The Flop House - Ep.#431 - Wish

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

We celebrate 17 years of The Flop House by discussing Wish, the movie that was supposed to celebrate 100 years of Disney animation, but was mostly met with a resounding, "Meh." Did that ol' Disney magic work any better on us? Listen to find out!We just announced season 2 of our monthly live streaming video show FlopTV! And because this is FTV 2, this season is all about BAD SEQUELS! You can pop in for individual episodes, or get a price break with a season pass -- more info (including the full line-up of films discussed) and tickets are available here! And hey, while you’re clicking on stuff, why not subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets?!” Wikipedia page for WishRecommended in this episode:The Manitou (1978)Frankie Freako (2024)The More The Merrier (1943)Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to https://www.squarespace.com/FLOP  to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Head to factormeals.com/flop50 and use code flop50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active!

Hey everybody, remember Flop TV, the one hour online video version of the Flophouse podcast that we produced last year? Well, I'm excited to tell you it is coming back. Flop TV 2, the sequel, will be broadcasting live to your computer screen the first Saturday of every month from September through February. We're talking only about sequels this season. RoboCop 2, Break-In 2, Highlander 2, Caddyshack 2, Ski School 2, and Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the U's.

It's going to be all new jokes, all new presentations, movies we have never covered on the show before, all in a tight one hour-ish package. Can't join us the night of the show? That's okay. The videos for every episode will remain online through the end of February, so you can binge them or dole them out as you prefer. So that's Flock TV 2, the first Saturday of every month from September through February. For tickets and more information go to Flophousepodcast.com events. Again that's Flophousepodcast.com events.

Flock TV 2, everything you loved about Flock TV. But again... On this episode we discuss Wish. It'll make you wish you were watching a different movie. Guys, this episode writes itself. Hey everyone and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliott Kalin. And hey, you probably heard my voice earlier talking about FlopTV 2, the sequel, coming soon to your computer screen and maybe you'll hear about it more later.

I just can't stop talking about it. So guys, what is this podcast that we do and what does it do and who are we? I'm Game of Thrones. No, no, no. Hey Dan. Don't confuse. Look, at this point in our lifecycle as a podcast, I'm sure we're picking up very few new listeners with this specific episode.

And losing many, yeah. But let's not confuse those people right off the bat. I am Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Stuart Wellington. And this is... No! Oh, sorry.

One more time. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm the Flophouse, and this is Elliot Kalin. Okay, close enough. Well, close enough is good enough. and this is Elliot Cailin. Okay close enough. Well Close enough is good enough. Um So this is a podcast only counts in hand grenades horseshoes and this podcast as Dan always says measure once cut twice It's hard to cut at the second time

The first cut is the deepest is the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah This is a podcast. Thank you. Where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it. In this case, this is more of a movie that was sort of created with a general sort of, you know, lack of care. Just sort of, oh, look, wishes and theaters. Well, it did okay, but certainly not enough

considering the budget. Not enough to make money. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a Disney movie, right? Disney movie. This was the Disney movie that was intended to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney as a studio. And I would say it fails to reach that. That is a high bench to have to clear. That the company that until the recent couple of years was synonymous with children's imagination and the magic of wonder, to celebrate 100 years of that is a big, big thing to have to do.

And you could say that kind of went the opposite direction, decided to under, underwire? I have heard some theories that perhaps the weight of that did it no favors Perhaps there was more sort of a general like meddling and reworking and blandening Because this was supposed to be their big centennial release. I don't know It's not what I was told by my this was originally a hard-ar It was by the makers of infinity pool. Yeah, and they decided at the last minute,

they'd already filmed it and everything. They decided, wait a minute, what do we do? It was about to go to the theaters and they had to literally drive a van to catch up with the previous van that had the film reels in it so they could stop it from getting into the theaters. Majestica was originally Aslan Rex from Ravenloft.

Powerful Lich King and his phylactery, he keeps getting bigger. My source inside Disney told me that up to the release, there was a lot of positive word of mouth within the studio. They were like, this is going to be great. It's coming out great. So I'm curious about the movie, because from a technical standpoint,

there's a lot of really cool animation things in it, but from a story and a music and a character standpoint, there's a lot of really cool animation things in it, but from a story and a music and a character standpoint, there's a lot of moments in the movie where you're like, why is this happening? Like what's going, like, it's not that I'm confused about what's going on, it's because I don't know how this thing relates to that thing.

Yeah. And I'm trying to, like, I don't know whether we should save the look of the film for later, or should we just, should talk about it now because you brought it up because... I mean, let's talk about it. I mean, when the trailers first came out, I was like, I wanna see this movie

because there are aspects of it that look beautiful, but they're trying to meld traditional kind of painted backgrounds and colors and textures with CGI three-dimensional stuff. And there are times when I think it looks gorgeous and there are times when it really does not work for me. Yeah, I agree. To me, the part of the movie that I came closest to liking

was the look of the film, but I feel like they kind of half-ass it. They don't commit to like, we're gonna do it like a throwback. The backgrounds look beautiful. The backgrounds that were, I think. The backgrounds look gorgeous, yeah. Like traditionally done and then they put some sort of layer of digital something to merge it together.

And- Sugar, digital like baker's sugar, yeah. Yeah, well the digital sugar is what I like the least about it because it does feel to me like they put like a Photoshop sort of storybook filter over everything, even though it looks good. It reminded me a little bit of, man, what were those? There's a couple of video games that were part hand-drawn, part digital,

where they had the look of a hand-drawn thing. Like Cuphead, that kind of stuff? Well, no, it was more of like, they did one, it was like a story game, and it was one based on The Walking Dead, and then one based on the, I think the Fables universe. The Fables did.

I can't remember. The Grateful Dead. But it was that sort of thing where everything has like a hard black outline. Yes. So it has the illusion of being hand drawn. And it has the illusion of being hand drawn but it has the heaviness of kind of an attempt at realistic CGA. Like I found that the characters move kind of slowly.

There's a part later where they are floating up in the air on books that are flying, they're standing on them, and it was moving so slowly. And I was like, dude, we've seen a Disney movie with flying books in the Sword and the Stone, and the books move around fast and they look cool. You know, they look great. Yeah, I wanted to get at, which like,

I love the backgrounds. The characters, like, which are fully CG, are, they feel like the blandest sort of, you know, typical Disney designs for the most part, like what we've seen before. And I swear to God that the character animation has been getting worse over the years. Like, there's just, like, there's no liveliness

in these characters. They don't move particularly differently from one another. It just feels like they're doing conscious. Well, there's a lack of exaggeration. I think in a lot of animation in general, and I don't want to speak ill of animators because my assumption is that this is a direction that's been given, is that there's been such an attempt

over the past 20 years to replicate reality in animation rather than... Like Rick and Morty. Exactly, yeah, the world we live in. This is more movie animation than TV animation, I guess. But like there were times when I remember seeing Cars 3 in the theater with my kids and there were times when it just felt like I was just watching a truck

driving down a road, like a real one. And I was like, well, I don't really want to watch a movie about a real truck driving down a real road. Like I wanted to look at the cartoon. Unless it's dual. Unless it's, well, I don't really want to watch a movie about a real truck driving down a real road. Like I wanted to look at the cartoon. Unless it's dual. If I should preface this, if I'm watching an animated film about talking cars, then I don't want to see a real truck. I mean, where it's Fury Road, I want to see real trucks doing that

stuff. What have you just made a mistake and you accidentally took your kids to the hitcher? That'd be a hard mistake to make. It's not a new movie. Yeah, Elliot's like the real life version mistake to make. It's not a new movie. Yeah. Elliot's like the real life version of the meme. He's like, you gotta tell my kids this was Cars 3. I think there's a, when we did a Gnomeo and Juliet or Sherlock Gnomes, whichever one we

did a while back, there were times when it was like, wow, the textures, these gnomes really look like they're made out of real ceramics. And it's like, yeah, but that's not why I go to an animated movie to see. That's what kids care about in a cartoon yeah yeah and I think I think I think the character animation does err on that side of how would a real person move and it's like well how would like a exaggerated person move like how would a funny person move you know yeah so you're not really getting much like aside from the you know the the bevy of characters that all look

like that the kid from How to Train Your Dragon, like it's like a million of like mop-top kids with giant noses and super skinny bodies. There's also a ton of characters and it does not need to be that many. There's like a, the main character is a whole gang of friends who each have one kind of personality trait that- Monica,

Joey, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe. Yeah, Phoebe, exactly. That monkey, what was his name? Marcel? Uh-hmm. But there's like Chandler, Joey, yeah. Don't forget Phoebe. Phoebe, exactly. That monkey, what was his name, Marcel? Uh-huh. There's Ross, of course. Who could forget Ross?

No, but like she has that gang where it's like one of them is always kind of sneaking around and one of them is kind of a dumb guy and one of them is a very judgmental, short gay boy and it's like, I don't know why these characters are all here. Well, can I tell you something about this? I looked up trivia, IMDB trivia about this. Again, IMDB not necessarily like the best source,

but I believe this one. And these characters were sort of loosely intended to mimic the personalities of the dwarves with one of them being grumpy, one of them being sneezy, et cetera. And if I had not read this trivia, I would never in a million years have believed that these characters have any personality,

let alone the exaggerated personalities of the seven dwarves. It shows you when, I mean, when Disney is at its best and its best is, you know, it's hard to achieve. When it's at its best, it can take characters like the dwarves from Snow White and so quickly imbue them with personality and so quickly give you that feeling of like, I know this character and it's a funny character.

Like, and yeah, this movie does feel like Blander. It feels generic. There were times when I'm watching it where I'm like, this feels like another company trying to make a Disney movie, which is kind of the worst thing you can say about a Disney movie, I guess. Yeah.

Well, now that we've gotten you all excited about it. And you mentioned Sword and the Stone, and I remember as a kid, how many times, like every time I got to see the fucking wizard duel, every time I was like edge of my seat, gripping the chair. And that's her one scene. She's not in the rest of the movie. And it's not like one of my seat, and in the chair. And that's her one scene. She's not in the rest of the movie. And it's not like one of like the big, like canonical Disney classics even,

but like it's got so much spirit. Like that scene is great. Like the mad man. Right. Anyway, enough grousing. Let's get into the plot. Let's do some carousing. Dan, pop those bruskies.

Woo. Okay. So as if to signal to the audience, like this is a throwback to the Disney films of yore, we open with a storybook. I think that's exactly why they're doing it, Dan. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm telling. Well, I'm being sarcastic about the transparentness

of the effort to associate it with beloved properties of the past. But so we hear a story being told about a dude who really knows how important wishes are. He becomes a sorcerer to protect quote unquote wishes, which immediately I'm like, I don't know what that means to protect a wish against what, disillusionment, distraction?

Like, what are we talking here? Maybe there was a wish thief or something that was running around, like a wish eater or something, I don't know. His name is Magnifico, by the way. Yeah, Magnifico. The wish eater's name is Magnifico. No, the king.

No, the king who protects the wishes. The king slash sorcerer is Magnifico played by Chris Pine. Oh man, as Charlene overheard it and thought it was Jason Alexander and when I told her it was Chris Pine, she's like, that's fucking bullshit. He's too pretty. Let someone else do this shit. I mean, the whole thing about Magnifico is he's supposed to be a handsome guy, right? Yeah, he is a pretty guy. And also, their voices don't sound at all the same. I think that's also funny that she

got Chris Pine's and Jason Alexander's voices. He's like, is this Duckman? He's playing the handsome sorcerer king of this kingdom. Who is that? Is that Harvey Fierstein? What's, Gilbert Gottfried recorded this before he died? That's what you're telling me? Late June foray.

Anyway. I mean, she could do anything though, Dan. Yeah, she's true. She could do anything. So yeah, he wants to protect wishes, question mark, what that is, I don't know, and occasionally to grant them. And so he and his wife establish a wish island where people can live under his wish protection.

A fantasy island, if you will, yeah. And so we come out of the storybook to learn that this story is being told by our heroine Asha Ariana Jubose who is talking to her grandfather who presumably knows all of this already because he lives on Wish Island I'm not really sure Maybe he just got there She's like, you know this you live on Wish Island grandpa If you get lost you have to be able to tell people Wish Island

He's been there all his life because at some point, we learned that he made his wish when he was 18 that has not been granted yet. Now he's a grandpa. I think it makes sense, because old people like hearing and telling the same fucking stories over and over. They do like it.

Fair enough. He is about to reach his 100th birthday too. So it's like, if that wish was given to Magnifico that long ago, how old is Magnifico supposed to be? Good question. Maybe his magic. Again, probably a witch. Magic.

Anyway, so there's a wish ceremony that night. This magic is kind of the gathering of wishes? You could say that legally. Can't throw me in jail yet. Not until the Republicans get into office. Yeah, and then it's kids' court all over again. LA, you're under arrest for not singing enough songs. Why can I suddenly not remember the guy who plays Saba's name?

Oh, that's Victor Garber. Victor Garber, yes. Hell yeah. So a lot of musical- Heir to the Garber's baby food fortune. Not the same as oh that's uh that's uh victor garber victor garber yes yeah so a lot of air to the garbers baby food fortune not the same as gerber's different company yeah not as big two uh members of musical royalty already uh and the cast um and uh it's his birthday sabba the grandfather hundredth and ash is like, there's a wish ceremony tonight, so it's your birthday. He's got to finally, finally grant your wish.

Hey, Saba, it's your birthday. Gonna grant a wish like your birthday. So Asha runs off to her job as a tour guide, question mark, or she's onboarding new Wish Island citizens? It's funny because they show up at Wish Island and my assumption is they're already into it, but it's almost like she's selling them on the ideas that they'll stay.

So she's like a real estate agent for Wish Island. Or the city of Rosa is what it really is. It's not really called Wish Island. City of Rosa, yeah. She's like a hype man for the whole city. Yeah, she sings a song that kind of reiterates for the third time what we already know about and it is It is such a ripoff of the opening song from Encanto in the kind of like The tone of it what it's trying to accomplish the fact that she's like awkward while she's singing it and getting interrupted by things

This movie the songs this movie. I'll just take a moment This is the first song the songs this movie are trying so hard to be Lin-Manuel Miranda I'll just take a moment because it's the first song. The songs in this movie are trying so hard to be Lin-Manuel Miranda or Disney classic type songs at different times. And they're cramming so many lyrics into every line of every song. And it was really bothering me.

I saw this movie in theaters when it first came out with my kids and this stuff didn't bother me as much because of the magic of the movies. And I was probably spending a lot of time telling my kids to stop fighting over the popcorn and stuff. So I wasn't paying as close attention. But this time the songs really got to me that they like the lyrics.

And this is coming from me, a guy who makes up dumb songs where there's too many lyrics for a meter, you know, like the lyrics are just crammed in there. No, I would agree that these are not of a high level, particularly in the grand tradition of Disney songs. Like there's a couple of moments with them. Give me a classic, what's a classic Disney song? Well, the one that is evoked at the end,

when you wish upon a star for instance, or I mean, but even like, I don't know, from like less known, not less known, but like less huge ones, like Peter Pan has a bunch of great songs. You're not talking about how the Red Runners- Not that one. Not that one.

But like, Think of a wonderful thought, Any happy little thought. I'm not gonna sing anymore or Disney will come after us. Be Our Guest is an amazing song. Be Our Guest. Beauty and the Beast is an amazing song. Those are both from the same movie,

but like the circle- Make an act. Under the Sea. Yeah. Under the Sea, right? From Mulmur maybe? Under the Sea is a great song. Kiss the girl. Poor unfortunate souls is a great song. Even from like Hunchback of Notre Dame, that Hellfire song, what's his name?

Frollo Saints? Yeah, the super hot one? Yeah. That's a sexy song. That's a great song. Disney songs are among the best songs in any movies. They're not the best song ever written for a movie. In my opinion, that's probably Over the Rainbow.

Oh, I thought it was Everybody Wants Some from Better Off Dead. I was sure you were going to go with that. Is that really where the film? Yeah. Dream Warriors. Yeah, Dawkins Dream Warriors. Oh yeah, yeah, because even Freddy is like,

who are those guys? Who are those guys? Man, they're crazy. But Disney songs, again, it's a high benchmarked reach. Like, there are a bunch of great songs in Moana, there's a bunch of great songs. Like, the thing I think that made and conto a success were the songs in that movie.

So it's a, but these ones are not quite at that level. Yeah. These are more in the long lines of like whatever songs are probably in the Fox and the Hound that I don't remember, you know, or the Aristocats, you know. Yeah. Everybody wants to be a cat. That's in the Aristocat.

Name another song from the Aristocats, Dan. That's the only one I can. But at least that one has one that I remember. That's true. So are there any songs in the Black Cauldron? Probably not, right? I don't think so unless it's like a zombie marching song that I'm forgetting. But there must be songs in like Home on the Range, right?

I've never seen that movie. I also never seen Home on the Range. Road to El Dorado. Road to El Dorado. That's not a Disney movie that's like... Like Treasure Planet. I bet that has songs in it. I've never seen it.

I've got to watch these. Atlantis, never saw that one. I've got to see it. Dan, you're going to really want to see all the Disney movies I missed when I had no reason to. Yeah. I think I saw Atlantis and it has some interesting animation, but it's pretty dull. Didn't Mike Bignola or somebody get involved in the design?

Yeah, he did some design work for it. Yeah. What about Dinosaur? Do you remember that one? Was that an animated one? Or is that... It's a CGI animated one, yeah. Yeah, only vaguely.

Okay, but let's get back to... What movie are we talking about? Wish? All right. There's a little movie called Wish. Which movie are we talking about? It's about wishes. Not just a singular wish a little movie called Wish. The movie we're talking about? It's about wishes.

Not just a singular wish, wishes in general. So she visits her friend in the castle. This is her friend that I am told is supposed to be the doc of the group because she has glasses and is sensible. I see. But her job is to make cookies in the shape of Magnifico's face for Magnifico to eat. And this is where we learned that Asha has an interview

to be the apprentice to the king slash sorcerer. And we meet some other characters, including Simon, who has had some sort of light extinguished in him because of the lack of the granting of his wish. They're all less than 18, so creeps back off, and so they haven't yet given their wish. At 18 you give your wish, and Simon is over 18 and gave his wish, and since then has been his, everyone is like, you're dumber and more boring than you gave your wish. You seem narcoleptic now.

And then there's Gabbo, who is supposed to be annoying, but I found him so viscerally unlikable that I wanted somebody to kick him right out of the film. Perhaps Judge Doom to show up with a bag of dip. Throwing in some dip, right? Irritating. And he's not irritating in a manic way. He's irritating in a, I'm sarcastically judging everybody. Yeah, like why are we friends with this guy?

Yeah, he's mean to everybody. Anyway, she goes to her interview. There's judging everybody. Yeah, like why are we friends with this guy? He's mean to everybody. Anyway, she goes through our interview. There's Basima, there's Safi, there's a bunch of other... All memorable. There's a guy who's allergic to lemons, so he sneezes on a cookie. That makes him the sneezy of the group. And that's the only thing I recall about that guy. That's Safi.

You guys did a great job. These are not normal characters. Everything just kind of warshed over me. Yeah, that character Safi, so he's voiced, I only found this out of efforts, he's voiced by Rami Youssef, the comedian and the star of Rami. And it's one of those things where like,

this part is so small, why did you bother getting someone who's a name person to do it? Like, you know. Ching ching. Was that money sounds? Like that's money sound. Well, I know why he would do it. I don't know why Disney didn't save a couple bucks and throw some money to a less famous person. Yeah. Ching ching. What? Was that money sounds? Like that's money sound.

Well, I know why he would do it. I don't know why Disney didn't save a couple of bucks and throw some money to a less famous person. If they throw it to him, then he's, you know, they get the Rami Youssef bump. That's true. Good point. Yeah. So she goes in for an interview and meets King Chris Pine, who sees her.

She's fiddling with a magical book and he says that don't touch that dangerous whatever. Magical book, the Bible. She is so over the top nervous and anxious like in the way that I guess all female main characters have to be now to balance out being beautiful. That like, well this character is beautiful, she better be like an anxious nervous mess all the time and not be able to talk about anything else. Do you think the main character is beautiful, Ellie? What?

Ellie, do you think the main character is beautiful? Yeah, let's explore this. I mean, she's drawn to be a beautiful young girl. It's not that I'm attracted to her. Okay, man. Sure. No, I just, I'm enjoying it. If I'm into any Disney princess, it is Pocahontas.

Have you seen her? She is beautiful. Yeah. I'm enjoying passing this on only because I did that cartoon sex presentation for a lot of our live shows and people then reacted as if I was saying like, hey, I find all of this stuff to be my thing. When like, whatever, it's your thing, that's fine.

It's not necessarily mine. I'm just talking about it. But it's not not your thing. It's not your thing, but it's not not your thing. I feel like Dan is more of just like a, he's like an Uatu the Watcher. He catalogs it all. But he never interacts. I've got an Anthony Lane-like fondness

for Mrs. Incredible. I just don't then write in the pages of the New Yorker about how horny I am for her and how everyone's erections are gonna spring up their popcorn buckets or whatever. I think it was Michael Kupferman who wrote a parody of that where he made it look like a real thing where he talks about having to run into the men's room and jack off because he's so... Amazing.

And put it up on Twitter and people were like, I can't believe you wrote that in the New Yorker. I love it. Anyway, so she's fumbling this interview a little bit because she's so nervous, but then she talks about losing her father. And that makes- He's a philosopher who always looked at the stars. Yeah.

That makes Magnifico bond with her over his own loss, which is never really defined from the past. No, there's some undescribed trauma that led him to escape to this island and create it as a kind of refuge for refugees. And become a vengeful sorcerer king. Yes, that's true.

Well, become a control freak. Become like, we've gotta like, I have to protect everyone, you know, like either by like making them, you know, taking their wishes or granting their wishes, you know but uh Speaking of wishes. Yeah, let's talk about it takes her into the wish room Where he shows her everyone's wishes floating around and like little bubbly sort of snow globey things. They're like little they're almost like Memory holograms, you know where you like you look at it and it replays the wish over and over again. That's a visual Yeah, yeah a wish you. In that I wish you will go a little faster, Dan.

It's the sort of thing that I've seen in movies, I don't know, a million times. Wow. A million. You've seen a lot of movies. I've seen a lot of movies, guys. Just check my letterbox. And later on, when Chris Pine, spoiler alert, he turns bad. Later on when he turns even more bad, he's picking up wishes that are explicitly the plots

of other Disney movies and then destroying them. And I'm like, so is this, is this movie saying like, I'm destroying previous Disney movies? You don't need them anymore. You know? I mean, I think that, you know, spoiler alert, it's a Disney movie, it ends happily. It seems like those wishes are freed when he is,

you know, vanquished. But anyway. I guess he's not destroyed. I will say though, the use of Disney past in this movie, I found less egregious than in Ralph Breaks the Internet, where all the Disney princesses are like, whatever, we'll do whatever. We got to make Ralph the star of all Disney. Sure, we'll do it. And it was like, Snow White, Cinderella, come on, like you're bigger than this movie. What do you do? What are you doing? Yeah, they are big. It's the pictures they got small. Yeah I mean they're postage stamps very small pictures

he you know is inclined to give her the job at this point and she asked the king to grant her grandfather's wish but Magnifico is like oh the wish is too vague He wants to inspire the next generation but inspire them to what something bad like revolt and the v, the wish is too vague. He wants to inspire the next generation, but inspire them to what? Something bad like revolt? And the wish is literally just the grandfather playing the mandolin and people enjoying it. Like his wish is really just, I want to play the mandolin so well, people like me.

He didn't say that though. He said he wants to inspire the next generation. Which is in Magnifico's defense, a very vague wish. And it is also a hard wish to grant because if there's anything the next generation is probably not interested in is a hundred year old man's mandolin playing. Yeah, this was in my notes.

I think it's obviously a weird justification he offers. It's more about his wanting to make sure that he has an iron grip on power than anything else. But from the standpoint of a wish, it's like you live on a wishing island. You can come up with a less vague wish that I want to inspire the next generation. With music.

Something specific, guys. Make it easier on the wish master. I want to fucking play the mandolin a bunch and have young people be like, sick. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And then do a big- This guy shreds play the mandolin a bunch and have young people be like Do a big rip off their vape pens So ash for the record there are no vape pens present in the movie. Yeah lame realizes

That the king is just keeping a bunch of wishes He doesn't intend to grant. And she's like, well, if you're not going to grant them, why not give them back? These are like essential parts of these people. And turns out- Because also when you give your wish to him, you forget it. All you know is there's a special part of you, this thing you desire more than anything else, that exists as an idea somewhere, but you don't know what it is.

You no longer have it in you, which is a weird aspect of it. Because then it's, well, then it's one, why are you missing it so badly if you don't know what it is. You no longer have it in you, which is a weird aspect of it because then it's, well, then it's one, why are you missing it so badly if you don't know what it was? But also, why would you give up even the knowledge of it? You know? Well, I think it's not less that you're missing it, but like it's some essential part of you that you have given away. Yeah. You're giving part of your soul or your heart.

Yeah. Yeah. But so this is where- Oh man, you're phony. Only Magnifico could just take that away from me. Wow. I will unpack that maybe in the mini We're not gonna unpack it. No, I don't think so So it pays us $150 for the hour or 50 miles rather Wow, that's pretty that's a pretty affordable Yeah, that's what yeah, I guess not accredited therapist you guys

You guys can write me prescriptions for medication I can write them but I can prescribe you consumer goods that are available, you know over-the-counter Oh cool. So I take therapy I could be like you need a new hairbrush that kind of stuff You know or like a sleeve full of Oreos will cure your depression. Yes. Yeah, exactly But for how long? Not that long. No, but you know, it's better than a placebo.

Now imagining Stuart pouring a package of Oreos into the sleeves of his shirt, when this is what Dr. Dan said, it isn't working yet. Oh, Amelia Bedelia. So yeah, this is where we learned that the king is like sort of over paternal, this control freak. He's like, better, like, unrealized wishes cause people pain. Better I keep them safe and they forget about it.

And she does not like that. And he's got like daddy vibes too, right? He's like a handsome gray haired guy with a little Van Dyke. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's kind of drawn as like, he looks kind of like a handsome hero guy. He looks like, you know, a cartoon Chris Spine. He's a, he's kind of drawn as like he looks kind of like a handsome hero guy. He looks like you know a cartoon Chris Pine he's a Definitely less crazy beard because

Pine has this amazing be I'm not saying off hours Chris Pine where is you know wandering around and like a huge cardigan Yep, like a v-neck I mean squares with the one time I saw him in person. Yeah. I'm talking about, you know, he's in character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, at the evening ceremony.

This guy is a real character. The wish ceremony. Send his ass to TBS. Right, wait, is it TBS or USA? It's USA, USA. USA is where characters are welcome. TBS would not allow him in yet. They say you have to wait in Mexico

until we start welcoming characters. Let me read the checklist of what we're looking for. Are you very funny? No, but I'm a character. I heard characters are welcome. That's USA. This is TBS. I'm offended.

Offended. And then he's like TNT, will you help me? Are you drama? We should know because we do know drama. What about FX? FX, will you let me in? No because we do know drama. What about FX? FX, will you let me in? No, we have the movies.

We don't need any more. We're holding them hostage. What about Arby's? We have the meats. You're not meat for animated figures. We're going to do a hostage exchange. Meats for movies. Meats for movies.

Yeah, that's the charity that I do. Meats for movies. I'll trade movies for meat or rice versa. I don't care. You got to get those meats off the streets. Is that a charity or is that just the barter system? It is a charity for me. I get something out of it that I like.

You're losing your beloved meats. There's always more meat where that came from, Dan. That's ominous. Okay, anyway, so at the evening wish ceremony, the king tells her that she will obviously not be his apprentice, but he is going to protect Saba and her mother's wishes forever. By never granting them. Uh at dinner she tries to tell her family about all this but Saba gets mad because he's like why would you tell me about a wish that I've

forgotten and I will now know that I'll never have. Um and so she runs off to sing a song about her feelings and she makes a wish on her star in the song for quote, something more than this. So I guess the whole family is vague wishmakers. They can't be specific about their wants. The lyrics in these songs are very vague. And when we get to the song, you're a star, whatever it is, then we're in the middle of something where it's like, none of this even makes sense.

Like, this is just nonsense verbiage, you know? But she wishes for something more than standing there with a goat at her side. Her goat's Valentino? More than this. There's something more than this. Right? Yeah, no, yeah. That's pretty good.

I was there. Roxy Music? Avalon? That song's not Avalon. It's off the album Avalon. That's pretty good. I was there. I don't know. Roxy Music? Avalon? Yeah. I mean, that song's not Avalon. It's off the album Avalon. It's off the Avalon album.

Of course, yeah. More than this is what it's called. Man, that album sleeve looks sick. It's like a dude with a fucking falcon and then you listen to it and you're like, this isn't falcon music. No, it's not at all. The adultist of contemporary music, but I like that album a lot. The movie they made, Welcome Home, Roxy Music, also not what they expected to be.

Mm-hmm. Welcome Home, Roxy Car Music. Yeah. Featuring music by the Cars. The Barry Levinson movie, Avalon, is not a very good adaptation of that album either. A lot of development work went into changing that. Yeah, they just had the name in the end, yeah.

Anyway, so her wish caused this magical light to go across the island, and the king's like, what's up, someone's using magic. And everybody loves this light. Nobody can talk about anything other than this light and they think the king did it and he's like, I didn't do it, stop talking about it. Mm-hmm, turns out the light is from a magical

anthropomorphic star that's fallen to earth and the star plays with Asha and her pet goat for a while, sprinkling, sprinkling stardust around that gives plants and animals the ability to speak. Dancing. I would call this star a kind of R2-D2 type figure. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Kind of like a minion. Yes, like a minion, but not as bonkers and manic. And it's not like the genie from Aladdin because it has no personality other than kind of being kind of like a baby, like an innocent baby that's a little mischievous. It's cute.

Cute mischief. In a movie that is low on memorable characters, the star would, in my power rankings, would be one of the higher characters. I mean, but not as high as Valentino, right? No, Valentino. Which one is it? Voice by Alan Tudyk. No, Valentino. Voice by Alan Tudyk. The goat.

The voice by Alan Tudyk? Yeah, yeah. No, the goat. Veteran voice actor, Alan Tudyk. The star, Magnifico. Of many other Disney movies. Resident Alien himself, Alan Tudyk. King Candy himself.

King Candy himself. The man with two dicks. Now, not my favorite Disney movie, but it's pretty good. The Man with Two Dicks, yeah, same as Nick. That was the last one that Walt worked on before they froze him. Yeah. It really shows that he was losing it a little bit, yeah. So, no, I love Alan Tudyk.

C.R. Dicks, C.R. Dicks. We have two dicks. That was a big song at the time. It's weird that they, it's really weird, yeah, it's really weird that they made a movie about the director, the voice actor. That makes sense. Yeah.

Uh, it seems crazy until you star watch it. But it all makes sense. So I get a question. It's better than it sounds. Yeah. If they had made the star character like a, a genie from Aladdin type character, who should have been the big personality voice?

Who are we talking? Are we talking Kevin Hart? I probably, there's a time when it would have been Chris Tucker, there's a time when it would have been... Has Kevin Hart done a voice in a Disney movie? I don't know if he has. I'm going to look up Kevin Hart voice acting. Maybe if he's scripted it would be

Fine. I've been seeing him do like the Olympic stuff recently like like with Keenan as as his co-host and like Keenan's great when Snoop Dogg came on he was He was funny Kevin Hart is is floundering in this show I forgot how to start up to done a bunch of that animated stuff So yeah, he might I bet you they would have had him or someone like him him or the younger version of him, you know Anyway, although with the general kind of blandness of the movie Maybe it would be like Colin Jost or someone like that, you know They sing a song at this point saying that it's possible the fact that the why is it possible that they can all talk

Now because they're all the same to borrow a quote from Carl Sagan. We're all made of star stuff Asha these mushrooms this star all star stuff Valentino Now they're talking and they and I'm like whatever man fine sure This is the this is the, I just read a book, I just read a Carl Sagan book and I'm super excited and I wanna explain it to you, but I don't really understand the book

that I read type of song. Like it is, nothing's connected. They're like, hey, you wondering how animals can talk because a magic star came down? Well, we're all made of star stuff. So you know what? You're a star, believe in yourself. And I'm like, what is this song about?

Like what is going on? And they're like, there's a deer will have like a California surfer dude type voice and things like it. None of it makes any sense. Classic character. I love Stu's sad shaking his head. Like, you know, he's just resigned to. What I'll say is, I feel like of the songs, this one has stuff going on. Yeah is I feel like of the songs this one has stuff going on

Yeah Stuff going on it's all disconnected But it helps that it's a lot of animals so they can be slightly more cartoony than the humans in the movie that move Herky-jerky like they're in an episode of reboot or something. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think you yeah So asha and the Star realize that they shouldn't just waste this magic giving goats the voice of Alan Tudyk, even though that's a fun thing to do.

They should go to the castle, get those wishes. And meanwhile, the king feels threatened due to his past trauma and almost uses the forbidden book of forbidden magic but the Queen is able to talk him down for now. Asha takes the star to the castle and confides with her friends that she has a star and this is revealed to them via a chicken dance number a bunch of chickens doing the thing conducted by the goat.

Yep, the goat is directing them, and the magic has allowed them to express their inner dancers. Oh, okay, like a chorus line or something? Yeah, very much so. It's a big Broadway type dance number. It's the kind of thing that Disney would often do to finish a big song in their movies,

but here it just kind of happens in a closet. Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, I don't want to argue with it because it's something that's happening that has a little bit of fun. On the other hand, like, it's like, why is this? No, Dan, I feel like we didn't scratch the surface of that song, I'm a Star and how nonsense it is. So I just want to read some lyrics to you. So here's a part where they say, see, we were all just little nebula in a nursery from supernovas. Now we've grown into our history.

We're taking wise right out of mystery closure. Now we're taking in all the star exposure. And you're like, what? What did any of that? And later on, they start all seeing about how, he goes, here's a little fun allegory that gets me excitatory. This might sink in in the morning. We are our origin story.

And it's like, nope, didn't. I don't know what's going on in the song. It's an H verse is a different animal or tree or mushroom that is like, Hey, Asha, let me explain it to you. Here's some more nonsense that doesn't make any sense. So it's a, it's, it's as if you took the whole movie of cats and crammed it into one song and it made even less sense. Yeah.

So it's a song where, yeah, they, they keep attempting to explain, but it keeps getting stranger and more esoteric. Yes. But she does not react in a way, she doesn't act like it's nonsense. She gets it pretty much right away. She's like, oh, I understand. Yeah, that's my magic.

Okay. But it is like, having you saying that story does open up, right? Because it feels like reading a book written by a warlock about magic. If you've ever read like an occult nonfiction book, it's like, they're always like, allow me to explain. And then they say something that makes even less sense. It is even more complicated.

And they're like, a way to understand that is, and then they say something that is even harder to understand than what they just said. So it's kind of like that. So Asha sneaks around. But Dan, the occult book that you wrote was great. What? The book you wrote of occult spells.

That was great. That was very clear. Yeah. The snackronomica. Yeah, nacho lithotep, the crunching chaos is a big part of that. So Asha sneaks around trying to get at those wishes. She's caused us all these sorts of magical hijinks. She does it, the star just starts

blasting shit all over the place. Well, I mean, I think the blame is shared. Anyway, meanwhile, the king is outside downstairs making a speech about how there's an unknown magic user putting everyone at risk. He needs information. Her best friend, the baker downstairs notices. He says, we want information.

And Patrick McGoohan says, you won't get it. And then he says, by hook or by crook we will Yeah, well, I am not a wish I am a free star. Mm-hmm. Yes. Love this shit. I love it Like are you a number? The good question. I am NOT a number Is there like a weird giant white bubble that falls and sucks you my god, those are wishes. I'm so glad you asked Yes, that's a giant wish that absorbs you. Yeah, the wish overtakes you.

I mean, if your wish is to be absorbed by a giant white bubble, then you're in luck. We got it, baby. In line. No, look, there's like Sparks and stuff coming out of the tower. So the band's Sparks? Elliott's favorite band? That would be, I would have, this would have turned around immediately if sparks had shown up and done a song in it.

Oh, would have been great. So to distract the king from the hijinks happening behind him, the Baker asked a question and then that leads the citizenry to ask a bunch of questions. They're questioning the whole system that they live under. Yeah. Yeah, the king is confronted with all dictate,

what all dictators fear, you know, a questioning citizenry. And so it's time for the iron, iron fist. He's like, Danny Rand, who can channel all of his power and to make his fist onto a thing of iron. I mean, that's the thing I didn't, I didn't care for Asian martial arts until a white guy with a mask started doing it. I'll just let you guys tire yourselves out a little bit. No, Dan, I'll never get tired talking about the Iron Fist. I'll let the lead run. Anyway, the city of Kunlun, it's a magical city that only appears every now and then. No, at this point Magnifico gets angry.

He's like, is all you care about is wishes? And I'm like, man, you built a whole wish-based society. You weren't fault here. But he goes away. Why does everyone at the Cran Factory talk about the Crans all the time? He goes and he sings a petulant song about how he wants unquestioned love.

And I gotta say, Chris Pine- Yeah, is this Pine's voice? Is he belting out? Yeah, he was a pretty good singer in Into the Woods. And here he feels like he's struggling with this song. Oh, who's he playing into the woods? He's one of the- One of the princes.

Princes, yeah. I mean, his performance in Agony is really fun. They do that song really well in that movie. One of the few things that movie does well. Yeah, yeah. I think this song, he's trying his hardest. This is a tough song. Like, he has to keep,

because it's also like they keep interjecting slaying into it Like he has to change attitude between from one line of lyrics to the next and it's a long song It goes a lot of it is sort of like speaks song Yes, rex harrison style I will say this is one of the catchier songs to me In the movie. I mean there's some verve going on because you know because we've got one of the more energetic voice actors at least, but anyway, Asha manages to escape, but only with Saba's wish.

And she takes it to him, he reabsorbs it into his body. A little creepy, yeah. Kind of existence style, yeah. And they're happy for a moment, but then the king shows up and tells Asha she's been turned in. And he also, at this point, but then the king shows up and tells Asha she's been turned in and He also at this point he crushes her mom's wish in his hand and monologues about how all the time He was protecting these wishes, but he didn't realize all the power that they could give him when he crushes it

He absorbs it existing style and uh The star distress when you go to when you go to what when you go to uh, when you go out for dinner, you ask, when they say, do you want this existent style? Do you ever say yes? I've never said yes. Well, they bring the bread out and then I just mush it in my hand and I absorb it.

Yeah, well, my problem is I'm afraid I'm going to get like a soup that I'm going to need to assemble. And I don't like making models. I'm not my thing. You don't want deconstructed food. You want the cook to do the work, not you. Yeah. I see Stewart's face like, look man, you know, we're different people.

You can, you'll enjoy it. My problem is- You can have my soup. When I eat a chicken or a duck, like you know me, I eat the bones. I crunch them and I suck the marrow out. And then if the waiter is like, oh, you were supposed to make a gun out of that. I'd be like, uh-oh. That's the problem.

Maybe my tummy will do it. I'll poop it out. Can I poop out the gun? Yes, the bathroom is over there. So the star distracts the king enough for them to escape. Ash just sends her family off the island in a boat, but stays to help the citizenry. And honestly, it seems like it should be easier

to help them, especially at this point, when Magnifico is not super powerful because she's got a wish-granting Star on her side like there's so much in this plot that I'm like you have a fucking magic star just like cut through like cut through the knot here and Do what you got to do? Let's more animals talk Yeah the ability to to to kind of warp reality by letting animals speak, you think, would

play a greater part in the solution of the movie. I'm surprised more of the animals aren't like, stop eating us. Wouldn't that have been crazy? That's what happened in this Disney movie. It would be, yeah. Hey, you know what? Maybe don't put us into zoos because we can talk. Like a staunch, like vegan message

in this 100 years of Disney movie. So anyway, back at the castle, the king is crushing people's wishes left and right to take their power. Yeah. And this new power mad version of Chris Pine can no longer be talked down by his wife. And she has a-

She used to be the only break on his megalomaniacal tendencies, but now doesn't work anymore. So he has a big rally where the betrayer of Asha is revealed to be Simon, who you calling it a rally makes me so wish that they had made more of a Trump parallel out of it. It'd be like, you know, you see this these people running around with wishes or stars. What's the star doing? I don't, I shouldn't say this. Okay, I'll say it. I shouldn't say this. Do we need stars? Why can't this guy be dark all the time? Why can't we have the sun all the time? I shouldn't say it. Stars are lazy. The sun's lazy. Okay. I said it. I said it. You know, I can't just, I think it is so funny that Hannibal Lecter has become the thing

that he has to bring up in every speech Has he I again I've been not paying attention The late great Hannibal Lecter he used to say they'd be like Hannibal Lecter not a nice guy He wants you for dinner. It's like why is this why are you talking about this? I do appreciate Elliot that despite him being an oft imitated man You chose just to imitate the cadence of his voice. And not- I don't need to do his actual tone of voice. I don't need to do that.

Yeah. Anyway. I do find his cadence very funny though, because it is a voice that says, I don't know what I'm saying now, and I don't know what I'm going to say next. It's as much a mystery to me as it is to you. There's like a delight in his own voice,

as in, oh, well, that's where that thought was going. Yeah, if he was just like a weird monologist, we could, like that would be an alternate reality I could live with. I mean, he's essentially Professor Erwin Corey at that point, you know, an American comedy legend. Anyway, so Simon has given Asha up in return for his wish being granted.

He could no longer live a life without his wish. He was too despondent. So... Maybe because his friends kept telling him, ever since you lost your wish, you've been a real piece of shit. Yeah. You've been a real dumbass ever since you lost your wish. Why'd you do that, idiot?

And he's like, everyone does it. I don't understand. Why did it affect me so much more than everyone else? I don't know, dumbass. Asha sends a talking mouse to the Queen. Check out Wish for Brains over here. It gives away his wish can't think straight. Oh, yeah, it sends the talking mouse over to talk to the Queen.

Yeah. Yeah. All the friends gather in the Baker's like sort of hidden room where she goes to... Dungeon. Central Perk, yeah. Yeah. To her friends gather. And they...

And she sings a song to explain the plot up till now to them kind of. Yeah, that's a lot. The Queen shows up. And they do like some light show stuff. Yeah, they do some shadow stuff. This is like the serious, we're getting ready for a rebellion song. This is not, again, not one of the worst songs, I think, in the movie. No, it's got like a drum thing.

It's more driving, more excitement, but they could have done a lot more with the shadow puppet idea, I feel like. This is like such a visually potentially interesting idea that they do not do much with. But the Queen also shows up to join the revolutionary song. I wanted to say, sorry, Elliot, what did you say? I was looking up, I was doing some research about these songs earlier, just reading Reddit boards about them.

And they were one of the people, they were like, compare this song to a kind of similar feeling song, which is I'm going to make a man out of you. I was going to say that. Yeah. And just how great that song is and how this one is. And what they were pointing out was the lyrics are so literal that there's not a lot of metaphor or kind of like

physical examples or things. There's kind of literally saying, I thought this and now I know this, don't get fooled by that. Cause this is what happened. And it's, it just feels very, it doesn't do a lot on a, on a poetic level, you know, compared to that song, which is a great song. Yeah. The dark side of the moon. Come on. It's great. Um, so the queen is on their side. Uh, she sneaks Asha's friends into the wish chamber. And meanwhile, Asha is going to try and distract the king away from the castle.

The only person who has magic is not gonna be the one who goes to the wish chamber. Yeah, none of it makes sense. Out in the woods, the star turns a stick into a magic wand for Asha and yet again, I'm like, well, why can't you just solve everything, you fucking useless wish star? You really are getting mad at this cute star

that earlier you loved. Yeah, it just makes like a little giggle and covers its mouth and you're like, that's not an answer. The star is cute. The star is cute. I mean, she's like, star, don't be inconspicuous. So the star puts a big handlebar mustache on his face

and kind of creeps around. But it is true that like, he's like, oh, by the way, I can give you this magic wand. Hey, it turned an apple enormous. And then she's trying to use it and she can't figure out what to do with it. And it's like, oh, by the way, I can give you this magic wand. Hey, it turned an apple enormous. And then she's trying to use it and she can't figure out what to do with it. And it's like, star, just do it for her. Like, where are you going?

Like I understand. Yeah, I feel like this is just like something that would have been such an easy fix on the screenplay level. Just add some bullshit rule, like some guard rails, something that restricts the stars stars seemingly unrestricted power to explain to us why, but none of that work is done. So I'm here yelling at a children's movie.

I wish I could watch it with you and see you yelling at the children's movie. Wish? Asha, Jesse, yeah, oh, that's my wish. It turns out that's what it was. That's the thing Difficult took from me. It's just an image of Dan shaking his fist at a TV over and over again. I mean the wishes are basically just gifts, right? They're basically just gifts inside of snow globes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's doing this. Asha's friends are doing some unfunny shenanigans trying to open the roof of the wish chamber to let those wishes free. They managed to do it, but surprise, oh, a reveal. It's not actually the king who has chased Asha. It's Simon in, you know, he's been cloaked in one of, in sorcery.

The spell, yeah. Yeah. But this threat on her is resolved almost immediately when a talking bear leaps on him, one of her woodland friends, and he's left to presumably be beaten up by a bunch of bunnies who show up looking angry back at the castle.

The bear has the hilarious cartoon name of John. Well, that again is a reference, I guess, to little John from- Robin Hood? Robin Hood, because he's a bear in the Disney- And I know he mentions he calls Bambi, he goes, a dear, I guess, to Little John from Robin Hood, because he's a bear in the Disney. And I know he mentions he calls Bambi, he goes, Dear Bambi, but it's like at that point, like stripped of its context, it means nothing.

It's just, it's just nothing. It's nonsense. No, I agree. It's not a reference. I mean, like at least, you know, I don't know, give him a little like Robin Hood style hat that he made out of a leaf or something. Thank God. Give him a little hat. Yeah, like or something, you know, or I guess that's that's that's not little John who has that.

That's um, what's his face? Who's the monk? Friar Tuck? He's like, what's he like a mole I think? Friar Tuck? What? A mole. Not like a mole for like the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say. He's not working for the sheriff.

I think Friar Tuck sold out Robin Hood. He's like a mole for like the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say. Like he's not working for the sheriff. I think Friar Ducks sold out Robin, right? He's like a mole, right? I think that's an animal he's supposed to be. Like a rich sauce with a lot of ingredients. Okay. Can you name some of those ingredients? Pepper. Okay.

Yeah. Famously a dark chocolate sauce. That's one of the components. Anyway, back at the castle. But it doesn't have real moles in it, right? No, no, no, not anymore. But sharks, sharks, what I'm suggesting is. What if it does?

What if it does? What if it does? I'm asking for a 10% stake, $20 million. Calling it mole mole. So back at the castle, Magnifico recaptures all the wishes and the star in like a magic net. He's gone full evil. He zaps his wife.

He's yelling things like the wishes aren't yours to free. Does he have his magical staff yet? I believe so at this point. Yes, he has the staff. Asher arrives too late. He is full of forbidden magic. He has become suffused with forbidden magic. He's just an evil guy now. Yeah. Awesome. Magnifico sucks the wishes and the star into his staff

and he proclaims there will be no more wishing on stars ever again and he clouds up the sky and he traps the citizens in these sort of like magic thorn tendrils and he zaps Asher around. Oh things look bleak. There's no way they're coming back from this. But suddenly she remembers. At this point I was like a bold decision for a Disney movie to just have the villain win because there's no way the heroes can get out of this. It's impossible.

Yeah, you think this is it for Asha, but there's a whole brimful of Asha left. She remembers that all people are stars from that not since time before. And so he starts singing even though he's trying to crush her with his magic and stuff and the citizens join in and that weakens him enough to free the star and the cane, the staff sucks him in. Does she like whip out some shurikens?

Because those are stars. Those are stars. Good point. Stars you can throw. Simon, so he's defeated, he's in the cane. Simon, apologize. Staff. Staff, apologize.

He's in like a little, he's in kind of like a little mirror lens, right? And there's part of me that was like, are they implying that he's going to become like the mirror in Snow White that talks to the clean, you know? That could be what they're trying to evoke. When he's in the mirror for so long, he loses any aspect of his personality and he's just that face. Could be.

Simon apologizes for betraying Asha in favor of his wish. Paul Simon? Yeah, and they all forgive him way too easily for my liking, especially considering that the Queen is immediately like Sia to her husband, husband who arguably like a lot of his actions were influenced by bad magic You know the neighboring countries are like there's no sorcerer there anymore time to invade time to invade roses Yeah, but anyway the star leaves Asha with a magic wand so she can be the town's fairy godmother Where she'll presumably just grant wishes willy-nilly devaluing any sort of human efforts

It's like yeah That's a better system to just have a teenager with the ability to grant whatever wish she feels like at the moment Agents are just like sociopaths though, right? So yeah, it's fine. Yeah, yeah and The star has to return to the sky in time for Geppetto to wish on it, presumably. I mean, which I have to assume is hundreds of years later, if not longer. But maybe it's the same. All the characters we have seen up to this point are not but dust on the ground. Except for Magnifico who resides for eternity trapped inside of a mirror.

Yeah. In some ways he has the last laugh. He will continue to exist when everyone else goes back to being just star stuff. I feel like there's a certain amount of madness that comes along with being trapped inside a mirror forever. One of the great British ska bands. That's okay. And to finish off the movie, Asha tells the town people and the audience

to just keep wishing and sends them out into the lobby to buy Disney merchandise. But- But that's a good point because when I pulled this up, I watched it at home, I didn't see it in the movie theater. But when you pull up the like screen for the movie, in between the like name of the movie and the play button. There's a big thing that's like buy merch.

Like I took a, I took a screenshot, but it like literally says like, uh, wait, let me pull it up. And during the credits, I assume you enjoy access to merchandise, visit the shop tab to learn more. I'm like, I love access to merchandise. For too long has my access to merchandise been barred by forces beyond my control. I assume you guys didn't watch the credits, but during the credits, images of past Disney characters show up.

Yeah, in the stars. And then at the end, we see Saba playing When You Wish Upon A Star and his mandolin. He got his wish to inspire future generations and also to spit on the graves of Lee Hartline and Ned Washington, the actual composers of that song. I'm sure I said it wrong, but at least I'm saying their names rather than... No, but that's, no, no, that is true. If you buy the sheet music from that song now, it says composed by Sabino. Yeah. Yeah.

And then it says under that, it says, you remember the guy from Wish. Uh-huh. And then under that it says, you know, the movie Wish? Yeah, I didn't, you know, I didn't realize what this, I didn't realize the whole 100 years of Disney connection here. So the, at first I'm just like, why are they just showing me old Disney shit in the credits, but that makes sense now.

Even knowing that, it's kind of a weird thing to do because it's not, you know, Disney has done a lot more meta stuff recently than it used to, but it feels like if any time you were gonna do a meta thing about the characters from Disney movies coming together or something or why they exist, it feels like this is the movie to do it and they don't go very far with that, you know?

Although if they had, I'm sure we would do in the podcast and I'd be like, I hate this stuff. Yeah, we'd be like, why are we watching Kingdom Hearts the movie? I do think this is arguably, as you say, a Pinocchio prequel, just focusing, what's the origin story of that star? I gotta know.

Anyway, let's do final judgments, whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kinda like. I wanna say, off the top, I went to the very the top, I went to like the very negative New York Magazine review and I was looking, I disregarded the great advice to never read the comments. I was reading the comments.

There were a lot of people who were like, like why are you hard on this? It's a movie for kids. And I get it on the one hand and we've been very hard on moving for kids. Like if kids enjoy it, that's great. I'm happy that they're having a good time. If like adults enjoy it, it was great.

I'm happy they're having a good time. For me, you know, this podcast is nothing if not highly personal opinions on things. I am someone who like really likes a lot of Disney stuff. I know that the company has its negative sides too, but it has a history of some beautiful artistry. And I love a lot of Disney movies. I love a lot of Disney animated movies specifically.

Like this movie was just so damn bland. And I just wanted to be held to a higher standard, that's all. Yeah, you were talking about how much you loved that one song from Peter Pan, that one song from Dumbo. Nope. Yeah, so I like a lot of this stuff. You're a big fan of that one centaur in Fantasia. You're like, why'd they cut out that centaur? We don't.

I don't even know what you're talking about. There's a scene. There's a scene. There's a scene in the centaur. There's a servant centaur in Fantasia who is very much a kind of like black slave girl caricature. And she has been very rightfully snipped out of the source, the current prince of that movie.

What about the priest and a little mermaid that gets a boner? Is that still in there? I think that's, I don't think that's intended. I mean, you would too, right? Have you seen Ariel? Yeah. I'm more of an Ursula kind of thing.

Anyway. I mean, have you seen Ursula? The Ursulas. Vah-vah-voom, Zoftig. Come on, and the tentacles? Yes, please. I think Ursula's coded not to be interested in you, Stuart. That's why I like Ursula.

Anyway. to be interested in you, Stuart. That's why I like Ursula. Anyway, yeah, I'm just saying, we don't cover a lot of Disney stuff because honestly, it usually has a base level of competence, but this one was not very good in my opinion, I say bad, bad. Stuart. Yeah, you know, every once in a while a movie comes along that really shakes the preconceived

expectations that I might have going in. You know, we watch this movie and we call, we watch the movies for this show and we call our show The Flophouse. So we already go in thinking that we're going to be watching potentially a bad movie. And you know what? This was a bad movie. I didn't enjoy it very much. It was kind of boring.

It didn't look particularly good. I felt everything looked really flat, moved kind of slow. And it was kind of like a pale imitation of the things that came before it. The music was not particularly great. Even the vocal stylings of the various talented cast members did not shake me out of my disappointment. I was not a fan.

Bad, bad. I'm also going to say it's bad, bad. I will say when I saw it in the theaters, I was much more forgiving of it. Maybe it cast a little bit more of a spell on me, but watching it this time, I was like, this doesn't really work for a lot of different reasons. And it's too bad. Like you guys are saying, like Disney as a corporation is one thing. I'm not a big fan of them, their corporate behavior. But there's a lot of Disney movies that mean a lot to me,

and I would want the celebration of the centenary of that studio to be something really special, and that's hard to do, and they, for whatever reason, they lack in this the special elements that make those movies so memorable and so magical, for lack of a better word. And I'm sure, like all of the people involved in this movie have made better movies in the past and will make better movies again.

Like very talented artists, all of them. I just, you know, not for me. And I would say the idea like why should you criticize this is for kids. I kind of understand that because as a parent, I'm always looking for junk my kids can watch while I'm trying to get something done. But at the same time, like a bunch of dogs dressed up as civil servants or whatever, yeah, okay, sure. That's what Paw Patrol is.

I don't know what that is. Paw Patrol, okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, that one I was. Like Dog City? I'm glad they moved off of that one. But I will say, I was like, Bluey, does he work as a mailman? But is he like at the DMV?

What is Bluey? What's Bluey? Is he a dog with a family? Is he a dog playing poker? But I was going to say that in some ways we should expect more especially out of entertainment for children because even though their standards are lower, the need for them to see and experience things of quality

and to establish an understanding of kind of like what is possible when you connect with great art is even bigger. If you raise a kid on crap, then they're not gonna have a hunger when they're an adult for better things. And I say better things knowing it sounds snobby, but like a hunger for things that-

You're talking about the Pamela Adlon show. Yeah, exactly. They're not gonna wanna watch if FX hits show better things. But you want a kid to have the experience of seeing something where they're like really touched by it. And I've seen my kids experience that watching movies. And so it's always a little disappointing when they watch something and they're like,

that was okay. I mean, my kids really want to see this movie. And after they saw it, I don't think they ever talked about it again, which means it didn't make much of an impression. Yeah. It's like the first time Dan saw Porky's, right? Like, go on.

I don't want you to say go on, but I'm curious what you... You know, just like, see the light in his eyes and the excitement, the quickening of his footsteps, when he's realizing what's possible. The beginning of his pulse. I want kids to go to the movies or watch movies with a feeling, this is going to be really fun,

this is going to be great, rather than, okay. I'm just watching something, you know, yeah Hey, do you have a favorite episode of Star Trek if you do you should also have a favorite Star Trek podcast Greatest Trek is about all the new streaming Star Trek shows and it's a great companion to The Greatest Generation, our hit show about back catalog Star Trek that you grew up with. It's a comedy podcast by two folks who used to be video producers, so it's a serious mix of comedy and insight that fits right into the Maximum Fund network of shows. And Greatest Trek is one of the most popular Star Trek podcasts in the world. So if you're following Lower Decks, Prodigy, or Strange New Worlds,

come hang out with us every Friday as we roast and review our favorite Star Trek shows. It's on MaximumFun.org, YouTube, or your podcasting app. From the twisted minds that brought you the Adventure Zone, balance and Amnesty and Graduation and Ethersee and Steeplechase and Uhtraspace and all the other ones. The McRoy brothers and dad are proud to reveal a bold vision for the future of actual play podcasting. It's um, it's called the Adventure Zone vs Dracula? Yeah, we're gonna kill Dracula's ass.

We're gonna, well we're gonna attempt, we haven't recorded all of it yet. We will attempt to kill Dracula's ass. The Adventure Zone versus Dracula. Yes, a season I will be running using the D&D fifth edition rule 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.

I'm bats. I see what you did there. Hey there. It's a very tired, I did not sleep last night, Dan, coming at you with some plugs. First off, I'd like to say, hey, we're able to do the show only because of the kind support of listeners like you, folks who have become sustaining members of Maximum Fun. Your monthly pledge keeps us going and is by far our main source of support, but also we do have sponsors.

And this week, the Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for you to stand out and succeed online, whether you are just beginning your business or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything in one place on your terms.

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interests you go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you are ready to launch go to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. And also, hey, it's summer. Did you notice? It's summer outside, summer.

Inside it's also summer, but you don't feel it as much. And because it's summer, you don't wanna be slaving over a hot stove or firing up the oven. And why are you putting fire in your oven? It's not how it works these days. I mean, maybe for some of you.

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to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Hey, let's do our personal plugs. Elliot, why don't you kick us off? Sure, I'd love to mention some personal things I'm doing. If you like podcasts, and I know I do, maybe go over to the 99% invisible feed when you're done with this one

and listen to my monthly episode with Roman Mars where we're breaking down the book, The Power Broker. Very excited about it. We do it once a month. We're going to go through the entire book, 100 pages at a time. And in October, on October 7th, he and I are going to interview Robert Caro live on stage at the New York Historical Society.

I'm super excited about it. It's a dream come true. At the same time, maybe you don't like podcasts. That's cool. Maybe you like comic books instead. Why not try Hercules from Dynamite Comics, my current series, a Disney character. It's incredibly relevant to this episode where I am continuing the story of Hercules, Meg, Phil, Zeus, all your favorite characters from the Disney Hercules movie

in an all new adventure with some new mythological characters, a new villain, all sorts of stuff. It's adventure, but it's also funny. And I just handed in the last script just a couple weeks ago. And I think I wrapped it up. Okay, I was enjoying it. I was enjoying writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it.

And I like to do a little plug for some friends of the podcast, and the plug goes like this. From the origins of chess to the battlefields of Gettysburg, to dungeons, to dragons, to Indiana graveyards full of Bajankoenkode vampire Stuart Wellingtons whipping plus five tennis balls at each other. This is the story of Tabletop's triumph, even in our digital age. Game Masters, the comic book history of role-playing games, takes readers on an incredible journey,

from the mists of the past to the screen-lit present, showing not just how these games work and why we love them, but what they can tell us about ourselves. This is a Kickstarter campaign for a comic book by a friend of the podcast Tom Fowler, friend of the podcast Fred Van Lenti and Bill Crabtree. It's great stuff and you should check it out. Just go over to kickstarter and look up Game Masters, the comic book history of role-playing games. And I want to remind people that if you're interested in keeping on top of all things Flophouse, we have a newsletter called Flop Secrets. If you go to flophousepodcast.com, there's a little field on the front page where you

can put your email in to subscribe to hear all our news, what's going on with us. I include fun things that make it fun to read as well. This last one that went out, I did a last chance mailbag where I answered a mailbag question that otherwise might have never been gotten to. So if that's something that you're interested in, that's the kind of thing that's also in there. Also, I used this last newsletter to announce another newsletter, my personal newsletter,

which I just am about to start. Probably will have gone out at least one by the time that this is published. If you go to Dan McCoy Interests, danmccoyinterest.com, you can sign up for that. It's called that. And it's safe for work, right?

Yeah, so the reason that URL is I called my thing Dan McCoy's special interests because it's kind of playing off the idea. I got this late in life neurodivergent ADHD diagnosis and a lot of people with divergences like have these, you know, special interests that they're more obsessed with, more fixated on and I thought that that was kind of a lens to look through some pop culture stuff. It's not heavily about that. It's more funny pop culture stuff,

also some personal essays. So check that out. I'm looking forward to it, to get a little glimpse every what, every three days into the mind of Dan McCoy? No, I think I'm going to to it to get a little glimpse every what every three days into the mind of Dan McCoy No, I think I'm gonna do it in every other week. That's not doing the flop secrets newsletter Yeah, that's if we yeah, that's if we just let people into the flop house group chat To get just occasional drawings screenshots of things

General things that I am very happy to have access to you. That's yeah I'm sorry that sometimes my method of reaching out is to send a random image of some sort. I appreciate that you guys, you know. I love it. Yeah, endure and mostly enjoy. Yeah, I'm just glad it's no longer just the image that you made of yourself where the eyes and the mouth

were kind of like ripped out and replaced with some other image. I forgot what it was. It was very disturbing to me. Oh, I don't remember that, but it sounds like something I... It was like a mishmash of a picture of you. And I think that picture of the woman who painted the bottom of her boobs

looked like Garfield's eyes. Oh, right. Right, yeah. Mishmash, I think, is the technical term of that work of art. Yeah. And there should be, unless I think, is the technical term of that work of art. Yeah. And there should be, unless I fell down on the job, there should be mention at the top of this episode of FlopTV,

our upcoming returning season of our monthly online live show that we do where it's like a one-hour version of the podcast, but in your face, in front of you. And we shoot some videos for it and we do lots of fun stuff. Anyway, we're going to be starting the first Saturday of each podcast, but in your face in front of you. And we shoot some videos for it and we do lots of fun stuff. Anyway, we're going to be starting the first Saturday of each month, starting in September. It's all sequel movies, RoboCup 2, Break-In 2, Ski School 2, Caddyshack 2, all sequels. It's going to be super fun. Go to flophousepodcast.com events for more information and a link to the ticket page.

And you probably heard all this information at the top of the show, but I'm gonna say it again. So it starts the first Saturday in September and it's the first Saturday in each month, going forward for six months. Now these episodes, I should mention, you can get individual ticket passes or a season pass. The episodes will be available to watch

throughout the entire run. We're gonna leave them up online. So if you don't buy until episode three is up and you get a season pass, you can still watch episode one and two in that pass. You know, you don't, you're not going to be missing anything, but you should probably buy your tickets early anyway. Don't forget, come on.

Flexible. But it can fit your schedule. You can watch it whenevs. After we do it live, the video will be up online for you to watch at your leisure. You can watch it whenever, when you're at work when you're driving when you're on the toilet in the bath at church When you're with your parents when you're taking a bath with your parents at church. Yeah and using the toilet. Yeah, it's called baptism Yeah, but you're not using the bathroom in it right? Yeah, I Mean if you're a little baby, maybe yeah

Right? Yeah. I mean if you're a little baby, maybe. Yeah Let's move on to letters from listeners. So, Flop TV season two if you're a little baby, you might poop in the baptism bath That's the slogan right Dan? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for ruining that easy ad break for Alex Let's do letters from listeners now This is from Derek last last name withheld, who writes, hey peaches, my friend Kyle took his car to the mechanic the other day and sat in the waiting room while they worked on it.

When it was done, he went to pay. The guy gave him a- Oh, it checks out. The guy gave him a, yeah, no lie so far. The guy gave him a really odd look. Confused, he got into the car, started it started it and shortly after the Flophouse podcast started playing Elliott was ranking and arguing over which gremlins were sexiest

He is not sure he can go back to that mechanic again. I stand by my rankings If he thinks that way, I'm the one who said those things Anyway, is there a more embarrassing Flophouse episode that could be could have been playing in the situation? I struggle to think of one. Is there a podcast that you listen to that you would be absolutely mortified to have someone else hear a short out of context clip of? Keep on flopping in the free world, Derek Lasting with Health. Honestly, I don't think there's anywhere I'd be more embarrassed than someone hearing a clip from this out of context, this series. But I think I was a, I still listen to it sometimes,

old episodes, I was a big fan of the Gilbert Godfrey Amazing Colossal podcast. And there are certain things in that where I definitely don't want it to turn on my car and have that start playing in case there's someone else there. Like just stories he tells that are disgusting. So.

I mean, I wouldn't want anyone to hear me listen to like the Joe Rogan experience, but you don't do that. I don't do that, yeah, let's clarify. Actually, that's a good question. He didn't specify a podcast you actually listen to. In that case, there are a lot of podcasts I would be mortified to have someone

walking in here short at a context. I would say, I mean, an easy one is my dad wrote a porno, just because, you know, the nature of the material. I'm looking through my thing, like I guess Savage Lovecast gets kind of explicit at times, but I don't care about that. I'd be more embarrassed by like, you know, and you know, love to the people behind these podcasts,

they're on my list, I listen to them. I'm not saying anything other than my own sense of vanity, but I don't know if some really fucking nerdy thing came up from the comics canon or something, or something that just revealed the depths of my esoterica on my podcast. Then I would feel exposed. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah.

Although I think, I mean, deep down, everybody just really wants to be seen for who they are, Dan. So maybe deep down, although it's a little scary, you just want people to hear all your nerdy podcast obsessions. I said earlier, everybody wants to be a cat. Oh. Establish that. There's a song about it. So when you said everybody wants wants some you meant everybody wants some being a cat time Do we all answer that question I

Even if we did it gives it cares Rip, you know, yeah these people nothing good point. Well, we kind of okay Pete last name withheld Right the retailer from Star Wars Minute Good guy. We don't know could be dear peaches or Pete pan some people calling Peter pan I would like to keep this simple. Oh if you could be a Any any will if you could be a Quado on anyone living or dead normal for disease while they were alive Attach yourself to please keep on flopping through the hard times Pete

Last name withheld Okay, I mean that mines mines pretty easy Anthony Bourdain, I just want to travel the world with Tony B with Tony B. Steve, I've got some bad news for you. Well, when he was alive, it said right there. Yeah, yeah. No, I just, he seemed like he was not enjoying traveling the world. Maybe you'd cheer him up.

You could. Yeah, I feel like I would have turned everything around. That's true. Yeah, that's what he needed. It was a growth, a man growing from his body. RIP, do a real one right there. Yeah. I think similarly, I think maybe Orson Welles would be fun to be attached to for much of

his life, you know, having adventures. Yeah, another guy who is totally normal and had no problems. Yeah, I was thinking... I mean, nobody has no problems. I know. I was thinking about this. I was like, I don't know that I would want to be attached to anyone. No, of course not.

I mean, Dave, we have to buy into the premise that we want to be attached to someone's belly, which I don't know that I would want to be attached to anyone that I- No, of course not. I mean, Dan, we have to buy into the premise that we want to be attached to someone's belly, which we don't. I don't want to be attached to anyone that I like too much because then I'm worried about the burden that having a little version of me attached to them. Dan, you're not a burden. And well, I mean, if I'm attached to you

as like a tumor man. No, I understand having to manage Dan's emotions all the time while he's attached to your stomach. It could be a bit much sometimes. But also like I'm going to learn something about them that I don't want to know. Like that's part of the problem. Yeah, what it smells like when they use the bathroom.

That's for sure. Yeah. So. Maybe it smells like cookies or something. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe, maybe. So Dan, what if I was attached attached to a, like a dog.

Experience the joyfulness of a dog's life. So okay, so you're being scraped along the ground all the time, sure. Yeah, I mean, it'd probably be on the back of the dog. I'm like a tall dog. Yeah, it's a super, yeah, it's a marmadude. It's a tall dog with two legs a lot of the time, yeah. I love that Dan's like, yeah, I don't know.

It'd be unpleasant to learn unpleasant things about someone. So I guess I'll just be a human body sticking out of an animal. I mean, actually like dogs are dogs are pretty generally in good spirits. Yeah. I think that I think it's the chill quality of the lifestyle that appeals to me. Yeah.

Chill quality of the lifestyle. I don't have to like get mad at the. How do you chill dogs? Plenty of them. I'm, I'm, I'm on board. I mean, I've heard of snow dogs, but I've never heard of chill dogs. There's plenty of them out there. I'm on board. I mean, I've heard of snow dogs, but I've never heard of chill dogs. Let's recommend movies for fun.

So snow dogs is a movie about? Let's recommend movies that we saw that, you know, might be a better use of your time than say, wish. Stuart, I want you to go first. Yeah, I'm gonna recommend a movie now. This is one of my classic Stuart Wellington, totally not biased reviews. I'm recommending a movie that I saw at Fantasia Fest last week in Montreal. Sacre bleu, Zut alors!

That's because they speak French there. I'm going to recommend the latest movie from friend of the podcast, director Steve Kostanski. You might know him as the director of PG Psycho Goreman, which features the voice talents of one Stuart Wellington. Well, if you like that buckle your freak belt because his new movie, Frankie Freak, just had its world premiere at Fantasia Fest,

and it is great. It is a hyper-focused, weird joke of a movie that is basically like if Goonies Goes to College was mixed with like Gremlins. Goonies Go to College? Goonies or Goonies? Do the Goonies Go to College? I mean, I assume that they do.

They have all that money from those gyms that they found and whatnot. I can't be the only person to confuse Goonies and Goolies, right? You cannot be. I'm sure someone's grandma did. Yeah, they're like, Mom, can I get, Grandma, can I get a DVD of Goolies? And she gets them Goonies and they're like, what is this fucking garbage? More likely the opposite is my guess. Anyway, Frankie Frico.

Frankie Frico is a celebration of a very specific era of full moon video. If you ever had the experience of like renting a weird movie on VHS from your local video store and on that VHS, there was an even weirder trailer before it and you're like What the fuck is this movie? I've never heard of this. That's what kind of Frankie Frigo feels like it's very silly It is about a nerdy guy who is obsessed with being less of a nerd So he calls a party line with a little gremlin and then that gremlin brings his friends over to his house and trashes the place

And it causes him all kinds of problems And then that gremlin brings his friends over to his house and trashes the place and it causes him all kinds of problems. It's great and he might recognize a couple of voices in that movie. Like me, like Dan, like Elliot and other people. It's great. Check it out. Frankie Farrego rules again. Totally unbiased review.

I don't know if I'm going to recognize other people. You might. I might. Well, thank you, Stuart. I think your parents did voices for the movie, Dan. So you might recognize them. That would be wild. I'm glad that Stuart got a chance to promote that movie.

And I'm also glad that he did not recommend the movie I was going to recommend. Looks at notes. Frankie Frico. Is it dildo heaven? It's not dildo heaven. Dildo heaven disappoint. It was fine. All I know is Dan sent a text that says I'm going to see this and the title screen said dildo heaven. I said I don't even want to look up what this is. Yeah, you're like Sammy don't look at my phone. It was a weird Wednesday screen. This is Doris with Wishman's last movie. She actually appeared,

you may have seen a clip of her on Conan O'Brien with Roger Ebert. She was there to promote Dildo Heaven at the time. I never, I did not see the interview and I'm gonna look it up after this point. Yeah, you should look it up. It's, you know, I mean, if you're a fan of like truly bottom of the barrel filmmaking where like,

Doris Wishman was like a beloved figure in sexploitation and starting out in nudie cuties in the 60s. Like it seems like she only forgot more about traditional film grammar as she went on. Like this last movie of hers is baffling in a delightful way. Like it feels- She was very elderly too by that time. I must imagine.

Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean like, that doesn't necessarily mean she has a diminished capacity. Like in this case though. The film was like, okay Biden bizarre Just just to clarify this is not this is not my recommendation although Saying the words dildo heaven, I think is the main thing. I don't even think it's available. Seems redundant, seems like a redundant phrase. Yeah, can't blame me. I think, yeah, I think I saw a screening

and the rights are not out there for people to see it otherwise. So don't even try and watch dildo heaven. Watch instead from 1978, my birth year, the Manitou, Stuart and I went out and saw this together. Oh wow, the Manitou, really, okay. What a movie it's got. That movie, the Manitou, really? Okay. What a movie. It's got-

That movie gets wild by the end of it. Yeah. Oh, you think so? I thought it was pretty normal. So let me give, so people understand what we're talking about. Let me give a very short premise of the film. Give us your Manitou sense about this one.

I was like this close to doing that for the mini this week. The movie is about a woman who has what seems to be a tumor on her neck, but it turns out is the fetus of a reincarnated Native American medicine man, like an evil, megalomaniacal medicine man from the past, who's like 500 years old at this point. And despite some valiant efforts at a certain amount of 1970s progressivism,

the movie cannot overcome an inherent racism in the premise of this. In addition to, I will warn people if they're sensitive to such things, the man playing the good medicine man that we learn that we meet later on is a Syrian actor, I found out later on. But anyway, the movie is wild.

And Tony Curtis is a movie too. And? Yeah, and Burgess Meredith. Burgess Meredith gives a one scene performance that is amazing. It is genuinely one of the best comic performances I've ever seen. He just comes in, does this one scene,

feels like he's in a totally different movie because he's so real at the same time as being funny. He's finding all these jokes and just like the way he reacts to things. I love the moment like the people all just sit down and he's like, oh, I guess sit down if you want. It's so funny. Tony Curtis also like is giving a very committed, silly performance that's very enjoyable.

And as- All the while wearing bell bottoms and like a leather jacket. Yeah. And as Elliot alluded to, the ending of the movie is just madness. Like, I don't want to spoil any of it for anyone. Other than to say it's not necessarily going exactly where you think it's going to go in terms of what you're going to see on screen. How they're going to deal with this problem.

Yeah. So, be aware that it has some problems that may, you know, strike on some modern sensibilities, but it's also such a singular movie. I don't know, it's a lot of fun to watch. I'm gonna recommend a movie that's also a lot of fun to watch, but in a different way, and it's a very different kind of movie,

but it also starts with The Mu in its title. And that is The More the Merrier. This is a comedy from 1943, starring Gene Arthur and Joel McCrae and Charles Coburn. And he won Academy Award for his performance in this. And it's about the ideas, it's Washington DC during World War II, the city is full. There is not enough housing for people.

And so Gene Arthur has to rent out half of her apartment to Charles Coburn. He in turn rents out half of the half that he rents from her to Joel McCray. And there's a lot of kind of screwball people running into each other and getting confused, but also a romance that comes up between our younger leads. And it's actually a very sweet romance.

And the movie is very funny. George Stevens directed it. He's a director who I always think of because he directed like Shane and stuff like that. I always think of him as being like a post-odgy director, but I forget that he made a lot of different kinds of movies and this movie moves real fast. It's really fun.

The jokes are really funny. And so I really enjoyed it from beginning to end. And that's the more of the merrier. If you want to watch an old comedy, this is a really good one. Well, I think that is gonna be it for this episode If you want to watch an old comedy, this is a really good one. Well I think that is going to be it for this episode before we go. Thank you of course to Maximum Fun.

Go to MaximumFun.org to check out other podcasts on the same podcasting network. Become a member if you like to support this podcast other podcasts. Thank you to Alex Smith our producer He goes by the name how old dotty all over the internet Just all over it. Yes all over it You just provided the use of one of his songs for a trailer I cut for flop TV season 2 it works really well It's great stuff You know if you want to check us out around the web, like I said, go to Flophousepodcast.com. You can sign up for the newsletter. We have an Instagram page.

Those are probably the best places to follow us these days. But that's it for the Flophouse. I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Cailin. Bye, everyone. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later.

See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later.

See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later.

See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. See you later. Your right, Stu, that was a banger. Yeah. Seemed a little muddled, but let's try one more. Do it again. Yeah. Yeah. On this episode, we discuss Wish. What? I think the second time was way better. No, it was better.

It was better. Yeah. I guess that's what we're doing. Do you want me to record an alternate just in case? Yeah, you should do it. I don't know, I mean, I kind of knew I was doing it in a row. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.