The Flop House - Ep.#414 - Kangaroo Jack

Episode Date: January 27, 2024

We're currently on the road as part of our "Errors Tour," so we don't have many show notes other than to say for this episode we flashed back to legendary bad movie Kangaroo Jack, and it's a hot one!Want to see our faces? You have a few more days 'til the end of January to check out our season of streaming shows, FLOP TV, or you could get tickets to see us in Los Angeles on Sunday 1/28.Wikipedia page for Kangaroo JackRecommended in this episode:Dr. Caligari (1989)The Iron Claw (2023)The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/FLOP

Hi, floppers. Before we start our regular nonsense, we wanted to make sure you knew the Flop House is going on a four-city West Coast tour this January. It's the Flop House Errors Tour, the biggest event in pop culture entertainment this year, probably. You can see us in Vancouver on Wednesday, January 24th at the Rio Theater. In Portland on Thursday, January 25th at the Aladdin Theater in San Francisco on Friday, January 26th at Cobb's Comedy Club as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest and in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 28th at the Regent Theater. For tickets, go to flophousepodcast.com slash events. Again, that's flophousepodcast.com slash events. The Flop House Live is like the podcast, but you can smell us. And now, without further ado, our regular nonsense. Let's see, do I have a hot one? You know it, bitch. Fire it up, Dan.

Dan, the man said fire it up. All right. Okay. On this episode, we discuss Kangaroo Jack. So wait, is that the thing where you put your hands in the pocket of your hoodie and then you use your really strong legs to manipulate your dingus? I guess that was the hot one. So you know, now's the time to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. Hey Dan, it's me Stuart to the Flop House.

I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, Dan. It's me, Stuart Wellington, your old pal. Yeah. Good to see you. Hi, Dan and Stuart. I didn't mean to interrupt your one-on-one conversation, but I'm Elliot, the other co-host of the show.

Oh, hey, look. He's on the computer. He's like a little guy inside of Box. I mean, even in real life, I'm a little guy. Yeah, and we're all in. And come in real life. And like we're all in people's computers, which is what phones are, right? Pocket computers. Well, here we are at the old house.

This is the flop house, the show where we describe things everybody knows about as if it's a new thing that we're in. We've arrived from another planet. Yeah. No, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it. And I'll say, I'll say something. Normally on the flop house, we watch a newer bad movie. Sure.

Early on, this was a way to sort of set us apart from, um, you know, like Mystery Science Theater, say, had covered all of the classic bad movies and there'd been hundreds of books about bad movies and how hilarious bad movies are. I'm just saying, we didn't invent it. Was that a ghost talking about how funny bad movies are? So, you know, for a while we focused on the new stuff, which also set us apart from other bad movie podcasts too. You know, it was a branding thing. But now, during the strike, we went back to some older bad movies and we're like, hey, this is fun. So we figured, let's do it more often.

Why not? You know? We ran up the fire pole to the suits in charge of the flop house and we're like, can we do this? Turned out to be us. It was bought in the room and we're... Wow. Buy us.

So we're, today we're talking about Kangaroo Jack, a movie that we have often referenced on the flop house. I don't know whether any of us had seen it. Had you seen it? I had not seen it. Have you seen it? I remembered the trailers when they came out, and I remembered the scandal when it turned out the trailers were inaccurate representations of the film.

Was there something memorable about the trailer for Kangaroo Jack? Well, Anna DeArmes was in the trailer, but she was not in Kangaroo Jack. Yeah, she played, it was originally called Kangaroo on a Dharmas. Yeah, the trailer famously made a big deal out of a rap in Kangaroo and Kangaroo forward. As we'll see when Stuart does the summary, there is one scene in which a character hallucinates a talking kangaroo, and the trailers used almost entirely moments from that scene to make it appear as if the movie was about a talking kangaroo and the trailers used almost entirely moments from that scene to make it appear as if the movie was about a talking kangaroo when it's really a mob buddy comedy. Well, and this is not the only kind of bizarre thing about the production of kangaroo jack.

The other thing is of course the off-tool tale of how it started out as an R-rated mob comedy. And then, which as we have learned this year, I am a huge fan of. Huge fan of. The problem with it was there were not mafia mamas in it. What is called kangaroo mama? There's about a kangaroo took over the mafia, but it's also a mom. I would love it, Elliot.

Who would be playing the kangaroo in this case? Oh, Tony Collette, of course. Same guy. Yeah, she's got the range. And she's Australian, isn't she? I think so. So it all works out. Yeah, but that version of the movie...

Guys, if I heard Tony Collette speaking of course. Same gas. Yeah, she's got the range. And she's Australian, isn't she? Yeah, I think so. So it all works out. Yeah, but that version of the movie. Guys, if I heard Tony Collette speaking in her real accent, I think my head would explode. I wouldn't accept it. No, I wouldn't accept it. The same way, I refuse to watch any videos of the guy who plays the gangster on Barry speaking with his real voice because...

Oh, yeah, yeah, no. I don't want the illusion to be broken. I never want... Oh, yeah, yeah. I never want to know what his real voice sounds like. The gangster with a memorable name. But as I was saying, the original R-rated cut of Ken Grujak did not play particularly well. I can't even imagine what was in it if there was an R-rated cut. I can't imagine because it's such a childish movie from start to finish.

Well, I've been some childish. Other than inappropriate jokes. I feel like there's been some childish movies that are R-rated. So I guess this is a plea. I mean, we have a little bit of reach with our show and I think it's best that we use it for good in this case. If you have access to the R-rated cut of

Can you have to send it to us please? And you want to send that to us? This is right. This is now now that we know that the day the clown cried will probably be seen in some form I'm not as interested in that anymore, but so I want to see the R-rated kangaroo Jack I want to know according to Wikipedia it originally included cursing sex and violence Sex where where would it have fit into this movie? Well, I mean, seeing as this version already, like still has a wet t-shirt scene of a Stella Warren,

at which moment in the thing, I texted a gift of Dom DeMillo from Kangaroo, of sorry, Kangaroo. Don DeLillo? Kangaroo. Don, J. Kangaroo Jackstar Don Delillo. The novels weren't working out that well. He needed to pay some bills.

He took the role of the kangaroo. Guys, I almost said kangaroo bang bang when I meant comedy bang bang. Andy Day was character. It was originally called Kangaroo Bang Bang because the sex scene was with the kangaroo. I texted Andy Day's character saying something for daddy. To the skewer.

Yeah. Because it is wild to me that they made this kids cut of the movie, but kept in the Estella Warren in a wet undershirt scene. But anyway, I mean, you know, better that than violence, but still weird. I guess maybe that when I said the movie is childish, I guess it's not entirely childish. You're right. But it is a movie that like has a big bit about farting camels. And like it's not stuff, I mean, I did just rewatch an episode of Seinfeld that involved

a farting horse last night. So I guess there are grown up things with farting animals. Well, that's the thing. I'm not sure how much of this is reshoots or not. I mean, like most of the research shoots from what I understand was to add CGI kangaroo action to make it into a kids movie. Wait, that was CGI? They probably did other stuff.

No, no, don't ruin Stuart's illusion. Stuart, they took a kangaroo, they trained him to rap. They implanted human vocal chords. Jackson kangaroo. No, no, you guys already said it. Now I don't trust movies anymore. Let me call Todd Vizier, he'll clear it all up. Okay, guys, let's get into this fucking movie, right?

Let's do it. Okay, Kangaroo Jack. What, 89 minutes long. Let's get through it. You know, this is a shockingly not that many cards for this, note cards for this plot. So of course this movie opens with some title sequence or production logos.

You get some funky music. That's how you know you're in for a fun time. The first thing of course, because this movie is called Kangaroo Jack, we get some voiceover from Jerry O'Connell who's playing the star named Charlie. And we have a voiceover explaining all about Kangaroo Jack. We have pictures of Kangaroo Jack,

video footage of Kangaroo Jack. Just so we, I feel like it's like they're doing the bare minimum to make sure you understand this is actually the Kangaroo movie you entered and not like the wrong movie. Just because you won't see a kangaroo for the first 20 some odd minutes of the film, don't forget that this is a kangaroo movie.

Okay, so we quickly do a flashback to 20 years ago on a beach in Brooklyn. It reminds me as we're a couple of Brooklyn boys over here, of course I would be the Charlie Carbon, and Dan would be the Lewis Booker character, played by Anthony Anderson. So we flashback 20 years ago to a beach in Brooklyn. I did have a metal detector when I was a child.

Whoa, that tracks. It was like a toy metal detector. It was not like a fancy one. The detective metal toys. Yes. No, I would use it to go around, you know, looking for treasure in the neighborhood. Usually it would be nails.

And then you found the Titanic, right? Or other rusty pieces of metal that I could have kept myself with and died, but I didn't, you know. You're saying it's not a great thing for a kid to be using. Is it a detector that finds old metal? I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the thrill of the hunt.

I had a metal detector. It led me to the episode of the young ones with motor head in it. It was amazing. Yeah, it really changed my life. Yeah. So on this beach 20 years ago in Brooklyn, we are introduced to Charlie Carbon,

played by Jerry O'Connell as a grownup. His friend Lewis, who's a bit of a nerd who has a metal detector, as we said, we're introduced to a gangster named Sal played by Christopher Walken, who is the new boyfriend of Charlie's mom. There's an evil rival kid named Frankie, we'll get to him in a minute,

who throws a football and Charlie almost drowns in the ocean only to be saved by Lewis, which is kind of the encapsulation of their friendship. There is a certain amount of guilt that Charlie feels because Lewis saved his life, or so Lewis believes. Flash forward 20 years. We are in modern day New York City. Well, 2003, when was this shot?

It came out in 2003, it probably was shot in 2002, I'm guessing, if there was that extensive an edit that it went through. All the cars looked like they're from 1992. So, Charlie. People, I think, forget that when the year happens, not all the stuff that exists in the world is from that year that like old stuff

hangs around for a long time. And so it bothers me when you see a movie that's set at a certain time period and they're like, we gotta get the cars from just this year. Everyone's wearing the clothes from just this year. It's like, well, most people are going to be walking around wearing old clothes and driving old cars. History doesn't, it's not like every year everyone gets all new stuff.

So that's just a little pet peeve for me about the way people handle the past in movies and things like that. And they didn't want you to take over for Andy Rooney. Oh, let's not even scratch that scab. That is almost healed. Let's not reopen those wounds. Yeah. Andy Rooney, more like Andy Rooney? Oh, let's not even scratch that scab. It's almost healed. Let's not reopen those wounds. Andy Rooney, more like Andy Looney over here. I got him.

I guess. Don't understand. I actually agree with Elliot's thing. I don't know why I'm giving him a hard time. Well, but similar when you see a movie set in the future, everything is futuristic. When, that's not how the world works. You go to an older person's house, it looks like an old, everything's from 1990 or, you know,

2010, you know. I mean, I recently watched the Creator, which I think actually does a nice blend of like high tech and low tech stuff, where it doesn't all feel super modern. I mean, it's a similar, in some ways, a similar aesthetic and I don't know, whatever else to like a district nine

where it's like a mix of. Yeah. But okay. So flash forward to present day. Charlie is now a hair stylist. He own, well, he operates a mob front, a mob front hair salon called Hair We Are. Lewis is now some kind of like,

kind of like a hustler now. He's like a petty hustler who has a lucky jacket and he steals a truck full of televisions and they get in trouble with the cops and then they get in trouble with the mob. Well, this is really interesting choice to me. You're really glossing over a huge car chase that opens the door. Yeah. Oh, sorry.

This is what I was going to talk about. You're really glossing over a huge car chase that opens the movie. Yeah. Well, this is what I was going to talk about. It's an interesting choice to me to introduce us to the adult versions of our heroes. And the first thing we see is them doing a tremendous amount of reckless endangerment as they try to escape the cops. A high-speed chase with the cops where they are so uncaring about the lives of any other person in the world. What are they? Batman in the Flash movie?

What did he say about that? Yeah, but like, I'm like, you're assuming that I'm going to love these two dufuses immediately. And I think that you're making a bet that may not pay off. Can't you, Jack? Yeah, there's a lot of wisecrack and a lot of over talking, a lot of like wacky music playing. That's how you know it's a comedy and not some kind of a trauma. Like you thought it could have been a drama.

It's similar to May, December, where you're like, what is this? Yeah, when I walk into a movie called Kangaroo Jack starring Jerry O'Connell, what I expect is a heavy drama, yeah. I mean, there's certainly a lack of jokes for a movie that is ostensibly comedy. I would say until Anthony Anderson comes on screen, it is a joke-free desert. You know, it's a comedy desert.

And he is really the one source of comedy for much of the movie. I'd say it depends on what you count as jokes. Are jokes just verbal things that are said? Or like there's a lot of shenanigans. And the shenanigans are a subset of jokes. Maybe, I think the movie expects us to think it's funny that J.O. Connell runs a hair salon. Like it feels like there are certain things

that the movie thinks are gonna be funny that you're like, that's not a joke, that's not funny. I don't know, and that's not even like a woke thing. It's just like, there's just nothing inherently funny about a mob backed hair salon. You need to put jokes into it. Yeah. Yeah.

I do respect the movie. Not that there is no gay panic in the film, but the movie does not make an overt point of it being, like, I don't know, fit in the pan. There's only a couple of panic moments there. There's only the airport bathroom scene and I think a hugging scene later. You have to see the hug lot. Yeah, the hugging the hug scene which ruins an act like a moment that is actually

kind of nice. We'll get there. You have to assume that the R rated cut had a ton more of that stuff, had a ton more gay panic jokes probably. So they managed to. I mean we'll never know until someone sends it to us. Listeners find that R rated cut of kangaroo jack send it to us. So they managed to evade the police, but they end up bringing the police down

on Jerry O'Connell's stepfather, Sal's, what, art smuggling operations? It's like the warehouse where he stores his stolen goods. Stolen properties. And there was an expensive art there. I guess he's the guy who stole those, that Winslow Homer painting that disappeared was never found again.

Oh, okay, okay, that guy. So he, so of course this gets them in trouble with the mob and this is where we see Christopher Walken in his mansion in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, which doesn't really look like Bensonhurst, but that's fine. And he explains, you know, you cost me money, but because you're family, I can't kill you,

your mother would be so sad. He does a few little bits and jokes. I think there was a moment where he mispronounces something and I'm like, was that intentional? Was that in the script? Or did he like, flub it and just play it well? I was so excited when Christopher Walken showed up in this movie because I didn't know he was gonna be here.

And like, you know, he's not giving it that old country bear's energy, but. Yeah, but you do that thing when during the opening credits, you close your eyes and you say, no spoilers, no spoilers until you see it on the screen. I don't know. I mean, maybe I saw the name. I'm just saying that I didn't know before like, you know,

hitting play that Christopher Walken was gonna be in there. Yeah, I knew he was in there, but it is always nice to see him. It's true he's not giving his all like he does in country bears, but he's not walking. He's not sleep walking through it. I have to correct myself. It was not a Winslow Homer painting that was never turned. It was a Rembrandt painting,

but it was of a ship at sea, which was a lot of Winslow Homer. Okay, partial credit, yeah. Thank you. That's the storm on the Sea of Galley. That's the one that was stolen and never returned. Yeah. But also, did you mention Baby Michael Shan?

That's the thing. That's the real excitement. That was the real surprise, yeah. The rival Frankie shows up. Now an adult played my Michael Shan and Kensington Brooklyn Native right now. Can you say Native if he just lives here now? I don't know. I did tell you that Audrey also

finally saw him around the neighborhood. That's dope. That's great. Now you have something to talk to him about. Can you reject? Yeah. He is, I find him genuinely funny in this movie. Not in that the very beginning,

but later on I think his performance is very funny. Well, partly a big part of it is that he fully commits to being a mobster in a movie with and not like a joke. Yes. Whereas everyone else is kind of barely doing anything. Yeah. So he, so Charlie and Lewis are given a mission. This is the way that they can make amends. They have to take a mystery envelope that they are not allowed to look inside all the the way to Cooper, Cooper P.D. in the Outback in Australia. New York City.

I mean, you gotta learn how to pronounce these things, Stuart, for your big trip down under. Yeah, part of the reason now, we had a couple of different movie options. Stuart down under. Yeah, a couple of different movie options. And one of them was Calgary Jack. And as I've mentioned on the show a little bit,

your boy Stuart is going to Australia here in about a month and I'm really looking forward to it. I've always wanted to go. And, but you know, it's the other side of the world. So I need to learn about it. So I'm doing all the research I can watching kangaroo Jack. I'm watching all the Australian classics. Kangaroo Jack, I'm watching that show Instant Hotel.

Do you remember that one? Sure. All kinds of crap. Our audience, I'm sure, knows this already, but you should know that Cooperapedia is, of course, referred to as the opal capital of the world. It's known for its opal mining. So that's something you'll need to know

when you get to Australia, because they'll ask you before they let you in. That's where opals come from. Well, that's good. I guess you're spoiling your gifts that I'm gonna bring back a bunch of opals. Bag, sacks of opals. Sacks of opals.

So of course they're giving this mystery envelope told not to look into it. Of course they immediately look into it while they're on the plane. Turns out that it's full of $50,000, which now I don't wanna sound kind of weird, but that doesn't seem like that much money. Well, this was 2000, this was 2003.

It's just for inflation. And we'll later find out why that, why it's that money, but it does seem like it's both a lot of money and not a lot of money for them to have to career. Yeah, for a movie, exactly. But it's also the way they handle this envelope, even before they know that money is in it, is ridiculously slip shot. Like it's literally like way they handle this envelope, even before they know that money is in it, is ridiculously slip-shot.

Like it's literally like what tucked into the back of the seat pocket, of the seat in front of them on the plane. It's like, put that in your suitcase, dude. What are you doing? Like, come on, what are you doing? And then, of course, keep it in your pocket. Yeah, we get some comedy bits.

This bathroom conversation leads to the longest and most improbable misunderstanding. Not since Wild West have two men behind a closed door talking about something where they have to work really hard to make the phrasing sounds like they are having sex with each other. So that it can be overheard by somebody else.

Not since that. In this case, it's phrased so it sounds like they're both very excited about Jerry O'Connell's poop and Want to pick up the poop and put it in an envelope and whatnot and See I couldn't tell if they were talking about poop or his penis. That's the thing I guess but they do they I think they do like talk about putting it in the envelope Which I think means it's a just discreet unit not that they can you know They're just gonna put it like a sleeve over his penis

and then tuck it back in his pants. And they talk about how green it is, which I guess could be about some sort of disease, but to me, red more like they're marveling at his bowel movement, I don't know. Maybe, it's just such a weird thing to do. This scene needed like a Dan doing a statler in Waldorf, you guys in the back row doing a statler in Waldorf bit

trying to analyze what they're talking about. This is both what I think the other writers hated me for at the Daily Show and I think a genuine useful quality is like, I wanna hash out the logic of these things. Well, I remember our long arguments about the name Jabba the Hut and how you couldn't wrap your mind around why you think it's Jabba the Hutt and how you could wrap your mind around it. Why do you think it's Jabba the Hutt?

I just think that it's weird that it's introduced as if it's a title and then it's anyway. It is. It's like Nikki the Greek. It's an ethnic title. Yeah, but then everyone's a... Anyway. Not monsters. Not monsters are called huts. He's the only hut in the whole scene. No, it ended up extended anyway. But the other huts are also called that. That's not canon. My point is that like, there are places where you can fudge logic. Speaking of fudge. It doesn't matter. But I think if you're gonna do like, particularly a joke this

dumb, the logic has to be airtight. I think. Yes. It's got, I know, I agree with you on that. And I think it's a- Yeah, you need the audience to be like, I don be airtight, I think. Yes. I agree with you on that. Yeah, you need the audience to be like, I don't like it, but I respect it. The phrasing is so forced. It's so incredibly forced. And it doesn't make any sense. And yeah, to pull off something this, like you're saying, to pull off a premise this stupid, that the two of them are being overheard and being mistaken as thinking that, I guess they're talking about, yeah, his poop, then and wanna put it in their mouth and stuff like that, put it in the envelope.

Yeah, they wanna pick it up and smell it. Yeah, that's what it is, put it in the, pick and smell it like the, it just feels like it is, they really have to square that circle a little better than they do here, you know. Yeah. So that's not the only comedy bit.

We get some jokes about how Anthony Anderson, Lewis's pockets of his lucky jacket are filled with like odd candy bits. Like unwrapped candy. Mostly unwrapped, yeah. We also get a bit where Jerry O'Connell gets strip searched at the airport. That's good stuff. The candy stuff honestly is more of like where I want the tone of strip searched at the airport. That's good stuff.

The candy stuff, honestly, is more of like where I want the tone of this movie to be at, because it's so goofy and like, you know, like three Stooges-y or silly like childlike to have like, yeah, he's just got like an assortment of unwrapped candies that he has no problem like popping in his mouth and then popping back in his pocket. Yeah, he has like a single Twizzler in there,

just unwrapped in the pocket of his switcher. That has a big kid quality that I kind of enjoy. Yeah, that I would like. I think if the, I would buy so much more of this movie, if these characters were, like you're saying Dan, like three Stooges type grown up children, if this was the stars of Detroiters in the same plot, so much of this would make so much more sense to me

because they're essentially child men You know or if it was yeah, if it was oh man now Or if this was worth I wouldn't enjoy this as much but if it was like dumb and dumber to kangaroo jack I'd be like okay. Yeah, I get it these guys are cartoonish morons But these characters are both we're supposed to take seriously their bond as friends and also You know and also, you know, and also laugh at these dumb things they're doing and I just, I can't buy it. I can't buy it.

So, I can't buy it. So, I'm not gonna buy it, Kangaroo Jack. I'm just gonna, I know you put it in my, you took it off the shelf and put it in my hands so that it would be hard for me to not buy it. Yeah, that was a shark tank. Yeah, so guys, I'm not gonna invest in Kangaroo Jack. Okay, sorry, shark. I'm gonna put it back on the shelf. Yeah, so guys, I'm not gonna invest in Kangaroo Jack. Sorry, you lost your chance back in what, 2004?

When's this from? I don't know. 2003. Okay, how's this? So, I had just come out of college and somebody said, hey, you want to career investing in Kangaroo Jack? Somewhere of Kangaroo Jack. When I was young and life was so wonderful. I'll remember it like it was yesterday.

When I was 17, there was a Kangaroo Jack. Until the Kangaroo Jack of summer has come. I don't remember if I have that song, Gus. Yeah, good enough for this show. Anyways, Stuart. So back to the adventure do you remember? Kangaroo Jack didn't come out in September It came out in actually in January, so it was not the summer but the winter of Kangaroo Jack

That's different so back to the adventure Charlie gets out of being. The adventure of these two guys going to Australia. I like that Stewart doesn't get annoyed anymore. He's just like, okay, this is a chance to answer that text that came in earlier that I couldn't do. Okay. It was quite a cinematic set, Amelia.

When kangaroo jack came out that day. Do do do do do do do do. Ah, you thought it was a rapping kangaroo that was in the movie. Might as well check the promotion's folder on my email. Yep, anyway. Okay, no, no, for real. Oh, okay, sure.

No, no, no, not for real. I'll wait till I start talking about print milkery. Sure, okay. Football will never be pulled away again. So Charlie gets out of being strip search Oh, okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Whoops, found a whoopsy, add it to the list. On the goof section. So they're driving through the outback. They are doing a little wrap together. They're wrapping together, which you're like,

oh no, this is grim foreshadowing of what I'm going to see later. And they get distracted while rapping and run over a kangaroo. They are. They are. Yep, it's hilarious. They pose for pictures with the, I suppose, our heroes pose. Yeah, our heroes pose with the corpse of a kangaroo for a while. Again, if these were idiot characters

who were not supposed to be necessarily sympathetic, but were just crazy wands, I'd be like, okay, I kind of, the idea that you're gonna, that they go, hey, that kangaroo looks like a guy we know, back in New York, that's impossible. There's no way. But also, they're like, hey, let's pose with him, put the sunglasses on him,

and let me take off my lucky jacket full of my unwrapped candy that I talk about all the time, and let me put it on a dead kangaroo's body. Just the idea, you have to imagine, as they started to thread a dead animal's limbs through the sleeve of the jacket, that they would say, what are we doing? Why are we doing this?

Who are we? Is this who we are as people? If not just because like I feel like a monster, then also because I don't wanna put this jacket back on afterwards maybe, like the selfish reason even. Imagine how much people hate it when someone poses with an animal they've killed and puts the picture online. Already that's a kind of disagreeable thing to do. It's a kind of discussion to do.

Now imagine that you then took that corpse. More than corpse, yeah. But I wanna set it up, because then imagine you took that corpse, the animal you killed, put your jacket on it, put sunglasses on it, and then took a picture of you kind of like sister, sister, back to back, you know, like check this person out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Angel. It's a different level. Yeah. Angel student by night, call girl by day. So we're coming out of heart against the protagonist of Kangaroo Jack. That means to be against Kangaroo Jack. So they're posing with the dead body as we said, Lewis.

And you know what, you don't have to like the main characters of the movie you're watching for to enjoy the movie. I'm not saying that, but in this kind of movie. Yeah, it's not Uncut Gems where I love him. So they're posing with his dead body. Lewis puts his lucky jacket on the dead body. Of course, turns out this kangaroo is not dead. It wakes up, it runs off. Just like every animal hit my car in every comedy ever.

The animal is just like in Tommy boy, just in like the, in any other things you think of, the animal is not dead, but wakes up and runs off. Yeah. Guys, that jacket's pockets, they're not just full of candy, right? They're full of real candy. They're full of nature's candy.

Money, yeah, exactly. That's why they call it money. They, that runs off at the $50,000, they need to catch that roux. So they chase the kangaroo, of course they crash their jeep and they have to walk across the outback. And again, I don't want to be the guy who's like, why didn't they just do this thing? That's a plot hole that in this tense situation, they didn't

think of the thing to do. You already hit this kangaroo once with your car. Why are you not driving fast enough to just hit it again with the car? Are you talking about breaking the money? Come on. I don't understand. I think they're worried that they've already proven that it's immune to, it's got resistance to crashes. I just wanna point out. It only takes half damage, yeah. Yeah, it needs to change the weapon type. At this point, we have fulfilled the legendary tagline

for Kangaroo Jack. Of course, he stole the money and he's not giving it back. That's true, that is the tagline that the movie has borne that out, yeah. That's kind of like a wrap in itself. Now, that implies that he knows he has money and he is deliberately refusing to return it, that this is a kind of scheming kangaroo when it actually isn't an animal. They're just reaping what they sow. Posing with this kangaroo. Okay, so they crashed their Jeep.

They have to walk across the outback. They find like a saloon, like a roadhouse in a small town. While they're there, they have some drinks. They meet Jesse, an American woman who is working at the Wildlife Foundation. I apologize. I so wish this had turned into Waken Fright at this moment. That they went into this roadhouse and they just find themselves, I mean,

in both Waken Fright and this, they are hunting kangaroos. But that it had just become them on an ever increasingly lurid descent into disgusting. This part, this part, this one part feels like it could be a deliberate reference just because there's this like the old guy who like they're just like pouring booze down his gullet and So much like that scene in Wakin' Frye

Except that this is that this is that's clearly a setup for the punchline of this is the guy who's gonna fly them around I don't know that they were like for Kangaroo Jack, I looked at all the greats of Aussie cinema, making fried, Mad Max. But this guy is hanging around. That actor's been in like a ton of crap. So there's a couple of Australian actors in here, and that's one of them, that's Bill Hunter, who's been in lots of, who's lots and lots of things.

He was Muriel in Muriel's wedding. He was Priscilla in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He was, I mean, he's in those movies, but he's not those characters. He played Gallipoli. Wow. I guess, hey, the material. Didn't think you could pull it off, but he did. The material with him is some of the stuff

that I found most legitimately funny in the thing. Like we spoiled it already, but like I'm sure Sue's about to get to it, you know, Estelle Warren's like, oh, here, use this trank gun and the best way to hunt a kangaroo is from above you got to get like a bush pilot and so they This guy passes out and then they call the bush pilot and hear his phone ringing in his pocket and You know discover of course it's like in that bit. I actually enjoy a good bit. Yeah Yeah, so they meet they meet a

Bush pilot named blue. I think Yeah, so they meet a bush pilot named Blue, I think. I wish I knew a song that he could sing about his name, or he's just making it clear what his name is and who he is. At this point, it's my own fault for saying that damn word around you. I just, I wish, this was actually, I wanted to interrupt just for a tale of real life. This is yesterday, when my kids in the back of my car started singing that song out of nowhere and my wife turned to me and she was like,

you made this happen. Like this is like your responsible for this. And I was like, and I'm loving it. Just that they spontaneously both sang, I'm blue, da-boo-dee-da-boo. But they weren't aware of the spoken word intro to the song, which I had to relay to them where it's like, this is a story about a blue guy and he lives in a blue world and everything is blue.

I love it that they're like, this song is a little complicated. We better explain the premise ahead of time. Yeah, here's an opening crawl for you. I'm blue, episode one, the blue menace. So everything's blue, right? This guy is blue and everything is blue. Yep. It is a blue time everything is blue. Yep. Imagine more.

It is a blue time for the galaxy. Yeah. So yeah, we meet blue who's played by Bill Hunter, you said. Yeah, Bill Hunter. And we also meet Jesse, who's a young American woman who is working for the Wildlife Foundation Federation,

something like that. And she suggests that Lewis get a tranquilizer gun and a plane to hunt down this kangaroo. We find out, of course, they hire the bush pilot, they get a tranq gun. I don't know, this seems like a small town, so it's weird that he's just like, he went to the fucking general store

and was like, yeah, I'll take a tranquilizer gun with one tranquilizer gun, please. Oh, I assume that she gave him that. Oh, maybe. I assume he got it from her also, yeah. I think there's like a peddler somewhere who's like, oh, look at my wares, traveler. I may have side-possessed what you seek. No, there's no way you could have a trinket gun.

A trinket gun? The strong potion? Yeah. Or this rope. Oh, I want the strong potion. That will be 20 gold pieces. Look at it give you like a credit card or owe me a favor. I don't know the economy here.

Three opals. Oh, wow. You have to pay me in toes. My owner, someone else's, maybe not picky. Dealers choice. If you pre-order it, you get a DLC bonus of 24 toes. Yeah, you get the steel book. Yeah, sure.

More than one character in this universe uses toes. Yeah. Okay. So it's Australia, Dan. It's a nation started by criminals. It's gonna be toes or our currency over there. Yeah. So they've lost the money and they're stressing out,

but they're not the only people who are stressed out. That's right. Multiple groups of gangsters are mad at them. The person they're supposed to meet, Mr. Smith, played by Martin Sockes, you might know him as Kelleborn from the Lord of the Rings series. Okay. Husband of Galadriel.

Come on, Dan, you know Kelleborn. You met Dan, you probably know him better as, you probably know him better as Trevor Goodchild in the Aon Flux film. Oh, yeah, that's right. I did watch that movie, but I don't remember. Or perhaps, or perhaps as Jack Bartz in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, a movie we have flopped before. Okay, again, memorable character, per se. He was also, I think, the villain.

Was he the villain in the first triple X movie? Yes, I think, I believe so. Yeah, he's Yorgie in triple X. Yorgie, you know Yorgie. Yorgie doesn't fuck around. He's a bad guy. Pretty big career for a guy who don't recognize it all. Dan, perhaps did you see him when he played George

in a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Bellevue Law Theater in Sydney, Australia? Is that where you know him from? I did not fly out for that one. Oh, man. Elliot saw that one, though. Okay, so he plays a character named Mr. Smith and he's mad at things.

Go into Washington. He's starting to track him down. And also, Sal is mad that they have lost the money. So he sends Frankie, of course, played by Michael Shannon to Australia as well. So we got two groups of gangsters looking for our guys. Oh guys, he was also in Dream House. He was in two different flop movies.

Oh no. He's crushing it. Yeah. This is three for three for him. Okay. So of course there- Put his name up on the board, Dan. Put the plaque of his name up on your wall. You know, Dream House was worth it

for getting those two crazy kids together. You know what I mean? That's how I feel about the third season of Fargo. Yeah. The second season of Fargo. Geely. Geely. That broke them up, I think.

They got back together eventually. So it brought them back together in the long run, yeah. Yeah. The thing, yeah, they were shooting a season of Fargo and they got canceled. That would be great. I would love to see Ben Affleck try and play a guy with a Fargo accent.

I think he could do it. I think he could do it. But he would have to wear a Red Sox hat the whole time. Yes. So, okay, so of course, Charlie and Lewis are up in a bush plane hunting down Kangaroo Jack. I'm just gonna call them Jack from now on, okay? Yeah, sure.

Everyone's gonna keep track of that. Jack, Kangaroo is what you'll call them. They have a whoopsy and they accidentally shoot the pilot in the back of the head with the tranquilizer dart. So they crash, it's very exciting. The classic thing people do in movies, which is they have someone in their sights and instead of shooting at that moment,

they then talk as they go, now I got you. There's no getting away from me now. Gonna pull the trigger right now in three, two, one, jump, watch out for it. Oh, he got away. So they crashed, but they all survived. Thank God, right? Thank God.

So they had to. I did thank God at that moment. I said, I said, Adonai, blessed are your many blessings, your many blessings on this earth. Thank you for creating the fruit of the vine. Thank you for creating the fruit of the vine. Thank you for creating the bread of the earth and the trees of the fields, the animals of the earth, creating this beautiful universe for us to inhabit in

and to take care of. Thank you, creator of life for saving these three men in their plane crash in Kangaroo Jack. Yeah, so after Elliot's done with that, they end up having to hike across the desert because they are going to try and track down that young woman So after Elliot's done with that, they end up having to hike across the desert because they are going to try and track down that young woman to see if she can help them

find that kangaroo. While they are lost in the desert, they encounter a series of supposed mirages. The first is a jeep left unattended that is full of all of Jerry O'Connell's characters' favorite things, but we realize this is a mirage. So this is gonna set up the next joke, which is hilarious. That's kind of a funny moment.

It's kind of a funny moment, that first mirage. It's okay. He gets to do some physical comedy. The next thing is riding up on Camel is Jesse, this young woman that they had met earlier, or Lewis had met earlier, and Jerry O'Connell, Charlie, still believes that she is a mirage,

so he does what anyone here would do. Is he immediately grabs her breasts? This is what I'm going to ask you guys. If you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were,

if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if you woman, would you not immediately grab her breast? In which case my answer would be yes. But so Dan, what's your question? So there's this woman. You believe her to be sort of a spectral imagined figure. Yeah. Yeah.

And she's a beautiful woman riding a camel. You don't expect to see this in the desert. Your friend, of course, could yell at any moment, oh, I know her, refuses to, wants to see how the situation plays out. You're her immediate reaction for this ghostly lady, would you grab at her... Would I assault her? Yeah, would that be the...

Would you pull an Al Franken-honor? No, I don't think I would. No, I don't. But it was a bit. I don't think that's the first reaction. It's such a... Again, if these were moron characters, here's the thing, here's the thing,

if this was dumb and dumber, you would have those characters grab her boobs, not for a sexual reason, but because that's the part of her body that they would assume they would, to see if she's real or not, they would talk it out ahead of time or something like that.

And they'd be like, well, we have to, the only way to see if she's real is to touch her in some way. Well, what part of her body is closest to us? Those ones, okay. Like, I could almost, if it was a non-sexual thing, I could almost buy this as a joke.

The fucking gymnastics Elliot has to do to explain this shit. I know, just the, and it's one of those things where it's like, if you asked me, do I think Jerry O'Connell would do that? I don't know. He seems like kind of a skivvy guy. Yeah, maybe he would, I don't know. I don't know.

I actually think he seems in real life kind of nice, but has like kind of like a skivvy like demeanor about him. I mean, I don't, unlike his co-star in this movie, I don't think there are outstanding allegations against him. No, that's true. That's true. I get the impression that he's actually nice, but he has this like smug unlikeability on camera

that he's become a better actor as he's leaned into. Yeah, yeah. I think you're right. Oh, let me play my Piranha 3D style characters or whatever, but. Yeah, and that's maybe that's maybe that's what maybe mixing up the character and stuff, because as you're saying, unlike Anthony Anderson, there are no, there are no, there are no ongoing things. But, but it's such a weird thing, it's such a weird thing for a character to do.

It doesn't make any sense. It's very bizarre. And it's the sort of thing that again, if they were idiots and you were at no point supposed to be really sympathetic toward him, it might work. But in this case, it doesn't work. Well, it kind of does. She punches him in the face and it knocks him out. So we are gifted.

We are treated to the best thing. We are treated to what we plunked our hard earned money down for. Which is to see Gerald Cnell get punched in the face. We get a dream sequence where Kangaroo Jack does a very... This is where we plunked our money down for. Sings along to Rapper's Delight while we bounce in our seat, dance along, we get some more dream stuff as well.

And eventually... He imagines that the other characters are also kangaroos talking to him. That there's a Christopher Walken kangaroo and Anthony Anderson kangaroo. But the... I was amazed. Again, having not seen this movie, having only seen the trailer, but knowing that there wasn't that much talking kangaroo stuff in the movie, I was amazed even with that at how little the kangaroo jack, kangaroo talks and how little he raps, how completely out of nowhere the rapping is.

He needs more kangaroo rapping says Ellie. Well, if you're going to do it, do it. Like if you're going to do it, make something, instead of him going, I can't just talk, I can sing, a hip, a hop. And I know they picked that one because, again, it's a go-to rapping and the hopping. And he's a kangaroo jumps, but they don't do anything with it. It's just, it's very lazy.

I guess what I'm saying is this rapping kangaroo scene is very lazy. It would make more sense if they were listening to this song on the radio when they hit him with their car. Yes, yeah. Cause that would at least explain some of it. I love this. Let's have Stu script doctor the whole thing.

Kimberly, we're trying to Monday morning quarterback this. And so the whole thing is they didn't survive that plane crash. Everything that's happening from that moment on is a hallucination in the last moments of Kary O'Connell's life. That explains a lot actually. Yeah, and now I also believe, this was the last minute add to the movie, they probably didn't have a lot of money to put into it, so I imagine that's why it's not much longer. But it feels like, why bother at this point? Yeah, why bother?

So they team up with Jesse to trek across the desert to go to a watering hole that they believe the kangaroo may be at. Over the course of this point, we have seen multiple shots of kangaroo jack kind of doing kangaroo stuff, but also fishing candy out of the pockets of this lucky jacket and reacting to them. And we get some bits and he makes a little sound. So there's like twizzlers, but he doesn't like later on, of course, the hot.

The hot spicy candy. And every time you see kangaroo jack, the same music plays and I came to hate this music so much. That's like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, this music so much that's like It's like a dr. Dre sample or something right? Yeah, it's it. Well, I mean, I don't know if it specifically is but it sounds like yes the sound around sample yes Something of that and era and they're they're trying so hard with it to make kangaroo jack seem like kind of a kind of a cool bad boy I guess

Jacket now Elliot he's got attitude Jack seemed like kind of a cool bad boy, I guess. They're trying so hard to make him fucking Bugs Bunny jacket on now, Elliot. He's got attitude. Yeah. They're trying so hard to make him a Bugs Bunny. And you know what? They want him to be a Looney Tunes character so badly, but all he does is nothing. Although, but you do get the great animal vocal effects

of Frank Welker. And he said, what's funny is it sounds like Frank Welker doing animal effects. Like I recognize that animal sound from other animal sounds he's done in the past. Was that Frank Welker doing animal effects. Like I recognize that animal sound from other animal sounds he's done in the past. Was that Frank Welker doing the rap? No, I don't believe so. I believe the, the, that's a-

That's in his contract, no raps. According to Wikipedia, the uncredited voice of Jackie Legs, Kangaroo, I believe it's Adam Garcia it says here, who is a, who is a, you know, does a lot of musicals. Mostly a stage actor, sounds like. Yeah, I mean, it's lot of musicals, mostly a stage actor, sounds like. Yeah, I mean, it's all on screen. We clearly a stage training.

Okay, so they team up with Chesty to go across the desert. They, this is a scene where we see the three of our heroes riding around on camels that will not stop farting. Telerious, everybody's cracking up. This farting goes on so long. A lot of farting. Like I could forgive like a couple of camel fart jokes, honestly, but the longer it goes on,

the funnier it does not get. They really think it's hilarious. That we cannot get enough of this. They need to set up. So this is an important scene plot wise because it reveals what's going to happen at the very end of the movie. Yes. They discover.

This is the kind of tight cracker jack check off plotting that you were looking for with the radio playing the song that Jack sings. Yeah, yeah. They discover some kind of berries in the outback that smell really good and they wanna use it in shampoo. But in order to make this scene a little more fun for the audience, they add a ton of farting effects.

So they go to this Oasis, they set up an ambush to try and ambush Jack. They learn how to make Bolo's and throw Bolo's. But of course, Lewis messes it all up, Jack gets away, they're all mad and disappointed. So they do the only thing that makes sense. We, they go into the local swimming hole together and Dan gets his wet t-shirt scene

that he's been begging for. Yeah, he's been drooling over the whole time. I just think it's wild that like they turned it, they're like, we gotta make this into a family cut. Dan's like show the bottoms too. We gotta lose the, we gotta lose the Estella war on wet t-shirt scene. No, no, no, we're not cutting that out.

No, no, no, God, no. Like, it's just I mean it clearly does feel edited it does feel like they like Do you think this was a nudity scene or a sex scene in the original cut is that your opinion? No, I don't think it was that I just think that they probably had more of it because like they they have a little of it But I bet it was more like drooling in the R rated I love it, but I bet it was more like drooling in the R-rated version. Yeah, yeah. And Jerry O'Connell's got a pretty hard body there. I'm like, oh, what's he been doing?

What, a lot of free weights? Yeah, a lot of free weights. What kind of working out? Low set proteins. They, after this swimming scene, it immediately cuts. In the swimming scene, Stella Warren flirts with Jerry O'Connell, the man who assaulted her the first time that they met.

Yeah, this is a wild progression. Like we've seen nothing that indicates that she would be falling for him, but apparently at this point in the film, they have a passion for each other. The beginning at least of one. There's something about him making moves on her when she's already like, don't get in the water.

And he's like, I'm gonna get in the water. And then he's like approaching her. And the whole time I'm thinking, she is a woman on her own in the wilderness. She's already been assaulted by this guy. You think she should have murdered him, like what would have happened in many other Australian films?

Yeah. I keep saying this, if this is an Australian movie, this is not a, I don this if this is an Australian movie. This is not a, it's not a, I don't believe this is an Australian production. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Peter Weir made this. Yeah. It was a Peter Weir film. Hugo Weavings in this, right?

That's how you know it's Australian. Well, not, it's a different Hugo, but he is weaving. Oh, nice. There's a little kid from Hugo and he's weaving. And he's weaving like a rug, yeah. And of course, their possible rendezvous is interrupted by Lewis cannonballing into the water. And he doesn't know how deep that water is.

He may have just killed himself. He may break his neck on that. Well, later, fucking spoiler alert, I'm sorry, I gotta bring it up now. It's so wild. He cannonballs into a hot tub. Into a hot tub? I'm like, your legs are broken, sir.

Oh man, that would be great. That was a, there was more cartoon physics in that moment than there was in every time we saw the animated kangaroo, yeah. Yeah, okay, so they, so we cut. That's my favorite way also with Dan MD, I love that that's your bedside manners. You go up to him and you go, your legs are broken, sir.

Like it's real Karen energy with the way you talk to your patients. Hey, sir, man. In the other ward, there's someone out, someone in there who did nothing to deserve what they're going through. And I'm in here fixing your broken legs because you thought it was funny to cannonball

into a hot tub. What were you thinking? You are wasting my time and you're putting my other patients lives in jeopardy. Yeah, just like house. Yeah. Can I talk to your manager patient? I need to talk to your manager about this. So we go straight from the swimming hole. Actually house MD house McCoy Comedan. It makes sense. Yeah, that's the same guy. So they're woken up by...

He gave me all the croulous Mr. Policeman. Yeah. He gave Stuart a chance to drink some of his broth, I'm assuming. Yeah, my thermos of bone broth. Yeah, Eli broth. That's barely a joke, dude. I didn't really put a lot of energy into it. Okay, so they're woken up from, I don't know, they're probably all tuckered out from swimming together. So they go to sleep. They're woken up the next morning.

So how much time has passed? Have they eaten food? I don't think so. I think they had a handful of berries at one point. That's enough, yeah. They don't have any, they went to Australia with like no luggage or did it all explode? I mean, maybe it was in the jeep.

They got sidetracked pretty quickly. Why they leave all their, what? Yeah. Okay. I would be freaking out. I just got out my stuff. Maybe they did bring no luggage or else they wouldn't have had a loose envelope full of cash that they're just walking around with.

I don't know. Okay. So they get captured by the Australian bounty hunter, hit man guy, Mr. Smith and his two goons. He splits the money. Mr. Smith, who they were supposed to give this money to, he thinks they've cheated him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's money that's owed to him. So he takes Jesse off to find the kangaroo and he sends his goons to take our other heroes away. They turn the tables, they distract the goons,

they manage to, I don't know, get guns on Smith. They like steal a gun off of the camel and they save Jesse. Tables are turned, we're like, hooray, everything's good. It's pretty half-assed. No. Because at this point, Frankie shows up. Frankie has been in Australia for a little bit. He has gone through a series of guides

to lead him on his path to finding our heroes. Each time he gets the information he needs, he throws them out of a jeep in an overhead shot, which the second time it happened, I was like, I think it's funny that they repeated this. Yeah. And again, Michael Shannon is inhabiting this character in a way that nobody else does.

So he is genuinely funny at times. They have a, the gangsters end up getting in a fight with each other. Our heroes and Jesse escape and they go after kangaroo Jack. The mobsters crash their Jeep through a tight canyon. Lewis while riding a camel falls off a cliff, Charlie manages to save him at the last minute. The square.

Then Frankie shows up and he has a gun on him and he explains that the money was actually money to pay Smith to kill them. So they were paying somebody else to kill them. It's a very weird moment where Frankie shows up and saves them from Smith, but then it's like, actually he's else to kill them. It's a very weird moment where Frankie shows up and saves them from Smith, but then is like, actually he's supposed to kill you. It's like, why Frankie, why are you here?

Why'd you get involved? What's the, what's the, why? I think he wanted the honor of killing them. Oh, possibly that makes sense. So that they would serve him in the house. There's too many shenanigans going on. They'd have evaded being killed for long enough that it felt it seemed like a cleanup crew needed to go in.

Now, why he stopped him at that point from just doing it? Who knows? Who knows? Other than like, he doesn't want to have to pay the money at that point because the deal has gone so- Maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. So far, bad.

But like, that is cold-blooded of Christopher Walken to have his surrogate child deliver the money for his own. Dan, I hate to break it to you. Mob bosses, they're not all mafia mamas. Look, they don't get where they are by being nice to people. They're mean people, they're bad guys. I know that when you live in Brooklyn,

so you're like, John Gotti, what a standup guy. Takes care of the neighborhood. Oh, what a hero. He'll get off his back, lousy face. That's actually a really good Dan impression right there. It's me, Dan McCoy. Hey, I'm from Eureka, Illinois. It's how we talk about it.

Forget about it. I will point out that the way that our heroes talk, despite the fact they made a point of being two boys from Brooklyn, seemed to have no Brooklyn qualities about them. No, not at all. Anthony Anderson is referencing restaurants that do not exist in Brooklyn. He has a sweatshirt that says Brooklyn on it though. Yeah, you know, you can just buy those.

You don't have to be born into it. I thought there's what they swaddled the babies in when they were born in Brooklyn. So I was mad that even though I lived in Brooklyn, my son was born in Manhattan because I was like, but he's not gonna get that cool sweatshirt. He's not gonna get a cool sweatshirt, yeah. Okay, so Frankie has a gun on him.

We think our heroes' gooses are cooked, not so fast because a police helicopter shows up being piloted by a guide who was the police chief undercover earlier, who would guide Frankie. This is incredibly unnecessary. It adequately set up to it to be the guy that saves them at the end of the movie. Frankie tries to run away,

but Charlie uses his newfound Bolo skills to knock him down. He, we then have a little moment of friendship between Lewis and Charlie when Jerry O'Connell does a fairly suspect Anthony Anderson impression. Like it's this sort of thing where I'm like, oh, that's not cool anymore, dude. Right in the line. I found this moment, don't make fun of me,

like for a brief second, I found this moment kind of touching where Anthony Anderson feels like, okay, well, you were only my friend because I saved you and it's all been based on guilt. And Jerry Connell's response. Because why else would you be friends with me? I caused nothing but trouble and I'm moron. And Jerry Connell's response is like, you know, something I think that is relatable

where he's like basically saying like, yeah, you are this agent of chaos in my life, but I need that, like all of my best stories begin with you, you know. Obviously like the relationship has meaning to both of them. They bring something to each other and then it's all ruined by like this like gay panic moment where he's like, you know, we're not being gay over here or whatever, like, and I'm just like, ah, movie.

You're really like drained out the last little bit of goodwill here. Yeah, yeah. I think it would have been, I wish, if I had gotten a better sense of their friendship beforehand, I think that could have been a very sweet moment. I know nothing about their lives other than their friendship and the fact that he owns a hair salon.

So when he's like, all my good stories belong with you, you didn't save my life that day. You saved my life every day. I'm like, I wish I'd seen any of that beforehand. But it is a sweet moment that does not need them to then make sure everyone knows that because they're hugging, they're not about to start to love each other. Because they're all expressing affection for one another. Maybe the R-rated cut has a sequence, like a end of second act sequence

where Charlie and Lewis kind of go their separate ways. They like have a Shrek's break up. Yeah, Shrek donkey moment where they both like explore their life otherwise. And they realize like, yeah, my life's really boring without Lewis and Lewis is like without Charlie around. My life's in Shrek.

When I first saw Shrek. When I first saw Shrek. When I first saw Shrek. Oh, gather round children, it's time for another Dan's Memories of Shrek. Shhh. You fished your movie ticket out of your wallet, which was attached to your belt using a chain. So, I'm gonna-

Because he was a cherry-poppin' daddy at the time. I'm gonna anger the legions of people out there that for some reason still inexplicably like Shrek, but- Because they saw it as a kid. There's no other reason, yeah. I didn't particularly like it at the time. I saw it like, I felt like there had been all these reviews that were saying, oh, what

a funny twist on this. And I watched it, I'm like, okay, well, this is just like a worse version of fractured fairy tales, a thing that has existed, you know. It didn't feel new to me in the way that people were excited about it. And I wasn't enjoying it that much, but I was enjoying it enough. And then that moment happened where the donkey and shrek

have their falling out. And I felt myself deflate, exhausted, where I'm just like, this is the most pro forma. Yes. You know, end of second act, rift between the main characters for no reason, just so we can get them back together. And I'm, could I never see this in a movie again, please?

And they never used that bit in a movie ever. That was the last time. Congress passed a law called Shrek Donkey Act. And they never used that bit in a movie ever. That was the last time. Congress passed a law called the Shrek Donkey Act. All friends must remain friends in movies. Shrek and me donkey. Attaquate motivation be given. Yeah, friends will have to remain friends

until the crisis is over, because come on guys, chill out. You're both in a stressful situation. You can accept a little bit of extra source from each other, yeah. Your bond of years, well I guess not years in this case, but your bond is stronger than this. I mean, well that's the other thing

is that Shrek and Donkey have been friends for like what, a couple days at that point. All right, I've turned around Shrek, five stars. Five stars. We did it, okay. So at this point now they've stopped the bad guys. Luckily Kangaroo Jack is right there. Charlie coaxed him over with a tuft of grass.

He manages to get the lucky jacket back and the money. Jack introduces Charlie to the rest of his Kangaroo family. He gets kicked in the chest. Introduces is a bit of a stretch. They wander over. He gets kicked in the chest by. Names are not exchanged. over. He gets kicked in the chest by- Names are not exchanged. Oh, he gets kicked in the chest by another kangaroo

and everybody loses their minds. The reaction shots are bonkers. Their eyes are bugging out of their heads. Their mouths have turned into black hole sun rictuses of enjoyment. This is also, he's now been kicked in the chest by two different kangaroos. one an adult, one a child. He, again, his chest is collapsed.

Like his ribs at the very least should be broken a little bit. He may be, like those kangaroos hit really, really kick really hard. Yep, yeah, you would expect like a tiny little Sylvester to be like, oh, father. Scared of a mouse. My wife doesn't much better appreciate that.

My own father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father.

I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father.

I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father.

I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father. I'm a father, inexplicable things will very much upset you. Not like, like you're just like, man, that is unfair. Like racism. Sure. Yeah, then you get older and you come to understand it, and then you come to appreciate it. Yeah, you get really old to come to embody. No, no, that's not what, I just remember those hippity hopper ones really upset. I just remember like those hippity hopper ones really upset. Yeah, because it is the idea that the shit, like that I know I felt the same way that like this kid is ashamed of his father and the father's feeling embarrassed and he's getting the shit kicked out of him by kangaroo. Yeah, on the reg.

On the reg, exact, yeah, constant. And the same way that anytime I was watching a sitcom and a character was about to be caught in a misunderstanding, I would get very tense and sometimes have to leave the room. My wife was telling me about some friends of hers took their kids to see, I think it was the new Willy Wonka movie, and there's a part where like when it seems like they're about to get in trouble, they get scared, you know, and they don't and they don't want to watch it. And it's like, yeah kids, kids get in trouble a lot. So they don't like to see characters getting in trouble.

It's very, it's more frightening than being killed in some ways, you know. Yeah, until kids realize that like nothing that people can do to them matters anymore. And they're the ones with the real power. Oh God. Yeah. I mean, when do they feel that way?

Does that, when does that kick in? When they realize that like, when like you can't do anything to them as a parent, cause they'll just like call CPS or some crap. I mean, it's certainly the moment when my, when my younger son recognized that I can tell him not to do something. And then if he just starts doing it,

there's very little I can do because there's a limit to how far I can go physically and restraining him. If it's like, he's gonna, he gets in bed. You have to go back to bed. Is it because you're not very strong? It's because I'm weak. It's because he's stronger than me and he can overpower me exactly.

Then he'll, what my five-year-old does is he puts his hand up against my forehead. And I just swing, I just swing out of my fist. As weird as you think that your reach would be greater than Gabriel's. What you have to understand, Dan, is that I'm a cartoonishly small weak man, is the thing. It's ludicrously small that a five-year-old

has a better reach than me and is stronger than me. That's the basic premise of life that I'm getting. It's almost laughable. Wow. How incredibly tiny I am. Like, when I remember still when I said, oh, Sammy, do you want to read The Indian and the Cover? And he said, but you're the same size

as The Indian and the Cover. I'll just put you in a cover. Yeah, this isn't a fantasy. And he kicked me up and put me in a cover. And you said, oh, Sammy, do you want to read the Indian and the cover? And he said, but you're the same size as the Indian and the cover. I'll just put you in a cupboard. Yeah, this is in a fantasy. And he kicked me up and put me in a cupboard. And you said, go, go. And then you opened the door. A big cat face was there. Exactly.

Well, that's when we watched Cinderella and he said, remember when we did that to you, Daddy, when the mice were locked in the cabinet? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you pulled out your DVD copy of Small Sold. And he's like, don't you just call these guys soldiers? Cause they have the same size. Actually the thing they've been doing a lot recently is, is, is call is talking about me farting and calling me. And so it was like, and they were drawing chalk chalk drawings on the ground and they were like, this is you. It's just like a six--year glasses with a fart cloud. And at the end of the day, they were saying something to me

and I was like, I'm not, I'm not amused anymore. And my wife was like, come on, just hit their kids. And I was like, they've spent all day telling me that I fart. Like I don't need to buy into these jokes anymore. Yeah. No, I, I, I got. So another episode of Ellie gets bullied by his own children. I, I, I understand your perspective. At the end of the day, I would not like that either.

But man, hearing about it, hearing that it happened all day. Oh man. They're drawing chalk pictures of members of the family. And they drew a picture of Danielle, my wife, where she is holding a guitar. And they're like, you're a rock star in this picture. And they drew a picture of me. And then they go and watch this. And they drew a toilet underneath it.

This is you sitting on the toilet. Thanks, we got you. Oh my God, I'm glad you got you. That's the thing that you do. It is the thing I do. It's the thing I and nobody else in the house does is sit on a toilet, yeah, ever. Burn.

Different. So they call it fucking Lord Michaels. When I decided to start excreting the waste from my food that my body didn't need anymore into a receptacle designed for that process. That was my mistake. I should have done it. You never did that. They caught you slipping, dude.

Thanks a moment. I'm one of the few people who has a room in my house dedicated to the removal of this waste. Must be nice to have so much room. Yeah. Have a whole house, have a whole room for that. Guys, I think we're in the home. A whole room for shitting him.

Oh, Mr. Moneybags over here. Oh. We're in the, I think we're in the home stretch. Oh yeah, yeah. Kate and Jack's the best. Let's put a bow on this bitch. Um, so we flash forward one year later, we get a little bit of monologue from Jerry O'Connell.

I don't totally remember it all, but he's looking at a newspaper that talks about like a mob bust. His stepdad has finally been, he could only pull so many strings and now he's going to jail for his crimes. I don't think it's for setting up the hit. I think it's his crimes. And he is lounging around on a yacht that we learn is his,

that he has made his fortune using that $50,000 and creating a shampoo line using those fancy berries they found in the outback. He has now married to Jesse and I guess adopted newest to be their child. Yeah, yeah. And this is when Dan mentioned, yeah, this one as Dan mentioned, with their business partners, which is why he also goes on their vacations with them.

Their yacht. But as Dan mentioned, this is when Louis reveals himself by cannonballing off the roof of the yacht into the hot tub. You have to assume in real life, hurting himself and destroying the hot tub. But he just splashes them and they all laugh. Now, here's, like this ending felt weird to me. And I wonder whether it was like. How so, Dan? It seemed a total natural progression

from everything we've seen in the movie until then. That it would end with them as millionaire shampoo entrepreneurs. Whether this was part of the reshoots because there was such a big deal made about, you know, a sell a war and like needing money to do the, like this ecological preservation in Australia, that I kind of assumed that the logical happy ending to this

is somehow she winds up with the $50,000. And maybe they're working with her at the end. They're working together in Australia. They have a new life there. Anthony Anderson can be with them too, sure. Like that's the happy ending that seems like it does something for the world and doesn't just like rip her away from her interests to like come be a shampoo magnet.

You're forgetting, and wife, she's just looking at him so adoringly. She's lost all personal independence or agency. But you're forgetting the highest good is to get as much money as possible so that you can use that money to save the people of the future from evil AI computers. You're forgetting that that is the highest

of all noble goods. Yeah, that makes sense. That's what's gonna happen. And so that you can drop some sick memes. What else can you do if you're super wealthy? You can really invest in crypto and then get out right before everyone realizes what it is. You could turn yourself into like a C grade pit bull impersonator.

Okay. You have to understand, Dan, that the highest good is to make as much money as possible. So you can transfer that money into the form of images of apes with sunglasses on. And then question mark, something after that gets you into heaven. Finally, someone's making sense. Someone's saying something I understand. I'll be so mad if I die, I go to heaven. Saint Peter is like, okay, just give me one Ape NFT and then you get into heaven.

And I'll be like, oh, is that what I need? And he's like, that was always the admission fee. No one has ever been gotten into heaven until 2012 or whatever, 2000, when they start 18 or something, I don't know. But, yeah, but at that point, wouldn't you be happy to not be going in there? Cause those guys are all terrible.

That's true. And then he, I'd say, wait, this is heaven. He'd go, oh no, the opposite. I'm sorry, I'm the devil. This is hell. And I'd go, okay, thanks. I'll go the other way. Thanks for being honest, the devil.

He's like, but I lied to you the first time as he's taking off his hand. Speaking of a devil-like figure, our movie doesn't end on a yacht. No, no, no. It ends back in the outback where we see Kangaroo Jack, Kangaroo Jack, that malevolent trickster.

At this point, he's wearing the jacket again, right? Somehow he got the jacket. Yeah, I think he probably wore one for himself because it looks so good. Yeah, I mean, without him, he's just a kangaroo. And we clarified, you can just buy that sweatshirt. You don't have to be born in Brooklyn. So, and then he does like, he does a song and like rap

and he does a bunch of bits. He does, I'd say a fairly passable Dr. Evil impression. What do you think? This is, I really dated the movie so much. It's so incredible. Even more than a rapping kangaroo dated the movie. Yes, it's so incredibly lazy too because he's like, on the star of the movie,

I can do impressions and he does one impression and it's Dr. Evil. And it's like, you couldn't even do two more shitty impressions. Like that was it. That was just all set up for a Dr. Evil. And it's like, you couldn't even do two more shitty impressions. Like you could, like that was it. That was just all set up for a Dr. Evil joke, but it does date it considerably because if you show this movie to a child now,

which I will not do because again, Cipscips will take my kids away from me if I do. They would have no idea what that was a joke about. Like it's just, it's gone from the zeitgeist, you know? Yeah. There's so much comedy from around that time where someone either on purpose or as a joke about telling a bad joke goes like, yeah baby.

And now no one, there's a whole generation that will just not understand that even as a reference. I guess people just said that back then. I get people, why was everyone saying yeah baby and kind of a not quite English accent back then? Why was everyone asking if other people made them horny? You don't understand. Or if they made made them horny? You don't understand. Or if they made other people horny.

Seems like harassment. Hey, let's close out Kangaroo Jack by doing our final judgments, saying whether we thought this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, a movie we kind of like. This is a weird one for me. I'm not, it is not a good movie. Because you love.

It's not a movie I kind of liked. But on like the scale of like Flop House movies, I certainly had more and more enjoyable time watching this than a lot of them. And I think that it is less than it is a like good, bad movie in the sense that I'm like laughing at how hilarious all the badness of it is and and more just like at a certain point, as you grow older, you will find that you get nostalgic

for a particular flavor of badness that used to exist that doesn't exist in the world so much anymore. Like this movie feels so of its time and so of like the type of bad movie you would get back then that I had this kind of like sneaking fondness for it. So I guess I'm saying good bad. Yeah, you're saying this movie. You are taking your female lead

and putting her in an undershirt and getting that shirt wet. I guess it gives at least half a star. I'll allow it, says Dan McGoy. So you're saying Dan, this should have won the best picture Oscar for that year instead of, let's see, what won that year? Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, I think Stuart would agree with this, yeah. I'm going to kill all of you. No, Dan, you are right that this is a very,

this was a very nostalgic feeling film in that way. It feels like the kind of bad movie from that time. I'm also going to call it a bad, bad movie because it's a huge waste of time. It felt like, the whole time I'm watching it, I'm like, why is this, why does this exist? Why am I watching it? Not, I don't want to steal another person's podcast out of it. How did this get made? How, how did this movie and how? I know a lot about how it got made in this case. Well, I think we understand how it got made,

but we don't know why. Yeah, so you get like, you get some cameras and actors and lights. Oh, really? Yeah. We should call maybe Paul Script. He's in a tune and tell them all this information. But the idea that like, and this came from, this was from Jerry Brookheimer. This is from a big production company. And it hit Jerry Brookheimer films,

like we'll get the director from Coyote Ugly, we'll get Jerry O'Connell. It's a story about a kangaroo and some mobsters. We've got to make this movie. Like I don't, it's the, we have to spend, you know, tens of millions of dollars on this. It just, I find it so, I find it very baffling because it's kind of a nothing movie.

Yeah, it's not fun enough to be a good, bad movie. And yeah, it's just, it's mainly- I feel like it's also not, it's not bad enough to be a good, bad movie where you're like, you know, where it's making an impression on you at least. Yeah, yeah, it's just, it's not good. Don't watch it.

It's not what you want. I promise you. It's not what you want. Two non-recommendations and one, should have won best picture from Dan McClelland. Yep, that's what I said. The Inventure Zone From the twisted minds that brought you

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the Adventure Zone versus Dracula. Yes, a season I will be running using the D&D 5th edition rules set, and there's two episodes out for you to listen to right now. We hope you will join us. Same bat time, same bat channel. And bats, I see what you did there. People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

Which is why here on Just The Zoo of Us, we judge them by so much more. We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal's true strengths, like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability to play basketball. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more, join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world.

Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. Let's do our sponsors. Let's not do our sponsors. Let's provide our sponsors. It seems unprofessional, unethical. To the listeners. Our podcast, The Flop House is sponsored in part by Rocket Money.

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That's an easier way of hearing it. No, I liked the quest you had to go on to get there. It wasn't the destination, it was the journey. Sorry, I'm feeling a headache. Come on, right in real time. Yeah, well, that's a big number to have to comprehend and to have to use a lot. With over $500 million in canceled subscriptions.

Guys, we had a lot of fun right now. Oh, did we ever. But here's the important thing that I have to say. Why not cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash flop, that's rocketmoney.com slash flop, that's rocketmoney.com slash floprocketmoney.com slash flop. Hey there, I'm Stuart Wellington

and I'm a hard-working podcaster. And you know, before a heavy podcast and sesh, I need to get some energy and the best way to get energy, that's right, eat some food. Now one of the best ways to get food- Someone say the only way to get energy, that's right, eat some food. Now one of the best ways to get food is, factor. Factor does ready to eat meal delivery that takes the stress out of meal

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That's code flop 50 at factormeals.com slash flop 50 to get 50% off. Yum. Yum indeed. Elliot? Yum indeed. There's some FLOP house stuff to talk about. If you're listening to this episode on the day it comes out, January 27th, then you should

know we have been having a spectacular West Coast tour. We've had great stops in Portland, in Vancouver, in San Francisco. We just were at San Francisco last night. It was an amazing show. I wish I could tell you all the incredible things that happened during it, but I can't. We just don't have time and I am recording this ahead of time. So I don't technically know, but I will know and it's going to be great tomorrow night. January 28th, if you're listening to this on our release day, we will be in Los Angeles, California

at the Regent Theater live, talking spawn. That's right, spawn, the movie that started the superhero craze. We wouldn't have the MCU without spawn, probably. So, comment down and hear us talk about it. Go to flophousepodcast.com slash events for more info or you can go to the Regent Theater website which is regentdta.com and you can buy tickets there. So go to regentdta.com or to flophousepodcast.com slash events to get tickets for our show tomorrow

night in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater. It's going to be very fun. It's the last stop of our West Coast tour. And I don't know when we're gonna be back to the West Coast. So this may be your last chance to see us live if you live in the Los Angeles area for quite some time. In fact, I'll tell you, just come see us.

We're not coming back for a while. This is not gonna happen. I can't, I'm done shooting where I eat. I can't do it anymore. I'm getting a bad name. So come see us tomorrow night at the Regent Theater, Flop House Live talking about spawn. And if you come see us,

and that's just not quite enough of seeing our sweet, beautiful faces while we talk, you still have a couple of days in which you can watch Flop TV. January is not quite over yet. And if you go to theflophouse.simpleTix.com, you can still get a season pass to watch the recordings of our Flop TV episodes. Those will be up for another few days until the end of January. But the real excitement is tomorrow's show in Los Angeles.

Go to flophousepodcast.com slash events or regentdla.com stands for downtown LA and you can come see us live talking about Spawn. Guys, are you excited to talk about Spawn tomorrow? I am. Yeah, I'll project myself forward into the future where I assume my opinion will be the same. And I'm excited to talk about Spawn because that is a wild movie. There's people forget there was a time when they didn't know how to make superhero movies. And there was also a time when they didn't know really how to use computer graphics in movies. And they collide and spawn.

And there was a one single time when John Leguizamo didn't seem to know what he was doing. And that was also in spawn. Man, yeah, there's, I have so much affection now for that era of digital effects where you're like, like, was that movie Hideaway based on the Dean Coot? Oh yeah. Oh boy, give me that.

Give me like things collapsing into like weird puddles of jagoo. Oh man, they used to do that all the time. Yeah. Like in Time Cop where the, where he throws the one, what's his name into the other? What's his name? Brown Silver, yeah.

Brown Silver, yeah. And they push together. Virtuosity and lawnmower man. Yeah. All that stuff. It's giving me yum, yum, yum. If you also feel that nostalgia for 90s CGI, come see us talk about spawn.

We're not, you're not gonna see spawn, but you'll see us talk about it and you'll get more of this. It's gonna be a good time. But let's move on, shall we, to letters from listeners. We have them, they're you, and you send letters to us. Is this your letter? Maybe. Listen up.

This what's from. Listen up, idiot. Hey, class. Hey, you said your letter. There's only one way to know. Listen up, stupid. Listen up. This is, it's like? There's only one way to know. Listen up, stupid. Listen up. It's like Dan and Moorva.

What, Pantera type five, maybe? Yeah, sure. This is from Meg, last name withheld. Is your name Meg? If it's not, it's not your letter. Keep listening. Maybe we'll get to you. Okay, cool.

But Meg, this is your letter. So listen especially to this one. When I started listening to- I realized it's turning into, hey, Mickey, the song. Yeah. When I started listening to the Flop House in 2016, Stu tended to an indulge in adult consumption products and not infrequently mentioned Castle Freak.

I would listen to the podcast at the gym and I was just getting into the swing of protein counting. Smash cut to today. I blew off the gym and am instead indulging in adult consumption products and watching Castle Freak. While Stu is, one presumes, curling with one hand and downing a protein shake in the other. So since Stu and I have switched personalities, I was wondering if you wouldn't- Must have peed in a fountain together, yeah. That's what happened. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind watching the 2017 Russian answer to the Marvel movies,

The Defenders. At the time I started listening to the flop house, I was living abroad in a small Russian city. The Defenders was a film I always felt would be perfect for the flop house. Pretty Ladies for Dan, Super Heroes for Elliot, a bear man for Stu. What? If it weren't in Russian, since you all Elliot, a Bearman for Stu. What?

If it weren't in Russian, since you all don't seem to do foreign films. I remember the trailer for this one going around. Peacharini, have you thought about doing bad foreign language films on the podcast? What foreign language films would you consider doing? Foreign film February is a fun ring to it, no. I think we only did Aileen.

Yes, I think that's the only foreign language film that we've ever done, yeah. I mean, I know that speaking for myself. Well, we're doing older movies, so maybe we'll do Life is Beautiful. I guess, and easy, no pitfalls there in making. No, not at all, yeah. I mean, obviously one would hope that in an ideal world when

There's a podcast about a bad movie the hosts are paying Close attention to it at every moment But I know that for me my brain tends to slide off the movies and I have to keep slapping myself to Keep paying attention. And I don't know whether it would be good to have subtitles to keep me locked in or bad because I would just be like, I can't do this.

I can't stay this locked in on a bad movie this whole time. There's also a part of me where I, like if something seems silly or doesn't make sense, I'm like, is this just a cultural difference that I don't understand? Something like that. That is a pitfall I would worry about. Is us being like, what is that all about? Who does that? And it turns out it's a it's a common thing or it's a special thing. It's a sacred or important thing and I we definitely don't want it. There was a one of the issues I had that I couldn't I could never quite articulate was how much I enjoyed the movie RRR, but at the end when there's that dance number where they're just singing about the

strength of the Indian nation, I was like, this feels less okay to me. Like, or the fact that these two guys are equal heroes, but then one of them is at the end is clearly becomes superior to the other one in terms of like hierarchy. Like this, but I couldn't, I didn't know enough about Indian culture or modern Indian to parse that completely. And I would worry about podcasting in that way, about that kind of thing, from a seed of half knowledge. I also think that just sort of like in a practical sense,

you know, the foreign films that tend to reach us are the cream of the crop, you know, and we don't hear about. They rise to the top, yeah. I ever crossed don't hear about the movies that are so bad that they're funny, you know, like it's just get exported a lot of the time. Sometimes they tend to be the older kind of silly ones, maybe Turkish Star Wars and things like that. But the the yeah, I guess, but maybe we'll start. Okay, so I guess next, next episode, we'll talk about a Serbian movie. I guess that's what we gotta do.

Yeah. I mean, I don't, yeah, I don't really, I don't think there's anything keeping us from it. We just, you know, like there, there are more roadblocks. Yeah. You know what? Luckily, there's enough bad English language films coming out all the time. I'm curious about this Russian movie though now.

I wanna see it. Yeah, I remember seeing the trailer and being like, what? This next letter breaks the signature form. They say that they're a Kansan and Cali. And they say, hey, high floppers. As a poet who was born and raised. Before we say anything, I'm gonna say I approve of this. Everybody, you can start signing your letters

in different ways if you want to. You don't always have to use your first name and then last name withheld. If you wanna be cheeky about it, go ahead. I normally strip out the last names. I just started doing that. Anyway, sorry. Sorry.

That was Gilly. Remember Gilly? Remember Gilly, guys? Yeah, remember Gilly well, that was gilly. Remember gilly? Remember gilly, guys? Yeah, remember gilly well. Yeah. Gilly. Oh, okay. Oh, wait, sorry.

This person writes, high floppers. As a poet who was born and raised in Topeka, I felt compelled to write in. Oh, finally. We'll get back to it with this podcast. It's really about people's thoughts about Topeka. Dan, it's okay not to like poetry. I'm barely judging you at all. As for Topeka, it's fine. Speaking of things which are fine, what's a perfectly average movie? The 2.5 out of 5 default movie, the Kansas and Cali. I know that in the past we joked that

ironically trouble with the curve is a straight down the middle movie. I know that in the past we joked that ironically, Trouble with the Curve is a straight down the middle movie. I think that's a pretty good 2.5. That's still one of the first ones that came to mind when I was hearing this question. Yeah, Trouble with the Curve is a real 2.5-er. I mean, I think that there was a certain period in Clint Eastwood's life when he was, you know,

giving us a lot of perfect 2.5. Yeah, there's the one where he's a reporter who has to get someone off death row. Like, is it like blood work or? That's the other, there's like, called like true crime or something like that. And then blood work came at the same time. And those are both kind of like 2.5-ers.

Yeah. Absolute power. Yeah, like I wanna say that a lot of like Jason Statham action movies are kind of 2.5s. Like they have high points, but they have low points and it kind of evens out. But I don't know if I'm going to totally commit to this decision. I was thinking about, you know, the movie One True Thing with Renee Zewager and Meryl Streep, where it's like a family and the mom is sick. You could be making this up right now.

Okay, this is a real movie. But then I'm doing, then I, it's exactly what I'm saying. Cause it's a total, not a bad movie, not a particularly memorable movie. And it's just, yeah, if it's on, I could see watching it with your mom while you're visiting from out of town or something like that.

That was a slogan. If it's on, watch it with your mom. Yeah. Yeah. It was nominated for one Academy Award for on, watch it with your mom. Yeah. It was nominated for one Academy Award for Meryl Streep in it, but it's one of those movies that were best Meryl Streep. For best, for best Streep. She lost, she lost to Carl Streep.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's the thing. Like she's, she's the goat, you know, like she's gonna, she's gonna get, she's gonna put up numbers. You're gonna get awards for her. She's great. Yeah, but it's one of those movies where you're like, this movie's not bad, but it's also not, it doesn't feel special, you know?

That's a 2.5er. Here's my controversial take. Guys, would you call batteries not included a 2.5 movie? Yeah, I would. Like it was good enough that I would watch it sort of out of like this bizarre feeling of boredom and the obligation when it was on when I was a kid, but I never actually seemed,

I don't feel like I enjoyed it that much. Like, another movie that like I watched a lot as a kid, always expecting it to be better was Brewster's Millions. Yeah. It was on all's Millions. Yeah. It was on all the time on base table. It was on constantly. And you're like, this has gotta be funny. These are funny people who are in it.

It's gotta be good. And you watch and you're like, oh, all right. Yeah, that's not. It's sort of wistful, I guess. Yeah, it's not the toy. I'm not horrified by it. But it's also not like Silver Streak, you know. What about like mom and dad save the world?

Yeah, that's kind of a 2.5 movie. That's one of those movies where you look at it and you're like, this is a lot of money to put in a movie that's this mediocre. You know, there's a lot of costumes for this. What about spaced invaders? Yeah, I feel like you can have a triple feature of batteries not included,

spaced invaders and mom and dad save the world, which is the like, oh, okay. Science fiction back. Happy or sad. Space invaders, though, is when I was a kid, I really, I loved that movie, but I think it was because I was just not used to seeing like science fiction comedies that were so science fiction heavy. I think, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I, I think of those movies, space invaders might be like edging

into more just like good. Cause I like that premise. It's like a 2.75. It's a great premise, but. It's tough cause I think it came out around the same time as Ernest Scared Stupid, which of course is the best of Ernest movies. It fucking rules.

That's a scary movie in the beginning. It rocks. Ernest Scared Stupid. By the end when they're just running around in a field being chased by goblins and then chasing goblins, it kind of loses the narrative taughtautness that has the beginning. Sure. Well, I think we've talked about everything. Let's move on to recommendations of movies that probably would be more worthwhile use

of your time than... Then Spaced or Mom and Dad Save the World or Better's Not Included? Well, I was going to say Kangaroo Jack. I mean, Spaced is a TV show, Elliot. Oh, sorry, Spaced is a good show. I mean, I haven't seen that long time. Is there anything that doesn't age well in that? Probably, but you know, you always gotta...

You know, it came from a specific time. It was important to us when we were at that age. You know, yada, yada, yada. I mean, can you imagine how amazing it was back then when we saw a TV show and we're like, they're making like science fiction and comic book jokes in this TV show. It seemed amazing And like using like cinematic references in the like filmmaking of the TV show. Yeah Hey, let's do recommendations

I'm gonna recommend a movie that I went to a screening of recently and as I was leaving someone either recognized me or heard my voice said, you're going to recommend this on the podcast and so this is for you. Was that Eric Adams who said that to you? Yeah, that's right. Dan's getting cat called now. Hey, you're going to recommend that on the podcast, sweetheart? That's what they said. Yep.

It's a movie called Dr. Caligari from 1989. And it was directed by this director. Let me look up the name, actually. They made Cafe Flesh, the sort of cult favorite pornographic film. Stephen Syed, I don't know how to say this, Syedian. Keep trying, this is good content. Good stuff. But it is a wild movie, like it presents like it's going to be kind of a sex exploitation movie, but really doesn't have like ultimately that much sex in it.

It's just a lot of kind of just weirdness. It describes a lot of sex to me. The title obviously is referencing the cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the only thing it shares with that movie is like it's set in this- My kids put me in that cabinet too and they wouldn't let me out. Those bully kids of Dr. Caligari and the only thing it shares with that movie is like it's set in this. My kids put me in that cabinet too and they wouldn't let me out. Those bully kids of mine. Mental institution and it is done in a style that evokes German expressionism but also kind of looks like when it was made in 1989. It feels like Peewee's playground trapper keeper sort of version of German expressionism.

And I don't know, it's just a lot made with a little. It's a very striking looking movie that doesn't really have much of a plot that you're going to want to follow or care about, but at the same time, that doesn't matter. Maybe it's 20 minutes too long for a movie that doesn't offer normal payoffs, but it's pretty amazing to look at. And it's co-written by, of course, Jerry Stahl, the famous heroin-using-alfrider who wrote Permanent Midnight. So there you go. Dr. Caligari, if you like weird stuff, seek it out. We do, we like weird stuff here in the Flop House. I'm gonna recommend a new movie.

Dan, Jerry Stahl also worked on Bad Boys 2. Let's not forget that. Okay, I don't wanna put him in a box, I just, you know, I think that- He's not just a heroine using Alphwriter, he's also a former heroine using Bad Boys 2 writer. Yeah, but that's not as weird as the position is Al. Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.

So I'm gonna recommend a new movie that's not to my knowledge written by her when using Alfreider. This is all, you know, he wrote about it in his memoir. I don't, I'm not. Yeah, which was made into a film eventually. Yeah, you're not slander, rival or whatever one has spoken. You're not gossiping.

This isn't a non-blind item. I just bring you up a thing that he brings up. This is Dan's blind items newspaper. What elf writer has become a huge heroin user, Jerry Stahl. That's it. Dan, can you come into my office? I think he's recovered now. I think he's passed it.

Dan, can you come into my office? You're not supposed to name the people in the blind items. Oh, I thought I was supposed to name them and then blind them. No, Dan. No, no, no. No, you're supposed to name the people in the blind items. Oh, I thought I was supposed to name them and then blind them. No, Dan. No, no, no. No, you're supposed to, you're supposed to pose a question and then possibly use a picture of Haley Jo-Losman or like Wallachon or something. What am I supposed to do with all these eyeballs?

That's up to you. Yeah, you need to have like two pictures next to each other. One is a young actress and the next is Wala-Shawn. So they think that somehow heroin is morphed her into Wala-Shawn. Okay, so I'm going to recommend a new movie that's kind of about morphing. That's right. I watched The Iron Claw. It's a little indie film about big old muscley boys. It's a biopic about the Von Erick wrestling family,

and it's got a lot of great actors in it. You got Holt McClainy, you got Jeremy Allen White, and you got the biggest Muscley-est boy of them all. That's right, Zac Efron. Putting in some big pounds there, boy. He changed his body. He is so wide. He looks like a fucking barrel.

I love it. I can't get enough. So, are you recommending the movie or just looking at a picture of him? I mean, you could do both. Like maybe two like screen and screen while you're watching it. So, I mean, but he's in the movie.

I don't know why he needs it. You're seeing towards not in it though, dude. That's the second screen experience. Just having. You have a picture of him on your phones. You can hold it up to look at while the scenes he's not in are playing. Boring.

So this is a movie about a family of young wrestlers who are trying to like establish their name and trying to make it in the big wrestling world and while suffering under the yoke of a, let's say abusive father. The performances are great, it's super sad. I went into the movie intentionally like not looking up anything about the family

and then I looked it all up afterwards and I'm like, holy shit, this is horrible. So if you want like a sad horrible true story that they've even holy shit, this is horrible. So if you want, like, a horrible, true story that they've even like edited to make less horrible. And although I like the movie as a whole, I do feel like the movie, this is a little bit of a spoiler, I guess, but at the end of the movie,

there is like some text on the screen that says like, the Von Erick's were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and that they're considered one of the great wrestling dynasties and I'm like, what the fuck? Did the dad write this shit? Like that is not the message of the movie. The message of the movie is that wrestling is great and it's worth it. What it should have said at the end was,

the Von Erick's developed a thinking machine. We know them now as computers. Yeah, oh and I also forgot, we got more a tyranny in this movie. We got another young hot boy, Harris Dickinson. Oh man, it's great. Thumbs up, thumbs up, big old muscles. And I got to find out, got to find out how he got that wide, you know?

He's really big, right, Dan? Yes, I was perturbed when you seemed to want to look like him because to me, he looks like if like he man was even like squashed water. Yes, a he man that a kid has been stepping on a lot. Yeah. Oh man. Oh, I want to be a stepped on he man.

That's the thing Dan, body dysmorphia. You can't explain it, it just happens. You can't control it. Yeah. Oh no. Stuart, I think. You can only get out of its way, I guess. No, you just, yeah, you got a roll with it.

Or see a therapist. Too real. I mean, I'm done. Man would rather be splashed he-man than see a therapist. I'm gonna recommend a movie that I think is gonna be a controversial one possibly. I don't remember, but I feel like I have a sense that you guys don't like this movie, but I don't know. I haven't seen Poor Things Yet,

but I wanted to catch up on my Yorgos Lathimos. And so I finally got around to seeing the killing of a sacred deer, which I had heard mixed things about, and I knew people who did not like it. And so I was like, all right, I'll watch this. I bet I'm probably not gonna like it. And I really liked it.

It was exactly what I wanted out of that movie. I only saw it recently, so I, you know, you may have been. I'm not a huge fan. I'm not a resident non-Yorgos fan. Stuart does not like Yorgos. I know you may have I'm not a huge fan I'm not a huge fan I know I know the resident non-Yorgos fan. I know you didn't like the lobster but the it is I found it to be genuinely very upsetting in a way that I liked but there are also parts that I found funny in a way where I was like I shouldn't be laughing at this but this is pretty funny and well would he ask, would he ask... Spoiler, would he...

Essentially ask the principal to rank his children for reasons I will not... Yes, which you think is a... Yeah, he has found this level where Colin Farrell is the most pathetic man in the world, both in this and in the lobster. Someone who just cannot understand how to interact with human beings or feel emotions,

but is a person, is not like... Is not a weirdo. And he's... He managed to do in this movie, but is a person. It's not like, it's not a weirdo. And he's, he managed to do in this movie, but in a way what I think leave the world behind was kind of trying to do, which is to show you people who seem to be in a good position and kind of reveal that they are actually messes

and how little logic or reason needs to be removed for a family to fall apart. You know, how, how, if something inexplicable causes these emotional bonds to us. You gotta introduce a little goblin like Barry Kagan. All you need is a Barry Kagan goblin to show up and just ruin something. It's a movie that I'd recommend if you like this kind of movie

because I think it's very good for this kind of movie. But if you do not like this kind of movie, then don't see this movie. But I was genuinely pleasantly surprised to see like, oh, I find this movie really affecting in an unpleasant way, but in an unpleasant way that I liked, because it's what I was looking for from a Yorgo slanthomocene.

Yeah, I liked it fairly well as well. And it's just really well made. Like, there's, I felt that I watched it not too long after we watched Leave the World Behind. And I was like, and Leave the World Behind, there'll be nothing going on, but the music will be creepy and it doesn't work. In this, you're just watching someone walk down a hallway and the music is creepy and it works for me.

And so maybe I just was not giving that movie the credit that I give to Glanthimos, but I don't know. Yeah, but you also, he has a provocateur pedigree where you're like, if I just let him linger on a scene, he can throw something fucked up and won't care about it. Yes, exactly. And that he will pay it off. He is not gonna, he's not gonna lose a lot of it. He will kill his sacred deer is what you're saying. He will kill a sacred deer. The same way that one of the things I loved about Banshee in Isherin, which also Colin Farrell is that that movie sets up a bad and Barry Kagan. Best buddies forever. Yeah, that it sets up a bad situation

and then doesn't let the characters out of that situation. It plays it out to the worst end it can get to. And this felt the same way to me. And I was like, to see a movie where the characters have to squirm and they have to pay for this. They're stuck in a bad situation and they can't get out. There's no clever way to solve it was really, I liked seeing,

because I like to see characters suffer, I guess. No, I mean, if I had to psychoanalyze it, like, I think it's comforting to have a movie tell you the truth that, like, you know, sometimes there is no easy way out, you know, rather than it always being, you know, I don't know, a softer ending. And as it plays into this kind of like ancient Greek idea of kind of cruel justice of the gods. And the older I get, the more I kind of find myself not wanting to see that in real life,

but appreciating for the cruel justice of the gods to spite your enemies. Exactly. In the art that I see, I'm coming to appreciate more this idea that justice and humanity are not necessarily on the same level, that there's a, the disconnect between human desires

and the coldness of the universe and how to square that is something that I'm coming to want more and more in my media at the moment. So I don't know why. Yeah, perfect for like a family movie night or something to watch with your mom. Check your brain at the door. Because if you can't censor, if your senses can't process what you're seeing,

it's going to be that much less upsetting. Yeah. Have you ever- But remember to keep your claim checked for your brain. Yes, exactly. Because I had that happen once. I went to the theater, I checked my brain, I lost the check, they gave me the wrong brain and for like a week, I was an accountant.

That's not an easy thing to figure out because you've gave me the wrong brain. And for like a week, I was an accountant. That's not an easy thing to figure out because you've got someone else's brain. So like, I mean, basically like you look in the mirror, then there's a little bit of a disconnect. Something's wrong. You're like, that's not the face that's supposed to go with my brain.

And they gave my brain to Chris Pine. So my brain did not want to get moved. That was the thing. We were supposed to, I got another guy's brain. Chris Pine got my brain. did not want to get moved. That was the thing, when we were supposed to, I got another guy's brain, Chris Pine got my brain. And so we had to switch and my brain was literally like holding on with his tendrils to the inside of Chris Pine's skull,

cause he didn't want to leave and come back to me. Yeah. And the brain was like, I cannot be shoved in any more cabinets by Elliot's children. That was, Chris Pine never gets shoved in a cabinet. No, he doesn't. No one puts Chris Pine in a cabinet. I mean, I've tried.

Just to get, yeah, just to keep it to yourself. How many people are drawing chalk drawings of Chris Pine on a sitting on a toilet and making fun of his parts? Nobody, nobody, never happens. Oh man. One of many ways in which your life differs from that. That's the main way, that's the main way my life is different from Chris Pine's. Yeah. So that was you in Dutch as a trick.

I bet his fart smelled good. Ask your kids. I mean, I asked my kids. I don't know if they would know. I mean, I did tell, I was, I walked with Chris Pine on the picket line, not with him, but like we were on the same picket line and he had me walk around. He didn't fart while I was walking in the room. So I don't know if they smelled good or not. Oh man, you should have asked him to. Now what surprising piece of style?

Like what was he wearing? He was wearing, he was wearing kind of boat shoes with kind of capriish pants that were loose at the bottom, not tight but loose, but they were short, no socks and kind of an open, and a button down blue shirt open, and sunglasses and like a sweater on top of that, that was like a grandma's cardigan that's unbuttoned.

It looked like he was on vacation. It was not the big deal. It's not the big deal. I could see you wearing that outfit. Oh man, I want it so bad. And aviator sunglasses, those two, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. two, yeah, yeah. Of course, yeah.

Chris Prine. Guys, it's been fun, but I'm afraid this is where I leave you. And all of you for this episode of The Flop House, we exist in large part because we have partnered with the Maximum Fun Network. You can find all their other podcasts at maximumfun.org Soon the drive the Max fun drive will be coming up. I hope that those who can would consider supporting the continued existence of the show by paying us

But we'll talk about that later. For now, just to see those other shows. Like I said, check it out. Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer. He goes by the name Howell Dottie on all the various socials and such. MySpace, Friendster. I don't know.

I just, you know, I realized that I was steering into talking about a certain website that now I hate. So I steered away. If you have the time and explanation. Dr. Skin, Mr. Skin, that's called Dr. Skin. Dr. Skin. Dr. Skin. He's here.

He went, he went, he went, got a GUSV HD. He's not a medical doctor. No, he got a doctorate of in English literature. Yeah. Dr. Skin Medicine Pervert. But anyway, you're saying, look for how it works. Dermatologist is basically doctor skin medicine. That's true. That's fair point.

Yeah. Why do I have to be fully nude for this dermatology appointment? That's the way doctor skin works. You're gonna get all the... Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, we're signing off. Point is, you know, if you like the show, and why wouldn't you?

Really, you're looking at your heart. Why don't you give us a good review over at iTunes? But for the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. And I'm soon to be in Australia, Stuart Wellington. And I'm soon to be pushed into a cabinet by a five-year-old and a 10-year-old, Elliot Kalin, saying, don't stop, stop putting me in that cabinet.

Bye! Yeah, let's burn all our bridges. But not Jeff Bridges, he's the national treasure. Do not burn him, please. Yeah, exactly. Although, imagine how good he would be at acting that he's on fire. Oh, amazing. The range this man has.

Hey man, put me out! Whoa! And you're only doing one of his characters. Yeah, I mean that's pretty close to the real man at this point. Yeah, the, yeah, the, you mean the old man on AMC? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think, if I'm looking at Jeff Bridges, I don't think.

I watched one episode of that and I enjoyed it and then I forgot to return to it. Yes. That happens in a lot of shows. Yeah. Hey, you know what's great? A show where you don't need to worry about that because it's just a pleasant show you turn on whenever. You don't have to watch all the episodes, you know?

It's called The Flappos. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network. Of's called the Flappos.