The Flop House - Ep. #369 - Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

The Carnage that was teased at the end of Venom has arrived, albeit with much straighter, non-Ronald McDonald looking hair on Woody Harrelson's head. Cowards. But that's the ONLY part of Venom: Let There Be Carnage that's less goofy than the first one. Hear us dissect this movie like a symbiote eating a human head.Also, while Max Fun Drive is officially over, there's a weekend amnesty where you can get all the listener thank-yous and such. So this is officially-unofficially our last drive episode. If you can't afford it right now, that's totally fine -- this message is not for you. But if you enjoy the show, and you have the means, consider supporting this podcast and a whole network of great artists over at maximumfun.org/join.Wikipedia entry for Venom: Let There Be CarnageMovies recommended in this episodeWe're All Going to the World's FairThe NorthmanAn American Tragedy

On this episode we discuss, VINOM, Let There Be Carnage. The movie that posits that Woody Harrelson was a teenager in 1996, even though he was starring in the People vs Larry Flint in 1996. Should a teenager make a Larry Flint movie? I don't think so, Venom Let There Be Carnage. Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house. I am Dan McCoy. Hey, it's me. Stuart Wellington. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. I don't have a can. So Ellie Kayler has to provide his own sound effects.

I like to point out like, so this is, you know, this is like the old stew bit of crack and open a beer. That's right. For recording. But now that I stale, new fits to, it's actually a waterloo black cherry sparkling water that he took out of my fridge. Yeah, and it's a man I like it. Sparkling water that defeated Napoleon. Yeah, the bubbles just going down my throat. It's delicious. Well, that's how it works.

Is that, are you, are you filling up with bubbles because it's a special time of year? Mm-hmm. Uh, it's a very special time of year. That's right. I want to quickly mention that this episode is being released on the final weekend of the Max Fund Drive 2022. This is the one time of year when we ask you to support our show and we are going to give out all kinds of cool gifts if you do. If you haven't become a member yet and you're listening to this episode on the weekend

of release, stop the damn episode and go over to maximumfund.org slash join to support our show and have access to a bunch of cool stuff. There you go. Mm-hmm. Now to get back to this whole Waterloo thing. Okay. Do you think I'm drinking Waterloo because my last name is Wellington and Wellington was it waterloo? No. I think that has to be it. Yeah. That's the champion of waterloo. That's his official title, Jamie,

beautiful waterloo. Now, do you think that that would classify as an easter egg for this episode? Well, you pointed it out. So it's, I mean, I think that an essential part of the audience is supposed to pick up on it. I mean, to be honest, to be honest, to be honest, and that's kind of how Easter eggs work nowadays. It has to be so obvious that everyone in the audience gets it. I mean, it's like, it's like I'm treating the audience like they're a little baby at an Easter egg hunt, and I'm pointing at the egg so I don't have to endure hours of them not fighting, yelling over here, baby. Get over your baby. Yes, you look cute in that dress That's what that's what scorpion says when he's an Easter a gra a sort of egg hunt to he goes get over here

It's our glitching like my old copy of mortal come would have been better if I had an stumble of my words a hundred thousand times Wow That was a lot of times to stumble we barely have a lotumbles in the, so what do we do on this here podcast? Oh, well, guys, this is a, Well, Topeca is a city in Kansas and people have a lot of opinions about it. And we're here to provide a forum for their opinions pro or con about the city of Topeca.

Yeah. And it's famous bodega. Yeah, maybe we'll get back to our mission statement later on, but for now, this is also a podcast where we watch a movie that was either a critical or commercial flop and talk about it. This movie was sort of on the like it was successful. It was on the verge critically. It was more of like kind of mid-loering reviews. I would say some people thought, eh, not bad. And some people really didn't care for it. Where we need to find out later.

If you go over to our old pal's, if you go over to our pal rotten tomatoes, you'll see that it had a significantly better score than its predecessor, although I don't know if it necessarily deserves that, but we'll see. Yeah. I'm interested in interesting debate prompt that I think we will have some exciting opinions about. And everybody, I am not having a stroke, I'm having trouble talking because I woke up very early today, thanks to my younger child,

and I'm already all sweetly wittle baby now. I'm so tired. And I'm not. And I was about 1 p.m. Also peed in the same fountain, which was hard on us, because we live on different coasts, but you know, we sort of, and we add hard ons, yeah, which makes it even hard

and hard to pee, very painful. Yeah, really? Well, that's what that's what how we're able to pee in the same fountain, even though our different coast because like the difficulty increased the the power of the stream more. More people start into our symbiotic relationship to get an extra burst of strength much like in the movie, Venom, let there be carnage directed by Andy Circus. You're like to hero an anime who just really believes himself and then defeats the enemy. It's been training for 10,000 years. Well what happened was I really needed to pee, but I couldn't get the right distance to

hit the urinal all the way where Dan was. And then I saw that the urinal was threatening one of my loved ones. And so it gave me a burst of berserker fury, berserker strength that got my pee all the way there. Now, as always, I don't want that's what they call me. That's what they call me. Wolver peen because at any point, I might go into a berserker peeing frenzy. I do call you that. I think this is the second drive episode where I've said, you know, like, oh, I don't want to stop all the pee talk, but I did want to do a side note, which is Elliott mentioned Andy circus, of course, the actor best known for his

career. Creature family circus motion capture performances here directing. Generally beloved in these parts. Yeah, the credits for this movie was the first time that Audrey discovered that his name was not spelled like family circus. She was, it was a real paradigm shift. Yeah, must have been rough. Yeah, I mean, his name is spelled the way that the word circus probably should be spelled. Yeah, it's a more accurate, phonetic, yeah, yeah, spelling. Yeah. Anyway, but that's not the way words work a lot of the time. But anyway,

so Andy circus, I'll say this right. I'm a huge fan of his, I'm a huge fan of his motion capture performances. And also his non-motion capture performances. I don't know that he is the most interesting director. He's the last one because he did like something was it for Netflix or whatever. It was a moglie or. Oh, right, right, right, right. When he did a movie, he did a movie called Breathe,

which I have not seen. And then he also did a, yeah, moglie legend of the jungle, which I have also not seen. But for this movie, he is a very workable director, I would say, except for the motion capture, carnage performing, I thought looked really cool, but the battle scenes are hard to keep track of.

We're very hectic and real mess, but we'll get to that part. And considering carnage has an arsenal of powers that he doesn't really have in the comics either, I was always like, oh, we can do that too, I guess. All right, that's a new thing, but okay, let's get into it. So for people who, we have our live episode of them

that we did a long time ago, you might wanna go and listen to that right now, Pause. I'll let you listen to that episode. Okay. Can we come back? That was a funny episode. Anyway, we're back. Let's talk about the sequel. Venom let there be carnage. The movie does not begin with our titular venom. It instead begins with the man who become the titular let there be. It's 1996 at the St. Estes Reform School. And Cletus Cassidy is a teenage inmate. He's making a little string engagement ring for his girlfriend, Francis, who's another inmate. And she says, Oh, no, because of my superpowers, they're going to take me away because I have superpowers

now. And the authorities come together. She tries to escape by using her powerful screaming powers. She's like, Banshee of the X-Men or Siren of X-Force. Or Shriek, the character that she is actually in Marvel characters. Well, it's weird to say she has screaming powers like Shriek, which is herself. A bit like saying, what's plastic man's powers? Well, he's got powers like plastic man. Yeah, I mean, she has her own woman,

is what I'm saying. I don't think we need to compare. No, but when you're trying to give someone idea of a character, they may not be aware of it. Oh, that's true. You compare them to other characters. It's a bit like why you don't know what a dictionary and it says be aware of. That's true. You compare them to other characters. It's a bit like, it's like why you don't open a dictionary and it says,

machine, noun, a machine. Like great, that's not helpful. Let's just say we both make a point. Now a bird's very much like a penguin. In fact, exactly like. So anyway, the authority is not too tough. Now I do have to point out, it might be a little weird for you, but clearest Cassidy here is played by a teenager,

but he has a voice of Woody Harrelson, which is strange for me. Yeah. It's such a, it's such a funny choice that they are, the movie is really running with the idea that Woody Harrelson is in his 40s now as opposed to entering his 60s. Yeah. Because they try to young them up a little bit. They put his mouth in a teenager's. And as it's, I recorded a couple different intros for this episode.

So I don't know what the one Alex used, but one of them I point out that in 1996 Woody Harrelson had already been on cheers for years, cheers for years, also name of his memoir at the time. And was, and was the star of the people versus Larry Flint and had already been in like, white men can't jump and things like that, right? So like, and the cowboy way I think. So by this point, 1996, Woody Harrelson was already a movie star. He was not a teenager. So it seems weird. Why didn't they just push it movie star. He was not a teenager. Yeah. So it seems weird. Why didn't they just push it back to when he was actually a teenager? Well, they seem to be trying to match his age to that of Miami Harris, who plays a shriek

or whoever for, I don't remember her character's name, but like, and also similar to the age of Tom Hardy who's playing. Yeah. So what they're doing is they're solving the frequent problem of mismatched ages, like an older actor and a younger actress by just lying about the age of the actor rather than changing it to make it age appropriate. Now does having him wear a red wig make his face look younger? No.

I am disappointed. I gotta say that they're not. He's not wearing the goofy ass right. Crazy. From the first movie when we saw him. Well, the first movie he's wearing hair that looks like the character from the comics, the character in the comics Lee to cut Lee's Cassidy has a huge curly mop of hair. And so they did that in the, in the first movie in the show at the end. And in this one, I think they realized he would look ridiculous. Like Ronald the guy with the whole movie. Yeah. Like, Carrot tops uncle who

lives in a van or something like that. Like, you know, you don't want that. So anyway, she uses her screen powers much like the character Shriek you're familiar with. And we got a shot, a close up of the police officer who's escorting her name tag because that's a hint that that's going to be an important character later. And he, but the cop shoots her and she has taken away to Ravencroft asylum, which is a location from the comics. Let's go. Now, before we go to the present day, do you guys have any associations beforehand with the character carnage? I'm curious about this. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the issue where the symbiote came and broke Eddie Brock out of prison and squirted out a little baby symbiote.

And you're like, that's going to be a little, there's like a little teaser there. And then I remember, I feel like I remember reading the first arc, the first carnage arc where it was like a three-parter carnage comes out. Mark Bagley, the dancer got the answer to the art. Yeah, Mark Bagley is drawing David McLean. He was the author, writer, still the time. And Spider-Man, he's like, I can't defeat Carnage on my own. And Venom at this point believes he has killed Spider-Man and is living alone on a jungle

island by himself. And perfect peace because he killed Spider-Man. And Spider-Man shows up with the human torch because the human torch can help him fight Venom. And says Venom, I need your help. Why do the human torch doesn't help Spider-Man fight carnage? Cause he's not as popular. People love venom.

And I would say, when I was, I was, this was right around the time I was really getting into comics. And I loved venom. Venom was a character, really thought was amazing. And carnage, I never really cared for, cause it was like they were thought, they've said,

venom's so popular, we need to make them into a hero. So we'll bring in an even worse Venom. And he'll be like a tackling crazy serial killer. Yeah, I don't remember the timeline, but this might have been around the time natural born killers came out. And like he's very similar to Woody Harrelson's character in that movie. So he doesn't have much of a personality beyond being like just a psycho serial killer. And I never found it interesting.

But then saw me from buying all 14 parts of the maximum carnage storyline. Well, that was the thing. Like after that initial introduction, I was like, this character is not for me. I am uninterested. And then, but then since then he became much more popular, had a whole arc.

And then there were many other Venom symbiote characters, right? Yes. And other people have worn the carnage symbiote. And Carnot Clev's Cassie's gone on to have more adventures and his own books. There was a, there was a series, I think Jerry Conway wrote. There was a horror series where some people are trying to track down carnage and stop him, which was really before you can get a hold of the book of the dark hold and open up some kind of mystic portal or whatever. Seems great. It was a really good series.

It was actually really good. But so you're dealing with characters who, in the comics, and this was kind of the problem I have with the first Venom, they are defined by the relationship with Spider-Man. Spider-Man is the greatest guy who ever lived. Venom is a guy who thinks he is a hero, but is a psychotic killer. And Carnage is a psychotic killer who knows the psychotic killer and revels in it. And so they're all on this sliding scale of morality. And that it feels like that was kind of thrown off for me in this movie when you don't have the Spider-Man

character to anchor it. You just have Venom who is a monster attached to a loser. And Carnage who is a psycho monster, a psycho killer. I got like this is this is why I find the Sony corner of the Marvel universe so baffling because they are building this, you know, Spider-Man without Spider-Man zone for themselves. But they're all, yeah, these villainous characters. And look, I like a good anti-hero, but not really in this type of movie. Like, I don't know. Like, this movie, these sorts of movies traffic in such broad strokes that then making our hero

someone who occasionally bites people's heads off, bugs me in a way that like, if it was a little bit more of a serious movie, I could get on board with, okay, like this is a complex character, you know? Yeah, well, and this movie, it feels very like flat ideologically and morally and character wise in the way that 80s action movies were and like early 90s action movies. Yeah.

So this movie gives off, and in some ways that could be good, but this one, it felt like it gave off an antiquated vibe to me. And also the plot is incredibly linear. Like there's no, there's no twist in it., but this one, it felt like it gave off an antiquated vibe to me. And also the plot is incredibly linear. Like there's no, there's no twist in it. It's exactly the, it feels like this is a movie that was a direct video sequel, but with a bigger budget. Anyway, we'll keep going.

Present day. Shriek is still in her soundproof cell. You remember her, she's kind of like Shriek. And the mean lady in charge of the asylum, Ravencroft, she gives her newspaper with an article by Eddie Brock about clearest saying he's a convicted serial killer and now played by Woody Harrelson. The title, the headline doesn't say convicted serial killer now played by Woody Harrelson, which is as like clearest Cassie can be. We've said clearest several times and I have to say that being unfamiliar with carnage,

I didn't give my history because like there wasn't any, I don't have history with the character carnage. We can unfamiliar. Like the first time someone said Cleed is in the movie. I said, they say Cleed is. Yeah. And that's that's also part of the part of the like this is a not a well put together character originally like Cleed.

They gave them the name Cleed is Cassie because he's supposed to be like a southern hillbilly like kind of ignorant freak killer. Like he's supposed to be like a deliverance type white trash killer. A slack job, if you will. Yeah. Exactly. Which is kind of weird that he shared a prison cell with Eddie Brock, right? Well, they were both on track. I mean, they both had been, I don't remember if Eddie had been convicted, but like they're both murderers. You know, that's true. I don't know why Cletus was in a New York area jail cell. That's a good question. But who know, you committed the crime somewhere.

But they, in the eyes of the law, Venom is just as, is many ways just as bad, even though Venom thinks he's a hero. He kills people left and right. Wait, hold on, back up. So in the comics, they shared a jail cell or do they have like, how do they know each other in this world? Because I like the movie does not make it very clear. I don't think. No, that's not in the in the in the comics. So in the comics Eddie Brock and Cleetus, there's a period where Eddie lost his venom symbiote. And the two and he and Cleetus Cassie are in a jail cell together.

Eddie Brock, if he had this symbiote would of course be at the vault, the Marvel super prison later superseded by the raft and then by that weird prison in the negative zone. Uh, that I guess they were running without an islas knowing it was there because I don't think you'd be that into it. But anyway, he's the ruler of the negative zone, of course. Yeah. And all the stars living bombers. And it's hard to work.

But I asked. But so Eddie Brock and Clees Cassie were sellmates. The Venom symbiote came and came back to Eddie and he broke out of jail and left behind a little piece of himself. I don't know why Clees didn't escape at that moment too, but apparently he hung around in the jail cell and waited for a later date to escape. But so here, so they know each other in the comics and they hate each other.

They never liked each other. They didn't like each other's summits. Klee just first introduced complaining that Eddie is making too much noise by doing clap pushups. He's pushups really like push yourself up and clap and then landing in. I can only do like one or two of those. They really have. noise by doing clap pushups, pushups really like push yourself up and clap and landing in.

I can only do like one or two of those. They really are. Yeah, I do about two and then I fall over and I die. But Eddie could do a lot of those to be super strong. Even without a symbiote, it's crazy. Yeah, and so they don't like each other. But here, Cleetus Cassidy feels this connection to Eddie, even before they both have symbiotes, that is, yeah, it's never really made entirely clear why.

So let's explain that. So Clea, does he demands to be interviewed by Eddie? And Eddie is struggling to control the Venom symbiate. Clea, this isn't jail. He's on death row. He wants at San Quentin. He wants to be interviewed by Eddie. And Eddie is like always arguing with the Venom symbiate, which lives in his body most

of time. And Venom is mad that Eddie screwed things up with his girlfriend. And in the first movie, and left him for that doctor. And Eddie and Venom argue a lot. And Venom makes a lot of like modern culture references and a lot of off-color swearing remarks. And he's basically like, it's basically Alph. He's basically a violent version of Alph. He's alien who lives in the guy's house. He has to hide. He's an alien life. And then he'll say thing and he'll be like, I have these two pet chickens. Their names are sunny and share. And it's like, come on dude. Like he's, he's a pop culture love an alien. Like he's elf. He eats weird things. He's elf. He can't show them to the

neighbors. He's elf. Like, yeah, this explanation is, is, is, is confirming for me why this is the part of the movie by far that I enjoyed the most. Like, all of like- Because I give Alph was a monster. Yeah, all of the wacky monster sharing not only an apartment, but a body stuff in the movie is the stuff that I like the most. And as soon as the movie starts remembering that it has a plot, I'm like, I'm checking out of this thing.

Well, I thought I would feel that way. But so clearly the first movie, and I think Stuart was was was a was hitting this. The first movie is a relatively straightforward movie. But there's a little every now and then Tom Hardy goes a little nuts and it's a little funny. And clearly that's what. Yeah, exactly. That's it. I'm mad. You're mad. Raw mad here. That's and clearly that's what audiences reacted exactly. That's it. I'm mad. You're mad. Raw mad here. That's and clearly that's what audiences reacted to and responded to in the first movie. And so they said, let's amp it up.

In the second movie, we'll go in farther. And I think they went too far to the point that Tom Hardy gets a screenwriting credit on this or a story. Oh, I went because I think he really in I mean, Tom already loves this character. It seems like they like Frank Langella andletor, Tom Hardy took this catch that could have been a paycheck and really invested himself in it. And he loves doing both voices. And so by the time that the Venom symbiote is making him a goofy breakfast while singing,

let's call the whole thing off, I was like, this movie has gone a little too far in that direction for me. Well, I also like this one more, baby. There's moments where the, I mean, maybe if this was like a Peter Jackson, went up Peter Jackson's early movies, I'd be like, go for it, go for it. Well, and it's interesting because there's moments when the symbiot takes over Eddie's body

and has some pretty precise control of things. Like, can do some pretty delicate work, but then there's other times where it's like, I'm gonna make breakfast and break every day. It's true that he seems to have a better control over Eddie's body than his own body. Yeah, yeah, strange Well, you know, I mean short time when he went to a clown college. He's doing classical clown. Oh, yeah, yeah Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah, I mean, I know there's times when There's times when your your own body feels like this clumsy apparatus

But when you're bringing pleasure to a lover, suddenly one sink with their body, you understand their body more than their own. And I think that's what this is about. Anyway, Eddie goes to visit Cletus at San Gwen and Cletus is like, if you deliver a message for me, if you get this message out to the world, I'll give you my exclusive life story. And it's one of those things where this deal

doesn't seem to matter because then I'm notices a bunch of creepy carvings and graffiti on the walls of Carnage's cell. He goes back home, uses Eddie's body to redraw all of them and somehow they use those as clues to figure out that Carnage was barely displaying his body as a redondo beach. So Carnage got his message out and he's mad at Eddie for not telling the story, but Eddie never told, like, the deal didn't matter. I also need it. Yeah, I want to back up.

Please, you can't really tell him anything. I want to back up and say number one, I'm not sure what the message, like the message was clearly directed at his, uh, for a trick, some sort of love message, but it, it, it's not really clear what it is or what implication it has, but also like, I object to any, any Brock's ethics here, but like, like, not only putting out the message of a serial killer, but it's the headline of his story, like, I don't know, like, you don't know what he's doing, what, what twisted games he's playing seems like. Yeah, but it's not something you want to give a voice to. No, but Eddie has not something you want to give voice to.

No, but Eddie has always been kind of a, a, a, a, ethically loose reporter, but also like, it's not the first time. Like, I think with son of Sam was writing letters to Jimmy Brezzlin, and they would be on the cover of the newspaper. Like, it's not the first time that we're doing this. But by now, and have communicated. Sure, but that was way back to, like, by now, in journalism history. Before ethics existed. Yeah. I mean, we have, I think, as a culture, tact in the direction of maybe not putting out murderers' messages, like, and those who do so

are looked more down upon in the journalistic world. I don't know if that's true. I think if a serial killer says to you, this is my message to the world, and you run it as the story, serial killer to the world, this, and it's just some cryptic rhyme about a cathedral, then I don't, that feels like it's a story. If a notable person says something,

you report it as they're saying, it's not like Cleedas said, plant a fake story in the paper. He said, I'm saying this thing, put in your paper, and he goes, yeah, sure, you said it. I'll put it in. We've stopped by and large putting like the faces of mass shooters out and like their story and like focusing on that, like with the feeling like too much focus on the murder is a bad thing. And I just think that like is odd that in this day and age, like our

heroes, like, yeah, sure. Yeah, whatever you want to, whatever you want, Mr. Sarah Kelly, I'll put it out for you. I guess he's got luck going on though. You know, he's still heartbroken over Ann and he's also got Venom Buckingham all the time. Which the thing is, like, and he's trying to get back on time.

I mean, you know, I'm not, I'm sharing your body with a symbiote. I guess you never have moments of peace. And Dan, Venom's not a role model. Let's just put that right out. No, no, no, no, no, no. He doesn't, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no It is podcasting. Yeah. The podcast is a story of someone who died and why it should be entertainment to you. I also, but okay. So look, I want to say a few words about Woody. Take this fictional character to task a little more.

No, but I want to take, I want to say a few words about Woody Harrelson's performances this character. Right. Because he's a guy who I think, you know, like 90% of the time in Actri, I enjoy very much. I think he's very good. Here, I feel like he's giving the off the rack serial killer performance, and it's one that bothers me

because always in movies, serial killers are kind of these cryptic masterminds whereas in life, they are sad little men who are trying to... Oh, they're pathetic little men who, you know, are trying to. They're pathetic people with horrible sexual dysfunctions that force them to leave them to murder other people. Like, I remember when I was a teenager, I got really into reading about serial killers

because in the movies, they're always like cool. And I read, what's his name? The guy who kind of helped invent profiling. Like his series of books about cases he had been on. And they all were just, Mr. Mine Hunter. Mr. Mine Hunter. Yeah, it was MI D'Hunter.

And Michael is a belt and hunter. And they were just, they're all sad stories. They're all like, if you look at the story of Edgayne, it's not like, oh wow, cool. It's like, oh, this is this guy who like, yeah, everything about it is tragic and sad. And then anyway, a carnage on the other, Clea is on the other hand, he's a mastermind, he buried all his bodies over it. He's like Lance Hendrickson in Hannibal, when the TV show where Lance Hendrickson has created

a T.P. of body, a totem pole of bodies on the beach. And it's like, how did, I know that like for no reason. And it was so, it was like, it was like, how did this old man do this? How did he like, how did he even get a ladder onto the beach? Ellie, Ellie found out one of the one narrative inconsistencies in the Hannibal television show. Yeah, I thought it was a totally normal killer.

It was specifically that Lance Henrichson, as creepy as he is is is an old man. And so it was like, why did they give the old man the most climbing in the intensive one? He looks like an old man though. I feel like youngest at Lance Hendrixen could ever have played with old man. That's true. That's a good point.

Okay. So they find the bodies. People are so disgusted by how many people clearest killed that he gets the death penalty, which in California has been against the law for many, many years. And Eddie is so famous now that the TV reporters make a point of mentioning him and how Ellie's doing. I'm talking more of them. Talk about inside baseball.

Anyway, Venom and Eddie are you a lot? Venom wants to eat bad guys because to survive, he needs a chemical that's only found in human brains and chocolate. And Eddie is like, no, only chocolate. And sometimes you can eat chickens. And he goes, but I made these two chickens, my pets. And the chickens are never as funny as they should be. So they go down to the bodega we saw from last movie. Mrs. Chan the owner, she knows all about venom. She's like, Hey, Venom, hey, Eddie, she's out of chocolate. So venom just suits up. Just covers up Eddie and jumps around the city. They stop a mugger in classic.

There's a guy ripping a purse out of a woman's hands in an alley and there's no one else around in the city. But Venom won't let him eat him. And Venom is mad. He wants to be the lethal protector. And Eddie thinks that the name lethal protector is lame. And let me say one thing here. This is what really bugged me.

Okay, guys, this is what got me. So lethal protector was of course the subtitle of the first venom miniseries, venom lethal protector. And Eddie goes, it's just so 80s, that series didn't come out in the 80s. That series came out in the early 90s. Come on, everybody. What's going on here? You're being gaslit.

The venom miniseries didn't come out in the 80s. Wake up, sheeple. We're through the looking glass. It came out in the 90s. This is the barren stain bears all over again. If I fall into the ULTRY universe, we're venom first got a miniseries in the 1980s, wake up sheeple, we're through the looking glass. It came out in the 90s. This is the baron stain bears all over again. If I fuck with you in all three universe, we're venom first got a mini series in the 1980s. I don't think so. The character wasn't introduced till the late 80s. Get checked made. I guess you know, take that, Andy Sturkis. Here's the small thing that bothers me about venom. Okay. I know he's a villain at worst, an anti-hero at best.

I don't like all of the property damage he does when he leaps around. When he's jumping around the city, he's ripping walls off of buildings, which is one of these all sorts of like, you're a bad guy, right off the bat. Like even if it's an accident, like when it's, this is your mode of getting around, it's just pulling windows out of, out of wind buildings, things like that. That's crazy. Not going to shingles off. No, no, thanks.

No, no, I was saying that was one of the things I liked about, about venom initially is that he had all the like grace and dexterity of Spider-Man, but he was like super ripped because Eddie Bracken was a super bull. And bulked up. Well, they say he says he goes, he goes, he goes, the stronger I get, the stronger venom gets because you increase my strength exponentially compared to my natural strength. So like, Venn, Eddie Brock would be this living in the sewers pumping huge weights, just enormous weights.

Yeah, this is new with venom. I mean, I'm talking to him stronger. Yeah. Honestly, that's my fantasy. I don't live in the sewer and pump huge weights. Yeah, just hang out in the turtles through you, Jim. Yeah. And I teally have a symbiote that's always talking to me and occasionally deriding me, but ultimately loves me. Yeah. And you're never a little bit. Stewart, I think

that I think this is your new standup bit is that you work out at a gym with an injured turtles and you go, you've heard a gym rat system as an actual rat. Oh, man. Okay. TNT. I took it. Has an actual. Oh man. Okay. TM. Damn. I took it. Wow. You got my work. All right. So Anne gets in touch with with Eddie. He's like, I got something to tell you. Venom's like she wants to get back together. That's great. They meet up for drinks. It turns out she got engaged to Dr. Dan, the normal guy she left Eddie for in the first movie because he makes her feel safe, which understandably Eddie is a loose cannon, even without the symbiote. He's still a mess of a person. Like, he's shambling unshaping.

He's kind of, he is kind of cleaned up though. And the first movie, he just looked like shit the whole time. Yeah. And that's true. And that takes work. Tom Hardy's a good looking dude. Dr. Dan also played by the actor who played Dan on Veepe. So, same character.

Oh, okay. No, it's could be, could be a crossover. Was he a Dr. on Veepe? No, but maybe he went to medical medical school did you identify with him because his name stand where you like something so hard on dad i mean he said ice guys he's uh... he's arguably the nicest character in the in the movie true and he he uh... he steps up later on the movie in a situation that could have easily gone terrible for you yeah oh yeah i mean if anyone is the hero of the movie

putting their life on the line we will find out it is doctor dan like he runs into it could have easily gone terrible for you. Oh yeah. I mean, if anyone is the hero of the movie putting their life on the line, we will find out it is Dr. Dan. Like he runs into a situation that should have meant instant death for him and he provides the critical recovery point for Venom twice during that climactic scene. It's amazing.

He's the hero of the film. They should make a doc sequel called Venom, Dr. Dan. Just him, have an adventure. Being a doctor. And then he becomes so popular, they actually start writing him into the Spider-Man comics. Yeah, he gets his own book, Dr. Dan, Non-Leafel Protector,

he helps people save them. Yeah. Yeah. And so Eddie is sad and Venom's like, you gotta put on your big boy pants. Like, Venom is always saying stuff like that. I don't like it. He's like a walking kind of novelty t-shirt at times

or like, you know, there's something about venom that's very like greeting card that has a mustache and bacon on it. And it's like, this is cool, right? Like, yeah, he's like an inspirational Instagram meme account that just repurposes other people's memes and stuff and shows pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio. We can take off the answer life style goals and shit.

Yeah, that's venom. So the next morning, Venom tries to cheer Eddie up again. He cooks them a huge breakfast and he's singing. Let's call the whole thing off. It's pretty good. And he's making such a mess. Like Dan said, he is so graceless and so clumsy. Well, he's just throwing food around and they get a postcard in the mail inviting Eddie

to watch pleitas' execution. It's postcard from Kledis and he's written so many tiny words all around it that it turns into an entire monologue about through an animated sequence of Kledis' horribly abusive and murderous childhood. Which I love because I said that many letters on that. It reminded me of like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comics. I did like this. This turned into like a little cartoon in the middle of it. Yeah, like this. It was like suddenly we got that sort of liquid television. Yeah.

Suddenly you have sort of liquid television broke out and I that should have in more movies. Yeah. It doesn't have to be just this and Sukiaki western Django that have little animated sequences in them. Come on. There are more movies. Yeah.

So Eddie goes to visit Pledis and Pledetus is very hot and cold with Eddie in this scene. He is both angry at him. One minute he's like, you know, you and me, we're both, we're two sides of the same coin, we're both losers in some way. And then the next he's like, I curse you to be alone forever. Like I wasn't, I mean,

Cletus again is a madman, but it's not consistent. And Venom is so mad at what Cletus is saying about Eddie that he lashes out and Cleetus and Eddie are kind of like grappling through the bars of Cleetus's cell and any bites Eddie's finger. And then he finds a little bit of symbiote in his mouth. Uh-oh.

We know what that means. Something's going to let there be carnage. Now back at home. Yes. See, so I discovered this. I discovered this factoid while trying to puzzle out a later moment in in the movie, which facts and factoids are actually the same thing. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah. Well, actually, factoid originally meant a false fact. So, uh, oh, I didn't

know that. I guess, I mean, I guess this technically counts because it's a fictional world we're living, but I discovered we're living in a fictional world. You know, you know, you must call it random computer truth there. No, I discovered that. Guys, what if this is all just an algorithm in a computer? I don't know, wouldn't change anything. We'd all be doing the exact same stuff.

Yeah, but still, I guess the offspring of these symbiotates are more powerful than the original. For some reason, like that's the way that they work, but it's for the reason of making it harder for Venom to do that. Yeah, I guess so. But it was to me, like watching the movie and like, wait, why? Like, Venom later on is like, oh, this, you know, like it's a more powerful version. You just, oh no, it's a red one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, why biting Venom later on is like, oh, this, you know, like, it's a more powerful version. You just, oh, no, it's a red one. Yeah, you know it for a little bit. Yeah. And like why biting Venom creates a stronger character, we say, thing that the movie

should engage with them confused. Do you just think about it this way? Not at all. Okay. Like, if, if I had to get in a fight with my dad, I would beat the shit. Okay. I got you. So she just like carnage is younger, even though Woody Haralds is older. Yeah.

Yeah. So they should, they should equal out. They should balance out in that way. But it's also in the, in the dressing. Wait, when the person is older because he seems pretty young, he's wearing hip clothes. He drives a hot day. I'm a Harris. Yeah.

Even the hip clothes he wears are like old clothes and he, and his hot car drives a hot day. Miami Harris. Yeah. Even the hip clothes, he wears are like old clothes and he just hot cars. A 66 Mustang. Like it's like they're like, well, it's surrounding with old clothes and old cars to make him look younger. The way that we want him to make Adam West look like a college student by having him beat up middle-aged thugs on the Batman TV show. So the, but you bring up a good point that, so in the comic, the venom symbiote just kind of leaves behind a baby, I guess it was just time to reproduce, but this, yeah, Eddie gets bitten by cleatis

and cleatis is like, oh, that's not blood. My mouth, I know what blood tastes like. What is this? And it's just a new baby symbiote. And the symbiote has a personality, gives itself the name carnage, we'll get to that. And the same way that venom was like, my name is venom, which is goofy.

Like that, these are aliens that have earth names. But anyway, any Venom go back home and they get in a big fight and Venom smashes up the whole place and then leaves. I like the sequence. I like their fight. It's pretty goofy, but other than whenever a movie involves like people, like the joke, trashing of an apartment, I just get really stressed out because I'm like, man, like your place is trash now. Like you got to rebye all that stuff that you lost your deposit.

So he takes his big TV and he takes his big TV and throws out the window. I think the next scene, he has a new TV that he's taking out of the box and it's like, first world problems. Like I can afford a new TV. But if I had, if my TV broke, I wouldn't be able to go out and run out and replace it, right?

It's the same way that I had to stop watching the show modern family because there was one season where three different episodes involved characters getting into car accidents, and it was not a problem. They never seem to worry about how am I gonna find the time to take this car, what am I gonna do for a car while I'm in the shop. What an episode that would be. But like, that, I can't relate to a family that loses a car. And it's

just like, well, get another one from the machine. And they have a car of the tree out back. And they have a full of Vince budget. Every time they have a Halloween party. Yeah. Well, that's it. They're Halloween haunted houses is like a phrase like six flags. Like it's, it's like when Disney decks out for Halloween. Like it's so professional. But anyway, so Eddie jumps on, the venom jumps on to the body of a woman biking away and he just becomes a big middle finger

that he waves at Eddie, which is like, that's the movie in a nutshell. Is the symbiote turning into a big middle finger. Like, so we go to Cassie's execution, Eddie has decided not to attend. The leave of injection drugs, I wasn't sure if they were interacting with the symbiotin system or if they were blocked by the symbiotin system, but he becomes carnage. The symbiot takes over his body or at least is empowering him.

And he rampages through the prison and he shows off all of his powers. He can create like, saws and knives. He can throw darts. A bullet gets shot at him and he creates a hole in his own belly and the bullet goes through it, which is weird because cleatists should be inside that suit. I don't know what happened to cleatists is stomach when that bullet, when the body had a hole in it. You would like some kind of like, like 3D x-ray attack moment where it shows you cleatists

is body inside, like in, uh, well, what I'd like to have happen is what happens in the comics where the symbiote absorbs the bullets and then spits them out Basically like the bullets would hit Venom's body and then they would kind of like Pup-pup fall out as opposed to Venom or carnage creating a hole in their bodies like their Roger rabbit and then closing the whole Like essentially giving Clea to some major hernia and then close it up instantly Which is not how human bodies work anyway, and then but then but that I wasn't worried about that for too long because then Venom starts Carnage, I'm sorry, Carnage starts spinning around so fast he creates a cyclone Which is every one away

Which is ridiculous guys. Okay, what's your true opinions of this that this character? It's a pair. He never uses again By the way, that he can create which is what creates cyclone He must have only had like one use of that ability He needs to take a long rest to recharge that. I mean, I do like the Tasmanian devil, who's basically a cyclone character. I like a rip tide from the Marauders. Yeah, but that's Rip Tide's whole power.

Like that's all it does. He's just constantly doing it. Anytime a character turns into a little whirlwind with like a little tornado, but with a normal head on top, I love that shit. Like a furniture done that and his little head was just poking up and he was like smiling, I would have loved it. The best thing about that is what it's implying is that his head is not moving.

And so his neck is either, his head is either able to turn three or six degrees or his neck is just twisting, twisting, twisting, twisting, twisting. Like when you get on a swing and you turn it, turn it, turn it, turn it, turn it, to put the chains together so you can let go and have it spin around. Yeah. You spin around real fast. That's happening with his neck. Well, what's funny about it is that the, the, the, the artist is like, nobody would know

that this is ripped-eyed or carnage or whatever if, if their head was spinning too. They would just think it's a normal man's eyes whirlwind. So I better put a little head on that. Yeah, exactly. That's what everyone knows. So, Detective Mulligan, he's this detective who's always on Eddie's case, he tells Eddie that Cleetus is escaped. And at the same time, Venom goes to like kind of a costume party rave where we've established that Venom, that the symbiots are hurt by sound and fire.

Apparently the music here where Little Sims, the rapper is performing, the music is apparently so low, maybe there's a neighborhood noise ordinance that it doesn't bother any. It doesn't bother Venom, I'm sorry. And Venom is just walking around. Everyone loves his costume. He takes the mic from Little Sims and gives a speech about tolerance. And the coach loves it. It's amazing. He's like, trans rights are human rights. It's amazing.

I love it. He's got all these like dripping in like glow sticks and shit. Yeah. It's like, of course, black lives matter. Of course they do. And how is that even a question in this century? I'm an alien and I know that. Yeah. But it's this whole scene, it's just like, what kind of party do you think this was? So what was this? Dan, you've been to a lot of costume. It's all. It's all around like seven in the evening. Well, that's the thing. Like, is it around Halloween? I mean, it's a rave, but they're all costumes. I don't know whether it's like, you know, like because of the time of year or whether it's just like, they're like, yeah, you know, costumes. We like to dance, we like costumes.

We like costumes either. They're all different costumes. I mean, there's a lot of skull places. I mean, there's a lot of skull places. Yeah, but it's not like you can be like, oh, anime, fest isn't town. And that's why these people are dressed up like that. Like, they're just very randomly in costumes.

And Venom is the king of this party. They all love him. A lady hits on him, puts her puts her down not very gently. He's like, you're not my type. And then, uh, and then after his speech, uh, he walked into Hollywood and passed from his responses that it asked more questions than it hits. Yes. Yeah. No, I did. That's true. I was wondering. I'm like, okay, but yeah, who is, yeah, who would have been a good boy? Let's, let's pull out a, yeah, let's, let's, let's get his full, uh, star chart. Let's, let's, yeah, let's win a game? Yeah, let's pull out a, yeah, let's, let's get his full star chart.

So, yeah, I mean, let's get on Venom's tender and like help him swipe. No, no, he wouldn't start with Venom. He likes Venom is on, Venom is on Tungder. This is got such a long tongue. He's always whipping it around. Yeah. So, and clearly Anne is his type. He loves Michelle Williams.

He wants to be around all day. Anyway, but Venom is tired. He passes out. These bodies, they're not strong enough to support him, these host bodies. So, and that also means that somebody's just going to wake up feeling sick at a costume rave and be like, how did I get here? I understand. I mean, of the places you could wake up feeling sick, I think a costume grave is not the

strangest. You're not going to spare. You're like, oh, I got to get a columball on the street. Yeah. Whoa. I feel bad. So you say you say you were just riding your bicycle down the street and suddenly it passed out and you woke up at a costume brave. That makes sense. That makes sense. One question, one question, was it a costume rave? It was case closed. You know, Mrs. Glow, would I be the costume rave one? Would I be Venom's type? Yeah. That makes sense.

That makes sense. He's an alien creature that people wear as a costume. He's essentially living jumpsuit. Yeah, yeah, with a long tongue anyway. That makes sense. One more question. What is his name, Venom? Is there a Mrs. Venom?

I mean, kind of. He's opening the door for it. Yeah, or a mystery. Just don't know what it is. So, Cleetus meanwhile, he steals a car and Just don't know what it is. So, clead us meanwhile, he steals a car and he makes a deal with the carnage symbiote. He'll help carnage kill Venom if the carnage helps him get shriek. And then he uses the carnage symbiote just to pick up a truck off the bridge that someone is driving in and throw it off the bridge. And it's like, wait,

huh, come on. That's a little bit too casual of a murder for me. But, you know, what are you gonna do? He's carnage. Meanwhile, Eddie, he's like, oh, let me go through my old notes. Oh, I'll go to the old reform school. And he goes there and he finds a tree with cleatis and frances, his initials carved into it in a heart.

In perhaps the easiest way this information could be discovered. Open check case. Yep. And he calls the detective and he goes, hey, I think I've got something here. Glitos was in love once. Is that anything? And the detective's like, Yeah, but she's dead. I killed her when she tried to escape as a teen. I was the cop who was in the, in the cold open.

Bum bum bum. But she's not dead. We already know that. And now, Glitos knows it because of his infallible method of finding his, his girlfriend thinks might be dead he goes to a bodega he knocks out or kills the guy who works there the guy of course has a laptop open on the counter as we've seen in many bodegas they're always using laptops of their work and he has his carnage symbiote go into the laptop somehow that allows him to hack into raven croft secret files and he finds where where shrie is hidden. Can you please explain to me this scene? Uh, I wish, I wish that carnage had said learning when he did it like a box was it and spy on mechanical jazz, man, you know, it's, it's, uh, okay, then why is, why is this guy

got a laptop open at work? Well, come on. I mean, that's, I mean, maybe he's taking nine-class stuff. Oh, dude, I mean, what is he club. Oh, dude, like, everyone is gonna do well. There's no one in there. I maybe he's on comics. All right. You're reading some of them. Garnish not an important. This is not an important thing to say, but it's it's itching at my brain. I just want to say for half the movie, I thought that the detective, by the way,

was Donnie Walberg and the detective is not is not Donnie. No, no, no, no, the detective is played the way, was Donnie Walberg. And the detective is not, is not Donnie Walberg. No, no. The detective is played by Steven Graham. Yeah, from, who's been, it was in a bunch of like, what's, what's that guy, you know, the lock stock and two smoking barrels guy. Guy Richie. Yeah.

That guy, that literal guy. I'm gonna say guys, he's in the parts that Caribbean movies, the guy Lambert, he also, weirdly enough, just like Tom Hardy, portrait Al Capone in a movie. Well, in a TV show. Stewart, I see you. Yes.

A document open in front of you. In Bordeaux, Empire, which is one of those long movies. You're saying Dan? TV is the new movies. I just see that Stewart has a document in front of him. I wonder whether he's been looking for a chance to launch into it. Well, I'm just trying to explain that just like Eddie and Venom, our show needs our Max Fun members to be the best that it can be to defeat carnage.

Tell me more, tell me more. I want to take a moment while the drive winds down to thank all of our Max Fun members, new, upgrading and long time supporters. You make this show happen. Your money makes the flop house a priority for us and it makes our lives better. It covers our production costs, but mostly it just goes to us living our lives. You know, paying bills. Well, we need it though, but we need it though. Yeah. Well, it pays our bills and you know it, you know, we can afford the occasional little treat.

You want us to have treats, right? Well, that's interesting. This is an interesting tactic. Now, the drive's the time during the year that we push members here. What do you hate treats? Yeah, what's going on here? What's your problem with treats? I don't have a problem with treats.

And because this is the time that we push members here. Will you get a problem with treat? Yeah, we're talking on my man treat Williams from the top treats. Dead heat. And because this is the time of year that we push membership, it also means that we make it a perfect time to get a little bit sappy and thank you for all that you've done for our show. Like to make it a little more clear, Dan is obviously arrogant in this situation.

I'm likeless and that makes Elliot Gimli, okay? And our max fun members are the four hobbits. And like, this is the part where Erragorn leans down and he says, my friends, you bow to no one. And then the projectionist has to stop the movie because I'm crying so violently in the theater that he thinks somebody is dying, okay? So thank you.

But if my thanks is not enough, there's also a ton of great member gifts available. There's hours of bonus content with more on the way for $5 a month member. New and upgrading members at the $10 per month level will receive an embroidered patch for their favorite show ours features that are rassable, a little hooligan, the house cat, burst them out, and there's much more. And for all of you that already support us and might be

feeling a little bit generous, we also offer the option to give a listener a gift membership that includes access to all those cool member gifts. So just head over to maximumfund.org slash join. And we actually have a couple of personal goals that we're going to be checking in in a few days as the drive wraps up. If we receive 1,900 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing a raffle giveaway

of signed maniac of New York comics, or hinterlands swag, or drawings from Dan. If we hit 2,300 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing another commentary track this time featuring the country bears, you know, the ones who were so close to defeating cats, but they just couldn't do it. Well, you can make that happen. And at 3,500 new and upgrading members, we're going to be doing quarterly movie audio commentaries for a year. That sounds like so much fun.

We already did one commentary. I want to do more. Make that happen, please. So thank you again, supporters. Elliot. All right. That was great. Stewart, thank you so much. Let's get back to the movie. Anyway, when we last left the film, Carnage, AKA this Cassidy and Carnage, there are two people who are a person in a suit and they become one thing. They've just discovered where Shriek, the character who you know is like Shriek, is located.

And so they go to Ravencroft, they break her out of there, and she loves these new Carnage powers. And I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna say it guys, I think that Naomi Harris is not given much to do in this movie. She is an actor of amazing talent. I've loved her in many other performances.

And she's a very charismatic performer. And in this, it's just kind of like, you know, she's basically just like, 80s, sorry, this is, I keep calling out the name, Ronan's, she's just, Cleetus's girlfriend who loves to kill people and is just like a mean, you know, scary person who says things like knock, knock, you know, and stuff like that. It's really just, you know, it's a waste of a, of a, I know this sounds weird. She would have made a better current. I, to be honest, I think that would

have been really cool. Weirdly enough, just like in the first movie, I thought Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed should have swapped roles. I think this is the same situation. Interesting. I think William Woodie Harrison would have made a great shriek. Oh yeah. I think they all made him shuffle. So they call it, that's what they called it when the Chicago Bears recorded I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see.

I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see.

I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see.

I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. I think I see. and she's basically, her personality's basically chaotic evil. That's pretty much what she is. But her shriek powers, because they're loud, when she uses them, it hurts the carnage symbiote. So carnage doesn't like that. And Venom goes to, Venom the suit goes to Mrs. Chen for help he's burning through bodies. They're too weak to host him. And meanwhile, Eddie gets picked up

by the detective for interrogation. He learns Cletus has a symbiote. Well, the detective is like, people said something about monsters. And this is another thing I didn't believe is that Clea's cast of these is a famous serial killer. He's being executed. He goes on a rampage in a monster suit

and breaks out of the prison. There is no foot, there's no cell phone footage. There's no pictures. There were no news cameras outside where he's being executed. There is no, there's, there's all these people, people were saying there was a monster there.

And it's like, okay, I guess there's no, nobody could take a picture of him like it doesn't exist, you know They have no idea what's going on But he learns Clevver's symbiate he calls and as his lawyer and she comes in and he goes hey Venom's alive I need you to go get him for me. She goes to the bodega where Mrs. Chen is wearing venom again Would have been a more fun movie if now Mrs. Chen is venom. Yeah What are you gonna do and and has to like Praise Venom while flirting with him fun movie if now Mrs. Chen is venom. What are you gonna do? And, and has to like, praise venom while flirting with him, you know, kind of creepy way, but also kind of a funny way.

So that feels like Michelle Williams is like, finally, something to do in this movie. I mean, yeah, she's not, she's also not given much, but she's having fun with what she, Michelle Williams, by the way, like I like looked her up because I was like, I haven't seen her in a while. I realized, and it was distressing to realize that other than Fossy Verden, which I haven't seen, I haven't seen, I heard it was very good, the series. It was very good. And that's a long, many series. I get why that might have taken a long time and taken a lot out of her. Yes. Other than there's, she had one other movie between the original Venom and this one.

And that's what she's been doing lately. I also read that, you know, apparently she had a divorce recently. So I wouldn't be surprised if she was stepping back from some stuff because of that. But I would love to see more of her. I think that there's, I was thinking about this recently because there was that news story where Andrew Garfield was like, I think I'm going to take a little, a little time off from acting that we've got to this point now where, I mean, this is the way movie stars have always been kind of where it's like, if you're not in a movie for a certain amount of time,

people think your career is over. Yeah. But especially now when entertainment is consumed so quickly, we expect an endless instant feed of stuff that you cannot be in a movie for, I mean, between Venom and Venom let there be carnage is three years. And that's plenty of time for someone to have to not make another movie. And you never know what's going on in someone's life. And that with performers a lot, it's like they're kind of, it's seen as a failure if they're not constantly working when they might have other things and they're going on their life. They may not want to work for a little bit.

Like she had two movies in 2018, two in, three in 2017, two in 2016. Like, but I think there is this perception that if you don't see an actor for a year, then something's going on and that something's wrong in their career is right or something like that. Or the thing happens that, like they talk about this, I think on Blink Check a Fair amount, but I've also just experienced it in my life where I'm like, oh man, that actor, it's a shame that their career never took off and then like, oh wait,

they've been on 500 episodes of something on CBS. Yeah, and that's why I haven't been seeing it around. I mean, that's the other thing is the idea that movies are like the only thing that movie actors do. Like, she made a TV show during that time. Like, sometimes they make a TV, sometimes they're doing plays. Like there's other, there's other things like, you know, he's a monster. I apologize to Michelle Williams, Elliott.

No, no, no, no, I wasn't mean to, I'm using the example of someone who is a monster, but there was a period where Kevin Spacey wasn't making a lot of movies because he was running the old Vic theater in the artistic director there. I mean, again, I don't want to use him as an example just the first one can't of mind

because again, he's a monster. But so, the much like carnage. How are you gonna apologize to Michelle Williams? Are you gonna DMs or? You said she went through a divorce, so maybe I'll probably send an edible arrangement. Oh, that's nice, yeah, yeah. Now that's really nice.

What's great about that is so many arrangements are not edible. And it's just really nice to finally get an arrangement that you can. It just sounds like you're not put enough effort in it. Yeah, because that's true. Well, how come when I arrange things, they're not edible?

When I arrange my shoes in the closet, I want them to be edible. I don't know if it's a card to anybody. They're not edible. Like when I arrange my shoes in the closet, there's suddenly, I want them to be edible. But I don't know if it's a car or something. Give actors some time, you know, and that goes for writers and directors and all the other people too. Anyway, so, and comes back wearing venom and venom makes Eddie apologize and Eddie is like, okay, I'll take him back and Eddie gets released by the police. Almost as if the police were just holding him until venom came until the butt. Yeah. Okay.

You got your symbiote. You can go now. Meanwhile, Clea doesn't shriek. They burned down their old reform school and then side, they're going to hold a wedding where they're going to get married and they're going to each get to kill one person. He kills Eddie, carnage kills venom and shriek will kill detective Mulligan and almost instantly detective. You know, I think one for any. kill detective Mulligan and almost instantly detective. And something old.

And yeah, something so that something old is well as Woody Harrelson. Let's do something something blue is how Eddie feels having been dumped by Ann. Something new is shriek new character in the in the mythos here and something borrowed is I guess this is such a twisted concept for a wedding. What did Kormack McCarthy write? Oh, that's Oh, bye.

This is I know I want to see now Kormack McCarthy is is he's officially the one he goes dearly beloved. We gather here to fuck some people up. This is gonna get twisted. Let's go on. Do you take shriek in nasty times and in nastier times? I'm not kidding. Yeah.

I got a stuff. That's crazy. I'm aggocardi. He's wearing like a black leather casak, like he's a vampire for one of my vampires. I was giving him a say. He's wearing a, he's wearing a priest collar, but then he's got a sleeveless black t-shirt on. Like a black muscle shirt.

Okay. That's cool you. Yeah. And like a big knife belted to his belt. So that like if a zombie comes out of the chart chart, he can cut its head off for something. Anyway, that's Gorn McMac McCarthy and the detective. So he's like, I better go to Eddie's apartment to ask him another question. And Pledis just happens to be showing up at the apartment at the same time.

It's ridiculous. He kidnapped him, shriek kidnapped Anne to lure Eddie to the wedding, and then there's a little back and forth between Eddie and Venom that I feel like encapsulates the whole movie, its style and its tone and how it works in three lines. Eddie says, we're going to a wedding, and Venom says, will there be canopays? And Eddie goes, you bet your ass. And it was like, okay, it's banter that doesn't really make sense. Venom is making like a cutesy reference to a human thing. The characters are just stating the plot.

There's gonna be this wedding, and we're gonna go there. And there's this unnecessary vulgarity and you bet your ass. It's all right there in that, in that three lines. That's the movie, right there. I do like that Eddie is yes, ending Venom's thing that like in a way that doesn't, doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense. There were no canopies. I took a look around. And I don't know if the implication is like Eddie is going to let Venom eat some bad guys and that's the canopies. It's just like, it's banter that has, it's banter where you have to take a moment and think about it, which is not the best kind of banter. But you bet your ass.

I remember him saying that and me being like, wait a minute, how do you know? Like you didn't get an invitation, really? This introduces the question as to whether or not Venom has an ass. That's a good question. We're tough to tell. We are.

I mean, if the Venom toy that I bought when I was an adolescent is ain't the go-by, he has a beautiful ass. What a fucking dumb truck, I'm the guy. This is the, this is the what, 13 inch or 12 inch venom figure that was released in the early 90s. I still have mine, my kids play with it. And I always thought it was weird.

When you buy them in the box, you just see the front of them. So when I took it out of the box, and I saw that he has an incredibly sculpted ass. And it's just so lovingly curved. It's like, wow, they really put a lot of work into his butt on this one. Yeah, so we, but this is a, we are hurtling towards the, the big final fight. The climax of the movie. And it feels like it's a short movie, but it feels like this last fight is one third of it. And, as I said before, whenever this movie kicks into plot stuff or action stuff,

I am the least interested in it. And this was just a cacophony of people being hurled into things for half an hour. Yes. Very much so. And this is the kind of scene, usually at this point, usually, so this movie is an hour and 37 minutes long.

So a normal superhero movie at this point is 40 to 50 minutes longer than that. So usually this would be the scene where Venom and Carnage fight for the first time, Carnage defeats Venom, but Venom escapes for Carnage gets away. And now there's going to be a bigger fight later on. But instead this is the final fight. This is a very old-fashioned movie where the main hero and villain don't even meet each other face to face until the final conflict. And so they go to the cathedral, clearest and shriek, they're staging this wedding with

a real priest who looks terrified to be there rightfully so. Well played by Reese Sheer Smith from inside number nine and a League of gentlemen. It was great. Oh, I didn't even recognize him. Yeah, it's because I think the, I think I was reading that this whole movie was shot in the UK. That's why there's a lot of UK actors. It makes sense. The whole movie was shot in the UK. That's why there's a lot of UK actors. Makes sense.

The whole movie was shot in the UK, although apparently I guess some exteriors were done in San Francisco, because I was reading in the trivia. There's a part where Venom is looking for carnage and some police helicopters go overhead, and those were actually helicopters for the new Matrix movie that was also being shot at the same time, and they were like, keep it in this shot. They'll just say they're looking for carnage instead of looking for Neo or whatever. So I like to think that's a crossover. Those helicopters exist in both universes, and venom exists in the matrix, I guess.

So yeah, venom buss in. He's briefly scared that carnage is a red suit, but he fights them anyway because Eddie's like, well, you can eat him if you defeat him. Eat him if you defeat him. That's the motto of my household. If you kill it, you feel it. And if you defeat him, eat him like that. Don't ever ever wrestle your son's alley, because I don't want them to eat Elliot.

Either way, you know, like, you know, either way, we, the world loses. Well, what all the time? Call me, I'm like, call me, call me, call me Saturn, because I'm devouring my children. Yeah, call me, call me, call me Saturn because I'm devouring my children. Yeah, hopefully Daniel will be smart enough to swap the, his sons with stones. So I'll let it all just eat stones instead.

Oh, I mean, she's tried it and I always unswaddle them first to make sure they're not stones. Yeah, that makes sense. It's smart. And once it was Oliver Stone, I was like, I don't want to eat this. Yeah. It's a way. So anyway.

So, so, so, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh a power up that gives him, I guess, it does. Holy God power that makes him stronger. Venom is losing, but then who shows up? The secret hero of the movie, Dr. Dan. I don't know how he got onto the scaffolding above the church, but suddenly he's just pouring gasoline onto Carnage, saving the day, getting more effective at fighting Carnage that Venom is. Guys, were you as surprised as I was to see Dr. Dan be able to see the hero of the movie? Yes.

I was not expecting it because he's the character that had been to ride it the whole time, but clearly he's the hero. Yeah, I mean, and also like, he doesn't need to help his new fiancee's ex-fiance. He could be a much smaller man,

but instead, he's right there fighting by his side. And he doesn't have a symbiative to protect him. All he has is medical degree in the Hippocratic oath. Although the Hippocratic oaths does Juno harm. He's clearly harming carnage. Oh my God. Oh my God, he's the villain.

He's the worst of them all. He's betrayed his medical training. Somewhere at the medical chamber that he's studied in Germany. There's just an old physician going, oh, Daniel Vapetrazen says, no, Daniel Vapetrazen, my teaching call. No, I was this guy saying this is through like a crystal ball. Oh, yeah. The school has a crystal ball.

Yeah, he's also, he's like a, he's like a van Helsing type, he dabbles in magic. He's also a doctor at the club. Sure, yeah. Rich back story. So, uh, so there's more fighting and cleatist is like, I'm mad at you that you didn't tell my side of my childhood.

And it's like, to be fair, you never told him what it was until that postcard. Like you never gave him the chance. Uh, carnage traps venom under some rubble and like I like the there's a there's a sequence where they're fighting each other and the church bells ringing and so they'll fight and then all of a sudden their symbiotes retreat back inside their bodies for a minute and then when the reverberation stop the symbiotes come back out again I thought that was kind of cool. It's a cool idea.

It kind of happens in the first movie too, when it's fighting Riz Ahmed. I think the same thing happens, but it's a cool idea that like they, they're monsters and then suddenly they have to be just human beings punching each other and then they're monsters again. It's a really, I can see whether,

they're gonna do the third one too, probably, when he fights two symbiots or something like that. You know, unless the next one's gonna be then versus Morbius or something like that. I the next one's gonna be Vennon versus Morbius or something like that. I mean, it's gonna seem like it's a versus and then they're just gonna team up to beat up poachers or something that are trying to kill dinosaurs.

I'm thinking, right, they're gonna have to stop a colluder that's trying to cut down the Amazon rain forest. In dollar signs with my eyes, yeah. Guys take me to the doctor. The doctor, yeah. That was a, let's not a timoneric bit once we're a guy. He looks at something in dollar signs problem. He's like, I heard so much.

Yeah. It's tough. Uh, so anyway, um, so, uh, they fight some more carnage. Uh, he wants to carnage. The symbiote wants to kill shriek because her powers heard him, but cleadess won't let him. So they start fighting. And Dr. and doctor dan again the hero of the movie he points out he goes they're not being symbiotic they're fighting each other they're not cooperating and venom and eddie are like that's right and we are symbiotic we are the lethal protectors

and that self-realization of friendship gives them the strength they need to push all this rubble off of them yeah it's right it's an emotional breakthrough that leads to a physical breakthrough. And they go and fight carnage again. This is roughly round 10 of their fight. They free Anne and carnage gets mad and says, let there be carnage. Someone had to say it. Finally carnage says it. Ironically, there's less carnage from this point on than there have been previously in

the movie. He's fighting venom and then venom, impossibly the least heroic thing that a hero character can do in a movie, pushes, shriek off a tower, causing her to scream so loud that the church starts crumbling and it hurts carnage. And carnage and clea to separate and Venom lands and then picks up the carnage symbiote and eats it. And then they pick up clea to, and clea to goes,

I just wanted to be your friend Eddie and Venom says, fuck this guy, bites his head off. And that was not me paraphrasing, that's the exact line from a movie. I did kind of laugh at it a little bit because it is such a not witty or a graceful thing to say. Well, I mean, look, I don't know.

I'm not, in real life, I am not one for fighting out people's, cap, capital punishment. I'm not, I mean, I'm, Dan is very anti-biting off. I do think that biting people's heads off is a cruel and unusual punishment, both cruel and unusual. But I, in the context of this movie, I definitely was like, yeah, just bite this guy's head off.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no that's his whole life. But just that venom is like, I know what to do. I'll push, I'll push carnage, I'll use my power

to push Cleetus's girlfriend off a high ledge. So she dies. So the heroes all run off as the police arrive. And then we were revealed, Detective Mulligan is alive and he's like monsters, monsters. And when I read the Wikipedia summary, it said that his eyes glowed, but I didn't notice that.

You didn't notice that it was pretty, yeah, it was pretty divine. And that's what left in my defense stand. I was watching, I was watching it on iPad while I was doing dishes. So I didn't miss that moment. But this was what led me to my research where I found out that apparently a symbiot,

symbiot offspring or more powerfuliot, uh, offspring or more powerful because this is setting up, I guess he's toxin is the, uh, okay. Yeah, because toxin is a, yeah, it's a police officer, I think, but how did he get it from shriek? I don't know. Well, that's the thing. eyes blue, and then I think, and the internet explained it to me. But, uh, toxin is that's around the time I think when, uh, when the, when the symbiates stuff started to get really diluted

for me in the context. We're running out of ideas. Yeah. Yeah, essentially. And now, and then you had like, at this point, there was a planet of symbiates. And now it's been retconned to all the symbiates are part of a galactic hive mind that the king and black know the embodiment of nothingness commands. And Venom had to fight him and become the hero. It was not as dumb as it sounds, but it was still a larger

scale story than I like my Venom stories to me. Although there was one, there was not as dumb as it sounds, but it was still a larger scale story than I like my venom stories to me. Yeah. Although there was one, there was one venom story that, that, who did it? Oh, he's going like something. Adam Warren was that it, there was a story called Venom the End where, that, you know, Adam Warren wrote where, where it takes it to the farthest level where at a certain point, Venom is the only living thing left in the universe.

And he uses the internal DNA library of all the symbiates to recreate life. And I was like, you know, that's big enough that I'm like, this is crazy enough, it just might work. But then anyway, at this point in the comics, Venom was offered a place in the Avengers and Ms. Marvel and she Hulk were like,

ogling him and I was like, this is, I don't like this. I like Eddie Brock to be an outcast and a weirdo And I don't need him to be the hero of everybody anyway So they detective Mulligan's gonna become toxin in I guess venom three let there be toxin and now venom is like Venom the symbiote is like I need to give myself up and I was like to who the police? You're not a human like I don't understand and He says

Yeah, he's like McCavity. He can break every human law. And Eddie says, no, we're a team now. We're going to be fugitives together. And they run off to a tropical beach because Venom earlier said he wanted to feel the sand in his toes and the wind in his hair. And they decide they're going to travel around and be go wherever lethal protectors are needed. End of movie, right? Wrong. Because of course, there's a mid credit scene scene there always is. Perhaps I'm just going to go out and say perhaps the most anti-climactic in retrospect mid-credits scene in the history of these movies. Oh my God. Venom is in his bungalow at this tropical resort and

the symbiote is like, hey, your mind couldn't handle all the knowledge I have from the hive mind of 80 billion symbiots and he goes, try me, it was okay. I'll just give you a little bit of it. Suddenly blip. There in another universe. What happened? The symbiots like, I didn't do this. They look on TV.

Jay Jonah Jameson is revealing that Spider-Man is Peter Parker. They're in the Spider-Man universe now. And Venom is like this guy and he licks the TV screen where Spider-Man is, uh-oh, uh-oh. What kind of mayhem is going to happen now that Venom is in the world of Spider-Man, a character who in the comics, he licks the TV screen where Spider-Man is, uh-oh, uh-oh, what kind of mayhem is going to happen now that Venom is in the role of a Spider-Man, a character who in the comics, he lives to kill, but in the movies he's never heard of and doesn't know who he is. And I don't know why he's looking at this. Straighten this guy, but I can't wait.

I can't wait until Spider-Man, no way home when we are revealed. It's revealed that Venom spent his whole time at that resort, got a drink and then looked back to his home universe, never encountering spider-man at all And I remember when this movie came out I heard about this this credit scene and they're talking about yeah Yeah, we secretly scrambled at the last minute to shoot this scene without anybody really knowing so it could tie into the new Spider-Man movie and it was like why why bother there's no reason it's so pointless it's so stupid that's what's your theory why do you think I guess why did they think this would with this would be an exciting to anybody to find out when they finally watch no I helm that venom is in the spider-man universe on a different in a different country. Just hanging out in a beach. Yeah. And then he goes home. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's the

can go home. He can and does. Well, that movie also like it wasn't no way home because everybody went home at the end. The so that's and that's the end of venom. So we're left with the promise of a sequel where venom is a globe-throtting fugitive. Just going around fighting crime. Yeah. And also the promise of a sequel

where venom is fight spider-man, which hasn't happened and probably will never happen in these movies. Who, boy, let's do our final judgments before Stu has a few more words. Ooh, I can't wait to hear more about the Max Fundra.

Has Max Fundra. Is this a good bad movie, a bad, bad movie, a movie we kind of like? Guys, I don't know. I think it's I thought it was bad, ultimately. I there's elements in it like that came close to me enjoying it. I liked a lot of the time. I like, you know, what's this face? Tom Hardy remains committed to this character and also Michelle Williams and Dr. Dan are fun, but all of this shit with carnage just bored me to tears. It was all just the most

like by the numbers. And as you say, Elliott, like old feeling, like before they knew kind of how to do this sort of thing, I guess, I don't know. It feels like any, any eighties or early nineties movie where there's a serial killer, someone's out to get them. The serial killer is really a person so much as he's like a gimmick. And it just happens exactly the way you think it's going to. There's no, like, I'm gotten so used to movies where the bad guy gets captured on purpose and escapes or the bad guy, you think the plan is one thing

and it turns out to be another which revealed that their brothers or something like that. So, and it was almost refreshing that there were no twists whatsoever in this movie, that it was like this movie, it goes A, B, C, D, E, and that's the movie. No, we're not going to Z, we're not going to H. There's this, but it's, they're plot threads, they seem like they could lead somewhere. Nope,

no, no, no, no point. They do not, hey, guess what? We got this, we carnage. We were going to introduce him in the first movie. We thought, no, let's hold him to the second movie to really make the most of them. Second movie came around. Are we going to make the most of them? No. Why bother? We should have put him in the first one. Yeah. So I mean, if you have affection for venom, if you have affection for the first movie, like, I'm not saying that this will be a total waste of your time, you'll probably get some kicks out of certain parts of it, but, but overall, I, within our strictures, I'll call it bad. Let's do what you say. Yeah, I'm going to call it. Oh, Ali, you know, I'll say, I'll let's do go, let's do go. You go next. Yeah, it's,

uh, it's probably a bad bad. It's nice and short, and I like the rave scene. That was great. But yeah, there's just not much there. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it's not, it's not like offensively bad, except for the fact that there's just like, and this is kind of a, because I'm a dad, I guess, but there's so much unnecessary vulgarity,

like not funny vulgarity, but just like people calling each other asshole or saying, and we're saying like shit for no reason. It's not, it's not, and vulgarity can be very funny. I mean, when he says fuck this at the end, it's kind of funny. But the, it's just, it's like a bad bad movie, but it's not like, ugh, avoid it all costs. It's like, it's for venom completists only. If you really like the first one, you'll probably like this one because it's kind of the same movie.

And it's just, there's part of me that is disappointed as a fan of the character that they're just not making the most of the potential of this character as an interesting character. Like when he come down to it, he is a former reporter who is wearing and who's wearing an alien. And the alien can turn him into a monster that has big jagged teeth in a long tongue and has spider man's powers. And they don't really do that much with it. I mean, the fact, I don't know that I've seen too many movies where people wear aliens. And that's something that I feel like the movie as the characters have already gotten over.

And they, but again, like this one and the first one, they both had Anne wear the costume for a short amount of time. And in those moments, the movie seemed so much cooler in the rest of it. And I like Tom Hardy a lot. I'm a big fan of Tom Hardy. And I think he's the one person the movie seems to care about what he's doing in the movie seemed so much cooler in the rest of it. And I like Tom Hardy a lot. I'm a big fan of Tom Hardy, and I think, he's the one person the movie seems to care about what he's doing in the movie.

He really likes this character and wants to do more of it. So Tom, like, do more with it. Come on, play it up. Let's come up with a real good story next time. Yeah, find a better screenwriter next time, maybe. To work with. Just do it. Oh, just do it better. Yeah, just do it better this next time. Take work with. Just do it. Oh, just do it better.

Yeah, just do it better this next time. Take that Kelly Marcel, co-writer of Saving Mr. Banks, and the writer of Fifty Shades of Grey the movie. Wow. Wow. You're not making me feel bad. That's true. That's my assessment.

And perhaps you'll feel better when you find out she co-wrote the story to Cruella. Oh, okay. I did like Cruella. Yeah, yeah. The story part. And right, Hopefully the part where mom gets killed by donations. That yeah. Yeah.

You're happening. Cruella. Yes. In the movie. No, it's like it's a it became a meme. It is a it is a what's it? What's it called a dream sequence? No, no, no, it's a, it's a fake out. Like it's a, it's a, it's a fake out and a joke in the movie, but it was taken out. I don't want to see the movie explain it to me. No, they, they, cruel all of the character thinks that this is what happens, but it's not. Oh, I see.

What happens? And I think that it's kind of a joke on movie motivations that then was taking out a context of the internet made fun of. Yeah, great costume. I see. Wonderful needle drops at some movie. Hey guys, we did it. We made it to the end of another max fund drive. And I would like to take this time to thank all of our supporters. You know, podcasts are kind of a funny thing. They can be something you leave on within. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They can be something you leave on the background while you go about your day or to put on when you need to go to sleep or to keep you company when you want to hear a familiar voice. There's a little bit of like a one-sided quality to podcasts where you're listening

to a conversation that you aren't entirely a part of I'm part of it But that's kind of well, that's true. Yeah But that's that's what makes I'm loving that Dan is is ms3k your your Driver is dogging me out baby. I keep me in my toes But that's what makes the moments of audience interaction like me with Dan That's what makes those moment so special to me. The audience member of this show. I love that Dan is recasted so much.

The audience member of the show, which frankly makes a lot more sense. It's this is like memento or the sixth sense. If you go back and listen to every episode of the show and you realize Dan is an audience member, it all makes more sense. Yeah. That's what makes these moments so special to me. As the most accessible of the peaches, it's a joyful part of my life to get to meet and chat

with so many of you at our live shows or at my bars or even online in my DMs, but you know, respectfully. It makes me incredibly proud that we produce a show that makes listeners feel comfortable to reach out to us hosts, to share moments of success, moments of personal tragedy, or even something as simple as obscure horror movie

recommendations or a well-chosen flame emoji for one of my workout videos. It really highlights to me. I don't know if it's well. Well, I mean, there's only a limited number of emojis. Are they going to do the party? Yeah, explosion. Keep fact checking. How many pinot gills does he get for that one? Just one. Thank you. So all this really highlights to me that while the flop house is important to me, I think

it's also important to you too. So please head over to maximumfund.org slash join and support us. So again, thank you. Thank you. You know what we do next is we answer some letters from listeners speaking of interacting with listeners. And this first one is from Kate Lasting with H held and Kate writes. A question popped into my mind yesterday morning when listing. Have you ever made a recommendation for a film that you later regretted or realize wasn't as good as you thought upon a second viewing? Thank you again for all that you do.

I love Elliott. Wow. Could have omitted that part. Well, no, I don't think so. I'm the reader of you. A few times. Yeah. Um, I, have omitted that part. Well, no, I don't think so. I'm sure a few times. Yeah. I would say that you could probably go back on my recommendations. And anytime I tell you that I watched it on a plane, you can just assume that that's the place you should probably also watch it and that on the ground, you may not have to take it. As much. Yeah.

I'm not saying that you should buy a ticket just to just to watch these movies. Yeah, yeah. But you know, if that's why when I recommend movies, it seems expensive when you're only going to be needing the edge of your seat, but you're paying for a whole seat. Right, right, right. And if it's so much, yeah. Yeah. Do you guys have any that offhand? I mean, I don't I mean, I've definitely recommend movies that later on, I've become, you know, like, I've like, I've recommended S Craig Zoller movies before and we all kind of know that he's not a

cool dude. But he makes very violent movies. So there's that. I mean, I feel that like there's a lot of things that I'd like to qualify, but I also like to think that over time listeners have learned that a lot of the things I recommend are dumb. We have learned.

I was going through my recommendations for each episode on the FLOPS recommendations website, a fan created and run endeavor that is very helpful to me all the time. I made it so. I was surprised that early on I recommended the movie Frost Nixon. It surprised me because in retrospect, I think that movie is fine, but just so-so. Yeah, that's fair.

And apparently I recommended it in the same episode that I recommended the fall, a movie that I love, even though at times that movie is almost embarrassingly sincere and overwrought, but I love that movie so much. And so it just surprised me like, oh, I had a movie that I love and I still love on there. Why did I recommend this other movie? And so I was going through all of them

and I occasionally found movies that were foreign movies and I didn't, or old movies where I didn't really remember them that well. And I was like, I recommend to this movie. I must found movies that were far in movies and I didn't remember them that well. And I was like, I recommend this movie. I must have liked it a lot, but I don't really remember it particularly. And that was a strange experience. It's funny that you bring up the fall being almost embarrassingly over Rawntson's here because I feel like movies like that will either be like you will either love it or you

will not like it at all like it'll be it'll cringe you to death like something like I feel like on some level everything everywhere all the ones kind of walks that line where it's like this is it incredibly sincere movie at times and if you don't vibe with that wave like it is it is kind of bum you out. I think I think a little bit I think the difference might be that, so I put the fall in the category as the same movies like the fountain, with the fall. I was in the exact right place to see it. I was falling in love with my now wife and we went to go see it

and it's a movie about a man falling, who loves a woman so much that he's trying to end death so that they can be together forever. And that is a, that is like, and I really like to the time I haven't watched it since, but that is an embarrassingly

kind of like over-wrought emotional emotionally movie. I And that is a, that is like, and I really liked the time I haven't watched it since, but that is an embarrassingly kind of like over, overwrought emotional, emotionally movie. And there are things that don't quite make sense. With everything everywhere, I feel like it's kind of like that except the movie is a little less personal, I feel like. The fall and the fount and the difference to me is they feel so personal to the filmmaker and everything to everywhere all at once, it feels it's the emotions are really strong. I loved which I loved. I enjoyed it and I was crying at the end of it, just like everybody sees it. It did not, but it didn't feel the same way to me that it was like someone saying, this

is how I feel. And I don't know that anyone else in the world feels this way or will even like this. Instead it felt like this is how everyone feels at some point in their lives. And I connect to you that we've all felt this way. At least that's what I got from it. You know, whereas with the fount and it's like, this is how everyone feels at some point in their lives. And I connect to you that we've all felt this way. At least that's what I got from it. You know, where's with the fountain? It's like, this is how I feel about Rachel Vice right now. And if you don't feel the same way as me,

you're not going to like this movie. I see what you're saying to some degree in terms of like, how specific, but like, I assume that it draws on a lot of Daniel Kwan, like a family immigrant experience stuff. But I think there's a difference between like an autobiographical movie that way and a personal movie, a movie where it's like, you're not, you're trying less to, I mean, there's also like, everything everywhere

all at once, it's a great movie. It's got a lot of great kung fu fighting scenes and action and things like that. Like it's still delivering the things that a mainstream movie audience wants, even though it's got a lot of great kung fu fighting scenes and action and things like that. Like it's still delivering the things that a mainstream movie audience wants. Even though it's got a lot of silly crazy ideas in it, it's delivering a lot of what makes a modern movie. Whereas something like the follow of the fountain, like at times they're actively not delivering

what a normal movie would deliver. Or they're just interested in doing a different thing that's, there's just, I feel like it's it gets up to that point, but it's not quite all the way there. Okay. But I could be wrong with that. Again, it's just my opinion. But anyway, I would also say, but outside of the Flopfowze podcast,

like there are many years where I recommended the movie Manhattan, and I was like, if you ignore the plot with Woody Allen then, then there's a lot of really good stuff in that movie. But now it just feels like it's kind of hard to ignore that plot. And it's hard to recommend a Woody Allen movie. But now it just feels like it's kind of hard to ignore that part of the plot. And it's hard to recommend a Woody Allen movie.

There's still I think there are, he's someone who like, I'll never find a way to do it. Well, I'll never stop, I'll never stop having like a, an admiration for much of his work. But it's, yeah, obviously I wish I could have me like, at least maybe recommend a different one of his movies. Cause that's one of the most problematic ones, you know. Yeah. So this second and final letter is from Willie Lasting with Held and the subterranean. Roman.

Should I drive my car against a wall for the insurance money from my family? No, keep being a salesman, Willie. Your family loves you more than the money. The subject is Rob Regal. Spoiler alert for the death of a salesman willy your family loves you more than the money. The subject is Rob Riggles, spoiler alert for the death of a sailor. The subject heading is Rob, Rob Riggles, re Topeka, Kansas. There is floppers.

I wanted to thank all three of you, but especially Elliot for highlighting the talents of former cancer of the year, Rob Riggles, as published in the Topeka Capitol Journal in 2008. While Rob Riggle hails from Overland Park, Kansas, I thought as mentioned would be a good opportunity to highlight some of the many celebrities and luminaries who once called Topeka Kansas home. Well, we're finally back on point for this five years. Yeah, took a little while. One and that bending parentheses death on the Nile 2022 Yeah, two lowest Smith Tony award-winning actress true blood

Three Wendell and Brooks US poet laureate in the first African-American to win a Pulitzer prize four max yohu parentheses, cool name. Five Kansas parentheses, band six Ronald Evans, one of 12 people to have flown to the moon without landing on it. Seven brown. So it's kind of, it's an achievement, but it's not the biggest achievement. Yeah. Yeah. Seven brown versus board of education, parentheses, civil rights. Eight not a person, but still a very important. Yeah. I mean, that was, I mean, Kansas was in the wrong in that one. But, you know, sure. Well, I don't think that's, they're just, these are just luminaries of some kind of another, whether eight Pat Roberts, US center, parentheses, shit bag. Okay. Yeah. Nine, nine Fred Phelps. Uh,

I assume that the shit bag is missing here as well. Uh, yeah. Dr. Phil also lives, lived in Topeka for a short time. I, I hope you're enjoying this high quality, well research information. I will continue to send Dan Topeka updates, whether he reads them on the podcast or not. If you're ever interested in having a live recording of the flop house in Topeka, I know of several empty buildings that would love to have you keep on flopping in the free world so you're lasting with that. That's a perfect venue for the flop.

You have just an empty building that we shouldn't even advertise it, so I'm just to stumble on it. Yeah. That's what makes it it. Uh-huh. Yeah. That's what makes it cool. There's no sign. And at the end, we all climb up into a chandelier and fly off in outer space. To the heavy side of the barrier. Okay, guys, so this is something that this is hot off the presses.

This is something that Jenny Jaffy texted me earlier today. Yeah. The heavy side layer is a real layer of the atmosphere. And it is not a safe place for cats to be. No. So those cats, they are being sent to their death and the heavy side layers are real things. Hat disposal.

So I guess when I would like to see a breakdown of all the different layers of the atmosphere and whether they are or not safe for cats. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it's technically called the cannelly heavy side layer or sometimes called that. And it's also known as the e-region. So it's my region. Yeah. Anyway, don't send your cats there. So Dan, I think we should do a show in Topeka. At this point, I think we have to. Yeah, I mean, it's questionable about, I don't know how much audience. I mean, we'll probably lose money on it.

Yeah. They'll probably all bring tomatoes, you know, cabbages to throw. I kind of want to, I want to do it as one of those stunts where like we do a show at, in like a community center for the elderly, like it's not for our regular audience. And it's, or like, um, like if there's a prison in the area that we could do a show at, you know, something like that. I, I rewatched speaking of me having things thrown at you. I really, rewatched Batman Returns. Recently, they had a rep screening of it at the Nighthawk prospect park. And I, it only increased my love of the movie,

but there was a part that I totally forgot where the audience turns on the pink one on a dime, starts throwing tomatoes and cabbages at him. And, you know, up until that point, you know, they had been on board. And so the question lingers in the air, why are there vegetables already there to be thrown? And then the thing when says outright, why does someone always bring vegetables to these speeches? Which is a good

joke. Let's move on to the final segment. Now that Stewart has returned and cracked open another waterloo sparkling water. Black cherry flavor. So we said no ads, not a sponsor, but if you want to, you know, just give us a little kickback. What are beaks? Bubbly waters. Yes, and payas in sparkling water Stewart will drink it. But I should mention if you for any Orthodox Jews listening, don't dip your payas in in sparkling water. Stuart will drink it. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, do not, but I should mention if you, if any orthodox Jews listening, don't dip your pay us in, in sparkling water. I know, Dan just said, pay us in sparkling water. He meant they should pay us in the form of sparkling water, not that you should take your pay us, your side curls and dip them in sparkling water. It's not going to,

it's just going to ruin the sparkling water. No one wants hair in their water. Yeah, I mean, it could clean. I mean, I understand that the silcers has cleaning properties. Maybe it's a, you wouldn't dip your hair in silcery to clean it though, right? You wouldn't steal a DVD. Yeah. Let's do our movie recommendations, movies that might be a better use of your time than venom. Let there be carnage.

I am. For a second, for a second, it's only said venomom let there be carnage. For a second, it's not like you said Venom let there be carnage. Let there be carnage. Let there be carnage. That's a cool metal album title. Oh yeah. So I'm assuming Dan has seen like 400 movies since the last recording. What are you going to recommend? I've seen a lot, but I'm going to recommend a movie called It's a New Movie.

I saw it at the Quad Cinema here in New York. And it's called We're All Going to the World's Fair. It's marketed as a horror movie. And I don't want to say too much about it because I think that it plays with expectations well. But it's a movie that I think there's so many horror films, thrillers, psychological thrillers like that don't seem to understand the internet, which is weird since we've been living with it so long now, like movies that try and capitalize on it as a fearful thing usually gets so much wrong. You're saying I should stop. I should end my membership to D Snyder's Strange Land.

Yeah, you shouldn't visit fear.com. But this, oh man, movie really, what about fear.org? This movie really seems to understand the way the internet is breaking our brains in bad ways. I'll just give you sort of like the broad outline. So the main character is Casey. She is doing the, I'm going to the world's fair challenge,

which is sort of this vaguely defined internet creepypasta challenge where something bad will happen to you if you do these things, you know, like it's a new urban legend. And the movie has a lot of ambiguity about sort of why various things are happening, what different people's motivation, I mean, there's really only two characters, but what their motivations are, how seriously they're taking any of it. It's a movie that kind of like shows the difference between bad and good ambiguity in movies. Like, I think a lot of movies that do it poorly do it by artificially holding back information, where's this movie presents a lot of information, but there are

a lot of sort of plausible character motivations for what's going on that you have to sort of sift through in your own brain. And I think that oftentimes, that's the good kind of ambiguity where you're sort of trying to puzzle out people's thoughts and motivations based on what you're seeing. And it's an upsetting movie. It's a sad movie in certain ways. It's a movie that is told largely through YouTube videos and Skype calls and stuff like that. But I liked the way that it didn't feel beholden to that. It's not fully found footage. It's a movie that's like,

we'll tell the movie's sort of 70% in this found footage way, but when we feel the need to step outside of that to just show you stuff that's going on in these characters' lives, we will. And it's all the better for it. going on in these characters' lives, we will. And it's all the better for it. And also, there's the director of this film is trans. I don't know their pronouns so I'll just use they, but from doing some readings on it, there are some trans readings of the film that are very interesting, that I, you know, as a cis

man, you know, while watching it, we're not, what was not, you know, equipped to sort of understand and like you can enjoy it without that level, but it also added kind of an interesting level reading about it afterwards. But it's a very interesting movie, kind of a movie that I think will be ripped off by much worse films in the future, but this one's very good. Yeah, I want to see it. I'm going to recommend a movie that I got to go and see this week. I caught a screening of the Northman, the latest Robert Eggers movie. It is a movie that I admire quite a bit. I don't know if I love it, but I liked it. And it is a very straightforward tale of Viking revenge. It's still a Robert Eggers movie, so it goes in some

interesting directions. And there's enough like, I feel like there's enough like details in the corners of the movie to make it really exciting. There's some fun performances, Bjork on YouTaylor Joy, and of course, Alexander Skarsgard, who is doing some of the most acting with his trap muscles I've ever seen somebody do. Like it feels like he literally was just given a frizzet-a-painting as direction. And it's like, how to hunch over and look like you're like a triangle man. It did make me want to go work out, which I did. But yeah, it's fun, it's violent. It kind of feels like Robert Eggers,

like making a play, making a straightforward, like historical blockbuster-y type movie. I don't know how well it succeeds, but I liked it quite a bit. So check it out, the North Man. And I'm going to recommend a movie you can't see on theaters right now,

unless it's a revival house. That's right. It's an old movie. I'm going to recommend an American tragedy from 1931. This is Joseph von Sternberg movie based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser and for fans out there of the novel, which is an amazing book. This movie handles the subject matter a little differently. The book is very much about issues of capitalism and religion. And instead, the movie is very much more about kind of like sexual hypocrisy. You know, men being able to kind of cast away women and women not having the freedom to do that, but that the rich have more, they can do that more than the poor.

Anyway, there's some class stuff in there. But anyway, it's the story of a young man who comes from a poor background. He falls in love with a woman that he works with in a factory and then gets the eye of a richer woman. At that point, he's already impregnated the poor woman and he decides he has to figure out a way to get rid of her so that he can marry this rich woman before she loses interest in him.

And there's this sort of neurotic anxiety that kind of hovers around the whole movie and it makes you, makes me feel very unsettled and uncomfortable in a way that I liked a lot. And it's a pre-code Hollywood movie, so it just means that it is much more frank in the way it talks about certain things than movies a few years later would be. And I really liked it, especially because it's got Sylvia Sydney in it. I love Sylvia

Sydney, and she plays the factory girl and is really fantastic in it. So that's an American tragedy rated probably like BG 13 now, maybe at the time, it would have been kind of hard, but the scene where they're surfing on top of veins. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you can't do that. So that's three recommendations. We did it guys. Recommendations guys. Three recommendations.

Great. Good stuff. Perfect. Guys from the 12 nights of recommendations. In a world increasingly controlled by billionaires, where creators are pushed further into the margins in order to make a living, it is amazing that we're able to make a show directly supported by you. Now, only in Dan or more verse in working in the world of entertainment, but being able

to make a living in a creative field without massive corporate oversight feels like a luxury to me. And you made that happen for us. That's right. No gods, no masters, just peaches. So we'll be posting the results of our Max Fund Drive goals on Monday. But again, if we hit, oh, wait, I have it right here. If we hit 1900 new and upgrading members, we will raffle off a whole bunch of cool stuff, including signed maniac of New York books, Hinterlay and Swag, Dan drawings, all kinds

of great stuff. If we hit 2300, we will be doing a commentary track for that's right. The country bears, Dan's favorite movie. And if we hit 35500, we'll be doing quarterly movie audio commentaries, maybe even that food fight commentary that everybody's gagging for stewards favorite movie. My favorite movie. So at this point, I am assuming I've finally swayed you. You should head over to maximumfund.org slash join and support this silly little show today.

Yay. Well said. Thank you. Well, that's it. We did it. Max fun drive and the venom duology. Uh huh. Put them in the history.

Will there be a third one? Maybe probably. They're trying to. They're probably not, I guess. They're planning one. I get it'll be called what venom goes bananas. Yeah, venom. Yeah, venom is Monte Carlo. It's actually pretty good. I like that. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, we've done a lot of talking. So I won't go through the whole spiel. I'll just say thank you to our producer, Alex Smith. You can find him at how old, Dottie on Twitter. Uh, it's a, it's a word that you'll figure

out how to spell. But I trust you. Um, for now, for the flop house, I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And this is Elliot Kaelin saying, thank you for your support. This max fund drive and thank you for your support all year round We really really really really really really really really appreciate it. Mm-hmm. Bye. Bye What is the number that comes after one? It's the loneliest number except for one two The two yeah, that's a problem I have with this, the one is the onlyest number,

because the lyric is like two. Buckle up. It's just as bad as one. It's the lolliest number, the number one, like your full of contradictions. Stuck trying to get a threesome going, buddy. Yeah. Maximumfund.org.

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