The Flop House - Ep# 311: Rambo: Last Blood

Episode Date: April 25, 2020

Guys, we're so excited for our guest this episode. He's a big-time Hollywood gent who's worn many hats -- and to name just a few: he wrote and directed About a Boy. As an actor, he co-starred as "Chuck" in Chuck and Buck. He was one of the producers of The Farewell. The man co-wrote a Star War (Rogue One), for Pete's sake! And, as we never get tired of reminding him, he directed Twilight: New Moon. But up until now, he's been missing one line on his resume -- Flop House guest. I'm sure now he weeps, for he has no worlds left to conquer. Chris Weitz is on this episode! And we're sorry we made him talk about Rambo: Last Blood! Meanwhile the rest of us do some shit. We won't waste your time. Just listen. Wikipedia synopsis of Rambo: Last Blood Movies recommended in this episode: Easter Parade Support the Girls What's Up, Doc? Harakiri

On this episode we discuss Rambo, last blood. The series that once again proves that all you need is a sufficiently angry and armed American to solve any foreign country's problems. Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. Oh hey everyone, it's me, Stuart Wellington. And coming to you live from Los Strangely's Hollywood, it's Elliot Kaylin, but we've got a special guest with us today, don't we, Daniel? Yes, we do. You know him as one of the directors

of American Pie uncredited, as IMDB says. As the director of a battleboy, one of the writers of Rogue One, a Star Wars story, but most floppahous listeners will know him as the man behind the twilight saga new moon, which led him to us today. Let him do our doorstep. Yeah, you guys left out the colon, but that's okay. That's why I'd saga colon new moon.

And guys, I just want to say to all the listeners, welcome to the special three hour debate episode in which I defend new moon point by point. I think it's just wonderful that you guys now in this time of national crisis are inviting directors to sort of, you know, really hash things out with you, maybe change some minds. And then- Originally this, this was going to be like an uva bulls tile

Boxing match where you would take each of us on that because because of the virus We're just gonna do it over over the internet. Yeah, what's the what's the order in that that boss fight? He has to do who's the I'm assuming of course I'm first I I'm the easiest to take out so I assume the glass course I'm first I'm the easiest to take out so I assume the glass show of I'm the one where I walk into the ring and trip over the ropes and hurt myself You have to be carried out the thing is like Chris is trying to shame us for making fun of his movie But like yeah to our to our on our end of things like things worked out great like like you, we made fun of this movie, Chris wrote us a letter, we ended up hanging out with him

a few times, he took us to dinner, Stewart, you know, like has seen his house even, like it's a, I've also seen his house, Dan. I've also seen his house. I saw it through that drone I was flying over. I'm saying, like, it's, if he has tried to make us stop, you know, hassling people, he has gone about the absolute wrong way,

because we are being rewarded for a bad behavior. That's all something I'd like to call the long con. Oh, no, not all three of you in my sights right here. You'll see that gas has released into each of your office rooms and you're being abducted and taken to an island where you will be hunted down by the elite who are willing to pay millions. If only if only some movie or short story had prepared me for that kind of a situation. Dan, did we ever say the name of our guest?

Chris Whites. You know what? I had the same worry. I don't know. We can check the tape later. So, but I for one, I'm really looking forward to this survival hunt that will be going on. Oh, yeah, it'll be fun. I mean, it's not all bad.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's sun. I assume beautiful surroundings. Unless this is one of those ones where we go to a burnt out city. It depends on the budget, usually. And all the hunts that I've been on, you know, you want a big whale to really get you into the Maldives or someplace really nice.

Otherwise, you're intran Noble, then you're dealing with mutants, all kinds of stuff. I mean, or like the Japanese government could fund it to get rid of us, that would be a way to cut down on the flop house population. Yes, but then you have to pretend to be misbehaving Japanese school kids first to get into the BR program. I think we could pull it off. I think we could pull it off.

I've played enough JRPGs in my time. I know what they're about what to do. I've read enough of Chromarty High School. I know what it's like to be like a bad boy in Japan. Okay, so as Dan mentioned, years ago, we covered the underrated by us movie. I misunderstood, I think is the word you're looking for. And if you want to master peace, maybe. It's the movie that's often been called the Corner Stone and the Arch Stone of the Twilight

saga. Wow, both stones. Both stones. It's both in the corner and the middle. It turned out Chris was a listener already. It turned out you were a listener and you wrote us a letter, a very nice letter, handwritten, I remember being. Yeah. I have it actually in a place of prominence in my home still. that you were a listener and you wrote us a letter, a very nice letter, handwritten, I remember being.

I have it actually in a place of prominence in my home still. So. He keeps it under his bed. No. No. Toward off demons or witches, which was a Dan or both? Toward off snitches, actually.

Oh wow. OK. He keeps it under there in case there's ever a home invasion situation. He can go hide under his bed, grab it, and then show the home invaders that he's actually really cool back off. I know vampires. Well, and I think I may have told you guys, I don't think it was in my letter, but you

know, well, I think it was a bit that I'd listened with great glee to the flop house for a long time. And I told a friend of mine about it, I said, you got to check this out. And then he called back a couple of days later and said, have you heard all of the episodes? And I said, no, why would you say that? And then it turned out that I was hoisted by my own podcast, Petard. And then I had a real dilemma in my life, which was, was I going to listen to the episode, was I going to submit myself to the treatments that I had submitted others to, to, to enjoy their, their shellacking at your guys' hands. And I'm, I'm glad I did. And I'm glad that we find ourselves here. And

you know, I think that we all have to try to do things to unite the country at this point. And if, hey, listen, this may not be such a big deal, but for a bad movie podcast and a director whose movie was mocked. If they can get together, why can't China release accurate statistics about the COVID-19? Yeah, it is. If we can reach across the aisle from creators like you

to leeches like us, who really criticize other people's work, everything, right? Before I claimed that I didn't feel guilty, but now Chris' unfailing kindness and gentlemanly attitude has made me feel a little guilty. I should have listened to the episode again before we recorded, because I forgot what we said. It's OK.

I have it fresh in my mind. I honestly't seen it every morning as I get psyched up and I prepare my murder tunnels for when I tend to guys come over. I've got all of these special kind of spike traps and explosives and things. You listen to it while you're like dunking your tar, tar covered fist wraps in like broken glass and dummy bears and whatnot. Okay, that was a perfect segue into our movie and then Stewart turned into a joke about

hot shots part due, I think. Oh, I'm going to talk a lot about that. Okay. So, but let's talk about Dan, what do we do on this podcast other than get hoisted on our own pertard and hoisting. And although it strikes me that this is like the sequel to a no-hennory, like a 21st century, a Henry story.

Like the 21st century, a Henry story would be like, I love this podcast where they make fun of movies. They're making fun of my movie, and then the sequel would be where we're like, we can make fun of whoever we want. Oh, he's here, oh no. And then I guess there would be a third one for a trilogy. I don't know what would happen then.

That's where I shave my head to buy you guys a microphone and you send me a comb to put in my beautiful hair. Yes. That's what it is. And weirdly enough, you've managed to turn us into walrus men by the end of the day. Yeah, I forgot, Oh Henry, has had a story by credit on Tusk. I'm glad you went way classier, Elliott,

and not the Saturday night live thing that you hate, where someone is making fun of some other celebrity. And then it's like, oh, here they are, the real celebrity. Oh, boy. Right behind them. Not a fan of that, not a fan of it at all. But anyway, so Dan, what are we doing this podcast? This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

And like Twilight Noomoon. I was actually gonna say, and boy, howdy, this time we watched something so much, so much, like Twilight Noomoon is a new classic. This is a- I would watch a million Twilight Noomoons before watching this movie again. I wouldn't do that.

Maybe a thousand. So, and what movie did we watch, Dan, as if it wasn't announced for you? We watched Rambo last blood. The last? Well, let me get you guys a little insight, a little Hollywood insight here, little insight, baseball. You probably don't know this, but when you put last or final in the title of your movie, you're actually not legally allowed to make any more movies in that franchise. So that, whenever someone does that, that means they're going to leave it all out on the floor. They're going to absolutely do their very best to make the best film in the series. Yeah, like, like final destination.

Yeah. Yeah. When they made Rise of Skywalker, that tripped the trap, because they had already made Last Jedi. And so they made Rise of Skywalker and the system was like, this isn't going to work out. You're trying to break the rules. Yeah. When they made Freddy's Dead, they never made any more Nightmare and Elm Street movies

after that. And Jason went to Hell and didn't come back. The perfect example. The perfect example is the Last Emperor. There was never a sequel to that. That's true. That's true. Where's the prequel? The last emperor. There was never a sequel to that. That's true. That's true. Not even a... Was the prequel the first emperor? I pitched save the last dance too, but they said they couldn't

make it legally. So I'm like, okay. Yeah, I did me save the penultimate dance. You have to start going further back. Well, that happened to me with the last of Sheila new moon and it just couldn't get off the ground. Yeah, so this is Elliott, you have a particular connection to the Rambo character, do you not? I don't know if I would say connection. He's a character that I find fascinating because he is such a blatant fantasy figure, but also he's a character, if ever there was a character that went so far afield of its original intention, the first movie is about a man haunted by a war he was in, who is mistreated by people who think he's a freak now, and he goes on a rampage. And the next every other movie in the series is like, remember when he was blowing stuff up? Wasn't that amazing?

And so by this movie, he's just like, an unstoppable killing machine. This is the whole thing. I'll take him with us parts. Yeah, yeah. And the movie, this, even this movie sort of pays, like, perfuntary, like, lip service to the idea, like, oh, like, war, like, ruins a man,

like, I can't see anything good in the world anymore, you know? But that's all just in the world anymore, you know, but that's all just in the service of making him like a more awesome unstoppable killing machine in the mind of this film. Yeah, well this movie has the weird thing of feeling like Rambo fan fiction that they somehow got Sylvester Stallone to do. Like the character feels so a little off of off. And also the story is so not a ram, it's like real death wish of a story.

And not a, not a Rambo story. Cause Rambo stories are usually, I mean, the first one again, he's a drifter, he gets bullied and he kills a lot of people. And Rambo's two through four, it's like Rambo. There's a problem only a Rambo can solve. We gotta drop Rambo in and Rambo's like,

you got it, I'm gonna team up with the Muha Di and this isn't gonna, this isn't gonna get'm gonna team up with the Muha'adin. This isn't gonna, for this isn't gonna get any backfire on us. This is gonna be great. And then this one, it's like, it's just an out and out revenge story that has a little gloss of foreign interventionism, you know? Yeah, and I've been trying to remember to do this

when I can, just like a little content warning. I don't think we're gonna get deep into it, I hope not, but like there is, there is rape in this movie, there is a lot of xenophobia, just be aware. Yeah. And the thing is, the movie didn't have to be that way. We'll get into how, No, not at all.

We'll get into how ugly this film is, but so Rambo, this Rambo was gestating for a long time. At Little Ram, which is adorable to me, the idea of a little Rambo baby, just waiting to be born. And it was like, oh, do we get to be born this time? And that kind of stuff. Yeah, Ram, baby.

Yeah. Actually, Dan, I do have a connection with Rambo. I would tell you guys about, I must have it, at some point, the Bush Bo series of videos that I did when I was a kid. No, but I was thinking about how you would do the Rambo room, Rambo room. Then yeah, so actually I have it. So when I was a, when I was an adolescent, me and a friend of mine, he had a George Bush

senior mask because George Bush Jr. didn't exist yet. And George Bush senior mask and we made a series of videos. I mean, he existed. I mean, I guess technically, uh, I thought he's spraying out of his father's head fully formed. If George Bush falls on the forest, Stewart, does he make a sound? Yeah, we probably, because he's like, he's in the forest, cutting down trees with a chainsaw.

Or he goes, ow, ow. Ow, ow, ow, yeah, because he sounds like. My friend Adam and I, he had a George Bush mask and so right after the 1992 election, when I was about 11, I guess, we made a series of videos called Bushbow where George Bush was so mad about losing the election that he became a vigilante and was fighting crime. And fast forward to when I would do one-man shows, kind of one-man shows in New York, and I had a bit called the ramble room where I would reveal my biggest fears and anxieties, and then to overcome

the shame I felt from that, I would then enter the Rambo room, which was just me pretending to be Rambo, and doing a kind of mangled version of the monologue from the end of the first movie where he's like, oh, my friend, he was getting a shoe shine and the blue was shoes up and oh, then they came back and they spit on us the calls, baby pills and crap. And so yeah, I've always been fascinated by Sylvester Stallone. But he's also, I mean Sylvester Stallone occasionally stops by the studio, doesn't he? I mean, they guys tell me, but I've never been here when I have this. You missed it. It's been pretty great. I was hoping to find out how he's

doing with his soft heart disease, whether that's a preexisting condition that in the end of the day. Especially now, that increases his health risk, the fact that his heart is soft like a cheese, I think. I think you said at one point. And his love of tostitos, I wonder how that might have played in some of the locations of this movie. I wonder how that might have played in some of the locations of this movie. But you brought up the first Rambo movie, First Blood, which starred Brian Denny, RIP.

That's true, who just passed away this week. So this is a really timely time. It is the timeless time. But I did some research, and it turns out that they've been working on this Rambo movie have been gestating for a long time. At one point it was called Rambo the Savage Hunt and it was going to be about him leading a team of hunters to find a genetically modified kind of half human creature and it's like why didn't they make that movie?

It also would not have felt like a Rambo movie. That would have been the kingdom of the crystal skull of Rambo movies but I would have loved it so much. Instead that's the attitude that the movie takes towards Mexicans. Yes, instead of that, that's the attitude. A few. Genetically modified freaks. And at some point, he was, he teamed up, Sylvester Sly, I call him. I've never met him, but you know, he's Sly like a fox.

Sly teamed up with Rambo's creator, David and Rell, and they were going to make what Wikipedia just quote Sylvester S Solon is saying it was gonna be a soulful journey for John Rambo, but the producer said, no, we wanna do this human trafficking story. So I guess Solon just said, okay, fine, I don't care. And apparently, well, I guess, should we use that? Well, at least the story you're describing plays on the themes of the Rambo character.

Yes, which is a man who can only express his pro-straumatic stress disorder from war. like plays on the themes of the Rambo character. Yes, which is a man who can only express his pro-straumatic stress disorder from war by just mowing down people. Yeah, yeah. There's the scenes at the end of the last Rambo movie, which was just called Rambo. Rambo, Balboa?

Yes, called Rambo, Balboa. By the way, Ali, I think that you and I saw Rambo together, right? I think we might have. Yeah. The first, like, early in our friendship. And that movie also has some xenophobic elements, but it's so much more fun because it, like, issues, like, just destroying the female lead as this movie does. It does not do that.

And it is so absurdly violent Yeah, there's a part at the end where Rambo is just standing with a with a huge machine gun with a truck mounted machine gun Just tearing apart wave after wave of enemy Burmese soldiers running after him and there's a and he gets shot in the shoulder And he just keeps mowing them down and he just runs out of bad guys to shoot like that's just how it ends It ends with him running out of bad guys And then he's just that's just how it ends. It ends with it running out of bad guys. And then he's just standing there looking with his hand on his shoulder. And for the life of me, it looked like they had shaved a bear in front of T-Shirt on him.

And just had him stand there and like, there's a part in that movie where he is... He is sneaking around the enemy camp and he's like, under a bridge. And it looks like the Frankenstein monster escaped. Like, that was when Slavis Slavis really H-G-H-E-A-T-E-G-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-A-G-G-A-G-G-A-G-A-G-A It looks like a relatively normal human being. And the thing that the scenes from first blood really brought home to me is like, he's always had kind of beautiful eyes. He's like big doe eyes for like a tough guy. And so in the past, he's been able to be kind of like a somewhat emotionally wounded tough guy, but in this one, he's just,

it's just Logan unforgiven, you know, stuff, but we'll get to that. So the foreign version of this movie begins with John Rambo saving a missing hiker from a flood and that triggers his PTSD. We don't get to see that scene in the American version of it. So I don't know, I had the choice on Amazon Prime between the extended cut and the release version. I said, I'm going to see the one that they thought was good enough to put in theaters. And oh boy. So we know by the, so the movie starts at the end of the last

Rambo. John Rambo went back to his family's farm. It seemed like he had turned over a new leaf. And you know what? It seems like he has. He's been living on this farm. He's retired. Does he have a room full of his favorite weapons?

Sure. Does he have a network of underground tunnels under his farm that are very easily trappable? Yes, of course. But who does it in this day? Yeah, he uses them for parties for kids. So that's it.

Yeah. And this, the walls are covered in knickknacks to like a TGI Friday's level. It's like a Rambo TGI Friday's, which is like, there's the bow and arrow. There's that knife. There's the machete from the last one. There's a license plate that just says our bow.

He does spend a lot of time in his tunnels, blacksmithing weapons. Yes. But you get the sense that that's his necessary therapy. He can channel all his like paranoid rage into that. And otherwise he's a nice rancher. Now, so he's got these, these two women in his life. Were they in a previous Rambo movie? No, these are new characters.

I mean, the last Rambo movie was 15 years ago. I think something like that. The last one was in, let's see, 2008. So it was 12 years ago. So during that time, he has picked up a niece, Gabriella, and a housekeeper. I kept she's related to Gabriella and a housekeeper. She's related to Gabriella in some way that she's not her mother.

She's maybe Gabriella's grandmother. She's not Sylvester Stallone's love interest. I kept waiting for them to reveal that Sylvester Stallone was in love with this woman and it just wasn't happening. We could pediate for what it's worth. Okay. Identifies her as like,

for what it's worth. Okay. Identifies her as like, she and Rambo manage the ranch together and she is the young woman's grandmother. And I think Uncle maybe just sort of a like honorific. I don't know if they're actually related. I assumed that she was the daughter of his sister. But I think it made me wonder what ethnicity the name Rambo is, is it like, you know,

there's a giant. I mean, it was supposed to be Italian, you know, I assume. But Rambo. There's a thing, when they came to El Silent, it was Ramboleini. And they said, well, you got to change it a little bit. Yeah. Change it to something much more Anglo-Saxon sounding like Rambo.

Gabriella's like about to go to college and she has a great moment where she asks, Rambo, did you like being a soldier? And I'm like, I don't think he did. There's a complicated question. Yeah, there's a complicated question. I don't think he's just learned in the past 10 years. It's that being the soldier kind of resting. It's not like he doesn't pretty much every 10 minutes talk about how terrible everything was and how

there's no humanity left in him. But I want to say about the actors, the supporting actors and this first bit that they're really doing their best with not too much. Like they're not bad. And especially I think the young girl, Gabriella, was actually their moments where she is in this kind of insane revenge plot and actually seems like a 17 year old girl might be in that scenario.

Well, I would also argue that Stallone is doing the best he can with what he's given. He seems like a genuinely wounded man who has a lot of rage. The movie, the movie around these actors is the problem, but. No, he sort of learned how to be quiet and just be himself, which is kind of great. And actually, I would have watched the two-hour movie of them hanging out at the farm

and just dealing with normal stuff, much more happily than what happened with that. There is a great Rambo movie that is exactly that, which is him and Gabriella like training for like a big horse competition because they train horses at the ranch or like just like existing at the ranch and her trying to get him to reveal to her the things

that he's never revealed before about himself. Like, there's a really, I would love to, like that's the movie they should have made and it would have cost a lot less, but then you wouldn't have scenes of guys getting rakes through their head. So like, I guess you would have- There's a trade-off.

Well, you could probably find a place for that. I guess so, that's true. That's true. Where Rambo just kills a bunch of randos. Rambo's randos. Yeah, it's called Rambo Rando Blood. It's called R Where Rambo just kills a bunch of randos. Rambo is randos. Yeah, it's called Rambo Rando Blood. It's called Rando, Rambo 5. And he's still dealing with his trauma, obviously.

He's making Gabriela a letter opener that looks like a knife. And I kept waiting for that to be like the big revenge weapon at the end, but I don't think it was used a much bigger. You could have said there's a letter. It's for you or something like that. That could have been a great catchphrase I thought he's done so is Decapitated and they cut someone's head off. Yeah, I thought he's stuck in the one brother's chest with her picture before it Was that what he did? Yeah, maybe that's it.

Well, nothing is not laid off. Everything is set up and clear. We'll get to that. Oh, well, yeah, actually, Stuart, if I could, I got a bump in on this Skype call. I had to bump Elliot off the call. So like combo was bumping in before you, it's for both of those. Well, that's my new character, Carambo. He's like a Columbus who's like, one more thing you did and then he shoots somebody.

He's like, hey, did you, did you leave these POWs behind and they're like, yeah, no, no, I didn't. He's like, oh, yeah, good That makes sense. It makes sense. One more question. Can I kill you and then I shoot them? So they say yes, or do you just shoot them? I don't know. Wait, I know it doesn't really matter what they're gonna say. I'm just gonna do it anyway. So, uh, the thing is this is kind of like an intricate puzzle, a flexible film. Okay. And so everything introduced in the beginning comes around. It's like Anton Chekov said, if you introduce a letter open at the beginning,

then you've got to use it to stab the photo of your dead niece to a decapitated drug-deal-as-body. In act three. And so, the thing that I want you to remember while you're talking about this movie, Rambo, last blood, is that the subtext, which unfortunately was cut out of the American cut Is that Rambo only has so much blood left in his body because as you may remember the blood in my body is thicker than normal human blood Right, so that's why the veins in your arms are so pronounced because they've had they're enlarged to let the blood go through I not I mean, it's just naturally, it's blood that is the consistency of, like, audio cable.

Just going through my veins, just like pushing a pipe cleaner through a noodle, they're basically. So just remember that, that was a whole subblood that a lot of the movie makes more sense about. If you remember that, there there's, you know, there was supposed to be a counter on screen at all times that counted that how many drops of blood were left in my body and, I don't know who screwed up in post, but of some reason

that wasn't there. I didn't find out till the premiere and I'm like, well when does the counter go up? Because it's kind of what the movie's about is he doesn't have so much blood left and it never happens. So, yeah, like a crank situation where he's got to keep, you know, his heart rate up. No, that would be worse. You want the heart rate to go down. So the blood doesn't get pumped out of the body. Because that's the other thing is it's earlier in the film,

I was supposed to get shot like that one Gremlin who gets shot and then he drinks the potion and then all the stuff comes out of him. Like that's what's going to happen. So it's leaking out of me all the time like a sprinkler. So I mean, if it was moving fast, I'd lose the blood blood faster so I guess what I'm saying is this was not my ideal vision of the film Rambo last blood, but you know, I maybe I'll have some more answers for you later in the show got to go digital jetpack Digital jet, wow guys. I'm sorry. I was having I get some trouble with the internet and I couldn't get back on the Skype call Everything okay

and I couldn't get back on the Skype call. Everything okay? Is it anything? Yeah. Everything's great. Okay. Okay, so Gabriella, she invites some friends over for a going off to college party in Sly's secret murder tunnels. Yeah, you show some the tunnels.

Shows the tunnels and she realises her friend, Gisele, calls and says, I found your dad who abandoned you. He's in Mexico. Do you want to come meet him? And Slaya slides like your dad's a bad man. And she's like, you know, I don't, you don't know about my world.

And he's like, yeah, I do. It's worse than mine. And it was like, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. Yeah, it's a big question. Rambo has like such a bleak view of the world and humanity. He's like, this whole model log is basically like, everyone's got a black heart. Like, like, like, there's no goodness in the world

in his, you know, like, he's a question of the right. Bruce Franshten, his world is so dark that he thinks that a murder tunnel is a good place to invite teenagers to have a party. And I was gonna say Dan, I was gonna say Dan, we all know for Bruce Springsteen that everybody has a hungry heart. So yeah.

Yeah. Or a soft heart. But like, but no, but it's funny because movies like this, like the hero expresses this like bleak view of humanity. And then the whole arc of the movie is, that is confirmed.

Yes. Like, like, like, oh, no, no, no, he was right the whole time. She shouldn't like be like, believe that there's good in the world. No, because everyone like Rambo, a crazy hermit man who sets up devices to murder people. I mean, it's better than being a crazy hermit crab. Yeah. If his dark vision weren't realized however we wouldn't at be able to enjoy this film

you know thank god you're right that the world is such a terrible place that that rambo has to kill maybe two thousand people uh... that's a really a lot of people a lot of the especially for man his age cabri uh... cabrielle uh... reveals to her grandmother and a rambo that she wants to go track down her father and Rambo's like he's a terrible man and at first I'm like, oh, that's what any guy with a lot of baggage and like Fucked up relationships in a terrible worldview. That's what he would say luckily that gets paid off later on when we find out

He is the worst person I've ever met But he's he's not as bad as some of the other guys. They're terrible. Also, he doesn't have a cell phone. You can't call ahead of time to talk to him. And send your cell the enslavement. Well, as we'll see soon, so she goes, anyway, she decides she's going to go. She goes to Mexico, which is a short drive from the ranch.

I guess they live near the border. And it's like she crosses the border and she is instantly in a burnt out war zone. That is, none of the houses seem to have roofs. People are just hanging out, just gang bangers hanging out, drinking on car hoods. Like it's like a reverse wizard of Oz. Like it's crazy. How instantly she's just in like some Italian Mad Max

rip off movie version of a city where it's just like burnt out buildings and shells of vehicles. It is pretty amazing and so I'm gonna get real and political for a moment here guys. Okay, that's what I'm here for. So the lighthouse is nothing but a format for you know bold political controversy. Being a part Mexican myself you know having gone there when I was a kid, and having made movies with actual Mexican people in them, it's really interesting to see this sort of trope of Mexico. Once you deploy the word Mexico, she says, I want to go to Mexico and Rambo is me like, whoa, why would you want to do that? Although, about 100 million Mexican

people actually live in Mexico, most of them aren't AR-15 wielding narco murderers. But you would think from the way that this movie portrays it, as Elliot said, at the moment you step across that border, all bets are off and you're probably going to die. It reminds me of a fun of mine. Everything becomes ochre tinted. One of my, yeah, is that what's, like, yeah, even the light looks terrible there.

One of my friends, Freshman Year of College, was she was from Mexico, and she would talk then about how she hated how in American movies, if you had committed a crime, you would just escape to Mexico, and she's like, we have police officers in Mexico. It's not like you just go there and crime is okay. I think she's a special mad because her dad had been a attorney general of Mexico for a little bit. So it was a personal

insult. I want to take a moment here as long as it's top of the channel. To defend the movie is vision of Mexico? I didn't hear what you said, but it's on topic, so I assume that. So I'm going to compare this movie to its closest relative taken a few times during our discussion here. And the thing that Taken does with this is, like Taken is also a xenophobic movie, but I thought the name of the movie was taken a few times, which I thought would be like a late,

little late. That's the one where Liam Neeson is like, daughter, please stop talking to strangers. This is the third time today that you've been taken. Yeah. Anyway, taken is a much superior version of this story and it makes a few key decisions. One of which is it is still xenophobic but it decides to aim at xenophobia at least at a place that is not historically vilified by America, which makes it weird in a different way. You watch, taking, you're like, okay, why is Liam Neeson immediately terrified

his daughter wants to go to Paris? That seems very crazy when you watch a movie, but you put it off to him just being insane. He's seen so much in the CIA or whatever. But apparently the Paris have taken his field with sex slavers. We won't touch on that. But at least it's making an attempt to be like, okay, so we don't want to inflame any actual racial tensions

that exist in America. Whereas Rambo last blood is like, okay, well, at right when we're building this wall, let's make Mexicans the bad guy. Yeah, I mean, so what's supposed to counterway this is that there is a nice Mexican grandmother and a Mexican American girl in it. And so this sort of excuses the rampant xenophobia but it

doesn't exactly oh by the way Sebastian reports that the movie should have been called Rambo Red Cross or Rambo Remaining Blood just needed to get that in because I'm getting I'm getting notes submitted to me. I think so I think the movie is so the movie is not saying Mexicans are bad. The movie is saying Mexican men and most Mexican women are bad. And I feel like that's the kind of nuanced message that we, it's refreshing from a Rambo movie where usually everyone in the foreign country

except the one woman who likes Rambo is bad. But it is, yeah, it's, the movie exists in that weird fantasy world of fear that so many people live in where they're like, MS-13's gonna come get us. And it's like, I don't think so. They have no interest in you. I don't know why you think they're just,

I'm a rotting band of scavengers. We're really not pretty. I just think it's a hundred percent. Well, it's only really if you do something stupid, like try to make contact with your father. You know, it's clearly some clearly dangerous to do. We're trust Jacelle because as we meet Jacelle, we know she is trouble because she's all got heavy makeup

and jewelry and things like that. And she is dressed very cleanly as a in like traditional gang banger tropes. All she's missing is a few like SoundCloud or Apprificial tattoos. But like, but like she's all of her clothes are like pristine, like clear, like, I don't know, it feels like a high school play version, like, like in Rushmore or something when they're dressed up as, as like gangbangers. Like, everything is very clean and carefully manicured.

Yeah, absolutely. She looks like she's doing well for herself. Even though she moved back to Mexico, she's wearing Los Angeles kind of a stereotype, Chola outfits. And it seems a bit unrealistic to me, but hey, she's got to do, she's got to do her. Hey, she's got to be herself. You know, she's as much an outsider as Gabriella. She's a immediately asked Gabriella if she's a virgin and then goes, hey, I'm just joking.

And it's like, I don't think that was a joke. This is going to be trouble. Gabriella goes to meet her dad, Manuel, who says, hey, I left you because I never wanted you. So goodbye. And then close as the door. He makes the most comical heel turn because when he first opens the door, like he's not warmed to her, but he's like, oh, hey, it's been a while. Like, you know, he, he, he's pleased. Oh, because you know, you know, what happened? I think he didn't recognize her

at first and thought she was someone from work. Oh, hey, it's, what are? It's nice to see you and she's like, why did you leave my family? He's like, oh, it's my daughter get out of here. I don't want to talk to her. They're saying like he's stepped out of the light into shadow in order to be mean also. Yeah, and and then highs go dead and it's like new wife answers the door and she's like, who is she? I'll explain later and she's like, okay, and leaves like what? But yeah, they've got a great relationship. They trust each other. That's that's something they're trying to say is that he's moved on and he's actually kind of made something of himself

and why is she coming to wreck his life where it's he's got this really trust and relationship with his wife? He's like, your own mind of the bad man I used to be and not the caring family man that I am now. So I want you out of here. This movie is so committed to like a rote shorthand that he like literally just says like, one day I looked at you and your mom and I'm like, I don't care about these people and I left. I don't like go away.

I don't want you like he's the most direct about being a bad father as anyone could be. I wonder if maybe he's Harry and the Henderson in her and he knows that he's a dangerous man and he doesn't want her to be in trouble. So he's like, you stink. I don't like you. I never liked you. Get out of here. Honestly, Elliot, he is so over the top here that I thought it was going to be a plot point like that. I thought he was trying to scare her away. But there was a dream or something. Yeah.

So, she's really depressed about this. So, Jacelle, to cheer up, takes her to a club, which actually look like a pretty fun. Pretty fun, yeah. Yeah, it looked like a fun place to be. Her drink gets spiked. I guess it's not so fun after all. Next day, everyone's like,

Gabrielle's disappeared. Where is she? And she went to Mexico and Rambo's like, I'll get it. Go get her. And he gets in his truck and and races over to Mexico. This is where this trigger warnings are going to have to come in. Because Gabri, as they call her, is instantly the prisoner of a Nightmarish hellpimp who says he'll kill all any of his women if they run away. And she's inside of the filthiest building I've ever seen in my life in a movie.

And it's like she, the, the movie is trying to outdo itself in being unpleasant and horrible. And this is where it really starts getting into that. What I guess you'd call the act two slime. Well, how did, maybe, did you guys, how did you guys feel about it? Maybe I'm off base. It's really tricky because I mean terrible things are happening to young women in Mexico and sometimes this has been addressed in movies before but it's rarely been used as such

a blatant plot engine purely to manufacture bad guys to be destroyed by Sylvester Stallone. So it's weird and unsettling. I feel like they go after this, the tragedies that can befall young women in Mexico with not quite as much sensitivity as Roberto del Lano in 2666. Just not quite as much. I was going to quote 2666, but I thought, no, you know, I'm not going to try to bring a sort of literary fiction into it, but hey, this is great. Hey, come on. It's got to be done. But it reminded when the last rainbow came out, it was

like, I felt the same way about how it was set in in Burma, or I always mix up, whether it's called Burma or me and more now. and I feel terrible about that. But it was set there, and it was at the time that it was still a military dictatorship before it became a democracy, and that's kind of becoming a dictatorship again. But at the time, it was still a military dictatorship, and I was like, it's terrible that they're using it just as fodder for these movies.

But at the same time, what other American movies are talking about what's going on in that part of the world? None of them were. So it feels weird for, I think this movie is probably like, actually, you know what, never mind. I don't think it's trying to call attention to any of this. It's just like, what's a part of the world that sounds really terrible?

And we can have something horrible happen. Yeah, I would like, I have some things to say about that. Like, so again, taken. So in taken. So it's again taken the sequel. Yeah. We're not only would William Nissen has to team up with Judd Hershess's Jewish father and he's like again taken. Yeah. And then there's the the taken DA where he magically turns into a

districutranny. No, I just magically he ran for the office. He was a like, excuse me. Okay. The thing about this is like, so in taken, the daughter is also being sex traffic, but the movie has at least the small decency to rescue her before any rape occurs,'s this movie seems to delight in having this surrogate daughter character be as brutally mistreated as possible? Well, yeah, it takes a bit of a mil gibson kind of direction where where Sylvester Stallone or rather Rambo Strangely sort of offers himself up like this guy who is you incredibly skilled, stealthiest assin' allows himself to be beaten up basically by 50 dudes, and at the same time as that's happening, his surrogate daughter whatever is being raped. And it's not necessary to the plot for this to happen. No, and I think that we've identified the xenophobia of the movie like every

Review of the movie at the time I identify that but I don't think there's as much talk about like the sexism of the movie because number one She is like so fridged in the sense that like her She only exists in the movie in relation to Rambo entirely. And there's a very egregious version of that that happens later that I'll mention when it comes up in the synopsis. So there's that, but also this movie is I think trading on like two male fantasies. Like it, it, like one much uglier than the other, but like, it gives the audience, like, the

titillation of having this young girl sexually defiled, and then it gives the audience the fantasy of, like, revenge against the defilers. And it's, like, it's like having it both ways in that way, you know, like a really upsetting, like I spent on Rambo's grave or something. Yeah, Rambo spits on their grave. Yeah, who's spitting on his grave here? The only grave we see, the only grave we end up seeing spoiler alert is Gabri's. So I guess that's the, that's the challenge. I need to talk about Gabri's grave.

Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. Pretty not a bang up job on that grave. But it is always like a pretty teenage woman who is offered up as like the sacrifice so a man can go on a rampage. Like only like, it's a movie like you, I can only think of like a movie like ransom

where it's a boy. And in that case it's like also like a young boy You don't see a teenage boy being the one who is like and I'm just I think it's important to note like the creepiness of all this Yeah, in addition to the racism the other the sort of spiritual cousin of this to his men on fire I think which also sort of played the Mexico kind of gag with a little white girl. I mean, okay, not as terrible, but serve the same function, which is like we prize our new-bile, original daughters or daughter figures, and if anyone, if any, brown person is going to get them. sense, you know? And the pearly pearly innocence that are our grizzled heroes wish they

still had. Yeah. And but actually to your point, Dan, I think, you know, basically once Gabrielle has no longer a version, it's time for her to die, right? Because there's no way that she could possibly rebound from that and lead a life. And there's kind of this odd scene, I were jumping ahead in the movie, but where Rambo says, you've got a lot of losing enough to do with all kinds of great things,

all the things are gonna be great. But essentially- So let's just alone see her again. No, that was me, that was guys, that was me. That was well, well. And essentially, Gabriella just gives up on life because presumably, you know, there's no way you can come back from that, you know. Yes.

I assumed it was her, it was his old man's speech that made her fall asleep and died. It's interesting to me, if these have been these movies, and I'm thinking of Man on Fire as well, but these kind of go to Mexico and kill some people things is that presumably What's interesting to me, if you've seen these movies, I'm thinking about on fire as well, but these kind of go to Mexico and kill some people things, is that presumably shot in Mexico or maybe certainly with Mexican actors, right? And I'm just wondering what the experience is like for these Mexican actors, or day players or, you know, heavies who are like, who are taking on these roles. Of course, you're getting paid to do what you want to do, which is to act, and that's

great. But like, how do you reconcile the rampant xenophobia with this? And you know, because it's not like, you know, there's no brown face here, right? It's like you're actually hiring Mexican actors to play sleazy evil Mexicans. But actually, which also reminds me, Joaquin Cocio, who I looked up in on IMDb, because I'd worked with him before in this movie a better life and He didn't appear to be on the movie. He was gonna play he was playing he was listed as Don Manuel and he's in the credits, but did he appear in the movie at all? I don't very round. I'm assuming he was the if there was a character named Don Manuel He would have been like the head of a crime

Yeah, I imagine so but you only you only meet the evil Martinez brothers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah Maybe it's stuff that maybe it's in the foreign version and not the American version I don't know because they were extra scenes. I think but it's yeah, there's a lot of I guess what we're all saying Dan I think we all in Christensen. I think we all agree This is a real icky movie and there's a lot of real icky stuff both on screen and behind the screen. So let's get into it, shall we? Anyway, long story short, Rambo starts trying to track down Gabriela. Manwell is no help. There's that manwell, but he's not a Don Manwell.

He goes to Giselle and threatens her with a knife to take him to the club. She points out the guy who took his niece. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious woman at the bar watching Rambo. Rambo gets information from the guy by literally shoving his thumb through the man's skin so he can pull out his clavicle bone and snap it. And he said he pulls out a bone. Are you talking about one of the bone cousins or maybe one of the bone paperbacks? Nope. No, not talking about you mean like Jeff Smith's bone.

Yeah, is it phoney bone or phone bone phone phone phone phone or smiley bone? The frugal or may wrote a comic book it's a different Jeff Smith dad okay and life was probably terrible for both of them until the frugal or may pass yeah so no this is an actual bone that's in a human body he really goes to town on this guy maybe more than necessary I have never in a movie I've never seen someone reach in and pull out another guy's Clapical bone and correct me to snap it in a movie. No, it's true.

The funny thing is also he was like, he was like, I snap this bone and it's like, you already pulled it out of my body, dude. This is pretty bad. He leads Rambo to a bad guy house. That's all I can call it, like a thug house or a bad guy house, sort of a cha cha po trap house and uh... rambo gets surrounded by bad dudes this is the scene christmas time at earlier where the martina's brothers the bad guys of the movie come up and they have about fifty dudes beat up rambo and they don't have they're not like doing

anything they're just all like hanging out yeah i mean that is bad guys doing bad guys that really walks right into it and i'm not sure whether he intends to or not, given his proficiency in killing, the fact that he gets kind of, he gets sucked out so quickly and surrounded, so easily seems odd to me. Did it seem strange to you guys?

I have a couple explanations for this. So I have a couple that won. This is when he makes his mistake. Instead of doing what he does best, setting traps. He's softhearted. He's so angry and he's so softhearted that he just walks right in. I think he's not used to being a white guy in a foreign country who's not a soldier or a mercenary.

So he walked in expecting them to understand that he's on a war footing, but to them he's just some old dude and there's 50 of them. Three, this is the scene that makes us want to be him to kill them even more because they've shamed our hero. There's a scene in the movie, The Ninth Configuration, where you know that Stacey Keach is like a Rambo-type character, but he's tried to hide it in himself. And he goes to a bar and this biker gang beats him up so badly until they finally are forcing him to lick beer off

of this splintery wooden floor. And the whole scene, you're like, how much are they gonna push him until he just finally, we have the release of him killing all these bikers. And they finally do it. And that see, this is like a much slower version of that where it's like, would it be satisfying for Rambo to just go in and save his niece? Of course not. He's got a fail and then get revenge. And he's got to get, it's got to be personal revenge. And you'll see that because they carve an accent to his face with a knife.

And it's like, it's more like a V, or V, or just a V. I saw it as a V. Okay. I was watching it on iPad, but I was doing the dishes. So I might not be the third student. But how can you even judge this movie if you didn't know it was a V and it's a greater accent?

You're right. I'm not watching it the way it was meant to be watched. Because I didn't pay money for it. It just came with Amazon Prime. And the villain explains this whole plan at this point, right? They have Rambo on the ground. He's all beat up. It looks like he's been stung by a bunch of bees. And he's like, you know what? I was gonna ignore her. Me being a crime boss. I don't think about the people beneath me. She's nothing to me. Now, my plan, but what's this plan? This plan is that like, now I'm gonna let you live just so you know I'm doing mean stuff to this girl all the time.

She's gonna be doing a lot of work. I'm gonna treat her worse than everybody and you're gonna spend the rest of your life because you would never try to attack me again because I've done such a good job of showing you how tough I am. You're gonna spend the rest of your life knowing that you made things worse for her

by coming and trying to save her. And this is, I guess, an argument against anyone who says don't get involved, Rambo, because he has to get involved now. I don't know. I feel like, so it's a rewrite idea. At some point, Gabriella should have said to him, promise me that you've reformed and you're not going to kill any more people. And he says, boom, I will never ever once again commit violence on anybody.

And so then I understand why he's just going to cruise in. He's like, I'm just going to talk nicely to him, explain that I'm Rambo and everything will be okay. I'm sure if I speak reasonably to these fellows, or they'll see that they should let my niece go. The rest of the women, of course, I don't care about because they're not related to me or even the same ethnicity as me. And so I'll forget about them,

but I'm sure I can reach a common point of reference with these men. Like yeah, my Stallone is a really becoming Colombo. It's really fascinating. But yeah, they don't have that. So instead, I think he's just cocky. He's just overconfident. And he's at a practice. He have that. So instead, I think he's just cocky. He's just overconfident. And he's at a, he's at a practice.

He's been tame and horses, not killing dudes. So Rambo, he gets beaten up unconscious and he gets picked up by Carmen, a good, good guy journalist. And she's also got her reasons for hating these bad guys. Meanwhile, we just see horrible things happen to Gabriela and we don't need to delve too deeply into those. We've kind of talked about what basically happens. She ends up being a drug, you know,

they force her drugs on her and force people on her. It's terrible. Four days later, Rambo wakes up. He's still got a little bit of a concussion. And he says, I got a settler's score with the Martinez brothers, and Carmen is like, okay, maybe I'll help you.

Rambo then, this is the first part of his plan where he just goes to a, to where Gabrielle's being held and imprisoned with a hammer and just kills every man he sees. Yeah. This is a, this is like a dumb version of you are never really here. Yes, exactly. And so, and what I still haven't seen you will never really,

you were never really here yet. So like, what is the difference between a movie like that and a movie like this? Yeah, it's exactly. And so, and what I still haven't seen you will never really, you were never really here yet. So like, what is the difference between a movie like that and a movie like this? Like, what makes that more of a work of art than another movie about a guy who has to save a woman so he kills people? Well, that's a good point from that. That really doesn't give you the, yeah, it doesn't give you any violent catharsis. You don't actually see him really do anything to anybody.

Oh, so it's kind of like only God forgives, where it's like, you know bad stuff is happening, but it's mostly Ryan Gosling just looking at stuff. But it's tied more deeply in with the trauma that this veteran is going through and a man who lives in a world of only violence. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

The violence is strange in this movie, right? It's not sort of poetic. It's genuinely angry, gross. It's very graphic, right? Yeah, it's very graphic and it's almost like there's no, I mean, you could see this as honest even though it's not, but it's like there's no joy in it. There's not even thrills in it.

It's just like, so that's just alone's gotta do a job, so he's gonna do this job. I'm just gonna walk in the room and hit that guy as hard as I can with a hammer. And then I'm gonna walk in this room and hit this guy as hard as I can as a hammer. And I kept thinking like of an old boy, there's that hammer fight scene.

And it's an amazing scene. The joyous hammer fight. It's a joyous hammer fight, exactly. But in this one, it's like, you almost get a little of suss-alone being like, I can't believe I'm still making these movies. All right, but in this one, it's like you almost get a little bit of sussalon being like I can't believe I'm still making these movies all right walk in kill someone walk out and the women he's saving are so are so much Seen to be so much more frightened by him by this maniac who's just wandering and beating some of the death with a hammer and it's It's very it's like a shooting gallery to like but a hammer gallery like these guys just keep popping up

I was like guy hammer guy hammer yeah yeah yeah now I have an idea for a carnival booth yeah well now you know what it's like to be one of the hammer brothers and the Mario brothers yeah and then I have to show up and start killing everybody just starts jumping on Rambo's head yeah and now I have an idea for a pseudonym guy hammer oh yeah yeah and now what would you do as guy hammer what would that pseudonym be use for oh gosh um guy hammer uh international construction worker okay yeah yeah I'm a little glamor to the I'm sure you got some nails that I'm only you

can hammer in here and yeah now is it is that you do your jobs all over the world are you only use foreignmate tools or what makes you an international entrepreneur? I'm a global trader. I'm a global trader. And my motto is, when your guy hammer, everything looks like a nail. Oh, wow, okay.

They're like, we're building this building using only the metric system. Somebody give me guy hammer. Mm-hmm. So in France, they call you a ghee hammer. Yes, right? Now, ever since everything looks like a nail, somebody give me guy here for. Mm hmm. So in France they call you a ghee hammer. Yes. Now, ever since everything looks like a nail, that's a pretty serious psychological problem.

It's like an Oliver Sacks level neurological disorder. No, it's true, but it's better than like having that cartoon disease where everything looks like a turkey because I don't try and eat everything. That's true, that's because if I just saw a turkey sitting on the sidewalk, I'd immediately start eating it. Whereas if I just saw a turkey sitting on the sidewalk, I'd immediately start eating it Whereas if I saw a person just sitting on the sidewalk, I'd be like, oh, that's a person But if I saw any food sitting anywhere, you'd have no choice to eat it even if it was driving a car

You start wearing clothes and chase it down the street Normal chickens in a restaurant chicken's in a restaurant. Yeah, yeah, Elliot, I think this is a beer around his neck. Any polls? That is cutlery that he has on him at all times. I always have them with me and I'm used to, and when the chicken starts running away saying, hey, stop. I don't say for a second. Hold on. Let me square this with my regular frame of reference about chicken. Let me go to my schema about chicken that exists in my in my psychology. Do chicken usually run away and talk? They don't.

Okay, especially fully cooked chickens, which is what this one is. Running just on those little caps that they put on top of the leg bones. In a fancy restaurant in a cartoon. But that's because the non-chicken recognizing part of your brain has died. That is all of our sacks would have pointed out.

Do we learn so much about neurology from things like chicken, chicken seeing disease. Yeah, yeah, CST is a problem, but it's also been a learning opportunity for the world. So Rambo is just killing people with hammers. He seals Gabriella away and he's going to save her. The criminal brothers are real mad now and they argue with each other. On the drive home, there is a long truck drive back, and Rambo, to try to keep Garibola awake so that she doesn't die.

Rambo kind of monologues about what Garibola means to him and how important she is to him and his life was so bad until the movie makes the most unforgivable move in my opinion, which we talked about, is that she dies. She is no good as a living person, she is only good as an object to fixate on for the purposes of bloody revenge. Well, and this is the moment that I was gonna mention before that sort of underlines how she is only a device

that exists in relationship to Rambo, is that Rambo is monologuing about himself and about how she gave him hope and all this stuff. I mean, I could see someone saying that, but even at this moment of death, you rescued me and then as he's saying that, she slips away. Right, I'm talking about her upcoming college career

and prospects for life. He's really just about her upcoming college career and prospects for life. He's really just talking about his own trauma and how, when she was in third grade, she won six prizes in one day. Yeah. The movie's not called Gabriella No Blood. Well, good point. And we can't expect to survive. Very fair.

And although there's part of me that did want to see Rambo trying to relate to it, to a teen girl on her level. I mean, like, oh, you got so many tick talks to look at and I have Billy Eilish is her second album. I know you're looking forward to that. But like just trying, just desperately trying to connect. What's is the grassy as show that young people are still watching or. Well, there's a point where the where the grandma is complaining about the music that the

teenagers are playing. She's like, oh, what terrible music. And's like, oh kugu, you used to it. And I'm like, well, that's better than I would say. Guys, I was listening to, I was listening to the conversation again and I had to bump our Elliott off again just, I didn't bump him off the way that I normally bump people off. He's still alive. I just tied him up and he's blindfolded so he doesn't know I'm here. He's got, I put your plugs into his. Now, something I should tell you about, I was doing some research on my own movie because as you know, my memories are horribly unreliable. Like for instance, the other day, my brother Frank, we were having brunch, I like to go to brunch and we was again, it was a zoom

brunch because again, at these times, you can't go places, but I made, I tried to make home fries and they just weren't as good as a restaurant Let me tell you that but you got to try these things, you know, so you know weird because they're called home fries But but the restaurant version is so much better. Yeah, Dan true words were never spoken It's like how it's like how you drive on a parkway But you shoot people in their driveways But you shoot people in their driveways. Now, so, and I talked Frank was like, hey, Sligh, you remember when you were in that movie, a rhinestone, and I was like, I was never in such a film with that title,

sir, and he kept reminding me, and then I looked up in my library of bound screenplays of all the movies that I've been in, and there you go. There was a screenplay for rhinestone, and I read it, and you know what? I had a few laughs. Anyway, the important thing is I was doing some research on this movie and I realized there was an earlier version of this movie that was called Rambo where I died in this scene and then she took on my name but a girl version of it so it was Rambo instead of Rambo and then she got revenge and I don't know why we didn't do that because I'm not going to slip through the rest of the movie.

I could have you know because we didn't do that because I'm not gonna slip through the rest of the movie. I could, you know, because she didn't really die. The actress just kind of went to sleep and then we didn't wake her up. You know, because she was so tired from the other scenes, so we just kind of let her sleep in the car. And it was kind of funny. She woke up in the truck and we had all gone home and she was like, what happened? She called me. She's got my number.

I'm that kind of guy. I'm just handing my number out to people because I'm a real friend, you know I like to be personable and you know, there's no barrier between me and them Then why should there be I could snap their neck if I wanted to anyway, the You know, I don't even know what about she called me and she was like, slime still in this truck I just woke up. We were like, oh you look so sweet. Just sleep in there that we want to wake you up We wrote the rest of the movie around you dying in that moment rather than just falling asleep And she's like, but I wanted to be the vigilante. I was gonna take over. I mean, there's no, no, no, but you fell asleep during the scene, so it's fine. I know you were tired, so I'm just

gonna do the rest of it. So there was a version of the movie originally I died, but she kind of brought it on herself that, you know, I had to shoot the rest of the movie and it just became Rambo last blood. So it's kind of resonating how many different rest of the movie, and it just became Rambo last blood. So it's kind of resonating how many different versions of the movie there were that we went through while we were making it, but that happens sometimes. You know, when they were making... That fascinating.

No. I mean, it's sort of an insulting way to put it still, but I get your point. Why, you've just called me Stu. Yeah, this is... Why do you even knew what I was, Rambo? No, well, I called you that because I'm gonna kill you and I'm gonna beat the Stu out of you.

But what you said to me, as soon as I find out where you live. Also, Stuart called you Rambo. You called me by your character names, or this? I do the same thing. I sometimes call myself Rambo. I've called myself Oscar, which is not even my character in that movie. I called myself Rhyne Stone after I found that in that movie. I called myself rhinestone after I found out I was in a movie called rhinestone because until I read the script I assumed I was like a police detective named like

Sal rhinestone who's like always trying to stop drug dealers or maybe like a kidnapper wants to assassinate the president or something But no, it turned out I was something with country music. I don't know. I read it yesterday And I forgot about it already the point is I'm gonna kill you still Wow, well, I'm glad that we're doing this digitally instead of over, instead of in person. No, no, I can still get you because I'm going to take in virtuality lessons and now I can travel through the internet so I've got to get to it going with that. You know, it's still, I do have one question. Are you drawn to characters specifically with our names? Because you

got Rocky, you got Rambo, and you've got of course, Ray Tango. I'll answer both of those questions. One, because you got Rocky, you got Rambo, and you've got, of course, Ray Tango. I'll answer both of those questions. One, I'm not drawn, I'm live action, but thank you. I consider myself kind of an animated person. We lot of energy, so I'll take that as a compliment. Two, yes, R is just, I consider it a power letter.

And that's why Rambo, Rocky, Ray, the movie about Ray Charles, which I auditioned for, but did not get the part. I unsuccessfully pushed for that one. Yeah, other movies that Oscar ends with an R. And of course, let's not forget I was in Spy Kids 3D and there's an R in 3. So, you know, there's an arc in action to all the movies that I've been in Judge jurid. Yeah, straight for the fans. Yeah, stop. Er my mom will shoot. Yeah, I mean that's one way to pronounce it sure Well, that's Chris's face I was thinking from being delighted by this podcast I was thinking of jumping in with co-brah of course There's an oh yeah, the movie where I was where I was one half jumping in with co-bra, of course. There's an order.

Yeah, yeah, the movie where I was one half of a bra, yeah. And the other half was, I believe, who was it? Wasn't Elias Codius, it wasn't James Woods. It wasn't Ray Meland. It was Rosie Greer. It was Rosie Greer, thank you. Yes, yeah, it was Rosie Greer. It was Rosie Greer. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. It was Rosie Greer and me were but I'm mad scientists turned us into a bra. It was one of the crazy of movies. It was earlier in my career. Anyway, I should go and see you can finish. I assume

talking about how great the movie is. Gotta go. Bye. Oh, man. Oh, some some kind of masked figure came in and tied me up and I'm glad he let me go because my throat was starting to hurt. So anyway. I think it would have been, to what Stallone said,

I didn't hear it, Elliot, but it would have been great if Rambo and his niece killed all the guys, right? Because then she could have actually enacted some kind of revenge on her own part, but no. Oh, yeah, no, no. That's not it. It would have, it would have been like a human being who has gone through some trauma and like working through it and seeing how that affects that person.

I don't know, similar to a movie called First Blood. So he buries her, Stuart, you had something you want to say about her grave? Well, what I have a lot of questions, one is that they seem, the grave is covered. The headstone is a simple cross, but it's covered in like, like scroll from I'm assuming are classmates, like it was like a cast, like a plaster cast from a broken arm. And so does that mean they had a funeral? And if they had a funeral, what did they tell everybody? And did they tell the police? Like, how did they get her body from the truck into the ground with a headstone on it?

Guys. I mean, maybe he just always has a headstone ready for everybody he knows in case they die and he has to get revenge on them. And he just pulls it out of his tunnel. He got a lot of storage space. And all the notes were notes and he has to get revenge on them and he just pulls it out of his tunnels. He's got a lot of storage space. And all the notes were notes that he wrote to like make it seem like she had a bunch of friends.

He wanted her ghost to think that she was more popular than she was. So he like got into the character of a bunch of teens and he probably dressed up like them to really get into their personalities. And he was like, yeah, see you have a great summer and stuff like that, you know, you know BBFF was just best buddy friends forever. Oh cool. Yeah, it's I assume that I assume it was all him play acting different. Okay, well that answered my question guys There's no no plot holes in this movie Rambo does the most healthy thing which is he takes all of her pictures off the wall and puts them in a crate and then says says to the to the older woman you leave I guess I'll go back to being

a drifter now. Well he kicks her out basically. He said well you you find that later why because he's got a murder of a thousand people but he says there's nothing here for you there's nothing here for me and he so he he he tells her the false cover story that he's going to wander the earth, basically. Yes, yeah, yeah, writing wrongs and possibly taming horses somewhere. At first, I wasn't sure that it was a ploy. And so he just hung around his house.

And I was like, well, that was a mean way to get rid of a roommate that I guess you're tired of. But I can see you confused by that, yes. It's time. Look, Sylvester Rambo, this home movie he's been doing things that don't come naturally to him. Writing horses, going to Mexico, having a family. Now it's time for him to do what he does best, make weapons and traps.

That's right, it's a montage of him prepping his farm and his tunnels with lots of defenses. And you know he's serious because he makes a new bow and arrow and a new knife, which is like, that's how you know he's flipping the switch, you know, and getting back into killer Rambo mode. He goes back to Mexico and he asks the reporter to help him, but I don't know how she helps him because he just goes to one of the Martinez brothers' house and kills everybody there and cuts off the brother's head and leaves a picture of Gabriella there.

I just love how he disposes of this head, but we see him driving back to America and he puts it out the window and drops it. And I'm like, how long has he been Alfredo Garcia'ing this? Did he just talk into him? Yeah, he took the head. He's like, okay, I got to make it really dramatic. As long as he been Alfredo Garcia and this, they just talked into him. Yeah, he took the head. He's like, okay, I gotta make it really dramatic.

Why not just leave the head there, but he's like, nope. I gotta do this for the unseen camera, take it with me and then throw it out the window. He had just seen hereditary and he was like, I wanna reenact that head on the side of the road. So that's what I was doing. Spoiler alert. Oh,iler alert.

I assume that he, you know, during the, he took the head and he's like I'll just throw this into the on the ground and then he's he realized he never had a friend and so he just started talking. It was like Wilson in Castaway like he's like oh finally it's my friend but on the drive back they had wanted to change the yeah exactly wanted to change the radio station or maybe he likes it something to me about Rambo's car and Rambo is like forget you I don't need a head for a friend and and through him out you know I assume that he you know it wasn't until that he'd already started driving there's like what I took the head okay well what

I had is like when I pass the garbage can I'll throw it out but like it keeps driving There's no garbage cans. Oh Rambo you're so absent-minded And he's like is this is and then he's like in his car. He's like googling like is a human head like Will it like you know Decomp uh like whatever will How fast decompose I mean also he's already driving without a license because the bad guys took his driver's license earlier in the movie.

So it's texting while driving. It's just another one of the crimes. And it's, I guess it shows how to sensitize. I am to a violence in movies that after I watched, I was like, he did a lot of driving without a license in this movie. That's not okay. But this moment is so super full of us. I wish they just come on further with it.

Like you toss out the window and go go that's no way to get ahead I wish someone was here to hear me say that There's a car driving the other way and it's a family going down to Mexico on vacation and the kids in the back are fighting and the dad's like so help me I'll turn this car around and then a head lands on the on the hood and they go And he does turn the car around and they try back Oh, but they could be playing highway bingo and decapitated head. Yeah.

Finishing the game. Every spate space on the car is marked except for decapitated head. They're like, oh man, I'll never win this game. And then the head lands on the hood and the kid goes jackpot. Yeah. He looks up and he says, thank God like an animal house. He punches his sister and goes punch head and you know like car games you know anyway. So he's baited the trap. He is. He is baited the trap. I guess he leads his address. They have his driver's

driver's license. So probably off camera is the scene where they go to their tech guy and he looks up to see if that's still where Rambo is registered at for voting or tax service. We need you to extract an address from this driver's license. It's like, okay, but it's going to take time. Computer hands. He was computer enhanced. They just holds it closer to his face. Yeah. So they they he ran when there's an army of goons that's going to closer to his face. Yep. So, they, he, a Rambo knows there's an army of goons

that's gonna be heading his way. They do, and this is, comes up to, I feel like maybe the most perfunctory defending your house under siege scene I've ever seen, because Rambo is just destroying these guys, and his traps are just destroying them. And it's lucky for the remaining Martinez brother that he bought as many guys as he did because if he didn't Rambo's wouldn't get to use all his traps like I'm sure that is the

thing is like every single but if he if he missed out on one of the traps killing somebody would he have to maneuver someone around very carefully to use that trap yeah and they're just set and meanwhile Rambo is is tunneling underground and popping up every now and then like bugs bunny and shooting people and going back underground and it's like there's no And I while watching I'm like, oh, there's no suspense in this scene But then I was like, oh, it's not supposed to have suspense It's just the visceral catharsis of watching people who are not like you Mergered and blown up and having rakes in their faces and around the 50th guy getting killed

I was like, are they gonna introduce any new traps? I was like, is it just gonna be the same traps so we're gonna go over again? This is like, this is the point in the movie where you're like, okay, there's like, like 25 minutes left and you're like, okay, this is what the whole movie, this is the whole point of the movie.

Like, this movie exists for this last 25 minutes and you have to like, sit through all the ugly ugly unpleasant shit to like set up the reason why this Crazy like ending where everyone gets rakes the phases happen And that was my same review for home alone by the way Well, and if you're like me and you're totally disincentized toward violence and like can't you know can't just view it as like Okay, this is like a fun house, like Hollywood thing. Like, let's see how they kill this guy. Like, I could see getting like visceral thrills

from just like, okay, well, this is like the, yeah, as Stewart says, like the ultra violent home alone. But God damn, I do not recommend anyone to wade through the sewer to get to this point. Well, the crazy thing about this point too is it is edited like the super cut of best Rambo kills that you would see on YouTube. You see a YouTube video that's like Rambo last blood

best kills and it's just like rake to the face, blown up, shot in the head, napalm in his body. An alligator goes up his butt, then a piranha jumps through his neck and another rake to the face and like buzzsaw through the crotch. Like just cut after cut after cut. It's really crazy. He does have some very rude Goldberg-esque ways of killing people too, where it's like,

it's just not efficient. He drills a hole in a wall so that he can poke somebody with a metal spike, where... It's like, good thing this guy walked exactly where I needed to, needed him too, so I could cut as a kill, he's a ten-dent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah kill, he's a ten to the kill. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The guy's like, what the hell's with that hole? Oh no! The, uh, and the thing is that the, my favorite, my favorite, Rambo kill. I mean, I think it's the one that is most often the highlight of those highlight cuts is, of course, in Rambo when he covers himself with mud and a guy walks by and then he opens his eyes and you're like,

Rambo's behind him the whole time and they didn't do that and I'm like, Rambo could easily look like a mud wall. Like, I'm surprised he didn't get to do that again. It's really so craggy. He could basically have backed up into a rock wall, and you wouldn't notice. He wouldn't have to put any kind of camouflage on him. Let me have one he's seen.

If he takes off all his clothes that he's naked, and he just stands against a wall, and it looks like he's made out of craggy rocks, the thing about that mud kill that makes it less cool is just imagining him waiting there, hoping a guy walks by. Yeah, that's the best part. He's really gonna feel like that.

That scene in like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, those people are like in the mud on the wall, just waiting for mutt Williams and Andy to show up. That they've been waiting for hundreds of years for somebody to come by so they can attack them. He, it is, it's just like kill after kill. And it reaches like a 1980s level of murder excess. And I will say, if the preceding movie

had not been so ugly and so like horrible, then I might have enjoyed this just because it's so goofy. And there's a moment where Rambo starts blasting the doors over the loudspeakers underneath. And it's like, oh, this became the thing that bloodshot, the movie we were talking about in the last episode, was parodying when it had the guy dancing to psycho killer and then and killing Vin Diesel's wife like that he's and also the the door song is all about how like the older gonna die and the young will take over the earth

Well, this very old man is killing all these younger guys 72 when this was made right 72 like 1972. Yeah, yeah, no this he has a he said he said probably I think about 15 years ago he said he was too old to play Rambo anymore. And I guess he decided he wasn't. I mean, he still looks terrible. Yeah. And Rambo gets shot, but it's fine. He gets absorbed bullets like like nobody's business. He let's it's fine because there's ultimately no stakes at this point. We're like no we're like well, if Rambo dies He's at least doing what he fucking loves It's important that he literally tear out the heart of his enemy Yeah, he said he he said he wants the Martinez brothers to know what it feels like to know his grief and his anger

To know what it's like to have his heart torn out So he leads the last bat. He says, I saved you for the last, the last bad guy, and Chase's him into a barn, or he traps him to a barn, and Rambo shoots his arms and legs full of arrows that go so far through his body that they pin him to the wall of the barn. And then he walks up to him with a huge... I mean, an English longbowman could put an arrow through a tree, Ellie. That's true. Rambo, we know he's good with bows and arrows.

Like, it's not like this is a new thing. Bowen Arrow technology has advanced since then, too. So, there you go. Since the era of the English longbowman, yeah, that's not a goof, Ellie, is what I'm saying. Don't go on, I'm gonna be. Okay, fair point, fair point. It's just earlier we saw him shoot arrows through playing cards.

And it's like, is the human body the same fitness as the playing cards? But it makes me wish this was about Rambo getting trapped in a home depot and like having to use the stuff that was there like a staple gun and things like that to try to stop people and they could have called it either home Rambo or Rambo Depot or home Rambo Po. Maybe home Rambo Po. And uh, they'll get confused with Tempo Poe. Hell yeah. Yeah, that's... Oh, what a great... Rambo Poe. Rambo Poe. When he uses noodles to kill people.

Yeah. That would be amazing. Yeah. Rambo. He strangles them. He just... He wants to teach this woman how to make the best ramen, but he's just killing everybody who comes in. Oh, man. What a great movie, Timp Hopo. So he chops his dudes hard out and he like holds it

in front of him and we're like, no, no, no, okay, that's not glossed. Come on, Stuart, you're not giving me this moment. Yeah, come on, you need the foreplay before that. He stacks in, he stacks up, he takes a while walking up to him with the knife too. He explains it, he explains it, metaphorically the guy had torn out his heart.

So literally he's gonna tear out his heart, which is a bit... So he can appreciate this. Yeah, he makes this L-shaped cut in the guy's chest reaches in, yanks out the heart, which is still beating, showing it to him. And like, this is the one moment of actual enjoyment I got out of ramp. Oh, last blood, because I was like, he's gonna do it. Is he gonna do it?

Holy shit, he did it. You're waiting for him to take a bite out of that heart. Yeah. Unfortunately, he doesn't. He doesn't. But also, there's a problem with the villain in as much as he has nothing interesting to say at that point. You know, you won't.

Oh, no, yeah. You won't. You won't. You won't. You won't. You won't. You won't. You won't. You won't. You want some kind of rhetorical flourish from the villain to justify the intensity of tearing out his heart, but all he says is fuck you basically. Yeah, he's such a generic faceless, almost nameless villain that it's and yeah, you want like if this is probably gonna be the last Rambo movie, I hate to break it to you guys, but you kind of want him not that Rambobo the movies have ever been known for their like necessarily they're amazing bad guys, but you're not someone who were dialogue. I mean, Rambo is it it's the second Rambo right where he gets to say he she asks, what does expendable mean? And he goes, it's like, you know, you're invited to a party and you don't

show up and no one cares. And I've always loved that line. But there's the line where he's like, who are you your worst nightmare? I mean, that's it's that's it's yeah, that line. Oh, there's the line where it's like, who are you, your worst nightmare? I mean, that's it. That's it's good. Yeah, exactly. But there's not a lot of good conversations, I guess. It's the most. But you do want something from him, but instead it's just like, you might as well have

Rambo say to him, hey, listen, I'm sorry, you had to be the bad guy that I acted out the last of my war trauma on, uh... this could be particularly bad for you uh... which which rambo movie was it where rambo had to go and he had to rescue stanley spedowski from the thing and then they climbed onto the thing and they kept shooting guys and rambo is played by weird al uh... you're thinking of you each

okay yeah so the uh... rambo this is the more in another movie, where Rambo, he, he climbs onto his porch, and he has a voice over about how all his life he's only known death, and everyone he knows is gone. And the way this movie should ends is that Rambo, should end that Rambo dies. Yeah. But instead, in his voice over, he goes, but I guess I'll defend their memories forever. I'm just like, oh, OK are you gonna keep going and it's like

Rambo's like my life is terrible everyone. I know his died. I'm just a a harbinger of death well tomorrow's another day No sleep for the wicked I guess his body has absorbed the bullets He's been pierced by this point his body has been shot so many times that he knows how to turn that into nutrients Yeah, well unlike when he when he says he's gonna defend their memories forever Oh, by this point, his body has been shot so many times that he knows how to turn that into nutrients. Yes. Well, unlike when he says he's going to defend their memories forever, I'd like to see him on that like chair on his laptop, like writing their story. The next scene and then cuts to it's like the end of Born on the Fourth of July.

It cuts to him at assigning for his best-selling book about his experiences. And then over the credits, we get shots from the past three Rambo movies. It's mostly scenes from first blood, and they show a couple shots. Well, they cover it all, but it's just a hilarious way. Don't get me wrong, this is by far the part of the movie that I enjoy. The most just Seeing like shots from old Rambo movies at the same time. It is such a wacky way to end this movie because it's just like Rambo is not a heartwarming character, so it's kind of like remember all these fun times we had with Rambo It's all images of him killing people

I thought it was especially weird that they played you got a friend in me over in being angry. I thought it was especially weird that they played you got a friend in me over. That was the same thing. That's very true. Yeah, you're like, look at how young Sylvester Stallone is. Wow, look how yoke he is guys.

Yeah. Look at those traps. So, uh, Rambo last blood is very much, I would say, the least of these movies. And like, here's the thing about the Rambo movies. Except for the first one, I think when all of them came out, they were considered trash, and kind of time has allowed us to view them semi-ironically in a way that makes them more fun. But I don't know that this one is going to go through that process. It's just so gross.

No, and that leads us into final judgments. Where we make our final judgments on movies that we watch, and whether they are a good bad movie, a bad bad movie or a movie we kind of liked, I will say that this is a bad bad movie, it has an ugly black heart, it loves to put its characters through unpleasantness, just because it can, and I did not enjoy it. and I did not enjoy it. So watching this movie put me in mind of a scene in Rambo 3, where Rambo gets shot and the bullet goes all the way through him. So the only way he can ca- he can ca- he can ca- otherwise the wound, the only way he can handle this trauma

is by filling that wound with gunpowder and then lighting it on fire. And that's kinda what going through watching this movie felt like to me yeah it's a bad bad movie that's who are saying it's a movie kind of like them well yeah that's a bad bad movie it's and Chris I want to apologize on behalf of the flop house

you watch this particular one I knew this was move I knew this movie was like uh... i'd heard a lot about its racism, but I did not know a know ahead of time about it. It's just grimness and disgustingness in terms of the way it handles the character. So I guess we'll have to save a fun one for you next time. Well listen, like a plot twist. I loved it. What? What? What?

I just for the politics. You know, sometimes you guys are just too hard on movies. You know, like. You're right. We really should have checked our brain at the door. I want to just let it. I want to really think about what the intentions of the director looks it up. Can't find it.

German guy, I think. Yeah, we're. Grimberg. One other credit. Well, he was, he was, he directed the movie Get the Gringo. So the guy has a great relationship with movies set in Mexico. He really, yeah, he's the guy you got you. Cultural relevance.

But he's he's been, this was his second movie as director he was an assistant director sophomore slaughter I call him yeah yeah it was I was really I was disappointed only because I expect a certain level of like bigness for Rambo movies yeah yeah and this was such a part of it was that it was such a like small movie and really like just unpleasant and you know what are you going to do? The world's not safe for rambos anymore, you know? I mean, what do you say like this movie felt so much like a western. I don't know if I would consider it like do you feel that a lot of the other rambos movies

are westerns like that kind of a like a lone hero? Yes, they're definitely they, they're kind of westerns in the clothing of war movies. Because it's almost always about a hero going in, a lone hero going into like save some people. And except for the first one, the first one is a, is a like kind of vigilante slasher movie, almost in the clothes of a 70s character drama.

But it's, this is very much like this movie wants to be unforgiven really badly. And it's even to the point of every time he was standing over that grave, I was like, oh yeah, because an unforgiven he stands at a grave. And it's just not unforgiven because unforgiven I think is aware of how tall tree the things it's covering are. And the whole point of unforgiven is like, this is the kind of stuff that usually in movies we treat heroically, but it's kind of gross and bleak here. And in this one, it was like, the world's a terrible place. And it takes a bad man to say things.

We need rambos on that wall protecting us. Yeah. Oh boy. So I can't wait for, so I kind of want them to do one called like space Rambo where he gets frozen and thought, I mean, I guess that's demolition man to a certain extent Rambo X Rambo X where the one where He is playing Malcolm X that seems like very tasteless casting

Ever compared Rambo versus Jason you can you can see him actually in the pantheon of horror Yeah, oh, yeah, oh he's he's much more He's it is he's this he's like the slasher who's the good guy and he just exists to kill But he has to happen to be the good guy, but like just the fact that he's you know More of a cartoon than a character like he's he's more of a Freddy Krueger or a Jason then he is like Like a John Wayne, you know again again, John Wayne is like a character, he's a person, but you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Right Stu?

Oh yeah, I know. Hey Max Fun listeners, have you been listening to Max Fun for a while and you've just been wondering where's the new Flat Earth podcast to keep hearing about? Well here it is, we give you all the facts on NASA's lies and how we know that the Earth is actually flat. Just kidding! This is Ono Ross and Carrie and we join fringe religious groups we undergo alternative medical treatments.

And we hang out with people like 9-11 Truthers, flatter, there's we find out why do people believe strange things. We join them and we tell you all about it. We have a lot of fun, we make a lot of friends. Yeah we do, we join the Mormons, we join the Scientologists, we got Acupuncture, we got Firecup, we got Earcandled, we've done it all and we're gonna keep doing it all. Why don't you check out Ono Ross and Carrie at MaximumFun.org. Welcome. Thank you, Paul.

These are real podcast listeners, not actors. What do you look for in a podcast? Reliability is big for me. Power. I'd say comfort. What do you think of this? That's Jordan Jesse Go! Jordan Jesse Go!

They came out of the floor? And down from the ceiling? That can't be safe. I'm upset. Can we go down? Soon. Jordan Jesse Go! A real podcast.

The flop has a sponsored in part by Squarespace. Hey, why not use Squarespace if you want to make a website? Guys, you can use Squarespace to blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and much, much more. And Squarespace helps you do this by offering you beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers. Everything optimized from mobile right out of the box. A new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions. Free and secure hosting.

Head to 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. Hey Dan I had an idea for a website and I was wondering if Squarespace might be able to help me with it. I haven't let us down yet but. That's true. I'm I'm male so this is I was kind of inspired by the movie and I moved into a new house last year and we had kind of a rat problem when we first got here. And I was like, if only there was a service

where I could sign up online and they could set up Rambo style traps around my house to catch these rats. And so it doesn't exist, so I'm just gonna have to make it. And so I wanted to register the domain ratbo-brand-ranbo-style-rattraps.com. And at Ratbo-brand-ranbo-style-rattraps, we take the intensity and the killing ability that only a traumatized Vietnam vet has and use it to rid your home of vermin. So we've got little spring-loaded rakes that stab rats in the head,

who got like tiny little thermite bombs that blow rats up. We have a little man who runs around with a pump action shotgun and just blows the head off of rats. And so people, but people need to sign up to the website. I use, I, I was trying to do this just to know that. I mean, I wasn't working. L.A. Do you think you're going to have some trouble with, you know, people would prefer, I don't know, say like a nonviolentviolent means of rooting their house of, uh, vermin. I believe that that is not our market. I think there's an untapped market there for people who want a very violent means of

rooting their house of vermin. And so RatboBrand, RamboStyleRatTrapS.com is your place to either buy these traps and install them yourself, which I would not recommend at all, Or to buy the traps and then also hire one of our Ratbow Brand Rambo Style Rat Trap Specialists to set these traps up around your house. And just listen to some of these testimonies from satisfied Ratbow Brand Rambo Style Rat Trap customers. Okay, here's just one from a satisfied customer.

Oh yeah, I had some rats in my house and I figured, oh, well better way to get rid of them set up some Rambo traps. I decided to go with one of their advisors who helped me set the traps over the internet during a Skype call. And you know what, the next day my house was littered with the body parts of broken rats.

Thank you, ratbo brand Rambo style rattraps.com. So that you can't argue with that kind of success and that kind of happy customer. See, the Squarespace revealed to help me set up that website, which apparently I already have set up because we have a testimonial. Oh, I assume you used Squarespace in the past, but yes, I think that they could help with that.

Okay, great, thanks Dan, much appreciated. The Squarespace, the podcast is also sponsored in part by Raycon. Whether you're working from home or working on your fitness, you want what you're listening to to be what you're listening to, not what the other folks in your apartment or house may be listening to, or maybe you want to block out the people upstairs who ever since quarantine started seem to be exercising 24 or seven. Anyway, Dan, I don't think they're exercising. No, no.

Well, why not check out the wireless earbuds from Raycom. They started about half the price of other premium wireless earbuds on the market. And they sound just as amazing as other top audio brands that you may know. Their newest model, the market and they sound just as amazing as other top audio brands that you may know. Their newest model, the sleek and stylish, everyday E25 earbuds have six hours of play time, seamless Bluetooth pairing, more bass and a more compact design that gives you a nice noise isolating fit. Raycon's wireless earbuds are so comfortable, perfect for conference calls or binging podcasts.

Now I was a wireless earbuds douter, but these things fit my ears great. You got a little charging case, so they're charging while they're in your pocket. You take them out, they pair immediately. If you want to turn up the volume, you can just tap on the side of your ear, like some sort of space, some sort of low bot or a low bot. Low bot turn space, yep. I mean, technically everything's in space.

The low bot is on a planet. Now's the time to get your, get the latest and greatest from Raycon, get 15% off your order at buyraycon.com slash flop. That's buyraycon.com slash flop for 15% off racon wireless earbuds they say it a third time by racon dot com slash flop can you spell racon oh yeah that would be useful it is ray like the ray light ray charles and con like the movie con air all one word, Raycon. Ray Charles Conair, got it.

Yeah. No, Raycon. So guys, now's the time that we take some letters from listeners, I have them in front of me in my hot little hand. I'm gonna mention, we are recording this at a time when if there wasn't a global pandemic, Stuart and Dan and I would be in Toronto right now, we would have just done a show the night before.

Sorry, Toronto. I know I'm disappointed we didn't get to do that show. We will be back someday. I promise that. Yeah, yes. Yes, we all look forward for many reasons. For the end of this thing, our reason is a little less important than others, but we do want to see all of you in person we miss touring. But this first letter, I have neglected to put who sent it. Okay. So a mystery of foot. A whole name withheld. Why hello general general kerfloppers. I want to start off by saying, I enjoy you all equally,

except for Elliot. He's my favorite. Hey, thanks. Letter written by Elliot's mom. No, it seems to me I know why Dan buried the name of this person. I think in January, I finally caught up on my previous favorite product cast, my brother, my brother and me.

So I had to find a new one and I settled on yours. I'm writing this, as I'm writing this, I'm on episode 159. I'm saying I'm very hooked on your podcast and the catalog is invaluable to my sanity during the quarantine we're in. 159, which one is that? Hmm, let's take a look, shall we? Yeah, let's look it up. Let's take a look, shall we? Yeah, let's look it up House 159 it is walking with dinosaurs I forgot about that Kevin Marr. I have a question for you all as well I'm a younger listener if you could not tell and I wanted to ask if there were any movies you guys think are

Very important for a younger fan of film to see I Really like gangster and crime films, but really I'm happy to watch and explore all kinds of different genres of film. And so that's the question. My immediate thought off this is like, just be curious. I don't know if there's something that I would point someone to specifically just because I don't like being the kind of person who's like you gotta see this, but at the same time, but like I think it's good if you're interested in a film to sort of broaden your tastes early, so you don't get sat in your ways, like watch old movies, so you're not, I don't get set in your ways like watch old movies so you're not I

Don't know like confused by the different ways that people may have gone about Acting or putting together a film back then watch silent films watch foreign films You know sample around Yeah, I mean you want to watch the classics. You want to watch Castle Freak, the granny, the visible maniac. But I mean, the family, right, still. And the family, of course, are the Holy Quadrilogy. But the, of course, if you like gangster movies and you want a foundational piece of cinema,

of course, I'm going to recommend that you watch Rikio, the story of Rikki, the best movie ever made. And how is that a gangster film? Well, I mean, it takes place in a private prison, Elliott. Good point. Sure. And of course, Ricky has been rightfully in prison because he killed the drug dealers that gave drugs to his girlfriend and made her jump off of a building. So watch story of Ricky. Ricky E oh, yeah, it's great.

I'm going to repeat what Dan said, which is just try to watch a little bit of everything and see what appeals to you before you start hearing from other people what they like and what they don't like. Or if you start hearing from other people, they like and what don't like, like take it with a grain of salt and use that as a way to try new stuff, but you don't have to feel the same way other people do about it. But the way I learned about movies was in an incredibly haphazard way, which was literally just, I would go through the TV guide because that's how old I am.

Now I go through the on-screen cable guide and any movie that sounded remotely interesting to me, I would tape and I would watch it. And so I ended up watching a lot, a lot of different stuff. Some of it wasn't so great, but some of it is stuff that I never would have known to seek out. And so like, and I still do that when I go through the cable guide on turn of classic movies,

and basically if there's a foreign movie that I've never heard of, I record it. And I've seen a lot of stuff that I wouldn't have seen otherwise that I really liked a lot. Hey, Elliot. I'm sorry to interrupt. I stepped away because my cat is going crazy. But did you say you just follow the advice of Armin White and watch whatever movie he

likes? That's exactly what I said. I said there's no, there's no critic who represents my taste as much as Armin White. I hate the Toy Story movies. I love Jack and Jill. If other critics like a movie, then I hate it. And if other critics hate a movie, then I think it's great. And that's exactly opposite of what I would do, Stuart, come on.

But yeah, just like anything that seems remotely interesting, try it, and even things that don't seem interesting, try them and just sample as widely as you can. Chris, what about you? You're the professional filmmaker. Oh, yeah, I would say, I agree with what you guys are saying and I would say take a lateral move here like don't get stuck just in American gangster movies but but let's

let's kind of reset the focus and look at high and low which is one of my favorite movies all the time in curisole movie right which which it was then kind of ripped off for ransom later. And Heinlo is formally an amazing film, right? A lot of it just takes place just in one room but it's always exciting. And Yogyimbo, okay, which is also about gangs that it's just seven to 16th century in Japan. Another Kurosawa film. And so it's got that kind of gangster attitude to it,

but formally and in terms of its tropes, it's got that kind of gangster attitude to it, but formally, and in terms of its tropes, it's quite different. You know, Chris, this leads me actually to a question I was just sort of wondering about for myself that's sort of related, which is, is there like a movie or movies that as a filmmaker, like you felt you particularly learned something from to apply in your work.

I think it would probably be sort of screwball comedies and a Preston Sturgis movies maybe. And from sort of Hollywood comedies from Lubitsch through Wilder with a detour through Sturgis is probably thing they would most influence sort of the way the, well what I'm actually successful at doing at the stuff that I do, you know, the sort of sense that subsidiary characters are really important, this kind of sense of humane but cynical, a blend of humanity and cynicism. And I would love to think that all the Japanese movies that I love

influence me, but I can't really spot it in my own stuff. All right. Well, let's move on, shall we? Good answers, good answers, good answers. This next and final letter is from Charles Glass, named withheld, who writes, Charles Schultz,

Nelson Riles of Charles Schultz dear lords of Flopdom I was reading an article recently about a Kickstarter and am aimed at funding the digital removal of the rat that scampers across a balcony Bannister at the end of the departed symbolizing the rat that was just killed in the movie. Oh my god That's what I've met Now in the movie. Oh my god that's what it meant. Oh. Oh. Oh. It makes so much sense now. Because he's a rat. Apparently died. Oh. Wait. No, that makes perfect. Oh my god. It makes perfect sense. Okay. Well, that's that's why he's the master. That's why his score stays. Oh wow. Okay. Apparently this was it. You can't get over it. Apparently this was an egregious sin against cinema. Honestly, I don't give a shit about the rat and who is

anyone to tell Scorsese what to put in or emit from his movies. The reason I bring it up is that this gave me an idea for a way to settle Ding Dong gate once and for all and have Stu end up on the right side of history. All we have to do is create a Kickstarter to fund a reshoot of the now infamous scene and have the freak actually rip off his Ding Dong better yet. Why not give him two Ding Dongs? He is a freak after all and have him freak actually rip off his ding dong. Better yet, why not give him two ding dong's? He has a freak after all, and have him rip both of them off in unison. It would be quite frankly amazing.

Keep it floppy Charles last name withheld. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I do have a glossy eight by 10 of Jonathan Fuller in the full freak makeup, and he did sign it. I ripped it off myself, so I think I'm in the right. You would say the late Stuart Gordon did say on Twitter, which is how the president communicates. So it's an official.

The freak did not rip off his own bandongues. So I guess there's a lot of questions. Basically a lot of people a lot of a lot of questions. The, and then of course, you know, to talk about a movie that hasn't come out yet, they have the upcoming remake or reimagining of Castle Freak that's going to be coming out. Sometime, at some point, when movies are released again, and maybe we'll get to the bottom of it in there. Maybe we'll explore that, you know, facet of George E.O. the freak. We'll find it. I want to, I want to be a scene where he rips off his own ding dong and he just goes,

this is for you Stewart. Yeah. And up until that then, and then after then, no other mention of Stewart as many. Now, I'm going to, I'm going to go off on a limb here and I'm going to say something a little controversial guys. Okay. The thing that triggered this question, which was, or letter, I guess. So one, I would say it's really, except for purposes of humor or art pieces, it's really not up to fans to decide how to manipulate a movie that got made, because it's not theirs and they didn't make it. And unless you're trying about something like the clock, which is built out of other people's films, which is a big 24-hour art piece, then like, what are you doing?

But also, guys, and maybe you'll disagree art piece, and like, what are you doing? But also, guys, and maybe you'll disagree with me, I like that rat at the end of the departed. I think it's great. Of course it's obvious. It's about how there's rot everywhere in this city, and even at this apartment, there's still vermin falling everywhere, because we live in a fallen world.

So like, but the idea that like, oh, it's obvious. Like, of course it is. Fuck you dude, like movies can be obvious sometimes. Symbology it's obvious. Like, of course it is. Fuck you dude. Like movies can be obvious sometimes. Symbology can be obvious. That's fine. Deal with it. Also, I think it's fun and goofy.

Like, I think that people are taking the departed a little too seriously if they get mad at the rat. Like, it's like, I love the departed, but it is not like a deep exploration, like for a Scorsese film in particular, like it is a fun, pulpy movie about like these parallel, I mean, like, you're saying it's more on the Shutter Island

and Scorsese than the Silence and Scorsese. I think he won an Oscar for it, so I think he must be wrong. Okay. I mean, but even then, like, you can win an Oscar for a movie that isn't, that isn't. That is never happening. It's not super wrong. Okay. I mean, but even then, like, you can win an Oscar for a movie that isn't... That is never happened. Super subtle.

No. That's... But that was a movie that, like, I really enjoyed that movie. I like it honestly more than Infernal Affairs, the movie It's Space Zone, which I felt like kind of didn't use the premise as well as it could have. But when people were like, ugh, that rat at the end, I was like, you mean this amazing part at the end

where a rat comes out? Like, I don't understand, it was a problem. Yeah, that rat at the end, I was like, you mean this amazing part at the end where a rat comes out? Like, I don't understand, it was a problem. Yeah, that's like watching Better Off Dead and being like, oh, that burger part. And I'm like, what's wrong with you? Yeah. But what if she added a sort of, oh, from the rat at the end?

I mean, I would love that. Honestly, if the rat looked at the camera and winked, I would have loved it. Like, why not? Sure, go ahead. If it was, and it's also the fact that it Honestly, if the rat looked at the camera and winked, I would have loved it. Like, why not? Sure, go ahead. If it was, and it's also the fact that it's, it's not happening during the scene when they're making love to comfortably numb.

Like, it's not happening during one of the emotional scenes. It's happening during the, the very end when the movie's over and it's like, gotcha, wink, you know, like, and I have to say. If there were some cheese at the edge of frame, also, that would explain it. And it wouldn't, so arbitrary. That's true. Arbitrary. If the reason he came at while he when he right before he was murdered the rat, he was wiping cheese on the banister of his of what the the terrorists and his apartment that he bought

with his ill gotten games. And it's because why I don't know he's a crazy bad guy. He likes to wipe, wipe cheese on things. But it's a little bit like, I don't know. I could see, I could see people. I could see a cheddar, you know, because then it's this symbolism is double because the cheddar is, you know, is money, right? He's got so much cheddar. He's got a fridge just full of cheddar cheese. He's like, what am I gonna do with this?

I got so much cheddar. That sounds like heaven. So. I'm gonna say something that might sound a little snobby and I genuinely don't mean it that way, but I think that people who watch a lot of movies might have a higher tolerance for silliness in their movies just because like,

if you're not like watching a lot of stories, maybe you expect them to be a little more straightforward. Like this was brought, like the reason I was talking about this was someone tweeted at me and I don't wanna call me when I, like someone tweeted at me, and eventually they're like, okay, this was a joke. They watched the rest of the movie, but they're like, oh, I'm watching the child's play remake, and I can't get past the part at the beginning where the sweatshop worker switches the violence inhibitor switch to off. And I'm like, that's

clearly a joke. Like why would the doll have a violent switch? Dan, there is no room for jokes in a movie about a killer doll. I mean, the real problem with that is that they're stealing that joke from the Simpsons. Sure. And he goes, oh, here's the problem.

Your doll was switched to evil. But I think there's two kinds of film smobs. There's the ones that go around. It's like a, there's a. They do a podcast and shit on movies. Yes. And then there are the kinds that actually make movies and then the kinds that don't even make the movies.

And there's the people they hope, yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, there's victims. Yeah, that the kind to get, it's like you go through these stages of film snap development where you start out and you're like, movie is wow, I love them. And then you get to a point where you're Super cynical and you shit on everything and you're like Why did Indy even have to go after the arc because it kills all those Nazis at the end without him and then you go a little farther

And you become like in Roger Eberts review for Air Force one where he's like Air Force one came out the same weekend as this Gamera movie and honestly at this point in my life I'd rather watch the Gamera movie and like I I feel like that's where we are more is like okay I've seen it all so now I'm ready to see the silly stuff. Yeah. But a lot of people they're not all the way through that journey. And then the next stage I guess is when you're so tired of movies that you're just like books are really where it's at. I'm reading Mill on the Floss. I don't watch movies. I mean it's a great book. I don't watch movies. I mean, it's a great book. I don't know why I don't know why I don't need to make read a movie about how they make me to book about how to make floss. All right.

So guys, that was great. Let's go to the next segment. And the last one, where we recommend a movie that you should watch instead of this one. So we can prove we're like real full on movie snops, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's just a proof that we're not just full of bitter bile. Because my recommendation is large door. A lot of people would say unshan de lue, but that's kind of a little done at this point. So I'd like to recommend Easter Parade, which I watched on Easter. It's one of Audrey's all time favorite movies

and I had T-Voted, according to my T-Vo, one full year ago last Easter. And we never got around to watch this. I have some movies that have been on my T-Vo for years. I'll get around to them eventually. Um, but it was so much fun. It's got Fred Astaire in a role that was originally supposed to be done by Gene Kelly

But he injured himself right before the movie started and you can see how it's kind of more a Gene Kelly role than a Fred Astaire role But he's great and he keeps going up to people and going it's me Gene Kelly from singing in the rain And it also has a Judy Garland and I realized that I actually hadn't seen Judy Garland and stuff that much before I'd seen Wizard of Oz obviously and I'd seen a star is born but this was the first time where I'd really seen a movie where she's allowed to be the funny one and she's really funny like no I mean like I you know, it's no surprise. Like, I'm just, I'm discovering that Judy Garland is a star, suddenly, but she was really a fun.

And it's a movie that like, it starts out like it's going to be my fair lady, but for dancing, like Fred Astaire's like, I could take any chorus girl and make her my partner. And that kind of just gets discarded and like anytime it seems like there's going to be a conflict it resolves really quickly, which honestly at this point in the world why not. Why not have a movie that has barely any conflict and as much as singing and dancing and pretty Easter hats. And so Easter parade is my recommendation. Cool. I'm going to recommend a movie called Support the Girls. It is a like a small kind of almost like everyday slice of life comedy about basically focusing on a single day with a manager and the

staff of a like a hooter style bar and restaurant and the kind of everyday problems they have with their life and with work and it's really great. It stars Regina Hall who's great and it has basically a star making turn from this actor Shayna MacHale which I don't think I've seen her in anything and her IMTB profile doesn't list much but she's incredible. It's also got like Dylan Galula from what was that, Kimmy Schmidt? Well, it has a star of a Chris White's film, it. He really, really ripschitzin' fantastic.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I liked it a lot. Check it out. I'm gonna recommend a movie that ties into some of the stuff we talked about earlier. It's called Rambo last blood and it's the story of this guy who It's so it's the story of a guy It's just a story. How about how my life got changed her upside down I'd like to take a minute to sit right there tell you how I killed a bunch of Mexican guys in my farm Well, I was an old band dealing with my trauma.

That's good. Worked with my niece and dad abandoned her mama. And then we decided to. So, what's that guy wrote in, the nameless fan wrote in, asking about like movies that they should see, and stuff like that, and it made me think about a movie I watched recently that I should see and stuff like that. And it made me think about a movie I watched recently that I should have watched a long time ago

that I didn't, and especially after Chris mentioned the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s, which was I finally watched What's Up Doc, the Peter Bogdanovitch movie that is a 70s kind of version of one of those movies. And I put it off for a long time because I kept hearing it referred to as being kind of like bringing up baby and bringing up baby is maybe my least favorite of the screw balls. It's one that connects with me at all.

Yeah. I was, I was worried that, that you would disagree with me on that, but it's a, and that I would feel bad. She's super annoying. Yeah, it's super, right? And when there are like great, I mean, like, have you, have you seen the Madness Mantin with Barbara Sandway and Henry Fonda? I think it's so much better than Ring Up Baby and it's a similar type of movie, but I finally watched What's Up Doc? Because I wanted to watch a movie that was silly because the world is not silly right now. And I was like, oh, this is a much funnier movie than I thought it was going to be, and I really enjoyed it. And I was especially excited to see the actually I'm done,

who is maybe best known for being in Blazing Saddles, and he comes at the end as a judge, and I think he's such a funny actor, and it was just great to see him. It's got such an amazing cast in it, and so I'm glad I finally watched it. So what's up Doc? The movie that doesn't really earn the title,

what's up Doc? It's kind of a pointless title, but otherwise I enjoyed it a lot. I've really been meaning to watch that one too. Maybe you will finally push me too, because I, you know, like the early classic Peter Bagnotovitch movies, like last, last picture show and targets and paper moon. I all really loved, picture show and targets in Paper Moon. I all really loved, so I want to check that out. For some reason, I think I've let my feelings about bringing up baby and my feelings about Peter Bragg Donovich

getting the way of watching this movie. And it reminded me of a story I think I've told on this flop house before when I went to see a screening of targets that Peter Bragg Donovich was introducing. And he started taking audience questions which he was not supposed to take and ended up talking for about 45 minutes. And you can see the programmer from film form getting more and more frustrated that it was still going on, and they had to cancel the second screening of targets because they ran

so far over. But anyway, I'd recommend it. Chris, do you have a movie you'd like to recommend? I do. I'm catching up on my Japanese classics, and there's a film called Harakuri. Oh, it's the Koyoshi movie. Koyoshi, the Koyoshi movie.

And actually, it reflects interestingly on Rambo, because it is about revenge, but it's told in a very kind of innovative way, it uses flashbacks extremely well. And it's told in a very kind of innovative way. It uses flashbacks extremely well. And it's really an indictment of samurai culture. In the guise of a samurai film, it's incredibly well-shot, well-told. Tatsuya Nakadai is great.

He's certainly less well-known than just Shiremi Fune, but he's amazing in the film. And it was kind of my first dip into Kobayashi's Uber, and I highly, highly recommend it. They've got a... Kobayashi's got a lot of great movies, like Samurai Rebellion's really good, and Kwydon is really good, and Tatyla Nakadeh, I've glad you brought him up. I haven't watched him in a movie in a long time, but he's in so many good movies, and I think I've seen a fraction of him. He's so much more scary, effect, than Rambo, with so much less, I think, you know, like

this guy has dead eyes when he wants to. That is, you know, actually also play kind of quite warm, but mostly he's this kind of stone killer looking guy. Have you seen kill? No, I've not seen kill. He's really funny in it. That's why he's playing like like almost like a version of before it existed of John Belushi's samurai character like it's his take on on a Jojimbo type trophy samurai and like it's a really funny movie but uh that's really yeah Harry Carey's a really good movie I haven't watched a Japanese movie in a while guys why am I not watching any of the Japanese movies on my DVR yeah you should be watching them all yet I started

watching you know what the last one I saw was, there was, what was his name? I forgot his name. There's a Japanese actor in the 60s who wanted to look different to set himself apart so he had cheek implants put in. And he's got like these weird chipmunk cheeks in all of his movies, and I watched that one, and it, for some reason I have watched his.

I put you off the whole thing. That was like this guy's cheeks, I don't know. The thing is, I have a big stack of movies that I feel like I should be watching, but then I just go over to YouTube and watch the final fight scene from Yes, Madam with Michelle Yo and Cynthia Rothrock again. And I'm like, what's watching you be on the show? All right, well, I got to add that to my list.

Well, this is for the listener earlier, if there's still paying attention, here's a piece of advice based on what to say. There's going to be movies that you like, get ready to watch because you feel like you should watch them, and you're not really excited about watching them, but you should push through to watch them. Because there have been movies,

they're like every time I read a classic book or I watch a classic movie, I'll be like putting it off for a while, and then I'll watch it read and I'll be like, oh, this is why it's a classic. Because it's like, this is really good. Like, times at midnight is a movie I put off for a while, and then I'll watch it read, and I'll be like, oh, this is why it's a classic, because it's like, this is really good. Like, time's at midnight, it's a movie I put off for years, because I was like, I wanna slog through like a Shakespeare movie,

but then it was really good, or like. And if you don't like it, it at least gives you something to think about, and you can think about why you don't like it. Like, not liking something is sometimes just as good as liking something. And also, it may be a different experience than you think it's going to be. Like, I had that recently with the Florida project, which everyone said was so great, but I was like, uh, like, it's going to be so sad.

It's going to be so sad. I don't want to watch something sad. And it is very sad, but it's also full of like humor and life and just people that you recognize. Like Willem Defoe. Well, that's the magic. and just people that you recognize like Willem Defoe. I mean, like, well, that's the magic Willem Defoe's performance in that because he's the one name in it and you're like, you'd think that you're just like, okay, I'm gonna think of Willem Defoe the whole time.

But he is such a natural presence. Like, he's a guy that you probably have met a million times in your life. Like, he just, he feels like, like, he's so humane and it's, it's great. It's kind of the opposite of a, I'm right now, I, last night I watched up to the middle of the lighthouse and Willem Dafoe and that is very much not a man I've ever met before. But I must say that's, my wife and I are watching it. And we're like, on this movie about these two guys stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere who can do nothing but spend time right each other and have and are

working all day and exhausted the entire night and now they're arguing about whether they like the food that the other one cook. Okay, okay guys this is not a long time I see Stuart looking around the room. My upstairs neighbors are clearly, my upstairs neighbors are clearly, like my upstairs neighbors are clearly vacuuming and I'm like, oh, is it too loud? Just throw my track in the trash, it's fine. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Um, guys, thank you so much. It'll be like, it'll be like when they take Garfield out of a Garfield comics and they'll just be us reacting to things you've done. Yeah, your normal Dan is John and Chris can be Odie. Excellent. I love it.

How do you feel about that Chris? He's me. I see myself in here. I mean, but people love Odie. Let's let Chris get back to his family. Also, Ellie, get back to his family. Let Stuart get back to his family. Also, Ellie, get back to his family. Let Stuart get back to Charlene. Let's all you know just

Leave this podcast purgatory, but Stan if there's one thing I'm getting not enough of right now. I've got to work on some traps Tunnels, because I'm expecting some guests to kill Everyone should go check out other podcasts on maximumfundFund.org, but mostly just take care of yourself during this time. Thank you so much to Chris for being such a sweet guy. Finally to appear. And I guess that's it for the floppos.

I've been Dan McCoy. I've been steward Wellington. I've been Ellie Kaelin I also like to mention edited by Jordan Cowling because we always forget to mention her and I feel bad about it and our special guest was Chris whites See you next time Bye Is no one else seeing this no I'm. I saw an emoji for two seconds. It was a crying emoji. Yeah, that sounds well.

Yeah, it's a crying emoji. Yeah, you were in a crying emoji cycle right now, and you're really close. Your whole window is tilted blue. You're blue, by the d, by the d, by the d, by the d, by the d, by the d, by the d, by the d, right now. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artists owned. That's it right now.