The Flop House - Ep. #359 - Dear Evan Hansen, with Sharlene Wellington

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

In what has become a mini-tradition, we kick off the new year with an examination of last year's biggest musical flop. Unfortunately this one has a lot fewer cats and a lot more lying to a grieving family, and it's called Dear Evan Hansen. Joining us for the discussion is noted bar owner, Stuart wife, and DEH-on-Broadway-hater, Sharlene Wellington!Wikipedia entry for Dear Evan HansenMovies recommended in this episode:Nightmare AlleyHouse of GucciThe Worst Person in the WorldThe Year of the Sex Olympics

On this episode we discuss, dear Evan Hansen. A warning to listeners on today's episode, we will be touching on some very sensitive topics such as how dear Evan Hansen is very bad. Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house I'm Dan McCoy. Oh hey there Dan McCoy it's me Stuart Wellington. Dear Dan and Stuart it's me your friend Elliott. He's already in bed. Elliott Kalen, that is.

And who's joining us today? And we have a special guest today. That's right. We have bar owner, a podcaster, queen of Brooklyn. That's right. Charlene Wellington, my wife. Hi everybody. Should I do my just? Charlene realized the previous queen had died. I had no idea I was a queen of King's County. Charlene. I'm the Queen of

Kings. It's a spin off series. More Scientology. All right. Yeah. That would be yeah. There was a King of Queens. Why not a Queen of right? Yeah, man. That would be, yeah, there was a king of queens, why not a queen of kings? Yeah. I mean, no, it seems off at the ham of the kids. Yeah, that's what people meet Jesus they go, is there a queen of kings?

Because he's a king. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a good job. He's got a solid job, holds in his hands, his dad is rich. And he's got a beard, right? Like that shit's that hot beard in that long hair. Come on. You know, yeah, you can take a whipping You know that he's a tough dude, but he's not afraid to be sensitive. He wears his heart on his sleeve literally sometimes Often statue show him uncomfortably hot. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's uncomfortably hot and also uncomfortable because he's crucified at the time anyway

Yeah, so I guess he's on bubble or something That's Jesus for your dating needs Now what so surely we're super excited. We we picked Yeah, it's gonna riff on Jesus a little bit more later. We'll say that we'll table that so we We picked this movie because it has been a let's say it has been kind of vilified by critics. And also, you have a personal connection to this movie, explain.

So we saw it on Broadway. And we hadn't heard that much about it, but I kind of had the idea that it was going to be about a gay teenager. And was that just from the ads that were on New York one? Yeah. Maybe from the ads on New York one. And I guess because most of my friends that are very, that talked to me about Broadway shows or gay.

Oh, good. I feel like you've got a biased sample set there. You're making assumptions based on a... Yes, I did. And then we saw it. And I mean, am I allowed to reveal how I felt about the play before we talked about the movie? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no once you had with the play. I did not like it. And I felt like I was the first person to express that. Like, like I was being gaslit by the show.

And everybody who had seen it, who I had spoken to about it was so excited. And I was like, it was fine. Well, what had happened was Ben Platten, his powerful producer father had been personally going around to each person who was about to say bad things about it. They're like, no, no, no. But they didn't call me at all. I know. I didn't get in a memo.

Maybe when I spammed folder. Yeah. I had a similar, I also kind of just, I think assumed this was a coming out tale. I don't know why. Just because it was like a very like a heartfelt like the title of something about it I don't know and then I think it was a bit of a

To my dear Evan Hansen like oh, it's my dear Evan Hansen. Yeah, maybe like it was a bit of a meme when the movie trailer came out of people Like googling the plot of dear Evan Hansen and discovering it for the first time and I Went through that I hadn't seen the play, but like I saw the trailer and I was like, what? That's what doesn't play as a bad. I read the plot description and I was gobsmacked. What happened? Having not seen it yet. And yet we still watched the film. I want to say this is this is one of the rare occasions where Stuart gets to be the flop house co-host who talks about seeing a star of a movie on Broadway because I did not see this show on Broadway. I refused multiple, multiple invitations to buy tickets to it

because I was I wasn't sure what it was about, but just off the title and the poster, I was like, this is probably about like teen drama, like I don't, I don't need to see this. The same way that. Yeah, I mean, you've been a little man for a long time. Yeah, but every, the same way that every year there's a play where people like, you've got to see it. And I'm like, is it about a family that gets together and secrets come out? Well, yes, well, then I don't need to see it.

I've seen that play three times before. I mean, I don't need to see it again. I follow that lead. But this time it's in Osage County. That's okay. I don't need to see it now. But this time they're in Osage County. That's okay. I don't need to see it now. But this time they're the humans. Yeah, it's okay. I don't need to see it. So Charlene, you're saying you did not like the place. So what was it about the play that you didn't like? I mean, I'll spoil the plot if I tell you that. So we talk, should

we talk about this? It's literally plots of and it didn't change like it didn't this movie didn't change or improve on your opinion, right? I mean, we all have to wait to see. But what about the part when what about with the part when Alfred Molina showed up as Doc Ock? Well, that was exciting, right? I was like, if I were in the Evan Hansen. Yeah.

When all the other Evan Hansen's showed up. Oh my God. That's sick of shit there right there, man. Yeah. I do. I do actually kind of want to offer the Morrison Sear version of the joke introduction. Just like, you know, a content warning that by its nature, the plot of this show is about suicide and also mental illness in a way that and and I just wanna make it clear that we will be ragging on this film, we will be laughing about it,

but that's because the movie presents it in such a schmaltcy, bad way, not because we are trying to make light of actual, serious things. Well, I think that was one of the things that I think, I don't know if it struck you guys the same way, but struck me as really was hard was I was like, I, the things that this character is ostensibly supposed to be going through, like I went through those types of feelings when I was a teen.

Like I didn't, you know, I, to get, to get real for a moment, like I was depressed, I didn't want to live anymore at different times. And to see it handled in such a schmaltcy shallow way, I was like, this should be hitting me right where I live. And instead I was just like, come on, get out of here, movie. Like, don't bother. What are you doing? Like, I don't really feel like, you know what you're talking about. So it was, I feel like it was most infuriating about it.

Yeah, and so, yeah, we'll be touching on those topics, but yeah, we are only going after the movie. We are not going after people feeling nice feelings, you know. Well, while watching it, I was talking to Audrey about like why I was resisting it so straight. And it's like, well, when a movie is like, you know, like this movie feels like it's not just pushing my buttons, but it like invited an elephant over to jump on those buttons. It just makes me get mad. I'm like, no movie. No. I didn't do plus one and the plus one certainly would not have been an elephant.

But has anyone, do you think anyone's ever done that? They've ever gone to a party with like an animal and they'd be like, it said plus one. It didn't say plus one human. I should have been more clear. Party throwers like, I guess there's nothing in the rule book. The party judge says all allow it. Yeah. And I guess the judge is also a dog. That's the thing.

That's how deep the air bucket is. The judge is a dog. Yeah. So Stuart, what happens in this movie? Let's get into it. Well, the movie certainly opens with text. That's right. Evan Hansen, a high school boy played, let's say an ancient high school boy is right.

I guess we'll have to get that out of the way is in case people are not familiar. Ben Platt, the star of the Broadway show, plays the character in the movie. And I think what he was in like his early 20s when he played the character on Broadway, but now he is in his late 20s and he looks like a grown man who has been held back 15 times. He's like late 20s but looks a little older because like whatever like everything they've done to style him down has the opposite effect. It's like when an elderly man has a Mohawk and sunglasses. He doesn't look like a cool teen. He looks like an old man.

He also lost a lot of weight. So he looks like he lost a lot of weight to look like a younger like awkward teenage boy, but it just made him look older like it made him look wrinkly. Yeah. He didn't have his hat. I think that was he didn't have a sling jacket. Look. Nope. No, be any with a propeller. Yeah. No of these things. I would not be so focused on appearance if it wasn't so disastrous to the movie, but it's yeah, like there's something about like the way it accentuates the the olderness of his face. Like, the fact that he has done this with his body.

And it's actually the artificiality of the plot to have someone who's clearly so obviously not of the accurate age playing this part. And I think in a play, you can get away with that. The same way that in a play, you can get away with that the same way that in a play You can get away with having no set and you'll enjoy Whatever but you know Police Which but Greece is already such a goofball movie, you know, like everybody's in their 30s

Yes, I mean if everybody in the move that's the other thing is everybody in the movie looked like a grown-up, then you'd be like, say by the bell, where it's like Beverly Hills, not a 2.0, where it's like, well, every teen looks like they're in their 20s, so it's not so bad. But in this, it's everyone, even when they are in their 20s, they're cast to look like teens, they look like teens. And they have this one guy who looks like he's a grown-up. It looks like the John Crier movie where he has to go on, he has the witness production program and has to go back to high school as a team. And like that you think all the other people in the high school must be like, what is

this grown up doing in our class? Is this Cameron Crowe come back to research? Fast times every time? Like, gone on. Yes. And the lead character will be engaging in the sort of behavior that is much more understandable out of a confused team. Sure. But the older the man looks, the more understandable out of a confused shirt, but

the older the man looks, the more angry you become at the character. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, the movie opens with text Evan Hansen's a high school boy and he's writing an encouraging email to himself before the first day of his senior year of high school. He's anxious.

He looks super old and has a cast over his wrist. And he, he sings this big number, waving through a window like that sicko meme. And he's waving to all the people that walk by. It's this, you know, very moving piece about how everybody feels like they don't belong. And, you know, he takes it right. He's tapped, tapped, tapping at the window. Yeah. And he's exactly like that, and because we don't know yet why he's the cast is there, we can only assume being a teen that he broke it masturbating furiously. It's some kind of a carpal tunnel masturbation injury, you know? And he's like, dear Evan Hansen, give it a rest. It's not going anywhere. You're going to have it the rest of your life. You don't need to use

it up now. The, uh, we meet his mom played by Julianne Moore and she is just too busy for him. You know, she's a single mom. She works real hard. She loves her kids and she'll never stop. I don't remember the rest of the theme song. But she's still encouraging him to overcome, like she's encouraging him to overcome his social anxiety. He's on a series of medication that we see glimpses of. He's very nervous about this upcoming day of school. The school's mascot is the bobcats. I don't know why I wrote that down, but it's important to me. Well, it does play in very important later, right? Oh, no, it doesn't. They're right. As long as you bring it up, though, we were watching

it and like Audrey was suddenly like, wasn't there a movie with basically like a similar plot and she was describing like, oh yeah, World's Greatest Day, directed by Bobcat Goldway. And she's like, do you think that they did the Bobcats because of this? Because they knew that it could be a weird tip of the hat. Tip of the hat, tell they stole the plot. But different movie, maybe. Yeah. In many ways, and in many ways, a more sensitive, dealing a handling

of the topic, despite being like an out like an overtly tasteless movie, you know, but anyway. And the song that he's singing, which builds to this big crescendo while he's singing in a auditorium filled with people, but he's all alone is that he keeps referencing climbing up a tree and then falling out of it and like no one being around there to like pick him up. There's this song and so I was I had never heard the soundtrack to this show before. All the songs kind of sound the same and it's basically all like remixes of a thousand

miles by Vanessa Carlton. Yeah. And and there's so many metaphors that he runs to like I'm like, I'm tap, tap, tap, and at the window, then it's if a tree falls and no one's there, does anyone hear it? I'm stepping into the sun and I was like, song, pick a metaphor, like then go with it. Like I don't, you don't get to run

through every possible metaphor in the whole song. It's also a very modern style of musical theater composition that I don't like, probably just because I'm old, where it is not melody-based. Like, you cannot leave this and be like, oh, I remember the tune to that song. It's not- The only part I walked away remembering was the line,

I will sing no rec Williams in a later song, because the line felt so out of character for every single person that sang the lyric, because, yeah. But anyway, that's the only part. No one else. Lala Landon. Sorry. Oh, I was going to say to no one else wake up this morning singing dear Evan Hansen, what to say to you. Audrey was literally singing to dear the adocha around the house.

I have to admit, it's possible the music didn't stick with me because my kids are obsessed with your good man Charlie Brown right now and we're listening to that soundtrack non-stop. So no matter what song I want to think of, what I hear is, why are you telling me my new philosophy from that show? I thought it was going to be separate, separate, separate, separate. And strange enough Beethoven day, my kids love this. Oh, weird. Is that a song about the day where you watch all the Beethoven movies?

Exactly, yeah. The Schroeder, the peanut's character, loves the Beethoven films. That's what he's obsessed with. So that's why he has the skin of a St. Bernard that he wears. And he says, I'm Beethoven, I'm Beethoven. And who's gonna be my Charles Broden? And frightens the other children so badly. That makes sense.

And then he's burned alive at the end of the festival. So at the end of the burning Beethoven, yeah. It's the only way they can ensure a good harvest. Doey. No, I do want to see a Wickerman parody where some riles are just obsessed with the Beethoven films, and they're like, he's like, he's like coming me won't bring back the Beethoven franchise First he's talking about Clifford the big red dog. Yeah, he's so musical. So at first he Edward Woodward thinks he's just talking about Beethoven the composer And after a while there's a dawning moment of horror when he realizes about the movies

It's like I almost understood it when it was the music Okay, so this big opening ends at a school like pepper alley or some shit where Evan Hansen is working doing AV for it with his friend, Jared, who is playing the bitchiest gay best friend role. Like he dials up the snark to an insane level. It's wild. But at the same time, I find him the most sympathetic because I'm like, yes, you're right. You should be mean to scoffing at the, well, I mean, like Evan Hansen does some things later on. I'm like, the correct reaction to it is, what do you do? What are you doing?

The problem here is, so Evan Hansen is so presented as life's innocent. He's so naive and innocent and gentle and doesn't want to hurt anybody. And his friend talks is really bitchy, kind of in the way that teen boys are to each other. Like teen boys are at nasty to each other. And it just feels so over the top because Evan Hansen is just so,

is giving him nothing back. Like there's no, like I feel like when I was a Teen Boy, a lot of my conversations with my friends were like, fuck you idiot, no you're stupid asshole. Like that would be the whole conversation. But with both of them. And then we made a podcast about it. Yeah, we never go up.

But Jared is like, hey loser and Evan's like, like, yeah, I guess, I guess I am kind of a loser. And it's like, wait, hold on. That's not what a friend does. Like if his girlfriend would dial it back and be like, are you okay? But instead, he's just me and to him all the time. It's basically nobody in the movie bullies him except his best friend when you get down.

And also Connor, the actual, the dear Evan Hansen. I imagine. Evan has an intense encounter with Connor, actual the dear Connor. Imagine it. We'll see intense encounter with Connor and angry loner and then Evan Hansen is disrespectful to Connor's sister, his crush Zoe played by Caitlin Deaver. Yeah. And Caitlin Deaver, one of the many overqualified actresses in this movie, her and Amy Adam and Julian Moral. Oh fantastic.

And like there seems in this movie to spoiler alert Amy Adam and Julianne were all fantastic. And like, there seems in this movie to spoiler alert that work for me. And then, and they almost all revolve around one of those sidekick. Yes. Yes. Yes. And by far, their stories are, are more interesting, more, yeah, more emotional than Evans, you know. Yeah. Well, like Kaylyn, Zoe played by Caitlin Deever approaches Evan Hansen after her brother, who we later find out is aggressive and abusive, that she approaches him with sympathy and offers to like shake his hand. And he won't shake her hand because he's worried his hand is wet. And he just like he's super, it's like it's hard. At this point, you're like, I'm having trouble finding sympathy for you. You gotta, you gotta get your stuff in here, Evan Hansen.

He runs off with the goofy run that, like I've been, been glad I just have a theory that like the fact that he played this on stage really hampered him not just for the age thing, but like I feel like he's giving a much bigger performance to everyone else that maybe was like calibrated for the stage and is not so good when the camera is right next to you,

but sorry, what were you going to say, Elliot? Well, I was adding to that the fact that every time a song ends, he stands there for 20 seconds to a minute waiting for a pause. That was a great moment. It's a movie. No, I think similarly, I think it's not where he ever pulled us. I think anytime a grown up plays a kid and this is, and I mean, there's the movie Jack with Rod Millions, which is not a good movie,

but he is ostensibly playing a kid in a grown man's body, but he plays him as a small child, as opposed to like a 10-year-old. And here, it feels like Ben Platt is playing a 10-year-old rather than a teenager. Like, he's, when grown-ups play kids, for some reason they kind of forget that kids are almost always trying

to appear older than they are in their actions or that their kids are full of energy. And like, if anything, having handsome characters should be too loud rather than too quiet. Like, he should be too eager rather than so social. Like, he's, when a kid feels that way often, they kind of over-convinceate for it

because they don't want people to notice and that gives them away. And instead, he comes off as like, you know, He feels that way often they kind of overconvinceate for it because they don't want people to notice and that gives them away. And instead, he comes off as like, you know, I mean, to put it in the most tasteful way of it, he comes off as a guy with not just emotional, not emotional instability, but also like mental disabilities. Like, he comes off as a guy who is not of average intelligence for that age when he's not writing letters to himself.

Yeah, that's fair. And it's because he's overdoing it all the time. Well, it's one of the reasons why adults playing children or even teenagers usually only works if it's a comedy, whether it's like John Hodgman's never produced a TV show where he plays himself or Charlie's favorite show, Pen 15. For listeners at home, Charlene would like to warn everyone that she hates all nerds. Not true. I'm married to a nerd. Oh, I guess my days are nowhere to the store. Give me your handsomest. Give me a store. Give me your handsomeness, man. Yeah. Yeah. Give me a nerd.

No, no, no. We're people that realize he's a nerd until they hear him talk or look at his t-shirt. That's cool. That's cool. Let's make this about me instead of Evan Hansen. That's right. Anyway, so what's Evan Hansen doing these days? So we get a little bit of a montage of him in school,

and he's just not fitting in, for instance, in the locker room, he's surrounded by a bunch of super cut fucking hard bodies in his school. Like, yikes, yeah. I'd be like, what do we do that? Like, are they all in the same gym class? Because he's picked the wrong elective, I think. Yeah, they're all the same class.

Like, he doesn't belong in that class. He bucks it, he's, so he's been writing these, he's been writing these layers to himself as an assignment from his therapist. And he has to print one of them out in the library, which seems like a huge mistake. And the school library is back to the printer line is backed up. And he bumps into Connor again, who they, you know, they don't really hit it off, but Connor offers to sign his cast. He signs Evan's cast in the biggest font possible with a massive sharpie.

And you think for a moment, I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's called a font if it's being handwritten. Dan, thank you for saying it so I didn't have to. I mean, it was time's whole rune, right? That you selected winged things on the, on the sharpie. He's like, hold on, I got to write in all these symbols. Wait, let me look up which one is an N. Hold on.

This is one of those interactions, though, that you have a lot of in high school where it's like there's a weird aggression to it. It's like the Conner's not being maybe like genuinely nice to have enhanced in. There's like this weird undercurrent at all times like maybe if he's challenged things will go off the rails as they do later on. But it does seem that maybe Connor also is willing to reach out to some degree. Like if things went differently, I don't know who knows. And he is feeling honest. Yeah.

In the way he knows how, which is through hostility. Yeah, but it's not, but it doesn't feel like he is doing it. He's not like, let me sign your cast, moron. Like he's, he is like, I'll sign it and he just does it too big and he's, you know, he's a trouble. Yeah. And the the counter character who is plays in a way plays a big part in the movie. He's supposed to be this like troubled loner who has problems with drugs, but he just looks like a joker or like a theater dude.

I mean, does he like a theater dude. I mean, does he as a theater dude? Because he was also in the stage show, Dear Evan Hansen. But the fact that it's like he has black fingernail polish and where's a black shirt? And it's like, look at this troublemaker. Look at this guy on the edge.

Look at his fingers, man. And he's gonna close up the town a little early tonight. We got trouble here. And he's also such a troublemaker, but he has no friends. Like, where does he get the drugs? That's a really good point. Every troublemaker I knew was surrounded by other troublemakers. Yeah. That's just like, how can I be with those cool kids? The kids most like the kids most like him in my high school were not one kid. It was, yeah, five of them. Yeah. And they were like a pack that

roamed around and people were like rolling the rise at them all the time. And they think, they all got expelled when they called in a fake bomb threat so that they could leave school to go to a concert. I think that's a movie, right? Yeah, that's a good plan. So those were the honors at my school. But yeah, so Conner signs his cast, but he gets the letter, right?

Yeah, he finds in the printer, Evan Hans. I keep trying to call him dear Evan Hansen. The letter that he written to himself that specifically mentions Connor's sister, Zoe, and it Connor thinks that his moment of connection is immediately broken. His walls go up. He thinks Evan is like gaslighting him or doing something to him. He takes the letter and he storms off in, you know, and Evan's freaks out because he's worried that Connor is going to share this letter that shows his vulnerability to the school. And he spends the next couple days trying to track

down Connor who is missing. He is gone. And we find out that he is then when he is called into the principal's office shortly after this to meet with Connor's parents, Cynthia Murphy and Larry. Oh, I don't know. Larry has a different, different, different last name. But it's Connor's parents played by Amy Adams and an actor who I'm not familiar with but Char saw him on a. And he's on SVU and he played. And he, you know, he was, he was on cold cases for a long time. And he plays a gang, a gang

is on my ins MC, right? Maybe that, yeah, that I think that's the one where he plays a gang. He plays a gang leader on something. He definitely looks like he is on some sort of Dick Wolf detective show. Yeah. He looks like he could be like bin brats or something. Like, yeah. Yeah. Is it because of the Dick Wolf guy? He's an SVU. That's right. Yeah. There's a scene later on where he's like sitting on the couch watching TV and he's still wearing his tie and I'm like, what maniac?

He's still wearing their tie in their own home. Like he doesn't need to stay dressed up for any reason. He's watching TV. It's not like the TV will see you. Well, certain TV's can see you and there was a large settlement case a couple years ago, because people were being watched through their TV's. Oh my goodness, this TV can see you and there was a large settlement case a couple years ago because people were being watched through their t-shirts. Oh my goodness, this TV can see me. Computer screen. We can see you right now.

Oh no. And they're like, and they're getting some bad news, right? Yeah, thank you for leading me along, Elliott. I don't think this shows more about bits where I was going to make a joke about Black Mirror, but you know, fuck it. Let's get on with the plot of it. So the reason why Evan has to go talk to Conner's parents is because Conner is committed suicide, and there are only bit of information that they have is the note that Evan had

written to himself was found in Conner's back pocket, and they assumed that it was a suicide note written by Conor. So at this point, this story that we thought was about like teen isolation has now turned into like a farce a little bit, which is fucking strange. I bet like a tragic farce. It's not meant to be fun. Yeah. It's not like, it's not, it's not like the movie is like, uh-oh, what's going to happen with this mix up? You know, it's, but it is a, you're right, it is a first type of mechanism for them to, I mean, if you find, if, if I can understand in their situation them being like, I think this is what this is, he must have written this.

It doesn't sound like him, but, and we didn't know that he ever knew you because we don't know who you are, Evan Hansen, but maybe, but then for Evan Hansen to be like, uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, maybe like he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he doesn't, he, it would be so easy for him to say, I wrote that by myself and he took it from me, but I guess he doesn't want anyone to know that he has a crush on Zoe or something like that. So he just goes, he goes along with it.

I think a lot of it has to do with his crippling anxiety. And like in the moment, he doesn't want to like take away, like Amy Adams is like, this is one of the few things we have. That's true. He feels like he's, he feels like he's saving her the pain of, of, no, I have, not having anything left. I have to point out that this is somebody who is so, socially awkward, he couldn't even shake Zoe's hand. Yet he is cold reading this family and figuring out what they want to hear. He's like, always misleading.

He's like, yeah, we used to hang out at a, I mean, this might be later, we used to hang out at a different place. The orchard? Yeah, the orchard, exactly. And I'm really, I'm feeling you know, I'm feeling the letter L. You know, some of the letter L. My aunt Louise, yes, that's right. It's Louise. Okay. Yeah, well, he grows up to be Bradley Cooper and Nightmare Alley is what happens. So he goes up and goes to a time work to the past.

Hold on a second. Maybe so funny. The edge of the scene of the urban answer is him writing a letter to himself and then falling through a time portal and ending up in the 20s. Age and Junk grow up to be Bradley Cooper in the 1940s or 1930s. Age and time mean very little to Evan Hanson as we have already talked about. He's already, he's already halfway to being the character from, was it Heinlein's story, all Yuzombies or something, where the same person is their own mother, father, and child,

like, cause they travel through time. Anyway, like Jesus. No, that's not, that's not true at all. So Evan goes along with the words. Jesus is not his own mother, father, he's the hot single who's looking to connect. Evan goes over to the Murphy's house and he continues this lie that he and Connor

are best friends. He does this cold reading situation. And when he's pressed, he continues to double down. He keeps building on the lie. The thing's a whole song about it. And yeah, and that, that's, that's, it leads to a big musical number in my day. I love lying. It takes place entirely at a dining room table where Ben plans to the table singing to their faces. So funny. It's a funny way to stage it that he's just it's just like, yeah, so and because there's

nothing there's nothing fantastical about the staging. There's no musical number. It's like, yeah, I think maybe this character in reality is just sitting at this table, seeing these people's faces. And the thing to make sure to have to go on. I was wondering if you had the same experience I did with this dinner thing where I really wanted to eat the food

because they weren't touching it. I was trying to figure out what the food was. They had some kind of chicken on there, look like. They had chicken, but they also had like this, like what I guess we look at giant roll, but it had kind of like a pastry outside, like it looked like a, maybe like a brioche. I don't know.

Which has meered because the mom makes a big point of being gluten free later in the movie. So, but it was bothering me that nobody was touching this food the entire time. It was like, is that a roll? Is it a potato? Sorry, yeah. Steward, yeah, that's clearly why the father was looking so unhappy the whole

time. It's like, well, this kid showed up. So I can eat. Yeah. So he's basically singing the song that's all made up about his friendship with Connor. And it's mainly just him sitting at the table singing to their faces. And occasionally we get glimpses of flashbacks where Evan climbed a tree and fell out of the tree, but in this version of it, Connor is there to help him up. But at the same time, Amy Adams is so desperate to learn more about her son. But the father is skeptical,

and the sister Zoe is very skeptical because we, and we, the twist at this point we learn is that Connor was not well liked by them, that he was abusive, that he had drug problems, and that this kind of the first time they'd heard anything positive about him from anybody. Yes, which is also like world's greatest dad where he forges notes to make his sound nicer than he was. Yeah. Yeah, so when they realize that he doesn't have that they want more information that they couldn't find any communication between Connor and Evan on Conner's devices, Evan decides to sweeten this deal a little bit by involving

his friend Jared and together, they forge an extensive email relationship between Evan and Connor. And this is the one lighthearted song in the whole movie when they're doing this. It gets pretty silly. This song is every other song. Every other song in this is like is like, we're gonna make you cry with this song. You're gonna cry by the end of this song. But this one's like, we're buddies and we're doing things.

Me and a friend Connor, dearly or in go carts now. It's like something about, yeah, that first one you did was like something out of the bad out of hell musical. Yeah. Actually, it was much more gemstime in the of the glove. Yeah, yeah, that first one you did was like something out of the bad out of hell musical. Yeah, it was much more gemstime in the, of the glove, yeah, yeah. No, it has fun staging because they're putting words into Conor's mouth and you see Conor's singing them and dancing. And, you know, as Evan like objects to what his friend is writing, like the words will

change, they'll do it over again. And I, I agree that this is actually a pretty funny song. It was probably the number I enjoyed the most because I'm like, okay, something is like cutting through the schmaltz with like a little bit of irony, like showing some sense of that the show knows how screwed up all of this is. Yeah.

I don't, I don't't rather than like look what this, you know, the sad web, like, you know, a lot of bad things happen, but ultimately it brought people closer together and taught this kid how to be better. So isn't it worth it? I'm like, I don't know. But it almost makes it worse because they now, now you're, you understand that they know how to make like a light fun song

I didn't so in the show were there other Light songs because I know they cut songs for the movie, but I don't know any of them Where were they all serious except for this one? Or was it really their own song? They're serious. They're serious. They're the Oscars. No, this was this was in the I remember this song from the stage production I know there's a song they cut where Larry Conner's dad plays, like, plays catch with Evan. For some reason, they're like, nah, this doesn't need to be in the movie.

And they also cut, they also cut a couple songs that Evan's mom sang. I'm assuming it part because and Moore just not have a big musical theater background. I mean, they can put in someone else's voice though, I guess. I guess that's not, I guess that's not as well looked on now, but I mean, that's the way movie musicals used to be for, you know, I guess two hours and twenty one minutes weren't enough for you. Yeah, I wanted more.

I wanted more. I was going to use more of it. Yeah, yeah, that's what I wanted to just exist in the world of the Bobcat school. Follow some of those other characters. See where they're labrancy. This was your avatar. Some people dream of living on Pandora. I want to be in that high school. Where's the theme park for me? My dear Evan Hansen world? Yeah. I mentioned Julian Moore. Well, she keeps trying to reach out to Evan, but she also keeps flaking on him. She wants to connect, but every time she makes plans, she has to bail because she has to

work. Yeah. And Evan is getting more and more distant from her, whether it's because he is wise to her patterns or because he is getting so caught up in his imaginary life. And his web of lies that are pushing Zoe, his crush to the point of, to the, to, to extremes of behavior, you know. Yeah. And he also, and speaking of Zoe, this is when he used an opportunity to get closer to her, where she wants to know

more about, because she's mentioned in the Dear Evan Hansen letter, she wants to know more about, if Connor said anything about her. So at this point, he sings this super creepy ass song about basically super imposing all of his feelings and observations about Zoe onto things Conor said, which is fucking wild. It's so creepy and so gross. It feels like Zoe should be like, oh, so that's why he killed himself. He couldn't deal with the fact that he was in love with his own sister.

Yeah. That's what it feels like. The all of the things he's saying are like things that would make sense for a crush to say. But yeah, he's channeling it through the Conner's memory and she's like, really? Yeah, really. That's weird. These are not things like that. It's a mix of things that a brother feels for a sister.

Yeah. It's a mixture of things that you would have for your crush, but also this like, oh, but it's forbidden. Like his attitude toward why he can't share this information is that like, there's, I can't do it. Society can't do it, society wouldn't accept it. And it's also wild to see Ben Platt, who looks like an old man singing it.

I don't know, I don't have any siblings. I guess you're like, I mean, maybe, maybe, we know that they're not, but the internet seems very taken with the concept of step siblings having relations, right Dan? No. You were just telling me about it. So have you guys ever seen, have you guys ever stumbled upon porn? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's stumbled upon. Have you guys seen this? There's some links. One of the few where it is people who are not related and who are pretending to be in a family in the video so that they can be having sex with their family, but you the viewer knows they're not really a family though. It's like, it feels like this is something that was shown to me and I was like, what audience

is this for? What is this? Who would not be the only one who's only gonna buy into this for half way? Yeah, it was like, well, even within the confines of fantasy, I need to make it clear that I realize, let's everyone, I'm gonna sign a half a David this pornography. Meanwhile, the rest of the school was- I need plausibleidavit about this pornography. Meanwhile, the rest of the school was-

I need plausible deniability on this pornography. Yeah, I mean, once you have all that, then you're allowed to legally have a boner. That's when that's when Judge Air Bud says, what the fuck? Which means I'll allow it. Yeah. Because the judge at sex court is also a

dumb man. How deep does this go? Sex court. Okay. So the whole school is latched on to the tragedy today in sex court. The plaintiff wants to have sex with the defendant. Will the defendant say yes? Okay. That's well. Okay. The verdict was yes. That's sex court. Okay. I feel like I feel like that show hot bench was like Can we just call it sex court and they're like no, no, no, that's too obvious What is hot? I don't know that show hot bunches of show with Well Created by judge Judy and there are three judges and

I actually don't watch it. I don't like it that much. So it sounds more to me like a, you know, like a game show that we confuse you while you were traveling. Yeah, four cast. There's a very hot bench. People just have to sit on it. You're not really what sure what the rules are. And there's like eight.

And the longest wins the bench. Yeah. There's eight different pieces of writing and different fonts on the screen at any point. And a cartoon character with a tongue hanging out just spinning around in one corner. And you're like, I don't understand how a human being intakes this since sensory input and processes it in a way. Yeah. We were watching that work recently.

We were watching a clip from a Japanese kind of hidden camera show. And there were so many people in like, there were so many commentators on the video talking at the exact same time. And also audience noise. And I was like, I don't understand how to parse these voices. Like, I don't know. I don't know. That's always really interesting to me is like,

watching shows that, you know, in America, we wouldn't think would have commentators. But like in Japan, various like different genres, like also like have like a would have commentators. But like in Japan, various, like different genres, like also have like a panel of commentators to talk about the show. It's like they took the after show and put it in the middle of the show. Yeah. So it's a bold, a very busy country that got to get it done quickly. They're on the move. So meanwhile, the whole school is latch on to the tragedy of Conor's passing. move. So meanwhile, the whole school is latch on to the tragedy of Conor's passing. And oh, wait, oh, can I mention one thing where we see Evans room and there's a Ben Folds

poster in his room. And I turned my wife and went, no shit. Cause like, yeah, of course, he lives as a bed fold like this. Don't surprise me. Like a radio. Yeah. So the whole school is latch onto the tragedy and the kids have all found ways to make this tragedy personal, like teenagers and sociopaths do. And specifically a Lana, the head, I think she's like the head cheerleader or like the class president.

She's like, she's the class president, she's like the activist kid at the school. She's always got a cause. She decides to organize a charity in Conner's name. So at this point, the lie is starting to get even bigger. Yeah, there's, I mean, there is one thing the show does. It latches, it grasps is that teenagers find a way to make every little thing about them. And then we, I have a note here that Amy Adams takes Evan Hansen to her son Conner's room, bedroom, which is surprisingly clean and makes me feel like what was my, my room was way

more fucked up. No, none of the rooms in this, in this movie look like people actually live in them. They all look like they've been staged for a real state company or a department store that's selling the furniture. There are a couple holes in the dry wall from where he punched them, but I feel like a real bad kid would have then like drawn around them in Sharpie or something. Because we all know that he likes to write his name big and Sharpie. That would be funny. It's one of the main things. The wall recovered with him practicing his name and sharpie and different styles.

You have one in bubble letters and one of the letters are all animals with faces and things. You know, yeah, he's, you know, he's a, he's a, a tagger. Evan agrees to speak at Conner's Memorial at the school. And he is going, he is going to wear the saddest tie in the world. Conor's tie, it was the first for him to go to a bar mitzvahs. And he did not get invited to a single one. It's like, baby shoes never worn the tie. And it goes to you, this time it's tie. And it goes up on stage in front of the whole school and he starts to be if it's hard.

It's a six word short story. For sale tie, never worn shit. I need another word. So Evan goes up to speak and he starts fucking it up. He gets too nervous and he fucks it up just enough that all the shitty kids whip out their phones to start tick-tock in it. And of course, at that point, he's like, fuck, yeah, it's my time to shine. And he sings a big ass song.

And everyone's like, oh my god, he's doing it. He sings this song about how, no matter how alone you feel, you will be found. It's just such an amazing song. It's the big one that's in all the ads. And he sings it so long that there's a montage of going viral. And in this, in this montage, Vickering Viral, we were watching it. My wife went, that's my old coworker. And there's an old, there's an older lady who shows up in it. And she was like, that can't be. It must be somebody else. And we looked it up on, on the, like,

when you pause it on Amazon and the names of the cast came up. And there it was listed. The woman she used to work with at the private school, she was a librarian at. And it turns out this woman, her son-in-law, was one of the editors on the movie and put her in during this section. So if anything, that was the most exciting part of the movie to us was where my wife

recognized an old coworker as lady talking virally about how this video you have to look at. And the viral video, the video of his speech that has the title, his best friend killed himself. It was like, his best friend killed himself. You'll never guess what he did next. And it's like literally what he's doing is giving a uvG for his friends. Like it's not, it's not, but it's such a funny title.

Yeah. It's not the only one, but it's such a funny title. Yeah, and this whole segment is shot like, I don't know, like an ad for YouTube that would play during the Super Bowl that's meant to make you cry about something. Like, that, this is one of the biggest instances of me, like getting mad at the movie, specifically the way it's directed because it does seem to be taking its cues from like tear jerking advertisements rather than anything that feels like honest, I don't know. directed because it does seem to be taking its cues from like tear jerking advertisements rather than anything that feels like honest. I don't know. And yeah, no, you're 100% right.

And it's filled with people also making this tragedy about them, making their own videos, like reaction videos to the video. And it starts to get actually starts to get some serious views at first. I'm like, oh, those are dog shit numbers. But it makes some serious views. And I'm like, I, those are dog shit numbers. But it makes some serious views. And I'm like, I'm assuming there's people on Twitter that are like, I hope Evan Hansen doesn't become a milkshake duck and you're like, oh, buddy.

What? I'll explain my shake. I think I have before. You asked me to do it to you once, but I didn't know what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a little, a little peak behind the curtain. Involves a curtain as well, I said.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So it like this lie continues to build and get bigger, but it also by going, by his eulogy going viral, it finally allows the family to come to terms with Connor's death and they come together and they grieve finally. I don't know why this does it, but then I also can't explain how people can get through this life of ours. But it is, it is this weird moment of that, that it is, and this is the closest it gets to commentary about modern

age. Modern days, I guess, is that it's like, he gives this fake speech that connects with people emotionally all over the world. And it's not until this family has gotten the eyes of the world on them that they can finally move forward. It's almost like they don't exist until other people are witnessing their grief and absorbing it into themselves

and reflecting it back as gratitude, you know. Yeah. Which is a sad commentary on these troubled times. For 60 minutes, I'm Ellie Kalin. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, haven't our show getting the middle of 16. Evan keeps leaching off the family. He keeps pushing his mother away. He manages to get his cast off. I don't know what that symbolizes. Maybe that's that shell that he's been trying to burst out of.

Uh, so he can become a full time fucking manipulator. The chrysalis is gone. Yeah. Beautiful. It's no longer a gentle caterpillar. He's now a con man butterfly. Yeah. So then we get a weird scene where Zoe comes over to his house and she immediately wants to go see his bedroom and we're like, what the hell?

And you know, she takes her coat off. Charlene, you're a girl. You've done this before, right? I've been like, can I see your bedroom? I can't see. Let me check it out. Let me sit on the edge of the room where you keep all your dirty socks. And then she explains that like Evan, we don't have to talk about my brother anymore.

She likes him for him, not because he sings like Poverati or because he's such a hottie. Oh boy, I was wondering if that song is going to come up. Did not like it, Ben, don't like it, man. It's so bad. But yeah, that song. This is a weird scene because again, it's Ben Platt and Katelyn Deaver and it's, you know, whatever. And again, they're not that far apart from each other in real age, but in movie age,

they look like they're very far apart from each other. Yeah. And it is also weird for me, like I like you for you. And it's like, well, he's provided nothing, but Connor's stuff. So I don't know what it is about him that you're seeing, that you're, I mean, she says he's a gentle, lying soul.

But she likes the lives of grieving families. She approached him, I mean, she's the one who initiated contact first, and we don't really know enough about her. That's true. Like in her life, other than she was threatened and abused by her brother. And she likes to play with her.

Maybe she had a huge crush on him too. We don't know. We don't know. That was something that my wife was saying we were watching was that she totally, when she was younger, she would see a guy who was kind of like quiet, moping by himself, and assume he must have such a deep soul.

He must be so wise. And as such poetry in him, and then she'd meet those guys, which never worked for me. No one ever approached me thing I had a deep soul when I was a quiet mopey kid, but she would approach them and it would be like, oh no, they have nothing going on. Like, it's just a war. I have a question though. Were you really a quiet kid? Gotcha.

All right. He got me. I'm making up for it now. That's why I'm so talk to talk now. Okay. I have all these words built up behind the, the dam of loneliness that was there before. But then when I reached a certain age, it just burst through the damn into an endless torrent of language, right, Dan? Uh-huh.

Sorry, I was just remembering the full words and I was thinking of the full of worms part of Roxanne. So sometimes if I get bored in the middle of a flop house, I just start thinking about a Steve Martin movie. Steve Martin's in Zeus and Roxanne. He played the porpoise. Oh wow, it's great. Somebody saw the poster of Zeus and Roxanne and they were like, I love Steve Martin.

I love Greek mythology. This is gonna be great. And they were so disappointed in that movie. Oh, what a mama. So Evan's mom. I love Greek mythology. I love the police. Gotta go see this movie. What a mom. So Evan's mom. I love Greek mythology. I love the police. Gotta go see this movie.

So Evan's mom finally meets Connor's family. They have they like have this organized dinner thing. And even though Evan kept, he's been lying to his mom as well, but significantly let like lazy or like he has been kind of distracted while talking to her. There's a scene there's a scene earlier where his mom is like, why didn't you tell me you had a friend and he died and you gave a speech and it was a big thing. Like someone at work showed her the video and it's like they really aren't really separated from each other. Like they don't ever seem to be in the same room very often, you know, but so she's finally learning a lot about her son. And it gets pretty harsh because Connor's family offers to help Evan out with college money

and Julian Moore's like, uh, uh, conversation over. I got my own money and they bounce and Evan is like, I don't know, like he kind of just doubles down and being shitty. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a part, this, this part felt a little real to me at least because I feel like a teen boy would fail to see the complicated emotions in a moment of a rich family saying to your mom, don't worry, we'll pay for college for you. Yeah. Like, like I totally get that a teen kid would only be able to look at it from their

own point of view and not see how that's difficult for his mom. Yeah. But that, but it's, that's, I don't remember there being any like pay off to that, other than that, they're just mad at each other for the scene. And then it just goes back to Evan's parade of lies with everybody else, you know. Meanwhile, Alana is starting to find the cracks in Evan's story. She flat out asks him if he's lying. And then he of course doubles down again by emailing her the original deer of Enhance and Letter before the public had only seen the phony emails.

Now he sent the actual letter, which he didn't have to, he could have just shown around his phone. He didn't need to do this paper true. Because that gets worse because she is nervous that the fundraising for the charity is not going well enough. So she and this charity is to rebuild the orchard that that Conner supposedly loves. Conner's favorite place. Mm hmm. Something we should all feel pretty, pretty strongly about.

And then she posts the letter on Instagram. We then see our characters at a party where everybody is very eagerly looking at Instagram. Like, everyone's got notification set up for Connor related material. Like, because it instantly goes to everyone's phone. Like, the speed of, I mean, movie, things go viral in movies so much faster than they do in real life because I feel like it goes, things move quickly, they go viral. But I've never been in a room with,

in a party and suddenly everyone's looking at their phone and getting the news all at once or something like that. And so rarely is the news relevant. You know, I have a Google alert set up for Flop House podcast. And it's usually something like the house flip-flops on this piece of legislation. Oh my God.

Okay, wow. Disappointed again. It's like I'm gonna keep scrolling. flip clops on this piece of legislation. Oh my God. Okay. Well, disappointed again. It's like I'm going to keep scrolling. They might mention me. But this, this, seeing this letter gets everyone mad at the parents, which was something I didn't understand for a while. I mean, later like I granted, I wasn't paying the closest attention. And like later, I guess it comes out.

Why would you? The letter we refers to is own dad and mom that then like it's they think they're saying that Conor's dad and mom were bad. Well, we don't, I don't think we see like the full text of the letter earlier. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Well, there is something in there about his parents not understanding him or something. And that and and yeah, I think people latch on to that as it must be their fault that he's that he did this to himself, but

it does seem like it comes out of nowhere. Yeah, it's strange because unless it was like a letter where he's like, I don't know, the parents were abusing me or something really horrible. Like one would assume, and I don't want to sound insensitive saying this, but I feel like one would assume that a troubled teen in their letter would blame their parents for things. And I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily see that and assume like, oh, these must be horrible parents. I would seem like this person was in a lot of pain, like you're doing a lot of stuff. I think to play devil's advocate, which means I'm now Keanu Reeves. Oh, you're Al Pacino in that movie.

Anyway, this is very loud. To play devil's advocate, the internet does, I mean, there is right now, at least, I don't know when this movie was made if it was that way as much, but there is this feeling that anything that gets posted on the internet cannot be taken at face value and is a mystery to be unraveled. Yes. And so you've got to look like there was that video recently where the girl surprised her boyfriend at college and it took him a second to realize that she was there. And people are like, I can tell from all the clues in this video that he is a monster,

he's a sociopath. Like I could see just because the internet is so uniquely corrosive that people would do that, I guess. I don't know, but it's not really earned in the movie. You know, it's the thing that's why I'm going to be like that. I would totally buy it, but in a movie, I expect more, you know. And for me, it's why, like, what really would have happened is people would have turned on Evan Hansen in this family the first day or so.

Like there would always be like, that's how it works. That's how the cycle works. There will be people. I mean, you know that the first hundred comments on the video of his speech would be like, eat a dick, you suck, like that kind of stuff, you know. Yeah. Yeah, the cycle doesn't take that long. It's almost instant, you know. So the internet's terrible. So the family starts to get some serious heat. They are not loving it. And that actually started not serious heat in a bad way, not serious heat like Hollywood's calling. Yeah, we got to make a musical of this. Yeah, twist. And so the family starts to crack apart under the pressure. It, you know, it's brought up that one of the changes from the state show is that

the father, Connor's father is actually a stepfather in this. And there's a, that, that provides some additional, like an additional seam to split apart where they, where Amy Adams brings up that maybe Larry wasn't as supportive of Connor because, you know, he's not his biological father. Evan is watching all this happened and he's starting to feel real bad. So you know what he does. He makes it about him. He's like, Hey guys, I was just lying. I was just lying. Feel better now. It's good. I'm lying. You know, I feel bad about him. He's like, he's taking your spots. He's like, guys, let me love with you. This was a goof. This is all a good goof.

I mean, I feel like I don't think that's necessarily him taking responsibility. I think that's him trying to, that's him trying to evade conflict. Like he is trying to make them feel better by like, he is not trying to, I mean, it's not a, it's not like his courageous move.

No, no, no, well, I'm not giving him any credit. I'm just saying that I think at this point he sees like, okay, my actions have had negative consequences in a way that I should have been able to anticipate but didn't. And so I have to do something to avoid this family from like eating itself. And but the thing is like this is all done in like Dan. Are you saying you wouldn't watch a movie called The Family That Eat's Self?

I would love that movie. But like the funny thing to me for this scene was like this is all done this like long shot on Evan Hansen again singing to this family is there at this table. And then like it's all on him and then they do a cut back to the family and stunned silence. And I was like anything that was moving about that has been taken away because it is such a comedy cut to look back to all of them like it's a real record scratch of an end. Yeah. And so of course it doesn't go well. The family won him out of there. The next day at school he runs into Zoe and he's like, why didn't you guys post about it? And she's like, yeah, we didn't want to deal with it. Like it's not about you, dude.

Well, and she says, she says, my mom doesn't want the truth to come out because she's worried that if you get blamed for this, you're going to hurt yourself. Like so his mom does not want the cycle to continue. So they're willing, they're willing to be the villains of the world on the internet. If it means that the noble and precious Evan is okay, which is one of those, like that decision adds complexity to the to Amy Adams character. I feel like in a big way, but it's really like, but it also feels like the movie is in many ways set up to get Evan off the hook as much as possible and keep him from from from facing consequences about what happened. And that is one of those moments, you know, and then Evans at home.

He finally talks to his mom about it. His mom, he explains that he didn't hurt his arm. As an accident, it was a failed suicide attempt. And then his mom sings him a song to make him feel better. And then, and I want to go on. I just want to pause because I do like to highlight when the movies work for me.

Just so I'm not a jerk all the time. Only that in the episode of the time. Julie, I think Julie and more obviously wonderful actor and she has this one song here. And it's one of the parts of the film I found genuinely moving her singing her song about how she'll always be there for him and giving him comfort when he's admitted to finally, not just the bad things he's done, but also how lost he had felt that she didn't know. And I, you know, she's very strong, I think, in a movie that doesn't deserve her. And she's not in it much.

Like, she makes a fair amount out of a small role. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Julia Moore is, I think, is by far the best performance in the movie. And maybe it's just because it isn't those small portions, but like, she's playing her character so much more real than anyone else is playing their character. Like Amy Adams character is like,

kind of a, is so, is so, um, in denial, kind of blank, that it becomes almost like a, in human at times. And Evan Hansen we talked about what the issues are with that. But I think like, um, but Julian, we're, I feel like when she's on screen, it's like, oh, I'm seeing like a real person who's interacting with like, with characters, you know, and that song is, I, I will admit that that song that that I felt really touched by at first and then it goes on for very long time, like all the songs you are incredibly long. And but like this message of like, there's nothing you can do

that will stop me, that where I won't be on your side. And you know, you have to end, I had no idea and I'm sorry about it, but not that stuff. Like that was, it was like, oh, there's some like real emotions in this as opposed to to some of the teen melodrama emotions, which are real feelings that people have, but when you have someone blasting them out at musical theater opera level, it comes off as false, in my opinion.

So Evan takes this inspiration, he immediately goes on Instagram and posts that it was all his fault. And then, and then he, then he tries to learn as much about Conner as he can by cyber stalking him. Creepy. Creepy. Creepy. Still creepy. Didn't learn anything. Yeah. And through his internet, Scooby Doo work, he finds a video of Connor playing guitar, which he then shares with the family. And they, you know, they're touched by it because they didn't have, they had very few positive memories of their deaths on. Yeah. And he never would play songs from this was another thing that I found moving, not because of the movie, but because of the goose bumps thing that

Elliott has talked about. Like, if this was a situation in real life, I would find it moving. So I mapped that onto the film. Although I did wonder. I thought you can do sometimes. Yeah. Who in this group therapy was filming and play this song? That was, seems like a breach of can't. You don't usually record it for your archives. Like group therapy sessions at rehab. But to, I mean, I can only assume based on other behavior in this film was that Connor was fucking up real bad. And some shithead was like,

this is gonna be hilarious for me to put this, this, for the entertainment. And for the entertainment. For the entertainment. For the entertainment. Yeah. This guy got to group therapy and you won't believe what he did next.

But I feel like that there's so much this movie is asking me to buy and do that I can't buy and do. But the idea that someone would have been like, hey, can I record the song and he'd be like, okay, I can believe that. I'll buy that. Therapy fails. So then flash forward. As opposed to everyone in the world deciding they need to donate money in a high school

kids name to rebuild an orchard, which they're like, we need to create the Connor project. The Connor project is going to be a beacon of hope for everyone who's depressed out there. Orchards, that's where it's in. This people need one local orchard. We don't need to work on suicide prevention or mental health issues. We'll just make local orchard. We don't need to work on suicide prevention or mental health issues, we'll just make an orchard. That's gotta get an orchard together. This place, that.

You need no bad business. If we can make an orchard out of leaves, I'll run it back. Yeah, nice one, nice one. Everyone's like, it was Connor's favorite place. And most of that seems to be based off of Evan's story. So I don't know like the family went and had picnics there, but we don't really know that Connor really liked it very much. If he's anything like my kids, he hates to go outdoors and go places with his family.

So it's there like it was Connor's favorite place. And I'm always like, based on what? I don't understand. Nothing about his character diamond as laid out in this film includes love's orchards. Yeah. So speaking of the orchard, our final scene, we have Evan Hansen and Zoe walking around in that orchard, they're talking a little bit about their future, what they're gonna do next. And Zoe says some wild shit about how she wishes

she'd met him now after he'd gone through all this character building and I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't think he's learned anything. And then the movie's over. His big plant, they're like, how are you gonna tone for all this? And he's like, I'm gonna take a year off from college and get a job. I'm gonna take a gap. All right. I'm gonna have a gap year. I'm gonna travel around Europe, go to clubs.

Really? So that's it. Dear Evan Hansen. I would say Evan writes another letter to himself, right? Does he write a letter to himself? I don't remember that. Yeah, I've lived at the very end. He writes another letter to himself.

And it's like all the things that he was fakesaying to himself at the beginning. Now he's really saying it. Oh, I mean, today is going to be a good day because he's been through the crucible that was lying to everybody and mostly getting away with it. Let's roll straight into final judgment. Was this dear Evan Hansen or a sheer Evan Hansen? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to talk that.

I mean, for me, this was a bad, bad movie that was almost made worse by a few moments that genuinely affected me because I'm like, oh, okay, well that just throws the rest into sharp or leave, how terrible some of this is. And like, look, I don't want to take anything away from anyone who found something meaningful in this. Like, this is obviously my own opinion and this is like going, this is dealing with a lot of heavy stuff, but I expect more if it's dealing with a lot of heavy stuff.

I feel like there's a higher degree of difficulty to make it justified. And the movie at least, I have not seen the show, like, just ladled it on so thick and did not seem to truly be able to grapple with the conundrums that it set up for itself in a way that just made me, like, deeply uncomfortable for most of the runtime. So I didn't like it. But what do you guys have to say? Allie, it may be you. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's it felt like I didn't like it, but what do you guys have to say? Elliot, maybe you. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it felt like I didn't like it. I didn't think it was pretty good. And much like when we saw the Dark Tower movie, I was like,

this really makes me want to go back and read the books. So I know what was so interesting about them that someone wanted to go to the trouble of making this very mediocre movie of it. That like, it kind of maybe me wish I had seen the play so I could see what was in it that was powerful, that was lost in translation to film. Because watching it, it just felt like,

it felt like it was reaching for something really emotional and failing to get there at almost every moment, you know, aside from the one or two that we mentioned. And yeah, there's just a few baffling decisions in it. And I totally understand the like, I understand the motivation of like, this guy has an amazing performance on Broadway. We got to immortalize it on film so people can see it. But it doesn't always work out the best for film. And it's just the, but it felt like a certain point I was, I was like, I'm not sure what this movie is,

I don't know what this movie is saying to me. It's the songs don't get to me. They're just not my kind of songs, they all sound the same. I don't like the characters. And I don't know what the message is that I'm supposed to be getting from this, even as someone who should, like I was saying earlier,

should be sympathizing with the emotions this character is having. And should be like the feeling of like being a teenager who feels lonely and lost and doesn't know how to reach out to people and doesn't feel seen and doesn't feel like anyone recognizes the value in them, but also doesn't quite sure what about themselves is valuable and doesn't know how to show that to people.

Like that's all stuff that I felt. And well, while watching this, I was like, get outta here, come on. This is, I don't think so. Like it just, it felt like watching someone who, and maybe the people who made this went through all that themselves, but it felt like watching someone who felt,

like when I was a kid and a lot of the popular kids in school were all into catcher in the rye when we read it in class and they were like, this book really gets me and I was like, no, it doesn't. This is like, where we watched Harold and Maude in a class in high school, and seeing the popular kids being like, finally movie that understands

what an outcast I feel like. And it was like, no, you are it. Like it felt like a movie made by those people. The people who like felt like they had been through it, but weren't really through it, you know? But I shouldn't judge other people's emotions. If they felt like outcast, then they were probably outcast, even though they were all football players and cheerleaders.

That's the thing. Everybody feels like an outcast. Yeah, I guess everyone feels like an outcast. No more than then big boy and Andre 3000 and the ultimate outcast. But the, the, it felt like the movie just felt very shallow. It felt shallow in a way that it was, it felt it was deep, but it was not. And it was like the old anti-drug ad where the woman dives into this Marine Pool and there's no water there.

Like that's what that's what watching this movie felt like in a lot of ways. But Charlie, you loved it, right? Well, let me get my notes. Oh, wow. We got to start from the beginning. Oh, wow, we got to start from the beginning. So, yeah, I felt like this movie deals with a lot of important themes, like growing up, feeling alone, feeling like no one understands you. You know, like he tried to commit suicide and nobody even cared.

Like nobody came to find him and it should all be so touching. And then they wrapped it around this like horrible person of a character and some of my least favorite like plot devices ever. Like I can't stand when the story is wrapped around. If you would just tell the truth, the story would be over. And this is like one of the worst representations of that, I've ever seen.

And they treated almost like a rom-com would treat that kind of thing. Like, oh, if he finds out that I'm the one that closed the factory, then he's never gonna fall in love with me. And you're like, just tell him, just tell him. But this is like so much worse than that. I wanna know about this factory closing.

Right? That's a good story. And it just made me so mad. And so, yeah, I did not like the movie. I did not like the play. And I thought that if you took the songs out, some of the lyrics of the songs were really good. If you like wrapped these themes around a character that was deserving of this kind of... So you're saying that Julian Moore should have given up on him.

Yes. You're so terrible. Give up on him. He's bad. Yeah, I mean, you pointed this out. You suggested this while we were watching the movie that like it feels like it was written by somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience with friends. Like, like, doesn't know how friends work.

Well, that makes me feel like maybe the people who are working on it did know what those feelings are like, but they're trying to, they're like, the problem is not that they don't know what that kind of depression is like and they're coming at it from the outside, but they're so far inside that they don't know how, how the story would actually work if it happened. Like, they didn't, they don't understand the way like two high school boys would be friends because they didn't have for, I don't know. Yeah, that was a problem I had too, Charlene, where it's like, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, that was a problem I had too, Charlene, whereas I mean, I don't know.

Audrey tried to convince me like, oh, you know, if you don't know what friends are, then like, maybe this is your vision, but I'm like, I guess, but his like, like, fantastic version of it, like the version he confabulates is so strange and so unrecognizable to me as like, how to like boys in high school would be friends

that like, I don't know. It is all, I mean everything about it is everything about that the scene where he's like singing about their friendship. His friend who is gay is making jokes about, oh, it sounds like your relationship is really gay. And it's like, what he thinks about does sound like a love relationship. Like it doesn't set like, he's like, yeah, we'd go sit and tell each other about all our fondest dreams.

And then we're going to the amusement park together. And it's like, well, these are dates. Like, do that with all your dudes. I mean, we did go to amusement park. Maybe it'd be a little more in line, Deli. Okay, fair point. Fair point. Yeah.

And when he's singing the song to Connor's sister about like, these are the things that Connor felt for you, but what he's really seeing about is romantic love. If it's, yeah, it feels like it's written by someone who is having trouble understanding how those emotions play out. Yeah, that's a good point. So guys, when I was younger,

should I have gone to amusement parks more with my friends and told them all my fondest dreams? Probably. Yeah. Of course. I mean, I think that in general, like if an amusement park is around, so like it's a pretty good decision to go to an amusement park.

But what if it's not haunted amusement park? You might find one of those wish machines where you could get big and then sex with an old lady. Yeah. You say with an old lady? Or you can. It's too late. You can do it.

I have the point of that moving. I mean, but she's also. She's also a bad little boy with expression on his face. But did you say old lady? Because she was almost certainly younger than we are now. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good point.

You can do it. I did as a kid and go to an amusement park with just your dad and have him like wave at you as you go by. And those like motorcycle merry go round thing. I mean, it's like a nice day. That's fun to me. So you didn't give us final judgment, Charlene.

Is this a good one? A bad one or a yummy one? One more point. I feel like the moment where the girl that was the president of all the different teams, Alana, where she was like, you know, we all feel like that. You know, like, you're not the only one that feels like they don't fit in or is depressed or like thinks high school is weird. Yeah, and I believe that's a song that was written for the movie. I don't believe it's in the show. That's a song that was written for the movie. I don't believe it's in the show.

Um, is it? I was like that moment when they're like, and they were like saying like, Oh, we gonna what, what, and it represents are you on? Yeah. And the thing, the weird thing about it though is by inserting that sequence relatively early in the movie, that's the sort of, that's the sort of revelation that a character like Evan Hansen would be like, Oh, wait, everyone's a little bit like me, but it makes no effect on him,

because they're like, let's just stick this in the movie because it's actually good and makes sense, but it does not alter his behavior at all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm, so I'm gonna say it's a bad, bad movie. I guess you love musicals, maybe give this one a look, but I don't know. I'm not into it. Somewhere between science and superstition, there is a podcast.

Look, your daughter doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil himself. That thing is not my daughter. And I want you to tell me there's a show where the hosts don't just report on French science and spirituality, but take part themselves! Well, there is, and it's Ono Ross and Carrie, on Maximum Fun. This year, we actually became certified exorcists. So, yes, Carrie and I can help your daughter. on Maximum Fun. This year we actually became Certified Exorcists.

So yes, Carrie and I can help your daughter. Or we can just talk about it on the show. Oh no, Rolson Carey on MaximumFun.org. I can't hear myself, but I have to do my full best. These are real podcast listeners, not actors. Hey, thanks for coming. Here's a list of descriptors. What would you choose to describe the perfect podcast?

I mean, vulgarity. Dumb. Definitely dumb. And like, right here, this one, meritless. What if I told you there was a podcast that did have all of that? No. Jordan Jesse Go. And it's free.

Jordan Jesse Go. Jordan Jesse Go. Jordan Jesse Go. Jordan Jesse Go. A real podcast. Okay, let's talk about our sponsors. I mean, like all the shows in Max Fun, we are primarily sponsored by listeners like you,

and thank you for being a Max Fun member if you are. If you're not, maybe look into it. There's a lot of great bonus content. But we also have a few advertisers who are kind enough to sponsor us. One of them is Green Chef. Green Chef makes eating well-easy with plans to fit every lifestyle. It's got fresh produce, premium proteins, and organic ingredients you can trust. Green Chef, is playing it on the edge there. If I didn't have a nice foam guard for my microphone, that premium proteins

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So you think you're not spelling out the words one thing? You're not spelling it out. Yeah, that would be a lot for an offer code. Save yourself some keystrokes. Just do it as numbers. This podcast is also sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. We've talked about BetterHelp a lot of times on this show because they've been sponsoring us.

And this month, according to the copy that's been prepared for me, we're discussing some of the stigmos around mental health. There's a lot of people who think that you should wait until you've got a really big problem that is throwing your life all out of whack before you go into therapy. But I find that is not the best way to use therapy. Therapy is something that you can use to keep yourself on balance and keep you from getting

to the point where you are desperately in trouble and need it. For instance, in the movie that we were talking about today, Dear Evan Hansen, it's mentioned many times in it that he is missing his therapy sessions. And I think that he might have been able to at least get to a better place if he was going to those therapy sessions rather than making up lies about his classmates and presenting himself as someone he's not. Now perhaps the fact is that maybe his therapist wasn't a good match, that happens sometimes. You just got to keep trying.

Look, that's the worst part of therapy for me is having to find the therapist that I want. You have to try more than one often before you find one that really matches and who's right for you and that you can form that very special relationship where you can feel vulnerable for them and really open yourself up for them. And better help might be able to help you do that. I find therapy to be an invaluable thing for me and many of the people that I know because if anything, it's good to have a space where you can just talk about yourself and be open about yourself and not worry about what the other person thinks because you're paying them to listen to you.

Unlike this podcast where I talk about myself all the time and I can see my co-host getting noticeably annoyed by that. So better help is customized online therapy. It offers video phone or live chat sessions with a therapist. You don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to, that might help you open up. I don't know, it depends on who the person is. Who's a person you are is. It can be more affordable than in-person therapy.

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And unfortunately, you just have to keep trying to get, if you don't find the right person, you try again, because therapy is worth that search. It's like marriage in a way. Maybe the first one isn't gonna work out, but eventually. So this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. And Flop, let's hear you get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp with BetterHelp.com slash flop.

That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash flop therapy. I recommend it. Wow. Elliot Banger of Elite Inn for this Jojo Jojo Jojo Jumbo Trude. That's right. Video stream your next live event with entertainment unlimited. We cover weddings, bar and bot mitzvahs, comedy specials, corporate events, and much more across the northeastern United States.

Using multiple robotic cameras, entertainment unlimited ensures your guests are not inconvenienced, while also making sure your viewers at home never miss an important moment. To get a free quote, visit EUAVP.com. And if you use the code flop 25, flop house listeners will receive an additional 25% off your first event. So visit EUAVP.com for event video live streaming services. Yeah, you can, that's easy to remember. You just remember European Union alien versus predator. It's a phrase I'm already thinking. I'm glad to finally have something that can go in. Let's do some letters from listeners. And by do, I mean, I will read them. We'll talk about them. So there's nothing sexual about you. We're going to do some letters from listeners and by do I mean I will read them. Uh-huh. So there's nothing sexual.

We're gonna do the letters. Yeah, nothing. I mean, the shape of an envelope is kind of sexual. I guess that it opens. I don't know. It's not going to fall down this. Not the way I expected you to go, damn. Not when I said, anyway, I guess what we're saying is, dear flop house, today is gonna be a great day

or whatever they said in that dear Evan Hansen letter. Hey, dear flop house, you're writing this letter to yourself about all the things you wanna hear and the letters today. I hope there's a letter about how much they like us. I hope there's a letter about writing a bike. I hope there's a letter about riding a bike. I hope there's a letter. There's a letter about, there's a letter inside of the letter. So I can like the cigar. Did I

mention I'm into cigars now? That's right. I'm a cigar guy hanging out at cigar bars, reading that magazine about cigars. Everything cigars now on the flop house. Welcome to the flop house. A podcast about cigars until I lose interest. So guys, should we make this a podcast about cigars? I could get I could get into cigars if we need to. Yeah, I feel like that would be pretty cool. I've needed a reason to be in the same room as the Alec Baldwin and Rudy Giuliani. So cigars are it. I thought you said moody. That's that's what they say when he's being a grump around the office. Like, moody Giuliani. And by office, I mean jail cell. He'll be in.

Oh hell. Yeah. Playing the hits there. We go. You know what? That's a perfect lead into this letter, which is high peaches. Movies are inextricably linked to the politics in the time and place they're made. With the collapse of democracy in the US about four to six years away, due to one party having a longing for a time that never existed and willingness to say anything to get the votes of the unaccountably large number of people with no empathy or understanding of consequences, and the other party being completely inept and confused about how government works. What do you think movies will look like in 10 years?

Are Kevin James and Mark Wahlberg on every screen? Do war movies take over the space that super heroes currently hold? Is there a strong reaction that grows a larger and more vibrant art house scene? Is there any chance that a movie could have a bikini car wash or castle freak in them? Jim willing to trade last name for asylum? I mean, there's always a chance. I entered every movie. It could be a bikini car wash or a castle freak in one. Yeah, yeah. Jackie starting Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy. Yeah, could be a bikini car wash our count free. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jackie starting Natalie Portman as Jacklyn Kennedy.

Yeah, could be a bikini car wash in this. The hours. Yeah, they're probably Virginia Wolf has a bikini car wash in this movie at some point. Yeah, yeah. The light wash of the night has car wash. The waves are the waves of the car wash. So here's the, I think ironically, the movies that are big right now, superhero movies and science fiction disaster dystopian epics and things

like that are the perfect ones for the time we're living in right now. When people have a real black and white understanding of the world and morality and every single day is a battle between good and evil. And so many people want to believe that there's a hidden world beneath our own. That is the true reality. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So my guess is that in the future, the movies will actually probably have less to do with politics and more to do with the way that they're streaming and theatrical models are built economically. So it's not as interesting as it would seem. But it's going to be much more about what movies will people subscribe to streaming services to get access to than about what's going on in politics. But I'm sure the content will in some way reflect it.

Yeah. In so much as there will be politics in the movies, perhaps because of the liberal bent many creatives, it will become more and more atom-like style, strident satires that are basically making the subtext text. Satires that are meant for people who already agree with the message that the movie is presenting. But I mean, the thing is, unless you live in a, that even though, even though so many creators have a liberal bent, a movie, the people who put the money to make movies have a capitalist bench, they're going to do whatever, whatever they think they can make money on. And but I think that I would be surprised if it turned into like, if we turned, I, you know, could happen. I'd be surprised if we turned into a country where like all the movies have to, have to

support whatever the government is saying at that moment, even if democracy falls apart further, but at a certain point, it's just, there is just whatever speaks to people that can make money at the moment in which they can sell merchandise for. So who knows what that'll be? Probably some, it'll some, you know what? Here's the cycle we're gonna be in. Okay. Because our generation has proved

that you cannot let go of anything in your childhood and just make it in 10 years, there's gonna be like a Ben 10 movie and like a Blues Clues movie. And that's the kind of stuff. The generation that watched that is now gonna have disposable income probably. And they'll wanna see stuff

that's gritty reboots of their childhood. A deepening of like IP string a hold over the arts. probably, and they'll, and they'll want to see stuff that's gritty reboots of their child. A deepening of like IP string a hold over, over the arts. Yeah, until the last IP left is Uncle Ben from the Uncle Ben's rice, and they try to make a movie out of him, and it fails, and they have to, they, and then Hollywood collapses, and everyone wanders their eyes, hurting from the glare of the sun of original ideas as they wander into a wasteland in which only original ideas exist and they have to reinvent the world again and find out what what is an idea that nobody's ever thought of before.

You know, is the Uncle Ben Rice movie also a spider man movie? It doesn't start out as one but it will cross over when it gets to go to Uncle Ben across the rice verse when he's and the uncle Ben from spider. Wild rice. Fast model. Exactly. Arborio and long grain of short grain all together and that one that crazy wild rice. Yeah, yeah, there's going to be a risotto.

Ben. Yeah, it's that it'll be all the different bands. During rice, the universe is yeah, yeah, exactly. That sounds really exciting. Yeah, I mean, it's just like, you know, the fear is that it's just going to get more and more commercial and that the interesting small movies are going to continue to get pushed to the margins and budgets are going to be smaller. But who knows, maybe streaming services will help support our, our, our tour Sima. Yeah, I mean, there's also, there was a time when, when

movie theaters had, you know, had kind of hot and cold running westerns and TV screens had hot and cold running westerns. And that was crowding out a lot of other stuff. And it all goes through cycles. I was wrong, though, I said the last IP would be Uncle Ben, the last IP would actually be ready to kill a lot, the electricity mascot. That's the last character that will be adapted based on IP. We were playing monopoly yesterday and and same in my older son he goes, is there ever been a monopoly movie and I was like, Sammy, you hear in lies of tale.

A tale of generations of development executives trying to develop a monopoly movie. So funny. I want to hear this tale. Well, I mean, basically, they've been trying to make a monopoly movie And like Ridley Scott was going to direct it at one point. What? Yeah. Is that? Yeah, that's why he made that Getty movie instead. It's like a can't make I'll just take the script for the monopoly movie instead of being rich, Uncle Pennybags. It'll be Jay Paul. Getty. Yeah. Okay. Well, here's our other letter for the episode. It is from first name with held craft, like the Mac and cheese.

Dear flop house, on a girl's getaway, I met a woman who I nicknamed Gone Girl due to her exceptional resemblance to Rosamond Pike. Because she had fake drone death and gone on the run under the assumed identity. Upon telling my husband about this, he asked, did she cut a dude's dig off to my jaw dropped as I realized my husband was following the mistaken footsteps of Stuart Wellington. I suggested what he was thinking of the scene and gone girl wear in spoiler alert, Neil Patrick Harris gets his throat slit, and we also happen to see his ding-dong. This meat leaves me to believe there exists a phenomenon

where presented with a scene that includes ding-dongs along with blood or gore, men will form a false memory of violentry and acted upon said ding-dong. A ding-dong-della effect, if you will. But we won't research paper and peer review forthcoming. I think you've already been asked about false memories of movies. So as an artist tired of being asked about NFT, I'll ask, what will the flop house release as its first NFT? Wow, I thought, do you have enhanced and would receive the majority of my iron, but now it's going to be NF fucking tees.

I think we're all on the same page of not wanting to ever be involved with NFTs, right? Yeah, I want everything to be as fungible as possible. I was going to say the same thing. I think all my tones need to be fungible. I have a real issue with how, and maybe this is me being a Philistine, I don't know. I feel like I have an appreciation of art that people are like, this is the art of the future. And it's like really like a shitty cartoon of a monkey smoking a doobie is like like that's the art of the future Like I've yet to see an NFT that was not just like a piece of crap

So and It's a number of others have seen on the fact on top of the fact that it's bad for the environment like I'd rather not get involved Or the number of artists I've seen who have had to take down their public art pages because they keep getting notified that some ass wipe is turning their artwork into NFTs. Yeah. It's weird how- It's the worst. The promise of blockchain based technologies

was supposed to be right that like, you'd always have a chain of authorship. So you wouldn't need to keep a ledger and you wouldn't have things stolen. But all I hear about is people getting their bitcoins and their art stolen. So I don't, I don't like actually throwing them away.'t, it seems like. I was like, I was only throwing them away.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's one of those things where the government builds a dam to provide water and it makes the river dry up. And they're like, what do we got to bring in water from another river? It seems like it's, so I guess our RNFT would probably be like, probably the house cat with someone like that. Yeah, it would be a really cool house cat drawing like

roller skating or whatever. Dan, you've got a real collector's impulse. Have you ever felt the urge to jump into the NFT market and collect links to images that you supposedly go? I have not. I will admit that my collectors, impulse usually extends mostly to tangible things, things that I can touch and have. So anyway, I just every time I see a thing where it's like new NFTs dropping, NFTs dropping, that's always like, okay, here's like a skull with a Nazi hat on.

I don't really, and it's drawn poorly. Like I don't need that. This is not a thing I want to spend any money, little on thousands of dollars on. Wow. You guys mentioned the thing about sex workers and NFTs before. I mean, we haven't talked about on the show. Well, basically if sex workers aren't taking

at his payment, it's not legitimate enough for me. Yeah, and I think that's fair, yeah. But would you, Dan, would you buy NFT pornography? Just so I could know that I was the only one getting around. To this particular image. Now you have a point. I guess there's something special about that.

I mean, I have yet to see. The ultimate heat inism. No one has been able to explain to me how NFTs are different than Pogs, which 30 years ago, people just shoved whatever picture they could find onto a Pog and sold it. People were buying a lot of money. But there are the Pogs of the 22nd century.

The 22nd century. Yeah, I'm putting us ahead. Wow, amazing. We're that much closer to the duck dutch, who's errors, errors, that's great. But yeah, so that's what you quote me on it. NFT is the Pogs of the 22nd century, I guess. I guess quote, Dan on it, but I would say 21st century.

But you know what? It's the future, I guess, I guess, quote, Dan on it, but I would say 21st century. But you know, the future, I get it. Yeah, I know you don't want, I know you don't want this picture of spawn, but what if we put it on a cardboard disc? Yeah, give it to me. I want it. A pog definitely. I'll take it. And remember, I remember as a kid buying pogs and being like, I guess I'm supposed to buy these now.

Yeah, I kind of feel the way I felt about pugs, I kind of feel about Funko pop stuff. And I know that kind of makes me a little grumpus, but like it's the same sort of thing where I'm like, I don't need this in my life. I don't need a little statue. No. Well, I have so many ways to enjoy the things

that I like that I don't need I don't need to own every single way of enjoying the thing. Yeah, I think that that's, you know, if that's your thing, and you've made a commitment to like, this will be my thing. Like, that's one that I can understand being like, oh, I enjoy this character. I'll have it in like an action figure form. But as, yeah, as a man in his fourth decade of life who has acquired a bunch of like bullshit, like, I don't need to. I bet there's something I, I, I, I, I, I, I really admire like and, and some ways envy that sort of, that's kind of, it's like a, it's a, it's a very straightforward way of interacting

with the world. We're like, stuff I want, put on my shelf, done. Like it's, and I wish that I, I wish that I can interact with the world that straightforwardly sometimes. But I guess, you know what? It reminds me a little bit of a, of a, my feelings about like Star Wars burlesque shows where it's like, look, I love Star Wars.

I love women taking their clothes off. I've never felt the need to combine these two pleasures. Like I don't feel like one is not like one is not reinforcing or heightening the other by bringing them together. You don't feel like they were both creating the confusion of the two flavors. Yeah, exactly. I'm not saying, I don't need to bring sexual arousal

and like, I love these aliens. It's a thing that alien looks neat into the same moment, you know. It's not a vent diagram that I need to believe in, I guess. You made a good point that it didn't occur to me that maybe NFTs are collectibles that you don't need to have the space for. Oh, I think that's a big part of it. It's a big part of it.

Well, there's a, I was reading a thing where they're talking about, we're getting way into it, it mourns to NFTs than we probably need to do. That like a, where do you think we're talking about the idea that this was somebody trying to push NFTs as a positive, saying on the, in the physical world, there are many ways

to show your status, your shoes, your car, your clothes, your house. But in the digital world, it's unlimited resources essentially. So there's no way to show your status off, but with NFTs and their artificial scarcity, you can finally show people online how cool you are, and how much money you are by wasting it.

And it's like, I don't know, that doesn't seem like a negative more than a positive deal. Not by your picture on the top of a mountain from your dating app. Yep. Sure. We're planning our dating profile where she goes to the top of a mountain to get a picture taken under bio. It would say no nerds do not apply.

The idea like the the internet was sold to us is like, here's a world where anyone can be whatever they want to be. And we're all equal. Psych. Sometimes we buy stupid ugly pictures. It shows that we have all equal. Psych. Sometimes we buy stupid ugly pictures. It shows that we have more money. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's what's that what's that fucking movie ready player one? It's that kind of shit. Yeah. When is player two finally going to get their chance? I think they've made

a move. They made that book and by then author. Well, what about player three? I assume it's the old X-Men arcade game where like six people could play at the same time. I thought it was four like the Ninja Turtles game. Oh, possible. Dan, which one is it? Well, I mean, but then you wouldn't have to await. It's a cooperative. That's true. You get to cooperative game, you can all play at the same time.

Oh, wow. Our theories are falling apart like a house of cards. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe NFTs are great. Okay, let's move on to the next segment. The next segment is recommendations, movies, that we like. Do you think, let's do on to the next segment. The next segment is recommendations, movies, that we liked. Do you think they, what is it?

Do you think they name the showhouse cards, predicting that Kevin Spacey was gonna get called out so that it would follow up our like it's name? Yeah. Yeah. Probably. Yeah, I think that's probably what happened. Huh, file that away with the bobcat's theory

Recommendations movies that we liked that we saw recently or you know, you know, you have to see it recently Just something you can recommend I saw Thanks for listening the rules a little bit Judge Dan Sad Tyoff I Saw I'm going to take my sad tie off. I saw at probably the last possible moment that I as a triple vaccinated guy felt comfortable seeing something in the theater before he's sort of quarantining again. I saw Nightmare Alley, which I mentioned earlier in the episode and that was a little bit, that was an Easter egg for people who waited till the end of the episode.

Yeah, it had the misfortune to be a movie released during a Amacron that was not Spider-Man and thus people have not been seeing it and I, I wouldn't recommend you risking your life I wouldn't recommend you risking your life to go out right now. But I did enjoy it, Nightmare Alley. Garemele del Toro doing a film without a supernatural element, but still sort of harrowing its own way, a remake. Well, not a remake of a film so much as it's another adaptation of the novel Nightmare Alley. A noir story about a man who works in a circus site show and a lot of noiry things that follow from there. It is a little too glossy for the genre, I would say. Like the Guillermo Dertoro has his sort of thing where like,

it all looks very beautiful. It all looks like sort of painted covers to a pulp novel. And with the CD story, it kind of keeps you at a distance. It's like, it's a little too polished, but it is still really great. The performers are all good in it. I particularly, I think, liked Willem DeFoe as a sort of totally immoral carny. And if you like this kind of thing, it was a lot of fun. Sometimes,

You know if you like this kind of thing it it was a lot of fun sometimes You know, I had the fear that it would feel too much like he was just playing in a genre Rather than like deeply feeling it it only had a little bit of that it was it was it was a good fun Movie nightmare alley charlotte you got one. I got one I recently saw a little movie called How Sada Guchi. Oh. And I'm not making fun of Italian accents. I'm making fun of actors portraying Italian accents.

It was a based on a true story about a couple. I'm like, now I can remember the plot of music. I remember it too well. You can just say what you liked about it. Yeah, just say that you liked it. You don't have to do a whole episode of it. Oh good. I loved the outfits in the hair. I loved the two actors

portraying Al Pacino. Al Pacino and Jared Leto. And I thought Lady Gaga did an amazing job. Was that an authentic Italian accent? No. Was it the exact accent that I needed it to be? Yes, it was perfect. And go go see it or if you're not going, then, well, I guess not available yet, right? I don't probably be available to one. It'll be available soon, I'm sure. So yeah, I I thought it was hilarious. And probably I didn't feel about it the way the makers of the film wanted me to feel about it, but I really enjoyed it. Hmm.

I was so good. Okay. I'm going to recommend a movie that I saw as a screener. I don't know if it's available for watching anywhere. It's a movie called The Worst Person in the World. It's a Norwegian movie about a millennial woman and it just kind of follows her for a couple of years of her life and mainly focuses on a relationship, a key relationship she has. And the movie manages to like perfectly capture a lot of my feelings about getting older, about relationships, about art, about nostalgia.

And it's this beautiful, relatable, funny, sad movie that just fucking wrecked me. So if you get a chance, you should totally check out the worst person in the world. And that's also a callbacked earlier in the show because there's a lot of talk about a cartoon character named Bobcat and how he's been neutered by removing his butthole. So if you get a chance, check out worst person in the world.

It's great. A movie is butthole. Yeah, it's about an underground cartoon character who basically gets disneyfied. And I would say the least believable thing about the movie is about how clean and nice the apartment of a 40 year old underground cartoonist's apartment is.

All right, so it's a metaphorical neutering. Yeah, metaphorical. Because you don't neuter a cat by removing its butthole. That would you don't? Oh, don't remove a cat's butthole. This would explain the lawsuits against my vet office. As an owner of cats, they are very proud of their buttholes. I would be really upset that they'll remove.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a reason they're they added them to catch the movie. Yeah. Elliot, you're the last one. Take us home. Finally, the last one, I'm going to recommend a movie that I think Dan is going to love based on the title, but which the title is a little misleading.

This is a British television play from the 60s called The Year of the Sex Olympics, which is set in the future when it's kind of a very 1984 type story. There's two types of people in society. There's high drives who are allowed to have careers and have sex and enjoy the good life and low drives, which are the massive people who are kept from overpopulating through television control. Basically, they realize that if you air things

on television for them to watch, it takes away the motivation to actually do it. So they're running something called the sex Olympics, which is this campaign that is involved a show called Sports Sex and a show called Art Sex, which are meant for people to watch it and then not do it, basically, in order to keep the population down. And one of the people involved in the programming, he starts to doubt the situation that he's in, and he wants to escape from this world. So he agrees to be the star of a new show called the live life show, where the live life show, the live life show, where he and his family are going to go live on a windswept aisle, kind of, as people did hundreds of years before this society came about. And a lot of people

talk about how it basically predicted reality television in a lot of ways, but even beyond that, I thought it did a really good job of kind of interrogating why we watch stories to begin with. There's this idea in it that you end the characters speaking this very futile language where they're missing words where it's half futuristic and half caveman. But basically like you see an emotion, you feel the emotion, but you don't feel the bad parts of the emotion and you laugh and feel better.

And kind of the idea that, and it kind of digs into the idea for me about how even we're watching fictional characters, we are getting a sort of pleasure from watching them go through bad things partly through the relief of us not being the one going through it, but we were able to, if I seriously feel those emotions. And in the movie, they're asking kind of what responsibility

do people have for each other, but it made me think about what responsibility do we have to our characters and stories that we're telling, not to be cavalier with them, things like that. But it's, unfortunately, it was originally broadcast in color, but all that exists is a black and white version of it, but it still looks really neat, and I thought it was really good. It's available on YouTube and it's unfortunately, it was originally broadcast in color, but all that exists is a black and white version of it, but it still looks really neat and I thought it was really good. It's available on YouTube in its entirety, but I think it's also on DVD. And a very young Brian Cox is in it as the kind of meanest and

jerkyest of the programmers of these TV programs. But the other performers were all real good. It's written by Nigel Neal, who's best known for stuff like the Stone Tape, kind of like supernatural stories that were on British television. This is not supernatural, but you know, it's a 1984 dystopia type thing and I thought it was really good. It's called The Gear of the Sex Olympics.

Ask for it, my name at your local sex Olympics store. Sounds great. Sounds like you made it up, Ellen. I feel like I'd be embarrassed to ask for it, my name. Well, this was a blast. We talked about a heavy movie that was not very much fun, but I had fun getting to talk to you guys about it. I know it's the day after Christmas, so that's a holiday that Dan and I celebrate. Ellie and Charlene being Jewish. I know that is, and I as big of a deal for you. I'm not a big deal at all in this house.

that is and as big of a deal for you. I'm not a big deal at all. You're dealing with this house. I'm Jewish, so I'm only, I only celebrate half on Christmas. My day yesterday was a frantic search for things to do when it was one of our rare reinsrooms in LA and nothing was open anywhere. So even like the Chinese restaurants have started closing on Christmas, this is not a tenable situation, everybody. There is nobody we are going to make dinner on Christmas.

We're gonna have Chinese food. We gotta find it. So I'm sorry that the birth of my Messiah put you out, Elliot. It is a huge inconvenience. And I gotta believe that when God said it all up, He was like, Teehee, let's see Elliot deal with this one in 2000 years. But I hope you guys did have a Merry Christmas.

Thank you. Thank you. I hope you will have a better day. Yeah. No, I am trying to think of a, being Jewish, of course, I had a Murray Christmas, Murray Christmas being an account on the Upper East Side. Oh, that sounds really fun. Borscht belt joke.

We'd like to... But I'm not going to get into my modern law material. Go over to maximumfund.org and check out all the great podcasts there. Stuart, you have something you want to say? Yeah, Shar, do you have anything you want to, Sharlene? Thank you for being our guest. You've been lovely. Oh, thank you.

I'm glad that we gave you an opportunity to vent some of your Evan Hansen issues. I feel so much better now that I've gotten that out. Do you have anything you'd like to plug? Oh, so many things to plug. We got Minnie's bar, which was closed for a few days due to, you know, COVID safety, COVID safety. and we'll reopen tomorrow. That's in sunset park. We got hinterlands, which is open and we'll all be open for New Year's.

You know, hopefully, I think we will. And my podcast, I know the owner, will be coming back next year. So look out for that. And that's a podcast where bar people talk bar stuff. Yes, bar people talk bar stuff. And I'll be getting some new guests at the Leroydy will ensue. That sounds great.

And also thanks to Alex Smith for producing this podcast. Yeah. Thank you, Alex. Thank you for the flop. I've been seeing. Well, I appreciate it. I don't I don't like doing it. Okay.

Well, yeah. And for the flop, I've been Dan McCoy. And I'm Ellie Kaelin and joining us has been Charlene Wellington. Bye. Hi. And joining us has been Charlene Wellington. Bye. Bye. Hi. What's the best cinnamon is his first and favorite love?

Oh man, he's crazy about that shit. He just loves it. He's a real cinnamon. Hey, I have this cinnamon farm that is going to be paying for my retirement. I guess I'll leave David Kaelin to watch over it. Oh no! Jade, all the cinnamon. What's all going on?

I just, I finally hired a security guard for my cinnamon vault. I mean, that would be very impressive if he killed like a cinnamon is hard to eat large quantities. I mean, particularly on a farm. Well, that's the thing is he takes a little bit at a time so you don't notice it's going until it's too late. Yeah. Okay.

It's not like a one night cinnamon binge. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like a local cereal in the As. Yes, a swarm of tiny David Key. Swarm over the cinnamon fields. Yeah, that's one of the plagues, right? One of the biblical plagues. Gentlemen, gentlemen, ladies, my fellow Americans,

we face a dire toast crunch emergency. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artists-owned, audience supported. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned, audience supported.