Flop House Klassic - Bratz

[0:00] On this episode of the Flophouse, we discuss The Bratz Movie, the best doll-inspired film since superstar The Karen Carpenter Story.

[0:30] We've been having a lot of sort of soft intros recently, let's do a little more stylish,

[0:41] let's do a little more hard intro.

[0:43] From the heart of Brooklyn, it's the Flophouse.

[0:47] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:49] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:50] I'm Elliot Kaelin.

[0:52] Yeah, almost professional.

[0:54] Yeah, booyah.

[0:56] So Stuart.

[0:57] And then you abandoned the idea of a hard intro almost immediately.

[1:02] I like to keep things loose, I just, I get afraid that people don't know who we are.

[1:06] Specifically our name.

[1:07] Is there anything you'd like to say for people who might be coming in for the first time

[1:10] off of the success of Gawker?

[1:12] The runaway success of your Ziggy thing on Gawker?

[1:14] Listen, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I made you guys.

[1:19] You did talk for ten minutes straight about your Ziggy movie idea.

[1:24] I added it down to a tight seven.

[1:28] And would you like to discuss just what the regular thing that we do is?

[1:32] Yeah, the regular thing that we do here around the Flophouse, I sound like an ass, is we

[1:38] watch a bad movie, and then we discuss it afterwards.

[1:41] Or I don't know if I would say bad, I mean.

[1:43] In this case I would say bad.

[1:45] Well, I'm not just saying this case, I mean sometimes they're not.

[1:48] We watch movies that we assume ahead of time might be bad.

[1:52] Due to poor financial, or you know, they're not always financial flops.

[1:56] I think you can tell.

[1:57] Sometimes you can just tell.

[1:58] Which one was it, like the Invasion or something?

[2:01] Mr. Brooks said he did okay.

[2:02] No, that was a flop.

[2:03] Oh, okay, that's weird.

[2:04] Then we discuss it.

[2:05] It's like Mystery Science Theater 3000, only you can't see what we're talking about.

[2:10] You haven't seen the movie.

[2:12] Which dooms it to failure.

[2:13] Yeah, sure.

[2:14] It's much more conceptually flawed than Mystery Science Theater 3000.

[2:17] That's a fair way to put it.

[2:19] So, but tonight, Stuart, what did we watch tonight?

[2:24] We watched the Bratz movie.

[2:25] Oh, awesome.

[2:27] Are we 12-year-old girls?

[2:28] I'm not, no.

[2:30] Let me check.

[2:31] No.

[2:32] I'm at least, I'm not one of those things.

[2:35] That Elliot glanced down towards his fully clothed crotch.

[2:39] So, sure.

[2:41] The thing is that generally I like the same things that 12-year-old girls like.

[2:45] You know, stickers, pizza parties.

[2:47] Unicorns.

[2:48] Unicorns, sure.

[2:49] Rainbow.

[2:50] Little statues of horses.

[2:51] Mm-hmm.

[2:52] Trapper keepers.

[2:53] Yep, sure.

[2:54] Having fights with your friends and then breaking up with them and then becoming friends again.

[2:58] Those, yeah, those scrunchie things that I would put my little ponytails in.

[3:01] Yeah.

[3:02] Those, uh.

[3:03] Troll dolls.

[3:04] Slap bracelets that slit your wrist open.

[3:06] I'm just listing things from my own childhood.

[3:08] I would say that 12-year-old girls today don't really worry about slap bracelets all that

[3:12] much.

[3:13] Since they're busy.

[3:14] You know, hyper-colored shirts.

[3:15] You know, since they're busy texting each other.

[3:17] Going on the internet.

[3:18] Yeah.

[3:19] Well, if Bratz is to believe, every morning they wake up and they have simultaneous four-way

[3:25] video phone conversations with their friends as they choose the clothes that they're going

[3:30] to wear that day.

[3:31] Yes.

[3:32] Wait, can you not do that with the internet?

[3:34] I think you probably can.

[3:36] They did have amazing video quality on their computers and phones.

[3:39] Yeah.

[3:40] Yeah.

[3:41] I have to admit.

[3:42] I don't want to put the Bratz down.

[3:43] I can't imagine that your average teenage girl has the four-way video.

[3:48] I would.

[3:49] Wasn't there a poor Bratz?

[3:50] Wasn't one of the Bratz?

[3:51] Yeah, but she had the four.

[3:52] She had the video cameras.

[3:53] There was one Bratz who was marginally.

[3:54] She was poor in the same way that I'm poor compared to, you know, like Donald Trump.

[3:59] Right.

[4:00] Like, I can't buy whatever I want all the time, but I get by.

[4:04] Sure.

[4:05] Yeah.

[4:06] It was a movie about Bratz.

[4:07] That's what I learned.

[4:08] Well, here's what we learned about Bratz.

[4:10] Let's see if we can figure out because Bratz is kind of an amorphous concept to start with.

[4:14] So we learned they get up in the morning instantly full of energy and teleconference about the

[4:18] day to come.

[4:19] We'll see about Bratz.

[4:22] While picking out clothes from cavernous, cavernous closet.

[4:26] From labyrinthian closet.

[4:27] With secret back shoe rooms.

[4:29] Yep.

[4:30] They're also incredibly good at anything they try.

[4:33] At everything.

[4:34] Everything.

[4:35] Yeah.

[4:36] Everything they put in mind too.

[4:37] Science, cheerleading, elaborate production numbers.

[4:42] The Bratz are basically the 12 or 15-year-old girl equivalent of the character Scaramouche

[4:47] from the Raphael Sabatini novel of the same name, who whatever he does, he's amazing at.

[4:53] Highbrow.

[4:54] This is a highbrow podcast.

[4:55] So I was actually really relieved when the movie started and, you know, there was dancing

[5:00] and stuff because I don't know if you guys have, but I've actually seen pictures of the

[5:06] Bratz characters, the dolls and cartoon characters, and not only was I happy that it was a live

[5:11] action movie, but when I realized that the characters didn't look exactly like their

[5:18] cartoon counterparts and thus completely inhuman when they actually looked like human girls,

[5:23] I was pretty excited.

[5:24] It'd be horrific if it was all normal kids except for the four Bratz who had enormous

[5:28] eyes and tiny bodies and tiny hands and feet.

[5:31] Yeah.

[5:32] Which is possible in today's computer graphics.

[5:35] I'm glad you brought this up, Stuart, because I was going to say, for the benefit of listeners

[5:39] who might not be familiar with the inspiration for the Bratz hit film, this is based on a

[5:44] line of dolls, a line of dolls, big-headed, whorishly dressed dolls.

[5:50] Imagine if Dora the Explorer was wearing, you know, juicy couture.

[5:54] She grew up in her bed.

[5:55] Stop talking to her parents.

[5:56] Yeah, exactly.

[5:57] Didn't have a nose.

[5:59] Here's what the message is of the Bratz dolls is, you will never be good looking because

[6:05] you will never be as thin as these dolls.

[6:07] And your eyeballs will never grow this enormous.

[6:09] Yeah.

[6:10] And you have a nose.

[6:11] And I've often stood in toy stores staring at the Bratz dolls, and those around me have

[6:14] always thought, that guy's having sexual fantasies about the Bratz dolls, but really what I was

[6:19] thinking was, I wonder what their real-life adventures are all about.

[6:23] And this movie answered that question for me.

[6:25] The movie was for you, is what you're saying.

[6:27] I don't like to brag, but yeah, I don't know what that means in that context.

[6:32] Yeah, Bratz, I don't know.

[6:34] This was maybe the most hyperactive movie we've seen, or that I've seen with you guys

[6:38] at least.

[6:39] Stuff happened in this one.

[6:40] Stuff happened.

[6:41] Roughly every 30 seconds there was a different plot point.

[6:42] It was rich with incidents.

[6:44] If it wasn't Jade, the Eurasian Bratz, starting to fall in love with her lab partner, or the

[6:52] deaf jock who becomes a DJ, or what else happens in this thing, the bust of the principal

[6:58] that breaks in a giant food fight.

[7:00] Imagine a picaresque Henry Fielding novel, and then imagine that it stars Bratz.

[7:08] Then you would have a pretty good approximation of the plotting.

[7:11] Well, first let's talk about the individual Bratz, and I use individual lightly.

[7:16] I would say that they're basically a unit.

[7:19] However, there's the Caucasian Bratz, there's the black Bratz, there's the Asian Bratz,

[7:26] and there's the Hispanic Bratz.

[7:27] However, all the minority Bratz are pretty Caucasian.

[7:31] There are the most Caucasian interracial group of Bratz you could imagine.

[7:36] I don't think the Hispanic Bratz was Hispanic.

[7:39] No, I don't think.

[7:40] I think her mom was Jewish.

[7:42] We didn't realize she was Hispanic until her mom began blustering at her in Spanish, and

[7:46] then she walked into the kitchen and there was a mariachi band eating in her kitchen.

[7:51] As if to say, listen, this is all we can do to prove to you that she's Hispanic.

[7:55] If you don't mind.

[7:56] She's Hispanic, okay.

[7:57] Who else would you have a mariachi band in her kitchen?

[8:00] That's just what happens in your average household.

[8:03] There's a mariachi band.

[8:04] Well, and the Hispanic Bratz could sing.

[8:07] That was her talent.

[8:08] They can all sing, but she's the one that they tell is a good singer, and also she can

[8:11] do a magic trick where she pulls pieces of chocolate from behind her mother's ears, which

[8:15] astounds her mother.

[8:16] Yeah, never fails to amaze her mom.

[8:18] We never got any closure on that plot point.

[8:20] Is it a Hispanic stereotype to do magic tricks or to love chocolate?

[8:24] I don't know.

[8:25] Both.

[8:26] I guess I'm not enough of a racist to know this stuff.

[8:29] Luckily, I got that covered.

[8:32] I'm the racist one of this gang.

[8:33] We're going to spread completely apocryphal stereotypes.

[8:40] You know those Hispanics and all their chocolate?

[8:44] Asian Bratz love cookery.

[8:48] I'm glad you didn't specify that it was exclusively the Bratz and Asian people.

[8:53] South of the border, nothing but magic tricks.

[8:56] Oh, Bratz.

[8:59] Okay, so they were all great at everything they did, but they all had their individual

[9:05] talents that they were really great at.

[9:07] One was into singing.

[9:09] One was a fashion designer and also a scientist.

[9:13] Yep, a chemist.

[9:15] Let's take a moment to talk about what happened in her first day of chemistry class, which

[9:20] is that she threw a bunch of chemicals into a big beaker willy-nilly, much to the admiration

[9:27] of the fellow science students, and then fireworks came out of it.

[9:31] When I say fireworks, I don't mean it exploded.

[9:33] I mean like literal miniature fireworks, like one might see at a Fourth of July fireworks

[9:38] display.

[9:39] But shrunk down.

[9:40] Yeah, like she was at Hogwarts, as Stewart said.

[9:43] I did say that, actually.

[9:44] The weirdest part about it is that she did all this without any kind of teacher supervision.

[9:49] Apparently there are no teachers at the school.

[9:51] There's no administration except for the one principal.

[9:53] Yeah, apparently.

[9:54] There is a fashion designer because, and here's the, in the, I guess, home ec class, but it's

[9:58] nothing but making clothing.

[10:00] She makes a dress for her fashion teacher.

[10:02] On her first day.

[10:03] On her first day, the teacher is dowdy, glasses, hair up and all that.

[10:07] Walks away, puts on this sexy red dress that she's made for her,

[10:11] takes her glasses off and the whole classroom claps.

[10:15] We never – hello, I almost knocked the microphone over because I was clapping.

[10:18] We never see this teacher again.

[10:20] I have to assume she left and married like a wealthy and aging billionaire or something like that.

[10:25] There are a lot of plot points that are set up and then discarded.

[10:28] How unprofessional is it to leave your class and change into the dress, the sexy dress that your student just made for you?

[10:34] There's – like that seemed to be – I think there's got to have been a subplot that was discarded about the sexy dress.

[10:41] There had to be something about it.

[10:42] She obviously realized that at that point her work was done.

[10:45] She taught this class.

[10:46] She had nothing more to teach.

[10:47] She now should be the student.

[10:49] There was the music professor who taught the deaf – the hot deaf guy to be a DJ.

[10:56] He spoke perfectly and didn't need to be looking at somebody to read their lips.

[11:00] Right.

[11:01] So basically a guy, a hot guy, but he –

[11:04] Who every now and then would say, I can't hear.

[11:06] It was very clear he could hear everything.

[11:08] Yeah.

[11:09] Basically the one point at which – in the movie at which the brats did something wrong was when one of the brats chewed this person out and he was like, I'm deaf.

[11:18] So maybe he was just being a dick to that girl.

[11:20] Maybe he was just trying to make her feel bad.

[11:22] Maybe.

[11:23] So he became a DJ at the tutelage of this music teacher, and that was completely abandoned.

[11:28] I don't think we heard anything more than that.

[11:29] He came back at the end of the big talent show, which we'll get to.

[11:32] But apart from the music teacher and the fashion teacher and a couple security guards, there's really only one adult supervisor at the school.

[11:39] He was, of course, Principal Dimley played by Academy Award winner John Voight.

[11:44] Played to a T.

[11:45] To a T by John Voight in a prosthetic nose.

[11:48] And here is – this is a subplot I wish had been looked at more.

[11:50] Obviously, there's a lot of graft and resource wasting going on at the school because there's a bust, a sculpted bust of the current principal on the school grounds.

[12:00] And I had – like who approved this budget that he's wasting money on a bust of himself to put at his school?

[12:07] A bust which is easily knocked over and broken, much like – I don't know if you've ever been in a high school, but pretty much everything is bolted down pretty well.

[12:15] Or if it's, say, a statue, it's usually made out of bronze or some other metal.

[12:19] It's not hollow ceramic.

[12:21] Basically, the art class just did a papier-mâché.

[12:26] See, that explains it.

[12:27] There you go.

[12:28] That explains it.

[12:29] It's a tribute.

[12:30] It still doesn't explain the ceremonial Japanese sword set that was in the secret surveillance room that the class president had.

[12:35] That was weird, wasn't it?

[12:36] Yeah.

[12:37] Yeah.

[12:38] Well, one has to assume that John Voight took this apart because he heard that there might be a fake nose involved.

[12:43] And he thought, well, that's how Nicole Kidman got her Academy Awards.

[12:48] Maybe that's it, yeah.

[12:49] The Bratz movie is going to be my ticket.

[12:51] But he has an Academy Award.

[12:53] Well, he's greedy.

[12:54] He won for coming home, didn't he?

[12:55] He's a greedy man.

[12:58] John Voight, you heard it here first.

[13:00] I'm calling you out, John Voight.

[13:01] Choose the scenery.

[13:03] He's calling you out, producer of baby geniuses.

[13:05] He was really good in Anaconda.

[13:09] He was.

[13:10] That last wink, man.

[13:12] Yep.

[13:13] These are my babies.

[13:15] So we had these Bratz.

[13:17] We don't really need to talk about them.

[13:19] Who was their villain?

[13:20] Because every Bratz needs a villain.

[13:22] What was her name?

[13:23] Meredith.

[13:24] Meredith Baxter Dimley was her character's name.

[13:26] There were these little touches like Meredith Baxter Dimley that seemed like the screenwriter was very bored with what she was doing and was throwing them in.

[13:33] Right.

[13:34] You pointed out that.

[13:35] They went to Cary Nation High School, and the symbol of the school was an axe.

[13:40] And at the big talent show at the end, they win the golden axe.

[13:43] And it's like, oh, that's kind of a cute little joke.

[13:45] Like Cary Nation used to chop up bars with axes because she was a leader of the temperance movement.

[13:51] That's kind of almost too smart for the Bratz movie.

[13:54] Well, almost too smart for the Bratz movie?

[13:56] You think that the 8-year-old girls who are going to see the Bratz movie are familiar with the history of the temperance movement?

[14:03] They might be.

[14:05] I don't know if they know everything about the improvement reform progressive movement, but, you know.

[14:11] Well, I want to talk about something that delighted me about this movie.

[14:16] So this movie had – I would say it moved in fits and starts.

[14:22] There were points in which you thought, oh, maybe this movie is over.

[14:26] And then you would look at the time and say, oh, this movie is 30 minutes in.

[14:30] I think maybe the first or second time that their friendship fell apart and then they came back together again.

[14:36] Right.

[14:37] Well, the movie starts on the first day of school.

[14:38] High school.

[14:39] High school.

[14:40] And they all go in and they're all best friends.

[14:44] Freshmen.

[14:45] Even though they are all totally like one another except for their slightly varied interests.

[14:52] And ethnicities.

[14:53] Yeah.

[14:54] The evil villain of the school wants to split them up into cliques because apparently –

[14:58] The evil villain is the school class president.

[15:00] She's basically Reese Witherspoon in election except with a little dash of Alicia Silverstone in the clueless.

[15:08] Yeah.

[15:09] For some reason, it's very important to her.

[15:11] You played for an audience that really can appreciate subtlety.

[15:16] She also has a – she does have a remote control floating swim pool chair at one point.

[15:22] She's the evil rich daughter of the principal.

[15:26] And as you pointed out, Stuart, where are all the monies coming from on the principal's salary?

[15:31] Their house looks like the Mexican president's mansion basically.

[15:35] Yeah.

[15:36] That's a high school principal for you.

[15:39] Rolling the money.

[15:41] But she is really committed to the idea of cliques being separated.

[15:45] It's basically like a segregationist allegory.

[15:48] Let's point out some of the cliques at this school.

[15:50] So the cliques that they're – she said something that like there's 13 cliques at this school or 17 cliques.

[15:54] And they include goth kids, jocks, but then they also include disco kids, kids that dress as dinosaurs.

[16:01] Are named that.

[16:03] Mimes.

[16:04] Mimes.

[16:05] It's as if whoever is making the movie was like this school is full – I remember high school is full of cliques.

[16:11] I guess there are really only two or three cliques and everyone else just kind of milled about.

[16:14] Well, I'll make up some other cliques.

[16:16] It was like a three- or four-hour brainstorming session where after three or four hours they're like, yeah, we got two written down.

[16:22] Fuck it.

[16:23] Somebody grab a magazine.

[16:25] Dinosaur, dinosaur.

[16:26] What can we do with this?

[16:28] Disco.

[16:29] Great.

[16:30] Do it.

[16:31] Those are the hippies.

[16:32] Okay, done.

[16:33] Those are the other hippies.

[16:34] Enjoy wearing engineers.

[16:35] Fine.

[16:36] That'll be one.

[16:37] But anyway, it was really important for –

[16:40] Band geeks.

[16:41] Band geeks.

[16:42] Band geeks was one of them, and they were in their band costumes all the time.

[16:44] Sure.

[16:45] And always had their instruments on.

[16:46] Well, that is actually literally true to life.

[16:48] That I remember from high school.

[16:49] That they had to carry their instruments around with them all the time.

[16:51] The kid with the drum.

[16:52] Yoga kids.

[16:55] There's – well –

[16:56] A lot of members of band geeks would always go out to the band building to make out during lunchtime.

[17:01] I guess when they drive to the school, I don't know if you guys noticed,

[17:04] a student is walking by carrying a human skeleton,

[17:07] and I assume he's in the science class and not a murderer.

[17:11] Well, that's the best way to script a scene is like,

[17:16] okay, how do I get people to know what roles these characters fill?

[17:19] It's obviously, as you mentioned,

[17:21] you stick something in their hands that identifies their character,

[17:24] whether or not it's a human skeleton for a scientist slash murderer,

[17:28] instruments for a band geek.

[17:31] Like a disco ball for a disco kid.

[17:34] A turntable for a deaf kid.

[17:37] That was a strange scene.

[17:40] One of the Hispanic brat, whose name I don't remember.

[17:43] Yasmin.

[17:44] Yasmin, who's the singer.

[17:45] That's right, Yasmin.

[17:46] She bumps into someone in the hallway and says,

[17:50] what are you, blind?

[17:51] And he goes, no, but I am deaf, so whatever or something like that.

[17:56] And she goes, oh, I didn't know.

[17:57] And he's like, well, I guess I may be deaf, but you're ignorant,

[18:00] or something like that, and walks away.

[18:01] And suddenly the scene, slow motion, sad music.

[18:04] Uh-oh, this brat made a mistake.

[18:06] Well, we should talk about the music in a second.

[18:08] But what I was saying was the villain seems really intent on maintaining the social order

[18:13] for no reason that's ever explained adequately in the film.

[18:17] But the point is, on the first day, all the brats want to sit together,

[18:21] but they need to be segregated to their individual interests.

[18:25] And because of this, they basically break up as friends.

[18:30] And then suddenly the film has a title card that says, two years later.

[18:37] Twenty minutes into the film, there's a title card that says, two years later.

[18:43] And then immediately upon coming back into the story,

[18:47] they all get sentenced to detention together and become friends again because of that.

[18:52] And literally, there's no reason why that couldn't all have happened in the same year.

[18:56] They also look exactly the same.

[18:57] They have the same interests, the same friends.

[18:59] Nothing about – this is – so let's say it's freshman year through what, junior year?

[19:03] So they go roughly from like the age 14 to the age 16, let's say, or 13 to 15.

[19:08] Like that's a major – those are two of the two most important years

[19:12] in a young American's developmental life.

[19:15] They would have changed mass – I was not the same person at 13 that I was at 15.

[19:19] But they have not changed at all.

[19:20] Nothing has happened.

[19:21] And then they could become friends.

[19:23] Physical changes.

[19:24] No physical – well, they're already – have already gone through puberty before their first day of high school.

[19:27] Okay.

[19:28] But they also –

[19:29] Different haircuts maybe.

[19:31] Same haircuts.

[19:32] Oh, weird.

[19:33] The same haircuts.

[19:34] And the one girl's younger brother is also the same age that he was two years before.

[19:37] Did he have a different haircut?

[19:39] They're all obsessed with the same romantic interests.

[19:42] Who also look the same and have the same haircuts and are with the same girls.

[19:47] These guys are all – are in high school relationships that have lasted two or three years.

[19:51] Yeah.

[19:52] It seems like they would take them a lot more seriously.

[19:53] Yeah.

[19:54] They wouldn't just leave immediately when they see these attractive brats walking in.

[19:57] We should also note they go to detention because of a –

[20:00] fight they accidentally cause in which massive fistfuls of pasta are thrown

[20:05] around. Someone picks up a plate and throws it, and then they'll cut to someone

[20:11] being hit in what looks like a confetti cannon's worth of pasta in the face.

[20:16] But it bears noting that the pasta is not the problem. The problem is that the

[20:21] brats accidentally... I do imagine the director in the scene's going, oh we need more

[20:26] pasta. We're not getting across the food fightosity of this scene. But the brats

[20:31] accidentally smashed the bust of beschnozed John Boyt, and that's what lands them in

[20:38] detention. So are you imagining that they're like using it like a weird

[20:42] machine, like the machine from Ernest Goes to Camp that fires out the eggs-a-roni?

[20:46] Yeah, and this fires pasta. It fires out pasta. Just something, but only off-camera.

[20:50] Like this is something, you're not getting the right trajectory on that pasta girl. One of the

[20:54] brats didn't invent the machine. No, no, this is something that they did behind the scenes. We're still supposed to believe that the brats are

[20:59] throwing these huge mounds of pasta at people. Let me reiterate, however, that the brats

[21:04] have now broken up as friends and gotten back together. Two years later. And it's 30

[21:09] minutes into the film. What's the remaining hour and

[21:14] five minutes of the film, you may ask? Which is the running time of the movie.

[21:19] The credits include two music videos. You don't want to skip the

[21:24] credits. One of them involves a piano with the word brats written on it in big

[21:28] letters. But what is it what still is yet to come in the movie? Oh, I don't

[21:34] know, a talent show? Maybe a Super Sweet 16 party?

[21:40] Sorry, I won't get to that yet. Even though they mentioned the talent show, roughly 25

[21:44] minutes into the film, and then it dropped for a while. Yeah, yeah. Well, don't they

[21:48] like break up and become friends again, like four more times? It feels like, and I

[21:54] think Dan mentioned this, it feels like several episodes of the Bratz TV show,

[21:58] like sewn together. Like those movies where they would take a

[22:02] Japanese or an Italian TV show and just sew the episodes together into a movie.

[22:06] This is kind of like that. This is the Cruel Intentions 2 of Bratz.

[22:11] Here we go, a little highbrow. It's the Mulholland Drive of Bratz.

[22:15] Or the Lost Highway of Bratz films. Wait, Lost Highway was strung together?

[22:20] Well, no, it's two different stories. But Mulholland Drive. That was a television show.

[22:24] Yeah. Okay, but anyway, so the super sweet, so the villain of the

[22:29] movie, Meredith Baxter Dively, decides to throw a super sweet 16, this is how she's

[22:33] gonna win the school back over. There's her clutch on power so tenuous as long

[22:37] as these free agent Bratz are around, acting independent. And by acting

[22:41] independent, it means dressing like everybody else. Wait, let's, this is an

[22:45] important point. The whole theme of the film is ostensibly be yourself.

[22:51] Break down the walls. I thought it was be a Brat. Yeah, but a Brat also means...

[22:58] But the Brat's ethos is to break down the walls between cliques and to

[23:02] bring people together to see what's similar in people. That would have made a

[23:06] lot more sense if they, like, explained that whole thing in a song. Yeah, well,

[23:10] they did several times as they walked down Main Street USA to get to the

[23:15] clothing store. The four Bratz are four attractive teenage girls who are

[23:20] squarely within the mainstream of high school society. Yes, there's nothing about

[23:25] them that's particularly crazy or off-putting. Everybody likes them as soon

[23:29] as they meet them. They're not outcasts, you know, there's nothing different.

[23:32] This isn't Harold and Vaughn, I guess. Yeah, the only time other people get annoyed with them is

[23:37] when they don't want to be their friends. Yes, when, yeah, the only time people get

[23:42] mad at the Bratz is when the Bratz don't want to hang out with them. Because they

[23:44] want to hang out with their other friends. They want to hang out just with Bratz. But they get over that

[23:47] pretty quickly. This isn't Welcome to the Dollhouse. Yeah, it's very strange too, like,

[23:51] once the Bratz realize that they want to hang out with the other Bratz, there's no

[23:55] point at which they're like, you know what, we can hang out with each other and

[23:59] our other friends. It's more like, okay, well, we got to choose. We got to, if we

[24:03] choose, we choose our own kind, and our own kind is Bratz. Maybe it's because I'm

[24:06] reading a book about the Old Testament right now. But it seems like there's a

[24:09] parallel here between the ancient Israelites, either they kept together as

[24:13] a people and didn't intermarry, or they were put into exile in Babylon when the

[24:18] Babylonians took over the land of Canaan that had become Israel. And suddenly,

[24:23] the Israelites didn't get along anymore. They intermarried, they became part of

[24:27] Babylonian society, until I think it was the Prophet Ezra said, listen, guys, we

[24:31] got to get back to our roots. And then they became Israelites again and shut out

[24:36] the rest of modern society. I guess that's kind of what Bratz the movie is

[24:39] saying.

[24:39] Yeah, I believe that his direct quote is, hey, guys, we got to show off our

[24:43] Brattitude.

[24:45] In the Torah, it does. The Hebrew for Brattitude is slightly different. But,

[24:48] you know, Brattitude. Also, they do invent the word Brattitude. Yeah.

[24:53] As you would say, Stuart, this is a snobs versus snobs comedy. Exactly. There's

[25:00] no there's no underdog in this. No, there isn't. There's an overdog and a

[25:04] slightly less overdog.

[25:05] It's like, it's more like there's an overdog who's mean dogs that people like

[25:10] or slightly less overdog together are more than a match.

[25:15] Even when the Bratz are like getting along with people, they're molding them

[25:19] to be more like the Bratz. They're putting makeup on the nerds. They're

[25:22] teaching the jocks math. They're like, it's not like they like their messages.

[25:26] Be yourself. But what they're actually doing is making sure everyone conforms

[25:29] to the Bratz ideal, teaching them math, which I don't recall. But I don't think

[25:34] there was an actual math problem.

[25:35] No, she gives them she's teaching Jade, the Asian one. Her name is Jade. She's

[25:40] teaching the football players math. And she says, X plus Y plus Z over three. And

[25:46] the answer is, and there's no way to solve that. Not an equation. That is

[25:50] impossible to solve. An equation implies an equal sign. You can't figure out what

[25:55] those letters are standing for. If you have only one number, it could be

[26:01] anything. Stuart's right, it's 14. He has a beautiful mind.

[26:07] I believe at the end of that scene, there's a lot of football players

[26:11] high-fiving each other. So I think you're wrong. She replaces all of the

[26:15] variables with real numbers. Then it becomes a 10-year-old's math problem.

[26:22] It becomes a number. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was dumb. But anyway, so Meredith

[26:27] Baxter Dimley has a tenuous grasp on power. These Bratz. Will no one stop? Who

[26:33] will save me from these turbulent Bratz? That's what she shouts out. She decides

[26:39] this is how she's going to get back her power. She's going to throw the biggest

[26:42] super sweet 16 party ever. She's going to invite MTV to cover it, and she's

[26:46] going to rub it in the faces of everyone at school. And not invite the Bratz, but

[26:50] she's going to show everyone at school how great she is. Hold on. She's willing

[26:53] to invite the Bratz, but only if they conform to their clique. If they show up

[26:57] with their clique. And so the way she does this is apparently everyone in

[27:01] school is given a balloon that has a piece of paper with their clique's name

[27:05] inside it. So they pop their balloons and they're like, oh shit, all four of us

[27:09] Bratz aren't in the same clique. I guess we shouldn't go to this party. And

[27:13] then they're going to make a stand against Meredith Baxter Dimley. However,

[27:18] they can't. Yeah, yeah. The poor Bratz mom turns out to be the caterer for this

[27:24] party, which she hardly. And this is a woman who her daughter comes home and

[27:28] her mom is asleep on the couch and her. She says, oh no, I've got to cook all

[27:32] this food. Oh no, mom, you're tired here. I'll take care of it. You sleep for a

[27:36] couple hours. So her mother's dealing with depression or alcoholism or

[27:39] something. Sure. This is a woman whose only job seems to be catering this one

[27:43] party and that she's so tired that she cannot do it. Meanwhile, the four Bratz

[27:47] who are geniuses at everything, they've managed to whip up, they cater an entire

[27:52] party, which had looked, you know, what's the party starts. It looks to have like

[27:55] 500 people at it. And let's, they make a point of saying us cook, you crazy or

[28:01] something along those lines that teens would say. Heck, I even burn water. Yeah,

[28:05] that was the line I even burn water. Yeah. You know what? Um, and yet they're

[28:08] masters. Yeah. Cooking isn't a skill. You can just pick that up apparently within

[28:13] the course of a montage. So, oh, so many montages. Oh, okay. But here's the thing.

[28:18] So they cater it, but then not only do they have to cater it, they also have to

[28:23] fill in for the waitstaff who couldn't show up. So the Bratz are not only at the

[28:28] party, but they're servants to their evil. Waitstaff have to wear clown

[28:32] costumes because suddenly this is a Fellini film. Yeah. So you get the strange

[28:36] picture of the four Bratz in full clown makeup and costumes being told by

[28:40] Meredith Baxter Dimley, I guess, to serve the food properly and things like that.

[28:44] Oh, and also Meredith Baxter Dimley has a smart Alec little sister. Yeah, that's

[28:48] true. Now the thing is by including the whole like clown, uh, the whole like

[28:52] clown theme, I guess her party was circus themed. Sure. And like, and I think that

[28:58] only helped to cement that feeling. Like I was watching, uh, don't tell mom the

[29:02] babysitter's dead, but with Bratz in it. This was the fashion show at the end of

[29:06] the day. Yeah, it was a fashion show at the end with the, with the boyfriend or

[29:09] love interest who I believe drove a, uh, a circus themed. Oh, he was an ice cream

[29:13] truck. I think. Oh yeah. Yeah. Or a hot dog truck. Something like that. I don't

[29:16] remember. All I remember was that no one was told in the end that the babysitter

[29:19] was dead. That's true. Yeah. So yeah. Don't tell mom the babysitter's dead.

[29:24] Christina Applegate, the dishes are done. So, okay. So it's a circus themed party.

[29:28] There are clowns and acrobats everywhere. Meredith Baxter dimly comes in riding an

[29:33] elephant, which fails to impress her, the people at the party. But to be fair, it

[29:37] looks like a pretty boring party. They're just sitting at tables. There's an

[29:41] elephant that's about it. There's a juggler or two, I think. There are a couple

[29:44] jugglers. Yeah. And there's a lot of people with giant conga drums. She got

[29:47] Cirque du Soleil to play the party, which as a, you know, if you're a high

[29:50] schooler, that's pretty much the top. You want Cirque du Soleil to come in with

[29:54] their sort of whimsical, fae, French Canadian-ness.

[30:00] and then again you

[30:01] uh... and you didn't shed the party is being covered by mtv for their show

[30:05] and you know this because there's one guy

[30:07] holding a dvd camera t-shirt on that says mtv on it

[30:11] spell the entire crew behind that show up one of the uh...

[30:14] meredith shames the uh... hispanic brat is that i really don't this is after

[30:20] meredith's musical number in which he says about how great she is now much

[30:23] better she is nobody else i feel bad referred to the brats but at their

[30:27] ethnicities but the thing is that is literally the only thing that distinguishes

[30:30] them as characters in this film

[30:33] and you'll see how that is when i when i finish this she shames this girl by

[30:37] showing a video of her

[30:38] singing

[30:39] la cucaracha with her mom

[30:42] uh... which a video that like her brother like the brat little brother

[30:45] took on a cell phone

[30:47] which was by far the best fucking uh... picture i've ever seen on a cell phone

[30:52] even when it's as you mentioned blown up and projected on the side of the house

[30:56] perfect crystal crystal resolution

[30:58] la cucaracha i guess was the only

[31:01] uh... spanish folk tunes that they could think of

[31:04] you know it is i mean it does

[31:06] wrote it does call back to

[31:07] the time of poncho via

[31:09] and his revolt and then they all did the mexican hat dance together because i

[31:13] think i think include that scene so that all the you know some of the hispanic

[31:18] you know girl audience

[31:19] would have something to relate to

[31:22] i don't know if you guys feel the occurrence

[31:24] yeah all the hispanic girls i know

[31:27] all the time six o'clock mom time to sing la cucaracha

[31:30] is that a chocolate behind your ear?

[31:34] oh we mexicans we love magic and chocolates

[31:38] it's our defining characteristic

[31:40] so and also by the way in keeping with this jade the half asian girl

[31:44] has an asian mother who pushes her too much to be a nice girl who dresses in

[31:48] premium forms and does things but when she gets to school uh... comes a uh...

[31:53] girl with

[31:54] dyed streaks in her hair yes i'm not easy clothes i don't know if she wears

[31:58] a wig

[31:59] yeah angel

[32:01] schoolgirl by day stripper by night

[32:04] i thought you meant angel from buffy the vampire slayer

[32:07] no not david borian

[32:12] your version makes more sense

[32:15] one of the things we haven't touched on yet i don't want to actually talk that much more about the plot of this movie

[32:19] we haven't even gotten to the talent show yet

[32:21] uh... we'll talk about the talent show as uh... or the jump drive

[32:25] what i just want to talk about a little bit was uh... this movie had a little bit of music in it

[32:29] right guys? by which you mean sixty percent of the movie

[32:33] or are you just talking about the soundtrack

[32:35] i was just going to say there's a shitload of music in this movie

[32:38] roughly seventy five percent of the actual movie is set to

[32:42] some kind of a musical number

[32:44] there's it seems like every

[32:46] two minutes or so it's a different song and sometimes every fifteen seconds

[32:50] as soon as there's any sort of change in like even if two characters are having a

[32:53] conversation

[32:54] and their conversation ends and another conversation starts music change yeah any

[32:58] change in mood is accompanied by a change in mood music

[33:02] and it's not just pop hits too

[33:04] like it'll be opera

[33:05] it'll be sort of like esquivel style exotica

[33:11] it was very strange

[33:12] it was like uh... the person who it was like that

[33:15] the soundtrack arranger

[33:16] had been given one of those nickelodeon toys r us shopping sprees

[33:20] where they're like you got fifteen minutes to run through this record store and just pull

[33:24] cds off the shelf and then you gotta score the movie with that

[33:27] and it's like uh... strouse uh... esquivel uh... uh... wonderwall uh... you know and so forth

[33:33] just anything she could get her hands on

[33:36] yeah

[33:36] and there's a lot of the use of that

[33:39] slow motion then speed up with like a whooshing noise

[33:43] and multiple screens on screen at once picture in picture split screen

[33:49] there's like robert aldrich

[33:51] there's a lot of style a lot of style in this picture

[33:55] for a really bad movie

[33:56] well that's the thing like all this style all these music choices all this stuff

[34:01] could you just think about what would have happened if it had all gone wrong

[34:06] i mean it's so lucky this movie turned out to be a masterpiece

[34:11] it's uh... it's something beautiful coming out of chaos it's like it's like

[34:15] johnny greenwood's discordant score to there will be blood it just perfectly works

[34:20] this could have turned out to be a mess in which something new happens every two

[34:23] minutes and the characters don't make sense and you get dizzy

[34:27] the only time the way i felt after watching this movie

[34:31] was the way i felt after

[34:33] i once drank too much water in a short amount of time and i was low-key and i

[34:37] feel like my mind was reeling

[34:38] and i felt like i feel drunk but i'm not drunk i've just drank a lot of water i

[34:42] don't understand

[34:43] yeah that's the brats that's a sweet high a water high

[34:47] that's the brats for ya

[34:49] well we should move plot wise i did want to say uh... dan do you ever title these

[34:54] episodes you should call this one beat on the brats

[34:57] i don't think that's fair when uh... you see the how this uh... podcast turns out

[35:02] that's true

[35:03] but um... so at the end everything turns out alright though i don't want to

[35:08] leave the podcast listeners in suspense

[35:11] if they don't run out immediately

[35:13] spoiler alert

[35:15] they win the talent show and the poor one wins the college scholarship

[35:19] they win the talent show with an elaborately choreographed routine

[35:23] that involves uh... several backup dancers and a full brass band and a

[35:28] multimedia display changing video lights people in the audience with

[35:32] placards the only thing that would have made the like the kind of like the

[35:36] conclusion of the film i think better it would have sold it more as if a guy showed up

[35:40] and was like

[35:41] i'm from mtv and you guys are awesome here's a rep

[35:44] wait stewart you must have been in the bathroom or something when that happened

[35:47] because that happened holy shit

[35:50] that sounds like a really good movie a guy who we believe was played by the

[35:53] director of the film walks up i'm from mtv we're having a movie premiere and we

[35:58] want you to perform at it

[36:00] very very very mnight shyamalan

[36:03] where the director is playing someone

[36:06] not only somebody but somebody that's relatively important he's shooting the

[36:10] moon to be like i'm president of mtv

[36:13] it's kind of i don't know why he didn't just descend and say

[36:16] i've come i'm god

[36:17] and you know what

[36:18] brats join me in heaven

[36:21] with the hosts and then the brats who have basically been on top

[36:25] uh... except for the two-year span that we did not see them because of the

[36:29] which you have to say well i think that eating disorders are date rape terrible

[36:33] you have to assume that all of the drama in the film actually occurred during

[36:36] those two years we didn't see

[36:38] uh... come out on top

[36:39] once more

[36:41] and then there to music videos

[36:43] uh...

[36:44] and as i said

[36:45] tell you this is got to be some sort of uh... backdoor pilot for a brats

[36:51] uh... concert tour or something something they would obviously this is

[36:54] kind of a way prototype for hannah montana it seems

[36:57] where the idea is

[36:58] yeah yeah i said this is a television show it's a movie but

[37:02] it's also kind of a commercial for albums and things like that now

[37:05] stellar transformers or something

[37:06] but that's the thing it's also

[37:08] it this is what we all grew up with which is we go up with cartoon shows

[37:11] that were

[37:12] based on toy lines and like he man was

[37:15] a thirty minute advertisement for a toy line

[37:17] and that's exactly what this is an hour and forty minute long

[37:20] advertisement for the brats

[37:21] the the dolls are like the shoes i think both all of them

[37:25] i don't know if they're brad shoes and everything of the steve madden ads

[37:28] the cnc

[37:30] which basically brats but it's for steve madden shoes intellectual property theft

[37:35] i will always wondered that yes

[37:38] so elliot uh...

[37:41] on the subject of brats you are a you know you're a high-paid imagine you're a

[37:45] high-paid uh... scriptwriter

[37:47] i know that i know you struggle with using the pitch

[37:50] pitch pitch me your brats

[37:53] elliot kaelin

[37:55] presents breath is based on the toys sure yeah

[37:58] okay well well first of all

[37:59] i don't want to do it with real life actors this is the opposite is a

[38:02] surely he was a real-life actor plays a in this

[38:05] i want the brats let's say they live in

[38:08] toyland sure doll sylvania though you know it's called the brats universe

[38:12] uh... anytime usa anytime us and everyone there's like the brats

[38:17] in china is no noses

[38:19] sexy in a weird

[38:21] uh... mike's hard lemonade nbc predator dateline uh... kind of way

[38:25] and

[38:26] they somehow i don't know

[38:29] show up in our world

[38:31] uh... they befriend a teenage girls but i'm not very popular apollo glasses

[38:35] hair up maybe it's a magic thing maybe it's a portal

[38:38] i don't know what magic what's okay so some sort of magic maybe

[38:41] the brats universe and earth are in conjunction and only once every million

[38:45] years because i think in june the portal of the amulet the portal is open

[38:49] for seventy two hours and they teach her how to be herself

[38:52] and be a beautiful girl

[38:55] there's a toy maker rich evil toy maker in town to seize these brats

[38:59] wants to make a line of toys based on them

[39:01] kidnaps them finds out they're alive

[39:03] there's a whole universe of brats dolls

[39:06] i'll enslave you all and sell you to the children and then you'll steal from the

[39:11] children give it to me

[39:13] and the brats say they probably talk in high pitch voice

[39:17] and you know the girl who

[39:18] help them she has to use her newfound popularity to get the kids together

[39:21] overthrow the evil toy maker

[39:23] then gets those brats home before the portal closes i'm telling you hollywood

[39:27] uh... you should uh... steal elliot's brain i'm not encouraging

[39:31] hollywood producers to come

[39:33] and in the middle of the night

[39:34] perform some sort of brain surgery removing his brain from his body and

[39:38] putting it

[39:39] in some sort of hollywood uh... i don't know uh... make making machines

[39:44] but if you were to do that

[39:46] i don't think i would rather they didn't

[39:48] i know you would rather they didn't

[39:51] but hollywood producers i think that would be it

[39:53] so are we talking like puppets

[39:55] i would imagine there would be either claymation or some sort of stop motion animation

[39:58] uh... something along the lines of

[40:00] kinds of the california raisins or

[40:02] the fish in life aquatic something like that

[40:04] but the humans would be real people

[40:06] but you have these kind of stop motion they wouldn't be puppets now they would

[40:09] be real and you have like puppet brats stop-motion puppet brats it would be all

[40:13] kind of composites green screens things like that you have to get a very

[40:16] talented

[40:17] young actress to play the girl

[40:19] she's gonna have to act to basically nothing the brats won't be there

[40:22] it's kind of an indian in the cupboard type thing sure

[40:24] now

[40:26] well look uh... before we talk forever

[40:29] also tori amos original song

[40:33] done brilliant you know brilliant

[40:36] give it a little cred

[40:37] we shouldn't do our final judgments on this thing so if you have a listen to

[40:40] the podcast before

[40:42] there are three categories

[40:43] for three flop house categories is this a bad movie you would not recommend

[40:46] anyone

[40:48] this is a bad movie that you uh... would recommend as a bad movie

[40:52] uh... good for a few laughs or movie that you think actually is pretty good

[40:56] secretly

[40:56] so uh...

[40:58] we have a steward over here because i think he's got his opinion a lot

[41:02] yeah actually i think this is a this is a bad movie that's fun as a bad movie

[41:07] that's the second category i think yeah uh... because it's totally crazy and

[41:12] something new happens like every ten minutes so if

[41:15] if you don't actually like paying that much attention it seems like a lot of

[41:18] stuff's happening

[41:20] now i agree i'm gonna go with that too like we have watched a lot of movies

[41:23] that have been serious pain

[41:25] to watch and i think they've made for good shows i don't know whether this is

[41:29] a good show or not but

[41:30] watching movies

[41:31] i had a great time and particularly

[41:34] and we've ruined it for you

[41:36] as a podcast listener

[41:37] but the first time two years later got thrown up there on the screen

[41:42] i could not stop laughing we said what the fuck like ten times

[41:45] twenty minutes into the film beautiful and it's a surprise jump ahead for two years

[41:50] and ultimately it makes no difference

[41:52] so that was beautiful thank you brett's the movie

[41:55] uh... and i would also go for a category two

[41:58] this is by no means a good movie let's just get that out of the way right there

[42:01] it's a terrible movie the message is abhorrent

[42:04] be yourself as long as you're beautiful and good at everything

[42:07] yet like watching it the whole time it's like

[42:10] babysitting

[42:11] like a nephew

[42:12] who's like four years old and running around and you're really tired after a

[42:15] day of work and you're like

[42:17] i don't want to watch this kid anymore and run around he keeps doing different things

[42:20] that are really irritating

[42:21] but then at the end of the night you're so giddy from chasing this kid around that you're like

[42:24] you know what i'll babysit another time

[42:27] so

[42:28] no you got me brett you got me brett you won me over with your crappiness but also with your

[42:32] energy

[42:33] oh man that's great

[42:35] usually at this point we move from negativity to positivity but this time it's going to be from

[42:39] positivity to positivity since we all had such a good time

[42:42] watching the bretts movie

[42:45] believe me i think i speak for all of us when i say i am immensely surprised that i had

[42:49] such a good time

[42:52] the feel good movie of the year

[42:55] i didn't know

[42:56] i knew as soon as i realized it was an animation that i was going to have a good time

[43:01] so now's the time in the movie when we talk about uh... recommendations

[43:05] so i'm going to move over to elliot first for this uh... okay uh... well since we watched a movie

[43:10] about young girls

[43:11] brats or the brats i don't know if it's brats or the brats or brats the movie

[43:15] it's brats tm

[43:16] every instance of brats is a trademark simply brats with i believe there's a halo over the

[43:22] a why i don't know

[43:24] because they love the angels

[43:25] they're big baseball fans

[43:28] so another movie i saw recently for the first time which i had meaning to see

[43:31] for a while

[43:32] also about young girls

[43:34] uh... called picnic at hanging rock

[43:36] which is

[43:37] the exact opposite of this in every way

[43:39] uh... it's a very deliberately paced very

[43:41] kind of beautiful trance like movie about in the year nineteen hundred a

[43:45] group of

[43:46] uh... english girls at a boarding school in australia go to this place hanging

[43:49] rock

[43:50] uh... on a picnic and three of them

[43:53] and their teacher

[43:55] disappear

[43:56] no one knows where they are they're lost no one can find them

[43:59] and

[44:00] there's the movie kind of follows what happens to everyone else as they grapple

[44:03] with the fact that

[44:05] basically the laws of reality that they don't come out say this

[44:08] but the laws of reality they've always depended on

[44:10] do not apply there's something about hanging rock there's something about the

[44:13] universe that they cannot answer

[44:15] and it had this very kind of

[44:17] i mean it was struck me as a kind of an algernon

[44:20] blackwood story

[44:21] but he's not that

[44:22] i mean it's kind of obscure reference so i'll say a little bit less obscure

[44:25] if h.p. lovecraft wrote not

[44:28] movie not stories about

[44:30] things with tentacles that scared people because they ate them and stuff like

[44:33] that but wrote stories about

[44:35] kind of like ineffable mysteries of in nature

[44:38] the idea that these girls have all this bound up

[44:41] emotion that they can't let out because they're in this boarding school and it's

[44:44] the year nineteen hundred

[44:45] they have to wear gloves until they're out of sight of townspeople at one point

[44:49] uh... cuz it's just not proper

[44:51] there's something inside them that unlocks

[44:53] something in this rock

[44:55] and

[44:55] takes them and everyone else has to deal with that and wonder about

[44:58] their own place and you know all that sort of thing but it's

[45:01] it's really beautiful and frankly

[45:02] when i was a kid growing up i used to see commercials for

[45:05] zanphyr master of the pan flute all the time and i was like

[45:08] that's ridiculous

[45:10] but he uh... performed much of the soundtrack, well much of the soundtrack is zanphyr's songs

[45:14] and the whole time i was like

[45:15] this is perfect this is beautiful haunting music so

[45:20] i guess i was wrong to laugh at you zanphyr master of the romanian pan flute

[45:23] so run out and rent brats and buy the best of zanphyr

[45:26] the two of them would make an interesting double feature because one is

[45:29] about like they're both about young girls who kind of like

[45:32] bursting out

[45:33] you know let their true selves show

[45:36] but one is

[45:37] this kind of

[45:37] emotionally scary thing and the other is

[45:40] brats the movie so you know

[45:42] well uh... since i went on vacation recently i think i should talk about

[45:46] the two films that i saw on the plane

[45:49] out to san francisco and back from san francisco because

[45:53] frankly i didn't have time to see a lot of movies

[45:56] because i was on vacation so on my way there i saw the golden compass

[46:01] or i should say i saw the beginning of the golden compass

[46:03] and i would recommend the golden compass as an airplane movie

[46:06] because it put me right to sleep

[46:09] i had a great time watching it and waking up and realizing that a large

[46:15] part of my seven hour plane trip was almost over

[46:19] because you know what i mean i i read the golden compass books

[46:23] and i enjoyed them

[46:25] problem with the movie

[46:26] was

[46:27] they basically were really

[46:29] uh... faithful except for the anti

[46:32] uh... religion stuff

[46:34] so you're left with this is really

[46:36] complex mythology

[46:39] that they tried to explain to you right off the bat and like narration

[46:42] and i felt like uh... you know like

[46:45] mister burns of the system is being like

[46:47] i don't care about blizz blaz and fin flan

[46:50] you know it just it just immediately just

[46:52] put me off and i was like

[46:54] if i having read the books felt like this i can't imagine someone coming in

[46:58] cold to this movie what their reaction would be to it that was if i can

[47:01] interject that was a movie that i was very excited about it because i'm a big

[47:04] fan of that book

[47:07] one of the ratings of the book is the main character doesn't know that much

[47:10] about the world outside of where she lives so as she's discovering these new

[47:13] things so are you it's like oh they're these people who live on boats and trade

[47:17] among the country is in

[47:18] they have their own mysterious ways and apparently there which is what's and

[47:22] that's it and then you hear like

[47:23] of the panserbjorn are are repartees trouble up with them up north it's like

[47:28] panserbjorn i don't even know what that is but it that sounds pretty good

[47:31] and you know it's constantly unfolding this mysterious world that you learn

[47:34] more about slowly

[47:35] and in the movie it starts off with a prologue that like

[47:38] all the world is made of a magical substance named dust

[47:42] the people

[47:42] the which is

[47:44] the talking bears the data that is like why did you just give away the fact that

[47:48] they're talking bears in this movie like this is the but the best things in the

[47:51] mood in the book is like

[47:52] holy shit they're talking bears that where iron and fight each other in this

[47:56] book i had no idea this is great

[47:58] but right off the bat they're like

[47:59] well they're talking bears so

[48:01] spoiler alert so when the bears shows up it's like

[48:04] well there's a talking bear i heard about you know it's you must be the

[48:07] talking bear that's the talk of the town this season

[48:10] so i i agree that

[48:12] with exactly what you say

[48:13] uh... but on the way back however

[48:16] i saw a national treasure to book of secrets

[48:19] and let me tell you

[48:20] you know on the flip side you know what's moving on a plane

[48:23] that's gonna keep you

[48:24] after paying attention to the whole time

[48:27] i'm not going to say it's a great movie i'm not even going to say it's a good movie

[48:30] necessarily

[48:30] but i was so entertained by book of secrets

[48:34] and you know like i was actually a big fan of the first

[48:37] uh... film as a sort of a good bad movie because it's it's silly but it's

[48:41] really like a tongue-in-cheek

[48:43] is that the movie where he can see

[48:44] two minutes into the picture? no that's next

[48:47] we watch next you uh... you're confusing your nicholas cage films

[48:51] but uh... you know the first movie was like

[48:53] all right we're gonna make uh... an indiana jones movie and we're gonna put

[48:57] nick cage in it and we're gonna make it about history

[49:00] and that's kinda what

[49:01] i like about

[49:03] the national treasure series is like the nerdiness about like

[49:07] we're gonna make this about american history

[49:09] granted

[49:10] it's gonna be our crazy hollywood version of american history

[49:13] but still it's gonna be like you have a generation of millions of school children thinking that

[49:17] that america was started with i guess pirate gold that was hidden somewhere

[49:21] but it's not it's not about like fucking transforming robots or something

[49:24] like it's it's a very human sized thing i haven't

[49:27] oh you were saying

[49:28] well there are a couple things i just want to point out about it number one

[49:31] well number one john voight is in the american uh... the national treasure films

[49:36] does he wear a prosthetic nose in them? no there's no prosthetic nose

[49:40] number two harvey kytel is in the movies

[49:43] and in the first movie it made sense like you know why he was in it

[49:46] the second film

[49:47] like harvey kytel plays this uh... fbi agent

[49:50] and he's introduced in the second movie

[49:53] by his underlings coming in and being like

[49:55] hey guess what nicholas cage is in the news again your friend from the first

[50:00] treasure film. And there's no crime that Nicolas Cage has committed at this time, but Harvey

[50:06] Keitel's like, let's keep an eye on it. So basically I guess if any news that's pertinent

[50:12] to Harvey Keitel is like, let's keep the FBI working on this subject. And it doesn't make

[50:17] any sense because later on he's brought into the story in a much more logical way, but

[50:22] I guess they felt like they needed to remind people like, hey, Harvey Keitel was in the

[50:26] last movie and he's going to be in this one. Stay tuned. But the other weird thing about

[50:31] the national treasure movies is it basically gives you this version of American history

[50:35] where every national monument was just constructed as part of an elaborate treasure hunt. Like

[50:42] everything in American history, like anything that's going to become significant, like in

[50:47] the past people were like, this is going to be a significant monument in American history

[50:50] at some point. I better work this into a clue that points people to gold. It's like,

[50:57] okay, if I punch the Liberty Bell four times with mittens on and then, I don't know.

[51:04] You know what would be awesome is if they go, they're like, we're supposed to go to

[51:06] the Washington Monument and say these words. Well, nothing's going to happen, but I'll

[51:10] say them anyway. And it's like, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Jackson. Well, nothing happened.

[51:16] Then you just hear rumble, rumble, rumble. And the Washington Monument turns on its side

[51:19] and turns to point where the treasure is. That would have been awesome.

[51:26] That's for national treasure three, I guess. Oh, national treasure three, big monuments.

[51:31] One thing at one point in the trailer, I haven't seen the movie yet. One point in the trailer,

[51:34] he says, there's another statue of liberty. I mean, they're talking about the statue of

[51:39] liberty that's in France, right? Correct. Okay. I'm disappointed in that because they

[51:43] said in the trailer, it's at the statue of liberty, but not the one you're thinking of.

[51:47] There's a second statue of liberty? This is a fairly well-known fact, I feel like,

[51:51] that France has a second duplicate statue of liberty. It's not like a secret one on

[51:55] the moon or something like that. The moment in the trailer that really got me,

[51:58] and then all my hopes for this movie were shattered, was the moment when he's like,

[52:03] the only way you're going to find that book is if you become the president. And I'm like,

[52:07] holy shit, he's going to run for president. But no, he didn't. He wants to kidnap the

[52:13] president. Yeah, but he doesn't want to kidnap the president. That's a pretty awesome bat-shit

[52:18] twist. That's what I like about the National Treasure movies. It's like that old video

[52:21] game Bad Dudes, where the guy briefs you at the beginning, and he's like,

[52:26] ninjas have kidnapped the president. The only response is sending in bad dudes.

[52:30] I just feel like if you're going to make a crazy action film, you should just go all the way and

[52:36] have every 15 minutes or less, there should be a bat-shit crazy twist that happens. And

[52:42] that's what I like about the National Treasure movies, is there's always something weird.

[52:46] I can't wait for the next one. Wait a minute. There's a Kansas City,

[52:50] Kansas and a Kansas City, Missouri. Which one is the treasure at?

[52:56] We'll never know. Do they ever have a speech in any of them?

[53:00] Because I don't remember the first one that well, where it's like-

[53:02] Are you just going to give us historical facts? No, no, no. It was like, I guess this was,

[53:06] actually the seventh episode of The Simpsons, I guess, was, you know what? We can't lose sight

[53:10] of our real national treasures. They're the hardworking people who come into this country

[53:14] every day. They're the wide open fields that grow our food, and the mighty rivers that push

[53:19] our commerce. This is just going to turn into a Simpsons reference podcast.

[53:23] Yeah, I don't want it to, though. That's true. But that would be a good speech for them to make.

[53:27] Yeah, so watching movies. Let's see. I recently watched Juno.

[53:34] A little disappointed. I recently watched There Will Be Blood,

[53:41] which was great. And then I watched Stardust. And Stardust, I'm going to kind of group it in

[53:50] with the whole Bratz thing. I wouldn't say it was a great movie. I think it was a little up and down

[53:56] and all over the place, but its energy is what kept me involved. It had enough enthusiasm about

[54:03] being Stardust the movie to get me like, okay, I'm going to watch this.

[54:08] And there were constant Stardust musical cues that kept you going along.

[54:11] Yeah, I was hooked. Wall-to-wall soundtrack, just like in Bratz.

[54:16] Yep. So Stardust, meh. Nice of you. Bringing it back home.

[54:23] Man, Martin Scorsese and the director of Bratz, the two great movies.

[54:28] Those music. Whatever the songs they used were, they are indelibly linked in my mind with whatever

[54:32] scenes played at that time. Never going to be able to think about it the same way again.

[54:37] God. We've got to close this thing out. Whatever audience we may have won from being mentioned on

[54:43] Gawker, we have now lost, I'm sure. Oh, possibly. Yeah, very likely.

[54:47] 15 minutes in, if not earlier. The minute they said, the minute you said,

[54:50] well, we're talking about Bratz the movie today. Click. I imagine that the computers have dials on

[54:55] them like radios or things like that. Click. Hey, let's see what's on the other

[54:59] podcast channel. And now we're talking about sports. This is better. This is what I like.

[55:05] Who is Perez Hilton making fun of today? That's another popular blogger.

[55:10] Yeah, Stewart had no idea who, what Gawker was. I'm sorry, Gawker.

[55:15] I imagine you said. I imagine that Gawker

[55:16] is feeling really sad. I imagine you said it like an old man.

[55:18] We were on the Gawker. What's this Gawker I've been hearing?

[55:22] What's the whole Gawker thing? I'm too busy necking.

[55:26] Yep, I was at a soccer. Bring home our boys, victory bonds.

[55:32] Anyway, instead of listing old timey things, I would like to say that if you want to write us,

[55:38] you can write us at theflophousepodcast at gmail.com. And if you want to go to our website,

[55:43] it's theflophousepodcast.blogspot.com. And that has links to a lot of things, including

[55:51] Podcast Alley where you can vote for us. We were as high as the 33rd humor podcast in April.

[55:59] Nice. So we're moving up in the world.

[56:03] I mean, I think that's totally, we've gamed the system and that's an inaccurate count.

[56:10] I've set up a program on my computer that votes every hour on the hour.

[56:13] Sure. I don't understand.

[56:13] What's the problem? It's like a war game sort of thing.

[56:16] Yeah, well, because it's trying to blow up the country.

[56:18] But we still appreciate that. And yeah, that's all the podcast business.

[56:25] Everyone fast forwards to this section anyway. So why don't you sign off first?

[56:31] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[56:33] I have been Dan McCoy.

[56:35] And I have been Elliot Kalin and continue to be so.

[56:39] Brats.

[56:41] Bratitude.

[56:42] Brats.

[56:44] Yeah. Bratitude, everybody on three. One, two, three.

[56:47] Bratitude.

[56:49] Peace.

[56:59] Bratitude.

[57:00] Bratitude. Jade.

[57:02] Brats.

[57:03] Chloe.

[57:04] Brats. Brats. Brats. I love brats. I did it with a brat.

[57:09] Jack.

[57:11] It's got, you know, the worst part about this podcast is going to be the moment when

[57:14] we, uh, we have to recommend something.

[57:19] Well, I haven't been, it's going to be the worst part.

[57:23] Uh, other than talking about the Bratz movie.

[57:27] Take everything down.

[57:29] Taking it down for the Bratz movie.

Flop House Klassic - Bratz

Transcript

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