The Flop House - Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear

Episode Date: September 5, 2026

Smalltember winds are blowing in, and this year the currents brought us a doozy. SURFER: TEEN CONFRONTS FEARhas already become a new bad movie classic, and we had a lot of fun(?) confronting this strange object that arrived at Flop House central like a beached whale. It's a metaphysical monologue! It's a stealth religious film! It's a military thriller! It's a surfing movie! It's a dad wasting his kid's time! It's a way to use up old home movies by sneaking them into your narrative film! It's all this and much more!FLOP TV SEASON FOUR'S BIG PREMIERE is tomorrow, 9/5! Go pick up a pass for individual episodes or the whole dang season! And if you live in the Louisville area and want to see us live NOT through your computer screen, come to our show at Whirling Tiger in September!Stay updated on all things Flop House, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets! And please give us a FIVE STAR REVIEW. For an aging show like ours, all the attention truly helps us keep and grow our audience!No Wikipedia page for Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear, but here's a Screen Slate article!Recommended in this episode:Dan: Manhunter: The Final Cut (1986, 2026)Stu: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)Elliott: My Dinner with Andre (1981) Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinflop

On this episode, we discuss Surfer. Teen confronts fear. I don't even know, man. I don't even know. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. My name is, of course, Elliot Kalin. How did I get here? Well, therein lies a tale. For you see, there is trouble in the land. Trouble across the land. And so I turned my back on that trouble and said, somebody else can solve this. And I booted up my podcast recorder and I said, hey, dudes, let's make a podcast.

Thanks for being here, Elliot. It's nice for you to ignore that trouble for us. The problem is the trouble starts with T and it rhymes with P. And that stands for P, but there's no P in our pool. Please keep it that way. Right. Yeah.

Well, technically it's an Ool. It's an Ool. Yeah. Notice there's no P in it. Thank you. I really appreciate that you're ignoring the prophecy that says that you're the chosen one and you're the only one who can make what's wrong right again.

Yeah, so this guy arrived at my house and with a sword and with a sword forged from the body of a demon. And he said that only I can safely bond with it and therefore defeat the wizard or whatever. And I was like, I don't know. Despite the fact that the sword is inherently evil. Who are you? Goodness. Exactly. Exactly.

It's a balance thing. It's a balance of the cosmos thing. Like a yin yang, right? Yeah. And I was like, who are you, sir, to tell me what my life is going to be? Thank you. That's what I said. I said, excuse me.

bearded hermit. Clearly you've seen... I've got plans. Yeah, excuse me, gray pilgrim. Certainly you've seen into the deep heart of the cosmos. You've seen the hidden recesses of the mind of the creator. But I have things to do

today. A bunch of dwarfs showed up. They sang a song and you're like, thank you for washing my dishes. But I'm going to have to turn down your offer of adventure. I've got stuff to do. I mean, it was to feel like, oh, I'm responsible for going on this adventure after I fed you guys multiple meals.

uninvited. Yeah, of course. You might get some jewelry out of it. I'm going to have to hang up every one of your cloaks of a different color and try to remember which color goes with which person. You're lucky I have 13 to 14 hooks to put coats on anyway. Yeah. So for new listeners who obviously, you know, it's so obvious. Are familiar with The Hobbit.

It's so clear what this podcast is about. It's almost foolish for me to explain. But I should say that this is a podcast. It's almost condescending for you to do that. I know, I know. But I was told in a broadcasting conference, you know, you just got to reset. You got to make sure that things are welcoming. You don't start off with a much of gibberish about nothing.

Uh-oh. This is a podcast where we watch a movie that was either a critical or a commercial flop. And then we talk about it. Now, this case, you know, the days are getting shorter. The temperatures are getting colder. dying, Dan? No, no, it's just fall. It's just fall.

Oh. And, of course, that augurs theme months here at the flop house. The first one being, of course, small timber or as Elliot. Small Vember. Insists. Correctly calls it small Vember, yes. And that is when we watch smaller movies. Normally, we can find ourselves.

Teeny times. Mini-discs. Yeah. Yeah, we get a mini-d-B player out. You watch it on our PSP. We get an 8mm cut down of Abin-Custella and Meet Frankenstein where they condense the movie to six minutes. We stare at a single frame of a movie and we critique it.

Oh, yeah. Now, yeah, look, we usually do big Hollywood movies. Huge. Huge. Yeah. So there are pictures that. You, the listener, may be familiar with. Also because it doesn't feel good to make fun of,

someone's small passion project in the same way that Hollywood people, they can take it, they can take a punch. Lee Kronin can deal with it. Every once in a while, once a year, we give ourselves a dispensation to look at a smaller, weirder films. Like all treat for ourselves. Like all traditional kind of Saturnalia's or Bacchanals,

for one day, or two episodes in this case, we slip loose the bonds of normal law as a way of highlighting that we don't do this the rest of the year. Because these are activities for a set aside special day, we are reinforcing we don't do this on the other days. Yeah, it's just medieval law. And it's a good way for us to kind of recalibrate our distinctions,

like our sense of what makes a good movie or a bad movie. Or what makes a movie? When you're like talking to a normal person somewhere and they're like, oh, you've got to watch this movie, it's the worst I've ever seen. I'm like, brutta. If you're played in a movie theater, it's highly likely to make my list. You sweet Summer Lamb. Oh, you have no.

idea, yeah. Now, this picture has the utterly normal title, Surfer, colon, teen confronts fear. Yep. It's not inaccurate. Dan, you said that title immediately evoked like Christian stuff to you.

Yeah, well, if it has a subtitle that's number one, about a teen, speaking to the teens, trying to get at the teens problems, and then saying something like confronts fear. Because this movie really does get at the teens problems. It gets out of the problems with modern teens. Yeah.

I would imagine, before I had seen this movie, I would have imagined, you know, something that was made by a Christian production company to be shown at youth groups to be like, here are some problems that teens might be facing.

You know, let's give them the tools. Yeah. Yeah. This is not totally unlike that in that it has a lot of talk about the Bible at certain points, but it is also totally,

I'm like that and that it is one guy's personal passion project that he has roped his teenage son into. It's less a Christian youth group movie and more the equivalent to that for the cult of a charismatic con man who will eventually commit suicide with all of his followers or die in a bloody gun battle with the federal government. This is the version of that for this. Yeah. Although I discovered that the, so the guy who plays the dad, who was also the director and writer. and Star, and he did the music, yeah. And he is a physics professor, at least, or at least was at one point, at USC. So he is not...

Until he started teaching students that they could make a human body out of squids and electricity, yeah. Perhaps we'll get... I mean, I don't know whether... Maybe this is the point to talk about it. But when we were watching, I got Stuart to come over for you because I thought... I apologize, Elliot. Obviously, if you were on our coast... No, I get it.

You would have come to... I don't get to watch the movies with you. We would have let you wash the fucking dishes while we watch the movie. But this is the kind of movie that does work better if you see it with someone else. Oh, that's for sure. Yeah. There's a certain point when the guy was like half vomiting that I'm like, this really feels like Rick and Morty. It feels like he's like, you got to cut in front of your fear, Morty.

Your fear is just a pathway to something. I made a squid and electricity, Morty. To be honest, to be honest, and people are not going to like me saying this. I found his performance, his lead performance, more enjoyable and easy to take than the lead performance is in Rick and Morty. Wow. Part of what keeps me away from it is all, I would try to watch the first episode. It's like, Marty, you got to. They cut down on the vomiting.

I was like, I can't watch. In later seasons. Also, at this point, they have replaced Justin Rowland, who, it turns out, was not a good man. with someone else doing a sound alike. I'm mainly experienced Rick and Morty now through the images I would see in weed stores of like Rick and Morty hawking weed products or something. Sure.

Or unlike T-shirts you would buy on a boardwalk of them, like, I don't know, holding guns and wearing Nix jerseys. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, we've, there's been a lot of prelude, but we should probably get into the needs of... Let's get it to the meat of... Teen Confirms Fear. This is, so yeah, this is, I had not heard of this movie until we watched it.

I think this was the right way for me to experience it with very little knowledge ahead of time. It is very clearly like, this is the kind of movie that a guy makes by himself starring him and his son, using whatever locations he has. And it has a bravura, nearly single take long conversational scene that we'll get into, which is only partly, I understand that probably it's made better by the fact that most of the dialogue in the scene is clearly ADR later, except for little bits of it, which were live recording, it seems. And it just gives the, I don't know, there are times when this movie feels like you were watching the bad lip read takeoff or parody of this movie, you know? Well, it's also, it seems like such madness because like clearly these, this long monologue is not tightly scripted. Like he is either. You don't know that. half remembering the script that he wrote or he's improvising large chunks of it and then ADRing the improv that he did before.

Because he's ADRing stumbles that he did to match his lip movements. It's amazing. Anyway, so we start out with the most... I do like how his accent shifts around a lot. Yes, sometimes he's talking, like I said, almost like Rick from Rick and Morning. Sometimes he has like this half English accent.

I wasn't supposed to feel. They said I wasn't supposed to fail. Yeah, Rick is doing King Lear all of a sudden. So the, we open with, and I complain sometimes about movies they have too many production logos in the beginning. This one has none. It throws you right into the cheapest credits imaginable. Just whatever credit font came with the editing software

over shots of a beachside town. There's a young guy who we will learn about a half way through the movie, two-thirds the way through the movie is named Sage. Up to this point, he is the unnamed surfer character. He's getting ready to fish from a chair that's kind of set pretty far away from the water. And we hear him in voiceover say that he was a surfer. And he once he wiped out really badly and was saved by Lifeguard. And since then he's been afraid of the water, but he still wants to be near the water.

He's afraid of the ocean, but he wants to be near the water. How would you describe the emotion in this voiceover performance? I would say realistically unenthused. Yeah. The cadence is that. take that of a person reading from a piece of paper, maybe the first time they have seen this piece of paper. And let's just to pull back the curtain.

Clearly, this is a movie made by a guy who is an amateur filmmaker, starring his son who is a competitive surfer. And the son seems to, it really does seem like the dad, and I'm just reading into it, maybe it's not true. It seems like the dad, who usually is probably pushing his son in surfing, is now pushing him to be an actor, much as like Arch Hall's senior would put his son Archall Jr. to be a movie star. And it's a, it doesn't seem like the son is that interested in being there for doing this.

There are many moments where the son looks like he would rather be somewhere else with his friends or just deathly afraid that anybody he knows would see this. Well, especially the entire first hour of this is essentially one long scene on the beach where the dad is monologuing at this team. Right at him. Yeah. Who, yeah, looks uninterested in what's going on. realistically, if they were not making a movie or, like, related, it seems like the guy, the kid would be like, yeah, that's cool, man. I got stuff to do. As a father, it is so hard for me to get my sons to do stuff with me. Like, I spent a lot of yesterday being like, let's play a board game. Let's play a game. Let's play a card game. Let's play basketball. Whatever. The idea that I'd be then be like, hey, let's go make a movie that you have to star in. My children would walk away. They would just walk away and leave home, I think. So anyway. The type of bindle

Let's start writing the rails. So there's some footage of him Prepping Bait, intercut with steel images of his wipeout. And then he saves a middle-aged man from the ocean. This is a wordless sequence that takes a while where there's just a damp man in the waves from here to eternity makeout scene in style.

And he just pulls him out. And this is what you'd describe this middle-aged man. Looks like a physics teacher who wants to make a movie. Long-stringy hair. very and very a lot of heavy emotion in his face he doesn't and this section is his performance is very funny but the funniest performance he gives is later in the movie and I don't want to talk about that just yet because he gives he gives there's a moment where he shows up on screen and I could not help laughing so hard and what is clearly meant to be a dramatic thing but it is

it is it is just it is a big choice and also a bit offensive and incredibly offensive so so the uh in this this is when the the dad the guy starts talking the man starts talking to the surfer

and in dialogue that as I said is mostly 80 yard even the stumbles and the things that he seems be making up

all times that are 80 yard he says he's the surfer's father who died in a war but has returned

in a form made of hard jelly as he describes it he can only exist for a few hours because he's there

to help the surfer overcome his fear and he explains that the surfer survived his wipe out because a

seal's spirit entered his body at that moment and helped him to get out and I am You're explaining with such clarity

Elliot What I'm going to be describing to you is cutting out a lot of detail a lot of nonsense that he says And but it is a I'm trying to get to the heart of it Well that's the thing we'll get to that He talks about the Bible Bible stories but it's like not in a way

I've ever heard a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim describe these stories And so he's basically he wants to first he says I want you to remember a dream that I had before you were born of you as a boy. And it's such a funny request to say, hey, I had a dream before you were born about you. Can you remember it for a second? I need you to remember this dream you never had. Can I just say

the biggest, like, shocking twist for me in this movie was watching the credits at the end of, because we get a flashback of him talking to young sage and discovering that like young sage was played by the son at a younger age. And so I'm like, do they shoot this boyhood? style. Yeah, yeah. This is this plan. The show that will be all of a sudden. To what degree was any of that planned to like have this interpolated into a movie later on?

It's a labor of love. This is the kind of thing that you really, you really put your life into. You know, you plan it a lot later. Because it's hard to imagine what it's, the scene doesn't really fit into this story, but it's hard to imagine what story that scene might have fit into. Yes. But the man has to serve a repeat a specific phrase, I wish, but I'm not able to affect the space of your time.

And then they go into the dream where we see the surfer as a kid and he speaks in rhyme about gods and spirits. We come back and the surfer's like, yeah, dad, you can teach me, teach me how to overcome my fear. And the dad launches into a series

of very long, very weird monologues that make up the beef of this movie. Like this is the meat of the movie. First, dad tells him, it's not shameful to be afraid because Adam was afraid after the devil lied to him and that's what caused him

to eat the apple that kicked him out of Eden. And he says fear comes from the lie that God isn't inside you, which is a lie. Now, I would not say that I recall that being part of the story of Genesis that Adam was afraid and that's why he ate the apple. I think temptation is really kind of key to that. The devil told Adam, you are not like God. And Adam didn't realize he had God inside him and is like God. And so he became afraid that he's not like God and had to eat.

And again, this is an interpretation. You know, it's open. That's the wonderful thing about the Bible. It's always open to interpretation. This is a very fear-based interpretation of the Bible, you know. He talks for a... Again, this is where I started to lose understanding. It was around here that Dan looked over to me and he's like,

don't worry, they leave the beach at some point. But not for a long time. It takes longer than you think. There was part of me that was like, is this the whole movie? Because he talks for a long time about how blood and ocean are both spirit. And when he was dead, he took surfer's spirit surfing in the spirit world. And he goes, look at that rock. Look at it, stare at it, look at it, stare at it,

until he has a vision of surfing with his dad in the spirit world, which is just surfing footage. There's so much surfing footage in this movie. And it is very clearly this is footage of the real kids surfing, and there's just a lot of it. And voice over the dad is like, let the fear boil out of you. Let it boil out of you, son, boil!

And it doesn't do anything. Yeah, one of the other funny things about the credits of the end is like how many different cinematographers are listed? Because... It's all people who just took footage of his kid surfing, right? Yeah, no. Well, this movie is stitched together from new material plus footage of his kid surfing,

plus home movies that they took over vacation later on. There's clearly vacation footage that they put in. There's like stuff later on. Elvill will get to it with a whale that I'm like, this was shot at a different time. So the dad-free associate Samori talks about how surfers identity, I'm just going to serve. His name's Sage.

We don't know his name is that point. how the surfers identity existed in a single cell in the ocean four billion years ago. And there's a lot of therapy talk that it feels like the dad is really making up as he goes along until he starts coughing up bile and he's like a running out of time. I think it's ink. I think he's body out of squid and electricity. I think he's four hours. It's ink.

Yeah, he says it's ink because he's made out of squids. And the idea of God being like, yeah, I'll send you back to help your son who's a surfer. I've got to make you out of squids and electricity. That's what I do. I forgot how you make humans. even though that's my whole thing. It's all squid and electricity these days. Oh, yeah, it's all.

And they don't last. Old-time humans, which were made out of, like, bones and stuff, they last 70, 80 years, sometimes 100 years. This new squid and electricity humans that Apple makes, every year is supposed to toss them out. Land obsolescence. Yeah, exactly. This is around where he starts, like,

gripping at the rocks on the cliff that's around them, and he's like, I wasn't supposed to feel. Yeah. I'm in such a squid. He's mad that. that we'll get to, oh, you know what, we'll get to, we'll get to the wasn't supposed to fuel part. Hold on.

And, uh, and this, the, uh, so he says, I'm going to melt back into the ocean a few hours. And surfers like, no, I'm still kind of stuck. I'm still feeling afraid. So dad is like haranguing him about its movements and energy and God and the movements are God and the energy is God and the energy's in your movements. And he talks about surfing. It definitely feels like, like, like this is the sort of thing where I, I don't know if you guys

have ever talked to a person like this, but you're like, I feel like I'm in I don't want to be here anymore. The surfer throughout this, I feel like, is wondering when it's time to run. Like, when does he run from this person? Or when does he have to fight back in some way? Yeah. Yeah, he has the demeanor of someone who is like, okay, there's going to be a point in the conversation where I can leave safely and it's not going to anger this person. I have to figure out when it is.

Humor this stranger who's clearly having an episode before I can peel away. He's like a less funny Hugh Graham. Grant in Heretic. Basically. Fewer Jar Jar Jar Impressions. A less funny and less well organized Hugh Grant and Heretic. That Heretic is such a funny movie to me

because Hugh Grant is like, he goes to such great lengths. And then even at the end they're like, that's what you're trying to prove to us? This is fucking dumb. Like you think we hadn't heard of this before? Like you think this is new information? I think my letterbox review was something like, someone needs to tell him that you can be an

atheist without all the construction work. Yeah. You can just be an atheist. It's a very fun and I assume this is, I don't know if this is intentional not. Maybe it was. I hope it was, but he's such a funny parody of the kind of guy who learns something that he, that everyone else kind of knows already, but that he thinks he discovered nobody else knows. So it was not until the end.

I thought the movie was that guy. I thought Heretic was like, oh, so heretic. They think they're really lifting the scales from our eyes. And it wasn't until the end when she's like, yeah, no shit, dude. Like this is fucking, everyone knows this. I was like, oh, the movie knows what they're doing. Yeah, no, it's intentional. The reply guy, the movie.

That is also a funny movie where, like, it's the rare movie that gets less interesting once it stops being just a guy monologuing at you. Yes, that's true. At a certain point, I'm like, eh, all right, yeah. But, well, that's probably because Hugh Grant is so... He's so good. He's so good in it.

And he apparently wrote at least some of that or rewrote it because he's good at rewriting his own dialogue and stuff. So, but anyway, he's really good at that. So it's his, I think it's maybe his second best villain performance after Paddington 2, which is kind of the same character in some ways. And he's also a really great villain. And what was that? Operation Fortune, Ruse de Guerre.

Oh, I haven't seen that. Where he plays like a, like a arms dealer, like a very chav arms dealer. And he's, he's one. Now I got to see it. Every time he shows up, you're like, man, I need more of this guy. Makes me want to see the version of Mickey Blue Eyes where he's an actual gangster And he's not just pretending to be a gangster

So a surfer is still stuck in his fear Dad's haranguing him As the surfers like We see more of wordless surfing footage They talk about surfing The server tells his dad He almost feels like surfing But first dad is like

Here's what it's like to surf the big waves I want to surf the big waves of humanity's fear And their emotion And he says there's always He says he starts talking about whales there's always a whale crying in the ocean because it's thinking of man's fear. He tells the story of Jonah,

which becomes a fear-based story. And this is a version of the story of Jonah that... So, Dan, you grew up in more of a Bible reading household than me. In his version of the story of Jonah, Jonah tells the people in the boat, throw me overboard to stop this storm. The version of it I remember hearing

is the people in the boat are like, get the hell out of here and throw him in the boat. Not that he volunteers for it. But how do you remember? I don't remember. I could be wrong. you know. That's an Old Testament story, right?

You better believe it. I mean, I would just call that the Bible or the Torah. I don't believe in the New Testament. The difference with we Gentiles is like we tend to like not focus so much on that unless we're like weird evangelicals who need an excuse to be like, God is angry. Even though Jesus came and said this is a new covenant with new rules, we still want to go by the old rules too. Yeah.

So anyway, Dad says the purpose of fear is to help you find faith. And then he pulls the surfer into a black and white dream about a dead whale they found on the beach. And this is, this probably, this must have been a real whale washed up, right? And then they should, I can't imagine that they made a fake whale for this movie. They didn't make a fake whale. And also, like, I love that they were wearing, like, coats. Yeah, because probably cold that day. Clearly different.

And like, yeah, I read a little bit. I couldn't find a lot of research about surfer team in Frontier. There's an interview with the director that I have not yet finished reading. where he goes on about how the critics who didn't like the movie clearly have problems with their fathers and that's why they didn't like the movie and it gets into Freudian psychology.

I did go looking for information just because this is so singular. I'm like, I need to understand. And part of what I found was a screen slate article they're saying that like yeah, they just heard that a whale was going to wash up somewhere and the guy was like,

we gotta get the camera. We got to get down there. And so this was, I want to know what parts of this were shot first and what the plan was to then stitch it all together into a movie. Very Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be like, there's a dead whale. We got to do something with it. Get the camera. Come on. Cut its jaw. Take it home.

And this is LA. You know, there's just a line of influencers waiting and take their whale videos. Oh, yeah, you know it. Yeah. I just remember the other part of that where he was saying like, yeah, you know, like Sage has discussed in that scene. is very real because I don't think he'd been close to a dead whale before. I'm like, yeah, no shit. You don't, why would he?

Who has been? Dad was like, hey, hey, get close to that dead whale. And in the scene, he's like, get close to it. Get really close to it. Look at it real close. Yeah, I want you to like smell every part of it. Smell it. Now lick it.

Lick what it tastes like. Can you taste the brine and the rod? Are we really going to need this footage yet? You never know. You never know. Just press your body against it. Try to get inside its mouth. Just trying to climb in its mouth, yeah.

No, it would be hilarious. It'd be great. It'd be so funny. It looks like it swallowed you and then he killed it from the inside. Just jump out and say something funny, like, bazinga. Just crawl out and look around and be like, oh, I thought I was taking the express. Climb out and flex, like you're really strong. I want you to climb out and then...

Floss in front of it. Here's what I'm going to do is you get inside it, but don't get too far inside it. Because what I'm going to do is I'm going to punch it in the gut. like I'm giving it the Heimlich and then I want you to jump out leap out of the mouth like I've just given the whale the hymline and you're what I'm going to say

and then look at the camera and say boy I've got a whale of a tail son why are you going to believe this John the plant son put down the phone don't call child protective services we're just going to do this whale sketch I'll just do this little whale scene come on

stop calling them stop calling them all right I just want to stick your hand into its blowhole climb up on top stick your hand under its blow hole and say, how's your breathing now? You know, just dominate the whale. Just show the dead whale that you're dominating. You know, that you could kill it if you needed to.

If it wasn't already dead. Yeah, yeah, sure. Poor whale. Okay, here's the thing. Now, here are the props. I brought some props with me. And now this is, take these balloons and then I'm going to say, no, no, no, bailine, not baloons.

That's the whole scene. Then you're going to, like, look at the camera like Jim from the office. Just give it one of those looks. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, and then you're going to walk away. It's, son, I got more whale material. to do. Come on. Oh, God.

And then when he's done, he puts the camera down, he goes, okay, give me that knife. We're going to, we're going to eat this tonight. And he's just like carving off whale steaks to bring home. So anyway, dad has, dad has the surfer, remember the wave that almost killed him. And he goes, wiggle your fingers. The feelings in your fingers.

Start with wiggling those. Yeah. Has a flashback to life card saving him. This is when I made a note, we were 34 minutes into the movie. And it was almost entirely just the dad saying nonsense. And he's not done. He keeps talking. No.

And so he talks much longer. And until eventually the surfers like, yeah, I'll surf again. But what do you get out of it? What do you get out of it? And this is when the dad throws a fit. He gets really angry. He's like pounding on the rock with his fist. And he says, spirit forms shouldn't be able to feel emotions, but they do.

And this is when he's like, I wasn't supposed to feel. I wasn't supposed to be able to feel. And he's like howling like a wounded Yeti. It's amazing. It's really cool. He gives a big speech about waves and energy and emotion and surfing. And he wants to be reborn. This is where he's saying he wants to surf again and rock.

the wave of humanity's fears and it'll help him do that if the surfer goes in surf exam. At this point he's been talking for like 10 straight minutes since the whale scene I think. And even that was pretty deep into this sequence. And in the end, dad goes, here, here's a name, here's an address, here's an alpha numerical code, and here's some predictions about where the next big waves are going to be.

And then he collapses into the surf and he rolls into the ocean to melt away off camera. And that is when we go to scene two. And we are now 49 and a half, minutes into the movie. This is an hour and 41 minute movie. It's awesome, man. There's less than an hour left.

We spent that on basically one scene. And after that, I would, there's part of me that was like, well, there's no way this movie is going to give me anything worth watching. After that, I was wrong. There is a little bit. But this is definitely, the movie definitely takes a little bit of a dip after, in terms of, in terms of this, it's sheer manic, you know, bravado. Well, I mean, certainly in like the last, let's say, 20 minutes.

Which is just surfing footage. surfing footage. vacation and surfing for the chance. I got to admit, this is something I shouldn't do as a professional, as a podcast, bad movie professional, but I definitely hit that two-time speed, you know, setting for a little while. Do you enjoy that surf music that was playing? Yeah, you didn't want to listen to Go it alone. After the original song, Going Alone, that I listened to in total. That sounds pretty good. I enjoy that stuff.

I will say, that's the best part of the movie is that song Going Alone, I have to admit. I think it's the best, it is the only thing in the movie that approaches an idea of potential. potential quality. So the surfer goes to... There's a whole scene later on with, I think, an admiral that I think was probably my favorite scene. Yeah. I mean, that scene, we'll get to that one.

That is an amazing scene. So the surfer goes to the address that dad gave him. It's supposed to be a military building. It's clearly just a little office lobby or even a retail establishment. The security woman, he goes, I'm here to see Banks. And she goes, banks is... You mean Dr. Bankro? The doctor who works here?

I apologize, guys. I apologize. I skipped the second scene in the movie. Yes. which is the doctor giving a checkup to an older woman in what looks like to be a rehearsal space. And he's just checking her heart pressure. Are you telling me that most doctor's offices

aren't covered in exposed brick walls? They usually don't have exposed brick walls, mismatched chairs, and a stand that is clearly holding up either a light or a reflector to help light the scene. Yes. But I forgot this is probably a five or six minute scene, very few words, of an older woman just in a wheelchair, just getting checked up at the doctor.

And she keeps looking at the camera. as if she is afraid of what's going to happen next. I was a little concerned about this scene that this woman didn't know that she was in a movie or why she was there. She is a professional actress. Okay, good. Thank God. Because I was like, this has a level of realism. It is.

Performances cannot approach. No, it is the best performance the entire movie because you do not realize that this is a professional actress who is doing this. The same way that I've talked about it before, when I saw the play This is Our Youth in London years ago and Jake Gyllenhaal was in it. There's a scene in that play...

I'm sick of you talking about it. We've talked about a lot of times. There's a scene in that play where his character knocks over a plate full of drugs and Jake Gyllenhaal did it so well that people in the audience I think thought it was a mistake and thought that he had messed up.

But anyway, that's this performance. This woman does such a great performance of seeming like a woman who is not aware of where she is does not want to be touched by a doctor and is not enjoying being there and doesn't understand why there's a camera watching it the entire time.

And I will say this is a very jarring choice for a second scene. To suddenly be thrown into because it's also one of the things where I'm like, which of these characters am I going to be following? The doctor, the woman, or neither? That's, I had no idea the entire... This is one of those movies where

a good movie throws you in the air and catches you, and you know the whole time the movie's going to catch me, but there's still that thrill of being up in the air and then falling back down again. This is one of the movies where you're like, I don't know if they're going to catch me. They may throw me in the air and then walk away

and I'm just going to hit the ground and it's going to hurt, you know? And in a way that is exactly what this movie is. So we see this old lady get a checkup. The surfer goes to the address. It's a military building. He learns that Banks is Dr. Bankrow. The security woman at the reception desk calls in Marks, a guy in Camo.

And there is a great other movie about the hierarchy in this office building, in this military office. Because the guy in Camo seems like he's in charge until the scene next scene with the doctor, where the doctor is so passive regressively condescending to this guy the entire time. He's in camo. He frisked the surfer. He takes his phone to have it scanned. And then he sends two guys who are in civilian clothes.

And they have the funniest lines where they're like, I've spent all this time ironing my uniform. And then he tells us to put on civilian clothes. And it's such a funny way that they're like, we've got to explain why these guys are not in uniform. We'll just have a line about it. And they're using so much like faux military slang that I'm like, come on, guys.

It's so, they are crying so hard to seem like they're in the military and failing. He goes, hey, we're going to, we're going to, Walking out of this building that is a reception area with glass bricks. That's clearly in the middle of Burbank or Pasadena or something. It looks like Burbank, you know. An old battered wooden chair. This is not to look like a military operation. I feel like it lacks the verisimilitude of the cockpit set of Plan 9 from outer space.

Where they're sitting at music stands in hardbacked wooden chairs, like that felt more like the cockpit of a plane. This feels like a military installation. You can literally see, I don't know, like maybe is it like Highland Boulevard or Glendale Boulevard in the in like the road sign in the background. Yeah. I mean it looks so

I don't, I'm not sure, it looks so much like Magnolia in Burbank, but it could be any of those places. So the, they, he says, he goes, we're going to scan the phone. You guys look outside for drones or suspicious things. They go outside, they check under cars. We get like 10 minutes of them walking around. They walk around for a long time. They don't find

anything. We never see these characters again. It doesn't matter. And the surfer finally goes, My name is Sage, and I've got a message for Banks, and he gives it to Marks. He pulls out a gun. Bang, bank, bang, bang. And it turns out Banks is the doctor we saw briefly earlier with that old woman. He takes a while.

It takes so long for Marks to give him this note. Banks reads it and gets very emotional. It says, I'll talk to Sage. I'll talk to him. And you know what? I'm going to give him the money to travel the world surfing. I'm going to give you that money because he says, and this is the first of a couple different explanations of what the deal is with

with Sage's dad. First explanation, I died in a war and I'm coming back made out of squids and electricity. This time he goes, oh, I knew your dad in the military and guess what? He didn't die. He's still alive. Wheel him out, everybody. And they wheel him out. And he is in a catatonic state

that is so offensively funny in the way that he has contorted his face and hands. He has boneitis. There's one part where he like contorts for a while and then his his arm is just like stuck up in the air for a long time. And he's got a look on his face that I don't want to be offensive myself. But for lack of a better word, or lack of a better way to describe it, it is the way that kids

when I was growing up would pretend to be mentally challenged people. Like it has that look about it. And it is, and there's part of me that was like, I cannot believe he thinks he's getting away with this. That this is not going to be either hilarious or offensive or both, you know. Yeah. Anyway, there's a long scene of banks, a very repetitive scene. feels like they keep getting stuck on the same pages of the script and going back over and over

again where Banks is like, go over, he doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember you. He doesn't know he's your dad. He doesn't know. Go over and say he loves him. Go over and say you're his son. He's his son. He's his son.

He doesn't remember you, but you're his son. Go over and he goes, I love you, dad. And Banks will then twitch and throw a fit and fall on the floor. And Banks is like, Marks, Marks, pick him up. Marks, get him back in the chair. Marks put him back in the chair. It's working. And he goes, he goes, do it again.

He doesn't remember you. He doesn't remember he has a son. But you're his son. Go tell him that you're love him. Tell him you're his son. I'm your son. He throws a fit again and falls out. Marks, put him back.

Marks. Put him back in his chair. Also, every once in a while, they'll cut to a second angle of like, like the angle is that of the camera that like maybe they forgot was turned on. It doesn't make any sense. But it's also like the video quality is significantly worse than the already not great video quality.

I'm like, why is this other camera here? But it's, this scene goes on forever. At one point, during it, Banks goes, this probably looks worse than it is. Like, I don't know, it looks pretty bad. And, but he keeps saying, but you're his son. He looks better when he's made out of squid and electricity. Yeah, that's true.

He just keeps going, but you're his son. But you're his son. You're his son. Finally, now it's time for the, for the training montage. Sage is going to do it. He's going to surf around the world in order to help his dad surf humanity's fears to an original rock song called Go and Alone.

which again is the best thing in the movie. We see Sage paddleboarding. We see him running. We see him weight training in a pool where he's got two weights in his hands. And he's completely submerged running back and forth along the bottom of the pool, which I might try.

That seems like a really cool way to train. I don't know. But we get the full song of Going Alone and I wish I remembered any of the lyrics. I looked up. So in the credits, it said that this is sung by Carol Connors. Now, the wife of Kurt Connors, the lizard, yeah.

Well, when I Google Carol Connors, this is either the American singer-songwriter, who is the lead vocalist on to know him is to love him, or this is American pornographic film actress Carol Connors. I don't know which Carol Connors this is. Which it's hard to know which one of the U.S. physics professor would get for his movie. Yeah, I don't know. And it's not Carol O'Connor.

TV's beloved Archie Bunker, right? No, no, Connor. I'm not familiar with the work of either of those Carol Conner's. But I like this song as Stuart, not as into it, but this is like, it's like surf rock, but kind of with like a goth sort of feel almost. It's like a dark, a dark emotional surf rock. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like the song you'd play during Dick Dale's funeral. Exactly.

Thank you. Exactly. You put your, you said, because he is going alone at that point. He's going alone into the Greyhavens, the other side. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we all die alone, even Dick Dale, you know. You can't take it with you. Even Dick Dale, can't take his guitar with him.

Can you slow down the surf rock too? Not really. It's kind of, you've got to double pick everything. It's all jangling and shing. It's kind of not really a surf rock. I mean, he's got a shred. Like the Dickdale album says, better shred than dead, you know.

Unfortunately, now he no longer has that opportunity. It doesn't have that choice. God made it for him. We're all familiar with Miserlew, but now there's real misery that we're feeling now that our beloved Dick Dale's gone. I love the, you're doing material while doing his eulogy. They shouldn't have invited me to do Dickdale's music.

And I genuinely like Dickdale's music quite a bit. They shouldn't have invited me to do his eulogy because I'm going to throw some jokes in there. And I don't know him. You're a comedy writer. They knew that. They knew that going. They knew who they hired to do the job. And they can't look at me and be like, oh, don't do what you do.

I got two settings on and off. And on is funny. So, you know, that's all I can do. I'm going to try to. That's what Elliot says when he walks into any room. Look, I got two settings on and off and on's funny, so deal with it. Deal with it, people. Come on, sorry, the family Dale.

I know this isn't what you wanted, you know, for your patriarchs funeral, but this is what you got, you know? What is this? What is this? Look, on my card, it doesn't say serious eulogies. It says comedian. I don't know why you hired me. I'd say you thought you were getting a different Elliott-Kaelan, but there are no other people with that name that I'm aware of.

Actually, that's not true. I once Googled myself. and I Google myself all the time. I don't, not the one time. At night. Because I, yeah, well, I mean, at night when I'm looking at when I'm puttering around and I need to find out who else hates my run on Harley, Harley, Gwyn. The, I, I, I would Google myself and I would find.

Probably normal people. There was like a, there was a male model in Australia who had the same name as me, spelled the same way. But it's a, but I've never found any more information now. You guys probably get confused for each other. All the time. People say, good day, Elliot, we need you for that Vogue Australia shoot. And I'm like, you've got. the wrong guy, you know. Anyway.

But I'm in. I'm in. And then I get another call. Hello? Yes. Yes. Our beloved, our beloved, our beloved father, Dick died. Dick Dale. Yeah, we need you to talk at his funeral. Of course, yes, I'll be right there. So we get an amazing scene. This is, I think, my second favorite scene in the movie

after the long 40-minute monologue, or however it is, of Banks is sitting with a guy in a captain's hat who is clearly supposed to be in the Navy. behind him is what I think is a green screen, right? Of a ship. Well, based on the bird that occasionally flies right at the screen on a loop. Yeah, exactly. But I wasn't paying that as close to as to it because I was trying to get myself in the thing.

And they're sitting on a wooden board that's on milk crates. Just really quickly, Elliot, congratulations. You destroyed this guy's SEO. I cannot find him. Oh, good, good, thank you. You are the prime Elliot Kaelin. I think what put it over the top was that magic card based on my Soron Spider-Man panel. I think that's what did it.

So many people sent that to me. And they're like, this is the way to get this information to Elliot. Send it to the nerdiest flopper. I got to get a copy of that card. I don't know if it's out yet. But anyway, it's so funny because my older son, Sammy, he has magic cards. And he's like, we got to go to the card store tomorrow and get that.

And I'm like, well, I don't think it's out yet. But also like, how many, what are we going to do? Just buy packs and hope he get it. And he's like, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was a mistake right there. Finally, the grift is. come together. And I'll just keep all the other cards

that aren't the card based on your work. So anyway, this is one of the, maybe one of the funniest lines in the history of movies. I wish I'd written it down, word for word, but it was too late and I didn't do it. But it's something like, let me get this straight. So he was a brainwashed assassin who went on

a covert ops mission and died on it. And now he has a son who's come back and you want to give him government medical health insurance because his dad was in the military as a killer. And he's like, you got it. And I was like, and all this is said as if this is information that has been doled out over the course of the movie, and it's not being dumped right in our laps.

Well, I mean, like, it is the most egregious example of, like, you're telling me, like, I'm going to repeat back a thing that apparently we both know so the audience can hear it, and it's going to be so long. Like, it is amazing how long this line goes on. And then, of course, what is this one, Banks sweetens his, sweetens the deal by handing him a, like, tiny little flash. the smallest little bottle. And he's like, he's like,

he's like, Hennessy Cognac special stuff. And it is such a small bottle. And it's, I don't know what it's supposed to. It's also fucking Hennessy. It's like, I mean, it ain't cheap, but it's like, that's not a particularly big bottle. Yeah. It's also not hard.

It's not like, oh, it's, yeah, Hennessy. That's, you can't go to walk into a store and buy that, you know. Okay, this is from like another country from, it's 100 years old or like, you know, whatever. Like, it's just like, yeah, it's just like, yeah. But also, like, he doesn't really need. turns out as the thing goes on, he doesn't really need to bribe him with liquor anyway.

Yeah, yeah. But it's not like, yeah, like if the end of the holdovers, he took a tiny little bottle of Hennessy from the dean or whatever. Now, this is, so the situation here is, so I thought, so earlier banks, like, I'll give you the money to serve the world.

Here he seems to be trying to put the son on his dad's health insurance, which correct me if I'm wrong, I could be wrong. He should be on already. Like it should be just a matter of, oh yeah, he has a son. Let's put him on his dad.

South Insurance. Because as we've established, the dad is not dead. He's in the care of a military medical establishment. So it seems like all those tools should be there. And the title of the movie illustrates that he is still a minor effectively, right? He's a teen. He's a teen. I mean, he should be on that insurance probably until he's about 21, probably. And all the different military advantage credit and loan opportunities that come with that.

So this is stated, though, as if it's not new information, this is the third explanation we begin for this dad now that he was not just in the... military, but was like a, I don't, I'm trying to remember if they say he was brainwashed or not. But he was like an experimental assassin who was turned into this on a mission, gone Canada on a mission, but the guy's like, I'll only do this. If you can prove to me that he's his son. And also, I want to know if his prediction of where storms are going to hit is accurate. And Banks is like, it's totally accurate.

And he hands him a manila folder full of envelopes. And I could not read it. It says classified. It says classified, but it's like written in marker. And, and the, and. he pulls them out and they just look at the documents for a while, not saying anything. It's just watching people read papers and he's like, it's all here. It's all here.

Let's do it. And Banks is like, I think what we're about to do is the best, most important thing we've ever done. And I was like, by the end of the scene, I had so much less understanding of what was happening and what they were trying to accomplish than at the beginning of the scene. And it's a small detail in an otherwise, of course, perfect movie. But when they put the paper back in the envelope, it's clearly just a sheep, a blank paper. There's nothing on those things. It is a, this scene, it is so, it's funny when a movie that is clearly meant to be a meditation on the human condition suddenly starts to act like it is a movie with a plot.

Like a taught thriller. A taught thriller about a government secret. And you're like, what? It's such a bizarre. This is when the movie refuses to catch you. When the movie throws you in the air and then just walks away and you hit the ground, wait, he's a government assassin? I don't understand. And that leads to the.

the creepiest scene in the whole movie to me. And this is the one scene where I'm like, okay, well now I have a moral issue with this movie. Yeah, of course. This is when the movie goes from, this guy's got some crazy ideas about fear and God and what do you know who had some crazy ideas? His name was Jesus.

And I want to tell you about him. And this is when it gets into like, oh, this is a negative philosophy. This is a bad thing. This is poised. And I'm just glad no one will ever see this movie in any sincere sense. This is kind of the moment where I'm like,

now I don't mind making fun of this fucking guy's movie. So Sage meets with this guy who I don't think is given a name in the movie. He's super creepy. And he's like, oh yeah, I was like a protege of your dad's

during the war. And he talks about how his dad taught him that sometimes you have to kill. There's always a time to kill. And just like white blood cells kill bad bacteria, there are bad people that you just have to kill. And it's not a sin to kill bad guys.

Because they're bad. So you have to kill. killed. And we're good. And we're good. And it was like, and this is something that is such a point, and I think part of the reason that I was so disgusted by this is because this is the rhetoric that our government does right now. Where Pete Huggs, that's just the other day had that thing where he's like, our job is to do bad things to bad people. It's like, fuck you shithead. Your job is to protect the American people and hopefully people of other countries. Your job is not to enjoy the act of killing and to get your rocks off murdering people. Your job is to regrettably,

maybe kill sometimes in the act of defense or because you have to. But there's such a, this idea of like, it's not a sin if you're killing a bad guy. It's always a sin. Like, there's, it just, sometimes you have to commit a sin. But anyway, he also goes,

anyway, my dad, your dad saved my life before he single-handedly blew up a ship and he died in the explosion of the ship. And it's like, we know he didn't die. We saw him already. So what is going on? And that immediately, without a transition, the guy's like, you have to serve for your dad.

And he's like, yeah, I do. And I'm like, at what point, at this point, what are we, supposed to understand is happening with his dad. Like what, we've been given all these branching possibilities, like the Joker is telling us his origin story in different ways. Like, what are we supposed to understand about what's going on in this movie? And I just...

I mean, we're supposed to know that he's awesome, right? Yes, that he is awesome. And that he's full of wisdom. It is so funny, too, it's such a dad fantasy, too, to be like, you know what? I have this wisdom that I have to share with my son. It is so deep. It's going to change his life. And you know what?

I was the single best government. assassin that ever existed. And I was, and I nobly gave my life, maybe not, in the act of blowing up a ship, single thing, because I'm also Rambo. I'm not just the greatest philosopher, I'm also Rambo. And I've also imparted to my son

everything he needs to know. And now I don't need to hang out with it. And now I can leave. And now I can leave and go somewhere else. It is a, I mean, this, they could have called this movie, dad, man commits fantasy to film. Like, there's so much because even the act of seeing a beach whale and wanting to

walk around it and look at it really close is a very dad thing to do. Like, they're so... Yeah, son, come over. Come over. Take a look at this. You're never going to see this again. Let's pop the hood on this bad boy and check.

Just crawl in there. Just crawl in there. What are you working with? You know he's looking at it. Pretending he knows anything about what's inside a way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah, the lungs are like that.

Yeah, the lungs are like that. See this? Yeah, that's how it keeps the krill in. Because it eats krill. It's a big thing, but he's his time. The filters through his, I don't know, it's not teeth. There's something in there. Yeah, some comes out of the filter.

Everybody says this is a big fish. It's not a fish. It's a mammal like you or me. Not a fish, just like you. And you know, there's a marine biologist who's lecturing about the whale. And he's going, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, as if he knew all those things already. And does anyone have any questions about the whale? Yeah, well, you know, a lot of people think whales are fish, but they're not fish.

They're mammals. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. Question. Yeah, well, I actually, I have another, this isn't so much a question,

but like my family originally comes from Wales. Okay, spelled differently. It's not related to this, but, you know, thank you for, and the tour guide or docent or whatever has to accept this and assimilate it somehow into normal human conversation, you know?

That's this guy. This movie is that, and I want to, I have to go back and really read through that interview with him. I didn't have the time to go through it in detail. Anyway, but, But this creepy guy who tells him there's always a time to kill. There's always a time when killing needs to happen. He pushes him back into the direction of surfing for his dad.

And then in time lapse, we get to, I think, the most interesting part of the movie, to be honest. Yeah, easily. In time lapse, you're just watching someone make a new surfboard for Sage. And it's pretty cool to see how a surfboard gets made. And it's also clear that Sage is like two, three years younger than the rest of the movie. Again, this is clearly footage that was shot for, I don't know if it was this project or another project. Just for fun. Yeah. It's hours of footage of a surfboard being made

Which is cool to see all sped up Because it's like, oh, I'm like, I didn't know that that's how they did it You know, this is by if this was the whole movie I'd be like, this is a great movie, I recommend it, you know I'd recommend it as a YouTube video How Surfboards are made, but you know Suddenly, Sage is in an Asian country I'm not going to

Bolly, I believe he's in Bali And he's meeting monks, he's getting sick insects placed on his shirt, again looks younger than in the previous footage and he's clearly just on vacation and then he goes surfing. Well, that's the effect of him losing his fear. Yeah. That he has become younger.

The mind killer. You let the fear pass through you through you and when you walk through your younger and have stick insects on you. Yeah, of course. That's why his father, who has no fear, looks super young all the time. And well. Very well. It looks very healthy and invigorated, yeah. Normal.

Leading man. Fiorile. Yeah. So he's just a middle-aged man. He's just an older middle-aged man. That's it, you know. And now I'm going to find out that he was younger than me

when he made this movie somehow. The thing I'm constantly finding out, I mean, that's one of the things that gets me so much about, like Pete Hegseth and why I've mentioned him many times in this podcast, mostly because he's a piece of shit and I hate him. And it horrifies me that he's in charge

of the kinds of weapons that can kill lots of people. But also that he's like a year older than me and I'm like, dude, how do you have the mindset of a 19-year-old when you're older than me. Like, I don't understand. Anyway, you're one year... I got some bad news for you. I interacted a lot of people in the world and there's a lot people like that. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Anyway, what you're saying is I should make a movie about my wise philosophies to so I could share it with the world. I feel like this would be

I mean, they'd be less poisonous. You could connect with your kids. I could connect with my kids and they would never forgive me for it. Yeah. So the, so one night we're in the middle. I thought the whole movie was just going to be surf footage, but then you have one night, Sage is sitting with some guys his own age, roughly. Oh, right. talking about surfing and they're like the surfing's going to be pretty dangerous tomorrow. Those waves are going to be pretty big. Okay.

Then it's back to the surfing footage. And say just like, you know what? You got to go in and, you know, no fear. Hesitation is defeat. He's just like he's just got to go in and dominate that wave. Just fuck that wave, you know? Just do it. There's like such a long montage of just like dissolving from like one bit of surfing

footage to another. But then like in the middle of it like they really briefly dissolve to like the military base again. But then back to the surfing footage. I was so confused. I'm like, why was that in there? I thought it was going to change. And all these sequences are bridged by dissolves. Yes, it's a lot of dissolves.

Sometimes it's jet ski footage. Sometimes it's footage of other people surfing, but it's mostly footage of state surfing. And that moment when the military installation you see it again, it's one of the things where it's like, I forget that everyone when they hear a story has a certain understanding of how a story works that they can react to emotionally.

But in the act of creating a story, I forget, oh, not everybody knows how to do that. There are times when I'm like, my job is ridiculous. Anyone can do this. Like, why do we get paid any money to, like, write jokes and make up stories about things? And then I see a movie like this and I'm like,

oh, I guess not everybody can do it. Wait a minute. I do have a skill. But anyway, the surfing footage goes on for a long time. And this, again, where I started to, like, really ride that double playback button. And there's something like 15 or 20 minutes of just nonstop surfing

and Chetsky footage, and then it freezes on a still image of surfing, and above that, half-dissolved, superimposed, is footage of an American flag being folded as if at a military funeral. The end. And then the credits, they thank the members

of a local Boy Scout troop. That's true. I do remember that part. But it's a... Their credit is hands folding the flag. That's right. That's right. It is, there is so much surfing footage at the end of this.

And it's one of those things where there's a song playing and the song is playing, you're like, oh, well, when the song ends, the surfing will end. And the song ends, new song starts up, not done with the footage, got to throw another song on there. It's kind of relaxing. You know, this again could be just like a YouTube video

you toss on to like chill out or something. It is, I mean, to be fair, when you're watching it, you are never under any assumption that the story will continue again. You don't think he's ever in danger. There's nothing dramatic about it. It is just relaxing surfing footage with music over it. The music doesn't have lyrics. There's no vocals.

There's no dialogue. So this really could just be back. You go into like a Tommy Bahamas or a, you know, Margaritaville. This just could be on the screen playing. Yeah. So, yeah, thank you, Elliot. The surfer. He has confronting your fear.

I can front of your fear. I think it helps that. So this is one that it shows how out of the loop I am in the bad movie world that I no longer kind of hear about these movies ahead of time until Dan says, oh, we should do this one. And going into it knowing not at all what to expect. And just watching the dad's monologue unreal for a minute after. minute after minute for over a half hour.

I was like, you know what? This is exactly the way I want to experience this, which is with no understanding of what is happening and no guess as to what could happen next. Well, that's a good, that is a good transition to final judgments where we say whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked. And I, to pull back the curtain on the decision process here, like I, this year, I sort

of used my extracurricular bad movie viewing group. as like a vetting process of like Dan is the most committed to the lifestyle out of the three of us. Some would argue I have the least going on outside of the podcast. Some I think many might argue that. Yeah.

Emotionally not at all. Emotionally I think you have the most going on. Oh, thank you. What was I saying? Oh, I was using as sort of a vetting process of like what would be good for the small timber. And like I had certainly heard this title before as like this is.

You saw the billboards, yeah. A good, freco, bad movie. But I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything about it before seeing it with my bad movie watching crew. And I will say that, like, of the two movies that I suggested that we're doing, the next one is the fun one. The next one, like, I think is, like, genuinely fun while being, like, nutty. This is the one that I was like, well, we got to do this because this is a singular experience.

Yeah. And I'm going to say it's a good, bad movie, but it is awesome, but it is definitely a movie where you, like, it's a long monologue for a lot of it. Like, this is for the real weirdos, the sickos, the truth goes only. This is not the one to show to your coworkers. You're like, oh, I heard this is really funny.

Yeah, you got to, you got to go. Yeah, this isn't the one where like, again, like a guy at the bar is like, oh, you got to see this movie and be like, no, let me counter it. Yeah. You need to see this movie. And then you question your life. If you like having your brain broken, which is part of why I like this kind of thing sometimes, just to see something that is totally different than this is a good bad movie. It's like the analogy I like is one I also use for describing the extreme heavy metal that I listen to, which is that it's kind of like eating spicy food, right?

And that like you watch your normal bad movies and you're like, oh, your regular like bad Netflix thing, that's a simple bad movie. that's something with a little bit of heat. But sometimes after your palate gets to sensitize, but you can also tell the difference between different types of peppers and different types of chilies, that finally you can appreciate the ghost pepper of a movie like this,

which is an appropriate metaphor because there is a ghost made out of eels and electricity. This is, you finally... Squids and electricity. You finally made me understand the music you would do. Something else. The thing is, if, if... If you did not have this background, if you're just like, hey, you've probably seen a bad movie.

Why don't you watch this one? It would be impossible. But I feel like if you're a real bad movie freak, yeah, this is a good bad one for you. Like, this is great. If you're watching this all by yourself, okay, good luck. But this is great with friends. As someone who watched it all by myself, it was still a good, bad experience. But again, knowing that I'm going into, I mean, there's also knowing that I'm doing this

for this podcast. But I think this is, yeah, when you're with your, when you're with your bad movie sicko friends, yeah, pop this one on. You guys will enjoy it. I mean, seeing the theater,

ideally, so you can get the real effect. I mean, if you go to the website for the movie, they will tell you where screenings are coming up for it.

Okay. They do set up those screenings. So, uh, they were able to go see. Yeah. Recently, we were not able to make it out for a screening,

but, uh, the spectacle theater was showing this just recently. Yeah. So it's a, I would call this a good, bad movie. But like,

I think, Stuart, that the spiciness index is a really good way to scale this. You know. Prepare yourself. If you are, if you're a newbie, you might want to stick with the room right now. And maybe you'll make it your way up to this one. Eventually, yeah. To the mountaintop that we happen to live on. Yeah, where we've been desensitized.

At this point, at this point, in terms of spicy food, we're just hitting nails into our tongue because we've been desensitized to taste. Yeah. Hey, romance readers. What are you looking for? Brothers best friend, alien boyfriend, Mothman, vampires. We got your cowboys, your dukes,

your hot professors, your rock stars. We got your shifters. We got demons. We got sexy fairies. You want them morally gray? No problem. Can't pick? Don't worry, sweetheart.

We've got Y Cheeses up the wazoo. Reading Smut, the show where we read spicy books and figure out why people love them. Join us on Reading Smut, every other Friday on maximum fun. Oh, that's a spicy book. Sleep is important, but it's difficult sometimes.

I'm John Moe. On sleeping with celebrities, famous people help conk 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 Tudek 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. Hello, listeners.

Just want to take a minute away from confronting fear to remind you that the flop house is going to be appearing live in person. That's right, Dan Stewart and me. and joined by Alex Smith, aka Howledotti, in Louisville, Kentucky, September 18th at Worling Tiger. Go to Flophousepodcast.com slash events.

It's our first live show in a while. I'm super excited about it. I can't wait to get in front of an audience and perform our regular brand of nonsense and see what happens. We're going to be talking about the movie Glitter starring Mariah Carey. It should be super fun.

So that's September 18th at Worling Tiger, Louisville, Kentucky. Go to Flophousepodcast.com slash events. Can't make it to Louisville? All right. Well, we'll just have to come to you. through your computer. Flop TV is coming back.

It's season four. That's right. We're starting September 5th. That's a Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. And then the show's going to be on the first Saturday of every month, September through February. This is our one-hour online video version of the podcast. This year, the theme is the worst of the best, best picture winners that maybe aren't very good. And we're going to finish out the season by finally answering the question, is out of Africa a real movie?

Does it actually exist? Or is this some kind of sci-op, K-fabe kind of thing that, a lie that we've all been living under all this time. So that's Flop TV season four appearing on your computer screen if you get tickets at theflophouse. com.

Buy a ticket for an individual episode or buy a season past that's six episodes for the price of five. Can't make it to the live broadcast. That's okay. Your ticket gets you access to the recording of that episode and those recordings will stay up on the site

through the end of February. And I, of course, I have a couple of personal plugs, regular stuff, my book joke farming, how to write comedy and other nonsense, which is all of my joke writing secrets in one place, is still available from the University of Chicago Press. Please pick it up and read it. There is also an audiobook version. If you don't want to use your eyes, you just want to use your ears to absorb this information. My comic Barbarian behind bars from Mad Cave is now out in a collected edition. It's a really fun, really violent

story. I think you're going to like it, and I hope you pick it up. And of course, I'm still writing Harley Quinn monthly for DC Comics. Please pick that up, and I hope. Enjoy it. And now back to surfing footage. Let's answer some questions, some letters and listeners. Let's do it. I got a little bit of time. We've never done it before, but let's try it.

I'm glad to hear that, Stuart, because we are still in the middle of taping the podcast. So I'm glad. This one is from Dylan last name withheld. McDermott? Probably. Who writes? We have to assume. Hey, floppers.

Hey. What's up? Well, I can't answer that for Dylan, but I'll continue. Continue reading the... Do it in character. I was... I was reading. Oh, wow.

Got you. Oh, fuck. Got you, Dylan. Fuck. Dylan was just... Dylan McDermott was just roasted because that didn't sound like going on. Somebody gets some fucking cowmine lotion.

I was recently watching the Stuart Gordon Classic Space Truckers. Sick. Yeah. And was instantly captured by... Better than a movie called Space Trucker should be. Yeah. I was instantly captured

by the opening gag of cages and cages of a Martian Square pigs ready for delivery. Something about the physicality, these goofy rubber pigs oinking and squealing really set something off of my brain. I couldn't stop thinking about the work, skill, and effort that went into

crafting them, despite them only having about 10 seconds of total screen time. Do you have some other notable examples of throwaway gags or effects that really stood out or made a movie for you? Keep on flopping. Dylan, last name withheld.

This is not a special effects thing. So I guess it did- But Chewbacca, a real-life wiki. It does not go into the gags or effects category. A different meaning of the word gags, I suppose. You mean like choking someone. Yeah, yeah. No, it's funny that you go to Star Wars

because like the first thing that came to my mind in terms of like not a special effects gag, but a joke gag was that really lodged my brain was in Return of the Jedi. Is it that one... That creature that eats that other creature or no, there's nothing else?

Well, you know what? I couldn't remember whether that was in the special edition or was in the original. That's the original. It's the establishing shot of Java's Palace and that thing just sticks at its tongue and that's the original thing.

Yeah, that's the original thing. Okay, well, that was the first thing. I thought that was in the special edition. No, no. That's just there. No, that's an old one. That's an old one. Okay.

Well, that was the first thing that came to mind, honestly. Elliot. And then I'm like, because I didn't know which edition it was in, I'm like, I don't want to talk about that. But I guess my brain was like on Return of the Jedi. So I just thought the as a joke moment that was like throw away the, uh, rancor keeper coming in and being so sad. I love it. That his rancor has been killed. That's a great moment. Yeah. Just like a couple of seconds, but it adds so much like to the movie. You know, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, something in a small moment.

I mean, to keep with a theme, the joke in space balls, the aliens joke where the alien pops out of his chest and then does the little, what, frog, like, hello my baby number. J. Frog. It's a very silly gag, but like they put a lot of work into it. That's actually John Hurt, right? They actually got John Hurt to be in that. Yes, yes. It's great.

Yeah. It's like, no, not again. That's a lot of work for kind of a dumb job. joke. I like it. It's a bottom effects. I think whenever you do it, I mean, the thing that always gets me, this is not a movie thing, but because I thought about that creature in return of the Jedi,

because it's like, that's, that's puppetry and things like that. But also, they do that kind of stuff in the TV show, The Young Ones a lot, where they'll open a door to a room and suddenly there's a lion tamer in there, and you see a line tamer for like a little bit, and then they close the door, and that's it. There's no, like, and it's like, well, they had to do a lot of stuff. There's a

moment in the beginning of the movie, million dollar legs, where a guy just walks across the screen with a bear on a leash to show you that this is like a foreign country. And I remember talking to John Oliver about that movie and he was like, they had to get a bear. Like, they had to bring it there. Like, that's work, you know. Yeah. No, that's, I mean, like, I always love that kind of stuff because the joke is funny or the, or the moment is striking. But then there's just the metal level of like, yeah, they put so much effort into a thing that argue is unnecessary or stupid,

and that makes it more valuable to me. Yeah. It is funnier when a lot of work is put into a throwaway thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. This is from Parker, last name withheld, but it's not Posey, sorry. It's Parker. L.C. Lose. From the desk of PLC. Lose.

Hi, Floppers. Hey. Hey, Parker. Hey, hey. I have been... Dan was Parker sound like. Hey. Oh, okay.

Hey, though. I'm into it. I have been greatly amused by your ongoing stand-up and cheer bit. You've incorporated into the Flophouse. We incorporated it, yeah. Recently, when watching my neighbor, my, my neighbor, God damn, now I'm throwing off. Recently while watching... Now?

Now? Yeah. Recently when watching... my neighbor Totoro for the 20th time with my two-year-old. That's a hard sentence to say. Totoro, 20th time, two-year-old. That's an English actor's warm-up thing. Oh, my neighbor Totoro.

My neighbor Totoro. Oh, I was talking to Totoro. 20 times with me two-year-old. Toltero, he don't say much, but 20 times my two-year-old was talking to Totoro. I missed the cat bus. And so I was walking through to Torto. rain with my neighbor Totoro.

I says to Totoro, I says, Tata, Totoro. No time for ye. I thought to myself that when Satsuki boards the catbush and rushes off to save her sister, Mai, that it was a genuine, honest to God stand-up and cheer moment.

So my question to you guys is, what is your favorite genuine stand-up and cheer moment in a movie? Keep flopping those flops. Love yas. This is a hard question because the fact is there are so many genuine stand-up and cheer moments in movies. It's what make movies amazing is that there are so many of them

where there's a moment in it that is... And what makes the stand-up and cheer gag about the flash entering the Speed Force. So such a strong joke for us is because there are movies where you want to stand up and cheer. This is not one of them. Even superhero movies. Even superheroes.

I mean, one of them, I hate to go to the superhero well, but one of them is the scene in Spider-Man 2 when Spider-Man fights Dr. Octopus on the train, and then he's about to fall off the train and all those hands catch him and pull them on. And it's not so much alike. I think for me, it's not so much stand-up and cheer. There are movies that make me, like, tear up a little bit at a big moment.

And so, like, there's a moment or like in E.T. When Elliot realizes that E.T. is still alive after he thinks that he's died. That's a stand-up and cheer moment for me. But it's also one where I'm, like, crying a little bit. In the Iron Giant. Oh, yeah. The older brother, like, bonks his head. He's so, like, happy.

That's such a great moment in E.T. But it's like the, there's a, like, a great movies have a, like, a great movies have a, have a lot of those types of moments, you know, and it's a, I don't know, what are ones that come to you? And it's, it's, it's the, it's the, it's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, cutzpah of them being like, oh, yeah, the flash entering the speed force. A moment no one cares about or remembers. Yeah. It doesn't mean anything, you know. One that came to my mind, um, was that in college, uh, my first roommate, shout out to Matt Bartmas. Uh, he's not listening, but hi. Uh, to shout pretty loud then. Yeah. He had, uh, the Walls and

Romit movies. At that time, the three shorts on VHS. And I had never seen Wallace and Gromit. And he knew that I also grew up in like an Anglophile household. He said, oh, you would love these things. This is right going to be right up your alley. He had a screening of the wrong trousers with like a bunch of our other friends on our dorm hall who had also not seen a Wallace and Gromit thing. And at the end of the climactic chase where like, you know, Ron, is laying down track for the toy train to chase Feathers McGraw around, you know, like, and everything resolves itself magically all at once at the very end. Like, the room burst into spontaneous applause.

So that one stuck out for me. I was watching, I was watching dirty dancing with my wife recently. That's her favorite movie. We watch it. We've watched it many times. Yeah, it's incredible. Every now she's just like, I'm going to watch it. When Patrick Swayze, he pulls baby out of the corner, like, that's a stand-up.

It's great. It's a wonderful moment. Yeah. It's the part in return of the king where at the end, during the coronation, or is it the wedding or coronation where... You know me. You're better than me, man. This is your bailiwick. Everyone's taken a knee and actually, you know, I'm not going to... I mean, there's so many moments in Lord of the Rings, but I think for me, the one

that always gets me is the opening of two towers where Gandalf falls down into the pit after the bow-wrog. Every time it gives me a rush to see this little, little old, Gray Pilgrim falling down after a massive fire demon. That's when I stand up and cheers. That's when I, you're like,

Gandalf is dead. Well, I'm like, the thing is like, we thought Gandalf was dead. We thought Gandalf was dead, but like, you see him do the craziest thing. Whereas like, I'm not just being dragged down there. He's being dragged down there with me. Real Roarshark.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he's got some crazy podcasts. Yeah, yeah. Have you heard him talk about, White Shores before, yikes. Gandole's like someday all the Hobbits and all the gnomes will cry out for me to save them

and I'll say no. It is true that Gandalf believes he's gotten better as he's gotten whiter. I remember having a conversation with it years ago when Watchman was just a comic, having a conversation with a friend of mine about who was the hero of that book? And he was like, well, it's obviously Worshack.

Like, Worshack's the hero. And it was like, are you a crazy? And it was like one of these moments where I like saw into my friend or like 16 or something. Yes. But like just, but even then seeing seeing into my friend

and being like, oh, there's something in you that does not connect with me. No, I mean, like, obviously Rorschach has like a lot of issues, but I think the confusion that,

well, no, I'm like, he doesn't have a lot of issues. He's got a real screw loose. I think that the confusion comes like from people. My mom's Italian.

My dad's Jewish and I'm Rorschach. I think the confusion comes from people being like, well, that character has moral clarity. And you're like, yeah, but he's got too much moral clarity. He has principles and also that he is, he has principles and he stands up to them as opposed to like, you know, because I'm a nerdy weak guy, I was always like, oh, well, Night Owl is clearly the hero of this book, but like Night Owl is soft, you know, in a way that's easy to denigrate.

So, you know, you know, he ends up with the girl. I mean, come on, you know. Yeah, but like part of the point of it is like sometimes your, your own clarity leads you to the wrong place, you know. Yes, you could say it's what much of the book is about because that's also Ozzy Mandis's problem. So my recommendation is Watchmen, the comic. Although, to be honest, I read one of my favorite comic podcasts, screw what we're just going to talk about comics, hosted by the Heinz brothers.

They did a Watchman season, and I was reading along as they were re-reading it as they were doing it. And it was the first time in years that I had looked at Watchmen and like, you know what, this is a pretty sour book. This is a little too sour for me right now, you know. A little too dour, dour and sour. The two brothers. No, the two brothers are, we're in Kevin Hines.

Okay. But which one would be dour and which one would be sour if you had to sign? So hard to choose, yeah. Yeah. I also listened to that series. It was good. Let us recommend movies, you and I. A movie?

For the evening sun, something, etc. Yeah, who knows what this evening sun is going to do? It could do anything. Could explode. It could rise back in the sky. Circle around. Yeah, yeah. But you know what the sun does at the during the evening day, right?

Yeah, but it's. Like, yeah, it sets, but that's not what the fucking poem says. No, but that's what it does, yeah. The horizon is really moving. This is something, it's a conversation I've had with my. It is really moving. Yeah. This is, this is a, this is my version of, so when my, I was a kid, my dad would always

have a conversation with me about how amazing modern telecommunications technology is. Like, and it's astounding, you know, in the old days, you'd have to take a ship and you'd carry a letter across the ocean. This was his dad talked to me. And I realized my dad. It's astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness takes control.

That's what my dad would say. And then we'd have to, of course, then we'd have to take a step to the left and then it jumped to the right. Yeah. And go look at that whale. But my version of that with my kids is the basic importance of the fact that we are on a planet that turns and goes around the sun and creates seasons, that every single aspect of human life and civilization.

And not only that, but animal and plant life is based around that fact that the earth turns and orbits the sun. And my kids are so bored by this conversation. I mean, you're blowing my mind. Yeah. But it's the single most of... It's not for children. You're blowing my mind, but I have, like, had three gummies today.

Oh, wow. Well, I took one, and then I'm like, did I have a gummy already? Probably not. And then you're like, those two gummies are probably lost to the third one to go find them. And then I was like, I'm hungy. Let me do another gummy in there. Stewie hungry. One gummies my limit.

It has to be pretty low gummy these days. Wish there was a way for me to do it without gummies. Don't like gummy things, yeah. You can do chocolate I could, that's true. Every year, every year, whenever I have my birthday, I go, I go to my wife,

I go, is this the year that I start getting high? She's like, I don't think so. I mean, I feel like it might help you go to sleep. Yeah, that's true. Like, turn your brain off and just fucking float. It depends. The effect's fair. You can try it.

I'm not saying, like, I'm not saying commit to the lifestyle. Don't like buy a bunch of fucking, all in. Don't like start wearing a fucking drug rug. Yeah, get a Baja. She comes home. I've replaced all the lamps with lava lamps.

I'm like, this is what we do now. All the art is black light posters. I finally get Floyd, man. Um, okay. Let's talk about the planet's rotations. They're like, oh, it's not that different. Well, what I've always said to my kids. These are all old stoner things, by the way.

I wonder what new stoner's do. I don't know what new stoners do. They probably just sit and play video games all day. Yeah, they fucking bed rot and doom scroll. So the one of the thing that I've always said, And we'll get to recommendations. I apologize. Sorry, Ben Run and duped scroll.

It's like my favorite Teenish Meet and his little villain. Yeah. I was going to say, those are my favorite pieces of ice and net runner. The, that what my kids, I've started to talk to my older son

about drugs a little bit and just to, you know, be aware of them. And he knows I don't do them. And my line with them is I'm like, well, I don't, I have such a loose grip on my understanding of reality already.

There's already enough times when I think I see something out of the corner of my eye and I have to turn and there's nothing there. I don't need to, add more of that into my life, you know? I'm already teetering on the edge of madness.

I don't need to give myself a shove, you know. Guys, I sometimes leave the... Okay, so don't read those books, those Suttercane books I mailed you. Suttercane, he's my favorite author. Why are my eyes bleeding? Sometimes I leave the walk uncleaned a little bit on the stove because, you know, like... Extra flavor, yeah. I have to re-season it after I clean it.

You know, it's one of those types of... And I like perch it on top of the, um, the, uh, the Dutch oven, which also lives on the stove a lot of the time just because they're so big. Ours is the same. Our skillet and our Dutch oven basically live on the stove top, which, you know, what are you going to do? But the, the blackness of the walk and the, um, the handle pointing up every time I see it out of the corner of my eye. I think that one of our cats is sitting on the stove over there. Um, pointless story, but I'm glad I like that. I liked that a lot. I thought that's funny. Let's recommend.

Look, we spent a lot of time talking about surfer, teen confronts fear. We owe ourselves some human connection. Yeah, let's just talk about stuff from our lives, man. Yeah, come on. In front that fear. The thing is that there's always whales at the bottom of the sea howling for cowardly men.

They're always crying. There's always one crying, yeah. I know why the whales cry. When one washes up on the beach, it's because a coward did not go down there and get chomped on. Yeah. Oh, wow.

That's what he says, right? It's basically what he says. It's a lot of weight on me, a coward. Yeah. There's other cowards. It's not just you, Dan. Yeah. Classic, classic straight white man.

We mentioned something and you assume it's about you. Yeah, I'm sorry for centering myself in this whale tragedy. Yeah, it's okay. It's about the whales, Dan. Let's recommend a movie that we have seen. It's just playing into that whale savior narrative. Yeah. Let's recommend some movies, shall we?

Yeah, I went out. Like a movie that you saw. So why don't you talk, you've seen movies, Dan. Why don't you tell us some movie you saw that? Oh, boy, have I. I saw a movie. You would not believe the movies I've seen. I saw a movie.

Yeah, C-beam splittering off Alpha Centaurier shit, you know? Attack ships on fire. Yeah, that kind of shit. That kind of stuff. If Roy Badi watched Teen confronts fear, he would be like, I'd really get it. He'd be like, I'm ready to go now. I'm ready to melt away like tears in the rain.

I saw it in the theater, but it's an old. movie what how is that possible did they do that you go back in time it is it's the new 4k I think he's old what it's the 4k the remaster is new the 4k remaster of the I guess director's cut of man hunter the oh okay Michael man picture based on red dragon that must have been so hard when Michael man was making that because he would think that they were hunting him yeah it must have been fed called the said and he would run away now now now So Manhunter, the original, is one of those almost perfect movies. So how did this fare?

Well, the thing is, like, I love Manhunter, but I've seen it, like, this is maybe the fourth time I've seen it in over, like, the course of 40-ish years. So I am not intimate. And those first 10 years, I'm guessing, you didn't see Manhunter. So really, it's like 30-some-odd years, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking, like, was I seven when I watched, Mann?

I mean, it's kind of possible, you know, how things were back then. Did we go to see Manhunter? Or did we go to see the Care Bears? Or just land before time. No, I'm not so versed on Manhunter, despite loving it, to be able to point to the differences. There is one scene at the end that I'm like, oh, I'm pretty sure this is new. And that's like the best I could do. But there was an ad for Amazon.

But I can report like there. I have seen Real Manhunter fans post online that the theatrical will cut is better. Whatever. I enjoyed seeing Manhunter in the theater. I did not really change the experience

that much for me that it was a slightly different cut. But everything that's great about the movie was still great. It's got such immaculate vibes. It's got such great music, such great cinematography. Got Tom Noonan. Can't go wrong. But the thing that...

William Peters son. But the thing that the thing that really struck me watching it this time actually was that the tooth fairy is not the hero. Yeah. I was like,

it seems like a cool dude. He's got strong rules that he follows. No, especially considering how like Baroque and over the top Oh, I'd say it's not broken at all. Serial killers movies

became later. Yes. The genre that this movie essentially created. like this is so restrained despite like the kind of MTV style of it it is so restrained like I noticed like like we don't start with on-screen violence we start with the effects of violence like we see William Peterson like Will Graham going through a crime scene you know after the violence has already occurred and experiencing it like how it must

have happened like thinking it through but we just see a bunch of blood on the the laws. It's not like, we gotta start this movie off with a bang. And it's so much more effective to like have this slow burn. It is like halfway through the movie before we see Tom Noonan's character, Dollar Hyde, the Red Dragon, the tooth fairy, whatever, however you want to refer to it. He's got a lot of names. Yeah. And it is a really sort of like reasonable procedural. Like Will Graham is making a few like little leaps, but it's not one of these later, like, he, like, somehow knows exactly what the killer is thinking.

Like, it's more like he has put himself in this mindset, and he makes leaps that seem logical to us, the audience, you know? And a lot of the other stuff surrounding that stuff is just, like, FBI procedural stuff that seems really, like, legit. And, uh, and I, and I like how it's really kind of, of a grounded movie in addition to being a really stylish one. And you were saying this special edition, they went back and digitally added Anthony Hopkins in place of Brian Cox.

The one problem this movie had. As they were always intended from the beginning. Yeah. Anyway, that's my recommendation. You guys go. Yeah, I really want to see it. I am going to recommend a movie that might still be out. When does this episode come out?

Small Vember. Small Vembers. It will still be out. I am recommending the new Jane Shire. Shunbrun movie, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, at Camp Miasma. This, I was lucky enough to get to go to see an early screening of this while I was up in Toronto. Thank you, a friend of the podcast, Peter Kloiski, for getting me in. I was such a huge fan of Jane's first two movies.

Specifically, I saw the TV Glow really crushed me, and I feel like that movie, they're able to tell, like, get across the experience of transitioning, using, like, drawing from this collection of references that makes so much sense. Like, I feel like you could hand that movie to anybody who has been obsessed with it, like a niche thing, and they would get it. Like, they'd be like, okay, this all makes sense. Thank you.

But it's also, like, kind of a sledgehammer and sad. So going into this, going into Camp Measma, I really didn't know what to expect. And it's what is so great. about Camp Measma is that it's like so joyful and playful and it's basically about sex as told through and like coming to understand sex and connect with it through the language of slasher movies. Which, yeah, it's, it was really great and weird and silly and playful and funny and it's great. And it's got some really great performances and Kevin McDonald shows up.

And there's a couple of, there's like, there was definitely at least one needle drop that I felt like I was the oldest person in the audience, which I probably was. It was like an audience of all very young, cool, queer kids. And then grandpa over here, chuckling that Kevin McDonald showed up. But yeah, it's really cool. And I'm looking forward to you. I'm going to go see it again this week. And I think I'm going to run over to the Museum of the Moving Image here in New York where they have a exhibit of some of the props, which one of the things. that this movie has clearly has a love of slashing movies

is through some of the props that they had there. So check it out. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I really want to see that one. I'm going to recommend, I haven't gotten to see a lot of movies lately. Story of my life, but there was a movie that I rewatched recently, and it feels like it actually dovetails with Surfer Teen Confronts Fear pretty well.

Where I'm like, this movie, most of it is someone standing there while another person talks about their philosophy of life in the strangest possible way and they don't get a chance to respond. Like the surfer never really gets a chance to respond. So is there a good version of this movie where someone is explaining their strange kind of life and philosophy and the other person does get to respond

and I realized, oh, there is a good version of this. And I just rewatched it and that's my dinner with Andre. From 1981, directed by Louis Mall, starring Andre Gregory and Wallace John as kind of, versions of themselves where this is the movie when I was growing up it was like

if Ishtar was your was your go-to reference for a bad movie this was your go-to reference for like boring smart person movie and so I did I put off watching it for a long time

when I finally watched it I was old enough to get it it's an amazing movie it's a really fantastic movie and it's just two guys having dinner talking about their views on

where art and life intersect and their anxieties about those things and I remember Andre Gregory is so poised throughout the movie even as he's saying bonkers things.

And Wallace Sean is so, like, agitated in his performance. And yet watching at this time, it made me realize that Wallace Sean is the character who really stands by his guns and seems to, like, have a strong way of thinking. Whereas Andre Gregory, even though he talks in a very poised way, kind of just whatever Wallace Sean says, he's like, yeah, yeah. But also it could be, you know, yeah, you're right. And it could be like this. Like, he's much more malleable, even though he at first seems to be the more senior and the more poised and the more wise of the two. and there's just so much in it,

not just about the way they're talking, what they're talking about, but like the dynamic between the two of them and what's going on underneath that. And it's just, it's a really wonderful movie and really fascinating. And I was like,

oh, surfer, teen confronts fear, is like the shitty version of my dinner with Andre made by somebody who doesn't really have anything interesting to say and doesn't really know how to imbue that with human emotion or human worries or things like that.

And I would say, if anyone out there is like, you know, like you, sort of you were intimidated by the idea of watching my dinner with Andre. Like, you're listening to a podcast. You like hearing people just have like conversations that what weave around. I didn't even think about that. It does feel very much like a movie version of like a proto podcast between these two guys.

Except that there's a real. There's a design. There's a structured dramatic structure to it. I was trying to think of another word of than the structure. Like a form to it. What? I said, no need. Yeah, that's true.

There is a dramatic form to it and they are playing characters. What about the script that Dan sends us before every episode that we adhere to careful? That we have to do word for word for word. Yeah, yeah. And then redo an ADR later. I don't know why we're a DERRing an audio podcast, but that's the way it works. Trying to match lips, baby. But also one of the fun things about my dinner with Andre is that they are talking about

theater and life and things like that. But the stories that Andre Garry tells are bonkers. And Wallace, Sean, just watching him kind of at a certain movie, like, what are you talking about? Like, what is this? Like, it's a, it is very fun and it is entertaining. And so it's a, I would, I highly recommend it. If you've ever put it off because you thought it was going to be boring,

at least watch the first 30 minutes, you know, and then I think you'll watch the rest of it too. It's not a long movie. It's really fun. Yeah, you hit on something, like they really play up. Like, you know, you might think it was boring because it's just people, too, people talking. but it's a

dynamic between two people. They play up the odd coupleness of like Andre Gregory is this like wandering adventurer and Wallace Sean just like wants to stay home in his New York apartment and have his comforts. You know, like that's part of it. That's part of the fun. Perfect podcast.

It is a perfect podcast. I mean, I feel like the best podcasts are the ones where you have two weird dudes talking about stuff. But they're weird. Different ways. Yeah. Yeah. They have to overlap just enough.

You can read all about it joke farming in my podcast chapter. Oh, that's true. Yeah. You made it into Elliot's book, Stuart. Were you aware of this? We're in there. I haven't finished reading his book.

I am. I'm like page three or something. It's okay if I'm going to start it. My dad, this is the kind of stuff my dad says all the time. He goes, how are sales on the book doing? Has anyone else read the whole thing or just me? Am I the only person who read it all the way through? Jesus, Louie.

Weird. Weird. Your therapist hears that shit and is like, Ching, she. We found a rock to kickover. He does that kind of stuff all the time. It's really funny. Okay.

Yeah, my dad did a thing, this reason, where after complaining about everyone else in the family, he's like, but that's like your aunt's a judgmental person. I'm not. And I was like, bitch? Wow, we're confronting a lot of things along with fear. And thank you for confronting server team. front sphere with me for a second time for me. This is my second go-round.

Yeah, I'm glad I could be there with it. It seemed longer somehow. Anyway, thank you. I'm glad we didn't have to go it alone. Yeah. Thank you to Maximum Fun. Go to Maximum Fun.org. Check out all the other great podcasts on our podcasting network.

Thank you to Mr. Alex Smith. You still have time to see him with us in Louisville when this release. get tickets if you're in the area. We're talking glitter, folks. Glitter. Glitter. Performing as Howell Dottie. And maybe if you go,

you'll finally learn how to spell Howell Dottie so you can Google it. I mentioned it on every episode. And I'm like, people are going to have trouble finding Alex. I don't mean to threaten anyone here. But I will say, if you're thinking, they're going to release the episode at some point, I'll wait till they release it.

Well, there's a above zero chance we are going to fuck something up and lose the audio. That's true. Wouldn't be the first or second time. Any times. Yeah. So, yeah, we hope to see you there if you're in the area. But anyway, for the flop house, I have been Dan McCoy. Hey, I'm your one and only.

That's Stuart Wellington, baby. And I'm Elliot Kalen, just wandering the universe on this planet that turns and also orbits at the same time. Think about it. May a squid and all like this? I got my, you're, you're summarizing. I've got my notes set up for it. It genuinely, you know, it just, it, it came, you came up in the rotation. I didn't, like, juke the stats or anything.

I was like, few. I don't have to summarize the moment. Oh, shit. Yeah. This one's, it's tough. Yeah. I got, I mean, I did some, I did some pre-work in organizing my notes. Okay.

Let's roll into it. I'll let you, I'll let Stewart finish a slice of mango. Mango, mango. Can we turn Stewart into the one who canonically is wasting Flop House time with mango now? I don't know. You can switch that over. I'll talk to the kids about it because that's a favorite of theirs. Okay.

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