0:00

On this episode we discuss Sonic the

0:02

Hedgehog 2. With two

0:05

times the animals. Actually

0:07

three times the animals. Are we sure we don't watch

0:09

Sonic the Hedgehog 3? Hey

0:33

everyone and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

0:35

I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot

0:37

Kalin. Wait, hey you, hey

0:39

you, sorry. It's you, hey

0:42

you. It's the Max Fun

0:44

Drive. Yep, that's right. This is the final weekend of

0:46

the Max Fun Drive. If you're listening to this episode

0:48

when it drops. And this is,

0:50

you still have time. It may seem like

0:52

the drive is over, but you still have

0:54

time. Why don't you go support our show

0:57

by going to maximumfun.org/join. Thank you.

0:59

And Elliot, I believe we have

1:02

an extra person here today. We do. He

1:04

was so ready to introduce himself, which was great. And we

1:06

love it when people do that. Except we

1:09

had to get in that plug. We're

1:11

joined today of course, it's Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2. Or

1:13

Part 2? Yeah, because it was the original

1:16

book was too long for one movie. That's

1:18

right, yeah, yeah, yeah. The second book was

1:20

written because people just missed the message of

1:22

the first Sonic book, which is that you

1:24

shouldn't worship heroes. Yeah, the first Sonic people

1:27

took him too straightforwardly as

1:29

a hero. They had to write Sonic

1:31

heretic. But, uh, so. God

1:34

Emperor of Green Hills. Yeah,

1:36

it's joining us as you recognize, of

1:38

course. We couldn't do a Sonic movie

1:40

without the flophouse politics and hedgehogs correspondent.

1:42

That's right. New York Times writer,

1:44

co-host of the unclear and present danger podcast,

1:46

Jamel Bui. Jamel, thank you so much for

1:48

joining us for another go round the Sonic

1:51

franchise. Thank you for having

1:53

me. Always a pleasure

1:55

to talk hedgehogs, Sonic, anything

1:58

kind of like, you know. You're

2:00

talking about the restaurant, right? You like to talk

2:03

about the restaurant. Right? That's right. Also Sonic the

2:05

restaurant, right? I love to get love you those

2:07

beverages. I guess they so hot sauce. I've never

2:09

been to a time either There

2:12

was a point at one point where there were there

2:14

was a flood of ads in the New York area

2:16

for restaurants that you Could not find in New York

2:18

Sonic red rooster or whatever.

2:20

Yeah, and like golden corral as

2:22

a golden alley And you're like

2:25

sitting there imagining the exotic taste you'll

2:27

never taste Transmissions

2:31

from another dimension, but it must

2:33

be so disappointing to you that in your work

2:35

on the New York Times opinion page You

2:38

very rarely get to talk about headshots It

2:42

doesn't come up very often. Hedgehog's not really

2:44

a part of the current political scene Very

2:47

disappointing. I'd like to applaud you for your

2:49

commitment to the bit because I know for

2:51

facts that Elliott Offered the possibility

2:53

of a different movie and you're like no we

2:56

got to keep it We got to keep going

2:58

we got to keep you know, I'm like I'm

3:00

totally committed to this There's

3:02

another hedgehog movie that emerges. I

3:04

expect to be We're

3:08

gonna do an episode that's the the

3:10

the whole series of the knuckles show. I know

3:12

he's not technically a he's in a kid now

3:14

very Everything

3:17

twice before Watching

3:19

this movie they they're like We

3:22

have no other as I guess to put in

3:24

front of Sonic 2 so you want to see

3:27

the knuckles trailer again They ran that long the

3:29

confirmation to be like this is your final chance

3:31

to just tap out They

3:33

ran that long knuckles ad during the

3:35

Super Bowl and it would I rarely

3:37

have I been so Disgusted at what

3:40

is available to us as a mainstream

3:42

culture nowadays, then just like yeah I

3:44

guess Adam Pally and knuckles have a

3:46

TV show together Seems

3:52

I thought him and Gabriel's was good,

3:54

but I don't Certainly knuckles

3:56

is the better is a better partner.

3:58

So anyway, let's I get into the movie though

4:01

because Knuckles comes after, the

4:03

Knuckles TV show comes after Sonic the

4:05

Hedgehog too. It's the, I guess the

4:07

third part of the trilogy. For God's

4:09

sake, let's get this clear because there's

4:12

one thing I care about. It's the

4:14

lore of Sonic the Hedgehog. Man, boy

4:16

howdy was I watching this thing, thank

4:18

Christ that they included all of this

4:21

lore about Sonic. Dan

4:23

got shit on so hard on one

4:26

episode where he was complaining there wasn't

4:28

enough lore and an allen

4:30

to a leader. Now he's trying to

4:32

complain on Rechange's character. Now

4:35

here's the thing, Dan, you thought you were getting a

4:37

hedgehog lore. If you happen to

4:39

watch this on Amazon Prime and you pause

4:41

it, the comments, the trivia that comes up,

4:43

because they always show trivia when you pause

4:45

it, it was paragraphs of text about the

4:48

history of the different emeralds and how they're

4:50

different in the games and how Sonic started

4:52

snowboarding in the games. And I was like, this

4:54

is not trivia. Like this is too much, this

4:56

is too much information. Well, this is the thing,

4:58

right? There

5:00

really is a dense catalog

5:03

of Sonic lore that for

5:06

all people of our general

5:08

age, if you play the

5:10

Genesis games or whatever, did not exist. Right, then

5:12

it's just sort of like, hey,

5:14

this guy's super fast. And he's like,

5:16

cool, unlike Mario who's lame. That

5:20

was the extent of it. Unlike Mario,

5:22

unlike Mario who's kind of like a

5:24

blue collar salt to the earth, everyday

5:26

American type, Sonic is like an elite. He

5:29

has all those rings. But

5:32

yeah, it's one of those things where I don't

5:34

know if this is lore from the games, if

5:36

it's lore from the cartoon show, starring Julio White

5:38

as Sonic, lore from the comic book series, which

5:40

got very lore heavy. Where at one point, I

5:42

think a level became a living universe or something

5:44

like that. I'm trying to remember, but anyway. I

5:47

feel like so much has been extrapolated

5:49

from that one animation that Sonic would do

5:51

if you didn't do anything for a while,

5:53

he would like tap his foot annoyed, and

5:56

you're like, so many people are

5:58

like, this is a cool dude. This guy. Yeah,

6:00

yeah, yeah. You need

6:02

to make sure everybody understands that he has

6:04

a background. I did do some like,

6:07

you know, I say the mildest of mild

6:09

research. I glanced at it until I got

6:11

bored, which was almost immediately to discover

6:13

that, yeah, a lot of this stuff is drawn

6:16

from the games and like Jamel, like I had, you

6:18

know, my relationship was like, oh, that guy's cool. He

6:20

goes fast. You know, I didn't know that there was

6:22

any story behind it. You might as well have lore

6:25

about the dog and duck hunt. Like that's how I

6:27

feel about it. Yeah. That is barely

6:29

a character usually. But as you know, Dan

6:32

is very interested in the post game lore

6:34

in which Sonic has a baby. Yeah, that's

6:36

what I'm fascinated with. When

6:39

Sonic is pregnant. Yeah. It

6:42

Shrek's child, right? That's my understanding. Awesome.

6:45

Yeah. It's either Shrek or the green M&M.

6:47

If they can't figure out who the paternity is. So

6:49

let's get into the movie though. The movie doesn't cover

6:51

Sonic being pregnant. I guess they're saving that for the

6:53

third movie after the Knuckle show. And we watched the

6:55

first one of these, right? We did. But

6:58

Jim L. Jim L. was here for it. Yeah. Okay.

7:01

I kind of remember that. So the Paramount logo,

7:03

you know, it's a special movie because they

7:05

changed. It's got rings instead of stars around

7:07

the mountain. And there's just one logo. I

7:10

want to point out one of the production companies is called original

7:12

film, which I thought was pretty rich for the sequel to a

7:14

movie based on a video game to have

7:16

a company called original filmmaking. It anyway, we start

7:18

on the mushroom planet. How do we know it's

7:20

the mushroom planet? Everybody. This isn't

7:22

Mario. Well, that's what I was. Is this a is

7:24

this a knock at Mario? Is this like, is this

7:26

a little swipe being like, oh, no worse, no

7:29

worse punishment than be trapped in a

7:31

kingdom of mushrooms. Very possible. I was

7:33

thinking about that. I know the last

7:36

movie does end with a doctor Robotnik.

7:38

Is that Dr. Robotnik being sent to

7:40

a mushroom planet? I'm not really

7:42

sure. But I was expecting some

7:44

sort of Mario dig, but I, you know, I

7:47

didn't see one. Yeah. They

7:49

seem to just take it for granted that, you know,

7:51

mushroom plants are bad. And the text, the mushroom planet

7:53

appears on screen. Later on, we'll

7:55

see Seattle will peel on our screen. And then the

7:58

movie will give up on telling us the location. They

8:00

just don't care after that even though we

8:02

then spend mostly movie in Montana and Hawaii

8:04

rather than that Is it it's Montana right

8:06

that green holes and who cares anyway? So

8:10

we hope that there's an elaborate Rube Goldberg

8:12

device that makes bad tasting mushroom coffee for

8:14

Dafro Votnik Jim Carrey He's been exiled there

8:16

at stay 243 and he's built and he's

8:19

just like doing his thing Right like Jim

8:21

Carrey's just like falling into that like that

8:23

safe zone of being really like wacky Man,

8:26

I mean children's entertainer this guy. I mean I said

8:28

it about the first movie as a kid of

8:30

the 90s There's something very comforting about seeing Jim

8:32

Carrey do Jim Carrey stuff And so throughout the

8:34

movie seeing him do like funny things with his

8:37

body or go like oh, huh Like

8:39

pull extend syllables out really long. It's like

8:41

you're back in 1994

8:44

and he cranked out three of the biggest

8:48

Yeah Far

8:50

away with up ocean of the century for you know,

8:52

there was The mask

8:54

and what's the other one? Bonkers

8:58

that was his anis, Marilla balless

9:01

For Jim Carrey and so he

9:04

it's he's built a machine that I'm not exactly sure

9:06

how it works But send out a bolt of energy

9:08

which causes Alien warriors from another

9:10

world to open a portal his traps take

9:12

out those warriors before he can step to

9:14

the portal and see the mushroom Planet Knuckles

9:16

walks through voiced of course by famed

9:19

Animation voice actor Idris Elba.

9:22

Yeah, he was he was apparently a big fan.

9:24

So he was excited to do the role Yeah,

9:27

I had no idea walking in that this was

9:29

Idris Elba and I was like What

9:31

is this sort of bizarrely sort of

9:33

for cartoon character low-energy voice? It sounds

9:35

kind of like is that Idris

9:37

Elba and Lo

9:39

and behold there he is. Mr. Thank you for

9:41

walking through that thought process that that that process

9:44

of discovery was fascinating to hear about it It

9:46

was the most of the flophouse is nothing. It's

9:48

sort of it's just an invitation inside our brains

9:50

And you know, sometimes you come knocking on there's

9:52

not much there I'm

9:55

curious what was it is Idris

9:58

like a big Sonic fan is he like a little? guy

10:00

did he know the whole deal or what he that's

10:02

what he said I think I didn't get

10:05

quizzed I mean except for um Scarlet Witch I guess

10:07

there's very few actors or

10:12

uh or Madam Web there's very few actors where

10:14

the actress is like or actors like I

10:17

don't know I don't care I don't know

10:19

who these characters are like I don't know

10:21

they're always like yeah well I've always wanted

10:23

to play Gambit you know I've always since

10:25

I was a kid I should be more

10:27

like Flash Thompson you know just being like

10:29

hey I'm an actor man this is my

10:31

job I don't know there was

10:33

that on Twitter I remember people got up they were up and

10:35

Marvel fans were up in arms because Taika Waititi was like yeah

10:38

when I took that Thor gig that was for money I had

10:40

to make money to feed my family and they were like you

10:42

don't you didn't do it for the

10:44

love of Thor hold on a second like the

10:47

idea that actors have to be huge fans of

10:49

the material before they're even in it is bonkers

10:52

but maybe it just all this I don't know maybe

10:54

the huge fan of Sonic I don't know yeah I

10:56

completely agree with everyone that no one should have to

10:58

be a fan of these things but it would be

11:00

really funny if it just is like yeah

11:02

and I did the deep dive in the zanga

11:05

you really do some research on

11:07

Sonic yeah some

11:10

deviantart out there that posits some interesting

11:12

fan theory notes

11:16

to the set that there should be a love scene between Knuckles

11:19

and Sonic just

11:21

doesn't make sense I do have

11:23

to say Knuckles first off Knuckles

11:25

is is an echidna which I

11:27

saw many of when I was

11:29

in Australia and they do not look

11:31

like him no they don't the second thing is I

11:33

do love that he has a custom pair of Tim's

11:35

on they are not available for sale I looked around

11:37

but they're very cool okay

11:40

but you're right he does not really look like

11:42

an echidna but Sonic doesn't really look like a

11:44

hedgehog either so you know that's that huh okay

11:46

we're dealing we're in a world where it doesn't

11:48

matter as much then we cut to Seattle there's

11:51

an armored car robbery in the in the

11:53

in the offing Sonic of course has to

11:55

get involved and be a hero there's only

11:57

one song that makes sense for Sonic's attempt

12:00

be a hero, it's tricky. So of course that's

12:02

what's playing on the soundtrack. As he caused a

12:04

lot of damage, the driver of the armored car

12:06

keeps being like, you're terrible at this because everyone

12:09

in movies nowadays has to be

12:11

constantly kibbitzing on everything that happens. And he

12:13

only avoids running over a child by speedily

12:15

disassembling the entire truck as it's going forward.

12:17

I kind of like that bit. It's kind

12:19

of a funny bit. I kind of like

12:21

that bit. It's a funny bit, yeah.

12:23

But he fails to be a good superhero.

12:25

He runs all the way back to Green

12:27

Hills, Montana, I think. So the Montana Missouri.

12:30

Where he briefly looks at a feather from

12:32

his dead owl mom, Longclaw, who he misses.

12:35

My brain is already shutting down. This

12:38

is established in the first movie. He wants to go to

12:40

bed, but he has plans to go fishing that day with

12:42

Tom James Marsden, who when we're recording this episode is not

12:44

quite the favorite of the internet that he once was for

12:47

various reasons we don't need to get into here. But- I

12:50

just want to jump in here now. You've you breezed

12:52

past two jokes that are like

12:54

classic Elliott Kalin hates these jokes.

12:56

While on the mushroom planet,

12:59

Jim Carrey says like, holy

13:01

shiitake or something. Yeah, I don't like

13:04

that. And then Sonic later, before crashing

13:06

into a ice cream truck says like,

13:08

holy sherbert. Yeah, he says holy sherbert.

13:11

Both of them, five minutes apart, it's

13:13

perfect. That is like classic Elliott Kalin

13:15

jokes. Don't like it. Don't worry, there's

13:18

more sherbert like that coming up. I'd

13:21

be lying if I said I thought this was a funny movie.

13:24

Like occasionally there was a joke that was like, oh, that's kind

13:26

of funny. But for the most part, I found it not very

13:28

funny. I don't like it. So

13:30

Tom James Marsden takes a Sonic fishing. Sonic is

13:32

so tired, he falls out of the boat. Tom

13:35

has to save him. And Tom tells Sonic, I

13:37

know you went to Seattle. Stop playing superhero. You're

13:39

just putting people in danger. And Sonic goes, you're

13:41

supposed to be my friends, not my dad. And

13:43

Tom goes, you're still a kid. You

13:45

don't choose the moment to be a hero. The moment chooses

13:47

you. And it's like, how old is Sonic supposed to be?

13:49

I really can't figure it out. He says

13:51

you're supposed to be a friend, not my dad. But it

13:54

seems pretty much like they have adopted

13:56

Sonic as their child. Like it is

13:58

a family unit. This is a

14:01

they were for them as being just a kid over

14:03

and over again I don't know what

14:05

that means in outer space Six

14:08

years or is he ten or is he

14:10

five, you know? Yeah, this is something

14:12

I was wondering about the entire time So cuz I don't

14:14

I feel like this wasn't in the first movie It wasn't

14:17

sort of a complied at all that Sonic was a child

14:19

But here I mean they referred to him as their

14:22

kid. Yeah. Yeah, it's like poor

14:24

things I Sonic

14:29

again was pregnant makes sense took the brain out

14:31

of the baby Sonic put it in Sunday. Oh,

14:33

wow Now again, that's

14:35

what happens in that movie Dan. No, I know

14:37

I'm just I'm

14:40

not I'm not your ghost lab. I didn't make up for

14:42

your links is based on a novel Anyway, you're saying that

14:44

in the third act Shrek is gonna show up Oh This

14:51

is me this is my wife Sonic come

14:53

back to me now Oh, it turns out

14:56

he's shooting people all the time terrible. Yeah,

14:58

okay So someone some flophouse fan, please make

15:00

the poor things Sonic Shrek Poster

15:03

I guess anyway Trying

15:05

to do a Shrek. I was really confused

15:07

by the X-Men. Yeah, no, I can't Sort

15:11

of Swedish more than I was trying

15:13

that hard So

15:15

Tom and his wife Maddy they're going

15:17

to Maddie's Shrek They're

15:19

getting to Maddie's sister Rachel's wedding

15:22

in Hawaii Luckily, you

15:24

don't have to fly when you've got ring portals

15:26

that Sonic makes and so much time is put

15:28

into this wedding and the

15:31

end on Sonic makes

15:33

a ring portal for them they and he gives

15:35

them another ring to make a return

15:37

home home portal That seems like it's not important, but

15:40

this is a perfectly written screenplay So of course

15:42

that ring is gonna come back when we least

15:44

expect it and Sonic he's

15:46

home alone He does a lot of kid home

15:48

alone stuff. He's goofing off. He's eating junk food

15:50

making a man I get home alone stuff so

15:52

he listens to exclusively like 90s hip-hop His

15:57

like every single movie made right now

16:00

Uh, every single human beings musical and movie frame

16:02

of reference is that of someone who grew up

16:04

in the 1980s and 1990s That

16:07

is entirely it later on Adam

16:09

pally will make a very gratuitous reference to

16:12

ghostbusters that I also did not enjoy I

16:14

thought was unnecessary. But anyway, uh sonic

16:17

has a foam party by himself, uh,

16:19

it seems like That I don't

16:21

this is like this

16:23

is what you guys enjoy any of this stuff two

16:25

hours long and I I

16:27

would I

16:30

would argue that at least an hour of it

16:32

is cut of Like

16:35

this movie makes makes not the weather

16:37

I like the wedding Would you cut

16:39

the dance battle the dance battle the in it would be

16:42

long dance battle We

16:46

haven't gotten to that yet Unbeknownst to

16:48

sonic a portal opens the outskirts of

16:50

town and who comes out not knuckles

16:53

Jamel your sonic fan number one. Were you

16:55

excited when you saw tales? That's right. Sonic's

16:57

best friend show up Uh,

16:59

yes, I was usually excited. I was I

17:01

can't wait To learn

17:04

more about this double tailed

17:06

fox. I got nothing guys His

17:11

name is miles prouder dan do you

17:13

get it uh miles for

17:16

our Well,

17:20

that's that's that's carbon san diego leveled

17:22

name writing yeah I

17:24

don't think we actually know or something

17:27

and fairness to the writers of this

17:29

movie that he's been miles Tails prouder

17:31

since sonic the hedgehog two Nice

17:34

93. Yep. I want to say that

17:36

the thanks for the new york times fact check on They

17:43

went one direction, uh for

17:45

the voice of of knuckles, of course, they

17:47

got one direction to do the voice of knuckle

17:50

Collectively like like like like a

17:52

singular entity. Yeah Yeah,

17:55

all of one direction together makes one id result.

17:57

No, they take course they went in one They

18:02

went one way with the voice of Knuckles,

18:05

but Tails is, according

18:08

to my research, the Tails from the

18:11

games. This is the same voice actress

18:13

who does Tails, which is why on

18:16

the one hand, Adris Elba is giving, you know,

18:18

he's, like I like him later on

18:20

when like they use his sort of gruffness for

18:23

comic effect, but it's not like a high

18:25

energy thing, but. No, once he becomes a

18:27

comedy character, he pays off. But before then,

18:29

yeah. But she is giving the most voice

18:31

actor performance. And I'm like, this has to just

18:33

be like some, you know, and it's

18:36

weird cause I'm like usually pro voice actors,

18:38

but in this case, I'm like,

18:40

this is just sounds like kind of every

18:42

like Saturday morning cartoon I grew up with. And

18:44

we don't ever learn anything about Tails other than

18:47

that they love Sonic. We learned

18:49

that, we learned quite a bit

18:51

about Tails later on. So meanwhile,

18:53

we go to Tails, we go

18:55

to Hawaii, Tom meets Rachel's very

18:57

handsome fiance, Randall. This

19:00

actor seemed incredibly handsome when I

19:02

first saw him, but the longer I looked

19:04

at him, he looked weirder to me. His

19:06

beard is so weird. I

19:09

just little weird. I can't say

19:11

anything. It was like it was like it was

19:13

using my brain a little bit. It's like the fight scenes

19:15

in the new Roadhouse, which while I was watching it, I'm

19:17

like, my brain isn't functioning. Bodies don't move like this. I

19:19

don't know what's happening. Well, was

19:22

it like an uncanny valley thing? Yes, I think

19:24

that's it. Yeah. I guess I

19:26

could say it was, with this, I guess it's

19:28

a little bit like when someone first pointed out

19:30

to me how long the distance is between Bruce

19:32

Willis's nose and his upper lip. And now I

19:34

can't see it. Just how we can get through.

19:36

He just ruined my game. I looked at Tom.

19:39

It's just longer than you remember it being. And

19:43

Rachel is like, Tom, she remembers that she got

19:45

in trouble with Sonic in the first movie. So

19:47

Tom, if you wreck my wedding, I will end

19:49

him. This is the beginning, end you. This is

19:51

the beginning of a lot of wedding talking. At

19:53

Sonic's house, uh oh, Robotnik shows up with Knuckles.

19:55

Knuckles punches Sonic a bunch and he says, here's

19:57

a kid in a tribe where the enemy is of the

19:59

tribe. that longclaw belonged to. Tails drives

20:02

up in a police car and

20:04

slams into Knuckles and it's like Sonic

20:07

I'll help you escape and as Knuckles

20:09

chases them on foot while they're in

20:11

the car Tails introduces himself and explains

20:14

that Knuckles wants the legendary master emeralds.

20:16

Knuckles doesn't say this himself Tails has

20:18

to bring this information in and Tails

20:20

is a real Sonic fan a real

20:23

Sonic otaku and keeps saying stuff like

20:25

only Sonic the Hedgehog would do this about

20:28

stuff that is not Sonic specific like

20:30

Tails starts flying and Sonic goes did

20:32

your butt turn into a helicopter until

20:34

goes only Sonic the Hedgehog could think

20:36

of a buttcopter and there's a lot

20:38

of that kind of only Sonic the

20:40

Hedgehog could save this thing when it's

20:42

any it's not that Sonic specific you

20:44

know. How did you feel about the

20:47

introduction of an all-powerful emerald that everyone

20:49

wanted to get? I mean

20:51

it comes from the games so I

20:53

guess I have to allow it but certainly it

20:56

seems like it was dropped into our laps in

20:58

a non-organic way but I did like one thing

21:00

I did like the movie did not start with

21:03

five emeralds were put together by the by

21:06

the Echidna clan they wanted a powerful way

21:08

like there's no opening voiceover prophecy

21:10

instead there's a middle of the movie voiceover

21:12

explanation but I was glad the movie didn't

21:14

open like that so yeah so how do

21:16

you feel about a giant emeralds being the

21:18

MacGuffin that they're looking for? Well my struggle

21:21

with this film and look okay

21:24

I would like to put it out there into the world I

21:26

understand not all art is for

21:29

me and certainly not maybe a

21:31

child's movie about a game that

21:33

I played only the first version

21:36

of is you know maybe

21:38

that's not a dolphin fan

21:41

but I could not latch

21:43

into anything about this movie we were like texting a

21:45

little bit about it and joking about

21:47

how there's all this all that stuff about the

21:50

wedding I'm like at least that stuff I could

21:52

have my hooks into some sort of human stakes

21:54

that I understood like here like

21:56

just like them all chasing around

21:59

an emerald that everyone wants

22:01

for some reason, and I guess it's bad

22:04

that Dr. Robotnik gets it because he's a

22:06

bad guy and it's a powerful thing, but

22:08

I'm like, I don't give a shit about any of

22:10

this, and thus the movie does not engage. What

22:13

you're saying is it hurt your ability to really

22:15

get invested in it, that we never really know

22:17

what the Emerald does or why it is or

22:19

why Knuckles wants it or why anyone cares about

22:22

it or why it's on Earth or why Longclaw

22:24

cared about it or any of those or how

22:26

Sonic was supposed to protect it. Any of

22:28

those things that hurt your investment? I

22:30

mean, the powers that the Emerald

22:32

would grant was left up to

22:34

the imagination until later when we

22:36

see them actually work, so you

22:38

don't really know what you're facing.

22:41

What they should have done is like most modern

22:43

horror movies, they should have somebody with the Emerald

22:45

like murder somebody real gross right at the beginning.

22:48

You're like, oh wow, that's scary. So you're scared

22:50

the rest of the movie. I mean, but that

22:52

is a way of setting up the stakes of

22:54

what's going on. It's like I remember years ago

22:56

I saw a talk that cartoonist Evan Dworkin

22:58

gave to the NYU Science Fiction Club,

23:01

and he was like, there's always the cop that runs

23:04

up to the monster in the movie so he can

23:06

find out what the monster's powers are. And

23:09

it's like, yeah, that's true. You've got to show off what

23:11

the monster's powers are, and we don't know what it is. So,

23:13

Jim Albert, you may feel differently. You love movies about Emeralds,

23:15

right? If I look

23:17

to my left, I see my movie shelf and it's

23:19

just filled with movies about Emeralds. Green

23:22

Emeralds, red Emeralds, yellow Emeralds. There's

23:24

Promancing the Stone. Other ones, I'm

23:26

sure. I'm

23:29

sure there's been a movie that Emerald, the

23:31

chef, has been in at some point. Yeah,

23:33

Emerald. Yeah, F&L section. F&L section is not.

23:36

F&L section is just two movies? Yeah,

23:40

I have that section. Okay. That's

23:43

a filmmaker I enjoy. Wow.

23:50

It's funny, this movie kind of exactly replicates

23:53

the problem with their first movie, which is

23:55

that it's weird that this takes

23:57

place on Earth and among humans. I

24:00

don't understand like if this movie if

24:02

the sonic movies are for kids and

24:07

It's like all lore it's like so much lore then

24:09

why not just like have it be in Sonic

24:12

realm like why does there need to

24:14

be cute like actual human

24:17

beings around for this because it's like

24:20

Like you Dan. I kind of actually kind of enjoyed

24:22

the wedding section, but it's also like weird Why

24:26

is there like this wedding almost like

24:28

wedding crashers? Beep-wat

24:30

happening in this children's

24:33

movie strange that

24:35

so much time is being spent on Tom's

24:37

feelings of inadequacy around

24:39

his his sister-in-law's fiance's

24:42

Friends who are all super buff and there's a part

24:44

where they're like they're like Showing each

24:46

other biceps and James Martin obviously is also a guy

24:49

who works out the idea But

24:53

it was The

24:55

strongest Wish

24:58

in the movie his wife had been like honey, don't worry you

25:00

were Cyclops So

25:05

guys were you guys so when I was watching

25:07

the wedding stuff in addition to being very excited

25:09

about it I was really

25:11

wondering like Natasha Rothwell film this I

25:13

probably shortly after filming The

25:15

first season the white lotus now both of those were

25:18

shot in four seasons one in a wahoo and one

25:20

in Maui like Does she do you think she's got

25:22

a lot of really good four seasons points? Get

25:25

a lot of betty when she checks in burning

25:28

question. We got a very strong way of looking

25:30

at the situation And

25:33

those are the questions that the filmmakers want you to be asking

25:35

while you're watching that show what I set it up Right.

25:37

I want to say though Jamel. I had

25:39

a very similar feeling towards the end when

25:41

it's like we're watching three

25:43

animated CGI animated animals

25:46

fight a big robot and I'm like,

25:48

why wasn't this all just like animated?

25:50

Why wasn't this an animated film? Why

25:52

did they feel like they needed to

25:54

like do the quote-unquote live-action Sonic? Well,

25:56

it's the thing it's a it feels very classic

25:59

to me in some ways though because this is This is the way they would

26:01

have done this movie in the 80s or early 90s. Like

26:03

this is the masters of the universe version of doing this.

26:05

Oh man, but he would have been a guy in a

26:07

costume or like a puppet. Oh, he would have been a

26:09

puppet. He would have looked like Munchy or something. I

26:12

would have, if this were a guy in

26:14

a costume, five stars instantly. It would

26:16

have been like an animatronic face and

26:18

like, but, uh, how are the duck essentially?

26:21

I mean, this is the cover of

26:23

the duck. I

26:26

instantly like it more. Yeah. Anyway,

26:30

uh, so. And Jim Carrey is kind of

26:32

giving a Jeffrey Jones and Howard the duck

26:34

style performance. Yeah, I guess so.

26:36

I mean, it's also a Jim Carrey style performance,

26:38

but, uh, but, uh, the,

26:40

it's big, it's a big performance. Yeah. What

26:43

came first, the chicken or the egg man? Great.

26:49

That was, I can't, I can't, it

26:51

makes me glad I have repeatedly not done the

26:53

Laura Axe joke that I was going to do

26:55

up to this point because it wouldn't have been

26:57

able to compete with that word play. Hey,

27:03

so you're probably asking what is the max fund

27:06

drive? Now the max fund drive just wrapped up

27:08

or is wrapping up this weekend, but there's still

27:10

time to act. And I'm going to tell you

27:12

for a moment what the max fund drive is

27:14

all about. Now the max fund drive is the

27:16

one time a year where we, the creators of

27:18

these shows come to you, the listeners of these

27:20

shows and say, please, why don't you support us

27:23

with your hard earned money? And

27:25

why do we ask that? It's because

27:27

that's the primary way our shows make

27:29

money. You know, we get to make

27:31

the show that we want, uh, without

27:33

having to be without having any interference

27:35

from some corporate overlords. I don't know

27:38

if you are sick of things just

27:40

constantly being regurgitated onto your streaming services.

27:43

Well, we get to make whatever we want. And

27:45

the big reason we're able to do that is

27:47

because we are supported through money from you. And

27:50

that's a big deal. I know my co-host Dan

27:52

Nelliot struggle with that kind of stuff all the

27:54

time in their day jobs. I

27:57

mean, if I had a day job currently, that

27:59

would. That would be a thing I struggle with. But yeah,

28:02

it's a great advantage

28:05

of the Max Fund Drive as you get

28:07

to sort of put your money where your

28:09

mouth is when it comes to supporting the

28:12

stuff that you like directly, as

28:14

directly as possible. And

28:16

then we get to take that money and use it to

28:19

do things like, I don't know, hire friends

28:21

of ours to be the editor of the

28:23

show. Hire friends of ours to design artwork

28:25

for the show. And that sounds like nepotism.

28:29

I feel like being able to spend money on people

28:31

that are important to you is good and

28:33

support art. We don't hoard

28:35

that money. We're not using it to buy back

28:38

dividends of flophouse stock or anything like that. I

28:40

could be doing that. Or

28:42

give huge bonuses to executives. We use it

28:45

to make this show. We use it to support

28:47

ourselves so that we can live. But also to

28:49

make this show and to support other artists who

28:51

either collaborate with us on the show or are

28:53

just in the universe. A much nicer way

28:56

of putting it than I did. Now you're

28:58

probably wondering at this point, you're like, how

29:00

do I support a show like yours financially?

29:03

Well, you wanna go over to maximumfund.org/join. And

29:05

what you can do is if you're not a supporter

29:08

yet, you can join. If

29:10

you join at the $5 a month level or more,

29:13

that actually grants you access to

29:15

our entire catalog of bonus content,

29:17

hours and hours of additional material.

29:20

If you're already a member, you can

29:23

actually upgrade and that'll give you access

29:25

to some of the other bonus items.

29:27

Some additional cool toys, things that the

29:29

network had put together this year. Swag

29:32

is what we call it, just general swag.

29:34

And you can also, if you can't reach

29:36

the next tier, you're also able to boost

29:38

your monthly support, which is great. But it's

29:40

gonna be nice if like, say you started

29:43

listening to another MaxFun show. You don't

29:45

have enough money to jump up in

29:48

your donations to the next tier, but you're

29:50

like, you know what? Because I'm listening to

29:52

multiple things, let

29:55

me just knock it up a little bit. And the MaxFun

29:57

is also there for you to give you the option

29:59

to either support. monthly or

30:01

if you'd rather do it all in one lump

30:03

sum, they also provide the option to do it

30:05

annually. So you don't have to think about it

30:07

throughout the year. Um, so

30:09

why don't you please go and support our

30:11

show? If you've listened to this much nonsense

30:13

already, I think, I think it's time

30:16

to support it. So why don't

30:18

you head over to maximumfund.org/join

30:20

and support us today. So anyway,

30:23

uh, we get, uh, this is a sequel to

30:26

a modern movie. So of course every single character

30:28

from the earlier movies has to come back. So

30:30

of course we see Robotniks Smithers style assistant stone,

30:32

uh, who runs a coffee shop in

30:34

green Hills. So was it clear to you guys that

30:36

that's where it was located early on? Not really. It

30:39

was not, I didn't know where it was. And then

30:41

suddenly Adam Pally showed up at the scotty

30:43

shop and I'm like, Oh, so it's been in the

30:45

same town as all this time. I didn't mean that.

30:47

They didn't give you a location card like the first

30:49

two locations of the movie. So I could see why

30:51

he'd be confused. The V1 note,

30:54

there's a shot like a big later in the

30:56

movie where you see the, uh, coffee shops, um,

30:58

sanitation grade or whatever it's F minus. I thought

31:01

that was funny. That was great. Yeah. That's

31:03

a great joke. No, that, yeah. He, he like

31:05

closes. He switches from open to close. He switches

31:07

the grade from eight F minus. I thought that

31:09

was, Oh man. Yeah. Cause he doesn't want people

31:11

to come in. Cause he's turning it into a

31:13

villain HQ. When he finds out that Robotnik is

31:15

back, uh, he sends a spaceship to bring Robotnik

31:18

and army of robots and a coat. He

31:20

needs a new coat and Robotnik makes a deal

31:22

with Knuckles. They're going to work together to find

31:24

the Emerald and destroy Sonic. So Sonic takes tails

31:27

to Wade's house. Wade is Adam

31:29

Pally, Tom's loser coworker and Sonic has a map

31:31

from his mom. And the map decides that this

31:33

moment to project a hologram of long claw that

31:35

explains what the at master Emerald is and why

31:38

it's on earth. And it has the powers turned

31:40

thoughts to reality. It's a, it's the kind of

31:42

thing where you're like, so this was

31:44

not something that the map felt the need to

31:46

inform Sonic about before this moment. This was just

31:49

the map was waiting for someone to say master

31:51

Emerald around it or something like that. And this

31:53

is when they'd cut to a closeup of Wade

31:56

and he goes like the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.

31:58

And I was like movie enough. I don't

32:00

need any more 80s movies telling me how to

32:02

understand modern movies like this stuff Like it's the

32:05

same it triggered the same reaction in me as

32:07

in the flash when they were

32:09

like Oh, yeah, cuz back to the future blah blah

32:11

blah It's like can I can I have a different

32:13

frame of reference for anything in life? That is not

32:16

other 80 that's not movies from the 1980s guys. Tell me

32:18

why I'm wrong. Tell me I'm a curmudgeon well,

32:21

I think that you were wrong in the flash because

32:23

I do think that back to the future is still

32:25

kind of a standard way of thinking about time travel,

32:27

but here it comes out of Nowhere,

32:30

I agree. It's part of the

32:32

collective culture. Elliot. We all absorb

32:35

similar information There

32:37

was a time when there was a time when the collective

32:39

culture It covered everything from

32:41

howdy-duty to William Shakespeare And now it just seems to

32:43

be moving that came out between 1982 and 1992 Howdy-duty

32:47

or William Shakespeare dealt with time travel. Maybe

32:49

we talk about With

32:53

time travel in the time test I

32:57

My problem is like, okay You

32:59

say that the emerald can make thoughts real or

33:02

whatever Then why is Robotnik's plan

33:04

later on just to like have a big robot

33:06

that goes around smashing things That

33:12

wouldn't be your first wish to have a

33:14

giant Mecca so you do a mecca battle

33:16

you're unstoppable You don't have to like fight

33:19

people with a robot. You can have the

33:21

robot if you want it, you know Well

33:23

this put it supporting to the only frame

33:25

of reference that exists media from

33:27

the mid to 80s

33:29

to early 90s Okay in the Infinity Gauntlet series

33:32

Thanos gets the Infinity Gauntlet and it takes him

33:34

time to get used to being a god and

33:36

so first he's thinking in the Way a mortal

33:38

would think and he's doing mortal things. He's fighting

33:40

hand-to-hand rather than just snapping his enemies out of

33:42

existence Maybe it's something like that Yeah

33:46

Yeah, there's a learning curve. Okay, and when you get

33:48

the master emerald and you have godlike power Let

33:51

me see how fast you guys do if you understand how

33:53

to wait for the emerald What

33:56

are you gonna do with that emerald Dan what is the first thing you're gonna

33:58

do I don't know man world peace.

34:00

What do we, what, and then like after that's

34:02

done, you know, I'll attend to my own needs,

34:04

you know, just hang out. What? Hang

34:07

out. Like a hand. So one world piece,

34:09

two butts. That's basically the way it goes.

34:11

Okay. I can't, I I'm afraid of any

34:13

kind of unlimited power. Well, because I can

34:15

see my, I'm an immediate path. I'm like

34:17

the Howard Hughes, Howard Hughes

34:19

train, you know, just you and your

34:22

Emerald DVDs just sitting there all

34:25

around the room. Jars full of Emerald colored piss,

34:27

you know, drinking

34:30

nothing but Shamrock shake. I

34:35

feel like I do the, uh, in years we have

34:37

to make some Jim and Mr. Bowie

34:39

says that's all he'll drink. I

34:41

feel like if I got one of these Emeralds,

34:43

I'd be like, I'd go straight to like Bezos

34:45

land or Bezos land and like try and turn

34:48

my health into pit bull basically. Pretty

34:51

good already. Thank you. That's what I was fishing for.

34:53

Yeah. I, I, my, my goals are a little less

34:55

ambitious. I always, I say to my wife, I'll turn

34:57

it like, I wish I was, if I was rich,

34:59

I could get the things that I want to get.

35:01

And she's like, well, what do you want to get?

35:03

And I'm like, well, there's this person who's selling an

35:05

ichthyosaurus skeleton on eBay, and I really wanted it for

35:08

a long time and I want to make it into

35:10

a coffee table. Yeah. You'd be drowning in ichthyosaurus. I

35:13

just need the one. But anyway, uh,

35:15

there's also a triceratops skull that someone was telling

35:17

you it's very expensive. So, uh, and long claw

35:19

was like, it was my job to protect the

35:21

master Emerald. Now it's your job, Sonic. It's hidden

35:23

on earth. And he goes, I'm not going to

35:25

let you down, mom. The map says they need

35:27

a compass to find the Emerald seems like an

35:29

unnecessary extra step. They already have a map. The

35:31

compass is in Siberia. Tails is afraid to go

35:33

in Sonic is like, I'll protect you. Meanwhile, in

35:35

Hawaii, Tom is so intimidated by Randall and his

35:37

friends. And Tom is like, I wish Sonic

35:40

had close friends and he entertains the ring

35:42

bearer. A little girl with a disappearing ring

35:44

magic trick. Tom, that's going to be a

35:46

mistake down the line. Siberia, Sonic and tails

35:48

are lost in a storm. They take shelter

35:50

inside a tough Russian saloon and, uh, tails

35:52

is like, I'm an inventor of, got all

35:54

these gadgets. I've been monitoring you Sonic all

35:56

the time using my gadgets. And, uh,

35:59

meanwhile, Robotnik. knuckles are tracking them through

36:01

Sonic's phone at this time. Tails has

36:03

a translation machine, but it doesn't work

36:05

right. It accidentally translates what they're saying

36:07

into rude Russian sayings and offends everybody.

36:09

So they have to have

36:11

a dance battle with the mean Russian.

36:13

And they win by completely cheating. They

36:16

use Tails' gadgets to create like a

36:18

hologram field of other Tails' they dance

36:20

to Uptown Funk. This goes on for

36:22

a very long time. Every once

36:25

in a while, you know, like

36:27

cheating to dance to Uptown Funk. The

36:29

what? It's cheating to dance to Uptown Funk.

36:31

I feel like a lot of letting reception.

36:33

Yeah. Uptown Funk is scientifically designed to get

36:35

everybody's name. It's a song that I don't

36:38

like, but I have to dance to it.

36:40

You have to scientifically. Yeah. You

36:43

just want to say like everyone wants to roll a body

36:45

of soul, which is a different song, but it describes what

36:47

happens when you listen to Uptown Funk. There's

36:49

a there's a sight gag that works

36:52

for me, just like the F-1. Like there's one here

36:54

that I enjoyed where like it's them looking around the

36:56

room and you know, like one person has like a

36:58

knife and they're like, and like another person is scary.

37:00

And like, and then like, look over at like a

37:03

woman knitting and they're like, oh, phew. And then

37:05

she holds up what she's knitting. And so skull

37:08

and crossbones. That's a good joke. That was a

37:10

good joke. That was a good joke. Give you

37:12

credit to the Sonic team. Enjoyed that one. They

37:14

did. And then later she holds that, that knitted

37:16

skull up like a mask with their own. So

37:19

that was very funny. They win

37:21

the dance contest. Tails is grateful to have a friend,

37:24

uh, his double tails. They made him an outcast

37:26

at home, but seeing Sonic and seeing how weird

37:28

Sonic is made him feel, Hey, there's a friend

37:30

for me out there. And so that's why Tails

37:32

decided to go find Sonic the next day. And

37:34

Randy Newman comes in and sings a song about it.

37:37

And then, yeah, yeah.

37:39

Cause you got two tails on you. That's

37:41

how you do it. Yep. Yeah. For

37:43

Tails story. The movie you wrote that for,

37:45

um, for,

37:47

yeah, start featuring Buzz Lightreer. And

37:50

anyway, can you keep going? I can't. That's

37:52

all I got. Yeah. That was pretty good

37:54

though. Produced by John

37:57

Assiter. Anyway, so. The

38:00

next day they find a magical cave There's carvings everywhere

38:02

that tell the backstory of the master emerald and how

38:04

the a kid does made it in the long claws

38:06

Hit it and as a viewer right now is like

38:08

yeah, I got it Like I don't this is not

38:10

I don't need to know that this is not helpful

38:13

But they animated it in the cool style. It doesn't

38:15

like a cool animated style Anyway, they

38:17

get the magic compass from an owl statue,

38:19

but then Robotnik and Knuckles ambush them This

38:21

turns into a snowboarding laser chase just like

38:23

in the video games Were you guys

38:25

excited to see sonic snowboarding just like

38:27

in the video games right guys? Yeah

38:30

anything extreme, man You know I

38:32

didn't know we're snowboarding Is

38:35

that yeah, I didn't either actually he's no

38:37

words in I you know I joked I

38:39

don't know anything about sonic, but here I

38:41

am he snowboards. I believe in the sonic

38:43

adventure games Okay, okay. It's

38:45

not like sonic sports or something like that

38:47

because Mario. He'll do anything He'll do any

38:49

kind of game sports puzzles. He said Yeah,

38:55

he really questioned that one. He's like

38:57

Mario. What what like why are you

38:59

prescribing these pills? We're giving this stuff

39:02

from where's the coming from yeah still

39:04

today the best soundtrack of a video

39:06

game is the soundtrack for that I

39:08

don't know that say best, but it's up there. It's

39:10

right up there with Tetris and Mega Man 2 for

39:12

sure anyway, so Anyway

39:15

snowboard chase During it

39:17

Knuckles reveals that his father died in the same

39:20

battle that long claw died in his son Oh,

39:22

we both we both lost everything robotic steals the

39:24

compass and hurts tails I don't remember how maybe

39:26

he hits him in the head with a hammer.

39:28

Maybe he shoots him the laser I don't remember

39:31

Sonic goes to help tails not to chase robotic

39:33

and this impresses knuckles for a moment and

39:35

the bad guys escape and an avalanche is About

39:37

to vary our heroes so he calls there's no

39:39

boarding ahead this avalanche. He calls Tom which interrupts

39:41

the wedding He's like use my portal ring to

39:43

make a portal oh Tom

39:46

doesn't have the portal ring in his pocket. He

39:48

has the groom's ring He switched the rings by

39:50

accident when he did that magic trick So

39:53

he has to go and get the ring in

39:55

the middle of the wedding ceremony. He can't explain

39:57

to them I am the dad of an extra

39:59

dimension Blue hedgehog and I need to open a

40:01

portal but there's something that he can explain and this

40:03

made me so mad because he's just like All he

40:06

does is like, oh, can I see the ring? I

40:08

really need to see the ring Could you just give

40:10

me the ring like and when you have the other

40:13

ring? Yeah Wrong

40:16

one you want the ears right taking to get

40:18

it appraised. Yeah, instead of saying I'm sorry I

40:20

just realized I was performing a magic trick and

40:23

I accidentally mixed up your ring another He just

40:25

won't tell them and then punches Randall to get

40:27

the ring. Yeah again a word solution You

40:30

guys I kind of wish that the wedding had

40:32

happened slightly Like they

40:34

completed the wedding entirely before all these shenanigans

40:37

happened and that like the portal it appeared

40:39

on somebody's hand Body

40:44

horror or the Night

40:46

like there's a there's they're there in bed

40:48

for their With the twist that

40:50

is coming up. I wish that all of

40:52

the this had been revealed the shenanigans happened

40:54

after the wedding Yeah, yeah, well

40:57

you just wanted to see that wedding go through

40:59

without it. Oh, yeah the revelations we get yeah

41:01

Well this the revelations make you wonder how far

41:03

this wedding was gonna go So they will get

41:05

to there but they open up a portal and

41:07

avalanche comes out at Rex the wedding doesn't really hurt

41:09

anybody So I guess Sonic didn't need help that badly

41:12

But maybe just a portion of the smoke into

41:14

Randall his groomsmen and the officiant now that

41:17

Sonic is there They reveal that they are

41:19

all federal agents set to capture Sonic as

41:21

part of operation catfish Because the easiest way

41:23

to capture Sonic when you are a federal

41:25

agent with law enforcement power is to get

41:27

into relationship with And

41:30

then get a date for

41:32

months Presumably a

41:34

wedding sleeping together several times Right

41:37

exactly. They did not strike me as a chase couple.

41:40

They struck me as a couple that would give in

41:42

to their You know, they

41:44

seem fun. They really love each other their

41:47

physical hunger is a very funny way of putting

41:51

I Think

41:55

about sex the way I think about Snickers.

41:57

There's a hunger inside hunger inside me. Yeah

42:00

I'm going to totally slip that into my therapy

42:02

session there today. And

42:05

so they, that they, just the fact

42:07

that they had to send out invitations

42:09

and all that, they had to put

42:11

seating arrangements together, I assume for this

42:13

operation. And Rachel understandably is livid. She

42:15

has been used. It's not fair. Yeah.

42:18

And Sonic and Tom and tails get

42:20

captured. Luckily Rachel and Maddie, that Maddie,

42:22

the, the Sonic's mom adopted mom, they

42:24

find tails as backpack full of gadgets

42:27

and they use it to save Sonic

42:29

and Tom and tails in various ways. We

42:31

didn't even talk about all those gadgets. Randall feels

42:33

guilty about tricking Rachel and the federal agent leader

42:35

is like, don't be, we had to do this.

42:37

Come on. Uh, she goes after them for revenge

42:40

using like a laser. And when the lead agent

42:42

tries to tase her, Randall leaps in front of

42:44

it and gets tased instead, and he admits that

42:46

he does love her and they kiss. And I

42:49

was like, I was like, again, this is, yeah,

42:51

in some ways, this is the most this

42:54

is the stuff that's most like kind of understandable on the human level.

42:56

But why is it the Sonic the Hedgehog? I

42:58

don't, I don't understand, but it's how far were

43:00

they going to go? Cause the wedding was almost over. They were putting the

43:02

rings on each other. I'm also

43:04

genuinely curious about the bureaucracy behind

43:06

this one. Like, should I like

43:08

who signed off on this? Right?

43:10

Like this is, and presumably really

43:12

Sonic extraterrestrial being, you know, immense

43:15

power, like this isn't, you

43:17

know, this is the FBI, I guess.

43:19

So it's like, it's a new, it's a

43:21

new organization called gun. So it's

43:23

a gun that I think is international. In

43:26

an international, could it be like federal? It's

43:28

like, okay, let's just have an ATF agent.

43:30

So I guess they, they report to the

43:32

secretary of Homeland security. But like if we're

43:34

dealing with extraterrestrial, that's like going to the

43:36

president, so it was like, this

43:39

was filmed in a, you know,

43:41

it's like Biden sort of like,

43:43

uh, yeah. And,

43:45

and this is why we got to get this. Dan,

43:48

this is what we needed. Biden impression you've

43:50

been trying to show to me. Should I

43:52

get the ice cream? Uh, malarkey. This

43:56

is why Jamel is our headshot correspondent because only

43:58

you know, the hierarchy. that they have to talk

44:00

to to get these kinds of operations off the ground. So

44:03

let's take a moment. We don't have a lot of time,

44:05

but let's take a moment to just say, okay, there's

44:08

an alien hedgehog on earth.

44:11

How does the federal government react to this? Like

44:13

what legally can they do? How does it go

44:15

up the chain of command? What do you think

44:17

would happen? Well, I think Dan had it about

44:19

right. A piece of paper goes to

44:21

the president and he either signs it,

44:25

hell yeah, or malarkey. And

44:28

then that just authorizes or

44:30

denies whatever operation they have.

44:32

Yeah, stamps. And is

44:34

this under, I mean it can't be the secretary of

44:36

defense, right, because they can't operate, the

44:38

army's not supposed to operate domestically,

44:40

right? So this would either be

44:43

the FBI or some

44:45

Homeland Security agency. Either

44:47

way, although if it's the FBI,

44:50

the president isn't directly involved, either

44:52

way. It's the second department. Yeah,

44:54

there's some technical separation there. They

44:57

just released that report. The government just released

44:59

a report basically being like all those UFO

45:01

sightings, they weren't UFOs. Do you

45:04

think this falls under that? Like,

45:06

is there some kind of extraterrestrial

45:08

intelligence gathering operation that would be like, we were

45:10

wrong. The aliens do exist and they're blue hedgehogs

45:12

that want to be superheroes and love 80s and

45:15

90s pop music. Is it with that? That

45:17

would send tremors through the government, right? Maybe.

45:20

Okay, so this just reminded me. Funny thing

45:23

about that UFO report is, you

45:25

know who was like really adamant that the

45:27

government release whatever it knew about UFOs? Late,

45:31

now late, but former Senate Majority Leader

45:33

Harry Reid was like, we got

45:35

to get this stuff out of the public.

45:37

We got to let the people know. So

45:40

my understanding of that was that he had

45:42

like one big donor in Nevada who was

45:44

like aliens. Oh yeah, makes sense.

45:46

He said, keep the campaign money coming and I'll go get

45:48

some aliens. There's also like Marco

45:50

Rubio was pretty big on this too at a

45:53

certain point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah,

45:55

you're right. Harry Reid's big thing is like with

45:57

his dying breath. He was like, tell them. about

46:00

the aliens. Tell

46:02

them about the hedgehog. It

46:05

can't be a secret. You have to assume. And

46:07

so how would break it down for me before

46:09

we move on, how would liberals and conservatives, how

46:11

would they get their feelings about that hedgehog over

46:13

there? It takes me. That's a

46:15

good question. Um, uh,

46:17

I mean, does this go under, Oh,

46:20

he's blue. So, you know,

46:22

Republicans might be like, W D double die.

46:25

Yeah. That would be double die. Indeed. That

46:27

would be not the right there. Yeah. So

46:29

he'd be like a lib, a lib hedgehog.

46:32

Yeah. It's revealed

46:34

at the end of the movie, uh,

46:36

shadow, the hedgehog has been in cold

46:38

storage and he's red. Yeah. He'd

46:41

be the one they were after. Yeah. So like

46:43

the magga hedgehog. There's a magga

46:46

hedgehog and Sonic would be like the Brandon hedgehog. But

46:50

like some carries the baby to term, right?

46:52

So they should like him. Yeah. That's

46:55

right. Yeah. That's right. If

46:59

they can hate these memes, I have a blonde

47:01

white lady who is dating a professional

47:05

football player, then they can hate anybody's

47:08

story. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. I

47:10

mean, I, oh I don't know who's in charge

47:12

of all this, uh, you know, hedgehog

47:16

wrangling in the government. All I know is that

47:19

according to my bumper sticker, the government

47:21

should have a bake sale to fund it

47:23

because I don't want my tax dollars

47:25

going towards that. Yeah. Yeah.

47:27

Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

47:30

so, uh, knuckles and Robotnik, they follow

47:32

the compass to where the emerald is

47:34

an island that very helpfully is within

47:36

the site of the Hawaiian wedding site,

47:38

uh, which is just very convenient for

47:40

everybody. Sonic runs off to

47:42

deal with it on his own. And he runs across

47:44

the waves to the emerald islands, not Ireland, the island

47:46

with the emerald on it. And he follows Robotnik and

47:49

Knuckles as they go through a bunch of Raiders of

47:51

the Lost Ark style traps, which are so derivative that the

47:53

movie makes a point of joking about it. And the joke

47:55

I did think was funny. Robotnik goes, I don't want to

47:57

die this day. Wait, it would be too derivative. And

48:00

I was like, all right, movie. You

48:02

got me with that one. Sonic Burstin fights

48:05

Knuckles. Robotnik, of course, double-crosses Knuckles, steals the

48:07

Emerald, becomes a glowing power being, causes the

48:09

island to collapse. We all knew this was

48:11

gonna happen, right, Dan? I

48:14

mean, you gotta have the darkness before the dawn.

48:17

Robotnik's gotta get better. And he betrays Knuckles, and

48:19

Knuckles is like, I thought you wouldn't betray me

48:21

because we're friends. Yeah. And

48:25

Sonic and Knuckles, they each take turns saving each other

48:27

from drowning. And on the beach, Sonic

48:29

tells Knuckles his lessons about being a hero and

48:31

the importance of finding a friend's family. They decide

48:33

to team up. Back in Green Hills, Wade

48:36

earlier discovered an arrested stone. We don't need

48:38

to go into that. Robotnik shows

48:40

up. He has godlike electricity powers. The

48:43

army surrounds the coffee shop. I'm not

48:45

sure how they knew what was going

48:47

on there. Maybe Wade called them, I

48:49

don't know. The secret agent commander and

48:51

Tom and Maddie, they helicopter in. Tom

48:53

and Maddie are now, I guess, deputized.

48:55

They're now leaders of this organization, this

48:57

assault on Robotnik. Just in

48:59

time to see Robotnik do

49:01

what everybody does ever since

49:03

Akira or Magneto. You rise

49:06

up in the air with your arms

49:08

outstretched, and then you move your arms to

49:10

create telekinetic force that then disassembles machines and

49:12

then rebuilds them into something. So he disassembles

49:14

all the vehicles, turns them into a giant

49:16

Robotnik mech, as mentioned earlier, just like in

49:18

the games. The heroes show up, and this

49:20

is the part of the movie I love

49:23

to do the summary for, because I can

49:25

basically just say fight, fight, fight, missiles, et

49:27

cetera. Like the movie is like, Elliot, you're

49:29

really tired. Here's 20 minutes of movie that

49:31

you don't really need to summarize very much.

49:33

I mean, that's what it felt like to

49:35

watch it to me. Okay, fight, fight, fight,

49:37

missiles. You're not even

49:39

gonna mention that when Stone doesn't remember how

49:42

to pilot the vehicle or something, he pulls

49:44

out the user's manual, and it is a

49:46

classic design, like a classic Sega video game

49:48

manual. I'm not gonna mention that at all.

49:50

It will go unmentioned in this episode. I

49:53

did like that. I enjoy it. That one

49:55

got me, that bit of nostalgia. I was

49:57

like, okay, I like that. I guess that's

49:59

true. If I was watching an,

50:01

cause I was a Nintendo kid, if I

50:03

was watching a Nintendo movie and they pulled

50:05

out an issue of Nintendo power, you know

50:07

or something, I'd be like, oh, okay. Cause

50:10

you're a Nintendo kid, just seeing it made

50:12

you angry. You broke your controller in your

50:14

hand. You're like, mamma mia, because you're a

50:16

Nintendo kid. Yeah, Mario. I

50:18

was like, it's a me, Nintendo

50:20

kid. Link, bubble bubble, you know

50:22

that kind of stuff. Of course, of course. Mega

50:24

man, they call him. I think

50:26

that's a librarian. Right, bike, yeah.

50:28

Yeah. Toe jam and

50:31

Earl. I think that was on both platforms. Anyway,

50:35

I was gonna tell you, I know we're Nintendo stuff, we don't need to do that.

50:38

Sonic Knuckles and Tails. Sonic's like, we need to

50:40

work as a team. And it's like, well, what

50:42

were you doing up to this point when you

50:44

said you were gonna be partners? Sonic's gonna distract

50:47

Robotnik because he knows Robotnik hates him the most,

50:49

while Knuckles and Tails sneak into the mech. Sonic

50:52

gets real beat up. Knuckles punches Robotnik, which causes

50:54

the Emerald to fall out of the mech. There's

50:56

a moment where they're standing there seeing

50:59

this newly created giant monster thing. And

51:01

I'm like, wow, this is kind of

51:03

like the end of Suicide Squad where

51:05

Edraselba's facing down a sudden appearance of a

51:07

giant monster thing. That's pretty cool, right? Is

51:10

it cool for him, do you think? Do

51:12

you do the same thing a couple times?

51:14

It in no way speaks to the creative

51:16

bankruptcy of Hollywood that all movies operate the

51:18

exact same way. Instead, that is

51:20

the majesty of the story circle writing

51:22

structure, which makes only perfect movies. But

51:25

yeah, I bet Edraselba was like, this is pretty funny

51:27

that I did this in another movie. Yeah. I'm

51:31

sure he marvels at the irony all the time.

51:33

Yeah, he's like, this reminds me of Stringer Bell's

51:35

final scene in The Wire. I've done this so

51:37

many times, based off with an enemy who

51:40

in their case was standing on stairs slightly above

51:42

me. So they seemed bigger than me, even though

51:44

Brother Mazone and Omar were smaller than me in

51:47

real life. I'm a very tall man. I'm Edraselba,

51:49

of course. He often reminds

51:51

people who he is while they're talking to him. And

51:56

the guy he's talking to is like, I know, I'm your authorized biographer.

51:58

You hired me to interview you and then write your. Your memoir.

52:00

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to make sure you know, I was

52:02

Idris Elba. No, I'm aware of it Yeah, we've been working together

52:04

for months now. I've lived with your family really

52:06

embedded with you. Yeah. Yeah I just want to make sure you

52:08

wild a real life thing that he does Well

52:14

it yourself is like I just want to make sure you know

52:16

who I am because I know you went and lived on the

52:18

island Of Elba for a few months to really get into my

52:20

head. That's not me. That's an island. We're in a polio. Yeah

52:24

Yeah, so uh, anyway Sonic he's all beat

52:26

up. He takes the emerald Tom and Maddie

52:28

They help him briefly and he's like go

52:30

go don't get save yourself and she goes

52:32

no We're a family and Robotnik steps on

52:34

them with his giant mech But the

52:36

power of the emerald gives sonic super

52:39

golden glow ultra powers and he saves

52:41

them all he defeats Robotnik's robot seemingly

52:43

killing Robotnik and Later

52:45

on the leader of the agent commanders like well I guess

52:47

Robotnik disappeared and it's like uh, it seems like he died

52:49

in the wreckage Like I don't I guess we're not gonna

52:52

get into that They

52:54

he uses and that he having saved the day

52:56

he uses his now godlike power to conjure a

52:58

hot dog with everything on it and Then ejects

53:00

the power from his body sending it who

53:03

knows where I don't Jean

53:06

Grey to encounter it and take it on I guess

53:08

take it on Yeah, and so that you can eat

53:10

the plan of the broccoli people and

53:12

he goes back to being a kid Knuckles fixes

53:15

the emerald shards by squeezing them really tight

53:17

the same way that Ferris Bueller says that

53:19

Cameron could do with a Blump of coal

53:21

to turn it into a diamond. I can

53:23

do 80s movie references to Everything

53:27

is related to I can do that too, right

53:29

Jamel right? I mean Holly

53:33

when we do do it on the podcast quite a bit

53:44

Human excrement Hard

53:47

so Barry later on yeah, anyway,

53:49

I'd like to thank you again New York Times opinion writer, Jamel Bowie for

53:51

being on the episode Later

53:55

so nowadays instead of gonna join forces

53:57

to forever protect the master emerald later

54:00

Who knows how many days or years later Sonic is

54:02

teaching tales and Knuckles had to play baseball Knuckles

54:04

has some funny lines here It's funny someone who

54:07

is a any of the time someone is like

54:09

a space warrior who's learning a human sport Yeah,

54:12

the jokes write themselves Tom

54:14

is happy that Sonic has friends now He keeps calling

54:16

them his his squad right or whatever which I did

54:18

not don't like or his wingman or whatever I don't

54:20

like it. I don't like that and

54:23

Sonic calls Tom dad, which I

54:26

have to say the moment is touching but it's weird when

54:28

a CGI blue Hedgehog

54:30

from another dimension calls you dad like that.

54:33

Is that is this the family? We're the

54:35

first time, Elliot, but you know

54:37

over the years It

54:39

was less weird than when Jim Carrey yelled

54:41

at while sliding under a closing door and

54:43

he said make room for daddy Yeah,

54:47

and especially because I don't like it because it's a

54:50

reference to a thing from before the 1980s which makes

54:52

me uncomfortable Was it

54:54

was their culture then I don't know and I don't want to know

54:57

They and but I wish the movie then had

54:59

cut to Tom Imagining Sonic's future

55:01

as his son where he's like seeing

55:03

you graduate from college He's

55:06

walking down the aisle at his Jewish wedding because

55:08

he's marrying a Jewish woman And a little

55:10

raping your son is what you're talking about.

55:12

Basically. He's an old man and Sonic's People

55:23

with like big spiky blue Very

55:28

small humans Is

55:36

worse than the Love

55:40

it Yeah,

55:43

that's the one they don't talk about everyone

55:45

knows the truth about it Yeah, they all

55:47

go out for ice cream and they almost

55:49

leave the master emerald behind The

55:52

thing that they just promised they would protect with

55:54

their lives to the very end. They almost lost

55:56

within moments And then I know

55:58

sure you don't stay for these but there's a a mid-credit scene,

56:01

that's right. What? The

56:03

secret agent commander, he's told, as

56:05

Jamel said, they've discovered a 50-year-old

56:07

hidden government facility, Project Shadow, and

56:09

a containment energy pod opens and

56:12

Shadow the Hedgehog opens his eyes,

56:14

and I was confronted with

56:16

the knowledge in myself. I don't know

56:18

who Shadow is, and I don't know.

56:20

I had no context for this reveal.

56:22

Oh man, Jamel's gearing up. You can

56:25

see the hands go to the keyboard.

56:27

He's the Hedgehog correspondent, I was told you about

56:29

Shadow the Hedgehog. So

56:32

Shadow the Hedgehog first appears in Sonic Adventure

56:34

2 from 2001, and

56:36

he's like basically Sonic's, and he's like

56:38

Sonic's Wario, basically. Oh, cool, so I

56:40

like him already. Misunderstood.

56:42

He's sort of a Wannic, if you will.

56:44

He is, so, okay, let me

56:47

take, so

56:49

Wario, as we all know, as we're all aware,

56:52

is like greed and avarice incarnate,

56:54

and really, it's not, we

56:58

know where he was on January 6th. Oh,

57:00

for sure. There's

57:03

a reason he's been in hiding. Felling shirts outside

57:05

of the event. That's right, that's right. Wow. This

57:09

election, we did a win. But

57:13

so Shadow isn't like, so

57:15

Wario's only an antagonist insofar that

57:17

Mario gets in the way of Wario

57:20

trying to get those coins. Shadow

57:22

is more like an anti-hero type

57:25

who is an antagonist to be

57:27

simple, Sonic's attempt

57:29

to do something heroic, interferes with Shadow's

57:31

attempt to do something heroic. Oh, I

57:33

like that. He's not like evil. He's

57:39

just sort of, you know. He's like the

57:41

Hot Topic version of Sonic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

57:44

Interesting. He's a Sonic that the goth's around.

57:47

Sonic, yeah. Oh, you know, I'm just saying.

57:49

I'm so much more interested in Sonic lore

57:51

when it comes from Jamel rather than Sonic

57:53

2. Yeah,

57:55

I wish, I would have really loved it if they

57:57

had to keep going to explainers that you were doing

57:59

Jamel. Oh, yeah, like uh, like

58:02

uh, who's that director who I don't like? Adam

58:05

McKay. There we go. Yeah, like Adam McKay

58:07

movie They're like New

58:09

York Times opinion colleges. Jamel. We

58:11

talk shadow the hedgehog And

58:14

I'm in a hot tub. You're in a battle. Yeah Now

58:17

imagine sonic hedgehog and shadow

58:20

the hedgehog are the deficit and the

58:22

debt. Let me explain to you Um,

58:26

uh, yeah, actually that would make this I know I

58:28

want now I want to see the big short jamel

58:30

cut where you you're the person Explaining to the things

58:32

and by the end of the movie you're like, I

58:34

don't know just dramatize these this information like it's not

58:37

helpful It's not helpful to be told this

58:39

way Listen, listen, i'm an adult.

58:41

I can understand exposition in a film. You

58:43

can just have a character say it I

58:45

don't need margarabi the one that got

58:48

well, I mean what was also funny me was that they

58:50

were like margo Robby in a hot tub and I was

58:52

like, well, this is the most covered up I think i've

58:54

ever seen margo robbie in a movie So the idea that

58:56

this is like a sexy way to explain it But anyway,

58:58

it was later on when they're like looking they're finding the

59:00

prospectuses Littering the lobby of that building and

59:02

they're like, oh look at these numbers and they turn the

59:04

camera go This isn't really how we found this information really

59:06

we did this other thing But anyway, we'll go back to

59:09

it here and i'm like, well then if you're gonna tell me

59:11

you can just show me them doing it You know,

59:13

I don't what do I feel like that

59:15

stuff is so much more charming and uh,

59:17

like, uh, 24 hour party people or something

59:19

Yes, which is at least based on like

59:21

of a bunch of accounts and you know

59:23

drugged up weirdos telling the story I mean

59:25

it's when when it's when you have steve

59:27

coogan doing it it's instantly more entertaining But

59:30

also when the when the when the

59:32

guy from the buzzcocks is like, I don't remember that happening like

59:34

that When you have the real person

59:36

doing it. Yeah, if you're gonna do this at all, which

59:38

you don't have to there's no one's gonna Make you put

59:41

that in your movie But if you're gonna do it at

59:43

all, I like that better than

59:45

the explainers I like the acknowledgement like

59:48

look this isn't exactly how we did but for the

59:50

first of the movie Here's like I kind of yeah,

59:52

because I don't know I I get so mad at

59:54

movies on the other end of things where they're just

59:56

like We're gonna basically

59:59

a whole make up this thing and

1:00:01

then put inspired by a true story at the

1:00:03

beginning and then just be like, well, I

1:00:06

guess I can't argue with the idea that it

1:00:08

was inspired by that. Do you prefer inspired by

1:00:10

a true story over some

1:00:12

like bullshit quippy thing, like,

1:00:14

you know, based on truth

1:00:17

and lies? I don't

1:00:19

know, because I did, when the great started, I did like where it

1:00:21

says a, what was it? It

1:00:23

was like a sometimes true story. I

1:00:25

liked that. Well, at least the great, but the

1:00:27

great also has some really fun performances and

1:00:30

Nicholas Holt is like the most charming

1:00:32

fucking gremlin creep you've ever seen. Yeah,

1:00:34

yeah. I love him, the most

1:00:36

charming. I feel like I should mention one other

1:00:38

thing about Shadow. He loves these guns. Please. Yeah,

1:00:40

this is the time. He loves

1:00:43

these what? Sorry. In

1:00:45

his games, he uses guns. He shoots

1:00:47

people. Oh, so it's like the Punisher. He's

1:00:49

so fucking cool. I don't like that. No,

1:00:52

I don't like that. God damn it, he's so cool.

1:00:54

The iconic is like, you're never like that. And is

1:00:56

there Shadow? Oh, this name's Shadow.

1:00:59

There's no reason to have a gun in a Sonic

1:01:01

game. That's the bonkers. That's, come

1:01:03

on. I'm looking at a still

1:01:05

here from 2005 Shadow the Hedgehog

1:01:07

and he has like an Uzi.

1:01:10

Fucking A, an Uzi. That shoots so many

1:01:12

bullets. Yeah, but it doesn't last that long.

1:01:15

They run out really fast. Oh, he probably

1:01:17

has another one, guys. Now what if an

1:01:19

Uzi shot Uzi? The world would be a

1:01:21

better place, right? Yeah, that's actually right. We'd

1:01:24

have all these mutants running around. Like Ivan

1:01:26

Uzi or like Secret of the Uzi. Okay,

1:01:29

all right. Yeah, only 80s references.

1:01:33

So yeah, or like the Goo Guns

1:01:35

from Ghostbusters 2, like that sort of

1:01:37

shit. The Goo Gun that shoots

1:01:40

Goo Gone. Yeah. It

1:01:42

seems like it's causing its own problem

1:01:44

there. Like the solution in Sonic Search

1:01:47

or something. When you said Goo

1:01:49

Guns, I thought you said Doogongs and I was like

1:01:51

a manatee? Yeah, do you

1:01:53

remember them from Ghostbusters 2? It's crazy. But

1:01:56

I go to you. Viggo did not like

1:01:58

that. No. Well, I think that that's

1:02:01

enough, Jivris, to justify our value

1:02:03

in this year's Max Fun Drive. We should

1:02:05

move on to... Final

1:02:08

judgments. Final judgments, whether it's a

1:02:10

good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, a

1:02:12

movie we kinda like. I'm gonna really quickly say

1:02:14

that I did not care for this

1:02:16

film. The longer we do this, the

1:02:19

more I find that the

1:02:21

films that really irritate me are the ones that just

1:02:23

feel like, just kind

1:02:25

of like the most pro forma versions of the

1:02:28

movies that you would make out of, say,

1:02:30

a property, which is what this is. It's like,

1:02:32

okay, we gotta do a Sonic sequel. The

1:02:35

first one we did, like, the

1:02:37

obvious thing that everyone always does, like, oh, this character's

1:02:39

in our real world, and now we're gonna like... And

1:02:41

he loves to party. Dive into a

1:02:44

bunch of impenetrable, like, bullshits

1:02:46

that I don't, like, I've never given

1:02:48

a reason to care about, I don't know. It just

1:02:50

felt like the most

1:02:53

bankrupt shit. Sorry

1:02:56

for being more mean than usual, but I did not

1:02:58

care for it. Do you think it's possible that the

1:03:00

screenwriter, one of the screenwriters who worked on it, had

1:03:03

a spec script about a wedding and was like, I'm

1:03:05

never gonna be able to sell this script on Hollywood,

1:03:07

I'm just gonna shoehorn it into this Sonic sequel. I

1:03:10

hope the guy, that's what happened. I

1:03:12

really want that to be the case, that they were just sort of

1:03:14

like, you know what? We can add

1:03:16

another 20 minutes to this movie. This

1:03:18

is the script I wrote for the Sundance Lab that

1:03:20

I was a member of. Can I just get it

1:03:22

here? This is my new god, Green Blood. Stewart

1:03:26

Williams, oh yeah, you're gonna think. Yeah, Stewart, what do

1:03:28

you think? No, Stewart, what do you think?

1:03:31

Well, first off, Elliot mentioned the idea of

1:03:33

like, a character coming to our world and

1:03:35

loving a party. It's like, you're not gonna

1:03:37

bring somebody here and have them not like

1:03:39

partying. Like, nope, yeah, what is this like

1:03:41

waste? I feel like Alf did

1:03:43

it best. Why are we still chasing Alf?

1:03:46

Yeah, Alf is like if Rodney Dangerfield came

1:03:48

to our world. Of

1:03:50

course he would love partying. Oh,

1:03:52

he's running on Planet Dangerfield. He is. He's

1:03:55

here, he's here. He is.

1:04:00

Well, not anymore, but... Yeah,

1:04:02

he was being kind of as a dog briefly. Yeah. Yeah,

1:04:06

I would say, um, I

1:04:08

like that a number of people in this movie

1:04:11

got paid to be in it. Uh,

1:04:14

there were a couple of jokes that I thought were

1:04:17

funny, mainly psych jokes, and it made me wonder, why

1:04:20

don't they make like good Looney Tunes movies

1:04:22

with like live action elements too, like

1:04:25

a Wily Coyote thing, but who knows?

1:04:27

That will never happen. It will never

1:04:29

happen. And then, um, uh,

1:04:31

but yeah, it's just so long. It's

1:04:33

so long, and it has so many, it makes you,

1:04:35

it takes so many extra steps that it doesn't need

1:04:37

to. I don't understand the

1:04:39

point of this. Who is this for? Okay, thanks.

1:04:43

I would say, yeah, similarly, it's like this

1:04:45

could be a much worse movie. It's not

1:04:47

like there's, but it's, it's just

1:04:49

kind of, there's no reason for it. And the reason for

1:04:51

a movie like this is fun, but it kind of

1:04:54

never achieves that level of fun. That being said, like

1:04:57

if my kids were like, hey, you need to

1:04:59

work for two hours, you're going

1:05:01

to show us Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to keep us

1:05:03

busy. I wouldn't be against it the same way that

1:05:05

I have recently started turning off TV shows in the

1:05:07

middle of them when I've noticed my kids are watching

1:05:09

stuff that I think is, I think is,

1:05:11

you know, bad enough. Yeah, stop letting

1:05:13

them watch fucking Blue Bloods, dude. But they,

1:05:17

each time I think it's going to be the one where

1:05:19

they learn something important, you know? Last

1:05:22

I fair, like I, like I was brought up

1:05:25

by television. Just let them absorb whatever

1:05:27

the fuck. That's the other thing is

1:05:29

I'm always torn because I'm like, well, when I was a

1:05:31

kid, I did watch it, whatever I wanted. And there was

1:05:33

a lot of crap. Like it shouldn't, I shouldn't be able

1:05:35

to identify what episode is saved by the bell. This is

1:05:37

within the first two minutes every episode,

1:05:39

but I can, but I think it's,

1:05:43

it's not very good, but I wasn't offended by it. I

1:05:46

didn't, not as offended as I was by the

1:05:48

commercial for the Knuckles TV show where I was

1:05:50

like, is there nothing else in the world than

1:05:52

IP? Like really? So Jamel, tell me

1:05:54

why we're wrong. Tell us why this is a great movie

1:05:56

for all those Sonic heads. Are the hedge heads out there?

1:06:00

heads up there. It's exactly what

1:06:02

you're looking for. No, Ellie, I,

1:06:04

you know, as also a father,

1:06:09

I very much had the kind of a similar

1:06:11

reaction, like, you know, compared to some other kids'

1:06:13

entertainment, this is like perfectly fine. You know, it's

1:06:15

like, it's not offensive. It's

1:06:17

not like, it's not too dumb, right?

1:06:20

It's not like a egregiously stupid. So

1:06:23

on that level, I was like fine with it. I

1:06:27

remember, I remember kind of liking the first Sonic

1:06:29

movie just because it felt like

1:06:31

this throwback to the 90s, to like how

1:06:33

you would do this kind of thing when

1:06:35

I was a kid. This one, I just, I guess maybe

1:06:38

it was in a bad mood. I was like, I don't,

1:06:40

I don't care for

1:06:42

this. Like a throwback is fun once.

1:06:44

And then when this movie really feels like we

1:06:46

have no new tricks. Like we're not, except we're

1:06:49

adding more characters in the game. And even the,

1:06:51

like that first movie, I was

1:06:53

like, I really loved seeing Jim Carrey doing Jim

1:06:55

Carrey stuff. And this one, I still enjoyed that

1:06:57

somewhat, but by the end of the movie,

1:06:59

it was really grating on me. And this is one of

1:07:01

those movies where you can really see some of the parts

1:07:03

where they threw in jokes

1:07:06

off camera for moments that

1:07:08

they didn't have jokes for before that didn't

1:07:10

work. Like it's, there's a point at the

1:07:12

end where Jim Carrey has no lines that

1:07:14

are actual dialogue and they're all just quips.

1:07:16

And I was like, all right, so this

1:07:18

movie is like, it's, it's held together with,

1:07:20

with string at this point. Like it's barely,

1:07:22

it's just, we didn't even talk about the

1:07:24

moment where he, Jim Carrey plays his leg

1:07:26

like a guitar. And then they play like

1:07:28

the opening rift for opening rift for walk

1:07:30

by Pantera. And I'm like, Oh, okay.

1:07:34

This is robots about to walk. I did

1:07:36

like when he played his leg like a guitar, but it doesn't really

1:07:38

go anywhere. It's just, I think he does for a moment, you know?

1:07:40

So yeah, this is that. So we,

1:07:42

so we give it our highest recommendation, show

1:07:45

it to children, but don't watch it

1:07:47

if you're an adult or

1:07:49

if you're stuck, if you're stuck having to

1:07:51

watch it with your kids, it's not going

1:07:53

to be intolerable. Oh, okay.

1:07:56

Put it on the poster. Not

1:07:59

intolerable. and they are dying. Hey,

1:08:01

and I'm back here talking about Max Fun

1:08:03

Drive BOCO. I know what you're desperate for. You're

1:08:07

like, Stewart, you told us about how important

1:08:09

is the sport art that we love. You're

1:08:18

probably interested in finding out about some swag.

1:08:20

Okay. So that's one of the

1:08:23

great things about the Max Fun Drive. If

1:08:25

you support or upgrade or, uh, if you

1:08:27

support or upgrade during this time period, it

1:08:29

gives you access to a bunch of stuff.

1:08:31

For one, our entire catalog of bonus content.

1:08:33

Guys, we've been members of the Max Fun

1:08:35

network for years. We have made so much

1:08:37

bonus material. We have done feature

1:08:40

length film commentaries of what?

1:08:42

Brats? We did Brats. We did

1:08:44

cats. We had the country bears. All of

1:08:46

those, all your hits. The first two rhymes. We

1:08:49

also, uh, we also did, uh, only with

1:08:51

the country bats. That would have been the

1:08:53

best. That would have been great. Why not?

1:08:56

We, we've done, uh, episodes where we

1:08:58

do the flophouse classic flophouse treatment, but

1:09:00

apply it to television shows. What in

1:09:03

the world? We have done

1:09:05

all kinds of stuff, including my personal

1:09:07

favorite, the flop tails episodes where I

1:09:09

make Dan and Elliot and our friends, you

1:09:11

and play a role playing game with me and

1:09:13

they make it seem like it's a huge hassle,

1:09:16

but deep down, I think they love it and

1:09:18

they go on all kinds of adventures. There's ones

1:09:20

where they play Dungeons and Dragons, but I think

1:09:22

all those are in the adventure zone feed. We

1:09:25

have episodes where you guys go

1:09:27

on like weird noir, uh, weird

1:09:29

boiled, uh, adventures dealing with aliens

1:09:31

and whatnot. The

1:09:33

last episode that ended with me with a bunch of

1:09:36

Martian worms in my head that control my thoughts. You

1:09:40

do have worms in your head. Yeah.

1:09:42

Worms inside you. There are ones about where

1:09:44

we were dogs. Yes, that's true. Hopefully your

1:09:47

characters don't have worms. Yeah. Yeah.

1:09:50

Yeah. Those are personal favorites

1:09:52

of mine where you guys are dogs. That's the

1:09:54

ones where we're dogs. There's a, uh, our, our

1:09:57

editor producer, Alex did a new theme song for

1:09:59

those that. that my kids love to

1:10:01

listen to all the time. That's great. Okay,

1:10:04

so that's the stuff that's available. Everybody who supports

1:10:06

$5 a month or more has access to that,

1:10:08

plus access to all the content from all the

1:10:11

shows. There's tons of great stuff out there. It's

1:10:14

really awesome. If

1:10:16

you support, then there's some additional gifts. If

1:10:18

you support the $10 a month or more,

1:10:20

you get access to a pin of your

1:10:22

choice. Each show had a pin design. What's

1:10:24

our pin design this year, guys? It's

1:10:27

Werner Herzog. Classic Werner Herzog. Of

1:10:29

course, what he always has been known

1:10:31

to say many times, I'm a bad wittle

1:10:34

boy. That's true. The

1:10:36

scowling face of Werner Herzog with a big

1:10:38

word balloon that says I'm a bad wittle

1:10:40

boy. It is the perfect accessory if you

1:10:42

want people to say, wait,

1:10:44

what? Come on. There's

1:10:49

some additional other cool swag. There's a

1:10:51

bandana that serves as a chessboard, I

1:10:53

believe. It's super cute. There's a bucket

1:10:55

hat option if you wanna look silent

1:10:57

and not get too much sun on

1:11:00

your face. There's also the

1:11:02

maximum tote or the maximum bag, which

1:11:04

is the biggest tote bag I've ever

1:11:06

seen. It's enormous. It's enormous. Yeah.

1:11:09

Large bag. I feel like it

1:11:11

doubles as a tent. I'd have to double check the-

1:11:13

It's like carrying around the trunk of a car in

1:11:15

a tote. So there's all

1:11:17

this cool stuff. That's if

1:11:19

you're being strictly mercenary about it.

1:11:22

So why don't you please support us, get ahold

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of some of that swag, head over to maximumfun.org/join.

1:11:28

Okay. Thank you

1:11:31

so much. Bye.

1:11:37

Let's move on quickly to

1:11:39

letters from listeners. Like

1:11:41

you, the listener. This one is from

1:11:43

Liam Lastain with Held. Liam Lastain. While

1:11:46

this seems to flop house mini number 99, I

1:11:49

was surprised to find out that Elliot works at the

1:11:52

Barnes and Nobles in Chelsea around 2002. I

1:11:56

also worked at that exact location around the same

1:11:58

time. I worked in the cafe above the bookstore. but

1:12:00

would often linger in the store after my

1:12:02

shift. So bring the email back

1:12:04

to the flophouse at large, what do

1:12:06

you consider to be a novel trope in

1:12:08

movies that is underused or underrepresented? Liam Lasting

1:12:11

was held now. He could be saying novel

1:12:13

as in new, but

1:12:17

I took it to mean since it was a book

1:12:20

store related letter, a trope

1:12:22

from novels, a trope from the written

1:12:24

word that is not translated

1:12:26

to movies that often,

1:12:29

which is a difficult question.

1:12:32

I am realizing as I'm putting it forth,

1:12:34

not that I didn't send it to you ahead of time, but

1:12:36

I'm thinking about it, I'm having a hard

1:12:38

time. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind,

1:12:40

you guys can obviously correct me, but

1:12:43

maybe this is inspired by reading too

1:12:45

many romance novels lately, but you don't

1:12:47

see as many movies where that

1:12:50

features two like main characters

1:12:52

and it like it cuts between their

1:12:54

perspectives in a way that actually shows

1:12:57

you their perspective and that makes sense, I

1:12:59

feel like, yeah. I

1:13:01

think similarly, what I was thinking was it's

1:13:04

so much, I think Better

1:13:06

Use is made of unreliable narrators in the same

1:13:08

way in books than in movies. And one of

1:13:10

the things I liked about Tar so much is

1:13:12

that it wasn't like, this is a

1:13:15

crazy person and we're seeing their insane view of

1:13:17

humanity, but there were times where you're like, I

1:13:20

can't, I'm not quite sure that the perception I'm

1:13:22

seeing this through, which is very much her perception

1:13:24

is totally on the level,

1:13:26

totally accurate. And

1:13:28

I really like that when they

1:13:30

do such a good job there of like just

1:13:32

giving you enough to doubt what you're seeing without

1:13:35

it being bonkers or obvious. And

1:13:37

I feel like that's something books do very well and

1:13:39

movies are not always good at. You know what, you

1:13:41

saying that reminded me of like walking

1:13:43

out of Love Lies Bleeding and I won't

1:13:45

spoil the end to Love Lies Bleeding. What

1:13:47

happens to love? It's okay, right? It's the

1:13:50

end of the minute. It's not the end,

1:13:52

buddy. But there were some people

1:13:54

out outside talking about

1:13:56

it like, whoa, what happened? Like,

1:13:58

what? stuff them in lockers. And

1:14:01

I was like, I have to see in that

1:14:03

movie, I feel like a million feet tall. No,

1:14:05

I love it, but I was like, okay,

1:14:08

okay, squares was kind of my thought

1:14:10

where it's just like, you

1:14:12

don't have to take everything

1:14:15

in a movie literally just because it's presented to

1:14:17

you. Sometimes a movie sort of present,

1:14:20

can present the emotional reality, like

1:14:22

the way something feels like to

1:14:25

you, and it's not necessarily,

1:14:27

it doesn't have to make

1:14:29

clear delineations of like, is this really happening

1:14:31

the way we're seeing it or not? You're

1:14:35

asking entirely too much of modern day movie

1:14:38

goers. I

1:14:41

mean, there's a lot of, if

1:14:44

the movie doesn't tell me exactly what the lesson

1:14:46

of this movie is, then that's a plot hole.

1:14:48

Yeah. Yeah, the labeling of so

1:14:51

many different things as plot holes is a

1:14:53

real problem. I think in

1:14:55

internet movie discourse, especially where they're like, why

1:14:57

didn't the characters do the most obvious solution first?

1:14:59

That's a plot hole. Like, well, not really

1:15:01

a plot hole. People really do

1:15:03

the most obvious. Why don't you do the

1:15:05

most obvious solution first, sir? In

1:15:08

your life. Glad

1:15:11

that you took it to them, Dan. That's good, that's good.

1:15:13

Yeah. We'll be right back at them. I'm trying to think,

1:15:15

I don't read a ton of novels. This is, I'm a

1:15:18

fellow steam. I think what

1:15:20

works more- But you read

1:15:22

Dune, right? I mean, I read Dune first, yeah.

1:15:24

Okay, good. You've read the novel. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

1:15:26

yeah. Other than

1:15:28

the films of Paul Schrader, no

1:15:30

one really does this sort of

1:15:32

like, narrator belittling

1:15:35

themselves well in film. I'm

1:15:38

thinking of the beginning of Dessy Esky's

1:15:40

Notes from Underground, which is, I

1:15:43

am a sick man, I am a wicked man. That's

1:15:46

how the novel starts. And I want more movies to start

1:15:48

like that with the main character being like, I

1:15:51

am the worst person alive. You

1:15:54

shouldn't finish watching this because I'm terrible.

1:16:00

Better in print than it would in a movie

1:16:02

where you'd be like what's going on here? I

1:16:05

feel like I feel like Paul Giamatti could pull

1:16:07

it off though. I think yeah, that's

1:16:09

like a serious Giamatti line Movie

1:16:12

that would open with Paul Giamatti looking up something there going

1:16:14

like what do you been thinking you piece of shit? You're

1:16:16

an idiot like I would like I'm like I'm in with

1:16:18

that movie. Yeah, I gotta watch it. I got a The

1:16:24

There's uh, it's um, I guess she's not the main

1:16:26

character But in a in Michael Clayton, Tillis

1:16:28

Witten does that right? She's like angry. Yeah,

1:16:30

that's right. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah, man, but

1:16:32

you're right. Paul Schrader doesn't want a movie. Yeah What

1:16:35

a movie like like it to what Paul Schrader is I

1:16:37

think Paul Schrader knows that

1:16:39

he's a jerk. Yeah Because

1:16:41

Paul Schrader is like America's like last living

1:16:43

like I don't know like Calvinist settler, you

1:16:45

know There

1:16:49

is this there was this New Yorker article about him

1:16:52

Last year and he's like he's talking about his

1:16:54

philosophy of only fucking up you never deal with

1:16:56

anybody who's below you you only go up So

1:16:58

you always have to be constantly climbing socially and

1:17:00

professionally and he goes, of course it goes it

1:17:03

works But of course it leaves a bad impression But

1:17:09

oh movies he comes I mean like but you but

1:17:11

then you have movie like first reforms where the main

1:17:13

character is not An asshole, but he has that he

1:17:16

has that amazing doubt and like self self

1:17:19

Self-loathing even if he doesn't necessarily deserve it and

1:17:21

one of the top ten movies of the century in my opinion. Yeah

1:17:25

Not a joke. Yeah, it's incredible.

1:17:27

Yeah That's

1:17:29

that that that went a lot of Academy Awards Fun

1:17:32

fact I saw that I saw that right before I

1:17:34

went to it one of your guys's shows like 2018

1:17:37

My wife and I were like, oh

1:17:39

right re hours between Your

1:17:41

like what we were doing and your show and I was

1:17:43

like, let's go see a movie and I was

1:17:45

like Oh, I'm a new pause trader. We'll just like pop in there

1:17:47

and see that Came

1:17:49

out and we're like we gotta go see a

1:17:52

comedy show. I Feel

1:17:54

like you told us that I'm like I've

1:17:56

heard it's good. But now now having seen

1:17:58

it. That's a that's a total shit I

1:18:00

feel better about you sitting stone

1:18:02

face through our show after this.

1:18:08

This second letter is from John Lasting with

1:18:10

Hells who writes, Hi all, I

1:18:13

got $2 American from

1:18:16

Nielsen to answer their poll about what and

1:18:18

how I consume media. I put

1:18:20

the flophouse down as my main podcast. My

1:18:23

family was a Nielsen family when I was a kid and

1:18:25

involved the installation of a set top box. This

1:18:27

was all web. We've arrived. I'll

1:18:29

hang up and listen. Well, thank

1:18:32

you for like,

1:18:34

I wasn't aware that the Nielsen's were now measuring

1:18:38

podcasts, but now that I know I think

1:18:41

our mission is clear, everyone

1:18:43

out there with access to any

1:18:45

sort of Nielsen influence, uh,

1:18:47

put the flophouse down, get us up there

1:18:49

on the, on the ratings.

1:18:51

So I don't know at upfronts we

1:18:53

can ask for, I don't know

1:18:55

how it works. I'm just glad that there's another,

1:18:58

yet another metric that I can use to measure

1:19:00

my disappointment in myself that I can

1:19:02

use to compare myself to other people and see

1:19:04

that I'm not measuring up to them. That's

1:19:06

great. I'm glad it's especially weird for me. Cause I grew

1:19:08

up in a Nelson family. Of course my, my family was

1:19:10

in the band Nelson. Wow. Yeah.

1:19:13

Yeah. It gives a good

1:19:15

way to either measure that or sort of

1:19:17

our, our slide, you know, from semi relevance

1:19:20

to irrelevant. Well, you can always measure your,

1:19:22

you can always, you can always measure your

1:19:24

height or something to feel better about yourself.

1:19:27

Yeah. You're right, Stu. You're right.

1:19:29

That's the, that's the, that's the number that always

1:19:32

makes it up well. Where do you think it

1:19:34

started, Stu? Where do you think neuroses started with?

1:19:36

I've told, I've told the story many times about,

1:19:38

there's a, about, uh, someone I went to, I

1:19:41

went to elementary school with has since become a

1:19:43

political commentator and she tweeted

1:19:45

out a picture of our first grade class.

1:19:47

And I was so much smaller than the

1:19:49

other kids that you could like, I was

1:19:51

just kind of like a head hidden behind

1:19:53

like, like, uh, like something very low. And

1:19:55

I was like, E.T. And

1:19:58

a closet of stuffies. Exactly. I

1:20:00

really I really was a small kid. This

1:20:02

is no wonder I've always felt inadequate Oh

1:20:04

well, no wonder I've always had to prove

1:20:06

myself to be the smartest one in the

1:20:08

room Constantly interrupting my co-hosts not letting them

1:20:10

talk saying jokes that aren't funny just to

1:20:12

annoy people. Yeah Really

1:20:16

made some progress in this session. I appreciate it guys. How much

1:20:18

do I owe you? We'll

1:20:21

handle it off Mike. Let's move on to

1:20:25

Recommendations of movies we saw recently

1:20:27

stuff that might be more

1:20:29

worth your time Perhaps then Sonic

1:20:32

2 unless you're a big Sonic fan in which case,

1:20:34

you know do what you like We're not the last

1:20:36

word chili dogs, you know, if you like Sonic 2

1:20:39

God love you like you don't don't feel like

1:20:41

we're trying to insult you personally We're

1:20:44

just a podcast and it's extra frightened of

1:20:46

Sonic fans on the internet. Yeah, no What

1:20:50

happened there for the last Sonic episode Dan did they

1:20:52

come after you? No, but there was a lot of

1:20:54

people after Super Mario

1:20:56

Brothers are like, you know, like what's the

1:20:58

problem? It's just I'm like, yeah I

1:21:01

know yeah my children they say to me.

1:21:03

Why did you not like that movie dad? We're

1:21:05

just talking about a personal taste or view on

1:21:07

things. It's that you doesn't have anything. Anyway, I

1:21:09

think you don't like Sonic. I Don't

1:21:13

know where it's going with that I'm sorry You

1:21:19

don't like the Sonic the Hedgehog movie Or

1:21:22

if you do like it, I think it's a better way to put it

1:21:24

if you do like it I don't want to talk to

1:21:26

you Sure,

1:21:32

why don't you go first for once let's do yeah, I'm

1:21:34

gonna a Dan we saw

1:21:36

a movie together. Can I recommend it? Yeah, I was

1:21:38

wondering whether you might that's part of what yeah, heck

1:21:41

Yeah, I'm gonna recommend a little

1:21:43

horror movie that's playing in theaters

1:21:45

right now called immaculate

1:21:49

starring Sidney Sweeney It's

1:21:51

a trim what 89 minutes. Oh

1:21:53

perfect little little length out

1:21:56

gun It is a

1:21:58

little bit non-deploytation It

1:22:00

is about a young American nun

1:22:03

who goes to a kind

1:22:05

of out of the way, kind of

1:22:07

mysterious convent and

1:22:10

gets involved in some, uh, some

1:22:12

bad stuff. And it,

1:22:14

there's, uh, there's definitely a moment it's,

1:22:17

it's kind of slow and it doesn't, uh,

1:22:20

it doesn't really show it's, I mean, like it kind

1:22:22

of telegraphs the mystery a little bit, but it doesn't

1:22:24

like kind of show its hand as to what the

1:22:26

kind of movie it's going to be until right near

1:22:28

the end. Then you're like, Oh yeah, this is going

1:22:30

to be fun. Thumbs up. So, uh, yeah,

1:22:32

I don't want to go into it too much, but if

1:22:34

you, if you like a big fun ending, uh,

1:22:36

watch it. It's cool. I mean, the ending is

1:22:38

great, but I don't want to undersell the rest because

1:22:41

what, what part of what worked effectively for me

1:22:43

watching it was like, yeah, there's

1:22:45

like sort of a cold open

1:22:47

that lets you know, of course

1:22:49

something's going on, but the

1:22:51

movie, the movie, unlike a

1:22:54

lot of sort of, I don't know,

1:22:57

mid budget horror that gets put out there.

1:22:59

It doesn't like telegraph like completely

1:23:02

like, Oh, this convent is like a totally

1:23:04

evil place with like evil shit going down

1:23:06

all the time. Like you can kind of,

1:23:08

you, you, you see the workings of it.

1:23:11

You can understand how like people

1:23:13

of faith might come in here with

1:23:15

good intentions before you see like what

1:23:17

those good intentions have led to and

1:23:19

like what the nature of the horror

1:23:21

is. Yeah. I

1:23:24

was, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Yeah. That's

1:23:26

fun. Immaculate. I'm, I will

1:23:28

also recommend, uh, a

1:23:31

horror movie I watched last night, late at night on

1:23:34

shutter. I watched a butcher

1:23:36

Baker nightmare maker, uh,

1:23:39

kind of an oddball horror movie with

1:23:41

a lot of element. Uh,

1:23:44

it's, it's sort

1:23:47

of about a, um, weird

1:23:50

familial relationship, uh, of, uh,

1:23:52

an aunt and her nephew.

1:23:55

It's also about like the villain in

1:23:57

it is a homophobic.

1:24:00

police officer, which was a surprisingly

1:24:02

progressive thing to see in a horror

1:24:04

movie of that era. It's from the

1:24:06

eighties. It's

1:24:09

got this vibe that I like from sort

1:24:11

of a lot of these lower budget horror

1:24:13

movies of the time where it has

1:24:16

a certain flatness

1:24:18

to the direction because

1:24:20

it's kind of this cheaper

1:24:23

movie, but that

1:24:25

combined with how tawdry the

1:24:27

elements of it are make

1:24:30

it feel like a

1:24:32

after-school special has sort of gone

1:24:34

off the rails and gotten really

1:24:36

weird and gross. So I

1:24:39

enjoyed that. Yeah, I feel like that's like

1:24:41

a perfect like kind of out there oddball

1:24:44

80 slasher that's been kind of under seen.

1:24:46

Yeah. Speaking of

1:24:48

horror movies that are short, I've

1:24:50

got a movie that's even shorter than 89

1:24:52

minutes and it's about the horror of

1:24:54

fashion gone wrong. That's right, everybody. It

1:24:56

is the 1976

1:24:58

adaptation of the story Bernice Bob's Her Hair

1:25:01

by Scott Fitzgerald. This was done for the

1:25:03

PBS show The American Short Story and

1:25:06

it was directed by Joan McLinn Silver

1:25:08

and Shelly Duvall is in it as

1:25:10

the titular Bernice and Veronica Cartwright is

1:25:12

the cousin that she is visiting and

1:25:14

Veronica Cartwright is this is

1:25:16

the 1920s the roaring 20s Veronica Cartwright is the

1:25:19

party girl. Bernice wants to live

1:25:21

that life and be attracted to the boys and

1:25:23

she makes the daring promise that she is going

1:25:25

to bob her hair and it becomes the talk

1:25:27

of the town. Everyone wants to know if it's

1:25:29

going to happen. Bud court is in

1:25:31

it. He's also really funny in it and I

1:25:33

found it just be like a really funny little

1:25:35

like, you know, not chamber

1:25:38

play exactly, but a

1:25:40

funny piece of kind of nostalgia

1:25:42

filmmaking but it's the 70s being nostalgic

1:25:44

for the 20s and

1:25:47

I really enjoyed it. So I saw it on

1:25:49

Canopy which is the free service you can

1:25:51

use through your library for library subscribes and

1:25:53

it's really fun. It's called Bernice Bob's Her Hair. It's

1:25:56

like 45 minutes long. Why not go watch it? I

1:25:58

enjoyed it. I

1:26:01

rewatched over the weekend James O'Brooks'

1:26:03

87 movie broadcast news,

1:26:05

which I'm saying this is a

1:26:08

journalist, you know, whatever. It's

1:26:10

a movie that I absolutely love and I

1:26:13

really had a great time watching it again.

1:26:16

If you've never seen it, it

1:26:18

concerns three reporters, news people. Holly

1:26:21

Hunter plays a news producer for

1:26:23

a sort of a national television

1:26:25

news show. Albert Brooks

1:26:28

plays her reporter colleague who's sort of

1:26:30

prickly and a little unpleasant but

1:26:32

very brilliant. And then William

1:26:34

Hurt plays the kind of news

1:26:36

anchor that is being trained to

1:26:39

kind of take over young, talented,

1:26:41

maybe a little bit unethical. And

1:26:43

it's both like a love triangle kind of film

1:26:46

between the three, but I think it's also just

1:26:48

like a great film about the

1:26:51

intensity and emotion of like being in a workplace

1:26:53

and doing something collectively that you care about and

1:26:55

how that sort of like interacts

1:26:57

with your personal life and interacts with sort of

1:26:59

like how you relate to other people. I don't

1:27:01

know. I love the movie. I think

1:27:03

Holly Hunter is absolutely wonderful in it.

1:27:07

And it's like one of my favorites of

1:27:10

that decade, but then like one of my favorites period.

1:27:13

That's a great movie. I'm going to set aside the

1:27:16

fact that we are once again talking about 80s movies.

1:27:20

That movie helped me personally because when I was a segment

1:27:22

producer at the Daily Show, I was trying to explain to

1:27:24

my dad what my job was like. And he was like,

1:27:26

is it like in broadcast news when she's running across the

1:27:28

running through the station with the tape and she's got to

1:27:30

get it to them right on time? And I was like,

1:27:33

yeah, it is kind of like that. I do the whole

1:27:35

tapes. So it really helped him to visualize what my life

1:27:37

was like in a way that I didn't expect. And

1:27:40

I watched the Criterion Blu-ray. That's how I watched

1:27:42

it. So I highly recommend that. Cool. Yeah.

1:27:45

So Mel, thank you very much for being here. I know we got

1:27:47

to get out of here because you're busy. Before we go, is there

1:27:49

anything you want to plug? My

1:27:53

column at the Times, if you don't like

1:27:55

the Times, that's cool too. If

1:27:57

you do read the Times, my column is usually

1:27:59

over two. And I have a set of

1:28:01

the newsletter and then my podcast my buddy John

1:28:03

Gans Unclear and present danger where

1:28:05

we watch the political and military thrillers of the

1:28:07

cold of the post Cold War era and

1:28:10

kind of talk about them Historicize

1:28:12

them a bit. I think our movie

1:28:14

our next movie we're doing is hackers

1:28:19

Fun that's a actual world people 5

1:28:22

is when the two best hacker movie came back here

1:28:25

movies came out hackers on the net and then that

1:28:27

We've already done the net which is a

1:28:30

fun episode but hackers hackers is quite special

1:28:39

Hey, this is Stewart just chiming in one

1:28:41

last time this marks the end of yet

1:28:43

another max fund drive. Thank you so much

1:28:45

It's been a blast. I've had a ton

1:28:47

of fun with these guys recording some extra

1:28:49

shows I've had a ton

1:28:51

of fun recording extra material on my twitch

1:28:53

channel where I painted a model for some

1:28:56

reason And shadowed it up

1:28:58

the max fund drive means a lot to me

1:29:01

and I can't express how Big

1:29:04

a part of my life Max

1:29:06

fund supporters are I've gone

1:29:08

through a number of hard times over the

1:29:11

last couple years I know

1:29:13

my co-hosts have gone through hard times and it's

1:29:16

It's really great to me to know that there

1:29:18

are people out there who have supported my show

1:29:20

financially and helped me get through some of those

1:29:22

hard times It's

1:29:24

been one of the great joys in

1:29:27

my life that a thing that I love to do that.

1:29:29

I think is worthwhile I

1:29:32

have found an audience who believes the same So,

1:29:35

thank you so much. If you haven't had

1:29:37

a chance yet Head over

1:29:39

to maximum fund org slash join and support

1:29:41

our show if you are

1:29:43

already a supporter I can't stress this enough.

1:29:45

You mean the world to me. Thank you.

1:29:48

I'll just add Thanks to

1:29:51

all who have listened thanks to

1:29:53

all who have given thanks to all that

1:29:55

continue to support us It's

1:29:58

just wonderful to know that you're You're

1:30:00

all out there, you're all with us. You're

1:30:02

all helping us out. And we hope that we

1:30:04

help you out in our small way doing

1:30:07

dumb stuff. But for

1:30:10

this episode of the Flop House, like

1:30:12

to sign off, say thank you to our

1:30:14

producer, Alex Smith. And to identify ourselves one

1:30:16

last time, I have been Dan McCoy. I'm

1:30:19

Stuart Wellington. And I am Elliot Kalin.

1:30:22

Bye. Hey. Hey. Hey.

1:30:33

On this episode, we discuss Sonic

1:30:36

the Hedgehog 2. Too

1:30:40

fast, too furry. I

1:30:45

think that's actually probably the tagline. That was like a

1:30:47

tech joke. Yeah, it probably is. I

1:30:49

would be shocked if that wasn't part of the pitch.

1:30:52

I think that was the first Wily Coyote cartoon, actually.

1:30:54

All right, let me do another one. How about do

1:30:56

this? Okay. Maximum Fun. A

1:30:59

worker-owned network. Of artist-owned

1:31:02

shows. Supported directly by

1:31:04

you.