The Flop House - Ep. #297 - Mortal Engines

Episode Date: November 9, 2019

Enough about small failures like Slender Man, let's talk about massive, hubristic failures like Mortal Engines! Meanwhile Stuart discourses on other evil Valentines in fiction, Elliott's got Morgan Spurlock's reciepts, Dan doesn't understand how a single goddamn thing in this movie works, and we're joined by Brendan Hay, executive producer for Harvey Girls Forever! Wikipedia synopsis of Mortal Engines Movies recommended in this episode: Crawl Bones Centipede Horror Pieces Ashes and Embers Ready or Not The Nightingale

On this episode we discuss mortal engines. The movie that will make you realize, cities that roll around on tank treads and harpoon other cities and then eat those cities are kind of boring. Hey everyone and welcome to the Fluff House, I'm Dan McCoy. Oh hey there Dan McCoy, I'm Steward Wellingtown. Hey there Dan McCoy and Steward Wellingtown, it's me, Elliott Kalen, and I'm joined today by a very special guest, Brendan. Say hi. Hi, I'm Brendan Hey. This is Brendan Hey, he's the showrunner of the Netflix animated series Harvey Girls Forever. Third season is out now. Uh, yes.

And he is also, you know, a great friend of ours. He's been a long time friend of mine He's one of my groomsmen and he has a boatload of stories for money was the head writer of Star Wars detours They have Star Wars animated cartoon that never aired but we never will We're not here to talk about that early. I mean we can but I think Mortal engines is far more fascinating Yeah, so Brennan what brought you to the other it's more fascinating. Yeah, so Brennan, what brought you to the world? Yeah, it's more fascinating than Star Wars. Well, guys, I think the success of Mortal Engine's proves the world is hungry for cities that eat cities and not for anything Star Wars related content. Yeah, Star Wars, it's too bad that it's kind of hit a down serve. It really has. It's

about time. You know, it's everything has its phase and Star Wars is done. You know, I was at Engine's Edge at Disney. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Mortal Engines themed theme park. And I was just having so much fun riding around in the bumper cars that are shaped like cities on tank trees. And Disney Plus is going to be huge because now they have the engineer that's been off of the Mortal Engines franchise. The engineering is going to be huge. So Dan, what do we do on this podcast? Wait, is Brendan done being introduced? I thought Ellie was about to say something. Oh, I know you were pretty good.

I mean, I'm always about to say something, dude, you got to interrupt me. Once you, once I pop, I can't stop. So this is the reason I know Ellie it is because I used to have a ex-force, dupe screen saver. And when he was an intern and I was a writer's assistant at the Daily Show, he was probably the only person ever on staff to be like, hey, is that a dupe screensaver?

I mean, we talked for about a half hour and there you go. And we have been friends ever since. I mean, I was cool with that. I was like, hey, sweet dupe. That actually is more accurate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You were the cool dude in the situation. Yeah, yeah, I was a cool dude in my black jeans

and tucked in black Frankenstein. It's like I say, yeah, I might have been the Boris Carlaw. Yeah. Yeah, you were smoking cigarettes and tucked in black Frankenstein. You're gonna say, yeah, it might have been the Boris Karloff. Yeah. Yeah, and you were smoking cigarettes and staring at the ceiling wistfully. Am I Sydney Carton in the trial scene in a tale of two cities?

Possibly. I mean, I was kind of mashing up like a traditional French cool guy with Jordan Catalano. Okay. The coolest of teenagers, yeah. So Dan, what do we do on this podcast? This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

And today we're discussing Mortal Engines, which was produced by Peter Jackson. Now you guys keep saying that we watch Mortal Engines. Sure, sure. But I'm pretty sure I watched Mortal instruments, city of bones. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no uh... okay having seen a break at me but you have same guy so how we watch the right movie right uh...

most of the way let well let's why tonight and i'll pay that was his name why don't we talk about the movie and we can figure out how much it it uh... lines up or doesn't line up the two mortal movies that also start the same guy and have a bad guy whose last name is balanced. Because the only mortal and are based on weighing novels. The only mortal engines. The only featuring cities. No, don't worry about let's just move on. Okay. No, no, what

are we gonna say? What are we gonna say Stewart? What are you gonna say? I dare you. I double dog dare. I'm checking my phone. Okay, mortal engines. So guys, let's talk about the movie. The movie opens with a voiceover over the production credits of all things, not over footage, but just over the names of production companies, but how in the future society collapsed and resources were scarce to the age of the predator cities began. Long story short, this is doled out to us in not so much clues but varied infodums. I'll just tell you, the movie takes place years after the 60-minute war when a doomsday

quantum weapon called Medusa destroyed the world's big cities. And now the only cities that are left are enormous vehicles on tank treads, something that I never was never really explained how the way for a city to survive was to become a tank tread city. Guys, did I miss this? No, this was in a movie that I had a lot of problems with. This was my major problem, which is the entire premise of a movie. The basic thing in the movie is that these cities roam around and there's no explanation as to why after the apocalypse, that is a better model of...

I mean, I'm gonna tell you right up top, it's so that you don't get blasted by somebody's Medusa laser. What? If you're driving around real quick, you're like hot dogging around Europe, they can't blast you with Medusa. I thought you'd have Medusa lasers anymore, that was the whole point.

Now the other thing, why do they call it a Medusa? When a Medusa traditionally turns a normal thing into stone and the laser turns stone into rubble. That's a nice point. You got your bit, that's your tight five on the Medusa, right? I have to assume they named it after their favorite parody of Madonna Truth or Dare, the Julie Brown movie Medusa, Truth or Dare is a call.

I think that sounds correct. Okay. Wow. It's an image of true video story. I've never, ever heard of. Okay. Wow. It's an image of you. It's an image of you. It's an image of you. It's an image of you. It's an image of you. It's an image of you.

I've never, never heard of. But you did it. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Someone didn't have HBO growing up. The only place where you could reliably find, at any time of day, one of Julie Brown's two movies, that or Earth Girls Are Easy. Okay, so we're open up, and there's this little steam punk city with a multi-ethnic

cast. They all love each other. It's a great, they're having a peaceful time. There's a girl who has a red bandana over her face who lives there But uh-oh London is coming and the city splits up into little tank cities with lots of smoke stacks and levers Everything's steampunk and it gets chased around by London Which is this huge predator city that's riding around Europe looking for resources again This is the best way for a city to exist in the after times is for it to literally need more gasoline to run itself than if it just sat in one place and sent people out on horses, I guess, but uh London we soon learn is piloted by He's gonna be the villain. How do you know? He's played by Hugo weaving his name thaddeus Valentine

Who's a sort of what's his job? He's like an archaeologist inventor administrator pilot like what like well? Yeah, which gets a little bit to also this does seem to be instead of the road warrior, it's the road bureaucrat. Because instead of it's like, oh, here's a badass warrior with like tons of fighters and flaming guitars, it's like, no, here's an architect with a room full of navigators and some historians. Yeah, he's got a good beard though. He doesn't have a good beard. Now Stuart, you know Hugo Weaving Best of course from your favorite three film series of films. The Matrix

movie. Yep. So, uh, he said, uh, he was always chasing that Mr. Anderson, right? So here's where, so I was like, and this is around the point where I was like, so is it that the world is like too radioactive for the city to stay in one place? I don't think so. I mean, I don't think that specific weapon, I feel like part of what makes that the blaster thing the Medusa is that it's not really, it's not radiation it just like Fucks everything out. Yeah, it's some kind of quantum energy. I wasn't moving. I wasn't paying attention to the Exposition of the movie so I can't remember exactly how they explain how it fucks it up, but it fucks it up. You were just too distracted by the production

though, those at course. That would be an amazing scene if it was like, in the 60 second war, the Medusa weapon was unleashed. The Medusa, what does it do? It really fucks things up. Like it hits the city, it really fucks that city up. Like that city is in deep shit. After the Medusa hits it.

And Peter Jackson's reading the script and he's like, yes, Fran, perfect dialogue. I love it. So London catches one of these little cities. It hits it with Harpoons and ingests it and starts taking on all the people and taking apart the machines and the old tech. And at that point, the cool part of the movie

is effectively over. We are about 10 minutes in at that point. Yeah, and I mean, at that point, that's also when we finally get the title. Like before the title, we see a lot of characters running around with a variety of wigs and a variety of like the old Victorian London style outfits that are slightly post-apocalyptic, but not really.

Yeah, I mean, you say that the cool part of the movie is over, but I really had big problems with this opening action sequence. Not only is it incomprehensible in the way it's shot, but like, it expects you to care right away about what's happening when you're all right, you're baffled by these cities. Like, I feel like we already mentioned the matrix. Like the matrix starts out with a big action sequence where you don't really understand what's going on.

But you understand enough, and that's like, okay, this woman needs to get away from these people. And then when weird stuff starts happening, like you have these cops around who are like, what the fuck, like acknowledging that it's weird. Like here, it's like, I don't care about these people right off the bat. I don't know what's going on with these fucking cities.

Why do you assume we're gonna be thrilled by this action sequence? Hey, all you know is a little city is being eaten by a big city. It's the circle of life. What are you going to do? You're like, why does this remind me so much of the pirates of dark water? And as we've all known, we learned what the mortal engines are. Which are the God machines of the Adeptus Titanic.

Yeah. Well, that's the the mortal engine we realize now is our own heart, which will eventually stop beating and we're wasting its time watching this movie. Now, so you're in luck, Dan, because we're about to meet the hero of the movie, and I know you're going to love him. He works at the British Museum. He's a clumsy eccentric who's very handsome. I would call him like a blander Eddie Redman, his name's Tom Natsworthy.

And he has a collection of dangerous old tech that he keeps hidden so nobody can use it. And also minions. And he also, they have, there's a, there's a hilarious joke where there's some minions statues and they people think that they are deities from the old worlds. So here's what I don't understand. They have video of the 62nd war, of the 60 minute war. They wear the same clothes. they have the old tech. Why do they think the minions were gods when they should have a copy of at the very least despicable me three on hands?

I will go you one better. You talked about how everything was like esteem punk in this world. And it does not make any sense to me. It's like after the apocalypse, why isn't everything just like cobbled together from various shit instead of like, you've got airships at the end after the apocalypse, why isn't everything just like cobbled together from various shit instead of like, you've got airships in the bottom,

at the end of the movie, there's like, okay, I guess Leonardo da Vinci designed this. Yeah, yeah. Why is basically everyone in this movie, British? Yeah, like did they not get blasted by the Medusa? That's one of the weird things is, London is they're in Europe and they're like, we never should have come to Europe.

But everyone they meet is British for the most part. But at the very end they meet a Chinese person. So there's that. But Dan, I think you're forgetting that after the apocalypse, I'll tell you one thing, the Medusa can't destroy. Humanity is a neat need for style. Okay. So why should I be in some crappy old airship when I can be in one that looks to the past, but at the same time also looks to the future

I call it the DaVinci 5000. It's retro, real retro. You might even call it a renaissance in airline design. Let me take you a break. The DaVinci 5000 has the latest state of the art old stuff that we found in the remnants of the old cities and put together in some big heap of junk. But at the same time, it's got modern day amenities. Now, modern days after the apocalypse, so those amenities include Twinkies, which we'll see later have survived, and also minion statues. So the great thing about the DaVinci 5000 or 6000, I can't remember what number I gave this model number, is that it comes with minion statues. Dan, how do you feel about the minions? Now, I want to jump in here. Before I purchase this, before I put cash on the barrel head or quirks as they call it. OK, we got a customer.

I love it, yeah. As our currency is called quirks, which is appropriate, since this movie is filled with them. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK.

OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK I'm in possession of a cassette tape that my mom made me it's a mix. It's filled with 70s rock and roll She gave it to me before she died from alien cancer Is there any way that I could play this in sort of in she's 6,000 or whatever you call it You are in love Actually have yes, we have a tape player. It doesn't work, but it looks cool

And if you find the parts that would make it work, I'm sure you could install them, too. And then you can pop around to your mom's favorite 70s hits. Let's call it like 70s awesome mixed volume one. Volume two, of course, you'll save for the sequel. And when you meet up with your alien buddies, or perhaps when you read your dad's book about how love came from the stars in the form of Darth Vader

or something, then you know, it'll all be, you'll enjoy it really much. So how much can I ask you to pay me? There's no way there's no way you can have him to pay anything. You have the power. And really he's paying in quirks. Oh, and you're paying me in quirks, so that's one quirk is worth what, like a, like a piece of turkey, what's one eccentricity? So he could start wearing a bull or hat everywhere he goes.

Oh, wow. So, yeah, you're gonna have to pay me by looking like a character from another movie who's been ported into this movie as we'll see later on. Okay, so we meet this guy, Tom Natsworthy. He's talking to Kate, a pretty woman who is looking for information on the 60 minute war. I don't know that we ever find out why. It's basically just so that she can meet Tom.

And Tom tells her as he tells everybody, he always wanted to be an aviator, but he couldn't for some reason that is never fully defined as far as I can remember And so now he's an apprentice historian so Tom and Kate or it's right Tim and Kate no Tom plus eight Tom or Tim Tom It's plus eight. Yeah Tim and Kate plus eight. They know Tom Tom it is Tom. Okay, noseworthy or something. No, it's worth a there. Yeah, or where Tom. It is. It's on. Okay. No's worthy. I wrote it. No's worthy. There we go. Or nose worthy. It could be. Look, he's more worthy of a nose than a net. Let's just say that. Oh, wow. I praise. Like the old saying goes. Maybe old saying goes better a nose than a net, better a net than a cat, better a cat than a hat, better a hat than a nose. The circle of life continuous. Tom goes to where they're processing this city

that just got in stuff and he impresses Thaddeus Valentine by identifying an old toaster. And we learn that Thaddeus Valentine is Kate Stad. Her name is Kate Valentine. We also meet Tom's friend Bevis, who's kind of a frost-tipped maintenance student. He's kind of the Stuart Wellington of the movie. Yeah, he's pretty cool and kind of always underfoot, you know?

Yeah, he's always there when you least expect it. And then he disappears for most of the most. Yeah, he's pretty cool and kind of always underfoot, you know. Yeah, he's always there when you least expect it and then he disappears for most of the end of the movie. So in that way, he's kind of like the Dan too. Oh, wow. Wow, we're enough. And they find in all this old tech a dangerous fusion inverter cell and Valentine is like, I'll take that so it can be destroyed and not misused and you're like, guys, don't give that dangerous tech to Hugo weaving. He's obviously the bad guy.

And the only thing to be worse is if his boss, Max von Scydow, showed up and took it from him. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the Red Band Dana lady from earlier, she finally makes her appearance, she jumps out and she stabs Hugo weaving and she goes, this is for Pandora Shaw. That's right, we're learning the name of the character we haven't met yet before the names of characters we have met. Thanks mortal engines. And Tom chases her around and they run through the giant chainsaw factory that's breaking up the sea that I'm glad that he's like, I'm glad that he takes the initiative on this one that he's like, he's like, fuck

it. There's train professionals here. There's guards who's only job is to prevent people from causing any violence. Instead, I'm going to chase after this person. Like most of my job is to polish an old minion statue, but no, it's time for me to take down this would be a assassin. And jump among the chainsaws. Yeah. And jump through the chainsaws. Like just like the old, the old Metallica song, into the chainsaws.

Now Dan, Stu, how did you guys feel about this giant chainsaw level? Did you think it was just there for the Mortal Engine's video game that I assume was being developed, but I don't know if it was ever released? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's you got a duck you got a jump jump to the left. I mean all I know is like for it's the controller tutorial. Yeah for a post-apocalyptic world They are doing pretty well because they have figured out how to put entire cities on treads and moving around and they've got giant chainsaw rooms I mean, like for someone that someplace that's supposed to be low on resources, they have done some crazy shit. They are wasting a lot of resources. It's a system that makes no sense. But good

thing, it's also boring. So don't worry. You won't have time to answer those questions because or ask them. She because this woman, this mystery woman gives Tom a cryptic warning, then jumps down into what is essentially the city's anus and where all the waste material goes. And it's kind of implied that she has is in danger by doing that. And then Thaddeus shows up and Tom's like, oh, this woman said that you're a bad dude. And Thaddeus is like, yep, and he shoves Tom into the same city anus. And he falls to, we assume, maybe his death. But guess Tom into the same city anus and he falls to we assume maybe his death But guess who saw the whole thing?

That's right Bevis. Oh, yeah, and he's gonna go home to his friend Bethead and tell him all about it while they watch 90s MTV music videos You know That's it. That's all I got That's it. That's all I got. Now, it's all the movie deserves. I called Bevis the Stuart Wellington of the movie. What would you have done in this situation? You just saw a friend of yours get pushed to maybe his death into the city's butt by the man who runs the city Who is conveniently not surrounded by anybody even though he was just stabbed? So what would you do with that information? What what what would you do with that information? What would you do? Obviously what I would have done is I would have pulled out my hoverboard and surfed down

into that but to help my friend because I don't want to be stuck on this boring city anymore. All right. And Brendan, what would you have done in that situation? I think the 90s music video is actually sounds like a pretty good option just to go back there and just, you know, numb the pain of watching my best friend having been murdered with a little bit of a metallic as one. Okay, sure, yeah. All right. And Dan, let's, you do it too.

What would you have done in this situation? You just saw your best friend get, well, maybe I actually don't know how good a friend's there. They just bumped into each other. Like, there are plenty of people where if I was with a girl and I bumped into them, I'd introduce them, but it's not like they're my bestie or something. Dan, what would you have done in this situation?

Actually, let's say you're Thaddeus Valentine because you have a beard too, just like him. What would you have done in this situation? Would you kill this nice boy just to keep your secret that you're maybe evil? Sure, man, what do I have to lose? I just been stabbed by this lady, like, no one else is around.

And Tom, Tom, you're the nads gnats were these pretty boring. I want to like zap the world with my Medusa ray spoiler alert. So I don't think that this one kid is gonna get my way. Okay fair point. I mean he does later spoiler it will as we'll see blow up an entire prison full of people. Yeah. To release one zombie mechanic assassin. But okay, Thaddeus uh found time he's like the traction cities can't live in peace with the static city. Especially this big eastern city called Shangguo, which has a big wall around there. What's with Shangguo?

What was the person? Shangguo? Shangguo? It might be the same. I mean, the same way that like in Star Wars, sometimes a name applies to both a race and a person. Oh, is it? Yeah.

I think he's the mayor of Shangguo. This is yet another thing that's not explained. Like why like mobile cities and stationary cities hate each other and like what side we're like really supposed to be on. Probably, probably show a weaving out of the equation. Like why, why they hate each other and like why one is better than the other or more evil.

Yeah. It's, I mean, it is, it's, it's very weird. It's weird that like people are super-cons, like Hugo weaving's nervous that it's, I mean, it is, it's, it's very weird. It's weird that like people are super kinds like Hugo Weaving's nervous that it's going to get out that he murdered somebody who we don't even know yet. Yeah, because like this city just ate another city. Like, I feel like these people wouldn't give that much of a shit. Yeah, I mean, and also, yeah, he could just be like, oh, yeah, well, the person I murdered lived in a static city. So of course a does she had to die Maybe like oh yeah, maybe the fact that we don't know why they hate each other is meant to some sort of like

Allegority against the meaningless of war because right now it really feels like a Star belly non-star belly sneech situation where it's like I guess one's better than the other because they think it is Yeah, and then well as we see later on Morgan spur lock has them to a 90-day swap with a change lives for 90 days and they realize they're not so different after all It's a very surprising ending to this act belt blockbuster science fiction adventure movie that a hologram of Morgan's block has them Switch places and also then he supersizes himself and becomes a giant eats the plan And everyone there's like aren't you problematic for some reasons I forget but kind of remember reading about And also then he supersizes himself and becomes a giant eats the plant. Wow. And everyone there is like, aren't you problematic for some reason?

I forget, but kind of remember reading about. And Morgan is like, it's because I unknowingly sexually harassed my assistant. And we're like, oh, of course, that's why it is. But only for 30 days. Yeah, yeah, they go spur, lock him up and spur, throw away the spur key. Yeah. Wait, who said that? The police?

Yeah, he's On the police. Just sting. Just sting solo said it. Not the whole police. So don't worry, Dan. You'll find out why they hate each other because they hate each other because it's a movie. So Kate, his daughter, disagrees. We can live in peace.

And he gets a phone call from the Lord Mayor of London who's like, that he is your big energy plan isn't done yet. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. And pretty soon, Kate and Bevis are suspicious about Hugo Weaving's true intentions because why wouldn't you be? He's Hugo Weaving. Anyway, meanwhile, Tom and the Red Bandant Lady, they're walking around in this wasteland of the future inside the giant train tracks or tank treads of the cities.

And we learn that she's Hester Shaw, daughter of Pandora Shaw, because in the future, there are people who have dumb first names and people who have regular first names. And the tons and kates and the Pandoras and Hester's are in civil war with each other. And she teaches city boy Tom had a drink mud and eat twinkies, which are kind of the same thing.

Guys, that's a real hot take. How do you respond to that? We need to, I want to say that we as a culture need to come up with a new shorthand for food that will survive the apocalypse beyond twinkies. I feel like we've been hosting on that for a very long time. Except maybe it's because I rewatched Zombie Land recently, but I'm like they have the Twinkies jokes there. I feel like everybody's like cockroaches and Twinkies. I mean, you also, because you could say other hostess products are probably gonna last just as long. I mean, that would be great. And also, like, I see the stuff my children eat. There's a lot of that that will survive forever, so just Hollywood. Now, Brad, Brad, Brad, Brad for once and pick a different item.

I don't want to, you know, as a non-parent, I don't want to talk about your parenting, but it seems like you're in control of what your children eat to some degree. I wish that were true. Yeah. about your parenting, but it seems like you're in control of what your children need to some degree. I wish that were true. Halloween Week has taught me nothing else. I am a mere pawn in all of this. They have long cons and wheels within wheels going on all around me and how to get sugar. Yeah, yeah, it's truly a cream.

Candy rules everything around me. I also find that with children's hands being so close to the ground, they have a tendency to just scoop up stuff and toss them in their little mouths. Kind of like this, kind of like the city of London. Yeah, yeah. My baby boy who's 15 months today, he is very much a miniature city of London just walking around scooping things off the ground thrown in his gullet. I have to reach in and pull it out and often like fo Eddie Redmayne and they're going, hey, I gotta get back to lunch. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed.

I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed.

I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed.

I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to bed. pushing little Tom Knowsworthy's at my son's butt. Yeah, yep. And then I open up his diaper and there's just a little like foe and he read main and they're going, hey, I gotta get back to London and I squish him, cause I'm so scared. Much better movie. Much better movie. And then he radios back to Earth and goes,

it's a planet of giants. The Mortal engines meet Dave. Yeah, oh, you know, is it the Mortal engines meet Dave? Oh yeah, meet meet Dave. Cause if you, we're, is it the Mortal Engines Meet Dave? Oh, yeah, Meet Dave. Because if you were a Mortal Engines Meet Dave, that would be the movie where Thaddeus Valentine is sick and a fake Thaddeus Valentine takes his place. And he's kind of a good guy and kind of a goofball.

And suddenly he's like making friends with Shanguo. And everybody's like, we like Thaddeus Valentine a lot. Yeah. So Dan got up and left because he doesn't like it when I badmouthed the is Dave or meat Dave. We're just talking about your opinions on the movie meat Dave Dan. Now it's an ironic name because in that movie Dave is like a robot piloted by tiny guys. So he isn't actually made out of meat. Yeah, I think we might have made that joke about 150 episodes ago on this very show.

Go back and listen Okay, episode one still Okay, so they get kids so anyway Tom and Pandora and Hester I'm sorry Pandora's her mom Tom and Esther are walking around they get kidnapped by a kind of vehicle with fake ground on it and inside They get served tea and cookies because of course this is continental Europe and everybody is British and Hester explains eventually that her mom was an archaeologist who found something Hugo wanted a piece of old tech and Hugo killed her for it and left Hester with a bunch of scars and Hester was just roaming the wasteland as a kid. Hester obviously knows too much so Thaddeus Valentine he goes to this big ocean prison

on spider legs out in the middle of the ocean to release Shrike a leftover zombie automaton killer from the Lazarus brigade who's obsessed with killing Hester for some reason Stewart was this one you went awesome and had to like hide your boner from the movie I was like I don't want the movie to see it or else the shrikel take it off The I mean this was one of those great scenes where like, it's, you're starting to wonder if every, every like domicile or whatever in this, every building in this world is built in the most easily

to be destroyed manner possible. You mean it's a reason that's unspindly spying legs for so many? And I would think like, like, taking a city and just slapping on some treads and having it fucking dune buggy around, like, that's gonna blow up. Like, that's gonna, that's gonna fuck up. Like, there's no way that's gonna survive.

And then, of course, later on, there's like a pirate colony that lives in the air and like, one shrike gets there and then it's all fucked up. There goes the neighborhood. So what you're saying is in the future, people don't think ahead. I guess not.

Yeah, I will say that there are like two characters in this movie that I found interesting at all. One, go on. One was Hugo, one was Hugo Weaving's character. That is in Kate. Valentine. Just because, that is Valentine.

Because Hugo Weaving is charismatic, not because of any way that the part is written, and then Shrek here, who is played by the cable of my heart, Steven Lang. Like he actually has the most, like his story carries the most emotional weight over the course of the movie. Like the thing about this film is like,

I have no idea who any of these characters are or why I'm supposed to care about them. And yeah, I think you've pinpointed the main issue with this movie is they did a lot of world building and they didn't do a lot of character. Yeah, yeah. And Shrek has the only immediately understandable character goal of like, oh, I raised this girl,

I want to get her back. Yeah. And of course, Dan, you were so excited because you're like, Shrek, this is a crossover with Dan Simmons' Hyperion Novels. And you must have been so disappointed when you found out it was a different unstoppable killer. And you're a big fan of Dan Simmons's Hyperion novice. And he must have been so disappointed when you found it. It was a different unstoppable killer. And you're a big fan of Dan Simmons Hyperion novels

because of course his name is Dan and your name's Dan. I mean, I have you also are not a fan of resolution. Yeah, I have read a bunch of Dan Simmons novels, but not that one, not those ones. That's why your favorite skins are Dan skins. And I like Dan Dan. He was favorite yogurt is Dan and Dan and Dan and and younger Dan mother Dan. Oh, yeah, your favorite play is those is called damn Yankees, but you thought it was called Dan. Yeah, his favorite Disney

animated movie that was later turned into a live action movie is a lab Dan. Now you would think you would think that I love Dan in real life, but I was very angry at it because there weren't a lot of pancakes in that movie. I feel like it was terrible both that. You thought it was the life story biopic of the inventor of the pancake. The pillow, you can eat. Why get out of bed? Have breakfast in bed with the pancake pillow. But no, you're wrong.

But your favorite Squarespace movie is Kundan, right? The story of the Daniela. Goddamn it. No God damn it. God damn it. So, anyway, so Thaddeus, he wants to free the Shrike from this prison, but he can't do it with anyone finding out he's involved. So he just gets in his helicopter and fires missiles at it until it blows up.

And the Shrike, this is after Valentine goes to the prison, shows up, introduces himself and goes to see the strike in person. So everyone, it doesn't make sense. Why would he do all that? Hester and Tom, they're out in the wild lands, they're getting, they're in the wild ways, they're getting put up for a slave auction, but they're freed by, you guessed it, Anna Fang, a matrix style, freedom fighter, free freedom fighter with little narrow sunglasses, and she's got a gun in a sword,

and she has one of those big fights where all the bad guys try to attack her one by one, and she never runs out of bullets from her weird little pirate rifle. Yeah, she has like a, she kinda has like a vash the stampede type thing going on from Trigun, like she's, and she's, I mean, this is a,

is it that she wears a coat that looks like it's made out of plastic? Yeah, like a bright red, high-collared coat. She's got giant hair and she's like spinning guns and stuff. And some, and her name's out of her, they might be giant. Exactly. Oh, yeah. And so Dan, this was your obviously your favorite character, right?

Anna Fang. You know, like, again, there's not really a lot of energy put into making this person interesting. She looks pretty cool though. Yeah, but the idea was just, I think she's one of these people where... She's got those little sunglasses. Yep, yes, but I think the idea of... And everybody else is super dirty and covered in dirt, but she's bright and fresh. And Dan, they did do the job of casting an Asian woman

in the part, which this movie takes as a character. Like, when we know who character is, she's Asian. No, but what I was gonna say was, like, it's one of these characters where they think it's cool just to make her steely all the time. Yeah, like steely Dan, your favorite band. Cause it's got Dan and me.

Yeah, and I'm a 41 year old man. Yeah. Look, the Venn, because it's got Dan. Yeah, and I'm a 41 year old man. Yeah. Look, the ventiode rampets. It all over us. You're either going to listen to Steely Dan or Dan Fogelberg. That's all I have to say about that. Wait, no, you didn't even finish. That was half sentence that we had to do. Dan's texting someone.

Well, I just thought, I mean, like I got interrupted so much. No, Dan, that's cool, because no, I mean, you're because no, I mean you're you only have a limited amount of time to text And we're gonna be recording all day Well, I mean if the fifth time I'm interrupted I feel like what I'm set I'm trying to say it's not actually valued by the group. So I gave up of course. It's not but by me Dan No, that's what Bren Dan is okay, because he values that and he's your favorite co-host right now because his name is Dan No, it's just what I'm saying before is like the characters are not developed. They're given one thing Her thing is emotionless, which is the least interesting thing, so but she's like good at fighting and stuff. Yeah

I what Dan I think you're gonna like it a lot more because she's about to take them on her airship to air Hey, the floating pirate city staff by young attractive multi-ethnic freedom fighters with goggles on their heads. Now this is when we first start to see people who are not British in the movies. Yeah, I was I was really hoping like Porco Roso was gonna show up for. I mean that would have been a minute. I mean at this point this movie should just become ready player one and just be pulling in characters from other movies. That's what they want so badly. Just send Shrek and Porco Roso off on an adventure together and we're sad.

That would be fantastic. Also, can I say that like every air city Since Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back has had to have these kind of like like basically Electronics to lag tights on the bottom of them like antennae coming down the bottom and like that's great It's a great design, but why we decided that's the thing. You know come on do it different. Yeah, why didn't you carry over the Agnott's yeah more agnott Which is kind of like porco russets

Is that is the the the the porco russets of the Star Wars universe. Let me a true story Oh man, where I was showing Sammy Empire Strikes Back and he could not wait for the Agnots to be out. And I think it was just a point that they have relatively little screen time. And when they're there, it's as if they're unpleasant. And they're also very unpleasant. And they're basically like, if you met in Umpalupa

in real life, you'd be like, whoa, this is weird. This guy is not cool. And do you think the Ugnats are singing in their own language? They are. So to pull back the curtain on D-tours, weirdly enough, we, yes, the Ugnats very much are singing in their own language. We did an entire episode where it was, the Ugnats are basically the most obnoxious species according to George Lucas. They were intended to be aggressive at obnoxious, so we didn't episode about how they're really shitty roommates and What they're actually trying to talk about is their scob band. This is I'm not kidding you

This actually is an episode of TV that will never air man. I want to see it so badly Guys we're gonna have to break into the Lucasfilm vote and steal that stuff along with the original Salacious Grump up it for my So how are the duct is It's all been bought by Disney. Oh no, no, it's all up in San refer in northern California. So Dan, I think it's finally time for you to break out that pair of

stretchy pants you bought from the entrapment set. Costume and set sail. When they when they're auctioning off all the props and costumes for entrapment. And Dan was like, if they can make catharses they'd a Jones butt look that good. They'll do wonders on my butt.

And it's like, Dan, her butt already looks great. I understand you don't know how butts work. He's like, I thought it was the lasers that did that. That was, we've talked about it many years ago on the podcast, how amazing it is that that movie was essentially sold on one shot of mean actresses but like that was the shot in the, I'm surprised that wasn't the poster was just her her butt under a laser beam, but Which brings me to a movie pitch guys. Oh, yeah, it's called laser

You'd think it's about someone who can fart lasers and you'd be right. Mm-hmm now who should we cast in this movie? It's not a comedy. Keep in mind. It's a tense political thriller. Catherine Zeta Jones is age appropriate now to be the mentor figure. Okay. She trains the younger chosen laser bud. Okay, but who would be the young laser bud? Dan, you're a perv.

Well, I don't have answer for this, but as long as we're talking about butts, I do want to say, like, spoiler alert. At the end of this movie, Hugo Weaving gets crushed by his own city and My girlfriend turned to me and was like so if you had an ironic death What would it be and I'm like probably crushed by a giant butt? Ironic death or the death you chose

Come a little from combi So anyway, we're gonna learn if other in Air Haven and we learn the story of how Shrike found Hester as a girl, raised her and she promised that one day he could make her into a robot like him, and then she decided, I don't want to be a robot and she left and he got mad. Shrike attacks Air Haven, you know it's going to happen, there's a big fight, and it ends when Shrike sees that Hester loves Tom and forgives her and gives her a locket from her mom and shuts down while remembering his memories of her as a child. And this all happens just in time for it to be too late because air haven is crashing and

on fire. Yeah, it's like, let me have this realization that you're going to turn good before you destroy this whole city. And by and by and it's one of those, it's one of those. No, go on, sorry. No, just that he notices that they're in love in the way of like similar to the principal noticing that that girl is in real trouble in the book of Henry, where he just kind of looks into her eyes and sees her emotions straight through.

Well, this was another thing that maybe really angry watch in the movie, where I'm just like, what have we been given to show these two being in love other than the fact that they are the male and female leaves of a movie? Like she kind of warms to him and that she doesn't let him die over the course of the film, but there's, oh yeah, there's shows that they like have some sort of connection. Well, she could, yeah, she could have cut him loose

when he was hanging from a rope, but instead she threw the knife to it. Yeah, I guess that's love, yes. And the power of love allowed him to catch it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, don't you think she would suffer some kind of consequences from these air pirates for like knowing that this strike

dude was chasing her and she'd led him right to air haven and then air haven was exploded? You'd think so, but they don't even have time to talk about that because, uh-oh, Thaddeus found Tom's cash of old tech and he's used it to rebuild the Medusa. And it turns out when he killed Hester's mom The tech she found was the Medusa control system. Oh, no He's got it working kills the Lord Mayor of London with just an oozy in the

And he doesn't even have a cool. He doesn't even have a cool catchphrase line, right? It's actually shockingly graphic and direct that execution. Yeah Especially what is mortal engines? That's you know what that's true. The movie's got mortal in the title You know, there's probably gonna be combat and it's gonna be spelled with a K and a K. It's gonna home run I'm gonna freeze the room. Oh, yeah, that's right. So guys what Mortal Kombat characters would you wish were in the movie? Maybe instead of strike or strike? Strike is another character movie. I was more of a street fighter guy, so I actually don't know the world combat cool Yeah, you're more into like like spacing and

True fact about me. I'm just saying no no it is it is the most it is the most Dan moment for me to be like Hey, what's the character from a video game you like as a goof and you're like um no I mean and you're like, um, no, I don't know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, zero. Yep, okay, yeah, he's one of the original snake. Yeah, okay He's one of the OGs of mk Yeah, yeah, I'll go with goro was the goro because everything should have four arms. It's just more fun that way So yeah, yeah, that's his tagline. I mean I do I do have four arms. I don't know We saw everything's more fun with four arms. Oh, yeah, Dan you have four arms. I don't know. We saw you. Everything's more fun with four arms. Oh, yeah, Dan, you have four arms. That's true on your arms. Yes. Anyway, yeah, that's a pun, guys. So

Yeah. So anyway, he's got that Medusa work and now he's going to attack Shangguo. Shangguo turns out to be kind of this vaguely panacean kind of tailspin. Only angels have wings 1930s temple of doom early scenes type place and the mayor of shangwo is like a wise old man in robes with a some kind of magic amulet that I kept assuming was going to shoot lasers but it was just he won the in the Olympics. I don't know in the last Olympics for the 60 minute war. There's a big fight between London and the shangwo air fleet which is made up of as Dan said a lot of like crazy old DaVinci helicopters and 30s C planes and things like that.

And this scene, it should be really cool, right guys. Well, I mean, it's just him blasting the walls with a giant laser, right? I mean, it's basically just like the opening of Empire Strikes Back, right? Yeah. Well, we're going to get to see the closing of both Empire Strikes Back and Return of Yeah. Well, we're gonna get to see the closing of both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Yeah. So it makes sense. So it has to realize is mom's locket, it has the shutdown key for the Madusa. How has she not found this before now? Well, Shrike had the amulet for a long time. Oh, okay, right. But it does take a long time to open it up till that point.

What the fuck, why does she have a fucking locket with this in it? Why? To keep it out of the hands of Thaddeus Fallon. Yeah, but like, I give all of my weapons keys to my children in jewelry. So like, it is a very time-tested parenting method. So like, you'll understand when you have kids. 20 to 30 years ago, Hugo Weaving was like, oh, someday I want to use a Medusa thing.

And I realized that this could shut it down. So I got to get it away from this woman. And I'll like burn the house down and injure her daughter in the course of getting it back because I need it for some. I don't think he knows that, I don't think, I don't think he knows that the shutdown key exists. Okay, like, it's more like she she I got to keep this away from Hugo weaving I better give it to a child because out of the mouths of big

She knows the thing that needs to be kept from Hugo weaving. Why does he even what like what is going on? Cuz he's he's Hugo weaving okay She's like weren't you the red skull and he's like yes, but they didn't give me much to do with the characters I did come back. They got a they got to look alike for later on. It sounded like, but man he does that accent so well in that movie. Oh man, it's like a weird Austrian specific. That's great. So so that is what we say to it. Yeah. The I mean, I'm going to jump ahead to one of the later reveals of course that he Thaddeus Valentine is Hester Shaw's father, which should surprise no one.

Especially her. She should be like, oh yeah, of course, that makes sense. But it seems, then looking back, it's like, wow, they jumped to murder each other super fast. In the scene where they were remembering, hurt them finding the Medusa control box and then they immediately start like set and stuff on fire and blasting each other in the face Yeah, I mean that's the special relationship that dads and daughters and Brendan yeah as the father daughters someday You'll have that where you're both trying to kill each other Cluzo and Kato style and that I won't it's not a someday

I believe I currently have that with my twin daughters. Oh wow I mean it starts here with them leaving out little toys for you to try fun. Exactly Surprising me by jumping on me to wake me up in the middle of the night sure Yeah, that's terrible. Yeah, no They know that the only way to prevent me trying to murder them and their mother later is to try to murder me first So I mean it tracks. Yeah, that's I mean that airtight blotting of this movie. I think that's all in in Paul Reiserers book about the uh...

mortal fatherhood uh... so anyway that that the shangwo fleet it's too late madosa blows up the wall so many cg i buildings destroyed uh... the air pilots take hester to shut down madosa well tom takes a ridiculously long time to change his jacket into an aviator's jacket, and it's like they're getting on the plane to leave,

and he's still slowly reaching out to take this jacket. He will, of course, live his dream of being an aviator, even though I think he has no experience flying. Yeah, which I was gonna say by the way, just as a quick digression bump me, that was ridiculous that all the characters treated this is like, you finally get to be the aviator, Tom. And like, no, this was a childhood interest I took it as.

And like, I wanted to be a vet. I shouldn't perform surgery on a cat. Like that was a terrible, terrible thing. Sometimes we get to live our childhood dreams. When I was a kid, I wanted to leave my house. And I did eventually. Well, I found out. So I wanted to run away.

And the way I ran away was I grew up. You know, I was growing up a little bit of kind of running away from your past. Dan, have you ever ran away from something? Because there's a tiger right by it. It's okay. It's Tony the tiger. He just wants to serve you some frosty bikes. But right behind him is a cheetah. Oh, it's okay. It's just a cheetah.

He just wants to give you some delicious cheetos. But right behind him is a lion. I don't know how to feel about it after those last two ones. This is, it's a fucking real lion, Dan. You got a hunt. No, just kidding. He just wants to tell you about the MGM UA Library of Film Titles and that ours, gratis artist.

But watch out behind him, there's an alligator. Okay. Well, I'm just sort of tired. Think of possible alligators, it can be. Let's see, is it Albert Alligator from Pogo? That's a weird one, but okay. It was Albert Alligator, right? He's smoking a little cigar stub and he's got a little hat on sometimes.

And he's talking in a dialect that I'm not sure if it's offensive now or not, but I certainly feel weird when I'm reading it out loud to my children. Yeah, I don't think it's meant to be like an ethnic thing. I think it's just, you know, dialect just men. Like Pogo dialect. I think that's all it is. Okay.

Well, I'll tell people that when they get mad at me about it. Okay. So Tom changes jacket. There's a big air fight. All these pilots we just met get killed. It's kind of like the end of Star Wars that way where they're like, hey, remember all those characters you've been watching this whole movie. Forget about them. It's time for it's time for porkins and pigs and red five to take their stage. Anna Fang has a hand-to-hand battle with that he is Valentine which ends with her

dead. Uh oh, looks like the Fang got big. Hester, she plugs in the kill drive and stops the machine before it can fire again, and the people who lived outside the wall of Shanguo were like, do a little too late, Hester, but thanks, appreciate it. And Kate shows up and she's mad at her dad. And her dad is now reached that level of movie villainhood where he no longer cares if he lives or dies.

He just wants to destroy his enemies. So he's like, I'm gonna smash London right into the wall to keep destroying it. And it's like, that's crazy. Why would you do that? Like, I don't understand. Thaddeus runs away. Hester catches up to him, and there's the reveal, as Stuart mentioned, that he's her dad.

Meanwhile, Tom Tim, that's where he flies a plane into London's guts to blow up the gears to stop it, and then flies out, followed by flame. That's right. They stole the endings of Empire Strikes Back, and returned to the Jedi, as I mentioned. They put him into one movie, so this movie must be twice as good as either of those movies. Guys, do you agree with that movie, Math? I mean, it checks out. Yeah.

There is a remainder, but mostly yours. How many Empire Strikes Back do you think Mortal Engine is worth, Dan? 1 18th of 1. Wow. I'm going to have to check the worldwide box office uh... one eighteenth of one wow i'm gonna have to check the world wide box office before i can tell you that i mean that it's actually like one one thousand but uh... what about return the jet i'd in

uh... one thirteen okay what about the star wars holiday special oh boy they're about par wow okay wow okay uh... uh... hester's dad is like that is is like They're about par. Wow. Okay. Wow. Okay. Her Hester's dad is like, Thaddeus is like, so let's just kill each other.

That's what we're supposed to do right. And Hester goes, no, I choose life. And she jumps onto the ropes ladder to Tim's airship or whatever. And Hugo weaving gets in it. His ship Tim shoots down Hugo weaving ship with crashes. Crashes. He goes, okay. Tim immediately gets fucking bloodthirsty there. He's like, you're fired. And then he shoots a missile.

I'm like, wow, you know, it takes a lot to kill a man. And he can like look him right in the eyes from where he's shooting that missile. That's crazy. He's cold blood. Yeah, it's especially after, weird after his girlfriend of a day is like, no, I won't kill you.

And he's like, oh babe, I'll take care of this one. And was she maybe like, no, he won't kill you. And he's like, hey babe, I'll take care of this one. Was she maybe like, no, he's my dad, he's my, okay. Oh boy, this is gonna be awkward. And then as mentioned, Hugo weaving is crushed under London's tank treads, so ironic. London crawling. Say London crawling.

But I like as he said it so quiet, because he was both proud of it and a shake of it. And you're like, if they- I wasn't really sure I wanted to commit to it. If they don't both proud of it and a shame and you're like if they wasn't really sure I wanted to commit to it if they don't like this I can present it and say if they do like it then I'm like cool for saying a little Yeah, I guess London Crawling was crawling to the far away town Shanguo Because wars declared and the Medusa rains down. Yeah calling to the underworld which I assume would be People who live in the tank treads

Get out of the cupboard you boys and girls of course being air haven yeah where's it covers get under the cover get under the covers oh boy I don't know the least about the guys just drummers trying to warn us yes about more engines guys Shanguo the mayor is super cool he's like people of London come and join us. And Tim and Hester, they kiss finally and fly off planning to travel the world together. And we're left with some questions.

Will the world of mortal engines be okay? Will someone else find the Medusa Drive? Will there two day old relationships survive being on a small plane with no bathroom for the soon weeks on end? I guess we'll find out in mortal engines too, summer vacation. Okay.

Let's just speed on to final judgments on this. Yeah. Whether it's a good bad... Let's drive our city tank over to final judgments. It's a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie kind of like. I want to say, I'll start off. I feel like actually my girlfriend made the most salient critique of this while we're watching. And, you know, I mentioned her her a lot but we watched the movies together

so if she makes a good point I want to pass it on and it's this is a this is an awful lot of backstory and explanation yeah what yeah the opening 20 minutes of mortal engines she made the point that like, you know, this movie is obviously trying to be this big fantasy epic like a Star Wars or something like that. But what it doesn't realize is those movies don't actually have a ton of action overall. Like a lot of it is the anticipation of action. Like as you say they're edging us, the Star Wars movies are edging us a lot. Well, like they have less than kind of like you imagine. Like, as you say they're edging us, the Star Wars movies are edging us a lot. Well, they have less than kind of like you imagine.

Like as they go along, I think like each progressive sequel does have more action in it, but that's because you've already learned the world, you've learned the characters, so there's more room to just skip to that stuff. But like a lot of it is the anticipation of action. This has no anticipation of action.

It like thinks that you want shit thrown at you every single second, which doesn't leave time to learn about characters or their motivations. And I sort of assumed while watching it that this was a, as we've said, this is based on a series of young adult novels. And I sort of assumed it had so much plot. I was like, okay, they probably took multiple novels and boiled it down. And I looked on Wikipedia, I was reading summaries

of the novels and I was like, no, this is basically the first book. They made a lot of changes in the second half, but it's basically the first book. And it's written by Fran Wash and Philip Oboyans. And I think maybe Peter Jackson himself, I'm not sure. But like, the script is not. And obviously they're the team who did

Lord of the Rings of the Hobbit. And people criticize the Hobbit for taking a fairly simple book and expanding it into three movies. This is one case where I wish they'd taken one book and expanded into three movies. Like I actually wish they'd taken one book and expanded it in three movies. Like I actually wish they'd done the same habit thing here because there's so much shit going on. I think it would have worked better if it had more time to breathe. Bad bad is what I'm saying. Yeah. When I was watching it, I was like knowing that this is the first book in a series and

knowing it was made by, you know, made by the people who made the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It made me think about what makes some of the things that made Fellowship of the Ring work so well as a first movie. And parts of it are, aside from the opening, you don't have any other big battles. You have some, like you have action sequences, but it doesn't end with a big army facing off against each other, blasting lasers at each other. And it does take the time to develop these characters. Also, part of the problem with this movie is so much of the just why.

Why should I care about any of it or anybody? What are their beliefs? Should I care about the people of London? Should I hate them? Should I care about the people of London? Should I hate them? Should I care about Hester Shaw? I mean, her only motivation is revenge. And that's a relatively thin motivation. And she, I don't know.

No, you're right. Yeah, well, it's all true. Yeah, there's a lack of character and a lack of reason to like it. I'll mention, Dan, my wife was watching with me and Brennan and she made an interesting comment, which was she fell asleep about 30 minutes. Well, I have to say, for once I watched this in two parts because we were watching it, I started falling asleep and she was like, honey, we can watch this the second half tomorrow if you got to take a wise. You were just so worn out from all the excitement. So I'm going to say that it's also bad bad.

There's a lot of neat looking stuff in it, but it's like they, yeah, they forgot to give us characters or a plot that we would care about. Brandon, I know you're going to say something different. I'm going to go out on a ledge here. No, it's bad bad. It's super boring. But my main hope or takeaway after it was was I wish a different Peter Jackson had shown up

I wish it was some other guy with the same name. Yeah, absolutely give that guy a chance No, but like the Peter Jackson of like dead alive of like Fightners of or meet the feebles even basically who would take a crazy concept and make it fun Because all the other problems wouldn't have also mattered to me as much. Like if I couldn't explain it, but it was at least fun. It was so somber and serious. There was no joy to be had in a movie that is about

cities on tank treads eating other cities. Which I'm sure is the reason he bought the rights to make that book into a movie, right? Like, and the thing about Peter, like I've been thinking about this a lot because there is that like dream that Peter Jackson's just gonna make another fun like low budget movie.

But I feel like he's become, he's become such a like industry now that like if you were to make a small movie, he would not be able to hire as many of the people that rely on him. Thousands of people would be out of work if he decided to make bad taste too. Yeah. And there's nothing like that.

Although I wonder if, now that you mentioned him buying the rights of the book, I wonder if he was like, get me that wire book, the mortal something. And he wanted mortal instrument city of bones. Yeah. And they brought him this one. He was like, this wasn't like when you tell your grandma, like, oh, get me that Avengers movie. And she comes back with the boot with the generic like,

like the Avengers, like the rip off. And you're like, grandma. I'm sure this is just as good. In fact, I think that's what happened. Peter Jackson sent his grandma out to go buy the rights. Oh, man. And she got the wrong rights. Oh, Grammy Jackson.

Grandma doesn't know. Going into a bull's eye interview. I know it's somebody who does amazing work, but if it's an actual conversation, I don't know where it's headed. The absolutely. You're absolutely right. You said it actually better than I did, so I have to think about what that means. Hey, these are the straight talk that you're going to get on the show. Bulls eye creators you know, creators you need to know. Find it at maximumfund.org or wherever you get podcasts.

Hi I'm Vince and I'm Teresa and we host One Bad Mother, a comedy podcast about parenting. Whether you are a parent or just no kids exists in the world, join us each week as we honestly share what it's like to be a parent. These are really hard questions. They are really hard questions. I don't have any answers for that. I don't either. Sack of garbage.

No. Ah! Ugh! Ha! Ha! Ha! Good to be sure to have just be five minutes of dozen Theresa that crime and screaming

until the outro is played. So join us each week as we judge you less, laugh more, and remind you that you are doing a great job. Find us on maximumfund.org on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's move on to a few sponsors. Uh-huh. Uh, before we talk about our regular sponsors, I was wondering if we could let Brendan talk a little bit about the new season of Harvey Girls Forever on Netflix now. Thank you very much. Yeah, starting November 12th and anytime there after season three of Harvey Girls Forever will be streaming on Netflix.

It's the third season about our show, which is about Audrey, Lada and Dot, three classic Harvey Comics characters reimagined for modern audiences, and their goal is just to make their block the best place to ever have a childhood. It's trying to keep the feeling of that time between when you left school and before you went home for dinner, alive forever. We try to keep it relatable for all kids and adults and a lot of jokes for people of all ages, especially episodes written by Elliott here. Oh yeah. Oh it's too written by me. Yeah, one of them does feature a Judas Priestile song about a trove of deadly

toys that were pulled from the market. But yeah, season three is just premiered where we add Richie Rich, far and away the biggest name out of the Harvey comics characters. He joins our cast for this season, voiced by Jack Quaid from the Boys. He's super hilarious and really fun and we reimagined him also so now he's a self-made child billionaire and pretty fun character and yeah we have some good comedy folk always in there. We've learned lap kisses, our star and Danny Pudy and this season we gotoweth, and Anna Camp, and a whole lot of really funny people coming by and having a good time with us.

It's a really fun show, and I like it a lot, and my children like it a lot, and I think you'll like it a lot too. And if enough people watch, maybe you'll finally get that season where you can bring baby Huey in. That has been our dream the entire time. I think actually, oh, you know what, I don't want to spoil but i'll save uh... astute watchers uh... this season three perhaps there is some baby who he easter eggs in there which would be huge and i know that i know that i'm a spur

now i apologize for not actually previously being uh... familiar with the show but um... i have to ask so it's based on these hardy comics characters have you expanded uh... have you expanded? Have you expanded that character of Doc because if I recall her whole thing was just that she liked polka dots? Yes, no that was absolutely our Audrey thankfully Audrey actually pretty much worked as is dot. We expanded to be

She is very very precise and exacting about everything so to her it was like the dot is the most perfect thing ever It's a perfect circle So it's something she always strives for in loves, but it's more of just a exacting character And then she starts seeing dots everywhere and then those dots become spirals and then her body starts growing into a spiral Yeah, yeah, it's called it's called Uzumaki girls Yeah, and then she ends up fine then Then she meets Spiral and goes to the mojo verse. And yeah, whoa, is it pretty cool crossover? Spiral is one of those X-Men characters that I love,

and I don't know why because I've never read a story where she's been any really good in it. She's a cool design. Yeah, she's got that weird samurai helmet and all of the arms. Yeah, and those free boots, boots with the fur, apple bottom jeans, Spiral gets low, low, low.

And then yeah, in Lada, we took, basically Lada as is, but made it her, she has an appetite for life and for love and for passion and took out the fact that every comic basically just had jokes about her eating giant sandwiches. Save that for dad, would. Yep. Yeah. Look, it's just bit, I don't want to steal it. Okay, all right, well thank you for that. But

yeah, thank you. Moving on to sponsors. I do want to say I don't feel like we acknowledge this enough outside of the max fund drive, but the flop house is supported overwhelmingly by listeners like you who choose to donate at maximumfund.org, but we also have some corporate sponsors this week. The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace. A dream is just a great idea that doesn't have a website yet. Make it a reality with Squarespace. Create a beautiful

website to showcase your work, blog, or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and more. Whatever your heart desires for a website. Squarespace helps by giving you by doing you by giving you. I mean some websites are about giving you but that's helping and they help in a way yeah they help one thing. Squarespace has a beautiful customizable mobile optimized templates created by world class designers, built in search engine optimization and analytics to help you grow and 24 or 7 award-winning customer support. Check out squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch,

use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Guys, I had an idea for a website and I was wondering if a Squarespace might be able to help. It was inspired by this movie that we're talking about. So, we're all worried that at some point a city is just going to come along and eat us. We saw it in the movie. It's pretty scary. What if Pittsburgh just comes, I've heard of the fish that they'd pitch that they Pittsburgh and the car that he Paris. Oh boy. Well, what

if Paris was eating cars? Oh, no, I mean Paris. I mean, Paris is burning in the dance floors of the world. But the, what if there was a way to track these cities and to know where they're coming from? That's why I've got citytracker.com. That's the idea. It tells you where every city is located whenever you check, just in case they might have moved. And you could put a tracker on any city in the world and it'll tell you if that city is moved and gotten closer to you so you know to get out its way. Now what if you're in one of the cities? Your phone would explode. If you're using it on your phone, if it's on your laptop, the laptop.

So you're partially subsidized by a venture capitalist firm who makes money off of people having to buy new phones. Yes, it's called Apple. And so hope maybe Squarespace will help me get this so that it can scale to all different types of explodable media or platforms. So anyway, that's citytracker.com. Look out for it.

So you'll always know where cities are. I have been looking for some cities lately, so thank you. Yeah, no problem. Dan, what's next after Square Star? I believe I sent you a couple of jumbo trunks. Jojo jumbo trunks. That's right. I've certainly got one.

This message is for Rusty. This message is from Haley. Happy 40th birthday. I hope this message finds you some time around November 7th, but if not, oh well, you're still getting a shout out on one of the greatest podcasts of all time. You'll always be the bikini to my car wash, the castle to my freak. And you make

every day feel like cage miss. Dottie and I love you so much. Now, I'm staring down the barrel, the big four oh myself guys. So I wish somebody would have, get such a nice message for me on one of my favorite podcasts. All right, Stuart, I'll get you a jumbo tron on some kind of small figure painting by Gaston. Thank you. I don't know if I need to get all the talk. Or Cart talk. Or Cart talk.

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to get jumbo trons run on cart talk since they just run reruns. It's one of the things. Yeah, and also jumbo trons is kind of a specific to Max Fun thing. So, Cart talk is not on Max Fun. I mean, it should be. To be honest, if you told me that Cart talk, if I didn't know it was a public radio show, if you told me it was on Max Fun, I'd be like, oh yeah, like two crazy guys who are

brothers and they talk about cars, but really they kind of talk about whatever. And they tell a lot of corny jokes, yeah, that fits on Max Fun. Sure. Jesse, get on it. Get the Carton license. Okay. I've got a jumbo tron too. corny jokes. Yeah, that fits on Max. Sure. Jesse, get on it. Get the card talk license. Okay, I've got a jumbo tron too. This message is for Ollie and it's from Emily and it's reads, happy anniversary to my sexy science nerd.

Thank you for the best year of my life. You are the most caring, loving, fun person I could have found parentheses and that asked though. And I'm so glad that you accidentally accepted my friend request. I'd rather be in a long distance relationship with you than a short distance relationship with anyone else So that's for Ali from Emily a couple of sweet messages. Oh, yeah from people. Oh, are there any other plugs? We've done our Touring for 2019 we're in talks for 2020 figuring out where to go. We passed we passed the touring test That's when people we do a show and people tell us

if it's a computer or a- Yeah, that's robot or not, basically. Yeah. Yeah, we've plugged Brendan. Do you guys have anything? Thank you. Well, at all, anything? Well, we can also find people, there is,

there's, I mean, yes, there's lots of stuff. There's a flop house merchandise available online. Stuart is looking into some new possible things for future shows. Yeah, I got my fingers in a lot of stuff. There's a flop house merchandise available online. Stewart is looking into some new possible things for future shows. Yeah, I got my fingers in a lot of pies. Merchandise specifically. Yeah, we're just specifically. And we just, I don't know,

you can always go pick up a copy of Horse Meat's Dog, but we can also move on to the next part of the podcast. Sure, I just want to blow over you guys. Yeah, give us a chance to, you know, strut around like the peacocks that we are. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, actually Dan, blow over me for a second. Oh, that feels nice.

Okay. Oh, that feels very nice. So I don't like this bit. Oh, it's a 40 days and 40 nights thing. Yeah, we're talking about that movie. Yeah, we're talking about that movie. All right. All right, this first letter is from Julie Lasting withheld.

It's a follow-up to a previous letter. Julie writes, please accept my apologies for the confusing email about Cubbing of Age movies to clarify what movies can I show my son once he becomes a 13 year old man that he would not have seen as a mere 12 year old boy. Our secret theme to his bar Mitzvah is where Wolf bar mitzvah. So maybe ginger snaps works. Love always Julie. And I just want to point out I correctly interpreted this email. Elliott foolishly thought it was about coming of age movies. So put it on the scoreboard Stuart.

You're right. I guess you're Danny champion of the world. Okay, and I'm and I'm Elliott the big biggest loser It looks like Dan's got a point and Elliott's got 300 points Neck and neck you're getting closer. I can feel you nipping at my heels. Yeah, I'm gonna get on the board. Yeah So of course it's this obviously depends on when When he turns 13, but I would say, I don't know, maybe like Star Wars rises Skywalker.

Because he wouldn't have been able to see it when he was a little guy. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, it's been so hard for him to see parasite before he turned 13. I reckon, you know, there's a couple of the kinds of movies I started watching when I was 13 was like, that's when I became a real, serious, cynnist. And so I'd recommend maybe like Hitchcock's movies, or good ones to start watching when you're like 13, but also the ones I planned to show my son when he turns 13, Robocop, Alien, taking a Pellum 1, 2, 3, the violent and swear-filled movies that I can't show him

now, but when he turns 13, God says he's a man. So I guess it's time for him to watch movies where people's head explodes. I just watched a movie that my mom made me watch when I was a little kid, because she thought I'd love it. I watched Creep Show 2 again. And yeah, my mom's predicament is pretty good.

Otherwise, it's like, right? I mean, it's all pretty good, but it also is a kid. Like, I couldn't swim in a lake ever. Yeah It is my my exact pitch on that was gonna be a horror anthology is actually because that was kind of my gateway to horror was around 13 and it was like I mean partially is the TV show like tell some a dark side or tell some the crypt was also like the tell some a dark side movie Or also then loving the two creep show movies, so I also watch Tales from the Dark Side the movie this week. And wow, what a, I just love that there's the college students are Christian Slater,

Steve Buschemi and Julie Han Moore. Yeah, if we're talking about movies that we watch from where 13. Dan, you answered, Dan, you answered this question the right way last time. You don't need to worry about an answer this time. No, no, no, no, I was gonna say, so if you wanna do it, Dan McEvoy style, what you gotta do is you have to,

you should purchase some premium cable channels, preferably at this point in time, show time. Just have them around, so your son can sneak out late at night and watch whatever erotic programming is like episodes of shameless. Yeah, showtime. So it's going to be like Nurse Jackie. Right out of it. It's before you know, like habit scrambled and then like half him here, like an urban legend that if you like run it through your VCR, it de-scramble it a little bit. Cool. If you flip back and forth between the channels really fast,

you know, a few seconds of clarity before it goes out. You see, Dan, I would have thought you'd say cinematics. The channel that after a certain point was just like, this is what we do. Yes, cinematics is good too. HBO is cleared all that stuff off. Like it's trying to pretend it never happened, but. I was talking to somebody about the show Dream on recently and they did not know it had ever

existed and I was like this was HBO's bread and butter for a while it was like a dumb sitcom where ladies took their shirt so like that's all they had for a while I you know I just got in watch on the first season of the righteous gemstones and I feel like they kept the nudity but it's all dudes we nurse it's all like guys with big old bellies with weeners. It's great. That's HBO Homeball Office. The second and for this episode,

the final letter is from Hannah Lasting withheld. Hannah writes, dear Dan Stu and Elliot, and I guess of course Brendan, our guest. Oh, she wrote that, how did she know? You know, we got to ask Hannah. I want to start by saying, I love your podcast. I dance, she's a child assassin. I don't want to get on her bad side.

Here's my question. I did a cool mental exercise recently where I figured out what interests me and a character. I thought it might be cool for you guys to give it a shot too. So think of like three to five favorite characters from different pieces of media or canons if you like. I did 10, but you don't have time for that. Once you have them all lined up, see, lined up, see what they have in common.

Some of mine were Han Solo, looped from the Adventure Zone, Hawkeye, from Marvel Comics, not in Psyu. She's very clear about that. And sure a lot of homes. Take that Jeremy Renner. Yeah, no, she's right. Using them and some others, I found the thing that I look for are characters who are self-determining,

self-determining, self-actualizing. They decide what they're going to be slash going to do and they become it or do it good or bad They make their own paths rather than following maybe this is too complex a question But I'm really curious as to what draws the floppers to characters keep on flopping and a lasting with health Yeah, if you don't have anything off the bat. I thought about mine. I picked Sherlock Holmes of course, sure like Hannah did Scrooge because the thing you like is characters were addicted to cocaine. Scrooge, make scrooge, McDuck. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yes. Yeah, okay cocaine, so and Indiana Jones, okay, and and the things I came up with for those are

They're kind of like these characters that have this, this comfortable normal life from the day to day, but they cannot be happy unless they're out on adventures. And also, they're all sort of throwback characters in their way. I mean, obviously like Sherlock Holmes is not throwback, he's just old, but, you know, sort of throwback characters in their way. I mean, obviously like Sherlock Holmes is not throwback, he's just old, but Scrooge McDuck is in that tradition

of globetrotting adventure and Indiana Jones is a self-consciously old fashioned story. Also, my girlfriend, like immediately when I told her these characters, she's like, oh, they're all grumpy people who are secretly nice underneath it. And I'm like, oh, they're all grumpy people who are secretly nice underneath it. And I'm like, oh, I didn't notice that. It takes someone who spends a lot of time with me to see what I might have in common with these characters that would draw me to them. But also,

a couple of other characters, like, I really, like, despite Chris Pratt's weirdness in real life, and the fact that his character was not particularly written well outside of the Guardians films, I think. I don't like how he was treated in the Avengers movies as much. I like Star Lord a lot, and I like Han Solo a lot, and both of those are kind of the same guy who's secretly very capable, but is's also kind of a doofus. And I find that very appealing. I don't know about secretly.

They're always talking about how great they are. Okay, not secretly, but like, we'll secretly end that like beneath their bragging, they actually are good at what they do, but they're also like just dorks. Yeah, let's see. So I'm gonna pick three. Let's see.

Obviously Jack Burton from Big Trouble, Lil' Shine, Edwin. Alexis Rose from Shits Creek. And I guess, Tetsuo Shima from Akira. So let's see, what are they having? Oh, what's interesting. All right, interesting going on with this. Oh, I mean, they all have an impeccable sense of style.

They have great hair. I mean, hair is a big deal.able sense of style. They have great hair. I mean, hair is a big deal. Oh, yeah, that's a lot of fantastic. I think they're, you know, a little mysterious backgrounds, but they're also, yeah, I think they're capable. Let's see, they're products of the hostile environment in which they exist exist that they have to they have to deal they have to overcome their adversity and they do it kind of

you know and they're all they're all they have magic powers and yeah I guess I haven't gotten past the first season yet I guess I guess it gets a little different well you gotta you got to catch up. I picked four characters. One of them is a kind of a grandfathered in. I don't feel the same way about them, but I did for a long time. Those characters, Spider-Man, Nick Charles,

Bugs Bunny, and Hall of Famer, Boba Fett. And I guess thinking about them, they all have kind of like a certain amount of real competence, but also confidence in themselves, except for Spider-Man. And they've all got, so we mentioned style, they've all got their signature look. You can identify them by a silhouette. If the silhouette shows you Nick Charles mustache and also these holding a whiskey tumbler in his hand. And except for Boba Fett, they're all real talkers and jokesters. So who would have thunk it? Now Boba Fett, of course, I've

talked on the podcast previously about how I liked him when I was a kid because of the fantasy of being so cool that people were just always in awe of you and also you wore a mask so no one could see your true face. But you know what, he's kind of a doof when it comes down to it. Since as we've seen in the stories, movies, he's not very good at his job. Everyone thinks he's great, but it turns out he just has a good press age. Yeah, and a cool helmet. Yeah, I have to assume there's like, there's some kind of Fox News type thing in the Star Wars universe that's always spinning Boba Fett's failures as huge victories. And they're like, Boba Fett showed those rebels got knocked

into the Star Lack. They fell for his trap. Oh boy, he's playing three-dimensional chess here. Oh, that's a structure. Yeah, he's like the, uh, he's like that character king and one punch man. Who everybody thinks is the strongest man, but he's actually just a guy who looks scary. So Brendan, who do you choose? Um, all right. So obviously he was Worshack, John Galton, Zack Snyder, Superman.

Oh, I don't think that says anything. Oh, no. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that. Oh, no. Oh, yikes. Oh, my. No, my, my three, I went with Rayland Gibbons, the Elmore Leonard character from the Box and justified. Martin Blank from Gross Point Blank, and Yorick Brown from Why the Last Man. Okay.

And basically, it was all, would be smartest men in the room type who cover their motions in humor was what I kind of realized then ultimately, at least two of those three are ultimately pretty damaged underneath, but all three are slowly trying to be a little more self-aware and better. And what I'm has a pet monkey. And one of them does have a pet monkey and honestly, I mean, Rayland would have been even cooler with a pet monkey.

And the monkey has a gun too and a little sung by the hatch. And the hat's got a hat. He's got a hat. You know what? And then they could do another season because it would be about the monkey. a gun too and a little sung last year. And the hat's gonna have a hat. He's gonna have a hat. You know what? And then they could do another season because it would be about the monkey. Oh my god, yeah. Yeah. The monkey's traumatic past. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Oh boy. Every monkey that you see that is a pet has a traumatic past. Nobody recruited that monkey out of college and the monkey was like, yeah, this sounds great. I'd love to be your pet. Oh man, you're putting friends into stark relief right now. Well, I mean, it's clear now that Ross and friends is a bad person, right? The big society is going to be a bad guy.

There's no monkey who is hanging out in the jungle and is like, I really wish I lived in an apartment in New York and someone else who was not even my species controlled when I ate and where I sat. I would love that. It just doesn't exist. Yeah. Okay, Dan, counterpoint. Are you why monkeys want to be pets? They like grinding organs, dancing to organs that are ground. How does that work? What, what are you with all those grams?

No, there's that a pet is, or is that a coworker? Or is that a coworker? Okay, well let's move on to recommendations movies that you should watch definitely instead of mortally engines Which was a big waste of everyone's time? Editorializing I'll go first I I want to do no no Dan Dan I appreciate you going out on a limb after this podcast. We were pretty ambivalent about whether we could like it or not. I'm gonna you going out on a limb after this podcast, we were pretty ambivalent about whether we could like it or not. I'm gonna run through actually a bunch of movies and do it very quickly because Wow. Think of this as my shocktober, like a cap to the shocktober season.

I saw like literally 11 or 12 horror movies over the past couple of weeks and I just want to highlight a few of them. I saw the movie Pieces, which I think is a Spanish film. Why writing that? I think so. It's a slasher. It's not a good movie. It's a very silly movie.

It's a slasher movie with all that implies if you are not into a movie. It's like slash fiction. No, I'm just saying it. If you are not into a movie that has a fair amount of female nudity and violence against women, I understand, but that's like a big component of what slashes are. If you want to see a dog though, there is one in that movie. So there you go.

Dog alert, dog alert. No, no, no, else to see. But it's a run to pieces. It's a very, very goofy horror movie. I, I showed it in my house. If you want a movie that a lot of people are going to have a, a ball laughing at, it's a good one. So come to Dan's house.

Yeah, come to my house. I saw at the Alamo marathon. I saw Centipede horror from 1982. It's a Hong Kong horror movie. And it has kind of like a Hong Kong Kung Fu vibe, even though it's a horror movie. It's about like people getting cursed with like centipede curses, like a family being cursed.

And I realized that. So how does that manifest? What do you said that like we know what centipede curses are? Well, basically like centipedes are attracted to these people and they're like these highly poisonous centipedes that cost them tonight. But I realize, luckily they only have a million legs, right?

Yeah. I realize that there's a lot of the supernatural in Western horror, but there's not a lot of straight up magic in Western horror compared but there's not a lot of straight up magic in Western horror compared to Eastern horror. Like, this is a movie that literally has two wizards duels in it. So if that appeals to you, trying to find Santa Pete horror, it was very entertaining. I watched the movie Bones with Snoop Dogg, which I had heard was not good. I think because, in addition to horror movies, and you're here to set the record straight.

Well, look, just let me save my thing. Okay, in addition to horror movies There's no need to interrupt in addition to horror movies Not being a critical favorite genre. I think that black themed movies are often not Given their due and I will take my licks in that area too. Like I am not going out and watching as many black theme movies as I could as a white dude. I remember you, I think you said it on the podcast, referred to Selma as Snorfest 2017. Please do not spread that around as a thing that happened

your lies. I believe the quote was get over said Dan McCoy. But bones is a lot of fun. It's directed by artist Dickerson who was Spike Lee's cinematographer for a long time and then a director on right. He did Tales of the Crypt Demon Knight, another horror movie that's great better than you would think. And bones is fun. It kind of starts out like a socially conscious horror movie and then turns Snoop Dogg into Freddie by the end of it. It's fun. And then last.

So he gets finger. Yeah. And last night I watched a crawl, the movie by Alejandra Aja who did piranha 3D that Elliott and Brendan and I all watched on Elliott's wedding day. And it's a movie about a woman trapped in a flooding house during a hurricane trying to save her dead as alligators swim all around and it's a lot of fun. And Barry Pepper plays her swim coach dead.

Yeah, that's it. Oh. Can you know what's that? What a lot of movies. I'm gonna recommend a movie called Ashes Into Embers. This is an independent film from 1982 that until recently was really only seen much on festival circuits, but Avidivernay's Company has arranged a limited release for it

And I saw it on the Turner Classic movies app so it may still be available in other streaming areas It's directed by highly garema and stars his actor John Anderson and it's the story of a Black Vietnam veteran who is having trouble story of a black Vietnam veteran who is having trouble reintegrating into main society and it does such a good job of like getting you inside of his head. It's a very independent film. It's like a very like, you know, rough, production-wise movie in some parts, but it's like and it leans a lot on a Vietnam stock footage at times in a way that it's sometimes removing and sometimes it's like, yeah, yeah, I've seen that footage, but it's it does such a good job of putting you inside the mind of this character. And it's a story that a lot of other movies have told about Vietnam veterans

having trouble getting back to mainstream America, but it's rare that I've seen it in this way, also about someone who is dealing with the fact that they're black in America, and that is not easy. And it touches on the kind of multi-generational aspects of that, what it means to the people around him and how he interacts differently with the people that he has different relationships with. And it's just a really like deep-rich movie and it's structured almost more like a novel than like a straightforward plot. And so I found the whole thing very like hypnotic by the end and very moving.

And there's a couple of really great speeches in it So if you can find it, and I hope you can it's called ashes and the embers Rendon, what do you got? I got one and I checked the flopp house wiki. I don't think you guys are recommended Ready or not the recent horror comedy Yeah, but you didn't recommend it right? So no Okay, cool. Yeah, ready or not a super fun horror comedy very Remind me of your next while playing a little bit with class warfare not very subtly but in a really fun entertaining way Yeah stars Samarri Wiley who is also in the other super fun horror movie mayhem

It's just it really is just a kind of case of a bride learns on her wedding night that the family she has married into has a crazy Tradition that could potentially lead to the family trying to kill her and in this case does and madness in high jinx and Sue It's it's gory and funny and Worth checking but wait they wait until she's ready, right? Well, I mean they give her a standard count, and they do, I believe, let her know they are coming. Okay. Yeah.

So I'm going to recommend a movie that kind of keeps with the theme of a young woman who is wronged in seeking revenge. I'm recommending the laugh a minute, fun roller coaster of a movie called The Nightingale. And I'm being totally sarcastic, it is not fun at all. This is a very difficult movie to get through. It is the latest movie from Jennifer Kent, the writer director of the Boba Duke, and this is the movie that she felt very passionately. She wanted to follow following that. It's about a

period piece. It's a young woman in a young woman who is, I guess, getting out of indentured servitude or trying to in colonial Tasmania. And she suffers a horrible abuse at the hands of the the man, the English officer running the outpost. And it's very difficult to watch. And then the story kind of pulls back and you get to see kind of the situation all through Tasmania at that time. And the horrors that are being put upon the indigenous peoples there. And it's, yeah, it's a really difficult watch, but it's also very good.

So if you are ready to watch something that is not going to be easy to sit through and you might have to walk away a couple times, yeah, check it out, the night and go. And if people want something that's easy to watch, they should watch the old cartoon Tasmania, where it's, it's in his family. Oh man, they actually edited new scenes into that. I don't think they're gonna wanna watch it. It's pretty rough. Oh no.

And if people want something that's really easy to watch, they could look at the wall, which is like right there, unless you're outside, and then it's kinda hard to watch because you have to go back inside. That's true. Yeah, can't watch it on your phone, you know. Yeah, Christopher Nolan loves it.

So guys, but... I mean, he's like every movie is projected on a wall. The most basic movie is that. What if we don't have to worry about film stock because there is no film, it's just the wall. And they're like, take them away boys, he's gonna say. It wasn't me that did it, it was the wall, the wall killed them, the wall.

Whatever you say, director Nolan. Very respectful. Hey, before we go, you know, to say thank you to the Maximum Funner Network. Thank you for Jordan for editing the show. Go over to MaximumFun.org, check out all the other podcasts on the network. Some of them like us are about film. Some of them like us are comedy. Some have, neither of those things. Some of them are just culture. Yeah. Yes. Some of them like us are comedy. Some have neither of those things. Some of them are just culture.

Yeah. Some of them don't like us. Yeah. Some of them do hate us. I get that. Oh, yeah. So. Who do you have the food? Fute against. Well, what feud should we start right now that doesn't actually exist? I mean, we have that existing feud with Hodgeman, right? Oh, actually, yeah, he actually doesn't like us.

Yeah, okay. So yeah, Hodgeman? Oh, actually, yeah, he actually doesn't like us. Yeah, okay, so yeah, Hodgeman. That's the thing. Elliot, you usually say some stuff around this time about promoting ourselves. What do you got? Well, if you liked this podcast, then I hope you did, then please leave us a review on iTunes. Please make it a good review. Five stars, perhaps, and say something nice about us.

Why don't you tell people about the podcast? Tweet about us, Instagram about us, TikTok about us, Instagram about us, tick talk about us, YouTube about us, whatever you wanna do, blog about us, splog about us, maybe jump in a blog about us. But please, we're like waiting pants if you do that. I don't wanna ruin your good slacks because you've got a barmits where they go to. So go to your local dick sporting goods

and ask for some bog waiting pants. Get some bog trot waiting bands. Yes. Get some bog trotters and go on out there and spread the word about the flop house. Once again, we, as Dan mentioned, we rely on listeners like you to support us throughout the year from the maximum driving. We really appreciate it. It keeps the lights on and it keeps the beat. Yeah.

And thanks for being our guest, Brendan. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me on I really appreciate it and as a fan it was quite nice to be on the side of it Thanks for being here and now you see how the sausage is made. Yeah, it's hideous I might stomach has been churned this entire time and Harvey Street kid Harvey girl forever formally Harvey Street kids It's not crazy now Harvey girls forever. It's on Netflix now and it's really good But go watch it leave a good review for that. Yeah. And then leave a good review for the flop house.

And it's a then I remain Stewart Wellington. I've been Djal McCoy. I guess I'm Elliott K. Lam. I guess I'm just me. Brendan Hanks. Oh, I think you want to make a name that you could be. I am John Gaul. No.

Oh, see you next time. And he disappeared i think william shakespeare said uh... wait i'll look at us chelbro yeah he should

let's just chill yeah Wait, I'll look at us. Just chill bro. Okay. Yeah, I think Lichy said just chill bro. Yeah.