The Flop House - Ep. #321 - The Call of the Wild, w/ Jesse Thorn

Episode Date: August 29, 2020

We finally invited the boss over for dinner, so we'd better hide all those staplers we stole! Noted dog lover and the head of Maximum Fun himself, Jesse Thorn, joins us to discuss The Call of the Wild, based on that one book you probably read in middle school.Wikipedia synopsis of The Call of the WildMovies recommended in this episode:Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire SagaHostAh Wilderness!A Thousand Clowns

On this episode we discuss the Call of the Wild. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kaylen and who's this special guest we've got with us this week. It's the boss, not Bruce Springsteen, but Jesse Thornton. I know it's, that's how I like to enter any podcast as a mild disappointment. I'll set you up and I knock you down. Here it is. The boss straight from E Street in Esbury Park, New Jersey. It's Jesse Thorne.

Little Stevie Vansette. Think about how bummed Bruce Springsteen would be. If he agreed to do our podcast and then found out we were talking about movies and not just like blue collar stuff. Yeah, old trucks and things. The same thing that Stephen King would be upset about if he was a guest on the podcast.

Here's the regular one. Do you guys not listen to guitar tone cast? He's a regular on that one. He is. I mean, that makes sense. He's in that like that was at the remainder's. The, I don't know that that the rock bottom remainder. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you know that I know the founder I I knew she she's passed away sadly, but I knew the founder of the rock bottom rambanders literary rock band I didn't know that she was my personal wiki. I have for you on my computer I have had I have had all of one job in radio not counting the like three weeks that I was in intern on a morning radio show before I realized I could not get up that early. And you and the Mad Dog just never got along. Yeah, you weren't wild enough for the zoo crew. Yeah.

I was literally not allowed to make eye contact with the hosts of the show. That was one of the rules, really. Oh no. But on this other wonderful show I worked on called West Coast Live, which was a public radio show out of San Francisco. My boss, Kathy Goldmark, was the founder of that band. Like she had had every publishing job ever before she became producer of this radio show.

And so she was just buddies with Dave Barry, any tan, Matt graining, Maya Angelou. All these people and they would just come by. They would just come by the radio show and to see their rock and roll friend, Cathy Goldmark. That's really nice. Do you guys think that Bruce Frank's Stanford Watch Tuesday boss on TV

and was like, when are they gonna invite me on that show? Yeah, right here. Yeah, but he keeps looking at the mirror and he's like, I'm the boss. Yeah, there's the time he actually went to set and was standing outside the door, just waiting for a cue that never came. Yeah, yeah, maybe there, maybe I'm supposed to go there.

Maybe I'm supposed to start the idea of. Dan, the scenario you described is just about sad enough to be the subject of a Bruce Springsteen song. Yeahen song. He did write one song about sitting in the movie theater with a single tear rolling down his cheek as he watched Boss Baby and thought about how he had been invited to be in it. Well, that, that his childhood, he never really got to feel as carefree as a baby, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so for the possible new listener who's, uh,'s right now saying, what the fuck is this show about being like, I love bullseye interviews with relevant and sophisticated cultural art and figures. So I followed Jesse Thornton to here, but what is this for these morons?

What are they? Yeah. What? Dan, what do we do? There's no bad. Well, these real dinkises watch a bad movie and then talk about it. Or, you know, a movie that has been either commercially or critically drugged. And this week, as the announcement at the top said, we watched the Call of the Wild, based on the book The Call of the Wild by Jack London. Hello, hello, it's me, Jack London. He was a famous American.

Oh, he's a English fan, there. Hello. Oh, the Ripper struck again in me, Jack London. He was a famous American. He was a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a man. He's a California's favorite native son and Jesse being the second favorite. So what, you knew Jack London, right? Yeah, we were good friends back in the 1890s. In the past, back here. Why would you rank the native children of Northern California? You'd say, Jack London number one, number two, Jesse Thorn, of course, because I'm the

host of the least popular NPR program, Bullseye. Then, if you're asking me, the least favorite is, wait, wait, don't tell me, because I hate it so much. But, no, I guess I don't hate it. Yeah, then Joe Dimash will be number three. That's fine. Well, you can hate it. I hate it.

Joe Dimash will be number three. Number four and five tied the Olsen twins because full house was set in San Francisco. Sure. Yeah, I did have that one San Francisco shot. Yeah, number six is the idea of uneven terrain, very popular in San Francisco. And number seven would be Johnny Pixar, you know,

a founder of Pixar up in Emoryville, Northern California. Yeah. Now I actually would like to spend Just a second on the book called the wild up at the the call of the wild up at the top I Read that of course In middle school or early high school. I think it was an assignment Rather than something I was reading for myself What's your guys' experience with the book, if any?

I have the classics illustrated, Call of the Wild or The Call of the Wild. I remember being a big fan, although I remembered very little of the plot points. So this movie was all new to me, you know? I just got some late breaking news that there's been a change in the favorite sons and daughters of Northern California. Mary Kate is number four, number five is Boots Riley, and number six is DeVe Diggs, and seven is Ashley. So the Olsen twins have, wow, I don't know how one was chosen over the other. Again, I'm not from Northern California. I'll have to ask my wife who is a native of that area.

Now, do you think it's the only island? I think it's the only island. I think it's the only island. I think it's the only island. But as for Call of the Wild, it's one of those books that I kind of, I think I must have read like an abridged version of it when I was very little. And I never read the full book.

And I've always been curious about it. Since, for whatever reason, the Jack London book I know best is the Scarlet Plague, the book about a virus that kills all of San Francisco, and not any of his better-known books. I bought a copy at a thrift store, thinking I would bring it up to my cabin, and maybe my, one of my kids would want to read it at some point. And I ended up picking it up at the cabin and reading it with my daughter. And I had never read it as a kid and it totally rules. It is so cool and badass and fun and thrilling. It is definitely too brutal for kids.

And I don't know why it's a children's book. It's my dog fight in it, like a frieze dog fight. I was talking to my wife about this. it's a children's book. It's like a dog fight in it, like a real dog fight. I was talking to my wife about this. She's a children's librarian. And we were talking about how there's a lot of books that because they are old, and maybe they have an animal in them, they become children's books when they were never intended to be juvenile literature.

And the same way that like, I think most people read like, it doesn't have animals in it necessarily, but most people read like Hemingway or Fitzgerald in high school and then never again so it's like oh yeah that's kids books but like it's not never was. Yeah, the Jack London was not a kids' author. The call of the wild was written for the pulps and yeah the thing about the book that I kind of wanted to bring up was just that a lot of the incidents in the

book are actually in the movie. They are softened, like changes are made to make it much softer and the tone overall is much softer than the book by far because they are trying to make this a kid's film basically. But it's weird, like a lot of the plot's still there. Yeah, and they kept all the wraps from the book. Yeah. When Kangaroo Jack showed up. Yeah, and they kept all the wraps from the book. Mm-hmm. When Kangaroo Jack showed up.

Yeah, yeah, when Kangaroo Jack London showed up was like, I've got to write this movie, good day. Well, he's a story about a dog, and he lives down in a smelly body, and they're like, it's not what it's about, Jack. Jesse is right here, famed, wrap aficionado, Jesse Thorne, and you were just,

okay, so sorry. Yeah, he's currently transcribing LA. It's lyrics and you rap genius.com. So Jesse what kind of rapping did Jack London do? I apologize I Like there is so much intense brutality in the book intense brutality in the book. Both dog like it is the story of a dog becoming wild, right? Like leaving the trappings of civilization behind and triumphant through pure ferrality. And it is very strange. And there is like brutality of the dog and by the dog and to the dog, all of them.

brutality of the dog and buy the dog and to the dog all of them and like it is very odd to think that someone sat down and said like okay, how can I help seven year olds watch this? Yeah, yeah, should we talk about let's talk about the specifics of the movie then guys should we dive in all right So here's it's a shocking movie the first then, guys. Should we dive in? All right, so here's, it's a shocking movie. The first shock, the logo, it's 20th century studios. Huh? That's the 20th century Fox fanfare.

And yet it doesn't say Fox in the logo. This is the first movie I think I've seen come out from that studio since Disney bought it. And it was bizarre to me to see it not say Fox, just said studios. It was weird. Then branding wise, Elliot, I would say the most interesting part of that to me was that when they sat down to decide what to do with the 20th century Fox name, they decided we

want to keep the 20th century part. Yeah, because it's the part that everyone knows. Well, it's weird because it's literally a part that's wrong. Drop the part everyone knows. It's literally like a hundred years ago that 20th century studios and Fox studios merged to become 20th century Fox. And it is weird that they have now separated out again. It's a divorce after a marriage of almost a hundred years.

Sad really happens, but the children will be kept away and never shown in Repetory theaters again. Thanks, Disney. So we start with a voiceover from Old Man Harrison Ford. He tells us it's the Alaska Gold Rush, the 1890s. They need big strong dogs to pull sleds. Luckily, we're about to meet a big strong dog. His name's Buck.

And how would you describe the CGI used to create this dog? I would call it off-putting. Well, here's just a, I don't know. I probably just got Stockholm Syndrome over the course of the movie. Like, as the movie wore on, it did not bother me at all that much. At the beginning, like, Audrey at one point asked me, she's like, this is an all CGI. Is it like, are you kidding me? Like, this is definitely all CGI.

Yeah, the part where Buck is smoking a cigar and driving a taxi cab. Yeah. Now, this is, I read about the director. So the director's background is in animation. Yeah. Co-created and co-directed. Lilo and Stitch and how to train your director. Stitch was his idea. Lilo was the other guy's idea.

And he, I read him describing this as like, they wanted to, they did like, they had an actor in a mocap suit and they did scans of a real dog. And then they kind of animated him up a little bit because the dog is really the protagonist, right? Like in the book and in the story, the dog, it's about the dog, the owners are incidental and only the fact that it's that they happen to have gotten now, Harrison Ford to be one of them, you know, makes it so that that is two thirds of the movie. But like it's about the dog and he said he made him more animated, like, you know, a little more

exaggerated or hyper real in order to address the fact that they would have to animate him or else, because they needed more acting than a regular dog could do. I mean, it makes sense because dogs are notoriously hard to read emotionally. If there's ever an animal that is just a stone sphinx just a total mystery in an igme I mean if there's and if you're making a movie if there's one animal that there is an extreme shortage of trained versions of I mean well there's this dog does do a lot of acting and also Is it put in danger that you would never want to do to a real time?

No, that's true. That's true And so the I had a similar feeling to you Dan where at when I first saw him danger that you would never want to do to a real. No, that's true. That's true. I had a similar feeling to you, Dan, when I first saw him, I was like, whoa, what is this cartoon dog doing here? It was the movie would go on. And again, maybe this is partly because I was doing the dishes while I was watching it.

I kind of forgot he was a CGI dog until there were moments when he would be very CGI. Oh, yeah, that's not a real dog. Right at the beginning, there are would be like, oh yeah, that's not a real dog. Uh-huh. Right at the beginning, there are some like, ain't I a stinker moments for the dog? Yeah. And you're like, wait, is this dog gonna tear a man's throat out later? Yeah, at the beginning, the dogs are real marmatook. He's a real Beethoven.

Yeah, he's like, stop leaving chains of linked sausages lying around for this guy to grab and He said he lives in Santa Clara, California with Judge Bradley Whitford and he's yeah, he's a real Beethoven Amar Meduc he does whatever he wants he licks big blocks of ice in the street He ruins big picnic banquets until everybody loves him. Everybody loves him They also know that you can't mess with him because he's the judge's dog. And if you mess with his dog, you're gonna get you're gonna get murdered. I guess I don't know what you're throwing in jail. The judge is do.

Yeah, it looks like a hanging judge. Bradley Whitford is one of the a few times this movie where I'm like, you got like a name actor for this role. Like he exists just to sort of like look disappointed at the dog in the beginning and leave him outside the house. This this should have been I mean he does he also deserves bigger roles but to me I was like this should have been a Brad Dorif role. They got the wrong Brad. They got Whitford when they should have gotten Dorif. Okay so one night though Bucks idyllic life as the bad boy of Santa Clara is interrupted when

he is kidnapped. He's taken away by some bad men and when he comes to, there's a mean man with a club who teaches him the law of club and fang that in the world outside idyllic judge Brad's house, it's only violence that is the master. And Bucks is like, I'm afraid of this club, I don't like getting hit by it. And he tries to escape, but he's on a boat to the Yukon. Jesse, you mentioned Lonely Island before? Mention him again, because Buck's on a boat.

Hey, they recorded a song called, we're on a boat. We're on a boat. And they've recorded a song called, the Call of the Wild, right? Yeah, sure. What did they? Yeah, Dan, can you sing a couple bars? It's the call of the wild. Et cetera. Exactly. I pretty hand some for a funny guy. Yeah, well. You're edging into anti-Semitism, Jesse.

And now, okay, so they get to land. Bucks slips his leash for a moment and has kind of a meet cute with a Gandalf bearded Harrison Ford. When Harrison Ford drops his harmonica and Bucks returns it to him, but they don't get to spend too much time together because Bucks assumed sold to Perot, a Kevacquois male carrier and his wife, Francois. I didn't, it's a- You can just say partner, I think you can share.

Okay, partner, and in a Whitwomen that is also on this male carrying mission with him. Buck joins this lead team of CGI dogs who are led by the mean spits, a bully dog who rules by fear. What do you guys think about spits? Spits is probably German. I remember when I was, when I read the illustrative version,

I was always like, man, that's spits guy. He seems pretty cool. Yeah, I think it's a real well for that. Spits McKenzie. But I do like one of the advantages of doing all cartoon dogs in this movie is that you can make this sled dog team all unique looking dogs.

They don't all look the same. Having been to SkaGway, which was very exciting to see SkaGway depicted on the silver screen of my apartment. I've also met teams of sled dogs, and they all kind of look alike. I mean, they're all good boys, obviously. But I have expected like one of the dogs to be

in an English bulldog. I'm wondering how deep into the production they were still considering like fuck maybe we should just give them all let's just have all the dogs talk. Yeah, you know there was a discussion at some point. Should we have the dogs talk and how radical and how much bad it to should they have? It's like we're to have a I probably forgot the main dog's name. But it seems to me like it was weird to see a buck at the head of this thing for the reason Stewart talked about like it's not like there were just like a bunch of huskies you know as you might think or something like that. And they also didn't look that big and strong despite what the opening the movie suggested was needed in the you count

Yeah, that's that that was the surprises I think they were going visually just to help you set the dogs apart But they really didn't seem like they it seems like this was this was the rag tag kind of like what huzures of the Of the or mighty ducks of the sled dog team It was gonna take a real charismatic guy to make them run fast. And we've met that guy, and his name is Buck. Unfortunately, at first, Buck is a terrible sled dog. He almost leads them off a mountain at one point, it seems. But he has visions of a primordial wolf spirit, which inspires him to work hard and be tough.

Guys, your thoughts about the wolf spirit? Uh, I didn't have thoughts about the wolf spirit but I did want to say that like part of this whole thing this process of him becoming a better sled dog is the sled the the male carrier's unwavering faith in buck as you know like he's going to be the greatest dog of all time kind of feel and also he's like constantly talking to the dog and encouraging the dog in a way that makes it seem like everyone in the movie expects the dog to understand human language. There's a scene where the guy like shows literally shows all of the dogs a map and he's like we're gonna go here.

Dan have you met dog owners? That's true. They do call that out in the movie. There's a scene where the lady of that team says, you know that they don't speak English, and he keeps talking to them. But it speaks to the fundamental challenge of making a movie out of this book, which is, this is a book about like lonely people with no one to talk to, and with a protagonist that cannot speak. And so you really have to figure out how are we going to make clear even what's happening

without internal monologue. What you just described, Jesse, sounds like the Jim Jarmish version of Call of the Wild. Just like a series of lonely people and a mute dog narrator who just kind of roams between them. Now just- The answer they choose is, by the way, is to have Harrison Ford break in intermittently

for no particular reason before and after his character is introduced while his character is on screen and not on screen with voice over narration. I think it's the way the rationalization is, it's a good way to justify Harrison Ford being on the poster. He's a fearing him even in the scenes he's not in. Now, when you decide to go live off in the wild by yourself, who would you want to narrate the story of your life leading up to that point? Do you think Harrison Ford, do you think Harry Ford would be your first choice?

I want to quickly say that I think Harrison Ford does a really good job in this movie. Like I think the rap on later period Harrison Ford, you know, you open to get him as a guest or something. What's going on? I would love that. He's my nostalgic pick for my favorite actor, even though he's often very Sort of lazy about it, but here he seems to be actually Carrying about the material, which I like. Well, here I think the weirdness that he shows in his other roles, which usually comes off as a like, I can't believe I'm fucking doing this, really works for this character who has a world

and soul weirdness that he has to overcome and does overcome. But I would say probably emo Phillips. Yeah, that'd be perfect. Hoanimo Phillips type like a French steward maybe? No, not at all. No, thank you. If we can't get Emo, one, I'll be surprised. And two, I don't want a FOMO to come in and pretend to be Emo.

No, thank you. I mean, Emo works, Elliot. You gotta pay, you gotta do better than scale, I think, to get it. No, no, no, we'd make it worth his while. We'd make it worth his while. We'd make it worth his while. But I want him to do it. But it's not like, he's not gonna be like, well, give me $10 million or I don't get at a bit.

You know, that's. But he gets good money for his weekend at Go bananas and to an asshole. He's amazing. Because he's amazing. He's an amazing performer. Yeah, he's great. He moved through.

That was when Elliott decided to go off the grid. That's, oh, I would love it. To your point, Dan, like, I went into this movie with the thought where I was kind of wondering whether Harrison Ford was even good at acting. Like, I really like Harrison Ford as a movie star, but I thought I was trying to think back to different Harrison Ford movies

and thinking like, did he do anything or does he just have some quality to him? And I agree completely. I thought to Harrison Ford was fantastic in this movie. He did more than he usually does and brought, again, carried it off very well, which and felt completely grounded talking to a CGI dog, which is, yeah, very weird and awkward place to be as an actor. And I thought he did beautifully. And I thought his voice sounded beautiful in the narration.

Yeah. I think I also think he was really great. I think when dealing with Buck, he was drawing on his years working with a man in a bare suit in the Star Wars movies. Like he's used to having a furry companion who can't be understood. But I look, I'm going to,, I'm gonna have a spoiler and say, my summary is partly colored by my having really enjoyed this movie. And when I saw the trailers for it,

I was like, why did they make this movie? Who did they make an adaptation of Call of the Wild for it? And then I realized, I was like, oh, dads, that's who this movie is for. This is what I would call a kids movie for dads, where I was like, oh, I would get so much more out of this than my son would, but I would make him watch this with me. Like this is a kids movie for dads where I was like, oh, I would get so much more out of this than my son would, but I would make him watch this with me.

Like that. This is a kids movie for dads completely reshot and re edited with input from what's his name? The Ford V Ferrari guy. Oh James Mangold. Yeah, he was he gets a producer credit on the movie. And I read that he like led them through a second round of shooting to like refocus the movie on Harrison Ford and make sure that it was a live action film and not an animated film and so on and so forth. Oh, that makes sense. That is James Mangold, right?

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So this would be a lovely double feature with ad aster or something like that. Yeah, exactly. The old man movies. The old man movies.

So, like I said, he sees that Wolf Spirit and. The old man movies. Yeah. So. So, like I said, he sees that wolf spirit and he learns to be hard and tough. And he's also, and here's the difference, he's generous to the other dogs. He shooters his food, he's nice to them, spits, hates that. But the other dogs love it and buck is now. Really glad they make, I'm really glad they make an effort to make buck sympathetic because it's really tough when a dog character is introduced for the audience to side with that.

It's maybe the most instant reaction that any audience in the world has is the minute a dog enters the movie. Everyone is like, that's my favorite character in the movie. If anything bad happens to that dog, I'm going to kill a human being. Stuart, I think you may be, you may be discounting the extent to which audiences hate a stinker. That's true. That's true. As shown by the fact that Bugs Bunny, a noticeable stinker, has not had like a real major effort

until these new cartoons, Nature and Max, whereas Mickey Mouse, perhaps the most unstinker there ever was, is a huge merchandising sensation. Yeah, in the book, Elliott, this black wolf in the movie is the titular call of the wild, like it is an ineffable pole on the dog's soul that it feels and is like confused by, frankly, like worried and confused by, as it is drawn further and further from the

world of man, right? And in the movie, what they decided to do was to put a wolf on a hill. It looks like the cover of the Nettens Madrigal album. I mean, I have to say, I think it's exactly what I thought steward. I said to myself, this looks exactly like the cover of the Nattons Madrigal album by Wilbur. I would say, I would rather that than have them do like they didn't frozen to where it's literally just a voice that comes out of nowhere for no reason and it works back and he also into the woods.

Give me a smile. Yeah, I'd rather have woods. Yeah, rather than something going, in, in the woods and then being like, ah, ah, ah, rot road. I would go one step further and make it a little bit more like lynchian and in the snow, there'd be like an end table with an old timey telephone that would be showing that would be the call of the wild.

And then, and then, and then, actually, you had a cut of this movie before James Mangold got invited and it had the narration from Harrison Ford, but the call of the wild wasn't a wolf on a hill. It was emo Phillips. Again, works totally works for me. Yeah. Yeah.

I love the idea now of a David Lynch version sort where the soundtrack is just like, as they're in a sled race. Okay. So Buck is now part of the pack and he loves it. where the soundtrack is just like, do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do VP most valuable pack member attacks buck and he keeps knocking them down with these jump fights Stewart as a fighting expert. How would you how would you rate spits as fighting style which is entirely jump based? Well, I mean, he's all fucking rush down right and you're like dude as soon as buck figures out your fucking like one two's he's he's gonna he's gonna destroy you because all he doesn't even block. He's just all attack. And of course that's what buck does. He gets he gets a reversal on him picks him up in the air

He catches him out of mid air and lifts him up and spits has a moment where he's like oh fuck Now he's about to ground combo me and of course he does yeah exactly what happens buck is hurt But the wolf spirit comes over and is like get the fuck up and fuck up that dog and buck does it any just to make spits submit Yeah wanders off in, never to be seen again. That's what happens in the book, right? There is like, that's what the, that's what they call the wilds. I mean, in the book he kills him.

Yeah, whereas here there's some of that dog acting we're talking about where they give each other a look. Where is like, huh, you're going to stay down and the guys like, all right, okay, cool. And and and Spitz is wandering off and looks back sadly, as if to say, I was a king once, and then he just wanders into the void. I had my own hole in the ice to drink water from.

And this harmonic up picking up to your main way they express how that he's the boss is that he has a hole in the ice that he won't let anyone share. Now, there's something in this movie that is something, I mean, I like this movie again, and I like the story, but there's something I don't let anyone share. Now, there's something in this movie that is something, I mean, I like this movie again, and I like the story, but there's something I don't like in it, which is, I will call it the Tarzan fallacy,

which is, Buck is kind of like a pampered rich man's dog, but when he goes into the wild, he is the superior of everybody, and he immediately, or not immediately, but through hard work, but he is recognized as special and he rises through the ranks over dogs that are more experienced and more wired than him. And it's the same way that Tarzan, who is an English baron, who is lost as a baby, becomes king of the apes, even though why should he be king of the apes?

There's like a hidden sort of, uh, uh, not racial in this case because they're dogs, but this hierarchy of like a civilized person is still better than a non-civilized person in a way that made me uncomfortable as the movie went on. When Buck is reinvigorating the wolf pack with his jeans in a way that makes them the uber dogs, and I was like, later on, I was like, I don't know if I like the message of this movie. I guess that part is true.

I was gonna make an argument that like, the highest good that the movie presents is being wild, but then like yeah, he does make some sort of super race by mingling with the wolf. Which totally fits into the background of the kind of racial genetics of the late 19th, early 20th century. But anyway, the important thing is,

the next morning, Buck and Siss on being the lead dog in the sled, now that Spitz isn't there and the other dogs back him up. And Buck starts pulling them so fast that Perot, the male delivery guy is like, yes, this is amazing and his cheers cause an avalanche. Are they gonna be killed? No, because the wolf spirit shows up and is like,

hey, Buck, there's a shortcut through an ice cave right here. Which was weird, because it's not like that's information Buck knew that was coming. Now it's just like there's a shortcut through an ice cave right here, which was weird because it's not like that's information Buck knew that was coming like now. It's just like there's a ghost of a wolf that's following you and telling you every Elliott and that's a thing like every of male delivery routes Yeah, I always every time I'm playing Mario Kart I wish a fucking ghost spear would show up and show me where the shortcuts are so I stop looking like a fool Of course, you're probably

wondering, just to let everybody know, when I play Mario Kart, I always play Wario. No one else, only Wario. Wow. Now, exactly. Who are you looking like a fool to in this scenario? Stuart, that's. Toad, Yoshi, the princess. That's the one that hurts the most. Okay. The dry bones. Now these lead dogs, they were advertised back then as the original Mario Kart. But for the first time ever, thanks to Bucks' Super Fas leading, they actually deliver the mail on time. This is what Skagway is, is this where they are now?

I think so. And they deliver it in a shower of letters, right? Yes, no, this is consequential because earlier in the film, Francois or whatever his name is, Jean-Luc Picard says, he goes like, I want to try a pro. So I want to try and deliver to me a long time. But I never have. Yeah, and then he takes a big bite out of a baguette. Yeah, which is weird because it came across.

Yeah, not French, but because it is some more French than Canadian. He rolls out a giant scroll that has all of his life's goals written on it. And that's the only one that isn't crossed off. Every other one has been crossed off. Yeah, yeah. Have sex in the rain. That was crossed off. Run a marathon.

Run a marathon. Which is why the scene, now that he has done it, he walks off into the forest. He walks off into the forest. Well, the second close thing, anyway, people love the mail, they get perroes, like we don't just carry mail, we carry lives. And this was, to be honest, the Valentine

to the Postal Service that I needed right now. There is that hidden critique of the mail is never on time in this movie. And I don't know what he means by on schedule, since it's like, I don't know, it's the 1890s and you're in Alaska with a dog sled. How how tougher they with the deadlines. I don't know, but a buck even shows his got a little heart by delaying the next day's mail delivery until Harrison Ford can give them the letter he wrote to his wife about his grief over their dead son more

on that later. But when they get to the next place, the mail route has been terminated. Probably the president trying to fix the election I've got to assume. They're just pulling mailboxes out of the Yukon. The dog team is sold to these snooty, dilatant gold seekers played by Dan Stevens and Karen Gillan. That's right, everybody. It's the Legion nebula team up. We were all waiting for. And Dan Stevens is he's putting out some serious war wallow eG energy here. And it also it feels a little bit like he's like I need to tarnish my goody goody image by beating up dogs. He is very much the bad guy. He is a real wallow eG. Yeah. Yeah, he's deliciously villainous. He has a villains mustache to go with his attitude. But also Karen Gillen is one of the other larger names and I'm like, what?

She shows up in two scenes to be like, maybe we should listen to Harrison Ford and that's it. Yeah, she doesn't, I have to say, like Jesse was saying, I wouldn't be surprised me if there was a heavy edit done. What I would call a thin red line where the editing process removes whole story lines and even actors and things like that. Honestly, I thought Karen Gillen did a great job, but I would have liked to have seen

a comedian Natasha Legero take this one on. Like, a lady in a Victorian dress relaxing on a dog sled, sipping a bellini or whatever is exactly what Natasha would have kicked butt at. Yeah, that's a fair, it's fair. Although we wouldn't have gotten the MCU 20th century X-Men Star Wars crossover that we get when Harrison Ford tells them, you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna kill all those dogs.

Excuse me, Elliot, this is a PBS crossover between Dr. Who and Downton Naby. Thank you very much. There's got to, someone's got to have written a Downton Abbey doctor who crossover story, right? Yeah, they'd be fucking once. You know that much about the doctor. He's kind of a, he's, it doesn't really do a lot of that. Yeah, but maybe he watches, early. I mean, I don't know what he's into. He's got a lot of other badgames. He wants to be some, how, how great would a

cross-review where it's Tom Baker's doctor and And Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey, she's his new companion, and they're just traveling time and space, this like snooty, very sarcastic, rich old lady, and the craziest man who is ever on television in any way, shape or form, with a long scarf. What a great story. Someone write it, send it to me, I'm not gonna write it, I don't have time, I've got two children. Okay, anyway, these rich jerks, they're treating the dogs terribly, Harrison Ford tracks them down, and he frees Buck, but Dan Stevens takes the rest of the dogs away

at gunpoint, and you know they're all doomed. You just know there's no, there's no way they're going to survive. Yeah, including, including all the other humans that are on the sled, they're doomed too. Yeah, they're all doomed. They never show back up. And they leave knowing that they're doomed. Ford takes Buck back home, and he goes to to a bar and Dan Stevens attacks Ford at a bar saying everybody fell through the ice and died. He blames Harrison Ford for it because he can't

own up to his own mistakes, but who's there to save Harrison Ford? It's Buck. That's right. He knows where his his bread is buttered with the nice man with the harmonica. Now guys, I'm looking at fanfiction.net right now. And there are 22 stories that are Dr. Who and Down Abbey crossovers, including such titles as the Housekeepers Tale, the Mad Man, the Rebel. Wait, is that T-A-L-E or T-A-I-L? That's a good question.

I didn't see. We got Vera and in the dolloc. Just guessed it. Yes, which one of yours? Anyway, so you know, God bless you out there. Keep it up. Okay. Now look and see if there's any crop of the cruisers being back to the future and the

monster serial universe, you know, Count Chocula, Frank and Berry. Is this your way to keep me shut up? No, just I really like when you show the initiative to do research. This is your way to keep me shut up. No, just I really like when you show the initiative to do research. I want to gratify that and keep it going. I want to encourage it. Buck, he knows that Harrison Ford is drinking too much. He takes, if I heard some Ford's whiskey bottle and buries it in the snow and sits on

it, and when I'm calling a dog, dervention, andension and Harrison Ford explains to him oh I had a son and he died of fever. He always dreamed of exploring the unmapped areas of the Yukon. Hey, Buck! You and me could go off and do that together and they do and they're canoeing through the rapids and they get caught in rapids and I was like oh no something bad is gonna happen. No, the boat just springs the leak and Harrison Ford goes I guess that's the end of that boat. And they just keep walking. Yeah, Harrison Ford.

Where Harrison Ford has to explain to Buck what a boat is. He's like, it's a boat, we're gonna ride on it. Harrison Ford lets Buck share his tent. They're having an idyllic time and they have something between a father-son relationship, a man-dog relationship, and kind of like two people who have just fallen in love and just can't get enough of each other and just want them.

They just don't never want to be a part. Yeah, there was a part later on where Harrison Ford was talking to Buck about how, you know, he and his wife just drifted apart after their sunset, and I didn't expect him to end it with, and now you're my wife. Yeah. He's like, but even before that,

we had a sort of arrangement. Yes. My grieving wife and I have an understanding. There's a moment where they're out in the wilderness and it's beautiful there. And Ford tells Buck, your ancestors used to roam here and mine back when we were wild. And I was like, your ancestors, Harrison Ford?

Yeah, I sure about that. Yeah, in Santa Clara, California, where they shot this movie. No, where they obviously shot this movie. If we go back to the cradle of civilization, maybe. Yeah, maybe. There's a lot of scenes where characters like go outside and it's snowy, but they're like,

there's no breeze and it doesn't actually look that cold. It's that kind of a it's that kind of a cold winter Spotlight. Yeah, yeah, there are many scenes of transportation. There are many like long montages of them cruising the dogs the dogslay through the you know through the Alaskan wilderness. Uh-huh that really look like they were that really looked like they were painted by the painter of light Thomas Kincaid. Like if you told him, like take this still photograph we took of a hill in Santa Clarita and really northern lights it up. That's pretty much what. And like there is no, there, none of the movie

outside of Harrison Ford's face looks like something you could actually touch. Yeah, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was assuming that even then you're gonna need this, sorry, when you say sort. I was just gonna talk about how I've assumed I was going to see the crowd from the pod racing scenes of Star Wars behind every corner,

but you know, it's not that important. No, I just wanted to warn our audience, even then you're going to want to get Harrison Ford's permission before you touch his face. That's true. The scent is important. But it is, it does feel like there is a version of this movie. I'm sure they've made multiple versions of this movie over the years. I've never seen the 30s one, which apparently this one takes some elements from, but there's

a, I guarantee you, there's some version of this movie that was shot in the 60s one, which apparently this one takes some elements from, but there's a, I guarantee you there's some version of this movie that was shot in the 60s where they really went to Alaska and they really had real dogs and everybody hated making it. But I kind of wanted a little bit of that in this, like it doesn't have a, it loses a sense of reality that I would have liked to have seen, or either that or I would have liked them to go all the way and just make this an animated movie. Like there's no reason this couldn't be like a regular 2D Disney hand-drawn animated movie. And then you've got some songs,

maybe the dogs talk a little bit. Like you go as a cat. Josh Gat gets a paycheck. Yeah, Josh Gat is like the goofy dog from the sleds. Like, hey, Buck, hey, you know, we gotta, you know, hey, you know, let's, what's it going on? Oh, that's spits and spits is what like, it can't be Jeremy irons again.

Spits would be like, I'm defiled. Cut to his back of screenplays on Elliot's desk, all of which just over and over say Josh Gad, Colin, hey, you know, hey, hey, you know, I mean, like, this is a thing that we talked about when we when we were watching it here, that like, if they could take this basic, exact screenplay and exact tone, and if Disney had made it like some time around like Beauty and the Beast or something, everyone would be like, this is great. You know, it really, it feels like it should be that.

I wonder if they paper if they pitch originally as as an animated movie and they said guys balto exists the animated alaskan sled dog movie is taken we can't ever get a race balto people's minds and hearts but why don't we just buy up all the prints and dvds of balto and pretend it never existed you know

that can't go more than five bucks. Like we did with Shazam, the Sinbad Jeannie movie that did exist, but we erased it from the permanent record forever. Yeah. But Jesse, what did I say? The thing that's a little bit of a bummer

about the middle ground that they chose in how they present the film to me is, there are a lot of things in the movie that work, you know, we talked about Harrison Ford. He's wonderful. Like I would just watch Harrison Ford and his elderly man, giant ears and nose, big David Letterman beard. Like I would love to watch that.

And I know that he's a very sweet man. And he comes up and I'm like, what the fuck? All right, dude. All that dude does is puff jays and do pull ups. Yeah. So like, there's a lot of great things about it, but like, thematically, I think it is really poorly served by not having something you can sink your teeth into. And that was probably not the turn of phrase I should have used because it sounds like I'm doing a pun here.

But like, no, no, you're the modern-day gene shallot. Just go run with it. The fact that there's no grit in the movie, and there really is almost no grit in the movie, other than Harrison Ford's face. Yeah. Is not just a bummer because I like to watch a gritty movie or whatever.

The screenwriter of this also wrote Logan, which I'm gonna alienate 60% of the listeners, but I thought stunk. And was very gritty. But there's something about the theme that is served by grittiness. The story is him descending into animalistic brutality, right? And like that, and that these human beings are drawn into it by their greed outside of Harrison Ford's character. And they like destroy each other. And that he has to, that buck has to learn to live freely within this new set of more brutal and terrifying,

but ultimately more satisfying rules as an animal, rather than as a false human in the judges' household. And none of that means anything. None of them getting hurt and sick and being under threat and being beaten into submission by a club. Like none of that means anything in the context of a movie for seven year olds. So either make it just like sweet and pretty,

which you could do or give it something. That was the bummer part to me about like the painted on Northern Lights in every scene. It's like I just want to see one thing go wrong. And I actually watched what's that called a Benji. I watched Benji not that long ago, like maybe like nine months. And it is boring and homemade, like this is original Benji. It is the most 1978 independent film

you could ever watch. But I think that quality of having an actual dog on screen where it does the wrong thing a lot draws you in in a way that having this perfect but slightly hazy because they're not quite good enough at the CGI dog on screen does. I think that's true.

And also, I did get a sense from it that like, yeah, for a movie that is about a civilized dog being forced into primordial savagery to survive, everything comes a little easily to book. Like, he never, it's like, oh, he's working real hard, but he's not really pushing himself to work hard. Like everything is kind of dealt with, when a problem comes up, it's kind of dealt with right away. And he feels consistent in a way.

Like it almost feels like he is enobling his surroundings rather than being drawn into them and being transformed, which I think like in some ways the book is sort of like, it is almost a satire of the idea of like of a character learning and growing, right? Because he is receding into his essential nature rather than expanding and becoming fancier and cleverer. And in the movie, it feels like he's kind of a very friendly handsome big guy who goes into all these different situations. And it's like, hey guys, let's do it my way. I'll make two holes in the ice for you to drink water from.

And everybody's like, yeah, you are the best. Let's just say it. Buck is in this movie, Buck is the fairest dealer of dogs. Everyone loves him. He never has to try very hard. He gets whatever he wants. And for, I mean, this movie lifts, like, the trajectory

and plot points directly from the recent, the first plan of the Apes movie from the recent batch. And Buck is very much like a Caesar-type character and he ends up like leading a bunch of wolves. And there's even a moment where he like catches a stick in his mouth instead of getting hit. And I remember being like when I saw that plan of the Apes movie, I was like, oh fuck yeah, beat him up Caesar. But in this, you know, it didn't have that emotional impact. No, because he's already, he's already triumphed over everything all the time. So, buck and four, they find an old prospector's cabin.

They decide to stay a little bit, especially when Harrison Ford finds some gold nuggets in the river while skinny dipping. This is when we see his hot dad bod, better than dad bod even. This is like, I mean, is he a dad? I don't know. Anyway. How could you tell those were gold nuggets that he found? Was it because they were like, they were like gold. Yippee, yahi. We were like highly polished, like refined. Like it truly looked like he found something

that had been like spray painted high gloss gold seven times. I mean, I'll let the movie get away with that. That's, you know, that was the thing. In case somebody wondered if it was brass that he found or whatever. Yeah There's some yeah a trumpet got shattered in the cold and the pieces are just in the water They came in like I found diamonds and you like lifts an engagement ring out of the river was basically what it was like Panting for gold and again, they're painting for gold and getting nuggets, which is, I'm going to go with Jesse. That's not how painting for gold works. You get dust when you pan for gold.

Right. I like the idea that at the beginning of his pan for gold, he couldn't see the like two and a half inch diameter to nuggets that were in his one inch of water. And Buck catches the eye of a sexy lady wolf, which he runs away when he tries to meet with her. But he wins over the wolf pack when, hey, guess what, he saves a wolf from drowning in the river. That's what Buck does. He saves people from drowning. Show us something different that Buck does. And the wolfs all have these reaction shots like, okay, okay. Like it's pretty, it's almost, you're almost at the point of a wolf wearing sunglasses and like lowering the sunglasses to look over them at buck.

Now buck, he runs with the wolves. Harrison Ford is like, you know what, I've been cleansed with his experience in this adventure. I should go home. He says goodbye, but before he can leave, who's going to return it's Dan Stevens. That's right, the guest, but he's no guest this time. He's an invader. He shoots Harrison Ford and he threatens luck. And how I bummed to you guys that Dan Stevens didn't show up with fucking spits with him, right? Shouldn't have shown it together. I mean, that would have been the more Hollywood way to do it.

Yeah, if it's all of Bucks enemies are now now banded together. And then spits has like a monologue, like a Richard III monologue where he's like cast out and ignored. Now I shall have my day. Well, you'd have the part where Dan Stevens is like, I meant to have my whole family die in the ice. It was all part of my plan. You fell right into my fingers. He threatens Buck with a club that hated club, but Buck fights back. He's not afraid anymore after cringing for maybe like a millisecond. He shoves Dan Stevens into a burning cabin to die horribly.

And Viking funeral. Yeah, and Harrison Ford dies in Buck's paws after touching goodbye. And now with his voice over from Beyond the Grave, he explains that Buck has started a new pack. He's had babies with a sexy lady wolf. They even stared down a bear together. And the Vio tell us- It's a bear like glass unicorn red bull moment.

Yeah, yeah, because he just chugs that red bull down. And then the bear is like, I don't want any part of this. That's the thing about the last unicorn. This dude's wild and- And the Vio tells us how after going from master to master now, Buck is his own master. As he followed some primordial urge from the wilderness and then title, the Call of the Wild, as if the title was trying to prompt Harrison Ford about what phrase he was

supposed to end the movie on. And that's the end of the movie. Yeah, that ending is an example of a phenomenon throughout the film, which is like every 15 minutes or so, there's just a brief scene where someone says out loud what's happening and what the themes are. And each one of those things, some of them seem to have been part of the added invoice over parts. Some of them are scenes that are between Harrison Ford

and Buck where Harrison Ford explains the themes in Buck's life to Buck like a psychoanalyst. And it was and they all have this goofy grand eloquence. That is so unearned, so profoundly unearned. Yeah, it feels very much like a dad has sat me down and he's telling me a story and like, dude, I know what you're getting at. Just because you're saying it's slowly doesn't mean it's important. And where would you rank this in the Harrison Ford voiceover pantheon better or worse than the Blade Runner studio cut voiceover?

I like both versions of Blade Runner. Call me crazy. I enjoy the more. I'm on record by preferring the version with the voiceover. So I mean I know that he's not doing much in that but I mean I still feel like that feels appropriate to the character. So what in Blade Runner? Yeah. Well, I mean, well, Blade Runner also does the necessary thing of explaining to you what's happening in this in this movie that with the scenes make no sense and don't go together. You know, but okay, so let's call it a draw then. Call the wild

Harrison Ford, Blade Runner Harrison Ford equals. Equalness team. Let's do our final judgments whether this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked. Guys, if I was like 20 years old, say, I don't think I'd like this movie. But if I was seven I would like this movie and now at 40 I also like this movie. And I think you know like seven it might have been just like lower standards and like seeing a cute dog having adventures. And now a lot of it is ironically since one of the problems with this movie as they called the wild adaptation is it's lack of brutality.

What I enjoy about it is it's kind of a throwback to a jettler, slower style of family film that maybe I'm just nostalgic for. I don't know, but I think that Harrison Ford does a great job. I'm glad that they didn't really hollywood up the plot points all that much even though they did somewhat. And I thought it was fun. When Harrison Ford was about to get shot, I could see that this was gonna be the scene where it happened, where Dan Stevens was gonna show up shot. I could see that this was gonna be the scene

where it happened, where Dan Steven was gonna show up. And I was like gripping Audrey's leg, Audrey who had lost interest long ago. But I was like, no, no, Dan Steven's it's gonna shoot Harrison Ford. And so the movie got me. Yeah, I actually liked it a lot. I think I would have had the same trajectory as you Dan,

that as a kid I would have liked it. As a young man, I would liked it a lot. I think I would have had the same trajectory as you, Dan, that as a kid, I would have liked it. As a young man, I would have been like, ugh, this middle brow, gentle adaptation of a book. I don't need it. But now, it's a movie that goes down real smooth. It, and like, especially for a kid's movie, it's what you can say, call the wild, may not really be the best material for a kid's movie. But also for a kid's movie, I don't need something that is super gritty and raw or anything like that. And certainly, as someone who is also not a fan of Logan, like, I don't need the Logan

version of this where Buck is like cursing and like ripping people's heads off and stuff like that. This is it. There was something about this movie just being a movie where I could be like, I'm watching it and I'm fighting this pleasant. And by the end of it, oh, you know, I feel good about Buck, oh, you know, digging into it into some of the like, like I was saying, some of the cultural subtext of it, that's not a great idea. Don't do that because you're going to be unhappy with it, maybe. But as a viewing experience, when I finished watching it, I was

like, oh, this is the Rare Flop House movie where I wish I had watched this with my son, because I think he probably would have enjoyed it some of the dog stuff might have been a little scary for him, but that's just him and dogs. You know, maybe that would any movie with a dog. He might have felt that way about, although he did watch all over and company recently, and that's with dogs in it, and he likes that. But yeah. What about all dogs go to heaven?

He's never, I've actually never seen that. I've only ever seen little bits of it, and they're only. But yeah, what about all dogs go to heaven? He's never, I've actually never seen that. I've only ever seen little bits of it and they're only the hell bits and it's kept you from wanting to ever watch that movie. Cause I don't need to see dogs going to hell. Also, Elliot, Sammy liked Oliver and Cup and he mostly because it was an adaptation of Oliver Twist which of course he is his favorite novel.

Well, that was the second reason his favorite, the reason I liked the most is cause he's such a big Billy Joel fan. Oh, okay. Just like, finally, my two favorite things, Disney movies and the bard of Long Island, they're in one place, finally. Uh, but yeah, I actually like this movie quite a bit. Okay, guys, Stewart, Jesse, tell me why I'm wrong. Oh, I don't know. I mean, I'm going to say I actually think this is a bad, bad movie. Um, but I don't like, I'm not, I actually think this is a bad bad movie, but I don't like I'm not I ain't mad at it It just like there's there's so little there. It feels it feels very

like rewritten It's not gonna stick in my brain. I don't know and and there's I mean, there's no grit at all like I don't need it to be like fucking Kormac McCarthy or anything But like I don't know, it would have felt nice, it would have been nice of it felt like any of these characters were anywhere other than a sound stage or in a nice part of California. Yeah, that's true. I have watched a lot of really terrible children's movies and almost exclusively, like my, I have

three children, the oldest of whom just turned nine. And my media diet has really dwindled to like one comforting half hour television program at the end of the day before I fall asleep. And movies I have to watch for work. And for my NPR show, which are tend to be fancy indie movies, first cow or something. And I have no complaints about that part of my life. That's great that I get to do that for work. And then kids movies that often, unlike Elliot, I haven't been able to trick my children

into watching kids movies that I want to watch very often. So Elliot is just hanging out watching Mark's Brothers movies and the Adventures of Robinhood and stuff. And like I tried- I mean, I tried to it was just a Robin Hood was a big hit. Big hit with Sammy. I tried to get, I tried to get my kids to watch,

I tried to get my kids to watch singing in the rain and failed. Oh, another, another favorite in the family. The two old loves it. It's a hoot. But I couldn't get him, I couldn't get him to go for it. So I've seen a lot of like,

I've seen a lot of just boring laymasks kids movies and this movie is definitely better than those. It's a two-star movie, it's not a total failure. Harrison Ford is wonderful. I like watching dogs, but I do think it's a bad, bad movie. Even it is ultimately betwixted in between. They should have made a choice. Either we're going to make a beautiful children's movie that's very sweet, or we're going to make a movie with a little bit of zip to it.

It doesn't have any zip to it other than Harrison Ford's face, as I mentioned. And it isn't very beautiful. Like it really does, as Stuart say, everything looks like somebody just used a stock animation for Northern Lights on top of a shot of a hill in Santa Ana. And you know who I'm going to blame for that. This is going to be, this is going to be controversial. The cinematographer on this is Janis Kaminsky. And I am totally going to blame him because the last 12 years 15 years of his movies have been kind of that same glossy. Yeah, very very post CGI

Soft look and like he does all the Steven Spielbergs or most of his most recent movies and they all have that same kind of like Fakey studio look. Yeah, I'll say I watched a few of those Disney studio look. And I'll say I watched a few of those Disney live-action reinterpretations of classic Disney cartoon movies. I saw Lady in the Tramp and I saw Beauty in the Beast. And those- If it's got an ampersand, you'll watch it. Yeah. Those like also have- There's two things for the end in the middle. Those also have ampersandfan.com. Fampersand. Those are also things to recommend.

Them like Beauty and the Beast has those wonderful songs in the Harry Potter ladies fantastic in that movie. And Dan Stevens in that one too. Yeah, but the aesthetics of them are such a garbage pile and I will admit that they are worse, that it's the worst version of the same thing. This kind of like everything looks like a Thomas Kincaid painting.

But like everything has that weird softness to it in order to accommodate the fact that they can't quite make the dog look right. And so it's hardly the worst, but it's a bad bad movie. Like if I watch it with my daughter because she wanted to watch it, I would have been grateful that it wasn't total garbage, but having watched it by myself. Because my wife wanted to watch it, because my daughter wanted to watch a Harry Potter movie last night for Big Kid Movie Night instead. I was, I was bummed that I had wasted that that chunk of my life on it. Yeah. Welcome to the flop house, my friend. Welcome to the flop house. It's all about wasting chunks of your life

Well a real split decision here, so I guess we're gonna have to leave it up to our guest judge Harrison Ford Harrison Ford what do you think is this a movie you kind of like? We're the bad movie Bradley Whitford because he was the judge in the movie. Yeah, that's true But he's not a judge in real life unfortunately Harrison Ford who is a judge now on the federal bench So judge Ford what do you think all right well thanks harerson i guess that's it's non-committal so i guess will just have to live with the split decision on this one was a pretty good harerson for growl i got a say thank you

uh... so oh one day i wanted to mention actually this is a bit that i forgot i was going to do i i didn't i had for I had forgotten that call the wild Sorry, should we put in our forgotten bits theme? No, this is me saying what you guys all were all saved from that call the wild is very similar to the pet plot of Dune in that it's about something outside who comes into a more savage wilderness and Becomes the leader of a becomes part of a tribe and then the leader of that tribe

And so I was originally gonna start doing the plot as Tom Brokoff for those Flophouse fans who love Tom Brokoff describing Dune, but I forgot to. So. Okay, well, don't do it now. So that, to Werner Herzog's cave for rotten bits. I mean, it seems like it would take a lot of,

a lot of setup for that. That's what, but what kind of Flophouse bit doesn't involve a lot of setup for that. That what's what but what kind of flop house bit doesn't involve a lot of setup. True. Schmanners. Now. Definition. Rules of etiquette design not to judge others, but rather to guide ourselves through everyday social situations.

Hello Internet, I'm your husband host Travis McAroy. And I'm your wife host Travis McAroy. And I'm your wife host Theresa McAroy. Every week on Shmanners we take a look at a topic that has to do with society or manners, we talk about the history of it, we take a look at how it applies to everyday life, and we take some of your questions. And sometimes we do a biography about a really cool person that had an impact on how we view etiquette. So join us every Friday and listen to Shm's on MaximumFun.org or wherever podcasts are found.

Manor Schmaner's, get it. If you're looking for a new comedy podcast, why not try the Beef and Dairy Network? It won Best Comedy at the British podcast awards in 2017 and 2018. Also, I'm on. There were no horses in this country until the mid to late 60s. Specialist Bovine Asfet. Both of his eyes are squid's eyes. Yoga Buffet.

She was married to a bacon farmer who saved her life. Farm raised, snow leopard. Shroom. Download it today. That's the beef and dairy network podcast from MaximumFan. 3. Don't Know Did Today That's the Beef and Dairy Network Podcast for a maximum fun.org. Also maybe start at Episode 1, or weirdly, Episode 36, which for some reason requires no knowledge of the rest of the show. So we've got a couple of sponsors I would offer for Jesse to not be here for this, but

they're pretty, there's just only two. So I'm forcing them to sit around. Uh, Elliott, do you want to take the sponsor for once? Sure, I'll take the sponsor. Today's flop house is brought to you by you guessed it. Squarespace. Look, Squarespace is the place for you to go to to create your own website. I haven't mean to do it for a while to create my own website. In the future, we're all going to live on the internet.

We're all going to need our own websites. You should get and start go out there, start making your website and Squarespace makes it so easy. Your website will be beautiful. Let's say you got a cool idea. I have cool ideas all the time. They just disappear into the ether because I don't get around to make them into websites. I use Squarespace.

Technically, Ellie, we have seen that pile of screenplays on your desk. Yeah. Most of my cool, well, I need to make Josh Gad, hey, what.com. Your place for screenplays then involve Josh Gad being like, hey, hey, over here. So I'm going to take that cool idea. I'm going to use Squarespace to make it into website. I can blog on there. I can publish my content. I can sell all my products, my Josh Gad, hey, hey, hey, T-shirts and services. If you need me to introduce, put that into your screenplay, does even more.

And here's how Squarespace makes the difference because they've got their templates. You can customize them, they look great. So your website looks professional, you don't even need to code to do it. World-class designers designed this website and these templates. This is something that on Jordan Jesse Goele

that we really like to emphasize. There's a lot of provincial designers out there designing templates. And if you want world class designers, I'm not even talking about state fair, blue metal, blue ribbon type designers, but international. Olympics level.

These designers, they get, these designs, they work, they work in Sen they work they work in Senegal they work in Milan Italy that's in Italy the fashion capital of the world name another place where it works give me another place sorry I'm all out but the point is look when Carmen Sandiego goes somewhere she knows that her website is going to work there because it was designed by a world class designer. A way.

Yeah, she could go to, is this design? Milan, or, wait, wait, you can go to Senegal. It also works in Senegal. Wait, I know. Okay, now just get here. I want to say, close to Milan. No, that's wrong. Let's say you want your website to work on a mobile device and also on a computer, does

it right there for you. You don't have to worry about that right out of the box. It does it. And you can use it to buy domains. You can choose from over 200 extensions, free and secure hosting. It sounds amazing. I had a website that I want to talk to you guys about. It's called www.primordialspirit.com.

Sometimes we have trouble getting in touch with our primordial spirits. Buck was lucky enough that he just wandered by where his lives, the Yukon, but I haven't yet, I've yet to find mine, and I wanna find it. My primordial spirit, I don't even know what it looks like, it probably looks and sounds like emo Phillips, to be honest. But I wanna make sure, primordialspirit.com matches you with primordial spirits, shows you where they live, maybe they're in your area, maybe they're not.

In fact, well, we have one which is in in the area that's called Primordial Spirit Friend Finder. And that gets a little, that's just for adults. Elliott, will this Primordial Spirit help me find all these shortcuts in Mario Kart? So I stop looking like a real jerk. I can't promise anything, but yes, I promise you that that is the case. Hey, Stuart, take off your headphones for a second. Elliott, Dan, I was watching Stuart play Mario Kart the other day. And this guy looked you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one.

And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one.

And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one.

And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a quick one. And I'll get you a to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash flop. Now before we move on Jesse, I just want to say I appreciate that during the thinking of places, bit, your restraint. I know that you're famously unwilling

to talk about San Francisco, so I appreciate that you held that line firm today. I wanna mention also, so yes, we're recording this the day after we did our live online, the boy next door, screenplay reading with our good friends, the podcast, Halle Hagland, Jenny Javvy, Natalie Walker, and Jordan Morris, filling at the last minute,

really helping us out. And that will be up on our YouTube page in case you missed it at some point in the future. I think it just went up to the end. It's there now. Oh, it's there now. Well, then some point in the past when you're listening to this. Also, I think this comes out like two weeks from now.

So what is the YouTube link and expire? No, I don't know. Do it yesterday. Is YouTube link and expire? Did we not do it yesterday? Is YouTube gonna shut down? Yeah. All right, so the creators are gonna be out of work, Dan. Yeah, if we sound tired, it's because with the intro, outro, and just the fact

that our reading takes longer than a movie, I think it was a two hour and 40 minute marathon getting through that script, but I had a blast. I really had fun doing it, and people seem to enjoy it. I had a really great time, but right now, Dan, I don't think anybody has to explain why they sound tired. Yeah, that's true. I feel like everyone sounds tired.

That's the condition right now. I've got to that Stuart. I don't think Dan needs to explain why he sounds tired. Yeah, between my tendencies towards depression and sleep apnea. You know, speaking of everything going on in the world, I woke up this morning thinking like, Hey, why the hell do my neck and shoulders feel so fucking bad right now? Do you figure that out?

I've been carrying stress in them for the past five months. Yeah. So that's the only part where we'll reference the outside world. No, we're going to reference it one more time because late September, my new book, Charco and Hippo, comes out. That's right. It's a kid's book by me with a, an all new set of characters, Sharko and Hippo. Anyway, the art is by Andreas Roomey, who did a great book called, Accident that I love, and Sharko and Hippo

is coming out in late September to book stores near you, order them through a bookstore, and then have it delivered to your door because, you know, of what's happening in the outside. Now the, this Sharko and this Hippo, are they sort of an island of dr. Moro Marx Brothers duo or without the island of dr. Moro part yes.

Okay great. Um hey let's let's let's uh let's read some letters from you the listeners. Uh this one is from John from Milwaukee. What's that call out there? Do I hear something coming through the snowy way? Swiets perro the dogs led male man bringing the letters back to the flop house. Sometimes our letters come from far away. Far away in the frozen north, the Yukon where letters sometimes go

and sometimes come from. That's how male works, letters come come from and go to the same places sometimes All the way from San Agal to Milan, but in this case, it's the Yukon where these letters are coming from and here comes that dog's Let a letters down the track to the flop house Yeah, it feels weird to be annoyed by those letters songs right now with the way what's going on with the postal service. Yeah, they need all the encouragement they can get. I'm trying to do my part. Yeah, come on. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Halle. So this first letter from John says, my wife and I read John. So John, that's the full name, no last name with hell, just that's the full name, John. Well, earlier, I said John from Milwaukee

kind of forgetting the bit for a second but yeah John it's John for Cincinnati. Wow. It writes and says does anyone know what was going on in my show because I sure don't. David Milch has a respondent name my text. He must be better than again. You must be busy dealing with dealing with all of his debts. Anyway continue. John says, my wife and I recently watched Green Room and enjoyed it.

But even greater was near the end of the movie, the presence of the Dragon Lance book, Dragons of Spring Donning, was on the console of the van. I read the hell out of that series in middle school and bought it for my sixth grader for Christmas. What aspect of your real life appearing in a film were you excited to see? I remember it's not a film, but there were a couple of episodes of Mad Men where Don Draper's Tumblers, I guess they're more

like rock's glasses, were this sort of, you know, obviously because of the time period they were mid-century modern, but also because mid-century modern was big because of madmen at that time period, I also had these tumblers, these sort of throwback tumblers with the squares etched into the sides of the glass. So that's when I remember. What about you guys? That's not that far from being like. I was really excited to watch Grim ones too

because I had a full set of the Grim ones too, trading cards I bought because of how much I love Grim ones too. I think you got it, Stu. I think you got it. I mean, we had them before we started watching Mad Men. Let's just, I like them back when they were cool. Oh, who has this dream of capturing the depths of sadness reflected in Don draper's

drinking Well, I don't know like I mentioned earlier that I got excited when in the movie the call of a wild they go to Skaagway because What two years ago Dan and I and some miss Wild, they go to Skagway because what two years ago, Dan and I and some massorted friends went to Skagway. That was really fun. Other than that, I don't know, like, I was really excited when I saw the 40-year-old version of the theater and I saw some of the miniatures that Steve Carell's character was painting, and I'm like, oh wow, I have some of those. I think I'm going to have to say, anytime I see certain parts of New York specifically

that I am well acquainted with in movies, I'm like, hey, I know that place, a movie that I love, The Landlord, was shot around my old neighborhood in Park Slowbrookland and there is a big Coca-Cola sign on a pizza place that was still standing for most of the time that I lived there and I was like, oh wow, that sign's been up there for like 50 years, this is amazing. It's like when you saw a squid in the whale and you're like, oh, I just didn't that book. Yeah.

Look, I, that diorama also reminded me of my parents' divorce when I would go visit it as a young man. But the time weirdly that I felt that way the most was, there's a very bad movie called Robot in the family Starting Joe Pentley, Alan John, Riz Davies about it. It's like a robot that can find gold It doesn't make any sense, but a lot of the movie for whatever reason was shot around this stretch of antique stores on Broadway between 14th Street and like 10th Street in Manhattan

And that was literally the street I walked. Those blocks I walked almost every day as an NYU student from my dorm to the classrooms. So when I watched this movie, I was like, I know that whole block, this is amazing. And I was like, I could have walked through this movie possibly. So.

It could be a robot in the family. It was very exciting even though the movie itself is terrible. Don't see it. The literal version of this for me, 100% is the movie sister act, which was shot like six or eight blocks from my childhood home and seeing. And also, whoopie goldbrook taught you how to sing. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, she told me actually that R&B hits of the 1960s were gospel songs, which was an unusual tack to teaching singing.

And I mean, it's like when that professor, I had a music professor named Harold Hill. And he taught me that all I had to do to play the trombone was think that I knew how to play the trombone, which also, similarly, unusual technique. But yeah, like seeing like, seeing the church by my house with fake graffiti on it to make it look more scary and the Irish bakery by my house and so on and so forth. That was like, absolutely thrilling when that movie came out when I was 10 or 9 or how old I was when that movie came out. And, but the more metaphorical version is my stepmother when when I was in my late teens,

said she had heard about this new Bill Murray movie that she thought I would really like. And this was like right after Operation Dumbo Drop or whatever. Was that the one that had Bill Murray in it? There was two, or was larger? No, it was larger than life. Larger than life, yeah.

This was right after a larger than life. Operation Dumbo Drop was like what, Danny Glover? Yeah, I mean, Danny Glover, I think maybe Dennis Leary was in it. Yeah, I think Dennis Leary was in it. As like a 17-year-old, I didn't, I didn't, did not yet understand. Like Bill Murray was two years out of my demographic in terms of how good he was before his career revival.

And it turned out to be Rushmore that my stepmother was telling me I should go see. And besides just being insufferable, another thing I related to Max Fisher about was that I was also a poor kid who went to a really fancy private school and fit very awkwardly, and also I was the president of a lot of different clubs. And it just makes a lot of sense, huh? Yeah. I actually had auditioned for Rushmore. I went to arts high school, and they came and auditioned

in there like search. But I didn't even get to say a line that I was too tall. They like, I walked in, they said, sorry, you're too tall, and I walked out. But I was, I think it was the first time that I had seen a movie and like, really directly related to themes in the character. And it was shocking to me.

Like, there were aspirational characters, you know? Like, I don't know, maybe I thought I would like to be more like, I don't know, I was gonna say P like to be more like, I don't know, I was gonna say Peeby Herman, but that's probably a bad thing to want to be like. Herman is an asshole. The man is not an asshole, he's really nice man, the character is an asshole. But like, but in terms of like seeing things from my life on film in an emotional sense, directly, that was the first time. And it's odd to admit that it was Rushmore,

which is obviously a very stylized movie where the protagonist is not always sympathetic. But... Never sympathetic, some might say, me in fact. Well, it depends on whether you had almost all of those experiences. I love this one. I love this one.

Whether you were actually a Vietnam veteran who was scarred by his experience there. Yeah. This next question is from Lena Lasting Withheld, which is pleasingly illiterative. I just want to mention something I never knew about Operation Domo Drop. Looking it up now is that it was set during the Vietnam War Which yeah, it's a kids movie that's set during the Vietnam War with soldiers transporting an elephant through South Vietnam so I'm assuming listening to like Leonard Skinner's songs and yeah, that's when I probably yeah That's when I first found out that my dad was a vet

I asked him if he had gone through anything like that in the 60s He said, let me tell you About my time on the carat in that giraffe Showed you pictures of his friend who's an elephant Lena writes dear peaches. I'm writing to you in spite of Dan's advising anyone who intended to write you a letter to, and I quote, go to hell in the last episode, because I am in desperate need of your sage wisdom. My younger brother 18 has recently become obsessed with slasher films.

He talks about them constantly, analyzes their themes, gives his opinion on the merits of various sequels and recommends movies he thinks you'll like. He even wrote a research paper about the gender politics of the genre. The problem is, he hasn't seen any of the movies he proclaimed to love. Not one. He watches a lot of horror-reviewed channels on YouTube, I guess, which is where I think he picked up this interest, but he never seemingly took the initiative to watch any of the movies he was hearing these guys talk about and has just absorbed their taste into his own personality through osmosis.

I can't begin to tell you how aggravating it is to be told how interesting the way the third Halloween movie subverts the formula of the franchise up to that point is By someone who it hasn't seen a single fucking Halloween movie and has no idea what the fuck he's talking about and obviously is just Parading someone else's opinion down to the word. My question to you is how do I get him to cut it out? Calling him out on his ignorance doesn't seem to work and neither does cutting mockery. Believe me, my parents and I have tried both, but the man is without shame. He's not embarrassed in the slightest

by the very silly thing he's doing, it's terrible. Can anything be done? Well, what would you do if it was your little brother? Please advise, he's driving me nuts, yours, and flop Lena last night with hell, and we're kind of cutting into the McRoy's business here with this is more of an advice letter but you're right we're not allowed to do that forget it let's not sorry Lena can't do it

to zero zero some game flop house up McRoy's down everyone's got their thing you can't do anything else they if they ever talk about movies they they have to stop immediately, I think. It seems like the best strategy. This might not be the most practical strategy, but it might be the most effective strategy is wait until he is not a 17-year-old. That was going to be my vice.

Just let him be dumb for a while, and then hopefully he won't be dumb in the future. Because also I think that if you argue with people too much because humans are stupid and our brains are broken, often people tend to dig in even more at that point. That's pretty cool. I was going to say just keep sending in little, send in little like gifts of those horror movies. So over time, he'll have to watch all of it Even if he's watching him in short clips. Yeah, that's what you're doing with critters gifts to us even though we've seen critters. Yeah

critters to various Japanese animation Yeah, and full house. I think the entire series of full house I think yeah, probably the only the only real thing to do is to just wait it out. I'm curious why he hasn't watched any of the movies. Yeah, that's the pleasure he probably gets on it. This is not to, you know, not become a therapist or a psychologist, all of a sudden. Because again, that's the macro thing. I'm guessing it's more than he gets pleasure out of sounding smart about a topic

Or like figuring something out Yeah, it's almost like he doesn't like the topic he's figured out It's almost like you want to introduce something to him that he he can be smart about that He also actually likes engaging with the main primary thing at the same time But I definitely like when I was younger. I definitely would be very opinionated about things that I had only heard about and not seen, because that's part of being a young man is assuming that you need to have an opinion on everything,

knowing that your opinion is based on nothing, and then pushing that opinion harder to try to make up for the fact that deep down you know that you're a fraud. That's basically what being a young man is all about. Man, an older man. And an older man. A man of all kinds. A man of all seasons is one who knows that he is a fraud and cannot be the thing that he thinks he's supposed to be. And so, the worst is other things.

So, I'm four legs at birth. Two legs. Yeah, you know it. Three legs eventually. That's how it goes, right? Three legs eventually. Yeah, we know it. Relax eventually. That's how it goes, right? Relax eventually. Yeah, we're watching this for like, it were birth and three legs eventually. It's me, the sphinx. When the sphinx is telling it's riddle

while trying to answer an email at the same time. By the way, Elliott, would you say, what would you say is the most sphinx like animal as you claimed early Ron in the show dogs or perhaps sphinxes. That's a good question. Yeah, sphinxes are closer to sphinxes than dogs. In terms of Lee animals, you got to go with a cat, right? Because a cat always has a look on its face like you have just failed to answer a question

properly that it has asked you. Also, it's those two things. So it's those two things. Well, they have the body of a cat. Oh, body of a cat. Face of a person. The head of a cat on the body of a person is a fetish. Yeah.

Which I feel like I'm not going to talk about it. I feel like if you were to tell a sphinx that it had a face like a cat That would be a severe insult in sphinx culture. Yeah, yeah Now then there's also you got your like a Syrian type characters who are there's finks is where it's like a lion's body with wings Word an ox's body and then the head of a man with a long beard and those always seem like I'm gonna run into them in the real world And I'll think they're gonna say something really smart instead they just go like, ah, because that's my experience with Bison.

I always inspire someone else to tell me something really wise. Elliot, I'm gonna let you keep going and just as I just wanted to let Stu and Dan know what happened is I had to go to the bathroom. So I just brought up mythological stuff. So Elliot could do his thing for a while and cover for us. Now the interesting thing is the miniature. No, I don't want to.

I don't want to. So I think another thing that Lena can do with her brother is to start introducing things, is to start talking to him about it, really engage him on the topic of horror movies, but slip in every now and then something that doesn't exist that you're making up and see, see like what, and not as like making fun of,

like to see how he reacts to it and what his opinion is suddenly on this thing that doesn't exist. And I want you to keep seating it that way until eventually you're having a conversation where both of you are talking about things that don't exist all the time. And you know it, but he doesn't know it.

And I want you to write down his opinions on all of these fake movies and, you know, send them to us in the future. Yeah, yeah. So we can laugh and laugh at the thing we once were. Uh-huh. Um, pardon me, I burped off Mike. Let's go to... I like that you undid it by telling us about it though. Mm-hmm. Uh, he's bragging that he's drinking bubbly drinks again, huh? That's why they call him Selter McCoy.

I'm rich in gas. Uh, let's go to... Oh, okay, look at Jupiter over again, huh? That's why they call them seltzer mackoy. I'm rich in gas. Let's go to the Jupiter over here, huh? Yeah, look at Bespin over here. Come on. Let's go to the final segment in the show, which is to recommend movies. I guess I guess I'll just break up the shale in Dan and get some of that sweet gas out of there.

Recommend movies we saw often recently, but not necessarily, that we liked. I would recommend, I finally got around to the Netflix Will Ferrell movie, Your Vision Song Contest, The Story of Fire Saga, which I had been kind of interested in just because I like goofy comedies and your vision is certainly funny on its own. But I still even said it. Yeah, well that's, I was gonna, yeah, the connection, the call of the wild connection is Dan Stevens, and I'll get back to him.

But, you know, I had been kind of will feraled out at least in terms of the manchild comedies he usually does. But I found this to be a better application of that, a sweeter application of that. Like there's a kindness and the worldview of the movie that I kind of wasn't expecting. Now don't get me wrong. Will Farrow is not the best thing about the movie. The best thing by far, I think, was Rachel McAdams as the equally goofy, but somehow simultaneously

grounded character of the two leads. I think she's terribly funny, like almost all of the time, and she just somehow finds the way to act a totally weird character and Dan Stevens is in it as Stuart says As the person who had normally be the villain of this type of movie But I think what they ultimately do with this character is sort of touching and heartbreaking and sweet as well and I really enjoyed it and it's got seen in it which I always like Just just Dan Stevens gets pushed into a burning cabin in the revision song contest also? I don't want to spoil it.

I mean, there's fire in the title, right? Yeah. I'm going to recommend a movie that just went up on Shutter recently called Host. It is the first of probably, I don't even know if it's the first, but I'm sure it's one of a slew of horror movies that's made on a micro budget during quarantine, during in a post-COVID time. And it is about a group of 20-somethings who are set up a Zoom call to hang out with each other. And the theme for their Zoom call is they decide to have a say-once.

And it goes just about as well as you would imagine. It's nice and short, it's under an hour, they do some fun stuff with the limitations of a zoom call, but the thing I think that makes it work is that the stuff that happens before things get scary is engaging and the stuff that happens after things get scary is also engaging. So it manages, I think the whole thing manages to work. So if you're looking for a short slice of horror that is also topical, I guess, check out host. Before we move to the next recommendation, just very quickly, there is a not 0% chance

that I said the story of ice and fire saga would give the name I if I did I was obviously thinking of song of ice and fire but there is just fire. There's no ice in your vision anyway no no yin vay main man steam. Howdy you look like you're about to go so why don't you go. Sure, this movie that called The Wild, I thought, said, I'll recommend a movie with Wild in the title. So I'm going to recommend Aw Wilderness. This is the 1930s version of the Eugene O'Neill Play Aw Wilderness, starring Wall Speery and Lionel Barrymore, and one of my favorite actresses of the time,

Alene McMahon. And it was, the script was adapted by Albert Hackett and Francis Goodrich, who wrote The Thin Man, one of my favorite movies. And it's kind of a, another kind of goes down easy moving in a lot of ways. It's a little slice-of-life story about a young man who has just graduated from high school in 1906. He's about to go to Yale, and he has to be kind of saved from himself, and his thinking of himself as a sophisticated man of the world who understands more than regular people, as he makes a couple of bad decisions

and is pulled out of the kind of thing that nowadays would not have been a problem, but back in 1906 would have ruined his life beyond measure, namely going on a date with a woman that he shouldn't go on a date with and saying some things that might upset people. I want to give a little fact, toid that is of no interest to anyone but me.

I played a said young man in the community theater production of all wilderness when I was 17. This is a, yeah, thank you. I'm glad you could bring that personal perspective to it. It's very much a kind of picture of that mythical small town turn of the century America that didn't really exist, but which is a, I don't know, something that a lot of jerks year and four are returned to.

But it's kind of like if our town didn't have any of the metaphysical talk of the cosmos in it, but I really enjoyed it. It's just determining a little movie, a wilderness. Jesse, what have you got? Well, I'm gonna first recommend a book. But I really enjoyed it. It's just determining a little movie, all wilderness. Jesse, what have you got? Well, I can first recommend a book. Elliot Kaelin, I went over to his house the other day.

We're quarantine buddies. And I was in a real mess. My life has been a really horrible mess lately. And I just, I asked him if he could loan me a book that would not make me sad at all and would be interesting the whole time. And he loaned me a book called The Devil's Candy, which is about the making of the film of the bonfire of the Vanities, Brian De Palmas film. And it is as absolutely engrossing and fascinating as a behind the scenes book could be. The movie was ultimately a huge debacle

both critically and financially, but like involved all of these brilliant, amazing people, you know, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis and Stephen Spielberg is in there. And it is a story, it is a book about, I think, the same thing that the flop house is often about, which is that making a movie is so complicated and has so many moving parts that even if you bring together a bunch of brilliant people, it is so easy to just get it wrong. And it's a very sympathetic book to everyone who is involved in the story, even the executives who are mostly just kind of doing executive meddling. But I think the easy read of it is that it's the story of how executive meddling can ruin a film, but

I think it really is the story of how a film can just go wrong. And it's a very sweet in a surprising way and funny and it like it shows you the fascinating stories behind every you know one of the most interesting subplots of the book is the assistant director who is a protege of de Palmeurs trying to make his name by getting a perfect shot of a concord landing with with the skyline in the background and the sun and exactly the right place and he has to do like months of calculations by hand to figure out when the sun will be in the right place and so on and so forth and he nails it. It's the perfect shot. He wins a hundred dollar bet with Brian de Palma and there's it's mentioned in an article in American cinematographer magazine and

All the credit goes to the cinematographer of the movie who was not present and it is It is it's a really like it's full of those fascinating stories of every kind of person like people who worked on studio movies in the 50s and People who are like totally go-go 90s and they're trying to make the ultimate 80s movie. It's a great book. So thank you, Elliott, for that recommendation to me. And I pass it on to America via the flop-out.

I will also recommend a movie. It is probably my favorite movie. And I'm always glad to recommend it, especially to comedy fans and practitioners of whom I know there are many who listen to the flop house. It's called a Thousand Clowns, it was made in the early to mid 1960s, as the 1960s were just starting to trend towards the counter-cultural 1960s, where that idea was just being invented before Flower Children and so forth. It's based on a play that one, I think it would believe it when a Pulitzer won some Tonies as well. And it's a story about a comedy writer who is probably 40-ish, who is unemployed,

and he has quit writing on a children's show because it was beneath him. But with him lives his young teenage nephew, 13-year-old kid who, for reasons that are explained in the film, goes by many different names. Turns out his uncle just lets him pick a new name whenever he feels like it. But this kid is being investigated, this kid and his uncle are being investigated by child protective services, basically because the uncle is unemployed and the kid is often out of school,

and the kid is sort of brilliant and precocious, but never shows up for anything and they're worried that it is an unsafe environment for the kid. And the uncle is so resolutely anti-establishment and irreverent and amazing and charming as only, you know, Jason Robards could be like it is a spectacular, hilarious, amazing performance. But you realize that the central conflict of this film is not this man against the establishment, but this man against himself, that he has to take responsibility for his own life, that just because he is anti-establishment and a comedy in a hilarious charming man doesn't mean that he doesn't have to take responsibility for the effect that his choices have on others, especially ones that people that he loves. And it makes me cry every time, even though it is definitely a comedy.

And it's full of hilarious stuff. Full of wonderful performances. Martin Balsam was nominated for an Oscar for it. He plays the guy's brother. And one. And one, and one, thank you, Elliot. Yeah, one best-wording actor. And there's a wonderful performance by the teacher

from Boy Meets World, who's like... Mr. Feeney? Yeah, Mr. Feeney. William Daniels. Yeah, he's like 35 years old. John Adams, he plays the kind of hard-ass or relatively stickler child protective services guy. And it was actually written as the character

is actually based on Gene Shepherd, who is the legendary radio host who was also probably... I really thought you were going to say Gene Shepherd. Yeah. Who is the most probably most famous for Christmas story, right? But the playwright and Gene Shepherd's relationship, they were very close friends, was ended by Gene Shepherd because of this play, because it was essentially a critique of a guy who allowed his brilliance and charm and humor to get in the way of taking responsibility for

his own life. Anyway, it's a beautiful movie. For many, many years, it was really hard to watch. It would come on Turner Classic movies sometimes. There was a VHS that sold for $75 on eBay. But it has just been re-released on Blu-ray, a beautiful new Blu-ray that's $19.00. And if you are the streaming type, I won't say what tube you can go to to watch it on in relatively high quality because I think everybody involved should get paid. But yeah. and in conclusion, the kid, the 13-year-old,

he's played by an actor named Barry Gordy, who as a younger child was the voice of the song, all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, and as a man was the voice of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And in between... Donna Taylor. And in between was the best.

The best, do I? And in between was, became a lawyer and president of the screen actor's guilt for quite a lot of time. So there you go. A thousand clouds it's called there are no clouds involved. There are no clouds involved in the film but there is a part where he leans out the window of his 10-minute apartment and says rich people everybody out on the street for volleyball. Which is a lot of fun. And no clowns were hurt during the making of the film because of like,

I can't promise that. That's why they're not in the movie. They were all showing. Oh, they didn't want to show it. They were all in show. That would have been like, yeah, that would have basically made it a snuff film. I mean, they were,

they were injured being driven to set. They just put too many clowns in that car. It was one of those things like, like that rip torn thing where rip torn beat the crap out of Norman Mailer or whatever Wow, have you seen that footage it is brutal. Oh In the movie. Oh man. He hits him in the head with a hammer from behind the back There's what that movie thousand clowns. There's it's it's an amazing movie and as mentioned there's a performance in it He's only in one long scene Gene sacks plays Jason Rard's boss who comes to win him back and it is the most amazing scene of a man who is a Who is a performance person who is a monster an emotional monster and just wants people to like him

But is a bully and his tear it's in a me it that's that one scene. I think I always think is amazing He plays like the children's host that he used to work for. And what's beautiful about it is he is like a monster in that all he lives for is the approval of others. But it also like, it's very sympathetic. Like you understand that this is a sad man and that show business is sad. Yeah.

Okay, well, I got a piece, so let's wrap it up. Jesse, thank you for being with us. Is there stuff you would like to plug? I know you yourself have many shows. Yeah, I own a podcast network called MaximumFun.org with a lot of great shows. The only one I would steer clear of is called the flop house. Oh, what? Oh, the prestige.

The prestige, guys. Um, I, uh, I do, I hope do hosting co-host three shows. I do an NPR, all ten called Arts and Culture Interview Show, uh, called Bullseye, um, uh, of which I'm very proud. And if you like interviews with figures from arts and culture, including many, uh, many filmmakers, many filmmakers and folks involved in film. Recently we've had Steve Bouchemmi was on the show. That was a wonderful interview, a wonderful interview, a great actor and also a great director. And Kelly Reichert, who directed first cow.

I mentioned first cow. First cow totally rules. What a great movie. Yeah, I keep putting it off, but I just need to set a sides and put it on. What's great about it is so totally not a homework movie, like it's so fun and it's great. But anyway, it's about the first cow to be elected president. And as you mentioned, Elliot, our mutual friend, Jordan Morris, with whom I've been friends since we were 19 and 18 and I was his RA in college. And I do a show called Jordan Jesse Go, that is a silly bullshit comedy show,

of which has existed now, it's now and going into year 14, I think, something like that. Um, Trump does. And, uh, your head. And it's, you know, it's liked by people who like that sort of thing and then I also do a show with and we've all been Yes Yeah, exactly you guys have all been guests. You're on the max fund drive episode this year or at least Dan and stew are So you can go listen to an episode with one of the peaches and I also do a show called judge John Hodgman

That's a comedy version of the people's court with the wise and hilarious John Hodgman as the judge. And in recent years, he's really backed off the key element of his comic character, which was bullying Elliott. So I've sort of had to take it on instead. Yeah. Doing a banging job. He does occasionally shift to me when he sees me,

but he's also gotten a lot nicer over over the years That's where he's not about nice to me guys. I know cuz you're the cool one. Yeah, he wants you to like him Thank you to all of you for listening You know go forth and spread the word. However, you may like, but for the flop house, I've been Dan McCoy. Hey, thanks, dirty DMXC. I've been steward Wellington. I'm Ilya Kay. No, I don't know. I want to say thanks also to listeners. Thanks to Jordan Calling for editing this mess into a professional ability. I'm Ellie Kaelin and Jesse what's your name? Jesse Thor?

See ya! On this episode we discuss Call of the Wild. Technically, the Call of the Wild. But why start being pedantic now? Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artists-owned, audience supported. Orc, Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned, audience supported.