The Flop House - Ep.#439 - The Avengers (1998), LIVE!

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

We took a short break around Thanksgiving, which means YOU finally get to hear one of our LIVE episodes from Oxford's inaugural Saint Audio Podcast Festival! We were extremely excited to finally do a show in the UK and see some listeners from across the pond, and -- because we were in England -- we HAD to talk about 1998's The Avengers (aka "the non-Marvel-one), a legendary mega-flop and a despoiling of a beloved British TV series.Note: We performed in Oxford's Town Hall, which was an absolutely gorgeous venue, but was also very large and echoey. We did what we could to minimize the effects, but we apologize that the audio does come with a little extra reverb!We’re in season 2 of FlopTV! Pop in for individual episodes, or get a price break with a season pass! Peruse the full line-up and/or get tickets here! And hey, while you’re clicking on stuff, why not subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets?!”Wikipedia page for The AvengersRecommended in this episode:For a limited time, visit AuraFrames.com and get $45 off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames by using promo code FLOP at checkout.

Hi, Floppers. Before we start this episode, I just wanted to remind you we are in the middle of FlopTV Season 2. That's right, the one-hour internet televised Flophouse TV show is here for you the first Saturday of every month through February. Just go to theflophouse.simpleTix.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new Flophouse TV stuff. For covering movies we've never covered before, we've got video segments. It's amazing. Just go to theflophouse.simple-ticks.com for Flop TV Season 2. This time, it's personal. On this episode, we discuss The Avengers. Live in Oxford, England. And... Wow. Good. You got your cue. Yay. When it picks it up. Hello.

This is the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin. Dan, what do we do on the Flophouse? The Flophouse is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it. And we're talking about 1998, the Avengers. Not the Avengers.

The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. The Avengers. Dan, what do we do on the Flophouse? The Flophouse is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it. We're talking about 1998, the Avengers, not... Dan, I thought the Avengers came out in 2000 and something. Elliot, you beautiful fool. You're thinking...

This has all my favorite American characters. Captain America, Thor. We took him from the North, he's ours now. Iron Man, a genuine war criminal hero, thank you. Yep. That's pretty American actually. Yeah. Black Widow, Russian technically,

we'll take her, sure, why not? No, of course, this is the film that was based on the popular British television show, The Avengers. About Captain America, Thor. No. About, Steed. About Captain America, Thor. About, uh, Steed? John Steed, is that correct? And Emma Peel. Don't pretend you didn't watch this show when you were younger, Dan.

Dan, for the audience who may be listening at home later if we release this, Dan gave a whole presentation about how just totally all over British TV he was as a kid. And now he's like, oh, yeah, I think it's about a guy named John Steed, and he's like a secret agent. In the first season he had a male sidekick and they were investigating someone's murder but in the second season they took it over a different way. I've never seen it though, I don't know. Well, I mean this is the funny thing about making a movie, a big blockbuster American movie about the Avengers because it is not something, I think, widely known on our shores.

I did see it a few episodes growing up. It would play on Arts and Entertainment. Oh, A&E. The basic cables version of PBS before it turned into like a place where you watch shitty like reality programming. Yeah, they really jettisoned the arts part of Arts and Entertainment eventually. Yep, this's they they really jettisoned the arts part of arts and entertainment eventually Yeah, yep This is a this is even worse when then when they made that that faulty towers

American remake movie where they were all superheroes again. Yeah So, yeah, basically my association with it was Diana rigged looks pretty good in a cat suit. That was my main. Why are you staring at me Dan? That's all you talked about in the green room. Yeah. Whenever I'm a little pervy, I just need to look to you for comfort. No, it's cool, dude. Validation that it's okay.

Yeah, let's do it. So you're saying this was kind of like when the movie John Carter came out, and the filmmakers were like, people are not gonna lose their shit when they see a movie of their favorite character, John Carter, the Warlord of Mars. You know, we wouldn't even have American superheroes

without John Carter. And the movie came out and everyone was like, I don't know who that is. I don't know who this 100 year old character is. And my wife said, it sounds like the kind of movie where George Clooney plays a sad guy. Yeah.

Well, should we walk into it? Let's talk about it. Let's walk through The Avengers 1998. Yeah, well, should we launch into it? Let's walk through the Avengers 1998. So, we begin with credits over storm clouds and very, almost, they should be ashamed of themselves, cheap looking video effects. The titles are kind of like spinning, like they're going down a drain or going up a drain, and this is the first effect

a child uses when they are editing on a computer and then when they turn eight, they go, why am I doing this? I shouldn't use this. Honestly, Elliot, I love these credits because these were the most 1998 credits I have ever seen, and it hit a nostalgia button and then everything else was sort of downhill

from the credits. Yeah, yeah, that's very true. Did you guys see this when it came out? No. I did, yes. Because it came out like shortly after Men in Black. I felt like it was like trying to hit a same tone or an audience as like a Men in Black.

They were like, you know what people hated in Men in Black? The aliens. Let's take them out. I mean, you know, I... Yeah, I watched it at the time. I was vaguely familiar with the show. I like the idea of like, mod sort of spy stuff. Yeah.

Uma Thurman, very beautiful. Ralph Fiennes looks also very beautiful in this movie. Yeah. So here's my question that I should have done research for before the show, but I didn't think of it until now. When did Austin Powers come out? That's a good question. Because I wonder if they were like...

There's no way of knowing. There's no way of knowing. And no one in the audience look it up. We should never know. He's always been with us, Elliot. Yeah, if you go back to ancient cave paintings of Austin Powers. Yeah, baby, they said. It's like in Cave cave of forgotten memories,

Werner Herzog is like, here we see, the ancient cave people have used the contours of the cave to adequately express the bulge in the pants of Austin Powers. Here they have taken a jutting out of the rock and painted a Union Jack underpants on it. Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, interesting, because it was not a Union Jack underpants on it. Yeah. Yeah, interesting, because... It was not a flag that existed at the time, but those, you know...

They cast the runes and they knew it was coming. We're halfway through the opening credits, so let's keep going. Oh, God! They are very... They're real sub James Bond credits. There's a lot of silhouettes, there's a lot of silhouettes of umbrellas, and as soon as you see umbrellas in the open credits, you're like, this movie is going to be awesome. We're introduced to Ray Fiennes as John Steed, secret agent.

It types out 90s style on the screen. John Steed, The Ministry, which is a band, right? Yeah. He plays for Ministry of the Band, right? Yep. Yep. Him and Al Jurgensen. Yep. Okay. He's classic, classic John Cena. He's the image that most Americans have of an English person. Bowler hat, suit, tie, umbrella, and he's walking through a little country village and everybody in it, the milkman, the cop,

the lady with a pram, auto mechanic, they all drop whatever they're doing as soon as they see him and they just fight him. And he has to fight them all. And fighting is I would I would say sluggish Yeah so We should address that half an hour Was was cut from this film pre-release

So that's a good sign usually right? Well, that's that's why much of it makes much of the plot makes very little sense because they cut a lot out But that doesn't explain why do you think they extended each shot of someone punching or kicking to fill that the time that was? No, I I mentioned only to be like Perhaps we can't blame the director for every problem this film has since the producers gutted it but it is startling how little sense of tension or ability to shoot an action sequence for a big action movie, this does not have any thrills within it.

And part of that's the tone. Part of the tone, I know that the Avengers show was also sort of like very cheeky, like, kind of dry, like... Droll. Very droll. Yeah. Which a droll for people who know it's like a droid of a troll. Thank you for... Yeah. Yes.

If you want a portmanteau explained, just come to me. Elliot, portmanteau, Kalen. We are in Oxford, the land of dictionaries, so I appreciate that. They don't know... Yeah. That's... Actually, I grew up near portmanteau. I still remember the sound of the fishing boats going out to get the words. But... The movie sets a problematic tone from the beginning where it's like,

well, it doesn't seem like Steve cares that much about anything that's happening, so why the fuck should we? Yeah, that's true. Well, I'm going to blame a little bit of that on the director. Yeah, so it's directed by Jeremiah Chechik, who I didn't know by name, so I looked it up. That I did look up. And he directed a little movie called

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, also known as the first movie I ever saw where I experienced not liking a movie. The first time I ever saw a movie in the theaters and was like, almost like you have an allergic reaction to something and you're like, why like you have an allergic reaction to something. And you're like, why is my body rejecting this? I don't understand.

Like, I'm not enjoying this movie. Am I using it wrong? What's... Because you normally love Randy Quaid movies. Yeah. He just loves his politics. That's why when... In Total Recall, the guy's name is Quaid.

And I'm like, when's Randy going to show up? Yeah. So, Ray finds he's fighting his way through this I'm like, when's Randy gonna show up? Yeah. So, Ray finds he's fighting his way through this village very slowly. It turns out it's all training exercise. They're just testing him out as a secret agent. He gives a box of macaroons to the guy who's testing him, which is going to go to his boss, code name Mother.

That's right, it's action superstar Jim Broadbent. He's the head of the ministry. Things are about to get topsy and maybe a little turvy. He tells the prime minister over the telephone, they couldn't get the actual prime minister for the movie. He tells him the Prospero Weather Shield is down. Oh no, the Weather Shield. And this is presented as if it is a thing

that is real that England has. Maybe you do, I don't know what that is. I mean, I think that this may have meant more to us in the original cut, because it is my understanding that in the original cut, we see Uma Thurman, who we will meet soon, working at the Prospero weather shield, just getting out, her husband dying. We don't know in the movie as it exists

that she just became widowed. We see Uma Thurman beating up everybody in the Prospero base and shutting it down. But all that's left of that is a couple seconds of security camera footage we see later on. Because when they decided to cut down the movie, they took out one of the action sequences. So then we meet Dr. Emma Peel, Uma Thurman, born and raised in England, right?

Yeah, local? No. She's the former head of the Prospero program. And she gets a box of chocolates delivered to her. When she opens it, there's a note that says, answer the phone. And then the phone starts ringing and she picks it up. And the movie is like, the movie is trying to tell you this movie is going to be a little quirky But what it tells me is that there's a lot of unnecessary jobs in the British Secret Service

Like you're you're adding a step in here. That's not necessary British Secret Service The phone has a thing that tells you to answer it Which they use because it rings. But anyway, she was... Maybe they cut out a scene where the phone rang and she didn't answer it. Oh. Because she's like, just looking around, she doesn't know what it is. Yeah. She's picking up food in the fridge.

Picks up a banana or a croissant. She hits the microwave, won't stop. Yeah. But we didn't see that scene either. So she is sent to a private men's club. The doorman tries to stop her because no women have been allowed in since the 1760s. She shows that she's made of Cerner stuff by walking past him. It's a crack team of security they have at this club.

She goes to meet John Steed who is nude in the sauna reading a newspaper. And it seems this was a test of her as well. We see a little bit of Ralph Fiennes butt. You see a small amount of Ralph Fiennes butt. And this was right after English Patient where you saw a lot of his butt, right? Yeah. So this has been our Mr. Skin Corner, if you're interested in Ralph Fiennes. And of course, if you missed it, of course he did full frontal as Robert Moses in Straight Line Crazy on the stage. He didn't really. That's not... That would be amazing though

if Robert Moses is like, well, Governor Al Smith, this is straight line crazy and just pulls his penis out. Please don't tell Roman Mars, my cohost from the Power Broker podcast that I said that. Anyway, so they give their philosophies. He's all about the rules. She says the rules are made to be broken. This will come into play. Never. And they're kind of smilingly, smugly, not liking each other. It's your classic African Queen scenario. They don't like each other, but they're gonna fall in love. But I know in the show they didn't fall in love, but this is a movie.

Even though she is just recently widowed, which I discovered. Yeah, she's on the rebound. I... So she's going to be brought into the agency. The Ministry. Okay. Sure. The Avengers thing that they do. It's what it's called. So normally, narratively, there's a reason you might have a character come in from the outside, it's either so you can show them sort of being trained and learning the ropes, and through that point of view character you learn the ropes,

or it's sort of a mismatch where it's like, okay, well, Steve has the spy skills, but she's going to bring something else to the table. But instead, this movie does a thing where it's like, oh Uma Thurman's character is immediately good at all the same things and just seems like another spy. Yeah. So I don't know why it happened. Well there's, I'll tell you why it happened Dan, because they go to the ministry, they talked to mother Jim Broadbent, someone blew up the lab for the Prospero Weather Shield, security footage shows it's Emma Peel who's the culprit.

She's like, but that's not me, I didn't do that. And the only, it says it in the British legal system, the only way to try someone for a crime like this is to let them loose so they can solve the crime themselves. So she's going to team up with John Steed, take it up with whoever wrote that law book everyone uses in the 19th century, I don't remember. Anyway, so she has to work with John Steed. And Mother's second in command, a woman named Father, she's like, I think Emma Peel may have a split personality or want revenge for the death of her husband who was a spy for

us. This is not really brought up again. I mean, the split personality ideas, but her dead husband does not. And Father's played by Fiona Shaw. Yes, that's right. So we got some... It's classy. It's a big name. It's got a great cast.

Yeah, it's a fantastic cast. But this is the kind of movie where information is brought up and the characters are like, good, established. We don't have to deal with that anymore. Alternately, information is not brought up, and the characters pretend that we know what they're talking about. So, they fence for a while, Emma Peel and John Steed, and they talk about research and her background.

It's kind of weirdly airless. It turns out they're at John Steed's tailor's. He orders a set of boots for her. This will come in important later on. That's good screenwriting. And how would you... I feel like every scene is either an exposition delivery system or a pun delivery system. That's exclusively the entire movie.

I was going to ask you, how would you describe their banter? Because it's always banter, the banter of two people who hate each other and are pretending that they get along. That's how it felt to me. How does it feel to you? It's banter that doesn't actually have any jokes in it. It's just sort of like, we're going to say this to each other in an arch tone, and that's how you know we're being witty.

Go to the expert! I don't know about you, but I could go for a bit of lunch. I could also go for lunch. It's like, alright, there's no... Okay. Later on, they're what I would call half entendres. They're like not quite even single entendres. But anyway, they leave for the country.

They're watched by the most sinister man in England, Eddie Izzard. And Eddie Izzard, who is playing a bad guy in this. So they drive to the country. Of course, it's England, so John Steed's car makes tea. That's an American's idea of what English things are. And they're going to see Sir August De Winter, a fanatical meteorologist, and the choir, the chair, I misread my notes here.

He's the chair of a group called Brawley, which is a private science weather project, and he is so obviously the villain, and the characters don't seem to know that for half of the scene, and then they seem to pick it up, never talk about it, and just assume from that point on that he's the villain, and it does feel like they cut 25 minutes out of the movie.

No, no, there's definitely no scene in which they're like, you know that guy who seems like a villain, we have the proof that he's a villain. They just skip over from suspicion to, okay, this is the bad guy, but we're also just gonna kind of dick around for a while and not take him down. But also he's, so it's played by Sean Connery, who has a house full of, he's a rich weather obsessive with a house full of traps. So like maybe he's the bad guy who shut down the weather system. And as we'll find out later in the movie, he is related to a private weather service

that creates weather that you can order at Bespoke Weather, and it's like, why'd you bother sending secret agents on this one? There's a problem with weather in the country. Maybe it's the people who can make their own weather. Well, and they go into his house, and it's just filled with snow globes. So he's either like a super villain or like,

I don't know, like my weird cousin. Ha ha ha ha. So Emma Peele, she meets Sean Connery. He first grabs her by the throat, a certain, seems like a villainous thing to do. But then he admires her interest in weather and they talk about weather and monsoons. They almost make a double entendre about the line,

about the phrase being wet, but they do not go that far. And she's like, well, I heard the military cut the funding for your weather technology, and he's like, nothing's impossible, they just didn't have the guts to do it, but I'll do it, I'm doing it right now. And she's like, well, I'll see you later. And meanwhile, John Steed is walking around

and there's super winds blowing him around, and anyway. And De Winter knows that Steed is walking around and there's super winds blowing him around. And anyway, and DeWinter knows that Steed is out there and suddenly it's snowing on Steed. Like all the evidence, they gave them all the clues, Mr. Policeman. And the evil Emma Peel shows up in a dog sled, shoots John Steed. He wakes up in regular Emma Peel's home. She denies that she shot him. He reveals he was wearing a bulletproof waistcoat. And they banter for a while. And she shows him.

Yeah, he also is like pretty cool with it. Like, I feel like he half doesn't believe like, oh, it wasn't her, but he's also like, yeah, I guess. I get shot by women all the time. It's cool, you know, whatever. She stole a snow globe made by this weather company, it's called Wonderland Weather.

So they go there and literally the woman there is just like, yeah, we make our own weather and we sell weather. So if you want weather, this is the place to go, we do it. And they're like, we are recommended by August to winter. And she's like, yeah, sure, two secret agents. They mentioned my evil boss, like, cool, I'll just show you the goods, what we have. I don't know who this actress is, who plays this part, but...

She was fine. So, meanwhile, this is when the movie starts... Wait, sorry, I'll admit that I don't... Who plays the Wonderland weather receptionist. Oh, yes, okay, okay. It seemed like a long role that was supposed to have a joke at the end of it, and doesn't. And they're like, we're gonna browse a little. And she's like, okay. And then just walks out of the scene.

And it's like, there's no button or anything on the end of this scene, huh? I was asking because I couldn't quite hear, but I know that the woman who shows up later on in the street with the gun was a part that was offered to Diana Rigg. And she was like, no thank you, I won't be doing that. It's like, I don't do this anymore. I'm gonna wait till Game of Thrones comes on TV so I can be in that.

So this is when the movie starts getting, stops being cutesy and starts being quirky where Augusta Winter, he's holding a meeting with all of his other council members but they can't know each other's identities so they're all wearing enormous plush teddy bear costumes. And this I know... I was into it.

This is a thing that I do know is from an episode of the series, as is the MC Escher stares later on. There are these nods to the series, but what's interesting about them is like, while I can't recall whether they make sense in the series, they sure as shit don't make sense here. They're just thrown in. And I can imagine someone who has never seen

an episode of The Avengers being like, what the fuck, why, did you see that he was just wearing a bear costume? I remember reading a review of this movie and it came out and they're like, for no reason at all, why are they meeting in teddy bear costumes? And this was received well by critics of the day. Yeah, this is a huge hit.

Yeah, it won all the major critics. Paul Dorey. Yeah, yeah, best picture. Yeah, sure, sure. So, I mean, it was nominated for a Razzie for worst picture, but it lost. Yeah, I don't care about that. It lost to Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho, which, say what you will about the unnecessariness of that movie, it's basically Psycho.

It's like, don't give it a Razzz, come on, what are you doing? Anyway, this is much worse than that. So anyway, he goes, I understand this is tough, we're all super villains, if anyone doesn't have the stomach for it, tell me now, resign, I'll give you a million dollars. And two teddy bears raise their hands and he throws poison darts into them and kills them both. At that point, I would just quietly leave the organization.

But... And so they're at Wonderland, uh, they walk, Steed and Peele walk into the boardroom and find the dead teddy bear bodies. They, the movie is handing them the clues. And they unmask one of them. Uh-oh, one of the dead ones was one of the Prospero scientists. They chase after some bears.

They split up. There's bears everywhere. John Steed fights Eddie Izzard and some other guys. He uses his umbrella because he's a penguin or something. And Eddie Izzard drives off, but not before first dropping a map to the brawly secret headquarters. Because again, the movie is not since seven, where the movie was like, these guys are just screwing it up. Bad guy, walk into the room and announce yourself to them.

Like David Fincher's off camera being like, one of these idiots is going to figure out it's Kevin Spacey. Just like, Kevin Spacey, just show up, just go. Like David Fincher's the DM and he's like, my players aren't figuring out my mystery. I'm just going to have Strahd walk in here and they'll deal with him. It reminds me, there was a game that you ran us through once

and you were like, afterwards you were like, I set up this clue. If you went were like, I set up this clue. If you went over here, I set up this clue. Our character was just bumbling around doing nothing. And I'm sure I've never sounded more disappointed than my friends. Yeah. So anyway, they... They're on the roof.

Emma Peel is attacked and stalked. She's stalked and attacked by one of the bears. The head comes off. It's the other Emma Peel. And John Steed arrives. there are two Emma Peels. And that second, the evil Emma Peel, runs away by jumping off the top of a building, and you know that she survived because they don't cut to her feeding the ground.

She just jumps into the air. But what if they did? What a beautiful moment it would have been. If they did, it really would have thrown the movie a loop, you know. Instead, she jumps off the building and we cut to the next scene. So did the characters check?

I don't know. Now, I read somewhere that the evil Emma Peel, I guess in the movie is a clone, but originally in the screenplay she was a robot? Well, at one point she was a robot, but in the movie she is supposed to be a clone, but the scene explaining that again was cut. So there's a brief mention of cloning

at one point in the movie. And you just, I mean, the movie is making it easier for the heroes of the movie to solve the mystery than it is making it for the audience to understand the story. Yeah. They don't understand, it's like you want to do the movie makers be like, John Steed and Emma Peel are not the audience for this movie. Like, anyway, they, they, uh, the mother and father are arguing and John Steed explains what's going on.

And it turns out the World Council of Ministers is about to meet in London on the day of the patron saint of weather. Which is a real Batman thing to do. And August de Winter, he's testing out some kind of lightning gun. Wait, wait, wait, wait. August De Winter? Yeah, it's a clever reference to Rebecca. Yes. Just one of many Easter eggs to the work of Daphne DuMoyer

that's riddled throughout the Avengers. If you'll notice, there was a bird in one scene. And that night... And audiences didn't look now at the Avengers. And that night... And audiences didn't look now at the Avengers. Yeah. So that night, Emma Peele, she explains some made-up science stuff

as they play chess to John Steed. And there's more banter. And she's found an area of England that has a cluster of microclimates. Could that be where the bad guys are? I don't know, let's check the map the bad guys dropped. Meanwhile, Father is playing croquet with Augusta Winter. She's in cahoots with him. Oh no, what's gonna happen? Meanwhile, Eddie Izzard's using a remote control

to pilot a swarm of robot bees to attack John Steed and Emma Peel's car. I have to admit that the jump between the croquet game to the bee scene is so abrupt, and I was like, I don't know where the characters are going, I don't know if these bees are something that we're supposed to be surprised by or not. And the bees look tiny until one of them smashes into the car.

It's huge! It's enormous! Yeah. But I think Eddie Azard seems to really be enjoying herself. Yeah. It's a... The bee scene, I gotta give the movie at least this, it was the one time the movie seemed to remember that the heroes should look worried that they're being threatened. Like briefly they're like, oh shit, they're trying to kill us. Yeah, the bees are shooting guns at them and then John Steed's shooting a machine gun at them,

and there's all sorts of crazy car chases. It's just action extraordinaire. And they run the bad guys off the road, and John Cena and the Peeler are stopped by an older woman, a kind of proper lady in the road that's Alice, another spy. She's got a huge machine gun, and she shoots one thug and then scares off another. And she's like, mother and father aren't getting along right now. And I'm worried about what's happening.

I'm going to help you. And she is worried about what's happening. I'm gonna help you. And she is the most competent action hero in the entire movie. Like, she is so very clearly the hero of the movie. She just walks in and she's like, let's go to Augusta Winter's house. I know a back door that we can sneak in through in the hedge maze. And they go in the hedge maze and they go, let's split up.

She was showing you how to get in. Why are you splitting up? It doesn't make any sense. Also when the bad guys have a double of one of them, you shouldn't split up. That's another very good point. They get into different traps. Augusta Winter shows up and fights John Steed. It's an umbrella versus a walking stick.

And he flips John Steed's umbrella into the air and then disappears. And then evil Emma Peel pops out and punches him. And good Emma Peel, I guess. She's strapped into like... It's some kind of weird machine. I assumed it was a brainwashing machine just based on other movies where people are strapped into things. It's not really explained, but Algoswender is like, join me. You won't remember any of this when you wake up,

but join me and do some stuff. And then he dances with her until she faints or falls into a trance. He's about to kiss her, not cool, and then the doorbell interrupts him, and this is the most unbelievable part of the movie. This movie with giant robot bees and a weather machine. Augusta Winter answers his own door.

He's got a huge manor house, he's rich, he has weather machines. He doesn't have a guy who answers the door for him. He's like, I'm in the middle of doing some really evil shit. I gotta do this evil stuff like, oh man, the door. And now to press the button that will blow up all of England. Ding dong. Oh. I'll see who that is.

Excuse me, I'm going door to door telling people about this new solar panel installation plan. You know you can get money from the government to put solar panels on your house. I'm a weather baron, I have solar panels. Okay, yeah, well cool, cool. Anyway, who's your cable provider? Oh, this is making me so... Wow, dude, double duty. I feel like that's an easy sell to a guy who can control the weather is solar panels.

Yes, that's true. He's got unlimited power. Okay, come in, come in. Tell me all about it. I'll get back to my evil later, yeah, exactly. He's got unlimited power. Easy sell. Okay, come in, come in. Tell me all about it. I'll get back to my evil later. Yeah, exactly. So, Alice is at the door.

She's pretending to sell church raffle tickets. Then she just pulls a gun out and says, where's Emma Peel? Like, way to blow cover, you know? And Emma Peel walks around very woozy, and she's wandering through the bowels of the house and she's trapped in these like MC Escher-esque loop stairs and rooms. This scene is great. This where she's... I'm a sucker for any scene where someone runs out of a room

and then by some dimensional magic ends up back in the same room. I go, that's one of my favorite creepy things. Yeah. Although apparently the way to solve this, you know, physics-bending room is just to smash the window and go out that way. Yes, but it's... The window has been disguised as a mirror. Oh. So unless she's Angus Scrimm from the Phantasm movies, she doesn't know to smash through a mirror.

She doesn't look at that and think of it as an exit. Yeah. She's not, though. That's just to be clear. Yes, yes. In case anyone's wondering, she's not Angus Scrimm from the Phantasm movies. At no point does she tell anyone that they play a good game, boy. In fact, quite the opposite. She tells John Steed he is not good at chess. Oh, interesting. She's like the anti-Angus Grimm.

I miss that little Easter egg. That's a little Phantasm Easter egg. Yeah, Don Cascarelli was on the set and they were like, Hey Don, throw in a line. You're not good at games, boy. So, she hears John Steed tapping on a window with his umbrella. Something you would not do unless you needed to notify someone on the other side that it's a window. And she hurls, she jumps through the mirror and it leads outside, but she is knocked out. And then Eddie Izzard knocks out Alice. Emma Peel awakes in John Steed's flat.

Fair is fair. If one character wakes up after being knocked out in one flat, it must happen the other way. That's called, what, symmetry. You know, that's narrative symmetry. And he's like, here are the boots I ordered for you from my tailor's. And he flirt banters with her as he takes her boots off and puts the boots back on. Something that another movie might be sexy. Yeah. But here he just seems like a boot salesman. Which, I don't want to shame anybody.

Maybe you think that's sexy, that's okay. Yeah, yeah. I love married with children. That's what he does, right? Yeah, for anyone with a married with children fetish. Wait, wait, wait. I remember when I went to school in Germany in like 2000, 2001. And for some reason, like, married with Children merch was so fucking popular. Like, watching German dudes walk around

wearing Polkheye football jerseys, it was so funny to me. Because it feels like something that you would have no, I don't know, it feels like something you wouldn't have context with if you're like a German person. Yeah, they would be like, they'd be like, why is he not trying hard at his job?

I don't understand. He seems to not understand that if he is a shoe salesman, that is the role he has been fitted for by the state. So you posit that they are studying it to try and figure out what is wrong with this man and how they can avoid it. It's a brilliant character study of a twisted mind. A man who refuses to accept what reality is telling him, which is that he should be trying harder to sell shoes. Anyway, married mid-children, married mid-kinder.

We have no German word for married, so it's called married mitkinder. The only true marriage is between a human soul and the spirit of destiny. I took two semesters of German in college. I know it's all about. Yeah, sure. So, they're about to kiss, but nobody gets to kiss Uma Thurman in this movie right away because they're about to kiss when father and mother and some agents burst in and arrest Emma Peel. They've done the thing that they probably should have done earlier on.

Meanwhile, storm clouds are gathering over London. And they're not metaphorical storm clouds. They're real storm clouds. To quote William Joel, a storm front is coming. That plays better in New York. America's greatest poet. I mean it's either him or what, Mariah Carey? Sure.

So as storm clouds gather, John Steed goes to the Ministry Archives, which is staffed by an invisible man. This is Patrick McNeese's voice. Okay, Patrick McNeese, the original John Steed. This is a little cameo. He said, you can have my voice, but I will not show my face in this movie. He was very old, I think he was in his 90s, so that also probably... He could have still played the main character. And so we've got to bring you out of retirement, John Steed.

I'm in my 90s. We'll do it anyway. Yeah. I mean, that would explain the sluggishness of the action scenes. They were choreographed for a man in his 90s. And Steed's like, I found this evil map that the bad guys dropped. Can you tell me about it? And the invisible man is like, yeah, I have all the information that you need.

It was on hand in the archives the whole time. I will say, and this is one of those things too, where it's like, if it's the kind of movie where someone will casually show up as invisible movie, you can't just start doing that two-thirds of the way through. You got to prepare me for that kind of thing. So meanwhile, Emma Peel, she's in a padded room talking to Father. She is losing her sanity. She's acting frantic. She's not making any sense.

She has stopped making sense, just like that movie told her to. And Father, with evil Emma Peel, they spray knockout gas at good Emma Peel. Oh, no! Why are they doing this? It doesn't help their plan at all. What is this, Speed 2? Why would you bring the woman who can stop you, whose romantic interest is the man who can stop you with you when you're doing your evil thing. Leave her in the padded room in a straight jacket.

Anyway, John Steed learns that Augusto winter used to work for the government. He was kicked out. He's always been close to father and she sold him ministry land on island in London from where he's controlling the weather. This is all information they had the whole time. Yeah.

If they had ended the movie with that guy from the beginning being like, well, you passed the test, Agent Steed. I would have been like, yeah, makes sense, sure. Is this also sort of around the time that the bad guy just reveals himself by coming in and threatening everyone? That's the Council of Ministers, is there an emergency session? They're addressing the disaster weather that is sweeping the globe, a real problem we are now dealing with.

That they are not taking as seriously as the fake weather in the movie. And August Winder enters. It's Sean Connery. You know he's gonna be in a kilt and kind of Scottish garb. He announces. Yeah, he's really cheesing it up, right?

He's really enjoying himself here. Yeah, he is. He announces he has control of the weather of the world. He plans to destroy London, the city he is currently in, as a start. Then he will hold the world for ransom to his deadly weather. He gives them until midnight and he is asking for 10% of GNP annually. That's a lot of money. This is one of these scenes in a movie like this. I mean, I understand that the thought is, okay, like, no matter what, he's got

this weather controlling device, device, he's got minions, you know, but he's not that many, he doesn't have one to open his doors and shit. Yeah. Imagine if he had some minions from Despicable Me run around his house. But they're just saying banana a lot, so they're not really a threat. He walks into this room filled with people and no one's just like, get him! He's wearing a kilt, kick him in the nuts. He doesn't even have the protection of pants on his lower legs.

That's a good point, Dan. But you should remember, this is Sean Connery. People are scared of him. They saw Zardoz. They know what he's capable of, yeah. And he was wearing even fewer clothes. Less clothes? I don't speak English. I don't know. So anyway, they're in trouble. What are they gonna do? Meanwhile, where were we? Oh yes. Mother

reveals herself as a secret agent, bad guy to father, points a gun at him in the snow, and evil M-Appeal is carrying is carrying good Emma Peel. And then father knocks mother over, and mother just ends up lying in the snow. He's just lying there in the snow. And the one funny moment I found in the movie is eventually John Steed runs up and he's like, you gotta go save Dr. Peel and stop the bad guys. And he goes to help mother get him.

He goes, don't worry about me, I'll be fine. And he goes, okay, and runs off, leaving mother lying in the snow. It would have taken him moments to just set him in his chair at least. Ten seconds more and you put the man back. That was the funniest joke in it. So John Steed, he finds the padded room they kept him. He's got a computer pocket watch, much like Penny's computer book from Inspector Gadget. And he's tracking something. We will later find out he secretly put a tracking device

in the boots he ordered for Emma Peel. Creepy. Creepy behavior. Secret agent stuff. Emma Peel wakes up. He was always waking up to find themselves in places. I'm like, what did Raymond Chandler write this? What's going on? And she wakes up. She's in a hot air balloon over London with father and bad Emma Peel. Why'd they bring her? I don't know. And Mother points to Steed, and he's like, go to the balloon, go to the balloon, leave him behind. Emma Peel, on her own, disables part of the balloon. It drifts off course. Bad Emma Peel fights good Emma Peel.

The balloon eventually, it crashes through the top of Nelson's column, and then Emma Peel, the good one, falls off of it. Again, the Peels are impervious to falling damage because she's fine. Nothing bad happens to her. And the balloon crashes into a Wonderland weather sign that was not adequately set up as a thing that was there for them to crash into.

It explodes. John Steed, he finds the peel on the ground. She's alive. He was tracking the tag in her boots. They kiss, finally. But John Steed is like, well, that kiss was just to test your identity. I can't admit that I have emotions in any way. They kiss, finally, but John Steed is like, well, that kiss was just to test your identity.

I can't admit that I have emotions in any way. And anyway, the mother, now back and on the phone again, assures the prime minister his agents are on the weather case. This scene is useless. If you're going to cut anything, cut the scene where mother is informing the prime minister of something we know already. John Steed and Emma Peel, now it's

time for them to bring the fight to August to winter. They're in giant inflatable globes that let them walk on water like they're at spring break or something in front of 3D. This was in like the trailer, right? I feel like this was like one of the big images of the trailer. Yeah, it's iconic. Yeah, yeah. It is.

They walk across the river, they go to De Winter's Island weather station. There's another dead Prospero scientist in a bear suit. Who cares? They get into this, they get into a phone booth. Emma Peel knows the secret code to use it to get into the weather lab. A secret code that was set up in a scene that appears in the trailer for the movie but does not appear in the movie. So it just seems like she knows, she just knows a password somehow. There's a lot of going down spiral stairs for a while.

Anyway, they split up again. Emma Peel goes to shut down the machine, which involves walking on a tightrope to a big globe that she's got to crawl inside of and then pull wires out of. And De Winter, John Steed is going to go fight August De Winter. They're fighting on a catwalk of some kind. There's water underneath. When she's going to go shut down the machine,

that's when Eddie Izzard shows up. Apparently his character's name is Bailey. This is told to the audience late. It doesn't matter. Who cares? She eventually defeats him. He falls to his death. He doesn't have the Peele sisters falling in vulnerability. This is all very edifying too,

because I watched this movie on the plane coming over here. Your preferred way to watch planes. To watch movies, yeah. Longtime listeners of the Flophouse know, Dan's favorite movie theater is in the air. Yeah, your emotions are heightened, you know, it works on you. This was the moment at which the couple next to me, otherwise seemed very nice, you know, the woman offered me some food she wasn't eating, but they chose this moment. Don't eat that, damn. They chose this moment to not get a drink from the beverage cart that was coming down

their side of the aisle over here, but to order across me two vodkas and apple juices, the drink of toddlers. And alcohol and toddler. Were you like, I wanna get in on this shit. I also had a couple sitting next to me and they seemed very unhappy with what I was watching. And it was kind of an older German couple,

and now I realize they just really wanted to ask me about marrying with children. I know! They're like, finally, we're sitting next to an American. We can ask him about Al Bundy. I don't have to wait till he's finished with his film before we can ask him. My German accent is turning more and more Scandinavian

as it goes on. So Eddie is at fault for his death. The London blizzard's getting worse. Steed finds De Winter's control area. There's sword fighting, there's water, there's lightning. Uh oh, lightning hits Big Ben Tower, blows it up. Oh no, it's gonna be so expensive to fix that. And Peel's trying to deactivate the machine.

August De Winter overpowers John Steed very easily. Launches him over a railing, and then John Steed just climbs up the other side of the railing, and then John Steed just climbs up the other side of the railing. Is he Bugs Bunny? Like, what happened? I don't know how he did it. Ultimately, John Steed stabs Augusta Winter

with his sword cane that acts as a lightning rod. Lightning then hits the sword and pulls Augusta Winter up into the sky, like a lasso, like a lightning lasso. Is he Pecos Bill? What's going on? He must... That must like... If you love the weather, getting killed by lightning's got to be your like number one way to go. Oh, for sure.

I assume it's Thor from the future being like, Avengers belongs to us. It's very funny to me that a movie that's so based on the idea of weather didn't bother to research whether lightning can pull you places. It's not like an electric rope anyway. That's why Ben Franklin did all that stuff with the kite. He's like, it'll pull me up. I'll be the kite then.

Finally, my dream of being a kite. My dream. Because he was auditioning for the role of the kite on Pee Wee's Playhouse. I need to get experience if I'm going to win this part. This is all important American history. Yeah, we all learned this in school. Everyone knows the story of Ben Franklin and The Kite

and the Pee Wee's Playhouse audition that failed. Anyway, that was the name of it. That's a Metallica song, isn't it? The Pee Wee's Playhouse audition that failed. Yeah. Yeah, that was the name of it. That's a Metallica song, isn't it? The Peabees Playhouse edition that failed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So a tornado's smashing up London, but Emma Peel pulls the right wire. All the weather stuff shuts off immediately. Then she

dives into the water so that she can climb back up again out of the water and be reunited with John Steed. But the auto-destruct goes off and it just blows up, it's fine. They don't have to do anything. They don't have to escape or anything, it's fine. So wait a minute, is the standard state of all weather

no weather? Like, wouldn't it just keep doing what it's doing for a little while, or? I don't know a lot about mad scientist weather science. Okay. But in real life, yeah, weather doesn't just stop when you flip the switch. You know, it would keep doing stuff, you know? Yeah, I think it would more gradually return to stasis probably.

Not right away. Fancy words here. I can use words. Can you go to my house and explain to my kids the concept of entropy? Because I could not get it across to them. The concept of entropy? Yeah. Just show it across to them. The concept of entropy? Yeah. Yeah, just show a picture of yourself from like 10 years ago

and then be like, same dude. No, because I don't want to give entropy the credit for that. I point to that picture and I go, you did this to me, children. Elliot, I have to admit, now, it's very echoey up on stage. I have to assume it's slightly better out there because people are laughing. But I heard, when you said entropy, I heard, can you explain the concept of denture baby? Yeah, denture baby.

So when babies are born, they don't have teeth, right? Well, maybe they can have some with denture babies. Join me, won't you, as we go through the wonderful world of teeth for babies. Yeah, the concept of teething is when babies are crying because they want their dentures. Yeah. They're like, wang.

They have tooth jealousy. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Freud talks about tooth envy in babies. Yeah. Oh, I want to eat steak and corn on the cob. Don't worry, baby. You will. Be patient.

Be patient. No. Don't grow up too fast, baby. I want to grow up now. Give me my dentures. How do you have a tattoo already, baby? What's going on? Anyway, Mother calls the Prime Minister. The weather is done. But Emma Peel and John Steed have not returned. The next day, Augusta Winter's control pod surfaces in the Thames. Steed and Peel are fine. Why did they do that?

Why do they have a scene where they're like, they've never been heard from again? And then like two seconds later, they're like, here they are, yeah, let's celebrate. It feels, we've said this before about other movies, it feels like someone heard how a movie is supposed to go and then made the movie and they're like, yeah, yeah. And then the hero, like everyone's supposed to think

they're dead and then they come back and they're not dead. They've arrived again, but they just do it not good. Yeah, it's like in the 50 Shades of Grey movie where they're like, oh, Christian Grey's plane went down, then a second later he walks in the door, and they're like, I guess you're cool, okay. It's like, my new kink is making everyone think I died in a helicopter crash.

It's a good one. It puts me in mind of the next movie we're gonna talk about, Spice World, which very charmingly keeps introducing a problem and then immediately resolving it. That's true, yeah. But they do that on purpose. We're now at the final scene, perhaps maybe one of the most unnecessary scenes in the movie, which is just Emma Peel and John Steed and Mother having champagne together. That's it.

And there's no like, I think you two are gonna work together real well from Nisan. From now on. They're just like, yeah, well, we went through that, didn't we? We sure did. Cheers. And then that's the end of the movie. It's, it is a movie that at times I was like, did they think they were making an episode of a television show? Because that's what it feels like. It feels like it doesn't take it. They're like, join us next week for the next movie, you know. Never. And this was And this was a launching pad for Sir Sean Connery, right? He went on to make a lot of good movies after this.

This was Sean Connery's breakthrough role, yeah. After slaving away in the obscurity of the James Bond series and the Untouchables. Yeah. What's weird is that this was not the movie that drove him to retirement. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was the movie there where he said, I'm not doing this again ever. And tell Sir Billy, I'm going to come back to make Sir Billy.

Hello. Hey, is this Meredith? It is. This is Alex Schmidt from Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. I'm calling because you have been named the Maximum Fun Member of the Month for the month of December. Hooray! Yeah!

As the member of the month, you are going to get a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fun store, you get a special Member of the Month bumper sticker, and you get to use a special parking spot at the Maximum Fund headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Definitely getting plenty of return on my investment. I have not worked through all the bonus content yet. If you're a Max Fund member, you can become the next Max Fund member of the month. Support us at MaximumFun.org slash join. the month, support us at maximafund.org slash join. Hello teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney,

is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Hey, it's Dan here, breaking in on this live episode for some sponsor and podcast announcements. But first, what a joy it was to be in Oxford

at their brand new St. Audio Podcast Festival. Thank you to them for having us. It was a dream to finally get out of the continental, the continent of North America, go somewhere else with a podcast and see a bunch of listeners in the UK. But this episode is sponsored in part by Aura Frames. Isn't it funny how the people we love most

are often the hardest to shop for? Luckily, there's one gift everyone on your wish list is, everyone on your wish list, everyone on your list. Geez, are you gonna wish for these people? Everyone on your list is sure to enjoy an Aura digital picture frame. It's named number one. Number one, that's the best of the numbers

in a list form by Wirecutter. Aura Frames makes it incredibly easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame, and when you give one as a gift, you can personalize it by preloading it with a thoughtful message and photos with the Aura app, making it an ideal present for long distance loved ones. It's a gift so special,

they will use it every day as we do in our own home. You know, this is a very good gift for family or loved ones where you can put new photos on, not even before you give it to them, but after you have given it to them. From a distance, you can update your loved ones with new photos of what's going on in your life with an Aura frame. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off or is best selling Carver Matte Frames

by using promo code FLOP at checkout. That is A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code FLOP. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. And we got a couple of Jumbotrons here. The first is for Kalina the Cutthroat by British Fantasy Award finalist Elijah Kintz-Spector.

It is a queer fantasy novel about con artistry, dark magic, and relying on mutual aid when systems fail us. There's also a book that is partially, that was partially written at Stewart's Bar Henshelins. Wow, Henshelins is now a literary hub. Featuring immersive, world-building, complex characters, thoughtful politics, goofy bullshit, I like that,

and at least one wizard, Kalina the Cutthroat, is out November 26th. And if you're wondering how to spell Kalina for Googling purposes, it is spelled K-A-L-Y-N-A. I'll assume you can handle the Cutthroat on your own. Order Kalina the Cutthroat by Elijah Kinch Specter through your local bookstore or online, also available in audiobook. And we've got one more Jumbotron. This is for Tom.

It is from Walt. The message goes as follows. For 10 years, I've used Facebook to warn of the dark powers of the Tom, but still his power grows and I'm desperate. So I'll use his favorite podcast against him to all within the sound of this flapper's voice, beware, Tom's birthday is nigh and he is an actual literal monster.

Cower if you see him approach, but know his wrath comes for us all. So that's for Tom from Walt, who's doing a bit of negging there. But happy birthday, Tom. And now for a few flop-specific announcements. The next episode of FlopTV is tonight, provided that you are listening to this on the day of release. That is Saturday, December the 7th.

We'll be discussing Highlander 2, The Quickening. You can watch along with our FlopTV stream at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 Eastern if you want to see it live and chat along with other viewers. But ticket holders can also view on demand until the end of February. Just go to theflophouse.simpletix.com for tickets. or get a season pass and pay $35, which is the equivalent of getting one show for free. That's right, a price break in bulk for FlopTV. Also, if you prefer seeing us truly live, that is in person, where you could reach out and touch us,

but please do not touch us. We're going to be back at San Francisco SketchFest on Sunday, January 9th, and we'll be back on Sunday, that is in person where you could reach out and touch us, but please do not touch us. We're going to be back at San Francisco SketchFest on Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 7 p.m. at Cobbs Comedy Club. So if you live in the Bay Area or if you're willing to travel, check us out at SketchFest.

For tickets, go to sfsketchfest.com. And now, back to the show. Hey, we should do our final judgments, whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kinda like. I will say that this is a bad bad movie. Be careful, be careful. You might lose the British audience.

Yes. Dan, Dan, Dan, Ray Fine's parents are in the audience tonight. I believe it can only endear us to this audience to say that the American version of a beloved British thing is not very good and in this case it is not very good. It is inexplicable, disjointed, not thrilling, yeah. Yeah, I would agree that it's bad bad, although... When I first flew over here, I was having some trouble with jet lag, and it helped me fall asleep. I will say...

It's a bad bad movie, with the small caveat... Maybe it was because I was also watching it on a plane, and the oxygen was so low in my brain. But as it went on, it still wasn't good, but there were times where I was like, you know what, movie, I'm kind of charmed by how little you're trying. It betrays a confidence in what they're doing that it shouldn't have, but it's like the thing where you see someone who is bad at a thing doing it with so much assumption that they can do it, that by the end you're like, well, I'm entertained by that aspect of it.

But it's like when you see a baby try to chew corn on the cob or something like that. It's like, baby, you're not equipped for this, but he thinks he is. It's cute. It's adorable. So it sounds like it almost reaches good-bad quality for you. Almost. I think the middle of the... I mean, I think the second half of the movie is good bad to me, because it's so disjointed and it's so like, kooky crazy, but the first half of the movie is very boring. So skip to the middle, who cares?

Or watch something else, you know? No one's making you watch the Avengers. So looking at the time, let's take four or five questions tops. We're going to answer them quick. Okay, it's question time, everybody. And then we'll turn the room over for the next show. Thank you for coming to this one. Thanks so much. We really appreciate it.

I'm going to say my thing that I always say at the top. We want great questions from everybody. So before you ask your question, think to yourself. Would anyone else in this room be interested in this question? And also, everyone, a lot of times when we do these shows, people at the top, they like to tell us how great we are. We're not that great. But also, we really appreciate that you're here.

So, we know you love us. And this is perfect. Five people have queued up. No more. Queued up? Oh, five people have queued up, Daniel. Oh, well. Someone's been in England for three days.

Queued up, Daniel. Oh, well. Someone's been in England for three days. Cued up. Wow. I got booed so heartily at last night's Spice World screening that I need to pander now. How late were you up thinking about getting booed last night? I had the gall to suggest that while I love the Spice Girls, they were engineered. Which is simply a fact.

They answered an advertisement, people. I want Dan to start going, you're sheep, all of you. I also love the monkeys who answered an advertisement. It's fine anyway. Next thing you're going to tell me, the Muppets didn't really get together on their own. Yes, please, question. Thank you. Hi, Elizabeth, last name withheld. I was just wondering if you guys already have any ideas for other bad British movies that

you might watch next time that you do a show here. Oh, other bad British movies. We wanted to suggest The Beast Must Die, but I would like to hear if you guys already have any ideas. I'm... See... The thing that I sort of suggested in my presentation is like, only the best culture from other countries sort of like makes it to our shores, so it's hard to know...

It's the opposite of beer, where the best beer tends to be kept from America, from other countries. I am told that there's a movie about potato men that is not good, but I don't know much about it. Like Mr. Potato Head? Is Sex Life a potato man? Is this a thing? Am I getting this correct? Okay. What do you... Do you have anything?

I mean, I'd have to do some more research, is the thing, because I feel like there is a... There's a period when, I'd have to do some more research, is the thing, because I feel like there's a period when, I guess post-Full Monty, when I said, England, I'm going to take a break from your movies for a while. Because they were all kind of the same movie. It was all like, check out these blue collar guys who are going to do something. Or check out these old men who are going to do something. Or check out these old ladies who are going to something. Or, check out these old ladies who are gonna do something.

And I'm like... Often nude. Yeah. And I'm like, England, you're supposed to be making horror movies that are more creepy than scary. Come on, what are you doing? I don't know, like, there was a period of time where I was working for an English company,

and my boss is English, and he kept bringing me DVDs of Danny Dyer movies, and those were all pretty bad. Oh, you hit a nerve. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks very much. Hi, Andrew, last name withheld.

Fun fact, Emma Peel's name is apparently a pun because she was the appeal to men, the sex appeal, the M appeal. What are your favourite absurdly contrived names from movies? Absurd... I mean, this is a TV show. There's a TV show on America right now called Tracker. And the main character... His name should be Tracker, but it's not.

His first name is Coulter, which I think is a very funny first name for a TV character to have, because it's like... Even Colton would be kind of like a too cool name for this character, but Coulter is like, they put another twist on it. But a contrived name for a movie. Okay, hold on. Eww. While you think, like, Tracker was very heavily promoted during the Super Bowl,

a thing that I don't care about, but as an American, I'm contractually obligated to still watch. And I was just... I found myself... My mind was taken by Tracker. Like, don't you understand? He tracks people. He's really good at tracking things. No one's better at tracking.

He can't find them. He just tracks them to a certain place and then stops. He always has to be at least 100 feet behind them, yeah. Uh, I mean, what is it? Elan's Lise Bagano from the Stones, episode two, sells death sticks? What's Rob De Niro's name in, what is it, Devil Heart, Angel Heart? Oh, yeah. He's like... Lewis Cipher?

Yeah, Lewis Cipher. That's the best one, I think. That's the Cipher name. I'm going to throw my support behind Lewis Cipher. They might, Lewis Cypher. That's the best one, I think. That's Cypher. I'm going to throw my support behind Lewis Cypher. They might have just named him Stand, or something like that. Yeah. My name is D.Evil. Thank you.

My name is B for Bob, L.Zabub. B.L.Zabub, Bob Lawrence Zabub. Hey, Tobias, last name we've held. So we've got a classic weather machine, super villain weapon being used in this movie. What would you say are your preferred super villain world destroying device? If you were going to try and destroy the world, because you might have a...

We're all doing it together. We're all doing it together as a species. It's the most successful project humanity's ever embarked on. Like that wall in China is pretty good, but I think if we as a species got together, we could destroy the whole planet. A really good machine for it. Weather is pretty classic. Like a space laser is kind of boring, but you know, like, it's got a certain brute force charm. You can't argue for efficient... It's the most efficient way to do it.

If you've seen Star Wars, they blow up that planet fast. Even if it's just a big, like, giant magnifying glass that you put in front of the sun. Yeah, yeah, that'd do it, I think, yeah. What about one of those things that just summons godzillas? Like something that summons a bunch of Godzilla's? Yeah, yeah. Godzilla summoner. Yeah.

I think there's a... Yeah, well now you've got me thinking about that. Because if I'm going to make something that destroys the world, I want it also to very easily kill me in the process. So if the good guys stop me, I'm like, oh, why did I summon all these Godzilla's? Yeah, I mean, you're making me think of Geostorm, where there's the plot to kill the President,

which is to create a Geostorm. And it's like, that's going to kill a lot of other people, and maybe not the President? It's like me and the Geostorm, we have an agreement. It's going to get everyone around me, but not me. You're holding up a headshot to the Geostorm, like, this is him, this guy. And then I say, robot duplicate of the president.

Gets in there, breaks stuff, you know? And everyone's like, why is the president doing this? And I know it's because he's a robot. And the robot knows it's because he's a robot. And the real president knows he's been replaced by a robot. Nobody else knows. Till it's too late. Classic. Stealthy. Yeah, very stealthy.

The perfect crime. There's no law against it. If they arrest me, I'm like, show me in the law book where it says you can't replace the president with a robot. Well, we never had to write one. There's no laws on the books about it. Thought I was implied. And I guess that dog can play basketball. Yes. Sean, last name withheld.

I watched this film a few days ago. It was... You loved it? Painful experience. So I just want to talk about a better aspect of British culture and ask Stu when are we going to get some analysis on slang or at the very least when two worlds collide. Oh, I've forgotten the name now.

You're asking about slan? Slang. Slang? The album after Adrenaline. Oh, shit, okay. And for everyone else, what's your favorite Def Leppard song? So sometimes when a band like Def Leppard

has made hit after hit after hit, sometimes you gotta get a bad one out of you, you know? And that one's slang, which is how we pronounce it. And yeah, it's kind of a bummer, but I feel like they turned it around a little bit in euphoria, you know, like not the show euphoria, the album by Def Leppard. But yeah, I mean, it's a bummer and that's okay.

I feel like it makes the other ones feel better by comparison. What a charming way to do it. You've got to have low standards for leopards that can't even hear. It's making music. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, how is it? It's the Beethoven of leopards.

Yeah. Thank you. I think it's about three or four years I've been waiting for that closure. Yeah. All right, this is the last question. I was like this close to buying a deaf leopard sweatshirt at Primark today. Yeah.

Yes. Hey, so I'm Mark, last name withheld. I saw this film at 17 when it came out in the cinema. I paid for this. And then you, I mean, you really paid when you watched it, yeah. And I think as a kid, I loved movies and this was the first film I saw just like you with Christmas Vacation.

I came out of it and was like, holy shit, films can be bad. Like I had the same experience. So I think my question is, what was something you saw in a film, could be recent, could be much further back, but that you saw was like, this broke something I always believed about films. It could be good or bad. That's a very good question that I wish I had time to think about. But we're under the gun here. Whenever we get a good question, I'm like, oh, no. No, no, no, no.

Yeah! Um... I mean, the... I don't know. This is not something that I saw... Well, it's something I've seen recently, but it's a movie that I saw a long time ago also. Recently, my wife and I went to go see a screening of the movie The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh,

which we saw when we were first dating when it came out in theaters the first time. And it's an amazing movie. And that's one of those movies where like, it's a movie that is so kind of, so pretentiously up its own butt at times, but it's so beautiful. And there's things in that movie where I'm like,

oh, I didn't know you could make a movie like this. This movie that is like, the story is kind of feels like it's being made up as it goes along to a certain extent and there's a child performer in it who is clearly an amateur but she's so charismatic and she's it she's holding Lee pace right well she's holding her own with Lee pace so yeah Lee pace the child performer and but like and then you're watching images in it where you're like how did they make make that image? Like, how did they do that? And so that's one where I'm like,

oh, there's stuff they're doing in this movie that I've never seen before. I really love it. It's one of those movies where you show it to someone and half the time they're like, what am I watching? Like, what are you doing to me? I think for me, I remember loving a lot of Hong Kong cinema and martial arts movies like Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat.

And then when they started coming over and doing American English language stuff, I'm like, man, this is terrible. And it's because they, you know, it's realizing like, oh, these actors who are such great performers in the hands of somebody who doesn't know how to make a good movie, they're wasted. I wish I had an answer, but I don't.

And so, in the interest of moving us along, I won't try. But, if you can catch me afterwards, I'll think of something. Uh, one more... He does mean catch, like he's gonna run away. Yeah, yeah. Catch me if you can! Hee hee hee! Uh, thank you. We have one last question.

Shit. A lot of pressure. Sorry, am I allowed to swear? one last question. Shit. Sorry, am I allowed to swear? Wow, okay. Calm down sir. You don't really have to rush. First off, I just want to say thanks so much guys for coming over here for the first time ever. Thank you. Thanks for everyone here.

Thanks so much. And thanks for just taking our brains away from themselves when we listen to you guys for hours after hours, over and over and over again. Question time. I've got one and a half questions. Uh-oh. The half question I'll go with first. Elliot, have you gone to that Popeyes over there?

No. I promised my wife I would not go to the Popeyes while I was here. She said, I'll be so mad at you if you spend time in England going to Popeyes, a place that we have in our neighborhood that you go to already too much. Popeyes is rare over here, so... When you walk into the one in your neighbor, they're like, hey! It's like Norm and Cheers. Exactly. The huge Mr. K, you know it.

I say break that promise, go to the Popeyes. But, you know, do I say break that promise, go to the Popeyes. Okay. Do you? Proper question though. Okay, I gotta go. This film apparently had like half an hour of cut material. I believe the next film also had about half an hour of cut material. One of my favorite films, Event Horizon,

apparently secretly had half an hour of cut material. Do you guys have any films that you've heard that there's like this secret extra cut material that doesn't exist anywhere in the world that you'd love to see? I mean, the classic one is there's a lost version of the Magnificent Ambersons that I would love to see as it was originally intended. I mean, because I love the movie as it exists. So I doubt very much that the original vision of Orson Welles was worse than what we got. And I, this is the other classic one, I want to see that seven, eight, nine hour greed

that Eric Von Stroheim made and they were like, what are you doing? And they were like, you have to cut this to an hour and a half and he cut it down. He's like, four hours is the best I can do. And then they fired him. But I really, I'd love to sit through that. Because there's a restored version of Greed that's like three and a half hours long or so. And they just use stills for all those scenes. And it's amazing.

It's an amazing movie, even as remnants. I'm just learning that you can cut stuff out of movies now. Stewart thought it actually happened, yeah. I'll have to think of something later. Stewart thinks that movies are just shot. Thank you so much. Cheers, thank you. Thank you to everyone here.

Thank you to the St. Audio Podcast Festival. Thank you to Oxford Town Hall. Thank you. We got another one coming up. Thank you again. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stewart Wellington. I'm Elliot Cailin. Thank you, everybody. Thank you again. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Cailin. Thank you everybody.

Thank you for being here in this cavernous space. space. I think this is probably the nicest room we've been in, right? Yeah, no, by far the nicest room. What about when we played the Las Vegas Sphere? What about that? Wait, or did I dream that? You're thinking of U2. Oh, right. That was not us. It's going to be so cool when we play the Sphere and they play that with no sound. All on the Sphere. It'll be amazing. Um, thank you for being here. This is the first time we've been, well, not been in the UK.

We've all been in the UK. He did. Couldn't get a third of the way through that sentence without having to add a proviso. The first time we've done a show outside of the continental North America. That's true. Yep. So, thank you. We brought all of our A-game England material. We're podcasting on the other side of the stage.

Damn, I don't have any more England material.