The Flop House - Ep. #317 - Artemis Fowl, w/ Scott Weinberg

Episode Date: July 18, 2020

The fuck is this? No really, the fuck is this? What is this fucking thing? What? This? From a major studio and established director? What? The fuck? This? Was made? THIS? We talk about Artemis Fowl with critic and filmmaker Scott Weinberg.Wikipedia synopsis of Artemis Fowl (good luck)Movies recommended in this episode:Lucky GrandmaMonstrumThe Old GuardThe Watermelon Woman

On this episode we discuss, Artemis Fowl. The movie that dares to raise the question, why is this movie named after an entirely nondescript personalityless cipher who spends the entire movie inside his own house? Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. Hey Dan, it's me, Stuart Wellington. Oh hi. Guys, guys, what a coincidence. I'm Elliot Kalen house. I'm Dan McCoy. Hey Dan it's me Stuart Wellington. Oh, hi guys guys. What a coincidence? I'm Elliott Kalen. I'm here all three hosts of the flop house were here together on the flop house But we're not alone are we Dan? No, we're not We are joined by our guest

Scott Weinberg who might did not write down, how he wanted to be introduced. He said, I'm sorry. You were doing that. We said it twice, Dan. I'll say it. Film critic, filmmaker, podcaster, cat lover, horror nerd, Scott Weinberg, and I will add in a personal, personal endorsement of his podcast, Science vs. Fiction,

in which they talk about the real life science or fake life science and quality of your favorite science fiction films. Scott Weinberg, thank you so much for joining us. I am thrilled to be here a long time listener. First time caller, although I did get a mention several years ago, when Stuart recommended a film I produced, I had downloaded like 14 episodes and listened to them on an airplane and one random episode at the end when Stewart recommended found footage 3d I got chills. I was so elated and thrilled and that is why Stewart is my favorite of the three floppers. Oh, we finally get the big reveal because I guess from because I'm the best at promoting.

It was a hidden strength. from because I'm the best at promoting mm-hmm it was a hidden strength it was a and you guys also took a recommendation for me several years ago I can't remember what it was but I I recommended an 80s film and you guys did it so I've always been I've always been a huge fan and to be on an episode on such a wonderfully rotten movie makes me makes me happy because boy this movie is a stink pile uh... but it's not jump ahead to file dot sorry i could uh... uh... but it is it's totally

now it's a yeah i mean it's a thing file but you know what this isn't the first time that we're gonna say it lives up to its name foul oh shit oh did i do that well why is he called foul i thought that was like a play on it was like it was it like valiant. It was an animated chicken or something.

Well, we will return to the stinkingness of this pile in a moment, but we just wanted to take a brief moment here at the top of the show to mention that this is the start of Max Fund Drive 2020. It's been quite sensibly delayed a couple of times due to world events, but since unfortunately it's a bad one. Oh boy, I'll explain after the show. Okay.

Yeah, thanks for derailing my train of thought immediately at the beginning. It was delayed, but since unfortunately the world does not seem to be getting better at any particular pace, here we bring you Max Fun Drive. Let's listen to me. Maximum Fun is artist-owned audience supported. That means that when you become a member of Maximum Fun, you are a direct contributor to the shows that are made including our shows. You have some ownership of the show, although don't start telling us, you're not our real

dad. But good way to get, yeah, open their hot strings and then cut them yeah Love it. Yeah love the hostility unnecessary uncalled for and then I will mmm delicious Yeah, but it's important. I mean like I would say Dan isn't gonna be their private dancer Wait, I'm waiting for them to stop laughing, Dan. There's really great jokes. Okay. No, but the money that you donate to maximum fun, especially because you get to choose the shows you listen to,

goes directly to the show with some overhead to allow the network to actually continue. And especially in this year where we have added off-week shows, off-week content, it is nice to have that money coming in that really helps us do new things like that. So you can choose a monthly amount that's comfortable for you. Most people give $5 or $10 a month,

some upgrade to 20, 35, 100. If they have the means, I know that a lot of people do not right now, but it is about what works for you. But we'll get back to that later in the show. And Dan, where do they go if they want to join them? Ah, yes. Because you know of upgrade. They're already existing membership. Yes. Would it be maximumfund.org slash join? It would be that. It is that, in fact, to use that tense.

It is maximumfund.org slash join. But let's get to what we actually do here, which is watch a bad movie and then talk about it. In this case, the movie is Artemis Fowl, which was meant to be a big blockbuster film released in theaters, but then the pandemic hits and now it's on Disney+. And it's based on a series of novels, right? And it was your familiarity with those novels that made you request we do this movie, right Scott? Do the smoothie rights cut? I... Man. It's so weird to see when a trend ends.

And boy, when it ends, it hits like... I thought like the end of the divergent series just kind of fell off the train and then you have these like, these wingers. They're like, well we still have a young adult movie still percolating for 19 years and they invested so much money in it, You have to release it in some way. This thing doesn't even look finished I mean, I'm just gonna be Joe film critic here. This thing looks like Uh-huh. It looks like one of 12 different cuts and they just said all right. We'll release this one who cares. Yeah Yeah, I mean there's it's I mean, it's like the sort of thing when you know, I'm in I'm in the YA fiction

So of course I hear about these scorched trials. I want to find out what's the whole deal there It's like the sort of thing when, you know, I'm into YA fiction. So of course, I hear about these scorched trials. I want to find out what's the whole deal there. I'm in the maze running. Now, now Artemis Fowl is a YA series. It's based on a series about a criminal mastermind kid. You heard me right. He's a kid, but he's not a hero.

He's a villain. That's right. He's the bad boy of YA fantasy fiction fiction he's artimus foul and i i want to say like that appears to be in the limited research i've done kind of the interesting thing about those books is that he is introduced as this criminal and then sort of over time you sort of understand different things about like who might be right who might be wrong in this story who might might be crazy? Yeah, but in this thing, you're looking for?

This movie, they do not identify him as like some sort of child criminal at the beginning. He just seems like kind of a dick at the beginning, and he never gets all that much less dick. They also keep calling him a child genius, and he never really does anything that particularly genius. He claims to be smart a lot doesn't that that that there's a lot of claims to be in tell us a lot of hype for the character going on that is not backed up at what and then at the end he goes I'm a criminal mastermind and I'm like how what do you do like what crime you've done nothing you yeah this is I'm just gonna say I was and Stewart you're doing the the summary on this one so I won't

oh yeah but I this is one of those movies where the whole time I was like I was like Why is this movie called Artemis foul like why I don't understand why he's the character you named it after since He's kind of barely in the movie and I'll just one it should be called baby Hagrid It should be called baby Hagrid as played by Josh Gad now now that we bring a Hagrid I think it's an important time for us to do our weekly mention that JK Rowling is trash as our all Transphobe they are trash. Okay. Let's go back to the show Do we do we really say that every week? Yeah, I mean anytime we have to anytime we invoke her name. Yeah, I mean did we yeah? I mean we talked about her creation Hagrid

I guess that's the same thing. I mean you seem you seem weirdly defensive right now I guess that's the same thing. You seem weirdly defensive right now. Guys, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you know, not even going to joke about that. Please don't. Yeah, try to try to try to try to. Come on. Okay, but.

I just wanted to say, when I watch this film for the second time, and I know you guys, I know, I've heard many, many episodes, A.K.A. all of them, and I know that you guys, when you, I know when you see a bad film, you know, you'll tear it to shreds. I'm watching this movie for the second time and I'm sitting there thinking who the hell is gonna break down the plot of this one? Because it's impossible. Stuart, I'm, please do it. Mm-hmm. Oh, I will do everything in my power. So, yeah, the movie opens seaside where it foul man or Ireland that's right

It's felt like the bird not like the I don't know the state of being or the judge the ball Yep, yeah, yeah play you got some more Okay, no foul intentions. That's not just a foul intention. So it's cruel intention. I mean, you put out foul intentions. Teen remake of Lele's Rambdengeru. Okay, it's not foul things.

It's wild things. It's not the incredibly true story of the Texas cheerleader fouling mom. It was Texas cheerleader murdering mom. Let's see, it's not a hold on it's not the foul pit it's the money pit yeah it's it's not the cook the thief his wife and her foul all yeah I think we're out of phrases yeah although foul foul manor does sound like like a caveman death metal band or a slanted band. So outside of follow-manor, the news has gathered and they're flipping out.

There's apparently been a series of high-profile robberies and a mysterious person named Artemis Fowl is the suspect. And they snatch up a Josh Gad who, as have described earlier looks like a short dirtier Hagrid and they take him off to a special water prison like the one you might see in face-off or the Avengers or Mortal engines or anything else guys can you think anything else water prisons convergence yep convergence who was water works prison that's the second water world movie that never got made, water world prison. Yeah.

One of the many things I was unclear about, and maybe you guys can help me is probably not... Who was interrogating Josh Gad? Like, what was this organization? Now, let's address, Josh Gad isn't called Josh Gad in this movie. He is called, his character's named mulch diggums. Because he's of the lineage of the diggums frog from the serial commercials.

Later in the movie, we will see how apt that name is. It's that lazy writing of, he later turns out that one of his skills is digging. So his name has to be mulch shovelhead. Like, why? Because everyone's named after their job. My family, Kales, we have for generations, Stuart's family digs wells, Dan's family is very coy,

and Scottsy, of course, is, I guess that would be what, what a white mountain, what was that vice spirit? That would be vice spirit. Weinberg is actually, it's a vineyard in German. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So my family's a bunch of drunks. And you're a vintner.

Yeah, of course. So mulch digums, I think he's being interrogated by like Interpol or the British super intelligent MI6. Who, no, it doesn't matter. It's a list of the questions. Dan nailed a key problem. This movie doesn't have any point of view. You don't know who's talking to who.

It's somebody explaining six random adventures and then the movie ends. Well, that's the thing, I texted Elliott during it. I'm like, never has a movie tried so hard to explain itself to me while I still don't know what's happening. Because all jazz cad does is paper over what the plot is supposed to be. And I still don't know.

I mean, I'm in a movie not to get ahead too far where the bad guy whose identity we never learn breaks someone out of, releases someone from jail and they are instantly the most powerful person in the entire community and we never find out who they work for or why they were in jail or what or I don't know. There's no, it's, nope. It's, anyway, Stewart. But we are not in there yet. Maltz Diggum's is being interrogated by someone who's not even in the same room with him. Yeah, so we are not in there yet. Maltz Diggums is being interrogated by someone who's not even in the same room with him. Yeah, so he's the interrogator. Yeah, he's just like staring in a box where, and he talks about a mysterious artifact called the Aculus, not Aculus.

That would be an evil, what mirror is that the movie? Yeah, evil mirror. Yeah, yeah. And he decides. And not PORCULUS. That would be some kind of super-powered pig. Maybe like a pig portkulous to the next day Terrible sequel to a terrible movie

All right portkulous revenge I Had to do it so wait is portkulous the name of the heroes of the movie or is it the villain does portkulous actually? That's a good question in the first one there's searching for portulose and he finally shows up the very end the second one they think he's going to be here oh but he's actually a bad guy and then in the third one he's he turns out to be the good guy ultimately now uh... we've been just burning also played by just yeah yeah of course any end of the fourth one he fights what's that it's that emerson like in

palm or album was it Yeah, of course, and the fourth one he fights. What's that? It's that Emerson like in Palmer album. What is it? Tarkas or something like that? No, no, the one after carnival. It's like I'm gonna have to look it up hold on. It's the one where it's some kind of like so It's some kind of like armadillo tank. Let me look it up. Yeah, we should probably pause the podcast and No, keep going Okay, so we've been talking through this. Yes, it's called Tarkis.

Anyway, Tarkis. I coined a term for you that you might like. It's called Gads Position. Yeah, so we're getting some Gads Position. We're flying through this plot. Time for Stuart to pump the brakes a little bit and point out that this movie's directed by Kenneth Brando.

You might know him from Woody Allen's celebrity. That's probably what you know. So Josh Gads decides to tell. Wait, I said I fucked it up again guys, Maltz Digham's decides to tell us a magical story about a surprising little boy and the whole time he's doing it, in addition to looking like a shorter, dirtier Hagrid, he is doing it with a serious Batman voice, okay? And that's not the only Batman voice we get in this movie, so get excited. So we learn a little bit about the

roughness. There's a lot of rough voices in this for no reason. Half of the Gads position in this movie feels like it was shot at the let like in the twelfth in a series of reshoots. At the Gads unit. The Gads position feels like it was shot a week before the movie came out. That's how lazy it feels like we're just glueues all together get him back in here and glue these scenes together with exposition and narration. Yeah, I wanted to say something about how tremendously lazy the opening is because it really sounds like someone fed a bunch of fantasy movies into an AI and they're like,

okay, opening exposition, opening monologue. But the thing that I really wanted to highlight was, he says something like, this is a great story and it starts like all great stories do with magic. And then like, they show them surfing and then he's like at school and you're like,

okay, well, it's just magic you're talking about. I'd even go back further and say that the great Gatsby has no magic in it. Exactly. Where Jesus starts with magic. All great stories start with magic. I don't, I would take issue with that. I don't know. Merchandaventis doesn't have any magic in it.

There's no magic in that. There's no magic in the blueest eye. Excuse me, excuse me, sir. It's a sir. Sir, sir, can I see your manager sir I don't remember you're being any magic in the novel the sympathizer excuse me sir so yeah as as Dan said now now that we're in story mode he tells us about a magical land called Ireland where we see this little asshole Artemis surfing around and it looks way less cool than I think it's intended. He's like a

super smart overachiever but he's also terrible and I kind of want to punch him. Well he's a real miss and throat as related to us by the school therapist who and I'll just mention this the therapist's office includes a glass wall between the therapist's office and the waiting room so everyone in the waiting room can see who's getting therapy at that moment which is incredibly unethical like i would turn around a walk away that is not okay well i think about is that is that is there is yeah everything else he does in his therapy session is totally above board though he's a great therapist oh yeah he just reminds Artemis foul of his of his dead mom and absent father and then

brags about an old chair But he has so that Artemis can show off his genius by telling him the chair is not as old as he thinks it is That's right. Artemis Fowl's amazing ability to appraise And take chairs Imagine young sheldon, but mean if young sheldon Without the people skills Oh wow, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Oh, man, what a tune up that would be. Do filmmakers not realize that when you make a kid totally unlikable, that last for the whole movie? That's that. You can't come back from that. Well, it's also not about him learning any kind of lesson. As like, I was like, who's this little shit? Like, when I saw it, because, you know,

like, this came on the heels. The this came on the heels the books came on the heels of Harry Potter and they were rightly or wrongly sort of like looked on as this like attempt to jump on that train But interesting I didn't have a train was what you're gonna say okay Yeah, but I mean Harry Potter. I thought you would say bandwagon. Yeah Harry Potter and Again jk rally a stretch Harry Potter and again, JK Rowling is trash. Harry Potter, like the point of that,

the beginning is like he is this kid who's been through so much hardship and you're on his side immediately. Whereas this kid is rich and is addicted after a while. Well, I think they're going to compare himself to Einstein favorably. Yeah. It's like do you respect anybody and he goes, hmm, Einstein, as a comparison, compared himself to Einstein favorably. Yeah. It's like, do you respect anybody and he goes, um, Einstein?

But I think, so here's where I think they get it wrong. So the difference is, there are two different types of fantasies. Harry Potter is a fantasy about your lonely kid and it turns out you're a powerful wizard and everybody loves you and you got, I don't know, you're, you're a rich, yeah, you're rich. You get to become a magic cop at the end. Yeah. And with Artemis Fowell, it's supposed to be the fantasy of like, I'm the smartest, most bad-ass kid.

And I'm not a goody-goody like Harry Potter. I do what I want. It basically like he is, it's like the thing that people, the fantasy people had when they voted for Donald Trump is the fantasy they're supposed to be having with Artemis Fowell of like, isn't it fun to pretend to be a bad guy for a little bit? Yeah, so I'm not.

Instead, they took that character and tried to shove him into a story about a lonely kid who needs to find friends. And it was like, this, why, he's pushed away everybody and he's a jerk. So it's. And as a result, they made a movie as bad as Donald Trump.

No, I mean, nothing is as bad as Donald Trump. He's the worst thing in the world right now. Well, that's deep politics in this episode. Anyway, so we also learned that his dad, Colin Farrell, taught him all about Irish folklore. Now, do they show us him teaching about Irish folklore? Is this just more mulch digums talk? Don't they just like walk around and look at stuff?

And the thing is that he's just a lot of old stumps. Now, yeah. But guys, is was Colin Farrell, is he an attentive dad or is he like absentee and never there? Well, I mean, when he's there, he's great. You know, that's a thing. You just look forward to the time, so he's around. Okay. Yeah. So now, so when you see Colin Farrell's cast as Artemis Senior, you're probably hoping for a killing of a sacred deer situation. No such luck. I was hoping it would be a real lobster situation and they're made, would just come in and

rub herself on his crotch to force him to make a choice to fall in love. I would have been happy with a little just a dash of in-brews would have pleased me. We didn't even get any Tiger lands, guys. We didn't even get any Alexander. There's no SWAT. Well, there's a get me Alexander. There's no swap Well, kind of there's a little swap. There's a lot of swap this is a very I'll tell you to get But this is this is a very dower movie so at this point We're probably like what 10 minutes in and I was like, oh magic makes everything depressing

Yeah, but but we're about to be dropped need deep in a digital explosion of very creatures and fairy tale. More, let's enjoy it. Uh-huh. So let's hit the gas now. He teaches, so, so, uh, dad, Artemis dad teaches Artemis son all about Irish magic, and then he leaves on a long mysterious trip. We're introduced to Artemis' only friend who is uh, Dom Butler, who is his Butler, but you're not supposed to call him a Butler, but he's like, uh, you you know like a big bodyguard type uh... artimus senior has disappeared wall on this trip

and he finds out uh... from the news that his dad is a suspected uh... master thief uh... which i mean all kids i mean most kids find out all their information on the news right yeah yeah kids love the news they love to all their information on the news right? Yeah, yeah kids love the news. They love to leave it on oh no wait, that's old people that's old people leave the news on All day you don't want your kids learning about you forgot a weird piece of whimsy back there steward. I don't get I'm going to forget a lot of pieces He don't call him Butler even though he is the Butler and his name is Butler but don't call him Butler yeah that's that's good writing

he doesn't like it multiple levels and we eventually will meet well I guess that hasn't happened yet will meet the butlers what niece who's also right there and then she disappears for broad swaths of the movie they're all in the same house L.A. you know it's great about doing your own podcast is you can kind of jump the fuck around if you want. So in fact, we'll just get to it. We're introduced to who you think is going to be the second lead of the movie, Julie

Butler, who is a, you know, another 12-year-old who is hyper-functioning. I think she is introduced like fighting like Kendo or something in the woods And she is introduced and then as you said disappears does almost nothing except run away from a troll later I think that the where she works might be the only clever bit that I enjoyed and it might be the only reason the books ever got greenlit She works for an outfit called lep recon So that's that's a cute little pun there if you're like trying to incorporate like old school folklore into modern technology You left recon, but that's not enough to build a movie in eight books around Yeah, well, we'll see of Speaking of her disappearing for white swathes now

of her disappearing from white swaths. Now, toward the end of the movie where I wanted to look anywhere but the screen, so I can only take Audrey's word for this. She says that this character who disappears was not even there during her relative. Uncle, is it? Uncle is like death. Yeah, well, during the scene when we'll get to when Butler

when Butler dies. He's briefly dies. He goes back. So you weren't watching this part. Uncle is it I'm going to drink the scene when we'll get to when when butler when butler It's really died. She comes back So so you weren't watching this part So you would you had tied Audrey to the mask so she can what's the movie? Yes, and you know I she had like those clockwork orange Tell me what happened. Yeah, and I was just like you just yeah, I was like in the other room I'm like you just shout it to me. I just tell me. Dan, I'm constantly so impressed by your dedication to the podcast that, rather than pausing the film, you decided not to break up the

experience. And you said, I'm going to watch it like I was in the theater and just let it keep rolling while I leave the room to, was it cutting up a mango this time? That was the excuse last time. Believe me, if I saw this in the theater, I would have abandoned the entire enterprise. That's, you know what, that's an interesting point that you just nailed. And this was supposed to be a wide theatrical release. And if this final product had come out in theaters, people would have been even tougher on it than, I mean, it's, it's a trotious. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I feel like if this movie had been released in theaters,

there would have been a shortage of theater mangoes because so many people would have been leaving the theater to go buy theater mangoes. Dan, Dan, you'll be happy to know, you'll be happy to know. I don't remember if we ever talked about this on the podcast. Did we about how you missed what was going on? Oh, no, it was in that mini.

You missed what was going on because you were busy cutting a mango. And this is now, whenever I'm complaining about you, Dan, you Dan and I'm like oh Dan wasn't around for this thing Sammy's like oh, did he have to cut another mango? So that's his that's his go-to Dan slam. Okay, every time you complain about me around the house And Sammy's ears shot Thank you, Elliot. It's only because only because Sammy always wants to hear about you. I told you about when we were going through our wedding photos.

And he was like, we're the Dan fixtures. Show me our pictures of Dan. Oh, that's that. No, I mean, you know that Sammy is my favorite. Child in the world. Oh, that's sweet. I want to tell Gabriel. Hey, well, I've had less time to get to know Gabriel.

Let's, I did want to say one thing that is brought up by this. Yeah, this was on the menu, this mango story, and this is one of the great things you're missing if you don't listen to the menus. I know that the menus have less of a download, I think there's been some really good ones lately. That was in the get-of-in get-even menu, right? Yes, yes. So Stuart, this is when, does Artemis Jr. find out what happened to Artemis Sr? That was in the get of an get get even right yes yes yes so Stewart this is when does Artemis Jr. Find out what happened to Artemis senior? That's what we would call leading question Elliott so yeah So Artemis is obviously

Here say he saw it in a movie Artemis Jr. Is tearing out his hair, he's rending his garments. There is no way that this fake news bullshit would call his father a thief. And around now he receives a phone call from Opel Coboy, an evil fairy who was living in a mountain fortress and has his father captured in some kind of crystal trap. I think that's all correct. This is why I was glanced. Do we got to do the breakdown this episode? And make some kind of ransom demand.

You got to bring me the aculus in three days. What I was complaining about this movie while watching it, I was saying, this movie is just like people staying in one place. You got Artemis at the fucking mansion ground all the time. And then you cut back to, oh, it's Colin Farrell hanging around. It really plays, I imagine if I went over to Elliot House and he would have shown me a photo album of his trip to, let's say, Mexico.

And instead of a movie, he just shows him he 12 still photos. And for each photo, he talks for 15 minutes. That's what this movie feels like. Yeah. That's kind of, now here's what I'll say that. Maybe they were so prescient and they were like, you know what, when this movie comes out,

people aren't going to be able to leave their homes. So we'll have Artemis stay at his house. We'll have Opal always stay at her house. I think her because it's a woman doing the voice, but we don't know. We never learn anything about Opal. And we'll have Judy Dench for most of the movie, because Judy Dench could be in her underground fairy world, and we just won't have them interact very much. And you know what? People will really be able to relate to these characters who go on a wild, magical, mystical, marvelous adventure

without leaving their very own home. For days. And Judy Dinch is mostly looking at screens and interacting with people on screens or things on screens. There's one moment where you can see her thinking in her mind about how stupid what she's saying is. Well, she's the most unscathed. She comes out of this the most unscathed much much like

she's one of the best things that if anybody can walk out of this movie unscathed it's Judy then she made it out of Riddick she can make it out of this but she yeah she looks bored I don't care if she could stars are in a bad movie but give them something to do she looks bored but that I was watching this my wife, she goes, how do they get duty-drenched? And I'm like, she's British, she'll do anything. Right? Just give her a movie.

Just give her a movie. In his later years, did some really questionable films as well. Everybody needs to get paid, but if you're gonna have duty-drenched on your set, rewrite something like juicy or funny or scary, she's just perfunctory, it's uh... it's not her fault but boy it's it's not and she's really writing around a segue for a lot of the movie so she's not

even walking uh... so we find out that uh... so Artemis uh... learns the hard way that there's truth to all of these stories about fairy stuff and that his father has a secret office and there's all kinds of secret bullshit in there and he uses an old What like bedtime poem or something to find his father's secret hidden journal And he starts reading that shit and then I'll mention that a lot of his a lot of the magical mystical bullshit is just Bopples and blowing liquids in them. Yeah, we don't know what it is

It just looks like cloudy milk. He just he just is a hoarder who close. And we're just waiting for him to like open the drawer that will take us to the next narration sequence. That's it. Yeah. Which which is of course we are introduced to Haven city. That is the underground fairy city, which is like a mix of kura saan and like with a big dash a shadow run thrown in there. And we're introduced, you know, there's like flying buses all over the place and like it's a little bit like, it's a little crappy, it's a little like beat up, a little like cyber punky.

It's kind of a mix of like a Star Wars prequel and the fifth element, Amen and Black, and a sharp remage store. Like that's what it feels like. It's kind of a beat up, dingy, B-roll of Hellboy 2. Yes, and also, and I would say that like in a better movie,

I would find this more interesting, I mean, you could say that basically anything, but like the, these fantasy creatures with science fiction technology is a thing that I'm sure is very common in other media, but not so much in movies like you don't usually see these high fantasy creatures with this kind of like they say Star Wars prequel stuff around them But but because this movie is so bad and confusing otherwise I just found it sort of like more confusing.

Well, it raises two questions for me that the movie never answers, which is one, if they have super magic, why are they shooting lasers at each other and wearing space helmets, they have magic, they don't need all this junk, and two, they make a point a lot of times the movie is saying, we can't let anyone see us, we can't let humanity know that we're down here, we can't let anyone see any fairies up above. And it's like, you seem like you have the ability to wipe out humanity. You can control time, and you have lasers and magic.

I don't understand why you need to hide. Best case scenario, we should be trading partners. We're case scenario, you're a conqueror. I mean, maybe they just, they could just not like us. Yes. Children in a backyard do better world building than this movie does. There's no world building. It's, here's an establishing shot and some narration.

But there's no actual world building. Yeah. I mean, it could be just like someone like pretending not to answer the doorbell when someone they don't like comes to the door. Maybe the fairies are just like, ugh, these humans. Humans again. I mean, we do learn that in the world of uh... haven city it doesn't matter if you're a prisoner being taken to the worst prison in

in the world were you're a police officer who's reentering the city you have to go through the same gates see a way to line with each other yeah so this when we're introduced to i guess our second lead who is a cop named holly short who is the daughter of a famous trader who originally stole the aculus but I guess she's trying to clear her father's name or something and who cares so this is where we're reintroduced to mulch mulch is getting sentenced to the worst prison for stealing stuff I think breaking and tunneling or not tunneling and entering something yeah tunneling and entering they make a lot of jokes about how he is tall for a dwarf.

I guess he's a dwarf. And I don't know, like I think he's getting 400 years, which seems excessive, but I don't know. They're, I don't know, the criminal justice system is terrible. So I mean, also they live a long time. At one point Judy Tensh says to Holly, you're 84 years old. You're still young. You got your whole life ahead of you.

So they live for centuries. Yeah. Well, yeah, and yeah Judy then she is like 800. Yeah raises a really interesting question guys in the world where somebody let's say where a creature lives to say 900 what effect does that have on criminal justice and jurisprudence? you wouldn't sentence someone to five years for embezzlement if they live to 900. I guess that's true yeah I guess sentences would be longer in a as we've already established a terrible well but what but what would they though i mean like is a sentence as it stands now uh... other than a life sentence which obviously

is is in relation to one's life although life rarely means life uh... even a lot of people live. It's not dangerous. It's not dangerous. It's not dangerous. Daniel, but like, like, non-life sentences are those determined as like what percentage they are of someone's expected lifespan? I don't think that that's. Yeah, I think that's what they do, Dan. Yeah, yeah, that's how they do.

Well, no, I'm arguing against that as a notion. They do like a physical and they're like, okay. Let's find out how long you're gonna live. Let's count your teeth. So, Ellie got really excited. He already mentioned Judy Dentch. Judy Dentch plays Commander Root. She is also doing a Batman voice.

That's right, we got two Batman's. And Judy Dentch has decided to mentor this young fairy cop, Holly Short. I think in her heart, she believes that Holly's father was wrongfully accused, but we'll find out later. harry cop holly short uh... i think i think in her heart she believes that holly's father was wrongfully accused but we'll find out later uh... and and she says to holly that all of fairyland is at risk unless they find the aculus this is never explained

it also bears mentioning at this point that uh... along with the tremendous amount of negative criticism for our best file there's also minor controversy in that uh... holly was described as having uh... brown scan the book and this is another uh... oh i would just like to do it all i in response that i would just like to also interject that i believe that you're out of this piece of shit

uh... oh thank you uh... Oh, thank you. Okay. I mean, never a wrong time to say that. So, well, three of you have already said it. I wanted to get mine in. That's all I'm sorry. Now, there's a... On Wikipedia, if this is true or something,

they talk about that, Sersha Ronin was attached to this role at one point, which seems like it would have been maybe the biggest waste of acting talent I can imagine. Oh, that's funny. I find it, you know, and I know we're not, but I always feel kind of bad for the actors in a way because you know that the script they got was at least marginally better than this. And guaranteed actors that were kind of knocking for not doing much had more to do in the movie. But it feels like literally 90 minutes got there's the original david mammoth draft

the uh... so there's a round where uh... the elated mention this earlier that uh... some person who we have no idea who he is uh... gets released out of prison by opal coboy uh... saying something about like i need you to spy for me or something. Yeah. Whatever. We'll get him later.

His name is Briar Cudgeon. Oh, OK. Cool. You were making that up. This is the only worse names that I can, and you know what, all fantasy names are kind of silly. But there's what's the show? It's in an Amazon show where it's a murder mystery

and their fantasy creatures. It's called like Holly where it's a murder mystery and their fantasy creatures. It's called like Holly Hawk Lane or something like that. Carnival Row. Carnival Row. I was reading the review of it and it was like, detective inspector at Gulliver Mickelboss, and I'm like, I'll wrap it up again about it. Has to team up with Carnival performer,

Ivy Galinda Gaul, and I was like, nevermind, forget it. You can't even read the review. See, I started reading that and I'm like, oh, forget it. I can't even read the review. See, I started reading that and I'm like, oh, I like the, I like where this is going. Sounds like an adventure. By this point, by this late point, it's just when you see all of the bullet points that are in-demick or part of the young adult novel and the young adult adaptation, by this point you start to get irritated at the cynicism of it. It's not just, hey Harry Potter was a big hit.

We have some good stories, too. By this point, it's just so mercenary, how they're like, aping the formula. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So around now, so meanwhile, like Artemis and Dom are like getting into trouble and like, they hang out Julie a little bit, doesn't matter. I think they start staking out the,

what like the, or big, like the biggest tree on their property, I don't know what's going on. So that's a tree where they've been led to believe by his dad's journals that fairies come to sometimes. This is where the movie completely threw me like a rollercoaster I wasn't strapped into. I've seen, I watched it twice, and this is where I was just like,

I don't know, I feel like I'm watching a Peter Gabriel video. I don't know what, I'm watching plot-wise. Yeah. Wait, is there a plot to the Peter Gabriel videos? Like, the sledgehammer? I have a plot? No, that's, there's just avant-garde, hopefully interesting kind of visual coolness.

Hope, this is, and that's another thing, except for the establishing shots that they think are all like, here's our stately castle or our cool war enough whole it's an ugly movie kind of brown i could made some wonderfully good looking movies this movie is ugly i don't get why it looks like so brown and grungy yeah i think they're trying to

at first as a certain amount of it is there stuck in the kind of classic i think gaelic fantasy color palette of greens and browns. And they, and they add to that the, uh, the color that is synonymous with dimensional portals and ultra technology of the movies, Glowy Blue. And so there's just a lot of like, Glowy Blue and darkly lit underground scenes and greens and browns. And there's, it's, it's a movie where you're like, hey, you know what color I like?

Red. You know it's another fun color? Yellow. I'd love to see these colors. Pink is a color. Can I see some of those, please? Yeah, let's drench this in synth wave. OK, so I mean, how is that not better?

How is that not improvement? I mean, it would have been way better. Let's look at what's guy this thing up. Come on, guys. So we're introduced to Down in Haven City. We're introduced to another cool character. That's right. Fully the Centaur tech genius.

Best character. They do that. Clever thing, a script does where they make a point of saying, don't ask to ride him. So you're like, oh, fuck, somebody's going to ask to ride this guy at the end of the movie. Like, that's the only way they're going to stop it. But, you know, you got to assume that that's rule number one is you would never F. Get sent to our if you could ride them

So you're saying that the movie made the subtext text and you're unhappy about it. Oh, it just seems so long I do like that they took the Irish name Foley and they spell it F-O-A-L like a full name Foley and they spell it F-O-A-L like a fool. Like a baby horse. Does he have horse foley? Wow. That movie gets poised. I like this movie more now than you just got. I mean, the movie's having a little fun.

Or the creator of Artem's Fowl, if there's a character from the book, is having some fun. So I still go back to, I still insist that lep recon is slightly clever. So Holly Short has given a mission because all the other fairy cops are dealing with some bullshit. So of course, she has to ride some lava to the surface.

She goes to a wedding where a troll has showed up. And she gets in a fight with a troll. Wait, let me finish this whole thing. And it's all very simple. Now, she goes to the wedding to catch the troll. Just to make it clear that there's a Even though in my notes I wrote Sent to the surface in a lava rock to find dot dot dot someone question mark who escaped question mark

It turns out there's a troll on the loose she goes to an Italian wedding where the troll is there I assume because the troll heard about their amazing soup because is there a better soup than Italian wedding soup? Maybe but I haven't tasted it So yeah, so she shows up to capture this troll because is there a better soup than Italian wedding soup maybe but I haven't tasted it. Yeah. So, yeah, so she shows up to capture this troll, then they freeze everything and just take the troll away. Like, why do they send her to, yeah, and then they min and black all the humans? That was the part that, that was the part I found the most, the most insulting was when they

sent fairies to put flash bulbs and people's eyes to make them forget. And I was like, do you think I didn't see men in black? Like, there was three of them. Like, you can't just pretend this is your idea. Yeah, they make it like very dust or something. Come on, you can't do the bulb thing. But I also like the casualness of them, the making them forget because while they're doing this, like, you know, the time is frozen and it basically looks like, you know, in an X-Men movie when Quicksilvers going around, even though I don't think it's shoes doing it at, like, super speed or anything.

Or like when Sonic is running around in that roadhouse in the HitFilm Sonic the Hedgehog. Yes, yes, thank you. So that's going on, but, and they make it forget. But then, all the chaos, the aftermath of the chaos is still there, the destruction, when they, like, come out of their time warp thing. And so everyone's like, oh, what the what?

And it's just like, I appreciate the laziness of the fairies and that instance. That they made them forget everything, but did explain why this wedding suddenly was a disaster. They're really hands-hands to clean on me. Is what you're saying. Yeah. It does ask the question through it. Yeah, why didn't they bother to send Holly if they could just stop time and send in a team of agents

to get this through? You would think that would be the whole point. But of course, immediately afterwards, Holly decides to go rogue on the surface because she's trying to clear her father's name. Because of course, in all situations, the fish rots from the head, Judy Dench broke protocol to freeze time so quickly. So of course, her subordinates don't really care about the rules either.

So I think this is a situation where we're just gonna have to deal with the entire system, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, dismantle it, defund, leprechaul, oh man, this segment in Artemis Fowl just ripped straight from the headlines. Yep.

This is also, this is the part where a, where a cudge in goes up to Judy Den Dentions like, hey, I'm going to have your job and your race if you don't get in line and do what I say. And I was like, wasn't he in jail earlier today? Like, I understand. How did he get this job so quickly? Where he's in charge of everything. Very strange.

Yeah, it is pretty strange. But you know what else is strange? That Arty and Dom have at a track for holly outside of this tree uh... she flies to this tree for some reason and then they shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and then the fairies find out about it because i guess they're tracking her and they're like okay well we got a rescue or friend however

artimus is already thrown holly and jail in his house because he can't leave his house because then they would defeat the whole movie That was this is a Artemis captures Holly and Judy Densh says to To Cudgeon at this point get the four leaf clover out of here my favorite kind of joke guys a joke and it gets movie that That neat necessitates knowledge of a swear word Tates knowledge of a swear word. Muffin happens. Yeah, some fairies.

Some fairies. Some fairies. It's cringey for the rees, the obvious reason, which is a five year old's not gonna get that joke. And it's even cringier because anybody who would get that joke would just groan. It's because it's not funny. It's a real, it's a real groaner.

It does remind me, yeah, of the smurf tagline, smurf happens and of course, get smurfed up your butt. Which I thought was especially an approach. Smurf, my smurf. No, I don't have a smurf too. of course get smurfed up your butt, which I thought was especially in a pro scene. My smurf. No, I don't have film-dreams. I always did feel like, hey, mom, what does that mean? And you're like, oh, all right, it means suck my dick. That's what it means.

Now, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, the producers of Sonic the Hedgehog, for forcing me to explain to all those, to my five-year-old kid. Oh, wow. Oh. Now, did you mention, I can't remember that, they told Holly to that fairies can't be seen remain inconspicuous

And so she just flies with her fair wings low enough that people can see from the streets of Italy Well people don't look up Oh, that's right. By the way, I just want to say that this is around the point where my thin around the point where my thin grasp of the plot went to no grasp of the plot. You let the order. I explained a big portion of it just now, and yet again, as if the ideas could not find purchase on my brain, they slid right off as Stuart said this. Dan, what's going on is that in order, so Artemis Senior to get, has been kidnapped, and Artemis Fowell, Jr. has to get the Oculus.

In order to get the Oculus, he has a plan that involves kidnapping the fairy, even though the fairies do not have the Oculus because it was stolen from them a long time ago. And in fact, they want it. And in fact, they want to get it back. And so the fairies then decide to invade Artemis Fowell's house because that yes. Because that yes. They want to get their comrades back. They want to get Holly back.

And the way they do this inconspicuously is by almost killing a fisherman and then attacking Ireland. We've invoked the actulists several times. I just also want to say that it is the most mcguffin-y mcguffin in that I still don't know what it was supposed to do. It's like a big magic metal acorn that does magic. Come on, yeah. I mean, how much blood do you need? And all of Haven City relies on it because, yes, again, so yes. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's like in pulp fiction, I want to see what's in the briefcase. Yeah, in a battle angel leader, why don't they tell us more about this clone war?

She was in. Shut up. People are going to be like, what's the problem? I'm going to be a little bit more honest. I'm going to be a little bit Fiction, I want to see what's in the briefcase. Yeah, in a battle angel leader, why don't they tell us more about this Clone Wars, you would say. Keep making reference to a thing that hasn't been released yet, Elliot. Well, we've been to release that episode, Dan, because I want people to know how much you love backstory. Extra backstory, please. The Aculus is cool, but who made it?

What was Boba F like as a widow boy? I literally asked for one sentence of clarification about a plot point. And now this is Flophouse Cannon. But tell me, so what else happened when Scully was a widow girl? That's when you're watching the ex files. Yeah, yeah.

OK. So Holly is in jail in Artemis's house. She tries to use her powers of mesmerism, but Artemis and Juliet are wearing sunglasses, and that blocks her abilities. Holly is not having this. What kind of magic can be thwarted by sunglasses? That's a good question. The magic of the sun is raised.

The radiation. It usually goes the opposite direction. The's a good question. The magic of the sunglasses race. The radiation. It usually goes the opposite direction. The black and they live. Yeah, usually magic sunglasses let you do special things. But these are regular sunglasses that stop things. Now the other question is, did Artemis build this cage or did his dad already have a fairy cage in his house? Well also.

Or is it a fairy day cage? Well, let us, there was a moment too where like Artemis is like, fairies are real. And I'm like, wait, he didn't believe that before. It seems like that's all his dad talked about. Why do you worse the butler to stand outside for days in camo gear watching the, or in one of those, what are they called? Gullie's, what do you wear when you're out hunting? It's a gilly suit. Gilly, say gilly. And a gulie's when you're hiding in a toilet. You need to get someone in the end.

Yeah, why he is standing there with a sniper rifle for days and he's like, oh yeah, well I'm glad my hunch paid off that a fairy would show up. Yeah, that was my big complaint about the latest Call of Duty is that my sniper character couldn't wear a gooey suit. But just like little suspenders, right, like little overalls. Yeah. Call of ghoul. I like it. Call of ghoul. Yeah. That puts the duty

into call of duty. Okay. Um, so it's a toilet. I get it. As you're trying and doing a really good job of explaining all these randomly inserted in certain point points, you're to a credit to your, I'm sorry, as a service to your listeners,

you're omitting all the different times that Josh Gatt interrupts what's happening. He interrupts with any time of an isolated sequence gets slightly interesting. Josh Gatt is like, and then Bob fell over. And they're like, wait, why is Josh Gatt explaining to show you me a scene? Yeah.

Okay, so it's Josh Gad in this movie. So of course, it's not Josh Gad. It's Maltz Dickums. And he does it in his cool voice. And he's like, humans would be frightened of fairies. Most humans are afraid of gluten. And I'm like, wow, this is a really crazy world that we're in. Because most people make fun of people who don't like to take that.

And there's a lot of like, there's a lot of like, well, here's when the kid does what he does best. He comes up with a plan. And again, my voice is not really much to take him for, is the accent is all off. I hesitate to, you know, shatter stews remaining sanity by putting another halt to the plot somewhere like the like the X-Force character shatter stew. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

But Apollo bones and only three fingers and double swords uh-huh I feel like this is maybe the place to bring this up I have no idea about the production history of this movie maybe others do well so it really hold on but I just went just I the reason I bring up the information you're looking for okay but I want to first say the reason I bring it up is like it definitely feels like Josh Gads narration is there to paper over stuff That got cut or changes that were made at some point like it feels like a movie that has had surgery done on it But I don't know if that's true. I think I don't know for sure I know that the movie was in development for a very long time. There was in development since before the book was published

It was purchased it was or the rights were purchased. It was purchased, or the rights were purchased, what was in Galleys. And it took years and years and at different points, lots of different people were attached. And so I imagine the final script is, either they threw it out and in a short amount of time, had to rewrite a holy new one, or it's like a mishmash of different elements

that people pulled out of the books or made up or didn't. It seems like even Kenneth Branagh was, he was not the first director that was attached to it, but he would, let's say they hired him in 2015 and they were, they had trouble because Harvey Weinstein was a producer for a while and then he was removed from the film because he's trash and disgusting and criminal. And there's just like, I think it was one of those movies that probably had its fair share of behind the scenes makes up. So I also like, I don't think anyone really cared that much about it. And I could be wrong about it. I think it's one of those pot committed movies. I think it's like a studio says, we've

already invested 78 million in developing this. We're going to spend another 120 just to make it because otherwise it's embarrassing for us. And there's part of it. There's part of me that wonders if Kenneth brought like who released Murder on the Orient Express because it feels like one of those things where it's like I or who produced what company produced it because I don't think that was a Disney film but it does feel like it was like I'll do this Artemisimus fellow garbage and then you'll let me play a hirkyu a pro on a trade for me yeah for you

not knowing that that would be the hit of the two uh... that could be it or it could just be he has obviously has some uh... experience with big-budget tent polls like uh... four and i guess he probably looked at this at one point and said hey if i'm given freedom it's a popular book it's an interesting world i could probably do something with it it. But it seems like either he mismade a misstep or a 20 different studio exec stepped in with scissors and went, oh, God, we don't even know what to do with this. Yeah. Well, with our murder on the Orient Express turns out it's 20th Century Fox. So it's

not the same studio yet. With our moderate sized audience out there, there's a slim chance someone worked on Artemis Fowl. If you have any hot goss, you can send it to us and we won't release your name. Yeah, we'll do a mini-sode that's called the Goss House, where we talk about the Goss House. Fowl House. I'll play my character that everyone's

known knows very well. Ryan Gosling He's the man made out of gossip and he just loves to sing I'm Ryan Gosling and I love to sing about things that happen to People who aren't me. What's the gossip Ryan Gosling here? Hey everybody? What are you here? I rhymed here with here But they're spelled differently, so that's okay Ryan Gosling That's why character everybody knows and loves My guess is this is not like... It's great, because also, I remember when your character, Ryan Gosling, got hired

to do promotion for Gosling's Dark Rum with dark and stormies, right? Mm-hmm, exactly. I said, hey, what's the gossip that everybody hears? I'll tell you what it is. It's dark and stormy. Is everybody's favorite drink right now? Hey, what's the news? Well, it's not really news. It's gossip. So I won't tell you who it's happening to except for one or two of the names Maybe and I don't know if it's true or not dark and stormy You just I guess you just define what gossip is sometimes

Yeah, sometimes yeah, you know real So my guess is this was probably not a disaster behind the scenes like cats and was more just like Yeah, a lot of a lot of cooks in the kitchen and, uh, and in the end, just trying to salvage something. But I don't know. Okay. So, no way, have we, have we gone to the part where Judy Dench is inside a landing vehicle and the ramp goes down and then she just has top of them on in to nobody. Love it.

I fucking love it. Just to open air. So of course, like that, that, that makes no sense in the context of the movie, but seemed there because they needed a trailer movie. And that's one of them. Yeah. I like to think that there was a character that was supposed to be CGI'd, and they're for to talk to you.

They just forgot. So yeah, at this point, the fairies have frozen foul manner with one of their like flying time-freeze Devices which once again as we stated it's such a powerful ability It's like as soon as in dishonored you unlock the ability to freeze time It's like the game isn't even fun anymore because you can just like freeze time and murder everybody Okay, so yeah, they mostly freeze time just to stand around. They do a lot, yeah, so they, it's like they're freezing themselves, you know.

And every now and then they'll be like the time bubbles unstable and a ferry will be just sucked away into nothingness. And you're like, what? Yeah, I guess as a thought is eating him. So, so Artemis- As a wait Stuart, is as a thought the one who dances eternally to the, to the sound of mad pipers. Yeah, it's the blind idiot God. Okay guys. So gosh, we just I just stumbled into a lovecraft pod kids Try to stumble out if you can find the door So Artemis and Dom of course they're surrounded so what do they do? They put on some cool suits and then beat the shit out

of some fairies with their own weapons. Yeah. And in the meanwhile, that magical creatures. Yep. And the fairies weapons, as we've addressed, are basically like a lot of blasters. They end up stealing a bone arrow that shoots a laser and shoots the time device, which makes the time device

unstable, so we got a ticking clock, everybody. It looks like the fair, we're at kind of a stalemate situation. So Commander Root has to go inside foul manner to negotiate with Artemis. Duh, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, I get everything, I get everything. That's pretty good. I mean, I think... You made that sound dramatic yet you may be you described it much better than uh... much better than the

movie did where it's just that shoot just firing flat-lasters at each other i also believe you can correct me from wrong alley i believe that both alley and i were leaning away from the microphone to burp at that exact moment to so that might have delayed our response thank you thanks for clarifying i'm glad you guys are just in your burping from all the darkened stormies you're drinking. I'm smoking.

Go to your L.A.R.I.N. Gosling. Brought to you by Ryan Gosling. Gosling's dead. Or is it rum? Yes, it's rum. It's rum. So Dan and I have a connection much like Elliott and ET in the movie T, where sometimes we do the same thing

at a distance, whether it's kissing someone because we saw a kiss on TV or freeing frogs because why not? Why should the frogs have to die when we can just look at pictures of frogs? Well, that would be funny if when Stuart drank an extra beer, that's when Elliot started singing. That would be hilarious. Yeah. Usually what happens when you start singing a Stuart gets up to get an extra beer. Uh-huh. Yep, and I pause extra long when my hand rests on the door of the refrigerator and I'm like, still singing. Here we go again.

Okay. Yeah. Maybe this will make the podcast go faster. Did you mention that foul has demanded the actulous to let Holly go? Yeah, so he makes his demands of course Commander root makes her demands and her tough voice But it feels like they're at yet another stalemate although as I mentioned the time device is breaking and we We have a ticking clock

meanwhile The fairies have decided meanwhile Madison's learning not every problem can be settled by committee that's that's exactly right because of the seafloss Hamilton uh... that you know the uh... uh... the problem is they're trying to their fight over where to put the u.s. capital it isn't pretty

uh... you got some more you got some more history wraps for me well that's when uh... that if you need insight dinner invite pretty. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh- during the temper on the planet earth so they can blow up an asteroid and get some big information a bit of an exaggeration. I rewatch that movie recently because like it's a fucking pandemic and sometimes I need to find the stupidest thing to watch and when when Billy Bob Thornton says get me the world's best deep cork thriller I I'm like, what the fuck are there listings? What the fuck is this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Deepcore magazine.

Yeah. Not with Deepcore magazine is about Ellie. So it's a world. Yeah. The legend of splurge on that subscription. No, I didn't even look at the magazine first. You said splurge, I thought. It's like a pornographic reference.

So, yeah, of course, they decide you break out. What if there was a soda called splurge and it was just really expensive? It's exactly like Coke. Okay, so now, are we going to talk about how, how boys motivation i have no idea i don't have anything written down my notes do you know tell us about who knows she tells our miss fall senior i'm mad that humans reduced fairies to mere stories to frighten kids i'm gonna take over the world and eliminate humanity

somehow the acuilis will help her do this i don't know uh... well again this seems like one of those problems that could be solved also just by revealing that fairies exists, right? I mean, like, then taking over humanity. Well, it brings me back to the old. There are a couple steps that have been skipped, as long as I'm saying.

The old zookeeper episode where the animals are like, oh yeah, we can talk, but we don't like freaking people out. And it's like, well, maybe you should talk, because we probably eat you less if you did. The abuse that you could avoid if you just both. Man, I mean, I feel like attendance at zoos would at least temporarily increase, right? There'd be a short increase and then, and then of course people would get used to it. Plus it's like, although I guess that wouldn't mean they'd make more money or anything, right?

Now the animals would put more, they could demand a cut, they could unionize. True, yeah, yeah, they could actually negotiate a couple. That would be the depressing version of that story. they could demand a cut they could unionize possibly yeah they can actually negotiate a deal the president version of that story is at all pets can talk and then at least version is like after five years that runs just like shut up no one cares that well that's the thing like also like they're like oh it'll freak the bad like well that's the thing that people get over with time

there's like there's no other people who like is just too polite polite to avoid massive discomfort and can't say anything. There's a stand up bit that I saw Paul F. Tomkins do years ago where it was, if they found a gorilla who could speak, how many times would you see it on TV before you get tired of it? And just him imitating a gorilla who is being interviewed and has run out of things to say and his right hand. So we cut back to the more pull of Tompkins. Yeah, I told you he was an Artemis fell, but he's not. He would have been great.

So we go back to the fairy prison where mulch diggums is being threatened by a group of goblins, and he listens to foreigner, and then he blows up the goblins and right then they break him out and release him so that he can break into foul manner and help rescue Holly. And now how does he break in? Tell us about the physics of how this works. Oh, yeah. So this is where he straps on some goggles.

He pulls out his mouth real wide and then he starts digging a hole using his mouth, and then all of the dirt he consumes just flies out of his asshole. Okay, I was wondering whether I was hallucinating that. That is what is intended, correct? That looks like this is shitting a bunch of dirt. If you go frame by frame, you can see his actual butthole You can see this You can see his anus just injecting it. Yeah, I'm sorry, Ali. I've talked

I just said this thing this bit wouldn't work in a good movie and in a bad movie your joy It's the freaking floor He's the thing that really got to me about it. See you see his boxer shorts So he must have like a slit in the back of his underpants that allows the dirt to come out Yeah, so the dwarves have to turn their boxer shorts around so that the slits in the back instead of the front. I guess so. Or it's like those split pants that little kids wear in some Asian countries that they

can just poop when they're cold. It's cold, it's cold and it must be amazing though, because that's a lot of fiber. That is, I don't know that there's that much fiber in dirt. Is there? I mean, well, it's like sandblasting the insides of the cool. Yeah, sounds very healthy. So he, uh, yeah, that was that was the moment where I was like, come on,

movie. Come on. And I was like, at least in Perdido street station, the bug people eat paste and it squirts out the back of their head, not out the back of their butt. That's weird. Okay. So. Okay, so Artemis Fowell releases Holly from her jail cell for some reason or another day. It didn't yet He's just yeah, and he's there bonding over. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's a thing like this is like like I don't know if This is a very common thing in why literature, but it feels like every single

Character is their importance is in part defined by who their parents are, which is so depressing to me. Open your eyes, too. Welcome to the world we live in. It's one of those things, the young adult books and movies are so intrinsically connected to that. It's so frustrating is that prophecy is not good drama. It's just, connected to that it's so frustrating is that Prophecy is not good drama. It's just I mean it's not you know we like when you say someone is the chosen one We're all sitting there going all right. Well, he's gonna go or she's gonna go through a lot of trouble And then be named the chosen one because that's what you told me I'd much rather it just be like a kid trying to accomplish some things

Yeah, and not being defined exclusively by their birth I'd much rather it just be like a kid trying to accomplish some things. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And not being defined exclusively by their birth. Yeah, I think it's, I think it maybe it has to do with the fact that like these are books for a younger audience and they don't, their life experience is mostly defined by like their family and school. Mm-hmm. And so I think that's why there's a lot of YA where it's like, it's a school for this kind of talented thing.

There's not a lot of YA that's about like having a job. So like, you know, like, or having children, you know, so LA, you don't think singles that are yet a young adult movie? I mean, as someone my age, those are now young adults, unfortunately. The, so LA, your argument makes a lot of sense that for some reason this book or movie is not targeted to me Stewart. I mean in a way a movie about a criminal mastermind who operates in a fantasy world of elves and goblins does feel like it's targeted. That's the thing. Okay so where's my notes? Okay so yeah he's let Holly loose she punches him in the face and I'm like i've been wanting to do that the whole movie but i keep breaking my television i feel so bad

not liking a child performer in a movie because he's just a kid and they told him play this part like you're a smug dick but it's it's it really is uh... i just felt bad the whole movie because i was like i hate this kid oh well i'm not i'm not mad. I'm not mad. The actor. I'm mad. The character. I can differentiate those two things. I can't.

I can't. Yeah. That's why when I watch the Golden Girls, I'm like, I got to go visit these ladies. They seem like they're a lot of fun. Yep. And you just drive around Florida looking for their home. Well, just drive around yelling out the window.

Blanche. Rose. Sophia. Yeah, occasionally, occasionally you get a a bite but it's never the right never I never I never understood why they were called the golden girls and you never went outside and tan that's a good good point they could have got to look it's like Twitter I try out a bunch of jokes some land some flop you know yeah dance familiar that um so Uh-huh. You know, um-hmm.

Yeah, dance familiar with that. Um, so, um, oh. Uh, so, so, uh, March is in the house. Um, so, yeah, mulch is in the house. He finds, uh, despite it, it's going to be the name of this equal, Artemis Balthou, mulch is in the house. Uh, so mulch's mission was to rescue Holly, but he uses this as an opportunity to rob from the file man.

The other thing is we forgot to mention is dwarves in this world love. They love shiny things They're always pickpocketing and conmaning and that kind of stuff Uh-huh. Even a dwarf is gigantic as Josh Gadd calls himself which plays into some of the troubling Racial connotations that have long been associated with Tours. So, he finds a safe... You mean, you mean, you mean, you mean, mythic Jews? Yeah, yeah. They're kind of short and hairy and apparently love gold, but it's okay, because it's autumn and winter, they live in a mountain.

So, he finds the safe, he opens it up, he uses beard and mustache to open up the safe, like you expect he would. And inside that safe is, of course, the aculus. It was in the house the entire time. Why would he have left his house? The aculus is there. This is the most infuriating thing. Because in a movie where he starts out in the mansion mansion goes on a lot of adventures outside of the

mansion him discovering it was back at the mansion the whole time might be like clever or ironic or something interesting about it but this is just a movie where they're like I guess there's no other places in the world other than this mansion so like they got a hide in the mansion yeah it's like if it's like if an executive got into Mad Max Fury Road and was like, why do they drive away? They're just gonna come back. Let's just stay there.

Stay there the whole time. What was Mulch's mission? He was supposed to go in the house and rescue Holly. Okay, because he doesn't do that. He just immediately is their friend.is Artemis knew this was gonna happen He knew that That when mulch got in the house he would fail his greed check And he's forced to to break into the safe

Is that the case because there's a bunch of there. I guess he says like he says like that's all my plan He puts on his fucking sunglasses. It's all yeah, he never he never explains this plan or relates his plan He just ever to every time anything happens he goes. It's all going to plan and how you that's how you make people think you're a fucking genius I gotta start just doing that my life The happen I feel like for the past almost four years in politics, where the government will do something totally stupid, and someone will go like, it's all according to plan. You'll see three-dimensional chess, he's playing a very complicated game, and then things will get worse just you watch. Now we've played into his hands. Oh, boy. Speaking of powers.

These clans in Congress. Okay, so. So he finds the aculis and he was the, does this one, he's, you know, he doesn't swallow it till later, right? So, yeah, the red run now is when, the red run now is when we have a little bit of dissension in the fairy camp. That's right. The character who I just have listed as boot liquor takes control of the red army. That's Cudgeon.

Pudgeon? Cudgeon. Pudgeon? Cudgeon. Pudgeon. Yeah, like imagine Vanessa Hudgens, but her last name was Cudgeon, and her first name was not Vanessa. And she's not the best Vanessa Hudgens, you know. But in fact, a sort of bootlicker evil fairy.

Okay, so he kicks Judy Dench out and decides to attack the man, or everybody kind of goes along with it. I think they just want to see a troll in action. So they attack the house with a troll. There is what proceeds is a troll fight that gunned up my head. I would say just as good as the minds of Moria. Right around now, Juliet shows up again, but if the gun was not there, I would not say that I mean don't your head you say pretty much anything about this troll Yeah, I mean I need a live

It's a brilliant movie So there's the troll fight is a lot of running around the house and things getting smashed So if you like watching furniture getting broken, you're going to see a lot of that. If you're there, that's probably accurate to a troll fight. Not to kinks you, anybody. If you are roused by watching furniture get broken, get ready to explode with pleasure. Because so much furniture gets broken. And I'm just going to say this, Artemis is useless in this scene. At one point, he's got Holly's laser in his hands, and the laser sparks and he drops it,

and I don't know why that happened. Yeah. And then she gets stuck in the, she gets stuck in the chandelier for the whole bit. I'm like, why? Why, what is that all about? She gets stuck in a very elaborate chandelier. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

But this is one of the few occasions where you catch another glimpse of Butler's niece to Yeah, she's suddenly back in the back in the movie. Well, maybe she shows up to like scream and run around Yeah But what happens after a while they beat the troll but in the process it falls on top of dumb the butler and you're like Oh, no, he's dying so So they take him into another room and Holly's like, I can't use my magic because the fairies put a thing on that prevents me from using magic.

So I guess this dude's gonna die. So many hastily delivered rules. Just this just came up. I just wanted to say, I just cast a spell that won't allow us to undo the, and it just came up with this now okay movie Yeah, and Dom Dom if I was a movie doctor I would don't diagnose him with with movie entry

Which is where from the outside he looks fine except that he's very sweaty and he's having a little trouble breathing There's no blood there don't appear to be any broken bones He's just had I guess that when the troll landed on him it smashed his life bar and all the life energy Jews leaked out. And so he's just got like lost his will to live. You have that one. If the MediBot showed up, that's what the MediBot would tell the Jedi. They're gonna take away that MediBot's license to practice.

What she just keeps writing lost will to live on all of her dogging. And it's like, it's gonna be really foul. Andalus Xboze about that Medbot in 20 years, like 34,000 people just lost their will to live. Hmm. Oh, got your medical license from online class and it's a best spin university.

Okay, sure. Okay, so around, and then Judy Dentch takes over again, and she's like, no, let him use the magic, and they're like, okay, let her use the magic. So then she brings Don back to life, and I'm like, I barely had had time to mourn him. Now he's back. I don't know how to feel.

So he comes back to life. What happened to bootleg? What are they throwing into a phantom dimension? I don't remember. He just kind of stops. He just kind of stops when she says, this is my harmony, just kind of stops existing and is no longer, it's like how an old he-man cartoons were he-Man would defeat a foe by throwing him off camera and he would just knock off. No longer near me.

That's great. So, now this is where things get a little bit murky in mind. I get it. You're here. Here is where it gets murky. Okay. So the dead greatster, better than I ever expected. You do

This is like this is like This is like when is it labor right now or like still you're doing great you can get to the end of this I can see the head I'm not kidding. I am legitimately impressed that you have this many bullet points and they're all accurate I mind we've been hit this length This summary feels a lot like when I tried to drink an entire gallon of chocolate milk in an hour And I drink so much of it guys. I was like There's just a little bit left and I'm like on my knees in front of some cars headlights and somebody's filming me And they're like he's gonna bar for them like no, I'm gonna finish it

But I was never able to finish it and then eventually I barfed and I got to tell you Most pleasurable thing in my entire life. It's amazing. That's a situation I'm sure we can all relate to. Yeah, yeah, that's why I told that story. I'm in a car, video tape, chocolate milk prank. Yeah, I thought I had a prank unless the prank is something I did on myself. I've got a lot of questions but I don't want to shame Stewart.

So I think we should just move on. Okay, are you, what, the shame is that I wasn't able to finish it. I was just, no, no, no, no, they're most disgusting about why I'm doing it. The shame is that I had some chocolate milk right now and you wasted so much. Yeah, that's true. I did waste, I mean, not so much.

I mean, I guess I barfed it out and it was still cold. OK, so, right around, so the time bubble collapses, okay, and the fairies run for it, but a lot of them get sucked up into the time forward text. To where they go, I don't know, maybe they get, maybe they're like what the prisoner of London, what's that guy who's stuck in time and keeps bouncing around. Okay, but he can't leave the city, yes, right? You can't leave the city, I mean, haven't we all been there? It's like dark city, right? It's a lot like dark city, except they don't have quite the same level of cool outfits.

Yeah, a quick change. So our heroes end up with the aculus, which had been stored in mulch diggams tummy, and they read a poem, and then the aculus opens, and then somewhere in here, Artemis Senior shows back up. Okay, so let me let me let me say a little bit about what's happening here. Okay, the time bubble collapses, everyone's flying around, everyone's fine.

Holly has to save mulch who is also suddenly outside and flying around for some reason. Artemis gets the aculus out of mulch's tummy. We have to assume that he pooped it out, I assume, or that they cut him open and pulled it out, but he's fine, so probably they just waited for him to poop it out. And Holly stayed behind all the other various left that she would help him.

And he can't, so it's everyone just kind of knows that the aculus has the magic power to bring, free his dad, and bring him back to the house. But humans can't use the aculus. It's too powerful. It would kill a human. Holly has to use it. And she does a thing that causes a magic and the aculus opens up and spins around when there's letters flying everywhere and kind of magical glows and so forth. And oh, they also declare they an Artemis says, all Artemis Jr says, if, Artemis, Jr. says,

if you help me get my dad back, I'll trade you the aculus for my dad, and you can take it back to Haven City. They declare themselves to be friends forever, because why wouldn't they be? He kidnapped her, they talked for a couple minutes. And he's a blackmailder.

I, he's, yeah, and then he's a blackmailder. And so, Opal Cowboy is like, oh, the time limit is up, I'm gonna kill you, but then Holly uses the magic to do, as my notes right here, something, question mark. And they're like, we did it. Okay, what happened? Like, nothing seems to be different.

Artemis Jr. runs around this amazing house, looking for his dad. The movie briefly becomes like a house hunters, where we just get to see where all these, oh, that's, oh, that's, I I see the kitchen comes off of the family room but guess who's back in the basement property brothers it's our the probos there and they're like you could knock down all these walls but you don't get to keep the furniture that who's there is Artemis senior that's right the

aculus magic worked and it brought Artemis senior back and Opal Colboi is so mad that she almost tells us something about why this movie happened or why this the Aculus Magic worked and it brought Artemis Senior back and Opal Cullboy is so mad that she almost tells us something about why this movie happened or why this character exists or what they're doing, but doesn't. And the dad is like, hey, Holly, short, your dad, Beechwood Short, was a hero when he took the Aculus away from Haven City. Now you need to take it back. This was all part of a big plot to investigate and take down those who are supporting opal coal boy

That's right guys turns out he was never really impeached It was all part of his plan to take down the deep state from the inside and stop their child's trafficking ring in the These like parlors. That's like four-dimensional chess exactly it's political So the whole time Artemis senior was not a thief or maybe he was, but the whole thing was a hope him getting kidnapped so that the aculus could be found in his house so that the fairies would attack his house. I guess it was all the ruse to get Cudgeon out in the open so that they could then stop even though he was in jail before and And now they can go, they have a list of names that Beachwood short gave to Artemis Senior.

And those are all the names the people were working with Opa Coboy. And the names are written on a piece of paper that's cut in a kind of like fortune telling device way, like that little, that, that teenage girl's make where you fold it. And then you got to pick numbers and you lift up a flap and it tells you what's going to happen in the future to you. I think it's's I pick seven. Okay. And what did say underneath?

It said, I'm going to have a boyfriend. Oh, that's great. Yeah, boyfriend. This is about going to take me to prom. Oh, okay. Wow. That's a deal.

That's a commitment. And Holly takes the Oculus back to Magic Town and root names her the head of the investigation into the opal coalboy gang uh... to see who else is in the in the uh... haven city deep state and uh... that's when artist calls opal and is like hey we're coming after you on the criminal mastermind

as he committed any crimes i guess he can have to be present holly this is all right and we can't we thought it was a criminal mastermind it all this time but this is how he became one I guess so but then also if it if Holly's dad was a hero for taking the aculus out of the city and hiding it why is her job then to take it back to the city and what anyway but what's important is what's gonna happen to mulch stew what what happens to mulch diggums? mulch diggums, let's see. Well, he's in jail, right? And he yep. Yep. So human jail

But the thing is they think he's the thief but I think he has a story about somebody else who's actually the thief so he starts telling a story about a Very smart little boy named Artemis Fowl. Now Artemis Fowl was growing up and his dad wasn't there all the time, but his dad was teaching him stuff about. I think you may have laughed yourself. Meanwhile, Madison was learning not every problem can be settled by committee. So they mulch is being interrogated and he's like, Artemis planned for all this. They're like, tell us where Artemis Fowl is.

And I don't even know why the British government wants to know where Artemis Fowl is. Like, he stole the Rosetta Stone and you stole this other stuff. And it's like, really? Because we didn't see it at his house in his secret basement. But, he goes, here's what we're going to do. You're going to leave us alone and we're going to keep the fairies from leaking into the real world.

Because we planned all this. And then Artemis Fowl is Jr. and Senior fly a helicopter over the prison, and they just open up the ceiling hatch and he climbs out, and he escapes. And the whole gang is back together and on the case again. And you're like, what? Like what? Yeah, I want to tell the listeners who may be baffled that listening to this podcast is actually quite like the experience of watching the movie, except for hopefully this

was pleasurable, in that like this podcast, it was mostly just a cavalcade of dumb fantasy names within like a bunch of silly stuff thrown in that derails everything and at the end everyone kind of seems to lose interest with what's going on. Yep that's how I would describe this movie and I would like to apologize to any of your listeners if I have spoken over your beloved trio or jeopardized there. No. There they're there. Which is what I listen for. I don't listen for those stupid guests. And last is Tally Hike. And wow. Wow.

I sometimes talk too much. And I hope I didn't speak over your hosts too frequently. Scott, you were great. You kept us on track and angry. I mean, usually we... I am legitimately impressed by still. I mean, any one of you guys did it would have been fine. Obviously, but I am legitimately impressed by still I mean any one of you guys did it would have been fine Obviously, but I am legitimately impressed

I mean the fact that Dan couldn't sit through an hour and a half movie without getting up and doing something else at some point I you know, I feel like usually we save each of our like performance reviews to after the show. Do? Uh, so here's the question I have for you guys before we get to final judgments. Let's say you had your very own aculous and you found out your dad was a super magic spy. What would you do? You think you're so much better than Artemis Fowell, the boy hero who never leaves his house.

I don't know what an aculouseless is still so I don't know. It's a big metal magic acorn. What more do you need to know? But what does it do to the cramped wishes? I had this kind of money and this kind of like I wouldn't even let these people in my front door. I was like this would never affect me at all. I'd be like some weird some weird fairy people just knocked on my door and I didn't let

them in end of movie. His he so he's an antique stealer Yeah, that's his that's his cover story that's so he has all that money because he steals stuff I think well, it's family money. They've lived there for centuries Oh, right. Yeah, and so and he steals stuff, but I don't know where I don't know how you sell the Rosetta stone on the open mark on the Criminal market like I don't know how you sell the rosetta stone on the open mark on the criminal market like i don't know how you fence like really christmas right yeah let's uh...

uh... let's do final judgments i think we all know where we're gonna go but we just say so for the record none of us have a better idea what to do than artist ballad it okay fair and that's not so great is that we didn't have any better ideas let's tie things up by uh... saying whether we thought it was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or movie kind of liked. I will start by saying, look, I want to get clear first off that this is all a criticism of the movie Artemis Fowl. I have no familiarity with the source material by Ian Culfer. I hope that's I'm pronouncing it correctly. But I did read his book that

finished the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books after Douglas Adams died and left everything on a sad note. And he wrote what? You're not aware of this? He wrote a sixth Hitchhiker's book. Mostly harmless, of course, ends with a legendarily sour and uh... all of the universe uh... being revealed as a huge joke on us yeah well anyway dot was at us uh... always said that he was having a bad time when he wrote that

he had hopes to write a final hitchhiker's book that was a little less uh... sad um... and then of course he unfortunately passed away, so the people who own the estate or whatever it got, Ann Kulfer, to write a six book, and it's a reasonably pleasing pastiche of Douglas Adams. How would you compare it to Stuart Wellington's forthcoming in the future, conclusion to the Game of Thrones song of Isom Fire series? Yeah, Stuart obviously is surpasses the master. I would like to know how you would compare that book to the classic book I just

read last week horse meets dog by Elliott K. Thank you. Thank you. I thought that the characters were a little thin horse meets dog. I mean, all I really learned about them is one of them is a horse and one of them is a dog. What more do you need to know? I don't think we read the same books, sir. Just for the record I want to hit your lens bar in Brooklyn, New York and watch the Daily Show television. Wow. I will mention that Stuart's final Game of Thrones book is of course called the Game of Goules and all the characters get it in the end. The Game of Goules. Do you think the fans are looking for more

descriptions of food? Yeah, that's the way it works. All the two kinds of food, trenches of gravy and... You serve food at the Hitchellings Bar and Brooklyn? Yeah, of course I do. What's on the menu? Well, lemon cakes, capers, trenches, a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh I can only assume that this is a historic botch of a good story. But this movie, I think one of the main problems of this movie,

despite, like, along with everything about the movie, is that it thinks that we really care the most about action in fantasy action movies. Like, that is the thing that we come to these movies for. Because it basically cuts everything else and Kenneth Rano directed a Marvel movie one of the I would say most fine of the Marvel movies

but Those the MCU films are you know big fantasy movies essentially where the action is Okay most of the time some of them have really good action sequence but mostly but they overcome that and the reason that they're so beloved is they spend a lot of time on the characters you know who these people are you're amused by them you like to see them interact with one another and this movie gives you the barest introduction to the title character

other than seeing that he's a little shit, and then throws you into a whirly egg of CGI, and it has none of the charming moments that you look for in this. So it was like other than movies that I find morally reprehensible, this is one of my least favorite movies we ever watched for the flop-out. Ian. So a good bad movie?

Yes. I would call this a bad bad movie. It is a movie that has a lack of, for lack of a better word, a lack of magic. Yeah. Oh, well, that is a good word. That is a good word. That is a good word.

So, when I saw the early production, well not early, but when I saw photos of this movie with Josh Gad dressed up like one of the members of Norwegian spacefiking metal band Arcturus I was like oh I'm up for this I was roundly disappointed there's no spacefikings it is yeah this is not fun it's at what eighty seven how long is this movie? 80 minutes? It's 96 minutes long. That is 90 minutes too long.

Yeah. It's the longest 96 minute movie I've ever seen. Only because you have no idea what's going on. It's like when you know where you're going and you end on a four hour drive, or you don't know where you're going on a one hour drive. The one hour drive feels much longer because you're like, okay, I don't know. Or like, there are times when I would get

stuck on a subway train in New York that would get stopped in mid-tunnel and I'd be like, okay, I guess I live here now. I'm never getting off this train. That's what this movie feels like a little bit. Well, I am going to break the bad bad streak and say, good bad only because this movie got me onto the flop house. That's a lie. This movie's bad. Oh, that's silly. This movie, I love fantasy. I certainly have no problem with getting behind young adult movies, even so-so ones.

There's a lot of times you see mediocre big-budget movies where you give it a little more charity than it deserves because people worked on it and it's a piece of art, so maybe it's not perfect, but then you're halfway through this. You're like, why might be charitable to this? There doesn't deserve any charity.

They, they, they, like, it, obviously, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, movie, the end product shows that and it is a terrible, terrible, bad, bad movie. Yeah. For a, well, bad, bad, bad. Now speaking of things that aren't bad, bad. I'm going to talk a little bit about the Max Fund drive. Oh. And to do that, I am going to pull up some stuff. So

Before you know before the drive, you know months and months ago before COVID and etc etc Max fun sent out an email to all of the Max one subscribers to ask a couple of questions kind of what kind of roles Max one can fill for people in times like these. And they sent along a list of these responses to us and reading through these before the show. I found it, to be honest, I found it pretty moving to read people's thoughts about what Max von provides for them in times when there's so much chaos. One of the lines that kind of stuck out to me from, oh man let me mess this up from Katen, from Portland, Oregon, said, stay safe.

It's nice to be in the new abnormal with you together though. And that kind of highlights the idea of how like strange and everything seems and how the universe kind of feels so uncertain, at least for me, I mean I've run a small business. But the doing the show and also listening to the shows in the network has provided me some kind of sense of stability and obviously friendship with my buddies Dan Nelliet, but also the extensive podcast friendship. Do you guys know what I'm going for, guys? The feeling of community by listening to other people going through the same thing and also doing it with a regular routine. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, and I also want to take a moment to acknowledge to that obviously a lot of people are in bad spots right now and Some of us are better suited to whether the storm than others. I know I have it a lot better than others, but that being said, a lot of the money from this drive goes to the networking general. It goes to people who are podcasting maybe their main job and podcasting like every other job is getting hit hard by what's going on. So while this may seem silly, there are people who depend on the funding

that you're able to provide. Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of the whole thing. We do the Max Fund drive to kind of spotlight that the shows on Max Fund are primarily listener supported. And that's why I'm talking to you to consider if you are in that kind of a position and if we and if you like our show and other shows on network you should consider becoming a subscriber and the way you do that is by visiting maximumfund.org

Backslash or forward slash join I can't tell the difference between those things backslash, we're forward slash join, I can't tell the difference between those things. And that'll give you a list of all the different ways you can give. Most of I think the vast majority of subscribers to Max Fun give at either the $5 or $10 per month level. But some have, you know, there's options all the way up to $20 a month or more. Whatever you can provide, obviously we're grateful for, and even if you can't, we understand that too. And part of the incentive and part of the bonus is that we, there's different gifts

that are available to people who donated all levels, whether it's bonus content, which we have been putting out quite a bit of bonus content the last couple years when I force you guys to play role-playing games with me and I make my friend Alex write music and do cool sound effects for an ever expanding universe of bonus content that seems to take more and more of our time every year. Yeah but you wait when we do it you guys say it's just fun to get together and you like having an excuse to hang out with your friends. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, sure, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah. One gift in particular that speaks directly to my heart and soul, of course, is the Max

Fun Game Pack that provides a set of Max Fun branded dice in a velvet bag with a rocket logo. That's the max fund rocket logo. So if you need to show off and go to your next game night, you can bring that velvet bag and pull out those max fund dice. As well, it also comes with a deck of custom max fund inspired playing cards. So if you and the street urchin that you are fostering need to hustle some robes out on the street, you can use that deck of cards and do some what three card mounting. And that's like three card Monty but with Canadian mounting with Canadian dollars. And yeah, so once again, I love the network, I love being part of the network. I've made some really good friends doing this show.

And even the hosts that I don't know personally all feel kind of like friends to me. And so thank you for listening and thank you for donating or subscribing That was really sweet and Lovely as a guest. I was just interject as a long-time film writer and film fanatic I am an avid listener of not only the flop house, but also friendly fire and switchblade sisters both of which are a liturative and are podcasts on this fine network. And it's also where I found and enjoyed

I, Podius, I believe it's pronounced, I Podius. Oh, close enough, close enough. I did, I actually watched every episode and then listened to each episode in succession like a nerd and had a ball. I Podius was a blast. That's the show you're dropping our show to do, right, Elliot? Well, I mean, it's finished. I I mean we did it there's no I mean maybe

watch I Claudius through again and do another episode that sounds like the best idea of all time if you have anybody out there wants a fun project get the old PBS series iPodias watch episode one then listen to episode one with a little marijuana in between and then do the same for episodes two three all the way to the end And then when you're done, thank Elliot and his co-host John Hodgman. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you for thank you for that plug for my own thing. Oh, I had a ball I think you should do a bonus episode for Caligula though. I thought just interject that I think I don't watch that again Let's do let's do a quick ad or two actually The Flauth House is sponsored in part by Hello Fresh get fresh pre-measured ingredients and mouthwatering seasonal recipes

deliver right to your door with Hello Fresh America's number one meal kit There's something for everyone including low calorie America's number one meal kit. There's something for everyone including low calorie, vegetarian and family-friendly recipes every week. Hello Fresh's pre-proportioned ingredients mean there's less prep for you and less food waste. And Hello Fresh donated over 2.5 million meals to charity in 2019 and this year stepping up their food donations amid the coronavirus crisis We got some Hello fresh samples some ways back and I recall that I asked for the lower calorie stuff and it tasted as delicious as it as it would have had it

Been packed with calories. Well, you added extra butter, right? I did I mean that's you know, that's a true chef puts his own little spin on. Not every chef just layers the lardo onto every piece of food. They're missing out. I mean, come on. That's how it goes. Go to HelloFresh.com, slash Flophouse 80, and use code Flophouse 80 to get a total of $80 off, including free shipping on your first box. Additional restrictions apply. Please visit HelloFresh.com for more details that's HelloFresh.com slash Flop House 80. That was a lot of words, guys.

I gotta give you credit. For somebody whose mouth was clearly watering at those food descriptions, you read that very well, Dan. I think hello fresh. You team up with hello kitty. I'm sure that's got a little fresh kitty. They send only the freshest cats to your house. Yeah. Hello freshest. And you cats, hello freshest since you delicious meals that are already measured out because you know, the worst part of cooking, the measuring, I hate it. All right, moving on to a quick word from Squarespace. You Squarespace to create a beautiful website.

You can turn your cool idea into a new site where you blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and or more, the ever present more. Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful, customizable templates created by world class designers with everything optimized for mobile right out of the box, a new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions,

free and secure hosting. Wow, wow, everyone, wow, 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 that sounds great I actually had an idea for a website and I was wondering if Squarespace might be able to help. Well just keep the idea short, it's what we did a lot of max pun stuff too. Okay, I just that watching this movie and made me think about like,

what happens if you're tunneling through the dirt, chopping it down, it comes flying out of your butt and you accidentally get some minerals in there that are a little bit harder to pass through. And that's why rocktologists.com is your place on the internet for telehealth examinations. That's right. We can do it remotely to help you diagnose what kind of rock is stuck in your rectum, or

rocked them as we call it. And how to get that guy out of there, because what's most important to us is your bowel health over at rocktologists.com. For a moment, I thought the service was just going to identify the type of rock. And it seems like that only one step in a two step process. That is the first most important step because you want to treat different rocks differently. I disagree with you, Ollie.

I think the second step is the most important step. It's hard to get to the second step without the first step. All right, well, Stuart, I think you have a jumbo tron and then we can move on. Oh, we don't want to talk about rocks second people's asses anymore I mean we can rock tallest comm is here for you cool. Okay. I do have a choo choo choo choo choo jumbo tron Okay, and it goes like this You said that is if we interrupted you but we didn't come on you rolling and it goes like this

He didn't. Come on. He's rolling. And it goes like this. The Blue Room is a short film about a board security guard who spends his days wandering the halls of a mysterious research facility. His only company is a sarcastic scientist who claims he can do magic. Equal parts, Lynch and Lovecraft, the Blue Room combines the history of 19th century stage magic with creeping cosmic dread. It's a puzzle box with something terrifying inside. Open it, won't you?

So visit blueroomhorrorfilm.com to watch the movie for free. Won't you? Can't beat that price I might sounds like me hey yes let's do letters yeah yeah let's do it better time better time hey it's time for letters okay let's do it letters from who perfect this is from letters on the list nurse listeners who write us letters letters like you from listeners like them now I know write us letters, letters like you from listeners like them. That makes sense. Now, I know I mentioned, I said letters like you, maybe you're not a letter, maybe you're

a person who writes letters, but sometimes letters listen to, and they write letters to, it's how letters have babies. They're my letters. Do you want to? I'm going to need more information. I'm going to need more information. Well, you see, when a letter wants to start a family, they don't have to do with the human way or the animal way, or even the amoeba way where they split into instead they write a new letter for you. It says dear you here's

my letter to you. It's my baby take care of it please. Love a letter. PS please please please this letter is all that I have in the world to leave behind and let the future know that I was here treat it well maybe laminate it. Thank you. I guess it was my fault for mentally praising Elliot for keeping it short the first time around. That's a mistake. You can hear my thoughts.

We have that ET connection. Anyway, Willie Lasting withheld. Lohman. Right. Dearest flappers, recently your episode with Felicia Day featured a quip from the aforementioned guest host about a movie being big in Topeka. As a group, you questioned whether or not it was large in East or West Topeka. You also wondered if one side of Topeka was better than the other side. I never lived in Topeka, but I was an editor for the Topeka Capital Journal for six months

before they laid off half of their staff. I can assure you that there is no good side of Topeka. The West Side is a very large Walmart next to a very large Sam's Club. Next to I'm assuming a now closed, chucky cheese. And the East Side is the Kansas State Capital and a lot of crime. Tupica has this weird setup where all of the rich people live outside of Tupica so they don't have to pay city taxes which makes Tupica a terrible place to live. If you find yourself in Tupica, I recommend the following activities. 1. Spangles is a terrible local fast food chain that features 15-style justime and horribly

bad food. It does however have a liquor license and sells margaritas and screwdrivers for like a dollar. It's a nice price. Two, nothing else. Nothing else just keep driving until you get to Lawrence or Kansas City or Manhattan on the other end. In conclusion, don't bother investing in a random doubt now the guy to Topeka it will just tell you to do boring things like go to the

governor's mansion or visit some museum I'm assuming they have. Dan keep on flopping the funeral. Dan is a little unimplanned. Dan, before you get to the post-script of the letter, it might answer my question, but I want to ask it, is Topeka named after that really lumpy pudding that people eat? A tapioca, you mean?

Wait, what did I say? Garmin Zola? Close enough. I said Topeka, right? Yeah, yeah. It didn't answer my question, which is whether it's worth stopping in that Topeka bodega, I've heard so much about my acting classes.

But wait, it's called Topeka, right? Yeah, tapioca is what you're thinking of. I said, that's what I, what did I say? It's the capital of my fridge. Yeah. Wait, sorry for the town is He's called Tappy Okah. Oh boy. Oh boy. I will mention I've always wanted to go to Lawrence, Kansas, one of my good friends from college, John Ott was from there and he always made it sound really nice.

You know what's one city that I'm from and you guys have been to and I've seen you here? Philly. Represent. What? Philly and the house. I can't remember In front of one of your significant others, and I believe it was Stuart's oh, yeah if she was a sleep during the show Okay, so I got a question

To they make the boy that's why it's named to tapioca That's why it's named I think we've got this is a common mistake that no one has ever made before too It's actually two different words and look don't get mad at me to peek I I don't I as far as I know you're lovely I just halfway through this letter I couldn't stop laughing at the idea of how mad people in to pick you were and i apologize for laughing at your pain yeah no no danes at look dance the social media platform he's not a guardian he believes all free speech which should be free he can't censor these things just because they may be slanderers

look uh... dance not here to be a gatekeeper uh... just because i'd be inaccurate information about to be uh... i love each of the uh... Just because I'd be inaccurate information about to be I love you, Chopika This is from Wade Lent Strange way of showing up It's tapioca This one's from Wade less name withheld

Wade was a Deadpool Hey floppers, long time listener First time male question that doesn't sucker, I hope Occasionally a a movie, rather than having an exceptionally memorable cast, story, characters, or any other prominent feature is remembered for having, and especially original or outrageous central conceit. The bad example of this would be a movie like who wrote this? What? The bad example of this, what way? I would.

Wow. See, I insulted, like, you served an abstract, that never said that. You're insulting the way. Oh, my, Dan, it was not, let me just say, it's not an abstract idea to sit in time. It's a city. It's a physical city that people live in.

I'm sorry, Wade. Well, the city and the people who live there, it's not like there's some pretty concept of Topeka that you live in. I'm sorry, Wade. The city and the people who live there. It's not like there's some play-challenge concept of Topeka that you went after. I think that we brought attention to the shadiness of people who live in Topeka not paying the city taxes, the wealthy fleeing from Topeka. Oh, yeah, we're muck-rakers. Yeah, we finally broke that story. I think I'm going to be splashed with this anti-TOPca mud for the rest of my life and I don't appreciate it, frankly

Okay, so so guys I enter up, but it looks like when I googled tapioca, Kansas The first result is top 10 best tapioca in which it's all Kansas So I don't think that's the name of the town, guys. Very nice. I don't want to click on it. I think it'll miss up my algorithm. Oh, god. OK.

That's me with Amazon Prime. Like, do I want to watch this romantic comedy? No. Now it's going to go from me 45 romantic. Sure. I think you should. like do i want to watch this romantic comedy no now it's gonna go from me forty five romani and i think you should i mean mix it up yeah i'm on the wall

poor way it was excited about getting a question and so then so that's so okay so power through it then okay uh... it's about uh... exceptionally memorable central conceits the bad example of this would be a movie like wanted Which basically no one remembers anything about this point other than it's the movie where people can bend bullets My favorite example of this would be a movie like dread with the movie invents the conceit of a drug that makes everything into super slow motion and feasts upon it sumptuously at every available turn. Can you think of some other movies beneficial or baneful

that you recall having essential or tangential conceit that you consider particularly memorable? Keep plopping on Wade. Now, which one of you is gonna make the joke about the most baneful movie being The Dark Knight Rises? Anyone? I was gonna say seven. Because seven has a great concept and I'm in like

I Think that's kind of what the question was asking like what whether the movie is good or not And I think seven is a masterpiece, but the concept of a killer You know tracking us killing his victims through the seven deadly sins is a fascinating and compelling concept Plus it's always raining. I love that. Yeah. Yep. I don't know if you guys have seen this movie called Alien,

but it posits a universe where there's an alien that puts its egg inside your body and then it explodes out of your chest, and that's a pretty great concept. Yeah, you got, I mean, like, it's sort of hard to say, like, what's a conceit, like, where the lines around, around like that is but uh... purge anything that makes a writer say damn i wish i thought of that the purge what's the hook crime is legal for one day and every writer in the world go damn i wish i thought of that

yeah yeah that's that's something example of one where like where the movie does not live up to the conceit to yeah, right. Well, I was going to give one like that off the top, just looking over a flop house movie. You got something like, I think it's upside down where you have those two planets right next to one another. And it's like visually quite a nice looking movie in some ways because of that. But it's not a story. But that conceit is pretty interesting.

And then I don't know. I was trying to, this is just off kind of the top of my head. But one that came to me was brick, where you were like, OK, what if a hard boiled detective story with the elevated language even of such a story in a high school. And then something like it follows where it's you know like okay what if a death curse of some kind could be passed like a venereal disease basically

and those are the two that I sort of thought of. I'd say I think the first one that popped into my head was and I don't know if I would say this is a central conceit, but it's something I liked in a movie and that's in the movie Alizium, the Neil Blomkomp movie. I love that I love that like Matt Damon and all those guys get the like things to like anchor a like a Robo exoskeleton to their body and they can walk around and be extra tough. I think that's great. Rest the movie's never a good. But I like that part. I'd like to see that in a better movie. What was that one with Jude Law where a repo man? There was one that had a pretty cool concept. Yeah. And not so great of a follow through. I certainly remember not being a great follow through. Although I don't remember anything about the movie at all. Is that the one where you get like designer organs and then Jude Law comes and cuts

them out? Yeah, and then if you don't pay, yeah, you don't pay for them, they'll come. That's a little like, uh, did you guys mention in time already? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. You get a certain amount of time and you can transfer time as a currency and you can stay young forever and that's another one where it's like, oh, okay, there's something kind of, there's that, that's an interesting way to visualize

in a concrete way, income and inequality and wealth and equality, but then it just kind of turns into what, like a robbery movie. Yeah. For like a, you know what I thought had a really good concept that movie, the adventure's a tan tan. Wait, tan tan? Yeah. What about it? Yeah.

I think that was fresh in my head because some one of you gents reposted the animated version of that wonderful diatribe. Oh, okay. And I love those animations. Not just your show, but when any shows that are there. Yeah, I love those. I feel like that's who is the guy who does those? I feel like that's who is the guy who does this? Who does this? Tony Okre, I mean that's his nom-do artist, I believe. I don't know if it's his real name, but he's great. He's been the unofficial and now sort of the official flop house animator for a long time.

And this is, I guess, a good plug to go check out our YouTube channel. We're all those things live in addition to the live show we did for charity. But anyway, moving on to the next segment of the show which is recommendations to where it just put his hands back on with a big grin because he's thirsting to give a recommendation. Oh man, I cannot watch instead of this But I will go first because I'm already talking and this movie that I'm going to recommend Oh, I'll tell you if this podcast was a movie I would say that's a great Don't want to stop the momentum So I watched a movie called lucky grandma.. I saw it. It's available from Almond demand, but I assume it's available elsewhere as well I mean it's a great title

Lucky Grand Ma it is a bout a and elderly Chinese woman in Chinatown who her her husband has passed away Chinatown who her husband has passed away. She has children but she's living alone rather than going to live with them and she gets news that from a fortune teller that she's going to be very lucky and she goes to the casino, wins a bunch of money, things don't turn out so well eventually. She winds up taking some money that gets her in with some bad people.

And it's sort of like, it's got some flavors of like, maybe a Koenny crime movie, like a crime comedy, but it's also very distinctly Chinese. And also, Audrey is not Chinese, she is Filipino, but she did confirm for me that this movie plays very much on sort of a type of like a tough older Asian woman, fiercely independent. And I know that like from getting to know her family I appreciated a lot more about this movie than I think I would have otherwise

which led me to read you know reviews from Chinese Americans who also like confirm for me that there's like a lot in this movie that is very like culturally specific as well that you may or may not catch onto, but it makes it kind of a more special occurrence to see this type of story. And it was just a lot of fun. That sounds good. Yeah. Stewart.

Oh, Scott. Yeah, Scott. Yeah, I'll do mine real quick. I'm a huge horror fan as I know a lot of people are. And I watch a lot of stuff on Shutter and Amazon Prime lately I've been on a Korean kick and I watched a period piece monster movie on Shutter called Monstrum from South Korea. And it is set in 1527 and it is basically a lot like the host, Bong Joon Ho's masterpiece, combined with a 14th century political backstabbing and dealings and it's got action, it's funny, it's got a great monster and

Carnage galore, monster. That sounds good. I gotta check that out. Yep. You'll like it. I am going to recommend a movie that has recently been added to the Netflix streaming platform. I do tell me more of this platform. You drag the movie over into your player, and then you hit play, and it shows up in your eyeballs. Your mail box. So I'm going gonna recommend a movie called Old Guard.

Yeah, it's a great action movie. I'm so glad one of you guys picked it because I didn't want to pick the most obvious one. Yeah, now I do have to get out of the way that my buddy Alejandro, who is a friend of the show, is the editor for the comic. He's the editor for Greg Rueco, the writer of the comic and writer of the show is the editor on the for the comic. He's the editor for the for Greg Rucker, the writer of the comic and writer of this screenplay. So I'm a little bit biased,

but I'm also a fan of the comic. I think it's great. And I feel like this this adaptation really captures the spirit of the comic, it captures the spirit of the characters, it respects it. And at the same time, it is a badass, super fun action movie. Charlize is great. She is one of the defining action stars currently working today. And yeah, it's a blast. It's probably like the the best like action movie I have seen like Netflix original action movie I've seen but I could be wrong But it's a lot of fun check it out the old guard or just old guard

yeah And I will finish out the recommendations. I wanted to recommend an independent film from 1996 It's currently I saw it on the canopy streaming platform which you may have access to through your local public library And it's called the watermelon woman Woman. It was written directed in stars, Cheryl, either Dunye or Dunnie or I could not find a how to pronounce her name online. I found several different ways to do it. But anyway, she plays a woman who works at a video store. She is black. She's also a lesbian and she becomes obsessed with a background actress or a supporting actress in movies from the 1930s and 40s,

who is credited as the watermelon woman in her movies. She wants to find out who was this woman, what was her name, what is her history? And in doing so, kind of learns more about the community around her, learns more about people in the past who are dealing with some of the same issues of being gay and being like then that she is now. And at the same time, she is kind of starting to date and maybe fall in love with a white woman that she has

met and their relationship has to deal with the friction that comes with them coming from two different places and having two different ways of thinking about things. But it's like, there's some really funny parts and I've found that it was like, of all the movies I've ever seen that show fake archival photos and archival footage, this by far does the best job of creating kind of fake photos and fake footage and things like that that looks like it was actually from the time it's supposed to look. And it's a very indie movie there, times when you're watching it when you're like, oh yeah, this is one of the independent movies from the 1990s, it doesn't look like a slick glossy movie.

I'll warn you, or entice you, with the fact that there is a surprisingly graphic sex scene during the movie that I was not ready for. And I was like, this is much more intense than I expected. You're like, get out of the room, mom. Don't see me. I started watching this independent film about someone investigating 1930s bitflares. I didn't think this would be this thing appropriate for you. But by the end of the movie, which

is done in kind of like a half fake documentary, half just straightforward style. I found like the threads of it had just come together in this really fantastic way. And it was exciting to see a movie from 25 years ago that felt very, well exciting and depressing. I see a movie from 25 years ago that's felt still very relevant to what's going on today. But there's one scene in particular that deals with disorganized archives that I thought was hilarious. So anyway, if you like archive humor, then the Watermelon Moment is the movie for you.

All right, I guess that is that for our regularly scheduled segments, but Elliot, I believe that you would like to say a few final words about the Max Fun Drive. I would love to. You're going to be hearing a little bit more of Max Fun Drive in future episodes. We won't be done with it for a little bit, so I won't take too much of your time. I would just say ahead of time, I want to thank everybody who has become a Max Fun member in the past and supported this podcast.

I want to thank everybody who is thinking about it or going to everybody who's planning to upgrade their membership. It really means a lot to us because it means that you are literally supporting us. This is the reason that we can keep making the time and putting the investment of energy and money and things like that into this show to make it what it is. Your support really means a lot to us. The fact that we've been doing this show for a long time, for over almost a decade and a half, and the show is a bunch of nonsense when you get down to it. But that it means something to us, it means something to the people who listen to it,

and it means something to you because you're willing to support it, and give us the space and the means to really make it happen. We make most of our money off of pledges. It's the vast majority and this year even more so because we aren't touring. For obvious reasons, we're not selling merchandise on our tours because we're not touring, see the previous sentence.

And so your pledge dollars mean even more to us. If you were attaching love to the money, then that love is even greater this time. And as said earlier, we know this is a hard time for a lot of people. It's obviously a hard time. There's a lot of great things and what's the one I'm looking for?

Causes. Thank you. Causes. There's a lot of great causes that I know are also clamoring for your money. We are not asking for you to choose between saving the world and paying us. We are saying just pay us.

The world will take care of itself. Oh wow, wow, wow, that did not go the way. That was exciting. That was going to go. You joked or tried it. Also, obviously look into your hearts, look into your pockets and see what you are comfortable with. But we really appreciate it.

If you're not able to this time, we hope you consider it next time. But you'll hear more from us and we just want to say thank you very much for making this something that we can continue to do for as long as we can. And again, that's maximumfund.org slash join, whether you are joining or upgrading your membership or just curious about the possibilities. If you're not doing that, then the least you can do is help us read the word about the Flap House, tweet about us, Instagram about us, tick talk about us, Facebook about us. We talked about YouTube a little bit ago.

We have a semi-active YouTube channel where we have our recent virtual live show as well as a collection of wonderful animated videos put together by Tony Oker. We have our first ever actual promo that Tony animated for us, and it's like an actual real thing you can show people and be like, this is what the flop house is.

And it only took us 13 years to get to the point where we were like, oh yeah, we should do that. So we would like to say, thank you for helping us read the word. Thanks for considering supporting us. Thank you to our editor, Jordan Cowling, for taking our usual ramblings and shortening them to only slightly longer than humans can tolerate.

And I want to say triple thanks to our guest Scott Weinberg. You're so much fun today. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. I, again, I have been a fan of the show. I listened to a lot of podcasts, as Elliot mentioned. I do have my own show with my friend Steven D. Genero called Science versus Fiction, where we are film lovers and Stephen is an astrophysicist and we thought there's got to be a way to talk about real

science and movies without being pedantic and obnoxious. So we're trying to do that and be fun. And but what I was saying was I've been a big podcast listener for a long time and I think what I like most about your show is that it can be critical, but it's never mean. I don't like mean. Even if a movie is bad, like Artemis Fowl, most of the people involved in that movie tried to do good work. And a lot of them did. We just don't see it because the final product ain't so hot. And I really respect that you guys are funny and irreverent, but you're never kicking down on filmmakers. And as a film critic and a filmmaker, I truly respect that. And so it just means a lot to me to be on the show for once. I really enjoyed it. And thank you very much. Yeah, thanks Scott. And I want to say that one of the things

that I really like about your show is that it's clear that you guys are, in addition to being knowledgeable about film and science, you are also huge fans that you clearly love the medium you're talking about. And that comes through. Thank you. You love it and that when you guys don't agree on something, you still, there's a respect there. That means that you don't rip each other apart

for just agreements. I like this show. I was gonna say, we are are mean but just to Dan, Dan's the only one that we're mean to. Uh, yeah, yeah. And I also have an older show that is now deceased, but it's still up and people seem to like it called 80s all over. We're my friend Drew McQueen and I covered the first half of the 1980s.

And it was a very maniacally busy, crazy, hectic show that it will not be coming back. But I really do hope that people love the episodes that we did. And I just, I have two more podcasts coming out in the next year and I just want to, I just want to thank all the other podcasters out there, all the creators on Max Fun and otherwise who inspire me to do good work. Well, right back at you guys. Right back at you. Oh yeah, and we did it. Yeah. Yeah. We've done a talk to pat ourselves on the back It's gonna have to be distance so Dan can you pat yourself on the back like I would pat you on the back How would you do it? I was a rub less of a pat more of a rub, right? Are you what?

What are you wearing on your wrist? I put some weights on my wrist cuz We're in quarantine guys. I don't I want to I want to have some exercise, but I want to do it in the lazyest possible way. Yeah, no I get it That's awesome. Yeah, I'm glad that happened. Okay, cool. So what are we doing now? I'll be a second night for the flop-ass. I've been damn a coy. I'm Stewart Welley, didn't I? I'm Elliot Kaelin and thank you to I'm Scott Weinberg. Thanks guys. Bye. Bye And thank you too. I'm Scott Weinberg, thanks guys. Bye! Byeee! [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Nice. Second one? Wanna do it again, Dan? Is that one? Let's do it again. Okay. On this episode we discuss, Art of Miss Fowl. The movie that dares to raise the question, what the fuck is going on in this movie coming in what's it going in very hot

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