Robbie Williams is a chimp. That’s not an insult, just an accurate description of Better Man, from the director of past Flop House subject, The Greatest Showman. This one’s the rare FH movie that was a critical success while being a financial flop — will we agree with the critics? Oh, and we buried the lede: HALLIE’S BACK!
We’re joined by longtime friend of the show (but first time on mic!) Alejandro Arbona, a 20-year veteran of comics editing and a comics writer himself, to discuss everyone’s favorite extravagantly-perverse Italian thriller genre — GIALLO. We discuss what defines a giallo and differentiates it from other sub-genres (and the slasher films it helped inspire), and then Alejandro runs us through a little giallo title quiz. It’s so jam-packed with info we didn’t have room for Elliott (jk, he had scheduling issues, that li’l scamp will be back next time!).
We flashback to discuss a movie that was much-requested when it was first released, but just didn’t fit into our schedule — Jerry Seinfeld’s baffling paean to the Pop Tart, Unfrosted, a film that throws an astounding cavalcade of comedy talent at ideas that seem (apologies) a bit undercooked. Also, we were blessed by the rare in-studio presence of our beloved producer, Alex Smith, who hadn’t actually seen the movie, which made explaining the madness of the “plot” all the more enjoyable.
While we were all fortunate enough to record in-person, Stuart filled Dan and Elliott with booze and forced them to do celebrity “impressions.” It’s either our most fun episode or our most embarrassing! Or both!
What’s the deal with Netflix’s The Electric State? Well, for one thing we know that IT’S ELECTRIC… boogie woogie woogie. But also, it’s a movie arguing for the primacy of real-life connection that feels utterly algorithmically designed, what with its Chris Pratts and Millies Bobby Brown and cute robot pals, and it cost… $320 million?? That can’t be right. There must be a smudge on these accounting sheets. Anyway, we talk about it!
Elliott puts on his greasy overalls to look under the filmic hood, as we figure out what makes a good “robot movie,” ask why Heartbeeps was a bad one, and see if we can pull out the robot defibrillator to restore its cinematic heartbeep.
We tie a bow around Max Fun Drive 2025 and our “Movies Without Spider-Man” series with (?) Paul Schrader’s (?) magnum opus, Heartbeeps. It’s the classic tale of a guy robot and a girl robot in love and also there’s a bad stand-up comic robot and a mean cop robot and a baby robot and Andy Kaufman does one of the world’s most irritating voices and what the fuck is this thing?
“Movies Without Spider-Man” Max Fun drive continues (please consider supporting our show!) with the thrilling (?) conclusion (??) of the Venom saga — Venom: The Last Dance, the touching story of a boy and the black sentient goo he wears on his body that sometimes eats people’s heads. There’s one more week of Max Fun Drive […]
