The Flop House - Ep. #344 - Mortal Kombat, with Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman

Episode Date: June 5, 2021

Comedy couple Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman of the Couples' Therapy podcast, and performing/writing/starring in many wonderful things join us to discuss Mortal Kombat and also mortal-ity, given how sick Dan sounds in this one.Wikipedia entry for Mortal KombatMovies recommended in this episode:The Castle of CagliostroPlan BPicture SnatcherCan't Get You Out of My HeadLittle Shop of Horrors

On this episode we discuss mortal combat. Okay, so I guess I got to pick a character here. Which usually I like a big guy. Which one's the Zangief? And this one, I guess this guy shall Khan. He's got a hammer. Let's see how he does. Wait, he's not in the movie.

So I have to pick this other dude. I'll do this guy. I hope he survives wait he's not in the movie. Okay, so I have to pick this other dude. Okay, I'll do this guy Hope he survives. What's his name like Rex or something? Okay flop house I'm Dan McCoy. It's me Stuart, the number one Stuart, Wellington. And it's me, Elliot, Kaylon, somewhere on the ranks. I don't know where I rank in comparison to other Elliott. The tier the tier list. Yeah, definitely, you're definitely a I don't know if I'd say S tier yet, but you're you're getting there. I don't think I know what this system is. S come before a I don't understand. S is the top. That's in West. Why? I can't believe I have explained tier rankings.

So like F tier would be, I don't know, what's a bad Elliott? F tier is definitely Elliott, cool, right? Yeah, he's the best. That's true. A bad Elliott would be like Elliott from Elliott from like Jeremy Irons character Elliott from Dead Rangers would be like a bad Elliott. Okay, that's a bat. That's an F tier, I guess. Okay, it goes like. Oh, no, no. Okay, Michael Keynes, Elliott from Hand Enter Sisters, he's like a flanderer. Yeah, that's a bad Elliott. This is not really explaining why.

So you got S tier. So you got S tier A, T, or B tier C tier, and then usually it just goes right to F tier. But I feel like I feel like our guests today probably have some very strong opinions on where different Elliot's fall in this right, Elliot? Probably. We have guests I'd love to introduce. And then we'll talk about why Dan is feeling a little

under the weather. But I'd like to introduce our guests joining us today to talk about Mortal Kombat, a movie they specifically requested that we allow them to talk to us about. Are the hosts of the podcast couples therapy Naomi Ekperigan and Andy Beckerman you can see Naomi also on Apple TV's mythic quest and they each also have their own podcasts Naomi has I Love a Lifetime Movie and Andy has beginnings and interview podcast thank you

so much for joining us to talk about mortal combat with a K they spelled it wrong on purpose not a typo. I Feel so honored. Yeah, thank you. I believe you are allowing this to happen because I will start yelling but also I do want to know am I the first black woman on flop? You are not the first black woman, but I would be lying if he said we had a lot. I'd be lying right out with a Z-way question I really wanted to know I thought I would be, and it was gonna be very exciting for me. But okay, Bob. Our numbers are not great, but you're not.

Yeah, we will, no. We don't get to take a victory lap, yeah. Yes, we're not, with the tears, by the way. In terms of podcasts that have black women as guests, we're not S tier, for sure. Certainly. We're not S, but we're not S. I still don't understand them. So I mean, it's like the ring looked it up and it doesn't like the Wikipedia on the

tier system just says it. It doesn't explain it. It's very inferior. It makes a lot of sense. What's the origin of this stuff? So like if you were, I mean, I'm assuming a lot of sense. Like, what's the origin of this stuff? So like, if you're, I mean, I'm assuming a lot of, we just got a whole bunch of new listeners today because they're all very interested to hear us talk about moral combat. So let's talk about a different fighting game. Let's talk about say something like smash brothers, if you want to say, if you want to rank smash brothers

characters in order of, I don't know, like an oignness to play against, you could put them in a tier system where S tier would be by far the most annoying, but F tier would be the lowest of them. No, I understand. No, I understand which letters correspond with quality. I don't know why that's the way I'm going. So, like, Wario, my favorite character, of course, he would be an S tier annoying character, because he has that moveery farts on you,

which I think your son, Sammy, would love. He would love that. Is that because you love Elon Musk too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, I mean, I didn't, I, you know, I've watched a lot of Saturday Night Live. I like to jokingly refer to it as the TV show, the worst TV show I've seen every episode of.

But I have not watched that episode except I've seen pictures on Twitter. Should I watch that episode Andy? Okay, you're shaking his ass. I said, no, if I watched it, I know, you had watched it unless you were, you see if you've been watching it when I was a sweet. You know what, Audrey likes Saturday Night Live

and we watched it and, oh god damn, there's some bad sketches in that Elon Musk episode. No, Dan, we should wait, before we end it, I wanna explain, you sound a little different, you have a cold right now so that people, yeah. So the world is healing, which means that I am not. Like the fact that I am, you know, vaccinated and out in the world, even though, you know,

I'll still wear my mask inside with, you know, with people, but I am now being exposed again to the viruses that my lousy immune system cannot handle so I have a cold I am in Buffalo, New York I am my family is seeing one another for the first time since quarantine we tried to pick a place to see one another for some reason we came up with Buffalo. It's still kind of a mystery. You wanted to be in the place where William McKinley was shot. Yeah. Like, that's how you rate vacation spots. We're present shot here. There's Texas. There's Washington, DC. There's Buffalo, New York. That's it. There's no other place to go on vacation. Yeah.

Either one of my family members gave me this, or I gave it to my other family members are now sick. You know. Wait, are you not from Buffalo? Like, I don't understand why you would ever be a Buffalo. Yeah, this is okay. So, very upsetting. After, I mean, other than like a few stopovers

in the Philippines, where our family is from in Florida, Audrey is a lifelong New Yorker, and I have been there for a couple of decades now, and I just cannot drive. And so we picked a nearby place that we could get to, and was on the East Coast, or my family was in Boston, they drove up.

It's close to Niagara Falls, which we wouldn't see saw, but it is not Niagara Falls, which is a horrible place to be. Buffalo is a very depressed former industrial town, but does have some interesting stuff. Yeah, you can see her million-mocha in the shot. Yeah. Yeah, it's been nice, except for the fact

that I am now miserably sick. I should mention Dan, I forgot one place you can go on vacation on your president's shooting tour. Milwaukee where Teddy Roosevelt was shot after his. Yeah, 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,? Where in his body? Uh, yeah, let me know. So, look at me. Let me look that up on my map of president's bodies. Dan, you got a Mar-a-Lago in an alternate dimension. Dan, if you're feeling low under the weather, why don't you, uh, want to eat some of those famously spicy buffalo wings

to clear out those sinuses? That'll wake you up, right? Or have some of those famously spicy buffalo chips. So if I don't talk that much, just, you know, I've died. That's fair. That's fair. It's good.

You have two guests for coverage. I'm dialing nine and one on my phone. I'm just gonna... Can you just say he's somewhere in Buffalo? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's, he's got a white doork. Look for it.

Airbnb that is not as nice as his sister-in-law keeps claiming. It. Rair. Oh, we know that one. We know which one he's talking about. Exactly which one. It's turned into a bravo show for a moment. Yeah, it's fill in tea.

So no, no, no, it's good that she has a... Fill in tea. Good that she's got a lot more optimism than I did. So you listen to the flatbouse. This is a podcast where we rag on the Airbnb's that are sisters-in-law rent. But it's also a podcast where we watch a bad movie, or maybe it turns out to be a movie we like and we talk about it.

And as you may know if you saw listed on your app or you heard Dan mention it at the beginning or heard us mention it also afterwards. Today we're talking about Mortal Kombat. It came out this year. It's based on the fantasy video game of the same name, a martial arts fantasy video game. It's the direct-wild debut of Australian filmmaker Simon McCoyd, which is possibly the most Australian name I can imagine. And now, moral combat, I'm going to be relying on, I'm going to be doing the summary

today, but I'm going to be relying on Stuart's knowledge of the game franchise the most, because a lot, because it's a franchise I know a little bit about when it comes to fictional universe continuity. Let's say Marvel Comics is like my S tier. That's what I know the most about. Yeah. I know it. It's in my bones.

It's in my blood. And let's say my F tier is like Outlander, something I know exists, but I've never seen more than a few snippets as I walked with a room on my wife watches it. I know it's super sexy and there's time travel, but I don't know anything else about it. Mortal Kombat is like near,

is not quite in the middle, but in the bottom half of my knowledge. I know that like, I know get over here and I know flawless victory. That otherwise, I don't know too much about it, but to the year I did you watch it. Did you watch, did you watch either the movies? I did watch the original movie when it came out of the theaters. That was 20 years ago almost. I don't remember it that well. The only thing I really remember remember about it as I think I might have mentioned on the podcast before is the lackluster intro for Pagoro who is just who is a four-armed giant man wearing little underpants and who has a ponytail and in the old movie He just kind of walks on screen as if it's no big thing and you're not supposed to care or being pressed that there's a

Forarmed man walking around and and what folks and why did. And why did you guys pick Mortal Kombat to be your movie of choice? Yeah. OK. And so I was saying to Elliot before we started that, I think there's a little bit of quarantine euphoria that was involved in this. Because when we watched this, when it came out,

we watched pretty much every film that came out on HBO Max. Absolutely. We're Max and Easter. We shop at TJ Max, we watch HBO Max, at all times, Mad Max, anything. Yeah. Sam and Max. HBO Sam and HBO Max, yeah.

And we watched this. I had so much fun watching this. And I don't like, I have very aware of my mortality. So I don't purposely watch bad movies. Oh, well also, I will stop. Okay, this is a household that does not need to see it through. Okay. So if I watch it and I'm like, oh, absolutely not.

I am stopping. Okay, there are enemies to watch. I should just sit through this. My hero academia's new season just a new season of my hero academia. The only reason why I know about S class is from one punch man. Yep. Because they have classes and he wants to be an S. Oh, we can talk about one punch man instead of you like. We're really supposed to talk about Mortal Kombat today. I mean, I have to wait to Audrey gets back. She could tell you a lot about one punch man. Awesome. I mean, I have to wait to Audrey gets back. She could tell you a lot of one bunch. Man, that would be a switch.

That's what does she know anything about outlander? I don't know anything. I will say, you know, with the moral combat, what do you call it? Mythology. I was watching this being like, why did they make up this complex mythology to like just have people fight each other? And then Audrey was like, no, no, this is from the games. Like she knew somehow. Like this is all from the games a lot of it. Yeah. Well, as the games, they started out pretty straightforward. And I know that as they went on,

they got more and more story elements to them, right? Stu. Oh, but anyway, so, but we should finish. We should finish our story about watching movies. You asked Stuart a direct question. And then you, I remember that I remembered we were in the middle of answering Stuart's question from earlier.

So I think so we had so much fun watching this and we made and also okay So I think there was some quarantine euphoria also I think we've been out here in Los Angeles for about Almost four years now, right and this was like one of the first movies that I watched where I saw the producers Minds working in the background. You see the scenes. You see the scenes in motorcams. I saw all the decisions, the executives and the producers made that had nothing to do with like wanting to make a good film that had to do with like, we have a budget, can

we stick to the goddamn budget? All those kind of decisions, I saw for the first time and I was like, oh, it's like the Matrix. It was like when Neo gets it's like the matrix. It was like when When Neo gets his powers in the matrix and you started to see see that's funny because that was your reason for me I love action. Okay. I'm here for a good time. I want to quit I want to see you to find gravity and now this motion picture Absolutely bored me and I screamed I screamed the time. And so I wanted to talk about

because like for a genre like I came in ready. You know what I mean? Like I was like I don't need much. And yet you made me real mad. And so it just felt like to me I thought what a good motion picture to unpack. Right. But also that was part of my excitement about it was that like all I want from these movies is fights. Like I saw Godzilla, King of the Monsters, is that the one before the last one? Yeah, until the King of the Monsters. I saw that in the theater with my friend and I fell asleep in the middle of it because all I want, I just wanted them to fight.

I don't care about Kyle Chandler or Eleven or... Didn't you want to know how they could use biofeedback to attract the monsters to each other? I did not care for a second, not a molecule of my essence, not an electron care about that. You're already wanting to see it. Yeah, you didn't go on the internet and look up at what point do they fight and then show up late to the movie Just so you can see the next thing. Yeah, so two hours in yeah, so I was and this what I did appreciate was that it was the thinnest amount of exposition to get you from fight to fight yeah, and that I appreciated again seeing the like the producer

Be like no one gives a shit about any of their motivations. Just have them fight. Just like put in some stuff in some, some a little bit of like peanut butter and jelly in the middle. And that is all they want to see. The fight is not the peanut butter and jelly. What is the fight then in this metaphor? Yeah, the fight's the bread.

I don't even know. The Nutella, I love bread. So you're eating Nutella with peanut butter and jelly on the outside. No bread. It's just, okay. Yeah, no bread. It's a, it's a, it's a hard,

it's a double down of sandwiches. So now, it's the double down is a sandwich. Getting, no, no, it's barely a sandwich. Double down of condiments. Yes. It's just a double down condiment dish. The condouble down. Now Stuart, let me get back to the question I asked you

and then interrupt to do. Go on. So, tell us a little bit about the Mortal Kombat series. You're experienced with it. And what is this video game series? Before we jump into this, the movie, this is the movie event of 2021, Mortal Kombat. It may be the second biggest movie event of 2021

after that Sparks documentary that I cannot wait to see. Yeah, I'm sorry, it's coming out next month. And I cannot, it's not out yet, but I cannot wait to see it. Other than that, this is the movie event of the year. What is Mortal Kombat? Tell us. Well, I mean, my history of Mortal Kombat obviously was with the original video game. I remember when it came out of the Genesis,

I played in the arcade a little bit, but when it came out of the Genesis, my parents bought it for my brother and I for Christmas, we found it before Christmas, and we managed to open the packaging and play it when they weren't home and then sneak it back into the packaging. Oh man, kids are terrible. It's a violent video game that originally used what sprites based on photographs or film footage. Yeah, they filmed actors. well, there was a great article

that was online years ago, where they talked to the actors who basically created the characters and the fighting styles and were then filmed and then they digitized the film footage and added costumes to it. And those actors never received any payment other than like the day rate they got. Oh, that's crazy. But I remember as a kid seeing it in the arcades

and the amazing thing about it was that the sprites looked like Real people yeah, real people digitized, but they look like video footage and then you know Gouts of fake blood would squirt out of them when you would uppercut them and then it was super Like some of spine would come out. It was like whoa. This is not your daddy is super street fighter to turbo Yeah, which is relatively bloodless, you know, yeah, it was super fun This was a Genesis game? It came out on Genesis and Super Nintendo at the same time. Although the Super Nintendo had like, they altered the blood, so it wasn't his glory.

And that is bullshit. Yeah, Nintendo always saw this. Genesis is from Bad Boys. Nintendo? Yeah, well, because Nintendo. And you wouldn't Nintendo. Yep. Oh!

There it is. He ain't sick. He mad. He mad. So I want to shirt this as that so knowing that this is the second movie based on a violent video game that sir third movie third movie oh yeah that's right i forgot so was the one we'll combat annihilation sequel direct sequel to the first one

now was that a crossover with phantasm annihilation uh wait which one's phantasm annihilation is that, wait, which one's phantasm annihilation? Is that the fourth one? Fourth one, I think, yeah. Maybe. Was it a crossover with the Marvel crossover annihilation? Uh, yes, it's all these things are... It's all written by Dan Amput. Yeah, it's all Dan Amput and Daniel Amput, yeah.

What's her name's annihilation? Oh, right. And Natalie Portman's annihilation. Natalie Portman's annihilation. And Natalie Portman's, uh, sent annihilation from the... Based on the area X series by Jeff VanderMirro, of course. So they made a couple of, there was a couple of games Natalie Portman's an I-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L But this was Mortal Kombat 9 just titled Mortal Kombat. And that kind of brought the series back. Like they had kind of strayed from its basic roots. They tried to do all these like 3D shit.

They did a crossover at DC, which then spun off into its own game and Justice, which is fun. And then since then they've released three games, which was Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 10 or MKX, and then Mortal Kombat 11. And one of the big things that Mortal Kombat 9 did was it, it took another hard look at the continuity continuity. My mistake, I can't pronounce words today. And they like, tell the whole, MK9, they tell the whole story of Mortal Kombat. And then each game, the story,

so for a fighting game, it has a very elaborate story mode. So it makes one wonder, if you very elaborate story mode. So it makes one wonder if you have this story mode that you can just watch somebody play through on YouTube, why do you need a movie? Well, we'll find out what we talk about the movie. Well, find out especially since the recent World Combat entries have started bringing characters from other IPs. So like Robocop is in there and Rambo is in there and the coordinator. So it's like and Freddie. Freddie, who has two claws because they couldn't figure out how to have the have the character be on either sides of the board

or screen and have a claw only on one hand. So he has two claws and you're like, I guess it's fine. That's fine. I genuinely, I genuinely hope that this movie, they make enough sequels to get to the point where they, okay, what other IP does this, you know, this, whatever, whoever put it out, we'll know what to put it in. Dan, they're making that movie, it's called Space Jam. It's got every character from every one of her brothers movie in it.

It's nuts. Okay, but let's talk about this one. Mr. Unioshi. So, Mortal Kombat, let's start. We begin as most action movies do in Japan in the year 1617. At the happy, peaceful household of loving dad Hanzo Hoshashi or Hoshashi Hoshashi and Hanzo's out getting some water and you know he's got a bad

Past behind him because his house is attacked by Merced by warriors he returns to find his wife and son have been turned into sort of a frozen corpse Piata and Hanzo gets mad he kills a bunch of mass bad guys. He invents scorpions weapon by tying a rope to a garden spade. But he does not say get over here yet, because this isn't speaking in Japanese. And then he confronts the leader of these bad guys,

Beehawn, a Chinese warrior with ice powers. And they fight. During that fight, Hanzo gets in a great nut punch on Beehawn. That was my moment of the fight. We also talked about how Behan just talks to him in Chinese. And then for like a good 90 seconds. And then he's like, I don't know what you said, but I'm mad at you.

And I just thought we didn't need all that. And he didn't understand what he was saying. Did you notice that, that sub-seer, or sorry, behind kills the wife and child, and then just sits back while Scorpion kills all his men? He's just sitting on a stump, just kind of like chilling out.

Yeah, there's a lot of action movie logic here where things happen because that's how they need to happen for fights. The same way that I forgot where it was that I once saw that this like mathematical theorem of ninjas where it was for each ninja you add the ninjas lose a certain amount of fighting prowess and strength exponentially. And that's why one-on-one fight with ninjas takes a long time, but if 20 ninjas attack you, you can just kill them like popcorn, like you're just throwing them off.

Yeah, I mean you can't you can't fuck with the difficulty level of the encounter, Elliott. So if it's gonna be 100 bad guys, they have to be cold-boiled or some shit. So it's the overall difficulty level for the experience and not for each individual phone. It's kind of a kind of a universal, you can either create or destroy fight difficulty, I guess, is what it is, like that's the law.

I can't remember what that term is, and it's really bad when they can't remember it that term is. And it's really bad, I mean, they can't remember it. A law of conservation of energy. Thank you, the conservation of fight difficulty. Yeah. Thank you so much. So anyway, by the end, it doesn't matter how many times, Hanso punches Beehun in the nuts, Beehun kills him,

and says for Lin Kwae, which is his clan, but that's never really... His clan of assassins. Exactly. But that is His clan of assassins. Exactly, but that is this clan of assassins, but I don't know that we ever hear that phrase again in the movie. Not at all, and I'm like, what? And this is my problem.

See, I'm already yelling. It feels like the movie gives you, it felt very paint by numbers. And so it's kind of like, furly quay, quon quay, and you're like, okay, do I care? But he said something, so check that box, he has a reason.

Yeah, do you know what I mean? But it's not explained. Like, yeah, it was like an improv 101. Everyone's like, wait, I have to have a justification. This is very relatable. This is relatable, yeah, you're right. It's a reliable one, keep it up. Yeah, so I'm just gonna bring more improv terminology into it.

That'll be great. So, so, Beehun's game is that he uses ice to kill. And this was a Harold. No, this would be like it's just and so at the end of this fight, that's when and one of the other performers runs across the screen and says that's our show goodnight everybody. So so uh, Hanzo, uh, he you think he's been he's dead, but no he gets back up when he hears a baby crying inside the house But then suddenly his body is burned to ash by magic fire Yeah, it's never really explained, but it doesn't matter

Then suddenly rain lightning a guy with a big hat and glowing eyes appears. That's life right Stewart Who is this that's Raiden baby now you expect Raiden to be played by Christopher Lambert because that's who he was played him in the original It's not him. It's a different actor Because you know different actors play the same character. It's not him. It's a different actor. Because, you know, different actors play the same character. It's weird. Have you ever had a James Bond? So, and Raiden shows up, takes the baby, bounces out.

And at this point, you should fast forward until the last fight of the movie, and then the movie's pretty good. You are very accurate. Sure. You are very accurate. Stuart is right that Lord Rhaeden is not played by Christopher Lambert. He's played by Tatanobe Ossano, who you may remember from each the killer or electric dragon 80,000 volts. Oh.

He's in a lot of... And speaking of actors, the two actors, Beehaw and Anzo Asashi are both played by great actors, arguably the best actors in the movie. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Oh, my gosh. I mean, yeah, for sure. Oh my gosh, this is something so good. This is something that you see in a lot of movies that have a Western and an Eastern cast.

Like Martin Scorsese's Silence is like this, where there aren't huge stars in this movie, but you have like the American stars or American or European stars. And then you have the Japanese or Chinese cast and the Asian actors are so much better and that's such a higher level of character reality. Even for a movie as ridiculous as this

or character intensity, you know, like you watch silence and you're like, oh, the Japanese actors in this are so good. Silence, mortal gamut, same thing. Yeah, same with the favorites. Look, Tadano Buasano, also in silence. And I believe in this household, you know, we often say we stand in international co-productions. Yes.

And this is just international co-pro at its finest, because you've got these great actors, and then like a random white girl shows up, and you're like, who are you? How did you get here? International co-productive. You don't make sense with the vibe, but we legally had to have her in it.

Like the Meg, like the Meg, which she was in, another international co-productive. Sonya Blade, you mean? Sonya Blade, yes. But we'll get there. We'll get there. But like, Joe Tasslem,

who plays Beehawn later sub-zero, is fucking awesome. Like, he's in the raid, he's in the night, comes for us, he's a fucking badass. Beat the shit out of me, daddy. He's amazing.

And he's great. Like, even covered in like super, what is obviously like super heavy unwieldy armor that he later rips off in an awesome fight. Like, he's still great. Like, he brings such great energy to what little he gets to do in this movie. Yeah.

If you want a international co-pro, this is a TV show now, not a movie, but if you want one where the acting is super, is like, is like super on both sides of the continental divide, Geary Haji. Absolutely. Just think about that guys. I think about that, we're not gonna say more,

but it's all be thinking about the rest of my life probably. Yeah, just think about that. So the important thing is Lord Raiden shows up. He super powerfully has lighting powers. He takes the baby and then lightning teleports away. Cut to on screen text, which explains that Earth is about to lose an international, interdimensional fighting competition and be invaded by the evil out realm. But a prophecy says that Hanzo's blood will raise new warriors and it is a lot of concept to suddenly dump on us.

And it's like the movie is like, you're here for the fights. Like you give a shit about this. Here's the backstory. Who cares? Like we'll just dump it on you. It doesn't matter. Let's talk a little bit about the Mortal Kombat tournament, because the rules of this thing are just wild.

You're a little flexible. Yeah, because like, yeah, like apparently you have to win 10 of these tournaments to take over. And so this is the 10th, you know, we got to have stakes. So we're jumping in at number 10. But at that point, like just simplify it for the audience, maybe just make this the important tournament. But also apparently it is totally legal that you can kill the competitors outside of the tournament I had a time not legal they specifically say it's like it's like a rules but also they say it's against the rules

But there is no authority higher than the the main bad guy the main good guy forever and but it's not like the living tribunal shows up to To pass past judgment. It's just like Shang song you're not allowed to do this. And Shang Song is like, ooh, but I guess I'll do it anyway. Like there's who made the rules the same. Like if there was no repercussions for Tanya Harding, you know, you know, she did lose and also she wasn't really her fault and she did lose. So if there were none, you know, like this this Mortal Kombat treats it the same way.

Like, okay, I guess I'll allow it. There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't kill the opponents before the competition. Who's the main outworld guy? Wait in the move. Shang song. Is that it? Well there's Shang song and then there's in the movie at Shang song but there's also Shao Kahn and Shinnok and all these other guys. In this movie it says leave the elder gods to me, and then later in the movie, I wrote this down. He wrote,

the other gods are too lazy to stop me. That's his justification. He says, leave it to me, and then he's like, nah, we don't have to worry about him. They don't want to get off their asses. And he's like, okay. Well then why even have an elder god?

If he's elder god, are too tired. Like it doesn't even make sense, but here's like, okay. Well, then why even have an elder god? If he's elder god, are too tired. Like it doesn't even make sense. But here's a thing though. As you said, a movie that's just about fights, why not then make the whole movie these 10 tournaments? Yes, or just now that would have given me something. Have the movie be the tournament as opposed to the movie being the prep for the tournament,

which is ridiculous. Like, this is like the Gory Marshall Arts version of the Big Lebowski, where there's the big build, they're building up to a bowling tournament that you're never actually going to see, like. It's the unveiling of the tallest building in Philadelphia, I think. That's exactly his. That movie, I think about that the other day, just how funny it is when when a split looks over to the building and is like, and now to go to it and then they knock him down and he never gets there.

Oh, anyway. Okay, so we meet, now we're going to meet our hero. We're at meeting Cole. He's a youngish guy, but he's already has been underdog MMA fighter. His teen daughter is always like, Cole, dead. Use your uppercut. He never listens to her and he loses the match because he for some reason He's in easy move. You just hold down and hit the punch button

I mean maybe he made a promise to his dying master that he would never use the uppercut I don't know like a sure you can which is hard to do because you have to hit forward down and then down forward Which is a weird motion to mask down down for yeah so we go to Outworld this is where the bad guys live of course it's like a big evil desert with mountains and stuff. The hanners reporting to his master Shang-Sung okay Shang-Sung he wants to take over the earth make everybody have fun tonight everybody Shang-Sung tonight Stewart tell us about Shang-Sung what do we know about this mean dude I mean he's like a evil sorcerer guy right and he sucks people

souls out their body and he has the move where he can like transform into other characters That's pretty cool, right? He doesn't do any transforming in this movie. Didn't have the budget. I'd imagine They did not have a transformation, Brad. So he's played by Chin Han who according to Hey Wikipedia was in the ghost in the show movie. So he's a flop house repeat. I used to see it again, Chin, huh? So anyway, so Shang Tsung, he's a real mean bad guy. He wants to take over the Earth for some reason. He's worried about the prophecy that says that Hanzo's blood

will raise a new class of warrior that will stop him. He's like, be Han, just go to Earth and kill all the champions before the Mortal Kombat competition, which is very funny. I'm afraid that we're gonna lose to them in Mortal Kombat. So go fight them where there are no rules, and they can do whatever they want, and go kill them. And Bihon goes, I'm sub zero now.

And it's like, oh, sorry, dude, okay. I didn't know you rebranded since the 17th century, okay. Now why do you think- The label is his recording label actually owned his old name? Oh, that's right. Did you get the email from my public? Yeah, somebody stole his account is holding it hostage. Here's, okay, so Cole is going to meet ex-military tough guy, Jacks, spill J-A-X.

Absolutely. And Cole is like, yeah, anyway, I'm a fighter. I got a birthmark shape like a dragon. Take a at it and jacks follows calls family to a hamburger stand where it's a start snowing in july what that mean uh... it means sub zero is on the attack luckily jack save some pretty cool i got i gotta say you know like they that's that talk about talk about it painless of words

the movie is filled with thank you for the permission. This movie is filled with CGI, you know, and that can look cheesy, but I really kind of liked the snow mysteriously starting to fall and then like falling backwards up into the air and then being assaulted by ice. I thought that all looked cool. Yeah.

Pretty good special effect. Also a great special effect that's a practical effect real life effect Jack's arms that guy has such huge biceps Same thing. I said they were too much. I was I know they were out of control I thought I was excessive and I was he doing that thing where you know you um You like fold your arms, but then you like push them up with your face Really McCod Brooks you guys.

Macad brooks is always coming through, giving us very like snackable, look at me, I'm hot and buff energy. Do you want me to have those kind of arms? Absolutely not. I find them overwhelming. When you capture body the same except for the arms, that could be good. Okay, interesting. You're kidding about that.

Don't buy. Now, me, I've got good news for you about the interesting. You're kidding about that. Don't buy. Now, man, I've got good news for you about the arms. Bad news for Jacks. Don't get you so's arms. Because we're not going to see them too much more in the movie. Jacks is like, oh, yes, sorry. Keep talking about his arms.

No, no, no, no, no. Okay, first of all, yes. So, yes, literally everything you're saying, Elliot, is as bare as it was written in the movie. Because call is like, I fight, he has his daughter, it's like is she a ishie 40? And then we don't, and then like they go right after the thing, but then it's like, where are you?

Where are we located? Oh yeah, I don't know where. Is this like date? No, hi, where are we? They could be in Texas, they could be in Brooklyn, they could be in Ohio, they could be in Washington state. It's impossible. Definitely, definitely earth realm though. Yes, they could be in Washington State. It's impossible. Definitely, definitely Earthrealm though.

Yes, it is not there in Earthrealm. I think we can narrow it down to the United States of America or Canada. Earthrealm. But otherwise, you know, it's a... And can I point out that Cole is a completely new character. This character has never been featured in a Mortal Kombat game or movie. Oh really, why do you think it's to avoid accusations of favoritism that they made the main character of the movie

a new character? Well, it's weird because the, like, the main guy behind the game is this guy Ed Boone, who famously his favorite character is Scorpion, which is kind of why Scorpion over the years is morphed into, like, more of a good guy, because he was like a fire breathing skeleton ninja guy with a thing and like, you know,

the spear that he throws. And he's, and Scorpion has become more and more like the face of the game. Like if you go to a game stop for some reason and wanna buy a Mortal Kombat game, it probably has Scorpion on it. I mean, please go to Game Stop. I bought a lot of stock,

and I would like to do this later there. But like I assumed they were gonna just make him make Cole Scorpion, but no, no, no. No. Change to some reason. And I wonder if they're like trying to build him up to put him in a game or if they wanted to be eligible for the best new character Academy work, like you can't have a pre-existing character. But I didn't realize that and it makes sense though,

because Cole is also a pretty bland Kind of basic character. There's like not much going on with him You know, he's also in Wu-Assassins this actor and that's a Netflix show You know and that's just also giving us martial arts and fun. I told you I watch it I don't need much and he's fun in Wu-Assassin He's like kind of like the hot cool fuck boy of the main character, like the best friend, and then he's like, but he's also like a good guy underneath. He's like kind of energy. And so like, when I saw him, I was like, oh, he's fun.

But they literally just have him smile the entire film. He's what we call a CW. He is a model that they just put into like someone's like, well, we can make more money off of you if you act too. Oh, so they made him an actor, but he's really just a model. He doesn't. But he's also a good fighter. He knows how to fight.

So he is, but in this movie specifically, he's giving you CW again, all the CW shows. Like he's giving you just like, looks. You know what I mean? He's giving you angles, cheekbones. Lose steel. But has no response to anything that's happening to him. Yeah, no one has a response in this entire thing.

Crazy shit happens every two minutes. Yes. And no one has any kind of response except for one character. Well, one of the things to be introduced. Yes, one of the, we'll get to them. So Jack saves them in his truck and he's like, I got the same dragon birthmark. We're marked as Mortal Kombat champions.

Instantly, Cole and his family are like, that makes sense, yeah, we're on board. I get it, mystical champions. All right, well, what do we do? And Jackson's like, go find my partner, Blade. And I was like, wait, Blade, the vampire killer? No, it's Sonya Blade, no such luck. Anyway, not IP, they're gonna be-

Go to Gary and Deanna, here's an address. Okay, bye. He's like, where are you in relation to Gary and Diana? Yeah, also, you know, up there with Buffalo is bad places to go. I before we get too far away from it, the CW. Well, Dan, I've heard nothing but good things about Gary and Diana and the one song that I know about it. What a wonderful place.

Name for Albert Gary of Judiciary Fame. Gary and Diana, like a Shakespeare would say, trips along softly from the tongue this way. Anyway, um, so, Dan, are you channeling someone else right now? What where did that come from? Yeah, I was. Professor fucking Harold Hill, man. Right, right. Yeah. Um, no, I, sorry, I was just you were like you went to a fugue state. But anyway, you're saying. Yeah, your eyes, your pupils got white. Before we get too far away from the CW, I just want to say that I like what we're, you

know, we're unpeeling what we're seeing about this relationship that you guys have a lot of jargon around your household. You know, you like this a lot of media jargon that, you know, you build up. Yeah. That was it. That's true. Thank you for understanding how our love has lasted this 11 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was it. That was it. Thank you for understanding how our love has lasted this 11 years.

Yeah. Based on having a closed loop terminology that is impenetrable to the outside world. Yeah. Yeah, every relationship needs a glossier. So he's like, go find Sonya Blade. I'm going to go fight Sub-Zero, not a good idea. After creeping around in an entirely frozen abandoned building pretty much. Oh no, I guess it's entirely frozen later on.

Sub-Zero. A later, yeah. Freeze as Jack's arms, then they shatter, I guess it's entirely frozen later on. Subzero. A later, yeah. Freezes Jackson's arms and then they shatter and then Jackson falls down and hits his head. It's not that bad. There is a great line. I get a violent way. Yeah, when they first face off and Jackson says,

I did six tours, motherfucker. And you're like, yeah, against ice wizards. I know. I know. Also, one of the things in this movie that took me, if I surprise it first, was I forget like 90s action movies. There's tons of swearing, and I just take it in stride. But modern action movies, because so many of them, I guess, are pegged around a PG-13

hopefully audience, or even like a soft R audience, they don't swear as much. And there's a ton of swearing in this movie. And for some reason, when a character would be disemboweled and their guts would fall out, that would shock me less than hearing a character be like, fuck this asshole. And I'd be like, what? I mean, it really felt like they were doing it excessively to be like, fuck you dad, we could swear in our movie. Like, that's the way you did it. This totally felt to me like it was a 90s Saturday morning cartoon that they remade in a live action Or like now we could put in all the swears we want Now we can finally have reptile and Goro do it like that we never were only able to hint at in the TV show

It would be difficult with reptiles Citic Spiddle. I mean, I think that would cost problems for Goro, but I mean, I think they would cost problems for Goro, but I mean, I'll watch anything once. So speaking of, we're back in Outworld, Changseng is sucking to his ladyfighter, Malena, but then he's like, you don't go, send in Saisoth, the Reptillion. Now, this is the character reptile, basically, right? Or is it not? Because he doesn't look like what I'm used to. I'm used to character reptile being just scorpion, but with different colors. Yeah, that's why that thing was there. I didn't put together that it was sent, because I was literally like,

what is this character? Like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I just thought it was his own initiative. You thought the reptile like that, that wizard, the, I was really like,

it's just like showing up places, because it can like sense the, um, the combatants, the champions. I think it's like half alien half predator, because it's got like acid, saliva, but it can like sense the um uh... the combatants it's like half alien half predator because it's got like acid yeah but it can turn us off as cloaking uh... both characters that have been in mortal combat games yeah

and it also looks like spider-man's the lizard so it's right so uh... so anyway like i said colin's family they instantly believe jacks is crazy story and col leaves his family behind after they've been attacked by an ice samurai monster to go find Sonia Blade. And when he gets to her, what like trailer home, it's like a, we're like a mobile home that's stuck on the ground. She shows, yeah, yeah.

She shows Cole her evidence dungeon about how people have been fighting in the moral combat tournament for centuries, and Cole has a hallucination of Hanzo for a moment. But then, uh-oh, he gets kicked out of that by Kano. Our next big character. Kano. Kano is a douchebag Australian mercenary

that Sonia has changed to a chair in her house. Stuart, tell me about Kano. Look, can you tell me about Kano? Kano's like, uh, was like, uh, like a sub villain in the original games. And he's always been an Australian, like mercenary gun runner, bad guy. In the games, all his moves are like kind of aggressive

and extra shitty and he has this one move where he rolls up into a ball and flies across the screen, which doesn't quite fit with his other moves, but it's pretty hilarious. And it's a good strategy to build because you can just keep slamming people around with your flying ball body. Yeah.

That's called in my in my marriage, we call that an FBB, a flying ball body. That's that's just a certain. In our house. So he turns it turns out, so cano is we've set up our main characters. Cole is the innocent young hot guy who is kind of too noble for this world. Sonia is the lady who is trying her best to be a Mortal Kombat champion because she doesn't have a dragon mark. And Kano who has a dragon mark because he killed a champion and the mark transferred him is the like, why is cracker? He's like the why is cracking asshole who just kind of is like,

what? Well, I'm not gonna do that. Boy, I ought to. That kind of stuff. Why can you become a champion just by killing somebody else Should the very nature of committing a murder me you are not champion material I mean it's a like a sir cano is even up in here because he's like oh, I killed his guy He happened to have a martin. I got the mark. What I don't check out. I thought you wanted to win earth rail No, if you want to win this you can just be giving any old body a mark It reminds me of in the movie at the end God's of Egypt, where all throughout that movie, whether you get into heaven or hell is decided

by how rich you are, and at the end they go, you know what, maybe it should be based on whether you're a good person or not. From now on, only good people will get into heaven, and it was like, what system was this beforehand? Like, why would you ever have it the other way? What are you doing? But, okay, let's go.

I'm going out this whole whole like weird mark shit, this arcana that they talk about, which is a weird mark that you get if you kill somebody else that has the mark, or I guess you're born into a lineage of people of the mark, which is arguably worse. The, it also is keyed into some weird magic power shit. This is all new, this is not from the games,

it doesn't make any sense. It feels like something that like Like an executive is like I want to put my own stamp on the moral combat universe by introducing some dumb bullshit Well, it feels like there are a couple different parts of this movie where and I always am impressed by this when there's a movie based on video game and they're like I guess we have to come up with a story reason to explain why come up with a story reason to explain why a ninja who can breathe fire is fighting like a vampire woman in the middle of a temple somewhere. Because the game, of course, you really don't need a reason. But they're really, they're trying to build it back to explain why people have these

abilities at all. Whereas in the game, it's just going to be like, here's what crazy bunch of weirdos. Here's a bunch of super-powered nuts. Yeah. But we don't have time. I want a cano movie, by the way. Yeah, he was the only one having fun with it. Cano was having fun with it.

He was having fun with it, but the lights go out. Uh-oh, that invisible reptile monster with the acid blood attacks, size off. Working together, they kill it. They manage to like stab a flare into its body so that they can see where it is. And cano rips out its heart and says cano wins, which is one of many little,

I winks at the audience. And Kano was like, I saw Lord Raidens temple. I could take it after three million dollars, mate. And they tell him that pain. That's so good. That was so good. It was back to his worth.

Yeah. Yeah. And unlike I'm in Melbourne right now. Yeah. On the way there, Cole has another vision of Hanzo, but don't have time for that. And the vision's really matter, it doesn't matter. They parachute into the desert,

where instead of parachuting to the place where they wanna go, they parachute like a couple miles away so they can walk the rest away. Right. And those are the favorites. It's like, okay, is that what you consider a story turn? You know what I mean? Like we need to pad this a bit. Maybe they don't, they have to walk a little. And it's his favorite. It's like, okay, is that what you consider a story turn? You know what I mean?

We need to pad this a bit. Maybe they don't, they have to walk a little. And it's also again, we have to go, because this is for the beginning, we are starting with Cole, right? We are supposed to, our entree into this world is supposed to be this guy who is a fighter who's not very good though, but he has a daughter,

and you know, whenever a man has a daughter, he's our hero. He's got heart. And so, he has his daughter, but you're like, oh, like, these people just showed up. Somebody made a snow in July, and then froze the street, and then you had to go to Gary and Deanna.

How are you feeling? Where are you emotionally with this journey? And he's just like, walking. He's just walking. He's just hanging. He ain't got nothing to say. And that is so strange to me for all the work of building the backstory. Maybe he's dead inside. But he has that daughter. If you have a daughter, you can't be dead inside. That's the hero. Well, he's a family man. I mean, in this perfect world, he would be played by

Tom, a young Tom Hanks. And that's how you and he'd bring all that, you know, character to him. world he would be played by Tom a young Tom Hanks and that's how you and he'd bring all that you know character to him. I mean the young Tom Hanks would be ripped in this version of the same. Yeah. You know. Like Buzz and Buddy's era when he was like really like. When he was working out a lot. Buzz and Buddy's era when he was like he had those 40 inch pythons. Yeah definitely. But yeah there's coal is I mean he's just a he is a total blank. He is an open doorway for us to walk into the world of Mortal Kombat, and there is otherwise not much there. But there's this rivalry between Kano and Sonia

that is instantly has so much more personality than anything that Cole is doing. And Kano taunts Sonia into attacking him, and he's like, kill me then, take my dragon mark, but she won't do it. But that's okay, because suddenly, out of the sunset, who's walking in, it's Lou Kang with his karate fire hands.

Do you want to tell me about Lou Kang? Lou Kang was always kind of like the, was like kind of the bland good guy who... Until Cole came along. Yep, exactly. I mean, Cole kind of is filling the role that Lou Kang normally would fill. At some point, he's like the lover of Princess Katana, who's

the daughter of Shao Khan, and he is like a monk and he can turn into a dragon in some of his fatalities. You know guys, the collective amount of bullshit that is in all of our brains, you know, I don't know what we could do with it, but if we can harness that power, sometimes. He did. It's called the flop-pops. Yeah, this is the only way to do it. It all swirls together, creates some kind of like lovecraftian, dark God that will destroy the earth.

Made of fictional mythoses and things. Good news, they get to Raiden's Cave, they learn about the past because the cave is decorated with historical moral comment murals. And as we know from the Zack Snyder, all about wall work. That's what they do in this movie, right? Yeah. Like Sonya has a wall and now there's a wall in this cave. And just let the wall tell the story, okay?

No one has time to talk to you. No one has time for a flashback. Just let the wall. Do it. And the Justice League movie murals are the best way to communicate complicated back stories. And that's interesting difference between Earth, realm, and outworld because the heroes of Earth, realm

decorate their walls. Whereas outworld, they have no walls. Not even the throne room. It's just like a cliff. Yeah, it does. Yeah, well, those people doing in the background, by the way, in outworld, they were just like wandering around.

Is that what? Yep. Going on a pilgrimage. I mean, no wonder they want Earth, realm, because there's stuff here. There's like nothing in outworld. They were just like wandering around. Is that what happened? Yep, going on a pilgrimage. I mean, no wonder they want Earth Realm because there's stuff here. There's like nothing in Outworld. So like, who wouldn't want, I mean, if anything, you totally sympathize with the people of Outworld

who just see Earth Realm and they're like, look at all the things they have. Like, we have nothing. And they're not offering it to us, so we better go in and take it. Outworld is right. Remember the George Carlin bit about how Outworld doesn't have stuff and. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, the seven fatalities you can't do in the

Saturday morning cartoon. Yeah. Outworld is all is all one big like concept art drawing for like a desert. That is outworld. Yeah. Outworld is it's your basic Tatooine or Rakis place that the Tunis forks take you in Phantasm where it's just like an open desert and there's no phantasm references. I've been thinking about Phantasm a lot lately. Yeah. It's cheap. I think that's the point. Yeah. And it's very cheap. Yeah. Because there's no stuff. You don't have to feel it with with anything Oh wait, can I quick point out something that we only saw on the second time watching the movie? I do

When Spiting that reptile when they're fighting the reptile when like Conno cano cano and some you're blade When keynote speaker when Pino Lurber is fighting the reptile. Yeah. Or someone asks, so, and you're where's your marking? And she goes, I don't have one. And then cano in the background goes, want, wow. That's right.

And I only saw that the second time and I died. It was so funny. And that's what I wanted more of. That's what I love. I'm like, give me the want, want, and in the back and I also loved that it was in the background There was no need to cut to him just like let me hear that and really Enjoy that and that was very delightful. It was a kind of energy that like the first Mortal Kombat had where it was like this weird The original Mortal Kombat movie had this it was like a weird tournament at this rich sorcerer's magic island.

We're like, all these weirdos just showed up because they're like, I want a fucking battle. And you had to like a little bit everything. You had like jerks like Johnny Cage, you had jerks like Kano, you had Sonya Blading wanted to kill Kano, you had a Goro. It was great. But this movie, it's like the motivation is just like protecting Earth Realm who gives a shit about that. I want people who want to go to a fucking tournament on a magic island.

Well, because the first Mortal Kombat is very much still in a time when martial arts means enter the dragon. Like it's still living in that world where like if you're going to have martial arts fighting, it's going to be kind of a enter the dragon type of space. But now it's in the world of Marvel movies where it's like if we play this right every single one of these characters It's gonna have their own movie and we're gonna have a trilogy where they go to outworld and overthrow Shang Tsung or whatever So it's they got a they got to add all this junk when yeah, it would be so much more fun If it was just like you just saw all these characters getting on planes and buses heading to the tournament, you know

Way better. Yeah, anyway, Jackson is all sweat Lord Raiden's temple. His arms are gone and he is unconscious. Uh-oh, what's going to happen to Jack's? Luke Kang is like, you guys need to train or earth will be ravaged. And he introduces them to Lord Raiden, who is visibly disappointed that these are the people he showed up. I see.

Absolutely. He's like, you don't even have a Mark woman. I don't know what you're doing here. You're a liability. Who's fighting? It's like three or don't even have a Mark woman. I don't know what you're doing here. Your liability. It's like three or four of them show up, right? Like it's just like this tiny, like, hey, we call my friend. I heard this wasn't a birthmark. I'm here to find out. Do I get like a coupon for some dairy queen?

Yeah. He turns to Cole and he's like, and what are you? Like, who are you? What is your deal? Like, why are you here, Cole? I have a daughter. That's not enough. That's not enough. I don't think I can give away a coupon to Dairy Queen because Blizzard's our sub-zero's weapon.

Oh. Very good well put, Stewart, because sub-zero shows up and he starts fighting Luke Kang. But then he gets saved by a guy with a really wide hat. Stewart, who's the style. That's kind of loud. Ellie, the funny thing about you asking me this up and he starts fighting Luke Kang but then he gets saved by a guy with a really wide hat. Stuart, that's kind of loud. That's kind of loud. Alex, the funny thing about you asking me this is that when it's a funny thing we talk

about, Kung Lao of all people, is when I went and saw this in the theater, I went with my buddy Riff, we went to a five o'clock. Riff? Yeah, my buddy Riff. We was a junkyard cat. Yeah. We went to a 5 p.m. screening. We were the only people in the movie theater.

So I felt totally comfortable any time a character like, for instance, Kung Lao would show up. I could turn to him and be like, hey, riff, that's Kung Lao. He obviously knew his Kung Lao already, not only because the character announces it as soon as he arrives, but also because he's a fan of the video games like me. And we would, but oh, we would laugh. It's so funny. I would, I would like to say, uh, you know, as someone who knows Riff, um, the person you are imagining when you hear the name Riff is Riff. That's

Riff. Thank you. Great. Yeah. Absolutely. He is. He's like my friend Thor. He's a total riff. Yeah. Thor is a real too. Wait, what? Yeah. That wasn't a joke? Nope. What a life you live, Stuart. Oh, yeah. So this cabinet of figures and eating whole mangoes, no bites.

Just giant, you guys, he was having a sliver of some mango. Right. He just put the mango, the whole mangoed his mouth and pulled out the skin and the pig. Pulled out a fish skeleton, which is the weirdest thing. Right, him and Rick. So Luke Kang is like, hey, you each have special powers called arcana, and you're going to figure out what they're going to emerge through training. The more you fight, the more you're arcana comes out.

But only if you have a dragon mark, Sonya, and also Jack's gets robot arms, but they're really like little and wimpy. They look like Johnny Fives arms. Yeah. Yeah. And so now it's a lot of training. Cole's training against Kung Laos, Razor Hat, and there's this part, I think it's the only part

of the movie, there's a lot of synth on the score, and I was loving it. I loved the score in that part. I'm a big sucker for synth. As I, again, as I said, it's the Sparks movie. That's what I'm most excited about. There's a lot of fighting that takes place in this, like, sand pit area, and I hope you like like it because that's basically where all the fights are

gonna take place. You're gonna see a lot of fighting in the sand. It's training training training. Uh and Jackson's confidence are down because it's down because he's got these skinny robot arms don't punch very well. And Sonya gives him a pet time. And cold can't get his arcana cold can't get his arcana but here's the thing to two again. So we have this fight right we know it's the last fight are kind of, but here's the thing to do again. So we have this fight, right? We know it's the last fight. They're in this realm that's just like a Sam, Sambite. Are they there a day? Are they there in hour? What's happening on earth? Right. The wife and the daughter are in some house where I'm like, they're like, there's a cabbot somewhere. Yeah, a cabbot. But it's like, and like stuff like that to me where I'm like, you could give me a sense of how time is

passing and why maybe we care. Like whenever like Earth is in danger, right? There's nothing I love more than like a little pop to Earth and like suddenly Locust fall from the sky. You know what I mean? They're like, oh God, the bridge is breaking. The space time. Or put a calendar in the corner.

Put a calendar in the corner. And then the day just flies. Yeah, sure, yeah. Beer grows super long. Super long. I think the cold should have a long beard. And he's by the time he's done training. I want to see if you're seasy top. You're long here. It's longer. Yeah, even longer. Until you're tripping

over it. I want to see them. They have a page today counter in the corner. And you just see the pages falling off. And then Luke Kang is like, close that window. It's blowing all the pages off the calendar. So what about just like clock and you see the thing? Yeah, and Luke Tang is like, hey, someone fixed that clock, it's spinning too fast. And fans of the games would clearly see that's a reference to Chronica, the bad guy from one of the later Mortal Kombat actress. Wow, Stewart.

Sneaky mini-street. The marijuana themed Mortal Kombat? Is that a Chronic Album? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, she's the Necronomicron. Okay, now we know they're there at least two days because they're eating dinner at one point and cana was super rude to everybody and Luke Lewin Kang they just taunt him until he starts shooting eyes lasers out of his eyes and he's like yes, my Rekana It's an eye laser. Coles still won't come out, even after they hit him a bunch of times.

It just won't come out, they don't know. And Raiden is like, hey, Cole, you just send it from Hanzo's baby that I saved. Go to your family, I don't need you here anymore. You're just a baby to me. Yeah, she is. He's like, you are very disappointing. You can leave and then he opens a portal and Cole's like,

okay, he's like, sad, but he doesn't really put up a fight. He's like, okay. Anyone explain why sad, but he doesn't really put up a fight. He's like, okay. Anyone explain why Earthrealm waited so long to gather everyone? I don't know. I really feel like someone's memo didn't get sent. So it really seems like a letter got lost along the way and they're like, oh shit, is it that day already? Yeah.

The email was in the draft folder, they forgot to hit sad. Also, that Lord Raiden is like, I have three people to choose from. Cole, you're one of them. You're gonna have to pack your knives and go. I don't want you here anymore. It's like, you have nobody else. What are you doing? You have no one.

I mean, it's just like... I can assume that they were sending emails to the US Senate and the US government's like the American people don't care about stuff outside of America. They don't care about that world. Yada Yada. Well, the Democrats kept trying, they kept sponsoring bills that would increase funding for Mortal Kombat fighters and Mitch McConnell will get up and be like, I don't think we need to have all this government support of Mortal Kombat.

You know, this isn't necessary. Uh, but- Honestly, is this Elliot Reel? Is this a VIA? Yeah, that's because he's doing so much. I've got to be too hard on my face. But wait, this is the movie I want to see. You want to see the Senate, the Senate, the turning down- uh... honestly is this only a real it's a really i don't think it's so bad that it's a little bit more the movie i want to see you want to see at the same time

when the when the senate is debating over it and image called aris roared ragan has more than enough fighters already his command i don't see why we need to increase government funding from our taxpayer dollars he's already got he's got a cano he's got a and what, he's got a ring. What my Bernie Sanders say now? And Bernie Sanders would be like,

it is unconscionable that in European nations, the government fully supports more combat fighters, but here we have to put, we have to put it on the average American to fight against outworlders, it's unconscionable. We can't allow it, and we're not gonna allow it. You know, I mean, if you were a little bit sort of like beefy or alley it you would be a dead ringer for like a younger Bernie Sanders I

got Jewish I mean just in Jewish that's I'm a Jewish guy with glasses but thank you it's the biggest compliment of all to be told I am a thinner Bernie Sanders thank you so anyway yeah, Elizabeth Warren, and now I'm just doing all my impressions. Now Elizabeth Warren will be like, Elizabeth Warren's like, we need mortal combat fighters. I've got a plan for that. Here's my plan for that. Anyway, so. You have the depth of gravity.

If this is the, they've got a sub-series. We've got a sub-resoncerated life impression. Well, we need to take this episode and kick it back to like two years ago, basically, when there were still all these candidates in the running, then we make it my real. I get on SNL. It's a terrible experience. I don't enjoy it. I mean, but that's how I get catapulted into having small roles and lots of

comedy movies that I don't enjoy. Okay, so. Let's meet some more baddies. Because Shang Tsung songs about to bring up K ball Cabal yeah, Cabal Neetara who gets a big build up and is killed instantly later on and General Raiko who was I think my least the one I was least interested in he's just like a big dude with a lot of hammer or something He's he seems like there was less going on with him two characters

Him and who's the one with the wings? Netara. Two brand new characters of the series. So fans of the series are like, I know who's getting a fatality performed on them. And oh, so the woman with the wings is not from the video now. Now I just really, I was like, there's not enough going on in the actual video game

that they had to make a woman with wings because I really felt like they have enough characters to play with. They have a ton of characters, but I don't think they want to kill them off with fatalities so quickly. I see what you're saying. But like, okay, so as a person who had played the game, when the characters you recognized came on screen, were you satisfied? I am. Were you satiated?

Well, I immediately turned a riff and said that character's name out loud. Absolutely. Yep. I am, were you sati- Well, I immediately turned a riff and said that character's name out loud. That's absolutely, yep. But I mean, I don't know, not, I don't care. I mean, the roster's so large and they only showed a few characters. Didn't get to see any of my favorites like Johnny Cage or, man, I guess like, I feel, I was a big fan of Kay now and I feel like

Kayno is represented as like a shitty asshole who you shouldn't like but by the fact that there is no other interesting characters, you have to root for the racist asshole. Yeah, you see the only one with personality. So Shang Tsung is like, I want you to strike but first you have to take down a raidens shield of his headquarters. So yes, it's the same thing that the heroes have to do in Justice League, but backwards. It's the villains doing it now.

And it's weird because and Kable hates or Kable hates Kano. He hates him. And they're like, gorgers. They're former colleagues and now they. The former colleagues. And you get the feeling that that Kable who's in like a suit of like a living, like he's a cyborg, he's like a mad Max outfit. And he says he has an iron lung.

Yeah, that cano probably put him in that situation. But so Kabal visits cano and I'm like, so the shield that's stopping them, he didn't bother him when he went into, it's one of the things where like, there's a shield keeping us back. So go in there and turn the shield off. Okay, or we could just go in.

Like if that's, if it's not that big an issue. Maybe he'd go really slowly. Through it, it's not an issue. It's like a really slow one at a time thing. Yeah, I get you. And he's like, Kano, you should shut down that shield and turn into a bad guy. And Kano does exactly that.

And Shang Tsung shows up, meanwhile, who shows up at Cole's family's house, Goro. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,ality. Yep, and she's the slipknot of the film, big buildup character dies almost instantly. Yeah. And Kung Lao says, flawless victory. Another tip of the big wide razor-brimmed hat to the truth is- Now, normally, if you get a flawless victory,

you have to not get hit at all. And I feel like he got hit somewhere in there, but I have to check the tapes. I mean, to be the type- But it is. It is a life bar go down, and you know, that's the thing you've got to figure out. Well, he might even take chip damage on block

It just depends on the attacks he was blocking Well, and also that it seems to be pretty clear that they kind of all make up the rules and judge themselves the way shang song is like I guess I'll kill all the vica betters beforehand and Kung Lao is just that when you're judging your own match Of course, it's gonna be a flawless victory like come on. There's there's no way it's not for me Cole is fighting Goro. Cole's like- Talk about how Kano though. This is another thing to me.

Like this finesse of like for instance, I like Kano, I know he's a wild card. I know he's gonna bring us down naturally. Yeah, yeah. But this is where the laziness of the motion picture annoyed me. Cause literally this guy's like, I fucking hate Kano. And then he's like, Kano, you stupid bitch.

I'm fighting with me. I fucking hate you. Kano's like all right, and like that was it like that you know there was no sense of Like Kano drama no No like no hiccup no challenge no need to be seduced because I thought they could at least play that a little longer like Kano maybe with him like slowly, like creeping around, getting in from me. The seduction of cano. Now is that not a film?

Now Mortal Kombat, Colin. The seduction of cano. Yeah, yeah. And so like, so Cabal is like laid out on pillows and stuff. I love him, King. Yeah, yeah, he's laid out, but he's like so mean. Like the whole time he's like, I hate you, but also come do this for me for some money.

And I'm like, is money even gonna mean anything in an outworld? Right, there's nothing to, if cabals just like, take all my money, dumbass, there's nothing to buy here. I feel like it's useless. Feel like in the games, if you get like combat coins, you can just spend them on different outfits for your character, which, I mean, that kind of thing

looks great. I mean, hey, we've all opened up one of those boxes in Overwatch to get the cool outfits right, the Halloween costumes, but you know, we've all done. The universe looks very necessary. You know, you don't need it, but you kind of need it. You know, it's a great answer. Yeah, sure. I have two things I want to say.

One, Dan, you mentioned Xomin King, which is a great name for Mortal Kombat character. To know your right- Some sort of King I'd imagine. Yeah, I have to assume so. I kept expecting Cabal to be like Kano, join us and take down the shield and then Kano would do it and then Cabal would kill Kano and be like, you shouldn't have trusted me. But that's not what happens. Kano is just a bad guy now. It doesn't- Yep. It doesn't. Yeah, there's no, the characters are not consistent. Anyway, the Goro fight.

Cole's wife, she runs up, she's got a saver man, she chops Goro on the side with an axe, just as Lee comparison, unlike Wussy Darkside, he does not instantly give up after being hit with an axe once. But then Cole's are can. Darkside featured in the Injustice video game made by NetherRealm Studios, who also make Mortal Kombat. but then Coles are canner. Darkside featured in the Injustice video game made by NetherRealm Studios

who also make Mortal Kombat. Okay. Okay, this is a lot, Stuart. This is the best Stuart. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. It's just a stunt non-ya. Just take a picture of your wall

with all the connections and yarns. Actually, yeah. We have video game companies. It's all publicly available information. There's no reason for me to do that. The Tommy Westfall universe on TV. Exactly, okay. So.

Oh, that's a common reference, right? Tommy Westfall universe. Yeah, that's a relevant topical, recent reference, right? Yeah. So it's Cole Sarcana kicks in to save his family because he's a family man. What's his arcana? It's a little confused.

He gets metal skin and he has blade wrists and a super upper cut and he just cuts, goro up and he blinds him. I think he pokes his eyes out and then he disembowels him and goro's guts come out and I was like, this is pretty gory. This is pretty disgusting. So goro, he doesn't, once again,

Mortal Kombat movies to kind of don't do justice by him. He doesn't get much time, you know. No, and probably because he's an expensive character to show a lot of because he's a giant He's an all CGI giant with four arms another missed opportunity Is when Cole finally unleashes this fucking uppercut just like in the game blood flies everywhere But what they don't do is have somebody's head pop into the corner of the screen and say toasty Which is a key part of the game. It's hilarious. Never having once another character's get burned alive.

Doesn't say there's no toasty moment. I think there was there ever a friendship moment in this or no? Well, I don't think so. I wish that I wish that a hero had like helped another hero and then gone friendship. Like that would have been great. You would fight for a whole time and then you would give him like a teddy bear and then instead of fatality above their body,

their dead body, it would be the words friendship written in the moon animal. That's another thing you can do in moral common. Why would you give them, why would you give them a teddy, like in what kind of honesty? In moral common. I don't need that.

Some, if you don't wanna do a fatality, you can do a friendship, and you give them like a cake, or a teddy bear, or a heart, and it just says friendship, and you don't kill it. It is the fight, like whatever fighting is. You doing you just stop. Yeah, because that's your victory move. Yeah, your victory is a is the moral victory of knowing that you could have. Yes,

you are magnanimous. Yes, or if you really moral comment or if you want to make your own. Yeah, moral comment is definitely. Yeah. If you have what if you want to make your opponent feel terrible, if you did not use the block button a single time during the match, you can perform a bay ballad turns your opponent into a baby. I wish that I did it in the movie. I was creating a baby version of their character. Yeah, that's a baby now. So that's how you care of the baby?

I don't think, I mean, we don't follow the life of the baby afterwards, so I can assume yes. Now, what does this, now is this in the later version, so could one get make like a Freddy Krueger baby? Yeah, theoretically. Okay. I can't remember if they had babyalities in MK9 with Freddy Krueger, but I'm pretty sure there's one

where like you get a little Jason Voorhees baby in MKX. I mean, but that's just the end of Friday the 13th part, eight, a little Jason baby. Exactly. It's the same thing. Yeah, this is crazy Wait, I don't even understand why these other characters can be in the video game That will be a separate episode perhaps for your angel intellectual property law. It's really exciting the IP house Okay, so yeah, let's uh, so we'll keep moving with this because there's not that much movie left

Jack's arcana finally kicks in it means that his robot arms become big versions like his human arms were. They're just big robot arms. And he saves Sonya from a bunch of fallen boulders. Lord Raiden brings coal back to the cave and Shang-Sung steals Kong-Low's soul and just dries him up like a withered husk. And Raiden teleports the good guys to avoid. He's like, I don't know what to do. We don't have a lot of good guys on hand.

And Cole, master strategist that we know him to be from throughout the movie, he goes, they don't want a competition. Let's give him one. We'll each split up and take on a different opponent in a different place. And I'm like, yeah, like the work that a screenwriter has to put into explaining why you have one-on-one fights in different backgrounds. Like, that's really funny to me. So, but it's funny But it's funny because the ideas will split them up and take them on one-on-one as if teamwork was the secret strength that Shang Tsung's people had and that's why they were losing. They were all one-on-one fights. It doesn't matter if they're in different places, but anyway, that's what they do.

Super battle. Super battle. Super battle. Jack's fights, Rikku, head smashes him, story of Ricky style. Yes. So that's a thing. Like, obviously, that's a classic Jack's fatality, smashing that dude's head. However, they're having the fight on the fucking pit on the, you know, on this bridge above

a pit. And that had a stage fatality where you could uppercut your opponent off of the bridge and they would land in the pit, bonabon, some spikes. And then sometimes you'd go down there and fight Reptile. Why didn't they do that, guys? Can anyone answer that? Yes Absolutely correct.

Thank you But then here's a question like do you think this is a movie that was like so many blockbusters written like you know Rewritten a hundred times because it to be feels like a first draft Like it was like a movie that was not written enough. Yeah, you know, I mean? Even what you were saying, Elliott too, about like, you know, it's like, okay, we're in the void now. Why don't we just go fight them what I want? Right. It's like, okay, first thought, best thought.

They turned Elliott's synopsis and they turned that into the movie. It's just like really, yeah. It's a shooting script. Yeah, it fell back in time and they were like, yeah, let's just do the movie that way. It sounds like we did. So Jack's kills Riku. Sonia fights Kano stabs him in the eye with a

garden gnome and his dragon mark transfers to her arm looks like she's a champion now and she's all she wanted all Sonia wanted was to be in the that's her character now wanna be a plus one. She had a little dola's all energy we were probably kind of racial dola's all for champions. Audrey was asking me, she was like, do you think this is like a commentary like the one woman needs to prove herself to get the mark? And I'm like, I don't think they thought about it that much. I think it is more a symptom of that kind of assumed misogyny

than it is a commentary on that kind of a symptom misogyny. Like, Luke Kang, he just lures Kabal into some tower and then makes a fire dragon that eats him. It's not the Kabal kind of just walks into that literally. And so he can shoot like plasma blasts or something and kills Melina, who is the kind of siloct, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes, the writer, Alford Melina.

Alford Melina, kills Alford Melina, it's terrifying. Sub-Zero kidn. Alfred Malina. Kills Alfred Malina. Oh, it's terrifying. Sub-zero kidnaps Cole's family. I don't know why. Not sure why, but he does. Cole is already itching for a fight. There's no reason to bring the family in trouble. Maybe he knows the family is susceptible to isotax.

Maybe. Unless he was like. The bloodline is susceptible to isotax. Well, this thing is he could have said, they could have something in there. Maybe there wasn't I missed it about like cutting off like- The bloodline is acceptable for that. I mean, well, that's the thing is he could have said, they could have said something in there, maybe there wasn't, I missed it about like cutting off the Hanzo bloodline because Cole's daughter obviously is the next in that line,

but he doesn't say that because Sub-Zero is a man of very few words. He's behind. The only thing he says is I'm Sub-Zero. So Cole fights him for a while and the building that he's hiding hidden in now, his kind of ninja turtles Abandoned warehouse layer is now fully frozen and it's like it's like a it's like an MMA arena, right? It's it's the it's the one for the beginning. This is where I like again I could see the producer is going look we built the stupid MMA ring can we just use it a second time?

We don't have the money to put some ice on it and make that the final place, okay? Make it look like slightly different. They fight for a long time and then who comes back with very little explanation? Hanzo, he's back from the dead as he or she is. Hanzo's there, yep. He explains it himself, he says, literally, I return from hell to kill you. Yeah, what more do you need?

It is, but you, yeah, and he didn't do that earlier, or ever in the last 400 years. But thank you for like 400 years. Yeah, exactly, I'm like, and he didn't do that earlier or ever in the last 400 years. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, okay, why were you coming back now? It's tough to do. Just because the letter got lost in the mail. Yeah, he didn't know what was going on.

There's so much paperwork. He says, get over here. Finally, this fight goes on for a long time. And it's like, there's that the three man fight scene in the raid that goes on for a long time and this is feels like it's Not quite at that level. It's trying to be something like that where you're awed at the sheer endurance It's a great sequence. I think it's pretty good. Yeah, I mean I think this is like the the selling real like they shot this and they're like hey give us more money Please because this looks great

Yeah, and it goes on for a long time until scorpion breeds fire on Sub-Zero, and then he dies. And it's like, again, what, did you were you building up your turbo bar like with each punch? And that's until you could get fire breath. Hanzo disappears, everyone reunites and shanks. And now he's, Shang Tsung is mad, because all of his champions have been killed.

And he says, next time, I'll come back with armies, which is, again, also the end of the Justice League's Ex-Nider cut like this movie has so much in common with that movie Uh and Raiden says to the our heroes. I'll help you find some more fighters And it's like dude just find them like don't give them clues like just go find them yourself What are you doing with your time nothing? Yeah, what does he have to do? He's literally been alive forever ever. Yeah, he has so much time to kill There's nothing going on in his cave. You know what I mean?

There's no cable, there's no Wi-Fi. And it's like, you have one wall that you've already decorated. So it's like, you might as well go look for fighters. You have time to kill. And why does an outworld invade in the first place? Wait, what? Yeah, why don't they?

Because of the wall, because the, I don't know. Why? It's one of those things where like I think about it sometimes where the way that, and it's the answer is budget. Like that, it's but the why, why do aliens always invade with either a minimal force in a big city or a big force in the middle of nowhere because budget and like when in reality when you want to invade a place like you send it or the same way that it made me so mad in Avengers, was it infinity war endgame

I think it's infinity war where Thanos attacks and First he sends his foot soldiers then he sends his super foot soldiers then he sends his heavy artillery and tanks And it's like that's not the way you would do that dude like soften them up with your heavy weapons Like in the world you defeat dude This is how you did it or in the Justice League movie where dark side, good arc side has spaceships that he could bomb from above, but instead he sends his guys down to fight hand to hand. And he sends them to the place all the good guys have already landed. Go somewhere else. Like there's a whole world. Establish a beachhead. Like get your basis. Yeah, I mean, maybe he's just working under like some sort of outdated intergalactic sense of,

you know, fair play. Like he's the British and the Revolutionary War and, and, and we're the scrappy gorilla planet. I don't know. Yeah. I guess so. Right. Or the intergalactic Geneva convention. Yeah. So anyway, uh, and the last scene, Cole is now a Mortal Kombat champion. He's got to go seek out some other heroes.

He tells, I guess his trainer or he tells the guy at the MMA gym. Who books his, his like, like black market fights. He's a guy inside of his, that he's going to Hollywood. And he goes, okay, and then the trainer, whoever booker walks by a poster for a movie called Citizen Cage, starring Johnny Cage, who's wearing a big butt buckle that says Cage. And I was like, do they not know how movies and movie posters work? Like, or is everyone in this movie playing themselves? Because usually when you make a movie,

your name's not in the title and you're not gonna have a belt buckle with your name on it. Like you, Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Cancer. Oh, okay. Now I get it, never mind. It's not an instant.

It's a meta commentary on action movies. Now I get it. And so they're teasing that at some point in the future, we're gonna get Johnny Cage, who is a movie star? What is he, Stuart? Yeah, he's an action movie star. He's an action star, and they're gonna get him for real. Okay.

Because he's a champion. But it's his skills to the test. And he was the one who had the famous nut punch ability that he used on Goro in the Mortal Kombat movie from the 90s. Oh, right, where he does a split and then he punches Goro in the nuts. Oh okay, you know what then, Johnny Cage is my favorite. Just so you can get on nut level, is that what this

with? Yeah, it's a show off. Yeah, it's him showing off, look what my nuts can do, yours can't, then he punches them. I gotta say, like a nut punch ability seems like the worst ourana like I mean I could do a nut punch that would be my I'm gonna call your bluff on that one buddy We're gonna have to see those cars. I'm not gonna get enough fight. I don't you know Not tell me

Yeah, so yeah, the dance brag about his nut punch abilities was mainly to dissuade people from fighting him Guys don't come try to fight me. I'll talk a bunch of that. That's not run away. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that's Mortal Kombat. Let's, uh,

So we do our final judgments now. And then we get, then we get, then we get our final judgments. Oh, sorry. I was just gonna say we get a, we get a theme song over the credits that is not as good as the original theme song from the original mortal combat movie now Is the original one the?

Okay, I didn't even I credit Mortal combat To the ever use it no, they don't they don't. It's the same way that you don't hear Godzilla's roar in the new Godzilla movies, because they don't want to pay for it. I think I assume they're like, somebody owns the rights to that. We don't want to use it.

I thought it was weird to replace it with, oh yeah, from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but, you know, and the Twix commercials, but okay, that's, you know, whatever you want to do, you know. Right, this one was done by Katie Lang, which I thought was maybe a little understeer. I'm just saying it, definitely. Constant combat works.

Yeah, it works. Perfect. Yeah, and it stands for combat D-lang. Yeah, of course. Yeah, this combat is probably the K in the Mortal Kombat universe. So, Dan, should we do final judgments? Yeah, final judgments is when we say whether we thought this is a good bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like-

Now, if we knew what we were doing, we were professionals. We would say whether this movie this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of like. Now if we knew what we were doing, we were professionals. We would say whether this movie was a flawless victory, or one of the other ones, but we didn't. So we're still going with our same category. This is a form of bay ballad. Bay ballad. Yeah. Man, you guys have really locked on to this bay ballad.

I'm pretty sure. What did you call it before? A nuttality. A nuttality. Or a nuttality. A nuttality. A nuttality. a nuttality or a nuttality? Nuttality. Nuttality.

So, Dan, what did you think? Nuttality sounds like a terrible candy bar. I kind of like this movie. I gotta say, I, I, I, I, it benefited from my absolutely low expectations and the fact that it was nice to watch like a new big dumb action movie and like at home after a year of like not having stuff like that. I agree with Andy that I like that they had the absolute minimum of plot in between fights even though the plot was also unnecessarily complex but like

they didn't linger over it enough for me to be like, ah, come on. And I don't know, they put more care into it than I would have expected out of a mortal combat movie So I'll give it that it's not that great, but But as it I was not mad after washing it. Let's just put it that way. So Let's go to Stuart. What do you have to say? Yeah, I mean, I think my closest to the source materials probably hindrance here, but What do you have to say? Yeah, I mean, I think my closest to the source materials, probably hindrance here. But, yeah, I mean, I feel like, especially introducing this whole arcana idea where you get magic powers by getting a weird birthmark, like, that feels weird.

Like, the idea that Jackson's magic power is that is already weird metal arms just got bigger, like, what? So, like, what would have happened if his arms didn't get frozen off Dan? I don't know maybe his arms would have gotten bigger than anyway. You know, maybe even bigger arms or maybe he would have had like little arms growing out of his regular arms. That's what I want to see. Only parts of the Hulk. Only one parts of the Hulk Hulk. Yeah, yeah. Exactly, yeah.

Everybody's right on this. So I'm gonna say, I think this is a, I would say this is kind of a bad, bad. I didn't care for this. Although I think the opening and the end fight are both pretty fun. And I'll watch Joe Tasselam do anything. Well, let's give our guest the final words,

Elliott, what do you have to say? I think, you know what? I think similar to Dan, I think my expectations going in were so low that they ended up being not exactly a movie kind of liked, but a movie that I didn't mind. And the fact that I mean, this movie is somehow almost two hours long, but it didn't feel that long, maybe because like the movie, maybe it's because

the movie kind of moves relatively quickly. Maybe it's because I was doing dishes the whole time that I was watching it, but either way, I thought this was not a movie necessarily the movie kind of moves relatively quickly maybe it's because I was doing dishes the whole time that I was watching it but Either way, I thought this was not a movie nester that I kind of liked but I don't it wasn't quite bad bad or good bad for me But again, I have no if this was a a Group of characters that I cared about I would have been like what is this like what's going on here? But since I have no connection to the mk you you know mm-hmm And to our honored guest what do you have to say?

Medir, would you like me to go, hey, this bad, bad. You're gonna tell me, this is based on a video game. I want cheekiness, honey. I want jokes. I want to have some fun with that. Cause it's nonsense, right? So you've got to have these people

at the very least be fun to watch as they go about this very silly journey. That's very true. And they weren't having fun with it. And that's what made me so mad. It felt very lazy. It felt very like guy, fighter, daughter, realm, fight. Oh no.

We did it. And I just thought they should have had some fun with it. They should have called, had a punch up room, so, because it was just like, who are Kano is the only one? And then he's only in it for like 30 minutes. I think though, I'm gonna say good bad. And again, with the asterisk

that it could have been quarantine euphoria that made me enjoy it so much. Not that you were euphoric in quarantine. No, that like happened. You have seen, like Dan, I'm seeing something new. Yes. There's something new. It could have also been, you know, we have a tradition

in our house where we play boggle on our phones while we watch things. We call that boggle taddle. I'm kidding, it doesn't have a phrase. It does now. It's boggle taddle, now forever., it doesn't have a phrase. He does love boggle taddle now forever. So it could have been I was like partly distracted. I liked cano.

I like I like that actor. That actor is from like house of lies and super store. And he also apparently played Paul Hogan in a two part mini series called Hogue's, the life of Paul Hogan for most for Australian TV, which is what? Hogue's the Paul Hogan story, us for Australian TV, which is what? And it's called Hoag's, right? Hoag's the Paul Hogan story,

a two-part Australian mini-series from 2017, but now I really want to say. Oh, only two parts for Australia's biggest export and most respected human. Dan, Australia has a really respected film community. I mean, not to shit on Paul Hogan, like, he's fine, but. I say we queue up both seasons of Hoag's order ourselves some hogis and watch that shit. Yeah. Was this Maravista? Yes. Very Maravista.

I don't want to have my hogis. So, um, I love that Captain America hat guy. I love the, uh, uh, just how stupid it all was. I needed stupidity. All right. And I think it just came at me. I think this particular amount of stupidity came into my life at the right time. It was like a meat cut. And that's what made me enjoy, I enjoyed making fun of it with Naomi. And that could have just been part of it. Well, that's part of what keeps us going. Right. You know, making fun of things and that meat cut, I just imagine Mortal Kombat drops all its papers in the hallway. And then you pick it up.

And like, that's how the romance begins. That's a friction. You're walking your dog, and Mortal Kombat is late for a big job interview. And you bump into each other. And the dog runs around the two of you so that the leash pulls you close together. And you just keep running into each other

and you do not like it until suddenly you're in love. And that's what I would call a friendship. Yeah, so good. I think good bad. I'm proud of you. I'm ready for being honest. Hey, it's John Moe, and look, these are challenging times for our mental and emotional health. I get it. That's why I'm so excited for my new podcast, Depresh Mode. We're tackling depression, anxiety, trauma, stress, the kinds of things that are just super common, but don't get talked about nearly enough.

Conversations that are illuminating, honest, and sometimes pretty funny, with folks like Patton Oswald, Kelsey Dera, and Open Mike Eagle. I have this public facing self, and then I have my emotional self that tends to stay hidden. It was about finding a way to communicate to somebody that like, there's terrible sh going on back here. Plus, psychiatrists, psychologists, and all kinds of folks. On Depresh Mode, we're working together, learning, helping each other out. We're a team.

Join our team. Depresh Mode for Maximum Fun, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi. Are you someone who thinks that when one door closes another one opens? Someone who always sees the light at the end of the tunnel. If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, good for you. We are not those people.

Nope, I'm Annabelle Gurwich. And I'm a, you know that other door opening, it probably leads to a broom closet kind of person. And I'm Laura House. When I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I assume it's a train headed right toward me. Laura and I have created a brand new podcast for people like us.

It's called Tiny Victories. We're sharing personal tiny victories or things we've read or seen that inspire resilience. So if you're looking for a tiny reason to get out of bed each week, subscribe to Tiny Victories. Available on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get tiny! The flop house is sponsored in part by Squarespace. Squarespace helps you create a beautiful new website where you can 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 and free and secure hosting. So head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey Dan, I had an idea for a website and I was wondering if you thought Squarespace would be able to help me with all the amazing stuff that's been done. Lay it on me brother. Okay, I was inspired by basically a combination of this movie and also my recent interest in marsupials.

And look, I'm just going to say it, it's times like these all of us are sharing the same worry. Is my pet marsupial, gonna outlive me? Because I'd like it to. That's why mortalwombat.com is where you could put in all the information about your marsupial pet, and it will tell you an estimated longevity. When how mortal is this wombat, you're gonna find out

on mortalwombat.com, this is just for education and recreation purposes, please do not make any life decisions based on our estimates. But finally, there's a place online where marsupials can have their life expectancy accurately, but not legally predictive. Yeah. And if it's a non-marsupial pet, I'm sorry, there are other places that already do that. You don't need us.

This is from our supeals. Yeah, don't tell your marsupial to quit its job. And then, you know, like do some kind of bucket list scenario because it thinks it's dying because based on the information provided by Mortal Wombat. Yeah, Mortal Wombat, again, it is legally and you have to sign the disclaimer. It is just for entertainment and partly education purposes. It is not an actual longevity test. But finally, you'll know how long your wombat will live,

again, not legally responsible. So I think Squarespace could really help me with that, right Dan? I think they could. So, you know, go over to squarespace.com and use offer code flop. Now, Elliot, I believe you also have another word from another sponsor. That's right, we got two, two, count them, two sponsors today.

And the second major sponsor is Storyblocks. Look guys, now more than ever before, Storytellers and Content Creators are challenged with producing more video content at a higher quality than in human history. In the middle ages, you can get away with making a tapestry, maybe a year. But now, you gotta keep that sweet content coming

and it's gotta be at higher video quality than anything you can weave on a loom. You can keep up with the growing demand for that modern video content without sacrificing your vision with the stock media from Storyblocks. Storyblocks, it's great. It's a huge collection of stock video that you can use for any project. It's dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service. There's no royalties. Once you've got your Storyblocks membership, you can use whatever you want on there. There's over a million

high-quality stock assets and the library is constantly growing. They've even got 4K HD footage. Looks great on those modern televisual sets. They've got After Effects from Premiere Pro templates. Not sure what those are, but they sound great. They've got music, images, sound effects, more. About the most fun thing you can do. They have affordable subscription plans and with the Stroyblocks Unlimited All Access Plan, you get unlimited downloads of what's in their library and you get to keep it, even if your membership ends. Anything you've downloaded remains yours. To use, keep, show off to your friends, turn into the kind of video content that the world is craving right now. And as part of their ongoing stock initiative, Stroyblox has released a new round of collections,

the Queer Spaces and Faces collection, created by some really incredible LGBTQ plus creators that will feature the layered experience of the LGBTQ plus community. So they're extending out to people, giving them a chance to get their voice heard through the medium of stock media. Sounds great. As you've maybe heard talk about in the past, we had our own very positive experience with Storyblocks. Dan made a hilarious video about needing to pee. It came out great.

Yeah. All thanks to Storyblocks. So go to it, explore their library and subscribe today at Storyblocks.com slash flop. That Storyblocks.com slash flop. Use that library of media and prove Dan wrong. Do better than Dan. That's the challenge. Do better than me. Please, please everyone do better. Oh, and what's this? I think up next we got a Jojo Jojo jumbo tron. That's right. Employees are the heart and soul of a business and taking care of them is the most important thing a business owner can do. Circles spelled C-I-I-R-C-L-E-S, note the second, I. Circles.com helps create people first fulfilling businesses. Our tagline is how working together should work.

So please visit circles.com again extra iciircls.com. Slash Flop House to learn more. Remember how there's no i in team? Take that missing i from team, move it on over to circles circles.com. Uh huh. So let's move on to letters from our listeners. And that's right, Dan, it's time for listener questions. Did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it, did it,. Hey, you know, I gotta get my gotta pack my podcast next.

Is mango now the keep my energy fruit of the flop house? Yeah, definitely in my top five fruits. Yeah. Well, maybe one of the most famous is maybe one of the most accused is what stewards top five fruits are. So can you put them in those classes? Yeah, put them in the tiers.

Put them in the tiers. So I was S tier. Yeah, totally. Bananas are A tier. I mean, these are my top five. So I would say watermelons also A tier of the melons. I would say there's some other melons who are a little bit lower. I would say raspberries are my favorite berry,

so that's an S tier berry right here. What I like is this is a tournament competition right here. You've got the winners of each of these different class' weaknesses. And then I would say pairs. I like pairs. Wow. We're not hearing enough about pairs as a culture.

We're not hearing enough about pairs. I like more mellow than an apple for me. I'm working on article 14 Vogue about it. It's like I like met more mellow than an apple for me. I'm working on an article for Teen Vogue about it. Where it pairs used to be everywhere. What happens? Now, and of course, Elliot famously hates all fruits, so. Yeah, except my son constantly cracks me that cucumbers are a fruit, so I guess I like one. Oh, wait, do you really not like fruit?

Don't like them. Don't like the taste, smell, texture, it's disgusting to me. Anyway. Is there any fruit? Do you like sweets? Not particularly. the taste, smell, texture, it's disgusting to me. Anyway. Is there any fruit? Do you like sweets? Not particularly. I don't really have much of a sweet tooth to be honest with you. Okay, you don't take sweet tooth to me.

So that's part of it. I'm not much into it. I like, I like, save everythings, and I like things that, I like parts of animals. That's basically. Do you like something that's anxious? Do you like an anxiousness? I don't really know what that word means, but yes. It's like an oily fattiness, you know? Yeah, oh, then yes. Yes very much so. Yeah, sure. Yeah

So well, we've got that going for us anyway So the first letters from Ryan last name with held who writes dear floppers recently while relaxing after COVID vaccine dose number two I took a chance on watching Willis Wonderland this recent Nick Cage film is so fun. I won't even say more about it. Other than it involves everyone's favorite member of the Coppola family trapped in a Chuck E. Cheese Del Nightmare with fully real costume actors

playing the heck out of some really wonderfully designed murderous animatronics outfits. I was blown away by how genuinely funny, frightening, and kickass this movie could be at times. Especially since I only clicked on the movie for after the rare for me anyway urged to watch something stupid. Okay, well that's why I tripped up. Okay, that's a tripped up. It wasn't the fever.

No, it's not. No, it's it's it's it's. I'm playing Ryan last day with help. When was the last or best time you picked a dumb movie that turned out to be a genuine No, it's not. No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's So, anyone have an example of a good movie that they picked thinking like, oh, this will be a dumb arc and then realizing that they actually genuinely enjoyed it. I mean, in a way, I did get that experience in the theaters with a little movie called Cats, which we've talked about plenty on the flop house. Really? But went to see it because we were doing it for the flop-outs and It's one of those movies where at this point my ironic liking of it I've has gone into a new level where I'm just like oh god bless those people who made cats

They didn't know what they were doing but like certainly they didn't come up with what they wanted to make But they came out with something you know Interesting I mean Andy did you have one I do yeah go yeah Clifford starring Charles Grote and a munch or it I Thought it was just gonna be some dumb crap and I'm just like well March. I'll just put it on Charles first of I mean munch or it's just like playing the heck out of a Tenure an insane ten year old but Charles Groden is, I mean, it's Charles Groden, but he is incredible.

His timing is incredible in it. He is so good at playing that character. And does anyone, do you guys, have you seen, I'm sure. It's on HBO Max. No, I like how, you're like a true Maximista. Mean-spirited that movie is,

like you think it's just gonna be like a dumb like I don't know like problem child or whatever, but it is yeah I mean it is a mean movie about me and people doing mean things to each other which makes it a lot funnier Yeah, I hadn't see I did it wasn't for me, but I will say like I didn't expect that ending like all like when Charles Grote and does kind of go off on Califert and's like I'm gonna ruin you. I thought that was very satisfying because I usually hate when like a kid is bad and then of course no one else sees it and then the person's like feels like they're taking crazy pills. So I like that part like I didn't think that was gonna happen.

So that was like we need to talk about. I want to say Mason. Clifford. You're upset? Yeah, I mean this sort of thing happens to me every once in a while with like TV shows. I mean, I remember when my wife and I were like trying to figure out something to watch. And I was probably like fucking around with a miniature or something. And she's like, well, what do we put on this show called Instant Hotel, which is a show

where Australian AirBnB owners compete against each other to have the best instant hotel, which is a term I'm assuming they made up for the show because they can't say AirBnB. And within like halfway through the first episode we were totally hooked. Now the first season you can't you can't catch that lighting in a bottle twice. So the first season's great. I totally recommend that shit. And to have seen it on the big screen, though, it'd have been amazing. Just kidnapped. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I'm having a hard time with like one that I think

is maybe like genuinely like I would unabashedly recommend to folks. But I think I've mentioned on the show in the past that we started watching Dopple Ganger, the Drew Barrymore 90s thriller about Drew Barrymore who may or may not have a doppelganger going around murdering folks around her. A Drupelganger. Yeah and I was we put it on at like 12.30 and I think it was after like we recorded a flop house mini and I just wanted to like have something

on for a couple minutes to come down, you know, like before bed and figured like, oh, we'll turn it off. But we ended up watching the whole thing and it is, I, you know, it straddles in the line. And one might call it a good bad movie because so much of the joy of it is how weird everyone is acting and some of them are not acting particularly well, but the film spirals into madness in a way that I was not expecting. And I don't, like, it ends up in a place that I don't think anyone watching the first,

10 minutes would expect. And I really enjoyed that. Elliot, do you have anything? You look confused, you don't have to. I don't think I have one. I don't have one. I think I have one. I don't have one. I feel like, because I guess Clifford should have been mine,

but I still don't like it. Because I was like, why is he so evil? I hate evil children. So I don't have, and also in real life, I don't like percocious children. So like anything that kind of lives in that world, I'm like, yeah. Yeah, I win a child acts like an adult in a movie and we're

supposed to find that charming. It's just like, what are you all seeing here? This is it's always horrible. It's like, well, that's that's that's the book of Henry's Syndrome where Henry is such an unlikeable like know it all jerk and everyone is like, Henry, he's the best of us. Henry, you're so wonderful. His parents let him order. His parents let him order from the waiter by himself. And it's like, no, you should order for him. He's just a little kid. He'll get paid to deal with your children.

So we have another letter. It is from John Lasting with Held Who Rights. In reading about the 1994 movie North, I saw director Rob Reiner defend it by claiming it was a quote, modern day fable. And I realize that any movie that's described by the director as a fable or fairy tale for adults is bound to be terrible. Do you guys have any red flags in movie summaries or trailers that make you think the movie will be garbage?

Thanks for all the fun. John Last Name With Hell. any red flags in movie summaries or trailers that make you think the movie will be garbage. Thanks for all the fun. John last name withheld. I just want to jump in and say I think Andy was pointing out that North features plenty of precocious children that everyone loves, right? Oh boy, yeah. Woof. What was it?

The movie noise. Yes, which they talked about on a previous episode. Which is my only knowledge of the movie is Okay, they also I'm you also might have heard it gotten from over time at that the the modern day fable is Surprisingly retrograde when it comes to the presentation of ethnic groups and and genders, but I'll jump in here and say that Something I've never liked in trade. I'm not a fan of the structure that movie trailers use now, they all use it, I find it really super manipulative

because they're all in boring. But anytime a trailer, they don't do this as much, but I feel like in the 90s, there were a lot of trailers that would just be made up of people saying the main character's name over and over again. And it would be like, mumford, mumford, mumford. And you'd be like, well, if you had something fun to show me, you'd show it to me.

But instead, you're just showing me that the main character of the movie is in the movie, and people are identifying that character. So it's always, it's a real sign to me that they didn't have a lot to advertise for the movie. But also, there's certain, when you watch an action movie, and you see someone in the trailer say, kick the tires and light the fires, people, or like, be in the middle of an action movie and you see someone in the trailer say Kick the tires and light the fires people or like be in the middle of an action scene you see someone go

I told you this was gonna be fun. I know that that's movie is gonna be not very good or at least it's gonna be disappointing Some word of that like saying the name over and over There's always the trope where it's like You know Columbia pictures would like to introduce you to a special character that will, you know, change your life forever. Once you meet them, you'll never be the same. You know, it's like, fuck you. I don't. Each of us live within us.

A billionaires. Yeah, bullshit. Person, you want to let me know about. I don't care. Yeah, if the trailer mentions a visionary director, I'm like, mm, we'll see about that. Oh wow. Yeah. Or anytime there's a quote that says specifically

in American classic that always bugs me because I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I don't know what the modifier American means on classic except that like a middle brow Academy Award winning movie that is not as good as a movie from another country is what you're telling me, or like not good enough to be a real classic? It bugs me. I don't like the devaluation of the word American.

Guys, I'm a patriot. Anyway, have you been following my, reading my sub-stack, or following me on parlor? I've got a lot of stuff to talk about. I don't like when anybody returns home and you watch them on a porch. I'm not here for like any indie like I'm back home in my small town. I don't want to be there but I'm about to learn a lesson.

You know what I mean? There's like the part and there's always the part in the trailer where now it's switching gears and they're going to show you scenes from the second half of the movie where everyone learns their lesson and there's like a acoustic guitar or some kind of sad kind of folky type song but it's supposed to be uplifting and it yeah gross. Yeah. Yeah. I had two of them.

One is that that THX metal sound, like the metal banding sound. If I hear that, I know it's not a good movie. I just need that one sound. It's like Pavlovian, Pavlovian in my brain, right? You hear that, I know it's not a good movie. I just need that one sound. It's like Pavlovian, Pavlovian in my brain, right? You hear that. Do you know what I'm talking about? That sound. What's the THX metal sound?

Yeah, yeah. That likes that thing. Yeah, like a big drop. Yeah. Yeah. Also, and if the song sells very hill is played the trailer, I should have mentioned that's, yeah, I'm not going to see that movie.

But anyway, you're saying, Andy, I'm interrupted. And anyone that says we're going to need a bigger, anyone that Yeah, I'm not gonna see that movie, but anyway, you're saying any I'm interrupted and Anyone that says we're gonna need a bigger anyone that like takes like an old like think like from jaws or something It says we're gonna need like a bigger gun or whatever like you know see a monster comes on screen And they turn to each other something like that. I'm just like yeah Yeah, yeah, or if one of the Smurfs turns to the camera and says what the Smurfs or something like that and you're like oh I get it. We're going to need a bigger smile. You're like, just say it, we're eating. You know the word.

Just say it. The first thing is, if I'm watching a trailer and a record scratch is like, wait a minute, what? I know it's going to be hilarious. This is going to be hilarious. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, well, we do have one final segment on the show. And that is called Recommendations, movies that might be more worthier time than the one we talked about. I'll kick us off. I have a, I've had a big blind spot in the world of Japanese animation just because, it's a dumb reason I realize,

the way they animate, the frame rate is different, and it looks herky-jurky to me and I've never quite adjusted, but I have slowly started coming around. And so while here on vacation, we watch the castle of Kegliostro, which I enjoyed quite a bit. It is like, I've seen some of the later Miyazaki movies,

you know, the more sort of gentle, whimsical ones, and it is fun to go back to an earlier one where it's like this, it's still got a lot of the weirdness, but it's also tied to this, almost like swing in 60s vibe, and I don't know, it was just like this goofy, goofy spy like a woman really spy but like it's a thing is a gentleman thief the gentleman thief I had a lot of fun I'm not gonna say a lot about it because I'm sick But I enjoyed it. Dan it is castle caglioste was one of my all-time favorite movies. I love it so much

Thank you for recommending it I'm glad to have brought a smile the Stuart's face Stuart when you recommend oh, man I just watched on Hulu last night a Great little sex comedy sex positive comedy called plan B Directed by actress Natalie Morales and it's super great. It's about a pair of teenage girls, and I want to say North Dakota. And it involves one of them having to get the Plan B contraceptive, and the various travails of having to try and procure this. It is the interesting thing. My wife and I were watching it, and she brought up the idea that

like there's been a trend of like these sex positive comedies with a gender switch, where it's traditionally it was like boys being boys, whatever. But with women, there's sometimes the like threat of gendered violence makes the stakes so much higher, I don't know, and also just like the results of misbehavior can be significantly more damaging. But it's still manages to be so funny and heartwarming and just fucking great, man. Check it out. I'm going to recommend a movie now.

Watch out, it's me. Come in at ya. Now, people have been following the show recently know that I'm on a check new wave kick on the criterion channel, but I'm going to take a break from that today. I did briefly consider recommending another check new wave movie, but I also took a break, and I was like, I haven't watched an old, old,

old movie in a while. And I watched a movie called Picture Snatcher from 1933. It's a James Cagney movie directed by Lloyd Bacon, the director with the most delicious name of all directors. And James Cagney is a guy who's getting out of jail, and he gets a job as a photographer for kind of like sleazy tabloid newspaper that runs on shocking photographs. And it is a very pre-code movie where it is like the main character is, it's like, I got to sneak into this prison and take a picture of a woman getting electrocuted in the electric chair without the police finding out and then he does it and it's like and by the end that you're like waiting for him to learn the lesson that he shouldn't do these

things and he never really does and James Tagney is so is so charismatic in it and the movie kind of careens wildly from comedy to drama and back again Like it's the kind of thing that's mostly comedy but then it ends with a character being shot to death on camera So like it's not there's not entirely comedy, but It was a real it was a real fun movie Our women treated with as much respect as they deserve in it. No, not quite but The but it is a move from 1933. It's super short. It runs at a real fast clip as a lot of those Cagney movies do. And it

was real fun. It's called Picture Snatcher. And what might Jimmy Cagney sound like, Elliott? Yeah, he'd be like, well, I don't see why we have to put all this money into moral combat champion The private sex there seems to be handling the issue perfectly well, so that's that's my Jimmy Kagan impression. How is that? I still don't know by the way S somehow is better than a which doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I don't get it But what movies alphabetically what movies have you been watching that you liked other than Clifford? don't know by the way. S somehow is better than A, which doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I don't get it. But what movies? Alphabetically.

What movies have you been watching that you liked other than Clifford? Tell me if this counts or not. This is a series of feature-length documentaries by Adder Curtis. They are feature-length, called Can't Get You Out of My Head. And if that doesn't fit the criteria then his 2016 documentary hyper normalization. I love Adam Curtis a lot.

I think he's a great documentary and he makes. It's in the same, who's the thin blue line kind of guy? Errol Morris. Errol Morris. Same like, I'm gonna make a documentary but it's gonna have style to it. And Adam Curtis just does these like really interesting documentaries about basically like, they're basically like philosophical

dissertations on how did we get to the hell we're living in right now. And every one of his is like a just a different kind of, looks at different facet of like the 20th into the 21st century. And he just starts with these little stories and then he takes the little stories and he expands them to explain like these larger cultural kinds of patterns. And the new one,

can't get you out of my head, is like a six episode series of these feature like documentaries, just like looking at how like individualism took over for collectivism and how that is the positives of that and also the negatives in the 20 in the 21st century. That's like very fancy. Yeah, very good.

And I think it'll show us our dynamic in the household because what I'm gonna say is little shop of horse, Rick Moranus version. Oh yeah. It is a fun time. And you reminded me of that because you were like, what, I was like, what movies do we watch? Because we have been on 80s 90s kick over quarantine.

I could have also said Kurella by the way. It's not Kurella last night. That was also pretty great. Too long, but gorgeous. But yeah, Little Shopper Horser Rickmer has so funny to me. It's like timeless. I could like still go back and just like, it's so funny. And I think that like,

it's also one of the few for me movie musicals that is actually good. I think movie musicals are really hard and people keep trying to make them nowadays and they just like, don't work, but I'm sending you little shop of horse. And but you can sing it with a loved one. I think one of the best things about little shop

other than how funny it is and how amazing the effects still are is also, like in terms of making it work as a musical, it walks that line between Looking kind of like a stage production very stylized while still looking like a movie. Yeah, that makes it work really well Guys, thank you so much. This is perked me right up. Thank you Sound healthier Dan. It's like laughter might be the best medicine. Patch Adams is not my it has become my attending. So

before we go we're going to ask I believe if you had any plugs and if you wanted to mention your where you can be found on the web and such and such Sure now when I host a podcast called couples therapy where Used to be a live show and then after quarantine. It's we basically talked to comedians and comedic actors About their relationships and then answer listeners advice questions. It's a good time. Natalie Morales Yep, just who? Great. Was James Kagan ever on the show? What by the sound like, Elliot?

I was on the show. He was on the show. He was on the show. He was on the show. Well, well, it's me. James Kagan. What's going on around here? Harvey.

That's James Kagan. Yeah. Yeah. That's fun. Yeah. I guess for me, I guess we can yeah, I just plug couples therapy watch myth mythic quest on Apple TV I think we're having a real good time. No, I mean Nami's a episode just debuted where she was basically the main character. That is very sweet But she don't care. I was just in the back. I have to I have to admit I

Have watched myth and enjoyed mythic quest and it was only after I like followed you on Twitter and I'm like, oh shit, she's the HR person on Mythic Quest. It's so good. I really enjoy that show. Thank you for coming on for our video game episode. It's real tie-in. But I know, perfect. No, it's great. Kind of the thing that we really should have made more of a big stink about at the top that like there's an actual theme reason other than Andy just harassing on Twitter saying that you guys should talk about this. Wow, harassing is a strong word. For you to bring it up. Okay, okay, maybe not. And the last two minutes. I've been holding it back this whole time. Does this rage of infielding? It is in serving of these James Kagnies softballs all day.

I know. I should really be thankful. It's too bad that James Kagnies, one of the people that I have no good impression of. Not that my other impressions as opposed to my other impressions, which are spot on amazing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, flawless victory. So rich. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, flawless. Victor. Yeah. Uh, well, thank you again. Thank you to, uh, maximum fun.org for, uh, uh, being our network. I mean, that's not the name of the network. That's the name of the website. You can go to check out a bunch of other podcasts. I'm fading. I'm fading. It's finally happening. No, no, it's just like the other day I went to, I went and picked up lunch at pop eyes.

Dotcom. Yeah. But, uh, you made him die, Elliot. Stop it. He wants it to be done. Sorry. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm just going to speed through it. Thank you. You know, tell people about us.

You know, thank you for supporting us anyway. For the flop house. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. And also thank you to Jordan Cowling for producing our show. Yes. Thank you Jordan's heart. I'm Elliott Kaelin or am I perhaps I'm James Cagney and thank you for joining us tonight Naomi at Peragon Andy Beckerman

Bye You know Stewart's one actually it's mangoes all the time and get Ivesome I've been painted with that brush. No, no, it's not that, the problem is not the eating of mangoes. The problem is that you once missed part of a movie we were talking about because as you said, you had to go cut a mango up. And so that's become shorthand in our house. Sammy, my older son, he's always like, I'm like, Dan didn't do this thing and he's like,

what was he busy cutting a mango? That's short hand in our house for what Dan is busy with at the moment.