The Flop House - Ep. #323 - Deadly Lessons

Episode Date: September 26, 2020

If there's one thing we've learned in all our years of discussing bad movies, it's that vanity projects are often the creme de la creme of bizarre and terrible cinema. And hoo doggies, do we have something special for you. Made in 2006, then shelved for nearly a decade before getting quietly dumped to streaming in 2014, writer/director/star Stuart Paul's magnum opus, Deadly Lessons, is a fantasy self-help (?) thriller (?) that's impossible to describe, but lord, do we try.Movies recommended in this episode:Charlie's Angels (2019)Palm SpringsThe Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

On this episode we discuss deadly lessons. And the lesson is watch this movie! Hey everyone welcome to the flop S I'm Dan McCoy. Oh, hey there Dan McCoy it's me Stewart Wellington your friend. I'm Elliot Kaelin. I also fall into the category of friend not just to Dan but also to Stewart. Three friends are we? Yes, friends are us. And that's what this is. This is a podcast where three friends or friends that they talk about friend stuff. So in particular, the way that friends sometimes watch movies and then talk about it. What do we do this week? Dan on the friend cast. Well, the friend house. Well, during September at the friend house,

we celebrate a small timber, which is a made up holiday month. Oh, it was made up. Oh, it was made up. OK. There's a lot of religious people who will be very unhappy with you saying that sort. Oh, burn. They can come find me at dance apartment.

I mean, you do have it. But also, you have like a public business that people can go to to talk to you face to face. And write mean yelp reviews, apparently. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. I thought it would be a funny goof if I wrote 1,000 mean yelp reviews about that.

Oh, goof. Not a goof, Elliot. OK, where was I? Oh, small timber. That's where we watch movies that are slightly smaller than we normally do. Now this movie is probably very old. Yeah, this is from 2006.

This is probably the largest small movie that- Well, this had a reported budget of $30 million. We don't make it a mid-sized movie these days. I guess it's on the screen, you know? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, it does look better than most of the small, Vemper movies we see. I mean, like this, it produced production value wise compared to something like Love on a Leash from last year.

This is like, you know, a, a saving private Ryan production value. Well, did you look into the, I mean, they had like, the cinematographers were like, there was a guy from Bad Boys, there's a guy from bad boys. There's a guy from what was the other thing? Bad boys too. No, no, Jesus, I should have had this.

I thought I would remember this information and now it's going away. The secret is that this movie is a crystal sky production. Crystal sky is the company that also makes the baby geniuses movies among other things. And it was founded by Stephen Paul, who's also John Void's manager, which is why John Void is also involved in a lot of these things. But this seems to be, and I'm not quite sure. So according to IMDB, which is very,

not always the best source, it was co-written by Simon Paul. And it was co-written and directed and I think starring Stuart Paul. So it's like, was it just three brothers got together to make a movie? And if so, why is it not about three brothers who are always bickering and have to, I guess bury the poem or something?

Their fourth brother, Aaron Paul, was too busy making Breaking Bad. Sorry guys, I want to say the... And their fifth brother, Paul of Tarsis, was busy having died over a thousand years ago, you know, almost 2000 years ago. Yeah, that keeps you pretty busy. Yeah.

This movie had two cinematographers one Douglas Milson did full metal jacket and the last the most common another other among other movies the other Howard Atherton did bad boys fatal attraction deep rising I know you love deep rising stew yeah yeah two eyes and the ability to watch movies yeah Yeah, so there's that and the composer is Michelle Lagrande at the umbrellas of Sherberg. And was it edited by the editor of Jeepers Creepers? Yes, it was. So the guy, this is a vanity project, but it's a vanity project by a guy with a lot of Hollywood connections who was able to raise $30 million to put his nutty vision on screen. And that madman is Stewart Paul.

Another one of us handsom Hollywood stewards. He makes some... He's the next one. He's Stewart Panken, now Stewart Paul. That's the Pantheon grows. Yeah, yeah. All the stewards, Gloria Stewart. The main guy looks kind of like a cross between like Steve

Gutenberg now and thin pin Gillette. Like he's, yeah, so this. I kind of considered him like a cross between Howard Stern and Neil Gaiman. Yes, those are good ones too. Yeah, he looks a lot like a stepdad who always wears sandals with socks. But thinks he's really cool.

Like he goes to a lot of steely Dan concerts. He's always rocking out in the garage and asking you to join him. And look, I don't want to, you know, I don't know the man personally, I don't want to say anything about what he might be like. I mean, if you did, if you did, it would be incredibly unethical for you to then go on and slam his movie. But on screen, like as the lead to this movie, you know, like the movie has John Voitt, Oscar winner, John Voitt, and then a cabal of what I would say are competent actors, and then it has this lead performance,

which is bereft of any sort of charisma or energy. It's like a hole in the middle of the donor. Yeah. Jordan, can you just loop in the monologue that Daniel Craig does in knives out, please? Okay, guys, wait. Okay, still going. Okay, yeah, there you go. I don't know if you know how cutting works, sir. No, no, no, no, no, it's, we're gonna, she's gonna do it live, right? She's gonna do an overlays what you're saying. Okay, I get it. All right, well, let's pause for that Yes, no, no, we already did it Dan. Oh, yeah, we already did we're not finished that big

Why don't we anyway? Why don't I just talk about this movie? So anyway, this is technically I'm gonna I'm gonna allow it as Judge Kaelin I'm gonna allow this to be a small Vemper movie Jordan. Please put in that gavils sound effect I'll allow it. This is officially a small Vemper even though it's much bigger than others and it comes Little add in that little animation we made of Elliot crossing his arms and nodding his head. Yeah, yeah, like he's a genie while the gavels being slammed down. And then the wind blows up my judge robes and it's just heart boxers shorts underneath.

Yeah, but nobody laughs because we all take Elliot very seriously. Yeah, no, that's the authority I have as a judge is even after seeing that I'm just wearing underpants under the robe, you're still like, yeah, but his mind is first rate, first rate legal mind. If anything, if anything, we fear you more at that point because the fact that you may feel embarrassed makes us scared to see what, you know, like, what vengeance you may recon us if we laugh. Exactly.

Yeah, I'm an angry God. Yeah, speaking of gods, this movie is somewhat about the existence of God, but not really. Let's get into it, shall we? And I'll mention that my notes for this movie are very long, so I've condensed them. They're not quite as short as I'd like them to be normally, but there's a lot that happens in this movie,

and I'm not going to go into. So if there's any details that I'm skipping over, feel free to stop me and introduce them, because I cannot go into every detail. I do have one question. Elliott. Is that did you take notes on the 2B commercials that you watched because 2B is the only place you can find this movie? I did not.

This is already a long movie. It is over 2 and a quarter hours long and yet 2B is the only place you can watch it online and they put commercials in frequently. So it was like, oh boy. So I just set up a Toobie account in a watch this movie and no, this is no slam against Toobie. I kind of want to leave my profile having only watched this movie. I was sure you can leave it after you find out what movies Toobie suggests to you now after having watched. That's the's what I'm pretty good

immediately they are immediately went from on mine it was just about to start playing Alex cross before I shut down the website mind because I did not need to see out cross again so i don't know what that's five corners i don't know why they chose that i don't know it started with the sequel the four corners on the soundtrack by the Beatles So just about the was firing up and Audrey's like stop a dance stop a Dan And then the two of you were both typing on the computer at the same time to try and stop the feed

And it wouldn't happen and then Elliott team over and unplugged it and you're like Elliott Then he nodded his head gavilsound everybody laughs I Stewart you'll be able to win again. We're taping this the day after Russia Shana and last night's Russia Shana dinner I described to my in-laws that very scene So anyway, it's blue sky productions. Oh no crystal skies right crystal sky productions comes up in comic sands in comic sands The logo is the the cheapest looking logo you can get and We start hearing some voice over by a guy who says that his mom says his mind is messed up and for help she's going to go to one Simon Conjurer, who's kind of a long-haired guy who it's Brown's Conjurer and he has kind of a New York accent.

The rural Conjurer. Like I said, he reminds me of Howard Stern Cross with Neil Gaiman, but he steeped in existential whimsy as we'll learn. And we're introduced him as he is teaching a classroom of children not to fear flying by literally talking them into having the magical ability to fly around the classroom, like their little miniature airplanes. And the music that is playing tells us

we're in real Wonder Emporium territory. This is supposed to be magical and amazing, you know. Yeah, it's the kind of score that Charles Bant dreams of building his castle halls. Let, it's also one of these movie... It is a movie, yes. One of these movie classes where you're like, wait, what is being taught here? Because it starts off like... Not because you don't...

...you're flying on airplanes. It needs to be frightened flying, but then like he has a globe that he takes out that turns into a bird. And he's like, okay, we gotta take care of the earth and then he's asking the kids, what did we learn here today? And I'm like, yeah, what did we learn here today? Is this what my tax dollar should go into?

It's a lot of tanger. And later, the thing is also that later, there's some trouble that around whether the dean of his school is going to throw him out, I guess. And it's not clear if the, is that the dean of this elementary school? Because usually they're called principals. Like you don't usually have deans

for elementary schools. And it's just very, I guess for like a private school, maybe this is a fancy private school. And it's one of those private schools where it costs a lot of money and celebrities and their kids there, but they don't actually teach them very much, you know. And this is a dean that later on. Not to jump too far ahead, and celebrities and their kids there, but they don't actually teach them very much, you know. And we are doing the way we're honored.

Not to jump too far ahead, but this is a dean who later on has the ability to command the police to arrest someone. Yeah, that's part of being a dean. So Simon, he has a reputation for curing the seemingly incurable and the mom, Betsy, she says, oh, there was a man in my neighborhood who called himself Mr. Evil.

He was a violent, homeless man, but now that you talk to him, he just runs around distributing candy to people, to strangers, which I would say is it's another form of violence. If I was walking out the street, I do not want a stranger shoving candy into my hands, especially if he still calls himself Mr. Evil. But she has a son name who calls himself Rebel, who hates everything. And then this is the beginning of the movie is... Apparently he doesn't hate on the nose nicknames. Yeah. This is the beginning of the movie's lack of sense.

Thank you. This is the beginning of the movie's lack of sensitivity about emotional issues. And that were told that he tried to jump off a building but was saved by landing in a mattress truck. So we're living in a cartoon world for sure. Simon, he says there's only one thing to do. So next scene, he has kidnapped Rebel

and handcuffed him to the inside of this big truck that he has that's full of video screens playing a self-help video that Simon made. And it's weird because we never see anything like this in terms of Simon ever again. It's like why does he have this Simon mobile? Full of screens playing his videos. And he's handcuffed a young man to it.

It doesn't make sense. And they argue for a long time, Rebel gets free, and then Simon gives him some money and lets him crash his truck. And so Rebel agrees to go with Simon to his late night self-help class. But first, we're gonna have to meet the real star of the show.

That's right, John Voit as Dr. Craisex, a Pulitzer Prize winning psychologist who either writes novels or self-help books. It's not clear. And guys, I want you to describe this performance for me. Well, first I want to specify for the audience. If you're asking how Craisex is spelled, it is spelled the traditional way, like, crazy, but replace the Y with an X.

it is spelled the traditional way like crazy but replace the Y with an X. And John Void is wearing like nose and face prosthetics like he is Orson Wells reborn. But Orson Wells like playing I don't know like Dr. Robotnik in a cartoon or something. He is constantly stuffing his face with candy and now we all, I think we can all agree that John Voigt, the person, not cool, not a friend. Not someone we approve of, no. But Dr. Craisex in this movie brings a lot of energy. Yeah. I mean, I would argue this is the only performance

that comes close to successfully doing what the movie needs. I mean, this is the biggest performance I think i've ever seen in a movie it's so big and over the top and it's he is an english accent but he's always wheezing and like like it's he's trying to do assuming he's trying to do Sydney green street basically like this kind of jovial big fat wheezing guy who's always eating candy and hopping around like a little imp like either is Everyone else in this movie is striving to appear as if they are like a one-dimensional version of a real person

And he's like no no no no no no no no no no no I'm going to be a multi-dimensional version of a fake person. I'm gonna give you the biggest most energetic fake person that never existed You know and it is like a bug's bunny villain is hopping through this movie It feels like he has defined, he has decided I am going to make the most loathsome character that everyone hates and I'm going to play it crazy and I'm going to make sure that everyone treats me like crap. Like that is his, like, it's this weird like massacistic desire where he's like, I want my king today, is everyone being mean to me and I'm gonna be a mean weirdo.

Well, also, we haven't addressed the dialogue in this movie quite yet, but... Simon Conch. It's wonderful. You said I finished what you were saying, and I'll say my favorite up to this moment the movie piece of dialogue. Okay, well, Simon Conjure in particular talks in a like this very

literary, extravagant way like he's proclaiming something off of a scroll most of the time. But and it would be okay if one character in the movie talk that way but you know from time to time every character in the movie we'll talk in this very affected strange high-language manner and John void is also the only one who comes close to making that dialogue work Like it can't make sense coming out of a crazed performance It makes sense coming out of a character who seems to have who seems to be a trickster of mythology who is like come out and is and basically is a hop goblin of some kind. Like, but there's, Dan, I wanted to mention my favorite up to this moment piece of Simon Conjure or dialogue is,

Betsy says, you've gotta help my son. She says, I'll pay you anything. And he says, you can afford such. And it's like, what? Like, one they haven't, they haven't named a price. You can afford such, and then he used to do it for free but it's also this guy has such a like like such a try state area New York New Jersey accent that it you can afford such and it's like

he is like he's like the Gandalf of Burrow Park exactly in the title of the movie. Yes. Like he is a bad Renaissance player cosplayer with like long curly hair. Yeah. Yeah. He's an interesting guy.

He's an interesting, interesting guy. And later on, we're, later on, it's implied that he and John Boy have known each other since they were children, which makes no sense. Right? Unless one of them was an exchange student, I don't understand. So John Boy, Dr. Crazax, he's talking to Dean Elkwood,

who is the Dean of the School Simon teaches at. Again, it's not clear if it's the elementary school or if it is the school where his night classes, the college where his night classes are done yeah and he says Simon conjurer is a menace and he got but he says that in 700 more words than I just said it he goes on and on and on and you need to fire him or I'll pull my name and my funding from this school that's something that is never touched on again that apparently he has some kind of leverage over this school why he would I don't know but it's that anyway she and the dean is kind of introduced initially

on uh... initially on craze x's side right well it's that was the impression i got and then she reveals that she secretly uh... was a former student of his and a former lover and so the she has a she we see her first smoking the cigar which is usually movie shorthand for either this is an elderly comedian or an evil Person or a real rich person, but it turns out it's neither she's just a good-hearted school administrator who loves

Smoking cigars in her office, I guess But yeah, she seems to be going along with him until he leaves and then she goes you really are crazy or something like that She had opens her drawer where there's a framed picture of her and Simon. Okay, so Simon and Rebel, they show up at Simon's Night School Self-Help Group therapy class and we go through, there's a group of people there who each have one specific vice and we go through all of them in extreme detail and it's like one guy has an overeating problem, one woman has an anorexia problem, one guy's a drug addict, one woman's a drug addict, one's an alcoholic, one is a depressive named tears, they all have like offensive nicknames too. Yeah, oh, like, but I feel like they probably deal with

all of the emotional problems with, you know, a fair amount of salemnity, right? Like they deal with it pretty reasonably. It's a real source of jokes. It as, in my notes, I refer to as the barest minimum of sensitivity by the filmmaker and the characters are their personalities are not really clear for one moment to the next and there's so many of them. It makes me yearn for the sensitivity of moving violations. And the only thing or like the movie the movie nuts or the or mix nuts or anyone else in the title. There's this. I just will say and jumping into this classroom, it felt like reading an X-Men comic in the title. I'm just gonna say, and jumping into this classroom,

it felt like reading an X-Men comic in the 90s and being like, wait, who were all these people? Hold on. You know, this is definitely like pitched about halfway between like Nightmare and Elb Street three dream warriors and like a bad sitcom about like an encounter group. And yeah, I just wanted to tell people if you want to watch

this movie which is an experience like just be aware of why should I be because you can't see it anywhere else if you're sensitive to insensitive portrayals of mental health issues you might you might not enjoy that part of it and And also there are things that are treated as pathologies that are not pathologies like a young man being sexually uncertain about his sexuality. Yeah, it is not a movie to go to for a nuanced look at emotional problems.

Yeah, well, yeah, it is, I mean, as you might guess from the title, Deadly Lessons, which is. So yeah, and the classroom is filled with all of these people, and none of them seem to be happy to be there. So it made me, like, maybe I missed something, but were they like court ordered to be there?

Like, why did they all get kidnapped by him? Did this thing? Yes. They were all chained. And then, but apparently left behind where they were safe not to leave the classroom. Yeah, it's a- And you get to the classroom, but what you do there is your own thing.

And you gotta imagine that for the first person that he picked up and brought the classroom, it was a long night, because they had to wait for him to get one by one every other person. What a lie. It's like a weird Santa Claus. I mean, Dan, think about it. Let's think about it. It was a long night because they had to wait for him to get one by one every other person. What a lie. We're gonna go weird Santa Claus.

I mean, Dan, think about it. Let's think about it. Santa Claus, as he is, is pretty weird. Okay, so he's a big fat guy who chooses the chimney, perhaps the narrowest form of entrance to a house to go through. He delivers toys too. He says all the children in the world, but I would beg to differ as a non-Christian child. He lives at the North Pole, not a pleasant place to live.

I'll tell you why. One, cold, two, polar bears. Three, he has a cany-caned themed house, which is again strange. That's a weird thing. He also has, and I'm setting across the weirdest thing about him, which I guess is not weird so much as evil, that he has enslaved both a group of little people

to make toys for him and also a herd of reindeer. And the reindeer have this cruel culture based around taunting and verbally assaulting any members of the reindeer group who have different noses than the rest of the group. There's a lot about Santa Claus, that's weird. The eleventh, kind of glossing over the thing that I think is weirdest is that he's played by Tim Allen.

Well, I mean, only that Santa Claus was. What? that I think is weirdest is that he's played by Tim Allen. Well, I mean, only that Santa Claus was. What? I mean, that movie's typically the sequel. Those movie specifically postulates that there have been several Santa clauses over over the course of history. You're right. And if you kill one, you become one. What's there's nothing weird about that? That's it. It's such a, I mean, it's a ballsy move for children's movie to start with the main character

murdering said it was yeah imagine me in that pitch meeting okay stay with me guys I'm gonna pitch a movie to you it's a children's movie now five minutes in you're gonna think I'm a madman but you promised me you will wait till five more minutes give me five more after that because it will get the door. We can't get out. Now you'll have to listen to my pitch, Mr. Jones. Why? If you want the antidote to the poison, you just swallowed.

I guess it's not true. There's a green rider to Mr. Jones. Maybe you're the screen rider to the Santa Claus. You know, right in,'s not true. It's not true, it's not true. It's not true, it's not true, it's not true. It's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's true, it's not true, it's not true, it's not true, is a woman played by Skyler Shea, who flop fans may recognize as Chloe from Brezza, the movie. Yeah, she's in a bunch of baby geniuses things. I looked her up on Wikipedia, she's apparently John Void's goddaughter, which is why there's so much crossover between their projects. And sometimes performers just click, you know, I get it.

Yeah, it's not like Robert De Niro is March where she says's God's son I'm not saying that you don't have wait a minute maybe make it on our own I'm just saying that you know they probably like to work together yeah yeah probably I mean they it's a thing because it's a family thing you know they don't each other so long and that's why in this movie they share zero scenes together so Simon hands everyone in class big leather bound books. These are real like Grimwar type ancient tombs and it turns out to be a novel called Prophet Without a God. And the text in the book describes the students in the class. And it describes a teacher just like Simon's a conjurer, but it gives him a different name, which is a

detail that the book seems to forget. And it just starts calling him Simon later on. But the teacher, it mentions, had lost faith that there was a God, which had driven him to an existential dread. The book also, they're all like, this is, you wrote this, you wrote this, and you just handed it out. And he goes, there's information in there that I don't know, keep reading. And the book, then we go through as the book describes every single person in the classes, tattoos or scars. And each one of them has to prove it's in the class's tattoos or scars.

And each one of them has to prove it's true by revealing their tattoos and scars. It goes on forever. And it doesn't. And for some reason, one of the tears, the woman with depression has to pull down her pants to show them her butt because she thinks she has a tattoo there. This whole scene, I was just like, how, why is this still going? Why does the male model have to show us the only as one nip? I don't understand. So this poor character like yeah the scene ends on this uh... woman being bullied into

moving the class and uh... she's then assaulted after while she's moving them well well believe yeah they are there is like later on you find out like blessedly they do not show it this but the the implications that she was uh... molested as a child. So like looking back on that scene, it feels even worse. They're like, no, no, pull your pants down. That's not the one I'm talking about. I'm just saying, that character, don't do that.

Just when the character is bullied into showing everyone her butt, it's not the whimsical, magical moment that the soundtrack would have us believe it is. Exactly. Guys, we're like 40 minutes into the movie and I gotta say, why the fuck do they pronounce it conjurer, guys? It like as soon as I heard it, I was shouting, what the fuck? And I roused my sleeping wife who was going to sleep in not watching the movie. See Stuart Conjurer would be too on the nose and obvious, but Conjurer. It's also possible that the filmmakers didn't know like the movie Coven, how like the long

thing in American movie, how it's like, well, he thinks that Coven sounds better than Coven. Like, I wonder if they just didn't know it was pronounced Conjurer, but it is annoying and strange every single time someone in the movie says conjurer. At first I thought it was John Voitz' affectation. Like I used to do a sketch with my old sketch partner Brock Mayhan where it's about Goofis and Gallant all grown up and Gallant has kidnapped Goofis and tied him up and is and it's one of those things where it's like, oh my life, I've lived in your shadow. And he keeps calling Gallant Goulant because he's got this very affected accent. I thought it was that, but no, they just all say conjure and it's a weird choice. It's an interesting choice. But then again, I think there are no right choices

in this entire movie. Like, there's no choice in it that I can mention. I mean, there's a waterfall later that I think works out, but we know we'll go on. Yeah, I mean, I'd point the part where John Void's character lustfully fondles a penis is statue before lifting it up to reveal a hidden gun underneath. Maybe that was the right choice. I don't know.

But anyway, or the moment, the real Zarda's reference there. The moment where someone pushes, the moment when someone pushes a button and a pig is shot out through a tube into a snake's mouth, maybe that was the right choice I don't know. We'll get to those scenes, but okay, so The book it says tells them that Dr. Crazax is on his way. He's gonna frame Simon for murder and they all run out right as Crazax and the cops come in This book after as Stuart mentioned. There's roughly 25 minutes of them hanging out in this room It's like you're watching a one-act play all of a sudden. They're all on team Simon now This book has swayed them if they don't fix themselves and solve this mystery,

they're gonna be arrested as accessories for murder. What's this crime of murder? Well, we find out that one of the little kids from Simon's class has fallen to her death. It would be tasteless to just show a kid's body lying on the sidewalk while characters walked around talking about it, right? Let's go ahead, let's do it.

So they do. And that kid is lying there for a long time. And there's little number markers on it. Like you would put for like bullet casings and a murder scene. And I was like, what clues could these possibly be marking? I don't understand. Like the places where her teeth fell, I don't understand. Don't laugh.

But. God. And so. They fell out before she fell, Dan. Oh, okay. Yeah before she fell, Dan. She's a kid. She's a kid, she was on the way down and she was like, tooth fairy, save me.

So she was pulling her, getting her loose teeth out just the tooth fairy could so fast. So, mean the only currency I have, I'm a child. There are these two detectives who are talking about the case and they're like big beefy guys with moustaches. They don't look alike enough to be twins, but they could definitely be brothers. And one of them says the classic line, I'm sick of murder, but they're on the case, I guess.

You think those two actors every time they see like a sonic commercial, they're like, that should have been us. That should have been us. We could do that. Also when they listen to car talk on the radio, anything where there's two guys, you know, they should be there. But yeah, I'm sick of murder is such a funny line to me. It's just like, what's that line in plan 9?

It's something about like aliens or something like that. Can't stay on them or something like that. Anyway, so now the movie falls and this, I'm not gonna do everything in detail. This movie falls into a rhythm of team Simon goes from one location to another, frantically doing nothing. Like just kind of frantically getting somewhere and then just talking, and each of them

takes a turn having an incredibly simplistic breakthrough where a phrase or an object suddenly reminds them of a repressed memory that caused their specific trauma. And as soon as they know about it, they're cured and their personal addiction goes away. Simon meanwhile, does nothing, says nothing. Sometimes I forgot he was in the movie while these characters were having their breakthroughs. I have been blessed with a very easy life but a propensity toward depression and I would say that

it is a falsehood that understanding why your brain works a certain way allows you to immediately drop that behavior. It is helpful, they'll get me wrong, but you need to work after recognizing, and turn yourself around. Going back to my Temple of Doom reference earlier, it's as if they said to Dr. Jones, you just took poison and he goes,

oh, well now I know it's killing me, thank you. I don't know the answer to it anymore. That's exactly what they said to Dr. Jones, you just took poison and he goes, oh, well, now I know it's killing me. Thank you. I don't know the answer to it anymore. Exactly. Now they don't need the antidote. I can just walk away because I know it's poison that's inside me. And I think we should, like, obviously, we should return to this, but just to clarify

what you were saying, like, the gang is basically on the run with their teacher because everyone thinks their teacher killed this child and I guess and I guess they are like sticking with him because of these magic books that you know It's a pretty good indication that maybe they should hang out with this guy But I mean if a magic book tells you to do something either it's the right thing to do or it is very much the wrong thing to do Yeah, depending on the book if that book is if it's bound in human skin do not listen to that book Yeah, if it's if it's a death note, don't read it. Yeah.

But Elliot's right, they do a whole lot of nothing, but the kind of general idea, I think, is like, they're trying to find some something on Dr. Crazex to prove that Simon is innocent, that Crazex is behind everything. And along the way, things will happen like the gang member Scorpio will accidentally catch some terrorists and have a breakthrough that he's violent because he was, he was verbally abused by his father and then it's over. He's fine. It's okay. It's gonna, it's

gonna put him on the path to justice. Yeah, he basically becomes, he basically becomes a vigilante. He's like, I should only fight bad people, which is not a good lesson. Yeah, that's what courtesy will, that's what I happened to him before the game of guardian angel. Yeah, it was not an anti-violence message. It's just a pro-violence against the right people message. Can you explain this terrorism thing to me? Because like, so I, I, I, I, I, I, I guarantee you I can't, but I'll try.

I must have missed a scene. Because suddenly they're in like the back of this truck. And I assume that this truck was driven by one of them but no apparently they I guess got into the truck of a couple of terrorists who had like bombs in the back and then like Scorpio or Scorpion or whatever his name is Scorpio. Scorpio is like screw this I'm not going to get chased by the cops and he goes through a door to I guess the, the front of the truck. To the cabin. And I assume like beats up the people driving the truck because it's a hard cut then to the truck being stopped

by the side of the road. And the police having been, and everyone's in a crowd. And they're not being arrested under suspicion of anything. Even though they're in this terrorism truck, they're the police just take their word that they caught these bombers. So I can do the correct. Yes, you're exactly right. their word that they caught these bombers. So I can do that. Yes, you're exactly right.

And I had the exact same confusion. At first I thought that they had stolen a truck or had someone own to truck since we know Simon Conjure had a truck earlier. Maybe this is another one of his truck fleet. But no, apparently they must have either, as they were running out of the school, been kidnapped by terrorists in a scene that we were not blessed enough to see? Or they just jumped into a passing truck to get away? That truck happened to have terrorists in it, and that information is given to us after

the fact when the truck has already been pulled over by the... I mean, they're being chased by the police, and Scorpio goes up to do something in the front seat. And the next thing we know, the police are saying, well, you caught those terrorists, and the truck is full of C4. There's a reward for you, Mr. Scorpio. You'll be getting that reward from with the mayor. It's, it is, I think, the same thing.

Make some way. Based on later in the movie, when awards are meted out, I'm assuming you would just go to the local Podega where they have to fork over piles of cash to him. That's how the FBI's most wanted this. Yeah, if you get the reward, they give you like a ch a chit or a coupon that you bring to Bojega. And they just give you a million dollars. That's why you always see a dog to bounty hunter hanging out in Bojega's.

I mean, it's one of the two reasons. He also loves slim gyms. Yeah, I feel like this bears a little more examination when it actually comes up in the plot. But in general, I want to say that this movie about sort of self-actualization and getting rid of your emotional scars is also seems really concerned with money because there's this part where he gets a reward and there's bets and at the end like

conjurer really cleans up on all these bets that have been made. And everyone in the group wins the lottery too. Exactly. It's very strange Well, there's only two lessons that we really learn from Simon Kuncher. And we have to read them on blackboards in the back of his room. And the first one we see it says, equals mc squared, enlightenment equals mind control, which I guess that which we'll find out maybe what his

strategy is. And at the very end, we see that behind the blackboard, it says, belief over justice equals magic which is I I've been trying to puzzle out what that means. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. So I don't know. How do you how do you divide belief by justice guys?

And what that has to do with magic. I'm not sure because I like magic. I've seen magic before many times and it there's a certain amount of belief like you have to save yourself for this trick I'm going to believe that there's some special thing going on and it's not just the magician distracting me while he throws the card away but I don't know how justice factors. That card better not be a land because you're going to need that to bring other cards in. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sure. I've got to or an energy if I'm going to want to do my my gx attack once per game. So, so I wonder if maybe it's a slide little statement of like,

hey, justice doesn't exist. You can believe in it, but that's magical thinking. There's no justice in this world, but the movie seems to be telling us that there's nothing but coincidental justice in the grand plan of the world. If we harness, anyway, the philosophy of the movie doesn't make sense.

So anyway, our heroes are, they eventually end up at Craze X's apartment. I'm gonna, I'm glad we went through the truck stuff. I was gonna skip it eventually. I was originally, but I'm glad we threw it. And Crazex's apartment, again, I want you guys to tell me to describe it. Is it like, it's like a Batman villain's apartment, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Instead of a giant coin, there's a giant penis that hides a gun. Yeah. And they say it's, I couldn't tell there was like the lost library of Alexandria or somehow it's supposed to be the lost library of Alexandria. It's not clear, but his apartment is full of ancient artifacts and a very cold Hannibal

esque kitchen. And also what is a room that is either a complete replica of the library of Alexandria or a time portal that takes over there. That's explained. That's explained by gambling addict, what, Plankhead or Plankhead? Plankhead. Plankhead, who wears a, uh, uh, uh, crucifix around his neck that's so tight, I'm worried his head is just going to fall clean off.

Uh, Plankhead, uh, he got his name because he was an ambulance driver who fell out of an ambulance or something and had to put a plate in his head, which led to gambling. plate head he got his name because he was an ambulance driver who fell out of an ambulance or something and had to put a plate in his head which led to gambling. But anyway, I also want to remind people of what I mentioned earlier. There is a terrarium in the middle of the room with a pet snake in it with a big button that says like, you know, like edible delicacies or something like that. And if you push it up, squealing baby pig is shot out of a tube straight into the snake's mouth.

The only moment in the movie where I was like, okay movie, I didn't expect that and that was pretty pretty funny. Oh, there's a lot I didn't expect it. That was the only time it really worked. Although it doesn't come back in any way. No reason why this happens. I thought maybe there'd be a scene where it just like, there's a fight and it shoots out pigs at people, but no, to justify the existence of this, please.

Yeah. You're rewriting this for a pick gun. I mean, ironically, it's the one thing in the movie. I feel like I can justify it just on the case basis of like, well, I never thought I'd see that in a movie. Yeah. So there's more miraculous breakthroughs because if you see a bicycle, it's going to remind you of how something bad happened with your family, or if you see the ash tray that your

uncle used to use when he told you you were ugly and that's why you became a male model who smokes and stuff like that. By the way, I got to just like take a pause to talk about the uncle who also that's the kid that he's ugly, cause it's like, this little kid and they're in like, I don't know like a tool shed or something like a shack and this, this, oh, this uncle looks like like an old prospector type.

He's like, you never gonna be anything kiddie. You're ugly, like he goes, as he's walking out, he just goes, yeah, ugly. And it all sounds like a D.R. done by someone who normally does voices for cartoons, whenever this guy talks. Yeah, and so then they eventually end up in the library of our gender room and play it head goes on for a while

about the great minds of antiquity. And this is when I was like, oh, this movie thinks that it is like kind of a lasagna or a layer cake of ideas that like there's this whimsical mystery comedy. And underneath that is this story of emotional growth, like a celestine prophecy type thing. Because underneath that are these big ideas that humanity has grappled with for millennia.

Is there a god? Is there chance or is there meaning in the universe? But it really is none of those things. But like clearly the movie thinks it has more in its mind Where else why have the character go on and on about the library of Alexandria? Yeah, it feels like it feels like when you're having a conversation with somebody that you just met and You're like just joking around and then all of a sudden these starts get the guy. It's always a guy Starts getting super serious and you're like, uh, no, let's keep this light, let's keep this service level, please. Yeah. Now, in the, uh, the fool's errand that is trying to explain the particular feel of this movie, I also have a couple of touchstones. It,

some of it felt to me weirdly like book of Henry where there's this elaborate kind of magical plot that is dealing with issues that are far more sensitive than the movie is. And then it also kind of felt like this was all funded by some cult that you like never heard of as like a way to get people interested in their, you know, particular belief system. I mean, if the movie ended with them all at the Church of Scientology, I would have been like, oh, okay, this makes sense. I get this now. Like, now I understand what this is about,

but it doesn't, it ends in an even more baffling way that makes no sense. But we'll get to that. So Simon finds hidden in one of Crazex's own books, which you gotta give Crazex credit for this. He did not put his own books in the library of Alexandria Room as far as I can tell, which shows the one thing, one restraint, one moment of restraint

that Krazak's or John Boyd has. So you're imagining that he would just go down the line and be like, oh wait, what's the kite runner doing here? And finance for dummies. What was this doing in the library of Alexandria? I mean, that's a certain point. You just need bookshelf space. I mean, in my house, we try to separate by fiction and nonfiction into different shelves, but like, you know, you don't have the exact same number of fiction and nonfiction books. So there's going to be some Lincoln books in the novels, you know?

Yeah, and I have to separate my roleplaying manuals from my comic books, and that's, you know, a painting he asks. Yeah, and Dan, I assume you have to separate your 1970s playboys from your 1980s pant houses. Yeah, yeah. So, and they're on a bookcase. That's the thing you use out for display. I mean, you know, if you're not going to have pride about who you are, I'll get the answer. And I love that you went to that bookbinding place in Williams, in Brooklyn.

Sure. And you got them bound in leather editions that have the title of the magazine and the dates and then on the back you've actually written the centerfold names. Yeah, the weird thing is after I did that though, I glued all the pages together and carved out a spot for a flask, so there's a lot of work for that panel.

But so Simon finds this in one of the books, the bracelet that belonged to the little girl who died. And then the class finds it on him and briefly suspects him, but he says, turned to the books. They turned to this book. And the book says something about how he took the bracelet and brought it put on his own person to test fate and the chaos of the universe to see if taking it got him into trouble. Anyway, whatever it means, it's nonsense and govily book. It makes, it leads Chloe from Bratz to realize that Simon is a man in need of guidance.

And hey, he needs them as much as they need him. Then she has a breakthrough about how her eating disorder stems from a time that she threw away her friend's Valentine's card. This one was arguably the least-censical justification for one of the problems they can help with. And she gets the longest explanation and the more she talks the less sense it makes. Do you think the line that keeps being repeated profit without a god? Is that referring to Simon Conjure? Because initially I assumed that it had something to do with the John

prophets, the race of clones, soldiers of the earth empire, who kind of worshiped the earth mothers as like a god, but not really. I mean, that's really not in their like mental programming. No, I guess they're only real god is conquest, right? It's the expansion of the empire of John Prophets. Yeah, and they're doing their duty, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so it could be the profit without a god i mean i

mean you could think maybe bad rock becomes a the god at the end since you know he awakens and is one of the you know tipping point moments for control uh... yeah he and he and troll converge and like create a new galaxy or something and who's the means old man profit who uh... you know create a race of free johns to oppose the earth empire you i don't know i mean i assume the the movie's not saying that but it might be i mean considering the movie seems to have no uh... either financial corporate or creative relationship to brand new grams run on profit

of the image comic i don't know that they're actually based on each other or second i thought maybe it was my book, PR-O-F-I-T without a God, which is just about how atheists can cash in. Oh wow, is that a how-to book? Yeah, it's like a personal finance guide. And I thought it was profit without a dog. I misheard it and misread it at first,

which I thought was about how Moses lost his dog. It's a sad story. Wow. Well, I mean, you're wandering for 40 years. That dog's not going to stick with you the whole time. Well, no, I mean, if he's a good dog, he will. But unfortunately, he was not a good dog. And he ran off very sad story. I'm pretty sure they're all good dogs. I mean, if they all go to heaven, I guess by totality definition, they must all be good dogs or else heaven has no boundaries. So that's when the detectives break into Crazaxe's apartment without a warrant to find clues.

Everyone hides. Then Crazaxe comes in the detectives hide. And Crazaxe looks for the dead girl's locket because in earlier scene that I didn't mention about Dean Elkwood implies to Crazax that she knows he's a murderer leading him to have what I thought was a heart attack, but I guess it's just a panic attack.

The locket isn't there. We know Simon Conjure has it, but craze acts in the Library of Alexandria room does find Simon's book. He goes on for a while with a kind of goofy paranoid monologue about the book and about whether he's gonna read it or not because it might be a trap. He calls Simon the R word at one point,

which seemed again not okay. And he decides he'll read it at random to see if what information he'd find. And he chooses the sentence by spitting the chocolate in his mouth up into the air. And it spins around a bunch of times and then splats on a page. And he's like, that's the page I'll read. And he reads a scene that is set up as if it's the climax of the movie. But it's something that it seems like a almost like he is having a fugue state going into an alternate version of this movie.

And he's having a rooftop confrontation with Simon, and Crazax has apparently kidnapped the Dean. And Simon and him, they've known each other since there are kids. Crazax says, you shot me in the side. And Simon says, you killed my wife. And it's like, when did any of this happen? It's not really clear if the wife, their timeout is the dean or not.

Apparently they both take. It's like when you start a role playing game and all the players have much more interesting back stories than the adventure you're actually playing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They've both been chasing proof of the existence of God and Crazax's decide there isn't one. And Crazax admits to Simon, yeah, I killed her

because there's nothing worth living about in this world and to frame you. And he takes the, he takes the girl's locket from Simon at gunpoint. Then he pulls a lever which reveals a plank in the roof. And he takes out a pirate saber or a cutlass. And he forces Simon to walk it at swordpoint. And he pushes Simon off and then Simon falls for a long time. Cut back to the apartment. Crazax slurps the chocolate off the book. He's just licking and slurping the chocolate off. And then while he's doing that team Simon run out, having also seen in their minds what Crazax was just reading and imagining in his mind, so they know all the information that Crazax had in his mind.

And at this point, the listener to the podcast is surely Elliott is just engaged on another flight of fancy improv as he is so keen on doing but all of this is accurate to the film deadly lessons. A.K.A. was the something of Simon Conjure. I forget the alternate title. The legend. Yeah. So sorry for the break in. It's a reassure them that they have not come on tethered. No, no, only we and the movie have. But it's one of those moments where like, it's almost like the movie was like, how are we going to communicate that they know all this information now?

They just, they saw what was in his head at that moment. And they're like, hey, it was like we could see in our heads, too. They run out. That's when Crazax, of course, goes over to a stat, a nude statue with a huge penis, rubs the penis a bunch of times, then lifts it up to find it to a place where there's a gun hidden and then he runs off himself. And it is a, the movie from this point on, it's like at that point, when we saw that rooftop thing, the movie broke. And at this point, it is no longer even following the pattern of a real story anymore.

Up to that point, you can be like, okay, I get what they're doing. They're kind of going on this journey and they're each having their moments. And I get it. Simon is a man looking for answers too. He doesn't have all the answers. From this point on, it's not even really clear what's actually happening in the movie. Because they go to Dean Elkwood's house house because they know from the vision they had of what Crazax read in the book which again is like yeah, not it's not like Crazax said I'm gonna go kidnap the Dean He read in a book a scene where he mentions kidnapping a Dean and They assume that that's his plan. They go to so the heroes go to Dean Elkwood's house where she is having a sexy new shower under an indoor

Waterfall and how long does this shower go for would you guys Dan I think Dan said not long enough in his text message it go no it goes on for quite some time I we did gloss over the fact that when you say our heroes go there Simon goes there as well who last we saw fell off ability no no but that was he fell off for building in craze acts as mind well well from the book craze that that did none of that scene was actually happening that was all what craze acts was reading the book so Simon still with our heroes but that but wait there's a flashback that explains how he survived falling later on so that is just another scene no that's just

another scene in the book it is it says if the it's as if the book is is a what if story about this movie that this point no i guess i i thought we saw what i thought we were literally seeing what happened in the movie to explain why Simon was still alive until little later in the movie thinking that like we were just gonna accept that he fell off a building and was okay. That is very possible. You know what, I was gonna push back and say, no, that's not what happened, but honestly, who am I to question the meaning

of deadly lessons Simon Conjure, that could be what happened. But let's, okay, so. Where was I when Simon Conjure created the Leviathan? I was, anyway. Simon Conjure comes in and starts talking to the dean, like, you know, trying to get her to come with him and she is She set this bat this bathroom with a with a waterfall

Bathroom over I don't know it seems like it's a greenhouse where she takes showers. Yeah, she's like the shower I would imagine my like my my girlfriend would have when I was like 12 years old. I'd be like I'm gonna date a girl with a waterfall for a bathroom. Mm-hmm. Which, you know, I'm only 12 years old. I have no concept of the upkeep that a waterfall greenhouse room is gonna be.

Like it's such a pain in the ass. Oh yeah. Butterflies all over the place. Yeah. You have gym-ly style of skeering fog covering up all the good parts It really the upkeep is expensive for all that stuff. That's why you got to have a Dean's salary if you're gonna afford that But it is it is a it's a magical mystical room. Yes, Simon comes in is like we got to get you the safety and she

No, she must have sex with him right then and they yeah, and it they talk about so they used to be married or they're still married and they're estranged they were, they were in a committed relationship. And even though they're both totally into each other still, for some reason, they were not, I mean, it's a huge conflict of interest for her to be married to one of the professors at her college or possibly elementary school. And in much the way that this movie feels like kind of a let like a less poisonous Neil Breene movie with money like this feels like the scene in the movie where the guy who's in charge of the movie is like okay I'm gonna like be like a fondled by this naked woman in the shower and I felt even worse for this woman

than I do the Neil Breene woman Woman, and the Neil Brie in like fateful findings, she's not nude, so at least the actress won that argument on set. I can only assume where it's here. It's like, no, no, no, no. It's very important to the story that we have you naked in the shower at this point. It's also, and at a certain point, the obscuring objects just stop obscuring. And it's weird, because this movie is like the tone of this movie is so strange. That's when you have to put up your own obscuring objects so that you don't have to see anything,

like bands, fingers, a book, create fog, or something in your room. Just like, like, Wimley would want me to. Yeah, yeah, just rub chicken oil all over the screen so it gets all blurry. Oh, like Ridley Scott, you're taxing seats. Yeah. Yeah. Because the tone of this movie, sometimes it feels like it's supposed to be like lighthearted wonderment and sometimes supposed to be goofy, but then it's hard to have a lighthearted

silly scene in a movie with a naked shower sex scene that is interrupted by a man at gunpoint, a man with a gun ordering Simon to strip and then kidnapping a naked shower sex scene, that is interrupted by a man at gunpoint, a man with a gun ordering Simon to strip and then kidnapping a naked Dean Alquod. It is like the tone is all over, you know? Well, I said while watching, like because up until that point, the closest thing this has to like a tone in

what one might call a mainstream typical media is like maybe like a tween fantasy where like all these like mostly younger people are in the support group and learning to cope and like crazy things are happening but then like the nude scene comes in and you're like oh wait this is an R-rated movie which makes it even more baffling like who did they think they're making it for? You know? Yeah. It's a strain. I guess what I'm saying is I'm like, the, it fails to combine nudity and lighthearted

whimsy in the successful way of a great bikini off-road adventure. Or something like that. You know, it fails. It is striving for and failing to reach what, what kind of like be grade software porn does. Yes. Almost naturally. But anyway, and then we get to the scene where the two detectives have taken the book with chocolate on it to a scientist so he can use x-ray lasers to read the words covered

by the chocolate. And that's where it describes Simon surviving his fall off the building by landing in a mattress truck that Rebel is also in. And while they're getting the... So maybe it was all a flashback now that they're getting that analyzed they point out that the and the like laser tech has like a big scar on the back of his head and the two detectives make note of it but i don't think it's ever comes up again now i assume it was supposed to be a joke that he had mishandled the laser at some point

uh... that would make sense what does that mean it's hilarious is why it makes sense it keys into the theme of the movie that everyone has some sort of mark on their body yeah and also it's not how the user's government yeah i mean that that worst and then but the worst cars the ones you can't see

actually know that no the worst car is from Lion King. He kills his brother And tries to take over the lions and he leaves his nephew to die. That's the worst scar, I think Yeah, not and Hulk's son is scar, right? Doesn't mean like in the planet or something that's pretty bad Hulk. Okay. No Hulk gets sent to a Planet by Yolumina. Are heroes who are acting like bad guys because it was during that period when the everyone was acting out of character and The Hulk is called the green scar when he's on this planet and then his son. I think it's suck car. Maybe maybe it's just scar. You following this Dan? I was just sitting around thinking about the scene and jaws where they compare scars What I what I like about this and talking about the profit comic is it's revealing that the fiction that I like is not that much clearer than the lessons

the legend of Simon Gunn juror. Like it's all pretty nonsensical. Yeah. So they all have more breakthroughs. They go back to class. There's a plate head is late because he bought some lottery tickets and they realize rebel is missing Where's rebel what happened to him? And it to be honest rebel has fallen into the background of the movie for quite a while

We he was set up to be a major character and he's just kind of like not there that much the class can also rebel narrates the movie at like I would say there Maybe four times like I've forgotten that he narrated at the the beginning at all until it kicked in again, like halfway through the movie. And I thought, wait, this movie has narration? Unlike, say... It's very erratic. I mean, erratic and erotic, if you're talking about that, showers.

So unlike the Princess Bride, where you get the feeling that Peter Falk is narrating the whole movie, but if you actually go through and look at it, he only appears a handful of times throughout the course of it because it's such a well-told movie in this one You instantly forget that Rebel is narrating and and eventually that he's a character in the movie So they're like where's Rebel? Where's Rebel? Well, let's consult the book the book has all the answers So they've already fallen to that level of a new religion where they can't do anything without consulting their magic book. And the book, it's not giving them any answers. In fact, the pages are all blank. And Simon reveals to them, they go like, what's this all about?

What's this for a long time? For like three or four minutes. And then Simon says, you were all having a mass hallucination. You imagined that that text was there. It never existed. And you were filling it in with the information that you knew from your own lives, and the glimpses you had of your classmates' lives, and the natural coincidences of the universe

filled in the rest. But what does it matter? Because you're cured now. It's an explanation that doesn't really make sense, but we don't have time to go into it because Crazax and the police burst in, and Simon is arrested. Then the two detectives burst in, and they go,

hey, we have proof that Crazax did it. We have an eyewitness. Dan, which character from the movie is going to come back and be the eyewitness? Which character that we have seen before in the film, his existence foreshadowed, and us being like, oh, he saw it, is going to come back. Wait, wait, do we see them before? I know who the character is, right? It's Rebels dead, right? That's what I'm getting to, Dan, which I was hoping you catch on to

is that we have never seen this character before. And in fact, we were told earlier in the film that he was dead and did not exist anymore. Yeah, Ali, I am so confused by this movie that, like, you can't play this game with me because I'll just be like, oh, I missed something. But yeah, no, he was supposed to be dead and he shows up. That's how you set up a twist guys. Yeah is

you didn't use you give the audience no information whatsoever to expect anything to have. This movie that was confusing at the beginning you know in the grand tradition of a lot of movies with twists actually got more confusing when the twist was revealed because at this point I'm like okay wait wait wait so all the crazex stuff about this child murder actually happened you know wasn't part of their hallucinations yes it's makes no sense so at this point you're left to wonder what is real and what is not real in this movie so the detective say we have an eyewitness this wealthy philanthropist who's actually rebels dad he saw craze acts

push the girl off the roof from his helicopter which happened to be landing at a nearby building at the same time and so we see a flashback uh... of a helicopter footage beaming a spotlight on john void who is carrying a child around uh... and then chucks it off a building. And it's so funny. And I mean, like, this is like, well, it's funny. Yeah, number one, because John Void is like, but who could have seen me do this?

Like maybe the spotlight helicopter. But number two, like, you think this movie is gonna be like gentle, be like, oh, that child murder was just part of the thing. Don't worry, we didn't put child murder in this lighthearted thing. No, no, no. You know, extended scene of him carrying this kicking child, who, blessedly, like, the one thing that makes it okay sort of is that she clearly is not scared. Like, if you look at the actress's face, she's having a ball

kicking her legs and John Boyd. She's probably John Boyd's granddaughter or something, I don't know. But yeah, it's a, yeah, you expect the movie to be like, don't worry, none of that bad stuff happened. Oh no, no, no, a kid did die. A kid was murdered. John Boyd's character is a murderer.

And so John Boyd and John Boyd goes, how could you tell it was me? I was wearing a hat and coat. Oops. And it's like, yep, he's a genius, all right. So he gets arrested. Everyone's happy.

They've instantly forgotten that just earlier that night, a child was killed. Simon and Dean Elkwood, they kiss and eyewitnesses like, yeah, I'm Rebels Dad. Turns out I'm rich and Rebels is a wonderful child. And so Rebels angry with the world, right? No, but Rebels did tell me that he crashed your truck. So I'm going to pay you, I'm going to give you this check for it and it's for a lot of money. It's like, wait, so hold on a second. Which of these things happened?

And all the class mates are like, we did it, we're cured and they leave. And Simon opens a letter signed friend giving him instructions on how to hypnotize the class to get them to breakthroughs. And Simon goes, Simon looks at the letter as if he's never seen it before. Like he is baffled by it and he goes,

right. Rapple and then so uh... this is when and before and then i just mentioned for you to think this is when the movie collapses under its own way but then what are you gonna say well i mean like okay so there's these nested series of revelations and each one tries to address the last one but only raises more questions because at this point you're like oh okay i guess i'm Conjurer is

Conjurer. Conjurer. Sorry is also Yes, he is also basically Going under the same treatment as his own like students like some force is Compaling him to do what he does In part to heal him as well as heal these students. So surely when that is revealed then things will be explained, but not really as we'll see. Because Simon, I guess we're supposed to take for him is that he hypnotized himself

and the class based on these instructions given to him by we don't know because Rebel, we go to now to the narration and we see that know, because rebel, we go to it now to the narration, and we see that rebel is actually Roberto, a clean-cut kid who's just piling around with the old people at the hospital and helping his mom the nurse with the patients there. He's such a lovely boy, and he talks about how like he made up the rebel person,

he dreamed the whole rebel persona, which I don't know what that means. I don't understand how that's and supplies what we see. Well, I think he was like saying that like he doesn't know what was real. I don't understand how that's and supplies what we see. Well, he was like saying that like, he doesn't know what was real, but he's putting it together now. I think he's like coming out of this like his own sort of haze of being

this of alter ego. I know. Now, and here's one of those moments too, we were like, you're almost like, for a moment, I was like, oh, is this like identity? And this was all happening in Roberto's mind. And he had to like pull himself together.

But no, because then he goes in, and his mother is talking to a sick woman who's very distraught, and his mother calms the woman down by talking her into floating around the room, flying like the kids from the classroom, which somehow heals her completely. And it's one of those things, too, where you're like, okay, so his mom has the ability to talk people into,

surviving life-threatening illnesses. Why does she not use this more often? Like why not use this? And it's one of those things too where you're like, okay, so his mom is the ability to talk people into surviving life-threatening illnesses. Why does she not use this more often? Like why don't you use the woman so much that a different nurse walks into the room and is shocked that the ant like, put, you know, taking a back by how healthy this person now is. Yeah, so.

Yeah. But did she learn that from Simon or was he? Well, no, it seems like maybe she is So at first I'm like, okay, are there like a bunch of people like Simon Conjure in the world Mutants let's go. Yeah, they've super power people Yes super powered mutants who are bound by Impulse to help people and maybe like one of those is now helping Simon

conjure himself who's also one of these magical people because at first I'm like, oh, does he have any magic powers at all? As soon as I see this letter, but then you see him later on doing his same like tricks, floating kid tricks to a new group of kids. So we seem to be, it seems like the movie is going to tell us actually this was all in Roberto's head. Either he lives in a magical realist world or actually his mom is the one who has this power, this magic.

But then Roberto tells us that the class still gets together regularly to support each other and keep them away from their addictions. So they're real. And that Simon has gone back to teaching little kids how to fly. So he's real. And then in jail, Crazax is writing a new novel and the title of that novel, Profit Without a God. So Crazax was real. So he's like, and he wrote the book, I guess maybe, is implied that told them how to do this?

Like, that's the part that like, and he looks like he's in jail at the Pirates of the Caribbean. So yeah, his sale made appears to be the man in the Iron Mask based on the jail that he's in. Yeah, and during this, in montage, we get the scene reference before where they all win the lottery. And they're down at the look of Bodega, and the Bod bodega guys like pulling stacks of money out from behind the counter. Yeah. As if that's how you know your money is awarded when you win a major lottery prize. Well, nothing like two dollars. It's such a there's a when played head by the big.

It's a pretty nice bodega. They can afford to give the the guy wasn't the counter a name tag. Yeah. They also say that played had one like 34 million dollars or something and donated it all. But it's so, but the movie, so the movie is like, hey, they have a magic book and they're all receiving breakthroughs. Actually, it's not a magic book. They were just hypnotized by Simon Conjure. Actually, Simon Conjure doesn't know who hypnotized them. Actually, it was all a dream Roberto had. Actually, everybody's real.

It wasn't a dream. Forget about it. The movie, it's not even nested reveals. It's like they're throwing hot dogs at the wall, reveals. Like, that's what it feels like. Is it feels like you're watching a movie made by someone throwing just food at the wall? I mean, that's the thing now.

Oh, that's it. Yeah, no, I mean, like, that's the thing now. Oh, that's it. Yeah. No, I mean, with just like a tweak, it would be a sketch parodying twist endings. Like, just a little tweak. Yeah. It is, it is, it is, it is, it is a crazy thing. As you said, Dan, that, that part of the twist reveal is that much of it was not real, but the murderer was. Like, the actual, the actual crime was real. Like, it's, uh's so that's deadly lessons. That is deadly lessons. Hope you were able to follow it.

So let's do it. I mean, if you were able to follow it, right in. I want you to tell me what is going on at the end of this movie, or even the middle of the movie. If you wrote the movie, you can't write in. No. Well, maybe. You just got to write in. Ah, well, maybe. You just got to write in that fancy dialog style. So final judgment, this is a good bad movie, a bad, bad movie,

or a movie you kind of like. I'm going to say, guys, now, as I alluded to before, this movie has issues with its presentation of mental health and of therapy to health mental health and there is a slur against mentally, mental disability later in. So there's stuff in it that if you're sensitive to that, by all means, I'm not saying run out or watch it, but if you are able to view it with the inherent ridiculousness that the whole movie projects, I mean, the thing is, this movie is too silly for me to get that offended by it, just

because it is like, I don't know, a child's story. Like, it's like writing like, and then what? Then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. And in a world where we have to watch your Robocop remakes and your 10,000 BCs to encounter something, this just rambling and strange and have it also be a $30 million movie is just a special treat. So I'm gonna say it's a good bad movie. Yeah, keeping all those caveats in mind I would also say good bad movie. Just be ready to be a little upset by its portrayal of mental health and therapy but then just

sit back in and get ready for john void to literally like put the scenery in a blender and then chug it down as like a scenery smoothie yeah that it and some uh... at some point it felt like john void was auditioning to be in like the next by kids movie or something that's not a slam on spy kids but i feel like they have like uh... and you know an arch uh... quality to them. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you guys.

It is fairly insensitive about how it portrays everything, but it also is made, it's also made poorly, but also it looks kind of expensive, but it also looks like crap. The music is hilariously bad. There's a, and it is like that perfect Vandy project where the writer director has cast himself like it feels like the script probably describes Simon Conjure as like a handsome, you know, like a

handsome man who looks much younger than his 50 years and he like showed up with the script and he's like, I don't know, we're having a lot of trouble finding a Simon conjure. I mean, I guess I could do it. I mean, I know the script and everyone's like, uh, do you want to do it, dude? Why is your hair so wet? And he, uh, yeah, he's, there's even a scene where Simon conjure gets in a in a brief fight with Scorpio, the violent guy, and he grabs him and throws him across the room up against a wall, and he just explains it away that he has taught himself martial arts. It's so great.

It's crazy. That was one of the moments where I'm like, oh, so he has powers now. Is that the... Yeah, he was throwing him like he was wearing an Iron Man suit or something. Now, one thing that we didn't mention, which I'll mention quickly before we finish, is that

so that the writer director and star of the movie, his name is not in the credits. He actually took his name off the film. And I only just learned in looking up stuff now while you guys were talking that at the end of the credits, I guess, is his explanation for that. So I'm just going to let the credits roll on my end over here, and I'll let you know when that explanation comes up as to why his name is not on the film. Hey, you like movies? Well, not coming up with movie ideas over the course of an hour, because that's what we do

every week on Story Break, a writer's room podcast where three Hollywood professionals have an hour to come up with a pitch for a movie or TV show based off of totally Zany Proms. Like that time we re-imagined Star Wars based on our phones auto-complete. professionals have an hour to come up with a pitch for a movie or TV show based off of totally zany prompts. Like that time we re-imagined Star Wars based on our phones auto-complete. Luke Skywalker is a family man and it's Star Wars but it's a good idea. How about that time we broke the story of a bunch of Disney Channel original movies based solely on the title and the poster? Okay, Sarah Hailey is a 50-foot woman. Let's just go with the guy. Or the time we finally cracked the Adobe Photoshop feature film.

Stamp tool is your woody and then the auto-fill is the new Buzz Lightyear. Join us as we have a good time imagining all the movies Hollywood is too cowardly to make. Storybreak comes out every Thursday on Maximum Fun. I don't know why I'm using this voice now. Welcome back to Fireside Chat on KMAX. With me and studio to take your calls is the dopest tool on the west coast Oliver Wong and Morgan Rhodes. Go ahead, caller. Hey, I'm looking for a music podcast that's insightful and thoughtful, but like, it also helps me discover artists and how it's been I've never heard of.

Yeah, man, it sounds like you need to listen to heat rocks every week, myself, and I'm Morgan Rhodes and my co-host here, Oliver Wong talked to influential guests about a canonical album that has changed their lives. Guess like Moby, open mic eagle, talk about albums by Prince, Johnny Mitchell, and so much more. What's that show called again? Hate Rocks deep dives into hot records. Every Thursday on Maximum Fun. A quick word from Squarespace, who is kind enough to sponsor our show. Squarespace can be used to create a beautiful website to turn your cool idea into a nice home on the internet, blog, or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds and much, much more.

And Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful customizable templates created by world-class designers, everything optimized for mobile right out of the box, a new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions, free and secure hosting, head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey Dan, I was wondering if, by the way, I went through the credits and I couldn't find the thing that I that I read was there, but he did take his name off. Anyway, so Dan, I have a website that I, an idea that I was wondering if I could get help from Squarespace to make that.

Do you think they'd be able to? Probably. Always the first time. So, anyway, you've heard of Facebook. Well, this movie, it made me realize there's a bigger problem involving books. So that's on creating FudgeBook.com. Do your books have chocolate in them? Like, are the pages covered in chocolate?

How are you going to find out? You've been to Dan's house. You've seen what his books are like. They're covered in chocolate. They're covered in chocolate. So how are you going to find other people in the books covered with chocolate community to figure out how to remove that chocolate from the books? Or if you prefer your books that way, how to get more chocolate on your books? That's where FudgeBook.com comes in. FudgeBook is your place on the internet for the FudgeBook community. That's people who either like having chocolate on their books It's like social media. It's the most social media because it's around the three things people love most. One, books, two, chocolate, or the removal of said chocolate, and three, communication. So that's fudgebook.com. Danny, you think Squarespace would be able to help me with that?

Probably. I mean, if you pay them. I mean, that's how business works, guys. Let's not pretend that yeah let's not sugarcoat it. Yeah it's a exchange of money for services. Okay fair point fair point. Hey I believe that you both have jumbo trunks this week. Am I right or am I wrong? Oh yeah and I am raring to go go go go with my jjumbo tron. Happy birthday to a man who hates attention. He will no doubt feel equally thrilled and mortified by this spotlight immortalizing him in the annals of his favorite podcast's history. Even though he's wrong about Chaplin and will always fight about Batman. We still manage a happy union.

Happy Birthday, Scott. This message is for Scott, Criter, and the message is from Billy Harrison. Happy Birthday. Sweet and embarrassing. I will say, fighting about Batman, better than fighting Batman. That's true. He has trained his body into a weapon to beat up criminals. Yep, he is a, he is a, he is violence as a tool for mental health. Anyway, so there's another Jibotron. It goes like this. Ever feel like there's too much pop culture out there? Have you wanted to become a Stanley Kubrick film expert, but instead settled for watching the office for the fifth time while 2001 Colleagues Dust.

The Monkey Off My Backlog Podcast is here to help you exercise your pop culture demons. Join hosts Andy, Tessa, and Sam each week as they offer advice and talk about checking movies, TV, books, video games, and more off their lists. Join the conversation and start tackling your own list today. Listen and subscribe to the Monkey Off My Backlog Podcast that's at Monkey Backlog on Twitter on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Oh, man. Yeah, I've been dying to get through get to that last season a Dexter Okay, okay, and there's two other things we'd like to highlight before we get out of the

Sponsors and advertising cash. What do you think dexter gets murdered himself because he's a serial killer dexter murder Santa Claus now he's Santa Claus and he has to kill that children while giving gifts to good children goddammit that like if that series ended that way like it would shoot to number one no spoilers i mean those for those i just told you what happens, but no spoilers. Yeah, but you didn't do a very good job describing it. So it didn't spoil for me. Well, he's sorry his dark passenger drives him to kill Santa Claus. Is that better? Thank you. Thank you.

And so guys, Hey, remember when we used to do flop house live shows where we'd go to someone's city and then then we'd do a show on a stage for them. Do a lot. We'd fly on a plane, we'd stay in a hotel, maybe in the same room together, you know, who knows. Yeah, most of the trip would be based around, most of the trip would be based around trying to figure out how much time we had to eat breakfast before we had to do our work. Oh man, we got so mad about that.

Remember that guys? So we're all a little bit of a linguer, a breakfast linguer, so. I want you to take my time. Get a second cup, third cup. Just, it's a whole day of work. What if we could bring that live show energy without the anxiety about breakfast straight to your home?

We did it once, a couple of months ago, we did our Howard the Duck live zoom cast, and we're doing it again. October 24th, 9 PM Eastern, 6. Pacific. That's right. It's a shock tober live flop house zoom and we're going to be watching the extra system to the heretic. Now it's going to be just like that. How are the duck show? We're going to do presentations before hand while some kind of charity that we're promoting and want people to donate for and it's going to be right in your home. You don't have to go anywhere, which is great because now is a difficult time to go anywhere. So that's October 24th,

one week before Halloween. So you know, it's still going to be scary spooky times because November 1st, the spook time is over and it's on to turkey time. October 24th, 9 PM Eastern, 6 PM Pacific, the exercise to the heredic. And don't worry if for some reason you don't want to watch us the heretic and if and don't worry if for some reason you don't want to watch us uh... in the moment live you know with no safety belts no harness just raw dog in the show it's pretty scary when we do actually uh... if you don't do that we're gonna archive it so you can watch it yeah it'll be

up it's gonna be streaming through our youtube page and it will stay on the youtube page yeah ill say uh... the only advantage and I would say it's not nothing, is if you watch it live, maybe you can organize a group watch with other listeners or last time we didn't have the comments enabled because we were scared of meanies, you know, we don't want any meanies dropping by. But we had fucking, they're all blue and everything. But we had the YouTube live chat on for our screenplay reading of the boy next door, and that went just fine. So we'll probably allow it this time. Oh, they tricked us. Dan's going to be watching the feed the whole time.

He's going to be losing his share. And last time we had some questions from Twitter that we answered, and we'll probably do that again, or maybe we'll use the comments, I don't know. But that's gonna be through the Flop House YouTube page, October 24th, 9PM, Easter, and 6PM Pacific, the Exorcist 2, the Heretic, a movie none of us have seen, but it's supposed to be not very good. I have another thing that I'd like to plug that's just for me, it has nothing to do with Stuart and Dan. That's that. As I've mentioned before on the podcast, September 29th, I have another thing that I'd like to plug that's just for me. It has nothing to do with Stuart and Dan. That's that. As I've mentioned before on the podcast September 29th, I have a children's book coming out.

Sharko and Hippo. It's by me, arts by Andrea Tsurumi. It's kind of like the Marx brothers. If one of the Marx brothers was a Hippo and the other was a shark. It's a fun story. It's a picture book for kids and it's got a lot of jokes about words that sound like other words. So if that sounds like fun to you and I bet it does, sharko and hippo. Pre-order it now. We're picking up from, you know, your independent bookstores website or other websites. Go for it. Stuart, do you have anything to play? Yeah, I own a couple of bars, interlans, and minis bar in Brooklyn. You should come by and grab something to go or sit in the patio please.

It's a tough time out here. Yeah. Okay well letters. We all get them from time to time. Sometimes. Yeah. You know like maybe you're George Washington writing Martha from the front or maybe you're writing us about something. We're writing her from the back who knows? He's a tall sorts of stuff Okay, well, I'll just keep keep rolling uh this for you know guys it can be a tough time But it's always a good time for letters Sometimes you can feel real sad, but you can't feel sad about letters Although now that I think of it, sometimes letters can have bad news and real sad dudes can have letters be sad, yes can have letters be

mad, yes sometimes letters are just real bad and your grammar falls apart when you sing in about letters. Oh yeah, letters. Who boy? It's a brother. Just a hot semen pile of letters. Get them while they're fresh off the grill. Letters, letters today. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no you, you've been driving cross country delivering toilet paper to people who need it because the store shelves are sometimes out and now you get to sit down and have yourself a big hot platter of letters. It's like a TV dinner but all of the things have letters in them where they would be cream corn there's letters, where they would be meatloaf there's letters, where they would be loaf there's letters It's

Yeah, yeah, and you're sitting in the back of the lift and you're like, oh, where we go All right, so this first one's from late late This is from Nate last name redacted Hi, peaches. Nathan Summers. I'm a long time table top. I'm a long time table top RPG player and wanted to pick your brain about D and D movies. What's their best class? That's what I was going to do.

So I'm going to do it. So I'm going to do what you're elite combo. What's the best stats you ever rolled? Well clearly the best class is Simon Conjurer's night class where you fix all of your problems in one night. Oh if I get only go to a Simon Conjurer. Nate is asking there have been tons of successful high fantasy movies over the past few decades, but every single attempt at a D&D movie has failed. Why do you think the past D&D movies have failed?

And what do you think a successful D&D movie would look like? Thanks for all the laughs, mate, last name redacted. Now I have thoughts on this but I'd like to hear Stuart's thoughts first because I feel like he's got more of a dog in this fight. Yeah, so well I think I think a couple things factor into this and I think I think it partly is tied in also with why it's so hard to make a successful movie based on a video game. But I think with D&D part of the, and this is going to be undercut a little bit by something else. But I think a big part of it is that part of the joy of games like D&D is that the audience are also playing in it and they're creating their own story and they're invested in it.

And I think that's a big part of it. Like I feel like the story that you make with your friends and your D&D group, you're going to have a bigger personal stake and you're going to like it more. That's undercut a little bit by the success of actual play podcasts like the one we make. But I think part of the joy of those is also the fact that everybody involved is very passionate about it. And yada yada yada.

And the market is often smaller. I don't know. I think that's a big part of it though. I think that's definitely part of it. And another part I would say is that D&D is essentially a world for you to create a story and create your own characters. There's no characters that pre-exist necessarily and there's no story. So if you're adapting it into a movie, it's like the thing that you're working with is

not necessarily the most important thing that an audience that's not already into D&D is looking for. Like when people go to a movie, the setting is something that they enjoy, but they're invested in the story and the characters, and D&D doesn't really come with story and characters. It's kind of like, except for like Lord's author something. Yeah, well, it's like if you're making a like a sim city movie, you'd be like, Is it Doerard or something?

Yeah, but if you're making a sim city movie, you'd be like, okay, I guess it's a movie about building a city. Or like a minister sage or something. God. Go on, you're right. I forgot. D&D has a rich cast of characters. That will be real household names. But none of those are characters that, well,

I mean, you don't have to have household names to make a movie. Like Guardians of the Galaxy was a huge hit. Yeah. And those were, nobody knew who these characters were except me because I loved Abnant and Lanning's run on the title, which was kind of the main influence on the movie. But the it's like a if you're making a sim city game You'd be like I guess it's about building a city But like I need to create the characters and the plot and what's going on and they were able to it's like

Is it like Marv in sim city though? Not sim city Stewart sim city the game Come on, still yeah, well, I mean I was sorry. I was sorry, I would say just two things. One is that I think the only people have really been able to pull off something like that are the people behind the Lego movies because they were taking something that was just blocks. It's not there's no story to Legos, you know, and there's no characters to Legos except

I know there's that astronaut character and all that stuff. My son will run in and be like, actually, there's a lot of Lego characters, but they had to create what is the tone of this movie, what is the characters, what are the stories, what's the, because all they have to work off of was Legos are a thing you can build with. Yeah. But, and so you'd need people who really like can feel in that stuff. And if they're going to feel in all that, they might as well just make a movie that's not beholden to the Dungeons & Dragons license.

I would say though, I feel like the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon show was fairly successful because they kind of translated the idea to what it's talking about. It was a group of people, a group of friends who were like, had to live out the roles in the game, you know. Yeah. And so it had a little bit of that feeling. Yeah, again, by not needing to take a breath and breathing through the gills on his neck, Elliott has scooped me because I was going to say that I think that the closest thing to a success was that, because for that very reason, it was the idea that these adventurers

were sucked into this game and had to take on these characteristics of these classes that existed because if you remove the internet activity what are you left with? You're left with a world that was heavily influenced by Tolkien and we already have good Tolkien movies with the story added not just the world and some songs yeah some you know some great added not just the world and some songs yeah some you know some great tunes that I assume stew has on his uh... is iPod shuffle for the gym but yeah I agree with that I mean I also said I don't think any of the dungeon dragons things have had alibers in them

Yep, that's actually a good point. I mean and also like uh... like Kieran Gill Gillen's comic die is basically kind of like a more modern take on that kind of a, uh, the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, like, you know, gamers sucked into the game. Uh, moving on to a letter from Naja last name with you forgot, we forgot to answer the question on how to make a successful version of that. And obviously, that is Conan, uh, the destroyer answer the question of how to make a successful version of that and obviously That is Conan the destroyer the second of the Conan movies is the closest thing to an actual D&D session in you know and game for or in movie for It seems like it seems like the Dungeons and Dragons stuff there like

they're There it also there's kind of like a I want had they're like running away from there's kind of like a, they're like running away from the things that Dungeons and Dragons fans like about Dungeons and Dragons. Because it's like, we gotta make a Dungeons and Dragons movie, but we don't make it to be like a nerdy movie.

Whereas like, you just see her into it. It's like superhero comics for a while, where are superhero movies for a while where they're like, okay, so we're gonna do a superhero movie, but we're gonna make them look cool. And you're like, they already look cool. I like the way they look at the comic book. Just make them look like that.

Well, when they finally realized like, oh, Spider-Man has an amazing costume. We don't have to make changes too much to it. There's a reason Captain America's wearing the same clothes for 80 years. But the, and then they look, but then that can go crazy when you have Han Solo wearing the same clothes for 80 years. But the, uh, and then they look, but then that can go crazy when you have Han Solo wearing the same clothes for 40 years. And it's like, I think he would change the vest at some point. But the, uh, there's, there's like a feeling of, um, like

with the Lord of the Rings movies that like one of the reasons they're so successful is because they really go for it on the level of the Lord of the Rings story. And it's not like, okay, this is kind of a nerdy story. So let's put in some, let's undercut it with gags to bring other people. Yeah, like I know the cab troll showed up, cue the music, got my life in dubious. So instead it's like, oh, we love this story. Like let's do this story to the hilt, you know, so that's what you do. You do dungeon dragons movie that's super taking dungeonsgeons & Dragons seriously, and you hire Stuart to write it.

Uh huh. Mm hmm. Yeah, me and my producing partner, Joe Manginello. And you have all the household name beloved character stores mentioned, like Zazapoff and Digimon and, and what yeah, Heronymous,

Gorman, yeah, Gota. So this next letter goes like this, it's customary for me to tell a bedtime story to my three kids, ages three, five, and nine each night. And I tend to just make it up as I go instead of actually reading something. I try to come up with funny sounding names for characters and couldn't resist

using rocket crocodile. My kids keep demanding, tell us more about the crocodile daddy, so RC has become the main protagonist recently. To keep it kid friendly, I've decided to omit all the Gina Gershant stuff that Elliot stipulated in Rocket's origin story. As of last night's episode. What about the Car Gershant stuff that Elliot stipulated in Rockets origin story. As of last night's episode. What about the Carly Gugino stuff? I can only assume that it's still in there, based on the letter of the law.

As of last night's episode, Rocket Cracket-El has found himself trying to escape the pursuit of the villainous Sith Donkey, Darth Mule, as he navigates a Star Wars adjacent galaxy. And that's from Naja, last name withheld. Now that Star Wars is under the same umbrella as Marvel, I guess Darth Mule would be part of the Spider-Ham universe, right?

Yep, I hope they have that joke in the sequel. Yeah. I love that letter. I think that's super sweet, and you will be hearing from my lawyers. To tell you that you think it's super sweet. We'd like to ask the court to serve a writ of super sweetness. That rivals 16th birthday party for it's super sweet.

We're serving a writ of habeas awe. So now we are on to the last segment where we recommend movies that we enjoyed for non-cibly reasons. Let's say it that way. I'm going to say that I was curious about the new Charley's Angels movie, directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristen Stewart and some other people who are less famous, so I've forgotten who they are. Apologies to them, they did a great job.

There was no way for you to find out that information. No way at all. I thought it was a lot of fun. It was a movie that combined some genuine hangout comedy with much like better and more clearly choreographed action movies than I was expecting out of Charlie's Angels reboot. And Kristen Stewart is just a delight in the movie. She seems to be having so much fun. She gets saddled with so many like, mopey roles sometimes that I think she was just relishing being this kind of offbeat action hero.

And it got a lot more shit than I think it should have by far. I think mostly from maybe male movie critics who are like this is like too overt and it's feminist messaging or something and I think that they are just not realizing how much of sort of male targeted action movies are male wish fulfillment and I examine that like you know maybe you're you're not realizing that it's fine. It's fine for us both to get some of that stuff. But I just really enjoyed it. A lot more fun kind of action blockbuster than I thought it would be. Charlie's Angels. I'm going to recommend a movie. I don't think it's been recommended by us before. I'm gonna recommend the recent movie

Palm Springs starring A.B. Sandberg and I think I'm gonna pronounce this right. Kristen Miliati. I don't know. Kristen Miliati I think. Miliati, okay. Yeah, it's a feel like a very apt movie to watch at a time like this, kind of a movie about being stuck in one place and being stuck in, you know, a repetitive cycle. It's a comedy, but it's also kind of dark. I don't want to go too much into the plot details because I think that's part of the fun of the movie. But everybody is very winning, and it, I feel like it's a movie that deserves an Academy Award for casting characters based on Their eyebrows matching up so that you can tell they're all related

I mean if you're gonna cast Peter Gallagher in a movie you're like everyone else has to also have great eyebrows And speaking of Academy Awards, it also features one else has to also have great eyebrows. And speaking of Academy Awards, it also features lifetime Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, JK Simmons is in the movie as well. He is not playing his iconic role of Jay Jonah Jameson,

the movie that won him that award. No. In my apartment. Not the movie that won him the award. And also supporting actor is not a lifetime award. It's awarded for a specific role I mean, yeah, but you can win that award every year, right for the same role Even if you're not in a movie based on what that character, right not how the award works. No, I mean, but I could watch that movie this year

So I don't see why he couldn't win it Ellie, it's a good for me. You know since the 80s or whenever that movie came out, best movie named after a type of animal has gone to the bear over and over again. So I don't know what you're talking about. It's not an award. Not an award. And also the movie won zero again, the Academy Awards.

Well, the way that Elliott just stared it anglically after I said that. Yeah, so Palm Springs, the movie, watch it. Yeah. I'm just staring at him like he liked me after I said that. Yeah, so Palm Springs, the movie, watch it. I'm going to recommend a movie that I don't know if Stewart has seen, but if he hasn't seen, I would specifically recommend it to him, because I think he would like it a lot. This is a movie from 1988 from New Zealand

called The Navigator, a medieval Odyssey. It's currently streaming on Canopy. And there is an English village in the 14th century that is worried that the Black Death will soon be visiting them. And they decide that the only way to keep the plague away from their village is for a mission to set up a cross, for them to take some, was it copper? Take copper to a forge to make a cross and put it up at a church in a big town.

And so this group of guys being guided by a young boy who has visions and seems to be able to tell them where to go, go on this mission and what happens to them. I don't want to say even though every description of the movie kind of gives it away. But it goes into what could have turned into a ridiculous or goofy plot, but which actually felt stuck with the tone that it starts with in the beginning which is kind of like medieval austerity. So anyway, it's a medieval movie with a big twist in the middle that I won't tell you what it is But it's the navigator a medieval Odyssey. Okay, I'll check it out. That sounds awesome You'll find out what the twist is instantly because it's in all the descriptions on anywhere you see about it Before we get into our goodbyes as

Small timber comes to an end. I want to Think in particular for this episode Peter Kapl, who is one of the guys who brought us to Toronto for a live show and is a film programmer who alerted us to the existence of deadly lessons. So I want to give credit where that's due. I want to thank our editor, Jordan Cowling, who does a great job for us every week. But as I said, Jordan, to celebrate,

can you just loop in that gavel sound with the LA-at-notting clip again? Yeah. I said, that's not really a celebratory sound, that a gavel, if you're hearing that, it's probably bad news. Well, it's a gavel that has an air horn attached to it, so every time you hit it.

Jordan also edited out all of LA and Dan's bullshit just there. I mean, I'm going to be left with nothing, Stuart. That's all that I do. I will say, Jordan really like she, the last mini that we did, it was a quick turnaround mini, and I could not stick a final bit that I was trying to do. So she had a lot of editing to figure out. So thank you very much, Jordan, for doing that.

But as I said, small timbers coming to you in, but cry not because Shocktober is just around the corner. And I wanted to tease that for all the people who are asking on Twitter and Instagram, we announced that one of our guests for Shocktober will be Gillian Flynn. It is in fact that Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects and dark places and other Stuff I could not be more excited. I know we get all not be more excited

So that's a tease and less something I'm foreseen happens She'll be on I mean I can't guarantee I mean, I can't guarantee you. I can't throw a bio-threat. I can't guarantee that. You don't need to hedge against acts of God, Dan. The world may, you know, every morning, every night, I'm like, I can't guarantee that the sun will rise next morning. But I think it's...

Hey, you know what, Dan? If there's a catastrophe of some kind, I don't think people's first thought would be, well, Dan said there'd be another flop house, so I'm gonna hold him to it. Well I'm running across the wasteland from these oil hunting biker gangs because civilization has collapsed. I'm not gonna hold a special piece of anger just for Dan because he told me there'd be a flop house no matter what. You know, I used to think that it was ridiculous in Mad Max that, you know, this gasoline short society was so based around cars, but now that I've seen how dumb people are during the actual apocalypse that's going on, I'm like, okay, sure, it checks out.

But none of you, Listerers. You're all, you're all, you're all doing great. National treasures, everyone of you. So that's been from the Hegeann Bats. Mr. Hege, they call me. Tweet about us, put us on iTunes. Well, don't put us on iTunes. No, review us on iTunes. Review us on iTunes. Feel positive about us.

Despite my recent battle, please, me positive. Help us spread the word about this goofy show, although I don't know why after what we've been here in lately. Yeah. But on that note, for the flop house, I've been Damakoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kaelin. Bye. On this episode we discuss deadly lessons. Ha ha ha ha!