FH Mini 153 - Tops and Flops

[0:00] hey it's me stewart wellington on the flop house podcast and we are doing another flop house mini

[0:09] and i'm joined by my co-host introduce yourself fellas dan mccoy elliot charles calen the second

[0:17] now welcome back to the inaugural episode of a new flop house mini segment right welcome back to the

[0:25] I already got them all twisted up.

[0:28] With another classic Stuart brain teaser.

[0:32] But to get back to the original.

[0:33] Another Stuart brain attack.

[0:35] We're ready for it.

[0:37] So brain teasers aside, let's get back to the meat of this.

[0:40] And that is coming back to the inaugural episode of a new Flophouse mini format.

[0:45] That's right.

[0:45] We are at, this is called Tops and Flops.

[0:49] That's right.

[0:50] All right.

[0:50] We are talking about Tops and Flops.

[0:53] A baseball card company.

[0:54] You're probably thinking we're talking about baseball-based-balled cards.

[0:58] All these balls have been based.

[1:00] We can't use these.

[1:02] I messed it all up.

[1:03] Get those balls some hems.

[1:05] Yeah, we're not talking about, when you hear tops and flops,

[1:08] you're probably thinking of baseball cards and flip-flops.

[1:11] We are not talking about that.

[1:12] We are, again, talking about a rare thing here on the Flophouse,

[1:16] which is movies.

[1:17] Normally on the Flophouse minis, we talk about whatever.

[1:20] But here on the specific Flophouse.

[1:21] Usually still movies.

[1:22] Yeah, you're right.

[1:24] Okay, fine.

[1:25] Undercut my initial point.

[1:27] We are going to be talking about movies.

[1:28] We are going to be talking about the best movies by communal decision

[1:34] and the worst movies by communal decision by various directors.

[1:38] Now, those ratings are going to be based on IMBB.

[1:42] Now, I would ask my two-

[1:43] IMBB?

[1:44] IMBB.

[1:45] I'm BB-8, baby.

[1:49] I wish IMBB.com.

[1:52] BB-8, that's more like four Bs right there.

[1:54] I wish IamBB.com was just a website where you just go

[1:56] and there's a picture of BB-8 and he just says,

[1:58] I'm BB-8, baby.

[2:03] Wonderful.

[2:03] Guys, I feel like our fucking curse

[2:05] is that we can't not talk about Star Wars.

[2:08] I don't understand it.

[2:10] Save me from this.

[2:11] Okay, so the idea is that we are going to be talking

[2:15] about different filmmakers.

[2:16] In this inaugural episode,

[2:18] I have selected a couple of directors

[2:20] And we're going to look at the IMDb rankings, and we're going to look at the one that is considered the best by the ranking system.

[2:30] And we're going to be looking at the worst by the ranking system.

[2:33] Now, this collection of directors I have chosen by – I tried to pick a little bit of a diverse crowd, a crowd, but it is still limited by directors who I believe we – there's a good chance we have seen most – some of their movies.

[2:46] It's also affected by my own personal taste.

[2:49] yeah um and also uh all of them okay great cool and keeping in mind that the ranking systems is

[2:55] from imdb users so it's you know the wild grain oh salt grain oh salt yep uh so we are i would

[3:04] ask my co-host grain oh salt sounds like a dc super villain from the 1950s it's like batman's

[3:10] like oh all my clothes are so crispy and weird in collaboration with the grain oh salt company

[3:15] they're like this is a limited time character um uh okay so we are uh i would ask my co-host to not

[3:22] use imdb at the same time just to preserve some of the excitement on this so what we're gonna do is

[3:27] we're gonna uh i uh we're gonna list the filmmaker we're going to mention you know kind of guess at

[3:33] what the top one is kind of guess what the bottom one is and then we'll kind of discuss whether or

[3:38] not either of those choices are uh what we expected or what we think should be or what

[3:44] might be influencing that um so the first one he has a big movie out now as of time of recording

[3:51] that is mr steven spielberg um and fellas give me two seconds it's a movie it's called disclosure

[3:58] day it's about aliens sexually harassing michael douglas that actually tracks i'm just going to be

[4:05] using the old internet here so we are using this by uh nope yep by wi-fi which stands for

[4:13] Wireless Fidelity, Wireless Fire Exit.

[4:19] Wireless Fire Exit, sorry.

[4:22] I expected this to go much faster,

[4:27] and now it's going slower.

[4:30] Will it function? Impossible.

[4:33] And Refine.

[4:35] Okay, so what do we think is the number one movie,

[4:39] the top movie?

[4:41] Show me Sugarland Express.

[4:43] I'm going to guess Jaws.

[4:46] There's a chance it is Schindler's List, but I'm going to say Jaws.

[4:50] I'm going to say E.T.

[4:54] It is Schindler's List with a whopping 9.0.

[4:59] Jaws isn't even in the top five.

[5:01] Well, that is wild.

[5:03] E.T. is also not in the top five.

[5:06] That is also wild.

[5:07] The problem with IMDb.

[5:09] The top five is Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan,

[5:12] Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park,

[5:14] and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,

[5:15] which I would argue is probably, like,

[5:17] I feel like the first four, I can see the argument.

[5:21] You can make an argument that Last Crusade

[5:23] is better than E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters.

[5:26] Seems wild.

[5:28] Yeah.

[5:29] I would say The Fablemans is better than Last Crusade,

[5:32] in my mind, you know.

[5:33] Mm-hmm.

[5:35] Now, what do you think,

[5:37] his lowest rating one is one I have not seen or heard of.

[5:41] I have a strong guess for this.

[5:43] Oh, not heard of.

[5:44] Well, I'm going to guess.

[5:45] Ridge of Spies?

[5:46] Always, because I feel like something like Hook has too many millennial fans.

[5:52] You know, Ready Player One has too many nerd fans.

[5:55] I'm going to say always.

[5:57] I'm going to say it is the TV movie he did before Duel that I can't remember the name of.

[6:07] Devil's something.

[6:08] Is it called Firelight?

[6:11] Oh, Firelight.

[6:12] Firelight is the lowest.

[6:13] That's like a short.

[6:15] Firelight, isn't that what he made as a kid?

[6:16] Firelight here is listed as two hours and 20 minutes.

[6:19] Really?

[6:20] Isn't that like...

[6:21] Because I set it to the criteria was set to movies.

[6:25] I believe that's a student film though, isn't it?

[6:27] I thought so too.

[6:28] Like Firelight.

[6:28] Nonetheless, okay.

[6:29] So ignoring that.

[6:30] So it's from 1964.

[6:32] That's the movie he made when he was a teenager.

[6:34] Yeah, yeah.

[6:34] The one above that would be 1941.

[6:37] Oh, this is so sick.

[6:37] According to Wikipedia,

[6:38] only three minutes and 40 seconds of the footage of Firelight

[6:41] has been made public.

[6:43] Okay, so I can see why it would have a bad rating.

[6:47] He's talked about this.

[6:48] On a budget of $500, he made $501 at the box office.

[6:51] So even then, he gets his money back.

[6:53] Blockbuster.

[6:54] So what's the movie then?

[6:55] When you take out Firelight, what's the bottom one?

[6:58] 1941.

[6:58] Okay, that's another one I would have guessed, yeah.

[7:00] Because it's very bad.

[7:01] Always is in the bottom five.

[7:04] Along with Twilight Zone, the movie, the BFG,

[7:07] and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.

[7:09] I forgot he made the BFG.

[7:11] I never saw that.

[7:12] I never saw Ready Player One either.

[7:13] I forgot he made that.

[7:15] When you become an old man director,

[7:18] you either take a long time.

[7:20] Ready Player One is straight in the middle here.

[7:23] Yeah.

[7:23] When you're an old man director,

[7:24] you either take a lot of time to make movies

[7:28] or you just churn them out.

[7:29] And I feel like Spielberg has been

[7:30] in a churning them out section of his career.

[7:33] Yeah.

[7:33] Well, I mean, he always though,

[7:35] like it's like he's setting something up

[7:38] while he's got,

[7:39] he's got like five things going on

[7:40] and then whatever's ready to go, he...

[7:43] Yeah, I feel like the War of the Worlds movie

[7:46] is ranked fairly low.

[7:49] I like that movie a lot.

[7:51] I think it's good.

[7:51] The only thing I don't like is that there's no universe

[7:54] where I believe Tom Cruise is like a longshoreman.

[7:57] Yeah.

[7:58] Too pretty.

[7:59] Sugarland Express is pretty low.

[8:01] It's a great movie, though.

[8:03] It's just low because people haven't seen it.

[8:06] I think there's going to be...

[8:07] I mean, the movies...

[8:08] I'm amazed that E.T. is not higher up,

[8:09] But the movie – it makes sense to me that the lower movies are the ones that are more about people and less about spectacle, you know, based on the IMDb voting audience, you know.

[8:20] Where's Bridge of Spies on there?

[8:23] Bridge of Spies was – wait, I just lost it.

[8:25] Bridge of Spies was straight in the middle.

[8:27] Okay, what about the paper or the post?

[8:29] Sorry, the post.

[8:30] Also, like, low to mid.

[8:33] Okay.

[8:34] Do you have – now, do you have a personal – I mean, I think when we guessed, we had our – were you guys guessing?

[8:39] with your heart or with your brain on these.

[8:42] I was trying to do a little bit of both.

[8:43] I do think E.T. is the movie of his

[8:45] that is the most magical to me,

[8:47] but also, like, I was like,

[8:49] there's a lot of 80s kids probably voting on IMDb.

[8:51] I would think E.T. would be,

[8:52] that it's not in the top five is astounding to me.

[8:54] Yeah.

[8:55] Yeah, I mean, E.T. is certainly,

[8:58] I would not argue with someone who put that at the top.

[9:01] Like, I like Jaws and Raiders the most,

[9:06] but E.T. has such magic to it.

[9:10] And I feel like E.T. is,

[9:11] if you were going to say to me,

[9:13] show me a movie that Steven Spielberg made

[9:15] that nobody else would make that well or that way,

[9:20] and E.T. is the movie that I,

[9:21] maybe E.T. or Close Encounters

[9:22] are the ones that I would show where I'd be like,

[9:23] it's hard for me to imagine somebody else

[9:25] making these movies the same way he does

[9:26] and as well as he does, those specific movies,

[9:28] just because he has such a connection to the material.

[9:31] And I feel like people have tried

[9:33] to recreate the magic of E.T.

[9:36] Yeah, I just watched Mac and Me again recently.

[9:40] They got pretty close.

[9:41] Well, you've just undercut my point here.

[9:43] I was going to say nobody's come close to matching it,

[9:46] but clearly Mac and Me.

[9:48] I showed another Stuart Raffle movie

[9:52] for my bad movie night pick recently

[9:54] because when we had Alonzo on the show,

[9:57] he just like offhandedly mentioned like a couple of things.

[10:01] We was like, oh, you know,

[10:03] like I went and saw After Last Season

[10:05] because sometimes you hear through the grapevine

[10:06] like something's really special

[10:07] and he like tossed off the title Standing Ovation

[10:11] and I looked it up.

[10:12] I'm like, oh, from the director of Mac and Me.

[10:14] It's sold in the room.

[10:16] Sight unseen.

[10:17] I'll program this.

[10:18] And it was a big hit.

[10:21] So if you're looking for a bad movie.

[10:22] We're going to move on to our next director

[10:24] and that is director, it's a Coppola,

[10:27] Sofia Coppola.

[10:29] Oh.

[10:30] Nine features here.

[10:32] That's a, you know, I feel like enough to have a, that's a solid career there.

[10:37] You can have a middle in that.

[10:38] What do you say is the number one Sofia Coppola movie?

[10:42] What's the top?

[10:43] Lost in Translation, I would say.

[10:44] Yeah, I'm still going to guess Lost in Translation.

[10:46] Got in one, banged it out by a decent margin.

[10:51] I'd say IMDb viewers, IMDb voters, they like Bill Murray.

[10:54] They like seeing Scarlett Johansson's butt.

[10:56] You know, what else, what else are they going to choose?

[10:59] Followed closely by The Virgin Suicides, a little bit of a gap, and we got Marie Antoinette.

[11:06] What do you think the bottom is?

[11:08] I'm guessing The Bling Ring.

[11:09] You are 100% correct.

[11:11] I was going to say The Beguiled, but The Bling Ring is even lower.

[11:14] Oh, okay.

[11:14] Yeah, Bling Ring is at a 5.6.

[11:17] I feel like people like—

[11:18] I've never—I actually haven't seen The Bling Ring.

[11:19] I've never seen it either.

[11:20] I feel like—I guess that one because it's the one that people, like, I think forget was even her.

[11:25] Uh-huh.

[11:25] Yeah.

[11:26] Which isn't a good sign for, like, the support.

[11:29] behind it oh yeah i feel like i feel like i still haven't seen the sofia coppola beguiled but i do

[11:36] love the original yeah dan have you seen it i feel like that's i mean i'm shocked that all if all

[11:41] three of us have not i have yeah i've only seen the original and i'm shocked i haven't seen it

[11:45] because i love sofia coppola i think i've seen all of her other movies except for the bling ring

[11:49] and the beguiled and the beguiled yeah yeah i should see it i think uh i think i just never

[11:54] got around it was just one of those ones where like i just didn't want to see it so badly that

[11:58] I made a point of seeing it you know and I forgot about it until now but I love that original so

[12:02] much yeah I mean it also speaks to uh her earlier work seems to have uh to be uh like rated a little

[12:10] bit higher do you think that's common with an indie filmmaker because I feel like uh maybe

[12:15] maybe that's unfair for me to call her an indie filmmaker but I feel like her movies at least have

[12:19] the feel of an indie I mean I think that's common with many filmmakers I think with indie filmmakers

[12:23] also often the first movies they make are the ones that they're excited about like the ones that they

[12:27] have to get made you know and so that's what they do but often with a lot of they often have to

[12:31] fight to get it made in a way that they might not later on and also they're new they're bursting

[12:36] with ideas often they're younger and they don't they can really apply their whole self to the

[12:42] movie because they don't have other responsibilities and it's i feel like the every director's career

[12:48] for the most part has ups and downs that is often more dependent on their life outside of their work

[12:54] than we on the outside outside really have a sense of, you know.

[12:59] But I think with a lot of filmmakers, when they're young and new,

[13:02] it's like the excitement of what they're doing comes through

[13:04] and then they kind of settle into it.

[13:05] But then you've got filmmakers where they start out not knowing what they're doing

[13:08] and then they become masters.

[13:10] I mean, I think it's also true that like even if someone puts out work

[13:15] of pretty consistent quality, there's a tendency among audiences to be like,

[13:20] oh, I'm excited by like a thing when it's new.

[13:23] And then if someone has a style, they're like, well, I'm tired of that style even if it's still good – if it's still good work.

[13:30] Well, you can see – you see with like the Acting Academy Awards, there's often like people at the beginnings of their career and it's exciting that they're being discovered or people at the very ends of their career where it's like you've rediscovered how important this person is after years of taking them for granted.

[13:45] And I think it's the same way with art in general when people are – mass art that way.

[13:51] It's why it's exciting when like someone in the middle of like a pretty consistent career just does something very different that pays off, you know.

[13:59] Because you're like, whoa, I didn't know they had it in them.

[14:01] Oh, okay.

[14:02] What's this all about?

[14:03] Our next director, the top will actually surprise you based on some of what we've already said.

[14:09] But this, in honor of the Knicks victory last night, the New York Knicks.

[14:13] We're doing Spike Lee.

[14:15] Yep.

[14:15] The unofficial mascot of the New York Knicks.

[14:20] I saw like an Instagram video after one of the wins recently

[14:24] where it was just like a crowd of people standing around a car

[14:27] with Spike Lee like out of the sunroof.

[14:30] Everyone's just cheering.

[14:32] Our next king.

[14:34] Now, what would you say the top movie on Spike Lee's film?

[14:39] I'm guessing that Do the Right Thing might be too political

[14:43] for some of the voters on IMDb,

[14:46] And thus, Inside Man might slip in.

[14:50] I'm going to say maybe Malcolm X.

[14:53] While both of those are ranked fairly high,

[14:56] Do the Right Thing is very high,

[14:59] but is the third on the list.

[15:02] But the, I would probably second, actually.

[15:05] The number one is, I guess,

[15:09] even though I sorted it to movie,

[15:12] is David Byrne's American Utopia.

[15:15] I was like, right before you said it, I'm like, I wonder if that slipped in just because it's like, people are like, well, what a great concert movie.

[15:21] I haven't seen it.

[15:22] How is it?

[15:22] Oh, it's wonderful.

[15:23] It's like, I was lucky enough to see the show when it was on Broadway.

[15:28] Like, as soon as it was announced, I'm like, well, I'm sure this is going to be expensive, but this is the thing that I need to see.

[15:35] David Byrne doing a, and it was, it was wonderful.

[15:38] And the, yeah, the documentary version of it is, is excellent.

[15:42] But it is just a great concert movie.

[15:44] Like, it is less a Spike Lee movie.

[15:47] Yeah.

[15:48] But I mean, I think...

[15:50] Spike Lee joint is the technical term.

[15:51] We've talked, I mean, we've talked about Spike Lee

[15:53] specifically talking about Inside Man before

[15:55] and there are moments in his career

[15:58] where he's just like, I can do the craft.

[16:01] I can just do the basic craft as good as anyone else.

[16:04] He's like, there are moments when he's like,

[16:06] let me just show you that, like,

[16:08] we talked about this before that.

[16:09] Let me show you the movies I make.

[16:12] I make them because that's the way I want to make a movie

[16:14] and that's the movie I want to make,

[16:15] I could easily make a movie

[16:17] that's a more mainstream movie

[16:19] and be as good as anyone has ever made a movie.

[16:21] He's an amazing filmmaker.

[16:23] He's just got such a natural, like, craft knowledge.

[16:26] Like, he's a brilliant artist.

[16:27] Like, he's so good at what he does

[16:29] and he puts so much thought and intention

[16:31] into everything he does,

[16:32] which is funny when he makes a movie

[16:34] that's kind of a mess,

[16:35] it's because he's like,

[16:36] yeah, this is the movie I'm making.

[16:37] I'm making a mess.

[16:39] And, but like Inside Man shows,

[16:40] he's like, I can do control

[16:42] if that's what you want,

[16:44] but that's not what I want, you know.

[16:45] So what would we say IMDb voters

[16:48] like the least from his filmography?

[16:50] This is tough because I feel like...

[16:52] I'm going to guess Crooklyn.

[16:53] He is a brilliant...

[16:54] Crooklyn?

[16:55] Yeah.

[16:55] I feel like that was really reclaimed.

[16:57] Then I'm going to guess Red Hook Summer.

[17:00] Yeah, maybe something like that.

[17:01] Crooklyn is much higher.

[17:03] Yeah.

[17:04] What's the...

[17:04] I'm trying to guess ones that are like...

[17:06] Like Girl 6 maybe?

[17:06] Girl 6 is pretty low.

[17:08] I'm trying to guess ones that are like smaller movies

[17:10] because I feel like IMDb does not

[17:11] do a great job of recognizing

[17:13] the worth in smaller movies?

[17:15] What was the one?

[17:15] He also has 36 credits.

[17:19] Yeah, that's the thing.

[17:19] He's got so many movies.

[17:20] Is it his remake of Ganja and Hess

[17:23] was like The Blood of Jesus

[17:24] or whatever it was?

[17:25] You are correct.

[17:26] That's his lowest.

[17:27] All right.

[17:28] Because almost nobody saw that.

[17:29] Yeah.

[17:30] Some of his lowest movies

[17:32] are his, effectively, his remakes,

[17:34] whether it's Highest to Lowest.

[17:35] Oh, the old boy remake.

[17:36] And the old boy remake.

[17:37] I forgot he did that remake.

[17:39] Chirac is kind of low.

[17:40] School Days is pretty low.

[17:42] Girl 6 is Red Hook Summer.

[17:45] But then like in the middle,

[17:46] you have things like Mo' Better Blues,

[17:49] Summer of Sam, Bamboozled.

[17:53] Part of looking through this is also being reminded of like,

[17:57] oh yeah, he's got this huge film library.

[17:59] I still have never seen 25th Hour, a movie that-

[18:02] I haven't either.

[18:03] It's very hard to find.

[18:04] It's being mentioned as like the quintessential

[18:07] like post-September 11th movie.

[18:10] Yeah, I didn't see it when it came out

[18:12] because the commercials made it look very boring.

[18:15] But I've heard nothing but good things about it.

[18:16] But it's one that each time I try to find it online somewhere,

[18:20] I should just watch it illegally, I guess.

[18:21] But when I try to find it streaming somewhere,

[18:23] like it's just not available.

[18:24] It's not as readily available as a lot of other movies.

[18:26] Elliot, we here at The Flophouse believe firmly

[18:28] in streaming services getting their piece of everything.

[18:31] Streaming service property rights.

[18:32] The middleman must get their dollar, you know.

[18:35] I saw that movie at the time and I loved it.

[18:38] I think it's one, it is like a great movie.

[18:41] I personally find this idea of it being like the quintessential, you know, post 9-11 movie, like a little overstated.

[18:48] I mean, it was not, it was not built as that.

[18:50] And then they added some stuff that like gave it more of that flavor, you know, after the tragedies happened.

[18:59] But like, I don't know.

[19:02] Maybe if I saw it today, I would, I would feel differently.

[19:05] Or do you think the quintessential post-9-11 movie is Spider-Man?

[19:09] This is New York.

[19:10] You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.

[19:12] Yeah.

[19:14] That spirit went away after a while.

[19:16] Well, I mean, it's back, the Knicks.

[19:17] It's back, maybe Knicks, maybe.

[19:19] Yeah.

[19:20] Yeah, I mean, and also, like, his tops are a lot of the things

[19:23] that I feel like are going to be more of his, like, larger audience.

[19:29] The ones where he seems to be making something for, like, a larger audience.

[19:33] Things like Malcolm X, Black Klansman, that features friend of the podcast, Ashley Atkinson.

[19:40] Yeah, good movie.

[19:41] It's a really good movie.

[19:43] So we're going to go now from Spike Lee to Ang Lee.

[19:48] I thought he was going to say Spike Jones.

[19:51] But he went to Ang Lee.

[19:52] You've got to change it real quick.

[19:55] So who do we think is going to be, what do we think is going to be Ang Lee's best move?

[20:01] I'm guessing.

[20:02] Top move.

[20:03] Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

[20:05] It's tied.

[20:06] I would guess that or Brokeback Mountain, but.

[20:10] Oh man, Brokeback Mountain's so fucking good.

[20:12] Well, where's the Wedding Banquet on there?

[20:12] That's my personal favorite.

[20:13] Because the Wedding Banquet I think is my favorite of his, but.

[20:17] There's a tie for number one,

[20:18] and one of those is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

[20:20] And the other one is the Hulk.

[20:22] Wait, it's just Hulk.

[20:24] Give me Eric Bana is the Hulk.

[20:26] Is it Life of Pi?

[20:27] Is that the other one?

[20:28] It's Life of Pi.

[20:29] I still haven't seen that.

[20:30] I still haven't seen it either.

[20:32] There's a tiger in it, right?

[20:33] There's a tiger.

[20:34] It's one of those movies where –

[20:35] Or is there?

[20:36] Wink.

[20:37] That's a good point.

[20:38] Yeah.

[20:39] It's one of those movies where I like cannot bring myself – I'm like, I'm just going to see this kid and this tiger in a boat for like forever.

[20:44] I don't know.

[20:45] I don't know, guys.

[20:46] Yeah, and I mean I understand – like I hear it looks beautiful.

[20:49] I've heard it's really good.

[20:50] I've heard it's beautiful.

[20:51] It won Best Director, right?

[20:52] I feel like it looked really fake to me in a way that was like – I mean like artificial is fine as far as I'm concerned.

[20:59] But there's a –

[21:00] Far artificial you draw the line at.

[21:01] There's a digital faking this I have a harder time with.

[21:05] I'm sorry, Todd.

[21:06] I think we all feel that way.

[21:08] I grew up with a certain aesthetic.

[21:09] That's the thing.

[21:10] We're all 80s kids, so we would rather see a fake puppet than a fake computer thing.

[21:15] That's just what we grew up with.

[21:17] What was Ang Lee's breakthrough movie?

[21:20] Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, probably, right?

[21:22] Yeah, I think so.

[21:23] I mean, that was the one I think that got him like a bigger mainstream audience, yeah.

[21:28] Can I guess the lowest one?

[21:30] The bottom is a tie.

[21:31] Is it Billy Lynn's long halftime walk?

[21:34] That is close, but it's not.

[21:35] Is it Ride with the Devil?

[21:37] No, it's...

[21:38] Is it Smoke or...

[21:39] Wait, Blue in the Face?

[21:40] Wait, is that...

[21:41] Did he do that one?

[21:41] No, that's not him.

[21:42] That's Wayne Wang, I think.

[21:42] That's Wayne Wang.

[21:43] Sorry, I sound very racist now.

[21:46] You're incredibly racist.

[21:49] Okay, so the bottom two is Hulk.

[21:54] And the other is a movie we covered here on the Flophouse.

[21:57] Oh, Gemini Man?

[21:58] Gemini Man.

[21:59] Oh, I totally forgot that he did that.

[22:01] Just like my Gemini Dan here, born in June.

[22:06] And then a little bit of a gap before Billy Lynn's long halftime walk.

[22:11] Then we have a ride with the devil, taking Woodstock, pushing hands.

[22:15] And then we get to the ice storm, which I think deserves better than that.

[22:18] Yeah.

[22:21] He's a great director.

[22:22] When you've got so many good movies, they can't all be at the top.

[22:24] He does have a lot of good movies.

[22:27] Most of his filmography is above seven, which is pretty good.

[22:30] Yeah.

[22:31] And I'm just going to say it too.

[22:32] Dan, you may be a racist,

[22:34] but Wayne Wang also has a lot of great movies.

[22:37] Lust Caution's on there.

[22:38] I'm a big fan of Lust Caution.

[22:39] Oh, I never saw Lust Caution.

[22:41] It took me a while because I'm like,

[22:44] wait, there's an NC-17 version out there.

[22:46] I need to track that thing down.

[22:48] The only ones on streaming is the R-rated,

[22:50] and that's not for me.

[22:53] Because I'm a maniac that feels like I need to see,

[22:57] like I'm like, I won't be experiencing the full thing.

[22:59] And it's also like a two and a half hour movie,

[23:01] And I'm like, well, I'm not going to watch it twice.

[23:05] I also have never seen his Sense and Sensibility.

[23:09] It's very good.

[23:10] It's very, very good.

[23:12] That I think is, you could say that that is up there

[23:14] with the Pride and Prejudice miniseries and Clueless

[23:19] as like the best adaptations of Jane Austen's work

[23:23] into film and television, you know?

[23:26] Ang Lee's have a specific talent of doing stories

[23:30] about people who do not have the tools

[23:34] to accurately convey their roiling turmoil

[23:39] inside of their staid facade.

[23:44] That's a good way to describe it, yeah.

[23:47] So, of course, we're going from Spike Lee

[23:50] to Ang Lee to Mike Lee.

[23:54] Or Mike Lee.

[23:56] Spelled differently.

[23:57] Mike Lee, but yeah, it's spelled differently.

[24:00] Okay, so he's a classic goofster here.

[24:04] Real.

[24:06] Classic funny man.

[24:07] I mean, there's some very funny movies that he did.

[24:09] There's a lot of Mike Lee that I haven't seen.

[24:12] He's a blind spot for me.

[24:13] The few I've seen I like so much, but I'm also like,

[24:16] I've got to be emotionally ready for this one.

[24:19] I mean, if it's naked, sure.

[24:21] But if it's like topsy-turvy or happy-go-lucky.

[24:23] I started watching naked and I was like,

[24:25] I don't know what mindset I've got to be in to watch this,

[24:27] but it is not what I'm in right now.

[24:28] Yeah, I feel like naked reminds me too much of like I am stuck at the bar talking to this nightmare of a person.

[24:37] Okay, so 15 movies in his filmography.

[24:40] What do we think number one is?

[24:42] What's the tops?

[24:43] I'm going to guess just because I think it's the biggest name, Secrets and Lies.

[24:47] That's what I would guess also.

[24:48] You slam dunked it there, dude.

[24:50] Secrets and Lies with a bit of a gap before Vera Drake.

[24:54] Oh, I never saw Vera Drake.

[24:56] I have no idea what her deal is.

[24:58] But that's kind of notable just because...

[25:01] You never will know, Dan.

[25:02] I won't tell you.

[25:04] I must know about Vera Drake.

[25:06] I simply must.

[25:08] Vera Drake is definitely like a mid-career movie.

[25:12] Is what Stuart was going to say?

[25:14] That's kind of a mid-career movie for him

[25:17] coming out in 2004.

[25:20] Do we have a guess what the low one would be?

[25:24] I'm going to guess it's something he did for television,

[25:27] like a TV movie that hasn't made it to the U.S.

[25:28] I feel like the things that are going to be lower on his filmography

[25:31] I may not even be familiar with.

[25:33] I mean, I do feel like I know a lot of them, but...

[25:37] Who's that guy who has sex with a pig?

[25:41] Oh, in Black Mirror?

[25:43] Yeah, that actor, yeah, from Men.

[25:47] So his bottoms are two mics don't make a right,

[25:50] but that is a, he just does a segment there.

[25:52] And then he also directed a movie called Peterloo.

[25:56] I've never heard of that.

[25:57] Mr. Turner.

[25:58] Mr. Turner's at the bottom?

[26:00] Yeah.

[26:00] That movie's great.

[26:02] That one I never saw.

[26:02] That's the one about the painter.

[26:03] That low is still a decent score.

[26:06] That's a 6.8, but it's still fairly low.

[26:09] I haven't seen it.

[26:09] What's the deal with Mr. Turner?

[26:11] It's about Turner, the painter.

[26:13] The English painter who did a lot of atmospheric effects in his landscapes.

[26:21] I mean, I guess the character of Mr. Turner is kind of unpleasant to spend time with.

[26:26] with but they tried to soften him with mr hooch but it didn't work yeah yeah when i was when i

[26:32] was 13 my uh my grandmother mike lee's turner and hooch would be way sadder it wouldn't be much

[26:37] sadder so it would all take place after hooch dies when i was 13 my grandmother took me and

[26:43] my sister and my cousin to england and because we're all turning 13 we went to the national

[26:47] gallery because my grandmother was like you have to see the turners you have to see the clouds and

[26:50] the skies in the turner paintings and i remember it making no impact on me whatsoever and so maybe

[26:56] you're gonna watch the movie i can see that making no impact on you um at that age yeah we uh just

[27:02] went to chicago fairly recently for a live show i mean and by that i mean within the last few months

[27:09] um and i went to the the art uh museum there in chicago and they had a bunch of turner paintings

[27:16] and i was you know i thought they were gorgeous and i you know as someone who has like amateurish

[27:22] You can't even say the word.

[27:27] An amateur painter, myself, I was astounded at the effects that he could get.

[27:33] I couldn't even imagine.

[27:36] I got to watch that movie now so I can find out how he did it.

[27:39] Yeah, I got to see the clouds is what I'm looking for.

[27:42] Yeah, clouds.

[27:43] Okay, dude.

[27:44] Dust in the air, you know, all this stuff.

[27:47] Yeah.

[27:47] Okay, so we're going from the, what kind of the,

[27:51] How would we describe the works of Mike Lee?

[27:53] Like, realistic, improvisational, you know, character-based?

[27:59] I feel, I guess not necessarily harsh, but I feel like there's a starkness.

[28:04] There's a roughness to them.

[28:05] Yeah, yeah.

[28:07] So we're moving from that to something a little more punchy and fun.

[28:11] We're going to talk about director Catherine Bigelow.

[28:14] Sure.

[28:16] Catherine Bigelow.

[28:17] So let's, we got, let me just pull this up real quick.

[28:21] The top one's either going to be what?

[28:23] Hurt Locker or Point Break?

[28:25] No, that's not what I'm looking for.

[28:27] Yeah, there we go.

[28:28] Okay, so number one, what do you think?

[28:31] Hurt Locker?

[28:31] Hurt Locker or Point Break, yeah.

[28:35] Yeah, I think that that's probably true, one of those.

[28:38] It's a pretty tight grouping here, actually.

[28:41] Near Dark better be pretty high up.

[28:43] Well, for most of them, it's a pretty tight grouping.

[28:46] Number one is the Hurt Locker, just barely edging out.

[28:49] Zero Dark Thirty.

[28:51] Oh, I forgot you did Zero Dark Thirty.

[28:53] I would say a much lower movie than Hurt Locker or Point Break.

[29:00] But Point Break is actually tied with, for third place, tied with Detroit, a movie I have no idea.

[29:07] I'm surprised Detroit is that high up.

[29:10] Yeah.

[29:11] But again, these are specifically Detroit and also Zero Dark Thirty are kind of later, at least more current in her career.

[29:18] Those are post-Hurt Locker.

[29:19] Pretty solid guess, I think, for lowest.

[29:21] I think so, too.

[29:22] I'm going to say Loveless.

[29:24] I was also going to say Loveless, yeah.

[29:26] Very close, but not the bottom.

[29:28] Oh, really?

[29:29] The bottom by 0.2 points.

[29:32] Not Strange Days, is it?

[29:34] Blue Steel.

[29:35] That is fucking crazy.

[29:38] That makes sense, I guess.

[29:39] I mean, it makes sense, but it is like,

[29:42] maybe it's because you have to get into the wackiness of it.

[29:46] Yeah, that is not a movie that I think.

[29:47] But you get Clancy Brown's ass in it.

[29:49] Who doesn't want that?

[29:50] That should get a couple of points just for that.

[29:52] I don't think that movie exists in reality as we know it.

[29:55] And I think people expect it to.

[29:57] Oh, yeah.

[29:58] I'm surprised it's not Loveless

[29:59] because Loveless is also like such a stark movie.

[30:04] Like it's not a movie that invites you in in any way, you know?

[30:08] I've never seen it.

[30:09] What's the deal there?

[30:10] Willem Dafoe.

[30:11] Oh, Willem Dafoe?

[30:12] Yeah, he's a biker and he rides into a small town

[30:15] in the, what, 50s or 60s.

[30:16] And it's like a lot of hanging out in this town.

[30:18] Oh, yeah, I've seen some stuff of that.

[30:19] You know, and then a bad secret comes out in town.

[30:22] Yeah, I only know it by reputation,

[30:24] but it's my impression that it's like closer to an art film from her than the other.

[30:29] Yes, it definitely feels much more like a student film or an independent film,

[30:33] especially compared to her later work.

[30:34] It feels much more like someone who's trying to make an almost like a trying to make

[30:39] like a David Lynch type movie without the weirdness, you know.

[30:43] But it plays some of the same kind of like 50s, you know, iconography and stuff like that.

[30:49] So the upper half, we have movies like Point Break, obviously great.

[30:52] We also have Strange Days, which is, it's nice to see that.

[30:55] I was afraid that was going to be down at the bottom, yeah.

[30:57] Yeah, and it's, from what I can tell, that's still really hard to get a hold of, right?

[31:02] Is it like not streaming anywhere or something?

[31:05] I feel like for a while it was hard to see.

[31:07] I do know that it was hard to see on streaming for a long time.

[31:10] I have like a disc of it somewhere.

[31:12] Actually, according to the internet, it might be on Hulu, which means it would be on Disney+.

[31:16] Oh, wow.

[31:17] So it must be much easier to get to.

[31:18] Real turnaround for Strange Days.

[31:20] Yeah.

[31:22] Like, when I'm done watching, I don't know,

[31:24] The Mandalorian and Grogu,

[31:25] I'll pop on Strange Days to discount myself.

[31:28] I like science fiction.

[31:29] What's this?

[31:30] I like Tom Sizemore.

[31:33] Tom Sizemore acting totally normal in the normal wig.

[31:38] Yeah.

[31:39] Normal wig.

[31:41] I mean, I feel like the through line for Disney Plus

[31:46] is Angela Bassett having an amazing set of shoulders.

[31:49] It's between that movie and the Black Panther.

[31:54] Most people talk about her arms,

[31:56] but you could talk about her shoulders too.

[31:57] I feel like, you know,

[31:58] What's Love Got to Do With It is on Hulu.

[32:01] Yeah, see?

[32:02] Which means it's probably on Disney+.

[32:03] What's Love Got to Do With It

[32:05] is like one of the only musician biopics I like.

[32:10] I still haven't seen it.

[32:11] It's like a vilified genre for me.

[32:14] Everything is like, what's Love Got to Do With It and Walk Hard.

[32:17] Those are the only two.

[32:19] I mean, Walk the Line is, I think, is a pretty good movie.

[32:21] It's a pretty solid movie.

[32:22] I like Walk Hard more.

[32:24] I mean, they're not doing the same thing.

[32:25] That's not really a biopic.

[32:27] What are you talking about?

[32:30] Stewart's been a big fan of Dewey Cox for years.

[32:34] When's he going to put out another album, he keeps asking.

[32:36] I do have to point out in the bottom half here,

[32:39] we have Near Dark is like straight in the middle.

[32:42] That should be much higher up.

[32:43] Bottom half is K-19, The Widowmaker.

[32:46] What's the deal there?

[32:48] It's kind of boring, I remember.

[32:49] Yeah, that's respectable but boring.

[32:51] Is it like a Tom Clancy?

[32:52] It's a submarine movie.

[32:54] No, it's based on an actual incident in Russia.

[32:58] I don't know much about it.

[32:59] I tried to watch it because I'm like, what?

[33:02] Catherine Bigelow did a Harrison Ford submarine movie?

[33:05] I love this.

[33:06] And it was very, very boring as far as I recall.

[33:10] I mean, I feel like the...

[33:11] I guess with a title like K-19, The Widowmaker,

[33:14] that's either going to be like...

[33:16] It's either going to be a really awesome, like, wrestler or something,

[33:20] or it's too complicated of a title, I would say.

[33:25] So, Catherine Bigelow, any through line here?

[33:28] How would we describe Catherine Bigelow's oomphro?

[33:32] Tough. Real tough.

[33:32] I mean, I feel like she, with movies like Blue Steel

[33:36] and especially point break kind of set a like a look and a feel for action movies that was then

[33:43] like adopted by guys like michael bay yeah yeah well for sure um a more heightened intense

[33:50] sort of vibe that like maybe isn't 100 based in reality but uh but i mean it's a lot of kinetic

[33:57] energy but i feel like there's something i like the way that her stuff isn't connected to reality

[34:04] as opposed to like,

[34:05] I feel like a Jerry Bruckheimer or something

[34:07] or a Michael Bay type thing.

[34:09] Well, she's always,

[34:09] I think when she's working in that heightened reality,

[34:11] it's great,

[34:12] but she's done a couple of like true life movies

[34:14] or movies trying to present true life.

[34:15] And I think there it's a mismatch for me.

[34:19] Like Zero Dark Thirty is a mismatch

[34:21] because it's like,

[34:23] we don't live in the world

[34:24] that that movie says we live in.

[34:26] You know, it's like a,

[34:28] it's the action movie thing of like,

[34:30] well, you need to torture people, of course.

[34:32] And, but it's like,

[34:32] oh, I don't,

[34:33] this is a weird,

[34:34] This is not the subject matter

[34:35] that I think is right for that, you know?

[34:37] Yes, and there's something about like a movie

[34:40] like Point Break where we are to believe

[34:42] that these, you know, like surfing bank robbers,

[34:47] that we are like thrust into this world

[34:49] and we're like, we buy that we are

[34:51] in this heightened, strange universe.

[34:53] As soon as they're surfing bank robbers,

[34:55] you're like, well, this is gonna be a,

[34:57] this is not the real world that we exist in.

[34:59] But when it's something like the Hurt Locker,

[35:00] I think you get people walking away from it being like,

[35:02] well, that's what bomb disposal units are like

[35:04] in Afghanistan or Iraq.

[35:05] It's three guys who just kind of cowboy around

[35:08] having adventures when it's not reality.

[35:11] You know, it's a, I think when she's,

[35:13] when it's not, when she's blurring the line

[35:15] between reality and reality, I don't like it as much.

[35:18] But when it's patently unreal,

[35:20] when it's about a bunch of vampires

[35:22] tooling around the country, that's, I love that.

[35:24] Or Ron Silver who becomes addicted to guns.

[35:26] Exactly.

[35:29] Okay, so.

[35:30] This is what I've been missing.

[35:30] So we're gonna move over from Catherine Bigelow

[35:33] to, I think, one of-

[35:34] Catherine Smololo.

[35:37] We're moving over to, I would say,

[35:39] one of the patron saint, not patron saints,

[35:43] but one of the Mount Rushmore of Flophouse directors

[35:46] that I think we all love

[35:48] and can get behind, Mr. John Carpenter.

[35:51] We all love this irascible old man

[35:52] who wants to play video games and smoke weed

[35:55] and cash checks based on,

[35:58] cash checks from remakes of his work.

[36:01] What do we think is IMDb users' top John Carpenter movie of his 18 movies?

[36:08] I imagine it's either The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China would be my guess.

[36:12] Or possibly Halloween, but I'm betting...

[36:15] Nah, I don't think it's Halloween.

[36:16] The Thing.

[36:17] You guys are both right.

[36:18] It's The Thing is number one, followed by Halloween.

[36:23] Oh, I'm surprised Halloween's that high up.

[36:25] And in the bottom, I don't think these are going to be shockers.

[36:28] How many ghosts and what planet are they from?

[36:32] I personally like the ward a little bit more than I like what the children of the damned.

[36:39] Village of the damned.

[36:40] Village of the damned.

[36:41] But I'm going to say, I'm going to guess that the ward made it to the bottom.

[36:45] Yeah, the bottom is Ghosts of Mars.

[36:47] By a sizable margin.

[36:50] And then Ghosts of Mars is below five, which is pretty rough.

[36:55] The Ward is the second to the bottom.

[36:58] Village of the Dam is third from the bottom.

[37:01] And then right above that, Escape from L.A.,

[37:04] a movie that I think has gotten a little bit of a,

[37:06] a little bit of unfair information.

[37:08] I think it's, I think people who didn't realize,

[37:10] I think there are a lot of people who saw Escape from New York

[37:12] did not realize it is partly a joke movie.

[37:15] And then saw Escape from L.A. and thought it was a huge,

[37:18] I mean, also saw Escape from L.A. years later

[37:20] when it came out and thought it was a huge,

[37:22] like they thought it was a Gremlins, Gremlins 2 type thing.

[37:25] But when you watch those movies together,

[37:26] you're like, these movies fit together pretty well.

[37:28] Like, they're not that different from each other.

[37:31] Ditto Civil is a little sillier.

[37:32] The fact that he has to avoid death

[37:34] by shooting 10 baskets in a row is kind of silly.

[37:36] I find it kind of nutty that...

[37:38] Silly?

[37:40] What?

[37:40] He's shooting baskets at me.

[37:42] That's true.

[37:43] Do you not see how the Knicks just brought the city together?

[37:47] Thank you.

[37:48] Not L.A.

[37:48] They brought a different city together.

[37:50] Yeah.

[37:51] This is really dating.

[37:52] This is going to come out like a month after we...

[37:54] um no i'm really surprised that ghost of mars is the absolute bottom one because i will say

[38:00] that like i actually haven't watched it that movie's not great but it has more john carpenter

[38:05] vibes like which is what you want but i think it's it is the most famously bad of his movies

[38:11] so i think it might be a matter of more people seeing it and voting for that exactly exactly

[38:17] whereas the ward can slip by because people just don't know it that well village of the damned

[38:21] which people probably forget that he made that, you know?

[38:23] Yeah.

[38:23] I assume In the Mouth of Madness is in the middle

[38:25] when it should be towards the top.

[38:28] It is, yeah, it's like top middle.

[38:32] Yeah.

[38:32] Where's Memoirs of an Invisible Man?

[38:34] That's right, what is slightly above Escape from L.A.

[38:38] is Memoirs of an Invisible Man,

[38:39] a movie that I have a soft spot for.

[38:42] I do too.

[38:43] I think if it was not Chevy Chase,

[38:44] that movie would be thought better of, yeah.

[38:47] And right above that is Vampires and Dark Star

[38:50] with a tie.

[38:51] Vampires has some

[38:52] okay stuff in it.

[38:53] Dark Star is much

[38:54] better than Vampires.

[38:55] Yeah, I put Dark Star

[38:55] way higher.

[38:56] Yeah, well,

[38:57] but again,

[38:57] the same reason.

[38:59] But also Dark Star

[38:59] gets kind of boring

[39:00] in the middle, you know.

[39:02] And right above,

[39:02] I mean, there's,

[39:04] right above that

[39:05] is Prince of Darkness,

[39:06] which is one of my top five.

[39:07] That's one of my faves.

[39:08] That's a really good one.

[39:08] It's so,

[39:09] it's so cool and weird

[39:11] and like specifically

[39:12] John Carpenter-y.

[39:13] So Starman must be

[39:14] pretty high up, right?

[39:15] Nope, it's fairly low,

[39:17] like low middle.

[39:18] It's below

[39:18] In the Mouth of Madness

[39:19] along with Escape from New York.

[39:21] I mean, a lot of like,

[39:23] I feel like there's a big mix of them in there.

[39:26] I mean, also-

[39:27] The tops are The Thing, Halloween,

[39:29] Assault on Precinct 13,

[39:31] and They Live,

[39:33] and then Big Trouble in Little China.

[39:34] The Thing is also like,

[39:35] when you've got a really good filmography,

[39:38] movies just have,

[39:38] there's only so many slots.

[39:40] So a movie has to get,

[39:40] it can't be like,

[39:41] there's a 10-way tie for fourth place.

[39:44] Yes, I do think it's kind of funny

[39:45] that the tide for fourth place is They Live

[39:49] and Big Trouble in Little China,

[39:50] two movies that feel very spiritually the same.

[39:53] Yeah, very spiritual.

[39:54] It's operating in the same register, let's say.

[39:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[39:57] Oh, man, what bangers.

[39:59] And both featuring gentlemen with very cool haircuts.

[40:03] I had a guy, I was at one of my bars for Pride yesterday,

[40:08] and I had a guy tell me my hair looked very Kurt Russell,

[40:11] and I was like, that is by design, sir.

[40:14] Thank you.

[40:15] But yeah, I think we can all say...

[40:16] You're like, I've always loved Captain Ron.

[40:19] yeah uh so oh captain my captain stewart says um how would we describe uh the the works of

[40:28] john carpenter in in a few sentences um well he has like elegant widescreen like framings of things

[40:36] he uh i don't know like a lot of it is vibes like he's a very i mean he provides those vibes with

[40:43] his synthesizer yeah like he like defined a certain 80s feel i would say um not elevated

[40:51] genre but um like perfected is too far but like clarified genre like his movies take genre types

[41:00] of stories and clarifies what's best about them and tosses away the the stuff you don't need as

[41:06] much so it's not you when you say elevated it makes it sound like you like the person feels

[41:10] ashamed to be working in this genre and so they're trying to make it seem like a more artier movie

[41:15] whereas what he does is he's like what's the best version of this story that i'm telling that is a

[41:20] genre story how do i get those genre thrills across in a way that becomes elegant and beautiful

[41:27] because i'm doing it so well basically like that's the thing to me is the thing is like i'm gonna do

[41:32] a science fiction thriller and it is not a i'm not doing it by trying to like art up a b movie

[41:38] Instead, I'm trying to do what's the best version of this movie, you know?

[41:42] He also was, like, so specifically, like, a Western fan

[41:45] that you see that, like, a lot of his movies are, like,

[41:47] Westerns and under the surface.

[41:50] He never made a Western, though, right?

[41:52] I mean, no.

[41:53] I mean, like, Vampires.

[41:54] Vampires is the closest, yeah.

[41:55] It's kind of like a Western, but again, it's a vampire movie.

[41:57] It's not a, yeah.

[42:00] It's less of a Western than Billy the Kid Meets Dracula, you know, I think.

[42:03] But I feel like there's, I think there's also something about the idea of, like,

[42:07] Not making a Western means that he can, like, lean into the almost exploitative thrills of a Western movie without risking any, like, you know, cowboys versus Indians or something bullshit.

[42:21] Okay.

[42:22] I'm sorry, guys.

[42:23] It's Billy the Kid versus Dracula.

[42:24] I should have known that they would fight each other.

[42:26] They would not.

[42:26] They would not pal around.

[42:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[42:28] Jesse James met Frankenstein's daughter.

[42:30] They're not Milo and Otis over here.

[42:31] No.

[42:32] Now, what did Bela Lugosi do with a Brooklyn gorilla?

[42:35] It wasn't good.

[42:36] It was not good.

[42:37] It was like that Black Mirror episode Stuart was talking about.

[42:44] Hey, MaxFun listeners, it's me, Jackie Cation.

[42:47] I have a podcast with Lori Kilmartin.

[42:49] Say hi, Lori.

[42:49] Hi, Jacqueline.

[42:51] Hi, MaxFun listeners.

[42:53] Why not very formal?

[42:55] We have a podcast and it's about stand-up comedy

[42:57] and how much we love it and how much we dislike some of it.

[43:01] So listen to that podcast.

[43:03] It's called The Jackie and Lori Show.

[43:04] We drop new episodes every Wednesday

[43:07] that gives us plenty of time to decompress

[43:09] from our comedy weekends

[43:10] and discuss things with sane, level heads.

[43:14] No, it doesn't.

[43:15] If you are a woman our age or a man our age,

[43:18] or you know what?

[43:19] Any person of any age,

[43:21] I think you'll enjoy your podcast,

[43:23] Jackie and Lori Show on MaximumFun.org.

[43:25] Bye.

[43:29] Are you a celebrity?

[43:31] Are you searching for meaning, connection,

[43:33] and a little levity these days?

[43:35] Hi, I'm Kumail Nanjiani, actor, writer,

[43:38] and yes, a celebrity too.

[43:40] And I've got four words for you.

[43:43] Bullseye with Jesse Thorne.

[43:46] Are you tired of junkets, red carpets,

[43:49] sick of the endless spicy snacks you have to eat?

[43:52] Do you want to connect with someone who gets your work

[43:54] and laugh with you a little?

[43:56] Join me, Andre 3000, Tom Hanks, Tina Fey,

[44:00] and many more and become a guest on Bullseye

[44:02] with Jesse Thorne from NPR and Maximum Fun.

[44:08] Hey, folks.

[44:10] The Flophouse is brought to you today by Squarespace.

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[45:34] Before we move on, I wanted to take a moment to tell people that joke farming, how to write comedy and other nonsense,

[45:40] my joke writing book from the University of Chicago Press is now available in audiobook form.

[45:46] Let's say you don't want to read it with your eyes.

[45:48] Let's say you want to listen to my mellifluous tones as they read the book to you while you do other things.

[45:55] Now you can do just that.

[45:56] Joke Farming, the audiobook, as read by me, the author,

[46:00] but I didn't read it that way,

[46:01] is available wherever you can buy and download audiobooks.

[46:05] Please do buy it, listen to it, share it.

[46:08] It is all of my joke writing wisdom in one place for you,

[46:13] and I hope you enjoy.

[46:14] We have three left in my list here.

[46:17] We're going to the realms of comedy with director Starr.

[46:21] I mean, I think we all know him best

[46:23] as one of the actors in beloved movie Ski Patrol.

[46:27] That is director Paul Feig,

[46:29] who has a number of movies under his belt.

[46:33] Paul Feig.

[46:37] You're going to put Bridesmaids up at the top, I'm guessing.

[46:40] Yeah, I'm guessing that's probably at the top.

[46:42] 20 movies, directed 20 movies.

[46:44] Really?

[46:45] I think I can name four of them.

[46:48] Yeah.

[46:49] Just because of the people who vote on IMDb,

[46:52] I'm going to put Ghostbusters at the bottom,

[46:53] even though I don't think it deserves to be.

[46:54] Oh, I'm going to guess unaccompanied minors.

[46:57] But were we right about bridesmaids at the time?

[46:59] You guys are wrong about bridesmaids.

[47:01] But not by much.

[47:03] It's a fairly close grouping.

[47:06] Spy?

[47:07] I was going to say spy also.

[47:08] Spy is number two, which is...

[47:10] A simple favor.

[47:12] Spy and simple favor is actually...

[47:15] Yeah, it's kind of in the middle there.

[47:17] Is Ghostbusters number one?

[47:20] Ghostbusters is number three.

[47:23] Wow.

[47:23] Tied with bridesmaids, which I'm kind of surprised by.

[47:27] Surprised by?

[47:28] Yes.

[47:29] Number one is a movie called I Am David.

[47:33] Oh, wow.

[47:34] A 12-year-old boy escapes from a Bulgarian communist concentration camp

[47:37] and sets out on a journey to reach Denmark.

[47:40] No, thank you.

[47:42] Not necessarily.

[47:43] No, thank you, Mr. Feig.

[47:44] I don't need it.

[47:45] This was his directorial debut, apparently.

[47:47] I don't know this movie at all.

[47:49] Yeah.

[47:50] But then Spy, Spy is a movie that, I mean, it taught the world that Jason Statham can be pretty fucking funny.

[47:58] I think the world knew that.

[47:59] Other than his other, his barely serious action movies that he was.

[48:04] But I mean, like, I feel like at this, I mean, there was a stone-facedness with Nary a wink at the camera and a lot of his other stuff.

[48:14] The Housemaid, pretty good.

[48:17] Housemaid and Simple Favor, which is like,

[48:19] I do kind of like his pivot to kind of sexy thrillers.

[48:24] Yeah, light trash.

[48:25] I enjoy it.

[48:25] Light trash.

[48:28] We also, of course, get Unaccompanied Minors is low,

[48:31] but not the bottom.

[48:32] The bottom is another Simple Favor.

[48:36] Oh, yeah.

[48:37] Well, not that good.

[48:39] Not that good at all.

[48:42] We briefly talked about doing it for the Flophouse

[48:44] and then the time passed.

[48:45] But we do have a little movie

[48:48] that was featured on the Flophouse

[48:50] last Christmas.

[48:52] Last Christmas.

[48:53] Which is one of the ones we liked the most.

[48:55] I forgot he did that one.

[48:57] Paul Feig is someone who,

[48:59] he's made so many movies

[49:00] and yet I've seen not a lot of them

[49:02] and I feel like I forget most of them.

[49:04] Actually, I said 20 movies.

[49:06] He only has 13 movies.

[49:07] But seven in upcoming.

[49:11] But like 13 movies is like, you're a filmmaker, you're a director, like you're a professional director, you know.

[49:16] I mean, he is a, I mean, when it comes to modern comedy directors, there aren't that many directors who have a name like Paul Feig.

[49:27] Like you have like Adam McKay and Paul Feig.

[49:29] And like Judd Apatow.

[49:30] Judd Apatow.

[49:31] That's about it.

[49:33] All favorites of mine, as we know.

[49:35] But, I mean, one thing about Paul Feig is, again, like, we've talked about, like, the light trash.

[49:39] But I like that his light trash has, like, an element of edge.

[49:42] Like, both those movies, like, both Simple Favor and The Housemaid have, like, an edge to them that I was surprised by from a director who's known mainly for comedies.

[49:53] Yeah.

[49:54] Almost.

[49:55] So that it's hard to kind of, I mean, there's a, you could say that he's, like, a workman-like director and that he puts out a lot of different types of things.

[50:04] But can you see any, like, through line with his work?

[50:08] Strong female characters.

[50:10] Yeah.

[50:10] I mean, there's a sense of humor even to the, like, the thriller stuff.

[50:17] Like, I mean, Simple Favor is much more overtly comic.

[50:20] Housemaid is more in the realm of, like, knowing camp.

[50:24] But, like, there is a certain.

[50:27] Amanda Seyfried.

[50:28] Oh, what a performance from that one.

[50:30] Yeah.

[50:31] No, but there's, like, there's a knowingness.

[50:33] There's like a tongue-in-cheek to even like the serious stuff, I would say.

[50:39] But yeah, no, it's harder to point to directors' trademarks, as they used to call them, I think, on the AV Club.

[50:46] I think he is not a – he doesn't prioritize the visual in the way that many directors do, which I think makes it harder to find those trademarks, you know.

[50:59] For our next director, we're going to move on to nominated often for Best Director, Mr. Guillermo del Toro.

[51:09] Guillermo del Toro.

[51:10] What do we think his number one is?

[51:11] William of the Bull.

[51:12] His top.

[51:14] I'm going to say Pan's Labyrinth.

[51:19] That's probably Shape of Water.

[51:20] Yeah, just for variety, I'm going to say Shape of Water.

[51:23] It is Pan's Labyrinth.

[51:24] Shape of Water is up there, but not.

[51:28] Pan's Labyrinth is pretty well, in a way, his number one.

[51:31] I think it's his best movie.

[51:32] I would agree with that.

[51:33] Number two is a bit of a surprise, but I appreciate it, is his Pinocchio, which I really love.

[51:42] That's a very special movie.

[51:44] That is a movie where, like, Charlene and I watched it and then immediately started watching it again.

[51:49] That and Devil's Backbone are my two personal favorites.

[51:52] Oh, I love Devil's Backbone so much.

[51:53] Devil's Backbone is that and Pan's Labyrinth are my two favorites.

[51:55] Look, if it's a movie that the title is P-vowel-N as the start of it, it's going to be good.

[52:00] It's going to be good.

[52:01] What do we think is his bottoms here?

[52:04] I'm going to guess Crimson Peak.

[52:08] Yeah, that's what I guess, too.

[52:09] It's low, but it's not the bottom.

[52:10] Is it Nightmare Alley?

[52:12] Nope.

[52:12] That's right in the middle there.

[52:15] Hellboy 2?

[52:16] Probably not, right?

[52:18] Hellboy 2 somehow 0.1 point higher than Hellboy, which is weird.

[52:25] no I don't know I buy that I buy that

[52:26] I don't I guess it leans into

[52:28] the most Isley Cantina feel of

[52:30] yes and it's a little bit less silly

[52:32] than the first Hellboy movie

[52:33] could be a function of obscurity

[52:36] like maybe

[52:38] it's Kronos is it Kronos

[52:39] Kronos is third from the bottom

[52:42] Pacific Rim it's Mimic

[52:44] guys Mimic really

[52:45] you know I saw that's a serviceable

[52:48] movie Mimic is fine yeah I mean

[52:50] I saw yeah I feel like he

[52:52] I don't

[52:54] I wouldn't say he has, like, a true stinker in his...

[52:57] I saw the director's cut of Mimic in a rep screening at Nighthawk,

[53:02] and I'm like, hey, this is pretty good.

[53:03] Like, I don't know what was changed,

[53:07] but I enjoyed it much more than I remember liking the original cut.

[53:11] I wonder if it does more with...

[53:13] So, before that movie came out,

[53:15] I was familiar with the short story it's based on, Mimic,

[53:17] because it was in the book 100 Creepy Creature Stories

[53:20] that I got at Barnes & Noble.

[53:22] That sounds like a young Elliot, like insta-buy.

[53:25] I still have it.

[53:26] It's a great book.

[53:27] It's got a lot of great stories in it

[53:28] that I think of all the time.

[53:29] But Mimic, like the whole purpose of that story is,

[53:32] oh, this guy has died.

[53:33] And when they find his body,

[53:35] they realize he's actually a giant insect

[53:37] who is made to look like a person,

[53:39] that he's evolved to look like a person.

[53:41] So they get why.

[53:42] And at the end of it,

[53:43] they open up like a trunk

[53:43] and all these tiny little,

[53:45] these insects that look like tiny people fly away.

[53:47] And then someone thinks they see a chimney,

[53:50] opens its eyes and follows after them

[53:51] and starts eating them.

[53:52] And you're left with this idea of like,

[53:54] how many of these naturally occurring creatures

[53:57] that we just don't see

[53:58] because they're camouflaged as artificial things or people.

[54:01] And I feel like the movie throws away that idea pretty early

[54:04] and it just becomes big roaches, you know?

[54:06] No, it's not a major,

[54:08] even in the version I saw, it wasn't a major point,

[54:10] but the version I saw was a little meaner.

[54:14] I think like there was a attack on children

[54:17] that I'm like, oh my God, I didn't think this would be.

[54:20] That is something about, especially his early stuff,

[54:23] is there's this feeling of like, well, the kids aren't safe.

[54:28] Yeah, it's a hard world.

[54:29] It's a very hard world when you're in a del Toro.

[54:32] Yeah, Kronos is kind of low on there, which is kind of a bummer.

[54:35] I like that one.

[54:36] That's too bad. That's a good one, yeah.

[54:38] Blade II is right near the bottom, and I think that is,

[54:41] it is a silly movie, but I feel like it is,

[54:45] it like captured the like visceral thrills of a superhero movie

[54:49] in a way that I don't think we'd really gotten at that point.

[54:54] And so I think that's a little bit of an unfair knock.

[54:57] Yeah.

[54:58] And also the mouths look like crazy vagina dentadas.

[55:01] Yeah, come on.

[55:01] Vampire mouths.

[55:03] Was that with those Guy Davis designs?

[55:05] They must have been, right?

[55:06] They must have been.

[55:08] Yeah.

[55:08] Yeah, but Del Toro,

[55:10] I feel like he makes Guy Davis artwork come to life.

[55:15] Yeah.

[55:15] He is a fantastical storyteller.

[55:19] He is a storyteller who likes to deal in like dark kind of fairy tales.

[55:27] There's obviously a lot of passion, both like strong emotion in his work.

[55:36] Gothic?

[55:37] You're looking for themes?

[55:39] Yeah, no, it was sort of an intricate design.

[55:44] I mean, clearly his love of the genre, love of horror, like, just sort of manifests.

[55:51] And let me put sort of a melange of, like, this imagery on screen.

[55:58] So, guys, we are to our final filmmaker of the night.

[56:04] We are going to be talking about Mr. David Lynch.

[56:08] David Lynch.

[56:10] Davy Lee Lynch.

[56:13] Davey Lee Roth.

[56:18] Give me two seconds while I.

[56:22] Give me two seconds.

[56:23] Give me two seconds, mister, while I look up IMDb.

[56:27] What am I going to guess his lowest movie is?

[56:29] Oh, I have a pretty.

[56:31] Inland Empire?

[56:31] Yeah, I would say Inland Empire.

[56:33] I'm going to guess number one is like.

[56:35] The most difficult one.

[56:36] Yeah.

[56:37] And number one, I would guess is.

[56:39] I don't know.

[56:41] Blue Velvet, maybe Mulholland Drive.

[56:43] I think these days Mulholland Drive will be the consensus,

[56:47] but I could see Blue Velvet.

[56:50] I feel like sometimes there's a movie,

[56:52] maybe it's not the way it used to be.

[56:53] There used to be a time when I feel like

[56:54] the movie that people would say was the best of a director

[56:56] was just the best known movie.

[56:58] It was like, oh, well, that's their signature movie.

[57:00] So, of course, that's the best one, you know.

[57:02] And that has changed a little bit, maybe.

[57:04] I think you'll be surprised by the top.

[57:07] Inland Empire.

[57:08] The Elephant Man.

[57:09] The Elephant Man.

[57:10] Okay, interesting.

[57:11] No, I could see that.

[57:11] It's the most mainstream movie, I guess, other than The Straight Story.

[57:14] Although, actually, in some ways, The Elephant Man is more mainstream than The Straight Story, to be honest.

[57:19] And then number two would be Mulholland Drive.

[57:24] I think it's a great movie.

[57:26] Followed closely by Blue Velvet.

[57:28] The bottoms are Dune.

[57:33] I forgot about Dune, I got to admit.

[57:36] But at the same time, like, I am surprised because I feel like it picked up its cult, you know, in a way that, like, Inland Empire is just, like, long and difficult.

[57:47] A lot of people, like, I guess Dan acted like he had something to say.

[57:50] But when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a bunch of gibberish.

[57:52] Guess he forgot about Dune.

[57:53] Anyway, so I didn't forget about Dune.

[57:56] But I also thought that it's had this kind of, like, reappraisal by fans.

[58:00] I still think his Dune is not very good.

[58:02] There's stuff I like in it.

[58:03] But it is, I rewatched it recently and I was like,

[58:05] this is still not very good.

[58:06] But I'm surprised it's still good.

[58:07] I think there's a certain reappraisal with the newer Dune films

[58:11] that there's like this appreciation for this like odd duck,

[58:15] weirder, like in some ways more colorful science fiction take on it

[58:20] that also isn't, you know, it doesn't all work.

[58:23] But like it's kind of fun, it's fun to see the other thing.

[58:28] You know what I mean?

[58:29] Yeah.

[58:30] And certainly more than the, like, sci-fi channel original miniseries that is, like, kind of crazy looking and has, like, the weirdest CD-ROM special effects.

[58:41] I never saw those.

[58:42] I know there are some Dune fans that really love them.

[58:44] Yeah, my parents were big fans of it because they liked that it was, I guess, close to the book for them.

[58:52] Inland Empire is very low.

[58:54] Yep.

[58:54] So Dune is the lowest one?

[58:56] Dune is the lowest.

[58:57] Then I feel like it's a matter of like – that's either – that feels to me like Dune fans of the new – or fans of the new movie being like, this other one sucks.

[59:06] Give it low ones.

[59:07] Like there's such a – there's always a battle going on behind the scenes.

[59:09] Fans were against it from a pretty early point, right?

[59:12] Yes.

[59:12] I mean it's a – it just is not a satisfying telling of that story.

[59:17] And it makes some big changes that – I will say the book was in Epic and Disarray, whatever it's called, the book about the making of that Dune.

[59:25] There were things where I'm like, oh, okay, this aspect of it makes more sense to me now.

[59:29] Like the weirding modules that allow them to use their voices.

[59:32] But when you read the book, you're like, there's nothing like that in the book.

[59:36] Like it's just not a – it's taking – it's really kind of dumbing down concepts in the book quite a bit.

[59:42] The new movies do that too to a certain extent, but just in a – it looks cool.

[59:48] It looks more sophisticated.

[59:49] And those movies also have a little more space and time to breathe and develop concept.

[59:55] Yes.

[59:55] That second half of that David Lynch tune is real hard where it's just like, and then this happened, and they went over here.

[1:00:00] This character died.

[1:00:01] Oh, no.

[1:00:02] It really feels like a guy saw the movie and is just filling you in on what happens in it.

[1:00:06] Yeah, it's pretty great.

[1:00:07] Thank you, Elliot.

[1:00:08] You reminded me to go to my Libby app and see if A Masterpiece in Disarray was available for me to check out immediately on e-book, and it is.

[1:00:17] Oh, I mean, I'd lend you my copy if we lived on the same coast.

[1:00:20] Above that, we have Inland Empire and Eraserhead and Wild at Heart tied near the bottom as well.

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:28] That surprises me.

[1:00:30] Okay.

[1:00:30] Do we agree with these?

[1:00:32] Do you have a personal favorite that might be – that isn't represented?

[1:00:36] Do you feel like The Elephant Man is his best film or your difference between a favorite or the best?

[1:00:43] I don't think The Elephant Man is his best.

[1:00:45] I think it's very good.

[1:00:46] I think it's a very good movie, but it's like a – it's hard because it's so straightforward.

[1:00:52] Like it's so straightforward.

[1:00:54] And when you want David Lynch, you want something a little different.

[1:00:58] No, I like Mulholland Drive.

[1:00:59] I like Eraserhead.

[1:01:00] I actually like Lost Highway quite a bit.

[1:01:03] Lost Highway is fairly high up here, which is kind of impressive because it is like – I feel like when it came out, it was both like, oh, this is pretty weird.

[1:01:11] But also like it isn't – but it isn't like as good as Blue Velvet, right?

[1:01:16] I think it's another one where, like, I think there's a rediscovery when you start to understand what the person is trying to do in the movie, I guess.

[1:01:24] It's just amazing to me that Lost Highway was, like, that was a major feature release that year.

[1:01:28] Yeah.

[1:01:29] And it's such a weird movie.

[1:01:30] And it's, like, that was advertised on the back of comic books.

[1:01:33] Like, it was everywhere.

[1:01:35] Like, you just think about, like, there was a time when Lost Highway was, like, yep, well, of course, we're going wide with this.

[1:01:39] This is, of course, a nationwide release.

[1:01:41] Yes.

[1:01:42] It's amazing.

[1:01:43] The same way that I was talking to you about.

[1:01:45] Kids love eyebrow-less Robert Blake.

[1:01:49] I was just the fact like, yeah, well, halfway through the movie.

[1:01:50] He'll pull in on a saxophone, sure.

[1:01:52] But like, of course, halfway through the movie, one character turns into a different character.

[1:01:56] We're not really going to bother explaining it that much.

[1:01:58] But I was talking to my friend Jonah Ray recently about how there's something about David Lynch.

[1:02:05] There's something about like how Razorhead is such a strange movie.

[1:02:08] And yet, if you walked into a video store in America, it was very likely there would be a copy of that movie there.

[1:02:15] And just the reach David Lynch had for someone who's making such strange work.

[1:02:20] And it's almost like he shot the moon and his work was so strange that normies were interested in it.

[1:02:26] Like, it's a, he really, I have to tell you, he really lucked out when Mel Brooks hired him to direct The Alpha Man.

[1:02:32] And then it was like, yep, he's in.

[1:02:33] Okay, everybody.

[1:02:34] This is a guy who's mainstream somehow.

[1:02:35] And part of it is also like he brought sex into it and he also brought violence and I think those things kind of helped sell it because it made people be like, oh, there's naked people in this.

[1:02:52] That has been for decades, that has been the key to getting people to watch artsier movies is to put nudity in it.

[1:02:57] yeah uh but the i mean we we've talked about this before i think uh at one of our live shows but the

[1:03:04] idea that like for us nerd like for us like kind of weird nerd kids who weren't entirely satisfied

[1:03:13] with what pop culture was offering us being able to walk into like i don't know a fucking hasting

[1:03:18] superstore and be like oh i can buy like the twin peaks box set yeah like i can like i have access

[1:03:26] to this filmmakers like most of the movies from this guy in any store in like the midwest is

[1:03:33] crazy yeah and like i feel like that's that's that in a pre-internet time that was such an

[1:03:39] essential lifeline for people to feel seen and be able to like feel that there's a bigger artier

[1:03:46] world out there and be excited about movies yeah um okay so that was a fun little trip uh i hope

[1:03:54] You guys had fun talking about Tops and Flops.

[1:03:57] Yeah, Fire Walk With Me is your top.

[1:03:59] No, no, it's not the top, no.

[1:04:01] Tops and Flops, thank you, Stuart,

[1:04:03] for making us think a little bit differently

[1:04:05] about these directors, you know.

[1:04:07] Yeah, in the direction we're going in this mini.

[1:04:13] So I'm here in Wellington.

[1:04:15] This is a mini episode of the Flophouse podcast.

[1:04:18] It is, we are on the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:04:21] There's plenty of great shows that are both fun and informative.

[1:04:25] Check them out.

[1:04:26] If you like this show, there's probably another show for you.

[1:04:30] This show is produced by Alexander Smith.

[1:04:31] He goes by Howell Doughty on the internet.

[1:04:34] You can find him on Twitch, various other social media platforms.

[1:04:37] You can buy his music on Bandcamp.

[1:04:38] He is the best, and he makes us sound great.

[1:04:44] Put some filters on that.

[1:04:45] Put some filters on that.

[1:04:48] For The Flophouse, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:04:51] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:04:52] I've been Ellie Kalin and remain so to this day.

[1:04:54] See ya.

FH Mini 153 - Tops and Flops

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