Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear

0:00On this episode we discuss Surfer, Teen confronts fear. I don't even know, man. I don't even know. Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. My name is of course Elliott Kalen. How did I get here? Well, they're in Liza tail. For you see, there is trouble in the land, trouble across the land. And so I turned my back on that trouble and said somebody else can solve this. And I blew it up my podcast recorder and I said, hey, dudes, let's make a podcast. Thanks for being here, Elliott. It's nice for you to ignore that trouble for us.

1:02The problem is the trouble starts with T and it rhymes with P and that stands for pool, but there's no P and our pool. Please keep it that way. Right. Yeah. Technically it's an Ool. Yeah, notice there's no P on it. Thank you. I really appreciate that you're ignoring the prophecy that says that you're the chosen one and the only one you can make what's wrong right again. Yeah. So this guy arrived at my house and with a sword and with a sword forged from the body of a demon and he said that only I can safely bond with it and therefore defeat the wizard or whatever. And I was like, I don't know. The fact that this sword isn't here in the evil, maybe you're goodness. Exactly. Exactly. It's a balanced thing. It's a balance of the cosmos like a yin yang. Right. Yeah. And I was like, you surfed. To tell me what my life is going to be. Thank you. That's what I said. I said, excuse me, bearded hermit. Clearly you've got plans. Yeah. Excuse me. Certainly you've seen into the deep heart of the cosmos. You've seen the hidden recesses of the mind of the creator, but I have things to do today.

2:06A bunch of dwarfs showed up. They sang a song and you're like, thank you for washing my dishes, but I'm going to have to turn down your offer of adventure. I've got stuff to do. It was the to feel the like, oh, I'm responsible for going in this adventure after I fed you guys multiple meals uninvited. Yeah. Of course. You might have some jewelry out of it. I'm going to have to hang up every one of your cloaks of a different color and try to remember which color goes with which person. You're lucky. I have 13 to 14 hooks to put coats on anyway. Yeah. So for new listeners who obviously, you know, it's a lot of it. I'm not here with the hobbit. It's so clear what this podcast is about. It's almost foolish for me to explain, but I should say that this is a podcast where it's condescending for you. I know. Yeah. I was told that I brought casting conference, you know, you just got it. You got to reset. You got to make sure that things are welcoming. You don't start off with a bunch of gibberish about nothing. Uh oh. This is a podcast where we watch a movie that was either a critical or commercial flop.

3:13And then we talk about it. Now, this case, you know, the days are getting shorter. The temperatures getting colder. Are we dying, Dan? No, no, it's just fall. It's just fall. And of course, uh, that auger's theme month here at the flop house, uh, the first one being, of course, small timber or a Elliot small, Vembers in cis correctly calls it small Vembers, yes. Uh, and that is when we watch smaller movies normally, uh, we could find ourselves in major, many, many discs. Yeah. Yeah, we get a many DV player out. We get it. We watch it on our PSP. We get an eight millimeter cut down of Abbott Castell on me Frankenstein with a condensed the movie to six minutes. We stare at a single frame of a movie and we critique it. Oh, yeah. Now, um, yeah, you know, look, uh, we usually do big Hollywood movies. Uh, so the biggest, yeah. So there are masters, you the listener may be familiar with also because it doesn't, uh,

4:19feel good to make fun of someone's small passion project in the same way that, uh, Hollywood people they can take it, they can take a punch. But uh, the throne and can deal with it every once in a while. Once a year, we give ourselves a dispensation to look at a smaller, weirder film. Well, like all the like treat for ourselves, like all traditional kind of saturnal desert Bocchanols. For one day or one, two episodes in this case, we slip loose the bonds of normal law as a way of highlighting that we don't do this the rest of the year. Yeah. Because these are, these are activities for a set aside special day, we are reinforcing. We don't do this on the other days. Yeah. Just medieval law. Yeah. And it's a good way for us to kind of recalibrate our distinctions, uh, like our sense of what makes a good movie or a bad movie like when you're just a movie, when you're like talking to a normal person somewhere and they're like, oh, you got to watch this movie. It's the worst I've ever seen. I'm like, Brutta. You played in a movie theater. It's highly likely. You're sweet summer lamb. Oh, you don't you have no idea.

5:20Yeah. Now this picture has the, the utterly normal title, surfer, colon team, confronts fear. Yeah. It's not inaccurate. Yeah. Dan, you said that title immediately evoked like Christian stuff to you. Uh, yeah. Well, if it has a subtitle that's that's number one about a teen speaking to the teens trying to get at the teens problems and then saying something like confronts fear. This movie really does get at the teens problems. It gets at the problems of modern teams. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine before I had seen this movie, I would have imagined, you know, something that was made by a Christian production company to be shown at youth groups to be like, here's some problems at teens might be facing, you know, let's let's get them to the twirlers. Yeah. This is not totally unlike that in that it has a lot of talk about the Bible at certain points, but it is also totally online that in that it is one guy's personal passion project

6:27that he has roped his teenage son into. It's less a Christian youth group movie and more the equivalent to that for the cult of a charismatic con man who will eventually commit suicide with all of his followers or die in a bloody gun battle with the federal government. This is the version of that for this. Yeah. Yeah. Although I discovered that the so the guy played for the dad, the director and writer and star and he did the music. Yeah. He is a physics professor at least or at least was at one point at USC. So he is not. He's able to start a teaching students that they could make a human body out of squids and electricity. Yeah. Perhaps we'll get, I don't know, maybe this is a point to talk about, but I, when we were watching, at least I got Stuart to come over for it because I thought I apologize, Elliot. Obviously if you were on our coast, you would have come to watch the fucking dishes. But this is a kind of movie that does work better if you see it with someone else.

7:30Oh, that's for sure. Yeah. And at certain point when the guy was like half vomiting that I'm like, this really feels like Rick and Morty. He feels like he's like, you got to cut in front of your fear of Morty. He got to crawl. He's just a pathway to something. I made a squid and electricity more. To be honest, to be honest, and people are not going to like me saying this, I found his performance, his lead performance more enjoyable and easy to take than the lead performances in Rick and Morty. There's part of what keeps me away from it is all I would try to watch the first episode is like, Marty, you got to pull up. They cut down on the vomiting. That was like a camel. It was like a season. Also, at this point, they have replaced Justin Reuland who turns out it was not a good man with someone else doing a sound alike. And I'm mainly experienced Rick and Morty now through the images I would see in weed stores of like Rick and Morty hawking weed products. Yeah, sure.

8:30Sure. Or unlike T-shirts you would buy on a boardwalk of them holding guns and wearing nixed jerseys. Dean Rostas, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, we've been a lot of prelude, but we should probably get to the point. Let's get it to the beefy of Gullia. Teen confirmed fear. So yeah, this is, I had not heard of this movie until we watched it. And I think this was the right way for me to experience it with very little knowledge ahead of time. It is very clearly like this is the kind of movie that a guy makes by himself starring him and his son using whatever locations he has. And it has a bravura, nearly single take long conversational scene that we'll get into, which is only partly, no, I haven't seen it in a pretty much. It's made better by the fact that most of the dialogue in the scene is clearly ADR later, except for little bits of it, which were live recording it seems. And it just gives the, I don't know, there are times when this movie feels like you were

9:32watching the bad lip-read takeoff or parody of this movie, you know? Well, it's also, it seems like such madness because like clearly this long dialogue is not tightly scripted. Like he is either like half remembering the scripts that he wrote or he is improvising large chunks of it. And then ADRing the improv that he did. He is ADRing, because he's ADRing stumbles that he did to match his lip movements. That's it's amazing. Anyway, so we started with the most big. I do like how his accent shifts around a lot. Yes, sometimes he's talking like I said, like almost like Rick from Rick and Morty. And sometimes he has like this half English accent. Yeah, I was supposed to feel. Yeah, Rick is doing King Lee or all this. So, so the, we open with, and I complain sometimes about movies they have too many production logos in the beginning. This one has none. It throws you right into the cheapest credits imaginable.

10:32Just whatever credit font came with this editing software over shots of a seat beach side town. There's a young guy who we will learn about a half way through the movie two thirds the way through the movie's name Sage. After this point, he's the unnamed surfer character. He's getting ready to fish from a chair that's kind of set pretty far away from the water. And we hear him in voiceover say that he was a surfer and he once he wiped out really badly and was saved by lifeguard. And since then he's been afraid of the water, but he still wants to be near the water. He's afraid of the ocean, but he wants to be in the water. How do you describe the emotion in this voiceover performance? I would say realistically unenthused. Yeah, the cadence is take that of a person reading from a piece of paper. Maybe the first time they have seen this piece of paper. I get clear and let's just to pull back the curtain. Clearly this is a movie made by a guy who is an amateur filmmaker starring his son who is a competitive surfer.

11:32And the sun seems to it really does seem like the dad and I'm just reading into it. Maybe it's not true. The dad who usually is probably pushing his son in surfing is now pushing him to be an actor much as like Archhal senior would put his son Archhal junior to be a movie star. And it's a it doesn't seem like the sun is that interested in being there. There are many moments where the sun looks like he would rather be somewhere else with his friends or just definitely afraid that anybody he knows would see. Well, I just I'm the entire first hour of this is essentially one long scene on the beach where the dad is monologuing at this. Right at him. Yeah. Yeah, looks uninteresting. What's going on realistically if they were not making a movie or like related, it seems like the guy the kid would be like, yeah, that's cool, man. I got stuff to do. I got to go as a father. It is so hard for me to get my sons to do stuff with me. Like I spent a lot of yesterday being like, let's play a board game. Let's play game. Let's play card game.

12:32Let's play basketball, whatever. Maybe that would be like, hey, let's go make a movie that you have to start in. My children would walk away. They would just walk away and leave home, I think. So anyway, type of mental. Yeah, right. The rails. So there's some footage of him prepping bait, intercut with still images of his wipe out. And then he saves a middle aged man from the ocean. This is a wordless sequence that takes a while where there's just a damp man in the waves from here to eternity, make out scene style. And he just pulls him out. And this is how you describe this middle aged man. Looks like a physical dream. He wants to make the movie long-stream hair. Very, very, a lot of heavy emotion in his face. He doesn't. And this section, his performance is very funny, but the funniest performance he gives is later in the movie. And I don't want to talk about that just yet. Because he gives, there's a moment where he shows up on screen and I could not help laughing so hard. And what is completely meant to be a dramatic thing, but it is, it is, it is a big choice.

13:35And also a bit of fence. And incredibly offensive. So, so the, this is when the dad, the guy starts talking, the man starts talking to the surfer. And in dialogue that I said is mostly ADR, even the stumbles and the things that he seems to be making up all types of ADR, he says he's the surfer's father who died in a war that has returned in a form made of hard jelly as he describes it. He can only exist for a few hours because he's there to help the surfer overcome his fear. And he explains that the surfer survived his wipe out because a seal spirit entered his body at that moment and helped him to get out. And I am, what I'm explaining with such clarity, Aliya. Yes, but what I'm going to be describing to you is cutting off, cutting out a lot of detail, a lot of nonsense that he says. And but it is a, I'm turning it into the hard. Versus, right? Well, that's the thing we'll get to that. He's, he talks about the Bible, Bible stories, but it's like not in a way I've ever heard a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim to describe these stories. So he is basically, he wants to, first he says, I want you to remember a dream that I had

14:39before you were born of you as a boy. And it's such a funny request to say, hey, I had a dream before you were born about you. Can you remember it for a second? I need you to remember this dream you never had. Now I just say like the biggest like shocking twist for me in this movie was watching the credits at the end of it because we get a flashback at him talking to young sage and discovering that like young sage was played by the sun at a younger age. And so I'm like, what do they shoot this boyhood style? Like, yeah, this is the Vomit Man to show the movie all of a sudden. To what degree was any of that planned to like have this interpolated into a movie later on? This is a labor of love. This is the kind of thing that you really, you really put your life into, you know, you plan it a lot later. Because it's hard to imagine what it's the scene doesn't really fit into this story, but it's hard to imagine what story that scene might have fit into. Yes. But the man has to serve or repeat a specific phrase, I wish, but I'm not able to affect

15:41the space of your time. And then they go into the dream where we see the surfer as a kid and he speaks in rhyme about gods and spirits. We come back and the surfers like, yeah, dad, you can teach me, teach me how to overcome my fear. And the dad launches into a series of very long, very weird monologues that make up the beef of this movie. Like this is the meat of the movie. First dad tells him it's not shameful to be afraid because Adam was afraid after the devil lied to him. And that's what caused him to eat the apple that kicked him out of Eden. And he says fear comes from the lie that God isn't inside you, which is a lie. Now I would not say that I recall that being part of the story of Genesis that Adam was afraid. And that's why he ate the apple. I think that's so good. But that's so good. He's saying that the devil told Adam, you are not like God. And Adam didn't realize he had God inside him and is like God and so he became afraid that he's not like God and had to eat. And again, this is an interpretation. You know, it's the wonderful thing about the Bible. It's always open to interpretation.

16:41This is a very fear based interpretation of the Bible. He talks for this. Again, this is where I started to lose understanding. It was around here that Dan looked over to me and he's like, don't worry. They leave the beach at some point. But not for a long time. It takes longer than you think. It was part of me that was like, is this the whole movie? Because he talks for a long time about how blood and ocean are both spirit. And when he was dead, he took surfers, spirit surfing in the spirit world. And he goes, look at that rock. Look at it. Stay at it. Look at it. Stay at it until he has a vision of his surfing with his dad in the spirit world, which is just surfing footage. There's so much surfing footage in this movie. And it is very clearly this is footage of the real kids surfing. And there's just a lot of it. And voice over the dad is like, let the fear boil out of you. Let it boil out of you son. Boil. And it doesn't do anything. Yeah. One of the other funny things about the criticism at the end is like, how many different cinematographers are listed because it's all people just took footage of his kids surfing. Right?

17:41Yeah, no, this movie is stitched together from new material plus footage of his kids surfing plus home movies that they took. There's a part of later on. Clearly vacation footage. There's like stuff later on, Elvita will get to it with a whale that I'm like, yes, this was shot at a different time. So the dad for associates, Samurai talks about how surfers identity, I'm just going to surf his name sage. We don't know his name at that point. How the surfers identity existed in a single cell in the ocean four billion years ago. And there's a lot of therapy talk that it feels like the dad is really making up as he goes along until he starts coughing up bile. And he's like running out of time. I think I made this body out of squid and electricity. I think he's making a squid. Yeah, squid. Because he's made out of squids. And the idea of God being like, yeah, I'll send you back to help your son who's a surfer. I've got to make you out of squids and electricity. That's what I do. I forgot how you make humans. I even though that's my whole thing is like, it's all squid and electricity these days. Oh, yeah, it's all and they don't last.

18:43Old time humans were tremendous of like bones and stuff. They last 70, 80 years, sometimes 100 years. This new squid and electricity humans that Apple makes in every year is supposed to toss them out. Land obsolescence. Yeah, exactly. This is around where he starts like grouping at the rocks on the cliff that's around them. And it's supposed to feel. Yeah, that's, yeah, it's just me. He's mad that that we'll get to, you know what? We'll get to, we'll get to the wasn't supposed to fuel for it all the time. So and this the so he says, I'm going to melt back into the ocean a few hours and surfers like, no, I'm still kind of stuck. I'm still feeling afraid. So dad is like haranging him about its movements and energy and God and the movements are God and the energy is God and the energy is in your movements. And he talks about. He feels like like this is the sort of thing where I, I don't know if you guys have ever talked to a person like this, but you're like, I feel like I'm in danger. I don't want to be here anymore. The surfer throughout this, I feel like is wondering when is it time to run?

19:44Like when does he run from this person or does he have to fight back in some way? Yeah. Yeah, he has the demeanor of someone who is like, okay, there's going to be a point in the conversation where I can leave safely and it's not going to anger this person. Like how long it is humor this stranger who's clearly having an episode before I can see the way he's like a less funny Hugh Grant in heretic. Basically, yes, I think it's a jar jar impressions, less funny and less well organized. Yeah. Hugh Grant in heretic that heretic is such a is such a funny movie because Hugh Grant is like, he goes to such great lengths. And then even at the end, they're like, that's what you're trying to prove to us. This is fucking dumb. I just think we hadn't heard of this before. Like this new information. That was like, I think my letter box review was something like someone needs to tell them that you can be an atheist without all the construction work. Yeah. Well, it's a very fun, and I assume this is, I don't know if this is intentional, maybe it was.

20:44I hope it was, but he's such a funny parody of the kind of guy who learns something that he, that everyone else kind of knows already, but that he thinks he discovered nobody else knows. I was not until the end. I thought the movie was that guy. I thought heretic was like, oh, so heretic, they think they, they're, they're really lifting the skills from our eyes. And it wasn't until the end when she's like, yeah, no shit, dude, like this is fucking, everyone knows this. I was like, oh, the movie knows they're doing. Yeah, no, it's intentional. Yeah, but the reply guy, the movie. Yeah. It is, that is also a funny movie where like, it's the rare movie that gets less interesting once it stops being just a guy monologue. Yeah, that's true. At a certain point, I'm like, yeah, all right. Yeah, but the, well, that's probably because Hugh Grant is so, is so good and he apparently wrote at least some of that or rewrote it because he's good at rewriting his own, his own dialogue and stuff. So, but anyway, he's really good in that. So it's his, I think it's maybe his second best villain performance after pattington two, just kind of the same character.

21:45It's so great. And he's also a really great villain. And what was that operation fortune? Bruce DeGare. Oh, I haven't seen it. Where he plays like an arm's dealer, like a very chav arm's dealer. And he's, he's, I haven't seen it all. Now I gotta see it. Every time he shows up, you're like, man, I need more of this guy. Makes me want to see the version of Mickey Blue Eyes where he's an actual gangster. And he's not just pretending to be a gangster. So, a surfer is still stuck in his fear, dad's haranguing him. The surfer is like, we see more wordless surfing footage. They talk about surfing. The surfer tells his dad. He almost feels like surfing. But first dad is like, years where it's like to surf the big waves. I want to surf the big waves of humanity's fear and their emotion. And he says, there's always, he says he's such time at Wales. There's always a whale crying in the ocean because it's the man's fear. He tells the story of Jonah, which becomes a fear based story. And this is a version of the story of Jonah that, so Dan, I, you grew up in more of a, more of a Bible reading household than me.

22:46And his version of story of Jonah, Jonah tells the people in the boat, throw me overboard to stop this storm. The version of it I remember hearing is the people in the boat are like, get the hell out of here and throw them in the boat. Not that he volunteers for it. But had you. I don't remember. I don't remember. Like, you know, I could be wrong, you know. That's an old test ministry, right? You better believe it. I mean, I just call that the Bible or the Torah. I don't believe in the testament. So, yeah. The difference with we Gentiles is like, we tend to like, not focus so much on that. Unless we're like, we're evangelicals who need an excuse to be like, God is angry. Even though Jesus came and said, this is a new covenant with new rules. And you still want to go by the old rules too. Yeah. So anyway, Dad says the purpose of fear is to help you find faith. And they pulls the surfer into a black and white dream about a dead whale they found on the beach. And this is, this probably, this must have been a real whale washed up, right? And then they say, I can't imagine that they made a fake whale. They didn't make a fake whale. And also like, I love that they're wearing like coats.

23:48Yeah, I know that day. Clearly different. And like, yeah, I read a little bit. I couldn't find a lot of research about surfer team in front of here. There's like the interview with the director that I have not yet finished reading where he goes on about how the critics who didn't like the movie clearly have problems with their fathers. And that's why they didn't like them. Who can get into Freudian psychology. I did go looking for information just because this is so singular. I'm like, I need to understand. And part of what I found was a screen slate article. They're saying that like, yeah, they just heard that a whale was going to wash up somewhere. And the guy was like, we gotta get the camera. We gotta get down there. And so this was like, I want to know what parts of this were shot first. And like what the plan was to then like stitch it all together into. It's very Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Very Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be like, there's a dead whale. We gotta do something with it. Get the camera. Come on. This is LA.

24:48You know, there's just a line of influencers waiting to take their whale videos. Yeah, you know, I just remember the other part of that where he was saying like, yeah, you know, like Sage has discussed in that scene is very real because I don't think he'd been close to a dead whale before I'm like, no shit. You know why me? Who had less than dad was like, you know, I'm like, I'm not sure. Dad was like, hey, hey, get close to that dead whale. And in the, in the scene, he's like, get close to it. Get really close to it. Look at it real close. Yeah. I want you to like smell every part of it. Smell it. Now lick it. lick what it feels tastes like. Can you, can you taste the brine? Are we really gonna need this footage yet? We never know. You never know. Just press your body against it. Try to get inside its mouth. Just try to climb in its mouth. Yeah. No, it'll be hilarious. If you're like, I'm so funny. Because it looks like, yeah, it looks like it's wild. You and then you killed it from the inside. Just jump out and say something funny, like, bazinga. Yeah. Just crawl out and like, look around and be like, oh, I thought I was taking the express.

25:51Climb out and flex like you're really strong. Oh, I want you to climb out and then like, toss in front of it. Here's what I'm gonna do is you get inside it. And but don't get too far and say, because what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna punch it in the gut. Like I'm giving it a heimlich and then I want you to jump out, leap out of the mouth. Like I'm just giving the way all the heimlich and you're like, where am I? And then look at the camera. Look at the camera and say, boy, I've got a whale of a tail. So I'm gonna believe this John. So I'm put down the phone. Don't call child protective services. We're just gonna do this whale sketch. We're just gonna do this little whale scene. Come on. Stop calling them. Stop calling them. All right. I just want you to stick your hand into its blowhole. Climb up on top. Stick your hand on just blowhole and say, and say, how's your breathing now? You know, just dominate the whale. Just show the dead whale that you're dominating. You know, that you could you could kill it if you needed to. If it wasn't already dead. Yeah, yeah, sure. Poor, poor whale. Okay, here's the, and now here are the props. I brought some props with me. And now this is take these balloons. And then I'm gonna say no, no, no, Bailey and not Bayloons.

26:51That's the whole scene. Then you're gonna like look at the camera like Jim from the office. Just give it one of those looks, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, and then you're gonna walk away. It's fun. I got more, I got more whale material to do. Come on. Oh, my God. And then and then when he's done, he puts the camera down and goes, okay, give me that knife. We're gonna, we're gonna eat this tonight. And he's just like carving off whale steaks to bring home. Yeah. So anyway, dad has, dad has the surfer. Remember the wave that almost killed him and he goes wiggle your fingers. The feelings in your fingers start with wiggling those. Yeah. Has a flashback to life card saving him. This is what I made a note. We were 34 minutes into the movie. And it was almost entirely just the dad saying nonsense. And he's not done. He keeps talking. No. And so he talks much longer. And he event until eventually the surfer is like, yeah, I'll surf again. But what do you get out of it? What do you get out of it? Surf again. And this is when the dead throws a fit. He gets really angry. He's like pounding on the rock with his fist and he says spirit forms shouldn't be able to feel emotions they do. And this is when he's like, I wasn't supposed to feel. I wasn't supposed to be able to feel. And he's like howling like a wound at a getty.

27:52It's amazing. It's really cool. Yeah. He gives a big speech about waves and energy and emotion and surfing. And he wants to be reborn. And this was saying he wants to surf again and ride the wave of humanity's fears. And it'll help him do that if the surfer goes in surf. And at this point, he's been talking for like 10 straight minutes since the whale scene, I think. So like, and even that was pretty deep into this sequence. And in the end, dad goes, here, here's a name. Here's an address. Here's an alpha numerical code. And here's some predictions about where the next big waves are going to be. And then he collapses into the surf and he rolls into the ocean to melt away off camera. And that is when we go to scene two. And we are now 49 and a half minutes into the movie. This is an hour and 41 minute movie. It's awesome. We are there's less than an hour left. We spent that on basically one scene. And after that, I would there's part of me that was like, well, there's no way this movie is going to give me anything worth watching. After that, I was wrong. There is a little bit. But this is definitely the movie definitely takes a little bit of a dip after in terms of in terms of this. It's sheer mannequin, you know, a bravado.

28:55Well, I mean, certainly in like the last, let's say 20 men, which is just surfing footage, mostly surfing footage. I got to admit, this is something I shouldn't do as a professional as a podcast bad movie professional. But I definitely hit that two times speed, you know, setting for a little while. Enjoy that surf music that was playing. Yeah, you didn't want to listen to a little song. After the original song going alone, that I listened to in total. Yeah. So anyway, pretty good. I enjoy that. I will say that's the best part of the movie is that song going alone. I have to admit, I think it's the best. It is the only thing in the world that approaches that approaches that idea of potential quality. So the surfer goes. There's a little scene later on with, I think an admiral that I think was probably my favorite scene. Yeah, I mean, that scene we'll get to that one. That is, that is an amazing scene. So the surfer goes to the address that dad gave him. It's supposed to be a military building. It's clearly just a little office lobby or even a retail establishment. The security woman, he goes, I'm here to see banks and she goes, banks, is you mean, Dr. Bankrow, the doctor who works here, I apologize, guys, I apologize.

29:57I skipped the second scene in the movie, which is the doctor giving a checkup to an older woman and what looks like to be a rehearsal space. And he's just checking her heart pressure. Are you telling me that most doctor's offices aren't brick walls? Don't have brick walls. Don't have exposed, exposed brick walls, mismatched chairs and a stand that is clearly holding up either a light or reflector to help light the scene. But I forgot, this is probably a five or six minute scene, very few words of an older woman just in a wheelchair just getting checked up as Dr. and she keeps looking at the camera as if she is afraid of what's going to happen next. I was a little concerned about this scene that this woman didn't know that she was in a movie or why she was there. She is an actress. She is a professional actress. Okay, good. I think God, because I was like, this has a level of realism. The other performances. No, it is the best performance, the entire movie, because you do not realize that this is a professional actress who is doing this. The same way that I've talked about it before, when I saw the play, this is our youth in

31:01London years ago and Jake Gyllenhaal was in. I'm sick of you talking about it. We've talked about it a lot of times. There's a scene in that play where his character knocks over a plate full of drugs and Jake Gyllenhaal did it so well that people in the audience, I think, thought it was a mistake and thought that he had messed up. But anyway, that's this performance. This woman does such a great performance of seeming like a woman who is not aware of where she is, doesn't want to be touched by a doctor and is not enjoying being there and doesn't understand why there's a camera watching it the entire time. And I will say this is a very jarring choice for a second scene. Yes. To suddenly be thrown at it because it's also one of the things where I'm like, which of these characters am I going to be following? The doctor, the woman or neither. That's how I had no idea the entire. This is one of those movies where a good movie throws you in the air and catches you and you know the whole time the movie is going to catch me. But there's still that thrill of being up in the air and then falling back down again. This is where the movies where you're like, I don't know if they're going to catch me. They may throw me in the air and then walk away. I'm just going to hit the ground and it's going to hurt, you know. And in a way that is exactly what this movie is.

32:01So we see this old lady get a checkup. The surfer goes to the address. It's a military building. He learns that banks is Dr. Bankrow. The security woman at the reception desk calls in marks a guy in Camo and there is a great other movie about the hierarchy in this office building in this military office because the guy in Camo seems like he's in charge until the scene next scene with the doctor with the doctor is so passive passive aggressively condescending to this guy the entire time. Anyway, he's in Camo. The friskless surfer he takes his phone to have it scanned and they sends two guys who are in civilian clothes and they have the funniest lines where they're like, I spent all this time. I earned my uniform and then he tells us to put on civilian clothes and it's such a funny way that they're like, we got to explain why these guys are not in uniform. We'll just have to find out about it. And they're using so much like faux military slang that I'm like, come on guys. It's so if they are crying so hard to seem like they're in the military and failing. He goes, hey, we're going to see. I'm just looking out of this building that is a reception area with glass bricks and

33:04that's clearly in the middle of her name or pass a dinner. It looks like a bag, you know, an old battered wooden chair. I think this is not like a military operation. I feel like it lacks the verisimilitude of the cockpit set of plan nine from outer space. With their sitting at music stands in hardback chair wood chairs, like that looks felt more like the cockpit of a plane. This feels like a military installation. You can literally see, I don't know, like maybe is it like Highland Boulevard or Glendale Boulevard in like the road sign in the background? Yeah, I mean, it looks so I don't I'm not sure it looks so much like Magnolia in Burbank, but it could be any of those places. So the they he said he goes, we're going to scan the phone. You guys look outside for drones or suspicious things. They go outside. They check under cars. We get like 10 minutes of them walking around. They walk around for a long time. They don't find anything. We never see these characters again. It doesn't matter. And the surfer finally goes, oh, my name is Sage and I've got a message for banks and he gives it to the to Marx. He pulls that again.

34:04Bang, bang, bang. And it turns out banks is the doctor we saw briefly earlier with that old woman. He takes a while. So it takes so long for Marx to give him this note. Banks reads it and gets very emotional. It says, I'll talk to Sage. I'll talk to him. And you know what? I'm going to give him the money to travel the world surfing. I'm going to give you that money because he says, and this is the first of a couple different explanations of what the deal is with Sage's dad. First explanation, I died in a war and I'm coming back made out of squids and electricity. This means, oh, I knew your dad in the military and guess what? He didn't die. He's still alive. We'll amount everybody and they will him out. And he is in a catatonic state that is so offensively funny in the way that he has contorted his face and hands. Just like me in this. Just one part where he like contorts for a while and then his arm is just like stuck up in the air for a long time. And he's got a look on his face that I don't want to be offensive myself.

35:06But for lack of a better word, for lack of a better way to describe it, it is the way that kids when I was growing up would pretend to be mentally challenged people. Like it has that look about it. And it is, and there's part of me that was like, I cannot believe he thinks he's getting away with this. Then this is not going to be either hilarious or offensive or both, you know. Yeah. Anyway, there's a long scene of banks, a very repetitive scene. It feels like they keep getting stuck on the same pages of the script and going back over and over again where banks is like, go over, he doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember you. He doesn't know he's your dad. He doesn't know. Go over and say he loved him. Go over and say you're his son. Go over because you're his son. He's his son. He doesn't remember you, but you're his son. Go over and say, oh, I love you dad and banks will then twitch and fall on the other side. The dad will twitch and throw a fit and fall on the floor and banks like, Mark's pick him up. Mark's getting back in the chair. Mark's putting back in the chair. He's working. And he goes, he goes, do it again. He doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember he has a son. Go, but you're his son. Go tell him that you're love him. Tell him you're his son. I'm your son. He throws a fit again, falls out. Mark's putting back Mark. Get over here, Mark's putting back in his chair.

36:07Also, every once in a while, they'll cut to a second angle of like, like the angle is that of a camera that like, maybe they forgot was turned on. It's making me sense. But it's also like, the video quality is significantly worse than the already not great. Yeah. And you're calling like, why is this other camera here? But it's this scene goes on forever. At one point during it, banks goes, he's probably, this probably looks worse than it is. Like, I don't know. It's pretty bad. Like, and but he keeps saying, but he was made a squid electricity thing. Yeah, that's true. He goes, keeps going, but you're son, but you're his son, you're his son. Finally, now it's time for the training montage. Sage is going to do it. He's going to surf around the world in order to help his dad surf humanity spheres to an original rock song called Go and Alone, which again is the best thing in the movie. We see Sage paddle boarding. We see him running. We see him weight training in a pool. He's got two weights. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's completely submerged running back and forth along the bottom of the pool, which I

37:08might try. This seems like a really cool way to just right. Yeah, yeah. But we get the full song of Go and Alone, and I wish I remembered any of the lyrics. I looked up, so in the credits, it said that this is sung by Carol Connors. Now, the wife of Kurt Connors, the lizard, yeah. Well, when I googled Carol Connors, this is either the American singer songwriter who was the lead vocalist on to know him is to love him. Or this is American pornographic film actress Carol Connors. I don't know which Carol Connors this is. Which it's hard to know which one you will see. Physics professor would get for his movie. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. And it's not Carol Connors, T. Just love Archie Bunker, right? No, no. I'm not familiar with the work of either of those Carol Connors. But I like this song as Stewart, not as into it, but this is like surf rock, but kind of with like a goth. It's like a dark emotional surf rock. Yeah.

38:08Yeah, like the song you play during Dick Dale's funeral. Exactly. Thank you. Exactly. You put your, you said because he is going alone at that point. He's going alone into the greyhavans, the other side. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we all die alone, even Dick Dale, you know, you can't take it with you, even Dick Dale. I can't take his guitar with him. Can you slow down the surf rock? It's like not really. It's kind of, you got to double pick everything. It's all changely and shane. It's kind of not really surf rock. I mean, it's got a shred. Like the Dick Dale album says, better shred than dead, you know, unfortunately now he no longer has that. I'm doing that show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That made it for him. We're all familiar with my Zerloo, but now there's real my Zeree. We're feeling another level of the world. I love the year you're doing material while doing a seal of heat. They should have invited me to do Dick Dale's. And I genuinely like Dick Dale's music quite a bit. But they shouldn't have invited me to do his eulogy because I'm going to throw some jokes in there, you know, and I don't know him. I don't really know. You're a co-ing writer. They knew that. They knew that going. They knew who they hired to do the job and they can't look at me and be like, oh, don't

39:11do what you do. I got two settings on and off and on is funny. So, you know, that's all I can do. I'm going to try to. That's what Ellie says when he walks into any room. Yeah. Look, I got two settings on and off and all is funny to deal with it. Deal with it. Well, sorry, the family Dale. I know this is what you wanted for your patriarchs to be in a role, but this is what you got. What does this have got if you're okay? Let's do it. Look, on my, on my, on my card, it doesn't say serious eulogies. It says comedian. I don't know why he hired me. I'd say you thought you were getting a different Elliot Kalin, but there are no other people with that name that I'm aware of. Actually, that's not true. I once Googled myself and found out and I Googled myself all the time. I don't not. I had nice because I, yeah, well, I mean, at night when I'm looking, when I'm puddering around and I need to find out who else hates my run on Harley, Harley Quinn. But the, the, I, I, I would go to my self and I find normal people. There was like a, there was a male model in Australia who had the same name as me, spelled the same way, but it's a, but I never find any information.

40:14You guys probably get confused for each other. Oh, I got a good one. The time people say, good day, Elliot. We need you for that Vogue Australia shoot and I'm like, you got the wrong guy, you know, anyway, but I'm in. I'm in. And then I get another call. Hello. Our beloved of, I love the father dick died. Dictator. Yeah, we need you to talk to us, general. Of course, yes, I'll be right there. So we get an amazing scene. This is, I think my second favorite scene in the movie after the long 40 minute monologue or however it is of banks is sitting with a guy in a captain's hat who is clearly supposed to be in the, in the Navy behind him is what I think is a green screen, right? Well, based on the, the bird that occasionally flies right at the screen on a loop. Yeah, exactly. But I wasn't paying that as close as you because I was trying to get myself in the thing. And they're sitting on a green board that's on milk crates. Yeah, just really, just really quickly, Elliot, congratulations. You destroyed this guy's SEO. I cannot find him. Oh, good. Thank you.

41:15You were the prime Elliot. I think what put it over the top was that magic card based on my soren spider man and I think that's what did it. Yeah. I just sent that to me and they're like, this is the way to get this information to Elliot. Send it to the nerdiest flopper, too. I got to get a copy of that card. I don't know if it's out yet. But anyway, the, the, it's so funny because my, my older son Sammy, he was like, he, he has magic cards and he's like, we got to go to the card store tomorrow and get that. And I'm like, well, I don't think it's out yet. But also like, how many, what are we going to do just buy packs and hope he get it? And he's like, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right there. Yeah. Finally, the grift has come together. And I'll just keep all the other cards that aren't the card based on your work. So anyway, this is one of the, maybe one of the funniest lines in the history of movies. I wish I written it down. Oh my God. Word for word, but it was too late and I didn't do it. But hit something like, let me get this straight. So he was a brainwashed assassin who went on a covert observation and died on it. And now he has a son who's come back and you want to give him government medical health insurance because his dad was in the military as a killer.

42:17And he's like, you got it. And I was like, and all of this is said as in this information that has been doled out over the course of the movie. And it's not being jumped right in our laps. Well, I mean, like it's, it is the most egregious example of like, you're telling me. I'm going to repeat back a thing that apparently we both know. So the audience can hear it and it's going to be so long. Like, it is amazing how long this line goes on. And then of course, what is this one banks sweetens his, sweetens the deal by handing him a like tiny little flash. A small, small bottle. And he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, Hanesy cognac special stuff. And it is such a small bottle. And it's, I don't know what it's. It's also fucking Hanesy. I mean, it ain't cheap, but it's like, that's not a particularly big bottle. Yeah. And it's also not hard. It's not like, oh, it's, yeah, Hanesy, that's how you can't go to a store and buy that, you know? Okay. This is from like another country from, like it's 100 years old or like, you know, whatever. It's just like, yeah, it's Hanesy. Like, it's, yeah, you can buy it.

43:18He doesn't really need, it turns out, as the sink goes on, he doesn't really need to bribe him with, with liquor. Yeah. Yeah. But he's not like, yeah, the like, if the end of the holdovers, he took a tiny little bottle Hanesy from the dean or whatever. Now this is, so the situation here is, so I thought, so earlier banks, like, I'll give you the money to serve the world. Here he seems to be trying to put the sun on his dad's health insurance, which correct me if I'm wrong, I could be wrong. He should be on already. Like it's just a matter of, oh, yeah, he has a son. Let's put him on his dad's health insurance because that's what he established. The dad is not dead. He's in the care of a military medical establishment. So it seems like all those tools should be there. But and the title of the movie illustrates that he is still a minor effectively, right? By the team. Yeah. He's a team. I mean, he should be on that insurance, probably, till he's about 21, probably. But the, and all the, and all the different military advantage, credit and loan opportunities that come with that. So this is stated though as if it's not new information. This is the third explanation we begin for this dad now that he was not just in the military

44:19but was like a, I don't, I'm trying to remember if they say he was for any of us. He was like it, an experimental assassin who was turned into this on a mission, gone can't have a mission. But the, the guys like all only do this. If you can prove to me that he's his son. And also I want to know if his prediction of where storms are going to hit is accurate. And Banks is like, it's totally accurate. And he hands him a manila folder full of envelopes. I could not read the classified. It says classified, but it's like written in marker. And, and he pulls them out and they just want, look at the documents for a while, not saying anything. It's just watching people read papers and he's like, it's all here. It's all here. Let's do it. And Banks is like, I think what we're about to do is the best, most important thing we've ever done. And I was like, at the end of the scene, I had so much less understanding of what was happening and what they were trying to accomplish than at the beginning of the scene. And it's a small detail. And then otherwise, of course, perfect movie. But when they put the paper back in the envelope, like it's clearly just a sheep, a blank paper. Yeah, there's nothing on those things.

45:21It is a, this scene, it is so, it's funny when a movie that is clearly meant to be a meditation on the human condition suddenly starts to act like it is a movie with a plot. And the idea that like a taught thriller about a government secret and you're like, what? It's such a, it's such a bizarre. This is when the movie refuses to catch you. When the movie throws you in the air and then just walks away and you hit the wrong way, he's a government assassin. I don't understand. And that leads to the creepiest scene in the whole movie to me. And this is the one scene where I'm like, okay, well, now I, I have a moral issue with this. Yeah, of course. This is when the movie goes from this guy's got some crazy ideas about fear and God. And what do you know who had some crazy ideas? His name was Jesus. And I want to tell you about him. And this is when it gets into like, oh, this is, this is a negative philosophy. This is a bad thing. Yes, it's poisonous. And I'm just glad no one will ever see this movie in any sense. This is kind of the moment where I'm like, now I don't mind making fun of this fucking guy's movie. So sage meets with this guy who I don't think is given a name in the movie.

46:24He's super creepy. And he's like, oh, yeah, I was like a protégé of your dad's during the war. And he talks about how his dad taught him that sometimes you have to kill. There's always a time to kill. And so and just like red blood said, just like, white blood cells kill bad bacteria. They're bad people that you just have to kill. And it's not a sin to kill bad guys if because they're bad. So you have to kill and we're good and we're good. And it was like, I, it's and this is something that is such a point. And well, I think part of the reason that I was so disgusted by this is because this is the, this is the rhetoric that our government does right now. Where Pete heads that's just the other day had that thing where he's like, we're going to our job is to do bad things to bad people. It's like, fuck you, shithead. Your job is to protect the American people. And hopefully, you have other countries, your job, your job is not to enjoy the act of killing and to get, get your, it rocks off murdering people. Your, your job is to regrettably maybe kill sometimes in the act of defense or because you have to. But there's such a, this idea of like, it's not a sin. If you're killing a bad guy, it's always a sin.

47:25They like, there's just where I was sometimes you have to commit a sin. But anyway, he says that he also goes, anyway, my dad, your dad saved my life before he single handedly blew up a ship and he died in the explosion of the ship. And it's like, we know he didn't die. We saw him already. So what is going on? And then immediately without a transition, the guy's like, you have to surf for your dad. And he's like, yeah, I do. And I'm like, at what point at this point, what are we supposed to understand is happening with his dad? Like what we've been given all these branching possibilities. Like the Joker is telling us his origin story in different ways. Like what are we supposed to understand about what's going on in this movie? And I just, I mean, we're supposed to know that he's awesome, right? That he is awesome. And that he's full of wisdom. It is so funny to, it's such a dad fantasy, too. To be like, you know what? I have this wisdom that I have to share with my son. It is so deep. It's going to change his life. And you know what? I was the single best government assassin that ever existed. And I was and I nobly gave my life, maybe not in the act of blowing up a ship single thing because I'm also Rambo.

48:26I'm not just a philosopher. I'm also Rambo. And I've also imparted to my son everything you need to know. And now I don't need to hang out with him. And now I can leave. And now I can leave and go somewhere else. You know, it's that it is a, I mean, this, they could have called this movie dad. Man commits fantasy to film like that. There's so much. Because even the act of seeing a beach whale and wanting to walk around it and look at it really close is a very bad thing to do. Like they're so. Yeah. Son, come over. Yeah. Let's look at this. Yeah, he's like, let's pop the hood on this bad boy and check. Just crying in this. I'm just crying. Yeah, what are you working with? Well, you know, he's looking at it pretending he knows anything about what's inside of it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah, the lungs are like that. Yeah, the lungs are like that. See this? Yeah, that's, that's how it keeps the grill in because it eats grill. It's a big thing, but he's tiny. He filters. They filter through his, I don't know. It's not teeth. There's something in there. It's yes. Sometimes that's a filter. Everybody's, everybody says this is a big fish. It's not a fish.

49:27It's a mammal like you or me. Nonfish just like you just like. And you know, there's a marine biologist who's lecturing about the whale. And he's going, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh-huh. As if he knew all those things already. And go, does anyone have any questions about the whale? Yeah, well, you know, a lot of people think whales are fish, but they're not fish. They're mammals. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Thank you for that question. Yeah, well, I'm, I actually, I have another, this isn't so much a question, but like my family originally comes from whales. Okay. It's felt differently. It's not related to this, but you know, thank you for a, and the, and the tour guide or, or docent or whatever has to, has to accept this and, and assimilate it somehow into normal human conversation, you know, this, that's this guy. This movie is the, and I, I want to, I have to go back and reread, really read through that interview with him. I didn't have time to go through it in detail. Anyway, but, but this creepy guy who tells him there's always a time to kill. There's always a time when killing needs to happen. He pushes him back into the direction of surfing for his dad. And then in time, laps, we get to, I think the most interesting part of the movie to be honest,

50:30which is in time lapse, you're just watching someone make a new surfboard for sage. And it's pretty cool to see how surfboard gets made. And it's also clear that sage is like two, three years younger than the rest of the movie. Again, this is clearly footage that was shot for, I don't know if it was this project or the project. Yeah. It's hours of footage of a surfboard being made, which is cool to see all sped up because it's like, oh, I'm like, I didn't know that that's how they did it. You know, it's, this is by, if this was the whole movie, I'd be like, this is a great movie. I recommend it, you know, I'd recommend it as a YouTube video, how surfboards are made. Yeah. Suddenly sage is in an Asian country. I'm not. Paulie, I believe Paulie, Paulie, Paulie, Paulie, and he's meeting monks. He's getting sick insects placed on his shirt. Again, looks younger than in the previous footage, he's clearly just on vacation. And then he goes surfing. Well, that's the effect of him losing his fear. Yeah. That he has the mirror. The mice killer. Yeah. You let the fear pass through and you through you and you walk through your younger and have stick insects on you. Yeah, of course. That's why his father who has no fear looks super young.

51:30And well, very well, very healthy and been degraded. Yeah. Normal looks looks leading a man like. Like a royal. Yeah. So he's just a man, rational man. He's just an older middle age man. This is, you know, and now I'm going to find out that he was younger than me when he made this movie somehow. This is the thing I'm constantly finding out. I mean, that's, that's one of the things that gets me so much about like Pete Hegg, Seth and wife mentioned him many times in this podcast, mostly because he's a piece of shit and I hate him. And I wish, and it, it horrifies me that he's in charge of the kinds of weapons that can kill lots of people. But also that he's like a year older than me. And I'm like, dude, how do you have the mindset of a 19 year old when you're older than me? Like, I don't understand. Anyway, you're one year. I had bad news for you. I interacted a lot of people in the world. There's a lot of people. Yeah, that's true. Anyway, what you're saying is I should make a movie about my, my wise philosophies to suck a cheer up. I feel like this would be the last poison. It's like you can connect with your kids. Yeah. I could connect with my kids and they would never forgive me for it.

52:33Yeah. So the, so one night we're in the mid, I thought the whole movie was just going to be surf footage, but then you have one night, Sage is sitting with some guy's his own age, roughly talking about surfing and they're like, the surfing should be pretty dangerous tomorrow. This waves would be pretty big. Okay. Then it's back to the surfing footage. And Sage is like, you know what? You got to, you got to go in and, you know, no fear. Hesitation is defeat. He's just like, he just got to go in and dominate that wave. Just like that wave, you know, just do it. There's such a long montage of just like dissolving from like one bit of surfing footage to another, but then like in the middle of it, like they really briefly dissolve to like the military base again, but then back to the surfing footage. But then I was so confused. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to change. And all these sequences are bridged by dissolves. Yeah. A lot of dissolves. Sometimes it's jet ski footage, sometimes it's footage of other people surfing, but it's mostly footage of Sage surfing. And I that moment when the military installation you see again, it's one of these things where it's like, I forget that everyone when they hear a story has a certain understanding of

53:38how a story works that they can react to emotionally. But in the acts of creating a story, I forget, oh, not everybody knows how to do that. There are times when I'm like, why am my job is ridiculous? Anyone can do this. Like why do we get paid any money to like write jokes and make up stories about things? And then I see a movie like this and I'm like, oh, I guess not everybody can do it. Wait a minute. I do have a skill. But anyway, the surfing footage goes on for a long time. And this again, when I started to like really ride that double playback button, it's and there's something like 15 or 20 minutes of just nonstop surfing and jet ski footage. And then it freezes on a still image of surfing. And above that, half dissolved superimposed is footage of an American flag being folded as if at a military funeral, the end. And then the credits, they think the members of a local Boy Scout crew. And that's a. That's true. I do remember that part. But it's it is a credit is hands folding the flag. That's right. It is. There is so much surfing footage at the end of this.

54:38And it's one of those things where there's a song playing and the song is playing. And you're like, Oh, well, in the song ends, the surfing land. And the song ends. New song starts up, not done with the footage. Got to throw another song on there. It's kind of relaxing. You know, this again could be just like a YouTube video you toss on to like chill out. Yes, it is. It is. I mean, that's to be fair when you're watching it, you are never under any assumption that the story will continue again. You don't think he's ever in danger. There's nothing dramatic about it. It is just relaxing surfing footage with music over it. The music doesn't have lyrics. There's no vocals. There's no dialogue. So this really could just be background. You go into like a like a Tommy Bahamas or a you know, Margaret Ville. This just could be on the screen playing. Yeah. So yeah, thank you, Elliot. Surfing on. Yes, good. He has good friends. He's good friends if you're I can bring him. I think it helps that. So this is one that it shows how out of the loop I am in the bad movie world that I no longer kind of hear about these movies ahead of time until Dan says, Oh, we should do this one. And going into it, knowing not at all, what to expect. Just watching the dad's monologue unreal for minute after minute after minute for over

55:42a half hour. I was like, you know what? This is exactly the way I want to experience this, which is with no understanding of what is happening and no guess as to what could happen next. You know, that's a good, that is a good transition to final judgments where we say whether this is a good bad movie, a bad, bad movie or movie we kind of liked. And I to pull back the curtain on the decision process here. I this year, I sort of used my extra curricular bad movie viewing group as like a vetting process of like Dan is the most committed to the lifestyle on the career of someone argue I have the least going on outside the podcast. Some I may make many might argue that. Yeah, that's emotionally not at all. Most of the most going on. Yeah. Oh, thank you. What was I saying? Oh, I was using it as sort of a vetting process of like what would be good for the flottenberg? And like I had certainly heard this title before as like this is like a good, freco bad

56:44movie, but I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything bad before seeing it with my bad movie watching crew. And I will say that like of the two movies that I suggested that we're doing, the next one is the fun one. The next one like I think is like genuinely fun while being like nutty. This is the one that I was like, well, we got to do this because this is a singular experience. Yeah. And I'm going to say it's a good bad movie, but it is, but it is definitely a movie. It's a long model log from a lot of it. Like this is for the real weirdos, the sickos, the truth. This is not the one to show you co-workers. You're like, oh, I heard this is really funny. Yeah, you got to, you got to, yeah, this isn't the one where like a guy, like a guy at the bar is like, oh, you got to see this movie and be like, no, let me counter it. Yeah. You need to see this movie and then you question your life. If you like having your brain broken, like, which is part of why I like this kind of

57:46thing sometimes, just to see something that is totally different. It's like then this is a good bad movie. Yeah. It's like the analogy I like is one I also use for describing the extreme heavy metal that I listen to, which is that it's kind of like eating spicy food, right? And that like you watch your normal bad movies and you're like, oh, you're regular like bad enough like thing. That's a simple bad movie. That's something with a little bit of heat. But sometimes after like your palate gets to sensitize you, but you can also like tell the difference between different types of peppers and different types of chilies that finally you can appreciate the ghost pepper of a movie like this, which is an appropriate metaphor because there is a ghost made out of eels and electricity. This is you finally squids and electricity made me understand the music. Yeah. So the thing is if you if you do not have this background, if you're just like, Hey, you probably seen a bad movie, why don't you watch this one? It would be impossible.

58:47But I feel like if you're a real bad movie freak, yeah, this is a good bad one for you. This is this is great. If you're watching this all by yourself, okay, good luck. But this is great with friends as someone who watched it all by myself. It was still good bad experience. But again, knowing that I'm going into I mean, it was also knowing that I'm doing this for for this podcast. But I think this is yeah, when you're with your when you're with your bad movie seco friends, yeah, pop this one on. You guys will enjoy it. I mean, see the theater ideally so you can get the real. I mean, if you go to the website for the movie, they will tell you where screenings are coming up for it because they are they do they do set up those screenings. So they were one reason we were not able to make it out for a screening, but the spectacle theater was showing this just recently. Yeah, so it's a I would call this a good bad movie. But like I think Stuart that the the spiciness index is a really good way to to scale, you know, if you are if you're a newbie, you might want to stick with the room right now.

59:49And maybe you'll make it your way up to this one eventually. Yeah, to the mountain top that we have to live on. Uh, yeah, we've been desensitized. What are we? We're at this at this point at this point in terms of spicy food, we're just hitting nails into our tongue because we've been desensitized to taste. Yeah. Hey romance readers, what are you looking for? We got your cat boys, your dukes, your hot professors, your rock stars, we got your shifters, we got demons, we got sexy fairies. You want a morally gray no problem. Can't pick, don't worry sweetheart, we've got wide cheeses up the wazoo. Reading Smut, the show where we read spicy books and figure out why people love them. Join us on reading Smut every other Friday on Maximum Fun. Oh, that's a spicy book. Sleep is important, but it's difficult sometimes.

1:00:50I'm John Moe. On sleeping with celebrities, famous people help conque out by talking and soothing voices about unimportant things. Maria Bamford on parking. I parked in a bus stop. That's just not right. I am not a bus. Roxanne Gay on airports. My favorite airport is Indianapolis. It has a really smart layout. Alan Tudyk on yardsticks. You hand somebody a yardstick. Yardsticks become part of the family. Granted, it's a weird idea, but it's lots of fun and it works. Listen wherever you get podcasts. Hello listeners, just want to take a minute away from confronting fear to remind you that the flop house is going to be appearing live in person. That's right, Dan Stewart and me and joined by Alex Smith, aka Howell Daudy in Louisville, Kentucky, September 18th at Ruling Tiger. Go to flop house podcast.com slash events. It's our first live show in a while. I'm super excited about it. I can't wait to get in front of an audience and perform our regular brand of nonsense and

1:01:55see what happens. We're going to be talking about the movie glitter, Stray and Mariah Carey. It should be super fun. That's September 18th at Ruling Tiger, Louisville, Kentucky. Go to flop house podcast.com slash events. Can't make it to Louisville. All right. Well, we'll just have to come to you through your computer. Top TV is coming back. It's season four. That's right. We're starting September 5th. That's a Saturday at 9 PM Eastern 6 PM Pacific. And then the show is going to be on the first Saturday of every month, September through February. This is our one hour online video version of the podcast. This year, the theme is the worst of the best, best picture winners that maybe aren't very good. And we're going to finish out the season by finally answering the question is out of Africa a real movie. Does it actually exist? Or is this some kind of psi op, a K-fabe kind of thing that a lie that we've all been living under all this time? So that's flop TV season four appearing on your computer screen. If you get tickets at the flop house, simpleticks.com, buy a ticket for an individual episode or

1:02:55buy a season pass that six episodes for the price of five can't make it to the live broadcast. That's okay. Your ticket gets you access to the recording of that episode. And those recordings will stay up on the site through the end of February. And of course, I have a couple of personal plugs, my regular stuff, my book joke farming, how to write comedy and other nonsense, which is all of my joke writing secrets in one place is still available from the University of Chicago press. Please pick it up and read it. There is also an audio book version. If you don't want to use your eyes, you just want to use your ears to absorb this information. My comic barbarian behind bars for Mad Cave is now out in a collected edition. It's a really fun, really violent story. I think you're going to like it. And I hope you pick it up. And of course, I'm still writing Harley Quinn monthly for DC Comics. Please pick that up and I hope enjoy it. And now back to surfing footage. Let's answer some questions, some letters listeners. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah, I got a little bit of time. We never thought before. Let's try it. I'm glad to hear that story because we are still in the middle of taping the podcast. So I'm glad.

1:03:56This one is from Dylan last name withheld. Mick Dermott. Probably who writes. We have to assume. Hey, floppers. Hey, what's up? Well, I can't answer that for Dylan, but I'll continue reading the Do it in character. I was, I was reading. Oh, no. Dylan, you got your Dylan. Dylan, I was just Dylan McDermott was just roasted because I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited to get some fucking Calmy lotion. I was recently watching the Stuart Gordon classic space trucker sick and was instantly captured by you. The space trucker should be. Yeah. I was instantly captured by the opening gag of cages and cages of Martian square pigs ready for delivery. Something about the physicality of these goofy rubber pigs, onking and squealing really sets up the off of my brain. I couldn't stop thinking about the work, skill and effort that went into crafting them, despite them only having about 10 seconds of total screen time. Do you have some other notable examples of throw away gags or effects that really stood

1:05:02out or made a movie for you? Keep on flopping Dylan last name withheld. This is, this is not a special effects thing. So I guess it did. But Chubaka, it does not go into the gags or effects category. A different meaning of the word gag, then suppose it would, it would. You mean like choking someone? Yeah, yeah. No, it's funny that you go to Star Wars because like the first thing that came to my mind in terms of like, not a special effects gag, but a joke gag was that really lodged my brain was in return of the Jedi. Is it that one that creature that eats the other creature or knows, nothing else? Well, you know what? I couldn't remember whether that was in the special edition or was it in the original. That's the original. It's the establishment shot of Javas palace and that thing just sticks out its tongue and that's the original. No, that's okay. Well, that was the first thing that special edition. No, that's just there. No, that's an old one. That's an old one.

1:06:02Okay. Well, that was the first thing that came to mind, honestly, Elliott. And then I'm like, because I didn't know which edition it was in, I'm like, I don't want to talk about that. But I guess my brain was like on return of the Jedi. So I just thought the as a joke moment that was like throw away the rank war keeper coming in and being so sad that his rank war has been killed. That's a great moment. Like a couple of seconds, but it adds so much like genuinely to the movie. You know, it means something in a small moment. I mean, to keep with the theme, the joke in Space Balls, the aliens joke where the alien pops out of his chest and then does the little what frog like how am I? Maybe number J frog. It's very silly gag, but like they put a lot of work into it. That's actually John Hurt right now. Actually got John Hurt to be in. Yes. Yes.

1:07:02That's a lot of work for kind of a dumb joke. I like it. It's a bottom of the facts. I think whenever you do it, I mean, the thing that always gets me, this is not a movie thing, but because I thought about that that creature in return of the Jedi because it's like that's puppetry and things like that. But also they do that kind of stuff in the in the TV show, the young ones a lot where they'll open a door to a room and suddenly there's a lion tamer in there and you see a lion tamer for like a little bit and then they close the door and that's it. There's no like and it's like well, they had to do a lot of, there's a, there's a moment in the beginning of the movie, Million Dollar Legs, where a guy just walks across the screen with a bear on a leash to show you that this is like a foreign country. And I remember talking to John Oliver about that movie and he was like, they had to get a bear like they had to bring it there. Like that's work, you know. Yeah. Now that's I mean like I always love that kind of stuff because the joke is funny or the or the moment is striking, but then there's just the metal level of like, yeah, they put so much effort into a thing that arguably is unnecessary or stupid and that makes it

1:08:08more valuable to me. Yeah. It's it is funnier when when a lot of work is put into a throwaway thing. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Um, this is from Parker last name with held, but it's not Posey sorry. It's it's Parker L. C. Lose. Yeah. L. L. C. Lose. Lose. Hi floppers. Hey. Hey Parker. Hey, hey, I have been. Damn, was Parker sound like. Hey, oh, okay. I'm going to do it. I have been greatly amused by your ongoing stand up and cheer bit. I've incorporated it into the flop house. We incorporated it. Yeah. Recently, when watching my my neighbor got damn. Now I'm thrown off recently. Well, my my neighbor. Recently, when watching my neighbor, total for the 20th time with my two year old, I thought

1:09:11that's a hard sentence to say. Total 20th time, two year old. That's it. That's the English actor. I'm a very good. Total. Total. Oh, my neighbor total role. Oh, I was talking to total role. 20 times with me two year old. Total, he don't say much, but 20 times my two year old was talking to total. I'm the cat boss. And so I was walking through the rain with my neighbor total role. I says to total role. I says, Tata total role. Tata, total role. Tee. Time for you. Um, I thought to myself that when set Suki boards the catbush and rushes off to save her sister, my that it was a genuine honest to God stand up and cheer moment. So my question to you guys is, what is your favorite genuine stand up and cheer moment in movie? Keep flopping those flops. Lobby as there are. This is a hard question because the fact is there are so many genuine stand up and cheer moments and movies. It's what make movies amazing is that there are so many of them where there's a

1:10:12moment in it that is and what makes the stand up and cheer gag about the flash entering the speed force. So such a strong joke for us is because there are movies where you want to stand up and cheer. This is not even superhero movies. Even one of them, I hate to go to the superhero. Well, one of them is the scene in Spider-Man 2 when Spider-Man fights Dr. Octopus on the train and then he's about to fall off the train and all those hands catching and pull him on. And it's not so much alike. I think for me, it's not so much stand up and cheer. There's like there are movies that make me like tear up a little bit at a big moment. And so like there's a moment or like in ET when Elliott realizes that ET is still alive after he thinks that he's died. That's a stand up and cheer moment for me, but it's also when I'm like crying a little bit in the iron giant when he's the older brother like Bonks is head. He's so happy. This is a great moment in ET. But it's like the, there's a, there's a, there's a, like a great, great movies have have a lot of those types of moments, you know, and it's a, I don't know, what are ones that come to you? And it's the, it's the, it's the, the, the Hutzpah of them being like, oh yeah, the flash

1:11:14entering the speed force. A moment no one cares about or remembers. It doesn't mean anything, you know. One that came to my mind was that in college, my first roommate, shout out to Matt Bartmuss, he's not listening, but hi. But the shop pretty loud then, you know. He had the Wallace and Gromit movies at that time, the three shorts on VHS. And I had never seen Wallace and Gromit and he knew that I also like grew up in like an anglophile house. He said, oh, you would love these things. You know, this is right going to be right up your alley. He had a screening of the wrong trousers with like a bunch of our other friends on our dorm hall who had also not seen a Wallace and Gromit thing. At the end of the climactic chase where like, you know, Gromit is laying down track for the, the toy train to chase feathers McGraw around. And, you know, like, and everything resolves itself magically all at once at the very end.

1:12:18Like the room burst into spontaneous applause. So that one stuck out. I was watching, I was watching Judy dancing with my wife recently. It's her favorite movie. We watch it. We watch it many times. Every now and she's just like, I'm going to watch it when he went, if I just wish he pulls baby out of the corner, like that's a standup in June. It's great. It's great. It's a wonderful moment. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. It's the partner turn of the king where at the end during the corner or during, is it the wedding or a coronation where you know me? You know me, you know me, man. This is your Billy Wick. Everance, everyone's taken a knee and actually, you know, I'm not, I mean, there's so many moments in Lord of the Rings. I think for me, the one that always gets me is the opening of two towers where Gandalf falls down into the pit after the bell rod. Every time it gives me a rush to see this little, little gray pilgrim falling down after I'm anxious. Fire dance up in cheers. That's when I, you think, good. You think, good. Gandalf is dead. Well, I'm like, the thing is, we thought Gandalf was dead, but like you see him do the craziest

1:13:20thing. And where he's like, I'm not just being dragged down there. He's being dragged down there with me. And just in this little shark. Yeah. Well, he's got some crazy politics. Yeah. Yeah. If you heard him talk about white shores before, yeah. Thanks. Gandalf's like someday all the know all the hobbits and all the, all the gnomes, the dwarves will cry out for me to save them. And I'll say no. It's true that Gandalf believes he's gotten better as he's gotten whiter. I remember having a conversation with it. Wait, years ago when Watchman was just a comic having a, having a conversation with a friend of mine about who was the hero of that book? And he was like, well, it's obviously Worshack. Like Worshack's a hero. And I was like, are you crazy? And it was like one of these moments where I like saw my friend in a 16 or something. Yes. But like just, but even then seeing into my friend and being like, oh, there's something in you that does not connect with me. No, I mean, like, I mean, obviously Worshack has like a lot of issues, but I think the confusion that will not like I don't have a lot of issues.

1:14:20He's got a real sound. I think the confusion comes from people who like my mom's Italian, my dad's Jewish and I'm Worshack. I think the confusion comes from people being like, well, that character has moral clarity. And you're like, yeah, but he's got too much more. Well, that he has principles and also that he is, he has principles and he stands up to him as opposed to like, you know, because I'm a nerdy weak guy, I was like, oh, well, night owls clearly the hero of this book, but like night owls is soft, you know, in a way it's easy to demonstrate. So, you know, you know, I mean, come on, you know, yeah, but like the part of the point of it is like sometimes you're your own clarity leads you to the wrong place, you know. Yeah, so you could say it's what much of the book is about because that's also a man that's this problem. So my recommendation is watch men the comic. Although I have to be honest, I read my one of my favorite comic podcasts, screw what we're just going to talk about comics, hosted by the Heinz Brothers. They did a watchman season and I was reading along as they were read, go, it's rereading it as they were doing it. And it was the first time in years that I had looked at watchmen and like, you know, I'm a pretty sour book.

1:15:22This is a little too sour for me right now, you know, no two-dour, dour and sour. The two brothers. No, the two brothers are, we're in Kevin Heinz. Okay. But which one will be dour and which one will be sour if they if you had to. Hmm, so hard to choose, yeah. Yeah. I also listened to that series. It was good. Let us recommend movies, you and I movie for the evening sun, something, et cetera. Like, I know what this evening sun is going to do. It could do anything. It could explode. It could rise back inside. I just don't remember the soul around. Yeah, yeah. But you know what the sun does if they do in the evening, right? Yeah, but it's like, yeah, it sets, but that's what the problem says. No, but that's what it does. Yeah. The horizon is really moving. This is something it's a conversation I've had with my. It is really moving. Yeah. This is this is a, this is my version of so when my I was a kid, my dad would always have a conversation with me about how amazing modern telecommunications technology is. Like, and it's astounding, you know, in the old days, you'd have to take a ship and

1:16:25you carry a letter across the ocean. This was his dad talked to me and I really was my dad. It's astounding. Time is fleeting. Man, this takes control. That's what my dad would say. And then we'd have to, of course, we'd then we'd have to take a step to the left. That it jumped to the right. Yeah. And so look at that way. But my version of that with my kids is the basic, the basic importance of the fact that we are on a planet that turns and goes around the sun and that and creates seasons that every single aspect of human life and civilization. And not only that, but animal and plant life is based around that fact that the earth turns and orbits the sun. And my kids are so bored by this conversation. I mean, you're blowing my mind. Yeah. It's the single most of the children. You're blowing my mind, but I have like had three gummies today. Oh wow. Well, I took one and then I'm like, did I have a gummy already? Probably not. And then you're like, those two gummies are probably lost. I should have the third one. And then I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm hungry. Let me do another gummy. One gummy. One gummy is my limit.

1:17:26It has to be pretty low gummy these days. I wish there was a way for me to do it without gummies, don't like gummy things. Yeah. They're you can do chocolate. I could. That's true. Every year, every year, as I, whenever I have my birthday, I go, I go to my wife, I go, is this the year that I start getting high? She's like, I don't think so. I mean, I feel like it might help you go to sleep. Yeah, that's true. Like turn your brain off and just fucking float. It's a bit. I'm a fixed parent. You can try it. I'm not saying like, I'm not saying commit to the lifestyle. You gotta, don't like buy them and just fucking, don't wear them, Elliot. Don't like start wearing a fucking drug road. Yeah. Get a bah ha. She comes home and I've replaced all the lamps with lava lamps. This is what we do now. All the art is black light posters. I finally get fluid, man. Um, okay. These are all. Let's talk about the planets rotations. They're like, oh, it's not that different. Well, what I've always said to my kids, like, when I get old, stoner things, by the way, I wonder what new stoners do. I don't know what new stoners do. They probably just play video games all day.

1:18:26Yeah, they fucking, they bedrotten doom scroll. So the, one of the, the thing that I've always said, and what's the recommendations I apologize for? Sorry, I've been rotting doom scroll. It's my favorite turt, to use me in the general ability. Yeah. I was going to say this is my favorite pieces of ice in that runner. Yeah. The, that what my kids, I've started to talk to my older son about drugs a little bit. And just to, you know, be aware of them. And he knows I don't do them. And my line with them is I'm like, well, I don't, I have such a loose grip on my understanding of reality already. There's already enough times when I think I see something out of the corner of my eye and I have to turn and there's nothing there. I don't need to add more of that into my life, you know, I'm already teetering on the edge of Matt this. I don't need to give myself a shove, you know, guys. I sometimes leave the okay. So don't read those books, those Suttercane books on mail. Yeah. Suttercane, he's my favorite author. Oh, my eyes bleeding. Sometimes I leave the walk uncleaned a little bit on the stove because, you know, like, I have to, I have to re-season it after I clean it.

1:19:27You know, it's one of those types of, and I like, perch it on top of the, the, the Dutch oven, which also lives on the stove a lot of time just because they're so big. It's ours is the same. Our skillet and our Dutch oven basically live on the stove top, which, you know, the window. But the blackness of the walk and the, the handle pointing up every time I see it out of the corner of my eye, I think that one of our cats is sitting on the stove over there. I like the story, but I'm glad I like that a lot. I like that a lot. I love that. I love that. We spent a lot of time talking about surfer teen confronts fear. We owe ourselves some human connection. You know, let's talk about stuff from our lives, man. Come on. In front of that fear. There's always whales at the bottom to see howling for cowardly men. They're always crying. There's always one crying, yeah. I know what. One washes up on the, the, one washes up on a beach. That's because a coward did not go down there and get chomped on.

1:20:28Yeah. Oh, wow. That's what he says. Right. It's basically what he says. It's basically what he says. He's a coward. Yeah. There's other cowards. It's not just you, Dan. Classic, classic straight white man. We mentioned something and you assume it's about you. Yeah. I'm sorry for sitting myself in this whale tragedy. Yeah. It's okay. It's about the whales, Dan. Let's recommend a movie that we have seen. It's good. It's just playing into that whale savior narrative. Yeah. Um, let's recommend some movies, shall we? Yeah. I went out like a movie that you saw. So why don't you talk, you've seen movies, Dan. Why don't you tell some movie you saw these like, oh boy, have I saw a movie? You would not believe the movies I've seen. I saw movie. Yes, CB, I'm splittering off alpha centroid, you know, attack ships on fire. Yeah, that kind of shit. Yeah. Roy Batty watched teen confronts fear. He would be like, you know, you'd really get it. Yeah. I'm ready to go now. I'm going to go to the Delta whale like tears in the rain. I saw it in the theater, but it's an old movie.

1:21:29What? How is that possible? Did you go, but back in time, it is a, it's the new 4K. I think it's a old one. It's the 4K remastered new, the 4K remaster of the, I guess directors cut of a man hunter. The, oh, okay. Michael man picture based on red dragon. That must have been so hard. Well, Michael man, Michael man was making that because he would think that they were hunting him. Yeah. It must have been fed. Call the scene and he would run away. Now, now, so man hunter, the original is one of those almost perfect movies. So how did this fare? Well, the thing is, like, I love man hunter, but I've seen it. Like this may be the fourth time I've seen it and over like the course of 40ish years. You're like, yeah. So I am not in the best. And those first, and those first 10 years, I'm guessing you didn't see man hunter. So really it's like 30 some ideas, yeah. Dan's thinking like, what's I said and when I watched man? I mean, first time I'm not able to possible, but you know, how they were back then. I might feel first day. Did we go to see man hunter or did we go to see?

1:22:31Or the plan before time. Yeah, I'm. No, I, I'm not so versed on man hunter, despite loving it to be able to like point to the differences. There is one scene at the end that I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is new. That's like the best I could do. But it was an ad for Amazon. But I can report like there, there I have seen real man hunter fans post online that the theatrical cut is better, whatever. I enjoyed seeing man hunter in the theater. I did not really change the experience that much for me that it was a slightly different cut. But everything that's great about the movie was still great. It's got such immaculate vibes. It's got such great music, such great cinematography. Tom Noonan can't go wrong. But the William Peter son. But the thing that the thing that really struck me watching at this time actually was that

1:23:33the tooth fairy is not the hero. Yeah, I was like, it's like cool dude. He's got strong rules that he follows. Now, especially considering how Baroque and over the top serial killers movies became later, the genre that this movie essentially created, this is so restrained. Despite the MTV style of it, it is so restrained. I noticed we don't start with on screen violence. We start with the effects of violence. We see William Peterson, like Will Graham going through a crime scene, you know, after the violence has already occurred and experiencing it, like how it must have happened, like thinking it through. But we just see a bunch of blood on the walls. It's not like we got to start this movie off with a bang. And it's so much more effective to like have this slow burn.

1:24:33It is like halfway through the movie before we see Tom Noonan's character, Dollar Hide, Red Dragon, the tooth fairy, whatever, however you want to refer to. He's got a lot of names. He's got a name, yeah. And it is a really sort of like reasonable procedural. Like Will Graham is making a few like leaps, but it's not one of these like later, like he like somehow knows exactly what the killer is thinking. Like it's more like he has put himself in this mindset and he makes leaps that seem logical to us, the audience, you know. And a lot of the other stuff surrounding that stuff is just like FBI procedural stuff that seems really like legit. And I like how it's really kind of a grounded movie in addition to being a really stylish one. And you were saying this special edition, they went back and digitally added Anthony Hopkins

1:25:34and place a prime shot. They got the whole problem in this movie. As they were already always intended from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's my recommendation. You guys, yeah, I really want to see it. I am going to recommend a movie that might still be out in the one, does this episode come out small, then. Small. I am recommending the new Jane Shunbrun movie, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Me Asma. At Camp Me Asma. This I was lucky enough to get to go to see an early screening of this while I was up in Toronto. Thank you, friend of the podcast Peter Kroplowski for getting me in. I was such a huge fan of Jane's first two movies. Specifically, I saw the TV glow really crushed me. And I feel like that movie, they're able to tell, like get across the experience of transitioning, like drawing from this collection of references that make so much sense.

1:26:36Like I feel like you could hand that movie to anybody who has been obsessed with it, like a niche thing and they would get it. Like they'd be like, okay, this all makes sense. Thank you. But it's also like kind of a sledgehammer and sad. So going into this, going into Camp Me Asma, I really didn't know to expect. What is so great about Camp Me Asma is that it's like so joyful and playful and it's basically about sex as told through and like coming to understand sex and connect with it through the language of sleshier movies, which yeah, it was really great and weird and silly and playful and funny and it's great and it's got some really great performances and Kevin MacDonald shows up. Yeah. And there's a couple of, there's like, there was definitely at least one needle drop that I felt like I was the oldest person in the audience, which I probably was. It was like an audience of all very

1:27:37young, cool queer kids and then grandpa over here, chuckling the Kevin MacDonald show. But yeah, it's really cool and I'm looking forward to I'm going to go see it again this week. And I think I'm going to run over to the museum of the moving image here in New York where they have an exhibit of some of the props, which one of the things that this movie has clearly has a love of slashier movies is through some of the props that they had there. So check it out. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I really want to see that one. I'm going to recommend, I haven't gotten to see a lot of movies lately. Story of my life, but there was a movie that I rewatched recently and it feels like it actually dovetails with surfer teen confronts fear pretty well where I'm like, this movie most of it is someone standing there while another person talks about their philosophy of life in the strangest possible way and they don't get a chance to respond like the surfer never really gets a chance to respond. So what is there a good version of this movie where someone is explaining their strange

1:28:43kind of life and philosophy and the other person does get to respond and I realized, oh, there is a good version of this and I just rewatched it and that's my dinner with Andre from 1981, directed by Louis Molle, starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Sean as kind of versions of themselves where this is the movie when I was growing up, it was like this was if Ishtar was your go-to reference for bad movie, this was your go-to reference for like boring smart person movie. And so I did I put off watching it for a long time when I finally watched it, I was old enough to get it. It's an amazing movie. It's a really fantastic and it's just two guys having dinner talking about their views on where art and life intersect and their anxieties about those things. And I remember Andre Gregory is so policed throughout the movie even as he's saying bonkers things and Wallace Sean is so like agitated in his performance and yet watching at this time it made me realize that Wallace Sean is the character who really stands by his guns and seems to have a strong way of thinking whereas Andre Gregory, even though he talks in a very poised way, kind of just whatever Wallace Sean says, he's like yeah, yeah, but also could be, you know, yeah,

1:29:47you're right and it could be like this, like he's much more malleable even though he at first seems to be the more senior and the more poised and the more well wise of the two. And there's just so much in it, not just about the way they're talking, the way they're talking about, but like the dynamic between the two of them and what's going on underneath that and it's just it's a really wonderful movie and really fascinating. And I was like, oh, sir, for a teen conference fear, it's like the shitty version of my dinner with Andre made by somebody who doesn't really have anything interesting to say and doesn't really know how to imbue that with with human emotion or human worries or things. And I would say if anyone out there is like, you know, like you sort of you were intimidated by the idea of watching my dinner with Andre, like you're listening to a podcast. You like hearing people just have like conversations that what we've around it does feel very much like a movie version of like a proto podcast between these two guys, except that there's a there's a real there's a design. There's a structured dramatic

1:30:53structure to it. I was trying to think of another word as in the structure like a form to it. What? I said, no need. Yeah, that's true. There is a dramatic form to it and they are playing the script that Dan sends us before every episode that we hear to careful. We have to word for word for word. Yeah. And then redo an ADR later. I don't know where ADA are. I mean, you're podcast but that's the way it works. Trying to match lips, baby. But also one of the fun things about my dinner with Andre is that they are talking about theater and life and things like that. But the stories that Andre Gurry tells are bonkers. And while it's just watching him kind of at a certain moment, like, what are you talking about? Like, what is this? It's a it is very fun and it is entertaining. And so it's a I highly recommend it. If you've ever put it off because you thought it was going to be boring, at least watch the first 30 minutes, you know, and then I think you'll watch the rest of it too. It's not a long movie. It's really fun. Yeah, you hit on something like they really play up like the, you know, you might think it was boring because it's just people too people talking, but it's a dynamic between two

1:31:56people. They play up the odd coupleness of like Andre Gurry is this like wandering adventure and Walshahn just like wants to stay home in his New York apartment and have his comforts, you know, like that's part of it. That's part of the fun. Perfect podcast. Yeah. It is a perfect podcast. I mean, I feel like the best podcasts are the ones where you have two weird dudes. But they're weird. It's a different way. Yeah. Yeah. I have to overlap just enough. You can read all about it and joke farming in my podcast chapter. Oh, that's true. Yeah. You made it into Ali's book Stuart, were you aware of this? We're in there. I haven't finished reading his book. I am. I'm like three years. It's okay. I started my dad. This is the kind of stuff my dad says all the time. He goes, he goes, how are sales on the book doing? Has anyone else read the whole thing or just me? Am I the only person who read it all the way through? I'm like, come on man. Weird. Weird. You're in service here. That shouldn't is like, Ching-ching. We found the rock to kick over. He does that kind of stuff all the time. It's really funny. Okay. Well, my dad did a thing. This reason,

1:33:02where after complaining about everyone else in the family, he's like, but that's like, your answer judgmental person. I'm not. And I was like, bitch. Wow. We're confronting a lot of things along with fear. And thank you for confronting server team confronts fear with me for a second time for me. This is my second go around. Yeah. I'm glad I could be there with team longer somehow. Anyway, thank you. We didn't have to go it alone. Yeah. Thank you to MaxbomFund or to MaxbomFund.org. Check out all the other great podcasts on our podcasting network. Thank you to Mr. Alex Smith that will you still have time to see him with us in Louisville when this releases. Get tickets if you're in the area. We're talking glitter folks. Yeah. Glitter. Glitter. Performing is howl.doddy. And maybe if you go, you'll finally learn how to spell howl.doddy.

1:34:05So you can Google it. I mentioned it on every episode. I'm like, people are going to have trouble finding Alex. I don't mean to threaten anyone here. But I will say if you're thinking, they're going to release the episode at some point, I'll wait till they release it. Well, there's a above zero chance we are going to fuck something up and lose the audio. That's true. Be the first one. Yeah. So yeah, we hope to see you there if you're in the area. But anyway, for the flop house, I have been Damagoy. Hey, I'm your one and only. That's Stuart Wellington, baby. And I'm Elliot Kaelin just wandering the universe on this planet that turns and also orbits at the same time. Think about it. Yeah, squid and electricity. Elliot, you're summarizing. I got my notes set up for it. You know, genuinely, you know, just it came, you came up in the rotation. I didn't like

1:35:07juke the steps or anything. I was like, few, I don't have to summarize the moment. Oh, yeah. This one's a tough. I got, I mean, I did some I did some pre-work in organizing my notes. So okay. Let's, uh, we'll do it. Are you? Let's do it. We finished. Finish. We'll be in white. Mango mango. It turned steward into the one who can onically is wasting flop house time with mango now. You can switch that over. I'll talk to the kids about. Okay. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.