The Flop House - Ep. #387 - Black Adam

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

We start the new year off with a BIG movie, especially according to its star, Mr. Dwayne Mr. "The Rock" E. Normous Johnson. It's Black Adam, a superhero probably even fewer of you have heard of than Shazam (nee Captain Marvel), in whose pages B. Adam first appeared. He's not your daddy's superhero, in that he kills a bunch of people, but he probably is your daddy's (or granddaddy's) superhero in the sense that he's from 1945. Anyway, they made a long, boring movie about him, so we talk about it.ALSO: It's time to VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE SEXY XENOMORPH MUSIC VIDEO! Polls close at the end of the month, so register your opinion now!Wikipedia page for Black AdamMovies recommended in this episode:The InternAftersunThe Banshees of InisherinEver tried Microdosing? Visit Microdose.com and use FLOP for 30% off + Free Shipping.

On this episode we discuss Black Adam. The first and probably last chapter in the Black Adam film series. Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, yeah it's me, Stuart Wellington. And over here it's Elliot Kaelin, again, amused at how Dan says his name perfectly and then turns to Stu, laughs at the very idea of his relationship with Stu and all the joy they've had in the past and breaks professionalism almost into. No, it was the, I was laughing at, I felt like I came in with like a certain amount of energy.

Oh, dude. I changed it up. He changed it up. Like, his energy suits his sweater. Sweater is what I was gonna say. Yeah, I'm going for like, I'm going for like a Christmas prince type thing. Like maybe I'm a like a humble, simple log splitter

in Christmas town USA and, maybe I live with a dog. I live in a pretty simple farmer's woodsman shack. I thought maybe you had just gotten off the boat, your emergent marine, and you work on a whaling ship, maybe. Certainly changing my romcom character, but that's okay. I guess imagining a more sort of like the Leonard Nimoy psychologist in the invasion of the battery snatchers, remake,

like a sentence. Like maybe he's a pop psychologist who appears on PBS, in the invasion of the battery snatchers remake, like it's amazing. Like maybe he's a popsychologist who appears on PBS near Christmas to talk about love. Maybe it starts, it stands for pop broadcasting system. Yeah, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm like a distant Sutherland. These are all things that Stuart could be. Now I got to take a photo stew. So that was actually a lot of people don't know that was. Oh yeah. Wait, should I put on the glasses, Dan?

Yeah, put the glasses on because they're a really key part of the whole. Oh, the glasses changed the change. The thing is quite a bit. This is exactly perfect. Oh, so I think the glasses informed my. Yeah. So a distant Sutherland was actually what Donald Sutherland's name was before he came to Canada, came to United States from Canada through Ellis Island and changed his name. Distant, of course,

the traditional Canadian first name. Yeah. Donald's extracurational American first name. Yeah. So what do you do? As a podcast and describe outfits. We most describe things the audience can't see. This is a podcast where we watch a movie that we've been led to believe may be bad, either through critics or audiences saying, no, thank you, please.

Personal biases, personal biases, all these things. And then we talk about it. We try to not walk in with our mind made up, but we've had some tips maybe that this might not be up our alley. And this time we watched Black Adam, another in the series. So the DC extended cinematic universe, I guess, that is now being changed up and dismantled by James Gunn and whoever else is.

But when Jimmethy Gunn is changed in charge. Yeah, so this is kind of a weird relic that killed an era, I guess. I mean, in a way, which fits because the movie is all about a weird relic that killed an era, that be the nation of contact 5,000 years ago. Yeah, wow, okay. But yeah, this is the last gas, and we'll see there's a mid-credits scene that hints at a future that will never come to pass, which we'll talk about when we get to it. But this is kind of a number of vestigial limbs. Yeah, it's an evolutionary dead end.

It's the way that history has decided not to go. So let's talk. It's greatest mystery. It's black at them. And when you watch the movie, you're like, yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense that this is not the direction that the future DCU will go in. Should we just get right into the movie? Let's do it.

Can I ask you a question first? What do we have to? Could we just talk about outfits some more or maybe we can play about Babylon a bunch? No, actually, no, there was a heated conversation before the recording about Babylon. We should leave that outside the record because we don't need the listeners to hear about that. Now, do you either you guys, how familiar are you with the character black Adam? Not at all. I know that he is related to Captain Marvel, later renamed Shazam since there's a entire company called Marvel and that was confusing. And I know we call it a miracle man at one

point. No, no, no, oh, black. No, black. Black Adam is, I guess in that universe as a villain and then later sort of an anti-hero, but that is all stuff that I was able to glean as the rock beat his drum for a black Adam movie all these years that finally came to pass. I don't actually know much. Well, that, I mean, that's pretty much it. So everyone knows, everyone now knows Captain Marvel who, uh, and I read, I read the 52,

is that or 52, whatever that seems, was, when the DC universe rebooted itself a couple reboots ago. Yeah, without, without some of the primary heroes without like your superman's. Yes. And black Adam was one of the principal, I guess antagonists in that series. Well, so, so the original character, I think it only appears once in the old Captain Marvel comics. He's an evil version of Captain Marvel. They fight against rid of him. Many years later, he was brought back and the idea was that he is, he is an anti-hero, mainly because his interests are what aligns with his nation, rather than any kind of what

the liberal West assumes are universal values that the other heroes epitomize. So he is, and he's more violent as we, this movie cannot stop reminding you that he kills people as if it's the coolest thing a character has ever done in the history of superhero movies. Which also, I mean, by this point in superhero movies, I'm pretty used to superhero's killing people. I mean, Superman killed people, Batman killed people's movies. Exactly. It would be more amazing to me if we went back to superhero movies where they really, really

tried not to kill anyone. Yeah. At this point, I think Spider-Man might be the only character who doesn't go out of his way to either kill people or just allow them to die. But so Black Adam, the idea is he is an anti-heroic hero. And maybe his values aren't totally aligned with ours, which could be an interesting thing that could create, say, a debate between characters. Instead, we get kind of like a blunt argument in which neither side does a very good job of making their case and they punch each other a lot.

And I know that this character was originally was intended to appear in other DC movies, but, but, Dwayne Johnson kept saying like, nah man, I'm not a supporting character. I'm a star character. I only star in my movie. So he missed his shot at getting paid to be in other movies, I guess. I mean, I don't know if that's a big concern for him these days, but probably not. And I would argue, as we talk about the movie, that he is incredibly miscast in this part, the way that they, that they, that they, they present him that Dwayne Johnson, who is, his whole thing is the arched eyebrow, you know, he's, he's the, he's the Mussobound guy who's got a little bit of irony about him in the same way that kind of Vin Diesel does. But here the character is deathly sober,

like and stern. I totally expected. And maybe it's because he doesn't want to do the eyebrow thing anymore, whatever. Like it's, you know, it's his bazinger or whatever. He doesn't care if you can smell what he's cooking. Yeah, exactly. He's not even cooking anymore. He's not even cook. Now it's, can you smell what the rock is pooping. I don't want to. No, thank you. The movie ends on like a set up to the name where they're like, you know, maybe Adam Tette or whatever like what we'll get. Yeah, yeah, Teth. I just want to say like, you know, maybe that's outdated now. There's a close up on him as he's thinking about what we all know is that he's going

to name himself Black Adam and it cuts to black. It's a real missed opportunity. I expected him to arch his eyebrow for the first time in the movie and show a little levity and wink at the audience. We saw the name on the poster when he came into the theater. You say, I think you're right, that would be a more powerful moment than just cutting to the title of the movie that we've just been watching. If it if it had cut to black and slowly the letters, death Adam appeared out of been like holy shit.

They did it. They changed the title partway through the movie. So never before. So let's talk about this movie. It's a lot of sound and very signifying a lack of box office dollars. So we're, we're just going to do a normal episode. Yeah, we're just going to do normal blackout. Okay, okay.

Elliot, as the rock tweeted, blackout had made plenty of money. It was a huge hit. They should make a million more. I mean, in a world where movies don't have to make back their budget and then the publicity budget, it made a lot of money. I mean, let's, let's, I'm and then the publicity budget. Yeah. It made a lot of money. I mean, let's, let's, I'm looking at the Wikipedia entry right now. It made box office almost $400 million.

That's a lot of. Baffo. Yeah. Well, here's the thing that was once Baffo B.O. But in a world where the production budget is at least $250 million probably and the marketing costs you have to assume are at least half that again. This movie might have broken even, so it probably didn't. And that's the thing is the bigger the star, the more money you got to spend on publicity, because their contracts often stipulate how much publicity is going to be done for the

movie, so it doesn't get buried. And so it is, that's not a great. When you, it's like $400 million, this is an amazing amount of money. But when it takes you, it was like, if funny pages made that. Exactly. It would be that, well, it's one of those things,

we're, Dan and I were talking about this. It's a comic movie. It's a comic movie. Dan and I, in a previous mini, or maybe it was just a conversation from talking about Avatar and Top Gun Maverick, and how Avatar was seen as a first, a disappointing first about Avatar and Top Gun Maverick. And how Avatar was seen as a first, a disappointing first weekend.

And Top Gun Maverick seen as a hit first weekend, but Top Gun Maverick made less money than Avatar. And it's because different levels of movie have different expectations. So the Rock can't just say, this movie made $400 million, because it cost $400 million. So at best, they made $0 for all that effort.

Yeah. So I mean, but people got paid. it's not even on like a podcast. What's going on? So welcome, welcome to the fraction house. We're going to talk about how much of that is half. So anyway, we start with the DC logo, which I only realized this time prominently features Green Lantern, a character who I don't think has ever appeared in the official DC universe, right?

It was just that Ryan Reynolds movie, which I think is not considered part of it. So clearly they have big things in store for one of the Greenland turns. Okay, we begin as any superhero movie does with an incredibly unnecessary voice over narration about the history of the character. It's 2,600 BCE, almost 5,000 years ago, and Rin Kondok. And a voice over explains this is the first self-governing people on earth. Until King Okhtun made himself a tyrant and tried to forge the crown of Sabak. This is a magic crown that's infused with the power of six demons and it's made out of

a rare metal called Eternium which is only found in Kondok and is in no way a ripoff of vibranium which is only found in Wakanda, a marvel place that sounds similar and is also a far off kingdom. Now I heard of a six demon bag, but a six demon crown. I don't know. Excellent. Good work. Good work.

Very good. So, before we get too far into the specific. No, we're good. We're good 30 seconds into film. What do you want to talk about? So the story that this movie wants to tell, you know, they have to have this backstory. Like you kind of, you gotta have a, some version of it in the movie.

And Audrey and I were wondering like, you know, how did do this? Because like we hate this shit. Like this is just, you know, we in the flop house specifically hate this, but I think opening VO explainers. And this is coming from Dan McCoy, a man who, as we know, from the, from the Bad Langer, Bad Langer episode loves back story.

I'm thirsty for it. Like the thing is, if it's, if it's not Kate Blanchett explaining Lord of the Rings to me, I don't want to fucking hear it. Listen, in these movies, I- Which is why you love Tar so much because that's basically all the movie is. Yes, it's a build up to that shit. It just delays the start of the real story.

Yes. This is information we do need for that story, but it delays the start of the real story. So, Audrey and I were wondering, what do you guys think? What's the way to do this? I mean, I don't hate flashbacks too, but I think it's slightly better to get us invested in these characters and then show us this stuff. I think the way to do this is the traditional way

would be to see this information throughout the film, which they do. So this opening narration is even less necessary because a lot of this information gets repeated to us many times over. And so I feel like you look at a, I mean, you don't have to go as far as the movie like Chinatown where you got to watch it more than once to basically figure out what happened that they're talking about. But there's a lot, I feel like in older movies they do a better job of seeding the information of what happened before the movie, so you don't need this long prologue.

But my guess is, this is my guess, on an uninformed as I am. My guess is that the movie did not originally have this opening and that somebody was like, we got to explain all this stuff. There's too much stuff for people to pick up along the way, because there is a lot of exposition to pick up. So I get, I'm guessing somebody in the studio was like, yeah, but you got to open it with a whole prologue explaining who this character, like basically what Condoc is and what the crown of Sabak is and what Eternium is.

Even though movie is for much of history and I have not done that. Like I, again, the one I always wanted to on the podcast is Star Wars where there's that little opening crawl but like the force, what the Empire really is, like all that, who Luke Skywalker is, you just pick it up as you go along, dude. Like the movie just kind of tells you when you need to know.

Right. I mean, and I do think that people, I don't know, people have gotten more confused about this stuff based on the number of old people who are like, who's that before? Like, we, you know, like just to have you not seen the movie before, it'll be explained, you know, that later on. There's also, I think there, well, I think there's, just to have you not see the movie before, it'll be explained, you know, that later on. Yeah, yeah. There's also, I think there, well, I think there's, there might be a different expectations in people's minds where when you're watching a movie that's part of a larger world and you haven't seen the other movies, you don't know what stuff is being introduced in that movie

or what stuff you're already supposed to know. Yeah, that's a good point. And I feel like in the olden days, when most movies were standalone, that wasn't an issue, but maybe it's just that people are, there's like an anxiety, oh, am I supposed to know about that? I don't know about it yet. Am I missing something? Which I can understand.

It's a story, FOMO, anyway. Exactly. Which is also the name of a Star Wars bounty hunter. So the king has everyone mining Eternium to make this crown or maybe that I couldn't tell if the crown was already made and needed more to fuel it or if he's just, anyway, then a slave in the pits finds some Eternium and tries to hide it, but it's killed by the king's guard. And there's a kid who sees this and he's like, we should be free.

We need a hero and he's told by a grownup his dad, I guess it's hopeless. It's hopeless. But the kid steals that lump of Eternium and runs off and he holds it up on a hero and he's told by a grownup his dad, I guess it's hopeless. It's hopeless. But the kid steals that lump of attorney and runs off and he holds it up on a cliff and all the slaves are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the king is like, execute that kid and we are. And the kid starts this new like hand gesture that symbolizes freedom, but it looks very similar, either a triforce or diamond Alice pages diamond cutter sign, which is a different wrestler.

That's true. You think this was this was this was doing Johnson, like kind of sticking it to diamond doubt. Yeah. I own this now. And we are led to believe, and I spoil alert, this will turn out to be a a misdirect. We're led to believe that the kid is teleported away at the last minute. I don't actually guess that does that is what happened.

That does happen, which is part of what's confusing about it. But it's more complicated later that he's teleported away the the last minute. I don't actually guess that does that is what happened, which is part of what's confusing about it. It's more complicated later that he's teleported away the last minute to the council of wizards featuring the wizard shazam who we've seen in the movie shazam and the wizard of it. That would be great. It is there. And the whiz is there because nobody beats him. You know, he's with great prices on electronics. And so this is, he's given the powers of various Egyptian gods. Now as you know, she's Captain Marvel gets his powers from Shazam, the strength of Solomon, the wisdom of Solomon. How Solomon is actually physically very weak?

Wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, strength of Atlas, I guess lightning of Zeus, strength of Achilles maybe, and the speed of Mercury. And, but here, because this is kind of an ancient Egyptian type, type, type time, he gets Egyptian gods, which the stamina of shoe, the speed of Heru, the strength of M on, the wisdom of Zahudi, the power of Aten and the courage of Mehen, which makes me wonder, are they just really lucky that there's more than one Pantheon that has enough gods in it to fill out the acronym Shazam? Well, that's the thing. If you're Pantheon, isn't, if you're pantheon, isn't big enough, you don't get a shazam. And to be honest, now they think about it. Solomon and Zeus are

not in the same pantheon. So Solomon is Jewish and Zeus is Greek. So, but it's, but yeah, are they just like, is there, I just have to wonder how many other types of religions they've tried to retrofit into the name shazam because the wizard is like, we're still using my name. We're still using it. We're not seeing the other magic words. Anyway, they give him the powers. The Kings already made the crown, black Adam or the kid with the with the powers. Now he looks like Joanne the rock Johnson. He shows up and causes a battle. Black Adam wins. The crown is hidden. The battle crumbles that the royal destroyed the whole and destroys the whole town, destroyed the whole town. And the champion disappears. Okay. That was 5,000 years ago. Time to go to the present day. We're

back in conduct, which is now ruled by intergang. Hey, do we learn that by characters talking to each other? No, still voice over with the voice over. Intergang, of course, is a, is an international criminal organization that in the comics, for some reason was working for Dark Side for a long time. It always seemed kind of low ball to me. That's pretty cool. For Dark Side to be sending weapons to mobsters.

But okay. I zone down a little bit on some of this and for a while until later in the movie. I briefly thought that this was just an occupying force from the US because, you know, later on, the Justice Society shows up to protect their interest in the region, I guess. And so I was like, oh, wow, this movie is like going a little harder than I expected in terms of like, I don't know, making the US the villains. Instead, they're more like just kind of misguided.

US, the villains. Instead, they're more like just kind of misguided, I don't know, like the whole international, like the fact that black Adam is this more militant superhero based on like the exploitation of his people and trying to protect them. Like you said, earlier, Elliott, could be interesting, but they do their best to soften it at every turn, despite having him, as you mentioned, like kill a bunch of people. Like they're all, yeah, the people you kill directly are all terrorists, you know, and, and we're all in. And many of them are trying to kill him. Yeah. We're trying to kill a kid. And I think the thing is the JSA, the movie also does not want you to come out too much on the side of Adam because they don't want the JSA to be villains, even though the JSA, when we get to them, are basically just going in to beat the shit out of a guy

they've never met. Yeah. Yeah. They're blundering around in another country. Yes. Exactly. And there's a country that they let a criminal gang run until until a magic guy shows up and they're like, okay, we got to beat that dude.

And so and they kind of and they bring that up in the movie, but they can't go all the way with it because they still want to spin it off. I assume into a JSA movie. So it's like, I wish they had been able to go all the way with their portrayal. And how's that? How's that? How's that looking? I think it's not ever going to happen.

Okay. So okay. I'm going to see my buddy, the Adam smasher ever again. Sorry. I don't know that you're all. I mean, jokingly wrong. I want, I would love to see more all this Hodge. I love that guy.

He's great. Well, we'll get. We'll get them. Okay. So we're introduced to one of our heroes. This is Aman who is a kid who skateboards around town listening to the smashing pumpkins because as the opening of the first JJ Abrams Star Trek movie shows us kids in any era just love the same music that

the person making the movie thinks is cool. You have to understand the world is a vampire. And despite all his rage, he is literally a rat in a cage right now. I mean, it's offensive to refer to him as a rat. Yes, yes. Yes, by enter gang. So he's so there's a van that gets stopped at a checkpoint. And the kid shows up and starts talking back to the guards and calling him a neo imperial

suppressor. We know the kid has a backpack full of DC comics. Later, see his room is covered in DC posters. And then he runs away and that he's distracted the guard. Is it weird that in this universe that there's like posters of an artist's drawing of Batman? I think it would be if it wasn't that kids put up posters of athletes who are real people, you know. I guess you're right. But it is a little weird that he seems to exist in a world where the heroes are real and are also trademarked.

IP. Yeah. I mean, Marvel's been doing that too. I mean, there are movies. There's like also comic books and I think like I keep watching these things. I'm like, but where's the movie where, like it's like a Marvel movie and they're still DC comics in it.

But it's like, oh, but these are just made up characters. I mean, there's some new series here. I mean, in one of the Spider-Man movies, remember, it may go, you're not Superman, but there is a, I will say, Dan, I'll buy it more from Marvel because it's since the 60s, it's been part of the Marvel universe that the Marvel universe also has comic books in

it about those characters. And the idea is that the comics that you are reading are like, are beat, are adventures that Jack Kirby and Stanley or whoever, like kind of adapted from real events or something like that. The actor Watson of that, you know, exactly, but it's still a little silly. So I didn't know if that, so that van gets through, but it's smuggling someone in it. The kid's mother, an archaeologist named Adriana, Adriana Tomas, and I couldn't tell the kid is not part of that plan to smuggle the van through, right?

It's just coincidence that he helps his mom spend. I think he is, and it's like revealed later. It's it's like, he's like, it's because later she, he's like, let me come with you and she's like, no, no, I don't want you getting involved, but. Right. No, it is, it is confusing. It, it, it, it seems like he must be

because then he's talking to her within minutes. Yeah. I mean, I think it's to establish those characters and to establish their relationship. Yes. And so that's his mom. She's an archaeologist who I guess is not supposed to intergang, has a rest on site or or for her. And she has an Eternium necklace.

It's a family heirloom. And she and her brother. Must be her brother. Yeah. Tell me about it. She and her brother, Karim, who is the comedy relief big guy who sings to old pop hits. He sings loudly to baby come back a couple times. And her another character, his name I don't remember.

And also another character named Ishmael, who is almost instantly clear that- That we should call him or should we call him something else? No, he told me we can call him that. Yeah, that is okay. It's almost instantly clear that Ishmael is a sinister character. They're going out into the desert to these mining pits where Eternium is being looked for, I guess. And they think they know the location of the crown.

Oh, yeah. Actually, the archaeologist is played by Sarah Shahi, who is in one of those USA shows, right? Well, not USA, no, but I understand what I think it's life, the Damien Lewis. Right. A lot of it. And her brother is a Moammer, the stand up. Okay. I didn't know.

A lot of the actors in this are like, have done a lot of TV work. And I don't watch a lot of TV. So I didn't recognize them. It's the new movies, dude. That's what I heard. Yeah, I heard it too. I also heard it's the new novels. It's the new movies, dude. That's what I heard. Yeah, I heard it too. I also heard it's the new novels.

It's not true. So she wants to find the crown of Sabak, which has been sitting there for thousands of years untouched so that she can hide it somewhere else because she thinks nobody should have it. Sarah Shah, he was also in Floppyos Classic, bullet to the head. Oh, really? I forgot about that. Okay.

She's also in like sex lives of something, something or something like that. Sex lives of DC heroes. Are video tapes? Sex lives of video tapes. Sex lives of video tapes. So they go to this excavation site, it's not. Sorry, I have to say, is that sex lives of anything? It's sex slash life.

Oh, I'm sorry. What was the name of that? All right, okay. You can choose one or the other. It's sex slash life. Oh, okay. The name of the. All right. Okay. You can choose one or the other. It's about two topics. Pick the wrong one. I picked the wrong door.

It was just a, it was just life cereal. Too bad behind the other door was a lot of sex. Sorry. Just like, not kid tested or mother approved. No, that's a kick, I guess. That's not life. That's kicks. I No, that's a kick, I guess. That's not life. That's kicks. I run that's anyway.

So they find the intergang is showing up, but Adriana and Ishmael, they manage to find the tomb of this hero that Condyck has been waiting for forever. And the crowd is just floating in the air above it. And she jumps up and gets it. Meanwhile, the mercenaries, they kill one of the members of the group, the one whose name I can't remember. And then they kidnap her brother. They threaten her.

They say, we'll kill your brother unless you give us the crown. And she gives the crown to them. But then she reads the inscription on this hero's tomb and it glows and explodes. And who should come out, but a shrouded figure who will soon learn is Teth Adam. That's right. The legendary hero or so we believe, and he appears and he just melts the terrorist with his electro touch and he's just jumping around killing the shit out of terrorists. Like he's just snapping their necks and hurling them into walls and blasting them with beams

and stuff. Now I want to say, black Adam, our hero. Teth Adam, he's not a black Adam yet. You shows up, we were 18 minutes into this film. This film is a little over two hours long. And I would argue that the first 20 or so minutes could almost entirely be cut with no consequence. You just like, maybe a little bit of our college of Sarah Shahi going in here. We don't know why she is like set upon by, you know, evil folk. And then we're off to the races.

Like, so much of this is just throwing. Yeah. Right. And you're, and also often unanswered questions get us more intrigued in the movie that we're watching, not always, because sometimes the payoff is non-existent. But in this case, it's really like, she also explains while she's doing it about the hero of conduct, and it's like,

yeah, we saw the opening. Did you not see the, oh, that's right, you were hidden inside of a van, so you didn't see the opening of the movie. Also, none of this time, like arguably like the little bit with like the kids skateboarding around, like none of this time, arguably the little bit with the kids skateboarding around, like none of this time has been used

to endear us to these characters, or let us know who they are as people at all. We don't care about anyone that we've seen so far because we know that we can tell that this woman is gonna be somewhat important to the plot, although character wise she's given nothing. But none of these are characters that we think are going to be important to a movie called Black Adam. And we've been spending all our time with them and learning nothing about

them to make us care about them anymore. Well, guess what, Dan, because luckily, you're going to, you're, you're, you're, what's going to answer that is a long action sequence. We're tethered and it's just murdering people and throwing helicopters at them in slow mo while the Rolling Stones painted black tick plays. And our heroes warn him just in time from the catch a rocket that has Eternium written on the side of it, which is hilarious because if nuclear weapons just say uranium on the side and blow the chain wet on the side, right? And when it blows up, it knocks him out and makes him all electrocrackly.

It gives him a wound that crackles electricity. And some mercenaries on sky cycles, they call into Ishmael, who it turns out is a bad guy who called in the mercenaries. And he's like, blah, blah, blah, I'm mad. So anyway, now, guess, okay. So we've introduced our main characters. They have an unconscious teth atom. So I'm going to find out what happens when teth atom awakes in the present, right? And meets the real world. Nope, because first, Amanda Waller, our favorite

connecting tissue character of the DCU is talking to Carter Hall. That's right, played by all the time. All the time. Yeah. About there's a new loose cannon out there and we've got to take him down. And there's all these news reports playing about teth atom. And it's like, when did the news cameras get to this battle inside a terrorist controlled foreign country? This is us. And also like, they so quickly are just like, hey, this new guy showed up, he's a loose cannon,

we gotta deal with him and that's it, and then they just start like battling. And they spent so much time explaining other bullshit. Well, no, they do, but they don't. I would like to postulate. So the first 20 minutes could be gone entirely. But then we are, like, I don't know if it's right here, but it's close to here that we are introduced

in rapid succession to all of the justice society. This is right here, yeah. And none of them are given like a proper introduction. They're given like people are just like talking about them on the phone. There's no really like funny character moment for any of them. And as Audrey pointed out, like, this is the good stuff, like a, like assembling a team, like, like meeting the team. That's some of the fun stuff. The most exciting part is when Henry Winkler shows up in a video call. Yes, it is. She literally foams in us before. That is the most exciting part of the movie. So we meet the guys. If they had just cast Henry Winkler as Adam

smasher and he had been Adam smasher in this movie, it might have been better. That would have been fantastic. And he's like, oh, in my back. I feel sometimes like these movies are like games where you're allotting resources, like places. And I feel like if the movie's resources could be measured in minutes, as it can, we spent 20 minutes on bullshit. And then we zoom through these characters that were expected to care about so quickly.

We know nothing about them. Four or five of them are introduced in this movie, like usually in a Marvel movie, they'll introduce a secondary character, like usually in like a Marvel movie, they'll introduce a secondary character like one in someone else's movie to give them a little at area to breathe. It's just insane to me. Well, and I think I, when you talk about a lot of resources, I think you're exactly right because I wouldn't be surprised if Joanne Johnson was like, these characters can't have

more time than me. This is the movie Black Adam, starring Joanne Johnson. So if you're going to introduce these other new characters, it it's gotta be super clear that they are not as important as me and they cannot get a lot of time on screen. And then they get a surprising amount of time on screen. But none of it is for, you're right, it doesn't, they're like, hey, here's Quintessa, she's Cyclone, we won't talk about where her powers are,

who gives a shit. Here's Adam's Masha, he's the nephew of the original Adam's Masha, who's Henry Winkler, anyway, who cares what he does? I don't give a fuck. Let's get to Dr. Fate, it's Pierce Brosnan. What does he do? I don't give a fuck. Let's get to Dr. Fate. It's Pierce Brosnan. What does he do? I don't know.

He wears a helmet or some shit. He and I are friends from a long time past. Maybe I don't know. Anyway, I'm Hawkman. What's the justice society? Let's get moving. And that's basically what that feels like. Yeah.

Yeah. But they also come on. And as a result, that's their catchphrase, right? Let's get moving. Well, their catchphrase should be, we're the B team because they feel very much from the get go. Like this is the Justice League B team, which could be funny. If they had been like, we're the B team because the A team is too busy fighting dark side or some garbage. At least we would be like, okay, that's

pretty funny. That gives them a little bit of character and personality that they're like. And if you want to, and if you want to, it doesn't fit with continuity, because none of them are members of the JSA, but like, if you wanted to establish more connections with other movies, like throw a suicide squad member on there. Like, that's the kind of person Amanda Walder, Amanda Walder, Amanda Walder has control of and can send after these things. That's why they exist. You're thinking of on Amanda Walderpot. Yeah.

When Henry David Gross met his time at Amanda Walden pond, yeah. So now Teth Adam, he's asleep. He has a flashback to being a kid. We think it's him anyway. And he wakes up in that skater kid's room. He heals his own wound with his fingers. And the kid is like, hey, dude, you've been in a tomb for 5,000 years. And he walks out. The kid's uncle is wearing the crown of subok just as a goof on his head, which it's one thing which is like, it's an evil artifact of untold power that corrupts instantly. But he can just kind of sit around with it.

It's pretty heavy too. I mean, I could buy this if like he was a skeptic, but they went out specifically to find it and also then woke up a man who like flew around and shot lightning at people like he should worry about whether it's the. And it was the helicopters around and found the found the crown floating in the air. Yeah. Well, he wasn't there for that part, but yeah, she could tell about it. She probably told it.

She probably told it. The kid takes a moment to and FOIA probably told about it. Yeah, takes this moment to, I would not believe where this crown was. In his butt. No, why is that the first place he would go to? I wouldn't go to his butt first to just look for a crown, but you did apparently. No, that's not.

So the kid tells him the history of conduct and intergang, which we've heard a couple times already. And Teth Adam blasted their TV and tells them why don't you go destroy your enemies and then make them big for mercy. And the kid is like, yeah, and the mom is like, the archaeologist like, I don't like violence, but I do want a champion of freedom. And- By the way, the casualness with which- They're all dealing with him? I was going to say the house gets destroyed over the course of this movie.

Really disturbed me and I understand that like, also people get murdered, argue with the issues care more about these fictional murders than these fictional possessions. But I think that there's two often in movies like a supposedly heroic character walks around destroying things as a goof and we're supposed to laugh at it. And I keep thinking like people of the property says Dan McCoy. That's what I'm saying, but I'm saying that the hero, I mean, but you do believe people over property. The hero of the movie is destroying another hero of the movie's house. And there's never any boy who's saying like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

stop it. Yeah, yeah, maybe could you, you've got super strength and super speed. Can you rebuild this? Can you help us out? At the very least, a shy love of style. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, would be called for as he just casually erects their permit and it reminds me of floats through walls and such.

It reminds me of this, of the, and there's a joke about later where Dr. Fate goes, did they not, they didn't have doors in your time? Because he just always enters through a wall. But it reminds me the season of modern family that turned me off of that show where at least two times the season characters got into car accidents. And the rest of the episode was not about what am I going to do without a car now. It was just kind of like a funny thing that happened and they just, it magically had a new car.

I can't, I can't say if that's with somebody who, where a car accident doesn't totally throw their life off track. Anyway, if your car accident doesn't lead you into a weird like psychosexual adventure where you start having sex with a liice codious and whatnot, I'm not into it. Can't sympathize with it. Can't, that's not true to life, if not. Yeah, so, so, uh,

Teth Adam, he flies out the kid in one of the silliest moments, uh, lifts up one of it, one of it, like a filing cabinet to reveal a secret escape route out of it. Yes. And, and it takes that escape shoot. And he keeps saying, Tethad, I'm, come on, you've got to become a famous superhero. Let's do this. You need a catchphrase.

It is all of that did not. It is, like, hey, y'all, why don't you just want like Edward Furlong and Arnold Schwarzenegger to do this so much better? This is exactly what I want to say. Like they 100% were like, this is going to be a Terminator 2 relationship. Yes. And the JSA, they head to conduct. Dr. Fate has misgivings because he can tell, he can see the future and he sees Hawkman

screaming in pain. I can't believe all of the futures. Because like I was watching this movie like, this can't be the ideal way to do all of this. Like if you have a man who's constantly seeing the future with you, I don't know, it opened up a lot of questions that like Adam didn't answer for me. And was not interested in answering. I can't believe that like Arnold Schwarzenegger who is portraying a robot man. A cyborist?

Has more like soul and pathos to him than Twain Johnson, who's playing a superhero who, at this point, we know is driven exclusively by rage. I think a part of that is, Dwayne Johnson, I mean, desperately wants to be the new Arnold Schwarzenegger. And as much charisma as he has, he does not have that inborn charisma that Arnold Schwarzenegger has. At least I haven't seen it. But the other difference is that Terminator and Terminator 2 are written and directed by

James Cameron, a master storyteller, pretty much, for that kind of story. And this was written by, I have to assume, a committee of who knows how many dozens of people and directify the director of Orphan. So it's not quite the same. Now come on, hold on. I John Colette Sarah, I will stand up for as a vulgar otor. He's fine. He's, but he's not James Cameron. Orphan. Yeah, not James Cameron. For orphan and for he made a lot of like good, uh, geezer films with, uh, Liam Eason. But I did. yeah, I did look up. There's like a writing team who like this is their only big credit.

And I assume that they their stuff got rewritten by the guy that has a bigger filmography of, I apologize, I'm sure you're a nice man, like nonsense. He's got Scoob exclamation point, rampage, which is okay, not great. Alvin in the chipmunks, the road chip, do date, and made of honor, M-A-D-E. We all recall that man who was made of honor. He was created. He was created. He was created.

It's like virtuosity made. He was created out of energy. And so I don't know, that might be part of the problem. I mean, I don't know, I would, I would go as far as to not blame any of the writers involved because any movie like this is going to have so much executive meddling and there's going to be so many other uncredited people who are brought on to do writing passes or to do punch ups or brainstorming sessions or it's such a, this is, this is like a definition of a movie made by committee that has the

the reason that James Gunn's superhero movies are so successful is they have such a specific voice and sensibility to them. And this movie does not have any voice or sensibility to it. Like it feels like it was made by a machine. And a machine without the charisma of the Terminator, which is a surprise, I met a charisma for a Terminator machine. Okay. of the Terminator, which has a surprise amount of charisma for a Terminator machine. Okay, back around. Tathatome is floating around town. There is a colossal statue of the of the ancient champion. It's like it's enormous. It's got to be what? 500 feet tall, almost a thousand feet tall. It's huge. And the skateboard kid is following him. And then the kid kind of deliberately antagonizes some intergang soldiers and starts making that ancient triangle hand signal, which everybody

recognizes. Yeah. And the intranet gang guys tackle him and recognize his mom when she intervenes. And that's when Teth Adam drops and it saves them. He has kind of an he has

a neo morocona score standoff. Saves them. So very nice way of putting it. I mean, he kills a lot of people. It's it's also like there's a part where he's a a intergang guy's also like, there's a part where he's an intrigant guy has his hand.

They do a western standoff because he saw a couple seconds of the good band, the ugly on a TV screen earlier, thus ripping off Robocop and any other movie where someone sees something on a TV and then does it. Thanks for the future three. Now, another robot that has more soul. Well, also like this is amazing. Now, those are movies also about like Robocup is explicitly about a man who has been turned into a machine and has to regain his soul.

And even when he's a machine, yeah, he has more soul than black Adam does. But also this Western moment, like this is not a thing that has been given up wait the first time around that we saw for the call back to land at all. It was a thing that was on the TV. And it is a pointless standoff because if the soldier shoots him first, black Adam will catch the bullet, hurl it as fast as he can at the soldier's head and murder him. Like there's no idea that there's a standoff in any sense when black Adam could just take about, is it not in any danger? I do have a question. Do you think that there were anybody in the movie theater watching Black Adam. No. You can see these scenes. You would see these scenes of Black Adam murdering a bunch of like, merks and be like,

awesome. I think that's what they're hoping for. Maybe I just got done, it's because I just got done watching RRR and their scenes where guys are like riding on each other's shoulders, blasting dudes with bold action rifles while doing flips and crap or like shooting a guy off his horse mid air and then landing on that same horse in the same jump and then riding it around. What a movie. Okay. That's how you know, a fucking action sequence. But like I feel like, I mean, a man, a man goes a one on one against a tiger. There is a, there is a thing. I'm sure it's not exclusive to the DC movies, but there

seems to be a certain, like, love of doing these, like, hyperfast, hyper-strong guys, just like annihilating people. And it's so boring. Because it's, because it's a, because that's, it's the most basic without any subtext or any gloss power fantasy. And I can imagine, and certainly when I was a younger man and I was mad at the world and I felt like nothing ever went my way, and before I embarked

on a successful television writing career and received a number of lucky breaks that I'm very thankful for, it's, I certainly fantasized about being the kind of figure that could just bulldoze its way through any situation and was untouchable. And I think even more than the violence of it, it's the invulnerability of it and the untouchability of it

that is so appealing and so endearing. The same way that like, why did I idolize Boba Fett when I was young, even though objectively he's crap at his job and can't do anything right? Because. He has a fucking sick fit on, dude. Yeah, and he has this aura of,

you don't know me, you can't tell what's going on with me, I'm untouchable. And so I think there's a lot of that. Am I a robot? Maybe you don't know this yet. You don't know it. I mean, IG 88, you know he's a robot. He doesn't even wear a helmet.

Yeah, that's Kenny, yes. He's gotta be a robot. No way a person can't fit in that. I mean, maybe something that I'm weird to get sick. Daily guys. It's like fuck you say. I could fit into an IG 88 costume.

Even the Doug, let's see it.G. 88. Casting Doug. All right. Let's see it. 20. That's very performer. Doug Jones died today squeezing his own body to death as he tried to put on a homemade I.G. 88 costume to answer a challenge.

But what's it about? I don't know. I do. I legend. All of all of Hollywood has dimmed its lights. To recognize the tragic death of Doug Jones in a challenge. Here's a statement from the International Association of Performers who play monsters and stuff, President Andy Circus.

We salute Doug Jones and we're glad that he died doing what he loved trying to be a weirdo creature. If only we had the strength of character to do the same, we would all have died a long time ago. A weird stance for Andy's just to take to improve of this action. Single. What do you, what your runs down, Ron Roman's face. But what do you expect from Lord Snow himself? Anyway, so, anyway, so, that I think that's here that they are playing so hard in that paraphernaly of someone who can just do whatever they want,

and they're almost unstoppable. But there's no, there's something else to hide it. It's a weird metaphor for a big action star who refuses to lose in fights. Yes, exactly. And also, you know, it's a metaphor for what this franchise and what this company wants to be when Warner Brothers is a company that's having a lot of trouble right now, and they wish that they were the unstoppable entertainment juggernaut that Disney and Marvel are, and that you could, and like, they just can't pull it off, at least in their movies.

Their characters can just mow their way through bad guys. It's kind of like the way Superman was portrayed in Justice League in the Zack Snyder cut. Absolutely. Absolutely. Where it's like, oh, he's can never be hurt. And he just punches a bad guy in the face until they're dead. And Wonder Woman cuts his head off. And that's, and that's all he has to do. And that's what makes him great. Not that he stands for anything, but that he's just powerful. And here, I guess the idea is that this movie is the journey of

Teth Adam towards standing for some kind of principle. But anyway, the J.S. Even at the end, he's like, I will solve my problems through punch. Yeah. The JSA shows up and Hawkman saves two mercenaries that, that, that, that, that I'm tried to kill. And the crowd booze him, which, understandably, I would too. If Mike, if I lived in a country that was under a brutal violent dictatorship and some guy from, from America came in in a Hawk costume, which looks a little Nazi-ish and we're holding a, holding a spiked mace and saved two of the bad guys who had been shooting at a kid, I blew him too.

I would wonder what what side he was on. And Adam kills them anyway in the crowd cheers and Dr. Fate shows up and this is the weird part. Okay. Teth Adam, he is a man from 5,000 years ago and the JSA later make it clear they know this. They know more about him than our other characters know. They know he is super powerful and very violent and that he's just woken up. Instead of coming

to him and saying, we had, hey, we're super beings too. We want to talk to you about something. Dr. Fate comes in and says, you can't exist in this world. Neil or die, which seems like they're exactly the right way to get black hands back up. Yeah. it's, it's nuts. And it's so out of keeping with with Dr. Ray. I know this guy's backstory. At no point was he cool about kneeling. Kind of his whole deal was not kneeling for this thing. Now as we were watching this, you know, there were a lot of questions coming my way because, you know, Audrey Crick that identified me as a nerd. But I was like, no, I'm sorry. I don't know DC characters that much. I know Marvel characters more. I was like, look, like, stuff about like Batman and Superman. I know Batman Superman. Yes, arguably the

two best know what about the metalloids or whatever the metalloids. I don't know those are. But, but you know all the DC heroes, Prez, Shade, the changing man, Rag doll or whatever his name is. Yeah, I mean, I like looked up Dr. Fade. I'm like, I guess he's kind of like a DC doctor, strange analog in that they're both sorcerers. And Audrey had not seen the first doctor strange.

He's familiar with him from later movies that I've seen with her. But she's like, what's his doctorate? And I'm like, oh no, he's a medical doctor. He was a surgeon. And then she's like, what's Dr. Fates? Dr. Anne looks at me and I'm like, oh, he's just, you know, it's just a cool name. It's just a cool name.

It's a cool name. It's a totally a cool name. It's what it is. And he has a magic alien helmet or something like that. So that's, there's a big fight. Dr. Fates does a lot of doctor strange type magic. It looks pretty cool. I have to say Dr. Fate's magic throughout the movie. I thought looks really neat. And when Cyclone shows up, there's some like slow motion color, you know, effects. Yeah. All those cyclone arguably maybe the least in this movie, like in terms of any sort of impact of the character

makes. I'm like, I've watched all black Adam, I still have no idea what the deal is. Well, so because the JSA, the JSA, they do fall into easily slotted characterizations. Hawkman is the leader who is kind of militaristic in a way, and is not, he'll be right to go in and fight and kind of, and as he says many times, they keep bringing it up. A bad plan is better than no plan, you know? He'll be right to go in and fight and kind of, and as he says many times, they keep bringing it up.

A bad plan is better than no plan, you know, and force is usually his first choice. Dr. Fate is the mystical kind of scientist intellectual archeologist guy who provides information and has a goatee. Adam Smasher is the doof. He's just the big clumsy doof who's always fucking up all the time. And he's like a rookie. He's like, yeah, this is another thing. I want to point is able to picture a, is able to picture a bucket of fried chicken for

a sight gag in the middle of battle. We kind of, and cyclone is, is like the character who is super smart and super poised, but otherwise has no personality and is kind of, just kind of there. But is a, is a commendable character, but is not an interesting character. Yeah. I want to talk about for a moment to Adam Spasher, who is, as you say, a doof and and his power is that he can grow enormous. He can grow enormous and the and the and the. He's an ant man. He cannot shrink. He's going to be big and the and I have to say and again, the effects with him look great.

And there are times when he's blundering around. And I'm like, it is cool to see a giant person bumping it, you know, picking up cars. Yeah. And maybe in another project, like I'm watching the recruit on Netflix starring Nocentino, the same guy plays Adam Smasher. I'm not going to make like big. Can he get super large? Is there one too? No, but he's pretty good. Is that you have how they recruited him to be Adam's measure. I'm not going to make like big. Can he get super large? Is that one too? No, but he's pretty good. Is that how they recruited him to be Adam's measure?

I'm just saying, I think he could be funny in something else. Here, it's like what, like, I think because he is similar to Ant-Man in his powers, they're also kind of like, okay, well, he got his suit from his uncle and he also is like a bumbling doofus. But with Ant-Man, like you understand why he's Ant-Man, and it's by the fact that he is unqualified for the job. For this, as part of a team that is sent in by like the government, I'm like, why is this guy on here?

Because his uncle has a suit? Like, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. Yeah, it really he's not qualified for this mission. He seems to have had no training and that's nothing except for Hawkman and and Dr. Fate. None of the JSA members have met each other before today. So it makes it it would make more sense for a man of all to send in people who know each other's names. And I've many I guess they just they got to know each other on the flight over. And there's a number of things. If they had, if they made an effort to be like, if they like lost the first fight against

black Adam, and they made a point of being like, oh, yeah, because we didn't know how to work as a team yet. Yeah. Yeah. But they don't really do that either. Anyway, they do lose the first fight against black Adam. He knocks out Adam's measure with one punch. And Adam's measure continues to be a doof throughout. And the crowd chance for Teth Adam and he's like, if Mark Miller had written this scene, he would have like punched through Adam's measure's head. He would have, he would have like punched so hard he would go through Adam's measure's bowels and all this giant shit would fall all over the city and drown people. Yeah.

Yeah. That's Mark Miller's way of doing things. He's gross. He's like the Kwanachmokar, the only just the You think that the shit was the quenacma coffee of comics? Just the living tissue. Like is there just like a really good question? Like the bacteria inside his little tongue. Yeah, did that all that? So then if he constantly hungry, then if that's the case when he's giant,

he's constantly hungry because there's not enough food to fuel him. Did we ever have this discussion about if the Hulk eats a lot of food and then changes back to Bruce Banner, if Bruce Banner's stomach gets distended and it's trouble pooping. That's great. Okay. Well, that I must have had that debate with somebody else. I'm just going to say why it's not. It's kind of the sea Hulk season.

I mean, that sounds great. Yeah. So he's a so if anyone knows the answer, just right into the flop ass that the Hulk eats a lot and then changes back to Bruce Banner. How does that affect Bruce Banner? Yeah. So, um, that covers all characters who morph by the way. Not just the Hulk,

but everyone morphed more from these days. We just referenced the, Elliott now is, but this is the, a reference to a video from 25 years ago. I think that we used to watch at the, in the daily show, right this room.

Yeah. Uh, everybody's more from these days. Yeah. So, uh, uh, Adriana, the archeologist mom, she choose out the GSA. She's like, oh, you never showed up until now. You never tried to help us. But now when a powerful guy who might help us shows up, you try to get rid of him.

And her son skates away with the crown. She's got the crown. I don't remember how they got it back. And Hawkman says, hey, by the way, we have secret texts that you've never seen that say Teth Adams rage was what destroyed Condoc thousands of years ago. She instantly accepts this as the truth when anyone else would be like, full shit. Show me that. The guys who just showed up and have never been here before have sacred texts

that I, a native archaeologist, have never seen that talk about this. Come on, but she just takes it as granted. They all go to the castle ruins where Teth Adam is. And so I hope you guys like this fucking ruined throne room set because so much of the movie keeps coming back here. It felt a lot like a fucking level of the injustice fighting video game where you would like fight in a level, punch somebody into a completely different level, but they need always end up back on the original level after like punching someone with a fucking moon.

Because that basically is what happens in the movie. Yes. And this ruined temple or castle is in the center of the town, basically, right? Like, I was hard for me to keep track of the geography, but it seems like it's just kind of in the center of of conduct, which conduct is conduct a city or is it a country? Yeah, I can tell if it was like a city state. Yeah, some kind of city state, like a Singapore or something, but it's very important.

Like a Singapore? Yeah, or a major port, all the ports. But it shows you how little thought has been given into where this takes place. And it's like the difference with a movie like Black Panther is they clearly put a fair amount of thought into like what is Wakanda, how does it operate? Whereas the conduct, it is so, they've done none of that.

And it takes what could be interesting, which is like a superhero story told from a non-American, non-Western civilization point of view. And it does not, non-Judeo Christian, I assume point of view. And like, it does, they didn't do the work. Like they didn't care enough. Yeah, yeah.

And then those, as we've already said, those are ideas that we were all excited about. Yeah. To have a, I mean, if you told me the basic premise of the movie, I'd be like, yeah, I want to see that. I want to see a super movie that, here, he acts off of different cultural assumptions and different loyalties than Superman. And they highlight the fact that Western superheros only care when it might be a threat to their own interests. But they do it in the, in the, like, the idea of their universal good, which whatever. Well, and that, and that the JSA by virtue of being from the West has the right to go into another to sell anyone who has superpowers.

Go to jail or you're, or you're done for it, you know? So they're in their ruined temple throne room or castle throne room. And, and, uh, Adriana's like, hey, Adam, you've got some explaining to do. Here's the story the JSA told me that apparently you went after the king out of revenge, not justice. And it's like, all right, well, that doesn't really matter who cares. But, and you lost control of your powers and you were imprisoned by the council of wizards. Is that true?

I didn't open your tomb, did I? I opened your prison, but now you have the chance to be a hero for real. And we cut away from that as Teth Adam faces this moral crossroads and we get to the skater, skater, Katamani comes home and evil ismail is there and he takes the crown and shoots a month's uncle, the goofy guy, Karim. And then we go back to the JSA is now talking to Adam. And for Adam, for one of the dumbest

jokes I think I've ever seen in one of these movies, Adam's mattress shows up with a bucket of chicken and Dr. Fate uses magic to magic it away because it's disrespectful. And it's like, what, what, what, when did he stop to get it? Where did he get it? Like what? What, it's such a dumb joke. He brought like a whole, comically large bucket of chicken and no one until this moment said anything about it. Like, like, Dr. Face, like, oh, I should use my magic on that. And also, like, he needs to eat, like, they should have just left him out, like, he

could have just hung out outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he needs it because he's big and he's like, yeah. He's like, maybe he needs to just love check. The table is all screwed up. He was, he should be like, I was just 60 feet tall. Like, I need fuel. Come on. Yeah. But I want to go that part. It's not like he's going to like, he's not going to convince Teth Adam of anything. Yeah. It's true. He is one of the least useful of the members already. And honestly, I want

to know how the fried chicken is in conduct. Do I should I go there is worth my time? So the JSA they're kind of posturing. So they're kind of posturing with Tathadam again, they're all squaring off. And then Adriana gets a call from his from her son. Oh no, he's in trouble. And she begs Tathadam, please save my child. Meanwhile, Aman is single handedly using a skateboard to just show up all these intergang terrorists. He holds the loans to the fuck out of these guys. Yeah. They called it country alone because he's saving his whole country.

And then Teth Adam shows up and the fights a bunch. And Ishmael shows up and takes the kid, but nobody knows where the crown of sabak is. Where did he hide it? And Teth Adam knows that Ishmael has taken Amman into one of his sky cycles and that leaves to a big series of fights where black atoms just throwing guys off of sky cycles to their deaths. Eventually he seems to be a little bit of a shell game with the sky cycles where you're like, which one is the real one that has the kid in the back?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you think at the last minute that he's kid in the back? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Dr. Fade, Dr. Fade, he manages to save, no, Dr. Fade saves Kareem and he starts, what I think is one of the funnier running gags in the movie where he says, this is,

I've seen the future, this isn't how you die. You die with electricity and Kareem is like, but I'm an electrician and throughout the movie, Kareem is fine running into dangerous situations. I guess he won't lose his wants because he's like, I die by electricity. I know I'm not going to die now, which is a funny bit. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, they, they fake us out and thinking that Adam has found a man, but he hasn't. Ishmael is taking away somewhere else.

Uh, black Adam, because this is kind of movie jokes about throwing a man to his death as he, because he's just thrown a man to his death. Although I got to say, like, if the movie had leaned into that stuff a little bit more, like did the Terminator 2 thing where it's like, like, we had this guy doesn't understand our version of morality. So we're going to have to like babysit him, but there's also the funnyness of like, you know, him blundering through and murdering people, like the dark comedy of that. Like, they could have done that

But they don't and instead their version of that No, their version of that is that he keeps saying his catch phrase that the kid has given him at the wrong moment And so like he'll kill someone and then say the catch phrase and this catch phrase first then kill and it's like That's not the joke you should be doing anyway Adam smash and cyclone. There's a series of the beginning of a series of scenes where they're bonding, I guess we're supposed to assume there's like a romance that's gonna blossom between them, it leads to nothing. And Hawkman shows to Black Adam, or Teth Adam,

that if you take prisoners instead of killing them, you can get information from them. So Adam gets the information he needs about where the kid is and then kills them anyway, or drops them in Hawkman's assasade. And this begins off running a bit between Dr. Fate and Teth Adam about the difference between, but what sarcasm is and the difference between lies and sarcasm anyway. The running is just starting.

Yeah. They there's a big debate between Teth Adam and Hawkeman about the debate over the morality of killing. Yeah. Which neither side presents that good in argument. They fight again. They destroy a lot of justice league merchandise in the kids bedroom. They're destroying the apartment and their fight reveals the hiding place of the crown of sobock. The kid hidden in his dresser the whole time.

And so the fucking cumsox, right? Yeah, that's he's like, no one will want to touch it if it's covered in these. He doesn't realize that the crown gives power to the two of the two men turning it into masters. Your cum socks, you put them, you're saying that you put them back in the drawer. I don't use it again. I'm saying this gross ass kid might do. Okay. Dan, obviously, you're not familiar with the legendary story of the west of the cumsock load, which was a vein of cumsocks, a rich vein of cumsocks that was discovered made many millionaires.

Yeah. So anyway, now the mom is like, hey, you heroes are going to work together to save my son. And they're like, all right, we will, ma'am. And Dr. Fate tells Hawkman, I've seen your death, but don't worry, the future can still be changed. And they go, I guess, to like the attorney of mine. And the intergang has a man there. And Ted Adam jumps the gun and just starts attacking

people at the mine. But it's protected by an attorney empowered shield of force field that he can't get through. And ishmael says, I'm going to kill him on unless you give me the crown. And I love is that it's around here where I'm a ishmael reveals that he is the last living descendant of King Actaul. And I'm like, wow, 23 and me, man. What the fuck? Look. Well, he says he goes, I, I, now I, and he get, and he goes, now, now I'll get the crown. I'm the last descendant of King Acton. My, the story has been passed down through

generation after generation, my family. And it's like for five thousand years, that's amazing. That's astonishing amount of time. That is amazing for lineage to be kept up. Like that's, that a, that's a great. If even one of those people was like me and lazy and like uninterested in passing a long family task, or if one person was like, you know what, my descendant was an evil king. I don't think I want to continue this.

Or one person was told by their parents, by the way, you're the last descend of an evil king. And they were like, no, I'm not. Come on. It's like the story, I just watched it episode of Finding Your Roots. Rit turns out that Ed Norton is descendant of Pocahontas. Pocahontas. And it was like that, I barely believed that the paperwork exists.

But I'll trust Henry Lewis Gates, okay. But the idea that for 5,000 years, the story is passed down. And I really wish that Ishmael had put on the crown and it turned out his family was just it was just family lore that wasn't true. Yeah. And Teth Adam, you know, just crushes his engine. And then he, he throws the jarrers like, does this mean I'm not Native American either? So anyway, he ends up, anyway, he, he, he gets the crown, but then Teth Adam, but he's

going to shoot the kid anyway. And he fires a bullet. And even though we've seen Tathadam flying around at almost light speed catching bullets, the movie extends this in slow mo for so long as we think that the movie is good. Tathadam's not going to be able to save him. And what's wild in the slow mo is that he shoots in the time it takes him to shoot the bullet. And we watch Tathadam slowly, slow-mo fly to try and block it. Ishmael has time to drop his gun, lift up the crown and put it on his fucking dome. Like how fast

is that guy moving? He's a quick draw artist when it comes to crown. Anyway, Adam is so worried that he loses control of his powers. He blows up the whole mind. This is one of those movie controlled explosions where all the good guys are saved. And only the bad guys are killed. Ishmael has been turned to a stone statue holding the crown. And Hawkman turns to black Adam. They're about to fight again. And Hawkman goes, how long are we going to keep doing this? And I was like, as an audience member, that is my question as well. Thank you, Hawkman, for saying what we're all thinking. And now, Tedathadam finally reveals the final flashback sequence. He tells Hawkman the story of his son, the kid from five thousand years

ago who got the wizard power. Wait a minute, Tathadam's not that kid. Tathadam was the father of that kid. And the king and the kid got that power and was flying around as a champion, but the king to get revenge, he killed the kid's parents. And the kid shows up, his mother's dead and his father's dying. And he gives his father the Tathadum powers to save him, but then a sniper with an arrow kills the kid. Classic sniper moves immediately. And he was like, and waiting for it.

Yeah. And Tathadum, it turns out Tathadum was not the original champion. He was given the power by his son and he went mad and out of vengeance and blah blah blah and it's and that giant statue of the champion isn't a statue of adam it's a statue of adam son which raises the question to me so did they raise that statue when the king was still around because it seems weird that the king would allow them to raise a enormous statue of the man who's trying to overthrow him or did they raise it later in which case it could have been a statue of the man who's trying to overthrow him, or did they raise it later in which case it could have been a statue of bad death item?

Who knows? I don't know. Yeah, good. That's a good point. I also, this revelation, there's two things I want to say about it. Number one, I think this is one of those cases where, you know, surprise as a screenwriter is being valued more than like engaging us in the characters and understanding the character's motivation.

Because I think arguably it would be more effective for us to know the full story at the beginning and understands like all of like his issues. And then like get this character rather than have it be like this reveal, which is not a shock. I think more backstory upfront would be a good idea. Yeah. No, I think, or even, even if they just cut it out because you know what, it's not that important.

And also, we've already established who tat that am is like, we don't need another twist to help us explain why he was always a bad champion. We don't need the champion. He was never a part of it is that like they're trying so hard to make this character into this tortured anti hero. And the thing is we've seen superhero movies before. We've seen the rock before. We know that the rock is the hero of this movie. Yep. The him like accidentally destroying the society in the past is so quickly that even though, you know, if we think about it, we're like, oh, that's a big deal. Like in movie language, it is waved away. And I think

that it's part of the rock just like being scared of actually being an anti- like we have to see the misery of like, I fucked up like, what did I do? I like killed my society. Like, that has to weigh more if this is what you want to do with this story. Like, as it is, like, just like, why is this guy kind of a dick for a while? And then like slightly less of a dick. Yeah, I've played up the idea that like, like he destroyed this society. If they showed a moment of him like realizing what he'd done. And then when the wizards were tra of him like realizing what he'd done.

And then when the wizards were trapping him, he didn't like resist. He was just like, like, and then he, when waking up in the modern times, he's like, maybe, maybe I can do something, which I kind of guess is what they try and go for anyway. But I just want they're trying to do it. If he was seeking redemption rather than hiding from it. And he, it's, he kind of, yeah, it's hiding from it more because he tells Hawkman, he says Shazam to lose his power, which is funny because he turns back into himself who's still pretty buff. Like he still looks like a pretty big guy. And I mean, but it's definitely

a different guy with the rocks head on it. Yes. Yes. They didn't go all the way and make him like a like a skinny weak guy. They just made him like a slightly less muscular guy. He gives up his power. He sells Hawkman. Never let me say that again. And the JSA takes him to a task force X X secret facility where he's in prisons and suspended animation. And it's like this seems, this seems harsh. This seems like a very harsh way to treat him to put him in minority report prison. If he's willing to give up his powers, fine, but maybe do that after you get back the demon crown. Like, why is he doing it now? Well, he thinks, well, because he thinks that the problem's been solved

and we as the audience are supposed to think they're going to solve. And that the archaeologist and cyclone realize that, wait a minute, and this is something they realize based on nothing. And it is so, it's hilarious to me how they reason this. She goes, wait a minute, ishmael died on purpose because he knew that would send him to the rock of finality where the demon kings live and they would make him their champion and send him back, which is exactly what happens.

But this is based on the, it's great that's, yeah. They turn the crown, the crowd is an inscription that says the path to death, life is the path to death, and they turn it upside down and apparently upside down. They did it upside down. Thank you. That ancient language, I guess, changes meanings upside down

because upside down it means death is the path to life. And she's like, oh, so that was Ishmael's plan. And it's such an amazing leap in logic for them to assume, oh yeah, he died on purpose so that he'd go to the demons house. The demons would turn him into a super powerful demon man. But that's exactly what happens. They turn him into the living embodiment of their power. He's a demon man.

He's got a super powered kind of upside down star in his chest that can fire flames. Anyway, he attacks the JSA fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. A hawk man does manage to injure him with an axe because as we learned with in JLA, axes are the most powerful instruments of violence in the world. They can take out dark side instantly and he has to leave. Fate, and then he realizes,

Hawkman, this is, Dr. Fate says, Hawkman, this is the bad guy I saw you dying in, but I can change the future by dying myself. And so he locks and him itself and so back inside a force field in that throne room and just fights him for a while. Well, well, telepathically at the same time, speaking to Teth Adam in his prison. And I guess giving him the will to live to free himself. He uses magic to bring himself. And there's parties like, I bet Dr. Fate could have pulled off this plan without dying. but let's let him do that.

Wow. A speed of like, Dr. Strange. I feel like this is the balls of this movie trying to pull like kind of a similar trick to the stuff that happens in Infinity War and in game with this anyway. Yeah. With much less interesting characters. Yes. And so, Ted Adam, he frees himself. He fights

a bunch of task force ex guards and he gets shot. But he does it without his powers. He does it without his powers, which should be impossible. And he's just taking blow after blow to the head and fighting past them. And he can't say his magic word because he still has this thing on his mouth that keeps him from talking. And so, so, so, he, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, all the people of Kondok, Kondok, which has a population of about 50, they're just fighting off these guys and, and, and Karim shows up and, and he's able to have the fight off. Anyway. So, uh, Ted Adam, he's, he, he's, it's always funny when like an army of, like, the living dead show up and they are easily defeated. That is funny when I have a whole dead show. I think Dan, you should have waited for the, for the second part of Stewart's thought.

What? No. But yeah, they're being defeated incredibly. There's a part where you see townspeople and undead running at each other and a town's person falls and it looks like he slips. Like it doesn't even look like the zombie got him. So Ted Adam, I guess, has round in trying to escape from the prison, but uh, his family, he sees his family gladiator style. Oh, yeah.

His, his son tells him it's not your time. Uh, I'm on, he inspires people to rise up against the zombies with that triangular hand signal because they needed a motivation to stop zombies from eating them, I guess. And, uh, and, and Teth Adam's son is like, say shazam. And so he says it, uh, so Boc finally knocks over that big champion statue, was about to crush the total population of conduct, which again, is a couple dozen people when Teth Adam shows up and catches it and then hands it to Adam's masher so that Adam can fight

a, and it's confusing that Adam's masher and teth Adam are the two characters in this movie. Give him a different name. Don't you think they brought Adam smasher along because his name is Adam. Well, they thought this guy smashes Adams and we're going to have to teth Adam. Your whole power is smashing Adams. Yeah, we only heard it. They've never sought written down. He also doesn't technically smash Adams.

It's because he's in the comics. He's a descendant of the original, the atom who could not had no powers, but was just a short guy who fought much like Alpha Flight's puck who also, I guess, puck kind of has powers and that he was not originally short, but was turned short to man. Turn short to Captain to find a power. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Should be insured as a power. I'm living example. 10th Adam and Subok fight. It's a very video gamey. The mile fights the skeletons. Subok in pales. And black Adam has black Adam has a new cape when he comes back. Yeah.

I don't know where he got the cape from, but he's not. He's a little, he's not, he's a little out. It's a little different, right? It's a little different. Yeah. It's a little more heroic. And a Subok in pales hawkman, but it turns out that was a fake Hawkman because Hawkman has Dr. Fates helmet and apparently can do all the things Dr. Fates did. It really takes a lot of impressions. It really makes me less impressed with Dr. Fates. Yes. Well, it's a very user friendly helmet.

Yeah. Yeah. Just plug and play. The OS on that is so instinctive. Yeah. Yeah. And so Hawkman and Teth Adam, now they. And so Hawkman and and Teth Adam, now they cooperate to fight Sebek and Teth Adam remembers his catchphrase and says it

just in time before he tears Sebek into down the moon. Reverse bone, Tomahawk style from the head down. All the zombies dissolve. Dr. Fates helmet dissolves. I guess understanding that it's no longer needed for the plot. Yeah. And, uh, back to some planet. And, uh, probably to find a new doctor fate. Yeah. Yes, probably. Archaeologist mom takes responsibility for, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would be great. He's the next of everything. Yeah. And, uh, Archaeologist mom, she says, I'll take responsibility for Teth Adam. And Hockman is like, just watch out that darkness inside you will corrupt you. And she goes, it's his darkness that lets him do what you won't do. As if what he does is anything more impressive than just murdering people. And the JSA leaves the crowd. They say, lead us,

lead us to Teth Adam. And he sits down on the throne and then says, this feels wrong. And he destroys the throne. And the kid goes, you know, Teth Adam is he sits down on the throne and then says, this feels wrong and he destroys the throne. And the kid goes, you know, Tath Adam is kind of an old fashioned name. Or maybe he says that. He says the name Tath Adam's kind of old fashioned. And she goes, so what should we call you? And he looks at the camera. And then as we mentioned, it cuts to the title Black Adam in a movie.

And then we get to the most, then we get to the most exciting part of the movie for me in the credits when C.C. Beck gets acknowledged as the co-creator of black Adam. Very exciting to see CC back a legendary comic creator who died many years ago with his credits in the movie. Now it's the mid credits scene. And black Adam is having a hologram telephone call with Amanda Waller and she's like, here's the deal. You stay in conduct or I'll kill you instantly and he goes, do your worst, send me your worst people. And she goes, I've got someone better than you. And then Henry Cavill Superman drops in and says, we should talk cut to black. The sad thing is they never will because they make have no longer plays Superman.

I don't think they're making any more black out of movies. Maybe I'll convince Duane Duane to be in one of his war hammer shows that he's working on. And this, I feel like this mid credit sequence, it doesn't even rise the level of the morbias mid-credits sequence, which was such a, which was a matter of like, huh, what is, why is this happening? This is, that it's like Superman shows up and he's going to talk to Black Adam. And I guess the audience is supposed to be like, oh, these two Titans, what's going

to happen between them? But I have so little investment in either of these characters by this point that like, I don't really care that much. Guys, that was, we took a long time to get through black Adam, a movie that is really by the numbers and is mostly just fight scenes. Is it time for final judgments? I think so. I see a final judgment. Let's crank it out.

Whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie or a movie that we kinda like. Look, this movie is not so great. I don't know. I watched a movie last night called Bats. It's from 1999. You may remember it. It starred Dean Dean a mayor and the title of the set down Blue Diamond Phillips.

Yeah, the title was upside down on the poster because that's what you that's really bad it up. Read it. Yeah. And I back and see the movie. Oh, finally, something for me representation. I appreciate it. Yeah. And the amazing thing to bats for me is is how much it is exactly what you imagine a movie called bats would be. It like it is, it is jaws, but in, you know, Arizona and it, it follows all of like the beats of a low budget. The bats. The movie about evil bats, including like a guy being, you know, the evil scientist who created super intelligent bats who like thinks he can control the bats and gets hoisted by the entire thing.

I think that's going to work out for him. It hits all the hits at all. You know, and the guys real quick, I hit dinner up this day, but if I ever come up with a scheme to create like super intelligent animals or dragons or something, tell me to not do that. Yeah. But um, and we're doing in a respectful way. We won't say Stuart, you're mad.

You're you gone mad. You should be constantly. Cause I'm fucking sensitive. I'm just making you want to do it more. Yeah, it's going to hurt your feelings. You're going to want to do more. We'll say Stuart, you're brilliant. I'm just gonna make you want to do it more. Yeah, it's gonna hurt your feelings. You're gonna want to do it more. We'll say, Stuart, you're brilliant. I think you could pull it off, but I don't think you should pull.

You've thought so much about whether you could. You haven't thought about whether you should. We'll do what I need to hear in that moment. But the reason I bring up that is like, they're all these. And then I'm gonna have to pull your funding, unfortunately. Oh, but maybe we could repurpose it toward something a different project.

I'm creating super intelligent earthworms. Colossus, the forfeit project. No, those are both dangerous projects. Here's the thing about it is there are all these things on the internet, like on Twitter, whatever that report to be like AI generated scripts for things. And most of it is bullshit that some like aspiring comedy writer wrote like, but like this like bad deal with no sympathy for aspiring comedy writers despite having no one before. I have sympathy for that.

Just don't lie about the AI thing. Um, anyway, the point is that movie feels like the template for a movie. Like you open final draft and they're like disaster animal movie. They would just have the template and it would be the script for bats. And likewise, blackout in some ways feels like the template for bad DC action superhero movie. But the thing is with bats, it's a movie from a while back with almost no budget and a bunch of rubber bats and it's 90 minutes long. And so I find the utter like cookie cutter genericness of it charming. Yeah.

In the way that it is angering with black Adam where it's like you have all these resources, you know, big stars, everything behind you. And this is what you give us. And it is just frustrating and not fun. And that's my feeling about this movie. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to agree with you. It's, I think it's a bad, bad movie. I think they don't make enough effort to make a bad, bad movie. If only. It's, yeah, they don't give you any enough to root for any character involved. They don't really justify why almost anything is happening. It's just not for me. I think they, and the fact that they like toy with some actual interesting ideas, make the, the flaws more glaring for me.

Yeah, I agree. It's a it's a bad, bad movie. I think that it's a movie that suffers from being like the 30th or 35th of these kinds of movies and like there's a lot of things in it that if this had been the first time I was seeing it, I'd be like, whoa, a giant person, a superhero who can just kind of smash through things like amazing, but instead, we've seen it all before and it feels like the Amazon kind of negatively cookie cutter and it just doesn't work. And so I'm gonna give it a bad, bad.

And looking up the trivia on IMDB, I didn't know this. According to the trivia, it says Jordan Peale was originally offered the chance to direct the film when it's first announced. And I'm wondering, is that just because it has the word black in the title, which makes me dislike it even more. But they were like, oh, of course, I'll direct the superhero movie with black in the title. So I would say it's a, it's all, it's a bad, bad movie. And I, but I will say this, there

are a couple funny jokes in it. There are a couple times in the movie where there were jokes made that I did think were kind of funny. There's a part where a black Adam is like, he says something, it goes, did you kill those people? It goes, no. And then you see the people die. And he goes, that was sarcasm. And Dr. V goes, not sarcasm, just a lie.

And I thought that was the way the response and it said it was funny. But other than that, it's even having like, well, that's a good thing. You have a great performer. Yes. But like, even to the point of having like a goofy side character who sings an old pop song like, you know, even to the point of having like a doof character

who's always kind of silly and messing up like in the superhero team, it feels so, it feels like such a fourth generation of the things that we've seen. And it feels weird to have the rock playing a character who has no humor to him. So, I would call it a miss as in Miss this movie. J.K. Keith, do you know what I love more than the trivia, comedy, and celebrity guests on our podcast? Go fact yourself? No, what, Ellen? Sharing all of those things with an actual audience.

Yes, well, lucky for you, GoFact yourself is back to being a live audience show. Woo-hoo! Yeah, we've got a free recording coming up on January 15th in Los Angeles and February 11th in Pasadena. And if you can't make it there, all of our recordings will still be available

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if you want to or not. I don't know, it's up to you. We are also sponsored. I'm happy to say by Squarespace. Sorry, I'm just saying Squarespace. Squarespace? We are also sponsored by square pace. It's leapace, but it's a square.

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Now's the time. Take action. Carpe, digital sees the internet with Squarespace. That's Squarespace.com slash flop, offer code flop. Elliot, I bet you have something to promote, but before you do that, I want to say we have entries in for the sexy xenomorph contest. Yeah. I will compile them. I will put up a page for people to vote at flopphousepodcast.com.

www.flopphousepodcast.com. If you go to there, you should be able to find a poll. So you can figure out which sexy is more... Slide down that poll into the videos. No, video you like the best. And they will be the winner of the contest. I, you know, will give you approximately the rest of the month to vote on this. And then we'll announce the winner. But Ellie, do you have other things to promote? I do. I have something very special to me. I'm very happy to say that

maniac of New York don't call it a comeback. Number one, the first chapter of volume three of my wonderful. I'm going to say I'm just going to say a wonderful. You can say that. Thanks. Horror satire comic. It comes out this Wednesday, January 18th. If you were listening to this episode on the

day of its release or the week of its release, it comes out this Wednesday, January 18th, it'll be in your local comic store. You may be aware you may have heard that the day of its release or the week of its release. It comes out this Wednesday, January 18th. It'll be in your local comic store. You may be aware you may have heard that the publisher of the comic after shot comics recently filed for bankruptcy. A lot of people have reached out to me on Twitter to see what was going to happen with the book and to express their condolences.

I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for your interest. Thank you so much for your good wishes. It means a lot to me that this book is connected with people and that you want to see more of it. Don't worry. The company, though, bankrupt has not sunk yet. And I've been told that don't call it a comeback number one. It's already been printed and it's on its way to stores.

It may be in the stores now as it, I mean, and it will be in the stores on January 18th. So on January 18th, this Wednesday, and if you're listening to this after January 18th, go anyway. It's not like it's the only day it's going to be on sale unless it sells out. Make it happen. Hopefully. Please show your support for the book as well as for my great collaborators on it. Andrea Moody, one of the greatest comic artists working today. Taylor Esposito, one of the greatest letters working today. It's just the three of us and our editors making this book. And we put a lot of work into it and we hope you like it. So please head out to your local

comic store this Wednesday, January 18th and pick up maniac of New York. Don't call it a comeback. Number one, if you've never of New York. Don't call it a comeback. Number one, if you've never picked up maniac before, please give it a try. We recently named horror comic mini series of the year by the horror news network website. The first two volumes. Thank you. The first two volumes, the death train and the Bronx is burning are both available in paperback right now.

The story of Gina Green and Zelda Pettybone two women trying to stop it on killable mass slasher through the rest of New York City has just come to accept as a part of everyday life. If you haven't read the series until now, try to pick up those paperbacks. But if you don't want to do that, you can also just jump aboard this death train this Wednesday, January 18th with maniac of New York. Don't call it a comeback. Number one, in stores, after a wait, we're going to get the rest of the series out there. There might be a few delays in between this possible, but I guarantee you, I'm going to do everything I can to get all

things. Even if it means Elliot has to drive to different places and tell people what happens in the next year. Exactly. The story will get out. This is a four issue series and I will do everything in my power to make it out, get it out there. Yes, even if I have to old fashioned traveling oral storytelling, storyteller style, go to villages and sit around the campfire and tell them what happens at the end of the story. Next on the show, we, you know, we answer letters. Don't tell us, we don't. I don't know why both this and the ads were in opposition to an imagined argument with a listener, but that's what you got this week. This letter is from Daniel last name withheld, Steel.

Daniel writes, dear flop house, I wanted to know what film series or franchises you feel completely lost the thread of what they were about. What comes to mind for me is the Rambo series which went crazy out the rails from a lone wandering of Vietnam that suffering from PTSD being ostracized for his looks to super soldier, freedom fighter, and killer of drug cartels. Also, the Highlander films come to mind since the first movie of the tagline there can be only one and the movie ends with there being only one. Any movie beyond the first loses the thread. What film series really lost the thread of what the first was about? Thank you, Keep On Flopping, Daniel Les, name withheld. One major one that I think of that is still in production,

of course, the Fast and the Furious movies. We start off as a very small scale point break ripoff and then become large scale sprawling cast zany cartoon physics super spies globe-thruddling car-based defenders of justice. That's a little weird. Don't they go to outer space in the latest one? I believe so. I know. How could they not? I watched part of the latest one. I believe so. I know. How could they not? I watched part of the latest

one because I have to do like high civil the fucking cheese on the moon or something. I've reached my end. You know what? I don't care. I think that a Wallace from Wallace and Gromit took them up 30. Oh hell dude. If they fucking brought in Wallace and Gromit into the fast family like Jesus Christ. I would love it. Well while he's always inventing machines that don't work quite right for the family to use. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, the planet of the Apes movies

got really strange over time. I mean, I would say they lost the thread. They just pushed it over. The original, it's not the recent trilogy. The original, yeah, not the original. The original ones, yeah, because the original ones became kind of like stranger and stranger time travel exercises

until the very very last one. So it's, yes, that's, but that's one where, I think here's, here's how weird say it's a difference. I feel like when they made those play of the Apes movies, the only kind of film series franchises before then, were kind of like the thin man or things like that, where it's kind of like characters who have an adventure

one after the other. And I think that was one of the first ones where they're trying to figure out, what is the sequel to a movie that's not just a detective who has multiple cases or something like that? We're like someone to go, that's how do we continue this world? It's a series that becomes about a world

rather than about a specific set of characters. I mean, ultimately it reveals itself to be about the family of an ape family, you know, that it's the family of C's during his parents. But the Apelmans? I could see that. Yeah, the Apelmans. And I would say I have two answers for this. One is, because I was gonna say fast and furious also, one is the Jurassic Park movies, which have really what I think was especially funny is they've kind of done the same cycle twice in a way like Jurassic Park one and two, it's like this park full of dinosaurs, that's a bad idea. They get loose and then Jurassic Park two has a little bit of like, and

now the dinosaurs leave the park and the Jurassic Park three is like, we found another park. Let's just go in and find some more dinosaurs. And with Jurassic World, it's very funny that it exists in the same continuity. It's like, hey, you know that park where the dinosaurs went mad and killed people were doing it for real now. Hey, but now the dinosaurs are loose. Now there's just dinosaur. No, we're just going back for some reason. And it's the, it's, it's almost like I wish they'd lose the thread a little more, to be honest. But, uh, but it kind of lost what was exciting about the first one, which is like being trapped in a spot where there's dinosaurs and the all of dinosaurs.

And because the more dinosaurs you show, the less exciting it is to see a dinosaur. But I'm also going to say, this is not a good series of movies. I think none of them are good, but the police academy movies, the first one is explicitly about what they're rookie cops. They should be cops. And. and they go and wacky adventures tackle and are rated sex comedy the first one yes and the more that they go on both yeah the less the let the more it becomes about just like goofy cops when it was like all purpose of the first ones that they're just it the academy, they're just recruits.

Like, like, why did they, they're bad at their job? Like, it becomes a larger, it becomes a larger statement, I guess, on how all police are bad. All cops are bad, yeah. Which I know Stewart is, is definitely on board for, but it feels like it wasn't the original intention of, but by the time it gets to them going to Moscow

and screwing things up overseas, you know? True. Another one that occurs to me, a reason one that we did for the show, obviously, Ghostbusters Afterlife, which is wildly off to the movie, so I'm going to dip my toes into the horror franchises. I think after the second hell razor movie, they all kind of lose the plot. First off, they show way too much pinhead. Well, that's, I think when they, when they start to realize when they, they were like, oh, I guess this is pinheads franchise.

And it's like, no, it's not. He's not the hero of the movies. Like, what are you doing? You know, Julia is the main character, dooi. And then I would say the, none of these movies are good. But the software and size gets super wacky after like they kill, they kill Jigsaw, I'm like the fourth movie and they're like, okay, there's still five more. How can we, and there's what, there's all these like flashbacks of Jigsaw doing shit. So great. Man, it's such a dumb series. There's, oh, wow.

And yeah, wow, I watched them all when I was laid up with an injured back and it was I watched them all when I was laid up with an injured back and it was not not a great type of boy. I feel like most, maybe not all, but most superhero series eventually lose the thread of what like you look at the old Superman movies. Oh yeah. Or the old Batman movies and you're like what is going on? Like did you forget what people liked to the first ones and even like the X-Men movies is a certain point where they're just like we don't know what we're doing anymore, like we don't understand it. So they all kind of event,

if you do, basically, some ideas, you have more ideas, if some properties you have more ideas for it to do with them and some you don't, but it's not dictated by what ideas you have, it's dictated by the market. So the market doesn't always know. Sorry, Adam Smith, you blessed. I don't know. I'm sorry, Adam Smith. You blessed it. This second and final letter is from Dennis last name withheld from Sacramento, who writes. Hi guys. Hi, Dennis.

The menace from Sacramento. I guess you could be. Maybe. Hi guys and also, Halle Haglund. I doubt Halle's. Let's see if she has. Hi. As I type this, there's an incredible storm bearing down upon myself and my loved ones.

I live on the west coast. So usually things sing. Ooh, west coast. Yeah. So usually things seem like they're either on fire about to burst into flame at any moment, but we do get the occasional storm. I was wondering if you have any good tips regarding storms

and generally unpleasant weather or even some fun stories to tell. Take my answer off the air. Well, that's good because you never were on the air. I, um, but the answer is on the air. That's the thing. We're reporting it. I mean, my tip for storms is go inside, go inside. That's a good tip and stay inside for the duration of the storm. And then once you're over, you can leave your house. I think the roof is an underappreciated invention of humankind. It's something that was developed early on and it's still usable. It's still great. Still keeps rain and snow off of your head while you're sleeping. It the roof everybody. Let's not let's raise the roof in honor of the roof and join us. It's the

roots, the band that sounds like the roofs, but it's not. No, okay. I don't have any. There's no, there's no better thing for putting a fiddler on, than a roof. Thank you, everybody. This has been Ali Kaelin for the roof. Yeah. Of America, RCA. You don't want it to catch flame, but if it is on fire, just let the motherfucker burn. You don't want to have to do that. And I feel like, I feel like this question, maybe you better answered by friend of the flop house, Dr. Roof. I feel like, I feel like this question should be better answered by friend of the flop house. Dr. Roof.

Oh, wait, she was talking about sex stuff. I think you should have sex on the roof. Yes, but you always say Dr. Roof, that's Dr. Roof house timer. I will say as a, as a spokesman for the Roof Council of America, do not let the mother butter burn. If the roof is on fire, contact your local fire department and get that roof put out. You're going to be happy. You did.

I don't know. Scientists told me that I don't need no water. But um, was scientists that told you that I don't have any scientists. I don't have any stories other than like, you know, I grew up in central Illinois. There are a lot of tornadoes during the, during the summers. Uh, did you ever last one like a payco? It's not last one. Illinois, there are a lot of tornadoes during the, during the summers. Did you ever last one like a paycoast bill? It's not last one.

Washing. But you did go chasing one like a bill of Pakistan, right? Yeah. A couple of years back, Washington, Illinois, about half an hour from where I grew up, got hit hard and some things got torn up. And that was sad, but Eureka geographically, presently, it wasn't like in a dip and tornadoes tend to help my right. There are a lot of like warnings that then we never actually fortunately got hit by

anything, but I don't know if you guys have any storm, storm tails. No, not really. Not really. I mean, stay inside and stay inside candles, but that's just, that's just a general life tip. Get some good smelling candles, dog. I like the bunch of them. Take a bath.

Take a fucking bath, right? I will. And I will share it all time about how many candles are around you. Yeah. And then crack the spine on a sweet little Ursula K. Ligwin book. No, that's right. That's what I'm going to do. That sounds great. That's what I'm going to do.

That sounds weird. Yeah, always. But again, as a spokesman of the Roof Council of America, please don't put those candles on the roof. The roof is flammable. It could go on fire and you do not want to let that motherfucker burn. Okay. So keep those candles off the roof.

Put a fiddler up there or a weathervane. I can flick some reports on this. And I don't have any storm stories. I grew up in New Jersey. We had a lot of floods, a lot of blizzards. But otherwise, you know. My favorite, I do have a pretty good storm story. It has to do with when she had a mohawk and was like kind of in her punk mode.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, hanging out with you, Kyo. I'm the direct side of Tokyo. Yeah, that was a, that is a good storm story. Yeah. And I have this, there's another good, I have another good storm story. Yeah, and there's another good story. It's called Life Death and it's about her and forage. Life Death 2, not as good a storm story, but it's all.

Yeah. So I guess we do have good storm stories. Yeah, we got plenty. Okay, well, let's move on Chris Claremont. Let's move on to recommendations. But we saw recently that you'll probably, I'll say shitload lately more than black Adam. I watched, you know what, this is not a movie that I absolutely

love, but it's probably the movie that I enjoyed the most that I saw recently. And it was very warmhearted. Maybe feel you're gonna recommend a cabalon again, aren't you? No, no, I Perhaps in unexpected recommendation. I watched Nancy Myers film the intern starring one Robert De Niro and one and half away Bobbie D's Elias will pal any eight Yeah, and It's a mood like

You know, I'll warn you. it's got the usual Nancy Meyer stuff, it's about a bunch of wealthy people with big kitchens without real problems, but it's also sweet. Robert De Niro does like a great job as just like a guy who's just like a decent guy. Like he's a decent patient guy who's older, his wife died. He doesn't have a lot in his life. He's like, I see, sees an ad for a senior intern program. He's like, this will be a thing

that I can do with my time. He enters and half a way his life. You know, she's a successful, young business woman who doesn't need his help per se, but could use someone who is supportive and kind and doesn't like demand anything, is just there to be like kind to her. And it's just a warm like comfy movie. Comfy movie. It's a total fantasy. There's like the comedy is not that great.

Like whenever it tries to get wacky, it's not that great. There's some like weird stuff in there about like elevating traditional masculinity. Like where did these kind of guys go? Kind of stuff that is a little weird. But on balance, it's just nice to see. You know, like I like unlikely animal friends and I like I'm likely human friends too.

And there's no more. I'm likely human friends and seen Robert De Niro and a half away palin around and real life. Yeah. Yeah. You put them in the in a jar together. Shake it. They'll fight. But yeah. But I just had a good time. I just it's just sweet. It's sweet. Sometimes you want something that's sweet. Stewart. I get it. Yeah, I watch a lot of movies and I'm probably going to be drip feeding them through episodes of the flop house. Today, I'm going to recommend a movie from A24 that hopefully we'll get a little bit of award season attention. It's a very kind of small movie about a woman who is and and it's told in a complicated

fashion. So it's a movie that requires a lot of attention. I don't recommend doing dishes while watching it. A lot of it is told through basically what what turn out to be memories or like video clips from a like a home video camera. And it's about a young father who is about to turn 30 who is taking his 11 year old daughter on a vacation in the Mediterranean. And they are not in each other's lives a lot. And they are both in their own ways trying to connect with each other. And at the same time, the story is also kind of being processed by the daughter who has grown up and turning 30 herself. And she's kind of reflecting on a man that she doesn't quite

know very well. And it has an incredible performance. It has a couple of incredible performances, particularly Paul Mezcal, who plays the father. He was in, he was the lead on that show, Normal People, a show I did not care for. But he is, he is so good in this as a, as like a young, like a young dad who is trying to be a good father in whatever ways he knows how. And he's also very similar to Paul Tequila, but smokey. Very similar, but you know, maybe for a more discerning palette. But yeah, after son, I think it takes a little bit of work from the viewer, but I think it's

worth it. And I'm going to recommend a movie from last year, but I just saw it last week, or I might have mentioned it on our 2022 show, which is, which, you know, the mini, not the one that shows from 2022. Anyway, the movie I recommend is The Banshees of Innesharen. It's 1923 and Colin Farrell is a fairly thickheaded, but well-meaning resident of the small Irish island of Innesharen, whose days are mostly spent pallying around with a small donkey and chatting about nothing with his friend Brendan Gleason.

When Brendan Gleason tells Colin Farrell he doesn't like him anymore and never wants to see him again, it rocks Colin Farrell's world and leads both friends down a path that starts with charming humor but slips into obsession and anger and vengeance in the macabre Martin Macdonough manner. And I really liked Bansheehee's event of sharing. I did that would have been a perfect trailer, like, rea voiceover right there. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. If you could do it in an Irish accent, that would be a plus, but you don't have to. I like it. Let me try it is. It's 1923. Oh, perfect. I'm tired. But why? Maybe not. Why being Irish just doesn't

mean that your voice goes up so. Oh, this is the way they talk it. I just got a season to assist email from the Lucky Charms guy. The Lucky Charms guy, his name is Lucky. Hey, I don't respect it. It's it's signed TLC guy, the Lucky Charms guy. So I really liked this a lot. I thought it was really funny and also really heartbreaking. Yes. And Macdonough, he sets up this situation between

these two and he kind of lets it play out without an inter, without the kind of intervention that a movie or a turn about that a movie might introduce. And so it just goes to an endpoint that is both like shocking, but it also feels inevitable when you get there. And I want to especially single out Carrie Condon who plays Colin Farrell's sister and she's fantastic in it. And. That's seen with her and Barry Keegan, where near the end of the movie where he, you know, yeah, I don't want to talk too much about the specifics of it, but it's like a fucking

soul crusher. It is, but it's like a fucking soul crusher. It is, but it's played so beautifully. It's so gorgeous. Yeah, it's great. And it's a real, it's a movie that seems really simple, but there's a lot going on in it. And it felt, I mean, I've never been to Ireland. I'm not Irish, although you might have thought I was, why the accent?

But it feels like authentically Irish in the, like in an Irish literature way as opposed to like the kind of goofy, chewy stuff that we, I feel like growing up, there was this period where there were a bunch of movies about Ireland and American theaters and it was all like, way too much of a divine. Yeah, that kind of stuff. Or like, there was, like, you know, there was like a master card commercial where someone goes back to Ireland to learn about their roots and they're just dancing and whatever. And it this felt like it felt genuinely like it.

It's the one. What's the one with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt? Oh, the devil's own. Oh, fuck that. And this taps into kind of like that kind of like the undercurrent of kind of like charm and sadness that is like that that seems to be such a part of the Irish character, you know, so I really liked a lot the banshee's of in a Sharon. Yeah, that's a good one. Although I could not I had to write down the title because I couldn't remember the name of the place. So I was like, I was like, Danielle, I really liked the banshee, it's a fantasy location. So you know, I remembered that name. Elliot, I, when, to additionally sell After Sun to you, the movie that it reminded me the

most of was the lost daughter, a movie you had mentioned in our wrap up episode. Yes. Which I really liked a lot. I think, I think you would get something out of After Sun. Okay. I got to see it. Is it streaming anywhere? It's just in theaters right now. I think it's just in theaters, out of after some. Okay. I got to see it. Is it, is it streaming anywhere? It's just in theaters right now. I think it's just in theaters, but I'm assuming it's going to be streaming soon. I'll try to find it in the theaters. I'm

trying to go to the theater more often since I think I went twice last year. Well, that marks the end of this episode. It's been a long one because, you know, black animals just such a rich text. So much to to- There's so much to dig into. Really does. Yeah. But as we close up, I'd like to thank Maximum Fun, our network, go to MaximumFun.org, check out other podcasts on the network.

I think the network's pretty good at sort of having a sensibility, rather than just being like a bunch of things thrown together. So if you like this show, I bet there's something else that you would like on our network. And also I would like to thank Alex Smith. He's at Howell Dottie on Twitter

in various other spaces, and he makes us sound good. But that's it for the flop house. I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kaylen, but you know, perhaps I need a new name. I think I'll call myself, okay, Alex,

how do you put like a title screen here that has a new superhero name that like, it doesn't, you don't hear it, but you like, it says it's like a bluish sound effect yeah yeah yeah just put that in right there but I'm Ellie Kaelin until that title screen goes up in your ears audio wise okay normally when I watch a big movie I'm like, okay, which of these characters do I identify more with? But the problem is I'm a little like both beam and rum, right? Yeah, I guess so, I guess so.

Yeah, that's what they call you, stew our art. That's better than stew tar. Your former nickname, because you identified with tar. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me up. Man, time to drink some pineapple juice. So my loads are huge. Number one, that's not what happens. I'm a two that's seltzer.

So wait, why are my loads so huge? It makes it because your loads are so bubbly. Huge testicles, I guess. Yes, Stuart, we've got this. I'm your doctor. Huge, because your lows are so bubbly. Huge testicles, I guess. Ha! Yes, Stuart, we've got this, I'm your doctor. You've got an issue known as Big Spur. Your sperm is actually too big. Like the end of like the loo-lo-lo-lo.

I got a lot of questions, Doc. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience supported. comedy and culture. Artists owned, audience supported.