Flop House Classic - Stolen

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] Hey, this is Stuart Wellington, one of the hosts of the Flophouse podcast. In honor of our 400th episode, we have decided to re-release some of our classic older episodes to kind of highlight what makes the Flophouse special to us.

[0:16] This episode, Stolen, starring Nicolas Cage, is a lot of fun for us. We do a lot of goofy voices. We get to do Nicolas Cage impressions. I think there's a couple of bits that I've remembered fondly over the years.

[0:35] So if you're interested in checking it out, I would recommend Stolen, episode 124, I think. Okay, bye!

Dan McCoy

[0:46] We may watch other movies, baby, but you know we love you best. We discuss Stolen, starring Nicolas Cage.

[1:05] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:24] And I'm Elliot Kalin, in the number three spot, but first in America's Hearts.

[1:29] I don't know if we have any reason to have that.

[1:30] Yeah, people have spoken. I looked up our Q ratings.

[1:34] Is there a Flopper's Choice Awards that I was unaware of?

[1:38] Stuart checked his phone, and he said he'd allow it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39] Hey, enough goofing around, guys. It's time to make the donuts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43] Okay, is that what we'll be doing on the Flophouse?

[1:44] Suddenly, you're a cruel taskmaster.

Dan McCoy

[1:47] Welcome back to the Flophouse, a podcast where we watch a movie, perhaps a bad movie, and then we discuss it.

[1:54] Yes.

[1:55] Perhaps, yep.

[1:57] I just don't, I just, I feel bad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:58] You don't want to rush to judgment.

[2:00] Every now and then, we throw a Seventh Samurai in there.

[2:02] Just to throw off the listeners.

[2:04] The Seventh Samurai.

[2:05] We throw floating weeds in the mix.

[2:07] Yeah, every now and then, we just throw a other Japanese movie in there.

[2:13] Dead or Alive 2.

[2:15] That's all, I mean, that is a bad movie.

Stuart Wellington

[2:18] That's a great movie, where they turn into angels and have the montage of killing people and giving money to happy African kids.

Dan McCoy

[2:25] So, this evening, we watched a little movie called Stolen.

[2:30] Stolen.

[2:31] Starring Nicolas Cage.

[2:33] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[2:34] We haven't seen a Nicolas Cage movie in a while, so I'm excited about this one.

[2:38] Like three months without a cage.

[2:41] So, should we explain why we're mispronouncing Nicolas Cage?

Dan McCoy

[2:45] I think listeners to the past episodes are familiar with this story.

[2:48] That was pre-EW.

[2:50] So, we should, yeah.

[2:51] Or Pew.

[2:52] P-EW.

Stuart Wellington

[2:53] Post-EW.

[2:54] And if somebody is picking this podcast up for the first time, we don't actually want them to get the joke, right?

[2:58] Exactly.

[2:58] No, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:59] It's all about forcing people out and making them not enjoy it by feeling they're not cool enough to get these inside jokes.

Stuart Wellington

[3:05] So, buckle on your headphones, folks.

[3:08] We're going to talk about this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[3:10] It's going to be a bumpy here.

[3:13] So, we should explain that.

[3:15] This movie Stolen, we saw the trailer last year, and it looked fantastic.

[3:20] And it's a Nicolas Cage film that, for some reason, in the trailer, the voiceover guy, who has a perfectly normal voice, announces the name of the star as Nicolas Cage.

[3:32] He, like, throws an extra syllable in there.

Dan McCoy

[3:35] Yeah.

[3:35] And otherwise, semi-professionally, I would say, produced trailer.

Elliott Kalan

[3:40] Not the most slick trailer.

Dan McCoy

[3:43] It could have easily been a direct-to-DVD film.

[3:46] Did we ever resolve that?

Elliott Kalan

[3:48] According to Wikipedia, it was released in the theaters.

[3:51] Okay.

[3:51] This is a movie that, in America, made a little bit over $300,000.

[3:55] Hot dog.

[3:56] And worldwide box office gross was a little over $2 million.

[4:00] Okay.

[4:01] So, it's probably on top, right?

[4:02] No, it's a budget of $35 million.

[4:04] Oh, holy cow.

[4:05] Which is still very cheap for this type of movie.

[4:07] I mean, this is a Nicolas Cage action thriller.

[4:11] Danny Houston doesn't come cheap.

[4:13] No, Danny.

[4:13] All those hats he wears.

[4:15] Malin Ackerman.

[4:16] Very expensive.

[4:18] They shot it in New Orleans.

Dan McCoy

[4:20] So, you know, that's expensive.

[4:21] The Big Easy.

[4:22] Home of 12 Rounds, as I believe they renamed it.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] They renamed the city Home of 12 Rounds.

Dan McCoy

[4:28] Yep.

[4:29] When they gave the key to the city to John Santa.

[4:31] Yeah, and then he bent it in half.

[4:33] And then he ate it.

[4:34] He thought there was chocolate inside.

Elliott Kalan

[4:35] He didn't care.

[4:36] He just thought it was something.

[4:37] He just eats.

[4:38] He just ingests matter.

[4:41] And it becomes muscle.

[4:42] He's matter-aider man, is what you're saying.

[4:43] Yeah.

[4:44] So, this is a movie that...

[4:46] So, this is a movie that doesn't...

[4:47] It's a movie.

[4:48] It doesn't look expensive.

[4:49] It's a suspense thriller.

[4:50] It doesn't look like a movie that...

[4:52] $35 million all on the screen, right?

[4:54] It's kind of all up there.

[4:56] But I will say that...

[4:56] But it doesn't look bad.

Dan McCoy

[4:57] Yeah, it looks more expensive than movies that we've seen that cost a lot more.

[5:02] More expensive than Nicolas Cage movies we've seen.

[5:03] That's My Boy last week, which was a $70 million movie.

[5:06] Ugh.

[5:07] Where you saw none of the money on screen.

Elliott Kalan

[5:09] Yeah.

[5:09] Not once did they do a shot of just like a big pile of money.

[5:12] I mean, this was a competently directed...

Dan McCoy

[5:13] Never saw it on screen.

[5:15] This was a competently directed action film from Simon West, who you may know as the director

[5:20] of Tomb Raider and more recently The Mechanic.

[5:26] The brother of Simon East.

[5:27] Gone in 60 Seconds, right?

[5:29] No, he didn't do that.

[5:30] But he's best enjoyed, I think, for Con Air.

Elliott Kalan

[5:33] Oh, right.

[5:35] Right, right, right, right.

[5:35] Which is a very enjoyable, stupid movie in which the audience is supposed to cheer for

[5:40] a child killer being on the loose at the end.

[5:43] When Steve Buscemi is not only on the loose, has money in his pocket, and a crowd of people

[5:50] around cheering him.

[5:51] This is a character who throughout has been treated as the worst murderer in the world.

[5:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:55] But to the audience, it's like, yeah, our cute buddy.

[5:58] A friend, Mr. Pink.

Elliott Kalan

[6:01] He's back in the game.

[6:02] I thought he was all chopped up in that wood chipper, but nope, he's okay on the Con Air.

[6:07] All the same character.

[6:09] I tried to book a flight on Con Air, and it was much more expensive than I thought it would

[6:12] be.

[6:13] Only movie they show?

[6:15] The Rock.

[6:16] Weird.

[6:16] So weird.

[6:17] Yeah.

[6:19] But they show the version that stars The Rock, where he plays all the parts.

[6:22] Oh, okay.

[6:23] And he just performed it in his basement.

[6:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[6:25] Yeah.

[6:26] Should we talk about what this movie was about?

[6:27] I guess.

[6:28] So, Nicolas Cage plays the best bank robber in the world.

[6:32] Of course he is.

[6:32] He's Nicolas Cage.

[6:33] Yeah.

[6:34] And in the beginning, he and his gang, made up of Malin Ackerman.

[6:38] She's the hottie.

[6:39] Who else was in it?

[6:40] Josh Lucas.

[6:41] MC Ganey.

[6:42] MC Ganey was the body.

[6:43] MC Ganey.

Dan McCoy

[6:43] You know him as Mr. Friendly from Lost.

Elliott Kalan

[6:46] Or you know him from...

[6:47] Swamp Thing from Con Air.

[6:49] Wait, hold on.

[6:50] That was his character's name, and he was the pilot.

[6:52] And he was in another Flophouse movie.

[6:54] Yeah, you told me earlier, and I've already forgotten it.

[6:56] I forgot it, too.

[6:58] Like 10,000 BC or something.

[6:59] He played one of the Mannix.

[7:00] No, he's Wild Hogs.

[7:01] Wild Hogs, he was like a biker or something, or maybe a sheriff.

[7:04] He's a guy who looks like a biker.

[7:05] And he's also a rapper, MC Ganey.

[7:09] Master of Ceremonies, Ganey.

[7:11] Now, so they have a bank robbing crew.

[7:14] They're the best bank robbers, and they're in New Orleans, which is how you say New Orleans,

[7:19] if you're in New Orleans.

[7:20] So they're in Yenmallens, and they're going to rob, it looks like...

[7:24] A bank!

[7:27] It looks like they're going to rob the Gagallans Diamond Exchange.

[7:31] And there's all these FBI agents around, led by Danny Houston, who is not yet wearing a hat.

[7:36] He is hatless.

[7:37] He is hatless.

[7:37] The subject is hatless.

[7:39] I repeat.

[7:40] Okay, don't engage until he puts the hat on.

[7:42] Watch him.

[7:43] Move, move, move!

[7:44] Is he putting a hat on?

[7:45] No, no, he's just scratching his head.

[7:46] Okay, hold back, hold back.

[7:48] So it looks like they're about to rob a Diamond Exchange, which involves drilling through a toy

[7:53] story wall.

[7:53] A toy story wall.

[7:55] Drilling through a toy store wall and going into the Diamond Building.

[7:59] That sounds right.

[8:00] The FBI rushes in.

[8:01] They were double-hatched.

[8:03] Double-crossed.

[8:04] Wait.

[8:04] They're not robbing the Diamond Exchange.

[8:06] They're robbing the bank.

[8:07] Ah!

[8:08] They break through a safe.

[8:10] They rob it of $10 million in cash bucks wrapped in plastic.

[8:14] And unfortunately, Nicolas Cage and, what's his name?

[8:18] Lucas.

[8:18] Josh Lucas.

[8:19] Josh Lucas.

[8:19] They're leaving the bank.

[8:21] But before they leave...

[8:21] He looks like a normal guy at this point in the movie.

[8:23] And he looks like a handsome blonde man.

Dan McCoy

[8:25] And Josh Lucas is very sad to leave behind a bunch of gold.

[8:29] Of course.

[8:29] Yes.

[8:29] He's looking at it.

[8:30] There's big piles of gold.

[8:32] He's like, gold has never been worth zero.

[8:34] Like, I could sell this gold to William DeBain for big bucks, but they've got to leave

[8:37] it behind.

Elliott Kalan

[8:38] If anyone's watching news channel networks, during the day, you'll get that joke.

[8:42] But he says, I love shiny things, and gold is the shiniest!

[8:46] Yeah.

[8:46] And Nicolas goes, hey, we've got $10 million right here.

[8:49] Let's just go, okay?

[8:51] And they're rushing out of the bank, and a janitor or somebody sees them.

[8:55] And says, hey, where are you guys going?

[8:57] Where are you running with that bag full of money?

[8:59] And Josh Lucas hits that guy and is about to shoot him.

[9:03] And Nicolas Cage is like, we're not killers, okay?

[9:04] Don't kill him.

[9:05] And they fight.

[9:06] They're literally...

[9:07] The people in the getaway van can see them down an alley.

[9:10] They get in a fight, and in the middle of it, Nicolas Cage shoots Josh Lucas in the

[9:14] knee to get him to stop.

[9:16] He throws him in the van.

Dan McCoy

[9:17] Again, I'm not in support of that.

Elliott Kalan

[9:19] Any sort of knee injury.

[9:20] And this is...

Stuart Wellington

[9:21] It's like we watch movies in a row guaranteed to infuriate Dan.

[9:25] It's like every time a bad guy in a movie gets hit in the crotch, I'm like, hey, come

[9:29] on.

[9:30] That's smart.

[9:31] Because you're a giant penis.

[9:31] Yeah, like at the end of the Power Rangers movie when they knee the giant monster in the

[9:36] balls.

[9:36] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[9:37] I don't know.

[9:38] Giant penis monster.

[9:39] I would be lying if I said I had seen the Power Rangers movie.

[9:42] Okay, well, continue.

[9:44] Or like whenever a guy gets his foot stepped on in a movie, and I'm like, all right, okay.

[9:50] Foot stuff.

[9:51] You're into foot blood?

[9:52] Not really, but it's a popular fetish.

[9:55] I thought I'd jump on the foot fetish bandwagon.

[9:58] I was actually...

[9:58] You want to try it out?

[9:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:59] I was actually talking about this today, how I'm disturbed that if you put any actress's

[10:04] name into Google, immediately feet will pop up behind it.

[10:09] Which is apparently like, foot fetishism is much larger than I expected, because that

[10:14] is the number one result.

Elliott Kalan

[10:16] You know what's even larger than foot fetishism?

[10:17] What?

[10:18] Big foot fetishism.

[10:19] What?

[10:19] Bigger feet, bigger fetish.

[10:22] Look at the size of those footprints.

[10:24] For some guys, that's like an enormous boob print.

Dan McCoy

[10:30] Anyway.

[10:30] There's a guy somewhere masturbating with the idea of Bigfoot and some Manola Blahnik.

[10:35] He's just masturbating to Harry and the Hendersons.

Elliott Kalan

[10:37] Yeah.

[10:37] There's a guy who has cut out pictures of shoes from a magazine, and he watches Harry and

[10:41] the Hendersons and holds it up to the TV screen.

[10:44] Oh, yeah.

[10:44] That's the stuff.

[10:46] Oh, yeah.

[10:46] Old Man of the Forest.

[10:49] Those pumps look pretty good.

Dan McCoy

[10:50] You got the biggest feet.

[10:52] The biggest feet.

Elliott Kalan

[10:53] Anyway.

[10:54] So, uh...

[10:55] So, we're going to talk about the movies more.

[10:57] What's going on?

[10:58] So, we're about five minutes into the movie, too.

[11:01] Nicholas Cage can't get on the ghetto-y van.

[11:03] So, he gets into a police car.

[11:05] He beats up a police officer and gets into his car.

[11:08] A little bit of parkour.

[11:09] Takes the police on a high-speed car chase.

[11:12] A surprisingly exciting chase, I'd say.

[11:13] It's a pretty good car chase through a parking garage and all that.

[11:16] But finally, he gets caught.

[11:18] And they say, come out with the money.

[11:20] And he's got a duffel bag with $10 million wrapped in plastic.

[11:23] And he's in a building with a barrel fire that some homeless people were warming their hands around.

[11:27] Yeah, because hobos love barrel fires.

[11:29] And because it gets so cold at night.

[11:30] New Orleans.

[11:32] Known for its rough, cold nights.

[11:35] New Orleans.

[11:37] He throws...

[11:38] Maybe they're putting some crawdads in that barrel fire.

[11:40] Cooking up a catfish.

[11:45] Have some gumbo.

[11:48] So, he and Nicolas Cage walks out with the money.

[11:52] He says, I threw the money in the fire.

[11:53] I threw it in the fire.

[11:54] He's got...

[11:54] They've got...

[11:55] No evidence.

[11:56] No evidence.

Dan McCoy

[11:57] Well, he doesn't tell them that at that time.

[11:58] Burned with the heat of a thousand suns.

[12:00] And he gets...

[12:01] No, just fire.

[12:02] He gets a reduced sentence because they can't find the evidence.

[12:06] Yeah.

[12:06] Even though there's no way that $10 million in bills wrapped in plastic is going to burn up in one of those barrels.

[12:13] So, they're not going to figure out what happened.

Elliott Kalan

[12:15] Maybe it was like an atomic barrel.

Dan McCoy

[12:18] Okay.

[12:19] Sure.

[12:20] Well, I'll accept it.

[12:20] I'll accept it for the purposes of stolen.

Elliott Kalan

[12:22] For the purposes of stolen, that barrel has atomic fission technology.

Dan McCoy

[12:26] For the purposes of stolen, that barrel shines as bright as the sun.

[12:29] Yeah, exactly.

[12:30] Just like Nicolas Cage's smile.

[12:32] Cut.

Elliott Kalan

[12:33] Yep.

[12:33] It is brighter than the sun that Cage's smile.

[12:35] Cut to eight years later.

[12:37] Nick Cage is getting out of jail as a free man.

[12:40] First stop is at a newsstand to buy a ratty blue teddy bear for his now-grown daughter.

[12:45] Semi-grown.

[12:46] She's like 15.

[12:47] Yeah, sure.

[12:48] And then he gets picked up by-

[12:50] Perfectly number two over here.

Dan McCoy

[12:51] Yeah, exactly.

[12:52] Drown at 15, huh?

[12:54] Huh?

[12:55] Well, let's continue.

[12:56] I'm just trying to get this started.

[12:57] That's all.

[12:57] No, it's not working.

[12:58] I'm about to barf.

Elliott Kalan

[12:58] It doesn't stick.

[12:59] I'm the guy with the Bigfoot fetish, okay?

[13:01] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[13:01] Okay.

[13:01] So, and he gets picked up by the FBI, by Danny Houston, who is now wearing a hat.

[13:08] You know what?

[13:09] A pork pie hat.

[13:10] A pork pie hat, because that's what cops wear when they reach a certain age.

Stuart Wellington

[13:13] Yeah, in the intervening eight years, he got way into wearing a hat.

[13:16] Yeah.

[13:16] Can you blame him?

Dan McCoy

[13:17] It looks great on him.

[13:18] No, of course.

[13:19] He's starring in police detectives of a certain age, and he wears a pork pie hat.

Elliott Kalan

[13:24] Him, Ed O'Neill, and some other guy who played a cop at some point.

[13:28] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[13:29] We just recycle Andre Brower.

[13:32] Andre?

[13:33] Andre.

[13:33] Andre Brower?

[13:35] Andre Brower.

Elliott Kalan

[13:37] And Ray Brower.

[13:38] That's Andre Brower's when he got the sex change.

[13:41] Oh, Andre.

[13:42] Andre.

[13:43] Yeah.

[13:43] Anyway, so, it's eight years later.

[13:46] There's a hat.

[13:47] I think we got the hat down.

[13:48] They drop him off at his daughter's house.

[13:50] We never see the daughter's mother, so I guess she's just a 15-year-old who lives on her own.

[13:54] She's got to be beautiful.

[13:56] And it doesn't go well, his first meeting with his daughter.

[14:00] He gives her the teddy bear.

[14:01] She's a little old for her.

Stuart Wellington

[14:02] Takes the teddy bear initially, though.

Elliott Kalan

[14:04] Takes it initially to make him feel better, but the conversation does not go well.

[14:07] He tries to explain that it's not his fault he became a criminal.

[14:10] It doesn't go over.

[14:11] She leaves to go to her shrinks appointment, because apparently she has abandonment issues.

Stuart Wellington

[14:16] Mm-hmm.

[14:16] If you couldn't tell that from her pixie cut.

Elliott Kalan

[14:18] But unfortunately...

[14:19] I don't know what that means.

[14:20] What?

[14:21] Unfortunately, she gets into the wrong taxi cab, as we'll find out in a second.

[14:25] Then, Nicolas Cage goes to visit his old pal, Malian Ackerman, who's now a bartender.

[14:28] Mm-hmm.

[14:29] And, uh...

Stuart Wellington

[14:30] Eight years looks great.

[14:32] Yeah.

[14:32] Has not aged a day.

Elliott Kalan

[14:33] Nobody in the movie has aged a day, except for Nicolas Cage's daughter, I assume.

Dan McCoy

[14:37] And, uh...

[14:38] The movie attempts to hang a lantern on that by having Nicolas Cage say, you're aging younger,

[14:43] but still.

Elliott Kalan

[14:44] Eight years later, and you look younger than you did before.

Dan McCoy

[14:47] Yeah.

[14:47] No dice movie.

[14:49] We get what you're selling.

[14:50] We're not buying.

Stuart Wellington

[14:51] I mean, MC Ganey looks like, what, 95 years old at this point?

Elliott Kalan

[14:56] Yeah.

[14:56] And, uh, so...

[14:57] But he also got...

[14:57] MC Scat Ganey.

[15:00] Remember what he did?

[15:01] The German porn version.

[15:03] Yikes.

[15:03] Of MC Ganey.

[15:04] It wraps.

[15:05] You really are not doing a great job of keeping this purpose of a title off of you.

[15:11] All right, well...

[15:12] I was talking about Bigfoot porn earlier, and now you seem like the pervert.

[15:16] Anyway, so we're barely into this movie.

[15:20] So, he got a package, and it starts ringing while he's talking to Maylene Ackerman.

[15:24] Opens it up.

[15:25] It's a phone from an unknown caller.

[15:27] Oh, that's weird.

[15:28] He picks it up.

[15:29] That's because this movie's called Unknown, right?

[15:31] No, it's not.

[15:32] It's called Stolen.

[15:33] Did he steal the phone?

[15:34] I don't get it.

[15:35] No, he's gonna steal some other...

[15:36] He stole $10 million.

[15:37] He's gonna steal some other stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[15:38] But wait, I thought he burned it, so he didn't really steal it.

[15:40] No, you can still steal something even if it's destroyed.

Elliott Kalan

[15:42] Okay, continue.

[15:43] Now, she told him that Josh Lucas has died, and that MC Ganey is just an old man now.

[15:49] He gets a phone call on this brand new phone.

[15:53] It's his old bank robbing partner, Josh Lucas.

[15:57] Uh-oh.

[15:58] A ghost from beyond the grave?

[15:59] No, you'd think.

[16:01] Yeah.

[16:01] But actually, he's become a horrid, gross shell of himself.

[16:05] A golem of a man.

[16:06] And I don't mean golem the good kind of golem.

[16:08] I mean the bad kind of golem.

Dan McCoy

[16:10] Somehow, in the intervening years, he's grown long, ratty blonde hair.

Elliott Kalan

[16:14] I mean, in eight years, I believe he can grow long, ratty blonde hair.

[16:18] Ratty blonde hair.

Dan McCoy

[16:19] I mean, it looks like the wig that Jeff Daniels was wearing in Dumb and Dumber.

[16:23] And he's got yellowed teeth.

[16:25] And then also...

[16:26] Impossible.

[16:26] He's lost his...

[16:28] He's lost one...

[16:28] His leg.

[16:29] The one that he got shot in.

Elliott Kalan

[16:30] His left...

[16:30] The lower half of his left leg.

[16:32] And now has...

Dan McCoy

[16:32] He has one of those Blade Runner style spring...

Elliott Kalan

[16:36] Yeah, the kind of thing that like a robo pirate...

[16:38] The Ruger Hauer from Blade Runner wears.

[16:40] No, the fucking...

[16:41] The guy killed his girlfriend.

[16:42] That Oscar Pistorius, who allegedly killed his girlfriend.

[16:45] Thank you.

[16:46] Until proven guilty, which he will be, allegedly.

Dan McCoy

[16:49] Thank you for not getting the flop house suit, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[16:51] And thank you for being a friend.

[16:53] Travel down the road and back again.

[16:55] Your hearts are true.

Dan McCoy

[16:56] Your pals and confidants.

Elliott Kalan

[16:58] You know, if you two threw a party together for some reason, invited everyone you knew,

[17:03] I think you'd see the biggest gift, maybe in monetary value, not in size, because I'm going

[17:07] to give you a giant teddy bear or something, would be from me.

[17:10] And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

[17:13] Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

[17:15] Now we're going to get sued for another reason.

Stuart Wellington

[17:18] So...

[17:18] So, wait, it says, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Elliott Kalan

[17:21] Well, I wrote out the music.

[17:23] So it's his old, supposedly dead, criminal buddy, who's now got a mean mat on.

Stuart Wellington

[17:29] Looks like a crazy old voodoo master now.

Elliott Kalan

[17:31] He looks like a gross...

[17:33] Moon god.

[17:33] A gross, like, kind of rat wizard of a man.

Dan McCoy

[17:37] He crawled out of hell to take his revenge.

Elliott Kalan

[17:40] I mean, that would be interesting.

[17:41] It turns out he didn't do that.

[17:42] It turns out he faked his own death, partly by chopping off half of three of his fingers.

[17:46] So he's an onion knight, if you will.

[17:49] Gross.

[17:50] Yeah.

[17:51] And he has...

[17:51] I won't, by the way.

[17:52] Yeah, you won't.

[17:53] It's not like he carries...

[17:54] Don't associate that thing with this other thing.

[17:56] With Sir Davos?

[17:57] He didn't carry his fingers around with them in a pouch.

[17:59] I mean, come on.

[18:00] Oh, no, he didn't.

[18:00] He used them to fake his own death in a pouch.

[18:02] Now, he...

[18:04] Uh-oh.

[18:05] He's a taxi driver now.

[18:06] He picked up Nicolas Cage's daughter in his taxi.

[18:08] And now...

[18:09] His daughter?

[18:09] Nicolas Cage's daughter.

[18:10] I'm sorry.

[18:11] Nicolas Cage's daughter...

[18:12] Thank you.

[18:13] In his taxi.

[18:15] He says to him, I want that $10 million or else your daughter's dead.

[18:21] I'll give you 12 hours.

[18:22] And Nicolas Cage is like, but I burned that money.

[18:25] I burned it.

[18:26] He's like, yeah, sure you did.

[18:28] I don't believe you.

[18:29] My leg doesn't believe you.

Stuart Wellington

[18:30] The audience doesn't believe that happened.

Elliott Kalan

[18:32] Give it to me in 12 hours.

[18:33] I'm going to spend that time just driving the streets of New Orleans.

[18:37] During Mardi Gras.

[18:38] During Mardi Gras.

[18:39] Fat Tuesday.

[18:40] And with your daughter in my trunk and get me the money or she's dead.

Dan McCoy

[18:46] By the way, he did put a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars in the trunk to make it more homey for her as he drove around.

[18:51] So that was a nice move.

Elliott Kalan

[18:52] There are a couple little touches in the movie like Danny Houston's hat and the little glow-in-the-dark stars he puts in the trunk.

Stuart Wellington

[18:59] I like that they made the bad guy look like a weird ratty monster.

[19:03] I mean, he just looks like...

[19:04] You like weird ratty monsters in general.

[19:05] Yeah, in general.

[19:06] Like you're castle freaks.

[19:08] Yeah, you're snake mans.

Elliott Kalan

[19:09] He is kind of what I imagine the Judas Priest song Nightcrawler to be about.

[19:12] That's the guy who crawls into the town in the middle of the night to feast on flesh and blood.

[19:17] Or he's just like a ratty taxi driver, too.

[19:21] So Nicolas Cage is at a loss.

[19:25] He's got to find this money that doesn't exist.

[19:28] But what he really has to do is find his old partner so he can get his daughter back.

[19:32] One last heist, sure.

[19:33] Yeah, well, not one last heist yet.

Stuart Wellington

[19:36] He's going to heist his daughter back from this jerk.

Elliott Kalan

[19:38] Yeah, it's called daughter heist.

[19:41] One man has to steal one daughter.

[19:44] This movie could be called Catch That Cab, Catch That Cash, or Catch That Kid.

[19:49] Or Catch That Cage.

[19:51] He's going to be called Catch That Kid.

Elliott Kalan

[20:01] They don't believe it.

[20:01] That's why you're violating your parole.

[20:03] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[20:04] You burned all that money, even though we couldn't find any of it.

[20:06] Whatever.

[20:07] Tell it to my hat.

Elliott Kalan

[20:09] Do you believe him?

[20:10] No, I don't.

[20:11] My hat doesn't believe you.

[20:13] So he can't get their help.

[20:15] He breaks some laws to get some information.

[20:17] He tracks down their old friend, MC Ganey.

[20:19] MC Ganey, he knows what's going on, but he doesn't want to help him.

[20:22] He's mad that he burned that money, too.

Stuart Wellington

[20:25] And he's mad that he made him drop his lunch.

Elliott Kalan

[20:28] He had a big paper sack with his lunch in it.

[20:30] Nicolas Cage made him drop it for some reason.

[20:33] And I wish that when it fell, it made a squawk, like a really cartoony squish sound.

[20:38] Or even like a boing, but it doesn't.

[20:40] That was full of chili.

[20:43] Just in a bag.

[20:44] It was just a bag of chili.

[20:45] Just dripping through this paper bag.

[20:48] But the police, the FBI come in.

[20:50] There's a fight out.

Stuart Wellington

[20:50] By the way, a bag of chili is now a copyright flop house.

[20:53] Any attempt to make a restaurant based on a bag of chili, you owe us money.

Elliott Kalan

[20:58] The flop house brand bag of chili.

[21:00] From the makers of bag of coleslaw.

[21:02] It's a garbage bag full of coleslaw.

[21:04] Stick your hand in it.

[21:05] Pull some out.

[21:06] Eat it.

Stuart Wellington

[21:08] Wow, we didn't even really try on that slogan.

[21:11] No.

Elliott Kalan

[21:12] It's more user instructions.

[21:15] We could have made that sound more appetizing.

[21:16] Maybe with a diagram for a poster.

Dan McCoy

[21:20] I think I see the problem in why our coleslaw business didn't take off.

Elliott Kalan

[21:23] Well, also the mascot is Garby the Garbage Bag.

[21:26] Not appealing or appetizing.

Dan McCoy

[21:31] Stick your face in me.

Stuart Wellington

[21:34] Celebrity endorsement by MC Ganey.

Elliott Kalan

[21:37] Come on down to bag of coleslaw.

[21:40] It's full of mayonnaise-y goodness.

[21:43] So, they have a big fight.

[21:45] In the shootout, MC Ganey gets killed.

[21:47] Nicolas Cage goes on the run and the police are just shooting guns at him.

[21:50] They're just firing semi-automatic weapons at him.

Stuart Wellington

[21:52] The SWAT team guy just makes a jumping, shooting machine gun motion.

Elliott Kalan

[21:55] And at this point, his crimes are breaking his parole and accessing FBI files.

[22:00] And they're just firing semi-automatic weapons at him.

[22:03] There's like apartments all around.

Dan McCoy

[22:04] This is like a residential area.

[22:05] They're just shooting up.

Elliott Kalan

[22:06] Oh, it's New Orleans.

[22:07] It's in bad shape.

[22:08] Anyway.

[22:08] After John Cena got through with this.

[22:11] They're still recovering from the damage done by 12 rounds.

[22:13] Hurricane Cena.

[22:16] Nicolas Cage is on the run.

[22:17] Fine.

[22:17] He's going to do this by himself.

[22:19] He's going to track down his old partner.

[22:21] He almost does it.

[22:22] He takes a cab driver hostage.

[22:25] Uses the radio to track down his old partner's cab.

[22:28] There's a lot of car chasing.

[22:31] The partner almost gets caught by a cop because the girl in the trunk has broken one of the brake lights.

[22:37] One of the taillights.

[22:38] And tries to escape.

[22:40] She almost breaks through and gets a phone left by an Australian passenger that Josh Lucas beats the shit out of.

[22:46] There's a lot of...

[22:47] A really unappealing Australian guy.

Dan McCoy

[22:49] You're kind of happy to see he get beat up.

Elliott Kalan

[22:51] He's just a tourist there to get laid.

[22:52] He's just looking for Sheila's.

[22:53] He's talking about Sheila's billabongs.

[22:55] You know, some room eat.

[22:56] All sorts of stuff.

[22:59] Wombats and what have you.

[23:00] The dingle eat his baby.

[23:01] He has some sympathy.

[23:02] So anyway.

[23:04] Nicolas Cage.

[23:05] I'm just going to cut it as quick as I can.

[23:07] Sure.

[23:07] Because it's actually not bad.

[23:10] There's a lot of little incidents and things like that.

[23:12] Finally, Nicolas Cage.

[23:13] He can't track...

[23:14] He's been double tricked again.

[23:16] And he can't find the taxi cab.

Dan McCoy

[23:17] The taxi guy switched out his GPS with another taxi.

[23:22] So there's no way of tracking this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[23:23] No way.

[23:24] He's just going to have to meet him at the rendezvous spot in abandoned amusement park with money in hand.

[23:29] But he doesn't have the money.

[23:30] But what does this guy love more than money?

[23:32] G-O-L-D.

[23:35] Gold.

Dan McCoy

[23:36] He only loves gold.

[23:38] He loves only gold.

Elliott Kalan

[23:39] So it sounds like Nicolas Cage is going to have to steal himself some gold.

[23:43] He takes Malene Ackerman in.

[23:45] She doesn't say, just when I thought I was done.

[23:47] Or like, you know, something like that.

[23:48] But she should.

[23:49] Or, I'm getting too old for this shit even though I haven't aged in eight years.

[23:52] But she doesn't say that.

[23:53] So, but they have kind of an interesting plan to get the gold.

[23:56] They're going to go beneath the floor of the gold vault.

[23:59] Melt through it.

[24:01] And then melt the gold.

[24:02] And it's going to fall into sewer water and cool in big lumps that look like gold poop.

[24:07] And they'll just put that in a duffel bag and carry it around.

Dan McCoy

[24:10] It looks like gold poop or rocks that have been spray painted gold.

[24:13] Either one.

Elliott Kalan

[24:13] Have you ever seen gold?

[24:14] It looks like rocks that have been spray painted gold.

[24:16] That's fair enough.

[24:17] Fair enough.

[24:18] And it looks like dragon poop, basically.

[24:22] So they got this bag full of dragon poop.

[24:24] The police are chasing after them.

[24:26] They narrowly escape the police by switching trucks.

[24:29] And there's some more, there's a bunch of good car flip stunts throughout the movie, actually.

[24:34] But, uh.

[24:35] All about flipping cars with you.

[24:36] Yeah, I just love car flipping movies.

[24:39] I'm always disappointed when I watch Flip This House, because the house never actually flips over.

[24:43] It's like, hello, the title promised it.

Stuart Wellington

[24:46] There's no springs, no kind of a trebuchet.

Dan McCoy

[24:48] Nothing like a big lever, nothing.

[24:50] That show, Flip This Pancake, is a little better.

[24:53] A little better, but it's not that exciting to see a pancake flip.

Elliott Kalan

[24:55] No, it's not that stimulating.

[24:58] I mean, I could do that at home.

[25:00] Sure.

[25:00] And I do.

[25:03] That's your fetish.

[25:04] Nicolas Cage, he has pancake flipping.

[25:07] The motion of a pancake flipping midair.

[25:09] Oh, that's a real nice flip.

[25:11] The other side's getting all toasty now.

[25:14] Oh, you evenly distribute the heat on both sides.

[25:18] Put chocolate chips in there.

[25:19] Later on, you're going in my belly.

Dan McCoy

[25:22] Anyway.

[25:22] Creepy.

Elliott Kalan

[25:25] Anyway.

[25:26] Anyway.

[25:27] They meet at the abandoned amusement park.

[25:29] Nicolas Cage finally confronts Josh Lucas face-to-face, leg-to-stum.

[25:34] And they have a big fight.

Dan McCoy

[25:37] Which is much crazier than you would expect.

Elliott Kalan

[25:40] Nicolas Cage gets shot in the gut, and then Josh Lucas just jams his fingers into Nicolas Cage's bullet hole.

[25:45] Meanwhile.

Stuart Wellington

[25:46] It's not crazy, because it's not like a real good fight.

[25:48] It's just really kind of gross and brutal.

[25:50] It's more brutal than you expect at the end of a silly movie.

Dan McCoy

[25:53] Because meanwhile, also, Nicolas Cage's daughter is locked in the trunk of the car.

[25:58] And Josh Lucas has poured gas all over and set it on fire.

[26:02] With a road flare.

[26:03] Yeah.

[26:03] And like Nicolas Cage's arm gets in the fire.

Elliott Kalan

[26:06] He pushes Josh Lucas's face into the fire.

[26:08] Yeah.

[26:09] And then he gets in the cab, drives it into the river, and then is about trying to let her out of the trunk.

[26:14] He's trying to let her out of the trunk.

Dan McCoy

[26:15] Which, by the way, I don't know what his...

[26:17] I mean, I understand the first step of his plan.

[26:19] Put out the fire.

[26:20] Put out this car fire.

[26:22] Priority one.

[26:22] Step number two is get my daughter out of the trunk of this locked car before she drowns.

[26:28] And he doesn't have the keys.

[26:30] I don't know exactly what his thought was.

[26:31] No, the key is still in the trunk.

[26:33] But he can't open it.

[26:34] He's not, like...

[26:36] He's been shot in the stomach.

[26:38] Turning the key at any point.

[26:39] He just seems like he's trying to open this locked trunk.

[26:42] He's like, oh!

Elliott Kalan

[26:43] He assumes that in that moment he gets super strength because of the stress.

Dan McCoy

[26:47] My only weakness is a locked trunk.

Elliott Kalan

[26:50] But then, Josh Lucas...

Stuart Wellington

[26:53] Comes back for one final scare.

Elliott Kalan

[26:55] Like your favorite horror movie monster bursts out of the water.

[26:58] Yeah.

[26:59] Face all scarred up.

[27:01] All melty-faced.

[27:02] And they're fighting and fighting.

[27:03] Nicolas Cage beats him up and runs him through with a crowbar, right?

[27:09] Yeah, like a pry bar.

[27:11] Yeah.

[27:11] And then pries open the trunk.

[27:13] Then Josh Lucas comes back again!

Dan McCoy

[27:15] But we were all saying that it would have been better if he pried open the trunk with Josh Lucas' fake leg.

Elliott Kalan

[27:21] If he had torn the fake leg off and then used that to pry the trunk open.

Stuart Wellington

[27:23] Why introduce a fake leg if you're not going to use it to pry open the trunk?

[27:26] Exactly.

[27:26] That's what Chekhov said.

Elliott Kalan

[27:27] Exactly.

[27:28] Chekhov did say that.

[27:29] He did.

[27:30] The best moment was after...

[27:31] That's exactly how he phrased it, too.

Stuart Wellington

[27:32] After stabbing Josh Lucas through the stomach and pushing him into the sinking trunk, he then closes the top of the trunk on him.

[27:40] Case closed, literally.

Elliott Kalan

[27:43] He should have said, case closed.

[27:45] Or, case closed.

[27:50] But Nicolas Cage has this bullet wound.

[27:52] He's already said earlier in the movie, a bullet to the belly hurts a lot and you die slower.

[27:56] It's his greatest weakness.

[27:59] His one vulnerability, bullets to the belly.

[28:02] But the police helicopter arrives, cop in a hat is there.

[28:06] Cop in a half?

[28:07] Cop in a half.

[28:08] It's Burt Reynolds with a little kid on his shoulders wearing a hat.

Stuart Wellington

[28:11] That's my worst nightmare, a kid with a badge.

Elliott Kalan

[28:15] They take him away and then, we don't know, did he survive?

[28:19] Wait, hold on.

Dan McCoy

[28:19] I also love, like, the daughter's like, he's not going back to jail, is he?

[28:24] And Danny Houston's like, no, no.

[28:26] The other guy stole the money.

[28:29] Like, and it's just like...

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] The other guy stole that gold.

[28:30] Oh, you mean the guy whose body is drowned in a trunk right now?

Dan McCoy

[28:34] So he stole the gold and then he got in a trunk and killed himself?

[28:37] All of a sudden, Danny Houston gets very protective of Nicolas Cage, a man who, yes, he did this for justifiable reasons, but has, like, broken his parole many times over.

[28:47] Well, except...

[28:48] Running around, stealing things.

[28:49] You have the idea that...

[28:50] Shooting people.

[28:51] Even before then, you get the idea...

[28:52] A one-man army.

Elliott Kalan

[28:53] He's Omak, yeah.

[28:54] You get the idea that Danny Houston likes Nicolas Cage a little bit.

[28:57] No, he has affection for it, but...

[28:59] But then, by the end, he saved his daughter.

[29:01] You know, he only did what he did to save his daughter.

[29:04] It's the point at the end where the bad guy says, you know what, this good guy's been reformed.

Dan McCoy

[29:07] But it's a lot of covering up that has to be done.

[29:11] Oh, yeah.

[29:11] Well, there's...

Elliott Kalan

[29:12] I mean, at least one cop has been killed.

[29:14] So...

[29:14] MC Ganey also.

[29:16] Not to mention tons of cars flipped over.

[29:18] Yeah.

[29:18] Mardi Gras ruined.

[29:20] And, yep, it's called off.

[29:23] You know, Ray Nagin is like, you know what?

[29:24] Cancel it.

[29:25] Forget it.

[29:27] But, uh...

[29:28] Dr. John is crying.

[29:31] Just crying into his beard, I assume he has.

Dan McCoy

[29:35] Then...

[29:35] He's weeping, muttering a to a to a to himself.

[29:40] But, no, we don't know whether...

[29:41] Takes his doctorate down from the wall, tears it up.

Elliott Kalan

[29:43] Why did I study?

[29:45] Why did I study for seven years for this?

[29:50] Mondu.

Stuart Wellington

[29:52] So he's basically Gambit at this point?

Elliott Kalan

[29:55] Yeah, mon cherie.

[29:59] Anyway, he guarantees it.

[30:00] So, anyway, the...

[30:02] Then it cuts to Maylene Ackerman and the daughter are driving in a truck past a cemetery.

[30:07] Oh, no, are they going to go visit Nicolas Cage's grave?

[30:10] No.

[30:10] Grave.

[30:11] Grave.

[30:12] His grave.

[30:13] Is he moldering a tomb?

[30:16] No.

[30:17] He is cooking up shrimp.

[30:18] It's the most half-hearted fake-out you can imagine.

[30:19] It's because it barely lasts.

[30:21] And it's not even like they show him them driving up.

[30:23] It literally just cuts to Nicolas Cage walking out of a trailer.

[30:26] Hey, guys.

[30:26] It's great being alive, right?

[30:28] And not dead, which is what I'm not.

[30:30] They go, but it turns out Maylene Ackerman still has one of the lumps of dinosaur turd gold

[30:35] in the back of her truck.

[30:38] Nicolas Cage picks it up, and we see that he's being watched from a boat by Danny Houston

[30:42] and Danny Houston's second-in-command.

Dan McCoy

[30:43] Danny Houston's sidekick played by TV's Human Target.

Elliott Kalan

[30:46] And wait a minute.

[30:47] What's Danny Houston doing here?

[30:49] Wait, wearing a really cool hat.

[30:51] Like a different hat?

[30:51] Wearing a different hat.

[30:53] Yeah.

[30:53] They're also rooting for Nicolas Cage.

[30:55] They're under surveillance, and Nicolas Cage sees the lump of gold, and if he throws

[30:58] it away, then they don't have any evidence to catch him.

[31:01] But if he keeps it, they'll be able to throw him in jail.

[31:03] And then Houston's like, throw it away.

[31:05] Throw it away.

[31:05] And Human Target's like, don't throw it away.

[31:07] Don't throw it away.

Stuart Wellington

[31:08] What are they going to arrest him for, throwing gold?

Elliott Kalan

[31:10] That's crazy.

[31:10] That's not against the law.

[31:11] That's crazy.

[31:12] Last time I checked, this is America.

[31:14] You can throw as much gold as you want.

[31:16] You make it rain gold.

[31:18] You can eat gold and poop it.

[31:20] Yeah, if you want.

[31:21] I hope you're watching the screen, because you might not catch that for about four seconds

[31:26] there's a shot that it shows that there's a big stone, like, acorn sculpture or pine

[31:31] cone sculpture on the table.

Dan McCoy

[31:32] There's a gold lump-shaped pine cold on the table.

[31:36] What?

Elliott Kalan

[31:36] Pine cold.

[31:37] Pine cold.

[31:38] It's like pine salt, but it makes things cold instead of sweet-smelling.

[31:42] It's what they spray pine trees with when they get too warm.

Dan McCoy

[31:45] The pine cold lady is like Mrs. Freeze.

[31:48] Mrs. Freeze?

[31:50] I imagine.

Stuart Wellington

[31:51] Wait, she's trapped in a thing?

[31:52] So Mr. Freeze has to try and get her out?

[31:54] Yeah, yeah.

[31:55] Trapped in a thing.

[31:56] It's a thing that keeps her cold, right?

[31:58] So she doesn't turn into a dead body?

[32:00] Yeah, in an abandoned refrigerator.

Elliott Kalan

[32:01] She's playing in it, and she got stuck inside.

[32:04] She didn't see that episode of Different Strokes, I guess.

[32:06] Yep.

[32:07] Or that G.I.

[32:08] Joe, the more you know about abandoned fridges.

[32:10] Anyway, Nicolas Cage finally decides to get rid of it, throws it the gold in the water,

[32:14] and Danny Houston's like, all right, now I can go back to my regular life.

[32:18] My regular life of hat wearing.

[32:19] No, he can throw his hat away at this point.

[32:22] I wish he had then picked up his hat and lit it on fire and then threw it away.

[32:25] Threw it up into the air like Mary Tyler Moore.

Stuart Wellington

[32:28] The hat flies away and says, my work here is done.

[32:31] Just like the feather at the end of Forrest Gump.

[32:32] Yeah, it's Pete's dragon.

Elliott Kalan

[32:33] Or the hat's like, no, one day from retirement.

[32:38] My wife, hat, and I were going to hat around the world with my hat pension.

[32:44] But then it turns out, wait a minute, Nicolas Cage threw that big pine cone in the water,

[32:49] and he still has the gold.

[32:53] Stolen is now over.

Dan McCoy

[32:54] Cue Lalo Schifrin-style cop show music.

Elliott Kalan

[32:59] Now, here's the thing.

[33:00] This is a movie, I'm just going to tell you about it.

[33:01] I liked this movie a lot.

[33:03] It was super goofy and silly, but it had some genuinely fun action-y scenes,

[33:08] and the score was great.

[33:10] It was like they lifted it wholesale from some 80s cop show,

[33:14] including parts where it's like,

[33:15] Ba-dow-dow-dow!

[33:18] Ba-dow-dow-dow!

Stuart Wellington

[33:20] Yeah.

[33:20] Ba-dow-dow!

[33:21] $35 million, Elliot.

[33:22] Most of that went to hats, fake gold, Nicolas Cage.

Elliott Kalan

[33:27] I assume most of that money went straight to Nicolas Cage's castle broker.

[33:33] And the IRS.

[33:34] But anyway.

Dan McCoy

[33:34] Nicolas Cage, the original castle freak.

[33:39] That guy's a freak for the castle.

[33:41] How many things have we done?

[33:42] You saved that fucking gold.

Elliott Kalan

[33:44] I can't believe.

[33:45] Yeah, we've found a new way to talk about Nicolas Cage

[33:47] and a new way to talk about Castle Freak.

[33:49] We're episode, what, 708?

[33:51] Yep.

[33:52] We've been doing this for 100 years.

[33:54] You would have thought we would.

Stuart Wellington

[33:55] With giant Zardoz beards and fucking diapers on.

Dan McCoy

[33:59] There's never been a time we haven't been doing this podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[34:01] Oh, it's like The Shining.

[34:03] There's a picture from the 20s of us doing this podcast.

[34:07] It was a radio show.

[34:08] We all had big mustaches.

Stuart Wellington

[34:10] Every time we walk out, we see another version of us walking in.

Elliott Kalan

[34:13] Oh, yeah.

[34:13] It's like Looper.

[34:16] You've got a whole primer situation going on here.

[34:20] But I was going to say, the music is adorably cheesy.

[34:23] It's just so cop show cheesy.

[34:25] And the characters are all, it's like, this felt like an hour and 30 minute episode

[34:29] of either the Danny Houston Cop in a Hat show or the Nicolas Cage Greatest Bank Robber show.

[34:35] It was like if there was a hat cop show and there was a bank robber show

[34:39] and they did like a Sweeps Weeks crossover movie of the week.

Dan McCoy

[34:42] Oh.

[34:43] Oh, that is what it feels like.

[34:45] Like a Macmillan and Wife.

[34:47] Like sort of a...

[34:48] Yeah.

[34:49] Like a CBS mystery movie.

Elliott Kalan

[34:51] Like this is a TV movie CBS would make so they could try to spin it off into a show

[34:55] if it got a big, like the way they did with Kojak.

[34:58] I don't know if that was CBS, but the way Kojak was done.

[35:00] So like, and Columbo was the same way, I think.

[35:03] So like...

[35:03] And Battlestar Galactica.

[35:06] Mystery show.

[35:06] Yeah.

[35:07] The classic mystery show, Battlestar Galactica.

[35:09] The Cylons did it.

[35:12] There's a bunch of regular people like high society types and a Cylon in the room and Detective

[35:18] Galactica.

[35:20] Detective B. Galactica.

[35:22] I think I know who did it.

[35:24] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[35:25] One more question.

[35:26] One thing I just couldn't understand.

[35:27] One more question, Mr. Cylon.

[35:29] So you're a killing machine robot.

[35:32] Oh, yes, I am.

[35:33] Case closed.

[35:34] That's it.

Dan McCoy

[35:35] You say you're a human being.

[35:37] Now, why are your eyes one red light that goes back and forth?

Elliott Kalan

[35:42] I have a condition.

[35:43] That makes sense.

[35:44] That makes a lot of sense.

[35:45] Just one more question.

[35:46] If you're a regular poison, why do you have big metal claws for hands?

[35:51] And why are you a robot?

[35:54] And the Cylon tries to jump out the window, but a cop leaps out of an ambush and tackles

[35:58] him.

[36:01] How did you know the Cylon was the one who did it?

[36:04] Let's just say I had a hunch.

[36:06] Oh, he's also a hunchback.

[36:07] So that pun, so it's always a pun at the end of the episode.

[36:10] Let's say I had a hunch.

Stuart Wellington

[36:11] He looks at the camera and says, case closed.

Elliott Kalan

[36:16] It's called Battlestar Galactica, Hunchback Detective, stars the late Peter Falk, and a

[36:23] Cylon.

[36:23] It's always a Cylon who did it.

[36:27] And he talks like the guy from the stolen trailer.

Dan McCoy

[36:33] I don't think we're going to say anything that I'm going to enjoy more than that.

[36:37] I think we should go on to final judgments.

[36:39] Although, Elliot, I think we've kind of gotten...

[36:42] I got my final judgment.

[36:43] Your judgment.

Elliott Kalan

[36:44] I mean, does anyone have anything else to say?

[36:46] The movie is like...

[36:47] We all went into this movie, I think, hoping we would like it a little bit.

[36:50] And I don't know about you guys, but I certainly did.

[36:52] So I'm going to...

[36:53] If we're doing final judgments, I'm going to say this was a movie I kind of liked.

[36:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:56] The official categories are good, bad movie, bad, bad movie, movie I kind of like.

[37:00] This hovers, I feel, a little bit between good, bad movie and movie I kind of like.

Elliott Kalan

[37:04] I mean, it's not...

[37:04] It's like a good...

[37:06] I would say it's a good TV movie-ish thriller.

[37:08] It's not as good like a B-movie type quality movie as like Premium Rush or something like

[37:13] that, for instance.

[37:13] But it's still a lot of fun.

[37:15] I mean, the characters are just running around flipping cars over.

Dan McCoy

[37:18] There's stuff in it that genuinely works, and then there's stuff in it that's super silly.

[37:22] It's ridiculous.

[37:22] But there's nothing in it that I was like, this is shitty.

Stuart Wellington

[37:24] It's a bizarro world where Nicolas Cage can beat up two trained FBI field agents, and

[37:30] a one-legged guy can beat up a young, fit Australian guy.

Elliott Kalan

[37:34] That's the other thing.

[37:34] Yeah, it takes place in this backwards place where the weak overpower the strong.

[37:40] Weak is strong, and strong is weak.

[37:41] Yes.

[37:42] So there is a scene where Nicolas Cage is like with two FBI agents in an elevator, and

[37:47] then escapes, and the elevator opens up, and the FBI agents, I guess, wake up from their

[37:50] blackout and are handcuffed to the handrail.

[37:54] And the elevator, it's like there's no way that, Nicolas Cage is what, like 55 at this

[37:58] point?

[37:59] Maybe a little bit younger than that?

[38:00] Yeah.

[38:00] There's no way he beat up these two guys.

[38:02] But like, Nicolas Cage breaks his own thumb to get us some handcuffs at one point.

[38:06] He is, there, this is Nicolas Cage like as an action star, which shouldn't work, but

[38:12] it kind of works.

[38:13] Just through sheer force of him.

Dan McCoy

[38:15] I mean, he's been an action star for quite a while, but he feels like he should have

Elliott Kalan

[38:18] aged out.

Stuart Wellington

[38:18] He's an action star that any scene requires him to run.

[38:21] It's like a stutter step.

Elliott Kalan

[38:23] But also, he's not like a Jean-Claude Van Damme action star who beats people up in fights.

[38:30] He's like a jumping from explosions action star.

[38:33] Yeah.

[38:33] He's not even a Bruce Willis normal guy action star.

[38:35] He's like, you know, if Adrian Brody was an action star, which I guess he is in some

[38:40] movies.

[38:40] Yeah, Predators.

[38:42] But there's something about Nicolas Cage's sheer dedication to not giving a shit about

[38:53] most of the movie that sells it to me as an action star.

[38:56] He's very mumbly, but in a fun way in this.

[38:58] Yeah.

[38:58] So what did you do?

[38:59] You guys going to give your final judgments?

[39:01] He already gave his.

[39:02] Oh, that's right.

Stuart Wellington

[39:03] I think I'll agree with Dan.

[39:04] I think it's a hair below movie I kind of liked and four hairs above.

Elliott Kalan

[39:12] Good, bad.

[39:13] I didn't realize it was just five hairs separating that.

[39:15] Yeah, it's so close.

[39:17] You don't even want to know how many women.

[39:18] It's like a gypsy's whisper.

[39:21] Such a thin line between sanity and insanity.

[39:24] Good and evil.

[39:25] We're two sides of the same coin, you and I.

Stuart Wellington

[39:28] The coin is, it's a novelty.

[39:30] You've got all the time in the world.

Elliott Kalan

[39:32] It's a novelty coin that I put our faces on.

[39:34] I got it at the carnival.

[39:37] This.

Stuart Wellington

[39:38] I thought we were just doing things that villains say to each other.

[39:40] Boy.

Dan McCoy

[39:42] This is the part of the podcast where we answer letters from listeners.

Elliott Kalan

[39:46] It's called the Flophouse Mailbag Segment for Letters from You, the Viewers, to Us.

[39:53] The Flophouse in a Bag, mailed to us for the podcast.

[39:57] No songs allowed.

[39:58] Called the Flophouse.

[40:00] No songs allowed, but I'll find some way to delay the letters.

[40:04] Probably.

[40:04] Segment, rated R.

[40:06] Number one.

[40:08] April 8th, 2013.

[40:10] You should probably.

[40:11] AD 2.0.com.

[40:13] I didn't sign off on the name of this segment.

[40:15] Et cetera.

[40:16] I'm halfway through the name of the segment.

[40:18] No.

Dan McCoy

[40:19] All right.

[40:21] This letter is titled Flophouse TV.

Elliott Kalan

[40:24] We have tuberculosis.

Dan McCoy

[40:25] It's from Ronnie Lastname with Hell.

[40:28] He writes, Hello Dan Stewart, Elliot Housecat, and Al Madrigal, who I assume is screening

[40:32] all of these emails after his hostile takeover.

[40:34] Yeah.

[40:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:35] He's sitting right there glaring at us.

Stuart Wellington

[40:38] While I was sitting on the toilet and reading the latest Entertainment Weekly, which is how

Dan McCoy

[40:41] Too much.

[40:41] Which is how I receive all of my entertainment and weekly news.

[40:45] I noticed a new MTV show listing.

[40:48] It's a talk show hosted by none other than Flophouse guest host Sarah Schaefer.

[40:52] Episode 22, Vantage Point.

[40:55] That's true.

[40:55] Nikki and Sarah live on MTV.

Elliott Kalan

[40:57] On MTV.

[40:57] Tuesday nights at 11 p.m.

[40:59] I recommend it highly.

Dan McCoy

[41:00] This made me wonder, why have the original peaches not penetrated the boob tube?

[41:05] What?

[41:05] I don't consider Mr. Kalen and Mr. McCoy's cameos on The Daily Show full penetration.

[41:10] I mean, we...

[41:11] Although Mr. Wellington's video drum experience does count.

Elliott Kalan

[41:15] Oh yeah, when you had that videotape in your belly?

[41:18] Yeah.

[41:18] And you had sex with Debbie Harry?

[41:20] Yeah, of course.

Stuart Wellington

[41:20] I did all those things.

Elliott Kalan

[41:21] So I further wondered...

[41:22] You said goodbye to the old flesh.

Stuart Wellington

[41:24] Yeah, why do I need that flesh anymore?

[41:26] I've become one with a greater consciousness.

Dan McCoy

[41:28] So I further wondered, what kind of shows would be best tailored to you guys?

[41:31] Here are a few suggestions.

[41:32] Kelly and Kalen hosting old-timey movies on Turner Classic Movies.

Elliott Kalan

[41:36] That's a job I would definitely love.

Dan McCoy

[41:38] Stu and Housecat's Storytime on Nick Jr., which would be summarily canceled after one episode

[41:43] for its frank sexual content.

[41:46] Dan McCoy would certainly be the third most popular newsman in the New York City area market.

[41:52] That's pretty...

Elliott Kalan

[41:52] I mean, it's one of the two biggest media markets in the country.

Dan McCoy

[41:56] Sure.

[41:57] Along with Davenport.

[41:59] And Ronnie, there's a postscript.

[42:00] He says, in a recent episode, Elliot pronounced John Constantine's name as Constantine instead

[42:06] of the actual correct pronunciation.

[42:08] See, it's not only Dan who gets words wrong.

[42:10] PPS, but it's still mostly Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[42:12] Look, as long as I'm Jewish, I'm going to pronounce it John Constantine.

Stuart Wellington

[42:15] It's properly pronounced Constantine.

Elliott Kalan

[42:18] Wait, that didn't even sound like Cage.

[42:19] That sounded like a ghost saying it.

Dan McCoy

[42:22] John Constantine.

[42:24] As you guys have already acknowledged, we've already been through Stuart's ideal television

[42:30] vehicles.

[42:31] Jazz.

[42:31] Yep.

[42:32] But I...

Elliott Kalan

[42:32] What was it called?

[42:33] Stuart's Sex Watching Pirate Show?

[42:35] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[42:35] Well, he describes...

[42:36] He describes other people having sex.

[42:37] Sex Describer.

[42:38] Sex Describer.

[42:39] He's a pirate who describes people having sex.

Stuart Wellington

[42:42] I don't have a lot of words, so I have to use saxophone sounds.

Dan McCoy

[42:47] But it seemed worth pursuing, you know, like what our television vehicles should be.

Elliott Kalan

[42:53] Yeah, sure.

[42:55] Well, mine would probably be a tricked-out ambulance like Ecto-1.

[42:58] But with a TV in it, that'd be my TV vehicle.

[43:02] What would yours be, Dan?

[43:03] What would your show be?

[43:04] I'll tell you what my show is afterwards.

Dan McCoy

[43:06] Oh, wait.

[43:06] I have to...

[43:07] I thought we were casting each other.

[43:09] Oh, oh, oh, I see.

Elliott Kalan

[43:10] Oh, well, Dan's would be called the Sci-Guy.

[43:11] Okay.

[43:12] It's about a single guy who also has a wife and a cat somehow, who just can't seem to

[43:17] get it together, even though he has a high-paying television job.

Dan McCoy

[43:20] So it's like the single guy...

Elliott Kalan

[43:22] It's a slice of life.

[43:22] Yeah.

[43:23] Jonathan Silverman, is what you're saying.

[43:24] Yeah, basically, the late Ernest Borgenine plays Manny the Doorman.

Stuart Wellington

[43:27] The weird thing, though, you're also psychic, thus the double meaning of Psy Guy.

Elliott Kalan

[43:31] It's spelled P-S-Y Guy.

[43:33] But whenever you get a psychic message, you go,

[43:35] Not again.

[43:38] And then you've got to do an adventure.

[43:39] That's probably how I'd react.

[43:41] Or you just don't do the adventure.

[43:43] If I'm tired, I probably wouldn't.

[43:45] And you just watch TV.

[43:46] And there's a sweep-sweak storyline where your knee gets hurt and then is invaded by the spirit of a killer.

[43:52] And your knee is sneaking out at night and killing people and then coming back to your leg.

[43:57] That's pretty good.

[43:58] So what would my show be?

[43:59] It's called The Psy Guy.

Dan McCoy

[44:01] What would Elliot?

[44:03] Rated R.

[44:04] Rated R.

Elliott Kalan

[44:05] It's a rated R show.

[44:05] It's on Spice Channel.

[44:08] A lot of hardcore sex, but you don't get to do any of it.

Dan McCoy

[44:11] Your knee does.

[44:13] Elliot could be like a Doctor Who style show where like...

Stuart Wellington

[44:17] A criminologist.

[44:19] A mentalist.

Dan McCoy

[44:20] What?

[44:21] Yeah, like Doctor Who.

[44:22] A mentalist criminal.

Stuart Wellington

[44:23] A doctor is?

Dan McCoy

[44:24] No, I'm imagining him traveling through time into old Hollywood.

[44:28] Wait, I don't get it.

Stuart Wellington

[44:29] Wait, he's a doctor that travels through time?

Elliott Kalan

[44:31] Oh, boy.

[44:32] So I can sleep with all my favorite star crushes who have been dead for years.

[44:35] And I'm the pervizoid.

Stuart Wellington

[44:38] But, wait, I mean...

[44:39] He's just talking about sleeping with dead bodies, I think.

[44:41] No, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[44:42] They were living people.

[44:43] I would go back to when they were still alive.

Stuart Wellington

[44:44] So you're going to make them live again?

[44:46] No, I'm going back in time.

Elliott Kalan

[44:47] It's called Elliot Kalen's Starfucker.

[44:51] Each week I have sex with a different star of old Hollywood.

[44:54] Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Rita Hayworth.

[44:58] Clark Gable again because he was that good.

Dan McCoy

[45:01] Elliot's like, I don't care.

[45:02] I'm a straight man, but these are the stars of old Hollywood.

Elliott Kalan

[45:05] Come on, I'm not going to...

[45:06] If Clark Gable comes on to me, that's a story I'm going to eat dinner out with for a long time.

[45:11] Wait, did you just say eat out?

[45:14] Yeah, on that story.

[45:15] Okay.

[45:16] No, it would go like this.

[45:17] Ingrid Bergman, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright.

[45:19] That would be my order.

[45:20] That seems pretty good.

[45:21] So then we start throwing some other stars in.

[45:23] How about your Louise Brooks?

[45:24] Yeah, Louise Brooks, sure.

[45:26] Elliot Gould.

[45:27] Anna Mae Wong, definitely.

[45:30] Elliot Gould, you got it.

[45:32] But no mustache.

[45:35] He has to shave it off.

[45:36] It tickles him.

[45:38] George Segal with mustache.

Dan McCoy

[45:41] So this next letter...

[45:43] Wait, what's the name?

Elliott Kalan

[45:44] It's called Starfucker?

[45:44] Elliot Kalen's Starfucker?

[45:45] Yeah, Elliot Kalen's Starfucker.

Dan McCoy

[45:47] This next letter is titled,

[45:49] Help Me Get Revenge.

Stuart Wellington

[45:50] Okay, I like the story of this one.

[45:51] Sounds like Stuart Sally.

Dan McCoy

[45:53] I'm going to have trouble pronouncing it.

Stuart Wellington

[45:55] First one, practice hugging people, but frowning while you do it.

Dan McCoy

[45:58] I apologize for mispronouncing this.

[46:02] Adjahar, last name withheld.

[46:05] So this is, he says,

[46:07] Recently my best friend invited me to a ceremony...

[46:10] A seance.

[46:11] ...where he took command of a Navy SEAL team.

[46:14] Oh, wow.

[46:15] Nothing wrong with that in and of itself.

[46:17] However, during the ceremony, he took several thinly veiled jabs at me and my green beret brothers.

[46:24] Since he was at the podium and I was standing at attention...

Elliott Kalan

[46:26] Super intimidated already.

[46:28] Yeah, just the fact that this is a Navy SEAL and a green beret with a beef is really more than we can handle.

Dan McCoy

[46:34] Outnumbered 50 to 1 by SEALs, I was completely helpless.

[46:37] I have since been plotting against him, conducting covert reconnaissance of his house while seemingly babysitting his children.

[46:43] Studying his weaknesses of character, he seems to drink a lot of beer, and weaknesses of body.

[46:48] Definitely balding, but how can I use that against him?

[46:51] Alas, I was...

[46:52] Stab him in the head.

Elliott Kalan

[46:54] He no longer has the hair.

[46:55] The hair forms a protective crust.

[46:57] The hair would cushion the blow.

[46:59] Alas, I was shipped off...

[47:00] A protective crust.

[47:01] What is in your hair, Dan?

[47:03] So you would describe it as a crust.

Dan McCoy

[47:05] At last, I was shipped off to Afghanistan before I could deliver a devastating blow to his solar plexus,

[47:11] but also before he could inflict further emotional harm against me, or so I thought.

[47:16] Uh-oh.

[47:17] Last week, I was forced to watch Act of Valor.

[47:20] Truly one of the worst movies ever made.

[47:22] Incompetent, boring, surprisingly unrealistic.

[47:25] I can't prove it, but I think my friend forced his men to film this monstrosity just so I'd be tortured by it later.

[47:32] Not the first movie that would be made just to torture somebody else with it.

[47:35] You may be thinking, we can't make fun of SEALs.

[47:37] They're American heroes.

[47:38] Surely that does not include anyone involved in the making of Act of Valor.

[47:42] Or Andre.

[47:43] Peep, please help...

[47:44] It's a movie about a SEAL.

[47:44] Yeah, I was going to say, right?

Stuart Wellington

[47:46] We're talking about the soldiers or the animals?

Dan McCoy

[47:49] Please help out a battle-hardened Special Forces operator who does not have the ability or wits to effectively make fun of his friend.

[47:55] You must fight my fight for me.

[47:57] I believe in you.

[47:58] Please trash Act of Valor for America and Jesus and 9-11.

[48:02] Wow.

[48:03] That's a lot of pressure.

Elliott Kalan

[48:04] That's a lot of pressure, but I think we may have to take him up on that at some point.

Dan McCoy

[48:08] You do put your finger on the problem.

[48:11] Which is, we would feel bad making fun of...

[48:13] Of non-professional actors who are actual Navy SEALs.

[48:17] Navy SEALs.

Stuart Wellington

[48:17] If I'm going to make fun of a former soldier, I'm going to make fun of that guy in Battleship that knocks that alien's teeth out.

Elliott Kalan

[48:23] Wait, was he actually a former soldier?

[48:24] Yes, he was.

[48:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:25] That's how he lost his legs.

[48:26] Yeah.

[48:26] He didn't lose them to Nicholas Cage shooting his legs off or something.

Elliott Kalan

[48:30] Real sensitive, Dan.

[48:31] No, but it's true.

[48:32] We would feel bad making fun of, especially the acting of guys who are not actors who are there for other skills.

[48:38] So this is my idea.

[48:40] I don't know if we can do Act of Valor because we're just civilians and we would get beat up.

[48:45] And we're all wusses.

[48:46] Here's what you do.

[48:46] Classic revenge never goes wrong, ever.

[48:50] Rig it so your friend's elected prom queen.

[48:53] And when he gets up on the stage, dump a bunch of pig's blood on him.

[48:56] Yeah.

[48:56] Never goes wrong.

[48:57] Yeah, that all worked perfectly.

[48:58] Classic revenge.

Dan McCoy

[48:59] We all watched Carrie and we paused the tape when that happened.

[49:03] We high-fived each other.

[49:05] Oh, that nerd got what came to us.

[49:06] That's the end of the movie, right?

[49:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:08] Then credits roll.

[49:09] Or, like the show Revenge, you could be something I never watch and therefore don't know anything about.

Dan McCoy

[49:16] Classic revenge.

Elliott Kalan

[49:18] So we'll think about Act of Valor, but we would have to get a letter from the president that said it's okay for us to make fun of Navy SEALs.

[49:25] Obama, the ball's in your court.

[49:28] President Obama.

[49:29] Your ball is in your president court.

Dan McCoy

[49:32] So this next letter is from...

Elliott Kalan

[49:35] But thanks for listening, even from overseas.

[49:37] Appreciate it.

Dan McCoy

[49:37] This next letter is from L. Kennedy.

[49:40] Good sir.

[49:40] And she writes, I absolutely adore you guys.

[49:44] Whenever I'm in Deadline Hell, the podcast cheers me right up.

Elliott Kalan

[49:47] Oh, and I think...

[49:48] That would be a good movie about a newspaper run by the devil.

[49:52] Okay, I like it.

[49:53] Deadline Hell.

Stuart Wellington

[49:54] Starring Meryl Streep as the deadline.

Elliott Kalan

[49:56] Hold on.

[49:58] Yep.

[49:59] And Paul Rubin's as the hell.

[50:00] How weird.

Stuart Wellington

[50:01] So she writes...

[50:02] They fall in love.

[50:03] Okay.

[50:04] They have a child.

[50:05] That child's a dinosaur.

[50:07] God damn it.

Elliott Kalan

[50:07] A dinosaur.

Dan McCoy

[50:09] A sour dinosaur.

[50:11] That child's a dinosaur.

[50:14] L continues to write, oh, I think Nick Cage has blinded you to the gym that is Billy Zane.

[50:19] You've got to do another Zane movie soon.

[50:22] You mean Nick Cage.

[50:23] Oh, yeah.

[50:24] Well, we should do another Zane movie.

[50:25] Yeah.

[50:25] She says, check out Survival Ireland.

[50:28] It's a real treat.

[50:29] Sounds like a porno.

[50:30] And the main chick shows her boobs.

[50:32] Anyway, give up the hilarious work.

[50:33] Well, who's the main chick, though?

[50:35] First of all, the main chick has a name.

[50:37] Her name is Kelly Proog.

Elliott Kalan

[50:38] Oh, okay.

[50:39] Well, that's certainly a fine woman's boobs.

Dan McCoy

[50:40] And we're all familiar with her boobs from Piranha.

[50:43] The movie that we saw for Elliot's bachelor party.

[50:48] No, it was the day of my wedding.

[50:50] Yeah.

[50:50] Literally the day that we saw.

Stuart Wellington

[50:52] He was thinking about that movie when he said his vows?

[50:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:56] They're called...

[50:57] Yeah.

[50:57] Well, they're prayers, technically.

[50:58] Prayers.

[50:58] Okay.

[50:58] It's a Jewish wedding.

[51:00] On the morning of my wedding, all of us went to go see Piranha 3D.

[51:03] And true story, at this very moment, I still keep the ticket stub in my wallet.

[51:07] Aww.

[51:07] Because it was the best day of my life.

[51:09] Number one, because of the wedding.

[51:10] Number two, Piranha 3D with my pals.

Dan McCoy

[51:13] Also, I had Popeyes for lunch.

[51:15] And to this moment, I keep the memory of Kelly Brooke naked in my brain.

Elliott Kalan

[51:19] So there's that, too.

[51:20] There's that, too.

[51:21] I mean, the wedding, you've forgotten.

Dan McCoy

[51:22] Yeah.

[51:23] Oh, man.

[51:23] I've got to make room for other stuff.

[51:25] There are other boobs to think about.

[51:27] But I gave Al Kennedy's full name, though, because I wanted to say she...

[51:33] In her signature, she says she's the author of the Killer Instincts and Out of Uniform series.

[51:39] What?

[51:39] Now, mentioning Navy SEALs before, I went to her website.

[51:45] The tagline for the Out of Uniform series of romance novels that she wrote is,

[51:51] Give a SEAL an inch, and he'll take your heart.

[51:54] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[51:55] Are you sure it's not about Andre, the performing SEAL?

Dan McCoy

[51:58] Some of the titles to these novels.

[52:01] You've got your Hot and Heavy.

[52:03] Okay.

[52:03] Classic.

[52:04] Hot and Bothered.

[52:05] Uh-oh.

[52:06] Feeling Hot.

[52:07] What a hot.

[52:08] Getting Hotter.

Stuart Wellington

[52:09] You should take those uniforms off if they're so hot all the time.

[52:11] I think that's what they're going to do.

[52:12] And Hotter Than Ever.

Dan McCoy

[52:14] And I have a picture of one of the covers.

Stuart Wellington

[52:18] I got the cover too.

[52:18] Getting Hotter here.

Elliott Kalan

[52:19] That guy is shredded like lettuce.

[52:21] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[52:21] Look at the fucking cum gutters on that guy.

[52:23] Shredded like a ninja turtle.

[52:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:26] That guy has super abs.

Dan McCoy

[52:28] So if you're a Flophouse lady fan who's looking to some sweet Navy SEAL romance action.

Elliott Kalan

[52:33] Or a Navy SEAL who's fantasizing about their fellow Navy SEALs.

[52:36] They repeal, don't ask, don't tell.

[52:38] We're equal opportunity.

Stuart Wellington

[52:39] Sure.

[52:39] Or if you just want to read about the thing that somebody else will be reading if they're fantasizing about you.

[52:44] If you're a Navy SEAL.

[52:45] Wait a minute.

[52:45] I got confused for a second.

Elliott Kalan

[52:46] If you're a Navy SEAL and you want to project yourself into the story.

[52:49] Okay.

[52:50] Ninja Turtles.

[52:51] He said something about a ninja turtle.

[52:52] If the idea of someone else being turned on by you.

[52:54] And who is not turned on by that.

Dan McCoy

[52:56] Yeah.

[52:57] Then go to lkennedy.com and check out these series of romance novels.

Stuart Wellington

[53:02] Maybe we'll get a set and give it away as a gift pack for the latest Flophouse contest winner.

[53:07] Which one's that?

[53:07] Do we have a contest going on?

Dan McCoy

[53:09] Dan, you remember.

[53:09] What's that contest?

[53:10] No, we don't have a contest going on.

[53:12] Although I was thinking that we should have another one where the listener gets to name the movie that we review.

[53:18] We haven't done one of those in a while.

[53:19] Oh, that's right.

Elliott Kalan

[53:19] We should do another one of those.

[53:21] She reminded me of, those titles reminded me of my favorite ever romance title that I saw when I worked at Barnes & Noble.

[53:26] It was called Millionaire Cop and Pregnant Mom-to-Be.

[53:32] And I thought, perfect.

[53:34] Everything I need is right in the title.

[53:36] Right up there with the Billionaires and Babies series.

[53:39] So, this last letter.

Dan McCoy

[53:41] What was the URL for that website again?

[53:43] It's lkennedy.com.

[53:45] L the letter or E-L-L-E?

[53:46] E-L-L-E.

[53:47] Like the magazine.

[53:49] L.

[53:50] Okay, sure.

[53:51] Okay.

[53:52] There's also an L magazine in New York City.

[53:55] Like L Woods, star of Legally Blonde, let's say.

[53:58] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[54:01] I thought her name was just L period.

Dan McCoy

[54:05] E-L-L-E.

[54:06] Okay.

[54:06] Kennedy.

[54:07] Kennedy, like the president.

[54:08] For romance novels.

[54:09] Yeah.

[54:10] Thank you for writing in.

[54:11] For all your romance novels needs.

[54:13] Thanks for everybody for writing in.

[54:14] Oh, are there more letters?

[54:14] There's one more letter for the evening.

[54:16] And it's titled, Good Directors, Bad Movies.

[54:19] It's from Andrew Lastname Withheld.

[54:21] He writes,

[54:21] Zimern of Bizarre Foods.

[54:23] Dear Housecat et al.

[54:26] Listening to the Paperboy episode got me thinking about one of my favorite directors.

[54:30] No, not Lee Daniels.

[54:32] Daniel Lee.

[54:33] I'm a huge Pedro Almodovar fan.

[54:35] Huh.

[54:36] And the idea of him almost directing a trashy American knockoff of his other work is weirdly

[54:40] upsetting to me.

[54:42] I feel like an Almodovar Paperboy would have been so bad it could have made me love all of

[54:46] his movies a lot less.

[54:47] Suddenly I'd be re-watching Bad Education or Talk to Her, and I'd just imagine the

[54:51] whole thing in English with mumbly accents, weird camera dissolves, and Gail Garcia Bernal

[54:56] getting peed on.

Elliott Kalan

[54:57] That would have been a much better scene.

Dan McCoy

[55:00] Has a director ever made a movie or run of movies that such a grotesque self-parody

[55:04] that it made his or her earlier better films seem so much worse to you in retrospect?

[55:10] A common example of this might be Wes Anderson before he won most people back with Moonrise

[55:14] Kingdom, or Woody Allen at various points in his career.

Elliott Kalan

[55:17] I feel like Woody Allen is a go-to in another one is Steven Spielberg, where some of

[55:21] his recent movies have just been not... he set such a high standard with a lot of his

[55:25] earlier movies, and his more recent ones are so mixed and uneven.

[55:30] Yeah, I mean, I don't know that there's...

[55:31] But I don't know that I'd like his older ones less as a result.

Dan McCoy

[55:34] It's hard to think of a director where the problem is that his movies are such a grotesque

[55:40] parody of themselves that they make you like his earlier movies less.

[55:44] I mean, I don't have that feeling with Wes Anderson.

[55:47] I can understand that kind of criticism more with him.

[55:50] It's more that often, you know, directors only have a certain number of good movies in

[55:56] them sometimes.

[55:57] Like, no one bats, you know, 100%.

[56:00] That was a terrible... I don't know how to use sports metaphors.

Elliott Kalan

[56:04] No, no, yeah.

[56:04] They bat 100%.

[56:06] But no one...

[56:06] You know, like, no one...

Dan McCoy

[56:07] It's the best record in baseball.

[56:09] The best possible thing to have is 100% of something?

[56:12] No one's great all the time.

[56:13] Wait a minute.

Dan McCoy

[56:13] I don't even think that's likely.

[56:14] I mean, like, I tried to watch Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz recently, and I could not get through

[56:20] it.

[56:20] I literally had to stop.

[56:20] There's one good sequence in that, and it's not very...

[56:22] It's the rest is not very good.

Elliott Kalan

[56:24] Nobody...

[56:24] I mean, there's...

[56:25] The only directors you could say have all good movies are the ones that, like, died

[56:29] young, basically.

[56:30] Yeah.

[56:31] But even, like, you got guys like Francis Ford Coppola, who made some of the best movies

[56:36] ever.

[56:36] Like, The Godfather is arguably the best movie ever, and The Conversation is amazing.

[56:43] Apocalypse Now is amazing, but then he made a lot of movies like Jack that are not so amazing.

[56:47] Bram Stoker's Dracula.

[56:48] Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is one he put a lot of work into, too.

[56:52] Like, that was not a work-for-hire job, but...

Dan McCoy

[56:53] But also, like, there are directors like Tim Burton, who, like, their work has curbled...

[56:59] Oh, yeah, that's my answer.

Stuart Wellington

[57:00] Tim Burton.

Elliott Kalan

[57:01] Well, but he's...

[57:01] The thing with Tim Burton...

[57:02] That's...

[57:02] Maybe you're right.

[57:03] That's the one where the deficiencies of his later work show up the weaknesses of his

[57:07] earlier work, because he's such a good visual stylist, but he's not a great storyteller.

[57:12] And so, when his style got boring, it was like, oh, wait a minute.

Dan McCoy

[57:17] Now that sort of a breathtaking visual style is so easy to achieve with CGI, and it becomes

[57:23] dull, like, what was once idiosyncratic as mainstream, and he hasn't moved past it, like,

[57:29] something like Alice in Wonderland is nothing but visuals, but they're all kind of, like,

[57:34] ugly, samey CGI visuals.

Stuart Wellington

[57:36] Well, and especially when you've influenced so many young directors.

Elliott Kalan

[57:40] Yeah.

[57:40] Well, there's no more sense of anarchy.

[57:41] There's no more sense of anarchy.

[57:43] It feels like it comes out of his designs, you know?

[57:46] Yeah.

[57:46] Yep.

[57:47] Like...

[57:47] Robert Smith and Tim Burton.

[57:48] Pretty much, yeah.

[57:49] I feel like...

[57:50] I feel like Robert Smith and Edward Scissorhands are basically where that comes from.

[57:54] And, like, once everything looks like that, you know, it's...

[57:57] It loses its uniqueness.

[58:00] Mm-hmm.

[58:01] That's true.

[58:02] A lot of his earlier stuff, when you go back...

[58:03] Like, Beetlejuice is still great.

[58:05] Yeah.

[58:05] When you look back and look like the Batman movies he did are not very good, you know?

Dan McCoy

[58:08] But the best stuff from his early career, I think, is the craziest.

[58:11] The stuff where there is no kind of rational design to it.

[58:15] It is really just his brain spilling out in a movie.

[58:19] Mm-hmm.

[58:19] Like Beetlejuice or something...

[58:23] I mean, like, there's less Tim Burton, necessarily, as the auteur of it.

[58:26] But, like, Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a great clash between his sensibility and Paul Reuben's sensibility.

[58:32] And that's...

[58:32] And it works really well.

[58:33] It's amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[58:34] And for a long time, I would have said that the Coen brothers had pretty much as close to a perfect record as anybody else.

[58:39] But then they kind of had a run of stinkers.

[58:41] Just a couple in a row, and that was enough to throw it off, you know?

[58:44] But they're still...

[58:46] They're still got one of the higher averages, I would think.

Dan McCoy

[58:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[58:51] Probably the highest average would be Jean Vigo.

[58:56] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[58:56] I was going to say Stuart Gordon.

Elliott Kalan

[58:58] Oh, yeah.

[58:59] Or, sure, Stuart Gordon, too.

[59:00] I mean...

[59:01] I mean, that's a thousand percent.

Dan McCoy

[59:03] But, like, guys who made, like, a movie.

[59:05] Three movies.

[59:07] Or, like, wait.

[59:08] Jean Vigo is basically, like, one full movie and a couple of shorts.

[59:11] And a couple of shorts.

Elliott Kalan

[59:12] Like, that's a pretty good way to keep your average up is to make a bunch of good movies like that and then die.

[59:17] So.

Dan McCoy

[59:18] So this is the last segment on the podcast where we recommend something that you might like to watch.

Elliott Kalan

[59:24] What about the one where we...

[59:25] Usually in contrast to what we watched.

[59:27] What about the segment where we create a resolution to become better people for the next episode, and then the next episode we report on it?

[59:33] How we done?

[59:33] That's been cut.

[59:34] Oh, boy.

[59:35] So we're just jerks again, huh?

[59:36] Woo!

Stuart Wellington

[59:38] You're off the chain.

[59:39] Elliot off the chain.

[59:41] Starfucker.

[59:42] Elliot Unchained.

[59:43] Coming this May.

[59:44] Starfucker Unchained.

[59:45] Rated R.

Elliott Kalan

[59:46] Rated NC-17.

[59:48] They brought back the X rating for it.

[59:51] Oh, wow.

[59:51] And it's on TV?

[59:53] It's on ABC Family, yeah.

[59:54] Oh, okay.

[59:55] It's very strange.

[59:56] But, you know, hey, they put up the money.

[59:57] I think it's weird.

Stuart Wellington

[59:58] Did they say ABC Family because they want the whole family to be there, or...?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:02] Because it's...

[1:00:03] Actually, the original name of the channel was ABC Head of the Family.

[1:00:06] Oh, whoa.

[1:00:07] I'm listening.

[1:00:09] But, unfortunately, too many people messed with the head, and you know what happens then.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:13] There's too much new Jack Lavelle, and the FCC shut it down.

[1:00:17] And too much new Jack London.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:18] Yep.

[1:00:19] Anyway, so what's this segment about?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:20] This segment is recommendations.

[1:00:23] Usually a contrast to the movie we watch, but in a...

[1:00:27] So turn off your listening device.

[1:00:28] Where we watch Stolen.

[1:00:29] I don't know if there's a better movie that we can recommend, but we'll try.

[1:00:33] I think, yeah, we probably can find a better movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:35] Stu Rat, what do you have?

[1:00:37] Okay.

[1:00:38] This might be a little contentious.

[1:00:41] You guys all know me.

[1:00:43] I'm a bit of a, what they might call a gore hound.

[1:00:48] I'm actually...

[1:00:48] I'm going to recommend a movie titled Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning.

[1:00:54] I think the, like, seventh movie in the Universal Soldier series.

[1:00:58] Based on the song of the same name.

[1:00:59] I am already expecting big fans of the Unisol mythos to be writing in as we speak.

[1:01:05] Unisol?

[1:01:06] It sounds like an all-purpose cleaner.

[1:01:07] I know, right?

[1:01:08] But that's what it's called.

[1:01:10] So Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning.

[1:01:12] It's a later sequel.

[1:01:15] It does have Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and some other dudes in it.

[1:01:20] So just the two of them?

[1:01:21] Wait, real quick.

[1:01:22] This is a movie that, let's see.

[1:01:26] Uptal Das, a user of IMDb, describes as, not Universal Soldier, avoid at all costs.

[1:01:34] And another one, Dan Cardozo, underscore 22, says, let me just say, this is in fact the worst Universal Soldier movie ever.

[1:01:41] Wait, but somehow you liked it.

[1:01:43] Glowing recommendations.

[1:01:45] No, it's actually pretty good.

[1:01:47] It's a movie that plays around with the, I guess, the background.

[1:01:53] It's surprisingly, well, it's very violent.

[1:01:56] The original Universal Soldier was kind of a fun sci-fi action, almost horror movie.

[1:02:03] Like a romp.

[1:02:04] Yeah.

[1:02:05] With a breakout performance by a young kid named Dolph Lundgren.

[1:02:10] Not at all.

[1:02:10] But this latest Universal Soldier movie, it kind of feels a little bit like if Universal Soldier, maybe Lost Highway or another David Lynch movie, and the raid, colon, redemption, managed to have some kind of weird baby.

[1:02:28] The action's really horrific and violent.

[1:02:32] And there's a lot of weird slow moments that take on almost a dreamlike quality.

[1:02:37] And it's got a very, very low budget, but it manages to be, if anything, kind of interesting.

[1:02:43] And for me, it works almost like a metaphor for violent action movies in general.

[1:02:48] So check it out if you're looking for a super weird, super gory and violent movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:54] I'm going to break with the rules because I haven't seen movies that I enjoyed since our last taping.

[1:03:01] So I'm just going to say...

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:02] Is that because they were bad movies or because you are a curmudgeon?

Dan McCoy

[1:03:05] Probably both.

[1:03:06] Oh, okay.

[1:03:07] Perfect storm.

[1:03:08] But I watched a couple of pilots that I enjoyed.

[1:03:10] So I'm going to recommend a couple of television shows.

[1:03:13] I don't know whether they're going to maintain, but I enjoyed the first episodes.

[1:03:17] I watched Hannibal.

[1:03:21] Okay.

[1:03:22] Everyone's mad about Mads.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:24] Everybody is mad about Mads.

[1:03:26] It's hard not to be.

[1:03:27] Look at him with those chiseled Danish looks.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:30] It had a lot of the sort of serial killer bullshit that normally bothers me.

[1:03:36] Namely, a profiler who walks into a scene of the crime and basically knows what happened immediately.

[1:03:42] But somehow made that...

[1:03:43] There's also some kind of Valhalla rising in here.

[1:03:45] But it somehow made that character work by making him more of a damaged live wire, empathetic to the point of having trouble surviving in the world character.

[1:04:02] And it genuinely felt creepy in the way that a serial killer entertainment hasn't done in a while.

[1:04:07] And I also enjoyed a BBC American show by the name of Orphan Black about a woman who encounters her exact double on a subway platform right before she commits suicide.

[1:04:21] The double or her?

[1:04:22] The double commits suicide.

[1:04:23] And she steps into the double's life because of problems in her own existence and soon finds that she's at the center of some sort of weird conspiracy.

[1:04:34] And she has twice the problems she had before.

[1:04:38] And it's a fun show.

[1:04:39] So those are the two that I would recommend.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:41] So Hannibal and Orphan Black?

[1:04:43] Yeah.

[1:04:43] And I'm going to recommend a movie that I saw and liked because this is a movie podcast.

[1:04:48] Thanks for clarifying.

[1:04:49] I thought this was what?

[1:04:51] The boob tube show?

[1:04:51] The tube cast.

[1:04:53] The tube house.

[1:04:54] Which is actually...

[1:04:56] About tube tops.

[1:04:57] We love them.

[1:04:58] You wear them.

[1:04:59] Let's talk.

[1:05:00] The tube house.

[1:05:01] Bare shoulders.

[1:05:03] Thumbs up.

[1:05:04] I'm going to recommend a documentary movie.

[1:05:07] This is a real life movie.

[1:05:08] Okay.

[1:05:09] Kind of.

[1:05:10] It's called Room 237.

[1:05:12] And it's gotten a little bit of buzz.

[1:05:14] It's a documentary about the movie...

[1:05:15] Because it's about bees.

[1:05:16] It's called a bee story.

[1:05:18] It's called a bee movie.

[1:05:20] Room 237.

[1:05:21] It's a documentary about The Shining.

[1:05:23] But not about the making of the movie.

[1:05:25] It's about...

[1:05:26] There's five different people whose interpretations of the film are gone into in great detail.

[1:05:34] And their interpretations are, to say the least, wrong.

[1:05:38] And they range from the semi-plausible that the movie is a metaphor for either the Holocaust or the killing of the Native Americans by the American government.

[1:05:46] To the very implausible that this is the movie that Stanley Kubrick made to reveal to the world that he faked the moon landing.

[1:05:54] Or this one woman who just kind of says stuff about minotaurs and children that don't really make any sense.

[1:06:00] But what the movie is really about...

[1:06:02] And you don't...

[1:06:03] There's no...

[1:06:03] The only narration in this movie is from the people telling their theories.

[1:06:07] You don't see them on screen.

[1:06:08] All the footage from the movie is either taken from The Shining or other movies.

[1:06:13] And there's a little bit that I think was shot for this film in a movie theater.

[1:06:17] But for the most part, it's all footage that's been edited and slowed down or reversed or looped.

[1:06:24] And it's a really fascinating movie about how people can take a movie like The Shining and read so much into it.

[1:06:31] And devote so much of their time and energy to puzzling out what they assume are very deliberate hidden meanings.

[1:06:37] Put there by this godlike director, Stanley Kubrick, who has control over every detail on screen at any given moment.

[1:06:44] And every single instance of anything in the movie.

[1:06:47] And just kind of a fascinating look at how people wrap themselves up in a film and get lost in it.

[1:06:51] And the way that it's edited, I thought, was really interesting.

[1:06:54] And it seems to me one of the few documentaries I've seen in a movie theater that felt like it had taken the lessons of the documentaries you see on YouTube.

[1:07:02] Where they will replay footage.

[1:07:04] Where they'll zoom in on things.

[1:07:06] Where they'll create computer models that fit the footage.

[1:07:10] Like all sorts of different things.

[1:07:11] And the music in it sounds like the kind of music that John Carpenter writes for his movies.

[1:07:15] With a lot of keyboard and synthesizer.

[1:07:18] It's all super awesome.

[1:07:19] So the whole thing, it's really good and it creates this kind of hypnotic spell all around The Shining.

[1:07:24] This movie that is basically like a good kind of high class horror movie.

[1:07:29] And at the end it feels like these people are trying to rationalize themselves why they like this movie.

[1:07:33] That like they can't like a movie that has a bunch of skeletons in it and an elevator full of blood.

[1:07:38] There must be some deeper meaning to it.

[1:07:39] And they seem to be kind of fooling themselves in ever descending circles.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:43] Why don't they just ask Stanley Kubrick to explain it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:46] Well, he died about 20 years ago.

[1:07:48] Did he?

[1:07:49] And everyone who knew Stanley Kubrick who was – yes.

[1:07:52] And everyone – since then, since the movie came out, everyone who was involved in The Shining seems to be saying this is total crap.

[1:07:57] None of these things these people are saying are true.

[1:08:00] But the point of it is not whether these theories are –

[1:08:01] Someone got to them.

[1:08:02] Yeah, Stanley Kubrick's ghost.

[1:08:04] Shutting him up.

[1:08:04] Stanley Boo-brick.

[1:08:07] Wait a minute.

[1:08:07] Wait, he's got boobs?

[1:08:08] No, no.

[1:08:09] Boo-brick.

[1:08:09] I like the idea of this ghost.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:11] He's a ghost.

[1:08:12] Boo-brick.

[1:08:13] No, not –

[1:08:13] The chestiest ghost around.

[1:08:15] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:16] But it's a really fascinating movie and a really hypnotic.

[1:08:19] And it made me really want to watch The Shining again, which honestly is not a feeling I've had in 11 years.

[1:08:24] So it was really good.

[1:08:26] I recommend it.

[1:08:26] Room 237.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:28] Well, guys.

[1:08:29] So a couple of solid recommendations.

[1:08:32] Yep.

[1:08:32] You mean you guys, right?

[1:08:35] Because you're mad at me for –

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:36] No, we're not mad.

[1:08:37] I mean it's –

[1:08:37] We're maybe a little mads about you.

[1:08:39] We are mads about you, Dan.

[1:08:41] Not as mad as we are about mads.

[1:08:42] But we're mads about McCoy.

[1:08:44] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:45] Same way Helen Hunt was mads about Paul Reiser.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:50] Except –

[1:08:51] Let's just keep going.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:53] Well, you know, whenever we talk about a Nicolas Cage film, it's like Christmas.

[1:09:00] But Christmas has to end.

[1:09:02] Does it?

[1:09:03] And so does the Flophouse.

[1:09:05] Wait, are you breaking up with us?

[1:09:07] This is the last episode?

[1:09:07] Yeah, are you dumping us?

[1:09:10] I found it.

[1:09:11] Are you dumping us?

[1:09:15] From now on, I'm in love with how did this get made.

[1:09:18] Wait.

[1:09:19] What?

[1:09:20] Is this a bit?

[1:09:22] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:25] Okay.

[1:09:26] I guess I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:09:27] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:09:29] The end?

[1:09:30] Question mark?

[1:09:31] Good night, everyone.

[1:09:32] Good night.

[1:09:35] What?

[1:09:36] What?

[1:09:37] What?

[1:09:43] I didn't know you had the hazing on DVD.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:52] Awesome.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:52] That's a relatively recent development.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:54] That is an awesome purchase.

[1:09:56] Awesome purchase.

[1:09:56] For lovers of pumpkin butts and Brad Dourif.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:59] Sounds like a character from a James Bond movie.

[1:10:01] Awesome purchase.

[1:10:02] I'm a pumpkin butt.

[1:10:03] We haven't talked about Tiffany Shepard's pumpkin butt in a long time.

[1:10:06] Aw, pumpkin butt.

[1:10:09] Pumpkin butt, I knew you were behind this.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:13] I detected your foul stench when I got on the way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:15] No, why is James Bond talking like Princess Leia?

[1:10:19] The game's over, pumpkin butt.

[1:10:24] Is that what they call me?

[1:10:26] That's so hurtful.

[1:10:27] you

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