Ep.#444 - Here

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] Hi, Floppers. Before we start this episode, I just wanted to remind you we are in the middle of FlopTV Season 2.

[0:06] That's right, the one-hour internet televised Flophouse TV show is here for you the first Saturday of every month through February.

[0:14] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new Flophouse TV stuff.

[0:22] We're covering movies we've never covered before. We've got video segments. It's amazing.

[0:26] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com for FlopTV Season 2. This time, it's personal.

Dan McCoy

[0:33] On this episode, we discuss here.

[0:37] Where?

[0:38] Here.

[0:39] Where?

[0:40] Here.

[0:41] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[0:44] I wonder what it was about that third one that really, that Stuart understood finally.

[0:56] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[1:13] Hey, Dan McCoy. It's me, Stuart Wellington, your pal.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15] Hey, me, Stuart Wellington, your pal. It's me, your guys' other friend and the third co-host of this show, Elliot Kalin.

Dan McCoy

[1:21] Well, we've all established who we are and what our deal is with regard to one another.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27] We know what Stuart's deal is. He's Dan's friend. We know that what my deal is. I'm both your friends. But, Dan, we don't know what your deal is.

[1:33] Oh, I'm both of your friends.

[1:35] Oh, interesting.

[1:36] Oh, okay.

[1:37] I am both of your friends. I'm two people in one.

[1:40] No, that's my thing, being two people's friends.

[1:42] So, you got to find a new thing.

[1:43] I see. Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44] You got to work on a new one. Maybe you're like a drifter on the run.

[1:48] Yeah, or like a salty old sea captain who's also got a heroin addiction.

[1:52] Oh, interesting. I mean, I guess he would have ready access to heroin since he's riding the high seat.

[1:59] So, what do we do on this podcast?

[2:00] Well, apparently, we add flavor to my life.

Dan McCoy

[2:03] But, also, it's a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:07] A movie that either critics or audience rejected or both audiences, rather.

[2:13] And, or I could say audience. Critics or audience.

[2:16] I could be very snooty about it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:19] This sounds like the best way to use the time when we're already late with our recording.

Dan McCoy

[2:23] We had some technical difficulties before this show started.

[2:26] And so, I'm pulling an Elliot.

[2:29] And the less time there is, the more I want to stretch out.

[2:34] Yeah.

[2:35] Yeah.

[2:36] We talk about bad movies.

[2:37] And this one is by Robert Zemeckis.

[2:42] A man.

Stuart Wellington

[2:43] You might know him.

[2:44] That's Bobby Z.

[2:45] The famous Bobby Z.

[2:46] The famous Bobby Z, yep.

[2:47] He's been cranking out hits.

[2:49] Banger after banger.

[2:50] Beowulf.

[2:51] Polar Express.

[2:52] Crash.

[2:52] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[2:53] What was the, not crash.

[2:54] Flight.

[2:55] Sorry.

[2:55] Flight.

Dan McCoy

[2:56] You're, you're, you are, for humorous effect, of course, focusing on his more recent efforts.

[3:02] Mm-hmm.

[3:03] This is a director that I genuinely loved during the first half of his career.

[3:06] And then.

[3:07] Sure.

[3:08] Like what?

[3:08] It's been a series of disappointments.

Elliott Kalan

[3:10] And then, unfortunately, he became more machine than man at a certain point.

Dan McCoy

[3:12] Mm-hmm.

[3:13] Yeah.

[3:13] Romancing the Stone.

[3:15] Awesome.

[3:16] Back to the Future.

[3:17] Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

[3:18] Awesome.

[3:18] Wonderful.

[3:19] I mean, like, I'm.

[3:21] Forrest Gump, you love.

[3:23] I think Death Becomes Her is very funny.

Stuart Wellington

[3:24] There was a story in one of the New York papers about how there's a big push to get Forrest

[3:30] Gump declared as the number one best movie, American movie of all time.

[3:35] By who?

[3:35] Thoughts.

[3:36] Who's pushing this?

[3:36] By the movie board.

[3:38] I don't fucking know.

[3:39] Whoever's reading the newspaper.

[3:41] By Forrest Fump.

[3:41] It's probably some dumbass fucking Instagram account.

Elliott Kalan

[3:44] And I'm not even one of those people who outright hates Forrest Gump.

[3:48] But it is, yeah, but it's a solid.

[3:49] Why would you hate him, dude?

Stuart Wellington

[3:50] He's just like a nice guy.

Elliott Kalan

[3:52] Yeah, that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[3:52] He doesn't mean any harm.

Elliott Kalan

[3:53] It's really a real solid middle movie, you know, solid middle movie.

[3:58] But so Robert Zemeckis.

[3:59] Yeah, he's he's done.

[4:00] He's had a few really like Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

[4:04] We just watched again.

[4:05] Not too long ago.

[4:06] My house.

[4:06] That's an amazing movie.

[4:07] That's an amazing.

[4:08] It's incredible.

[4:09] But he's also.

[4:09] Yeah.

[4:10] Lately, he's gotten really into technology and making movies that are more around.

[4:16] What can I do with this tech than necessarily with that about, you know, strong storytelling?

[4:22] Let's say.

Dan McCoy

[4:23] You know, I feel like in some ways we're getting ahead of ourselves.

[4:27] But on another way.

Elliott Kalan

[4:29] You mean we're telling this out of order, much like the movie here?

Dan McCoy

[4:32] You've given me the opening to say that one of the things I think is a big problem this movie, which is we can we'll say up front.

[4:38] The conceit of the movie is it's all sort of from it's a stationary camera from the same angle, you know, over decades and centuries.

[4:46] The people who live in this area here and lived here.

Elliott Kalan

[4:51] And Dan, even further, I just want to say I was when I saw the trailer for this movie, I was genuinely really intrigued by this movie.

[4:57] This movie is based on a comic book story by Richard McGuire that I love.

[5:01] I've loved it for years.

[5:02] I think I saw it in a it was in a collection anthology of either things from the from the magazine Raw or just like best of comics.

[5:10] I don't remember.

[5:11] And it was originally like an eight page story.

Stuart Wellington

[5:13] Raw was the inspiration for the French film, right?

Elliott Kalan

[5:17] Yeah, for both the French film and also for the WWE show.

[5:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[5:20] And so, yeah, Art Spiegelman and Francois Mouly, they were like, how we got to we got to impact the wrestling world some way.

[5:28] And they it's a great short comic that he then many years later expanded into a full length book.

[5:34] I love that book.

[5:35] I love that comic with the conceit being you are always looking at the same geographical physical space.

[5:41] But there are different panels within panels that show you what was happening in that space at different periods in time.

[5:47] And it starts out saying like, here's what it was like in 1957.

[5:50] Here's what it was like in 1982.

[5:51] Here's what it was like in 1973 with panels kind of.

[5:54] Is there like a little Scott McLeod narrator telling you all this shit?

[5:57] There is not.

[5:58] The panels are labeled with the year, but that's the extent of the narration.

[6:02] And otherwise, and it's really it's not even really telling full stories, although you can kind of glimpse stories between the panels.

[6:07] It's just this space.

[6:08] A lot of eventually there's a dinosaur walking through, you know, Ben Franklin's house is nearby or whatever.

[6:13] But like there's no there's no there's not really narrative.

[6:16] It's more an exploration of space.

[6:17] And I love the book of it.

[6:18] So when I saw they're making a movie, I was like, this is going to be a hard movie to make.

[6:21] But I'm intrigued by what they're going to do.

[6:23] But I came into it loving this book.

Dan McCoy

[6:25] So before let's return to the.

[6:28] Yeah.

[6:29] And now back to it.

[6:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:30] That digression setting up what the movie was based on.

[6:33] No, no, no.

Dan McCoy

[6:34] It just looked like Stewart maybe was going to then delay.

[6:36] Oh, I see.

[6:37] It's going to pay off even further.

[6:38] And I'm I could see why that would make a great.

[6:42] It was making a face.

[6:43] It's making a puss.

[6:44] No, no, Dan, it makes a great comic.

[6:45] But I think what you're going to say is comic because like it plays to the, you know, existing like, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, obviously there's a frame to a screen as well.

[6:57] But like it plays the existing nature of comics, which is a frame that is stationary.

[7:01] You know, you can see these glimpses.

[7:03] Whereas, you know, what I like about a movie camera is it moves around.

[7:07] It's right there in the name.

[7:09] But what I wanted to say was like off of the.

[7:11] Yep.

[7:12] It stands for can automate.

[7:15] Uh-huh.

[7:16] Go on.

[7:16] My.

[7:18] Yes.

[7:19] Extra.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] Interesting that it didn't stand for move.

[7:21] Recording.

[7:23] Yeah.

[7:24] Apparatus.

[7:25] Apparatus.

[7:25] Yeah.

[7:26] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[7:26] I forgot what it stood for at the end there.

[7:28] And of course you jumped in.

[7:29] But.

[7:31] No, but you say that about the technical stuff.

[7:34] Like the thing is like.

[7:35] So Mecca seems to be approaching this as a technical challenge.

[7:38] And this strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do with this story.

[7:42] Like it should be a dramatic challenge.

[7:44] Like how do we make this compelling without a moving camera?

[7:49] Like what do we do?

[7:50] Like and he is doing the most.

[7:53] Lossy.

[7:54] Goofy ass.

[7:55] Way of doing this.

[7:56] I feel like.

[7:57] He has.

Elliott Kalan

[7:58] He has essentially made a movie that feels like a cross between a play.

[8:02] The characters in it talk like they're in a play.

[8:04] Well, here's the room.

[8:06] You know, Harry just came back from the war.

[8:09] Took a bullet.

[8:10] Yeah.

[8:10] My husband's lost in the Pacific.

[8:12] A lot of.

[8:13] A lot of women losing their men these days.

[8:15] They sure are.

[8:16] Everyone has to talk louder.

[8:17] And it echoes.

[8:17] Because they're in this one room far from the camera.

[8:19] And it feels like a play.

[8:20] It's a cross between that and a movie you would see at a museum.

[8:23] That's kind of trying to get across.

[8:25] Here's how people lived back in olden times.

Dan McCoy

[8:27] But the thing is like the more.

[8:28] If it was more like a play, I think I would like it better though.

[8:31] Like if it really played to the artificiality of the conceit, I think that would be better than having like.

[8:38] I don't know.

[8:38] It's like now we're going to see the whole.

[8:40] We're going to put some lifelike CGI indigenous peoples like running around.

[8:46] And now we're going to, you know, have all these like fancy like CGI backgrounds.

[8:51] Like just get a green screen for God's sake for this thing.

[8:56] That's not what he does though.

[8:57] And have a room, you know.

[8:58] We should also mention.

Elliott Kalan

[8:59] We should also mention that the de-aging technology in this is AI based de-aging technology.

[9:04] So it could be done in real time.

[9:06] Don't love that.

[9:07] Not a big, not a big AI guy myself.

Stuart Wellington

[9:10] Am I allowed to talk or is this a Dan podcast?

Elliott Kalan

[9:13] I'm also taking up a lot of the oxygen.

[9:15] I interrupted when I was trying to say anything.

Dan McCoy

[9:17] I just didn't want it to be a double interruption.

Elliott Kalan

[9:19] Dan, and wait.

[9:20] And before Stuart talks, I'm going to interrupt again to say that Dan also.

[9:24] It's this big, glossy, boring story.

[9:26] But it also is Robert Zemeckis falling back on the thing that I think he loves to do, which is here's another baby boomer life story.

[9:33] Great.

[9:34] Oh, they saw the Beatles on TV.

[9:36] Oh, someone fought in Vietnam.

[9:38] I've heard.

[9:38] I've seen this story, Robert Zemeckis.

[9:40] It was called Forrest Gump.

[9:41] Stuart, your turn.

[9:42] Although, Dan, you don't talk now.

[9:44] It's so much more of a bummer than.

[9:45] Oh, it is a huge bummer, too.

Stuart Wellington

[9:47] Yeah.

[9:47] I mean, we are talking about how, obviously, a story like this that's experimental or it tries to explain itself or it tries to be told in an experimental way, obviously would work better in comics.

[9:59] For some reason, this, like, fixed perspective made me think of Alan Moore's Providence, which would use that fixed perspective to horror effect.

[10:08] Whereas, in many ways, this movie does make me feel elements of horror.

[10:12] Like, I do feel trapped in the movie.

[10:16] Especially because you watched it twice.

Elliott Kalan

[10:18] But it's less that you're trapped with a sexually ravenous elder being or deep one.

Stuart Wellington

[10:22] Yes.

[10:23] Yeah.

[10:23] Yes.

[10:23] More like I am Rudolph Van Richten tracked in the bleak house in Ravenloft.

[10:28] Sure.

[10:29] Okay.

[10:30] So, are we?

[10:31] Yeah.

[10:31] I mean, I feel like my general notes, we've touched on a bunch of the things that we've already touched on a lot of them.

[10:37] I didn't realize the de-aging technology was AI-driven.

[10:42] Well, I guess that's another example of AI looking like dog shit and being the antithesis of art.

Dan McCoy

[10:48] Well, let me clarify something about that because I do think it's interesting how, like, the first time I saw AI Tom Hanks, I didn't know it was AI.

[10:56] But, like, the first time I saw de-age.

Elliott Kalan

[10:58] And it's not AI fully CGI characters.

[11:01] It's just they apparently, from what I read, they used a program that could, in real time, de-age their image.

[11:07] So, they're acting on the soundstage and what the image coming into the cameras is an AI smoothed out young antithesis.

Dan McCoy

[11:13] Look, I mean, apologies.

[11:16] I don't know the way that this works, like, whether this is, like, putting a lot of people out of work or, in some cases, it's a case where, like, the artists who do these things are glad to have a new technology.

[11:28] It could be.

[11:28] It's possible.

[11:29] This sort of, like, technological innovation offends me less than, like, being like, hey, you know what you want to do is, like, read stuff that is just, like, culled from other stuff that we've reconfigured together.

[11:40] And it's like, well, no, we want new human stories that speak to human desires, unlike here.

[11:48] But to get back to the D.H. Tom Hanks, though, the first time I saw him, I'm like, oh, that's a pretty good effect.

[11:54] And then the problem was, throughout the rest of the movie, unless he was literally then, like, old man Tom Hanks, I was unclear about how old Tom Hanks was supposed to be at any time because it was not good at, like, distinguishing, you know, between, like, even, like, 17 and 30.

Elliott Kalan

[12:11] Yeah, from the age of 17 to the age of about 50, he looks kind of the same.

[12:16] I will say this for one.

[12:18] It looks better than young man Robert De Niro in The Irishman, a better movie where he does seem like an old man with dark hair.

[12:25] Stuart is shaking his head.

[12:26] He loves it.

[12:26] No, no, no, I love that shit.

[12:27] When he's fucking curb-stomping that guy in the oldest way possible.

[12:31] You can tell he doesn't have a full range of motion in his hips when he's curb-stomping it.

[12:35] But also, but also.

[12:36] His back's really going to kill him the next day.

[12:38] I think this AI, honey, what are you, you can't even get off the couch?

[12:43] Nah, I was curb-stomping a guy yesterday.

[12:45] I'm paying for it now.

Dan McCoy

[12:46] Oh, you know what the doctor said about curb-stomping.

[12:49] You can't do that anymore.

[12:49] I got to do my work.

Elliott Kalan

[12:51] I got to do my work.

[12:52] Curb-stomping is part of painting houses, guys.

[12:54] It's essential.

[12:55] True.

[12:55] The other thing is that I feel like this, the AI work was really served well by the way I watched this movie, which was on an iPad while I was doing the dishes.

[13:02] So my eyes weren't always on the screen.

[13:05] And I would be like, oh, this looks pretty good.

[13:07] And there'd be times when Tom Hanks or another character would get really close to the camera.

[13:11] Mainly Tom Hanks' character.

[13:12] When he gets close to the camera and it would suddenly be like, oh, that's not, yeah, that's not a fully real face that I'm looking at there.

Stuart Wellington

[13:20] A couple other notes.

[13:21] There is, in addition to that, there is a pretty good CGI baby getting knocked off a couch sequence.

[13:28] That was a good laugh.

[13:29] That was pretty funny.

[13:30] It was a funny laugh and farther than I thought they were going to go.

Elliott Kalan

[13:33] That baby just falling face first off the couch.

Stuart Wellington

[13:36] Okay.

[13:36] And as you said, this is a fixed perspective.

[13:39] We are, the majority of the story is going to take place in a house, a single house.

[13:44] Yeah.

[13:44] Like house soup.

[13:45] Yep.

[13:45] Within the confines of this house, we see, just like to give you an overview, we see a wedding, a funeral, a birth, a death.

[13:53] And basically one of every major American holiday.

[13:55] The invention of the Lazy Boy chair.

Dan McCoy

[13:57] Mm-hmm.

[13:58] Can we, I just want to say, you know, there's various stories that we see, we glimpse throughout.

[14:03] Oh, yeah.

[14:04] We're going to touch on all of them.

[14:05] And, you know, some of them we come back to more than others.

[14:07] Exhaustively.

[14:07] But I think the clear winner is the Lazy Boy couple.

[14:11] Yes.

[14:11] Who are the only people who have any verve and likeability in this film.

Elliott Kalan

[14:14] The only ones with a happy ending, but also the ones that are so totally disconnected from almost every other story.

[14:19] They're the only ones that would show up just dancing to 20s music.

[14:22] And I'd be on 30s music and I'd be like, what?

[14:24] I'm not quite sure why I'm watching this.

Stuart Wellington

[14:26] I don't know, but they seem cool.

[14:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[14:28] The lead from The Minx gets to be on the other side of the camera.

[14:31] I like the inventor guy.

[14:33] I think his outfits go fucking hard as hell.

[14:36] Oh, sure.

[14:36] And he dances well.

[14:37] Love that shit.

[14:37] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[14:38] They're a very sexual couple in a way that the other couples are not that we see in this.

[14:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:42] So, yep, as we said, it's a fixed perspective.

[14:47] Focusing on an area that is, I guess, Philadelphia?

[14:51] Philadelphia?

[14:52] I mean, Ben Franklin's house was there.

[14:55] William Franklin.

Elliott Kalan

[14:56] It's technically Ben Franklin's son's house.

[14:58] Okay.

[14:58] The legitimate son, yep.

[15:00] Which I think he lived in New York State.

[15:02] So, I think it might be somewhere in New York, but I could be wrong about that.

Stuart Wellington

[15:05] I saw a note that said potentially Perth Amboy.

Elliott Kalan

[15:09] Yeah.

[15:09] Could be.

[15:09] It could be in New Jersey.

[15:11] Actually, Perth Amboy makes sense.

[15:12] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[15:13] So, there's also the movie opens with a little bit of a montage and then it goes all the way back to the dawn of time.

[15:20] We have dawn of time.

[15:22] We have dinosaurs.

[15:22] And then we get to see the meteor striking the earth that kills the dinosaurs.

[15:26] Didn't realize that happened in New Jersey.

[15:28] Yeah, that's the thing.

[15:29] That explains a lot about New Jersey if you ask me.

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] That was one of those moments where I was like, I know it's like, again, the comic book does things a little differently.

[15:37] It kind of increases the amount of time as it goes on.

[15:41] So, to kind of surprise you with just how far the conceit is going to go.

[15:44] This does the opposite where it kind of shows you some rooms and then it goes back to the dawn of time, which I feel like takes a little bit of the thrill out of it.

[15:51] But also, like, it's one of those things where it's like part of the fun of it is also seeing, like, a dinosaur moment that is not a historic moment.

[15:58] That this may be because a story made out of the everyday moments.

[16:01] So, to have that meteor strike is a bit of an overkill.

[16:04] I know it looks cool.

[16:04] But also, like, I was immediately, I was like, Bobby Z, that took place in Mexico.

[16:09] Like, unless this story takes place in Mexico, you cannot rewrite where the asteroid hit that killed the dinosaurs.

[16:15] Like, come on, guys.

[16:16] What are you doing?

Stuart Wellington

[16:17] Maybe it was like a friend of the original asteroid.

[16:20] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[16:21] I mean, it is possible the asteroid maybe broke up in the atmosphere.

[16:25] The main chunk hit in the Yucatan.

[16:27] And then some smaller particle decided to go to Perth Amboy to see if they had opened the movie theater there that I used to go to when I was a kid.

[16:34] Yeah.

[16:35] It's trying to make its way to Rutt's Hut.

Stuart Wellington

[16:37] Unfortunately, it didn't make it all the way there.

[16:39] No.

[16:40] Rutt's Hut known for their hot dogs, man.

[16:42] Millions of years too early.

[16:43] Yeah.

[16:44] So, this meteor, of course, ushers in an ice age.

[16:47] Everything is going super duper fast.

[16:48] It's super sped up.

[16:49] I thought you were like, everything's going super well.

[16:51] It's going super well in the world and on this podcast.

[16:55] Okay.

[16:56] Okay.

[16:56] We see like a forest primeval.

[16:58] And then we see some indigenous people hunting.

[17:03] And then, of course, around now we see a hummingbird that will show up at the very end of the movie.

[17:08] This eternal hummingbird character.

[17:09] Yeah.

[17:09] The prisoner of London or whatever that guy's.

[17:12] What's that guy known who's trapped in London forever?

[17:14] I think he's the prisoner of London, right?

[17:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:16] He can travel through time, but he can't leave London.

[17:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:18] Yeah.

[17:18] If I'm right, everybody write in and tell Dan that Stuart's right again.

[17:21] Oh, wait.

[17:22] Chuck another one.

[17:23] And I'll be like, I don't remember what this is in reference to.

[17:26] Okay.

[17:27] So, then we go to colonial times.

[17:30] We see a big manor house being built.

[17:33] And then we see the building of the house that we will then spend the rest of our time at.

[17:37] The place we are trapped at for the next hour and a half.

[17:40] The here.

[17:42] Okay.

[17:42] By Jigsaw.

[17:43] So, basically.

[17:44] And so, there's a bunch of.

Elliott Kalan

[17:45] Either you have to cut off your own leg or you got to watch this Robert Zemeckis movie.

[17:48] Oh, Jigsaw.

Stuart Wellington

[17:50] Oof.

[17:50] Oh.

[17:51] I don't want to play a little game.

[17:53] So, there is one main story.

[17:55] There is one.

[17:55] A story of one family that seems to take the majority of the movie.

[18:00] Yeah.

[18:00] But there's a number of side stories that intersect.

[18:02] And while the movie isn't told linearly, each side story seems to follow a relatively.

[18:09] All the stories seem to follow a linear path, even though they are, you know.

[18:13] So, they're more or less.

[18:15] For the most part.

[18:15] More or less.

[18:15] Jumping back and forth, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[18:17] But it's not so radical that you're like.

[18:19] It's clearly told in a way where it's jumping a little bit.

[18:21] But it is mostly a forward momentum through time.

[18:25] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[18:25] And trying to show connections between the different experiences in this space.

[18:31] So, just to touch on these side stories.

[18:33] There's a young indigenous couple.

[18:35] At one point, they exchange jewelry.

[18:37] They get married.

[18:38] They have a baby.

[18:40] She dies.

[18:42] We have a funeral.

[18:42] And then he mourns her.

[18:44] Again, very funny aging situation.

[18:47] He looks very funny.

[18:49] This elderly native guy who just looks like a normal guy with a wrinkly face.

[18:53] Elderly makeup, yeah.

[18:54] Yeah, like he's one of the kids from Akira.

Elliott Kalan

[18:57] Right before the shot, they gave him like a real strong prune.

[19:00] Like a real strong lemon.

[19:02] He just puckered up.

Dan McCoy

[19:03] Oh, I thought you meant they had him soaking up for a long time.

[19:06] That's what they did.

Stuart Wellington

[19:07] Now, of course, we're going through these side stories chronologically.

[19:11] Although, again, in the movie, they're all sprinkled throughout.

[19:13] We have William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Ben Franklin, who's complaining about his father and his politics.

[19:18] He is a British sympathizer.

[19:20] There's a sequence where a kid throws an apple basically at the camera and it explodes all over him.

[19:25] It's pretty funny.

[19:28] That, I mean, that storyline just basically shows little bits of the Revolutionary War.

[19:33] We have a-

Elliott Kalan

[19:34] There's a part at the end.

[19:35] I have to mention this though, where a soldier rides up and there's a bunch of continental soldiers there.

[19:40] And a soldier rides up and he goes, news from general, a dispatch from General Washington.

[19:44] The British have surrendered.

[19:46] The war is over.

[19:47] And the other soldiers could not give less of a shit.

[19:50] And what they do, have no reaction to it.

[19:52] And one of them just goes, what now?

[19:54] And then it cuts to America 200 years later or something.

[19:57] But I thought it was so funny.

[19:58] I was like, I got to imagine that the soldiers had more of a reaction to learning the war was over and they had won than just the sense of like, okay, another deal.

[20:05] Okay, another damn thing after another.

[20:06] I'm out of the job now, I guess.

[20:08] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:09] Let me just change a battle in my schedule for next week to no battle.

Dan McCoy

[20:16] I get sort of pressed when I don't have anything to do.

Stuart Wellington

[20:18] I just like having something to look forward to even if it's a battle.

[20:21] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:22] Okay, so the next-

[20:24] I have limited experience with winning wars, but I seem to remember that when we won World War II, it seemed like people were excited.

Dan McCoy

[20:31] There was confetti.

[20:32] There was a kiss.

[20:33] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:34] At least one.

[20:35] Yeah.

[20:36] At least one.

[20:37] We have a – one of the side stories is a budding pilot, an enthusiastic airplane pilot and his nagging wife whose trait is that she has a child and doesn't want him to be flying.

[20:50] He, of course, does not die from flying his plane to Schenectady.

[20:54] No, he dies of influenza.

Elliott Kalan

[20:56] This is handled – this was so funny to me, the way this was handled.

[21:00] He is lying in his casket with a pilot's cap on, with goggles on it.

[21:06] All the flowers are in the shapes of planes and propellers.

[21:09] And there's two people with their backs to the camera, and he's like, oh, she was really mad about it, da-da-da-da.

[21:15] And she says – what's weird is that you see his wife, his widow, before the funeral saying, how could you let this happen or something like that, which implies, again, it's a flying accident.

[21:22] She's been attacking his flying hobby the whole time.

[21:24] And you see the two, and then he goes, oh, I'm surprised they had an open funeral.

[21:27] Usually there's – open casket.

[21:28] Usually there's not much of the body after a plane crash.

[21:31] It wasn't a plane crash that killed him.

[21:32] And then he turns.

[21:33] You see they're both wearing masks.

[21:35] It was influenza.

[21:36] And it's like –

[21:37] Whoa.

[21:37] So you're just learning this at the funeral?

[21:40] Do you not know them well?

[21:41] But also the sudden reveal of the masks I thought was so funny.

[21:45] The whole thing was so funny.

Dan McCoy

[21:46] This plot, like, you know, not to make a bad plane pun, but it sputters out because it's just like, okay, it's like all just build to this punchline that is obviously meant to be like, you know, it's like COVID, you know?

[22:00] Because there's some COVID stuff in this movie too.

[22:02] It's not saying anything.

[22:03] Like it's not saying anything about anything.

Stuart Wellington

[22:05] No.

[22:06] I mean not to – maybe I'm just talking tough because I'm with my boys.

[22:10] But –

[22:10] The whole movie isn't saying anything.

[22:11] But what I would say is if my wife was so against me flying a plane around that she would be constantly complaining about it, if that's my favorite thing to do in the world, I'd get a new wife, dog.

[22:22] Go fly up and find a marshal wife or something.

[22:25] Wow.

[22:25] Yeah.

[22:26] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[22:26] So we –

[22:28] What if your wife's Michelle Dockery though?

Stuart Wellington

[22:30] I get – let me – let me change my story.

[22:33] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[22:34] Run the numbers on that one.

Stuart Wellington

[22:35] Yeah.

[22:36] Okay.

[22:36] So the next one of course is, as we said, the bohemian couple where she is kind of a flapper and he's an inventor and he invents the lazy boy.

[22:45] Of course, check the history books.

[22:47] This guy did not invent the lazy boy.

[22:49] I don't think so.

[22:49] And also the –

[22:50] Recliners that existed for a long time.

Elliott Kalan

[22:52] Yes.

[22:52] And her entire job seems to be to hang around the house in her underwear and a robe and dance to the radio.

[22:58] And his job is to invent things in an undershirt and slacks and suit pants.

[23:02] Love it.

[23:02] And I just – I was like, there is nothing about these people's lives that does not involve dancing to the radio, taking dirty pictures of each other, or inventing the lazy boy.

[23:10] It is –

[23:10] I love it.

[23:11] And they have no connection with any other storyline otherwise.

[23:14] It's just so funny to me that they're like –

Stuart Wellington

[23:16] It's a breath of fresh air and otherwise stale.

Elliott Kalan

[23:19] We got to get across the breadth of the American experience over millions of years.

[23:23] We got to get the invention of the lazy boy in there.

Dan McCoy

[23:25] They're sort of like a slob Nick and Nora Charles without even the detecting.

[23:30] I could see that.

Elliott Kalan

[23:31] Without the detecting, one of the two main things about Nick and Nora.

[23:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:35] Yeah.

[23:35] Okay.

[23:36] And then we flash forward.

[23:38] There is a couple with a teenage son, and they have a housekeeper, and they deal with COVID, and their housekeeper, of course, dies of COVID, and then they move out.

[23:48] Those are the side stories.

[23:49] I miss any.

Dan McCoy

[23:50] This is the couple that is clearly like, well, oh, God, we don't have any black people in this movie.

[23:56] We should have one family be black and give them nothing.

[24:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:00] It doesn't help when the plot line is nothing.

[24:04] There's the one scene where they are explaining to their teenage son, here's how you handle being stopped at a traffic stop by a police officer.

[24:11] And it feels like a very ham-handed exactly way of being like, oh, yeah, the black experience.

[24:16] Oh, boy.

[24:17] You better believe that's part of the American story.

[24:19] Got to put some of that in there.

[24:20] And I will say, in a better movie, I would have been like, this is an interesting scene because this is something none of the other families have to deal with.

[24:28] And I wish that that – I just wish it was that stronger movie so that that moment would have hit a little harder.

Dan McCoy

[24:32] Well, the problem is like it's clear that that whole family is in there just for that moment.

[24:37] They don't give them anything else of significance.

Elliott Kalan

[24:40] They have otherwise no personality whatsoever.

[24:42] And bury their housekeeper, Raquel.

[24:43] And for the housekeeper to have a moment where she can no longer smell, and then the next time we see her, she's dead.

Stuart Wellington

[24:49] And then they both turn to the camera wearing masks.

[24:52] That's great.

[24:53] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[24:54] But the bulk of the story –

[24:55] But not masks like in the Twilight Zone episode masks where they're like the masks to form their faces or anything.

[25:00] Or like masks from the cartoon show mask where they have like robot masks.

[25:04] Okay.

[25:04] And their vehicles change into other vehicles.

[25:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:06] Exactly.

[25:07] So the bulk of the story focuses on – the bulk of the movie focuses on the story of the young family.

[25:13] We are introduced to –

[25:14] People are very old by the end of it.

[25:16] That's true.

[25:16] It seems almost ironic.

[25:20] The first couple we meet is Al and Rose.

[25:24] Al is recently back from World War II played by Paul Bettany.

[25:28] He begins by yelling a lot, which doesn't help the feel of watching a bad play, a bad stage play.

[25:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:34] Although I will – I mean it is heightened a lot of the stuff he's doing, especially when he's like in rooms by himself essentially like monologuing.

[25:44] But for me – and this is a credit to how much I like Paul Bettany, I think.

[25:48] Like as much as I liked anything in the movie, I'm like, well, you know, like this is – like this feels like a guy and I have feelings about what's happening when I don't have feelings about other characters, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[26:02] Certainly he's the one – I feel like it's partly the story they give him, which has a lot more depth to it than some of the other ones in that as – he's a veteran.

[26:10] He spends decades of his life, you know, dealing with the frustration and trauma of that and he doesn't kind of get over it until after his wife dies essentially, you know?

[26:20] And like – and he has an alcohol problem and he deals with – like he has so much more going on in his story.

[26:24] Isn't that a alcohol problem?

[26:25] I mean there's literally a scene where he realizes that he has to stop and he takes all the bottles out, you know?

Dan McCoy

[26:30] He does pull himself together before his wife dies but it's because she's like –

[26:35] She has a stroke.

Elliott Kalan

[26:36] But he – but there is a lot of like talking really loud for a person who's in a movie rather than in a play.

[26:42] But I agree.

[26:42] I did feel by the end of it that I thought Paul Bettany had come out kind of on the strong end.

[26:46] Yeah, he's not too bad.

[26:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:47] Okay.

[26:48] So they buy the house despite it being a little more expensive than they expected because Rose is pregnant.

[26:54] Al takes a sales job but he is continually dissatisfied.

[26:58] He's passed over for promotion.

[27:01] He ends up getting laid off and has to find a different sales job and he develops a pretty severe drinking problem.

Elliott Kalan

[27:06] He is almost never not drinking in this movie.

[27:10] Like he's always – like every single scene with him for a long section of it, he has a drink in his hand.

Dan McCoy

[27:14] And he is also a stand-in for like – you know, like I'm going to jump ahead to sort of a more general critique of the movie.

[27:22] Like part of the problem of this movie is the characters are meant to be such sort of like broad stand-ins for like swaths of American life.

[27:33] And they don't generate, you know, any like personality of their own.

[27:37] And he is very much like the stand-in of like, you know, this greatest generation – like the dad of our boomer hero who, you know, had war trauma, had a drinking problem.

[27:47] He's emotionally closed off.

[27:49] Nice to his family, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:51] He's always yelling, God damn it, at his kids.

[27:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[27:55] Yeah.

[27:55] Especially when his CGI kid gets knocked off account.

[27:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:58] But I think that's a major issue with the movie, Dan.

[28:01] You're right.

[28:01] Is that like these characters are supposed to be so universal in a certain type that they fail to really register as individual people.

[28:08] And like it would be more interesting in the way that that lazy boy couple, like I'm not quite sure what type they're supposed to be except like free-living 20s, 30s.

[28:17] I mean it's like 1940 by the time they leave that house.

[28:19] But like there is something so like – they don't have much character either.

[28:24] But it's so specific like they're always in their underwear.

[28:27] He's inventing the lazy boy chair.

[28:29] As ridiculous as I find it, it's so specific that it's better.

Stuart Wellington

[28:32] They feel like characters from an episode of Ghosts, either the British or American version.

[28:37] Yeah.

[28:38] Yeah, they do.

[28:39] Totally.

[28:40] Okay.

[28:41] So they have – they end up having three children together.

[28:44] Their eldest is Richard who has an artistic bent that will eventually be played by Tom Hanks.

[28:50] There is a very funny scene.

[28:51] The artistic bent will eventually be played by Tom Hanks?

[28:53] Yeah.

[28:54] Yeah, yeah.

[28:55] It's like a –

[28:55] Stuart's face fell.

Elliott Kalan

[28:57] What was that movie we watched where people were – it was like Helen Mirren and stuff were representing like symbolic aspects of life?

[29:03] It's called Herman's Head.

[29:05] That's what it was.

[29:05] That's right.

[29:06] That's right.

[29:06] So –

[29:07] That's right because I remembered it mostly by its Spanish name.

[29:10] La Cabeza del Hormone.

Stuart Wellington

[29:14] So there's a really funny moment where teenage Tom Hanks – or Richard in this case –

[29:20] Yeah.

[29:21] is played by an actor but is voiced by Tom Hanks and it is very disorienting.

[29:28] I think it is very –

[29:28] That's the scene where Paul Bettany explains that he's been places.

[29:32] He's traveled all over Pennsylvania and eaten in places you couldn't even imagine.

[29:35] One night, he took somebody home to his room.

[29:38] Yeah.

[29:38] Yeah, I love that.

[29:39] And Tom Hanks is like – he's like, why are you telling me this?

[29:42] I'm like, yes.

[29:42] Why are you telling us this?

Elliott Kalan

[29:44] This is the kind of thing dads tell their kids when they reach a certain age.

[29:47] It just happens.

Stuart Wellington

[29:48] There's also a great line there where Tom Hanks is sitting there drawing pictures of the room, the room that we will spend an hour and a half looking at.

[29:55] And he's like, who would want to look at pictures of this room?

[29:57] I'm like, no shit.

[29:59] The movie has become self-aware.

[30:01] Say the quiet part loud.

Elliott Kalan

[30:04] Something that I think is very funny is that we seem to have a generation of filmmakers who cannot imagine that the audience will be able to buy two different performers playing the same character at different ages.

[30:14] Yeah.

[30:15] And this is the same generation pretty much that made The Godfather Part 2 in which Robert De Niro and Marlon – Marlon – Marlon Brando played in the previous movie.

[30:24] And it's not like everyone was like, wait, that's not what Marlon Brando looked like when he was young.

[30:29] Like that's – hold on a second.

[30:30] Like the idea that you would have to dub Tom Hanks' voice in for a teenage character is so silly to me or that you would de-age – or the de-aging Indiana Jones' face in a crystal dial of time or whatever it is.

[30:42] Like the – it's just – I couldn't remember the name of it for a second.

[30:46] It just is – I find it very funny that they're like audiences are idiots.

[30:49] They can't imagine two people would be the same person, you know.

Dan McCoy

[30:52] Well, that's what – I mean that ties in.

[30:55] Like again, I think that if you'd done this more like a play and concentrated more on like, okay, how via the blocking of characters within the scene are we going to like make this interesting rather than like futz it up with a bunch of digital garbage.

[31:11] But anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[31:11] But Stuart, you were just about to get to the exciting part of the story.

Stuart Wellington

[31:14] Yeah.

[31:15] Richard starts dating Margaret.

[31:18] So Tom Hanks plays Richard.

[31:20] Margaret is played by Rebecca.

[31:22] Rebecca.

[31:22] Robin Wright.

[31:23] Who are you thinking of?

[31:25] Rebecca Wright, obviously.

[31:27] Rebecca Hall.

Elliott Kalan

[31:30] I wish.

[31:30] And of course this is their long-awaited reunion of Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and Robert Zemeckis who brought us the aforementioned Forrest Gump.

[31:37] So we're back in Gump Town.

[31:39] Back in Gump Town, USA.

[31:41] Yep.

[31:41] Not to be confused with Forrest Gump 2, Gump Again, the fake movie that they are making in the movie Cecil B. Demented with Kevin Nealon as Forrest Gump, which I thought – Kevin Nealon playing himself as Forrest Gump.

[31:52] And the Forrest Gump stuff in that movie is so funny.

[31:57] Yeah.

[31:57] I haven't seen it in years.

[31:58] I'm sure it's tasteless.

[31:59] It's John Waters movie.

[31:59] Yeah.

[32:00] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[32:00] Yeah.

[32:01] Okay.

[32:02] So despite being young, they get pregnant and they –

[32:08] Or just one of them.

[32:09] Yeah.

[32:09] Just one of them.

[32:10] Not both.

[32:10] Yeah.

[32:11] Now you said despite being young.

Elliott Kalan

[32:12] Young is when it happens, Stuart.

[32:13] I don't fucking know, man.

[32:14] Your body is keyed to do it when you're young.

[32:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:17] Yeah.

[32:17] So they get pregnant.

[32:18] They end up having to move in with Richard's parents, Alan Rose.

[32:22] They have their daughter, Vanessa, who comes into this world in that room, which we're all very excited about.

Dan McCoy

[32:32] Congratulations.

Stuart Wellington

[32:33] Yeah.

[32:34] Richard gives up his art to get a sales job so he can support his family.

[32:39] But he can never seem to get ahead.

[32:41] And he also is very risk-averse.

[32:44] He doesn't want to ever put his family into a position where they might be hurt or disappointed.

[32:50] But Margaret longs for a life.

[32:54] She longs for doing things.

[32:55] And she cannot seem to find that with Richard.

[32:58] And she gets a little bit bitter.

[33:00] Yeah.

[33:00] And a house of their own.

Elliott Kalan

[33:01] She spends her entire life basically almost living in her in-law's house.

[33:06] And Richard, here's the thing about him.

[33:07] He wanted to be an artist.

[33:08] He was going to go to art school, but now he can't because he has a family to support.

[33:11] He is so risk-averse.

[33:12] I don't think he'd make a great career as an artist.

[33:16] Because when you're an artist, when you're trying to make a living, it is all risk all the time.

[33:20] You are – nothing is ever certain.

[33:22] And you've got to be ready to just roll with the punches.

[33:24] And he's not great at that.

[33:25] So I wonder if the movie is really saying this guy has the talent, but he doesn't have what it takes to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of the art market.

[33:33] Cue Velvet Buzzsaw.

Stuart Wellington

[33:35] Yeah.

[33:36] Do the whole movie?

[33:36] Yeah.

[33:37] Why not?

[33:38] Okay.

[33:38] In the Doug-e-Doug world of the art market.

[33:41] Doug-e-Doug world.

[33:42] Okay.

[33:43] So Alan Rose, obviously age.

[33:46] Rose has a stroke.

[33:48] And they – Alan Rose then ends up having to move down to Florida so she can get better care.

[33:56] Vanessa grows up, goes to college.

[33:58] I think at one point she's played by Zsa Zemeckis.

[34:01] Yes.

[34:02] Daughter or granddaughter?

[34:04] Daughter, I think.

[34:05] Okay.

[34:05] But I could be – I don't remember.

[34:06] I think daughter.

[34:06] Let's check the tape, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[34:09] I don't have tape of Zsa Zemeckis.

[34:12] Good.

[34:12] You're sick.

Elliott Kalan

[34:13] You shouldn't have that.

[34:15] Oh, so you do have tape of her.

Dan McCoy

[34:16] Disgusting, Dan.

[34:18] My story keeps changing.

[34:19] I'm sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[34:20] Vanessa goes to college.

[34:21] Then she goes to law school.

[34:23] She's the first in her family to go to college.

Elliott Kalan

[34:25] She listens to a lot of music on her headphones too.

[34:27] That's a way they can get some needle drops on the soundtrack.

Stuart Wellington

[34:29] She does.

Elliott Kalan

[34:32] In case you were wondering if Robert Zemeckis was going to go to his grave without ever including the song Cherry Bomb,

[34:36] in one of his movies.

[34:37] Don't worry.

[34:38] He does it in here.

Stuart Wellington

[34:39] I mean there is a moment where they're listening to Fooled Around and Fell in Love and I'm like, oh man, this song rules.

[34:47] Yeah.

[34:48] So there's a brief moment of Stuart being excited.

[34:53] Rose passes away and then Al hurts himself.

[34:56] So he needs some in-home care.

[34:58] So he has to move back to wherever we're at.

Elliott Kalan

[35:01] Because maybe the secret is that they're all already dead and this is the purgatory they're in.

[35:06] They can never leave the house for long.

[35:07] That's what I was fucking waiting for.

Stuart Wellington

[35:09] There's some kind of fucking curse.

Elliott Kalan

[35:11] It's just like the Twilight Zone.

[35:12] They're all dolls that live in a dollhouse and it turns out they just think they're alive.

[35:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[35:17] So Al needs in-home care.

[35:20] His presence, of course, is kind of overwhelming to them.

[35:24] Margaret tries to make the best of it.

[35:26] She tries a variety of different things to get over her dissatisfaction with her husband and her life.

[35:33] She even brings in her marriage counselor or whatever who is, of course, presented as being a quack.

[35:42] I would argue.

Elliott Kalan

[35:44] It's hard to tell because he's given the accoutrement of a quack.

[35:48] He's very precise about his title and the initials that go after his name and he has an English accent.

[35:53] But what he's saying is basically like you guys shouldn't drag each other down if you're unhappy in this relationship, which is good advice.

[36:01] No, I mean you're right.

Stuart Wellington

[36:02] So Margaret ends up leaving shortly after Al dies.

Dan McCoy

[36:09] I want to say just because like this movie is so in a way plot light that I feel like I should sprinkle some more like larger thoughts throughout.

[36:21] Like I –

[36:22] That's allowed.

[36:23] I found some of these parts like moving but in a way that made me angry at the movie.

[36:30] It's not like I wanted to find them moving.

[36:32] It's just like the raw materials are sort of impossible not to like feel something of like –

Elliott Kalan

[36:38] The raw material is the disappointments of life.

[36:41] Yeah, the disappointments of life.

[36:43] You can't help yourself from getting older.

[36:44] And that's all – that's the real human experience.

[36:46] So it makes sense.

[36:47] I was feeling the same thing.

[36:47] I was like these are real things that everyone has to deal with in their life and that's moving.

[36:51] And this is not the most moving way to present it.

[36:53] You're saying, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[36:54] Well, yeah.

[36:55] But I would get kind of mad at the movie because I'm like, okay, you're doing this to me because you're playing with such like raw elements.

[37:04] But you're not particularly saying anything.

[37:07] You're just sort of like coming into my brain, rearranging my emotions and then like being like, well, got to go, you know, without like giving me any sort of like lesson or catharsis.

Elliott Kalan

[37:18] The lesson is that life is all disappointment and eventually you lose your memory and die.

Dan McCoy

[37:22] Yeah, we'll get there.

[37:23] But to me, it was sort of like the experience of watching, I don't know, like a long like Christmas like advertisement for Google or film cameras or like something where it's like they're just trying to associate their product with the idea of like a life lived.

[37:41] And so they have like a bunch of generalized like emotional moments.

Elliott Kalan

[37:46] Yeah.

[37:46] So you're saying it's like there was a – there was like a Disney ad like that.

[37:49] It was either Disney or Star Wars not too long ago where it's just like shots of like kids at different birthdays and parents bonding with their children over Star Wars or whatever.

[37:58] And I remember watching it and finding it very emotional.

[37:59] It's like – but it's not because of the product.

[38:01] Like they're just associating the product with being – having love and other human beings in your life and getting older.

[38:08] That's what I'm getting at.

[38:09] Fucking Don Draper.

[38:11] So Dan, I think –

Dan McCoy

[38:11] You can elicit tears from a commercial, but I don't feel good about those tears.

[38:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:15] I think unless it's that commercial about the brother and sister who are definitely having sex in the coffee commercial.

Dan McCoy

[38:20] That's tears of joy.

[38:21] That's excitement.

[38:22] That's what you guys know what I'm talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[38:23] Tears out of my wiener.

[38:24] Yeah, I think it's a Maxwell House commercial.

Dan McCoy

[38:26] Tears from my wiener.

[38:28] Feels like it should be like Stu's like memoir title or like –

[38:32] Or his Valids album.

[38:35] Or my fucking wedding bath.

Stuart Wellington

[38:38] So Al dies.

[38:40] He has one final moment where he sees the ghost of his wife walking through the living room and then of course he disappears.

[38:46] Richard and Margaret kind of reconnect over this loss.

[38:48] He disappears?

[38:49] Like he's a force ghost?

[38:51] Like Obi-Wan?

[38:51] Basically, I know you weren't paying attention to the movie a lot.

[38:54] There's a lot of moments where people just fade in and out of reality.

Elliott Kalan

[38:57] I assume that was the scenes transitioning and not them literally leaving this plane.

Stuart Wellington

[39:02] There's nothing in the movie that says that.

Elliott Kalan

[39:05] I can't add explanations that are not part of the –

[39:08] Thank you.

[39:08] In-camera text.

[39:09] That's what Roger Ebert says.

[39:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:10] Okay.

[39:11] So Richard starts painting again.

[39:12] He and Margaret – he tries to make a play to get Margaret back in his life, but she is not interested.

[39:18] However, she also develops what I'm assuming is Alzheimer's.

[39:22] Yes.

[39:23] Yeah.

[39:23] And she –

Elliott Kalan

[39:24] It's very heavily bookmarked because she'll be like, huh, I went to this thing and I forgot why I was there.

[39:30] Isn't that strange?

[39:31] And once that happens more than once in a movie, you know this character is all –

Stuart Wellington

[39:34] That's like when – that's like when anytime a female character barfs in a TV show, I'm like, damn it, she's pregnant.

Elliott Kalan

[39:41] And anytime they cough into a handkerchief and there's a spot of red, you know they're going to die.

Dan McCoy

[39:46] Yeah.

[39:47] This is also heavily foreshadowed by some of the clunkiest writing in the movie where earlier on, a thing that's going to get paid off, earlier in the film, the daughter had lost her ribbon, her like blue ribbon.

[40:02] Like first place blue ribbon, yeah.

[40:03] Yeah, and she found it and when they find it and the daughter is excited, they say something like, well, that's a moment we're never going to forget.

[40:12] And I'm like, I don't know that – I mean it's nice.

[40:16] It's nice that you found it but I don't think that in real life I'd be like, now that's a keeper for the ages.

Elliott Kalan

[40:21] I mean you wouldn't say it, no.

[40:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:23] Well, yeah.

[40:24] I might think it to myself.

[40:26] And of course this is set up later on for this loss of memory.

Elliott Kalan

[40:32] You might say that a better movie would have had them say like, huh, that was funny.

[40:35] Do you think she'll worry about losing that ribbon?

[40:37] Nah, she's not even going to remember.

[40:39] This isn't the kind of thing you remember.

[40:40] And then later they'd remember.

[40:41] Instead they're like, well, yeah, they're like put it in – well, take that ribbon and haul it up into the rafters because this is a moment for the record books.

[40:49] Yeah, it's a memory palace.

[40:51] You're going to need this in case your brain ever dissolves, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:55] I would say my favorite earlier moment is when Tom Hanks comes into the living room with a big thing at McDonald's and he's like, I brought our favorite breakfast.

[41:05] I'm like, oh man, now I'm extra sad.

[41:08] Okay, so he brings – they're selling the house.

[41:14] He's decided to move.

[41:15] He's finally decided to sell the house.

[41:17] He brings Margaret for one last visit.

[41:19] She has lost most of her memory and he is kind of carefully kind of guiding her through this process of showing her the house that they used to live in.

[41:29] And she starts to remember things.

[41:32] And then as she begins to remember things, the camera begins to move.

[41:36] It zooms in and then swirls around.

[41:39] We get to see the rest of the room they're in, which is what I always wished for when I would see a sitcom.

Elliott Kalan

[41:44] If you saw the other side of the room and there's like a dungeon wall or a laboratory, like something you'd be like, wow, I've seen that before.

Dan McCoy

[41:51] But the thing that does trigger her remembering is then the ribbon story.

[41:56] Yeah, the ribbon story.

[41:57] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[41:57] When they were in this room and the camera turned, was that a CGI room?

[42:01] It looked like – it didn't look like a real room to me.

[42:04] And I was like, at least show me a real physical space.

Dan McCoy

[42:09] I'm assuming it's all –

[42:09] Nothing in this movie looked real to me.

Stuart Wellington

[42:12] Yeah.

[42:13] And then it like zooms out the window and we see the rest of Philadelphia, I guess, or wherever.

[42:21] Perth Amboy, wherever.

[42:22] Perth Amboy, yep.

[42:23] And then the camera kind of alights atop the manor house that is across the street.

[42:29] And then we see that hummingbird flying to camera and we're like, that thing's still alive?

Dan McCoy

[42:33] I was like, this is kind of a nice shot, a nice way to end it until that damn digital hummingbird came in.

Elliott Kalan

[42:40] If it wasn't a digital hummingbird, I would have – because that was one of the few times where I was like, this movie has now inadvertently stumbled into a thought I have a lot, which is about the continuity of kind of like animal species and how the natural world and the human world, even though one affects the other, they're kind of on different time tracks.

[42:57] The natural world is on such a longer timeline than ours is and the life of a tree encompasses so much time compared to a human life and that kind of stuff.

[43:06] So like it was like, Zemeckis, you almost got into an idea that I can relate to.

[43:12] But it is so CGI and it's like the – it feels like the rat at the end of The Departed where it's like, eh, get it, wink.

[43:18] You know, continuity, history, eternal.

Dan McCoy

[43:21] Also at that ending, we didn't get into it, but I found it, I don't know, perturbing.

[43:26] It's kind of a desire to like, well, this movie about how a bunch of people had unfulfilled lives is kind of a bummer even though we slathered it in sentimentality.

[43:37] Like we'll have her remember this thing at the end and then she'll be like, yes, like, yes, I remember this place.

[43:45] I love this place.

[43:46] And I'm like, no, you didn't love this place.

[43:48] You hated it.

Elliott Kalan

[43:48] The whole movie was how much you hated this house.

[43:50] You wanted to get out.

[43:51] But maybe she realized how much she did love it underneath the thick dollops of hate that she felt.

[43:56] I guess so.

Stuart Wellington

[43:58] I mean, we haven't seen her – the apartment that she moved to that she can walk to work from.

[44:03] Maybe that apartment sucks.

[44:04] It may be terrible.

[44:05] Yeah, it might be terrible.

Elliott Kalan

[44:06] And the only good thing about it is that Richie and Al are not there.

[44:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[44:09] This is not the message that the movie is trying to give at all, but it just made me feel like Tom Hanks' character was trying to like trick her into being like, see, we had great times here by like bringing up like one nice memory.

[44:20] We're still married.

Elliott Kalan

[44:21] You still love me.

[44:23] Yeah.

[44:23] I said – so, Dan, I'm curious as to think because I – you say it's not the message the movie is trying to get across.

[44:27] Is the movie trying to get across, as you said earlier, any message other than just life, huh?

Dan McCoy

[44:33] Well, that's kind of what bothered me.

[44:37] Again, I can see how this might work as a comic.

[44:42] It works so well as a comic.

Elliott Kalan

[44:43] But it's not trying to – it's not trying – it's not hitting you over the head the same way.

[44:47] The comic has worked through hints and small glimpses, whereas this movie is very much like – I'm sorry.

[44:54] He's literally like, buy a house now.

[44:56] Johnson just put through the biggest tax increase since World War II.

[45:00] And it's like who – nobody talks like that.

[45:02] Yeah.

[45:02] Nobody explains like what time they're living in all the time, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[45:05] But as a movie –

[45:07] Benjamin Button is only three years old at this point.

Dan McCoy

[45:11] Like as a movie, like forgive me for sounding like kind of like a crank.

[45:18] But I saw that –

[45:18] Now you're going to ask that?

[45:20] This many years in?

[45:21] I've been meaning to get to it.

[45:24] My apologies.

Stuart Wellington

[45:26] Is it because if you don't keep your heart rate up to a certain level, you'll die?

[45:31] Is that what you're like?

Elliott Kalan

[45:32] Danny, do you have a Hong Kong cocktail?

[45:33] Is that what happened?

Dan McCoy

[45:33] I did have one.

[45:34] I had a couple, you know.

[45:36] Oh, shit.

Elliott Kalan

[45:37] You can't have just one.

[45:38] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[45:38] Okay.

[45:39] I guess Dan's going to have sex with me.

[45:40] Get out easy.

Dan McCoy

[45:41] On a racetrack.

[45:44] Like my – like I saw the trailer and my reaction to it was having not read the book.

[45:49] I'm like this does not blow my mind.

[45:51] The idea of like wow, a lot of stuff happened in one place, one like unassuming place.

[45:59] Yeah, like that's the way time works.

[46:01] Like a bunch of stuff happens over time in one place.

Elliott Kalan

[46:04] Basically the movie's message is communicated pretty well by any historical plaque.

Dan McCoy

[46:09] Yeah.

[46:09] That you see when you're walking down the street.

[46:11] Like even, you know, even me standing at a place where something I really care about happened.

[46:18] Like that's – you know, this is where I'm going to lose Elliot, Mr. History.

[46:23] But like even if I –

Elliott Kalan

[46:23] Because you're like I loved it when Abraham Lincoln got shot in the head.

[46:26] I love going there.

[46:27] I'm like Dan, what?

[46:28] How can you say that?

Stuart Wellington

[46:29] No, Mr. History is Elliot's Batman villain character.

Elliott Kalan

[46:32] Oh, I wish I missed her history and it's all history-related crimes.

Dan McCoy

[46:35] Yeah.

[46:35] Even if I'm standing at a place that is, you know, something meaningful to me happened that I cared about in the world.

[46:43] I'm like that's only neat for like a little while.

[46:46] And then I'm like, well, I'm – it's not happening now.

[46:50] I don't get to see it.

Stuart Wellington

[46:51] So –

[46:52] I mean like, you know, about six, seven months ago my parents sold the house that I grew up in.

[46:59] That I spent the vast majority of my young life in and they, you know, they lived there for 40 years.

[47:04] And walking through it I found to be really affecting and moving but in like, I don't know, like a weird way that this movie does not capture.

[47:15] Yeah, I mean like if it was a matter of personal history, certainly.

Dan McCoy

[47:20] But like I don't have that connection to any of the stuff that's going on in the movie and the movie makes it so generic.

Elliott Kalan

[47:26] I think that's the issue.

[47:28] Partly the genericness of it and also part – and I'm going to – again, this is my personal axe to grind.

[47:33] I think it's partly the boomerness of it.

[47:34] I feel like there are very few generations that are as obsessed with their own personal histories and growing up as at the very least the baby boomers that are involved in the media and tell those stories.

[47:45] And so the idea that like, all right, here's another movie about like emotionally closed off dad from World War II and his kid has to make a lot of sacrifices.

[47:56] And we get to raise a family.

[47:57] And we get to see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

[48:00] And like I'm surprised there wasn't a scene where they're watching the moon landing or something like that.

[48:05] And the – it just feels very – the movie feels like it takes for granted how interested you are in that particular slice of history.

[48:16] Even with these other ones arranged around it, this baby boomer experience is very much set up as the central experience of the movie.

[48:23] And I think at this point, you could get away with that when Forrest Gump came out, but I think you don't – too much time has passed.

[48:28] Like you can't get away with that quite the same way now.

[48:31] And so it leaves me cold.

[48:32] I will say though at the very end, like I was genuinely in some ways moved by seeing them very old and having them talk about the past.

[48:39] But it was more in a sense of like, yeah, well, now that I've sat through this whole movie, like I feel like I lived it too.

[48:45] I saw all those things and now you're talking about them.

[48:47] But it wasn't a – but it felt somewhat unearned.

Dan McCoy

[48:51] Or it makes you think of like in a generic way, like I was saying, like a commercial might.

[48:56] Like, oh, someday I will be doing something like this.

[49:00] And then you're allowed to project yourself on it.

[49:02] But like I have a genuine question, which is do you think this movie gains anything by like jumping around in time and sometimes going backwards?

[49:14] Because to me, honestly, other than – I can understand the appeal of like, oh, you know, we can have all these stories and we can tell them in more of an impressionistic way rather than having like a full story.

[49:25] But I feel like any head of emotional steam that could work up is undercut for me by – like there's never any like – the parallels between the timelines are never like exciting or interesting in such a way.

Elliott Kalan

[49:40] I think that's the thing.

[49:42] I think it's not totally a problem with the format.

[49:45] But the format requires much more precise and powerful content and, you know, actual plot and narrative within that format to do what they want to do.

[49:54] And like you look at a movie like Intolerance, the D.W. Griffith movie, and that is bouncing around in time between a bunch of different timelines in history.

[50:03] But the narratives all kind of crest at different moments together.

[50:07] They all like reach a climax together.

[50:09] And so you get this feeling of these cycles repeating through time.

[50:13] I don't mean to praise D.W. Griffith, but, you know, but that movie, it works that way.

[50:17] Whereas this one, because it feels kind of like kind of so randomly bouncing around, you don't – I agree that you don't get that feeling of like, oh, there's real connection between these things.

[50:27] Or we're seeing – except for the fact that everybody dies at the end, you know, in different timelines, you know, which you walk away from it being like, oh, okay.

[50:36] So the story of life is the story of disappointment and death.

[50:38] Like, oh, okay.

[50:39] Well, thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[50:40] Well, I mean, I feel like something like Oppenheimer bounces around in time quite a bit, and I feel like it manages to work it all together pretty satisfyingly.

[50:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:51] I think it's more – you just have to be so careful with it.

Dan McCoy

[50:54] But that's one story that you're following that bounces around in time, whereas like some of this stuff I'm like –

Stuart Wellington

[50:59] Yeah, Dan's like, why didn't he do something else other than just invent that stupid bomb?

Dan McCoy

[51:04] I mean like some of the characters in here just feel like padding because like there's nothing to their storylines.

[51:09] It's like, well, what are you doing here?

[51:11] Why are you in this movie?

[51:12] He's trying to fly a fucking plane to him.

Elliott Kalan

[51:14] Yeah, he does.

[51:15] Or even the scenes with their daughter where like there's one where she's just like listening on the Walkman and can't hear that the phone is ringing.

[51:21] And another where she and her friend are doing aerobics and the power goes out.

[51:25] And it's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, I don't – like if this was a movie made up of small, kind of the forgotten moments that you wouldn't think about otherwise, that would make sense to me.

[51:34] Or if it's a movie about the big moments in life, that would make sense to me.

[51:37] But instead it's just kind of this mishmash.

[51:39] And there's a – you're on that – in that locked-off frame for so long.

[51:45] And I feel like that turnaround where the camera finally moves should hit you really hard.

[51:50] But it's – but it just doesn't – the way that – I was thinking of the – there's that short that 12 Monkeys was based on.

[51:56] What, La Jetée or whatever – however it's pronounced.

[51:58] La Jada, I don't know.

[51:58] And where it's all still images.

[52:00] And then there's the one moment where the guy is looking at the woman that he's fallen in love with in the past and she blinks.

[52:05] And you were like, ugh.

[52:06] Like the sudden shock of motion.

[52:09] And it's handled so beautifully there.

[52:11] And I was like – that was the first thing that came to mind as I was watching.

[52:13] I was like, oh, I wish it was more like that.

[52:15] Where it was more of like a shock of sudden change that really affects you.

[52:19] But I think it all comes down to like you can have a fancy frame, but the picture inside the frames got to be where the beauty comes from.

Dan McCoy

[52:26] Yeah.

[52:26] I mean that's – it's like – it's not like I necessarily need it to be more conventional storytelling.

[52:32] But it does not seem to be – it does not have an idea in its head other than Robert Zemeckis was like, I'd like to try and do a movie where we don't move the camera, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[52:42] I feel like as a – if I had encountered this movie when I was like maybe a teenager or maybe early 20s where the like form of it I would find really interesting.

[52:55] I think I might like it more.

[52:57] But as an adult, I'm like this isn't enough.

[52:59] This is – like there's just not enough meat to this sandwich.

[53:04] It's all bread and sauces.

Elliott Kalan

[53:06] I think that –

[53:08] And not bread and circuses.

[53:09] I think the most complimentary way you can say is that I think it is an – it's an interesting experiment that does not quite come off.

[53:15] It doesn't quite function.

Dan McCoy

[53:16] Yeah, well, let's – we're already there.

[53:17] Let's do final judgments whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of like.

[53:23] I'm going to say it's a bad bad movie.

[53:26] It kind of like in some ways greatly put me off because it felt like it was like, you know, not done with any particular insight.

[53:37] But it was also like breaking into my like heart and trying to punch it at the same time.

Elliott Kalan

[53:44] Dan, were you on – were you on acid while you were watching the movie?

Dan McCoy

[53:48] But I do think that – I mean if you're the sort of person who's like really into movies to the degree that you're going to spend time on something that you may not like just because it's kind of interesting.

[54:01] You might want to check it out because it is interesting that he tried it.

[54:04] I just don't think it works at all.

Stuart Wellington

[54:06] Yeah, I mean there's a moment – there's a moment about an hour in that I picked up on in my second watch of this movie where they keep repeating the phrase time sure flies.

[54:20] They're talking about how time moves so fast.

[54:22] And I was like, yeah.

[54:24] And I can't – like why are you reminding me that I'm spending my precious fucking moments on this thing?

[54:30] Like I'm about to – I'm about to turn 45, guys, at the end of the month.

[54:35] So like maybe this stuff is weighing heavier on my mind.

[54:38] But it feels like I felt – this movie felt very – like I felt trapped in it in not a good way.

[54:46] Like and yeah, I just – it's not for me.

[54:49] I don't recommend it.

[54:50] This is a bad, bad movie.

[54:51] This is a miss for old Stu.

[54:53] No thanks.

Elliott Kalan

[54:54] It's interesting they were saying time sure moves by quickly because a professor Madonna would argue that time moves by so slowly.

[55:00] But anyway, setting that aside, this is a movie that – I have to say that this is not a movie that I kind of liked but it's a movie that I wanted to kind of like.

[55:08] And I do admire making a movie that is a formal experiment and trying something different.

[55:16] I wish it had worked better.

[55:17] Maybe that's also some residual love for the original book, which again I really recommend.

[55:22] But it feels mostly kind of wrongheaded and to the point also where like the whole movie I'm like,

[55:28] I don't think Tom Hanks is the right guy to play this part to be honest.

[55:31] Like he's such an innately likable figure that I kept waiting – that really it was like only halfway through the movie that I was like,

[55:40] oh, so he's just going to be like a disappointed sad sack who is mean to people or is having trouble with most of the movie.

[55:48] I think he's – I think there's stuff like it was fighting.

[55:51] Like his innate charisma was kind of fighting that a little bit in a way that made it difficult for me.

[55:56] But yeah, it's a movie that I can't really recommend.

[56:01] But it's worth – you know, look at a couple minutes of it and see – or if there's a super cut online of just the Lazy Boy storyline,

[56:07] then just watch a happy story of a couple that loves each other that invent a chair for relaxation and make their millions.

Dan McCoy

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Elliott Kalan

[57:26] We are also sponsored by Rocket Money.

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Stuart Wellington

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[59:07] Listen up, flop lovers.

[59:09] One of your compatriots has made their very own game coming to Kickstarter.

[59:15] Pizza Rolls, that's R-O-L-E-S, is a 10-minute hidden rolls style game about awkwardly ordering pizza.

[59:25] Players simulate a conversation with each player subtly trying to get their preferred toppings on the pie.

[59:32] Simple yet engaging, it's pocket-sized, family-friendly fun that can really connect people, whether they're young and old or casual and long-term gamers.

[59:43] That's Pizza Rolls, R-O-L-E-S.

[59:48] So Pizza Rolls is coming to Kickstarter February 2025.

[59:54] Search Pizza Rolls, that's R-O-L-E-S, on Kickstarter now.

[59:59] Sounds perfect for a game night, Dan.

[1:00:02] Although I usually like super complicated games that make Dan mad.

[1:00:06] You do.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:07] But you love pizza, so maybe this would be a good one to cycle in.

[1:00:11] You know, I like a casual, friendly game.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:15] Mm-mm.

[1:00:16] Super intense for me.

[1:00:18] Okay.

[1:00:19] But I could be seduced by pizza.

[1:00:22] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:23] A couple of Ninja Turtles over here.

[1:00:25] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:30] Big E is a former WWE champion.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:33] He spent 10 years at the top sharing the ring with John Cena and Roman Reigns.

[1:00:38] So, what's next?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:40] When I retire, I'm going to move to the desert.

[1:00:42] I'm going to delete all my socials.

[1:00:45] I'm going to disappear.

[1:00:46] Y'all will never hear from me again.

[1:00:47] I'm going to sit on the couch, chill, and live my life.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:50] From the legendary tag team The New Day.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:52] It's Big E on Tights and Fights.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:54] I feel like I need to listen to a few episodes that you guys have because this was really enjoyable.

[1:00:58] Oh, no.

[1:00:59] Thank you so much for your time.

[1:01:00] Oh, yes.

[1:01:01] Oh, yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:02] Available on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:08] The following are real reenactments of pretend emergency calls.

[1:01:13] 911.

[1:01:14] My husband.

[1:01:15] It's my husband.

[1:01:16] Calm down, please.

[1:01:17] What about your husband?

[1:01:18] He loves the dishwasher wrong.

[1:01:21] Please help.

[1:01:22] Please help me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:24] Where are you now, ma'am?

[1:01:25] At the kitchen table.

[1:01:26] I was with my dad.

[1:01:27] He mispronounced his words intentionally.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:30] There are plenty of podcasts on the hunt for justice.

[1:01:34] But only one podcast has the courage to take on the silly crimes.

[1:01:39] Judge John Hodgman.

[1:01:40] The only true crime podcast that won't leave you feeling sad and bad and scared for once.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:45] Only on MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:49] Shall we move on to some letters from listeners?

[1:01:52] Yeah, why not?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:52] Yes, why not?

[1:01:53] Why not, Dan?

[1:01:54] Thank you for asking my permission for that.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:56] Why don't we treat ourselves?

[1:01:57] This one's from Gene, last name withheld.

[1:02:00] Wolf?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:01] Who writes?

[1:02:02] Who writes a whole bunch of antique words that we're going to have to look up.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:06] This is J-E-A-N.

[1:02:11] My husband and I recently went on a cross-country road trip.

[1:02:17] Cool.

[1:02:17] And spent the majority of our driving time listening to The Flophouse.

[1:02:20] Sorry.

[1:02:21] Thanks for the laughs as we traversed from Chicago to Portland, L.A. to Roswell, Dallas, Nashville, and more.

[1:02:28] Sounds great.

[1:02:29] During our trip, we randomly parked across the street from the Toretto family, home of the Fast and the Furious fame.

[1:02:37] Understandably causing us—

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:38] Oh, the Toretto family home.

[1:02:39] The way, Dan, you read that made it kind of confused me a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:43] The Toretto family home.

[1:02:44] Yes, you're correct.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:45] I was like, were they also at the rest stop that you were at?

[1:02:48] The Toretto family?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:49] Well, let me take that again.

[1:02:50] During our trip, we randomly parked across the street from the Toretto family home of the Fast and the Furious fame.

[1:02:58] Understandably causing us to repeat family at each other for the next few minutes in varying Vin Diesel delivery styles and coherence.

[1:03:07] Here's my question.

[1:03:09] Have you ever randomly found yourself in a famous slash infamous filming location or is there a location you would love to stumble upon while traveling?

[1:03:18] Thank you for all the fun.

[1:03:20] You guys are the best.

[1:03:21] Gene, last name withheld.

[1:03:23] I remember being in—I think it's a story of Washington, is it?

[1:03:30] Where the Goonies, much of the Goonies, the seaside.

[1:03:34] Oh, cool, cool.

[1:03:36] And being like, oh, damn, we are in the town from the Goonies.

[1:03:40] Yeah, yeah.

[1:03:41] They saved all the pirate money, right?

[1:03:43] We sure are.

[1:03:44] You got to hide from Anne Ramsey or she might, I don't know.

[1:03:49] Never.

[1:03:50] Just twist my ear.

[1:03:51] She can kill me if she wants.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:53] You might want to hide from Anne Ramsey or Ayn Rand, either one.

[1:03:56] Yeah, probably.

[1:03:57] Yeah.

[1:03:58] I don't know that I've—I'm trying to think I've ever stumbled on.

[1:04:00] I think mine has been more the opposite where if I'm watching a movie set in New York, I will suddenly recognize a corner or a building from my real life.

[1:04:07] But I've done lots of trips where I have gone to shooting locations.

[1:04:11] My wife is from the Bay Area and that means there's a lot of Hitchcock locations around there.

[1:04:16] He did a lot of shooting in the Bay Area.

[1:04:18] And so for many years, each time we would go to visit her family, I would be like, which location from Vertigo are we going to today?

[1:04:24] Which location from the Birds are we going to?

[1:04:26] And it's all really fun.

[1:04:27] And I hope someday to go to Vienna and take the tour there to see the locations for The Third Man, which is not a Hitchcock film, but it's very Hitchcockian, you know.

[1:04:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:37] Yeah, I, you know, I spent some time in Vienna, but that was pre-Stewart having watched The Third Man, so.

[1:04:44] So you had no idea.

[1:04:45] I had no idea.

[1:04:46] I didn't know where to hear good Zither music.

[1:04:50] I just assumed it was just—

[1:04:51] Just all over the place.

[1:04:53] Any cafe you walked by, just Zither was coming out, yeah.

[1:04:55] Yeah, I feel like that's the thing about being in New York is that you're like, you're just constantly running into, you know, things you saw on Law and Order and whatnot.

[1:05:05] Yeah, movies like Law and Order.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:08] Corpses.

[1:05:10] This is from Brendan, last name withheld, who writes, I'm a big sports guy, like I know the three of you are as well.

[1:05:18] Yeah.

[1:05:18] Weesh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:19] I was in the hospital.

[1:05:20] A couple of leatherheads over here.

[1:05:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:22] I was in the hospital with my first kidney stone.

[1:05:25] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1:05:26] When we were blessed with the 84 Brady episode, which featured some A-plus acting from former New England Patriots stars Rob Gronkowski and Tom Brady.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:36] And Lily Tomlin, former New England Patriots star.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:39] Yeah.

[1:05:39] This episode paired incredibly well with the morphine that was being pumped into me most of the day.

[1:05:44] The band morphine?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:45] Yeah.

[1:05:46] I feel like our podcast usually goes a lot down better when you got some morphine in your system.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:51] Like most things.

[1:05:53] Everyone always wants to know what the worst performances were from athletes.

[1:05:57] But as true movie experts, I know you need a more difficult question.

[1:06:02] What was the best performance you've seen from an athlete or other non-actor in a film?

[1:06:07] Thanks for years of laughs.

[1:06:10] Brendan, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:14] I thought Marshawn Lynch was very funny in Bottoms.

[1:06:17] It was very funny in Bottoms.

[1:06:18] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:18] I have to say, I'm withholding judgment a little bit because every time an ad for Love Hurts is on, my older son points out, he goes, Marshawn Lynch is in that.

[1:06:26] You got to go see that because Marshawn Lynch is going to be in it.

[1:06:28] So I'm like, all right, I guess I'll find out how good Marshawn Lynch is.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:31] Based on the early reviews, we're going to be watching.

[1:06:34] We may watch it for the podcast.

[1:06:35] Possibly, yeah.

[1:06:36] Because I like, what's his face?

[1:06:38] Yeah, Kei Haeguan deserves better.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:41] But maybe Ariana, it's Ariana DeBose.

[1:06:44] DeBose, yeah.

[1:06:45] DeBose.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:46] Like DeBose Wave Radio.

[1:06:48] Popular Mechanics Best of What's New 1985.

[1:06:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:51] I have a, I mean, it's not like amazing acting, but as far as like acting go.

[1:06:56] Isn't it in the Naked Gun movies?

[1:06:59] Woof.

[1:06:59] Is that what you're going to say, Dan?

[1:07:00] Let me tell you some bad news about it.

[1:07:03] Why?

[1:07:03] What's going on with him?

[1:07:04] I was going to go actually a related direction, but not there.

[1:07:08] Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I think, is funny in Airplane.

[1:07:11] Yes, that's true.

[1:07:11] He's not asked to do a lot of lifting acting-wise, but he does what he does very well.

[1:07:17] But then, you know, known as a singer, this is her only movie.

[1:07:22] I liked Ilana Haim a lot in Licorice Pizza, a movie that I know that people have mixed feelings about, but I think that her performance was...

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:29] I think she's certainly the highlight of that movie.

[1:07:31] It's not a movie I like, but I like her performance in it quite a bit.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:33] Yeah.

[1:07:34] And then I was thinking about, there are people like, it's sort of an open question, like, is this person not an actor?

[1:07:43] If, like, I feel like there's a lot of people out there who didn't intend necessarily to become actors and then had long careers.

[1:07:53] Like, they weren't an actor when they started out.

[1:07:56] Like, I was thinking specifically of, like, Barkad Abdi from Captain Phillips, who was a driver when he was cast in that and sort of steals the movie.

[1:08:06] But then he went on to have a career or...

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:09] I mean, that's the thing about acting is until you have your first professional role, no one's an actor and everyone's an actor.

[1:08:15] I mean, there are lots of great movies with non-professional actors in them.

[1:08:19] One of my favorite movies is The Fall, where the girl in that, you know, was very much, she was not a professional trained actor.

[1:08:25] She was in on it.

[1:08:26] No, she wasn't.

[1:08:27] She thought Lee Pace was paralyzed.

[1:08:30] But with, I was thinking about other athletes and, like, the question for me then is, when does someone stop being an athlete who's in movies and become an actor?

[1:08:37] Like, is Carl Weathers or Jim Brown?

[1:08:39] Like, they're in tons of movies and they're really good in them.

[1:08:41] Like, but are they athletes or are they actors or are they both?

[1:08:45] Like, Arnold Schwarzenegger is technically an athlete who became an actor and became one of the biggest movie stars in the world, you know?

[1:08:51] But also, there's, I was just looking online and I had forgotten about Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems, where his performance, I find, it is at a, like, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Walken at times level of, like, this character is so intensely involved in what's going on.

[1:09:07] And, like, I really buy his passionate obsession with his gem that he has no reason to become so obsessed with.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:14] I mean, I feel like there's a handful of people in that movie that are not actors.

[1:09:18] Yeah, that's true.

[1:09:18] Like, just the heavies.

[1:09:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:20] And the romantic interest, right?

[1:09:21] She was a, I don't think she was a, I think that's her first role, right?

[1:09:25] Julia Fox?

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:26] Yeah, right?

[1:09:26] Yeah, I think it might have been her first role.

[1:09:28] But she's obviously been another.

[1:09:30] She was just a Soderbergh movie dude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:32] Oh, that's true.

[1:09:32] Yeah, she was in that Soda Bread movie.

[1:09:34] So, it's a good question.

[1:09:36] I mean, like, that's the thing that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:38] It feels like some shitty bully picking on Steven Soderbergh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:42] Hey, Soda Bread.

[1:09:45] Ireland wants you back.

[1:09:46] What?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:48] Just admit that it's you editing all of your own movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:53] It reminds me of the worst heckling I ever saw, which was at a Yankees Red Sox game at Fenway.

[1:09:59] Oh, wow.

[1:10:00] Mariano Rivera, one of the greatest closing pitchers of all time, was pitching.

[1:10:03] What did David say to him?

[1:10:04] No, no.

[1:10:05] David wasn't there.

[1:10:06] But these guys who were Boston guys were sitting in front of us and they were going, hey, Mariano, Playgirl called.

[1:10:11] They want you to edit their next issue.

[1:10:13] And I was like, I've got to decode what this heckle means.

[1:10:16] And then they were calling him like marinara sauce.

[1:10:19] And I'm like, that doesn't really work.

[1:10:20] Yeah.

[1:10:21] Like an insulting name.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:23] Let's move on to recommendations of movies that might be a better use of your dwindling time on this earth.

[1:10:30] If it's possible.

[1:10:31] Than here.

[1:10:32] I'm going to very quickly do sort of a dual linked recommendation.

[1:10:37] You're going to do a duel with Stuart?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:38] Cool.

[1:10:39] Yeah.

[1:10:39] No offense to my money is on Stuart.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:42] Okay.

[1:10:42] Well, I mean, if it's a duel, you know, there's weapons involved.

[1:10:46] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:47] Yeah.

[1:10:47] You're not helping your case, Dan.

[1:10:49] That'll even things up.

[1:10:52] Yeah.

[1:10:53] I think Dan's going to be much better with a Claymore.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:54] Sure.

[1:10:56] I'm going to recommend two movies that aren't connected but are kind of linked to my mind in that they are two movies that don't necessarily make a whole lot of sense

[1:11:08] or need to make sense on a plot level but are sort of like genre dreams you might have.

[1:11:15] And I enjoyed both of them.

[1:11:18] One is Mutant Hunt from 1987, which is like this very low budget sci-fi action kind of horror element.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:30] I mean, you have Mutant Hunt.

[1:11:31] Yeah.

[1:11:31] I mean, you don't have to do too much hard selling when the song is called Mutant Hunt.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:35] For the budget this thing clearly had, they have some pretty delightful effects at certain points.

[1:11:41] There's a sort of corpse robot at the end that's like a puppet animatronic that looks kind of great.

[1:11:49] It just feels like...

[1:11:50] Say less, Dan.

[1:11:52] Yeah.

[1:11:52] It feels like a dream...

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:53] Stop selling past the clothes.

[1:11:55] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:55] It feels like a dream of like an 80s VHS, you know, cover.

[1:12:02] And then also I'd like to recommend from 1966, a Japanese movie in America called Black Tight Killers, which is kind of a pop art feeling.

[1:12:13] It feels sort of like almost like Danger Diabolic or like the Batman TV show in a way.

[1:12:19] It has like, you know, crime going on in Japan, but it has this gang of like go-go dancing girl, black particular black type killers who are actually pretty nice when you get to know them.

[1:12:33] But it's also sort of just a beautiful thing to watch that sort of like pop art genre feel where it's like it doesn't need to make sense as long as something exciting is being thrown in front of your face every few minutes.

[1:12:45] So those are my recommendations.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:48] I'm going to recommend a beautiful little movie that I had to pause so I could watch here.

[1:12:54] I am recommending La Chimera, a movie that also deals with how people deal with the past, but it does it in a much more beautiful and interesting way.

[1:13:04] This is set in the 80s.

[1:13:06] It's directed by Alice Rohrwalker and Josh O'Connor from Challengers and other things.

[1:13:15] Plays a kind of a baby girl, archaeologist type guy who falls in from England, who falls in with a group of grave robbers, like tomb robbers, to pilfer like treasures from the past.

[1:13:33] And he has this like kind of almost supernatural ability to sense when he's above a grave site or a tomb, almost like he's, well, literally he's dowsing for these graves.

[1:13:45] And then it turns into, it also, there's also some story, Isabella Rossellini's in it.

[1:13:52] I don't know, it's beautiful, it's great.

[1:13:53] I highly recommend it.

[1:13:55] It's got that kind of like, it's both like, it feels very real and lived in, but also kind of light and breezy.

[1:14:03] But everything kind of makes sense and I don't know, it's great.

[1:14:07] La Chimera, watch that shit.

[1:14:08] It's on Hulu.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:09] I'm going to recommend a movie that is kind of the exact opposite of what Dan was recommending.

[1:14:14] This is a recent studio almost release that is very not kind of –

[1:14:21] Coyote versus Acme?

[1:14:22] Yep, Coyote versus Acme.

[1:14:24] Wow.

[1:14:24] I would love to see that.

[1:14:26] But almost.

[1:14:27] So this is Juror number two, the Clint Eastwood movie that came out recently.

[1:14:30] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1:14:30] Which is very visually spare, visually plain.

[1:14:34] The storytelling is very traditional.

[1:14:35] Unlike all of Clint's other movies.

[1:14:37] Yeah.

[1:14:37] No, but even like a movie like Unforgiven has a few kind of visual stylistic touches.

[1:14:41] And the older Clint Eastwood gets, and he's very old now, the more – I think he's focused on just super straightforward storytelling.

[1:14:48] And this is a movie that at first watch I was like, okay, this is like an interesting kind of like crime, not quite thriller, ethical drama, I guess.

[1:14:58] But the more I thought about it, the more it really sat with me and the more it really got into my head about –

[1:15:03] this is a movie about people who are not bad people who are stuck in an untenable situation and are trying to do their best to do the right thing

[1:15:11] but find that there are either elements of their own personality or elements of the world around them that are making it difficult for them to do the right thing.

[1:15:19] And the idea that justice is something that is not necessarily a happy or even a fair thing or a nice thing but a thing that in an almost kind of Greek tragedy way, justice is something that takes its victims.

[1:15:33] And I thought it was – I just – it really sat with me for a long time.

[1:15:37] And the closest thing I can think to it is that like this is Clint Eastwood kind of like his first reforms in a way, which is making it sound more intense or extreme than it is.

[1:15:45] First reforms are really intense movie because it's a Paul Schrader movie and Paul Schrader is a madman, whereas Clint Eastwood is more generally kind of like a slow-going guy in his later movies.

[1:15:54] But I found it to be a movie that had a deceptively still surface but a lot of depth underneath it, kind of the opposite of here, which felt like it had a lot going on on the surface and not a lot underneath.

[1:16:05] And so I really would recommend Juror No. 2 and then taking some time to think about it afterwards.

[1:16:10] You know?

Dan McCoy

[1:16:10] You know, that's a movie that I did like and I think ultimately by the end.

[1:16:14] Like the end really landed for me and I had a lot of the feelings that you're talking about.

[1:16:20] But that effective ending was almost undone for me personally.

[1:16:25] I know that I'm not trying to convince you by like the whole first half of the movie.

[1:16:29] I'm like, this is the dumbest court case.

[1:16:31] Like this is not – like the law on this is like laughable to me.

[1:16:35] I mean, yes and no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:36] I feel like the movie – it's a case – it's one of these things where like the court case is not clever or particularly hard to parse.

[1:16:45] Like it shouldn't be a hard case to win in some ways, you know, for the defense because there's like – it's all circumstantial evidence and stuff.

[1:16:53] But I feel like the movie is not really about that.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:55] I used to buy a lot of it is what I'm saying.

[1:16:57] Like there's a point at which like there could be a mistrial.

[1:17:00] I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

[1:17:02] There should be a mistrial at this point.

[1:17:03] For one thing, there's a lot of like just obvious ways that this person would be defended that aren't even touched on.

[1:17:10] But like that's not what Clint cares about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:12] But it's not what the movie is about.

[1:17:13] I feel like this is not – the movie at times plays like it's starting to become 12 Angry Men.

[1:17:17] But it is not.

[1:17:18] That's not what it has on its mind.

[1:17:19] And it's more interested in these characters kind of dealing with their choices rather than with the actual strengths or not of the case, which is fine with me because I don't really care that much about the case in the middle, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:30] Now, I haven't seen this movie, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:32] You just saw the –

[1:17:33] You just saw the –

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:33] Funtura number one, the first one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:34] Yeah.

[1:17:34] Just imagine I'm someone listening to the Flophouse.

[1:17:38] Yeah.

[1:17:38] And you're selling this movie to me.

[1:17:40] Now, I know that Nicholas Holt is in this movie.

[1:17:43] Does he play a weird little creep?

[1:17:45] He does not play a weird little creep in this one.

[1:17:47] No, he is the all-American –

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:49] He's the all-American guy who has kind of a dark secret.

[1:17:52] He has his darker side.

[1:17:53] Is it that he's a little creep?

[1:17:54] No, it's not that he's a little creep, unfortunately.

[1:17:56] This is a movie fairly devoid of weird little creeps.

[1:18:00] But like for instance, so there's scenes in here where you kind of want – you're like, I don't understand why I'm seeing this moment.

[1:18:05] Why am I seeing this moment in a person's life?

[1:18:07] There's a scene in this movie where Nicholas Holt and his wife are giving out candy to kids for their trick-or-treaters, and they're dressed as the couple from American Gothic, which is kind of on-the-nose type symbolism in a way.

[1:18:19] But they don't talk about the case.

[1:18:21] They don't talk about the plot.

[1:18:22] It's just them kind of having this moment of living their life and interacting with the kids who come for trick-or-treating.

[1:18:27] And it was like – it's a little – it's not fully realistic.

[1:18:30] It's not a naturalistic scene.

[1:18:32] It feels like a movie scene.

[1:18:33] But I was like, I like that this plays thematically with some of the stuff that's going on in it, but it is not – every scene is hitting the plot super hard.

[1:18:40] I liked getting this glimpse of another side of their life, you know.

[1:18:43] Although there was – the first time he showed up in that costume, I didn't realize it was Halloween.

[1:18:46] And I was like, what the hell is he wearing like old farmer overalls?

[1:18:49] Like what's going on?

[1:18:51] And then I realized it's an American Gothic costume.

[1:18:54] Okay, yeah, yeah.

[1:18:54] But anyway, I'm sorry that this one didn't hit the spot.

[1:18:57] But – for Dan.

[1:18:58] But I still recommend it.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:00] I'm so glad I saw it.

[1:19:01] I'm not trying to undo your recommendation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:03] I'm just –

[1:19:03] No, but I feel like this is one where it did – I didn't really feel the power of it until the very end of the movie.

[1:19:08] As it was going on, I was like, this movie is fine.

[1:19:10] It's okay.

[1:19:10] And then once the movie ended, I was like, okay, that wasn't the movie I thought it was going to be, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:14] Yeah.

[1:19:14] Well, I guess I'll have to watch it and break the tie.

[1:19:17] Yeah, that's right.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:17] That's the important thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:19] Tune back in to see who wins the battle of juror number two.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:22] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:23] And tune back in –

[1:19:24] Whether it's enthusiastic Elliot Kalin or denying Dan McCoy.

[1:19:27] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:28] And tune back in next time for another episode of The Flop House because this one sadly is drawing to a close.

[1:19:34] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:35] But I loved it here.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:38] No, no, no, no, you didn't, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:40] I loved it here.

[1:19:42] Don't you remember, Stuart?

[1:19:43] This is where you started the episode and this is where you tried to summarize it and we kept interrupting you.

[1:19:48] And this is where Dan shot down my recommendation.

[1:19:51] Don't you remember all these moments in our lives?

[1:19:52] You're right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:53] I hate it here.

[1:19:55] Why won't you let me die?

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:57] Well, let's do it.

[1:19:59] That would be so funny if at the end of the movie he's like, and you gave birth there and that's where we got married.

[1:20:05] And she goes, just let me go.

[1:20:07] Why won't you let me go?

Dan McCoy

[1:20:11] Before we go, though, I would like to thank our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:20:16] Yeah.

[1:20:16] Go to MaximumFun.org to check out other great shows.

[1:20:20] We're gearing up for the drive soon.

[1:20:23] We've got some good things planned for that.

[1:20:25] We hope you will join us.

[1:20:28] And we would like to thank Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:20:31] He goes by the name Howell Doughty when he's doing such things as making music or doing Twitch streams.

[1:20:39] Why don't you look him up on the internet?

[1:20:42] But for the Flophouse, I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:20:46] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:47] And you know I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:20:50] Okay.

[1:20:51] See you later, suckas.

[1:20:52] Whoa.

[1:20:53] Run, run, run, run, run, run, slam door.

[1:20:57] You have like a million tabs open.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:05] How many tabs do you have open?

[1:21:06] A million?

[1:21:07] I do not.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:07] Oh, man.

[1:21:08] There's like 40 tabs.

[1:21:09] One, two, three, four, five.

[1:21:10] I have six tabs open.

[1:21:13] That's a lot of soda.

[1:21:14] Six tabs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:14] Google search for big naturals.

[1:21:16] Uh-huh.

[1:21:17] That doesn't seem like Dan's Google search.

[1:21:19] No, it's not.

[1:21:20] No.

[1:21:21] Yeah, you're projecting your –

[1:21:23] I'm projecting.

[1:21:24] That's what mine is.

[1:21:25] Yeah.

[1:21:25] Okay.

[1:21:26] Because I had to use Google for that.

[1:21:28] I can't find it and use other –

[1:21:29] You have no other way of –

[1:21:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:31] Okay.

[1:21:34] Maximum Fun.

[1:21:35] A worker-owned network.

[1:21:37] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:21:39] Supported.

[1:21:39] Directly.

[1:21:40] By you.

[1:21:41] You.

Ep.#444 - Here

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