The Flop House - Ep. #320 - Last Christmas, w/ Hallie Haglund

Episode Date: August 15, 2020

The star of the show is back! We were SO happy to hang with the delightful and hilarious Hallie Haglund once more. And this time we didn't force her to discuss some fantasy bullshit she hates! Instead, we all watched what is surely one of the top three movies based on a Wham! song -- Last Christmas!Also, if you're listening to this show on the day of release, you can also get another shot of Hallie by tuning into our table read of The Boy Next Door, starring Hallie, Dan, Stu, Elliott, Natalie Walker, Jenny Jaffe, and X Mayo!Wikipedia synopsis of Last ChristmasMovies recommended in this episode:Tango & CashRunaway TrainThe Curse of the Cat PeopleSwallowMemories of Murder

On this episode we discuss... Last Christmas! Based on a true story, if by a true story you mean some of the lyrics of a George Michael song. Hey everyone and welcome to the Flap House, I'm Dan McCoy, I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kaylen and look who's here joining us look That's I'm everybody it's you know you know her from the Daily Show You may know her from Whitesnacks problem areas. You may know her for being my office mate for four years or you probably know her best as the star of the flop house, Halley Haggland. Oh wow. Yeah, it looks like a bunch of people paid to have digital fans entered into the background to celebrate.

I like that, Halley, you are such a popular guest that we don't even introduce you. We let you introduce yourself. All right. Well, me too. Now, Hallie. Hallie, you know, it's no secret that you've had a problem with some of the other movies sometimes that we've made you watch for the podcast. Not so much the horror movies, but a lot of the more fantasy oriented sort of the bolt. The bullshitting watch, how he was giving a thumbs down. That was a thumbs down movement from how he. So they were just boring.

Like, that's the problem. It's like they weren't even fun bad. They were just long and boring. Which movies did we watch with, what did we have with you before? I've forgotten, do you remember? One of them was a dark tower. Something about, was that, yeah, was that yeah that tower definitely the worst yeah that was where the upside down world right

That's a different one that one That was that was the one I think that was called it yeah dark towers the one where Matthew Conne He was like in my world we don't have chicken Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah Yeah, that was bad too I Oh, yeah, yeah, that was bad too. I don't know. Didn't we do one of the 50 Shades movies? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, yeah. I feel like the one, my favorite of the ones we watched was the Zach Efron one. Oh, yeah. It was the one where I wasn't on the episode, so that makes sense. Oh, yeah. It was so fun.

It was so fun. It was so fun. I like great stuff. Super hot guys like Zach Efron too. I don't know why I wouldn't be included. Now listeners may not know, this is the first time we've had Halley on the show since she moved to my hometown, Los Angeles. And let me just tell you, I was so excited

when Halley moved out there. And I was like, this can be great. We're going to hang out all the time. And then some dumb German to come in and ruin those plans so I mean Elliot you are literally the only people that we ever Socialized with in Los Angeles Because you came over you had moved in what like a couple days before or a week before when you came over Yeah, I think we had dinner at your house like yeah, maybe a week after we moved in and then LA shut down two weeks after we moved in Terrible. Well, you know what? It's just too bad our friendship is over now and when we'll never we'll never

What do you guys do for dinner? Yeah? Let's have a menu or do you guys do for dinner with Ellie and Danielle? Danielle cooked a lovely feast. She cooked kebabs, I believe. Yeah, yes. With a agarlicky hummus. The hummus was very garlicky. It was like, it was a little too vinaigree agarlicky, but you only have a little bit of it

before your tongue jumped out of your mouth and said, no more please than ran away. Yeah, I think you're speaking about that ruined your, you know, that ruined the game of spin the bottle that was supposed to finish the meal. Well, we were about to play with our three children. Well, it was going to be one of those we were like, we live in La La Land now, trying to put the kids to bed in one room, don't lock the door so that they can walk out and find us playing kind of creepy weird adult games that are we're finding uncomfortable too so they can write about in their memoirs but grown up in that crazy holly weird culture but the girl like yet

really put a damper on it. Elliott just has like an empty gold fish bowl at the entrance to his house where you just drop your keys when you go in and That's how key parties work, right? I think so Thank God you took the goldfish out of that bowl because I remember the first key parties you had people were just jumping and filling that bowl with keys You reach in you reach it you fill it up out of goldfish and you're like I guess I'm doing it with this goldfish tonight That's the worst part. Yeah, and then like fucking Vince Corthus shows up and you're like, oh, okay I guess I I guess I pulled off the ritual didn't even mean to All right, well What I was sending before though was just that we've tortured Hallie a lot

So we just decided to give her what we do on this podcast. What are we doing this? All right back to the to everyone, back to one. On this podcast, we watch a bad movie, or a movie that was, let's say, presumed bad by critics or audiences. And then we talk about it. And this time around, Hallie was given a list of things we were under consideration, and she immediately came back Within seconds with last Christmas the list given

Yeah, which you know not surprising, but a good movie a one that I wanted to watch Anyway for the show so not total freedom. I was given a list. It wasn't you were given total freedom. Freedom. That's a just like those lies and make them true. You know what I learned from this movie guys, I'm jumping ahead. I never really listened to the lyrics of George Michael songs before. So I didn't realize that they're all super depressing. I know it made me feel like he is so he was so sad. We should have seen the the tragic untimely death coming.

Yeah, I never I mean everyone's death. We should see coming at some point. Nobody escapes this life alive. But it's ever as a lindrex the the dark lord of dark on fair point fair point. You're right. I forgot about that very common. He is trapped in his realm and can't leave because his falaktery keeps growing with every year what a horrible fate for assil in the lord of the lord of diacon the

radish dark yeah it's he's the lord of diacon the rattiches he's a radish based which rattiches lives inside a radish uh... it's but that there's a scene come we'll talk about i guess where they're on a date they're ice skating to uh... george michael song and the lyrics are all about how god turned his back on his children and his children of escape and it was like what is this all this said man i felt so bad for him yeah okay well last christmas uh... it's uh...

it's a romantic comedy it has a good pedigree uh... in theopson wrote it. Paul Fee directed it. It has Metopson in it. It has Amelia Clark of Game of Thrones as our lead and Henry Golding of Crazy Racer Asians is a very handsome man. I think your leader is that

international superstar, Michelle. Yo is in the movie. Yeah, yeah. Padding with a phone shows up for one scene, which seems like it's what's weird. I was she she was buying those little babies Christ Jesus is in the store in the very beginning. That was Broadway lessons patty with a poem. Yeah, oh no, I'm thinking of burning at Peter's.

I was like she looks different. What happened a burn of that Peter's face? Because she looks like Patty LaPont. And she seems like she'd still have a beautiful singing voice, but a different kind of beautiful singing voice. I thought it was very funny that Rob Delaney and Peter Sir Fenowitz are mentioned in the opening credits and they appear for roughly 45 seconds in the film. Oh yeah. But you know, I'm saying there's a lot of talent behind this.

One of the hosts, or one of the hosts from the Great British Bake Off appears in the scene. Oh, that's true. And- Oh wait, when? And she's in the ice audition. Ice audition. Yeah. Guys, it sounds like Elliott is trying to horn in on my job this time.

Sorry. And just in summary. Sorry. And no way I am driving this fucking card Okay, I won't even mention that Peter Maigen from the highest grossing Danish film ever I think flame and citrone was also in it Well actually, you know, it may be it's just the biggest budget Danish film Is he the father take Stewart's doing and now I'm gonna be done talking for most of the episode cuz Stewart's gonna summarize Stewart take it away

Okay, so before I get into the actual plot of the movie, guys, we have to address, I think, a kind of big part of this movie, which is there is a very crazy, in some ways very obvious twist in it. Should we, are we going to just go along with the summary of the movie and get to the twist when it happens in the movie? Or should we just bring it up right now and talk about the movie in context of this crazy twist? So twist that many people just guessed as soon as the movie trailer hit the internet.

Okay, guess what? Apparently, so I had watched maybe, I had maybe like a half hour or two 45 minutes left and I put it on pause and I was just like going to the bathroom or something and then I walked past my husband and I was like this movie is so good. I just don't know what's going to happen at the end and he was like I'm guessing it probably has something to do with like the second line of the song. And I was like what? No, no, it's not going to be. Then we're going to air this dirty laundry, which is not the song this is based on. This is a movie inspired by the WAM song last Christmas, where the mysterious love interest is actually, I guess, a ghost of a man who donated his heart to our lead exactly one year ago when she was in

need of a heart transplant. So it is as much like the first two lines of the song as you can imagine. Yeah. They don't ever, they don't talk about the third line of the song in which she would have just given that heart away the next day. Yeah. It would have been crazy because she would need it to live. She just like pull it out of her chest and give it to like to, what's his name from Temple

of the... To Mola Ram. Yeah, Mola Ram. Yeah. Now, let me just say that there are metaphorical ways to read this twist that I actually kind of like and I may make an argument for later, but the movie makes it hard to make the metaphorical argument when there are things like she goes to places that only this guy would have known which suggests that there's some sort of literal supernatural quality that

receiving someone else's organ has but just like in potty parts uh... so now that we got that out of the way everybody let's out and now that we've spoiled the movie uh... guys before we talk about this six-sense movie, let's just mention, oh, he's also a ghost. Yeah. So, guys, before we talk about the...

It's time the only one who believes in love. But before we talk about the ghost and Mrs. Murai, I should let you know, the guy's a ghost. Oh. That was in the title. That wasn't even implied by the title like this one. If somebody went to see that movie and they got in after the opening credits and then they were like,

at the end of like, he was a ghost. I mean, guys, what is a ghost? Is it a tragedy condemned or repeat itself time and again? An incident of pain, perhaps, something dead, which still seems to be alive, an emotion suspended in time. I think that there's like a blurred photograph, like an insect trapped in amber.

Is that Tom Webster? What is it out? So let's get into the waiting room. I must know, are you quoting something or did you just write that at the time? It's the opening narration of Devil's Backbone, one of my favorite music. Okay, so we open with a church choir singing a,

I can't tell if it's a George Michael Song or a Whim song, but it is basically letting us know this is not our daddy's Christmas church choir performance. Also, it's in Yugoslavia, so my dad's never been there. Okay, yeah. Oh yeah, I guess. dad's never been there. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I didn't, oh yeah, I guess. My dad's been there.

I've been there, you guys. If you have any questions, I've been there. Was it like that, well, was it like that when you were there? Was it just, was it just kids church choir? Yeah. And there was sausage, I remember. I was like seven. Okay.

So it's sausage and then children's choirs. Okay, so it is a message and then children's choirs. Okay, so let me start over. It opens with a church choir singing a George Michael or possibly WAM song in a Yugoslavia church. And that goes to show that this is Halle's father's or Halle's daddy's church choir performance. Now, I would just imagine Stuart was accurate with me. It was not my dad's church choir performance. Being Jewish, he was not, didn't go to church, wasn't in wasn't in a choir and again as stated has never been to Yugoslavia Okay, I just want to clarify in case there's any Inclusion my dad is actually in a choir and it is nothing like this

So the way that that statement was raised there might be some confusion I don't want anyone to confuse it with the Colorado chamber choir So Stuart should have said this is in some ways like Halle's daddies church choir. Yeah. Okay, so we are introduced to Katarina, a young Yugoslavian girl who was singing the lead or solo of this song and her mother played by Emma Thompson is in the, I guess, audience or the congregation watching and loving every minute of it. Flash forward to 2017. That was in the, I guess, audience or the congregation watching and loving every minute of it. Flash forward to 2017. That was in 1999, that last part.

Okay. Cool. Good, good point. That little girl, that little girl's all grown up now and singing the same song alone in a bar, drowning her sorrows. Yeah. We learn through conversation with a potential suitor that she has family troubles. She loves George Michael. We learn she's living out of a suitcase and after some flirting she goes home with this fellow.

Wait, I have a question. Yeah, of course. I can ask a question. That actor. He what is he from? He looked so familiar. Last Christmas. He's from this movie. Although, when you want to hit the internet and find out? Well, I do want to, as long as we're talking about actors, just off the top, our lead, our adult version of that young girl is, of course, Amelia Clark, who may know from a game of thrones or the Terminator Genesis. But you did not know her like this.

So now it's our first story. Yes. I like her quite a bit. She's really good in this. She is so charming. Who knows she had that dimension? It makes me feel like she was, I never really, I didn't think she was bad as Daenerys,

but I didn't love her as Daenerys, but I think she's great in this. And it's like, oh, because she's got like a sparkle to her, that the Game of Thrones couldn't take advantage of I think she is very ill-served by like the sort of solemn roles that she's been forced to take so far because I think that she has a real Like talent for light comedy and a charm and yeah, I liked her a lot so She goes home with this fellow and

That initial bliss is ruined because it turns out her her new friend is married and she is out on the streets again. She's a bit of a mess. She works at a, what is this, a year-round Christmas store called, what you will tide. She, where she has addresses an elf and she has ho ho ho written on her hand as a note, which I thought was a pretty kind of funny touch. Like the kind of note you'd write yourself to remember, and you're like, I gotta remember to say, oh, oh, oh. We're introduced to our boss, Santa, who is played by the always incredible Michelle Yo, who is like this tough but fair character.

Though we learned later on that Santa is just an adopted name and that she picks a different name related to whatever business she's working it's one of those little moments where i was like yeah i didn't think you needed to explain that movie like i didn't really think her name her birth name is santa that seems

that it is take it for granted that the person who runs a christmas store is going to take the name sand it was like well why did my parents curse me with the name santa now all i can do is run a christmas store i also want to say that uh... odd real yelled out allowed every time santa was wearing a new uh... outfit so as someone who doesn't uh... necessarily always pay the most attention to clothes and movies

i just wanted to note that uh... that was an a-plus ensemble uh... factory from her from her was the general thought. Yeah, I mean, Michelle, you know, is one of those performers who can kind of do no wrong in my eyes. So yeah, yeah. Any moment she's on screen is a win for me. So this scene, this like kind of first day of work we see it kind of introduces three main plot points. The first, her sister, Marta, who's kind of the like stuffy sister visits and guilt trips are into visiting their parents, so you know that family stress. At one point she is distracted by a well-dressed

hottie, Tom, played by Henry Golding, and then a bird shits in her eye. Big shit. And then, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to say that both four reasons that will become clear later in the movie, obviously, when the twist arrives, but also, like, just because of Henry Golding's general demeanor, it is kind of baffling the degree to which she seems off-put by him. At the, like, she, like, continually talks about how weird he is when he is a perfectly normal looking man and a handsome and polite and quiet. Like, he's not doing anything for her, like, giant reaction,

I guess is what I'm saying. I think that we're supposed to take from it that she is so used to kind of losers and bad boys that someone who is nice is taken as weird. It would also like, he is eventually, he is kind of weird. He's always just like, let me show you all my favorite hidden corners of the city. That's like a little weird. Another torrent.

I would also say, I think it had to do with her embarrassment by getting pooped on a bird in front of him. Because if you remember, when she first saw him, she was like dust in the little Christmas ornaments and looked through the window. I was like, hmm, uh, me like he. Then she went outside, got pooped on a bird, and then after that, she was like, you're so weird. Get away from me. And it's like, you, you like him. The weird thing is to me, he gets weird and're to throughout the movie as his interest in her clearly gets less and less romantic and more and more therapeutic

that was I was like so you got to be a ghost because why else are you I don't understand why you're looking for this relationship well I mean she's a stop describing all my relationships Ellie I mean I know you're really into wounded birds that you can you could pick up and heal and put them back on their nest. Well, I mean, this character is like a manic pixie dream guy in that like he is literally just showing up to improve our main characters life. For reasons that let me just ask for you guys were you guys offended by that? Oh,

not as men. To see men portray that way on screen. I was like, finally, someone's telling my story. I knew that he was a manifestation of her psyche, so it didn't really bother me that much, but I will say that I was kind of relieved that I knew that he was a manifestation of her psyche station of her psyche because I was like, well, if he's a real man, like this would not be a healthy relationship between the two of them over time, like, not at all. He would just be like a thought of wisdom, like for her, and that would all be all of it. And like she would grow dependent on it. Like it would not be a good thing. Or because he helped her through that trauma, she would always associate him with that trauma

and then that would poison their relationship. Yeah, the relationship we built on us on a feeling of obligation. You helped me through this hard time. So now I guess I have to be with you. It's kind of like Zazibites in Joker, where as I was watching, I was like, this character better be a figment

of his imagination because if not, her actions make no sense as human behavior. You know, it's like that she was interested in him at all. Yes, this crazy widow who has a body like Christian Baile in the machinist, yeah, definitely. It's all sharp corners on that guy. So, and then, so of course, as I said, we have our little meat cute. She meets Tom, who again, let me, I can't stress this enough, is a ghost.

And then the last minute. I didn't know. I didn't know. You want to know you didn't know. I'm not saying that it's obvious like while she's talking to her hand to pass through his fucking hand to pass through some shit. She reached that to embrace him and fell on the street. Yeah, that's not her shit, it's echo pleasant. The part where she touched him and her hand passed through and she felt the chill of

the grave in her bones. You know, Stuart, you're saying I can't stress this enough of his a ghost. To me, it sounded like you were trying to like set Halley up with someone, for instance, and we're like, like, there's a very nice guy. Handsome, he's got a job. And cannot stress this enough. He is a ghost. Like, you will not be with him long term.

He will be called to the other side. Anyway, sorry. like you will say he with their long term he will be called to the other side anyway sorry I will I will say if he was not a ghost it does risk falling into the stereotype of the kind of like yeah sexless Asian man which the good him being a ghost who doesn't exist and he's just her heart telling her to be a better person makes a little bit okay but yeah yeah you know but she was into him so I think it avoids that she was attracted to him That's true, but he was very like it was one of the things where she's like come sleep with me And he's like no, I can't we barely know each other and it's like all right who is that was one of the moment I was like this dude better be a ghost like

Do you guys know what this means? What's up? It means I finally saw ghost. Oh Hally we did it. It's a Christmas miracle It means I finally saw ghosts. Oh, Hally we did it. It's a Christmas miracle. Yeah. Literally. Hally they just did like a little tada motion. Yeah.

OK, and then the last plot point we deal with on that first day of work is we find out that Santa has a mysterious relationship with a distinguished looking Colin Firth German type guy. Danish. Danish, sure. And at some point eventually she helps, you know, a couple scenes later, she's going to help San, I get that date with that fella. Colin Firth is way harder than that guy.

I think that's... Oh, okay. Yeah. The guy is also, he is a little weird in that he is obsessed with Christmas trinkets. And there's fun to me that's like, where he keeps presenting them as like, this is what you're into, right? And I wanted to see the scene where Michelle Yo was like,

okay, straight talk. I just do this really. I'm like, not really into Christmas novelty crap. Like you don't have to keep bringing me lots of Christmas stuff, but we don't get to see that scene. No, he's into cabbage. He's into sour crap. Well, he's family to sour crap family, yeah.rap. Well, his family is a sourcrap family, yeah.

I do want to say also, I think it's bears noting that these scenes between the two of them are played broadly comic, but I found it genuinely funny, where they immediately are dumbstruck with one another and cannot say anything without huge pregnant pauses in between them and gazing into each other's eyes and not breaking eye contact. So that's the gag of those scenes.

Yeah, it's funnated also keeps the romantic pressure on the movie. So Kate leaves work and rushes to perform in an audition. She has a couple of these throughout the movie where she performs and Peter's air of finnawits is mean to her. She's trying to be a singer right? That's the whole deal. Yes, but she has not been able to sing since who knows. She sounded bad. At this audition, she did not sound good guys. Yeah. Wow. This

was not your dad. We should go in the panel of judges on that. uh... well this was not just a guy in the panel of judges on that halloween like pitchy dog very pitchy i'll go there uh... yeah that's all they need somebody who does the straight uh... that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that canceled. I want to see Hallie Hacle so badly on the voice in her just to be like, that was not good. And then no other, no other commentary. Or if someone blows them away, she's just like, that was good. So she keeps bumping into Tom. He's, he behaves mysteriously. He is vague about his

lifestyle and where he lives. He describes his own behavior as kind of serial killer, which I guess is meant to like what hang a lantern on it. And then he takes her to a secret garden and they sit on a bench. Yeah, which is one of the many things in here that does not make sense if this is a manifestation simply of her consciousness, because like, how does she know about this secret bench Which turns out to be a bench that was donated in his honor like at the end of the movie You know unless the heart inside her

Still has some sort of sentience Yeah, now it's possible. It's possible. She fell asleep while watching a show called like Britain's like London's hidden secrets And then just absorbed it subconsciously, but I think it was that a ghost took her there. How do you think? Yeah, I don't understand Dan why you're so committed to this being a manifestation of her, like emotional needs when you make us watch all these fucking

stupid movies that are all fantastical about like other dimensions. Can it just be a supernatural intervention? Well, I guess because I don't like that as much. That sort of buys into this notion that there is going to be some sort of intervention in your life. And that's what you need to change. Whereas I think you can read this movie metaphorically, if not literally, as like this is her helping herself

because that person is not actually there. And I find the movie more interesting as a light comedy drama about like figuring out how to come through depression and trauma, then like a romantic comedy where you know like the guys just an angel or something you know. I mean he's not one he's a ghost too. I'm saying that type of movie. I'm curious Dan. Do you feel it is less sophisticated as a story, if it is a, if it literally has a literal ghost, than if it is a metaphorical ghost who just represents her

inner thoughts and feelings? No, what I'm saying, I'm fine with it being a ghost story where the ghost is a metaphor for that. If it's a reading where it's like just supernatural intervention, like that I don't for that. If it's a reading where it's just supernatural intervention, like that I don't care for. Well, can it be both? It can literally be a supernatural intervention, but you, the viewer, are taking it as a metaphor

for your own life since. If you watch the movie and you're like, oh, well, I better wait for a ghost to tell me what to do. That would be a not a reasonable reaction to the movie. Well, Elliot, we're saying exactly the same thing. I'm saying that I can't take it. No, no, same thing. I'm saying that I think we're... No, no, hold on. I'm saying that I can't take it both supernaturally

and as a metaphor. I can take it as that way. But if someone simply takes it as supernatural, I do not like that. So you're saying for a smart person like you who can read it at both levels, it's a good movie, but for a dumb dumb who's like, go, go, go, go, so okay.

I thought they was scary, but now I know they're good and they'll help me with my problems. I know, no, I know why. You think it's bad for them. I know why you think it's bad for them. You can bring out your poison pen for the takedown on this one. No, I just, I think you're splitting a hair

that you might not need to be splitting. Well, I mean, it's the hair that I need to split in my own minds. Like, you're telling that I'm gonna be just split it. Well, I mean, it's the hair that I need to split in my own mind. Like, you're telling that I need to split it. Like, I gotta split. I gotta split things sometimes. As long as you know, you're splitting for yourself. Everybody's gotta split.

We're talking about splitting. We're talking about splitting. We're now that we're talking about splitting. Let's talk about how Kate splits hanging out with Tom and goes to live with her. It goes to stay with some friends. But her like quirky selfish bullshit just keeps ruining her relationships.

She destroys this poor guy's fucking model collection. And that is a bridge too far for me. Mm-hmm. Was that when you turned on, you turned on Kate when you saw that she ruined not one, but two of his craft projects? Exactly, yeah. I, I, what I did was I turned to my cat meatball when you saw that she ruins not one but two of his craft projects exactly yeah i what i did was i turned to my cat meatball who's been knocking my stuff off

my shelves and i said that's you you're that your it's so at this point this became a horror story for you because you're like okay it's a ghost and a demon woman teaming up together to reek god knows what happened uh... what havoc on crafts across London. Now, I don't know if you guys noticed,

there's a little story within a story where, so she's staying with her pregnant friend and her friend's husband. And one thing I will give this movie credit for is that this is maybe the most multi-ethnic cast in a London set movie that I've seen in, maybe ever, and I really liked that they were to take advantage of the fact that London is a diversity.

But that she ruins his, she, they flashbacked, her friend is pregnant. And they flashbacked a nine months ago when she ruined her friend's husband's model ship. And I think the assumption is that he was so distraught that her friend had to have sex with him to like take his mind off of it and got pregnant and now they're gonna have the baby.

So that baby owes its life to Kate ruining that model ship and that's a trade off I'm willing to make people over ships. That's what I say. People over hobbies, you know? I don't know if I agree with that. That's fine. We can be different. Seeing as I'm a parent and now have no hobbies, I really use people over hobbies in my

life. So, now, when... I think a parenting is a hobby. It's the toughest hobby you'll ever love. So now I think a parenting is a hobby It's a toughest hobby you'll ever love You're like and I can pick it up and put it down whenever I feel like my career is of course I'm working on this child for at least a year and he's still not done Yeah, I mean until you start making money off being a parent you're still an amateur But I it also raised a question.

So Stuart, if your models got destroyed, would human intimacy make up for that, or would you be like, no, no, get away from me? This doesn't do the same thing. Yeah, yeah, that's basically, I think that's kind of the plot of the 40-year-old virgin, right? Okay, so she returns to work, but it appears that somebody has broken into ULTIDE, the X-Mistore, that she works at. That's me reading my notes directly, because I wrote X-Mist now. And so Santa is talking to the police, and after the police

leave, Santa reveals that she had to fake the break-in Kate had forgotten to lock up and that she made Santa commit a crime to cover for her. So she really let Santa down. Yeah I mean the real Santa commits you know hundreds of thousands of crimes every year just so much breaking and entering. Trespassing hate hate crimes, lots of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He's got it. I mean, I've broken a window now and then.

They've got to assume that there's a chimney that's too narrow and he's like, uh, they'll love these toys. I'll just smash this window and get in. And then he's like, ooh, look at this jewelry. It's computer. They shouldn't have left that lying around. I just put that into sand as little sack. And you know what? I'll keep the toys, too. This would look lovely. This is a lot of trade for all the toys I've had it out over the years. Santa deserves to be a big little.

To have her Santa to get his beak wet and then the homeowner is like Santa what are you doing here and Santa's like get away and shoots the homeowner. And then the homeowner is like it's fair it's the purge. Oh yeah I forgot that Christmas Eve is the purge night also. Yeah. Oh, okay. So it was just throwing bombs at people's houses. It's purge night. Don't worry about me.

So she bumps into Kate, you know, Kate's feeling pretty down. She bumps into Tom again. He tries to, he takes her to a homeless shelter. And at this point, it's like, where Tom's pretty mysterious. Despite being a like, we're, Tom's pretty mysterious, despite being a ghost, we're not sure if he lives at the homeless shelter or whatever he says that he, he says that he like helps out there or even on the tiers. He encourages her to help out, but she is hesitant. Later on, obviously, when looking for Tom, she

ends up accidentally helping at a homeless shelter. It is a real dick move, I think, for her to be like, I don't really have a home. I'm effectively homeless. And he's like, okay, here's the homeless shelter. Why don't you stay here? I'll call you in your bluff. And she's like, I guess I could go, go, stay at my parents' house.

And I thought that was a real smug move on his part. Yeah. Yeah. For a ghost who doesn't need a home, like easy for him to say, he could just like ha haunt wherever he could just float around, you know. That's what I do. That's what I do. Yeah, Dan would, Dan would,

it's like hausing, haunt the local locker rooms. That's what I do. Like, haunt the local locker rooms. Libelastic, yeah. Sous-sousation. Sorry. Yeah, Dan, I guess your ghost can sue Stuart after you die.

If your ghost doesn't just hang around locker rooms, what you know it's going to do. And you're like, I'm so in Stewart, I'm at a dressing room, not a locker room. Okay. So she gets a ride to visit her mother. She gets a ride from her father who drives a cab. Obviously, all the relationships in this family

are chilly, her mother's played by Emma Thompson, who let's just say makes a meal out of this role. Which, to be honest, I think adds just enough, at least for me, just enough energy to her like, you know, like her big Yugoslavian mother performance. Well, and they're, it's, they never go into total detail with it, which is fine, but they're, they're clearly, I guess they're like Croatian or Serbocroation, and it's implied that they had to escape during the, during the, the terrors in Yugoslavia when, yeah,

there was all sorts of ethnic strife in the country. I mean, it's got implied. They said it right now. Right. Well, but they never, they like never, she says like, all my friends are dead and like we had to leave But they don't they don't go much more than that like I was never sure if they were at Amelia Clark says it at one point She's like yeah my family. I'll had to leave there during the

The tear didn't she? Yeah, yeah, no they sit but that in a remind they say I was like I was never quite clear if they were Serbs or Croats or Serbicoation. It's not really necessary, you know, but yeah They're ready to use is all that's important. Yeah, she stays the night with her mom and her mom takes her to a doctor's appointment in the morning and that's where we get a little more background that Kate has been, Kate has been dealing with a medical condition and she has not been, she's not been going to the doctor enough and her mother is still a point of stress, et cetera, et cetera. She's dealing with a very serious condition called movie heart problemitis, a loosely defined problem

with her heart that, you know. Well, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. That's not like by this time in the film, she's had a heart transplant. And the concern is that she needs to live her life more healthily because she is weakened because she had gone through this transplant. That is the concern. It's not like she's got movie heartitis.

I just want to be fair. I think it's movie heartitis. Okay. But obviously, she's still having trouble moving on with after suffering the both immense physical trauma of getting a heart transplant as well as the emotional problems that it would be pretty pretty funny if the doctor was like well we took an extra and there's a ghost in your heart. We got the transplant. The donor heart should have been cleansed of ghosts. That's why we have a priest on staff. But the good news is, eventually that ghost is going to jump out of your heart and teach you how to live your life. But in between, it's going to be a couple of rough months there.

Yeah, luckily it's a mostly benevolent ghost. We've had a few people come in with malignant ghosts. Very dangerous, very bad. But you've got a benign. You've got a button goes. Yeah, it's a charming ghost, which is, which is the best. Like a topper. Yeah, you got a stopper was not the ghost.

He was just the guy that doubled by Carrie Grant and who else was in that? I don't know. Mrs. Topper. Yeah. Anyway, like Piro tool in the movie high spirits. So we, we're not the rock and roll band high spirits. I don't know. She's a different thing

Sorry, so Kate goes on further adventures with Tom. He takes her to a skating rink and she skates around She goes to a family dinner where everybody's mad at each other and then Kate fucking outs her sister to her parents, which is kind of wild like that. I feel like that's raising an unforgivable territory. I have no but you guys. This is where the movie was kind of like, hmm, should we try to be fleabag for a couple minutes? We're close enough. Uh, no, this is too much, too much, too much, not fleabag and get out of here enough. Like it is, it's pretty intense for her to do, but her parents either are pretending

or kind of don't seem to pick up too strongly on it. So if that scene could have gone a lot more dramatic. And, and, and, Emma Thompson does a lot of, they seem pretty cool with it. Yeah, I mean, they did, they do seem almost instantly pretty cool with it, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like that, that is the, they, they, they backed off on some of the bad parts of that scene a little bit. Well, there's something, see, that's the thing about this movie that got to me a little bit, which is that it is very much a fluff Christmas movie about a misguided woman who gets put on her way by a ghost and falls in love with that ghost. But it's, they, they keep kind of hinting at these more serious things like refugees and xenophobia and Britain or homophobia among

like older people, but then they don't it this is going to be a light movie so they kind of don't want to get too deep into those things. So they just kind of throw them in there for a moment and then back off and it left me feeling a little confused. Well, it also, I mean, with the lesbian plot, in particular, which I, you know, I can spoil ahead, like, there's all this concern over it. And then we skip ahead at the end of the movie and we see them all together and like,

like the mom is complimenting the girlfriend and all this stuff. And it does feel like there was a scene missing. Like, I don't think that the parents had to be like angry at her or I mean like they could be like we are very traditional people but we love you as is you know we hope the case out there with might you know might happen for people like that but that scene is missing you? Yeah. I guess we have to assume it happens during the many scenes of her setting up that talent show at the end. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It was originally intended to be in the background while the talent show auditions were happening. So Kate is despondent after her terrible family dinner experience. She goes out drinking. She bumps into Tom again. he takes her to his apartment, and Kate has a kind of a breakdown and she reveals that a year ago,

she'd had a heart transplant and how she's having trouble moving on with her life. Yeah, I don't know, there's very little... I mean, they don't sleep together. No, he's very gentle and it's like good. He gives her a kiss. Oh, yeah. After her request, he gives her a chased kiss on the lips, but there's a lot of like therapy talk here where he's like, he's like, he's like, just living his hard. We have to be easier with ourselves about just getting through the day.

And it's like, all right, now he's moving into like something. He passed like the dream of the supportive partner to like all the way onto like yeah like like ghost therapist and even to the degree that like yeah he's like like you're going through trauma right now like all you need is to sleep you know. But I did think it was interesting that I thought that this movie and like this scene in particular investigated the idea. I mean, I feel like whenever like transplant is used as a plot point in any sort of like a story, it's like the end point and it's it's usually just not examined like this of like, yeah, even if everything goes right, it's gonna feel really fucking weird when you get a transplant and you have this thing in your body and like you don't know what that means

for your future. You know something broke and you don't know if it's gonna be fixed in the long run and I don't know, I thought that was like something that I hadn't really thought about when I think about like people getting transplants. I agree with that too. Like that was maybe my favorite stuff in the movie, just the fact that like she had this thing, she had this close call that most people would think, okay, you would just feel blessed about that.

But it creates such, you know, like PTSD and all this other stuff that, like, I liked that the movie was about that and about getting through it. And in a way, I think, on some level, it justifies the parallel between the idea of, like, refugees and transplants and that. So I just want to mention, we mentioned the phrase, we mentioned the phrase ghost therapist, there is the movie pitch Just because he's dead doesn't mean his patients don't still need him and the ghost comes back And I can see the scene the trailer where a patient gets really mad and picks up like something like a stapler from his desk and throws it through him

And it hits the wall and he goes are we done and that's what it does to exist ghost therapist I feel like I feel like after the events of this movie, she needs to just keep Tom's ghost around to have her set up an inspirational Instagram account or something. Something with a lot of different fonts. So, let's see, talking to Tom kind of inspires Kate. So she sets out to help people. She starts singing carols in the street.

And then that kind of right in front of the homeless shelter. And then they bring her into the shelter. And she starts setting up. She starts organizing the, it's like a Christmas talent show, right? Or like a Christmas pageant? It's like a fundraiser talent show where people with money will pay to see the homeless cavort in front of them for their amusement. There's a little bit of a thing here that bugs me where earlier in the movie she tells her boss she's like I don't think I'm gonna do

auditions anymore they're not good for me and Michelle Wio is like good I'm glad you came to that and she's like now it's time to make the homeless audition because like is she really gonna turn down any of these people and not let them be in the talent show like how cruel would that be? Like, yeah, no, they gotta sing for their supper, really. So then she bumps into Tom again. You know, she's ready to make a full commitment, but Tom has a secret, so they get in a fight

and she runs off. No, I just like the secret thing, just remind me, like while I was watching it, I, like there's the secret thing, just reminded me like while I was watching it, I like there's the scene later on where he like where like she's figured it out and then he shows up again later and I just imagine him being like, oh so I'm sorry about keeping it secret that I'm a ghost. Like I really should, you know, that's on me. Like I really, yeah, they bump into,

she bumps into him later and he's like, I'm sorry, but I'm married. I'm a married ghost. I'm married to another ghost. And then a lady ghost comes by. Who's this, Tom? He just hands like, he's like, no, no, not her. Kim, I'm also gay.

I should have mentioned I'm gay and a ghost and I'm married. Did I not and also I'm secretly a millionaire, but I. Did it and he hands record that says I'm sorry. It shows like a bashful ghost and says I'm sorry and then you open says that I'm a ghost. Yeah, it says I made a boo. Boo. I made a boo. It says, I really put the boo in boo boo.

Yeah. Cool. So meanwhile, when Kate is visiting her mom, Petra, her mother, sees like the news and sees anti-immigrant demonstrations on the news. And then later on, Kate is riding a bus, and there's some racist dickhead shouting at people, telling people to leave the country. And Kate is inspired to step up in like form a bond with a couple that is speaking Yugoslavia. I think if they're speaking a servicro at, or like Yugoslavia, I mean, Yugoslian? I think if they're speaking a Serbacroat.

Or like Yugoslavian, I mean, Yugoslavia as a nation was the conglomeration of a number of different territories that were majority of different ethnic groups. So, but the, she also, this is a moment where she embraces her heritage. Yes, the whole movie she's been rejecting the name Katarina in favor of Kate. Because her favorite movie, Kate and Leopold.

She could have named herself Leopold, but for whatever reason she decided not to. Wasn't bad about ghosts too? That was about time travel, right? Yeah, he was a huge act man was a man out of time. He was a noble from the past where everything was better. Everything, oh, the gentleman, back in the past. Just that a ghost. So nice to women, back in the past. Does that look so nice to women back in the past.

What is a ghost? Is a ghost a tragedy condemned or repeated time and again? And instead of being perhaps something dead, which still seems to be alive, an emotion suspended in time, like a blurred photograph, like an insect, trapped in amber. So, uh, I like how it feels like we're like your tool set. And you're like paking us, you're like finding us on the shelf in the video display. Oh, yeah, you're talking about the storage locker that I have to record on yesterday.

It does for anyone, anyone who's trying to imagine, it's like in the movies when there's a camera shot from inside a refrigerator, when someone opens up a refrigerator, that's what it looks like while we're looking at it. Like, we're the catch up, and he's just looking into the fridge. I'm like, why is there all this fucking sunny D?

I just want my purple stuff. So, or like maybe like an old jar of like pickled cabbage will start talking to me and it's a commercial for cleaning your refrigerator. So is that the thing that they have commercials for that? Like from the clean fridge council, clean your refrigerator, won't you? Like there's refrigerant, he's like, oh, I'm so full of dirt. I don't feel so good. I want to check clean your fridge.

Give your fridge a fridge cleaning day Talk to me about the clean fridge council dirt and a fridge. I mean it doesn't need to be cold It's shelf stable. Oh Why are people putting cold dirt in me? So somebody's like I'm gonna have acation. I better put this flower pot in the fridge so the flower stays fresh So Kate starts to oh, it's like when people put batteries in the fridge so the flower stays fresh. So Kate starts to oh it's like when people put batteries in the freezer. You're like what do you want to make a remote control? Hold.

Are you supposed to put batteries in the freezer? I think so yet. Also, it could be a commercial for those the refrigerators that are connected to the internet because isn't their job to tell you if something's bad or not They like to survey me. What do you need the internet for that? Because I don't know But that's the point of that you want to see if your food is bad from a distance Because they're in like they're in the bad food chat room Take a look at these hot pigs

Yeah, I don't want my refrigerator attached to the internet and suddenly there's just a bunch of porn in the refrigerator. I don't need that. I like my porn hot, not cold. I'm always pop-ups. I'm just trying to be like, pushing pop-up windows out of the way to get to the eggs. You're like, oh, come on. So Kate starts to try and make amends. She attempts to repair the bond with her sister. It goes okay. She spends time with her mom and goes to a farmer's market. She goes and starts apologizing to all the friends

that she is disappointed. I think this is, they probably, I think this scene is set to like freedom or something, right? Yeah, I think so. I did like the implication that her relationship with her mom I think this is, they probably, I think this scene is set to like free-dum or something, right? Yeah, I think so. I did like the implication that her relationship with her mom was not so bad that it couldn't be fixed by one afternoon at a farmer's market. Yeah.

When they took shots together. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, her mom seems like a little overbearing, but not that. I mean, pretty normal mom, like not that different than it's like the kind of person we have to be like, mom, but it wasn't like, there was no reason to leave the house. But also at the end of the movie, mom and dad who have not talked basically for years seem like happy together or at least very friendly. The like they've accepted the daughter, like everyone's happy.

And the implication is the one problem this family was our lead that our lead somehow dragged down the entire family until it became better. That can happen. I have had friends where their family is destroyed by a sibling who's just like such a hard person to deal with. But every now and then, a ghost comes in, sets that family straight.

So Dan, I guess what I'm saying is this movie shouldn't be taken literally, because it does happen. Okay. taken literally because it does happen. So she returns to Tom's apartment. She wants to share all of her good vibes with her buddy, Tom, only to find that a stranger dressed similarly to him, who makes his living as a realtor is selling the apartment. Why?

In the in one of the cupboards that she finds Tom's cell phone, and then all of a sudden, she realizes, she's looking around the office, she sees all the things, she realizes, she's been talking to Kaiser Soze the whole time. It hits her like a ton of bricks. Tom died last Christmas, he got hit by a bus, then he donated his heart,

and that heart now resides in her chest. Can you believe it? We, Dan, we should have known from the legs. Last Christmas got hit by a bus. I gave my heart to Amelia Clark. Okay, wait, I had a question. Did you guys, was this the joke or was it only funny to me? At first, I was like, oh, I'm so clever for realizing that this was funny and then I'm like,

oh maybe this is the point of the thing. But the thing that he keeps telling everyone is look up, but then he was like, on a bike he got hit by a chop. That is like, that is philosophy in life. Look up is just tied in with him not looking up exactly Yeah, how did you hurt you hurt your pointer finger? Are you okay? You're pointing it as vehemently and I saw a bandaid over it I know it's really My child is obsessed with pointing so this is a serious injury in my house

I caught myself on cooking item I was washing. Make it up, yeah. I made a cake for my son. We used the feature that's the greater feature in the food processor. And then when I was watching it, watching it, I just sliced my finger. Yeah. That's a common injury in the Kalen household to me. Washing something sharp and then and you get those like those shallow cuts where there's a lot of blood that it takes forever to heal and like, exactly. And then he, yeah, and then I had to give him a bath last night and everything

reopened. And so then I had to wrap my finger up and there was all this blood. And I left a tissue on the counter while I was putting him to bed to my husband's thought as a passive aggressive gesture of like, just so you know, I was bleeding. And he should have helped. He could have, he should maybe have been the one to give the bath. But I know you're supposed to. It's like as if there was a bath in lime juice in your life. Oh, that citrus, right? And the cut. I know.

I was like, this will help, right? The worst part was when your son took your finger and put it in his mouth, and now he has a taste for human blood. That's never going to go away. Have we ever talked about having a baby really made me think about how horrible it would be if a baby was bitten by a vampire and so that baby never grows up and is just a baby forever screaming constantly for blood and it does it's like what it was the I sometimes lie awake at night worried that's going to happen and it would be so nightmarish to

like your kid never grows up and is always a baby. Wow. LA, it's writing concept stuff for like 1990s world of darkness vampire the masquerade source books. So, so we finally got to see also all the scenes, the flashbacks to the scenes with Tom, but Tom's not there because he was a ghost. Yep. So we finally get that moment. You know, I feel like if I was going to direct a movie just to keep everybody on their toes, I would shoot every scene with at least one person missing. So they think like, wait, it's my character ghost the whole time. So she runs into ghost Tom. They're sitting on the secret garden. Steward sitting with the producers. They're like, Stuart, you're way over budget and you're way over shooting schedule.

It's going to be the best prank. Don't worry guys. So we, and then we see, of course, as Dan mentioned before, there's a little dedication plaque on the bench in the secret garden to Tom Webster with his catchphrase lookup. Theoretically the last thing that went through his mind before the bus. Look up, by the way, is one of those things that seems like it's meaningful, but I never quite understood this inspiring message. Well, if you're looking down, you might not see like a sign that looks like a grasshopper or some shit like they do in the movie, you know,

you see those grasshopper signs. So it's like that song from Sesame Street looking at a crack in the sidewalk. I nearly missed the rainbow. That song. I don't know that song, but it sounds like a George Michael song, because it's so depressing. Yeah. All right, sorry, go on.

Okay, so then we're at the, we have the Christmas pageant at the homeless shelter, and basically every character who is shown up in this movie. Anyone who has had a speaking role is there. It is huge. And of course, Kate gets up there in her elf, elf suit and sings last Christmas. And the audience loses their

fucking minds like it's a vent horizon. I will say, I was like an angel, voice like an angel. This is that voice that showed up to the additions. Wow. This is a movie that I was, I was pretty cynical about, but this scene I was like, okay movie you got me. I like seeing everybody show up and she, you know, entertains them and stuff. It did for me what Craig teen Elson and Marystein Virgin tangoing to me loaf in a book club did for Dan. Yep. I mean, not that I cried, but I was like, okay, you got me movie. No, it's a very, very sweet moment. Then we have, you know, like a family Christmas or boxing day meal where the whole

family is there. Marta and Nora, Nora, that's the name of the girl. Alba, right? Alba. Yeah, Alba. Okay. And they're all hanging out. They're having a great old time telling jokes. And then we get a last shot of Kate sitting in that secret garden in the spring. She seems to have gotten her life together. She looks like she got her hair done and has a new dress. And she looks up into the sky presumably at ghost Tom. And then we have credits.

And the credits are accompanied by scenes from the movie unrelated to the credits. Yeah. She also, and by the end she's wearing a lot less makeup, right? Or is she just wearing more natural looking makeup? I think she's wearing more natural looking makeup. That's one thing that kind of bothers me at the end of the movie, honestly, because she looked kind of born again almost, not to like put anyone's like religion down. I grew up in a religious household

and that is fine, but she like looks scrubbed in a way that seemed to like take away, I don't know, something of her personality. Because you like a girl with a little some grit on her, a little sin. Yeah, the sadder about why is your girl for me, Elliot? Yeah, like Saturn but why is your girl for me Elliot? Yeah, like the librarian But it's I I think Dan I mean, I'm also not not a that one of the things that kept me from being into this movie for most of Anytime is that Christmas is not a magical time for me because it is not a holiday I take part in and I feel like it is forced I can't get away from it during the time

But if a ghost came and visited me, I'm probably convert. I mean, that's about all the evidence. If a ghost was like, hey, I'm a ghost, I'm dead now. This is what the afterlife is like. I'm like, well, I'm not gonna argue with this. Like this is, you know, I'm like always pranking. And like all these fantasy movies where, I don't know,

there's like demons from hell, but the like person in charge is like still struggling with their faith. And I'm like, I think you just had your worldview confirm, dude. Like, just be cool with it all now. Yeah, you know what? Well, that's, you gotta extrapolate that to like in the Marvel movies. Why does that world like, why is that world not

got me like, okay, the North Scots were the real ones. I guess that's the way it is. Like all this Jesus stuff was kind of a fake this all time because I can see Thor. He's right there, he's fighting crime. I like it. This is kind of all the time. This is much more of an interventionist god

than our god. I've never seen Chris come down in crime in those movies, right? He's just very much on. He's just very much on monsters. I mean, it is the, those monsters are doing property damage. Property damage, monsters are doing, you know, property damage. Property damage, murder, attempted murder. Like property damage.

Do you always put property before theft? Oh, no. I mean, Ultron was trying to destroy an entire country. Or city, right? So, I feel like that's a crime. But if Jesus came down and was fighting a giant robot, or like a, you know, a sarcastic robot that was trying to destroy a foreign country I'd be like you know it Judaism we had a we had a good ride but

But I feel like this this is all I need you know, yeah Well anyway, I guess that's basically you're not seeing Buddha go up against Thanos. That's all I'm saying you know So we can do our final judgments about whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie kind of liked guys. I gotta say, I kind of liked this movie. I thought it was perfectly pleasant. I thought it was fun. I thought she was like super charming in it, and the supporting cast was good. And also, I think I've been thinking about it and the reason I split that hair before is for me, if you read this

as a sort of supernatural intervention, like that is too close to me for like kind of a divine intervention where it takes away her agency in, you know, her own recovery. And so I think that as a movie that appeals to someone, doesn't even have to be someone who has gone through trauma, but maybe someone who is just working through depression or some sort of bad turn in their life. I don't know, I really liked that part of it. I thought it was sort of inspiring in a weird way. So that's what I thought about the movie.

Okay, Hallie, ready for you to roast the movie? This fucking ROOLD! No, I think the text I said, I was trying to find the text I sent it to Dan after I watched it which was something like Hold on let me find it We've been texting a lot No, it's cool. I mean we live in the same city at same time zone But I had you over my house for dinner, but that's okay like we don't need to we don't need to I mean most of the text thing was about technical issues that I had fucked up, but I said

We be feel good movie of the century. Nothing snarky to say about it. Renewed my faith in the human race. If you watched it and felt differently, then you are a monster and I don't want to know you. But. I'm relieved. So I loved it.

I had it. I really enjoyed the watch. But I guess Dan, I like push, but I want to like push back after you've made that statement about what you think of it because like there's like no real evidence in the movie that like she actually does anything to further like her own, like there's no real role that she plays in her own healing besides like very much towards the end when she's like listen you're bad for me if you're not gonna take care of me so I'm cutting you out of my life but like but, but, but as a metaphor for like, like if he's supposed to be,

like we don't see her playing a role in her own healing at all. So like all he could be is a metaphor. So, so I don't really, I don't think that the movie like provides that for me necessarily. Because you don't really see like the wheels turning in her head at all until like very much towards the end. you don't really see like the wheels turning in her head at all until like very much towards the end. Yeah, I mean, well first off, I don't want to imply that I don't believe like everyone could use help in getting over things and it's good to reach out for help and you shouldn't have to like do it all on your own. So I don't want to like give that impression by putting forth my feelings on it, but I do feel like if you accept the central premise that he could be like some sort of manifestation

of her own need, then you can see everything that he inspires her to do as coming from herself, I guess is the way I would put it. then you can see everything that he inspires her to do as coming from herself. I guess is the way I would put it. It's a muddy thing. I just find it like, I don't know. For me, the movie works better or best like with that kind of, I am realizing how to improve my life by doing things for others kind of feel that I appreciate it. I don't know. Yeah, so this is a movie that I've watched twice now. I watched it on my own time and then when I heard we were doing this episode, I decided to watch it again.

And yeah, I mean, I feel like the twist is incredibly silly. But I feel like that a ghost in her heart is showing you the true meaning of helplessness. Yep, thank you for making that text. The, as opposed to subtext. But yeah, I mean like Amelia Clark, I think is very charming. Henry Golding is fine, but man, like Emma Thompson, Emma Thompson and Michelle Yo are so great. They're so much fun to watch. I wonder if Michelle Yo and Henry Golding talked about all the fun times they had on the set of Crazy Rich Asians, but you know,

maybe that's for the book about the making of this movie. And it, I feel like, I feel like for like a test run for like a George Michael themed like jukebox musical, this is a pretty good like initial statement. Like I feel like you could turn this into a full on musical, like a stage musical. Yeah, so come on Broadway, give it all coven and come back with one of the uh... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha good bad. I think it's in that realm of like this is not necessarily a bad movie, but it's not a for it's not for me type of movie. Like I kept kind of as as super charming as Amelia Clark is. The movie is like never really like funny and there are a few times when it's trying to be funny. There's a joke about nuts and nutcrackers that I found so incredibly load some that it was like movie. You're better than this, come on. But there were times when I was like,

oh, there's a more, like I wanted this movie to go to be a little bit less cutesy and go a little bit farther into like Emma Thompson and Michelle Yo's characters, partly because they're amazing actors, but also like there's something about their experience as like first generation, as like immigrants, basically, that are making their way in this place and kind of doing whatever they have to,

where I was like, oh, I've never seen like a Christmas movie that is from that angle, but they touched on it a little bit. So that's all right, but I would say, look, if you're looking for a movie to watch with your family, when you visit your parents on a holiday, this movie will be fine for everybody and it'll solve that problem.

And I think Stuart is exactly right. This would be, I think, even more successful creatively as a George Michael or WAM, Duke Box musical that's on stage. I think the ghost twist would be a lot easier to take us like kind of a fun thing on a stage show than in a movie, because in a movie you're like expecting more.

Well, I was like, when I was watching this with Audrey who really enjoys it but enjoys it more as a bad movie than I do, I think she was like, oh, this twist is so dumb. And I'm like, yeah, it is, but I also think sort of like what you're saying, if this was a movie from like 1938 or something, we'd accept it more because we'd be like, oh, okay, like I understand this context for sort of light, romantic, supernatural comedy, you know? Well, here's the difference I think would be in, if they did it in the 30s, I think there would be probably a more of a genuine sense of like,

when the reveal or the ending would have more of a genuine sense of religiosity to it, which I think it helped in some ways. But also, here's what you do with this movie. Don't make it the twist at the end. Have her find out he's a ghost like halfway through, like a quarter of the way in. Something, you know, maybe not a quarter, like a third of the way in.

And then that way it doesn't become the movie's only twist. And then you get her dealing with a ghost Which is opens up a whole a whole new world. So here's what we do We make it a stage show we put some more George Michael songs in there and we find out that he's a ghost earlier in it So it's not it doesn't feel like it's a slender read that the whole movie is resting on you know Okay, it's a little bit like if you if you made memento and at the end you were like and by the way He doesn't have his memory. He'd be like, wait, what? That's what I was waiting for this whole time.

But when you know that going in, it's just smooth gravy. Guys, this is like Caitlin for smooth gravy. You like smooth gravy? Here's a lot of people don't realize how smooth gravy can be. And so we here at Smooth Gravy have decided to take out the worst part of gravy, the lumps, and give you just that smooth, smooth gravy liquid. But the lumps are usually the meat. Yeah, well, we just keep churning that meat till it's super, super smooth.

You know, we sand it down. Sanded meat is another product I've been working on. Gross. Hi, I'm Allie Gertz. And I'm Julia Prescott. And we host Round Springfield. Round Springfield is a Simpsons adjacent podcast where we talk to your favorite Simpsons writers, voice actors, and everyone is working the show to talk about shows that aren't

the Simpsons. So we're going to be talking to people like David Exkoen, Eardley Smith, Tim Long, about other projects they've worked on. Sometimes projects that didn't go well. Some failures, some rejections, some failed pilots, some failed life events. Yeah, we just talked to all the failures of the Simpsons. Yeah. So if you really love your Simpsons trivia and want to get to know the people who have worked

on the Simpsons a little bit better, come by around Springfield. Every other week on MaximumFund.org or wherever you get your podcasts. 20. I don't know how to describe it. There's always that moment where Jesse asks a question that the person he's interviewing has not thought of before. I don't think anyone's ever said that to me or acknowledged that to me and that is so real. Bullseye! Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Okay, well, I promise to keep this a little shorter than normal. So let's move on to the next stuff in the show. We don't have sponsors from a corporation this week, but we have sponsors from you. I think Stuart, I sent you a jumbo tron. Do you have that? Heck, yeah, you did. And this is your invite to review party.com, a quirky new podcast. Each week, Brent and Matt find user reviews from across the internet on everything from products to services, hotels to restaurants, found everywhere from Amazon to Google to Yelp.

With brains set for comedy, the pair explore the wacky worlds of the reviewers, explaining the inexplicable and finding the insane in the mundane task of writing a review. Join them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or find it all on reviewparty.com.com. It is reviewparty.dot.com. So join the party, listen to reviewparty.com, the only podcast that reviews, reviews. There's one more thing we'd like to promote. That is, on August 15th, we'll be doing our promised, threatened, long awaited reading of the script for the boy next door.

That's right, this was a reward to our flopp house listeners for all the charitable giving they gave during our Howard the Duck Live Talk stream video thing for charity. We were really amazed by how many people turned out for that. How much money they donated. We were really inspired by it. So we did the only thing we could do with that inspiration. And we organized a reading of the script for the boy next door, starring Jennifer Lopez and other people. That's going to be Saturday, August 15th at 9 p.m. Eastern 6 p.m. Pacific. You want to see it? Just go to the Flop House YouTube page. That's www.youtube.com slash C slash the Flop House podcast.

Or you can also just Google Flop House podcast YouTube page. I did that and it took me to the same basic place. It's going to be us, Halle is going to be there. Should we mention right off the bat that yes, the dream casting is happening, Dan McCoy will be playing the part of Jennifer Lopez and Halle. We'll be playing the titular boy who creeps all over Jennifer Lopez. So if you ever wanted to see Halle creep on Dan, this is the time to do it.

She will have the immortal line. I love your mom's cookies, as said in the movie, the boy next door. So again, that's August 15th, 9 PM Eastern 6 PM Pacific, www.youtube.com slash C slash the flop house podcast. It should be a lot of fun. Other people will be in the cas too. You'll see them at the time. Hey, that sounds good. That sounds like something to do, right guys? To while away the hours.

We're all looking for something to do. Nothing else to do. Hey, just get yourself your family, the ghost that lives in your heart pops and popcorn and just to do. Nothing else to do. Hey, just get yourself your family, the ghost that lives in your heart, pop some popcorn, and just tune in. Oh, you guys, I was thinking, what if this movie were named the haunted heart? I love it. Kind of gives away the twist, but. Okay. All right, sorry for jumping past that before. Okay, guys, have you ever seen... Could I do a version of the Telltale Heart that's all little kids and it's called the Tatl-Tale Heart? You could do that.

There's no log against that, right? Nope. Let's do letters now from listeners like you who are listening. This is from Tim, last name with Held, who writes, Dear Danny Dan in the floppy bunch, who would win in a battle, stews liver Dan's good knee or Elliot's forearm hair. Also, after rewatching the disaster artist and realizing that the movie is not very good, sorry, I realize that the movie is not very good, and Franco the younger was a terrible

casting choice for Greg Sisterro and his beard looked nick cage, hairpiece terrible. On the other hand, he was very well cast in Jump Street. What are some of movie history's worst casting choices in your minds? Getting a weird French dude to play the lead in the Highlander was sick though. Thank you for continuing to inject joy. Very sad. Yeah. Collapsing veins, Tim lasting withheld. I'm glad that somebody finally took Elliot down a notch for that crazy ass arm hair

you. Yeah. Thank you. You're right. Finally. Take that. Take that. My Eastern European ancestors. How's there you? The arm hair on your forearm or the arm hair that creeps out of the the edges of your tank I don't know

me my armpit hair No, but is it armpit hair when it kind of like sprouts out of the top of your shoulders and then no that's shoulder hair No, that's shoulder hairs do it No, you're right. I apologize. It's a crime against nature that even though I evolved from a primate I retained the body hearing of said animal And I will be talking to my I'll be talking to my man scaper about it. Yeah, yeah, okay You can get that threaded dude. You can get that thread. I mean or it's thick. I could be turned into a topy area Who knows let's do it? Yeah. We're airing all the laundry.

Hey, I'll start with the. No, Dan, it's, it's, we're airing what's under the laundry. My hair. Mm-hmm. Bravo. Miss casting. I will say that my, if I ever, I end up, I end up shirtless at my house a lot because my children are constantly getting, ggook all over shirts. And my, or, and also we're, or we're

be swimming or something. And my, my toddler boy, he likes to run his hair, his fingers through my chest hair. And he goes, I like your fur. Daddy, I like your fur. Mm. That's so gross. I think it's very adorable.

It is cute. It's cute. The part of it that is about my body, that's gross, but what he does is not. There's no sexual aspect to it, Ali. Although, daddy, I love your fur. It would be a very sexual thing to say under certain context. I mean, it depends on who's saying it to who. Yeah. Okay. So, miscathlete. If it was if it was scrappy do saying it's a snaggle place then yes, yeah, that's incredibly sexual. I mean, I, I certainly am going to have to remove it from my sexual repertoire.

Yeah, because I'll just bring up images of Elliot. Okay, so what are we talking about? We're talking about Miss Cassie. So, I think that like, you know, to dispense with it up top, obviously there's a huge problem of whitewashing or casting people of not a certain race as a race that I don't think we can necessarily touch on here, but if we're talking about miscasting, I just wanted to say that, but in terms of like just like the type of person that would have these roles, I mean, Ali and I sorry, I interrupted you before I get to mind. What were you going to say?

No, I don't remember. Oh, sorry. Well, then I'll continue. The thing that came to my mind was appropriate since Emma Thompson was in this. I've got two talk show hosts here. When Emma Thompson was in the movie Light Night... which was almost a studio sixty level misunderstanding of what is the comedy writer which was weird since uh... since mendi caling wrote but um... but she's not a late night writer that's true that's true i said but she surely knows anyway

uh... so amitopsin you would be surprised this is at that just speaking as a as speaking as someone who has recently spent a lot of time uh... with uh... with members of the writers guilds negotiating a contract he'd be surprised how little anyone knows about how late night writing works. Yeah, all right. Okay. Well fair enough. But anyway, Emma Thompson in late night and Robert De Niro and the Joker both fail at convincing that they come out and like read monologue jokes every night and people like it. I mean, Robert J. N. Ero in Joker is, I think, the worst performance as a talk show host

I've ever seen. Like, it's so bad. He's so totally, like, uncharismatic. And it's, it's one of those things where it's like, I can't believe they gave Pupkin his own show because he's not very good at it. Because it's the same character for the Can't Connery, right? Like, that's the only explanation I can't believe they gave Pupkin his own show because he's not very good at it because it's the same character for the can't comedy right like That's the only explanation I can think of is that he got that job in the 80s and now he's coasting like letterman at the end of his career And he's just kind of like doesn't care anymore in which case it's the best performance I've ever seen

Anyone else have anything to say you don't have I mean, I mean obviously one of the great ones is Denise Richards as Christmas Jones and the nuclear physicist in the James Bond movie that's great and Like recently these are both TV shows But there's that there's that show sneaky Pete where G. Ivane Ropee see place a con man And I'm like nothing about this guy inspires confidence. He like, I will not believe what already says. He seems like he has one foot out the door the whole time.

Yeah, you're playing the subtext there as text. Yeah. And then there's that show that I actually, I know, liking a lot, that on HBO run, with Mayor Weaver and Domino Gleason, where Domino Gleason plays a motivational speaker. And there's nothing about him that makes me think that he can, like, that people would listen to what he has to say and follow along.

I have two, I'll mention one of them for, there are a lot of old movies where there is a bad piece of casting. But looking at flop house movies, I would say that Valarion and the city of a thousand planets, they really like miscast those leads quite a bit when they got, it was like they were like YouTube, play against type as much as possible. It's going to be great. And they just kind of disappear into the movie around them because they can't really carry it. But I would say that the movie, The Post,

the riveting tale of a newspaper that is reporting on something else another newspaper is doing. The story is so exciting that the final verdict by the judge is delivered via somebody hearing it over the phone and then repeating it to their office mates. Obviously there's a lot of issues with the movie. But Tom Hanks, I felt like was kind of on autopilot.

And next to him, you had Bob Odin Kirk doing, I thought a really good performance as the like, in that kind of second tier of roles in it. And I would have loved to have seen Bob Odin Kirk play the Tom Hanks role, because I feel like he would have worked harder at it, whereas Tom Hanks was just kind of like, I'm Tom Hanks, I'm just doing a Tom Hanks thing.

Come on everybody, it's me, Tom Hanks. And I love Tom Hanks, he's great. But sometimes Tom Hanks, you gotta do more than just be Tom Hanks. Like maybe be the captain of a World War II naval ship. I haven't seen it yet, is there any good? Not that I heard, Halley, do you have anything? At all?

Yeah. Uh, I would say, I don't know if you guys are, well, I would say just off the Tom Hanks thing, if we'd talk in Da Vinci code, like the Tom Hanks, Audrey, Tatoo, whatever coupling was infamously bad, but my real beef, well, I actually had a lot of ideas in this. The first one that came to mind I actually had a lot of ideas in this. The first one that came to mind was Julia Roberts and Mary Riley. Yeah, okay, interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You mean Julia Roberts and Mary Riley? I had a big crush on John Mapovitch when I was young, so I saw all his movies. That is the sense that is very highly. That's a very highly haggling thing to say. And yet he was poorly cast in a lot of things because he's, you know, can't do act. He's not great at accents or, you know, I think of Mice and Men was a stretch for him, but in Mary Riley, I think Julia Roberts was the real problem. She could not nail the

Irish accent she was trying to pull off and it just like wasn't her genre. It's kind of like Amelia Clark being cast in all these super serious roles. We want to joy, we want tofully enjoy our Roberts, you know. Do you think John Melchovitch did of my cement because Tom Newton wasn't around and they just grabbed the nearest other guy that was kind of like Tom Newton? Yeah. Probably when huge superstar Tom Newton dropped out of the role, they had to scramble and all they could get was John Melchovitch.

I just want to say, sorry with Lil Halli was saying, the miscasting thing, it often just goes to show you that I don't want to seem like we're down on actors because I think it kind of proves that oftentimes actors are so at the mercy of what they're given. I mean, there's some people who obviously transcend every time, but it is so hard to do that. You see people who have not impressed you for years, and then they turn out like, oh, you're fantastic at this, and it's because they got the opportunity to show it. Well, I think it's not necessarily, I mean, that's one way to put it is what they're given, but I think it also goes to show that actors are not, to be an actor and even a great actor

is not this myth of, well, he can play anything, or she can play anything. It's like, John Mouthovich, I think, for a while, that was like, he's a great actor is not this myth of, well, he can play anything or she can play anything. It's like, John Mouthovich, I think, for a while, that was like, he's a great actor. The guy can do anything. When really, he's great, but he has a certain type of character he can play, and it's like that with, I really think there's every, every big star at a certain point, they get to that point where it's just like, I'm gonna play it all, or they say, well, we just need a big name, let's throw them in, and it is not the right thing for them to do. But I also think that the problem is,

like, there's this complation of, like, good actor with intensity, which I actually, despite my earlier flamethrower, John Malgavitch, upon revisiting some old Mary Riley scenes, I was like, oh yeah, like, maybe John Malgavitch actually kind of sucks, and he's just really really intense because one person who I was thinking about who I was like is always miscast except for ambillions, which is a totally ridiculous show, is Paul Giamatti. I always think he's bad and I'm always like, I don't understand why he's the most famous

you know, like such a respected actor because all he is is like intensity. He's not like Did I watch John Adams is that what you gonna? No, no, so I say did you ever see win win? Oh, no He's it's a it's he's still playing it's still a serious movie But he's much lighter in it and I think you're exactly right. It's like there's like you look at John Malchovich And you look at his performance and being John Malchovichovich, and he's so, he's likely playing an intense character in that, and it's so much better than in the movies where he's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, like where he's barking and things like that.

Like that one where he played a dog, dog Malchovich, where he's just barking. I have to say that, I can't, I agree with Halley. I cannot let go of this joke that was killed by Elliot mentioning Beane John Malchovich. I cannot like go of this joke that was killed by Elliot mentioning being John Malkovich I was gonna say that like when Hallie was like I don't know whether John Malkovich is good or bad. I was gonna be like well then come with me to this through this flesh tube And we'll go on a trip to his brain to discover once and for all what's the deal with John Malkovich?

Everybody come on board to the flesh tube. I'm continuing to talk sure also non-plussed by me going back and rescuing that joke that should have just died. It is a little bit like in Blue Velvet him going to rescue the hostage and the hostage is dead already. All right so Halle what else other ones you? Halle, do you have any other ones? Oh, I also, well, here was my thing, is I also think that Michelle Williams is someone who's all about intensity and gets so much praise for being super intense, but like often stands out

in not a good way in her casting. Even though I know she's's very highly critically acclaimed, and then I googled it and I saw that Paul Giamatti and Michelle Williams were in a movie together about some hawk, and I was like, I gotta see this because this is the problem. This is probably the movie I'd see. All right, say it was like worst cast,

but I couldn't say it, I didn't see it. Was that the hawk's sign? That one? Slady hawk. That was Slady hawk? No, it's like a hawk's sign for something. I don't see it. Is that the hottest time I've had? That one. Sladyhog. Sladyhog? No, it's like the hot died or something. I love that you went so far down this rabbit hole of your least favorite actors that you're

like connecting Red Yarn over to this Hawk moving. I got to see this. I got to track this down. The thing is, I actually like Michelle Williams, but I guess I don't really like her as an actress. I like her the idea of her. I never like watching her in stuff. Somebody's never seen her in the end Lucy. What?

I never saw Lucy. What about Fossy Verdun? I never saw that. The Hawkeye dying is the name of the movie I'm talking about. Actually, I know exactly in Fossy Verdun, she's very good in it, but I had that same kind of issue where she's playing Gwen Verden and she doesn't have the like spark that Gwen Verden has when you see like tape for performance and it was just like there were times when I was like it was like it was like come on Michelle like I'm sure there were moments when Verden wasn't living all of her past traumas at the same

moment in her mind you know but I guess that's kind of what the show is all about. Hey, there's another letter. Let's do it fast. Robert last name with hell. Wait, are there any more after this one? No, that's it. So you're saying this is the last letter? Yeah. Because last letter, I asked you a question the very next day you answered my question. Thank you for answering my question and first because you read my question. Last letter, this is that letter. After this letter there are no more letters.

In the alphabet it would be Z because that's literally the last letter this letter you say it's the last and you'd be right because it is the last when this letter is passed there won't be any more letters okay that's enough of that. Uh, wait, I put my phone down which had the letter. Also, also kind of highlighting what I don't like about the song. Oh, business. So Robert, the music video of Last Christmas is fucking incredible. And you should just watch that for two and a half hours. Tells a full story. Robert, last thing with Helen writes, when I was in college, I took a class when we presented

with a question of if a piece of media had ever changed our outlook on life. A trans man in my class responded by saying that Pinocchio made him feel like he belonged because he also was sure he was a real boy. Which was such a profound answer that it blew my mind. My question is, has someone ever given an opinion on something that has profoundly changed how you thought of a piece of media sincerely Robert Lasting with Health? There's a lot of pondering going on. It's a pretty deep question. I found it very personal. I found this like uncomfortably personal, not to say that it shouldn't be asked, but I

felt every answer I came up with, I was like, I'm not, but not to say that it shouldn't be asked, but I felt every answer I came up with, I was like, I'm not sure I want to share that with people. Oh, interesting. Not with these three knuckleheads. I definitely feel like as I get older and as culture gets hopefully more wider and inclusive, there are definitely things that I would overlook in movies in the past that I'm having trouble overlooking now. I've been having a real crisis, the soul over the Japanese tourist character in

Grimlins 2 the past couple weeks as I've thought more and more about that. You've been working it up a couple times. I know it's really been haunting me because it's a movie I have been so unequivocally in favor of and the more I think about it the more I'm like, well I cannot, I'm not okay with that part of it. But also like there's just, I can't pinpoint it but there are a number of times that movies that I have dismissed. I'll hear somebody talk about what it means to them. And I'm like, okay, that's something that I can no longer dismiss that movie, because

I know it had that effect on you. And I wish I had a specific one of mine, but it really, it's a really great feeling, because it, it's like, oh, it reminds me of the potential of this art form and how and how there's something for everybody in the world of movies or media or whatever, and just because something doesn't hit me one way, doesn't mean it's not incredibly valuable because it might hit somebody else in a way that I wouldn't have recognized before. So I wholeheartedly approve of this way of thinking, but I have no examples. I'm done.

I yield the remainder of my time. Fuck you. This is... but I have no examples. I'm done. I yield the remainder of my time. Fuck you. This. Somebody's been watching a lot of community board meetings. This is less an external opinion and more like a conglomeration of learning from people over time and hopefully becoming more thoughtful over time is that like sometimes movies I feel like just change in my interpretation because of things that I've like felt in

between and one that struck me recently as I saw after hours again I think last year the Scorsese movie starring Griffin done the black comedy, and it was like, when I first saw it, I was kind of like, oh, this guy is just sort of being bedeviled by the city and by like bad luck, and he's being overly punished, et cetera, et cetera. And then like, seeing it again this year, I was kind of like, no, this is kind of like a slight critique of like, this guy presents himself as being nice and at the victim of the world,

but he is perpetrating a lot of his own, like, downfall and he is, like, the movie is sort of like, on the surface, like, shows in being kind of bedeviled by a series of women. But if he showed any sort of like patience or forbearance in the movie or willing this to like not do what was expedient to save himself, like everything would have gone a lot better for him.

And so it was just interesting to feel like, I think there was a deeper meaning that was always there that I just wasn't attuned to. I'm there say yeah there's that moment and after hours where he takes out his only $20 bill and puts it in the like that door handler ash tray of the taxi cab door and it flies when wind and I was like well why'd you do that stupid. Yeah exactly like that's entirely your fault and it's something nobody would do. Come on man.

I mean, dude you don't have to have anything if you're having trouble with the... Yeah, I mean, the only thing that popped in my head was when I was having a conversation with somebody about furry culture. And they mentioned how influential the scene in the Teenage Mutant Injitterdals movie where Raphael is in the bathtub, and I'm like, you know what, that scene is pretty hot. I get it. Moving on to... Wait, I didn't answer. Oh, wait, you didn't?

Oh, sorry, I thought you said you were everything was too personal. I mean, no, it was personal, but I have an answer. Yeah, I just want to be there. I'd like to be there. No, yeah, I mean, I hope it a lot to share with you. Sorry. No, yeah. I mean, I hope it's OK to include things that we ourselves as people in media have worked on. But I feel like the, I don't know, I, you know,

I worked on this show problem areas for two years. And our second season was all about education. And we sort of had this theme of, you know, our goal with the show was to, like, show approaches that we're trying to, like, change a fraud system and with education, a lot of it was focused on inequality and a lot, specifically, like, racial inequality. And our last episode was, was, like, very specifically very specifically about like segregated schools. And like we had talked a lot about like,

oh, like we should, you know, because it was like really heavily focused on these documentary portions we had and we had talked about like, oh, do we find a place where they've done districting where that creates very integrated schools or, you know, where housing is really integrated and so schooling would also be integrated. The point is, we just talked around a lot of ideas about how do you integrate schools.

a lot of ideas about how do you integrate schools. And as we were putting the footage that we had gathered together, there was a quote from someone, a clip from someone that we wound up using, that why it's an act, and when we were editing, sort of went back and forth about, and I remember arguing for a time, we really need to comment on this clip. It sort of takes us out of the rhythm of something, but it was this person saying, in integrated schools, for white students, it is important because it dispels the idea that there's something inherently smarter or better about white people

when you're like in a classroom with people of all races, but for black people it's kind of essential for for black and brown people it's essential because like your success in schools is like inextricably tied to like the resources that you get when you're in a classroom with white kids. I remember why it being like, we have to comment about this because it's so upsetting to hear something like that. Think about the only way that black and brown people can have success in schools is if they're in a

classroom with white people because the only way that you can access resources is when it's tied to the white people that you're associated with. And it was just like something that sort of like upended the way that I had thought about everything that we had talked about before and how we had sort of been talking about like these ways that you can change public schools that were just all such small changes and not addressing like if you don't think about the humanity of people then like it doesn't really matter what you change within the system and maybe that is like only illuminating my own ignorance, but it was like a real moment of me understanding something that I didn't feel like I had understood before.

I like taking it. I was just going to say that's such a good answer that I feel bad returning to our usual nonsense, but Ellie, what were you going to say? We'll just add about our responses. No, no, yeah. no, no, no, I'm not saying you can't respond. I'm just expressing. Oh, no, I just want to tell Hallie she was wrong. And then actually that, not just kidding. It just does to show that when you're dealing with any sort of media, you have to be not open-minded as a wrong word, but you can't rest on your assumptions about anything.

Because one, you may miss something, but also like there's a real worth to challenging and analyzing any piece of media that you come across and that you'll get more out of it that way, I mean, whether work, or whether at work or play, then if you just kind of lay back and let the media wash over you

and then react to it on a just a sensory level, there's definitely movies that I've watched where, I'm like, that's fine. And then I take a couple minutes to think about it. And I may not like the movie as much, or may have more complicated feelings about it, but I get a certain amount of like pleasure and satisfaction from knowing that I'm engaging with it at a deeper level than just okay take it leave it whatever that's okay moving on like that kind of thing

and I don't know that I necessarily added anything to how I answer but I certainly said something in which case you said the last thing it's it's certainly help me put my stamp on everybody is responses and therefore I'm not the author and owner of that segment. So good job, Ali. Thank you. Oh, God. You know what happens next, guys? The next part is where we recommend movies that you could watch.

Let's say maybe in addition to Last Christmas, which. Or if you don't want to, you don't have to watch Last Christmas. I'm not going to tell you don't watch it. I'm just so you don't have to watch it. Yeah, you know You make the call on this one. I mean why do we have to work on it? Why do we have to tell you all the time? I'd be like run don't walk to last Christmas if last Christmas is the type of movie you enjoy watching. Yeah, yeah That's good. So Movie recommendations. I'm just seeing whether I recommended something before. So I'm sorry for doing that on there.

You probably recommended something before. You've recommended lots of things, I think, unless those are implanted memories from the weapon. Name one thing that I get a lot of things. You know, joysticks? I think you recommended joysticks once. Yeah, well, I've got a similar recommendation to joysticks now.

And that is moving violations. And that is, hey, I don't a similar recommendation to joysticks now and that is moving violations. Hey, I don't know whether it qualifies as a recommendation if it's a movie that we've actually done for the podcast before. I don't know what the rules are on that. I looks at the rule book. I don't think there is a rule against it, but you know, the only rule in the only rule in the flop has rule book says no dogs can play major sports. That's weird. and the only rule in the flop has rule books says no dogs can play major sports. That's weird. Um, so did you check the appendices? It might list the rules there in the appendix.

Well, I'm breaking the rule if it exists. Um, I don't know if you guys heard this. We're in the middle of a pandemic and I don't know about you guys, but, uh, I don't like it. I'm going to say I'm not a big fan. Don't care for it. Making me feel bad. So sometimes when you feel bad, you just have to watch Tango and Cash. So my recommendation this week is Tango and Cash with Kurt Russell and Sylvester Slice to Lone. Tango and Cash.

Oh, okay. Do you need to qualify that recommendation at all? No, no, no. Well, I mean, it's a dumb movie. How about that? Proqualification. But it's fun. Jack Pallins is in it.

Jack Pallins is great. Great to see him. Love it. So Dan, would you, so you didn't like that I was trying to brand this as the Dan Damick? I was really trying to make this kind of like, like Dan's pandemic. I didn't care for, yeah, no, I, yeah, the name name the damage to my brand is what I was worried about Did you so you didn't like those radio ads that I took out like this year make it a Dan Dammick? No

Elliott do you have a recommendation? So here's the thing Dan and you're mentioning tango and cash has really Put me in a quandary and I'll tell you why. No, not because I was going to recommend Tango and Cash. Come on, guys. Come on. Because I have been going back and forth for a while now on whether or not to recommend the movie Runaway Train directed by Andre Kancholowski, the same director who directed,

I probably don't have his name wrong, who also directed Tanglin Cash. Mainly because it stars John Voight who is, is, you know, a real problematic individual. In that he is a super Trump supporter, says a lot of terrible things, really seems to have gone around the bend. This is no longer the adorable John Voight of Baby Geniuses. This is the, this is, so I've been wanting to, but I watched that movie recently and it's a really, really like, it's a really good, like intense, super intense movie and it starts John Voyneurich Roberts who are both very problematic people in different ways. And the, but it's kind of like if Tanglen Cash was a good movie, it would be Runaway Train where it's like these two prisoners who escape from prison and

get onto a train, not knowing that this train is about to become, wait for it, a runaway train. And it's a, I've been torn about whether to recommend it or not, because the main actor I so do not, the main actors, I so do not support in any way, shape or form. So that's kind of like an unofficial, that's an unofficial recommendation is run away from having your cake and eating it too. All right. I'm going to have that cake. I'm going to eat it. I'm going to throw it up because I feel bad about having it. Need me. So instead, I was inspired by this movie, last Christmas, a movie a winter story involving a ghost who helps a young woman. It made me think of a movie

called Curse of the Cat People from 1944. This is the somewhat sequel to the movie Cat People in which they said, you know, the first movie was about a woman who turns into a cat when she gets to kind of like aggravated or emotional or turned on. We're going to do a movie about a family where the daughter kind of has an either a ghost or an imaginary friend becomes friends with that cat woman from the first movie, and needs her to get her through a very, like, dysfunctional period in her family life. And so, it's a movie that's kind of a strange movie because it's in some ways a ghost movie, but maybe it's not a ghost movie, but it's a very like slightly melodramatic,

but fairly sensitively done story of the tension between a little girl and the other members of her family and kind of how she needs to escape into this relationship with a woman who may not exist or may exist to get through it. And so instead, I recommend the curse of the cat people, but if you're one of those people who can separate your feelings about a real person from their work, sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not, then you might as

well go watch Runaway Train. Uh, Stewart, have you gone? Sorry. Uh, no, Dan, I've not gone. I guess it's, I guess it's my turn. Wow. I don't know what the anger's about, but, oh, no, I'm angry. Interesting.

Okay. What? I'm going to recommend a movie called Sollo. It is a kind of a drama thriller movie with some horror elements. It is about a young woman who is recently married and becomes pregnant. And for all intents and purposes, it seems like she has this perfect life, beautiful house, handsome husband, who has a good job, but he's never around. And she begins ingesting inanimate objects of increasingly dangerous varieties.

And I am assuming the makers of the movie have done some research into Peaca. I don't know very much about it, so I don't know how accurate it is. But for me, it was an interesting story about control and a portrait addiction in ways that felt very real and scary and just, I don't know. I thought it was pretty compelling. So WALO. Just to update, everyone, Halle's now in a closet.

She appears to be in a closet with some shoes behind her, maybe some bags. Anyway, so fully half of the people on this podcast right now are recording from closets. Yeah, wow. Let's give you guys out of there and talk'm a little bit of a math magician knowing that two is half and four. Let's let Halle recommend her movie, so you can both get out of those tiny rooms. Oh yeah, I was going to recommend, I don't know if anyone has recommended it before, it seems like it would have been more timely months ago.

But has anyone recommended memories of murder on this show? Not in a little while, I think, a while back, but not recently. Oh, OK. Well, that's a good moment. Yeah, yeah. So I recommend it. Yeah, it's a Bong Junho earlier movie by him that's sort of a loosely based on like the first serial killer in South Korea. And it was really fucking good. I didn't know what to expect, but it's like very interesting.

It's sort of about this like moment in Korea where they're transitioning from like an older society to a more modernized society and that's reflected in the We pursue this crime and it's real fucked up and real interesting Yeah, how they gotta say your audio got like you know like it's got this like much more intimate quality now that you're in the closet in there Yeah um And if anyone's wondering if Memoriesaser Murder has Song Kangho in it, you better believe it does. He's great. What a star that guy. Okay guys, we've tortured you all long enough. Let's sign off for this. Do you mean we've tortured us or the listeners? I was thinking about you initially, but then I was like, you know what?

I'm gonna leave the ambiguity, because it applies equally to all participants. But it could be a ghost or a metaphor. Yeah. That's up to you to decide. Thanks to all who donated in this past Max Fundrave, which just came to a close recently. Thank you to our network Max Fund for providing us

with support. All that stuff, go check out the other podcast there. How is there anything that you want to plug or anything you want to say or thank you for coming, first of all. Thank you for being on the show. I'm doing this very intense performance. The only thing I have on my schedule is the boy next door. All right, well from what the boy next door. Thanks to everyone. Thanks for listening. For the flop-ass, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kaylen. And I've been Halley Haglund.

Hi everyone. Very intense, so intense. David Lee Roth, yes. You do a lot of scatting too. You'd be like, give it up. David Lee were off yesterday. You do a lot of scatting too. You'd be like, give me a bite. Don't tell you about the time I saw it. Kind of.

Kind of. Kind of recently. So, kind of recently I saw it. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience supported.