FH Mini 138 - In the Pantheon

[0:00] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:05] This is a Flophouse mini.

[0:08] What is that you say to yourself?

[0:10] Because you're confused.

[0:11] You're confused and alone.

[0:13] The Flophouse normally is a podcast where we talk about bad movies,

[0:17] but every other week we go a little off model.

[0:21] We do what we like, mostly still movie-related,

[0:24] because, you know, there's a brand.

[0:27] And in this case, I am in charge,

[0:30] but it is inspired by our guest, Sean Malin,

[0:35] who wrote The Podcast Pantheon.

[0:38] I'm holding it up for the camera that we have here,

[0:41] but not that you see.

[0:42] 101 podcasts that change how we listen,

[0:45] which, you know, risks people scoffing at it

[0:50] by including The Flophouse in that 101.

[0:53] We're the one, right?

[0:55] Yeah, we're the one.

[0:55] We just made it.

[0:57] But we're honored.

[0:58] Welcome, Sean.

[0:59] Thank you.

S2

[1:01] Yeah, I'll face whatever challenges shall come our way from that.

[1:06] It was worth it.

[1:07] Well worth it.

Dan McCoy

[1:10] So no one but me knows what we're actually doing today,

[1:14] which is the way that we enjoy playing these minis,

[1:17] sort of springing things on one another.

[1:20] And I know that Sean has said that this book,

[1:24] the podcast Pantheon,

[1:26] was sort of inspired by the review books of yesteryear

[1:30] that attempted to set or start conversations

[1:33] about what the canonical works in various media are,

[1:36] like Rolling Stones,

[1:38] a 500 greatest album guide, etc.

[1:41] And it got me thinking about lists in general,

[1:45] the big lists of canonical films.

[1:47] And so for this,

[1:49] I'm going to run through some of the big lists in film criticism,

[1:54] some of the titles found there.

[1:56] And because we're iconoclasts here at the Flophouse,

[1:59] I'm going to have us discuss which title,

[2:01] if we had to pick,

[2:02] if we had to,

[2:03] which title we would kick off.

[2:05] Okay.

[2:06] These lists.

[2:07] We would boot into the outer darkness.

[2:10] And I'm going to start off with...

Stuart Wellington

[2:11] We'll be judge, jury, and executioner.

Dan McCoy

[2:14] That's right.

[2:14] Okay, I can do that.

[2:16] I'm going to start off with...

[2:17] Now, don't worry.

[2:19] You're going to hear the number 100.

[2:21] I'm not going to do all 100 movies.

[2:24] Oh, okay.

[2:25] It's going to be the top five of this.

[2:26] You think we can't handle it?

[2:27] Go for it.

[2:27] Let's do this.

Stuart Wellington

[2:28] Dan does like it when a movie stretches a bit super long

[2:31] for comedy's sake.

[2:32] So maybe he would do it.

Elliott Kalan

[2:34] I mean, I think he referred to in our previous episode

[2:37] the egg dying sequence in an Easter bunny puppy

[2:39] as his pick for a tour de force sequence of the year,

[2:43] even though it wasn't even a new movie.

Dan McCoy

[2:45] Yeah.

[2:46] No, this is, of course, AFI's 100 years, 100 movies list.

[2:52] One of the sort of lists that was sort of put out in the world

[2:55] to drum up interest in the movies in general.

[2:58] AFI stands for Alien Ant Farm Institute.

Stuart Wellington

[3:02] What?

Elliott Kalan

[3:03] Yeah, that first A is really doing double duty.

[3:06] It's two different A's.

[3:07] Two different words, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:08] I see.

[3:09] You just pronounce it once.

[3:12] No, of course, the American...

[3:13] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[3:13] It's actually ALF Financial Instruments.

[3:15] These are new innovative financial instruments

[3:18] that Wall Street is playing with

[3:18] that are based around ALF,

[3:20] that lovable alien, Gordon Shumway from Melmac.

[3:23] ALF is back again.

[3:25] Yeah.

[3:25] You can't get rid of him.

[3:26] You can't get rid of him.

[3:26] Lock up your cats, everybody.

[3:28] ALF is back.

[3:29] He's hungry for cinema.

[3:30] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:32] Why haven't they done an ALF reboot yet, guys?

[3:36] They've done two, I think.

[3:37] They've tried several ALF reboots.

[3:39] Really?

[3:39] Yeah.

[3:39] They tried to make him into a talk show.

[3:42] That's true.

[3:43] Yeah.

[3:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3:43] Thank you.

[3:44] Yeah.

[3:44] Get the Disney team that did Lion King

[3:46] and everything on there.

[3:48] But do shot for shot remakes.

[3:51] I don't need new content.

[3:51] I was thinking like a Mufasa.

[3:53] Like an ALF Mufasa.

[3:54] Okay.

[3:55] Origin story.

[3:56] To be honest, Mufasa would have been a much better movie

Elliott Kalan

[3:58] if ALF had played Mufasa in that movie.

Stuart Wellington

[4:01] Yeah.

[4:01] Or if he's riding Mufasa around for a while,

[4:03] he's like,

[4:04] I'm your best friend, right, Mufasa?

[4:05] Hey!

[4:06] Timon and Fumba, nice to meet you.

S2

[4:08] Wait, I've got something here.

[4:10] What is this?

[4:12] Alfasa.

[4:13] Yeah.

[4:13] Is that anything?

[4:14] Alfasa, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] Oh, okay.

[4:16] Alfa Romeo, which is, of course, the Italian ALF.

Dan McCoy

[4:19] Oh, boy.

[4:20] This is, of course, the American Film Institute.

[4:23] Oh.

[4:24] You know.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] Never mind.

[4:25] So the ALF stuff was not relevant at all.

Dan McCoy

[4:28] No, no.

[4:29] I'm sure we can cuddle.

Elliott Kalan

[4:30] Yeah.

[4:31] Alex, if you do, I'll be so mad.

[4:34] Alfix.

[4:35] What if Alf was our producer, Alex?

[4:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:39] That would be also very fun.

[4:40] Although I would, again, have to keep my cats far away.

[4:43] You would, yeah.

[4:44] 100 years, 100 movies.

[4:46] The top five on that list.

Stuart Wellington

[4:48] But he doesn't actually ever eat a cat, right?

[4:50] He drinks it a lot.

[4:51] No, he kills.

[4:52] It's all smoke, no fire, right?

[4:53] He kills cats off camera.

[4:55] There's a lot of blood.

[4:58] Wow.

[4:59] Man, I just don't remember that well, I guess.

[5:00] And it gets all caked into his fur,

Elliott Kalan

[5:02] and then Willie has to shampoo him in the tub.

Stuart Wellington

[5:04] Yeah, that's why he and Willie are so close, right?

[5:06] It's because Willie's seen everything.

[5:08] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[5:09] Willie, you've got to help me hide the evidence.

Dan McCoy

[5:11] Okay, so they're less close than bound together by blood.

[5:15] Yeah, exactly.

[5:16] Okay.

[5:16] Well, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[5:17] Knowing what I know about you, you've got to help me.

Dan McCoy

[5:22] So wait, Willie also has done something horrible?

[5:25] How else do you think he got wrapped up in this web of seduction and deceit?

[5:30] Come on.

[5:30] Okay.

[5:31] So what we've got here at the top, we've got...

[5:35] I've got pictures, Willie.

[5:36] That kind of stuff, yeah.

[5:37] Jesus Christ.

[5:38] We've got Citizen Kane.

[5:40] Oh, yeah.

[5:41] The Godfather.

[5:42] Very little Al's content.

[5:43] Casa Blanca.

[5:45] Raging Bull.

[5:46] Okay.

[5:47] And Singing in the Rain.

S2

[5:49] You can stop there.

[5:50] Just knock them all off.

[5:51] Who cares?

Elliott Kalan

[5:53] Just get rid of them.

[5:54] So tell me those movies.

[5:55] And so what are we doing, Dan?

[5:56] We're going to knock one off?

Dan McCoy

[5:57] We're going to knock one off.

[5:58] Not because we don't like it.

[5:59] And name these again.

Elliott Kalan

[6:02] Name these movies again.

Dan McCoy

[6:03] Citizen Kane.

[6:04] You got it.

[6:05] Oh, what a movie.

[6:07] Casablanca.

[6:07] Sure.

[6:08] Love it.

[6:08] Raging Bull.

[6:09] That guy was so ragey.

[6:10] And Singing in the Rain.

[6:12] It was so rainy.

Elliott Kalan

[6:13] Who's going to go first?

Dan McCoy

[6:14] You know, I came up with this infernal plan.

[6:18] I'm ready to, you know, court some ridiculous.

[6:21] Jumping in front of some bullets here.

Elliott Kalan

[6:22] Because I've got my answer too.

[6:23] But if you want to go first, Dan, I'm happy to let you go.

Dan McCoy

[6:25] Obviously, they're all great movies.

[6:27] I'm not saying that any of them are not.

[6:29] I've never been, despite being a male of a certain age, I've never been a Godfather guy.

[6:35] I'm like, yeah, okay.

[6:38] Like, maybe I just don't.

S2

[6:40] You have a problem with the length?

[6:41] Is that what Elliot was saying earlier?

Dan McCoy

[6:44] No, it's not the length.

[6:45] I just, like, I don't feel the same, like, romance about the mafia.

[6:50] Dan doesn't understand the concept of family.

[6:53] You know.

[6:53] I understand that it's a metaphor for, like, what it takes to get ahead in America, sort of.

[6:59] But, I don't know.

[7:01] As my movies go, I've always been a good fellas guy.

[7:04] So, I'm surprised, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[7:05] Because for me, the one that I would knock off of that list is a different Italian-American director from the 60s, 70s, new Hollywood era.

[7:14] And that is, Raging Bull, I think, is a beautifully made movie.

[7:17] It's always left me a little cold.

[7:19] When I finish it, I'm like, I don't know why, what the purpose is of telling that story.

[7:24] Like, I don't know what, I feel that guy's rage and his pain and his frustration and the downfall and everything.

[7:30] But I'm always like, this seems like the story of, like, an asshole who is not.

[7:37] Whereas Godfather, to me, is about trying to, is it about how America operates, about avoiding the sins of the past and things you have to do to protect your family.

[7:46] But they also drag you down and consequences.

[7:48] I find Godfather to be such a beautiful movie.

[7:50] So, it's interesting.

[7:51] But we can disagree.

[7:52] That's fine.

Dan McCoy

[7:52] Sometimes movies can just be about a character and also a type of character.

[7:57] I think it is, I think Raging Bull is illuminating about, you know, someone who feels so many emotions.

[8:04] But feels them on, like, sort of an almost animal level and does not have the skills to do anything positive with them.

Elliott Kalan

[8:15] And because, you know, I think it's a great movie.

[8:17] It was part of, listeners will know that it did appear in my top ten meat on film movies for the part where his wife burns his steak and he gets mad.

[8:27] What about you guys?

[8:28] Sean, Stuart, what do you think?

Stuart Wellington

[8:30] Yeah, I mean, I'm just going to chime in with Elliot.

[8:32] I would say of those, I think I have the least affection for Raging Bull.

[8:37] And also, similar to something Dan mentioned earlier about how Goodfellas is for him the mafia movie, I feel like it's really hard not to look at the rest of Scorsese's film, you know, career and see films that I have a deeper connection with.

[8:52] Yes, I agree.

Elliott Kalan

[8:52] If you had put Goodfellas in that list, Dan, the list you put together while you were working at the AFI.

[8:57] Not me.

[8:59] At the Alien and Farm Institute.

[9:01] I think Goodfellas still would have been the movie that I would have pushed off the list, but I think it would have been much harder for me than Raging Bull.

[9:08] Yeah.

S2

[9:08] That's interesting.

[9:09] Like, the gap seems so wide between Raging Bull and Goodfellas to me.

[9:13] Like, I see them with such – like, I love Raging Bull and I like Goodfellas a lot.

[9:20] But I hate to, like – am I allowed to say that Singing in the Rain is like – I love Singing in the Rain.

[9:28] I love all of them.

[9:29] But am I allowed to say that it's just, like, soft shit?

[9:32] Like, the other –

[9:32] You're allowed to say it.

[9:34] You're wrong.

[9:34] But I'm like –

[9:35] You can say anything you want.

[9:37] Those four other movies, I'm like, whoa, those are, like, hardcore.

[9:39] And then I'm like, Singing in the Rain.

[9:40] Oh, nice.

[9:41] Greenbows.

Elliott Kalan

[9:42] You make an interesting point.

[9:43] I think that in terms of criticism and in terms of scholarship, the hard and the grim often gets elevated over the joyful.

[9:51] And I think what Singing in the Rain does is so beautiful and so hard to pull off, which is such a joy all the way through.

[9:58] The same way that there's no – it baffles me that Wizard of Oz is not in that top five.

[10:04] When I think Wizard of Oz is maybe the most amazing movie that ever got made.

[10:07] It's so beautiful and it's so, like, magical.

[10:10] And the fact that it is now the number one attraction at the Sphere, I don't know exactly how to feel about that.

[10:15] But I feel kind of happy about it even though they mangled that movie to make it that way.

[10:18] But that – I think the – it's very easy to be, like, raging bull.

[10:22] It's the inner torment of a man.

[10:23] And it's easy to kind of push aside Singing in the Rain because it is ultimately kind of, like, fluff in a way.

[10:30] Like, the fact that it's about this, like, traumatic moment in movie production history when a lot of people's livelihoods disappeared as silent in the sound.

[10:39] But it's done in, like, a real fun way.

[10:41] Like, real fun way.

[10:42] And the best part of it is literally the dude just dancing in the rain and singing in the – like, the title of the movie pays off.

[10:47] That guy does sing in the rain, you know.

[10:49] But I think that's a really good point.

Stuart Wellington

[10:50] Like, it's so – I feel like I am so – like, I experience, like, rage and sadness in films that, like, moments of genuine joy are so rare that I, like, cling to them.

[11:04] Whether it's, like, the moment in – what was that?

[11:07] Hustlers when Usher shows up at the strip club and they, like, all run out there and I'm like, I feel like I could punch a hole through God right now.

[11:15] Wow.

S2

[11:16] But also, like, Stuart made the – this motion earlier.

[11:21] And when I see movies about movies, I'm like, that's what I think of immediately.

[11:24] Like, I love singing in the rain and I love being shown it in film class.

[11:28] But I'm also like, how many times do I have to see movies that celebrate the art of movies before I'm like, who gives a fiddly fuck?

[11:35] Like, who – it doesn't matter.

Dan McCoy

[11:37] Wow, Loki roasting the studio.

[11:39] Wait, for our listeners at home and also me who was looking away, what motion was this?

[11:44] It's the jack-off motion.

[11:45] It's a very human motion, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[11:48] It's the most human motion.

[11:49] It's the classic jerking off a horse motion.

[11:51] Also a monkey motion.

[11:53] Yeah.

[11:53] A monkey of monkeys also love that motion.

[11:55] Yeah.

[11:55] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[11:56] Okay.

[11:57] Well, you know, sorry, Raging Bull.

[11:59] You got the most votes.

[12:01] You're out of here.

[12:02] Wow.

[12:02] Okay.

[12:02] It's no longer a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[12:04] Yeah.

[12:04] It's been – it's now no longer a movie and it gets thrown away forever.

[12:07] Yeah.

[12:07] No one's allowed to watch it.

Dan McCoy

[12:09] And I want to reiterate for our listeners –

[12:11] You've been canceled, Raging Bull.

Elliott Kalan

[12:12] For us, not like you quite as much, a couple of us.

Dan McCoy

[12:15] I want to reiterate for our listeners that this is a completely silly exercise, that these are all great movies.

[12:21] This is not the canon that we're putting together.

[12:23] For LARFs.

Stuart Wellington

[12:24] Guys, I just pulled up Just Watch and it says Raging Bull isn't available anywhere now.

[12:29] Oh, no.

[12:29] We've erased it from existence.

[12:33] I mean, to be honest, with today's streaming licensing things,

Elliott Kalan

[12:37] it wouldn't surprise me if at some point Raging Bull was just unavailable somewhere.

[12:40] Yeah.

[12:41] You'd be like, this movie?

[12:42] No one can see it?

[12:43] They'd be like, sorry.

[12:44] The company decided it was a better tax benefit to just never show it to anyone ever again.

Stuart Wellington

[12:48] I mean, like, as I've mentioned this before, but for the longest time,

[12:52] To Live and Die in L.A. wasn't available digitally anywhere until, like, Amazon just put it on Prime.

[12:56] And I'm like, uh, thank you, I guess?

[12:59] Yeah.

S2

[13:00] The only way to, like, get it back is to put David Zasloff in it.

[13:03] And then put it on Prime.

[13:05] Oh, man.

Elliott Kalan

[13:05] That's what they, isn't that, uh, isn't that what they did with, with, they did that with Wizard of Oz for this year?

[13:10] Yeah, he's in it.

[13:11] David Zasloff shows up in it?

S2

[13:13] The what?

[13:13] He's incredible in it.

[13:15] Amazing performance.

[13:16] Yeah, yeah.

[13:16] He's the tin man now.

[13:18] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:19] Um, sticking with the AFI, there's another, uh, list here that I think.

[13:23] Is this gonna be 100 years, 100 laughs?

[13:25] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[13:25] Indeed it is.

[13:26] Wait, did they put, uh, did they put David Zasloff at, like, the beginning, like, a Michael Eisner?

[13:30] Or, like, uh, when that Pixar guy's like, hey, here's a Miyazaki movie.

[13:34] And I'm like, yeah, just show me the movie.

[13:35] I don't need to see you.

Elliott Kalan

[13:36] No, it's not like an introduction.

[13:37] I think they use computers to insert him and the guy who owns the sphere into the background of a scene.

[13:42] You know?

[13:43] Which, you know what?

[13:44] Whatever.

[13:45] That's the, that's the smallest thing.

[13:46] I don't like that.

Stuart Wellington

[13:46] So it's like Space Jam where the Droogs are like, uh.

[13:49] Exactly.

[13:49] The Droogs and Baby Jane are just watching this basketball game, loving it.

Elliott Kalan

[13:53] I think the thing that bothers me less about the sphere mangling of Wizard of Oz, where they cut it down and they change the framing stuff, is that, like, you can only see it at the sphere.

[14:02] It's not like, it's not like, uh, George Lucas where he's like, boom, there's only one version of Star Wars now and it's not as good.

[14:08] It's like, uh, you're not gonna, it's not like you're gonna buy a DVD of Wizard of Oz and it's gonna be the sphere version.

Dan McCoy

[14:12] Yeah, it's extremely easy to avoid this terrible version of this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[14:16] Can you buy the sphere version?

[14:18] Well, you can buy the movie sphere and you can edit the scenes in with the movie Wizard of Oz.

[14:22] Cool.

[14:23] So Dustin Hoffman is dreaming everything in Oz.

Dan McCoy

[14:25] Hey, speaking of Dustin Hoffman, 100 years, 100 laughs.

Elliott Kalan

[14:27] Don't you do not.

[14:28] Marathon.

[14:29] Tootsie is off the list right off the bat, Dan.

[14:31] Tootsie is on there.

[14:32] Kick it off that list right now.

[14:33] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[14:35] Uh, we got, uh, Some Like It Hot.

[14:38] Uh-huh.

[14:38] Tootsie.

[14:39] Oh, you know what?

Elliott Kalan

[14:39] I was too quick to jump on Tootsie maybe.

[14:41] I don't know.

[14:42] Tootsie?

[14:43] Uh, how is it?

[14:43] Wait, is this the, wait, what numbers are these in the list?

Dan McCoy

[14:45] These are the top two.

[14:47] So apparently the funniest thing in the world is, yes, is drag.

[14:51] Ugh.

Elliott Kalan

[14:51] Now I can't trust anything on this list.

Dan McCoy

[14:53] Dr. Strangelove or How I Stop Lurring, Learn, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Elliott Kalan

[14:59] That's a movie I love that I don't find very funny.

[15:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:02] Yeah, but you don't have to judge it on the basis of laughs.

[15:05] Yeah, it's only called 100 Years, 100 Laughs.

[15:07] That's the list, man.

[15:08] We're talking about what movie we want to get rid of.

[15:11] I think it's just one laugh per movie if you laughed at it once.

Elliott Kalan

[15:14] Yeah.

[15:14] We guarantee you one laugh per movie.

[15:16] It's the part where George C. Scott falls down because he's so excited.

[15:18] Annie Hall and Duck Soup.

Dan McCoy

[15:22] Those are the top five there.

[15:24] Elliot, you've already started talking.

Stuart Wellington

[15:26] So we get to throw them all out or we just throw out one?

[15:29] What?

[15:30] Throw them all out?

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] I will say this is a tough one.

[15:33] I shouldn't, you know what, Dan, Sean, Stuart, I apologize that I'm monopolizing the one on this one.

[15:38] I just assumed Tootsie would be on there and I got mad.

[15:41] But Some Like It Hot, one of my less favorite Billy Wilder movies, and I love Billy Wilder,

[15:46] and he has such funnier movies.

[15:48] And it's amazing to me the top two movies are both drag movies.

Stuart Wellington

[15:51] That's really bonkers.

[15:52] I saw the recent stage production of Some Like It Hot and it was really fun.

[15:59] I'm going to jump in here and say –

[16:00] It was modernized.

[16:01] Here's what I'll say about Some Like It Hot.

Elliott Kalan

[16:03] Actually, I would push off Tootsie.

[16:04] Some Like It Hot, the problem I have with it is it is timed for watching with a theatrical audience.

[16:08] And so there are pauses in the rhythm of the movie that really slow it down when you're watching it at home,

[16:13] but which work I'm sure very well in a theatrical setting.

[16:16] Because I know they were literally like – that whole scene where Jack Lemmon says a joke and then dances with maracas,

[16:21] they were doing that partly because they're like, people are going to laugh.

[16:23] We need to give them room to laugh.

[16:24] And so it probably works better with an audience.

Dan McCoy

[16:26] Elliot, I want to say that I share your general meh-ness about both Some Like It Hot and Tootsie,

[16:34] but I would push Tootsie off as well because there's stuff in Some Like It Hot that I find funny,

[16:39] mostly the Cary Grant impression.

Elliott Kalan

[16:41] That's what I thought you were going to say.

[16:42] Yeah, Tony Kirst's Cary Grant impression.

[16:44] I mean there's funny stuff in it.

[16:46] Marilyn Monroe is really good in it.

[16:47] You know what?

[16:47] Some Like It Hot, I wouldn't put it at number one, right?

[16:51] But Tootsie is a movie I find just – I don't like it at all.

S2

[16:55] It's not even the number one Billy Wilder, which is strange.

[16:58] But like I have to lose it because I worked at the Hotel Del in Coronado Island

[17:02] and they used to have – like the employees would walk under a little hallway that had wires,

[17:08] hundreds and hundreds of wires completely open and dangling over your head.

[17:12] You just thought you were going to die in a bad fire, like a 1920s fire.

[17:15] So I'm going to lose it because it's like triggering.

[17:18] Oh, wow, yeah.

[17:18] Otherwise, I love the movie.

[17:20] Stuart, do you ever thought about this?

Stuart Wellington

[17:22] Yeah, I mean I would probably say Tootsie for me.

[17:25] I think of the movies listed, that's the one I like the least.

Elliott Kalan

[17:30] All right.

[17:30] I mean clearly I think Duck Soup, Annie Hall, let's not get into a controversy about it.

[17:36] And Doctor Strange Lover, I think are all better movies than the first two on those lists.

[17:40] But Tootsie is the only one – I remember it was like a few years ago.

[17:43] My wife and I were like, you know what?

[17:44] We haven't watched Tootsie in a long time.

[17:45] And I'm like, that was the one my professors always told me.

[17:48] If you want to write a classic comedy, watch Tootsie.

[17:51] And we watched it not one laugh the entire time except for some of Elmer's lines, I guess.

[17:55] But it was just – the way he treats Terry Garr is so mean.

[17:58] And I know it's supposed to be like, oh, he learned to be a better man.

[18:00] But it's like he's still a pretty bad dude at the end and it's just inexcusable.

Stuart Wellington

[18:03] He could save the president from people who kidnapped him.

[18:07] Let's say –

[18:08] He said he's a bad dude, yeah.

[18:11] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[18:12] Oh, like the video game bad dudes.

[18:13] Yeah, like the video game bad dudes.

Elliott Kalan

[18:14] I was like, was that the plot of Tootsie 2 was that he was going to have to get in drag again to save the president from kidnappers?

Dan McCoy

[18:20] Let us move on to the sight and sound list.

[18:23] Here we're going to get into some interesting trouble because there are a couple movies here at the top that I haven't seen.

[18:30] But the sight and sound list and I'm both not good with French pronunciation despite having taken it for years and I'm not going to try and do the numbers in French.

[18:42] But we've got up top, we've got Jean Dillman, 23 Quadre Commence, 1080 Bruxelles.

[18:52] Vertigo.

[18:53] You pronounced it perfectly.

[18:55] Thank you.

[18:55] Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, and In the Mood for Love.

[19:01] And I have never seen either Jean Dillman or In the Mood for Love.

[19:06] Oh, wow.

[19:07] In the Mood for Love rocks.

[19:08] I believe there's a 4K restoration in rep screenings now.

[19:15] I'd like to go out and see it.

Elliott Kalan

[19:16] Jean Dillman's great too.

[19:17] Tell me again.

[19:19] Jean Dillman, Tokyo Story.

Dan McCoy

[19:21] Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, and In the Mood for Love.

[19:25] In the Mood for Love.

S2

[19:27] I'm going to toss myself off a bridge instead of kill any of these.

[19:30] I love these movies.

[19:31] What a great list.

[19:32] Sight and sound.

[19:33] I'm like, wow, really bringing it out.

[19:35] Yeah.

[19:35] That's the hardest one of the three so far, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[19:38] I agree.

[19:39] That's a great list.

[19:40] Whatever movie I toss off, I'm going to feel bad about.

Stuart Wellington

[19:42] Exactly.

[19:43] I think I've only seen Vertigo, Citizen Kane, and In the Mood for Love.

[19:46] I've never seen Tokyo Story or Jean Dillman.

[19:48] So I can't, I'm not going to throw out movies I've never seen.

[19:52] So that's really tough.

[19:54] I don't know which one to pick.

[19:56] Yeah, they all rock so hard.

Elliott Kalan

[19:58] I'm going to feel bad about it.

[20:00] I think I might throw off Tokyo Story because there are Ozu movies that I like a little more than Tokyo Story.

[20:08] But not because Tokyo Story is not great, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[20:13] Yeah.

[20:13] I mean, I think the idea is that for the most part, these lists are going to be challenging to pick.

[20:18] It was definitely.

[20:19] The 100 Years, 100 last one was pretty easy.

Dan McCoy

[20:20] Yeah, that was pretty easy.

[20:21] If we're going to force ourselves, I, you know, like Stuart, I'm not comfortable tossing something off I haven't seen.

[20:28] So of what I've seen, using your rubric there, Elliot, there are Hitchcock movies I like more than Vertigo.

[20:34] So I guess I got to get rid of Vertigo.

Stuart Wellington

[20:37] I was going to say, of the three on that list that I've seen, I think the one I have like the least connection to is Citizen Kane.

[20:44] So, I mean, it's not a bad movie, obviously, but I like Vertigo and In the Moon for Love more.

Elliott Kalan

[20:50] Yeah, I feel this one was a hard one.

[20:51] Sight and Sound hurt us by forcing us to do this.

[20:54] Wait a minute, Sight and Sound didn't force us.

[20:55] It was Dan that forced us to do this.

S2

[20:57] I'm the insidious game master here.

[20:59] He's the torturer.

[21:00] Painful.

[21:01] Yeah, I think I'm just going to get rid of, I like all these movies very much and I like them equally.

[21:06] I'm going to have to get rid of Vertigo just as like another punishment for the Brits for all they've done to us.

[21:12] The pain.

Elliott Kalan

[21:14] Very good point.

[21:15] Very good point.

[21:16] When they taxed our tea, that was rough.

[21:18] That pissed me off.

[21:20] It's hard for me to toss Vertigo because I love that movie so much.

[21:23] It's so incredible.

[21:25] So good.

[21:25] That's a tough one.

[21:26] Those are all good movies.

[21:28] Yeah.

[21:28] I would recommend any of them unless you want to sit and watch a woman cut a potato up for a while.

[21:33] In which case, Gene Dillman is really the only option you have on the movie.

[21:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[21:37] Right before we take a short break, I'm going to do another equally important, equally respected list.

[21:44] And of course, it is the list of nominees for the Oscars stand up and cheer moment.

[21:49] Oh.

[21:51] Did they only do that the one year?

[21:53] Once.

[21:54] And everyone made so much fun of them, they stopped immediately.

Stuart Wellington

[21:57] That's so lame that they didn't just do it again.

[22:00] Do you think that they're like, didn't it happen the same year as Will Smith slapped Chris Rock?

[22:04] Are they like doing a false equivalency there?

[22:07] Like a false correlation?

Dan McCoy

[22:09] I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[22:10] I don't think so.

[22:10] I don't remember.

[22:11] I don't think so.

[22:11] I think the problem was that the next year, there were no movies where people stood up and cheered.

[22:15] So just nothing was eligible for the prize.

Dan McCoy

[22:17] Well, a bunch of ushers were like, don't do that.

[22:18] And they're like, oh, right.

[22:19] We shouldn't do that.

[22:20] Yeah.

[22:21] The ushers were like, don't do that.

[22:22] Yeah.

[22:22] The ushers went to the hustlers and people were like, yeah, yeah.

[22:24] That's the thing.

[22:26] Yeah, they said, yeah, because that's one of his fucking songs.

[22:28] That's a song.

[22:28] Yeah.

[22:30] So of course, of course, we all remember.

[22:32] We all remember what's on this list.

[22:34] Okay, yeah.

[22:34] All our memories.

[22:35] All our memories.

[22:36] Save for the audience.

[22:37] Yeah.

[22:38] Yeah, for the audience.

Elliott Kalan

[22:40] For the audience.

[22:40] We should, of course, mention they might have forgotten that when Flash entered the Speed

[22:44] Force, that was a big stand of a cheer moment.

[22:46] Yes.

[22:46] I don't remember any of the others.

Dan McCoy

[22:47] We've got Spider-Man No Way Home.

[22:50] It's the Spider-Man team up.

[22:52] And we're just talking about the movies.

[22:53] But of course, I'll tell you what the moments are.

[22:57] The moment.

[22:57] Yeah.

[22:58] The Matrix, Neo-Dodging Bullets.

[23:00] Dream Girls, and I am telling you I'm not leaving or going.

[23:05] You were cheering so hard you couldn't even hear the lyrics.

[23:07] I couldn't hear the lyrics.

[23:08] I was just...

[23:10] Avengers Endgame, Avengers Assemble.

[23:13] Mm-hmm.

[23:13] And of course, the winner, Zack Snyder's Justice League Flash enters the Speed Force.

Stuart Wellington

[23:18] I feel like when that happened in the theater, Dan, you stood up so fast, you got a headache

[23:22] and passed out.

[23:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[23:23] I thought I had entered the Speed Force.

Elliott Kalan

[23:25] And the popcorn bucket that was on your lap fell off of you.

[23:28] And so you were just passed out covered in popcorn.

[23:30] Yeah.

[23:31] With a rapidly deflating bow.

[23:34] Yeah.

[23:34] Sticking through the bottom of the popcorn bucket.

[23:36] Yeah.

[23:36] Of course.

[23:37] Not that rapidly deflating.

[23:38] Dan was alone in the theater.

[23:39] That's the strange thing.

[23:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[23:42] Stewart made himself laugh so much that he put his head down.

[23:45] This is my own Santa Fe cheer moment.

[23:48] Yeah.

S2

[23:48] Crazy how divorced these are from like what the Oscars actually awarded.

[23:52] Like the only one that they care about is Dreamgirls.

[23:54] Like what are they trying to prove?

[23:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:57] I mean, the other ones are all like, yeah, they're all just like, yeah, this movie made

[24:01] a bunch of movies.

Elliott Kalan

[24:02] I mean, it feels like it is there.

[24:03] I remember when around the time that I think Dark Knight was not nominated for Best

[24:10] Picture or whatever, where people were like, what is this?

[24:13] They never nominate the movies that people care about.

[24:15] And so this, I think, was their being like, well, we're going to give some kind of BS

[24:19] award.

[24:20] I mean, all the Oscars are BS awards.

[24:21] We're going to give some BS award for like big popcorn movies, but they can't all be just

[24:26] superhero action movies.

[24:27] So we got to put something from Dreamgirls on there.

[24:30] But also they're like all from different years, right?

[24:32] Like it's such a weird, it's a weird idea for them to do.

[24:36] It feels very like they didn't put a lot of work into it.

Stuart Wellington

[24:39] Okay, so we got to pick one to kick off.

[24:41] Yeah.

[24:42] Man, probably the fucking one, the Speed Force one, because at least all the other movies

[24:47] I liked a little.

[24:48] 100%.

Elliott Kalan

[24:49] It's the worst movie by far.

[24:51] Yeah.

[24:52] I've noticed.

[24:53] All the other ones, there's, you could legitimately say people did have a strong reaction in the

[24:58] theater.

[24:58] It doesn't usually stand up and cheer.

[25:00] It was like, whoa.

[25:01] Or like, I remember seeing Dreamgirls in the theater and people loved, there was applause

[25:03] in the theater after, I'm not going.

[25:05] Yeah.

[25:06] And the, but I didn't see, I didn't see Justice League in the theaters, but I have to assume

[25:11] people were not like, if there was any moment even that they were cheering and that it was

[25:14] not necessarily entering the Speed Force.

[25:15] Like, it feels like they just picked a random moment.

[25:16] It was the credits.

Dan McCoy

[25:17] It was the credits at the end.

[25:18] They're like, oh.

Elliott Kalan

[25:19] They said it's over.

[25:20] Thank goodness.

[25:20] Finally.

[25:22] Well.

[25:22] All those Avengers were coming out at the end of Avengers at the game.

[25:25] People were cheering in the theater.

[25:26] People were going crazy.

[25:27] Which I thought was funny also because it's like, well, you guys know this was planned

[25:30] ahead of time, right?

[25:31] This is not, it's not happening spontaneously right now.

[25:33] I'm not sure they did know that.

S2

[25:34] I think it freaked some people out.

[25:36] I get escorted out.

Stuart Wellington

[25:39] He's like, because this is a live stream, right?

[25:41] From what, Avengers headquarters?

Dan McCoy

[25:45] Well, let's take a short break and then we'll be back with more of this useless exercise.

S5

[25:57] Hey, it's Sue the subway train.

[26:01] Hey, guess what, Sue?

[26:02] I just inherited a game show and I have to continue it because there are people out there

[26:07] who like to curl up into a ball and listen to it.

[26:10] Yeah, it's a podcast where listeners submit game show ideas for others to play on air.

[26:17] Well, it is.

[26:18] In fact, the dumber the better.

[26:20] Right, right.

[26:21] It's called Dr. Game Show.

[26:22] Some curled up balls consider it a tradition, while others call it a train wreck.

[26:27] No, not you, Sue.

[26:29] It's Dr. Game Show.

[26:30] If you're the sort that likes to listen to people competing for refrigerator magnets,

[26:35] then curl up into a ball and listen to Dr. Game Show.

[26:38] Every other Wednesday, MaximumFun.org.

S6

[26:42] Are you a five-star baddie?

[26:44] If you answered yes, then Black People Love Paramore is the podcast for you.

[26:48] Contrary to the title, we are not a podcast about the band Paramore.

[26:51] Black People Love Paramore is a pop culture show about the common and uncommon interests of

[26:55] Black people in order to help us feel a little bit more seen.

[26:59] We are your co-hosts, Sequoia Holmes, Jewel Vicker, and Ryan Graham.

[27:03] And in each episode, we dissect one pop culture topic that mainstream media doesn't associate

[27:08] with the Black people, but we know that we like.

S5

[27:10] We get into topics like ginger ale, the golden girls, Black romance, Uno, and so much more.

S6

[27:16] Tune in every other Thursday to the podcast that's dedicated to helping Black people feel

[27:20] more seen.

[27:21] Find Black People Love Paramore on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[27:27] Hey, Flophouse listeners.

[27:30] If you live in the Chicago area and have no plans for the evening of Sunday, November 16,

[27:36] we have added a late show, a late live show after our first show sold out.

[27:42] We will be talking about K-9, starring Jim Belushi, known worldwide as one of the two Belushi options.

[27:49] The show's at Sleeping Village at 9.30 p.m., and if you go to the events page at flophousepodcast.com,

[27:57] you'll find a link to get tickets.

[28:00] Also, the Flop TV season is in full swing, but you can still get individual tickets or a season pass

[28:06] and not miss anything, because all of the episodes will be available on demand through February of

[28:14] 2026.

[28:16] But if you want to join us live, those shows are on the first Saturday of every month.

[28:21] It's a video stream where we're covering film flops starting in the 2000s and going all the

[28:27] way back to the 1950s with additional presentations, pre-tapes, questions from the live chat.

[28:35] So, if you want to see those shows, go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com, that is T-I-X for ticks, for tickets and more info.

[28:45] That's theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[28:49] Now, back to the show.

[28:52] And we are back.

[28:54] And, of course, we are kicking off movies off of lists of top films, because why not?

[29:02] What better thing can we do on this Saturday afternoon when we're recording this?

[29:08] And the next esteemed list that we'll be talking about is, of course, Elliot Kalin's top four on Letterboxd.

[29:17] What do we got here?

[29:18] We got The Taking of Pelham 123.

Stuart Wellington

[29:20] Seen it.

[29:21] This is the recent one, right?

[29:23] Nope.

[29:24] No.

[29:25] Nope.

[29:25] The original one.

Dan McCoy

[29:27] We have Shadow of a Doubt, the Alfred Hitchcock picture.

[29:31] The Miracle of Morgan's Creek by Preston Sturges.

[29:36] And Closely Watched Trains, a gem of the Czech New Wave.

[29:41] I'm told.

[29:41] I've not seen it.

Elliott Kalan

[29:41] Some would say the shining jewel in the crown of the Czech New Wave.

[29:44] Yeah.

[29:45] Wow.

[29:45] Fireman's Ball attacked.

[29:47] Fireman's Ball's great.

Stuart Wellington

[29:48] Fireman's Ball's great.

[29:49] It's no Closely Watched Trains.

[29:51] So, what do we got here?

[29:53] Yeah, just like looking at that list, I think I've only seen one of the four movies, Taking of Pelham 123.

[29:58] So, I'm going to kick that one off because I want to see the others.

Elliott Kalan

[30:01] Okay.

[30:02] That's fair.

Stuart Wellington

[30:03] Because I trust Elliot's opinion.

[30:05] And if you put these other movies on there, they got to be great.

[30:07] And I don't want to kick them off before I see them.

Dan McCoy

[30:10] Like all right-thinking people and New Yorkers in particular, I love Taking of Pelham 123.

[30:17] I love Hitchcock in general.

[30:18] I love Shadow of a Doubt.

[30:19] I also love Preston Sturgis, but Miracle of Morgan's Creek is not one of my favorites.

[30:24] So, I have to go with that one.

[30:26] Like there are at least two or three Sturgis movies I like more.

[30:30] What are you going to put on?

Elliott Kalan

[30:31] The Lady Eve?

[30:32] No, thank you.

[30:34] Hey, we can disagree on these.

[30:35] I mean, I like the Lady Eve, but I just don't like it as much.

S2

[30:37] I'll tell you what mine is last.

[30:38] I've also never seen the Sturgis film.

[30:41] And it's interesting because like these are – I like this top four just because they're not the first movies I would think of for any of the filmmakers that you've chosen.

[30:52] But like, I don't know.

[30:54] Yeah, I like Stewart's criteria.

[30:57] Like let's just eliminate the one, you know, if you've seen it, take it off.

[31:00] So, I also have to lose Pelham even though it's a – I watched it recently for the first time during COVID.

[31:06] And it's a pretty unbelievable movie, I do have to say.

[31:10] But fuck it.

[31:11] It's dead to me.

[31:12] I mean, I hate it.

[31:12] Okay, but it's done.

[31:13] Cancel, cancel.

[31:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:15] Elliot, which of your –

[31:16] You just put a bullet in the back of its head.

[31:17] Yeah.

[31:18] Which of your film children do you like the least?

[31:21] Now this is a tough one for you.

Elliott Kalan

[31:22] The thing that I think is the saving grace of this list is that I'm not saying these are the greatest movies ever made and I'm not saying that these are the top, top movies.

[31:31] But these are my favorite movies.

[31:32] But I actually – I think I'm going to have to – I haven't been on Letterboxd in so long because my life does not give me time to do recreational things.

[31:40] Too busy.

[31:41] Too busy.

[31:42] Yeah, 2B.

[31:42] Too busy.

[31:44] And I think – honestly, I might have to take off closely watched Trains because lately – I think because it was at – I'm thinking about Wizard of Oz, The Sphere.

[31:54] I've been thinking about how much I love The Wizard of Oz and like how special that movie is to me.

[31:58] And it should be on that list.

[32:00] I might even bump it up a little bit and bump some of the other movies down.

[32:05] Like taking Peloton 2, that's always going to be the number one spot.

[32:08] Shadow of a Doubt, I just love it particularly.

[32:10] And it has a – it was shot in the town kind of next over from my wife's hometown.

[32:16] So I've been to a lot of the places that it was shot and I'm really excited by that.

[32:20] But also Miracle in Morgans Creek, that was the second Sturgis movie I ever saw.

[32:25] My grandmother took me to see a double billet film for him years and years ago of Unfaithfully Yours and Miracle in Morgans Creek.

[32:31] And Unfaithfully Yours is pretty good.

[32:32] But seeing Miracle in Morgans Creek, I'm like – I don't think I've ever seen an old movie that silly in some ways.

[32:40] But Closely Watch Trains, I love.

[32:41] But I think I might have to take it off and slot Wizard of Oz in that slot and then put CWT right afterwards.

[32:48] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[32:50] Well, I'm not going to let myself get off the hook.

[32:54] The next list is Dan McCoy's top four on Letterboxd.

[32:58] Uh-oh.

[32:59] So we got here.

[33:01] Bikini Car Wash Company.

[33:03] Emanuel in space.

[33:05] It's got everything.

[33:06] It's got Emanuel.

[33:07] It's got space.

[33:08] What more do you want?

[33:10] Emanuel's got to be in something.

[33:11] Why not space?

[33:14] Those little rules.

[33:16] North by Northwest.

[33:18] Animal Crackers.

[33:19] The Marx Brothers picture.

[33:21] The Third Man.

[33:23] And The Thing.

[33:24] John Carpenter's The Thing.

[33:27] It's a good list.

[33:28] It's tough.

[33:28] It's a toughie.

[33:29] I'll go last on this one just because it's my own.

[33:32] Can you repeat them?

[33:33] Do the more again?

[33:35] North by Northwest.

[33:36] Alfred Hitchcock's film.

[33:38] Animal Crackers with the Marx Brothers.

[33:40] The Third Man.

[33:42] And The Thing.

Stuart Wellington

[33:45] I guess if you're going to, if I'm going to have to pick because I think these are all great.

[33:50] But I would, I guess I just am not the biggest Marx Brothers fan.

[33:56] And so I would probably put Animal Crackers.

[33:59] Of those four.

[34:01] I, you know, again, I think it's good.

[34:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[34:07] Thank you, Stuart, for being very thoughtful about my feelings.

Stuart Wellington

[34:10] No, but I mean just in general, like, I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[34:13] No, I don't care about your feelings.

[34:14] I'm just, it's important.

S2

[34:15] Yeah, I mean, I do care about your feelings.

[34:17] You know in The Third Man when they go up in the big, it's like, what is it?

[34:22] Like a.

[34:22] The Ferris wheel.

[34:24] Ferris wheel.

[34:25] And it's, it's really high up.

[34:28] That scared me, so I'm taking that one out.

[34:30] And the Zither's super annoying, too.

[34:32] I like, I love that movie.

[34:33] Wow.

[34:34] Wow.

[34:34] Shots fired.

[34:35] Shots fired.

[34:35] I can't, I don't know.

[34:39] And his name is Lime?

[34:41] That's a fruit.

[34:42] That's messed up, man.

[34:44] Infusing.

[34:45] You have to find random criteria if you, like, can't do it otherwise.

[34:49] Like, I can't, at the merit of these films, it's a perfect list.

[34:52] I can't really do.

Stuart Wellington

[34:53] Animal Crackers is a snack that I don't like that much.

[34:57] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[35:00] I think it's going to be, this is a tough one because it's a very good list.

[35:03] I think I would either push off, I think it's going to have to be North by Northwest under

[35:08] the criteria of not my favorite Hitchcock.

[35:11] Yeah.

[35:11] Wonderful movie, but not my favorite of his.

[35:14] Whereas The Thing, although The Thing is not my favorite John Carpenter movie, it's his

[35:18] best movie.

[35:20] But it's not my favorite.

[35:21] In the Mouth of Madness, which is not his best, but which I just, I love how much weird

[35:24] stuff is crammed into that movie and how the movie, like, at the end, there's, like, two

[35:29] fake endings because it's almost like the movie is like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[35:33] I got more movie to show you.

[35:34] I got more stuff to throw at you.

[35:35] But what if this happened?

[35:36] But what if this was it, you know?

[35:39] But the, yeah, so I think, now I think I'll unfortunately push off North, Northwest, if

[35:44] only because also we've talked about Hitchcock before in other lists.

[35:48] We got Vertigo on one list.

[35:49] We got Shadowed Down on mine.

[35:50] And The Thing feels like a real newcomer, you know?

[35:53] Yeah.

[35:53] And it's so well done.

[35:54] You know, it's got such a great score.

[35:56] It's almost as good a score as The Third Man.

Stuart Wellington

[35:58] And The Thing is probably the only one on that list.

[36:01] No, Zither.

[36:02] The Thing is the only one on that list that Roger Ebert was like, stinker.

Elliott Kalan

[36:08] So Roger Ebert also said, he also said, like, Blue Velvet was a stinker.

[36:11] You know, he hated The Graduate.

S2

[36:13] Had to apologize for knocking the Simon and Garfunkel score for The Graduate.

[36:16] He literally wrote in his review, like, these songs are immemorable.

[36:20] Like, that's exactly the word I would use.

Dan McCoy

[36:25] Elliot, I would like to thank you for pointing the way for me where, as you say, these are

[36:30] favorite movies, not necessarily the best movies.

[36:34] And so even though it is arguably the best movie on my list, I have the least personal

[36:42] sentimental affection for The Third Man.

[36:45] So I guess I'll have to lose that.

Elliott Kalan

[36:48] I love that.

[36:48] That's one I used to watch a lot when I was like a teenager.

[36:50] It's an amazing movie.

[36:52] Yeah.

[36:53] It's terrific.

[36:55] I'm curious, do you just find Animal Crackers the funniest of the bunch of the movies?

Dan McCoy

[36:59] It's my vote for the funniest.

[37:03] I remember, you know, at The Daily Show, I was like writing a Larry...

[37:10] You were loudly lambasted for loving Animal Crackers the most.

[37:12] No, no, I was writing a Larry Wilmore piece with Jason Ross.

[37:17] And Jason, of course, was mostly writing it because he was more senior to me by far.

[37:22] That's what it's like when you're working with Jason Ross.

Elliott Kalan

[37:24] This is a writer that...

[37:25] This is a comedy writer who...

[37:27] I would say to people sometimes that writing with him was a little bit like going on a

[37:30] long car ride with your dad.

[37:32] We're like, he's just kind of silently writing it and every now and then you say something

[37:35] and you kind of see if he's going to react to it or not.

[37:37] No, a great guy.

[37:38] I love him and he's a great writer.

Dan McCoy

[37:39] But, you know, Larry's a student of comedy and loves the Marx Brothers and the most bonding

[37:48] that occurred was me saying that, oh, I love Animal Crackers.

[37:50] He's like, yes, yes, that's my favorite one.

[37:52] It's got the most good bits, you know, so no higher authority than Larry Wilmore also

[37:58] agrees with Animal Crackers.

[37:59] He knows what he's talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[38:00] I would disagree, but he knows what he's talking about.

[38:03] I think the funniest one is H-feathers.

Dan McCoy

[38:09] You don't have enough time to say the full title.

[38:11] No, I don't have time to say horse.

[38:15] Well, I did a little research on our guest.

[38:18] I don't know if his top four is up to date.

[38:21] I was worried about this.

[38:22] Sean Malin's top four on Letterboxd.

[38:24] We've got Being There.

[38:27] We've got Being John Malkovich.

[38:29] Also great.

[38:29] We have the Unbearable Lightness of Being, so the Being Trilogy.

Elliott Kalan

[38:33] What is going on with all the Beings?

[38:34] And then Mr. Being.

Dan McCoy

[38:36] And then The Pleasure of Being Robbed.

[38:38] Another Being.

[38:39] It's a gag.

S2

[38:39] I mean, I mess with my Letterboxd, my top four all the time because, you know, I'm a professional

[38:44] working critic.

[38:45] Like, I'm not going to give free shit to Letterboxd.

[38:48] Like, that's just like dumb thoughts that I have.

[38:50] I don't put like professional shit there.

[38:52] So I mess around all the time.

[38:55] I used to have the American, you know, American Pie, American Made, blah, blah, blah.

[39:02] Those are definitely not my top four.

[39:04] I just thought they were four funny movies to like represent a wide swath of things.

[39:09] I do like all four of those movies.

[39:10] But we are locked in.

[39:11] So we're locked in.

[39:12] We're locked in.

[39:13] We've got to eliminate one.

Stuart Wellington

[39:14] Wait, which one's Being There?

Dan McCoy

[39:16] Being There is Peter Sellers.

[39:18] Right.

[39:19] It's a Hal Ashby movie.

[39:20] And honestly, that's my pick for what I would.

[39:23] I haven't seen the last one mentioned The Pleasure of Being Robbed.

[39:27] What's that?

[39:28] I.

[39:29] Yeah, it's a safety movie.

S2

[39:30] It's a super early movie around the same era as Daddy Long Legs.

[39:35] And I would immediately eliminate that because it's a good movie.

[39:38] But yeah, I mean, it's very, it was made cheaply.

[39:41] It's got a kind of intensity to it, but it's like, you know, it didn't change film history.

[39:45] It opened up the safety to what they are, but it's not.

[39:49] It's like an hour and a half tummy ache type movie right now.

[39:52] I mean, that's what their other movies are.

[39:54] I just think it's funny when you say tummy ache.

[39:55] And it's like dallying with poverty, that kind of thing.

[39:57] It's very like hardcore, gritty New York shit.

Dan McCoy

[40:00] Yeah.

[40:00] Okay.

[40:01] Well, I'll trust you on that, but I haven't seen it.

[40:04] So I'm going to go with Being There, which I always found a little facile in its satire.

[40:09] A little 70s, like, oh, look at this, you know.

[40:14] Take down the, I'm showing how society is really, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[40:19] I love that you're like mad at a movie for going, look at this.

Stuart Wellington

[40:24] Most of the experience of a movie is looking.

[40:26] Yeah, most of them like, hey, look at this.

[40:28] They're books for your eyes.

[40:29] Yeah.

[40:29] I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to kick off Being John Malkovich because I find

[40:33] John Cusack's ponytail unpleasant.

[40:38] Although, again, I'll tell this story every time I talk about this movie.

[40:41] I took my mom to see that in the theater, and this was back when my mom was drinking,

[40:46] so she was a lot of fun.

[40:47] And she fell asleep in the middle of the movie.

[40:51] Before that, though, when he first got to that office that's, you know, in the, what, 33 and a half floor or whatever.

[40:57] The half floor.

Dan McCoy

[40:57] That one where some peanuts.

Stuart Wellington

[40:58] My mom loudly said to the entire theater, what a terrible place to work.

[41:03] And I'm like, mom, you're not wrong.

[41:05] And then she fell asleep and then woke up during the final chase.

[41:08] And I'm like, I wonder what she thinks is happening.

Elliott Kalan

[41:12] This is, that reminds me of when, the same grandmother that took me to the Preston Sturgis movies.

[41:16] We went to see the movie Courage Under Fire when that came out.

[41:18] And around the time that one of the characters commits suicide by driving straight into a train because he's so ashamed of what happened in the mission where Meg Ryan's character is killed,

[41:27] my grandmother just turns to me and very loudly goes, this is a very serious movie.

[41:33] I was like, what did you expect, Grandma?

[41:35] You think it was like a comedy called Courage Under Fire?

[41:38] Ah, family.

[41:39] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:41] Sean, who are you, what are you kicking off?

Elliott Kalan

[41:42] Sean picked pleasure being Rob.

Dan McCoy

[41:45] Yeah.

[41:45] Oh, right.

[41:46] I'm going to follow your lead, Sean.

Elliott Kalan

[41:49] I'm also going to say the pleasure of being robbed.

[41:50] It's good, but it's, I've never seen the unbearable lightness of being.

[41:53] Maybe I'll see it at some point.

[41:54] So I can't kick it off according to the made up rules that we have.

[41:59] And being there and being.

Stuart Wellington

[42:00] No, those are personal rules.

[42:00] You can make up any rule you want for your own.

[42:02] Oh, then I'll kick them all off and put movies I like.

[42:04] Take a pill of one, two, three.

Elliott Kalan

[42:06] Shadow of a doubt.

[42:07] But being there for all that Dan doesn't like it, I really love.

[42:11] And being John Malkovich, I really love.

[42:12] That was one that hit me really hard when I was a freshman in college,

[42:16] when it first came out.

[42:17] And it was just very exciting.

[42:19] And it felt like, oh, I'm seeing.

[42:21] It felt for the first time like I'm seeing the new movies of the,

[42:24] of what like my generation of moviegoers are going to be really excited about.

[42:29] And it's not Magnolia.

[42:31] The other movie that came out, I think the same year where someone I knew went and saw it like

[42:36] 10 times in the theater because he couldn't get enough of it.

[42:38] And I'm like, that's not the one for me.

[42:39] Being John Malkovich is the one for me.

[42:40] But being there, I really love.

[42:42] There's a, there's a, I think it's, I think it does hit that satirical point.

[42:46] And I find it very beautiful at the end.

[42:48] But you know, Dan, you can, you can poo poo it because of all the great movies you've

[42:52] made.

[42:52] Oh, wait a second.

[42:53] Huh?

[42:53] What's this?

Dan McCoy

[42:54] Oh man.

[42:55] He's got you there, Dan.

[42:56] All right.

[42:57] Set the rights.

[42:58] Lock him up.

[42:59] Give me several million dollars and I'll make a movie to prove you wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[43:02] All right.

[43:02] You're on.

[43:03] Oh, I got, Sean, do you have several million dollars on the hook to this now?

[43:06] I do.

S2

[43:07] And I'm happy to loan them out to you guys.

[43:09] That'd be wonderful.

[43:10] That'd be great.

Dan McCoy

[43:12] Well, if Stuart didn't see where this was headed already, he's also sitting right next to me

[43:16] so he can literally see.

[43:17] Now, Stuart.

[43:18] Oh no.

[43:19] The iconoclast that Stuart is only has.

Stuart Wellington

[43:20] When they came for Elliot Kalin and the sight and sound list, I said nothing.

Dan McCoy

[43:25] Stuart, being an iconoclast, of course, only has three movies on his top four.

[43:33] And those movies are.

Elliott Kalan

[43:35] You can't force him to pick a fourth movie.

Dan McCoy

[43:37] Castle Freak, Head of the Family, and The Invisible Maniac.

Stuart Wellington

[43:41] Now, I just want to say up front, you know, we've talked about movies being kind of our

[43:46] favorites, but I think in this case, I've chosen what I would say objectively are the

[43:51] best movies ever made.

S2

[43:53] I don't think I've seen any of the three.

[43:55] What are they?

[43:56] Whoa!

[43:57] Yeah.

[43:57] Castle Freak.

Dan McCoy

[44:00] Castle Freak, Head of the Family, and The Invisible Maniac.

[44:03] Now, for listeners who have joined us relatively recently and don't get the bit, this was for

[44:10] a long time the holy trinity of Stuart's movies, films that he would recommend over and over

Stuart Wellington

[44:17] again.

[44:17] During the recommendation segments of the podcast, I would recommend these movies every other

[44:22] week, rotating.

[44:24] Specifically, I recommended Castle Freak and was talking about how the titular freak rips

[44:28] his own ding dong off, and then people started writing letters into me, and then people were

[44:32] tweeting at the director, Stuart Gordon, and he was like, no, that didn't happen.

[44:36] It was a real mess.

[44:37] But I still think I'm right.

[44:39] So...

Dan McCoy

[44:39] It was a...

[44:40] You know, it was often a fallback, I think, when you maybe forgot that you were going to

[44:44] have to recommend something and hadn't seen something, or...

[44:48] Or I just thought it would be funny to do...

[44:51] RIP Stuart Gordon.

Elliott Kalan

[44:53] Yeah, RIP to a master.

[44:54] I feel like the height of this...

[44:56] The height of this bit was when someone tweeted at him, did the Castle Freak rip his own

[45:00] ding dong off, and Stuart Gordon just tweeted back, no.

[45:03] But also, if you went on Amazon and looked up any of these movies, it would say, customers

[45:08] also purchase Head of the Family and Invisible Maniac.

[45:11] So, people are really getting these...

[45:13] The Flop House influence.

Stuart Wellington

[45:14] Yep, yep.

[45:15] The Flop House bump in the St. Wellington trilogy.

[45:15] Never before has somebody crushed me with two letters before.

[45:20] Yeah.

[45:20] And Stuart Gordon just saying no.

Dan McCoy

[45:22] But on the upside, you eventually got to meet Giorgio the Castle Freak when we hosted...

[45:26] Jonathan Fuller, yeah.

[45:27] ...Castle Freak screening at Alamo Yonkers.

Stuart Wellington

[45:29] And it's weird.

[45:30] The glossy, the 8x10 glossy he signed, it did say, I ripped it off myself.

[45:35] So, I don't know.

[45:36] I guess that's canon.

Dan McCoy

[45:37] I guess the glossy's a canon now.

Elliott Kalan

[45:40] Yeah.

[45:41] Who do we believe?

[45:41] The director of the film or the...

[45:42] The Library of Congress.

[45:43] The glossy.

Dan McCoy

[45:44] Yeah.

[45:45] Of these films, while it is fun to talk about, there's more assault in The Invisible Maniac.

[45:52] So, I guess I'm going to get rid of that one.

Elliott Kalan

[45:54] I mean, they're all full of assault.

[45:57] These are not...

[45:57] There's not movies that have respect for the human body or the female body in the way that

[46:01] perhaps we would like to believe we have.

[46:03] But again, they're movies.

[46:04] You know, they're meant to horrify.

[46:06] And I guess Invisible Maniac is more to titillate, I guess.

[46:09] But they're sort of horrified, yeah.

[46:11] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[46:11] Yeah.

[46:13] So, I think they're all good.

[46:17] I left one off for a reason because there can only be three.

[46:21] I would say of those three, all jokes aside, I would say, yeah.

[46:25] I mean, I feel like The Invisible Maniac, though it does feature a guy being killed with a submarine sandwich

[46:31] and another guy being killed with a Mario stomp on the head.

[46:36] I would say The Invisible Maniac.

[46:38] It has the most gross stuff in it.

[46:40] It's probably...

[46:40] Well, I think it's also kind of the weakest of the three.

[46:43] Like, Head of the Family, I think, is a very silly movie that is kind of...

[46:45] It's that, like, fun in a full moon kind of way.

[46:48] And I think Castle Freak's great because it's a Stuart Gordon movie.

S2

[46:51] I'm going to add Citizen Kane since we've seen it on a bunch of lists and then take it off of your...

[46:56] Thank you.

[46:57] That's good.

[46:57] Thank you.

[46:58] Just to put Orson in his place fully.

Elliott Kalan

[47:00] Yeah.

[47:01] He's had it too easy for too long.

[47:02] That's what I've been saying.

[47:03] Yeah.

[47:03] If anyone had an easy time in Hollywood, I know it's Orson Welles.

[47:05] I actually have a pamphlet about this for you guys.

[47:08] Well, good news for Orson.

[47:11] This made me mad the other day.

[47:12] They go, this company is like, as an AI experiment, we're going to have it recreate the Magnificent Ambersons.

[47:18] I'm like, come on.

[47:19] Don't do that.

S2

[47:19] What are you talking about?

[47:20] The last 45 minutes of the Magnificent Ambersons, they're going to put into a large language learning model and see what it spits out.

[47:27] It's just going to be a very large Orson Welles, like, late in his life.

[47:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:33] It's going to be 45 minutes of him talking about wine, French wines.

[47:36] And yeah.

[47:36] But that made me very mad.

[47:39] But yeah, which one am I going to take off this list?

[47:44] That was a smooth move, adding a movie and then taking it off.

[47:47] That really sidestepped.

[47:48] That was very clever.

[47:49] That was outsmart a demon in a folktale.

[47:52] Clever.

[47:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:54] I didn't know we were recording with John Constantine.

Elliott Kalan

[48:01] I think I might remove, even though Invisible Maniac, I think, is a little more questionable.

[48:08] I might remove Head of the Family just for variety.

Dan McCoy

[48:12] You're going to mess with the head then, you said.

[48:14] I am going to mess with the head and see if I end up dead.

[48:15] That's the one thing you're not supposed to do.

[48:18] Oh, no.

[48:18] I did it.

[48:20] Well, that was the end of my silliness.

[48:22] Sean, before we sign off, is there more you want to say about the podcast, Banthony, or anything?

[48:29] I didn't really give you an excuse.

S2

[48:30] Does anybody on your show know that you're in the book?

[48:34] Do they know that you guys earned your spot by being one of the most important podcasts ever released?

[48:39] Thank you.

[48:40] I've done a little promotion.

[48:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:45] Please do.

[48:46] We're getting better at owning our successes.

S2

[48:49] Yes.

[48:49] Yeah.

[48:50] It's taken a lot of therapy for me to do the same.

[48:52] Like, the book is coming out and I have to be like, oh, yes, I'm proud of what I've done.

[48:56] But I don't know.

[48:57] I mean, the three of you are in the book.

[48:59] You say shit in it that you've never said on the air.

[49:02] There's exclusives in there.

[49:05] Exclusive Stuart Wellington content.

[49:07] Full-color photos of us in the book.

[49:10] You're early, too, right?

[49:12] You're like in the early season.

Elliott Kalan

[49:13] I think because you put it in order of best, so we're number one or two, right?

[49:17] Something like that.

[49:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[49:18] And I was joking about how it kind of starts off like, you know, this podcast started off with some questionable stuff, but then it got good.

Dan McCoy

[49:28] This is all true, though.

[49:30] But honestly, like, if anyone's coming to our podcast, they probably should know that.

[49:33] Like, maybe don't start at the very beginning.

[49:35] No.

[49:35] Start once we got good at doing it.

[49:38] Start in year three, yeah.

S2

[49:39] I think I love the podcast because I heard that stuff and, like, watched the growth.

[49:43] You know, people can do what they want.

[49:45] But you should at least embrace the fact that in this book, you are among the funniest chapters.

[49:55] I mean, like, the chapter is funny.

[49:57] Like, it's just enjoyable to read.

[49:59] I don't know if it's as good as an episode, but I think if people like you, they'll giggle.

[50:05] Yeah.

[50:05] And you don't get that in a lot of books now.

[50:07] They're all very, like, you know, everything's so serious.

Dan McCoy

[50:12] Yeah.

[50:12] But also, like, I mean, I, you know, as a podcast listener, I respect the editorial voice of the, like, the ones that I'm familiar with.

[50:24] I'm like, yeah, yeah.

[50:25] These are good podcasts.

[50:26] So, I'm excited to then use it as it's intended to be used and be like, I'll check out some of these other things I don't know about.

Stuart Wellington

[50:34] It's also quite an honor just flipping through seeing some of the other shows on there because there's some really great podcasts in this book.

[50:42] Were there, did you, were there any interviews that you really wanted to do but weren't able to do?

[50:47] Like, were you like, I want to talk to Obama?

[50:49] And he's like, no way.

[50:51] Tons.

S2

[50:51] Yeah.

[50:52] And in a second edition or expanded edition in success, we have a lot more that we would add to this, like 101 plus another 101.

[51:00] Yeah.

[51:01] Because there's so many amazing podcasts out there.

[51:03] Not that there wasn't, like, a big selection process.

[51:06] You know, it took months and months and months to whittle down.

[51:08] But, yeah, there were a lot of people who were just not available or chose not to participate.

[51:15] And I basically said, fuck you, you're dead to me.

[51:19] Yeah.

[51:20] Take them off the list.

[51:21] Yeah.

[51:21] You're not the canon.

[51:23] No.

[51:24] Yes, there were people that I wanted to talk to and it just didn't happen on time.

[51:27] You know, you have a schedule to publish.

Stuart Wellington

[51:31] Was there anyone that you were surprised that you were able to interview?

[51:35] Anybody who you were like, oh, wow.

[51:36] Oh, sure.

S2

[51:38] Yeah.

[51:39] I mean, Conan O'Brien is amazing in the book.

[51:42] That's pretty great.

[51:43] He wrote pages of material for the book.

[51:45] I'm like, why?

[51:46] Why?

[51:49] Yeah.

[51:51] The office ladies I thought were going to be impossible to reach because they're so, like,

[51:56] world famous, you know, even before their podcast.

[51:58] But they were really helpful.

[52:00] And they talk about, like, eating cheese in the book.

[52:02] Like, their whole schedule is mentioned.

[52:04] That was pretty great.

[52:05] That's awesome.

[52:06] And then there were people who are, like, you know, pseudonymous people like Marlo Mack,

[52:11] who has the podcast How to Be a Girl.

[52:13] Like, Marlo doesn't give a lot of interviews to protect her daughter who's trans, but she

[52:18] agreed to speak with me, you know, over email pseudonymously.

[52:21] But still pretty rare.

[52:24] That was cool.

[52:24] You guys were pretty accessible, I have to say.

[52:27] It wasn't that hard.

Elliott Kalan

[52:28] Yeah.

[52:28] We're neither.

[52:29] It wasn't that hard.

[52:30] Which is not as impressive nor as surprising.

Dan McCoy

[52:33] Yeah, yeah.

[52:34] We were running after you, like, hey, hey, hey.

[52:36] Hey.

Elliott Kalan

[52:37] But you are all pseudonymous, which I think is weird.

Dan McCoy

[52:39] People don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[52:40] Yeah.

[52:40] They don't know.

[52:41] These are characters we play.

[52:42] All the details we give about our real lives are completely fabricated.

[52:45] Yeah, yeah.

S2

[52:46] No.

[52:47] Dan doesn't even have any cats.

[52:48] Oh, my God.

[52:49] Really?

[52:49] No.

[52:50] You guys were so nice to be in the book and Max Fun for providing all the licenses and stuff.

[52:56] Like, it's just awesome.

[52:57] I was so excited.

[52:58] And I've been listening to you guys for a decade.

[53:01] It was fun.

[53:02] It was nice.

[53:03] You were easy to work with.

Stuart Wellington

[53:05] It was simple.

[53:06] And you have a couple of, like, book launch events coming up.

[53:11] There's going to be one next week.

[53:13] Yeah, I don't think this is going to be out in time.

[53:15] Do we know when it's coming out, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[53:17] Let me.

[53:18] I was not prepared for this, but I'll figure it out.

[53:21] I should have been.

Elliott Kalan

[53:22] I don't think Sean's surprised that we weren't prepared to know offhand what day it is.

Dan McCoy

[53:27] I believe this should be coming out on October 4th.

S2

[53:33] Yeah, okay.

[53:33] So if you're listening to it on October 4th, we have an event at Book Passage in San Francisco.

[53:37] We're going to have a bunch of famous podcasters.

[53:39] Glenn Washington from Snap Judgment and Spook will be there.

[53:42] The Ear Hustle folks, Erlon Woods and Nigel Poore.

[53:46] And then Vanessa Lowe of Nocturne.

[53:47] Oh, it's going to be an amazing event at Book Passage, 3 p.m. in San Francisco.

[53:52] And then in Austin, I'll be at Book People, which is really exciting.

[53:58] That's my old hometown bookstore.

[54:01] And then in November, I'll be at the Miami Book Fair with Dan Liebertard and Stu Gatz from the Dan Liebertard Show with Stu Gatz, if you can believe that.

[54:11] Yeah, there will be events all over.

[54:12] And I'm sure the four of us will do something down the line as well.

[54:16] I don't know when or where.

[54:17] But we'll have virtual events all throughout the end of the year and then early into next year.

[54:22] And of course, if and when the book does well, maybe there will be a second thing and there will be more.

[54:27] Yeah, like the movie version we'll play ourselves.

[54:30] Yeah, sure.

[54:31] I do think there should be a film adaptation or five.

[54:36] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[54:37] I think so.

[54:38] Let's figure it out.

[54:39] It's a big book.

[54:40] Yes.

[54:41] At least get to a third one so you can do the podcast Pan 3 on.

[54:46] Oh, yeah.

[54:47] Wonderful.

[54:48] Yes.

[54:49] You know, I'm available for writing a copy.

[54:52] For writing titles.

[54:54] For putting numbers in these files.

[54:55] We'll get a room together.

Elliott Kalan

[54:58] We're going to have to put a number in this title, but nobody knows how to do it.

Dan McCoy

[55:01] One guy.

[55:02] One guy with a rhyming dictionary.

Stuart Wellington

[55:05] Knows how to do it, you mean.

S2

[55:09] By the way, Dan, you can cut all of this promotional shit out.

[55:13] I just wanted you to like celebrate the fact that you're in the book.

[55:15] Oh, no, no, no.

Dan McCoy

[55:17] No, we'll keep it in and double it.

[55:19] We know how the game is played.

S2

[55:20] We know how to scratch backs.

[55:22] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:24] Yes, that's what it is.

[55:26] No, no.

[55:27] We've listened to Backscratch Fever.

[55:28] Yeah.

[55:29] It's because we're deeply honored by being in the book.

[55:31] And we want to say thank you to Sean for joining us for the silliness.

[55:36] We want to say thank you for putting us in the book in such great company.

[55:42] And as long as we're thanking people and entities, let's thank our network, Maximum Fun.

[55:49] Go to MaximumFun.org.

[55:49] So we're thanking entities.

Dan McCoy

[55:50] Let's thank Cthulhu of the younger ones.

Stuart Wellington

[55:52] There's still from Species.

Dan McCoy

[55:54] I'll mention that there are other Maximum Fun podcasts in the book.

[55:59] Bullseye is one.

[56:00] I know I'm forgetting another at least that's in there.

[56:04] Query with Cameron Esposito is also in there.

[56:06] Oh, awesome.

[56:08] So thank you to our network.

[56:10] Check out the other great podcasts, including ones in the podcast Pantheon.

[56:14] And thank you to Alex Smith, our producer, who goes by the name Howell Doughty on the internet.

[56:19] Check his work out as well.

[56:21] But for now, that's the end of this show.

[56:25] For the Flop House podcast, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[56:28] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[56:30] I've been Elliot Kalin.

Dan McCoy

[56:31] And we were joined by...

[56:32] Sean Malin.

[56:34] Maximum Fun.

S2

[56:41] A worker-owned network.

[56:42] Of artist-owned shows.

[56:44] Supported.

[56:45] Directly.

[56:46] By you.

FH Mini 138 - In the Pantheon

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