The Flop House - Ep.#403 - Wild Wild West
Episode Date: August 26, 2023Due to the ongoing refusal of the AMPTP to negotiate in good faith with the WGA or with our union brothers and sisters in SAG/AFTRA, we’re hitting pause on discussing current releases, and focusin...g on some films 90’s kids will remember. This week, we talk Wild Wild West (the 1999 movie version of the 60's sci-fi western TV show) a blockbuster mega-bomb that nearly ended multiple careers!Check out more info about our season of streaming shows, FLOP TV, and buy tickets!Donate to the Entertainment Community Fund here, to support those affected by the WGA strike.The wiki-wild Wikipedia page for wiki-Wild Wild WestRecommended in this episode:Caché (2005)How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2022)Marjoe (1972)
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On this episode we discuss Wild Wild West!
Based on the hit TV show The Wild Wild West.
Hahaha.
Factually true.
Can't argue with it, gain lion. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot
Kaelin, and I can't wait to tell you more about flop TV, our monthly TV
series, but we'll get to that later.
Howdy partners.
We're doing an episode of the podcast.
What's this podcast about Danny?
It's a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it previously in our history.
We had usually done previously on the flop house.
Previously on the flop house.
You're the father.
I'm having this baby and then
goes yikes.
Oh, gross.
Gross.
This is, I'm contractually
obligated to say that childbirth is
beautiful.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Anyway, what contract did you sign?
I don't know.
It's with the Childbirth Council.
Yeah.
Um, this is worth this beautiful campaign.
Who would be the perfect spokesman?
How about a man who's never had children and doesn't want children?
This is a podcast where we watched a bad movie and then we talked about it.
And typically in the past, we had usually done more recent films, films that were new to streaming, films
that were new to rental, et cetera.
Or sometimes in the theaters.
Yeah, sometimes in the theaters.
But since we are in the midst of a strike, both the writers guild and SAG-AFTRA are striking
against the producers, we decided why don't we focus on some older stuff,
so we're not even coming close to promoting something new.
And we're in the midst of a 90s flashback,
90s flashback weekend on the VLOB house.
And we did.
And then what song would kick off from that?
Like you oughta know, just like a little sting of that.
90s flashback weekend Like you ought to know just like a little sting of that. Now it is flesh back weekend. You ought to know.
Yeah, let's get or cut my life into pieces.
That's nice.
Oh, so, you know, it's all to come.
Do you have the time? Do you listen to us talk about Wild Wild West?
Speaking of songs.
Uh-huh. Speaking of songs. Lava West.
I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
From 2009, as we get.
So, yeah, we're talking about Wild Wild West.
A film that before we get into it, I just want to talk about briefly, like, how it nearly
derailed many people's careers.
Barry Sondinfeld, before before this made the only movie that people
don't remember is comedy he made with Michael J. Fox. I forget the title, but he did both
of the Adam's family movies get shorty and men in black before this. He was just on
our back.
Before that headboard, we're at the co-enbr the on the early firm films for that and I will I'll
tell you guys I'm a big fan of Barry's NFL. I read his memoir. Not a lot about Wild Wild
West is there.
Yeah. Well, I mean after this, you know, he retreats into min and black sequel is probably
his best movie of his later films after Wild Wild West is maybe min and black three.
I don't know. but he does stuff like RV
and nine lives. His career goes down. Will Smith doesn't suffer a lot from this, but before
this it was like he could do no wrong. And then he was a little bit more in the wilderness
for a while. This was, this was the movie that he turned the lead role in the Matrix down. Yeah.
Yeah.
And Kevin Klein had been a Hollywood leading man up until this point and then after this
point.
This is after In and Out, right?
Which was a big movie for him.
Yeah.
You know, wanted to get me a word for a fish called Wanda, but after this.
What about Dave?
Did he win the Academy Award for Dave?
No, but Dave saw, I haven't seen it years,
but Dave was a movie that I had a real fondness for
when I saw him when he came out of theaters.
He's great, he's great, man.
That movie.
But after this, not, I love you to do,
I love you to do, man, in Hollywood pictures anymore.
He would show up in supporting roles.
You know, he might lead a smaller film.
And I think, I think part of this is not just
that the movie was not successful.
It sounds like the experience of making the movie was unpleasant.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people may have rethought their relationship with film after being
successful.
Well, this is also the movie that famously, according to Kevin Smith's model, like
the giant mechanical spider in this is a holdover from what the producer wanted to happen
in his new Superman movie, his.
Yeah, that's so this move.
I think a lot of the unpleasantness in the movie may be at the feet of the producer, John
Peters, who if you've seen licorice pizza, you'll have seen Bradley Cooper playing him.
Oh, okay.
He's the guy who started his career as like Barbour Strider's hands.
I think hairdresser, Slash,
Lover, and Parley, that into being a film producer. And I did not get to meet him when I was
briefly involved in a tango and cash related project, but he was involved with that as well,
I believe. And from all stories, he just seems like a real madman. And I don't mean, I don't mean Frank Einstein, the beloved madman superhero created by
Mike Allred, not a comic book.
But the just seems like a real hard person to work with.
And as Dan was saying, Kevin Smith was going to write a Superman movie for him.
The one that was going to start Nicholas Cage.
And he just one of the things he demanded was that there be a giant mechanical spider in
it.
And then Wild Wild West, I think, was the next movie that he produced.
And though it beholds, the climax is all about a giant mechanical spider. Now I didn't see that here,
I think. I didn't see that shitty, the flash movie, but I saw clips of it online. And isn't there
a clip where like Nicholas Cage Superman fights a giant mechanical spider? Yeah, so the flash is,
I didn't see it either, but I saw that clip where the flash is going through the different
multiverse, what the DC version of the mold. and he sees like George Reeves from the black and white Superman TV show
And one of the things he sees is this Nicholas Cage Superman fighting a giant mechanical spider and it was like
Well, I guess that's the level this movie is that is that it is devoting a whole almost a whole scene to an in joke about the production of a previous
Superman movie that didn't exist
Yeah, but don't worry. It also looks terrible. It's bad. It's a bad thing.
It does. And it also, someone told me recently, they're like, yeah, they brought Nicholas
K. Jen for that part. And I was like, it all looks like they brought, like they just used
AI to recreate his face from old movies. Yeah. It's, anyway. So I guess as we go into this
summary, keep in mind that this movie did not have the makings of a good movie.
Did you guys see that?
I love it.
It was a big summer or a temple of the good movie.
I mean, had the makings, the people involved are not bad, the leads are great, the directors
great, it's co-written by the guys who wrote tremors, so like, and also the short circuit
movies.
So there's not, there are.
Well, it's a few teams.
There's like another team that like also did, I forget with the, they were also attached
to some good things.
Anyway, but did you guys see this the summer it came out?
I hadn't seen it until literally yesterday.
Yes, I had not watched it until I watched it for this podcast.
I saw it, you know, on like HBO after it came out.
I was like, surely Barry Sontafville directing this cast can't be bad.
And even as a child, I was like, I find that film lacking.
And as we'll talk about, I am very confused about who the audience for this movie is supposed
to be.
I feel like men in black is such a perfect version of that kind of movie.
It's a fun action movie.
It's a funny comedy,
you can watch it with pretty much anyone over the age of seven or eight,
you know, and it feels cool.
It doesn't feel like dumb down, but there's nothing like,
there's some effects that might be scary,
but there's nothing like too sexy or too adult with wealth on West.
And you have a villain giving one of the best physical comedy performances of all time.
I mean, it's, he's amazing. Vincent and Offer, you're talking about, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can you have a villain giving one of the best physical comedy performances of all time?
I mean, it's, he's amazing.
Vincent and Offer are you talking about, right?
Yeah.
Like, he's amazing in it.
And the, it manages to introduce kids to the idea
of the 1964 World's Fair, which I approve of,
even though it's the lesser of the two New York World's
fairs, the 39, of course, being the dream.
But this movie, it's like, they took that model.
And they were like, what if the action wasn't fun,
the comedy wasn't funny, and the characters were constantly
leering at women and ogling and just talking about sex all the time.
And it was just, it's like this movie is a tribute to like
steampunk and boobs and butts, and it manages to not make that fun
in the way that it may sound fun in that description.
I want to take a brief personal moment to tell a story about what it's like being
friends with Elliot Kaylin, where this is a thought that I've had more than once.
On more than one occasion, given Elliot some New York world's fair memorabilia, yeah,
I thought.
All from the 39 from my favorite one, yeah.
Well good, because I like the thought I was saying that I have from time to time is now which world's fair does Elliott like?
Yeah, that's that would be one of those questions on what the newlywed game when Elliott and Daniel
would be in the newlywed game and they're like, which is your husband's favorite world's fair?
You want to seduce your husband by dressing up as a world's fair.
Which one do you dress up as?
And she would know she would say the 1939 New York World Fair and the world of tomorrow
and they would go, you're right.
So let's talk about Wild Wild West, a movie that is, it was baffling to me while watching
it to see.
Now, I'm also glad that you're doing the summary because if I was doing the summary, I would
just be reading the lyrics to Will Smith's Wild Wild West featuring Drew Hill.
And I'd just be reading those lyrics for Batum and you guys would be chiming in.
Dan, of course, would be playing the role of cool Modine Elliott, your Drew Hill all the
way.
Well, who's the one who sings into the Wild Wild West, which is the best part of that song?
That's Drew Hill, yeah.
That's Drew Hill, okay.
That's what I thought.
Yeah, that's my favorite part of this.
It's not a song.
I don't like the part that goes, Wild Wild West.
I don't like that kind of thing.
That's the cool Modepar.
I don't like that part as much.
The same thing.
I've never liked the like,
wow, wow, wow, you'd be yo, you'd be,
like, I don't like it when voices sound like that, but I love that, that full-throated
in-to-the Wild Wild. In two. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, makes the song.
Just as I enjoy the little backing parts, right?
You get to like, do that sort of ball, you know, or something like that.
You know, we need more nonsense in deep bass voices.
Love it.
More please.
Yeah, I mean, when I, I remember this summer, this movie came out seeing this music video
a lot because it was inescapable.
And perhaps I was one of those teens at the time, I was 19 at the time, so it
wouldn't have mattered. But maybe I was one of those kids who bought a ticket to Wild Wild West
so I could sneak into American pie so that Chris Whites wouldn't get a single dollar for
me.
He's also, wow. Wow, he's taken that white shirt.
That's like when nice to us. I don't know. I ain't playing the heel. Yeah, it's one of the many, the Wala Wast song also, one of the many songs that later
on them like, oh, that's a Stevie Wonder.
So, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because he's in the video.
Yeah, I didn't.
I mean, that's why it's got, you know what?
I said it's a bad song.
It's a solid movie tie-in song, you know.
I mean, that's, that's his B and B.
Bretton Butter.
It didn't achieve the heights of the men in black song, which is super danceable, you
know, but what are you gonna do?
But then there was also a first dancing or wedding.
Yeah, it was the men in black song.
And you know, dressed up in black.
Daniel both dressed up and then pointed little lights at the audience.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So that they wouldn't remember the wedding.
Yeah, we had a whole core thing.
I mean, it was a joke.
I mean, you don't have a real forgetting. No, we had a whole core. I mean, it was a joke. I mean, you don't have a real, forget. No, we had a real one by accident.
It was a normal. I was the whole. Yeah. This is why I have no memory of your wedding.
Yeah, that we robbed everybody to pay for the wedding. Yeah. Like the ringmaster in his
circus of crime and his hip-hop.
I'm sort of a bitch. Dan, I think you're using old fashioned
Neuralizer, AKA booze. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's like the old David Tell joke.
Because have you ever blacked out or is I call it time travel?
When I remember of the actual reception, I mostly remember us going to see piranha 3D
earlier in the day.
What I remember, what a great day.
That was the greatest day of my life from beginning to end.
Honestly, was mostly being worried that you would fall when they were carrying you around
on the chairs.
Yeah, yeah.
That was my wife was worried about too, that you would fall off that chair.
Because nobody, we didn't have enough, I think, strong Jews, because they didn't know how
you're supposed to do it.
We had a lot of strong Gentiles who were just hurling the chairs up into the airs.
We were trying to hold onto them.
Oh, God.
So anyway, let's talk about Wild Wild West.
Now that we're done talking about my wedding reception, let's talk about Wild Wild West. Now that we've done talking about my wedding recession, let's talk about Wild Wild West. We begin, it's a title tells us, it's a Louisiana
1869. There's a guy with this weird metal ring around his neck that's running away from
a flying circular saw blade that cuts his head off and then a guy looks at him and
is like, well, how about that? And then we get credit.
Some guy, Ted Levine. Yeah. To some guy.
And eventually, well, I think I was a character.
Steam punk. You're
Yes. So this character we see has an ear listening horn attached to the side of his head.
Well, they learned because he lost an ear in battle during the Civil War. But first we
get credits that are I assume in the style of the Wild West TV show. And I want to ask
guys, I've never seen this show when the movie was announced. I had never heard of it before. Have you ever seen this show the Wild Wild West TV show. And I want to ask you guys, I've never seen this show, when the movie was announced, I had never heard of it before.
Have you ever seen this show, The Wild Wild West?
I, so, okay, yeah.
I have seen a little bit of it.
The movie made me aware that it existed.
Okay.
Like, because let's back up, let's set the stage
of what it was like when Wild Wild Lost came out.
It was summer of 1999.
Well, it was still exciting to see a
Western where it was like, but what's
different is there's this an
agrenistic technology in it because
that was not an idea that has been
done so much now that I pray for the
days of like just having a straightforward
version of something.
Yeah, that's much as much as when the
office came out, characters addressing the. Yeah, that's a tie. But it's time. Much as when the office came out,
characters are dressing the camera directly
to talk about a scene.
Yeah.
It's very funny and very new.
Terrified audiences.
They're like, can they see Ramon over the ear?
Yeah, they've run out of their house
and they go, demon, demons, yeah.
That, and now it has become a cliche to the point
that I would love to see a sitcom.
I recently started watching The Golden Girls Again,
and I am so blown away by how basic and stripped down it is in a good way, you know.
Dog, if Sophia Turnin looked at you and made a quip, you would lose your shit. I wouldn't
be, my body and mind wouldn't be able to handle it. I would go bananas, but, but much like
Herbie. But, but, but, but, you're right now, steampunk stuff has become so. Yes.
Dearer, you know, that it was, it's a point that I'm assuming most people assume that But right now, steampunk stuff has become so. Yes.
Derigur, you know, that it was.
To the point that I'm assuming most people assume that there is plenty of steampunk
garbage in the.
Yeah, that's probably true.
But, but that being true, I was then kind of like shocked to learn that it was based
on a TV show from the 60s.
Like this was, like an idea that felt fresh then had been, you
know, from something much earlier that had been on television. Like you didn't jive with
my idea of like what was on TV at that time. And which is, you know, probably wildly wrong
because I wasn't there.
Wild, wild, Wesley wrong. What it makes sense in the 60s, they were like spies are big,
westerns are big.
Yes. And the 60s, they were like spies are big, westerns are big, we do a western spy show,
and we'll have a science fiction element.
Well, mash up and I, it ran for like,
brisco county juniors.
Oh, it's only, and it ran I think for like four years, but I've never seen an episode
of it.
And I feel like when this, it's much easier, I'm sure to watch it now than it was in 1999,
when the only way you could watch old TV was Nick at night or TV land or if it had
been released on VHS at some point, and I don't think there's any way to watch Wild Wild West
when it came out. Yeah. Well, that's what I was getting to in the longest way possible. I think
that Nick at night or A&E at some point did show some and I tuned in because I'm like, okay,
well, I like the premise. Maybe this is better, but I found it very slow in the way a lot of old TV feels bad.
Yeah, a lot of time to kill. There was a, it's fun. I mean, this is different because
they had a longer time slot to fill, but you watch the old Colombo movies and there's
just a lot of him like long phone calls him getting from one place to another. You watch
the Rockford files and there's so much that's him driving from one place to another.
Yeah, I still love those shows, but yeah, it's true.
Very, I mean, it's from one of our places. It's like watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or something.
Yeah, but I like it at Once Upon a Time in Hollywood until the end, not a family end of that
movie, but I like everything up to like the last 25 minutes.
Okay, so the after credits were in West Virginia, Captain James West will Smith.
He's trying to multitask by both spying on the criminal gang of general blood bath McGrath,
which are loading
objects onto a wagon while also having sex with a woman inside a water tower, like a
half-filled water tower.
He can't do both.
It turns out even that's too much for a very complicated little water tower setup, too.
Yes.
And until the willenium, he's not going to be able to achieve that, those skills of both
spying on the bad guys and having sex at the same time.
Well, this is also setting up that this will be like a horny or movie than you expect.
And it's, it really struck me, I guess, maybe because I don't know, modern action, big
budget blockwusters.
We got in so desexed, but I was like, this is unusual.
You realize that the character's name is Jim West and the movie is called Wild Wild West.
I did notice that.
And he is being wild wild here.
And joke that he's great.
By having sex on the job.
But it's a, I don't know, I think it's supposed to come off as like, he's the super cool dude.
The ladies love him and he's also a secret agent.
But we came off as, we'll Smith, who at that time was probably the coolest man in the world
to most people.
Slightly less cool now that he is a, he's known as the guy who hits people on television.
But the, I think they're trying to get across that he's a super cool sexy secret agent.
But instead what I got from it was he's bad at his job and he's bad to women.
Like he's both a creep and he's bad as a spy.
And so eventually McGratz
Henschman somehow knocked over the water tower. I don't remember how it happens. And accidentally
and Will drops out naked and has a fight. You know, he covers his penis for this hat.
Yeah. And thank you to everyone who tweeted at the flop house to tell us that you can see
Will Smith or more likely the stunt man's testicles and part of this
penis at one point.
I wonder what part.
I noticed it when you're looking through his legs as he first appears, you can very clearly
see the at least the silhouettes of his genitalia, which is again, it was also like, well, this
movie is being more adult
than I expected, but not in a way that I've been enjoying.
Meanwhile, Crosstown at a brothel saloon type place, General McGrath, Bloodbath McGrath
himself, the man with the ear horn attached to his head, he is kind of trading a kidnap
person.
Way by TV hunk, monk's boss, Ted Levine.
Yeah, Ted.
He is trading like a person who's trapped in a box for guns or something for weapons.
And he's being watched by our other hero, Artemis Gordon, played by Kevin Klein.
He's a US martial who is undercover in drag.
And through a series of events, managed to hypnotize McGrath with these swirling gadgets
hidden in his fake boobs.
And he means to get some information for
graph. He's like, where did you take the kidnap scientist? And instead, he just makes
McGrath act like a dog, which was not what he intended. But that psychosexual drama of
man is hypnotized into a dog after being seduced is interrupted by Jim West swinging in and
interrupting them that leads to a big brawl, which eventually ends with a shadowy top-headed bad guy pushing a wagon full of nitroglycerin down a hill and into
the brothel, which explodes. Are heroes survived with no problem? The next scene, we just see
West riding a horse down the street and it's like, okay, so I guess explosions don't stop
them.
I do love how like the explosion happens. Scene over, that's it. We just cut to something else.
It's the least professional I've seen one of these cuts.
Someone wants to describe to me, or not describe to me, I was reading an article where they're
talking about how abruptly movie ends.
And they were like, imagine if, I forget where it was, I wish I could give them credit.
Imagine if in Star Wars, it's the whole Death Star trench scene, Luke fires the missiles,
the Death Star blows up, and in mid-explosion it goes freeze frame, and then the credits roll. And that's the end Death Star trench scene. Luke fires the missiles. The Death Star blows up and in mid explosion it goes freeze frame and then the credits roll.
And that's the end of the movie.
Like that's kind of what it feels like right here.
This building and explodes and just like we're done with it onto the next scene.
Who cares, you know.
Yeah, and this introduces, but does not justify in my mind, Jim West and Kevin Klein's
character, our skordon.
The two of theirs working relationship, which is one of the main things I found irritating
about this movie in general, is they're trying to set up a classic sort of mismatch, like,
cool guy.
There's the man of ideas.
Yes.
And it's weird because it's not like the elements aren't there, but the movie expects
you to jump right to finding them like being mad at each other and pulling shit on
each other like charming and fun.
Rather than my reaction is like, you guys are supposed to both be like the best. You're supposed to be
professionals. And you're constantly like undermining the mission by undermining each other in a way
that is just irritating to a lot. Rather than their styles clashing, they just don't like
each other personally. Yeah. And they're like, yeah, constantly trying to kick each other off of
the train that's taking them on the mission. And so, so we cut to West inexplicably not exploded,
but fine. He arrives in the White House where like a butler tries to stop him from entering,
I guess because he's black, but he's there for an appointment. So it, it, it, it, I try to stop him
from entering to see the president with a gun. Yes, yeah. So he pulls an extra gun. That's
full of second gun. He says, you're going to let me into the president with this gun. I have a
second gun. Which by the way, that's if you want to introduce a character and show
that he's cool, don't have him do that. Yeah. Have them disarm him and keep finding guns.
That's always the right answer. Or have him or have them take the guns and then he's got some
he's got a knife on him or he's good with kung fu or something, you know.
Removing the presumed racism from the equation, I do, I think that that's a perfectly
valid thing to want to do is to remove a gun before someone meets with the president.
But it, Dan, I'll remind you, this is happening four years after the previous president or two
presidents ago was shot in the head by a gun and murdered.
So maybe guns are cool now.
I don't know.
Maybe they're like, hey, you need to cut somebody else's gun.
Yeah.
They're like, that was four years ago.
We don't care anymore. Yeah, the NRA lobby is pretty strong at this point.
And I wish I could say walking into the White House with guns all over him is the least
cool thing that Will Smith is going to do in this movie.
But it's like, it barely registers by the end.
We have not gotten to the part which we will get to where he just plays a woman's boobs
like bongo drums because he assumes it's Kevin Klein and drag.
Anyway, we'll get to that.
It's so dumb. So he arrives. He's going to see President Elystis S. Grant, who turns assumes it's Kevin Klein and drag. Anyway, we'll get to that. It's so dumb.
So he arrives, he's going to see President Eulisie's S. Grant, who turns out to be Kevin
Klein in disguise.
And then the real President Grant, who is also played by Kevin Klein, walks in.
And so Kevin Klein has dual roles in this.
He plays Artemis Gordon and Eulisie's S. Grant.
And he often plays Artemis Gordon pretending to be Eulisie's S. Grant, which should be funny, but it's not, it's not.
It's not, it's not funny, but it does show Kevin Klein's acting skill that I like that
Artemis Gordon playing Ulysses S. Grant is like this hammy impression of the much more
realistic Ulysses S. Grant that he does.
Yes.
I could have used it at a touch hamier personally.
Maybe, but there's a real difference between two.
You can tell when it's Artemis playing Grant and when it's Kevin Client playing Grant.
And I think that's, I mean, Kevin Client is a great actor.
We don't need to, you don't need to hear it from me.
He's an amazing actor.
And he is, let's just say like misused by this film, but everything is made by this film.
So Grant says, you have to work together.
There's a mysterious bad guy who hired McGrath to kidnap all these scientists and they're
making super weapons for him.
And now he's demanding control of the US government.
They sent us a letter and Weston Gordon has as Dan said, they hate each other, but they
got to stop him because Grant has to go hammer in the final golden spike to complete the
transcontinental railroad.
It's so we know what the climax is going to be.
There's a ticking clock. Gordon's all about machines. He's regular Donatello. He's got a steam punk motorcycle. That's
like a big bone shaker. I got him. I don't know. Gears and pistons or whatever. He doesn't
go as far as to having gears on his hat, but he does have goggles on his hat. I guess
he's got a train car full of traps and gadgets and also in the train car as the conductor
M M at Walsh in a car as a character who literally never needs to also in the train car as the conductor, M and M at Walsh, as a character
who literally never needs to be in the movie. There is no plot reason.
Cole man, I love that he's Cole man who shovels Cole into the train.
He is 100% there to react to various things.
Yes.
Which he does in a funny way. I don't like that a lot of what he's reacting to is
gay panic humor.
Yeah, we'll get to that.
But his ability as a comic reaction man is good at least.
Even though the jokes are not good.
And then it will.
Again, we're going to keep going to this episode saying like no surprise.
This performer is a great performer, but it's not best used by Wild Wild West.
This is Wild Wild West.
Someone would say, someone would say Wild Wild West.
But anyway, so they, they, they
have the wild wild blurs of time. Stupid monkeys. There is a, the Simpson's
reference, not called Dan Monkey or Stewart for that matter. So you're both, you are
both humans, you both stand erect, you don't live in dreams. Stuart, I've been meaning to pay you that compliment as well.
Wow, I like calling you a monkey.
And Elliot's not like you.
Now it just sounds like a piggybacking.
Yeah, yeah, now you've cheaper dead.
Thank you, Dan.
So somehow Kevin Klein has gotten a hold of the severed head of the scientist that was
killed early on.
And they're able to use light to project the image stored on its retinas, which is the
last thing that the dead person see. This is a old myth that goes back to medieval times, I think, that you to project the image stored on its retinas, which is the last thing that the dead person see.
This is an old myth that goes back to medieval times, I think, that you could see the
image.
Yeah, it had a medieval times restaurant.
Yeah, it goes back to a medieval times restaurant.
That's how they got the idea for the restaurant.
Yeah, is that someone in it, they had a fake jousting area and they were like, something's
missing and they found a severed head that had last looked at a chicken leg and a big bowl
soup that you had to pick up with your hands.
Wow.
Made of soup, yeah.
Yeah.
So using all your life without knowing these things and then someone tells you and then
your life is never the same.
So they see this image of my graph and they're able to magnify this retina has amazing
recording fidelity.
They're able to magnify and see an invitation sticking out of his pocket to a New Orleans costume ball.
And it's funny because West this whole time has been like,
we gotta get to New Orleans.
We gotta get to New Orleans.
And they find this invitation.
They were already going there.
Like, it's unnecessary.
They argue about disguises which leads to this,
the dumbest least funny scene I think maybe I've ever seen
in a movie where, as Dan says,
what they're saying, talking about Kevin
Cline's fake breast costume is overheard by M. M. Walsh and he assumes he's overhearing
them having sex with each other and is horrified by it.
And it is specifically.
Kevin Cline asking him to feel my breast something like that.
Oh, what?
And then it's hard.
Yeah. And something like that. Oh, what? And then it's hard. Yeah, it's stuff like that.
Backwards, you know, it goes both ways.
Yeah, it's.
It's, it's, it's terrible.
It's a terrible, it's a terrible, it's a terrible sea.
So Jim West, he sneaks into that party.
He is, he is stopped for a moment by Byling, who is playing the assistant to Dr. Arlo Loveless.
So real flashback to see Byling and something.
And remember that, like, there's a time.
Which I'm glad that he, when he introduces himself, she introduces herself by her last name,
which is East, and I'm like, great, now we got more racist jokes.
Yeah, and she goes, and she's kind of flirting with him, she goes, East meets West.
And it's like, all right, this is, this is no good.
Now, when you hear it, she goes, I'm the assistant to Dr. Arlo Loveless.
This is the name we have never heard
in the movie before now.
And Wes goes, oh, I thought he was dead.
And it's like, are we supposed to,
is this backstory?
We were supposed to know something.
Like it's a poor way to include this.
Finally, I mean, again, I only know
because I've heard the Wild Wild West song
by Will Smith featured Drew Hill like a million times.
So where he describes love
was in detail. Yeah, he does. And he needs some of that detail. The Stuart. Loveless shows
up. And this is Kenneth Branagh. Stuart, can you describe for us, Dr. Arlo Loveless, the
villain, villain of the film? Yeah, that's a, that's a villain. That's a villain crossed
with a pavilion. Yeah. Well, where to start? I mean, we could start with his accent, which is a loving, a lovingly created Southern
Draw.
We could talk about his facial hair, which would put to shame Jackson Galaxy, the cat daddy,
or his mom.
His facial hair seemed like V for Vendetta, mask.
He looks like a guy fox mask, like a red V for Vendetta, because I don't think the
movie had come out yet.
And he was like, cool, cool, anarchy, yeah, cool. That's what it looks like to guy Fox mask like he read free for vendetta because I don't think the movie had come out yet. And he was like cool, cool, energy, yeah, cool.
That's what it looks like to me, yeah.
He's got long flowing black hair.
He wears cool little outfits.
Unfortunately, he's missing his legs, okay?
So he's missing his body below about his tummy button.
And below that, he is connected to like a steampunk wheelchair that he drives
around. Yes, exactly. And he's always surrounded by a bevy of beautiful sort of hinge maidens.
Hedge maidens wearing kind of like Bordello boostier attire. So he has this flamboyantly
evil confederate. He rides a steampunk wheelchair. he's missing his waist, his body from the waist
down.
And.
Very, it's like a Bond villain that crosses into like Austin Powers villain territory.
Yes, and this first seek, there's so many bad moments in this movie, but his first interaction
with West where he makes a series of racist puns and West makes a series of disabled wordplay
puns to both get each other is disgusting.
Like it is objectively disgusting, everything's abandoned.
This is an unpleasant movie.
I mean, like we should have known it was unpleasant at the time.
It's extra unpleasant now.
Like everything is bad racial humor,
bad gay panic humor,
like disabled humor.
Bad, bad disability humor. Yeah. panic humor, like disabled humor.
Yeah.
And the constant and the constant and look, let me put all my cards on the table.
I've said it before I'll say it again, I like looking at women and their bodies.
I'm attracted to them, I think they're beautiful.
But this movie is so leering and so ogling in a way that makes me feel itki, you know,
that it feels weird to do it.
It feels weird to do it in a big budget action adventure comedy.
It feels gross to me.
I don't know if you guys fall the same way.
Yeah, well, I mean, it feels gross because it's so unmotivated.
Like, I like, I agree.
Like an adult, I'm not a zoomer or whatever.
Like I'm an, I'm an alien.
You're an alien.
I'm an alien.
I'm an alien. I'm an alien. I'm an alien. I'm an alien. I'm an, I'm, I'm, you're an Elginel, we know you're not as a boomer or a consumer.
Tail in Dexter, but, you know, like,
you're a Gen Xer, right?
Yeah, you're probably a Gen X, yeah, Dan,
this is a real generation divide between me
and Elginel and you, a Gen Xer.
Yeah, I know where we gonna do.
I'm all about making my brand
and you're all about like,
I'm so good.
I was listening to the single soundtrack.
Yeah.
But why does it say like, when you look at it,
I like sex in look at it?
I like sex in movies when it's motivated, unlike scenes of the brine to poem in the current
generation.
It's not.
But, but like you have to buy in, like you're buying into like a certain type of thing and
like it is weird when it's like this feels odd in this film.
You know what it feels like, this feels odd in this field. You know what it feels like?
It feels adolescent.
It feels like there's a lack of, not that you can't be funny around sex, not that you
can't even be gross funny about sex.
But it feels like, adults made this movie, but it doesn't feel adult.
It feels kind of like boobs, like that kind of thing. So, not to change the tempo at all, but I will say that Kenneth Branagh gives a performance
of what he'd say this to.
And again, Dan, you say what you're going to say, and I'm probably going to say the same
thing.
Oh, just that like, I don't know that this is, in fact, I wouldn't, I'd say this is not
a good performance, but this man realizes that he is in a bad cartoon of a movie and gives a performance that hits that tone.
Better than his performance is hamlet, maybe.
I don't know if I can go that far necessarily.
But he is, I agree that like, when this movie came out, I'm sure he got critiqued for like being big and over the top. But I feel like critical
understanding has come around to the idea that like if you're in a bad movie, go big.
Like be big and be memorable or like like energy into it.
It's like considering he had to do this whole role like on his knees, even though you don't
see them, but he had to be like kneeling the whole time. And there's so many times when he's
in the wheelchair and it's spinning around and like he has to
perform these monologues while he is literally spinning around, like it's ridiculous, you
know.
And like he had to like keep taking breaks because his legs would fall asleep.
Like that's commitment, baby.
Yeah, that's Lon Cheney senior type stuff.
When Lon Cheney senior did a movie called The Penalty, where he was playing a character
who had the bottom half of his legs amputated.
And the way he did it was he bent his, he made these kind of like fake stump legs that
he then bent his leg backwards in so that he could, so he was constantly walking on his
knees and he would do this for hours.
And you know, it hurt him really badly.
And so like there's a reason people don't do that anymore because it's bad for you.
But I don't know.
Sometimes if you're looking for a character with a specific thing,
maybe hire an actor that has that thing.
Yes, that's true.
I think it's, yeah, that's also a possibility that they did not look into.
I'm sure, but I think we can all say, Ken Thranna did his best with this terrible, with
the terrible opportunity.
With what was handed him, yes.
Yeah, so speaking of Ken Thranna, he then makes a big entrance literally exploding out
of a giant paper mache Abraham Lincoln head. Which you must have loved. You were like,
I love this, correct? No, what was weird was they started, the band starts playing battle
him of the Republic. And I was like, I was, and I was literally thinking at the time,
this makes no sense to play at this Confederate ball. Like they did not like it. But then
he explodes out of an Abraham Lincoln goes I hate that song
Yeah, did you bring
You bring
Max did you bring your son who who you is named lovingly after Abraham Lincoln you brought him in you're like look there's your namesake
And then he's head
Explosion
You're like look good out of your
Go
With
The
Here
She'll try to
For a second I thought Elliott was confused about whether the shooter was in the
it's happening again. Take cover, take cover. Yeah. It's the office all over again. Yeah.
The office all over again. They can see me through the through the screen.
So anyway, that's not what happened. So I go in and love list. Thank you.
Love list has his interaction with West. Loveveless meets with McGrath, and
then after the meeting is like, meet me at this other place.
So West goes to where they had loveless McGrath just met.
He snoops around and bilingual catches him and she tries to seduce him.
So of course we get literally a close up upskirt of her butt.
Like it's, again, it's a, it's a leering movie.
And West realizes that it's a trap and shoots a bunch of her butt. Like it's again, it's, this is a, it's a leering movie. And West realizes
that it's a trap and shoots a bunch of gunmen. Biling is killed in the crossfire. And West
does not give it a second thought. He just walks out of that room. And then I think a dead
body falls from the ceiling and it's supposed to be like funny. And it's like, well, a bunch
of people just died. You know, this is, it reminds me of, I finally saw a dial of destiny.
And I was like, these are the, maybe the most trigger happy bad guys.
I've seen in a major motion picture in a long time. They just are constantly killing everybody,
except the two people that it would make the most of it to kill. The heroes that are getting in
their way. They refuse to kill them, but they'll kill everybody else. Well, that's what you don't
know about Indiana Jones. He clouds men's mind. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he out, you thought was just, you know, someone hunting
out in the scrub and he points the right towards West.
That is a cool thing.
It means that they're just standing there all day in case someone in case a bad guy wanders
in, but that is a cool visual.
Meanwhile, he goes downstairs.
He sees a woman who vaguely looks like Kevin Klein and drag, but she's wearing a mask and
it's like, oh, it's you again, huh?
Let me ruin the mission by calling you out and play your boobs like bongo drums. Like Kevin Klein and drag, but she's wearing a mask and it's like, oh, it's you again, huh?
Let me ruin the mission by calling you out and play your boobs like bongo drums.
And the actual Kevin Klein, whose disguise as a mountain man yells out, hang him.
So now one of our heroes has just, has just called for the other hero to be lynched for
harassing a white woman.
And it's like, I was like movie.
It felt like I was sinking every deeper into just sludge and toxic waste.
The intent of this moment, I believe, is that it's more high-spirited hijinks.
He knows that Weskin take care of himself.
He needs a distraction, so he's, but the reality is, I'll get everybody to leave the house
so I can snoop around.
Exactly.
So I'll just have the, I'll have, I'll put the other here in a situation where he's going
to be lynched.
Well, this is the reality of American American history are too ugly for the scene to work as anything other
than horrifying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, now Will Smith has been accused of sexually harassing a white woman in the old
south and the Antibellum South.
What is going to, it's the postbellum South.
Okay. Yeah. Sorry. And he's standing next to a little new and you're like, what the fuck
are you doing while the Wild West? Yeah. They didn't like it. He was putting up their
next to the news and he does drop like a, you know, like a decent type five to the assembled
crowd. Like he's telling jokes. He's trying to get him on a side. Yeah. Yeah. He has to try to talk his way out of it. And he almost does it.
But the jokes he's saying are not funny. Like it really is. Yeah. So now it's.
Well, this is another thing. Sorry. I wanted to say about the movie is like Will Smith,
like obviously what extremely charismatic performer, as we said before, like up until this point
could do no wrong.
This movie sort of...
This was the fresh print stand.
Princess don't get fresher.
Yeah, but like nothing in this movie is played with any sense of like stakes or whether
anyone has any concern at any point during it really,, in any way that feels any kind of grounded. And I feel
like this movie deserves Kevin Klein and Will Smith so much by having Kevin Klein is just
kind of a jerk to Will Smith the whole time. And Will Smith runs through doing the laziest
version of his sort of blive. I don't care about anything that's happening attitude, but too much.
Like nothing feels like it has any weight at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I didn't have to go off that long.
But the movie is both, it's the characters are acting.
They never come off as cool and like swav, but the movie is also never exciting or putting
them in.
I guess there's one scene later on where they're falling and it cuts to close-ups of them
going, which is my least favorite thing a movie can do.
I think possibly.
Okay.
But at that point, at least they're excited about what's going on.
They're scared.
So now it's Gordon's turn to Snoop.
And he goes into a bedroom and finds Selma Hayek in lingerie in a giant bird cage.
And we'll find out that she's Rita, the daughter, she says of one of the kidnapped scientists.
She was trying to find this kidnapped scientist.
It became part of Lovelace's Haram slash bodyguard.
And together, they save West from being lynched and, you know, they all get away.
To talk about some Hayek's performance, I feel like the whole time, I kept expecting
there to be an extra layer to her character.
There was a twist.
And I think that's, she injected all of that because there is no extra layer over the
course of the video.
There is no kind of an extra layer at the very end when spoiler, you learn that this person
that she's been wanting to rescue is not her father, but her husband.
And I guess the implication is she didn't tell them this because she knows that by playing
her sex appeal, they will be more invested maybe in it if they think they have it shot
with her.
But they tell her at the end, you could have told us this from the beginning.
You know what?
They were already on the mission.
They were already on the mission. They were already on the mission.
Exactly.
I believe that.
I believe that they totally would have done it.
The same thing if this was not being dangled.
So it is such a weird unnecessary thing at the end.
Yeah, this carrot will somehow empower them like Popeye spinach to do a job better.
But I think your right Stuart that Sama Hayek is injecting a little bit of extra something
to this character because if anyone in this movie is given nothing to do, it's Selma Hayek.
And that's all.
Yeah, the only thing that she's given to do is to be like sexy and kind of a daffy
way.
And like, she's good at it, you know, but that's it.
Yeah, and the movie treats her essentially as a cleavage to live grief.
Yeah.
Mechanism, you know, which, and she's also super talented.
Like she's great when you give her the opportunity to be great.
And she can do like, and I don't want to sound like a creep, but she can do sexy in
like really intriguing way.
I mean, like the movie, I'm not a huge fan of From Don Tildes because I feel like it gets
a little too silly.
You get the name wrong.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
From Destaldon, you're right. From Don Dildos, just a regular day.
Regular working hours.
Yeah, from Don Dildos, because you wake up, you go to where you can come back home.
Also known as nine to five.
What a way to make a living.
When she shows up in from Dostal Dawn, it's such an intense blast of kind of like just
like sexual power in a way that I, that just, it's a weird movie, but that I guess rubber
is is able to harness that in a way that adds this like power and mystique to her that instantly
she's in control of the movie from in those moments.
And it is a weird movie because all of a sudden a bunch of vampires show up.
What?
Tom Sivini's in front of the camera.
Yeah, none of it makes sense.
Tom Sivini in an acting role.
Vamps. What's going on?
And he has that, it's Tom Savini, right,
who has that gun in his crotch.
Yeah, six machine.
That has two six, two chambers, which does it,
which makes sense to make them look like testicles,
but it's not how a gun works.
Like, he wouldn't have like two revolving barrels.
Maybe they're like gears.
Like, there's like a space between the inner lock barrels.
It seems like a probably jam a lot.
I mean, I'm not a gunsmith, but I think that would jam a lot.
Yeah, anyway, are you a gunsmith cat?
Yes, they're jam a lot.
Yeah, it's a certain jam a lot.
I feel like no, sir jam a lot feels like like a real early 80s rapper,
like early mid 80s rapper when hip hop's pretty new. Yeah.
Where were we from? Camelot. Yeah. And there's a there's a there's a there's another rapper
he partners with names like King Arthur and it's like spelled differently. Oh man.
I'll say this one thing. I like early sitcom rapper. This is some. This is some real bit size at an shit. You're coming.
So, it's a Dan so funny.
I was thinking about this recently
that I'm not a big hip hop fan.
It's just not my kind of music,
but I do love the spellings that
go into the names of rappers
and their albums.
I'm going to do it for the spellings.
I really love it.
I love the malleability of the
English language there.
I've not I wish I liked the music
more because I love the spellings
and the posturing so so much. The same with it. It to me, it's like professional wrestling where I love the characters. I've not, I wish I liked the music more because I love the spellings and the posturing. So so much the same with it. To me, it's like professional wrestling where
I love the characters. I love the trash talk. Don't like the wrestling.
What do you think of the spelling of Tory spelling? Oh, I mean, the way it's spelled. Sure.
Yeah. You can you can read it. Yeah. So okay, McGregor, Souljase,
plus. Yeah. We get back to a plus for Tory spellings way of spelling.
So we get back to get back to the movie after the longest dumbest aggression I think we've
had in a while.
So bloodbath and the graph, his soldiers are assembling in the night, but it's a trap.
Arlo Loveless sends this kind of steampunk tank to massacre all of them.
And it's a way of showing off what his new weapon re-conductor wants to sell it to these
foreign dignitaries that are with him
loveless kills me graph and the announces his plans he's going to take over america
and he's going to sell his weapons to these foreign countries are heroes show up just a
little bit too late to catch him
uh... but they recognize the masquerade site west recognizes the carnage as similar to that
of a freedman's town called new liberty that had previously been slaughtered that was what
blood bath in the graph apparently got his name It was slaughtering this town of Friedman. And West
finds the diamond graph who says, no, it was loveless, who's responsible for both massacres.
Bump, bump, bump. And this is the only scene in the movie that gets mentioned in a very
son of Feld's memoirs. And he mentions that the tank kept breaking down. And they were
using civil war reenactors who were very frustrating to him because they kept saying that's not how we would do it.
If this is really the civil war.
I love it.
I love it.
And he was like, this is a cartoon movie.
Like who cares?
Rita is like, oh, when I was with Loveless's bodyguards, I overheard them talking about
going to Utah.
So that's where we've got a head next.
Our heroes go there on the train.
It gives Gordon a lot of opportunities to lust after Rita and for Rita over here, him and Rita gets, Gordon gets embarrassed.
Rita alternately flirts with both of our heroes, but note, there's no chemistry at all.
It's less a love triangle.
There's three love points that are having trouble organizing themselves and can't get into
a shape.
Some more realistic, two horny guys at a woman who's not interested.
Yeah, try and go.
And West is annoyed. He's like, Rita's distracting you from the mission.
But the whole literally all this is basically just an excuse for some a hike to wear long
johns where the back door is falling open. So you can see her butt through them.
But that's basically why this exists. Dan had as a lover of butts, how did you feel about
this? Basically like a playboy, one panel cartoon. This is some leering.
I remember liking this as a leering kid.
I do find it a little more in character.
That was your old West name.
Your gunfighter name was the leering kid.
You always losing gun fights because you're too busy leering at ladies.
I kind of like this sort of like cutesy nudity though.
Like there's something sort of sweet about this in the way that there isn't about just
being like, and now here's bylings ass, you know, in the way they just shot that.
So there you go, that's my butt opinion.
I know you can't be a bit of a butt spur.
So there you go.
Cracking news.
Thanks, Wallace.
Is that what Wallace was talking about every time when he said that?
I didn't realize, okay, the next morning Gordon reveals, I added some gadgets to your
clothes, gym west while you were sleeping, which is weird.
And Lovelace's tank on a train ambushes their train.
There's a lot of steampunk stuff.
And in perhaps the moment that I think best defines the movie.
If you wanted this movie to be boiled down to one moment, Lovelace's henchwoman fires
an enormous steampunk harpoon gun and our hero's train. Well, Loveless is just staring at her butt
talking about her butt. This moment, it's like, this is the whole movie in a couple of
seconds is steam punk harpoon gun and the end one of the male characters just kind of just
looking in from inches away at a woman's button going, I've got a good view or whatever
he says, you know, I don't know. She goes, I've got a good view or whatever he says, you know, oh no, she goes,
I've got them in my sights and he's like,
I do too.
And he's like,
oh, gross.
Come on.
No, does he say it like that?
I think he does.
Yeah, that's, I mean,
that's his performance.
He's a lot of like,
well,
okay.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
So,
yeah, and then Selma ignites them all out
with their own gadget.
And then we have another one of those abrupt cuts we love so much.
It's a gadget that West meant that Gordon mentioned earlier.
It's a billiard ball full of sleeping gas.
Read a knocks them out.
Yeah, abrupt cut, West and Gordon wake up sitting on the ground fitted with those metal
collars that we saw on the sciences earlier.
And it does feel like a scene is missing.
Like there should be a title screen that says real missing.
And then suddenly you're onto this scene, like planet terror or something like that. Not to bring in another Robert Rodriguez film.
Yeah. We're all about it. Yeah. Loveless takes a moment to brag about how he invented a
metal prosthetic penis for himself that he can have sex, then leaves to go assassinate
Ulysses S. Grant. And our heroes, they get chased by the circular saw blades through a cornfield
and they escape by, it turns out they have magnets in their
collars that the soft blades are attracted to.
I remember seeing clips from this and the trailer and in the music video, and I was surprised
at how short this sequence was.
Yeah, it's very short.
Well, there's a surprising lack of action in this action movie.
And so they really made the most of this.
They escaped by jumping into a crevice full of mud, leading them to argue a lot and their
magnets get stuck together and so forth.
But that mud, I mean, it looks that's their poop.
It might be poop.
They never make a joke about it smelling or it being.
Yes.
And so I couldn't tell if it was mud or poop.
I did not care to do the research to find it.
But the story, I don't know.
I didn't know the novelization to see how they describe it.
It felt like probably I'm not right.
All poop but farm animals, you know, it has washed into this crevasse.
Sure, sure, possible.
Yeah.
That night they finally get the magnets off because Jim, the Jim Gordon, not Jim Gordon,
whatever his name is, Artemis Gordon.
He was.
He was.
That's a fucking crossover.
Yeah. Jim Gordon shows up. Oh, time and I need to get back.
So that he finds Jim Gordon shows up.
He's like, I'm in a world with no bad signal.
What am I going to do?
No.
It's my one move.
The only thing I know how to do.
If they put Jim Gordon in an injustice game, his one special business bad signal.
You know that you know that some kind of Wild West Batman would show up.
They there was a Batman elseworlds called I think the blue the green the bat that was
a head of old West Batman.
So we're going to get some angry nerds.
And then set up like a bad horse.
Bad horse.
He might have had a bad horse.
Yeah.
Well, there is a bad horse in the comics, right? I don't know. Well, you really it's
curated Stewart. Now, when I say bad horse, I mean, the horse wearing a Batman mask. I don't know
the cooler thing to be a horse with enormous bat wings. That would be awesome. That's a kind of
algorithm I'd run down. Yeah, yeah, the fucking brain gram one showed up and scored the juice on it.
and a braingroom when showed up and scored the juice on it. Yeah.
Do you like the juice?
The braingroom is also in the old west for some reason.
Oh no!
I guess so.
Oh no, history has really changed forever.
It's just kind of like a time vortex.
All people get drawn.
All travelers get drawn to this one next to us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like man thinks, next is of all realities.
We'll fix the problem.
We'll bring gremlins in here. It we've got. Gorgon is like, okay, West, this is my plan. It might not work. We need
to bring some Gremlins in. Well, they get you in the end. No, no, they won't. You're thinking
if you're thinking of Gouli's what you got here is a Gouli. That's a different. I'm going
to have to call a different specialist for that. Now I'm actually going to you're Robert Shaw in jaws and they're trying to figure out how to get rid
of the goolees and he scratches his nails and goes, I'll get you goole.
I'll find you goolees, I'll find them and catch them for even more money.
He's just standing above the toilet with a herf.
You ever hear the story of the USS Indianapolis's toilets?
The sharks started coming up through the toilets. You ever hear the story of the USS Indianapolis's toilets?
The sharks started coming up through the toilets.
Anyway, ah, black, like dolls poop, black, black, black.
Anyway, so that was gross.
Anyway, they escaped, they're starting arguing with each other,
but then it's night time they bond around a campfire.
West explains that he ran away from slavery as a child and his birth parents and he was raised
by indigenous people of the desert. His birth parents were among those killed by loveless
at new liberties. That's why it's personal for him. And they also see a CGI wasp kill a CGI
spider. And perhaps the most blatant foreshadowing of what's going to happen later in the movie.
It was, it comes out of nowhere. It's not done organically. Anyway, they eventually, they, not as good as the CGI scorpion fight
in what five million miles to Graceland or whatever, but it's pretty close.
In, in, in 20 million miles to Graceland, the one with the emir falls from space to Graceland.
If Ray Harry has some, so only work with Elvis.
So eventually they find Loveless is hidden city and spider gulch, where scientists have
built him an enormous steam punk spider.
It has a super cannon on it.
Producer John Peter's dream has come to life.
Finally, he can rest.
He can his thousand year sleep can return.
And he can return to his pyramid tomb.
What do you guys think of this, this, this big honken spider?
Yeah, sure.
And a bad move.
A lot of this spider looks pretty cool.
It moves pretty cool.
It's got lots of gears and stuff.
Like, it's a neat thing.
What do you think?
Yeah, it seems pretty cool.
I mean, it shakes around a lot.
It feels like it wouldn't be a particularly comfortable mode of conveyance, but that's
okay?
That's true. That's true.
That's a war, I guess.
No, I mean, it has the same problem that the, you know, the AT-ATs have where you're
like, why build a walker when the wheel exists, but that's true.
Sure.
Maybe a level is just tired of wheels.
He's not thinking he's on the long run.
I mean, he's just invalidated like all Robo anime, but that's fine.
That's fine.
I'm just saying it's a question I have. I'm not saying that maybe there's a's fine. I'm just saying as a question I have,
I'm not saying that maybe there's a good reason.
I mean, it is better for all terrain.
It is like in a in Pacific Rim where they're like,
there was only one weapon that could stop them.
Giant robot people.
Just like, I don't know.
It seems like a less efficient way to attack something.
Why not just a big gun?
Yeah, well, I mean, we have nuclear missiles.
I feel like a giant robot's fist is not as effective in destroying a monster, but okay.
Well, at the end of, um, was it Jurassic World or Jurassic World 2, Jurassic the second
Jurassic World where the dinosaurs are free and they're like, uh-oh, can humanity stand
up to these dinosaurs?
And it's like, we're great at just destroying things with guns.
Yeah, sure.
Like, we're gonna have weapons, you know.
Steony faced.
You're like ruining all of his like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of weapons, you know, stony faced. You're like ruining all of his treasures.
Yeah, ask all, yeah, ask the blue whale high welds doing.
Oh, ask all the other macro animals.
Yeah, all the all the all the megafauna that we have we have gotten rid of.
Yeah, let's let me see.
Can humans defeat these big animals?
Let me ask the giant ground sloth.
Let me find one.
Hold on a sec.
Yeah, is there is there a way to eat it or can the render components of its body to fuel our society?
Early humans were like, can we eat it?
Can we use it skin for something or would be funny to kill it?
And that's the reason they would kill things.
We see the dinosaurs and I'm like, oh cool, new oil.
It doesn't get fresher than this right off the beast.
Just like I saw a honking stuff in the gas tank, honey.
And it's easy to say, how dare humans do this, but then go play Oregon Trail and go out
hunting in it.
And it is so hard to resist the urge to just shoot every single thing that wanders across
your path.
And then it's like, you need it.
You can carry 40 pounds of meat.
You killed 7,000 pounds of meat.
Like it's so hard not to, not to overdo it.
So they get back on the train to pursue this giant spider and Gordon is like, I've inspired
to create a flying machine.
I'm inspired by that wasp.
I'll create a flying machine to attack the spider.
And West says there's no time.
There's no time.
Which objectively, there is no time to design and build a flying machine right now.
Yeah.
Loveless interrupts Grant hammering in that golden spike and he demands Grant surrender the
US government.
Then Gordon appears, dressed as Grant, to distract Loveless and Loveless just puts both of them
in a big net.
The kind of net you would catch, fish in, not the kind of net Sandra Bullock got in trouble
within our last big episode.
No, it does.
It does.
It is an odd way of trying to like slow things down to be like, oh, how do you know which
is the real grant?
I mean, like this guy's not, just shoot them both.
Yes.
Two bullets presumably.
Yeah, at this point, yeah.
And you love this is holding of a $50 bill to see which one looks the most like him.
Yeah, he holds out like a big bottle of whiskey to see which grand is the alcoholic.
12 lunges for it.
Yeah.
So West has a fight scene on the spider.
He gets shot off of it.
He gets shot point blank in the chest by one of the lady bodyguards.
But luckily Gordon had snuck some chain mail under his coat.
And Gordon, he describes this earlier, his knitting it.
And he's like, I've created this type of mesh armor. It's like it's chainmail. It's existed for hundreds of years.
Please don't pretend that you invented this concept of armor made out of little links.
Like blacksmiths have been making it for centuries. The loveless gives a presentation,
a kind of early PowerPoint presentation to all the other characters while constantly spinning
in his chair. And he explains his plan is to split up the United States among its original colonizers.
The English will get the 13 colonies.
France will get the leasing in a territory.
Spain gets Florida.
And he'll take a big chunk of it for himself, which he is named Loveless Land, which
sounds like the worst theme park, just like a bad swingers theme park.
And I don't mean swingers in the movie.
I mean swingers like it's a place where you know, for swapping. Yeah.
Loveless. Swingers the movie theme park exists in Universal Studios. It's called Las Vegas.
Swingers theme park. You go see how money you are in the swingers themed mirrors.
You must be this money to ride this ride. There's like a minion holding it. Oh, that's even better. Yeah. It's a cardboard Vince one. This is You must be this money to ride this ride. There's like a minion holding
that's even better. Yeah, cardboard Vince wants as you must be this money. Do you know
how money you are? If not, welcome. There's nothing else in that movie. That's pretty
much. The whole ride is you get strapped into a chair and then Vince wants like, let's
see how money you are. And then it shakes around for a while. And it's like, thanks for
holding out of the all spark. It's like you did it.
You're the most money guys.
You can swing with us anytime.
I was talking, I was talking to my older son recently about, he's like, it's like you're
on the ride and they're like, thanks, you did it.
You're super cool.
It's like, I didn't do anything.
I just sat here.
I'm like, you got it.
You saved me.
Oh, you can see the picture.
He's really.
Yeah, he can see through the other side.
Yeah.
I was just trying to imagine what our younger listeners who, who perhaps didn't live through
swingers must have made the last.
I mean, I didn't, I, one, I don't think we have that many younger viewers, but two, I,
I'll have to say, when swingers came out, I was what 14 15. I thought it was the coolest
movie. I thought everyone in it was a fun movie. It's a fun movie, but I thought it was
so inspired so many. Yeah, my friends started calling each other money for like one day,
and then we were like, well, this doesn't work. This sounds terrible. But anyway, love
list gives this presentation. And then he he threatens to shoot Gordon. If you list his
grant won't surrender the United States, which is objectively, there's no way the president
is gonna surrender the entire nation to save one dude
who is already a secret agent
who knows he might die in line of duty.
But luckily he doesn't have to make that choice
because somehow a belly dancer
who is obviously Will Smith in disguise
appears out of nowhere and it is like a text avery cartoon.
Loveless immediately forgets everything else in the room. It's great. It's so inside. His eyes bug out. His tongue
falls on the ground. And it's like, how did Will Smith get on the spider? It doesn't, none
of it makes, it's like he appears like like bugs Bunnywood just out of nowhere, you know.
Yeah, I would say that his body turns into a steam powered carriage and shoots out steam,
but he already kind of is like that.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, the ruse is undone by his fake breasts, which become mechanical flame throwers
and are just throwing flames everywhere.
Loveless manages to escape with the real grant and Gordon wants to run after them, but West
goes, no, we need a new plan.
And so when this presentation is not happening on the spider, right?
This presentation is happening back at Spider City, I assume, because, and I'll just mention
it's now take me down to spider city where the grass is green and the girls are spiders.
Or a great deal on spider.
Take me down.
Yeah.
Spider city.
Take me that's the commercial for the pet shop spider city.
Take me down to spider city where this week scorpions are half off.
That's right.
It's scorpion week. Spider city. not technically a spider, but a wreck. It is related and we
need the money because we're being sued by Axel Rose for our jingle. So anyway, they
they love us and grant us, Gabe Gordon wants to go after them, but West goes, no, we need
a plan. And the man who was impulsively jumping into action, now he's all about plans.
There is also a moment where they're like, should we go after him? And he looks to
read it. And she's like, yeah, you can go after him. Like, okay, like she, there's a moment
where he's like, should I pursue a romantic interest here? And she's like, no, you can
go. No, you can go. You should, you should do that. You should save the country instead.
So Gordon quickly, he turns his motorcycle into a flying machine.
They use it, they drop bombs on the spider, they get shot down, and there's a lot of henchmen
fighting on the spider.
It goes on for a long time.
Until finally, and each of the henchmen has some sort of deformity or a, or like a handicap
of some kind.
It's, it, and they're calling the bad guys from the judge red movie of
Sylvester Sloan, right? And let's yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to say, Simon Felds, like clearly he's
trying to as you said before, read, capture the name black magic. Yes. But, but
Sunfeld is great at doing these like big, outlandish sort of kinetic films.
He's not necessarily a good action director though.
Like the action sequences are just sort of like,
I don't know, a bunch of stuff happening.
And it's like,
he's a comedy and visual,
but I would say like,
they're good action scenes and then black stuff.
And like, in the,
I guess you're right, it's kinetic.
Like in the Adam's Family movie, it's not exactly action, but it's dynamic.
There's a lot of dynamic movement,
you know, that comes off really exciting.
But I just say this to like,
this is in a boring movie.
The action is some of the most boring part
that a lot of it is the end.
Especially these fights where there's one point where
West defeats the final bad guy by somehow
electrocuting him and I were wound
and I still could not figure out how it happened. It's like the bad guy by somehow electrocuting him and I were wound and I still
could not figure out how it happened.
It's like the bad guy is looking at him and then suddenly is just filled with electricity
and dies.
And I was like, that happened spontaneously.
Yeah.
Well, it's worth it.
There was, I was reading a bit of trivia and apparently the original cut of the movie,
the climax was just West beating up the bevy of babes.
And they're like, this is weird. So they had to do a whole
bunch of reshoots to add these, these like spider workers or whatever.
Yeah, these like thugs who are one guy's a metal plate on his head and stuff like that.
And which, which is better. And he finally, Will Smith confronts loveless. And we're going to,
and it is just, remind me, the Green Lantern movie where a handsome, cool guy,
it has to beat up a nerd in a wheelchair.
And this was, and it was like,
do you know what your audience is?
Like this is not a good dynamic.
100% of the problem with it.
Because at the beginning he has this robot wheelchair
with robot legs that can like beat up Will Smith.
But the moment,
he would sure that-
He would feel like he was actually a smaller mechanical spider
that also has legs, yeah.
Once they short out that wheelchair spider,
Will Smith is essentially just beating up a disabled man
and the whole movie changes at that point.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
It was more like a big deal.
Yeah, it changes from amazing to not as good.
It was amazing to Oscar winning. I'm just saying it's a miscalculation to not as good. It is from amazing to Oscar winning.
I just say it's a miscalculation to that point.
Yes, right.
No, but I would say I would feel like the movie does not change at that point, which is
the problem.
It doesn't feel like it's a misstep in a movie that is otherwise walking the tight rope
or the balance beam.
It feels like the movie is now coming back to what it is, which is gross, which is a movie
that does not, has no respect
for any human being and is, you know, is gross to women and all that stuff.
Guys, did you know the little Easter egg in there when Loveless was driving?
There's a sequence where Loveless is driving his giant spider and he's forcing the president
grant to watch him blow up Western towns and he's like, are you going to, are you going
to sign it over to me?
He's like, no, so he blows up a town.
And they, I guess presumably are walking off
to do it all over again and blow up another town.
Like I love the, I kind of wish there's a montage, you know,
like Christopher Walken blowing up,
just trying to have some bears.
Just trying to have some bears.
But,
the, the, the, the, the town after another really six towns,
still not a side of the tree.
Town they blow up named Silverado.
After another Kevin Klein movie called Silverado called the big
chill. Yeah.
Grand. The whole time, the whole time I'm watching this movie, I just,
I kept thinking myself, and at the end of the day, Kevin Klein goes
home. And just I guess complaints to Phoebe Cates about making this I just, I keep thinking myself, and at the end of the day, Kevin Klein goes home and
just, I guess, complains to Phoebe Cates about making this movie.
And just like the, I'm constantly, there's something, there's, this is maybe a weird feeling,
but whenever I think about Kevin Klein, I cannot help but think about how lucky he is to be
married to Phoebe Cates.
I literally said it.
I'm super talented, super charming, super handsome.
But like the fact that he's like, yeah, I get Phoebe Cates
all to myself.
She doesn't even make movies anymore.
She's just someone I live with, like it's,
and have a family with.
I would be texting my friend essentially the same thing,
complaining about this movie,
and they were saying something about, you know,
you know, sort of half derailed his career.
I'm like, yeah, but you know,
he's married to Phoebe Cates,
so how much can he complain?
Yeah, exactly.
And his son made a good movie last year. And his daughter is an indie musician
who's, who's I listened to her stuff. It's pretty good. What was his son's movie? Funny
pages. Oh, I didn't realize that was his son. Okay. I know. I haven't seen it. I'm
inclined. Yeah. Oh, totally. I mean, I feel like I feel like it will be, it might be
a little too close to. Yeah. That's, if anything, that's what I'm worried about watching it.
Yeah.
It's kind of rough in that way.
Yeah.
And, and he's great on Bob's burgers, super tent.
But yeah, there's something about like the, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe behind the scenes,
Phoebe Cates is a monster.
But there's just something about like, I'm always like, oh, yeah, like what a, like what
a, what a thing to be incredibly thankful and grateful for Kevin Klein above everything
else is that
you're married to Kemi B. Cates. Anyway, she's great. She's up there. There's a few people that
I wish had not left professional film acting and she's right at the top. It's like her and Rick
Moranis and a few other people that I wish were still. Yeah. It's still been working for the past
couple decades. But anyway, where are we? Oh, yeah. So West and Loveless, they end up hanging off the spider over a cliff.
I on it somehow West causes Loveless to fall to his death. Honestly, I didn't care enough
to pay attention to it. It happened. This presses a button on something and he falls off somehow.
I think they both just like he essentially he lets them both go, but because he's our hero,
he can grab a chain on the way down and not fall those death.
Yeah, something like that.
And so now it's the end.
President Grant names West and Gordon the first agents of the Secret Service.
This is a historical.
The Secret Service did not start then.
It was, I think earlier than that.
It was begun as an anti-counterfeiting.
Put in the goofs.
Put in the goofs.
Put in the goofs.
Put in the goofs. Put in the goofs. Put in the goofs. Put in the goofs. Put in the guy. Put me wrong about when it started.
Maybe it is when it started.
I don't know.
Oh, so these movies kind of like a prequel to live in Dying LA.
Yeah, exactly.
This movie is a joke.
It takes place in the same universe as the live in Dying LA.
And that's why you can notice in the background the portraits of James West of Jim West and
Artemis Gordon.
And it says our first agents.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
And Ali, tell us the other ways in which.
When they set up that, when they accidentally killed that other guy who's also also an agent,
they're like, they're like, what would West and Gordon think about this?
They saved the president, yeah.
No, I'm just leaning forward to you going through the other ways in which, while Wild West
is historically inaccurate.
Okay, I will also mention, so I don't believe Ulysses has grant hammered in the golden spike
that connected the trans-gandal railroad. Also at no point worth. At no point were America
scientists kidnapped to build a giant robots.
Oh, yeah, we got you. We got you.
You've got to master general.
There was as far as I know, there was no there was no Arlo Loveless.
That's a fictional character.
Maybe come cause a character, maybe come cause a character.
Maybe come cause a character.
You will see us grant.
Good answer.
And so Rita reveals, this is when Rita reveals this,
Dan mentioned that the scientist she was after
was not her father, but her husband, and she just leaves.
And it just ends with Western Gordon riding the giant spider.
The movie ends with a giant whipper.
Yeah. And there's some moment where Gordon goes, can I ask you a question?
A question that goes, no.
And that's it.
That's the last.
Those are the last.
The last change of the film.
Right up there with nobody's perfect.
Right up there with this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Can I ask you a question?
No.
It's like shutting down an improv scene immediately.
The most interesting thing you can do is say no.
And then you get the, and then you hear the Wild Wild West song.
It's Stewart.
It has been as mentioned, yeah.
Well, maybe that's it.
They were like, this is really the last line of the film.
Yeah, yeah.
Wild West song.
And then I don't know about you guys.
I immediately went and watched the music video.
And you know what? Still good? Okay. I did not. I immediately went and watched the music video. And you know what, still good.
Okay.
I did not.
I immediately watched a different movie
to watch the taste of this one out of my mouth.
Okay.
Yeah, let's get final judgments.
This is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,
or a movie you kind of like.
I'm going to say that this is a bad bad movie.
There's nothing quite as painful as a comedy that doesn't work.
And you've got two people who have made me laugh a lot in the past in Will Smith and Kevin
Klein, and Kevin Brown.
And hysterical Kenneth Ranna.
Celebrity, Woody Allen's celebrity.
But nothing works.
That's maybe the only performance of his that's more cartoonish than this one. His, his
Woody Allen impression in celebrity. The jokes don't work on their own terms. And then
on top of that, most of them are uncomfortably race related or gay panic or. Musogenous. Yeah, and so, yeah, it's just not fun to watch.
So I say, don't do it.
Yeah, I'm with you.
Oh, it's a bad bad movie.
No, no, you don't.
I'm gonna say this is a bad bad movie.
I, you know, I'd put it off for a long time, not watching it.
Like I put off watching it for a long time.
When it first came out, I was deep into the Deadlands
role-playing universe and I'm like, oh out, I was deep into the Deadlands roleplaying
universe and I'm like, oh man, this doesn't take the thing that I think is cool seriously.
So I don't want to watch this fucking shit. And you know what? I was right. This movie sucks.
If you want to watch a movie that is a, like a historical action adventure with like a
little bit of steam bunkey and a kronistic elements and maybe some supernatural elements
and is also just a little bit horny. I would direct your attention to the mummy franchise, which is way better.
Yeah. I thought you might have been talking about bone-tomahawk until you got to the horny.
I don't know. You do get to see that guys butt before he gets split.
I think yeah, it's a bad bad movie and it's too, but I was really hoping that we would watch this
and I'd be like, oh, this is something that turns out has a lot of gem moments in it because I like the
stars.
I love Barry Sonnenfeld's movies that he made before this.
Like, even among those like Get Shorty is a movie that I love.
I just think it's a fantastic comedy and it's, it manages to pull off the idea of a cool
movie with low-ish stakes, but it still really pulls you along and you're just really enjoying it the whole time.
And it's just, it feels like a movie that was out of control and nobody knows what they're
doing or why they're doing it.
And on top of that, as Dan said, it's gross.
It's not enough that it's bad, it's also gross.
It's gross.
It's gross, that's gross, that's the worst.
That's the worst.
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Those sound like amazing deals, I'll tell you another amazing deal.
More entertainment from the flop guys.
That's right, it's flop TV, our monthly live video show that we broadcast live once a month.
It's like a TV show version of the podcast and I still hour long kind of TV watching kind of thing.
Version of this podcast.
It's so good.
Thank you.
We hope you managed to see our first episode, Beastmaster 2, which was hilarious.
I had a lot of fun doing it with you guys.
And I think the audience liked it too.
If not, your next chance is coming up.
Our next show is Cool World on September 9th at 9 p.m. Eastern 6 p.m. Pacific. That's
right. Cool world. Stewards on PowerPoint presentation patrol. Dan will be doing the
summary. So get ready to hear us talk about sexy cartoons and why Ralph Bakshy movies never
really work. Like I said, we're gonna have to talk about that at some point. And as you
know, if Dan is doing the summary of a sexy cartoon movie, wow,
you thought this episode had some gross stuff in it? Well, get ready. It's going to be
wholesome, wholesome. Parents only only adults. And I guess adults
without kids also. Yeah. Come on. No, we're not invited. No, only parents. If you can't
make it on September 9th, don't render garments in rage and grief. Your ticket gets you access to a recording of the show for two weeks after the air date.
So that's until September 23rd or so. So September 9th.
Yeah, it's the like if you're watching it and it gets too gross and you have to go take a shower
and come back to it later, you can. Yes, you can. Exactly. September 9th, 9 PM Eastern,
6 PM Pacific, cool world. Episode two of flopop TV, we're doing six episodes over six months, single tickets and season
passes for the rest of the run the shows are available at theflophouse.simpletix.com.
And you'll see more movies that we have coming up listed there.
Flop TV, hey, don't forget about it.
It's has that first logo.
Different than the one before. Maybe a little bit. Well, you last week's was a was Flop TV, what was it? Flop's that for slogan? Different than the one before I can. Well, you last
week was a was flop TV. What was it? Flop, won't you? I don't remember what it was. Yeah.
Okay. Well, we'll get this settled. I'm sure by the end of the season. Yeah. When we're
done, we'll have a good love of good slogan for it.
I'm Emily Heller and I'm Lisa Hannah Walt and we're the hosts of Baby Geniuses.
We've been doing our podcast for over 10 years.
When we started, it was about trying to learn something new every episode.
Now it's about us trying to actively get stupider and it's working.
Hang out with us and you'll hear us chat about gardening horses.
Various problems with our butts and all the weird stuff that makes us horny.
That's so weird.
All that stuff.
Baby geniuses!
A show for adult idiots.
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Making the way to the ring for the Tikes and Fights podcast are the baddest trio of audio.
The hair to be wear Daniel Radford.
It really is.
Great hair.
The Brit with a permit to hit Lindsay Cal!
The Queen is dead, long live the Queen!
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Get ready for pipes and flights!
Listen, every Saturday, or face the pain.
Find us a maximum fun!
No ring the bell!
Let's read a few letters from listeners. We have a few. This is from Jeffer last
time with Held. He writes, dear peaches, as a longtime fan and attendee of two live shows
and we'll be forward to my next time to, I'm looking forward to the next time you all
hit the road.
Since my niece took my flop house house cat t-shirt, I'm hoping you do a new tour short.
When I listen, I can't help but get strong vibes of a year with frog and toad, the musical
based on the books by Arnold Lebel.
Dan is the grumpy toad.
Stewards, that beat frog.
And Elliot is the course of birds
and obviously the snail with the male singing songs of delivery. Oh, I love that snail. It takes
him so long to deliver that letter. What a great story. I love those books. U3 is frog toad and snail
would kill on a t-shirt. Hope you consider it when plotting your next tour. I also have a question.
Was it Ben Mankwitz who said you shouldn't remake good movies,
only bad movies?
I don't think he's the first person to say it, but it has been said.
Are there any bad movies that if you were a producer with a budget to tempt any director,
you would have that director remake David Fincher's chopping mall?
I mean chopping mall is pretty great.
It's a fucking banger of a movie right there.
Steven Spielberg's over over the Brooklyn Bridge.
Ellie could time travel to deliver a script to any director from the past.
Stuart could reanimate Stuart Gordon as needed.
Exasperated size, ripped in dogs and rocket crocodiles for all.
Jaffa her last name was held.
Now, this question was first posed to us by Dan via email ahead of time.
I did not know that I could go anywhere in space and time to get past directors to do
it, because then it opens up a whole new, whole new world of film.
A whole new world.
Could we finally have, finally, we'll have, finally, we'll have Ingmar Bergman's Wild Wild
West.
But I, so I thought about this, but but so I have some answers but they're all modern
filmmakers remaking older movies. So you guys want to hear them? Yeah sure. Sure. So a
movie and so this is a bad old movie that it's not not everything about it is terrible
but it is not a fully successful movie. And for a while it was being talked about as a
remake for Tim Burton and that's X the man with X ray eyes And starting Ray Meland as a man who gets X-ray eyes
and his eyes allow him to penetrate
even further and further into reality.
And I think that could be an interesting premise
for one Jordan Peel.
I haven't loved his last movie,
but I didn't love it particularly,
but I think that I, you loved it.
I didn't love it.
But I think that he could handle that
and also bring a
An element of social commentary to the idea of someone who can now see through
The surface reality into hidden things that I think he could do interesting things with and it could be funny too I got two other examples one is you remember that League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie that was so bad
Yeah, I need a director who can handle kind of fussy recreations of like over detailed
past things. You guessed it, Wes Anderson's League of Extradere gentlemen. I think it
hear me out. It's a little unorthodox, but if you see Grand Budapest Hotel, you know,
he can handle kind of somewhat actiony things. There's chase sequences in that. And the
man will pack
as much detail into into a frame as possible. So I think if someone's going to get across the
cluttered Victorian of Kevin O'Neill's artwork, it's going to be Wes Anderson. And finally,
sometimes you have a movie that's about a strong female character, but it doesn't have a
strong female director. And that movie I'm talking about is Trog, Strangione Crawford, and I think her final role
is the scientist who finds a living caveman.
And you know who's going to direct it?
Greta Gerwig, that's right.
Greta Gerwig's Trog.
I don't know who's going to play the scientist yet.
I don't know who's going to play the Troglidite yet, but I'm interested to see what she does
with the premise.
So those three movies, I guess they'll be coming out next year.
Jordan Peel's ex the man with X-ray eyes, Wes Anderson's the League of Externier gentlemen and Greta Gerwig's Trog. So guys, what do
you think? What are you going to suggest? All these news will be made.
How about, wait, hold on. I'm trying, I started, I was about to say something and then I
was like, do I have the right name? So, Stuart, if you have something. Yeah, I guess, you know, last year we watched a movie with Marmaduke,
where Pete Davidson did the voice.
A movie with Marmaduke or the movie Marmaduke?
I think it was called Marmaduke.
So, George, just a movie that Marmaduke happened to be in.
Okay.
But I feel like if you want to make a movie with animal
characters, where I'll actually connect with it, that's right. I think you're going
to remake Marmaduke and have George Miller direct it. He's got quite a hit rate.
And he does talking animals. He does. He does do animal movies. It's a lot of fun.
Also he can inject a little bit of, he can handle the action
that a Marmaduke movie requires.
I don't know, these are the best ideas, but here's some that I have. Let's take Wild
Wild Less. Let's start out there. Sure.
Sure.
Sure.
Sure.
We just watched.
Okay.
Toss it over to Martin Breast. He needs, he did one of the best buddy comedy action things
in midnight run.
And he really made up for his involvement with the Treaty of Breast Latovsk, which took
Russia out of World War I and cost a lot of trouble for everybody.
And that would get him out of Director Jail too, because he's been in there for a while.
And-
You've been Eugene Levy.
And then maybe Eugene hanging out.
And then how about this?
Jonathan Glazer's Land 9 from Outer Space.
All right.
What do you think about that?
Okay, tell me more.
Tell me more.
Nope.
Tell me more. No, they'll you. Nope. Tell me more.
No, they'll bring some of that under the skin energy to the tail of space visitors who
come back, come to earth and reanimate the dead for some reason that I forget.
I guess that was that plan nine.
To take over the world.
That was the plan.
I think you were the world.
I mean, plan nine was one that came to mind for me too, and I felt like I didn't have quite the right director on hand for it.
I could see it working.
I could see that working.
Um, let's go on to another letter.
My phone will unlock.
There it is.
And it's Gary Marshall's plan nine from outer space.
Now you're cooking with gas.
Gary Marshall and his son Neil Marshall collaborate for the first time on plan nine for Moutor's face.
Dear peaches, that's us. I can't remain silent any longer.
Then say it out loud. Speak your truth. I've uncovered a global conspiracy about monkey
bone and your curious silence about it. It has everything. The flop I should love. It
has a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln whose mouth is a portal to the waking world. It has everything the flop has should love. It has a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln whose mouth is
a portal to the waking world. It has woopy Goldberg as death driving a giant mech suit. It even has
Chris Katan as a reanimated corpse who drops internal organs while getting chased by the corrupt
doctor played by Bob Odin Kirk. This movie is such a wildly ambitious train wreck in a genuine
box office flop that is the perfect movie to come up on the flop house, but you three have been conspicuously silent.
The only logical explanation is that Brendan Frazier has been paying you off for years.
How can you live with yourselves knowing you are part of the global conspiracy?
I demand answers, all names withheld.
So Brendan Frazier can't find me.
Wow, wow. We are through the looking looking glass people. I have to admit, what stopped
us from talking about monkey bones, I have never seen it. And I remember seeing the trailer
when it was first coming out and thinking that seems a bit much.
Um, I did not have much access to it because again, it was almost out of the theaters,
almost immediately. I think they took to that. I think they took out two newspaper print
ads in the entire country to advertise it. I heard.
I mean, we get a lot of these. Why haven't you done this?
Emails and in general, the answer is as described towards the beginning of this show,
normally we have done newer movies. So if there's something that existed before the
lot of us, we didn't get around. Why haven't you done fries and whispers?
that existed before the plot house. Why haven't you done fries and whispers? But I will say that I actually have seen monkey bone twice, and I'm up the camp.
You have the time. I am up the camp.
Oh, you're telling me to be so frivolous with the hours that God has set for us.
I mean, if you enjoy what you're doing, is it from
holiday?
I guess you're right.
I mean, it's the definition of
equality, but no, it's choices about how we spend our time.
That's true.
While I'm out feeding the hungry, how is
the homeless?
You are watching Monkey Bunny Game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I must have missed the
the pictures of you doing those things.
Dan, I don't do it for the publicity.
When somebody comes up to take a picture of me doing my charitable work, I pull a sunny
corleon and I throw that camera to the ground.
Monkeybone famously, the live action film by stop motion animating director Henry Selik
who did the nightmare before Christmas among other things, not directed by Tim Burton, produced by Tim Burton. Henry Selik was the director. He did Monkey Bone.
It is a live action comedy with some cartoon elements, animated elements in it, but it has a lot
in common with the look of something like PV's Big Adventure.
It's a fun movie.
I'm of the camp that thinks it is unfairly maligned.
It has got a lot of crazy imagery, like, beautiful stuff, silly stuff.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It's not that funny until the very
end when it gets very funny when Chris Katana is being chased by Bob Lodenkirk as a re-anonym
course, who's losing his organs. So those might do the monkey bounce.
You sold us on monkey bounce, okay?
Yeah.
Okay, so I mean, I'm curious to watch it at some point. I don't know if it should be
do it for the podcast at some point.
We, I mean, we could if we're keep going back like this.
I mean, this is actually the monkey bone came out after the movies that we have.
Oh, wow.
So we'd have to go forward a little bit, but we could do it.
But I don't know. We're covering monkey bone, be really helping the studios who are using
monkey bone profits to prop it.
Yeah, that's true.
This monkey bone merchandise out there.
That's true. I did Ryan, I did, I did Ryan the boner, the monkey bone profits to prop out there. That's right. Monkey bone merchandise out there. That's true.
I did Ryan, I did Ryan the boner, the monkey bone roller coaster over at whatever studio
looks.
Yeah.
The one that's like, yeah, you must be this boner to write this.
You must be this, but well, they, you know, whatever studio it is.
You must be this monkey.
I'm sure they refer to it as the house at monkey bone built.
Sure. yeah.
824.
Yeah.
I can't even find it.
Okay, well, let's move on to recommendations.
Again, because of the ongoing strikes, we've been steering away from new stuff, but there's
plenty of stuff that's older or things that are not even movies that we can recommend.
I'm going to return to the tradition of recommending a movie this time around.
I saw, uh, I don't like the-
Did you recommend hammocks at one point?
Yeah, I did.
I can't even hang my hammocks.
I stand by it.
Yeah.
Uh, you know what I watched just recently?
Smile on an old lady's face.
I watched, it's a foreign film, it's from 2005, it is called Cache by Michael Hanukkah
director.
I think just cash.
I think it's pronounced just cash, but I could be wrong.
It has an accent.
Does it have an accent?
Oh, maybe I'm wrong.
So, they may be wrong. You has an accent. Does that accent? Oh, maybe I'm wrong.
They may be wrong.
You know what?
He's a cash money.
Alex, just go back and replace everything I've said
in this episode with fart noises.
That's all I deserve.
Wow, harsh punishment, but fair.
Yeah.
I, you know, I tried to watch this at home
and kind of not gotten into it.
And then I, the quad cinema is doing a Juliet Benosh retrospective and I went out and
just did a show.
It's pronounced Bitochet.
And it's a movie that really is well served by being in a theater where you have to put
all of your attention on it.
Because it is part of its strategy is long takes that, you
know, the premise is that this couple gets tapes of their home surveillance tapes.
They don't know where they're coming from.
The thing is, the thing is that even the parts of the movie that aren't these surveillance
tapes are sort of deliberately shot from a remove often in one long shot without camera movement
to give that feeling of an observer even when it's not part of what's actually happening
in the text of the film.
Back in the day, this was sort of sold as a thriller just because I think people didn't
know how to describe it.
If you go in thinking of it that way, I think you'll be disappointed at the way it does not want to hit the usual plot points and give you the catharsis the Thriller will.
It is much more about the guilt people carry with them. It is about specific French guilt, but that also serves as just kind of a metaphor for the general ways in which
you're only talking to one half of your shirt. But it was excellent. Kaseh is great.
That's why I recommend. Cool. You guys don't be mad at me. I'm going to recommend an indie
movie that's kind of new. Okay, but I don't think it's under the guild if you're gonna. I don't know. Well, let's find out. I'm
gonna recommend how to blow up a pipeline. I don't know. They blow me up.
I don't know what we're doing this voluntarily. Don't hold
the other feature of the first question. Okay, so I'm recommending how
to blow up a pipeline. It's directed by the guy who directed cam
from a few years ago. And just like CAM, it is a tense,
timely and vital thriller. It is about a group of young people who, for a variety of reasons,
choose to engage in an act of, I guess, what they describe themselves as eco-terrorism,
where they blow up a oil pipeline. And it's great.
It's like a super tight, almost heist-like thriller.
And it is touches on the fact that our world is dying
and nobody seems to give a shit.
So it's great.
Thumbs up.
How to blow up a pipeline.
Sounds like a real spirit razor.
Wow, you guys really bring on smiles to America with your
downer face. So I'm going to recommend a movie that is an older movie also. I'm going to recommend
a movie from 1972. That's right. The Swing 70s. This is a documentary that actually won the Academy
Award for Best Documentary that year in 1972. It's called Marjo. And it is
documenting about Marjo Gortner, who many people may know as one of the stars of the movie Star Crash.
He had an acting career that is not the most impressive. He's still alive, but he's not acting
as much. But earlier in his life, when he was a child, and then a young man, he made his living as a
Pentecostal kind of tent preacher.
And his whole thing was that he was the child preacher who was preaching the word of God
from the age of, I think, four onwards.
And this documentary is about Marjo Gortner returning to that life to make a certain
amount of money so that he can get out of it. And kind of revealing to the documentary makers how much he was coached as a child, what
the tricks are in this kind of thing, how fake it all is, and things you have to do to
get a congregation worked up so that you can get money out of them.
And that's intercut with a lot of footage of him actually at these revival evangelist meetings.
And just kind of working himself up into a frenzy
and working the audience up into a frenzy
in this intense religiosity.
And most of the movie is setting up this kind of,
you not laughing at exactly because you become
almost overwhelmed by the passion of the people
who are at these revival,
or these evangelist meetings,
but kind of, you know, looking above them in Marjo
is kind of like your ally.
And by the end of the movie, I ended up really finding him
to be an unlikable person for the way he treated
the people that he was,
building, not just for the building,
but how he was looking down on them.
And it made me feel guilty about the way I had looked down on them early in the movie.
So it's a movie that is feels relatively straightforward.
But by the end of it, I had very complex feelings about its subjects.
And it's available online.
It's called Marjo.
And it's real good.
It's not a long movie.
Usually, I'm like, watch this for our movie.
This time, it's like less than 90 minutes. Go for it. It's really good. It's not a long movie. Usually I'm like, watch this for our movie. This time, it's like less than 90 minutes. Go for it. It's really good.
And don't watch Scar Jo, which is a documentary about Scarlett Johansson.
Her work as a preacher, Bill Keatby.
That's a joke. Don't sue me.
Notorious. That's my dude. That's my new catchphrase. It's a joke. Don't sue me.
Don't watch the documentary, Larjo, about the Largo comedy club that is mispronounced.
Okay.
And if you want to watch Key Larjo, which again is the movie Key Largo with Ms. Brown,
go ahead.
It's a good movie.
It's like a 10-striker thriller.
It's a good movie.
Yeah.
It's a scores by the Beach Boys.
I've been on Key Largo anyway.
So with that whimper of a relevant fact, let's put...
Oh, and if you want spaghetti sauce, then it's Prajo or Prego.
Okay.
And not Red Goo or Red Jew, Old World Style.
Oh.
Hey, this is a podcast that's on a network, and that network is called Maximum Fun.
You can go to MaximumFun.org, see the other shows on the network.
There's stuff about comedy, there's other stuff about culture, there's a podcast that helps
you sleep.
I'm sure you would enjoy something else
over there. If you just take a look, why don't you?
This is a lot of past podcasts.
Turn it to a disapproving old man by the end.
It's also produced by Alex Smith. You can find him all over the web as Howell Dottie.
He does Twitch streams. He does music, he does his own podcast,
FastTrack, look him up.
But for now, for the Flop House, oh, also Flop TV, on sale.
Flop TV, go do it.
What does it, let me look up the website again, sorry, simple tics, sorry, the Flop House.SimpleTics.com.
Yeah, also if you just go to the Flophouse website, there's links on there.
And what's that when? What's that URL?
Uh, Flophousepodcast.com.
Okay, we did. But for the Flophouse, I have been Dan McCoy.
Now and forever, I'm steward Wellington.
And in this moment in time, I am taking the form of Elliot Kalen, but who knows what, who, or how I'll be in the future?
Goodbye, mortals.
He-he-he.
He-he-he.
Ha-ha-ha.
Ha-ha-ha.
Ha-ha-ha.
Ha-ha-ha.
Ha-ha-ha.
You guys, I got a real smoker for the intro.
Oh boy.
All right.
You're special.
You're in the net one.
I laugh at it still, just thinking about it.
This meant.
And then I played it for Sammy.
He really loved that.
I played it for Sammy and Sammy was like,
what? Like he just did not get it.
Because he probably was just thinking of that kind of net.
Yeah, right.
He doesn't know the net means the internet.
Yeah.
Maximum Fun.
A worker-owned network.
Of artist-owned shows.
Supported directly by you.
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