The Flop House - Ep.#455 - Poolman, with Josh Gondelman

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

No, it's not a biopic about Jim Poolman, former insurance commissioner of North Dakota. It's a comic sunshine noir about an actual pool-maintaining Poolman, played (and written/directed) by fave Chris (Pine), who finds himself tangled in a criminal conspiracy... or maybe he's just whacked-out and paranoid? We're joined in this pool party by one of our most beloved returning guests, Mr. Josh Gondelman -- check out his new stand-up special, available for free, right now!Wikipedia page for PoolmanRecommended in this episode:Dan: I Like Movies (2022)Stu: 28 Years Later (2025)Elliott: Nightcrawler (2014), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Mulholland Drive (2001)Head to squarespace.com/FLOP for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use OFFER CODE: FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

On this episode we discuss Poolman. You know, not my favorite Spider-Man villain, but I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliott Kalin. Stuart, pick up your cues faster, please. He's so confused. Stuart's just nervous because we've got a great guest today and it's his job to introduce him.

And I understand this is a guest who deserves a big introduction, maybe the biggest. And notoriously irksome if not introduced properly. Yes. Great. Our guest today is friend of the podcast, comedian, writer, Josh Gondelman. Take it again! Oh God. You have irked me. Ten foot tall, eight Gondelman. Take it again. You have earned it. 10 foot tall, eight foot wiener.

Did you say infinite wiener? Infinite wiener. Just a lazy, infinite wiener. I'm always reading infinite wiener on the subway just to get attention. Oh man, what a pain that would be. No, no, dude. How do you keep walking?

Keep walking, you gotta hit the end of it sometime. I'm imagining- Honey, keep walking, keep walking. You gotta hit the end of it sometime. I'm imagining it's like a measuring tape. You can just pull out as much as you need. Oh, I see. And it retracts back in. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Oh, cool. Thank you for having me. It's very nice to be here. Infinite Weiner is the Marvel character Anthony Weiner pitched himself as for the MCU. Oh, go away. Go away. Yeah, it feels like there's been Infinite Weiner pitched himself as for the MCU? Oh, go away. Go away. Yeah, it feels like there's been infinite Weiner in the news. It's been like a decade of him going like, I'm back and then immediately doing something so embarrassing and often illegal. Yeah.

Yeah. Never has he been lifted to his last name. Now, Josh, I'm sure we'll give you a full chance to promote it later, but you just had a new stand-up special drop, tell us about it. Thank you, it is called Positive Reinforcement, it is an hour of jokes, it sounds like this, but there's punch lines and people laugh. It is on the YouTube. Hold on, hold on, wait a minute, hold on, hold on.

No, I promise, people laugh there. You might not live at home, but the people in the room laugh, it's verifiable. Yeah, lots of cutaways. You might not live at home, but the people in the room laugh. It's verifiable. Yeah, lots of cutaways. Lots of cutaways to the audience to prove it funny. I thought you were saying lots of cutaways like Dan's favorite show, Family Guy. Yeah, that's right.

I do a setup and then it cuts to me fighting a chicken for three minutes. Oh, wow. I shot it at the Bell House last summer. My friend Chris Warner, who I worked with last week, and I directed it, it is on the YouTube channel of the record label that I work with, Blonde Medicine. They're really wonderful.

It is available for anyone to watch anytime. And I really hope people do. It's like very, it's not quite clean. Sometimes people think I'm clean and like book me for synagogues and tell me to have like, okay, you can't curse. And I'm like, well, I was just gonna if you didn't tell me. But there's no cursing in the special, but it does get a little adult. So you can watch it with your cool teens or teens, you can watch it with your cool parents.

But no duds. No losers. No losers. Yeah, this is sort of special that kids are going to run home and listen to on super low volume So their parents don't hear them listening to like I did with like old Eddie Murphy stand-up I did it with with Adam Sandler's sketch comedy albums Adam Sandler albums were the ones where my me and my friends would listen to them on real low volume because we didn't want our parents hearing the From the irritating voices

Embarrassed but he did that with the jerky boys We can even get our hands on those those are too hot Yeah, I mean there are two guys made of jerky and I just really like Dried meats and I was very disappointed Josh. What's the name of the special again? It's called positive reinforcement positive reinforcement And now I'm so Josh You are you're a famously positive person. You're famously positive kind of like let's find the nice thing to say person So I'm very excited to hear you talk about the movie pool man Pool man pool man, what do you mean the hot Lebowski?

Man you were saving that you had that cute up Dan, Dan, what's a pool man. You were saving that. You had that cute up. Dan, what's Pullman all about here? Wait, I'm not the guy in charge of this. Thank God. This is not a plot heavy... This is written and directed and starring Chris Pine. I would argue the best of the Hollywood Chrises. And he is... I think I would say Chris White's friend of the podcast.

Oh, okay. That's fine. You're right. He's usually... You're actually right. And he is I would say Chris White's friend of the podcast He's usually mentioned in the same sort of grouping Yes, Hemsworth whites He works in Hollywood his name is Chris It's great he's the best one yeah He is the best so. Yeah. He is the best. So let's talk about, as you said, it's written, directed, and starring Chris Pine. And it really wears its influences on its sleeve. It wants to be the big Lebowski really badly.

It wants to be kind of like a more sensitive Chinatown really badly, which it signifies by having the characters watch Chinatown in the movie And that's that's always a tough one. It's tough when a movie has you watch a Arguably a better movie Setting aside setting aside the landmine of the man who made the movie. I think it's you know what happened No, it's got terribly mangled by a switchblade I think you can make it arguably make a case yes, that Chinatown is a better movie than Poolman.

It's like, what was it, the scene in Rain of Fire where in the post-apocalyptic future they entertain children by reenacting the story of Star Wars and I'm like, movie, don't be doing this. Don't make me think about Star Wars while I'm watching Rain of And also, I had the same experience watching Return of the Jedi, where C-3PO entertains the Ewoks by reenacting Star Wars. And I'm like, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars is a better movie. What are you doing? There's a third LA-based movie that is explicitly referenced in this,

where you're like, I would like to be watching that movie. Where he goes, you've never seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Yeah. And this movie, it's all that stuff. It's very the long goodbye like it wants to be the long goodbye I'm gonna toss a couple other ones in there that I actually I find more appropriate even is like under the Silver Lake and and inherent vice where this movies where The the main character is so addled that you can't tell whether there actually is a giant conspiracy he's part of

or whether it's just his paranoid fantasies. Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of like, uh, LA neo-noir with, uh, you know, like a dopey main character, basically. I would call it Los Angeles hangout burnout noir. Like, there's a lot of hanging out, the main characters are burnout, Big Lebowski, I would say, is the greatest of those, that's arguably. But let's talk about, we're not here to talk about that.

We're here to talk about Foolman. I think there's contention there, but that's okay. See the crisp on in the boo. Wearing shorts and looking cool. That I've been singing on. I've been singing that around the apartment so much. She's like, Foolman. And then, my wife Maris has not been enjoying it.

Oh, interesting. Maybe you enjoy it. How's the dog respond? She's down. As long as I sing it in her direction and like kind of upbeat. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about what Pool Man is like.

Let's talk about what Pool Man is. Pool Man stars Chris Pine as Darren or DB, he's also called. He lives in a trailer next to a motel pool. He's a pool guy. He takes his work very seriously. He only seems to take care of one pool. Just the one at the apartment motel complex. He doesn't seem to like... Just enough to earn the title. Yes, like he doesn't travel around to take care of other pools as most pool people do. It's not called pools man.

That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a good point. Be a very confusing title. People get me. He takes it very seriously and he's like Josh said, he's the hot Lebowski. He has his shirt off a lot and he's kind of a burnout and he kind of doesn't know what's going on.

He writes very ultra positive letters to Aaron Brockovich. Every day he writes a letter to Aaron Brockovich. And he has a girlfriend. As we all do. Brachovich every day he writes a letter to Aaron Brachovich and he has a girl and his and we are I think that the tone of the movie might be best summed up by the scene but the first scene between him and his girlfriend whose name is what Susan I think where they played by played by is it Jennifer Jason Lee yeah okay and it's almost like there's a ton of stars in this movie it is a very star-packed movie yeah yeah, that's true.

And the material does not give them a huge amount to take. I would say that it's like, the movie is less a plot where one scene leads tightly to the next, but like a series of acting exercises, performed by great actors, like just sort of circuitous conversations. Yeah. It's like a star vehicle, but the vehicle is one of those like fake horses out in front

of a grocery store that it can get a ride. It doesn't go very much. So they lie in bed together, they have a conversation about how their local chicken restaurant has not been as good lately since the owner died and He finds out that his girlfriend used to date the owner and he talks a lot about Descanso Gardens, which is a which is a real Botanical garden in New York is a Los Angeles Location references in this a lot of LA location references throughout the movie but Descanso Gardens for some reason especially gets like I'm like Just crisp pine just like to hang out at

Disconciled Gardens? I don't know. I don't know. It's a great Botanical Garden, but I'm not sure why they mention it so much, but you don't really, you don't, the characters are kind of having this rambling conversation at cross purposes with each other, and there's a lot of that in this movie. There's a lot of

rambling conversations where characters are not really speaking directly to each other. She leaves, he gets a package, it's a lot of rambling conversations where characters are not really speaking directly to each other. She leaves, he gets a package, it's a real estate calendar from Theodore Hollandaise, who is one of the, I guess, sinister power brokers pulling the strings in Los Angeles. The name like that. The name like Teddy Hollandaise. Then we're introduced to some of the Pullman's crew.

There's Jack and Diane. Every time he said Jack and Diane, it made me so mad. Because it's like not a joke. It's like a fake joke. That Jack is Danny DeVito, Diane is Annette Benning. It's great to see them in movies. I love seeing them perform.

They live at that kind of hotel apartment complex. Danny DeVito tells a long story about a Japanese restaurant complaining about it. And that's kind of the scene. And Diane is a is pool man's therapist and Jack, Diane and pool man, they're making a documentary with pool man's friend Wayne about pool man's attempts to get the City Council to bring back the trolley cars that used to be in Los Angeles and are a big plot point in who framed Roger Rabbit as you'll remember and yeah, I would just want to say in passing that my favorite characters

I think in this I mean other than we'll see Stephen Telaski later. It's about to come up but I think that Jack and Diane are my favorite characters because there's just something about I mean like Davido's doing his like normal just sort of like, I don't know, like, fomphering around with high energy thing, but there's something about, I think, Annette Bening specifically, her positive like vibe,

like she's just like kind of coming along on all this bullshit very like indulgently, and she's just like happy to relax next to them while they're doing- Always wearing a sun hat and giant glasses. Stuff, and I found them more fun than, the problem with Chris Pine's character to me is he's too dumb.

In something like The Big Lebowski, Lebowski ends up being kind of a good detective, which is kind of the funny thing about that movie, even though he's stoned all the time, he puts things together, whereas Chris Pine is really out to lunch. He's really dumb, and he's like, but he's not, we don't ever see him like smoking pot

or anything like that. No. Whereas the big Lebowski, like- And he doesn't drink alcohol, right? And he doesn't drink egg greens. It seems like kind of a plot point, yeah. So instead of, like, Lebowski is clear he is, he's a burnout because he is constantly he's always high

He like he's always smoking pot, which is a character trait drinking white Russians and drinking white Russians. That's true. Whereas Whereas yeah, the pool man is or Darren I guess he no one ever calls he's calls himself a pool of it No one's ever like pool man. You're here He's a he's just a dumb guy. He's just a dumb spacey guy. You know, and I was trying to think to myself, what is it that makes Jeff Bridges' performance in The Big Lebowski so amazing? I think it's one of the best comic performances

of the past, what, 40 years in a movie. I think maybe it's just that he knows that character so well that he's inhabiting it so completely, whereas Chris Pine feels like he is playing a part. Like he feels like he's playing a character. Do you think on the set of Hell or High Water, Chris Pine went up to Jeff Bridges and was like, hey, I'm thinking about doing another Bill Baskie.

Give me some tips. I think there's something frustrating about, usually you don't want a passive character, but the pool man keeps sort of stumbling into problems of his own design and misinterpreting things. And that makes him more irritating. Whereas Lebowski is like just constantly reluctant. He just wants to be left alone,

but is like dragged into things, which I found much more sympathetic. I honestly was thinking about that same tension because watching this movie, I kept thinking to myself, why is he doing all these things? Why is he doing? And then at the end of the movie, spoiler alert, we'll get there, he's totally superfluous to everything that's been happening, but not in a funny way.

Not in a funny like, oh, I thought I was the hero of this movie, but it turns out I was just kind of bumbling around the edges of a larger story. Instead, everyone treats him like a hero when he's done nothing and accomplished nothing. And it's a very, it's very weird. But it's, and it might just be that, you know, Chris Pine, he walked the strike line with us, you know? I appreciate that. But I'll go as far as to say,

he's probably not up to the Coen Brothers level in his directorial debut here. It's not, this is not blood simple, you know, compared to the Coen Brothers who did Big Lebowski. I would also, as much as I like him, I don't think he's cast well in this because Chris Pine has like a depth and a soulfulness in his eyes

that do not fit a character that's this bumbling to me. I will say two things. One, I think he, yeah, he comes off as a smart guy playing a dumb guy, and, he's in great shape. And it's hard for me to believe this character having the motivation to like, exercise? I believe him meditating and like trying to be good to himself that way and eating right. I don't, but it's hard for me to imagine this guy. He is in great shape. What do you think his routine is, Dan?

What do you think his work is? I'm guessing he does a lot of surfing. Yeah, a lot of surfing. Yeah, a lot of surfing. Probably not a lot of bulking, right? Probably not a lot of powerlifting. No, I don't think so. I wonder what he squats. Well, he's probably listening, so he's fine, Ryan.

So anyway, they are making a documentary about Darren's attempts to get the trolley back. They go to a city council hearing chaired by city council chairman, Stephen Torononkowski who's played by Stephen Tobolowski So I could not remember that his name was Toronkowski for most of the movie and in my notes I just call him Tobolowski and this is Darren's that's that's on them. That's not an Elliott problem That's true. They're doing it's very funny How none of the other characters have character names that are that close to the real name?

But Stephen it's not like they named the character Stephen Torankowski and then by coincidence Cast Stephen couldn't have possibly been done that way. No, and in fact if it was a coincidence they would have changed it You think so? This is his 577 consecutive appearance and he's fixated on returning LA back to the way it was He's one of these guys who's like, old LA was amazing, they're tearing down all these old buildings. He's very knowledgeable about old LA buildings and kind of what-

As an LA guy, Elliot, is this a character that like- They actually call me LA it. LA it, Kailin. Now I'm LA it, Kailin. Because that's my catchphrase on the radio here. I go, LA it, hey guys, you don't know what to do with it? LA it, make it more LA. That's what I do, yeah.

Yeah, what does that mean in effect? It means- One radio station. Yeah. What's the content here? You don't know what to do with it LA it make it more Something basically you put you put a side of avocado on it and then you and then you place it next to a thing that Is a wildly different architectural style that still works because there's so many so many different types, you know But you have to like drive 20 minutes to get there. Oh at least at let on a good day Uh, what you see you're gonna ask me about LA. I was just gonna say types, you know, but you have to like drive 20 minutes to get there Oh at least at let on a good day. Uh, but wait, so you're gonna ask me about LA I was just gonna say like at you know, three of us here are longtime New Yorkers. Yeah being an LA guy Is this like a caricature that is common and for an LA audience would play really well I think there's an LA I will give the movie this I think it has an LA feel I think give the movie this, I think it has an LA feel. I think it does feel like you're in Los Angeles and the characters are kind of LA types, but I have to admit I have not found myself in this situation too often where I'm encountering this kind of like...

Outside of Jesse Thorne, our good friend who is perfect LA guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you would love that. He doesn't identify heavily with the Bay Area or anything. But I don't hang around a lot of the classic LA built around a pool housing complexes. I don't spend a lot of time around buildings done in the googie architecture style, not by choice, just it doesn't happen that often. So I feel like I'm not encountering this level the same way that in New York, I would often encounter people who are like, oh, the old New York, can you imagine?

Like this building's been around for 150 years. Oh, this is great. In LA, also the things like old LA is like 80 years old. It's not that old. So my wife's cousin's husband who grew up in Istanbul, he's always like, America, you look at a building and you're like, this is 200 years old and you think that's old.

We've got thousand year old buildings where I'm from. And I feel like LA is that accelerated where people are like, we can't tear down this building. It's 60 years old. It's an artifact of an earlier era, you know, that kind of thing. So, but that's a long way of saying, I don't know that I've ever met anyone who's like,

ah, the old LA, oh, the old glamour of old Los Angeles, but I'm sure they're out there, you know Steve this so this scene maybe that's gonna explain it to me City Council meeting. He's got this elaborate presentation he's doing and Stephen Tobolowski instantly gets so mad at him and is like leave get out your time is up But he hasn't said anything particularly well We just had it established that this is like you just broke the record for most consecutive appearances at What are these meetings you must have been but if these are the appearances he's having like it should be fun Like I didn't know why the characters were getting mad at each other

I didn't understand you would get mad if this guy came to your work like 500 days in a row If my job is to talk to the members of the public when they when they want to come to meetings You have I mean perhaps as ideals of the elected officials jobs Constituent this way As a current candidate for the- Elliot! As a current candidate for the board of the Writers Guild West, I would never treat a constituent this way.

Come talk to me about your issues, union members, come talk to me 577 days in a row. We'll have a same pleasant conversation. I will not just explode at you the way Stephen Tovalovsky does today. You've got issues, he's got tissues. Elliot! What? In case people are crying, I'm there for you. Today you've got issues. He's got tissues Yes Stuart, can you be my campaign manager for

Or my campaign manager for the writers guild board again, I'm running so This week gets mad and he gets thrown out. DB has the first of several meditating at the bottom of a pool scene. No, he did one early, right? Oh, he did earlier? Oh, I missed it. Because he did an, like right at the beginning, he does it after he adjusts the pool.

And I took a note that it said like, it's the first character sitting at the bottom of a pool scene that isn't about a long, dark night of the soul. He just kind of likes it down there. I think it's very funny because it's like, I don't know how deep you're going to get into meditation at the bottom of a pool scene that isn't about a long dark night of the soul. He just kind of likes it down there. Yeah. I think it's very funny because it's like, I don't know how deep you're going to get into meditation at the bottom of a pool. You can't do it for too long or you'll die.

Well, especially because it's very breathing-centered meditation in my experience. Meditation is very much about feeling yourself breathe. So it feels like unless he has some shortcut, it's very hard to, and you can only meditate for like four minutes at most. I mean, there's an element of, I mean, there's an element of what's the where they isolation? Thank you Yeah, sensory deprivation. Yeah sensory deprivation

That's what I was actually sensory deprivation tank like you're in there for a while like you're not in there for like well It's like your mind 30 seconds Have you guys ever done have you guys ever done a cold plunge like a nice icy cold plunge? No, I haven't Damn, what are you? Have you ever know like I just like like a cold But I I know it's a big thing that people do like I was like I can do like 45 seconds But then after that I'm like my my extremities hurt Yeah, okay. Sorry. I was I figured you guys were all ice like I don't even you know I can't even do that like I, I know that you like to...

I prefer to take... I don't know why I know this. You like to finish off a shower with a little cold water, right? Yeah. I feel like I hurt you. You wrote it down in your stew diary. I did. I did not take it.

No, thank you. I like to end, I like to... I appreciate cold water taken internally. Really cold water, I like to take it in through my mouth, into the inside of my body. Oh, that's the best. Yeah. And Josh, you're one of those guys who wakes up at four in the morning and sticks your face, into the inside of my body. Oh, that's the best. Yeah. And Josh, you're one of those guys who wakes up

at four in the morning and sticks your face in a bowl. In a bowl of freezing cold water, yeah. I did my skin on. Skin on, yeah. That's where all the nutrients are. And you also, you sleep with tape on your mouth so that you can breathe through your nose the healthy way? Mm-hmm, so my nose doesn't stop grinding when I'm asleep.

Mm-hmm. No place off for the nose. Yeah. So he has a vision of himself, himself in a suit and a tree, and he becomes fixated on this tree for much of the movie, and he writes a letter to Aaron Brockovich about his troubles. We learn that, so this is a weird thing to learn off camera

is that when he was thrown out of the city council meeting that he punched one of the security guards and went went to jail and Got bailed out and this is information that we're just told as in his voice over to Aaron Brockovich And it makes me wonder did they not did they forget to shoot this did they shoot it and adjusted? Lost the location man Pull down was too short for you, Elliot. That's your problem? I'm wondering why Poolman would remove one of the few moments of action or thrill that it might have had. Also, there could be an element

of that it, like seeing him hit somebody as opposed to just hearing about it is different. Like seeing somebody commit an act of violence, like it changes your feel towards the character. It's just a strange thing to find out happened between scenes. Yeah. You see it in movies sometimes, but it's usually a result of it They've edited out a scene because it wasn't working and they have to replace that dialogue to explain it, you know They say he's wearing a suit and I do have to point out the Chris Pine wears some incredible outfits in this movie

You can tell Chris Pine dressed himself because he has a great sense of style. He wears great clothes Yeah, and he's constantly eating he wears great clothes. Yeah. And he's constantly eating at Langer's. Yes, they do get they get food from Langer's, which is a it's a good deli. It's right near the Max Fun offices, you know, or it was I don't remember where they. Is that your favorite LA deli? I think my favorite might be Arts. Which is the one with the what's the one by Hollywood is it by by Sunset, what's the one that has the Kibitz room

attached to it, the bar? Oh, I think you're thinking of Schmelberger's deli. Yeah. That's not true. I don't know which one. I haven't yet gotten to explore the delis of LA the way, I've still never been to Cantor's, which is the like famous one.

Cantor's is the one you're talking about, I think Stuart. Oh, okay. We got so jealous of LA podcast talking about local shit all the time. Now we're ready on the action. Delia and Kaylyn. LA with Delia. Los Angeles pastrami roundup.

Hey guys, Los Ianiga. Yep, that's a place, that's a thing, yeah. Yeah, that's your other catchphrase, Delia. Well, that's when I'm running for the Jewish vote in LA. I go, Delia, Kaylyn, you're going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA.

I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, I'm going to be the Jewish vote in LA. I'm like, that's your other catchphrase deli That's what I'm running for the Jewish vote in LA I go Have sour pickle on the side of it That's I mean that's the first that's the first law I want to push through in the LA City Council all sandwiches come with a Pickle just great you don't have to pay for that Okay, Zaron, your social pickle distribution. These pickles are too damn high. How can we afford this, Elliot?

We're back to New York references. Josh, you wanted to say something, I assume not about my campaign for mayor of LA? No, it was about that. I do, like Stuart said, I like the outfits. I think the movie looks kind of fun, like you were saying that has an LA feel. It's a good looking movie. I don't know who did the cinematography on it, but so the cinematography is,

I'm looking at it now, it was Matthew Jensen, who's done a lot of stuff, and it looks great. Well, yeah, I wanted to say, I would argue that Chris Pine as a director, the issues here are Chris Pine screenwriter more than they are Chris Pine director, I think he gets good performances out of everyone, I think it looks good, I know he's working with other technicians but he directed a good looking movie.

And I know he wasn't the casting director but I'm assuming a big part of the cast was, oh yeah I'll work with Chris Pine. Yes, so this is actually, I'm finding out now, this is the cinematographer Matthew Jensen, this is his second appearance on the Flophouse, because he also was the cinematographer for Josh Trank's Fantastic Four, which we saw a while back. Wow, he made it through that crucible.

But it looks like his earliest film was, have you ever seen the movie Man of the Century, where it's 1999, but there's a guy who looks and talks like it's the 20s, and it's 1999 but there's a guy who looks and talks like it's the 20s and it's a it's it's like a it's a kind of ridiculous idea for a movie but I remember seeing a long time ago so I'm like oh that's funny that that he also worked on another movie about a guy who like is nostalgic for an earlier time basically but that was a New York one. So anyway let's get back to this movie because there's so much more to talk about because we're about to get to the femme fatale character.

That's right. Stephen Tobolowski's new executive assistant, June, comes to see Darren. She's the one who bailed him out of jail and she wants his help. She says the councilman has been accepting bribes and she thinks he's gonna accept one from Teddy Hollandaise, who I should just mention now,

is played by Clancy Brown. And she wants him to, I guess, just find evidence of this bribe. And Darren is like, no, I'm not going to do it. I'm not a detective. Darren has a therapy session with Diane. He's in tears, I think, in this one because he saw that tree in his meditation. And she's like, you have to confront that tree. And Darren, against Diane's wishes, decides he's going to take this detective case.

And Jack is like, you should do it. This will be great for our documentary. And Darren's like, this is what Aaron Brockovich would have done. I'm going to take this detective case. Don't know why he couldn't have made that decision in the earlier scene since he's already obsessed with Aaron Brockovich. Like he could just looked at her picture on his wall, which is on there and done it. But that's when-

Or his typewriter, which he uses to write her the letters. Yeah, that's when he gets pastrami from Langhurst. He's one of those guys. A real Tom Hanks. He gets pastrami from Langhurst, and then the place that I got sandwiches from for my wife after our second son was born, she didn't want any more hospital food,

so I ran on down to Langhurst and got her sandwiches there. Okay, I'll put that in my notebook right next to... Stuart likes cold water in the shower. Look, LA and Delhi, the Delhi is an important part of my family life. And then they watch Chinatown and luckily for us, they see the scene in Chinatown where the guy explains that LA is a desert town and it needs water

because underneath our feet it's a desert. It's amazing. Is this the equivalent of like a sci-fi movie where you walk into like a professor a college professor giving a speech that yes Plains exactly what the point of the movie That's why polymer strands when stretched too far lead to dimensional rifts That's the bell homework assignment is pages 2500 through 3300 like they300. Every college professor I've learned from movies cannot accurately time their own lectures

and they're always yelling the homework assignment as everyone is rushing to get out of the room. Yeah. It's like man, the syllabus is probably online. Just tell them the syllabus is online. Yeah. They also always get to the most important part of the lecture right as the bell is hitting

because that's when the FBI agent or NYPD officer or NASA scientist or whatever is walking into the room because they also cannot get the schedule right for the class. It's probably like, I would imagine like a cop and not a cop are walking in, they're about to do some kind of investigation. Yeah, especially. A cop could be anything, like a magician. A magician.

Yeah, yeah, anything. Yeah, yeah. Especially if the professor is a bad guy professor. So when they walk in, he's always like, and that's how you remove all the skin from a living person. Eee, oh, that's the end of class, okay. The homework assignment is to find out I'm a serial killer and then the cop and not a cop come and talk to him

and he's like, oh, well. He's always like fiddling with the chalk, you know. Sure hope you catch that chicken cutlet killer. This is one for Deli-It again. Hope you catch BF Skin Man. I love his solo stuff. Pretty sassy of the serial killer to give himself a pun name like that. It was the New York Post.

The Post did it. This is a New York based thing, but not the kind of thing I talk about now that I'm LA at Gaelic. The LA based Elliot. So they take the case, they watch Chinatown. He goes to June's apartment, I don't remember why, and they're both dressed like old movie stars and they kind of semi flirt and she's very, putting it on very heavy, this kind of like melodramatic femme fatale, you know, kind of every line is weighted with some kind of sometimes subtext, they blow out a match together, and then they go to dinner together, and did I miss the part where she says, come and have dinner with me before he just shows up at her apartment? You're really, you know, like obsessed with things not happening on screen that really could be assumed.

Like this is the sort of stuff that usually I feel like you're like, yeah, just moving along movie, but here you're like, no, I needed everything explained. I think the issue of this, something I said before the movies, before we started recording was, it's weird to see a movie that doesn't have a core. And I kind of, I think my issue is that I kind of kept waiting for the movie to like, act like it was a movie to kick in and act like there was a story and not just like a collection of scenes where things are happening. And I'm like'm like movie if there's a mystery of any kind or There's a

Conspiracy a guy supposed to dig into you got to give me some of the linkages like you can't you can't just be Unless that's what the movie is about but that it doesn't feel like that's what this movie is about, you know It's anyway Josh. What are you inside? No, I'm with it's it's really kind of free-floating I wanted to say I made a note. This was so funny to me I was watching I was watching this movie with my wife Maris whose book came out last week I want to bring this place. What a life. He's always mentioning his wife She didn't make it to the end of the movie she lived but she walked out of But she when they're showing she didn't she didn't say I can't take anymore this movie and just slice her own throw it open

But when they when they were watching China she goes yeah Chris Evans, this is your China town Chris Evans Chinatown would be Chinatown in Boston Which is a good Chinatown would be Chinatown in Boston. Which is a good Chinatown. There's a lot of great Chinatowns. Look, if you go to a city, you go to Chinatown, whatever Chinatown they have there, you're going to find something good there. You know, I'm a big fan of Chinatowns in general, the movies and the places. So they... Shane Hyliet-Gaylor. You know what LA has? A Chinatown, that's right, and a Japan town and a Korea town and

a historic Filipino town. And as mayor, I will represent all of those different constituencies, not the way I think they should be represented, but the way they need to be represented, the way they want to be represented. I'm listening to you, LA. He's really crushing it. He is. Yeah, thank you. I should run for mayor of LA. I mean, I don't know where anything is in the city, but I kind of feel like nobody in LA knows where anything is in the city. I don't know where anything is in the city.

Where am I now? So they have a very seductive dinner. It's very mysterious. He's a doof. And then when they leave, she gets in a real tiny car and drives off and he follows her to a mansion and sees her talking to somebody in silhouette.

And he writes to Erin and Brockovich He's like this is great. Everything's going well and And sir, he's meditating in the pool again and in his is in his meditation someone says hi to him We'll later find out this is a lizard The next day he talks to Jack for a while Jack tells him a long story that I cannot remember what it was about And then suddenly they're trailing Council President Tobolowski, or Council Committee Chairman Tobolowski,

and they see him at a racetrack. He gets a handoff from some goons. The story was about doing hash in Cape Cod, on Cape Cod, while he was doing community theater. That's right, while he was doing children's community theater. Which may be a real story from Danny DeVito's life. It had that feeling of Chris Pine being like, Danny, just talk, just say anything, just monologue.

Josh is like, they mentioned Massachusetts and he just freaked out. I really freaked out, I was like, ah. So guys, I'm gonna talk about another thing that didn't make sense to me about this movie, a movie that is a loosely agglomerated collection of scenes. The goons who work for Teddy Hollandaise, why are they dressed like the guys from Miami Vice,

a show that is famously not set in Los Angeles. It's a good question, Dan. I mean, is that not a style that you'll see in LA too though? I feel like that's a warm weather. I mean, they look, but they seem so specifically patterned after the guys from, in Miami Vice. It's also a lot of the stuff in the movie, not to like digress, but I think it's of a piece with like,

the things in this movie all look like they're not from the present, even though the movie clearly takes place in the present. Everything is stylized to be a little off and a little out of time. It feels like he's going at, for all that we've talked about, the big Lebowski in Chinatown,

it feels like he's also going for a Wes Anderson feel to a lot of stuff in that way. And it's, I feel like, I's also going for a Wes Anderson feel to a lot of stuff in that way. And it's, I feel like, I know Stuart does not like Wes Anderson particularly, but I feel like Wes Anderson when he is successful at it, partly because he creates this feeling of like, this exists in its own special universe that has this way of being. Whereas this feels so much like it's still like LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, the old LA, the new LA, that you're like, well, you gotta well you gotta ground it in Los Angeles then I guess.

Like it can't just be in Chris Pine's head the way that Wes Anderson's movies very clearly take place in a dollhouse. I'll disagree. I think that that, I mean, like if it's a guy who's obsessed with old LA, it kind of makes sense that he's, you know, we're taking, like it is sort of like an existence head

and we're seeing all these older places. Like the hotel he works at seems like like a mid-century hotel like is like just like a Kind of cd you like run down. It's not the places so much the cars if if he's supposed to be the guy who is the old la Kind of the guy who wants it so badly Then the people he's in opposition with should not also be old la style people right like they're You've got you've got you've got to differentiate your characters a little bit. You can't have if the whole point if the yeah, so I feel like that's a it's a thematic failing. I mean, it looks it looks awesome. It looks like the costumes look really cool. All the cars look really

cool. As much as I was saying, no, I was just saying we are being, I think, pretty negative about the movie because it's not a very good movie, but there were lots of little glimmers that I was like, oh, that's fun. I have that in my head too much of like, that's fun. Her asking what he wants to drink, I think it was, June did this, and he says water, and they go, make sense, you're a pool man. And it's like those tiny little jokes

where someone says things change and he goes, well, they shouldn't. That's like a very Wes Anderson line Yeah, and at the very end the Wes Anderson part really hit me more at the very end two characters They say they're going to Paris and when we see them in a scene a group scene They're wearing like literally striped shirts and berets and it's like oh big adventure The Wes Anderson movie of its day, you know.

But I mean, I think on some level, there's a feel like he is only a few steps removed from a Pee-wee type character. Yes, I think that's true. I feel like this movie wouldn't hate that comparison. No, but I think that one of the, just having seen Pee-wee's Big Adventure a few times recently, because my kids got into it,

one of the things that movie does so well is the balance between Pee-wees world and how weird the real world is but also how not exactly like pee-wee This is a little tough guy test here. This is an official tough guy test. How well do your boys do with the large Marge bit? Oh, they were fine. I warned them about it ahead of time. Okay, I shit my pants I could not watch it. It was so scary. And so I told them, there's two scary parts in this movie

and we can fast forward through them if you want. And they, and the large march, afterwards they're like, that was it? It was like, claymation. Like they had no, it meant nothing to them, you know? Okay, yeah, you got to get them to watch The Ring next, I guess. And the other thing, you know, I mean,

the other thing about Pew's Big Adventure is it helps that it has some of the funniest jokes in the world. That's true. If you're gonna make a picaresque-like story where it doesn't really matter what the plot is, it helps to just have each individual thing be hilarious. Well, there's a saying, I think,

that like a good director can make a bad script look good, but like a bad director can make a bad script look good, but like a bad director can ruin a good script or something like that. And I feel like the issue with this movie is the story. Like we said, is the script. And it looks really cool, the actors are fun in it. There's a fun atmosphere to it. The atmosphere feels really fun.

But while you're watching it, you're just kinda like, what's happening? What am I seeing? This is the kind of movie that I love to. It is like, I love like, Shlub meets a bunch of weirdos. That could be the description of so many of my favorite movies. Name another movie that fits into the Shlub meets a bunch of weirdos genre. Gosh, I'm trying to think.

I saw one pretty recently, but even like, okay, this is like delicate, physically slender woman meets a bunch of weirdos, but like even poor things kind of had that. And I liked where it's like, oh, here's a new weirdo and here's a new weirdo. And so I love like a person kind of getting blown through the world. You think they're weird in that movie?

I think I've talked, I think I might have talked in the podcast before about how badly I felt for the guys who were cast to play the Johns at the brothel that she's working at Poor Things, where I'm like, can we just put a casting notice out for guys you would never want to have sex with? Like, who's going to show up for this audition? Can you just look in their eyes and just think their dick is gross? Yeah, they were auditioning for that and Zola at the same time. But I said it's a kind of movie that I really like, but it just feels like every scene like

I recently was talking about the Big Lebowski for a different friends podcast. I won't, you know, back in a please don't mention starting East Coast West Coast rivalry even though they're both West Coast can be friends. Look, this this podcast right here, you got two New York guys and one LA guy, LA stalwart, LA Kaelin, and we can bring this together. LA to the bone over there. Born and raised except for the first 35 years of my life. But in Lebowski, every scene is just so fun

and full of interesting, weird stuff. And these scenes, it feels, this movie, it feels like they're trying to kind of rev up the charm and the quirk, but it doesn't quite get there. And so you see, it looks great, and you can see these performances are really good, but they just don't have that much fun stuff to do. Yeah.

It feels like an attempt to do a, yeah, a Lebowski where they didn't give them business, you know I like he brought people in and were like, okay and go and didn't necessarily give them like here's what your character does It's like he he had the idea of the type of movie he wanted to make but not it like forgot that there also Need should be a movie somewhere in there. Yes. yeah. And so getting back to the movie in there somewhere, the next day, so they go to this handoff, they see what looks like Tobolowski taking a bribe, and they're all there as a group watching,

and they're being pretty loud, and Diane's just reading, like reading out loud from the book that she's got, a lot of the characters. Which I believe is Knausgard. Is that what it was? I think so. Was that My Struggle?

Yeah, I think that's what I clocked. And I was like, this certainly isn't Hitler's My Struggle. No, and you know what? I read the wrong book. I read Mice Truggle, and I just didn't even find out what truggling was, how one mouse would do it. Yeah.

I picked up the wrong book, and that's on me. That's on me. Pick up the wrong book to that's not me. That's not me Wrong book because to read along with pool man Yeah, you don't read the when you Gotta read the book that they're reading in it. Yeah, I do every month. I read Oprah's book club pick. I read man's book club Tells me there's a lot of Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance along that yeah pull man collection of his letters to Aaron Brockovich Oh, yeah, the Brockovich letters. Yeah So it turns out a lot of the characters are carrying guns. This is something that never plays into anything, which is fine

It's just kind of a joke, but it's just kind of it's it's it's a it's one of the wackier moments in the movie for me Where I'm like, oh, so they're just all carrying guns all the time? Because that's not an LA thing, not in my LA. Kalen's LA is a weapon-free zone. Wayne pulls the gun, right? He has a friend? Wayne does, but then also Susan has one. And I think Diana has a weapon of some kind.

Susan has a taser. Oh, that's a taser, okay. And Wayne, I think they do kind of pay off, not to spoil it too much. I mean, that's true, is. Right. And Wayne, I think they do kind of pay off, not to spoil it too much, but they have to. There's an explanation why he would have a gun. But- This is also where he finds out that Wayne and Susan have been having an affair and they're in love.

Yes, that Wayne- And that he is effectively broken up with. Yeah, Susan is going out with Wayne, who until this point has seemed kind of like a lackey for Darren, you know. And they take pictures and they run away. He discovers they're in love, he gets upset, he meditates again, he sees a talking lizard, June comes over, she's like,

I know you were following me, that was my uncle's house. My uncle is taking care of my mom because she's sick and they kiss and she leaves. And Darren goes, wait a minute, the guys I saw with Torekowski, they work for Hollandaise. So he goes to Hollandaise's office and this is one of the scenes where, it's like clues just fall into his lap, basically.

And I guess maybe that's part of the issue I'm having with it, is he meets William Van Patterson, played by Ray Wise, who is investing in one of Hollandaise's housing projects. And then Hollandaise just talks to Darren for a little bit and he's like, hey, tells him a story, this is how I got my job, there's a job here for you. And Darren goes, you bribe Tobolowski.

And- I gotta say, if you see Clancy Brown and Ray Wise walking out of office, like laughing together, you know they're up to something. Yeah. Always have trouble brewing. Trouble brewing, yeah. And it's too bad that we never see them together again.

Like, it's like, oh, that's the movie I want to see is Clancy Brown and Ray Wise being bad guys together. And then he says, he goes, oh, there's so much more that you don't know about Tobolowski's hiding something over at the Moody Mule Bar. And Darren goes there and walks into the best scene in the movie, which is a scene from The Golden Girls.

Because Councilman Turingkowski, his secret is that and walks into the best scene in the movie, which is a scene from the Golden Girls, because Councilman Torkowski, his secret is that he plays Blanche in a drag cabaret version of the Golden Girls, and it leads to Darren. I love it so much. And the Pullman is taken by this very much, like, he's genuinely like, this guy's doing great work on stage, I love this.

He loves it, he loves it. And I think the best scene in the movie is the one- That shit would crush in Brooklyn right now. For sure. Yeah. And then the best scene in the movie, I think, is Darren goes to confront Tobolowski in the green room and they kind of both cry together

and apologize to each other. And Tobolowski talks about how it's just so brave that you can just be the person that you are. And I don't know how to be the person that I am. And I was like, there's a much better movie built around this scene that I wish I was watching. It's really lovely, and it's like, there's this funny frisson of, he's like,

oh, you came here to tell me you're gonna out me. And he's like, no, I just want the trolleys to work. I don't want you to be corrupt. And that Darren is like, no, I love this. You should keep doing this. I think it's great, but I want trolleys back. This makes me want you to be corrupt. And that Darren is like, no, I love this. You should keep doing this. I think it's great, but I want probably better. This makes me like you so much better. I know what the rest of the movie he's talking about,

like, man, you should have seen him. He's stunning as Blanche. I do like that he's like, no, I like you more because it's like, it's difficult for him. I used to see you as just a bad guy, but now I know that you have the side of you. And it's like- I would also normally cast Toblowski as a Dorothy,

but okay, lunch. It worked, it worked. That's the thing about Toblowski, I can see him as a Dorothy, I can see him as a Sophia, I can see him as a Rose. He could be any one of those characters. He's also a rabbi in this movie that gets mentioned a few times, but you never see him.

You see that he has a yarmulke on, but you never see, the idea that he's a rabbi is something that doesn't doesn't play in otherwise and it's like is it just supposed to be Funny the idea of someone being a rabbi like that anti-semitic Netflix show Or is it is it that? Like Netflix show you know what I'm talking about with the rabbi. Yeah, I texted you guys about that You did remember it's your text me saying is this show anti-Semitic? Charlene wants to know. And I was like. And you of course are the one who rules on this. I also texted Josh this I think.

Yeah, and I came down the side of, I don't think it's anti-Semitic, but it certainly does not like Jewish women, that show. It also, it's a wild world where people in LA are just mystified by Jewish practices. They're like, do I feed them bagels? Terrible show about podcasting. Yes, I mean, I think it's a good show. where people in LA are just mystified by Jewish practices. And like, do I feed them bagels? Terrible show about podcasting.

Yes, that was more upsetting to me. It's no Alex Hink. Can I just say, yeah, I also agree this is the fine, like this is like a five star scene in an otherwise not as good movie. Otherwise like a two star movie, yeah. But I also, I was like thinking about like, why is this so great?

Like part of it is I just always love a movie, a scene in a movie where like two people who had been at odds like have a moment where they come together, where they see each other as like humanity. But also this is the one scene in the movie, I think that two characters are actually like connecting to one another, like literally every other that two characters are actually connecting to one another.

Literally every other scene, people are talking past one another or have some reason they're not being honest. And this is the one honest scene between people. And you don't get to see Stephen Tobolowski play a character with this much kind of life going on, this much emotion going on. He's almost usually just like doing character parts.

And so it was great for him. But I agree, Dan, that's a really good point that like it's two characters talking to each other rather than talking around each other. And it's like a, it's an example of like, it makes me, actually, you know what, I think about it now, after watching Pullman the first time, I was like, I don't know if I'm that interested in seeing

whatever Chris Pine does himself next, but if it's more in the style of this scene Rather than the rest of the movie then then it could be really good, you know So it is a really good scene It and I don't love the ending which is that uh Someone shoots Tobolowski from off-screen and then literally just tosses the gun into Darren's hands and goes whoa And he's like if he's close enough to toss the gun in your hand. You should have seen him like It's a little bit like the end of Jurassic Park where they've done

So they've made such a big deal out of how a Tyrannosaurus if it's anywhere near you you feel the ground shake and yet this Tyrannosaurus manages to tiptoe up and surprise a raptor Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's in stealth mode, yeah He's wearing sneakers in this one. Yeah, you push the right trigger and he crouch But uh, it's a. It's a really good scene, but unfortunately it ends with Tobolowski dying. With his last breath he tells Darren, follow the water, cause Chinatown. Meditating in a pool again, the lizard sees that talking lizard again.

Darren wakes up, he's with Jack and Diane, he is spiraling. Jack is turning down a lucrative sitcom directing job. I thought that was pretty funny. They offer him $75,000 an episode to direct. Well, I love the way that the scene is set up where he's explaining this offer and you can see Diane getting so excited for him and then he's like, I turned it down.

Yeah. It's a pro right there. Also, it's a good moment, you don't get to know much about Jack and Diane's history, but they do a good job of like implying things, but also that moment where he's like, I got offered this amount of money to sit down, it's like, oh, so you're a person with a real career. Like you're not a, this is not a character who is like a never was, has been, who is trying to get this documentary off the ground.

Instead, he's a guy who like is well known enough that they're going to pay him $75,000 an episode to direct a TV show. I don't wanna play the logic police on Pool Man, but this also, this is... But I'm gonna. This felt very strange to me, because all the rest of the time you see Danny DeVito,

he's like, did I remember to have a battery for this camera? And I'm like, so I like about it. His agent was also not talking, he hasn't returned my calls in 16 years or something. Yeah, but I mean, you guys work in film and television, you know that people in all levels are always incredibly competent,

the people at the highest level are the most competent. And people have long memories. That's for sure. But what that said to me is, oh, this guy had a career and then he screwed it up somehow. I agree, yeah. Which I really love, which I like a lot. That's like, to me, that's like, okay, well, that's good screenwriting because now I feel

like this guy has a whole history that I didn't know about, you know. Darren has a breakthrough. It must be that Ray Wise is stealing water from underneath this housing project. It's an unknown source of water that nobody knows about but him. And he runs off to June and accuses her of setting him up and she reveals that or she tells him that Ray Wise van Patterson is actually her father and He says this is all about water the councilman was killed for having an attack of conscience and my mother is sick and Ray Wise has been taking care of my mother

but then she leaves and he immediately finds a portrait on the wall of June and Ray Wise that says the future mister and mrs. Van Patterson a portrait on the wall of June and Ray Wise that says the future Mr. and Mrs. Van Patterson. Which is hilarious. I mean, that's really funny. It is hilarious. And that's the kind of- It's just right behind it. If this was a movie- And I love that it's like a commissioned portrait with a nameplate for a future.

It's like a Grant Wood style American Gothic portrait. And he's still married. That's crazy. And he's still married. It's so funny. It's a very funny- and it's like, if this was more of a Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-wee-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we-Pee-we- this was more of a Pee-wee, see Pee-wee play a Pee-wee's Big Adventure movie, I think that'd be a fantastic joke. But because this is a movie that's pretending to be a mystery, it's like, I'm like, all right, so this character really is an idiot

that he never noticed this before. It works for me, I like it. And then, I mean, in the process of looking at it with what, an origami statue of Liberty with an actual flame, it catches fire, and his only option is to take off his shirt to put off Yes, so that he can then put on what like a cape or something like that and jump on a moped He he finds that portrait and he also he finds that portrait and then he tastes the almonds that are that she's serving and

He realized it has the same spice blend Coding as Ray wise his characters almonds and it's like you don't need another piece of evidence spice blend coating as Ray Wise's character's almonds and it's like you don't need another piece of evidence. Like you know what's going on. Right, that should have been before he saw the painting. Yes, exactly. He runs off, the cops are chasing him. He's on a moped, he flees. He shows up at Van Patterson's house, interrupts Ray Wise in the middle of smothering his wife with a pillow. This is what, like again, this is, it's pretty funny and it's like the movie, if the movie had a kind of

manic feeling to it, then I think that all throughout that I would've been like, this is great, but instead it's so lackadaisical, and then at the end it's suddenly like, bam, bam, bam, silly, silly, silly, you know. I had fun with it and I felt like it, like the ending part, I was like, this is silly, I'm having more fun than I was for the previous

hour, 10 or whatever. But it also reminded me of a lesser kind of auxiliary co-in-work, which is drive away dolls where the end just gets like loony tunes in a way that was not foreshadowed by the previous feel of the movie. And this kind of had that where it's like, now we're going into seventh gear. You're like And so they interrupt it turns out He's like I know what's going on and Ray wise is like no stupid I'm murdering my wife for her almond farm June is my lover and like he just explains what this what the what he's doing

to him and And Darren still an idiot says to June. I love you, we should run away together. And June is like, I've been using you this whole time. I'm Van Patterson's lover. Like, how many times do you have to learn this from me? I mean, if you have an option like Ray Wise on the table, you go for it. Now I- Of course.

The wise choice. Ray Wise for mayor of Los Angeles. No, no, don't promote Ray Wise. Don't promote Ray Wise as mayor, or I'll run. Oh, I can't believe you came on the podcast. It's the fuckiest game I've ever had. What a heel turn. What a heel turn.

Ladies and gentlemen, no one expected this from Josh Gondelman, the nicest man in the business. Suddenly, total heel turn, going for Ray Wise. Oh wow, it's John Cena turning evil all over again. Is that Ray Wise's music? Hating Elliot with a proverbial chair. Wait, what'd you say? Yeah, what's Ray Wise's walkout music? Well with a proverbial chair. What is that?

What's Ray Wise's walkout music? The score of this film, also I really liked it. It was like fun and light and jazzy and it was done by Andrew Bird, I think. Yeah, yeah it was. I want to ask. There's a lot of good elements to this movie. We should make clear about that. This movie, I don't think works, but there's a lot of good elements to it.

In a preview of My Final Jud judgments, I think this movie works best if you don't care about the plot, but even so, I'm gonna ask a question like, what was she using him to do? Why did she involve him? It does seem like one of those movies where it would have been easier for the bad guys if they didn't do most of the stuff that they do

to hide what they're doing. Cut out the part where an unreliable idiot is the key to their whole plan. My guess is that they're trying to use him to set up Tobolowski to take the fall for whatever for this water scheme. I see. And so they're going to manipulate him into taking out the one guy who is having second thoughts about what's going on. Right, because he was like, I'm about to be out, I was dirty, and now I want out of this

plan. Right. And that's why I had to kill him. But considering they solved that problem by shooting him in the head, which you'd think they could have done earlier without bringing in Darren at any point. For sure. Yeah. Especially because if you shoot someone in the head in an empty green room where there's

nobody else there, there's nobody to connect you to the murder, as opposed to needing to go to the trouble of bringing in a fall guy, setting him up to take the fall to be a Patsy for it. A fall guy who is notoriously not well liked in what, like, civil court situations, basically. Yeah, so... Who is visibly onto you.

Yeah. She says, I was just using you. Van Patterson's about to shoot Darren when Wayne comes in and they shoot him in the hand or something like that. And Wayne reveals that he's an undercover FBI agent. He has been investigating Van Patterson all this time. He arrests the Van Pattersons for stealing the city's water for their almond farm. And Dan DeVito rushes in.

He's filming the whole time. He's giving Wayne notes. I thought that was pretty funny, Wayne notes to like... Yeah, Dan DeVito, he's recording the whole thing to get ending for the movie. And things end really nicely between Wayne and Darren. And Darren has a therapeutic breakthrough. If I'm understanding correctly,

is that he remembers being abandoned by his mom under a tree or something like that? Or just being left under a tree as a baby? Like I don't, I was, that part lost me a little bit. Yeah, I don't remember that. And he writes to Aaron Brockovich again, and he's like, my friends and family, my friends are my family. I'm okay. And everyone in a very, in a very kind of Wes Anderson ending type thing, everyone gets together to watch the movie that Jack has made. And we see all the characters there. And it's at a city council meeting.

And the city council offers him an official position in the office of change and beauty, which he then turns down and starts giving a final speech about the LA's need for trolleys and how to perfect the bus schedule. And at the end we see he has a framed letter from Aaron Brockovich on his wall. And he tapes a picture of Jack and Diane to it end of movie. What an adventure what a quest you know yeah

Tip in that yeah, give us a couple more ball bars a pool man, please Friends are dying in Jack They live out back. Okay. Pretty good. Thanks, Seth. Thanks, Seth. I'm kind of the Chris Cornell of this podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People have often said that, yeah.

Yeah, Chris Cornell's usually not here either. Yeah. Dan, I got some bad news. Oh, no. He's been here all this time. Oh God. Dan Everyday typewriters a letter to Chris Cornell. Uh-huh. Are you still going hungry? This is the part of the podcast

where we do our final judgments, whether this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of like. I think I'm going to shock a few members of our council here and say that I kinda like this movie. Even Yaddle? Even Ki-Adi-Mundi? Yup, even them.

I kinda like this movie. I agree that the screenplay is a mess. But honestly, like many films noir, if you don't put too much energy into following the tangled plot and just sort of enjoy the vibe, I found it enjoyable and increasingly enjoyable as it went on. Like the beginning I thought was the part where I'm like, ugh, this is gonna be more of a slog.

And then I got on its wavelength and- Wavelength? Like a pool? Wave pool? I mean, this would be, this is a hard one. Like I wouldn't necessarily- It's connecting the fucking dots over here. I wouldn't necessarily like recommend this movie to anyone

because they would probably be furious. They would be like, what are you talking about? But if you kind of have any curiosity about it, like I don't know, there was like a lot of vitriol about this movie when it came out. Like Rex Reed, who was not a good critic, but he was like, this is the worst movie of this year and many other years or whatever.

I'm like, I don't know, man. I feel like people just expected like Chris Pine, he's in all these big movies. He was gonna make something a little more, you know, wide appeal and he didn't. He just made this shambling nonsense. And I feel like there used to be more room in cinema for shambling nonsense.

And now people get mad if it doesn't fit into a box. That said, like, again, screenplay doesn't work. But I don't know, there was stuff about it I enjoyed. So that's where I fall. Yeah, I'm kind of with you. This is a movie that I did not enjoy at first, but over time it grew on me,

I think starting with the Golden Girls sequence and then as it raced to the conclusion. It helps that I like a lot of the actors in it. I would say I'm going to say this is a movie I kind of liked. I wasn't expecting to say that when I started watching it. All the comparisons to other like Shaggy, LA, like neo-noirs, whether it's, you know, under the silver Lake, I think is a really good one, like a really good touchstone here,

or something like Lodge 49, what was that show with Wyatt Russell? I also, I have a very soft spot for any movie where at the end all the characters get together and watch a movie of the movie you watch. I think there's this Spanish movie that was released under the title, Witching and Bitching, where like all the characters, including the villains,

are hanging out watching the movie at the end, which I found pretty charming. Yeah, there's another movie where that happens. I think it's about a guy who has a big adventure. I forgot his name. What movie is that? Yeah, I think his name rhymes with Gibi. Is it Little Guy?

That's what it is. But yeah, so I'm gonna say- That was the translated foreign. Yeah, that's the Spirit Halloween costume. The Spirit Halloween costume says, grown child. So yeah, I'm surprised to say, I think this is a movie I kinda liked. I'm gonna still call this a bad, bad movie.

I feel like talking to you guys has made me like it more than when I watched it and what that says to me is that I like the idea of it more than I like the actual thing of it And I think Dan you make a good point that in a film noir movie often the plot is too Naughty and complicated and with twists and turns that you know It's not you're not supposed to keep track of it. I think part of the issue here is that What's happening at the heart of it is not particularly complicated. It's very straightforward,

but the main character is such an idiot that he's just having trouble figuring it out. And if that was the joke of the movie, as it seems to be at the very end, that what's happening is not that hard to untangle, but the main character's a moron, then that could be kind of a funny way to do it if he's just so in over his head.

But instead, I think it just doesn't get that across So I'm gonna call it a bad bad movie, but a bad bad movie that has elements in it that I that I like Josh what do you I'm I'm like right on the bubble. I think I gotta go with Dan and Stewart in that Me Right right wise is gonna kick your ass My cage hammer my cage money bag ladder match between Ray Wise. It's going to be terrible. Loser leaves town. It's like not LA.

No, not LA. I can't be. I can't be Elie Toledo. But I did. I think there was just like enough to like that. I can't recommend it, but I'm like, oh, I had a fun time. Especially it picked up towards the end in a way that I was like, oh, you should go back and make the first two thirds of the movie match the last third, like the third act, because that was really fun and kind of zippy and zany in a way that I enjoy. But it is, I truly can't say like, oh, you gotta go see Pullman.

It's like a hidden gem, but, Ellie, was you saying like, I don't, at first I thought I don't wanna see what Chris Pine does next in the space. I kind of would like to see him direct with a script that someone else wrote, because I do think I like, clearly I like his taste. I like what he is like, ooh, I wanna make

one of these kind of movies. And just like hadn't, the script just like didn't support the kind of style of it. So I'm like kind of cautiously hoping that he does a different, better version of a kind of a quirky, adventuring, newari story. I think it's gonna take a little bit of time before he can make another movie

just based on the reception to this one But uh, but I it's like I feel like while watching it I felt the movie figuring out what it was as a movie and unfortunately, that's not a fun Process for me to watch because it's like the first half of the movie is I was just like come on movie Like like give me something like give me like give me a thing to better. And by the end, there's fun stuff in it. But yeah, it's tough. I think one thing that a lot of the movies you cover, big fan of the podcast, love to listen to it. One of the things I-

That's why we bring people onto our podcast to endorse our podcast. Still can't support Elliot from Run for Mayor. Jesus, come on. I mean, vote for him for WGA Board, but- Yeah, thank you. The things I've heard him say on this show, I just can't, in good conscience. But I think a lot of movies that I really don't like feel like they're like, fuck you,

you're going to watch this movie. They're just jamming the movie down my throat. And I like that this was bad in a way that they're figuring something out and working within a vision and it just didn't come together. And I miss when movies were bad for that reason and not just like, we spent $300 million on this turd and it's gonna gross more money than you've ever heard of. Well, yeah, there's a joy to a passion project like this,

which we don't get very often. And there's a feeling where the movie isn't treating us like we're idiots. Yes, yeah. Which is nice. And it's not too self-serious. It's like, yeah. Yep, anyway, kind of liked it, don't recommend it. Like Elliot.

Um. Accurate, a lot of people feel that way about me. Be a wise guy, be wise for mayor. Uh, hey, let's uh. accurate. A lot of people feel that way about me. He a wise guy, Ray Wise for mayor. Get on the K train everybody, not Ray Wise, come on. Academy? Are you a five star baddie? If you answered yes, then Black People Love Paramore is the podcast for you. Contrary to the title, we are not a podcast about the band Paramore. Black People Love Paramore is a pop culture show about the common and uncommon interests of black people in order to help us feel a little bit more seen.

We are your co-hosts Sequoia Holmes, Jewel Wicker, and Ryan Graham. And in each episode we dissect one pop culture topic that mainstream media doesn't associate with the black people, but we know that we like. We get into topics like ginger ale, the golden girls, black romance, UNO, and so much more. Tune in every other Thursday to the podcast that's dedicated to helping black people feel more seen. Find black people love pair more on maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts. One thing we all have in common, we all have a mind. It makes me so scared because I'm like,

when is the bad thing gonna happen? And minds can be kind of unpredictable and eccentric. Everybody wants to hear that they're not alone. Everybody wants to hear that someone else has those same thoughts. Depression Mode with John Moe is about how interesting minds intersect with the lives and work of the people who have them. Comedians, authors, experts, all sorts of folks trying to make sense of their world. It's not admitting something bad if you say this is scary.

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your first purchase of a website or domain. Also, we got a couple of Jumbotrons. One is from CNMortego. And they say, do you love understated British humor? And that's humor with a U, cause it's British. How about novels that open with a smash cut to in media res? Then you might quite like Do Not Harm, colon,

Terms and Conditions Apply by Cian Mortego, a fast paced satirical space opera that's equal parts Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Becky Chambers. As Daniel Craig might say, and I guess this is licensed to do one of our patented bad accents, you're only supposed to blow the bloody planet up. Now that's out June 24th. Buy it now on Kindle. I mean it was out June 24th. This is coming out later so it's possible to buy it now. Out June 24th on Kindle. Buy it now. This is a second Jumbotron and

this one is for Patrick and is from your family. Do you know who your family are? They are Annie, Ellie, Robert and Doggy Cash. Happy 40th birthday. Hope you feel loved and celebrated on this special milestone. Here's to another 40 years of good coffee, great travel and incredible memories. Thanks for being our detailed planner and always having our next show, song, or podcast episode ready to go. Live life like a 3-1 count. Galloway, baby, love to love you.

That's very sweet. Thank you to our sponsors. Thank you to Jumbotron person purchasers personers Jumbotron persons as well if you'd like to get a Jumbotron you can go to maximum fun org Slash Jumbotron and do so but for right now when we Go back to the show Hey, we get letters at the show and before we get into some I forgot who sent us the letters I read last time.

I have learned since that it was Steven and Greg of The Last Name Withhelds. Alex just cut that out and add it to The Last Name Withhelds. Shove that into the Garfield episode. Yeah, just shove it up Garfield. That's the thing, I feel like I was possibly grading this movie on the Garfield curve, which is the curve of Garfield's round body.

But I just hated the Garfield movie so much that I was like, oh, this is a breath of fresh air. I would definitely rather watch this than the Garfield movie, which is the, Damien with the faintest of praise, yeah. So this first letter is from Chats Lasting Withheld, who writes, just listen to the Love Hurts episode

and the mention of David Cronenberg got me thinking, in an area, in an era, sorry, of so many remakes, many being gritty, what if we had more gutsy remakes? Gutsy in the Cronenberg sense. Imagine, for example, Mrs. Dotfire, but the lead character takes the transformation into the titular British nanny to the extreme with backroom illicit cosmetic surgeries.

Do you have any old favorites that might benefit? Sounds like a job for BF Skin Man, get a grandma's skin and put it on Robin Williams. Do you have any old favorites that might benefit from a Cronenberg-esque gutsy remake PS regarding Goonies as a masturbation metaphor? The pirate's name was One-Eyed Willy. It's all right there. Wheels within wheels. Wow. Or wheels within wheelies. Yeah. Infinite wiener. It's just infinite wiener. Oh boy.

Infinite Wiener all the way down. That's what Bertrand Russell said, isn't it? It's just Wieners all the way down. That's that bar in Bushwick, I think. I went to their election night party. Oh, sorry. They do little Wiener races during the week. I don't want to know what that is. So the movies are movies that need some kind of body horror remake.

Is that what we're calling for? Yeah, that's the idea. That's the thinking. OK, so obviously I'm going to reference one of Dan and my favorite movies, Junior, where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant. You can make that way gross. Never seen Junior. You've never seen Junior? I've never seen Junior. I saw it in the theaters when it came out, but I haven't seen it since then

I check out the cineast over here Junior during its original release There was a 70 millimeter roadshow Josh intermission assigned seating Schwarzenegger was dilated to, 70 millimeters. Yeah. I mean, I thought this was a pretty good premise for a question. It's a great question.

Did you have an answer for it? No, I don't. I was vamping. Yeah, Santa Claus, when he gets figured out it's White Grocer. I have a genre that I think could be body hard because I think like, I think a movie, because you said old favorites, and I think if I love something, this is such an intense element

that it might kind of tip the scales to like, oh, this doesn't match. So I think you gotta take a movie that didn't quite work the first time and body horror it up. And I think something like Kate and Leopold, which is a time travel rom-com with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan, where he has to invent the elevator, he has to go back in

time to invent the elevators, they can't be together. And I think like that time travel is ripe for like body horror, almost like in a the fly sort of way. And then I think we're kind of jazzing up this movie that felt like it could have used a little more zing. Yeah. Mmm, Kate and Leopold, gross version. So you're just thinking of like, you know, rom-coms is the genre or you're saying that stuff is the stuff?

This specific movie. Oh, okay. I like a rom-com as a genre but I'm saying you take a movie that like didn't quite have enough oomph to it and you add add the body horror, rather than going like, oh gosh, I loved Chinatown, but I wish that there were more body horror in there. I see. Well, I feel like, So you're not arguing that Sleepless in Seattle

should be about a man who literally can't sleep. Yeah, and his eyes are bleeding, and yeah. He finds love. Like, I mean, let's, Pullman is something that could use, if the thing that they were uncovering was more Of a body horror scandal, you know I was gonna suggest splash but then I realized that the movie the lure is already kind of a body horror version of

Splash it's like a horror version of the Little Mermaid But uh, I'm gonna jump on I'm also gonna jump on the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy train the arms were scared Dana DeVito comedy train I'm gonna say twins could have a body horror element. They're literally the products of a genetic experiment on an island of scientists. There's no reason that the twins halfway through, once they're in the same place together, maybe their bodies are reacting to each other

in strange ways because they're the opposing kind of polarizing towns. That's interesting. Alpha and omega, yeah. I was gonna say that Danny DeVito as the twin that in the movie, the joke is like, kind of polar of it to him. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. I'm so glad you bring this up, Elliot, because I was just rewatching Twins the other day and it was great. And I was really thinking that as a kid, I think the reason why I loved it so much is that Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in that movie

is just like a giant super kid. He's like kind of dumb. Everything's very new to him. He sees everything on a very service level, but he is like hyper smart and the strongest human in the universe. So like he can deal with problems very easily if he needs to, but at the end of the day,

he's still just like kind of a goofy, like innocent child, right? Yes, which is why kids loved it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, we got one more letter here. This is from Anna Lasting with Held who writes, Anna Kendrick. Okay, go with me on this one

because I know it's an odd message. I was recently listening to your Money Plane episode and when I got to Elliot's phone call with Mark Summers, I suddenly had a thought. I have no memory of this bit. Also, I met Anna Kendrick this week. I'm going to have to listen to that episode. Oh, really?

What? Was she a scrappy little nobody? She was on Wait Wait. She was really good. You're asking her a simple favor. When you said she was going to be on Flophouse, was she like, oh, I just sent them a letter. I hope they read it. She's like, but I hope they don't say my name because I would be so embarrassed.

Oh no. Sorry, Anna. I said, anyway, to go back, I got to Elliot's phone call with Mark Summers again. Yeah, I don't know what that's about either, but- You're going to have to listen to the episode again, yeah. I suddenly had a thought. I started laughing about the idea of Elliot's wife asking him to role play. I can't imagine they would actually ever get to sex,

but it has to be fascinating. This is why Anna Kendrick was embarrassed. Yeah, not that she's embarrassed to get listed. As a preemptive answer to any follow-ups, this was just an amusing thought. Of all the floppers, my fantasies do not actually involve Elliot on a completely unrelated note. Hi, Stuart.

Well, that's nice. Oh, ooh. Unnecessary. Wow. I like to role play too, hi Stuart. Well that's nice. Oh! Not necessary. Wow. I like to role play too baby, I'm an orc. Okay, gross. I just feel like I'm being betrayed a lot in this episode. It's either Stuart or Ray Wise,

but Elliot is no one's first choice. Yeah, Ray Wise is holding the dagger, but Stuart's distracting Elliot. I mean, but as a theatrical experience, it sounds like your role playing is the preferred. Sure, yeah. Just as a one man show. Yeah, because I really get into it, yeah.

I get into the character. Yeah, I just thought that was a funny one. There's not really much to address there. Yeah, we could talk about Anna Kendrick a little bit. She was very nice. Yeah, I got to watch for five minutes. I like walked down to walk over to the theater for the, wait, wait, don't tell me anything.

And I walked into Paula Poundstone and goes, Josh, you gotta help me, man. I know who that, I know her name is Anna Kendrick, but where do I know her from? And Anna Kendrick is like, she already made me name many of the movies I've been in. And it was none of them. She was like, pitch perfect. Paul's like, never already made me name many of the movies I've been in. And it was none of them. She was like, pitch perfect.

Paul's like, never seen it. Heard of it? This is a great on-brand for Paul Poundstone. It was Twilight. That impression is offensive. It was Twilight? Can you judge up Josh's impression so it's no less offensive? No. To the idea of Paul Poundstone, like the thing that she had seen was Twilight was very funny to me. It was so funny, just an incredible blow to that story.

And it was because she had a teenage daughter who was really into Twilight. Makes sense. Yeah. Just a really incredible moment. This is the part of the movie. What's the funniest, the best part of me to that story was when it turned out that Anna Kendrick was there for the conversation between you and Paul Vonsderd. Oh yeah.

I was like, oh, she was standing right there. I walked into a conversation that they were having. About who she is and why Paul Vonsderd didn't know who she was. I know who that is. She's in there, they were talking and I interrupted. Anna Kendrick is going like, she's like, I just want you to know, I wasn't naming movies just like out of my own. She asked me to. Yeah.

Yeah. She's like, pitch perfect. She doesn't just go around telling people like, hey, you might know me from these movies. I'm Anna. It was so funny. He's not she's not a tourniquelure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Anna Kendrick. You may know me from such movies as pitch perfect pitch perfect two and pitch perfect three Speaking of actors to directors. I like that movie that she made. I haven't seen it yet I can't remember the

woman of the year or something like that like I mean one of years an old movie, but it's I think it's the title. I don't know It was about it was about the woman of the hour woman the hour. Yeah It was it was just real. It's a real come-down from woman of the year. Yeah Ever wonder how she became the woman of the year where she didn't start there one hour at a time Ever wonder how she became the woman of the year where she didn't start there? One hour at a time. So this is the part of the podcast where we do recommendations, movies that might be more of a lock on a good time than Pool Man.

I'd like to recommend a movie that I watched because I know that Griffin Newman was really promoting this one. It's called I Like Movies. It was from 2022. It's like, it's a very small little sort of coming of age comedy about a difficult high school kid who you might be able to sympathize with this, people in this cohort who likes movies,

who's really obsessed with movies, has a dream job at a video store, really is obsessed with the idea of going to film school and is difficult in the way that teenage boys who are really obsessed with sort of their own feelings and obsessions might be and the movie doesn't shy away from how annoying this kid can be without also like showing like, okay, you know, he is capable of growth and slowly learning over the course of the movie to, you know to sort of look outside himself. And it's small and sweet and funny,

and it felt like a movie that, like I'd been watching for decades and like it was like slipping into an old favorite to watch it. So I like movies is what it's called. I really enjoyed it. I'm gonna recommend a new release, one that I saw in the theater with Dan McCoy.

That's right, earlier this week we went and saw 28 years later. You might've seen the social media video of the Flophouse mini mini episode that we recorded. Probably not. Maybe not, it's on the Flophouse Instagram and my TikTok. So I've always had, I guess, respect for this franchise. I thought, you know, the first one is a huge deal.

It certainly popularized the concept of super fast zombie equivalents. And it also like was super intense and it made stars of a number of people, including my man Brendan Gleeson. But and then the second one, I think, is, you know, a little bit more intense and more specifically a horror movie. Like, I feel like the second one has an incredible opening

and then, you know, kind of devolves, but it's still solid. And it's a solid horror movie. And this third one is like a weird horror fantasy post-apocalyptic adventure that is a lot more introspective and somber in tone. It's very like, it's kind of a meditation on death and it has, and just like a, it has some incredible performances.

Jodie Comer is great and Ralph Fenns is incredible. And when he shows up, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe this movie was sitting on this guy for so long. And then it also has a incredibly wacky ending that is amazing. So 28 years later, easily my favorite of the franchise. And I feel like similar to like, what is it?

Sunshine, the Danny Boyle movie, I think it'll grow in estimation over time. I think it's really great. I also want to point out, Dan, you, a couple episodes ago, you recommended Summer of 69, and Charlene and I watched it, and it was very cute and funny, and that was a good recommendation, good one.

Thank you for the validation. I have been so busy lately that I've not really had a chance to watch many movies which has been disappointing to me. But I'm gonna recommend off of today's being Poolman being such an LA movie, I'm gonna recommend a trio of LA movies that I feel are better than Poolman. I don't think anyone would. LA story is the first one. LA confidential. LA LA land.

It's a musical that. You're the one person who calls it LA LA land. You guys seen that movie LA LA land? You're in a jazz? You got to know about this? It's like music but it goes everywhere. It just does what it wants. My upstairs neighbor has a piano,

and the number one song that they have played for five years running is City of Stars from the Lincoln and Clinton. Oh, I have my fingers crossed it was gonna be that Linkin Park song. Oh, man, I'm getting choked up, Josh. Oh man, I'm getting choked up Josh. So I'm going to recommend three great movies set in LA. They all have kind of like, not what to have mystery elements and one is more of a, and

the other one is a weirdo dealing with things in LA movie, much like Pullman is. So the weirdo dealing with things in LA movie is Nightcrawler. We probably all seen it already with Jake Gyllenhaal. What a movie It's it's about it. It's the it's it's the I feel like it's the It's the taxi driver network of its day, you know all about how people are gross and institutions are Are corruptible? I'm gonna mention devil in a blue dress, which I recommended before on the podcast Which is a great LA period mystery thriller and I'm gonna mention devil in a blue dress, which I recommended before on the podcast Which is a great LA period mystery thriller and I'm gonna mention perhaps

Perhaps the greatest of all LA mysteries where you never quite know exactly what's going on But it is a strength of it and that is Mulholland Drive by the late lamented master David Lynch Which is that's a movie where I feel like it captures so well the undercurrent of what it feels like to be in Los Angeles. Because Los Angeles often, it's people, you know, well, New Yorkers especially, at least in the past, they'd be like, LA, there's no substance there, like there's no nothing there,

which ignores the fact that LA is a real city with real people in it. It's not just entertainment industry types. Like there's actual people who have actual jobs and that's their lives. It's not just Randy Newman songs. Yes, exactly Your job is an actual job, but I appreciate that I appreciate that Dan it's it certainly takes enough of my time Oh dad, it's the hardest job you'll ever love the hardest hardest job there is

Other than being a mom, which is a harder job Then but there is a feeling I think because the Sun is so bright in LA there's this feeling of like there is a feeling of unreality that underlies kind of everything. And Mulholland Drive captures that so well. So those are those are three LA movies that I'm going to recommend after watching this LA movie. And Josh, do you have a recommendation that you like to make? Elliot Cailin. Elliot Cailin. Here's my LA movie watch list.

I just remembered another great guy meets a bunch of weirdos movies. Les Schlubb. But bringing out The Dead, the Scorsese movie where Nick Cage plays the ambulance driver is one of those. And like After Hours is kind of in that vein too. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. But so I get to look at Sean and I'm like...

New York, baby. Yeah. And I'm really recommending three New York movies. Pizza, the movie. Movies that'll have you say, hey, I'm watching movies here. I'm watching over here. I wanna recommend, it's like on the horizon, but I got to see my good buddy, Aaron Judge,

co-wrote a zombie movie also, Stuart, called Queens of the Dead. She co-wrote it with Tina Romero, who's George Romero's daughter. Oh yeah, I was just reading about that the other day. It's really, really fun. It's a drag queen zombie movie, and I got to see it at Tribeca,

where it's screened during Pride in New York. And so it was just this like super hyped up, super queer audience that was just like, yeah, drag queens zombies! And it ruled. It was so much fun to, drag queen zombies, and it ruled. It was so much fun to see in a theater, and I think they're still figuring out when it's going wider and how,

but keep your eyes peeled for it, it's a blast. A bunch of L.A. movies recommended. L.A. movies, now now now now, L.A. movies. I love L.A. movies. Movies. Josh, thank you so much for being here. Now is the time where you plug your shit again. I say shit only to mean stuff. I'm sure it's wonderful.

But the tone you set it in really implies stuff. It was a positive tone. Yeah. I have a new standup special that's out now. It's on YouTube on Blonde Medicine's YouTube channel. It's called Positive Reinforcement. It's really fun. It, you know, we shot it about a year ago. It's the culmination of a bunch of touring that I did. It's like very fun and friendly and I hope people watch it and laugh and go, ah, it made me feel nice. And my wife's new book is out now. By the time this is out, it's called, I Want to Burn This Place Down. It's essays.

That one much more financial, our household's financial situation is much more contingent on you finding and enjoying that piece of art rather than my comedy special, which you can watch for free at any time. And then subscribe to my newsletter to find out about my live dates. That's that's marvelous. A big Lebowski reference in its own right. Josh Gondelman dot sub stack dot com. Thank you. That's too much plug.

And and keep plugging and stuff that has no effect on Josh's financial situation. He was nice enough to do a couple of lines for the fly scraper bonus content, but still putting together. And it was very funny, especially because I asked him to... It's a real Rhodes Gallery in this thing. ...improvise him talking to a dog for a while. That's funnier than anything I wrote. If you thought Pool Man had Chris Pine bringing in his famous friends,

just wait for Flyscraper. If you're a Max Fun member, you'll be able to hear Flyscraper, Dan McCoy's original... Sometime. Original... I know, I still have to record my lines for it. Dan McCoy's original spec sitcom, not sick, I guess parody, well I don't know what you'd call it. It's gonna have all of Dan's famous friends in it. Yeah.

Mel Gibson. It's kind of your metropolis in its gestation period. Yeah. No, I'll have it done before the next drive. I promise you. But again, thank you Josh for being here. All of Dan's famous friends are going to be in it. Harvey Weinstein, Jerry Epstein.

Everyone who's endorsed Andrew Cuomo for mayor. Andrew Cuomo, yeah. Eric Abbe. I was going to make a joke about that with Dan, but I thought he'd get upset. I'm glad Josh did. Yeah, check out Josh's special. Josh, nicest man in comedy-gum-plot, and still going after Dan McCoy. Check out Marissa's book.

And also, I'll take this time to say thank you to our network, Maximum Fun. Go over to MaximumFun.org to check out all the other great podcasts on that network, our network. And thank you to Alex Smith, our producer, who goes by the name Howell Doddy all over the internet. Speaking of bonus content stuff, we just put up the second Slop Tales episode on the member bonus feed and Alex does so much work for those things, doing original music and sound design for that and he does a great job. So if you're a member, check that out.

But for this episode of the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I've been L.A. I've been Stuart Wellington. I've been LA it Kailin With us is has been I did look like I was like, has- I missed the old ways and I'm Josh Condleman. Alright, thank you. Bye! Bye! Okay, I heard tell you had another hot one. Oh, it's a smoker.

That was a hot one. Let's hear this next hot one. On this episode, we discuss Pool Man. That's right. Him the Pool Man paler. Man, it's a hot one. It is a hot one. That was the hottest of ones. I doubted you, but...

Those are two sterling hot ones, yeah. Okay. Well, let's go, let's do the show. Yeah, you didn't want to hear mine. Uh, do you, do you want to do it? Let me just get it out of my system, let me get it out of my system, we won't use it. On this episode we discuss Pool Man. The Supreme Court can go fuck itself. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows.

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