FH Mini 59 - Missed That Movie: Virtual Obsession

[0:00] hey everyone welcome to the flop house i am dan mccoy i'm stewart wellington i'm elliot kalin

[0:10] thanks for pointing to me dan i just had to gamble and uh that that where i was pointing

[0:17] was actually where you would be on the zoom call but um hey hey guys this is a podcast called the

[0:23] flop house uh it's about movies that were uh critical or commercial flops uh and normally we

[0:29] all watch the movies and off weeks though we do uh some flop house minis that are are free form a

[0:37] lot of the time but this one is movie based uh i think it's the first time i have done one of these

[0:43] missed that movies i'm not sure i think it might be the first do not write an incorrect if he's

[0:49] wrong do not he is very sensitive about that stuff that much also if you did we'll cover it in a

[0:56] future mini episode uh where the segment is miss that man yeah i mean i thought you were

[1:02] maniac of new york actually dan i think i have a real-time correction didn't you do a miss that

[1:08] movie about get even or get even oh i did i did so listeners really don't write in because i already

[1:14] corrected, Dan. Don't write in. Please don't

[1:16] write in.

[1:17] I feel like when Ringo Starr, years ago, Ringo Starr

[1:20] told his fans... Ringo Starr?

[1:21] You gotta go down to the Ringo Starr.

[1:24] Look, Ringo Starr's Ringo Starr. It's where you

[1:26] buy your Ringo stuff. Ringo Starr,

[1:28] he told his fans, do not write me any more

[1:30] letters. And it was a very funny video

[1:32] message. He goes, peace and love, peace and love.

[1:34] Don't write me any more letters. I will not reply.

[1:36] Peace and love. Anyway, that's

[1:38] how I feel right now, listeners. I'm the Ringo of this

[1:40] group, is I guess what I'm saying. Come on down to my store.

[1:42] Dan? This is a

[1:44] awesome way to open this

[1:46] podcast. It's just really

[1:48] engaging for the new listeners.

[1:51] Thank you. New listeners.

[1:52] Listeners?

[1:54] I thought this was the best

[1:57] buddies house where three best buddies just talk

[1:59] and nobody listens.

[2:00] Stuart,

[2:03] when you were like, if you

[2:05] have done one before, we will

[2:07] cover, and you said

[2:09] cover it on another mini,

[2:11] but I thought you were going to say we will cover it up.

[2:13] We'll delete that one.

[2:17] We'll renumber everything that happened afterwards.

[2:20] We'll gaslight people.

[2:23] You never heard that, man.

[2:24] It never happened.

[2:25] It seems way easier to just fix this one, but I guess not.

[2:29] No, no, no.

[2:29] It's the same way that Sinbad convinced the world he didn't play a genie in a movie.

[2:34] You know, the only way to do it.

[2:36] So the theme for this mini is Miss That Movie.

[2:43] If you haven't caught previous minis that are under this title that Stu coined,

[2:48] it is what we do when one of us has seen a movie that the others haven't necessarily seen.

[2:56] I mean, like, I don't know.

[2:57] You guys may have seen this.

[2:58] I haven't asked.

[2:59] Is it E.T.?

[3:00] Is it Avengers Endgame?

[3:02] It's neither of those movies.

[3:05] Both movies featuring aliens, Elliot.

[3:07] Good point.

[3:08] Thank you for bringing that up.

[3:09] What if they met?

[3:10] I think it would go a little something like this.

[3:12] E.T. not understand I could just double all the resources in the universe.

[3:18] That's a little criticism of Thanos' motivation in Avengers Infinity War that people like to make.

[3:26] Put it through the porthole of time and tweet it.

[3:30] I mean, if only you could sit that maniac down, that alien maniac murderer down and explain it to him,

[3:39] he'd be like, oh man, my motivation's all wrong.

[3:42] My bad, my bad.

[3:43] Up till now, I've been a totally rational, logical, reasonable being.

[3:47] You're right.

[3:48] I just keep pulling whoopsies.

[3:50] It was originally called Avengers Pulling Whoopsies.

[3:54] Sorry.

[3:58] And you may still be able to get on eBay some of the very rare original release Thanos talking dolls where you pull the thread and you hear Josh Brolin say, I just keep pulling whoopsies.

[4:11] But then, of course, they pulled those from the market

[4:13] when that line was removed from the movie.

[4:14] They had to change it.

[4:15] Jim Starlin was suing them for taking this catchphrase.

[4:18] Because Jim Starlin, whenever, yeah,

[4:21] Jim Starlin says that in his personal life.

[4:23] Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos, of course.

[4:25] Guys, the listeners now, primed and ready.

[4:30] They're in such suspense over what movie.

[4:33] Yeah, is it E.T.?

[4:35] Is it Avengers Endgame?

[4:37] No, it's neither.

[4:39] Oh, God, we're caught in a loop.

[4:41] Fold a whoopsie.

[4:43] That's called a loopsy whoopsie.

[4:44] Have you, gentlemen, seen a movie called Virtual Obsession starring Peter Gallagher?

[4:54] It's possible you have.

[4:55] I don't think so.

[4:57] I don't believe so.

[4:59] You said Peter Gallagher's in it.

[5:01] Who else is in it?

[5:02] Yeah.

[5:02] It stars Mimi Rogers and 90s starlet Rajit Wilson.

[5:11] is this any of this ringing a bell for you no i'm looking up the fact that this movie came out

[5:17] in 1998 when i would have thought a movie like called virtual obsession would have come out in

[5:21] 1992 and starred like shannon tweed yeah no i i found this was uh this was shown uh to me

[5:30] and some friends by uh tell us don't protect their anonymity shown to me by showtime late at night

[5:40] my friend c in a max no it was uh screened by a friend of the flop house uh she's uh loaned us

[5:52] some uh some gear for live shows back in the day wendy mays meow me is on twitter

[5:58] as part of a series of peter gallagher movies she was screening under the title gal pals

[6:06] Oh, not Gallagher's 2000?

[6:08] I don't know.

[6:14] I think Gal Pal's is stronger, but we can workshop it.

[6:16] All right.

[6:17] Okay, fair.

[6:17] So this is a movie that was actually a television presentation.

[6:22] Oh, directed by Mick Garris, I'm seeing right now.

[6:26] Don't get over it.

[6:27] Don't.

[6:27] Sorry, sorry.

[6:28] Elliot, you closed that page.

[6:29] Sorry, I'm just excited.

[6:30] All winner is Mick Garris.

[6:33] Yeah, Mick Garris, Stephen King's favorite director because he will not change a word that Stephen King wrote, which is the one thing Stephen King looks for in adaptations of his work.

[6:44] A very good horror podcast host, I will say.

[6:47] He seems like a real lover of horror.

[6:50] He personally seems like a nice gentleman who did Masters of Horror largely because he could toss some directing work to genuine Masters of Horror, as the title says.

[7:06] And for that, I have a fondness for him.

[7:10] But his films are not necessarily the greatest.

[7:12] We did Sleepwalkers back in the day for one of our live shows.

[7:16] Not on the feed.

[7:19] was a it was a it was a riff show uh so don't go looking for that but uh mick garris has a

[7:25] flop house history is all i'm saying i mean it was a it was a broadcast over three hours

[7:31] uh 8 to 11 p.m on abc back on thursday february 26 1998 what else happened that day dan in history

[7:42] yeah i should have looked it up i that would have been a better segment i'm gonna look at that i'm

[7:49] gonna see i'm gonna see what we're like 26 1998 super tight now there's a disputed runtime online

[7:58] oh it's the day dan that was the same day that jt walsh died hopefully not until after he got

[8:04] to finish watching the movie he was so shocked by the end of virtual obsession yeah and and of

[8:09] course also we'll all remember that's the sad day when stephen m gluckstern completed the sale of

[8:14] The New York Highlanders.

[8:15] Guys, today I learned that Oliver Reed died after arm wrestling somebody in a bar.

[8:23] Did you know this?

[8:24] That when he was taking a break from filming Gladiator

[8:29] and he got in an arm wrestling match at a bar

[8:31] and immediately afterwards died in the bar.

[8:34] Did you know this?

[8:35] That squares with the story I had heard about him

[8:37] was always that he had tattoos on his penis

[8:40] and would just pull it out and show it to people.

[8:41] Yes.

[8:43] That you're going to use up all your energy at the top.

[8:46] There's a long synopsis to get – like the more bullshit now, the tireder you're going to be later.

[8:51] Yep.

[8:52] I will also mention – so on that day, there was a total solar eclipse in Venezuela.

[8:55] So if you were in Venezuela, you had the choice between seeing the ballet of the heavens or watching – what was it called?

[9:00] Terminal Obsession?

[9:02] Virtual Obsession.

[9:04] That's what I – honestly, that's what I wanted to say before though.

[9:07] I feel like that's a better working title for OnlyFans.

[9:10] Wait, guys, I buried the lead.

[9:13] That was also the day Oprah Winfrey was found not guilty

[9:16] in the beef defamation trial where she was sued for saying beef

[9:20] was something she wasn't eating right now.

[9:22] Okay, so Dan, tell us more.

[9:24] I also thought when I first heard this title,

[9:27] how could this not be a Showtime or Cinemax late night movie?

[9:31] It is not, as I said, broadcast on ABC.

[9:33] The runtime online is disputed in various places.

[9:40] Surprisingly, not that many people care enough about Virtual Obsession to correct the record.

[9:44] Because like a lot of places say it's a three-hour runtime.

[9:49] It was in a three-hour time slot.

[9:51] There's no way that the runtime, they had to have ads in there.

[9:53] Yeah, yeah.

[9:54] This is ABC.

[9:55] Two hours.

[9:55] It's not driving my car.

[9:57] No, but it is longer than like a movie movie, which is shocking when you watch it because you're like, wait, this movie is still going on.

[10:07] Great.

[10:08] It's based on the novel Host by Peter James, which is a title that it is also rerun on cable TV under.

[10:15] Not the host.

[10:17] No, just host.

[10:19] Not the perfect host.

[10:20] No.

[10:21] Not that host either.

[10:23] Not the host that you take in communion.

[10:27] You're like a hostess cupcake.

[10:29] No, none of those things.

[10:31] Is this host with the most?

[10:34] No.

[10:35] Or with the least?

[10:38] It's not the ghost for the most, because that would be Beetlejuice.

[10:41] Don't say it any more times, guys.

[10:42] Guys, we can say it one more time safely.

[10:45] I feel like the words just pushed my luck.

[10:48] That's just tempting fate.

[10:49] So, as we mentioned, directed by Mick Garris,

[10:52] who has done a lot of mostly TV Stephen King adaptations,

[10:58] although Sleepwalkers was a theatrical film.

[11:01] Major motion picture, yeah.

[11:02] He did the second.

[11:03] He did Critters 2.

[11:04] Yeah, Critters 2.

[11:05] Critters 2, one of the best movies ever made.

[11:07] Critters 2.

[11:08] It's right on the side.

[11:09] Hey, Sight and Sound List says it.

[11:11] Don't blame us.

[11:12] Sight and Sound List of the 10 best movies.

[11:14] I mean, you can fucking blame me.

[11:15] Come over here and tell me it isn't.

[11:17] I've given Mick Garris a bit of a hard time.

[11:21] I'll tell you, Critters 2 is probably my favorite of the series.

[11:24] It's a fucking banger.

[11:25] You did a good job there.

[11:27] Critter, big critter rolls over somebody and turns him into a skeleton.

[11:30] It is the way I want to die.

[11:32] All right.

[11:36] You got to shut up, though, because this next fact is great.

[11:38] It's co-written by Mick Garris and the son of Preston Sturgis,

[11:44] who is also named Preston Sturgis.

[11:46] Not Heston Sturgis.

[11:48] So if you see it, it says written by Mick Garris and Preston Sturgis.

[11:56] And, like, your mind reels and you're like,

[11:59] was this based on a previous work by a master of Hollywood comedy,

[12:06] Preston Sturgis but it's um no it's his son who only wrote like three things anyway so let's get

[12:12] into this movie uh as I said stars Peter Gallagher who you may know from his eyebrows yep and he's

[12:21] a scientist so a glitch occurs you would probably know him best from the arrival of guys and dolls

[12:26] that I saw as a kid that that changed my life and in making me a Broadway fan yeah probably

[12:30] from Elliot's memory, is how you know

[12:32] Peter Gallagher.

[12:34] Because we've been strange days in Elliot's

[12:37] memories.

[12:37] So,

[12:39] Salt Lake City is where this is

[12:42] set, where all great stories

[12:45] are set, Salt Lake City.

[12:46] There's a computer program that controls

[12:49] everything electrical

[12:50] for the city, the power,

[12:52] and some sort of glitch

[12:54] causes accidents.

[12:55] And this lands

[12:58] Dr. Joe Messenger in some

[13:00] uh minor hot water because he controls his hot water heater breaks he doesn't have enough hot

[13:05] water because he's peter gallagher and he controls the program that controls the city oh he's like

[13:12] oh this is this we'll figure it out it won't happen again um the uh the colleague peter

[13:20] gallagher's colleague tom uh says that their system has been hacked i don't know whether

[13:25] this has ever resolved

[13:27] what happened.

[13:28] Another character who comes in,

[13:31] maybe they did it. I don't know.

[13:33] But that...

[13:36] Did you miss that movie?

[13:37] There are things in this movie that

[13:41] are legitimate loose ends

[13:43] and then things in this movie that I'm like,

[13:45] I'm not sure whether the movie

[13:47] just didn't do a great job.

[13:49] I mean, Dan could have gotten up to go to the concession

[13:51] stand. I mean, there's a very

[13:53] convincing advertisement before

[13:55] the main feature i have a bunch of mangoes in the other room oh man it's mangoes siren song there's

[14:02] no movie no there's no movie that dan can't be pulled away from by the song of two-person mango

[14:08] cutting yeah so um so their system is run by this uh holographic uh artificial intelligence

[14:19] named albert who as you uh might suspect is manifested as albert einstein or sort of like a

[14:30] party celebrity impersonator albert einstein so they didn't actually get einstein for the role

[14:37] they didn't he's a tough dig up albert einstein so they're developing his consciousness uh basically

[14:44] by feeding him he's like where where the roles aren't coming in i do believe my agent is playing

[14:49] dice with my career yeah he was turned down for iq he was like how are they going to get

[14:56] what is it walter mathau to do it it says it says in the script an einstein type there's no

[15:04] einsteinia types and me i'm him so albert albert baby look we got we got you a role we got your

[15:13] raw yeah yeah in a dog food commercial you just see my feet look you should be living off of the

[15:20] residuals from that poster of you sticking your tongue out now you tell me and i should have

[15:26] copyrighted equals mc square and i'd be a millionaire now um so albert learns like all

[15:33] good ai by you know taking in information from the world around him i've seen virtuosity i

[15:40] understand ai's i mean also how organisms learn things yeah he's got cameras he's got uh you know

[15:47] he can record sound he has like smell sensors it seems unnecessary and uh apparently also we need

[15:56] the ai to know when we're farting in the office peter gallagher slash joe messenger uh his house

[16:05] has uh surveillance cameras all over so albert can learn from him uh which is apparently a turn

[16:12] off to his wife mimi rogers when peter gallagher was like maybe let's leave the cameras on tonight

[16:18] baby and uh yeah so um me equals mc screwed yeah no and she said no you're sleeping on the couch

[16:36] tonight so uh enter joe's new research assistant played by brigitte wilson uh brigitte wilson

[16:45] sampras i learned oh uh married pete sampras okay played sonia blade in mortal combat was the the

[16:53] one of the one of the people in house on haunted hill anyway great uh so this is a computer expert

[17:02] she's named juliet spring yeah that's a name sure okay uh and juliet also does ai stuff

[17:11] uh but her work is more like i'm you know creating the singularity she wants to download

[17:18] consciousness into the computer um and shows the uh she shows joe her computer program

[17:25] where she wants she's going to download a rat's brain into a computer oh that poor rat i i don't

[17:32] know how you necessarily test what's in there is the rat's brain will you shove a bunch of cheese

[17:38] into the disk drive

[17:39] and you see if it eats it.

[17:40] But, yeah.

[17:42] Well, you ask it, first off.

[17:44] You put the computer in a maze

[17:47] and you see if it can finish it.

[17:48] Despite Mimi Rogers being at home

[17:53] and being a very understanding wife

[17:56] through most of the beginning of this movie,

[17:58] Peter Gallagher is flattered

[18:00] by the interests

[18:02] of this young research assistant

[18:05] and they flirt a bit they have dinner uh meanwhile mimi is playing this exactly right she's like

[18:13] she can see he's got a crust but she like at first she's just like okay whatever do it you know like

[18:19] it's fine but then you know as things go on and he's more of an asshole of course uh she's not

[18:25] having it um and we learned that juliet has an inoperable brain aneurysm and will have

[18:36] mere months to live okay so she better so she better download her shit quick right

[18:43] yeah we've set up a bunch of dominoes now

[18:45] um they're gonna have to use chekhov's brain downloading computer

[18:53] yeah it's really funny i like pardon me i was thinking watching the first half of this movie

[19:01] like it'd be great if they kept talking about how many like cameras and automated things were

[19:07] in their house and then that never paid off in any way just the biggest red herring um so juliet

[19:15] and joe go on a picnic and he goes with her and he forgets that he was supposed to have lunch with

[19:20] his wife so are they co-workers or they're just having an affair what's going on it's hard like

[19:26] well she's his lab assistant but she's also working on like a different kind of related

[19:31] experiment i guess like that's the part that is kind of confusing but yeah they're co-workers

[19:37] and they uh share a kiss you know joe you know backs off at this point he's like no i can't i

[19:45] can't do this and it seems like i don't know maybe he's he's not gonna stray but uh and especially

[19:54] because after emotionally straying at this point already yes yes indeed indeed indeed and uh mimi

[20:01] Rogers. I keep wanting to call

[20:04] her Roberts, but that's not

[20:06] her name. No. I'll just call her

[20:08] Mimi.

[20:08] Know that that's not a lack of respect.

[20:12] It's just my

[20:14] brain being unable to distinguish

[20:16] between two similar names. Yeah, let's just put

[20:18] this, let's put that warning up top

[20:20] at the very beginning of the episode.

[20:21] Yeah, warning. Anyone who's triggered

[20:24] by people slightly misremembering

[20:26] Mimi Rogers' name for a moment,

[20:28] you might want to skip this episode.

[20:31] Sorry, I'm getting lost in the weeds.

[20:32] The point is, Mimi is worried about their marriage.

[20:36] They go out to dinner together.

[20:38] And things are disrupted, though, because who's there but Juliet?

[20:44] Okay.

[20:44] I was going to guess Albert, the Albert Nines son.

[20:48] Yeah.

[20:48] She's, like, dolled up.

[20:52] Like, she's got all these glamour lights on her.

[20:54] She kind of slides across the floor.

[20:57] Um, and she makes all these kind of like vague pointed insinuations in front of, uh, uh, Joe's

[21:06] wife and Mimi knows that now is this happening at Joe's apartment?

[21:11] Because then there would be wisecracking cockroaches.

[21:13] There would be so many cockroaches.

[21:15] Now that would be, you said dolled up.

[21:17] Do you think people also use that term to describe somebody who's dressed up like Dawson

[21:21] from street fighter?

[21:22] Oh, I totally thought you were going to talk about doll man.

[21:27] Or dressed up like Dolman.

[21:28] Although, that'd be Dolph Down, right?

[21:31] Because he's little.

[21:32] And he dresses kind of shabby.

[21:37] So, back to the science.

[21:40] Okay.

[21:41] Joe, Juliet, and Tom hook up a rat and try to download that rat.

[21:47] Like there's some college students of the age of Napster being like,

[21:55] I want to listen to our rat right now.

[21:57] They're downloading it.

[21:58] You wouldn't download a rat, would you?

[22:01] Yeah, and there's a big noise.

[22:05] Computer screen goes dark, and the rat is dead.

[22:09] And they realize that rat's inside Albert somewhere.

[22:12] Oh, okay.

[22:14] It's horrifying, the idea that Albert Einstein has a rat somewhere inside him.

[22:18] Who knows where.

[22:21] You know, inside every man is one downloaded rat.

[22:25] One rat and one slice of pizza inside every person.

[22:28] Well, that's why you put the two bears inside to catch the rat.

[22:32] Oh, no.

[22:34] Oh, no, but then how do you stop the bears, Dan?

[22:36] Well, you've got to send in a couple Terminators.

[22:38] Oh, man.

[22:39] One of them is going to be a neutral Terminator, though.

[22:42] Oh, yeah, sure.

[22:42] Has no feelings on rats.

[22:45] Okay, well, Juliet apologizes about how she's been acting toward Karen.

[22:52] It seems like she's going to be backing off, but when Joe goes on a business trip, she shows up, and they make love.

[23:03] Wait, wait, wait, real quick.

[23:05] Juliet and Mimi make love.

[23:08] No, no, no.

[23:10] More interesting, but Joe and Juliet finally do it.

[23:16] Okay.

[23:16] And Juliet reveals what we have already assumed is her endgame to download her consciousness before she dies.

[23:24] And also, like, basically her argument is like, hey, I'm going to die soon.

[23:32] Are you going to deny me this?

[23:33] And I just thought it would be really funny.

[23:35] It's a pretty good argument.

[23:36] I mean, on one level, I guess I was just imagining him going back to Mimi and be like, honey, it would be cruel not to.

[23:46] And somewhere in this part where she's like, oh, we're going to have to part now as I die.

[23:54] She gives him a terrible poem that I wish I had written down or could find online, but I was not able to.

[24:03] So if someone wants to send me the poem from Virtual Obsession, I promise I'll find a place to pay this off later.

[24:11] Did you write to the Library of Congress to see if they had it in their archives?

[24:16] No, I wrote to one of those P.O. boxes that they showed me on TV to get.

[24:21] It's 12 CDs, but I only have to pay for one of them.

[24:26] Oh, Dan.

[24:27] And that's the deal.

[24:28] Dan, I think you're misunderstanding something about this deal.

[24:31] What?

[24:32] The problem is you only have to pay for one of the CDs, but all the CDs are Jerky Boys CDs.

[24:36] Oh, House of Columbia, you have tricked me again.

[24:40] What a monkey's paw.

[24:43] hey listen uh speaking of goods and services uh the flop house has some sponsors and um

[24:50] as a thank you or honestly not even a thank you that's the whole point of no no in exchange for

[24:55] money they gave us we're now going to talk about their products there's no thank you that's how it

[24:59] works um well i would thank you elliot to shut up so stewart can tell us i've been thanking elliot

[25:06] for shutting up uh all night so you know what tonight we're listening to a flop house manny

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[26:14] microdose.com code flop hey that's not the only sponsor we've got that was one sponsor and now

[26:21] there's another sponsor hey guys this movie has really made me think about the internet and

[26:26] computers and how all of our brains should be on them all the time we all need our place on the

[26:31] internet whether oh we all need our place on the internet whether you're a computer scientist with

[26:37] a deadly brain aneurysm or a rat who was just trying to do whatever rats are doing when they

[26:42] were hooked up to a computer but there's an easier way to get online and make a presence there than

[26:47] being a rat that gets hooked up to a computer and that's squarespace that's right squarespace is all

[26:52] about empowering individuals to create their online web presence or launch their passion

[26:56] project. I know I've got passion projects. I'm sure you do too. And Squarespace is the all-in-one

[27:00] platform that will help you build your brand and grow your business, or maybe just your pleasure

[27:05] online. Stand out, pleasure in a wholesome way. You can have a beautiful website. You can engage

[27:11] with your audience. You can sell anything legally. Your products, your content that you create,

[27:17] Even your time, you can sell it all.

[27:20] Look, Squarespace, they've been sponsoring us

[27:22] for a long time, and I do thank them for that.

[27:24] Squarespace, you've been doing a great job.

[27:25] You help people make websites.

[27:27] It's super exciting how in this day and age

[27:30] of the digital era, anyone with an idea or a passion

[27:34] can go online and just plant their flag

[27:36] in that cyber firma and say, this is where I stand.

[27:40] I go no farther, or I will go farther,

[27:43] but they'll remember that I was here.

[27:45] And if you think it's gonna go away,

[27:47] That Space Jam website from, like, 1996 is still bopping around online.

[27:50] So Squarespace can help you build that kind of legacy.

[27:53] There's so many great things.

[27:54] Hey, Elliot, I have an idea for a website.

[27:56] Do you think Squarespace can help me with it?

[27:58] No, I don't know.

[27:59] What's your idea for a website?

[28:00] So I was thinking about setting up this website where instead of, like, going into a store to buy books,

[28:06] I would have a website that sells books online and people can buy those.

[28:10] And eventually, after selling books to a bunch of people, I would then start selling other products.

[28:15] And then I would find a way to grift other people to sell their products under my banner.

[28:20] And I'd accumulate a lot of money.

[28:21] I would turn myself into Pitbull.

[28:25] I'd throw myself into outer space.

[28:27] And I'd just be – I'd also like try and kill cable TV and then basically serve out the same kind of garbage to people.

[28:36] And all the while, I think I could fix a lot of the problems in the world, but instead I'm not going to do that.

[28:45] I am just going to keep giving myself stuff.

[28:47] What do you think?

[28:48] Do you think this website will work?

[28:49] I think so, and I'll tell you why.

[28:50] Because Squarespace helps you create a community on your Squarespace website,

[28:53] like what you're talking about, a community of customers,

[28:55] fully integrating a comment system.

[28:57] It supports threaded comments, replies, and likes.

[28:59] Look, you can sell products on an online store.

[29:02] That's exactly what you're talking about,

[29:03] whether physical or digital products, or both, as you seem to be implying,

[29:07] talking about content and physical content.

[29:09] Sell rat brains you've downloaded.

[29:11] Yeah, and all websites are optimized for mobile.

[29:14] The content automatically adjusts so your site looks great whether you're looking at it on a phone or a rat's brain.

[29:19] It could be any of those.

[29:20] It says the only thing is your logo needs to look like a bent penis.

[29:24] Can you do that?

[29:25] Ideally because that represents the way that I shaft my workers.

[29:31] Yeah, so if you could just – I'll just have trucks, delivery trucks with your products with huge bent penises on them that just drive around reminding people that the workers there are treated terribly.

[29:43] As my son says, whenever we drive by the Amazon – I'm just going to pull kayfabe on this one.

[29:48] I'm just going to say it's an Amazon joke.

[29:49] Alex, go back and throw like a lightsaber sound effect over that shit.

[29:53] Whenever we drive by the Amazon warehouses, my son always goes, looks like a prison.

[29:59] And I go, it is, son.

[30:00] It is.

[30:00] And then I hightail it away from there.

[30:02] Anyway, go over to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[30:06] This could be your way to break out of the prison of the larger capitalist world and instead become your own jailer in the larger capitalist world.

[30:13] No, that's not.

[30:14] You could just have your own website, squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[30:17] And when you're ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[30:23] Whether, like Stuart, you want to become an active evil billionaire distorting the world, or just like me, you just want a place online where you can talk about the prisoner, the TV show.

[30:33] Squarespace can handle it all.

[30:34] Thank you.

[30:35] Dan, those are our sponsors.

[30:37] I'm not saying I disagree with anything that just happened.

[30:40] I'm just saying it'll be interesting to see if Squarespace wants to continue advertising with us.

[30:46] Oh, Squarespace, they're great.

[30:48] They help people achieve their dreams online.

[30:51] Squarespace is not making people pee into a bottle while they work at an assembly line.

[31:00] In the briefest time, I feel like we got to know each other.

[31:07] Bro, I appreciate you so much for that.

[31:10] Do you read minds or what?

[31:13] It's really a very sacred space you've created here.

[31:16] Bullseye! You've hit the bullseye, baby!

[31:20] Bullseye. Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know.

[31:25] From MaximumFun.org and NPR.

[31:30] Hey, were you a reader as a kid?

[31:32] Like maybe you read a lot of fantasy novels.

[31:35] Or horse girl books.

[31:37] We know how it is.

[31:38] But now you're an adult and you miss reading.

[31:41] You're so busy and you can't figure out how to get back into books.

[31:45] We're Reading Glasses and we're here to help.

[31:47] Yeah, we'll give you advice to figure out what books you love

[31:50] or learn to stop reading books you don't even like.

[31:53] We're really big proponents of dumping that book.

[31:56] Dump that book.

[31:57] but most importantly we'll help you fall back in love with reading reading glasses every thursday

[32:04] on maximum fun hey let's go back uh to the movie now if you'll recall uh the last thing that

[32:13] happened is a love poem was given so and that was dan terrible it was a terrible poem oh but you

[32:22] don't remember any of the words and it'll it'll probably it'll probably show up on the flop house

[32:26] official twitter account you should start following it now that's um at flop house official

[32:32] no at the flop house pod god damn it now i have to dan i like that your experience of that poem

[32:39] is much like samuel taylor coleridge's when well he dreamed the beginning of kublai khan

[32:45] yeah his his beautiful poem that begins in xanadu did he was interrupted by a visitor and has no

[32:52] memory of where the rest of the poem should go he only knows it was ineffably beautiful it seems

[32:56] like that's your experience with the poem here is you don't remember it yes exactly well yeah that

[33:02] that last sentence at least was accurate um so juliet calls peter gallagher uh in some distress

[33:11] and uh he leaves his wife's party he's insisted that he is you know broken things off with her

[33:19] but he is still concerned about this dying girl we all know that he's you know he's not being

[33:25] honest with himself but he leaves his wife party to go to uh to find her and she is dead she has

[33:33] killed herself after downloading her brain into the computer and uh also along with her downloading

[33:41] uh her mind uh she has arranged to have herself cryogenically preserved she's gonna get frozen

[33:50] That seems like she's killed herself, you said.

[33:52] No, I think that the idea is she's downloaded her consciousness.

[33:57] She's killed herself.

[33:58] Oh, so she can have her consciousness put back in the body.

[34:01] Put back in the body, yeah, once they fix...

[34:05] Brains.

[34:05] Yeah, when Dan says killed herself,

[34:07] it doesn't mean she, like, strapped herself to a giant barrel of TNT

[34:11] and exploded or something.

[34:13] Yeah, yeah.

[34:13] Yeah, and then she goes, the problem is I can only do it once.

[34:16] And then her ghost dressed as a devil ascends to heaven.

[34:20] So, yeah, she wants to be preserved, and she had gotten Joe to swear that he will make sure that that happens after she dies.

[34:28] And he's been honest with every character up to this point.

[34:32] Well, no, he wants to make this happen, but her very religious father shows up, who wants a normal burial, none of this scientific mumbo-jumbo.

[34:46] No, I don't want you burying her in a computer box full of packing peanuts like a computer.

[34:51] You're going to have to bury her in the old pet cemetery by my house.

[34:55] That's the old-fashioned way to bring her back.

[34:57] God has called her home already, so who, you know, it's not up to the refrigerator to bring her back.

[35:05] And also, there—

[35:09] Now, I mentioned him hitting the refrigerator with a cane, saying, give me back my daughter, and the refrigerator being like, I'm just doing my job, dude.

[35:16] Look, I just work here.

[35:18] And the judge, you know, who's able to determine what happens to the body after death, the judge says that she would prefer that, you know, the wishes be followed.

[35:39] but there seems to be something about the death certificate that has been tampered with,

[35:45] so that triggers an automatic autopsy.

[35:48] This is definitely a loose end as far as I was able to see.

[35:52] I don't think we know what this tampered with death certificate shit is.

[35:57] Yeah, but that's a great name for a punk band, automatic autopsy.

[36:00] But meanwhile, the judge dies by falling down an empty elevator shaft.

[36:08] What?

[36:09] And the father dies, I think, on an escalator.

[36:12] And it's all...

[36:13] Someone is controlling all of the up and down

[36:17] transporting devices.

[36:19] It's like...

[36:21] And then a treadmill picks up a gun

[36:25] and shoots Peter Gallagher.

[36:26] Yeah.

[36:27] He gets on the demon drop at Cedar Point.

[36:37] So it seems pretty clear that Juliet...

[36:39] I guess everything's fine.

[36:40] I'll just step onto the Great American Scream machine

[36:43] and forget my troubles.

[36:44] It seems clear that Juliet's, you know,

[36:49] murdering people through technology,

[36:51] her consciousness in the system.

[36:53] But meanwhile, to honor her wishes,

[36:56] Joe goes to a cryo facility,

[36:59] and they're like, hmm,

[37:01] they don't need her head for the autopsy,

[37:04] so they take the head,

[37:06] and they're going to save that to be frozen at least

[37:09] in the hopes that whatever future that can fix the brain aneurysm

[37:15] can also fix being a decapitated head.

[37:18] Please tell me that he delivers the head but with a bounce pass,

[37:23] like it's a basketball.

[37:23] Oh, Elliot.

[37:26] So they drive home.

[37:31] Joe drives home with her head in a special liquid nitrogen storage chamber, like a canister.

[37:39] Oh, so he has to keep the head.

[37:41] He has to keep the head because this is all—

[37:43] Where's he going to leave it?

[37:44] This is all on the demo because—

[37:46] At the cryogenic facility.

[37:47] Oh, right.

[37:48] Because of the ruling, like, you know, he has to basically steal her head.

[37:53] So he puts it in a double bag with seven other heads.

[37:59] He stows it in his basement.

[38:00] They'll never think to look for a head here in this duffel bag full of heads.

[38:03] Then Joe Pesci picks it up.

[38:05] David Spade's there.

[38:07] Yeah.

[38:07] He stows it in his basement, but it's malfunctioning.

[38:12] So he has to go get a replacement tank.

[38:16] In the meantime, he wraps up the head, puts it in their chest-style freezer in the basement.

[38:22] Then Midnight Snack Mimi comes down looking for some ice cream.

[38:27] In his absence, as he's going out to get the canister, Mimi comes home with their son,

[38:35] who I haven't mentioned before because he doesn't really figure into the plot, but he

[38:38] is played by Jake Lloyd.

[38:40] Oh, wow.

[38:41] The movie's Anakin Skywalker.

[38:43] Yeah.

[38:44] And this is before episode one, right?

[38:49] Yeah, because it's 99, I think.

[38:51] This is probably what Lucas saw.

[38:55] He's like, get me the kid from Virtual Obsession.

[38:58] No, Karen does come home.

[39:01] Needs to get something out of the deep freeze.

[39:03] Uh-oh, what's there?

[39:04] It's Juliet's head.

[39:06] Joe comes back, and Karen is sitting at the table with this wrapped bundle in front of her.

[39:13] Justifiably angry that his dead girlfriend's head is in her freezer.

[39:19] And this is the one quote on IMDb that I was able to find

[39:23] where Mimi says,

[39:25] What's the matter, Joe, huh?

[39:27] You couldn't stand life without a little help from your little Juliet?

[39:30] How many of our neighbors keep their girlfriends' heads in their freezers, Joe?

[39:34] How many do you think?

[39:36] So Joe tries to get the head back.

[39:39] She did that while clapping in between each line.

[39:41] Joe tries to get the head back.

[39:45] How many of our neighbors have kept?

[39:49] Now, this is the one part of the movie that is possible that you have seen at some point in your life on the internet.

[39:57] Jo wants to head back.

[40:00] She takes it outside.

[40:02] She runs to the front yard.

[40:04] She's yelling at him.

[40:05] And she throws it into the street where the nitrogen frozen head shatters into a bunch of red ice head shards.

[40:16] No, I have not seen that scene.

[40:18] now i'm going to look it up so okay juliet's out of the picture right wrong albert is acting

[40:26] strange he's gotten weirdly poetic as if someone who writes bad poetry is corrupting him and uh

[40:35] and juliet's in there somewhere um the uh tom and joe try and figure out a time they can shut

[40:43] the computer down so they can do a scan and find juliet and peter gallagher's like we'll do it at

[40:50] 3 a.m like there won't be any surgeries then and barely any planes in the air and i'm like no dude

[40:56] you can't even at 3 a.m you're gonna cause havoc by shutting down the power grid this is this is

[41:03] like a screenwriter's like i don't want to look it up 3 a.m it'd be fine uh and they try this but

[41:10] they're only able to delete uh what turns out to be a rat and uh just go squeak yeah joe has a

[41:22] confrontation with uh juliet who finally shows up in hologram form and do we ever see albert

[41:30] einstein again uh yes i think so i don't know this is not important now i didn't i mean i just

[41:39] He seems like he's already the most charismatic character in the whole movie.

[41:42] And we're never going to see him again.

[41:43] And Juliet spouts some like, I'm an evil computer now stuff, you know, but also like, you know, I love you.

[41:52] And Joe is, Joe at this point has finally woken up and he's like, you're nothing like the real Juliet.

[42:02] She had a great beauty and a kindness in her.

[42:04] At which point the audience is like, what?

[42:08] Joe, Juliette in the rest of the movie has been, like, you've been a terrible person.

[42:13] Don't get me wrong, you're the worst, but Juliette has not had a great kindness in her.

[42:19] She has been erratic the entire time.

[42:23] But Peter Gallagher says that she's different now, and this comes to the thesis statement of the movie,

[42:31] which is that mind and body cannot be uh pulled apart without uh great harm being done

[42:40] um and there's kind of this like sci-fi idea also that's sort of fainted at that um

[42:49] you know it's it time moves much slower for or much faster for like her once she's computerized

[43:00] Because everything else seems so slow to her, it's like she's been there going through iterations of herself and corrupting herself.

[43:10] And this will be totally contradicted in a second.

[43:14] But that's why I'm spending so much time setting up this idea.

[43:19] Juliet is defeated.

[43:21] Not because Joe does anything active as a protagonist.

[43:25] but it turns out that when she scanned her brain the aneurysm went along with yeah so she had a

[43:35] minute that's not how things work she got a virtual hemorrhage

[43:39] um and then um tom who i didn't mention earlier uh

[43:55] You mentioned him briefly.

[43:56] Well, no, Elliot, I'm not at the end of the sentence.

[43:59] Who I didn't mention earlier is quadriplegic.

[44:03] Oh, okay.

[44:03] Because of a vague accident that was never really gotten into.

[44:10] Downloaded his consciousness into the computer.

[44:14] And the thing that honestly seems sort of ableist and insulting,

[44:18] where he's like, oh, I just saw that this was a horrible thing,

[44:23] but I want to like holographically walk again.

[44:27] So I'm going to be a computer,

[44:28] computer boy.

[44:29] But anyway,

[44:30] um,

[44:32] point is all that shit about the computer turning you evil.

[44:37] Forget about it.

[44:38] Tom is glowing like a Saint.

[44:41] He seems to be the,

[44:42] still the nice guy we knew,

[44:44] uh,

[44:45] back in real life.

[44:46] And,

[44:47] uh,

[44:48] then the movie ends after two and a half hours.

[44:52] Oh,

[44:53] Okay.

[44:53] So we got that kind of non sequitur coda at the end about saying,

[44:58] I guess the computer lobby was like, hold on, hold on.

[45:01] Equal time, equal time.

[45:02] Yeah, yeah.

[45:03] If you're going to have an evil computer, you need a good computer in there too.

[45:07] It's the only way.

[45:08] So after the categories, as I recall them, after all that,

[45:13] are you glad you missed it?

[45:15] Uh-huh.

[45:16] Are you sad you missed it?

[45:17] Or do you think you had to not miss it?

[45:20] Had to not miss it, yeah.

[45:21] those are the categories i made um i'm gonna jump in uh i honestly am kind of sad i missed it

[45:30] i was just googling to see if i could find this head explosion scene couldn't find it anywhere

[45:37] so now i have to see the whole movie i should have i should have gone to the gal pal screening

[45:42] yeah yeah ellie what do you gotta say i'm gonna say uh honestly i'm glad i missed it i feel like

[45:51] this movie sounds very long

[45:53] for what it delivers.

[45:54] I will tell you, it is very long.

[45:57] I may have ruined

[45:59] it for the viewers out

[46:01] there, potential viewers out there, by

[46:03] describing it. It would have been a transcendent

[46:05] experience.

[46:05] I think that one of the beauties

[46:09] of it being long, honestly, as someone who

[46:11] sat through all of it, is

[46:13] it keeps cycling

[46:15] through various movies

[46:17] it could possibly be.

[46:21] And it just keeps expanding in scope and silliness beyond what you expected.

[46:27] And, I mean, it never hits quite the heights of Mimi Rogers being outraged at the frozen head of her husband's mistress in the chest downstairs.

[46:40] But it's all pretty good.

[46:43] Could you imagine catching that shit on primetime television in 1998?

[46:51] yeah what if that had been a huge hit though yeah think about the water cooler talk the next day

[46:58] this is the future this is the future is original science fiction thriller material not series just

[47:05] movies yeah yeah with heads exploding with heads exploding you know it's a head's got to explode

[47:10] yeah or else it's not going to be a hit yeah that's what william goldman said i don't think

[47:16] we would have had dr house md if that in that alternate universe because people would be too

[47:20] busy making these movies instead of making shows like house yeah if if this had been a huge hit we

[47:26] probably wouldn't have we would have never had the rise of reality television and donald trump never

[47:31] would have been fucking president and man if only the this is the sliding doors moment i want to go

[47:38] back to yeah so you're saying you lay this all at the feet of mick garris for not making a good

[47:42] enough tv movie about a woman putting her i'm not saying it's not good enough i'm saying i need to

[47:49] go back in time and find a way

[47:51] to rig all the Nielsen

[47:53] boxes. Yeah.

[47:54] Let's fix the past, guys. So

[47:57] two action items for listeners.

[47:59] Number one, if you have the poem,

[48:01] send it to me. Number two,

[48:03] fix the past. That's the first one.

[48:04] If you have a time machine

[48:07] or access to a wormhole

[48:09] or, again, a porthole

[48:11] of time, let us know

[48:13] so we can go back and

[48:15] juke the stats for this. And make this

[48:17] It's a huge TV sensation.

[48:19] So it changes the future for the better.

[48:21] Yeah.

[48:21] All right.

[48:22] Well, until that happens.

[48:23] And then we go back and do it.

[48:25] And then we go back to the modern day

[48:26] and Peter Gallagher is like a Hitler-esque dictator.

[48:29] No!

[48:29] Into education camps and things.

[48:32] And he's like,

[48:33] and now I'll send the first wave of space conquerors out.

[48:38] Yeah.

[48:38] He's sending wave after wave of people

[48:39] in eyebrow-shaped spaceships

[48:41] to destroy alien civilizations.

[48:42] And everybody in the resistance shaves their eyebrows.

[48:45] Mm-hmm.

[48:46] Yeah.

[48:47] Exactly.

[48:48] Eyebrows are the flesh.

[48:49] All his followers wear huge fake eyebrows hanging down from hats.

[48:53] Nobody can name their kids Peter anymore.

[48:55] Yeah.

[48:56] And you know who's the leader of the resistance?

[49:00] Who's that?

[49:01] Gallagher.

[49:02] Oh.

[49:02] Until he's betrayed, of course, by Gallagher too.

[49:08] Yeah.

[49:08] I, you know, from what I hear,

[49:13] this is at least as good as some of the post-Frank Herbert Dune books.

[49:17] wow harsh

[49:19] I haven't read them I don't know I'm just making a joke

[49:22] hey guys it's been a blast

[49:24] but I'm tired

[49:25] this is a podcast

[49:27] that we do every week check it out next

[49:30] week when it's a little more structured than

[49:32] this if you like this one

[49:34] great we do stupid

[49:36] shit too

[49:37] but for the Flophouse I'd like

[49:40] to well thank

[49:42] you Alex our producer

[49:43] on Twitter yep and

[49:46] uh now i will say goodbye i've been dan mccoy i've been stewart wellington and i'm virtually

[49:54] elliot calen and also in real life too bye best buddies

[49:59] whoopsie

[50:05] maximumfun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported

[50:16] Thank you.

FH Mini 59 - Missed That Movie: Virtual Obsession

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