Episode 191: Men, Women & Children

Episode 191: Men, Women & Children
Men, Women & Children (2014)
Director	Jason Reitman
Running Time	119 minutes
Budget	$16,000,000
Gross	$2,240,535
	official site
	Rotten Tomatoes entry
	Wikipedia entry
	NNDB entry
	IMDb entry
Episode 191
Show Link	Flop House website
Hosts	The Peaches
Published	14 November 2015
Podcast Time	92 minutes
Previous	Ouija
Next	Chappie

Tag

"On this episode we discuss Men, Women & Children. I guess that covers most of the bases."

Official Show Notes

"Think you're too good for the Oxford comma, Men, Women & Children? WELL WE'RE TOO GOOD FOR YOU. Meanwhile Stu explains 'X-Men nudity,' Dan makes a call for an annotated Flop House, and Elliott explains the music your kids' kids are gonna love."

Movie Summary

Premise

A group of high school teenagers and their parents attempt to navigate the many ways the Internet has changed their relationships, their communications, their self-images, and their love lives.

Story

Like many Americans, average suburbanite Don Truby and his 15-year-old son use the Internet for information, communication and viewing pornography. Don's son Chris also maintains sexually explicit conversations with classmate Hannah, an aspiring actress whose mother posts pictures of her daughter on a modeling Web site. In sharp contrast, overprotective mom Patricia Beltmeyer does everything in her power to protect her daughter from the digital age.

Final Judgments

• Bad-bad (Unanimous) @ 48:13

Episode Highlights

Tangents

• Sandalvember @00:45
• Sound Effects @01:05, 11:15
• The Change-Up @02:04
• Freddy Krueger @02:05
• Labor Day @03:17
• The Cryptkeeper @04:15
• Justified @04:27
• Herman's Head @04:52
• Zoolander @05:59
• Blues musician Muddy Thesis @07:05
• Voyager @08:44
• Carl Sagan @09:33
• Back to the Future @09:45
• Ivan the Terrible @13:35
• Encyclopedia Brown @14:30
• Charon, Uber driver @16:25
• Unfriended @20:35
• Russ Meyer @22:04
• Army of Darkness @24:05
• Castle Freak @24:25, 1:09:35
• Stuart and Elliott X-Plain the X-Men @24:45
• Dollhouse @29:45
• Pizza House star-crust pizza @1:03:00

Movie Pitches

Emmanuelle Goes to College

@1:10:50

Quotes

• “­The sky was dark, for all the stars were in Men, Women & Children.”
         —Stuart @01:45

• “­Like a homeless guy at the bus stop masturbating, he thought if he did it slow enough, nobody would notice.”
         —Elliott @11:55

• “­The most erotic part of the man's anatomy: the ball.”
         —Dan @1:29:25

Elliott:	Now, there's a lot of plot lines in this movie, so I'm not gonna try and do it in chronological order. Let's just go through 'em. Because they're all intertwined, like some crappy Seinfeld episode.
Dan:	Yeah. You know, or, like I said: It's a real Short Cuts situation, except for unlike Short Cuts you don't have the brilliance of Robert Altman, or Julianne Moore wandering around bottomless for a whole scene.
Elliott:	That's what Dan thinks about when he thinks about Short Cuts.
Stuart:	Mhm.
Dan:	Yeah. It's like the Raymond Carver story "What We Think About When We Think About Short Cuts." Raymond Carver, who Short Cuts was based on.

—@12:45

Dan:	This is way too much like sounding like patting ourselves on the back, but in terms of like—
Elliott:	No, that's what this sounds like. [claps]
Dan:	There are like...sometimes, sometime I do dream of like someone deciding to do like an annotated version of our show. And I'm just like: we have made a lot of—a shit ton—of references to a bunch of stuff. I just like, I want to see it written out and like, diagrammed like comedy—different references...
Elliott:	All right, somebody do that. And update it and spend hours on that.

—@30:45

Listener Mail

Mailbag Song

@1:00:10

Letters

"Cagemas Creep Has Begun" from Nathan Lastnamewithheld @1:00:25
 

R-O-C-K in the U-S-A!

GooberMensch Podcast

"What's Your Secret, Stuart?" from Dude Lastnamenotwithheld Jackson @1:02:50
 

Anne Hathaway

"Superboy Punches Reality?" from Riley Lastnamewithheld @1:06:55
 

Marv Wolfman (April 2006). Infinite Crisis: Secret Files and Origins 2006. New York: DC.

"The Wellington Collection" from Firstnamewithheld Lastnamewithheld Middlenamedanger @1:09:35
 

“­I think you guys are suggesting I'm recommending these movies as a joke. And I think you're stupid.”
       —Stuart @1:13:10

Wellington Collection: The Invisible Maniac, Castle Freak, Head of the Family

McCoy Collection: The Return of the Living Dead, Big Trouble in Little China, maybe The Monster Squad

Kalan Collection: Teen Wolf

Gremlins 2: The New Batch @1:13:00

Gremlins @1:15:35, 1:24:00

Jughead @1:16:50

Pinhead

Zhubin Parang @1:16:00

Recommendations

• Grandma (2015) by Paul Weitz (Elliott) @1:24:00
• The Ipcress File (1965) by Sidney J. Furie (Elliott) @1:25:00
• Razorback (1984) by Russell Mulcahy (Stuart) @1:25:45
• Spectre (2015) by Sam Mendes (Dan) @1:20:55

Stinger

Dan:	Get it out of your systems now.
Elliott:	No, no—I'm getting it into my systems.
Stuart:	Doin' some jokes, makin' a system of jokes...
Elliott:	System of a Jokes of a Down.
Dan:	[to the tune of the Laverne & Shirley theme] Doin' it joke ways!
Elliott:	They're gonna make their jokes come true...
Stuart:	The Flop House!
Elliott:	Rated R.

—@1:30:30

Full Transcript

compiled by Flop House Wiki archivist Michael Seery
 

including data from The Annotated Flop House and The Flop House Recommends

Tag

Dan McCoy: On this episode we discuss Men, Women & Children. I guess that covers most of the bases…

[music]

Dan: Hey everyone, and welcome to The Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington: Hey there, Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan: Hi guys, and also listeners, and anyone else around: I'm Elliott Kalan.

Dan: Hey!

Elliott: We're here!

Stuart: Boom.

Dan: We're…

Elliott: No.

Dan: Okay.

Elliott: [laughs]

Sandalvember @00:45

Stuart: So I'd like to welcome our listeners, and you guys, to the month of Sandalvember.

[laughter]

Elliott: Sandalvember is a month where we only do Adam Sandler movies. Right, Dan?

Dan: That's not…we're not doing that.

Stuart: I thought it was when we go down to beautiful Sandals resort in…the…Bahamas?

Elliott: That's where we're recording this. It's—actually, we couldn't afford the Bahamas.

Dan: Adults only.

Elliott: We're at the Sandals—

Dan: [bird noises]

Elliott: Nope. We're at the Sandals in Weehawken.

Stuart: Okay.

Dan: [swishing noise] That's a wave with a speech impediment.

Elliott: [laughs]

Stuart: So, the complimentary sandals are not getting a lot of use, except when we walk to…I dunno, the spa?

Elliott: Yeah, within the hotel only.

Dan: I'm wearing slippers…

Stuart: But those aren't sandals, they're completely different!

Dan: Yeah. They're puffy.

Stuart: And nor were they complimentary. They were given to you as a gift. I mean, I guess that's complimentary.

Elliott: That's a form of complimentary. What's more complimentary than receiving a gift?

Dan: That's the best compliment you can receive.

Elliott: It's like the universe saying: "Hey, we like you."

Dan: So, yeah, this is not Sandalvember. We just happened to watch a movie that had Adam Sandler as one of many actors in it.

Elliott: Yeah. Too many.

Stuart: The sky was dark, for all the stars were in…

Dan and Stuart: [in unison] Men, Women & Children.

Elliott: This movie's got it all.

Stuart: Elliott, you didn't do it!

Elliott: I didn't know that's what we were doing.

Dan: Stuart and I seemed to know.

Elliott: I guess you two—

Dan: [inaudible] got a psychic link.

Freddy

Elliott: Maybe you, like, peed in a fountain, you're both dream warriors, and you know what's going on in each other's minds.

Stuart: I think you're misremembering those movies.

[laughter]

Dan: Yeah. Both of us are ready for Freddy now.

[laughter]

Elliott: Oh, did you hear about Freddy? He got fingered.

Dan: Oh, no!

Stuart: Gross!

Dan: Is that why he wants to kill all those teens?

Elliott: Yeah, yeah. That's why he has those blade gloves, because now he's afraid of fingers.

Dan: It's just the cycle of violence, is what it is. Freddy got fingered, now he's got to finger some teens…with his blade fingers.

Stuart: Okay…

Elliott: I mean, that's kind of the plot, isn't it?

Stuart: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, I think so.

Elliott: Of Freddy Got Fingered? Anyway…!

Back to the Movie, Pt. 1 @2:40

So we watched Men, Women & Children…the movie that, the title alone tells you, will try to talk about everything there is…if everything means middle class white lifestyles. Because—

Stuart: That's a hot take.

Dan: The hottest!

The Cast

Elliott: I think there were two black people in this whole movie, one of whom was a school psychologist. And the other was Dennis Haysbert, a man who is using Ashley Madison, to cheat on his wife I assume.

Dan: Yeah, but at least the other one was Phil LaMarr. That was nice to see. Yeah.

Elliott: That was nice to see him.

Stuart: From MADtv?

Dan: That's right.

Elliott: Many things.

Dan: That's the main thing that everyone knows him from.

This is the triumphant follow-up to Labor Day.

Elliott: I was going to tell you, since Jason Reitman wrote and directed both…

Stuart: Did you just say: "sell you"?

Dan: He's going to sell us something [inaudible 3:28] .

Elliott: Yeah, I've got to sell you this car.

[laughter]

Dan: What's it going to take you to get you into Men, Women & Children, today? Is it going to take Rosemarie DeWitt? We have her. She's in it.

Stuart: Uh…

J.K. Simmons

Elliott: Do you like J.K. Simmons? Because he's in almost three scenes of the movie.

Stuart: "Just Kidding."

Dean Norris

Dan: How about Dean Norris, Hank from Breaking Bad?

Judy Greer

Elliott: Judy Greer?

Stuart: I like him and sometimes confuse him with "Just Kidding" Simmons.

Dan: How about Jennifer Garner, TV's Alias?

Elliott: What about Judy Greer, Kitty from TV's Arrested Development?

Dan: Would you like to "Say goodbye to these"?

Ansel Elgort

Stuart: Do you have my main man, Ansel Elgort—my dawg, my dude?

Elliott: Yes, the name created by somebody burping while naming their child: "Ansel Elgort." He's in there, too.

Dan: Someone wanted to name their child after Ansel Adams and then ran out of vowels.

[laughter]

Elliott: It sounds like someone was trying to do The Cryptkeeper version of a real name: [Cryptkeeper's voice] "Ansel Elllgorrrt…" "Well, what was his name?" Elgar, I guess. I don't know.

Justified @04:27

Do you like the show Justified?

Dan: Sure!

Stuart: Uh, sometimes.

Dan: Whoa!

Stuart: When I'm watching it!…and when I'm not watching it.

Elliott: Who's your favorite character on Justified?

Stuart: Boyd Crowder, clearly.

Elliott: True. He's not in this.

Stuart: Okay.

Dan: Who's your…seventh favorite character on Justified?

Elliott: [laughs]

Stuart: Uh…

Elliott: That dentist played by Alan Ruck in that one episode?

Herman from Herman's Head

Stuart: And what about the guy who played Herman from Herman's Head?

Elliott: [laughing] "Guy who played…"

Dan: [laughing] "Guy who played Herman from Herman's…"I don't even know how to parse that. I'm slowing it way down, and I can't even…

[laughter]

Stuart: Well, it has Loretta from…

Dan: Yeah, Loretta from Justified.

Stuart: …Justified. Little girl.

Dan: Yeah, Mags' daughter.

Stuart: Adopted daughter, kind of.

Roy from The Office

Elliott: Hey, remember the guy that Pam dumped on The Office for Jim?

Dan: Sure.

Elliott: He's in the movie—

Dan: [inaudible] scene.

Elliott: —as the worst history teacher in the world.

Stuart: I don't think he plays the history teacher. I think that was somebody else.

Dan: No, some other guy.

Elliott: Well, I can't tell.

Stuart: You were so angered that your eyes saw red only.

Elliott: All these doughy, white, bearded, Midwestern-looking guys, I can't tell the difference between 'em.

You're so lucky you're not doughy, Stuart, or else I couldn't tell the difference.

Stuart: That's true. [laughs] I am lucky.

Elliott: Instead, you're a handsome, bearded, white, Midwestern guy.

Stuart: I say a little prayer every day. [laughs]

Elliott: There was a scene, well I guess—

Dan: Started out doughy. Now he's at the top, though, man. That's the thing. It's a "rags to riches" story.

Stuart: I guess—do we want to talk about my entire life now, or should we save that for a later podcast?

Elliott: Now, there's a character in this movie who loved role-playing games. Did you relate to him?

Stuart: Well that was my dawg, Ansel Elgort. So yeah, totally. He and I go way back.

Dan: Hansel?

Stuart: Hansel indeed.

Elliott: [laughs] Is his sister Gretel?

Stuart: He does kind of have a Hansel-style haircut. Because Hansel's so hot right now.

Dan: Yep, that's a reference.

Stuart: Zoolander. Wocka wocka!

[laughter]

Dan: Thanks, Fozzie! Congratulations on your new show.

Stuart: Telling jokes, dude! I just want to remind you!

[laughter]

So I could totally get into his headspace, where he's playing Guild Wars and you get to see the screen appear in the ether next to his head.

Hanukkah gelt

Elliott: Let's talk about…so this movie is full of stars. We've established that. It's like we cracked open a pirate's treasure chest full of gold. But unfortunately the gold is encased in human shit that's been mixed with molasses, so it's also super-sticky.

Stuart: Like Hanukkah gelt?

Elliott: [laughs] Yeah, it's like…well if it's Han…wait, um…Hanukkah gelt does not taste good, but it's not human shit!

Dan: Oh, wait. We also forgot Emma Thompson as the narrator.

Elliott: As the narrator that the movie forgets about for a long period of time.

Dan: That's the best kind of narrator.

Stuart: I thought she played Carl Sagan.

Elliott: She just quotes Carl Sagan a lot. Now, the movie is about how people's lives are terrible because of the Internet, but also because of not the Internet. The movie begins…

Muddy Thesis @07:05

Dan: It's got a real muddy thesis statement, I would say.

Elliott: Oh, he was such a great blues musician, Muddy Thesis.

[laughter]

Elliott: I mean, his thinking wasn't super-clear. His logic never quite worked out, but oh, the way he plucked that guitar. No one pulled the strings like Muddy Thesis.

Dan: Yeah.

Stuart: You never know why his baby left him.

Elliott: [laughs] No. By the end of it—

Stuart: It could have been his car. It could have been his love of music. It could have been his drinking. You don't know.

Dan: We know that since his baby left him, a lot of bad stuff happened. We don't know the causal…like, the incident.

[laughter]

Elliott: What you're saying is: we need a prequel to this blues song that really explains the tale.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. "Muddy, this has been a big hit. Let's take it back. Let's dial it back."

Elliott: "Well, I mean, all my songs are just me repeating the same line with [imitates a blues guitar riff] after each one, so…sure. Okay."

Check Your Privilege

Dan: This is a real three-white-guys-talk-about-the-blues situation right now.

Elliott: In that you could say that about any situation if you accurately describe it.

Dan: That's true.

Elliott: This is a real three-guys-doing-a-podcast-in-an-apartment situation right now.

Dan: Yeah. Check our privilege, guys.

Elliott: Yeah, it's pretty great. I checked it out.

Dan: Look at it. Look at it.

Elliott: Oh, it's hot. Yeah. Check out that privilege.

Dan: It's a real taut privilege.

Elliott: What would you do to that privilege?

Dan: Oh, boy. I would wreck that privilege.

I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I feel bad about myself now.

Back to the Movie, Pt. 2

Elliott: Speaking of not knowing what it's saying, this movie has a very unclear message. The first half seems to be anti-Internet, and then the second half seems to be anti-people-not-using-the-Internet.

Carl Sagan

Stuart: So, the movie begins in outer space.

[laughter]

Elliott: As any movie called Men, Women & Children should, it begins in outer space as a satellite flies through space. And Emma Thompson tells us about, what is it, the Voyager probe, or whatever? Whichever satellite it is that Carl Sagan put that gold record on [laughter] that has recordings of people saying hello, and like, waves…

Stuart: It's a Beatles, right?

Dan: Carl Sagan has a gold record?

Elliott: It was his only acid rock album.

Dan: Wow.

Elliott: It was called Billions, o' Billions, o' Billions.

Dan: It was called Star Stuff.

[laughter]

Elliott: Yeah. And it was very hallucinogenic. The A-side is a bunch of, like, kind of radio-playable cuts, and then the B-side is just one long song.

Stuart: Just for the fans.

Elliott: Yeah, which is just—Have you ever heard Metal Machine Music? It makes that sound accessible.

Dan: Oh boy, wow. Rough stuff.

Music from the Future

Elliott: Carl Sagan said, and I'm quoting him: "This is the kind of music people will be listening to in the future, and if you don't believe me, you can go fuck yourself. I'm Carl Sagan."

Dan: Oh, I thought he said…

Elliott: That's what he said in the last episode of Cosmos, which was on PBS!

Stuart: It's like his Saturday Night Live impression, where he says his name every time he does it?

Elliott: [laughs] Yeah, or a Flop House impression, to be honest.

Dan: I thought he said: "I guess you're not ready for that, but your kids are going to love it."

Elliott: Yeah, because he went back in time so that Mr. and Mrs. Sagan got together at the high school dance.

Dan: That's right, yeah. That's the origin story for Carl Sagan.

Stuart: "You know I'm not play-gan, I'm Carl Sagan."

Dan: What?

Stuart: I don't know.

Elliott: Yeah, when he was on Yo! MTV Raps that one time, a failure of an appearance.

But wouldn't it have been great if that Back to the Future thing, if he had then played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and goes: "You're not going to like it, but your kids' kids are going to like that. Now, can I get my EDM machines in here for what your kids' kids' kids are going to listen to?"

Dan: "Now. Okay, your kids' kids' kids, they're going to be really interested in this thing called 'the Drop.'"

[laughter]

Elliott: "Let me explain. [imitates synthesizer noise] Now that doesn't sound like music, but it is."

[laughter]

Stuart: "Somebody invent me a Game Boy so I can just play music using its sound card."

[laughter]

Elliott: "Okay, and then your kids' kids' kids' kids are going to go back to using little pieces of your music. It's called sampling. Allow me to show you what it's like. You play that, but then speed it up real fast, like high-pitched, and then do it over and over again."

Dan: "Now some of them are going to like your grandparents' music. They're going to play on a washtub and…

Elliott: "…with a banjo. Everyone's going to hate them. Yet somehow, their music will be everywhere. Now, your kids' kids' kids' kids' music are going to score only car commercials, and it's going to be a lot of ukulele, and claps, and kind of choral singing."

Dan: Yeah. And someone in the back is going to go: "Heya!" or something like that.

Elliott: [laughs] Or just "hup!"

[laughter]

Elliott: Yeah, who decided that so much music should involve someone just going "hup!"?

Dan: I don't know, man.

Stuart's Beer Bag @11:15

Stuart: Excuse me for a sec—

Dan: That's what makes it authentic.

Stuart: Sorry, I just made noise because I have to get beers out of this bag I've been carrying around.

Elliott: Yeah, you may have noticed some radio sound effects. We're not sitting in front of a roaring fire, that's Stuart trying to open a plastic bag. [laughs]

Dan: His beer bag.

Elliott: Like an old person unwrapping a candy in a movie theater, he thought if he did it slowly, nobody would notice.

Dan: Now when we say "beer bag," unfortunately it's not how you're imagining it, which is just a bag filled with loose beer.

Elliott: Just a sack of beer.

Stuart: Well, it's like an old person. I have this bag, I'm not going to throw it out. I'm going to use it again. It's a perfectly good bag.

Elliott: You grew up in the Depression. You may not, can't afford a bag like that again.

Stuart: It's only got one hole in it: the hole that I put things into.

Elliott: Like a homeless guy at the bus stop masturbating, he thought if he did it slow enough, nobody would notice.

Back to the Movie, Pt. 3 @12:00

Okay, so: Men, Women & Children, we started in space. Emma Thompson is telling us about how Carl Sagan chose all these things to send into space to tell an alien what humans are like, because we're fragile beautiful beings, or some garbage. Then we hit back to Earth. If anything—as Will Smith would say: "Welcome to Earth."

Stuart: Media res.

Dan: Oh boy. I don't know if that means what you think it means.

Stuart: [laughs]

Elliott: It means medium resolution.

Dan: Okay, sure.

Elliott: So we're in a small town somewhere. Anytown, USA, let's call it. Americaville, 1234 Fake Street.

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. Coca-Cola America. Football Town, USA.

Elliott: All the phone numbers are 555-PHONENUMBER. It's too many digits. They just keep dialing after the ring starts.

Short Cuts @12:45

Now there's a lot of plot lines in this movie, so I'm not going to try to do in chronological order. Let's just go through them. Because they're all intertwined, like some crappy Seinfeld episode.

Dan: Or like I said, it's a real Short Cuts situation. Except for, unlike Short Cuts, you don't have the brilliance of Robert Altman, or Julianne Moore wandering around bottomless for a whole scene.

Elliott: That's what Dan thinks about, when he thinks about Short Cuts.

Dan: Yeah. It's like the Raymond Carver story "What We Think About When We Think About Short Cuts." Raymond Carver, who Short Cuts was based on.

Elliott: Mhm. And Birdman.

Anyway, so…

Stuart: But this movie is directed by Jason Reitman…

[laughter]

Elliott: Yeah, who was the wrong man.

Dan: Who's never been right.

Elliott: Here's the thing. I'm sure he's a great guy, and he's made movies people like.

Stuart: I'd hang out with him.

Elliott: I bet he's a really…

Ivan Reitman @13:35

Dan: I'd hang out with his dad.

Elliott: Who wouldn't? Come on.

Stuart: Yeah, I love hanging out with dads.

Dan: Ivan "the Terrible" Reitman.

Elliott: Nobody has ever called him that.

Dan: At his college, someone called him Ivan the Terrible.

Elliott: Possibly, yeah. I mean, that would have been ignorant. There was only one Ivan the Terrible. His name…? Ivan IV, Tsar of the Russias.

Back to the Movie, Pt. 4 @13:55

Stuart: So…

Elliott: So, this movie is about—so there's a lot of intertwining things. We start with Emma Thom—and also, Emma Thompson is narrating in this kind of wry: "I'm going to bring out the ironies of these people's situations." It's like a crappy version of the book from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Dan: She's ported her narration over from Stranger than Fiction where she literally was like—I mean, that was a comedy where it was like she had to have that wry…

Stuart: Well, this movie is described as a comedy.

Dan: Well, that was the funny…

Elliott: A comedy drama.

Dan: Yeah, you were the one who discovered that? That it was described—

Stuart: Elliott did.

Dan: Oh yeah.

Stuart: He's the fucking kid sleuth over here.

Elliott: Yeah, I'm the Encyclopedia Brown who found that out. "Bugs Meany, you call this a comedy drama, yet there's nary a laugh to be found. Don't invest, kids."

Labor Day @14:45

But there's not a lot of jokes and it's a dour movie. Everything's dour. You thought Labor Day—a movie about a convict who accidentally killed his wife, and teaches a mother and a son how to make pie erotically—was a dour movie? A movie where a kid says to his widowed mom—

Stuart: Talk about a cream pie…edit that out, Dan.

Elliott: Yeah, please edit that out.

Dan: Wow.

Elliott: That was a movie where a kid told his widowed mother: "I'll be dad for the day for you." Which is one of the saddest things I've ever heard in a movie.

How to Deal with a Surly Teen @15:10

This movie has the saddest thing that an adult can say, which is—there's a scene where an adult says to a teenager: "These are the best years of your lives." Which is the most pathetic thing a human being can think. That the first 16, 17 years are the best years of their lives and everything after that is downhill.

Dan: Except for the stars of the movie The Best Years of Our Lives But that was ironic.

Elliott: But that's ironic. That's about World War II.

Stuart: Do you think all high school principals—that's in their basic manual How to Deal with a Surly Teen?

Elliott: It's gotta be.

Stuart: It's like: "You gotta remind them: this is the best years of their lives."

Elliott: It's like: "Hey dude: enjoy it now, because your life's gonna be awful."

Stuart: "Follow the script, kid."

Elliott: [laughing] "Follow the script. You're supposed to have fun—but not too much fun—graduate, and be miserable."

Dan: That has got to be—

Elliott: "Here's a Bruce Springsteen song. It's called 'Glory Days,' listen to it."

Dan: Aside from, like, saying the saddest thing about the adult who's saying it, that is the worst thing to say to a miserable teen. Like, he was like: "You mean it's like the opposite—it is literally the opposite—of 'It Gets Better.'"

Elliott: "So I should kill myself now, is what you're saying."

[laughter]

Dan: It's like: "What the…? This is the pinnacle? Fuck this, I'm out. And by out, I mean I'm out of this life. Because I've already killed myself."

Elliott: Stop the world, I want to get off, everybody!

Dan: Is that all there is to a fire?

Charon @16:25

Stuart: Yep. Let me pull up my Uber. "Charon? Come pick me up, dawg. I got two bits."

Elliott: Now, that would that be an UberX or an Uber Black?

Stuart: Uber Black in this case, yeah.

Elliott: And Charon's just going to come pick you up? You don't have to go to the river Styx?

Stuart: No, dude! He shows up—

Elliott: 'Cause his boat has wheels on it, and a motor?

Stuart: It's a hovercraft! He's magic, right?

Elliott: He just borrowed that hovercraft from Super Cop.

Stuart: Yep.

Elliott: He decided to bring it over to get you.

Stuart: Mhm.

Internet Porn

Elliott: We start off with Adam Sandler as a dour dad, who was going to try to masturbate on his home computer but it's not working for some reason, and the only other computer is his 15-year-old's.

Stuart: A lot of the laughs of this movie come from Emma Thompson describing names of porn sites with her accent.

Elliott: I'm going to pull back the curtain on a behind-the-scenes thing from The Daily Show. When we worked on a book called Earth (The Book), the idea was to explain to aliens what human life was like on Earth. And something that Jon Stewart cautioned us not to do a lot, was not to do a joke where the only thing about the joke was that you were describing something in an overly technical way. That there was no actual joke there, it was just that you were describing a dumb thing in a very highfalutin' way.

And that's Emma Thompson's narration for the most part. The joke of it is just like: "I'm going to describe this guy masturbating in a way that's like overly highbrow." But there's no actual joke there.

Dan: Or just like detached and detailed, like: "He sat at the computer, pondering, do I want 'Big Breasted Whores,' or do I want 'Anal Angels?' He pulled the tissue over…"

Elliott: And the thing is: why can't he have both? That's the thing. I'm sure there's a video that fits both. And if not, just have two video screens open on your computer. You've got DSL, dude. The bandwidth is there.

This Modern World

Stuart: So you're saying: in this modern world, we can have it all.

Elliott: In the Tom Tomorrow comic strip This Modern World, yes. We can have any kind of sex we want on TV.

Dan: [laughs] Yeah, you can have a big-breasted penguin with a visor.

Elliott: Yeah, telling us things about Republicans.

[laughter]

Dan: So is he blind, like Geordi La Forge or…? What's going on in that visor?

Elliott: I don't know.

Dan: Tom Tomorrow, call in.

[laughter]

Elliott: The lines are open!

Adam Sandler's Performance @18:40

Adam Sandler is a sad sack. He and his wife haven't had sex in a long time. He's masturbating a lot.

Dan: You think the beard was a choice, or he was like: "Uh…do I have to shave?" And they're like: "No."

Elliott: Considering Adam Sandler often chooses his movies based around where he can go on vacation while making them, I don't know.

Dan: I will say that it's not like he's particularly great in this movie or anything, but…

Elliott: He's not bad.

Dan: That's where I'm going with this. It's like, Adam Sandler: extremely lazy with his own films. I feel like whenever he shows up in someone else's movie, he puts in a pretty good performance. You're like: "okay, this guy can act. He's just super lazy most of the time."

Elliott: Now, uh—

Dan: Stuart seems dubious.

Stuart: But he brings a certain beaten-down quality to his other roles that seems very fitting for this role. I don't know if it's necessarily him acting, or him just being cast well in the part.

Dan: I don't know. I mean…

Stuart: I'll give him the credit, a little bit of credit, I guess.

Dan: Even to play yourself is hard. I think…

Elliott: To play with yourself is extremely easy. In fact, not doing it is harder.

But, no. I think the actors in this, some of them do a fine job of trying to get across the material. A few—

Dan: I think most of them are doing pretty good jobs.

Elliott: Most of them. Jennifer Garner—

Dan: Jennifer Garner is not very good.

Elliott: —is too brittle and caricaturish. Some of the teens are kind of like: "Buhh." Like there's not a lot coming out of them.

Dan: Yeah, but those are teens.

Elliott: Yeah, but that's teens. It's just the way they are.

Dan: Teens, why do you got to be so buhh?

[laughter]

Ask Your Doctor About Ansel Elgort

Stuart: Man, that Ansel Elgort—he brings it. Like a maniac.

Elliott: You totally believe he's…

Dan: Guys, I've started taking a supplement of Ansel Elgort every day.

[laughter]

Elliott: No, no! Dan: that could lead to insomnia, restless leg syndrome, temporary blindness, bouts of race hatred, vomiting, vomi-nausea (which is like vomiting, but your stomach still hurts afterwards), insomnia, and death.

Stuart: And long moments of staring at a screen with your mouth slightly open.

Elliott: Yeah. Ask your doctor about Ansel Elgort.

Dan: It's worth it.

Multiscreen Experience

Stuart: I love that this movie featured something from Unfriendable—or whatever the fuck we watched a couple weeks ago—where it had a character writing out all their thoughts, and then deleting it, and then writing something shorter.

Elliott: …and innocuous, yeah.

Also, there's a lot of screens in this movie. Screens are popping up everywhere. So imagine watching—was it called Chef? That Jon Favreau movie? Where every time someone tweets, it appears on screen?—Imagine that, but everyone's tweeting all the time and there's screens all over the screen.

Dan: Double screens, triple screens…

Elliott: Quadruple screens.

Stuart: I mean, there's so many screens.

Elliott: Multi-screens.

Dan: Everything's a multi-screen experience these days.

Elliott: [laughs] So just watch this movie, and you'll get it.

Ashley Madison

Let's go through the stories quickly. Adam Sandler is married to Rosemarie DeWitt and—

Stuart: They're unhappy.

Elliott: —their sex life is DOA: dork on arrival.

[laughter]

Stuart: That's terrible!

Elliott: They both get involved in the Internet in different ways. He decides to hire a prostitute through it, and she joins Ashley Madison, the famous adultery site.

Dan: She's the one woman on Ashley Madison.

Elliott: [laughs] Which is why she gets so many dates!

Stuart: Very popular.

Elliott: You think Dennis Haysbert's picking her first, with that picture she put up? She signs up for an account at work, and puts up a picture…

Stuart: Seems like a misuse of company time.

[laughter]

Elliott: Yeah, for sure. In many ways. And…

Dan: Just a picture of her fuzzy sweater. [laughter]

Stuart: Dude, guys are into that!

Elliott: I guess she's trying to attract—

Dan: It's wasn't like an angora sweater, it was like—

Stuart: Russ Meyer movies are built on that.

Elliott: Russ Meyer movies are built on what's under the sweater, Stuart…namely: the tag.

Stuart: Sure.

Dan: "Dry Clean Only."

Elliott: She's trying to attract moths, and—I don't know—some cats, with her sweater.

Nerf Football Sex

Meanwhile, they have a son who has been watching pornographic videos since he was a kid, and now, he cannot get it up for a human woman who's in front of him. And at one point, tries to rectify this by having sex with a hollowed-out Nerf football full of lotion.

Stuart: Sounds like a good plan.

Elliott: We never find out if it works or not. Those are some of the stories. There's another story, there's a high school football star…

[laughter]

Dan: …some of the legends.

Elliott: …some of the myths that were told. I like to think of this movie as the constellations in the sky. You look up and you go: "Oh, those stars together make up the Unhappy Masturbator. Those stars up there make up the Ashley Madison Site."

Stuart: That would have been great, by the way, if it kept cutting to shots of the night sky, and we would have constellations of the characters. [laughs]

Dan: Like It's a Wonderful Life.

Elliott: That's almost what happens, because it kept cutting to that satellite going through space.

Dan: "Satellite of Love", Lou Reed.

Guild Wars

Elliott: There's a high school football star played by your dawg, Ansel Elgort, who does not want to play football anymore because he's too depressed over his mom abandoning the family, and so he decides to throw himself into the fantasy world of Guild Wars.

Stuart's Dawg

Dan: By the way, I spaced out. Did we explain why we keep referring to Ansel Elgort as your buddy?

Stuart: Because for many years, I worked for a company called Games Workshop, Dan, which sells model figurines. And one of my regular customers who I would see—I don't know, almost every day—was hot teen star Ansel Elgort. So he and I are super-close.

Elliott: Did you ever say to Elgort: "Elklaatu, elbarada, elnikto"? Because that would have been a hilariously nerdy joke.

Stuart: I didn't. I don't even know what that joke means, Elliott.

Elliott: Technically, I guess it would be "Elgort: elklaatu, elbarada, elnikto." It's a Day the Earth Stood Still reference. Or maybe you remember…

Stuart: Is that a movie or…?

Army of Darkness

Dan: He might remember Army of Darkness then re-purposed…

[crosstalk]

Dan: It was a reference.

Elliott: They just stole that as a joke, they referenced it.

Stuart: What's Army of Darkness, guys?

Elliott: Army of Darkness is a movie I'm pretty sure you saw.

[laughter]

Elliott: You're like: "Is that that French movie about the Resistance?" No, that's Army of Shadows.

Dan: It might be the most Stuart movie ever made.

[laughter]

Stuart: Okay, go on.

Elliott: The only thing it doesn't have is a guy getting his dick ripped off, and it kind of does have that.

Dan: There's no casual nudity in it, I guess that's the one thing.

Elliott: There's that one part where the zombie…the Deadites are arising and they somehow have a bunch of scantily-clad women chained up with them, tagging along…

Dan: That's true.

Elliott: …who have appeared out of nowhere. One of them might be a little nude, but I'm not sure.

X-Men History @24:45

Stuart: Or it's like X-Men nudity where their hair is covering their parts.

Elliott: Yeah, and they have no pupils…

[laughs]

Elliott: …because they're using their powers.

Stuart: That's how you define the nudity. Even their eyes are nude.

Dan: Little wisps of smoke are covering their nipples, like steam or something?

Elliott: Yeah. That happened a lot, actually. Every time Psylocke got out of the shower.

Dan: Exactly.

Stuart: Sure, it's like: "You're wasting all the hot water, Psylocke."

[laughter]

Elliott: "Just go get Firestorm to heat some more up, I don't know."

Forge

Stuart: "Forge, why don't you get on that, bro? Make a bigger water heater."

Elliott: "I'm too busy inventing devices that will help Rogue with her powers for a day, and then break."

Dan: Sure.

Stuart: "I'm working on the X-Men Blackbird to get out my sexual energy."

Elliott: "I'm too busy being some kind of [laughs] techno-shaman."

Stuart: I mean, he's exactly that, explicitly a techno-shaman.

Elliott: [laughs] "With a metal piece on my leg that you just see a little part of, and a headband."

Stuart: He lost it in Vietnam, dude…

Elliott: He did? I'm sorry. [laughs]

Stuart: …on Veteran's Day.

Elliott: On Veteran's Day, no less.

Dan: Which is when we're taping it.

Elliott: I should be more respectful to Forge—maybe the least popular X-Men character ever created, and I'm including Maggott and Marrow in those rankings. I'm including Joseph, the clone of Magneto in those rankings. Forge is still lower. I'm including Stacy X, the mutant-powered prostitute that was in like six issues.

Dan: I know that Forge was in the comics when I was reading the X-Men comics and I can't picture him.

Elliott: He's just a guy with a mustache and a headband.

Stuart: He's got a ponytail. [laughs]

Elliott: …and a ponytail. He's got a metal leg and he's a techno-shaman.

Storm's Love Life

Stuart: He dated Storm briefly, because she had no other options.

Dan: None of this is ringing a bell.

Elliott: They were on-again, off-again.

Stuart: Then Bishop showed up and…

Elliott: …and then Marvel was like: "Why don't we just have her date only black characters?" and Bishop and Black Panther showed up.

Anyway, so high school…

Dan: That's our X-Men history cast.

Elliott: That's Stuart and Elliott X-Plain the X-Men. Take that, Rachel and Miles.

Back to the Movie, Pt. 5

Now Tim Mooney, high school star, Ansel Elgort, he quits the football team because it doesn't matter to him anymore in the wake of his mom's abandoning the family. He really gets into Guild Wars, which is an online massive multiplayer online role playing game. His father…

Stuart: …Dean Norris. TV's Dean Norris.

Judy Greer Impressions

Elliott: …Dean Norris is really unhappy about it, but he starts up a little relationship with Judy Greer's character, who is helping her daughter, who is a cheerleader, to run a vaguely soft-core teen porno site, where her teen daughter models underwear and bathing suits. It takes most of the movie for Judy Greer to realize this is a terrible idea.

Dan: Even though at one point she's feeling it out with Jennifer Garner, she's like, "Now, you know the legalities of all this…"she's clearly like, "What would and would not be child pornography?"

Elliott: Was that your Judy Greer impression?

[crosstalk]

Elliott: "Now, Jennifer Garner: what would or would not be child pornography?"

[laughter]

Dan: Perfect.

Elliott: "When we record an episode of Archer we're not together. We record our parts separately. Watch Married on FX."

Stuart: What you're saying is that her realization, the moment when she's in the meat aisle of the grocery store—we know that because there's a big sign that says "meat"—and the woman on the phone who's like: "Your daughter has a porno site." That moment is bullshit, because you think she already knows.

[crosstalk]

Dan: It's clear that shit's been eating at her for a while, but the fact that she goes to the point where she's like: "Where's the legal line?" that seems…

Jennifer Garner's Subplot

Elliott: We mentioned two subplots there. One is that Jennifer Garner, who is an over-protective mother, has started a group of parents to stop the Internet and telephones, because they're ruining children. They're dangerous.

Through that she meets Dean Norris, and she begins dating him. Also that her daughter's obsessed with being famous and decides that, at the mall one day, while her daughter is texting with the kid that can only get it up while watching videos, Adam Sandler's son, and telling him that if he was tied up, she would totally ride him, over texts, or sexts, the young people call them.

They run into open auditions for teens to be on a show called America's Next Big Celebrity, which is the least imaginative name ever for a fake television show.

Stuart: It seemed like a placeholder name, they were like: "Oh, fuck it, we forgot to change it, make the sweaters."

Dan: America's Teeniest Teen. That's for the smallest teen.

[laughter]

Elliott: You've got a bunch of kids who are trying to sneak onto that show, because there's a million dollar prize. We've made this show to empower dwarf teens. All these little kids are trying to get in.

Dan: One of the subplots of this movie is about America's Teeniest Teen, but we'll get to that.

Elliott: That's right because there's also, Jennifer Garner's daughter is angry at her mom, because her mom monitors all of her phone calls, text messages, websites and things like that.

Stuart: Because her mother's a crazy person.

Elliott: Because her mother's crazy, she's overprotective to the point of insane paranoia. To the point that she is at one point, later…

Dan: She's a real Carrie's mom.

Dollhouse @29:45

Stuart: It's like the only episode of Dollhouse she saw was the horrible future, where cell phones are turning everybody into horrible Dollhouse monsters. She's like: "That is our inevitability, I need to put a stop to that by ending the Internet."

Elliott: I would have loved if that was the origin for her character. It's like: "Dollhouse, Joss Whedon. I'll give it a try." And that was the one episode, a fucking vision.

Dan: She's like: "The first six episodes aren't very good, but it gets interesting after a while. Okay, I'll stick with it. Interesting that they gave it a second season. All right, thank you Fox."

Elliott: Dollhouse has two seasons?

Dan: Yeah.

Elliott: I didn't realize that. I think they thought they were doing Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. They were like: "Time for Fox to get classy. Maybe then we can do An Enemy of the People."

Dan: Who's this Joss Whedon character?

Elliott: He must be from Sweden.

Dan: Who's this Jodie Sweetin?

Elliott: From Full House?

Dan: "How rude!"

[laughter]

The Great Commission @30:45

Dan: This is sounding way too much like patting ourselves on the back, but in terms of—

Elliott: No, that's what this sounds like. [sound of muffled clapping]

Dan: Sometime, I do dream of someone deciding to do an annotated version of our show. When I'm just like: we have made a lot of—a shit ton of—references to a bunch of stuff. I want to see it written out and diagramed to how many different references.

Elliott: All right, somebody do that. Annotate it, spend hours on that.

Martin Gardner

Dan: Martin Gardner, if you're out there: annotate.

Elliott: That's what he's up to these days. Because he's dead, Dan. Martin Gardner died.

We've got to get Joss Nevins, the guy who…that's his name, right? Jess Nevins, the guy who annotates League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he's still alive.

Elliott's Favorite Books

No, Martin Gardner died a couple of years ago. I'm very sad about it. Author of my favorite book, The Annotated Alice.

Dan: Is that your favorite? That's one of my favorite books.

Elliott: Even more than reading Alice in Wonderland, my favorite is his Annotated Alice.

Dan: No, everyone out there in podcast land, if you love the Alice books, but have not read the The Annotated Alice, you are missing out, because it is so much more, a rich experience to know.

Elliott: It helps, but also, the way he annotates it is delightful. If it wasn't for the bedrock genius of Lewis Carroll's world…

Stuart: Badrock?

Elliott: If it wasn't for Badrock, the genius Rob Liefeld character.

My other favorite book: The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton. I may have mentioned that on the show before.

Dan: That's a pretty good one.

Elliott: That's a great book.

Dan: I read it.

Elliott: That's in the fiction division. Nonfiction, of course: The Power Broker by Robert Caro. And The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm.

Stuart's Love of Mangoes

Stuart: I stick to the Manga section.

Dan: Stuart sticks to the mango section.

[laughter]

Dan: He just likes tropical fruits.

Stuart: Yep, I like to sit in the aisles of Barnes & Noble, chomping on a fucking mango.

[laughter]

Elliott: You're going: "Now, this is a book!" Why isn't this on the paperback favorites?

Stuart: Wearing those pants, cargo pants.

Dan: Sir, that isn't a book, and you're getting the actual books all sticky.

Stuart: With my ass hanging off them.

Elliott: He's wiping his hands on copies of other books.

Stuart: You must not like culture. Mangoes! It's from Japan!

[laughter]

Dan: That's not even correct.

[laughter]

Elliott: Sir, can I at least get you a book on mangoes, so you can learn about what you're eating?

Stuart: You can give me a book, I'm just going to get it all sticky with this delicious mango.

Elliott: He's like: "There's only one other mango I need," and you pull up an SNL episode on YouTube with Chris Kattan as Mango.

[laughter]

Stuart: Sure.

Elliott: Sir, please get out of the store.

Stuart: Sir, give me back my iPad.

Elliott: You're getting mango juice all over it.

Stuart: How did you get into our Wi-Fi network? I can only tell from your pants that you're some kind of a hacker, or a Matrix guy.

[laughter]

Dan: Are you wearing leather pants in this scenario?

Elliott: Yeah, and a mesh undershirt.

Stuart: With a lot of straps.

[laughter]

Elliott: For holding what? Jump drives and things?

Stuart: Yeah.

Back to the Movie, Pt. 6

Elliott: So, anyway…[laughs] we're not even done with the storylines.

Dan: No, it's fine. No one cares.

Elliott: She's overprotective of her daughter. Her daughter starts dating the ex-football player. There's a certain point when every…

Stuart: Did you forget about the one girl: "Just Kidding" Simmons' daughter, who's like super skinny?

Elliott: [laughs] super anorexic.

Dan: That was the world's teeniest teen I was talking about before.

[laughter]

Elliott: Who has a terrible eating disorder, and is part of an online community of anorexics and bulimics who are egging her on to get ever thinner. Or, as a gypsy would say when a relative was hit by a car: "Thinner…"If she got that curse on her, she'd be like: "Thank you. This is not a curse. This is a gift."

Now, should we just run through what happens?

Dan: She could eat that shepherd's pie if she wanted to eat.

Elliott: That's true, and the cupcake she smooshes on her face.

Dan: Instead of just licking it, like they advised her online.

9/11 History Class

Elliott: Eventually everything comes to a head. These storylines slam together. Not before the part that made me the maddest, which is when a history teacher…

Stuart: Cut to a high school history class, here.

Elliott: A high school history class. The teacher puts "9/11" on the board, says: "What does this mean?"

Stuart: I was like: "Please let this be fucking math class."

Elliott: Please let it be a fraction, yeah. They didn't fact check beforehand. Everyone on set…

[laughter]

Dan: "I shouldn't have just let him do whatever he wanted."

Elliott: Everyone on set was like: "Yeah, that's a fraction." Then while they were editing, Jason Reitman was like: "Oh shit! I forgot that was a date of a tragedy!"

Stuart: "Wowzers!"

Elliott: "Oh boy, can we change that digitally in post?" No, there's something about digital technology. It can't change anything written on a whiteboard.

Dan: It's called a Never Forget Algorithm. It just won't let you change those numbers.

Elliott: We've tried running that "These Colors Don't Run," but it's only reinforcing the problem.

The teacher goes: "Does anyone know what this means? One of the students goes: "Uh, is that the day terrorists attacked?" Turns out he goes: "Yes, aside from Pearl Harbor, it was the only time America was attacked by a foreign power on home soil."

Which is not true at all!

Stuart: At this point, steam started shooting out of Elliott's ears. His hat flipped up in the air, and made the sound like a teakettle.

Elliott: Unless I missed the phrase: "In the 20th century," which is also not true. What about the War of 1812, dude? They burned Washington, D.C. to the ground. Why do you think we have a White House? Because they burned the executive mansion down.

Stuart: [snoring noise] Old news, dude.

Elliott: It is old news, it's over 200 years ago.

It's much like the rest of the movie. I couldn't tell if the film was saying this guy's a bad history teacher, or if the film was saying: "We don't know anything about history. We, as a movie, think that this is true."

The movie wanted to have it both ways throughout the film. The Internet's bad. But also, hey, back off, don't get so mad about the Internet. Really, it's about being a better parent.

There's a part where all the parents learn that they've been bad parents. Where skinny girl, who's had her first sexual experience with…

Dan: I like her line of margaritas.

[laughter]

Elliott: The girl with an eating disorder who's friends with the girl who's going out with the ex-football player, etc., who are hanging out at the home of the most offensively-stereotyped gay teen I've ever seen in a movie.

Stuart: Let's use some broad strokes, here.

Elliott: The only way they could have made him more outwardly, cartoonishly gay, is if he dressed like Duckie from Pretty In Pink.

Mannequin and Mannequin Two: On the Move

Dan: I mean, he wasn't like Hollywood in Mannequin. He just, you know…

Elliott: Oh, in Mannequin and Mannequin Two: On the Move?

Dan: No, I think that he's in both of them.

Stuart: Yeah, he's in both of them, Elliott.

Dan: He's the one carryover.

Elliott: I said Mannequin and Mannequin Two: On the Move. I said "and."

Stuart: I didn't hear that connection.

Elliott: Mannequin, Womannequin & Childrannequin.

Dan: Speaking of Herman's Head: Mannequin Two: On the Move.

Stuart: Yeah, you're right, that's the thing.

Elliott: Herman from Herman's Head is in that, too.

[laughter]

Dan: Who is that actor? I forget his name.

Stuart: We're calling him Herman from now until infinity.

Dan: William something.

Elliott: William Sadler.

Dan: Yeah.

Stuart: William Katt.

[laughter]

Elliott: It was William Tell.

Now, uh…

The Surly Bartender

Stuart: William H. Macy, who actually does a small cameo as a bartender in this movie.

[laughter]

Dan: He does not!

Elliott: He's a bartender…

[crosstalk]

Dan: A guy who barely looks like him.

Elliott: Kind of like William H. Macy.

Stuart: He's in the background, dude, you can't really tell. And he's a great actor.

Elliott: He's not in the same scene with the snippiest bartender I've ever seen in a movie—outside of the one in The Grifters who beats up John Cusack with a bat—where Dennis Haysbert's sitting with Rosemarie DeWitt and she goes: "I'll have a…"

What does she say?

Stuart: A cosmo.

Elliott: "…a cosmo." And Dennis Haysbert says to the bartender: "She'll have a cosmo." And he says: "Yeah, I heard her."

[laughter]

Elliott: He's like "Whoa! Whoa, dude! Uncalled for!"

Stuart: "I didn't vote for you on 24."

Elliott: [laughs] "Look, The Unit—I don't need your sass."

[laughter]

The Sex Scene @38:15

Elliott: All these things come to a head when the skinny girl who's had her first sexual experience with her gay friend's brother, who—

Stuart: Which is great!

Elliott: She tells her friends. They're hanging out in this room, watching Breaking Amish, while his brother's friends play Guitar Hero or Rock Star or something, and they…

Dan: Do you think they chose Breaking Amish as an homage to Dean Norris of Breaking Bad?

Elliott: No.

Stuart: Probably.

Dan: Probably.

Elliott: That would be a very cloudy homage.

Dan: A roundabout homage.

Elliott: Yeah. She goes: "I've got to use the bathroom." She goes to the bathroom door, opens it and closes it. And then runs into the brother, has sex with him for like 45 seconds, walks out, and then just for her alibi opens and closes the bathroom door again. Now, when she does this, she's standing right in front of the open bedroom door of her friend. He could see her walk up to the door, open and close it, and then walk in again. I don't think Breaking Amish is so incredibly captivating that their peripheral vision just disappears.

Dan: But that touches one of the few times I came close to liking the movie, though, on the other hand. Because I'm like: "That's a stupid teenager. She would do that."

Elliott: Yeah, I guess so.

Slimer Babies @39:20

She ends up having an ectopic pregnancy, but because her body is so malnourished—

Stuart: Which has nothing to do with ghosts.

Elliott: No, it is not an ectoplasmic pregnancy. Which is when, yeah, I guess when Slimer comes after you. Because that's not just slime.

Dan: And you give birth to a shitload of hot dogs.

[laughter]

Stuart: That's horrible!

Elliott: Just like that Cosby episode where he dreams he gives birth to a submarine sandwich. After, I assume, a submarine sandwich roofied Cosby and sexually assaulted him.

[laughter]

That's where he got the idea.

Stuart: That's how you do it, I guess.

Elliott: In the Cosby world, the Cosbyverse.

J.K. Simmons Bails @39:55

"Just Kidding" Simmons is not kidding when he is very disappointed in her.

Stuart: He's like: "I'm so unhappy, I'm going to leave this movie forever and never show back up."

Dan: He's like: "First I had to deal with Juno, and now you."

Elliott: The kid who can't get it up except if it's a video, he tries to have sex with the girl who has the website, and he can't do it.

Dan: [sung to the tune of "Just Can't Get Enough"] He just can't get it up…

Stuart: Which seems like it's right up his alley, right?

Elliott: You'd think so. It doesn't work. His parents never find out he has a problem. Football kid, he finds a…

Stuart: Who says he has a problem? At the end of the day he just needs to talk to more people and actually make a connection with somebody that isn't totally self-obsessed.

Adam Sandler Makes Breakfast @40:35

Elliott: I guess you're right. The football kid…oh, Adam Sandler and his wife eventually decide: "Hey, you know what? Let's not tell each other about our dalliances. And we'll just have breakfast."

Dan: "We'll just forget about it."

Elliott: "We'll just…fuggedaboutit! Hey!"

Stuart: There's a great scene of Adam Sandler making breakfast, and he's cutting food like a guy who has never cut food before.

Elliott: He's cutting onions, and he's cutting them into the smallest little cubes, like he wants to get every bit of teardrop out of his eyes with those onions.

Stuart: You know in his head, he's like: "Making breakfast…making breakfast…like a person…"

Elliott: "This is what someone who doesn't have a live-in chef does, right?"

Dan: He's singing an Opera Man song about making breakfast.

Elliott: Without his red hooded sweatshirt.

Suicide Attempt @41:20

The football guy, he's mad because his mom is getting remarried. He has a fight with his dad. His dad finds out that his friends on Guild Wars were razzing him with some off-collar remarks about his mom. So he calls his credit card company and has them delete the account. Which is how that works, I guess?

Stuart: That's crazy.

Elliott: Now, the football kid, after having gotten in a fistfight with a guy who threw a football at his girlfriend, was given depression pills by school psychologist Phil Lamar. He contacts his girlfriend.

Dan: TV's Hermes from Futurama.

Elliott: He has a full name. It's Hermes Pan. Actually no, that's a choreographer I guess.

He got all these depression pills. He's so distraught over his dad deleting his Guild Wars account, he gets in touch with his girlfriend, but uh oh…

Stuart: He just needs to make a human connection for a change.

Elliott: But his girlfriend's crazy mom has got the phone and tells him, thinking it's her, and she discovered a secret Tumblr account that her daughter had where she dresses up like—she pulls a whole Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Stills, where she dresses up in a bunch of different costumes and stuff. She's mad about it. She pretends to be her daughter on the phone and tells the boyfriend to buzz off.

The boyfriend, having lost both his girlfriend and his Guild Wars account in one night, tries to kill himself with the pills. Luckily…

Stuart: And his dad forces the realization on him that his mom left both his dad and him.

Elliott: And is never coming back, yeah. They go off and do whatever. His girlfriend shows up, finds him almost dead. They go to the hospital. In the hospital, Jennifer Garner realizes she's made a terrible mistake.

Are there any plots I've forgotten about?

Dan: "I've made a terrible mistake."

Judy Greer Faces Facts

Stuart: And Dean Norris gets back with Judy Greer after she realizes that she is being a bad mom, soccer mom, by taking photographs of her daughter.

Elliott: That's right, Judy Greer gets a call from America's Next Big Celebrity. And they tell her: "Hey, your daughter had the best audition, but there's this weird website she has where she's just in underpants, and we can't allow that. Because the entertainment business and the reality TV business is about wholesomeness and quality."

She is distraught. She mentions it to Dean Norris…

Stuart: It is very nice of that person to explain all the reasons.

Elliott: She gave a very thorough explanation, as opposed to just sending them a rejection letter. She says to Dean Norris: "Hey, I do this thing, is that weird?" He's like: "That's super weird. I don't want to see you."

She tells her daughter she deleted the site. Her daughter is mad at her and runs off. Calls her the B-word. That's right, a—

Stuart: Butterface.

Elliott: She and Dean Norris get back together. And in the end, everybody has—much like a Shakespeare play, everyone's kind of re-paired-up into couples.

The End

Stuart: And then…

Elliott: A satellite floats through space. And Emma Thompson reads us a super pretentious Carl Sagan quote about how important it is to remember that we're all together on this dust mote of a speck of a planet, floating in the infinity of the universe. So let's take care of it, shall we, and take care of each other?

And that's it. That's the end.

Stuart: So, what I think what Carl Sagan was thinking was: "Why don't you make a podcast about this movie?"

Elliott: I wish the movie had ended with aliens just blasting that satellite and never listening to the record on it.

Stuart: Yep. A fucking Void Whale, swallowing it up whole.

[laughter]

Elliott: It goes right into the mouth of the asteroid worm from Empire Strikes Back.

Stuart: It's like: "Finally! I've been so hungwee!"

Elliott: Then it gets devoured by a bunch of mynocks.

Dan: Then those aliens hover above the Earth, and the words: "To be continued?" come onscreen.

Elliott: …in Men, Women & Children II: Men, Women & Children Versus the Aliens.

Final Judgments @45:00

Dan: Let's just move on to final judgments—whether this is a good-bad movie, a bad-bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked.

I will say that for the first 15 to 20 minutes of this movie, I thought this is maybe my least favorite movie we've ever watched. Because it was so, so overbearing about all the Internet stuff. It was just an article in movie form, and the article was a hysterical article about how the Internet is ruining everything, rather than taking the Internet as maybe a symptom of pre-existing problems.

The Internet is a tool. The Internet is not, in and of itself, bad. The Internet can be used for bad and it can be used for good. In all of the bad things it was shown being used for, there's a good side. Like Stuart pointed out, the anorexia thing where people were encouraging the girl to be anorexic, it could have just as easily been a support group for anorexics who were like: "No, you can't do this, you've got to do something else."

Stuart: Yeah. As much as the Internet can alienate people, it also can bring people together.

Elliott: Maybe we take it a little bit personally because we do an Internet-based podcast that has a following on the Internet and we've seen a lot of people become friends and kind of get through tough times by reaching out to each other.

Stuart: I've made friends, with people like Elliott Kalan and Dan McCoy.

Dan: Over the Internet. We're not actually sitting in the same room together.

Elliott: Nope, we've never met in person.

Dan: We're in the Matrix right now.

Elliott: We're all in the Matrix all the time, which is why this steak tastes so good.

Stuart: I'm pulling up a bunch of shelves with super cool weapons on them. I'll take two katanas, please.

Elliott: Katanas aren't going to really help you in a gunfight.

Stuart: They're going to look cool, though. I'm going to chop bullets in half.

Elliott: Speaking of someone who met his wife on the Internet, but by the second half of the movie it's all about bad parenting. You thought this was about the Internet? No, no, no, no, no. It's about bad parenting.

Stuart: I hated the movie slightly less when that happened.

Stuart: Because stuff started happening!

Elliott: I wish that The Stuff had started happening.

Stuart: That would have been great.

Dan: By the time stuff started happening, I was like: "okay, well, there are good actors doing this, and it's shot glossily, so at least it's not super boring, but the movie's bad. It's a bad-bad movie.

Elliott: It is super boring, though. There were two times when we checked how much movie was left. And both times I thought that we had like 10 minutes left, and then it turned out once we were not even halfway through the film. And the second time we still had 30 minutes left.

Stuart: The first half hour of the movie was more preachy and insufferable than God's Not Dead, a movie that is all preachy. This movie felt like…imagine you're a kid—

Elliott: In a candy store…

Stuart: —and you have dinner. Your parents are like: "Well, if you eat your vegetables, you'll get your dessert." You're like, okay. You start eating vegetables. They're like: "Hmm, here's some more vegetables, kid!" You keep eating vegetables and it actually turns out those vegetables are filled with poison, because they're wrong. Does this metaphor make sense?

Elliott: [laughs] Not exactly. I thought you were going to say there was no dessert at the end.

Stuart: There's no dessert at all.

Dan: Bad-bad is what you're saying.

Stuart: Yeah.

Dan: All right.

Stuart: I mean, good-great.

Elliott: I'm going to say Best Picture.

Dan: Okay. That sounds great.

[music]

Promo: Sawbones

Justin McElroy: Hi everybody, I'm Justin McElroy.

Sydnee McElroy: And I'm Dr. Sydnee McElroy.

Justin: Every Tuesday we bring you Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine—a show about all the dumb, weird, terrible ways we have tried to fix each other over the years. Some light summer listening.

Sydnee: Maybe you want to hear about yogurt enemas, or why we tried to eat mummies for a while, or why drinking cholera diarrhea sounded like a good idea.

Justin: That and so much more is waiting for you every Tuesday, right here on the Maximum Fun network with Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine.

[music]

Plugs

Dan: Before we move on to letters, first off…

Elliott: Firstoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds.

[laughter]

Stuart: Not a great interview, that guy.

Elliott: It's too bad, because he seems so delightful.

Stuart: He's a great character actor.

Dan: There are a lot of plugs, actually.

Elliott: They look real. When did you start losing your hair?

Dan: I've never had hair. I was bald as a baby, and it's all been plugs since then.

Elliott: I mean, most people are bald as babies. Did you just not wait for the hair to grow in?

Stuart: Elliott, have you ever seen the movie Powder?

Elliott: Good point.

[laughter]

Dan: No, there are some plugs I want to try to get in here. First off, a bunch of plugs for friends of the show, and then lastly a plug for us. So that's a teaser.

Elliott: [sung to the tune of "Somewhere" from West Side Story] There's a plug for us! Somewhere a plug for us! And that somewhere? At the end of these other plugs.

Stuart: They're going to be chomping at the bit.

Dan: Champing.

Stuart: They're going to be chomping at the bit, so let's get through these other plugs first.

Elliott: Is this a bit? Let's just keep going, because I'm not chomping on it.

Dan: First off—

Elliott: Firstoph Waltz.

Dan: I could see you resisting it the first time I said it.

Elliott: No, I resisted the second time. The first time, I said it. The second time, I wanted to. The third time, I came back to it.

Dan: I've been meaning to make this plug for a long time, and I just keep forgetting. My brother John—

Elliott: It's the 2012 Olympics! They're in China, everybody!

[laughter]

Finally, China's time on the world stage!

Dan: It's Charles Dickens' new…new…what the fuck…?

Elliott: What, novel?

Dan: Yeah, but I was like—

Elliott: Serial?

Dan: Serial!

Elliott: It's called Dickens-O's.

Stuart: The world's fair in Chicago, everybody! The white city!

Elliott: It's the Columbian Exposition! Hell, they have some kind of Ferrising wheel? I don't even know, go see it. There's a devil there?

Stuart: Sure.

Sophomore Lit @51:10

Dan: So, the first plug. I've been meaning to say this for a while. My brother John has a podcast called Sophomore Lit. I wanted to plug it.

The premise is, he looks at books that are typically assigned in high school English classes. And he revisits them as an adult to talk about whether they hold up, why you think that there have been books that are assigned to generation after generation of high school kids.

I was on an episode talking about Lord of the Flies. There have been episodes about Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace…

Stuart: When you guys were talking about Lord of the Flies, did you guys break it down? Like, what clique were you in?

Dan: We broke it down.

Stuart: Were you a Piggy? Were you a Ralph?

Dan: No, I talked about how I was very sympathetic to Piggy.

Elliott: Of course, everybody's sympathetic to Piggy!

Dan: Yeah.

Stuart: Who were the bad guys?

Elliott: The Gremlins.

Stuart: I was a gremlin. Bedeviling a Piggy.

[laughter]

Dan: That's a podcast I've been meaning to tell people to check out. Like many podcasts, to some degree it leans a lot on who the guest is. There are some that are very good because of the guest, but all of them I think are good, because my brother is a good host.

So that's Sophomore Lit.

The Loose Canon Podcast @52:30

I also wanted to do a shout-out to friend of the show Caroline Fulford's podcast The Loose Canon Podcast. That's C-A-N-O-N podcast. It's a movie podcast from more of a feminist perspective. So you should check that out.

Stuart: Have you been a guest on that yet?

Dan: I have not.

Stuart: Okay.

Dolores Claiborne Minute Live! @53:00

Dan: I also wanted to do a plug for our friend Rommel Wood, who is doing a live show on Monday the 16th at 7:30 at Videology. That's free, and Monday the 16th…

[crosstalk]

Stuart: That's the Monday after this episode airs.

Elliott: Monday after this episode airs. Cutting it close.

Dan: She's doing the Dolores Claiborne Minute Live! with Rommel Wood of Radio Free Brooklyn's Ear Hammer featuring Bonnie & Maude film podcast hosts Eleanor Kagan and Kseniya Yarosh. As well as Alamo Drafthouse programmer Crostini—Cristina…

Elliott: No, crostini: a small piece of bread.

Stuart: [Italian accent] "Crostini."

[laughter]

Dan: Yeah, it's a piece of bread with basil and tomato and olive oil on it.

Elliott: Great film program, and delicious.

Dan: It's delicious. Cristina Cacioppo—that's how you say her last name, right?

Elliott: Close enough.

Stuart: I'm glad you did that.

Dan: This is a thing that started out as a joke on recap culture, the idea that you do a recap of television shows, and she's like: "You know what I'll do a recap of? I'll do a recap of a minute of the movie Dolores Claiborne."

Elliott: Telling you what happened in that minute.

Dan: It's become more of something, it's become more.

Elliott: Jay Mohr.

Stuart: That's going to be at Videology. All the hosts are great friends of ours and people we respect. Check them out.

Elliott: Great people. It's going to be a good show, I hope to make it.

The Flop House Live! @54:25

Dan: But lastly, let's move on to our plug. Which is: The Flop House Live! It's happening again, at the Bell House in beautiful Gowanus, Brooklyn.

Elliott: Beautiful is an overstatement.

Stuart: Literally walking distance from my apartment.

Elliott: And mine, but slightly farther walking distance. Dan will probably take a car.

The Bell House, we did our last live show there. We haven't done a live show in like a year. This will be our first live show since we sold out the place for Podfest, so we're hoping to sell it out again.

Dan: Hoping to re-sell out. The Who Sell Out Again, let's say.

Stuart: Buy a ticket for yourself, buy a ticket for all your friends.

Elliott: Not just one ticket for all your friends.

Stuart: Buy a ticket for my parents, so they'll actually come and see me for a change.

Elliott: Maybe buy a ticket for Santa…

Stuart: Santa. Okay.

Dan: Buy a ticket for Elijah, he's not going to show up, but that's his thing. No, it's on January the 15th.

Elliott: 2016.

Stuart: Wow, next year.

Dan: The show is at 9:00 PM, the doors open at 8:30.

Stuart: That sounds like a great Christmas gift, or holiday gift. Tickets to our show.

Dan: I guess.

Elliott: Whatever holiday you celebrate, you want to buy someone a Diwali gift, go ahead and do it.

Dan: It's $12, it's at the Bell House, 149 7th Street, in Brooklyn. We haven't decided what movie we will be discussing yet.

Elliott: It's going to be a big dumb one.

Dan: Yeah, rest assured we will come up with something great.

Elliott: We've been batting around some ideas, and I think people are going to be really interested when we tear down Fury Road. What a stinker!

[laughter]

Dan: Those are our plugs. I want to also say…

Elliott: This has been Plug Talk.

Dan: Jeez, what?

Elliott: No, no…it's good. It's great. Anyway.

Dan: Oh, God. I notice you checking your Apple Watch…very bored during that.

Elliott: I just wanted to show off that I have one.

Stuart: It's really cool. It's like a secret agent from the '50s.

Elliott: [laughs] Who went to the future and got an Apple Watch.

Thank Yous @56:35

Dan: Before we move on to letters, I just want to thank people for sending us a few things.

30 DVDs @56:40

I want to thank Keith Phipps. You may know Keith Phipps from, of course, The Dissolve…

Stuart: I thought it was Keith Last-name-withheld.

Dan: …and The Onion Las—The Onion A.V. Club. [to himself] The Onion Last-name-withheld…

Elliott: They call him Mr. Phipps.

Stuart: [laughs] Sure.

Elliott: No, wait. They call him Mr. Pibb.

Dan: [laughs] Thank you very much. I'll read a letter that he sent to us with something like 30 DVDs that he sent.

Elliott: A lot of DVDs. A lot of shlock.

Dan: "Dear Flop friends: as you know, I used to have an office, and in that office I could pile up so much crap, mounds and mounds of wonderful crap. I no longer have that office, and though I now have a home office with a towering set of shelves, I still have to be selective about the physical media I keep, which brings us to the contents of this box.

"In my ideal world, I'd have room to store these movies and time to watch them. In this world, I have neither, but I can't bear the thought of just selling them off or giving them away to strangers. I thought they might find a good home with you. The enclosed films include everything from boobs and butts to eviscerations and eyeball gouging, making an educated guess on those last two.

"May I recommend Sugar Hill, which I have seen? It's a blaxploitation zombie movie filmed in Houston. I like it in part because it's the rare revenge movie with the message that revenge is awesome. Please enjoy it as a small token of my appreciation for your continued excellence in Flopdom.

"Your pal, Keith Phipps."

Elliott: Thanks, Keith.

Dan: Thanks, Keith.

Stuart: Thanks for taking a box full of your crap and sending it to Brooklyn, a place where we have a ton of space for crap.

Elliott: [laughs] Known for its spacious living spaces.

Dan: I don't know why you have to be so sarcastic about literally the most generous gift…

Stuart: No, it's a super-great gift, I love it.

Dan: Wow.

Elliott: [laughs] You should have seen how far back Stuart's eyes rolled.

Stuart: Yup, they rolled all the way back, like a slot machine.

Elliott: And they said: bar, bar, fruit. So we didn't win.

Stuart: I have three eyes now, I guess.

[laughter]

Stuart: I've been spending a lot of time with my yogi.

Dan: That's the old third eye.

Stuart: Yogi Bear, yeah.

Dan: He's teaching you about picnic baskets.

Stuart: "This one's called the Stolen Pic-a-nic Basket."

Sonic Earthquake @58:45

[crashing noise]

Stuart: I'm getting really excited, I'm sorry.

Elliott: Wow.

Dan: Jesus Christ!

Elliott: Settle down, Stuart!

Stuart: I'm trying to cross my legs.

Dan: I apologize to the listener who, I assume, that sounded like an earthquake.

Elliott: Stuart crossed his legs and bumped the table, and his microphone jumped back in fear.

Stuart: Okay.

Dan's Cat Photo @59:00

Dan: I also want to thank listener Michael Seery—

Elliott: Michael Cera.

Dan: —for sending me a lovely photo of myself and my, now sadly deceased, cat Lulu which hangs in my home. Thank you for sending me a package that I opened up and made me cry almost immediately. [laughs]

Elliott: I would say that there's few things creepier than getting a package, opening it up, and finding a photograph of yourself.

[laughter]

Elliott: "Oh, ah, ah!"

Dan: It was pretty obvious that I was sort of incidental to that, that the cat was the main feature.

Elliott: So he's stalking your cat.

Dan: It was very nice, and also very sad-making.

Stuart: Sad-making.

Elliott: My wife's and my sad-making has gone down in recent years. I found that when you have a kid you're not sad as much.

Stuart: You're spending too time playing Words with Friends.

Elliott: As in the movie, yeah. We're sitting next to each other playing Words with Friends together on iPads.

Stuart: …instead of making sad.

[laughter]

Elliott: Instead of making sad. Or Breaking Sad, with Dean Norris.

Stuart: Wow.

Dan: Thank you to everyone, and now we move on to letters from listeners.

Letters from Listeners

Mailbag Song @1:00:10

Elliott: [singing] Ba da, bup bup ba! Letters!

Let's keep it moving.

[laughter]

Dan: All right.

Stuart: Elliott's got a hot date to get home to.

Elliott: Yeah, it's called: sleep before my son wakes me up.

Stuart: It's called DraftKings.

[laughter]

Elliott: You can't do that in our state anymore.

"Cagemas Creep Has Begun" @1:00:25

Dan: So this goes: "Hi, my favorite Original Peaches. It's November, so you know what that means. Cagemas Creep has begun. You can already see the decorative ornaments…"

Elliott: Shocktober just ended and it's Cagemas already.

Dan: "…and traditional Cagemas piñatas lining the halls of your local superstore. My question to you is this: what are your favorite Cagemas carols? "I'm a big fan of 'R-O-C-K in the U.S.A. Around the Cagemas Tree,' as well as 'God Rest Ye Merry Ghostwriters.' And I can't help but cry when I hear 'Sto-olen Night.'

"I'm really surprised, I expected a novelty holiday album from Elliott, if not the whole Flop gang.

"P.S. If you would be so kind, please plug my own podcast in your show…"

[irritated tone] All right…

"It's called …"

Elliott: Dan, you choose to read these letters, you didn't have to read this one.

Stuart: You can stop anytime you want.

Dan: "It's called Goobermensch. It tracks my friend Dylan Last-name-withheld and my travel on the road to self-improvement, and all the comedic tangents we have along the way. We do weekly…

Elliott: Uh, we kind of copyrighted tangents.

Dan: "…listener-submitted challenges, and discuss our myriad problems. Thanks. That's Goobermensch. Keep on flopping in the free world. Nathan Last-name-withheld."

Elliott: I assume his last name is "For You."

Stuart: Thanks, Nate Dogg.

Dan: It does seem like Cagemas comes earlier every year.

Elliott: Yeah. We had Cagemas in July, even.

Stuart: I was in a Duane Reade the other day to buy Turkey Day stuff and instead it's Nicolas Cage this, Nicolas Cage that. I just want to buy an iTunes gift card to give my mom for Turkey Day.

[laughter]

Elliott: You give gifts on Thanksgiving?

Stuart: Yeah, you sneak it into the turkey butt.

Elliott: [laughs] That's so…

Stuart: Then you cut open the turkey and the gifts shoot out.

Dan: I've always been a…

Elliott: Wouldn't they be all cooked and burnt?

Stuart: Not if you get a good, high-quality plastic one from Duane Reade. Are you crazy?

[laughter]

Dan: I've always been…

Stuart: That's why they call it stuffing.

Elliott: That doesn't make sense!

Stuart: [leaving the room] I'll be back.

[laughter]

Dan: I was…you know what? Whatever. I was going to play into this premise of Cagemas carols, but I don't think it's worth it, I think that was a better…

Elliott: No, that was much better. So nice try, Nathan.

Dan: Nathan for You.

Elliott: Nathan not for us, this time. Does seem like a nice guy, though.

"What's Your Secret, Stuart?" @1:02:50

Dan: This next letter goes like this: "Howdy, dudes. I've realized that all but one of the Original Peaches has admitted to a sordid affair with everyone's beloved Anne Hathaway. Elliott: we all know that back in high school, you two were star-crust lovers. Hollywood—

Stuart: Star-crusted lovers.

[laughter]

Elliott: Star-crust…

Star-Crust Pizza @1:03:00

Dan: Oh man, you got to pay extra for that.

Elliott: Our crusts were filled with stars, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey Dave Bowman cut open the crust on his pizza and said: "My God, it's full of stars." "Yeah, because it's new Pizza House star-crust pizza!"

Stuart: Those monkeys are like: "Get the obelisk, it's Domino's."

Elliott: He throws the bone in the air, and then it turns into dough that's been thrown up by an Italian pizza maker, but he threw it up in zero gravity on a spaceship, so it never comes down. That's why you can't have pizza in space.

Dan: "—you two were star-crossed lovers…

Stuart: "Are you seeing this, Dave?"

Dan: "Hollywood starlet meets whiny dork. It was the romance of the ages. Dan, as we all know, after Elliott and Anne entered their once-secret affair, Anne Hathaway went on to marry none other than William Shakespeare.

Elliott: Let me check the records. Yep, that bears out.

Dan: "('That is almost technically factually correct,' Dan notes in an aside.) Because of all this we all know that Anne's butt holds a special place in Dan's heart.

[laughter]

Dan: "But, Stu…

Stuart: Yep?

Dan: "What are you hiding? Where do you play in Anne Hathaway's life? Have you been the weird perv who's been pulling the strings of Hollywood to make Miss Hathaway have a cute makeover in every single movie? The Princess Diaries, Devil Wears Prada, Dark Knight Rises, Les Misérables.

Elliott: Brokeback Mountain…

Dan: "What's your secret, Stuart? Jude last-name-not-withheld Jackson."

Stuart: Well, let's see…wow, I didn't realize—

[crosstalk]

Elliott: [inaudible 1:04:59] Jackson.

Dan: That's Camber Japson.

[laughter]

Stuart: Japson indeed.

Elliott: I remember his dad, Action Japson.

[laughter]

Elliott: Of course descended from the American President Andrew Japson.

Stuart: Yep. And football star Bo Japson.

Elliott: Hey, he knew two sports.

Stuart: Mhm, he does know Diddly.

[laughter]

Stuart: Let's see. What is my deal with old Annie Haths? Well, you can probably see me in the backs of scenes that she's in, like…

Dan and Elliott: The backs of scenes?

[laughter]

Stuart: In the rear of the scene, like…

Dan: What, in the butt of the scene?

Stuart: Whoa, dude, I was just talking about the rear…in the back ground. I was a back ground artist.

Elliott: "Back ground." [laughs] I've never heard it said like two words before. It makes me realize how weird that saying is. "Back ground."

Dan: Whenever Stu is delighted and he claps at something, he claps like he's one of those monkeys with the cymbals.

Elliott: Chattering his teeth away.

Dan: Yeah.

Elliott: Bringing bad luck to kids.

Stuart: I was a background artist in movies like The Dark Knight Risin', Brokeback Mountain, Havoc, Princess Diaries…

Dan: These are all names of Anne Hathaway movies.

Stuart: I was in the background of some of those scenes. Like when you see the gang members hanging out, I was one of those gang members in the movie Havoc. In the movie Dark Knight Rising when there's those gang members in the background, I was one of those gang members. In The Princess Diaries where she goes up and scolds those gang members, I was one of the supporting gang members.

Elliott: Yeah, and in Les Mis you were a gang member.

Stuart: Oh, of course I was.

Dan: In Les Mis you wore a beautiful pixie haircut.

Stuart: I was one of the Miserables.

[laughter]

Dan: Thanks for…

Stuart: I hope that clarified things. If not, hit me up on my cell, dawg.

[laughter]

Dan: And you'll be like: "New phone, who dis?"

[laughter]

Stuart: Dude, don't spoil it! God!

"Superboy Punches Reality?" @1:06:55

Dan: This next letter says: "Hey, Genius Sex Machine Dan: You guys have made repeated reference to a comic book storyline where Superboy flies to the edge of the universe and punches reality. Wait, what? Come on. Riley Last-name-withheld."

Elliott: Yeah. It was in Infinite Crisis. That was DC's big reboot crossover from a couple years ago.

Stuart: Was Lobo in that one, or is that 52?

Elliott: Of course, Lobo was in it.

Stuart: Or was that 54? Car 54: Where Are You?

Elliott: Wait, so Car 54: Where Are You? and Studio 54, were they related in any way?

Stuart: They're like the same timeframe. right, Dan?

[laughter]

Elliott: Not at all.

Dan: Car 54 is a little earlier than Studio 54.

Elliott: It couldn't have been that early, they had to have invented cars.

Dan: That's true.

Elliott: It was like the 1830s.

Stuart: It's not like a bunch of monkeys with a bone around an obelisk.

Elliott: From a geological point of view, Car 54 is still on the air.

Dan: I hope that answers your question about DC Comics.

Elliott: Anyway, it was Infinite Crisis.

Dan: Last letter of the evening. "Hey, Peaches… "

Elliott: Yeah, that was Infinite Crisis, right?

Dan: I don't know.

Stuart: Don't look at me.

Dan: It was how they solved all of their…

Elliott: They did a bunch of reboots.

Stuart: Was Booster Gold in that one?

Elliott: They were all in it. Every character.

Stuart: The question…

Elliott: I think even Prez was in it.

Dan: It was just a way of…

Elliott: Even Brother Power, the Geek was in it.

Dan: They wanted to clean up their universe and it was a way of explaining it. They were like: "I don't know, fucking Superboy punches a thing."

Stuart: Matter-Eating Lad eats the whole shit. Who cares?

Dan: Comic books.

Elliott: Pouncing Boy pounced too hard, I guess.

Stuart: Plastic Man and Baby Plas just, I don't know…just hit the rewind button.

Elliott: I think Baby Plas was only in the cartoons. There are times where I'll remember the Plastic Man cartoon show from when were kids, and I'll be like: "Did that show really exist?"

Stuart: My wife has never read a comic book, but for some reason she watched the Plastic Man cartoon show, so anytime there's a stretchy character…Like we'll see the ad for The Fantastic Four movie, she's like: "Is he like Plastic Man or Baby Plas?"

[laughter]

Elliott: She thinks Baby Plas is the second biggest character in superheroes.

Stuart: I think she's fucking with me. Like every time we see a Boba Fett around, she's like: "He's a robot, right?"

Elliott: You're like: "He's clearly not. He's wearing khaki pants."

Stuart: Yeah, robots can't wear khaki pants!

[laughter]

Stuart: That's insane!

Elliott: When was the last time you saw a robot in khaki pants?

Dan: Robots like to party.

Elliott: Come on.

Stuart: They wear blue jeans.

Elliott: They're wearing denims.

"The Wellington Collection" @1:09:35

Dan: This last letter of the evening, goes like this. "Hey Peaches…"

Elliott: This may be the goofiest letters segment ever.

Dan: "Invisible Maniac, Castle Freak, and Head of the Family—

Elliott: Three great tastes.

Stuart: …walk into a bar.

[laughter]

Elliott: The bartender's like: "But you're movies."

Stuart: "But I'm not The Granny."

[laughter]

Elliott: It's a bar for horror movie people?

Stuart: I guess a bar of actual DVD discs.

Elliott: They went to a bar called "Pinhead's Place."

Stuart: Sure. Okay, okay. That was silly. Dan, go on.

Dan: "Those three movies, soon to be released by Criterion as The Wellington Collection, are well-established in the Flop House canon as Stuart's favorite films.

"What are Dan and Elliott's equivalent to the Wellington Collection, though? For you two, which three films would you pick out as, not necessarily the best films of all time, but rather the films that are most characteristic of your taste? Stuart, since your three picks are already established, feel free to just sit quietly in smug justice of your friends' tastes.

"Looking forward to your answers. First-name-withheld, last-name-withheld, middle name Danger."

Stuart: I can chime in, though, because one of Dan's is Stop Making Sense.

Elliott: Stop Making Sense, Cheeky…what's your third one, Dan?

Dan: There's actually a difference between…

Stuart: Emmanuelle Goes to College. Boom.

Elliott: Emmanuelle Goes to College! [laughs] "Woman with weird sensuality-based superpowers, it turns out you didn't finish your degree. We need you to come back."

Dan: See, there's a difference between the movies that would be most emblematic of my tastes and the movies that would be equivalent to the Wellington Collection. Because if we're talking about the former…yeah, maybe Stop Making Sense and, I don't know, The Third Man and His Girl Friday. Put those together, or something like that. Maybe toss in some Marx Brothers.

Elliott: Sure, toss in a couple of them. Make sure one of them is not Zeppo though.

Dan: Yeah, not Zeppo.

Elliott: Gummo.

Dan: Gummo is in there just as a fabric softener.

Elliott: Because nothing sounds more like a fabric softener than gum. Dan, remind me to never let you do my laundry.

Dan: But if we're doing an equivalent to Stuart's Wellington Collection, mine might be Return of the Living Dead which I've mentioned almost as much as Stuart has mentioned his movies.

Stuart: You've recommended Stop Making Sense at least twice.

Dan: We're talking about different…

Elliott: This is about crap though.

Stuart: What have you seen on a plane?

Elliott: Not crap.

Dan: You're making me forget…

Stuart: I'm messing up your train of thought.

Dan: You're messing up my flow.

Stuart: Do you want Elliott to do his flow, a little bit?

Elliott: You just threw a mind penny onto his train of thought's tracks. You're asking my favorite movies, they're different.

That would be The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, the original, Shadow of a Doubt, and either A Night at the Opera or The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

Dan: The equivalent of the Wellington collection…I've got it, I remember. It was Return of the Living Dead, Big Trouble in Little China, and, maybe, The Monster Squad.

Elliott: Don't get me wrong, Stuart. There are too many movies where I think of where I'm like: "That would be like that," except I have more respect for that movie than I think you do for Invisible Maniac.

Stuart: I think you're insane.

Dan: I think even Gremlins 2: The New Batch…

Elliott: Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a genuinely brilliant movie that I love. I wouldn't ever recommend that as a joke. Even Return of the Living Dead I think is great.

Stuart: I think you guys are suggesting I'm recommending these movies as a joke, and I think you're stupid.

[laughter]

Elliott: I think you're recommending them for real, but you're not like: "These are the best movies." Or I don't know, maybe you are.

Teen Wolf @1:13:25

I want to say a movie like Teen Wolf, which I think is totally dumb, but as a kid I watched it over and over again.

Dan: Teen Wolf is a good pick.

Elliott: But I can't think of two other ones.

Dan: I don't know. A movie about a teenage wolf is so amazing that it probably counts as three movies.

Elliott: Who surfs on a van, let's not forget that.

Stuart: We're in Teen Wolf. I'm not one of the characters. Maybe I'm Boof. Who gives a shit?

Who's Stiles? @1:13:45

Elliott: You're clearly Stiles.

Stuart: One of you guys is Stiles, and one of you guys is Teen Wolf. I can't be Stiles. Who's going to be which? I think Dan would be Teen Wolf. I think you'd be Stiles, Elliott.

Elliott: I could see it going either way.

Dan: Wait, Elliott is Stiles?

Stuart: You want to be Stiles?

Elliott: Stiles: one, never has sex; two, is not a werewolf.

Dan: That's true.

Elliott: You want to be the Teen Wolf. But I could see it going either way. Because both me and Michael J. Fox have no business being on a basketball team, since we're both about three foot six.

Stuart: I think we should go rent a van. One of you guys has good credit, right?

Elliott: There's only one way to test it.

Stuart: Let's rent a van, and you guys both have to surf on top of it.

Elliott: Then, we both have to walk around with a shirt on that says: "what are you looking at, dicknose". See who wears it better.

Stuart: I'll interview people in the street as to who looked more comfortable in both roles.

Dan: We'll put it in Us Weekly.

Stuart: Both of us, weekly?

Elliott: We have to go into a liquor store and try to con them into selling us a keg of beer. We'll see who's successful, who's not successful.

Stuart: These are pretty clear criteria.

Elliott: It's pretty easy to decide who's a Stiles and who's a…

Stuart: Let's wrap this podcast up so we can do this.

Elliott: Which one of us is a total geek loser who, when he enters a party situation, becomes the king ringmaster that everybody listens to? Because that's Stiles.

Which one of us is a quiet guy who becomes a werewolf who's in a Civil War play? That's the Teen Wolf.

Dan: Yeah, it's a tough one. I feel like they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Elliott: [laughs] That's why it's such a great movie.

Stuart: One of them is not clearly better. That's why it's a challenging question.

Elliott: It's hard to pick. I mean the same thing…

Stuart: I feel like in an all-male relationship, the person has to ask himself: "In this relationship, am I the Teen Wolf or Stiles?" You have to hold up that mirror, that wolf-colored mirror.

Elliott: Or Stiles-colored mirror.

Stuart: Who knows?

Elliott: Maybe you're just his dad who's kind of like…

Dan: This got super philosophical.

Stuart: I'm going to be the dad in this case.

Elliott: …in understanding wolves. You'll be the dad? Who's kind of like…

Stuart: I'm like an older proud wolf.

Elliott: [laughs] He's like the poor man's version of the dad from Gremlins.

Stuart: I'd be more like the Coors Light Beer Wolf probably. But—

Dan: Who's Francis from Pee-wee's Big Adventure?

Stuart: Oh, that's a good question.

Elliott: Because he's kind of a non-entity in the movie. He's in it, but he's certainly not a Francis-type character.

Stuart: We don't have that many characters on our podcast.

Dan: All right.

Stuart: Maybe Zhubin?

Basketball Werewolf News

Elliott: Here's the question I have about Teen Wolf, and it's something I've wondered before, maybe on the podcast.

Dan: "Why does being a wolf make you better at basketball?"

Elliott: That's clearly…it's easy: his jumping ability. He's got mad ups.

Stuart: Jumping ability, and he can smell the ball. [laughs]

Elliott: [laughs] Yeah, he's using all of his senses. He can hear the dribbling. But here's the thing. You would think that they're playing teams from other schools. You would think word would eventually get out to the media that there is a werewolf on the team.

Stuart: We've talked about this a zillion times.

Elliott: Somebody would…

Stuart: Yeah, yeah. The school fucking paper comes up like: What Are The Ethics of Using A Werewolf in Basketball?

Elliott: Pro and con.

[laughter]

Dan: I'm just imagining: the local news just treats it like a color story. "A local high school has a bit of a different sort of player."

Elliott: "They thought they were in a hairy situation."

Stuart: I was going to make a hairy situation pun!

Elliott: "But now they're howling all the way to the state championships."

[laughter]

Elliott: I'm just saying.

Jughead

Stuart: "Local school has a player that wolfs down cheeseburgers."

Dan: His name is Jughead.

Elliott: And he's not a player.

[laughter]

Elliott: He's just a guy with an inside-out hat that looks like crown.

[crosstalk]

Elliott: He's just a guy who has the same face, but different hair, as one of the teachers, Miss Grundy.

Dan: Also, looks exactly like his own girlfriend.

[laughter]

Elliott: He's just a guy who owns a dog with a time-traveling doghouse. Look it up—it happened.

[laughter]

Elliott: He's just a guy who thinks girls are gross but burgers are great. Film at 11.

Why are you bringing us film of teenagers eating? We're not going to run this. Why did you cut a promo for it already?

[laughter]

Stuart: So did he earn that crown? Was it given to him?

Elliott: It's just a hat turned inside out.

Stuart: Wait a minute. What?

Elliott: Like Leo Gorcey used to wear in the Bowery Boys movies.

Monster Basketball

You'd just think—The teams are always surprised they're playing a wolf. You'd think one of the coaches would tip off another coach: "Hey, one thing you should know. There's a wolf on their team. So, I don't know, like put silver on the ball so he can't touch it."

Stuart: [laughs] "Cover it in that popular wolfsbane energy drink."

Elliott: "I'm just saying like if they throw the ball to him, somebody should just beat him to death with a silver-headed cane. That's the only way you're going to win this game."

Or what if the other team started importing other monsters so a school shows up with a dracula on their team? [laughs]

Stuart: That would have been fucking great, dude! "We got a mummy. He's slow as shit, but he's super tough."

[crosstalk]

Elliott: [laughs] "He's super tall!"

Dan: Frankenstein's monster is super tall.

Elliott: He's not super coordinated. But that's the thing, he's just on defense.

Dan: Yeah.

Stuart: Mm-hmm.

Elliott: Dracula can turn into a mist. You think that won't help him dunk?

Stuart: Creature from the Black Lagoon can lick up everybody's sweat or something.

Elliott: [laughs]

Dan: You don't know.

Elliott: I don't think you understand what that monster does. [laughs]

Dan: [laughs] I mean The Invisible Man would be very useful.

Elliott: He'd be fantastic, but you'd never know if he was traveling or not.

Dan: Yeah, you wouldn't know whether he was open. You wouldn't know anything.

Stuart: That's one of his advantages. It's not like the ref is going to call it.

Elliott: That's true.

Stuart: He's just going to be like: "That pass is really slow."

Elliott: [laughs] He was pretending to be the wind moving the ball.

Dan: The referee like rubs his eyes and goes, [makes noise] . And he looks at it and pulls out a flask…

[crosstalk]

Elliott: "Never again!" "You shouldn't have been drinking during the game anyway, Mr. Ref."

Dan: "I'll allow it!" "You can't allow drinking."

Elliott: "Glug, glug, glug." "You're not a judge."

[crosstalk]

[laughter]

Dan: There's a team, has a Godzilla.

Elliott: Godzilla would be amazing! He just gets the ball once, drops it in the net.

Dan: Then roasts everybody with a blast of flame from his mouth.

Elliott: Atomic breath, yeah. Now what monsters would be bad? Clearly, the Metaluna Mutant from This Island Earth because his hands are just kind of like clamps.

Dan: The Blob would not be good. It would absorb the ball.

Elliott: That would be terrible and then no one could get it.

Stuart: Yeah.

Elliott: Those are bad monsters. The Fly: again, not good. He's only got one human hand.

Stuart: He can fly, though.

Dan: Can he fly?

Elliott: Not really.

Dan: He's just got a big fly head.

Elliott: The Jeff Goldblum fly can stick to walls, I guess.

[crosstalk]

Dan: You know deep down he's a Jeff Goldblum down there.

Elliott: [laughs] That's the thing. He's dribbling the ball and he pulls one of his own teeth out and throws it away, you know. Gets attacked by a baboon.

Dan: You can't do that anymore.

Elliott: I think we've figured out that one.

Dan: Thank you for that question that turned into another thing, in such a way that I don't even remember what we were first being asked about.

Elliott: I feel like we could easily do a podcast just about Teen Wolf. Not even like…

Dan: I thought you meant like monsters' various sports abilities.

Elliott: That too. We haven't even gotten into baseball yet.

Dan: Thanks for everyone who wrote in. Again, thanks for everyone who sent us things. Remember those plugs. Those were fun, too.

Elliott: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Why not?

Elliott: Are we done?

Dan: No, we got to do our last thing.

Stuart: We got to recommend stuff.

Recommendations

Dan: Recommend movies that we saw that we actually liked. I'll go first and I'll try to make it fast.

Spectre @1:20:55

I saw a movie that was not a little movie. It was a big blockbuster movie, and I saw it yesterday. And it was called Spectre. It was the most recent…

Elliott: Oh, the movie about Spectre, the DC character.

Dan: That's right.

Stuart: He's a ghost police detective or something, right?

Elliott: He's a ghost cop, yeah.

Dan: Most recent James Bond movie. Probably the last Daniel Craig movie unless…

Elliott: Is he dead?

Dan: They back up…

Stuart: "'Ello, 'ello. It's me, I'm dead Daniel Craig!"

Elliott: Did Daniel Craig retire from filmmaking? Why is he not making more movies?

Dan: He doesn't want to make more James Bond movies.

Elliott: Oh, the last Daniel Craig James Bond movie.

Dan: That's right.

Elliott: Looks like someone needs to be clear with his language. Dan, I have an essay for you. It's called "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell.

Dan: I might have been in the process of getting to that when I was being interrupted, but I don't know.

[laughter]

Dan: Here's the thing. I feel like Skyfall was a little overrated and then this movie is…

Stuart: Whoa, hot take.

Elliott: Great song though. You mean you didn't love him turning out to be Batman?

Dan: Yeah, I feel like that…

Elliott: Batman in a kind of Home Alone-type scenario?

[laughter]

Stuart: That's a really good selling point of that movie.

Dan: That movie started out well and then got a weird mix of super-dour and super-goofy.

Elliott: Up to the moment he calls in the radio to come get Javier Bardem on Smuggler's Island, it's a great movie. And everything after that point descends over time.

Dan: And Spectre has a little bit of that problem too. At the very end of the movie it gets super-goofy and there's…

Elliott: It turns into one of those old '60s comedies where everybody's chasing each other on little buggies? [laughs]

Dan: That's right, it turns into the original version of Casino Royale. David Niven and Woody Allen come out…

Elliott: Woody Allen's just hiccupping all over the place.

Dan: It has the problem that a lot of modern action movies do, where they think everything has to get super-personal. There has to be a super-personal reason behind everything to a ridiculous degree. I won't get into spoilers, but suffice it to say, it's stupid.

But I enjoyed Spectre more overall than I enjoyed Skyfall. It balanced the tones of a James Bond movie better than anything since Casino Royale. It was the new version of James Bond, but it was still retro, and silly, and fun.

Stuart: Was it like Moonraker?

Dan: It was not like Moonraker.

Stuart: Oh, that's too bad.

Dan: But it was very exciting, and it had a lot of really great action sequences.

Elliott: It's got the Beluch in it too.

Dan: It's got the Beluch.

[laughter]

Elliott: Monica Bellucci, or "the Beluch" as her fans call her.

Stuart: I thought that was Jim Belushi.

Elliott: That's the Belush. This is the Beluch.

Dan: And it's got maybe the most intense scene of "Let's strap James Bond to a thing and have it slowly attack him" since Goldfinger.

Stuart: That sounds great.

Elliott: That's a long time since.

Dan: I enjoyed it.

Elliott: Is it also crotch-related, like in Goldfinger?

Stuart: As in: shoot off his weenis?

Dan: Let's call it the mental crotch.

Elliott: Okay, I guess the mind is the largest erogenous zone.

Stuart: Yeah, that makes sense.

Dan: So I enjoyed that movie. Spectre.

Elliott: I'm going to recommend two movies, one old, one new.

Grandma @1:24:00

One of them is related to the movie we watched today, kind of, in that it's about parents and teens, and it's a movie that I watched recently, called Grandma starring Lily Tomlin.

Dan: Called Gremlins.

Elliott: Called Gremlins.

Stuart: Called Gramlins.

[laughter]

Elliott: It's about parents who should not dress up as Santa Claus and try to go down the chimney, because they'll get stuck.

Lily Tomlin is an old lady who is still mourning the death of her longtime partner, and her granddaughter shows up one day and needs money for an abortion because she's pregnant, and they go on a picaresque travelogue to get the money for it.

It's a kind of small-scale movie. There's a little bit too much of a touch of the sassy grandma in it, but I found it genuinely funny. By the end it, it was more about characters not making stupid decisions, but instead being like: "You know what?" recognizing their unnecessarily hostile behavior to each other and trying to change, and I like that about it. So I thought it was a good little movie.

The Ipcress File @1:25:00

But this is related to Dan's recommendation, a movie I've been putting off watching for a long time and finally did was the classic spy movie The Ipcress File.

Dan: That's a good one.

Elliott: Which I really enjoyed a lot. It's very clearly the anti-Bond movie, in that it is kind of a dour movie about guy whose life is not very glamorous as a spy. But there's still a lot of really funny parts in it. And it managed to be funny without being silly or non-bleak, which I liked about it.

So: Grandma, if you want to watch a new movie, The Ipcress File, if you want to watch an old movie.

Razorback @1:25:45

Stuart: Okay. And now it's my turn. I'm Stuart. I'm going to recommend a movie from…

Dan: Thanks for rebranding.

[laughter]

Stuart: For anybody just tuning in now, I'm Stuart. I'm going to recommend a movie.

This one is—you guys can correct me if I'm wrong—an ozploitation joint. It's a little movie called Razorback.

Elliott: It's called The Wizard of Oz.

Stuart: Now this movie, Razorback, was sent to me as a Blu-ray Disc from a listener. I'm going to butcher this name. I probably said it before: Cal Scunthorpe.

Dan: It sounds right.

Stuart: It took me a little while to pump it on my old Blu-ray Player because it was a non-American DVD, I think, and I was nervous that it wasn't going to play, but I pumped it in and play it did. And boy, did I enjoy it.

Elliott: And thus ended the quest of the Razorback disc.

Stuart: [laughs] It is about a giant-ass razorback that is tearing shit up in the outback. This old guy starts a quest to try and kill it because this giant razorback comes and takes away his grandson, and then it puts him on trial for doing something to his grandson. He starts his quest for vengeance to kill all razorbacks.

In the middle, there's a couple of goofy, like, wacky, colorful, Australian characters who are both like hunters and also just like general weirdo dickheads. Some Americans come and try and figure their way around Australia, and they realize that it is a wacky place.

I totally recommend Razorback. Watch that. Peace.

Dan: All right. Well thank you, Stuart.

Stuart: I did it.

Dan: Thanks.

Elliott: [laughs] He did it.

Stuart: I did it.

Elliott: You made it happen.

Dan: Thanks.

Stuart: This one we're done.

Max Fun Shout-Outs

We haven't said this much, but I do want to say that, I mean we are…I want to say a shout-out to our network Max Fun. There's a lot of great shows.

Dan: We should do that.

Elliott: Let's do that.

Stop Podcasting Yourself

Stuart: I've been spending a lot of time listening to all the shows on our network lately. I've been checking out Stop Podcasting Yourself with Dave and Gram, a couple of Canadian comedians. There's something about the way Gram laughs. This like crazy wheezing laugh that is so funny and I can't just…like I just want to hear him laugh a lot. [laughs] There's something so endearing about it.

Dan: The most recent episode includes a shout-out, Elliott—to yourself and myself—from Mr. Al Madrigal, who's the guest.

Elliott: That's very nice. I haven't listened to it yet.

Stuart: I probably got a shout-out too, right?

Dan: I mean, it would be hard since he's never met you.

Elliott: And he actively was trying to replace you on our podcast.

Stuart: Yeah. So he didn't say anything, like, nice about me?

Elliott: I mean, he didn't say anything bad about you.

Stuart: I guess nothing bad is the next best thing.

Elliott: Yeah. He's a great guy.

Oscar Wilde

Elliott: It's like Oscar Wilde said: "The only thing worse than not being talked about, is if someone says something bad about you."

Stuart: Oh, he did say that, didn't he? [laughs] I got wallpaper that says that on it.

Dan: Then he said "the wallpaper has to go or I do."

Elliott: Yeah, and then he killed someone. And he put their body in the bed and said: "Oscar Wilde's dead!" and he ran off. Debts were clear.

Stuart: That is a great Oscar Wilde movie.

Dan: And then he said: "Much more sodomy for me! Woo-hoo!"

[laughter]

Elliott: And then he jumped off a cliff, and his parachute opened up, and it was a big image of the Union Jack with someone committing sodomy on it.

Stuart: With an anus in the middle of it.

Elliott: [sung to the tune of the Bond theme] Importance of Being Earnest!

Dan: Oscar Wilde will return in Lots of Balls.

Elliott: Whoa!

Dan: I'm trying to go all Thunderballs. I don't know.

Elliott: Thunderball.

Stuart: Like a single ball?

[laughter]

Dan: One ball.

Elliott: I'm not Cubby Broccoli. I didn't title the movie.

Stuart: The most erotic part of the man's anatomy: the ball.

[laughter]

Elliott: Now, I want you to do a coffee table book based on that.

[laughter]

Stuart: Only in its singular. As a binary it's uninteresting.

Dan: It would be like those Taschen books, like: Testicle.

[laughter]

Elliott: And then, for some reason no one ever buys it, but it's in every Barnes & Noble—on display, no less!

Dan: All right, well…

Elliott: Somebody goes into The Strand and they buy it, but they still always have the sticker stuck to the cover with the discount price on it.

Stuart: I mean, I'd see it every time I'm walking past to go to the mango section…

[laughter]

Dan: Oh, boy. We've got to explain this to you again, Stu. And we also have to go divvy-up some delightful DVDs from Keith Phipps, so we should sign off.

Elliott: Digital video divvies.

Dan: For The Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart: Hey, I'm still Stuart Wellington.

Elliott: And when you listen to this I'll probably still be Elliott Kalan, but call me to check and find out.

Dan: Good night, everyone.

[music]

Stinger

[burping noise]

Stuart: Get it out of your systems now.

Elliott: No, I'm getting it into my systems.

Stuart: [singing] Making some jokes. Making a system of jokes…

Elliott: System of a Jokes of a Down.

Dan: [sung to the tune of the Laverne & Shirley theme] Doin' it joke ways…!

Elliott: [singing] Joke-okes! They're going to make their jokes come true…!

Stuart: The Flop House!

Elliott: Rated R.

Dan: All right.

Stuart: …is praying at…

Elliott: …the church…

Stuart: …of Flop Houses…

Elliott: …of Latter-Day Saints…

[music]

Network ID

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Hal: Best Marvel movie?

Mark: Which is the best religion?

Hal: I told you, we're not doing that one.

Mark: Join us every week on maximumfun.org. And don't worry, everyone. We Got This!

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