The Flop House - Ep. #292 - Welcome to Marwen

Episode Date: August 31, 2019

Hoo boy, this was a tough one folks. How to navigate the Hollywoodization of a real-life trauma with a dash of weird gender politics? Answer -- less funny than usual, as we discuss Welcome to Marwen. Meanwhile, Elliott completely misunderstands the etymology of "painstaking," Dan details the many tones of Marwen, and Stuart bestows Dan with his Looney Tunes identity. Wikipedia summary for Welcome to Marwen Movies recommended in this episode: Burning The Head Hunter Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark LIVE SHOW DATES 2019! September 28 – BOSTON – WBUR CitySpace (early show SOLD OUT, but there are still tickets to the later show!) October 12 – LOS ANGELES – The Regent Theater

On this episode we discuss, welcome to Marwin! What happens when you take the genuinely fascinating true story of a man dealing with trauma through the arts, and forest-gumpify it by about 400%. Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. Oh hey there Dan, It's me Stuart Wellington. Elliot Kalen over here in sunny Los Angeles. Hey guys let me just get in. If you can hear that sound that's the waves on the beach because I'm over in Santa Monica at the famous pier. Oh man. Have have an iced cream on me. How on you are you gonna Venmo me the the couple dollars for it or? Yeah I mean I didn't think we had to get into the nitty gritty details. I just wonder how

it's gonna be on you when we're like so far away from each other. I mean it's it's a crazy world we live in now Ali. I'm not gonna put in a fucking FedEx box of mail it to you. Yeah can you FedEx me some ice cream? Uh huh, let me just push normal aside and stuff the ice cream in there. Now when you get it, it's a dressed up a dovey. Don't say I want somebody in Abu Dhabi is going to be like ice cream. Where's my cat that I ordered? Guys, what does it say that I have to stop and think about how I start the show every time it happens? I don't know. I mean, and it's weird how like a little trickle blood comes out of your nostril. Yeah, like a scanner who's working really hard to blow up ahead.

Yeah, it's like after a while like stick some clean up in there. First dude, don't get it all over your beard hairs. So we're a bad movie podcast, but you know what? I'm gonna pose a question guys. What if instead of talking about the movie we Didn't No, very pleasant. No, we know we know our curse our curse to talk about movies that we've also chosen to talk about I mean couldn't we can we just change the name of the podcast to like the housemates or the flop buddies?

Yeah. Yeah, we, I won't talk about the movies that we like discussed talking about instead of this one, but like we were going through like a list and then Elliott said, oh shit, welcome to Marwen is available streaming and I like Like side and like we really should do that one Yeah, let's not have fun this time. Yeah, so but Dan you thought you said hey, hey, you know what?

Let me take on my shoulders the burden of summarizing welcome to Marwen I don't think I said that and I And I see, I see as the notes he's taking, he's actually typed them up in print of them out. Oh, wow, that, I mean, that's like 300 pages right there, Dan. Yeah, and you've laminated them too. I mean, that's amazing, just for archival purposes, I suppose. Now, Dan, I'm pleased to-

To explain the joke for the listeners, the thing is, my notes are usually non-existent and certainly less extensive than either special. Are they saved in meme form in the photo album on your phones right? I mean, that would be a lot of work if I painstakingly created memes. I don't know, I think painstaking and memes don't really go together. You're like, I need to have a fourth font in this meme or it won't work.

Now, I've never thought of the word painstaking, but do you think it was because craftsmen in medieval or ancient times had to do a great job and the stakes were that they would be given pain if they didn't? Is that you think that's where painstaking comes from? Uh-huh. Or if you fucked up, somebody hits you in the chest with a stake in your in pain. I think you're misapprehending the two words that are put together, which are pains and taking.

I believe it's pain and staking. Or what if it's like the pain of eating too big of a stake? And it fills your tummy up too much? Oh, I've been there. I've been there. Not too many times. Usually my tummy can handle it, but I've been there before. Now, Dan, I know with welcome tomorrow when you said,

and I remember this very clearly. In fact, I wrote it down, and I'll just read it. Quote, quote. You said, I feel most comfortable handling with extreme sensitivity, the delicate task of criticizing the film without criticizing those with trauma or mental issues that the movie is attempting to portray. And I think that it really sets a high bar for yourself to achieve that level of eloquence and again sensitivity to people who are dealing with it,

but you seem really confident that you can do it. So take it away. Oh God, yeah, there are a lot of minefields in this movie and I think that the movie Creates the movie doesn't actually feature any minefields. No, that's true Just a lot of gunfire a lot of gunfire We should as a forewarning that was a joke way of forewarning that uh Everything we say about this movie is meant to be just about the movie and we hope we don't say anything that is hurtful or or Can be taken in a way we're not intending it to about. Yeah, I do.

So who's struggling with PTSD? Well, and also, I genuinely kind of don't know how to refer to the main character, because he has... His name is Mark. No, I know, but I refer to his medical problems because he has also mental issues as a result of being beaten. His memories have, as he says, been kicked out of his head, and he also seems to be kind

of foggy and day-to-day life. He has to write himself notes to remember to do various things. But that's probably also tied to the medication. That may be true, but I apologize in advance if I am not adequately sensitive in like however I come down unreferring to like his issues. You're like, I apologize, but I'm not sensitive. Anyway, this nut ball, damn, no, come on. This loony goony bird, damn, come on. Yeah, I mean, we've been like been like you know doing the occasional content warnings this you know like this deals with like a hate crime it deals with like severe trauma so just you know be

aware and and and I'm gonna be I'm gonna I'm gonna try to articulate why the movie genuinely upset me in its handling of somebody dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder based on it in the wake of a violent attack. And also how, well, we'll talk about it, but like, I was so intrigued by this movie that I saw the documentary that it's based on, Marwin Call, because I was like, as with the Dark Tower, where I was like, I've never read it, but this movie is so boring, I wonder what was in the book that made someone want to make a movie of it and wreck it this way. With this movie, I was like, what is it about this original story that made them want

to tell it in such a strange, disjointed way? And spoiler alert, the documentary is better. But Dan, explain the background for us. What answers did you find on your vision quest? Yeah. Well, what I found, which I'll get into, hopefully, is like the guy this movie is based on, because it's based on true story, is a much more complicated and interesting character

who was dealing with major issues even before the attack that left him with PTSD and trauma and everything. And so it's like, they really like Teddy buried him up for the movie in a way that made me unhappy. But anyway, I keep talking I think we're talking around it about the next one. It's kind of interesting, because I was also inspired to,

this movie inspired me to look up special effects pictures from the movie Small Soldiers, which is also a movie that features all sorts of toys getting into troubles. So we all reacted with this, to this with digging in in different ways. Yeah, I will say that I saw Marvin call A while back closer to when I was released so like I have an inkling of the real story

No, I'll know I'm just saying I'll have to rely on you Elliott A bit more for you've seen it you've fresher in your mind. Yeah, you're on the the Marwan call tip before Bobby Z even That's Robert's mechus. Okay, so yeah, Robert's before we get into it, let me just say we've been putting this off for a long time. Robert's mechus up until Bay Wolf is Dan's favorite. Up until Forest Cump, which I don't care for, was one of my favorite directors.

And since then, other than Castaway, which I liked, he has been churning out the most unadulterated craft and I don't know what happened to him. Wow. That's a harsh way to describe it. Well, he, like, I mean, like the thing about Roberts and Michael's that I liked, like, I liked about his early work is it was funny and light but it had like this mean streak to it

underneath the surface and after Forrest Cump, I feel like he was like, okay okay what people want for me is sap. I say he just continues to layer that on. I mean outside of the, outside of the, the back the future movies, can you give me an example of this dark side? Of course back the future being movies where a guy has to keep trying not to have sex with his mom. I mean, like use cars one of those first movies, very cynical film, death becomesers like this, like gory is like satire like about, you know, aging and Hollywood. And who framed Roger Rabbit is a pretty dark movie

for a movie about cartoons, like it is about a murder. And you see a cartoon shoe killed on screen horrifically in a scene that I remember when when peets when peets people for the ethical treatment of shoes saw that scene and they were really unhappy about it. And so mechus was one of the producers of the Tales from the Crypt series and he produced the frightener. I mean like you know I do a bunch of those episodes.

Yeah. So he has that in him but it seems to have all gone away. I don't know maybe it's just because he's older and more sensitive. Who knows? But anyway, but he's someone who he still has like the technical his technical skills are still really high like Flight which was a movie I did not like the plane crash scene is that in that we're almost crashing and that is amazing and like even in even in each of the even in his bad movies he he still has this real technical skill, which is why in this movie, I was amazed at how unpleasant the action sequences were. Yeah.

Partly because they were being acted out by CGI dolls with real human faces on them, but Dan, you explain. You explain. Let's finally get into this. Okay, the movie opens on our action figure star, the alter you of the main character, Katyn Hogi in an airplane, and if you didn't know what this movie was about, seeing it at the beginning, you'd be like, why does Steve Carell look so smooth?

What's going on? But he looks so smooth because this is... He's been listening to a lot of Rob Thomas lately. Yeah, yeah. This is the action figure version. This is a fantasy sequence. He's in a World War II airplane. He's piloting.

He's hit by enemy fire and he has to get out of the plane. He parachutes out. Yeah. And this sequence kind of teases out that it's that he's an action figure, I think. Like at first you're just like, oh, he looks weird. And then it isn't until he like burn his feet. Oh yeah, he doesn't pay for that. Yeah, he burns his feet on the wings, sorry about that.

He's not just shoes. And then like he puts the fire out and he has to, he burns his boots up or shoes up in the process and you realize that his feet are like weird doll feet. He has toy feet. Ah. I've got to the doctor for toy feet before. Oh, okay. It's horrifying.

Your toes fuse together and get little holes in the bottom of your heels so that you can be attached to like a vehicle. Yeah, it must be nice to have good health insurance, I guess. But which is which is another issue with this movie. This movie should be about a guy who has been failed by the health

insurance industry, and they barely touch on that. But Dan, he's still just a doll who's been shot down in WWE too right now. Yeah, and he finds some women's high heels, which he puts on to replace his boots. And this will become an important point. But he's, yeah. Um, but he's a...

Yeah, do you feel like this moment is played for laughs at all? I don't know. I feel like it's kind of tough for me, because this is something that comes up multiple times there at the movie. And I feel like the movie is both trying to say, hey, everybody should be who they are and not be ashamed about it. But also sometimes he uses that as like a punchline. But I don't know.

Well, spoiler alert, the real mark is he's not a foot fetishist. I mean, he likes women's shoes. He's basically a cross-stressor who only really wears the shoes. And he says that he connects them to femininity. Yeah, as he has a, he's kind of not able to fully articulate it in the documentary, but here in the movie, he says that he loves the essence of women and wearing women's shoes connects him

to that essence of women. And he just loves women so much, but he says, James, sometimes, and it's supposed to be like oh Sorry, I'm speaking to you the way Captain Hogi would and it's like come on with it. It's I don't know I I was something that is something that's an issue almost from the very beginning is that Steve Correll is kind of very miscast in this movie and After seeing Marwan called the documentary

I was like why was Jeremy Renner not the star of this movie and after seeing Marwan call the documentary, I was like, why was Jeremy Renner not the star of this movie? He looks like the guy from the movie and he sounds like the guy from the documentary. Like, it's this. No, that's some serious wizard casting right there. No, no, but also like Jeremy Renner plays guys who are like kind of off-putting and the little... Like, there's something about him that's a little weird and dark.

Based on interviews He plays himself as kind of off putting yeah, and so like they're and in the documentary the real Mark Odin camp It's like kind of an off-putting guy like you sympathize with him through the movie But he's kind of a guy who says things that are Off-putting and like is is not is hard to deal with at times and like Jeremy renner would just a been much better. But I guess he signed he signed his soul to the devil that he would only play Hawkeye for years, I guess. So. Yeah. So long story short, German soldiers, you know, find Hoki, they're surrounding him. They like make fun of his shoes. Hoki is rescued by a group of gun-toten women.

Turns out these are his buddies from Marwan, the fictional town that they all live in together. In Belgium. Yeah, that is basically only women, like, and they all love Hogi, but can't get too close to him, because that would be bad. As we'll find out why later. But Dan, what's the horrifying secret of Marwin? Is it actually, as we hope it is, a real Belgian world-world-world-to-town

inhabited by doll people? Are you saying that the horrifying secret is that there's no Marwin and Belgium? No, just that like it's all, that this is all what Mark Hogan camp has been. This is a fantasy world he's put together for himself. Yeah, we see it it cuts to him photographing these dolls and he this is the thing he does. Yeah, these dolls in elaborate scenarios that he is like created stories around. And he and he's built this like like I guess almost diorama inorama in the backyard of his home.

Yes. And inside his house, yeah. It's a whole, I mean, it's like a miniature town. And the... It's a model village. And so, as he'll explain eight or nine times throughout the course of the movie, he takes store-bought dolls and figures and makes them into kind of alter egos for himself and the people that he knows, and he puts them through World War II adventures and photographs

them. And he'll, and this is his way of dealing with his trauma issues. And he'll explain this, as I said, eight or nine times throughout the film to different characters, some of whom already know about it. Yeah, and so, but this information gets doled out to us very slowly Like what you know like what happened like it gets explained over and over again But the movie sort of keeps it a secret for a while and my I was watching it with my girlfriend And she was talking about like how she doesn't kind of know what the main thrust of this story was supposed to be because later on

Yes like how she doesn't kind of know what the main thrust of this story was supposed to be, because later on, there's a lot about like, whether he's gonna testify against these people who attacked him, and there's also stuff about, like there's a kind of a budding, like one-sided romance, that maybe that's what the movie is about, but like for a long time, it's also the ticking clock of his, the art show that he is being encouraged to go to,

but initially he seems wary about going and then his concerns disappear right in the movie. But the movie, like, the large thrust of the movie for a lot of it seems to just be like, let's puzzle out the life of this guy, where we're talking about how this is a disease that movies have these days. It seems like they withhold information just to like create this false sense of like mystery and suspense

when it's just like, well, you know, like, why don't actually clue us into what's going on and see what he, like, how he deals with it rather than like, dole that out. So, well, it's like, I think it's, I think a big, a big example of that is the fact that it opens with this World War II scene, which is like, it's really old fashioned like, open it with a bang and there's a crazy scene and then we'll explain it later. But what it does is like, it instantly confuses you. It's not an entertaining scene. So right off the bat, you're like, why am I watching this? Like, what is this, like, is this toy story?

But like, not, like, if you don't already know the story of the movie, then you are at a losses to why you are watching this movie. And I would say, and this is me being Dan, I'm gonna go out on limb here. If I was making this movie, if I was making welcome to Marwin, again, I wouldn't call it that, because it's so weird, it makes it sound like, what's that road to Wellville or something like that?

It sounds like a movie about like a kooky town that like I would Not have these fantasy sequences and I would not be inside Mark Hogan camp's head through the whole movie It feels like if you want if what you want to do is Puzzle out this interesting guy that the best way to do that is not from inside his head Living his adventures and maybe I would hold off on showing those as full-blooded things until like The very end of the movie when you finally get a chance to see the world the way he sees or something the way that like Lawrence Olivia is Henry the fifth like starts in a theater and then more becomes more and more set in a

Natural in a real world, but yeah, it feels like by jumping straight into Mark Hogan's head the head, the audience is really confused and also like, it's just like, it makes it seem like his, the adventures he's having are like cool and fun and like we're supposed to be like, just straightforward enjoying them, you know, but clearly he's in pain and it's a weird thing to like, use somebody's pain fantasies as like cool action scenes. By the, I read a review of it

where they compared it to sucker punch and it's like, oh yeah, sucker punch was a movie where it was like, don't you like this stuff? Well, you're a jerk for liking it. And welcome to Marvin and his movie. It was like, isn't this cool that this guy does this stuff with dolls? Anyway, here's some problems, but isn't it cool?

So, so you're saying if you had made this movie, the opening credits would have been a montage with like maybe a Randy Newman song and like a montage of picture like just shots of his house and the dolls set up. Exactly. As he's getting older, growing up from a little boy to like an older kid, then it would be Mark Hogan cams birthday. All the members of people in Marwin call are really, are, are Marwin as it is in the movie,

are really worried because the new dolls the movie, are really worried, because the new doll's coming and they're really worried about being overtaken. And he gets like a space doll and he tries to incorporate that into it. He goes to Pete's a planet, loses the dolls, and now they've got to make their way home.

I call it Toy Story. Yeah, I mean speaking of Toy Story, like this movie has three separate tones and I'll get into that later, I, but one of the big mistakes it has is these fantasy sequence, the first tone is kind of like they feel like a step down from like a dream works like CGI children's movie almost like they've got this weird, like goofy, like feel to them. And also everything looks so slick. Like I feel like you would, I don't know, like I feel like for this story, you want the fantasies if they're gonna exist,

look a little more handmade, like a McLeod Gondry kind of thing, maybe. Like, or like, or you do them, or like stop motion or something like that. Where they don't, they look like dolls instead of looking like weird CGI people that are made like dolls. Yeah. Because there's also something super creepy about seeing, especially the real actresses

faces on top of these like super exaggerated Barbie sexy bodies. And there's a scene where one of the dolls and like, and Mark Hogan camp, he deals with a lot of, in his pictures, he has a lot of adventures where the women are losing their clothes, but there's a scene where one of the dolls, which has a real actress' face, motion captured onto it, her shirt has been ripped open and she's running away from the Nazi soldiers that have attacked her, and she has like Barbie boobs with no nipples that look like plastic, but they're still bouncing when she runs

as if they're real boobs. And the physics and the trying to figure out what was going on with the anatomy of this doll and how it must feel for an actress to see her face on top of a weird, topless, half-person doll. It was just very, I found the whole thing like, I don't think you really thought through the meaning of what you're doing with this moment.

You know, it just really felt like a really messy, you know. But anyway, we're, we're, we're, so this movie, sorry, yeah, we have, we're, we're talking a lot about theory, but not actually what happens in the movie. And like, so this movie jumps around so much that me with my extensive notes, I can't actually remember like what the next scene is.

His caregiver arrives. Okay, so yeah. There's some new neighbors across the street. There's Nicole, a woman who is running from her bad boy man, Kurt. And you know Kurt's bad because later on when he drives up Kat Scratch fever is playing in his car. Because Robert Simeckis never met a pop song

he didn't want to shove into his movie. And then his caregiver arrives who's a Russian homemade played by Brianna of Tarth. This is the only time we see this character in the flesh. It's always in the plastic after that as a doll per day. Well, she only comes once a month and this movie takes place in a relatively tight window. That's true. And she advises him not to, he has to take his meds, but don't take too many meds, which is like a real check-offs

pill. There's going to be a problem with meds later on. He's got this art show coming up. And he goes through his scrapbook of memories because, and this is something that was not made as clear as it should have been, he has no memories of anything before the attack. His entire life before then is a mystery to him.

And he talks in the documentary about like, oh, I was married, I guess, because I have pictures of me getting married, but I don't remember anything about my life with a wife or who this person was. And that's something that the movie doesn't really dig into. He kind of like, we know that he was assaulted in some way

and his life fell apart and he had to recover from it. He had a real tough, one-legged veteran, physical therapist, played by Janelle Monet, again, and she has one scene where she's a person and the rest of her scenes are just as dolls. And we see an adventure in the village of Marwyn that involves a new villain character, uh-oh, Deja Thoris, the 3,000 year old Belgian witch

who wants to make the other girls disappear because she wants Hogi to herself forever. Yeah, and this is like, this is another kind of weird choice that the movie makes. It's a very common name, Dan. Well, that's from the... It's from the John Carter stories. Yeah, exactly. I know, that's why it's a coincidence that she has the same name as the Princess of Mars. But like, another weird choice the movie makes is to turn it almost into this fantasy film

where later on, Mark is interacting directly with this evil witch character who's trying to tempt him and it turns it into into this I don't know like almost this this science fiction struggle almost even though we know that like it's a fantasy woman it's the because it's this CGI stuff it gives it this weird like association I feel like in movies and also it becomes very clear to us way before it becomes clear to mark that this is this evil witch is the embodiment of his pill addiction. Well, in his depression, it is this evil witch is the Thanatos in his personality that wants

to escape life by through either medication or over medication to the point of suicide. But she's the exact same color as the pills he's taking. So it's a pretty clear, she turns people into pills and so forth. And while he's sleeping, she whispers in his ear like Timothy the mouse and Dumbo, saying join me forever, take the pills and join me forever. And so at the very end, when spoiler alert,

Hogi has the realization that this witch is a bad guy and literally says like your marks problem. It's like, yeah, we know. Thanks, Mookie. Yeah. I mean, we kind of knew she was the problem from the first scene she shows up. Yeah, it's almost like a, if the movie alien, if Sigourney Weaver was like, why is everyone napping on the job? I can't find them. And then she leaves in the escape pod. And then an alien shows up and she's like, oh, it was an alien. And the audience will be like, yeah, dude, the movie's called Alien.

We saw an alien attacking people. Like, that's kind of what that feels like. That really. The other major problem I had with this character is like, so the real like Mark, you know, use this art to work through real things in his real life. And there were like parallels in his real life. And there were parallels to his real life. But I don't think there were like, the movie makes it

like such a direct parallel to problems that he has in his life or things going on. It's like almost a one-to-one allegory the whole time. And I don't think that's how it works. Well, there's such a simplification. I, there were so many things in the movie where I was like, that I'm sure they shoehorned in there, they made it up. And then watching the documentary afterwards,

like, oh, a lot of these scenes are adventures that Mark came up with for his characters. And like, later on, Digithor is like, build me a time machine. And he builds a time machine which looks a little too much like the time machine for back to the future. But in the documentary, he's like, oh, yeah, Digithor is told me to build her a time machine,

so I had to do it. Like, he does interact with these characters in a way that the movie is trying to illustrate, but the movie is illustrating it so literally. And it's like, the whole time I was watching it, I was like, why do I not like the way this movie is using fantasy scenes? But I do like the way that like Brazil

is using fantasy scenes. And it's almost like Brazil is not pretending that when Jonathan Price is hallucinating a giant samurai, that it is fun or exciting. It's just like frightening. It's like in this, I think they're trying to handle these very complicated emotions in this very complicated mental life that Mark Hogan campus constructed. But they're trying to do it by shoving it into like kind of the box of a movie that you can release

around Christmas. They're trying to do it by shoving it into Farscom, essentially. We're like, it's about somebody who's like kind of difficult but kind of cute and like, or it's like as good as it gets, like it has as good as it gets if Jack Nicholson also was imagining that he was a knight at different points in the movie,

like, that's kind of what this feels like. Yeah, I got a, I got a definite as good as it gets by that of this one. It's just ironic because this movie is not as good as it gets. Uh, in title or in what quality? Yeah, all of those things. So, uh, yeah, I mean, we're starting to learn that he has he has a small world outside of his home. He spent some time at what a local bar in Grille called the Amherst there. Yeah, he works there. Yeah. He also that he has been the victim of an assault and

he it's an ongoing thing that he he has upcoming, what a sentencing hearing for the guys who assaulted him and that attending that gives him extreme amounts of stress. Like it shuts down and disappears into a fantasy world involving bullets. Everyone keeps saying that if you don't show up, we want you to show up so they really throw the book at these guys and it makes me wonder like like what kind of judge would be like, well, you beat a man almost to death, but I guess he didn't think it was worth showing up today.

So I'm going to let you free. If it didn't matter to him that you were going to jail, why shouldn't it matter to me? A judge who has no feelings about this one way or the other. Case dismissed. I've been watching a lot of, well, my wife's been watching a lot of episodes of Caught in Providence lately, and I've been catching it in the background. And I feel the judge on that show would totally understand Mark

and still give them a rough sentence. Yeah, when I'm describing, I guess, as more of a maximum Bob type scenario. Uh-huh. Yeah. There's also, Mark has, he has his friend at the bar, Carlala. He has, and he goes to the hobby store Where the woman there clearly has a crush on him and is trying to ask him out, but he's very like he's very

Evasive and he has clearly as a crush on his new neighbor Nicole Yeah, and his the woman of the hobby store is played by the great mayor. Weaver. Yeah, I was gonna say that myself Yeah, she's so great. She's always great and everything even here and She shows she's like this new SS general doll came in the met came in Do you want it looks really real and he freaks out and hits a remote control Which causes the volume to go up on a TV that happens to be showing a story about the sentencing of his attackers and he runs out and it's Such a rude Goldberg trauma moment holy shit

That was like that was exactly what my girlfriend said while watching she's like what are all these room goldberg like twist that happened because he turns the volume up And then he knocks the remote on the ground and the batteries fly Yeah, so he can't change the channel and the the woman from the hobby store Just like Tony Todd is in the background like making things break so that yeah, he can't escape his fate You you a skit you weren't killed by that horrible assault. I guess I'll come after you afterwards. Everyone's like, Tony Todd, this is kind of tasteless for you to be doing this. Like, that was, this isn't like fun. This is really upsetting and he's like, death is upsetting.

Let's stop using death as an entertainment, huh? Yeah. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get respect for the end of life. Mean anything to you and they're like, okay, okay, I get it. He's like, I'm trying to raise my profile. So they'll put my character on the new charmed show. Yeah. Uh, and uh, but it's the woman at the hobby store, she just cannot take the hint that he

does not want this SS doll and clearly is triggering him because every time he's, she like keeps kind of trying to hand it to him and he keeps like screaming every time he sees it. kind of trying to hand it to him and he keeps like screaming every time he sees it he's like he doesn't want this doll just like stop trying to sell him this doll Yeah, maybe maybe she doesn't really like him. Maybe she's just like he's my cash cow I I apparently run a doll store in this small town. He's the only one buying this Yeah, I mean they have a pretty pretty good selection of stuff. Yeah. And so as... A hobby shop. Guys, I don't know if I've talked about this on the show very much, but one of my hobbies is I love building and painting figurines.

So I have a couple opinions about this show. Or the show. I mean, this movie. Movies aren't shows. I know that now. I've gone through a lot of... A lot of cast... Or sorry, a lot of crew people talk about being on a show when they're talking about the industry. Yeah so

maybe you're just plugging into that. Thanks for a reveal a little bit of industry info for me. That's when he's that's Dan's that's Dan's film glossary like that's Dan's film vocab for the day. I wasn't trying to dance playing I was trying to help out. Okay. Well, you know, sometimes helping out doesn't always work out. So, but the way he like, the way he has his little like model jeep that he takes his dolls around in

with a little stick and a leash, the whole time like you're gonna damage your stuff. You're gonna mess everything up. And luckily nothing ever, like every time there's a chance where somebody good damage is toys, nothing actually happens. There's a point where a car almost runs it over. And I got very nervous for his toys because as somebody who has built and painted a lot of figurines, I live in constant fear that somebody will just come and damage them all.

So here's the thing about him is that when it comes to his figures, he's not a collector. He's using them the way they were meant to be used, playing with them, not just sticking them on a shelf. And so he talks in the documentary about how like he got this Jeep and the tires look too real. They look too new, they look too factory made. And that's why he brings around to every where with him so he can get real wear on the tires. So it'll look like something that's been through World War II. So in a way, Stu, it's just his way of bringing that next level of paint and realism to the fingers.

Time to, I mean, I would say maybe a little bit of texture paint and some weathering powders. I mean, they do a lot of really cool stuff with model paints nowadays. Now, I wish this was a bigger podcast so that deadline could be be or someplace would be like Stuart Wellington slams Mark Hogan camp. For the way he's weathering his toys, I shouldn't say toys.

I should say figures or I don't know art materials. Thank you. And there's an interesting in the documentary they're kind of riding the line trying to figure out is this art or is this therapy or what is it exactly and the movie just doesn't the movie just treats it kind of like play which is we like like an eccentricity yes so there's more not hot not the action between the bad guy dolls and the good guy lady dolls and he gets in a cold doll and the lady from the hobby shop is like hey I'll go to the sensing with you and he's

like nah i don't want to go and that's when the cold stops by to introduce herself and the lack of chemistry i would say is palpable down how would you describe it well okay so the cold is played by uh... lezley man and uh... she the thing that made my girlfriend the most mad in the whole movie was that later

on she asked Mark to help her clean her house and she's in like a dress and heels while she's cleaning. And she's constantly wearing this, which made my girlfriend be like, when is this set? Yeah, because she's always dressed like Donna Reed. It's really confusing to her, because it was like, okay, there's all this world war two stuff. And then, yeah, she's dressed like Donna Reed,

and then suddenly someone mentioned Zappos, and she's like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Meg comes over and is immediately fascinated by Mark's little diorama and asks about what's going on there. She exists only to be nice to Mark. She is comically nice to Mark, even when he tells her that this doll is named Nicole and it looks exactly like her. Well, when you get older, Dan, it's harder to make new friends and she is kind of on the run from some trauma herself. She's just getting out of an abusive relationship with Kurt, the ex-cop. Right. And she is in no way described by the film.

You just read so much more real emotion into the movie than the movie provides for this character. Well, but also later on it's revealed that she, I think, has a cousin who likes to wear women's clothes as well. So she's very understanding about, you know, Mark's desire to do that. But she does not, we do not get a sense of her inner life. She's just very, very sweet to a man who like, I'll be honest, does like a lot of off-putting things around her. Ironically, she is a doll in the movie. Like, she is treated by the movie as a doll who exists only to the friend Mark and have him get a crush

on her and then let him down when it turns out she doesn't share those feelings. Like, she exists only as a real life plaything for her and I don't think the movie is attributing that to the characters. The movie is just like you're saying, failing to give her any inner life. And if we could see her bristling at some of the more off-putting things that Mark says or does, it would make her feel more real. It would make their relationship feel stronger and more real. It reminded me of her character in the

comedian where it's like, again, it's similarly, it was like, your job in this movie is to fall in love with Robert De Niro's incredibly unlikable, unfunny character. And it's like, yeah. Okay, and is there anything else I'm gonna do? No, you exist only to be an accessory for him throughout the movie so that we can mark off his redemption through how he interacts with you. And the movie, and the movie, when she's in movies where as a performer when she's in movies where she can she gets more fun stuff to do like what was the one the

sex comedy the teenage with John Cena a blockers. Yeah, yeah, she's just a blocker stand. Yeah, yeah, all right, it's like chicken blockers. All of a picture of a cock blockers chicken blockers. Yeah, yeah, she's just all blockers in yeah, yeah, all right, it's like chicken blockers all something a cock blockers chicken blockers. Yeah Yeah, yeah, and she you know my worst nightmare someone would block me from a chicken Don't you see like Gary Coles weener in that. I mean that movie's a lot of fun. Yeah It feels like the movie is setting the audience up to be like oh, I hope these two come get together So that when she says no it breaks our heart But it's not gonna break our heart because it's very obvious from moment one that they should not be together so that when she says no, it breaks our heart, but it's not gonna break our heart

because it's very obvious for a moment one that they should not be together. And that this is a fixation that he has on her and not a real relationship, but the movie kind of wants us to think it's gonna be a relationship. It's like the movie thinks the audience is dumb. I guess you know what I'm saying?

This is what I wanted to say about like the three tones because they've got the goofy CGI stuff tone. They've got a movie that actually touches on some of the real stuff in his life that at times can be kind of interesting when it takes the story seriously. But then that butts up against the Hollywood version of this where they kind of want to make it into a romantic comedy almost, and it doesn't like none of it works together.

Yeah. So the, I think that's well put. Anyway, there's a scene where Mark makes his Nicole doll. Let's just get back to the summary, huh? Nicole stops my marks again. They talk shoes. There's a dance party at Hogi's bar in Marwin after Hogi has been captured and is being brutally tortured by the Nazis. And Nicole leads the other women of Marwin in a, what it looks like, they're gonna, they want a party

with the Nazis, but really they hurl Molotov cocktail bottles at them and then shoot them. And it's so horrifically violent in a way that really like upset me for some reason, like for some reason the rage redemption, I was like, cool, but this watching it, I was like, my stomach was churning and I'm not quite sure exactly why. Do you guys have a similar reaction or would you just like, whatever, dolls with blood pouring out of their bodies?

I don't know. I kind of just zoned out on the like, the doll sequences entirely because it was so clear that they were extraneous to the movie that I'd be like, I don't know what's going on. Like, and there's, I don't know, and there's also a feeling of like knowing this is a fantasy and that the fantasy always is such a violent thing.

I don't know. I mean, obviously. Oh, sorry, I didn't say. Just the idea of like, I don't feel any kind of catharsis from this because I know that it's a fantasy that will not move anyone's life forward. Yeah, that's true. There's no story used to it, other than... Yeah.

And again, this is like a real story that Mark Hogan came up with for his characters, where he was being tortured and the women came and saved him. But it feels like they were just trying to shoehorn all these. It's like, they're all these amazing parts of his life. Let's try to shoehorn them all into the movie. Yeah. There's the Nicole's evil ex-curt shows up and starts spewing Nazi German at Mark.

And once again, Mark went to the lake. No, up until this point I was like, you know, maybe he just loves her. Maybe he's actually a good guy. Ha, ha, ha. And Nicole also talks about her love of tea. And this is another where those Rubgo brooping were marked. He is triggered by all this German being shouted at him.

He runs away, trips in his house, a trap door falls on his head. And it's like, it's such a weird thing because it's like a tragic cartoon routine. Like, if Wiley Coyote was genuinely in pain and hurt, like, and really injured by the stuff that was having him, that's what it feels like sometimes. Yeah. Uh, okay. So Dan, what happens when,

so Mark's gonna go to the sentencing after all? What is it, what happens when he goes there? So he goes sentencing and he's looking at the dudes on the other side and like, doesn't like one of them look like the doll? Like that's why he's being triggered. Well, he has a swastik tattoo in his arm. Yeah, and like, there's a guy with, like they do look kind of like his dolls.

There's like a guy with glasses. And you know, Mark, you basically, Oh, and also, and one of his attackers was, from those, was it Duracell, that also, and one of his attackers was from those, was it Duracell, that family that was in the Duracell battery commercials where they were like people, but they had rubber skin. So they look like giant dolls.

So he sees that and he's like, ah, a giant doll. I guess I'm the only one who remembers those commercials. Or the... Or the... Although they were like more like blocky, right? They like... Well, yeah, they were very not, they were very wrinkly and had a lot of like, I want to call them car bunkers. Like, it was, they looked like somebody saw.

Elliot, isn't a car bunkal the spot in between your butthole and your testicles? I don't think so. Dan, why don't you look that up? No. That's interesting, but that was the joke you were going for. Like I was just sitting here being like,

oh, they've been showing the blue car bunker was a good Sherlock Holmes story. Anyway, you know, the car, a car bunker is like a boil. Okay, anyway, so Mark has an attack of PTSD. He runs out of the sentencing hearing and lawyers like, can we have a recess so I can call my client down and the judges are like, I'll do you one better, we can reschedule, it's fine.

Probably because of our overworked judicial system. Oh yeah, that's, I think that's implied. That's, and this is, his PTSD attack takes the form of him imagining that this has become a firefight between the Nazis that attacked him and Hogi. Any any human sized Hogi. Yeah. And we are spared the part where I assume that if you say sandwich, but delicious and terrifying

and the possibilities of what what it could do to a human belly if consumed in its entirety or or if shoved in someone's mouth and throat to the point that they choke on it as might happen if an invisible maniac was in the room. Oh, that sounds interesting. Has that ever been in a movie before? I don't know if it has. You'd probably know better than me. I assume that it was written in the script, but they probably didn't shoot it that as he's

running away from the court, he trips down a flight of stairs into a pie contest and gets a pie in his face. And then he's like under a horse's butt and the horse poops on him. Like I assume that that was gonna happen based on the previous scenes, but. Did we talk about, by the way, the scene where, like, has it happened yet, where he's, like,

putting stiletto heels on Leslie Mann's doll? And it's a very sexual scene, like, he's completely... And they're playing that weird cover of, of sugar, sugar, whatever it is, or... Yeah, he's clearly gonna call... No, no, sugar, sugar, sugar, it's a very sexual scene. And they're playing that weird cover of Sugar Sugar or whatever it is, or? Yeah, he's clearly... No, no, Sugar Sugar, it's that love in my tummy song. He's clearly getting off on this,

like he's putting these shoes on her, he's looking at the doll through a magnifying glass, and the movie plays it. Which happens when I'm painting my goblins, too, Dan. The movie plays it kind of like, it's a sweet thing. Yes. But that's when I was like, you know what, if this guy wasn't the victim of a hate crime,

he would be, like the audience would think he's such a creep right now. Oh, this is the kind of thing that usually you see in movies that serial killers are doing. Yes, you know. And again, that's more a judgment, that's more a judgment on movies, which associate non-mainstream emotional attachments with crying murder. But it does come off as very creepy. It's supposed to be loving, but it comes off as creepy. It doesn't help the way he's talking to the doll. It was meant to be loving like the way he paints his dolls in the movie 40-year-old version. Yeah, but it's supposed to be like in Titanic when he's drawing a picture of Rose, and it's

like I'm using my art to celebrate this person that I have feelings for. But I guess part of the difference there is that Rose is there, and as she requests that he draw her like one of his French girls, whereas this is unasked for by Leslie Mann. So sure the woman is literally a doll, which has certain connotations. So, shortly after him fleeing the courtrooms, isn't there a scene where he's at home watching a pornographic movie, and like he starts to kind of lose himself in the movie, and then like the- That's what it does.

The male character in the film turns into a Nazi guy. And I feel like that also added a sexual element that had been kind of missing from the tone of the movie. Right, and we were talking about this too. The thing is, in movies, most people- You'd be like if were talking about this too like the thing is in movies like Most you'd be like if forest comp was just like Wack it into a fucking corner. Well the thing is that like You know the reality suddenly and you're like what like I know he's a human man and like that happens and stuff

That's not that crazy, but like I mean they're literally The same thing is a scene where we're first-comp ejaculates and doesn't know what just happened and is frightened by it and Jenny has to sue them. So. No, I just wanted to say like in this modern world, like the reality is, most people do. Living with us, yeah. Most people do watch pornography. But even so, like in a movie, the only time you see someone

watching porn in a movie is if they're coded as like a creep. Uh-huh. Well, I think here it's a, yeah, it's a creep. Well, I think here, it's a weird, it's weird they're introducing it so late in the film that he watches pornography because also the porn he's watching is so joky and ludicrously vintage looking and he's watching it on like a VHS tape

and it feels like they're making fun of the character for like really what's happening is his something that should be a complete fantasy and release for him watching porn and I assume, but he's not masturbating to it. He just kind of seems like he's watching it to review it maybe for a magazine, I don't know. But that now he's these kind of trauma,

these fantasies of trauma that are based in a real trauma are invading even this, which would be a pleasurable fantasy. Yeah, yeah. That should be like a really frightening moment, but it's done in such a jockey way that I was like, and his response to it is like, that I was like, what is this? Like what is going on here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like two steps away from large margin at right there.

Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of large margin, I wanted to say that the what could what could you possibly want to say that was related to large margin, Dan? Well, well, it's related to the creator of large margin, well, not creator, because it's based on a her parents on a folklore on based on I mean, Peewee Herman or Paul Rubens and what's his face who wrote it Phil Harmon? Phil Harmon yeah they're scripts but like a Tim Burton movie I just wanted to say that the the writers of this are Robert Zemeckis and Caroline

Thompson and Caroline Thompson I looked her up she wrote Edward Cissor hands and she wrote, at the Adams family, Homeward Bound, The Secret Garden, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Black Beauty, like mostly children's movies, Corpse Pride, which sort of, that's, I think explains part of the weird tone that this movie has. It's almost like a children's movie version of a guy

who had a hate crime done to him, you know, it's very strange. Yeah, it's like, I think you're right. It's like a children's version movie about a story about a man who is dealing with the trauma of a hate crime through very complicated, like, psychosexual fantasies, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I think you put your nail on the head. They tried to turn it into a children's film and I just wish I hadn't watched it with Sammy.

Yeah, a lot of questions afterwards. I was like, Sammy, I like this. It's a movie about dolls and he's like, I love the Toy Story movies. Toy Story 4 was less coherent and cohesive than the rest of the films, but I understand based on what was going on behind the scenes with Lasseter and everything. And I'm like, Sammy, I'm sure I don't know. You know more than me about that stuff. I don't know. So we and everything. I'm like, Sammy, I'm sure. I don't know. You know more than me about that stuff. I don't know.

So we watched this and he was like, Dad, I've got some questions. Number one, how did this get made? And I was like, oh, there's a podcast for that. Okay. Well, what happens next? Well, I can't. So he's, so he gives him some of our old shoes and he shows her his shoe collection. Yeah. This is, I i think we're reveals like

i think he at one point you he he mentions that he like he we'll be off and we mentioned the pornography that he watches to her yes somewhat like taxi driver he type thing right which is the one time she does seem to be a little uncomfortable and it's at least it's not less than in four-year-old virgin where she finds that he has all

these porn tapes and she's like, you're a monster and runs out, which was always the least believable part of that movie, too. Yeah, she's like, maybe we shouldn't talk about that, but she accepts that, you know, which is nice. Yeah. So, doll hoagie and doll Nicole, they kiss, and that makes Deja Thoris, who has been popping up throughout the movie, we just haven't done it that much. She gets mad and tells Hoagie to tell Mark to build her a time machine. And but he also builds Dalnacle, a tea house in Marwin. And that's when Hoagie proposes

to Dalnacle and then Mark proposes to Real Nicole. And this is the first moment where she realizes, uh, maybe this is not the relationship I thought it was. Maybe, uh, when I was, I thought I had pretty securely friend-zoned this next, this across the street neighbor. He doesn't seem to realize it. Uh, she says, she lets him down very gently, says they're just friends, and he gets mad and blames Jay-Jethoris, but he built her time machine.

So he's like, he's like, Jay-Jethoris, you did this, but I built you your time machine, and I was like, that time machine, as I mentioned earlier, looks a little bit too much like the DeLorean and Back to the Future. Like, come on, come on Bob, what do you do?

Well, luckily it doesn't. It's a ready-flare one, come on. Luckily when it flies around, it doesn't make like flamie tire tracks or anything, right? Yeah. No, it does, it does do that. I mean, basically it's one step away from a Christopher Lloyd doll running in and being

like, Marty, I mean, hoogie, we gotta go do this thing. But to apologize for letting him down and disappointing him, what is Nicole get him? Uh oh, guys, it's that Nazi doll that keeps triggering him. It's like the cat that came back, you just can't get rid of this thing. The doll escapes its box and starts chasing after Mark. And it's basically, it's her ex-husband, right? Yes. At this point, it becomes her ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. It's not quite clear.

That's the face that's mapped onto the doll. Yes. This doll shoots Dal Nicole. Mark flashes back to his assault. And Deja Thores is like, it's, join me. This is all your fault. This was all your fault. So, can I pause it right now? Because this is the point where like, you know, before this, they had, they, you know, they'd mentioned the assault, and they'd, they'd kind of

framed images of it in a way that was, like, you don't actually see it. Like it does seem like a distant, like hazy recollection. But then when she gets shot, he kind of fully remembers it a little bit. And it, like, you get more of it as it goes on. And I feel like that, I don't know. Like, I felt there was something, I felt there was something interesting about the way they were framing the assault earlier,

and it fit more with the film, but it feels like Zamekis, I mean, it's not a huge surprise because he's kind of like a Spielberg where he's like, in every case, if he can show something, he will show something. Like, if he can make an entire movie with talking doll faces, he's gonna do that. But, or it's like how, and it's the same sort of thing where it's like, maybe if somebody had told him not to actually show that sequence where he's like, where Mark is getting kicked in the face on the ground, because I don't think it necessarily makes the movie any better.

No, I don't think so. And basically, all you kind of learn from from it even though you kind of knew it before is that he gets attacked because he admits to wearing women's shoes sometimes to some guys. But that had already been established. I guess so. I don't think seeing him lying on the ground with like blood on him and some guys like kicking him makes it any more horrifying.

It's just, I don't know. Yeah. makes it any more horrifying. It's just, I don't know. Yeah, it's just lazy. By the way, I just, I, being, just talking about his assault, he was found by his coworker Wendy, and it's sort of like, heavily implied earlier in the movie that like she had to leave town because he had developed a fixation

her as his savior. Yeah. Which again, like this guy is, look, I mean, again, the real guy went through an unimaginable trauma that he dealt with. I mean, but we're not mocking the real guy. I know. I'm just waiting to leave this not paying him well. I don't know whether that happened in life, but I don't know.

I mean, but it's, but it's, you're also, it's also, I felt kind of like William Goldman watching the Big Lebowski and being like, man, I can't wait to see this bowling tournament that I was like, well, at some point Wendy is going to come back, I assume, but she never gets. She's just, she's just a shadow because if she's not part of Mark's life now, then the movie is not interested in her. Anyway, Hogi is upset and he goes to pray in his little church, and that's where the Nazi finds him. And there's some really out of place, doll humor, where he's like stick him up, and Hogi puts up his hands, and then turns his head, a hundred and eight degrees around, so he can

see behind him, and then he's like, get up, and he like gets up and then spins his torso around to match where he's at. And it was like, it seems weird that the character at this point decided to do some doll jokes, but as if he was a doll man and his versus a demonic toy at this point. Yeah, actually, I mean, that could have been the name of the movie. I think it would work better than Wilcox and Marwin, but you know, and the Nazi is shocked by Hogi's high heels and they fight for a while. And this, they've kind of like slid into the big climax fight where there's a lot of people running, Nazis running around and shooting and things like that.

But essentially what happens is Hogi stabs the Nazi in the neck with his stiletto heel. And he's going to fall to his death from this church tower when Dejah Thorough shows up in the time machine and the Nazis keep coming back to life and there's a big gun battle and Hogi won't leave with Deja's like come with me to the future 15 million light years in the future in my time machine and he goes no No, I won't leave until we rescue Nicole's shoe because it's in Nazi it the Nazis neck And there's a moment somewhere in here and I didn't write down exactly Where one of the Nazis like these stupid women and he's like women are the saviors of the world or something like that. Like it's like the movie was like,

oh, there's all this subtext we really haven't addressed throughout the movie. I guess we'll just shove it all into this scene. And Hogi does, and. And then there's like, there's Nazis keep grabbing up a very phallic missile launcher and then they get shot. And then the next Nazi runs up and grabs the same missile launcher.

And they're all trying to blow up this flying DeLorean Mm-hmm, and that's what Hogi notices that Deja Thors has a tattoo of a swastika on her arm just like the Just like the guy who assault him and goes, wait, you're a Nazi. You're the problem. You've been keeping Mark sick and it's like I'm glad you came to the I'm glad the character came to this realization the audience Thanks to the movie storytelling came to this realization. The audience, thanks to the movie storytelling, came to this realization, I think 15 minutes into the film. Yeah, it's like anytime I start seeing band photos of a black metal band and I'm like, oh, these guys look, oh no.

Or like, oh, that's a, that's a whole body black cover up tattoo. I wonder what that dude had on his torso before he just covered his entire torso in the lack. Anyway, in all the hubbub, Mark makes it so that Dejah Thoris is shot by the Nazis. She disappears and a green mist turns the Nazis to skeletons and the Nicole doll recovers. And Mark wakes up and throws his meds away and reads his victim statement in court about how he is persevered and he has his friends. It's really unrelated to the crime in a lot of this. His victim statement is definitely addressed with the audience and not the

judge. But it's like let's have him do a big inspiring speech where in real life the judges would be kind of like, okay, I don't know. Do you think the judges like, well, it sounds like the this assault has an effect to you that badly. Exactly. Sounds like you're persevered in a very inspiring way. Seems like you've established yourself in the arts community in a way that you couldn't have before this assault.

So I guess, case dismissed. You're all roommate. I decree you all be roommates now. I said it's the attackers to cake and ice cream. Something I glossed over, but I would like to address briefly is that one of the big plot points is then that Mark throws away all of his medication because it's bad medication that Dijithor is wants him to take. And it's like, again, it's like a super complicated issue of when medication is right for people

and how sometimes it cannot not be the right thing and it is rather than addressing the issue, it is just dedicating the symptoms to make it easier for other people to deal with you, but it is like not a good message in a movie for it to be like, hey, if you're dealing with trauma, the best thing for you to do is throw your meds away. That'll solve the problem. It's like a little real day, it's like a little bit like, hey, sometimes you gotta solve a problem with dynamite. So if you've got a problem, throw some dynamite at it. Like, it's a, it's like a messy,

it's not a good thing for them to be doing. The same way that like, my issue with a beautiful mind where it's like, hey, if you've got serious problems and you don't, with reality, just stop being crazy and your problems will be solved. Hey, with reality, just stop being crazy and your problems will be solved. Hey buddy. Ignoring Paul Bettany, your imaginary friend.

Yeah. The things where you can't tell the difference between reality and what your mind is creating, just ignore the stuff your mind is creating. Okay. Yeah. I can't tell the difference. That's my particular illness is my problem is I can't tell the difference between reality and what my mind is telling me.

Yeah, but just like, stop looking at the crazy stuff and don't be crazy anymore crazy. Oh, okay. Thanks. Stop focusing on that beautiful mind and instead focus on your beautiful heart. Yeah, gross. I find that movie so disgusting. And I guess that's kind of what this movie, what maybe upset me is so much about this movie is like how, how ham-handedly it was addressing and engaging with real trauma and, like with the very real issues that a real person was dealing with because it's like, I did it. I came through the other side and he goes to his New York gallery show and he's like, I changed the name of the town to Marwin Cole. The Cole comes from Nicole and the hobby storewoman is like, oh, I see, well, great.

Which is also weird, because I guess maybe this character, maybe this woman didn't want her name used in this movie, but in real life, that part stands for Colleen. But it's funny that they're like, all right, they're like, what's another female name that we get as CoL out of? Let's just lock the E off of the coal and we can do it. They're like, they're like Leslie.

We haven't named you a character yet. She's either going to be Nicole or a colette, but we have not decided yet. Well, like it could be, now hear me out. This might be a little bit out there. Stone cold Steve Austin. Or what's his favorite kind of slaw could be? Hole slaw. Nope. There's it. It would have to be no E kind of slaw could be whole slaw? Nope, it would have to be no E on that slaw.

Oh, yeah, you're right. Well, okay, how about this? What if he loves Bra Cole Lee, with the real Mark Coggen camp doesn't like Braquely? Well, he likes adventures. What if he likes the movies of Cubby Bra Cole Lee, the James Bond producer? What is his name?

Cole Porter. And it's such a dumb movie thing that they're like, this is the origin story for why it says Cole at the end of the name. The same way that we have to explain why Han Solo calls Chubaka Chewy, because it might be not obvious to people that Chewy is the nickname for someone named chewbaka. And Nicole shows up at the art show and she and Mark share like a series of looks that I honestly kind of had a hard time deciphering what the movie was trying

to tell me they were thinking. What did what did you think of it? Well, I feel like the movie wants us to ignore our dissentent in this case. Bobby, shut your trap. Yeah, Marcel Duchamp would say, Dan, that you have an equal part to play in this relationship between artist, art piece, and spectator. I was just trying to talk about how clumsy the movie was, but I do think that the movie is trying to tell

like make us think that Nicole, you know, like had this very important part to play in his like semi recovery. And I just don't see how like the facts of the movie bear that out. Like he like fixated on her and then she turned down his proposal and that was kind of the whole thing. And but they have like this look of appreciation

between them. I don't know, it's very strange. But maybe he was able to with Nicole and her rejection. Maybe that was, that gave Mark the impetus to realize that maybe he shouldn't venerate women who aren't going to reciprocate that kind of emotion to him. And that's what, because Wendy left without having any kind of a confrontation.

Yeah. Yes. Maybe it's possible. I mean, now that now Mark's been reading a lot of stuff on the internet, there's this philosopher from Canada that he's been watching a lot of lectures from. And he really understands now how women manipulate men and how men are the victims.

Oh, boy. Oh, no. No, no, no. You know, guys, I've been spending some time on what someone called the dark web. And I've been discovered with these new ideas. many of the victims. No, guy says, so I made something dumb up. The stuff he says is dumb. Well good.

I'm glad he can't remember any of it. So his stuff is so enane and evil that I just pushed it right out of my head right away. But Dan, you're forgetting that Mark Hogan camp, he doesn't need Nicole anymore because he finally works up the courage to ask the girl from the woman from the hobby shop out to sushi. And it's like, because you know guys, you're not fully healed until you are part

of a heteronormative pair bond. And you are mating in a way that is socially acceptable. Also, does he work up the courage or is he like just shifting to like, he's like, okay, this woman has clearly enjoyed my company before, so I guess I'm moving over here. Like it seems kind of weird. Well, maybe he just didn't realize what he had all along.

And the scales have been lifted from his eyes. Yeah, it's a real team wolf. So sure. I think that's what it's supposed to be, is it's like, oh, I realize this is the person I should have been with, and they make the case, hey, we've never had sushi before. We might not like it, but I guess we should try it.

And it was like, wait, was the point of the movie that he wasn't trying new things because he's, because like, he's, he's, no, this is the origin story of his famous love for sushi. Yeah, like it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I feel like for somebody who's super into small like dolls and shit that, and like carefully crafted things, I feel like sushi

would be right up as fucking alley. Yeah. And then he's gonna get like way into Gundams and stuff. The big Gundams arrived at Markwood. They're just imagine a lot of weird things happen in Marowind like he says they, it would be really funny if it's like, you know what, don't call me Mark anymore. Call me hero. And it's like, wait, so this is the origin story for the guy from hero dreams of sushi. Like, what's going on?

Uh-huh. Or hero. Anyone who happens to him? That's the end of the movie. What? We buried the lead. That's how the movie is. Oh, yeah, we should mention this. Uh, and we get, and this is, this is this is a, this is kind of a biopic. So they also do like the what pre credits or during credits pictures of the actual Mark Hogan camp. Yeah. Here's the weird thing that they say in it is they go, they talk about how Mark hasn't had a, hasn't had a drop of alcohol, hasn't drank alcohol in years.

And it's like, and it really, I weirded me out until I watched the documentary and it's like, oh, before the attack, he was an alcoholic. He was like an alcoholic who thought he was gonna die. He thought he was gonna drink himself to death and he was so depressed and unhappy. And the movie, once I knew that, it was like, I understand this character so much better.

Why didn't they build that into the character, you know? I mean, he talks about drinking and sort of like, implied at best, but they don't like, yeah, they don't say that he was an alcoholist. I mean, part of it is that all the information about him comes from him almost like if some of the other characters were like, Oh, yeah, Mark, he had a horrible drinking problem like he's a real mess, but they don't, they don't, any, any information about Mark for the most part comes from Mark, which makes it kind of suspect. And also, like, I think it's part of the queoting up of the character, like the character is not a blameless, snow-pure, innocent, forest-gump type. If you admit that he had a complicated life before the assault. And so it's easier for the movie if it's just like yeah He was just this dude who occasionally he's just a normal dude everybody loves who occasionally liked wearing women's shoes

And then he got attacked and he turned into this you know Christ like innocent, you know, and it's like It's so much more it'd be such a more powerful movie if he was a more if he was as complicated a person as he is in the documentary Yeah, look before we get final judgments, I want to say again, this movie brings up all of these delicate topics that it is not equipped to handle. And we are only barely more equipped to handle. So again, I apologize if we drifted into anything

that caused offense, but it was. Yeah, we're certainly not experts on any sort of offense. But this is like such a reprimandable. I'm an expert on any. Yeah, but this is like such a Except, I'm an expert on that. Yeah, it's sort of nice. And I want to apologize for when we, when I was like, I guess we got to do this movie, not realizing that it would be a hard movie to like make jokes and be funny about.

So next time. This is definitely a each of your vegetables episode of the vlog. Yeah. So, in the, so next episode, we better do something that's more fun. Dan in the so in the next episode we better do something that's more fun Dan well I think next episode that's are we into a small temper then probably

that'll be fun yeah uh no buckle your seat belts yeah quick final judgments because I think we all know where we're standing here is this a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie kind of like Stuart I'm gonna say it's a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of like Stewart? I'm going to say it's a bad bad movie. It's a movie that's obviously made with technical skill and features, performers that are good if not necessarily suited for the material. Exactly.

But yeah, I mean, it just, it, it, it, it, it just feels wrong headed in basically every aspect. Yeah, it's, I'm going to agree with Stewart. It's a bad bad, it's just, it's a misguided movie, it's a mis, like conceptually misguided and emotionally misguided in a way that makes it like, when you see the trailer you're like, this is going to be nuts, this is going to be crazy, but then you watch and you're like, oh, this is like really, this is complicated and upsetting and it's so bad. I feel so bad for the person who had to cut a fucking trailer for this movie.

Yeah, and it's just like, this is not a, it's not a, it's a bad movie but it's not a fun movie to watch. Yeah, hurt yourself, movie to watch. Not hurt yourself, like, you should go hurt yourself but hurt yourself, like, it's painful to watch at times. To agree with, y'all, it's a, it's a bad, bad movie. And also, like, to borrow Nathan Raven's rating system for bad movies, this is not a failure. This is a fiasco. And it is kind of interesting on that level. If you want to see how talented people can go so wrong,

it's sort of interesting, but it's like so. It is also morally upsetting in a way that, like, talented people can go so wrong. It's sort of interesting, but it's like, so, like, it is also morally upsetting in a way that like, I don't usually get upset at movies. Yeah, and before we move on, you guys both do recommend the documentary, right? Marwan Call? Yeah. Oh yeah, I think it's a very good documentary. I wish that I had seen it instead of this,

but no, I think it's, the Marwan Call is well worth seeing. Yeah. instead of this, but no, I think it's the, the moral call is well worth seeing, yeah. ["The Morrow call is well worth seeing, yeah." ["The Morrow call is well worth seeing, yeah." We are the host of my brother, my brother, and me, and now, nearly 10 years into our podcast,

The Secret Can Be Revealed, all the clues are in place, and the world's greatest treasure hunt can now begin. Embedded in each episode of my brother, my brother, and me is a micro clue that will lead you to 14 precious gemstones all around this big beautiful blue world of ours. So start coming through the episodes. Let's say starting an episode 101 on.

Yeah, the early episodes are pretty problematic, so there's no clues in those episodes. No, no, not at all. The better ones, the good ones, clues a whole way. Listen to every episode repeatedly in sequence. Laugh if you must, but mainly get all the great clues. My brother, my brother, me. It's an advice show, kind of, but a treasure hunt, mainly.

Anywhere you find podcasts or treasure maps. My brother, my brother, me. The hunt is on. One, two, one, sit down. Hi everybody, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. We're both doctors, and... Nope, just me. Okay, well Sydney's a doctor, and I'm a medical enthusiast,

and we create... ...saube bones in the middle to earth misguided medicine. Every week I dig through the annals of medical history to bring you the wildest, grossest, sometimes dumbest, tales of ways we've tried to treat people throughout history. And lately we do a lot of modern fake medicine because everything's a disaster, but it's slightly less of a disaster every Friday, right here at Maxblemfund.org, as we bring you solvones

and middle two of misguided medicine and remember, don't drill a hole in your head. Moving on, the flop house is supported in part by Dashlane. A Dashlane is a password management app that keeps all of your online information safe, secure, encrypted, and easy to access. Dashlane remembers all of your passwords so that you don't have to. It seamlessly autophills all your login information, syncing automatically across your computer, phone and tablet. It even stores payment details. Go ahead and get weird with your passwords or let Dashlane generate a real stumper for

you. They'll keep it safely stored in a password vault only you can unlock. Check out www.dashlane.com forward slash flop to get Dashlane free on your first device. As a special offer for the Flophouse fans, they're even offering a 30-day free trial of Dashlane premium, including VPN, VPN, dark web, monitoring, and more. If you like it, use code flop at checkout to save 10% on your premium subscription. I had a burp that I could not burp during that ad read. You know what, if you hadn't brought it up, Dan.

Yeah, I would never have known. I would have noticed, but it sounds like a great poem start. I had a burp I could not burp. Yeah, I'm just bringing it I'm gonna notice that it sounds like a great a great poem start I had a burp. I could not burp Yeah, I'm just bringing it up to you know, and you know introduce a little lightness and levity and to this section of the Oh, cool. Thank you. Yeah, I'll say look guys. I'll just I'll just say it Passwords are getting too complicated these days and too hard to remember what am I some kind of password computer? So I think this is an app I need I also want to say that the flop house is sponsored in part.

Hello fresh. Hello. And they sent us a was fresh at the end of a very long hallway. They sent us a some some samples. Yeah, some treats.

I got to say yesterday I made one of mine. I chose the calorie conscious meals because I'm unhappy with some recent weight gain. And you ate like two of them, right? No, I ate the appropriate portion. And I have to say though, for something that's calorie conscious, conscious I could not it did not feel like I was denying myself like I had a very delicious I had like it was a squash flat bread with pepitas it's a sheld pumpkin seed yeah and it was very delicious I liked it quite a bit actually so hello fresh does good work.

I think you're really missing an opportunity here, Dan, to do a podcast where you just describe food for people. Because you say, Or explain what papisas are. Well, because you seem so much more animated and excited to talk about food than you are. Welcome to Marwin, certainly. But HelloFresh makes cooking delicious meals at home or reality, regardless of your comfort and the kitchen, there's something for everyone from family recipes to calorie smart and vegetarian

and fun menu series like Hall of Fame and craft burgers. I don't know what's in the Hall of Fame. Easily. What is in the Hall of Fame? Well, yeah, do you have to climb up a mountain pathway to get to the hall, push the grand doors open, which squeal with the weight of time? And you're like, oh, pot roast. Great. Easily, change your delivery days, food preferences, and skip a week whenever you need. For a total of $80 off in your first month, that's $20 off your first four boxes. Visit hellofresh.com slash flop 80 and inter promo code flop 80. I guess that's a weird sequel to Star 80.

That's hellofresh.com slash flop 80, promo code flop 80 for a total of $80 off your first month. I feel like Dan, this has already been kind of a delicate episode and making a joke about Star 80 is maybe not the best thing to do. But hey, you know what, that's a great deal. It's because my stupid brain did not make the connection immediately between $80 off and flop 80. So you're like, is that the flop house of 1980? Is that what this is about?

Like that Wonder Woman movie? Yeah. Stewart, I believe you have a jumbo tron. Jojo jumbo tron, hand selected four stew balls. That's right, we got a gate, I don't know why you're interrupting me and doing a real awesome fucking Android. That's right, we got a gamer thing.

In the crossroads, each player takes on the mantle of an adventurer by creating a unique deck of weapon, item, and ability cards. Players then compete through a series of shared turns in which all actions play out on the battlefield map simultaneously. By providing unique and realistic gameplay,roads, reward strong deck building, bold strategy, and a willingness to take informed risks. To support or preorder, find the crossroads on Kickstarter or visit our website at sujournergaming.com.

That's right, the crossroads is a new strategic deck building game for two or more players, which focuses on realistic player-to-player combat in a fantasy setting. Wow, Stuart, there's a lot of gravity in that read. Yeah, well, I think maybe I'm throwing myself in the ring for official voice of Crossroads the gate. Okay. Yeah. So, Elliot has a few announcements about the live shows, but before we get to that, I just want to say the merch contest.

The merch contest. Yeah, thanks for listening. The merch contest is over. We have a couple of winners. Originally, we're just going to do the one, but I think everybody's a winner, Dan. Sure. Everyone's a winner who participated. We got a lot of great stuff. But there were two pieces of art that were neck and neck through the entire competition. So we're like, let's do both. Why limit ourselves, especially since we haven't done new merch in a while. Yeah, we make the rules. Why not change them at the last minute.

So the first, I mean, it's not like if we lived in a world like that, it would be chaos, and nobody would be able to live a normal life. But yeah, let's just do that. Let's just throw the rules out the window. You know, let's also throw out the baby with the bath water. Why not? People tell you not to, but let's just do it, you know? Making a slippery slope argument that I don't think applies. But um, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, the slope is so slippery. Ah, I'm all the way at the bottom now.

So first winner is Elizabeth Steege. She did a lovely house cat on a skateboard t-shirt for us. And our second winner is Scott Yakashin, who did some flop house inspired monsters on a couch. They're kind of in a big daddy Roth style. Both are lovely pieces of merch that you can get by going to flop housepodcast.com

and clicking on the merch link. Also, you can just go to Tapataco or however you pronounce that and click on I think podcast, then max fun. Do you want to spell it? Do you want to spell it? Because it's hard to Because it's hard to. It's hard to. Let me look it up.

I don't have it right in front of it up. You've done a little. Sorry, sorry, Dan, I didn't mean to throw you a curveball. Like, spelling out the name of the website. It's t-o-p-a-t-o-c-o.com. But again, you can just, if you can't do that, you can just go to the Flop house official site and click on the merch button I mean just tell your phone Siri by flop house merch. You'll know what to do. Yeah, I were I'm really happy with both of these and

He's not happy with anything So these these two winners got a little Cash from Max fund, but they also chose some movies for us to. We will not be getting to those until the new year because of our themed months and holidays but we will get to them as soon as we can in the new year. I'm excited about both of the choices that they gave us. Yeah. That's all I want to say about that. Thanks to everybody who entered the contest. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to them for doing great work. Thanks everyone who voted in the contest. I to our winners. And thanks to them for doing great work. Thanks to everyone who voted in the contest.

I'm looking forward to seeing people wearing or displaying this new flop house merchandise. For the flop house, I'm Elliot Kaelin. Yeah. So wait, I think you do the next thing, Elliot. No, the show's over. We just finished it. Oh, okay.

I guess, yeah, I guess I've been still a relative. See you guys later. No, no, no over. We just finished it. Okay, I guess Yeah, I guess I've been still a relative. See you guys later. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the show's not over guys In fact, let's let's keep doing shows. Let's keep doing shows. In fact, let's do some more live shows Let me talk about them. We've still got September 28th in Boston at WBU R city space technically it's outside I think of the Boston city limits, but it's in the Boston metropolitan area September 28th Boston 7 p.m. we'll be talking about Alita Battle Angel. That show is sold out but at 9.45 we're going to be talking about Godzilla King of the Monsters. That's right, we're bringing the Colons to Cambridge. Alita, Colon Battle Angel and Godzilla, Colon King of the

Monsters. It's a double feature of double dots in between words and all of our personal colons will be there I mean, I don't mind isn't allowed to leave state lines I mean if it's anything like a normal show sewer will make extensive use of that colon right before the show Yeah, I mean I can't help it. I get a little nervous before I get out on stage. So the other thing is I'm kind of excited about trying both these movies. I haven't seen them yet. I'm hoping they're both going to be good good. And we got an LA one, too. Did you not set? No, I haven't not yet. So September 28th in Boston. Again, the 945 show Godzilla King of the Monsters tickets still available. October 12th, we're going to be an L.A. Los Angeles back at the Regent Theater, but this time with Stewart. We're going to be that show again over 12th that Saturday and we're gonna be talking about Dark Phoenix.

That's right, the movie that killed the X-Men franchise, Dark Phoenix, maybe the X-Men franchise will rise from the ashes, like a house that's been insured. Yeah, the only metaphor I could think of. Like a zombie? Yeah, like a rise from the ashes like a zombie. So that's September 28th in Boston, 7pm, Alita Battle Angel, 9.45pm, Godzilla King of the Monsters, and then October 12th in Los Angeles. We'll be talking about dark Phoenix. For those tickets, just go to flopphousepodcast.com

slash events and click on the button that says buy tickets or get tickets. For some reason, one of the buttons says buy tickets, the other two buttons say get tickets. This is some choice that Dan made, I'm sure. I don't know why they're not uniform in wording. That's just the way it is. You know, varieties of spice have a lot of value. Whether it's fire, get.

Just one big excitement in early. When I was a little curve ball, he likes to throw. But I'm excited about those shows. I'm excited about finally doing shows in Boston and those are all movies that I'm looking forward to talking about. Let's move on. And we'll have, oh, and another thing we'll have is new presentations. I'm going to do doing some new PowerPoint presentations.

And I think you guys might be too. Yeah, I mean, I might reuse one for the Boston show just because we have to keep it short. And I have a short presentation. But definitely for the late show, which is, again, take us still available. I have a all new presentation I've never done before them very excited about.

I'm just going to keep people guessing. Maybe I'll just show up and you know, vamp for 20 minutes. 20 minutes is a long time for the presentation. You said I had to keep it short. Okay, let's move on to letters from listeners, listeners like you. Hey, this first one is from Sean, last name withheld. Hey guys, wait. Before we get to Sean's letter and I'm sure it's great. I just wanted to sing a little song about this show even though I know it's going long. Hey guys, let me lay it down for you and be honest. Let's be truthful. I'm turning my chair around so I can sit and be real. Welcome to Mara when was a difficult movie,

a hard movie to make jokes about, so I know there haven't been as many jokes in the show. As you think there should be, or even that there isn't a show like Glow, which is kind of a drama, but kind of a comedy. It's 30 minutes long, which these days means comedy, even for a show like transparent, that doesn't really have jokes in it.

And that's how you know though that it's a comedy, it's 30 minutes long. So anyway, this episode has been more like a show like, say, orange is the new black, 60 minutes long, and kind of a comedy, but these days, not a lot of jokes in the episode. The later seasons get pretty serious. Bleak even in a way that makes you think oh yeah this used to be categorized as a comedy even though it's 60 minutes long which by TV definition means it's a drama. So let's just say hey next time we'll have more jokes wait what show are you talking about? Good question stew work. I'm talking about the way that kind of arbitrarily the

Length of a show has become a way to decide the genre. It's I don't think that's a question Stewart asked That's fine. It's fine. Let's just yeah, we So perhaps I missed understanding what Stuart was asking about. So Stu, can you tell me from you, what was that question again? He just wanted to know what show you're singing about the turn to.

What I wanted to ask was, what show were you singing about? That's a good question, okay? I think I understand a couple different shows. I see you checked out at some point. So I was talking at the end about orange is the new black on Netflix. But I also mentioned a couple shows like glow,

also on Netflix transparent, Amazon Prime, and the flop house, which is on Max Fun and you're listening to it right now. If you're not, then you can't hear the song, but wait, hold on. What if you were hearing the song, but not listening to the show? Like maybe it came to you in a dream. Maybe you heard someone far off-screen. The lyrics to the song because they were listening to the flop-hous. Anyway, I was- You were just song anymore, it just had her. It was a surprise stewette for a second. Yeah, sorry, we both-

It's a complicated thing, this life that we live in, and so I'll just say, it's time to end this song. Okay, part one at least, part two of the song is like this. Everyone hates this. Part one at least. Part two of the song is like this. Everyone hates this. Yeah, we both checked out. We both took that moment to check our email. And because I checked our email, I got a little message from our friend at the Alamo Draft House, Christina, who programs things there. I just want to let listeners know

that on November the 12th, I will be hosting a Territus Day at the Alamo Draftous Brooklyn. Well, where I'll be showing final destination three. So that's a new plug. That's pretty cool. That's almost as cool as how like two weeks before on October 30th, I'm going to be hosting a screening of Jason X. Oh wow.

That's a fun one. Yep, so let's go into outer space. And L8, when are you hosting a Territus Day or a weird one, say? I'll be hosting my family on Russia Shana the night after the night after I get home from our Boston shows. Mm-hmm. Where you will I don't know. Okay, Jewish New Year Stewart. So I'll talk about the last year. I'll think about the next year and I will prepare myself for Yum Kapoor a week and a half later when I atone for the sins of the previous year

I ask God's forgiveness and I try to identify how I can be a better person for this coming year Cool me um This first Letter is from Sean who writes Dear opi's I wanted to thank you for your latest episode in which you covered Meep Balls Part 2. Not just because you invited me with two hours of great listening, but because it has also given me closure after 20-something odd years.

Some of the memories, for no discernible reason, that have stuck with me from childhood, are sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday afternoon, flipping through the eight or nine channels we received in my household, and one such memory was seeing a clip of a guy in a dress flying around a boxing ring. Whether I actually watched more than just that scene, I'm not sure, but I continued on with my life, never knowing what it was I'd just seen. Fast forward to just last week, as I listen to you all in your harrowing retelling of the epic that is Meatballs Part 2, I hear a scene that almost caused a flashback as I listen to you all in your harrowing retelling of the epic that is Meatball's part 2. I hear a scene that almost caused a flashback as I relived that moment but still managed to safely continue driving.

Fortunately, I was alone in my car because I then proceeded to instinctually yell out, holy shit, that was Meatball's too! Mm-hmm. After all these years of never knowing what it was my younger self had watched, the three of you and Charlene have finally given me closure. Thank you. And just to tack it on and begin here, while I'm not looking for anything as heavy as this, have you ever watched an older movie to only then realize you'd actually seen it partially on its entirety and not realizing what it was until then. Keep on flopping. Sean.

Uh, I mean, this isn't exactly the same same but it's close enough. I'm not probably already told the story but who cares. I remember sitting in a movie theater watching a screening of the movie Sorcerer and about halfway through him like holy shit. This is exactly the same as that movie. Elliot was talking about wages of fear. So I mean is that kind of similar that I remembered somebody describing a different movie? Similar. The first thing that comes to my mind also isn't quite exactly the right thing. But when I was a kid I watched Night Flight, the program Night Flight showed a compilation of atomic era stuff and also like cartoons and stuff that were associated

with the bomb. And you know, when I was a kid, much like today, there were like high tensions, high geopolitical tensions, and nuclear war was enough on my mind, even as a child, that it was very frightening to me. And there was this one cartoon that ended with these two like punk characters slamming into a semi-truck that was carrying nuclear missiles and blowing up the world and then being sent to hell. And this haunted me for years. And it's only in the age of the internet that I was able to find that it's a cartoon

called Jack Mac and Red Boy Go. Yeah, I used to play that on liquid television sometimes. Yeah, and it's pretty loud. Go, go, go. They're like, one of the faster and faster and they keep crashing into things. Yeah. It was horrifying as a child, but it gave me a little closure to be like Oh, that was that weird thing that I saw

Well, like did you ever see the loony tunes cartoon? That's about how the people of the world killed themselves with war and then the Animals of the world find the Bible and create a perfect world of peace and it was like that I remember seeing that as a kid as part of the like regular Nickelodeon loony tunes round up at like seven or seven thirty and being like what am I watching? This is so grim like yeah, but I would say that at dance this question quickly. It's less that I see a movie and I realize I've seen it before but there are a couple of movies that I've seen a few times and I can never remember anything about them and so I end up watching them again and they just slide out of my mind super easily. So like there's a film where I called Kansas City Confidential and there's a Peter Lorry movie called Mask of Demetrios and a Boris Carlop movie called Isle of the Dead. Each of those movies I've seen at least twice and I can never remember anything about them.

My mind is just rejecting them somehow and I don't know why. Yeah. Alright, well moving on. This next letter did not have a name per se. They identified themselves as Cloud 9. So, okay. I guess they're that George Harrison album. Anyway. Yeah, or it's the staff of the fictional store in the TV show Superstore. Okay.

Dear sweet summer peaches. Or it could be an actual cloud, guys. Let's be sensitive here. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. I've been listening to the podcast for a few years now. In the episode, I come back to the most is definitely, number 204, we are your friends.

As it never fails to help put me to sleep. Not because it's super boring or anything, but rather because it's my favorite episode. And the dialogue and familiarity always really helps me calm down. So my question is, what do you guys use as comfort media? Whether it calms you down or is even just something you feel comfortable watching over and over again, what movie TV show podcast or book do you use as your secret weapon to battle anxiety, stress, or grief. Thank you for all the laughs, Cloud9. I think we've answered similar things before. Now that I'm reading this thing,

but it's still an interesting enough question. I'm sure that we'll give different answers than what we may have thought of before. I have talked before about how after my divorce, I listened to a lot of my brother, my brother and me, which cheered me up with its fine laughs. But also like you, I like to go to sleep listening to podcasts because I find people's voices comforting.

And it's sort of embarrassing because Chuck Bryant is kind of a acquaintance friend of ours. But I like to listen to stuff you should know before going to bed because I find their voices relaxing. And it's interesting enough that it focuses my brain on something that's not like self-recrimination or something like that right before bed. But in terms of like movies, like just making me feel better, I think that anything because of the nostalgic glow of them, like anything sort of very 80s feeling makes me feel good like a John Carpenter movie or something along those lines.

It must be tough for you then because no popular media seems to have been. It feels like the 80s are really past day right now. There's a lot of 80s stuff. Yeah. What have you guys got? Let's see. For music, I almost always go to the dumbest caveman death metal I can think of.

Stuff that would normally amp me up, but also, like, I don't know, is just super simple. And I don't know. For movies and TV and stuff, I'm such a fan of like Miyazaki movies, like I could watch Castle Cagliostro every day. It's the best. And for, I don't know, like, for comics, I like to read comics to kind of calm me down. And for the last couple of years, Giant Days has been my go-to for like a super relaxing, non-stressful thing.

I have talked in the past about how seeing in the rain is a movie that I take a lot of comfort in, but lately, I haven't had the time for that. So when I'm feeling anxious or unhappy, I've been turning to the song Venus. I think it's called Bringer of Peace from Holst's The Planets. And of all the, And for years I've been a big fan of Holst's The Planets, but there's something about the Venus song in particular that really

comes me down. It's a very calming sound and a very inspiring song to me. And it's eight minutes long, so it's like, okay, I need eight minutes to calm down. I guess I'll listen to this song. All right, that's very nice. and it's eight minutes long so it's like okay i need eight minutes to calm down i guess a little bit song alright it's very nice uh... last letter is from louis last name with health who writes

hey peaches and the meatballs part two reviews we heard from charlene about what steward is really like uh... far from the bad boy party animal persona that he likes to put on oh yeah that's what he's actually a sweetie pie who makes his wife breakfast every morning. So I'd like to hear from the other wives and or girlfriends. What are you afraid of, peaches? Give your significant others the microphones for once and let them air their grievances on the podcast.

You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. Also, I really enjoy the show. It's sincerely Lewis. Okay. So it's a very threatening. Yeah. So I guess, get Danielle down. I mean, she and Danielle is unlike me who thrives on the attention of strangers. My wife does not like to be in the spotlight. Yeah. And frequently rejects my offers to like be a part of the podcast or to do anything she does doesn't like to be

She doesn't like to put herself out there like that. She's a very private person So I do not think it is likely to have happened But that's also exactly what I would say if I was keeping her from being on the podcast That's true. I guess you'll never know what the truth is. Yeah, I didn't figure we would actually do this But I do think it's interesting to be like, is there anything I don't know about our real-life personality that we want to say that might be in there?

Are you fishing for us to be like, Dan, we give you this is an all-in-act that we... Well, no, I mean, I will say that you guys are... We give Dan a lot of shit, but actually he's like a super great guy He's a good guy fishing for us to like talk about each other necessarily I was talking about talking about ourselves although I will say that like you guys are a lot nicer to me It's a bit Because we're performers and we're like super professional. Yeah, I don't know what i like i don't know what i would say about myself that like someone in a relationship might say about me i think i might say that i am uh... even crankier in real life than i appear on the podcast

but uh... i'm warm and sweet nation beneath it like the old man at the end of the street who just needs a puppy to uh... bring him back into society like the old man at the end of the street who just needs a puppy to bring him back into society. Like the old man from the old man from Granterino. Oh yeah, the old man from Granterino. Who just is a warm guy. Yeah, Dan, you're the old man from Home Alone. Rich, like people think you're scary because you're shoveling your walk in the middle of the night. But actually, you're a sweet old man who just wants a kid to Show interest in him and then you'll help you fight burglar's or whatever. Yeah

And you're not like the old man from night of the demons who buys a bunch of razor relates to put in apples that he's gonna give Trick or not and then he accidentally is hoisted by his own petard and eats Homemade apple pie that somehow the full razor blades, it's crazy. And you're not like the old man and grumpy old man. I'm talking about Burgess Meredith because you're not always telling like filthy limmerics and stuff like that. Mm-hmm.

I'm also not like the old man in the sea. I don't go out to see for giant Marlin. No, not at all. Yeah. All right. Well, cool. Okay. So we figured out what Dan is and Dan isn't. I mean, I guess what someone would say about me

would just be that people might not know about is probably just about how buff I am. Like, it's true. It's one of those guys, once you take off my shirt, people are like, wow, I had no idea you were so built. You seem like just a slight guy. But it's just because I wear very loose clothes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wear a lot of calf dans when you podcast.

Little did we know that when you take that off, though you have a very small frame, you just got like, oh, just slabs of beef strapped on there. Oh, yeah, it's proportionally very, very buff, but on a small frame, yeah. Like if a child really worked out hard it's like it's like the little bulldog in the cartoons who so is walking around with this big old buff arms that's kind of like you i was gonna say it's like the scene in kung fu hustle where they're looking for people to beat up in the town there's ones two tough looking and they point out

the kid and the kid walks out and he's super buff yep oh what a good movie. Uh, so I guess those are letters. Um, you know, I kind of open myself up a little more than Elliot did, but uh, oh, that's true. But that's, maybe that's what we would reveal the part of our personalities. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that, uh, Elliot's a very private person. He doesn't talk that much. I'm sure. So let's, uh, I mean, this is the thing is I'm sure. I feel like my personality is kind of an open book. To a certain extent, it's like what you see is what you get. Yeah, it's like a faucet that you try and turn off, but then the knob breaks and it just keeps squirting out. And you're like, oh, I'm alone.

It's like a fire hose and a cartoon. You lose control of it and you're just spraying everybody. Yeah, I like to not quite the motor mouth that he seems on the podcast. He is a little bit, but he's, he's a, a lot more indulgent to than, then he seems. Um, okay. Let's do recommendations. Okay, so we'll recommend the next part of the podcast is where we recommend movies that you might want to watch instead of welcome Marwen. Thank you.

Thank you. Elliot looks very excited to go first. So why don't we do a little bounce pass of that ball over to Elliot? Sure. I can go. If you'd like me to, I was going to recommend a movie. I really enjoyed a lot, which is a Korean movie called Burning that came up from last year. It's got a lot of hype on people's year best lists, but I only got a chance to watch it

recently. It's directed by Lee Chang-dong. And it's based on a hurricane Murakami story, and it manages to capture the sense of like long stretches of aimless time that his story's capture. It's a movie about a man who, a young man who becomes enamored of a friend of his and falls in love with her. She goes off on a trip and comes back with this guy where it's not quite clear what their relationship is, and the guy is very rich while the other two are not.

And just kind of, he's this strangely condescending like, there's something sinister about him, it seems, but you're not sure if that's just because the main character is envious of him, and the movie takes some turns that I don't want to tell you about ahead of time, but it's a slow moving movie, but it's really hypnotic and like surprising and it's one of the few movies I've seen recently where it was very satisfying in the way it forced me to dig deeper into it and figure out my own understanding of what's happening

in it. It's a very open-ended movie in a certain way, like the plot is not open-ended, but the things that are happening behind the plot and inside the characters, you have to figure some of that out for yourself in a way that sounds, that sounds kind of boring and irritating, but it's not. I found it to be a really fantastic movie. So that's burning. That sounds great. I want to check that out. I, uh, I'm going to recommend a movie I watched on a plane when I was flying back from England the other day. I watched this movie The Headhunter, which is like a trim 80 minutes or 80 maybe 70 minutes. It's a short one.

And it, uh, though it is build is having, uh, on IMDB, it's build is having three people in the cast that is not true, there are only two, and it is kind of a grim gritty fantasy focusing on a guy who it seems like his only mission in life is to heed the call of the nearby settlement and hunt down whatever monsters seem to be bedebbling them and then chopping their heads off and be bedeviling them and then chopping their heads off and mounting them in his home and the one monster that has eluded him is the one that took his daughter away from him and it's like it's this great little fun movie that takes advantage of its relatively spare budget. A lot of the action is implied.

It's, yeah, it's a cool little movie. It feels like, almost like something that would normally be fit into like a short, but kind of extended. It's cool. It's fun. The headhunter. Check it out. I have been on, you know, the Daily Show takes a couple breaks during the summer. I've been on one of those. So I've seen a lot more movies in the theater taking more chances on different movies.

I went out and I saw scary stories to tell in the dark, which I thought was a lot of fun. A lot of people have said it's kind of a throwback to kind of Ambulance style kid horror. Not like a kid's on bikes thing. Yeah, and you know, again, like I said, I have a lot of nostalgia for that, but I also, it's a PG-13 horror movie that doesn't try to be, like try to pretend like it's the same as an R rated horror movie, you know, it's not taking itself seriously, it's having a lot more fun with like the scares and the grossness and just the adventure side of things and I appreciate that, like I like a fun horror movie more than I like kind of like an I holistic one most of the time and so I enjoyed it on that level and also

You know, it's based on the popular series of kids Books from that I remember from my youth a lot of compilations of folk tales a lot of compilations of urban legends all crammed together and When wrapped in a package of the creepiest art ofable. Yeah, the art by Stephen Gamel. And I will say that this is one of the movies that, for a movie that could easily have been like, we are just buying this property to have the name recognition. It had a lot of... Yeah, you were making that complaint

about the Goosebumps movie. Shut up. I'm saying it. It had a lot of... It had a lot of respect for the source material. There's a framing device involving a book that normally is the sort of thing that would irritate me, but it felt like reverence for where it came from. Also, the creature effects were done to make them look as much like the illustrations as possible,

which was kind of neat. So I had a lot of fun. It's not quite as funny or scary as I would ideally like, but it's very enjoyable in that vein. So that's my recommendation. Scary stories to tell in the dark. Do they do the story about the, do they do the story about the family that brings a dog back from Mexico and it turns out to be a rat? A Mexican sewer rat. Because that's the one that, that's the one that always stuck with me from those books, partly because it was like, why would you, like, it's, the picture was so horrifying.

I would never take this dog, it looks horrible. Like, yeah, they're soft-hearted, they want to, you know, why should the only attractive dogs be adopted? Yeah, and all dogs on the head. How does the story end? It just ends with the, like, the, like, the reveal. It's a Mexican sure that and it has rabies. Oh, that's not, yeah. And they kept it in, like, it was in, like, that's not. Yeah, and it kept it in like, it was in like that babies. Like, it's disturbing. It's disturbing. Well, I guess that's a sad story then.

Yeah, I mean, no, it's literally a scary story to tell in the dark. I mean, if it's so dark, how can you read? That's just what I was going to ask. That's a good question. The book does not answer it. Sure. Well, what's a dark ink? That's what the next edition needs.

My Amazon review said one star, too many unanswered questions. If I'm in the dark, how can I read it? This book doesn't work. Okay, guys, well, I think we did it. What? I don't know. But go to the BaxmanFun.org, check out all the other great podcasts there. It's our network. They do a lot for us.

We love them. Like and subscribe, baby. Yeah, subscribe on iTunes, rate us on iTunes. And you know, don't do it if you've got mean things to say. Why life is short? Why bother? But if you do something nice to say, review us, tweet about us, all that stuff.

Tell people about us. Help us spread the word of this show that we're doing. And maybe this wasn't the most laugh out loud episode, all that stuff. Tell people about us, help us spread the word of this show that we're doing, and maybe this wasn't the most laugh out loud episode, but I'll tell you what. Yeah, we lived, we loved, we learned. Yeah, exactly. We do what we can with the things that we have, and isn't that what life is all about doing what you can with the things that you have? Yeah, well, okay cool. I guess we're gonna keep wrapping this fucking train up Train up. Yeah, it's crystal what's going on? Yeah, Dan. I hate to break it to you. We're crystal now Just those people with those umbrellas so much work

Killed all those people with those umbrellas like he killed 45 people with them or something I think it was a one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy.

I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy.

I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. I think it was one guy. and not Christo. And I'm Elliot Kalen, also not Christo, which means my process of elimination,

Dan is Christo. Oh. Bye. Bye. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Let's do one more, just in case. Oh, a joke one, okay. No, no got a I got a I got a serious I like that one I just I got a serious one I want. Okay. On this episode we discuss welcome

to Marwin Fart. Alright. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience supported.