The Flop House - Ep.#466 - The One, with Michael Shanks

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

"The One with Michael Shanks?" What is this, a FRIENDS episode?!? (Thank you, producer Alex, for that joke.) No -- in this episode we welcome writer/director/FX artist/actor/man with impeccable taste in podcasts, Michael Shanks, all the way from his home in Australia, to discuss his nostalgia pick, 2001's The One, starring Jet Li!We're coming back to San Francisco Sketchfest on January 25! Get tickets now! OR, if you prefer to watch us from the comfort of your own home: Flop TV Season 3 tix are ON SALE!Stay updated on Flop House events and side projects, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!Wikipedia page for The OneRecommended in this episode:Dan: The Fog (1980)Stu: Den of Thieves: Pantera (2025)Elliott: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)Michael Shanks: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2025)

Hey listeners, just a few quick words up the top to remind you that flop TV is going on right now. It's the first Saturday of every month if you want to watch it live and chat with other listeners in the chat, viewers in the chat, send us some messages to be answered, perhaps, at the end of the show. We've been having a lot of fun going through famous bad movies of the decades. All of that will be available video on demand as well for. ticket holders up through the end of the flop TV season. You can get a season pass and watch all of them. You can binge them during the holidays. It's a lot of fun.

So if you're interested, go to theflophouse. com and check out our extra flop streams. On this episode, we discuss The One. A movie so filled with New Metal that it is only allowed to see its children on weekends. Hey, Hey, everyone, welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. Oh, hey, Dan.

I'm Stuart Wellington. Dan, Stewart, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Elliot Kalen, and I think I have the answers to your problems. Oh, that's nice to hear. And we are joined today. Wait, wait, wait, I want the answer to my problems. No, you know what? The time is over.

Stewart, we're right. Let's move along. Look with your problems. And we are joined today by writer, director of the hit movie together. That's right. Michael Shanks is here. Hey, guys. Great to be here.

Long time, first time. Love the show. Oh, thank you. That was the most professional a guest has ever introduced themselves. I'm very impressed. I am to please. Elliot has not had the pleasure in person yet, but we had a good time here in Brooklyn,

getting to meet Michael when he was promoting his movie together and going out and having a bunch of tequila and soda. And Dan is still shaking from the moment when Allison Bree touched him on the arm. Squeeze my shoulder briefly. I'm sure that's true because Dan sent me a message afterwards saying, Thanks for making that happen. You're, you know, there's a tone of voice that you're adding.

Yeah, normally, it was actually way creepier in his head. No, I imagine the message. I'm like, oh, thanks for, thanks for making that app. Yeah, there you go. Oh, boy. Oh, geez. And this is a, this is a, we're going back in time for this pig. So what happened was we were, we were drinking.

So this is a podcast. This is a podcast where watch a bad movie and we're talking about. Yeah, we're all arguing over. Okay, so this podcast where we watch a movie and talk about it. Well, back after watching a screening of Together, we were all drinking at the Brooklyn Inn along with your friend. My friend, Kess. Yes.

Kess, who is a very tall man, and at a certain point, some guy came up to him and said, mate, we've been taking, I just do an Australian voice when I do a drunk guy, sorry. Like, mate, we've been taking bets. How tall are you? And there were a bunch of people staring at him from across the bar. Very rude thing to do. Yeah, well, that's the Berklin.

And sometimes they draw, let's say, a younger crowd who don't know how to pave themselves. I'm assuming they were just surprised because the only cast they were familiar with was the cast roll from the movie Kess, which is very small. I will say, I mean, like. Yeah, very hard. Oh, what a sad movie. Clearly, kind of a rude question asked, but a very striking man. Like a, like a barbarian. In that, he struck them after they asked them.

Like a romance novel cover of a man. In a style of a bararian, he struck. Yeah. But yes, very handsome, very tall. I don't think that's a new experience for Kess. And just quick shout out to Kess. Actually, 10 years ago, Kest turned me onto this show, and I've been listening ever since.

Yep, never stopped. And Kest was there to witness the moment when I said, I think I was like five or six drinks in. I'm like, you should totally be on the show and we should do the one. I think we were both talking about how great the one is. And Dan's like, what? Scoffed, I think.

I didn't. I wasn't dubious. I've just, I never had gotten around to sing The One. And I'd only seen it once in the theater, because, you know, it's called The One, so I figured I could only watch it the one time. That's the instruction. Yeah, it struck me, and I was like,

I need to, like, this movie was great, and so I was very nervous to rewatch it because, you know, when you watch a movie from, what, 24 years ago? Yeah, you were like, I can only watch this movie once every 24 years, otherwise it'll overwhelm me too much. That's the thing. I mean, you have movies like that. There's some movies that I've watched, and I'm like, like, I really want to re-watch, I saw the TV glow, but I'm like, the first time I watch it was super intense.

I don't know if I'm ready to do it again. Yeah, I mean, I remember when I'm a friend of mine, sitting around. I remember a friend of mine seeing irreversible in the theaters and saying, it was great, I'm never going to watch it again. And I was like, yeah, I just watched Salo or 120 days of Sodom in the theater. Like two weeks back. Yikes. Yeah, yeah. Just, just great, caught a matinee of that one.

Yeah, it was like. It was the early day showing where you can bring toddlers. It's okay if they talk. Yeah, open captions. Yeah, the bulbs and baby screening. So, yeah, it was the moms and baby. So what was where, was this, I assume this was a special screening. It's not having another limited run or something.

Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think it's being rebooted any time soon. It was a cinema over in Melbourne doing a retrospective. Oh, cool. That would be a very, that would be a very funny thing if they're like, we're running out of IP. I guess we got to do Salo. I could imagine.

somebody like Parker Finn or like doing it, somebody that's got kind of a like a horror sensibility that's sort of got a bit of like a prankster heart as well than the Arias to maybe producing. Yeah, or one of the many provocateurs working in cinema these days.

They're like... What if there were 121 days? Too long. Okay, so we're going to talk about the one. It was better when it was Salo or the 120 days of summer. I mean, I don't know. Well, I can talk about my history with the one, which is because it was my memory that I brought it up. I'm not trying to claim responsibility.

I was, except for the fact that I was worried that maybe it was my fault of you watched this and hated it. But my memory of this film was that it came out when I was 10 and I saw the trailer and I was so excited because in the trailer there was this shot that had this, we'll talk about it, this kind of mixed time remapping bullet time shot and Jen Lee was in it who I thought was the coolest guy. And then I watched it at a sleepover at my friend Flynn-Hagry's house in Williamstown. Shout out to Flynn-Hagry. Shout out. And I feel like the audience needs a cast of characters for everyone in Michael's life that is getting mentioned tonight. We'll hand out a little pamphlet like a dune. Yeah.

He was a kid named Jerry Tonkin Hill that I barely remember, but I've always said that was a fun name. And I believe we rented this in like a, we went out to Blockbuster or Video Easy and got this. and Jimmy Neutron. Video Easy is a great fucking name. Yeah, that was the other blockbuster kind of competing franchises down here. And watch this and Jimmy Neutron. And I remember being a little disappointed by both.

Really disappointed by Jimmy Neutron. Yeah, that's a disappointment. I'd kind of forgotten everything about the one except for the cool bullet time and the amazing final moment, which we'll get to. Yeah, that's great. I went to re-watch the final moment

after watching the whole film the other day. And the bar on my YouTube history was fully read. I've definitely watched that final shot multiple times. It's weird when you see a movie that seems to be like, it's only in the last minute that it's like, here's the movie. And you're like, wait, what? Oh, yeah.

The final movie I want to see the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like the end of what, Dead or Alive or any of those other movies where you're like, holy shit, where was this movie where they're pulling like balls of light out of their chests hiding. Okay, Dan, and for you.

Because of the age that I am, I'm just, I'm quite nostalgic for, like, new metal cinema. Going back to things like the one or, like, underworld, or like, house of wax. Just there's a certain era of, like, early 2000s. Leather coats and popper roach just kind of...

Which is what makes. Good a vibe. What makes the recent Crow remake such a bummer for me is because I'm like, you should have just fucking swap the fucking soundtrack with this stuff. Like, throw in maybe some deftones for the love scenes. But like, instead of like,

whatever, you know, whatever. It's funny because it's, Michael, the way you feel about that because I'm a little bit older than you is the way that I feel about like mid-90s stuff where it's like, oh, yeah, all this stuff with the internet, they didn't really know what it was. You know, this is great. All this glowing blue and gray and stuff.

Yeah. No, I agree with you, Elliot. Although, like, I find as I get older, my window of nostalgia grows. Like, stuff like, what Michael's talking about is like stuff that like drove me nuts at the time and now I'm like, oh, it's like, it's like a hot, warm bath. Once it's no longer... It's like a limp biscuit.

Once it's no longer current and therefore not a thing that you have to have like a real opinion on, it's so much, I like the, the, I'm working on something right now that has a lot of 90s music in it and it's like, yeah, well, we definitely need to try to put in this song that I hated when it was new. Like, we have to have it in there, so. Yeah, I mean, it's also like the degree to which it's like shoved in your face versus like, now I'm choosing to shove it in my own face. So, Dan, did you have me...

That's called consent, Dan. You're right. It's very important. Do you have any experience with The One, either when it came out or afterwards? My memory of it was just that I was like... What's your favorite Jet Lee movie of all time, Dan? I don't know that I've seen a lot of Jet. Don't say Lethal Weapon For.

He was in that. I remember he was in... It probably is Leath or Dan. Slash-Danny the dog. That's... And that's where he's literally a free gun. on a leash. Yeah, that's true.

Not even like one of the Once Upon a Time in China movies or anything like that? I haven't seen them, no. I know I must have seen him in, you know, like foreign language pictures. Hero, maybe. Yeah.

No. I remember seeing Hero in the theater. That's a great. Yeah. Okay. I remember to see Romeo must die, which I think it features Jaw Rule maybe.

Yeah. Or he just delivered the soundtrack. I used to get that mixed up with Romeo is bleeding. Romeo's having a hard time of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think things are going to end well a young Romeo. And Juliet, why not and Romeo? I didn't see the one in the theaters, but I remembered so well from the commercials the shot of him picking up that motorcycle and hitting somebody. Yes. Yes, I remember that. The one thing I was going to say

was like my history with it was like when I was a kid, I was such a, I was so enthralled to like reading Roger Ebert's reviews of things and he did not like this movie. So I'm like, eh, okay. You know, like it was, It didn't speak to me, so I didn't seek it out. But now I'm like, yeah, this is the kind of dumb stuff that I want.

I feel like Bradrieper, there's a few years away from, there's a review he did whenever, or maybe it was before. When did Air Force One come out? Was that in the early 2000? Was that in the late 90s? Oh, and never mind then. Because he wrote this review of a Gamera movie. And he was like, you know, when you grow up, you think you're supposed to like what are grown-up movies,

something like Air Force One, but sometimes you just want to see a giant turtle flying around the screen. and you get bored by something like Air Force One. And I feel like he's swung back and forth between that feeling and something like the one was like, ugh, gross, dumb, you know. I mainly feel like it would be weird if Air Force One came out like shortly after 9-11, right? Wouldn't that have been weird? Yeah, surely. It would have been weird.

That's true. It would have been very weird, yeah. I do feel that part of the problem is at the time. Unlike this movie, which came out almost two months from 9-11. At the time. Like, as we were saying... It came out November 2nd, it says. So it was a little bit less than a month after 9-11.

As we were saying about what's getting shoved in your face, like at the time, I feel like this was very much looked at it as like, oh, it's chasing the matrix, but without like the headiness, without the like the skill that is shown in that movie, you know, so like people were down on it. Whereas now as it stands alone, I'm like, yeah, like this is a movie where like Jason Statham is in it. And that's the level I'm taking you that.

And Delroy Lindo. I mean, you do point, you said that without the skill, which is true. However, it does have a skill that I feel like the Matrix does not quite have, and that is Jet Lees' incredible martial arts abilities. Well, we'll talk about that. I feel like the problem with the movie like this is that it undervalues and undercuts Jet Lee's actual martial art prowess with all the effects and stuff like that.

Yeah. That it uses, you know. Okay. So let's get into the movie. Why don't we? So we open up with, we open with like a text sequence that kind of feels like you're at a seminar and they're explaining things to you. It feels like you're at a planetarium. Yeah.

I thought like the trailer had started playing. I rented the wrong thing. It feels like for like an ad for another movie. Like here's a, here's an Apple TV show that you're going to want to, that we're going to advertise for you before the movie starts. It's very, it's weird to start a movie this way. But Stuart, describe, so like, yeah, so the text keeps like appearing on screen. It's kind of like a blue background, like a screensaver.

And the opening text explains that, you know, we live in a multiverse. It's not just a singular dimension, but many dimensions. Something that is nowadays does not need explaining anymore. Every movie, every movie, action movie takes place in multiverse. I mean, every movie, period, takes place in multiverse. I feel like the next fucking Fast and Furious, they're going to have like a Multiverse or something. Family is multidimensional. I forgot who was, I forgot who was telling me that their theory about the next Fast and Furious

is that they were building up to a multiverse time travel story so that they can go back in time and have Paul Walker in and again, and Vindis will meet himself in the past and can reflect on how much he's changed over the course that's actually a really good idea. I think they're going to do it. But I think now you'd have to just let me just the movie that has an opening once it goes, the opening to a movie you have to say,

there is one universe, just one. Decisions are irrevocable. There's only one of you. You are unique. This is that story. And don't try and fly super fast and make the world go backwards and go back in time. That doesn't work here. It doesn't really work that way. That's not how time works. Yes.

Gravity does bend space time because it is one fourth dimensional fabric but not in the way that they do it in that other movie. You know the one I'm talking about. I do think it's funny. Our story begins with, yeah. We had to like build up to the current multiverses we have with like the infinite multiverses because this one's just like

the cut rate. It's like, yeah, there's 125 of them. It is very funny. Yeah. This idea hadn't been done. It's 125. That's it. Yeah. This movie had, like, that idea hadn't been done to death yet. That's true. Absolutely.

Not in the movies. It's crazy that like the Jason Stath and like Delroy Lindo characters that will get to it, that is something that's so in like, I haven't watched a fears, but like Rick and Morty, this sort of like, we've got to contain, like, police the multiverse, same in like Loki and that kind of thing. Yeah, so their characters... Well-worn ideas now.

Their characters, Rodiker and Funch, are members of the MVA or Multiverse Authority who are trying to keep the like law and order of the multiverse together. But before we get into that, we open in the Anubis universe and we open in a prison complex with a bunch of kind of

sci-fi prison cops led by Dean Norris. Yeah. We're all pretty excited to see him. And there's just like little things that make you believe that this isn't the world that we're used to. For instance, President Al Gore on TV. We are introduced to Jetley

playing a character named Lawless who's in jail and he's some kind of evil criminal that's being transferred. It's kind of nuts. He's going to scar on his face. He's going to end up in jail. That's not fair. Unless you're Lucy Lawless, so I guess somehow escaped.

Yeah, she's on the run. He does have a scar on his face. That's his defining feature. And they, you know, after a little bit of a kerfuffle, they make it out to the parking lot where he is killed by what? Another Jet Lee? This is Gabriel. U-Law, an evil multidventional space-hopping guy

who is going through the multiverse, killing all the versions of himself. He escapes the... He saw Highlander. He's like... Yeah, he's like that. And in fact, there's a point where he's listening to various pop music and he turns it off

until he gets to heavy metal. And then he smiles. I'm like, he's the Kyrgyn. He is the Kyrgyn. Yeah. Which, I mean, if you're going to rip a fucking movie, rip Highlander, that's not a bad one. Okay, so he escapes the police by running super fast.

He is pursued again by Delroy Lindo and Jason Statham with hair. I will say. I was supposed to say the super fast effects are very funny. And it has the thing that it always happens in movies where someone's supposed to move really fast and the effect is that they look like they're moving slower than a normal person. And it's just like, I don't know what to tell you movies. Just make him do things faster instead of like, I don't know, the effect is very funny. Yeah, there's a mix of the one.

It's like to do sex under it. It has that feeling. It's moving fast. Yeah. Yeah, there is a mix of him moving kind of normal speed while everyone around him move slowly, which is like a bullet time. Yeah.

But the funny times are when he's running and all of a sudden, like the camera's on him and then it's just like, whoop, pooh, pooh, pooh. He's in front of just a time-lapsing background. It's so funny. I did love to underscore that bullet time effect, which was the thing I remember from the trailer as a kid,

I think holds up, like, when he is kind of punching a guy and then he goes slow-mo so gently like sprints away and I love the moment uh, Yulan appears it drops straight into drowning pool's bodies. Yeah.

And it's like, oh, this, this era has arrived. Uh, it really woke me up. I was, I was very, very excited by this opening scene. Yeah, it was, that's like, that, that needle drop alone. I'm like, hell yeah, this is, we're almost at the best one in the movie, but it's incredible. This is, it is the movie you're shouting at you. It looks like the future, but it's 2001.

Yeah. There was also a slight, like, economy to the way they introduce Yuland that I quite appreciate it. It's like a simple trick. But the opening five minutes is just people gearing up, like, badass is putting on armor and, like, taking all the precautions. And then you meet Jet Lee. So, like, oh, that's a badass guy. Like, they need all these guys to protect him. And then a different Jet Lee immediately kills that guy.

So you're like, this guy's even the bigger main boss of the video day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great. And the, he is, you know, it's a science fiction movie because Jason Satham has long flowing hair. And they, they may actually track him down to where there's a, they track him down to where there's a wormhole opening up to travel to a different dimension. And they kind of hijack it using their own technology. And they all get sucked through a portal that's Delroy Lindo, Jason Satham, and Jetty all get sucked through a portal into the multiverse authority building where they're all kind of. kind of fucked up. I do kind of like that when they go through the wormhole, they're all like

pretty fucked up for a bit, right? It looks so painful. It looks like it hurts so much, and why would anyone ever do this? And so, and that was a cool effect, that it wasn't just like, they didn't look cool. It looked like this is a terrible thing to have to go through. And they just end up all rolling around on the ground screaming like babies. Like it was great. We learn why you would want to do that because we find out that you law has been traveling to other dimensions murdering other versions of himself, and we see a parade of other Jet Lee outfits. With different haircuts.

Different haircuts. It's so great. Jetly, a man who, like, I would argue, has limited emotive range. Yes. So it's funny to see him in a bunch of different outfits. And I think working in English really highlights, I think, the limitations of that.

Steve Kassanski, I assume, saw that I logged this on my letter, box and sent me a photo of one of the... Jelly with dreads. He's just like grinning, so he's like so happy to have these dreads. The one of him in a blonde wig really got laugh out loud for me. I was rereading the Wikipedia summary and I think it says one of the Jetleys is a Rastafarian. Oh, okay.

Because he's got dreads. They list... I think the Wikipedia entry lists the characters in the movie and it lists Jetley and all of these variants. And I'm like, he doesn't really play them. He stood in front of a blue screen and they put different wigs on him and wrapped it up in 20 minutes. In the same way that I played an old-time gunslinger when I had a novelty photo taken at a state fair, you know, where I put a hat on. Yeah, you are wanted dead or alive, though. Yeah, that's only because on a steel horse I ride.

That's the thing. And they say, you should ride a real horse, not a steel horse. And I go, no, I'm riding the steel one, thank you. Yeah, this is why there's a hundred and twenty-five worlds, though, I assume. Because as we all know, they're just 125 types of people. Although, I guess there's one world that doesn't have one of them in it. There's the Jet Leiless world, which we'll get to eventually. The Weekshod had 125 weeks, and they're like, got to call it here.

I would argue that one, one of the Jetleys got killed by you law. That's why he said. I would like to believe that much as Star Wars aliens, they all do the same job, every member of that species, that on each of these Earths, everyone has dreads. There's another one, everyone's a series. There's another one where everyone's a murderer. I think that's a Rick and Morty bit right there. I guess it is, yeah. Okay, so we learned that he has been traveling,

murdering these versions of himself, because by killing them, he kind of absorbs their energy Highlander style. Does that make sense? No, not really, but we know what the plot of the movie is at this point, right? But also, he doesn't seem to, like, absorb it directly. It's more that that energy gets dispersed than amongst the remaining. There's a certain amount of, Jason Statham explains it very clearly, later on, that everyone is connected

with their variants and there's a certain amount of limited energy that everyone shares together. It's just like I assume it's a reference to John Steinbecks the grapes of wrath where they talk about how there's just one big soul and we just have a piece of it. And so whenever he kills one of his variants, all the other variants

get a little bit stronger too. And now finally when there's just him and our and Gabe, then they're both people. Gabriel law. They're finding they're both super strong, super fast, etc. Okay. Okay. So but let's cut back to you law. We're currently at the Multiverse Authority.

He is being sentenced to be sent to the Stygian universe to like exile on a prison planet. So they strap him to a chair and they're about to send him through a wormhole. There's an audience like people come in to watch this happen and one of those audience members, that's right, it's Carla Gugino in kind of a space dress. And she is of course introduced butt first

because this is a classy movie. Yeah. Is this space dress or is just really tight? It's a tight dress. I thought it's like kind of futuristic era. But she does have space shoes because they have a hidden compartment that hides a mouse inside it. So, yes.

This is the silliest plan to free a mass murderer from his fate. I love it so much that she shows up and during this, during this procedure, I guess, where they're going to send him through a, he's sentencing a little door opens in the back of her platforms, which I guarantee you you can buy those exact same shoes down the street. I mean, on that universe, sure. I don't know about this universe. And a little mouse with a needle strap to it comes wandering out of her shoe

and walks up to the glass, at which point gently winks, and then we get the needle dropped from disturbs down with the sickness. Down with the sickness, yeah. And it is... It kicks in with the uwa-a-a-a-a-a-and-just drops. That is pure cinema to me.

You cannot show me a better example of movie making. Yeah, it's right. up there with the stand-up and cheer moment of 2001 and then of course the mouse explodes blowing the window out Stuart it's right up there with the cat going to Harry Lyme's shoes and the light from the from the window revealing that it's Orson Welles himself Harry Lyme in the third man it's just right up there yeah just pure cinema yeah I'm storytelling there's something that I'm confused about in this scenario and it's not what you might think it's the third man anyway so Joseph Kroft shows up in Vienna. He thinks his friend Harry Long has been killed, right?

I think that's where you're probably Yeah, you've been calling the Zyther on the side, yeah, yeah. That seems wrong. It's a silly name for a thing. No, it's Carla Gugino. It's like... Yeah, it's Carla Gino. What's the problem? Well, I guess the idea is like across the universes, these two are together in different versions, right?

Yeah. But he just arrived in this universe. Like, which version of Carly Gugina is this? This is his home universe. Okay. He learned that he was a multiverse authority. He was an agent of the multiverse. Yes. Thank you.

But he learned all this stuff and he was like, I'm going to be the best one. You know what? No objections to the screenplay at all anymore. It all makes sense. It all hangs together. A couple of notes on the mouse quickly. Did everybody else notice that it had giant testicles? Of course.

That was not something I noticed. I was watching on an iPad. That's why I didn't notice that. Do you think they're pointing down the line of those things? Do you think they cast the mouse because of its testicles or in Oh, I think it was a real casting couch situation, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Or do you think they had to make some prosthetics?

You have some experience making prosthetic muscles. I've got experience with prosthetic genitals. They looked disgustingly real to me. Yeah. It's such a crazy plan because there's no reason, as said, for it to be a mouse. It moves from her shoe to feet and then explodes. Do you think they're like, she could have just taken a gun out of her shoe? Absolutely.

Do you think they try to? gun or a grenade and they're like this doesn't work. Hey, my friend has this mouse with an enormous test. It feels like for a moment for one day, David Lynch was on the set and they were like, we don't know how to free jet leave from the scene. He goes, why don't you have

her shoe open up? And a mouse with big balls comes out. And then he blows up. And they're like, David, you're a genius. We've got to do it. See, the thing is, like a gun would have set off the metal detector, but an exploding mouse doesn't. You're right. She doesn't have metal

She doesn't have metal shoes. Yeah, I mean, this is an era where there was like metal buckles on everything. And I guess they didn't have... I don't know what kind of X-ray technology they send them through that it doesn't detect mice, you know? The outfit she wears as well is just like

immediately like, oh, she is the villain of this scene. Like, she comes in like an absolute sci-fi femme fatale. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he he used this distraction to blast some cops

and then he reprograms the wormhole machine to send him to the last remaining universe. I think it's the... I wrote it down, but I can't read it. It's the Charis Universe. He goes to the Charis Universe where the last remaining variant is at. That's right.

Gabriel Law. Let's find out how this goes down. I want to take a moment. We've said the names Gabriel Law and Gabe U-Law. U-Law, yeah, U-Law. So someone on Letterbox pointed out that the difference between those names names adds up to real you.

Ooh. Let me just, uh, cool. See, this movie is smart as hell. Let me schedule a therapy appointment for tomorrow because my mind is blown. You'll notice that the criminal who gets killed in the beginning is named Lawless. So, and he's named Law. What do you mean? Okay.

Okay. Okay. Actually, you know what? You're right. It doesn't make any sense. So he is like, it's not quite at the level of, not quite at the level of the names in War the Worlds, which are some of my favorite ridiculous. listening on the nose character names that we've seen in a while.

I was just thinking of War of the World's the Jeff Wayne musical from the 70s because Yule Law is the exact sound of the heat ray that comes out of the Martians thing. So every time that comes up, I think of that, for any Jeff Wayne heads out there. Right in. Tell me who Jeff Wayne is.

It's the musical War of the World, so good. Yeah, I feel like that's right up your alley. It's like science fiction, it's old-timey. I remember. I remember seeing that on a... The first time I ever saw that album was at my dad's friend's house, and I was just like, what is this? And they refused to play it.

So it was years later. It would blow your mind too much, yeah. You're not ready. Yeah. So many U-laws. So this is when Jason Satham and Delroy Lindo are after him, hot pursuit. Again, they're the only two people they send, even though there's like a multiverse spanning threat.

To explain their roles real quickly, Delroy Lindo, of course, is the, like, old-grizzled veteran, and Jason Stanton is like, yeah. Yeah, it's like the young hothead. He's a hothead because, of course, he's got so much hair on his head. It's making him hot. The same thing happens to my younger son. He wants to grow his hair long. He gets overheated.

He gets sweaty. He should have a short haircut, yeah. And they luckily travel to a multiverse that use a different universe that has, everyone speaks the same language, which is really great. Although, actually, there's some Chinese spoken in the Cheris universe between Gabriel Law and his wife, T.K., of course, played by Carla Gugino. Thank you. But this is good, Carla Gagino.

What I love is her name is TK., which makes me think that they didn't put a first name into the script. Sorry, that's what I was distracted. I couldn't answer. Like, Stuart gestured to me for the name, Carly Gugino, and I was thinking about TK. I was thinking of Tonky Kong the whole time. Oh, wow. I was like, is that like a telekinetic? Like, why's that written down?

Okay, okay. Well, when we get to this universe, though, they recreate the opening scene, but instead of showing Al Gore, we see George Bush. So presumably it's our universe. Yeah. I mean, seeing, it was seeing Al Gore at the beginning of the movie

to show that it's an alternate universe, really, it really punched me in the gut hard when I was watching it this time. Because I'm like, oh, yeah, that's when it all started going this way. And you watch it shortly after Tuesday's election results, so you're still reeling after your boy, Andrew Cuomo, long. Your favorite. No, I was a slew ahead all the way.

Yeah. Come on, if you've got a shiny jacket and a beret, you should be the mayor of New York City. Exactly. He battled his way all the way there. Okay. Yeah, this is all very relevant jokes for our guest. Yeah, Michael, I'm sure you're, big New York guy. You're very aware of Curtis Leeu's history walking around on the street bothering homeless

people. Yeah, yeah, sure. Of course, yeah. Andy loves cats. He does love cats. He had a whole cat tie. that he was wearing that night. So as Michael said,

we arrive in the cherished dimension and we have a mirror image of the opening sequence, although there are some subtle differences, i.e. there's no Dean Norris. And instead of the- That's the saddest thing about the universe the movie takes place in this.

It's Dean Morris-less. Putting the no in Norris. And in this case, we find out that Jet Lee's character, Gabriel Law, is actually working for the L.A. Sheriff's Department. He's not the criminal. No, he's involved.

He is a gang member because he's in the L.A. Sheriff's Office, because the L.A. Sheriff's office is riven with gangs. Yeah, you're right. Now that I'm a little more aware of. Oh, wow. I'm surprised that made it over there. Yeah, I mean, he's seen, you know, he's seen like, I don't know, like, assault on Precinct 13 and stuff like that, right? Yeah, yeah, sure. So the, during this prisoner transfer, an attack happens, everybody assumes they're attacking

the prisoner, but no, this is. U-law, he's arrived and he's attacking Gabriel Law. But Gabriel Law has the upper hand, not the upper hand, but he has almost like a sixth sense because, as we mentioned, he has gained some of the energy from all the dead jet leaves in the universe. And you wonder why Lawless didn't gain any of that dead Jet Lee energy. He probably did, but he just wasted it. Yeah, I guess that's true.

Yeah. Well, he's such a, well, Lawless does because whilst he's walking down the sort of the green mile or whatever, the line of cells, he kicks. some of the bars, and they bend. And I'm like, oh, he does have the power. Yeah, he might, is he the one? Of the three. Okay, so, I'm like, I just wanted to say jelly,

but there's like so many jelly. Yeah, there's a Rastafarian one. So Gabe. They're all dead, Stu. It's okay. There's just the two living jet days. I'm going to call the good guy Gabe and the bad guy, Yulaw. So Gabe chases after Yulah who's trying to escape

because he realized, this fight might be a little bit too difficult. from me right now. But in the process, he gets shot by U-Law after jumping over a super-high wall, which gives us an indication that they both have superpowers. But before U-Law can kill Gabe and become the one, he is driven off by our two space cops. That's right, Funch and Rodecker using their like slightly futuristic pistols, and he runs off, I'm assuming, super fast. They have their laser pistols and they also have this thing that unfolds to show them where wormholes are opening, and every time they open this thing, I found it so funny. So cool.

It looks like a giant space lollipop with a screen on it. It just opens up every time. Yeah, but the screen is like a wind amp visualization. It was so 2001 kind of Windows design. It's 100% exactly the same shit that like Carly Eugenio was using in Spy Kids made the same year. Wow. So you think she brought it to this set? I can only assume.

Or I guess Robert Origuez was probably working the way he does on a shoe string. And so he was probably, he was like, does anyone have any things? It's super technology they could bring to be in Spy Kids. And she's like, you got it. Yes, here it is. I like to think that, yeah, Carla Gugino just has endless tech items in her home. She smuggled it off set in the back of her shoe. The same year as Spy Kids.

That has blown my mind as much as anything else that we've talked about. What a year for Carla Gagino. I was just looking up to see if that was the same year that her TV show was on. What was the TV show that she did? Well, she was on Spin City. as well as Sin City. There's another one where she was the star of it. What's the different Shinn City?

Spoon City? Spoon City. That's what it was. Spoon City, yeah. Okay, so we have a little after-action report. Are you thinking of the Elmore Leonard one? Yes. The one that was, she played the same character that was in out-of-sight. Carris-cisco.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that was a couple of years later. But that's the one I was thinking of, yeah. So we learned a little bit more about... Not the show about the guy who, Who's the mayor of the Spoons? Mayor of Spoons. I'm Lord of All Spoons.

Starring Kate Winslet and Jeremy Renner. Isn't it wild that there's a mayor of East Town and mayor of Kingstown? Both shows kind of playing, like, roughly the same time. Well, we ran out of titles. Well, aren't they spelled differently and they mean different things? Yeah, but if somebody's just saying it out loud, you'll get confused. Okay, maybe I'm just old. Okay, fine.

No, I'm on, I'm on board. No, it's fair. No, it's true. It's true. We'll talk to the title authority. Now that this, now that this, like, big opening is done, we get to, we get to learn a little bit more about the cherished dimension. The, which is just our dimension. Our dimension.

Yeah, I'm going to keep calling. From now on, I'm referring to our dimension is the chairist dimension forever. Okay. So, we find out that Gabe is married to Carla Gugino, who's a veterinarian, so she can't treat his wounds. and they are in love, she can speak some, what, I think that's Mandarin, Cantonese, I can't tell. I mean, I would guess Cantonese, but I don't know. I don't know enough of it, but I really liked that moment that it was a, that it was, like, she can speak Chinese, they speak together very casually.

I thought that was really cool. They have a really cute wedding photo that they do a close-up on it. Yes, and I would say, having seen Jet Li in a number of English language movies, this is the most like chemistry and rapport I've seen with him and a potential romantic interest. I'm going to give

more than a Leah. I just want to shout out the line when he says, you can fix me up and she says, hey, newsflash, I'm a vet. You don't have paws and a tail. And, you know, she sells it as best as you can. It's so funny because it's like the human body and animal bodies

are so completely different. But we evolved on different planets. Don't you remember that? That's part of the backstory is this is a different planet that humans came to. And those are all, we're carbon-based life forms. All these animals, which looks like dogs and cats are actually nitrogen-based life forms. Yeah, it is very funny that she would single out. You don't have paws at a table, as if that's the pertinent thing to, like, fixing an injury.

Like, she couldn't just, like, sew him up or whatever. She's like, I learned my lesson. I can't deal with parrots. I cannot deal with snakes. Only things with paws and the tail. Well, it's because if she just said, you know, I'm a vet, that's just too much exposition. But you couch it with this really funny guy. They say it's clever.

We got some screenwriters here. Oh, look out James Wong for your sins against screenwriting. I'm okay. She does her best. I won't hear much said against Carla Tugino. No, she's great. So, we learned that, like, he's been having some weird issues. He had checked himself out of the hospital instead of actually staying there.

after being almost killed by Yulong. And he is being kind of quiet about the identity of his attacker. Nobody quite got a good look at him except for Gabe. And Gabe realized, that's me. Not just looks kind of like me. That's him. So his wife convinced him to go back to the hospital. It would be so funny if he saw him and he goes,

that guy looks just like Jet Lee. Convinced him to go back to the hospital to get checked out, to go get an MRI. That's where he sees his sheriff buddies. And they all like, they're pretty like buddy, buddy, right? Like, I don't know, like, they feel like, yeah, they all love him, which he's the hero. They turn on him pretty quick. They do turn on him pretty quick. And then he just beats the shit.

I was, to be fair, I was not, I must have missed some. This movie, I know you, I know you guys, well, I'm guessing some final judgments that are going to be positive about it. There were times when this movie flowed past my eyes without it really registering past my eyes in my brain. And so by the time that they were on the run, trying to get Gabe. I was like, I don't really remember why they're after Gabe. I know what you mean. I, yes, I think that things are generally going to be sort of positive, but this is a less

than 90-minute movie and some of it is so fleet that I'm like, I don't know. The most of the fleet is a fast-running you love. I don't know what's going. How did we get here? I guess it's not important. There's going to be something. There definitely were parts of the movie about an hour in where I was like, oh, we're We're a lot farther into this movie than I thought.

Yeah, I love it. It's like a child growing up. You look away for a moment. Suddenly they're ready to get home. Yeah, so she convinced him to go get checked out and go get an MRI. That'll play almost some part into the rest of the movie. So he's getting an MRI. While he's getting his MRI, U-Law shows up to try and, I don't know, kill him while he's

getting his MRI. There's a brief fight, and then Rodeker and Funch show up, and there's some blasting. the MRI machine briefly disarms U-law by magnetizing his gun out of his hand. Glass turns it off, yeah. You know, there's a lot of like jumping and shooting. And the good guy's able to get out of an MRI machine somehow. I was like, as someone who's had his share of MRIs, like, I don't think you can just like push your way out.

I 100% think Jet League could. Yeah, I think that the X factor here that we're not thinking about Dan is that you're you and he's Jet League. He's almost the one. And he also has the one powers too. He's one-of-one powers. Like, Jet Lee is, you know, like a top 1% of most athletic dudes in the universe. He's currently the penultimate.

I think so, Dan, we're going to have to have you go to each of the other 124 universes, kill your variants, and then get in an MRI, except for one, and see if you can do it. How are you going to kill him, Dan? You're going to use, like, bolos? Honestly, I just had the saddest thought that's almost, like, too sad to, like, put on the podcast, but I'm imagining me coming up and, like, killing the, you know, coming up to myself to kill myself in the, the guy being like, oh, okay.

That is sad. I thought you were going to say you were going to go up and try to kill him and the first guy you try immediately kills you. You're done. I'm out. Yeah, what would happen if you like found a Dan who's like super like ripped? Are you implying that this Dan is not super ripped? I mean more ripped than this Dan.

Yeah, exactly. Like noticeably more. Not, you know, yeah. What about if you found a Dan like a bench over 350 since I know you've been struggling to get to $3.50? Yeah. You plateaued at 3.45. Someday, I'm going to push those points.

That's pounds, not kilograms. Oh, I know. That's really heavy. 3.45 p.m. is when he stopped, yeah. Okay, so in the ensuing conflict, there is confusion as to who the attacker is, and all the sheriff's department are like, you know what, our friend Gabe, he's the problem. He must be the assailant. Maybe he had some kind of a mental break, and they're trying to talk him down, and then he just kind of beat. him all up, but he does it, like, disarming style.

It's pretty cool, right? I don't want to hurt you. Hey, what's this? Put the handcuffs on you. I thought that was cool. It's a cool. It's like kind of Jackie Chan sort of, you know, prop kung fu, which is always fun.

You put your finger on it. It's very Jackie Channey, and it means that there's not a lot of effects. It's all, it's like close up magic, you know? He's really doing it with his hands as opposed to stuff where you're like, well, at some point, no matter how good, gently is, he can't be in two places at once jumping 50 feet in the air. So, like, and so it, that has to be some competition. But one thing I did like, for the vast majority of the martial art sequence is they do put a green mask on the stunt performer's face that's fighting opposite Jet Lee so they can map his face on there if necessary.

But for the most part, it's two guys doing physical stuff as opposed to, I feel like if there was a Marvel movie where this was happening, it would be like, we got two wire-framed CGI dudes punching each other. Oh, yeah, there would not be an actual human being. Yes. you're right. Yeah. Okay. I thought I think, I thought the Jetley versus Jetley stuff looked really good. I thought they got a really good job of, of making it seem like he was fighting himself. I also later on like when Jetley beats up Jason Satham very quickly and easily and Jason Satham cannot fight anymore. And I'm like, wow, that's before his contract stipulated that he has to win his fights. I was thinking the exact same thing. Jason Statham was not a big

enough name yet that he could say, I'm not going to lose in this movie. Do you think this is the movie that changed everything for him, that he like took a date to the movie and And she was like, ugh, gross. You got beats so bad. I watched the trailer. I watched a trailer after watching the movie. And he gets like a solo title card in the trailer, which sort of surprised me at this stage of his career.

It was about halfway through the movie where I turned to my partner who was reluctantly watching the movie with me and said, oh, did Jason Statham just try and do American for that line? And she said, he's been trying to do it the whole time. And then I realized he was completely failing to do an American accent of consistent. Michael, you have had the true flop-house experience of watching a flop-house movie with a reluctant spouse. I asked her as soon as it finished, what did you think? And she said, wasn't good.

I almost got to watch a flop-house movie with my spouse recently. For flop TV, we did Zanadu recently. My wife was like, oh, I'd watch some of that with you. And then she saw about a minute of it. And she's like, actually, I won't. Never mind. I think there's some closets that need to be rearranged. You know what?

I think I just have to lie down and stare at the ceiling and think about whatever. Oh, what's that crack doing? Looks like a rabbit. Like that hospital I was in France as a child. That's like Madeline. So both Gabe and U-Law managed to escape the hospital, and that means our MBA guys are going to need to split up

even though that goes against protocol. So Delroy Lindo goes after U-Law, And he says this thing like, well, if you see this thing flashed, that means we're both dead. And you have to, Jason Satham, you have to kill Gabriel Law. Because if I kill you law,

then that means Gabriel Law is the one. And we can't have that. We don't know what's going to happen. No, there must be balanced in the universe. There's just one, the one, and the whole universe could explode for something. It's better if there's two is what they say. Yeah.

He actually says it takes two be he, hey, hey, B. It takes two be he a baby. And he says, me and you. And Jason, and was like, wait, but we're not the two. You law and Gabe Law are the two. And Doi Lyndo's like, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. And he walks away, yeah.

Very confusing. Jason Seatham catches up with Gabriel Law, and he kind of explains the rules of the multiverse. We all know this stuff. He explains that while Gabe Law is walking away from him wanting to be anywhere else but listening to this explanation, right, which I found very funny. Yeah. It's like, he just, if the only thing that could have made better is every now that he just

went, turned back behind himself and stop talking to me. Stop it. Not interested. Oh, just quickly, one thing that really bugged me, or not bug me, but I was just like, oh, we all know where this is going. It's such, like, and then the payoff doesn't come for a really long time,

is that when Gabe gets out of his hospital gown, he immediately changes into the exact same outfit that Yulah is wearing. And so we know that eventually we're going to get the, shoot that one, no, shoot that one scene. But it takes two acts of the movie to then get there. And then it's almost immediately done away with. And yeah, they don't care right.

away. But it's, or they've figured out, it's, it takes, you law taking off his shirt for a fight for his outer shirt for no reason. And then right before the next, the moment where it's supposed to happen, I don't remember why Gabe's shirt comes off. But it does not. He's on fire. He has to take it off. It was such, it was a very artificial reason for them to suddenly end up in the same clothes. Well, I really wanted Gabe to be like, hey, one, this is obviously going to happen eventually. I'm just going to put on some lipstick because I really don't think the other guy's going to put on lipstick. And just so wouldn't it be funny for the second half? If he was like crazy over the top

lipstick on. The other thing is like... Or he just gets a big face tattoo over most of his face. You know, this will wash off. If we fall into the ocean, I'll still know I'm me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If it gets splashed with blood of the battles that we're doing. But the other thing is like, that's exclusively for the audience. Because it's not like if you're watching two guys fight, you're going to be like, okay,

I just got to remember the good one has his kind of shirt tied around his waist for some reason. The bad one does not. So if we all get jumbled up, that I got to keep this straight. You're not going to do that. Okay, unless I guess I'm not a... That's probably why I'm not a multiverse agent.

Okay, so... Well, I mean, you failed the physical. I failed the physical. That's the thing. For being too strong. Thank you. Okay, so Roddiker, played by Delroy Lindo, gets the drop on U-law who's driving...

He's driving, like, an ambulance? and he's as I mentioned before listening to some heavy metal in the English release it was sinners by drowning pool but apparently in the Chinese language release they changed it to a Lincoln Park song so maybe you know better for them

Wow Lincoln Park must be huge in China Where do you find that you were on the new metal message boards trawling for this trivia or where did this come from? I mean this is all IMDB okay

IMNMDB the internet movie New Metal Database. Okay, yeah. So this is where, you know, they fight. Of course, you law being the two manages to defeat Delroy Lindo. And Del Rey Lindo's like, okay, you have two options. I have this live crazy grenade in my hand. You have two options.

You either come with me or you die. Of course, Jetty runs over and snatches the grenade and kills him. And he's like, option three. You're like, oh, sick. I thought it was so funny to me that he's like, you got, okay, obviously, I have you at a disadvantage right now. And it's like he forgets that he's dealing with a superhuman, you know, so he can move faster and is stronger.

Deliolindo, not a surprise, does a great job with not very much. He's an amazing. Yeah, he's really good. He kind of sells it by being just, he just takes it seriously. He's not overdoing anything. He's not sort of trying to do a wee bit of like an American accent like the other guy is. I mean, Delo Lindo already has an American accent. Well, that's true.

He's got that taken care of. He should have tried to do a cockney accent. That's another thing that this film has in. With, like, in common with Highlander, I thought. But sorry, what we say? Oh, just that this plot is really similar to Highlander. And also similarly to Highlander, there's lots of people's accents on display. Obviously, gently speaking with this natural accent.

And then Jason Statham trying to do it in America and not quite getting there in the way that Sean Connery and, oh, my gosh, the same is escaping me. Inpeckable Spanish accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I respect them. somehow an Egyptian, an ancient Egyptian who's pretending to be a Spaniard and has the heaviest Scottish accent. It's amazing. Connery just got to a point where he's

like, you know what? I'm not doing it. And I'm like, God bless you, Sean. I agree. You're right. You're right. You can't do it. So just don't. We don't care. No. He was like, I am just going to be myself. And eventually I will be old enough that I win an Academy Award for just doing myself. And he did.

I'm not shocked that Delroy Lindo does a great job selling. Shocked Connery? The Delroy Lindo does a great job with this. You know, like kind of goofy sci-fi plot. He was so great, and did you guys ever see the movie Blood of Heroes, also known as Salute of the Jugger, where he plays a post-apocalyptic athlete in a traveling, like, sports team?

No, these sound like made-up titles. Stars Rugger Howard and Joan Chen, if you haven't seen it. I totally recommend this probably a million times on the podcast. It's super good. Vincent DiNofrio is also in it as another member of this traveling sports team where they, okay, so the idea is there's a traveling team that goes from like wasteland settlement to wasteland settlement and they all, they play this game using a dog skull where there's, there's two, uh, there's two like scorers or like runners that fight over the dog

skull and try and stick it on the opposing team's spike while the opposing team has guys with like big sticks, kind of like American gladiators. And then also guys with like chain whips that are trying to keep you from doing that. We're in the inception part of the podcast where the where Stewart explains the plot has been superseded by the second plot. Yeah, it's great. This is the Flop House has become a Sargasso manuscript all of a sudden.

We've forgotten the original story and are now on to something else. That's because I'm really trying to build up anticipation because as you mentioned, Elliot, we are dealing with a superhuman and that shit is on full display because after killing Delroy Lindo, some cops show up and Jetley, aka ULaw in this case, runs over and he punches the cops off their motorcycles and then picks up the motorcycles and starts swatting dudes

around like their baseball bats. And this has to be the best part of the whole movie, right? He's just picking up motorcycles and swinging them around. Yeah, what's the best? The mouse that comes out of the shoe? Yes, the mouse coming out of the shoe with the, uh-uh, ah, is the best part. And that is a good part. And I love the final shot as well. Final shot, okay. And actually, the final shot is,

I mean, the final shot, it's like, it promises a much better movie. We'll get to it. A much better movie than the one we saw it, I think. But anyway. Okay, so Gabe and Funch decide to team up because Gabe goes... The names in the movie are ridiculous. D.K. goes back to their family home with the sheriff's department in tow, and she believes that her husband is injured and hiding inside. But she's not sure, and she actually sees him hiding up in the ceiling.

And she... But then she suspects, you know, What, this might... It's really scary. You're like jump scares area of the thing. Yeah, he's like sticking his little head out through the like attic, like hatchway. And then she sees, I think this is what happened. She sees her husband outside and she realized that the one she's talking to inside is actually

you law, the evil one after she like tests him with a little... Yeah, she pulls a classic like, oh, wasn't it great that time we did that thing? Oh, no, no, no. Do you ever think that we'd be in this situation after all those years where we met at the bookshop? And I would be, I would be absolutely fucked if I was in this situation because I have a bad memory and I drink too much. So I'd be like, yeah, whatever, babe. Oh, no, I'm dead. Audrey's constantly being like, do you remember when we had dinner at that restaurant?

I'm like, we were there. We went there. That's the thing we did. Yeah, this happens. This happens. It's just a part of growing older. Okay. Part of growing up.

U-Law despite having a game on him, as we've learned, he's a superhuman. So he blasts a couple cops, and then he turns the gun on TK. And in front of Gabe Law, he kills TK. Don't like this. Not a fan of that.

I was shocked. I really thought that we'd reveal that she wasn't mortally wounded and that she was just recovering and she'd kind of reappear. Do you think he did it? Because he's like, I'm trying to make my girlfriend

in the other dimension, the one. Oh, yeah. I didn't think that. It's part of the deal, yeah. I feel like The boobs from different dimensions There's like a limited amount of boobs That all everyone each dimension

Has Yeah yeah Let's explore this idea That's how the total recall stripper happened No that makes sense Another woman got killed If this was a This movie is coming out

At a time when Not only could you get away With just murdering the main guy's wife like that But I think if they didn't do it They would have been like This isn't some soft wussy movie come on this is a new metal movie we gotta do this and so it's it's it's dispatched very casually

it's pretty it's very it's like a glancing shot to her gut and she just falls out of frame and then it's like buy tk yeah that's a tk oh that's her that's a rap for carlo gogino everybody thanks carl oh i mean okay carla can i see your bag are you trying to steal props from this movie to break to spike kids uh that's yeah that's her weak spot she's got a little uh-oh spot where if you shoot her in the tummy she does. She was shot in her existence port, and that's why I'd hurt her particularly, yeah. Unlike the rest of us.

So we get some, we get a little bit of... You get shot in the tummy, you just shrug it off, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so... Take a lap, walk it off. Rub some dirt on it. Rickshades into your head. Yeah, I don't know. So, you lost Gabe, and this,

we get a little bit of a little bit of speed up. Funch and Gabe decide to team up to take down U-Law. They show up. at a industrial plant that seems to manufacture sparks. And not the band's sparks. They don't make that, just a physical thing, yeah. So they walk right into a trap

using one of those funky sci-fi grenades that almost explodes them, but it does not, it just blows up their guns. And then they get in a fight, Jason Satham gets beat super fast and has to like limp around for the rest of the fight. But then we get a fight between Yulah and Gabe, and this is kind of the centerpiece of the movie

where we have two jellies fighting each other. and one thing that I do want to point out is that both Jet Lees use different styles of martial arts which is kind of cool. That is cool. A subtle difference. Obviously, it's a nod to the fact that Jetley is an incredible martial artist.

Yeah, it's a nod to that. It's a little Easter. For those people who are aware, Jet Lee is history. The discerning viewer will note that Jetley's good at martial arts. Of course, Gabe Law being of pure heart and mind, and body becomes, and filled with the rage of a dead wife decides to, becomes the ultimate

battler, and he defeats U-Law. There's a couple of moments where, like, they're fighting with an axe, and he, like, flips it up and catches it super fast and almost cuts him in half. It's so sick. It's as a great moment. Put that shit in the trailer. I will go to the trailer. Yeah. I think there was a,

this movie is moving so fast. I think they skip over a couple of, like, the obstet, the obligatory beats that a movie has to have, and they're just like, you get it, You get it. He figures out his true power, whatever. Anyway, he's better now than you law is. It's like, but do we, are we going to see him do that?

We do see him, we do see him training one time in his home. That's true. We do see him training in his home and time. But it's, but it's like, the movie is like, you know what happens in a movie. Come on. Let's just get to it. Let's get to it. Come on.

We skipped over a not terribly important scene, but one that was, that's kind of fun where they go to a gas station. Oh, yeah. I would call a petrol shop. Thank you. Not on this show. Alex, erase that. Leap it out.

Yeah, I'm Jason Stathamming. Yeah, they get to a gas station and bump into that universe is Delroy Lindo. And Jason Statham is able to be like, I just want to say thank you for everything you've done for me. Oh, wow. That's a kick-ass American accent. And Doyleander's like, get out of here. Yeah, I'm going to go call the cops. Yeah.

But they never run to that university. He says the Chinese guy kicked the, the Chinese guy is tearing this. plays of pop because he kicked a lamp post that falls over. We never see this, this universe is funch, though, because he is, of course, in England. Yeah. I do like that it means we get extra Delroy Lindo, so I'm not mad at that. Yes. Oh, yeah, it's great.

It's just like, it's, I mean, it's obviously films are full of conveniences, but it's like, why did that it's very fortunate that they bumped into the delroy of this thing. And it's not even connected to what his job is in the other universe or anything. Yeah, it feels like for the most part, everybody else is. somewhat similar in the different dimensions. You know, like Carlo Eugino's like a criminal gumar in one and the other one, she's a veterinarian

in every other dimension. There's at least, yeah, one other dimension where she's a veterinarian, yeah. In one dimension, the law has a, has dreadlocks. In the other ones, he is dread less, you know? I feel like the blonde law is still got to be the best.

Okay, so the, the, blonde law sounds like a Ryan Murphy show. That's actually interesting. Yeah, it does, yeah. We only take the blondeest, sexiest, most scandalous cases. Sarah Paulson is going to crush it in that. Yes, that is legally blonde. Blonde law sounds like they like what the like Somalian poster for legally

blue. Where she's chopping someone's hand off, plus she's firing and easy and someone else. It's a lion. Okay. No, blonde law sounds like a silk stocking specific blue type show. Uh-huh. On USA. Okay, so a wormhole arrives just in time to suck both laws and Jason Statham back to the multiverse authority where they're both very dazed and they're, you know, the one law's like, oh, get him, he's the bad guy.

There's a very brief moment where they almost send Gabriel Law to the prison dimension because it's like... He's the bad guy, good enough for me, over the portal and three, two. It's a super fast timer. Like, they're like, shit, we got to go, man. I don't got to clock out. I got dinner on the stove. This is funny for me because I was waiting, you know, I was waiting for the moment. I'm like, oh, okay, he took the shirt off because it was on fire.

They're going to have the moment where there's the confusion. And then, like, immediately, like, they scan them with some sci-fi thing. And they're like, yeah, this is the one. And they put the one in the chair and, like, they don't really explain. I mean, I'd probably miss something. But, like, why the scanning was wrong. But in my head, like, for a second, I'm like, wait, they set up the thing. And they didn't even have Spider-Man pointed himself.

Like, I don't understand what's going on here. There had to have been a cut where they sent the wrong law back, wrong law to the prison dimension. I mean, a cut of this movie that was more than 87 minutes long, which this one has to. 88 minutes, maybe. Sorry, yeah, yeah, it was 80. There's one minute they cut out where they handle all that stuff.

So they zorch you law away, and then they're strapping Gabe Law into another one, and they're like, I guess we got to send him, they want to send him back to the Charest Demand, because they're like, that's where he's from, that's the rules. And Jason says to him, like, that's fucking crazy, man. They're going to think he's like a criminal because he killed all those people. And so he's like, actually, I know how to do this. I'm going to send him to, I'm going to send him back to the chair's dimension.

I know how to do it. They're like, go ahead. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a BD detective who caught a murderer. And the murderer is putting, put in the electric chair. And he's like, let me, I'll flip the switch. I'm pretty familiar with this equipment. You got it. sir that anyone can do this it's that's not that's your job now yep it's uh technically it's your birthday

so when it's your birthday you can do whatever you want so they uh so they send i would love it i know i would have that would have been such a funny addition to this movie if throughout it he was just like it's my birthday let me do this hey hey it's my birthday let me break the rules they don't explain a lot of their their dynamic um and also that's why he's like such a hothead because he feels like it's his birthday and he's run out of time and he's got he's got a corner this killer or whatever I'll lose this hair soon. He's going to... He's only five away from 40.

He's going to... He's no longer an Olympic-level diver. That's true. Which I believe he was, right? You know what's crazy? It's looking at Jason Satham in this movie and being like, man, he's got to be younger than I am now, but like,

I can't imagine Jason's Satham being younger than me. No. You know how young he was? Bruce Willis and fucking diehard. I'm like, he's what? Like, 30? That's crazy.

That's the experience I've been having watching Seinfeld. recently, where I'm like, all these characters are younger than me, yet they dress like they're in their 60s. And they complain about diner food all the time. But you know what, Jason Stathen was 34 years old when this

movie came out. So, yeah. This ending, though, I usually explain it, but I have thoughts on. So Gabriel Law gets sent back to, he gets sent to a completely different dimension, one that I'm assuming the law was killed by U. Law. And he

almost gets hit by a car. The car runs over a dog's paw and he is like, wait, that's my dog and so he takes that dog to the Can Be- Wait, we should mention also that we see the Goofiest looking car An insane car. Oh, this universe is going to be

a crazy sci-fi universe, but that's just one weird car. No, it's just that one car. Yeah, it's the one guy driving the wacky mobile, yeah. Yeah, so that you know, a car that's like not cool enough to like actually hurt anybody You're not cool

No, I know I don't know That's what cool You got me As Stuart was saying the sentence We sent me to the teaching universe I deserve it You're honest

You're saying it You're like Oh no One I started this way So of course He scoops up the dog Which in a different dimension

Was his dog And he goes to the conveniently Placed veterinarian clinic And he's like I'm just to scooping this dog Oh, not the whole dog. Yep, two meters away, which is what, like a hundred feet? I don't know.

Yeah, something like that. He burst through the door and he's like, somebody save this dog, of course. The person he's yelling at, that's right, turns around. It's none other than Carly Gino looking incredible. And he's like, oh, mama me. And this is like, he wolf whistles. We've invoked, because it's, you know,

such a heavily multiverse, like, goofy show, We've invoked Rick and Morty before, and they do stuff like this on that show because that show is inherently cynical, and it's like a joke, how cynical it is. Here it's just like, the movie is not interrogating at all the fact that it's just like, okay, well, you're Carly Gagino died, but one's just as good as another, right? Like, it's just like the story of Job. He lost his whole family, but then God gives him another one. He's just supposed to be happy with it, you know? Yeah, that's the... And this case, God's Jason Statham.

The J and Job stands for Jason Statham. Oh, okay. Jason Statham's O.B. He would be incredible on a production of Job. Production of Job. The musical Job exclamation point.

What happened to my stuff, they took all my stuff, I think I've had enough because they've got all my stuff. Now I'm covered in sores. Oh, my Lord. So where were you when I invented Leviathan?

Where were you? My college. girlfriend was a theater major, and she, part of being a theater majors, he had to help other theater majors with their senior projects. And so she had to help another guy who was doing a theatrical production of the story of Job, and she was playing Job's wife. And her costume was like, basically a bathrobe. And on opening night, on her opening night, we like went into the theater and the Erlem College, the theater's pretty small. But the, uh, there was a massive poster. Like, I feel like it was like a 20-foot-tall close-up of her face looking sad,

and she's like, I don't know, it's going to be like this. It sucks. That's what happens when you're a star, baby. But this is, the ending here, it is the, it is the time travel alternate universe fallacy also of like, oh, you look the same as my wife and you have the same job. You must be the same person, and we will fall in love now. Who cares that she's dead and I'm a stranger? Yes.

It's also the exact, we hear the back. story of how Jet Lee and Colored Gugino met in the first time, which is he found it in your dog and took it to the van. She was there. It was love at first sight. So when this happened, I was like, is this a time travel thing? Because, like, how did Jason Statham know, oh, I know

in another universe where this exact moment can happen? I think they transferred him to a universe that was a couple years behind the one he came from. Oh, that was the one difference. And this was the like, this was the like Charris is late universe. Like, it's always running a little late.

But it reminds me, it reminds me so much the end of Time Cop where he has managed to change the past so that his wife and is alive and he has a family. And as he's walking to his house, I just kept, I was imagined him thinking like, oh, boy, I've got to pretend I know who these kids are. Maybe if I should trip on the way and pretend that I get amnesia. Oh, I got a concussion. I don't remember. Can you remind me what your names are and how we met? That actually is the plot of that, obviously, that Joel Hedges is. in an Apple TV show

where he's like universe jumping. Joel Edgden jumps into another dimension and steals his a place and then has to be like, yeah, I'm your dad. This is good, right? Yeah. That's arguably the plot

of the most recent season of Peacemaker, except instead of, you know, Jean-Claude Van Dammit's John Cena. So they're both, you know, big guys. I mean, it's arguably with the plot the last season of Sopranos. You'd lose that argument,

but you could argue it. I'd make that argument. Yeah. For $2. So let's get to the real meat on this. Ooh, too rich from my blood. We've eaten all the vegetables around the plate. Let's get to the meat that's in the middle of the plate.

Is this how you organize your plates? There's like an island of meat in the middle and then a moat of vegetables around it? Yeah, how do you do it? I just scoops all the vegetables into the garbage. That's what I do. I make a food pyramid. Oh, okay. Based on the old.

Does the ancient aliens. And that's a good transition to the end of this. Oh, that's true. Okay, so speaking of pyramids, we cut to the Stygian universe where U-Law wakes up and he's surrounded by rough-looking customers. And he is on a- All look much older than him and weaker than him. None of them look like that intimidating. And they are on a, he is on a prison planet that is lashed by lightning covered in massive pyramids.

And there's all kinds of science fiction. stuff, and his first reaction, they're like, oh goody, there's a new inmate, fresh fish. You've got a pretty mouth today, which is disgusting. Uh-huh, it's, yeah, it's disgusting. But I mean, it's accurate. It's

gilly, he's gorgeous. And he, and so gently, and then his, uh, he long stands up and he says, you've got a pretty mouth and then he gets a fan and they go, a prisoner can't compliment another prisoner these days. The dimension I'm from, the inubis dimension, we compliment each other's

Wow, that's when we meet them. I'm from the sexual harassment dimension. This is considered etiquette where I'm from. So this is when U-Law stands up and he addresses the crowd and he says, I am U-Law, I am nobody's bitch, you are mine. I'm like, oh, wow, okay, this is an interesting turn of events. And then, of course, he starts beating people up while we hear Papa Roach start blasting. And I'm like, hell yeah.

He's on top of the ziggurats. Yeah, the camera pulls back. He's on top of the ziggarot, and there's, like, a swarm of dudes running up to get beat up by him. Kind of like, hell is the Doom video game. But instead of, you know, fighting demons, he's fighting rough customers. Yeah. Yes, it is, it is awesome.

It is, you want to send your audience out on a cloud, and you know what, success. I have to say that the way it pulls back, I kept expecting, I mean, it would be totally needless, and it would not make any sense to have, like, this last minute twist. It's all in a snow globe being held by a child. reveal like, oh, you know, like, there's the Empire State Building. It'd be like,

oh, this is like... Oh, the fallen Statue of Liberty. I don't know why they would do that, but it was that kind of pull out. Yeah, it pulls out and it's just a reflection in Jonathan Price's eye at the end of Brazil, and you're like, whoa, that is cool. He's like the only way I could escape the torture was to imagine badass martial arts.

Imagine the one. But it is, it feels like such a... I mean, it's an awesome ending, but it feels like such a tease. I just was like, this is the movie I could have been watching all this time? Yeah. Like, you know. The thing is, they know that the movie that they could make with the budget they had set on that prison plan, it would not be nearly as the cool as the one in your head.

No, that's very true. That's a good point. Especially on the budget they have, yeah. So that's the one, guys, we fucking did it. Yeah. I was like, I was looking at up, like, you know, I think that they maybe wanted to do more. This was a $50 million movie that made. 80 million.

So it did okay for like the time, but probably was not ultimately profitable. I feel like the name and the, I guess the poster's not, like the one poster with Jet Leanna, it's okay. But the other one's just like a glowing orb or something.

And that's not a good poster. Even the one with Jet Leanna, it just looks like his body is kind of like dissolving into cubes, into pixels. It doesn't really, I feel like... I bring you into little cubes. Little cubes, Picasso.

I feel like the poster should be two jet leaves facing off against each other, right? Yes. That feels like, that's your poster. Why are you doing anything else? We confuse people, though. They'd be like, I thought it's called the one. I don't understand. I'm seeing double here.

Two jet leaves. I don't want to know the story behind that. You won't get my ticket money. I think, though, I was just thinking there's a kind of a plot hole of the ending, which is that they can't allow one of these guys to become. the one because nobody knows what will happen. Some believe that if somebody becomes the one, they will explode. Some believe he will implode. Some believe he will become a god, if they clarify.

And Jason Statham says, well, it might just destroy the universe. Maybe it'll destroy the multiverse. One of these jetlies still will die. Like, one of them will die of old age. And if they can't let either of them die, perhaps sending Yulah to a, like, an infinite fight that he cannot win over the end of the first video game half-life. He's not going to lost long.

Yeah, you make a good point. You really put your finger on what is wrong about the movie in general, which is that you're right, unless everyone in each universe is dying at the same moment, this would be happening all the time. All the time.

In an infinite or I guess a 125 universe, like people are going to die at different times. And you'd think that like suddenly you see an old man who can run super fast and lift up a car because all his elderly counterparts have died just a couple days before him or something.

Can you imagine I would love to see that? What if it's the same movie, the one, but it's with Burgess Meredith instead of Jet? Oh, my God. He's an incredibly old man. The way he chooses the scenery, that would be great. The thing is like, we don't even need this idea like, oh, you know, once it becomes the one, it might destroy the universe. Like, those stakes are not necessary to the movie. It could just be a movie about, like, this is an interdimensional criminal who is about to become incredibly.

incredibly dangerous, like more powerful than anyone in the world. We have to stop them. And that's enough, you know? I guess it's because they need to give a reason to kill that, oh, we need to kill Gabe as well, but it could just be, well, no one individual should have this power. It's just too dangerous. Right. But it really is the same way that it's the multiverse aspect of it is a forerunner to, so many of the movies now, the fact that they felt like they needed to throw in, and the universe could be destroyed, like, is also a forerunner to everything now where it's the highest stakes possible. I would say, I'm not going to say this is a plot hole, but it, I feel like it's a missed opportunity because apparently all these sequences that were shot in the hotel, that, hotel, the sequences that are shot in the hospital.

Now, that's the same. It's just like a hotel for sick people. It's the same, based on the prices. It's even more expensive. The, the, uh, they're providing, not here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're providing medical care. So, like, it really should be more expensive than a hotel.

I was just going to say a hotel is not performing surgery. It's not providing medications, round-the-clock service. Maybe the hotels... Who's footing the bill? We can argue about that. You're going to these kind of infinity pool type of hotels where there's all sorts of stuff going on. Yeah, I'm always going to infinity pool hotels.

What I was going to say is the hospital that they shoot that sequence in is the same hospital that they shoot, they shot scrubs in. And I think it's a missed opportunity that the Scrubs gang didn't just wander through some of those actions. I'm not going down there. Can you mention J.D. meeting T. Oh, my gosh. Was it really? John's thinking of you could have gotten in on that shit.

Was it really the Scrubs Hotel? A Scrubs hospital? Wow. I worked with some people who worked on Scrubs and they were like, oh, yeah, that place was disgusting. It was infested with raccoons. It makes me wonder. Gently every day had to go in and, like, fight off raccoons to clear out the set.

Oh, that's great. Yes, that is a true fact. I did not make that up. I'm not that creative. Now is the time where we render our final judgment. which of course are binding in all courts of the land I've got a pretty good feeling

about how this one's going to shake out. A good bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie we kind of like. I'm going to say, yeah, I kind of like this movie. I will say, like Elliot, occasionally my brain would slide off it and too often it would happen during the stuff that is theoretically

the reason for the movie existing, like the fight scenes. Sometimes I would just be like, oh, I should be paying more attention to this. This is like the meat of like why this exists. This is what's happening in the movie. Just when the bodies are hitting the floor. But it is

They're just letting it happen. I guess there's nothing wrong one. I'm swimming in the drowning pool. It is so silly and big and like fast on its feet being silly and big that I had a good time watching it. So yeah,

I like I likes the one. Stuart. Yeah, it goes down super easy. You know, I was a little concerned that it was going to be as good as I remembered. And I still think it's like like a fucking super straightforward like dumbass 90s style

like high concept action movie like the aforementioned time cop. But the added advantage is it does have a great ending. It has a killer soundtrack and of course it has you know young Jason Statham, Jet Lee, Carlo Gugino,

Delroy Lindo, Dean Norris briefly, yeah. So I still liked it. This is still a movie I kind of like. I think for me it's kind of on the line between a movie I kind of liked in a good, bad movie. I think for that reason of,

I had trouble feeling invested in watching it. I'm not asking to be invested in the characters or their emotional journey, but like any movie where I find myself kind of going into a haze or a trance and then I pick up and I go, oh, yeah, the movie's on.

Did you see the part where he smacked somebody with a motorcycle? I think what it really is, But there was more stuff like, I feel like there are stretches of the movie that are not as imaginative or, like, fun. And considering that people who made it, where it's like, this is, you know,

James Wong directing it, and he and Glenn Morgan wrote it, and they wrote some of the best episodes of The X-Files. And, like, James Wong did, what, Final Destination? Like, I would, I want, I wish there was like more, a few more scenes like the motorcycle fight or that big pyramid fight at the end

where I was just like, whoa, like, what is going on? This is intent, over the top, you know? Apparently, this movie, was originally meant to be a project starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Really? He would have been a different movie. Yes, I think it would have been a different movie.

I think it would have had less, probably martial arts. Yes. Probably less martial arts. Probably he wouldn't speak Chinese with his wife in the movie, but you never know. John Cedar might have. He speaks Chinese. I don't know that.

Oh, I don't know if it's my turn. What's your final judgment, Michael? I think that this was a, well, I actually kind of I agree with Elliot. It's a movie I kind of like, and I also think it's kind of a good, bad movie. Like, it was really fun to watch. I'll put it as a movie I kind of like because there's so many moments of, you know, new metal and martial arts. And I am nostalgic for this period. In the opening action sequence, there were practical muzzle flashes that just like just got this physical reaction for me because I haven't seen that in a long time. And it was just lighting up

the frame. And there's some really cool effects that I think hold up and some goofy effects that like don't. But I think kind of what you guys have been saying, it begins in a place that has a lot more science fiction to it and ends in a place that has a lot more science fiction to it. And there's kind of a portion in the middle where, oh, now we're in our universe. And it just becomes, yeah, a little less inventive, a little less creative. And that's maybe where it gets to a bit of a zone out, but then goes out on maybe the highest of highs. It is, I mean, yeah, that ending is. I did, I feel as much as it was. losing me at times the middle. That ending, I was like, okay, and then the movie ended,

and I was like, oh. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you could have, like, juzed up the science fiction stuff by having, like, other dimension hoppers, like, like, bounty hunters trying to track down you law, maybe, because, you know, interdimensional bounty hunters, always a thumbs up for me. Or maybe, like, the other Carla Gugino would have shown up and she's like, you promised to kill the other me's. Why aren't you doing it? I was surprised that that character had such a strong impact on screen right from the beginning, and we never saw her again. And it felt like, oh, yeah, swarms of mice coming out from her shoes. She's like this vet.

She's this, she's this. Willard later on. This femme fatale with mice in her shoes. And she's got such a connection with, um, with, uh, with, uh, with, uh, with, with, uh, with you law. And it was just, I was surprised that, that she just didn't come back. It was, it was surprising me, yeah. Did her show up and pretend to be KT and, like, try to trick Gabe or something, but, Oh, that would have been great because, of course, he's grieving her and then to see her again,

unexpectedly would have been, I mean, I can't imagine the emotion. Did James Wong direct Dragon Ball Evolution? Yes, the answer is yes. No, I think he produced Willard that you just mentioned or something like that. Oh, maybe. Is maybe a producer on that? I believe he was also a producer on the show Millennium that I only know of from Stu mentioning it 30 times throughout the show.

He did indeed produce Willard for the remake. Oh, man. Yeah. With Chris Oliver. Hey, I'm Jay Keith Van Stratton from GoFact Yourself, and I'm here with MaxFund member of the month, Josh Mentor, who has been a maximum fund member since 2016. Hello, Josh. Hey, Jake, how are you doing today? I'm so well, and thank you so much for being a listener and supporter of our show.

What made you decide to support Max Fun in general and to support our show GoFact Yourself? Jordan Morris on Jordan Jesse Go has a thing that he likes to say, which is, you know, you tip your bartender, a buck of beer. tip your podcast or a buck a month. You know, I get way more use out of Max Fun Podcasts than I do, like Disney Plus or Netflix. Well, it's something we very much appreciate. And by the way, when was the last time Netflix

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slash join. Walking About is the podcast about walking. It's a walkiementary series where I, Alan McLeod, and a fun-friendly guest, go for a walkabout. You'll learn about interesting people and places and have the kind of conversations you can only have on foot. We've got guests like Lauren Lapkis. I figured something out about this map. Like how to read it. Betsy Sedaro.

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on Maximum Fun. Hey, it's Dan here with some late-breaking news, stuff that wasn't ready for air at time of recording, but now we can talk about. We're coming back to San Francisco Sketchfest on January the 25th

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We don't know exactly what movie we're doing just yet. We're pondering if there's maybe something San Francisco-based or just a big old flop and historic flop that we haven't covered just yet. But we always have fun at SF Sketch Fest. We're happy to be back. We hope that we will see you there. This podcast, yes, this one, the one you're listening to right now, the flop house, is brought to an overwhelming part by listeners like you who have become members at maximum fun.org, allowing us to continue having a artist-owned podcast that is supported by the efforts of a worker-owned collective, all very rare, very valuable things in the world we live in right now. But we also have a couple of sponsors from the outside world, and one of them is Squarespace. Squarespace allows you to have a presence online,

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version of our live shows we just did Zanadu in November and coming up we're going to do Zardaz in December that is a movie that we've talked about a lot but I personally have never seen

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Let us answer a couple of questions from the mailbag. Why not? Let's open up the old mailbag. Mail bog. Let's get this wade into the mail bog. It's just bubbling and churning piles of mail. It's hard to read because, of course, it's all wet and the ink is run. But here we go.

This is from Hannah. Hannah last name withheld. Who writes? Montana. Just singular Hannah. Hannah Montana and her sisters? Mm-hmm. Long-time listener.

Hannah the girl. That's a straight-up fucking movie trivia team name right there. Hannah Montana and her sisters. You're right. Yeah. Put that in my back pocket. Long-time listener. In fact...

You've got to put another trivia team name in your other pocket to see you not... Yeah. So your stance don't fall down. That's what works. Long-time listener. In fact, I've been listening. listening long enough to have sent an email years ago, and Dan replied with his daily show email account.

Wow. It's only been like five years since I've been like savage over here. I volunteer with a... You're right, Dan. It makes sense that you still use that credit to get tables at restaurants. Elliot, you know very well. That credit would go nowhere. That's true.

Yeah. I volunteer with a program that goes to elementary schools and reads with second graders who need a little extra help getting up to their great. level in reading. Today, I had the joy of introducing my student to Elliot's books, Sharko and Hippo and Horse Meets Dog. I thought he liked them and he loved them. At the end of our meeting, he picked Sharko and Hippo as his favorite of the day. All praise aside, good, we got that praise out of the way. My question is... I was as uncomfortable as you were, Dan. Thank you.

What books do you remember reading his children that were laugh out loud funny? For me, it was Superfudge by Judy Bloom. Thanks for all the years of entertainment. I'm going to sidestep the question slightly to talk about children's books that I really thought were cool and of course I'm going to say Monster at the end of the book, baby. Oh yeah, Monster at the end of the book's a great book.

Yeah. I actually found a couple of classics really funny as a kid. The Winnie the Pooh books always had things that made me laugh in them actually. The idea, for instance, that... No, he doesn't wear pants. That poo's scheme for getting honey in one of the stories is to like pretend to be a cloud, a rain cloud to get close to the bees.

And he does this by, you know, rolling himself in mud floating up on a balloon and having Christopher Robin go around beneath him with an umbrella going tut-tut. It looks like rain, which is, that's a pretty funny notion. And E.R.A. obviously found very funny. And I remember laughing out loud at a lot of the. Benicula books. There's always something funny in there. I found them to be very scary, so. The idea of eating vegetables.

Oh, yeah, horrible. Are they only, I wonder if the letter writer only wants books we read as kids, or can we mention modern books. I'm sure you can say modern. I think you can do whatever you want. As a parent was also married to a children's librarian, we read a lot of children's books in our house, and there's a lot of really funny books out there.

I'm going to mention some of them. Nothing rhymes with Orange by Adam Rex. hilarious, the picture book recipe written by Angela and Michael Ann Petrella, super funny. The first Cat in Space series that Mac Barnett writes, and why am I forgetting the artist's name, Sean something. Anyway, I'll look it out, but that book's usually funny. The, I Want My Hat Back by John Classen, that's a really funny picture book. Snaps the alligator does not want to be in this book. It's a really funny book with art by Mike Tim Miller, who did The Horse Meets Dog, and my other

most recent book, Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House. Director of Deadpool. No, that's a different, Tim Miller. But there's also, when I was a kid, I really loved The Stinky Cheese Man by John Chesta and Lane Smith, which is a very funny

fairy tale picture book. And I guess it's not, this is kind of like Stuart's answer. They recently announced they're making a movie of my favorite chapter book as a kid, which is Lizard Music, by Daniel Pinkwater.

And Daniel Pinkwater is such a funny writer. He wrote so many books. for kids, and they're so funny, but I'm a little trepidacious about them making a movie of this book, and it's one that me and my younger son, I read to him. Is it stars Jared Leto or something? No, well, it's, if the rock is going to be in it, or Jane Johnson, but in a role that is not, it seems a little strange for him to be doing. Is there like a giant rock man in it or?

Yeah, exactly. He's playing a rest. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, but it's a book that has not a lot of, it's like a kid discovering strange things that all seem to be connected, but there's no. like conflict in it and I'm very worried that like it's about a kid who discovers an island of talking lizards that in a lake near near his home and they at night his television can pick up their signals their television signals and I'm worried they're going to like make it one of

these stories where it's like that we've got to save them from a developer or something like that we got to hide these lizard people and I don't want it to be that but that's but I love that book I think that's a book I'd recommend highly I just remember something sorry did any of you ever read the Arabele's Raven books. It's a series by Joan Aiken, who is better known for like the wolves of Willoughby Chase and sort of like... That I've heard of.

Gothic sort of pseudo-Victorian thrillery, young adult stuff. But I think these are forgotten, but it's about a young girl and her raven. And I found them very funny, but they seem to have fallen out of print. Michael, is there something that you remember? Oh, I can't top Elliot, of course, with his intimate knowledge of children's books, but not really, I mean, I think the ones that come to mind to me, I think, were when I was a little older.

Any Australian listening wouldn't be surprised to hear about Paul Jennings, who's like wicked books are unreal. Just kind of iconic, funny, but kind of gross books for kids. But when I thought of like the books that I read as a kid that I laughed at, I would have been 1213 when I read like Hitchhiker's Guy. And I know that's obviously like an older thing, but that felt like those were the first times I was like really laughing out loud at books. That and like I used to read Spike Milligan parody books that he'd like do like Spike Milligan's Frankenstein or something. I think that they were a bit too adult for me at the time. But I still found them very silly and funny. Nice.

This one is from Aaron Last Name Withheld who writes. Brokovich. I was listening to your episode on. There's deadly chemicals in your podcast. What are you going to do about? I'm going to sue you. I was listening to your episode on Until Dawn with Star of the Pod

Howley Haddle Dawn And I wanted to say Thank you for the theme song I wanted to say that I wholeheartedly support Dan For pointing out that the main characters in the movie were hard to tell apart Because they're all brunettes

That's how you get a letter on the show By the way I know it might be easy Tell Dan he's right about something I know it might be easy for you folks Who can easily distinguish faces But I appreciate Dan giving a shout out to those of us

Who struggle with it I, like many others, have something called prosopagnosia. I hope I said that correctly. Almost certainly not. It occurs because there's a special area of our brain that specifically recognizes faces and that area may be impaired for some folks. In light of this, my question is, are there any movies, TV shows, or even podcasts

where we've had trouble distinguishing between characters because they look or sound very similar or because they disguise the actor so well in a later scene? As an example, I couldn't watch orphaned black because every time Tatiana Maslani appeared as a new clone with a different look or personality I couldn't tell if it was a clone or a completely

new character. Thank you all for keeping on, keeping on. Aaron, last name with hell. And actually when Audrey heard that episode, she's like, why didn't you just say you were thinking about me? Because part of it is like, I don't think she has like full what you would colloquially call

face blindness, but she has an interesting form where like sometimes she's like, I know I've seen this person and can, like, get it. And sometimes she looks at one thing of a person's face and thinks they look exactly like when they don't. I think she just thinks out with too many middle-aged white guys with beards. Look like, yeah. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I, they included podcasts.

I got to say that my first years listening to my brother, my brother and me, I had trouble telling them apart. And now, like, now, it's in the name. I find it wild that I ever had any difficulty, you know, I mean, especially now, having met them, but like, but it was, it just seems very strange to me that I had that trouble, but sometimes when you're not familiar with something, you just, yeah, I mean, that's why it was really essential that we brought in in Elliott to josh up the, the vocal diversity in our show. Because you guys have kind of like, uh-huh, he voices.

And I have kind of a, eh, eh, voice. Yeah, I think I felt that way around this podcast at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard that about people having trouble between me and Stuart. I don't think that we sound that much alike, but that's one that we. we have gotten as a podcast. But you also think the word pin sounds like pen. Pan.

You know, I mean, I'll find some regional problem of yours to make fun of. I don't think there is. I'm just playing Super Mario Brothers over here. Nothing I say wrong. I have a movie answer to this, which is I really enjoyed the movie Dunkirk, but I could not tell

most of the characters apart. They all look like the same guy. And to me, and so I had a lot of trouble keeping track of who was who. Luckily, that's a movie where it doesn't really matter. It's not rich with unique characters. But I had a lot of, I felt like every new character

until Mark Rylance came on as the guy who owns a boat. I feel like everyone, I was like, oh, it's like a young, Britishy guy with brown hair. Okay.

It's another one of those. Vaguely handsome. And I could not tell anyone apart in it. So, good thing. Good thing. One guy is in a plane with a mask over his face. The other most famous guy in the movie.

I can't understand what he's saying, but I know who he is. But that's how he knew who he was, because I couldn't understand what he was saying. I really struggled with this movie called The One to differentiate between the characters of Gabe and you. I kind of have the opposite answer whereby rewatching like the prestige where there are two Christian Bales, spoiler alert for the prestige, and they're trying to disguise him. The first time I saw it, I was fairly young and I didn't notice it, but knowing that twist going in, It's crazy to me that nobody can tell that those are two Christian Bales. They do a great job, but it's just, it's a very famous, recognizable guy. Once you know it, on that one, that one especially, I love that movie.

And when I first saw it, it took me by surprise. But yeah, once you know it, you're like, oh, okay, like they're barely, it looks like him. Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit like a- They act widely differently from scene to scene. But in that. He's always turning away that they really avoid showing him to front-on. He's always kind of a presence. that you don't see the face of too much.

Yeah, it's like, I love the movie The Thin Man, and I'll watch it with people, and I know who the killer is, and they don't, and I'm like, geez, Louise, they're making it so obvious. This is bonkers. How does that? I was nobody picking up this, but I didn't pick up on it the first time I saw it.

So it shows you, it's easy to know something. It's easy to figure something out when you know the answer already, you know? Yeah. Although the one time that I noticed it, you know, like straight away, there's a movie called you should have left with Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried from 2020.

And the openings, it's directed by the guy who did Sturr of Echoes. I haven't watched this movie, but I remember the ads and realizing I'm like, are their characters supposed to be married in that movie, Amanda Seap? Yeah. But like, that was one of the few times where I saw an ad and I'm like, I need to check the age difference. Because it's like 25 years, I don't know. Okay, go on, sorry.

She could definitely be playing his daughter and possibly hasn't other films. But my old spoilers for this movie, the opening scene, there's like a dark character that's dimly lit, like talking nefariously kind of front onto the camera. And it's just so obviously Kevin Bacon with like a mustache and some makeup on. They don't disguise it well enough at all. And then it like cuts to Kevin Bacon's a normal guy and we're going to learn that there's something going on with him later. And it's just like from the first moment, okay, Kevin Bacon's going to be the kind of spooky gay.

that made me remember it's not the exact it's not the same thing at all actually but like this movie a murder of crows uh which i watched because it was directed by rowdy harrington of roadhouse fame and uh stars uh cubby cuba goding junior cuby cuby gooding junior tom barrenger cuby heloine eric stoltz eric stoltz from killing zoe speaking of There's a... Almost from Back to the Future? Spoiler. There's a part in the movie where a character is wearing such obvious makeup that it's like,

I can't believe this movie thought I wouldn't know that it is this other character. It is insane that they're trying to build a twist around this makeup that they've put on this person. But it's a... If you want to see some truly zany... Thriller, filmmaking, check that one out. The makeup thing's kind of like in Prometheus when you watch that for the first time. You're like, well, Guy Pearce is going to get younger.

Like, he can't just stay like this. Can't do this. It's such a, I find that's so funny that they were like, well, we're going to have the flashback scenes. So we need to have him play the old man, too. Then they cut all the flashback scenes. It's like, oh, we should have hired an old man. What are we doing?

Oh, perfect. It's one of those things that when you first see it, you're like, is this a flaw? But then you think about it and you're like, it's great. Leave it in. It's enriching the text. Let us, you know, recommend a few movies. You know, if you're not in the mood for a new metal actioner, what else could you possibly?

Oh, I have to recommend a non-new metal action now. I want to quickly say... Well, if you were going to recommend a new metal action or Stewart, what would it be? No, I don't know. I went out and saw a rep screening of John Carpenter's The Fog, a movie that I know has that why you texted us about the fog yeah sometimes i think it's funnier if there's no context but i know that it baffles um so i know that there's been a reclamation of the fog a movie that like at the time was you know not very well received

but it has had in the past never been one of my favorites like i recognize i'm like oh there's like stuff in here i like but i kind of get bored trying to watch it at home but outside Outside of Halloween, have any John Carpenter movies been, like, received super well? Because, like, the thing wasn't super well received when it came out. There was, I know that... Assault on Precinct 13, but I mean, that's not quite what you're asking. I know he had... That was super well received?

When it came out, I think people were like, oh, this is... It wasn't, like, a huge movie, but it was like, oh, this is special for the kind of movie that it is. Yeah. I think... Because the villain... the criminals name like Napoleon Cassanova or whatever

immediately sidetracked me with a... Isn't that the bad guy in the mystery men? I think so, yeah. No, that's Cassanova Frankenstein. Oh,

played by Jeffrey and Jeffrey Rush. I know that escape from New York was a legit hit. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Anyway, I don't have all the... And I saw Escape from L.A.

twice in the theater, so it must have been a hit. When Starman came out, that was big. People really liked that a lot. I don't have all the receipts in front of me. All I know is I saw the fog.

But Dan, you're just on Carpenter's accountant. I saw the fog. All this money's spent on video games. My suspicion... John, you can't buy any more cents. You're bleeding yourself dry.

You have too many cents. You're like Johnny Depp with houses. You're just buying too many cents, John. Yeah. My suspicion that it would play, you know, super better for me in the theater where I kind of have to be locked in was correct.

Like all of the stuff that at home felt a little slow in the theater like felt like beautiful atmospherics like building the community slowly building up sort of the vibes it just looks really pretty it's maybe his prettiest movie

I also feel like when I watched it before like as a younger dude I'm like I want a movie it's really going to be really scary you know and now like horror movies like I want to know that guy horror movies are I've seen so many of them that they don't scare me that much at all.

So it's not necessarily the first thing I'm looking for in a horror movie anymore. I just like the form of horror movies. I like the genre tropes. I like seeing what people do with it. So I was a lot more open to this, which is also a very old-fashioned ghost story in a way that I think before might have felt corny to me. but now it feels like classic and cozy and it's just like a fun thing to hang out in. Dan, do you want to see a really scary movie?

Why don't you watch The News? Whoa. So I'm going to recommend a movie. Do you think that the news is a movie? Yeah, I watch it for 90 minutes and then I turn it off. Okay. And you can just walk away from it. There's no sequels.

Speaking of sequels, I'm going to recommend a sequel that I watched earlier today. I'm going to recommend Den of Thieves Pantara, the sequel to Den of Thieves, both movies starring Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson, Jr. Is it? Junior? Junior, yeah.

And this is, like, peak, like, Michael Man wannabe, but with the, like, divorced dad element dialed up a little bit. It's super great, like, heist movie action cinema. Um, the first movie is a fairly narrow, the first movie, Denna Thieves is a fairly narrow scope set in LA about robbing a federal reserve. Gerard Butler plays a, like, genuinely gross, uh, like somewhat corrupt, uh, cop, I guess, very corrupt, um, who gets kind of involved in this thing. His name is Big Nick, right? He's Big Nick. Yeah.

And he, like, I, I applaud the movie for how gross they make him. Like, he looks like he is not showered in weeks. He, like, you can smell the, like, cheap cologne and booze sweats on him, uh, emanating from his Wilson's leather jacket. He's wearing it all times. Um, and this movie, like, it opens it up a little bit. It's set in France and it involves a heist of a diamond exchange, but it's still got like, it's still a lot of vibes.

Uh, the action sequences are genuinely really tense and good. Uh, yeah, it's really, it's really fun. I like, I like him. In the words of one of my bartender's film critic Margaret Barton Fulomo, it rips. You have, I'm glad you had to quote someone for, for that. Yeah, I'm giving her a shout out. That's, I get like a nickel every time I give somebody a shout out. Michael's been doing it all fucking day with his fucking crew.

His sleepover crew. And all of his friends. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, recommend a sequel also. This is not, this is a sequel probably our listeners have listened to already, I heard about already, because we've talked about it before, but I, you know me, I don't get to watch a lot of movies these days except Flop House movies, but luckily for me, on Halloween, I introduced my younger son to a certain movie that I really love and he wanted to see the sequel, which I also really love when we watched it. And I was like, wait a minute.

In the one, Dean Norris is like part of this like tactical squad. In this movie, Dean Norris is part of a tactical squad. And that movie is Gremlins 2, the new batch where Dean Nardis makes a very short appearance as part of this tactical squad. So I'm going to recommend, we watched it. We watched Gremlins on Halloween, me and my younger son. He really loved it. He loved it so much.

And so he wanted to watch Gremlins 2 when we finished watching it yesterday, Gremlins 2. And he was going, literally made him too wound up and he had trouble going to bed afterwards because he was so excited. He was like, this is my favorite movie now. This is my favorite movie before it was over. So I'm going to recommend Remlins 2, the new badge. It's just so fun. Watching it, I was like, this movie's so fun.

We went to a screening of the Nighthawk, and I got to wound up. Yeah, he's running around. He's running in the aisles. It was so hard to put you down efforts. There's something about seeing, like, and just the older I get, the more people in the cast I recognize for their other work. And so, like, when I was a kid, I didn't know who Paul Bartel was. But, like, now seeing him in the movie, in a scene, Nicole Hogan is so funny to me. and just seeing like, I don't know, just everyone who shows up in it, seeing,

why am I forgetting this name, who plays the, seeing John Aston in it, seeing Henry Gibson show up and just in a wordless role. Like, it's so funny to see it, Dick Miller. I mean, of course, Dick Miller, but like seeing the actors were in it, it's just so fun. So I'm going to say, Gremlins too. Why not? Watch it. Super fun. Do it. Hell yeah. Really quickly on Gremlins, too. I was just in Spain for the Citgers film festival.

And I never know what's going to happen to these festivals because I just like arrive and somebody kind of takes me around to what I do. I'm not really a planner. But there was one thing that's like, oh, there's a dinner tonight. Just you and some of the other directors, you know, just show up here getting a car you go to dinner. And I got in the car and there was an older gentleman. And he said, oh, hi, I'm Joe.

I'm one of the directors. And I was like, are you fucking Joe Dante? He was like, yeah, I am. And then he was super nice. Him and his wife were great. and there was a totally unexpected night of eating paella with Giordante, and I never thought that would happen. That's amazing.

He was very cool. That's awesome. Now that my pathetic name-droppings out of the way, I'd like to recommend a movie. I'm just glad you mentioned somebody we'd heard of after talking about your childhood friends. That's true. Shout out to my New Zealand childhood friends. Michael Van B., Thomas Sullivan Robertson, Samuel Dunford Baker. I miss you guys.

Well, I don't... A yearbook ad over here. Anyway, yeah. An ad for a year book. My favorite movie that I've seen this year, I think, is a movie called Nirvana The Band, The Show, The Movie. I don't know if that means anything to you guys. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nirvana The Band is this show, this kind of comedy duo slash collective that's been making stuff for almost 20 years now, starting on the web and then becoming a television show, and then they've made this film, Matthew Johnson. You might know from he directed things like Blackberry and some other stuff. I watched this movie and it is, it is just kind of, it's so fun.

It's so funny. I was at the premiere at South by Southwest and just the vibes and the laughter in the room was insane. Like, not only is it just an insanely funny kind of back to the future parody about traveling back to 2008, but it is like a feat of low budget filmmaking that it's incomprehensible how they pulled off some of the set pieces. A lot of the stuff that those guys do is they will kind of shoot in public with slightly. hidden cameras. And then if a member of the public gets involved in the scene, they'll happily bring them in and then like rewrite other scenes to shoot earlier in the movie so that this weird interaction that they haven't written feels like a perfect payoff to something that was set up. So it has this just really elastic quality to it where the film is just like a joy from start

to finish. But thinking back on it from a technical point of view, it boggles the brain that it exist. And I was really, really flabbergasted of it as a work of filmmaking. And so it's super, super fun. Do you notice it? I was reading about that the other day and I was trying to figure out how I could see it. Do you know if it's available anywhere yet? It's being distributed by neon. I think it's a pretty limited distribution. I think that they were doing a city-by-city tour in the state. So I'm sure it'll come out to streaming sometime eventually. But if there's any chance to see it in a cinema, I think it would be, it was a raucous experience for me. And I went as a fan, but I went with somebody who'd never heard of them,

never seen any of their stuff, and he had a great time as well. Yeah, I've heard great word about that. I'm very curious about it. But now we should give you a chance to plug your own stuff if you so desire. Oh, sure. I don't have a lot to plug.

I guess I'll plug the movie together, which I wrote and directed and came out earlier in the year. It's now available on streaming. So check that out. It's about two people battling. to become one, right? Yeah, it really, it really is. How apropos.

You know, it's a horror movie. It's a body horror. I'm really proud of the film, and I think Dave Franco and Allison Brie are great in it. I've got Dave in my background here kind of screaming at us, which is good fun.

Yeah, it's your laugh, you'll cry, it'll change your life. I heard it was a movie about Allison Brie touching Dan's shoulder. Okay, that's not. Yes, it was. Thanks again for that. I didn't.

That makes it seem like I sent like a voice memo that I was just, you know, casually it was like, oh, that was a high point. I didn't know a text message could be sweaty. The text message said in parentheses, creepy, thanks again for that. But it seems like the movie's been received really well. That's great.

Was that like a shocker for you? Or you... I mean, it was a shocker, too. I mean, this is my first feature film. It's a completely independent film that we shot in Melbourne, Australia. and then I spent months in the editing room down here and I did a lot of the visual effects in the film myself

so I ended up speeding extra months just kind of in this room here with my computer just kind of making the film finish off and then we premiered at Sundance and we like hadn't test screened it and nobody had seen it before and it ended up selling for the highest amount at Sundance this year

and just the reaction in the room was like the first joke landed the first jump scare got a gasp and you could just feel that you had it And, yeah, I spent most of the screening holding my partner's hand and holding my producer's hand and just kind of happily weeping. And so far it to have come out to be, yeah, received so well, like, around the world, it's been, it's been an amazing and unexpected experience. Honestly, it's been quite overwhelming. So I'm sort of enjoying having just got back from Spain, just kind of taken a minute and trying to readjust to live post the movie.

But, yeah, it's been a treat. And it allowed me to meet two of my three favorite floppers in the flesh in New York City. Yeah, that's the important thing. You get to tour the world and meet podcasters. Well, they were like, hey, do you know anybody in New York? We've got your tickets. And I'm like, I guess I'll reach out to stew on Instagram. Thank you.

It was very kind of you to do that. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, I'm like, who did I get a random DM from? Wait a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, this film came together from a random DM, from a producer being like, hey, we saw a short film you liked. What else do you got?

So, you know, sometimes there's gold in those hills. Yeah, a lot of it is, like, I will say almost all the good things that have happened in my career have been me randomly saying yes to things that seemed crazy. Well, thank you for being on the show, particularly because, as referenced, you're doing it from the other side of the world. So we had to, you know, coordinate the schedule that, I don't know, wasn't too miserable for anyone, hopefully. Hey, what else would I want to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? Excellent.

I'd like to, before we go, thank our producer, Alex Smith. He goes by the name Howl Doughty all over the place online. You can watch his Twitch streams, listen to his podcast. He's just Howled Dottie. Man, that guy loves to Howled Dottie. You can go to Maximum Fun.org. Check out other great shows on the network. You know, hey, just another plug here at the end for Flop TV, right?

Why not? Why not? We don't mention it at odd. moments to surprise the listener enough so they can't skip over it. Flop TV's going on. Theflophouse. Simpletakes.com. Okay.

But thank you all for listening. For the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I've been Elliot Caelan, author of joke farming, how to write comedy, other nonsense, on bookstore shelves now. I should have mentioned that earlier at the top of the show when I introduced myself. And we've been joined today by Michael Shanks. Thank you very much for having me. And thanks to the listeners for listening.

Oh, that's you. You heard it. Bye. Can I hear it. Alex in a seductive mood because it's... It's, yeah, it's late as hell over there. What, six o'clock? It's five o'clock.

Oh, man, it's a very much time for Elliot. This is where we get pretty loose around here. It's where Elliot starts sending his U-Up texts. This is when I... This is when I take a break from work, and then I don't pick up again until 9 p.m. Ooh. Pretty hot.

I see by your card, Stuart, that you're on summary duties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you also like to introduce our guest when? Yeah, yeah, I figured. It's fascinating to see the sausage get made. Oh, wow, yeah. You're like, wow, I didn't realize it was so super professional. The sausage kind of like falls down the stairs

and somehow gets into the casing during the process. A lot gets smashed down, yeah. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.