The Flop House - Ep.#448 - Heartbeeps

Episode Date: March 29, 2025

We tie a bow around Max Fun Drive 2025 and our “Movies Without Spider-Man” series with (?) Paul Schrader's (?) magnum opus, Heartbeeps. It's the classic tale of a guy robot and a girl robot in love and also there's a bad stand-up comic robot and a mean cop robot and a baby robot and Andy Kaufman does one of the world's most irritating voices and what the fuck is this thing?Wikipedia page for HeartbeepsRecommended in this episode:Dan: Black Bag (2025)Stu: Rap World (2024)Elliott: The Comic (1969) MaxFunDrive ends on March 28, 2025! Support our show now and get access to bonus content by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

On this episode we discuss heartbeats. Uh-uh-uh, Academy Award nominee heartbeats. For funniest movie. No. Half of that's true. Hey everyone and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stewie Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin and Dan, is anything special happening right now? Yeah, yeah, shut up Elliot Kalin because I got to talk to these people about stuff

that I deserve that. It's Max Fun Drive. It's the I mean it just you know technically just ended, but you know what there's a there's a weekend amnesty Shh, don't tell anyone and Max Fun Drive is the one time a year we come to you and ask essentially Hey, if you like the show why not tip us for that? You know, help us keep making it. If you spend say like $5 a month on a fancy coffee, maybe get some less fancy coffee and support a show that you love and has become a valued part of your life.

We'll talk more about it later. But if you join now at maximumfun.org org slash join you can safely ignore all following messages Which is a tremendous value in and of itself So right now let's get back to the show though, which is we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it and today We're watching one again. No spider-man to be seen anywhere in this film. I was my peepers were peeled Yeah, cuz you know we because we made the bold claim that there's no Spider-Man and heart beeps, but we didn't go through frame by frame to make sure.

We did check it ahead of time. We did not do a research ahead of time. And since we advertised that Max Fun Drive's theme would be no Spider-Man movies, as listeners know we did Kraven, we did Venom, and now heart beeps, it really would have been a real kick in the keister if we all watched Spider-Man and just strolled past the camera. It would have been such a kick in the keister if one of the Spider-Man had just strolled past the camera.

It would have been such a flop house moment, right? Like a classic flop house whoopsie doodle. We'd be pointing to the screen like Leo DiCaprio in the meme, but we would be unhappy. Yeah, we'd be texting each other, guys, I got some bad news. Oh no. Now, this is, so this movie heart beeps.

It's been a long time joke on the podcast because Stuart decided arbitrarily at some point that Paul Schrader had written and directed it. But there is a Paul Schrader connection kind of to this movie, right Stuart? Yeah, so, oh, I get, let me pull that up. But while I'm talking about it, guys, you know, every once in a while, I'm, you know,

I'm willing to eat a little crow here and there. And- Yeah, delicious. Crows, you know, to eat a little crow here and there. And I've been watching... Crows, they hold a grudge. They do. Crows genuinely do. A crow will remember you and they will tell other crows about you. Crows are some of the smartest birds. This asshole ate a crow? I mean, if I ate it, it's probably not going to be chatting.

It's not like we send emails from my tummy. Crows, friends and neighbors crows would be like, they'd be like, that's the guy that Bill went home with and we never saw him again. That's what the crows would be saying about you. Yeah, that's fair. So just letting everyone know, you know, I talked a big game, but watching this movie, guys,

I think Paul Schrader didn't have anything to do with making this movie. I don't think he... I think Paul Schrader didn't have anything to do with making this movie. Oh, the scales have all fallen from his eyes. I don't think he wrote it or directed it, and I was so sure. And guys, I don't know what to think anymore. Have I misremembered other things in the movie? It's possible. I mean, you did once misremember that someone ripped their own ding-dong off in a movie. You know, life in America feels like the sand is like falling away beneath our feet right now. Oh yeah, the ground is constantly shifting.

That's the last thing that we thought was certain that Palschraders did. As the rules of a society fall apart, we knew for sure that at least Palschrader was the creative vision behind Heart Beeps. But it turns out that Palschrader, who seems to specialize in stories of individual men for the most part with shadowy pasts who keep diaries and find themselves pushed to a to a philosophical or ethical kind of Breaking point or conundrum point that the story of two robots in love that wander around for a while was not was not a Palscher joint this time. So what other what other pop culture things do I not remember right? Is Lord of the Rings not awesome?

Did those nerds in Revenge of the Nerds not commit crimes? Oh, they did commit crimes. They did, yeah. At least one. What else am I not... Listeners, write in if I've made any other Rootsy Doodles. Yeah, write in because you're familiar with Stewart's brain. There's like 17 years of my unsulterable brain on tape, Dan.

Stewart, at least you do remember the Genie movie that Sinbad, the comedian, made called Shazam, right? You remember that? Yeah, of course I remember that. Okay, good, a lot of people think that didn't exist. I saw it in the theater with my dad. Exactly, and you remembered seeing it because you were like, oh, Shazam just came out,

and now Sinbad's making a Genie movie called Sh and you remembered seeing it because you were like, oh, Kazam just came out and now Sinbad's making a Genie movie called Shazam? That's why you remember it, yeah. Yeah, that's easily how I put it together. Okay, so I just wanna throw in a little Max Fun factoid. This is from Max Fun producer Marissa Flaxbart. She says, for years I worked as an assistant to Michael Phillips,

who was a producer on Taxi Driver, along with other big 70s films. He was also a producer on Heartbeats. So there's only one degree of separation between Paul Schrader and Heartbeats. And I feel like you can see that connection on the screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so.

It's hard to believe that Michael Phillips, who is not just one of the producers, his producer credit is very prominent in the opening credits of the movie that he probably went to his old pal the Shraid and was like Hey, can you give us a little bit of help on heart beeps because it needs it needs your unique Some would say paranoid schizophrenic psychopathic view of life Poker playing this film Here's a question. I'd like to ask you guys

about this film. Is it? Heartbeats or something else? Heartbeats. Okay. Is it explicable or would you call it in? That's a good, I would say. With regards to explicability.

I would say in terms of the plot of the movie, it's explicable, but in terms of the existence of the movie, I feel like that is explicable. Yeah. Yeah. I would normally, this is normally the part of the podcast where I feel like that is inexplicable. Yeah. Yeah. I would normally, this is normally the part of the podcast where I would be pushing you guys and be like, guys, enough silliness, let's get to the plot.

But the thing is this movie's like 75 minutes long and the plot is, let's say, let's say. God bless you for that at least. Yeah. Somehow it is 75 minutes long, but yet it feels longer than any movie I've ever seen before. It feels like it just takes forever. I do believe this was cut down. longer than any movie I've ever seen before. It feels like it just takes forever.

I do believe this was cut down. I do believe this was sort of the producers cut. Did they remove the scenes of things happening? Yeah, I mean, I can only assume based on the existing, the extant heartbeats that this is one of the rare cases where the producers were correct and they're like, yes, let's just cut this to the bone. They were like, this is going gonna be such a huge hit. We gotta fit in as many screenings per day as possible.

Just cut it as short as it can be because people are just gonna be revolving door of people going to see heartbeats, leaving, getting back in line to see heartbeats again. We gotta turn, it's gonna be a moneymaker, huge. I wanna address before we get really rolling though, like Stuart made a joke that may or may not have opened this episode about this being an Academy Award

winning picture or nominated picture for funniest movie. This is of course based on the actual reality that it is a Academy Award nominated picture for best makeup, Stan Winston's makeup. And there are a lot of skilled people. What did it lose to, Dan? It lost to a shit. You know this, Dan. Imagine a silk and white ponytail. This was the first makeup, the first best makeup award ever.

American Werewolf in London? Yes sir. Very deserved loss. In researching Heart Beeps, I looked up the history of the Academy Award for Best Makeup, which came about after Elephant Man came out and people were like, there's no Academy Award to recognize the amazing work in Elephant Man and makeup. And so after that, they created this one and Heart Beeps was nominated for the very first one and lost two in American Werewolf in London, which again, deservedly, and the makeup in

this does not look bad. Stan Winston did a good job, but I mean, American Werewolf in London is the greatest, deservedly, and the makeup in this does not look bad. Stan Winston did a good job, but I mean, American Werewolf in London is the greatest makeup jobs in the history of film. I would say, yeah, he does look like the thing or something. You believe he's turning into an American Werewolf, and not just anywhere, in London. Uh-huh, yeah.

I am not wild about the design of these characters. There's a certain Mad Magazine quality to it that I do like. It's like they're cartoony robot in a way that ultimately is less cute than off-putting, but it is executed well. Yes, exactly. I say it's visually unappealing,

but they did a good job executing it. Yeah, exactly. So speaking of visually unappealing, let's get to our heartbeats, baby. Okay, so the movie opens. The funny thing is, sorry, I just want to say preview, the visual is not the least unappealing thing about the movie I found. Okay. Listeners, why don't you write down on a piece of paper

what you think Elliot's least appealing part is, and then you'll find out at the end. Write down what you think is the aspect of the movie that I hoped, when it first appeared, would turn out to be a joke that would go away, but does not go away and remains throughout the movie. Also, I wanted to mention though in this thing though that John Williams also did the score. There's a lot of great craftspeople,

in addition to a great cast. This is something I was gonna say later. I think the score is really good. I think it's actually a very good score. That opening song is really great. I think a lot of the scores is fantastic. Yeah, it's John Williams. He's one of the best.

There's also, not to, you know, I'm sure we it's John Williams. It's John Lewis, one of the best. I'm sure we'll talk about him at length for his what, one scene, but veteran character actor Dick Miller is in this. You would know him from getting blasted by other robots in the movie Chopping Mall. Or from Gremlins. No, Chopping Mall.

So this was directed by Alan Arkish, who comes the Corman school he and Joe Dante are you know We're very close and he did rock and roll high school. So that's why Dick Millerson It's why Paul Bartel shows up why Mary Warren off shows up So there's a there are moments in it where I'm like, oh, yeah, imagine the better version of this movie It really takes advantage of having people hanging out. Yeah Okay Let's get started. So the movie opens, we are introduced to

the crime deluxe crime buster robot who is tooling around the woodland, scaring animals and blasting things. And I think he's like listing his abilities and talking shit. Like he's maintaining a constant monologue as a robot, which is always great. You always want your robots talking to themselves.

Just going on and on, yeah. Well, there is sort of just constant muttering in this film, whether it be to oneself as a robot or to another childlike robot. Yeah, you gotta fill that space. If there's no like random noise. There's no plot. If there's no random noises happening,

people will get confused. They will not think they're watching a movie anymore, that they're looking at a painting, and that's not what they paid for. No, not at all. And they'll be like, why is this painting moving? What's going on?

Am I? Did those edibles kick in early? Yeah. There's supposed to be time release for the funeral I'm going to later. So we then cut and this theme of highly advanced robotics amid beautiful forest land, untouched nature is constant throughout the movie.

So be prepared for that. You could say that this movie is very far ahead of its time in that imagery of robots in a woodland setting, which I feel like is 70% of the AI generated art that I stumble upon online is like a robot in a forest with next to a deer or something like that. Yeah, yeah, like a robot druid and I'm like, yes, exactly.

Fucking cool, dude. And the other AI art is always like Jesus with crabs around him and he's got boobs or something like that. There's a lot of that online. Okay, okay, I'm into that. That sounds good. I mean, now you're turning me around on AI.

There's a lot of Jesus blessing large praying mantises and things like that, so anyway. No, it is marvelous in a horrible way. For someone who doesn't like AI, it's marvelous how it, because it's drawing on sort of these vast resources, it's like, okay, we'll take all of the most overused themes in art and cram them together,

like art on the internet specifically, and cram them together in a way that makes it even more inexplicable than had a human decided to just draw a druid robot. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we now cut to the interior of a robot, what like, repair facility? It's like a giant warehouse.

Yeah, it looks like a warehouse. I think it's implied that it's a factory, but it seems like a warehouse or a testing facility. Yeah. Yeah, we have two like, you know, basic entry level workmen there. They're right out of the Money For Nothing video, except their live action, yeah.

Yeah, unlike everyone else, they're the live action. We have Charlie and Max. I meant the Money for Nothing guys are not live action. Yeah, that's true. And these guys, I don't think make any homophobic slurs, unlike the guys in the Money for Nothing. No, that's true. That's a good point. Also, when you said robot repair, I'm like, oh man, this would be so much better a movie if Phil Hartman just showed up as a robot and did the classic Jack Candy robot repair Yeah

So we have these two workmen they are transporting Val a Who plays the workmen? Randy Quaid and and Kenneth McMillan who I know best as the police officer from From taking film onham 123 who goes, oh, the mayor's here when everyone starts booing. But you know him best as Baron Harkonnen from the David Lynch Dune. Oh, right.

That is how I know him best. That is how I know him. Okay, so they are transporting Val, a valet robot wearing a suit. Can you describe Val the robot, Dan? Yeah, I mean, he is in sort of a robot leisure suit. Like he, you know, it's, if you wanted to signal like sort of 70s square, you might put a robot

in this outfit and he looks like Andy Kaufman only puffier because there's silverish robot stuff attached to his face. Okay, yeah. With eerily human-looking eyes. Yeah, and Andy Kaufman. Like he's the Phantom of the Paradise. Andy Kaufman, known for doing voices,

here picks possibly the most irritating voice he possibly could have done. It's kind of like a Latke without a specific regional accent. Yes, it's a Latke without the accent, just the high pitch. And this was the element to the movie where when it first started, I was like, oh, damn it. I hope this goes away. I hope they screw something on the back of him.

They're like, oh, let's fix that voice. And it turns his voice, because the whole movie is just, I don't know why. Are your sensors indicating? What does that say? My data is incomplete. And it's such a cutesy, horrible voice. Ruinous voice.

Now, to describe visually, just to put it in layman's terms, Andy Kaufman looks a little bit like the Japanese actor, Joe Shishito, who is famous for having... He wanted to look tougher, so he got cheek implants, and he makes all these gangster movies where he looks like a human chipmunk because his cheeks are so puffed out. That's what Andy Kaufman looks like here. Yeah. that's that's pretty cool as a layman. I Wanted to put in terms that everyone would understand the actor Joe so that so this robot Val needs needs some repair He dropped something on his foot and messed up the servos or some shit So they drop him off on a shelf and leave him be. They leave him still turned on.

I'd be turned on if I was next to... Robot Bernadette Peters. Yeah. Bernadette Peters. Yeah. So they leave him next to Aqua, what a poolside serving robot, played by Bernadette Peters with, luckily, with Bernadette Peters' signature curly hair, but yeah, it's made of metal. I guess is more successful This basically just looks like Bernadette Peters is a robot is a robot. Yeah, they don't put as much

Puffy extra padding on her face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah less filler Okay, so they meet and they I guess talk a talk a little and like, I guess, robot flirt. How would you describe this? Yeah, I mean, so the whole, you know, this, this to me, this movie in a weird way, feels like the last gasp of like, a sort of watered down 70s counterculture of like,

Sure, yeah. Like, oh, like, we're gonna understand human behavior through these nutty robots, these childlike robots who are learning both the beauty and the cruelty of the world for the first time. And so it's all sort of this cutesy understanding of the way the world works humor, where Bernadette Peters is like,

oh, if we were flirting, you would say something like this, and I might respond like this. And it's, I don't know, as someone who grew up, I'm old enough to get the tail end of some of this spirit, it irritates me greatly. Yeah, it's very reminiscent of like 70s Mad Magazine or even like old, like 2000 AD style humor with like robots shouting at each other

and blowing things up. Yeah, there's, except without the, except there's less shouting and blowing things up. There's a little bit of that in this. His name's Crime Buster and he's in the movie a lot. I think the real issue with this scene is, so ideally this is a movie about two robots learning what it's like to love and have a family.

Like that's what the movie is. And you see these two robots, they instantly kind of connect and flirt with each other. They see a rainbow and they're like, isn't it beautiful? I'd like to know more about that. And so in that first scene, you have essentially seen the entire point of the movie and everything after that is incredibly redundant.

And I kept thinking, Wall-E pulls off something, pulls off the kind of the same thing of two robots falling in love and understanding what that is, so much better. And I think it's partly because they followed the more common, I guess, romantic comedy thing of like one is in love and understanding what that is, so much better. And I think it's partly because they followed the more common, I guess, romantic comedy thing of like one is in love with the other and the other one doesn't have feelings

for the first one yet or something. But these characters are so instantly on board with being attracted to each other and then loving the natural world that it's like, well, I kind of seen the movie. Like there's nothing for them to learn. There's nothing else to do. Yeah, what's the arc here?

What's the arc? And the arc could be them on the run, but it's more like them on the slow strolling amble where every now and then they have to get away from Crime Buster. It's a very repetitive movie. So it doesn't quite feel like a comedy yet, but luckily we are introduced to Catskill, the comedy robot. Hooray! So this is a robot that is seated at all times, which is odd for a standup comedian robot,

but that's okay. He's always puffing on a cigar. And I think part of the reason that he's sitting at all times is that he is a puppet and not a person in a costume. Oh yeah. So yeah, that explains it in world. Thank you.

Yeah. And he's voiced by Jack Carter, who was one of the classic old school comics in that he told one liners and hated everybody was mad at the world and hated everybody in real life. And the majority of the jokes here he tells are terrible. Like that's kind of the point because later on we find out that he is on what low power joke mode or something.

Which is when that's revealed, I'm like, okay. That was maybe the one joke I did. It did make up for all the terrible jokes that he tells. So these three robots are sitting on a shelf and they decide they wanna go on an adventure. They wanna go learn more about these trees and the natural world. Catskill, I guess, just goes along so he can tell jokes.

And because maybe he's looking for a family too. We don't know. They escape using a robot repair van. The robot repair men find them missing. They are tasked with bringing them back. This conversation is overheard by the crime buster deluxe robot that is currently being repaired

because it keeps blowing up children or whatever. Like children. Not in the models. In the training mode. It keeps blowing up the children targets that's supposed to not blow up. Yeah Uh-huh, it would be a more interesting and I think more it more Satirical movie if it was blowing up children and their reaction was not let's stop making these but wasn't I mean then again

That's essentially Robocop where Edie Tony and kill somebody and they're like, oh we got to fix this thing This is a disaster PR wise, you know So they escape in a van. It's funny because they use sped up footage, right? And it's funny because of course, Andy Coffman being the man insists that he is excellent at driving right away and that he will not alter his driving style even though Bernadette Peters casts in the role of wife robot essentially essentially, is like slow down.

Yeah. So that's a joke for you. She is like slow down, yeah. Slow down. About men and women and their relationships together. Even robots are like that, you know? Yeah. So Charlie and Max pursue in a helicopter.

The helicopter is piloted by a long time actress who I remember from being the woman from Martin Short's nightmare in Inner Space. Yeah, this is Kathleen Freeman. She was in lots and lots of stuff. Everyone's gonna recognize her. Inner Space.

You know what? Yeah, Martin Short has this nightmare that this woman, he's like ringing her through his checkout line and she doesn't, it's too much money and so she pulls out a gun. Yeah. Yes. Do you remember, Dan, do you remember the cooking show host in Gremlins 2, Microwave Marge?

Of course. That's her, you know. And something I didn't realize till I looked her up while reading about this movie is that she's the speaking coach in Singing in the Rain who's trying to get Lena Lamont to talk without her accent. So she's great, she's in lots of stuff. Yeah. Again, that's Alan Arkish, that's Alan Arkish being like, who's someone who's great, she's in lots of stuff. Yeah.

Again, that's Alan Arkish. That's Alan Arkish being like, who's someone who's great, who's been in a lot of stuff that I can bring into this, you know? Okay, so they're tooling around trying to find these robots on the run. The another great possible title for this movie.

Um, the- To be honest, Heartbeeps is about the best, that and the score are the best things about the movie. Heartbeeps is a good name for this movie. It's just not a good movie. It gets right into your fucking brain and then never leaves. It gets in your brain, it accurately describes the movie.

I would argue it gets in your brain in a way that irritates you. Like, what the fuck could this movie be? Heartbeeps? We're talking about it. What the shit? You're trying to sell me a movie called Heartbeeps? My guess is that this movie was called robots on the run

We would not be talking about it on the podcast today It certainly wouldn't have sprung to my lips When talking about director Paul Schrader now We would be doing an episode of about nuns on the run right now Yeah, if it was called robots in the run because that's what Stuart would have attributed to Paul Schrader Skulled robots in the run because that's what Stuart would have attributed to Paul Schrader Is more like the other work of Paul Schrader I have to say yes. Yeah deals with religion I guess and crime Yeah, the so the the the van the van does the van break down or something? I don't quite remember

But they leave the van behind and they use parts from the van as well as parts from each of them leave the van behind and they use parts from the van as well as parts from each of them to create a tiny little robot named Phil that's kind of their child. Phil does not communicate in traditional sense, more of an R2D2 sense, and he's dragging like a little wagon behind him. Phil's voice is Jerry Garcia.

It's credited to Jerry Garcia, but mostly it just sounds like sound effects. So I don't know what. It sounds like bleeps and bloops, but something must have been altered Jerry Garcia. Somebody must have been like, we want to get our buddy Jerry. Dan, everything about Jerry Garcia is altered. Let's just say that. Maybe he got on his guitar to make those bleeps and bloops.

Could be, yeah. Maybe these are jams from the Grateful Dead. Now he did, he would at concerts to be like, let me play some of my hits from Heartbeats and just be, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And the crowd goes insane. Oh yeah, they would love it. The people who own the arena are like, you can't play your Heartbeats shit,

because people destroy the arena. People are ripping out the seats, they destroy the concession stand, they're killing each other, they're just so excited about it, there's blood everywhere, We gotta hose it off. And fans are like, look, you can't appreciate the bleeps and bloops on the Heart Beeps album.

No, no. That's not how to experience it. You gotta see the person. You gotta get it recorded off the boards, man. You gotta get the bootlegs recorded off the boards. That's the best part. Cause then they can really stretch out. I've been trading with guys and I have this one Heart Beeps

that goes on for 17 and a half hours. It's the greatest. Whoa. Didn't realize you had the technology to capture all that audio, but I guess that makes sense, yeah. It's a 30 cassette set. Yeah. You gotta listen it from the beginning

when it doesn't work. Class, it's a gun tape line. Is that Heart Beeps? Turn it up, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, listen to this. Okay. Turn it up, man! Yeah

Yeah, listen to this You're gonna love it. Now it's getting... Hey, Ben Burt, it's me, your cousin Roger Burt. You know that beep boop you've been looking for? No, not Roger Burt. Not Roger Burt. The Tony Award-winning performer. So it's getting late.

These robots need a place to sleep because it's not safe for them to be wandering around in the woods after dark. And because robots need sleep. Then they need, well, they need to be, yeah, they need sleep and they need to conserve energy or whatever, they need energy. So they go where they're gonna find some energy,

a bear cave. Val tries to go into the bear cave and placate the bear. That's not happening. The bear beats him up and throws him out. Uh, and it's about to attack them. When the helicopter does a pass, bear gets scared and runs away very fast, sped up again, it's hilarious.

And you gotta give them credit. I thought it was just gonna be sound effects and on a, on a still shot of a cave, but no, they have a no they have a bear. They get a real bear. Yeah. Yeah. They get an actual bear and speaking of bears, I think right now would be a great time for us to talk about something that is important to us.

Bears are important to the world. There's a lot of importance to our... So let's go to the Flophouse's own bear, Dan McCoy. Thank you. That was the segue I was working on, yeah. Hey, as I mentioned, it's Max Fun Drive. Now perhaps there's a slight chance you're still unaware. What is Max Fun Drive?

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I just actually listened to the first episode myself and really enjoyed revisiting it. And I'll be back with more later, but for now, please, if you can, go to MaximumFun.org slash join to support the show. Well said, Dan, well said. I wanted to interrupt you and I couldn't because I was so riveted by your passionate way.

Speaking of rivets, Oh, let's get back to this bot movie. Oh yeah, bots. So just like us. You know, it's late and they're running low on energy, so they're going to need to get some more. So their next stop is they pick up some foliage to disguise themselves and they sneak into a small, what, mountain town? I'm guessing somewhere in like, what, Colorado or like somewhere in California, right?

I'm going to guess Colorado because later the house that they, the party with the House of the party edit that they Get involved with looks like it looks like more Colorado house stuff. I'm sure they shot this in California, you know So they try and sneak into the town They are stopped by the crime buster who is patrolling the streets and as I said before running a constant narrative out loud Explaining everything he's doing. That's how you know he's, it adds something. Can you describe the crime buster robot, Elliot? So the crime buster robot,

physically it looks like a Dalek. Like it's kind of like a squat kind of round top thing with a, it can project kind of like a gun from its belly, but it's like a hover skirt wheels type movement thing. And it's always talking as if it is supposed to be like a hard boiled cop in a movie where it's like, I roam the streets. I have to keep America safe.

Villains and criminals are no match for me. They think they can defeat the crime buster, but the crime buster is not, was that a crook? Was it? And he blows it up and it's a stump with a rabbit behind it. Ah ha ha ha. You know. I feel like it also like throws in a few like Reaganisms,

but maybe that's The most this the most overtly satirical part of the movie. I feel like is the crime buster Yeah, and this design is a it's a yes It looks like a Dalek, but it's a redress actually of some Robot that was on like a TV show or something that they had lying around. Yeah, who? a different one, but it's a similar doctor like Like a miniature tank kind of it's a similar vibe. Dr. What? It just looks like a miniature tank, kind of. Yeah, mini tank, yeah. And he's all colored black, and he's got a siren light on top.

So they're able to use their wits to distract Crime Buster, and they sneak away. This was one of the two jokes that I laughed at in the movie. The one was the low energy jokes one, and the other was when they're all pretending to be trees because they've got fake tree, they've got trees they're holding in front of them, like, like Burnham would going to Dunsinane.

Yes, thank you. That's how literate this movie is. And the, and Andy Kaufman, his annoying voice in this, he's like, I'm a tree bot. I, you know, and the, he, and the crime buster points to Phil, the little robot, he goes, he's too, too, he doesn't look like a tree. And he goes, that's because he's a shrub. And I just thought the idea of having to Phil, the little robot, and goes, he doesn't look like a tree, and he goes, that's because he's a shrub.

And I just thought the idea of having to say like, oh no, he's a smaller piece of vegetation was a funny moment to me. Crime Buster buys it. He buys it. So the, and he, I'm just assuming, I'm going to gender the police robot. I mean, he's got a male voice.

So they need that energy. And so the best place to go, they go to a 70s party. Fondue, bowls full of keys, Paul Bartel, everything you need for my 70s party. And Mary Warnov. You know there's a fucking conversation pit in that bitch. This is one of the classic film onscreen couples,

Paul Bartel and Mary Warnov. They played the blans in Eating Raul, and they were together in a bunch, they had a cameo together in Chopping Mall, they had a cameo together in Night of the Comet, I think it was. So I like to believe this is just all part of the same universe as those movies.

And then doing this next, look, I don't like to assign too much blame anywhere. I'm not pointing at any one person involved in heartbeats because I don't know who made which decision. Like I know, I've seen Alan Arkesh's own letterbox review of this where he's like, I screwed this one up, I got the wrong tone. Like that was his feeling.

And I see what he's saying because it is so like wistful that it becomes cloying in a way that seems weird for the material, but I don't think that he's at fault per se, I think a lot of the collaborators are doing great work, I think that the actors are great. What mystifies me is this screenplay and story, like what did they think they were doing? Like it has no thrust, it's just like, it has room for like, hey, now we're going to go to a party, but also like,

well, Elliot, tell me why. Explain the heartbeats to me. My guess is that, this is my guess, not knowing much about it. I know that it was written by the same guy who wrote Quigley Down Under, but I don't see too much in common between the two things. And went on to be like, he did like quantum leap stuff in LA Law, he was just talking over TV. Yeah, but Quigley Down Under, don't skip over that.

I just think about his other films. My guess is that this was probably originally written as a more satirical, episodic, kind of probably, I'm guessing, harder edged type movie. And that once you brought in, and that at a certain point it was decided, satirical, episodic, kind of probably, I'm guessing, harder edged type movie. And that once you brought in, and that at a certain point it was decided, no, we need to go for a family audience, is my guess.

We wanna soften it, we wanna make it more aww, we're gonna bring in Andy Kaufman, but we're not gonna have him do kind of like edgy comedy type stuff. We want him to, maybe Andy Kaufman at that point was like, it's time for me to cross over and be more of a big name star. They get Bernadette Peters who was just wonderful.

And a wistful score from John Williams. A wistful score. And so my guess is that they decided the tone was going to be like, this is not a version. Like an E.T. Yeah, that this is not the kind of movie Alan Arkush would have made for Roger Corman, which would have been kind of like crazy

and a little bit tasteless probably at times. This is gonna be a more Spielberg-y type learning about life and love and laughter through these robots who aren't human, but maybe they kind of aren't. And the song. It's like AI, right? Yeah.

And so, my guess is that that's it, is that they were like, let's not make this a low budget, kind of like a kind of like snarky movie. Let's make this a movie that could go for quadrant. Like let's make this a movie that a whole family could go see. And instead they made a movie that nobody in their right mind would really ever wanna watch.

I mean, this cast and premise feels like it should be like a Jack Davis poster, but it's not. It should be really wacky. And I mean, the pace of it is always, the pace is so slow. And so much of it is just these characters wandering through the woods. And I will say that like there are individual frames that look gorgeous and that imply a more interesting movie,

you know, of these characters just in the woods. But you know, Bernadette Peters, she knows about going into the woods, you know. So speaking of gorgeous frames, the crime buster sees this party going on, so he forwards the river or lake or whatever the pond. I thought you were gonna talk about one of my favorites, Mary Warnow, but anyway.

He then blows up this party smashing through the walls on the hunt for these robots, which of course he is unsuccessful in finding, but destroying the party completely. And they're like, oh, this was a great party. We then- It's like that scene is like, that scene and the things that Bernadette Peters is talking about as about her jobs robot,

it feels like that is, those are the remnants of a much more biting movie. We're gonna see these rich assholes, they're gonna be throwing a party, they're gonna be jerks, it's gonna get wrecked, but instead the party is kind of nothing and even the damage is nothing. And at the end Paul Bartel's like,

I thought it was great. That's the only joke of it. I noticed that this was a nice, this was a good looking movie as well, like the cinematography was, and I just looked up the cinematographer who did a couple of Altman movies, A Wedding and Three Women, he did Semi-Tough,

he did The Onion Field, so, yeah. Good people working on this movie, great people come together and make a piece of junk. Speaking of junk, our robots on their quest for energy and such, they find a junkyard, that's a perfect place to find stuff. So they're wandering around this junkyard. They come across a couple that, I guess,

own or run the junkyard. That's where we get some more stars. We got Christopher Guest from Tons of Stuff. And his partner- Mr. Jamie Lee Curtis himself, Christopher Guest. And his partner is played by Melanie, what, Mehran? Melanie Mehran, yeah, from 30 something. Yeah, 30 something.

She's also directed a ton of TV and some movies. And also you might know her as being the hot cop from My Blue Heaven, which is what I remember her from. And she, I had forgotten that she starred in the movie Girlfriends, which I recommended a while back. Oh, cool. Which a movie I really liked a lot. Again, more talented people.

Yeah. I just learned while looking this up, I didn't never realize that My Blue Heaven was written by Nora Ephron. Oh, really? And that her husband wrote Wiseguy, and both My Blue Heaven and wise guy are based on their interviews with Henry Hill yeah I didn't realize that I never realized that I'm

like that's why they're both Charlene's favorite movie I mean along with my cousin Vinnie right yeah yeah tragic version and the comic version is really fun I mean now I want to see a double feature of those two movies together. It's pretty funny, too. It's also hilarious, yeah. Have I ever told my family's Christopher Guest story on this podcast or no? Only if you've told it to us. Have I ever told or no?

Considering how many times I've talked about actors I've seen on stage, apparently at some point my dad's family was friendly with Christopher Guest's family when he was a kid and my dad was a kid. And whenever we would watch Princess Bride and Christopher Guest was on screen, my grandmother would go, I changed his diapers. And I would be so confused because when I was young, I didn't really understand what she was saying.

I would imagine a grown Christopher Guest having his diapers changed by my grandmother. But apparently, I have no idea like how they knew each other or what happened, why the families are not still friendly. But knowing my family, there must have been some falling out of some violent kind. But that's a story I think I've ever told about my grandmother changing Christopher Guest diapers, I assume when he was a baby. Well, you're about to have to change your diapers because Crime Buster shows back up and he starts blasting. He starts blasting everything, setting things on fire,

shooting things with his machine gun, things are looking grim. But our two junkyard operators jump on and deactivate that bot. It's pretty exciting, right? This is a pretty cool, this is one of those action sequences where you never see the attacker and the victims in the same shot.

Yeah. No, I, yeah, not particularly exciting. I am taken by Guest and I forget her name, sorry, as this like sort of hipster junkyard couple. Yeah, yeah, Mellie Mayer. I'm like, I don't know what their story is, but they just like seem to hang out and be cool and probably have a bunch of sex.

I mean, you'll see it. And they're probably cool. And they're obviously cool, but they also, they speak in a very flat, emotionless way. And I wondered if they were trying to make some point about these characters are kind of in some ways as robotic as the other, as the robot characters, but there is one shot.

Or show that they might be, since they speak in a kind of robotic way, as robotic as the robot characters, but there is one shot. Or show that they might be, since they speak in a kind of robotic way, maybe they might be able to connect with these robots. Yes, exactly. They're certainly rational and logical, the way that the robots are. But these characters kind of like,

yeah, they kind of come out of nowhere, solve the problem, and then that's it. Disappear until they're needed to solve another problem. Yeah. There's one really cool shot're needed to solve another problem. Yeah. There's one really cool shot where they're on top of Crime Buster and they're spinning around and the camera is on Crime Buster also.

So you see like the background moving around them and that shot is very quick and I don't know if they go back to it. And I was like, movie, that was a cool shot. Show it to me again. That was good. So with Crime Buster defeated, our robots begin the long march back, I guess.

I have trouble understanding all of their motivations in the film, but they're traveling through the woods again. So they had to leave the factory to go to the junkyard. They didn't find what they wanted in the junkyard. Now they have to go back to the factory. So Fury Road basically stole the plot structure from Heartbeats. You leave a place, you go to a place, you find we didn't have what you need there, you

go back to the first place, that's Fury Road. I feel like we, I bet there's probably a bunch of other similarities between Fury Road and Heartbeats. You imagine George Miller and Brennan McCarthy were just watching Heartbeats over and over again while they were planning Fury Road over that 20 years, you know? They need to go back to the factory because they're running out of power. What confuses me then is at the end of the movie, spoiler, they're happily living in the junkyard and I'm like, okay, well, what about the power in the future?

Like what's the story here? Oh, Dan found it. He found the soul, good for the movie. Go to Red Letter Media and listen to Dan on this one, you know? I think that once they've gotten their power, maybe the junkyard got the power stuff they needed. So this is where the heart of the movie really comes in, because our robots are starting to lose power. They realize that Phil, they thought Phil's battery would have more

because he doesn't need as much energy because he's just a little guy. Turns out he needs just as much as because he's just a little guy. Turns out he needs just as much as everyone and his power is very low, he's gonna die and they don't know what to do. And then before Val and Aqua can decide, Catskill swaps batteries with him. He's been conserving power this whole time again

by telling low energy jokes. So Catskill, they just like leave him in the woods and they continue traveling. And then Aqua's power runs out. This is where the movie goes from cloying to maudlin in these sequences where the characters are dying in front of us and they're lying to each other about how low their battery is

because they don't want each other to worry about them. I love that they're like, we didn't think Phil needed as much power. And it's like, well, Phil is literally pulling all of your junk. Like he's literally carrying everything, but okay, sure. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's the data.

These are the experiences they're learning, Elliot. This is why this trip is so important. This is why we have to make a movie of it. Do we know anything about that? You're right. I mean, well, that's the, so the thing is, what I didn't like about this movie here too, is that

We've had this before the Flophouse movies where it is playing on a real emotion, but it's doing it badly But I can't help to have that emotion triggered in me still the idea There's a lot of it which is just them walking talking about their anxieties for Phil in the future and wanting to wanting to prepare him For the world and wanting to make sure that he's healthy and it's like yeah That's the conversation I have every single day with my wife about my children. And I don't like that the movie is like trying to get me to cry by having two robots do it in a very boring way. And I can't help that it does make me think

about those things in a way that makes me feel those emotions, but I want to be like, movie, you didn't earn this. Like, you're not getting this on your own. This is like a commercial for cotton where it shows a guy like watching his daughter grow up and then get married where you're like crying and it's like, but I don't care about cotton. I'm just making a sandwich and my daughter's like, daddy, I'm dying.

Sorry. This mayonnaise and mustard. The whole thing is just my dad. Oh, what a great sketch. If anyone doesn't know what we're talking about, The best line of the whole thing is just, bye daddy, I'm dying. And he just shrugs. What a great sketch. If anyone doesn't know what we're talking about, the Mr. Show sketch about a Maosterd and mustard ANAs and how the time-saving condiments that are not taking up too much time.

The guy can't go to his daughter's graduation because he's making a sandwich. Oh man, that's good stuff. So we have this final moment, both Val and Aqua run out of juice. Val is reaching toward Aqua and then they both are frozen in a beautiful field. He's reaching towards her while literally being like, No, I wish to talk to you about one last human thing. What is your understanding of the emotion?

Luh, luh, luh, luh. He's talking about love, people. He's trying to say love, but it's so sad, and right as he's about to say it, because he's keep fompering so much beforehand. It's just like in movies when someone is being wrongfully arrested for a crime, and they're like, but you gotta understand. No, no, but just let me tell you, but just give me a minute.

It's like, well, use this time to say the thing that you need to say. Like, don't preamble it so much, you know? Trematic tension, Elliott. You shall learn that shit in screenwriting school. Yeah, right, when I went to screenwriter U. I mean, I did go to NYU for screenwriting, and they should have taught me that, yeah, yeah.

So our robot repairmen show up, they load them up. They see Phil, the little robot, hanging out, and they're like, fuck it, leave him out here. It's nuts. That part I like to, Kevin goes like, they said three robots, we're bringing back three robots. We're not touching the fourth robot. So they take them back, and then immediately, we get a little bit of a, what,

we just get like a voiceover where they talk about how the robots, they rebooted them a bunch of times, they kept messing up, they kept malfunctioning, and so they just threw them away. And so we then see a little, we get a little happy ending in the junkyard. Val and Aqua are dressed differently, but restored. Nerds, these lovable junkyard nerds.

And they have this weird little robot family, including a new addition, Dan. Yeah, a little like robot girl robot. Little girl robot, yep. And that is the end of the movie. Are they grilling? Am I imagining that? Were they... I feel like the idea is that they now have like... What are they grilling? Like little batteries instead of hot dogs? I don't know. It's like batteries not included, you know?

The ideas I guess they have now this like suburban, you know, lifestyle at the junkyard. Yeah, they're sitting in a, you know, like outdoor furniture, on some AstroTurf, you know, I can't remember whether it was literally grilled, but they're definitely in grill formation. Thank you. Thank you for giving me that much. So that, yeah, that's heartbeats. That's heartbeats, baby. Stuart, luckily no mid-credit scenes.

Good, because I turned that shit off. And no Spider-Man. What if the last, what if the last minute in the credits, suddenly they were like, Spider-Man showed up. That would be, we're like, suddenly Andy Kaufman's character Val goes through a multiverse warp and ends up in Spider-Man's world. That would be, like, suddenly Andy Kaufman's character Val goes through a multiverse warp and ends up in Spider-Man's world. I would have wrecked it for us.

I was, the whole time, every time it cut to Katzgill saying a joke, I'm like, if he does something J. Jonah Jameson style, I'm gonna be in deep water. Yeah. So now is the part where we make our final judgments. Is this a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kinda like?

And I'm going to call this a good bad movie with an asterisk, which is, the asterisk is. In Obelix. Obelix is there too. Yo, he's far in the back. Ready to spring into action if needed though. This, no this is a. Yeah, I feel like Obelix is usually on point point it's usually someone you can rely on for that. Yeah

Obelix stay you stay back when I need you when I need you you spring into it and obelix like oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah No, this is a this is I'm saying that because this is not a good bad movie in the sense of like, I think you're gonna laugh and be like, if you got together with friends like, oh, this is so wacky how bad this movie is, we're all having fun. Like as we said, it's slow and maudlin but I'm gonna call it a good bad with an asterisk

of like, it is so fascinating if you are interested in Like real like mega flops like it is fascinating to watch a movie that has so many talented people Doing good work in their fields and it all adding up to something that you can't understand why anyone ever thought this should be Made or put on screens So from that perspective, I think it's kind of interesting. But yeah, don't go in looking for like bad laughs or something necessarily. Or even good laughs.

Yeah, I mean, this is definitely, I'm with you. I think this is a good bad movie in the sense that it's like, there's something fascinating about it and it is like part of bad movie history. So it's kind of worth it in that regard, but it is also pretty boring. Yeah. Like you're in and out in like 70 minutes at least.

Yes, that's essential. That's why we call it a bad bad movie for me is because I think it's worth watching a couple of clips from maybe. If you watch the first eight minutes of this movie, you've got it, except for just imagine those same characters wandering through trees forever. Maybe it was just the mood I was in while I was watching it,

but I took no joy in it for the most part, and I just found it so endless and so kind of dull. Normally, when I'm feeling bad, in it for the most part and I just found it so endless and so kind of dull. But it's more... I feel bad that you... Like normally when I'm feeling bad or when I'm feeling disconnected from the world, I turn to cinema to kind of raise my spirits and I feel bad that LA had to do that with heartbeats. I think it's also partly that. So where I am in my life right now, my work has kept me very busy.

I have to watch the movies for the Flophouse and it means that the Flophouse movies to non Flophouse movies ratio in my life is maybe the lowest it's ever been in terms of fewer Non Flophouse movies that I'm watching and so maybe it's just that there were there wasn't enough time between Flophouse movies and between me having to watch this and then watch the next Flophouse movie Fortunately, you texted you texted us and like it sounds like you're really enjoying this next one. We're gonna watch Oh, no You texted us and like it sounds like you're really enjoying this next one we're gonna watch. Nope. Well, what's funny is the next movie we're gonna watch, should we mention what it is? Yeah, we can do it. Next episode, I mean next episode's a mini, but the one after that, we're gonna be talking

about the movie The Electric State and I've started watching that and it is almost the opposite of this in that it's also about robots. It also is trying for emotions that it is not achieving, but there's so much stuff constantly being thrown at your face where it's like the opposite of this and they're not taking the time to set up very much, you know, whereas this movie feels like it's all set up and kind of waiting for the big scenes to start. So I gotta watch a good movie about a robot

that falls in love after this. Are there any? Well, maybe we'll talk about that. You said Loli. Yeah, Loli is probably. Maybe we'll talk about that in next week's mini. So let's not discuss that now. But I'm going to give it a bad bad, but certainly it is a fascinating bad bad. Well, I'm going to take another break here to talk a little bit more about Max Fun Drive.

Specifically, bonus content, thank you gifts. The model is basically we try and make as much as we can just open and free for everyone with the hopes that those who love it will help us sort of fund it after the fact, which is a very optimistic thing that we still believe in. But there's also thank you gifts. We also recognize that people like to be recognized.

They like to get something. They like to hear us say thank you. And at the first level, the $5 a month level, there is of course that bonus content, a library full of it from every show on the network. It's gotten to be pretty huge over the years, and you get access to the whole library across the network when you join at just $5 a month or more.

That's right, the best thank you gift is at the lowest level. Again, our bonus content this year is called Slop Tales. It's an RPG created by Stuart with soundscapes and fantastic original music contributed by Alex Smith, our producer, and it's got me, Elliot, and favorite guest, Juben Perang, playing the staff of a beach town restaurant

on Memorial Day weekend and we're both trying to create and then diffuse some wacky shenanigans. If you join or upgrade at the $10 a month level, you get our enamel pen or the enamel pen for the show of your choice. Ours this year features a Mads Mikkelsen with slogan Mad About Mads and this is a just a side note if you're already a member and you want a pen or you want an extra pen or

several extra pens there will be a post-tripe pen sale with all proceeds going to the transgender law center. At the $20 a month level, you get a beautiful beach towel with Max Fund's unofficial squirrel mascot, Nutsy and a unicorn. It looks like a beautiful neon dream of the 80s. And of course, if you are Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly, there are even more extravagant gifts at even higher levels and all the gifts stack, so if you join at a higher level,

you get every gift from the lower levels as well. So, will you please join us as a member? A Max Fund membership costs less per year than that streaming service that frankly, come on, you're paying for it, you barely use it anyway, so why not consider supporting us where you know that the pledge you give goes directly to us or the worker owners of the network and make sure we can keep this silly

thing going. It's a show I know has given me comfort. I know from letters it's giving a lot of you comfort. So I'd like to thank everyone who supports already and to ask anyone who's on the fence to go to maximumfund.org slash join right now and put your money where your heart is. But now, back to the show. Let's see, the last thing we need is final judgment which means letters. Dan, first I have a correction for earlier in the movie.

Yes, please. Not early in the episode. It's not that I wasn't listening to you. I was listening to you very closely and I'm wondering when is Max Fund and Nutzy finally gonna make it official? You know, that's, but also, according to IMDb, this movie was shot in New Mexico.

Oh, okay, beautiful. So that's what we're seeing in it. It's not all desert, Dan. I know you're saying it's all desert, but I think there's more to it. I was just yelling at you beforehand, I'm like, no Stuart, it's all desert. I'm like, no Dan, there's a variety of ecosystems.

All desert there. Something else I wanna mention here is, so heart beeps, Stan Winston, this is a Stan Winston story that was in the trivia here, is that he had done the Tin Man for the Wiz, and that's why he got this job, because he was the new, turn someone into a robot thing, and he used this kind of gelatin application

that kept melting in the sun, and made him really stressed out and frustrated, and Bernadette Peters had to calm him down. And then afterwards, he saw a making of documentary of the Dark Crystal, and it got him very excited about using puppet technology and kind of to articulate characters rather than makeup on people. And that must've led to The Terminator,

which is a, it's a puppet rather than a person in a costume. So maybe we have his bad experience on Heartbeats to thank for one of the great movie robot designs. Yeah. You know, every- And also Jim Henson's work. Maybe we have his bad experience on heart beeps to thank for one of the great movie robot designs. Yeah You know and also Jim Henson's work every piece of our life, you know helps create the the puzzle that is Ourselves, I don't know Piece of wisdom is worth joining or upgrading your membership. That's for sure

So for this first letter is from Davison Last Name Withheld who writes, I'm listening to the back catalog. Normally I listen to NPR's background noise while I'm working, but you know, I can't right now without hyperventilating. I typed Tom Brokaw Dune into Google to see if Tom Brokaw was actually known for his affection for dune

or if this was completely imagined by Elliot. I thought you'd appreciate the results. And of course I texted you guys this a while back and I put it up on the Flophouse Instagram as a real. So if you wanna check it out, you can look at it over there, but it is AI incorrectly identifying Tom Brokaw as a longtime Dune fan who has talked about his love of Dune on the show.

So if you want even more proof of something you should already know that AI is stupid and should not be being forced into every corner of our lives. There you go. But, uh, it reminds me Dan, Dan of an AI story I read recently that I forgot where the guy lives in it. Maybe I think he might be Dutch. I'm not sure if this guy on a lark asked the AI to tell him about himself and the AI hallucinated the story that he had killed his two sons and the guy was very unhappy about it.

So do not trust anything a computer tells you because the computer, maybe it's, maybe it's in low energy joke mode and it's just going to tell you something wrong, you know. What's the chance you think that somebody has been like, Hey, Hey, Tom, I saw something about you on the internet that you love Dune. The best thing there's a chance. There's a chance.

The best thing would be if somebody was like, I saw online time that you love Dune. And he'd be like, oh, I've never read it. And then he reads it and he loves it. And then he comes on the podcast for real to talk about how glad he is that we introduced him to it. That would be a dream come true. So, if you read Dune because of our podcast

and you loved it, please come on the show. We would love to have you. Yeah. Anyway, the letter continues though. Instead of reading further to try and figure out the truth, I decided to write The Peaches with a question. Has there ever been lore or legend related to a film that influenced your feelings for that film,

and upon learning that lore or legend was untrue, change those feelings? I'm thinking about stuff outside the actual content of the movie, so Ding Dong ripping off would be excluded as an example. Hmm. Sincerely, Davidson, last name would help.

Okay, I'll unload that pistol. I was, no, I, I mean, obviously, the ghost in Three Men and a Baby, like. When you found out it wasn't a real ghost, you were like, this movie isn't as scary as I thought it was. Yeah, before you were terrified. Don't make me see a ghost.

Yeah, I'm trying to think about this. I don't think I have one about movies, but can I talk about one that's not a movie? Yeah, sure. Yeah, why not? I think this learning the true story of the Winchester Mystery House really changed my attitude about it. For those who don't know the Winchester Mystery House, it was built by the widow of Winchester

from the Winchester Firearms Fortune. And I'd always grown up with the story of it being deliberately built as like a weird maze with closed off staircases and doors that go nowhere and windows that are all bricked up because she was trying to keep the ghosts of those killed by her husband's guns to get to her. And then years ago, 99% Invisible did an episode about it

where they're like, she was a pioneering female architect and there was an earthquake and half the house fell down. So they just had to very hastily put new walls up and things like that, where they changed this because they made an addition to the house. And it really made me kind of upset that a very non-supernatural, very real explanation for why a house was kind of weird

had been turned into this story of an insane mad woman who was paranoid about ghosts. And it made me look at it differently, made me kind of sad. So I hate to bust everyone's bubble about the Winchester Mystery House, but it's not really a ghost thing Dan yeah, I'm trying I'm really trying to think

I'm not the only ones I can come up with are ones that are actually true that have enhanced my enjoyment like how Everyone had dysentery The Lost Ark so Harrison Ford's like look, can I just shoot him? Made a better scene. So I apologize, but I thought that was an interesting misuse of technology that I wanted to pass on to everyone. Tom Brokaw, as far as we know,

it's just out of Elliot's beautiful brain. Yeah, I wish I could walk my way through the thought process of it. Was it your brain? That's it. I started it. Okay. Well, it all... Check the tapes.

It all gets merged together over the years. It's a collab, yeah. Ethan... Yeah, but I certainly stole it from you. You can't deny that. Ethan Lasting withheld writes, a few years ago I worked in Berkeley, California at a nonprofit.

One weekend, my coworkers and I drove to Lake Tahoe for a camping trip, but when we got to the campsite, the air quality was dangerously low due to a wildfire in Yosemite to the north. So instead of hiking, we went straight into our tents. I was with my Ugandan co-worker who I only kind of knew at the time who proceeded to pull a laptop from his bag and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. I asked him what he had and he was very excited and started playing Morbius. It had to be the weirdest movie going experience of my life. I'm curious what's the

weirdest movie going experience you've had slash the weirdest place you've watched a movie keep on flopping around the theaters, Ethan? I don't like this isn't by any means particularly weird, but I did think of how, you know, around my 40th birthday, you know, around my 40th birthday, my friend. Happy birthday, Dan. Well, thank you. My friend John was like, oh, it's also my 40th birthday. We should do this thing that Stuart was talking about with our friends who run a travel agency,

which was to take this cruise to Alaska. I had never previously had any interest in cruises, but I'm like, oh Alaska, that's neat. You may love the movie Cruisin'. I am cruise control, B2 cruise control. And Boat Trip, you were like, finally, my chance to live out the story of Boat Trip. Possibly the most unpleasant thing

we've ever watched for this show. Certainly up there, that's for sure. But I do remember being on this cruise at that point, single alone with three other couples, and the others were doing something else. Sounding a little like boat trip. I don't know, but I was up on the top deck in the sprinkling rain because there was a movie playing,

and it was the Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider. That I sat up there watching mostly alone. But I kind of liked it. I kind of liked that movie. Do you guys have things that this brings to mind? I mean, I feel like I've only ever watched one movie in its entirety on my phone. And I watched, yeah, I know. I watched, yeah I know, I don't watch,

like I don't know, maybe I did. But even if you're like flying somewhere? I watch it on my laptop. I bring my laptop, I'm not gonna watch it on my phone. I want the slightly widescreen experience. But no, I watched this Australian thriller Hounds of Love, which is terrifying, and I watched it on my phone, and I'm like, I think I was watching it in bed,

my wife was asleep next to me, and the lights were out except for my phone. I'm like, this is extra scary. It's like the movie is calling me. Because Charlene could wake up at any moment and say, turn that off. Turn that off, that's what I'm scared of. That's what she sounds like.

That was the scariest thing about, when I saw, when I watched the movie Mandy at home, the scariest thing about it was worrying that my sons would wake up and walk into the room at any moment while I was watching it. Dad, why are you masturbating? To that goblin. Can I have a cheddar goblin in our house?

No. I think, I didn't have too many weird movie experiences, but it did make me think of years ago when I attended the New York premiere screening of Burdemic, which was a movie that friends of mine had been like, you gotta see this movie. If it ever comes to New York, you gotta see it. And the director of the film and the two leads

were there at the theater and the lead actor in it, I mean, he's not a professional actor, the lead guy in it was so stoked, he was so excited. And the director was so excited, he had brought one of like a fake bird, like a taxidermied bird or a fake bird with him. And the lead actress, you could tell, knew exactly what this movie was,

knew exactly why we were there. And she just goes, she's like, just take it as we meant it, or something like that. Just take it as it is. There was this sudden moment where the whole audience kind of felt bad, I think, that she was like, I know why you're here. You think this is garbage.

But then once the movie started, well actually, then they played the trailer for Human Centipede, which none of us had seen before. Everyone laughed their way through that. And then we watched the movie. Once the movie was on, it was, you know, nonstop laughter. Human centipede was a palate cleanser. Exactly.

Okay, well, let's move on to some recommendations. Movies we've seen recently. Have you seen this Heartbeats movie? Beautiful. Oh yeah, oh man, I feel bad. I only haven't watched any other movies. No, I've only seen Heartbeats, so I have to recommend it. So I guess I'll just say it's good

because you can just get up and go do something else and come back. No, I'm just kidding, I do have a movie to recommend. You know what, I'm gonna recommend a new movie that's in theaters. I saw it just recently, Black Bag by Steven Soderbergh. Okay, spine movie. Yeah, and I'm recommending it in part because...

You love bags. Very few people seem to be going to see it, and my friend Kevin joked on his letterbox review that it must be people confused, thinking that like, oh, Steven Soderbergh retired already. Oh wait, no, it was actually Matt Karman, our friend, replying to Kevin. Anyway, point is, someone who we know.

There's a weird thing where Stephen Soderbergh is coming out with more movies at a faster pace than I think he ever has before, and yet it somehow seems like he has not made a movie in years, maybe because of the way they're being distributed. A lot of them went to HBO, he had that deal with HBO. Yeah.

Yeah, I think part of it is where those movies can find homes now. Part of it is like those movies can find homes now. Part of it is like he has made a lot of them and he continues to do it with like great craft but I think the fact that he's prolific makes it seem less special maybe when we compare. I don't know. I think that's exactly right, yeah. But this is another great piece of craft from him.

Fassbender and Blanchett, you know play hot spies because that's the only things they can play but it's like it's funny It's like I'll well, it's a lecarie style spy story, but they are You know gorgeous hot people at the center of it. So it's a weird sort of kind of which is very not like array Yeah, it's a weird sort of conflict. Which is very not liqueur-y. Yeah, it's usually, you know, 60-year-old balding men in a office somewhere. Smoking cigarettes. Pasty from never seeing the sun, you know, but I think in this movie,

so much of it is about their marriage, that it helps that they're both, like, you know, smoking hot people, because you're led to believe throughout the film, you're like, okay, well, can they trust one another? They're both in the spy business. It's a case in which one of them has to investigate the other,

and you are wondering, is the trust that they've built up real or not? And that's kind of the central metaphor, spy business as marriage but the spy business is all really well put together and sharp and entertaining and if you want movies that aren't just Some IP being recycled then you know, maybe go out and go see some more solid adult fare. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but uh, But I think we've been trained not to is the problem. But I would recommend it.

Stuart? I'm gonna recommend a little short movie since Heartbeats was a short movie. I'm gonna recommend a movie from last year called Rap World. It's a hot 55 minutes. It's available on its entirety. Wow, not even feature length. Wow.

It's available in its entirety. Wow, not even feature length. It's available in its entirety on YouTube. It's a film by comedian Connor O'Malley, and it is about a group of friends shot very, like cheapo documentary style, mockumentary style, about a group of friends on one night in 2009 who are living in Toby Hanna, Pennsylvania, and they are recording their, they are attempting to make their debut rap album. And you know, over the course of a single night. And obviously, hijinks and setbacks occur.

And also it was, it's very funny, it's edited really well. There's a bunch of great little performances. Sarah Sherman from Saturday Night Live's in it for a little bit. Connor O'Malley's very funny, everybody's great. One of the guys who keeps, over the course of the movie, keeps sending these like kind of deranged FaceTime videos to a girl he's interested in.

The way that he speaks sounds so much like my younger brother that it is incredibly triggering for me. And it was very both hard to watch, but also kind of impressive that he manages to capture a very specific type of Midwestern slang speaking. So yeah, Rap World, check it out, it's really funny. I'm also gonna recommend a short movie, but not as short as Rap World.

I'm gonna recommend a movie from 1969 called The Comic. It was directed by Carl Reiner and stars Dick Van Dyke. And it tells the story of a silent film comedian who's basically a big jerk who makes his career in silent film, and then when he reaches a certain age, his alcoholism and his mistreatment of others gets to him. And the first hour of the movie,

when it shows him making his way in silent film and mistreating people is okay, although it really shows how well Dick Van Dyke would have done as a silent filmmaker in the 20s, because he's very funny in it. But then the last half hour, when he is an old man living a very boring, unpleasant, like unsatisfying life,

is, I find parts of it so funny, because it is like, it is, it's so bleak, and it's just kind of like him as an old man sitting in a small apartment watching TV while he's eating, and there's something very funny about it after the, after the bigness of his life before then and so I Think it's not it's not the greatest movie I didn't I didn't really love it the way I was hoping to but there's a lot of

Moments in it that I really liked a lot and so I'll recommend the comic which I believe may also be on YouTube in its entirety You know not necessarily legally, but I think I might have watched it on To be or on YouTube movies. I can't remember anyway. It doesn't matter its entirety, you know, not necessarily legally, but I think I might've watched it on 2B or on YouTube movies, I can't remember. Anyway, it doesn't matter. And I have one final recommendation, which is that if you've never been a Max Fund member, try it out at just $5 a month.

Enjoy that bonus content. If you're already a member and you'd like to support a little more, we would certainly appreciate you upgrading your membership or even boosting by a few dollars per month or so. If you are able to do so, please do so now though before you forget at MaximumFun.org slash join. And most importantly, thank you to all of our members. Thank you for listening. We cannot make the show without you and we are so grateful for your support And we're also grateful for producer Alex Smith

You know him by the name how old Adi on the internet check his stuff out as well Check out The maximum fun family of podcasts at maximum fun org while you're joining and thank you for listening I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stewie Wellington. I'm Ellie Kalin saying thank you listeners, but especially thank you members. Okay. See you next time.

Bye. A little stinker. Too hot for TB. That's tuberculosis. Great. This is all great stuff. They send you to a warmer climate. They'd say, they'd say, go to Arizona. It's too hot for TB. Go to Tucson, Arizona.

All right. Now we're starting. Welcome to Tucson, Arizona. We actually don't say Arizona, but a lot of people think we do. Welcome to Tucson, Arizona. Music of the night. It's mostly, you know, desert creatures. Buy some turquoise jewelry while you're here. People say, why did you go to Tucson where it's sunny all the time? And I remind them they also have night in Tucson.

Also have night in Tucson, the name of my vampire novel. And they say, don't they have two suns there? And they go, no. That's a common misconception. It's actually the same sun that the earth goes around. I think Tatooine, I don't remember. Now, Tatooine would be very bad for a vampire, but you see there is a sunset because Luke stares off into it longingly as he dreams of joining the Academy and leaving this mudball

sand planet. I love how it occasionally drifts into Father Guido's heart. He was a vampire, right? Yeah, he was a vampire. Yeah. Top vamp. Okay, let vampire. Yeah. Top vamp. Okay, let's do this show. Top vamp.

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