FilmDrunk Frotcast

We all saw David Ayer’s Suicide Squad this week, which wasn’t great, but is strangely fun to dissect. We discuss the strange development of Suicide Squad, then Justin Halpern comes on to tell us his own strange development stories, from Sh-t My Dad Says to present, along with a great story about John Slattery from Mad Men. We finish things off with Crystal Corner, and “Fill My Hole,” in which we name things to watch, read, and listen to, to fill the emptiness inside. Enjoy!  6:15 – My defense of my mild positive Suicide Squad review 15:00 – How Suicide Squad is bad, and yet the typical nerd criticisms of it are all wrong. 19:35 – Talking Jared Leto’s performance, the explanation of the Joker’s dumb grill, and how happy Jared Leto makes us.  22:40 – Movies that are Suicide Squad but better 25:00 – The list of Jared Leto’s favorite books 34:00 – Justin Halpern comes on, interrupting our musical segment 43:00 – Arguing over who has the weirder mouth, Michael Phelps or Andrew Luck 46:30 – The idea of having to sell a creative project after you’ve stopped believing in it. 48:00 – Justin’s wonderful John Slattery story.  52:15 – The insane development story behind Nine Lives 1:18:00 – Crystal Corner

It’s the reboot episode, where The Frotcast becomes simply “Frotcast.” Clean, rad, powerful. Hey, remember your childhood? It’s back! This week on Frotcast, we’re talking all about nostalgia — reboots, prequels, gender swaps, and homages — starting with Stranger Things. Is it even an homage or is it just a fun show? Then, Sympathy For The Drivel, where we name our favorite prequels and try to decide what other thing could use a prequel. Regulars Vince Mancini, Bret, and Brendan are in the Frotquarters this week, with Irregular Regular Matt Lieb joining via phone (LA Matt, #Squib). Old favorite Laremy Legel even drops by with a list, and Millennial Correspondent Joey Avery pops in to explain why Millennials aren’t having the sex anymore.  6:25 – Stranger Things (no spoilers!) 16:44 – Matt Lieb’s tragic story about being left out of the “suck and blow” game in seventh grade 18:30 – Does a bland or simple narrative help world building/execution 21:12 – The Night Of (again, no real spoilers) 30:00 – Sympathy For The Drivel 37:30 – Jared Leto corner 48:00 – “Okay, Shut Up,” with Brendan’s choice, The Naked Gun 54:22 – The new bumper for Matt Lieb Improvises Lyrics To Royalty-Free Songs (followed by him actually doing a song) 1:02:00 – Email question: What music did you listen to as a youth that you still do, and what did you grow to love? 1:13:13 – Laremy Legel joins us with a brand new list

FilmDrunk’s Vince Mancini is joined by comedian Joe Sinclitico (Adam Devine’s House Party), Matt Lieb (Flophouse), and filmmaker Bobby Hacker (Cars 1-3, not the Pixar one) for an LA edition of the Frotcast. The sound of Joe vaping throughout really ties the Frotcast together. We discuss comedy, and We Are Not Your Guru, the Netflix Tony Robbins documentary.  Joe reveals that he used to work at Trump University, and how that relates to the specific brand of dog-eat-dog masculinity that Tony Robbins promotes. Bobby Hacker reveals that he used to work in a Boiler Room situation, and we talk about the rich history of movies like Wall Street, Boiler Room, and Wolf of Wall Street, where people who love wealth porn miss the entire point of the work. Matt and Joe rap battle, we play Matt Lieb improvises lyrics to royalty-free music, and we discuss Revenge of the Nerds and American Pie as evidence of rape culture.  Intro – Matt introduces us to “LA Matt.” #Squib 7:30 – Bobby Hacker explains “digital make-up” in production. 9:19 – Blood Father, with Mel Gibson. 13:20 – Did Louis CK ruin comedy by being too good? 15:30 – Joe’s comedy rap battle. Joe and Matt rap battle for some reason 24:00 – Back to Louis CK without the rap battle distraction 40:00 – Discussion of I Am Not Your Guru, the Netflix Tony Robbins “documentary” (concert video).  38:58 – Joe’s anecdote about working for Trump University. 49:42 – Bobby Hacker worked on a cruise ship 1:02:32 – Matt Lieb improvises lyrics to royalty-free music 1:11:10 – Your emails.

Frotcast 300! I never thought the podcast that Splitsider called “consistently one of the most feminist groups of disgusting dudes on the internet,” and “regularly the grossest, least politically correct bunch of dudes” would make it this far, but here we are. This week, comedian Brandon Wardell (with whom I have a show at the Hollywood Improv Wednesday July 27th, tickets here) joins us to talk about the #DicksOutForHarambe movement (since co-opted by Milo Yiannopoulos) and review a free Smash Mouth concert. Then, Sh*t My Dad Says’ Justin Halpern joins us to review San Andreas and tell a Larry the Cable Guy story. We also have Tales From NPR and Crystal Corner. Vince, Bret, and Joey Avery are in the Frotquarters this week. Enjoy.  3:00 – Stephan Jenkins at the RNC. Is there a way to troll the RNC without sounding super smug? Does it matter? 9:30 – Eric Andre interrupts an Alex Jones rally, wins the Giant Brass Balls Award 17:45 – Brandon Wardell joins. We talk about our comedy show next week and #DicksOutForHarambe and the Smash Mouth concert he just attended. 31:40 – Tales From NPR 37:00 – Trolls, Ghostbusters and Leslie Jones leaving Twitter 42:33 – CRYSTAL CORNER 51:40 – Justin Halpern. Justin reviews San Andreas, tells us a story about Larry the Cable Guy trying to convince someone Obama is a Muslim. 1:32:43 – Your emails and voicemail questions. Including, what movie did you see as a child that you definitely should NOT have been watching? 

You’re either with Paul Feig’s new Ghostbusters or you’re with the misogynists, or so the internet has decreed, which is at least mildly annoying to those of us who don’t really care about a big budget reboot either way. It feels wrong to divert activism energy towards a ghost movie. I mean, where were the people crowing about proving the misogynists wrong during the release of Maggie’s Plan (insert other movie written and directed by a woman here)? But then people share pictures of smiling little girls at the premiere and you have to concede they have a point. I mean, those little girls probably weren’t going to show up to Maggie’s Plan. And Hollywood was going to make dumb reboots anyway, right? Maybe this one will at least be a “net good,” even if you don’t particularly care to argue with some dumb neckbeard? That’s my question to the Frotcrew this week (Me – Vince Mancini, Matt Lieb, Bret, and Brendan), though we also talk the most NPR thing we’ve ever heard (Tales From NPR), a 14-year-old’s woke slam poem, Crystal Corner, and of course, force Matt Lieb to sing fully-improvised royalty free songs. Enjoy and frot on. 00:00 – Ghostbusters (also Preacher, Matt’s tuna sandwich) 15:20 – Lebowski fest, and encounters with the real-life Dude, Jeff Dowd. 24:03 – Tales From NPR.  37:49 – Wokest slam poem 52:20 – Fully improvised royalty-free music jams with Matt. 1:09:31 – Crystal Corner 1:23:00 – Bret introduces us to ASMR, which is Bret’s quicksand porn, basically. 1:30:00 – Your emails. 

From genius parody of your average moronic sports blog commenter to critically-acclaimed host of his own podcast (Pardon My Take), controversial, divisive, mysterious internet figure PFT Commenter joins the Frotcast this week for his first live appearance. The leader of the “Internet Commenters For Trump” movement explains what goes into crafting the hottest sports takes, how he dealt with the cease and desist letters he received from ESPN and Mike Florio, and disputes SI writer Rick Reilly’s recent claim that Kate Upton having three boobs would be bad. Comedian Matt Lieb (Viceland’s Flophouse) also returns this week, along with Vince, Brendan, and Bret. Matt sings fully-improvised songs set to royalty-free music, we discuss the OJ 30 for 30, and answer your emails. We also talk about Ice T and Body Count’s new cover of “Institutionalized,” and offer an abbreviated “Crystal Corner.” Enjoy.

Matt Ufford of SB Nation joins Vince Mancini from Uproxx and the rest of the Frotcrew (Bret and Brendan) to discuss the Game of Thrones finale. After that, we discuss Charlie Kaufman’s stop-motion cunnilingus masterpiece Anomalisa. Other topics include Brexit, the world’s worst relationship column, Harambe memes, and of course, Crystal Corner.  4:55 – Harambe memes. Why so good? 7:30 – Breaking down the world’s worst relationship blog, a divorce between Burners. “This is seriously the new dark ages.” -Bret 19:00 – We crowd source our script for “Cuck to the Future” 19:40 – Matt Ufford joins for some Game of Thrones talk. 26:25 – End Game of Thrones spoilers. Aaand we’re back to the burner article again.  32:36 – Back to Game of Thrones! 47:00 – How to deal with street petitions, and #DadBrands 55:50 – How your married friends talk to you when you’re the only single one. 58:00 – Mr Robot 1:03:00 – We talk Anomalisa, which was my favorite movie of last year but Brendan did not like. 1:15:00 – CRYSTAL CORNER, with Katy Perry.  1:21:48 – I discuss my rewatch of The Fast and the Furious, and how awful everything was in 2001.  1:32:18 – Your emails. Bret’s relationship advice: “You’re not gonna meet someone and it’s gonna be okay. It’s never going to be okay.”

Matt Lieb, Brendan, Bret, and Vince Mancini in the Frotquarters this week, talking Alex Jones, Game of Thrones, a Tod Maffin Update, Crystal Corner, and some wonderful improvised songs sung to royalty-free music.  Opening – Matt got a traffic ticket, from a cop who wasn’t even in a car. 6:15 – My terrible Alex Jones impression and our weekly Alex Jones-ridicule session. Also, Alex Jones’ fans are now apparently accusing him of being Jewish. 10:00 – We started talking about Anomalisa, but then Daniel Plainview showed up for some reason.  14:03 – Game of Thrones talk! Were you “fist pumping the entire time” during this past episode or did you think it kind of felt like half-ass Braveheart? Has Jon Snow learned nothing? Discuss! Or don’t! [SPOILERS FOR 10 MINUTES] 25:39 – An inexplicable detour into Smash Mouth 31:30 – Matt got into a fight over Ghandi. Topic – does modern discourse allow for enough nuance that a public figure can be both good and bad?? 37:33 – In what’s becoming a recurring segment, Brendan has some tales from public radio.  41:42 – The Tod Maffin Update. Today, how to identify millennials hoo-mons. 54:20 – CRYSTAL CORNER. Brendan and Bret derive irrational joy from the theme song.  59:28 – Matt Lieb improvises lyrics to royalty-free internet songs! 1:01:44 – A song for listener Radd about his brother who isn’t good at fantasy football 1:05:42 – A song for Justin, about HIS brother, who is a teacher, and is getting married. WARNING, EXPLICIT LYRICS. AND GRUNTING. 1:08:29 – A song for AP. It’s a nice light-hearted number about stealing babies and putting them in a cave. 1:14:00 – Your emails.

Big topics this week include Primer (2004), Megan Fox in Crystal Corner, OJ: Made in America, and of course my staph infection, and also getting in a car accident on the way to the hospital to be treated for said staph infection. But of course, most of the brilliance was off-topic, including Matt Lieb’s improvised song about eczema, a collaborative Beach Boys song about Jewish conspiracies, and a return visit from El Chapo, who has become addicted to heroin. Que pena.  Intro – Matt reading mommy blogs to learn about his allergies, leading to a spirited rendition of “The Job Interview Song (Tie Sharona)” 5:30 – I talk about my staph infection, and becoming the Staph Curry of bursa infections. (Fun fact: I got in a car accident on the way to the hospital for my staph infection) 17:55 – Matt had scabies on his penis 21:10 – Brendan got crabs when he was 10.  23:50 – Beginning of “Okay, Shut Up,” with this week’s topic, Primer (2004). Or, “Bret Explains The Plot of Primer, A Movie The Rest Of Us Didn’t Understand.”  28:50 – Do we call this style of characterization “human adjacent?” 39:07 – Crystal Corner: Megan Fox 53:00 – Emails, and our new Crystal Corner theme music 56:43 – Matt Sings Songs 1:00:40 – A wonderful improvised song about eczema 1:14:00 – Brief thoughts on OJ: Made In America 1:24:25 – More of your emails 1:34:37 – An Irish listener schools us on some Irish misconceptions surrounding circumcisions. 1:46:03 – We get a visit from heroin addict El Chapo

In his EXCLUSIVE FIRST PODCAST APPEARANCE (sort of but not really), Brian Grubb, the Uproxx writer formerly known as Danger Guerrero, sits in for an interview mostly about TV shows, but also his journey from lawyer to writer, using his disability to score restaurant tables, and more. Before that, we introduce our new segment, “Okay, Shut Up,” which the Frot members finally watch a movie one of us won’t shut up about. This week’s movie, Chappie. We also have a new Crystal Corner, with this week’s celebrity lover of magic crystals, Jenna Dewan Tatum (wife of Channing Tatum, aka C-Tates). There’s even a Royalty-Free Music Improv with Matt Lieb. Enjoy! Time-Stamped #Content 5:34 – Matt Lieb is locked in a Facebook beef with a guy with a funny name.  10:36 – Matt explains his gig on “The Star Wars Show” and opening for Gabriel Iglesias 19:25 – The inaugural run of “Okay, Shut Up,” in which we all watch a movie one of us won’t shut up about. This week in Okay Shut Up, Chappie, a movie I (Vince Mancini) never shut up about.  30:00 – Matt Lieb, on Yolandie Visser’s sex appeal. “It’s like she could rip out your heart and eat it and you’d still have a boner somehow.”  42:35 – CRYSTAL CORNER! This week’s celebrity who loves the power of healing crystals, Jenna Dewan Tatum.  53:00 – Royalty-Free Musical Improv, with Matt Lieb 57:40 – The EXCLUSIVE first podcast interview with The Artist Formerly Known as Danger Guerrero, Brian Grubb 1:00:00 – Better Call Saul Vs. Breaking Bad, with Brian Grubb  1:38:55 – We read your emails, about Jewishness, and Matt’s beef with the anti-circumcision lobby.