Ep.#465 - Smurfs, with Jesse Thorn

Speaker 1 On this episode, we discuss Smurfs. We'll decide: does it Smurf that Smurf or is it a big piece of Smurf?

Speaker 1 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse.
I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, Dan.
It's me, Stuart Wellington, your friend.

Speaker 2 My name is Ellie Kalen, and I'm also Dan's friend. Have the rumors been going around saying I'm not Dan's friend, and only Stuart is Dan's friend?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, there's been talk. Ellie, why don't you introduce our guests as well?

Speaker 2 I'm very excited for our guests today. As everyone knows, this is Movember when we do Mo episodes with Mo guests.

Speaker 1 So we've got with us Mo himself from the Three Stooges, Mo Howard. No, I'm just kidding.
Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Speaker 2 With us is

Speaker 2 the founder and still

Speaker 2 Lord Emeritus of Maximum Fun, one of the most pioneering people in podcasting, a radio professional celebrating 25 years of his show Bullseye.

Speaker 2 Please join us in welcoming one of our great friends, Jesse Thorne. Jesse, thank you so much for being here with us.

Speaker 1 Hello, friends.

Speaker 3 And by friends, I mean Dan specifically.

Speaker 1 Dan and I are friends. friends.
Yeah, showing off. We're all friends of Dan around the world.
Well, I don't understand. I don't get it.

Speaker 2 How did I get knocked out of friend? I'm not even in the friend zone.

Speaker 1 I'm out of here. I'm going to change the name of the podcast to friends of Dan.

Speaker 2 Dan's friends. Dan and friends and Elliot.

Speaker 1 I mean, this has just been a decades-long project to cheer me up. So it's only right.

Speaker 1 Hey, guys, this is a podcast where we watch a movie that was either rejected critically or commercially, and we discuss it we give our which was this one uh well this did okay i don't think it was like a huge hit but it did okay

Speaker 2 looking at the numbers here on a budget of 58 million dollars according to wikipedia its box office was 120 million dollars which is probably a bra about break-even or a little less at this point the way movies cost and marketing cost so i'm gonna i'm gonna say i don't know they're gonna be rushing out to make another smurfs movie anytime soon i think they don't they protect the budget cost by like selling the advance rights to Belgium because that seems like they could get 60 million in Belgium.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the smurf will the same thing. The was a national hero.
The smurfs were like a French or like Belgian.

Speaker 2 They're Belgian. They were actually elected to the Belgian parliament despite being fictional characters.
Yeah, many years ago. So yeah, they're national treasures.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's certainly shocking that this wasn't a bigger success, given that there have been a couple of previous Smurfs movies, and Smurfs is yet another property, mostly from the 1980s, that I don't think

Speaker 1 modern kids think about at all. Yeah, what did your kids say about this when they saw the trailer, Elliot?

Speaker 2 When my kids saw it, they were not familiar with the Smurfs stall. When they saw the trailer, they said, they're just ripping off the trolls.
They're just trying to make a trolls movie.

Speaker 2 And I will say that Smurfs, I think, predate those Trolls movies, certainly. I don't know, but the way this movie is done, they are trying to make a trolls movie.

Speaker 2 Like they're trying to go with the Trolls template. And I never thought I would say this ever.
Trolls does it much better.

Speaker 1 Trolls Trolls is a much more satisfying movie. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I only saw one of the trolls, and I just wanted to punch the movie in the face.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 There's a trolls holiday special that they did for Networks, I think, which I think is the best of the Trolls movies. But otherwise, it's a, yeah, the trolls.

Speaker 1 I thought I didn't like the trolls movies until I saw Smurfs. I saw a world tour during COVID at the.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to see the world again. At the height of, well, it was my height of my flirtation with marijuana because the world was sad.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 Unlike that when things were looking up.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I mean, I, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, Dan, you're just happy that the president is once again killing people with no legal authorization. That's what you mean.

Speaker 1 No, I'm not happy about that.

Speaker 1 It's not as much of a thing anymore.

Speaker 1 It did not agree with me physically, but when I watched it. Trolls World Tour? No, it's marijuana.

Speaker 2 Dan got real paranoid when he watched Troll's World Tour.

Speaker 1 But at the time when watching it, Audrey remembers me like just watching it and going, look at the textures.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 that's something that Trolls has.

Speaker 2 The biggest crime of Trolls World Tour was when my kids wanted to hear the song Barracuda and one of them announced it. They go, Siri, play Barracuda by the Trolls.

Speaker 2 And I was like, no, that is by heart, sir.

Speaker 1 Like, let's get one thing.

Speaker 1 Did Siri play the Trolls version, though?

Speaker 2 And did play the Trolls version. And I turned it off and I said, we're listening to the heart version.

Speaker 3 I have a close friend and colleague. I won't say who he is, but his initials are J-M, and he has curly hair, and he's been a guest on this show.

Speaker 2 Jim Menson.

Speaker 3 Who wrote for the Trolls television show for a time?

Speaker 3 These days, he's been writing on some really great shows. That was just a time when he was unemployed and taking some work that came his way.

Speaker 3 And the thing that I remember most vividly about trolls and the trolls universe is that the creator of trolls is still alive, or at least was at the time.

Speaker 3 And she had established.

Speaker 1 Or is this in the world?

Speaker 3 This is in the world.

Speaker 1 Okay. In the simulation world.

Speaker 3 In countries and people.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 she had set down rules for how the trolls could operate. And one of the rules was the trolls can't have enemies.

Speaker 3 And so in the trolls TV show, they had to come up with whatever 50 plots or 80 plots that had no enemies in them. They could only have misunderstandings.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying since the Trolls spirited away.

Speaker 2 But in the Trolls movies, they do have enemies. So that seems like a little hypocritical on the part of trolls.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I'll take it up with that elderly

Speaker 3 German lady or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 I mean, I've got a lot of things to say to elderly German ladies, but this is an elderly Norwegian lady.

Speaker 1 I mean, one, that's a good story, and two, I would kill for a little work on a trolls TV show right now.

Speaker 1 I think you would crush it, dude.

Speaker 2 I feel like you do a great job, Dan. I think there was a time, maybe.

Speaker 1 Friendly misunderstandings is like 90% of your life.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I think they get a little crankier than they would like on the trolls show.

Speaker 2 You're like, Dan, you can't just keep pitching episodes where the trolls send a text that they should have looked at one last time before they've seen it.

Speaker 1 You're like, oh, could this be taken the wrong way?

Speaker 3 You're like, wait, wait, I've got a pitch about the trolls being a little annoyed that they're disappointed with the most recent issue of Cooks Illustrated.

Speaker 2 But I'll say this for your unnamed friend.

Speaker 2 Maybe there was a time period in entertainment history when people would be like, oh, I'm working on this thing. I'm a little ashamed of it.
Right now, work is work. Unless you're working on

Speaker 2 the Nick Fuentes show,

Speaker 2 it's fine. Don't be ashamed of your work.

Speaker 3 Go check out Teen Titans Go. He works on Teen Titans Go.
It's a very funny show.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a very funny funny show, especially. I'd also like to say to Cooks Illustrated, you're doing a great job, actually.

Speaker 1 You've really expanded the types of cuisines that you feature in there.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it's all good. You can hire Dan.
He's great at that stuff. Dan loves writing Cooks Illustrated.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jokes that

Speaker 1 need like fucking single panel gags? Dan will like that.

Speaker 2 When you do your annual April Fools issue, Schnooks Illustrated, where it's just like a parody of a regular magazine, have Dan do that.

Speaker 1 Well, we're clearly all raring to talk about Smurfs. Is there anything else?

Speaker 2 What else can we talk about to put on?

Speaker 1 Before we get into the market,

Speaker 3 how are you on an etching of a ham?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 better get those spirals. Uzumaki style.

Speaker 1 I've never seen Hodgman's eyes light up more, by the way, than when I told him that I... contributed a tip to Cooks Illustrated and he demanded to

Speaker 1 find it and send it to him.

Speaker 1 Anyway, Smurfs. So wait, before we get into the movie, do you guys, yeah, do you guys have like a history relationship with Smurts?

Speaker 2 I mean, when I was a kid, I'm sure I watched the old show, but I didn't, I had no affectionate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I watched the old show. And

Speaker 1 the movie that they did, Smurfs and the Magic Flute, was on a lot, on television a lot when I was a kid, and I would watch that.

Speaker 1 My mom

Speaker 1 actively wouldn't let me watch them. She hated the Smurts because

Speaker 1 of Smurfette, because of the idea that there's one female Smurf and she's like blonde, basically. She's like this blonde

Speaker 1 character Zayson. I can't fucking.
She would love this movie where she's played by Rihanna, which

Speaker 2 they went so far in the other direction that Smurfette is the most competent, accomplished, psychologically stable character that there is no person, there's no character to her. Like there's just no.

Speaker 2 And instead,

Speaker 2 you have to ask the audience to invest emotionally in James Corden. And that's two big flaws right there.

Speaker 1 And by the way, it's a big act. Rihanna lobbied to do this movie.
She loves this. She's a producer on this.

Speaker 1 She made

Speaker 1 music for this. This and Wakanda Forever, like the only new Rihanna music in years and years and years.
It's kind of amazing that, like, she's like, Smurfs. That's where it's at now.

Speaker 2 It's strange when someone, you find out the thing that someone has a deep connection to that they're really excited about. And sometimes it can be very surprising.

Speaker 2 Like the, I just found out earlier today that one of my favorite books. of my childhood, Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater, is being made into a movie and The Rock is going to be in it.

Speaker 2 And The Rock is the one who's really pushing it and being like, I got to make this for my kids. I got to make a Lizard Music.

Speaker 1 You guys have a lot in common, Ellie. Apparently.

Speaker 2 And it's one of those things where I'm like, I never would have guessed this is the book that The Rock would be like, I have to make a movie out of this book.

Speaker 2 So we'll see how it turns out. Maybe we'll be doing Lizard Music on this very podcast in a few years.
I hope not. I love that book.
I hope it's a good movie.

Speaker 1 Well, let's get into the details. We begin.
As any Smurfs movie must, at the dawn of the universe, where

Speaker 1 we have a prologue. The Smurfs are eternal.

Speaker 2 They're the alpha and the Omega.

Speaker 1 They've been with us forever. A prologue explains there are four magic books that together rule the universe.

Speaker 2 Right off the bat, I was like, don't need this in a Smurfs movie.

Speaker 1 What are you doing?

Speaker 3 This part is narrated by Joseph Campbell.

Speaker 3 The Smurfs were born on the back of a turtle.

Speaker 2 All cultures have a story about Smurfs.

Speaker 1 Like, supposed to be a parody of the Infinity Stones or a rip-off?

Speaker 1 I think it is. My grandma told me a wives tale of four married

Speaker 2 homes my mama once told me stay away from the smurfs you know but i think my guess is this is not a parody my guess is this is a them trying to do with the smurfs what every what every movie does and i don't always want to put this at the feet of executives it's not always their fault but it does strike me as executives saying like how do we marvel movie up the smurfs basically you know let's give the smurfs some stakes how do we involve a multiverse in the with the smurfs yeah how do we give them stakes so the smurfs are not just dealing with complications between friends in a dan mccoy-esque way yeah instead it is how do the smurfs save merges yeah how do we keep the smurfs why don't we change the threat from they're just going to get like cooked alive i don't know what weird dude what does dargamel really want to do with the smurfs do we you know he just doesn't like them he wants to kill him or something cook him or something yeah yeah smurfs really taste great ask that's your tip from cooks illustrated dan fry up some smurfs Ellie, this might not be the idea of executives.

Speaker 3 This could be the idea of Chris Miller, the director of the film who's not chris miller the director of good films but rather chris miller the director of bad films yes it could be it could be or the writer who was like a south park writer apparently that's uh my guess is that

Speaker 2 my guess is that this movie went through a long torturous development process yeah and they end as with many of these long torturous development processes they ended up with a movie that is trying to imitate just what other movies are already doing yeah it's like i was trying to imagine

Speaker 1 like like a program where if you just inserted a whole bunch of other screenplays, it just like came up with a new screenplay for you to use.

Speaker 2 We have that program. It's called Hollywood.

Speaker 1 Jesse, what were you going to say?

Speaker 3 I was trying to imagine Sue Brady, the woman who like wrote on Team America and stuff and wrote this film, pitching jokes and then people just sort of like covering their eyes and walking away. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like, no, we're not doing. No, no, no, no.
It's four magic books and James Cordon sings a song.

Speaker 1 The only jokes are ones ones where you take a swear word and swap in Smurf. If it's a different type of joke, get it out of here.

Speaker 1 So we got these four books.

Speaker 1 The Intergalactic Evil Wizard Alliance, led by Gargamel's brother, Razumel, wants these books to rule the world with the evil, but the Smurfs, they opposed, they stood against these wizards.

Speaker 1 It's usually what I think of when I think of Smurfs. And Papa Guardians of Order rescued one of the books, Jaunty Grimoire, to hide her.

Speaker 1 Important to say her because this is an anthropomorphized book voiced by Amy Sebaris. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Speaker 2 One of the many, many, many celebrity voices in the movie.

Speaker 1 And I will say up front that the best voice acting in here. No doubt.

Speaker 1 I don't know what you're saying. Gargamel and

Speaker 1 Razumel, both done by the same person who is a

Speaker 1 professional voice actor. Yes.

Speaker 1 Like, why the fuck? Do you keep putting celebrities with unremarkable voices in these things when voice actors kill it every time?

Speaker 2 The fact that later on,

Speaker 2 there's a character voiced by Kurt Russell, and I was like, Who's that? Yeah, this is like a not, this is like a nothing voice. And then in the credits, I was like, Kurt Russell.
And I'm like, well,

Speaker 2 he's a guy who projects such charisma, but it's not coming.

Speaker 1 You don't think he walked into that booth ready to voice Ron the Smurf?

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's like, what the fuck am I doing? I got to go back and play video games.

Speaker 3 To be fair, I think there were a lot of grandpas out there going like, oh, I got to see this Smurfs movie. Kurt Russell has five lines.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let me take a look. So like, I'll take my grandkids to see this.
I'll take a break from playing video games and discussing hockey with John Carpenter. And

Speaker 2 the point of doing a celebrity voice is that ideally the voice is so recognizable that there's a jolt of excitement.

Speaker 2 That's the same reason you cast a celebrity in a movie, you cast a star, is because the audience can then bring their love of that. actor or their understanding of that actor to the role, right?

Speaker 2 Like that's why Alfred Hitchcock was like, I cast stars. Because when you cast a star, they bring all their previous roles with them.

Speaker 2 You don't have to build the character the same way because you know who Jimmy Stewart is, you know who Carrie Grant is.

Speaker 2 But to cast actors whose voices are, and there's some great actors in here who I love, but like other than Natasha Leone, there's none in there where I'm like, oh, yeah, this person has a very distinctive voice where as soon as I hear it, I know exactly who this person is.

Speaker 1 Yes. And she also, like, when she was doing the talk show circuit for this movie, was talking about being in a Smurfs movie, which alone is funny.

Speaker 1 But we've flashed it.

Speaker 2 My only worry is that it might become part of the Jane Lynching of Natasha Leone, which is when someone goes from being super fun to being like, they're everywhere. Why is this a person in everything?

Speaker 2 I also know there's the Helen Hunting of Jane Lynch.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 when the last name is Lynch, I don't like that. Yeah,

Speaker 1 it wasn't the best Bramery movie.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we flash forward from the dawn of time to Smurf Village now, where the Smurfs, they sing a few bars of the famous.

Speaker 1 That's a billions, billions and billions of years they sing a little the famous smurf thing before papa smurf drops a beat

Speaker 1 really fucking called this shit yeah the music switches to everything goes with blue by tyla because these aren't your daddy's smurfs no these are no

Speaker 2 this is the moment this was the kind of stuff where in the they would show it in the trailer and my kids were like they're just trying to do trolls they're ripping off trolls because this is the trolls movies all over you know Well, yeah, the trolls,

Speaker 1 it's all very music-based in the trolls. Yes.

Speaker 2 And it's very music-based, and it's specifically pop music, pre-existing pop music, you know, medleys of pop songs.

Speaker 3 There was a time when this movie was going to be called the Smurfs Musical.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 3 And that is weird because there's like three songs in it.

Speaker 2 I think that's probably why they changed the title.

Speaker 1 They don't have that many songs.

Speaker 3 Like, honestly, if I was going to guess what happened in the process of the development of this film, it's that the woman from South Park wrote a script with a bunch of jokes in it.

Speaker 3 They crossed out all the jokes. Rihanna signed up and said, this will be the Smurfs Musical with songs by Rihanna.
Everybody was like, it's been a long time since Rihanna's had songs.

Speaker 3 Then Rihanna wrote two songs and left.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And then they had to fill out the rest of the movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we use this song to get introduced to the idea that all the Smurfs have... you know, names based on their defining traits.

Speaker 1 We, you know, meet a lot of the Smurfs like vanity, hefty, worry, brainy, grouchy, yes.

Speaker 2 This is very funny to me is that they have an entire song where you literally have their names come up on screen. And then the next scene is about, all the Smurfs have something.

Speaker 2 I don't have something. This guy has this thing.
This guy has this thing. It's like, did you think I missed the beginning of the movie?

Speaker 2 Like, is this for people who were getting popcorn and they didn't time it right? Like, I just met these characters. You don't have to tell me that.

Speaker 3 I think it's fun, Elliot, that they all get introduced by their one special quality.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, Brawny Smurf or whatever his name is is like lifting up a guy. Hefty Smurf is lifting up a guy, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 3 And then through the course of the rest of the film, they don't use their special powers at all. They just run around like regular Smurfs that have no

Speaker 1 interchangeable.

Speaker 2 But I'm sure you were as excited as I was to hear the incredibly recognizable voice of Alex Winter as Hefty Smurf.

Speaker 1 And I like Alex Winter a lot.

Speaker 3 I was honestly, I don't know how they can make this entire movie without Jack McBrayer being in it once.

Speaker 1 I thought it was wild when we meet the Poots later on, and none of them are voiced by Jason mansukas who looks like one of them

Speaker 1 seems like a no-brainer yeah the name is right there in the name yeah uh speaking of names there's one no-name smurf uh the again unfortunately james cordon's in this film and he plays the lead uh and he has an existential crisis because he's like i don't know my thing i don't know my thing hey dan we've never seen a movie like this before right where there's a society where everyone has a thing and the main character does nothing there's this one guy trying to find his thing desperately and he just can't And he just can't do it.

Speaker 2 We've never seen this before, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 This bit of dialogue comes up, by the way, because Papa Smurf says, isn't it great that everyone in this village has a thing directly to the Smurf who doesn't have a thing?

Speaker 1 Yeah, because Papa Smurf's a jerk. He's a real dick.
He is

Speaker 1 cool. Is he fucking like his thing is being Papa? That's wild.

Speaker 1 So Papa Smurf. Papa dubbed the town, though.

Speaker 1 I mean, his thing is fucking.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. When his brother shows up, I'm like, why did they make this one so fucking sexy?

Speaker 2 Hoppasmurph is really playing the Charles Xavier role, which is the leader who, the more you see him and the more you have seen him in Transcross, you're like, this is not a good guy.

Speaker 2 The way he manipulates people is not good.

Speaker 1 The other thing, like, you're making me realize that when we meet his brothers later on, their names are Ron and Kin, right? Yeah. Like, so, like, they don't have a thing either, apparently.

Speaker 3 No, somebody at some point said, this is a movie about brothers yeah and thought of no stuff for that

Speaker 2 it also shows that they lost interest in no name smurf at some point and they're like uh well what about papa's family can we get into that but i think that's because papa smurf this is the subtext of this movie He named himself Papa Smurf.

Speaker 2 He started Smurf Village because he is trying to regiment a world where everyone is defined incredibly tightly by the one thing that they do. And his brothers are not welcome in the village.

Speaker 2 They do not like that stuff. And so it's a, but we won't get into that, but it says, it paints Papa Smurf in a bad light.
But you're right.

Speaker 2 It's a the movie kind of careens around being like, is this what it's about? It's about this guy can't find. He's the one Smurf who doesn't.

Speaker 2 Well, actually, maybe it's about how brothers and brothers love each other. Actually, maybe it's about how we're stronger together.

Speaker 2 What is this movie about?

Speaker 1 Hold on a second. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But to have a question, you mentioned that Papa Smurf named himself. Do you think it's possible that character was inspired by Father Yod of the Source family?

Speaker 3 Do you think there's a possible second film that's going to be a film?

Speaker 2 It's almost certain. It's almost certain.

Speaker 3 Papa Smurf invents green goddess dressing,

Speaker 3 starts a psych rock band, and then jumps off a cliff and dies because he assumed that because he's a god man, he would know how to hang glide.

Speaker 1 I mean, it sounds amazing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's the Smurf movie I want to see.

Speaker 1 But yeah, to return to the emoji movie plot of the film,

Speaker 1 No Name is worried about not having a thing. Doesn't have a thing.
He's comforted by his friend, possible romantic partner, question mark, Smurfette.

Speaker 2 I think they don't know what they don't know whether they want that to happen in this movie, so they don't have it happen, but they're kind of almost having it happen.

Speaker 1 And they make a point of pretty upfront talking about how Smurfett wasn't originally a Smurf. This is what I wanted to talk about.

Speaker 1 So she talks about how she dealt with being the only Smurf made out of clay by Gargamel to sort of infiltrate Smurf Village. Smurf Cannon.
That's not original Smith. No, that's not.

Speaker 1 That's actually Smurf Cannon, but it confused me because Lady.

Speaker 2 Smurm Cannon is also when you shoot Smurfs out of.

Speaker 1 Later. Later Smurfsmur.
That's what I call my dick.

Speaker 1 Gargamel, like,

Speaker 1 you eat too much blue food coloring. Eat a lot of blue food.
It's too much. You know what I'm trying to do here.
Yeah, exactly. Later in the movie, Gargamel or Razumel, one of them, like shows her.

Speaker 1 like a photo album of like her time with them and it's acted it's it's as if it's like this shocking reveal that she hasn't already dealt with and I don't understand Cause like right up front, she's like, hey, like, this was me.

Speaker 1 I was made out of clay by these guys.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's, it's a weird moment because they show her this

Speaker 1 book and they're like, actually, back then, you were like super into being a weird clay member of our family.

Speaker 1 I don't remember that. Yeah, like now we're doing some weird like memory horror.
Like

Speaker 3 that does read as like an executive note that they had the part later on where she was uncomfortable with it, but then somebody said, children don't know the Smurf canon that well.

Speaker 3 They don't know that she was made out of clay. Bet you better have her say it in the beginning.

Speaker 2 As someone who is working on a show based on IP where there's a lot of questions sometimes about how much the audience will be aware of the original IP that it's based on, yes, I think you're right.

Speaker 2 I think that was, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point that was supposed to be a reveal and instead they were like, let's just get it out up top because it's going to be confusing.

Speaker 2 And we also, this character feels very noted to death, this Smurfat character, in that like she never has, or the only problem she seems to have is she loves French fries too much in one sense.

Speaker 2 And she eats all of them, which is, if that's a problem, then lock me up, officer.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 it feels like they have been, there are probably moments where she shows doubt in herself or anything like that. And they probably said, no, we want a strong female character.
We can't do this. Or

Speaker 2 Rihanna doesn't want a doubt or something like that. So there's a, because I feel like there's a different version of this movie, which is about Smurfette's story.

Speaker 2 And instead, they've tried to make her both the strongest, best of all the Smurfs.

Speaker 2 And also, she's in that same wild-style Lego movie role where it's like, hey, this character should probably be the hero of the movie, but the hero of the movie needs to be kind of like a schlubby guy who doesn't know his place in the world.

Speaker 1 Speaking of that schlubby guy, unfortunately, James Cordon gets a song about how he feels. It's like really crazy rap song.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like Ludacris's area codes.

Speaker 2 I never thought I'd hear a Smurf say, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf. But he's just trying to say skeet the whole time.

Speaker 1 No, it's like this down-tippo ballad where he's accompanied by a turtle on the keyboard, who I assumed would be just like a one-off character for this scene.

Speaker 1 How weirdly this turtle is like in like half of the moon. Who's the voice?

Speaker 3 Some animator designed this turtle and was pumped. He sold it hard in every meeting.
He's like, he just raised his hand. What if the turtle's in this scene?

Speaker 1 I looked it up. This turtle is played by Marshmallow, who is a music figure of some kind.

Speaker 2 I'm not familiar with their work, but the uh, but yeah, this turtle, I got very frustrated every time this turtle showed up because there's, it's a, it's, it is like, this will be funny to have this turtle show up again, but he doesn't do anything and he's not funny.

Speaker 1 Why is this non-smurf that is not adding anything? You know, so smurfs are described as being three apples high. Yes, that's crazy.
There's no way they're three apples high. Crab apples.

Speaker 1 Crab apples high. They're very small.
Yeah. These are old-fashioned apples.
These are heirloom apples.

Speaker 2 Yeah, these aren't the apples you get in the supermarket that have been genetically modified

Speaker 1 to be super product of a different speaking of which, like, you know, like smurfs had like these

Speaker 1 elements of sort of medieval

Speaker 1 culture. Like, there's like a medieval element to smurfs.
Yeah. Yeah.
But mostly they just like hung out in the village and like

Speaker 1 they each were named after the job they did, like in medieval times. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know these smurf hats are a special kind of hat?

Speaker 3 This feels like something a really would know about. Yeah, these smurf hats.

Speaker 1 Did you see the textures on it? Well,

Speaker 1 not like I used to, but these smurf hats. What are they called? What are these?

Speaker 3 These smurf hats. These smurf hats are this special kind of hat that's associated with like the Enlightenment.
Yes, so these are

Speaker 1 for liberty.

Speaker 2 These are called Phrygian caps, and they became very big, especially during the French Revolution.

Speaker 2 was a very big time for these when it was they they

Speaker 2 represented kind of like

Speaker 2 um the idea of like the Roman populace, I guess, you know, and they, so that became a thing of like a representation of like enlightenment and equality, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 There are multiple flags, like national flags, where

Speaker 3 the central figure in the seal or the flag of the nation is wearing one of these hats because it's like the opposite of wearing a crown. So it represents that you have like a Republican government.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, you know what? I was wrong.
I'm looking up more about that. It's not a Roman thing, but it is an ancient world thing.

Speaker 2 And it became, and during the, during those, that time, it was like the Jacobins, particularly during the French Revolution.

Speaker 2 It was like, this is their version of, they were using this as their version of the Roman kind of liberty cap, basically.

Speaker 3 Is that why this Smurfs movie was so heavily covered in Jacobin magazine?

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 2 It's ironic because the Smurf village lifestyle is very much not what is, it's the, it's the far stage of revolution where there is now a new dominating leader has taken over.

Speaker 1 Elliot, are you at all familiar with like the original comics? Like, I'm in my head, like, no, this is like

Speaker 1 almost akin to like the Belgian version of Asterix and Obelisk or something, where it's like this vaguely historical fantasy world.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, there's obviously a lot more history in Asterisk or something. Yeah, then that literally takes the shit out of the Gauls or whatever.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Dan, have you never seen Les Adventure de la Strumpfs, the mid-1960s first feature film in

Speaker 1 the Smurfs franchise?

Speaker 1 Just seen it.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, anyway,

Speaker 1 so we don't have any knowledge of the film. So he sings his dope song, and then he

Speaker 1 gets his wish granted by a magic book. Yeah, my point in taking us down this non-fantasy movie.
I forgot what we were talking about.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 1 This all started with that charm.

Speaker 1 Just how far this movie, which is stuffed with modern, like, fantasy action movie tropes has nothing to do with what like historically the smurfs have been no i think the i mean the smurfs historically are like a gentle storytelling thing like yeah they're not like battling they're like i don't know like tricking gargamel's dumbass into like sticking his hand in the fire or something exactly the worst thing that's going to happen is is asriel the cat might grab you or something like that i went on r slash smurfs last night or maybe it was r slash the smurfs while i was waiting for my child to fall asleep

Speaker 2 uh just sitting in a beanbag chair in her room It's all just all pictures of Smurfette, and she's just, she's just got dump truck on the back.

Speaker 3 First of all, no, I like looked at the top posts for the last year.

Speaker 3 None of them were about the Smurfs movie, except for like the eighth one, which was just sort of like, why don't people like the Smurfs movie? Here's my reasons. Very gentle.

Speaker 3 And the biggest reason was in the canon, the Smurfs are just hanging out in Smurf Village doing whatever. And so they were upset that they would do something other than whatever.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I think it's a misreading of what, I mean, I don't have any affection for the Smurfs whatsoever, but it's a misreading, I think, of what appeals to people about the original property, which is, I think, the gentleness of it, the same way that the Ferdinand animated movie from years ago totally missed by having him actually fight in a bullfight and win, misreads the point of that fucking book, which is that he refuses to fight in a bullfight and he gets what he wants to do.

Speaker 1 It's also

Speaker 2 through non-violent defiance, you know, resistance.

Speaker 3 It's also in many ways a misreading of the kind of fundamental appeal of James Corden, which is none.

Speaker 1 He has no appeal.

Speaker 1 I'll say this.

Speaker 1 I'll say this. No one likes James Corden.

Speaker 2 I've said it before. When I saw him in

Speaker 2 One Man, Two Governors or whatever it was on Broadway, I was like, this guy is hilarious.

Speaker 2 And I think when he is playing a character who is not supposed to be likable and is doing farcical things on stage, he is very funny.

Speaker 2 I think the problem is when you make it him not playing an unlikable character and instead you're supposed to having the audience feel like I really want him around, you know, or I want to get to know him better.

Speaker 1 You know, it's a, he, there's always that artist can do very well.

Speaker 3 Are you telling me that one of the actors in this film you saw on stage in New York?

Speaker 2 Let's see, was it just one of them? Let's see. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 So it would be like if they made a Lord of the Rings movie and they're like, actually, your hero's Gollum and you got to hang out with them the whole time.

Speaker 1 I don't know. That sounds pretty cool.
Does that sound pretty good, yeah? Yeah, it sounds like it. And then he keeps riding.

Speaker 3 Stu, you're starting to sound like a real Los Angeles area waiter.

Speaker 1 So this known named Smurf, who is now a crad, he's gotten magical powers. He shows off the new powers to the village.

Speaker 2 This is also hilarious to me because he's like, I found my thing. It's like, my thing is I'm kind of a nerd.
My thing is I'm very vain. My thing is I have vast magic powers.
It's like, what?

Speaker 2 This doesn't fit into what Smurfs do.

Speaker 3 By the way, in the previous scene, there's like a list of types of Smurf

Speaker 3 and it's not funny. And then at some point, he says, like, I could be magic smurf.
And then Papa Smurf's like, smurfs aren't magic.

Speaker 3 And then like 30 seconds later, he becomes magic smurf.

Speaker 3 And you're like,

Speaker 3 did they send somebody? Back to page four of the screenplay to make sure to write in Smurfs aren't magic?

Speaker 1 Yeah, because they were like, I don't know, he starts doing magic stuff. Kids are going to be confused and assumed all Smurfs are blasting magic beams out of their hands.

Speaker 2 It's just because Papa Smurf doesn't want them to get involved in magic because he's trying to hide the truth about the magic book from them to keep them safe. Come on.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, it doesn't work because No Name immediately shows off by opening a giant interdimensional sky portal that allows Razumel to detect Smurf Village.

Speaker 2 Not the kinds of things that Smurfs usually do.

Speaker 1 So were we previously familiar with Razumel? This is Gargamel's brother Razumel. This is this new voice actor.

Speaker 2 I believe this is an original character to this movie.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Razumel, who, I mean, the character design looks like a classic Belgian dude, and he's got a

Speaker 1 character voiced by Dan Levy.

Speaker 1 I find it... Sorry, go on.
No, it was just... I just find it very strange that if this is a new character, I assumed that maybe this was like some deep Smurf slur.

Speaker 1 If this is a new character, then why? Like, if you're already going to diverge from what the Smurfs are so much in the movie, just make it fucking Gargamel. We all know that Gargamel's the bad guy.

Speaker 1 Make him the main bad guy. Like,

Speaker 2 my guess is

Speaker 2 they wanted Gargamel to be able to be a sympathetic character, that they wanted to be able to do more with Gargamel or something like that.

Speaker 2 So they introduced another guy to shit on Gargamel all the time and be worse than Gargamel so that you could then have a turn so that Gargamel later helps the Smurfs. Because wouldn't that be amazing?

Speaker 2 Gargamel and the Smurfs on the same side working together.

Speaker 1 But then at the end of the movie, spoiler, like, there's like the mid-credit sequence is Gargamel like bursting in

Speaker 1 and being like,

Speaker 1 we've got some unfinished business with the Smurfs.

Speaker 2 You know, because now you've built him up. Now you know, oh shit, Gargamel's now, what's he going to do? He's, you know, this is, we've seen him go through his arc, and now he's empowered.

Speaker 1 I just realized that we're

Speaker 1 four 40-something men yelling about Gargamel. I love it.
This is why you do stuff like this. No,

Speaker 2 what we are really yelling about, Dan, is storytelling and how storytelling is done in movies. And one of the smurfs, one of the reviews of the Smurfs.

Speaker 1 The Smurf said

Speaker 1 exclusively about Gargamel's portrayal in the Smurfs movie 2025.

Speaker 2 Why isn't he as sexy as I remember?

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 there was one of the reviews that I was looking up of the movie. They were saying, this is Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian.

Speaker 2 He says, there seems to be a worrying assumption here that a film aimed at very little kids doesn't need to have a very interesting or engaging story. And that's my big issue.

Speaker 2 And I think the gargamel stuff is part of that, that there's an assumption that this is for kids, who gives a shit, make it the same stuff that we've done in all these other movies.

Speaker 2 When if anyone needs something, a story that will be wonderful, it's kids. Like this is, there's, there are children that I assume, assume this is the first movie they've ever seen.

Speaker 2 And it's like, that's their poorer, unfortunately, for this being their introduction to film, as opposed to something that really moves them or excites them.

Speaker 3 You know, I think there's also a very fundamental miscalculation in the lead characters of this show and the actors who portray them.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like to

Speaker 3 cast a movie like this with celebrity voice actors is dérigour and understandable. And like, it's not like they were going to

Speaker 1 go ahead and

Speaker 3 cast incredible voice actors in all these parts. But truly, Rihanna could not be more boring.

Speaker 1 in her performance.

Speaker 3 It is as though she is like barely there

Speaker 3 and James Corden is actively unpleasant and they give him nothing funny to do.

Speaker 3 So there's no winning here in this story when those and I don't the thing that I

Speaker 3 don't understand the most about it

Speaker 3 is like the whole marketing campaign for this movie was based around Rihanna as Smurfette. Like that's the only poster that I remember is Rihanna as Smurfette.
And like

Speaker 3 I know that Rihanna is a hitmaker and she's certainly very famous.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 3 But like, do people want to see a Rihanna movie?

Speaker 1 Well, that's like children want to see a Rihanna movie. Thirst for more Rihanna as someone who, you know, is now a billionaire and has retreated into not.

Speaker 1 doing entertainment for the most part, but they don't want it in Smurf form necessarily.

Speaker 2 My guess is it's entirely a matter of just how many followers does she have on these social media feeds? Great. We can guarantee X number of people who are huge Rihanna fans will go.

Speaker 2 You're casting someone entirely for that publicity marketing aspect of it.

Speaker 1 If it was a Smurfs movie where all the Smurfs were just hanging out with Rihanna. That'd be a better movie.
I would think that would be a better movie.

Speaker 1 This is the movie. Yeah, I'm like helping her write a fucking album.

Speaker 2 Rihanna finishes her last concert. She goes, I'm just so tired.
I'm so tired of being a big star. I just wish I could just.
relax and hang out somewhere.

Speaker 2 And she falls asleep clutching a stuffed animal Smurf. She wakes up in the Smurf village and the rest of the movie is just her hanging out with the Smurfs.
Better movie.

Speaker 1 A thousand percent better movie. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I will say this for this Smurfs movie, which is

Speaker 3 there were three

Speaker 3 previous Smurfs movies in the last cycle of Smurfs movies, two of which were like Smurfs in Real Life, one of which was a fully animated Smurfs movie.

Speaker 1 And Smurfs in Real Life, of course, had that famous thing. Smurf with the head on his pancakes.
Surf with the head on the pancakes, yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 I have not seen these movies, but I have looked at like trailers for these these movies just to prepare for this.

Speaker 3 They looked awful, but they really looked grotesque. They looked nasty.

Speaker 3 This movie in the scenes where they are in the Smurf world,

Speaker 3 I thought it looked pretty good. Like they seem to have learned some of the lessons of recent films that have

Speaker 3 taken greater advantage of

Speaker 3 the human touch and the possibilities of animation in the context of 3D animation. You know, like, I don't know.
I don't know if you guys saw,

Speaker 1 I don't know if you guys saw Puss in Boots 2, but Puss in Boots 2 is really good, or at least...

Speaker 3 at least very good.

Speaker 3 And it is

Speaker 3 really cool looking. And part of the reason is because the aesthetics are very flexible and interpretive.

Speaker 3 And this has some of the hand of man in it and reflects some of the like values of the comics and

Speaker 3 the cartoons of the 80s in interesting ways and looks pretty decent. Now, later they muddle that up by doing 17 other things.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 when I was looking at it, in contrast to say trolls, which is just a pile of crap on the screen,

Speaker 3 I was looking at, I mean, incredible textures.

Speaker 1 I got to give it to Dan for identifying that. He just

Speaker 2 was licking the TV screen because he wanted to taste his textures.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was like, this is actually kind of, this is actually kind of good looking.

Speaker 1 I thought. I don't think everything else is horrible to this point.

Speaker 2 I think from a technical point of view,

Speaker 2 everything looks great in Smurfs.

Speaker 1 I agree with you 100%. I was amazed at how good Smurfs looks.
Like, it finds that middle ground between, like, we're doing a computer animated movie, but we're going to have some hard lines in here.

Speaker 1 We're going to

Speaker 1 find

Speaker 1 the middle ground. We're going to have some hard lines.
No on-screen drug use.

Speaker 1 We're going to have a lot of money.

Speaker 3 There's some stretchiness and bounciness to it. There's a little bit of

Speaker 1 a cartoon.

Speaker 3 There's motion lines.

Speaker 2 Rather than them trying to make photorealistic Smurfs.

Speaker 1 I was saying, like, if you put on, if you put the sound down on this and put Dark Side of the Moon on and watch Smurfs, probably pretty good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, his textures are incredible.

Speaker 2 The Smurfs in the other movies do look grotesque compared to these Smurfs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. We're not that far into this movie.
We're not lost for Philly. He gets magic powers.
Yeah, yeah. From the end of the day.

Speaker 1 And Razamel has now identified where the smurfs are so his intern yes and the smurfs uh figure obviously papa has to be kidnapped by their old nemesis gargamel who should have been the main villain of this movie as far as i was concerned but uh no name uh brings gargamel to smurf village for them to capture and they interrogate him and he doesn't know where papa smurf is but clumsy has found a magic record that Papa has labeled as the way to find Kin, the guy that as he was being, Papa Smurf was being sucked away.

Speaker 1 He's like, find Ken.

Speaker 3 And so when they put this record on, hold on, Dan, what happens is Papa Smurf says, find Ken, find Ken. And then in the next scene, a guy says, well, this record says, find Ken on it.

Speaker 1 That's it. That's the.

Speaker 1 We put together the clues.

Speaker 1 Mr.

Speaker 2 Smurf, I gave you all the clues.

Speaker 3 They don't even show him looking for something.

Speaker 1 He just holds up a record.

Speaker 3 I found the thing he said.

Speaker 1 Why didn't he just like hand him the record as he's being sucked away and be like, play this to find?

Speaker 2 Why didn't he just say, go to Paris to find Can?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 good point.

Speaker 1 Well, they don't know what Paris is, but they're not. And they need to learn a lesson about the power of music, Elliot.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because this is a musical, as we all know, the Victrola sucks them through the horn of it and takes them into Paris and the real world, which is a weird thing about this movie is like part of it takes place in the real world where cartoon characters live, some of them.

Speaker 1 I don't know what makes them different from the ones that live in the cartoon world, but none of this is commented on these various levels of reality, really. No, they're just kind of like.

Speaker 1 I kind of like that they're not like

Speaker 1 because of not understanding.

Speaker 2 But it's also very strange when you're like, okay, I get it. So the cartoon characters live in the Smurf universe and they live here.
And they're like, there's Razumel's castle here in Germany.

Speaker 2 And it's like, oh, okay, wait a minute. So there's just a cartoon castle in in Germany.

Speaker 1 They're not worried about alienating German audiences by saying Razumel lives there.

Speaker 3 What's most amazing to me about this concept where they're visiting real life cities of the world is that

Speaker 1 they do nothing with it.

Speaker 3 Like the extent to which they do nothing with the places that they visit can't be overstated. Like they don't even bother to like have a scene in the Eiffel Tower.

Speaker 3 There's a shot of the Eiffel Tower very briefly before they go into a generic nightclub.

Speaker 1 I mean, later on, they do, during a song number, ride around in kangaroo pouches

Speaker 1 in Australia. While the kangaroos sing backup vocals, and it's weird.

Speaker 2 Yeah, much like, much, oh, they end up in Australia, much like that X-Men storyline for years when they were living in the Outback, you know, when the Reapers came after them. But

Speaker 2 there's that, but you're right, like,

Speaker 2 they don't have to slide down a long bread in Paris at any point or any of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 They have to direct some poor chef into cooking good ass shit. There's a

Speaker 1 there's a not very important scene where Razmel

Speaker 1 learns that

Speaker 1 that Joel has gotten Papa Smurf where we also learned that Razmel apparently has a podcast that's mentioned in passing

Speaker 1 because saying that someone has a podcast is a punchline

Speaker 1 in films.

Speaker 1 Still some podcasts.

Speaker 3 Dan, come on. It's not that he has a podcast that's the punchline.
It's that he was on a Zoom and he was muted and he should have been using his podcast microphone.

Speaker 1 I have to admit that. He was muted on the Zoom, Dan.
I have to admit something shameful. They had this magic Zoom and when it cut to him being muted, I snorted briefly.

Speaker 1 Wow. But I'm sorry.
I apologize. And this magic Zoom, it was probably three voice actors doing the voices for these all-powerful.

Speaker 2 The other wizards, you've got Hannah Waddingham. is one of them

Speaker 1 who likes to put some put some effort into this local moment.

Speaker 2 Nick Kroll is one of the wizards and Octavia Spencer is one of the wizards.

Speaker 1 That's the only time I've not recognized Nick Kroll in a voice performance.

Speaker 1 That's how bland this film is.

Speaker 3 Dan, you say you snorted. I smurfed my pants.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. Don't even get.
Okay, we'll get to that.

Speaker 2 We'll get to that. This movie does, it does crime one for me in this movie.

Speaker 1 But Razumel, having now located Papa, he tries to magically grab the book from Smurf Village, but only manages to bring Gargamel, who had been trapped there to him. So the brothers are together.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, in Paris, the Smurfs are rescued from the world.

Speaker 2 I also mentioned, once again, with Razumel, similar to the king or whatever he is in Shrek,

Speaker 2 it is part of the fact that this is a very short person, and you can get some humor out of that because short people are evil and should be objects of ridicule.

Speaker 1 No reason to live is the song. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the anthem of short person hate for generations. Literally, no reason to live.

Speaker 2 That Randy Newman refers to them as vermin who are diluting the blood of the nation, I think is really unacceptable.

Speaker 1 I feel kind of uncomfortable, along with Jesse being two tall men here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm super tall. Is there anything where they put down hunks in this movie? Because I could get upset about that.

Speaker 1 How tall are you, Stuart? How tall? Yeah. I'm only, I'm 6'1 ⁇ .
Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm 5'111. I was like, I was just like, I

Speaker 1 was listeners, of course, know that I am one foot seven inches tall.

Speaker 1 Three apples.

Speaker 1 Yeah, three apples tall.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but crap apples yeah

Speaker 1 uh so the the the the smurfs in paris are rescued by the international neighborhood wall wasn't that a jay-z album smurfs in paris

Speaker 1 uh they go to the the their base which is hidden inside of a disco ball because again like you can't do a modern smurfs movie without having like a bunch of like ninja smurfs doing flips and throwing fucking shuriken of things uh Here we meet Ken, Papa's tough brother, who's the voice of Nick Offerman.

Speaker 1 I did recognize him. Again, for some reason, they just like sex this guy up.
I'm like,

Speaker 1 he's like throwing his body around, and I'm like, can I tell you what?

Speaker 3 Nick was recently on my public radio show, Bullseye, and he casually five years. Yeah, thank you.
And he casually mentioned that he's really into massages because he learned it in theater school.

Speaker 3 And so I was like, well, I know how to create a viral moment. Give me a massage.

Speaker 3 He did. He is genuinely great at it.

Speaker 3 But when we posted that clip on instagram i don't know why i hadn't put these pieces together but just the astonishing flood of horniness that appeared in our comments

Speaker 1 that guy is a legit sex symbol for certain communities burly masculine fellow who's also very uh seems very sweet i i understand really really nice guy um

Speaker 1 so yeah this is this is the power of the offer the radioactive offer that bit him a long time ago

Speaker 1 That's true.

Speaker 1 What was the offer?

Speaker 1 The offer was a TV show.

Speaker 2 We'll give you this much money to be on a television show.

Speaker 2 He said, I'll take it.

Speaker 1 This is the scene, when they meet Ken, this is the scene with the most arguing where swear words are replaced by smurf.

Speaker 1 But Ken reluctantly agrees to help them and No Name uses magic to create a portal to Razumel's castle.

Speaker 2 And I'll also mention real quick, when I mentioned crime number one, it is when kids' movies do a joke where they're replacing a swear word with another word or it's just being called cheese.

Speaker 1 That's kind of like murder, right? You weren't talking about murder. No, no, murder, I'm fine with.
Murder's number two. Yeah, murder's number two after this, yeah.

Speaker 1 Sometimes my number twos are a murder if you don't have a murder. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Don't. You're talking about animal smurfing?

Speaker 2 This is just Stuart appealing to yet another very specific demographic.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, Rasmus Castle has a force field around them, around it that bounces them to the Interportal Way Station, which is not something that should be in a Smurf movie, and the Australian Outback.

Speaker 1 Along with Gateway. It feels like fucking, like, it really feels like Congress in like 2021, like passed a law that multiverses had to be in everything.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And they just, all of these things are things that they just say. There's nothing shown, only talk.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like they just, like, just at some point, Gargamel, like they're, they're going to Gargamel's castle and Gargamel says, Well, good news, we've got a force field, so they'll bounce off us and land somewhere else.

Speaker 3 And then they land in it's like

Speaker 2 when that kind of thing is done well, it feels like children making up a story as they go along, but here it's not, they don't pull it off that way.

Speaker 1 Good to know because they're rubber and we're glue,

Speaker 1 whatever way it goes. I don't know.
Anyway, the outback is the home of the snooter boots, of course. Of course, we all know this.

Speaker 2 As soon as the snooter boots came in, I was like,

Speaker 1 whatever. Like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Dan, have you not seen Kangaroo Jack?

Speaker 1 You know, this actually reminds me, like, my old sketch group, Mr. Mr.
White Pants, had a sketch written by the great Rob Morrison about

Speaker 1 a children's show called the Peetles, Peetle Schnorts.

Speaker 1 And it was like the most insane

Speaker 1 like list of just like stoned guy things about the Peedle Snorts.

Speaker 1 And I wish I could remember more details about it, but that's what I think about when I hear the snooter Poots who are fluffy creatures who steal from multiverse travelers.

Speaker 1 I mean and these things feel like they've been focus grouped to death to be like the next cute minion-esque type figure.

Speaker 1 Like there is there had to have been a Snooter Poot spin-off script again, probably starring Jason Manzukis somewhere in the pipeline. I'm sure

Speaker 1 they are kind of cute. Yes.
Yeah, but I'm sure that was when they're voiced by Natasha Leone, like that adds to it.

Speaker 2 Sure, but I'm sure that was part of the thing. It was like, we need something in here that we can spin off.
And they could do a Gargamel movie, but we need another type of creature that we like.

Speaker 2 I think you're exactly right. Like a minions type thing, you know.

Speaker 1 And they're led by, as Stuart said, Natasha Leone as Mama Poot, who is also an old flame of Kin's, apparently.

Speaker 1 And they ask her to open a portal to Rasmus Castle, but she is too scared of the evil wizards to help. And that makes no name also get scared and run away.

Speaker 1 And Smurfette follows him, and we get a song. And

Speaker 1 that's what Stu was talking about before.

Speaker 2 Of this song, I kind of couldn't. The song was, it felt like there was every you can do it song mushed together.
And at a certain point, I was like, I don't know what the message is.

Speaker 1 The purpose was to get them riding around in kangaroos, kangaroos, yeah, Stu said.

Speaker 1 Uh, but while they're busy in their, in their kangaroos and musical interlude, Razumel kidnaps everyone, uh, except for Mamapoot, who uses an old broken-down, like, interdimensional truck or something that is powered by fear.

Speaker 1 Now, the song, I believe, was to make him not scared anymore, and then the next scene, they're like, we need you to be super scared.

Speaker 1 Good writing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, when they said that, when they said the Beverly Hillbillies jalopy that they drive was powered by fear, I was like, wow, that's an idea from a different movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 1 It was, it's so from a different movie that it bounced off my brain like there was a force field around it.

Speaker 2 Well, they certainly don't do anything with it.

Speaker 1 Like, it's not. It's not like they like whipped out a phone.
They're like, scroll through the news.

Speaker 2 yeah it's at the it's like there's the you know we all remember in inside out when the uh when that they have to keep singing to power that wagon to get them out of the like forgetting place it's like they're almost trying for the laziest version of that you know yeah it's really when i saw inside out in the theaters i was like that was good but it was not like you know it's not top pixar and then you watch something like smurfs and you're like what what an amazing movie inside out yeah like how much it lands the emotion in that movie come on um so they go to rasmus castle and they sneak in inside a fast food takeout bag, which is where Smurfat eats a lot of French fries, as mentioned previously.

Speaker 2 There's a very strange scene of a snooty butler being disgusted by fast food, and it goes on for a long time. And I was very confused by all of this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it was supposed to create some sort of tension about whether they were going to be found inside the fast food bag.

Speaker 2 I guess so, but also it's that like, are they just, this is how bad these guys are. They hate french fries.
You know, I I don't know. But then onion rings are mentioned, and they all go, ugh.

Speaker 2 I'm like, wait, hold on a second.

Speaker 1 Wait, what's wrong with those? I know onion rings. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, Gargamel is getting increasingly disenchanted with Razumel because Razumel will not show him any brotherly affection at all.

Speaker 1 And as Razumel is about to smash the Smurf prisoners using his smashing machine. Yeah, I'd smash the Smurfs.
Okay. Don't let me know.
I know.

Speaker 3 Ron, at least.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 Our heroes burst in, and No Name threatens Razumel with his magic, but it turns out, turns out that No Name doesn't have magic. Jaunty has been hiding inside of No Name's.

Speaker 2 Now, a reminder, when Jaunty is the sentient magic boy,

Speaker 1 Grimoire, of course, our favorite character.

Speaker 1 took America by storm.

Speaker 2 Another

Speaker 2 spin-offable possibility is Jaunty and her Grimoire family.

Speaker 1 So she's been hiding under his Phrygian cap the whole movie, giving him a hook. Were Phrygian caps a place to hold like small books? Is that maybe a reference to that?

Speaker 2 Probably. Yeah, I think that's what it was.
Maybe that's how they hid their revolutionary tests.

Speaker 3 We're talking about real life, Stu. Phrygian caps are a place to hide Amy Sederis.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 She's very small. She can get inside.

Speaker 1 No, but

Speaker 1 she's revealed because she's allergic to cats. She sneezes at Azrael, revealing herself.

Speaker 2 She's a person that is allergic to cats.

Speaker 1 This is the hang. I mean, this is that's not a bad new character for Elliot Kalen, actually.
Good point. That's a good point.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 A sentient book, allergic to cats.

Speaker 1 Here's where,

Speaker 1 as I said, Rasmel should smurf at that photo album, and she's like

Speaker 1 weird about it. And I'm like, we dealt with this.
We dealt with this.

Speaker 2 It's purely to set up. the idea that she might have made a heel turn, but of course she hasn't.

Speaker 2 It turns out it was all a trick, you know, but

Speaker 1 okay, it would be so great if this movie has so further discord between the Smurfs.

Speaker 2 Yes, if the whole movie they've been setting up, that she has this dark side that she has to keep pushing away, so you don't know which way she's going to go, that would be very funny, yeah.

Speaker 1 And not dark side of the moon, which again is what you should listen to while you watch the moon.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so you can enjoy the textures.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 so Razmel leaves all the Smurfs to get smashed by his giant smashing machine, starring the rock, uh, in theaters now. But Gargamel is annoying,

Speaker 1 Paid for a spot or yeah.

Speaker 1 Gargamel is, well, he needs all the help. It's just not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's not a big success.

Speaker 1 The Rock's Oscar campaign is floundering. Gargamel is a little bit more.

Speaker 1 Strangely

Speaker 2 sad and depressed was not what people wanted from The Rock in movies.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But, you know, respect.
Gargamel is annoyed at his brother and frees the Smurfs and they all fly off on Azrael, who he had chanced to have wings.

Speaker 1 I do like after Razumel captures the jaunty grimoire and turns her evil, he then throws her down on the ground and begins surfing around on her like a hoverboard. I thought that was pretty funny.

Speaker 1 I also, the more you say words like Razumel and Jaunty Grimoire, the more I laugh as well.

Speaker 3 I think my understanding is that she's one of those human carpets from New York City nightclub culture in 2002.

Speaker 1 So Azriel loses his wings. Not a good enchantment, I guess.

Speaker 2 The spell almost instantly wears off. Gargamel is not a good wizard.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They crash in a field where if he was a better wizard, he'd fix the fact that he has like one tooth, right?

Speaker 1 He likes it that way. What I'm saying is, dentists are real-life wizards.

Speaker 1 They're the real wizards.

Speaker 2 It's real magic.

Speaker 1 Real magic, yeah.

Speaker 1 God bless you, America's dentist.

Speaker 1 They crash in a field. Long where you drill.

Speaker 1 Smurfed and no name both blame themselves for leading Rasmel the Jaunty, but Papa says, no, it's actually my fault. And we get a flashback, which is just what we need at this point.
Yeah. Where the

Speaker 1 story feels the momentum of this high-speeding movie. Kurt Russell, the Prime Minister.
I mean,

Speaker 2 this is a long movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah. For what it is.

Speaker 2 Actually, no, it's not. It's an hour and a half, but it feels like a very long movie.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because it's completely miscellaneous.

Speaker 1 I feel like this sequence, this flashback sequence, is one of the things that highlights what's so wrong about this movie is that this sequence is basically all battles.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, why is there so much fucking battling in this movie?

Speaker 1 Why are Smurfs like punching dudes and shit?

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 Why is a Smurf holding like a sword and a shield? The Smurfs should not be doing this. It's not what they do.
It's not why they're here.

Speaker 2 It's not the purpose of this. But it's the same way that

Speaker 2 it's part of the issue I had with the Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland movies, where it's like the evil.

Speaker 2 queen or whatever is going to take over the world and we've got to we've got to assemble our armies and i'm like that's not what alice in wonderland is about like it's not a game of thrones style fantasy world nonsense it's about nonsense jokes and word logic and and logic puzzles like yeah it's a it's a misunderstanding of what the thing or it's a you're taking you're taking the the surface of a thing and then applying it to the inner workings of some other thing you know yeah But this flashback is all about the previously mentioned Kurt Russell as other brother, Ron, who sacrificed himself to save Chanting in the past, which led Papa to create Smurf Village to keep his Smurfs safe rather than lose them in battle.

Speaker 1 And he kept it a secret all these years.

Speaker 2 Do you think it was weird for Nick Offerman to be playing opposite a character named Ron?

Speaker 1 Wow, that's a good point, Elliot. Thanks for interrupting.

Speaker 1 My understanding is: can we just get a sound sample of that thing and play every time?

Speaker 1 Do you think, yeah, because I bet he recorded all his lines in a big room with all the other voice actors all at once? Oh, they all did it together for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1 But yes, Papa has kept it a a secret that Smurfs are the gardeners of good, which I thought was kind of a funny,

Speaker 1 funny,

Speaker 1 ungainly title for them.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 2 making the best use of a thing that shouldn't be in the movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
With a new sense of purpose, they all team up with Gargamel to fight Razimel, who has trapped the other evil wizards in a water cooler so he can solo reign over the universe.

Speaker 1 And Razumel zaps most of the Smurfs away, including Papa, who sacrifices himself to protect Smurfette and no no name. And this all occurs in some kind of like nebulous cosmic zone, right? Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's a real multiverse of madness.
Speaking of multiverse of madness,

Speaker 1 Smurfette briefly pretends to always have been on Rasimov's side to steal the book, and they do a big chase. Half a second.
Yeah, they do a chase through dimensions.

Speaker 1 Just enough so that like a little baby in the audience might start to cry and then would be like, oh, wait.

Speaker 2 I mean, you never know. It's like when Detective Pikachu came out, when my older son had never seen a movie where a character is revealed to be a bad guy.

Speaker 2 And so, when it turns out Bill Nihey is a bad guy, which, if you've ever seen a movie, you know it from moment one.

Speaker 1 He was like, him?

Speaker 2 I was like, well, that's right. You haven't seen a movie that does this before.

Speaker 3 But this truly, like, this sequence, which doesn't look bad, I mean, there's like an eight-bit dimension.

Speaker 1 Is that an acclamation one or something? I like an anime dimension.

Speaker 1 But it is

Speaker 3 a transparent rip-off of Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, which is a really good movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse is legitimately wonderful. And this is just a garbage version of that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And we've seen it so many times at this point.

Speaker 1 We've seen it in that. We've seen it in Multiverse of Madness.

Speaker 1 Like, even going back, like, it's a different kind of thing, but I remember like Looney Tunes back in action when they're running through the different paintings.

Speaker 1 Like, it's very similar to that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 But then again, I was glad for some like visual inventiveness something new and this feels like the kind of thing i wish the movie had more of even if it's a thing we've seen somewhat before like that the smurfs going through different visual schemes is more i don't like that they're like they're like cutting razumel's arms off and things like that i don't like that but they the i think i'd like that more than them having to like sneak through the sewers of paris to to have a meetup with this with the you know rebel boss or something well again yeah like the idea of them running away from razumel to try and trick him in some way is more interesting than what eventually happens, how they best him.

Speaker 3 There's a weird thing. Aesthetically, it really like highlights the extent to which they have all this, relatively speaking, aesthetic invention in Smurf world,

Speaker 3 and then they go into the real world and everything looks like crap.

Speaker 2 Well, the real world has that kind of like AI gloss sheen on everything. You know, it's a, yeah.

Speaker 2 But uh, but anyway, Dan, you were going to talk before we interrupted you yet again.

Speaker 1 There's one world,

Speaker 1 the one outlier world here, since most of these things are like different art styles, is just a microscopic world where Razumel encounters a tardigrade that creeps him out, which was

Speaker 1 strange.

Speaker 2 Voiced by Hero of Democracy, Jimmy Kimmel.

Speaker 1 Interlude. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 That feels like one of those things where tardigrades are one of the things that are like big, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so I think that this is a little bit more.

Speaker 1 I mean, they're very small, Elliot. That's okay.
Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't throw a capy bar into that scene. Exactly.

Speaker 2 That's the kind of

Speaker 1 eyes rolled so hard. I thought he had a stroke.
And then

Speaker 1 axolotl.

Speaker 2 An axolotl, exactly. The way that all the all the animals that used to be cool in Indy have now sold out, and that's one of them.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But they seemingly made.

Speaker 2 And it's Matamatas. Still indie.

Speaker 1 Matamata's. Yeah, yeah.
I can't wait.

Speaker 1 It's just going to break my heart when Hollywood gets a hold of Matta Mata's the best turtle. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Do you think that do you think that Jimmy Kimmel even goes to a studio or do you think they send a tape sinker?

Speaker 3 Like, do you think they just go to Jimmy Kimmel's office with a directional microphone, point it at him,

Speaker 3 say these four sentences and leave?

Speaker 2 I think that's probably closer.

Speaker 2 Or he just records it on his set, you know, or at a VO booth

Speaker 2 in the studio where he does this, and then they just send it over.

Speaker 2 Because that's the kind of thing when at the daily show, there'd be times when they need like John to do something brief for another project, and he would just do it there.

Speaker 2 You know, he doesn't go to the studio or anything.

Speaker 1 John, you're going to do the voice for

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 1 tiny water bear?

Speaker 1 Do you know what that's from? That's, I mean, that's a tardic rage. That's a tardic rage.
Oh, okay. I thought you were referencing a real project.

Speaker 1 When he did that movie, Tiny Water Bears.

Speaker 1 Tiny Water Bears in the wine. In the line.
Don't drink that.

Speaker 2 It's full of tiny water bears.

Speaker 1 Well, anyway, these guys, they seemingly make it back to Smurf Village, but uh-oh, it's just a nightmare universe where Razimel takes the book back, all seems lost until No Name realizes he's got the magic in him after all.

Speaker 1 He does have magic in him, yeah, and he's immediately super powerful and defeats, defeats Razumel, brings back all the Smurfs.

Speaker 1 This part sucks the most.

Speaker 2 This all sucks, much like it sucked in Harold and the Purple Crayon that ended all

Speaker 1 Super Mario Bros. movie where all of a sudden he's just like, okay, I guess he's the toughest now.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He didn't like, if no name had like five minutes to power up like fucking Goku, at least that would have happened.

Speaker 1 Like what? By just like plugging himself into an outlet? I was just going to say, if he just like floats there and goes, ah,

Speaker 1 and like lightning shoots around him.

Speaker 2 Or if he's, he's like, actually, they're still with, even though you think you've gotten rid of my friends, they're still with me. My love for them is still with me.

Speaker 2 And I can draw on that to make magic, even as something that is meaningful in some way or fake meaningful. Instead, it's just like, actually, no, it turns out I do have real magic.
Bam, bam, bam, bam.

Speaker 2 Like, okay, cool.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to be like really sassy and like give you the deal with it look all the time.

Speaker 2 Yes, and because that is the, because that's the world we live in now where the qualities that are most prized are strength, lack of mercy, and trolling. So let's give that to

Speaker 2 no name Smurf right now.

Speaker 1 Let's have sympathetic voice actor James Gordon do this.

Speaker 1 Anyway, Razumel's defeated. Gargamel banishes him through a multiverse door, and Pop and Ken's lost brother returns through.

Speaker 2 He really

Speaker 1 throws his brother into exile very easily you know uh and everyone celebrates in smurf village they dance to another pop song before uh we get that mid-credits scene i talked about before where razimel

Speaker 1 razumel is stuck in the tardigrade dimension uh where we where he hates uh and uh gargamel bursts in on his brother's former assistant jewel and says break time's over we have unfinished business with those smurfs very good gargamel

Speaker 1 wait a minute is there a professional voice actor here with us right now guys i could do it better than most of the people in this fucking movie.

Speaker 1 But yeah, that was Smurfs. Smurfs 2025.
Copyright whoever. 2025.

Speaker 2 That's what the official, that's what the official records say, yeah.

Speaker 3 Can I tell you the note that I wrote before I gave up on taking notes?

Speaker 1 Buy more.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 3 there is this one part that says, when he's making clogs, why does one Smurf eat sawdust?

Speaker 1 That was not clear. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The people who made this were called Domain Entertainment. And

Speaker 3 this was the first note that I took. And it said that Domain Entertainment's logo just looks like it's a stock footage library.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Just truly the most generic entertainment company that could ever exist. It could run before an episode of like

Speaker 1 until

Speaker 1 domain entertainment sounds like the like the pre-written text where you will alter it when you actually have your real company name. Several arm ipsum.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I took a little break to have a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 You guys both drank water at the same time.

Speaker 1 It was really cute. Yeah.
Thanks.

Speaker 2 Looking up Domain Entertainment, also producers of Weapons and Sinners.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Wow,

Speaker 1 they're crushing it this year. All over the place.

Speaker 1 So this is where we do Final Judgment.

Speaker 2 And Twisters and a Minecraft movie. They seem to have made every single movie according to this letterbox.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 1 so many movies.

Speaker 3 I didn't see Weapons, the one, the most prestigious of those movies, perhaps, but I saw.

Speaker 1 I still haven't seen any of them.

Speaker 3 I saw the other three, and I liked all of them.

Speaker 1 So good work, Domain Entertainment. So every now and then,

Speaker 1 I'm going to take that back.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Final judgments. Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like?

Speaker 1 I'm going to

Speaker 1 first damn Smurfs with some faint praise. I'm going to say I had really low expectations that Smurfs exceeded in that

Speaker 1 for a movie about a 80s cartoon property that doesn't seem to understand the thing that it's doing, I liked it better than the recent Garfield movie that we also covered on this.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 there are a lot of times where like I recognize.

Speaker 2 It's like, I don't support the president, but he's not pole pot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well,

Speaker 1 I recognize that this movie is getting there. A lot of soulless storytelling

Speaker 1 and baffling choices, but there were times at which the level to which they were throwing in crap that shouldn't be in this movie amused me.

Speaker 1 Like I would cackle, like, what the fuck is this movie doing?

Speaker 1 And as I said before, it looks pretty good,

Speaker 1 but.

Speaker 1 It's a bad, bad movie. It is a mishmash of nonsense

Speaker 1 with, as Jesse says, two pretty bad performances at the center.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 did not like. Yeah, this is a bad, bad movie.
I think it's a bit of a mess. And I can't, like, I think the biggest sin this movie commits is the fact that

Speaker 1 we're talking about a property where, like, the Smurfs don't go around punching people. And this movie's like, what if the Smurfs are blasting and punching people all the time? And that sucks.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I also think it's a bad, bad movie. I have nothing else to add.
Jesse?

Speaker 3 I had Rebecca Sugar on Bullseye the other day. Actually, Elliot came out.
It was a 25th anniversary show for Bullseye.

Speaker 3 And Rebecca Sugar is the creator of Steven Universe, which is a really beautiful, wonderful show. And she just got the job directing a Moo Mans movie.

Speaker 3 Moomans are so...

Speaker 2 So the Moomans are going to be defending the multiverse with a lot of magic laser blasts and stuff.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 3 Like, Moomans are sort of like

Speaker 3 if Dismurse didn't have the

Speaker 3 80s Santa Barbara cartoons, Nostalgia, right? Like

Speaker 1 the Romans have to get revenge.

Speaker 3 Very sort of European beloved characters. And she and I were backstage chatting about this job because I was so happy that she got this job.
She's such a wonderful person to have this job.

Speaker 3 And one of the things we were talking about was

Speaker 3 how these 3D animated movies, how difficult it is to capture the aesthetics of cartooning in 3D animation and how disinterested people were for a long time because 3d animators seemed mostly interested in being able to create verisimilitude and um recently that has changed and there's been some really cool looking ones spider vs one although it's pretty 2d for a 3d movie like uh that i thought 2d from uh from facts of life yeah i thought the teenage mutant ninja turtles movie looked pretty good oh yeah that's great and cool um like i said i really liked puss and boots too

Speaker 3 um and i think that uh and actually the things we're talking machines had some fun stuff in it great movie a direct one of the directors of that movie big max fun fan um

Speaker 3 and uh

Speaker 3 uh like

Speaker 3 one of the movies that we talked about was the peanuts movie that paul fig made um or paul fig co-made and that movie made i thought a lot of really interesting choices in terms of reproducing the line art style of an iconic artist in a 3d animated movie that i thought were really successful i liked that movie a lot um and so i want to give credit to the people who made this movie on the animation side for making choices and at least in smurf world i thought it looked really cool yeah um

Speaker 1 and razzumel's castle specifically like it looked really like hand-drawn but 3d yeah it it had a very um what's that laser disc video game

Speaker 1 quest

Speaker 3 is that the one that you play in the full motion video with the full motion video in the arcade from like 1980s.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Dragon Quest, right? Yeah,

Speaker 1 Don Bluth animated.

Speaker 2 You're trying to trigger the next piece of animated Don Bluth thing, and he never can do it.

Speaker 1 You can't get it. It's so hard.

Speaker 1 Impossible.

Speaker 1 They made an app for the phone where you could just have unlimited lives, and it still took me forever.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so I want to give a shout out to those animators for doing much better work and making more interesting choices than they had to, despite the fact that the middle 40% or 50% of the movie is in a pretty generic real-world setting that adds almost nothing aesthetically.

Speaker 3 But that having been said,

Speaker 3 this movie's garbage.

Speaker 3 It's mostly garbage in that it's so fucking boring. It is just a pile of stuff happening for no particular reason, people explaining things to each other.

Speaker 3 Nothing is fun or exciting in the entire movie.

Speaker 3 The songs are terrible. Like it really,

Speaker 3 but what is most distinctive about how bad it is is

Speaker 3 I was struggling to remember what was happening as I was watching it because it was so boring and forgettable.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 The storytelling choices are so dull and predictable, but also too complicated to remember and put the pieces together. Oh, it is a mess.
It is a very bad, bad movie.

Speaker 3 And I say that as somebody who's like just left the part of my life where my children need to watch this kind of movie, so I need to take them to it. And I watch a lot of them.

Speaker 1 Some of them are passable.

Speaker 3 This is not one of them. This is just the most generic.
That said,

Speaker 1 I saw Troll's World Tour

Speaker 3 and instead of passing out of my mind immediately upon having watched it,

Speaker 3 it inserted itself into my mind where I hated it actively, continuously thereafter.

Speaker 3 And so I will say

Speaker 3 this was better than that, in that it is now completely gone from my mind. Everything that Dan said to me was a revelation just now as he was.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 four strong recommendations for Smurfs. And then, when Jesse listens to this episode in the future, he's like, oh, wow, Ron is Papa Smurf's brother.

Speaker 2 Run, don't walk in the opposite direction from Smurfs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like.

Speaker 1 That's hard to sell in a promo like this, so we've enlisted the help of piano rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel.

Speaker 5 Diddy Rock's been on Lake Sign, Warless and Shire, Circle Time, Sega Drink Castes,

Speaker 5 Tower of Annoy. Keep me up, eat time capsules, Wayne's World Cheese Bulls, Wallace, Stephen's Donkey Gone, Fun Size Almond Torid.
They didn't start the fodcast.

Speaker 5 Except that's not true. They did in 22.

Speaker 5 They didn't start the fodcast.

Speaker 5 No, they actually did. That was in fact a fib.

Speaker 1 Listen to Wonderful Every Wednesday on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, Real Billy Joel.
No problem, Griffin.

Speaker 3 What's more action-packed than prestige television?

Speaker 6 With more continuity than comic books?

Speaker 1 And more reality than reality television?

Speaker 1 It's professional wrestling.

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Speaker 6 Listen to Tits and Fights every Saturday on maximum fun.

Speaker 1 The Flophouse is made possible in overwhelming measure by the kind support of listeners like you, but we also make room for a couple of sponsors. And this week we are sponsored by Factor.

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Speaker 1 Hey,

Speaker 1 let's take a break from plugging other people to plug us, the Flophouse, your pals, sort of.

Speaker 1 If you live in the Chicago area and you don't have any plans for the evening of Sunday, November 16,

Speaker 1 we added a late show after our first show sold out. We'll be talking about K9 with Jim Belushi, known worldwide as one of the two Belushis.
The show is at Sleeping Village at 9:30 p.m.

Speaker 1 And if you go to the events page at flophousepodcast.com, you will find a link to tickets. Also, Flop TV is going strong.

Speaker 1 We just did our episode on Xanadu,

Speaker 1 a movie that, spoiler alert, I kind of like.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 I'm recording this before we do our Xanadu presentation, actually, so we dropped into a later episode. So I can't say exactly how it went, but I can tell you that my presentation was on one of my

Speaker 1 80s fixations. It was 80s night.

Speaker 1 So I focused on a 80s fixation of mine, the original cartoon Jim, about Jim and the holograms, a band fronted by a lady pretending to be another lady with the aid of a hologram machine that her dead dad left to her along with,

Speaker 1 you know, an orphanage,

Speaker 1 part ownership of a record company. Anyway, it's a wild show.
I did a whole thing on it.

Speaker 1 You can get tickets or a season pass and not miss anything with that season pass because all of the episodes, even the ones that have already aired, will be available on demand through February of 2026.

Speaker 1 But if you want to join us live, those shows are on the first Saturday of every month. It's a video stream.
We're doing film flops starting in the 2000s, going back to the 50s.

Speaker 1 Big finish this season will be Plan 9 from Outer Space, which we've never talked about. It's got presentations, pre-tapes, questions from the chat.

Speaker 1 So if you want to see the shows, go to theflophouse.simpletics.com. That's T-I-X for ticks.
And get get those tickets and more info. That's theflophouse.simpletics.com.

Speaker 1 Let's answer some letters from listeners. This first one is from Brian Last Name Withheld.

Speaker 1 And Brian writes, I'm an archaeologist and frequently have long commutes to remote places, and your podcast has been a constant companion for the last decade.

Speaker 1 When I was pulling into a work site last week, listening to episode 462, Imaginary, while sipping my coffee,

Speaker 1 Stuart and Dan were talking about the kid with the missing thumb and made some jokes about his inability to hitchhike. I guffawed appropriately, then took a long, deep draw of coffee.

Speaker 1 At which point, Elliot exclaimed, he was scheduled to be on Roper at the movies. And I proceeded to plaster my dash and windshield with coffee.

Speaker 1 It was a spit take for the ages. If every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings, I hope something equally good happens for the three of you every time you've made someone lose a beverage.

Speaker 1 My question.

Speaker 1 My first time teaching at college was as a TA for a class called Archaeology in the Movies, which used movies as a lens to understand popular sentiments about the past, indigenous cultures, heritage, etc., and compare them to what we actually do in the field.

Speaker 2 You taught about how archaeologists routinely carry whips

Speaker 2 and have to sneak into submarines. And rape.

Speaker 3 I like the idea that he has long commutes to remote work sites. And in my mind, immediately, it was like he leaves suburban New Jersey every morning to go to ancient Egypt.

Speaker 1 That fucking island with all the dinosaurs and Jurassic Park and then a little

Speaker 1 line goes on the map to show where he's going.

Speaker 1 If you had to design a similar syllabus to teach a class about your work or a personal interest through film, which movies would you include? Very good. I'm sorry to break in so fast, but

Speaker 1 for our work, it's obvious it's Alex Inc.

Speaker 3 starring Zach Braff, right? I know it's not a movie technically, but if you put three episodes together, it's a sort of trilogy.

Speaker 2 Well, the thing is, it has the scope and ambition of a movie because TV is the new movies and the new novels. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, of course, you're covering this extensively on podcast, movie, movie, podcast, your bonus content on the MaxBun bonus feed about

Speaker 1 movies and TV that feature podcasting.

Speaker 1 Your love for Alex Inc. radiates from every episode.
Yeah, it's just fine. It's just good that somebody finally got podcasting right on TV.
I know.

Speaker 1 Like, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen TV shows featuring actual professional podcasters that don't seem to understand what podcasting is.

Speaker 3 I don't,

Speaker 3 we have watched a lot of podcast and podcast adjacent things for podcast, movie, movie, podcast, the bonus show that I've been doing with my Jordan Jesse co-host, Jordan Morris.

Speaker 3 None of them are anything that I would use to teach podcasting. So I picked my special interest, which is baseball.

Speaker 1 Are there any movies about baseball?

Speaker 2 Well, there's that one about the chimp that pitches, right?

Speaker 1 Let me check the rule book first.

Speaker 3 That's for your list of for your special interest, movies with Jason Alexander.

Speaker 3 I think about baseball movies a lot because I love baseball so much. I love movies so much.

Speaker 3 And there are like some favorites that I'm not as hot on as other people are, although I think they're perfectly fine. I like Brill Durham, but I don't love it.

Speaker 3 I thought Moneyball was fine.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 A League of Their Own is a charming film, but not one that I treasure.

Speaker 2 This is where you and me part ways, but that's okay.

Speaker 1 We can still make friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is the ruffle feathers hour.

Speaker 3 I know how important baseball and all sports are to you, Ellie.

Speaker 2 Yep, I love it.

Speaker 3 But I thought

Speaker 3 Everybody Wants Some is, I think, a wonderful movie. I know that there's some disagreement on that question on this program, but I know Stu's on my team.

Speaker 3 I think it's like one of the best expressions of

Speaker 3 the way that it feels to be on a team at its best and also

Speaker 3 the way, like the best way of being a jock

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 3 like being a jock in a in a really non-toxic way um as like an expression of a sort of fraternal love and uh the joy of fusing your body um and like i only played baseball until i was like 15 or something but uh that's definitely how i felt about playing baseball um

Speaker 3 Speaking of playing baseball, Ephesus, which came out this past year,

Speaker 3 is a wonderful sort of low-key movie about a wreck baseball league and a wreck baseball game that's going to be the last one at this park.

Speaker 3 And it's all these middle-aged men who have been playing wreck baseball their whole adult lives. And like the sun is going down, and the game is just played inning by inning.

Speaker 3 And it's just about them as this. you know, thing passes out of their lives.

Speaker 3 It's very charming, very funny,

Speaker 3 a really beautiful movie that really captures like the adult relationship with baseball, I think.

Speaker 3 There's a beautiful movie called Sugar that's maybe 15 or 20 years old now. It's about a Dominican player as he goes from the DR to the minor leagues and eventually washes out.

Speaker 3 that I think is sort of the one of the best depictions of playing baseball on screen and what I imagine the actual experience of professional baseball is like.

Speaker 3 Like I think people kind of imagine a major league type scenario, but this is a much more

Speaker 3 humane, human scale version of what a baseball player might actually be like in their life.

Speaker 3 Pride of the Yankees, which is

Speaker 3 like a very corny movie in a very sort of 1940 type way or 1950, whenever that movie came out. But I think it really is a good movie and is

Speaker 3 the kind of

Speaker 3 the appeal of the corniness of baseball to me,

Speaker 3 like the idea of just

Speaker 3 a pure American hero, you know, like it's just a really nice pure American hero movie.

Speaker 3 Field of Dreams, which I like. A lot of baseball nerds hate Field of Dreams, but

Speaker 3 the idea of baseball as this kind of like,

Speaker 3 as just kind of like a feeling about

Speaker 3 this vague past, it sort of captures the way that baseball is this kind of like timeless companion in a way that other sports aren't.

Speaker 1 Like there's some,

Speaker 1 I know, right?

Speaker 3 But like, you know, football is this like Titanic clash and basketball is this. um you know beautiful ballet and uh

Speaker 3 baseball is just sort of like boring and always there, but also in the same way that like

Speaker 3 you could become, as you get older, you become satisfied when you do the dishes. You know what I mean? Like it is like a friend, you know, it is a satisfaction.

Speaker 3 And that is about like being older and connecting with yourself as a child. And

Speaker 3 Field of Dreams captures that very well.

Speaker 3 And then I was trying to think of any documentary about baseball besides Ken Burns baseball that's good. Ken Burns baseball is good.
It's like all the things that are wrong with Ken Burns.

Speaker 3 Like, he really, like,

Speaker 3 he really shaves edges off of things and, you know,

Speaker 3 shows archival footage of things that are not the thing that is being talked about and that sort of thing. And it's very corny, but it is genuinely very good.

Speaker 3 But I recommend it actually, because I was thinking about it to Elliot that he watched with his son Sammy a documentary called The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg that I think is a really interesting movie about

Speaker 3 baseball at its peak in the 1930s

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 story of

Speaker 3 baseball as it relates to the, you know, the immigrants in the United States and civil rights

Speaker 3 and also just sort of baseball when it was the central cultural force in American life.

Speaker 3 So yeah, there's some baseball movies for you.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, my answer is going to sound so woefully unthought out

Speaker 1 after

Speaker 1 that.

Speaker 3 It's that B.J. Novak movie movie about podcasting

Speaker 1 well again yeah nothing has gotten podcasting right

Speaker 1 nothing has gotten podcasting right so i was thinking about uh

Speaker 1 comedy and writing in general and like the thing is like also

Speaker 1 famously like narrative movies have not gotten comedy right either like that which is weird since so many of them are made by comedians.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 3 remember when a really smart, pretty good comedy writer wrote a really well-reviewed movie about late-night comedy that starred Emma Thompson, the greatest world actor in the world of comedy, and it was a B-minus?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I watched it and I was like, none of this, none of this is how late-night comedy is made. This is so wildly wrong about everything.

Speaker 1 So I was going to recommend there are a lot of great documentaries. Just like look up documentaries about comedy.
I liked the Steve Martin one that was on Apple a lot. Oh, yeah, gotta watch that.

Speaker 2 I haven't seen it yet.

Speaker 1 That's a good one in particular, I think.

Speaker 1 But there's a ton of them. And on a jokier side, but not that jokey for just writing in general, maybe Barton Fink, because it really captures the misery side of things.

Speaker 3 It's not a movie, but what about Larry Sanders? How do you feel about Larry Sanders?

Speaker 1 You know what? That feels real.

Speaker 2 I think some of it feels real.

Speaker 1 Larry Sanders is exaggerated in the way that

Speaker 1 it's supposed to be.

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 the thing that gets me is that

Speaker 2 they try to get away with the idea that there's essentially one writer on that show, which there's two, Elliot.

Speaker 1 There's two.

Speaker 2 But you only see one of them constantly carrying his laptop around all over the place.

Speaker 2 I think it's

Speaker 2 once it's undercutting how many people it takes to accomplish a show like that, which you can't have a show with.

Speaker 2 60 characters on it, you know, but it's, but it's, but it gives the across the idea that like you can make a late-night network television show with like a staff of 10, which you could never do, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But, you know, that's the kind of thing you have to do.

Speaker 1 By the way, put your money where your mouth is. What do you have to say about movies that reflect something?

Speaker 2 Movies, I mean, I was going to take the easy way out and I'll be like, I'm going to teach a class about New York in the 70s. And there's a ton of movies about that.

Speaker 2 But I think there's a,

Speaker 2 I would find it really hard to do something about my work, like you're saying, using movies because writing is not a visually interesting thing to do. It's, it's such an internal process.

Speaker 2 And even writing a TV show where it's a lot of collaboration between people, it's still you're talking in a room. And so

Speaker 2 the one thing that comes close is, I guess, I remember when I was a segment producer at the Daily Show, my dad was like, is it like the scene in broadcast news where she's got to get that tape really down the hall really fast?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, yeah, it is like that. I do a lot of running through halls with tapes to get that.

Speaker 1 Right. That's a pretty good movie about TV.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And for me, when it comes to running a bar in New York City, there's a couple of movies I would recommend.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'll put cocktail up there because it's kind of dumb. Like, it's dumb.
It's a dumb movie, and it's not accurate to what being a bartender is like.

Speaker 1 And in a way, a lot of it is like, yeah, you don't do this. You don't get up and like sing like 50s fucking pop songs or like read poetry while standing in a busy bar.

Speaker 1 Like, no, you're slinging drinks, idiot. Coyote ugly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, coyote, obviously, coyote ugly.

Speaker 1 I'm also, I'm definitely going to, I would definitely show Support the Girls from what, 2018,

Speaker 1 just because it really highlights the way that like a restaurant or bar, like the community that grows out of it, and also the way that running that business requires you to manage so many different things.

Speaker 1 And it's really complicated.

Speaker 1 I think that's, that's a really good example.

Speaker 1 And then I would also, I'm gonna, weirdly enough, I'm gonna do two Darren Arnofsky movies.

Speaker 1 The first is the recent caught stealing, a movie I don't actually think is very good, but the bar stuff I think is actually pretty accurate to my experience of bartending in New York City.

Speaker 3 That's a baseball movie, right? He wears a Giants hat.

Speaker 1 He played for the Giants, right? Yeah, there's also a baseball element. And I liked Caught Stealing, so I'm going to be the pro caught stealing voice.
Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think

Speaker 1 I would say it's a mixed movie as far as reviews are concerned.

Speaker 1 And then I would also,

Speaker 1 I think the most accurate depiction to my experience bartending is Darren Aronofsky's mother. That's what I thought you were going going to say.

Speaker 1 Because it is like, that is like every fucking bartending stress dream that has kept me up.

Speaker 1 Just like that feeling that people will not stop coming into your bar and are behaving like maniacs and you're just trying to get out of there.

Speaker 2 That scene where they keep sitting on the sink, even when she keeps on the night.

Speaker 1 Exactly like bars.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've had to like yell at people like, no, don't climb and stand on top of a table, lady. I know it's your birthday.

Speaker 1 Did they give you that table?

Speaker 1 Is that your table that you brought from home? We don't allow outside tables in my establishment.

Speaker 2 Wait, scientists tried to bring in the periodic table, and you're like, get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 1 Get the fuck out of here. Hey, was that just one question? I can't remember.

Speaker 2 That's just one question, yes.

Speaker 1 Okay, I have to find the letters for the game.

Speaker 1 We went so long that I was like, okay, now I'll. Sorry, we all gave thought responses.
It's okay. Here's the other letter.

Speaker 1 This is from Adam, last name withheld.

Speaker 2 Hey, dudes, how you doing? That's what you had to find, Dan?

Speaker 1 Yeah, what's wrong with you, Adam? Why'd you write that in?

Speaker 1 No, Adam writes, I was a graduate student in Pittsburgh when the Dark Knight Risens was filming.

Speaker 1 I was unfortunately away while filming was happening, but I had friends who were extras in some of the big fight scenes.

Speaker 1 But the lab I worked at was the building that they used as City Hall, and the final confrontation between Batman and Bane took place in the lobby I walked through every morning.

Speaker 1 I don't think the movie is particularly good, but as a graduate school, but as graduate school was not very good at the degree.

Speaker 2 I think the movie is very bad as a graduate school.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You cannot get a degree from Dark Knight Rises.

Speaker 3 It's a certificate program at best.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 I don't think the movie is particularly good.

Speaker 2 Excuse me, I have a law degree from Dark Knight Rises.

Speaker 1 What is this?

Speaker 1 What is this piece of paper? Where did you get this? Who gave you this?

Speaker 1 Such a beautiful piece of paper. Yeah, I know HVAC repair.

Speaker 1 But as graduate school was not very good for my health, the Batmobile, shooting the building in the face, has a special place in my heart. My question is this.

Speaker 1 Do you have any movies where you like watching one scene and then you turn it off? But you've seen that scene a ton of times because you like it so much? Thanks for your podcast and attention.

Speaker 1 Adam, last name withheld.

Speaker 2 I think the closest answer I have to this, and it might make me some enemies, I don't love the movie Streets of Fire, but I do love the opening song in Streets of Fire.

Speaker 2 That scene is one I'll just put on and watch it because I love the way he puts it together. I love the song.
I think it's so that it really gets me going before a meeting.

Speaker 2 If I have a pitch or something, that's a song I'll listen to beforehand. But I don't love the rest of the movies.
I don't watch the rest of the movie.

Speaker 1 When I got this question, I didn't really consider like... I only want to watch this scene.
I don't like the rest of the movie as much.

Speaker 1 I thought of it more as like, what is one scene that kind of encapsulates the vibe of the whole movie?

Speaker 1 And thus, you you know and for me that is the scene in unforgiven with gene hackman uh

Speaker 1 talking in the jailhouse uh with uh what's his name saul

Speaker 1 rubinik yeah um and there it's such a great scene it's like a full movie in one scene it's so great uh the rest of the movie is great too but i feel like that is just it's so such like a beautiful uh beautiful bit of acting and writing and yeah it's awesome i'm sure i have some of of my own, but what sprung to mind just now was actually,

Speaker 2 there's a lot of online videos where you'll just watch a little bit of it and then not finish it.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh. I got what you need to do.
You kind of don't need the setup or the ramp-up. The setup's important.
You need to see who's been watching.

Speaker 3 I'm an old man. She's been watching a lot of videos of Ron lately.

Speaker 1 I do, yeah. And I don't need the setup.
I have my own fantasy that sets up this circumstance. Okay.

Speaker 1 Anyway, not that.

Speaker 1 No, I was, was

Speaker 1 again this is not a movie that like we don't like the rest of the movie we like the whole movie but uh there was a period of time when audrey when she didn't know what else to watch would uh throw on uh the recent dungeons and dragons honor among thieves and uh specifically watch uh the opening where he keeps waiting for jarathon to show up and asking where jarathon is and uh the scene with the corpses who have to answer questions uh

Speaker 3 I'm not a big watcher of movies that I don't like.

Speaker 3 I will go out of my way to make sure that I'm going to at least kind of like a movie before I'm willing to spend my life watching it, unless I get to see three of my favorite friends in the world and be a guest on their podcast.

Speaker 3 So I was thinking, like, what is a movie where I like a scene, but don't like other parts of it? The best I could come up with was the movie Dirty Work, which actually has a few parts that I like.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Norm McDonald was like most people my age worth knowing uh but also emotionally broken my hero when i was 14.

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 3 and uh and there's some real funny stuff in dirty work but like i watched the whole movie

Speaker 3 it's not a good movie necessarily um

Speaker 3 but i could watch any day

Speaker 1 like the part where uh

Speaker 3 they're they're about to get in a bar fight and Chris Farley goes, puts a quarter into the jukebox and goes, street fighting man, rolling stones, L7.

Speaker 3 But then he accidentally presses L8 and the piña colada song comes on.

Speaker 1 I remember that having a lot of, yeah, like very good, isolated bits.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Chevy Chase is crazy funny in that movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So let's do recommendations. Movies that would be a better use of your time than Smurfs.
And I'm going to pull out. We were talking about The Dark Knight Rises just a moment ago.
Another Dark Knight.

Speaker 2 We were talking about that, weren't we?

Speaker 1 The Darkest Night. Of course, Batman 66, the Batman movie from 1966.
My friends and I have been watching

Speaker 1 doing a watch of the whole Batman series recently on Sunday nights, which is, of course, delightful.

Speaker 1 And at the end of the first season, before we started the second season, that's when the Batman movie came out. And so we slotted that in there and watched that recently.
And it's just so much fun.

Speaker 1 You know, you go through this thing when as a kid, you don't quite understand that this is essentially a comedy show that you're watching.

Speaker 1 Like you're watching a Batman show seriously because you're a kid and you're like, why is it so weird? Why is it so goofy? Like, oh, like, this is, this is dumb.

Speaker 1 Or like, but you like it, but you're like, this is dumb. And then you realize, oh, like, that's all intentionally dumb.
These are all jokes in here. And they're really good.

Speaker 2 It's the old thing of people being like, ugh.

Speaker 2 I feel like there's a long time they're like, ugh, it's so campy, as if comedy was not the purpose of the show.

Speaker 2 Like, if they were trying to make a serious Batman show and they screwed it up because they didn't know what they were doing.

Speaker 3 Sorry, go ahead. One of my kids went through a Batman period and we watched this.
And the thing that struck me is just Adam West is really funny.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 3 He is really funny. And not like

Speaker 3 I'm a ridiculous man and they gave me things to say that make me look funny. Like he is on purpose super funny.

Speaker 2 Well, similar, I think it's like I was just saying about the show, I think Adam West did not get a credit he deserved for that where it was like, oh, he's so like as if it was a flaw of his performance that it is hilarious when that is exactly what he's going for.

Speaker 2 He is playing a guy who is unaware of how ridiculous the things he's doing are, you know, that kind of thing. But it's

Speaker 1 also, he's great.

Speaker 1 It can simultaneously be funny and campy and have like

Speaker 1 there's some great villain performances in there. Like Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith in particular, I think are super

Speaker 1 amazing. I mean like also

Speaker 1 Julie Numars, Catwoman,

Speaker 1 just like terrific performances in this silly show.

Speaker 3 When my kid was going through that Batman period, I talked to friend of Max Fun and friend of this show, Glenn Weldon from Pop Culture Happy Hour, who wrote a wonderful book about Batman called The Caped Crusade.

Speaker 3 And I asked him, like, what's the Batman thing I would enjoy? And he recommended the comic Batman 66,

Speaker 1 which

Speaker 3 we bought a few like compilations of. And it really is a blast.
And I had a great time also reading those like 50s, early 60s,

Speaker 3 you know, calendar man era Batman compilations as well. Like, I was like, this is genuinely fun to look at and really fun to read.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So if you haven't checked it out in a while, Batman 66, Batman the movie, I don't know, just called Batman.

Speaker 1 The scene where... Do you remember when he's running riddle with the bomb? I was going to say, the scene where he's trying to get rid of that bomb is one of the funniest scenes, actually.

Speaker 2 To watch that scene and not realize you're watching a comedy, it always matches me. Like when he sees the little ducks and he's like, oh,

Speaker 1 get rid of the bomb there. A bunch of nuns.

Speaker 2 Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.

Speaker 1 And he gets to a point where he's just like racing around like the same like triangle, like running into the marching band with the tubas. And it's just, it's great.

Speaker 1 Stuart. So Dan just recommended a man movie.
I'll recommend a man movie. That's right.

Speaker 1 A few weeks ago, I went to a screening of Roof Man. The screening I went to, this is directed by Derek C.
In France.

Speaker 1 And the screening I went to actually had a QA with Mr. Channing Tatum himself, the star of the movie.

Speaker 1 Now, this is a movie that's based on a real life story of a man who escaped prison and hid inside of

Speaker 1 the ceiling and then later on inside the building of a Toys R Us store.

Speaker 1 This is a period piece that's set in the 90s. And his life gets more complicated when his desires to run away and be free are complicated by his

Speaker 1 relationship that he forms with one of the employees of the Toys R Us, played by Kirsten Dunst.

Speaker 1 And this is a movie that, for one, is like set in the world of like, I don't know, like strip malls and like suburban America. And it feels like so like fresh and unique.

Speaker 1 Like it feels like I'm in a fucking different country watching this.

Speaker 1 Even though this is a, this is like a world that I lived in and grew up in.

Speaker 1 And like even though the circumstances are different, but he's, they're spending so much time in this Toys R Us, it really like took me back to my if any, if you've worked retail at all, like it took me back to that time in my life where my world was so focused around this little place

Speaker 1 that sold stuff and the routine of it. And like, I don't know, it's just kind of magical.
And I think the movie is a little bit too long.

Speaker 1 It could be tightened a little bit, but there's so many great performances and there's so many great performances in small roles. Peter Dinklage plays the manager and he's such a creep.

Speaker 1 And also like he gets involved in a, in Kirsten Dunce's character's church, where the leaders of the church are played by Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba.

Speaker 1 And Ben Mendels, there's a scene where Ben Mendelsohn is like leading the show choir with this feathered hair, and it's just so much fun.

Speaker 1 And I think part of it's also this idea that this man is like struggling with the choices he's made, and he knows what he probably should do,

Speaker 1 but his, you know, what his head is saying and what his heart is saying are different things.

Speaker 1 And I think it's a, I think it's a really interesting movie and it's very sad, but it's also kind of beautiful. So I enjoyed it.
Check it out.

Speaker 2 I'm going to recommend, I figured, we talked about Smurfs in this episode. I know it seems like it's been a long time since we talked about Smurfs, but that was just this episode.
And

Speaker 2 I was thinking about what are kids' movies that accomplish something more like what the Smurfs, I would assume them to be doing, which is more gentle or quiet in a way.

Speaker 2 I couldn't think of anything exactly, but I remembered of the movie that came out last year called Flow. That's an animated movie about some animals that have to escape a flood, basically.

Speaker 2 There's no dialogue.

Speaker 2 It's very quiet and very, I found it very slow but my younger son really loved it like he was really absorbed in it and i thought it it delivered to him i think a very there's danger in it like there's stakes in it but it is a very like um

Speaker 2 like comforting movie in some ways because it is not hyper hyperactive like it's not loud and so i think uh for a kid who wants to watch a movie and does not want to watch something that is about a magic battle to save the universe or you think it's not in the mood for that kind of thing, then Flow was really worked well for him as something that he could live in for a little bit and enjoy without it amping up his adrenaline every minute of every moment of it.

Speaker 2 So that's what I recommend.

Speaker 1 It's interesting because it is a movie that has those stakes, right? Like it's still like, it's still scary at times, but I feel like there's a

Speaker 1 there's a gentleness to it, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think it's all, it's so much of it is in the pace and the tone of it, but it is not trying to shove emotions down your throat or shove, you know, excitement down your throat.

Speaker 1 It's not a scary movie.

Speaker 3 Really good Capybara in it.

Speaker 1 And there is a good Capybara in it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I know how you feel about Capybaras, but still.

Speaker 3 I um,

Speaker 3 I figured, like, uh, I was thinking, like, what movies have I seen recently that are recommendable? Then I was like, well, when am I going to get to be on the flop house again?

Speaker 3 I should just recommend my favorite movie.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I really love

Speaker 2 Boxing Helena.

Speaker 1 Christmas with the Craigs.

Speaker 1 Do it.

Speaker 3 My father served on an aircraft carrier early in the Vietnam War,

Speaker 3 specifically in the war against

Speaker 3 Laos in Cambodia.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 one of his jobs on the carrier was he operated the projector room in the movie theater.

Speaker 3 And there was like this horrible piece of it, which was that one of the things that he projected was tail films from the airplanes that were on the carrier.

Speaker 3 But the good thing was that he got to see the movie A Thousand Clowns over a hundred times.

Speaker 2 That's a hundred thousand clowns.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 So many clowns. And my parents were very bitterly divorced.
My dad's gone now, but my parents were very bitterly divorced.

Speaker 3 And A Thousand Clowns was like the only thing besides James Brown that they agreed on, like the only thing that they both spoke fondly of. Everything else was divided in the divorce.

Speaker 3 Like somebody had to give up Nina Simone.

Speaker 3 but A Thousand Clowns They Always Agreed On. It is a movie from the early 1960s, the sort of just pre

Speaker 3 hippie counterculture 1960s. It was originally a play and the playwright based the protagonist who's played by Jason Robards on Gene Shepard, who was a legendary radio essayist, but also,

Speaker 3 you know, the basis of the movie, The Christmas Story, Christmas story.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 it's about this comedy writer who is out of work and takes care of his 13-year-old nephew, who is like a super precocious, neurodivergent weirdo.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he is trying to find a job because otherwise CPS will take the kid away. And

Speaker 3 Robard's character is just a classic comedy writer guy in that that he is

Speaker 3 unbelievably charming, unbelievably fascinating, like a guy that

Speaker 3 wants this kid that he truly loves to have like

Speaker 3 every vision of what is special and amazing about the world, right?

Speaker 3 You know, my mom often talks about Irving R. Feldman's birthday.
which is the birthday of the guy that runs the junkyard that every year

Speaker 3 Jason robard's character takes the kid out of school for um

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 the conflict in this movie is not between rhobard's character and cps

Speaker 3 although the guy that plays mr feeny is the cps guy um and he does a wonderful job and there's a

Speaker 3 yeah there's a very sweet um there's a very sweet love story with barbara harris who's uh the lady

Speaker 3 CPS worker. But like ultimately, the conflict is that

Speaker 3 Rhobards

Speaker 3 is so deeply committed to

Speaker 3 his values of

Speaker 3 the world being a magical, amazing place. that he can't accept the idea that he has to take responsibility for his life, right?

Speaker 3 That he thinks that it's okay for him to think of himself as so special that he doesn't have to take a shitty job so that he gets to keep his kid.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 this central conflict is he's going out for these jobs and he's disqualifying himself for every one.

Speaker 3 And he ultimately has to face whether he's going to go work on the Chuckles the Chipmunk show. with his old boss that he hated.

Speaker 3 And Chuckles the Chipmunk is an extraordinary extraordinary performance of the just desperation and sadness of show business.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 it's like, it's a movie that moves me to tears every time I watch it because

Speaker 3 it reminds me of how difficult it is when you are,

Speaker 3 you know, an idealist who's dedicated your life to laughing and joking and stuff. And maybe you're even good at it, that you,

Speaker 3 what really matters is that you take responsibility responsibility for your relationship with the other people in your life right that like you can't just be a solipsist you can't just be uh you can't just be a heel who's so charming that he gets away with it you know

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 3 and uh it's also uh it's also a very interesting film technically it was a it was a play originally and there's not much that happens out in the world.

Speaker 3 And so if you've ever read that book, When the Shooting Stops about film editing, there's a whole chapter in there about all the things they did to

Speaker 3 enliven the film in the editing room.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of

Speaker 3 montages that take advantage of a lot of stock footage to depict the rat race.

Speaker 3 And it's a very like

Speaker 3 it's a very countercultural. It's a very

Speaker 3 it's a very vivid reminder that there was a counterculture before there was hippies,

Speaker 3 that there was like

Speaker 3 something that I think it reminds me a lot of my late friend Mal Sharp, who was one of the creators of the MaxFun podcast, Coyle and Sharp,

Speaker 3 in that he was like in the early 1960s before hippies, like

Speaker 3 doing things that were really magical and incredible.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 so yeah, it is, it is the like in the question, what is the best depiction of making comedy? It is not my best depiction of making comedy because there's no comedy made in the film.

Speaker 3 You know, it's about a guy who's, who can't get a job making comedy.

Speaker 3 But in terms of

Speaker 3 depiction of the emotional life of someone who is driven to create comedy,

Speaker 3 it is the most compelling film I've ever seen because it is ultimately about

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 3 Again, that conflict between thinking of yourself as special and realizing that your job on earth is not to be special. It is to take care of other people.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 yeah, the ending is ambivalent enough

Speaker 3 in terms of where this guy goes and what kind of guy he is that Gene Shepard actually severed his relationship with his friend that

Speaker 3 wrote the play and film. um because he felt it was too scathing of you know him being a manic pixie dream boy um

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 3 i i find it inspirational like it reminds me why

Speaker 3 i

Speaker 4 am uh

Speaker 3 you know besides being a comedy guy also a comedy dad like why i'm so grateful to work with jordan and john hodgman who are people who will go put up flyers with me at all the campus bus stops you know what i mean yeah um

Speaker 3 and uh it's a it's a really beautiful movie it is on

Speaker 3 Blu-ray. You can get it on Blu-ray.
Sometimes it is on AMC. But also, let's say you had a tube that you could type a thousand clowns into and then filter by length.

Speaker 3 I bet you could find it there if you wanted to. I'll also say this, guys.

Speaker 3 I love the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure. There's going to be a 4K Blu-ray from Criterion coming out, and your boy wrote the essay with a lot of help from my friend Elliot Kalen.

Speaker 1 Oh, cool. A lot of help.
Thrilled to see that.

Speaker 2 I'm excited to get a copy of that myself. I'm going to second your Thousand Clowns recommendations.
It's a great movie.

Speaker 2 And you wouldn't know it, but you're all familiar with the work of the actor who plays the kid, Barry Gordon, because he went on to be the original voice of Donatello.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 He also sang All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, and he was president of SAG AFTRA.

Speaker 1 He's the longest president of SAG.

Speaker 2 But that's it's a great movie. That performance that Gene Sachs gives as Chuckles the Chipmunk is astonishing.

Speaker 2 It's such a, like, it is, um, it is like, I think it's the best performance of a, of a, an incredibly self-centered, narcissistic, low self-esteem performer that maybe I've seen in a, in a movie.

Speaker 2 He's so, it's so hurtful.

Speaker 3 If you read when the shooting stops, he was a replacement cast member in a reshoot.

Speaker 3 Like, they just sort of like brought him in four months or something after they finished the movie. And it is the most extraordinary performance.
And what's his face, who plays his brother, actually

Speaker 1 won the Oscar Williams?

Speaker 2 Awesome. This is the movie he won his Academy Award for.
It was for the sporting activists.

Speaker 3 And he's really wonderful in it as the Jason Robard's character's brother and agent, who is a fruit enthusiast and thus very relatable to me, but not to Elliot.

Speaker 1 No. That's the one thing I don't like about Elliot.
Well, it's like there's some kind of alien monster in this movie.

Speaker 1 Jesse,

Speaker 1 speaking of doing shameful things, it's a necessary part of a showbiz career.

Speaker 1 You care so much about your show, Bullseye, that you watch the Smurfs that you come on our show. Do you want to plug it before we sign off?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, first of all, I watched the Smurfs so that I could spend some extra time with three of my favorite guys on Earth.

Speaker 3 I love you guys all very much. You're such wonderful friends.
I'm so grateful. And you're in my life.

Speaker 3 But yeah, also, it's the 25th anniversary of my public radio program, Bullseye, that I started 25 years ago in Santa Cruz, California as a college sophomore with my friend Jordan Morris, who's been a guest on this show,

Speaker 3 who was

Speaker 3 my resident on the hall that I was the RA of.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I've been interviewing figures in the world of arts and culture for 25 years on Bullseye, including many people from the world of film.

Speaker 3 One that stands out is maybe six years ago, ago, I got to interview Pedro Almodovar,

Speaker 3 and it was a really extraordinary experience. I've gotten to interview Mike Lee two times.
That's probably my favorite living filmmaker.

Speaker 3 You like Ryan Johnson's coming in in a few weeks.

Speaker 3 It's always, Ryan's been a guest on the show several times, is one of the best guys around,

Speaker 3 as well as many, you know, movie stars.

Speaker 3 But it's in-depth conversations about

Speaker 3 where art comes from

Speaker 3 with people who make stuff that's awesome.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm hard to please when it comes to interviews. It's not my usual thing.
I think you're my favorite interviewer.

Speaker 3 I enjoy what you do.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Dan.

Speaker 1 What about you, Stu? Who's your favorite? Is it me or?

Speaker 3 It's the hot ones guy, isn't it?

Speaker 1 It's the guy.

Speaker 1 It's the hot ones. The thing is,

Speaker 1 yeah, he makes you eat chicken. Yeah, I mean, I just like hot chicken.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's like my favorite bald interviewer. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Elliot's favorite interview, by the way, is the chicken wings from Hot Ones.

Speaker 1 It's not even the guy. They're great.

Speaker 2 They do great work. Actually, I'm a huge.
You're my second favorite after that guy who did the interview with the vampire because that's tough.

Speaker 1 That's scary. You're taking your life out.

Speaker 1 It takes cuts. You know, the slate man.

Speaker 2 Well, not the actor who played the character.

Speaker 1 No, it was him. Christian Slater, the actor, did

Speaker 1 my favorite interviewer.

Speaker 2 The the actor Christian Slater.

Speaker 1 Talk to the fan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 yeah, it's Michael. It's what? Michael Sheen doing David Frost.
That's my favorite.

Speaker 1 Man, what a dumb movie at times.

Speaker 1 The way they like mix in

Speaker 1 footage of the.

Speaker 1 I didn't like it either, but we can't do it.

Speaker 2 We should do a mini about Frost Dixon, where it's like, why do we have the actors playing the historical figures doing talking heads to the camera as if this is a documentary?

Speaker 1 Like, what is this? Very irritating. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So that's a perfect note to sign off on.

Speaker 1 Thank you to Jesse for being here and watching Smurfs, despite his reaction to it. Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer.
He goes by Howell Dotty online.

Speaker 1 You can find all of his creative works scattered across the internet. Thank you to Maximum Fun.

Speaker 1 You can find other podcasts at maximumfun.org. Many, many years ago, Jesse said, hey, hey, what about you guys coming on Maximum Fun? And it was

Speaker 1 a dream come true as someone who really loved Jordan Jesse Go and a lot of the podcasts on Max Fun. And it's been a great fit.
So thank you again, Jesse.

Speaker 3 I just saw our friend Al Madrigal, who owned the podcast network that you guys were with previously.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I was reminded that, first of all, I'm still very good friends with Al Madrigal, but I was reminded that he texted me. I'm so mad at you for taking away the flop house.

Speaker 3 I I know, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of El Magical.

Speaker 3 He's like, I'm so mad at you for taking away the flop house.

Speaker 2 Lily was a professional firing person for years.

Speaker 3 He's like, I'm so mad at you. And he's like, the reason, like, I understand why they did it.
It makes so much more sense at Max Fun.

Speaker 3 But that's the one show of ours that me and Kristen listen to.

Speaker 1 Well, that's a very nice thing to hear. It's sweet and it makes me feel bad.
Well,

Speaker 1 sorry, Al. Thank you, Al.
If you're still out there, Al still loves you.

Speaker 3 Don't worry.

Speaker 1 Well, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington.

Speaker 2 I'm Ellie Kalen, and I'm so happy that we had our guest today, Jesse Thorne.

Speaker 1 Bye, everyone.

Speaker 2 Together, there's almost 50 years. No, there's more than 50 years of podcasting.

Speaker 2 I was just going to two shows together, but to get all of us individually, there's nearly a century of podcasting experience on this zoom so our sound quality is gonna rock yeah

Speaker 2 certainly

Speaker 2 i'm i'm radio almost 30-year radio professional jesse thorne

Speaker 1 no i got i've got four candy corns left okay well candy corn corner stop chewing that candy corn and yeah grip it and rip it baby are we ready

Speaker 1 i'm gonna okay don't grip it too hard and don't rip it too hard it's a good point you gotta grip it hard hard if you're going to rip it hard.

Speaker 2 But not too hard, because you want to leave ripping room.

Speaker 1 Firm but loose. All right, here we go.

Speaker 1 Maximum Fun.

Speaker 3 A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

Speaker 6 Supported directly by you.