The Flop House - In the Lost Lands

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

But what of the VULGAR auteurs? We check in with Paul W.S. "The Other Paul Anderson" Anderson's latest "boy do I love my wife, Milla Jovavich" project, In the Lost Lands, based on some short stories by (checks notes) George R.R. Martin. Hmn. Wonder if Stu's ever heard of this guy.Check out Flop TV (tix here), and stay updated on Flop House events and side projects, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!Wikipedia page for In the Lost LandsRecommended in this episode:Dan: Elvis: That's the Way it Is (1970)Stu: Sorry, Baby (2025)Elliott: Bugonia (2025), Save the Green Planet (2003)

On this episode, we discuss in the Lost Lands. Based on the work of my new best friend, George R.R. Martin. Hey, everyone, and welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Willington. I'm Elliot Kalen. I say my last name really high pitch now. That's the way it's pronounced. Yeah. Okay. Are you going to be really insistent about that?

I'll probably forget in a couple seconds. Okay, great. Hey, this is a podcast where we watch a movie that has been rejected either commercially or critically and talk about it. Yeah, and because I said that... Dan, did you surprise yourself with how professionally you did that? It's literally what I was about to say. I've never said that so succinctly, and now I don't know what to do. Dan had to look on his face of a toddler who has taken three steps on their own for the first time

and is baffled by what they just did and they don't know how they accomplish. I don't know where to go from here. Well, you take a sip of whatever you're drinking, even though you're the one introducing the show. Well, but is there more? I mean, we talked about... We watched In the Lost Land, a film based on, I guess,

sort of three shorter works by George R.R. Martin. It's adapted from a couple of different short stories by George Ronald Reagan Martin, creator of Game of Thrones. Yeah, and, you know, it's got all the same level of, you know, compelling characters and just like wanting to

Stuart had you read the stories and we should say this is a Paul W.S. Anderson film we've done other but we've done at least one of their Paul W.S. Anderson film which we did the three we did at least two, three musketeers we did and also Pompeii we did wow he yeah so he like

dug his way out of direct of video hell and then dug his way back in there's actually something kind of sweet about it because he and his wife Milojovich just kind of make movies together they just make Yeah, it's great. Cruddy action science fiction Of my directorial wife guys,

he's one of my favorites. I have to, yeah, I have to admit I have a certain fondness for him. Like, he's done a lot of crap, but like he's also done stuff that is pretty fun. You know, he did Event Horizon. I liked the first Resident Evil pretty well, even though it went into like a crazy, you know,

continuity that I didn't care about. I think he, of all the people who make kind of, not great movies. I do have more of a fondness for him than I do for... She is a flair for his not great movies. He, of course, he did the first Mortal Kombat movie, which as a kid, it was just exciting to see a video game on screen for the first time.

Now, of course, all the movies are based on video games, so that's less exciting than it once was. And some of them are on screens. And I went into the screens, big screens. I went and... Lift up the kids' t-shirt on their belly. You'll see a little screen playing video game movie. That's videodrome for you.

All the kids are video screens. video drumming these days, Dan. They're all like six, seven, put a VHS tape in my belly. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Didn't know that. No, I went into this movie with kind of a certain amount of mild hope, I guess. You know, and like at the beginning of the movie, I was still feeling it because I'm like,

well, you know, this is, at least it's giving me nostalgia for the crap of yesterday year. Because this really feels like, you know, late 90s through the like 2010, maybe sort of sort of vibe of a B movie that we used to get. Yes. And we don't really anymore, but... I would say it's hurt a little bit by the fact that the visuals are consistently muddy and ugly. Everything is kind of a grim melange of browns and oranges.

But that's the way it was back there. There's a certain charm. Back there's in the future, Dan. There is a certain charm from like an early 2000s like Eurochie. depo, sci-fi adventure, where, like, everything is so sound-stagey. Like, it just looks, like, kind of trashy. It has the color palette of late Scooby-Doo.

So, Stuart, I was curious, so this is based on three George R. Martin. And I said his name is George Ronald Reagan Martin. That, of course, is a joke. His name is George Ronald Rick Donald Martin. The three stories, it's based on are the lonely songs of Larendor in the Lost Lands and Bitter Blooms. Have you read any of those stories?

I don't think I've read any of them, although they're probably in a story collection I have somewhere in one of my shows. It looks like one of them is in the story collection Songs of Stars and Shadows. Another is in the collection Sand Kings. And one of them is in a book called Amazons 2, which is an anthology of stories about Amazon. I cannot stress enough how awesome the short story Sand Kings is, which was adapted to what a amazing stories episode. Okay. But that is an all-timer great short story. but I don't remember I don't remember reading any of the stories

that this is based on. Okay, I'll have to read Sanking sometime. Yeah, it's awesome. So let's talk about this movie in the Lost Land. So I was hoping Stuart could give us some expert understanding of how it might be the same or different from the stories that will be lacking this episode. We're going into it blind.

So I hope you took notes and you didn't just plan on asking me, did this happen? That was my main, yes. My notes are mostly me saying it just says, Ask Stu, like the stories, Ask Stu, Ray Faithful, Relevant.

So we're going to be going into this blind, much like people of the far future entering the Lost Lands. Now let's talk about what happens. We start as all great movies start with a blurry Dave Batista walking into frame, all scarred up on his face,

and he says he's got a story to it for us about witches and magic and monsters, but this is no fairy tale and there are no happy endings. Title in the Lost Land. He says, thank you for coming and seeing In the Lost Lands in the theater. Guys, it got me a little chubbed up. What you're about to see is a story called In the Lost Lands.

Now, I'll warn you, it may be too terrifying for you. Don't worry, nurses have been stationed outside your house because you're watching it on streaming in case you have any problems. Stuart, sorry, what you're saying? Yeah, I was just saying Davey B walking into frame and threatening me with a story of witches and adventure. Yeah. Hell yeah, baby.

You love it, yeah. This was, Stuart was the focus group, it was just him and he just kept turning the dial to extra positive. It was scars. It was me and Steve Kastanski who I was texting the whole time. Had Steve seen the movie? No, but he loves Paul W.S. Anderson. Or at least likes him, because he's one of those guys

who operates in that world of like, that like kind of cheapo direct-to-video adventures that are shot primarily in Eastern Europe. This is a world that I someday hope Steve gets to enter and have some kind of creature shop that is, you know, like a mile tall so he can make his own or think. All he has to do is marry Mia Jovovich and he can do it. So Steve, that's the goal.

So in voice over narration after the opening titles, Dave Batista tells us that a great war left behind the lost lands, which is most of the lands. They're all, there's monsters and creepy stuff and whatever. And it's a future of magic and mystery. and radiation or whatever. All of humanity. It's a post-apocalyptic fantasy, basically.

Yes. All of humanity. This is your classic, like you're saying about, like kind of cheapo shot in Eastern Europe kind of usually is direct-to-d-div-D or direct-to-video stuff. It's like your classic post-apocalyptic. It's kind of a Western.

It's kind of a magical fantasy. You know, there's a lot of like ruined, they walk by ruined buildings and things like that. And it wears it on its sleeve a little more openly than, say, like, Star Wars, which is basically more of a fantasy than a science fiction story. Yes, this is an argument I've been having

with my younger son who's suddenly into Star Wars. One of his friends told him Star Wars isn't science fiction and I was like, well, it's kind of not. Like, it's not really science. It's like fantasy dressed up with robots and spaceships,

but there's no science. And then an hour after your son stopped crying, you were able to talk about serious stuff. An hour later, I was in the hospital getting my wounds bound up after the argument got too, went too far. Came at you like a Tasmanian devil. Yeah, he was all spinning around going,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, uh, And he went right through a tree. Who is that guy from the Marauders? That's his name. Or maybe it's Riptide. Yeah, Riptide. That's right.

The Marroth... Who's like, head just stays still. His head stays still and his body turns to... Yeah, he seems to have a rotating neck that can go 180 degrees. Dan, you know this character, right? Riptide from the Marauders, who works for Mr. Sinister. The Morlock Massacre.

Hello, Dan. The Morlock Masser was pretty intense. It's the only good thing the Marauders ever did. I mean, that was... I'm just going to go out of limb. The Moritz are the best... of the Chris Claremont suddenly introduces a whole team of bad guys and they all have

different names and powers. Because he would do that a lot. These people would be taken over by the brood and they'd be like, my name's Blockbuster. Bam! You're going to have to deal with me, X-Men. But the marauders are the best of those, but still they don't do much. There's that one guy who just wears a skinny tie and a suit and you can do something with your mind. I can't remember his name. Yeah, and one of them is going to just get annihilated by Havoc early on. And then Havoc's like, oh shit, I didn't think I'd kill you totally.

But it's okay because they're all clones. They keep coming back. There's Arklight is another one, right? That's a dope name, yeah. Yeah, that's a great name. Okay, and there was a theater named after it once, once. Named after the mutant, yeah. And then the Rip Tide Theater is what I'm talking about. Oh, man.

Can I stop disassociating now? Oh, yeah, you can. So all of humanity lives in one city, which I find to be kind of silly. It's like, how'd they get there? It's a city that has just like a giant skull as their... There's a giant skull. There's a giant cross building. We'll find out it's under the control of the overlord

Who is in a Kind of tenuous power alliance with the church And the church is patriarch Now I want to say something Maybe this is Maybe this is more of a overview thing that I should say for the end But I've started talking now

Like one of my big problems with this movie is it relies so much On sort of Palace intrigue Of a bunch of factions that we are not really ever properly introduced to or given a reason to care about. And they're so totally unrelated

to the main story of our main two characters. Yes. In a way, and so every time we went to the palace intrigue, I agree, I was like, I don't care. I don't care about any of this. I don't know why I'm supposed to care about any of this. You guys said, you guys mentioned overlord. Sounds like you were overboard.

Accurate? Oh, God. Yeah. Oh. Oh, you've heard his kidneys. He laughed so hard. Stu, you gotta, don't do that again, Stu, because it's too much.

Too much. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, too funny. That is too funny, Stu. But Dan, you're saying? Well, as far as doll as this movie is, it's one of the few times what I would argue, like, this would work better as, like,

a TV show or something where we could explore. No, it would, Dan. You're like, you are the joke from Annie Hall. Oh, the food is bad in such small portions. I don't want more of this, Dan. But, like, if you're going to do a story of this nature, you need more space to explore, like, what all these different factions mean. And it doesn't exist here, is what I'm saying.

Or you can just present them as being, as having some kind of personality or identifying characteristics that is more than just, this person is the queen. Okay, do they have a personality? Not really. Here's the patriarch, head of the church. Why is he doing it? Who cares?

He's evil. He's just evil. He's the bad guy. I mean, and this all ties into my secondary major problem, which I think you're about to get to. So I'll hold off. I don't know. We'll see. I'm about to truth.

Not enough werewolves. Yeah, there's just one. It's just the one wherewolf. So I'm going to introduce our main character. That's right. One of our two main characters, this is when we hear about Gray Alice, the legend of Grey Alice that a witch emerged from Lost Lands one day. It's Mia Jovovovich.

And she's about to be hanged for divining the church. There's a character called the Enforcer. who's like a tough lady church enforcer. She's kind of like an evil Joan of Arc. If you're British, the Joan of Arc is evil. But I don't consider her that way. Kind of a shaggy mullet that made her look kind of like Parker Posey to me. You're talking about gray Alice?

No, no. Gray Alice does. She does have a cool gray mullet and she's got some face tattoos. And she's got face and like chest bone tattoos, like over her clavicles. Sternum. There's sternum, thank you. Her sterno that she uses to cook at her hobo. campfire.

So, Grey Alice, yeah, she's a, she's got tattoos on her face. She's going to be hanged for defying the church and selling wishes to the people. As we'll learn, Gray Alice can grant wishes and she cannot deny a request. She must fulfill any request that someone makes of her. Why? That's an intriguing mystery. We will never find out. It doesn't matter.

And so when they make much hay of that either. It's just sort of the inciting, like, like, oh, you have to do what I told you. Like, couldn't it just because she's the queen? I don't know. No, no. It's just kind of useless. Because the smartest thing about the movie is that they're setting her up in a situation where she has to fulfill two conflicting wishes.

That's her drive and the story is. And by the end of it, you realize there's something she wants that conflicts with the wishes she has to fulfill. So if this was a, if the movie was a little bit... These are the glimmers that make me realize it's based on a short story written by somebody who knows how to write short stories. Exactly. I feel the same way about it's where it's like, oh, this is an intriguing premise.

but I have to do these two things, but they conflict. How do I resolve them both? It's the kind of thing that Isaac Asimov's robot stories would do so well, where it's like, here's the rules of robot has to follow. Now, how am I going to make it so that the robot screws up regardless of those rules? Sure. And then Chee McBride has to go blast him with shotguns. The problem with the way...

That's not usually how the Isaac Asimov stories go. Not usually. Just some of them. The problem with the way... I think that's how robot dreams ends with Chief McBride showing them just blasting that robot because he dared to have a dream. Jumping on a sea guard, doing it. But the problem of the way it's handled here is we don't sort of learn any of that until the end of the movies.

So like we don't really get like the full sort of picture of like the conflicting like what what everyone's motivations are. Well, I think it's part. I think we don't really know exactly, but also that we don't, she doesn't seem to care that much throughout. It isn't until the very end that she cares that these are conflicting things. Right. And I think it would be much more effective if we had a sense of that up top and some. thought play out through the movie. You're saying instead of having it as a reveal

that is not satisfying, you would have it as the beginning. We would know this information rather than finding it out the end and being like, okay, sure, fine. So anyway, it might make us care about something. So when we left Grey Alice, who was about to be hanged to death for defying the church, she uses a little bit of witch magic

to escape and gets out of there. Which magic? Oh, the Grey Alice magic. Okay, thank you. Or if she looks at somebody, she like kind of makes them see something that is not really there she can create illusions she's a lord of illusions if you will

starring Scott Bacula who does not appear in the film there's things about that movie that rock guys that's a movie that I was like I had it on my watch list and I started watching it and I was like oh yeah I forgot I watched this movie like three years ago

and then you proceeded to watch the rest of it I feel like there's no there's nothing there's no Clive Barker movie where there isn't one interesting thing in it right There's always one interesting. The movies may not work that well, but there's nothing. I've never watched a Clive Barker thing and be like, well, I'm taking nothing away from this, even if it's just one moment that I like.

So this is Clive Barker's in the Lost Lands. No, it's not. So the she gets free. The church soldiers are hunting her, but she does the old strike from the shadows routine. She's turning the tables on them one by one. And the poor start chanting, the witch that will not hang. The witch that will not hang. Uh-oh.

They can't let her be a flashpoint for rebellion. Meanwhile, we're going to meet our other hero. His name is Boyce. Boyce. And I kept thinking his name was Royce until I turned on the captions. So it's Boyce. He's a Western-style gunslinger, played by one, David Batista. That's right.

He's also got a lot of tattoos, but it's just his normal Dave Batista tattoos. They didn't put falsees on him. Yeah. And he rides into town. A bunch of guys try to ambush him for some reason. He shoots a bunch of them. The only thing that's interesting about him is he has a non-working shotgun that he uses as bait that's guarded by a two-headed snake. I saw a review of this that points out

This movie introduces a two-headed snake And then that two-headed snake gets killed almost immediately It's so disappointing It's like, why do you have something so awesome in this movie And just get it chopped up? Not since Jonah Hex has a snake-based character Been introduced and then discard it so quickly When it's the most interesting thing in the movie

Gray Alice, she visits a blind old lady And they do think The old lady's like, I visited you when I was a child but you sound the same. You must be very old. And Alice is like, older than you realize. And she goes and sits on a throne.

She's visited by Jerez of the Overwatch. Those are the kings, commanders, and some other people. And also the queen of the city. And she wants to buy a wish. She wants to buy the ability to change into a wolf. And Alice is like, I can't refuse anybody. She'll be a shapeshifter, yeah.

Yeah. I'll go get a hunter. I'll steal a shapeshifter's power in the lost lands. I've got six days until the next full moon. an incredibly arbitrary expiration date or deadline. I mean, if it didn't work within six days, just wait until the next full moon. Exactly.

It's got to be like, hey, sorry, you got to wait a month. You know how contractors are. It's going to happen anyway. Oh, this has been a little bit of it. Oh, the part you ordered, the shapeshifter skin, it's on back order. Sorry, it's going to take another month. Really? Yeah, yeah, but we'll get it to you.

Yeah, she's got to go grind some levels so she can kill the sheepshifting. And the queen wants to be a shapeshifter because she's having this affair. We don't know that yet. Yeah, I'm just, yeah, that's not important to my point. I'm just saying that, like, this isn't my other major difficulty with this movie. I mean, like, there's a lot of things wrong, but, like, this really bothered me, which is the whole impetus to this quest is essentially, like, okay, the queen wants to have an affair and she asks a favor of this witch that this witch can't refuse. And she wants, like, a shapeshifter pelt. and it's like, that's not something that I care about as an audience member.

Like, what is my investment that's like, like, like the main, the lead, Grey Alice, like she doesn't even have a reason to care about what the queen has asked other than she has to do it. It feels like, it feels like what you're talking about, Dan, we're like information that would show, in a real movie, you don't have to care the same way the characters do, but you have to know the characters care about it. Like, it's like in a heist movie, I'm not going to see any of that money. if they pull off that heist, it doesn't help me,

but I know the characters want to pull off the heist. It's going to get them out of some situation that they're in that's important. It would have been relatively easy early on to introduce one of two possible things. Either A, stress that like if she doesn't do this for the queen, she will have no protection from the church who are trying to kill her, or B, that her specific curse where she has to fulfill everybody's wishes, that if she tries to resist that, it will cause her. damage or powers will be lost or something.

One of the things that hurts the movie is that we don't know of any consequences if the characters don't do this thing and it's not a fun enough quest like there's a there's a way to do it where it's just you serve me I want you to do this thing. Okay I'll do it like a lot of samurai movies it's just like this is the thing my boss told me so I got to go do it and you just know that it's important for that reason but they kind of don't even do that it's just like everyone's really lackadaisical

about this quest and you don't really, because they want to make it a reveal, they don't tell you why the queen wants to be a shapeshifter until the very end of the movie. And so you're like, I don't know, who cares? I mean, yeah, who wouldn't want to be a werewolf, I guess.

She's like, I've been playing a lot of Werewolf, the Apocalypse, with my friends, and I want to be able to lark. I want to take my game up a notch. I'm tired of, I'm tired of lopping. I want to just, luh, just live action. Did you, did you mention that the Captain of the Overwatch also requests? Well, no, I haven't gotten there yet.

Thank you. So she wants to be that. And then when the queen leaves, a Jerez, the captain of the Overwatch, he says, I have a, I want a wish. Here's my heirloom watch. I'm going to give it to you in exchange for not getting the queen werewolf powers.

And Alice is like, I can't refuse anybody. I'll do it. How is she going to square these two conflicting wishes to make the queen a werewolf and to not make the queen a werewolf? Therein lies a tale. And she does some floaty magic. And she has a vision of a werewolf fighting people. from the werewolves point of view.

The queen, she hates... Is this super cool? No. It is not super cool. It's kind of blurry, buddy. It's, well, what did you guys think? It seems to be like a failed hunt taking place on what the river of skulls.

The river of skulls, which is pretty cool. It looks kind of like how I picture the land of the dead in the island near Althuan in the old world of Warhammer. Oh, I didn't know what world you were talking about. talking about until you ended with Warhammer. I was like, what property is this? In the Lostlands, Stuart kept the key information to the end. That's true, the very end.

What's weird is... I teased Ulthuan, which of course, eagle-eared listeners would know. It's part of the High Elven Realm. That's true. Nineties kids would know that this is Warhammer. The movie waits until the very end to tell you what the motivations of the characters

are. But whenever the characters are traveling to the Lost Lands, there's a big map graphic that you travel along with. where they're going to go which I'm not mad about. But it means that whatever they're encountering is not a surprise. Like, you know, you've seen all these other references.

You've seen kind of like, oh, and they're going to go here and they're going to go here. It seems like we're going to give you all this information. You don't really need to know, but we're not going to give you the information that you need to know. And if that was a deliberate choice that was carried through in an interesting way, I've seen movies like that,

where it's like, I'm going to give you lots of information that is not necessarily relevant, but I'm going to give you just hints of the information that, I mean, to a certain extent, Stuart, you've mentioned Gene Wolfe's books on the podcast before. Like, that's the kind of thing Gene Wolf will do in his novels, where it's like, I'm going to give you a lot of information about this world, but I'm not going to tell you necessarily why characters are doing a thing,

and you're going to have to puzzle it out. When it's done well, it can be really stimulating and challenging and fun. But here it just feels like they didn't know what to tell you or not to tell you. And if you're going to do a thing where you show a map with place names, you should at least once or twice try to subvert expectations based on what that name or image might seem to be. Yes. If they're going to go to Candy Country,

oh, this will be fine. Oh, no, it turns out that's the worst of them, you know. It's called that because that's where the radioactive John Candy Zombie is. And it just devours people. He had such a sad life already from what I understand based on that documentary. And did you watch the documentary? Yeah. Oh, okay.

I thought you were going to say based on what I heard about from that documentary. From the guy. watching the documentary. I had that gas station I went to. Got a lot of stories for some reason. I don't know. You drove up, you're like... I think he lives in the woods.

Just fill it up with regular. Yeah, yeah, you heard about John Candy? Did he something happen with him? Oh, he died years ago, but his life was pretty sad. He was an empathetic guy, but always felt pretty sad about his life. Couldn't come to terms with his body image. You get to where you're going, like, the guy at the gas station, really want to tell me about John Candy. Guy at the gas station, there hasn't been a gas station there in 30 years.

ever since John Candy burned it down. Yeah, they called it the candy crime of the century. So the queen, she hates... That's the side of the old Camp Candy. Wait, John Candy, the inventor of Candy Crush? Don't go to Camp Candy. You know how many children die there? So let's talk for a second.

This is the thing that's bedel me ever since I was a kid. There's the Camp Candy cartoon. I watched it regularly when I was like, there was a Christmas episode of the Camp Candy cartoon and it always confused me because I'm like, but this show takes place during the summer. Like I know it's airing around Christmas, but it takes place during

the summer because it's a summer camp. Why would they have a Christmas episode at a summer camp? Dan, the floor is yours. Tell me what I'm wrong. I want you to know a little bit more about this episode. Were there children at the camp at the time? Yeah, it's called Camp Candy, Dan. It's about kids going to the camp that John Candy runs. No, it's a show about a camp where John Candy is the caretaker and it's during

the off season when it's closed and it's just trimming trees and stuff like that. That sounds pretty good. That sounds like the holdovers. It's possible that like there's an episode where it's like it's snowing, only the caretakers are there. You know, this is what I'm asking you. I don't like it. The kids are there.

There's a part where a kid like. Is it snowing with the kids there? No, no. He has like a pillowcase full of cotton that he like shakes out to make it feel like snow. And it's just like why they'll have Christmas in December. Why you got to do Christmas in summer camp? Is it like Christmas in July? Is it like trying to do a, salute your shorts or whatever?

It was like a cartoon version of Salute Your Shorts, yeah. I think it predated Slute Your Shorts. So Salute Your Shorts was an adaptation of Camp Candy. Okay. Which was itself. What about Hey Dude? Where does Hey Dude fall in the cosmology? Hey, dude.

I've to assume Hey, dude, and salute your shorts happen in the same universe, but probably different parts of the country and with different characters. Like California dreams and say by the bell. Yeah, but they would meet each other at least once, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think it would go a little like this. Yeah, in the crossover event crisis on Infinite Californians. That was a time when it was just enough

that something was set in California, that it was exciting enough to put it on television as part of the TNBC Saturday morning lineup. What a time. What a time. California had yet to lose its gloss. Anyway, the queen, she hates having to deal with the overlord who's an incontinent old man.

She has a lover. Her lover is Boyce, Dave Batista, and the watch tries to arrest him, the Overwatch, but he beats him up. How do you think they met? It's a good question. It's like a rough and tumble cowpoke guy. How do you meet the question?

Queen. I mean, either she was slumming at the one tavern that we see him at or... She had some sort of Roman holiday situation. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That Roman holiday, Christmas. Why you got to have Christmas in the middle of the summer? I don't understand. It's weird that the Romans would invent a holiday based on a dude they smoked.

Yeah. I mean, Rome's relationship with Christmas has changed quite a bit since they smoked him. There's a little guy named Constantine. I think you need to learn about Stuart. Not John Constantine, the Hellblazer. No, no, no. Okay, because I know a lot about that guy. He's a wily one.

I wouldn't trust him to watch my house. Yeah. So Alice, she goes to find a hunter who can take her to find a werewolf. She finds Dave Bates at a bar. She beats him at cards. And she wants to hide. She uses magic, right? That's got to be the car.

She doesn't even look at her hand. No, she doesn't even look at the car. She wants to hire him and he's like, I don't know, I think you're too soft for the lost lands. I'm like, didn't we just have a whole intro about how she came out of the lost lands? Like, why are we bothering with this? It's a, they're setting up a, like a lady in the tramp type situation or a Roman holiday or situation, I think, where there's the, there's the rugged, kind of like tough guy. And then there's the, like, magic woman who isn't ready for the world that she has to go into. But she's clearly been there a bunch of times before.

Like, it doesn't make any sense. She's really good at battling, guys. Like, no question. She has these two sickle blades. She's got her silver talon finger covers that she puts on, her claws. Like the idea, I don't understand why they're going with the, where he's like, you're too soft for the lost lands. And she plays into that for some reason to most of the movie.

And I was, there's the point where I felt like the movie kept restarting and re-explaining itself, where she's like, I got to go in the lost lands and find a werewolf. I need a hunter to do it. I'm like, yeah, I would just saw you say all this to another character. Like, I got it. He tells her he knows of a werewolf named Sardor, the Great Wolf, A shape shift who lives at Skull River You got, look, Sardor, great name for a band

Skull River, great name for a blues brand, you know Great Wolf is a great name for like a 70s kind of Not quite metal like heavy rock band You know. I was thinking earlier, silver talon fingers is a pretty good name for a fancy character Yeah Boyce agrees to join Grey Alice But then the church soldiers come in

They kill Boyce's snake. Oh no, now he's got a motivation to hate the church. and he and Alice, Grey Alice escape. Meanwhile, the patriarch, the church leader. You kind of like that later on he's looking at other snakes

trying to find a snake that's as good as his others. That's true. I did like that. Shopping for snakes. And that's another, they kind of forget it part way through, but I wish that he,

the whole thing, time, he was just mourning that snake and talking about what a great snake it was. Like, that's a fun character thing. Yeah, like, if they would, later on, he'd like see a snake and he'd like be staring off wistfully,

like, they're just not the same. Or if he gets in a fight and he's at a dissoning, She's like, wish I had my snake right about now. All good stuff. Yeah, exactly. The church leader, the patriarch, he gives a speech about how important the church is. Yeah, he reaches for his snake holster and it's empty and he's like, oh, man.

Yeah, exactly. The church tells people they have to hunt the church's enemies. Gray Alice needs to die. This is one of those things where the church is so incredibly, obviously evil that you wonder why anyone listens to it. But again, we live in a world where a mad king is sending his masked soldiers to beat the shit out of and kill normal people for no reason. So I guess that's, and the Democrats just throw up their hands to go, this is concerning. So I guess maybe this church is more realistic than I thought it was.

I was going to say, I used to salute my shorts, but these days my shorts have been doing some stuff I don't agree with. These days my shorts are saluting me. Is that when Ronnie Dangerfield fucking hosted this. the Nickelodeon kids choice warrants. I don't know if it's a yakov-Smirnov joke or if it's like a really ineffective way to say that you have a boner. Like, I don't know what it would mean.

Actually, Rodney Dangerfield should have hosted the kids' choice, because then they slime them and he can say, I get no respect. I got to get my doctor of any boobots. Get the slime out of my ears. Get the slime off of me, yeah. And now the star of Rover Dangerfield, Rodney Dangerfield.

Oh, I'll tell you. Oh, kids' choice awards. I didn't get to choose things when I was a kid. What else would he say? Oh, what a great. Okay, that's a good routine for us to do at some point. I asked for shredded wheat. My dad got me some wheat and told me to go nuts myself.

I don't know. Just why I wasn't Rodney Dangerfield's writer. No, it's one of a few reasons why you weren't Rodney Dangerfield's writer. Also, you were a child. Yeah. I applied, though. Yeah, you got to, if you don't try, miss 100% of the shots you don't take, you know.

I applied and I met with him. It's like, what am I back at the kid's choice award? Let me tell you, this joke you wrote about me and my wife having sex, it seems to imply that I think that if you kiss, a baby comes out of the woman's mouth. Yeah, that's what happens, right? Right, Mr. Dangerfield? Oh, get out of here, kid.

You seem to think that sex is just touching butts together. Dan, is that your origin story? Is that where it all began? And then you saw that. movie you and me and everyone we know and you were like finally a movie gets me. Back and forth forever. Back and forth forever. Anyway, so the church

is like, Grey Alice needs to die. They torture that old lady from earlier. And she says, I saw the queen go to the witch. The church wants to use Grey Alice to take down the queen. If they can have Gray Alice testify that she was working with the queen, that would mean the queen is a her her her her hero's camp out. Outside the city,

our hero's camp out. Boyce is looking for a replacement for his snake. Alice fixes his gun. And for a moment, Alice thinks he's a attacking her, but he's actually saving her from a scorpion. They go to a trading post. They see these characters Ross and Mara, who are friends of Boyce, boys sleeps with Mara. And he kind of tells his backstory, but then kind of jokes that it isn't his backstory.

So a couple things here. One, I love a universe where Dave Batista is like a number one ladies man. Two thumbs up to that idea. Like Stuber. In Stuber, that's what he's like, right? I haven't seen it, right? Stuber, your favorite movie, Daniel, or his second favorite movie? It's certainly my favorite title.

to a reference. Yeah. Okay. So what do you guys think of the chemistry between... That's the movie where... That's the movie where the guy's name...

That's the movie where the guy's name's Stu and he's a tuber, right? Like he grows out of the drug. Now is that the movie... He's a human, Mr. Potato. Was... Was Kamale huge at that point? Or was that a movie that was like,

hey, it's time for you to get huge. That's the joke is that he's like a little guy and Dave Batista's like a big guy who's what, like a spy or something? And so it's like, how on me? I'm a regular person. How do you call up a police? Spy hijinks, yeah.

But then for Eternals, he had to get ripped, yeah. Yeah, okay. And the thing, great thing is he doesn't have to maintain that physique because I don't think they're making Eternals too. I hate to break it to you still. But he loves it. He loves being a big guy, and you know what? I get it, homie.

The, it made for a very interesting performance of Abraham Lincoln in O'Mary, which was, from what I understand, a very historically accurate production. I mean, the thing is, Lincoln, when he was young, was known for his great strength, that was one of the things that impressed people. Split rails. I mean, he was gangly, but he was a much taller, stronger human being than most of the people around him.

And so there was an aspect of physical strength and physical power to him that I think we forget about because we think of him as like a stooped old president who's like, oh, four scored seven years ago, when in fact when he was younger, he was very virile, powerful man, you know.

Yeah, which spawned a franchise of vampire hunting stories, right? Vampire hunting histories. My mistake. So I was going to ask, what do you guys think of the chemistry between long-time Paul W.S. Anderson collaborator, Mia Jovovich and Dave Batista. Yeah. I actually think that I actually kind of like them together, to be honest. I don't see romantic chemistry between them. Which I guess they do kind of lead to that. Yeah. That's exactly where it leads to. But I think, I don't see that, but I do like the idea. There is something about he does a good gruff, kind of like no nonsense guy who has a little, who has a little, who has.

vulnerability underneath him. Who's a softer version of what you would think you would be? And she does a good, like, um, person from another dimension who kind of doesn't, doesn't seem like she belongs on earth in some ways, you know? And that's a, I like, I like that as a mismatch contract. If they were a, I could see them as part of a Dungeons and Dragons, uh, quest party, you know, where like, he's the, he's the fighter and she's the kind of like, um, earth mother goddess, uh, witch or something like that.

and they shouldn't be friends, but they some are friends. They need like one or two more characters to support. I'm going to say that I found, these are actors that I have liked a lot in other things. Like I, these are people that I'm like happy to see in movies, but. Not to interrupt, but Dave Batista is like one of Charlene's favorite actors and she's constantly like begging for Hollywood to, She's like screaming at the heavens, begging for Hollywood to put him in rom-coms.

I feel like Dave Batista, and I could be wrong, maybe he's a terrible guy. What he feels like to me is he is the thing that everyone thought Vin Diesel was, but is, I don't think Vin Diesel really is, which is like a big tough guy who's also kind of like a nice guy. Yeah. I could be wrong about that. Dan, you were saying. No, I just. Anyway, not to interrupt, but Stu, I think what Charlie is looking for. Yeah, Dan, what you say?

I think, I think Batista's sort of like a low-key. actor. No, no, he's not playing Loki. I think he's a good actor. But I think he is like, his energy is not like flamboyant or whatever. And I think that for this part, maybe someone with like sort of a bigger energy would have been better. And Mia Jovovich, I'm almost done. You can interrupt me again in a second.

But I think that Mia Jovovich, like, is actually kind of like good at being goofy. And she is just kind of. There's nothing in this character for that. Like, so she feels kind of restrained in a way that I don't. Yeah, I think that's, I think you, you hit the nail on the head about what kind of the issue is. Yeah. Both of them are playing it kind of serious where like one of them should be a little bit goofy.

They just didn't decide which one. Oh, see, I see, I think they could have been. Or they could have a little kid introduced. I feel like a little kid or like a talking animal, possibly talking two-headed snake. Yeah, possibly. Yeah, yeah. And the heads are always arguing with each other. They don't get along.

And I think, I don't know, because maybe I have a little. was grading it on a curve. I felt like Dave Batista was being a goofier version of this character than he might have been. I feel like that character could be so grim and so like, you don't understand.

I'm a character from the Lost Lands and they're not doing it that way. And I like that he seems like a... Dave Batista is at least playing him like a human being as opposed to a flat character. I think that that's true.

I just think that his natural energy is kind of more restrained. And so like even though he's playing it a little silly, like I would have liked to see someone with a little more like, you know, big energy in it. But that's just me. I think that's just a taste. I think it comes down to a taste thing.

I do think that they are given very little to do. It's the kind of thing where it's like I think that if these two actors in better material, I think could be fun to see together. Yeah. Whereas here they don't, they don't really have much to do. And I think Dave Batista is a little bit better at making use of not much to do than Mia Jovovovich is. But I don't know. I think she's trying to be mysterious, which turns into flat a lot of the time.

Yeah, that's true. But when she pulls off mysterious, like, I want, what I really wanted from this, but this feels like more the writing than the characters. I wanted to, the actors, I wanted a scene where she says some kind of strange, otherworldly magic thing. And he doesn't really understand what she's saying, what he's like, okay, like just kind of has to roll with it or something like that, you know. But more contrast between the characters is what you're saying, is what you guys want.

Please, I'm begging for it. All right. Let's turn up the contrast knob. Oh, now it's too much. Now she's an Italian chef. Oh, we're on spy versus spy territory now. Motion's moving all over the thing. Oh, no.

Hey, guys, I got to ask you something. No, you said it, movie. That's what you said. I recently saw a clip from the new Avatar movie. And I didn't realize that they changed the frame rate in the movie. Why did they do that? Wait, in middle of the movie, the frame rate changes? Back and forth.

It keeps going back and forth between 48. frames and 24 frames. Big sort of actiony or spectacular sequence. They will shift to the 48 frame. And it's because, you know, like these very, like, technology-minded directors like him or Peter Jackson are convinced that this is, like, the world of the future. I, like, with Cameron's, like, really good 3D, it is something interesting to see, but it gave me a fucking...

Like the longer it went on I'm just like, oh God, it's less like I'm watching a movie and more like I'm looking through like a movie-shaped portal to like a weird computer world. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like they finally made a movie

out of reboot. Yeah. Not reboot the recent TV show, revote the old TV show that was set in the computer world. But I found it very confusing. Would it have been crazy if reboot was a reboot of the cartoon reboot?

Reboot was about a writing staff that is trying to reboot the cartoon reboot. Yeah. And voice cast. Yeah. And it's about, but it's about, and the voice cast. But it's about pirates. So now it's called Free Boot. It's called Dasboot.

Okay. So Dasput was a remake of Reboot or was it the other way around? Yeah. Yeah. The answer is yes. I mean, I asked a question with choices and you said, yeah. That was the response. Right.

Anyway, they're at the trading post. They leave there. The next day, our heroes ride off. This is one of the funniest parts to me. As Boy says to Alice, don't expect any more friendly faces from this point on. And literally their next stop is to find a place where's like, where's the guy I know.

I like that guy. But they're chased by the church folk in the armored train. Yeah, that's cool. With a big tank. With a big tank turret on it. The queen of the patriarch have a face off. Who cares?

The church soldiers show up at the trading post and they're like, where boys are? go to and they kill the people there or they kill the man and burn the trading post and it's only three days to the full moon. I should mention that there are literally parts of this where it shows them leaving a place

and it'll say like five days to the full moon and then just see them riding horses and they'll just say four days to the full moon. I kind of like this graphic though of the timepiece graphic in. But it means completely nothing like where they're going or when they're going there. So our heroes ride through a destroyed

city called the Rift. They're going to use a cable car which is an old school bus on a cable across a chasm run by a guy named Cyrus, but Cyrus, this is the part where he's like, he's like, don't expect a friendly face from this point on. Then they show up here and he's like, where's my friend Cyrus? What happened to him? I mean, we don't actually see his face.

It might have been fucked up. It might have been a very grumpy face. I had angry eyebrows tattooed on me. I meant it literally. He has an angry face all the time, but he's actually a sweet guy. I was just talking about his face. the church soldiers are there

and they've tortured Mara, the lady from the trading post, and then the church lady kills her, and then there's a big fight, and they're shooting, shooting, they get on the school bus cable gar, they're going across the rift, and I wanted to ask you guys,

in this scene, they're on a school bus that is suspended across a chasm. Yep. Soldiers keep showing up on the school bus, and they have to keep fighting them. Where are these guys coming from? They just pop up out of nowhere. A lot of them like jumped and grabbed on as it was taken off.

And I think they were like hanging on the bottom and climbed up. But you're right. Yeah, it seems like a lot more started showing up. It's like four guys jumped onto the bus with them, but they fight 30 guys on the bus. And I was like, where, what are they? Were they crawling in the engine? Where's the spawn point for all these enemies? Exactly.

The baddies cut the cable. Which I got to tell you, that would be very hard to do. If this is a cable that is strong enough to hold a fucking thing A school bus? Yeah, hold a school bus aloft. Hitting it with an axe is not going to do shit. Or shooting it with a bullet like a pistol bullet will not do shit. This is when Stu, his real inner dungeon master comes out because it's like everything else he buys completely.

And he's like, he's like, that's going to be a pretty hard role for you to do any damage to that cable with an axe. Yeah, and someone gets a net 20s like, okay, I guess. you found like the one weak spot. There was a little part we were already worn away. So Yeah, I guess you're

your, what's his name? Your long shot and you have to your luck powers again. When are they going to do a long shot movie, Stu? I mean, they're still waiting for an actor to be born with only three fingers. Well, they did that. That's the hard part. They did that one with Charlize Theron and,

yeah, you're right. She plays spiral, right? She would have been a fucking sick spiral. She still could. She would still be an amazing spiral. That's what that movie was called, right? Kevin Feigy, I know you listen to this show. If you're doing a movie with spiral in it,

you've got to have Shirley Sterling Seren and play spiral. Make a spiral movie. I don't care. She's a great character. She's got a helmet with horns, boots with the fur. Everyone's looking at her.

She's got six arms, swords, she dances. She's got everything. So anyway. I bet Mojo can get her some apple bottom jeans. I have to assume so. So that's, I'm always Moving the Mojo of the Mojo verse

His last name is Nixon And they've never addressed it Yeah, it's, it's only on the trading card When you look on the trade card And it says true identity, Mojo Nixon, yeah, exactly Yeah So the Alice and Boyce, they escape They climb to safety on the other side

The bus falls down And the church lady snipes Boyce in the shoulder Oh no! But Alice uses her witch powers To stop her for making the killing shot That night, Boyce takes the bullet out of his shoulder himself and he talks to Alice and voice is like I like the city but I feel more at home

in the lost lands. It's like really you don't seem to. It seems terrible there. Two days to the full moon. Can I jump in here? Because he didn't miss something. He kind of passes out and he needs Alice to stitch up his wound which he uses as an opportunity that we'll later

find out. She used it to poison him. That's true. It seems like nothing at the time which is why I didn't write it down on my notes but it is important later. The queen is pregnant. She taunts the overlord who's comatose old man. It's like, it's not your, you're not the father. Boyce is the father. Then classic Roman

Empress style, she smothers him to death and it's like, oh, the overlord died. I guess my unborn child is now overlord and I'll be the regent and our heroes, they finally get to Shadows Bane, an old nuclear reactor. Uh-oh, the bad guy train is after them because for some reason the train tracks go

through the old nuclear area, I don't know. I'm also having trouble with the name shadows bane. So it's the bane of shadows? Yeah. Like what is the bane of shadows? Light.

Light is, Dan. Okay. Also the creator of shadows. It's kind of an interesting. So is it a really light place then? Well, nuclear energy can be pretty bright. I think this is a good name because the shadows bane would be light that is so powerful that it can kill, right?

And that's essentially what radiation is into someone who is not a scientist. So do you think this, do you think this post- Apocalyptic Supertrain, do you think the tracks already laid down or do you think it's like something like that China Mievel novel where... Dan, don't say, don't pretend you're not totally impressed by the phrase

post-apocalyptic super train. No, that's what I'm saying. But do you think it's like in that China Mieville novel Iron Council where they have the people that live on this train and they have people who ride far ahead and lay new track down and then people who ride far behind

and pick up the old track. So it's constantly like... No, I don't think it's like that. Okay. That'd be pretty cool. That would be cool. That's a pretty cool book. He's got some good ideas that guy.

He's got some good stuff, yeah. Nothing in the movie makes it seem like this is a well-maintained track that is constantly being recreated. A slow way to travel. Yeah, I mean, but it's one way to just be free and not be stuck in new Crobuzon City. I mean, that's the, old Crobuzon is even worse. That's the thing. You should see how bad the old one was. There's a reason there's a new one.

Yeah. So, what I'm saying? they're being chased by this train. They've got to take a dangerous route that forces them to fight off a horde of demon-skeleton people. Yeah, what do you think of these cool guys? I feel like Dave Batisse has got to look to Mia Jovovich for expertise on this because she fights CGI garbage all the time, right?

It's true. I mean, and also she knows these guys. She does. She does. It's most of her career now is fighting CGI garbage. But she also knows these guys personally. And she's using her sickle blades to fight them. And they're pretty cool because they look.

like sickles or she can flip them around with their like punch dagger things, almost like catars. But it's another weird thing where I think it's boys who's like, fire is the only thing that scares anything over here. Doesn't do shit. And it doesn't do that much.

But then she kills the demons. She's like, oh yeah, I know those guys. Those were guys that had me lead them here and then they turned into demons. It's like, so why do we bother having boys giving advice about how to fight these guys? If she not only knows how to fight these guys, but knows these guys.

They know her. Or if there's, yeah. Part of the point is that she is pretending to be naive and he is like giving advice and she's like, actually I don't need your advice. I mean, and if that's what they're doing, which maybe that's what they're doing, then I feel like they've got to do more with it.

Yeah, it is unclear because she seems at all times to be the most powerful person on screen and the most knowledgeable person on screen. Like I don't buy that she needs this guide and we'll find out later on. It turns out at the end that she didn't. But it was a, but it's another. one of the things that, like, would have been more fun to know ahead of time that she is

faking because this guy, but it's also one of those things where it's like, I guess it's because they have to get back to the lair, right? Because you're like, well, at any point, she could, she could just do the thing that she needs to do. And it's got to be during the full moon. Oh, I don't know. There's, there's, there's, it's, it's one of those movies where you're like, afterwards you're like, yeah, I guess that stuff all kind of ties together. But while you're watching it, it feels like they're just making it up as they go along, you know, and not in a fun way. Yeah. And like, at any point, Mia Jovovich's character, can just bust out a sick flip.

Yes. Now, Dave Batista isn't putting this, you know, he's not asked to or required to, but I don't know if he could do a sick flip as quick as you can. I want to ask you something. If you could bust out a sick flip, how often would you do that? At least once a year on my birthday. Oh, I feel like that's all you do. That's a lot of conservation of sick flips.

I feel like your Instagram would just become sick flip after sick flip. That's true, yeah. It would be called Stu Sick Flips. Yeah. I'll have to quickly change my handle. You'd flip and then a graphic would come up that would say, sick. Yeah. Yeah.

My social media manager is Elliot now. Make sure I'm hitting all my SEOs. Yeah, what keywords we put in there to it? So it would be like, sick, feet, ASMR. You got to say flips. You got to put flips like number one in that shit. So it was sick, flips, feet, ASMR, how much worth? wife, like all the stuff that would get you on the search engines.

Yeah. So she's like, oh yeah, I helped those people get to this place and they turned to demons. I've got guilt from all the wishes that I have to fulfill. It's only one day until the full moon. The church guys are still pursuing. The patriarch demands they find the witch so they can depose the king. Our heroes finally get to the fire fields. They're almost at Skull River. And Alice plans to face Sardor alone. And she's like, go, boys, leave me here. And he's like, no, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go. I don't want you to go through with it. You shouldn't have to risk yourself. She shows, rocks at him until he goes away.

I never liked you. Yeah. She goes, I don't have a choice. I'm cursed. And I've got to fill all the wishes. And he's like, I don't care. Meanwhile, the queen and Jerez, they're totally kissing. Jerez the head of the Overwatch. They're totally kissing. Back to our heroes. They're riding their horses along the train tracks. The bad guy train arrives. Sorry, I'm just like, I'm just imagining now, like,

sort of like a completely G-rated porn. called Totally Kissing. Totally kissing. Because if there's anything kids love, from my experience, is watching people kiss. It's certainly not something that they react to with disgust.

Visceral. Visceral verbal disgust. So you're saying it doesn't fall into the category of general audiences. No. No. Now, I got a question here, guys. This is the tactical decision here.

If you know there's a post-phalyptic super train, do you keep following the tracks? Keep following the train tracks. Yeah, that was going to be my question. anticipated it. Yes, exactly. Do you have Grey Alice's

powers of foresight? Yeah, something like that. It's kind of like they're in a, if you were in like a Disney ride that went evil and was starting to kill people, it's kind of like they're just saying

in the car of the Disney ride going faster, faster, instead of getting out and just leaving the ride. They, it's an interesting choice to stay on the same route that is the only one the bad guys can choose.

The bad guys, though, have an interesting choice because what happens is Grey Alice waits for the train, runs a little bit and then the train goes right off a broken track into a into a chasm so it's like so there's two there's a lot of dumbness going on here that the heroes are sticking to the same road that the that's the only road the bad guys can use and that the bad guys just don't seem to know that the road stops at a certain point and they just keep going

yeah also that they're like like they don't realize that she can just leave the train tracks that they're like hey let's just gun it we're going to run her over she has no options there's literally no way that she can do a sick flip in this moment. No. No, it's impossible. She used them all up. She used up her sick flips and she has to do a short rest to get back one or a long rest to get back her full three.

Oh, hell yeah. Now, it is a, there's a thing in improv where they talk about your character, acting at the top of your intelligence, you know, not having a character just be dumb or make dumb decisions or doing stupid things because you think it'll be funny. But still being at the top of your intelligence so that you can get to more interesting or funny or stuff, I feel like all these characters are at the very bottom of their intelligence.

Like they are, at a certain point, it's like, I'm amazed that they can still communicate verbally. They're all acting so stupid. Yeah. So the train follows. Her plan to stop them is just to lead them to where the train was going to go anyway, because that's the only place the track can go and it falls off a cliff. Which means that there's a version of this story where she and boys take another way to get where they're going. The train just keeps going and just rolls off a cliff and they never even see it, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole Raiders's Lost argument. Yeah, that indie is useless in that movie. He doesn't need to be there. Yeah, yeah. He needs to be there to call the government to be like, here's where to pick up that crate. Because otherwise that crate would just be sitting in the desert somewhere.

Until some kid walks over and he's like, oh, sick crate. Whoa! Oh, cool. The coolest thing, a crate. I can fill this with hay so that things don't get broken when they're shipped in it. This is going to be awesome. Dan, what would you do with a craters? with a cool crate if you were a kid.

Oh, boy. Let's just, wait, let's set the scene. It's 1990, let's say. No, maybe 1989. It's still the 80. It's 1989. Young, how old would you have been in 1989? 11, 10?

Wait. 10. 10. No, 11. Okay. I didn't mean to challenge you. You know what, Dan, I didn't know this is going to be as big a challenge as it was. So you're 11 years old.

You're walking through Earl of Illinois. You don't expect something exciting to happen. Earl of Illinois. Yeah, that's his college. That's Arlum Indiana. That's right. You're walking around in it. Was it Eureka? Yorica.

Sorry, Eureka, Illinois. I apologize. Eureka is what gold miners say. Erlem is what Quakers say. Ereka's what Archimedes says when he realizes, like, he's displaced water. That's actually an urban legend. He actually said, Erlum. He jumped out of the tub and said, Erlum and ran through the town naked.

And they said, we should found a college. And that's why Erlum's mascot, as you know, is the fighting naked Archimedes. So you're walking. around Eureka, Illinois, you don't expect much to happen. Suddenly, you see a crate just sitting there for the taking. What are you going to do with it? Well, first I'm going to make sure that Fluffy

from Creepshow is not living in that crate. Smart. Very smart. That's the largest cause of crate-related injuries. I don't know. Maybe I'll just like set up, like, you know, I can't put it in a tree.

Like, I don't have the strength. So I want to have a tree house. But maybe I just have like an adjunct like hang in my backyard. Like, I just like have my own little house of my own. I'm a homeowner. I'm the American dream. Even at 11, I have achieved it.

I mean, that was that, I mean, times were so different back then. Even an 11-year-old could be a homeowner. Now it's beyond the reach of so many adults. So like Diogenes living in a big wine cask, you would just live in a crate on your parents' property, or would you put it somewhere else? I think I would have to be on my parents' property. If I put it somewhere else, they're always the chance I'd be in there,

like, reading comics or whatever. And, you know, like a forklift comes, takes me away. Someone's clearing a crate off their lawn. Yeah, possible. You wouldn't write, like, Dan's crate keep out on the outside? I don't think that's going to stop someone who's angry about me. Yeah, and you're going to be wrapped up in the adventures of Snuffy Smith. Right.

I'm reading one of those Snuffy Smith comic books that they put out. Times were so different back then. In 1989, everybody was reading Snuffy Smith comic books. Yeah. And they were all original. adventures too. It wasn't just three packages of the old comic strip.

Well, of course, he had kinetic powers as well as being a hillbilly. Yeah, it was, fan of graphics was dipping their toe into superhero books and this is their first one. Yeah, I think,

but Dan would have, he would have read the next iteration of Snuffy Smith, which was a penthouse comics release. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, there were just repackaging old Tijuana Bibles. Old Tijuana Bibles.

Is that the religion you found, Dan? Not a story where Dan is in a hotel and he's had a rough day. He opens up the drawer and there's a Tijuana Bible inside and that's what sets him on his path of being a cartoon-based perv. I saw the light that day.

The light that Blondie from the Blondie comic strip could take on two guys at once. Left there by perverse missionaries going to spread the word. I mean that's, yeah, the hobos leaving porn by railroad stations

was kind of a, yeah, it makes sense. Well, that was a public service they were providing for the federal government. In exchange for immunity for all their pie theft. That was the deal that the hobo union made with the government. Now we're slowly encroaching onto John Hodgman territory if it's hobos making a deal with the government. So let's move back to In the Lost Lands.

So they have defeated the church soldiers. The Overwatch kills all the church people and the patriarchs. The queen is moving against the church. Our heroes get to Skull River finally. Skull River, wider than a mile. my Huckleberry friend, Skull River. And me, or is it end you? I don't remember the words of the song.

Boyce is still trying to get Alice to turn back. The queen is waiting for the witch. Jerez is like, hey, do you really have to be a werewolf? And the queen's like, yeah, I do want to be a werewolf. Alice puts on her silver kind of talon claw rings. Those are super cool. And Boyce is like, silver is useless against Sardor. And Alice is like, he's basically saying the trick is,

after you put on all your jewelry, you need to take one off. So you don't think that's right. To answerize. Take off one of those silver claw talons. Boy's just like, you know what Sardor really loves if you smear yourself with meat? That's what really helps to beat him. You know what really hurt Sardor is if you just left sausages around and then went home. Yeah.

He would hate that. If you buried that silver deep below the ground. Sardor actually loves silver. He loves it. So if you want to attack him, you want to attack him with like, I don't know, like a small child, like a small child that you've already put barbecue sauce on? Yeah. He would hate it if you just pickle brined yourself

and then took a really long nap. You know what? Sardor hates it when his opponents are full of Nike will. He just hates it. It's his weakness. Yeah. So it's raining. There's a full moon. And Alice declares that Boyce lied.

She knows there is no Sardor. He's the real werewolf. And she unleashes her silver claw talons. And Boyce is like, I tried to warn you, which he didn't really. And he turns into a wolf. man and they fight for a little while. Real quick. What do you guys think of these werewolf effects?

They could be worse, but they could be better. Interesting. Can you give me a sight and example of worse werewolf effects? An American werewolf in Paris? Okay. Yeah. That's fair.

This is kind of a Van Helsing-esque werewolf, I would say? Yeah, okay. Yeah. It's less wolf and more a furry man with kind of like a snubby wolf face, you know. But like big muscular, like, torso wolf.

But when it's Dave Batista turning into a wolf man, like where's the mask going to go, Dan? Let's talk about this is a movie that is... Not arguing. This is a movie that is so based on real science. That's the thing I like about it. If he turned into a skinny whirlwolf, you'd like, what happened to all that mass?

He's a big guy. He can't do that. Well, maybe it's just being more compact. Oh, yeah. He's got compact wolf muscles now. Oh, I see. Like a runner or a swimmer. Powerful.

But again, he's a big bodybuilder. If I turn into a werewolf, Yeah, stringy, kind of not in great shape, werewolf. If Dave Batista turns to a werewolf, that werewolf's going to be stacked, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's true. Totally juiced.

It totally juiced. And that juice, werewolf blood. She uses her witch powers to make herself look into a big raven and she fights him and he falls down. He falls down. I mean, that's like, does he summary?

Does he or does he not fall down? No, I guess he does he float up in the air? No, is he swimming away? No. he turns back into a human and she's tending to his wounds because like the moon is covered right he's very moon dependent

the cloud goes over the moon so he changes back and she's like and they agree that they are two of a kind this is one of those moments where I'm like no you didn't earn this the idea that like their kindred spirits that's the opposite of what this movie has been telling us uh boys wakes up to find Alice has chained him up

she's uh been she used her magic or whatever but also we find out as Stuart mentioned when she was sewing up his wound she put like a silver coin in his body. And so the silver in his blood now and that is poisoning him. And he's like, I'm making a wish. I wish that we could be together.

Don't you have to fulfill every wish? And she's like, I can refuse no one. And the moon comes out and he turns into a werewolf and she skins him alive as he roars, which is pretty dope. That's pretty gruesome. It's like the movie The Black Cat when Bell Lugosi is ostensibly the hero of the movie

until he's like, well, I've got you, Boris Karloff, and I'm going to skin you alive, and you're like, well, that's not the kind of thing a hero does. No, thank you. Although the funny thing in that movie is, you see him doing it in silhouette

and his knife movements are so small that it's like he's really taking his time with it. He's just chipping away to skin. Great movie, though. Black Cat doesn't make any sense, but it's a great movie.

The next day, she has buried him. She rides back with his pelts. He's like a little cairn, right? He's got a cool little cairn. Because she didn't want to dig super deep. She didn't have all the tools for that. She doesn't have a shovel.

Well, she's going to dig with those little Talons? Yeah. She's gonna get them all messed up. Silver Claus. It's Christmas time in the Lostlands. Hear them ring. Kill Sardor.

But it was really boys all the time. Silver Clause, of course, not based on Silver Claw, the former member of the Avengers from the Marvel Comics. Do you think it would have been better if Sardor had instead been like a mixed- up for Boyce, like, if his name, if its name had been like... It's backwards. His name was like Ekiab.

Oh, Boyce backwards is Ekiab, of course. Yeah, yeah, where what happened is he, like, wrote his name down. It was like, Boyce Plus, you know... Millbug. And then she saw it in a mirror. She saw it in a mirror, yeah. Oh, no. And the person Scylla is really me.

So, uh, she goes back. while she's writing about the workers see her in the city and they're like the witch who would not hang the witch and just the sight of her leads them to rebel against the overlord and do an amazing job of it it turns out that if the workers had ever bothered to rebel they would overthrow the government almost instantly I think it's a pretty important message these days actually that's true it is an important well it's a message that

to be honest for all that turmoil I feel like we are beginning to live through which is really exciting that people are in as terrifying as it must be live in Minnesota right now, that the people there are like, no, we're not going to back down. And all it, what it takes is us just kind of like making it known how this is not okay and it hasn't stopped it yet, but it does make it, it does make it more difficult and it will eventually lead to it stopping it. So that's really exciting, you know, anyway, I don't mean to get political with you guys. Sorry. I know that. It's the movie. You're allowed. Yeah. The movie brought it out in the Lost Lands is what will radicalize us all. And this is, this is normally, long-time

Flop House listeners will know, this is normally when Dan and Stu would start projecting on, sorry, Stu and me would start projecting on Dan. Hard right-wing support for what the government is doing, but we're not doing that anymore. That joke is dead. We're not doing that joke anymore. Thank you. It's, Dan, it is too much. It would have been pretty hilarious.

It would have been so funny. And Dan would have gotten so mad and his anger at it would have been so funny. He would gotten so upset. And we would have laughed and laughed and laughed. I'm like the Bob O' Kirk of podcasting. Exactly. But we have crossed the Rubicon on that. It's no longer funny to project Heart Right ideals on Dan that he doesn't have.

Don't worry. We'll find it. Just earlier this episode when we kept interrupting him, you should have seen his face. He was getting pissed and it was hilarious. Yeah, he looked like a real tomato over here. Tomatoes. Yeah, I was like the attack of the killer Dan Matos? What's going on here? Are termators the most angry thing?

Yeah, because they're all red. Oh, I got it. He was talking about toomater, the character Mater from the Cars universe. Yeah. Like, Dan was turning into a hillbilly pickup toe truck. He's so mad. He's so mad. My job.

And where are they attached the fucking toe hook between his teeth? Oh, boy, yeah. It's already got a big gap there. Yeah. No, I mean, the toe hook is in the back because it's a tow truck. Oh, no, his is. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's the equivalent of if you took a knife and just stabbed it into someone's throat. That's what he's doing with the toe hook. Yeah. Okay. Disgusting. So anyway. So Alice gives Boyce's pelt to Jariah, and she's like, I killed Boyce, so I fulfilled your wish.

I knew what you really wanted was that the queen would not be in love with Boyce, but with you. So I fulfilled the queen's wish, here's the pelt. I fulfilled your wish by what you really wanted by killing Boyce. And now you can have the queen. But the queen is so distraught at Boyce's death, which Geria really shouldn't have told her about, that she goes, you did this and kills him. So the workers storm the castle, sunlight hits the belt

and it burns away into sparks which fly back to Boyce's grave which starts shaking oh what is this the end of the League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie? Yeah. Now Alice wakes up in her throne room and Boyce is returning

with his gun and now we're... And a tail. Did he have a tale? Well, like a story, yeah. I thought you meant a tale like at the end of Teen Wolf 2 when the teacher walks away and she's got a wolf tail. Yeah. That's a lot like that.

That's what happens to the end of Teen Wolf 2? Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I've never seen it. Teen Wolf 2, there's that one teacher who's like back off from that student or whatever. And when she walks away, she's got a wolf tail and it's like, oh, she's a wolf also. Maybe I'm misremembering it.

I saw it three once, I think, when I was like seven. So how old was I went Teen Wolf to the teacher? I didn't want to sully the immaculate memory of Teen Wolf by watching an inferior sequel. So I didn't... I mean, it's fun of those things where you watch Teen Wolf and you're like, this is a dumb movie. And you watch Teen Wolf 2 and you're like,

oh, this is a shitty movie. They somehow took a movie that was stupid and made it even dumber. They couldn't even spell the number two. They spelled it T-O-O. Well, because it's not the same Teen Wolf. It's a Teen Wolf as well. That's true. Teen Wolf comma also.

Yeah. He boxes? That's what he does in that one instead of basketball. Yeah, he has a boxing match. Yeah, yeah. And there's a big musical number where he's lip-sinking to Do You Love Me, I think? Which I feel like was in the 1980s, Maybe I'm misremembering this.

I feel like it was just the age of our parents, I guess, that do you love me was this one song that, or Land of a Thousand Dance, whatever it's called, you know, whatever that song is called. That was the song that would show up. Yeah, now that I can dance. It was that, that was the song that would show up in movies to show that someone was like a cool rockin dude.

Even as a kid, I was like, what is this old person music doing? Like, this guy's supposed to be a college student. Why is he dancing to this song? That's true. It's an oldie, but I like that one a lot. do you love me? Oh, I think it's just called Do You Love Me?

I'm thinking of a different song. The Land of A Thousand Dances is the one's like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Oh, you're right, you're right. I got them mixed up because they're both talking about different dances, right? Yeah, that's one of the mashed potato. They both mention the mashed potato.

Yeah, that's what you love me. Like, can you do the twist? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it is a fun song, but it's like, he would be dancing like a Queenstrike song, probably, right? Yeah, yeah, some fucking Prague metal. Yeah.

He's like, I'm rocking out to silent lucidity. Dad, do you think silent lucidity is the song you'd be rocking out to you or something off of Operation Mind Crime? Silent lucidity. No, it would be off of Operation Mind Crime. Yeah. So your, like, facial expressions are really lucid. Is that what that's?

Silent lucidity. Yeah, I think the idea. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what that means. Yeah, I think it's about lucid dreaming, but I'm not sure. I'd have to check the lyric sheet. Well, yeah, we'll have to check the record, the archives, for that one. Going back to the court test. I'll let me text Jeff Tate

real quick. Okay. Anyway, we've got 45 seconds left in the movie, I think, and I'm the one who's wasting time. Boyce is there. He's got a tale T-A-L-E. In that he is like, he's, so we find out this whole movie is what he's been telling to Gray Alice before he kills her for skinning

him alive, and she reveals, I knew what was going to happen, I planned all this, so that it would cause a revolution, and you would live, because I knew that you would live magic, you would survive this. Maybe she used her magic same. I don't know. And now they can be, it looks like they're about to fight each other, but

they actually kind of love each other. So they ride off into the sunset on their horses to have more adventures as the legendary heroes, Boyce and Gray Alice. Stay tuned for in the Lost Land T-O-O-O. Yeah. And then, because there's more Lost Lands.

There's a bunch of bloops where Dave Batista hits Medeiović with his hat. No, there were no bloops. I wish There were no bloops. You know. Actually, the sequel be called... Dancing, dancing together.

In a wolf. This ended with like the whole cast dancing together to... Now that I can dance or something, I'd be like, forget it in the Lost Lands. And the sequel should be called in the Lost Lands, Colon, Lost Lands Found. That should be the name of the sequel. But there will be no sequel. Guys. So, Final Judgments.

Final Judgments. Final Judgments. Good bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked. Yeah. Um... This is a bad, bad movie for me. I went into it with a certain amount of like, oh, maybe this will be fun. Maybe this will be fun trash.

I like these people, you know, it'll be silly or whatever. And I just got so bored by, like, I just wasn't able to follow a lot of the sort of like ins and outs of it because I didn't, not because I didn't have the brain power, but because the movie didn't give me. Well, we don't know that. Well, maybe it's... But because the movie didn't give me, like, reason enough to care to, like, really work at it. You know, like, there was... I texted you guys, I think that, like, it's rare that I, like, care less about why a movie is happening. And that was the big problem.

So, I... Bad, bad for me. Yeah, I'll probably... I'll throw this kind of... This is a bad, bad movie that, like, occasionally has moments that I feel like are good, bad. But, yeah, it's, like, it's a mess. It doesn't quite scratch the itch of the, like, direct-to-video adventures that I have affection for. I feel like there's too much emphasis put on action sequences that aren't particularly interesting.

And, yeah, it's just not a lot of fun. Not enough juice here. Yeah, I would call this, I would also call it Bad Bad. I feel like it is, I find it inoffensive in certain ways because it's just kind of like, junk. But it feels very half-assed to me. Like there's a half-assness about like, this is good enough. This is fine. Like, this is enough story, whatever. Like,

this is enough character development, whatever. This is enough. Like, this fight, it's fine. Like, there's no, it doesn't feel like anyone was too excited by what they were doing. And as a result, it all kind of feels very generic to me. Like, if you told me, oh, yeah, this is a bunch of cut scenes from a video game,

I'd be like, yeah, I guess so. That makes sense. But it's half-ass in such a weird way where they're, like, constantly throwing a bunch of shit at the wall. And even though the visuals are like gray in that digital way, like they'll be like cool looking stuff. Like there's all this stuff, but they don't. I mean, it's what happens when it's what. I mean, the people making the movie clearly have it in them to make a better movie than this.

I think that's what it comes. So like, and that comes through. And I think that's the disappointing thing about it. If you were watching something where you're like, they try their best and they came up with junk, but you know that everyone in this from from the director on down is capable of better. So I guess this is a real see-me after class. Yeah. I have two things I want to bring up before we go

from the IMDB trivia section about in the Lost Lands. It mentions that George R.R. Martin intended there to be a series of stories sent around Grey Alice, which he would release in a single volume. It says for various reasons he never came around to finish any more stories.

Seems very out of the ordinary for George R. Martin to have a big plan and then not complete it. Watch yourself, counselor. And the other is, apparently this movie was stuck in development for so long at one point, you know, who was offered the role of voice.

Nicholas Cage? Would that have changed your feelings about the movie? 100%. Yeah. Can you imagine Nicholas Cage in this movie would make it much more fun? He would do some, he'd make some out of the ordinary, like you'd never think of it character choice

and it would change things around. Because he would have telegraphed that he's a werewolf from scene one. Yes, that's true. And then instead of a digital Nicholas Cage werewolf, he would have been like, I insist on being the werewolf. He'd be like, I need you to put fur on me. I'm going to do it.

I want to do it the same way they would have done it in the 30s. Make me a Lon Cheney Jr. Wolfman. Yeah, it would be great. Sleep is important, but it's difficult sometimes. I'm John Moe. On sleeping with celebrities, famous people help conch you out by talking in soothing voices about unimportant things. Maria Bamford on parking.

I parked in a bus stop. That's just not right. I am not a bus. Roxanne Gay on airports. My favorite airport is Indianapolis. It has a really smart layout. Alan Tudik on yardsticks. You hand somebody a yardstick.

Yard sticks become part of the family. Granted, it's a weird idea, but it's lots of fun, and it works. Listen, wherever you get podcasts. Hey, it's Sue the subway train. Hey, guess what, Sue? I just inherited a game show and I have to continue it because there are people out there who like to curl

up into a ball and listen to it. Yeah, it's a podcast where listeners submit game show ideas for others to play on air. Well, it is. In fact, the dumber the better. Right, right, it's called Dr. Game Show. Some curled up balls consider it a tradition

while others call it a train wreck. No, not you, Sue. It's Dr. Game Show. If you're the sort that likes to listen to people competing for refrigerator magnets, then curl up into a ball and listen to Dr. Gameshow. Every other Wednesday, maximum fun.org. Hello, all you beautiful people. We have a couple of sponsors for the show. The first is soul wellness.

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and when you're ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You should do it. That sounds great. Something that you should have done was come to see us at San Francisco Sketchfest at Cobbs Comedy Club. But that happened already. We missed you. If you were there, thank you so much for being there. We had a great time. It was super fun. If you weren't there, then we missed you. You should have come. Maybe next time. It'll be great. But there's still a chance. You've still got one. last chance to see our sweet little faces giving you comedy talking about a movie. Or a big face in my case. But I mean it's smaller than like a pumpkin. What size pumpkin?

That's a very good question. That's a very good question. Let's we'll get our pumpkin guy on it. There's still one last chance for you to see our variously sized faces talking about a movie and that is the last episode of flop TV for season three of flop TV. It is the first Saturday in February, February 7th coming up soon, I think about a week away as of the release of this episode. So go to theflophouse.symptychs.com and you can get a ticket to see us talk about Plan 9 from Outer Space. We had a lot of fun on FlopTV this season as we did Flopsterpiece Theater, going back through the decades to do bad movies from each decades from the thousands, now going back

to the 1950s. And if you didn't get to see the episodes, you can still buy tickets. Just go to theflophouse.symptitx.com. buy a season pass bundle. Why not? Six episodes for the cost of five. And you'll have access to the recordings of those episodes until the end of February when they will all go back to the Flop House Vault.

Are you guys excited about this Plan 9 from Outer Space Show? I can't wait. I am very excited. It's actually been quite some time since I've seen Plan 9. So I look forward to revisiting. Real quick, guys, I was watching Rupal's Drag Race last night and they had a bit called Master Kweef Theater.

Is it too late for us to change Flops? Piece Theater to Flopsterqueath Theater. I think it is unfortunately too late. All the graphics are already baked in. But keep it in mind for next season. Get you to us next season. Plan 9 from outer space. I'm super excited about it.

It is the granddaddy of the bad movies as fun thing to watch. Hobby slash business slash genre. And we've never talked about it on the show. I'm super excited about it. It is the rare case of a bad movie that led to the creation of a very good movie in the case of eventually inspiring Ed Wood. And so I'm excited to talk about it. So that is the first Saturday in February, February 7th, 2026 this year.

Season finale, flop TV, season three. Don't miss it. Go to theflophouse.com for tickets. And now let's move on to the thing that I thought we were doing next before. And that's why it took so long to start. Okay, Grandpa. Doing our sponsor stuff. Is it supper time?

No, no, Grandpa, Dan. It's not Super Time. It's not Super Time. It's time for letters from listeners. Is it supper? Supper. Supper, supper, supper. No, it's not time to put on

your good man, Charlie Brown, Grandby Dan. It's just not time for that. Hey, these are letters from listeners. This is the first one. It's from Lee last name withheld. Who writes? Lee Remick.

Elliot's story about his son watching Detective Pikachu and being shocked that a good guy turned out to be a bad guy reminded me of being a kid watching The Music Man. In the beginning, when all the salesmen on the train are talking shit about Harold Hill, and then he takes down his suitcase and it's got his name on it, and he's Harold Hill? Yeah, what a great moment. There's never been a bigger twist in a movie for me, and it's not really even a twist. I thought it was a bit much for him to say, see ya, fuckface, and then jump off the train.

Had they get away with it back then? Yeah, it's crazy. Do you have any similar stories of seeing a plot beat for the first time and having it hit you in a way? It only can if you've never seen it before. Thanks for the laughs. Lee last name withheld. This is a tough one. I don't know that there's like a good thought, but I just love that story.

Yeah. I mean. Holy shit. Professor Harold Hill? He's been there the whole time. I mean, I like the guy in Saw. I feel like usual suspects, the end of usual suspects, was such a very, like, specific, like, you know, like,

you know, unreliable narrator moment in a film that I don't feel like I'd experienced on that level before. And it, like, it was one of those huge twist moments where you're like, you could do this in a movie? Yeah. Even as a kid, I mean, I wasn't a kid. I was, you know, younger. Even when I saw usual suspects.

Younger than a kid with like a baby? Younger than I am now. Even when I saw you as real suspects at the time, I was mad at that because I'm like, well, yeah, you can make anything a twist if it's just the guy's been lying to you the whole time and the movie that you saw was a big lie. But I hate to break it to you, Dan.

That movie was already a big lie. It never happened. I know, but you're like, there are rules that you play within the context of fiction, I feel like. My mind wasn't blown by the idea of like, oh, so he just told a story to this guy. Yeah, I mean, I'm not making necessarily a quality judgment. I'm saying that like, a movie had the audacity to be like, okay, well, this was a whole lot.

I'm litigating the usual suspects. Because to me, like, that was a one that was popular. But I'm like, yeah, it's essentially like, oh, it's all a dream, which we all hate. So why are you okay with this? Except the first time that I, to be honest, the first time I saw the, oh, it was all a dream, it was like, oh, that's really, I'd never seen that for it. really cool. Like the, I think it, I think the exciting thing about it was that for so many of us, it was the first time that the movie was telling us, don't trust what you see in the movie.

Just because you're seeing it doesn't mean that it actually happened the way that this character is saying, which I think it is cool. I'm trying to think, I think the first, I can't remember, I'm trying to remember the first time that I saw a movie where it became clear that one, that two characters were the same character and were played by the same actor, but, but were, but in makeup. And I'm trying to remember which of the, like, when that first hit me. Because that's, that's something that, I mean, the biggest thing... Lucas Guadigino Susperia. Yeah, that was very recent.

That was the first one. But this is not a... I guess not a plot beat thing. I've talked before about seeing Gremlins, too. And similarly, like, when they break the movie and the Gremlins are doing shadow puppets, it's not a plot beat necessarily, but it's like, just a thing of

like, I didn't know you could do that in a movie. Like, you could just break the movie that the characters are in, but we're still in the movie. And so, and that hit me so hard. It was such a... And you went on to write... ...deadpool. Yep.

Exactly. But I... It's funny that the thing... I can't remember one that hits me as hard as... As my son watching Detective Pikachu and being like him, he was the bad guy,

but he's been helping them all this time. Yeah. It was like one day and when you were watching Minority Report and you found out Max on Side I was the bad guy. Yeah. That guy? Yeah.

When you're watching... When you're watching Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy and you were like, really? The one big name in the cat? is going to turn out to me the bad guy? They're all big names. Timothy Spall? Toby Jones was, I remember seeing it

and I'm like, well, you have one huge star. You have Toby Jones, who's well known, but not like a, he couldn't open a movie. And then you've got a bunch of actors that I've seen in other things, but it's clearly going to be Colin Firth. He's the big name. You know, I think I might have confused Toby Jones and Timothy Spall.

I mean... But I will say it's the thing that I saw a Wake Me Dead Man or whatever it is, wake up dead man. The new knives go. Yeah, wake me dead man. Wake me dead man. And I will say that...

Ellie, stop using a dead man. It's your alarm clock. It's not reliable. I rigged it so that at 6 a.m. He falls on top of me. You better believe it wakes me up. I feel like Hellboy has one of those, right? It probably, yeah, it's a zombie

that wakes him up. But watching that, there were times when I was like, there's a few too many famous people in this movie. But at the same time, it's all those movies. It removes that. I mean, it's all them. It removes that element of, well, you know who it's going to be.

Because if they're all famous, then you don't, you can't say, clearly this is the person they're paying the most money. So they're going to turn out to be important to the plot. Also, a few, two-minute many famous people. Like, to me, that's one of the best things about those movies is bringing back the idea of, like, here's a star-studded mystery, you know. I think the issue I have is less that it's too many famous people and more that with the second and third movies, I have a lot of trouble believing that those characters

actually have relationships with each other. Like, in the second one, I'm like, there's no way these characters. were ever friends with each other and now like that they they get before they became rich or whatever and then the third one I had trouble believing that those characters were all like members of this church but once I get over that yeah fun movies they're really well done you know anyway actually I really actually really liked that new one a lot yeah recommended it's good that's good that's why I watched it because you recommended it anyway for me I guess it was I don't know the first time I saw above in a movie I was like we can do that

that's a loud it was when your parents showed you cheeky I think honestly, it probably would have been like Splash. I don't even think Dan's parents know that Cheeky exists. Yeah. Yes. So you watch Splash before they added that extra CGI hair. The extra hair to protect us from buttocks. Yeah, yeah.

It would be like if you gave like one of the, you know, the pilgrim, if you gave a pilgrim taste of Sri Racha, their head would explode is what would happen if Dan's parents learned in Cheeky's existence. I like to believe that when they added that extra CGI hair and splash, it was a case of like George Lucas being like, well, I had always intended for the mermaid to have a furry butt, but we didn't have the right makeup effects at the time. So now using computers, I can finally bring my dreams to life. Yeah, he broke into Ron Howard's.

Ron Howard was like, well, we always intended for mermaids to have hairy butts. Here's a second letter. It's from Jonathan the last name withheld who writes. Taylor Thomas. As a longtime Daniel M. Pinkwater fan, I was extremely happy to hear Elliot mention his fond. for lizard music in the Smurfs episode. Meanwhile, having recently tried and failed to describe the book of Pinkwater's

Alan Mendelsohn, Alan Mendelsohn, the boy from Mars to my wife, I'm compelled to wonder, do any or all of you have something that you love and have been completely unable to convince anyone else is great? I think that's Stuart's life story. Yeah, I mean, a big part of my life is being enthusiastic about things that I try and get the people closest to me to give a shit about. And you know what?

Doesn't work. Well, that's what I'm going to say. I think I've learned the lesson that one cannot do that. One cannot lead the horse to water, let alone make the horse drink. The horse is not interested in water. Let me just tell you that.

It doesn't want to go there. There's some soda over here that I'd rather be drinking because I have a taste for soda. Like I, you know, so many things. Like, I know that Audrey would like these movies and she says that she would like these movies, but when it comes time to watch these movies, she's like,

but what about this mystery on Amazon Prime that we both know is not going to be very good? I'm like, I guess we can watch that. That's what you want to watch. I will tell you two versions of this. A success and a failure, the failure first. I tried for a long time to get my friends who live in Brooklyn,

interested in hearing about the Battle of Brooklyn, a Revolutionary War battle, an important Revolutionary War battle, that took place literally in the neighborhoods of Park Slope and where Greenwood Cemetery is and stuff like that. And I could not do it. And I would get so mad that I'd be like, they all know all the details about fake battles

in fictional universes that never happened. But I'm trying to, I want to get them interested in something that actually happened that like change, in the place they live and they have no interest. I could never do it. On the other hand, there's a certain book. I've been trying to get people to read for a years.

I finally figured out how to do it. Dianetics. It's called, well, I call Dianetics. the Bible. It's the same. But you can't go up to somebody and say, hey, you should read the Power Broker. But if you make a 30-hour podcast about the Power Broker,

that's how you get people to read it. So that was my real success was being like, okay, I'm finally, this book I've been telling people about for decades now, I'm finally able to get people to read it in some way. I will say this podcast has been a huge way to make me feel better about you guys not giving a shit about my recommendations because I will tell you that I've had multiple listeners reach out to tell me that they've started Eldon Rings since our episode.

Oh, exciting. I will not be. They have traveled to the lands between, unlike you two dorks. Well, I'm only interested in going into the lost lands. Thank you. I, I, if to the degree that there's been any actual hurt feelings, I apologize, Stuart, but I always assumed that part of the bit was that you were imposing a thing on us that you knew who were not going to be interested in. Yeah, that is the bit. How can I make it more complicated and how could I push all the buttons that will yield a.

bad response. Yeah. But yeah, I think that, I think what we're finding is that you cannot force someone to, to be interested in a thing that you're interested in. But if you broadcast it to the world, you're more likely to find a person who is interested in that thing. Don't narrowcast, broadcast. Broadcast.

You know who should broadcast? The media. It's more profitable. Yeah, it's weird how they've stopped. Yeah. So we're doing recommendations now. On the subject of recommendations, let's give recommendations.

I'm looking over Dan's shoulders at his letterbox, and I see you saw some good ones this time. You guys have no other choices on there? Well, I was going to mention, you recommended it, I believe, in the previous episode, so it's not going to officially recommend no other choice because it's already been. But I, yeah, I really loved it.

There are like four movies. There's a bunch of movies obviously that I haven't seen that potentially... I mean, there's thousands of movies you haven't seen. That potentially could make it on here, but for me, like the masterpieces I saw of 2025, the ones I really loved were sinners, one battle after another, Marty Supreme and no other choice.

Going out on a limb. I mean, there's a reason why there are widely. I know. Says the guy who recommends old good movies. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. But I was going to recommend something a little more off the beaten path.

I went to a... He's like, have you heard of these Mission Impossible movies? I went to a deuce screening at the Nighthawk recently. Now, this is a screening... Don't say Bigelow, Elliot. This is a screening that is movies that were shown on the 42nd Street, the deuce between, I believe specifically between 7th and 8th avenues, but I could be getting that wrong.

Seems a little far west of me. The movie theaters there. And pardon me. No. And it's just a great, it's a great screening series. And the thing about to court anger from Elliot when I talk about anything that involves free time, the great thing about repertory screening series is once you start sort of trusting the series, you're willing to take a flyer on a thing.

That's very true. That's very true. Yeah, you're like, maybe I don't know what this is, but I'm going to go see it. You know, maybe I don't think I'm going to like it, but I'm going to go see it because I like this series. And I saw from 1970 the film Elvis, that's the way it is. A movie that actually exists in two cuts. There's one sort of original... Even prime.

...1970s cut that has a lot more, you know, like footage of fans and like more kind of extraneous stuff. And then it was re-edited in, I think, 2021 to include a lot more musical performances. And I saw the later edit. but I'm not a particular Elvis fan I'm like oh yeah there's some good songs whatever Elvis I know he was a big he was meaningful to a generation

a couple generations before mine but I never was a hound dog I get it but seeing this concert film seeing the first half of it which is him shoes out of blue suede which makes crazy it's like a crazy material to make your shoes out of

I mean you can't wear it in the rain for sure I have suede shoes and I enjoy them when I feel like there's no danger of any liquid being anywhere near me. They're going to get stepped on. That's the problem. That's the problem. But, no, the first half of it pretty much is, like, him in rehearsal, like, fucking around

with his band, having fun. There's a great scene where he, like, mashes up one of, he sings partly little sister and then matches it up with a get back, which is kind of fun because it's like, oh, you know, like, you think of Elvis as being kind of the old guard of rock and, like, were sort of looking forward. But to think about them, but they really were like contemporaries who admired one another

and he's like having fun singing a Beatles soon. But then the second half is him in Vegas when he hadn't been performing live for like seven years and came back. And it just really, I was there with three other friends who also had kind of like middling at best feelings about Elvis.

And we all came out being like, man, that was a great fucking concert movie. Like we get it. We get why he was important to people. So I had a lot of fun. Ellis, that's the way it is. I'm going to recommend a movie from last year called Sorry, Baby. This is the first film from writer, director, and star, Ava Victor, I think is the right pronunciation.

It is a movie about a young woman who undergoes a traumatic experience while in grad school. and it kind of covers a few years after and how that experience has affected her life and her relationships and her inability to kind of move on with life despite the fact that the rest of the people in her life have kind of moved on as if nothing has happened. And I think it's a really beautifully told story. It's shot really well.

It's a very striking first feature in that it is, I feel like it's controlled in a way and confident in a way that you don't often see. I thought it was really charming, and it has my favorite cat performance of the year from a cat actor. A lot of competition this year? Oh, yeah. It was filled to the brim.

This year was filled to the brim with delicious cats. Are you, Al? No. No? They must have done some joke on Alf about him going to see cats and being like, oh, it's like a buffet. I don't know where to start. Yeah.

He's been kicked out of that theater so many times. Yeah, they must have done that. Fans, write in, if you remember a joke on Alphabet, but he'll be kicked out of a performance of cats. The Winter Garden has his picture up on the... Do not serve this man. Do not admit this puppet slash alien. Known alias is Gordon Shumway.

I'm going to recommend... My recommendation, I think, is going to be a qualified recommendation. I'm recommending a movie that... I'm not sure that I like. Well, but it's qualified. We'll give it the job. Yeah. Okay.

I mean, it's not, it's slightly qualified. It's slightly qualified. But I think I'm going to recommend more because I think maybe it'll bring attention to the movie it's a remake of. But Yorgos Lanthamos, this is most recent movie Bogonia, which is a remake of a movie that I always really liked a lot. It's called Save the Green Planet, which is a Korean movie that came out in 2003. And I saw it when it first came out. I did not realize it was a remake of Save the Green Planet. Yes, and Save the Green Planet is such a bonkers movie in a way that I really love.

That's one of those movies where when I first saw it, it was one of the first kind of like modern Korean movies that I'd seen. It was like, I saw that around the same time that I saw like old boy, I want to say. And it was like, what's going on in Korea? They're making amazing stuff. Yeah. And then they kept doing it. Yes, and they just keep on doing it.

They won't stop. And Jorgos Lantamos is a filmmaker who about half his movies I love and half of them I don't particularly like it all. I'm not quite sure where Bogonia falls on that scale, but it's the story of these two guys. They are convinced that the CEO of a pharmaceutical company is an alien from outer space, and so they kidnap her to try to get through her

to the other aliens in order to save the Earth because they think Earth is in danger from them, and you don't know, they seem like crazy people. But in this version of it, Emma Stone plays the CEO, and she is like so encased in corporate speak and kind of like how a corporation talks to people that there are scenes that are really interesting because it is people who are enmeshed in conspiratorial thinking

trying to communicate with someone who's enmeshed in corporate thinking and talking and they really cannot communicate with each other. And it's a super grim movie. It gets much grimmer and sadder than I really wanted it to and much grimmer and sadder than the original which has a kind of cartoon-y kind of like manicness to it. But I will say I think the ending of the movie is really, is really powerful.

I think the ending of Bologna has actually pulled off better than the ending of Save the Green Planet. And so I'm kind of, I guess I'm gonna recommend, I'll recommend both. I'm gonna recommend Save the Green Planet and Bagonia to see like

two different filmmakers handling the same basic story in two very different ways and what the strengths and weaknesses of that are. But I walked away from it being like, I don't, I did not enjoy watching this movie, but I think there's certain things

that it handled really well and certain things it handled not as well. And so it's more of a, if you're, if this, this is the type of movie you like and you're on the fence, you might as well go and watch it. If it's not the type of movie,

you don't like Yorgos Lanthamos' movie, then don't watch it. Thank you. It's not going to change your mind about it. Stewart shouldn't watch it. Thanks for qualifying that one for me. But there are certain of his movies that I really, like, are really adore, like, and others that I think are,

they just don't do it for me. And this one, I'm not sure where it fits. So I'm recommending it out of discomfort. And maybe that discomfort is what shows that there's something going on with it. You know, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's not uncommon for me. to watch something and not enjoy the experience,

but then, you know, after a little while, I'll be like, you know what? I'll give that movie credit. Yeah. Just because I didn't enjoy the experience at the time doesn't mean it didn't have a lasting effect on me. I feel like, what was that? Last year was Smile 2?

I remember watching him being like, I do not care for this. But then over time, like, actually, that was probably the best horror movie the year. I really liked Smile 2. I was not much for Smile 2, so I didn't have a lot of expectations, but Small 2.

I haven't seen either of them. How do they spell two? Just with the numeral. With the numeral, yeah. Oof. Now, okay, well, I'll try it, but now I'm totally onward with T-O-O-O. T-O-O, because it's focusing on a different lady and different smiles. There are different smiles.

We all have different smiles, you know. Think about it. It's just like that Billy Joel song. Unless you're the cover of an Apex to win on the record. No. It's the same smile. Same smile, same smile. Same creepy smile.

If you're in the Black Hole Sun video, same smile. Yeah, basically. Well, guys, this has been the Flop House. We are on the Maximum Fun Network. Go and check out other shows on the network at maximum fun.org. Go, do it. I dare you. A lot of great ones. Also, we would like to take this moment to thank our producer, Alex Smith,

who does a lot of great work for us making this show listenable every week. and he also does great work for himself under the name Howl Doughty. You can listen to his music, see his Twitch streams, listen to his own podcast, check him out. But for us, for the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin now. Okay, what are we doing? Podcast.

So this is a podcast called The Flop House. We haven't started it yet. Let me do it in the traditional manner, which is to say... Oh, boy. To take off my pants. I'm sorry. Scott Bacula just quantum-leaped into me. No, what?

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