The Flop House - Episode #392 - The Bubble

Episode Date: March 25, 2023

It's Max Fun Drive time (if you haven't already, please consider becoming a member of Maximum Fun and supporting The Flop House), and we decided to give ourselves a real challenge for this one -- we watched the Judd Apatow "hey maybe there's something funny about this pandemic" Netflix all-star "comedy" The Bubble. Did it make our heads explode with exasperated fury? Listen to find out!Wikipedia page for The BubbleMovies recommended in this episode:Psycho II (1983)Light of Day (1987)Day for Night (1973)The Heroic Trio (1993)

On this episode we discuss the bubble the movie equivalent of the celebrity imagine video Should we even do the episode? Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. It's me Stuart Wellington. Oh wow, Groot. And I'm Elliot Kaylin and I'm going to Stuart Wellington. Oh, wow, Groovy. And I'm Elliot Kaylin, and I'm going to try to simulate that level of groovyness. I just can't do it. It's only Groovy still. Nobody.

Why are we feeling groovy? It's because we're walking across one of Manhattan's bridges. No, because I saw a lamp post and the power was flowing. Yeah, that's pretty groovy. That bridge that that song is named after, it's not really much of a pedestrian bridge. So I don't know why it's about walking along and seeing lamp posts. But anyway, this was a long journey. It's about a fucking bridge looking for love and feeling groovy.

Yeah, I guess the 59th Street bridge. Oh, I thought it was. I think now is now the, is the, is the, is the Robert F. Kennedy bridge, right? Or is it the Ed Koch bridge? I don't live in New York anymore. I don't care about those. Well, now that we've got you on the edge of your seats with all this bridge talk, we're going to talk about how this is a very special time. Why we're feeling so groovy. It's a max fun drive. The one time during the year that we come to you and ask the listeners for a little support.

Let me talk to you about it. This is the time when you ask your listeners, hey, if you enjoy this show, you like what we do and you like it to continue to be part of your life for years to come, please consider becoming a supporting member of Max Moonfun with a monthly payment that helps sustain our show and the network. I'm not going to say a lot more about it now. We're going to talk about it a little later, but please listen, when we do talk about it a bit,

I know it's a pain when I was a kid. I didn't like it when PBS, with interrupt me watching Sherlock Holmes on Mystery, just talk about the importance of public supported media and hold up their tote bags, but we're going to have some cool gifts, some rewards to talk about at both the network level and rewards that are unique to our show.

So please don't skip ahead when we get to that. Unless you just go join now at maximumfund.org, forward slash join and then fuck it, skip whatever you like. But now, for now, back to the show, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it. And who, boy, we talked to the show. This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it and who boy We talked to this week. We did a movie that we were sort of hoping to avoid I think all of us. We put it off a lot We kept delaying it and I like I like a master torturer out of a out of a gene wolf novel You're savoring the torture with perfect memory

I kept saying. And you're sort of terminus-esque. I kept saying, what about the bubble? What about the bubble? And then we don't have that. Am I saying that right? Is it terminus-esque? Is that how you pronounce that shit?

I mean, it does. Because that's also, obviously, before you interrupt me, guys, I know it's also the flagship of Typhus, the plague lord, and Warhammer 40,000. Oh, thank God. This is the kind of stuff that our, that our pleasure's love. So if you want more of that kind of extremely esoteric Stewart role playing game and 70s, fantasy novel knowledge. I don't think it's technically a fantasy because it happens.

Wait, does it happen far in the future? It happens far in the future, right? Yeah, I don't remember. But I mean, if a Jack, that Jack fansance is dying Earth novels happen far in the future, and there's still fantasy, there's wizards and stuff. Yeah, I think wizards and stuff is the, is the key. Whether it's a fantasy novel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The wizard is better.

Come on. If you look at fantasy and the dictionary, it says noun, subject wizards and stuff, add to the literature. I mean, wizards and stuff. That's how fucking when Ian McShane gets hired to be in the Jack Vance novel movies, he's like, yeah, it's just wizards and stuff. So, uh, so we put off the bubble quite a bit. And then we watched the movie, were we right to put off the bubble? Yes, we were. We like, we, I think we knew that this was one that was going to specifically just make us unhappy. And for a long time,

we didn't do it. And then we're like, Oh, the flop house cupboards are bare. We can't come up with a better idea. Time to, time to chap our own asses for two hours. And this was, the thing is, like, this was a big picture in the sense that it has major stars and it's directed by Judd Appetav. But many people would be... L.H. favorite comedic director, angiotromatic director. Well, we'll talk about that. But like, this, you know, in the olden days, this would be released to theater where it would be a major flop. A huge hit.

It was on Netflix where when we announced the bubble, many listeners were like, now what is this movie? And you're not talking about Steven Sauterberg's bubble. Yeah, you're not talking about the 1966, the bubble directed by Arch Obler that was recently done on the mystery science theater 3000 through their Gisma plaques website. You're not talking about the hit graphic novel written

by Jordan Morris. Yeah, bubble. We're pre-flopping the movie. Oh wow. Take that Jordan. You're not talking about Michael Boobley. Many moms favorite singers. Uh-huh. You're not talking about the carbonated alcoholic beverage. It's alcohol like bubbles. But no, there's a bubbly or bubbly. There's a beverage just called bubble. I don't know. I see drag queens drinking on drag race. Okay. You want to just wouldn't be cool. Yeah.

I just think Stuart Newwoody was talking about when he came to the beverage industry. Thank you. I didn't realize I wasn't expecting immediate pushback. And then I folded. That's when Paul Paling rushes in. Nobody expects immediate pushback. So I'm going to I'm going to pull back the what the apron here and let everybody know what's the what's the what's the apron and let our listeners know that we we'd actually intended to do this

episode a few days before but didn't got very very sick. I'm this not a joke I'm being 100% serious. Now almost as if his body was rejecting the movie. Yeah rejecting the movie bubble. It caused a bubble in his tumbo and it had to go to the bathroom. I had set up all the recording equipment. Stuart had not gotten like that. It was like close enough that Stuart had not gotten the text saying, I can't do this right now. Like somebody in a horror movie expecting to be warned that the killer is on the way.

I was like, I was using a hot air dryer on my hair and obviously on my other parts to make sure my whole body's dried like a normal person. But I didn't even hear all the notifications. I was just humming a little song to myself like at the body shop or whatever that is. And I was having a really good time. I show up to Dan's apartment and Audrey's like, do not come in. Dan says, you're not alone. No, no, no, I mean like 45 minutes beforehand, like the contents of my body, violently ejected themselves through my mouth and all of the sweat in my face came to the surface of my head.

And I was like, oh, now I've that's got a one-on-one fever all of a sudden. Dan, that's hell-raiser type stuff. If the sun comes out on your face and that it pulls up to the top of your head. And Dan's description is getting Ruben Osslin. I just got to relate to my meal in this episode. And look, if anyone's worried about Stuart, I've tested for COVID multiple times. You know, vomiting is not a typical symptom, but it can be in some cases, but I'm not, it was like a 24 hour stomach bug.

I'm feeling a lot better, but thank you for it. That's such a good movie, 24 hour stomach bug. We just need to dig in. Yeah, great. So, well, this whole thing is to set up, I hope that with all this time that's passed, I hope I remember all of the hilarious jokes and bits in the movie.

Yeah. It's all kind of blown out my brain. It's going to be fun. I want to take a moment before we talk about the bubble to apologize to the makers of the movie airplane to the sequel. A movie that we recorded a special bonus content episode about and you'll hear about more about it in a future time for this pledge drive. Uh, when we talked about that movie, spoiler alert, it may be so mad. And I was like, these people are so lazy, they're using the same joke over and over again. I didn't realize there was another level where you just don't make jokes. Yeah. Instead of repeating the same joke over and again, you just have no jokes in the movie. So I apologize.

You keep making faints and like various directions of like where, like some comedy could be found if an enterprising minor came along and dug it up. But there's no. Well, here's, I'll tell you what, here's the thing. Maybe this is a new step towards really including the audience where it's like, hey, here's a space for a joke. What would you put? It's like, you make the call, but instead it's you make the joke.

And in that way, maybe this is the greatest comedy movie ever made because it really makes the audience the observer a full collaborator and that they have to feel in the jokes that would be there, but are not there. I will say this is such a stacked cast. Like these are all like funny performers people I've laughed at before. That for like the first 30 minutes. I wasn't enjoying it, but every once in a while I would laugh at something and then like Stony silence for the next 90 minutes as I got worn down, but it's getting sicker and sicker. It's resolute, refusial to like figure out what it's about or why anyone's supposed to be watching it.

That is also every time a plot is about to erupt, the movie tamps it down is like, people are brave right now. They don't need to hit the stress, this tension. So should I talk, should I go through this movie? I'm not going to go through it. Yeah, I'm not going to go through it. Super, super detailed in some places because it's, yeah, it's kind of more a, an ultimate-esque, you know, free-flowing, but characters, you know, I would also describe it as, what if day for night was not good? But okay, we start with a bunch of posters for the Cliff Beast's action movie series. And there's a caption which tells us this is the 23rd biggest movie franchise of all

time. And now they're about to film Cliff Beast 6 during Covenant England. And we haven't seen the Cliff Beast yet. We do see them dance to. How would you describe a Cliff Beast? Because the idea is that this is a huge action series that everyone's familiar with. Well, yeah, it's the Cliff Beast. It appears to be kind of a T-Rex with wings, like little T-Rex with wings or like in between a lost rapper and T-Rex. Like clearly this is meant

to evoke the Jurassic Park series, but it is more of a fantasy version of it, like a little more violent. I mean, I think the Jurassic Park series is pretty violent. A guy gets eaten by a T-Rex while he's not sitting on the shitter. Sure, sure. Where do I go? Sure, but like I think that this seems to be- Now again, it does not fulfill the promise of Gouli's that where the T-Rex would come

up through the toilet seat and bite him in the butt. That was me. As we talked about the critters episode. You know how long they fucking tried to get that gag to work. They're like, well, it's now doesn't actually fit. And they're like, but what if we made a giant toilet? Well, that was an excellent toilet. Well, that one makes it all.

They're like, no, the joke. It's a giant part of the thing. It's like a multi person public toilet where everyone sits in a ring around the edge of the bowl. So now I'm just imagining how you do it in a fix where you would have to build like a bigger toilet with a bigger goolee and then composite it, you know, with a regular sized person, you know, it wouldn't be really cool if in the first Jurassic Park movie, when he's sitting on the thing, he's frightened of the T-Rex and instead of goolee climbs up

the toilet, he's frightened of the T-Rex and instead of goolee climbs out the toilet. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, nature finds a way to do it. Let's say goolees didn't find a way. Let's say goryer. It looks a little more like, destructible than the, like, part of the problem with this movie, one of its many problems. But one of the problems is the movie within the movie, and I see this in a lot of comedies

and I hate it every time. The movie within the movie, I feel like, shouldn't look like a parody in a comedy for the most part. Yeah, it feels like the movie within a movie, it shouldn't, it should, it should not look like a parody instead. It should look like you are taking those elements that are sincere about it so far that it becomes fun. And that was the thing. I agree that these scenes, if this is what you're saying, the scenes in the movie kind of didn't go far enough to be like a funny take down of those types of movies. And instead, they were

just kind of like goofy kind of silly slap dash. Or the serious stuff just seems funnier when put next to seeing their actual lives and how like, you know, dysfunctional everybody. Right. Right. Right. There was one scene, the scene, skipping heads, like the scene later on with the TikTok girl teaches, teaches it, one of the cliffees had to do a dance.

That scene like almost got there where I was like, okay, this is a funny, like extra exact reason of Chris Strat and Blue, you know. If you're is a funny, like, exactly. Exactly. Of Chris Betton-Bluew, you know. If you're gonna go that outrageous, sure. But that's a different, it's like a tone issue. It's like figuring out what kind of comedy you're making, because I would argue that for the most part though, like, if you're making this kind of movie,

I don't know, I always have the problem. If it looks like a comedy sketch, if it looks like an SNL trailer, I'm like, okay, well, this works at that length. But if we are to believe that these are all professional people making a movie, like, what is this movie? Like, why do we think that this is a movie that people who are professionals think

that other people are gonna go see? I want to lease that grounding and then the whacking is can be- Well, no, it's cool because what the- What the- Yeah, the filmmakers saying that the people who go to movies are fucking idiots. And that the people who make movies are idiots.

It's a, it's a movie that is, it's, but it's also the, the real Tony show I have overall with this is that it is a movie that is all about like, skewering Hollywood pretensions, but it doesn't really, like it doesn't really go very far. Well, that's the other thing.

Yeah. If the people making the movie were all idiots, if that was the point of the movie, this movie does not have things enough for anyone. If the point of the movie was that these people are all incompetent and we are to laugh at them, that would be one thing. But I think that you're ultimately supposed to like some of them, which was a problem. Yes.

It reminds me of, do you guys remember the movie State and Maine? From years ago, that's another movie where I felt like it had the same problem where it was like, we're going to take down the movie business, but we also want you to like these characters. So they're not like bad people. And what they're doing isn't that bad. It's just kind of light and silly, but it's not that silly. Okay, but let's get to the plot.

We haven't met these characters yet. Okay. First off, we meet the producer, Gavin, Peter Seraphinoitz. And he's explaining, he's explaining to two new staff get to the plot. We haven't met these characters yet. Okay, first off, we meet the producer, Gavin, Peter Sarefinowitz, and he's explaining, he's explaining to two new staffers, Gunther and Bola, that they are gonna be working to take care of the actors in this COVID-free bubble they've created at this luxury hotel in the middle of nowhere in England.

And this means we're gonna have to manage the volatile emotions of these actors. And I was really excited at this point because I'm like, Darth Maul's in this fucking thing awesome. The voice of Darth Maul. That's how you mostly, I didn't know him when you see him in a comedy. It's like, that's the voice of Darth Maul. The voice of Darth Maul.

And last, they're gonna reveal themselves to the guy. I mean, Darth Maul was cut up. Like, he was a question. So he's a bubble guy. Yeah. That one of those actors, we soon meet as Carol Cobb played by Karen Gillan, I mean, Darth Maul was cut up. Like, he was. True. So he is a mom of a cut up. Yeah. That one of those actors we soon meet is Carol Cobb played by Karen Gillan and she skipped Cliff B's five to make a movie where she played a half Israeli, half Palestinian woman who

fights aliens and brings peace to the Middle East and really gets the glimpse of this and similarly, it looks more like a sketch scene than it does a real movie. And then we was a bomb. So her agent, Rob Delaney, is like, you have to take this role and you're gonna go into this COVID bubble for the whole production and leave your fiance and you're soon to be step children behind. And she arrives and there's a lot of stale jokes

about COVID tests and distancing. And like she has to quarantine herself and there's just a montage of her for two weeks drinking and eating snacks. And it feels like this is not the movie's fault, but all of this COVID material feels super outdated and old already. Yeah, and let's talk about, because so for all the audience members who were in the camp of like the bubble,

what's that? Like the bubble, the titular bubble, we're talking about a COVID bubble. Yeah. That they are all filming this movie. This movie is a piece of product. It's not like the Steven Soderbergh movie bubble, which was about an enormous sentient bubble

that eats the town. This is a product of early pandemic. And to get back to the characters like being these dumb actors, I think that part of the problem that one's brain rejects this movie is like, you're like, okay, we all went through the pandemic. Why are we caring about the travails of these like the most pampered people in the middle

of the pandemic? And again, if it was a meaner movie, like the joke of it would be that like these are the most pampered people and experiencing hardship for the first time on does. Yeah, it's good. And it's going to take them apart. Yeah. That if it went full-boring that that could be a good premise. But because it doesn't it's like, what do you guys, what's going to, I mean, like even

when like later on when people are like starting to get shot, you're like, well, you kind of brought this on yourself by whining so much. Well, but I mean, it still, it still not, doesn't feel harsh enough. What was the, what was the Anne Hathaway movie that we watched? Was it called Lockdown? Lockdown. Lockdown? Yeah.

I had so much more respect for that movie after this, because I was like, I didn't like that movie, but it still felt like it was getting a little bit closer to a real feeling about what it's like during that time than this was. Whereas this is the minute that it's like, uh oh, they're in a bubble at a huge luxury hotel. Well, everything they want is right there. And there's no real hardship, except that they don't have to leave this luxury hotel. It's like, uh, that sounds great.

That's a fantastic. Let's, let's send that copy over to the makers of lockdown so they can add it to the movie poster And you get send the quote to airplane too. I owe this movie an apology says Ellie Katelyn I saw the bubble he screamed That's that a sort of mash right? Usually a tribute quotes that way with like That's that episode of MASH, right? Usually it trippy quotes that way with like just a good stage direction and such.

R E Column the bubble. Not as good as lockdown. So there's a lot of, so anyway, they're all going crazy. Quarantine, quarantine, quarantine, quarantine, quarantine. Quarantine cow. And one of the lesser Disney characters, Quarantine Cal, yeah. So Quarantine time ends, the cast meets for Cocktail Party when we meet the rest of the actors, I'm just going to go through all the other characters are.

Okay. Now, luckily you don't actually have to put too much time in describing them because they don't really have a lot of personnel. Yeah. No, they're really playing off of their already being famous. There's Lauren, played by Leslie Mann. She's Madden Carroll for skipping the last movie. There's Dustin, played by David DeCovny, Lauren's ex-husband who immediately tries to

rekindle their relationship and they start screwing again. Crystal played by Iris Apatow. She's a TikTok influencer who's been brought to the cast as a new cast member and she quickly makes friends with Carla, the sarcastic daughter of the movie's stunt coordinator. And we don't find out to later in the movie why Carla is there when the stunt coordinator, the court stunt coordinator character is just John Cena in a cameo over an iPad later on as we see and played by Dennis Hopper's daughter. Oh, okay. What?

Yeah. Yeah. It is hopper. His daughter Denise Hopper. Yeah. I'm sure that's how he made it. Are you sure it was Dennis Hopper's daughter and not Doc Hopper's daughter from them up in movie?

Oh, yeah. You're right. It's done. The clue was, was she constantly trying to kill Kermit and harvest his legs. Yeah, that's what we tell us. Jalen Hopper. Let me check the, let me. Yeah, just that there's, there's Deeter played by Pedro Pascal, who's a decadent burnt

out Oscar winner, who is also joining the cast of the first. Also, like, I have to get like the guy has so much charisma. I mean, he can kind of get through almost anything. He's not about a charisma, but they, it's, they still, they don't, I mean, they don't give him a lot to do. Yeah, that's kind of wasted, you know, of the main cast. Like I was most happy to see when he appeared on screen. Well, like, but yeah, I like as the movie went on, they really didn't seem to know

what to do with them. Like, they don't, well, they don't really seem to know what to do with most. There's Sean played by Keegan Michael Key, because I'm not done with the rest of the characters. There's Sean played by Keegan Michael Key, who has recently started a self-help cult. There's Howie played by Guzz Khan. He's the big loud comic relief actor. There's Anika, who's a clerk at the hotel, who's played by Maria Buckelova, and apparently was while making this movie that she was notified and she'd been nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award for Borat II. And she's all the great charming.

And there's Darren, played by Fred Armason, who is the director of this cliff, B6. He's an indie director who's making his first big budget movie. Again, this is a thing that happens in Hollywood. They could have really satirized it and they don't really, they don't really go after it. The idea of someone who has made a small indie darling movie and is now in charge of this enormous operation and is flailing. A lot of characters and yet this first group scene is incredibly low energy. It really does feel like all the actors were brought in on the first day to mingle with each other, and they shot it, and then was like,

and they were like, pretend to be in your characters for a couple of minutes. There's like, no, I'm not going on here. I mean, so I don't know how this was produced. Like, I don't know the story behind it. Like, it seems like, you know, Appetite obviously known for doing a lot of improv, and mostly like, you know, that works when it's like,

let's do a lot of alt for something and maybe something interesting will happen. And unlike Elliot, like, would you call him an alt man? Yeah. Well, I would say that's the thing. Here, he's going in more of an alt man direction where it's like you have your character. You're going to exist as your character

and just interact and we're just gonna record all of it. Like Robert Altman had to work off a screenplay with stories, but he did so much more where it was just that but it was just like he's a movie. Wow, stories, huh? But you look at a movie like Nashville or McAvin Mrs. Miller or even like a wedding where it's clear that there's a certain amount of just kind of like open room for everyone to play it. Well, yeah, this seems like more the ultimate of Predaporte where it's like, I don't know

how much screenplay there was. That's what I was getting at. I think that very home-cooking. Well, like, for real home-cooking. They just like threw everyone together and they're like, I will work itself out. And like, look, I like Appetal a lot more than Ali. It was what I was going to say. Like, I think the early things he directed are very funny and like he was a necessary corrective

to some things that were happening in comedy before that. But at this point, he's certainly, he's certainly brought, go back. I'm still talking. Okay, sorry. So he needs to go back to like actually writing a script and doing that. That's all I wanted to say. Yeah, go on, sorry, Elliot. No, I say, I say he certainly brought like a real humanity to comedy. I feel like him and like, you know, like, what, in TV, like Mike Sure and Greg Daniels and stuff. Like, at a time when comedy had gotten very like ironic bitter, they brought a real kind of like heart back to it,

which is very valuable. But here it's, it's kind of doesn't have that even, have that even. You know, so it's, it's kind of missing that. I'm not going to go seen by scenes with a movie because again, it's more kind of like you're just watching characters. I will say that there's a lot of montages. We watch the cast rehearse a bunch of fight scenes in animal stunts. There's no jokes there. They do a very elaborate TikTok lip sync dance video, which seems more like a scene that is meant to be clipped from the movie and shared virally than like a joke scene. Like it's not funny.

It's not funny. Like the first time a tick tock scene comes up, I'm like, oh, this kind of makes sense. Like because there's a tick tock tick tock star here. Of course. Now, a stick stock, which is a different social media thing. You talk about what stocks are going to stick and what stocks are going to get stuck. Oh, I thought I was stock footage of sticks. It's stock footage of both sticks like branches and also sticks the band. Yeah. Yeah.

If you need images of Dennis, DeYoung or a twig, that's where you go, stick stock. The short story sticks. No, the thing is though, the thing is though, if you remember stick stock, you weren't there, man. I have totally forgot. So you're saying it makes sense for them to do a tip, a TikTok thing. Remember stick stock you weren't there, man. I have totally forgot. So you say it makes sense for them to do a tip, a TikTok thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was about to say tip top for TikTok. So I apologize for making fun of your mistake. A tip top stick stock. No, like I feel like if they're in a bubble, like that's what they would do. Oh, yeah, we'll get together. It'll be fun. Like what, like, but then it becomes like such a runner for the fucking movie. And it's not inherently funny that this person tick tock stock. And the movie seems that they get it. That's a good point. I think

I'm going to flip flop on my tick tock, stick stock. Oh, tip top. I thought you're, I thought you're stick stuck on your previous position. Guys, I just go down to the ship shop. That's where I buy it. It's a shop where I buy ships. I hope everything shipship. At the ship shop. The ship shop. The ship shop. The ship shop. The ship shop.

And then I'll go to the chip shop at a Brooklyn restaurant, which is going over there anymore. Yeah, unfortunately it was the lowest place to get fish chips. Yeah, one place you can get fried Mars bar and Brooklyn. Anyway, so the, but it's, I think you're right. What you're saying right, that they seem to think that just mentioning that she's a TikTok influencer is kind of like enough of a joke, that the reference is enough of a joke, but it's not really, there's no joke there. The producer gets calls from the head of the studio, it was played by Kate McKinnon,

and she's always in a different kind of lavish, 1% vacation resort, you know, and a very chased romance starts between Pedro Pascal and Ria Bucalova, where she refuses to sleep with him until he agrees to different types of long-term relationship. It's kind of a funny bit where he's like, do you want to have sex with me? She's like, yes, but first we have to do all these things. And of all the runners, that's the one that I liked the most. And it's the one that, at the, by the end, fuels the most like a story has happened, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And eventually we see some scenes from the movies. Dan's already talked about those. I got, I got to talk about that though. Now, so this is a movie that's meant to be shot entirely on green screen and filled in with tons of effects. Yeah, we're saying Germany, Groon's Groon. So when they show these Groon's Groon scenes, but it's all, all the effects are finished. They show, it's all finished

effects, which are also as Dan pointed out, very much like a parody movie. Yeah. But I don't know, would it have been better if they just kept it? I mean, I feel like for realism sake, because it's not like they're doing the fucking special effects on the red. No, they're not rendering it on the fly. I mean, we might need to make it. Yeah, as much as Marvel would love that to happen. Yeah. I mean, oh, I guarantee you they're working on some kind of AI special effects program that

would render in real time. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah. But I don't know. Do you think it would have been, I feel like it would have been better if they played it straight, but just kept it all done on these green screens, which make it inherently silly, even though their performances would be not silly. I wonder, I think that would have worked, I think that would have gotten not that seeing

the scenes from the movies isn't tiring after a while, but I think that would have gotten tired much faster. Yeah. Because the joke is that the thing that they're doing just isn't there, which is a joke they make. They have the two guys who are representing the cliffbeasts on the country and they have jokes and stuff. And I think that to break it up visually, it helps a little bit to have those scenes. You just wish that they looked more different than the rest of the movie.

You wish they were shot differently, but they looked like real things. Or they were like shot with like the different, like they were shot with one of those Michael Bay cameras. Yes, that shakes all the time. Yeah, that shakes all the time. Like everything's like overly saturated and Michael Bay is like, I've invented a new camera. It's constantly shaking. It can only take, it only records shots that go for a half a second before it shuts down.

Or spins around. Or spins around. And I think that the, I don't know the thing I was going to say about that. I don't know where Dan, what we use to. I do agree with, you know, with Stu to some degree that like, oh, you know, I think just them, you know, acting its tennis balls is funnier than all the effect stuff. And I mean, maybe it's just the part of me that's too much of a movie fan to like just go with the movie. Like there is like a nerdy part of me that's just like, that's

not how it would be. That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't have us right away. But there are moments where I do find it funny. There's this. Like it goes on too long, but I like when they're all sick, you know, with the stuff. That's what I was going to say, flew much like I had. And it just start like falling and drifting away from the cliff and floating in air. That was supposed to be climbing cliff.

And then they keep letting go and they're just floating in mid-air because they're clearly on, yeah, on wires. It's that, I think that, I thought the first time I saw that, I thought like, that's a really funny visual because it looks like a finished movie where they're just kind of floating in mid-air because they've given up. But it's, I wish they had been more that inventive with the rest of it that like each time they had had a thing like that where it was a it was paid off that that it was looked finished, you know. Yeah, like so many things in the movie they're just like it seems like I don't know this is the scene that we improvised this morning. Let's make it happen rather than like a payoff.

So David the Coveneys character he wants to rewrite the script, the director won't let him. Everybody hangs out. They get news that someone had a positive COVID test. They all have to quarantine again, cut to a montage of them killing time alone in their rooms, like building skills and Leslie Mann. We see starts out very clumsy on roller skates and they gets very good at roller skate dancing.

And I was like, did she get very good at roller skate dancing. Yeah. And I was like, did she get really good at roller skate dancing for the role where she already really good at roller skate dancing? And the best acting in the movie is her pretending she's not good at roller skating. Yeah, that's actually really a point. The same way that Michelle, yo, for all the reasons she earned that best actress award, that she won not too long ago before we recorded this, is playing a character who convincingly does not know how to do Kung Fu and has no end,

is doing martial arts clumsily and looking like she has no idea what she was doing, it must be the hardest thing for Michelle Yoh to do in the world. So, so maybe Leslie Mann is just pulling out all the stops to make it seem like she's not good at roller skating, maybe she's an amazing roller skater. In which case, I'm a... Right in, Leslie Mann, yeah.

Yeah, I want to see you in a roller skate movie. Like, I think that would be hilarious. I I want to see you in a roller skate movie. Like, I think that would be hilarious. I'd love to see Leslie, man, star in a movie about a champion roller skater. Someone who owns a roller rink. I don't know. What would it be? Let's get that zandered reboot off the game.

Yeah. Call it man to do because it's Leslie, man. Yeah. Better yet call it man a two. Yeah. Call it man a tea and she's a roller skating man a tea. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. No, call it manatee and she's a roller skating manatee. No, wow. Okay. Yeah. Get on. I mean, at that point, you don't even need the roller skates. I mean, just no, no, no, that's the roller skates make the movie. You know what? Yeah, actually, you're right.

Forget the roller skates. She's just a manatee with Leslie man's face. But there's still a remake of Xanado. There's probably already in a silent production about like a killer manatee called manatee, right? Dan? Probably. I probably, I'm sorry, this is flashing me back to one of my as Jesse Thorn very insultingly calls them my low effort tweets, where I talked about Leslie Mann. Yeah, you sweat over. Sorry. Man, man, like how festus over the forge. Man, man, who has all the powers of Leslie Mann, because of course, man, man was bitten by a radio act of Leslie, that is a low energy tweet delivered with even less energy. Now, what if you interrupted by two doofuses? Would a doofus suggest that we be manatee is not a remake of Xanadu, but a remake of Manatee in where the main character is a Manatee of a Manatee?

Well, wow. Tell me if I'm a doofus now, don't ask. Had my attention, but now you have my interest. I mean, like certain suit coats would look great on a manatee. Yeah, so the first one's called Manatee. The second one, of course, is now manatee, too, on the move again. On the move again. And then manatee.

Three. Oh my God, writes itself. And then you get that you got the sponsor tie-ins, manatee, manatee, manatee, it's the only sweet wine that tastes like a manatee. Manatees, they're men's undershirts that have a manatee on them. Oh, I thought you were talking about manatees, the only fans with the hot manatees. Yeah, the manatee just teases, he just waves its tail. And you're like, I understand why those pirates and sailors love these more maids.

Hello. Suddenly I get it. I'll be taking the role of Odysseus, please. I don't think there's any manateease of the Odyssey, is there? Well, yeah, no, but like the sirens. He had the rest of his crew. And he's like, and he's like, we're, we're the explaining manatees.

Well, he's like, keep the beeswax out of my ears because I want to hear that shit. Wait, it's that way sirens on like, uh, on a ambulance and such are called sirens. Is it, is it from the sirens? That's a good question. I don't know if the word siren has a deeper root than involved sound or if it's response that it's very possible,

very possible. You could write in listeners, but probably by that time, I'll have googled it and or forgotten. I asked the question. So, you know, take your pick. See, we choose your own adventure. Maximumfund.org slash join. Anyway, so, uh, to come in the fucking drug scene yet. No, we're getting that's that's what that's way play. So the characters start having sex with each other, to come in Lysl, man, of sex on the set. Carol meets a soccer player who's staying at the same hotel, which is weird, that their bubble overlaps with another bubble, like a Venn diagram between a soccer team and a movie shoot. It doesn't make sense. They have sex after you learn to say his left or how the comic relief actor you get stressed out and punches to come in the nuts and runs away.

And this leads to the hiring of Mr. Best, a mean security guy who attaches tracking badges to the actors. This doesn't really pay off. The tracking badges don't pay off. Mr. Best pays off. Yeah. You know what? I didn't, I don't remember laughing at it at the time, but in retrospect,

remembering how CD Mr. Best is kind of makes me laugh. Okay. That's right. He's a very like, like, sort of low-level British gangster kind of. He's a little ponytailed. He's played by the actor Rosalie, whom I'm not particularly familiar with, although who do we compete against? He did have a show called Ross Lee's Gouli's a horror comedy theme set in the morning. So you may show maybe it was something in which Gouli's bit people on the toilet. I don't know. I'm maybe Ross Lee bit people. I'm I'm fulfilling Gouli's fans dreams by finally biting them on the butt from the toilet. I'm going to mention. So wait, wait, wait, wait, fans appear on the toilet. I'm going to mention. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, fans appear on the show.

Yes. And it's always been their dream to be a bit of a thing. I feel like this is like the movie like a panic. It's basically just a horror convention-type thing, right? Where you go. It's like where you go to one of those horror conventions

and you pay for Michael Myers to choke you. Yeah, it's like, when you go to a comic convention, and see people, everyone wants to take pictures on their knees in front of the members of the 501st Legion, as if the storm troopers are about to execute. You know, this is something you see at a lot of comic conventions. Nobody wants to take a picture of them defeating a storm trooper. They only want pictures where they are at the mercy of the storm troopers. I wonder if that's in the 501st contract where they're like, we can't lose.

We have to look super cool. Very possible. That makes sense. Unless we're finding the rocker Vin Diesel. Well, that's why Vin Diesel is a member of the 501st. I'm sure. I'm sure he dresses up and goes out to convention as a stormtrooper. But anyway, that next comes the second weirdest scene in the movie. Pedro Pascal is exercising to this full length video where Daisy Ridley is like an exercise teacher. Oh, yeah. And then she starts sex talking to him and then

he enters the screen at like video drum style and has sex with yeah. And then she starts sex talking to him and then he enters the screen and like video drone style and has sex with her. And it is, nothing about it makes that much sense. And the thing that makes you, is it super long, is it super long in sexy or anything? No, I mean,

the idea of, the page of a past calent, Daisy Ridley, in my head feels sexy, but on the screen now, didn't seem to work. No, it doesn't work quite right. Audrey was like another young woman with an old man in the movie and I'm like, well, I mean,

I agree with you in general. This is the situation in which it makes the most sense in which he is just fantasizing about. He's supposed to be a fantasy, yeah. Yeah, hallucination of this woman that he's already seeing. And between the two of them, it's not like something super egregious where it's like Gabriel Byrne, Mary Dutoni,

Collette, and hereditary, and you're like, wait, what? So the actors come down with the flu, then we have the scene where they're shooting a mountain, they're climbing a mountain in the movie, and they start throwing up on themselves and they are just hanging in mid air throwing up on themselves. It's okay. The soccer player commits this carol to start a mutiny among the cast, but they refuse to. And I was like, few, a plot almost broke out. That would, that's a relief. Carol finds out that as a result of her, her agitation, her

lines have been given to Crystal, the TikTok influencer. And we watched this movie scene where Crystal teaches a cliff beast, a young cliff beast, a dance, which is kind of a funny idea. And yeah, I think the context of the bubble, it made me angry, but. I think if you saw that scene in a parody of a Jurassic Park type movie, yeah, you would think it was a funny scene.

And I kind of liked it in addition to losing her lines, she also got yelled at by a cliff beast and peas her pants a lot. Yeah, that character. And there's like a tube with fake peanut that's just spraying out of her pants. The rest of the cast. What are you doing this to me? Yeah.

One issue I have with the scenes that the rest of the cast also start dancing. And it's just like, this is not the first or last scene in the movie of just the cast dancing. And I'm going to tell you something guys, something I realized watching this movie that I kind or last scene in the movie of just the cast dancing. And I'm going to tell you something guys, something I realized watching this movie that I kind of always knew deep inside, but now I really know. I hate scenes and movies. This especially happens during the credits and movies, which is the cast dancing.

I hate it. I don't want to say. Well, look, I finished watching Barbon Star. And I was like, I really enjoyed that. I liked that movie a lot. And then the credits was just the cast dancing together. And I was like, turn this shit off. And Danielle was like, and Danielle was like, I wanted to watch that.

And I'm like, I'm leaving the room. I can't. I don't want to see the cast having a great time. I mean, that movie is so good. Otherwise, I don't, I don't begrudge it. But I, I, I understand what you're saying. It's funny. It's like, I enjoyed it the first time I saw it.

And there's something about Mary with it's new. I'm like, oh, this is like very joyful and fun. Look at this. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it. And there's something about Mary, where it's new. I'm like, oh, this is like very joyful and fun. Look at this. And it plays into your hopes as a naive viewer that all the actors are friends. They had fun. It's a party to make a movie.

They all, they're all, you know, have a special relationship. But John Richmond's just hanging out playing songs. Yeah, and after a while it starts to feel to me like, hey, check out this cool party. You weren't invited to it. Well, I wanted to watch it. If I wanted that, I'd watch the tonight show, which I mean, I want some of that might be about you. But I cool party. I do think that like as, yeah, the success of it in there's something about Mary led to Hollywood being like, these chefs eat it up. They love it when we pretend to like each other.

Yeah. It's similar to the end of every SNL where the cast is just hugging like, what an experience we've been through. And I'm like, I don't want to see this. I don't care. All I want is to read stuff about Orson Welles talking shit about other people or Brian Cox talking about shit about other people. Yes, that's exactly what I want. Dream guest for the flop house.

Brian Cox, you're probably listening to this shit. Come on here, buddy. Yes, Stewart has been, he's been lobbying us in the flop house. Brian Cox, you're probably listening to this shit. Come on here, buddy. Yes. Stewart has been, he's been, he's been lobbying us in our flop house text chain to get Brian Cox on the show. And it's like, yeah, we're not against it. So it's too, I think you got to take that public, start asking Brian Cox. And on himself should come on our show.

Yeah. Manifest that somehow. Sure. And I'm trying. Did I see him on Broadway? Of course I did. And the Tom Stopper play rock and roll. It was great. Brian Cox come on the show. America's greatest living play. Tom Stopper. I don't think you

can't call Tom Stopper. America's greatest living playwright. He's not American. He's not even he's a British person of Czech extractions. So it's that he's not American at all. But there's a there's a ad that keeps running on New York one here in New York City where I live the big city. Big Apple advertising the current run of layipold shot. And that's a ad that keeps running on New York one here in New York City where I live the big city big apple advertising the current run of layipold shot and that's a word-for-word recreation of the ad. Did they say America's greatest living playwright? Yeah, yeah, or like our greatest living playwright. Okay, our greatest living playwright I would totally consider.

Yeah, humanity, yeah. Although I have to say I recently watched, I recently watched on the razzle which I had never seen before. I saw the like great performances version of it and I don't know that farce is Tom stopper's greatest strength as much as I love his other plays. You're like stop. Art making fly. Farce stop. Art man animation does a lot of good stuff. Have you ever worked with them? But so Tom stopper we'd still love to have you on the show Brian Cox of course we'd love to Stop our man animation does a lot of good stuff. Have you ever worked with him? But so Tom stopper we'd still love to have you on the show Brian Cox of course we'd love to have you on the show Come on the show if anyone wants to pledge not money, but that Brian Cox will appear on the show. Thanks to their Boxing stopper

Just their cops hold on a second were detectives is Brian Cox and Tom stopper as they are now their detectives I would love to see that stopper. Maybe Ronnie Cox shows up. We'll figure it all out. We'll figure it out. Bob Stopperd. I don't know who that is. So they have this thing and then to Coveney and Man break up again, Leslie Man tries to escape the hotel. And this is when in the middle of the night she's running out to a cover of Heart of Glass, I think. And it's my Lisa I was singing Heart of Glass. Okay, it's an interesting choice for this scene. And a security guard assuming that she is a crazed fan shoots her hand off.

And that is, that's a wrap for Leslie Mann for most of the rest of the movie. Did you guys feel like it was an escalation or not a far enough escalation when you got her hand set off? Well, it's a weird effect that this had on me because I was like, that is far more brutal than I expected out of the movie. Like you should have it out normally doesn't include hand explosions. Yeah, no, for a stuppie hand with like just like one finger on it. And it's more the kind of thing you expect to see when Travis Bickle goes on a rampage

than the Judd Afton movie. And yet after an hour of nothing happening, it had curiously little effect on me. So you're saying you were already so numb from the movie that seeing Leslie Mann, one of America's sweethearts, have her fingers blown off on me in front of you. And you know, I've watched, I've watched a number of movies and a lot of them have plots and arcs. So seeing this happen, I'm like, okay, so they're going to do a bit where she has a weird robot hand or some kind of a fake hand. That's going to be, you know, fodder for some more hilarious jokes, but nope, she just disappears at that point.

And it feels weird. Like, I don't know. At that point, if you're going to shoot a shooter, just have her explode. That's Stuart's rule for filmmakers. If they're not going to get a robot hand, just have them explode. Just have them explode. So, so understandably after the security guards have mutilated one of his stars, the producer, Peter Sturford, and what he wants to shut down the movie, but Kate McKinnell

won't let him. And this leads to a series of Zoom calls up the chain where she calls her boss and says we got to shut it down. And then he calls his boss and says we got to shut it down, but they won't let them. And it ends with raising Keynes John Lithgaon. That's right. Raising Keynes and and Buckroob on Sizedown John Lithgaon. And it ends with John Lithgaon and his Chinese boss making plans to play tennis because they're on the same beach together and didn't realize it. Guys, how did this, how did this, it seems like this is heading towards a satirical point because the idea that everyone up the chain doesn't want to do this, but is being forced

by the person above them. And at the very end, this Hollywood studio is owned by a Chinese finance executive, but it doesn't, it doesn't really go anywhere. It doesn't, it doesn't really go anywhere. It doesn't make up for it. Yeah, I mean, in theory, sure, I can see where this could go somewhere. In practice, this part of the movie made me really annoyed, again, from like a reality of the business angle where like, this is all happening because Karen Gillen is flagging,

like, hey, all this horrible stuff has happened culminating in an actor's hand getting shot off. And the idea that, like, the job land is running this show, what's going on? He wouldn't stop with the hand. They try and set it up with, like, look, COVID has shot everything down. Like we really need this movie to go forward, et cetera, et cetera. But the idea that they wouldn't, that they would treat talent this poorly on a major picture is odd to me.

Like at least that no one would have any concerns. Like, I know, I mean, considering, considering, considering, I'm not sure, you know, almost killing the German, you know, that, like, is that, I don't know. But I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Well, especially when they've taken so many COVID precautions, the idea that they would have no other precautions whatsoever. Well, and there's, there's something that feels a little disconnected when the, what that

shows is that the low man on the totem pole, the people who have to deal with the worst conditions. In this case, are actors. Yeah. Whereas, I don't know, an actual satirist might be like, no, okay, why don't we show the people who will get shit on by nature? Yeah, that's what, Bob. Like, it's all focused on how poorly these actors are treated.

Like, actors would be treated the best of anyone on this goddamn production. It's the movie ones that both ways, because they keep making jokes about how actors demand pampering and they get all this stuff. But then also you're right, they are the ones who are like supposed to be the ones were sympathetic with or at least if not sympathetic, the ones that are being shown taking the hits the most, you know, literally in, in Leslie Man's case. John Cena has a, has a cameo after this as a stunt coordinator who is working remotely

through an iPad. This is such a funny idea for this scene and they just don't, I feel like just don't execute it as well as they don't, they don't go as far with it because the idea of a stunt coordinator who's appearing to be an iPad can't really see anything is lagging and freezing up and then someone getting hurt badly. Like this is where, this is the scene where a character should get their fingers blown off. It's like, yeah, there, I mean, that might be a little too close to actual reality that a stunt goes

wrong and someone gets shot on set. But I can't remember the timeline if that happened before after this movie was made. Well, that's what, like, good satire, like Judd Aptile loves to deliver, holds up a mirror to society. And I think in this case, being a little too close to home might work, Ellie. Maybe. Okay, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right.

But no one seems to either, no one seems to really get hurt from this stunt go wrong. And it was like, I want the movie to have the courage of its convictions and really injure somebody, especially since it's coming after scene where someone's hand got blown off. Carol wants to leave her agency. More blood, cries out, yes.

Well, more satirical blood. You know, all the way if you're gonna make a joke, go all the way and do the whole joke, you know. Yeah. I mean, if you want me to care about these characters, give them traits, speed them up. Well, there's a reason, there's a reason that Spider-Man is the greatest and most beloved character in fiction.

And it's because he never catches a break. He's always getting beat up. Whenever they do a series where it's like, and now everything's working out great for Spider-Man, those are the worst Spider-Man stories. Like you want to see your main characters get, have trouble. With the capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool. And there's a scene in a pool in this movie, but I don't remember if it's around here or not.

Anyway, they, Carol wants to leave. Her agent says, if you leave, you are going to owe the studio for all the money it's going to cost them, which is tens of millions of dollars. Everyone in the cast is unhappy. There's a weird scene where the hotel workers are celebrating how bad the movie is going because the longer the actors stay there, the more money the hotel makes. And that did feel like a weirdly tone deaf scene where the service workers are like, yeah, yeah, we love this.

This is great. They're the villains all of a sudden. And the service workers all sing together. I don't remember what song they sing. Do you guys remember? No. Okay. There's an actor standing in for Leslie Mann. And while working with her, David DeCovny is like, I feel bad. I left my family to do this and she storms any storms off. Carol learns that her grandmother died, but this studio won't let her leave to attend the funeral. And this and Kate McKinney decides it's time to pump up the cast by having back play a concert for them remotely. And they all dance around. Well, back plays what? Lady Knight? Ladies Knight.

And I have become very, very in your to celebrity cameos as jokes in movies. I feel like the John Santa one works a little bit because it's like, oh, I buy him as the guy doing this thing. It's not just someone walking on and going, I'm John Santa. John Santa, what are you doing here? But just having back come on and just kind of saying a song well ever in dances,

I'm like, what's the joke? Let's go now. I mean, the joke is that clearly this is just like one of a million of these he's doing because like they did, he doesn't even bother to replace like the title of the movie or whatever or like and like he and Kate McKinnon are like talking over each other on this thing like they aren't timing it outright, but it's not much for joke. No, it's not.

I'm just identifying that there was a lot of jokes. But you know, but you know, it was a lot of jokes. The flop house podcast. Dan, let's take a break from the movie and can you tell our listeners how they can support the flop house podcast, a veritable sea of jokes that they can swim in? Yeah, Cornie Kofi. I mean, don't swim in it. I don't think it would support your body weight, but this coming from a guy who loves uncle

Scrooge, a character who swims in money. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Max Fun Drive. What's Max Fun Drive? Well, some shows make their money with corporate funding that comes with a lot of strings attached. Some shows paywall, some are all of their content behind services that take a cut without giving much back.

But Max Fun, that's an artist collective, baby. That's also now completely employee-owned and managed, and it says, hey, we're going to make all our content, well, almost our content, free to you up front. If you like it, consider tipping the creators for their time and effort so they can continue to make a living, making the shows that you love. When you give it to Max Fun, some goes off the top for operating costs to pay those employee owners,

but the vast majority of it goes directly to the shows that you personally select when you become a member saying, this is what I like, this is what I listen to. Now, no one likes interruptions and believe you me. Except me when it's me making the interruptions. Yeah, you love them.

And believe you me, no one of us likes coming out here asking for money, so that's why we the end of it. Yeah, you love them. And believe me, you know when of us likes coming out here asking for money, so that's why we do it only once a year. So the rest of the time we're out here just making the show. So help us keep it to just once a year. Please join us as a member. I want to say believe me, we know times are tight. The world is uncertain.

If you are a person who cannot afford it right now, we're not talking to you. You don't need to feel bad about any of this. But maybe you'll be in a better position to become a member another year. If you can afford it, I say as someone who supports maximum fun and other podcasts myself, it feels good to feel like you're a patron of the arts or whatever it is that we do at the Flap House. And there are multiple ways to support. You can join or upgrade or boost by a few bucks between levels. All memberships at the $5 a month or more level

get bonus content. There's hundreds of hours of extra shows from across the network. I'll get into our specific bonus content in just a few moments. Or you can purchase a gift membership for a friend or anonymous max fundster. And the recipient will get access to all that bonus content. Let me get into some of the thank you gifts.

At the $10 a month or more level, you get access to the bonus content as well as a reusable vinyl sticker of Tom Brocaw and a dune still suit with a slogan that says, if it ain't brocaw, dune fix it. I have already a fixed one of mine to my laptop. Saw it. I think I might post a picture of it. Baffle your friends and confound your enemies with this beautiful sticker of Tom Brocaw, a fan of dune.

At $20 a month, you get all that I've mentioned. Plus, you get to pick either a sported cap with the Max Fun, a rocket ship logo. Or you get the Max Fun culinary kit, a secret blend of herbs and spices that will give your tongue maximum flavor. It's not actually a secret. I think you can see what's in it on the label.

And so don't worry if you got problems. And the energies. And the second volume with the max volume. I just call them problems. Yeah, problems, food problems, we call them. Second volume to the max volume family cookbook with recipes beloved by various hosts. I know Stu contributed a cocktail recipe

and I wrote a very long explanation of a Vietnamese pork dish I make at home. But those are the network gifts. What about flop house specific stuff? Yeah. Let's start with bonus content. We've already recorded flop tails, flop tails bonus adventure with Dan,

that's me, Elliot and Juben Paren, as your favorite cartoon dog heroes, with Stuart as the game master, controlling our adventure or guiding us. I mean, not controlling it. We made our own choices. The first episode of the new adventure should be in your member bonus feed for 2023 right away.

And the thrilling conclusion will drop sometime thereafter. That bonus content will be there no matter what else happens, but also if the flop house specifically gets 2000 new or upgrading members, we will record a member bonus audio commentary for Bratz. The first flop house movie to bring us true joy. We did a listener poll and Bratz run one out over us, Yankee the Mank Crake or the Babel on the con. So some people may say, didn't you already do a commentary for Bratz that was was kind of a janky audio from a live show.

We did a long time ago. This will be a first- There was more for a riff show. Yeah, a riff show. This will be a crisp new audio commentary. And I think that will be a delight. If we reach 2,300 new or upgrading members, we have a double prize. First, we promised you an episode on one of the top 10 money losing flops we haven't already covered on the show and released the full video of that episode to YouTube. So you can see stew's beautiful face and all the it's in my passable ones.

In addition, we will, hey passable is great in this world. We'll get to do what we've done in previous years and we'll pick 30 of our new or upgrading, upgrading, I will upgrade you. No, upgrading listeners to get personalized gifts from one of us. 10 will get signed copies of maniac of New York, Meliate 10 will get Hintrolags, Hintrolands,

Hintrolags. Hintrolags, sorry, I, Hinter Lags. Hinter Lags. Sorry, I'm not used to reading so much copy at once. Hinter Lands, Swag from Stu, and 10 will get drawings of a movie character they request drawn by me. I call it copy. It's stuff that I wrote out to remind myself ahead of time. Anyway, and lastly, if we really do well on this drive and hit 2,600 new or upgrading members,

we will record a member bonus audio commentary for a food fight exclamation point, the movie that caused Stuart Sol to leave his body. The movie he actively campaigned against last year when we offered commentaries, make him pay for that transgression, make him pay by paying him and the rest of us through the meeting of a max fund drive. We get enough new members. We will torture Stu audiovisually via food fight. No, no, don't torture me.

Oh, I'd hate it. Yeah, I don't like it anymore. This is really transitioning to Stu's only fan. That's fast. And remember, while these perks are nice. These are thank you gifts. Again, we don't hide half our content behind a paywall. We make our show free and we offer extra fun tidbits as tokens of thanks because we can't

do it without you, the listener. So will you please join us as a member, maximumfun.org slashjoin, where you go to do that, go to maximumfun.org slash join. Elliott, take us back into the bubble. We've decontaminated. We're going back into the bubble. What's happening in the bubble? You can't fight it.

Get back in the bubble. Get back in the bubble. Okay. No. They're going to, the stars are going to shoot an interview for entertainment tonight. And the cast learns that things are going so great that when they finish cliff b6, they're just going to roll right into cliff b7 and Carol's like, no, no, and tries to get the word out that this needs to stop.

And Crystal helps Carol shoot a viral video pleading for help, but the stunt man's daughter deletes it. And then they all slap each other, you know, one of the time. Carol reaches out to key for emotional help, but he breaks down on the myths that he's a fraud. He didn't write his own self-help book. He barely even read it and he doesn't have anything. Video of Crystal, the TikTok lady, sneaking out to get drunk.

This is something that she did very early in the movie and I was like, oh, so is this gonna pay off at all? It finally pays off. It spreads everywhere. And now she's canceled online as a COVID risk. And that leads to the weirdest scene in the movie. I said, the second weirdest was Peter Baskow entering a full body exercise screen and having sex with Daisy Ridley. This is the weirdest scene in the movie. Do you guys want to describe it or should I describe it?

Well, they all take about your drugs, right? And they sit around. They're all sitting around doing drugs. In a circle as you do when you take your drugs. Does David Covney look to write it home? And he did, for legal purposes, that is entirely a joke that is not in any way related to the real David Covney. No, no, no. The devil's the fictional David Covney.

I'm saying he's a good actor. And he, at one point, he does a line off of Keen, Michael Kees' head, which is pretty funny, right? That's pretty funny. Yeah, I'm guys. So that's not a weird part, though. So they're doing drugs. And for some reason, maybe you guys can help figure this out.

Their faces start to morph into like babies faces. And then one of these morphs into very young David DeCovney, which is weird. And what one of the Yeah. Morphs and two very young David to Covney, which is weird. And one of them morphs into Benedict Comberbatch. And I don't remember why. Well, someone says that they look like Benedict Comberbatch. And you see them. And then they morphed into Benedict Comberbatch. And also, like Karen Gillen, like, has

morphed into like someone else. Like is that a character we saw? Like a guy with a beard is like the specific or just a face, just a hilarious when you're on drugs. You think that Karen Gillen looks like this beard man. I don't like a beard pop if you will. Yeah. I, you know, I just got done watching the most recent episode of Party Down, the new season

of Party Down, which is great. I'm very happy to see it again, but there's, in this episode, all the caterers take mushrooms, and they're all tripping, and at no point in the whole episode do they do any weird visual effects, it relies exclusively on performers doing very good performances of people on drugs. And I'm like, oh, this is how this shit's supposed to be. Not grotesque baby-faced, digital, enhanced jokes. What it feels like to me is I wonder if it's a scene that wasn't working and they decided to kind of like gag it up by putting the special effects in.

I don't know, but they're saying. Well, yeah, especially because other than the Benedict Cumberbatch thing, none of the visuals have anything to do with what is happening. Like it's not like they're related in some way. That was the, that was when Pat Boone had his, had his version of the show, What's Happening? It was called What Is Happening.

Who are you just saying, man? Yeah. That's right. Welcome to What Is Happening. Hey, what is happening? And now here's some smooth, inoffensive sounds. So the, it's just, it's a very weird scene and I don't know enough about drugs. I don't know what drug they're doing.

Like it looks like cocaine, but cocaine doesn't usually make you hallucinate. So maybe there's other stuff they're doing. Like, you're super funny in interest. It just makes you really interested in something and really eager to tell other people about it. Like, even hallucinogenic,ogenic, there's a whole spectrum. Like, you know, I guess some of them cause... Tell me more, Dan, you're officially now my shaman who's going to take the day off.

He's a no-nirinot. Like I haven't taken an LSD, but I have taken mushrooms and I know that like on mushrooms it's just, you know, like designs and patterns start like sort of moving and feeling sort of alive and pulsing and breathing and like, you know, there's some synesthesia that goes along with it sometimes, if you listen to music, you get some visuals. But it's not like it transforms people into other stuff. Now Stuart, it sounds like you have taken all this to you. So does it, does it transform people's faces into being a cumberman? So the most, my most memorable experience, let me

see. I think what happens when you take LSD is you play a bunch of hours of killer instinct in your friend's basement. And then you watch reckless Kelly starring Yahoo, serious and captain back to back. That's a double feature are those movies on LSD. There are a lot of. I thought they were both the funniest movies I've ever seen in my entire life. This is a pretty standard LSD experience is playing killer instinct watching. Right. Just Kelly.

And I'm like, I just got to break this dude's combos, but I'm just, I'm just slipping. I'm not good at killer instinct anymore. But, uh, yeah, so I feel like that, that's only different. So I feel like if this movie wanted to show these characters being on LSD, they would have of course had them playing killer instinct, which I think would have actually kind of enhanced the sequence. Yeah. Do you think I was going to say that the problem was that they couldn't get the rights to reckless Kelly, but that's impossible.

They there's no way. Yeah. Young eyes time. Maybe I could see that. Maybe. But reckless Kelly, they're just in a way. Young that time, maybe I could see that maybe, but reckless Kelly, they're just in a self-addressed stamped envelope to, yeah, who's here. So it's a various range scene. They do another TikTok lip sync together. And during that theater, Pedra Pascal has a heart

attack. And everyone takes turns giving him different types of medical care. They're just shoving, you know, drugs and things into him until Anika, the hotel clerk that is in love with him, gives him a shot of, I know, a adrenaline or something. It's a total, it's like pull fiction, except everyone acts as if that's the crazy thing. They're like, what are you doing when we've just seen them like shoving his body into a bathtub full of ice and throwing drugs into a system and things like. But again, he climbed into a mirror like workout machine. Like he can do almost anything, right? There is a, he's a cartoon character essentially, yeah.

And there is a seed of a funny idea in this to me, the idea like these actors, none of whom have like medical training, you're just like making wild leaps about what's wrong with them and trying different treatments. I think that could be funny, but. It's potentially a very funny idea, but she brings him back, they declare their love for each other and carols like we came together. I can lead us to freedom if we just work together,

but we can't get to that first because first we need to see another cliffbeats scene, cliffbeats scene, not cliffbeats, which is of course my dub album. But it recorded entirely on a mountain. Yeah. So not cliffbeats. Yeah.

Yeah. It's here, it's your, your bootleg tape of only Cliff Burton base so loose. You got it. Look, look, they mixed them down. All right. They mixed them down too low. Got to bring the mix up so you can hear them. Cliffbeats would also be a great album for, for for for some would name Clifford Beats. Yeah. Which was he was he was born with the last

name Beats spelled with a Z at the end. Yeah. And it's crazy because he's also a big red dog, right? Yeah. And and played by Martin Short. So yeah, Clifford, Clifford, the big red dog. He did the mocap for the big red dog. Wait, hold on. He had something here. I got something. Okay, lay it on us. Lay it on us.

Make it happen. Clifford, Clifford, the big red dog, he got so red for meeting Cliff Beats. Wow, you did have something. He had something. Like, like, like, like, just can go back in measure which was the better way you're right history will be the judge of those jokes. Yeah Oh No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, ooh, okay, cool, okay. So anyway, they're shooting the scene where they have to destroy the cliff beasts by shooting them in the genitals with and putting them in the fire.

Rich and okay. So most of these jokes aren't funny. I do like the Pedro Capescal is kind of funny in the movie clips. Like, and the captions are always saying in like unintelligible accent. Like he has chosen some kind of weird accent to do and he's doing some kind of weird character and at least like, I don't know, there's something like he's making an effort. Yeah. Does it work?

Probably not. I mean, you be the judge. So, Dave DeCovny stops the scene and he argues with the director that it's really just a diversion. The other actors can escape the set and security chases them. And Carla, the stunt daughter reveals that she was hired to defend, to befriend Crystal, so she could be a mole in the group and they have a fight. And then there's an incredibly pointless cameo scene where Carol runs into James McAvoy, who's apparently shooting a movie somewhere else in the same bubble,

and they dated at some point. It's, it's, it's useless. Eventually, after David to company has a stage fight with the director and then a real fight and beat some up for real. The cast gets away, they get into a helicopter. Keegan Michael Key is supposed to fly helicopter in the movie, so he's learned how to lift it up and down. He doesn't have to fly it, but together all with their hands on the stick to guide it, they managed to fly the helicopter away. And then we get that, then we get our favorite title screen that ever shows up in a movie two years later.

Oh, maybe. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot.

We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot.

We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got a lot. We got making of the movie. That documentary is somehow already a big hit, but is also having its premiere. And we see the cast being interviewed on the red carpet for the premiere of the documentary. And nothing is learned and they're just doing the same old stuff. And you know, it's- Yeah, it's also weird like so much of we see like- And they show a trailer for the-

A trailer for the documentary. And so much if we see is just like reiterating things that we saw before in a way that I'm like, this is wild, that this is going on for so long. Like if you're going to do like this time leap ahead, you just do a couple of jokes about how everyone's life has changed since then or whatever. Yes, and they do none of that stuff. It's, there's nothing about that there. Then there's a very meta scene at the very end where the producers and the director are watching the helicopter flyaway

and they're they're talking about how, well, we tried. I mean, it's during COVID that we're making this. If the movie is not very good, they can't get mad at us because we're just trying to entertain people during a hard time, right? And that's how the movie ends. And it was like, don't, don't, don't give me an apology for the movie at the very end. And then there's some kind of end credit scene, but I could not watch it because every time I tried Netflix would jump me straight to a trailer for the new season of Luther. So I just didn't see it in that. And so thus ends the bubble, not with a bang, but with a trailer for Luther.

I think I fast forwarded the end and I did see it and it was like a whole lot of nut. Like it was like literally just like Fred Armerson like turning to the screen going, or something like that. Like something like that. But yeah, that ending look, it's accomplishing exactly the opposite of what it wants. Because I think it was just like, hey, don't be too mad at us. But I'm like, hey, if you knew how bad this was, I am so much matter at you. It's like if Steven Spielberg ended the Fableman's with whatever's name is, Jack Fableman,

Sammy Fableman, turning to the Cameron being like, hey, if you don't relate to it, that's because it's one person's story. And he got to finally tell the story on film, right? Even if you didn't enjoy it, it's good therapy for the director anyway. And it's like, wait a minute, hold on. Now I don't like the movie, because it feels like you think people are not gonna like it,

and you're not doing anything about that. Yeah. The Fablements are really enjoyed though. Right, I mean, like, yeah, to me, that's maybe not the most app because it is a good, good, good, good. You're saying it's not Judd Epitaph. This is a bad movie that's like,

hey, we knew it was a bad movie, but what are you gonna do? We made it different judge. A little chud named Hersh. That's true. I got my judge mixed up. My man kills it with a very intense accent. Yep.

Yeah. That's some of the best undershirt acting I've seen in a movie. Yeah, he's good. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, let's talk about our final judgments, whether we thought this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, a movie we kind of like, I'm going to say, look, don't hate Joe, Judd Appetow. I'm sorry, you know, if you're out there feeling, feeling your hurt feelings about

the movie, I know that he has admitted himself, like, maybe this wasn't my best work. I like all of the actors in it to one degree or another, like including some big favorites of mine in this film. But I also- You've always been a huge Karen Gillen fan. I'm a big Karen Gillen fan. He's great. As mentioned, Pedro Pascal is particularly good.

You know, I can, it's a ton of great people in this movie. But Griffin Newman's co-star, Peter Zara Finowitz. Peter Zara Finowitz, a dream, briefly said hello to him once when Steve Boto brought him into the office for reasons I probably shouldn't. I mean, I don't, it doesn't. He was around for reasons and he looks very like you're gonna murder somebody. Yeah, he just kind of look confused as to why he was there. Steve was working on a possible project that. Oh, I see. Anyway, but um,

Darth Maul animated series. Yeah, anyway, I'll Darth Maul at the mall. He's just a kid. Just a normal kid trying to grow up as a dark side Jedi apprentice. Or skateboard tricks. Thank you. side Jedi apprentice or or skateboard tricks. Thank you. Yeah, doing doing force skateboard tricks. Yeah. Go on. Point is I, I just want to say I've liked all these people before.

I will like them again. But this particular film. I found to be one of the most trying experiences I've had for this podcast and that's saying something. So it's a bad bad movie. Yeah, I'm also going to say it's bad something. So it's a bad, bad movie. Yeah, I'm also going to say it's bad, bad. I feel like this movie has a weird challenge in that. It's a movie that at the same time seems to have way more resources than it needs.

And it's kind of drowning in effects and things like that. And also not enough resources. And because so much of it is just them hanging around this one location, this one hotel. And I kind of wonder with this movie better, if it went bigger, it would be better if it went smaller and more intimate, like it's kind of just in the middle. And the result is that there's not a lot for the comedy to latch on to.

And I want, it feels like a movie that is, that doesn't know what choice it wants to make and so doesn't make choices. And I kind of, I think there's a good version of this movie that would exist. And you just have to, have to choose what tone it has and how far it wants to go and stuff like that. Yeah. You saying that reminds me of like, there's that scene in Wonder Boys, in Wonder Boys, where

came the boys. The movie where Michael Douglas and, and, uh, and, uh, Tom McGuire are, are floating in a notion. In a way, the best movies. Yeah. Michael Douglas and, and, uh, Tom McGuire are are floating in an ocean. In a way, the best movies. Yeah, emotion of emotions, the emotion ocean. Yeah. Yeah, the emotion ocean. Katie Holmes reads Michael Douglas's like, at that point, like 800 and 900 page manuscript. And she's like, uh, you remember how you tell us that writing is making choices?

It kind of feels like you didn't make any. Like, that's this movie. You put your finger on it. Yeah, I was kind of a grouchy boy about this one, a little bit of a steward stinker on this one. Yeah, I mean, I'll echo both of you guys. Like, I like a lot of the cast. I have liked a lot of Judd Appetite movies.

But yeah, this one doesn't really work, and it feels very thrown together, and it feels like another, I mean, it feels, it reminded me of COVID lockdown, which is, yeah, not a place I want to go back to. And it also, it also feels like another symptom of the endless glut of content coming out of the current streaming marketplace

of just like stuff being shoveled out there and it feels underdone and underthought through. And yeah, it's not for me. No thanks. Let's move on to letters from listeners. Hey, you know, I don't only support the flop house and other great maximum fun podcasts, but you also write us letters. Thank you. Give us free content. Oh, sucker. Stewart, shut up. You're blowing the game, Stewart. Keep K-Faib.

Here's one from Jacqueline Last Name With Held. Jacqueline Bissette. Who? Right. Hello, floppies. I have listened to y'all from 2019 when I was 19 years old. I wonder how many... Storytelling look on his face like we're people that young in 2019?

Is that possible? I wonder how many other quirky young adults have had the flop house to be such a cornerstone of their cooking cleaning during their uni years. That's a clue to where this letter's from. Oh, I think you're traveling across the pond. Okay, I'm done. Stuart, I love it.

I love this movie. I hate it. I do. See, I like it in a vacuum, but now that we're actually talking to you in the first line. Yeah, that's then a big. I'm so. How much pain? Yeah. I don't have any witty detours for you, but my question is, would you ever like to write a director's short film of your own? What vibe or style would it have? Secondly, what are the top countries listening to you besides the US? That's it. Many flops from the UK, Jacqueline, last name with help. I'll start with the first one. As one might expect, mostly English speaking countries because it's a audio

medium. There are plenty of bi-lingual or many-lingual people in other countries, but we have a lot of listeners in there. Yeah, name names, Dan. What country do I have? I have him. We have a lot of listeners in the UK. And in Australia and where else? Also Germany.

That's not an English-speaking country, but I like German. I mean, because of my fucking killer of burner air. So I can pressure that. Well, the problem is a lot of German listeners listen because they think we're in a hard-sogga's on the show. But it's actually just doing it. Yeah, it's just me, Denmark, Duma Lollgoofs, some big.

Yeah, I guess we got some live shows to play in these countries. Let's do it. But if you were going to, yeah, if you were going to make movies, I don't know, Jacqueline specifies short movies, but I don't know why we have to keep ourselves to that. I mean, like, this is burning material. We can't get into like Elliott and I, any ideas we have, we have to do. I have a screenplay that's out now for producers looking at it. And I don't want to say what it is because I want it to get me.

But I I will say there is a short film that I've been planning to write that I would like to direct. And I just haven't gotten around to it because I've been so busy. But it is a I would call it a deadpan comedy, a historical deadpan comedy. But I think I could shoot very cheaply. As a, as a, as the non creative of the gang, I can answer. I would say that. I don't know. I feel like generally when I work, mainly when I like right or work on comics and stuff, I usually kind of gear toward the horror or horror comedy, because I both like

things to be scary and also I just can't help but make things funny, you know? Oh, yeah. I know, I mean, horror comedy definitely would be like, my, it's my favorite genre and the one I would wanna do. And up until recently it has been, I feel like it was labeled box office poison for a long time for reasons.

I'm not sure about it. It's like one of these things where like there's a period where there are poor comedy hits, like an American wear off in London. And then like there, you know, high profile. And where wolves in Paris. Yeah, well, but also like high profile. I'm trying to fail years like early James gun works slither was a big bot. Like the frighteners was a big

bomb. People were already so nice. They're like creeps that they're like, we don't need slither too. Yeah. But I feel like I think the issue is that we like horror and we like comedy, but I think your civilians, your average person does not, does not like to mix those two things. They like to know whether they're supposed to laugh or accept. Except it seems, you know, you know, a series up swing, you know, like what with, you got your Megan, you got your barbarian, you got your cocaine bear, you got, uh, that's, I would say those are, that's a, except for Megan, that is a different level of success, though, like. except for Megan, that is a different level of success, though. Well, but we're living in a world where that's the new marker.

Like, what movies can actually get people into the theater? Yeah, it's enough. Ellie, it's like, oh, they didn't make as much as Avatar 2 with the way of water. So they're automatic failures. Yeah. No, but I feel like something that I feel like I'm learning about your average viewer is that

they have a certain amount of appetite for certain things, but they don't want just nonstop that thing. And the problem that a lot of film and TV makers have, I think, is they say, people like this thing, let's make more of that, where I think with a lot of people, it's like, well, I had that thing. Like, I saw it, like, I think a lot of average viewers are like, I saw Megan. Right. I love that. That was really fun.'s like, well, I had that thing. I saw, I think a lot of average viewers are like, I saw Megan. Right. I love that.

That was really fun. Okay. What else am I going to do? That ticked off that box for a little bit. But I do think, I don't know. I do think that there's a many resurgence of horror comedy as a viable thing. Could be. And I mean, I love them.

So, you know, I'm looking back at the happy death they, etc. Like, I'm looking back and happy that they Sure, like I'm glad that I'm certainly certainly horror movies that are pitched as fun like if you go to this thing You will have a good time. Well, I think maybe that's it is that if you pitch something as like a horror comedy It confuses people, but if you say like this is a fun horror movie, then they're like yeah, yeah, that they don't want to uses people, but if you say like this is a fun horror movie, then they're like, yeah, yeah, that they don't want to. And then you do that drama. Yeah, yeah, it's not about trauma. Yeah, a 24.

Yeah, what you do is you show the cast having a little dance party on the set. No, no, no, this looks great. Don't do it. You don't do it. Do not do that. Don't do it. Don't do it. I mean, the thing is, and I love seeing actors dancing when they're in a musical or when Do not do that. That's a stupid. Don't do it. Don't do it. Not a do you.

Yeah. And I love seeing actors dancing when they're in a musical or when it's a dance scene. I just don't, I don't need to see them dancing the way people dance at weddings, you know, I don't need to see that. I also, I want to make clear, like we like a 24 style or movies too. We just like having the option on the buffet to have something that I. Yeah, 24 is listening. We still like your shit. No, I just look. Who cares? Okay. This next letter, I was going to explain myself, but it's not important. Well, branch in the last name with held rights. The subject heading for this email is who says God's ill, it can't

just step on a house. All right, let's hear it. Let's hear it. And he steps on Bambi once that's smaller than a house. That's the new. Is it bigger than a break box? Is it bigger than Bambi? How many Bambi's tolls your house? Dearest Peaches, in your last episode, Elliot put forward as a fact, the idea that you couldn't have Godzilla just attack a single house. Fair enough, normally the movie would be quick and boring, but I ask you this, Sharks, what if in that house was one Kevin McHallister, a home Godzilla, if you will. How interested are you now? How interested are you now? You don't know what's gonna happen in that movie.

Anything could happen. It's the last truly original Hollywood movie. I don't know if it's truly original. It's not if it's two different movies that are being slammed together, yeah. Two things. It's not her thing at all. Fight up Godzilla.

If so, how much prep time does he need? What would be the traps? Or just Godzilla defeat, but ultimately respect the crafty home defender after a lengthy, but narratively, bittersweet battle? Should you find this a tempting offer? Let me suggest that Godzilla is not the only movie monster. I don't, oh, a de-aged Macauley Colken CGIed onto a tiny child's body could go up against the limits are only your imagination. So I was stumbling over the word Daged, which without a hyphen is very confusing. Yeah, yeah.

I will say the limits are not so much our imagination as the imaginations of people who have already made movies about monsters. Sure. Since we're pulling from a two-part. Any imaginations of Godzilla and the into here's here's what I'll say to that Columbus. Sure. We'd all love to see Kevin McHaleister go up against a bigger challenge and there's

no bigger challenge literally than Godzilla. But I have a there's a thing called proportionality. And I think the wet bandits are proportionally a good challenge for Kevin because they are dumber than him, but they are slightly bigger and slightly stronger being a daughter. And there's two of them.

The Godzilla threat seems out of proportion for Kevin. Since again, he can put as many nails on steps or little micro machines on the floor. Godzilla is just going to crush them all between his giant, under his giant foot. There's a between his toes. He's not going to slip on the marbles or the, or the micro machines. If he steps on a nail, it's going to get bent because he's so strong. It's not going to go into his foot. And he's also a meeting radiation, which I don't know how Kevin is going to defend himself against that unless he's in a lead line suit, which is going to make it harder for him to accurately aim

a BB gun, which again, who have would have no effect on the inches, if not feet thick derma of Godzilla and the armor plating. That's just a part of his scales. And so I think maybe Kevin should like level up to something more on the Jason level of monster, possibly, as opposed to going all the way to a Kaiju. You want him to pay his dues. Yeah, basically paraphrasing the concept of challenge ratings in TNT. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Well, it's not that I wanted to level, it's not Renfield. He's got a fight bigger and bigger monsters. Increases hit points and endurance. Uh-huh, yep, absolutely. One thing gets to a certain level and he gets enough magic items that are appropriate. Yeah, as level, he'll be able to take on a Godzilla's one. No, I don't think, I don't think that's true. I mean, if there are magic items in the home of a universe right now, the most magic item

is like the shovel that the old, the lonely old man next door has. But if there's a certain limit as to how powerful, there's a ceiling to the power of Kevin McAllister. He is a human child without magical or paranormal abilities who is dealing with human sized objects. And so I think a human sized opponent is really what he is most. I could see him getting like an old man suit or something. A doorknob until it glowed. Yes. And to make a man's skeleton appear inside his body.

You're saying this child is not a magical? Now, I believe the skeleton appeared in his body because he was electrified by not by the heat, right? Was that? Was it mostly the one? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, examples of outlandish things that. Okay. Yes. I feel like both of those traps would have no effect on Godzilla. Yes. I was about to say, is Godzilla again born in the heart of a nuclear blast? He literally has radioactive fire inside of himself that he could use to just destroy Kevin McHallister, instantly, including the house that he's in. And the electricity, he walks through power lines all the time. If anything, it might cart charge him up more.

But overall, it all comes back to the same thing, which is again, the home that Kevin is protecting is itself not strong enough to withstand the might of Godzilla's giant foot. Now again, I'm not the home alone, but if the home had to help. No, I don't. Now, if you were saying could Kevin go up against the monster from relic? Possibly that's not a human monster. It's bigger than monster. See how we're just bargaining. What about like evil granny from relic? Yeah. Or is the is a granny from granny evil or some

she becomes evil halfway. Okay. Now here's the crossover I want to see. It's what happens is she abuses the powers of the me child that she takes. It's supposed to make her live along, you know, it will work. Sure. So what I want to see is Kevin McHale's to up against the babysitter from Don't Tell Mom the babysitter's dead.

And here's how that trilogy goes. First one, prequel. He's up against the babysitter. She's mean. They come to an understanding. They have to team up at the end to go up against a bigger monster, not Godzilla big. Second one, it's the movie we know, the babysitter's dead pretty early on. Third movie, zombie babysitter comes back to after Kevin McAllister.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I always think we figured out. The thing about that is that for that storyline, you can skip most of, don't tell mom the babysitter's dead. Just make your own machete cut, I guess, of the of the of the movie is where it's just the beginning of don't tell mom the babysitters dead. Just make your own machete cut, I guess, of the, of the, of the movie is where it's just the beginning of don't tell mom the babysitters. Yeah. Yeah. The, it'll be like an evil dead two, where it has that five minutes. It's basically just like really wrong. We can't be able to dead very quickly. And now they're, okay, there's a threat for Kevin MacAuster. Kevin's family. So Kevin's family goes to Tokyo or something on vacation.

Kevin took the wrong plane. He ends up at the cabin from evil dead. Now he's got a fight off the dead. So you're some Michigan. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So Kevin goes to Michigan. He's and he's with his buddies. That's how far he's he's based on a Chicago. But he's feeling Minnesota. Yeah. And but he's in Denver and he's dead. So who knows what's going to happen? He doesn't know what to do. That's the situation.

Ever since, ever since they shut down the Denver tourism bureau, things to do here when you're dead. That's what the thrillists for, for Denver says, if you're dead, here's some things to do this weekend. Anyway, let's do. So I think we put that one to rest. Yeah, let's do movie recommendations. You know what I saw recently?

I went to... Did it open up your eyes? Yeah. Life is demanding. I went to the Prospect Park Nighthawk. I saw myself a sweet, reputory screening of Psycho 2, directed by Richard Franklin. I have long maintained that the biggest problem with Psycho 2 is that it is impossible for any movie to be Psycho.

We already have a Psycho. It's possible for one movie to be Psycho. Yeah, just one, but the thing is, like at this point, even Psycho is in Psycho because it's had so much cultural impact. You cannot recreate psycho, but the beauty, yeah. But the beauty of psycho too is that the plot takes into account. We all know psycho. So let's, I don't want to say too much, but the movie uses the knowledge that you know what psycho is against you in a way that I feel like more sequels should sort of think of entry points like, okay, how does this movie relate to the first one?

And like lessened in like a sense of like, oh, let's continue the story. Oh, let's repeat the story. But more like- It's not just Norman's on a rampage again. Yeah, like, like, how does this relate to the story in a more, in like, a more holistic way? Like, what, what can we turn on its head? What can we change? What, like, what do we want to learn more about? I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a good movie directed by Richard Franklin, the Aussie director who was an act light of, of Hitchcock's. Yeah. I am, uh, I enjoyed it. Anyway.

That's cool. I'm going to recommend a movie from 1987. Yep. Perfect year. I'm recommending a movie called Light of Day, directed by, of course, director of heartbeeps, Paul Schrader. And Light of Day. And Light of Day.

I need to, if listeners, there's nothing I would like more than for you to go to maximum fund.org slash join and pledge us. But other than that, if you could go to the Heart Beeps Wikipedia page and just have it say that Paul Schrader directed it. That'd be great. And then somebody record Paul Schrader's reactions live off of Facebook. I don't, I'm just all gonna end up with Paul Schrader tracking us down. So I'm, I don't love that he was always fighting the Ninja Turtles. You know, that's true. That's true. He did that.

So light a day is it's an interesting little movie. It's it's not one of my favorite Paul Schrader movies, but I think it's that would be right. Beeps. Uh-huh. This movie stars Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett as a pair of siblings who are in their early 20s living in Cleveland and they are living like a blue collar life, but they are also trying to make it as like a small time rock and roll band. And Joan Jet the sister has a young child, and she cannot give up her dream of being a rock star, or at least living a rock and roll lifestyle. And so it means that Michael J. Fox has to take on

the responsibility of watching this child. And it's, you know, it's, and there's additional family drama. It shows the, like the side of the Midwest, like a blue collar Midwest that you don't get to see very often. The mullets are great. There's a very small cameo from Michael Rooker, which I'm assuming was shot before, like I'm assuming it was shot around when Henry Portrait of a serial killer is being made. Like he had not been in

much stuff at this point. And it also has Michael McKean, who plays the bassist in their band, who's in it quite a bit and has a variety of different facial hairs. So that's worth watching. Again, like it, there's, it verges a little bit into like TV movie or movie the week, but that could also just be how much like big movies have altered my brain. But if you're interested in watching kind of like a smaller movie that's set in kind of a part of America that you don't really see very often in movies. Check out Light a Day. I want to recommend two movies. One of them has the word day in the title, so it doesn't get more thought out than that. This actually was not the movie that I was originally going

to recommend, but after watching the bubble and thinking about it, I was like, and mentioning there's a good version of this movie and it's called Day for Night. So that's the first thing I'm going to recommend is Day for Night, or the original French title is Lenouille, American, the American Night. It's directed by Francois Truffaut, and is about the making of a movie in France, Jacqueline Bessette, who wrote us that letter earlier, isn't it? And it feels very Robert Altmanie, where it is about people making a movie. There's a number of different storylines going on with the different people in the movie and it shows you so many different people involved. But because it's a French movie it's a much smaller crew than an American movie would so that would have so there's a real sense of intimacy to it.

It's just really good and parts of it are very funny and parts of it are very kind of like dramatic or heartbreaking and characters do foolish things. And it's just a really enjoyable movie, but it's also a very wise movie about what the process of filmmaking is like, as you would expect Francois Travota to have since he'd been making movies for years by that point. So that's day for night, but the movie I wanted to recommend, I think it was last episode, I think I also recommended a movie about some women who are going through challenges in their lives. This I want to do another one of those. And this one stars recent Academy of Ward nominee, Michelle, you know, that's right. It's a movie about women dealing with challenges.

That's the heroic trio from 1993 directed by Johnny Toe. And you have it is watching it. It's like, oh, this is like what a 90s Hong Kong idea of a superhero movie before The Marvel movie is had kind of codified what a superhero movie is supposed to be but after the Batman movie is had come in and kind of Made their impression about what a superhero movie supposed to be but filtered through a very Hong Kong filter. There's three powerful women. There's a Michelle you Anitemui, and Maggie Chung. I'm sure mispronouncing names.

And they played Wonder Woman, the invisible woman, and thief catcher. But not the one's, not the Wonder Woman and the invisible woman we're familiar with. But there are three women who find themselves on different sides at first, when an evil villain who lives under the streets in the sewers, but the sewers look kind of like caverns of a city is collecting babies, thinking that one of them will become

the foretold new king of China. And there is a lot of real fun fights. It gets very strange at times. And the climax of the movie, you watch it and you're like, oh, Michelle is going to go into an Academy Award, but she still did this bonkers scene that involves her fighting like the charred body of a super powerful wizard magician. It's just a super fun movie. So that's the heroic trio.

Is that, that's on criterion right now, right? It is on criterion right now. They have a Michelle you collection on right now. With the Yes, Madam. Yeah, yes, Madam's on there right now, right? It is on criterion right now. They have a Michelle Yo collection on right now. Yes, madam. Yes, madam's on there also and in Supercop, you know, a lot of stuff she was in. That's good. Yay. Hey, before we go, just one last pitch for becoming a max fund member.

I know I'm coming into this with some aggressive energy because it's actually going to get a little personal here. The aggressive, Dan. No, no, no, I talk last show a little bit about how the flop house has almost magically changed my life. He's introduced me to people I wouldn't have known otherwise, whether it be kind, enthusiastic, wonderful listeners. We meet on the road, or if it's a chance to text our guests, Gillian Flynn about bad wigs in a movie

or if it's even meeting my wife through a karaoke event arranged by Max Fun, New York. So it's just been a wild thing to be- Wait, who'd you meet at the karaoke event? My wife, Audrey. Okay. I was hoping you were going to say it funnier. Yeah. My wife. Thank you.

It's allowed me to showcase. Should have needed the prompting. Shouldn't have needed it. I was, you know what, it's, I think it's to my credit that I didn't know where he was going with it. It's it's allowed me to showcase both my own voice and my voice, the voice of my dear friends, Stuart and Elliott in a way that actually gets out into the world and connects with people. It's kept me and Elliott and Stuart financially afloat during times where we've all gone through a bunch of ups and downs. And most importantly, it's made me feel connected and less alone in this world, knowing that other people like the same dumb nonsense I do and we do, whether it's my co-hosts

or you out there in listener land and I'd like to thank everyone for that. And I know it's been important for our listeners as well because I've heard stories about people meeting their partners because of the podcast or adopting a child through context to the podcast or folks going through a tough time who've been helped by listening to us be silly and I honestly kind of don't like to think about it too much because I'm a 44 year old man from the Midwest and emotions confused and frightened me.

But it's honestly been very meaningful to me to know that if some angel pulled and it's a wonderful life on me and showed me how life would be different if I'd never been born that because of this podcast in large part there would actually be a significant difference in the world. So we've got a lot of new stuff in store for this year.

We've been trying to do more video content and fun tidbits. We're working on an ambitious plan for more live streaming shows in the coming year. So if you want the show to not just survive, but to continue to thrive and expand, consider becoming a member at MaximumFun.org slash join. That site again is MaximumFun.org slash join. If you like us, pick the flop house, one of your shows to support, and thank you so much for being a listener. And that's it other than also thanking our producer, Alex Smith, who puts the show together. You can find him on various socials as Howell Dottie.

But I will say, for the flop-ass, I have been Dan McCoy. I'm still Stewart Wellington. My name is MaximumFund.org slash join. I'm sorry, it's Elliot. Bye, IE. MUSIC Hey, everybody, it's flop house time. From coast to coast.

We're the most flop house podcast that there is, because we're the only ones. So by definition, we are the most flop house podcast there is. Flop house. Yeah. Yeah. Steve is unimpressed.

No, I loved it. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience supported.