The Flop House: Episode #42 - Paul Blart: Mall Cop

[0:00] And now, one from the Blart. We talk about Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

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

[0:34] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:35] Hello, and I'm Brock Mahan.

[0:37] Hey, Brock. Brock is here, not Elliot.

[0:40] Yeah, I don't know what his deal is, but...

[0:42] No, we don't know what his deal is. He didn't even give us an excuse this time.

[0:45] Like, he's like, I don't think I can do it this week.

[0:48] Yeah, like I showed up with a big bag, I guess, a bag of Popeye's chicken, and yeah, he wasn't here.

[0:56] It's very odd, because he never misses a chance to expound upon an issue.

[1:02] Yeah, or have Popeye's chicken.

[1:04] Yeah, like I had expected when I opened up the bag, I guess, of Popeye's chicken, that he would, like, come floating in,

[1:10] like his nose lifted up by the smell of the Popeye's, like twinkling his toes or something.

[1:18] You know, in his absence, I think we should all feel free to make up reasons why he's not here.

[1:23] Okay. Stuart, do you have one?

[1:25] No, you just sprung this on me, dude. I'm not actually that good.

[1:29] Okay. Brock?

[1:30] I think he's thrill-killing somebody.

[1:32] Okay, that's pretty cool.

[1:34] Like Leopold and or Loeb.

[1:36] Exactly. I hear this is the only way he can maintain an erection now, is through taking someone else's life.

[1:41] Nice. And then capturing their soul in his mouth at their moment of expiration.

[1:47] So, Brock.

[1:48] Yes.

[1:50] Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Pretend that we don't know who you are.

[1:53] Well, I'm a television writer professionally.

[1:56] Wow. Professionally?

[1:58] Professionally, yes.

[1:59] You're selling yourself well, sir.

[2:00] Thank you. It's on my resume.

[2:04] So, I write for a show on True TV called The Smoking Gun Presents World's Dumbest.

[2:09] Call your cable provider for details.

[2:12] So, that's what I do professionally.

[2:14] Amateurishly, I guess, I used to host a podcast on East Village Radio called Fizz City,

[2:21] in which Dan was a frequent contributor.

[2:23] Wait, Fish City or Fist?

[2:25] Fist, yes.

[2:26] Fist, okay.

[2:27] Fist, yes. Named after the Loretta Lynn song.

[2:29] Okay. So, you're familiar to the medium, the low-rated medium of podcasting.

[2:34] I am, but I got to say, hats off to the setup that you have here.

[2:37] I'm impressed by the microphone screens that you have on here, which is something that…

[2:43] You're impressed that they're not bare microphones.

[2:46] I am very impressed.

[2:47] The lack of sibilant S's brought to you by Dan McCoy's technical know-how.

[2:52] Say all the P words you want.

[2:54] No pops.

[2:55] Yeah, amazing.

[2:57] What are you guys talking about?

[3:00] You know, sound geek stuff.

[3:02] I was just looking at a magazine.

[3:05] Oprah's magazine, I see.

[3:07] Yeah. It's pretty good this month.

[3:09] So, we watched a movie tonight, and it was called…

[3:12] Wait, what did we do on this podcast again?

[3:14] Well, to reset it. That's what you say in radio. You got to reset it.

[3:19] We watch a bad movie, and then we chat about it a little bit.

[3:23] Sure.

[3:24] And so, tonight, the movie that we watched was Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

[3:30] It's a pretty catchy title.

[3:31] Yeah.

[3:32] I remember when Blartmania swept the nation.

[3:35] Yeah.

[3:36] The name Blart was on the tip of everyone's tongue.

[3:39] Yeah, it was like when Hollywood thought the name Chuck was really hilarious, right?

[3:44] What era was that?

[3:46] It was like a…

[3:47] Good luck, Chuck.

[3:48] Oh, okay.

[3:49] NBC's Chuck.

[3:50] I'd never pronounce you Chuck and Larry.

[3:52] Yeah.

[3:53] Also starring Kevin James.

[3:55] You had three examples that you can, according to the New York State Regents, you can draw a line.

[3:59] I buy your argument.

[4:01] I think that that is what's required to write a New York Times Trends piece.

[4:05] So, good work, Stuart.

[4:09] Hold on.

[4:10] I'm out of here.

[4:11] Okay.

[4:12] Well, goodbye.

[4:13] Footsteps, footsteps, footsteps.

[4:16] Door slam.

[4:17] We need a fucking Foley, guys.

[4:19] The radio know-how.

[4:21] You're exuding it at this point.

[4:25] Kevin James.

[4:26] Superstar Kevin James.

[4:28] Yeah, he played the titular character, right?

[4:31] Eponymous, we call it.

[4:33] I like to say titular.

[4:34] Yeah, because there's a tit in there.

[4:36] We all know what you like.

[4:37] Yep.

[4:38] Paul Blart is what I like, in fact.

[4:40] So, you know, what's the story here?

[4:44] Hey, Barack.

[4:45] Yes.

[4:46] This is your first time.

[4:47] Yes, it is.

[4:48] You get to summarize the movie.

[4:49] Oh, man.

[4:50] Summarize the movie.

[4:51] Amazing.

[4:52] So, there's a mall cop.

[4:53] All right.

[4:54] He does something amazing.

[4:55] He's given the chance to not be a mall cop anymore, and he turns it down.

[4:58] That's pretty much what I learned from this film.

[5:00] Wow.

[5:01] That was really fast.

[5:02] That's awesome.

[5:03] Because normally, Elliot takes like a zillion years describing the movie.

[5:06] And, yeah, that's basically it, right?

[5:08] He's kind of a loser, and then he's put into, like, a mall-style diehard, and with a bunch

[5:17] of, like, extreme sports bad guys.

[5:19] Yeah, the villains from Hackers.

[5:20] Well, not the villains from Hackers.

[5:21] I would say the heroes from Hackers, although I guess Fisher Stevens also skateboarded in

[5:27] the movie Hackers.

[5:28] Yeah, I mean, I think all Hackers are probably villains.

[5:31] Okay.

[5:32] They're lovable rogues.

[5:33] So, imagine.

[5:34] Modern-day Robin Hoods.

[5:36] Villains in the mode of the movie Hackers take over a mall.

[5:39] Very into urban sports and parkour.

[5:41] Yeah, like most criminals are nowadays.

[5:45] Well, you need to do something to keep yourself in criminal shape.

[5:48] You know, it's very physically demanding to hijack a mall, basically.

[5:52] You need something to, you know, to tone yourself up when not hijacking.

[5:56] Yeah.

[5:58] I think what happened is that their, like, online video career that they kind of started

[6:02] up with their extreme sports videos they made was really going poorly.

[6:06] Like, maybe they broke all their video equipment, and thus they had to rob this mall.

[6:10] You think this was to finance their extreme sports habit?

[6:13] I think they probably couldn't find any venture capitalists who were willing to bankroll the

[6:17] website.

[6:18] No, no.

[6:19] After, like, the failure of the X Games and the XFL.

[6:23] Or maybe they just get off on the rush, you know, like in Point Break.

[6:26] Yeah.

[6:27] Okay, so it's like Bodhi.

[6:29] Yeah, it's a lot like the Bodhisattva.

[6:33] So, okay, yeah, these extreme sports enthusiasts take over the mall, and Paul Blart has to

[6:41] pull a, um, Diehard, what was his name?

[6:46] What?

[6:47] Diehard's name.

[6:48] John McClane?

[6:49] He's got to pull a McClane.

[6:50] Yeah, a Diehard.

[6:53] And he's got to save his huge-eyed, uh...

[6:56] Doe-eyed.

[6:57] Doe-eyed, hopeful girlfriend, you know, like, the object of his affection, and his daughter,

[7:03] who are hostages, and, uh, you know.

[7:07] Yeah, he does.

[7:08] I think that the bumbling buffoon comes through in the end.

[7:10] Yep, there's a couple twists, but...

[7:12] Yeah, a few setbacks.

[7:14] Yeah, but it's pretty simple.

[7:16] Obstacles to be overcome.

[7:18] Although, I don't know if he necessarily overcame them or sort of stepped around them.

[7:21] They were very large obstacles that were thrown in his way.

[7:24] I mean, I think he gets shot at, like, three or four times, but they don't even come close,

[7:30] and then people stop shooting at him.

[7:32] One of the things that we learn from watching the film is that these mall hijackers, despite

[7:36] being heavily armed, didn't bring enough bullets to get the job done.

[7:41] I'm assuming.

[7:42] I mean, either that or, you know, they had their guns, and I think deep down they're

[7:47] like, you know what?

[7:48] I don't want to murder anybody today.

[7:50] I was just way into extreme sports, and the idea of this, like, mall heist was really

[7:55] cool, but I don't actually want to kill another human being, because I don't know if I can

[7:59] deal with that in the dark hours of the night.

[8:01] I can't see that dead man's face.

[8:03] Right, and the movie takes place on Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and

[8:08] I assume that just the holiday before probably would put them in the mindset, like, you know,

[8:12] what are all these things that I'm thankful for?

[8:14] Sure.

[8:15] And I'm sure they don't want to...

[8:16] They thought about all those dead Native Americans, and they're like, I don't need to add mall

[8:21] cops to that total.

[8:22] No.

[8:23] Like, yeah, that's not what America was founded on, the ideals.

[8:27] No.

[8:28] But, oh, this movie.

[8:33] So let's see.

[8:34] Anything else weird?

[8:35] There's a couple twists and turns.

[8:37] There's a lot of moments where he is incredibly proficient at doing what he's supposed to

[8:43] do, and then there's a number of moments... for every time that he's incredibly proficient,

[8:47] there's also a moment where he, you know, falls down a lot.

[8:50] Well, we see at the beginning of the movie that he came very close to becoming a police

[8:55] officer.

[8:56] Within six inches, basically, of becoming a police officer.

[8:58] Yeah.

[8:59] He was going through the police academy, we can only assume, along with Steve Guttenberg

[9:03] and Michael Winslow.

[9:04] Sure.

[9:05] And that Hightower character.

[9:08] Uh-huh.

[9:09] And Kim Cattrall.

[9:10] And Tackleberry.

[9:11] Sure.

[9:12] I guess, basically, in the opening sequence, I guess the premise was established that he

[9:19] is technically proficient at some things, but bumbling at other things, because he's

[9:22] kind of, you know, he's running through the police obstacle course, he's sweating in very

[9:28] strategic areas.

[9:29] Yeah.

[9:30] Underneath his man breasts.

[9:31] And right around the belly button.

[9:32] He's a large man.

[9:33] Those are the only two places that he apparently sweats.

[9:34] He's having a hard time, you know, keeping up with the other academy members, yet he

[9:39] does...

[9:40] Because he's incredibly obese.

[9:41] Exactly.

[9:42] But yet, at one point, he does swing on a rope, and does a flip, and lands on his feet.

[9:47] So I guess it's maybe he just has the ability to, every once in a while, put it all together.

[9:53] Yeah.

[9:54] He hasn't got a lot of grace for a large man.

[9:55] I need to retract a statement.

[9:57] Kevin James is not incredibly obese.

[9:59] Okay.

[10:00] is a lot he's not a very little stocky i think that i was a muscle mass

[10:04] uh... underneath it yeah i mean you know

[10:06] but the thing is i think you're pretty cute

[10:09] shepard

[10:10] he's a credible romantic lead for paul barton also absolutely clop

[10:14] mark up

[10:15] more

[10:15] uh... yet he's always on horseback

[10:18] for for most of the time in the mall that's why it's called mall clop of

[10:20] course uh... but now he collapses right before uh... you know getting through

[10:25] the obstacle or something because

[10:27] he's hypoglycemic

[10:29] and uh... one thing that you point out stewart

[10:31] is there's a lot of exposition in this movie

[10:35] uh... and you see that right off

[10:37] in the dinner scene between paul blart

[10:40] and his family

[10:41] when uh...

[10:43] his mother says like

[10:44] oh you're hypoglycemic

[10:46] you need to have sugar around or else you're gonna pass out

[10:50] and you expect paul blart to be like

[10:51] i know what hypoglycemic is mom i've been living with it all my life it's a condition

[10:55] i've been to the doctor

[10:57] and now that you say this on the day that my hypo hypoglycemia cost me a job

[11:02] uh... i think it's really insensitive of you mom

[11:05] yeah

[11:06] but i didn't say that and then he puts peanut butter on some pie and eats it

[11:10] which is really a way you should tag all scenes

[11:15] i would like this movie a lot better if at the end of every scene he's just like out from out of

[11:19] frame he picks up like a slice of pie with some peanut butter on it i would like every movie better if

[11:23] that's how it works like the scene in heat where robert de niro and al pacino

[11:26] meet for the first time in that diner it would be so much better if for the

[11:29] whole time they're just smearing peanut butter on pieces of pie

[11:34] there's a lot of simple touches that would have made heat a better movie

[11:37] uh... so

[11:41] most of them involve peanut butter

[11:43] there's a love interest and basically early on you're just like oh this guy's a nerd

[11:48] he'll never get a girl away he's totally into this girl who looks like she's

[11:52] pretty young he's got a crazy mustache for the first twenty five minutes a better title

[11:57] for the film would have been paul blart mall voyeur because he's basically just spying on

[12:01] this girl through whatever means he has uh... at his fingertips through the the mall

[12:05] security cameras

[12:07] through uh... sneaking around uh... the kiosk where she works on his segway

[12:12] i can't say enough about the segway use in this movie ridiculous dean cayman is

[12:17] incredibly thrilled that the uh... the product placement in this movie worked

[12:20] as well as it did

[12:22] so yes so it's such a like it's such a slow start

[12:26] you have like the asshole the happy happy this is a happy madison movie of

[12:31] various adam sandler movie

[12:35] and uh... so they had to throw in like

[12:37] typical happy madison style douche bag character

[12:42] like what what about that there's that one guy

[12:45] who's in all those movies uh... alan covert

[12:47] uh... who shows up you were talking brock about how like

[12:51] characters in this movie once their usefulness is done

[12:53] they just disappear from the film it's ruthlessly efficient that character his

[12:57] character had no usefulness in the film

[13:00] however he just disappeared

[13:01] he had one moment of usefulness which is he's the first one to make visual

[13:05] contact with uh... the mall hijackers

[13:07] without him uh... suddenly there'd just be these dudes with guns roaming about

[13:11] through the mall

[13:12] yeah

[13:13] but yeah after that point you never see him again he literally runs off

[13:16] I assume to this day he's just still running somewhere

[13:21] running into other films that are being produced

[13:24] uh...

[13:26] so

[13:27] the

[13:28] i want to touch on these hijackers or

[13:31] criminals or whatever

[13:33] they all go by reindeer names i'm guessing because black friday is

[13:38] uh... you know a key christmas shopping day

[13:40] i thought i was in homage to the hit film reindeer games

[13:45] i didn't even think about it that way uh...

[13:48] i'll have to think about it like that later when i'm watching reindeer games

[13:52] uh... so

[13:54] and so they're using these stupid names uh... and then they actually show up to

[13:58] the mall wearing jumpsuits

[13:59] with those reindeer names on their name tag

[14:04] that's a lot of effort

[14:05] and kind of silly either it's a lot of effort or

[14:09] it's not a lot of effort if you look at it like

[14:12] maybe these uh... crooks were too lazy to learn each other's code names

[14:16] or maybe it's one of those things where they don't want to know each other's

[14:18] real names so when the heist is done they can go their separate ways and

[14:21] never turn on each other

[14:23] the thing that i'm most interested to see is is what

[14:25] neo tarantino is going to use this as inspiration for the criminals in his

[14:29] movie twenty to thirty years from now

[14:32] that is a good idea

[14:33] reservoir blurt

[14:36] we called

[14:37] pretty sure that's where new york city gets its water supply

[14:41] so the one thing i did like about this movie

[14:44] uh... surprise surprise

[14:46] uh... the the setup is paul blart has a daughter

[14:50] and she doesn't look

[14:53] exactly like kevin james yeah and you find and so you're like

[14:58] his daughter appears to be

[15:01] uh... hispanic in some way uh... in my racist for thinking that's

[15:07] and then you find out you're not racist for that

[15:09] because uh...

[15:11] he's a single dad because

[15:13] he had married a woman who was an illegal immigrant

[15:16] apparently they were married long enough for him to get her pregnant and then

[15:20] she's out of the picture because she was only there for a green card and they

[15:23] don't think like have like some crazy

[15:26] speaking of racism don't they have like some crazy like photo of her on the wall

[15:29] like wearing a sombrero on top of like a mural yes yeah that's very weird

[15:34] I saw they honeymooned at the grand canyon and did one of the donkey rides down into the uh...

[15:39] donkey rides? yeah they have uh... they have donkey rides down to the

[15:43] bottom of uh... the grand canyon to the colorado river

[15:46] wait really? yeah

[15:47] oh donkey rides sorry i thought you were talking about something else

[15:51] i thought you were talking about the film donkey punch yeah no i wasn't thinking of that either

[15:55] it is weird though that uh... that burro was supporting both the weight of kevin

[16:00] james and an obese uh... illegal immigrant and this woman she was obese yeah like she's not stocky

[16:05] also it's like

[16:07] hey honey we took this picture of me and your mom on top of a burro wearing

[16:11] sombreros

[16:12] just to remind you that your mom was mexican

[16:15] like kevin james feels it's important for his daughter to know her

[16:18] cultural roots i guess

[16:20] do you think it was just too much effort to have a picture of like a traditional

[16:24] mexican style wedding where he's marrying this woman

[16:27] i think in an early draft it was uh... celebrate day of the dead maybe sure

[16:31] maybe have a quinciara uh... sure uh...

[16:34] i'm mispronouncing it but uh... the the traditional celebration that uh... in

[16:39] latino cultures comes at the

[16:40] a girl's fifteenth birthday maybe a quinceanera? yeah i think that's it

[16:46] so uh... i thought that was a good setup

[16:48] because i've never ever seen a movie that uses that setup before

[16:52] so your missing mom is an illegal immigrant who was just there long

[16:56] enough to shart out a little kid you appreciate that like

[17:00] they're like okay we want him to be a single dad let's think of a slightly

[17:03] more interesting reason

[17:05] yeah like so that the mom isn't dead or

[17:08] maybe the mom could have died in some kind of a mall based heist

[17:14] that causes him i don't know or maybe the mom was an international jewel thief which is why he

[17:18] hates criminals

[17:19] that makes a lot of sense

[17:22] uh... yeah so that happened

[17:24] uh... i think that's going to be something to use to describe many

[17:28] points in this movie that happened

[17:31] it was noted and then we moved on

[17:34] the criminals use invisible ink invisible ink uh... features highly in

[17:37] their plan that happened

[17:39] yeah that was weird

[17:41] there's a lot of skateboarding

[17:42] okay well there's something that's interesting

[17:45] uh... a cell phone features highly in the uh... in the plot of the movie

[17:51] basically just the fact that kevin james has a cell phone

[17:54] it's featured highly

[17:56] like okay we need to give kevin james a cell phone

[17:58] rather than just giving kevin james a cell phone

[18:02] they uh... come up with this elaborate back story

[18:05] yeah that he doesn't have one right? yeah he's like oh okay i can't text the girl i like

[18:09] because i don't have a cell phone

[18:11] and so the uh...

[18:13] the guy who works

[18:15] at the cell phone uh... like kiosk vj is his name

[18:20] he has to give

[18:22] uh... kevin james, paul blart sorry

[18:25] he has to give paul blart

[18:26] his daughter's cell phone which he's confiscated from her

[18:30] because she's uh... i don't know

[18:32] she went over on her minutes okay that was that was what happened

[18:36] at points there are logical reasons for things that happen in this movie

[18:39] yeah so he he he loans his daughter's cell phone to this man

[18:44] uh... paul blart can text the girl that he likes

[18:48] and then that gives uh... paul blart a cell phone that he can use to take pictures of

[18:52] various things during the

[18:54] uh... robbery to keep in text contact with the hostages

[18:59] but couldn't he just have had a cell phone like the only reason

[19:02] well it's interesting i think that's uh... something that maybe was uh... weeded

[19:06] out in all the different drafts of the film is that

[19:08] paul blart has luddite tendencies he doesn't have a cell phone he doesn't

[19:12] allow his daughter to have one he still listens to cassette tapes uh... he uses a

[19:15] very old computer

[19:16] he does ride around on a segway and sort of walking like a normal human though

[19:20] that's the opposite of luddite

[19:22] but i do agree that he does listen to cassette tapes rather than having

[19:25] that happened he listened to cassette tapes

[19:27] that was an interesting choice perhaps an unmotivated one

[19:32] uh...

[19:33] but the only reason that there is to justify the fact that he didn't have his

[19:36] own cell phone was

[19:38] that there was a uh...

[19:40] an indian uh... american uh... young man character

[19:46] was in love with uh... the girl who had the cell phone

[19:49] and so he kept at the beginning of the movie called up paul blart and like

[19:53] basically accused him of

[19:55] you know having some sort of affair which is really creepy the girl because

[19:58] the girl is only about four

[20:00] years old

[20:01] yeah

[20:02] but um... this is this kid played by a

[20:05] if you if you saw the short-lived wb sitcom angel uh... aliens in america

[20:11] uh... it was played by the angels in america now that that's a that's a

[20:14] that's a fantasia on gay themes

[20:18] this is a uh... uh... aliens in america was a fantasia on uh...

[20:21] modern american paranoia towards those of middle eastern descent yeah

[20:25] but uh...

[20:26] so they weren't like aliens?

[20:29] no you're thinking of uh... close encounters of the third kind

[20:33] but uh... raja

[20:35] yeah

[20:36] wait so it's a lot like v right?

[20:39] it was a v with a laugh track

[20:41] okay that sounds pretty good

[20:42] uh... but the guy who played raja in that movie

[20:45] uh... basically plays like this jealous uh... guy

[20:49] he said it was a sitcom dance

[20:52] he said movie

[20:53] thanks for clarifying

[20:55] at the end of the uh... movie

[20:57] paul blart mall cop

[20:59] it comes up that uh...

[21:01] raja calls him back and all of a sudden

[21:04] he and paul blart are buddies they're best buds

[21:07] they're old pals he's like you know

[21:09] paul blart's celly's blowing up because i know it's raja

[21:13] call him just to see what's up i think uh... maybe it's just you know uh... to use

[21:17] uh... a metaphor drawing their water from the same well makes them makes them

[21:20] friends at that point they clearly both like the same thing yeah this fourteen

[21:25] year old girl

[21:27] but the point is like plot wise was then that

[21:30] i guess uh... because he's

[21:33] like an indian uh... gentleman

[21:35] he's good with computers i don't know let's go down the stereotype road again

[21:41] he's able to gps the cell phone

[21:43] which allows paul blart

[21:45] to find uh... the hostages yeah a lot of stalkerish behavior going on on the part

[21:49] of male characters in this film towards their female counterparts

[21:52] paul blart uh... you know using mall security cameras to spy on his would-be

[21:56] paramour uh... uh...

[21:58] the the indian fellow uh... installing gps on his girlfriend's phone to keep

[22:02] in uh... contact with her at all times

[22:05] well but also there's a lot of

[22:07] really unnecessary uh... plot mechanics

[22:10] to explain things that don't need to be explained explain dan well

[22:15] earlier in the movie there's a scene where paul blart makes an ass of himself

[22:20] in front of his uh...

[22:22] his intended his loved one the one that he's interested in

[22:26] and uh... he does this by getting

[22:28] drunk in front of her and acting crazy for of what seems like the the first

[22:32] time in his life

[22:33] uh... yeah he the tipples too much he's not a drinker well he says that many

[22:38] points here right

[22:40] the sugar converts into blah blah blah he starts like tripping balls or something

[22:45] it's as if uh... the grateful dead somehow dosed uh... whatever he was

[22:49] drinking at american joe's

[22:50] but to explain this is that a real restaurant name i don't know i was

[22:54] trying to figure it out

[22:56] wikipedia that shit

[22:58] if not a restaurant name american joe's sounds like maybe like a like a morning

[23:02] show on some radio

[23:04] yeah joe scarborough should host it american joe's sounds good

[23:09] no but like

[23:10] they have to explain

[23:11] paul blart getting drunk

[23:13] and so they do it by

[23:15] all of a sudden he's in a nacho eating contest with a gentleman who runs the

[23:20] uh... hot sauce kiosk who we by the way have not been introduced to before

[23:24] i don't believe he was ever introduced by name either

[23:28] and so that nacho eating contest was a good scene

[23:33] he's in the middle of this nacho eating contest

[23:35] and uh... he eats a really hot pepper and so he needs to grab a pitcher full of

[23:41] margaritas from a nearby table

[23:43] and basically drink it all down

[23:46] there couldn't possibly be a situation where he just drinks too much because

[23:50] he's an adult who sometimes indulges and stuck in a dead-end job

[23:54] uh... with the pressures of living with his mom and supporting a teenage daughter

[23:58] uh... i would assume that he'd want to drink

[24:00] yeah i mean he doesn't even have money to afford a cell phone

[24:04] so the audience is going to be like

[24:06] he's really drunk in this uh... in this scene i just don't buy it

[24:10] if only there was some sort of nacho eating contest

[24:12] everything's going so well for him

[24:14] like you know what

[24:15] a nacho eating contest would give us a great opportunity to have a scene filled

[24:18] with people trying to talk to each other with their mouths full

[24:22] that's hilarious right

[24:23] and we don't need to write dialogue for it

[24:25] but stewart i mean when he gets

[24:28] you thought that was all improv

[24:30] i assume yeah i don't know it seemed pretty tight

[24:33] too tight really tight

[24:35] that's true

[24:36] like a really good like a really good episode of curb

[24:38] i mean yeah in retrospect like seeing just like how

[24:42] choreographed the nachos went into each other's mouth never at the same time

[24:46] so that one couldn't talk to the other

[24:48] well-written

[24:49] now stewart uh...

[24:52] you've been known to imbibe

[24:53] sure you're a drinker kinda you're currently dating a bartender

[24:57] sure

[24:58] uh...

[25:00] so kevin james

[25:02] uh...

[25:03] pretty accurate the way he was drunk right that's how i get drunk all the time

[25:08] i often when i drink too much in the night uh... uh... climb over people

[25:13] i'd tear off my shirt and fall out a window you punch a guy who's singing

[25:17] karaoke i punch a guy who's singing karaoke and then i get

[25:20] massive tattoos all over my back

[25:22] yeah like

[25:23] incredibly intricate

[25:25] miami ink level tattoos

[25:27] yeah basically uh...

[25:29] you know when you get uh... drunk it's like you've been dosed with some sort of

[25:34] hallucinogen

[25:35] like uh... some sort of very powerful

[25:37] i mean i wouldn't know because i don't

[25:39] take a lot of hallucinogens

[25:42] specifically powerful ones but when i start drinking i just get crazy man

[25:46] like it's

[25:47] it's like uh...

[25:49] like one of those movies with alice in wonderland and all that kind of business

[25:53] i thought you were like one of those movies like paul blart mall cop

[25:56] it's a lot like this scene in paul blart mall cop dan

[25:59] i can't stop saying mall cop

[26:03] the blart

[26:04] i think maybe that was the design of the film there's a great scene where he's

[26:08] just he's on horseback and he's really he's just like he's he's whipping this

[26:11] this thoroughbred harder and harder to catch up with skateboarding criminal

[26:15] and then uh... at the very last minute he he yanks hard on the reins the horse

[26:18] rears up on its two legs and just comes down right on top of the uh... the

[26:21] hijacker

[26:22] and then he throws a jack-o-lantern at the criminal

[26:29] uh...

[26:31] well i think this is why you were in the bathroom this scene

[26:36] you should have rewound it

[26:38] oh man

[26:39] you guys just admitted that i went to the bathroom

[26:41] makes me look unprofessional thanks

[26:43] makes you look like a human being with a bladder

[26:47] uh... so yeah so far so good like i think we're doing a really good job

[26:50] summarizing this movie so far guys

[26:54] uh... yeah i mean

[26:55] the daughter was kinda weird the love story was kinda awkward uh...

[27:02] does have a mustache which is pretty cool the mustache frankly is better

[27:06] characterized than most of the characters in the film

[27:09] the bad guy has a really cool bad guy coat

[27:12] and a cool bad guy name

[27:15] yeah a bad guy by the way uh...

[27:16] you're introduced to him

[27:19] as paul blart's new partner in the mall security business

[27:23] and then

[27:25] switcheroo twist

[27:27] he's the leader he's actually the boss of the hijackers he's the bowser

[27:31] and uh...

[27:34] you know yeah as you say he's got really cool uh... i'm a thief

[27:38] uh... clothes that he wears like apparently he had his bad guys bring

[27:42] them

[27:42] to him like the like the long

[27:44] duster or whatever with a cool collar

[27:48] much more tech savvy than paul blart as well

[27:52] using every bit of technology i believe paul blart even mentions that he's good

[27:55] on computers

[27:57] as that's one of the ways that he he admitted that the uh... the arch his

[28:00] archenemy was better than him

[28:02] yeah the great thing about this this bad guy is uh...

[28:06] like the writing in the script is so tight that they give them a lot of

[28:09] really good uh... like monologues where he basically just summarizes

[28:13] all the things that paul blart has done up until this point that have been

[28:16] stupid

[28:17] it'll be like you know you're overweight you didn't make it in the police academy

[28:22] you fell down that one time like

[28:25] it's ridiculous

[28:26] i'm surprised he didn't start going into other elements of his back story you

[28:29] didn't graduate high school you got rooked in a marriage

[28:32] uh...

[28:34] et cetera

[28:35] you you peed the bed four times between the ages of ten and twenty three

[28:40] you didn't have a male role model growing up i assume

[28:43] uh... your father was not in the film uh... it's true

[28:46] you prefer ghostbusters two to the original ghostbusters that doesn't even

[28:50] make sense

[28:53] how could that be

[28:55] uh... yeah

[28:57] there's you know there's not a lot to this movie is the thing

[29:00] when it comes down to it i mean we have i guess we haven't mentioned uh... bobby

[29:03] cannavale yeah is in this movie oh yeah the station agents bobby cannavale

[29:08] he's the uh...

[29:10] he's the man who had a SWAT team yeah and lip syncs in the nude

[29:13] to uh...

[29:14] to roberta flack

[29:15] in the uh... in the ten yeah for the ten people that saw that film

[29:19] and he uh...

[29:22] burned

[29:23] uh... pretty good movie

[29:25] no it's uh... it's ups and downs

[29:28] uh... it's on netflix watch instantly the scene with the one with liam schreiber is

[29:32] really funny no well yeah because it's way hilarious

[29:35] uh... so

[29:38] yeah and there's

[29:39] some twists

[29:41] one involving bobby cannavale

[29:43] yeah it's true

[29:45] uh... we won't explain that to you

[29:48] you can figure it out i'm sure judge judge phelan from the wire senate as uh...

[29:53] the head of security as a would-be wisecracking i don't understand is because that guy

[29:58] uh... there's a switcheroonie at the end

[30:00] where that guy turns out to be a bad guy right bobby canada yeah but why did he

[30:04] drive with paul blart to the airfield

[30:09] just so that like why would he take the good guy the hero i believe this is a

[30:14] actually explained uh... stewart which is that he could eliminate

[30:18] all of the witnesses at once

[30:21] well when you just shoot him in the car

[30:23] that's really could have killed paul bar in the car and transported i guess it

[30:27] would've bled all over the car one thing that uh... didn't need that car

[30:31] there that's a question that you can ask yourself a lot in this movie is why

[30:34] didn't they just kill paul blart already

[30:36] yeah and i think it goes back to the point where they just didn't bring

[30:38] enough bullets to get the job done

[30:41] or he's just too good i think is what the movie's trying to show

[30:45] too damn good

[30:47] and they showed it instead of telling it

[30:49] yeah

[30:52] anything else dan? no i think we can wrap up on uh... paul blart and give our

[30:57] final judgments on this movie now

[30:59] to again to reset this

[31:01] for new listeners

[31:03] we have uh... three official flop house categories although we often discard

[31:07] them

[31:08] in favor of uh... just some rambling just doing what feels right

[31:13] just doing what our body wants feels good

[31:15] uh... number one is this a good bad movie

[31:18] movie that's uh... funny some way in its badness a bad bad movie a movie that

[31:22] gives no enjoyment

[31:23] or a movie that we genuinely liked

[31:26] in some way

[31:27] so stewart what do you think

[31:29] uh... well this isn't a good movie uh...

[31:32] i don't i i can't say that it's so bad that it's a bad bad movie

[31:37] i got a couple of yucks out of it

[31:39] which is all i'm really asking for in a comedy nowadays you know just get a

[31:42] couple smiles out of me

[31:44] bring you to the verge of laughter to soothe the pain of being alive

[31:48] just a little bit

[31:49] just make me you know just make me forget for roughly an hour and a half

[31:54] forget all the things i've done so i'm going to say a good bad movie like

[31:59] you know i had fun making fun of it

[32:02] kevin james is pretty easy on the eyes

[32:05] and he's up for it you know like he makes an effort

[32:09] yeah i'm gonna say i don't

[32:11] we've been doing this a lot lately so i feel bad but i feel like this kind of

[32:15] falls outside of the categories like

[32:17] i don't think it's a i don't think it's a good bad movie because i don't think it's like

[32:20] hilarious and it's badness

[32:23] i don't think it's a bad bad movie because there was a couple like i had a couple genuine

[32:26] laughs in it but it's not like i actually really liked it like it fell short of

[32:32] being like good but you know what

[32:34] it moved fast it moved faster than twelve rounds even which moved pretty fast

[32:39] uh... kevin james

[32:41] as you say

[32:43] you know made the most of a bad script like he seemed likeable and he seemed

[32:46] like he could be funny if he was given

[32:48] good material uh...

[32:50] that's about all i can say for it though

[32:53] yeah i'd i'd have to echo the sentiment so far i mean i i feel bad

[32:57] not towing the company line for the first time a part of the podcast but

[33:00] yeah i agree it falls somewhere between good bad movie and bad bad movie you know

[33:04] it's uh...

[33:05] i guess

[33:06] uh...

[33:07] yeah like

[33:09] kevin james tried hard

[33:10] and i think the movie

[33:12] tried to deliver laughs uh... just didn't do it very successfully yeah

[33:16] uh...

[33:19] so fifty percent of the time you got a laugh right

[33:22] uh... now that i have a very high

[33:25] that's being charitable

[33:26] yeah okay well i'm not going to try and come up with another estimate

[33:30] fourteen

[33:31] i was going to say fifteen so let's do fourteen point five

[33:34] and uh... i mean we'll have to watch it again to actually test that but i think

[33:37] that's not that's not what's in it

[33:40] i will say to watch reindeer games instead

[33:43] i was going to count the number of fart sound effects used in the film

[33:46] and there's only one so i guess you know uh... you know what i'm willing to give

[33:49] that last point five percent back to the film will go to fifteen percent

[33:53] so michael bay's transformers two uh... revenge of the fallen beats paul blart on

[33:58] number of fart sound effects

[34:01] so uh...

[34:02] now we're going to move on to the

[34:04] portion of the show where we actually

[34:06] make a few recommendations

[34:08] to prove that we're not hateful people

[34:10] filled with bitterness and uh... spiders

[34:14] uh... so

[34:16] if there's something that we've seen

[34:18] recently or not recently depending on uh...

[34:22] how busy our week has been sure that we might want to uh... recommend

[34:26] now's the time to do so and brock i believe you actually have a recommendation

[34:29] i do uh... i saw moon last week and uh...

[34:33] i didn't love it but uh... i i enjoyed most of it uh...

[34:38] you know it's uh... qualified recommendation yeah uh... it is it was

[34:43] uh... i went in having very high expectations for it uh...

[34:46] just because it's it's the type of film that

[34:50] uh... i like

[34:51] uh... ponder science fiction films

[34:54] and uh... biggest it just wasn't quite as ponderous as i thought it would be

[34:57] but i uh... i appreciate it for

[35:00] you wanted to be more ponderous i wanted to be more ponderous like like ice pirates

[35:04] ice pirates yeah like ice pirates the movie ice pirates

[35:08] it's like remo williams the adventure begins that's not a science fiction well kind of

[35:13] well yeah just keep going

[35:15] well either way uh... i it's it's a film that had ambition uh... and i

[35:19] appreciated that even if it didn't uh...

[35:22] uh...

[35:24] didn't follow through on its ambition all the time i like sam rockwell a lot

[35:27] and i thought he gave a fine performance

[35:29] uh... and was pretty much uh... one character uh... film which is very hard

[35:33] to pull off and especially for a first-time director so

[35:36] uh... i would say i would recommend moon

[35:39] steward do you have any recommendations yeah i'm going to recommend something that i might have

[35:42] already recommended but i can't remember so i'm going to recommend it anyway

[35:45] sure or just take it uh... to mean that it's totally worth watching

[35:50] it's a little movie called the granny

[35:53] uh... premise of the movie is this old lady super rich doesn't want to give up

[35:57] her money to her like money-grubbing children

[36:00] uh... so she meets this weird mystic guy and uh... he gives her this weird potion

[36:07] and but she fucks up the instructions a la gremlins and drinks too much and then

[36:11] she dies

[36:12] and then comes back as like a crazy demon lady

[36:15] uh... and uh... begins murdering all of her her horrible offspring except for

[36:21] the one uh... beautiful granddaughter

[36:24] uh... who had been taking care of her

[36:26] who is the perfect definite like picture like dictionary perfect

[36:31] definition of the like

[36:32] beautiful girl who has a pony tail and glasses so everyone's like oh you're

[36:36] gross looking like literally people in the movie like you're so plain and gross

[36:40] and you're like that's crazy

[36:42] uh...

[36:43] and uh... yeah it's a totally awesome movie and gets way weirder than i could

[36:47] even describe right now so the granny

[36:49] you need to go watch this movie sounds like a george saunders short story

[36:54] well uh... i don't know i can actually can't verify that

[36:58] so it's it's it's very agreeable

[37:00] uh...

[37:01] so we have president

[37:03] which is i don't know

[37:04] racking my brain and a lot of guests

[37:07] listen to them

[37:08] yeah i'm going to recommend the flop house

[37:10] okay it's really good podcast

[37:12] okay uh... i don't know if i can agree with you

[37:15] uh... man

[37:17] well uh...

[37:18] what's good about it

[37:20] i don't know there's this guy stewart

[37:22] okay uh... you're winning me over

[37:25] i like stewart's

[37:26] here's got a really like enticing low voice the ladies like it baritone

[37:32] uh... jesus christ

[37:33] i don't you know

[37:35] it's a tv show and i'm actually like

[37:39] only halfway through it

[37:41] like an episode

[37:43] yeah you're only halfway through one episode of the tv show

[37:45] i'm halfway through like the first series of it

[37:50] so it had two episodes

[37:51] uh... four four being a british series i'm going to recommend prime suspect i

[37:55] don't think it needs to be recommended

[37:57] because uh...

[37:58] they made seven series of it and it started helen mirren and it's uh...

[38:02] obviously

[38:04] uh... you know as a bbc series got benny hill goes it's probably successful

[38:08] no benny hill is not in it any of the monty python guys no does helen mirren chase

[38:13] scantily clad girls to sped up uh... footage no that'd actually be pretty good

[38:17] she does also doesn't like

[38:19] you know go into a changing room on a beach

[38:22] uh... and you know from the surprise a buxom blonde at any point

[38:27] however

[38:29] she stars in it tom wilkinson's in it uh... bunch of

[38:33] you know

[38:34] you know uh... unpleasant looking middle-aged british men are in it

[38:38] you know i love tom wilkinson dan can you say that just for me

[38:42] no

[38:43] and i like that british people are still unafraid to put ugly people on television

[38:46] which is something we don't do in america anymore

[38:48] uh... you know just if you're looking for a uh... hard-boiled uh... accurate

[38:54] police procedural like uh...

[38:57] uh... you get a real feel that this is the way

[39:00] uh...

[39:01] you know like police stations probably work

[39:04] it seems like in that way kind of like a british wire although more like focused

[39:08] on like the whodunit rather than like

[39:10] the institutions of a city

[39:14] but uh... i'm really enjoying it so far so that's what i recommend

[39:18] so wow

[39:20] yeah what else we gotta do

[39:23] i think we pretty much just sign off at this point stewart

[39:26] hey uh... you were saying something about america not putting uh... ugly

[39:29] people on television yes

[39:31] you need to watch the show of the millionaire matchmaker okay i'm sorry i

[39:34] meant uh... not in uh... they would they won't put ugly people in scripted

[39:38] material anymore yeah because that shit's busted no way no

[39:43] okay so what do we do

[39:45] we sign off at this point

[39:47] well uh... i want to say thanks for having me this has been a lot of fun

[39:50] uh... especially on short notice

[39:53] uh... okay well uh... i've been stewart wellington

[39:56] i've been dan mccoy and i've been brock mayhem

[40:00] one. Yay! You like how I messed up the thing at the end where I started talking first? I haven't even been drinking!

[40:07] There's some kind of actual confirmation, like when girls are like, hey, you know, you're not bad down there. There are

[40:19] figures on like average penis size that you can find. Yeah, I know, but like, when I discovered that I actually had to

[40:26] upgrade my condom size, and then I had to go to the fucking store and buy like regular, and I'm like, maybe I'll get a

[40:33] small pack of these! By the way, this is what's going on at the end of the podcast, just to get the word out. Sure.

[40:39] Even more so. Trying to make me embarrassed, huh? It's not gonna work. Oh, no, no, I'm trying to help you out.

[40:44] Lulu's gonna eat while we do this, huh? If it's important for you to get the word out, I will help. Thanks.

The Flop House: Episode #42 - Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Transcript

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