know why it's spiders?

[53:00] Why would it be spiders?

[53:01] Spider-Man, baby.

Elliott Kalan

[53:02] Because there's no Spider-Man in this universe where the movie takes place.

[53:05] But, you know.

Dan McCoy

[53:05] I was just taken by the phrase nightmare gun.

[53:08] I was like thinking, is that a better like direct-to-video movie?

[53:13] Or is it like a pulp paperback maybe?

[53:16] Nightmare gun?

[53:17] Why does it have to be one or the other?

Elliott Kalan

[53:18] It could be all of them.

[53:19] Yeah.

[53:19] And so it makes sense.

[53:22] If you know Craven's a Spider-Man character, it makes sense he has this spider dream.

[53:25] I mean it also – it harkens back to Craven's last hunt where there's a sequence where he's just eating handfuls of spiders.

[53:31] They're crawling all over and he's just picking them up and eating them.

[53:33] But it is –

Dan McCoy

[53:33] So he can become the Spider-Man, right?

Elliott Kalan

[53:35] Yes, so he can become the spider, exactly.

[53:38] Because then he puts on Spider-Man's costume and he says, I'm going to be better than you and I'm going to do the things you couldn't do.

[53:43] But it is very silly to me that this guy who's like the ultimate hunter and has kinship with all the animals is afraid of spiders.

[53:50] Something that is just a normal thing everybody encounters pretty much in daily life.

Stuart Wellington

[53:54] It would have been so funnier if his nightmare was that like the forest was replaced with like a city and he was wearing a suit and he had to carry a briefcase.

[54:04] I have a counterpoint.

[54:05] A briefcase cage, you know.

[54:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:07] But spiders are really weird looking.

[54:10] That's true.

[54:10] Spiders are weird looking.

[54:12] They're super freaky.

Elliott Kalan

[54:12] Again, I will – it's more the point – it's less that spiders are inherently strange or scary.

[54:17] But rather that Craven has been built up to us as a man of nature, a man of the wild.

[54:21] And so the idea that a spider would – a little spider would scare him seems like a strange Achilles heel for a guy who I guarantee you has woken up with bugs and spiders crawling all over him many times in his life.

Stuart Wellington

[54:32] So any – I'm sure he used them as a source of protein.

[54:35] So we get a little bit of a fight.

[54:36] He has to.

Elliott Kalan

[54:36] Because he's micro-proteining all day.

Stuart Wellington

[54:39] Yeah.

[54:39] We get a little fight between the foreigner and a drugged up Craven.

[54:43] It's mainly Christopher Abbott doing some cool – some cool kicks and knee moves.

[54:47] It's pretty cool.

[54:48] I like it.

[54:49] And it looks –

[54:50] It looks like he's –

Elliott Kalan

[54:51] He really takes his time.

[54:52] He takes his – instead of just shooting Craven in the head, he takes his time kind of stunting the whole time.

Stuart Wellington

[54:57] Yeah, of course.

[54:58] And he even goes so far.

[54:59] He's got Craven where he wants him and he dismisses the other mercenaries.

[55:04] He's like, oh, this is done.

[55:06] You can leave.

[55:07] So they leave and tell their boss like, yeah, I guess Craven's dead so we can go.

[55:12] But before you can do the –

Dan McCoy

[55:13] One of these inexplicable.

[55:14] I'm sorry.

[55:15] I know you watch Reacher.

[55:17] I watch Reacher all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[55:18] Are you up to date on Reacher?

[55:19] Heck yeah, I am.

Dan McCoy

[55:20] There's an episode.

[55:21] I don't want to spoil anything too much for people.

[55:23] So, you know, jump ahead if you're worried at all.

[55:24] But there's an episode where Reacher's like, I'm going to let you go do this thing alone.

[55:29] And I'm like, no, Reacher, why would you do that?

[55:32] You're the big burly one.

[55:33] Yeah.

[55:34] You got to be there.

[55:36] This is not going to end well.

[55:37] Anyway, sorry.

[55:38] So.

[55:40] So the Farner then alone with Craven kills him, right?

Stuart Wellington

[55:43] He's about to do his coup de grace and he starts doing his count off.

[55:46] But, of course, he is interrupted.

[55:48] Calypso shoots an arrow through his eye socket, killing him instantly.

[55:52] She gives us a little tagline, like three bitch or something.

Elliott Kalan

[55:57] He counts one, two, and then she just goes, three, motherfucker.

[56:00] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[56:01] It's like, what a cool movie.

[56:02] And also like, so did she hear him mumbling the numbers to himself from far away?

[56:06] Yeah, I don't know how this magic works.

[56:07] They rehearsed this earlier, actually.

[56:09] Oh, I see.

Stuart Wellington

[56:09] She comes over.

[56:11] Craven's dead from all the toxins.

[56:14] She gives him a little nip of the old super juice.

[56:16] A little swing of that.

[56:18] A little hair of the dog that brought you back to life.

[56:20] Yeah.

[56:21] Brings him, puts him back in the game.

[56:23] He gets a one-up.

Elliott Kalan

[56:25] I wish Scott Pilgrim style a one-up had then just gone, ta-ding, and floated up to the top of the screen.

Stuart Wellington

[56:30] Here's a little life bar.

Dan McCoy

[56:32] He's a whimsy in the whole movie.

Stuart Wellington

[56:35] So the rhino manages, and we find out the reason he's called the rhino, and we're going to learn more in a second,

[56:42] is that both out of his attitude that like a rhino, if he sees an opportunity, he charges forward without thinking.

[56:50] Yeah.

[56:50] But more importantly.

[56:51] More importantly, in his quest to overcome his physical frailty, he underwent experimental treatments from a doctor in New York.

Elliott Kalan

[57:00] A doctor in New York, he drops the name Dr. Miles Warren, who is another Spider-Man villain, the Jackal, who is better known as the creator of the Spider-Clone.

[57:09] And he's the guy who's behind every cloning thing in Spider-Man.

[57:12] He's a real crappy villain.

Dan McCoy

[57:15] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[57:15] He's the kind of villain who is not that interesting to look at, not that fun to see stories with, and he has caused way more trouble than it's worth.

[57:21] But anyway, he says Dr. Miles Warren, he's the one who gave me this treatment to make me stronger.

[57:26] And what kind of treatment is it, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[57:27] So the treatment, it seems to have been some kind of a failed treatment because what it does is it makes him very strong and indestructible.

[57:34] His skin turns hard like a rhino's.

[57:38] It makes him indestructible like a rhino.

[57:40] And I'm like, I'm sad to report, rhinos are not indestructible.

Elliott Kalan

[57:44] No, they are endangered, actually.

[57:45] Yeah.

[57:45] Because they're so easy to kill, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[57:47] Yeah.

[57:47] But if he is not connected to some kind of a medicine, his body rapidly crusts over into this armored form, basically, right?

[58:00] Yeah.

[58:01] He looks kind of like the thing or like the rhino, basically.

Dan McCoy

[58:05] But also just kind of—

[58:06] He looks like the character of the rhino.

[58:08] Yeah.

[58:09] I kind of love how low-tech it feels because it feels like he's just got a gas can, like one of those plastic rubber.

[58:15] Yeah.

[58:15] There are gas cans, like hooked up in his back.

[58:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[58:18] He's got like a camelback backpack that just goes into a port in his side and just fills him full of no rhino juice.

[58:24] What's this liquid?

Dan McCoy

[58:25] Oh, this is what keeps me from being a rhino.

[58:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[58:27] And I mean, like it is a thing where he kind of dresses like a little kid going to school wearing a little backpack.

[58:34] So I could see why other gangsters might not take him seriously.

[58:37] Yeah.

[58:38] So rhino and his remaining goons scoop up Dimitri.

[58:42] They're like, I guess we'll try and ransom him anyway.

[58:45] And they start driving off.

[58:47] They're like, job's done.

[58:48] Kraven's dead.

[58:49] Hooray.

[58:50] Of course, now Kraven shows up with a stampede of, what did you say, oxen?

[58:55] I called them wildebeest.

[58:56] Some kind of—

[58:57] I think they're some kind of large—

[58:58] Like a musk ox or something.

[58:59] Pack animal.

[59:00] Large quadruped.

[59:01] Rontos?

[59:01] Are they Rontos?

[59:02] They're probably Rontos.

[59:02] Yeah, they might be Rontos.

Elliott Kalan

[59:04] Yeah, they could be.

[59:04] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[59:05] And they smash into the convoy.

[59:09] They smash all the stuff.

[59:10] All the goons get smushed.

Dan McCoy

[59:12] They used to have a great big convoy.

[59:15] That's a joke for, I guess, people who remember novelty songs from the 70s.

[59:21] Sure.

[59:22] Yeah.

[59:22] It feels like our audience.

[59:23] That's the right podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[59:24] I guess so.

[59:25] So Dimitri gets knocked around, but he's okay.

[59:29] Rhino's like, it's rhino time.

[59:31] So he unhooks himself, and he gets all crusty, and he grows a couple of horns on his head.

[59:37] That looks cool.

Elliott Kalan

[59:38] I want to talk about the rhino.

[59:39] I want to pause for a moment to talk about the rhino design.

[59:42] So the rhino is a fully CGI character at this point.

[59:44] There's no—you're not seeing a real actor.

[59:46] It's probably a mocap thing.

[59:48] But they decided for some reason—

[59:50] It also means that this character who has been a very talkative character up to this point,

[59:54] when he's the rhino, he just bellows and screams and roars.

[59:57] He doesn't have any lines of dialogue.

[59:58] But they just—the rhino in the comics is a pretty, like, a pretty big, round guy.

[1:00:05] Like, he has a body like a rhino.

[1:00:07] Like, he's like a walking tank.

[1:00:08] He's huge, yeah.

[1:00:09] Whereas this rhino has a very tiny waist and is super cut, just like Kraven.

[1:00:14] And I thought this looked hilarious to me, that this rhino has, like, a wasp waist.

[1:00:18] No, you're right.

[1:00:18] And these huge shoulders and huge pecs.

[1:00:20] It kind of looks like a whole for this guy, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:23] Vin Diesel had a rhino head.

[1:00:25] Yeah.

[1:00:26] Sort of.

[1:00:27] Rhinos notoriously don't work out their lower body.

[1:00:31] I don't know.

[1:00:32] And it's kind of cool that, like, his shirt rips off, but his pants stay pristine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:38] Yeah, he has those stretch pants that can move with rhino muscles.

[1:00:40] No, he goes to Hulk.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:41] He has scrunch butt yoga pants.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:45] His waist was just so narrow that I kept thinking that Kraven was just going to snap him in half.

[1:00:48] Like, it seemed like a real weak point.

[1:00:51] He kind of shrugs.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:52] I was trying to think of, like, where you buy the Hulk pants.

[1:00:54] Like, H&M Hulk and monsters.

[1:00:56] Is that where you get the stretchy pants?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:58] Yeah, that's the fast, casual place for pants that you wear when you're a detergent monster.

[1:01:02] Surprisingly more expensive than you would think.

[1:01:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:06] So, yeah.

[1:01:07] So, they fight.

[1:01:08] There's a couple of, like, jokes here and there about how heavy rhino is.

[1:01:13] Eventually, like, and it seems like rhino is getting the best of Kraven.

[1:01:18] He's, like, punching him and throwing cars at him and stuff.

[1:01:21] It is kind of weird, though, because I feel like becoming the rhino causes him so much pain.

[1:01:26] He wouldn't actually, like, train as rhino very often, right?

[1:01:30] Like, he wouldn't.

[1:01:31] I would think not.

[1:01:31] So, like, the trained fighter would probably do better.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:36] I don't know, because the rhino is so much bigger and stronger that if Kraven didn't have protagonist protection,

[1:01:42] then you would think that rhino would very easily just pick him up and tear his head off or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:47] Especially since he's recovering from a fatal dose of poison.

[1:01:50] Well, also, until—

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:51] But he also had a non-fatal dose of magic potion TBD.

[1:01:55] Yeah, that cancels out.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:56] But also, like, until Kraven, like, notices, oh, right, the rhino juice hole.

[1:02:02] Like, there's literally no weakness on the rhino that he can take advantage of.

[1:02:06] Yeah, he's covered in rhino-thick skin.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:08] Yeah.

[1:02:09] Unfortunate for the rhino, yes, he does have an open medical port on his side.

[1:02:13] And his shirt ripping off really reveals that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:17] Yeah, which is probably helpful that he has—that that's his route into the rhino when he stabs a pipe into the port.

[1:02:26] And he starts bleeding everywhere.

[1:02:28] That's better than, like, sucks on him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:30] What's the point if he had to do that and, like, blast his eyeballs out or something?

[1:02:34] He sucks in the end so that he can create a vacuum, like, you're siphoning oil, so the blood will just pour out of him, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:39] Well, and then he drinks all the blood and then his skin booms rhino skin.

[1:02:43] Oh, no.

[1:02:43] And then we have an equal battle.

[1:02:44] Oh, no.

[1:02:45] That would be cool.

[1:02:45] So he blasts him and the rhino's pretty fucked up at this point.

[1:02:48] And then he wraps a tow chain around him and then throws the tow chain into the herd of wildebeests who then drag him around and he gets all trampled.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:57] But then his chain disappears.

[1:03:00] Like, and then he's dragged around and trampled.

[1:03:02] And then when Kraven goes over to him, the chain is gone.

[1:03:04] And I'm like, all right, well, I guess the—

[1:03:06] The wildebeest took it.

[1:03:07] The wildebeests are like, cool, free chain.

[1:03:09] Let's untie you so we can use it.

[1:03:11] You know what I'm saying?

[1:03:11] Suck up.

[1:03:12] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:13] Good quality chain like this?

[1:03:14] We're going to create a society built around the beautiful chain.

[1:03:18] Worship of the chain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:19] Oh, we worship the chain.

[1:03:21] We're all out of the links in the chain.

[1:03:23] We finally have something to protect our boat.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:26] Yeah.

[1:03:29] Yeah, to wrap around our tires when it gets snowy.

[1:03:34] Tintin's dog, Snowy?

[1:03:36] Yes.

[1:03:37] When Tintin's dog, Snowy, shows up, you need to have chains on your tires.

[1:03:41] Otherwise, you cannot drive over it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:43] Oh, I understand that.

[1:03:44] You will not drive over, Snowy.

[1:03:47] Don't do it.

[1:03:47] He's such a cute little terrier.

[1:03:49] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:49] I'm a drunk sea captain.

[1:03:51] You know I'm going to be driving over on Snowy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:53] And that's when Tintin goes out for revenge.

[1:03:56] And it's like John Wick, but it's Tintin.

[1:03:57] It's called Tin Wick.

[1:03:58] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:59] Oh, man.

[1:04:00] That's two things mushed together.

[1:04:02] That's 90% of the T-shirts that are sold to me on Facebook.

[1:04:05] Is that what the movie Tin Men is?

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:06] Yeah.

[1:04:07] That's what Tin Men is about.

[1:04:08] Yeah, it's about Tintin is grown up.

[1:04:09] Snowy is dead.

[1:04:11] He's a salesman now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:14] Terrible.

[1:04:15] Yeah.

[1:04:16] And then the last one is the Ten Commandments where he explains his philosophies of life.

[1:04:23] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:24] It's an older man.

[1:04:25] That's when he goes up to the mountain.

[1:04:27] When he comes down, they're worshiping a golden Snowy and he has to smash it.

[1:04:33] He goes up in the drunken sea captain and is like, I guess we need a different religion now.

[1:04:37] Let's worship the dog.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:39] Yeah.

[1:04:39] The sea captain throws his bottle of booze out.

[1:04:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:41] Where's your God now, Tintin?

[1:04:42] He's like, never again.

[1:04:44] So, yep.

[1:04:45] So, Kraven approaches a thoroughly stompified, rapidly dying rhino who is missing.

[1:04:53] There's no chain anywhere to be found.

[1:04:55] Huge flaw.

[1:04:58] So, rhino's dying.

[1:05:00] Someone out there.

[1:05:00] And this is where the rhino reveals, he's like, of course, you know, he hints at how he was able to find out Kraven's true identity, which we'll later find out was that his father had leaked the information.

[1:05:15] This is also where the rhino says the – his final words are, I wish I'd never met you, Kravenovs.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:23] I'm like, yeah, no shit.

[1:05:24] It went real bad for you, dude.

[1:05:26] You're right.

[1:05:26] I had so much potential.

[1:05:28] Look at what I accomplished.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:29] Your life would have been much better without meeting the Kravenovs.

[1:05:32] Yeah.

[1:05:32] You wouldn't be a rhino man for one thing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:34] So, rhino's dead.

[1:05:36] Everybody's happy.

[1:05:38] Now we begin –

[1:05:39] You're just saying a yum-dum.

[1:05:40] Now we begin –

[1:05:42] There are now multiple –

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:43] The muskox now celebrate that the end of the rhino tyranny has come and they topple statues.

[1:05:48] There's fireworks.

[1:05:49] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:49] And you're like, oh, great.

[1:05:49] The movie's over.

[1:05:50] Nope.

[1:05:50] We have a bunch of epilogues.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:52] There's more epilogues in this movie than in fucking Venom 3.

[1:05:56] Both movies were movies where I'd be like, oh, we're in – this has to be the end climax of the movie.

[1:06:00] And I'd pause it and there would be 25 minutes left in the movie.

[1:06:02] Although, luckily –

[1:06:03] What?

Dan McCoy

[1:06:04] Luckily, Stuart, out of the two, you're summarizing the one that doesn't have credit sequences.

[1:06:09] What?

[1:06:10] We'll get to it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:11] Okay.

[1:06:12] So epilogue one, this is where Kraven tracks down his father who is on a solo hunting trip somewhere.

[1:06:18] He – they talk some shit a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:21] He's not hunting with the Marvel hitman Solo who is another character who does not – is not in this movie but is a Marvel character.

[1:06:27] Or Solo from the movie Solo.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:28] It would be pretty cool if Solo and maybe like Silver Sable showed up.

[1:06:32] Sure, yeah.

[1:06:33] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:33] Silver Sable, Farner's ex-wife in the comics.

[1:06:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:06:38] Played by what, Allison – what's her name?

[1:06:41] Marnie from Girls –

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:42] That would be amazing if it was Allison Williams playing Silver Sable.

[1:06:46] And it was a girls reunion.

[1:06:47] Yeah, I would love it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:49] That's what the fans – that's what Marvel fans are craving is a girls reunion.

[1:06:54] This Marvel fan is.

[1:06:55] Anyway, continue.

[1:06:56] Okay, so there's a – so they talk some shit.

[1:07:00] You know, they're like –

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:01] Wait, because what's her name?

[1:07:04] Mamet, who's also in Girls.

[1:07:05] She was in Madame Web.

[1:07:06] Madame Web.

[1:07:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:08] We're just Allison Williams and Lena Dunham away from a –

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:11] We're so close.

[1:07:11] From a Sony Spider-Man universe of girls reunion.

[1:07:14] Gemma is the Australian one?

[1:07:14] Oh, yeah, Gemma.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:15] Gemma, that's right also, yeah.

[1:07:16] But she'll – yeah, put her in – put her in – tap her in.

[1:07:19] She could be the kangaroo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:21] You know, just make that character a woman instead of a man.

[1:07:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:24] So we – they talk some shit.

[1:07:27] There's the like, we're not so different, yada, yada, yada.

[1:07:30] And then Kraven wanders off and then a giant bear shows up and kills his dad.

[1:07:34] And he has taken his dad's bullets.

[1:07:36] He's taken his dad's bullets.

[1:07:37] So his dad is helpless against this bear.

[1:07:38] Yeah.

[1:07:40] We don't actually see him die, so he might show up later as like a bear man.

[1:07:44] Epilogue number two.

[1:07:45] I mean there's an –

[1:07:46] Or was two bears inside him.

[1:07:48] There's a Spider-Man villain called Grizzly.

[1:07:49] He could come back as that.

[1:07:51] Epilogue two.

[1:07:52] This is technically a year later because it's Dimitri's next birthday.

[1:07:56] They're hanging out at Dimitri's club.

[1:07:58] They're catching up.

[1:08:01] Dimitri has a bit of a heel turn.

[1:08:03] It turns out that he has now taken over his father's empire and he is now the super villain,

[1:08:07] the chameleon, and he can morph his face and voice.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:10] But also he like basically like dresses down Craven for being like, oh, you're like so high and mighty.

[1:08:16] You think you're so moral.

[1:08:17] You're just like dad.

[1:08:19] And like Craven's sort of like attitude at the end of the movie kind of suggests that he accepts that this is true.

[1:08:26] And in a slightly better movie, I kind of thought this was sort of cool at the end.

[1:08:30] Yeah.

[1:08:30] The brother's like, hey, guess what?

[1:08:33] If you're just going out and murdering a list of people, maybe you're not the hero.

[1:08:37] Yeah.

[1:08:37] And he's like, what happened to dad?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:40] A hunting accident?

[1:08:41] Mm.

[1:08:42] But let's not forget the funny part of this, which is when to reveal his power, Dimitri walks off and Sergei is like, hey, hey, talk to me.

[1:08:52] And Dimitri turns around and he has Craven's head on his much shorter body.

[1:08:57] And it is hilarious to see this guy looking at a shorter version of himself and he's got a smirk on his face like, eh, see what I can do?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:04] Oh, that's what I'd look like as a shorter man.

[1:09:05] He went to Dr. – exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:08] So he went to Dr. Miles Warren and got chameleon face powers.

[1:09:12] But it is very funny, this visual.

[1:09:14] Just like to be confronted by a much shorter version of yourself.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:17] Mm-hmm.

[1:09:18] Yeah, you're like, is this what I look like as a kid?

[1:09:20] No.

[1:09:21] No, I didn't have a beard back then.

[1:09:23] Okay.

[1:09:23] And then we have a final epilogue.

[1:09:25] This is where Craven returns to his father's house.

[1:09:28] Everything is packed up in boxes, but there is a gift for him with a note.

[1:09:32] He opens up that box.

[1:09:33] You know what that shit is.

[1:09:35] It is his – it's his cool lion vest.

[1:09:38] The whole time you're like, why isn't Craven dressed like Craven?

[1:09:41] It's because they had to wait until the very fucking end like they always do.

[1:09:44] He puts on this cool vest, takes his shirt off so you can see all those fucking abs.

[1:09:48] He's got the fucking King's Hawaiian fucking abs there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:51] It's amazing.

[1:09:52] It's really like – he has extra abs that other human beings don't have.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:56] And then he sits down in the big ass throne style chair from the classic Craven pose and he like, you know, man spreads, sits in that chair with that cool ass fucking vest.

[1:10:08] And you're like, hell yeah.

[1:10:09] That's what I've waited this whole movie to see.

[1:10:12] Yeah.

[1:10:13] And I'm sure they –

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:14] The hero sitting down.

[1:10:15] But didn't they just put that shit on the poster?

[1:10:17] Like, come on.

[1:10:18] I think that it was one of the posters.

[1:10:20] So you have to wait the whole movie to get to the image that the poster shows you.

[1:10:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:24] And then that's the end.

[1:10:25] Were there –

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:26] I don't recall there were –

Dan McCoy

[1:10:27] There were no –

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:29] There were no –

[1:10:29] I think by the time this movie was coming out, I think there was an understanding –

[1:10:32] The writing was on the wall.

[1:10:34] – that this experiment had run its course.

[1:10:36] This no Spider-Man, Spider-Man universe.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:38] And they might have at some point intended one of the – at least one of those epilogues to be a post-credit sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:45] Oh, it's possible, yeah.

[1:10:46] I could see that.

[1:10:47] I could definitely see if the chameleon scene being a mid-credit scene instead of a –

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:52] And then him sitting in the chairs is the final post-credit scene.

[1:10:57] Yeah.

[1:10:57] That's it.

[1:10:58] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:58] So that was Kraven.

[1:11:01] Thank you for taking on summary duties.

[1:11:05] And now for our several judgments, our final judgments of whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like.

[1:11:14] I'm just going to say like I apologize if this is sort of getting ahead of ourselves.

[1:11:18] I don't know if we'll return to this topic with the Vidim episode, which we're recording later.

[1:11:24] I don't know which one we're releasing first.

[1:11:26] But I think this is at the bottom of my Spider-Man without Spider-Man, Sony villain films because it is so just sort of joyless.

[1:11:40] Like it does not have either the wacky fun of Madame Web, which is my favorite of all of these.

[1:11:47] Yeah, I love it.

[1:11:48] Or even Tom Hardy's joy in making Venom movies.

[1:11:52] Like clearly this is the love of his life, whether the movies are that great or not.

[1:11:58] This just feels like unfortunately they made a worse movie by trying to make a better one.

[1:12:05] Yes.

[1:12:05] And I think it's bad, bad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:07] Well, we'll talk about the Venom movies probably when we talk about Venom 3.

[1:12:11] But I feel like the Venom movies are very –

[1:12:14] I feel like straightforward movies that manage to fit a lot of weirdness into the margins.

[1:12:19] Yeah.

[1:12:20] And this movie for the most part is very straight-faced and very boring.

[1:12:25] I like that there were kind of more like supervillains than I expected.

[1:12:30] Like as soon as Christopher Abbott showed up, I'm like, okay, I like this stuff.

[1:12:35] But yeah, this one's kind of – this is a fairly boring mess.

[1:12:41] It's like – I just don't know who it's for.

[1:12:46] Like who – yeah, it feels like destined to just like be a – like an afternoon action movie like direct – like cable launch.

[1:12:56] You know what I mean?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:57] I agree that I'm – that this is one that I feel similarly.

[1:13:00] It's a movie that is kind of afraid of having fun or of being fun, which is strange for a Kraven the Hunter movie.

[1:13:08] Yeah.

[1:13:08] And I agree that there's a surprising amount of like superpowers in it for a movie that I expected to have none.

[1:13:12] I thought this was going to be like just a guy stabbing guys in suits basically who fired guns at him.

[1:13:19] And so it was nice that they could – they really leaned into the fact that some of the characters have extraordinary powers.

[1:13:25] But it really wants to – it wants you to take it seriously, which I think is a hard ask for this movie.

[1:13:32] And with the Venom movies, at the very least, they don't want you to take it fully seriously all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:36] Where does this portrayal – onscreen portrayal of the rhino fit for you?

[1:13:42] Is this better or worse than Paul Giamatti as the rhino?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:45] I feel like that was a little bit too much having fun instead.

[1:13:50] I mean that's kind of the opposite where there they were like we're not even going to bother trying to take any of this seriously.

[1:13:54] So I don't know.

[1:13:55] I feel like the – I like his performance until he becomes the rhino visual on screen.

[1:14:01] And there I feel like that visual doesn't quite work for me.

[1:14:05] He has a little waist.

[1:14:06] He's got tiny hands but huge shoulders.

[1:14:09] So there's something very kind of like weirdly out of proportion with him that instead of creating a sense of power and strength to me, created a sense of like, oh, I hope this guy is okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:19] He looks like an action figure based on a cartoon.

[1:14:21] Yeah, like Johnny Bravo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:22] He's Johnny Bravo.

[1:14:23] He does look like Johnny Bravo.

[1:14:24] Yeah, there's something very Popeye about him too.

[1:14:27] But this movie is – I was going to say in terms of these no Spider-Man, Spider-Man movies that we've watched, it's also pretty far down.

[1:14:36] And in some ways like I think Morbius is a worse movie but I think it is a more fun movie to watch than this one.

[1:14:43] I totally agree actually.

[1:14:45] This is like competently dull for the most part.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:46] Yeah, at least Matt Smith has fun in Morbius.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:50] And there's wacky stuff like when they're like – they cut to that chyron that's like international water.

[1:14:56] So you start rubbing your hands like, oh, he can do his bat experiments now.

[1:14:59] You can do whatever he wants.

[1:15:00] Yeah.

[1:15:01] No one can touch him because he's on a ship out in the ocean.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:04] He works at a New York hospital but he has a secret man-sized cylinder full of bats in his office.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:11] Boss, the cleaning crew was in here just dusting things.

[1:15:15] They found this cylinder of bats in your office.

[1:15:19] It's okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:19] The guy we hired is a Nobel Prize winning scientist and also a vampire so it's okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:23] Hey, boss, your chewy order showed up.

[1:15:26] It's full of bat chow.

[1:15:28] Where do you want me to put this thing?

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:30] I'm the guano delivery guy.

[1:15:32] I've got a call to come to this hospital and remove some guano so I can deliver it.

[1:15:36] Oh, yeah, just a sideline I have.

[1:15:38] Selling the guano, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:40] Big money in guano.

[1:15:42] Anyway, Elliot, I think you had something else to say maybe at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:47] I did have something else to say at this point.

[1:15:49] I mentioned bonus content before.

[1:15:51] Let's talk a little bit about it.

[1:15:52] It's the MaxFun drive.

[1:15:53] I've told you a couple times.

[1:15:54] I'll tell you this time and at least one more time before the show is over.

[1:15:58] Bonus content, what is it?

[1:16:00] It is a library of episodes of your favorite podcasts that you can only listen to when you're a MaxFun member.

[1:16:06] And that library just grows every year.

[1:16:08] It's not like each year we clear out the vault and put new stuff in.

[1:16:12] It just grows.

[1:16:12] So the library has gotten really big over the course of the past, I don't know what, decade or more that we and other shows have been putting together bonus content.

[1:16:20] Some of these are team-ups between different Maximum Fun hosts.

[1:16:23] Some are Maximum Fun hosts taking over each other's shows, episodes with special guests.

[1:16:27] And as we've said, we've done some audio commentaries for movies.

[1:16:30] We've done extra episodes where we talk about different movies.

[1:16:34] Last year we did three extra full episodes talking about the movies of Graydon Clark, I believe it was, including the all-time video game classic Joysticks.

[1:16:45] And this year we are going back to the game playing well.

[1:16:49] Very excited about it.

[1:16:50] We are once again doing a Flop Tales, or as it's called this time, Slop Tales game where Stuart has run us and our good friend Jubin Parang through a new role-playing adventure set in a new setting but using variations of our beloved characters.

[1:17:03] What were we doing, Jake?

[1:17:04] What were we doing, Jake?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:04] Going out and slopping the pigs?

[1:17:06] What's the thing?

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:07] Yeah, you guys have fallen into my restaurant trap.

[1:17:10] Oh.

[1:17:10] Yeah, it's a restaurant-themed role-playing game, and it was super fun.

[1:17:15] I had such a good time doing it.

[1:17:16] We got to play characters that were a little bit, at least in my case, out of my usual comfort zone.

[1:17:21] And it was really fun.

[1:17:23] I think you're really going to enjoy it.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:24] I also, just a side note, Stuart, I like it when you sort of provide notes of what sort of genre tone we're aiming for in there.

[1:17:32] Like, I enjoyed the dog ones because it was like, oh, you're in like a Don Bluth cartoon.

[1:17:36] And this one, you're like, oh, you're in kind of an old-fashioned three-camera sitcom set in a restaurant.

[1:17:42] And so I think that was a lot of fun to do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:44] And it worked out really well.

[1:17:45] So if you join or you're already a member, you get access to the entire library of bonus content, every single Maximum Fund show, hundreds of hours of extra entertainment that you're going to need to get through these hard times we're living in.

[1:17:56] When you join at just $5 a month, higher than that, you get extra stuff, but you still get access to that bonus content.

[1:18:02] And if you're thinking strictly about value, that's a great value, $5 a month for hundreds of hours of extra shows.

[1:18:09] And we're excited about the bonus content we're doing this year.

[1:18:11] It was, like I said, super fun.

[1:18:13] I think you're really going to enjoy it.

[1:18:15] It's a great game that Stuart brought us through.

[1:18:17] And it was great to have our friend Jubin coming in and joining us because he always brings a little extra comic spice.

[1:18:23] As I said while we were recording it, there was nothing funnier to me than a Jubin performance as a character who is attempting to exude confidence and authority and failing consistently to do that.

[1:18:34] So to listen to that show, to listen to all of our bonus stuff, will you please join us as a member by going to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[1:18:42] And either joining at the $5 a month level or upgrading or boosting your membership.

[1:18:47] And one last thing I want to talk about, this is a different kind of bonus from your membership.

[1:18:51] It's not bonus content that affects you necessarily, but it is a way that this show affects other people.

[1:18:56] We, just to toot our own horn for a minute, we hear a lot from people who say, thank you for doing this really ridiculous show because I had a hard time and it really got me through it.

[1:19:07] Or something, you know, tragic or sad happened in my life and I needed to laugh about something that was goofy or ridiculous or dumb.

[1:19:15] And you guys helped me with it.

[1:19:16] And it is your membership that helps us to keep this show alive that makes that possible.

[1:19:21] So you're not just providing entertainment for you.

[1:19:23] You're providing the kind of escape valve that so many of us need when stressful things happen in our lives.

[1:19:30] I've had a very stressful past year and a half to two years.

[1:19:34] And doing this show has provided such a necessary thing for me to have fun and to enjoy myself, to be with my friends, to feel like I am making other people laugh.

[1:19:44] It's been really wonderful.

[1:19:45] And so your membership makes it possible not just for you to enjoy it, but for other people to enjoy it, especially at those times when they need enjoyment the most.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:52] I want to hop in for a second, sorry, and just say something about gift memberships just because you kind of bring up this area.

[1:19:56] Sure, sure.

[1:19:57] I'm very – it's a nice thing that MaxFun has done where you can actually gift a membership to someone else.

[1:20:03] And I know that this is like a very weird time right now.

[1:20:07] I don't think we need to get into it, but I'll just leave it there.

[1:20:11] And if you feel like it's not a time that you can do this sort of supporting, certainly understand.

[1:20:17] But these gift memberships are kind of nice because people who are in a better position, maybe are no Maximum Fun fan, can be like, you know what?

[1:20:25] I'm going to get a membership for you.

[1:20:28] And I think that's sort of a sweet thing that the network allows to happen.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:33] Yeah.

[1:20:33] As Rabbi Hillel famously said, if I'm not for myself, who will be?

[1:20:36] If I'm only for myself, what am I?

[1:20:39] And if not now, when?

[1:20:40] So do something for yourself.

[1:20:42] Do something for others.

[1:20:43] Do it now.

[1:20:44] Go to MaximumFun.org slash join and join or upgrade or boost your membership to keep the Flophouse rolling along, singing a song side by side.

[1:20:55] Side by side.

[1:21:00] Hey, you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:03] Yeah, you with the Giga Pet.

[1:21:05] Me?

[1:21:06] Do you like supporting artist-owned podcasts?

[1:21:08] Totally.

[1:21:09] What about limited edition gifts?

[1:21:11] Hours and hours of bonus content and more.

[1:21:14] Sounds sweet.

[1:21:16] Then stay tuned for Max Fun Drive 2025.

[1:21:21] www.maximumfun.org on the World Wide Web.

[1:21:25] Next week.

S4

[1:21:27] Hi, I'm Alexis.

[1:21:30] And I'm Ella.

[1:21:31] And we're the hosts of Comfort Creatures.

[1:21:32] We could spend the next 28 seconds telling you why you should listen, but instead, here's what our listeners have said about our show, because really, they do know best.

[1:21:39] The show is filled with stories and poems and science and friendship and laughter and tears sometimes, but tears that are from your heart being so filled up with love.

[1:21:47] A cozy show about enthusiasm for animals of all kinds, real and unreal.

[1:21:50] If you greet the dog before the person walking them or wander around the party looking for the host's cat, this podcast is for you.

[1:21:56] So come for the comfort and stay for Alexis' wild story about waking up to her cat, giving birth on top of her.

[1:22:02] So if that sounds like your cup of tea.

[1:22:04] Or coffee, Ella.

[1:22:04] We're not all Brits.

[1:22:05] Then join us.

[1:22:06] Every Thursday at MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:10] Shall I read some letters, boys?

[1:22:13] Yeah, why not?

[1:22:14] Okay.

[1:22:14] Yeah, sure.

[1:22:15] Into the joins.

[1:22:16] G-K-R.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:18] G-K- Chesterton.

[1:22:20] Oh, man.

[1:22:21] That's certainly the kind of joke that's worth $5 a month, right?

[1:22:23] Sorry, guys.

[1:22:24] Sorry.

[1:22:24] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:26] Somebody gave Elliot his stinker serum.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:29] Yeah, well, that's what we need the money for.

[1:22:31] We got to keep buying that serum.

[1:22:34] This letter is from Sam, last name withheld, who writes.

[1:22:40] Oh, Yosemite Sam, yeah.

[1:22:42] Hey, guys.

[1:22:42] He writes, dear Flophouse.

[1:22:43] Ooh, that varmint.

[1:22:44] Ooh, bracken, bracken.

[1:22:48] Sam says, hey, guys, new listener, longtime MaxFun supporter.

[1:22:51] I've got a weird prompt for you.

[1:22:53] One of my favorite small pleasures in life is the feeling of bathing after doing something that makes me feel real grimy.

[1:22:59] Oh, okay.

[1:22:59] Hiking, camping, yard work, et cetera.

[1:23:02] So whenever I'm watching a movie where a character has gone through a really harrowing physical experience that leaves them filthy and disheveled, I like to imagine how satisfying the subsequent bathing experience is.

[1:23:13] A great example is John McClane at the end of Any Die Hard.

[1:23:16] Yeah.

[1:23:17] Shawshank Redemption tries to deliver that satisfaction, but presumably that pond was full of sewage, which seems like a real vibe killer.

[1:23:24] Is this something you can even relate to?

[1:23:25] And if so, what movie's characters come to mind?

[1:23:28] Thanks.

[1:23:29] Love the show.

[1:23:30] Sam.

[1:23:30] I mean, this absolutely – it's like a weird stress comes upon me when someone seems really dirty in a movie.

[1:23:38] I'm like, oh, man.

[1:23:39] Like, I don't want to deal with that.

[1:23:41] All their stuff.

[1:23:42] Yeah.

[1:23:43] The thing that – I don't know if this is the one, but the thing that came to mind is in Raising Arizona when they come out there, I'm actually slathered.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:49] I mean, it's much like the Shawshank scene, right?

[1:23:54] Same level of heroism.

[1:23:57] I think for – I also similarly have had that thought of like, oh, it's going to feel so good when they wash off all that stuff.

[1:24:02] Usually think about the actors.

[1:24:04] But the end of Jurassic Park, I got – I remember getting that feeling even as a kid watching how the kids in that are like dirty from their adventure and just like, oh, it's going to –

[1:24:14] that moment when they're like eating ice cream in the – before they're attacked, I guess, it's like, oh, if only – like, if only they could like bathe and clean off, then this would be – they'd really be able to recover from being chased by dinosaurs and electrocuted by a fence.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:29] Yeah.

[1:24:30] No, that's – I mean, I feel like that's such a like a natural human thing.

[1:24:33] The problem is when the movie shows somebody getting to wash off, you're like, when's the other shoe going to drop?

[1:24:39] Yeah.

[1:24:39] Is the dinosaur going to pop into the shower and eat them?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:43] Yeah.

[1:24:43] It's always a bad – it's a bad moment when you get to see it.

[1:24:45] Yeah.

[1:24:46] Oh, it's like the – at the end of Gremlins when Billy is – when he's fighting with – he's got that baseball bat and Stripe has the chainsaw and all those wood chips are flying onto him and sticking to his blood from the cuts on him.

[1:24:59] That's another one where I'm like, oh, it's going to feel good to wash all that off for sure.

[1:25:03] But then you don't want the gremlin again, as you're saying, Stuart, to get into the shower with you because he'll get wet.

[1:25:07] That's a problem.

[1:25:08] Then you got a bigger problem.

[1:25:09] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:09] Then you have to drop your –

[1:25:12] shower radio into the shower to electrocute the gremlin, but you're going to electrocute yourself.

[1:25:16] That kills you as well.

[1:25:17] Yeah.

[1:25:18] Yeah.

[1:25:19] Your only hope is that you're going to come back like Ernest and Ernest goes to jail.

[1:25:22] More gremlins, more problems.

[1:25:23] Yeah, yeah.

[1:25:24] Have electric problems, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:26] Electric problems.

[1:25:27] That's another good title.

[1:25:29] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:29] This is from Pete.

[1:25:30] That's a great – either band or new wave album.

[1:25:32] Yeah.

[1:25:33] Electric problems.

[1:25:33] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:34] Electric problems was a discarded Philip K. Dick.

[1:25:36] Short story collection.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:40] Pete last –

[1:25:41] That was his placeholder title for a lot of his books.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:46] It's just sort of generally what I have.

[1:25:50] Pete last name withheld says, hey, Flopsters.

[1:25:53] I was listening to your Rebel Moon episodes and thinking about something Elliot said regarding

[1:25:57] about – regarding how fun is the factor that makes Star Wars work.

[1:26:02] And I was thinking that a lot of franchise stuff goes the ways of seriousness and remakes with

[1:26:06] mixed results.

[1:26:07] Like Kraven.

[1:26:09] Batman and Ninja Turtles kind of oscillate between serious and less so.

[1:26:13] Transformers and Ghostbusters seem to have gotten a little more sincere.

[1:26:15] The Robocop remake was less goofy.

[1:26:17] Superman got more serious.

[1:26:18] The Mummy with Tom Cruise was a lot more dour than the Brendan Fraser one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:22] It's crazy that the Robocop remake got both less goofy and also had less to say.

[1:26:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:28] I see this a lot in comics.

[1:26:30] A previously silly character storyline that someone adapts to be less comedic.

[1:26:33] Although Elliot's Spider-Man and the X-Men was fun and had sincere moments.

[1:26:37] And I loved it.

[1:26:38] Thank you.

[1:26:38] Still see it memed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:39] Yeah.

[1:26:40] And you kind of find more of that in the Harley Quinn series currently in DC?

Dan McCoy

[1:26:44] There are some exceptions that come to mind.

[1:26:47] Fury Road is definitely sillier than Mad Max.

[1:26:50] Rocky 4 is the silliest Rocky movie, but not the last.

[1:26:54] But as a fan of silly things, I'm mildly alarmed that things are often made less fun.

[1:26:59] What do you think it is about remaking things that causes people to take it down that road

[1:27:02] as opposed to making things that were serious before more wacky?

[1:27:06] Like a wacky John Wick.

[1:27:08] John Wack.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:09] Thanks.

[1:27:10] John Wack is a series of movies that were kind of outside the purview of the Flop House.

[1:27:17] Outside the purview of the Flop House.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:19] Thanks.

[1:27:19] I've had so many laughs in good times listening, sorry, that I'm going to need you all to take

[1:27:24] really good care of yourselves so it goes on forever.

[1:27:27] Pete, last name withheld.

[1:27:29] I have a lot of, I think everyone has a lot of thoughts on this.

[1:27:32] I just want to say that what comes to me immediately is like sequels in a row tend to get wackier

[1:27:41] and wackier and wackier most of the time.

[1:27:44] And then when you reboot something, it tends to be serious.

[1:27:48] So there are a lot of things that are going on here, including like cultural shifts.

[1:27:53] But I think that part of it is it's often like a reboot of like, oh, that franchise got

[1:27:57] so wacky by the end.

[1:27:58] We have to take it back to basics.

[1:27:59] And by doing that, they like make it even grittier than and more joyless than the original

[1:28:03] was.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:04] That's definitely been the Batman storyline going back to the West Batman series, which

[1:28:08] is wacky.

[1:28:09] So Tim Burton's Batman is less wacky.

[1:28:11] But by the time it gets to Joel Schumacher sequels, it's very wacky.

[1:28:14] So they reboot it with the Christopher Nolan movies, which Dark Knight Rises is fairly wacky

[1:28:19] at times.

[1:28:19] And so they reboot it again and make it joyless.

[1:28:22] Yeah.

[1:28:22] So it's I think you're exactly right, Dan.

[1:28:24] You've anatomized that really well.

[1:28:27] But I think it is partly cultural shifts, too.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:29] And I feel like there's a thing where, especially when you're talking about bigger properties,

[1:28:33] that like the sillier you make it, the more likely people are going to have audiences are

[1:28:38] going to struggle with how to like accept it.

[1:28:41] Like they're going to be like, is this a comedy now?

[1:28:44] And especially with certain things like people like to put things into very specific genre

[1:28:51] boxes.

[1:28:51] And when they become a certain thing, it's, I don't know.

[1:28:54] People don't.

[1:28:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:55] I don't want to sound like an old man, but I do have this sort of general feeling that

[1:29:00] people were more accepting that multiple tones could exist in something at a point.

[1:29:08] And it's become harder for people to parse that somehow.

[1:29:12] I don't know.

[1:29:13] I think it is true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:14] I would call that if I was being, if I was coming up with a theory off the top of my head

[1:29:19] based on very little, I would say that is a combination of the thing, the people who make

[1:29:26] the decisions about what is being made being people who themselves have less of a sense

[1:29:31] of aesthetic understanding in that way.

[1:29:33] And so the things that get made that audiences learn how to watch things from, especially

[1:29:37] young audiences don't have that experience of watching something that has multiple tones

[1:29:42] in it.

[1:29:43] Even the Godfather has jokes in it.

[1:29:45] You know, the good, like Goodfellas is a very, just talk about gangster movies.

[1:29:48] Goodfellas is a like super funny movie, but also a really hard hitting and meaningful movie

[1:29:52] and emotionally rough at times.

[1:29:55] And it, but those are both movies that are made by master artists.

[1:29:58] And I feel like in the old days, there was a, often a better mix, often not a better mix,

[1:30:04] but there would be a more of a mix of, of tones.

[1:30:08] Whereas now it feels like, um, the best you can hope for is a really in mainstream entertainment

[1:30:13] seems like a really gritty thing that has some one liners in it or something that's super

[1:30:17] goofy where at the, at the very end, they throw in a scene of an attempt at high emotion,

[1:30:22] you know, to get a character arc in there.

[1:30:24] And I think that's a, I think you could put more, uh, the onus of that, I think is more

[1:30:29] on, uh, the, I think the economics of what gets made and what doesn't and how it gets

[1:30:34] made more than any individual creative choice that, that anyone is making.

[1:30:38] But that's a more complicated thing than I know how to talk about, but it's a, but it

[1:30:43] does.

[1:30:43] For the flop house.

[1:30:44] For the flop house, I've been, Ellie Gailen.

[1:30:46] They, uh, but it is frustrating sometimes when something is unrelentingly dour or not having

[1:30:52] fun or I think there's a, there's a misunderstanding sometimes about, um, uh, what audiences want

[1:30:58] out of the things that they're watching and what they're going to enjoy from it.

[1:31:01] But there's also the negative pressure that we've seen so often in the past 15, 20 years,

[1:31:07] I feel like of people who enjoy a thing that is essentially a, this is talking very broadly.

[1:31:13] Now I'm going to sound like Alan Moore talking, who enjoy a thing from their childhood and they

[1:31:17] want to continue to enjoy it and they want it to grow up with them.

[1:31:20] And maybe that thing is not really a good fit for the kind of mature storytelling they

[1:31:25] really should be getting at this age.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:26] And also when a lot of, a lot of things are catered toward an existing audience for that

[1:31:30] thing, that, that the people making that product are nerfing that content are worried that,

[1:31:36] that they are going to, by making it silly, that they're being disrespectful for it.

[1:31:41] It's, it's similar to the way that like, uh, a certain, let's say vocal, uh, faction amongst

[1:31:47] Marvel fans were complaining about the She-Hulk TV show is being a comedy.

[1:31:51] And it's like, you never read fucking She-Hulk then, did you?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:55] That was a funny comic book.

[1:31:56] She-Hulk has been a comedy comic for 40 years now, 35 years.

[1:32:00] Like, yeah, it's a, but, uh, they, yeah, I think, I think there's a, there's a sense of,

[1:32:05] um, defensiveness about it.

[1:32:07] That makes it harder for, for them to have fun, harder for creators to have fun with

[1:32:10] it because the, the fans are defensively, you know, open to feeling like they're being

[1:32:16] ridiculed.

[1:32:16] There was a, there's a theory I read years ago, not years ago, like a year ago that I,

[1:32:19] and I wonder if it's like that there's a kind of person who is a fan of these things who

[1:32:24] feels like they have very little control over their lives, either politically, economically,

[1:32:29] any of that stuff.

[1:32:30] But this is one thing they feel like they can have control over and they can feel they can

[1:32:33] have possession or ownership of, and it creates a kind of a, a, a negative fan base for, you

[1:32:38] know, superhero content specifically or genre content that, uh, that they, that the people

[1:32:43] making the new stuff feel like they have to cater to certainly.

[1:32:45] And that's, um, it's a, but I think to go back to the, to go back to the original question

[1:32:50] in the thing, it is disappointing sometimes that like, uh, you can't have that, that they

[1:32:54] feel like they can't have fun with, with some of this stuff because it's gotta be, it's

[1:32:58] gotta be serious enough that people feel that people can feel like it's being taken

[1:33:02] seriously.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:03] Yeah.

[1:33:03] I mean, occasionally I think it can swing backwards, but it has to be something where

[1:33:07] like it probably should have been a goofier tone in the first place anyway.

[1:33:11] Like I'm thinking about how they're the terrible Michael Bay, uh, either made or produced turtles

[1:33:18] movies.

[1:33:18] And then they made the mutant mayhem cartoon.

[1:33:22] Which is great.

[1:33:23] Which swung back goofy correctly.

[1:33:25] Like, Oh, you know what?

[1:33:27] Like, I think that this is the world that works best in a little lighter than what you

[1:33:32] came up with.

[1:33:34] I mean, for the reasons that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:35] We have to tell this story about mutant ninja teenagers.

[1:33:38] And look.

[1:33:38] Who are turtles.

[1:33:39] Who are giant turtles.

[1:33:41] Who's dad is a rat, you know?

Dan McCoy

[1:33:43] I understand that listeners out there are thinking like, Oh, but the Eastman and the

[1:33:46] Laird comics, right?

[1:33:47] I, I know.

[1:33:48] But like, that was also kind of.

[1:33:50] That's a pretty good straw man impression.

[1:33:51] It was a parody of, Oh, I absolutely guarantee you someone was thinking.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:56] Oh, the Eastman and Laird comics.

[1:33:58] But, uh.

[1:33:58] When Cerebus showed up.

[1:33:59] Those were.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:00] It started at least as kind of a parody of, of that sort of Frank Miller stuff before taking

[1:34:06] themselves seriously.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:06] I mean, but those are also fun comics.

[1:34:08] Like as much as they're like more serious than mutant mayhem.

[1:34:12] Yeah.

[1:34:12] Those are the thing that I always loved about the Eastman and Laird comics was like the

[1:34:15] characters.

[1:34:16] Like they were basically like prototypes in some ways.

[1:34:19] I don't know that Mike Manolo would, would say this, but prototypes for Hellboy as characters

[1:34:23] who like would go on adventures and then just be like, Oh, that sucks.

[1:34:26] Anyway, let's go have a, let's have a beer.

[1:34:28] Great.

[1:34:28] Cool.

[1:34:28] Dude.

[1:34:28] Like they spent a lot of time hanging out, you know, and things like that.

[1:34:31] And so they felt, uh, there was a lighter element that ran through that still, even

[1:34:36] as they were stabbing people.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:38] So let's, uh, let's recommend some like silly ones.

[1:34:41] Let's do a couple of silly ones.

[1:34:42] I know mine is a silly one.

[1:34:44] No, you can do whatever you want.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:45] Uh, cause I'd like to recommend, uh, last stop in Yuma County.

[1:34:50] Uh.

[1:34:51] A silly one.

[1:34:52] Are we doing recommendations now?

[1:34:53] Yeah, we're doing recommendations.

[1:34:54] Okay.

[1:34:55] Is that okay, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:56] Yeah, no, it's fine.

[1:34:56] It was a very natural segue.

[1:34:58] But I wasn't, I was not quite sure we were.

[1:35:00] So we had to get up the works.

[1:35:01] That's just who I was driving the segue.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:02] We had to get up the works by asking about it.

[1:35:04] Um.

[1:35:05] Yeah, no, I saw this, uh, it's a return to movies Dan saw on a plane.

[1:35:09] I saw it on a plane.

[1:35:11] Uh, it's a.

[1:35:11] A continuing series of screenings, yeah.

[1:35:13] Very small.

[1:35:14] Um.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:14] See, some people do extra flights so they can get like miles or points or whatever.

[1:35:18] Dan does it so he can watch more.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:20] Optimal viewing conditions.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:22] High flicks is what he calls them.

[1:35:24] Um, no, this is a small little contained.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:28] Noir, uh, stuff goes wrong at a diner.

[1:35:32] Uh, there's a tense standoff over an afternoon.

[1:35:36] Um, it, uh, I don't want to get too much into it because the, you know, the twists and turns are the fun of it.

[1:35:43] Uh, but it is directed, uh, beautifully.

[1:35:47] Sam Raimi, I think, tapped this director to be a future Evil Dead director off of this picture.

[1:35:54] It has a small part for our friend, friend of the show, Barbara Crampton is in it.

[1:35:59] Barbara Vest.

[1:36:00] Um.

[1:36:00] Can't go wrong.

[1:36:01] And, you know, it has some of the flavor of like an early Coen Brothers movie.

[1:36:06] I mean, not quite to that level, but it's, it's, you know, it's in, it's in the conversation.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:09] Or like a, like a Red Rock West type.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:11] Yeah, yeah.

[1:36:12] Cool.

[1:36:13] So, uh, what do you got, Stu?

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:14] Uh, I'm going to recommend, uh, a movie that fits within the silly theme.

[1:36:19] Uh, I'm going to recommend The Monkey.

[1:36:21] Uh, Osgood Perkins, uh, horror comedy.

[1:36:25] What was that, Dan?

[1:36:25] That's right.

[1:36:26] I just started buttering, can't stop doing The Monkey.

[1:36:29] Uh, I think I just watched that episode of The Simpsons, by the way.

[1:36:34] Yeah.

[1:36:35] Uh.

[1:36:36] Go, go, Ray.

[1:36:37] Yeah, that, yeah, it was funny.

[1:36:38] Um, so, uh, yeah, the other night, uh, the night before my birthday, I went to a pre-birthday

[1:36:45] screening of The Monkey.

[1:36:46] I dragged my buddy, Dan, as well as a couple of my other Brooklyn movie bros to go see this

[1:36:52] thing.

[1:36:52] I got incredibly wasted, but I was not too drunk during the movie.

[1:36:56] So you're going to get a full-on normal Stuart review.

[1:36:59] So the monkey, so let's, let's continue reviewing The Monkey, shall we?

[1:37:03] Uh, The Monkey is-

[1:37:04] That was the mid-review pause, a traditional intermission.

[1:37:09] Yeah.

[1:37:09] So this is a, this is an adaptation of the Stephen King short story, The Monkey, um, that was also

[1:37:16] adapted as Monkey Shines at one point.

[1:37:18] Um, but this is a movie about, uh, twin brothers who encounter a toy monkey that is, uh, some

[1:37:27] kind of death elemental that can cause the death of anything it wants when it's, uh, when its

[1:37:33] key is turned.

[1:37:34] And, uh, the movie, uh, is, it's an interesting, this is a director whose previous movies have

[1:37:41] all been very like grim faced, uh, horror pictures.

[1:37:47] And this is much sillier.

[1:37:49] It's still shot with a lot of style and it is incredibly gory, but it's very fun.

[1:37:54] Uh, almost like it has kind of the same sense of fun as like a Final Destination movie.

[1:37:59] Um, and the performances are all good.

[1:38:01] It manages to make Theo James not an incredibly sexy man, which is a challenge.

[1:38:06] Like that's some heavy lifting.

[1:38:07] Um, the, I think the one outfit kind of helps, but, um, it, uh, and Tatiana Masolani's in it.

[1:38:13] She's great.

[1:38:14] Uh, I think it's like, it felt like a very kind of fresh take on a horror comedy and I had a really

[1:38:21] good time.

[1:38:23] Uh, yeah.

[1:38:24] So if you're looking for kind of a silly one, uh, that I'm sure has been probably misinterpreted by

[1:38:29] people who are like, oh, why isn't this scary movie just scary?

[1:38:33] Like, well, it's a silly movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:34] It's fun.

[1:38:35] Just chill out.

[1:38:36] Also, I'm sorry.

[1:38:37] I apologize for playing Flophouse Pedant just for a moment, but I believe Monkey Shines is

[1:38:41] unconnected because that's a movie about a man who had a actual monkey that's a helper because

[1:38:46] he's paralyzed.

[1:38:46] I messed it up.

[1:38:48] Okay.

[1:38:49] I just, uh, you know, so I'm, I'm shielding you from Angry Listers now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:53] Okay.

[1:38:53] I mean, they're just going to email.

[1:38:55] Because our listeners are furious all the time.

[1:38:56] They're just going to email.

[1:38:57] Yeah.

[1:38:57] They're going to email you.

[1:38:58] Dan and the, Dan, Dan and the straw man, the, the, the new CBS show where he tries to

[1:39:03] stop the straw man.

[1:39:04] They're going to email Dan.

[1:39:04] They'll be like, tell Stuart he's wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:06] And Dan's like, I tell Stuart he's wrong all the time.

[1:39:08] He doesn't listen to me.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:08] I'd like to, I'd like to, uh, let you guys know on, on this occasion so you can thank

[1:39:13] me that if I get any emails like that, I delete them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:16] Oh, good.

[1:39:18] Thank you, Dan, for doing that.

[1:39:19] I'd also like to recommend a movie and I'm also going to recommend a silly one that's also

[1:39:23] a horror movie, but also pretty silly.

[1:39:25] And I'm recommending, of course, Mr. Vampire from 1985, uh, directed by Ricky Lau, uh, and

[1:39:31] starring, uh, let me look at the names, starring Lam Ching Ying, Ricky Hui and Chin Sui Ho.

[1:39:36] And this is, uh, the first of the Mr. Vampire horror comedy series from Hong Kong.

[1:39:41] Sounds awesome.

[1:39:42] It's, it's a, uh, it's set, um, in the, set in the, uh, kind of early 20th century China.

[1:39:49] And there's a bunch of kind of battle priests whose job is to just keep it.

[1:39:55] You don't have to tell me what a fucking battle priest does.

[1:39:58] I know all about this shit.

[1:39:59] No, but their job is very specific to keeping vampires under control.

[1:40:03] And these are, uh, your classic Chinese hopping undead vampires.

[1:40:07] And, uh, a vampire gets loose, uh, unrelated to the vampire getting loose, a ghost falls

[1:40:13] in love with one of the apprentices and, and is trying to, uh, take him away.

[1:40:17] Now, are they on the loose?

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:18] Is the vampire on the loose when you remove the piece of paper from their forehead?

[1:40:22] Or does that, is that, or when the paper is placed on their forehead?

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:26] It's a piece of paper that there's like a bit of wax that goes on their forehead and

[1:40:30] the paper is stuck to that.

[1:40:32] And, uh, it's, this is, um, it was produced by Sam O'Hung.

[1:40:36] It's a very Sam O'Hung style, uh, comedy kind of action movie.

[1:40:40] And it's just super fun.

[1:40:41] And it's one of these movies, it's very silly at times.

[1:40:44] And, uh, the action is, and the, the martial arts are great.

[1:40:47] Uh, some of the, some of the comedy is of the very broad, um, comedy that you get in

[1:40:53] especially 80s Hong Kong movies.

[1:40:55] But, um, it's super fun.

[1:40:57] So if you want to see a horror comedy that really is not taking itself seriously, uh,

[1:41:00] to the point where it's not really scary so much as it is a comedy about people fighting

[1:41:05] vampires, then I would highly recommend Mr. Vampire.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:08] Uh, was Mr. Baseball a vampire?

[1:41:11] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:11] No, he was a baseball, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:12] Oh, okay.

[1:41:14] Um, hey, I think we're almost at the end here.

[1:41:17] Uh, Elliot, is there any final thought you want to share with our audience?

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:21] There is a final thought that I'd like to share with the audience.

[1:41:23] You know, I'm just going to talk briefly.

[1:41:25] The show is ending and it's time to pack up the old circus tent and wipe off the grease

[1:41:29] paint and, you know.

[1:41:29] Sweep up the spotlight.

[1:41:31] Sweep up and put it in our caps.

[1:41:33] Shake up my makeup.

[1:41:35] But, I put his wig back on the shelf.

[1:41:39] Suddenly I'm doing a MaxFun pledge drive donor spot.

[1:41:44] Uh, and I'm telling you that, uh, if this, again, this is the MaxFun pledge drive.

[1:41:48] This is the time of year when we talk to you about this.

[1:41:50] We're going to do three episodes where we're talking to you about this and then that's

[1:41:53] it for the year.

[1:41:54] You don't have to hear about it again.

[1:41:55] If you've never been a MaxFun member, please, we ask you, try it out for just $5 a month.

[1:42:00] Again, that's the cost of one comic book a month.

[1:42:02] If you don't buy comic books, that's great.

[1:42:05] You've got that $5 sitting in your pocket.

[1:42:07] Oh, I see.

[1:42:07] And you could just, and you just do it for a month.

[1:42:09] It's like judo.

[1:42:09] You switched it around.

[1:42:11] Yep.

[1:42:11] And enjoy that bonus content.

[1:42:13] If you're already a member and you'd like to support a little more, we'd really appreciate

[1:42:16] you upgrading your membership to a higher level or just boosting it by a few dollars per

[1:42:20] month or so.

[1:42:21] If you support multiple shows on MaxFun, and if you do, thank you.

[1:42:25] If you support multiple shows, the amount you pledge gets split between those shows.

[1:42:29] So boosting by just a couple dollars means everyone just gets a little bit more, which

[1:42:32] is wonderful.

[1:42:33] Please do it now going to MaximumFun.org slash join before you forget.

[1:42:37] And you can look at what kinds of thank you gifts you get at the different levels.

[1:42:41] You can check out the bonus content once you've signed up.

[1:42:44] There's a lot of great stuff on there.

[1:42:46] So that's MaximumFun.org slash join.

[1:42:48] And I set the top that this is the time of year when we celebrate our members.

[1:42:51] And I know you're like, where's the celebration?

[1:42:53] I've heard a lot about what you need.

[1:42:55] What about what I need in terms of praise and recognition?

[1:42:58] Well, let me tell you, it means so much to us that you are pledging.

[1:43:03] And becoming members.

[1:43:04] It means so much to us that you are supporting us as we do this show because we really couldn't

[1:43:08] do it without you.

[1:43:10] And especially during these times when life is uncertain, the world is in chaos.

[1:43:15] There's nothing that I feel like I need more than an outlet for my nonsense.

[1:43:20] There's nothing I feel like I need more than to hear the nonsense of other people to help

[1:43:24] me remember that there is laughter and enjoyment in the world.

[1:43:28] And we really appreciate your support in doing that.

[1:43:31] You know, we've been part of MaximumFun for many years now.

[1:43:34] And I've always been really amazed and really impressed and really touched by the support

[1:43:39] that we get from our members and from our listeners.

[1:43:41] And it just helps keep us going.

[1:43:43] It means that we can do this show for you.

[1:43:45] It means we can do this show for others.

[1:43:46] It means that people who, as Dan mentioned earlier, cannot afford to be members right

[1:43:52] now on their own, that they still get to enjoy this show.

[1:43:54] You can gift a membership to someone or just by supporting us.

[1:43:57] You make the show available.

[1:43:59] We want to keep this show free to listen to aside from the bonus content, which you get

[1:44:03] if you get if you join it $5 a month or more.

[1:44:05] And we can do that because of your support.

[1:44:08] We don't have to charge for tickets.

[1:44:09] And we're not beholden to sponsors.

[1:44:11] And I'm sure you've had some kind of TV show or movie or something canceled or pulled off

[1:44:17] the market or just removed from your access in the past year because some business was like,

[1:44:24] well, we're not making enough money off of this to justify you enjoying it.

[1:44:28] And your support of us means that you don't have to worry about that happening.

[1:44:32] We're our own bosses.

[1:44:33] Thanks to your support.

[1:44:34] We make the decisions thanks to your support.

[1:44:36] And we're going to keep doing this as long as we can, as long as we have your support.

[1:44:39] We can only do it with your help.

[1:44:41] And we're so grateful and we're so thankful that you've been giving us that help all this

[1:44:45] time and that we hope you will continue to.

[1:44:47] If this is the year that you feel like you can afford to help us, please do.

[1:44:51] If it's not the year you can afford to help us, then please consider it in the future.

[1:44:54] But we ask you to go to MaximumFun.org slash join and give us your support for as little

[1:44:59] as $5 a month or boost or upgrade your membership if you feel like you can right now.

[1:45:03] And we're just really thankful for it.

[1:45:04] I would thank you all individually, but I think it would make the episode go long.

[1:45:08] So instead, I'll just say thank you very much.

[1:45:11] We're so grateful.

[1:45:12] Insert your name here.

[1:45:14] Thank you, Dan.

[1:45:15] Actually, that's what I should have done.

[1:45:17] And I did want to take this moment to celebrate you, the listeners, and especially the members

[1:45:22] for keeping this show alive.

[1:45:23] We really couldn't do it without you.

[1:45:24] So thank you.

[1:45:25] Go to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[1:45:27] If you aren't a member, and if you are, then you get to take part in that thank you.

[1:45:31] Otherwise, please put the thank you down.

[1:45:33] It is only for members right now.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:36] And yeah, I think that's all we got to say except to say thank you also to Alex Smith,

[1:45:42] our producer.

[1:45:43] You can find him under the name Howl Dottie in various corners of the internet.

[1:45:48] He does great work for us.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:50] And he gets paid because you pay us.

[1:45:52] Yeah, I was just on his Twitch channel this week watching a crazy Abel Ferrara movie.

[1:45:58] Oh, nice.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:59] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:46:02] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:04] And I'm Elliot Kalin, reminding you to go to MaximumFun.org slash join to join.

[1:46:09] Bye.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:19] On this episode, we discuss Kraven the Hunter.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46:23] It's a tight adaptation of Kraven's Last Hunt, my favorite comic book.

[1:46:28] Uh, I don't think so.

[1:46:29] It's not accurate.

[1:46:30] It's not really.

[1:46:31] How about, how about, how about, Dan?

[1:46:32] But if I'm, hey, I am putting energy out of the universe.

[1:46:36] Maybe I'll get what I want.

[1:46:38] Manifesting is what it's called.

[1:46:39] You should have heard about it.

[1:46:40] You live in Los Angeles.

[1:46:42] Yeah, people talk about manifesting a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:44] Can I try one?

[1:46:45] Sure.

[1:46:47] MaximumFun.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:48] A worker-owned network.

[1:46:49] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:46:51] Supported.

[1:46:52] Directly.

[1:46:53] By you.

Ep.#446 - Kraven the Hunter

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