Ep.#455 - Poolman, with Josh Gondelman

On this episode, we discuss Pool Man.

You know, not my favorite Spider-Man villain, but I'm interested to see what Sony does with the character.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to the Flop House.

I'm Dan McCoy.

I'm Stuart Wellington.

I'm Elliot Kalen.

Stuart, pick up your cues faster, please.

Maybe Stuart is just.

Stuart's just nervous because we've got a great guest today, and it's his job to introduce him.

And I understand this is a guest who deserves a big introduction, maybe the biggest.

And Stuart notoriously irksome if not introduced properly.

Yes.

So

our guest today is friend of the podcast, comedian, writer, Josh Gondelman.

Take it again.

Oh, God.

You have hurt me.

10 foot tall, eight foot wiener.

Did you say Infinite Wiener?

Infinite Wiener, Infinite Wiener.

I'm always reading Infinite Wiener on the subway just to get attention.

Oh, man.

What a pain that would be.

No, no, Dave, because I'm imagining.

Keep walking.

Keep walking.

You got to hit the end of it sometime.

I'm imagining it's like a measuring tape.

You can just pull out as much as you need.

Oh, tracks back in.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, cool.

Thank you for having me.

It's very nice to be here.

Infinite Wiener

is the Marvel character Anthony Wiener pitched himself as for the MCU.

Go away.

Go away.

Yeah, that feels like there's been Infinite Wiener in the news.

It's been like a decade of him going like, I'm back, and then immediately doing something so embarrassing and often illegal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Never gonna be able to do it.

Now, Josh, Josh, I'm sure we'll give you a full chance to promote it later, but you just had a new stand-up special drop.

Tell us about it.

Thank you.

It is called Positive Reinforcement.

It is an hour of jokes.

It sounds like this, but

there's punchlines and people laugh.

Hold on, look at that.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Wait a minute.

Hold on.

Hold on.

No, I promise.

People laugh there.

You might not laugh at home, but the people in the room laugh.

It's verifiable.

Lots of cutaways.

Lots of cutaways to the audience to prove that funny.

I thought you were saying lots of cutaways like Dan's favorite show, Family Guy.

Yeah, that's right.

It's, I, I do a setup and then it cuts to me fighting a chicken for three minutes.

Oh, wow.

Um, I shot it at the Bellhouse last summer.

Um, it, my friend Chris Werner, who I worked with it last week tonight, directed it.

It is on the YouTube channel of the record label that I work with, Blonde Medicine.

They're really wonderful.

It is available for anyone to watch anytime.

I, and I really hope people do.

It's like very, it's not quite clean.

Sometimes people think I'm clean and like book me for synagogues and tell me today I'm like, okay, you can't curse.

And I'm like, well, I was just going to if you didn't tell me.

But there's, there's no cursing in the special, but it does get a little adult.

So you can watch it with like your cool teens or teens, you can watch it with your cool parents.

But no duds, no losers.

No losers.

Yeah, it's just the sort of special that kids are going to like run home and listen to like on super low volume so their parents don't hear them listening to like I did with like old Eddie Murphy stand-up.

I did it with Adam Sandler.

I was going to say the old comedy albums.

Those Adam Sandler albums were the ones where me and my friends would listen to them on real low volume because we didn't want our parents hearing the

ears to hurt from the irritating voices.

He did that with the jerky boys case.

We couldn't even get our hands on those.

Those are too hot.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought there were two guys made of jerky, and I just really liked dried meats and I was very disappointed.

Josh, what's the name of the special again?

It's called Positive Reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement.

And now, I'm, I'm, so, Josh, you are, you're a, a famously positive person.

You're a famously positive kind of like, let's find the nice thing to say person.

So I'm very excited to hear you talk about the movie Pool Man today.

Pool Man.

Pool Man.

You mean the hot Lebowski?

That's good.

Man, you were saving this special.

You had that cute up.

Dan, Dan, what's Pool Man all about here?

Wait, I'm not the guy in charge of this.

Thank God.

This is not up.

This is written and directed and starring Chris Pine.

I would argue, the best of the Hollywood Chrises.

And he.

I think I would say Chris Weitz, friend of the podcast.

Oh, Hollywood Chrises.

Okay, that's fine.

You're right.

You're right.

You're actually right.

He's usually mentioned in the same sort of grouping as the people we were talking about.

I'll see a grid on Instagram.

Yeah, it's Hemsworth.

Whites.

Hemsworth.

He works in Hollywood.

His name is Chris.

And he's great.

He's the best one.

Yeah.

He is the best.

So let's talk about, but yes,

as you said, it's what written, directed, and starring Chris Pine.

And it really wears its influences on its sleeve.

It wants to be the Big Lebowski really badly.

It wants to be kind of like a more

sensitive Chinatown really badly, which it signifies by having the characters watch Chinatown in the movie.

That's always a tough one.

It's tough when a movie has you watch arguably a better movie than you think

you're watching.

Setting aside the landmine of the man who made the movie, I think it's you can.

What happened?

You're going to love this, too.

His nose got terribly mangled by a switchblade.

I think you can make it, arguably, make a case that, yes, that Chinatown is a better movie than Pool Man.

It's like, what was it?

The scene in Rain of Fire, where in the post-apocalyptic future, they entertain children by reenacting the story of Star Wars.

And I'm like, Movie, don't be doing this.

Just don't make me think about Star Wars while I'm watching movies.

And also, I had the same experience watching Return of the Jedi, where C-3PO entertains the Ewoks by reenacting Star Wars.

And I'm like, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars is a better movie.

What are you doing?

There's a third LA-based movie that is explicitly referenced in this where you're like, I would like to be watching that movie.

Where he goes, you've never seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

And this movie is, it's all that stuff.

It's very the long goodbye.

Like, it wants to be the long goodbye.

I'm going to toss a couple other ones in there that I actually

find more appropriate even is like Under the Silver Lake and

Inherent Vice, where it's movies where

the main character is so addled that you can't tell whether there actually is a giant conspiracy as part of or whether it's just his paranoid fantasies.

Yeah.

Yeah, that kind of like

LA neo noir with, you know, like a dopey main character.

I would call it Los Angeles Hangout Burnout Noir.

Like there's a lot of hanging out.

The main characters are burnout.

Big Levowski, I would say, is the greatest of those.

You know, that's arguably.

But let's talk about, we're not here to talk about that.

We're here to talk about Fool Man.

I think there's contention there, but that's okay.

See the Chris Pine in the boom,

wearing shorts and looking cool.

That I've been sitting on.

I've been singing that around the apartment so much.

Fool man.

My wife, Maris, has not been enjoying it.

Interesting.

Maybe the dog responded.

She's down.

As long as I sing it in her direction and like kind of upbeat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's talk about what Pool Man.

We talked about what Pool Man is like.

Let's talk about what Pool Man is.

Pool Man stars Chris Pine as Darren or DB, he's also called.

He lives in a trailer next to a motel pool.

He's a pool guy.

He takes his work very seriously.

He only seems to take care of one pool, just the one at this apartment motel complex.

He doesn't seem to like just enough to earn the title.

Yes.

Like he doesn't travel travel around taking care of other pools as most pool people do.

It's not called pools, man.

That's a good point.

That's a good point.

He is, he takes it very seriously.

And he's, he's like,

like Josh said, he's the hot Lebowski.

He has his shirt off a lot and he's kind of a burnout and he kind of doesn't know what's going on.

He writes very ultra-positive letters to Aaron Brockovich.

Every day he writes a letter to Aaron Brockovich.

And he has a girlfriend.

We all do.

And we are, I think that the tone of the movie might be best summed up by the scene, the first scene between him and his girlfriend, whose name is, what, Susan, I think, where they fit.

Played by?

Played by, is it Jennifer Jason Lee?

Yep.

Okay.

It's almost like there's a ton of stars in this movie.

It is a very star-packed movie.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

And they,

and the material does not give them a huge

to do.

I would say that it's like the movie is less a,

you know, a plot where one scene leads tightly to the next, but like a series of acting exercises,

acting exercises performed by great actors.

Like, you know, just sort of circuitous conversations.

Yeah.

It's like a star vehicle, but the vehicle is one of those like fake horses out in front of a grocery store in the middle rides.

Doesn't go, it doesn't go very much.

So

they lie in bed together.

They have a conversation about how their local chicken restaurant has not been as good lately since the owner died.

And he finds out that his girlfriend used to date the owner.

And he talks a lot about Desconso Gardens, which is a which is a real botanical garden in New York, sorry, in Los Angeles that my family is.

Do they make a lot of LA location references in this?

A lot of LA location references throughout the movie, but Desconso Gardens, for some reason especially gets like, and I'm like, does Chris Pine just like to hang out at Desconso Gardens?

I don't know.

I don't know.

It's a great botanical garden, but I'm not sure why they mentioned it so much.

But you don't really,

you don't, the characters are kind of having this rambling conversation at cross purposes with each other.

And there's a lot of that in this movie.

There's a lot of rambling conversations where characters are not really speaking directly to each other.

She leaves, he gets a package from, it's a real estate calendar from Theodore Hollandaise, who is a, who is one of the, I guess, sinister

power brokers pulling the strings in the windows.

I mean, like Teddy Hollandaise.

Then we're introduced to some of Poolman's crew.

There's Jack and Diane.

Like every time they said, he said Jack and Diane, it made me so mad.

Because it's like not a joke.

It's like a fake joke.

and they that jack is danny devito diane is annette benning it's great to see them in movies i love seeing them perform uh they're at they live at that kind of hotel apartment complex uh danny devito tells a long story about a japanese restaurant complaining about it and that's kind of the scene and

and uh diane is uh is Poolman's therapist and Jack, Diane, and Poolman, they're making a documentary with Pool Man's friend Wayne about Poolman's attempts to get the city council to bring back the trolley cars that used to be in Los Angeles and are a big plot point in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as you'll remember.

And yeah.

I would just want to say in passing that my favorite characters, I think, in this, I mean, other than we'll see Stephen Tolowski later.

This is about to come out.

It's terrific.

But I think that Jack and Diane are my favorite characters because there's just something about, I mean, like DeVito's doing his like normal, just sort of like, I don't know, like

fumfering around around with high-energy thing, but there's something about, I think, uh, Annette Benny specifically, her positive, like vibe, like, she's just like kind of coming along on all this bullshit very like indulgently, and she's just like happy to relax next to them while they're doing it.

She's like wearing a sun hat and giant glasses stuff.

And I found them like more fun than like the problem with Chris Prine's character to me is he's like too dumb.

Like in terms of like the big Lebowski, like Lebowski ends up being kind of a good detective, which is kind of the funny thing about that movie, even though he's stoned all the time.

He puts things together.

Whereas Chris Pine is like really out to lunch.

He's really dumb and he's like, but he's not.

We don't ever see him smoking pot or anything like that.

Whereas the Big Lebowski, like...

And he doesn't drink alcohol.

He doesn't really drink alcohol.

It seems like kind of a plot point.

So instead of Lebowski is clear, he is...

He's a burnout because he is constantly...

He's always high.

He's always smoking pot, which is a character trait.

Drinking white russian and drinking white russians that's true whereas uh whereas yeah the pool man is uh or darren i guess no one ever calls he calls himself a pool man but no one's ever like pool man you're here but

he's a he's just a dumb guy he's just a dumb spacey guy you know and yeah and uh it's i feel i was trying to think to myself what is it that makes jeff bridges performance in the big labowski so amazing i think it's one of the best comic performances of the past what 40 years or something in a movie i think he's and maybe it's just that he knows that character so well that he's like inhabiting it so, so completely.

Whereas Chris Pine feels like he is playing a part.

Like he feels like he's playing a character.

Hey, guys, do you think on the set of Hell or High Water, Chris Pine went up to Jeff Bridges and was like, hey, I'm thinking about doing another Lebowski.

Give me some tips.

I also think there's something frustrating about like, usually you don't want like a passive character, but like the pool man like keeps sort of stumbling into problems of his own design and misinterpreting things and that makes him more irritating whereas Lebowski is like just constantly reluctant he just wants to be left alone but is like dragged into things which I sound much more sympathetic yeah I honestly was thinking about that same tension because watching this movie I kept thinking to myself why is he doing all these things

and then at the end of the movie spoiler we'll get there he's totally superfluous to everything that's been happening but not in a funny way not in a funny like oh I was I thought I was the hero of this movie but it turns out I was just kind of bumbling around the edges of a larger story.

Instead, everyone treats him like a hero when he's done nothing and it's and accomplished nothing.

And it's a very, it's very weird.

But it's, and it might just be that, you know, Chris Pine, he walked the, he walked the strike line with us, you know, I appreciate that, but I'll go as far as to say he's probably not up to the Cohen brothers level in his directorial debut here.

It's not, this is not blood simple, you know, compared to the Cohen brothers who did Viglabas.

I would also, as much as I like him, I don't think he's cast well in this because

Chris Pine has like

a depth and a soulfulness in his eyes that do not fit a character that's this bumbling.

I will say two things.

One, I think he, yeah, he comes off as a smart guy playing a dumb guy.

And also, he's in great shape.

And it's hard for me to believe this character having the motivation to like exercise.

I believe him meditating and like trying to be good to himself that way and eating right.

I don't, but I, it's hard for me to imagine.

He is in great shape.

What do you think his routine is, Dan?

What do you think his work is?

Yeah, Dan, what do you think he does?

I'm guessing he does a lot of surfing.

Yeah, a lot of surfing.

Probably not

a lot of bulking, right?

Probably not a lot of powerlifting.

I wonder what he squats like.

Well, he's probably listening, so Chris fine, right in.

So anyway, they are making a documentary about Darren's attempts to get the trolley back.

They go to a city council hearing chaired by city council chairman Stephen Torankowski, who's played by Stephen Tobolowski.

So I could not remember that his name was Torankowski Torankowski for most of the movie.

And in my notes, I just call him Tobolowski.

And this is Darren's.

That's on them.

That's on them.

This is not an Elliott problem.

No, that's true.

It's very funny how none of the other characters have character names that are that close to their real name.

But Stephen Tobowski, it's not like they named the character Stephen Torankowski, and then by coincidence, cast Stephen Tobolowski on the role.

Couldn't have possibly been done that way.

No.

And in fact, if it was a coincidence, they would have changed it.

You would think so.

This is his 577th consecutive appearance, and he's fixated on returning LA back to the way it was.

He's one of these guys who's like, old L.A.

was amazing.

They're tearing down all these old buildings.

He's very knowledgeable about old L.A.

buildings and kind of what.

As an L.A.

guy, Elliot,

is this a characteristic?

They actually call me L.A.

L.A.

it.

Now I'm L.A.

it, Kaylin.

Because that's my catchphrase on the radio here.

I go, L.A.

it.

Hey, guys.

You don't know what to do with it?

L.A.

it.

Make it more L.A.

That's what I do.

What does that mean, in effect?

It means radio station.

What's the constant?

When you LA something, basically you put a side of avocado on it,

and then you place it next to a thing that is a wildly different architectural style, but it still works because there's so many different types.

But you have to drive 20 minutes to get there.

Oh, at least on a good day.

So you're going to ask me about LA?

I was just going to say,

you know.

Three of us here are longtime New Yorkers.

You being an LA guy.

Is this like a caricature that is common and for an LA audience would play really well?

I think there's an LA, I will give the movie this.

I think it has an LA feel.

I think it does feel like you're in Los Angeles and the characters are kind of LA types.

But I have to admit, I have not, I have not found myself in the situation too often where I'm encountering this kind of like Jesse Thorne, our market friend, who is perfect L.A.

guy.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he would love that.

He doesn't identify heavily with the Bay Area or anything.

Not at all.

But I don't hang around a lot of the like classic LA built around a pool housing complexes, you know, that I don't spend a lot of time around buildings done in the googie architecture style, not by choice, just it doesn't happen that often.

So I feel like I'm not encountering this level the same way that in New York, I would often encounter people who are like, oh, the old New York.

Can you, can you imagine?

Like this, this building's been around for, you know, 150 years.

Oh, this is great.

In LA, also the things like old LA is like 80 years old.

You know, it's not a, it's not that old.

So

my wife's cousin's husband, who's from, from, uh, who grew up in Istanbul, he's always like, America.

You look at a building and you're like, this is 200 years old.

And you think that's old.

We've got thousand-year-old buildings where I'm from.

And I feel like LA is that accelerated where people are like, we can't tear down this building.

It's 60 years old.

It's an artifact of an earlier era.

You know, that kind of thing.

So,

but that's a long way of saying,

I don't know that I've ever met anyone who's like, ah, the old LA, oh, the old glamour of old Los Angeles, but I'm sure they're out there, you know.

Steve, this, so this scene, maybe you guys can explain it to me.

City Council meeting, he's got this elaborate presentation he's doing, and Stephen Tobolowski instantly gets so mad at him and is like, leave, get out, your time is up, but he hasn't said anything particularly.

Well, we

had it established that this is like he just broke the record for most consecutive appearances at one of these meetings.

He must have been.

But if these are the appearances he's having, like.

It should be fun.

Like, I didn't know why the characters were getting mad at each other.

I didn't understand.

You would get mad if this guy came to your work like 500 days in a row if i'm not if my if my job is to talk to the members of the public when they when they want to come to meetings

you have i mean perhaps uh l a has ideals of the elected officials jobs i do i do that's why it's so painful to live through this period treat a constituent this way never

votes

as a as a as a current candidate for

the as a lay it as a as a current candidate for the board of the writers guild west i would never treat a constituent this way.

Come talk to me about your issues.

Union members, come talk to me 577 days in a row.

We'll have the same pleasant conversation.

I will not just explode at you the way Stephen Tobolowski does today.

You've got issues.

He's got tissues.

L.A.

it.

I'm there for it.

They need to blow their nose.

Stuart, the subject of Stuart.

Or there's like a little something on their cheek if that's big.

And I'll go ahead.

I'll lick the tissue and just wrap it off.

Yeah, Stuart, can you be my campaign manager for Mirable Famous?

I got time.

Why not?

Or my campaign manager for the Writer Skilled Board.

Again, I'm running.

So

he gets mad and he gets thrown out.

DB has the first of several meditating at the bottom of a pool scene.

No, he did one early, right?

Oh, he did it earlier?

Oh, I mean, because he did it like right at the beginning, he does it after he adjusts the pool.

And I took a note that it said, like, it's the first character sitting at the bottom of a pool scene that isn't about a long dark night of the soul.

He just kind of likes it down there.

Well, and I think it's very funny because it's like, I don't think, I don't know how deep you're going to get into meditation at the bottom of a pool.

You can't do it for too long or you'll die.

Well, especially because it's very breathing-centered.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, meditation is very much about feeling yourself breathe.

So it feels like unless he has some shortcut, it's very hard to, and you've got to leave, you can only meditate.

There's an element of, I mean, there's an element of, what's the, where they say, isolation.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Sensory deprivation.

Yeah.

Sensory deprivation.

That's what I was asking.

But that sensory deprivation tank, like you're in there for a while.

Like you're not in there for like two minutes and then suddenly you're out of your mind.

30 seconds?

Yeah.

I mean, 30 seconds.

Have you guys ever done?

Have you guys ever done a cold plunge, like an icy cold plunge?

No, I haven't.

Dan?

Have you ever done like a

cold sit at all?

Josh,

I haven't done it, but I know it's a big thing that people are doing.

Because

I can do like 45 seconds, but then after that, I'm like, my extremities hurt.

Yeah.

Okay, sorry.

I figured you guys were all ice plunge.

I don't even, you know, I can't even do that.

Like, I know that you like to

watch this.

You like to finish off a shower with a little cold water, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like I've heard you wrote it down in your stew diary, but I did.

I cannot take it.

No, thank you.

I like, I like to, and I like to, uh, I appreciate cold water taken internally.

Really cold water.

I like to take it in through my mouth, into the inside of my mouth.

Oh, that's the best.

Yeah.

And Josh, you're one of those guys who wakes up at four in the morning and sticks your face.

In a bowl of freezing cold water, yeah.

Freezing cold water.

Skin on.

Look at the results of skin is tall.

And you also sleep with tape on your mouth so that you can breathe through your nose the healthy way.

So my nose doesn't stop grinding when I'm asleep.

No plays off for the nose.

So

he has a vision of himself, himself in a suit and a tree, and he becomes fixated on this tree for much of the movie.

And he writes a letter to Aaron Brockovich about his troubles.

We learn that he, so this is a weird thing to learn off camera is that when he was thrown out of the city council meeting, that he punched one of the security guards and went to jail and got bailed out and this is information that we're just told as in his voiceover to aaron brockovich and it makes me wonder did they not did they forget to shoot this did they shoot it and it just didn't

lost the location

pool man was too short for you elliot that's your problem i'm arguing i'm wondering why pool man would remove one of the few moments of action or also that it might have

an element of that it like seeing him hit somebody as opposed to just hearing about it is different like seeing somebody commit an act of violence like it would, it changes your feel to it.

It's just a strange thing to find out happened between scenes.

You see it in movies sometimes, but it's usually a result of

they've edited out a scene because it wasn't working and they have to replace, they have to dive dialogue to explain it, you know?

You say he's wearing a suit, and I do have to point out that Chris Pine wears some incredible outfits in this movie.

You can tell Chris Pine dressed himself because he has a great sense of style.

He wears great clothes.

Yeah.

And he's constantly eating at Langers.

Yes,

they get food from Langer's, which is a, it's a good good deli.

It's right near the Max Fun offices, you know, or it was.

I don't remember where they were.

Is that your favorite LA deli, Elliot?

I think my favorite might be Arts.

Uh-huh.

Which is the one with the

one by Hollywood?

Is it by Sunset?

What's the one that has the Kibbetts room attached to it, the bar?

Oh, I think you're thinking of Schmelberger's deli.

Yeah.

That's not true.

I don't know which one.

I haven't yet gotten to explore the delis of L.A.

the way.

I've still never been to Cantors, which is the Los Angeles.

Cantors is the one you're talking about, I think, Stuart.

Oh, okay.

We got so jealous of LA podcasts talking about local shit all the time.

Now we're in on the action.

Deli.

L.A.

is with Elliott.

Los Angeles pastrami rat.

Hey, guys.

Hey, guys, La Cienaga.

Yep, that's a place.

That's the thing.

Yeah, that's your other catchphrase.

Delia.

Delia.

Well, that's what I'm running.

That's what I'm

running for the Jewish vote in L.A.

I go, Deliot, Kaitlyn.

Half sour pickle on the side of it.

I mean,

that's the first law I want to push through in the LA City Council.

All sandwiches come with a pickle.

Just free.

You don't have to pay for that.

Okay, Zaran, with your socialist pickle distribution.

These pickles are too damaged.

I'm going to afford this, Elliot.

Phew, we're back to New York references.

Josh, you wanted to say something?

I assume not about my campaign for mayor of LA.

No, it was about that.

No.

I do, like like Stuart said, I like the outfits.

I think

the movie looks kind of fun.

Like you were saying that it has an LA.

It's a good-looking movie.

I don't know who did the cinematography on it, but it's so the cinematography is, I'm looking at him now, is Matthew Jensen,

who's done a lot of stuff, and it looks great.

Well, yeah, I wanted to say, like, I would argue that Chris Pine as a director, like

the issues here are Chris Pine screenwriter more than they are Chris Pine director.

Like, I think he gets good performances out of everyone.

I think it looks good.

You know, like, I know he's working with other technicians, but like, he's, you know, he directed like a good-looking movie.

And I know he wasn't the casting director, but I'm assuming a big part of the cast was, oh, yeah, I'll work with Chris Bine.

Yes, totally.

So, this is actually, I'm finding out now, this is the cinematographer Matthew Jensen.

This is his second appearance on the Flophouse because he also was the cinematographer for Josh Frank's Fantastic Four, which we saw a while back.

Wow, he made it through that crucible.

But it looks like his earliest film was, have you ever seen the movie Man of the Century?

Where there's, it's 1999, but there's a guy who looks and talks like it's the 20s.

And it's a, it's, it's like a, it's a kind of ridiculous idea for a movie, but I remember seeing it a long time ago.

So I'm like, oh, that's funny that he also worked on another movie about a guy who like is nostalgic for an earlier time, basically.

But that was a New York one.

So anyway.

Let's get back to this movie because there's so much more to talk about because we're about to get to the femme fatale character.

That's right.

Stephen Tobolowski's new executive assistant, June, comes to see Darren.

She's the one who bailed him out of jail and she wants his help.

She says the councilman has been accepting bribes and she thinks he's going to accept one from Teddy Hollandaise, who I should just mention now.

It's played by Clancy Brown.

And

she wants him to, I guess, just find evidence of this bribe.

And Darren is like, no, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not a detective.

Darren has a therapy session with Diane.

He's in tears, I think, in this one, because he saw that tree in his meditation.

And she's like, you have to confront that tree.

And

Darren, against Diane's wishes, decides he's going to take this detective case.

And Jack is like, You should do it, this will be great for our documentary.

And Darren's like, This is what Aaron Brockovich would have done.

I'm going to take this detective case.

Don't know why he couldn't have made that decision in the earlier scene since he's already obsessed with Aaron Brockovich.

Like, he could have just looked at her picture on his wall, which is on there, and done it.

But that's when a typewriter, which he uses to write her the letters.

Yeah, that's when he gets pastrami from Langer's.

One of those guys,

real Tom Hanks.

He gets pastrami from Langer's.

And then the place that I got sandwiches from for my wife after our second son was born, she didn't want any more hospital food.

So I ran on down to Langer's and got her sandwiches there.

Okay, I'll pop that in my nomads right next to the Stewart likes cold water in his showers.

Look, Elliot and Deliot.

The deli is an important part of my family life.

And then they watch Chinatown.

And luckily for us, they see the scene in Chinatown where the guy explains that LA is a desert town and it needs water because underneath our feet it's a desert.

It's a

guy.

Is this the equivalent of like a sci-fi movie where you walk into like a professor, a college professor giving a speech that explains exactly what the point of the movie is?

Exactly.

And that's why polymer strands, when stretched too far, lead to dimensional rifts.

Anyway,

that's the bell.

So homework assignment is pages 2,500 through 3,300.

Like they always, every every college professor I've learned from movies

cannot accurately time their own lectures.

And they're always yelling the homework assignment as everyone is rushing to get out of the room.

Yeah, man, the syllabus is probably online, just tell them the syllabus is online.

They also always get to the most important part of the lecture right as the bell is hitting, because that's when the FBI agent or NYPD officer or NASA scientist or whatever is walking into the room because they also cannot get the schedule right for the class.

I would imagine, like, a cop and not a cop are walking in, they're about to do some kind of investigation.

Yeah, not a cop could be anything, like a pastry chef, a magician.

Yeah, yeah, anything.

Yeah, yeah.

It's especially if the professor is a bad guy professor.

So when they walk in, he's always like, and that's how you remove all the skin from a living person.

That's the end of class.

Okay.

The homework assignment is to find out I'm a serial killer.

And then the cop and not a cop come and talk to him.

And he's like, oh, well, he's always like fiddling with the chalk.

You know, sure, hope you catch that chicken cutlet killer.

Hope you catch BF Skin Man.

I love his solo stuff.

It's pretty sassy of the serial killer to give himself a pun name like that.

It was the New York Post.

The Post did it.

This is a New York-based thing, but not the kind of thing I talk about now that I'm Elliot Kayla, the L.A.-based Elliot.

So

they take the case.

They watch Chinatown.

He goes to June's apartment.

I don't remember why, and they're both dressed like old movie stars, and they kind of semi-flirt, and she's very putting it on very heavy this kind of like melodramatic femme fatale you know kind of every every line is weighted with with some kind of uh some kind of subtext they blow out a match together and then they go to dinner together and did I miss the part where she says come and have dinner with me before he just shows up at her apartment like they're really

you know like obsessed with things not happening on screen that really could be assumed like this is the sort of stuff that usually I feel like you're like yeah just moving along movie but here you're like no I need everything explained well I think the issue this is something I said before the movie before we started recording, was it's weird to see a movie that doesn't have a core.

And I kind of, I think my issue is that I kind of kept waiting for the movie to like

act like it was a movie, to kick in and act like there was a story and not just like a collection of scenes where things are happening.

And I'm like, movie, if there's a mystery of any kind or there's a conspiracy a guy is supposed to dig into, you got to give me some of the linkages.

Like you can't, it can't just be, unless that's what the movie is about.

But that doesn't feel like that's what this movie is about.

Anyway, Josh, what are you going to say?

It's really kind of free-floating.

I wanted to say, I made a note.

This was so funny to me.

I was watching this movie with my wife, Maris, whose book came out last week.

I want to bring this place.

She's always mentioning his wife.

She didn't make it to the end of the movie.

She lived, but she walked out of the room.

But she, when they're showing,

she didn't say, I can't take any more of this movie, and then just slice her own throat open.

She bugs her.

But when they were watching Chinatown,

she goes, yeah, Chris Evans, this is your Chinatown.

Chris Pine.

And she's like, whatever.

We all know

Chris Evans, Chinatown would be Chinatown in Boston,

which is a good Chinatown.

There's a lot of great Chinatowns.

Look, you go to a city, you go to Chinatown, whatever Chinatown they have there,

you're going to find something good there.

You know, it's, there's, there's, I'm a big fan of Chinatowns in general, the movies and the places.

So

saying

know what LA has: a Chinatown, that's right, and a Japan town, and a Korea town, and a historic Filipino town.

And as mayor, I will represent all of those different constituencies, not the way I think they should be represented, but the way they need to be represented, the way they want to be represented.

I'm listening to you, L.A.

He's really crushing it.

He is.

Yeah, thank you.

I should run for mayor of L.A.

I mean, I don't know where anything is in the city, but I kind of feel like nobody in LA knows where anything is.

I don't know where anything is in the city.

Where am I now?

So they have a very seductive dinner.

It's very mysterious.

He's a doof.

And then when they leave, she gets in a real tiny car and drives off.

And he follows her to a mansion and sees her talking to somebody in silhouette.

And he writes to Aaron and Brockovich.

He's like, this is great.

Everything's going well.

And

so he's meditating in the pool again.

And

in his meditation, someone says hi to him.

We'll later find out this is a lizard.

The next day, he talks to Jack for a while.

Jack tells him a long story that I cannot remember what it was about.

And then suddenly they're trailing council president Tobolowski or committee chairman Tobolowski, and they see him at a racetrack.

He gets a handoff from some goons.

The story was about doing hash in Cape Cod, on Cape Cod, while he was doing community theater.

That's right, while he was doing children's community theater.

That's right.

Yeah.

Which may be a real story from Danny DeVito's life.

It had that feeling of Chris Pine being like, Danny, just talk.

Just say anything, you know, just monologue.

Josh, like, they mentioned Massachusetts and he was freaked out.

I really freaked up.

I was like, ah.

Now, here's, so, guys, I'm going to talk about another thing that didn't make sense to me about this movie, a movie that is a loosely

agglomerated collection of scenes.

The goons who work for Teddy Hollandaise, why are they dressed like the guys from Miami Vice?

A show that is famously not set in Los Angeles?

That's a good question, Dan.

I mean, is that not a style that you'll see in LA too, though?

Like, I feel like that's a

warm weather.

I mean, they look, but they seem so specifically patterned after the guys from Miami Vice.

It's also a lot of the stuff in the movie not to like digress but I think it's of a piece with like the the things in this movie all look like they're not from the present even though the movie clearly takes place in the present.

Like that is everything is stylized to be like a little off and a little like out of time.

It feels like he he's going at for all that we've talked about like the big Lebowski in Chinatown, it feels like he's also going for a Wes Anderson feel to a lot of stuff in that way.

And it's I feel like I know Stewart does not like Wes Anderson particularly, but I feel like Wes Anderson is successful at it partly because he creates this feeling of like this exists in its own special universe that has this way of being.

Whereas this feels so much like, it's so like L.A., L.A., L.A., L.A., L.A., L.A., the old L.A., the new L.A.

that you're like, well, you got to ground it in Los Angeles then, I guess.

Like, it can't just be in Chris Pine's head the way that Wes Anderson's movies very clearly take place in McDonald's.

I'll disagree.

I think that that, I mean, like, if it's a guy who's obsessed with old L.A., it kind of makes sense that, you know, like he's, you know, we're taking, like, it is sort of like an existence head and we're seeing all these like

older places.

Like the hotel he works at seems like a mid-century hotel, like as like just like a kind of CD.

It's not the places so much.

The cars.

If he's supposed to be the guy who is the old LA kind of, the guy who wants it so badly, then the people he's in opposition with should not also be old LA style people, right?

Like they're,

you've got to differentiate your characters a little bit.

You can't have if the whole point.

Yeah.

So I feel like that's a it's a thematic failing i mean it look makes it look awesome it looks great the costumes look really cool all the cars look really cool as much as that

no i was just saying we we are being i think pretty negative about the movie because it's not a very good movie but there are there were lots of like little glimmers that i was like oh that's fun like i just i have that in my head too much of like that's fun like her going asking what he wants to drink i think it was she june did this and he says water and they go make sense you're a pool man and it's like those like tiny little jokes where some of those things change, and he goes, Well, they shouldn't.

That's like a very Wes Anderson line.

Yeah.

And at the very end, the Wes Anderson part really hit me more at the very end, two characters that say they're going to Paris.

And when we see them in a scene, a group scene, they're wearing like literally striped shirts and berets.

And it's like, oh,

yeah, you know,

the Wes Anderson movie of its day.

You know, kind of.

But I mean, I think on some level, there's a

feel like he is only a few few steps removed from a Pee-Wee type character.

Yes.

I feel like this movie wouldn't hate that comparison.

No, but I think that one of the, just having seen Pee-Wee's Big Adventure a few times recently, because my kids got into it, like one of the things that movie does so well is the balance between Pee-Wee's world and how weird the real world is, but also how not exactly like Pee-Wee.

This is a little tough guy test here.

This is an official tough guy test.

How well do your boys do with the Large Marge bit?

Oh, they were fine.

I warned them about it ahead of time.

Oh, okay.

I was like, I shit my pants.

Everybody.

When I was a kid, I could not watch it.

It was so scary.

And so I told them there's two scary parts in this movie, and we can fast forward through them if you want.

And the Large Marge, afterwards, they're like, that was it?

It was like claymation.

It meant nothing to them, you know?

Okay, yeah, you got to get them to watch The Ring next, I guess.

And the other thing, you know, I mean.

The other thing about Pew's Big Adventures, it helps that it has some of the funniest jokes in the world.

If you're going to make a picaresque like story where it doesn't really matter what the plot is, it helps to just have each individual thing be hilarious.

Well, there's a, there's a, I think, there's a saying, I think that, that like, like a, a, like a good director can, can make a bad script look good, but like a, um, uh, a,

a bad director can, can ruin a good script or something like that.

And I feel like the issue with this movie is, is the story, like we said, is this, is the script.

Like, and it looks really cool.

The actors are fun in it.

There's a fun atmosphere to it.

Like, the atmosphere feels really fun.

But while you're watching it, you're just kind of like, what's, like, what's happening?

What am I seeing?

This is the kind of movie that I love too.

It is like, I love like Schlub meets a bunch of weirdos.

That could be the description of so many of my favorite movies.

Name another movie that fits into the Schlub meets a bunch of weirdos genre.

Gosh, I'm trying to think.

I saw one pretty recently, but even like,

okay, this is like, um,

delicate, physically slender woman meets a bunch of weirdos, but like even poor Things kind of had that.

And I liked where it's like, oh, here's a new weirdo, and here's a new weirdo.

And so I love like a person kind of getting blown through the world.

You think they're weird in that movie?

I think I've talked, I think I might have talked in the podcast before about how, how badly I felt for the guys who were cast to play the Johns at the brothel that she's working at, Poor Things, where I'm like, could we just put a casting notice out for guys you would never want to have sex with?

Like, who's going to show up for this audition?

Look in their eyes and just think their dick is gross.

Yeah, they were auditioning for that and Zola at the same time.

But it's a kind of movie that I really like, but it just feels like every scene.

Like, I recently

was talking about the Big Lebowski for a different Friends podcast.

I won't, you know, can I

start an East Coast, West Coast rivalry, even though they're both on the West Coast.

East Coast, West Coast can be friends.

Look, this podcast right here, you got two New York guys and one LA guy, LA stalwart, L.A.

Kalen.

We can break this together.

To the bone over there.

Born and raised, except for the first 35 years of my life.

But

in Lebowski, every scene is just so fun and full of interesting, weird stuff.

And these scenes, it feels like this movie, it feels like they're trying to kind of rev up the charm and the quirk, but it doesn't quite get there.

And so you see, it looks great and you can see like these performances are really good, but they just don't have that much like fun stuff to do.

Yeah.

It feels like an attempt to do a

Lebowski where they didn't give them business.

You know, like he brought people in and were like, okay, and go and didn't necessarily give them like, here's what your character did.

It's like he had the idea of the type of movie he wanted to make, but not it like forgot that there also need should be a movie somewhere in there.

Yes, yeah.

And so getting back to the movie in there somewhere,

the next day, so they go to this handoff.

They see what looks like uh, the Tobolowski taking a bribe, and uh, me and they're all there as a group watching, and they're being pretty loud.

And Diane's just

like reading it out loud from the book that she's got.

Uh, a lot of the characters

guard is that what it was.

I think so.

Oh, okay.

Is that my struggle?

Yeah, I think that, I think that's what I clocked.

And I was like, this certainly isn't Hitler's My Struggle.

No,

and you know what?

I read, I read the wrong book.

I read Mice Truggle, and I just didn't even find out what Truggling was.

How why Mice would do it?

Yeah.

I just, I picked up the wrong book, and that's on me.

That's on me.

They picked up the wrong book.

To read along with Pool Man?

Yeah.

Oh, no, they're not.

Yeah, you don't read the when you watch a movie, you're not like,

I gotta read the book that they're reading in it.

Yeah.

I do, every month I read Oprah's Book Club pick.

I read Pool Man's Book Club Pick.

It tells me there's a lot of Zen in the art of motorcycle memes.

There's a lot of that.

Pool Man's Pick.

It's a collection of his letters to Aaron Brockovich.

Oh, yeah, and the Brockovich letters.

Yeah.

So it turns out a lot of the characters are carrying guns.

This is something that never plays into anything, which is fine.

It's just kind of a joke.

But it's just kind of, it's, it's, it's a, it's one of the wackier moments in the movie for me where I'm like, oh, so they're just all carrying guns all the time?

Because that's not an LA thing.

Not in my LA.

Wayne.

Elliott Kalen's LA is a weapon-free zone.

Wayne pulls the gun, right?

Wayne does, but then also, but then also

Susan has one.

And I think Diana has a has a weapon of some kind.

Susan has like a taser.

Oh, that's what it's like.

And Wayne, I think they do kind of pay off, not to spoil it too much.

That's true.

There's an explanation why he would have a gun.

This is also where he finds out that Wayne and Susan have been having an affair and they're in love.

Yes, that Wayne offensively broken up with.

Yeah, Susan is going out with Wayne, who until this point has seemed kind of like a lackey for Darren, you know.

And they take pictures and they run away.

Yeah, he discovers they're in love.

He gets upset.

He meditates again.

He sees a talking lizard.

June comes over.

She's like, I know you were following me.

That was my uncle's house.

My uncle is taking care of my mom because she's sick.

And they kiss and she leaves.

And he goes,

and Darren goes, wait a minute.

The guys I saw with this, with Torankowski, they work for Hollandaise.

So he goes to Hollandaise's office.

And

this is one of the scenes where it's like clues just fall into his lap, basically.

And I guess maybe that's part of the issue I'm having with it is he meets William Van Patterson, played by Ray Wise,

who is investing in one of Hollandaise's housing projects.

And then Hollandaise just talks to Darren for a little bit and he's like, hey, tells him a story.

This is how I got my job.

There's a job here for you.

And Darren goes, you bribed Tobolowski.

And I got to say, if you see Clancy Brown and Ray Wise walking out of an office, like laughing together, you know they're up to something.

You know,

trouble's brewing.

Yeah.

And

it's too bad that we never see them together again.

Like, I would love, like, it's like, oh, that's the movie I want to see is Clancy Brown and Ray Wise being bad guys together.

Then he says, he goes, oh, there's so much more that you don't know about Tobolowski.

He's hiding something over at the Moody Mule Bar.

And Darren goes there and

walks into the best scene in the movie, which is a scene from the Golden Girls, because Councilman Torankowski is, his secret is that he plays Blanche in a drag cabaret version of the Golden Girls.

And it leads to Darren.

And I love it.

And the Poolman is taken by this very much.

He's genuinely like, this guy's doing great work on stage.

He loves it.

He loves it.

And it's, and it's, and I think the best scene in the movie is the one.

That's what you would crush in Brooklyn right now.

For sure.

Yeah.

And the, it's, and then the best scene in the movie, I think, is Darren goes to confront Toblowski in the green room and they.

kind of both cry together and

apologize to each other.

And Toblowski talks about how like, it's just so brave that you can just be the person that you are.

And I don't know how to be the person that I am.

And I was like, there's a much better movie built around this scene that I wish I was watching.

It's It's really lovely.

And it's like, it's, there's this funny like frissant of he's like, oh, you came here to like tell me you're going to out me.

And he's like, no, I just want like the trolleys to work.

I don't want you to be corrupt.

And that Darren is like, no, I love this.

You should keep doing this.

I think it's great.

But I want to say that.

He probably likes you so much better.

Throughout the rest of the movie, he's talking about like, man, you should have seen him.

He's stunning as Blanche.

I do like that he's like, no, I like you more because it's like, it's difficult for him.

I used to see you as just a bad guy, but now i know that you have this side of you and it's like i would also normally cast toblowowski as a dorothy but yeah

he thinks i well that's the thing about that's the thing about toblowowski i could see him as a dorothy i could see him as a sophia i could see him as a rose he could be any one of those characters and i want he's also a rabbi in this movie that gets mentioned a few times but you never see him

yeah you see that he has a yarmulka on uh but you never see you like the idea that he's a rabbi is something that doesn't doesn't play in otherwise and it's like is it just supposed to be funny the idea of someone being a rabbi, like that anti-Semitic Netflix show?

Or is it

that anti-Semitic Netflix show?

You know what I'm talking about with the rabbi in it.

Yeah, I texted you guys about that.

You did.

I remember Stuart texting me saying, is this show anti-Semitic?

Shorelene wants to know.

And I was like, you, of course, are the one who rules on this.

I also texted Josh this, I think.

Yeah.

And I came down the side of it.

I don't think it's anti-Semitic, but it certainly does not like Jewish women, that show.

It also, it's a wild world where people in LA are just mystified by Jewish practices.

And like, do I feed them bagels?

Terrible show about podcasting.

Yes.

That was more of an ally to me.

Yeah.

Can I just say, like, I, yeah, I also agree this is the fine, like, this is like a five-star scene in an otherwise not as good movie.

Otherwise, like a two-star movie.

Yeah.

But I also, I was like thinking about like, you know, why is this so great?

Like part of it is I just always love a movie a scene in a movie where like two people who had been at odds like have a moment where they come together where they see each other's like humanity but also this is the one scene in the movie i think that two characters are actually like connecting to one another like literally every other scene people are like talking past one another or have some like reason they're not being honest.

And this is like the one honest scene between people.

And it's, and you don't get to see Stephen Tobolowski play a character with this much kind of life going on, this much emotion going on.

He's almost usually just like doing character parts.

And so it was great for him.

But I agree, Dan, that's a really good point that like it's two characters talking to each other rather than talking around each other.

And it's like a, it's an example of like, it makes me actually, you know what?

I think about it now, after watching Fullman the first time, I was like, I don't know if I'm that interested in seeing whatever Chris Pine does himself next, but if it's more in the style of this scene rather than the rest of the movie, then it could be really good, you know?

So it is a really good scene.

I don't love the ending, which is that someone shoots Tobolowski from off screen and then literally just tosses the gun into Darren's hands and goes, whoa!

And it's what's like, if he's close enough to toss the gun in your hand, you should have seen him.

It's a little bit like the end of Jurassic Park, where they've done so, they've made such a big deal out of how a Tyrannosaurus, if it's anywhere near you, you feel the ground shake.

And yet this Tyrannosaurus manages to tiptoe up and surprise a rapture and bite it out of the air.

He's in stealth mode, yeah.

He's wearing sneakers in this one scene.

Yeah, he pushed the right trigger and he crouched.

Couldn't hear him.

But

it's a really good scene, but unfortunately it ends with Tobolowski dying.

With his last breath, he tells Darren, follow the water, because Chinatown.

Meditating in a pool again.

The lizard sees that talking lizard again.

Darren wakes up.

He's with Jack and Diane.

He is spiraling.

Jack is turning down a lucrative sitcom directing job.

I thought that was pretty funny.

They offer him $75,000 an episode to direct.

Well, I love, I love the way that the scene is set up where he's explaining this offer and you can see Diane getting so excited for him and he's like, I turned it down.

This is a

right there.

Well, also, it's a good moment.

Like, you don't get to know much about Jack and Diane's history, but they do a good job of like

implying things.

But also that moment where he's like, I got offered this amount of money to succumb.

It's like, oh, so you're a person with a real career.

Like, you're not a, this is not a character who is like a never was, has been, who is trying to get this documentary documentary off the ground.

Instead, he's a guy who like is

well known enough that they're going to pay him $75,000 an episode to direct a TV show.

I don't want to play the logic police on Pool Man, but

I'm going to.

This felt very strange to me because all the rest of the time you see Danny DeVito, he's like, did I remember to have a battery for this camera that I'm

like of us?

His agent was also like not talking.

Like, he's like, he hasn't returned my calls in 16 years or something.

Yeah, but I mean, you guys work in film and television.

You know that people in all levels are always incredibly competent.

The people at the highest levels, the most competent.

People have long memories.

That's for sure.

But what that said to me is, oh, this guy had a career and then he screwed it up somehow.

I agree.

Yeah.

Which I really love, which I like a lot.

That's like, to me, that's like, okay, well, that's good screenwriting because now I feel like this guy has a whole history

that I didn't know about, you know.

Darren has a breakthrough.

It must be that Ray Wise is stealing water from underneath this housing project.

It's an unknown source of water that nobody knows about but him.

And he runs off to June and accuses her of setting him up.

And she reveals that, or she tells him that Ray Wise, Van Patterson, is actually her father.

And she says, this is all about water.

The councilman was killed for having an attack of conscience.

And my mother is sick, and Ray Wise has been taking care of my mother.

But then she leaves, and he immediately finds a portrait on the wall of June and Ray Wise that says the future, Mr.

and Mrs.

Van Patterson.

I'm sorry,

which is hilarious.

And that's the kind of thing.

This is right behind me.

And I love that it's like a commission portrait with a nameplate for a future.

It's like a Grant Woods style.

And he's still married.

That's crazy.

And he's still married.

It's so funny.

It's very funny.

And it's like, if this was more of a

Peewee's Big Adventure movie, I think that'd be a fantastic joke.

But because this is a movie that's pretending to be a mystery, it's like, I'm like, all right.

So this character really is an idiot.

That he never worked.

It worked for me.

I like that.

And I mean, in the process of looking at it with what, an origami statue of liberty with an actual flame, it catches fire.

And his only option is to take off his shirt to put off the fire.

Yeah, so that he can then put on what, like a cape or something like that and jump on a moped.

He finds that portrait and he also he finds that portrait and then he tastes the almonds that are, that she's serving, and he realizes it has the same spice blend coating as Ray Wise's character's almonds.

And it's like, you don't need another piece of evidence.

It's already like, you know what's going on.

Right.

That should have been before he saw the painting and everything.

Exactly.

He runs off.

The cops are chasing him.

He's on a moped.

He flees.

He shows up at Van Patterson's house, interrupts Ray Wise in the middle of smothering his wife with a pillow.

It's funny.

This is what, like, again, this, this is, it's pretty funny.

And it's like, the movie, if the movie had a kind of manic.

feeling to it, then I think that all throughout, that I would have been like, this is great.

But instead, it's so lackadaisical.

And then at the end, it's suddenly like, bam, bam, bam, silly, silly, silly.

You know, I had fun with it.

And I felt like it, like the ending part.

I was like, this is silly.

I'm having more fun than I was for the previous hour 10 or whatever.

But it also reminded me of a lesser kind of auxiliary Cohen work, which is driveaway dolls, where the end just gets like looney tunes in a way that was not foreshadowed by the previous.

feel of the movie.

And this kind of had that where it's like, now we're going into seventh gear.

You're like, what?

And so they interrupt.

It turns out he's like, I know what's going on.

And Ray Wise is like, no, stupid.

I'm murdering my wife for her almond farm.

June is my lover.

And like he just explains

what he's doing to him.

And

Darren, still an idiot, says to June, I love you.

We should run away together.

And June is like, I've been using you this whole time.

I'm Van Patterson's lover.

Like, how many times do you have to learn this from me?

I mean, if you have an option like Ray Wise on the table, you go for it.

Now, I am.

Ray Wise, for mayor, wasn't going to choose.

No, no, don't promote Ray Wise.

Don't promote Ray Wise's mural run.

Oh, I can't believe you came on the fucking spot.

Wow,

wow, what a heel turn.

What a heel turn, ladies and gentlemen.

No one expected this from Josh Gondelman, the nicest man in the business.

Suddenly, total heel turn going for Ray Wise.

Oh, it's John Cena turning evil all over again.

Is that Ray Williams?

Any Elliott with a proverbial chair?

What do you say?

What's Ray Wise's walkout music?

Well, the score of this film also, I really liked.

It was like fun and light and jazzy, and it was done by Andrew Bird, I think.

Yeah, yeah, it was.

Anyways, I want to ask.

There's a lot of good elements to this movie.

We should make clear about that.

This movie, I don't think, works, but there's a lot of good elements to it.

In a preview of my final judgments, I think this movie works best if you don't care about the plot.

Yes.

But even so, I'm going to ask a question like...

What was she using him to do?

Like, why

it does seem like one of those movies where it would have been easier for the bad guys if they didn't do most of the stuff that they do to hide what they're doing.

Cut out the part where an unreliable idiot is the key to their whole plan.

My guess is that they're trying to use him to set up Tobolowski to take the fall for whatever, for this water scheme.

And so they're going to manipulate him into taking out the one guy who

is having second thoughts about what's going on.

Right, because he was like, I'm about to be out.

I was dirty.

And now I want out of this plan.

And that's why I need to kill the fall guy for the future.

But considering they solve that problem by shooting shooting him in the head, which you'd think they could have done earlier without bringing in Darren at any point, for sure.

Yeah, especially because if you shoot someone in the head

in an empty green room where there's nobody else there, there's nobody to connect you to the murder, as opposed to needing to go to the trouble of bringing in a fall guy, setting him up to take the fall to be a patsy for it.

A fall guy who is notoriously not well liked in what, like, civil court situations, basically.

Yeah.

So, uh,

who is visibly onto you?

Yeah.

She says, I was just using you.

Van Patterson is about to shoot Darren when Wayne comes in and they shoot him in the hand or something like that.

And shoot the gun out of his hand or whatever.

Wayne reveals that he's an undercover FBI agent.

He has been investigating Van Patterson all this time.

He arrests the Van Pattersons for stealing the city's water for their almond farm.

And

Dan DeVito rushes in and he's filming the whole time.

He's giving

Wayne notes.

I thought that was pretty funny.

Wayne notes to to like.

Yeah, Danny Fitz, he's recording the whole thing to get ending for the movie.

And

things end really nicely between Wayne and Darren.

And Darren has a, as a therapeutic breakthrough, if I'm understanding correctly, is that he remembers being abandoned by his mom under a tree or something like that, or just being left under a tree as a baby.

Like, I don't, I could, I, I was, that part lost me a little bit.

Yeah, I don't remember.

You know.

And he writes to Aaron Brockovich again.

He's like, my friends and family, my friends are my family.

I'm okay.

And everyone in a very,

in a very kind of Wes Anderson ending type thing, everyone gets together to watch the movie that Jack has made.

And we see all the characters there.

And it's at a city council meeting, and the city council offers him an official position in the Office of Change and Beauty, which he then turns down and starts giving a final speech about LA's need for trolleys and how to perfect the bus schedule.

And at the end, we see he has a framed letter from Aaron Brockovich on his wall, and he tapes a picture of Jack and Diane to it.

End of movie.

What an adventure.

What a quest.

You know.

Yeah.

Take a tip in that pool.

Yeah, give us a couple more bars of pool, man, please.

Come on, John.

My friends are Diane and Jack.

I clean the pool, they live out back.

Okay,

pretty good.

I'm kind of the Chris Cornell of this podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People have often said that.

Yeah.

Yeah, Chris Cornell judged me.

I'm usually not here either.

Yeah.

Oh, Dan, I got some bad news.

Oh, no.

He's been here all this time.

Oh, God.

Dan every day typewriters a letter to Chris Cornell.

Are you still going hungry?

This is the part of the podcast where we do our final judgments, whether this was a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like.

I think I'm going to shock a few members of our council here

and say that I kind of like this.

Even Gattel, even Kiadi Mundi.

Yep, even them.

I kind of like this movie.

I agree that, like,

the screenplay

is kind of, is a mess.

But

honestly, like many

films noir,

if you don't put too much energy into following the

tangled

plot and just sort of enjoy the vibe,

I found it enjoyable and increasingly enjoyable as it went on.

Like the beginning, I thought was the part where I'm like, ugh, this is going to be more of a slog.

And then I got on its wavelength and wavelength.

Yeah.

Wave pool.

I mean, this would be,

this is a hard one.

Like

connecting the fucking dots over here.

I wouldn't necessarily like

recommend this movie to anyone because they would probably be furious.

They would be like, what are you talking about?

But if you, if you kind of have any curiosity about it, like, I don't know, there was like a lot of vitriol about this movie when it came out.

Like, Rex Reed, who is not a good critic, but he was like, this is the worst movie of this year and many other years or whatever.

I'm like, I don't know, man.

I feel like people just expected like Chris Pine, he's in all these big movies.

He was going to make something a little more,

you know, wide appeal, and he didn't.

He just made this shambling nonsense.

And I feel like there used to be more room in cinema for shambling nonsense.

And now people get mad if it doesn't fit into a box.

That said, like, again,

screenplay doesn't work.

But I don't know.

There was stuff about it I enjoyed.

So that's where I fall.

Yeah, I'm kind of with you.

And this is a movie that I did not enjoy at first,

but it over time it grew on me.

I think starting with the Golden Girl sequence and then as it raced to the conclusion, it helps that I like a lot of the actors in it.

I would say, I'm going to say this is a movie I kind of liked.

I wasn't expecting to say that when I started watching it.

All the comparisons to other like shaggy LA, like neon noirs, whether it's, you know, Under the Silver Lake, I think is a really good one, like a really good touchstone here, or something like Lodge 49.

Was that show with Wyatt Russell?

I also, I have a very soft spot for any movie where at the end, all the characters get together and watch a movie of the movie you watch.

I think there's this Spanish movie that was released under the title Witching and Bitching, where like all the characters, including the villains, are like hanging out watching the movie at the end, which I found.

Yeah, there's another movie where that happens.

I think it's about a guy who has a big adventure.

I forgot his name.

Yeah, I think his name starts rhymes with Gibi.

Is that Little Guy?

That's what it is.

But yeah, so I'm going to say translated foreign.

Yeah, that's the Spirit Halloween costume.

the spirit halloween costume says grown child

uh so yeah i was i'm surprised to say i think this is a uh movie i kind of liked i'm gonna still call this a bad bad movie i feel like talking to you guys has made me like it more than when i watched it and what that says to me is that i like the idea of it more than i like the actual thing of it and i think dan you make a good point that in a film no more movie often the plot is too knotty and complicated and with twists and turns that you can

get get naughty.

You're not supposed to keep track of it.

I think part of the issue here is that what's happening at the heart of it is not particularly complicated.

It's very straightforward, but the main character is such an idiot that he's just having trouble figuring it out.

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

But instead,

I think it just doesn't get that across.

So I'm going to call it a bad bad movie, but a bad bad movie that has elements in it that I that I like.

Josh, what do you?

I'm like right on the bubble.

I think I got to go with Dan and Stewart in that you did to me.

Oh, no, that's fine.

That's all right.

That's okay.

That's all right.

Ray Wise is going to kick your ass in November, bud.

Well, my cage hammer, my cage money bag ladder match between

Ray Wise.

It's going to be terrible.

Loser leaves town.

It's like, not L.A.

No, no, not L.A.

Kaylin.

I can't beat.

I can't beat L.A.

Toledo Kaelin.

It can't happen.

No.

But I did, I think there was just like enough to like that I can't recommend it.

But I, you know, I'm like, oh, that was, I had a fun time.

Especially it picked up towards the end in a way that I was like, oh, you should go back and make the first two thirds of the movie match the last third, like the third act.

Cause that was really fun and kind of zippy and zany in a way that I enjoy it.

But it is,

I truly can't.

say like, oh, you got to go see Pullman.

It's like a hidden gem.

But

Ellie, was you saying like, I don't, I, at first, I thought I don't want to see what Chris Pine does next in this space.

I kind of would like to see him direct with a script that someone else wrote because I do think I like, clearly, I like his taste.

I like what he is like, ooh, I want to make one of these kind of movies.

And just like hadn't, the script just like didn't support the kind of style of it.

So I'm like kind of cautiously hoping that he does a different better version of a kind of a quirky adventure-y Noiri story.

i think it's gonna take a little bit of time before he can make another movie just based on the reception to this one but uh but i it's like i feel like while watching it i felt the movie figuring out what it was as a movie and unfortunately that's not a fun process for me to watch because it's like the first half of the movie is i was just like come on movie like like give me something like give me like give me a thing to but uh and by the end there's there's fun stuff in it but yeah it's a it's tough i i think this one thing that a lot of the the movies you cover big fan of the podcast love to listen to it um one of the things i suppose bring people onto our podcast to endorse our podcast i still still can't support elliot's rubber man

i mean it's i could vote for him for wga board but i mean the things i've heard him say on this show i just can't

in good conscience but i i think a lot of movies that i really don't like feel like they're like fuck you you're gonna watch this movie like they're just like jamming the movie down my throat and i like that this was bad in a way that like they're figuring something out and like working within a vision and it just didn't come together.

And I like miss when movies were bad for that reason and not just like, we spent $300 million on this turd and it's going to gross more money than you've ever heard of.

Well, there's, yeah, there's a joy to like a passion project like this, which we don't get very often.

And there's a feeling where the movie isn't treating us like we're idiots.

Yes.

Yeah.

Which is nice.

And it's not too self-serious.

It's like, yeah.

Yep.

Anyway,

kind of liked it.

Don't recommend it.

Mike Elliot.

Accurate.

A lot of people.

Hey, let's get on the K-train, everybody.

Not Raywise.

Come on.

Academy?

Are you a five-star baddie?

If you answered yes, then Black People Love Paramore is the podcast for you.

Contrary to the title, we are not a podcast about the band Paramore.

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We get into topics like ginger ale, the golden girls, black romance, Uno, and so much more.

Tune in every other Thursday to the podcast that's dedicated to helping black people feel more seen.

Find Black People Love Paramore on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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It's not admitting something bad if you say, this is scary.

Depressed Mode with John Moe.

Every Monday at maximumfun.org or wherever you get podcasts.

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Buy it now on Kindle.

I mean, it was out June 24th.

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But for right now, why don't we go back to the show?

Hey, we get letters at the show.

And before we get into some letters, do we ever?

I forgot who sent us the letters I read last time.

I have learned since that it was Stephen and Greg of the Last Name Withhelds.

Alex, just cut that out and add it to the last episode.

Shove that into the Garfield episode.

Yeah.

Just shove it up, Garfield.

Yeah.

That's the thing.

I feel like I was possibly grading this movie on the Garfield curve, which is the curve of Garfield's round body.

But I just hated Garfield, the Garfield movie, so much that I was like, oh, this is a breath of fresh air.

I would definitely rather watch this than the Garfield movie, which is

damning with the faintest of praise.

Yeah.

So this first letter is from Chat Last Name Withheld, who writes just listened to the love hurts episode and the mention of David Cronenberg got me thinking in an area in an area in an era Sorry of so many remakes many being gritty What if we had more gutsy remakes gutsy in the Cronenberg sense?

Uh-huh Imagine for example Mrs.

Dotfire, but the lead character takes the transformation into the titular British nanny to the extreme with backroom illicit cosmetic surgeries.

Do you have any old favorites that might sound like a look like a job for BF skin man?

Get a grandma's skin and put it on Ron Williams.

Yeah.

Do you have any old favorites that might benefit from a Cronenberg-esque gutsy remake?

P.S.

Regarding goonies as a masturbation metaphor.

The pirate's name was One-Eyed Willie.

It's all right there.

Wheels Within Wheels.

Wow.

Or Wheels Within Willies.

Yeah.

Infinite Wiener.

It's just Infinite Wiener all the way down.

That's what Bertrand Russell said, isn't it?

It's just Wieners all the way down.

Yeah.

That's that bar in Bushwick, I think.

Wieners all the way down.

Movies.

This is your election day party.

Oh,

they do little wiener races

during the week.

I don't want to know what that is.

So the movies are movies that need some kind of body horror remake?

Is that Origin for?

That's the idea.

That's the thinking.

Okay, so obviously I'm going to reference one of Dan and my favorite movies, Junior, where Enlighten Schwarzenegger gets pregnant.

You can get that way gross.

Never crazy.

You've never seen Junior?

I've never seen Junior.

No, I saw it in the theaters when it came out, but I haven't seen it since then.

Check out the cineast over here.

Yeah, I don't want to brag, but I saw Junior during its original release.

Yeah.

30 millimeter.

Yeah.

It was a 70 millimeter road show, Josh.

Yeah, yeah.

Intermission, assigned seating.

That was not.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was dilated too, 70 millimeters.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought this was a pretty good premise.

That's a great question.

That's a question.

Did you have an answer for it?

No, I don't.

I was vamping.

So the.

Yeah, Santa Claus.

When he gets through, it's Wayne Grosser.

I have a genre that I think could be body hard because I think, like, I think a movie, because you said old favorites.

And I think if I love something, this is a...

such an intense element that it might kind of tip the scales to like, oh, this is, this doesn't match.

So I think you got to take a movie that didn't quite work the first time and body horror it up.

And I think something like

Kate and Leopold, which is a time travel rom-com with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan, where he has to invent the elevator.

Like he has to go back in time to invent the elevator so they can't be together.

And I think like that time travel is ripe for like body.

horror almost like in a the fly sort of way.

And then I think we're kind of jazzing up this movie that felt like it could have used a little more, a little more zing.

Yeah.

Kate and leopold gross version so he's just like you're just thinking of like you know rom-coms is the genre or you're saying that stuff is this specific movie okay i like a rom-com as a genre but i'm saying you take a movie that like didn't quite have enough oomph to it and you add the body horror rather than going like oh gosh i just i loved chinatown but i wish that there were more body horror in this well then i feel like so you're not arguing that sleepless in seattle should be a man about a man correct literally cancer yeah and his eyes are bleeding and yeah he finds love.

I mean,

Pool Man is something could use a, if the thing that they were uncovering was more of a body horror scandal.

You know.

Oh.

I was going to suggest Splash, but then I realized that the movie The Lure is already kind of a body horror version of Splash.

It's like a horror version of The Little Mermaid.

But

I'm also going to jump on the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy train.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Danny DeVito comedy train.

I'm going to say twins could have a body horror element.

They're literally the products of a genetic experiment on an island of scientists.

There's no reason that the twins halfway through, like once they're in the same place together, maybe their bodies are like reacting to each other in strange ways because they're the opposing kind of

Danny DeVito as the twin that in the in the movie, like the joke is like, oh, he got all the bad stuff

is trying to crawl back inside Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yeah, or he's trying to

surgically take some of the good stuff and give it to him.

Exactly.

I'm so glad you bring this up, Elliot, because I was just re-watching Twins the other day, and it was great.

And I was really thinking that as a kid, I think the reason why I loved it so much is that Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in that movie is just like a giant super kid.

He's like kind of dumb.

Everything's very new to him.

He sees everything on a very service level, but he is like hyper-smart and the strongest human in the universe.

So like he can deal with problems very easily if he needs to, but at the end of the day, he's still just like kind of a goofy, like innocent child, right?

Yes, which is why kids loved it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

We got one more letter here.

This is from Anna last name with Hilde, who writes, Anna Kendrick.

Okay, go with me on this one because I know it's an odd message.

I was recently listening to your money plane episode, and when I got to Elliot's phone call with Mark Summers, I suddenly had a thought.

I have no memory of this bit.

Although, I meant to.

I'm going to have to listen to this episode.

Oh, really?

Was she a scrappy little nobody?

She was on wait, wait.

She was really good.

You're asking her a simple favor?

when you said she was going to be on flop house was she like oh i just sent them a letter i hope they'll read it

she was like but i hope they don't say my name because i would be so embarrassed

oh no sorry anna um i said when anyway to go back i got to elliot's phone call with mark summers again yeah i don't know what that's about either but gonna have to listen to the episode again yeah i suddenly had a thought I started laughing about the idea of Elliot's wife asking him to role play.

I can't imagine they would actually ever get to sex, but it has to be fascinating.

This is why Anna Kendrick was embarrassed.

She's embarrassed to get a little bit.

As a preemptive answer to any follow-ups, this was just an amusing thought.

If all the floppers, my fantasies do not actually involve Elliot on a completely unrelated note, hi Stewart.

Well, that's

unnecessary.

Wow.

I like to roleplay too, baby.

I'm an orc.

Okay, gross.

I just feel like I'm being betrayed a lot in this episode.

It's either Stewart or Ray Wise, but Elliot is no one's first choice.

Yeah, yeah.

Ray Wise is holding the the dagger, but Stewart's distracting Elliot.

I mean, but as a theatrical experience, it sounds like your role-playing is the preferred.

Sure, yeah.

Just uh,

yeah, because I really get into it.

Yeah.

I get into the character.

Uh, yeah, I just thought that was a funny word.

There's not really much to address there.

Glad we could talk about Anna Kedrick a little bit.

She was very nice.

I got to watch for five minutes.

I like walked down to walk over to the theater for the wait, wait, wait, don't tell me tape thing.

And I walked into Paula Pound's zone and goes, Josh, you got to help me, man.

I know who that I know her name is Anna Kendrick, but where do I know her from?

And Anna Kendrick is like, She already made me name many of the movies I've been in.

And it was none of them.

She was like, pitch perfect.

Paula's like, never seen it, heard of it.

It feels very unramped for Paula Pound's zone.

Twilight.

That impression is offensive.

I shouldn't be.

Yeah.

Twilight?

It was Twilight.

can you show

john uh josh's impression so it's no less offensive no i've just had i mean so the idea of paula pounced on like the thing that she had seen was twilight it was twilight it was so funny just an incredible blow to that story um and it was because she had a teenage daughter who was really into twilight makes sense yeah so just a really incredible moment

um

this is the part

the funniest the best part of me to that story was when it turned out that anna kendrick was there for the conversation between you and paula

Oh, yeah.

I was like, oh, she's standing right there.

I walked into a conversation that they were having about who she is and why Paul Angel didn't know who she was.

I know who that is.

Like,

they were talking and I interrupted.

And Anna Kendrick is going like, she's like, I just want you to know I wasn't naming movies just like out of my own.

She asked me to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's like,

she doesn't just go around telling people like, hey, you might know me from these movies.

I'm Anna.

It was so funny.

She's not.

She's not a Troy McClure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

I'm Anna Kendrick.

You may know me from such movies as Pitch Perfect, Pitch Perfect 2, and Pitch Perfect 3.

Speaking of actors to directors, I like that movie that she made.

I haven't seen it yet.

Which one?

Which one?

I don't remember the

Woman of the Year

or something like that.

I mean, Woman of the Year is an old movie, but I think it might have been used the title.

I don't know.

It was about the

Woman of the Hour.

Woman of the Hour, yeah.

It was just real.

It's a real come down from Woman of the Year.

Yeah.

You're going to build your way up.

Maybe there's a prequel.

Ever wonder how she became the Woman of the Year where she didn't start there?

One hour at a time.

So

this is the part of the podcast where we do recommendations, movies that might be, you know, more of a more of a lock on a good time

than Pool Man.

I'd like to recommend a movie that I watched because

I know that Griffin Newman was really promoting this one.

It's called I Like Movies.

It was from 2022.

It's like, it's a very small little sort of coming of age comedy about a difficult high school

kid

who

you might be able to sympathize with this, people in

this cohort

who likes movies, who's really obsessed with movies, has a dream job at a video store, really is obsessed with the idea of going to film school and is difficult in the way that teenage boys who are really obsessed with sort of their own feelings and obsessions might be.

And the movie doesn't shy away from how annoying this kid can be without also like showing like, okay, you know, he is capable of growth and slowly learning over the course of the movie to, you know, sort of look outside himself.

And

it's

small and sweet and funny.

And it felt like a movie that, you know,

like I'd been watching for decades and like it was like, you know, slipping into an old favorite to watch it.

So

I like movies is what it's called.

I really enjoyed it.

I'm going to recommend a new release, one that I saw in the theater with Dan McCoy.

That's right.

Earlier this week, we went and saw 28 years later.

You might have seen the social media video of the Flophouse Mini Mini episode that we recorded.

Maybe not.

It's on the Flophouse Instagram and my TikTok.

But

so

I've always had, I guess, respect for this franchise.

I thought, you know, the first one is a huge deal.

It certainly popularized the concept of super fast zombie equivalents.

And it also

was super intense and it made stars of a number of people, including my man Brendan Gleason.

But and then the second one, I think, is you know, a little bit more intense and more specifically a horror movie.

Like, I feel like the second one has an incredible opening and then, you know, kind of devolves, but it's still solid and it's a solid horror movie.

And this third one is like a weird horror fantasy, post-apocalyptic adventure that is a lot more introspective and somber in tone.

It's very like, it's kind of a meditation on death and it has, and just like a, it has some incredible performances.

Jody Comer is great and

Ray Fenz is incredible.

And when he shows up, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe this movie was sitting on this guy for so long.

And then it also has an incredibly wacky ending that is amazing.

So 28 years later, easily my favorite of the franchise.

And I feel like similar to like, what is it, Sunshine, the other, the Danny Boyle movie,

I think it'll grow in estimation over time.

I think it's really great.

I also want to point out,

Dan,

a couple episodes ago, you recommended Summer of 69, and Charlene and I watched it, and it was very cute and funny, and that was a good recommendation.

Good one.

Thank you for the validation.

I have been so busy lately that I've not really had a chance to watch many movies, which has been disappointing to me.

So I'm going to recommend

off of today's being Pool Man being such an LA movie, I'm going to recommend a trio of LA movies that I feel are better than Pool Man.

I don't think anyone would.

L.A.

Stories.

The first

confidential.

LA LA Land.

It's the first

movie.

You're the one person who calls it L.A.

anyway.

You guys seen that movie LA LA Land?

Pure into jazz?

What are you doing?

I got Joe.

I'm invented.

It's like music, but it goes everywhere.

It just doesn't matter.

My upstairs neighbor has a piano, and the number one song that they have played for five years running is City of Stars from Lolly Young.

I had my fingers crossed who's going to be that Lincoln Park song.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Valentine.

Oh, man, I'm getting choked up, Josh.

So I'm going to recommend three great movies set in L.A.

They all have kind of like not what two have mystery elements and one is more of a, and the other one is a weirdo dealing with things in LA movie, much like Paul Maine is.

So the weirdo dealing with things in LA movie is Nightcrawler.

We've probably all seen it already with Jake Gyllenha.

What a movie.

I feel like

it's the taxi driver network of its day, you know, all about how people are gross and institutions are

corruptible.

I'm going to mention Devil in a Blue Dress, which I've recommended before on the podcast, which is a great LA period mystery thriller.

And I'm going to mention

perhaps the greatest of all LA mysteries where you never quite know exactly what's going on, but it is a strength of it.

And that is Mulholland Drive by the late lamented master, David Lynch, which is, that's a movie where I feel like it captures so well the undercurrent of what it feels like to be in Los Angeles.

Because Los Angeles often feel, it's people, you know, well, New Yorkers, especially, at least in the past, they'd be like, LA, there's no substance there, like there's no nothing there, which ignores the fact that LA is a real city with real people in it.

It's not just entertainment industry types.

Like it's, there's actual people who have actual jobs.

And that's the same thing.

It's not just Randy Newman songs.

Yes, exactly.

Ellie, your job is an actual, Ellie, your job is an actual job.

Let's go.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate that, Dan.

It certainly takes enough of my time.

Being a dad, it's the hardest job you'll ever learn.

It is the hardest job there is,

other than being a mom, which is a harder job.

But there is a feeling, I think because the sun is so bright in LA, there's this feeling of like, there is a feeling of unreality that underlies kind of everything.

And Mulholland Drive captures that so well.

And so those are three L.A.

movies that I'm going to recommend after watching this L.A.

movie.

And Josh, do you have a recommendation that you're going to be talking about?

Elliot Kalen.

Elliot Kalen.

Here's my LA movie watch list.

Elliot Kalen.

I just remembered another great guy meets a bunch of weirdos movies, Les Schlub, but Bringing Out the Dead, the Scorsese movie where Nick Cage plays the ambulance driver is one of those.

And like, After Hours is kind of in that vein too.

Yeah, yeah.

But so I get to look at Twitter and I'm like, baby.

Yeah.

And I recommend three New York movies.

Pizza, the movie.

Movies that'll have you say, hey, I'm watching movies here.

I'm watching over here.

And I want to recommend there.

It's like on the horizon, but I got to see my good buddy Aaron judge co-wrote a zombie movie also stuart called uh queens of the dead she co-wrote it with tina romero who's george romero's daughter i was just i was just reading about that the other day yeah it's really really fun it's a drag queen zombie movie and i got to see it at tribeca where it's screened during pride in new york and so it was just this like super hyped up super queer audience that was just like yeah drag queen zombies and it ruled uh it was so much fun to see in a theater and i think they're still figuring out like when it's going wider and how.

But I like, keep your eyes peeled for it.

It's, it's a blast.

Hey, a bunch of LA movies recommended.

LA movies.

LA movies.

Movies.

Josh, thank you so much for being here.

Now is the time where you plug your your shit again.

I say shit only to mean stuff.

I'm sure it's a good question.

No, but the tone you said it in really

implied stuff.

It was a positive tone, yeah.

I have a new stand-up special that's out now.

It's on YouTube, on Blonde Medicine's YouTube channel.

It's called

Positive Reinforcement.

It's really fun.

You know, we shot it about a year ago.

It's the culmination of a bunch of touring that I did.

It's like very fun and friendly.

And I hope people watch it and laugh and go, ah, it made me feel nice.

And my wife's new book is out now.

By the time this is out, it's called I Want to Burn This Place Down.

It's essays.

That one, much more financial, our household's financial situation is much more contingent on you finding and enjoying that piece of art rather than my comedy special, which you can watch for free at any time.

And then subscribe to my newsletter to find out about my live dates.

That's marvelous.

A big Labusky reference in its own right.

JoshGondelman.substack.com.

Thank you.

That's too much plug.

No, keep plugging.

Keep plugging.

And stuff that has no effect on Josh's financial situation.

He was nice enough to do a couple of lines for the Fly Scraper bonus concert

still putting together.

And it was very funny, especially because I

wrote this gallery in this thing.

Improvise him talking to a dog for a while.

And it's funnier than anything I wrote.

If you thought Poolman had Chris Pine bringing in his famous friends,

just wait for Flyscraper.

If you're a Max Fun member, you'll be able to hear Flyscraper Dan McCoy's original.

Original.

I know I have to still have to record my lines for it.

Dan McCoy's original spec sitcom, not sitcom, i guess parody show well i don't know what you'd call it um and it's gonna it's gonna have all of dan's famous friends in it yeah mel gibson it's kind of your it's kind of your

it's kind of your metropolis in its gestation period yeah yeah

no i'll have it i'll have it done before the next drive i promise it um but again thank you uh josh for being here all of dan's famous friends are gonna be in it harvey weinstein

upstage

everyone who's endorsed andrew cuomo for major

yeah Andrew Cuomo.

Yeah.

Eric Adam.

I was going to make a joke about that with Dan, but I thought he'd get upset.

I'm glad Josh did.

Yeah.

Check out Joshua.

Nicest man in comedy goblins.

Still going after Dan McGoy.

Check out Maris's books.

And also, I'll take this time to say thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

Go over to maximumfun.org to check out all the other great podcasts on that network, our network.

And thank you to Alex Smith, our producer, who goes by the name Howell Daughty, all over the internet.

Speaking of bonus content stuff, we just put up the second Slop Tails episode on the member bonus feed.

And Alex does so much work for those things, doing original music and sound design for that.

And he does a great job.

So if you're a member, check that out.

But for this episode of the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy.

I've been Stuart Wellington.

I've been LA It Kalen.

And with us is has been.

I am a has-been.

Josh Condleman.

I was pointing at him just to cue him.

And it really did look like I was like, has been.

I missed the old wave, and I'm Josh Condolman.

All right.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

Okay.

I heard tell you had another hot one.

Oh, it's a smoker.

That was a hot one.

Let's hear this next hot one.

On this episode, we discuss Pool Man.

That's right.

Fim the Pool Man Paler.

Man, it's a hot one.

It is a hot one.

That was the hottest one.

I doubted you, but

those are both, those are two sterling hot ones, yeah.

Okay.

Well, let's go.

Let's do the show.

Yeah, you didn't want to hear mine.

Do you

want to do it?

Let me just get it out of my system.

Let me get out of the system.

I won't use it.

On this episode, we discuss Pool Man.

The Supreme Court can go fuck itself.

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Of artists-owned shows.

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