The Flop House: Episode #14 - Bratz

Dan McCoy

[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] So, um, we've been having a lot of sort of soft intros recently.

[0:39] Let's do a little more stylish, 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 Kalin.

[0:52] Yeah, almost professional.

[0:54] Yeah, booyah.

[0:55] So, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[1:01] I like to keep things loose.

[1:03] I just, I get afraid that people don't know who we are.

[1:06] Specifically our name.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[1:15] Listen, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I made you guys.

[1:18] You did talk for ten minutes straight about your Ziggy movie idea.

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

[1:27] So, uh...

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

Dan McCoy

[1:32] Yeah, the regular thing that we do here around The Flophouse...

[1:35] I sound like an ass.

[1:36] Yeah, sure.

[1:37] Is, uh, we watch a bad movie.

[1:39] And then we discuss it afterwards.

Stuart Wellington

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

[1:43] I mean...

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

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

[1:47] 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...

Dan McCoy

[1:54] 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 wasn't, like, the invasion or something?

Stuart Wellington

[2:01] Uh, Mr. Brooks I think did okay.

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

[2:03] Oh, okay.

[2:03] That's weird.

Dan McCoy

[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.

[2:11] 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, uh...

[2:20] But tonight, Stuart, what did we watch tonight?

[2:23] Uh, we watched the Bratz movie.

[2:25] Oh, awesome.

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

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

[2:30] Are you?

[2:30] No.

[2:30] Let me check.

[2:32] No.

[2:33] I am at least...

[2:34] I'm not one of those things.

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

Stuart Wellington

[2:39] So, sure.

[2:40] Uh, 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] Uh, little statues of horses.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Stuart Wellington

[2:57] Those, yeah, those scrunchy things that I would put my little ponytails in.

[3:01] Yeah.

[3:02] Those, uh...

[3:02] Troll dolls.

Dan McCoy

[3:03] Slap bracelets that slit your wrist open.

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[3:11] It's all that like...

[3:12] Since they're busy...

[3:12] You know, hyper-colored shirts.

Dan McCoy

[3:14] You know, since they're busy texting each other and going on the internet.

[3:18] Yeah.

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

[3:23] They teleconference.

[3:24] ...4-way video phone conversations with their friends as they choose the clothes that they're

[3:30] going to wear that day.

[3:31] Yes.

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

[3:34] I think you can.

Elliott Kalan

[3:35] They did have amazing video quality on their computers and phones.

[3:39] Yeah.

[3:39] You have to admit.

Dan McCoy

[3:40] I don't want to put the Bratz down.

[3:42] I just don't imagine that your average teenage girl has the four-way video.

[3:48] I would...

Stuart Wellington

[3:48] Wasn't there a poor Bratz?

[3:49] Wasn't one of the Bratz?

Elliott Kalan

[3:50] Yeah, but she had the four...

[3:51] She had the video cameras.

[3:52] 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] Like, I can't buy whatever I want all the time, but I get by.

[4:04] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[4:05] Yeah.

[4:05] It was a movie about Bratz.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[4:10] Let's see if we can figure out...

[4:11] Because Bratz is kind of an amorphous concept to start with.

[4:14] Right.

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

[4:17] Yeah.

[4:17] ...and teleconference about the day to come.

[4:19] What else we learned about Bratz?

Stuart Wellington

[4:21] While picking out clothes from cavernous, cavernous closets.

Dan McCoy

[4:25] From labyrinthian closets.

[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.

[4:34] Literally everything they put in mind to.

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

Elliott Kalan

[4:42] The Bratz are basically the 15-year-old girl equivalent of the character Scaramouche from the Raphael Savatini novel of the same name.

[4:50] Who, whatever he does, he's amazing at.

[4:53] Highbrow.

[4:54] This is a highbrow podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[4:55] So I was actually really relieved when the movie started and there was dancing and stuff.

[5:01] Because I don't know if you guys have, but I've actually seen pictures of the Bratz characters, the dolls and cartoon characters.

[5:09] And not only was I happy that it was a live action movie, but when I realized that the characters didn't look exactly like their cartoon counterparts, and thus completely inhuman, when they actually looked like human girls, I was pretty excited.

Elliott Kalan

[5:23] It would be horrific if it was all normal kids except for the four Bratz, who had enormous eyes and tiny bodies and tiny hands and feet.

[5:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:31] Which is possible in today's computer graphics, I think.

[5:35] I'm glad you brought this up, Stuart, because I was going to say, for the benefit of listeners who might not be familiar with the inspiration for the Bratz hit film, this is based on a line of dolls.

[5:46] A line of dolls.

[5:47] Big-headed, whorishly dressed dolls.

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

[5:54] She grew up and stopped talking to her parents.

[5:56] Yeah, exactly.

[5:57] She didn't have a nose.

[5:58] And I've often...

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[6:09] Yeah.

[6:09] And you have a nose.

[6:10] And I've often stood in toy stores staring at the Bratz dolls, and those around me have always thought that guy's having sexual fantasies about the Bratz dolls.

[6:18] Sure.

[6:18] But really what I was thinking was, I wonder what their real-life adventures are all about.

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

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

[6:26] Well, I don't like to brag, but yeah.

[6:30] I don't know what that means in that context.

Elliott Kalan

[6:32] Yeah, Bratz.

[6:33] I don't know.

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

[6:38] Stuff happened in this one.

[6:39] Stuff happened.

[6:40] Roughly every 30 seconds, there was a different plot point.

[6:42] It was rich with incident.

[6:43] If it wasn't Jade, the Eurasian brat, starting to fall in love with her lab partner, or the deaf jock who becomes a DJ,

[6:55] or what else happens in this thing?

[6:57] The bust of the principal that breaks in a giant food fight?

Dan McCoy

[6:59] Imagine a picaresque Henry Fielding novel, and then imagine that it stars Bratz.

[7:07] 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] Yes.

[7:19] However, there's the Caucasian brat, there's the black brat, there's the Asian brat, and there's the Hispanic brat.

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

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[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.

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

[7:50] Right.

[7:50] As if to say, listen, this is all we can do to prove to you that she's Hispanic.

[7:55] She's Hispanic, okay.

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

Dan McCoy

[7:59] Yeah, that's just what happens in your average household.

[8:02] There's a mariachi band.

Elliott Kalan

[8:04] And the Hispanic brat could sing.

[8:06] That was her talent.

[8:07] They can all sing, but she's the one that they tell is a good singer.

[8:10] And also she can do a magic trick where she pulls pieces of chocolate from behind her mother's ears, which astounds her mother.

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

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[8:25] Both.

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

Dan McCoy

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

[8:31] I'm the racist one of this gang.

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

Stuart Wellington

[8:39] You know those Hispanics and all their chocolate?

[8:44] Asian brats love cookery.

[8:48] I'm glad that you specified exclusively the brat Asian people.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[8:55] Oh, yeah.

[8:58] Oh, brats.

Elliott Kalan

[8:59] Okay.

[8:59] So they were all great at everything they did.

[9:03] But they all had their individual talents that they were really great at.

[9:07] One was into singing.

[9:08] Sure.

[9:08] One was a fashion designer.

[9:12] Yes.

[9:12] And also a scientist.

[9:13] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[9:13] A chemist.

[9:14] A chemist.

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

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

[9:27] of the fellow science students.

[9:29] And then fireworks came out of it.

[9:31] Yeah.

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

[9:33] I mean like literal miniature fireworks.

[9:35] Like one might see it at a 4th of July fireworks display.

[9:38] But shrunk down.

[9:40] Yeah.

[9:40] Like she was at Hogwarts, as Stuart said.

Stuart Wellington

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

[9:45] The weirdest part about it is that she did all this without any kind of teacher supervision.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

[9:53] There is a fashion designer because, and here's the, in the, I guess, home ec class, but

[9:58] it's nothing but making clothing.

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

[10:02] On her first day.

[10:02] 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, takes her glasses off,

[10:12] and the whole classroom claps.

[10:14] We never, hello?

[10:15] I almost knocked the microphone over because I was clapping.

[10:17] We never see this teacher again.

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

[10:24] like that.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[10:28] How unprofessional is it to leave your class and change into the dress, the sexy dress that

[10:32] your student just made for you?

Dan McCoy

[10:34] There's, like, that seemed to be, you know, I think there's got to have been a subplot that

[10:39] was discarded about the sexy dress.

[10:40] There had to be something about it.

Stuart Wellington

[10:41] She obviously realized that at that point her work was done.

[10:44] She taught this class.

[10:45] She had nothing more to teach.

Dan McCoy

[10:46] She now should be the student.

[10:48] There was the music professor who taught the deaf, the hot deaf guy to be a DJ.

[10:54] The hot deaf guy who spoke perfectly.

[10:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

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

[10:59] Right.

[11:00] So, basically a guy.

[11:02] Yeah.

[11:02] A hot guy.

[11:03] 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.

[11:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:08] Basically, the one point in the movie at which the brats did something wrong was when one

[11:13] of the brats chewed this person out and he was like, I'm deaf.

[11:17] So, maybe he was just being a dick to that girl.

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

[11:21] Maybe.

[11:22] But 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 of that.

Elliott Kalan

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

[11:31] Yeah.

[11:31] But apart from the music teacher and the fashion teacher and a couple security guards, there's

[11:36] really only one adult supervisor at the school.

[11:38] He was, of course, Principal Dimley, played by Academy Award winner John Voight.

[11:43] Played to a T.

[11:44] To a T.

[11:45] By John Voight in a prosthetic nose.

[11:47] And this is a subplot I wish had been looked at more.

[11:49] Obviously, there's a lot of graft and resource wasting going on at the school because there's

[11:55] a bust, a sculpted bust of the current principal on the school grounds.

[12:00] And I had, like, who proved this budget that he's wasting money on a bust of himself to

[12:05] put on it at his school?

Stuart Wellington

[12:06] A bust which is easily knocked over and broken, much like, I don't know if you've ever been

[12:12] in a high school, but pretty much everything's bolted down pretty well.

Elliott Kalan

[12:14] Or if it's, say, a statue, it's usually made out of bronze or some other metal.

Dan McCoy

[12:18] It's not hollow ceramic.

[12:21] Yeah.

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

[12:26] See, that explains it.

[12:27] There you go.

[12:28] That explains it.

[12:28] It's a tribute.

Elliott Kalan

[12:29] It still doesn't explain the ceremonial Japanese sword set that was in the secret surveillance

[12:33] room that the class president had.

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

[12:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:36] Well, one has to assume that John Voight took this part because he heard that there

[12:41] might be a fake nose involved.

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

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

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[12:53] Well.

Dan McCoy

[12:54] He won for Coming Home, didn't he?

[12:55] He's a greedy.

[12:56] He is, right?

[12:57] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[13:07] He was really good in Anaconda.

Dan McCoy

[13:09] He was.

[13:10] That last wink, man.

Stuart Wellington

[13:12] Yep.

[13:13] These are my babies.

Elliott Kalan

[13:15] So what was, so we had these Bratz.

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

[13:18] What was their, who was their villain?

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

Dan McCoy

[13:21] What was her name?

[13:23] Meredith.

[13:23] Meredith Baxter Dimley was her character's name.

Elliott Kalan

[13:25] There were these little touches like Meredith Baxter Dimley that seemed like the screenwriter

[13:29] was very bored with what she was doing and was throwing them in.

[13:33] Right.

[13:33] You pointed out that.

[13:34] It was, they went to Carrie Nation High School and everything was, the symbol of the school

[13:39] was an axe and that the big talent show at the end, they win the golden axe.

[13:42] And it's like, oh, that's kind of a cute little joke.

[13:45] Like Carrie Nation used to chop up bars with axes because she was, you know, a leader of

[13:49] the temperance movement.

[13:50] That's kind of a, almost too smart for the Bratz movie.

Dan McCoy

[13:53] Well, almost too smart for the Bratz movie?

[13:55] You think that the eight-year-old girls who are going through the Bratz movie are familiar

[14:01] with the history of the temperance movement?

[14:02] They might be.

Elliott Kalan

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

[14:08] but you know.

Dan McCoy

[14:10] Well, I want to talk about something that delighted me about this movie.

[14:16] So...

[14:16] I don't know where this is.

[14:18] This movie had...

[14:19] I would say it moved in fits and starts.

[14:21] There were points at which you thought, oh, maybe this movie's over.

[14:25] And then you would look at the time and say, oh, this movie's 30 minutes in.

Elliott Kalan

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

[14:33] back together again.

[14:35] Right.

Dan McCoy

[14:35] Well, the movie starts on the first day of school.

[14:38] High school.

[14:38] At a high school.

[14:39] And they all go in and they're all best friends.

[14:43] Freshmen.

[14:44] Even though they're all totally like one another, except for their slightly varied interests.

[14:51] And ethnicities.

[14:52] Yeah.

[14:52] The evil villain of the school wants to split them up into cliques.

Elliott Kalan

[14:57] The evil villain is the school class president.

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

[15:05] Alicia Silverstein in the Clueless.

Stuart Wellington

[15:07] Yeah.

[15:08] For some reason, it's very important to her.

[15:10] Played for an audience that really can appreciate its subtlety.

[15:15] She also has a...

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[15:21] She's the evil rich daughter of the principal.

[15:25] And as you pointed out, Stuart, where all the money is coming from on a principal's salary?

Elliott Kalan

[15:30] Their house looks like the Mexican president's mansion, basically.

[15:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[15:35] Well, that's a high school principal for you.

[15:39] Rolling the money.

Dan McCoy

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

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

[15:47] Let's point out some of the cliques at this school.

Elliott Kalan

[15:49] So the cliques at there...

[15:50] She said something that there's 13 cliques at this school, or 17 cliques.

[15:54] And they include goth kids, jocks.

[15:56] But then they also include disco kids.

[15:59] Kids that dress as dinosaurs are named that.

[16:02] Mimes.

[16:03] Mimes.

[16:04] Mimes.

[16:04] It's as if whoever's making the movie was like, this school's full...

[16:08] I remember high school's full of cliques.

[16:10] Oh, I guess there were really only two or three cliques.

[16:12] And everyone else just kind of milled about.

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

Stuart Wellington

[16:15] 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.

[16:21] Fuck it.

[16:22] Somebody grab a magazine.

[16:25] Dinosaur, dinosaur.

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

Elliott Kalan

[16:27] Disco.

[16:28] Great.

[16:28] Do it.

[16:29] Those are the hippies.

[16:30] Okay, done.

[16:31] Those are the other hippies.

[16:33] Okay.

[16:33] Corduroy wearing engineers.

[16:35] Fine.

[16:36] That'll be one.

Dan McCoy

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

[16:40] Band geeks.

[16:41] Band geeks.

Elliott Kalan

[16:41] Band geeks was one of them.

[16:42] And they were in their band costumes all the time.

[16:44] Sure.

[16:45] And always had their instruments.

Dan McCoy

[16:46] That is actually literally true to life.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[16:51] The kid with the drum.

[16:54] Yoga kids.

[16:55] They had yoga kids.

[16:56] All I remember is that band geeks would always go out to the band building to make out during lunchtime.

[17:00] Oh.

[17:01] So, what I like is, when they drive to the school, I don't know if you guys noticed, a student is walking by carrying a human skeleton.

[17:08] And I assume he's in the science class and not a murderer.

Stuart Wellington

[17:12] Well, that's the best way to script a scene.

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

[17:19] It's obviously, as you mentioned, you stick something in their hand that identifies a character.

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

[17:28] Instruments for a band geek.

[17:30] Like a disco ball for a disco kid.

[17:33] Yeah.

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

Elliott Kalan

[17:37] Because that says, yeah.

[17:38] That was a strange scene.

[17:39] One of the Hispanic brat, whose name I don't remember.

[17:42] Yasmin.

[17:43] Yasmin, who's the singer.

[17:44] That's right, Yasmin.

[17:46] She bumps into someone in the hallway and says, what are you, blind?

[17:50] And he goes, no, but I am deaf.

[17:53] So, whatever.

[17:54] Or something like that.

[17:55] Yeah.

[17:55] And she goes, oh, I didn't know.

[17:56] And he's like, well, I guess you, I may be deaf, but you're ignorant.

[17:59] Or something like that.

[18:00] And walks away.

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

[18:03] Sad music.

[18:04] Uh-oh.

[18:04] This brat made a mistake.

Dan McCoy

[18:05] Well, we should talk about the music in a second.

[18:07] 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.

[18:36] 20 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, they all get sentenced to detention together.

[18:49] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[18:55] 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?

[19:01] Junior year?

[19:02] So they're going roughly from like the age 14 to the age 16, let's say.

[19:06] Or 13 to 15.

[19:08] Like, that's a major, those are two of the two most important years in a young American's developmental life.

[19:14] They would have changed.

[19:15] I was not the same person at 13 that I was at 15.

[19:18] But they have not changed at all.

[19:20] Nothing has happened.

[19:21] And then they become friends.

[19:23] Physical changes?

[19:23] No physical, well, they're already, have already gone through puberty before their first day of high school.

[19:27] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[19:28] But they also, uh.

[19:29] Different haircuts, maybe?

Elliott Kalan

[19:31] Same haircuts.

[19:32] Oh, weird.

[19:32] The same haircuts.

[19:33] 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?

Dan McCoy

[19:38] They're all obsessed with the same romantic interests.

Elliott Kalan

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

[19:44] Yeah.

[19:45] And are with the same girls.

[19:46] These guys are all, are in high school relationships that have lasted two or three years.

[19:50] Yeah, it seems like they would take them a lot more seriously.

[19:52] Yeah.

[19:53] Except then 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 food fight they accidentally cause in which massive fistfuls of pasta are thrown around.

[20:06] It looks, someone will pick up.

[20:07] It was pasta day, dude.

[20:07] Everyone picks up a plate and throws it.

[20:10] And then they'll cut to someone being hit in what looks like a confetti cannon's worth of pasta in the face.

Dan McCoy

[20:16] But it bears, uh.

[20:18] It bears noting that the pasta is not the problem.

[20:20] The problem is that the brats accidentally.

[20:22] I do imagine the director in the scene going, oh, we need more pasta.

[20:27] We're not getting across the food fight-osity of this scene.

[20:30] But the brats accidentally smashed the bust of, uh, be schnozzed, uh, John Hoyt.

[20:37] And that's what lands them in detention.

Stuart Wellington

[20:38] So are you imagining that they're, like, using, like, a weird machine?

[20:42] Like, uh, the machine from Ernest Goes to Camp that fires out the eggs erroneous of people to fire out.

[20:46] Yeah, and this fires pasta.

[20:47] It fires out pasta, too.

Elliott Kalan

[20:48] Just something, but only off camera.

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

[20:53] One of the brats didn't invent the machine.

[20:54] No, no, this is something that they did, you know, behind the scenes.

[20:57] We're still supposed to believe that the brats are throwing these huge mounds of pasta at people.

Dan McCoy

[21:02] Let me reiterate, however, that the brats have now broken up as friends and gotten back together.

[21:07] Two years later.

[21:08] And it's 30 minutes into the film.

[21:10] 30 minutes into the film, yeah.

[21:11] What's the rest, what's the remaining hour and five minutes of the film, you may ask?

[21:16] Which is the running time of the movie.

[21:18] Sure.

[21:19] You know, without credits.

[21:20] With credits.

Elliott Kalan

[21:21] The credits includes two music videos.

[21:23] Yeah.

[21:23] You don't want to skip the credits.

[21:25] One of them involves a piano with the word brats written on it in big letters.

Stuart Wellington

[21:29] You'd be doing yourself a disservice, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[21:31] But what is it, what still is yet to come in the movie?

[21:34] Oh, I don't know, a talent show?

[21:36] Maybe a super sweet 16 party?

Stuart Wellington

[21:38] That's good.

[21:39] Don't talk about the talent show.

[21:41] Oh, sorry, I won't get to that yet.

Elliott Kalan

[21:42] Even though they mentioned the talent show roughly 25 minutes into the film, and then it's dropped for a while.

Stuart Wellington

[21:47] Yeah, yeah.

[21:47] Well, don't they like break up and become friends again like four more times through the course of the fucking movie?

Elliott Kalan

[21:53] It feels like, and I think Dan mentioned this, it feels like several episodes of the Brats TV show, like sewn together.

[21:59] Yeah.

[22:00] Those movies where they would take a Japanese or an Italian TV show and just sew the episodes together into a movie?

[22:06] This is kind of like that.

Dan McCoy

[22:07] This is the Cruel Intentions 2 of Brats films.

[22:11] More to go a little highbrow, it's the Mulholland Drive of Brats films.

[22:15] Or the...

[22:16] Without the lesbian sex.

Elliott Kalan

[22:17] The Lost Highway of Brats films.

Dan McCoy

[22:19] Wait, Lost Highway strung together?

Elliott Kalan

[22:21] Well, no, it's two different stories, though.

Dan McCoy

[22:22] All right, but Mulholland Drive was actually a good Italian show.

[22:24] That was a television show.

[22:25] That's true.

[22:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:26] Oh, okay, but anyway, so the super sweet...

[22:28] So the villain of the movie, Meredith Baxter Dibley, decides to throw a super sweet 16...

[22:32] This is how she's going to win the school back over.

[22:34] Because her clutch on power is so tenuous as long as these free agent brats are around.

[22:39] Acting independent.

[22:40] And by acting independent, it means dressing like everybody else.

Dan McCoy

[22:43] Wait, let's...

[22:44] This is an important point.

[22:46] The whole theme of the film is ostensibly be yourself.

[22:50] Be yourself.

[22:52] Break down the walls.

[22:53] I thought it was be a brat.

[22:56] Yeah, but a brat also means...

[22:57] But the brat's ethos is to break down the walls between clicks and to bring people together

[23:04] to see what's similar in people.

Stuart Wellington

[23:05] That would have made a lot more sense if they explained that whole thing in a song.

Elliott Kalan

[23:09] Yeah, well, they did several times.

Stuart Wellington

[23:11] Oh, shit.

Elliott Kalan

[23:12] As they walked down Main Street, USA to get to the clothing store.

Dan McCoy

[23:15] The four brats are four attractive teenage girls who are squarely within the mainstream

[23:21] of high school society.

Elliott Kalan

[23:24] Yes, there's nothing about them that's particularly crazy or awkward.

[23:27] Off-putting.

[23:28] Everybody likes them as soon as they meet them.

[23:30] They're not outcasts.

[23:31] There's nothing different about them.

[23:32] This isn't Harold and Maude, I guess is what I'm saying.

Stuart Wellington

[23:34] Yeah, the only time that other people get annoyed with them is when they don't want

[23:39] to be their friends.

Elliott Kalan

[23:40] Yes.

[23:40] Yeah, the only time people get mad at the brats is when the brats don't want to hang

[23:44] out with them.

[23:44] Because they want to hang out with their other friends.

Stuart Wellington

[23:46] They want to hang out just with brats.

[23:46] But they get over that pretty quickly.

Dan McCoy

[23:48] This isn't Welcome to the Dollhouse.

[23:50] Yeah, it's very strange, too.

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

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

[24:00] It's more like, okay, well, we've got to choose.

[24:03] If we choose, we choose our own kind.

[24:05] And our own kind is brats.

Elliott Kalan

[24:06] Maybe it's because I'm reading a book about the Old Testament right now.

[24:08] But it seems like there's a parallel here between the ancient Israelites.

[24:12] Either they kept together as a people and didn't intermarry, or they were put into exile

[24:16] in Babylon when the Babylonians took over the land of Canaan that had become Israel.

[24:22] And suddenly, the Israelites didn't get along anymore.

[24:25] They intermarried.

[24:26] They became part of Babylonian society.

[24:28] Until, I think it was the prophet Ezra said, listen, guys, we've got to get back to our roots.

[24:33] And then they became Israelites again and shut out the rest of modern society.

[24:37] I guess that's kind of what Bratz the Movie is saying.

Stuart Wellington

[24:39] Yeah, I believe his direct quote is, hey, guys, we've got to show off our bratitude, right?

Elliott Kalan

[24:45] In the Torah, the Hebrew for bratitude is slightly different.

[24:48] But, you know.

[24:49] Sure.

[24:50] Also, they do invent the word bratitude, yeah.

Dan McCoy

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

[24:59] There's no underdog in this film.

Elliott Kalan

[25:02] There's an overdog and a slightly less overdog.

Stuart Wellington

[25:05] Well, it's more like there's an overdog who's mean and overdogs that people like.

Elliott Kalan

[25:10] Four slightly less overdogs who, together, are more than a match.

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

[25:20] They're putting makeup on the nerds.

[25:22] They're teaching the jocks math.

[25:24] They're like, it's not like, like, their message is, be yourself.

[25:27] But what they're actually doing is making sure everyone conforms to the Bratz ideal.

Stuart Wellington

[25:30] Teaching them math, which I don't recall, but I don't think there was an actual math problem.

Elliott Kalan

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

[25:39] Her name is Jade.

[25:40] She's teaching the football players math, and she says, X plus Y plus Z over three, and the answer is?

[25:47] And there's no way to solve that.

[25:49] Not an equation.

[25:49] That is impossible to solve.

Dan McCoy

[25:50] An equation implies an equal sign somewhere.

Elliott Kalan

[25:53] You can't figure out what those letters are standing for if you have only one number.

[25:59] It's 14, Elliot.

[26:00] It doesn't make sense.

[26:01] They could be anything.

[26:03] Although, if I recall.

[26:04] Stuart's right.

[26:04] It's 14.

[26:05] He has a beautiful mind.

Stuart Wellington

[26:07] I believe at the end of that scene, there's a lot of football players high-fiving each other, Elliot.

[26:12] So I think you're wrong.

Dan McCoy

[26:13] She replaces all of the variables with real numbers.

[26:18] And then it becomes a, you know, a 10-year-old's math problem.

[26:22] It becomes a number.

[26:24] Yeah, that was dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[26:25] Oh, but anyway, so, so, Meredith Baxter Dimley has a tenuous grasp on power.

[26:30] These brats.

[26:31] Oh, these, will no one stop.

[26:32] Who will save me from these turbulent brats?

[26:35] That's what she shouts out.

[26:37] She decides this is how she's going to get back her power.

[26:41] She's going to throw the biggest super sweet 16 party ever.

[26:44] She's going to invite MTV to cover it, and she's going to rub it in the faces of everyone at school.

[26:48] And not invite the brats, but she's going to show everyone at school how great she is.

[26:52] No, hold on.

Dan McCoy

[26:53] She's willing to invite the brats, but only if they conform to their clique.

[26:57] If they show up with their clique.

[26:58] And so, the way she does this is apparently everyone in school is given a balloon that has a piece of paper with their clique's name inside it.

[27:06] So they pop their balloons and they're like, oh shit, all four of us brats aren't in the same clique.

[27:11] I guess we shouldn't go to this party.

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

[27:17] However, the poor brats' mom turns out to be the caterer for this party.

Elliott Kalan

[27:24] Which she hardly, and this is a woman who, her daughter comes home and her mom is asleep on the couch.

[27:30] And she says, oh no, I've got to cook all this food, oh no.

[27:33] Mom, you're tired.

[27:34] Here, I'll take care of it.

[27:35] You sleep for a couple hours.

[27:37] So her mother is dealing with depression or alcoholism or something.

[27:40] Sure.

[27:40] This is a woman whose only job seems to be catering this one party.

[27:43] And she's so tired that she cannot do it.

[27:46] Meanwhile, the four brats, who are geniuses at everything, manage to whip up, they cater an entire party.

Dan McCoy

[27:53] Which, you know, what's the party that starts?

[27:55] It looks to have like 500 people at it.

Elliott Kalan

[27:56] And they make a point of saying, us, cook, you crazy.

[28:01] Or something along those lines that teens would say.

[28:02] Heck, I even burn water.

[28:04] Yeah, that was the line, I even burn water.

[28:07] You know what?

Dan McCoy

[28:08] And yet they're master chefs.

[28:09] Cooking isn't a skill, Elliot.

[28:11] You can just pick that up.

[28:12] Apparently.

[28:12] Within the course of a montage.

Elliott Kalan

[28:15] Oh, so many montages.

[28:16] Oh, okay.

[28:17] But here's the thing.

[28:18] So they cater it.

[28:19] But then, not only do they have to cater it, they also have to fill in for the waitstaff,

[28:25] who couldn't show up.

[28:26] So the brats are not only at the party, but they're servants to their evil.

Dan McCoy

[28:30] Also, the waitstaff have to wear clown costumes, because suddenly this is a Fellini film.

Elliott Kalan

[28:35] Yeah, so you get the strange picture of the four brats in full clown makeup and costumes,

[28:39] being told by 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 aleck little sister.

Stuart Wellington

[28:47] Yeah, that's true.

[28:49] Now, the thing is, by including the whole clown theme.

[28:54] I guess her party was circus-themed.

[28:56] Sure.

[28:56] And I think that only helped to cement that feeling, like I was watching Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead,

[29:02] but with brats in it.

[29:04] This was the fashion show at the end of the episode.

[29:06] Yeah, it was a fashion show at the end with the boyfriend or love interest who, I believe,

[29:10] drove a circus-themed hot dog truck or some shit.

[29:13] Oh, it was an ice cream truck, I think.

[29:14] Oh, yeah, yeah, or a hot dog truck.

[29:16] Something like that.

[29:16] I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[29:17] All I remember was that no one was told in the end that the babysitter was dead.

Stuart Wellington

[29:21] Yeah, so, yeah.

[29:23] Don't tell Mom the babysitter's dead.

[29:24] Christina Applegate.

[29:25] The dishes are done.

Elliott Kalan

[29:26] So, okay, so it's a circus-themed party.

[29:28] Sure.

[29:29] There are clowns and acrobats everywhere.

[29:31] Meredith Baxter dimly comes in riding an elephant, which fails to impress the people at the party,

[29:37] but to be fair, it looks like a pretty boring party.

[29:39] Yeah.

[29:39] They're just sitting at tables.

[29:41] There's an elephant that's about it.

[29:42] There's a juggler or two, I think.

[29:44] There are a couple jugglers, yeah, and there's a lot of people with giant conga drums.

Dan McCoy

[29:47] She got Cirque du Soleil to play the party, which, if you're a high schooler, that's pretty much the top.

[29:52] You want Cirque du Soleil to come in with their sort of whimsical, fave, French-Canadian-ness and entertain you.

Elliott Kalan

[30:01] And the party is being covered by MTV for their show, and you know this because there's one guy holding a DV cam with a T-shirt on that says MTV on it.

[30:11] That's probably the entire crew behind that show.

Dan McCoy

[30:13] I want to point out that Meredith shames the Hispanic brat.

[30:18] Yes, man.

[30:19] And I really, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[30:20] This is after Meredith's musical number in which she sings about how great she is and how much better she is than everybody else.

Dan McCoy

[30:24] I feel bad referring to their brats by their ethnicities, but the thing is that is literally the only thing that distinguishes them as characters in this film.

[30:33] And you will see how that is when I finish this.

[30:36] She shames this girl by showing a video of her singing La Cucaracha with her mom.

[30:42] A video that her brother, the Bradford little brother, took on a cell phone.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[30:51] Even when it's, as you mentioned, blown up and projected on the side of the house for everyone to see.

[30:56] Yeah, perfect. Crystal, crystal.

[30:57] Beautiful resolution.

Dan McCoy

[30:58] La Cucaracha, I guess, was the only Spanish folk tune that they could think of.

Elliott Kalan

[31:04] It is, I mean, it does call back to the time of Pancho Villa and his revolt.

Dan McCoy

[31:10] And then they all did the Mexican hat dance together.

Stuart Wellington

[31:13] Well, I think they include that scene so that all the, you know, so that the Hispanic, you know, girl audience would have something to relate to.

[31:20] I don't know about you guys.

[31:23] That's a daily occurrence.

[31:24] Yeah, all the Hispanic girls I know had all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[31:27] Six o'clock, mom, time to sing La Cucaracha.

Stuart Wellington

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

[31:33] Magic!

Elliott Kalan

[31:34] Oh, we Mexicans, we love magic and chocolates.

[31:37] It's our defining characteristic.

[31:40] Oh, and also, by the way, in keeping with this, Jade, the half-Asian girl, has an Asian mother who pushes her too much to be a nice girl who dresses in prim uniforms and does things.

Dan McCoy

[31:50] But when she gets to school, she becomes a girl with dyed streaks in her hair and crazy clothes.

Stuart Wellington

[31:57] I don't know if she wears a wig.

[31:58] Angel?

[31:59] Yeah.

[31:59] Angel?

[32:00] School girl by day, stripper by night.

[32:03] I don't know if she's a girl, yeah.

[32:04] Yeah.

[32:04] I thought you meant Angel from Buffy the Manifest.

Elliott Kalan

[32:07] No, not like Angel.

Stuart Wellington

[32:08] Not David Borey.

Elliott Kalan

[32:12] Your version makes more sense, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:14] Yeah, it does, right?

[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.

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[32:21] We'll talk about the talent show as...

Elliott Kalan

[32:23] Or the jump drive.

Stuart Wellington

[32:25] What I just want to talk about a little bit was this movie had a little bit of music in it, right guys?

[32:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[32:30] By which you mean 60% of the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[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] Every...

[32:39] Roughly 75% of the actual movie is set to some kind of a musical number.

Elliott Kalan

[32:44] There's...

[32:44] It seems like every two minutes or so, it's a different song, and sometimes every 15 seconds.

[32:49] As soon as there's any sort of change in...

[32:52] Like, even if two characters are having a conversation, and their conversation ends, and another conversation starts, music change.

Dan McCoy

[32:58] Yeah.

[32:58] Any 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...

[33:06] They play the Blue Danube at one point.

[33:07] Like, Esquivel-style exotica.

[33:10] It was...

Elliott Kalan

[33:11] Very strange.

[33:12] It was like the person who...

[33:14] It was like the soundtrack arranger had been given one of those Nickelodeon Toys R Us shopping sprees,

[33:20] where they're like, you got 15 minutes to run through this record store and just pull CDs off the shelf,

[33:25] and then you got to score the movie with that.

Dan McCoy

[33:26] And it was like, uh, Strauss, uh, Esquivel, 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 was a lot of the use of that slow motion, then speed up with, like, a whooshing noise camera effect.

Elliott Kalan

[33:43] And multiple screens on screen at once.

[33:45] Picture-in-picture, split-screen.

[33:47] Very DePaul.

[33:48] Yeah.

[33:49] There's, like, Robert Aldrich.

Dan McCoy

[33:50] A lot of style.

[33:51] A lot of style in this picture.

[33:52] Yeah, and the thing is...

Stuart Wellington

[33:53] For a really bad movie.

[33:55] Well, that's the thing, like, all this, you know, all this style, all these music choices, all this stuff,

[34:00] like, could you just think about what would have happened if it had all gone wrong?

[34:06] I mean, that's...

[34:07] Yeah, it's so lucky, like...

[34:08] Lucky this movie turned out to be a masterpiece, yeah.

[34:11] It's, uh, it's something beautiful coming out of chaos, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[34:14] Yeah, it's like Johnny Greenwood's discordant score to There Will Be Blood.

[34:18] It just perfectly works.

Elliott Kalan

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

[34:24] and the characters don't make sense, and you get dizzy.

[34:27] I, like, the only time...

[34:28] The way I felt after watching this movie was the way I felt after I once drank too much water

[34:35] in a short amount of time, and I was low-gy, and, like, my mind was reeling, and I felt...

[34:39] I was like, I feel drunk, but I'm not drunk.

[34:40] I've just drank a lot of water.

[34:42] I don't understand.

[34:43] Yeah.

[34:44] That's the Bratz.

Stuart Wellington

[34:44] That's a sweet high, a water high.

[34:47] That's the Bratz for you.

[34:49] Well, we should move plot-wise.

Elliott Kalan

[34:51] I did want to say, Dan, if you ever title these episodes, you should call this one Beat on the Bratz.

Stuart Wellington

[34:56] Nice.

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

[35:02] Yeah, probably. That's true.

[35:03] But, um, so at the end, everything turns out all right, though.

Dan McCoy

[35:07] I don't want to leave the podcast listeners in suspense.

[35:11] Spoiler.

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

[35:14] Spoiler alert.

Elliott Kalan

[35:15] They win the talent show, and the poor one wins the college scholarship.

Dan McCoy

[35:19] Yeah.

[35:19] They win the talent show with an elaborately choreographed routine that involves several

[35:25] backup dancers and a full brass band.

Elliott Kalan

[35:28] And a multimedia display.

[35:30] Changing video, lights, people in the audience with placards.

Stuart Wellington

[35:33] The only thing that would have made the conclusion of the film, I think, better, or would have

[35:38] sold it more, is if a guy showed up and was like, I'm from MTV, and you guys are awesome.

Dan McCoy

[35:43] Here's a wrap.

[35:44] Wait, Stuart, you must have been in the bathroom or something when that happened, because that

[35:48] happened.

[35:48] Holy shit.

[35:50] That sounds like a really good movie.

Elliott Kalan

[35:51] A guy, who we believe was played by the director of the film, walks up, I'm from MTV.

[35:56] We're having a movie premiere, and we want you to perform at it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:00] Very, very, very M. Night Shyamalan.

[36:03] Where the director's like.

[36:04] The director playing himself, yeah.

[36:05] Or playing someone.

[36:06] Not only somebody, but somebody that's relatively important.

Elliott Kalan

[36:09] I mean, he's shooting the moon to be like, I'm president of MTV.

[36:13] I don't know why he didn't just descend and say, I've come, I'm God.

[36:17] And you know what?

[36:18] Brats, join me in heaven.

[36:21] With the hosts.

Dan McCoy

[36:22] And then the Brats, who have basically been on top, except for the two year span that we

[36:27] did not see them.

[36:28] Which you have to assume they have.

[36:30] I assume eating disorders, date rape, terrible things.

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

[36:36] years that we didn't see.

[36:38] Come out on top once more.

[36:41] And then there are two music videos.

[36:44] And as I said, to Elliot, this has got to be some sort of backdoor pilot for a Brats concert

[36:51] tour or something.

Elliott Kalan

[36:53] Obviously, this is kind of a prototype for Hannah Montana, it seems, where the idea is,

[36:58] yeah, yeah, this is a television show or it's a movie, but it's also kind of a commercial

[37:03] for albums and things like that.

[37:04] Yeah.

[37:05] It's kind of like Transformers or something.

[37:06] But that's the thing.

[37:07] It's also, this is what we all grew up with, which is we grew up with cartoon shows that

[37:11] were based on toy lines.

[37:13] And like He-Man was a 30 minute advertisement for a toy line, and that's exactly what this

[37:18] is.

[37:18] This is an hour and 40 minute long advertisement for the Brats.

[37:21] The dolls or like the shoes?

[37:23] I think both.

[37:24] All of them.

[37:25] I don't know if they're Brats shoes.

[37:26] You may be thinking of the Steve Madden ads that you see on the sides of buildings, where

[37:30] it's basically Brats.

[37:31] Yeah.

[37:32] But it's for Steve Madden shoes.

[37:33] Isn't that intellectual property theft?

[37:35] I've always wondered that.

[37:36] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[37:38] So, Elliot, on the subject of Brats, you are a, you know, you're a high paid, imagine

[37:45] you're a high paid script writer.

[37:47] I know.

[37:48] Done.

Dan McCoy

[37:48] I know you struck gold with your Ziggy pitch.

Stuart Wellington

[37:51] Pitch me your Brats.

[37:53] Elliot Kalin presents Brats.

Elliott Kalan

[37:56] They're based on the toys.

[37:57] Sure, yeah.

[37:58] Okay.

[37:58] Well, oh, well, first of all, I don't want to do it with real life actors.

[38:01] This is the opposite of Ziggy.

[38:02] Sure.

[38:02] Ziggy was a real life actor playing Ziggy.

[38:04] In this, I want the Brats.

[38:06] Let's say they live in Toyland.

[38:09] Sure.

[38:09] Dull Sylvania.

[38:10] Dull Sylvania.

Elliott Kalan

[38:10] You know, let's call it the Brats universe.

[38:13] Anytown USA.

[38:14] Anytown USA.

[38:15] And everyone there is like the Brats.

[38:17] They have giant eyes, no noses.

[38:19] They're sexy in a weird Mike's Heart Lemonade NBC Predator Dateline kind of way.

[38:26] And they somehow, I don't know, show up in our world.

[38:31] They befriend a teenage girl who's kind of not very popular.

[38:33] A portal.

[38:34] Glasses, hair up.

[38:36] Maybe it's a magic thing.

[38:37] Maybe it's a portal.

[38:38] I like magic.

[38:39] Okay.

[38:40] So it's some sort of magic.

[38:41] Maybe the Brats universe and Earth are in conjunction only once every million years.

[38:45] The portal is open for 72 hours.

[38:50] Okay.

[38:50] And they teach her how to be herself and be a beautiful girl.

[38:53] But there's a toy maker.

[38:55] A rich evil toy maker in town who sees these Brats wants to make a line of toys based on them.

[39:01] Kidnaps them.

[39:02] 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.

[39:10] And then you'll steal from the children and give it to me.

[39:13] And the Brats say, they probably talk in a high-pitched voice.

[39:15] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[39:17] And, you know, the girl who helped them, she has to use her newfound popularity to get the kids together, overthrow the evil toy maker, and then gets those Brats home before the portal closes.

Dan McCoy

[39:25] I'm telling you, Hollywood, you should steal Elliot's brain.

[39:29] I'm not encouraging Hollywood producers to come and, in the middle of the night, perform some sort of brain surgery, removing his brain from his body and putting it in some sort of Hollywood, I don't know, hit-making machine.

[39:43] But if you were to do that...

[39:45] I don't think I would rather they didn't.

[39:48] No, no, I know you would rather you didn't.

[39:50] Just pay me money to do that.

[39:51] But, you know, Hollywood producers, I think that that would be a good idea.

Elliott Kalan

[39:53] Are we talking like puppets?

[39:55] I would imagine they would be either claymation or some sort of stop-motion animation.

[39:58] Oh, okay.

[39:59] Something along the lines of the California raisins or the fish in Life Aquatic, something like that.

[40:04] Yeah.

[40:04] But the humans would be real people.

[40:06] But you'd have these kind of stop-motion...

[40:08] So they wouldn't be puppets.

[40:09] No, they would be real.

[40:10] And then you'd have like puppet brats, stop-motion puppet brats.

[40:13] It would be all composites, green screens, things like that.

[40:15] You'd have to get a very talented young actress to play the girl.

[40:18] She's going to have to act to basically nothing.

[40:20] The brats won't be there.

[40:22] It's kind of an Indian in the cupboard type thing.

[40:23] Sure.

[40:24] Oh, my God.

Dan McCoy

[40:26] Well, look.

[40:27] Before we talk forever...

Elliott Kalan

[40:29] Also, Tori Amos, original song on the soundtrack.

Dan McCoy

[40:33] Done.

[40:33] Brilliant.

[40:34] Just, you know...

[40:34] Brilliant.

[40:36] Give it a little cred.

[40:37] We should do our final judgments on this thing.

[40:39] So if you haven't listened to the podcast before, there are three categories.

[40:44] Three Flophouse categories.

[40:45] Is this a bad movie you would not recommend to anyone?

[40:47] Is this a bad movie that you would recommend as a bad movie?

[40:52] Good for a few laughs.

[40:53] Or a movie that you think actually is pretty good, secretly.

[40:56] So I'm going to go to Stuart over here because I think he's got his opinion lined up.

Stuart Wellington

[41:01] Yeah.

[41:02] I actually...

[41:03] I think this is a bad movie that's fun as a bad movie.

[41:07] That's the second category, I think.

[41:08] Yeah.

[41:09] Because it's totally crazy and something new happens like every ten minutes.

[41:14] So if you don't actually like paying that much attention, it seems like a lot of stuff's happening.

Dan McCoy

[41:20] No, I agree.

[41:20] I'm going to go with that, too.

[41:22] Like, we have watched a lot of movies that have been serious pain to watch.

[41:26] And I think they've made for good shows.

[41:28] I don't know whether this is a good show or not.

[41:29] But watching the movie, I had a great time.

[41:32] And particularly, I know we've ruined it for you as a podcast listener.

[41:37] But the first time two years later got thrown up there on the screen, I could not stop.

Stuart Wellington

[41:43] I think we said what the fuck like ten times.

[41:45] 20 minutes into the film.

Dan McCoy

[41:46] Beautiful and it's a surprise.

[41:48] We jump ahead for two years.

[41:50] And ultimately, it makes no difference.

[41:52] So that was beautiful.

[41:53] Thank you, Bretz, the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[41:55] And I would also go for a category, too.

[41:57] This is by no means a good movie.

[41:59] Let's just get that out of the way right there.

[42:01] It's a terrible movie.

[42:02] The message is abhorrent.

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

[42:07] But watching it the whole time, it's like babysitting a nephew

[42:12] who's like four years old and running around.

[42:14] And you're really tired after a day of work.

[42:16] And you're like, oh, I don't want to watch this kid anymore and run around.

[42:19] He keeps doing different things that are really irritating.

[42:21] But then at the end of the night, you're so giddy from chasing this kid around.

[42:24] So you're like, you know what?

[42:25] I'll babysit another time.

Stuart Wellington

[42:27] So...

[42:28] Oh, you got me, Bretz.

[42:29] You got me, Bretz.

Dan McCoy

[42:30] You won me over with your crappiness, but also with your energy.

[42:33] Oh, man.

[42:34] That's great.

[42:35] Usually at this point, we move from negativity to positivity.

[42:38] But this time, it's going to be from positivity to positivity.

[42:41] Since we all had such a good time.

[42:42] No one but smiles.

[42:43] Watching the Bretz movie.

Elliott Kalan

[42:45] Believe me, I think I speak for all of us when I say I am immensely surprised that I had such a good time.

Dan McCoy

[42:52] The feel-good movie of the year.

Stuart Wellington

[42:55] I knew as soon as I realized it was an animation that I was going to have a good time.

Dan McCoy

[43:01] So now is the time in the movie when we talk about recommendations.

[43:05] So I'm going to move over to Elliot first for this.

Elliott Kalan

[43:07] Okay.

[43:08] Well, since we watched a movie about young girls, Bratz, or the Bratz.

[43:12] I don't remember if it's Bratz or the Bratz.

[43:14] Or Bratz the movie.

[43:15] It's Bratz TM.

[43:16] That's right.

[43:17] Every instance of Bratz has a trademark.

Dan McCoy

[43:18] It's simply Bratz with, I believe there's a halo over the A.

[43:22] Why?

Elliott Kalan

[43:24] Because they love the Angels.

[43:25] Sure.

[43:25] They're big baseball fans.

[43:26] Sure.

[43:28] But so another movie I saw recently for the first time, which I had been meaning to see for a while, also about young girls, called Picnic at Hanging Rock, which is the exact opposite of this in every way.

[43:39] It's a very deliberately paced, very kind of beautiful trance-like movie about, in the year 1900, a group of English girls at a boarding school in Australia go to this place, Hanging Rock, on a picnic.

[43:51] And three of them and their teacher disappear.

[43:56] No one knows where they are.

[43:57] They're lost.

[43:57] No one can find them.

[43:59] And the movie kind of follows what happens to everyone else as they grapple with the fact that basically the laws of reality – they don't come out and say this – but the laws of reality they've always depended on do not apply.

[44:11] There's something about Hanging Rock.

[44:13] There's something about the universe that they cannot answer.

[44:15] And it had this very kind of – I mean what it struck me as was like kind of an Algernon Blackwood story, but he's not that – I mean it's kind of an obscure reference.

[44:23] So I'll say a little bit less obscure.

[44:25] It's like if H.P. Lovecraft wrote not stories about things with tentacles that scared people because they ate them and stuff like that, but wrote stories about kind of like ineffable mysteries in nature.

[44:38] The idea that these girls have all this bound up emotion that they can't let out because they're in this boarding school and it's the year 1900.

[44:45] They have to wear gloves until they're out of sight of townspeople at one point because it's just not proper.

[44:50] And there's something inside them that unlocks something in this rock and takes them.

[44:56] And everyone else has to deal with that and wonder about their own place and all that sort of thing.

[45:00] But it's really beautiful and frankly, when I was a kid growing up, I used to see commercials for Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute, all the time.

[45:08] And I was like, that's ridiculous.

[45:10] But he performed much of the soundtrack – well, much of the soundtrack is Zamfir songs.

[45:14] And the whole time I was like, this is perfect.

[45:17] This is beautiful, haunting music.

[45:19] So I guess I was wrong to laugh at you, Zamfir, Master of the Romanian Pan Flute.

Dan McCoy

[45:22] So run out and rent Bratz and buy the best of Zamfir.

Elliott Kalan

[45:26] No, but the two of them would make an interesting double feature because one is about – like they're both about young girls who are kind of like bursting out, you know, to let their true selves show.

[45:35] But one is this kind of emotionally scary thing and the other is Bratz the movie.

[45:41] So, you know.

Dan McCoy

[45:42] Well, since I went on vacation recently, I think I should talk about the two films that I saw on the plane out to San Francisco and back from San Francisco.

[45:52] Because, frankly, I didn't have time to see a lot of movies because I was on vacation.

[45:57] 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 because it put me right to sleep.

[46:08] Like I had a –

[46:09] Ow!

[46:10] I had a great time watching it and waking up and realizing that a large part of my seven-hour plane trip was almost over.

[46:19] Because, you know what, I mean I read The Golden Compass books and I enjoyed them.

[46:24] The problem with the movie was they basically were really faithful except for the anti-religion stuff.

[46:34] So you're left with just really complex mythology that they tried to explain to you right off the bat in like narration.

[46:42] And I felt like Mr. Burns and The Simpsons being like, I don't care about Blizz Blass and Thin Flan.

[46:50] You know, like it just immediately just put me off.

[46:53] And I was like, if I, having read the books, felt like this, I can't imagine someone coming in cold to this movie, what their reaction would be to it.

Elliott Kalan

[47:00] That was – if I can interject – that was a movie that I was very excited about it because I'm a big fan of that book.

[47:06] And one of the great things about the book is the main character doesn't know that much about the world outside of where she lives.

[47:12] So as she's discovering these new things, so are you.

[47:14] It's like, oh, there are these people who live on boats and trade among the countries and they have their own mysterious ways.

[47:20] And apparently there are witches? What?

[47:21] And then you hear like, oh, the Panzerbjorn are – there's trouble up with them up north.

[47:27] And it's like, Panzerbjorn, I don't even know what that is, but that sounds pretty good.

[47:31] And, you know, it's constantly unfolding this mysterious world that you learn more about slowly.

[47:35] And in the movie, it starts off with a prologue that like, all the world is made of a magical substance named dust.

[47:41] The people, the witches, the talking bears, the da-da-da.

[47:46] And it's like, why did you just give away the fact that there are talking bears in this movie?

[47:49] Like, this is one of the best things in the book is like, holy shit, there are talking bears that wear iron and fight each other in this book.

[47:56] I had no idea. This is great.

[47:58] But right off the bat, they're like, well, there are talking bears.

[48:02] So when the bear shows up, it's like, oh, there's that talking bear I heard about.

Dan McCoy

[48:07] You must be the talking bear. That's the talk of the town this season.

Elliott Kalan

[48:10] So I agree with exactly what you're saying.

Dan McCoy

[48:13] But on the way back, however, I saw National Treasure 2 Book of Secrets.

[48:18] Oh, you dick.

[48:19] And let me tell you, you know, on the flip side, if you're going to watch a movie on a plane, that's going to keep you paying attention the whole time.

[48:27] I'm not going to say it's a great movie.

[48:28] I'm not even going to say it's a good movie necessarily.

[48:30] But I was so entertained by Book of Secrets.

[48:33] And, you know, like, I was actually a big fan of the first film as like sort of a good bad movie.

[48:39] Because it's silly, but it's really like a tongue-in-cheek movie where he can see two minutes into the future.

[48:45] No, that's next.

[48:46] Oh, no.

[48:47] We watched it next.

[48:48] You're confusing your Nicolas Cage films.

[48:50] Okay.

[48:51] But, you know, like the first movie was like, all right, we're going to make an Indiana Jones movie.

[48:56] And we're going to put Nick Cage in it.

[48:58] And we're going to make it about history.

[49:00] And that's kind of what I like about the National Treasure series is like the nerdiness about like, we're going to make this about American history.

[49:09] Granted, it's going to be our crazy Hollywood version of American history.

[49:13] But still, it's going to be like...

Elliott Kalan

[49:15] You have millions of school children thinking that America was started with, I guess, pirate gold.

[49:19] Right.

[49:19] It's hidden somewhere.

Dan McCoy

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

[49:24] Like it's a very human-sized thing.

[49:27] 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.

[49:30] Number one, well, number one, Jon Voight is in the American, the National Treasure films.

[49:36] So that's a breath.

[49:36] Does he wear a prosthetic nose in them?

[49:38] No, there's no prosthetic nose.

[49:39] But number two, Harvey Keitel 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, like Harvey Keitel plays this FBI agent.

[49:50] And he's introduced in the second movie by his underlings coming in and being like,

[49:55] Hey, guess what?

[49:56] Nicolas Cage is in the news again.

[49:58] Your friend from the first National Treasure film.

[50:02] And there's no crime that Nicolas Cage has committed at this time.

[50:06] But Harvey Keitel is like, let's keep an eye on it.

[50:10] So basically, I guess if any news that's pertinent to Harvey Keitel is like,

[50:13] let's keep the FBI working on this subject.

[50:16] And it doesn't make any sense because later on, he's brought into the story in a much more logical way.

[50:22] But I guess they felt like they needed to remind people like,

[50:25] Hey, Harvey Keitel was in the last movie and he's going to be in this one.

[50:29] Stay tuned.

[50:30] But the other weird thing about the National Treasure movies is,

[50:33] it basically gives you this version of American history where every national monument

[50:38] was just constructed as part of an elaborate treasure hunt.

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

[50:46] Like, in the past, people were like,

[50:48] this is going to be a significant monument in American history at some point.

[50:51] I better work this into a clue that points people to gold.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[51:04] You know what would be awesome is if they go,

[51:05] they're like, we're supposed to go to the Washington Monument and say these words.

[51:09] Well, nothing's going to happen, but I'll say them anyway.

[51:11] And it's like, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Jackson.

[51:15] Well, nothing happened.

[51:16] Then you just hear, rumble, rumble, rumble.

[51:18] And the Washington Monument turns on its side and turns to point where the treasure is.

[51:24] That would have been awesome.

Stuart Wellington

[51:26] That's for National Treasure 3, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[51:28] Oh, National Treasure 3, big monuments.

[51:30] Oh, man.

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

[51:34] at one point in the trailer, he says, there's another, there's another Statue of Liberty, I mean?

[51:38] They're talking about the Statue of Liberty that's in France, right?

[51:40] Right, correct.

[51:41] Okay, I'm disappointed in that, because they said in the trailer, he goes,

[51:44] it's at the Statue of Liberty, but not the one you're thinking of.

[51:47] There's a second Statue of Liberty?

[51:49] This is a fairly well-known fact, I feel like,

[51:52] that France has a second duplicate Statue of Liberty.

[51:54] It's not like a secret one on the moon or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[51:56] The moment in the trailer that really got me, and then I was quickly,

[51:59] 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.

[52:07] And I'm like, holy shit, is he going to run for president?

[52:10] But no, he didn't.

Dan McCoy

[52:11] He wants to kidnap the president.

[52:13] Yeah, but he does want to kidnap.

[52:15] That's a pretty awesome.

[52:16] No, that's true.

[52:17] That's a bat shit twist.

[52:18] That's what I like about the National Treasure movies.

Stuart Wellington

[52:21] It's like that old video game, Bad Dudes, where the guy briefs you at the beginning,

[52:26] and he's like, ninjas have kidnapped the president.

[52:28] The only response is sending in bad dudes.

Dan McCoy

[52:31] I just feel like if you're going to make a crazy action film,

[52:35] you should just go all the way and have every 15 minutes or less,

[52:39] there should be a bat shit crazy twist that happens.

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

[52:47] I can't wait for the next one.

Elliott Kalan

[52:49] Wait a minute.

[52:50] There's a Kansas City, Kansas, and a Kansas City, Missouri?

[52:55] Which one is the treasure at?

[52:57] We'll never know.

[52:59] Do they ever have a speech in any of them?

[53:01] Because I don't remember the first one that well, where it's like...

[53:03] Are you just going to give us historical facts?

[53:04] No, no, no.

[53:05] It's like, I guess this was, actually this episode of The Simpsons, I guess it was,

[53:09] you know what, we can't lose sight of our real National Treasures.

[53:12] They're the hardworking people who come into this country every day.

[53:15] They're the wide open fields that grow our food,

[53:18] and the mighty rivers that push our commerce.

Dan McCoy

[53:20] This is just going to turn into a Simpsons reference podcast.

[53:23] Yeah, I don't want it to, though.

[53:25] But that would be a good speech for them to make.

Stuart Wellington

[53:27] Yeah, so watching movies.

[53:31] Let's see.

[53:31] I recently watched Juno.

Dan McCoy

[53:36] A little disappointed.

Stuart Wellington

[53:39] I recently watched There Will Be Blood, which was great.

[53:44] And then I watched Stardust.

[53:48] And Stardust, I'm going to kind of group it in with the whole Bratz thing.

[53:53] I wouldn't say it was a great movie.

[53:55] I think it was a little up and down and all over the place,

[53:58] but its energy is what kept me involved.

[54:00] It had enough enthusiasm about being Stardust the movie to get me like,

[54:06] I'm like, okay, I'm going to watch this.

Dan McCoy

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

[54:11] Yeah, I was hooked.

[54:13] Yeah, I was hooked.

Elliott Kalan

[54:14] Wall-to-wall soundtrack, just like in Bratz.

[54:16] Yep.

[54:17] So, Stardust, meh.

Dan McCoy

[54:21] Nice to you.

[54:21] Bringing it back home.

[54:24] Man, Martin Scorsese and the director of Bratz.

[54:26] The two great movies.

[54:28] Those music.

Elliott Kalan

[54:29] Whatever the songs they used were,

[54:30] they are indelibly linked in my mind with whatever scenes played at that time.

[54:35] Never going to be able to think about it the same way again.

[54:37] Oh, God.

Dan McCoy

[54:38] We've got to close this thing out.

[54:39] Whatever audience we may have won from being mentioned on Gawker,

[54:43] we have now lost, I'm sure.

[54:45] Oh, possibly.

[54:46] Yeah, very likely.

[54:47] 15 minutes in, if not earlier.

Elliott Kalan

[54:49] The minute you said,

[54:51] well, we're talking about Bratz the movie today.

[54:53] Click.

[54:54] I imagine the computers have dials on them, like radios.

[54:57] Click.

[54:58] Hey, let's see what's on the other podcast channel.

Dan McCoy

[55:02] And now we're talking about sports.

[55:03] This is better.

[55:04] This is what I like.

[55:05] Who is Perez Hilton making fun of today?

[55:08] That's another popular blogger.

[55:10] I don't know who he is.

[55:11] Yeah, Stuart had no idea what Gawker was.

[55:14] I'm sorry, Gawker.

[55:15] I imagine you said that.

[55:16] I imagine that Gawker is feeling really sad.

Elliott Kalan

[55:17] I imagine you said it like an old man.

[55:19] We were on the Gawker.

[55:21] What's this Gawker I've been hearing?

Dan McCoy

[55:22] What's the whole Gawker thing?

[55:24] I'm too busy necking.

[55:26] Yep.

[55:27] I was at a sock hop.

[55:28] Bring home our boys.

[55:30] Victory Bonds.

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

[55:37] us, you can write us at theflophousepodcast at gmail.com.

[55:42] And if you want to go to our website, it's theflophousepodcast.blogspot.com.

[55:48] And that has links to a lot of things, including Podcast Alley, where you can vote for us.

[55:53] We were as high as the 33rd humor podcast in April.

[55:59] Nice.

[56:00] So we're moving up in the world.

[56:03] I mean, you know, I think that that's totally...

[56:06] We've gamed the system, and that's an inaccurate count.

Elliott Kalan

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

[56:13] Sure.

[56:13] I don't understand.

[56:14] What's the problem?

Dan McCoy

[56:14] It's like a war game sort of thing.

Elliott Kalan

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

Dan McCoy

[56:18] But we still appreciate that.

[56:21] And yeah, that's all the podcast business.

[56:24] Sure.

[56:24] Everyone fast forwards through this section anyway, so...

[56:27] I sure do.

[56:28] So why don't you sign off first?

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

[56:33] I've been Dan McCoy.

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

[56:40] Brats.

[56:41] Yeah.

[56:41] Bratitude.

Elliott Kalan

[56:43] Yeah.

[56:44] Bratitude, everybody, on three.

[56:46] One, two, three.

[56:48] Bratitude.

Stuart Wellington

[56:49] Peace.

Elliott Kalan

[56:59] Bratitude.

[57:00] Bratitude.

[57:01] Jade.

[57:02] Brats.

[57:03] Chloe.

Stuart Wellington

[57:04] Brats.

[57:05] Brats.

[57:06] Brats.

[57:06] I love Brats.

[57:08] I did it with a brat.

Elliott Kalan

[57:10] Check.

Stuart Wellington

[57:11] You know the worst part about this podcast is going to be the moment when we have to recommend

[57:16] something.

[57:17] Since.

[57:19] Well, I haven't been...

[57:22] It's going to be the worst part other than talking about the Brats movie.

[57:26] We start.

[57:27] Take everything down.

Elliott Kalan

[57:29] Taking it down for the Brats movie.

The Flop House: Episode #14 - Bratz

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