The Flop House - Ep. #420 - Madame Web, with Zhubin Parang

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

We welcome our old friend Zhubin Parang back to the main feed after years of only joining us for our FlopTales RPG series (available as bonus content for Max Fun members: join here!) -- and for such an auspicious return we had to pick an extra-special movie: Madame Web, which some have hailed as the "Cats" of superhero movies. Does it reach those heights? Who knows. But it's surely the most enjoyably-silly of Sony's Spider-Man without Spider-Man universe. We hope you enjoy it, and thanks to all who support us by becoming a member of Maximum Fun during this Max Fun Drive.Do you live in or around BROOKLYN, NEW YORK or OXFORD, ENGLAND? We’ve got upcoming LIVE SHOWS for you! And if you DON'T live in either of those places you can still see our SPEED 2 live show as a professionally-shot streaming event! Current Max Fun members should have gotten an email with a code for discount tickets. New members will get their code after the Max Fun Drive!Wikipedia page for Madame WebRecommended in this episode:Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)Deadloch (2023)Love Lies Bleeding (2024)Testament (1983)Hit The Road (2021) MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

On this episode we discuss Madam Web. But this time of year it's more like Maximum Fun Drive Web. You didn't even say maximum properly. I got, ahead of time I got confused. What was I doing? Mad Ams-a-lum. Mad Ams-a-mum Fun Drive Web. Okay. drive web.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliott Kalin. And before we introduce our very special guest for this episode, it's a total mystery to you unless you have read the description of the episode. The title, in fact. The title. I want to remind our listeners that it is Max Fun Drive, Air Horn Noise, Air Horn Noise,

Air Horn Noise. Thank you. Should I do the Air Horn Noise? Is that why I'm here? Let's remind our listeners that it is Max Fun Drive, air horn noise, air horn noise, air horn noise. Thank you. From now- Should I do the air horn noise? Is that why I'm here? Yeah. Yes, that's why you're here. You're the Michael Winslow of this episode.

Bop, bop, bop, bop. Bop, bop, bop, bop. That's a different kind of horn. But it does have air. From now through March 29th, this is the time of year when we celebrate Maximum Fun members and the money that they pledge in order to make it possible for us to do this show and feed our families. I'll be telling you more

about Max Fund Drive and how to pledge and what bonus gifts you'll get from pledging later in the episode. But if you absolutely, positively cannot wait to get involved with the drive, then pause this episode right now, go to MaximumFun.org slash join and you can line up, sign up and re-enlist today for as little as $5 a month as a supporter of us and the Maximum Fund family of podcasts. $5 a month means you're paying only $1.25 per episode. That's how much a comic book cost when I started collecting them in 1992.

Speaking of comic books, we're gonna talk about Madame Webb today. So once you're done at maximumfund.org slash join, come right back because we're about to introduce our special Madam Web themed special guest. And that guest is of course, Juman Parang, co-EP of the Daily Show, longtime listeners, the Flophouse will know him as Tans or Silverview. Juman, how does it feel to be yourself for once and not a character on the show? Oh, it feels great. Thank you guys for I forgot how terrible it is to watch a bad movie.

You only put good things in your eyes. It's also the, it's the first day of spring today, which is the Iranian new year. So I really appreciate you guys making me take one of the most important days in my people's year to come talk about the worst movie I've seen in a very long time. Eating your beloved sour cherries. I could be eating sour cherries right now. I could be dancing around the sofa I've seen in a very long time. Eating your beloved sour cherries. I could be eating sour cherries right now.

I could be dancing around the sofa I have seen. I could be other cultural references. You guys don't understand. I thought this was a Madame Webb episode, not a Dune episode, okay? I don't know what all this is all about. Wow. Wow, that wasn't such a good movie.

I'd be very offended by the racism. Xubin, I mentioned that you are a Madame Webb themed guest. I don't have a fact to back that up. So can you rationalize why you are the guest on the Madame Webb episode? Yes. I would also prefer to be bitten to death by spiders than to have watched Madame Webb. Well, let me just say the real reason is, of course, that because it is Max Fun Drive, we're pulling out the stops.

This is our equivalent of May Sweeps, and everyone has been clamoring for a main feed, Jubin episode. Jubin, for a long time, has been sequestered to our bonus content. If you listen to this and you love Jubin, and you're a $5 a month or more donor, you can listen to him do all our role-playing episodes

that we did for bonus content. But we wanted to have them back on a normal episode after popular demand. Finally, have you been not as a sort of medieval nobleman or as a rich guy from the 30s or an arrogant dog? A dog who kind of takes those same thematic character eats and stretches them way beyond the point of believability or humor. Yeah, yeah. That's why we're talking about Madame Webb today, guys. I appreciate you guys cutting me in on any percent of these maximum fund profits.

Any dollar you guys can raise, most of it will go to me, so I really appreciate it. You can take the boy out of Tanser, but you can take the Tanser out of the boy. Yeah, Schubin, who started at The Daily Show at the same time as me and has risen to the highest highs through the ranks, and I have a podcast. I am actually the role of Jon Stewart now at The Daily Show. Wow, yes. He plays Jon Stewart.

They didn't actually get him back. No, no, I just played him. They just cast a vision of possibilities. He's in the makeup chair for hours before every episode. Oh, practical, yeah. It's amazing, yeah. Oh, boy. What do we do on this podcast, Dan?

Well, what we do is we watch a bad movie and then we talk about a movie that has been either critically or commercially Dismissed go on see whether we agree basically. That's a good way of putting it And we watched Madame Web a movie that may still be in theaters In the aisles Recording this it was just released to streaming too as of this, it's Flophouse in the Isles. As we're recording this, it was just released to streaming too, so I think it's available in both methods. That's actually how I watched it on streaming,

because it allowed me to not just double time, but quadruple time it, as I want. No, so this is... Let me tell you, it still was not fast enough. We should kick you off with this. Jumin, for listeners who don't know, if you know Juben, you know that he watches movies at double speed because he doesn't have the time for them.

Yeah, Juben-ing, and it is, I find it appalling. It just spazed me as a film-er. Juben Bryan, who once said to me, alien's not a good movie because there isn't music to tell me how to feel in some of the scenes. It is a very dull movie when she's just wandering around the halls of this spaceship like she's looking for a phone she dropped.

It's not at all a scary... It's a cat, a furry phone, a cat. Yeah, Juban was like, under the skin is great when you Juban it. Just flies by. It's like a guy's walking in and gets sucked into pits. Girl is going around and then gets burned to death. It's a pretty cool movie. So glad I could watch Killers of the Flower Moon,

a trim hour, 50 minutes. Would you say having watched Madame Web though, Elliot, that some movies may be worth double quadruple timing through? I mean, all movies are worth quadruple timing through, right? Worth it. Worth it. Actually, to be honest, there have been times

when I have fast forwarded through movies, but they are usually like movies that are six or seven hours long, like, and where I'm like, oh, this is a long shot of something going on. But Madam Webb, you want to soak it all up. There's a lot of, that's an experience that you want to enjoy at the speed it's intended,

maybe even half speed. Every strand of that web. I will tell you, there are certain action scenes that I had to slow down to normal time because the editing was so confusing that I had no idea who was where. It was so confusing to watch it at double speed. He had to reduce himself to mere normal speed.

So before we get further into... Stuart and I saw in the theaters where double speed was not an option. You couldn't yell up to the projector, spin it faster. Spin the film through faster. I bet everyone in the audience would have been like, yes, we're on the same side. So Dan, when you saw this, were you alone in the theater?

Because I was alone and the person checking my ticket was like, one for Madame Webb. I, yes. It was a pretty empty theater because it was late in the Madame Webb run, although not that late because it's still around, but pretty late. But there was a group of four guys

who sat fairly next to me and I'm like, these guys are gonna be a little too rowdy, they're gonna be a little too, we're making fun of Madame Webb. I'm like, look, I understand, it's late in the run, everyone knows what Madame Webb is. If you're going to see it for that reason, I get it. Chill out a little, don't be annoying.

They were mostly okay. We have a mutual friend whose name I won't say because she's famously averse to any kind of publicity. But she went and saw it opening night with her husband and was saying the theater just had a blast laughing at the movie. I'm sure. And I feel like that was the only context

to put it properly. I had a blast laughing at the movie, but let's talk about the movie, shall we? Wait, I hate to delay it even more Stuart, but one thing I wanna say before we get into the movie is, so the writers of this movie, Matt Sazama and Brooke Sharpless, we have covered every single movie that they have had produced on our podcast.

And when this movie was out, Matt's filmography was going around on Twitter being like, can you imagine being this guy? And I just wanna say, he's someone I got to know a little bit on the picket line during the strike. We walked together a lot of times. He was very well, very took it well that we had covered all of his movies on the podcast.

I was like, oh, I did this bad movie podcast. And he goes, oh, you probably have done one of mine. I'm like, oh, probably not. And then we went through, he just mentioned his filmography. I'm like, we did that one, we did that one, we did that one. And he seemed like a really great guy. I really talked to him.

And I think these guys are much more talented writers than the finished versions of these films would have it come out. So I want to give them, I want to ahead of time be like, don't blame them, blame the director and the producers. This film clearly went through a Cuisin art before it arrived in theaters Yes, it has been chopped and you look at and you look at Dakota Johnson's interviews And she's like the script that I signed to do is not the script that we ended up making so I imagine there was originally

At some point a good version of this movie released a better versions movie, but I think you're the writers That's that's my rule always don't blame the writers DBTW also rule always. Don't blame the writers. DBTW. Also, just as a writer who has never had any movie that he's written made into a movie, I have nothing but respect for writers who have actually gone through that gauntlet. So yes, absolutely. You didn't write Anatomy of a Fall? I did, but another movie with the exact same plot and characters was actually made. Entitled, yeah.

It was called what, The Staircase? Was that the miniseries? Okay. Mine was just the sound effect that you make when you slip on a banana peel. Like, zoop, boop. It was the story of that sound. It was, yeah.

But it was a good plot with this. Wait, slip on that banana peel again. Swoop. You've got something there. Weirdly enough, also features 50 cents PIMP in the soundtrack. Okay, so Madam Webb, we open in the Peruvian Amazon 1973. We meet a pregnant naturalist who is searching for a spider.

Now when you say naturalist, you mean like a scientist who studies nature, not a nudist? Yes. I mean, I don't know what she does outside of the context of this one scene. I think that's nature-ist is the word you're looking for there. Okay. Yeah.

So she is searching for a spider that she believes will cure a lot of diseases and problems and whatnot. She cites a local legend of Las Aranjas, men who have been bitten by this spider and have special spider powers. And I want to say that all of this early dialogue is doing heavy double duty as like exposition,

like the guy who's with her, who like, spoiler alert, will become like villainous soon. A guy named Ezekiel Sim? Yeah. That's not a scary man name. Not an all evil name of Ezekiel Sims, yeah. But he says things like, you know, like, oh, that is why you hired me to be your security.

And I'm like, okay, well, thank you for clarifying your relationship to one another. He's also, I mean, he's from the start, so villainous that it calls into question the judgment of the mom who allowed him to be her security. It's very, it's so bad that when he pulls the gun out halfway through, it's like, well, you should have seen this coming, lady.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time he says anything, he starts like twiddling with his mustache and you're like, oh, do you have to, is this a nervous tick? So of course he- I will say, it is not the best showcase for Tahar Rahim, the star of A Prophet,

a movie that he's much better in. Well especially since all of his dialogue appears to be 80 yard later on by- Yes, that's true. Well I was like, the whole time I was watching it, I was like, did they dub every single thing that he says? Like it's, they might have, I don't know. It's great.

It's amazing. It adds to the like hallucinatory nature of this entire thing. I started just like watching characters' lips in this movie after a while to be like, was this the original line or did they change it? Like there's a lot of stuff that's delivered back to camera. Yes. So of course she finds the spider, she's very excited.

Her security guard, Sims, of course, turns the table, kills the entire team, steals, he like steals some of her research, I think, steals the spider and shoots her. She is then saved by these mystical, mythical Spider-Men, Las Aranjas, who take her to a pool, have her bitten by a spider, and she gives birth. Boom, Madame Webb, movie done. They seem to speak English better than Ezekiel does.

Yeah. The guys who live in the Peruvian jungle and have spider powers. You don't know all the abilities that the spiders give you, maybe. That's true. This actually, let me ask you a question about this, because the entire time, I was just wondering,

what is the relationship with Madame Webb and Spider-Man? Because I thought, going through this. Well, Ellie, do you want to field this one before we get too far into this? Because you were going to maybe talk a little bit about the comics. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about these characters. Here's the thing, in adapting Madame Webb for the film,

they have drastically changed the character in a way that, it's funny because there's two Madame Webbs in the comics. There's the original one who is an elderly lady who is blind, who is paralyzed, and she can see the futurans because she can see along the web of life or whatever. And she would show up in the comics

and basically annoy Spider-Man by hinting at things that were gonna happen, but not really tell him what was gonna happen. And there was a great two-part story where the juggernaut, I don't remember why, wants to kill Madame Webb, and Spider-Man is pulling out all the stops to try to stop him and he's

Way more problem. It's a it's one of the great two-issue spider-man stories There's a second Madame Webb that Madame Webb eventually goes away. There's a second Madame Webb who is the character that Still that Sydney Sweeney plays in this movie, but she kind of took over that role But she looks like the Dakota Johnson version of Madame Webb that shows up at the end of the movie kicking some amazing sunglasses but uh But uh, it's like they took the two versions of Madame Web and combined them while also jettisoning all the backstory of the actual Madame Web so in the in the comics she is an ally of spider-man's but also a

irritating ally of spider-man's because she'll be like mmm the web of life the I feel the strumming along the threads. You should know that danger is coming. And he's like, can you just tell me? Like, can you just tell me what's going to happen? Yeah, this sounds like, because I was watching a bad movie last night that Marina Surtis showed up in,

I was complaining about Counselor Troy on Star Trek, how she was supposed to be the empath on board, but she'd always just be like, he seems angry, Captain, like, yeah, he's already threatening the Enterprise. What are you doing here? The other thing about Maddenweb is that in the comics, the original one looks just like Aunt May.

And so when I first started reading it as a kid, I read the issues out of order. I'm like, oh, eventually they'll reveal that this is Aunt May. No, it's just another old lady, the same way that every old lady in the Archie comics looks like Miss Grundy, who also has the same face as Jughead, so it's weird that they're probably together, they probably have a relationship,

but I guess people who are attracted to each other sometimes look like each other. That's the thing that makes them. It is a little weird. It creates the attraction, yeah. This movie felt like they, for trademark reasons, could not give Madame Webb the Spider-Man powers. So they had to go very metaphorical with what a web was.

Yeah, I think a little bit. They really extrapolate what the power of seeing the future can be, such as when she, as we get to it, splits into three energy beings to save people, which is not a thing she can do in the comics, as far as I can remember. For trademark reasons, they can't have spider-man in the movie. This is of course one of the many of The Sony's spider-man without spider-man spider-verse In baby form Well is spider-man Peter Parker spider-man the mask Dan this is the question we have to ask ourselves

Guys, it's really... They don't even say the name though. Like that's like, I assume that's also for... Well, why would they say the name? The character doesn't exist yet, you know? No, they don't say Peter. Like they never say, like they make a big deal about guessing the name and they never say it.

And they say, and they, well, we'll get to, yeah, yeah. We'll say, we'll get to that stuff. Okay, so it is New York, 2002. That's right, we're in a period piece, guys. One year before Stuart Wellington moves to Brooklyn. Characters make references to this multiple times. They're like, do you think in a year Stuart'll be here? Uh-huh, yeah.

Things are about to pop off. As they're driving by apartments, they're like, Stuart's gonna live there soon. He's gonna live there. So we meet Cassie and Ben, a pair of EMTs played by Dakota Johnson and Adam Scott. Exactly the actors you want in a movie where they're gonna provide a maximum emotion

and maximum intensity. And I think they're both great in other things, but they are baffling casting as the two leads in a superhero film. Yes. If this is a movie where the two of them are friends who just can't ever get together until the end.

Now that is a movie that I would watch. Their relationship is kind of set up like that. Yes. She's a bit of a commitment-phobe because she comes from a foster family. She lost her mother, obviously, in the Amazon. Now that's Australian for beer family. And he is ex-military, which I don't know if I'd buy that from Adam Scott, but that's okay.

Oh, wow. A lot of different people are in the military, Stu. They're not all hulking jacked up young guys. Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't know. I saw him on a jet ski one time shooting piranhas out of the laundry. Okay. Okay, I rescind my comment.

That's fair. Alex, scrub it from the record. He does have two personalities in the same head, and often, being in the military, you kind of don't know who you are after a certain point. That is true. They have a little bit of a flirty chemistry, as mentioned before. Cassie lives alone, although she does feed a stray cat milk every once in a while. And I'm like, don't do that, you're going to give a diarrhea. Stewart, does her New York apartment have exposed brick walls?

Of course it does. She has a sick-ass apartment. It's a great apartment. Yeah. That's a great apartment. Yeah. That's why they had to set it, they had to set it 20 years ago so that it was conceivable that she could afford that apartment on her salary. We should mention that the earlier version of this script also was apparently set in the 90s, which makes a lot more sense in certain ways, particularly later on when she gets

on a plane, even though she's a wanted criminal without any trouble. But yeah, that's true. And right after 2001, that was hard to do. But Dan, if it was set in the 90s, they couldn't have so prominently displayed the song toxic as they do later. OK, that is also another question I had. That is also a big question.

Is this like Madden Web Visions where she's seeing moments of the future? That's right. Exactly. Yeah. Before we get furthermore, I also had no idea the entire time why this Is this like Madden Web's visions where she's seeing moments of the future? That's right. Exactly, yeah. Before we get furthermore, I also had no idea the entire time why this movie was set in 2003. The only reason it is is so that Baby Spider-Man could be born. That's it.

Yeah, I see that. Baby Spider-Man. That's a 10,000% the reason. That is the reason? Yeah. Jesus. Well, the villain's superpower here seems very, it felt like he was like copying like Enemy of the State.

It felt like it was copying all of the NSA that too. Yeah, I'm gonna say stuff that well go let's let's continue I mean, that's not really a superpower, but I mean it's one of the resources. Yes at his disposal Yeah, the superpower is to have the only thing that has aged about him in that in that 30 years Is that his hair has gray tips now? Yes. Yeah, I mean honestly I look better than I did And my hair has plenty of gray tips. Okay, on the course of her day, she crosses paths with three girls that are going to be important later on in the movie.

Maddie, Anya, and Julia, played by two actresses who I don't particularly recognize, and Sydney Sweeney, of course. They are going to be important later on. Okay, Cassie goes through a box of stuff that she got from her birth mother. Not like a Dune pain test Gomjabar type box. This is just a box of-

I mean, in a way it is a pain test. I mean, an emotional pain test. Because she's going through memories. Yeah. Sure. So she- An animal would bite off its own hands not to relive these memories, but a human can relive them with some light therapy.

Man, I guess fucking Tom Brokaw just showed up. It also includes specifically her spider journal that she took with her down to the Amazon. That never explains who boxed all that stuff up and gave it to her. It is still the Spider-Man. Spider-Man. And it is mad. The fact that she is born in a cave in the jungle and the midwives were all spider-powered men in a jungle and yet she has documents, paperwork that, like I don't know, I always wonder if they, so did they fill out a birth certificate in the cave?

Yeah. And who held on to that box while she was a baby? And the way she goes through the box at this point in her life, you're like, she would have gone through that so many times as a child, right? It's not like she would have committed it all to memory. But whatever.

It's like the scene in Hereditary when she goes through her mom's stuff and there's just photo albums of her being a witch and it's like, did you never go through your mom's stuff? Yeah, man, that rules. Okay, so the next day there's a accident on a bridge. She and Cassie and Ben go to rescue the guy, and in the process, the car containing Cassie

goes over the bridge, and she goes underwater and is trapped, drowns, and then wakes up in the water and has this like vision quest, right? And I want to mention- It features falling Pepsi letters. Before she goes into- Yes, before she goes into the water, they are pulling a guy from this car, and then as if the car is a living creature that is trying to trap prey, it- when she gets too close to it, the door snaps shut and it falls backwards into the river, as if-

Yeah. As if this is like- Yes. It's- this is Mimic, and it's learned how to become the shape of a car as opposed to like a man in a hat and a coat. It's so funny the way it happens. And when she's underwater, this is where we see kind of like the webs coming out

underwater from her, like shattered. I'm looking for you for confirmation, is this true? Yeah, it's like energy, kind of energy lines. Yeah. Trigger her power, I think. Like the windshield spider webs. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff,

as has been mentioned in many write-ups about this movie, there's a lot of unnecessarily on-the-nose web iconography or web design elements, and it's like the scene in High Anxiety where the guy goes, it's like I'm caught in some kind of web, and there's a shadow of a web over him. It's like that for a whole movie.

But I wanted to say, sorry, I needed a refresher. I looked again this morning at stuff, but I saw this movie in theaters before I went away for a week. Before COVID, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was back and saw it really early. It was too special a preview, yeah. But I wanted to say, I was back and saw really early cut. Special preview, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I wanted to say, I actually, I like that web imagery.

I like how sort of goofy it is. There's stuff in this movie that looks bad, bad, like the Spider-Man jumping from trees to trees holding her mom. This looks at least like there was some thought put in it to it, some visual thought, but they go so far with it that it stops being a visual motif and it becomes like, the movie is elbowing you in the ribs constantly going, get it?

Wham? Wham's? What I want out of this movie. I want it to, subtly I do not want from this movie. Yes, that's true. If you're watching this movie the way that Madame Webb will now be watched forever, not the way that it was originally intended, then yes, it's the right choice to make. Yes. Okay, so... Her last name is Webb, forever and not the way that it was originally intended, then yes, it's the right choice to make. Yeah. Okay, so.

Her last name is Webb, let's not also forget that part. Did you forget that? What? Hold on a second. Oh, I didn't even know this. Diff the reveal. Oh man. Okay.

But that's the thing, they don't even mention that her last name is Webb until like halfway through the fucking movie, and I let out such a cackle in the empty theater. It's so great, I love it. Cassandra Webb, okay. And that comes from the character. That's not a thing they invented.

Like that's from the character. But I feel like you can get away with that stuff. I'm not laughing at the movie, I'm laughing because it's a funny thing to wait to reveal. It's like a... Oh, that's Madame Webb. Oh, is it the... That's actually got her name.

Because it is reminds me of the moment I love in Spider-Man 2 when J. Jonah Jameson goes, his name's Otto Octavius, ends up with eight arms. What's the odds? Like, would they just kind of put a point on it? Would they do it in such a funny way? Oh man, best superhero movie of all time. Yeah, for sure.

Okay, so Ben rescues her. Turns out she was legally dead for three minutes. I mean, I don't know legally. I think I'm just saying that. Like, it's not like a judge showed up and he's like, I'm going to do it. Is that how it works? You're dead now legally. That means laws don't apply to you anymore.

You can do whatever you want. She has moments of like deja vu in the conversation. And that's where we're starting to see, oh, maybe she has powers. And then she also makes a comment. I just want to go home and watch Idol, which I love. Thank you. Thank you for being very specific about the time period.

And that would have been like the second season of American Idol That was a big season. Okay She is that one thing that I do I like about this character But I can see how it would make other people laugh is how This is the Dakota Johnson of it. I guess that she's so totally blase about everything Yeah, you seen earlier on when she has saved someone's life and a little kid is like I drew a picture for you She's like, what do I do with this? Like, where do I put this? Like, I don't want this.

You take it. Yeah. Adam Scott's like, just take it and throw it away later. She's like, I can't even fold it. It's a cardboard. Yeah, I thought that was very funny, yeah. That was a funny moment. She's such a like inspired choice for this character.

I unabashedly love Dakota Johnson performances. She's like one of my favorites working today. She's so like kind of airy and wispy and I do not understand what's going on. Like she's my dream Flophouse guest because it would either be the best or absolute worst episode. She would like destroy any attempt at having bits.

Yeah. Oh man, she's so. I described this movie to friends as a movie about a lady who doesn't want to hang out with three teenagers. Yeah, that's kind of it. That's what I enjoyed about it. And it's kind of interesting that they cast Sydney Sweeney also in this movie,

who I think that's also kind of her vibe, is this like, I don't quite get it. Although she does play pretty well. She's playing against that in this. She's not playing that type of character. Although it opens. Much to her discredit, I think. Not to her discredit, but it does not fit her either. Yeah, it's bad casting with a character

that they want her to play, but the way it's played, there's scenes in here where it's just like, I love it. It's like she and Dakota Johnson are in a contest to see who can put less energy into their line. It's great. Okay, that's That's my thing about Dakota Johnson is she seems like she every character is like a person who does not want to be in the movie and if you like that's like she is an she's an actress who Should have she should be an actress in the 1970s Like she should be making movies in 1970s

Maybe the 1980s or maybe even the 1990s. Like she should be making movies in 1970s, maybe the 1980s, or maybe even the 1990s where it's like slacker movies. But she should be in movies that are about characters that cannot get the energy up to do things and are just kind of drifting. But they don't make a lot of those movies anymore. So instead she's gonna play Madame Web. A superhero who can see the future.

A woman of action. Just a way by the phone for Luca to give her a call. Okay, so. Yeah, you're right. We cut across town to the opera where now a gray haired Ezekiel Sims is attending an opera with a date. He takes it.

Now, is he with her or is he picking her up at the opera? I thought he picked her up at the opera. I thought he picked her up at the opera, yeah. He's using his spider powers of future clairvoyance to be like, what's the best way to pick up this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the mystery method. In all the years that I attended the Metropolitan Opera with my dearly departed grandma,

I never thought of picking up ladies while I was there. Maybe it was because I was with her that it never occurred to me, but it just didn't seem like the right location to do that. They would be beating you to the punch, I assume, right? You'd look at a lady and be like, well, then your grandmother would be there already talking to her. You'd be like, oh. Exactly. I assume, right? You'd look at a lady and be like, well, then your grandmother would be there already talking to her.

You'd be like, oh. Exactly. Your grandma's the sigma now in the relationship. So he takes this woman back to his fancy high-rise apartment that does feature a spider tank that has that spider from before. That's an old-ass fucking spider, right? That spider's been around.

I mean, I have to assume that that's a descendant of the original spider, right? I mean, they're super spiders. Who knows? Yeah, maybe they last a long time. You're both right. It might be just assume that that's a descendant of the original spider, right? I mean, they're super spiders, who knows? Yeah, maybe they last a long time. You're both right. It might be just be that spider's been like a 40,000 year old spider.

You know what it is? I bet that spider gives birth to a new spider and is reincarnated in that new spider, and so it's the same soul in a new body. Anyway, we explained it. You're welcome, movie. So they have an unforgettable night of magic together. Afterwards, while he sleeps, he has a dream

where he is attacked by three spider women. Featuring different powers. This is by three spiders who teach him the true meaning of webs. Spider of Christmas future, the spider of Christmas present, and the spider of Christmas past. What day is it? It's Christmas day, sir.

Get me the biggest spider you can find. What? The one as big as me? So he's visited by these... Tiny Tim, here's a spider. Ah! Look, boss, you can't come to my house and give a spider to my kid. What are you doing?

I'm sorry. Where did you even find that? I do love the idea of a Christmas Carol where the ghosts all kick his ass in different life situations. Well, that was what was always so funny about Christmas Carol to me, is that, you know, they gave him the soft sell first, and then the bad cop comes in and he's like, oh yeah, well look at this, you're going to die.

Okay, well that got through to me. So the issue that I have with that story is that now Avenezer Scrooge is like, now that I'm good, I'll never die. And so I assume the Ghost of Christmas Future is to show up and be like, no, no, no, hold on. Let's explain this guy. There's more people at your funeral. To be clear, that was what I was trying to say.

It all ends in the stone cold ground, no matter what. This moment, when you first see these three women in costume, this was one of the moments where I burst out laughing. It's great. I just couldn't handle it. It looks hilarious. It looks hilarious.

And I will say this, the original costume for Cindy Sweeney's character. So she's playing the character, for some reason they've named her Julia Cornwall. In the comic she's Julia Carpenter. She is the second Spider-Woman. She has the costume that inspires Spider-Man's black costume. She's got a great costume in the comics.

It's really fantastic. And the way they've done it here does not quite work. And they all look ridiculous in their costumes. All three of the Spider-Women. Unless, prove me wrong guys. Do you think they look amazing? I mean, I feel like it looks less ridiculous for Ezekiel because over the course of the dream,

they beat him up and toss him out a window where he dies. So maybe for him, they're not that silly. They're not that silly, considering they are a life and death threat. But just the first moment you see them, it is very funny to me. There's the moment where you're like, were they expecting this to be like a big crowd pleaser,

stand up and cheer thing? That's the, my problem with it is that you barely saw them except in these like very brief flashbacks. I felt so bad for Sydney Sweeney and her buddies that they had to like dress up in those costumes and do all this kind of choreography fight stuff for maybe, I would say, seven seconds of screen time. Maybe seven seconds. Yeah, that's true.

I know they were trying to set up another movie, but this felt like a real, they felt they were promising throughout the movie, like, oh man, when they get those costumes. When they show up in costume? Well, that's the other thing about it, is it does promise that by the end of the movie, you're going to see them in costume,

which, spoiler, does not happen. We'll get to it, but that is one of the more baffling decisions to me, the end of the movie, you're gonna see them in costume, which spoiler does not happen. We'll get to it, but that is one of the more baffling decisions to me, the end of this movie, the lack of, I mean, this movie literally gets to the fireworks factory, but the metaphorical fireworks factory is not reached. Okay, so he wakes up from his death dream, he wakes up his date,

who he explains the situation that he's been having this reoccurring dream where he always dies, it haunts him. So his only recourse is to steal face recognition software from the NSA that no one else knows about. He's going to steal that information so that he can then murder these young women. So he can buy a mammoth. This is the moment where the date says,

but wait, I work for the NSA. And then he of course gets her password and poisons her using his spider poison. This was a hilarious scene, because I just love a scene where the villain explains his entire, like, murder plan to a stranger. And also, when he looks over at her stuff, her ID badge is lying right there. I guess maybe it came out when she went for her gun or something. But it looks like before they had sex She laid down her her clutch took out her NSA ID put it out lay out took out her other things laid out And like okay now that you know my background

I'm ready for us to have this post-op or sex on top of that like I mean I don't you know it may surprise you to know that I'm not a super spot, but Shouldn't someone who's in the very good spy Dan maybe a very good spy, Dan. Maybe at a super level. Yeah, be aware that there might be a honeypot situation going on. I don't know, I think that this is a little- I thought he was aware of her being in the NSA. Yeah, I feel like, of course he was. No, no, no, I know, I'm saying that the woman-

No, that she's not aware. It's weird because- Should be a little more- No, I'm sorry, I thought she also was aware. Oh. It's very unclear whether they have both double tricked each other. Yes. But he seems to know it and she seems to know it too.

Okay. Which is strange. This is also, the dialogue in this movie is so bad. He gets up from his dream and turns to her and says, do you have any idea what it's like to die every night for 20 years? And you know, to say that to a one night stand, I would grab the sex feels like, what she feels like this is a lot.

I don't know, after the- Don't overshare, bro. Just leave it casual. Opera's about big emotions, it's about huge things happening to people, so she might be into it. It's also, do you have any idea what it's like to die every night for 20 years?

Yeah, a lot of people have dreams where they fall down and die, like a lot of people. It's also, do you have any idea what it's like to die every night for 20 years? Yeah, a lot of people have dreams where they fall down and die. Like a lot of people. It's not. Wow, look at the empathy on this guy. You wake up and you go, yeah, that was a bad dream. Anyway, let me move on. I feel like the idea that, well,

I had this dream all the time, I guess it's a prophecy that I have to stop from happening. Because as far as we know, he does not have fortune telling powers the same way Madam Webb does, right? Or does he? No, I think that was pretty clear. I guess that means his fortune-telling powers are his vision, right? Yeah, that's how he made his money,

is that he writes fortunes in the cookies. Oh, that's right. He's literally telling fortunes. Do you have any idea what it's like to have to come up with different ways to basically say nothing about somebody's future in seven words or less for years? You'll have some smiles today. Is that something?

We also see him having- I have to come up with all the lucky numbers. That's the hardest part. We also see him having a vision, you know, like when he's trying to seduce the woman at the opera, he's like, okay, like, like there's like a little four vision of like, cool. Okay, now that adventure's over.

You know what? Let's, I asked the stenographer to please remove my objections from the record, yeah. Okay, so. It's a perfect movie. Later on, we're at a baby shower for Ben, her coworker's sister. So just a tangle of relationships.

You guys are routinely invited to your coworker's sibling's baby showers, right? I mean, I feel like they're pretty close, though. Cassie has no friends, so this is the close, it makes sense. I mean, even if it was just like, look, you don't know my co-worker, can I just invite her because she needs to get out of her house? She never goes anywhere. She doesn't like attachments, that's the thing, she doesn't like webs.

And her sister is like, as long as she doesn't make it super awkward and weird every single moment of the baby shower, and he goes, I cannot promise that, I apologize. So of course, for this relatively thankless small role, of course they hire Emma Roberts to play the sister, the pregnant sister. There's a little bit of banter, there's some good Pepsi product placement in this scene.

Because she is not allowed to have a beer. Not allowed to have a beer. Because she died yesterday. And the only cure for dying yesterday, ice cold Pepsi. Pepsi, yeah, not Coke. Because you were just born, so now you're part of the Pepsi generation,

since you just died and came back. So you need Pepsi now. It's also such a sad like, advertiser for like, Pepsi. If you are physically unable to have a beer at the price of, at the cost of death, you can have a Pepsi. Yeah, you can.

What's really funny, which I didn't think about it to now, there's so much Pepsi product placement, and the end climax takes place at a big Pepsi-Cola sign, but that's a real sign. Like that's a real landmark sign in Queens. So I wonder if people who are not from New York watch that and they're like, ugh, getting a little on the nose

with the Pepsi product placement, huh? It's like, no, but that's the one real thing. That's the one. And I know that Coke is the real thing. I wonder if it's spun off from that, but that's the one real thing. That's the one and I know I know if it's Maybe diet Pepsi's the real thing, which one's the which one was Ray Charles singing about? Well, that's the right one, baby Oh, that's right. The right one. And so what's the real thing is an album by Faith No More? Oh, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Yeah that Ray Charles was on that's right. Anyway, yeah Yeah, that's he's doing background vocals for Mike Patton. I'm okay.

He's like, Faith No More, you're a gospel group, right? Yeah, yeah, sure, just Ray, just get in there, yeah. It's gonna be epic. So they do some party games where Cassie, Dakota Johnson is perfect for this, where she's like, let me tell bummer stories about my mom who died in the Amazon. I gotta say, this one's on Cassie,

because it's like, oh, you know, put down memories of your mom, good memories of your mom for the expectant mother, and she puts a blank piece of paper into the thing. Yeah, just don't put a paper in. Just don't put it in, man. No one's gonna notice. Yeah.

She's not used to going to baby showers. She doesn't know. She doesn't know how it works, yeah. Yeah, that's like when somebody's clearly upset and you're like, what's wrong? They're like, nothing. And you're like, come on. You really wanna talk about it.

You wanna talk about it. The only thing would have been better if she wrote on the piece of paper, my mom died. That would have been the most amazing. And they're like, oh, whose is this? Cassie's like, mine. Let me tell you the story. She was studying spiders in the Amazon.

Even that would be a better choice because the person picking it out to read would be like, okay I'll fold this quietly and put in my pocket rather than being like what's this? She wants to talk about it. She wants to look I was just glad they weren't playing the game where they put different foods They don't smear different foods on a diaper and they have to taste them and then guess what they are. That's the game I didn't want to see them play Elliot in my culture. We eat our chocolate out of diapers. Okay Yeah, I forgot that's fucked up you bring it up on the podcast I didn't want to see them play. Elliot, in my culture, we eat our chocolate out of diapers, okay? I'm sorry, yeah. I forgot that's a tenet of your-

That's fucked up when you bring it up on the podcast. I forgot that's your ethnic heritage as a gross person. As a garbage pail kid. As a garbage pail kid, yeah. As a garbage pail kid. This also is maybe too nitpicky because I just hate the dialogue so much, but they- Go on.

When she says my mom died in childbirth, I get it, it's not like the most happy thing to say, but they all act as if she had just cursed the mother to dying in childbirth. They were all like, no, no, no, no, she's something, something, could've been like, hey. She's bringing the evil eye down upon them. They all have to go, toot, toot, toot.

They all have to get rid of it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they have to go throw incense around the whole house. It felt very much like this did not need to be reacted to the way it did. She's clearly like a weird person. Everyone could have been like, oh, that's so sad. Let's move on.

Yeah, yeah. Nobody in this movie really knows how to handle social interactions. Cassie's the least of it, yeah. During the party, she continues to have moments of deja vu similar to earlier. And then there is a, the party is interrupted, there's a fire at the industrial fireworks factory

at the docks. They have to rush down there. And during this- This is a thing that can't ever have existed. There's no way. There's no way. During this exciting sequence where people have been injured

and she's like running around and helping them, she continues to have moments of deja vu where she even sees her coworker, O'Neil, played by Mike Epps, dying in an accident, or dying in bloods all over her hands. There's a moment where they're dragging a guy away and she's like, oh, I think he's actually seriously injured. And Adam Scott's like, oh, internal injuries, good catch.

It's great stuff, like I love it. That's the medical equivalent of on Studio 60, them glancing at a script and going, this is funny stuff. Like how could either one of them know about that? But also, yeah, internal injuries, I assume, are something they know that they should check for at least before they're moving people.

But one thing I think they do handle well in this movie is those first deja vu flashbacks are genuinely disorienting when she has them and then snaps back. The way they edit them the first time around is generally confusing in a good way in that. And it gets across, I think, how hellish it would be to be living in a life where you kind of don't know

if you are in a prophecy moment or if you were in an actual moment, but they kind of drop that eventually. She gets used to it pretty quickly. But I think that that's something that I was like, I just couldn't help thinking about like, yeah, that'd be terrible if you don't know whether you're living in a moment where you're seeing it.

Yeah, superpower, more like super burden, right? Yes. Just like in Millennium, that's his power, that's his curse. Yeah, sure. The Robbie Williams song Millennium. So, of course, Mike Epps, O'Neil gets in a horrible car accident and dies. She rushes over to his butt like he's driving an ambulance away from the scene.

Immediately gets hit by a truck and killed. There's something about sudden car accidents which are horrifying, but in movies they are always funny. Can be funny. Yep, and she like rushes over to the body. Adam Scott immediately runs over and drags her away and he says, it's okay, nothing you could have done, which is some base, which is also amazing from a guy

who I'm guessing was like a battlefield medic. Like he's like immediately like, no, yeah, he's dead, don't worry about it. Leave him, but also, I wish it had been even more on the nose, like you couldn't have seen that coming in the future, it's not like you can see the future or anything like that. If you had had a premonition a few seconds about that,

I would have been so upset at you for not doing something about it. For not stepping into it. But as we know that's not the case. Of course we know that's impossible and so you are not at fault, there is no blame and I will not judge you at all. But again, having said it,

if we were in that hypothetical situation where you did get a sudden flash of the future and you knew he was in danger and you didn't stop him from getting that ambulance, I would never forgive you. Never, never, never. Ooh, maybe. Blood on your hands. The blood on your hands I hope would never wash up.

Now the seas, Neptune's seas could not wash off the stain of you letting your friend die. But again, we know that that's not the case, that didn't happen, and so I should really get back to the people from the fireworks factory who injured. I shouldn't be talking this long, I just wanna make it clear that you are not at blame because you don't have those powers.

We can talk about this more later. It just dissolves to his funeral and Adam Scott is continuing that as the eulogy. And again, if she had seen this. He's comforting their coworker's wife, like again, I would blame Cassie and you should blame Cassie too, if she was able to see the future.

But we know that's impossible. She doesn't have that ability, so you should not blame her. But if she did, you would never forgive her. I would never forgive her. Of course there goes without saying. The only people who have that ability are the Los Aranjas in the Peruvian Amazon. We know they're in the Peruvian jungle. Even if they have seen this happening, how would they get in touch with us?

They don't have a phone in the Peruvian jungle. And she has no connection there, though we don't exactly know the story about... Could they have used Elon Musk's Starlink to talk to us? No, it doesn't exist yet. We've never heard of him. He has yet to become even a beloved famous person, let alone a monster that people now realize was always a monster.

Anyway, back to the funeral, already in progress. I'm sorry, pastor, continue with the service. So, as you would imagine, Cassie's a little bit wrecked. She takes time off of work. She hides at home, eats takeout, she hangs out with her cat. She learns, she continues to have these deja vu moments and she actually learns that by following these visions,

she can actually alter aspects of the future. She saves a bird from smashing into a window. From smashing into a window. Just more evidence that she could have saved her coworker. Exactly, that is, yeah, I'm sure that's a small consolation there. She gets a message from Adam Scott that says, hey, meet me, you should come to the funeral.

And she's like, you know what? I am going to do that. And she heads to Grand Central Station. Now, meanwhile, Ezekiel Sims, it needs to find these girls, right? He's bedeviled by these girls. So who does he enlist? He enlists a girl herself, Zosha Mamet.

Who would love to find girls? I teach a little girl, Zosha Mamet. So he gets her to show up to his high rise apartment where she then lives for the rest of the movie. And she is a super hacker. And she is hacked into the NSA security camera feed. Just like the old Bree, she is hacked into the NSA like security just like the old green she is hacked into government and corporate secrets and but she she doesn't she's on call 24 hours a day she's always there sitting in that

chair in some ways more like the actual Madame Webb from the comics who is constantly sitting in a chair just kind of plugged into things but that's just it's a good movie lots of action wheels with the meals her character does make me think that's what like, Shosh from Girls would have ended up becoming, just a very like, put upon, bullied around. I could see that. I know I'm carrying out evil,

but all I can do is just do the best job I can and get a little annoyed that he won't let me do the evil he wants me to do in a better way. Yeah, yeah. It's a very... She's like, I never should have left Japan. I should have stayed in Japan. Yeah. So, Cassie goes to Grand Central Station, Yeah, yeah. She's like, I never should have left Japan. I should have stayed in Japan.

So Cassie goes to Grand Central Station. Weirdly enough, all three of the young women that are featured in the Visions also are at Grand Central Station at the same time. Security camera picks them up. We can only take this as an implicit approval of the intents to make Grand Central Station into not just a transit hub but also a meeting place, a retail center, a restaurant center.

Clearly, urban revitalization has worked according to Madame Webb in this one instance. That's the commentary. Yeah, that's a very subtext. Elliot says, thank you Bloomberg. They all stop by the tycoon store to buy some ties because that is there still, I think, after many years. You don't have to go there just to travel. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of Penn Station, I think. You don't have to go there just to travel.

You can also go there to meet your destiny. It's a fun place. Yeah, yeah. And have some oysters. That's a good line. So Ezekiel Simms costumes up and he heads to Grand Central Station to kill some girls. Okay, so Cassie gets on a train,

she keeps having visions of the various three girls getting on the train and then getting murdered by a spider suited Ezekiel Sims. And also some of the, she keeps having visions of other people sitting on the train with they're gonna say, and a guy asking her if it's the right train. And when he goes in, she goes, I hope not.

And then he leaves and I'm like, oh, this is the repercussion of your powers. That guy ended up on the wrong train, Cassie. Well, the moment, that is one of my favorite line readings is later on she runs into the same guy on a different train and he goes, am I on the right train? And she goes, I don't know, man. Yeah, that was good, that was very good.

Bored and frustrated, like, I got bigger things going on. He's like, I only asked her if it was the right train twice. Now if I had asked her three times, if she had heard me say it three times, like if she had pre-cognitive saying it, I could understand why she'd be so upset, but I only asked her twice. This is again, I'm mad at her.

Again, I wouldn't be mad at her if she had pre-cognitive abilities to get me to know that's impossible. Important disclaimer. That was the funniest joke in the whole movie to me. Like, the liver one. The fact that, like, this guy, like, asked his girl if he was on the right train,

and she was like, no, he goes, then sees her on that train. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that's, that would be confusing to me. This guy's the most relatable guy in the movie. Yeah. So she manages to convince these three girls to follow her because there's a Spider-Man chasing them. They eventually lose him.

He ends up killing a whole bunch of cops. But in the process, she gets blamed for the attack on the cops and for kidnapping the girls. And then she steals a cab. I could never quite understand why she was the one who ended up getting the full blame. Because if the Spider killed, understand why she was the one who ended up getting the full blame since did this because if the spider killed I guess was it like she was reported in and then Ezekiel killed everybody so there were no witnesses? Yeah, Sydney Sweeney

one time sort of like half-heartedly is like I think this lady might be trying to kidnap us and I feel like the cops that heard that died so I'm not really sure why. There are cameras as the movie is positive, there are cameras everywhere. So there should be footage of a man in a dark suit murdering police officers as these women all run away. From what we were able to... You're forgetting there's a super hacker monitoring the feeds.

You can probably manipulate them. She probably used AI, which he has because he's still in the future, and he programmed it, used AI to create a video that showed Cassie killing cops and then stealing the girls I guess and inserted that in This is the problem with the movie where a scene will happen and the next scene will have to explain What the takeaway for the previous? Yeah, yeah, because they know like it doesn't quite make sense So look all you got to know is like I'm now thought of to be the one who's kidnapping you guys

And I made it worse by stealing a car too. That's a genuine crime. She steals a cab now, don't worry, this is before they had tracking devices in cabs so they could easily track it. Also for some reason the cab driver is being paid for his, by his fare while standing outside the cab, which I've never seen ever. Did he help her with luggage maybe? Like I've never seen that before.

So the many times in this movie people get out of a car to give her the Opportunity to get in and steal the car Yeah, I mean that's a valuable life lesson this guy just learned you know that one's don't get out of your car Don't need it running certainly, you know, so we get to meet the girls Julia Maddie and Anya there, you know, I don't know. There's not a lot going on there. The movie makes the most half-hearted attempts to like distinguish these girls from one another. Like they're like small things. I can see that they're just-

Describe them. Give me some broad strokes, Dan. Yeah, Dan, tell me about, well, tell me about, tell me about Sydney. Tell me about Julia. Is, well, okay. She's like, she's an adult in like little kid drag. She's kind of like, yeah, Sidney Sweeney,

they tried to make into sort of like this geeky schoolgirl, which does not suit her talents that well. I think it's very funny that they're like, she is just sex on toast. How do we make her seem less sexy? We'll put her in a schoolgirl outfit. That's what we'll do. There's no sexual implications of that.

It definitely works. But everyone seems so disaffected. That's what we'll do. There's no sexual implications of that. It definitely works. Everyone seems so disaffected. There are just three disaffected teens. So there's Julia, who's a nerd. There's Anya, who it turns out later, her father was deported, right? Uh-huh, yeah, she's undocumented. She's undocumented.

She's undocumented. Her entire character trait. And she lives in the same building as Cassie, but they didn't know each other for now. Well, she's kind of the quiet smart ass, the other one is the louder smart ass. You know that she's also smart because she has a shirt that says like science rules or something like that,

math rocks, I love nerds or something. And Maddie is the rich girl who skateboards around and likes to pretend she's not rich because her parents are always away in China doing business stuff. She and likes to pretend she's not rich because her parents are always away in China doing business stuff. Yep. She also likes to eat is the big thing about her character.

She's always talking about eating. Teenagers guys. Yeah. Yeah, they're hungry. Even when they're late twenties actresses, they're still hungry all the time. And also they, except for, they all seem to be semi-allergic to clothes

that cover their belly buttons. All their shirts, except for Sydney Sweeney to be semi-allergic to clothes that cover their belly buttons. Because all their shirts, except for Sydney Sweeney's, don't cover their midriffs. Check out Old Man Yelling at Clouds over here. Doesn't understand the outfits of the teens. If I wanted to see that many belly buttons, I'd watch Belly? Are there a lot of belly buttons in Belly? The movie Belly? Belly?

With DMX? RIP? You get to see DMX's belly button? I assume at some point, right? Yes. Elliot is so, he doesn't understand, he got the album by the band Belly. He's like, where the, I thought these folks were gonna go all belly button.

And there's songs about bellies and belly buttons. Yeah, I don't get it. Feed the tree, why are you feeding the tree? Feed me a belly button. I mean, Pinocchio's the one kid who doesn't have a belly button. He's the one with no billy coin. Exactly, he's like a carpool man. Exactly, he has a carport in.

Just, you know. Okay, so. Do you think Chipetto just took a little all or something and just kind of dug a belly button out? Yeah, but you know, you don't want Pinocchio to feel out of place. I don't want you to feel weird in the gym class when you're changing, so I'll give you a belly button and a penis. Let's not go too far, Pinocchio.

Come on. Yeah, that's great. So, we get to meet the girls. Come on. Yeah, that's great. So thank you. So we get to meet the girls. Dakota Johnson does not want to hang out with them, but you know, she kind of has to because she's implicated in their kidnapping. So they go and hide-

And she wants to protect them. They go hide out in the woods. She leaves them there with the instructions, don't do dumb things. She then sneaks home, removes the plates from the cab. She sneaks home, reads the Spider Journal again, finally finds the photo of her mother with Ezekiel Sims. She then tests her powers to try and see

if she has spider powers, she can climb on walls. She cannot. I like that moment. She decides to jump and try to stick to walls and she falls down and she tells her cat, don't tell anybody basically. Like that never happened. The girls do do dumb things. They walk to a diner.

You have no idea that the words you just said when you put together sound like poop. You have no idea what shit you just stepped in. Literally. When the podcast comes out. You'll listen and be like, I can't believe I said do-do dumb things. Oh man. Listeners, I want you to draw a picture of Stuart being embarrassed listening to the podcast later and send it to the podcast.

Stink lines and embarrassment lines together. I'm trying so hard to look cool in front of my friend, Cuban, but I just look like such an idiot. No, man, the sunglasses did it for me. Thank you. Well, I just want to be kind of the Madame Web of this podcast. I presume that this was some Madame Web cosplays. Yeah, exactly.

I just thought we were all going to be in the spirit wearing cool shades, but I guess I'm the only one. So, the girls do do dumb things. They go to a diner. Oh, he said it again! He said it again! Can you believe this? And on the Max Fun Drive episode.

On that of all cases. I know. Okay everybody, remember at the top of the show when I told you that I'd tell you more about Max Fun Drive? Well now I'm telling you what I told you I'd tell you is finally being told. To you! The 12 days of Maximum Fun Drive is the most wonderful time of year.

When we celebrate the birth of our savior, Maxwell Fund, by inviting you to support our show. Dan, read the liturgy. It's all in there. It's all in there. Okay. By inviting you to support our show by going to maximumfund.org slash join and becoming a new member of the Maximum Fund Network or by boosting or upgrading your membership.

Why do we need members? Okay, let's get down to this. Because your membership pledges are what pays for the shows you love. Our show and the other Max Fund shows are directly supported by our members. This is where the vast majority of the show's proceeds come from.

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That's enough for now. For now, let's get back to the hijinks. Boys, spin that web. Yeah, so they decide to go to a diner, which at first seems like it's a long way away, but we later learn is very close to their campsite. It's within, it's the steps, if you were selling an apartment in the woods,

you would say steps away from dining, yeah. It steps away, but then later on, when Dakota Johnson is trying to drive there, it takes her forever. Yeah, she's not taking the direct route. Yeah, yeah. It also, yeah, I'm not sure they, when they go there, it's like daytime,

but when they get there, it seems to be like 10 p.m. Like it seems like very- And it seems like it's gonna be set up that it's gonna be a real culture clash when they go to, it's like daytime, but when they get there, it seems to be like 10 p.m. It seems like very... And it seems like it's going to be set up that it's going to be a real culture clash when they go to this diner, but it's not. Yeah, record scratch. And there's a bunch of young, handsome dudes that show up. It seems like this is the exact right diner

for them to walk into. And which one's it? Maddie just starts ordering food and she has so many plates of food around her and she says to the waitress, keep it coming. And it's like, how much did you order? It's like, you have to order it. I had to stop the movie that was such an upsetting line to me. It is, the woman, the server brings out like some like 15 full plates.

Yeah, it's like an omakasa. But keep what coming? The French fries, the pancakes? What is the server supposed to do with that? And she's not eating it fast. She's not like Jughead, just like gumbling it up. She's like, you're becoming one fry. One fry at a time.

Maybe this is a diner that advertises unlimited pancakes and she's trying to get up on the wall. Yeah, I mean, that would make sense. The wall of pancake heroes. And then they of course make a scene, they start dancing on a table, a trucker sees them. Too toxic. Yep. Okay, Elliot wants, Elliot is a little embarrassed that he didn't know the Britney Spears song

from the Cat Person episode. So he's really fucking flashing this shit around. This is probably Britney Spears' best song. We can agree on that, right guys? Toxic? Yeah, it's probably. It would have to be. It's certainly the most Henry Mancini Britney Spears song. That's how I judge all my pop music.

The thing that I do like about the way they use the song is it's diegetic music. They're dancing to it, it's in the building. But then it becomes the music for a fight scene soundtrack. And I was just like, they are using every part of Toxic. Like they're not just letting it go. They're really, and also this Spider-Bite, it's toxic. Yeah, and it reminds me how great that fan edit

of the fight scene from the second Star Wars movie that was set to Toxic, the like throne room fight scene, the Snoke and all that shit, where they like swapped in Toxic for whatever music was there. And then you're like, wow, this really works. This is great. This is a song with a lot of energy.

Yeah, yeah. And they're dancing for a while on this table. In a diner too. I'm surprised no one tells them to get down because I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but outside of Coyote Ugly, that's not typically a thing that's done. No.

Certainly I grew up in the land of diners, New Jersey, and if you got up on the table and started dancing, they would yell at you to get off the table, I'm sure. They wouldn't do it nicely. This is New Jersey. People swear it went to babies. You're actually, when you say the vibe of the diner, it sort of had every diner vibe.

It had the dancing on table. They also had the truckers reading the New York Post while they're drinking coffee vibe. Every vibe was in that diner. There's a Howard the Duck in the corner. It was a throwback to the era, like you're saying Stuart, of Howard the Duck, when every genre movie had a scene in a diner because it was like, can you believe

these far out characters in a diner? That's the least far out place. Yeah, they're talking a fucking Dexter Jettster or whatever his name is. Yeah, exactly. But at a certain point it became, yeah, I guess they all hang out at diners. I guess any time an alien shows up or a monster,

they go to a diner at some point. Superman's gonna come in and kick the ass of someone who earlier in the movie was mean to him when he was Clark Kenton, had no powers. Yeah, yeah. So it's pretty petty about Superman. But you'd do it too, Dan. You'd do that too, if you were Superman.

Yeah, but you know, once you're Superman, you should know, just like the knowledge should be enough. And you do it just like Superman at all. You don't think you need to flex on him? You just get a gun too. You don't have to do this. So I could just get a gun. So a trucker sees.

I mean, a gun makes any man a Superman. Yeah. Isn't this episode brought to you by the NRA? Making the world worse for many, many years. So a trucker sees the girls, he calls in a tip. Of course, that tip is then intercepted by Zosha Mamet, who passes it along to Ezekiel Sims, who calls off the police

because he's going to handle it his style. Cassie gets to- Spider style. Let me get into my costume first. Cassie finds that the girls have abandoned the campsite. She gets in her car to drive to the diner. We see visions. We don't realize they're visions, but we see visions of Ezekiel Sims showing up to the diner and killing the girls, once again, set to toxic.

And then, but it turns out those are visions, and then he is at the diner, and before he can do anything, Cassie crashes through the front of the diner in the cab and smashes him into a wall. One of two times she will smash a vehicle drive a vehicle through something to surprise him It's like it shouldn't work twice. I'm sorry Ezekiel. You can see the future Yeah, yeah, I'm not even sure the mechanics of the second one, but we'll get to it I will say the second one is very surprising Yeah, even this one this diner seems to be made out of like balsa wood. You know, diners are a heavy construction restaurant.

They're made out of chrome and metal, but this car just takes it out easy. Yeah. In the process, Cassie gets poisoned a little bit, just a little bit, you know, as a treat, and they escape. This is, of course, shortly after here, this is where Sims is talking to his hacker and they're like, who is this strange woman who keeps showing up? And they're like, that's Cassandra Webb. And that's of course where audience, uh, insert audience laughter there.

Oh, and he goes, kind of ironic, huh? Her name's Webb and this whole thing's about spiders. Was there a connection you think? Anyway. Uh, so they hide out at a motel. Um, Cassie. Who gave her the name Cassandra? The spider people?

I assume the spider Man, yeah. Or maybe one of her foster parents. Or maybe her mom with her dying breath said Cassandra. They're all classics fans. They know that she'll have the gift of sight, so they're like- So they have to call her Cassandra, yeah. I think it's really funny that she's Cassie,

mostly because Sydney Sweeney seems to have a lot of trouble with the name Cassie. She does not say it normal. She's always like, Cassie. And the reason why is because that's her character on Euphoria. Oh really? Yeah. Is that right?

Yeah. Oh man. And there's a character named Maddie in Euphoria and there's a character named Maddie that's so confusing. Must have been tough. Euphoria? No, no, no. Me-phoria.

Anyway, continue. Man, Elliot's going to jail for that joke. Yeah, worth it, but I understand the charge. It's a fair cop, continue. Man, Elliot's going to jail for that joke. Worth it, but I understand the charge. It's a fair cop, yeah. Okay, so Cassie leaves the girls asleep, she goes back to the diner, and she has this like vision conversation with Ezekiel Simms who explains his entire plan to her. Yes, this is real Rey and Kylo stuff from Star Wars.

Now they can use Spider Force to talk to each other. He's like, look, I knew your mom, we were close, I did kill her, but I shouldn't have any secrets from you. Let me tell you what I'm gonna do, yeah. So this is a movie running out of reasons to explain plot. How about they just tell it to each other? It is almost like Ezekiel is like, look, it's that time in the movie

when you need to know what's going on. So let me just tell you. We gotta bring this to the theater. Sit down and have a chat. Let's pull out some spider tea. So she goes back and teaches the girls CPR. That's gonna come in handy later. She leaves the girls with her friend, Ben, and the girls all explain, they're like,

yeah, we can't go home because of these reasons. They're like, okay, whatever, it doesn't matter. Let's just get this over with. She leaves them with Ben so that she can go to Peru. She uses her notes. This is the quickest trip to Peru anyone has ever taken. 30 minutes later, she's in Peru. It does make it seem like it takes her a day

to go to Peru, get to the jungle, explore around and then come back. It's crazy. Yeah, and she uses her mom's notes and maps to find the leader of Las Aranjas. Who's just hanging out. Like he was really committed, like he told her mom, when it's time,

and she comes back, I'll have answers for her, and he's just there wearing like a jaunty neckerchief being like, hey, I've been waiting for you. I love the idea, it's like, when she's ready, we'll be here. We will not be proactive about this. We will not go to her and tell her anything. She's gotta want it. We won't email her. She's gotta come here.

You know? So she is a- I will not MySpray's friend her. That will not happen. That's actually, wow, Elliot's time goal. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, early 2000s. Yeah, you're a professional writer.

So the leader of Los Aranys- Hey, Stuart, I didn't, hey, I was there. I lived it, man. Yeah, nope. Tom was my friend. So she has a vision quest where she sees her mother and she like sees what happened, but also she had been laboring this entire time

under the belief that her mother, very pregnant, had decided to just go down to the Amazon for some reason because she hated her baby so much. But it turns out the reason why is because she knew her baby was going to be born with a very specific, what, degenerative disease? It was a neuromuscular disorder, and she says the line like, but I don't have a neuromuscular disorder.

Just so that the dummies in the audience didn't put two and two together, yeah. And her mother went down there because she believes that this spider bite is the only cure and that Western medicine wouldn't recognize magical spiders. So by going to Peru, she was not running from her unborn daughter,

which you cannot do because she was in her belly. She was starring DMX. She would go anywhere that her mother goes, but she did it entirely to save her. Her mother did love her. She didn't abandon her by dying. What a revelation. Yeah, it's really important.

This is also a terrible thing about the movie where we discover at that moment that that has been her deep burden. Yeah. And second later, it's resolved. Yeah. I know, like the movie comes up with these deep emotional issues,

then it's like, and that's that, and now we've resolved it. Yeah, you could have saved your friend, he's dead, don't worry about it. To be fair, this does feel like the kind of movie that they were at some points making up as they went along on set. So it's possible that they were like,

oh, we should put this in here. It was also another thing too about the Aranyes people that the man who puts on this vision quest. Santiago. Santiago, is that his name? Yeah, according to Wikipedia, that's his name. He is coded as this indigenous, wise, native man who with his communal mystical touch

will bring her to some kind of larger piece. And it's never explained. These people are just spider people. They, a spider bit them and they run around. It feels so racing to me and be like, and also obviously they are wise beyond their years because they live in the jungle and can teach her. At one point he tells her like,

you have to see the future clearly. Before you can see the future clearly, you must heal the wounds of the past. So what the hell is this guy doing saying that kind of stuff? This guy, this attempt to find like a wise man among these people feel very racist to me. And of course the Amazonians will be the spiritual, the minded people.

I'm also confused. You have to understand that people of color are just naturally closer to the mystic and supernatural world according to movies. It's like there's always, there's the character in so many ghost movies where it's like, I don't know what to do. I guess I'll talk to the black or Haitian woman

that is nearest to me and they'll be like, all right, it's ghosts, let me explain it to you. If that's racist, then I guess it is, yeah. A little confused, but he's hanging out dressed kinda like, I don't know, Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief here. Actually, that's a good call, he does. He is dressed like Cary with the Necker chip and everything. So this is his secret identity when he's not a spider person

but then he is he, he goes into the jungle to like do stuff? I assume he lives in the jungle. When the tourists come around, he puts on the spider guy suit and crawls around on trees. When the tourists are not around, it's the same way that I remember my dad years ago, he took a rafting trip through Costa Rica.

And the thing that struck him the most was that everybody everywhere they went was listening to Meat Loaf's bad-out-of-hell album And he was like it just wasn't what I expected from going into the jungle and I'm like yeah Well, they like music too. I guess it's a big album. It's a huge album Why wouldn't they be listening to it? But yeah, I think this is just he he was like Cassie. She's like family I don't need to dress up in all this stuff. Like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sell her any trinkets or anything So Cassie has her like her live her live-laugh-love moment.

She heads back to New York. Meanwhile... What would that be in spider terms? It's like spin, stalk. Yeah, inject with poison. Double up a fly. She's just doubling down dozens of flies. Yeah, spin, stalk, suck,

because they suck the innards out of their victims. Yeah. So meanwhile Ben's although all the girls are living she brings it home painted in three different fonts on a piece of driftwood Yeah, I mean you gotta buy some art when you're on vacation. Yeah. Yeah, of course You should see all the shit damn brought back from the choco cruise. It's crazy Indigenous choco art so Meanwhile all the girls are living with Ben and Ben's sister, and I guess Ben's sister, who, Emma Roberts, whose water breaks, uh-oh, they all got to go to the hospital.

One of the girls says gross or ew or something, which was funny. They all load up into a car and they drive over. Unfortunately, on the drive, they get clocked by a camera. So Ezekiel Sims knows where they're at Now that raises a good question. Why are they bringing the girls with them to the hospital? These these are teenagers They could just leave them at home watching TV and it would be fine Absolutely parties In that direction absolutely makes no sense. Yeah Parties, I think they're worried about yeah, they're worried about part

They're like we don't want a risky business situation breaking out here. Yep. Or weird science. Look, we leave to take her to the hospital. Next thing you know, you're creating people with a computer and there's barbarian bikers smashing to the front. Yeah. We don't, they don't need that.

Yeah. Okay. Obviously when they come back in two days, it's just like the project X party has happened. They're like, I wanted you, you don't even know any of the teenagers in town So they They get spotted by Sims who uses traffic light manipulation techniques to cause a traffic jam and he has him cornered Cassie shows up she goes over to Ben's house

Sees a puddle of water on the ground and a and has a vision and knows exactly what's going on. So she steals an ambulance and she drives it through a building and then smashes into it. I was unclear as to the mechanics of this. She smashes her ambulance out in exactly the right place and it looks like she just goes through a billboard. Yeah, she goes through a billboard in what, Times Square, I think? Yeah, what? How did she get up there? What road is she on there? So I'm assuming that this is like those buildings in cities in, I think like, in parts of China

where the levels are all over the place. And you can go in on, there's videos of this where you go in on the ground floor of a building and you go up a flight of stairs and suddenly you're on the 30th floor of the building on the other side and you go down and then suddenly you're on the 100th floor of another building and then suddenly on the ground floor again. As a former inhabitant of New York you're aware that this is not true. That's true and my experience in New York tells me that that's not the case. Well the Chinatown area of New York has the same.

Pop out of it you know. Yeah. The Chinatown area of New York has these Chinese style levels. That's why. Yeah, they've changed the geography of the island just for that part. Now, maybe it's, I mean, maybe it's a parking garage structure and she's able to go up a ramp and then come out.

But we don't see any of that, I don't think. She's just driving in one place and then suddenly is driving out of a building through a billboard, which also implies that behind every Billboard is just an open open road space Yeah, yeah, it's it's in case there's like a visiting basketball team that has to burst through it Yeah, yeah, yeah, or the Roadrunners around and thank you Dan Or the Roadrunners on a visiting basketball team as he did was in two different movies. That's true. So

Jam and Hoosiers. Thanks for listing them. Do you, uh, do you got any more movies that the road runner was in? Where he plays basketball? Um, uh, blue chips, uh, right. And, uh, what was the other one? What's the other road runner basketball movie that he's in? He's so he's taking up space and basketball is kind of his jam, you know?

Yeah. And so, but he's in space jam. So if there's, I think there's another one also that the Roadrunner plays basketball in and... Okay, thank you for taking us down this road story. Oh, he got game. He got game. That's what Spike Lee's He Got Game. That's the one. So they escape in an ambulance. Oh, and Hoop Dreams. I forgot. Hoop Dreams is also about the Roadrunner. That was a real life documentary.

Man, I got a real Roadrunner on my tail. So they escape in an ambulance, they make it to a fireworks factory, where they immediately start setting a bunch of fires. The fireworks factory from earlier. So that's why she knows about it, right? Yeah. That makes sense then. I have a big problem with this climax.

I mean, for a number of reasons, but here's one problem. Cassie takes them there because she has had this vision. She's like, I know what I need to do to make this work. And then it doesn't happen. Like, and so otherwise you would never go to a fireworks factory and then set the fireworks factory on fire as they do as a strategy. Yeah.

But she's doing it because she knows it's going to all work out but it doesn't work the way she wants it to. So, legally, we are telling you not to set a fireworks factory on fire. Dan, life is what happens while you're making plans. That's all I can say to Cassius. I guess so. Well also there's another unexpected.

If the spider, they cut the spider and he goes, I wonder if I should tell her that every 20th vision is false just to test her. Eh, she'll figure it out. Well, that would certainly explain something else that's coming up, but anyway, we'll get to it. Yeah, she knows she needs to involve that Pepsi Cola sign. She needs to involve that, you know.

Yes. The powers are sponsored by Pepsi's. Yes, again, contractually they have to. I mean, if this movie was made in the 80s, she would get stronger by drinking Pepsi. Like every time she needed to power up, she would crack open a can of Pepsi and just chug it down. Yeah.

Pop my style. Dan's looking at my notes, he's like, dear God, I hope this is almost done. So Sims follows them to the fireworks factory. Things start exploding everywhere. A firework rocket like flies into a brick wall and blows a giant hole through. Yeah, what kind of a firework?

Again, so badly edited. Nothing is making sense. So they climb up to the roof. wall and blows a giant hole through it? What the fuck? Again, so badly edited. Nothing is making sense. So they climb up to the roof. They're able to like avoid, they're able to like navigate all the explosions using Cassie's gift of foresight. At one point, Sims has climbed up on the roof of them and a rocket goes flying right at him and he bats it out of the way where it flies over and hits a nearby helicopter, blowing it up.

Yeah, these fireworks are astoundingly powerful. Yeah, they're all surface-to-air missiles. Let alone the fact that you should not have a fireworks warehouse in the middle of a heavily residential area as they do in this movie. But the fact that these fireworks are in a city and they're like, these are rockets. These are incredibly powerful.

These are on their way to the Ukrainian front. These are not a fire. I should have told her that the fireworks factory is now munitions way down. Yeah, there's some fighting. At one point, all three of the girls are hanging off of things for their life and Sims is like, Madam Webb, you can't save all three.

And then she goes into a weird trance and then like ghost versions of herself connected by like weird umbilical cords, like start to save all the girls. And then that like stops almost immediately. But that was pretty cool. I'm like, whoa, wow. Sanjana says, once you know the future

and understand the web, one of your powers is that you'll be able to be in more than one place at the same time, which seems metaphorical. Like she's gonna know what's going on. But no, it means she can actually project herself to different places. Yeah, just as long as the ghost umbilical cords connect her,

this is something that, it's one of those things where it's like, this power is a little too useful. Like if there was a sequel, they're gonna have to dial this back. Luckily there will never be a sequel, so they don't have to do that. Oh man. No, that's too bad.

It's too bad, because the last 20 minutes are setting up that sequel. Yeah. Very unfortunate. Sims falls and gets smushed and dies. Dakota Johnson falls in the water and then gets hit in the eyes with a rocket. Go on.

Let us not get over, like, there's an exchange where like, she's like, turns out it was always me that was going to kill you. Like, it was not these three girls. And I'm like, what the fuck, movie? Like maybe you could do this rug pull if you offer some clever reason.

But we've been set up the whole time, like this is a prophecy, this is how he's gonna die. Like do a little bit more than just like, psych. Like. Yeah. Here's I think what they were planning was I think she's gonna turn, like do a little bit more than just like, psych. Like. Yeah. Here's, I think what they were planning was I think she's gonna turn out to be wrong and there would be a future movie where Ezekiel comes back

and we do see him fight the now costumed. Could be. Could be. Could be. But the way it happens in the movie, and again, because there will be no sequel to this, it does seem like, well, maybe she's like, she should have said like, dreams aren't prophecies, dumbass.

And then she could have killed him. Like that might have done it. But also the fact that she is so, she's like had a vision of that big S from the Pepsi sign falling on him. So she keeps angling him towards the S and it's like, well, superheroes shouldn't be trying to kill somebody. Like I understand setting a trap to catch him or whatever,

or knock him out. But the idea that she's like, I gotta do this right or he won't die and I've gotta kill this guy. It's also, she's so cartoonishly looking at the S while she's backing him up into the S that I feel like he should be able to be like. The deadliest letter. She's like, wait, wait, oh, oh, okay, a little bit.

No, no, no, not that far. To the left, to the left. Da da da da da, boop boop boop. Starts making a beeping sound. Yeah, exactly. So he does get smushed, brought to you by Pepsi. She falls into the water. A stray rocket flies underwater

and explodes in her face, blinding her. She's saved by the girls. They use the CPR that she taught them earlier. Yeah, we, man, we're in the home stretch here. They apparently break her back, don't you? Peter Parker is born. She is in a hospital room and the girls are led into the room and she's like,

they can come in and see me, they're all mine, they're my family and you're like, oh what? That's a weird turn. We get a little bit of a flash forward, this is my stand up and cheer moment because we see her in this mechanized wheelchair for some reason, wearing cool ass sunglasses. These sunglasses.

And she's making this little smile, like the world's youngest grandma. And she's, it's so funny. And like, we're talking about an actress who is like, at least 75% eye acting. And we're like, let's put on some blue blockers so we don't see those eyes. This really feels like, I mean, I don't know what happened.

Like this feels like reshoot number 12 and she is just so tired of it all to me and she's doing this vision, like she's doing this version of herself where like, okay, now that she's in full Madame Webb powers, even though she's been blinded and she's in this chair, like she is totally at peace and she's so blissed out. But it's like the most sort of bored blissed out

you can see. And these sunglasses, I swear to God, it's like they sent someone to the store and be like, pick the ones that will look the silliest. They do this stutter step, right? There's two, there's like, you see her in the wheelchair before you see her again with, are those the same sunglasses or are those sillier sunglasses?

The same kind of time. Like, it is, but it does feel like they, these do feel like reshoot scenes. My guess is that, because I kept hearing, and this movie was in production, I kept hearing this isn't going to be a superhero-y movie. This is going to be more of a suspense thriller. This is gonna be more of like a,

almost a 90s style suspense thriller. And my guess is that they were like, they had maybe a cut of it even, and they were like, is she not gonna ever look like the fucking character from the comics? Because we need that to happen. And so they had this first ending,

and they're like, is that good? She has these big sunglasses and she's in a wheelchair. And they're like, no, put her in like a red leather jacket. What are you doing? So Stuart, what happens? They're arguing about the takeout food that they're gonna eat, right? The girls coming?

Yeah, hey, instead of cueing me up, why don't you answer your own prompt, Elliot? Okay, so they're, because I'm not entirely sure. So this scene is not a prophecy here, right? Or is it? So the girls show up, they have Chinese food, they're like, we got you this thing, and she's like, of course,

you knew that it was my favorite or some shit. It's like all these dumbass lines about she can see the future. Yeah, and Maddie can't stop eating. The girl loves to eat. She's like, gazuntite onion, and goes, huh? Achoo, oh thanks. Yeah, it's so great.

It's like the sitcom version of the of the Madame Webb movie. And then she flashes forward again to seeing them all in costume and her in her costume. And she had like a spider on her fingers. I'm trying to remember exactly how it is. But it's like suddenly it becomes the like, this movie was like, all right,

this is kind of like a realistic suspense thriller with superhero elements. And then in the last couple minutes, you're like, fuck it, let's just go crazy. Let's go, come on, let's just, they're all in crazy costumes. They're all, it looks like the direct to video Madame Web movie that would have come out in 1998. Like, let's just do this, you know?

Yeah, it's a very silly little ending that I think adds a fun punch to what was a very silly movie. Thumbs up from Stuart. I also get so deeply insultingly I think adds a fun punch to what was a very silly movie. Thumbs up from Stuart. I will forget so deeply insultingly that this movie said, now that you've seen 98 minutes of this, the next movie we make will have all the superhero costumes and fight scenes that we kept continuously teasing

and promising throughout this movie and never once delivered. And nope, not until the, I've never seen a, I've never seen a superhero spend the entire movie figuring out how to use their powers. Usually the, the scene where they're like, oh, I get it. I can use them is like in the first 30 minutes. And then it's like a whole hour and a half of fun spiderweb slinging and and and bullet blocking This one just slowly gets longer premonitions Yeah, and to the movie does anything actually happen regarding superpowers it was and then to be at the end of it

Okay next movie The very necessary foundation that these characters would not have worked without. Now that we've laid it, get ready. Because Madame Web 2, the Spider Girls, is gonna blow your mind with all the costumes, the characters, the powers. It feels like a feature length Kickstarter demo reel where they're like, hey, if you back this project, you'll actually get these costumes maybe.

It would be so funny if they made the sequel, and the first sequel was like, hey, if you back this project, you'll actually get these costumes, maybe. It would be so funny if they made the sequel, and the first sequel was like, okay, hold on, four, 1993. All right, let's just get this resituated. This is all about Cassie as a kid. And all the girls are babies, okay? Yeah. Okay, well let's- Then they do a third movie

and the first couple minutes they're all posing in the costumes and they're like, you know what? It'd be a lot easier if we didn't wear these costumes. We weren't restricted by all this rubber or whatever. We're just regular clothes. Yeah, let's cap off. Also, I gotta finish grad school. I'm the nerd girl, remember?

So, let's two hours of that. Cap off our Madame Webb discussion. None of us really had like a traumatic experience that forced us to have a reason to stop crime. Like, so why are we doing this? Like, why are we doing this? He's hanging out. Yeah, our traumatic experience was watching our friend

trick a guy into getting smushed. Yeah. Cap off our discussion in the traditional way, which is of course, final judgments, whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or movie kind of like, I'm going to say, for me it was a good bad movie. It hearkened back to the original Marvel film,

Howard the Duck, in the sense that like, the things that I enjoyed about it are inextricable from the things that are janky and weird about it. Like there's some stuff in here that like, I really actually had fun with kind of Dakota Johnson's attitude, like the weird sort of hangout vibe of some of it. And I sort of enjoyed the feeling,

like we've talked about it before, now that superhero movies are the only thing that gets made, at least, although less now, at least you can see something that's a little different. Like this harkens back to like an earlier day when people are like, I don't know what a superhero movie is to you. Maybe it can be this.

So there's that strangeness, but I also laughed a lot at stuff that was just not working. That was my feeling. Aliyah, what about you? I also would call this a good bad movie. I feel like we haven't quite gotten across the good bad tone of it, which this does feel like a throwback movie, not necessarily in the way they intended, I think, but it feels like this is a 90s superhero movie. They don't know what superheroes are popular. They don't know what people like about superheroes. They don't know what makes them fun for fans.

So they take the name and they're like, I guess we'll just apply it to a different kind of movie. Like, you know, for a recent live show, we watched the 90s spawn movie. That episode is available only in the bonus content. If you've got a MaxFun member at maximumfun.org slash join. But this feels like more like that. live show, we watched the 90s Spawn movie, that episode is available only in the bonus content, if you've gone to MaxFunMember at maximumfun.org slash join. But this feels like more like that. This guy's a company man here,

where are you guys with these bugs? This man knows what he's doing. This feels more like that, where it's like, the same way that years ago, I think it was Golan Globus wanted to make a Spider-Man movie and they thought that it was like Wolfman. So they kept wanting to make a movie about a kid who gets bitten by a spider and is turning

into a giant spider and that never got made, but it feels like Wolfman. So they kept wanting to make a movie about a kid who gets bitten by a spider and is turning into a giant spider. And that never got made, but it feels like this sits in that universe much better than it does in the current Marvel universe. So yeah, I think it's a good bad movie. Go ahead and check it out. You have a great time. Jumin, I think you're raging the most.

Let's go to you. Oh, I hate it. This is a very bad. I really want to get across how bad the dialogue was throughout this movie that made every scene so much more worse than fun. They had this, that very awful worst type of a Marvel, the worst thing to me about Marvel movies

is this kind of quippy snappy dialogue that characters always click into. And they did that so bizarrely and jankily in scenes where like the girls were in the woods where they have just seen a very traumatic event and avoided being killed. They immediately snap into this kind of insulting line. Let me guess, your dad is a hedge fund owner

and your mom runs a Met Gala. Well, let me tell you something. You are a dorky girl and they're like, don't say that. Don't try to high five me. That's not cool. All this kind of, and then they'll switch into this. That sounds like teens to me. I don't know.

Yeah, it sounds good. And then they'll switch into this like, all of a sudden they'll be like, you know, my mom is undocumented. That's why I'm here. Within an hour of meeting each other, they're like, we're sisters. We're in this together, all of us.

At the end, when they're like, Cassie, Cassie, oh no, it's like, well, you've known this woman for less than a day. You're saying it speaks to a certain emotional instability that it should be more troubling than endearing. Or just an emotional, it speaks to an unrealistic emotional wavelength. Yeah, yeah. Yes, and because they, the thing that Marvel cannot write characters that are funny because they do things in character.

So they have to write characters that are always like half a foot out and try to make jokes and I think the worst example of that was in that scene where that native wise man said that the thing about the you have to you can't see clearly until you look back in the past and and Dakota Johnson said something like, that sounds like the worst therapy session I've ever been to. And that to me is like, Marvel, if you can just, if the characters can just be in this world

and not constantly having to comment on this world, it would be a lot easier to have fun with it than if I have to sit there as Marvel like winks at me being like, hey, I know this is kind of weird. Of course, this is a different strain of Marvel. This is not the Marvel proper. This is like produced in conjunction with Marvel basically just because they co-own the property

with Sony right now. But this to me feels like a lot of Marvel movies have this level of everyone tries to be co-owned stars. I will say when Marvel movies do that well, I think it works very well. And that's the kind of thing that since the 1960s has differentiated Marvel as a World from say DC is that the characters always were like a slightly wink ear You know, it was it was a little bit more like can you believe this but I agree that yeah

Yeah, not super serious like booster gold Many years later when DC had ingested some of that. But compared to the DC stories of the 1960s, that were that which took themselves very seriously. The Marvel ones always had that Stanley like, well, folks, can you believe the web swing has gotten himself into trouble again this time? Oh boy, get ready, actions are coming. You know, the, but, but when that works.

I don't mind that in the situation though, but for the characters to be so meta and self aware. Well, I think a little bit of it goes a long way and now there's too much of it even in the Marvel proper movies. But I was going to say with Dan too, as Dan was saying, this is the Sony kind of like faux Marvel universe. Yeah, this is the knockoffs that you get at the outlet. This is the Spider-Man without Spider-Man version of the Marvel universe.

They nailed that annoying banter perfectly then. They really got that element of it. I will say the only part of the movie I liked was the credits, which had the Cranberries dream playing over it, which to me is like always the end credit song for a 90s action movie. It's kind of a movie that, it's kind of a song that plays when like Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames are like, we got through the bank, huh?

We did it, we did it. And I saw you seeing that play, it was like, oh yeah, this does feel like a late 90s, early 2000s movie. That was it, bad, bad until the end credits. Let's close it out with some I suspect positivity from oh boy, man I love this shit You know I watched two venom movies and a Morbius movie and I suffered through them just so I could get mad I'm web like

it's so Like it's not a the kind of movie I would recommend to say a non-broken movie viewer. Yes. But it is, there's so much joy in the like, strangeness of it and how much of it doesn't work, but I don't know. I'm a big fan. I think Madam Web is a solid good bad movie. Oh wow.

Check it out. I'm surprised. This is getting you excited for Craven, the next in the Spider-Man without Spider-Man universe. Are you Craven? I mean in the Spider-Man without Spider-Man universe. I mean, it's tough. I am not... I mean, who's the hunk in that one? Who's the hard body?

I don't know. Is it Logan Marshall Green? It's a three-namer. Oh, is it him? I don't know. No, it's Aaron Taylor Johnson. Another one. Yeah, Aaron Taylor Johnson. Yeah one. Yeah, Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Yeah, but yeah, hot-hearted body. I'm not, I don't know, like I don't, I'm not as intrigued by his range or lack thereof as I am. Like, I'm not as excited about seeing him in a superhero movie as I was when I heard Dakota Johnson was going to have to appear concerned. But does it help you to know that Russell Crowe will be appearing as Nikolai Kravinov, Kraven's estranged father?

Okay, I'm excited about that. Which means he has to do an accent. He has to do an accent. You see the trailer? He does have an accent. Oh, fuck yeah. Okay, I changed my mind. I'm excited for it.

Oh boy, we're having so much fun on the show today, aren't we we beloved listener? Yes. Well, the fun is only going to get more fun because I'm going to tell you more about all the great stuff you get when you go to maximumfun.org slash join. Oh, the maximum amount of fun. The maximum amount of fun, extra strength fun. So this is the maximum.

If you have more fun than this, you will die. So don't worry, we figured it out. Don't have more fun than this, the maximum fun. Now don't think that when you support the Flophouse and maximum fun that all you get is the same podcast you're already listening to. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, my sweet friends. No, no, no, no, no, no. We have made special things for members, wondrous things, precious things.

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You don't have to worry about that if that's more than you can afford. But in addition, we've got a stretch goal, guys. A stretch goal means that if we reach a certain number of new or upgrading members, thank you, Dan. Dan put some stretching in for the visual component of the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If we reach 2,000 new or upgrading members for this drive, we're gonna bring back our famous raffles. That's right, we will pick from the names of members, people to send out original Dan McCoy drawings. Are these gonna be commissions, Dan? Are you gonna ask them what they want and then give them what they want? Yeah, I will give them what they want.

They'll steer them toward Pregnant Sonic. I reserve a certain right of refusal, but pretty much, yeah, whatever. You heard him, folks, Pregnant Sonic, ask him for it. So you can get from me comic books from me, signed by me, some of my original books, signed for you and sent to you. And Stuart, I think has a package of Hinterlands

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I'll be back with more Max Fun Drive stuff later in the episode. But now, let's get back to the regular flop stuff. Dan, take it away. Let us move on to letters from listeners, like you, the listeners. Hey, this one's from, who is it from? Nathan, Nathan last name

withheld and Nathan writes, you mentioned Winnie the Pooh and it reminded me that I've been wanting to share an experience I had with my kids several years ago. It started with me instantly deciding they could watch the Tigger movie. They like Winnie the Pooh and though I didn't remember the plot details I figured it would be 90 minutes of cheap entertainment. Smash cut to me giving a deadpan look to the invisible camera as we finish the movie and two of my children are weeping

because Tigger never found his family. I then tried to explain the trope of the quote, inherently unique character looks for his family and finds that his friends are his real family. As my daughter angrily wailed to my wife in the other room, his friends was his family the whole time, it hit me that this was a flop-worthy story. Although the message that friends can be family

is a great one, in that moment, I wish that for once, Tigger, Gonzo, or King Kong could just actually find their goddamn family. You've all answered many questions about movie tropes in the past. I guess the slight twist on this one, are there good movie tropes that you would be okay with never seeing again?

Keep up the wall to wall flopping, Nathan, currently 68 miles east of Topeka, Kansas. Oh, and he didn't even give us his thoughts on it. All right, okay. I think the trailers for the new Godzilla X Kong movie, it looks like there's a bunch of Kongs in it. So he's gonna find his family. There's like little ones and like a big evil one.

And he, I mean, we all know his real family, his real brother, that's Godzilla, baby. Yep, that's why they're running from an explosion or something in their Riggs and Vertaw style. Guys, I love it. I saw that trailer and I was like, I hope I can watch this in the right spirit of this is goofy nonsense.

You see Godzilla truckin' and you're like, man, look at those thighs. Ooh, mama. The idea of Godzilla running or moving fast is such a change for the character. But to answer the question, do you have one, Dan? Well, I don't have a great one. I was thinking of like, there's a trope

that I enjoyed very much the first time I saw it in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where like, the character is held at gunpoint. You hear a gunshot, you think the character's been shot, and it turns out it's someone else shooting the person who is threatening our hero. In that case, Karen Allen, of course, shooting the Nazi who, or maybe the Sherpa just,

that the Nazi's hired who want to. He can be both, he can be a Nazi Sherpa. And, you know, like, and that is, you know, it's Spielberg. It was the first time I saw that trope. It may predate him, but like, that was like the best staged version of it that I've seen. And so it's not like I dislike it, but now it's just been done so much.

I'm like, yeah, it's not, they didn't shoot the guy that's our hero, I get it. Like I'm not surprised that someone else is gonna pop out of nowhere having a shot. I have a similar thing where, so I think the first time I saw this was in The Dark Knight, when Joker gets captured, but he wanted to get captured, it's part of his plan. And then I saw, I think, seven movies or something in a row after that, where the bad guy gets

captured on purpose as part of his plan. And I was like, this no longer counts as like a twist, when I expect it to come. Like in Oppenheimer, when Oppenheimer got captured and it was all part of his plan. Just so he could talk shit to Robert Downey Jr. Okay, whatever movie. But it feels like that to me. That's another one where I was like, the first time I saw it I was like, oh, that's a good twist.

And then it showed up in, which James Bond movie was it? With Javier Bardem. Skyfall? Skyfall. Yeah, and it was in the Star Trek Beyond... Beyond Benedict. Which is not Star Trek, but Into Darkness. Yeah, it just shows into so many different movies

and I was like, all right, okay, so this is the new thing du jour that all the movies do. And I quickly got very tired of it. So that's the one for me. I would be okay never seeing it again, but it is a fun idea the first time as a twist in a movie. Yeah, I mean a trope where you have twins and then they get involved in some kind of

like erotic series of manipulations and twists. Actually, no, I wanna see a lot more of those. That's a trope I feel like you could do more of. Yeah, yeah, you could do more of, yeah. How about when like the like the quiet wimp turns out to be super tough or when the granny starts rapping? I love that.

I can- That's what I hate too. The one where it's like- It's been gone for a while though. That person can do that, which goes at least as far back as the Errol Flynn Robin Hood when like Friar Tuck turns out to be really good fighting. Like it's, yeah, that I'm not a huge fan.

Or in the, like in the Bratz movie, when the nerdy guy turns out to know martial arts You know like a you don't need that stuff. It's enough of that. Yeah I could boy I couldn't actually when I was thinking about this I was I was trying to think like what are tropes that I that I can like think of that I like and maybe think like it actually would be it would be I Would it would be nice if there was a rule that said that if you were to engage, if you were to write a trope in a movie,

you had to very explicitly name the trope. So if there was like a Legend of Bagger Vance kind of situation, the white character would have to say like, oh, thank God, the magical Negro is here to help me out. But that would be a lot more helpful to be like, I know what I'm about to see now. It's like in every movie that's like,

every movie that's like Groundhog Day where they don't say, oh, it's like Groundhog Day. What's happening? Yes, yeah. This is, yeah, you can see, there'll be a twist later maybe, but mostly it's just gonna be this. It's Groundhog Day. That would be nice.

The one that came to mind just now is also this, and I don't know if this is a trope I like actually, this might be just something I'm tired of seeing, where the character, heroes in the movie will be mowing down the cannon fodder of the villain, just destroying them. And then when it's time to kill the villain, they're like, no, because we're heroes, we don't do that. Like that, most recently I saw that in Guardians of Galaxy

three and I was like, oh, so you'll just kill everyone who works for the high evolutionary, but the high evolutionary, the bad guy who's causing all the trouble, you're a hero, so you can't touch him. Or in Rise of Skywalker where he Skywalker, where the emperor is like, Ray, if you kill me now, you'll become a bad guy. And she's like, I guess I can't.

I guess I'll just kill the thousands of child slaves that were forced to be in your army. Like, terrible. Take out the bad guy. There's also that call to morality that the villain makes when they're like, but what kind of a hero are you There's also that call to morality that the villain makes when they're like, but what kind of a hero are you after you've killed so many people in your quest? I'm always like, yeah, well, you sent those people.

I didn't kill them on my own. There was an army that I had to like shoot. I was just hanging out and like, oh, you know what I feel like is. Yeah, you sent them in my way. I'm not the bad guy here. Yeah, I guess I'd like to see a villain say, We're very different, you and I. We don't have a lot in common.

We think different things and we act in different ways. In many ways it makes sense that we'd be on opposing sides of this issue. Though we both believe that we are right, in the end you're probably more right to sign the bad guy. It's certainly easier to make an argument for your side of the issue. You know what? You convinced me. I'm not going to be a bad guy anymore. It's certainly easier to make an argument for your side of the issue. You know what, you convinced me, I'm not gonna be a bad guy anymore. And the hero's like, this worked out great. This is fantastic.

Oh boy, I wish we had did this before I put you into the slowly descending into lava trap. Classy hero move. This next is from John Lastingwithheld. John with no H, maybe it's John Stewart, who knows. Could be. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. we've been hearing about Marvel fatigue in the last lackluster response to several big budget blockbusters. And it has me thinking. BBB, big budget blockbusters. In the 60s, there was a fatigue over big event movies,

which led to a boom of smaller budget or independent movies like The Graduate and Easy Rider. This was coupled with more eyes on foreign fare, like the Battle of Algiers, The Bicycle Thief, and Blow Up. And then 90s has happened again with movies like Reservoir Dogs, Clerks, and Slacker, along with a boom for foreign movies like Chung King Express and John Woo films. My question is, do you think we're in line for another boom period in foreign or independent cinema with films like Everything Everywhere All at Once, X, Shiva Baby, and more gaining

a lot of traction as independent films along with foreign films like Drive My Car, the world's worst person in the world and T-Tain, I don't know that T-Tain was, the monster hit that. No, it's a monster. I mean, there's a monster in it. There's a metal baby. I think there's a chance we can see another interesting time in films soon.

I also love mentioning Drive My Car and T-Tain in this episode. Very similar movies, very similar feelings they this episode. So what do you think? Very similar movies, very similar feelings they evoke. So what do you think? Is this possible or am I living in the film lovers bubble? Keep on flopping in the free world. I mean, anything's possible.

Everything's possible. So here's my thinking on this. I mean, there is a blow up in foreign stuff, but it's mostly in television. Foreign television has made inroads, thanks mainly to Netflix, into American homes in a way that it never has before. Non-English language television is now so much more

prevalent and mainstream than it ever was in the American mainstream culture. That being said, it feels like the time should be right for a blow up in independent and small budget movies because the resources to make them are right there, especially with AI, which I do not like because it takes jobs away from people. But if you are a small budget independent filmmaker,

I'm sure it's a godsend in many ways because you can do things you never could have done before. In theory, distribution through the internet or streaming sites should make it easier for these kinds of movies to reach people the way they did in the nineties through video or in through kind of independent theaters and things like that in the 60s and 70s.

But at the same time, I don't know, it feels like it is harder and harder to get people to watch that stuff in some ways. And I think as long as those main platforms are algorithmically driven and not driven by human curation, it's gonna be harder for people to find or be directed to different type of stuff, indie stuff or original stuff. Maybe some foreign stuff, the foreign stuff that feels like things that are already being,

like as much as I enjoyed so much of RRR, I think that was partly a hit because it's the kind of movie that people are already watching. It's essentially a superhero movie, just kind of like a bigger and kind of slightly different superhero movie. And I think it's gonna be harder for people to find those things because our outlets are so much harder to, the ways that we people find movies now are so controlled by programs designed

to give them the same thing over and over again, as opposed to the old days when you would look like in a newspaper listing and you might see other stuff, or you'd watch a TV show like Siskel and Ebert and they'd introduce you to stuff, like there's less of that now, it's less prevalent, which makes it difficult. So that's my theory on it.

I hope I'm wrong. I mean, I feel like you're, I feel like there's definitely like an explosion of like lower budget stuff. I think what we're not going to get is mid-budget stuff. I feel like we're not gonna get is mid budget stuff. I feel like mid budget stuff has gone away forever. That's a great way to live it. Especially like, and like anything of any kind of a budget

that's geared toward like drama, like I feel like so much of that type of stuff is being pushed toward television. Yeah. Like things that they could be like, can we just turn this into like an HBO, like 10 episode series instead of a movie or whatever, just make so much more sense on the business side of things.

But I don't know, I'm the least involved in the business out of the four of us, so. Yeah, I mean, I think that- I think in some ways Dan is the least involved in the business of the four of us. Yeah. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Bursts into tears. No, I think, I mean, I see what this letter writer is getting at. I do think that lately, like the stuff that has been bubbling to the surface a bit has been different stuff than we've seen for, like at least the last eight years, say before. Like it really was a period where only one type like at least the last eight years, say before, it really was a period where only one type of blockbuster was dominant.

And now there's stuff that's big IP, like still big IP like Barbie or of course Oppenheimer, the biggest IP that there is. But I do think that what I've seen kind of getting attention now, like there is a turn away towards smaller, different films maybe. So I don't know. I'd be curious if that's happening in the world

you're plugged into or the world at large. Because I think that the issue is not that people aren't making those movies necessarily. And the issue is not that people aren't making those movies necessarily, and the issue is not that people don't wanna see those movies, the issue is the corporate layer in between that needs to be convinced that there's a profitable reason to show those movies. I mean, like a lot of these movies do show up now

on streaming, it's just that the problem is streaming is kind of a black hole that like you toss content into and unless something catches fire for a very specific reason, it may as well not exist. Compared to like, even in the old days, like if you put a small movie in an independent theater, you know, like it could get big reviews and become a hit that way.

And that doesn't happen. Yeah, Dan's still upset about the fate of Ricky Stinecky, you know, disappearing into the Amazon hole. Just didn't get the chance, just didn't get the chance to catch him on. Shubin, I know you love Ricky Stinecky. No, I didn't. The name was funny to me, so I...

You're like, tell me more. I feel like that's the purpose of the name is for it to be funny and that's the title of the movie. No, no, it's a very serious movie. Very serious, yeah. Hey, let's make some recommendations of movies that we've seen, we've enjoyed. Be positive about a thing. Well, I was super positive about Madame Web, I think it rules,

but I'm also going to recommend another movie that I saw, that's probably going to scratch a similar Madame Web style itch, or maybe not. I'm going to recommend a movie called Love Lies Bleeding. That's right. It is a little neo-noir set in the 80s. And in the world of bodybuilding, you got Kristen Stewart, you got Ed Harris sporting the best haircut and the leatheriest face.

You got Katie O'Brien sporting the hardest body I've ever seen. She looks incredible. It's like gross and super hot and like funny and weird. The movie. The movie. Her body's incredible. The way you said it made it sound like you were- It did sound like her body was gross and weird. The movie. The movie. Her body's incredible. The way you said it made it sound like you were commenting on.

I mean, all bodies are gross. But what a picture. It's weird and funny and it's great to see this director who made Saint Maude kind of get to stretch her, stretch her arms a little bit and like have a little bit more budget and still bring that kind of like dreamy sensibility to like a larger palette and, or a larger canvas. And the performances are a ton of fun.

Yeah, thumbs up. Love this thing. It was great. I was itching to go to the gym right after. I'm gonna quickly recommend, for old time's sake, a movie I saw on the plane recently. That was a plane you took to Detroit so you could masturbate yourself into a stupor

at the Love Lies Bleeding screening. Did you guys see that viral news story? Some guy got drunk and jacked off and passedor at the Love Lies bleeding screening. Did you guys see that like viral news story? Some guy like got drunk and jacked off and passed out at the theater. Yeah. That wasn't you is what you're saying. No, it's not to my knowledge. I mean, if it was you, you wouldn't remember.

That's the thing, yeah. No, I watched Desperately Seeking Susan, a movie that I realized watching it on the plane, like I had seen all of, but maybe just like in bits and pieces over the years. But I'm like, oh, I'd never seen it. But it was good to see it all in the correct order, all at once. I enjoyed it.

A memento version of Desperately Seeking Susan. Yeah. It has a lot of the same sort of squares encounter, downtown Bohemian flavor as two of my personal favorites after hours and something wild I feel like it doesn't have quite the screwball snap at the end that I wanted out of it but it has like the vibe that I enjoy but I also wanted to recommend now having recommended a movie so that Stuart doesn't make fun of me I want to recommend the television program Deadlock,

which Audrey and I recently watched all those. Yeah, it's great. An Australian show. It's on Amazon Prime right now. I feel like I've seen a little bit of buzz around it, but not as much as I think it deserves, considering that I think it is both a genuinely funny comedy where the comedy comes out of super well observed characters

being well played, and also a genuine, engaging mystery thriller, where it keeps you guessing up something and you're actually excited to see the Danieman, which is a hard thing to mix those two things together. And it's also a bunch of queer creators and that's a big part of the story as well. If that's something you're looking for in your media,

I'd say check out. And it's set in Tasmania. Yeah. Oh, so you know that a certain devil's gonna show up on old buddy Mez. Elliot, why don't we give the last recommendation to Jubin and why don't you go? Okay, sure.

I'm gonna recommend a movie from 1983. Oh, well, hold on one moment there, Elliot. I think it's, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you come here. NBC newsman Tom Brokaw is here. I apologize everybody. Oh, weird. Okay.

Elliot, I was passing by the neighborhood as I often do while you're recording just in case I have an invitation to show up as I do now. I don't remember inviting you. Like even a vampire needs an invitation to show up as I do now. I don't remember inviting you, like even a vampire needs an invitation. Well, I'm worse than a vampire in many ways. I'm a newsman and I couldn't help but hear that you mentioned a movie from 1983, even though this past weekend you saw a certain film

called Dune Part Two. I had assumed when I saw you in the theater after hacking into the security cameras, much like Ezekiel Sims in the film, Madam Webb, that you would be recommending it on this episode. And yet I find that you're not recommending it. Is it, do you not like the film? Because I found it transporting.

No, I did like it very much, but it's just, it's gotten enough attention. It's a huge movie, so I'd recommend a smaller thing. Well, perhaps then I could just stay here and talk about Dune 2 for a couple hours. I don't think you can right now. I mean, we're near the end of the episode.

I've got a pretty open schedule. I'm retired now. Perhaps I could come back next week and talk about Dune part two. I don't know about next week. We're going to have Jamel Boolean next week as our guest. We're going to talk about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 because he's our hedgehog correspondent.

So I think we're kind of booked for next week. Well, as I said, my calendar is quite open right now. I have a few more screenings of Dune part two penciled in. Perhaps I could appear the week after that and talk to you about Dune Part 2. I'm taking a hint. You know, if that's the way it has to be, then okay, if you want to come back in two weeks and you can talk to us about Dune Part 2. I just worry it won't be in the national zeitgeist the way it is right now, but I'll take that.

It's always in my zeitgeist. You might say that I've never taken off the still suit I'm still wearing it right now. Okay. Well if you could I don't again I don't know how you got my house. This is making me uncomfortable But if you could come back in a couple weeks and we'll talk about it. I will I will do that I will and he said he's backing away slowly. That was a nice break for the three of us I can't believe you that was I apologize everybody. Anyway, I'll recommend my movie quickly then. My movie is from 1983.

It's called Testament. It's a drama film directed by Lynn Litman about a small town in the aftermath of a nuclear blast that happens close enough that they are experiencing the radiation poisoning from it, but not so close that there are explosions and things are on fire and stuff like that. And she is the mother of a suburban family.

Her husband is played by, the main character is played by Jane Alexander. She was nominated for Academy Award for this performance and she's married to William Devane. William Devane goes off on a business trip and there's an explosion of some kind and it dawns on people that there's been a nuclear war and now the town kind of has to make do on its own. And it's a very kind of quiet, sad movie that felt very real to me, both about the effects of that kind of thing,

but also the feelings you go to when your family's in danger and you don't know what to do about it. But not in a like Halle Berry in a abducted kind of way, whatever that movie is called, but in a real way of like- I think it was kidnapped? Oh, kidnapped was that it? Yeah. I can't remember.

Just kidnapped. There's, when there's something, there's a real threat to your family that is big and there's nothing you can do about it and how you accommodate yourself to that. And I found it to be, it was a movie that I saw, it was one of the movies that I've seen recently where it got the strongest kind of like

real emotional response for me, where I'm like, I'm genuinely crying at this movie. This movie is hitting me hard and it's doing it in a very quiet, calm way. And so I was very impressed by it. So that's called, and I'm a sucker for post nuclear war, everybody dying from radiation sickness stuff. So to see one where I was like,

this is really getting me. So you're pretty shy, Anra. I love it, you know me. To see one that really was, felt like it was tugging my heartstrings in a very honest way was a big, was something I was very excited to see. So that's Testament from 1983. That's also a very annoying movie trope where a nuclear bomb goes off and everyone dies. Yeah.

I mean, come on, get over it. Yeah. Overdone. How about the one where it's the nuclear bomb goes off and no one cares? And there's confetti inside nuclear confetti Yeah, it's a party. Jim. Do you have anything you want to recommend? Uh, I Well because it's no ruse

I feel like I should recommend an Iranian movie, which I haven't seen any Lately, so but I have been playing Prince of Persia the lost crown. Uh-huh PlayStation 5 which I would recommend. It's a very fun, metroidvania style video game. Also, you can have the characters be voiced in Persian, which is great because I'm learning a lot of new Persian terms for like time crystals and things my aunt never taught me how to say in Persian. I would say, if you want to go a little bit back, Persian terms for like time crystals and

Persian I would say if you know if you want to go a little bit back There's a very wonderful Iranian film called hit the road which came out a couple of years ago By I think I don't I forget his name, but he's the son of a famous writer called Jeff had a panohi and It's about a family taking a road trip Mostly thing mostly seen through the through the eyes of like the young eight-year-old son who's on a trip with his mom and dad and like his older draft age eligible brother. And as they're going on this road trip, the boy does not know what the purpose of the road trip is,

but you sort of begin getting a sense of what the purpose of the road trip is and why the family is doing it. And it's a very, it's a perfectly Iranian movie in that it's a very sweet and fun story that has a very bittersweet theme behind it. It becomes prevalent if you, you know, as you watch. So I would recommend hit the road. I would recommend never watching any movie ever again after seeing Madame Web.

Because I think that- It's a failed art form. The art form is gone. Yeah, I feel like it's sort of been- If this is what 100 years of film was leading to, then we could just shut the door. You know, it shouldn't have ever happened. Yeah, I don't know if-

It's a kind of, the debates the Germans had after World War II were like, if this all led up to Hitler, what was the point of any of it? And I think that the exact same Idea and Feel if if Trump wins for presidential election 2020 this year, I'm gonna be like, okay the American experiment failed let's they were We should do it a different way. It's time now for a higher American experiment. Mm-hmm Caesar dim you saying that everyone gets high,

that's the experiment? Oh man. I'm way ahead of you. Has there ever been a whole country on weed? You see, it's good, let's try it. Yeah, let's do it I guess. Yeah, so that's Madam Web, guys. That's our Madam Web episode.

We did it. I want to thank our producer, Alex Smith. He goes by the name Howell Doddy all over the internet. You can find his various other enterprises. Thank you for editing and making us sound good and all that stuff. I want to thank you, Zubin for, normally Zubin doesn't have to do anything for an episode.

And now we made him watch Madame Web. Please let me just play a rich dog again. In some ways it was much less work than he normally has to do, in some ways it was much more work than he normally has to do. He seems to enjoy the other work more. But is there anything you want to plug, Juman, anything you want to say before we you know end this part of the episode? No, watch The Daily Show. Jon Stewart on Mondays, our correspondents on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays. Keep on watching it. Subscribe to cable again. I think a lot of the collapse of the television and film industries can be blamed on you, the viewer,

the listener who stopped subscribing to cable. Please go back and pay those exorbitant rates again. We need it. All right. Well, thank you. I feel like, Zubin, you managed to have this persona that is like lovably hostile. Can't help but being lovable even though you're saying mean things all the time and directly

confrontational. You can get away with so much. Thank you so much, Thank you so much. So much. Thank you so much, as Dan just said, and as the show comes to an end and we take down the old circus tent and hose the grease paint off the floors, I'd like to take one last time this episode. We used a lot of grease paint, Dan. It's all over the floors. How do you get down there? It's like the clowns falling all over the place.

They're doing the worms. They're doing the worm space planning. Yeah, exactly. I'd like to take one last time this episode to talk about the Max Fund drive. But I'm not just jumping straight to asking you for money. First, I want to thank you just the way that we were thanking Zsubin for being here.

I want to thank you for going to maximumfund.org.join and becoming a member of Max Fund while you were listening to this episode. Or, thank you for already being a member of maximumFun.org and upgrading or boosting your membership. Or thank you for already being a member and continuing to support us at the level you're already at.

Or if you haven't already gone to MaximumFun.org slash join, then thank you for doing it right now. Before you forget. Right now. Now. Now. Go do it. Right now. But above all, even if you can't do all that, thank you, as Dan said earlier in the show, for listening. You know, Dan, Stuart and I, we originally got into podcasting as kind of a hobby. And I know I've always been so grateful

that it turned into a thing that brings some money into our lives. It was helpful during down times when we were having financial trouble. We've all had those at different points. And I hate to admit it, but this right now is just about the downest of down times Television work is very hard to come by right now

Not just for us goofballs, but for most of our profession But thanks to you and your support and you're joining and upgrading and boosting we can keep ourselves afloat during this time I feel like we are extra grateful extra gratitude to Lee grateful or at least I am for your support during this time Speaking very honest. I'm extra grateful Don't try to take I. I'm the one. I'm the most grateful. Dan, he's, I'm- I'm extra grateful.

I'm grateful times infinity. Checkmate, I guess. Yeah, there's always infinity plus one. Speaking very honestly and purely for myself, your support at maximumfund.org slash join, even if you only join for $5 a month, is another brick in the wall between me and real financial trouble.

That's a $5 brick that you're sticking in that wall. And I appreciate it. Your membership doesn't just keep the show going, it keeps me and my family going. So I really wanna thank you for that. It means so much to me that this dumb show that also means so much to me, also means enough to you

for you to pledge your hard earned $5 a month. And as Dan mentioned earlier, if you can't afford to join right now, we understand. Times are tough right now. For almost everyone who is not actively working to tear apart civilization, or whose family is not already rich to begin with, those two categories overlap quite a bit right now.

Thank you just for listening. If you can't join right now, how about recommending the show to someone? Maybe like a wealthy friend who likes to bankroll dumb movies, movie podcasts, like if you know anyone like that, or just recommend it to someone you think will enjoy it. But if you feel like you can afford it,

please go to maximumfund.org slash join, and try out a membership for $5 a month. Drink in all that bonus content that's already there, and eagerly await the bonus content that we'll be adding throughout the year. We need your support. We really appreciate that you're giving that support to us. And so now I'd like to close this episode with a little oration

That I think I think we'll all find meaningful, you know Dan and Stu To score and three years ago our floppers brought forth on this network the new podcast technically wasn't on this network But we joined eventually conceived in silliness and dedicated to the proposition that not all movies are created equal Conceived in silliness and dedicated to the proposition that not all movies are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great Max Fund drive, testing whether that podcast or any podcast so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met in an episode of that drive. We have come to ask your support in going to MaximumFund.org slash join and contributing as little as $5 a month as a pledge for those who need to make a living so that this podcast might live It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this But in a larger sense, we cannot take the credit for this podcast It is you the generous supporters at all levels of membership who by going to maximumfund.org

Join have perpetuated far above our poor power to add or detract whoever gives out Podcasting awards will little note nor long remember what I say here, but can never ignore what you did here. It is for us, the hosts rather, to be dedicated here to keep creating the series which you have thus far so nobly advanced. We must be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from you honored members, we take increased devotion to that cause for which you went to maximumfund.org slash join and gave at least $5 a month. That we here highly resolve

that we will keep watching bad movies and then talking about them and then judging them in categories that often don't really apply that well to the movie we watch. They did this time, but not always. That thanks to your support at maximumfund.org slash join, this podcast under cage shall somehow keep going on for another decade or more.

And that a house of the flop, by the flop, and for the flop shall not perish from this earth. Thank you. Thundrous applause. -♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh I guess not like preschool parents too, actually. All the silent auctions and raffles. Yeah, tell me about it. But our baby is a podcast that has gotten slightly less dumb over time. But I want it to continue to be exactly as much

or more profitable, so what's... Just like a baby. Yep, yep. That I sold to the workhouse. And here we go. For sale, one baby from Dan. Six word story, yeah. For For sale one baby for profit. Maximum fun.

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