The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 204, BLACKBIRD with Mark Mahoney

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Seanbaby & Dirk Marshall welcome back special guest, Mark Mahoney to the DOGGZZONE. You're in for a treat as the DOGGZZONE gang report on what just might be the most thrilling, action packed spectacle of espionage, intrigue, lurid romance and just all around film classic, "BLACKBIRD." What's that? Never heard of it? HOW?? It features the LORD OF THE DANCE! Rectify your crimes of ignorance at once as you engage with what is certainly the most important cinematic experience of your entire life!

1-900-HOT-DAUGHT 1-900-HOT-DAUGHT Our podcast slams with maximum hype Say hot dog podcast, word Yeah When you taste that nitrate power You're in the dog zone for an hour Come on

You know the number 1-900 1-900- 1-900! Hot Dog! 1-900! Hot Dog! 1-900! 1-900! Hot Dog! 1-900! Hot Dog! Yeah! 9000! Welcome to the Dog Zone 9000, the official podcast of 1900hotdog.com, the ultimate and final website.

Every weekday we do new articles about deranged artifacts with an all-star cast of comedy writers. There's one free one every week, but getting them all is easy! Go to patreon.com slash 1900hotdog and join! You'll get jokes sent right to your email every morning at 5am Pacific. We have Discord movie events and you'll be keeping good media alive at least a little bit longer. Oh and um, sign up with a browser because if you sign up through Apple they take 30% of the money just because fuck you. I'm Sean Baby, the first and last internet funny man and with

Brockway still on hiatus, my co host today is from the VHS podcast, VHS podcast. He's a movie man and a hot sauce magnet from Marshall's hot sauce, Dirk Marshall. What an amazing intro. Thank you so much. I just want to say not in my line of business. Is that an actual line from the terrible movie we watched? Yeah, they say it like three different people say it in this movie, like, not in my line of business. And I'm like, what does that, what does any of this mean? We'll get to it.

We'll get to it. It is already leaving my brain. It is. Okay, okay. We need to talk about it soon. Yes. The clock is ticking. Listeners, you won't remember any of this.

Our guest is a World Wide Web pioneer and a leading collector of stupid shit, Bad Candy Mark Mahoney. Welcome back to the show. Thank you. I love that. I feel like it's true. I feel like I've got to be on the cusp of something great with this collection of bullshit, but I don't know. You were there when it all started. Yeah. And now write the code for a thing everyone uses every day.

Yes. So that's, you're still contributing. Yeah. Just in a less whimsical way. Yeah. And it's in a much more boring, staid fashion. But I don't know. Our work Slack is pretty silly.

Mark's a coder for Slack. So that's just for the audience. It's the last place, you know, before that I worked at Twitter and at least now I don't feel like I'm actively contributing to the downfall of society. If you worked at Twitter right now with a conscience, you'd probably feel like a pretty big asshole. Probably. Yeah. Let's do some plugs. Dirk, I flubbed your podcast name, I think twice while we're

doing the intro. So let's do it. Let's do a nice plug. Everybody does. It's silly that I even called it that. Yeah, VHS. It's a podcast where originally each episode is about a film and the guest has the profession portrayed in the film. This new season kicks off next Tuesday is, uh, is just all things that were very hard for me to find. And so I just was like, you know what? This season is just the weird, almost unseeable movies that I've dug up. So if people are interested in that, like, you know,

1980s Russian science fiction family films with a lot of murder, then, you know, check it out. Damn. I'm absolutely going to check that out. Yeah, and Mark, I just want to say it's really great to meet you in this episode because I loved the Hard Ticket to Hawaii episode that you two did. Oh, thank you. Thank you. And you're the only person I've ever heard of that has the same book that I have about that director.

The bullet spades and bombs? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did he sign yours? Did you? No, it's not signed. I was very envious of that. No.

Hard ticket to Hawaii. It's gonna be in my head all fucking day again. Better than this movie. Yeah, yeah. It's an improvement over what we're about to talk about. Yeah, we did not watch a good movie. Each of you have told me how mad you were that I asked you to watch this, and that's fair.

It's something I've always wanted to get through, but it's really hard. We watched Blackbird, which was the action movie is way too strong word the movie like assemblage of footage written, directed and starring Michael Flatley, who is the Lord of the Dance if you don't recognize the name. And you still might not. We should explain. But first, let me explain this movie. It sat on a shelf for four years. Long enough during that time, long enough for an entirely different movie and TV series

called Blackbird to come out. In fact, by my count, there are nine other movies with this name, 12 if you count all the Blackbirds. So anyway, he calls this a tribute or a throwback to classic cinema. But you'd think a movie fan, you know, wouldn't have picked a title used 12 previous times. Call it something original like She's All That or Gremlin's 2 The New Batch, you dumbass. I was gonna look up fun Michael Flatley facts for this, but I got every time I started thinking about him, I would kind of go into this fugue state of imagining all of his rakishly angled hats.

Yeah. I might attack him if I ever see him. I won't even know I'm doing it until it's over. I'm so glad to hear you say this because I had completely forgotten that he existed. And then just the title card that said Lord of the Dance Productions, I was like, hold on a second. And then it started flooding back as his name showed up on the screen. And I just went into a feud, a fuge of just crazy rage knowing that he's still a person. Yeah, I don't think that there was ever a craze,

like a river dance, Irish dance craze, but like it felt like there was. Here's what's fucked up is I think there was for a minute. So I worked in a Virgin Megastore video department in the mid 90s, and I think it was Riverdance that first came out on VHS. And people were buying it in like pulp fiction VHS numbers. Like we were clearing entire end caps of this like on a regular basis. Like everybody wanted Gaelic tap dancing for some reason.

For like... It's a real good mom gift. Like if you don't know your mom very well, you're like, yeah, okay. He's shirtless and oily and apparently dancing very fast. That my dad had, we had the tapes and sold them as well as rented them. So people would rent like American air or something and this. And it coincided with my father getting an entertainment system in the home. And so it was just this booming stomping that was happening in our house at all

times, as you would just sit back and just watch Riverdance. It's, it's very traumatic for me. It was like it was 1997 I think is when like it was a huge thing and inescapable. The commercials were they were on every commercial break like after a certain hour on every channel. I don't think I've ever seen a person in the wild doing an Irish Riverdance but I definitely saw this commercial 300 times minimum. I own a few knockoffs. Like it was so popular that people were like, Oh, I'm gonna do one of those too. And for listeners who've never seen an Irish River dance, it's gonna sound impossible that this dance sustained a two hour stage show. But the River dance

is when you keep your head very still. And then your legs just go fucking nuts just tipping and tapping. He has like a dance record for like fastest feet or something at some point. Right. Sure. Sure. Like I read someone said he insured his feet for like $56 million. That's adorable. Which is like that is what is the monthly payment on the insurance for your feet when they're worth $56 million? If someone told me that fact sincerely and like believed it, I wouldn't even know it's happening.

I would just be tearing the head right off their neck. It's a dance based on a duck running for its life, if that helps you picture it. Yes. It's usually with like a horizontal line of people doing it simultaneously. It's a slipper cut shit. Maybe you've seen it. I don't know. So Michael Flatley, he was a little guy, usually shirtless, sometimes with a headband.

You wouldn't call him a hunk, but he's a Palm Springs 10. Like he crushes fancy grandpa ass. In the same way that like Rod Stewart was like a 10. Yeah. Right? Like, you know what I mean? Like just a certain class of lady was going to be really into this. Yeah, young ladies, according to this movie.

Yeah. According to this movie written by the director and principal star, young ladies really get into him. Okay, so let's talk about this movie. You're going to listeners, you're going to be pissed off at us trying to explain this and we're not going to hide it. This was a very frustrating movie to get through. If you were ever going to skip an episode of this podcast, this might be the ones.

I took so many clips like while I was watching, I'm like, oh, that's's fucking stupid and then I'd like listen to him again. I'm like, that's too boring for any second person to listen to the first like 70 minutes of this movie. I was like something happen. Please. Yeah, I don't know how many times I wrote. There's nothing happening. It's astonishing. There's fine music and nothing is happening. May I get into it? The production logo comes on and it's called Dance Lord Pictures. You can hear the clomping and this terrible animation. It's almost like a Michael Jackson Moonwalker animation. Yeah, it is. Then there's what? 25 more production logos.

The sign of quality film. 8,000. Yeah. He must have called in every favor he had from a dance DVD distribution just to get this thing made. Oh, I have a question for Mark. Did you look up anything going into this or did you just press play on the link? I looked at the Wikipedia article for it briefly when Sean mentioned it

because I couldn't believe it existed, honestly. Yeah, same. That was it. And then I read a bunch of reviews afterwards that... It did not get very good reviews. Have I mentioned that this is like, from the last few years, like he started filming this like, in the first Trump presidency, like it was pretty recent. It theoretically should have come out in 2018, right? But then they like buried it for some reason for like four years. Well, he just couldn't get distribution because it's a fucking piece of shit.

Yeah, which I think maybe helped the movie a little bit because you can kind of, if you go back and read sort of like the whisper network talk about this film between 2018 and 2022, people got themselves like wound up about how bad this movie must be. Like, I think the mystery really worked in its favor. Yeah, I bet that's true. You hear it and on its face, it's ridiculous. You're like the Lord of the Dance guy wrote and directed his own action movie. Like, that's fucking come on. Actions in quotes. Yes.

So I wrote down like basically everything that happened in the movie, because I just had so much time to do that. So it starts with like a flyover shot of some beautiful Irish hills in this big estate and it looks kind of expensive. That was his house. No. Yeah, apparently that's his actual mansion. That tracks. He seems like he did really well. Much like Andy Sedaris, he seems to have filmed a lot of this movie in and around

properties he owned in Barbados. This checks out in Ireland. So a little bit of overlap there. I guess I sort of love that about how I see wealthy people every day who don't do anything fun. And this to me feels like what I would do if I had, you know, an obscene VHS empire. Like I'd be like, oh yeah, I just make really dumb, shitty movies with my friends. But I can't imagine choosing to do something this boring. That's the thing that makes me so mad is cause like I love Vanity Projects

and I was so surprised I hadn't heard of this. I love Champagne and Bullets or Get Even or whatever. But like even in those, they're like always like, but I'm really good at singing, I'm really good at fighting, I'm really good at this. And he just is good at staring and standing. He basically made this to prove

that his whole body couldn't move rather than just the top half being stationary. He's like, watch all of me not doing it. I think he couldn't do the one thing that he's good at anymore. I think he's like, his body's so broken from speed tap dancing for 20 years. Yeah. This is like all he can, so broken from speed tap dancing for 20 years.

Yeah. This is like all he can, you saw as much as he can move anymore. Exactly. He also seems like, God, it doesn't sound quite right, but a little bit muscle bound. Like I think he got too Jim Buff to do the live like prancing. Yeah. Like he's kind of a jacked old man and in a way where it's like- Thick dad bod.

There's like a five second shirtless scene where, just so he could do it, right? Just because like why waste the bench presses. No other reason for that shot, right? Yeah, absolutely. Just like shaving and looking wistfully himself in the mirror and it's like, I think just so you know that he still has abs. Yeah. Is his body so broken down that it affects how you wear hats,

though? Yes. This movie made me actually hate a clothing item. Like I hate hats now. I agree. It is a fucking anti hat movie. Every hat is just jaunty to the point where it's almost falling off his head. It's like crazy. Like an asshole at a Halloween party. Just what are you fucking doing with your head, man?

In that first scene where they're like, someone jumped ahead, but they're like at the cemetery, it's like somebody's funeral. And his hat, and it's just pouring rain, like someone hung a garden hose off the end of the camera. And he's got his hat at such an angle that it's just pouring water directly into his breast pocket of his suit jacket.

Yeah. Everyone else has umbrellas and they just let him stand in a downpour. It's amazing. And that's what I mean. He had unlimited wealth. He could have shot anything. He could have shot like a sex scene with a beautiful young lady and instead he's like, I'm going to go stand under that fucking garden hose for like six hours. Just make sure you get the shot. Just for this scene. Just dumping hat water into my pocket. The only thing I like better was that everyone's at that funeral or wake at that point.

And they're all like, he's irreplaceable. He's amazing. He's unbelievable. He's the most special boy. Yeah. You just see him walk alone on a dirt road with his cane in the rain. They're like, no one give him a ride. He's just so special.

Yep. He's so special. What? I love that the whole like, tell don't show thing where they're like, no, no, he's weak. Nobody else can do what he does. And then it cuts back to him and he's four foot two with a little limp. You're like, yeah, man. No one can do what he does and then cuts back to him and he's four foot two with a little limp. You're like, yeah, man, he's fucking Baba Yaga. And nobody says what that is, what he does so well either. Yeah. It's the same with lines of work. They're like, not in my line of work. And you're like,

and that is moving on? What could that possibly be? We all kind of get that it's some sort of super spy. He's a mission impossible guy, but the movie does not say that until probably 70, 80 minutes in. Yeah. Yes. I wrote in my notes, he looks like a retired baby impersonator. I don't know what it means.

But it's true. It's so true. If you saw him next to like a bunch of oversized bowling pins, you would assume he was there to be tossed. You're like, oh, hey, are we going to be throwing you later? Yes. He can buy other baby cigars. So yeah, I think he's going for like a Gene Kelly thing. You know him from Xanadu, but he's like, like

missing like, like it is the whole thing has a vibe of Halloween costume. Like he just didn't, he doesn't pull off anything, which is weird because he's like this theatrical superstar you're thinking of anything he could just stand there't pull off anything, which is weird because he's like this theatrical superstar. You're thinking of anything, he could just stand there and look like a celebrity, but he can't. Yeah, he's like a literal void. He's just like a slab of emotional sponge. Like he just doesn't bring anything to any scene.

He just stands there. Yes. Yeah. He says nothing with his eyes. He says nothing literally. Yeah, it's a make a wish type of situation, I think, where he's like, guys, I got a week left to live. You gotta help me make my fucking spy movie. I've written four paragraphs of it.

Also, you won't know the stakes at all at any point. So just listen to the tense music. That's the whole thing. I was like, the lady is passing off something in the very beginning of it. And I was like, should we know what any of this is? Like who these people are? Also, I think this movie made me realize

I might be like brunette face blind because they show like who you assume is his dead wife in like a flashback. And then there's like another lady at the bar. And I'm like, is that the same lady? And then there's another lady the bar and I'm like, is that the same lady? Oh, there she is. And then there's another lady singing later.

I'm like, is that his dead wife? Yes, I think they were all his dead wife. She was a, I'd say 70 years younger than him. They showed the wife briefly in a flashback. And then there's the lady at the bar around the same age. There's some stuff going on. Somebody fell into the Da Vinci Code. There's guys running through back alleys behind churches getting shot.

Also, at this point, I was wondering, what year is it? Yeah. Because there was a rovery phone that rings and this guy's dressed like he's from the 30s. But then he has a flat panel monitor on his desk. Right. Does anyone have a cell phone? No. Well, no.. Right. Does anyone have a cell phone? No. Well, no. I think Eric Roberts might have a cell phone.

Oh, spoiler alert. Yeah, sorry. Eric Roberts isn't this. God damn it, Eric Roberts. God damn it. Yeah. There's nothing really that sends a message like Eric Roberts being in your movie. He's like someone everyone kind of knows but will be in any. He does not look at a script before he says yes. He's a Danny Trejo. This has got to be a rare movie for him that actually got shown in theaters, right? I always think of Eric Roberts as a lot of like- This was shown in a theater? Well- There's no way this was shown in theaters. I mean, it was like- I'm not saying it had like wide distribution. Okay.

But like the room was shown in theaters, right? Like I feel like enough money and yeah, persistence. I just thought as the movie went on, I was really paying attention to how terrible the script was. And Eric Roberts is actually making some of the lines work. And I was like, that's like a testament to an actor. Also, somebody dressed him. He hasn't had a good line written for him in 40 years.

Yeah, he's used to. Let's start interrupting. No, well, he also, every scene he looks like he's wearing his dad's borrowed suit. I don't know if they meant, cast someone else and had already wardrobe for them or something. But like, he's all of his clothes are like way too big on him. Yeah, here's my theory. I just formed it as you were talking.

I think the wardrobe was just Michael Flatley's closet. And so when a normal sized human came in, they're like, oh, we don't have a suit for you. And then they just had to scramble. Yeah, we only have thick, thick dad butts. Also, I didn't I didn't realize until this movie when I looked it up later, and this is kind of embarrassing to admit, I didn't realize Eric Roberts is like literally Julia Roberts' brother. No. Yeah, I had no idea. Fun, fun fact.

Yeah. Yeah, what a star power. So I did learn one thing watching this. It must be adorable when they like talk about projects they're doing. Like Julie Roberts, yeah, I'm doing this great movie based on this novel with Mahershala Ali. And there's this passionate scene where we kind of fall in love across the span of one song. It's just, it's so well made.

And then Eric Roberts, it's like, I was in 75 Karate Cat movies. Okay. Okay. I shot a movie in a kid's garage. I love acting. The Estevez's probably have the same problem because doesn't Martin Sheen have like a brother? He's been in like two Mystery Science. Yeah.

Two Mystery Science Theater episode movies, I think. Yeah. Joe Estevez will be in anything. Yeah. So many great movies say like Estevez and Stallone at the top and it's not the two you're thinking of. Oh, God. I love that. Joe Estevez sounds exactly like Martin Sheen and he got in trouble during like, God, I think the Clinton presidency when he came on amid like this commercial for some sort of political thing in Martin Sheen's voice being like, and everyone's like, what the fuck? Because it was like Martin Sheen played the president on that Aaron Sorkin show. Oh, right.

And so it had like the gravitas of the actual president of the United States like coming on TV and telling you to like- But at the price of Joe Estevez. Yes, deep discount. It's really affordable. They still don't have a plot. There's something, some sort of spy shit going on. Somebody handed something off to somebody in a car. Somebody mentioned a hollow coin. They've killed a guy off camera. Anyway, I think this counts as a plot. I wasn't sure what that thing was. Was it an SD card?

They kept showing it to the camera. And every time I'm like, is that like a mini disc? What is this? I think it was a PSP UMD disc. I think it was a PSP UMD disc. It came included. It was a Spider-Man movie that came included with the Sony PSP. They're passing that around. Michael Fowler is like, I got like 11 of these things. Let's put it in the movie. Now, there's a fancy resort that's being run by the Lord of the Dance who 10 years later is no longer whatever he was. We still don't know.

In this scene when it showed him, I was like, oh, I get it. He's a waiter. Okay. Yeah, he's the best waiter. You can memorize up to seven orders. No one can do what he does. You know, you've seen the beekeeper, now you can see up to seven orders. No one can do what he does. You know, you've seen the beekeeper now you can see the waiter. Yeah, he's he's like, running the place like strutting around like, I feel like he thinks he's dripping charm. He is not.

No, he is just kind of looking at stuff in weird ways. One of the guys, one of his spy friends works with him. It's shot like important things are happening, but none of these details matter. There is nothing, but it's like, like really beautiful shots, I guess. Beautiful is a strong word, but like- It is a very well shot film. Yes. The cinematography is really good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad you agree.

Yeah. Like we're coming up on that one scene that's like one continuous, they do like the continuous shot and it's so poorly acted, but so well shot. Yes. But even shit like this where it's just like B roll of the restaurant, it'll be like, okay, you gaze out at the beach, you're back there doing this. I wanted it.

They're setting these shows up and they're doing like, you know, pans and I don't know, very complicated shit. Yeah. He loves a 360 turn too with the camera going all around a couple so much. Yeah. That's not nothing. No, no. He definitely paid some people to shoot this film that knew what they were doing. Yeah. Yeah. My note is who is anybody? That's what I wrote.

Good note. That's a good note. I think I have some similar notes around this time. So there's something about an arms dealer being in town. Lord of Dance does not care. He's like, I don't fucking give a shit. But somebody there does background checks on everybody who stays at this resort. So they're still like, it feels like they're trying to be like, hey, we're, we're still spies, even though like, we're just like getting people towels. I was gonna say even though like, yeah, every time they mentioned something to flatly is like, oh, let them be. I'm out of the game. Don't do anything interesting. Yeah. I like when the guy says prepare the Infinity Suite, like he says that to his buddy and I was like, yes, let's see the Infinity Suite. What are the amenities here? And then it's just nothing. It's going to flip a trophy and it's going to open a secret lab. Like, oh, infinity suite, here it comes. No, Michael Flatley refuses the call to action.

I didn't keep track, but it was at least five times. And that's not like a funny number. That's like more than half. People walk up to him and say, we need you to stop the evil arms dealer. And he's like, nah, dude. More than say, we need you to stop the evil arms dealer. And he's like, nah, dude, more than halfway through the film, he is still telling everyone No, I won't do anything about any of this. Yep. Yes. So the beautiful singer, she walks over to the Lord of the Dance, and she calls him handsome and nags him to please give into her many advances and make love to her. This is the man who wrote the movie, remember? A man old enough to be her great grandfather. It feels like the movie is done, right?

Like it cuts to this sort of like high school yearbook type vibe and they're just like saying goodbye to a long adventure. But like we're only a quarter into the movie and it feels like- And we don't even know what the movie's about still. I don't have any idea. Then we get a flashback to an overgrown jungle.

No, not a flashback. They're torturing some guy, some ambassador. There's like a Middle Eastern guy torturing. He's just blubbering. And this is another one of those shots where they do the 360. It's beautifully shot, but it's just a guy whimpering for, I would say, 30 minutes too long. You're just like, okay, buddy, die with some dignity.

Or just do it in some other movie. I'm fucking tired of hearing you whimper. And was that scene just to establish how bad the bad guys are? Because that never comes back up again specifically anything to do with the ambassador, right? That's the writing chops of the Lord of the Dance. He's like, I gotta establish that the arms dealer might be evil. My note I made here was they chopped the guy's head off and I wrote, make it two please, just take one as well. You're like writing little heckles for the movie as you take, all your notes are just like shut the fuck up. I actually I think I did write down shut the fuck up at some point in my notes.

Amazing. When we say chop his head off, it happens off camera. So this is the second death we've not shown the audience. And now Eric Roberts arrives. Always a sign of a good movie after 1985. It's weird because the Lord of the Dance's spy friend recognizes his fiance and is not like cool about it at all. He's just like staring at her. And Eric Roberts is like, what the fuck, dude?

And he's like, sorry, she just has a familiar face. And you're thinking, okay, that's his cover. But no, then they redo the entire scene several times to the point where I'm like, are they like filming the same page of the script several times and just using every take? What the fuck is going on? It was at this point, I started to realize that like, nothing like, I don't know how to put this, like, the script is so dumb that like, there's nothing to this woman that Michael Flatley apparently wants love, we see her briefly at the funeral 10 years ago, showing up in the arms of this armed dealer who has come to do some terrible shit out of his hotel. Like, that's all just raw fucking coincidence. Like, they went from Ireland to like Barbados.

And like, this just happened to happen. This is like surprised everybody. Yep. Their former probably spy colleague maybe is just coincidentally engaged to be married to an internationally known arms dealer, way too old to be an appropriate lover. I mean, love takes many forms, but Eric Roberts is 50 years older than this woman. Yeah, one of the forms is a functioning boner.

Yes. And he's also just so clearly an asshole. Like, like you're like, how does this relationship work? Is she undercover? No, she's not. She just fell in love with elderly Eric Roberts, who is also like an evil dick bag while she's also a super spy. The one occupation that should be able to like sniff out his nefarious schemes, even if he was like, hi, during the day, I'm a normal sweet fiance and at night I'm an evil arms dealer. She has the exact set of skills to spot that. But Ness has not. That's the craziest part is like way later in the film, she says, I lived with him for

five years and couldn't tell he was a creep. And I'm like, you're the worst guy. Yes, seriously. Girlfriend. I don't even, this is crazy. Look at his face. five years and couldn't tell he was a creep and I'm like, you're the worst girlfriend. I don't even know. This is crazy. Look at his face. Look at the way he says literally anything. Yes. Lord of the Dance goes to a church and he's not ready to confess his sins yet because his sins are his own. And this is when I stopped writing down lines from the movie because it's clear Michael Flatley was trying to

write like cool spy action movie lines and can't. Here's something that like in his head I'm sure seemed cool like, oh, this guy's past is so dark, he can't even tell God about it. It's just a priest going, come on, man, you should really do confession. I mean, you're here every day. But also it'd be a good place for the script to tell us what the fucking guy's deal is. Anything? No. Anything. Like I honestly can't imagine anyone watching this movie other than this exact context

of like, hey, let's all get together and make fun of a shitty movie. Yeah. And even then I was close. If you guys hadn't watched it, like before me, I was close to being like, let's just do a different movie. Like, it's, it's, do you remember, like two days ago, when I texted you and said, Well, this will be interesting to talk about on the podcast. I was kind of like trying to see what you thought about, like, what if we watched a different movie? Mm hmm. I could tell. Mm-hmm. I could tell. I feel like in video games where you get shot with something and like a bleed damage or something, and it starts leeching something from you,

that's what watching this movie has done to me. Like I feel hindered in some way. Part of me is ebbing away into the ether. Yeah, you're taking chip damage constantly. You're just like, ooh. It's an enduring debuff. The Eric Roberts, Michael Flatley enduring debuff. You gotta spec for it.

And no one wants to waste the points. You don't wanna fucking sink points into anti-Eric Roberts. It's a fucking waste of a talent tree. I'm just saying, this should have been about a guy jumping on people's necks and doing Irish jigs. Like he should be handcuffed and zipping around the room, swatting guys with his toes being like, you should have handcuffed my legs.

Like that's how the Lord of the Dance makes an action movie. I would own that movie. You know, he did apparently want to make a sequel. So what a fucking idiot. Think how much we hate it. We watched it one time. This motherfucker has to have sat through it. They finished product 10 times editing booth. God knows how many times you should be so sick of this next to Michael Flatley and watching this entire movie. Oh my god, feeling him watching you watch this movie, you either have to have the patience of a saint or like be chained to something that's the editors just on the end of a chain like,

I'll kill you Michael Flatley. At the very least, that's the last time you're ever hanging out with Michael Flatley. Absolutely. So the Lord of the Dance sees Eric Roberts' girl, and there's a big like, what? What's that? What? So they know each other. I'm jumping through my notes. Like I say, I wrote down everything because what else am I going to do while I watch this fucking movie? Yeah, a scene of things happening in the parade of those. Yeah, a scene of things happening in the parade of those. Yes, everybody's kind of like, he's got this Mater Dee that's also from his spy business, and he's worried about Eric Roberts. He's like, okay, this guy seems like trouble.

And then they find out from a second and a third source that no, Eric Roberts, he's trouble. But again, who gives a shit? Just fucking bring him his breakfast and say goodbye to him in a day like a normal fucking hotelier. Just let him go. It's like fine. Yeah. Like, I feel like multiple times around this point in the movie, someone very explicitly

like said what Eric Roberts character's deal was, and then almost immediately said we need to like find out what his deal is. Yes. It's an underwritten and overwritten script. So it's clearly there has been some changes made in the script that they forgot to undo earlier in the movie. Yeah. Yes. Anyway, they Lord of the Dance comes over and he asked Eric Roberts fiance to dance doesn't even look at Eric Roberts. And it is weirdly intimate, like it looks like they're about to kiss many times. Oh, it looks like he's about to kiss her many times.

And she's going to land. Yeah, and they don't even film Eric Roberts's reaction. like they're doing the spinning around cinematography shit and Eric you think oh this evil arms do is gonna be pissed this guy's like about to fuck his wife in front of everybody but he doesn't even care I wrote this down she goes aren't you gonna say something and he goes I just did yeah which is fucking a mountain of stupidity. Like what the fuck does that mean, Michael Flatley? Like in his head, it might have been cool, but like he, oh, I guess rubbed his boner

on her. He's like, oh yeah, that's all I need to say, sweetheart. He did give her a light headbutt during that. He had a little headbutt. Yes. What is that? It felt like, oh, you remember Wesley Willis? Yeah, of course.

Maybe it's just that similar showing of affection through- Michael Flatley loves stabbing Westward is what you're saying? It's how you kiss a dog. It's how you really share an intimate moment with a dog. Well, that's the most intimacy he shows in the movie. He thinks he's dripping with sex and he's just so sexless and weird. And I was thinking about the script, like you were saying, this is going to sound like a joke, but he dances around the actual concepts and ideas of things that could flesh the story out.

He's always like, they say, move on. And he and he goes I can't and that's as far as anything goes What can you do? You know the reason and you're like is anyone even talking to each other? You might have found the metaphor for the movie you might maybe this is a really deep metaphor for the dance The dance is is just the notion of story. I just wrote haha fucking lame. Again, I think we're all just writing heckles for the movie. So they give they finally give like a full report to Eric about Eric Roberts to the Lord of the Dance. And they're like, he is a part of a secret society of war

criminals. And then someone like in response to that, yes, they all have their own special war criminal pinky ring. And then someone like in response to that, yes, they all have their own special war criminal pinky ring. And then somebody says like, oh, this must mean he has the formula. And that, I swear to God, came out of nowhere. Like one guy's like, well, if he's a secret war criminal, he must have the formula. And somebody else is like, yeah, dude, the secret formula that repairs the immune system, a world without pain or disease, or, if you don't put all the components together, the opposite, a gene targeted bioweapon. I was thinking about how insane this is. And the only, I think I realized later why they had to do that. Because at some point he comes into possession, Michael Flatley comes into possession of this SD card or whatever with the formula on it. At that point, you're just like, just fucking destroy it, dude.

Exactly. Just throw it away. But he can't because the thing also could be used to make everyone immortal, I guess. Right. It is an amazing Mission Impossible MacGuffin introduced here. It's the most MacGuffin-esque MacGuffin. Yeah, 40 minutes in. It's like no plot at all.

And then suddenly, holy shit. Literally the fate of the world. The world is at stake. Yeah. Which is a great time for him to walk around on the beach shoeless with high music playing over it. I was like, what is happening here? Music does not deserve.

Oh, this is happening here? Just music does not deserve. Oh, this is ridiculous. So then we cut to Eric Roberts having dinner with his wife. And again, when I say cut to like, this happens in the middle of their conversation, and then it goes back to their conversation because I think the editor was pissed at Michael Flatley and left.

So he had to edit this movie himself. He's like yelling at her. He's a total monster. And she's not really that surprised by that. She's not like, oh my God, you're acting very strangely. She's just like leaves, like she does this every meal. And so it's like, this is your guy. You didn't know this guy was the bad guy. Lord of the Dance refuses the hero's call to maybe possibly fuck up an evil guy's vacation because he might possibly be there to do a super evil scheme. They do not know he's

there for the formula yet. They just assume he is because he's an arms dealer. Yeah, that's a good point. This is just a wild guess they had at this point. Wild guess. So that's it. The movie's over, right? He says, I don't care. He can stay in my hotel. They could also just call Interpol or whatever agency they were a part of and be like, yeah, Eric Roberts is here. Yeah, literally let the cops know, whatever. The whole fate of the world rests on whether Lord of the Dance feels like beating up a guy staying at his resort. The sexiest moment of the movie when the singer comes to his room and just gets naked. But in a weird way, she turns away from the camera in just underpants and does a pose.

You get a little side boob. Side boob. Yeah, that's true. They're like Anglin for PG-13, maybe. Like you could feel very specifically, here's what we're allowed to do. How do we get there? How about she just walks in and stands exactly like that? Oh, that's good.

So he puts her clothes back on. All this guy does is refuse the call to action. He's just like, wordlessly, he's just like, let me put your robe back on. Goodbye. At this point, I was screaming, I did just like, let me put your robe back on, goodbye. At this point I was like screaming, like I did not wanna see Michael Flatley in a sex scene, but also like that would have been

at least a thing that happened. Yes, I wanted him to put the robe on. I wanted him to pick up her robe and put it on. Like that would have been like, whoa, where'd that come from? I would have loved it if they cut to her POV and it's just his head very still, but everything else is moving so fast.

Like he's he's just like fucking her around the room on his tippy toes. Like that's what I wanted. We all wanted entertainment. That's not what he's looking to make a sequel. I did write down what happens at the end. She he kicks her out. She's like, I don't understand. And he goes, I and then they headbutt goodbye. That's fucking what happened. I know you don't

believe me. And you'll never know because no one will ever watch this movie. Don't watch this movie. No one will ever get this part of the movie. If you're at home like, oh, I'm going to watch that silly movie. No, you quit long before that. So now we get to a flashback. His wife from earlier is on fire in the flashback. They're slowly revealing some horrible fact about what happened when some bad guys lit his wife on fire. And like I was saying, I don't want to brag, but I figured out what it was right here.

I was like, oh, he shot his wife while she was burning alive. So she didn't suffer while she died. Instead of trying to put her out, he didn't even make the effort. It's obvious. I think it had already happened on Game of Thrones, and probably several other things. He wakes up, just moves some liquor boxes around. He's having a fight with his old friend who's still like, dude, we should really save the world. And he's like, no, I do not want to save the world. I love this scene too. As they're walking and fighting, he takes one of his stupid

fucking hats off and walks past a woman holding a different stupid hat that she then trades him. I could not believe this. He like, there's a lady on his staff who's just there to give him his cranky hat. She's like, sir, let me, you seem very grumpy here. Let me trade you out for your grumpy jaunty hat. Amazing. Why would you put this me, you seem very grumpy here. Let me trade you out for your grumpy jaunty hat. Amazing. Why would you put this in a movie? It was one of the funniest details in the film. It's, why? Bring me my shitty baby hat. I'm going for a drive.

I don't know. If I meet Michael Flatley, I will not leave until I get an answer to this. Why was there someone A, in the story and B, on the movie set to just trade the hats with you? Maybe that was supposed to be not in the scene. That's true. Like he's supposed to be just, wardrobe is just standing there and he was like, I don't know, I'm leaving it in. Yeah, this was just like a rehearsal take and turned out so good.

He was so happy with it. It's like Japanese puppetry. The audience must ignore ignore. Eric Roberts, his fiance just gets in Lord of Dance's car and they cruise off. Eric Roberts is out on a boat with his hacker and his hacker is like, I can't hack the bank. I only have two minutes to hack the bank. I was so confused by this scene. Why did they take a boat like a half a mile offshore to do their banking? That's a really good question.

This guy was super distressed about it. Like the banker guy on the laptop wasn't having a good time. Yes. And Eric Roberts decides he's not hacking well enough, so he puts some pressure on him. He's like, if you don't hack well, I'm going to kill you. Or like, you won't be happy. He's like, just fucking it's so weird. It's not as good as in Swordfish when they gave Hugh Jackman a distraction blow job, but it's as weird as that. But that's literally what I thought about. I was like, this feels so inspired by that scene from

Swordfish. Yep. And it probably was. Michael Flatley is not like a creative man. No, no. They throw the hacker in the ocean. I'm not even sure why. I was like, okay, sure. There was something about like, he didn't have any money in one of his accounts, but he did the other. And Eric Roberts got pissed. And then his yeah, again, like this whole scene to me was so confusing. I didn't know why anyone was mad. This is the first thing I liked in the movie was some guy on the boat. We don't know who he is. He goes, Hey, you can't throw people off the boat. He goes, hey, you can't throw people off the boat. And he doesn't even finish that sentence before his henchman just fucking blasts him unconscious with a punch, throws him into the water. He just cracks his neck like one of the most horrific.

Like that guy was just having a normal day and then he's dead. And then he's just like he's just asking a very reasonable thing of somebody. And then he- It's absolutely- I think it's the only death on screen, like aside from his burning wife. He's just like, he's just asking a very reasonable thing of somebody. Yep. And then he... Absolutely. I think it's the only death on screen, like aside from his burning life, but like... Right. Well, somebody gets punched to death.

Everything else happens somewhere else. Oh, that's true. We're getting to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to... Yeah. You're right. Yeah.

Not stopped. You wouldn't want to skip any of these details. I think my notes say several times, you're not going to fucking like mention all this shit on the show, are you? But then if we don't, like, say we met up to be on the podcast and I said, hey guys, let's just talk about the thing that happened in the movie. That would be four seconds, four seconds of podcast. Yeah, you got to build up to it.

This is what, again, if you're going to skip one episode. Yeah. You're not still listening. I'm sure you made the right choice. People who aren't listening. So Lord of the Dance and and the fiance are walking on the beach. He's got like his jaunty hat, the whole new jaunty hat. He's rolled up his pants in his shirt.

Oh, and he's got serious fucking camel toe. I don't know if you noticed this, but he had like like you could definitely tell where like each of his balls were. I wrote, he looks like a nutcracker prostitute. I'm just, I'm just reading what my notes say. I don't know what it means, but I do. Yeah. But I think it might have been the camel toe where I'm like, that looks like the hinge where you would crack a walnut or something. Like, what I just, it's such a strange little thing that he is.

She asks him to fall in love with her, but again, he will not answer the call. His face, he pauses after she's like, don't you love me too? His face becomes that like, have you seen that meme of that kid sitting at his desk where like his face is very strained and like the veins are standing out. Oh, yeah. He looks exactly like that guy. Yeah, I don't understand what like what the emotion is he's trying to convey other than like, trying not to shit myself in front of this beautiful woman. He's already dog kissed two people and he's like, I can't do three dog kisses in a day. That's my limit.

His emotional quota exceeded. Yeah. Oh, so back at the resort, the spy partner tells the fiance that her husband to be is a bad man and she just refuses to accept it. He's like, no, he's, he's a bad guy. I don't think he says he's an arms dealer, but she's like really mad at him. And then the Lord of the dance kicks him out. He's like, Oh, how dare you tell that lady that her husband is an arms dealer. Also, everyone needs to remember

that everyone's background is very hypothetical. We don't really know he's an arms dealer. We don't know these people are spies yet. She goes up to the room. She's like, oh, is my husband bad? And she opens his briefcase easily because she's a spy and pulls out the formula for the destruction of the world. And she's like, oh, so he was an evil, evil bad guy. Which is just what looks like maybe like a yen, like the coin in like a little plastic case that doesn't quite fit in. And somehow she knows this must be bad. It's precisely the proprietary media that was in that Mission Impossible movie, where they put the nail polish on for the dot. It was like that.

I feel like that's how he described it too. He was like, you guys are seeing Mission Impossible, right? Yeah. Do a thing like that. All we got is these 11 Spider-Man UMDs for the Sony PSP. That's fine. That's perfect. Just throw it in. No one will know. Also, get me my cranky hat. So, she runs out, the fiance, and she finds Madeline, the lounge singer, and they get to act against each other. And this is so beautiful. These women with no other acting roles in their career, trying to get an idea across. She's like, hey, where is my husband? She's like, I must prepare for my show. Okay, well then where's the Lord of the Dance?

I do not know. Perhaps he is in his secret spy study. You know, it's astounding. I took a clip. I'm not gonna let you listen to it. Um. It did sound like we were struggling through like six different language barriers

that didn't actually exist. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it's so weird. And none of the lines are linked. It's like the game where you put the word on your forehead and you can say everything but that word. That's like what the script is.

Yes. They're playing $25,000 pyramid the whole movie. So then she runs off, she finds Michael Flatley instantly. They kiss, but the lounge singer had followed up, she sees the kiss and she's actually jealous because she's in love with Michael Flatley. So she tells Eric Roberts, hey, your fiance is kissing the Lord of the Dance. It takes him one second to realize, oh, they're spy agency buddies. Lord of the Dance is a secret super spy for back in the day.

This was the thing that pissed me off so bad is in a scene coming up, he lays out everything he knows about Michael Flatley, and I don't know how he knows it. It doesn't make any sense. There's one thing I did want to say, because when the Lounge Singer finds Eric Roberts, she says, where is your fiance? He says, does that really matter right now? And then he pokes it between the titties. I just wrote, haha, the super spy didn't know this guy sucked

after dating him for five years. Like literally, a random woman he's never seen before says, hey, hold on a second, I got something to say to you. And he grabs her titties. The first opportunity to be a sleazebag and he hits the fucking NOS button on it. Like just. Yeah.

Amazing. At this point, the script has fallen apart. hits the fucking NOS button on it. Amazing. At this point, the script has fallen apart. Like this seems less written than the beginning. None of the lines are linked. Like he's like, Hey, wife, do you think I'm a bad guy? And she goes, you lied to me. Oh, yeah, you're turning war into profit. Like she's mad at him for the concept of being a war profiteer. I guess she thought he was a fucking UMD collector. I don't know what she thought this guy did for a living. He says literally, I wrote this down because it was so stupid. He says, do you think I am a bad man? Or do you think that I am just?

I did take a clip of that. I wrote it down and then I was like, I'm never going to be able to make sense of this. Because it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie and no one will believe me. I think we just discovered what's on that drive. It's all the clips you took from this film. Yes. The most cursed artifact in the entire world. You're going to have to set your computer on fire after this. Yes.

Eric Roberts meets with the torture guy from earlier who wants to buy the super secret poison or the greatest medicine that ever will be depending on how you mix it. And the guy didn't have the money. But that's okay, because Eric Roberts didn't have the formula. We now have several points of conflict and we are 59 minutes into our move. Was so 59 minutes indoor moves. So, great job. Was he buying time? Did he know at that point he had lost the formula? I guess so, right? I was confused about this too, if he was being just difficult or intentionally blowing this guy off.

Oh, wait. Is this the same scene where he's like, errand boy? Yes. Like where he's just mocking some dude because I was like, what? What's the... For no reason. Yeah, you are an errand boy. It's like, I'm fucking having a meeting with you, man.

I do have a boss. Is that what the insult is? Yeah, I think it is. I don't know, man. So Lord of the Dance and Eric Roberts meet and Eric Roberts is like, hey, give me my secret formula back. And they have like this pitter patter. They think they're in this fucking Maltese Falcon movie, but it is again, I took a clip, but I'm

not gonna play it. It is like, do you like to gamble and Lord of this like that depends, I guess, like, like the quips are not they don't have any like weight to them. Yeah, it's inane and floundering. Yes, they have a card game. And Eric Roberts like picks him apart. He's like, look at you. I can already read you. You're clean. You're tidy, but also you're polished and very neat. And you're like, all right. Very handsome. Your dick is probably humongous. But I don't know if Eric Roberts got this from the way he holds cards, but yeah, like Mark mentioned,

he now knows that not only he was a super spy, he like knows his name. He knows that he had to shoot his wife while she was on fire, which feels like something he did not talk about with a lot of people. Yeah, I feel like that's a thing he played fairly close to his chest, including with us the audience. Thank God. Yeah. There was one witness to this and she died real hard. Yeah, there was one witness to this and she died real hard. Lord of the, I did write down the line, Lord of the Dance goes, your duplicity knows no bounds. It's like, it's like talking like a He-Man cartoon, Adam. I wrote down another exchange. It was, I think, Roberts goes, I believe you have something of mine, and Flatley says, perhaps I do, but was it ever yours to begin with?

And Roberts goes, good question. The question of life. Yes. I wrote, oh my god, this card game, what a meeting of the mids. Damn, heckling. Just fucking, just roasting. This focuses on the positive side of films. So when I see something like this and I get to be in the dog zone, that's just what happens, I guess.

You're right to say it. It is so aggressively mediocre. Every line is so stupid and barely linked to the last one. You can tell what he was going for. He's seen a James Bond movie. He knows what this should look like and feel like, and he never got anything right. Yeah, it's supposed to be like,

like this weird moment of calm, right? Before the violence breaks out, where they're just gonna settle these things over a game of cards, and it's gonna be like, oh, like yeah, cool, and trading barbs, and instead he says things like, I wonder what you love more, women, money or playing God? I wrote that one down too.

What does that mean? You know, like in a regular screenplay, this is like the kind of scene where they've captured the bad guy. And this is how like they're allowed to have a conversation with the good guy. And here it's like, oh, get him in a card game. That'll work. How are we gonna do that? Well, how about the bad guy asked the good guy to have a conversation with a good guy. And here it's like, Oh, get him in a card game. That'll work.

How are we going to do that? Well, how about the bad guy asked the good guy to have a card game. And he says, no, but then he says, come on, do it. And then he does. Yeah, no, that's good. That's really good. They have, they do three hands and like, they're not eventful. It's like, Oh, I fold. And then he lost a hand. And then the third hand, he just wins. With like a straight flush, which is like, wow, cool. Like you got a, it's pretty rare hand. Very good hand.

Yeah. Lucky? But it wasn't a royal flush. Just kind of a, just a good hand. Which is, that's a good point. It's like he had a pretty good hand, but he didn't have like a spectacular hand. Yeah, or a notable hand. Just, it's not an interesting hand. The thing about cards is there's all kinds

of symbolism. You can tie these things back to something in the script. Any child could write a better scene than this. This is just like, what if one guy wanted cards? Okay, cool. I'll give him a better hand than the other guy. You don't want to have some meaning or no, no, no, no, don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Also, it's Texas Hold'em, which feels like the douchiest game of poker you can play. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. How do you do Beckerat? Then we don't have to fucking sit there for 40 minutes of hands and we associate it with James Bond, so we're like, okay, it's fancy. Stupid. What a showdown.

Their friend, while they're doing this, was snooping around at Eric Roberts room. It does not go well. He is shot dead. And then when they find his body, there's like two other little discs on him. What the fuck is this? Like, did they just stumble into two different movies? Did you guys know what is going on with that? He asked him at some point to duplicate the coin, which I don't know why. OK. And I think with the idea that the duplicate doesn't work by whatever definition of like work, it applies to a UMD disk or whatever. OK. I thought Michael Flatley just had such just like no clue that he was like, OK, so let me get this straight. This disc contains something that could end the world. Flatly just had such just like no clue that he was like, okay, so let me get this straight. This disc contains something that could end the world.

Let's make two of them. Everyone's like what? I really did pause and like stop and think like why wouldn't he just destroy it? Like it seems so obviously the thing to do and that's when I realized like oh fuck because the flip side of it is none of us ever feel pain ever again. I guess it is a weird thing ever feel pain ever again, I guess. It is a weird thing for an arms dealer to have.

Like, also, like, it's a weird thing to do evil with. Like, if you had a magic thing that could cure the world, I feel like that you could probably make some money with that, you know? Certainly something that can just, like, senselessly kill people by being put in the water supply is like a scary thing in the hands of like an arms dealer or a terrorist or whatever but like... I also don't think you need Eric Roberts for that. I think you can like, you can just do that with some like a handful of feces in the right spot. A small nuclear device which seems cooler. I don't know.

Yeah, sure. So the lounge singer now comes in to apologize because she might have ended the world by tattling on their kiss to Eric Roberts because that's how he found the formula was missing, blah blah blah. They're like, no, don't worry about it. Don't worry. You did great. You did great. Somehow they already knew she had done it. He was like, I know, I know. It's fine. Yeah, don't worry about it. The world might end because of you. You fucking ding bet. But while they're doing that, the super guard comes in like the henchman who's like so tough that he killed that guy in the boat and this is I think Rob Liefeld writes better stories than this

like this guy comes in to arrive for his like mini boss fistfight in a world with guns and he's like I'm here for murder I was excited because I was like somebody's gonna get punched finally like something's gonna happen in this. Finally, yes. Now, you're probably thinking he's gonna use like his his quickness, and he kind of does. He like slips a punch. Lord of the Dance, he takes a shot and walks over so bad.

He's a it's a cowboy movie now. And he like ducks a punch and then he like hits him with some like cardio kickboxing like like he's just he's he like hits him with some like cardio kickboxing. Like, like he's just he's doing like some real Billy blanks combo you learn. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's adorable. And then he hits him with like a real clumsy hook and then beats him to death. They try to pull him off, but it's too late. The fucking giant guys did. He is like Lord of the Dancers punches.

They're simply too devastating. Simply too devastating. Again, no one can do it like this guy. Yeah, he wouldn't commit to anything. And then suddenly he just murders somebody and cold with his fist. In his own bar. Yeah, and you think, oh, now he's gonna come out of it.

And he's like, I'm gonna go get drunk on the beach. And you're like, wait, you're still not, what is this? What does this mean? Didn't we miss this 10 minute fucking cul-de-sac where you watch him just drinking out of a bottle on the beach and he passes out and he wakes up. We've learned nothing. Nothing at all. Nope. Yeah, because he does remember his dead wife. He remembers the butt of the lounge singer during the herd nude scene.

He remembers the guy he punched to death a couple minutes. It's just the whole movie flashes back. There's. Yeah, I forgot about that. I liked that when he woke up his white dinner jacket wasn't even dirty. He passed out drunk on the beach and it's immaculate. That's how tidy this man is. He goes straight to the church, confesses his sins, and he says, of course, I'm about to sin again. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, and I'm about to sin again. Forgive me Father for I have sinned and I'm about to sin again. I wrote, holy shit, lol. I just wrote third scene. I wrote that would have been a good time to leave,

but he didn't. That's your exit line, Michael Flatley. No, not at all. These guys might've died on camera. They show a scene where he's like in the jungle. He's like shooting a bunch of guys while they burn his wife alive. And somebody gets a shot on him, he falls down and he goes, I wrote, again, I took a

clip of it. I'm not going to play it for anybody. And then he shoots his wife dead. And then the priest talks to him like his pal, like his drinking buddy. He goes, come on, man, God forgives you. You got to forgive yourself and move on with your life. It's a weird thing to say to someone who just confessed to shooting his wife in the face while she burned alive. Yeah, it was really without any kind of like sympathy or like understanding.

It was just like a plaintive, hey man, don't worry, God understands. Yeah, or shock. It's like, dude, this is some shit you hear about in bad movies. Like, no, like, he didn't even ask, could you not have reached her with a blanket or something before you just shot her? He had no clarification. He didn't even try like she might have been fine. Like maybe some burn scar, sure, but like, she could have survived this.

Nah, he couldn't have loved her after that. He'd be like, come on, her hair'd be uneven and shit. He's a tidy man. That's true. Wait, he could cover it with a jaunty hat. Maybe their love could have been stronger than ever. He made a terrible mistake. Yeah, but that Freddy Krueger forehead would be so weird for dog kisses. So, you know, he just can't.

That's true. He pulls back a little piece of skin, comes with it. No, he made the right call. You're right. He made the right call. So the lounge singer runs in with the stakes of the movie. Eric Roberts is going to kill his own fiance if they don't give him the formula to end the world. She literally like runs in and just info dumps on him in a way where it's like, how do you know any of this?

Yeah, adorable. So they go to like a boat graveyard to like have some sort of final showdown. This is I have no notes on this. I do think that if you're looking for a final showdown, you see this boat graveyard, you're like, guys, I found the spot. I found the perfect spot. The cool like drone shot like from the ocean down. Like it's really, again, well shot film.

Yep. Undeservedly so. Yeah, it's just unfortunate what it's. Yeah. Lord of the Dance struts up, just hung over his shit, unarmed. No plan. No plan. The fiance is so happy.

She's like, oh, he's here. You're all going to get beat up. But like, they all have guns out. At any moment, they could just execute this man. They should have just killed him, but multiple times. Right. Again, you're not going to believe me when you hear this. What they do is they they come over near him and Eric Roberts like, okay, guys, go take him somewhere to get the to get the formula. And so they take him around the corner.

Sure. It's off camera. Yes. For about 15 seconds. We hear a bunch of off screenscreen karate and then some gunshots. I can imagine the Batman like, biff, pow. Yes. Yeah. I think it was just Michael Flatley on a microphone, karate, and then he does the sweetest move, kapow.

It literally is just seconds. And then he comes back on screen and you're like, wait, all that happened? Yeah, he just killed like three dudes. To anyone who's ever seen a movie, you're like, well, yeah, duh. But to everyone in the scene, like I think Eric Roberts, I think maybe seven or eight of the guys go, my God, like they just can't believe that the super spy won an off screen karate fight. It's so embarrassing.

I love it. So much. My notes just say, haha, just so fucking stupid. I'm not even writing jokes at this point. I'm just fucking astonished. Same. I just wrote off-screen fight climax. Ugh. Yes.

So, Michael Flatley says, let her go. And Eric Roberts goes, what? He goes, yeah, let her go. So, he does. Which the literal only leverage they had. Yeah. You don't have to believe us, but that's what they do. That's what the movie does. So then she leaves so they can have a final showdown without her. He came alone, but his friend comes out and he says, hey, I'm here to help. Again, at any point, they could just shoot these men, but I guess they want to

settle it with a fistfight. Lord of the Nets gives the formula to the bad guy leaves the Middle Eastern guys like this is fucked. You guys settle this yourselves. I don't want to die in a gunfight. And Michael Flatley is like, I'm a man of my word. Here's the formula to kill the world. Which also like didn't need to do that that even though obviously it's the fake one. But like also he could have just killed that guy too. Like he seems like a bad guy just let run around the world with intentions of murdering entire villages full of people.

But hey, whatever. Yeah, whatever. Let's let that guy go. They trade some lines. They were too stupid and incoherent. Didn't even clip them. Didn't write them in my notes. This is this movie. It's like a dying idiot trying to remember a 70 year old movie.

This is I think like the most powerful statement you could make about this film is that in a podcast where it's like you're renowned for playing audio clips from the movies you're talking about, you won't even do it that you will not give it that dignity. I was thinking maybe I could cut out some of these like pregnant pauses and like type, but I'm like, no, that doesn't seem very like fair or true. You can drive a fucking semi-trap. And so then what I'm playing like these pauses. I'm playing a five minute clip of just boring line,

two boring lines spread across five minutes. Fuck. Does somebody say shall we dance here? Yeah, yeah, that's what Flatly says. He pulls out two guns. Right. And they Oh, god, the scene it's like, bang, bang, bang, bang. And they're like, it pulls out to the drone shot this aerial shot of them. It's just all these grown men pretending to die with toy guns. Like they're standing in a circle, like eight

feet away from each other. Yep, it is so embarrassing. Nobody nobody should have survived this. Everybody should have died. No. Yeah, this is a Butch Cassidy Sundance Kid ending like this is a blaze of glory. Everyone's dead. But no, they fade to the fade to the resorts and the spy partner guy he has a girlfriend, I would say 60 years younger than him, his arms in a sling. It's like that's what the Fallout is. This guy got an owie. They show the arms dealers with the wrong formula, like all sitting around a laptop in some like fucking cave.

They're like, nope, nope, not the right formula. Like, oh, tied up that loose end. This was supposed to be, that was going to be Blackbird 2. Like I know in my heart that was, oh, yeah, that in there so that you can make a sequel. I wish that they just showed the screen of the laptop and it was just Riverdance 3D. No, this is even worse. They all their faces just melt off like they looked at the art. So they talk about the world may never know these great heroes like some spy lady gives the disk to some super spy guy. He's like, the world may never know what what our great heroism has done, but we must do it all the same.

So like, oh, Lord of the Dance is dead. I have all the details and I like, oh, Lord of the Dance is dead. I have all the details and I still don't know what happened. There was a part in the movie where Michael Flatley says that he has to put his foot down and I like almost jumped off the couch because I was like, he's gonna dance. Finally a musical number.

He's gonna dance. Yeah, of course he doesn't, but I was like- It's so fucking stupid. Like try to imagine this as like an 80s show where his ability is dancing and they have to like write that into each crime that he solves. Yeah. So it's like. Incredible.

So it's like, oh, this secret door only opens with the proper drum beat, but we don't have a drum set. And Michael Flatley like puts on his tap shoes. You do now. Chk, chk, chk, chk, chk. It's working. It's working, Lord of the Dance. Like that's a fucking show.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll watch that. Yeah, 100%. It ends with him at a grave in a jaunty hat, only now it's sunny. His new girlfriend is there, the one he fell in love with at work while he was married to the dead lady that he shot. When I say it out loud, it sounds kind of fucked up. It sounds a little fucked up. The grave is also on his property. Yes. Yeah. That's kind of weird. And that's weird. That's going to make their new marriage weird.

And there was like four graves. I was like, how many wives has this guy shot? That was Blackbird three, four, and six, you find out. I try to give creators artists credit for intentionality. In a way, this is a good scene because the movie started with him at her funeral in the rain and now he's at her grave in the sunshine. Sort of a poetic callback and the thing that's changed is now he's like a hopeful outlook on the future. I don't know if I should give him credit for that, but if he intended that-

Could have been a happy accident. That implies he knows what art is and that makes the whole movie 50 times worse to me. Oh, god. That's true. I don't know if that's better or worse if he had that kind of foresight to include that kind of symbolism in the film. Yeah. I have a horrible fact about the credits, the music over the credits. They were sung by Sinead O'Connor, which just makes me sad. I just feel like what a waste of talent towards the end of her life. She's Irish.

Yeah. She's Irish. Right. Sure. He could have just bought that, right? She might not have known. When did she die? So this was, what, probably made in like 2017. So this would have been like five, six years before she died, I guess.

Oh, okay. Dang. What if this is the last thing she ever did? Michael Flatley calls her, he's like, oh, I need a fucking theme song from a fucking movie. And she's like, I'll fucking be right there, Lord of that fucking dance. Say, Frankfurt Podcast? Correct! Yeah! The power is not bad, it's not without! Send it to the dog zone for an hour! Come on, you know the number!

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