Transcript
dan
On this episode we discuss—Rambo: Last Blood!
elliott
The series that once again proves that all you need is a sufficiently angry and armed American to solve any foreign country’s problems.
music
Light, up-tempo, electric guitar with synth instruments.
dan
Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flop House! I’m Dan McCoy.
stuart
Oh, hey, everyone! It’s me, Stuart Wellington!
elliott
And coming to ya live from Los Strangeles, Hollyweird— [Stuart laughs.] —it’s Elliott Kalan! But we’ve got a special guest with us today. Don’t we, Daniel?
dan
Yes, we do! You know him as, uh, one of the directors of American Pie—uncredited, as IMDB says— [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.] As the director of About a Boy! One of the writers of, uh, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; but most, uh, Flop House listeners will know him as, uh, the man behind the Twilight Saga New Moon! Which led him to us today. [Laughs.]
stuart
Led him to our [though laughter] doorstep! [Chris laughs.]
dan
Yeah.
chris
You guys left out the colon, uh, but that’s okay. It’s Twilight Saga—colon—New Moon. And guys, uh, I just want to say to all the listeners—welcome to the special three-hour debate episode in which— [Multiple people laugh.] —I defend New Moon point-by-point. I think it’s just wonderful that you guys now in this time— [Dan laughs.] —of national crisis are inviting directors to, uh, to sort of—y’know, really hash things out with you. [Dan laughs.] Maybe change some minds. Uh, and—
elliott
Originally this was going to be like an Uva Bowls-style, uh, boxing match. Where you would take each of us on. But because of the virus, we’re just gonna do it over the internet.
stuart
Yeah. What’s the uh, order in that boss fight he has to do? Who’s the, uh—I’m assuming, uh—
elliott
I’m—of course I’m first. I—I guess I’m the easiest to take out so I assume I’m the first one.
chris
You’re the Glass Joe of, uh, of The Flop House. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
[Through laughter] Yeah. Exactly. I’m the one where I walk into the ring and trip over the ropes and hurt myself. [Laughs.] And have to be carried out. [Laughs.]
dan
See, the thing is, like, Chris is trying to shame us for, uh, making fun of his movie. [Chris laughs.] But it—like— [Stuart laughs.] To our—to our—on our end of things, like, things worked out great. Like, y’know, we, uh, we made fun of this movie. Chris wrote us a letter. We ended up hanging out with him a few times. He took us to dinner. Uh, Stuart, y’know, like, has seen his house even. Like, it’s a—
crosstalk
Dan: It’s a wonderful— Elliott: I’ve also seen his house, Dan. I’ve also seen his house. Stuart: Yep. I saw it through that drone—
stuart
—I was flying [though laughter] over. [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
I’m just saying like, if he has tried to make us stop, uh, y’know, hassling people, he has gone about it the absolute wrong way. Because we are being rewarded for our bad behavior.
chris
It’s all something I’d like to call the long con. [Various expressions of alarm from the hosts.] Now that I’ve got all three of you in my sights right here, you’ll see that gas has released into each of your— [Multiple people laugh.] —uh, office rooms.
elliott
Ohhh!
chris
And you’re being abducted and taken to an island where you will be hunted down. By, um— [Multiple people laugh.] By the elite who are willing to pay millions.
elliott
Wow.
stuart
If only some movie or short story had prepared me for that kind of a situation! [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
Uh, Dan, did we ever say the name of our guest?
dan
Uh, Chris Weitz. Uh—I— [Elliott laughs.] You know what? I had the same worry. Uh, I don’t know. We can check the tape later.
elliott
So, but uh—but—I for one am really looking forward to this, uh, survival hunt? Uh, that we’ll be going on?
chris
Oh, yeah. It’ll be fun. I mean, it’s not all bad.
elliott
Yeah, yeah. No. I mean, it’s sun. Uh, I assume beautiful surroundings. Unless this is one of those ones where we go to a burnt-out city.
crosstalk
Elliott: Which is less fun. Chris: It depends on the budget.
chris
Uh, usually. [Multiple people laugh.] In all the hunts that I’ve been on, uh—y’know, you want a big whale to really get you into the Maldives or someplace really nice. Otherwise you’re in Chernobyl and you’re dealing with mutants, all kinds of stuff.
stuart
I mean, I mean—or, like, the Japanese government could fund it to get rid of us. That would be a way to cut down on the Flop House population. [Elliott laughs.]
chris
Yes, but then you have to pretend to be, um, misbehaving Japanese schoolkids first— [Stuart laughs.] —to get into the BR program.
elliott
I think we could pull it off. I think we could pull it off. Uh—
stuart
I’ve played enough JRPGs in my time. I know what they’re—what to do. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
I’ve read enough, uh, of Cromartie High School. I know what it’s like to be like a bad boy in Japan. [Chris laughs.] Okay. So, uh, as Dan mentioned, uh, years ago, uh, we covered the underrated—by us—movie.
chris
Misunderstood, I think, is the word you’re looking for.
crosstalk
Elliott: Misunderstood. Twilight Saga: New Moon. Chris: And if you want—masterpiece, maybe? [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
Yeah. It’s the movie that’s often been called the cornerstone and the archstone of the Twilight saga. Um—
stuart
Wow. Both stones!
elliott
Both stones. It’s both in the corner and the middle. Um— [Dan laughs.]
dan
It turned out Chris was a listener already!
elliott
Turned out you were a listener and you wrote us a letter and—a very nice letter. Hand-written! I remember it being.
dan
I have it actualy in a place of prominence in my home still. [Laughs.] So. [Chris laughs.]
elliott
He keeps it under his bed. Uh— [Multiple people laugh.] To ward off demons or witches? Which was it Dan? Or both?
dan
Uh, to ward of snitches, actually.
elliott
Oh, wow. Okay.
stuart
He keeps it under there in case there’s ever a home invasion situation. He can go hide under his bed, grab it, and then show the home invaders that he’s actually really cool. [Multiple people laugh.]
chris
Back off! Um, I know vampires. Uh, well—and—as I think I may have told you guys, I don’t think it was in my letter. But, y’know, I think it was a bit that I’d listened with great glee to the Flop House for a long time. And I told a friend of mine about it—I said, oh, you gotta check this out. And then he called back a couple of days later and said— [Elliott laughs.] —have you heard all of the episodes? And I said, no, why would you say that? And then it turned out— [Multiple people laugh.] —that I was hoist by my own podcast petard. Uh, and then I had, uh, a real dilemma in my life. Which was—was I gonna listen to the episode? Was I going to submit myself to the treatment that I had submitted others to— [Stuart laughs.] —to enjoy their, uh, their shellacking. Uh, at your guys’ hands. And I’m glad I did. Um… and I’m glad that we find ourselves here! And, y’know, I think that—we all have to try to do things to unite the country at this point. And if— [Elliott laughs.] Hey, listen. This may not be such a big deal, but for a bad movie podcast and a director whose movie was mocked—if they can get together, why can’t… China release accurate statistics about the covid virus? [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
Wow!
elliott
If we could reach across the aisle from creators like you to leeches like us— [Stuart laughs.] —who merely—who merely criticize other people’s work. Everyone can. Right?
dan
Y’know… Before I claimed that I didn’t feel guilty. But now Chris’s unfailing kindness— [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.] And gentlemanly attitude has made me feel a little guilty.
elliott
I should’ve listened to the episode again before we recorded, because I forgot what we said.
chris
That’s okay. I have it fresh in my mind. [Multiple people laugh.] I listen to it every morning as I get psyched up and I prepare my, uh, murder tunnels. For when I tempt you guys to come over. I’ve got all these special kind of spike traps and explosives and things.
stuart
You listen to it while you’re, like, dunking your tar, uh, tar-covered fist wraps in like broken glass. [Multiple people laugh.] Gummi bears and whatnot.
elliott
Okay. That was a perfect segue into our movie and then Stuart turned it into a joke about Hot Shots! Part Deux? I think? [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
Oh, I’m gonna talk a lot about that. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
So, um… but let’s talk about—Dan, what do we do on this podcast, other than, uh, other than get hoist on our own petard? After hoisting on—and although it strikes me that this is like, the sequel to an O. Henry—like, a 21st-century O. Henry story? Like the 21st-century O. Henry story would be like—I love this podcast where they make fun of movies! They’re making fun of my movie! And then the sequel would be where we’re like, heh, heh, heh! We can make fun of whoever we want. Uh, he’s here?! Oh no! And then I guess there would be a third one for a trilogy. I don’t know what would happen in that one.
chris
That’s where I shave my head to buy you guys, um, a microphone and you send me a comb to put in my beautiful hair. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
That’s what it is.
stuart
And weirdly enough you’ve managed to turn us into walrus men [though laughter] by the end of it. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
[Through laughter] Yeah. I forgot O. Henry had a story by credit on Tusk. Yeah.
dan
I’m glad you went, uh, way classier, Elliott, and not the, um, Saturday Night Live thing that you hate where someone is making fun of some other celebrity and then it’s like, oh! Here they are! The real celebrity!
elliott
Oh, boy. Yeah.
dan
Right behind ‘em!
elliott
Not a fan of that. Not a fan of it at all. But anyway. So. Dan, what do we do in this podcast?
dan
Uh, this is a podcast— [Stuart laughs.] —where we watch a bad movie and—
elliott
Like Twilight: New Moon.
dan
Uh, I was gonna—I was actually gonna say—and boy, howdy— [Chris laughs.] —uh, this time we watched something— [Laughs.] So much—so, so much—like, Twilight: New Moon is a new classic.
crosstalk
Dan: This is a… Elliott: I would watch—
elliott
I would watch a million Twilight: New Moons before watching this movie again.
chris
I wouldn’t do that. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
But maybe like a—maybe a thousand. Uh, this—so—and what movie did we watch, Dan, as if it wasn’t announced at the beginning?
dan
We watched Rambo: Last Blood. The last? In the Rambo series?
crosstalk
Chris: Well, yeah, let me give you guys a little insight— Elliott: Question mark?
chris
—uh, a little Hollywood insight here. A little inside baseball. Uh-
elliott
Oh, inside buzz.
chris
You probably don’t know this but when you put “last” or “final” in the title of your movie, you’re actually not legally allowed to make any more movies in that franchise. [Dan laughs.] So that—whenever someone does that? That means they’re gonna leave it all out on the floor. They’re gonna absolutely do their very best to make the best film in the series.
stuart
Yeah, like Final Destination!
chris
Yeah!
elliott
[Through laughter] Yeah. When they made, uh, Rise of Skywalker, that tripped the trap. ‘Cause they had already made Last Jedi. So they made Rise of Skywalker and the system was like—mm, this isn’t gonna work out. You’re trying to break the rules. Yeah.
dan
Yeah. And they made Freddy’s Dead; they never made any more Nightmare on Elm Street movies after that.
crosstalk
Elliott: And Jason went to hell and didn’t come back! Chris: Well, I figure—a perfect example—
chris
A perfect example is The Last Emperor. There was never a sequel to that. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
That’s true. That’s true. Not even a—where’s the prequel? The First Emperor?
stuart
I pitched Save the Last Dance 2, but they said— [Elliott laughs.] —they couldn’t make it legally. So I’m like, okay.
chris
Yeah. It had to be Save the Penultimate Dance. [Stuart laughs.] You have to start going further back.
crosstalk
Elliott: That happened to me with— Chris: Peri-Penultimate—
elliott
That happened to me with, uh, The Last of Sheila: New Moon. And it just couldn’t get it off the ground. [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Um, yeah. So this is—uh, Elliott. You have a particular, um… connection to the Rambo character. Do you not?
elliott
Uh, I don’t know if I would say ‘connection.’ He’s a character that I find fascinating. [Dan laughs.] Because he is such a blatant fantasy figure? But also, he’s a char—if ever there was a character that went so far afield of its original intention? Where the first movie is about a man haunted by a war he was in, who is mistreated by people who think he’s a freak now. And he goes on a rampage. And the next—every other movie in the series is like—remember when he was blowing stuff up? Wasn’t that amazing? Let’s—and so by this movie, he’s just like… an unstoppable killing machine.
crosstalk
Elliott: He’s basically the old man Punisher. Yeah. Chris: Let’s just take all the best parts. And make a movie out of it. Dan: Well, yeah. And—
dan
And the movie—this—even this movie sort of like pays like… perfunctory like lip service to the idea, like, oh, like, war—like—ruins a man. Like… I can’t see anything good in the world anymore. Y’know? But… that’s all just in the service of making him like a more awesome unstoppable killing machine in the mind of this film.
elliott
Yeah. Well this movie—it has the weird thing of feeling like… Rambo fanfiction. That they— [Multiple people laugh.] —somehow got Sylvester Stallone to do. Like, the character feels so—a little off normal. And also the story is so not a Ram—it’s like, real death wish of a story. And not a—not a Rambo story. ‘Cause Rambo stories are usually—I mean, the first one, again—he’s a drifter. He gets bullied and he kills a lot of people. In Rambos two through four, it’s like—Rambo, there’s a problem only a Rambo can solve! We gotta drop Rambo in. And Rambo’s like, you got it! I’m gonna team up with the Mujahideen! This isn’t gonna—this isn’t gonna—uh, get any backfire on us. This is gonna be great! And, uh—in this one, it’s like… it’s just an out-and-out revenge story that has a little gloss of foreign interventionism in it.
dan
Yeah. And I want—I’ve been trying to remember to do this, uh, when I can. Uh, just like a little content warning. I don’t think we’re gonna get deep into it—I hope not—but, um, there is, uh— [Laughs.] There is rape in this movie. There is… a lot of… uh… xenophobia. Uh, just be aware.
chris
Yeah.
elliott
And with—the thing is, the movie didn’t have to be that way. We’ll get into how—
dan
No, not at all!
elliott
We’ll get into how ugly this film is, but—so—Rambo—this Rambo was gestating for a long time. Uh, and little Ram—which is adorable to me, the idea of a little Rambo baby. Just waiting to be born.
crosstalk
Elliott: And he’s like, ugggh! Chris: Rambaby.
elliott
[Sylvester Stallone accent] Do we get to be born this time? [Regular voice] And that kind of stuff. [Multiple people laugh.] Yeah, Rambaby! [Laughs.] Dan, did I—actually, Dan—I did—I do have a connection with Rambo. Did I ever tell you guys about—I must have, at some point. The Bushbo series of videos that I did when I was a kid?
dan
No! But I was thinking about how you’d do the Rambo Room Ramble Room thing.
elliott
Yeah. So actually, I have—so when I was an adolescent, me and a friend of mine, he had a George Bush, Sr. mask ‘cause George Bush, Jr. didn’t exist yet. And George Bush, Sr. mask—and we made a series of videos—
stuart
I mean, he existed. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
I mean, yeah, I guess technically, Uh— [Dan laughs.] He—I thought he sprang out of his father’s head fully formed. Uh—
crosstalk
Elliott: Right before the 2000 election. Dan: If a George Bush falls in the forest, Stuart—
dan
Does he make a sound? [Stuart laughs.]
elliott
Yeah, well, he—probably, ‘cause he’s like, use—he’s in the forest cutting down trees with a chainsaw.
dan
Or he goes, ow! Ow! [Laughs.]
elliott
Owie! Ow, ow! Yeah. ‘Cause that’s what he sounds like. Um—when—my friend, uh, Adam and I; he had a George Bush mask and so right after the 1992 election—when I was about, uh… 11, I guess. Uh, we made a series of videos called Bushbo where George Bush was so mad about losing the election that he became a vigilante and was— [though laughter] and was fighting crime? [Dan laughs.] And fast-forward to when I would do one-man shows—kind of one-man shows in New York and I had a bit called the Ramble Room, where I would reveal my, uh, how—y’know, my biggest fears and anxieties. And then to overcome the shame I felt from that, I would then enter the Rambo Room. Which was just me pretending to be Rambo and doing a kind of mangled version of the monologue from the end of the first movie. Where he’s like—oh, my friend who he—he was getting a shoeshine and they blew his shoes up and oh! Then they came back and they spit on us! They called us baby-killers and crap! And, uh, so yeah! I mean, I’ve always been fascinated by Sylvester Stallone—
crosstalk
Elliott: —also fascinated by— Chris: But he’s also—I mean, Sylvester Stallone—
chris
—occasionally stops by the studio, doesn’t he? Like—
elliott
I mean, these guys tell me, but I’ve never been here when it happens.
crosstalk
Elliott: That’s the thing. Chris: That’s true.
chris
You missed it. It’s been pretty great! Uh— [Elliott laughs.] I wanted—I was hoping to find out— [Dan laughs.] —how he’s doing with his soft heart disease. [Laughs.] Um—whether that’s a preexisting condition that in these times—
elliott
Especially now. It increases his health risk, the fact that his heart is soft like a cheese I think he said at one point. Yeah.
stuart
Mm-hm. And his love of Tostitos! I wonder how that might’ve played into— [Multiple people laugh.] —some of the, uh, the locations of this movie. [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.] Um—but, uh—and you brought up the first Rambo movie, uh, First Blood, and, uh, which starred Brian Dennehy, RIP. Right?
elliott
That’s true. Who just passed away this week. So this is—if this is a really timely time [though laughter] to be talking about Rambo: Last Blood.
chris
It is the timeliest time.
elliott
But I did some research and it turns out that they’ve been working on the—so this Rambo movie had been gestating for a long time. At one point it was called Rambo: The Savage Hunt? And it was gonna be about him leading a team of hunters to find a genetically-modified kind of half-human creature? And it’s like—why didn’t they make that movie? It also would not have felt like a Rambo movie. That would’ve been The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Rambo movies, but I would’ve loved it so much more.
chris
And instead that’s the attitude that the movie takes towards Mexicans. [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Elliott: Yes. Instead they treat Mexicans as half-human [inaudible]. Ugh. Chris: Half-human, genetically-modified freaks. [Stuart laughs.]
elliott
Uh, and at some point he was—he teamed up—Sylvester—Sly, I call him. I’ve never met him, but y’know. [Stuart laughs.] He’s sly like a fox. Uh, Sly teamed up with Rambo’s creator, David Morrell, and they were gonna make what Wikipedia just quotes Sylvester Stallone as saying it was gonna be “a soulful journey” for John Rambo, but the producer said, no, we wanna do this human trafficking story. So I guess Sylvester Stallone just said, okay, fine. I don’t care. Um… and apparently, uh—well, I guess—shall we—shall we get in—
stuart
Well at least, like—at least… the story you’re describing has—like, plays on the themes [though laughter] of the Rambo character.
elliott
[Laughs.] Yes. Which is a man who is—who can only express his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from war by just mowing down… people. Like, there’s the scenes in, uh, at the end of the last Rambo movie, which was just called Rambo. Uh, and—
stuart
Rambo Balboa?
elliott
Yes. Called Rambo Balboa. And—
dan
By the way, Elliott, I think that you and I saw Rambo together. Right? Like that was one of the—
elliott
I think we might have. Yeah.
dan
The first, like, early in our friendship. And, uh… that movie, uh… [Laughs.] Also has some xenophobic elements but it’s, uh, so much more fun ‘cause it like… eschews, like, uh… just destroying the female lead as this movie does. It does not do that. And it is so absurdly violent.
elliott
Yo. There’s a part at the end where Rambo is just standing with a huge machine gun, with a truck-mounted machine gun, just tearing apart wave after wave of enemy, uh, Burmese soldiers running after him. And there’s a—and he gets shot in the shoulder. And he just keeps mowing them down. And he just runs out of bad guys to shoot. Like, that’s just how it ends. It ends with him running out of bad guys. And then he’s just standing there, looking with his hand on his shoulder, and for the life of me it looked like they had shaved a bear. [Multiple people laugh.] And put a t-shirt on him. And just had him stand there and like look—there’s a part in that movie where he’s sneaking around the enemy camp and he’s like, under a bridge? And it looks like the Frankenstein monster escaped. Like, that was when Sylves—Sly was really HGH-ing it up. Uh—
stuart
Yeah. The storyboards were by Bernie Wrightson. [All laugh.]
chris
He doesn’t look exactly small here. He’s still pretty—
elliott
No, no. But he’s—
chris
—craggy.
elliott
But that’s why—at the end—there are occasionally moments, and especially at the end credits, they show you scenes from First Blood. And he looks like a normal—relatively-normal human being. And the thing that the scenes from First Blood really brought home to me is like, he’s always had kind of beautiful eyes? These like big doe eyes? For like, a tough guy? And so in the past he’s been able to be kind of like a… somewhat emotionally wounded tough guy? But in this one he’s just—it’s just Logan—Unforgiven, y’know? Stuff? But we’ll get to that. So. The foreign version of this movie begins with John Rambo saving a missing hiker from a flood? And that triggers his PTSD? We don’t get to see that scene in the American version of it.
chris
Oh. Huh.
elliott
So I don’t know—it—I had the choice on Amazon Prime between the extended cut and the release version and I said, I’m gonna see the one that they thought was good enough to put in theaters. And oh boy! [Laughs.] So. We know by the—so the movie starts—at the end of the last Rambo, John Rambo went back to his family’s farm. Uh, it seemed like he had turned over a new leaf. And you know what? It seems like he has. He’s been living on this farm. He’s retired. Does he have a roomful of his favorite weapons? Sure. Does he have a network of underground tunnels [though laughter] under his farm? [Dan laughs.] That are—they’re easily trappable? Uh, yes. Of course. But who doesn’t, in this day and age?
chris
He uses them for parties for kids. And that’s why.
elliott
[Through laughter] Yeah. Yeah.
stuart
And this—the—the walls are covered in knickknacks to, like, a TGI Friday’s level.
elliott
It’s like a Rambo TGI Friday’s where it’s like, there’s the bow and arrow! There’s that knife! There’s the machete from the last one! Like, there’s a license plate that just says—RBO! Like— [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
He does spend a lot of time in his tunnels, blacksmithing weapons. But you get the sense that that’s his necessary therapy. He can channel all his, like… paranoid rage into that. And otherwise he’s a—a nice rancher.
chris
Now, it was so—he’s got these two women in his life. Were they in a previous Rambo movie?
elliott
No. These are new characters. I mean, the last Rambo movie was… 15 years ago? I think? Something like that? The last one was in… let’s see. 2008. So it was 12 years ago. So during that time he has picked up a niece, uh, Gabriela. And a… house…keeper?
crosstalk
Elliott: I kept waiting for them to— Chris: She’s related to Gabriela in some way—
chris
—but she’s not her mother. She’s maybe Gabriela’s grandmother? She’s not Sylvester Stallone’s love interest.
elliott
I kept waiting for them to reveal that Sylvester Stallone was in love with this woman and it just wasn’t happening.
dan
Wikipedia—for what it’s worth—identifies her as, like… uh, one of—like, she and Rambo manage the ranch together. And she is, uh… the—the young woman’s, um… uh, grandmother.
elliott
Oh, okay.
dan
And I think “uncle” may be just sort of a, like, honorific? I don’t know if they’re actually related? But, uh.
elliott
I assumed that she was, uh, the daughter of his, uh… sister.
crosstalk
Elliott: But I could be wrong about that. Chris: It made me wonder what—
chris
—ethnicity the name “Rambo” is. Is it, like, y’know— [Multiple people laugh.] —or is it just—
elliott
I mean, it was supposed to be Italian. Y’know, I assume. But.
chris
Rambo.
crosstalk
Stuart: There’s a— Dan: Um— Elliott: But they was—
elliott
When they came to Ellis Island it was “Rambolini.” [Multiple people laugh.] And they said, well, you gotta change it a little bit.
stuart
There’s a—and this—
chris
Change it to something much more, uh, Anglo-Saxon sounding like “Rambo.” [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
[Through laughter] Yeah.
stuart
Gabriela’s like about to go to college and she has a great moment where she— [Laughs.] She asks, uh, Rambo—did you like being a soldier? And I’m like—uh… [Multiple people laugh.] I don’t think he did!
crosstalk
Elliott: [Laughs.] It’s a complicated question. Dan: Yeah. If there’s one thing she should’ve learned—
dan
—in the past ten years. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
It’s that being a soldier kinda wrecked him.
chris
It’s not like he doesn’t pretty much every ten minutes talk about how terrible— [Multiple people laugh.] —everything was and how there’s no humanity left in him. But I wanna say—about the, uh, actors—the supporting actors in this first bit. That they’re really doing their best with not too much. Like, they are not bad. And especially, I think, the young girl—Gabriela—was actually—there are moments where she is in this, kind of, insane revenge plot. And actually seems like a 17-year-old girl might be in that scenario.
dan
Well I would also argue that, um… that Stallone is doing the best he can with what he’s given. He seems like a genuinely wounded man who is… has a lot of rage. The movie— [Laughs.] The movie around these actors is the problem, but.
crosstalk
Elliott: Yes. The—the— Chris: Yeah. No. He sort of learned—
chris
—how to be quiet and just be himself, which is kind of great. And actually I would’ve watched the two hour movie of them hanging out at the farm, uh, and just dealing with normal stuff. Much more happily.
crosstalk
Chris: Than what happened. Elliott: There is a—
elliott
There is a great Rambo movie that is exactly that. Which is him and Gabriela, like, training for like a big horse competition? ‘Cause they tame—they train horses at the ranch. Or like, just like… existing at the ranch? And her trying to get him to… reveal to her the things that he’s never revealed before about himself? Like, there’s a really—I would love to—like, that’s the movie they should’ve made and it would’ve cost a lot less. But then you wouldn’t have scenes of guys getting rakes through their head? So like— [Stuart laughs.]
crosstalk
Elliott: I guess—you—[inaudible] happen. Chris: There is a trade-off. Dan: Well—
stuart
Well, he could probably find a place for that. [Laughs.]
elliott
I guess so. That’s true. That’s true.
stuart
Where Rambo just kills a bunch of randos?
crosstalk
Stuart: Rambo’s randos? Elliott: Yeah. Rambo—
elliott
It’s called Rambo: Rando Blood. [Laughs.] [Stuart laughs.] It’s called Rando: Rambo Five. [Multiple people laugh.] And, uh, he’s still dealing with his trauma, obviously. He’s making Gabriela a letter opener that looks like a knife. [Stuart laughs.] And I kept waiting for that to be, like, the big revenge weapon at the end? But I don’t—I don’t think it was. He used a much bigger knife.
crosstalk
Chris: You could’ve said— Elliott: That he made himself.
chris
There’s a letter. It’s for you. Or something like that.
crosstalk
Chris: That could’ve been a great catchphrase. Elliott: Yeah, exactly.
crosstalk
Stuart: I thought he—I thought he stuck it in—I thought he—yeah. Elliott: “Signed, sealed, decapitated.” And then he cuts someone’s head off.
stuart
I thought he stuck it in the one brother’s chest with her picture before he chopped off his head.
elliott
Oh, is that what he did?
crosstalk
Chris: Oh, yes! Alright. [Inaudible] not paid off. Everything is set up and paid off. Elliott: Yeah. Maybe that’s what it was. Well that’s good. But like—we’ll get to that. Stuart: ‘Cause he mentioned that thing—[inaudible.]
elliott
We’ll get to that. We’ll get to that. [Stallone voice] Uh, well, yeah, actually, Stuart. If I could, uh— [Stuart laughs.] I gotta bump in this Skype call. I had to bump Elliott off the call—
crosstalk
Elliott: —so I could, uh— Dan: Sound like Columbo—
dan
—was bumping him before you, Stallone. But—
elliott
Well that’s my new character, Co-rambo. He’s like, uh, Columbo. So it’s like, oh, one more thing—you’re dead. [Dan laughs.] And then he shoots somebody. He’s like, uh, hey. Did you, uh, did you leave these POWs behind? And they’re like yeah. No, no, I didn’t! And he’s like, oh, oh yeah. Good. That makes sense. That makes sense. One more question—can I kill you? And then I shoot him. [Multiple people laugh.] Uh, so—
dan
Do they say yes? Or do you just shoot ‘em…
crosstalk
Dan: No matter what they— Elliott: I don’t really wait.
elliott
I don’t—it doesn’t really matter what they’re gonna say. I’m just gonna do it anyway. So, uh, the thing is—this is kind of like an intricate puzzle box of a film? [Dan laughs.] And so everything introduced in the beginning, uh, comes around. It’s like Anton Chekhov said—if you introduce a letter opener at the beginning, then you’ve gotta use it to stab the photo of your dead niece— [Stuart laughs.] —to a decapitated drug dealer’s body in act three. [Laughs.] And so, the thing that I want you to remember while you’re talking about this movie, uh—Rambo: Last Blood—is that, uh, the subtext which unfortunately was cut out of the American cut is that Rambo only has so much blood left in his body. Because, uh— [Multiple people laugh.] —as you may remember, the blood in my body is thicker than normal human blood. And so—
dan
So that’s why the veins in your arms are so pronounced?
crosstalk
Dan: ‘Cause they—they’re enlarged to let the blood go through? Elliott: Yes. Exactly.
elliott
Uh, not in—I mean, they’re—it—it’s just naturally. It’s blood that is the consistency of, uh, y’know, like, audio cable. [Chris laughs.] Just going through—going through my veins! Y’know. Just like pushing up—like a pipe cleaner through a noodle. Y’know. Basically. [Dan laughs.] So, I, uh—so just remember that that was a whole subplot that a lot of the movie makes more sense about if you remember that. That, uh, there is, uh, y’know. There was supposed to be a counter on screen at all times that counted that—how many drops of blood were left in my body, and uh— [Dan laughs.] Yeah. I don’t know who screwed up in Post but for some reason that wasn’t there! [Stuart laughs. Dan joins in.] I didn’t find out until the premiere and I’m like, well, when does the counter go up ‘cause it’s kind of what the movie’s about is he doesn’t— [Chris laughs.] —have so much blood left. And it never happened.
crosstalk
Elliott: So you better believe— Dan: So you got, like, a crank situation. [Stuart laughs.]
dan
Where he’s gotta keep, y’know, his heart rate up.
elliott
No! That would be worse! [Laughs.] You want the heart rate to go down so the blood doesn’t get pumped out of the body! ‘Cause that’s the other thing, is it’s, uh, earlier in the film I was supposed to get shot? Like, uh, that one gremlin who gets shot and then he drinks the potion and then all the stuff comes out of him? Like, that’s what was gonna happen. So it’s leaking out of me the whole time. [Chris laughs.] Like a sprinkler! So I mean if it was moving faster I’d lose the blood faster. So I guess what I’m saying is this was not my ideal vision of the film Rambo: Last Blood? But, uh, y’know. Maybe I’ll have some more answers for you later in the show. Gotta go. Digital jetpack. [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Digital jetpack.
elliott
[Regular voice] Guys, I’m sorry. I was having, I guess, some trouble with the internet and I couldn’t get back on the Skype call. Everything okay? [Through laughter] Did I miss anything? [Dan laughs.]
dan
Everything’s great.
elliott
Okay. Uh, okay. So Gabriela, she invites some friends over for a going-off-to-college party in Sly’s secret murder tunnels. And—
stuart
Yeah, he shows ‘em the tunnels!
elliott
Shows them the tunnels and she realizes—and her friend Giselle calls and says, I found your dad who abandoned you. He’s in Mexico. Do you wanna come meet her? Meet him? And, uh, Sly is like—your dad’s a bad man! He, and, uh, she’s like—you don’t know about my world. And he’s like, yeah, I do. It’s worse than mine. And it was like—whoa, whoa. Hold on. [Chris laughs.]
crosstalk
Chris: That’s such a—that’s a big claim. Elliott: Such a—like—it’s—
dan
Rambo has, like, such a bleak view of the world and humanity. He’s like, this whole monologue’s basically like—[Stallone impression] everyone’s got a black heart. [Regular voice] Like, there’s no goodness in the world in his view.
crosstalk
Dan: Like, he’s sequestered himself on the ranch. Elliott: And that’s when—Bruce Springsteen comes in and he goes, actually, it’s— Chris: Yeah. His world is so dark that he thinks that—
chris
—a murder-tunnel is a good place to invite teenagers to have a party.
crosstalk
Dan: Well and the funny thing is— Elliott: I was gonna say, Dan—
elliott
I was gonna say, Dan, we all know from Bruce Springsteen that everybody has a hungry heart. So.
dan
Yeah.
elliott
Yeah.
dan
Or a soft heart. But like—but um— [Elliott laughs.] No, but it’s funny ‘cause movies like this, like, the hero expresses this like bleak view of humanity. And then the whole arc of the movie is—that is confirmed. [Laughs.] Like, he’s like, oh, no, no, no, no. He was right the whole time. She shouldn’t, like, believe that there’s [though laughter] good in the world.
crosstalk
Dan: Like, she should be like Rambo! Elliott: No. ‘Cause everyone’s terrible.
dan
A crazy [though laughter] hermit man who sets up, like, devices to murder people.
crosstalk
Elliott: I mean, it’s better than being a crazy hermit crab! Chris: But it—it—
dan
Yeah.
chris
If, I mean, if his dark vision weren’t realized, however, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy this film. Y’know? [Multiple people laugh.] Thank god that the world is such a terrible place that Rambo has to kill— [Dan laughs.] —maybe 2,000 people? Uh— [Multiple people laugh.] By the end of the movie?
elliott
Certainly a lot of people. A lot of people, especially for a man his age.
stuart
Gabriela… reveals to her grandmother and to Rambo that she wants to go track down her father. And Rambo’s like—[Stallone impression] he’s a terrible man! [Regular voice] And at first I’m like, oh, that’s what any guy with a lot of baggage and like fucked-up relationships and a terrible worldview—that’s what he would say. Luckily, that gets paid off later on when we find out he is the worst person I’ve ever met. [Laughs.] [Dan laughs.]
elliott
Oh, but he’s not as bad as some of the other guys. They’re terrible!
chris
Also, he doesn’t have a cell phone. You can’t call ahead of time to talk to him. And save yourself the, uh— [Dan laughs.] —enslavement.
elliott
Well, as we’ll see—as we’ll see soon—so she goes anyway. She decides she’s gonna go. She goes to Mexico, which is a short drive from the ranch. I guess they live near the border. Uh, and it’s like she crosses the border and she’s instantly in a burnt-out war zone. That is—none of the houses seem to have roofs. People are just hanging out—just gangbangers hanging out drinking on car hoods. Like, it’s—it’s like a reverse Wizard of Oz? Like, it’s crazy how instantly she’s just in, like, some Italian Mad Max ripoff movie version of a city. Where it’s just like burnt-out buildings and shells of vehicles and things like that.
chris
It is pretty amazing. And—so—I’m gonna get real and political for a moment here, guys. Uh—
elliott
Hey, that’s what we’re here for! The Flop House is nothing but a format for, uh, y’know, bold political controversy! [Laughs.] [Chris laughs.]
chris
Being a part-Mexican myself, um, y’know, and having gone there when I was a kid, uh, and having made movies with, uh, actual Mexican people in them. Uh, it’s really interesting to see this sort of trope of Mexico. Like, as though—once you deploy the world “Mexico,” y’know—she says, I wanna go to Mexico. And Rambo’s immediately like, [Stallone voice] Whoa! Why would you wanna do that?! [Regular voice] Um— [Multiple people laugh.] —although, y’know, about a hundred million Mexican people actually live in Mexico and most of them aren’t, um— [Elliott laughs.] --AR-15-wielding narco murderers. Um, but you would think— [Dan laughs.] —from the way that this movie portrays it—as Elliott said, the moment you step across that border all bets are off and you’re probably gonna die.
crosstalk
Elliott: It reminds me of, uh, one of my— Stuart: Yeah. Everything becomes ochre-tinted. [Laughs.] [Dan laughs.]
elliott
One of my—[Laughs.] Yeah. Well it’s like, yeah. Even the light looks terrible there! [Dan laughs.] That—the—one of my, uh, one of my friends—freshman year of college—was, uh, she was from Mexico and she would talk then about how, like, she hated how in American movies—if you had committed a crime you would just escape to Mexico? And she’s like, we have police officers in Mexico! [Multiple people laugh.] Like, you can’t—it’s not like you just go there and crime is okay! Like, I think she was especially mad ‘cause her dad had been Attorney General of Mexico for a little bit so it was a personal insult.
crosstalk
Elliott: But uh—but it’s—it— Dan: Well I wanna take a moment here—uh, as long as this topic has come up— Elliott: To defend the movie’s vision of Mexico?
dan
Uh, uh, I didn’t hear what you said. But it’s on—on topic so I assume that, um—so like I’m gonna compare this movie to its closest relative, uh, Taken. A few times. During our discussion here. And the thing that Taken does with this is like—Taken is also a xenophobic movie?
crosstalk
Dan: But at least— Stuart: Oh, I thought the—
stuart
I thought the name of the movie was Taken A Few Times. Which I thought [though laughter] would be like— [Elliott laughs.] —a late-series sequel.
elliott
That’s the one where Liam Neeson is like—daughter. Please stop talking to strangers. This is the third time today that you’ve been taken!
dan
Yeah. Anyway. Taken is a much superior version of this story? And it makes a few key decisions? Uh, one of which is… it is still xenophobic, but it decides to aim its xenophobia at least at a place that is not historically, um… uh, vilified by America? [Laughs.] Um… uh… which is—which makes it weird in a different way. Like, you watch Taken and you’re like, okay. Why is Liam Neeson immediately terrified his daughter wants to go to Paris? [Through laughter] Like, that—that seems very crazy when you [though laughter] watch the movie. But like, you put it off to him just being like… insane, uh, he’s seen so much in the CIA or whatever. But like, apparently the Paris of Taken is filled with sex slavers. Well, we won’t touch on that. But at least it’s like making an attempt to be like—okay. So… we don’t want to inflame any actual racial tensions that exist in America. Whereas Rambo: Last Blood is like, okay! Well, it—right when we’re building this wall, let’s, uh, make Mexicans the bad guy.
chris
Yeah. And I mean—so the—the—what’s supposed to counter with this is that there is, um, a nice Mexican grandmother and a Mexican-American girl in it and so this sort of excuses, um, the rampant xenophobia. Uh, but it doesn’t exactly. Oh, by the way, Sebastian reports that the movie should’ve been called Rambo: Red Cross or Rambo: Remaining Blood. Just needed to— [Multiple people laugh.] —get that in because I’m getting—I’m getting notes submitted to me. Um— [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
I think—so—I think the movie is—so the movie is not saying… Mexicans are bad. The movie is saying… Mexican men and most Mexican women are bad! [Stuart laughs.] And I feel like that’s the kind of nuanced message that we—it’s refreshing from a Rambo movie! Where usually everyone in the foreign country except the one woman who likes Rambo is bad! Uh… but it is—yeah. It’s—it—the movie exists in that weird fantasy world of fear that so many people live in where they’re like, MS-13’s gonna come get us! And it’s like, I don’t think so. Like, they have no interest in you. [Multiple people laugh.] I don’t know why you think they’re just a marauding band of scavengers—
crosstalk
Elliott: —or Reavers that just wanders the countryside. Dan: I don’t know. I’m pretty interesting, Elliott.
chris
Well, it’s only really if you do something stupid like try to make contact with your father. Y’know.
crosstalk
Elliott: That—it is a big mistake. Chris: Something clearly dangerous to do. Yeah.
elliott
Or trust Gisele! Because as we meet Gisele, we know she is trouble. ‘Cause she’s all got heavy makeup and jewelry and things like that. And—
stuart
She is dressed very cleanly. As a… in, like, traditional gangbanger tropes? All she’s missing is a few like SoundCloud rapper facial tattoos? Um, but like—but like, she’s—all of her clothes are like pristine, like, clear—like… I don’t know. It feels like a high school play version. Like in Rushmore or something when they’re dressed up as like gangbangers. Like, everything is very clean and carefully manicured. [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Stuart: But she looks like she’s doing well for herself! Chris: Yeah. Absolutely. No.
chris
Even though she moved back to Mexico she’s wearing Los Angeles kind of stereotype chola, uh, outfits. And it's—seems a bit unrealistic to me, but hey. She’s gotta do—she’s gotta do her. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
She’s—hey. She’s gotta be herself, y’know? She’s as much an outsider as Gabriela! Gisele immediately asks Gabriela if she’s a virgin and then goes, hey, I’m just joking! And it’s like, mm, I don’t think that was a joke. This is gonna be trouble. Gabriela goes to meet her dad—Manuel—who says, hey. I left you because I never wanted you. So goodbye! And then—
crosstalk
Elliott: He closes the door in her face. And it’s— Dan: That’s—he makes—
dan
He makes the most comical heel-turn because when he first opens the door, like, he’s not warm to her? But he’s like, oh, hey. It’s been a while. Like, y’know, he—he—he is at least—
elliott
Oh, ‘cause you know what? ‘Cause you know what happened? He—I think he didn’t recognize her at first and thought she was someone from work? And he was like, oh, hey! It’s—what are you doing here? It’s nice to see you! And she’s like, why did you leave my family? And he’s like, oh, it’s my daughter. Get outta here! I don’t want to talk to you.
crosstalk
Stuart: There’s a— Chris: He—he steps out of the light into shadow. Dan: Well then like, a [inaudible] falls—
chris
In order to be mean. Also. [Elliott laughs.]
crosstalk
Dan: Yeah. His eyes go dead. Stuart: And—and they—her—
stuart
And his like new wife answers the door and she’s like—who is she? I’ll explain later. And she’s like—okay. And leaves? [Laughs.] Like—what?! [Multiple people laugh.]
crosstalk
Chris: Well, they have—they’ve got a great relationship. Dan: But yeah. He—he like—
chris
That’s the—that’s, I think, what they’re trying to say. [Multiple people laugh.] Is that he’s moving on and he’s actually kind of made something of himself. And why is she coming to wreck his life? Where he’s got this really trusting relationship with his wife.
elliott
He’s like—you’re a reminder of the bad man I used to be and not the caring family man that I am now. So I want you outta here.
dan
This movie is so committed to like rote shorthand that he, like, literally just says, like— [though laughter] one day I looked at you and your mom and I’m like, I don’t care about these people and I left. [Elliott laughs.] I don’t—like, go away. I don’t want you. Like, he’s the most direct about being a bad father as anyone could be.
elliott
I wonder if maybe… he is Harry and the Henderson-ing her. And he knows that he’s a dangerous man. And he doesn’t want her to be in trouble. So he’s like—you stink. I don’t like you. I never liked you. Get outta here!
dan
Honestly, Elliott? He is so over-the-top here that I thought it was gonna be a plot point like that. I thought he was trying to scare her away. But no. He—
stuart
Or it’s a dream or something.
dan
Yeah.
elliott
So, uh, she’s really depressed about this. So Gisele—to cheer her up—takes her to a club. Which actually looks like a pretty normal club.
stuart
Looked pretty fun, yeah!
elliott
Yeah. It looked like a fun place to be. Her drink gets spiked. I guess it’s not so fun after all! Next day, uh, everyone’s like—Gabriela’s disappeared! Where is she? And, uh, she went to Mexico! And Rambo’s like, I gotta go get her! And he gets in his truck and races over to Mexico. Uh, this is where this trigger warnings are gonna have to come in. Because, uh, Gabri—as they call her—is instantly the prisoner of a nightmarish hell-pimp who says he’ll kill all—any of his women if they run away and she’s inside of the filthiest building I’ve ever seen in my life in a movie. And it’s—like—she—the, uh… the movie is trying to outdo itself in being unpleasant and horrible? Uh, and this is where it really starts getting into that, uh, what I guess you’d call the, uh, act two slime? Uh, how did it— [Dan laughs.] —uh, maybe—did you guys—how did you guys feel about it? Maybe I’m off-base.
chris
Uh, it’s really tricky. Because I mean, terrible things are happening to young women in Mexico and, uh, y’know. The—sometimes this has been addressed in movies before. But it’s rarely been used— [Laughs.] Uh, as such a blatant kind of plot, um, engine. Uh, purely to manufacture bad guys to be destroyed by Sylvester Stallone. Um, so it’s—it’s weird. And unsettling.
elliott
I feel like—they go after this—the—uh, the—the tragedies that can befall young women in Mexico with not quite as much sensitivity as Roberto Bolaño in 2666. Just not quite as much. [Chris laughs.] Uh—
crosstalk
Elliott: But it reminds me of— Chris: I was going to quote 2666 but I thought, no. Y’know, I’m not gonna, uh, try to bring, uh, a sort of literary fiction into it. But hey. This is great.
elliott
Hey. Come on. This is—it’s gotta be done. But it reminded—when the last Rambo came out, it was like—I felt the same way about… how it was set in, um, in Burma or—I always mix up whether it’s called Burma or Myanmar now and I feel terrible about that. But the—it was set there and it was—at the time that it was still a—the military dictatorship before it became a democracy and now it’s kinda becoming a dictatorship again, but at the time it was still a military dictatorship. And I was like, it’s terrible that they’re using it just as fodder for these movies. But at the same time, like, what other American movies are talking about what’s going on in that part of the world? Like, none of them were. So it feels weird for… I think this movie is probably, like… actually, y’know what? Never mind. I don’t think it’s trying to call attention to any of this. It’s just like, oh, what’s a part of the world that sounds really terrible? And we can have something horrible happen. Yeah.
dan
I would like—I have some things to say about this. Like… so… again. Taken. So in Taken—
elliott
So is Again Taken the sequel? [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Yeah.
elliott
Where not only—where Liam Neeson has to team up with Judd Hirsch as his Jewish father and he’s like, again, taken? [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Yeah. And then there’s the Taken DA where he magically— [Elliott laughs.] —turns into a district attorney. No, I just— [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
Magically? He ran for the office! He was elected to it!
dan
[Laughs.] Oh, okay. Um, the thing about this is, like—so in Taken, um… uh… the daughter’s also being sex trafficked. But the movie has at least the small decency to… rescue her—
crosstalk
Chris: Before. It all goes down. Dan: Uh, before any rape occurs.
dan
Whereas this movie seems to delight in having this, uh… uh, surrogate daughter character be as brutally mistreated as possible? And—
chris
Well, it—yeah. It takes a bit of a Mel Gibson kind of direction. Where Sylvester Stallone—or rather, Rambo—strangely sort of offers himself up. Like, this guy who is, uh, y’know, an incredibly skilled, stealthy assassin—allows himself to be beaten up, basically, by 50 dudes. Uh, and at the same time as that’s happening his, uh, surrogate daughter—whatever—is being raped. And it’s not necessary to the plot for this to happen.
dan
No. And I think that, like—we’ve identified the xenophobia of the movie, like, every review of the movie at the time identified that. But I don’t think there’s as much talk about like the sexism of the movie? Because—number one—she is, like… so fridged in the sense that like, her—she only exists in the movie in relation to Rambo entirely. And there’s a very egregious version of that that happens later that I’ll mention when it comes up in the synopsis. So there’s that. But also… this movie is—I think—trading on like two male fantasies? Like, it—it—[sighs.] Like, one much uglier than the other. But like—it gives the audience, like, the titillation of having this young girl sexually defiled and then it gives the audience the fantasy of like, revenge against the defilers?
chris
Yeah.
dan
And it’s—it’s like… it’s like having it both ways, in that way? In, like, a really… [sighs.] Upsetting… fashion?
stuart
Like an “I spit on Rambo’s grave” or something.
dan
Yeah! It’s like—
elliott
Well, Rambo spits on their grave.
crosstalk
Chris: Yeah. Who’s spitting on whose grave here? Stuart: These are all—
crosstalk
Chris: Um, it reminded me also— Elliott: I mean--the only—
elliott
The only grave we see—the only grave we end up seeing—spoiler alert—is Gabri’s. So I guess that’s the—
chris
Eww.
crosstalk
Elliott: That’s the terrible thing about it. Stuart: Which—I need to talk about Gabri’s grave. [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Chris: Yeah. It’s—they do a pretty—not a bang-up job on that grave. Elliott: Okay. Well, we’ll get there. We’ll get there. We’ll get there.
chris
But, um—
dan
It is always, like, a pretty teenaged woman who is offered up as, like, the sacrifice so a man can go on a rampage. Like… only, like—it’s a movie—like—you—I can only think of like a movie like Ransom where it’s a boy. And in that case it’s like, also like a young boy. You don’t see a teenaged boy being the one… who is—like, and I’m just—I think it’s important to note, like, the creepiness of all this.
chris
Yeah.
dan
In addition to the racism.
chris
Well, the other—the sort of spiritual cousin of this, too, is Man on Fire, I think. Um, which also sort of played the Mexico kind of gag with—with, uh—a little white girl. I mean, okay. Not as terrible, but served the same function. Which is like, we prize our, um, nubile, virginal, uh, daughters or daughter figures. And if anyone—
crosstalk
Chris: If any brown person’s gonna get them. Stuart: It represents innocence, y’know? [Chris laughs.]
chris
Um… and, uh—
stuart
It’s like the pearly—the pearly innocence that our, uh, our grizzled heroes wish they still had.
chris
Yep. Um… and—but—actually, to your point, Dan, I think, y’know—basically, once, um… once Gabriela has—is no longer a virgin, it’s time for her to die. Right? Because there’s no way that she could possibly rebound from that. Uh, and lead a life—I mean, there’s kind of this odd scene—we’re jumping ahead in the movie—but where Rambo says, y’know, [Stallone impression] you gotta lot of living left to do. There’s all kinds of great things out—things are gonna be great. [Regular voice]
crosstalk
Chris: But essentially— Elliott: Wait a minute. Rambo—
elliott
Sylvester Stallone’s here again! [All laugh.]
chris
That was me! That was—guys, that was me.
crosstalk
Chris: That was me. Elliott: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. Stuart: Oh, wow!
chris
Um, and, uh, and essentially Gabriela just gives up on life. Because presumably, um, y’know, there’s no way you can come back from that. Y’know.
elliott
Yes.
dan
Yeah.
stuart
I assumed it was her—it was his old man’s speech that made her fall asleep and die. But— [All laugh.]
chris
What’s interesting to me—vis-à-vis these movies—and, uh, this is—I’m thinking of Man on Fire as well. But these kind of go to Mexico and kill some people things—is that… presumably shot in Mexico or maybe, uh, certainly with Mexican actors. Right? And I’m just wondering what the experience is like for these Mexican actors. Or day players or, y’know, heavies. Who are like—who are taking on these roles. Of course you’re getting paid to do what you wanna do, which is to act, and that’s great. But like… uh, how do you— [Laughs.] How do you reconcile the rampant xenophobia with this? And, uh, y’know. Because—it’s not like, um, y’know. There’s no brownface here. Right? It’s like you’re actually hiring Mexican actors to play, uh, sleazy, evil Mexicans. But actually—which also reminds me—Joaquín Cosío who—I looked up on IMDB ‘cause I’d worked with him before in this movie A Better Life. And, um… he didn’t appear to be in the movie! He was gonna play—he was playing—he was listed as Don Manuel and he’s in the credits, but did he appear in the movie at all?
crosstalk
Chris: He has a very round-face… Stuart: I’m assuming—
stuart
I’m assuming he was the—if there was a character named “Don Manuel” he would’ve been like the head of the crime thing.
chris
Yeah! I imagine so! But you only meet the evil Martinez brothers. Right?
stuart
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
elliott
Maybe it’s stuff that—maybe it’s in the foreign version and not the American version.
chris
Perhaps.
elliott
I don’t know. ‘Cause there were extra scenes. I think—but it’s—yeah. There’s a lot of, uh, I guess what we’re all saying, Dan—I think we all—and Chris—I think we all agree: this is a real icky movie and there’s a lot of real icky stuff both on-screen and behind the screen. So let’s get into it, shall we? Anyway, long story short—Rambo starts trying to track down Gabriela. Manuel is no help. There’s that Manuel, but he’s not a Don Manuel. Uh, he goes to Gisele and threatens her with a knife to take him to the club and she points out the guy who took, uh, his niece. Uh, meanwhile there’s a mysterious woman at the bar watching Rambo. Rambo, uh, gets information from the guy by literally shoving his thumb through the man’s skin so he can pull out his clavicle bone and snap it? [Dan laughs.] And— [Laughs.]
stuart
Yeah. He said—he pulls out a bone. Are you talking about one of the Bone cousins or maybe one of the Bone paperbacks?
elliott
Nope. Nope— [Dan laughs.] Not talking about— [Laughs.] You mean, like, Jeff Smith’s Bone?
stuart
Yeah. It is Phony Bone or Phone Bone?
elliott
It’s not Phone Bone, Phony Bone, or, uh—
stuart
Smiley Bone.
elliott
—Smiley Bone. Uh—
dan
The Frugal Gourmet wrote a comic book? [Stuart laughs.]
elliott
It’s a different Jeff Smith, Dan.
dan
Oh, okay.
elliott
And life was probably terrible for both of them until the Frugal Gourmet passed. Uh—so, uh, no. This is an actual bone that’s in a human body.
crosstalk
Elliott: Uh, that Rambo— Chris: He really goes to town on this guy.
chris
Maybe more than necessary? I have never in a movie—I’ve never seen… someone reach in and pull out another guy’s clavicle bone and threaten to snap it in a movie. [Multiple people laugh.]
crosstalk
Elliott: No. Stuart: It’s true. Yeah. Me neither. Elliott: But the funny this was also—
elliott
He was like—he was like, I snap this bone. And it’s like, you already pulled it out of my body, dude! [Through laughter] Like, this is pretty bad! [Multiple people laugh.] Um—he leads Rambo to a bad guy house? That’s all I can call it? Like, a thug house or a bad guy house? Some kind of chapo trap house? And, uh… Rambo gets surrounded by bad dudes. This is the scene Chris was talking about earlier. Where the Martinez brothers—the bad guys of the movie—come up and they have about fifty dudes beat up Rambo.
crosstalk
Elliott: And they slap— Stuart: They’re not, like doing anything!
stuart
They’re just all, like, hanging out. Is that—
elliott
Yeah. I mean, they’re just bad guys doing bad guy stuff!
crosstalk
Chris: Rambo really walks right into it. Elliott: Y’know. Stuart: I mean, is that—
chris
And I’m not sure whether he intends to or not? Given his proficiency in killing, the fact that he—he gets kind of—he gets sussed out so quickly and surrounded so easily seems odd to me.
crosstalk
Chris: Did it seem strange to you guys? Elliott: Now, I have a couple— Stuart: Yeah!
elliott
I have a couple explanations for this. So these are—I have a couple that—one, this is when he makes his mistake. Instead of doing what he does best—setting traps—
crosstalk
Chris: He was “soft-hearted.” Elliott: He just—
elliott
He’s so angry and he’s so soft-hearted that he just walks right in. Two, uh, I think he’s not used to being… a white guy in a foreign country who’s not a soldier or a mercenary? So he walked in expecting them to understand that he’s on a war footing? But to them he’s just some old dude and there’s fifty of them? Three, this is the scene that makes us wanna—him to kill them even more, because they’ve shamed our hero. There’s a scene in the movie The Ninth Configuration where you know that Stacy Keach is, like, a Rambo-type character. But he’s tried to hide it in himself. And he goes to a bar, and this biker gang beats him up so badly until they finally are forcing him to lick beer off of this splintery wooden floor. And the whole scene, you’re like—how much are they gonna push him until he just finally—we have the release of him killing all these bikers? And they finally do it. And that scene—that’s—this is like a much slower version of that, where it’s like—would it be satisfying for Rambo to just go in and save his niece? Of course not! He’s gotta fail! And then get revenge. And he’s gotta get—it’s gotta be a personal revenge and you’ll see that because they carve an ‘X’ into his face with a knife. And it’s like—
stuart
It’s more like a ‘V.”
crosstalk
Elliott: But it—or a ‘V.’ It’s more of a ‘V.’ Chris: Yeah. I saw it as a ‘V.’ I saw it as a ‘V.’
elliott
Oh, okay. Uh—I was watching it on iPad while I was doing the dishes. So I might’ve— [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.] —not had the clearest view of it. But uh— [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Chris: But how can you even judge this movie if you didn’t know it was a ‘V’ instead of an ‘X’? Dan: As the creators intended!
elliott
You’re right. I’m not watching it the way it was meant to be watched. Uh— [Chris laughs.] Because I didn’t pay money for it. I—it just came with Amazon Prime. Uh—
stuart
And the—and the villain explains his whole plan at this point, right? They have Rambo on the ground and he’s all beat up. It looks like he’s been stung by a bunch of bees. And he’s like— [Multiple people laugh.] You know what? I was gonna ignore her. Uh, me being a crime boss, I don’t think about the people beneath me. She’s nothing to me. Now my plan—but—what’s this plan? His plan is that like… now—I’m gonna let you live just so you know I’m doing mean stuff to this girl all the time?
crosstalk
Elliott: I’m gonna treat her— Stuart: Feels like a lot of work. Dan: Yeah. Chris: Gonna be double [inaudible].
elliott
I’m gonna treat her worse than everybody. And you’re gonna spend the rest of your life—because you would never try to attack me again—uh, because I’ve done such a good job of showing you how tough I am. You’re gonna spend the rest of your life knowing that you made things worse for her by coming and trying to save her. And… this is, I guess, an argument against anyone who says—don’t get involved, Rambo, because, uh, he has to get involved now. I don’t know.
chris
I feel like—it’s a rewrite idea. That some point, Gabriela should’ve said to him—promise me that you’ve reformed and you’re not gonna kill any more people. And he says [Stallone impression] I promise you that I will never, ever, once again to commit murder. That’s the [inaudible] anybody. [Regular voice] [Multiple people laugh.] And so then I understand why he’s just gonna cruise in. He’s like, [Stallone voice] I’m just gonna talk nicely to them. Explain that I’m Rambo and everything’ll be okay. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
[Stallone impression] I’m sure if I speak reasonably to these fellows they’ll see that they, uh, should let my niece go. The rest of the women, of course, I don’t care about. Because they’re not related to me or even the same ethnicity as me. And so I’ll forget about them, but, uh, I’m sure I can reach a, uh, a, uh, common, uh, point of reference with these men. [Regular voice] Like, yeah. It’s, uh, my Stallone is really becoming Columbo. It’s really fascinating. [Dan laughs.] Uh—the, uh—but yeah. He’s—but they don’t have that. So instead I think he’s just cocky. He’s just overconfident. And he’s outta practice. He’s been taming horses, not killing dudes! So, uh… Rambo, uh, he gets beaten up unconscious and he gets picked up by Carmen, a good-guy journalist. Uh, and she’s also got her reasons for hating these bad guys. Meanwhile, um… we just see horrible things happen to Gabriela and we don’t need to delve too deeply into those. We kinda talked about them—what basically happens. She ends up being, uh, drugged. Y’know. They force her—drugs on her and force people on her and it’s terrible. Four days later, uh, Rambo wakes up. He’s still got a little bit of a concussion. Uh— Dan laughs.] And he says, I gotta settle this score with the Martinez Brothers. And Carmen is like, okay, maybe I’ll help you. Uh… Rambo then—his—this is the first part of his plan where he just goes to a, uh, to… where Gabriela’s being held and imprisoned. With a hammer. And just kills every man he sees? [Multiple people laugh.]
crosstalk
Stuart: [Through laughter] Yeah. This is a—this is like—this is like a— Dan: [Laughs.] Yeah. Elliott: And scares all the women? It’s like—
stuart
—dumb version of You Were Never Really Here. [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Dan: Yes. Exactly. Elliott: Yeah.
elliott
And—so—and what—I still haven’t seen You Were Never Really Here yet. So like what is the difference between a movie like that and a movie like this? Like, what makes that more of a work of art than another movie about a guy who has to save a woman so he kills people?
crosstalk
Dan: Well, it shies away from—every act of violence. Stuart: That movie at no point—that movie doesn’t give you the—yeah.
stuart
It doesn’t give you any violent catharsis. You don’t actually see him really do [though laughter] anything to anybody.
elliott
Oh. So it’s kinda like Only God Forgives? Where it’s like—you know bad stuff is happening but it’s mostly Ryan Gosling just looking at stuff.
stuart
Uh, but it’s tied more deeply in with the trauma that this veteran is going through and a man who lives in a world of only violence. [Laughs.]
elliott
Okay. Okay. Uh—
chris
Yeah. It—the violence is strange in this movie. Right? It’s not sort of bledech. It’s genuinely, um, angry. Um, uh—gross. It’s very graphic. Right? Um—
crosstalk
Elliott: Yeah. It’s very— Stuart: Yeah.
elliott
—graphic and it’s almost like… there’s no… and, I mean you could see this as honesty even though it’s not? But it’s like—there’s no joy in it? There’s not even thrills in it! It’s just like—Sylvester Stallone’s gotta do a job so he’s gonna do this job. I’m just gonna walk into this room and hit that guy as hard as I can with a hammer. And then I’m gonna walk through this room and hit this guy as hard as I can as a hammer. And I kept thinking like—of a—like, in Oldboy there’s that hammer fight scene. And it’s an amazing scene.
crosstalk
Chris: It’s a joyous hammer fight! Elliott: But it’s like—it’s a joyous hammer fight! Exactly! Stuart: Yeah! It’s thrilling! Dan: Mm-hm.
elliott
But in this one it’s like—you almost get a little bit of Sly Stallone being like—I can’t believe I’m still making these movies. Alright. [Dan laughs.] Walk in. Kill someone. Walk out. And the women he’s saving are so much—seem to be so much more frightened by him. By this maniac who’s just wandering and beating someone to death with a hammer. And it’s, uh—it’s just very—but—
dan
It’s like a shooting gallery, too. Like, but a hammer gallery. Like, these guys just keep popping up. It’s like—guy. Hammer. Guy. Hammer. Guy. Hammer.
stuart
Now I have an idea for a carnival booth! [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
Well now you know what it’s like to be one of the Hammer Brothers in the Mario Bros., uh, games.
crosstalk
Dan: And now I have a— Stuart: No, no. An Italian guy just shows up and starts killing everybody? [Laughs.] Elliott: Just— [Laughs.] [Chris laughs.]
elliott
Just starts jumping on Rambo’s head, yeah.
dan
And now I have an idea for a pseudonym—Guy Hammer!
stuart
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it!
elliott
Mm. Yeah. And now, what would you do as Guy Hammer? What would that pseudonym be used for?
dan
Oh, gosh. Um… Guy Hammer, uh, international construction worker. [Laughs.] [All laugh.]
crosstalk
Elliott: [Through laughter] Okay. Glamorous. Dan: See, I’m adding a little—glamor to the [inaudible] name. Chris: Ah. We got some nails, that uh—
chris
Only you can hammer in over here in, uh, [inaudible.]
elliott
Now is it—is that you do jobs all over the world or you only use foreign-made tools? Or what makes you an international construction worker?
dan
I’m a globetrotter. I’m a globetrotter. And my motto is, uh… “When you’re Guy Hammer, everything looks like a nail.” [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
Wow. Okay. [Dan laughs.]
stuart
They’re like, we’re building this building using only the metric system! Somebody get me Guy Hammer! [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
So in France they call you “Guy” [pronouncing it “Gee” with a hard “G” and long “E”] Hammer.
dan
Yes. [Laughs.]
elliott
Right? Now, uh—is—since everything looks like a nail, that’s a pretty serious psychological problem! That’s like an Oliver Sacks-level neurological disorder.
dan
No, it’s true. But it’s better than, like, having that cartoon disease where everything looks like a turkey? [Elliott laughs.] ‘Cause I don’t try and eat everything.
elliott
That’s true. That’s fair. Because if I just saw a turkey sitting on the sidewalk, I’d immediately start eating it. Uh, whereas if I saw a person just sitting on the sidewalk I’d be like, oh, that’s a person. Uh, but if I saw any food sitting anywhere, you’d have no choice but to eat it! Even if it was driving a car.
crosstalk
Elliott: Even if it was wearing clothes. Chris: Yeah. You’d start licking your lips and chase it down the street.
elliott
Exactly!
chris
As you do with normal chickens in a restaurant. [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
Yes. [Dan laughs.]
stuart
Yeah. Elliott affixes a, uh, bib around his neck and he pulls out his cutlery that he has on him at all times.
elliott
I always have them with me and I’m used to—and when the chicken starts running away saying, “Hey! Stop!” I don’t say for a second—hold on. Let me square this with my regular frame of reference about chicken. Let me go to my schema about chicken that exists in my psychology. Do chicken usually run away and talk? They don’t. Okay. Especially fully-cooked chickens, which is what this one is. Running just on its—on those little caps that they put on top of the leg bones? Uh, in a fancy restaurant in a cartoon?
chris
But that’s because the non-chicken-recognizing part of your brain has died. I—as Oliver Sacks would have pointed out, we learn so much about neurology from things like chicken, uh, seeing disease.
elliott
Yeah. Oh, it’s a—yeah. CSD. It’s a problem but it’s also been a learning opportunity for the world. Uh, so Rambo’s just killing people with hammers. Uh, he steals Gabriela away and he’s gonna save her. The criminal brothers are real mad now and they argue with each other. Uh, on the drive home, uh, there—it’s a long truck drive back and Rambo—to try to keep Gabriela awake so that she doesn’t die, Rambo kind of monologues about what Gabriela means to him and how important she is to him and his life was so bad until the movie makes the most unforgiveable move—in my opinion—which we talked about—is that she dies. Is that… she is no good as a living person. She is only good as an object to fixate on for the purposes of bloody revenge. And—
dan
Well, and this was the moment that I was gonna mention before, that like sort of underlines how she is only a device, uh, that exists in relationship to Rambo. Um, is that like—yeah. Rambo’s monologuing about himself and about how like she gave him hope. And like, all this stuff—I mean, like—yeah, I mean, I can see someone saying that? But like, even at this moment of death like it’s like—like—you rescued me. And then like as he’s saying that she slips away.
crosstalk
Chris: Right. He’s not talking about her—her upcoming college career— Elliott: And he couldn’t— Stuart: Well the movie is not called—
chris
—and prospects for life. He’s really just talking about his own trauma and how—when she was in third grade—she won six prizes in one day.
stuart
Yeah. It’s not—the movie’s not called, uh, Gabriela: No Blood. [Multiple people laugh.]
chris
Well, good point. We can’t expect her to survive.
elliott
That’s very fair. And although—there’s part of me that did want to see Rambo trying to relate to a teen girl on her level. I mean, like, [Stallone impression] oh, you got so many TikToks to look at and, uh, I have Billie Eilish’s! Her second album! [Chris laughs.] I know you’re looking forward to that! [Laughs.] [Regular voice] Like, just trying—just desperately trying to connect. [Stallone voice] Uh, what’s—uh, is Degrassi a show that young people are still watching? Or—
stuart
Well there’s a point where the grandma is complaining about the music that the teeangers are playing and she’s like, oh, what terrible music! And he’s like, [Stallone impression] I could get used to it. [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.] And I’m like, wow, that’s better than I would say! [Dan laughs.]
elliott
[Stallone voice] Uh, guys, I was listening to, uh, I was listening to the conversation again and I had to bump, uh, Elliott off again. Just to—uh—I didn’t bump him off the way that I normally bump people off! He’s still alive. I just tied him up and, uh, he’s blindfolded so he doesn’t know I’m here. He’s got—I put earplugs in his ears. [Multiple people laugh.] Now—something I should tell you about—I was doing some research on my own movie, because as you know my memories are horribly unreliable. Like, for instance, the other day, uh, my brother Frank, we were having brunch. I like to go to brunch. It was—again—it was a Zoom brunch ‘cause, uh, again, at these times you can’t go places but—
crosstalk
Stuart: Okay. Cool. Checks out. Elliott: I made—
elliott
I tried to make home fries and they just weren’t as good as the restaurant. Let me tell you that. But you gotta try these things! Y’know? So anyway.
dan
Yeah. That’s weird, ‘cause they’re called home fries but the restaurant version is so much better.
stuart
Yeah.
elliott
Dan, truer words were never spoken! It’s like how you drive on a parkway— [Dan laughs.] —but you shoot people in the driveways! [Laughs.] Now, uh, so—and I would talk—Frank was like, hey, Sly, you remember when you were in that movie, uh, Rhinestone? And I was like, I was never in such a film with that title. Sir. And he kept reminding me and then I looked up in my, uh, my library of bound screenplays of all the movies that I’ve been in and there ya go! There it was! The screenplay for Rhinestone and I read it and you know what? I had a few laughs! Anyway. The important thing is— [Stuart laughs.] I was doing some research on this movie and uh, I realized there was a earlier version of this movie that was called Ramba. Where I died in this scene and then she took on my name but a girl version of it so it was “Ramba” instead of “Rambo.” And then she got revenge and I don’t know why we didn’t do that ‘cause it meant I coulda slept through the rest of the movie! I coulda, y’know—‘cause they don’t—she—no, she didn’t really die. The actress just kinda went to sleep and then we didn’t wake her up. [Chris laughs.] [Laughs.] So—y’know. ‘Cause she was so tired from the other scenes. So we just kinda let her sleep! In the car! And, uh, it was kinda funny. She woke up in teht ruck and we had all gone home and she was like—what happened? She called me. She’s got my number. I’m that kind of guy. I’m just handing my number out to people ‘cause I’m a real friend! Y’know? I love to be personable! And—y’know. There’s no barrier between me and them! Why should there be? I could snap their neck if I wanted to! Anyway. The— [Multiple people laugh.] Y’know, I don’t have anything to worry about. She called me and she was like, Sly, I’m still in this truck! I just woke up! We were like, ohhh, you looked so sweet just sleeping there that we didn’t want to wake you up! And we wrote the rest of the movie around you dying in that moment rather than just falling asleep. And she’s like—but I wanted to be the vigilante! I was gonna take over! No, no, no. You fell asleep during this scene so it’s fine. I know you were tired. So I’m just gonna do the rest of it. Uh— [Stuart laughs.] So—so there was a version of the movie—originally—I died, but—she kinda brought it on herself that, uh, y’know. I—that I had to shoot the rest of the movie. Uh, and it just became Rambo: Last Blood. So it’s kind of fascinating how many different versions of the movie there were! That we went through while we were making it! Y’know, but that happens sometimes. Y’know, when they were make—
stuart
I mean, it’s not that fascinating. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
No.
elliott
It’s—I—I mean, it’s, uh, it’s kind of an insulting way to put it Stu, but, uh— [Multiple people laugh.] Okay. I get your point.
stuart
Oh wow! You just called me “Stu!”
crosstalk
Stuart: I didn’t realize you even knew who I was, Rambo! Elliott: Yeah. That’s, uh—
elliott
Uh, no, well, I—no. I called you that because I’m gonna kill ya and I’m gonna bake a stew out of ya. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.] For what you said to me!
stuart
Yeah. [Laughs.] Yup!
elliott
As soon as I find out where you live!
dan
Also, Stuart called you “Rambo.” [Multiple people laugh.] He called you by your character name. So that’s—
elliott
I do the same thing. I sometimes call myself “Rambo.” I’ve called myself “Oscar,” which is not even my character in that movie. I called myself “Rhinestone” after I found out I was in a movie called Rhinestone. ‘Cause until I read the script I assumed I was like a police detective named, like, Sal Rhinestone. Who’s like always trying to stop drug dealers or maybe like a kidnapper who wants to assassinate the president or something. But no, it turned out I was something with country music. I don’t know. I read it yesterday and I forgot about it already. The point is—I’m gonna kill ya, Stu. [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
[Through laughter] Okay.
chris
Wow.
stuart
Wow. Well, I’m glad that we’re doing this digitally instead of over, uh, instead of in person!
elliott
No, no. I can still getcha ‘cause I’ve been taking virtuosity lessons? [Stuart laughs.] And, uh, now— [Laughs.] And now I can travel through the internet so I better get to it. Going with that.
dan
You know, Stallone, I do have one question. Are you drawn to characters specifically with “R” names? ‘Cause you got Rocky, you got Rambo, and you’ve got—of course—Ray Tango.
crosstalk
Dan: Everyone’s favorite. Favorite. Elliott: I’ll answer—I’ll answer both of those questions.
elliott
One, I’m not drawn. I’m live-action, but thank you. [Multiple people laugh.] I consider myself kind of an animated person! [Laughs.] With a lot of energy so I’ll take that as a compliment. Uh, two—uh, yes. “R” is just—I consider it a power letter?
dan
Okay.
elliott
Uh, and, y’know, that’s why Rambo; Rocky; Ray; uh, Ray. the movie about Ray Charles which I auditioned for but did not get the part. I unsuccessfully pushed for that one. Uh, yeah! Other movies that are—Oscar ends with an “r,” and of course, let’s not forget, uh, I was in Spy Kids 3D and there’s an “r” in “three”! So, y’know— [Multiple people laugh.] All— [Laughs.] There’s an “r” connection to all the movies that I’ve been in. [Laughs.] Judge D-rrr-ed! Yeah.
dan
He’s staying for the fans.
stuart
Yeah. Stop o”r” my mom’ll shoot. [Laughs.]
elliott
Yep. I mean, that’s one way to pronounce it! Sure! [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
crosstalk
Dan: Okay. Lookit Chris’s face. He— [Laughs.] Elliott: But that’s—
crosstalk
Chris: No, no, no, no, no. I was thinking about— [Laughs.] Dan: He’s gone from being delighted by this podcast—to rueing that he agreed to be on. Chris: I was thinking of—of, uh— [Multiple people laugh.]
chris
—jumping in with Cob”r”a, of course. There’s an “r” in that.
elliott
Yeah, yeah! The movie where I was one half of a bra. Yeah. [Multiple people laugh.] And the other half was, uh, I believe, um… who was it? Uh, wasn’t Elias Koteas. Wasn’t James Woods. Wasn’t… Ray Milland. It was, uh— [Multiple people laugh.] It was—
chris
Rosey Grier.
elliott
It was Rosey Grier! Thank you. Yes. Yeah. It was Rosey Grier and me were—mad scientist turned us into a bra. It was one of the crazier movies! [Dan laughs.] It was earlier in my career. Anyway, I should go and so you can finish—I assume—talking about how great the movie is! Gotta go! Bye!
crosstalk
Elliott: [Regular voice] Oh, man, guys. Chris: You never know when he’s gonna show up! Stuart: Oh, there’s Elliott!
elliott
Oh. Some—um, some kind of masked figure came in and tied me up and I’m glad he let me go ‘cause my throat was starting to hurt! [Chris laughs.] So anyway. [Laughs.] Um—uh—
chris
Actually, I think it would’ve been—to what Stallone said—you didn’t hear it, Elliott, but it would’ve been great if Rambo and his niece killed all the guys. Right? ‘Cause then she could’ve actually enacted some kind of revenge on her own part. But no.
elliott
Oh yeah. No, no.
crosstalk
Elliott: That’s not a—no. Stuart: Yeah. It woulda been—
stuart
—uh, y’know, like a human being who has gone through some trauma and like working through it and… seeing how that affects that person. I don’t know. Similar to a movie called… First Blood. [Multiple people laugh.]
chris
Oh, yeah.
dan
Yeah.
elliott
Um, so he—he buries her. Stuart, you had something you wanted to say about her grave?
stuart
Well, what I—I have a lot of questions. One is that like… they seem—the grave is covered—the headstone is a simple cross, but it’s covered in like… like, scrawl from I’m assuming her classmates? Like it was like a cast? Like— [Multiple people laugh.] —a plaster cast from a broken arm? And so does that mean they had a funeral? And if they had a funeral, what did they tell everybody? And did they tell the police? Like, what—how—how did—how did they get her body from the truck into the ground with a headstone [though laughter] on it? Guys.
elliott
I mean, I mean, maybe he just always has a headstone ready for everybody he knows in case they die and he has to get revenge on them? And he just pulls it out of his tunnels? He’s got a lot of storage space!
stuart
And all the notes were notes that he wrote? [Laughs.] To like—
crosstalk
Stuart: Make it seem like she had a bunch of friends? Elliott: Yeah. He—he got it—
elliott
He wanted her ghost to think that she was more popular than she was. So he like got into the character of a bunch of teens and he probably dressed up like them? To really get into their personalities? And he was like, yeah! See ya! Have a great summer! And stuff like that. Y’know. Uh, y’know. Uh, BBFF! Which is best buddy friends forever.
stuart
Oh, cool. Okay.
elliott
And uh, yeah. It’s—I assume that—I assume it was all him. Play-acting different teen parts.
stuart
Okay! Well that answered my question, guys. No—there’s no, uh, no plot holes in this movie! [Laughs.]
elliott
Uh, Rambo does the most healthy thing, which is he takes all of her pictures off the wall and puts them in a crate. And then— [Multiple people laugh.] Uh, says—says to the older woman—you leave. I guess I’ll go back to being a drifter now.
crosstalk
Elliott: Uh, and it’s like— Chris: Well he kicks her out, basically!
chris
You find out later why, because he’s gonna murder a thousand people. But um… uh… he says [Stallone impression] There’s nothing here for you. There’s nothing here for me. [Regular voice] And he—so he—I—he tells her the… the false cover story that he’s going to wander the earth, basically.
elliott
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Righting wrongs and, uh, possibly… taming horses. Somewhere. Uh, at first I wasn’t sure that it was a ploy? And so he just hung around his house? And I was like, well that was a mean way to get rid of a roommate that I guess you’re tired of? But, uh—he—
dan
I was confused by that. Yes.
elliott
It’s time—look. Sylvester—look. Sylvester—Rambo? This whole movie he’s been doing things that don’t come naturally to him. Riding horses. Going to Mexico. Having a family? Now it’s time for him to do what he does best—make weapons and traps. That’s right! It’s a montage of him prepping his farm and his tunnels with lots of defenses. And you know he’s serious ‘cause he makes a new bow and arrow and a new knife. Which is like—that’s how you know he’s flipping the switch. Y’know. And getting back into Killer Rambo mode. Uh, he goes back to Mexico and he asks the reporter to help him. But I don’t know how she helps him, because he just… goes to one of the Martinez brother’s house and kills everybody there. And… cuts off the brother’s head. And leaves a picture of Gabriela there.
dan
I just love, uh… how he… disposes of this head. By like—we see him driving back to America and he like, puts it out the window and drops it. And I’m like—how long has he been Alfredo Garcia-ing this?
crosstalk
Dan: That he just like— Elliott: That he’s just talking to him? [Laughs.]
dan
Yeah. He like took the head. He’s like, okay. I gotta make it really dramatic. Like, why not just leave the head there? But he— [Laughs.] He’s like, nope. Y’know, I gotta do this for the unseen camera. Take it with me and then I’ll throw it out the window.
elliott
He had just seen Hereditary and he was like—I wanna reenact that head on the side of the road.
crosstalk
Elliott: So that’s what I’ll do. Stuart: Spoilies. Spoilies.
elliott
Oh, spoiler alert! Uh… I assume that, uh, he—y’know… during the… he took the head and he’s like, I’ll just throw this into the—on the ground. And then he realized he’d never had a friend? And—
crosstalk
Dan: Oh, okay. Stuart: Ohhhh. Okay. Chris: Mm-hm.
elliott
So he just started talking—it was like Wilson in Castaway? Like, he’s like, oh, finally, this is my friend! But on the drive back, uh, the head—
crosstalk
Elliott: —wanted to change the—yeah. Chris: They get into a fight. Yeah.
elliott
Exactly. Wanted to change the radio station or maybe he like said something mean about Rambo’s car, and Rambo was like, [Stallone voice] Forget you! I don’t need a head for a friend! [Regular voice] And threw him out. Y’know.
stuart
I assume that he… y’know, it wasn’t until that he had already started driving that he’s like—what—I took the head?! Ugh. Okay. Well— [Multiple people laugh.] When I pass— [Laughs.] He’s like, when I pass a garbage can I’ll throw it out. But like he keeps driving; there’s no garbage cans! [Elliott laughs.]
chris
He’s like, oghh! Rambo, you’re so absent-minded!
crosstalk
Elliott: Yes. Like— Stuart: And he’s like, is this—
stuart
—is—and then he’s like in his car. He’s like, googling, like, “is a human head like—” [Chris laughs.] “—will it, like, y’know, uh, decompose—like, whatever. Will it, uh—”
elliott
“How fast decompose?” I mean, also—he’s already driving without a license ‘cause the bad guys took his driver’s license earlier in the movie. So texting while driving is just another one of the crimes. And it’s—it—I guess it shows how desensitized I am to, uh, violence in movies that after I watched it I was like—he did a lot of driving without a license in this movie! That’s not okay! [Stuart laughs.]
dan
But this moment is so superfluous. I wish they [though laughter] had just gone further with it and like he tossed it out of the window and goes—[Stallone voice] That’s no way to get ahead. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.] I wish someone was here to hear me say that!
elliott
There’s a car driving the other way and it’s a family going down to Mexico on vacation and the kids in the back are fighting? And the dad’s like—so help me, I’ll turn this car around! And then a head lands on the hood? And they go, ahhhh! And he does turn the car around and they drive back? [Multiple people laugh.]
chris
Or they could be playing, um… uh, highway bingo. Uh, and “decapitated head.” [Multiple people laugh.] Finishes the game.
elliott
[Laughs.] Every space in the card is marked except for “decapitated head.” And they’re like— [Chris laughs.] Oh man, I’ll never win this game! [Multiple people laugh.] And then the head lands on the hood and the kid goes, jackpot! And—
stuart
Yeah. He goes—he goes—he looks up and he says, thank you, God! Like in Animal House. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
But he—he, uh, he punches his sister and goes, “Punch! Head!” And, uh, y’know. Like car games, y’know? Anyway. Uh—
stuart
So he’s baited the trap. He has, uh—
crosstalk
Elliott: He’s baited the trap and I guess— Chris: I guess he leaves his address? Well, and he stab— Elliott: Well they have—they have his—
elliott
They have his driver’s license.
chris
Oh, of course. Of course. Of course.
elliott
So probably off-camera is the scene where they go to their tech guy and he looks up to see if that’s still where Rambo is registered at for voting or tax purposes—
crosstalk
Elliott: —to make sure he hasn’t moved. Chris: We need you to extract an address from this drivers license. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
He’s like, okay, but it’s gonna take time! [Laughs.]
dan
Computer—enhance! [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
He goes, “Computer, enhance!” And then he just holds it closer to his face. [Laughs.]
dan
[Through laughter] Yep.
elliott
Um… so they—he—Rambo knows there’s an army of goons that’s gonna be heading his way. They do. And it—this is—comes up to… I feel like, maybe the most perfunctory defending-your-house-under-siege scene I’ve ever seen. Because Rambo is just… destroying these guys. And his traps are just destroying them! And it’s lucky for the remaining Martinez brother that he brought as many guys as he did! Because if he didn’t, Rambo wouldn’t get to use all his traps! Like, I’m sure—
chris
That is the thing. Is like, every single—what—if he—if he missed out on one of the traps killing somebody, would he have to maneuver someone around very carefully to use that trap? Is the question.
elliott
And they’re just set—and meanwhile, Rambo is tunneling underground and popping up every now and then like Bugs Bunny. [Chris laughs.] And shooting people and going back underground. And it’s like—there’s no—and—I—while watching I’m like, oh, there’s no suspense in this scene. But then I was like, oh, it’s not supposed to have suspense. It’s just the—it’s the visceral catharsis of watching people who are not like you murdered and blown up and having rakes in their faces. And around the fiftieth guy getting killed? I was like… are they gonna introduce any new traps? [Through laughter] Or is it just gonna be the same traps over and over again?
dan
This is like—this is the point in the movie where you’re like, okay. There’s like… like, 25 minutes left and you’re like, okay! This is what the whole movie—this is the whole point of the movie. Like, this movie exists for this last 25 minutes. And you have to like, sit through all the ugly, unpleasant shit. To like set up the reason why this—this crazy, like, ending where everyone gets rakes in the face is happening.
crosstalk
Dan: And the thing is—if you’re, like— Stuart: That was my same review for Home Alone, by the way. [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Well, and if you’re like me and you’re totally desensitized toward violence and like, y’know, can just view it as like—okay. This is like, a fun house, like, Hollywood thing? Like, let’s see how they kill this guy! Like, I could see getting like… visceral thrills from just like, okay, well this is like the—yeah. As Stuart says, the ultra-violent Home Alone? But… goddamn. I do not recommend anyone wade through the sewer to get to [though laughter] this point.
elliott
Well, the crazy thing about this point, too, is it is edited like the super-cut of “Best Rambo Kills” that you would see on YouTube? Like, you’d see a YouTube video that’s like, “Rambo: Last Blood—Best Kills!" And it's just like, rake to the face. Blown up. Shot in the head. Napalm in his body. And like, uh, an alligator goes up his butt. Then like a piranha jumps through his neck and another rake to the face. And then like buz01:11:49zsaw through the crotch. Just cut after cut after cut—it’s really crazy.
guest
He does, uh, some very Rube Goldberg-esque ways of killing people, too. Where it’s like, it’s just not efficient. He drills a hole— [Elliott laughs.] —in a wall so that he can poke somebody with a metal spike. [Multiple people laugh.] Whereas—
elliott
It’s like, good thing this guy walked exactly where I needed to! Needed him to so I could cut his Achilles tendon. [Laughs.]
stuart
Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Laughs.] Yeah. The guy’s like—what the hell’s with that hole? Oh, no! [Dan laughs.] The, uh—and the thing is that the—the—my—my favorite—my favorite Rambo kill. I mean, I think it’s the one that is most often the highlight of those highlight cuts. Is, of course, in Rambo when he covers himself with mud and a guy walks by and then he opens his eyes and you’re like—Rambo’s behind him the whole time! And they didn’t do that. and I’m like… Rambo could easily look like a mud wall. Like— [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.] Like I’m surprised he didn’t get to do that again.
crosstalk
Dan: ‘Cause that’s like my favorite. Chris: It’s true. He’s so craggy!
chris
He could basically have backed up into a rock wall and you wouldn’t notice. He wouldn’t have to put any kind of camouflage on him.
elliott
That’d be a funny scene, if he takes off all his clothes so that he’s naked and he just stands against a wall— [Multiple people laugh.] —and it looks like he’s made out of craggy rocks. [Laughs.] The thing about that mud kill that makes it less cool is just imagining him waiting there, hoping a guy walks by? [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
[Through laughter] Yeah! That’s the best part!
crosstalk
Dan: Well and it’s like that scene— Elliott: It’s like, I wanna feel— Chris: Be very [inaudible].
dan
—in, like, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [though laughter] where all those, like, people are like—in the mud on the wall just waiting for Mutt Williams and Indy to show up. [Laughs.]
elliott
That they’ve been waiting for hundreds of years for somebody to come by so they can attack them. He, uh, it is… it’s just like, kill after kill. And it reaches like a 1980s level of… murder excess? And I will say—if the preceding movie had not been so ugly and so, like… horrible. Then I might’ve enjoyed this just because it’s so goofy. And there’s a moment where Rambo starts blasting The Doors over the loudspeakers? Underneath? And it’s like—oh! This became the thing that Bloodshot—the movie we were talking about in the last episode—was parodying when it had the guy dancing to “Psycho Killer.” And then—and killing, uh, Vin Diesel’s wife. Like, that he’s like—and also—The Doors’ song is all about how, like, the old are gonna die and the young’ll take over the earth while this very old man [though laughter] is killing all these younger guys? It’s like—
dan
He’s, like, 72 when this was made! Right? 72? Like—
elliott
1972. Yeah.
dan
Yeah.
elliott
No, this, he is, uh—he said probably—I think about 15 years ago he said he was too old to play Rambo anymore. And I guess he decided… uh, he wasn’t. But—
dan
I mean, he still looks [though laughter] terrifying. I don’t—
elliott
Yeah. Uh, and Rambo gets shot, but it’s fine. He can absorb bullets like nobody’s business. He lets, uh—
stuart
It’s fine because there’s ultimately no stakes at this point. We’re like—we’re like, well, if Rambo dies he’s at least doing what he fucking loves. [Multiple people laugh.] He’s murdering dudes.
chris
Well, but it’s important that he literally tear out the heart of his enemy.
stuart
Oh, right.
crosstalk
Dan: Oh shit! Fuck. Ya gotta get there! [Laughs.] Elliott: Oh yeah. He said—yeah.
elliott
He said he wants the Martinez brothers to know what it feels like—to know his grief and his anger. To know what it’s like to have his heart torn out. So he leads the last—he says, “I saved you for last!” The last bad guy. And, uh, chases him into a barn. And—he traps him in a barn. And Rambo shoots his arms and legs full of arrows that go so far through his body that they pin him to the wall of the barn. And then he walks up to him—
crosstalk
Elliott: —with this huge— Stuart: I mean, English longbowmen—
stuart
—could put an arrow through a tree, Elliott. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
That’s true! And Rambo? We know he’s good with bows and arrows. Like, that’s—it’s not—
crosstalk
Elliott: It’s not like this is a new thing. Dan: And, y’know—
dan
Bow and arrow technology has advanced since then, too, so. There ya go.
elliott
Since the era of the English longbowmen?
crosstalk
Elliott: Yeah. That’s true. Dan: Yeah. That’s not—
dan
That’s not a—that’s not a goof, Elliott. It what I’m saying. Don’t go onto IMDB— [Chris laughs.]
crosstalk
Dan: —[inaudible]. Elliott: Fair point. Fair point.
elliott
It’s just earlier we saw him shoot arrows through playing cards— [Dan laughs.] - —and that—and it’s like—uh, is the human body the same thinness as the playing cards? Or— [Dan laughs.] But it makes me wish this was about Rambo getting trapped in a Home Depot? And like having to use the stuff that was there—like, a staple gun and things like that? To try to stop people? And they could’ve called it—either Home Rambo or Rambo Depot or Home Rambo-pot? Maybe Home Rambo-pot. [Multiple people laugh.] And uh—
dan
They’ll get confused with Tampopo, Elliott. [Laughs.]
elliott
Yeah. That’s—oh. What a—what a great—
crosstalk
Elliott: Great double-picture. Tampopo and Ram— Chris: Rambo-pot is when he—
chris
—uses noodles to kill people. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
[Through laughter] That would be amazing! Yeah!
crosstalk
Dan: Like, he strangles them? [Laughs.] Elliott: Rambo—
elliott
He’s—he just—he wants to teach this woman how to make the best ramen but it—he’s just killing everybody who comes in! Ugh. Man. [Chris laughs.] What a great movie. Tampopo. [Laughs.] So—
stuart
So he—uh—so he chops this dude’s heart out and he like holds it in front of him and we’re like—
dan
Well, no, no, no. Okay. Let’s not gloss—c’mon, Stuart. You’re not giving this moment—
crosstalk
Dan: —the gravity it deserves. He stabbed him—he stabbed the knife in— Chris: Yeah. C’mon. You need the foreplay before that. Elliott: Yeah. He walks up to him. He takes a while walking up to him with the knife, too. Dan: Yeah. Chris: He explains— Elliott: And then he stabs him. Chris: He explains that—
chris
—metahporically the guy had torn out his heart, so literally he’s gonna tear out his heart, which is a bit…
stuart
So he can appreciate this. [Laughs.]
dan
He makes this L-shaped cut in the, uh, the guy’s chest. Reaches in, yanks out the heart—which is still beating—showing it to him. And like this is the one moment of actual enjoyment [though laughter] I got out of Rambo: Last Blood. [Elliott laughs.] ‘Cause I was like—
crosstalk
Dan: Is he gonna do it? Chris: [Inaudible] around it.
dan
Is he gonna do it? Holy shit! He [though laughter] did it!
elliott
And you’re waiting for him to take a bite out of that heart. But unfortunately he doesn’t. But.
chris
He thinks about it. But—and—also—[sighs.] There’s a problem with the villain inasmuch as he has nothing interesting to say at that point. Y’know. You want some kind of… um, rhetorical flourish from the villain to justify the intensity of tearing out his heart. But all he says is fuck you, basically.
elliott
Yeah. He’s such a generic, faceless—almost nameless—villain that it’s like— And—yeah. You want—like, if this is—probably gonna be the last Rambo movie. I hate to break it to you guys. Uh, but you kinda want him—not that Rambo—the movies have ever been known for their like… necessarily their amazing bad guys?
crosstalk
Chris: Or dialogue. Elliott: But you want someone—
elliott
—who—or dialogue. I mean, Rambo—is it—it’s the second Rambo, right? Where he gets to say—she asks, what does “expendable” mean? And he goes—uh, it’s like, y’know, you’re invited to a party and you don’t show up and no one cares. And I’ve always loved that line? But uh—
stuart
Uh, and there’s the line where he’s like—who are you? Your worst nightmare. I mean, that shit’s golden.
elliott
Yeah. Exactly. But uh, there’s not a lot of good [though laughter] conversations, I guess. [Dan laughs.] In the Rambos. But you do want something from him, but instead it’s just like—you might as well have Rambo say to him—[Stallone voice] Hey, listen. I’m sorry you had to be the bad guy that I acted out the last of my war trauma on. But, uh, this could be particularly bad for you! Um, and Ram—
stuart
Now, wait. Which Rambo movie was it where Rambo had to go and he had to rescue Stanley Spadowski from the thing? And then they climbed onto the thing and they kept shooting guys and Rambo is played by Weird Al?
elliott
Oh, you’re thinking of UHF. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
[Through laughter] Oh, okay. [Laughs.]
elliott
Yeah. Yeah. The uh—so—uh… Rambo—this is the more—in another movie, where Rambo, he climbs onto his porch. And he has a voiceover about how all his life he’s only known death and everyone he knows is gone. And the way this movie should end is that Rambo—should end that Rambo dies.
dan
Yeah.
crosstalk
Chris: Which—yeah. I expected that. But no. Elliott: But instead, his—
elliott
In his voiceover he goes, “But I guess I’ll defend their memories forever.” I’m just like, oh, okay. So are you gonna keep going? And it’s like— [Laughs.] Rambo’s like, my life is terrible. Everyone I’ve known has died. I’m just a harbinger of death. Well, tomorrow’s another day! [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.] Like, no sleep for the wicked, I guess!
chris
His body has absorbed the bullets he’s been pierced with as well. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
Oh, by this point his body has been shot so many times that he knows how to turn that into nutrients. Yeah. [Laughs.]
stuart
Well, and like—when he says he’s gonna defend their memories forever, I’d like to see him on that like chair on his laptop? Like, writing their story! [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
The next scene—it then cuts to—it’s like the end of Born on the Fourth of July—it cuts to him at a signing for his bestselling book about his experiences. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
And then over the credits, we get, uh, like, shots [though laughter] from the past, uh, uh, three Rambo movies?
elliott
It’s mostly scenes from First Blood. And then—and they show a couple shots from the other ones.
dan
Well, they cover it all. But it’s just a hilarious way—like… don’t get me wrong. This is by far the part of the movie [though laughter] that I enjoyed the most? Just seeing like, shots from old Rambo movies? [Elliott laughs.] But at the same time, it is such a wacky way to end this movie? ‘Cause it’s just like—Rambo’s not a heartwarming character. So it’s kinda like, remember all these [though laughter] fun times we had with Rambo?
chris
It’s all images of him [though laughter] killing people. And being angry.
elliott
I thought it was especially weird that they played “You Got A Friend In Me” over it. [Chris laughs.] That was the strange part. [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
Yeah. You’re like—look at how young, uh, Sylvester Stallone is! Wow, look how yoked he is, guys! [Elliott laughs.]
dan
Yeah.
stuart
Look at those traps!
elliott
So, uh—Rambo: Last Blood is very much, I would say, the least of these movies. And like, here’s the thing about the Rambo movies. Except for the first one? I think when all of them came out they were considered trash and kind of time has allowed us to view them semi-ironically? In a way that makes them more fun? But I don’t know that this one is gonna go through that process. It’s just so… gross.
dan
No. And that leads us into final judgments. Uh, where we make our final judgments on movies, uh, that we watch. And whether they are a good-bad movie, a bad-bad movie, or a movie we kinda liked. I will say that this is a bad-bad movie. It is—it has an ugly black heart, uh, it loves to put its, uh, characters through unpleasantness, uh, just ‘cause it can. And I did not enjoy it. [Laughs.]
stuart
So—watching this movie put me in mind of a scene in Rambo III, where Rambo gets shot and the bullet goes all the way through him. So the only way he can cauterize the wound—the only way he can handle this trauma—is by filling that wound with gunpowder and then lighting it on fire. [Multiple people laugh.] And that’s kinda what going through watching this movie felt like to me. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
Yeah. It’s a bad-bad movie. Uh, Stuart, I assume you’re saying it’s a movie you kinda liked then?
stuart
[Through laughter] Oh, yeah. No. It’s a bad-bad movie.
elliott
It’s—and Chris, uh, I want to apologize on behalf of The Flop House— [Chris laughs.] —for making you watch this particular one. I knew this movie was like… uh, I had heard a lot about its racism. But I did not know—I didn’t know ahead of time about its just… uh… grimness? And disgustingness? In terms of the way it handles the characters. So I guess we’ll have to save a fun one for you next time.
crosstalk
Elliott: Uh, like, uh— Chris: Well, listen. Uh—
chris
A plot twist. I loved it.
crosstalk
Elliott: What?! Dan: No! No! Stuart: [Through laughter] Why? [Multiple people laugh.] Chris: I—I think— Stuart: Just for the politics?
chris
Uh, you know, uh—sometimes you guys are just too hard on movies! Y’know? Like, uh— [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
You’re right. We really shoulda checked our brain at the door.
crosstalk
Elliott: Just let it— Chris: I wanna really think about—
chris
—what the intentions of the director—looks it up. Can’t find it. Uh… [Elliott laughs.] German guy, I think? Uh—
elliott
Uh, Adrian Grunberg.
dan
He had, like, one other credit?
elliott
Well he was, uh, he directed the movie Get the Gringo. So the guy has a great relationship with movies set in Mexico. [Laughs.]
chris
Mexico. He really—yeah. He’s the guy you go to for cultural relevance.
elliott
But uh, he’s, uh, he’s been—this was his second movie as director. He was an assistant director.
chris
Sophomore slaughter, I call it.
elliott
Yeah. Yeah. It was—I was really—I was disappointed if only ‘cause I expect a certain level of like… bigness—
stuart
Thrills?
elliott
—from Rambo movies.
stuart
Yeah. Yeah.
elliott
And this was such a—part of it was that it was such a—like, small movie. And really like… just unpleasant. And, y’know. But what are you gonna do? They don’t—the world’s not safe for Rambos anymore. Y’know.
stuart
I mean, would you say, like, this movie felt so much like a Western. I don’t know if I would consider it—like—do you feel that a lot of the other Rambo movies are Westerns? Like, that kind of a… like, a lone hero…
elliott
Yes. They’re definitely—they are kind of Westerns in the clothing of war movies? ‘Cause it’s almost always about a hero going in—a lone hero going in to like save some people? And—of—except for the first one. The first one is a, uh, is a, like, kind of vigilante slasher movie almost. In the clothes of a ‘70s character drama. But it’s—this is very much—like, this movie wants to be Unforgiven really badly. And it’s—even to the point of—every time he was standing over that grave, I was like, oh yeah. ‘Cause in Unforgiven he stands at a grave. And it’s just not Unforgiven ‘cause Unforgiven, I think, is aware of how tawdry the things it’s covering are? And the whole point of Unforgiven is like… this is the kind of stuff that usually in movies we treat heroically, but it’s kinda gross and bleak here. And in this one it was like—the world’s a terrible place. [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Elliott: And it takes a bad man to set things right. Dan: Yeah. We need Rambos on that wall protecting us! [Stuart laughs.]
elliott
Yeah. Oh, boy. So I can’t wait for—so—but I kinda want them to do one called, like, Space Rambo. Where he gets frozen and thawed—I mean, I guess that’s Demolition Man to a certain extent. But.
dan
Rambo X!
elliott
Rambo X. Where—the one where, uh, he… is playing Malcolm X? That seems like— [Chris laughs.] —very tasteless casting. Very—
crosstalk
Dan: That is not what I was referencing. Stuart: Yeah, Dan. I don’t know why you’d suggest that! Elliott: —inappropriate. [Chris laughs.]
dan
Not what I was referencing.
elliott
I don’t know why you’d ever compare the two!
chris
Rambo vs Jason. You could see him, actually, in the pantheon of horror, um, icons.
elliott
Oh, yeah. Oh, he’s much more of a—
crosstalk
Elliott: I mean— Stuart: Body count alone!
elliott
He’s—it is a—he is like the slasher who’s the good guy. And he just exists to kill but he’s—happens to be the good guy. But like, just the fact that he’s, y’know… more of a cartoon than a character. Like, he’s more of a Freddy Krueger or a Jason than he is, like, um… like, a John Wayne. Y’know. Again, John Wayne’s not a character. He’s a person. But you know what I mean. Right, Stu?
stuart
Oh yeah. I know.
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dan
The Flop House is sponsored in part… by Squarespace! Hey. Why not use Squarespace [though laughter] if you wanna make a website, guys? [Multiple people laugh.] You can use Squarespace to, uh, blog or publish content. Sell products and services of all kinds, and much, much more! And Squarespace helps you do this by offering you beautiful customizable templates created by world-class designers. Everything optimized for mobile right out of the box. A new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions. Free and secure hosting. Head to… Squarespace.com/flop for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use the offer code “FLOP” to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
elliott
Hey, Dan, I had an idea for a website and I was wondering if Squarespace might be able to help me with it.
dan
I—they haven’t let us down yet! But, uh—
crosstalk
Dan: Pitch it to me. Elliott: That’s true. I’ve done—
elliott
I’ve mail—so this is—uh, I was kind of inspired by the movie. And, y’know, I moved into a new house last year and we’ve got kind of a rat problem when we first got here. And I was like—if only there was a service where I could sign up online and they could set up Rambo-style traps around my house to catch these rats! And so—it doesn’t exist so I’m just gonna have to make it! And so, uh, I wanted to register the domain RatboRambo—Rambo—RatboBrandRamboStyleRatTraps.com. And at RatboBrandRamboStyleRatTraps, we take the, uh, intensity and the killing ability that only a, uh, traumatized Vietnam vet has, and use it to rid your home of vermin! So we’ve got little spring-loaded rakes that stab rats in the head. [Multiple people laugh.] We’ve got like tiny little thermite bombs that blow rats up, Uh, we have a little man who runs around with a pump-action shotgun and just blows the head off of rats. And so people—but people need to sign up through the website. I used—I—
crosstalk
Elliott: I was trying to do this just through bus ads and it wasn’t working. Stuart: I mean—I mean, Elliott, do you think—
stuart
Elliott, do you think you’re gonna have some trouble with—y’know, uh, people who would prefer—I don’t know. Say, like, a nonviolent means of ridding their house of, uh, vermin? [Laughs.]
elliott
I believe that that is not our market. I think there’s an untapped market there for people who want a very violent means of ridding their house of vermin. And so RatboBrandRamboStyleRatTraps.com is your place to either buy these traps and install them yourself—which I would not recommend at all— [Multiple people laugh.] Uh, or to buy the traps and then also hire one of our Ratbo Brand Rambo-Style Rat Traps Specialists to set these traps up around your house! And just listen to some of these testimonies from satisfied Ratbo Brand Rambo-Style Rat Trap customers. Okay. Here’s just one from a satisfied customer. [Stallone voice] Uh, yeah. I, uh, I had some rats in my house and I figured, oh, what better way to get rid of ‘em? Set up some Rambo traps! Uh, I decided to go with one of their advisors who helped me set the traps, uh, over the internet during a Skype call. And you know what? The next day my house was littered with the body parts of broken rats. [Multiple people laugh.] Thank you, RatboBrandRamboStyleRatTraps.com! [Laughs.] [Regular voice] So—that—you can’t—you can’t argue with that kind of success and that kind of happy customer. So you think Squarespace would be able to help me set up that website which apparently I already have set up ‘cause I have a testimonial? [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Well, I assume you used Squarespace in the past, but yes, I think that—I think that they could help with that.
elliott
Okay. Great. Thanks, Dan. Much appreciated.
dan
Uh, the Squarespace—ugh. The Squarespace. The podcast— [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.] —is also sponsored in part by Raycon. Whether you’re working from home or working on your fitness, you want what you’re listening to to be what you’re listening to. Not what the other folks in your apartment or house may be listening to. Or, uh, y’know, maybe you wanna block out the people upstairs who—ever since quarantine started—seem to be exercising 24/7. [Stuart laughs.] Anyway.
stuart
Dan, I don’t think they’re exercising. [Laughs.]
dan
Oh, no. [Multiple people laugh.] Well, why not check out the wireless earbuds from Raycon. They start at about half the price of other premium wireless earbuds on the market and they sound just as amazing as other top audio brands that you may know. Their newest model—the sleek and stylish everyday E-25 earbuds—have six hours of play time; seamless Bluetooth pairing; more bass; and a more compact design that gives you a nice, noise-isolating fit. Raycon’s wireless earbuds are so comfortable, uh, perfect for conference calls or bingeing podcasts. Now, I was a wireless earbud doubter, but these things fit my ears, uh, great. You got a little charging case so they’re charging while they’re in your pocket. Take ‘em out, they pair immediately. If you wanna turn up the volume you can just tap on the side of your ear like some sort of space, uh, some sort of Lobot? Or, uh… yeah.
crosstalk
Stuart: Lobots are in space. Yup. Dan: Anyway. [Elliott laughs.]
dan
Yup.
elliott
I mean, technically everything’s in space. Lobot is on a planet.
dan
Now is the time to get your, uh, get the latest and greatest from Raycon. Get 15% off your order at BuyRaycon.com/flop. That’s BuyRaycon.com/flop for 15% off Raycon wireless earbuds. They say it a third time—BuyRaycon.com/flop.
elliott
Can you spell Raycon?
dan
Oh, yeah. That would be useful. It is “ray,” like, uh, the—
crosstalk
Dan: —artist Ray Charles. Stuart: Ray of light?
dan
And “con” like the movie Con Air. All one word—Raycon!
elliott
Ray Charles Con Air. Got it.
dan
Yep.
elliott
No. Raycon.
dan
Uh… so, guys. Now’s the time that we take some letters from listeners. Uh, I have them in front of me. In my hot little hand. [Laughs.]
elliott
I’m gonna mention—uh—we are recording this at a time when—if there wasn’t a global pandemic—Stuart and Dan and I would be in Toronto right now. We would’ve just done a show the night before. Sorry, Toronto! I know I’m disappointed we didn’t get to do that show. We will be back someday. I promise that.
stuart
Yeah.
chris
Yes.
dan
Uh… yes. We all look forward— [Laughs.] For many reasons, uh, for the end of this thing. Uh, our reason is a little less, um… uh, important than others but we do want to see all of you in person. We miss touring. Um… but uh, this first letter I have neglected to put who sent it. [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
Okay! So a mystery afoot!
elliott
So—whole name withheld.
dan
Uh, “Why, hello, general kerfloppers! I wanna start off by saying I enjoy you all equally, except for Elliott. He’s my favorite.”
crosstalk
Stuart: Fuck that letter written by Elliott’s mom! Elliott: Hey, thanks!
elliott
[Laughs.] No. It’s—seems to me—I know why Dan buried the name of this person!
dan
Uh— “I think in January I finally got caught up on my previous favorite podcast—My Brother, My Brother, And Me—so I had to find a new one and I settled on yours. I’m writing this”—uh—“as I’m writing this I’m on episode 159. I’m very hooked on your podcast and the catalog is invaluable to my sanity during the quarantine we’re in.”
chris
159. Which one is that?
elliott
Let’s take a look, shall we?
dan
Yeah. Let’s look it up.
elliott
Flop House 159. It is—Walking With Dinosaurs!
crosstalk
Stuart: Oh wow! Dan: Oh, nice.
elliott
Oh, I forgot about that one!
dan
With Kevin Maher!
crosstalk
Dan: Uh, “I have a question for you—" Stuart: Yeah. Kevin Maher was our guest.
dan
“—all as well. I’m a younger listener, if you could not tell, and I wanted to ask if there were any movies you guys think are very important for a younger fan of film to see. I really like gangster and crime films, but really I’m happy to watch and explore all kinds of different genres of film.” And, uh, so that’s the question! I—I—like… my immediate thought off of this is like… just be curious? Like, I don’t know if there’s something that I would point someone to specifically just because I don’t like… being the kind of person who’s like, you’ve gotta see this! But at the same time—but like, I think it’s good if you’re interested in film to sort of broaden your tastes early? Uh… so you don’t get set in your ways? Like, watch old movies so you’re not—I don’t know—like, confused by the different ways that people may have gone about, uh, acting or putting together a film back then? Watch silent films. Watch foreign films. Um… y’know. Sample around.
stuart
Yeah. I mean, you wanna watch the classics. You wanna watch Castle Freak. The Granny. [Chris laughs. Elliott joins in.] Invisible Maniac. Uh, but I mean—
crosstalk
Stuart: I think— Elliott: Head of the Family. Right, Stu?
stuart
Head of the Family. Of course. The four—uh, the holy, uh, quadrilogy. Uh— [Elliott laughs.] —but the—of course—uh—if you like gangster movies and you want a foundational piece of cinema, of course I’m gonna recommend that you watch Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. [Elliott laughs.] The best movie ever made. [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Elliott: And how is that a gangster film? Stuart: If you haven’t watched it— [Dan laughs.]
stuart
Well, I mean, it takes place in a private prison, Elliott!
elliott
[Through laughter] Good point.
dan
Yeah. That’s true.
elliott
Sure.
stuart
Uh, and of course Ricky has been, uh, rightfully imprisoned because he killed the drug dealers that gave drugs to his girlfriend and made her jump off of a building. Um, so watch Story of Riki. Uh, Rick-Oh! Yeah. It’s great. [Elliott laughs.]
elliott
Uh, I’m going to, uh, repeat what Dan said, which is—just try to watch a little bit of everything and see what appeals to you before you start hearing from other people what they like and what they don’t like. Or if you start hearing from other people what they like and what don’t like, like, take it with a grain of salt and use that as a way to try new stuff but you don’t have to feel the same way other people do about it? But the way I learned about movies was in an incredibly haphazard way, which was literally just—I would go through the TV Guide ‘cause that’s how old I am. Now I go through the onscreen cable guide. And any movie that sounded remotely interesting to me, I would tape. And I would watch it. And so I ended up watching a lotta, lotta different stuff. Some of it wasn’t so great, but some of it is stuff that I never would’ve known to seek out. Uh, and so—like—and I still do that. When I go through the cable guide on Turner Classic Movies and basically if there’s a foreign movie that I’ve never heard of, I’ll record it. And I’ve seen a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise that I really liked a lot. Uh—
crosstalk
Stuart: Hey, Elliott? Elliott: —by doing that!
stuart
I’m sorry to interrupt. Uh, I stepped away because my cat is going crazy. But um, did you say you just follow the advice of Armond White and watch whatever movies he likes?
elliott
That’s exactly what I said. [Dan laughs.] I said there’s no critic who represents my tastes as much as Armond White. I hate the Toy Stories movie. I love Jack and Jill. Um, if other critics like a movie then I hate it and if other critics hate a movie then I think it’s great. And, uh—the—and—that’s exactly the opposite of what I would do, Stuart. Come on. Uh—but yeah! Just, like, uh—anything that seems remotely interesting, try it. And even things that don’t seem interesting! Try ‘em. And just sample as widely as you can.
crosstalk
Elliott: Chris, what about you? You’re the professional filmmaker! Chris: Y’know—well—
chris
Oh. Uh, yeah! I would say I agree with what you guys are saying. Um, and I would say take a lateral move here. Like, don’t get stuck just in American gangster movies, but let’s, uh, let’s kind of reset the focus and look at, um, High and Low? Which is one of my favorite movies of all time. A Kurosawa movie. Right? Which was then kind of… ripped off for Ransom later. Um… and High and Low is formally an amazing film. Right? A lot of it just takes place just in one room but it’s always exciting. Uh, and Yojimbo. Okay? Which is also about gangs. But it’s just set in the 16th century in Japan. Uh, another Kurosawa film. Um, and so it’s got that kind of gangster, uh, attitude to it. But formally—and in terms of its tropes—it’s quite different.
dan
Y’know, Chris, I—this leads me, actually, to a question I was just sort of wondering about… for myself. That’s sort of related, which is—is there like a movie or movies that—as a filmmaker—like, you felt you particular learned something from to apply in your work?
chris
Um, I think—it would probably be sort of screwball comedies. Um, and, uh, Preston Sturges, uh, movies. Maybe. Um… and—sort of—Hollywood comedies from Lubitsch through, uh, Wilder. Uh, with a detour through Sturges is probably the thing that would most influence sort of the way—the—well when I’m actually successful at doing the stuff that I do. Y’know. The sort of sense that, uh, subsidiary characters are really important. This kind of sense of humane but cynical, uh, blend of humanity and cynicism. Um, and I would love to think that all the Japanese movies that I love influence me, but I can’t really spot it in my own stuff.
dan
Alright. Well let’s move on! Shall we?
elliott
Good answers. Good answers. Good answers.
dan
Uh, this next and final letter is from Charles, last name withheld. Who writes—
crosstalk
Elliott: Schultz? Charles Schulz? Stuart: Nelson Rilley? Dan: The ghost of Charles Schulz.
dan
“Dear lords of flopdom, I was reading an article recently about a Kickstarter aimed at funding the digital removal of the rat that scampers across a balcony banister at the end of The Departed, symbolizing the rat that was just killed in the movie.”
stuart
[Sarcastically] Oh my god, that’s what it meant! Oh. Ohh!
dan
Now— [Laughs.] Okay.
stuart
Oh, it makes so much sense now! [Multiple people laugh.] ‘Cause he’s a rat!
dan
Mm-hm.
crosstalk
Dan: Apparently— Stuart: And he died! Oh. [Multiple people laugh.]
stuart
But wait—no, that makes—that makes perfect sense. Oh my god! It makes perfect sense! Whoa! [Dan laughs.] That’s—that’s why he’s the master. That’s why Scorsese’s—wow. Okay. Whew!
dan
Apparently— [Laughs.] This was— [Laughs.] [Chris laughs.]
chris
You can’t get over it! Amazing! [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
[Through laughter] “Apparently, this was an egregious sin against cinema. Honestly, I don’t give a shit about the rat, and who is anyone to tell Scorsese what to put in or omit from his movies? The reason I bring it up is that this gave me an idea for a way to settle ding-dong gate one and for all and have Stu end up on the right side of history. All we have to do is create a Kickstarter to fund a reshoot of the now-infamous scene and have the Freak actually rip off his ding-dong. Better yet—why not give him two ding-dongs? He is a freak, after all! And have him rip both of them off in unison. It would be—quite frankly—amazing. Keep it floppy! Charles, last name withheld.”
stuart
Oh, that’s great! Yeah. I, uh, I do have a glossy, uh, 8x10 of, uh, Jonathan Fuller in the full Freak makeup and he did sign it “I ripped it off myself.” So I think I’m in the right. Um—
crosstalk
Elliott: Mm—I—uh, although you would say that the late Stuart Gordon— Stuart: But Stuart Gordon—
elliott
—did say on Twitter—which is how the President communicates, so it’s an official archival document— [Multiple people laugh.] —that the Freak did not rip off his own ding-dong. So—
crosstalk
Elliott: —it just— Stuart: Oh man. So I guess, uh—
stuart
—there’s a lot of questions. Basically. [Multiple people laugh.] A lot of people; lotta questions. The, uh, and then of course, y’know, uh… to talk about a movie that hasn’t come out yet, they—they have the, uh, the upcoming, uh, remake or re-imagining of Castle Freak that’s going to be coming out sometime at some point when movies are released again. Uh, and maybe we’ll get to the bottom of it in there. Maybe they’ll explore that, y’know, facet of, uh, Giorgio the Freak. We’ll find out!
elliott
I want there to be a scene where he rips off his own ding-dong and he just goes, this is for you, Stuart!
stuart
[Through laughter] Yeah. And up until that—then—and then after then, no other mention of Stuart is made. [Laughs.]
elliott
Now, I’m going to, uh, I’m gonna go off on a limb here and I’m gonna say something a little controversial, guys. About the thing that triggered this question. Which was, uh—or letter, I guess. So, one, I would say—it’s really—except for purposes of humor or art pieces, it’s really not up to fans to decide how to manipulate a movie that got made? [Dan laughs.] ‘Cause it’s not theirs and they didn’t make it? And unless you’re talking about something like The Clock, which is built out of, uh, other people’s films. Uh, which is a big 24-hour art piece. Then like, what are you doing. But also, guys? And maybe you’ll disagree with me. I like that rat at the end of The Departed. I think it’s great. Of course it’s obvious. It’s about how there’s rot everywhere in this city and even at this—in this apartment! There’s like, still vermin falling—going everywhere ‘cause we live in a fallen world! So like—but the idea that like… oh. It’s obvious. Like, of course it is. Fuck you, dude. Like, movies can be obvious sometimes! Symbology can be obvious! That’s fine! Deal with it! Come on!
dan
Well also I think it’s fun and goofy—like, I think that people— [Laughs.] Are taking The Departed a little too seriously if they get mad at the rat? Like, it’s like… I love The Departed, but it is not, like… a deep exploration. Like, for a Scorsese film in particular. Like, it is a fun, pulpy… movie about… like, these parallel—I mean, like—
elliott
You’re saying it’s more on the Shutter Island end of Scorsese than the Silence end of Scorsese.
chris
Um, I think he won an Oscar for it? So I think you must be wrong. [Multiple people laugh.]
elliott
I mean, but even then, like, you can win an Oscar for a movie that isn’t—that isn’t—
crosstalk
Elliott: That’s not super subtle. I mean, come on! Stuart: That has never happened. Chris: No.
elliott
But it—the, uh—I—that was a movie that like… I really enjoyed that movie. I like it honestly more than Infernal Affairs, the movie it’s based on, which I felt like kinda didn’t use the premise as well as it could have. But that—when people were like, ugh, that rat at the end! I was like, you mean this amazing part at the end where a rat comes out? [Dan laughs.] Like, I don’t understand. What’s the problem? I don’t know.
stuart
Yeah. That’s like watching Better off Dead and being like, ugh, that burger part! And I’m like— [Elliott laughs.] What’s wrong with you? [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
crosstalk
Stuart: That’s when it— Chris: But what if, uh—
chris
What if he added a sort of a “he, he, he, he, hee!” from the rat at the end?
elliott
I mean, I would love that. Honestly, if the rat looked at the camera and winked I would’ve loved it. Like, why not? Sure. Go ahead. [Dan laughs.] If it was—and it’s also the fact that it’s—it’s not happening during the scene when they’re making love to—uh, “Comfortably Numb.” Like, it’s not happening during one of the emotional scenes. It’s happening during the very end when the movie’s over and it’s like—gotcha! Wink! Y’know. Like, I don’t know.
chris
If there were some cheese at the edge of frame, also, that would explain it. And it wouldn’t seem so arbitrary.
elliott
That’s true. If the reason he came—while he—when he—right before he was murdered, the rat, he was wiping cheese on the banister of his—of the—the terrace? On his apartment? Uh, that he bought with his ill-gotten gains. And it’s because—why? I don’t know. He’s a crazy bad guy. He likes to wipe cheese on things. But it’s a little bit like, uh… I don’t know.
crosstalk
Elliott: I could see—I could see those people— Chris: It would be, uh, cheddar.
chris
Y’know. ‘Cause then it’s this symbolism is double. ‘Cause cheddar is, y’know, is money. Right? He’s got so much cheddar he’s got a fridge just full of cheddar cheese. [Elliott laughs.] He’s like, what am I gonna do with this? I got so much cheddar.
elliott
I mean, it sounds like heaven. So. [Laughs.]
dan
I—I’m gonna say something that might sound a little snobby and I genuinely don’t mean it that way. But I think that people who watch a lot of movies might have a higher tolerance for silliness in their movies? Just because… like… if you only—if you’re not, like, watching a lot of stories? Maybe you expect them to be a little more straightforward? Like, I—this was brought—like, the reason I was talking about this was someone tweeted at me and I don’t want to call anyone out. Like, someone tweeted at me and eventually they were like, oh, okay. This was a joke. They watched the rest of the movie. But they’re like, oh, I’m watching the Child’s Play remake. And I can’t get past the part, uh, at the beginning where the sweatshop worker, like, switches the violence inhibitor switch to off? And I’m like—that’s clearly a joke. Like— [Multiple people laugh.] Like, why would the doll have a violence switch?
stuart
Dan! Dan, there is no room for jokes in a movie about a killer doll. [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
[Through laughter] Yeah.
elliott
I mean, the real problem with that is that they’re stealing that joke from The Simpsons. When they go—oh, here’s the problem! Your doll was switched to “evil”! [Multiple people laugh.] But uh, I think—there’s two kinds of film snobs. There’s the ones that go around—it’s like, uh, there’s uh—
stuart
They do a podcast and shit on movies.
elliott
Yes. And then there are the kinds that actually make movies and then the kinds that don’t even make the podcast.
crosstalk
Chris: And then there’s the people they hurt. Yes. Elliott: But, uh—
elliott
[Through laughter] Yes, exact—and then there’s victims! Yeah. That— [Dan laughs.] Uh, the kind who get—it’s like you go through these stages of film snob development. Where you start out and you’re like, movies! Wow! I love ‘em! And then you get to a point where you’re super cynical and you shit on everything. And you’re like—ugh, why did Indy even have to go after the Ark? Because it kills all those Nazis at the end without him! And then you go a little farther and you become, like, uh, in Roger Ebert’s review for Air Force One? Where he’s like—Air Force One came out the same weekend as this Gomorrah movie. And honestly at this point in my life, I’d rather watch the Gomorrah movie? And like— [Multiple people laugh.] I feel like that’s where—we are more? Is like… okay. I’ve seen it all. So now I’m ready to see the silly stuff. But a lot of people, they’re not all the way through that journey! And then the next stage, I guess, is when you’re so tired of movies that you’re just like, mm, books are really where it’s at. I’m reading Mill on the Floss? I don’t watch movies.
stuart
Mm-hm.
dan
I mean, it’s a great book! I don’t know why, uh… I don’t know why—
elliott
I don’t need to make—read a movie about how they make—read a book about how they make floss! [Dan laughs.] Come on! Boring! [Laughs.]
dan
Uh, so guys. That was great. Let’s [though laughter] go to the next segment. And the last one, where we recommend a movie that you should watch, uh, instead of this one. Uh—
stuart
It’s so we can prove we’re, like, real, full-on movie snobs. Right?
elliott
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
dan
Uh, no, this is just to prove that we’re not just full of, uh, bitter bile. Um—
elliott
‘Cause my—‘cause my recommendation is L’Age d’Or? A lot of people would say Un Chien Andalou, but that’s kind of a little done. At this point. So.
dan
Um, so I’d like to recommend Easter Parade, which I watched on Easter. Uh, it’s one of Audrey’s all-time favorite movies. And I had… uh, TiVo’d it. According to my TiVo, one full year ago. [Laughs.] Last Easter. We never got around to watching it.
elliott
I have some movies that have been in my TiVo for years! I’ll get around to them eventually.
dan
Um, but it was so much fun. Uh, it’s got, uh, Fred Astaire in a role that was originally supposed to be done by Gene Kelly but he injured himself right before the movie started. And you can see how it’s kind of more a Gene Kelly role than a Fred Astaire role? But he’s great in it.
elliott
He keeps going up to people and going—it’s me! Gene Kelly! From Singin’ In the Rain! [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
And it also has, uh, Judy Garland. And I realized that I actually hadn’t seen Judy Garland, uh, in stuff that much before. I’d seen Wizard of Oz, obviously. And I’d seen, uh, A Star Is Born, but this was the first time where I’d really seen a movie where… she’s allowed to be the funny one? And she’s really funny. Like, uh, no—I mean, like, I—y’know, it’s no surprise. Like, I’m just—I’m discovering that Judy Garland is a star suddenly. But she was really, uh, fun. And it’s a movie that, like… it starts out like it’s gonna be… My Fair Lady but for dancing? Like, Fred Astaire’s like—I could take any chorus girl and make her my partner! And then that kinda just gets discarded and like… any time it seems like there’s gonna be a conflict it resolves really quickly? Which honestly, at this point, in the world—why not? [Laughs.] Why not have a movie that has barely any conflict and it’s a bunch of singing and dancing and pretty Easter hats. And so Easter Parade is my recommendation.
stuart
Cool. Uh, I’m gonna recommend a movie called Support the Girls. Uh, it is a… like, a small—kind of—almost like everyday slice-of-life comedy about, uh, basically focusing on a single day uh, with a manager and the staff of a, like, a Hooters-style bar and restaurant. And the kind of everyday problems they have with their life and with work and… uh… it’s really great. Uh, it stars Regina Hall, who’s great. Uh, and… it has a… basically a star-making turn from this actress Shayna McHale, which I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything and her IMDB profile doesn’t list much. But she’s incredible. Uh, it’s also got like Dillan Gelu—Gelula? From, uh, what was that, uh, Kimmy Schmidt?
dan
Well it has, uh, a star of a Chris Weitz film in it!
crosstalk
Dan: It’s got Haley Lu Richardson. Chris: Haley Lu Richardson! Fantastic. Yeah.
stuart
Uh, yeah! So I liked it a lot. Check it out.
elliott
Uh… I’m gonna recommend a movie that ties in to some of the stuff we talked about earlier! It’s called Rambo: Last Blood. [Chris laughs.] And it’s the story of this guy who— [Multiple people laugh.] It’s—so—uh—
stuart
[Singing to tune of “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” by Nine Days] This is the story of a guy— [Laughs.]
elliott
[Laughs.] [Rapping to the beat of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme] This is the story all about how my life got changed—turned upside-down. I’d like to take a minute to sit right there. I’ll tell you how I killed a bunch of Mexican guys on my farm. [Stuart laughs.] Well, I was an old man dealing with my trauma! [Laughs.] [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
Oh, God. [Laughs.]
elliott
Working with my niece; her dad abandoned her mama— [Stuart laughs.] —and then we decided to— [though laughter] uh—so. Uh, what’s—that guy wrote in—the nameless fan wrote in asking about, like, uh… movies that they should see. And, uh… stuff like that. And it made me think about a movie I watched recently that I should’ve watched a long time ago that I didn’t, and especially after Chris mentioned the screwball comedies of the, y’know, ‘30s and ‘40s, which was—I finally watched What’s Up, Doc? The Peter Bogdanovich movie that is a ‘70s kind of version of one of those movies. And I’d put it off for a long time because I kept hearing it referred to as being… kind of like Bringing Up Baby? And Bringing Up Baby is maybe my least favorite of the screwballs.
crosstalk
Elliott: It’s one that does not— Chris: Agreed.
elliott
Connect with me at all.
chris
Yeah.
elliott
Yeah. I was worried that you would disagree with me on that, but it’s, uh, and that I would feel bad. Uh, but—
chris
She’s super annoying.
elliott
Yeah. [Dan laughs.] It’s super annoy—right? And when they’re, like, great—I mean, like… have you seen the Mad Miss Manton with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda?
chris
No.
elliott
I think it’s so much better than Bringing Up Baby and it’s a similar type of movie? But uh, I finally watched What’s Up, Doc? ‘Cause I wanted to watch a movie that was silly because the world is not silly right now. And I was like, oh! This is a much funnier movie than I thought it was gonna be! And I really enjoyed it. And I was especially excited to see… uh, the actor Liam Dunn, who is maybe best-known for being in Blazing Saddles. And he comes in at the end as a judge and I think he’s such a funny actor. And it was just great to see him! It’s got an—such an amazing cast in it. And so I’m glad I finally watched it! So—What’s Up, Doc? The movie that doesn’t really earn the title “What’s Up, Doc?” [Chris laughs.] It’s kind of a pointless title? But otherwise, I enjoyed it a lot.
dan
I’ve really been meaning to watch that one, too. Uh, I—maybe you’re—you will finally push me to. ‘Cause I—y’know, like, the early, uh… classic Peter Bogdonavich movies like Last Picture Show and Targets and Paper Moon, I all really loved. So. I wanna check that out.
elliott
He’s—for some reason—I think I’ve let my, uh… my feelings about Bringing About Baby and my feelings about Peter Bogdonavich get in the way of watching this movie. And… uh, it reminded me of a story I think I’ve told on this Flop House before, when I went to see a screening of Targets that Peter Brogdanovich was introducing, and he started taking audience questions which he was not supposed to take, and ended up talking for about 45 minutes— [Chris laughs.] —and you could see the— [Stuart laughs.] —programmer from Film Forum getting more and more frustrated that it was still going on and they had to cancel the second screening of Targets— [Chris laughs.] [Through laughter] —‘Cause it ran so far over! But uh… anyway. I’d recommend it! Chris, do you have a movie you’d like to recommend?
chris
I do. Um, I… am catching up on my Japanese, uh, classics. And there’s a film called Harakiri? Uh—
elliott
Oh, it’s—the—Harakiri’s great.
chris
Kobayashi. Um, movie. And actually it kind of, uh, it reflects interestingly on, uh, Rambo. Because it is about revenge, but it’s told in a very kind of innovative way. It uses flashbacks extremely well. Um… and, uh, and it’s really—and it’s sort of an indictment of samurai culture. Um, in the guise of a samurai film. It’s, uh, it’s incredibly well shot. Well told. Um, uh, Tatsuya Nakadai is, uh, is great. He’s probably… he’s certainly less well-known than Dusheremi Funai but he’s amazing, uh, in the film. Uh, and uh… you know, it’s kind of my first dip into Kobayashi’s, uh, oeuvre. Uh… and I highly, highly recommend it.
elliott
He’s got—they’ve got a… Kobayashi’s got a lot of great movies. Like, Samurai Rebellion’s really good and Kwaidan is really good and… Tatsuya Nakadai—I’m glad you brought him up. I haven’t watched him in a movie in a long time, but he’s in—he’s in so many good movies! And I think I’ve seen a fraction of ‘em. So.
chris
He is so much more scary than Rambo. Uh, with so much less, I think. You know. Like, this guy has dead eyes. When he wants to, that is. He can actually also play kind of quite—quite warm. But mostly, he’s this kind of stone killer-looking guy.
elliott
Have you seen Kill?
chris
[Laughs.] No, I have not seen Kill. [Laughs.]
elliott
Oh. He’s so—he’s really funny in it. That’s one—he’s playing like, um, like… almost like a—a version of, uh, before it existed of—of John Belushi’s samurai character in that. [Chris laughs.] Like, it’s his take on… on a Yojimbo-type scruffy samurai? And like, it’s a really funny movie. But, uh… that’s really—yeah. Harakiri’s a really good movie. I haven’t watched a Japanese movie in a while! Guys, why am I not watching any of the Japanese movies on my DVR?
stuart
Yeah, you should be watching ‘em, Elliott!
elliott
I started watching—you know what? The last one I saw was—it was—what was his name? I forgot his name. There’s a Japanese actor in the ‘60s who wanted to look different? To set himself apart? So he had cheek implants put in?
chris
Jesus.
elliott
And he’s got, like, these weird chipmunk cheeks in all of his movies? And I watched that one and it for some reason I haven’t watched him since then.
chris
[Through laughter] Put you off the whole thing?
crosstalk
Elliott: [Laughs.] I was like, this guy’s cheeks. I don’t know. Stuart: The thing is is—
stuart
I have a big stack of movies that I feel like I should be watching? But then I just go over to YouTube and watch the final fight scene from Yes, Madam with Michelle Yeoh and, uh, Cynthia Rothrock again? [Elliott laughs.] And I’m like— [Laughs.]
crosstalk
Stuart: This is all the movie I need! [Laughs.] Chris: Why watch anything else? Yeah.
dan
Alright. Well, I gotta add that to my list. When I’m just, uh—
elliott
Oh, well I’ll—this is—for the listener earlier, if they’re still paying attention, here’s a piece of advice based on what Stuart’s saying. There’s gonna be movies that you, like… get ready to watch ‘cause you feel like you should watch them? And—but you’re not really excited about watching them? But you should push through to watch ‘em. Because some—there have been movies—they’re like, every time I read a classic book or I watch a classic movie? I’ll be like, putting it off for a while? And then I’ll watch it or read it and I’ll be like, ohhh, this is why it’s a classic. ‘Cause it’s like—‘cause it’s really good! Like, Chimes at Midnight is a movie I put off for years ‘cause I was like—I don’t want to slog through like a Shakespeare movie. But then it was really good. Or like, uh—
stuart
And if you don’t like it, it at least gives you something to think about and you can think about why you don’t like it. Like, not liking something is sometimes just as good as liking something. [Laughs.]
dan
And also it may be some—a different experience than you think it’s going to be. Like, I had that recently with The Florida Project, which everyone said was so great but I was like—eh. It’s gonna be so sad. It’s gonna be so sad. I don’t wanna watch something sad. And it is very sad! But it’s also full of, like, humor and life. And just… people that you recognize. Like—
stuart
Like Willem Dafoe! [Multiple people laugh.]
dan
I mean, like… well that’s the magic of Willem Dafoe’s performance in that! ‘Cause he’s the—like, the one name in it. And you’re like, you’d think that you’re just like, okay, I’m gonna think of Willem Dafoe the whole time. But he is such a natural presence. Like, he’s a guy that you probably have met. A million times in your life. Like he just—he feels like that—he’s so humane and it’s—it’s great. Um—
elliott
It’s kind of the opposite of, uh, I’m—right now I—last night I watched up to the middle of The Lighthouse and Willem Dafoe in that is very much not a man I’ve ever met before. [Multiple people laugh.] But I must say, uh, my wife and I were watching it and we were like—hm, this movie about these two guys stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere who can do nothing but spend time around each other and have—are working all day and exhausted at the end of the night. And now they’re arguing about whether they like the food that the other one cooked. [Chris laughs.] This is getting [though laughter] a little too close to home!
dan
Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Okay. Well, guys— [Laughs.] This has gone a long time. I see Stuart, uh, uh, looking around the room. [Laughs.] As if to say—
crosstalk
Stuart: Well, no. I, uh—my— Chris: Looking for an escape.
stuart
My upstairs neighbors are clearly, like—my upstairs neighbors are clearly vacuuming and I’m like— [Multiple people laugh.] Uhh, is it too loud? [Laughs.]
dan
Mm-hm. Uh, well—
stuart
Just throw my track in the trash. It’s fine.
dan
Okay.
elliott
Yeah, yeah.
dan
Um…
crosstalk
Dan: Guys, thank you so much— Elliott: It’ll be like—it’ll be like—
elliott
Uh, when they take Garfield out of, uh, out of Garfield comics and they’ll just be us reacting to things you’ve done.
stuart
Uh-huh! You’re Nermal. Dan is, uh, is John. And Chris can be Odie!
chris
Excellent. I love it.
dan
How do you feel about that, Chris?
chris
He’s me. I see—I see myself in him.
dan
Uh—
stuart
I mean—people love Odie. [Laughs.] [Elliott laughs.]
dan
Let’s let Chris, uh, get back to his family. Also, Elliott, you get back to his family. Let Stuart get back to Sharlene. Let’s all, y’know, just, uh… leave this, uh, podcast purgatory. But uh—
elliott
You’re right. ‘Cause Dan, if there’s one thing— [Chris laughs.] —I’m getting not enough of right now—
crosstalk
Elliott: It’s time with my family. Chris: Uh, I’ve gotta work on some traps. [Multiple people laugh.] Dan: It’s true.
chris
Build some tunnels. [Laughs.] ‘Cause I’m expecting some guests to kill. [Laughs.] [All laugh.] Um… [Elliott laughs.]
dan
Uh, everyone should go check out other podcasts on MaximumFun.org, but mostly, uh, just take care of yourself during this time. Uh, thank you so much to Chris— [Laughs.] For being such a sweet person.
chris
Oh, guys! [Multiple people laugh.]
crosstalk
Elliott: Yeah. For not—for not hating us so much. Chris: This is a—this is a dream! For me. Dan and Stuart: Yeah.
chris
Finally to appear.
dan
And, uh, I guess that’s it! For The Flop House, I’ve been Dan McCoy.
stuart
I’ve been Stuart Wellington!
elliott
I’ve been Elliott Kalan and I’d also like to mention—edited by Jordan Kauwling. ‘Cause we always forget to mention her and I feel bad about it. And our special guest was—?
chris
Chris Weitz!
dan
See ya next time!
stuart
Byeeeee!
music
Light, up-tempo, electric guitar with synth instruments.
dan
Is no one else seeing this?
stuart
No.
chris
Uh, I’m not—I saw an emoji for two seconds.
crosstalk
Chris: It was a—crying—crying emoji and then it went away. Elliott: Yeah. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
dan
[Laughs.] You are in a crying-emoji cycle right now? And your—like, the whole—your whole window is tilt—tinted blue. You’re—you’re blue bada-di bada-dah. Badadadibadadah right now. [Music ends.]
speaker 1
MaximumFun.org.
speaker 2
Comedy and culture.
speaker 3
Artist owned—
speaker 4
—Audience supported.
About the show
The Flop House is a bimonthly audio podcast devoted to the worst in recent film. Your hosts (Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington) watch a questionable film just before each episode, and then engage in an unscripted, slightly inebriated discussion, focusing on the movie’s shortcomings and occasional delights.
Follow @flophousepod on Twitter and @theflophousepodcast on Instagram. Email them at theflophousepodcast@gmail.com.
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