The Flop House - Ep. #422 - Road House (2024)

Episode Date: April 13, 2024

FINALLY after suffering through all of those bad movies, we get a treat! Patrick Swayze's Ro... what? What's that we're hearing? It's the remake? Goddamn it. Well maybe Road House 2024 will have some charms of its own. I guess y'all will need to listen to find out.We partnered with StagePilot and their talented crew to film our SPEED 2 live show as a streaming event! The debut is Saturday, April 27th at 7PM ET, and the three hosts will be IN THE CHAT watching along with viewers at that time, BUT THERE IS ALSO A VIEWING WINDOW — folks can rewatch or watch for the first time anywhere between the debut and Sunday, May 19 at 11:59PM ET!And if you happen to prefer your live shows really live, and happen to live in or near OXFORD, ENGLAND? We’ve got upcoming LIVE SHOWS for you!Wikipedia page for Road HouseRecommended in this episode:Clifford (1994)Prison (1987)On the Silver Globe (1988)The Prowler (1951)Head to FACTORMEALS.com/flop50 and use code flop50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next box. Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code FLOP at Manscaped.com.

Hey, floppers. This is Elliott talking. Before we get into this episode's classic Flop House shenanigans, I wanted to make sure you knew about some upcoming live events we are very excited about. On April 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern, we are premiering online the professionally shot, professionally edited online video of our Speed 2 live show. Dan, Stuart, and I will be there watching the show with you,

text chatting with the audience throughout the entire thing. Can't make it on the 27th? The video will be available to watch at your leisure through May 19th. To see the trailer and buy tickets, go to stagepilot.com slash flop dash house dash speed dash two. If you want to see us in person and you live in England, remember that on the 24th of May, we'll be in Oxford doing our first and second ever UK live shows in one night. 7 p.m. we're talking The Avengers. 9pm, we're talking Spice World.

Two shows, one night. For tickets and more information, go to flophousepodcast.com slash events. Now that's enough live show hype from me. Let's get to that patented Flophouse silliness. Take it away, peaches. On this episode, we discuss Roadhouse. Oh shit I love that movie with Patrick Swayze. No it's the new one. Not the sequel Roadhouse 2 that doesn't have Patrick Swayze. What? There's a movie called Roadhouse 2. Guys I think I watched

Toad House. Is that the same movie? Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, Dan McCoy. It's me, Stuart Wellington, your friend. Hi. Hey, Dan McCoy. Hey, Stuart Wellington. A third friend is here, your friend, Elliot Kalin, who is me speaking right now.

Yeah, that's right. The three friends. Suck it, Bluntchick. We got one more than you. Anyway, so this is a podcast where we talk about a bad movie that we've watched, all of us. Or a good movie. Or a good movie.

Sometimes it's a good movie. Here's the thing. And sometimes it's neither good nor bad, but just a movie, Dan. Yeah. Not everyone's a hero or villain. It's always a movie though, right? We are led to this movie.

We sniff it out with our noses. Like Cartoon Hobos, the smell of a movie wafts towards us and we fly towards it and it's because either audiences have rejected it, critics have rejected it, or it's just kind of gotten mediocre reviews, but we're sort of interested in talking about it. I love it when they leave a bad movie to cool on their windowsill for us to snatch away.

Mm-hmm. Sometimes you see, we walk through the neighborhoods and we see the markings that other movie hobos have left that say, a nice lady with movies lives here. Yeah. Or a mean man who shares movies. Yeah, Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler.

Neil Breen inside. Yeah, so this time we watched Roadhouse, which is interesting because it is a remake of a highly beloved movie of the past that was not, that got bad reviews. I was like highly beloved within certain circles. It's not The Wizard of Oz. Well, this is what I'm saying.

I was trying to avoid calling Roadhouse a great bad movie of the past because I've come around to the idea that Roadhouse is doing exactly what Roadhouse needs to do. It's not necessarily bad, it's just highly silly. It's a highly silly kind of lunkheaded movie that's lovable, like a big dumb, like, collie dog or whatever.

I don't know, you guys, I'm pretty professional when it comes to being a movie podcaster, so I rewatched the original Roadhouse What yeah rewatched it over the weekend? I sacrificed the time I would have spent with anything other than the original Roadhouse and watch the original Roadhouse a movie I assume you already love yeah Just make your regular Saturday night thing. I mean that should be I feel like that's a great Saturday night Yeah, crack open a couple of brews. Maybe order some za with the rents

Yeah, as long as you don't finish any words. I think it'll be okay. Yeah, if you're Unfamiliar with the original Roadhouse directed by Rowdy Harrington with the original Roadhouse directed by Rowdy Harrington, the owner of the best name and directors. It's about a famous bouncer who is lured from his existing bouncing job down to a harder bouncing job in the middle of nowhere where a Roadhouse is being bedeviled by, I don't know, bad people who... Evil land developer Ben Guzzar.

Yeah. Yes. A lot of big names involved Ben Guzzar, Patrick Swayze, and of course the director, Rowdy Harrington. Like you mentioned, the director of Gladiator. Mm-hmm. Not that one. The 1992 Cupid and Junior sports movie. It's a boxing movie, yeah.

Yeah. Did Rowdy Harrington, did he also do... Was he the electrician on Humanoids from the Deep and Hots? Yes, Was he the electrician on Humanoids from the Deep and Hots? Yes, he was the electrician on Humanoids from the Deep and Hots. You're right. Daniel Waver movie Hots? Russell Mulcahy. Was he the grip on Repo Man?

Yes, he was. Well, that's not... That's where he learned his bona fides. Is he credited as the best boy electric for A Nightmare on Elm Street? No, that was Russell Mulcahy. Yes, he is. Sorry. What else did Rowdy Harrington direct though?

Directed Jack's Back, directed Roadhouse, directed Striking Distance. The movie where Jack the Ripper has returned, maybe, and James Spader's involved somehow. And still alive. His last film was in 2004, but still around. Let's get him on the show. Rowdy?

Yeah. Thanks for joining us. Hey everybody, it's me Rowdy Hatton. Wow. And I'm just so glad that you're deciding to talk about my magnum opus, Gladiator, starring Cuba Green Jr. No, that was just a passing mention. We're actually talking about Roadhouse,

your movie with Patrick Swayze. Not familiar. It's your most famous film by far. As you can guess by a man named Rowdy's name, I have been hit in the head many times in the course of my adventures. I don't always remember my films, but I remember one movie, Gladiatorator because how do you forget winning Best Picture?

Yes, Best Picture winner gladiator Sorry, Cuba Green, Jr. Is just a little bit of this one Rowdy I want to say I appreciate your Your the way you lean back from the microphone every time you get particularly every time you get particularly rowdy. You might do when you're as loud and rowdy as I am. Okay, well thank you for... So you guys see my movie Striking Distance? Tell you a funny story about it.

Originally it was just called Distance. And I was like, hey, people are going to wonder what distance this is. And I'm like, is this a distance you could strike at? And the scientists looked at it and they figured, they ran the numbers and said, yes, you could strike at this distance. And I said, let's call it striking distance. And that's how the movie got its title. I do have a question about striking distance. What was it like working with the dad from Frasier?

Well, he has a name. His name is John Mahoney. And I'll tell you, if there's a guy who's rowdier than me, it is the late lamented John Mahoney. What a star tell you, if there's a guy who's rowdier than me, it is the late lamented John Mahoney. What a star, what a rowdy guy. The number of times we tied one on and closed down not just bars but also Toys R Us's. It was a rowdy time that we had, but that's what I have. I'm Rowdy Harrington, director of the Academy Award winner, Gladiator, and also Jack's back the story

of Jack Nicholson. Okay well you know we got to record a mini after this one I'm in charge of it it might be a little long so we're gonna have to say goodbye to you Rowdy. I don't think so. Rowdy Hamilton calls the shots. See this I'm Rowdy I don't just do what people tell me. Okay. Listen Daniel I was the electrician on HOTS, okay? So you don't tell me what to do, I tell you what to do. You know what? Suddenly I'm more interested. What was that experience like?

Is the electrician a character or is that his job? Did you know all those women were robots? Wow. They were all robots. The electrician job was very complicated on HOTS. That's why they have that acronym name. Yep. It stands for Huronistic, Omnidirectional, Technological,

and then the S stands for a word that now is a little sex not positive. So we don't say it anymore. But it was 1979, things were different, things were a little rowdier, and to tell you, I'm kind of, kind of makes me kind of sad that the world's not as rowdy as it once was. Sure, it's better in almost every other way,

but it's less rowdy. Yeah, tales of rowdiness past. Now before I go, if you'd like to hire me for a children's birthday party so I can help things get rowdy, then please hire me. I operate as a clown who's also named Howdy. Instead of Rowdy Harrington, I'm Rowdy Ha Haington. And that's my clown name. That makes sense, yeah.

I thought you were gonna say your name was Howdy Rarington and you were a cowboy clown. That's a damn good clown name. That's like a cowboy clown. Yes, new clown name, gotta go, Rowdy out. Okay, well let's talk about- Howdy in. So that was-

So Dan, he didn't direct the one we're talking about today No, that was an old Roadhouse who a movie that again Very probably really multiple times over the course of a lot of fun. We don't but this is especially at the very end of the movie a famous line from the original Roadhouse is Seemed to be a DR in and I wasn't even sure which character was saying it Yeah in the original Roadhouse is, seemed to be ADR'd in and I wasn't even sure which character was saying it. Do you remember that? In the final fight scene, you hear someone suddenly say,

be nice, and I wasn't sure who was saying it or why. I'm like, yeah, but they did say it in the original one. Yeah, you expect like Ed Boon to pop up in the corner to show you that like, that's a reference. Like get the Easter egg. Exactly. Does the little toast to your teeth. But we're not talking about the old Roadhouse, we're talking about a new one, directed by

Doug Lyman. The only director with the flavor of Lyman and Lime. Swingers and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow, probably one of his strongest. I know it is, Live Die Repeat. Yeah, he's a strong director, maybe not the strongest on this one. Director of previous Flophouse film, Jumper? Yeah, another one of his minor works. So yeah, they remade Roadhouse because there's no IP that can't be exploited these days.

And let's get into it, Shelley. People are super into famous bouncers, right? So they decided to make a movie about another famous bouncer. I just want to mention how strange is it that the writer and director of Swingers, a low budget comedy about LA Lounge Lizards, ended up both becoming like major action directors. Yeah.

That Doug Liman making mostly action movies these days and Jon Favreau living in the Star Wars and Marvel universes It's not what I expected when I saw swingers as a teenager and still being a teenager nature was like these are the coolest Guys in the world, you know Yeah, you were like wow, these guys are so money and they don't even know it Yeah These guys don't even know how money they are

There was like a week where me and my friends called each other money and we felt so stupid that we doing it as well you should have I feel like you should start doing it again. No, I think it's time. I think you're due. Just like Rowdy Harrington, you're due for another. Do you think the cool guys have now called each other crypto? I don't know, Dan, what do you think? What's your definition of cool here?

Well they wear bowling shirts and sunglasses, so they're pretty cool. Sounds pretty cool. That's actually pretty cool. Yeah. And then Superman's dog is like, me? And they're like, no, not you, Crypto. Speaking of bowling shirts, so I'm wearing a sort of a Hawaiian-esque shirt. Not like maybe full Hawaiian, but like a sort of... Yeah, why don't you give a spin, Dan, so we can show it off.

Yeah. Woo! And, you know, as a middle-aged. That's the sound Dan makes when he spins. It's not from his mouth, it's just a sound that his feet make, yeah. I feel like, you know, as a middle-aged man who has grown a little more zaftig over the years.

Like. Ruben ask. The Hawaiian shirt is a choice that I enjoy, I've embraced for some reason, The Hawaiian shirt is a choice that I enjoy. I've embraced for some reason, but I also feel like it says a thing about me that I don't necessarily like, not quite sure what that thing is, but it also like makes me feel uncool. So.

What it says is you're growing older and you're a little rowdy. Yeah, I've been a little rowdy over the years. So this movie. You're on vacation, dude. Yeah, I'm on island time. Permanent vacation. Stars Jake Gyllenhaal as the Dalton, this version,

this new Dalton, we'll get into that later. B Dalton, his name literally is B Dalton, right? Oh, no, his first name's Elwood, I'm sorry. His name literally is B. Dalton, right? Oh, no, his first name's Elwood, I'm sorry. His first name is Elwood Dalton. The previous Roadhouse man, the bouncer, Patrick Swayze was Jake Dalton, meaning this is, of course, Jake and Elwood, a weird Blues Brothers reference.

They had to have done that on purpose, right? Oh, 100%. You don't happen upon that. Yeah, you don't name a character Elwood by mistake. That's true. Anyway, we see Jake Gyllenhaal. I don't know what happened, doctor. I drank too much and I blacked out

when I woke up, my character's name was Elwood. Jake Gyllenhaal, we see him, he's in a hoodie. He enters an underground MMA tournament. He walks very slowly towards it. Also in attendance, Jessica Williams, our former coworker. What's she doing there? What's she doing there? Former Flophouse guest and current neighbor of mine.

Really? You see her ever? I do, when I'm out taking walks, she's usually out walking. Tell her I like her on that show she's on. What's it called? Shrinking. She's great at walking. Yeah. Tell her I like her on that show she's on. Shrinking. Shrinking. She's great at shrinking, yeah. Very funny.

And she's not bad in this. She's great in this. She's good in this. I thought she's really good in it, yeah. One of the most sort of likeable presences in the movie, just sort of relaxed, laid back, immediately sympathetic. This is a foreign action movie. This is a very laid back movie. And I want to say, I did not have time to watch the old one. Stuart, is the original Roadhouse as laid back as this one?

This one kicks into high gear in the third act, but until then there's a kind of burn notice kind of laid back hang out vibe to it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I feel like this, the original follows that like 80s action movie pace of like constant stuff is happening, you gotta get on that ride

or else it'll leave you at the station. Okay. Well, so, you know, Jake enters this octagon area. The man who has previously been beating all comers is too scared to fight to kill in a hall. Post Malone. Is that who it is? Yeah.

Okay. Who by all accounts, I'm sure he's a nice fella, but that's part of why I don't quite buy him as a as like a bare knuckle boxer type. He just seems too nice. Well we'll get a genuinely bad man as a fighter later on. So, Stu, what did you think of the moment when Jake Gyllenhaal comes into Challenge and takes off his hoodie and is ripped? For anyone who saw us on our West Coast tour,

Stu had a whole presentation about big, beefy, hard-body boys in the movies. Well, that's the thing. I mean, he definitely put in the work, but a lot of it's like, he's just so chopped up, like he's so, his body fat is so low, so he's got those bicep veins popping, he's got his cum gutters nice and deep, right Dan? Don't use that term. I mean, he, I mean, he, like, he just looks so skinny, like, like, the guy should eat something.

It's not like he's an iron claw, those boys were big boys. Yeah, those were big beefy boys. So, Jalen Hall takes it all because it's a winner-take-all competition. Just by walking in, he has gotten 500 bucks or whatever. Because the other fighter recognizes him and says, I'm not going to fight this guy. Yeah. Out in the parking lot afterwards, that guy, angry at losing his payday stabs Dalton, but Dalton's calm and cool. He just sort of like, do you really want to do this? He's like holding the knife hand and he scares off this guy.

How would you describe Gyllenhaal's vibe in this movie? Sort of sedated. He's got like, kind of a. I would call him sensitive, vulnerable, tough guy. Somebody pointed out, somebody, I think it was on Letterboxd pointed out that it's like, Jake Gyllenhaal has already seen the movie, and is just kind of like explaining it to everybody.

And that's something that, his performance, sometimes I really liked it, because I was like, this is a really different way to take this kind of character. He is not intense. He is not, he doesn't seem tough. He seems like he's about to cry at any moment, but he also seems ultra confident

in how everything's gonna turn out and how no one can defeat him. But also there are times when, by the end of the movie, I was like, I wonder if this character is partly on the spectrum because he's in the middle of a fight with somebody and they bump into a piano and he goes, this piano is really out of tune.

Like he'll suddenly notice a little detail about the world around him when he should otherwise be fighting. And I was like, I don't know if this is on purpose or not, but he's a character who is like, who is feels like he is very disconnected to what's going on. And sometimes it worked for me that Jake Gyllenhaal

doesn't have that regular tough guy demeanor. But sometimes when he's like, later on when he's like, I'm afraid of what happens when I get angry, I'm like, I don't really know that you're, I don't see the steely edge beneath the velvet glove here. I don't like the brooding element. Like when he's like, oh, I'm scared of what I'm capable of. I'm not as into that, but like the funnier stuff,

I think he does really well. I think he does a good job as a character who is so confident in his own ability to fight anybody that he does not have to throw his weight around otherwise and he doesn't have to seem worried at all. Or like take the bait when people are talking shit. Yes. He is sort of, yeah, he has this zen politeness,

which is explained later on kind of by his tragic backstory that we'll get to what he's scared, he's capable of. But, and I like it a lot of times, and then sometimes it just seems like there's something wrong with him, kind of. Yeah, there's a part where he does action movie quips, but the way he delivers them, it's as if he's disconnected from the scene.

So it's like later on, him and the big fighter bad guy, they're in a boat and the guy goes, ah, our very own octagon. And Jake goes, who taught you shapes? And then they start fighting. And it's not like, he doesn't deliver it like a banter. He delivers it like, I don't understand why you just said that.

I'm asking you a question, now we have to fight. So I actually liked those elements of it a lot. Let's get back to the story. You know, while Jake slash Dalton is duct taping up his wound, Jessica Williams introduces- Not the way you should deal with that wound, by the way. Duct tape is not a great bandage. Yeah. And also if you're going to turn yourself into a mummy, don't use duct tape. Unless you're some kind of future mummy. Like if you're a future mummy from like an Iron Maiden album cover or something like that, then yes, use duct tape.

Mummy of the future. Remember to leave all of the critical holes open on your body. That's just an important tip. That's your role playing porn podcast, right Dan? Critical holes. Critical holes. Yeah.

Anyway. Oh God, that already exists, I'm sure. It's got to. It's got to somewhere, yeah. Amazing. Oh no. So Jessica introduces herself, her character's name is not Jessica Williams, it's Frankie. She owns a road house down in the Keys

that needs protecting from some bad dudes. What's the name of this road house, Dan? It's named Road House, in two words, and later on, I was gonna get to this, but let's talk about it now. Later on, there's a bit where like Jake Gyllenhaal's like, why is it called Roadhouse when Roadhouse is one word, there's no space in it, and she goes, it's a joke.

And I'm like, movie, you did not need to explain this, especially because in the original Roadhouse, the Roadhouse is called the Double Deuce. So you could have just named the Roadhouse any fucking thing you wanted, rather than naming it Roadhouse two words, and then have a bit about how, that's not how Roadhouse is spelled.

I would say the weakest parts of this script are the moments where they do that, or when they're like, oh, you just wandered into town to try and clean it up. You're just like a sheriff in a Western. Yeah, no shit, dude. I'm watching the movie. When they're calling out the subtext as text

so that the people who came here for punching get it. Those are some of the weaker moments. Yeah, they lampshade a lot of stuff in here that doesn't need to be commented on. But anyway, so later that night, Dalton contemplates killing himself by letting a car hit him on the railroad tracks a train hit him Dan not a train sorry train a train car train hit his car was the car of a train you're right

Dan Dan do you think trains are do you get trains and cars mixed up sometimes I mean what are trains but a bunch of cars that run on rails and are hooked up to each other it's actually got you there. That's a very good point. Anyway, it seems like- Now I'm mentioning Dan's like, I have to take the train somewhere and just gets into a stranger's car and drives off. Choo-choo.

Puts on a conductor's hat. He's already wearing the overalls. Oh wow, he's the conductor. Yeah, yeah. He changes his mind, however, and originally I was like, well, why did you, if you're gonna do this, why bother winning all that money? But it's a good thing he did,

because since he doesn't kill himself, his car gets beat up, I'm like, well, you're gonna need that money now. But anyway. And the reason he gave earlier for not taking the job was I like my car, yeah, so. Yeah. So he goes down to the Keys,

he makes fast friends with Charlie, a teenage girl who runs a bookstore with her dad, Steven. That bookstore being located right next to a diner called The Double Deuce, a little Easter egg for all the True fans. Now I do like, of the changes, I think the idea of moving the location of the Roadhouse down to the Florida Keys works for me.

Like I feel like- Yeah, I think so too. I feel like Roadhouse already has kind of a Florida Keys works for me. Like I feel like Roadhouse already has kind of a Florida energy. I like that except for what I'm gonna say literally next in my notes is that the Roadhouse itself looks less like a seedy Roadhouse and more like any of the mini like touristy fish shacks that I've gone to with my parents when they go down to the Keys.

Yeah, that's true. Where you get some coconut shrimp and a Bahama Mama. And judging by the fact that they have a different great live band every night. Except for the band that played a fucking sublime cover. Get that shit out of here. But they played it better than sublime. Oh, okay, yeah, wow, damning with faint praise. And also that the clientele, until they start fighting each other, they don't look particularly rowdy or tough.

They do look like... Or even that numerous. I mean, we have to assume that it is the great bands that keeps people coming back, because every night there's a dangerous fight. Now, rewatching the original Roadhouse, one of my favorite moments in the movie is when Dalton first goes to the double deuce,

the Roadhouse, and there's a moment where a patron is trying to, is propositioning other patrons that for $20, they can kiss his girlfriend's breasts. And one guy's reaction is, are you kidding? It has the most like, are we having fun yet energy? It's so great. I love it. So I like Rwanda and watch it three times.

So the thing is this movie doesn't have that. This movie is much less sexual than the old Roadhouse. I feel like even in the romance. Probably a son of the time. Roadhouse is what, 89? Like that's a... That was peak. Yeah.

As with many of the movies of nowadays, this is a... I'm the million and hundredth person to say this. They seem to have replaced the pleasures of physical love with the pleasures of physical violence. And so any energy that might have been put into like a real sex scene or something like that has gone into Jake Gyllenhaal hitting guys so hard that you hear a wet smack when he when his

So that night a bunch of immediately aggro bikers start causing trouble and Dalton steps in and just like Dalton Prime. He's nice until it's time to not be nice Dalton alpha. Yeah. Yeah, he's very polite. He lures the guys to the parking lot to reduce the collateral damage. He asks them politely if they have insurance or where the nearest hospital is beforehand. That's a good joke.

Yeah, and he slap fights them until they're all busted up. So we get a fight scene, and a lot of the fight scenes in this movie are like super intense and they're fast moving, but they've like clearly been digitally tinkered with so that it like, for some reason, it just, it didn't work in my brain. Like I was like, what is happening?

What's going on? And I would love that we could just reach out to a professional and find out what was happening with the digital effects in this movie. Wait, I think we have a caller on the line, Tamek. Good news, we have Todd Vizieri, our friend, our CGI special effects artist. And maybe CGI too, I don't know what that is.

Computer generated really intense, I don't know. Oh yeah. We asked him to be our special correspondent about these digital fights, and let's see what he had to say Thanks peaches Flophouse Hollywood correspondent Tava Ziri here reporting from Tinseltown the Hollywood Dream Factory Where our imagination's come to life on the silver screen in a darkened theater or at minimum folks watching it on their smartphone while riding the bus Alex make sure you add some sound effects here to make it seem like I'm on a convention floor or something like that.

Anyway, I'm here gathering information about the fight scenes in Roadhouse, the 2024 action movie remake directed by Doug Liman. And I've been hearing a lot of rumblings about people saying there's something about the fight scenes that is a little bit different. It's a little bit off-putting. Some people really enjoy it.

Some people think it's a little bit different. And this is what I've gathered so far. You fold this closer, I did not work on this movie. Just hearing whispers and I'm sure as time goes on, there's gonna be more information about how they film these and how they put this together. But this is what I've got so far. The fight scenes were put together

in a relatively imaginative and innovative way because they wanted to have punches land in a way that we haven't really seen before in Hollywood movies. A lot of films are experimenting with techniques of the actors and stunt people actually punching something that is not a face, that you can't actually hurt a face or a stomach.

They're filming these fight scenes in multiple takes, multiple passes. One pass of doing it the typical Hollywood way of pulling the punches and proper camera angles so that nobody gets hurt. And then another pass of the aggressor punching a foam piece of prop so they can actually put their full force and hit something that is not an actor's face. And then another pass of none of the actors and then another pass of the actors, the stunt people doing everything in slow motion.

And then all of those passes being put in compositing and digital compositing put together and picking the best little parts of each section. Not necessarily for every fight, not necessarily for every punch, but some of the more elaborate shots and sequences, this is how I understand it was done. So these are pretty elaborate not only in terms of on-set choreography, but in terms of visual effects. And it's a little bit different. It's different to look at it and you know partially by design. Also to add to that the camera work is supposed to be in concert with the punches like and a lot of action scenes it seems like the camera work you know the best action scenes you want to stay wide and you want to allow the audience to absorb these fight scenes for what's happening right in front of them.

But in this one, the camera work almost seems to know what's going to happen next and is following in more in sync with the punches and with the flow of the action scenes, which can be a little bit off putting the closest I can come to a comparison is that wonderful movie upgrade from a few years back back where the camera knew exactly what the The main character was going to do in terms of its physicality and that was part of the point of those scenes So there's a lot of reasons I'm sure we'll learn more But there definitely was an innovative approach to these fight scenes. That's all I've got right now. We'll return live if we get any more information.

Todd Vaziri, Flophouse, Hollywood Correspondent signing off. Now back to the peaches in the studio. Thank you, Todd, our special correspondent. Thank you, and thank you genuinely for taking the time to answer our questions. So I think that kind of helps. because this first action sequence is at like, it's shot in a way that felt a little bit jarring, not necessarily, again, not necessarily bad,

just like I didn't quite know what was going on. Well, and especially for a movie that up till this point has had a kind of, it's not realistic because the Dalton character is a cartoon character in a lot of ways, but it feels very low level and grounded for the most part. And then once the fights start up, they feel like superhero fights. I do love that you called Dalton a cartoon character because pretty soon, like genuinely, an actual Tasmanian devil shows up

and joins the movie. Pretty much, yeah. But I actually, I liked a lot of these fight scenes, but it is jarring at first that it feels so different from what I'm used to seeing from fight scenes in general, but also from what I expected from the movie so far. Knowing that they did a remake of Roadhouse, knowing the way that movies are often remade,

I was like, okay, this is probably gonna be like a grittier, like more realistic take on this kind of goofy movie. And then to know as the movie went on that the movie was like, no, no, this is gonna be a silly movie in a lot of ways. Like this movie is gonna get bonkers. I was like, okay, these fight scenes were, until I realized that the fight scenes felt kind of

not of a piece. But once I knew that I was like, oh, okay. I can't decide whether it makes me feel old or young that I didn't really notice, like I didn't have the same like cognitive dissonance that Stuart had where like either my brain is so young that I've gotten used to like new digital filmmaking and I don't notice it.

No wrinkles, smooth like a baby's brain. Smooth as shit. Or it's, or I'm, you know, becoming an old person who doesn't notice when motion smoothing is on on the television or whatever. I guess we're gonna have to come and check your TV to find out for sure. Well, and also this action sequence I think has helped

because it is like, it's a little funny. I think adding, they added some comedy actors like Jessica Williams, but also one of the gang members played by, is it Arturo Castro? Yes. Who's really funny and they let him actually like. From Broad City, you might remember him. Yeah, he's really good.

Yeah, he does a lot of funny stuff. And like Billy Magnussen shows up later as the bad guy and he's just a solid, like punchable face, goofy bad guy. Billy Magnuson is such a, he's a great hateful bad guy. Yeah, hateable bad guy, yeah. But so he beats up these guys, you know, breaks some bones, whatnot, but he is so nice, he drives them to the hospital while Elliot's favorite song, Kokomo, plays

on the radio. You better believe I did not enjoy that. Didn't like it. So in the hospital, he's great. I'll take a thousand sublime songs before I'll listen to one Kokomo. Oh wow. What a horrible animal. Did you ever get that reel that I sent you to work, Elliot?

No, I didn't. Yeah. that real that I sent you to work, Elliot? No, I didn't. It was just a dumb thing I made where like, I had been watching Night and the City, the Jules Dassen movie. Yeah, yeah. And there's a part where the guy goes, "'Let me take you somewhere.

"'Bermuda, Jamaica!' And I matched it up with, "'Ooh, I wanna take you.'" I'm gonna have to see if I can get that to work, the length that you sent me, yeah. Yeah, but- That's what I've been doing that, oh, I want to take you. I'm going to have to see if I can get that to work, the lengthy assignment. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I've been doing that.

I've been annoying my kids with doing a Kokomo version of Strawberry Fields. Won't you take me down to Kokomo? Bermuda, Bahamas. Come on, pretty mama. We'll get there fast and take it slow. The Fluff House Masha power. Yeah. Anyway, at the hospital, he is berated by an attractive doctor, Ellie, for bringing in all these people he beat up and she's played by Daniela Melchior, who is Ratcatcher 2 in

the Suicide Squad, an actress who is Portuguese in real life, but since this is the Keys, I assume that they're just playing Cuban It's unclear. It's unclear, but they don't really get into it. Yeah, even though she is angry she is disarmed by Dalton's Zen politeness and so she properly treats his wounds so he doesn't get sepsis. Yeah, yeah. And so anyway. He's also very handsome. Yeah, there's a lot of scenes in here. He's a movie star.

Yeah. Now we're, not a lot happens. Back at the Roadhouse, there's that conversation about the title Roadhouse. Frankie lets him stay on her old houseboat that she has. Which is called The Boat. Yeah, another hilarious joke, courtesy of that character's dad.

And on the houseboat, we get the first taste of his backstory. He has a dream of the past when he was apparently a big UFC fighter. There's some bonding. Which they shoot these like flashbacks to UC, the fighting, UFC, what am I thinking? All the UFC stuff was actually shot at like

an actual UFC event. So you have like a huge crowd and it only makes the crowds at the Roadhouse seem smaller by comparison. But I think that's not necessarily against their wishes. They want to show that he's come down in the world and his personality in those flashbacks is he's not the patient sensitive young man, or not young man, that he is now as we see him. We're like, wait a minute, this isn't the Dalton I've come to love over the last 30

minutes or so. This is some kind of animalistic bruiser, gauche, rude, crude, with lots of tood. How can you go from that to this? I guess we'll have to find out. I hope we don't encounter a more extreme version of that character later in the movie. Oh, oh, oh, okay.

A literalization of his worst fears of himself, okay. Yeah. So around this time, we're introduced to our bad guy. He's out on his yacht and on choppy seas. He's getting a straight razor shave. This is such a great movie shorthand for this guy is dumb. Yeah. Is that the boat is rocking and he's getting

a straight razor shave and he keeps getting cut and he's not allowing himself to get mad at the barber. He's getting mad at the captain of the boat, which is the captain can't control the sea. He's not Poseid to get mad at the barber. He's getting mad at the captain of the boat, which is the captain can't control the sea. He's not Poseidon. Come on. And we'll, yeah, we'll later, yeah, we do find out that the captain is not Poseidon later.

We also later see that on this- Yeah, when Percy Jackson shows up in the book later, in the movie, yeah. You're not Poseidon, he says. Yeah, and there's a moment later where we see that on this yacht, he also has a scale model of the resort he wants to build, including a scale model of the roadhouse that he wants to destroy.

Yeah, but he doesn't drop a weight on it like in Country of Years and Go. Oh no. Oh. Over and over again. Missed opportunity. So our bad guy, our evil land developer character is played by Billy Magnuson.

I think he does an okay job here. I think he's like kind of a, you know, like a dumb, like a hateable guy. Yeah. He's not, but the thing is, of course, the original Roadhouse has Ben Guzzara who gives like such an incredible performance. There's this moment where Patrick Swayze is doing his like Tai Chi out by a river wearing just like gray pants. And Ben Guzzara pulls up on a four wheeler across the river wearing little riding gloves and he just like sits and watches his enemy.

It's so fucking funny. Yeah. It kind of makes me wish for a world where they kind of had a similar type of character in mind that they got like Paul Giamatti to do it. I think that's one of the things that I really like Billy Madison's performance here because he's playing like a comedy villain He's like he's like a nepo villain. His dad was the real villain and now he's inherited He's not smart in jail and he exactly he's that that nepo villain is a great way to put it and now he's he is Fucking up his dad's business, but it means that there's very weasely. Yeah, there's not a lot of

Dramatic tension because he's such a screw up that you know that he has no chance to get stalled in, especially later when they're fighting fist to fist and it's like, come on, why are we wasting our time with this, just get to the other guy. Whereas Ben Guzzara was an older gentleman by the time of The Old Roadhouse, but he seems like a crazy person.

Like there's something genuinely threatening about him, even though that is also a silly movie, you know? Yeah, well anyway, our villain, Brandt is his name, he's getting a report from his goons who are beat up. Apparently they weren't just random assholes, they were specifically targeting the Roadhouse for reasons, as yet unexplained, but as alluded to, it's a land development scheme.

I was kind of disappointed because everyone is so so closed-lipped about what's going on with the Roadhouse that I was like, is there pirate gold buried there? Like, what is the secret? But there is no secret. Because the land development thing is the most obvious. It should have been pirate gold.

And they're like, we need to return this pirate gold back to these haunted treasure chests or else these ghost pirates won't stop bothering me. Yes, and Adrian Barbeau is there. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I love it. These ghost pirates are messing with my radio broadcasts. It doesn't really make sense to the degree to which Jessica Williams' character is cagey about it.

That's the worst part. That doesn't make sense, no. She's like, okay, I'll tell you the truth, but she might have just said that. I guess she's hidden the fact from him that this is an organized effort, you know, rather than just route regular old routiness. But on the other hand, the fog doesn't make that much sense either now that we're talking

about ghostbusters. So maybe we don't need movies to make sense these days, huh? You know what, Dan, I've got this movie you might like, it's called stop making sense. Have you heard of it? I'm not familiar. Back at the roadhouse, Dalton is building his bouncer army. He encourages one of the workers there, Billy, to just punch a guy when he pulls a knife on him,

which is showing a lot of faith in Billy that he's not gonna get stabbed. Is that Lucas Gage playing this game? He's been on a bunch of stuff. Let's see. White Lotus, Euphoria. Yes, it is Lucas Gage. Yeah.

Yeah, and there's another guy who used to be a boxer who gets in too. Meanwhile, bikers lurk ominously outside. The next morning, Dalton's eating some conch, the official food of the Florida Keys. Although they shot this in the Dominican Republic, So really he should have been eating like a. They had to ship that shit in. It is a good job though of Dominican Republic for the keys. Like it looks like the keys. Yes, that's true.

He sees Ellie the doctor again and he speaks for the audience when he asks her at one point, why is everyone around here so aggressive? Well, it made me think like there's a, I would love to see kind of like a science fictional version of this, where someone has built a road house on a place where there's some kind of natural radiation that makes people angry, and then they're drinking and it makes it even worse.

A rage virus. Why don't we just move the business? Like we can't, we have to have it here, you know? There's a part of me that wishes they just took two seconds to be like, yeah, so we have a small town vibe here, but on the weekends it gets crazy because there's all these partiers from the next key over or something. Just make some effort to explain why they have it both ways

and that it's a small town, but also like a crazy hellscape. And not just a small town, it's like an adorable boutique small town. Like they have a bookstore, which is not something you have in many small towns. In the Keys. There's probably like, there's probably shoppy shops where you can buy regular stuff just marked way up.

Yeah, and so to have it both ways where it's like, this is Tulum, but it's also Robocop's Detroit. Like it's a hard- Oh man, everybody's fucked up on Nuke. So, you know, we have that sublime that Stewart mentioned before, Dalton gets paid. There's a different band every single time we're at the Roadhouse.

There's always a different band, and so many of their songs are about drinking. And at a certain point I was like, is this, I know it's a bar, do they have to sing just songs about whiskey? Like, I don't understand. And I do like the commitment to the Roadhouse bit, where that no matter how much violence is going on,

that band is still fucking playing. They never stop. There's a big fight where the Roadhouse clears out and then it cuts to a shot of the band still playing to an empty Roadhouse. And I like that a lot. I mean, and the bands are, it's not all my type of music, but they're good bands.

Yeah, that was the band that had like the old guy just shaking like maracas or something the whole time. He was great. Yes, the whole time. You see that guy on the maracas just shaking like maracas or something the whole time. He was great You see that guy on the maracas, you know, you're gonna die in the pit He's dressed up like like one of the winter brothers not the not Edgar winter But the the villain winter brothers from the Jonah hexanth comic books Just like an old man with a white beard with a dress as an evil cowboy with a white beard, dressed as an evil cowboy. Anyway, Dalton's walking home and he gets run off the road into the water by a truck

in a scene that, this one was very digital looking, but it also terrified me. Like, it was a scary scene. Like, the truck backed into him. Like, he had to leap into the bed of the truck at one point and then he's like off the side of the bridge, and the truck comes falling down on top of him. And I'm like.

It suffered for me a little bit, because it was so CGI-ish, but I also, it was scary, I didn't like, well you can't out-fight a truck. Like you're not gonna be able to break the bones or hit the pressure points of a truck. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, there's a digital stunt later

that was similarly like wild, that I had to rewind and watch a couple times. Yeah, there's a digital stunt later that was similarly like wild that I had to rewind and watch a couple times. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, this was, I think they were going for intensity and I think it works. Yeah. I think so, there's a couple moments like this

that where it does feel like the movie suddenly jumps up in intensity in a way that, it didn't quite work for me the way that like barbarian will suddenly get very intense suddenly, you know, but you know, it's fine. Yeah, there's that weird part where Jake Gyllenhaal counters the subhuman underground dweller. Mm-hmm.

And gets nursed by it. They're like, well here at Glass Key, we got a problem with chuds. They're very maternal though, so just let them nurse you and it'll be okay. Man, I mean, Jake Gyllenhaal looks like he's half asleep most of these scenes, so go on. Well, I was just back at the houseboat, there's another goon waiting for Dalton with a gun as backup in case the truck scheme didn't work.

Is that the same goon? Is that the biker from a certain point? Yeah, yeah. That was the main biker from the first fight. Maybe he also was driving the truck. Oh, was he? Yep. Oh, I thought he was a backup goon.

There were certain points after this scene with this goon where I cannot keep the goons straight, except for that one guy who is the funny, nice goon. Well, you should listen to the goon show and that'll explain all of it. Which goons are... Which. Peter Sellers taking you through the remake of Roadhouse, goon by goon. Yeah, I mean if you really want to keep it all straight, Elliot, just go into your Google search bar and just hit gooning, okay?

And you'll probably figure it out. Let me just see what that is. Go to the video tab. Oh no, this doesn't remind me of the movie at all. Did I miss this part? Hold on. Well, maybe this part with Jake Gyllenhaal taking his shirt off. Go on, Dan. Sorry, it got tossed back to me right when I needed a burp Dalton disarms this man Throws him into the water and he's immediately eaten by a huge crocodile

Did mention earlier that there was a crocodile. They set it up. Yeah, that's a big old croc It's a big one. It does feel a little bit like Dalton made a plan with the crocodile earlier in the movie, in the unshot scene. I feel like if this was strictly going for comedy, he would have tossed him overboard and he would have landed directly in the croc's mouth, but that's okay.

It was the next closest thing. Yeah, yeah. Next morning, there's a police, there are police boats around, Jake's sitting there, he's talking to the dock master who's like, these goons are probably mixed up in drugs, but he goes and looks at some maps with Charlie the bookstore kid,

and it seems like this is not like a place where they could get drugs. I think that's what that scene was about. It is what I would call unnecessary. Yeah, it is very unnecessary for a theory about the bad guys to be brought up and then dismissed a scene later when again the explanation that he just wants to build a resort there is not interesting enough

that it needs to be hidden. Yeah, outside he disarms a goon which is only important because now they know that he's friends with these bookstore people. Frankie is really cagey about what's going on at the Roadhouse, again, unnecessary. And now we are introduced to a legitimately bad human being who should not probably be cast in things

because he is a litany of assaults. His name is Connor McGregor, the actor. His character's name is Knox. We introduced him. Yeah, he's basically Taz, right? He's basically Lono from Hunter Bullets. The character who, like, in the comics starts looking like a normal person,

but by the end of the series, he's like some kind of crazy werewolf man. He's like Sabretooth by the end of that series, yeah. It's kinda great. So Knox is very much, I will say, the movie, I got tired of this character, but when he first comes up, leaving aside the fact that Conor McGregor

is most likely a monster, based on the things that he's been accused and arrested for, I thought they were doing a good job of creating a character who is so, in the world of this movie, is so strong and tough that he just does whatever he wants and is entirely id driven. And he's literally, it's very cartoonish that he literally is leaving naked from the

apartment of a woman that he just, of a man he just cuckolded with his wife and has no clothes and just walks through the streets naked and then finds a guy who has a shirt he likes and beats him up and takes his shirt. And that just the idea of a, someone who is so dangerous because he so refuses to abide by the rules of society and also strong enough that he can get away with it for a little bit, but you have to wonder, has no one ever tried to shoot this man? Like, bulls, bounce off him.

I don't understand. There's a bit of funny filmmaking here where within one cut where we sort of cut away to the other side of the phone conversation, he's like, in the first scene, he's admiring this man's clothes, and then the next shot, he's walking away in the clothes and everything is in flames.

Yeah, yeah. This whole street market that he was at is in fire. The idea of him, if he was, and this guy, when he's not talking, when he is just a physical presence, I was really enjoying a lot of those scenes, but I don't, whenever he talks, I'm like, this guy is enjoying being bad in a way that feels genuine rather than an actor playing a character

who enjoys being bad. Yeah, because I mean, his ability to do like a line read isn't good or consistent. And as the movie goes on, they give him more quips, and the quips get, by the, eventually you're like, can you just have, this should have been like a, maybe a mute character. No, obviously a guy like this with a body that looks like a Dorito, that he, that he like,

Oh, because of the triangular shape you're saying? Yeah, the triangular shape. Not because it's like orange and kind of bright looking. Or it's got dust all over it. Yeah, it's covered in dust. But the thing, like there is something funny about a character like this who is like, I do whatever I want whenever I want, and I'm like, I don't know, to get a body like that, you have to have extreme discipline.

Yeah, that's true. Or knows. He's entered the film because he's getting- One of the things, this is the least of his crimes. I'm looking up Conrad Greger's Wikipedia right now, and there's a sub heading under Punching the Miami Heat mascot. Why? So he was there.

He was there. That's why they had to film in the Dominican Republic. Yeah, he was at the 2023 NBA finals, I guess. He was recording something to promote his pain relief spray in a skit with the Miami Heat's mascot, Bernie, and just knocked out with a punch the man wearing the costume in an off script punch. Why would he do that? Why would you ever do that?

Horrible. Most of the crowd in attendance booed McGregor for his actions. Yeah, I hope so. Most. An anger problem and responding to things with violence. I mean, that seems like he thought it would be funny to do that.

That's horrible. I mean, he sounds like a horrible person, but in- Yeah, he's a bad person. In that first, but I will say, in not knowing these things when I first watched it, in that first moment when he's just introduced as a ball of destruction, you know, that rolls through life, I was like, okay, this could go.

I like how they're setting this up, this character. Yeah. Well, he's being introduced because he is being called by the dad of the villain to clean up his son's mess. Why you would call this man to clean up any mess, who knows? He is better at punching,

but if you're worried about Jake Gyllenhaal, Dalton interfering, just shoot him from a distance. Don't bring in a loose can. I don't know. I mean, that's why you're like, like, hey, Jason Voorhees, you wanna kill teenagers? a distance. Don't bring in a loose can. That's why you're like, like, hey, Jason Voorhees, you want to kill teenagers? Just blow up the house, dude. You don't have to use a machete. Yeah, Dan, it's not a plot hole of human psychology.

I don't think that. But it is like in the Grey Man. It is like in the Grey Man where they're like, we need to take care of this rogue agent and we need it to be quiet. And Chris Evans is like, you got it. I will have a gun battle in the center of a European city. And it's like, hold on a second. Why would you bring this guy in?

I will say this, doing some more research, Bernie, the Miami Heat mascot, he doesn't seem so innocent himself. In 1994, he was sued by a woman who he basically kind of violently forced to be a part of a bit during an exhibition game in Puerto Rico. Now here's the thing about this entry. It treats Bernie as if he is a person and it always says Bernie was sued and Bernie's hijinks. Bernie is a fictional character, I have to assume.

So I don't understand how if the mascot is legally liable for the actions of the person wearing the costume. I'm gonna have to do some more research on this. It also seems like they would use the person's name because whoever, you know, like the heat, like wouldn't want the mascot's name associated. They wanna make it clear, like, look, the mascot's cool. It was the guy who was embodying the mascot at the time

that was not so cool. So this first lawsuit was in 1994 and it says, "'Bernie's hijinks also led to another lawsuit "'in March 2015 and March 2017. On both occasions, people were injured by Bernie while he was performing. Again, Bernie is not a person. Bernie is a character.

Elliott, once you take on the role of Bernie, you have to legally change your name to Bernie. I guess that's true. It's what happened to Jack Black when he made the movie Bernie also, yeah. I thought you were saying that the character really inhabits you. It takes sort of an active position.

Yeah, you're head catches fire or whatever. It takes sort of an active position to be burning. It's like playing the role of the Joker. Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger. He said, don't get into this Joker role too much. That role, it's high risk, high reward. The risk is that you'd fall into chaos and insanity. The reward is an Academy Award two out of three times. So I went two out of four times.

I forgot about Cesar Mero in the original Batman movie. Did not win an Academy Award. Well, he wasn't really eligible. I guess for the Batman movie, yeah. The Batman movie, yeah. Batman 1966, you're correct. Okay, well anyway. Which was nominated for best picture, so.

What about Mark Hamill in Mask of the Phantasm? Good point, but that's a- Wait, is he in that? He does the voice of the Joker in the movie. No, I know, but the phantasm is like the main like Bad character, right? I don't remember the movie that Joker is in masculine Well mask of the phantasm the phantasm is not a bad guy the phantasm right technically a competing vigilante That is trying to get revenge in a long time

I just didn't think that there was much Joker content in that one, but You got to put a note in the video you upload. I know you were distracted by the voice of Dana Delaney as the character who, eventually, spoiler, is revealed as the phantasm. But no, that is, yeah, the Joker's in there. Okay, well, we all learned something today. And to return to the movie we're talking about just briefly Ellie shows up to take Dalton on a boat ride. They go hang out on a sandbar and he gets weird

when she starts nice. It looks like a nice place to have a beer. Yeah, it looks like a real good beer commercial. Yeah, maybe crack open some land sharks. They drink that shit down there. But he gets weird in KG when she starts asking questions about his past and he says, you're a nice person, you don't want to know me. Turns out she already does. She Googled him. She knows whatever his tragic past is that we haven't seen yet. The tragic past is left for us to kind of piece those hints together.

Well, no, we get it get it we get at the end It's not like he sits down and tells the whole story or anything like that. No. No, that's true. We well we don't know The answer to the question that is posed to him later like why he didn't back off But anyway, we but we don't get like a Phoebe Cates talking about her dad in the chimney speech Yeah, you know if only it would have been great if they brought in Phoebe Cates just to explain Dalton's backstory. Phoebe Cates returning to acting for the role of UFC fan who runs a blog or a podcast. It's a UFC podcast. How amazing would it be if at some point someone's listening to a UFC fan podcast and you hear a woman's voice and she's describing this thing and then the credits you see,

UFC podcast host Phoebe Cates You'd be like what how did they get her? That's amazing Anyway, mr. Gyllenhaal stunts by Kevin Klein. Oh, they both worked on it. I guess the marriage Yeah, we're sure together Twerks together Ellie and Dalton. They smooch a bit Meanwhile Knox has arrived in town. He starts eating some sandwiches, menacingly. Just as Ellie-

Clearly the only way to eat a sandwich is menacingly, if you're lunch meat. Ellie returns Dalton to his houseboat, and just then the cops show up to ask him some questions. They take him to an abandoned dock where the sheriff sort of threatens him and pulls a gun on him. But Ellie shows up, slaps the sheriff, turns out, sheriff's her dad. There's some backstory about how he's corrupt and working for the bad guy, like we didn't put that together on our own.

That actor's been in a lot of stuff, right? Yes. I can't remember his name. But he's like a drug dealer or some shit all the time. Joaquim de Almeida. Yeah, he's great. Or Joaquim. I don't know. He. But he's in like, he's like a drug dealer or some shit all the time. Joaquim de Almeida. Or Amarita? Or Joaquim, I don't know. He's another Portuguese American.

They may be playing Portuguese characters. There's something about this sequence where I'm like, oh yeah, there's something actually threatening about how these corrupt policemen can just arrest him and kill him and you can't do anything about it. Meanwhile, goons approach the bookstore with gasoline we cut away Did you know that actor who plays the sheriff in this played Sherlock Holmes? I didn't know that in 2001 He was in a Brazilian comedy. Oh zango de Baker Street

Released in America as a sounds good Sherlock a samba for Sherlock. I gotta see this now Why can't Sherlock get a samba once in a while? Yeah. You know, it's a treat. And have some fun. It seems actress Sarah Bernhardt is performing in Rio and she gets her friend Sherlock Holmes to solve a case. Love this.

That sounds fun. Back at the Roadhouse. I'll take two, please. Elwood and Ben Brant, the bad guy finally meet face to face The bad guy asked him some pretty reasonable questions about why he's willing to go out go through so much shit For this Roadhouse and some people he met like a week ago Brant pulls out a YouTube video. We finally see the backstory at his phone and place it It's not like he like I think I think that that's a clarification.

He's not in reboot. I don't think anyone's mind was blown just by my phrasing right there. You can never be too careful, Dan. He doesn't put on a VR headset on Jake Gyllenhaal and plug it into his phone or something. Here, relive the moment. Anyway, we learned what we already suspected

that Dalton killed a guy in the ring and Brandt- Killed his friend in the ring. Killed his friend. Well, yeah, they say a friend. I assume in the way that fighters know one another. Oh, maybe. Yeah. Maybe.

Brandt needles him. He's like, why didn't you stop punching? He was down, but Dalton will not answer. Brant leaves, giving the goons full permission to just burn the place down, take it over, beat everyone up, whatever. Knox comes in, there's a long time of him just like whacking things with the golf club

before Dalton does anything. Dalton has been so disheartened by seeing this video that he's just sitting there with his coffee mug. He just had a mirror held up to his soul, Dan. He didn't like what he saw. But I mean, look, this is his one job, is to bounce people. That's true.

They're really causing a lot of damage before he gets up from the bar. Maybe he's just entertained by Knox's witty run-line one-liners, when he takes it to the bar. Maybe he's just entertained by Knox's witty one-liners is when he takes it to golf club and then hits things when he goes, oh, it's been years since I went clubbing. And it's like, ugh, like again, just don't give him any dialogue.

Just have him do his breaking stuff. Anyway, they have a brutal fight, which ends essentially with Knox saying, we're not so different, you and I, which sends Dalton wandering into the night. And Frankie finds him at the houseboat where he's about to pack up and leave. Yeah, he's like sitting on the edge of a building,

staring at his fist in the rain. That's what he's doing. His hair's grown super long. And she's finally like, okay, maybe I should have told you that Brant wants to buy my land. I'm the only holdout for a big resort, but if I can just hold out a while, he's in deep with some money people.

She's like, I didn't tell you because it was the most obvious answer and it was boring. I figured you'd probably guess it already. And she's like, are you gonna leave because you're scared? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, I agree. because you're scared and he's like, yeah I'm like I agree get out of town Dalton, but on his way out of town He sees the smoldering ruins of the bookstore. No We realize he's not scared of what could happen to him. Yeah. Oh, no. No what he could do to other people

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, instead of getting on the bus. He doesn't want to unleash the beast again You wouldn't like me when I'm angry and he turns green and he goes to the house of the bad guys. And he says, yeah, I am afraid. I'm afraid what happens when someone pushes me too far. And he straight up kills the guy. But he doesn't say it like that. He says, yeah, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what happens when someone pushes me too far.

Like he says it in the kind of matter of fact, kind of soft way he's saying everything throughout it. I prefer that to him like, I don't know, taking a, being more dark and scary. Someone going to grim mode. I do like it, but there are times when, his actions really have to back up those words because of the way that he delivers it, you know.

It's not one of those moments where I'm like, oh shit, oh no, they just unlocked Pandora's box. Instead I'm like, hmm, I think he's hyping himself a little bit too much, but we'll see. You want some like new metal to start playing in the background. Exactly, yeah. Although they do play a lot of Inner Sandman covers, so you should like that shit.

I did not, and I didn't care for it. I have to say, I wish for the days... You didn't like get up and start dancing around and enjoy yourself? No. That would be cute. Kicking your heels. I'm wishful for the days when Metallica was very careful about licensing their stuff to movies and they almost never did.

But it might just be because my kids constantly want to listen to Enter Sandman these days. And so I'm like, why couldn't they have played another Metallica song? Why couldn't it have been Disposable Heroes? Why couldn't it have been Damage Incorporated? Why couldn't it have been Unforgiven 2? Yeah, yeah. Why isn't it The Day That Never Comes? been unforgiven to? Yeah, yeah The day that never comes what are their later songs? Yeah on Luxa Turner

Hold on Dalton's way out with the corpse the sweet biker that we mentioned before Arturo Castro It's like hey, man. I just like bikes. It's hard When the goons areons are breaking up the bar and he walks by, Dalton just goes, hey Dalton. I love that moment. It's funny, yeah. But I do like this moment where he's like, I just like bikes, maybe these are not the right guys,

and Dalton does not beat him up. He's like, and they don't tell him anything. I don't know anything. Yeah, they don't tell him anything except for he does know the location of one meat. So Dalton Ghost's place One meat, what is it? Pork? Beef?

Yeah, he knows the one place that pork exists In a pig, Dan Which is valuable That interruption was so tasty Elliot had to chomp his teeth on it To borrow a phrase from your son Elliot Elliot, that joke was dee-licious. He goes to this meeting site, he intercepts a crooked cock, cop, my cock.

I mean they're all a little crooked, right? Right? Right? Bang a little bit. Right? Well, sorry. Like at a right angle? Like you're really gonna maneuver yourself to get it?

Now we gotta slap the shirt tab on this. It's like an Allen key. No, sorry. Oh, exactly. A crooked cop. Do you have any condoms with right angles in them? Yeah, yeah. That's like asking where you get those hats that have the bill on the back.

Yeah. It's been a long year. Dan, it's April. What? There's a money drop off. He beats up the cop. He shoots the corpse several times with the cop's gun and takes the money.

Back at the houseboat, Dalton is peacefully taping together some dynamite when the sheriff arrives to say that Ellie has been kidnapped because they want this money back. I do like this scene, because the sheriff's, like, he has such a sinister quality about him that like when he's explaining

what's happening to him, and he's like, my daughter's been kidnapped and they're going to kill her. And I'm like, I don't believe this in any way. Not for a moment, yeah. This is the least believable, and like Dalton's like, my daughter's been kidnapped and they're gonna kill her and I'm like, I don't believe this in any way. Not for a moment, yeah. This is the least believ, and Dalton's like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, whatever man. It's clear that Dalton does not believe it either. I love how- It's really funny.

They are going through the motions of a ruse that neither one of them thinks is really necessary. It's funny because the first thing that happens, Dalton steals another cop's motorboat to go out to the bad guy's yacht. The one Ellie took him out on earlier in the movie. Yeah, and he sees the sheriff there on the boat immediately and the sheriff says something like,

"'It's a fake kidnapping, dumbass.'" Which seems like weird because Dalton had already been like, "'Oh, you seem pretty comfortable for a guy "'whose daughter has been kidnapped.'" Like, it's clear that Dalton had already been like, oh, you seem pretty comfortable for a guy whose daughter has been kidnapped. It's clear that Dalton never believed it, but the sheriff still makes fun of him for falling for his reason. If that had been a little bit more pointed,

I think that would have been very funny if it was that the bad guy thinking that the good guy has fallen for a trap and not recognizing the good guy clearly knows what's going on, you know? Yeah, but it actually turns out that Brandt did kidnap Ellie as insurance. So the joke's on the sheriff, yeah. Yeah, so Dalton blows up his motorboat to set to just distract everyone.

He rampages through the sinking yacht to rescue Ellie. Everyone's fist fighting in the water now, which is pretty funny. Meanwhile, Knox is showing up, right? Knox shows up. He runs Dalton over with a speedboat, but Dalton, or tries to, but Dalton climbs on board. And living up to his name, Knox gets knocked into the water and dragged in the boat for a while.

That's true. You have a lot of hard knocks, yeah. Ellie gets, is this where Ellie gets kidnapped again? Kidnapped by Brant. Dalton. This is one of those moments, like at the end of speed two, LA gets kidnapped by Brant. This is one of those moments like at the end of Speed 2 for anyone who is going to see our Flophouse Sinks Speed 2 online show. You'll talk about this.

Good synergy. Tickets available at, well I'll tell you about later, but tickets are available at stagepilot.com slash speed premieres April 27th. later with tickets for Able at stagepilot.com slash speed premieres April 27th. That where the bad guy takes the romantic interest with him when he's escaping and it's like, well, if you didn't do that, you'd probably get away. Like the good guy would have less reason to go after you. I don't know why you're doing this,

why you're taking it with you, what leverage it gives you. But Brandt is also dumb as we've established. Yeah, maybe he just wants a friend. Maybe he's not totally comfortable behind the wheel of a speedboat. That's true. But Dalton- He goes, I've been drinking,

so I need you with me, just in case. Dalton collides his boat into the one that has Brant and Ellie in a way that throws him into their boat, with like physics I didn't really understand. This stunt was wild. I had to rewind the movie to see like- There's a couple moments starting here where the physics do go't really understand. This stone was wild. I had to rewind the movie to see like. There's a couple moments starting here

where the physics do go out the window. Yeah, it's like that part in Inception where the fucking hotel room's flipping around. Yeah. There's a fight on the boat as it goes to shore and Dalton and Ellie jump off in time, but Brant, however, is sent flying through the air onto the roof of the Roadhouse.

He's somehow still alive, I guess because it's got a thatched roof, who knows? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, Knox has climbed ashore and stolen a truck, which he crashes through the Roadhouse. There's another big punch fight that ends with Knox stabbing Dalton in the gut, and Brant is like, kill him, kill him,

and Knox has had enough of this jibber jabber and snaps Brant's neck. I think this is where we now, in the background, we get a little bit of inner Sandman riffing, and you're like, uh-oh, you just hit Jake Gyllenhaal's funny button. He's about to start killing him. The Sandman's about to enter.

There was a moment where Brant tries to kill Jake Gyllenhaal with a harpoon gun, and Dalton goes, a fishing spear? Like he's insulted that that's how he tried to kill him. And there's another of those moments where he picks up on a little detail that is not that important in the long run. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty funny.

Yeah, but Knox killing Brant, you know, just enough time for Dalton to activate his rage power. And he stabs Knox several times, stopping short of finishing him really because he doesn't want to be an animal. But it is enough to scare Ellie who has arrived. She has a look in her eyes being like, maybe this is not a long-term commitment for me. I was kind of hoping she was going to show him and be like, finish him, and then he would

do one of those cool fatalities. Yeah, pull his neck out and all the spine comes out. How does that, or like maybe freezes him and like punches him and his whole body shatters, just leaving like a skeleton and like a beating heart. What if she said friendship and now he's gotta give Nox a present?

Yeah, or like a babality and turns Nox into a baby. Yeah, I mean it's essentially- What do you think, Dan? Or a baby. I mean it's tough, because I don't think you're able to do a babality if you've used any blocking during the fight. And I'm pretty sure he blocked. So he definitely blocks at different points. Yeah.

Oh, man, it's going to have to be a fatality. And then after the fatality, once he kills him, then she's like, oh, no, this is the game that Freddy's in. Freddy shows up and the Predator, Dalton's got to fight them off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and a xenomorph. Yeah, we're so close to that. The sheriff shows up and the Predator, Dalton's gotta fight them off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Anna Xenomorph. Yeah. We're so close to the end. The Sheriff shows up. Rambo shows up, because he's in that game too, right?

No, no. Oh yeah, I think so, yeah. No, the Sheriff arrives. Robo. Presumably because he's grateful to Dalton, he feels like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have been in bed with someone who kidnapped my daughter. He's like, I'll cover up all this murdering for you,

get out of town. It's gonna be hard to do, that he's like, we'll take care of it, and He's like, I'll cover up all this murdering for you, get out of town. It's going to be hard to do. Then he's like, we'll take care of it. And it's like, there's so many bodies, the road house is destroyed, boats blew up. This is going to be hard to sleep on the rug. We're going to take care of it. And he starts like tucking in a little bib into his shirt.

You're like, what the fuck are you doing, dude? We're going to take care of his bones and all. Where he goes, don't worry Dalton, we'll take care of this. And then the next shot is him putting up a wanted poster for Dalton. Ha ha ha! Here we are, Koda, Jessica Williams, and her team clean up the road house.

Dalton waits for his bus. Charlie, the teen from the bookstore, is out of the hospital, she says goodbye with one final reference to how this like a Western. She wants him to stay, but he's gotta leave, but he's left behind a gift for them. All the dirty money he stole. Dalton rides off.

And he left a gif. Yeah. Like it's like a little kitten rolling around. No, a gif. It's a guy eating popcorn and then sunglasses go and float down. Wow. Dalton rides off to another town

to punch and stab other people. And we get a mid-credit sequence. Stewart, did you see this? Yeah, I did see this. Okay, Knox escapes the hospital, you know, nurses behind him being like, get that man in. And he walks off with a bare butt

like we were first introduced to him. Yeah, he entered the world naked and now he leaves the world somewhat naked. Yeah the world of the film That's Roadhouse the new version Time for some final judgments Yeah, give some final judgments on this whether this was a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie We kind of liked I'm gonna give it a just just a hair just a hair of a margin or a movie we kind of liked, I'm gonna give it a, just a hair, just a hair of a margin of a movie I kind of liked. I think I would be, I don't wanna be like too hung up

on this, but I probably would be a little more apt to just give it a recommendation if they didn't have like a guy and an employee who who clearly should not have a support system propping him up and giving him jobs and big movies. But for what it is- It's possible they didn't know. He's only had accusations against him since, let's see, 2017?

Yeah. It's only seven years at least of a- Multiple incidents. But for what it is- Well, I mean, he's just such a good actor, Dan. You know how I feel about this movie, in a weird way, it suffers from being too professional. Just like how,

not like the original Roadhouse is not made professionally, it's actually kind of beautifully made for what it is, but like there's a ramshackle, like, lunkheadedness to it, whereas this movie is like a lot of resources put behind it and people are constantly trying to sort of explain why, no, really, this plot makes sense when you know, you shouldn't worry about that in Roadhouse, but

It it's it's not you know, it kind of does when it's like if like Wes Anderson did the tango and cash remake I I guess I'll What do you think Stuart, uh, yeah, I think I you. It's a, I feel like I enjoyed the movie. There's, yeah, I mean, obviously the comments about the selection of villain actor are accurate. Like, seems like a bad guy, I don't want to support him. But I do think it's like, it's funny and weird, and it has some jokes, and it doesn't take itself too seriously.

I wish it kind of didn't try and make as many ironic jokes as they did, but chillin' all's fun and the action sequences are, if anything, interesting. So yeah. A movie I kinda liked. Yeah, I'm also gonna call this a movie I kinda liked. Yeah, I'm also gonna call this a movie I kinda liked. Going into it, again, not knowing anything about the main villain's personal life or actual villainy. I went into it being like, why would they bother remaking Roadhouse?

Like, what's the point? And it felt to me the whole time just kind of like a solid, laid back action character movie. You know, it's a little too long. You know, it's a hair over two hours, if you include the credits, I guess. Yes, it's too long. There were times when I was like,

I kind of wish this was a TV show so I could watch like an hour of it and then go away and then, because it also, it's so laid back at times that it feels like you're watching a padded out hour long show. And then once the action really gets rip roaring, you're like, what? Like this is, never mind, this could never be a TV show.

But overall, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I was going to. Maybe that's the soft bigotry of low expectations. But I thought everyone involved did a pretty good job of it. You know, I thought it was very entertaining. [♪ Music playing. [♪ Music playing. Are you tired of being picked on for only wanting to talk about your cat at parties? Do you feel as though your friends don't understand the depth of love you have for your guinea pig?

When you look around a room of people, do you wonder if they know sloths only have to eat one leaf a month? Have you ever dumped someone for saying they're just not an animal person? Us too. She's Alexis B. Preston. She's Ella MacLeod. And we host Comfort Creatures, the show where you can't talk about your pets too much, animal trivia is our love language, and dragons are just as real as dinosaurs. Tune into Comfort Creatures every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

What is up, people of the world? Do you have an argument that you keep having with your friends and you just can't seem to settle it and you're sitting there arguing about whether it's Star Trek or Star Wars or you can't decide what is the best nut or can't agree on what is the best cheese? Stop doing that. Listen to We Got This with Mark and Hal only on Max Fun. Your topics ask and answered objectively, definitively for all time.

So don't worry everybody. We got this. We got this. Okay everybody, we talked a lot about Roadhouse. Now it's time to talk for a few minutes about the Flophouse. That's right, this podcast and the things that we're gonna be doing that we hope you help us do by taking part of them as an audience member.

We've got a virtual event coming up. We're very excited about our show from last year at Vidiots in Los Angeles, the Flophouse Sinks Speed 2, in which we talked about Speed 2. That show is going to be released in a beautifully professionally photographed and edited version. Thanks to the people at StagePilot. That show is going to be released in a beautifully, professionally photographed and edited version. Thanks to the people at StagePilot. That show's going to premiere Saturday, April 27th, and it's going to be available to stream as many times as you want through Sunday, May 19th. We are going to be in the chat box chatting along with the audience when it premieres Saturday, April 27th.

But if you can't make it to that time, you've got so many opportunities to watch it. You can literally watch it whenever you want to until May 19th. For those three weeks, yeah. For those three weeks that it's available. You're gonna see the full show. There's behind the scenes kind of funny footage that we shot that the people who saw the show in person

did not get to see. Sorry people who saw the show in person. Wow. There's all new presentations. The rest of the show is new. New question and answer stuff. It was a really fun show. We had a lot of fun doing it.

Tickets are available along with VIP packages where you can talk to us one on three. And also exclusive merchandise for this event featuring art of us by beloved comics artist Xander Cannon of Kaiju Max and many other great books. That's all available at stagepilot.com slash speed stagepilot.com slash speed or if you like a longer URL, you can also go to stagepilot.com slash flop dash house dash speed dash two. It's probably easier to just go

to flop house to go to stagepilot.com slash speed. But hey, let's say you watch you're going to watch us on a computer. You're so excited about it, but you're going to watch us on a computer. You're so excited about it. But you still want to see us in person. You are in luck. You are in luck if you live in England or close thereabouts. Because we're doing two shows, as we mentioned, in Oxford, England. Our first ever British shows.

We're super excited about it. We're going to be in Oxford on the night of 24th May, 2024, which I think is the way they say it in England. They say 24th May. They don't say May 24th, the way we say it here in the colonies. We're going to be there May 24th. We're doing two shows in one night, seven o'clock show, The Avengers, the British version, the one,

well, the American version of the British version. The British TV show. From the 90s, starring Sean Connery, Ray Fiennes and Uma Thurman, none of whom will be in attendance at the show, so we can say whatever we want about it. And then at 9pm, we're going to be talking Spice World. So for tickets and more information. And unfortunately, all the Spice Girls are going to be there, so we can't say a word.

So we can't say anything bad. No, that's not true. Oh man. Although if you want to show up, you know, Jerry, Victoria, the others. The two males. Males. Yeah, yeah. Sweeney, is that one of them?

No. Gerald. Oh man, if Sporty Spy showed up, I'd be so psyched. And so for tickets to that, it's easy to go to Flophousepodcast.com slash events, go to the Flophouse listing and then click on the tickets link for individual shows. I know there's a number of buttons that say, get tickets on the site.

All of those, I'm checking them now, just seem to go back to the, our listing. So don't click where it says get tickets. Instead click where you see the links for wegottickets.com which is where you can buy tickets for the event. Yeah, that's just cause the site has, it's just not important. There's no way of getting rid of that It's just a long on the site, but babies spices first name

Remember Yeah, okay, yeah, that's the book is about her Emma So that's our stage pilot streaming event starting April 27th and going until May 19th, where you can watch the Flophouse Sink Speed 2. Go to stagepilot.com slash speed for tickets and merchandise for that. And we'll be at the St. Audio Podcast Festival in Oxford. Go to flophousepodcast.com slash events and go to more info and click the individual links for that. Or I'll just tell you, you can go to wegottickets.com slash event slash 606297.

Or wegottickets.com slash event slash 606225. But we're super excited about those shows. Again, those will be all new shows. We've never done a show in England before. Can't wait, hope you can join us. You know what, Elliot, next time I'll make you a tiny URL. Thanks, that'd be great, that'd be great. That would be a good idea to have that.

Hey, a tiny URL that you can look at while you climb into your little acorn bed. We're not- I have to have a tiny URL because I'm such a, I'm just such a whittle guy, yeah. Yeah, we're not good at navigating the online space, but you know who is? Squarespace.

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professionally curated styling options, and you can build up your online presence from the ground up. You can make checkout seamless for customers with the payment tools that Squarespace offers except credit cards Pay credit cards. In fact, maybe not even quit maybe not credit cards Guys, what's happening to my? speaking I

Don't know maybe we should get our aphasia as I age and maybe what Todd Vizier to chime Yeah, maybe we'll get Todd Vaziria to chime in. Yeah, Todd. Have I been digitally altered in some way? What's going on with Dan's brain? Is AI causing the problem? Maybe. Anyway, Squarespace allows you to accept credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay, and in eligible countries, it offers customers the option to buy now and pay later with after pay

and clear pay. My tongue has been twisted. Sell your products and services with an online store. His tongue is totally twisted. Ooh, written by, copied by Cormac McCarthy. If it's digital content, physical goods or services, doesn't matter because Squarespace has the tools you need to start selling online So go to Squarespace comm for a free trial and when you are ready to launch go to

Squarespace comm Flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain Ellie you can stop Giggling bemusedly at me because now I'm done talking and someone else is trying to talk. I was watching that plane circle the runway for a while and I'm like, whoo, I don't know,

this is going to be a hot one, folks. It's a little bit like watching my children eating a slice of pizza and gesturing with it, me just worrying that the cheese is going to slide onto the floor. Oh boy. But they finally get it in their mouth. Yeah, yeah.

It's cause they have that like, that New York style speaking, right? Where you use your hands a lot. Mm-hmm. I mean, I better believe that. Yeah. Audrey talks with her hands a lot and we have a lot more red wine around the house

cause her mom gave us a bunch of it and the combination of the two has me worried, but we'll see. I'll keep you updated. Yeah, keep us posted. Yeah, she's got a red one in one hand and what, like a butterfly knife in the other? And they just grind all over the place. Okay, so the Flypass is also brought to you by Microdose Gummies. Now Microdose Gummies is an easy product for me to pitch because in addition to being a pitch man, I'm also a user.

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microdose.com promo code flop. And I've got one more last promotional thing to mention. If you're listening to this episode on the day of its release, then just this past Wednesday, Hercules number one, the first issue of my new series from Dynamite Comics came out. It should be in comic stores still, still unless it sold out, possibly, who knows?

In which case, tell your comic stores to order new ones so that you can have it. Continues the story of the Disney version of Hercules from the Disney movie of the same name, but I'm introducing lots of new mythological creatures. Well, I mean, they're based on ancient mythological creatures, but there are new lots of new mythological creatures. Well, I mean, they're based on ancient mythological creatures, but there are new versions of them.

As the series starts with a few kind of one-off adventures that all tie together into a much larger mystery epic that will unfold over the course of 12 issues. And so I hope you enjoy it. If you liked my Hades series from Dynamite, then I think you're gonna like this one too. And if you're listening to this episode the day it's released or the day after it's released,

then I will be signing comics on Sunday, April 14th, the day after this episode is released at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles, Golden Apple Comics, not Golden Opal Comics. Golden Apple Comics from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. I'm gonna be alongside a bunch of other great comic book writers, Amy Chase, Casey Gille, Ryan Cady, and of course, Jordan Morris, our own Maximum Fun neighbor, will be there too. We're all signing books that we've written recently and I hope you can come by if you're in the LA area.

So that's Hercules number one in comic stores now from Dynamite Comics, I hope you enjoy it. And if you're in LA, come by Sunday, April 14th and get it signed by me at Golden Apple Comics and meet Jordan Morris at the same time. He's a great guy. All right, back to the show. Let us move along into the section

that we call Letters from Listeners. Listeners, like you, the listeners. This first one is from- You can't roll the bases, yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a sort of circular explanation. And not litters from lesseners. No, no, no, we don't want any litter from lesseners or from mourners.

This one is from John, and it says. From Cincinnati? Yeah, that's the one. I was just listening to your Sonic 2 episode, and when Dan recommended Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker, he mentioned how the flatness of the direction ended up being a plus to the film. I'm always fascinated when elements of a film stand out

unintentionally, but actually help the film. The first time this really struck me was with the movie Equinox, which is especially cheap and flat in the early scenes, right up until the heroes find an ancient evil book, the prop of which clearly received much more loving attention than anything else thus far, and so stuck out.

What could have been a jarring reminder of how cheap everything else looked, served to actually bring a level of creepiness to the affair for me, as if these bland heroes had found something that truly didn't belong in their universe. Are there any favorite examples of elements of movies that unintentionally stood out to you

but serve to improve the experience for you? Keep on flopping in the free world, John. I mean, go on, if you have one, sorry. Yeah, I mean, I feel like part of the appeal of a lot of like Yorgos Lanthimos stuff is the way that everybody delivers their lines as if their brain had been taken out of one body and put into their body.

I mean, especially in that one movie. I think that's intentional though, right? Like, I mean, he's directing though. I guess you're right. I mean, I feel like, I don't know, it's tough for me to dictate intentionality on things. But I would say, one of my favorite movies from one of my favorite directors

is the Suspiria remake by Luca Guadagnino. And in that movie, Tilda Swinton plays multiple characters, including an old German man. And when she walks around as an old German man, she walks around a lot like when you can see Kermit walking around full-bodied and he has like no weight. There's something very strange about the whole thing. And while I know for some viewers

that the illusion was complete, I mean, for me, at no point did I think that this was an actual old man. And with that information in hand, I don't think it makes the movie any less. I think it's such an interesting, weird choice that it makes me like the movie more in a way. So I think that answers the question.

They do something very similar in the movie, The Old Dark House, where they have a woman playing an ancient old man, and it does create a kind of like, you know, offness, strangeness about it that works for the movie, that makes it feel eerie, yeah. Yeah, the stuff that occurs to me is not as specific as I would like,

but it's part of the reason why, you know, I like low budget movies a lot of the time. If like the effects look a little janky, there's that be kind rewind effect of like, you're like, oh, they really tried hard, you know? Like you can see the effort in a way that charms you in the way that like a blockbuster movie that has all the money in the world,

you are less forgiving of its failings. Like instead I'm like, oh, they all, you know, wanted to put on a show and they did it. And similarly, like kind of in a similar vein, I enjoy how a bunch of regional horror in particular kind of serves as a documentary of, you know, the people in those areas, because like as a low budget movie being made

in areas where movies aren't typically made, you're seeing something different than like a Hollywood film. You're seeing houses that are actually real a lot of the time and how people live. There's a film Fiend by Don Dahlner that I saw because it was like a bad movie night pick of some friends and it's just sort of shot in this cul-de-sac of a housing development in I think the early 80s and I'm like, yeah, I just want to see what this is like. Like, let's see what's going on.

Take me back there. Put me in their houses, show me their food products and board games. Exactly. This is, I don't know if this exactly is the same thing along the same lines, but what struck me when I was thinking about this question is, when I see a movie that is incomplete, uh, and either because the parts are missing or they were

never finished and they and it enhances the idea that I'm just seeing a little bit of a much larger story and it increases the scope of that story more than if I was seeing the full thing. Like I've seen a couple of different restorations of Metropolis because it feels like every 10 years they discover a reel of film somewhere in a closet that is footage of Metropolis that was seemed lost. But each time I see it, they have to use text to explain what scenes you're not seeing.

And it kind of, for some reason, it makes it more exciting to me than if I was watching the movie all the way through. And each time it goes from text into a scene, it's like, oh, I'm diving back into the movie after kind of going up for air. And I just recently watched a movie called On the Silver Globe. It's a Polish science fiction movie by the same director who made Possession.

And he started making it and then was forced to stop. And the scenes that were made are very elaborate. And there's a lot of costuming work and a lot of kind of very like kinetic camera work and things like that, but he didn't get to finish it. And so later on when he was given the money to kind of finish it a little bit, there are sections where he's just narrating what would have happened over footage of everyday Poland,

just people go on escalators or walking around the street. And there's something about dipping in and out of this strange fantastical science fiction world and then back into reality that enhanced the experience of how weird those science fiction scenes were. But also it's supposed to be taking place in the future and so seeing these scenes of just ordinary people walking around it created a continuity between like what you're seeing is fictional but imagine it if it's just happening in the future history of this time. So these people who existed are just as real as the characters I'm making and vice versa.

It made the movie more interesting to me than it might have been if it was this complete finished science fiction epic. So that's what comes to mind to me is sometimes a movie is incomplete and it makes it more powerful in that way. This next letter, the subject line is John F-ing Adams and it's from Jen Lasting withheld who writes, hey peacher, hey peachers, hey peaches. We're the peaches, the peaches do to us, the peaches.

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess we're the peachies. Who peaches the peaches? Uh, hi peaches. Neither be a peacher nor a peachy bee. I'm a listener from Wales who is very much looking forward to seeing your live show. Oh, so like Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale. No, no, without the H.

Oh. I'm a listener from Wales who is very much looking forward to seeing your live show in Oxford. Whenever that is, I hope that our plug earlier cleared up the timing. May 24th, come see us. Whenever that is, I hope that our plug earlier cleared up the timing. Yeah. May 24th, come see us. This morning, my cat woke me at 6 a.m.,

but I wanted to snooze some more, so I thought catching up with the floppers would help. I pressed play on the Santa Claus 3. Thanks, I guess. Stretched out and hoped a lengthy discussion of Martin Short as Jack Frost would send me off into a blissful slumber. And it did until you crept into my dreams.

I was gripped by the powerful sensation that I was with you three and Alonso. You were all gabbing away and I had one question I kept repeating over and over with increasing urgency. It was, who the fuck is John Adams? I didn't care about Tim Allen or how time must slow for Santa Claus I was begging you to tell me please who the fuck John Adams is and you were all speaking over me Yes peaches my sleepy brain had forgotten what a podcast is. My question is this Have you ever been watching a film and had a single question you're desperate to ask and for a chaser

Who is slash was John Adams keep flopping in the free world chin lasting withheld? I don't remember I assume that we will know I'm saying I assume we were talking about the president But I I don't know because I don't remember what we're talking about Well, there's three possible John Adamses. There's John Adams, the second president of the United States. There's John Quincy Adams, his son,

who was also president of the United States. And then there's John Adams, the opera writer who wrote like Nixon in China. And he did another one about, what's it called? A Prometheus, I think it is. There's something like that about the atomic bomb. I presume it was the first one. Probably not, I think it is. I don't know, something like that. About the atomic bomb. I presume it was the first one.

Probably not, but only one of them is still alive. So John Adams, the composer, if you are still around and you wanna feel this about who you are, oh, Dr. Atomic, that's what it was called. Yeah, you wrote Dr. Atomic, that's right. The death of Klinghoffer. So if you wanna write in and elucidate us some more about you, please do. But yeah, the other two are probably we're talking about the president, John Adams.

Yeah, which I mean, as you know, a person writing from Wales, like these are not marquee presidents in the way that, you know, you're Washington, you're Lincoln, you're Roosevelt, you're Jeff. Let me just, yeah, let me just text Giamatti and be like, dog. Sorry dog, should have picked a bigger president. Let me just text Giamatti and be like, dog. Sorry dog, should have picked a bigger president. If you're not absorbing this in school as an American, maybe this is one that would. It's how me and Giamatti rap. Well, what about the other question

about questions while watching a movie? Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Well, I mean, the most recent one was, over the last couple nights, my wife agreed to watch one of my favorite movies from a few years ago, Decision to Leave, the Park Chan Wook movie. And even though I was pretty sure

this wasn't going to be exactly her thing, she wanted to watch it with me. And it did take us three different viewings, so three nights, and of course, each time she fell asleep while watching it, I then would finish watching the movie by myself. So I watched the movie basically, completely three times. And you know what, loved it every time,

I think it's great, noticing new things each time. And one of the things that I looked up that I still didn't really get the answer to, one of the elements of the movie is that there is a language barrier between the two leads. He's a Korean detective and she is a Chinese woman living in Korea. And so, and her admittedly, her Korean is not the best and she has some difficulty communicating.

And there's a comment early on that leads to an inside joke between the two of them where she describes something as solitary. And they find it to be funny in a way that I don't quite understand. And I don't know if it's part of the translation or I'm just like missing an obvious joke. So that's something that I would love explained to me

by somebody who understands what's going on. This is tickling something in my brain because I feel like I read something about how like there's different sort of, you know, just as in say French you would use different words when you're talking to someone sort of like above you, quote unquote, or like at your level, like that there are nuances of language in that way.

Like there's like formal sort of Korean versus informal Korean that plays into a lot of the nuances of the movie that we wouldn't get as English speakers, but I don't. Okay. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of a- I don't know about that specific thing. It reminds me of when Oldboy, another Park Jong-il movie came out, where there's the part where he slurps up a live octopus or squid, and I remember everyone who saw it

in America was like, can you believe that scene where he does that? And Korean audiences were like, that was not one of the weirder scenes in it. That's the thing that happens. Oh, did you see the end of that movie? It's like not everybody does that, but that is the thing people do sometimes, you know. My answer to this, I apologize, is not quite right, because I don't think it's like asking people in the movie, but, and I also apologize to Stuart,

because I'm about to talk about a Wes Anderson movie. Oh, I started ripping my hair out by the roots. I want to destroy something beautiful. But The Life Aquatic, which is a movie that I think baffled people when it came out who were sort of jumping on board the Wes Anderson train with Rushmore and World Ten Bombs. And like this then... Now he knows what a train is? Okay. with Rushmore and World Ten Bombs, and like this then. Now he knows what a train is, okay.

Yeah, is your question, why is this movie so bad? Yeah, I. So it's a movie that. I'm joking, I'm joking. I liked when I first saw it, and then has only sort of grown for me, and I think that now a lot of people who like Wes Anderson movies,

it's one that they particularly love, and it's one that I love a lot of people who like Wes Anderson movies, it's one that they particularly love and it's one that I love a lot. But this is all to say that it's a movie that feels very much like a shaggy dog story. It's not quite- More like a shaggy DA story. It doesn't have like the most propulsive narrative throughline at any means. Like a lot of stuff happens, a lot of sort of stuff happens randomly in the sense of like a random world, not like it's not, you know, meticulously constructed.

But I guess my question is like, at the end, the scene where, you know, Bill Murray, the famous scene where they're all in the submarine, they see the shark he's been looking for. He says, I wonder if it remembers me. And like that makes me cry every time. And I know I'm not alone in this, like a bunch of people like have this reaction to this. And I kind of want to

Grab Wes Anderson and buttonhole him and be like why? Why does this make me break down in tears because it's an unusual moment in an Unconventional film and I can't quite put my finger on what's happening there So I need Wes Anderson to explain my psychology back to me See well there's technically one question I guess yeah, yeah, I don't really have an answer for this one I feel like there's lots of times I've watched movies and I wanted to know either How'd they do that or I'd wanted to like spend some how do you do that? How do you do that? Or I'd wanted to have spent some more time with a character and kind of see them existing longer. But I don't feel like I have one where there was just one

movie with one deep burning question. Maybe I'm just too afraid to make myself vulnerable by admitting that I need to ask questions to learn things. It's possible. It could be, you never know. Explain that to me, Wes Anderson. Ellie, you don't need to know everything. You don't have to be the smartest guy in the room

all the time. That's true, I neither have to be nor can I be. Let's move on to the final segment, which is recommendations, movies that we saw recently that we may have enjoyed. Dan's furiously scrolling through his letterbox to get to Garbage Bail Kids, the movie. Stuart, why don't you go first

as I think about something for a moment. Okay, I've seen a lot of movies with Dan recently. So which one should I not, which one do you want to talk about more? Just recommend what you want to recommend and then we'll do the rest. Well, hell yeah, I'm going to recommend a movie I saw at the Nighthawk not that long ago.

Now granted, I was a pretty shit face when I watched this thing. It's Renny Harlin's movie, Prison. Not the act, not the actual place in the world, Prison, but the movie Prison is what I'm recommending. I do not recommend the Prison Industrial Complex. I think that's good. I'm going to go on and let him here, say it's bad.

It's bad for humanity. So the movie Prison, however, is good for humanity because it does star a young Viggo Mortensen, that's right. Okay. And who's the guy that's, who's the warden in that dance? Oh, geez, I'll look it up. I can't remember what. It's great.

So this very much feels like Rennie Harlan doing like an audition tape to do a Nightmare on Elm Street movie It's about a haunted prison. It does have Andre de Shields doing some amazing Monologuing I I remember when I saw the trailer for this I was like I'd never seen this movie before I'd seen the the VHS box Who who am I thinking of? Lane Smith? Yeah, they remember as the other attorney in My Cousin Vinny, among other things.

Oh my God. He was on Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman. He is making a meal out of this role. He is going bonkers. Yeah, he was Perry White on that. So good. So I remember watching, when I saw the trailer for this, Andre Deshield's monologue features lines

that were sampled in this skinny puppy song off of the album Rabies. And I was like, I remember hearing that song like 20 plus years ago and being like, where the fuck is this from? This stuff sounds awesome. And then when I saw the trailer at the Nighthawk, I'm like, I got to see this bitch.

And you know what? I did. It was great. It's a lot of fun. It does feature a super awesome ending with lightning and crap. And it has those like it's a lot of fun. It does feature a super awesome ending with lightning and crap. And it has those like classic old timey special effects. Dan, Dan saw Prison with me and we, man,

we were hopping in our seats, it was amazing. Yeah, let me, well, yeah, let me recommend another movie that we both saw at the same time. And that is the film that we saw right before our recent Garbage Pail Kids the night before a film that Elliott was exasperated by because we were trying to schedule something that wasn't gonna happen anyway but we were all like... The only thing I was exasperated by was that you referred to the screening of this movie as if of course I would we all know about it.

Of course we all knew this was happening. We were trying to plan something and Dan said, well I'm free every night except of course for the Clifford screening. And I was like, what the hell is he talking about? So it was just a presumption that, well of course I've heard of the- It did feel like a brain teaser at that point. To clarify, I was saying of course, if I said that,

I apologize to you Elliot for the confusion. I was saying because multiple other people on the chain were going to the same thing. There was a 30th anniversary screening of the film Clifford at BAM, a film that was not successful at its first run, but has acquired many admirers over the years. And star Martin Short was in attendance.

The screenwriter, one of the two screenwriters for Clifford who were at the time, I was gonna say credited, but they were not at the time. Clifford sat on the shelf for like four years during which time the writers were like, maybe we'll take our name off this, but I'm just. There was also a friend of the Flophouse, Richard Kind. Richard Kind was there.

I was getting to it. I was just looking up, Stephen Campman, sorry, was the writer and Paul Flaherty, brother to the recently sadly departed Joe Flaherty was also there. So there was a, probably the best Q&A I've ever seen afterwards because Martin Short kept it fleet and funny,

Richard Kite also very funny. Anyway, but the movie Clifford is what I'm recommending, not seeing a Q&A that you can no longer see. I don't know, the way you talked about it before, maybe you think everyone has access to this at all times. Anyway. It's also not the best one I've ever seen. The best one I've ever seen was still Only God Forgives,

where Ryan Gosling suggested that he would love to play Freddy Krueger. That was a great, I remember watching that with you. That was a great Q&A. Someone said, is there any role that you would love to do? And he goes, Freddy Krueger. And the crowd went insane. People started ripping the wallpaper from walls.

That would be a great role to play. The Q&A, a young guy gets up and he goes, and Nicholas Wending Riefen was there and he goes, I was wondering if you have any advice for a young filmmaker? And the audience started booing him for asking that question. I mean, they were right to do so, but also, poor guy. Anyway, so yeah, what can one say about the movie Clifford? Except for in 1994, audiences weren't ready for it.

A movie where a 40-year-old man played a sociopathic child locked in psychological warfare with Charles Grodin, also not playing a particularly nice man, but slightly more sympathetic went up against Clifford, the child from hell. I think that part of the problem was, at the time people were like, what's this? Are we supposed to take Clifford seriously

as an actual kid? Are we supposed to be fooled by this? When, you know, I think comedy has caught up with it a little bit where part, you know, like part of the magic of Clifford, part of the joke of it is like, yeah, of course, it's not a real kid, like, he's utterly committed to it, but there's this distancing effect that's part of it

that's funny and also allows for Charles Groton to be so much meaner than he would if it was a real child, which makes it all the funnier because they're just being like so horrible to each other while having to keep it for social reasons bottled up under this layer of false cheerfulness that makes it all the funnier. I'm going to tell you that, you know,

maybe it doesn't work so well at home, but with a crowd, Clifford killed. Yeah, it was really fun. What do you have to say for yourself, Elliot? I think I'm going to give, I'm going to partly recommend the movie I mentioned earlier in the episode on the silver globe. I'm going to give that a qualified recommendation

because it's the kind of movie that I think some people will find amazing and other people will not be able to stand at all. It is long, it is a very kind of abstract and intensely aggressive science fiction epic that does not have a strictly easy to follow plot in many ways, but the things that they do with the camera in it and the way that they stage things

are often incredibly exciting and very like genuinely visionary. And something that I didn't kind of realize until afterwards is that much of the movie is, in the beginning is told as if it is a message that was recorded by astronauts to it in a failed attempt to colonize a planet. And it's like, is this the earliest kind of found footage

type movie that I've seen? I don't know. And it does it really well. But then the movie, there are things in it, there are images in it that I'm gonna be thinking about for a long, long time. And then there are other parts of it that are very unpleasant.

And it is a grueling and kind of like, demanding movie in a lot of ways. So I'm giving that a qualified recommendation. If you like that sort of thing, then go for it on the silver globe. But if you wanna just sit back and instead just check your brain at the door and just watch a really grim kind of nihilistic

film noir movie, then I'm gonna recommend a movie called The Prowler from 1951, I suppose it's 1901. From 1951, this is a Joseph Loewsie movie, it was written by Dalton Trumbo when he was still blacklisted, so he's writing it under a pseudonym. And it is about a woman who has,

she is, there's a Prowler that is peeping on her through her window, she calls the cops, and one of the police officers, Van Heflin, becomes kind of obsessed with her and decides to seduce her and then kind of steal her away from her husband and maybe kill her husband since it seems like he has some money on hand.

And things as with film or movies, things go from bad to worse and they just keep getting, the characters keep getting themselves into worse and worse trouble. And it was refreshing though to see instead of a movie about a man who has kind of taken down a dark road by a femme fatale, this is about a woman who at first you are geared up to think is going to be a femme fatale and then it becomes apparent eventually that you're like, oh, this guy is bad.

I mean, he's pretty bad from the from the get-go, but like this guy is, he's the femme masculine. I don't know what the, I don't know the masculine fatale, you know, I don't know what it would be the home fatale, you know? I don't know what it would be, the home fatale. But it's one of these noir movies where you're like, how dark is this movie gonna get? Oh, even darker? And so I really enjoyed it a lot.

And it's got that kind of a lower budget feel that makes it kind of more exciting rather than less. So it's called The Prowler. Yeah, I was talking to Griffin Newman about Noirs after we saw Love Lies Bleeding. And he said something that I don't know if this is something that he came up with, but the idea that like for a Noir to be successful,

you need to have your central characters to all be like broken on a central level. Like there has to be something missing or wrong with this person. Yeah. And I think that's probably fair. Like you want there to be a darkness there. You want someone who is broken and knows it

or is broken and doesn't know it because they're going to, otherwise it's hard on a plot level to imagine them making the dumb decisions that characters have to make in film or movies. Where it's like, everything is telling me this is wrong, but I'm going to do it still. characters have to make in film noir movies. Where it's like, everything is telling me this is wrong, but I'm gonna do it still. Or a movie like Red Rock West where it's,

Nicolas Cage is like, I could leave this town right now, but I think I'll stick around. Or like when Jason Voorhees is like, I could blow up the house with the kids. You said I'll do it one by one, yeah. Classic noir hero, Jason Voorhees. I feel like there kept being reasons why Nicolas Cage couldn't leave Red Rock West. There are a couple times he tries to leave and he can't, but there's a couple times early on where he's like, you know what, I should go back and warn somebody about something.

And it's like, just get out of there, Nick. Just get out of there. Hey, this episode is close to a classic-linked flop house, so we should wrap it up fast by saying thank you to our network, maximumfund.org. Check out all the other great podcasts over there. I'm sure you'll find something that you'll like. Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith, who goes by the name HowellDawdy on various socials and such.

He's also a Twitch streamer if you want to check him out there. Speaking of socials, Dan, we're on threads now, right? Yeah, sure. We're on threads. There's a Discord now. I believe that at some point there's a message we're going to read about that, but an enterprising fan set up a Discord. So if you want to hang out and talk about Flophouse or related stuff just like with people who enjoy the same things as you

You can check out that discord search for that Yeah, and if you have the inclination of the time, please spread the word Tell someone that this is a show that you like, leave a review on iTunes. It helps the algorithm with what it promotes. All that stuff, all of it, come on. You know what it is. You live in this modern world.

Anyway, thank you for listening. For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliott Roadhouse-Caitlin. Is that my new nickname I'm trying out? You think it works? Yeah, I love it. Okay, great. It's rowdy.

We get to do our hobby as our job. And we get to do a hobbit if we're married to one. And maybe on your birthday. It's your birthday. We'll do it Middle-Earth style. We'll use computers to shrink me down. Yeah, yeah, let's take you to Mount Doom, baby. That's where my ring in.

Come on, can you do more weird Lord of the Rings sex puns? Sure. Begin the show. I'm feeling Nazgul tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The eagle should have just taken it. Yeah. I'll just watch the eagle do you.

Anyway, okay, here we go. Wait, Tom Bombadildo. Okay, continue. Okay, thank you. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly.

By you.