FH Mini 135 - The Movieboys of Summer

Dan McCoy

[0:00] Hey, it's Dan. These pre-rolls can get boring quickly, so I'll be fast.

[0:04] Flop TV is back this September 2025 through February 2026

[0:09] with all new streaming live shows that you can also see video on demand if you can't make it live.

[0:15] Individual tickets and season passes are available at theflophouse.simpleticks.com

[0:21] That's ticks spelled T-I-X

[0:23] as well as all the info that is too much to say here.

[0:27] Now, the show.

Stuart Wellington

[0:30] Hey, folks. It's me, Stuart Wellington of the Flophouse Podcast.

[0:36] And welcome to another installment of a Flophouse mini.

[0:40] That is our off-week episodes where instead of watching a bad movie and talking about it,

[0:45] we kind of do whatever we want.

[0:46] We've done some silly ones.

[0:48] We've done some scary ones.

[0:51] And we've done some serious ones.

[0:52] And today what we're going to be doing is closer to the serious ones

[0:56] where I am mainly using this as an opportunity to hang out and talk with my two friends.

[1:00] Today we're talking about a weird thing here for the Flophouse.

[1:03] We're talking about movies.

[1:06] So, real quick, if this is your first time listening to the Flophouse,

[1:10] I am one of the hosts.

[1:11] And joining me, as always, are...

[1:13] Dan McCoy.

[1:15] And Elliot Kalin.

[1:16] I didn't know if Dan was going to say and or not.

[1:19] Elliot was pausing to scroll through his phone for a second.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23] I just needed to look through the context to remember what my name is.

[1:26] Yeah.

[1:26] How do I pronounce that again?

[1:28] L-A-Yet?

[1:30] L-A-Yet.

[1:30] I am running for mayor of Los Angeles, as we established in a previous episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:34] So, L-A-Yet Kalin.

[1:35] That's canon now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37] We've...

Stuart Wellington

[1:37] Dan, put that canon down.

[1:40] Wow.

[1:40] He's carrying it?

[1:41] How strong is Dan?

[1:43] Very strong.

Dan McCoy

[1:44] That's also canon now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46] Uh-huh.

[1:46] Chalk it up.

[1:48] So, yeah, put it on the whiteboard.

[1:50] So, today we're talking about movies.

[1:51] And now there's been a fair amount of talk about lists lately.

[1:55] As always, if you follow the internet and pop culture...

[1:57] You remember years ago, everyone was talking about Schindlers.

[2:00] Plus one of them.

[2:02] Now that the naked gun's out, everyone wants to revisit Liam Neeson's other comedy work.

[2:06] Yeah.

[2:10] Yikes.

[2:11] So, I'm just goofing.

[2:13] It's all silly ones.

[2:13] We don't mean it, everybody.

[2:15] We don't mean it.

[2:15] It's just a joke.

[2:15] It's a joke.

[2:16] So, what we're talking about, specifically, I wanted to mention the New York Times recently

[2:20] had a 100 best movies of the last 25 years.

[2:24] And that encouraged a fair amount of debate on the internet.

[2:27] And they even encouraged folks to put together a list of, like, their 10 favorite movies from

[2:33] the last 25 years, which, of course, meant I did it quickly without thinking.

[2:37] Yeah.

[2:37] But did you guys...

[2:39] Are you familiar with this?

[2:40] Did you read the list or anything?

Dan McCoy

[2:41] I didn't read the list because I am in a fight with the New York Times over their increasingly

[2:49] bad coverage of the world.

Elliott Kalan

[2:51] Well, also, that one newsboy keeps waking you up when he throws the newspaper against the

[2:55] door.

Dan McCoy

[2:55] Yeah.

[2:55] But I did also...

[2:57] I felt FOMO.

[2:59] I wanted to play.

[3:00] So, I did make my own letterbox list of what I would put in that thing.

Elliott Kalan

[3:07] I saw that they were doing this and I deliberately did not read it because I think...

[3:12] I thought it would only...

[3:12] Also, FOMO, it only reminds me of all the movies I have not had a chance to see because

[3:16] of my busy, chaotic life.

[3:19] And so, I was like, I bet I'm not even going to have seen half of these.

[3:21] It's just going to make me feel like I'm missing out.

[3:22] So, I'm not even going to look at it.

Stuart Wellington

[3:24] And I didn't read the list, but I did use it as an opportunity to come up with a list

[3:29] of 10 favorites of mine with the additional rules because, you know, why not put more rules

[3:35] on it?

[3:35] You love rules.

[3:36] You're a gamester.

[3:37] No more than one entry from any one director because otherwise, it would just be all Lord

[3:43] of the Rings movies and Luca Guadagino movies.

Elliott Kalan

[3:46] That's exactly what I've guessed.

Stuart Wellington

[3:47] It would be all Peter Jackson and Luca Guadagino and that's it.

[3:49] That's the whole list.

[3:50] Yeah, that's the two sides of Stuart.

[3:53] A sensitive guy.

[3:54] I'm basically Samwise, right?

[3:56] Yeah, you are Samwise.

[3:57] A sensitive guy who likes going on adventures but kind of doesn't like going on adventures.

Elliott Kalan

[4:00] And Dan, he's the Frodo.

[4:02] He's the leader who also like is pretty complainy about having to be on this adventure.

Dan McCoy

[4:07] Yeah.

[4:08] Well, I mean, you know, why me, man?

[4:11] Yeah.

[4:11] Just because I'm nice enough to be able to hold a ring?

[4:13] Like, oh, my uncle stole a ring?

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] Now I've got to go to a volcano?

[4:16] What the hell is this?

[4:18] Mm-hmm.

[4:18] And I'm, of course, Marian Pippin smashed into one person.

[4:21] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[4:21] That's actually, that tracks.

[4:23] That's right.

[4:23] I'm glad that that's, before any listeners quickly write in and say, Ellie, it's Gollum.

[4:28] That's not fair.

[4:30] Only physically.

[4:31] Only as I age am I becoming Gollum.

[4:33] Yeah.

[4:33] Oh, yeah.

[4:34] We're all becoming Gollum.

[4:35] You're coughing up hairballs.

[4:38] He's got no hair.

[4:39] What are you talking about?

Elliott Kalan

[4:39] Gollum is like the least hairy character in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[4:42] Yeah, but he's always coughing.

[4:43] Like, that's kind of what inspired Andy Serkis' like Gollum cough thing.

[4:48] Those hairballs, which is kind of crazy if you think about it.

[4:51] Maybe he got it from like eating things with hair?

Dan McCoy

[4:54] Yeah, I guess.

[4:54] Yeah, he's eating little mammals.

[4:56] I just assume he always had like fish bones in his throat.

Elliott Kalan

[4:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:59] Yeah, he's always coughing up fish bones.

Elliott Kalan

[5:00] Because the band's fish bone wandered into the caverns and he ate them.

[5:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:03] Yeah, I love it.

[5:05] So funky.

[5:10] Okay.

[5:10] So what we're going to talk about today.

[5:12] So we're not going to talk about our favorite movies of the last 25 years.

[5:16] Oh, okay.

[5:17] That's a misdirect.

[5:19] It's part of the setup, which is going to take roughly half the podcast.

[5:23] Oh.

[5:24] Oh, cool.

[5:25] So this is like the games that you play, Stu.

[5:27] Uh-huh.

[5:28] Yep.

[5:29] We're still in character creation, boys.

[5:30] We got to fine tune our character's appearance.

[5:33] Mm-hmm.

[5:35] So we are also recording this kind of in like the middle of summer.

[5:40] One would call it the dog days of summer.

[5:42] Would you call it that, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[5:44] That's not a phrase I usually use in my day-to-day, no.

[5:48] Cool.

Stuart Wellington

[5:48] Okay.

[5:50] I would use it, but I would spell days D-A-Z.

[5:52] Oh, yeah.

[5:53] That makes sense.

[5:54] The cool way.

[5:55] So I don't know about you guys, but one thing that I always think about during the summer

[6:00] is going to big summer movies.

[6:03] And that's what we're talking about is we're going to be talking about the big summer movies

[6:06] of the last 25 years.

[6:09] Okay.

[6:09] Now, one of the reasons is because I don't know about you guys, but when I was growing

[6:13] up, I have very fond – like part of what made me love movies was as a kid going to see – I

[6:21] specifically remember at a friend's lake cottage going to see the first Batman.

[6:25] Must be nice.

[6:26] Batman.

[6:26] I mean, it wasn't my lake cottage.

[6:28] It was a friend.

[6:30] My dad would never splurge on the extravagance like a lake cottage.

[6:35] And they – I remember going to see the Tim Burton Batman movie at the like old-timey,

[6:42] like big movie house, like the – not, you know, a modern multiplex, but like –

[6:46] Like a big grand show house, like a movie palace.

[6:49] Exactly.

[6:49] And I remember seeing – I remember seeing Batman there, and it had like imprinted in my

[6:54] memory that feeling and the excitement of going to the movies.

Dan McCoy

[6:59] You were like Nicole Kidman in that moment.

Stuart Wellington

[7:02] Exactly.

[7:03] Heartbreak from seeing the jokester finally get his – meet his end.

[7:07] Felt good in a place like that.

[7:09] Do you guys have any fond memories of going to the movies?

[7:13] Obviously, I know Ellie is going to say seeing Jurassic Park like 10 times in the summer of

[7:17] 93.

[7:17] I saw it two days in a row.

Elliott Kalan

[7:19] I saw it at – I went to when it – I went to an 1130 screening the night before it officially

[7:23] opened, and then I went to see it after school the next day.

[7:26] So, yeah, that's a big part of it.

Stuart Wellington

[7:27] Can – like if childhood Elliot, who had seen Jurassic Park two days in a row, found out

[7:34] that older Elliot does not have time to see Jurassic Park two days in a row, how upset would

[7:39] young Elliot be?

[7:39] He'd be very upset.

Elliott Kalan

[7:40] There's a lot of things that young Elliot would be excited that older Elliot is doing,

[7:44] and a lot of things that he'd be disappointed older Elliot is not doing.

[7:48] But younger Elliot also just would see anything in theaters.

[7:50] I also saw Robin Hood Men in Tights two days in a row, twice.

[7:54] Oh, yeah.

[7:54] Oh, wow.

[7:55] So, like I had a lot of time on my hands to go to see movies.

[7:58] So –

Stuart Wellington

[7:58] I saw – I remember seeing Last of the Mohicans twice in the same day.

[8:02] Oh, wow.

[8:03] I went to like a birthday party during – in the like early part of the day, which is

[8:07] kind of a weird birthday party.

[8:09] Yes.

[8:10] And then being like, this movie fucking rocks.

[8:13] I need to see that shit again, and I just win again at night.

Dan McCoy

[8:15] Since it was brought up, I have a specific Men in Tights memory, which is that –

Elliott Kalan

[8:20] Oh, this is Dan's regular segment, Men in Tights memories.

Dan McCoy

[8:27] It's often a little disturbing, but this is a good memory, which is – yeah, I – my

[8:33] church youth group did a thing one time where they're like, we're going to do a marathon

[8:41] of movies in the theater.

Elliott Kalan

[8:43] We want you to learn about Judaism.

[8:44] So, we're going to go see Robin Hood Men in Tights.

Dan McCoy

[8:46] We're going to time it out so, you know, like we can go from movie to movie to movie,

[8:53] and we'll see three in a row in the theater, which is like Christmas for me because we never

[8:58] saw movies when I was growing up.

Elliott Kalan

[9:00] Let me interject.

[9:01] That's the kind of thing my family would do a fair amount is my mom would do that,

[9:04] would time it.

[9:05] So, we would see two or three movies in one day.

[9:07] We just spend the day at the movies.

[9:09] But she would pay for tickets for each, whereas my dad was the kind of guy who – there

[9:13] was a multiplex near us eventually.

[9:14] And he would – as the movie was ending, he would sneak out and go to the other theaters

[9:18] to see what was starting and scout ahead.

[9:20] And I remember going to see A Simple Plan with him, and he snuck back in the theater

[9:24] and goes, A Bug's Life is just about to start.

[9:26] Let's go see that.

[9:27] And I was like, I don't know.

[9:28] That might be too much tonal – tonal juxtaposition for me.

[9:32] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[9:32] Well, I'm going to – because you said that, I'm going to take a break from this anecdote

[9:36] and go to another brief interstitial anecdote, which is like –

Elliott Kalan

[9:40] This is a regular Dan McCoy segment called Auxiliary Anecdote.

[9:43] He interrupts one anecdote for another.

[9:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:46] No, it's just my family – my parents, when I was growing up, were never going to spend

[9:52] the money or the time on taking us out to the movies.

[9:56] They got three rowdy boys.

[9:58] Yeah, although both of these –

[9:59] Didn't you guys used to wrestle under the name of the Rowdy Boys?

[10:01] Yeah.

[10:02] I mean, Rowdy Boy McCoys.

[10:04] My brothers are 10 and 13 years older than me, so they were gone most of my youth.

[10:11] But by that time, I don't know.

[10:13] They just got into – like, we're not going to take people out for movies.

[10:16] But the one time that I would get to see movies is – because I was a movie-mad youth as

[10:22] I am a movie-mad adult, I would – for my birthday, and I had a summer birthday, I would

[10:28] want my, like, party to be like, hey, let's all go out and see a movie.

[10:32] Like, my friends, you know, a few of my friends and I would go out and see – so I saw

[10:35] Gremlins 2, the new batch on my birthday.

[10:40] That's a party.

[10:40] I saw What About Bob?

[10:42] I saw Maverick.

[10:44] These are all movies that I remember associated with –

[10:46] That rocks.

[10:47] But that was, you know, a special treat.

[10:50] We normally would not see movies.

[10:53] But I remember this youth group thing where it was – we saw first Robin Hood Men in Tights.

[10:59] Solid.

[11:00] Followed by The Fugitive.

[11:02] Great.

[11:02] Followed by So I Married an Axe Murderer.

[11:05] Has his charms.

Stuart Wellington

[11:06] Yeah.

[11:06] I mean, it was a –

[11:07] I mean, it's the weakest of the three.

Dan McCoy

[11:10] I would go with Men in Tights personally.

[11:12] I don't think that's a – I don't know.

[11:14] It's fine.

[11:15] It was fun.

[11:16] Elliot, you're talking about a movie Elliot saw twice.

Elliott Kalan

[11:19] I feel like if Mel Brooks' other movies, other better movies did not exist, people would

[11:24] have lost their shit over Men in Tights.

[11:26] Maybe, maybe.

[11:27] But in a world with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Men in Tights is a lesser

[11:30] work, certainly.

Dan McCoy

[11:31] But it's funny to me that, like –

[11:33] And Spaceballs.

[11:34] Every day –

[11:35] Spaceballs, I don't know.

[11:37] Every day I do the box office game online inspired by our friends over at Blank Check.

[11:43] There's an online version of the box office game where you try and remember what was on

[11:49] specific weekends at the box office.

[11:52] And whenever I reveal The Fugitive – and this has happened a few times – I immediately

[11:57] try and blind guess Men in Tights.

[12:00] And so I married an axe murderer because I know for a fact I saw them at the same time

[12:05] and this strategy has never paid off.

[12:08] I always lose points.

[12:09] I guess they were in and out of the theater so much faster than The Fugitive that I have

[12:14] to get the exact right weekend.

Stuart Wellington

[12:17] The Dan McCoy technique doesn't always pay off.

[12:20] It does not work.

Elliott Kalan

[12:20] But he never stops.

[12:22] That's persistence.

[12:23] You know, they say insanity is not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting

[12:27] different results.

Stuart Wellington

[12:29] Yeah.

[12:30] Now, I have a follow-up question.

[12:33] When you – actually, you did bring up What About Bob?

[12:36] And I think my favorite thing about What About Bob is going to see it and being like, this

[12:41] is great.

[12:42] I love this movie.

[12:42] This Bill Murray guy is great.

[12:43] He's from Ghostbusters.

[12:45] And coming home to tell my parents about it.

[12:46] And my mom was like, don't talk about it.

[12:48] Your dad hates Richard Dreyfuss.

Dan McCoy

[12:50] And I'm like, okay.

[12:52] And at the time, I'm like, why?

[12:54] But now I'm like, oh, it's because he's an asshole.

[12:56] Yeah.

[12:57] I mean, yeah.

[12:58] It's a policy that makes more sense now.

Elliott Kalan

[13:00] That was during the time – like, had your dad had a lot of personal encounters with

[13:03] Richard Dreyfuss?

Stuart Wellington

[13:03] No, he just hated him for – he probably played like a bad guy in a movie.

[13:07] It's like my parents both hate Paul Reiser because of aliens.

[13:12] That's so funny.

Dan McCoy

[13:13] Have you explained the difference between a character and an actor to them yet?

[13:16] I was a child at the time.

Elliott Kalan

[13:18] I didn't even understand it.

[13:19] But also to hate – pay Paul Reiser for a role that is such an outlier in the rest of

[13:24] his acting career is funny to me.

[13:26] But there's – so What About Bob came out during the period when my dad most looked like

[13:30] Richard Dreyfuss.

[13:31] And the joke that we had in our family was that you couldn't tell my dad and Richard

[13:34] Dreyfuss apart.

[13:35] And for his birthday that year, my sister made like – no, it was for a family project.

[13:40] We had a family project at school.

Stuart Wellington

[13:41] Did he ever use that to like pull off a heist?

[13:43] No, unfortunately no.

Elliott Kalan

[13:44] Or if he did, I didn't see any of the money.

[13:46] But we had a family project and my sister did a thing about how my dad looks like Richard

[13:50] Dreyfuss.

[13:50] And she just cut the faces of Richard Dreyfuss from the back of the What About Bob VHS

[13:55] box out and was like, can you tell the difference between my dad and Richard Dreyfuss?

[13:58] And people were like, I think your dad – that's him, right?

[14:01] Like they really thought he was one of them.

[14:03] But for my dad's 70th birthday, I made like a PowerPoint for him and a big chunk of it

[14:08] was about his double life as Richard Dreyfuss in the 1970s and 80s.

[14:12] I was like, you don't see Richard Dreyfuss in movies that much anymore.

[14:15] Well, my dad's been pretty busy.

[14:17] But anyway, so I can't think about what about Bob without thinking about my dad too.

Stuart Wellington

[14:22] Now, talking about going to the movies, I remember, Dan, you know, you're a family with three

[14:28] boys and maybe that factored into your parents not wanting to take you all out to movies.

[14:33] I remember my close friend who I'm sure I've mentioned on the podcast before, who was also

[14:39] my college roommate, Casey Crowe, was the eldest of four brothers.

[14:43] And anytime I would go with them to the movies, their mother would pack – everybody would

[14:48] like pre-pop popcorn for everyone and we would sneak our own popcorn in, which was not

[14:53] something my family did.

[14:55] And I think part of it is because, you know, you got to feed four hungry boys plus a steward.

[15:00] And I was a hungry boy back then.

[15:02] That's five boys.

[15:04] Did your – did you guys sneak – like Elliot mentioned, sneaking into other movies or buying

[15:09] a ticket to other movies.

[15:10] Did you bring in your outside snacks?

[15:13] There's no – no cops are going to drag you away.

[15:15] I think the statute of limitations is over, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:18] I don't recall ever doing – we definitely would never buy snacks because that would be

[15:22] too expensive.

[15:23] But I don't remember us either sneaking them in because we're a family of rule followers

[15:28] and that would not be allowed.

Elliott Kalan

[15:32] We were the opposite.

[15:33] We're a family of criminals and gone-ifs.

[15:35] And so almost every movie, my dad would be like, pop a bag of popcorn, put it under your

[15:40] coat.

[15:40] And I would say, can I have a soda?

[15:41] And he goes, I already brought some soda.

[15:43] And he'd pull out like a warm diet Coke in a can.

[15:45] I'd be like, great.

[15:46] Once we wanted candy –

Dan McCoy

[15:47] There's a bag in my pants.

Elliott Kalan

[15:49] Once he goes, it's okay.

[15:50] I brought some candy from a meeting I had earlier today.

[15:53] And he had like a couple warm dove chocolates that they must have had in a bowl in whatever

[15:57] place he was pitching a marketing campaign to.

[16:00] So we were very much a sneak your food into the theater type of family.

[16:04] Or he'd take us to the drugs.

Stuart Wellington

[16:06] This is like a Paul Giamatti character in the story of Elliot's life.

[16:10] I guess so.

Elliott Kalan

[16:11] He'd take us to a drugstore ahead of time so we could get bigger candy bars for less

[16:14] money than the ones at the movie theater.

[16:16] And he'd always be like, see?

[16:18] Look at the price difference.

[16:19] You shouldn't have to pay that much to the theater.

[16:20] You just pick something up ahead of time.

[16:22] And the way I've responded to this is that whenever I take my boys to the movie theater,

[16:25] we always buy the biggest possible popcorn.

[16:28] You know, it's like, take that, Dad.

[16:29] I'm going to spend the money you wouldn't spend.

[16:31] And then we eat too much and our tummies hurt.

Stuart Wellington

[16:33] You get a Galactus popcorn carrier that you have to, I don't know, get shipped back to

[16:39] your home.

[16:39] That's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[16:40] I never splurge for the collectible bucket, but more just because I know it's going to

[16:44] just hang around my house until eventually my wife throws it out.

[16:47] Like it's not going to get put on a shelf as a trophy or anything like that.

Stuart Wellington

[16:50] It's not going to be one of those things that like 10 years from now, your sons are going

[16:54] to be like, I found this thing.

[16:55] It's incredible.

[16:56] Yeah, I don't think so.

[16:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[16:58] You see this popcorn bucket, it's got these weird spines on it and you can put your penis

[17:02] into it.

[17:03] Oh, that's a Dune popcorn bucket.

[17:04] Don't put your penis in that.

Dan McCoy

[17:06] I had saved one of these recent Ghostbusters cups to give to Elliot.

[17:13] And then I said, oh, sorry, I forgot.

[17:15] I'd saved this cup.

[17:16] He's like, that's fine.

[17:17] I don't want it.

[17:18] It would just junk up the house.

[17:20] I'm like, okay, well.

Elliott Kalan

[17:21] We can't already, we have too many cups for our cupboard.

[17:23] Our cupboard is overflowing with cups, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[17:27] You might as well just throw out some of those cups and keep the one Dan gave you, but that's

[17:30] my two cents.

[17:33] That was Stuart's interstitial segment.

[17:36] Yeah, it's called my two cents.

Elliott Kalan

[17:37] It's always a surprise segment.

[17:38] He doesn't announce it till after he's already done it.

[17:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:41] So we've talked a little bit about nostalgia and I feel like when we talk about some of

[17:45] these big movies, I feel like nostalgia is going to play a large part.

[17:48] Nostalgia and sequels and the Disney company.

[17:52] But I have compiled a list using the internet of the number one summer movie of each year

[18:02] of the last 24-ish years.

[18:06] I did put the criteria that this is movies that came out between Memorial Day to Labor Day,

[18:13] right?

[18:13] So not including the like summer kickoff movie, which in many cases was a bigger release

[18:20] than the big summer movies of these years.

[18:23] I'll give you an opportunity to guess some of these.

[18:25] We're going to start way back in 2001 and we'll do a couple of those, maybe and then jump

[18:30] forward.

[18:31] So can you guys guess at what the number, like the big, just in terms of box office performance,

[18:39] the number one summer movie of 2001 is?

Dan McCoy

[18:43] You're starting exactly at the point where like my memory of these things starts falling

[18:49] off because it was much more important to me in childhood or like looms larger in my memory

[18:55] than like when I started actually going to the movies more often myself.

Elliott Kalan

[19:00] I mean, also you were having sex by that point, Dan.

[19:03] So you had other things on your mind then.

[19:05] In 2001?

[19:06] Well, maybe not 2001, but certainly by 2014.

[19:08] Oh, excuse me.

Dan McCoy

[19:10] Yes, I was.

[19:11] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[19:14] Okay, if you say so, bud.

Dan McCoy

[19:16] I mean, Dan, you haven't provided any proof, so we'll just have to take your word for it.

Stuart Wellington

[19:19] I need to see some receipts here.

[19:21] I think that kicked off in 97, if I recall correctly.

[19:24] Cool.

[19:24] Okay, well, let's check the tapes.

[19:27] You were taping me?

[19:29] Yeah.

[19:30] Yep.

[19:31] Okay, can you guys, do you want to give a guess or do you just want me to blow your minds?

Dan McCoy

[19:35] Yeah, blow my mind.

Stuart Wellington

[19:36] Yeah, yeah, give us our big mind blow.

[19:38] This is a sequel and it stars a beloved longtime action star and a somewhat beloved comedy performer.

Dan McCoy

[19:48] Oh, see, this is, I think we need, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:50] We need some information.

[19:51] Well, I know it's not Judge Dredd, which starred Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider.

Dan McCoy

[19:55] It's not Speed 2 Cruise Control.

Stuart Wellington

[19:58] No, but you are very close to the both theme of the title and the sequel number.

[20:06] So close to 2 or is it 2?

[20:12] Is that giving away too much?

[20:13] I guess I'll say too much is correct.

[20:16] It is 2, yeah.

[20:17] Okay.

[20:17] So it's the second movie.

Dan McCoy

[20:19] Let's see.

Stuart Wellington

[20:20] 2001.

[20:21] But you were close with Speed.

Elliott Kalan

[20:23] It's not The Matrix, right?

[20:25] Because there's no comedian in that.

[20:28] Nope.

Stuart Wellington

[20:29] I'm going to jump right in here, guys.

[20:31] Yeah.

[20:31] We're talking Rush Hour 2.

[20:32] Oh, yeah.

[20:33] It was the big summer movie.

Elliott Kalan

[20:35] Honestly, I have forgotten the Rush Hour franchise.

[20:38] And that is on me.

[20:39] They were huge movies.

[20:40] I saw them in the theaters.

[20:41] If you asked me to name action comedies of the early 2000s, I think I would have forgotten

[20:45] the Rush Hour movies.

Stuart Wellington

[20:46] Yeah.

[20:47] And in fact, if you are to stream them.

Elliott Kalan

[20:48] I would remember Shanghai Nights possibly over, and Shanghai Noon over Rush Hour, if only

[20:53] because the titles are more memorable.

Stuart Wellington

[20:54] I think if you, I don't know if it's both, but I can't remember which streaming platform

[20:58] has the rights right now.

[21:00] But before the movie, there's a disclaimer about like, hey, there's some jokes in here that

[21:04] are fucked up.

[21:04] Really?

[21:05] Yeah.

[21:06] Because there are.

[21:08] Yeah, there are.

[21:09] Having, I think, recently re-watched them for, I don't know, reasons.

[21:14] Because they were on.

[21:15] Because of entertainment.

Dan McCoy

[21:15] Yeah.

[21:16] For entertainment reasons.

Stuart Wellington

[21:17] The summer kickoff movie, the big summer kickoff movie, of course, Dan's favorite animated

[21:22] movie of all time.

[21:25] Shrek.

[21:27] Shrek crushed it.

[21:29] That was the biggest movie of the year, I think.

[21:31] Right?

[21:31] Shrek?

[21:32] No.

[21:33] Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the biggest movie.

[21:34] Oh.

[21:35] Next movie of the year.

[21:35] Right.

[21:36] But Shrek must have been number two, right?

[21:38] Yes.

[21:39] Number two, followed by Monsters, Inc.

[21:41] And then Rush Hour 2.

[21:42] And then the other big summer movie.

[21:44] Well, this is a pre-summer movie.

[21:46] The Mummy Returns.

[21:47] Oh, yeah.

[21:48] Okay.

[21:48] He did do that.

[21:49] He did return.

[21:50] He's back again.

[21:52] Let's jump over.

[21:53] Don't let him in.

[21:53] Oh, man.

[21:53] Let's jump to the next year.

[21:54] We got 2002.

[21:56] Of course, the big summer kickoff movie, we had two huge summer kickoff movies.

[22:01] That's the summer of Spider-Man, right?

[22:03] That first opening was Spider-Man.

[22:04] That is the summer of Spider-Man.

[22:05] Yep.

[22:05] Early May, we have Spider-Man followed closely by Attack of the Clones.

[22:11] Oh.

[22:12] But the big summer release, like actually in summer release, is an outlier.

[22:20] This is also Walt Disney Studios.

[22:23] Hmm.

[22:24] It is a-

[22:25] Is a movie with some P-Rats in it?

[22:28] No.

[22:28] Oh, okay.

[22:29] That's close.

[22:30] You're close.

[22:30] Okay.

[22:31] It is a director who has been featured on the Flophouse multiple times.

Elliott Kalan

[22:38] Okay.

[22:39] Neil Breen.

[22:39] Oh, boy.

[22:39] So what movie did Neil Breen make for the Disney Studios?

[22:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:45] There's been so many repeat offenders.

Stuart Wellington

[22:47] Is it a Robert Zemeckis movie?

[22:50] No.

[22:51] There is aliens in it.

Dan McCoy

[22:54] There are aliens.

[22:54] Is it-

[22:56] Hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[22:58] And this is a movie that did well.

[22:59] It did-

[23:00] It was the number four movie of the year and the biggest movie in the actual summertime.

Dan McCoy

[23:05] Oh, wow.

[23:06] 2002.

[23:09] Oh.

[23:11] Guys.

[23:12] Is it-

[23:12] You're not reading.

Stuart Wellington

[23:13] The Signs.

[23:14] Oh, yeah.

[23:15] It was Signs, baby.

[23:17] Oh, Signs.

[23:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:17] That was a huge movie.

[23:19] I forget how big that movie was.

Stuart Wellington

[23:21] But also, obviously, as you said, yeah, the summer kickoff movies were huge between Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones.

Elliott Kalan

[23:27] In a year where Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones came out, it's hard to remember that Signs also did well.

[23:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:32] And also, I feel like there was probably, with those two movies coming out, there was a little bit of like, whoa, okay, let's push some shit.

Elliott Kalan

[23:38] Yes.

[23:38] I think you're exactly right.

Stuart Wellington

[23:39] But it is kind of interesting that this is Disney's first entry in the list where they will be dominating basically the rest of the next 25 years.

Dan McCoy

[23:48] I would not have known that was a Disney picture.

Stuart Wellington

[23:53] The number five-

[23:54] Even though Mickey Mouse is in it?

[23:56] The number five movie of that year, which was also a spring release from IFC Films, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

[24:05] Huge hit.

[24:05] Oh, yeah.

[24:06] Huge hit.

[24:07] Huge hit.

[24:07] For good reason.

Dan McCoy

[24:08] Yeah, just sustained for weeks and weeks and weeks.

[24:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[24:10] Okay, let's go to 2003.

[24:13] And, yep, we got a double dose of delicious Disney action.

[24:17] Oh, wow.

[24:18] Elliot was already on board with one.

[24:21] Can you guess the other one?

[24:22] Also, aquatic.

[24:24] Okay.

[24:24] So, we know the first one was P of the Sea, Sea of the BP.

[24:28] The number two movie of the year.

[24:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:31] Wait, what?

[24:31] So, is it Finding Nemo?

Stuart Wellington

[24:33] It is Finding Nemo.

[24:35] Oh, good one, Dan.

[24:36] Man, that's a big summer for Disney.

[24:39] For the ocean.

[24:40] Yeah, they beat out The Matrix.

[24:42] The ocean was huge back then.

[24:44] Huge.

[24:44] They beat out The Matrix Reloaded.

[24:47] Uh-huh.

[24:47] They beat out Return of the King.

[24:49] They beat out Bruce Almighty, Dan.

[24:52] He is almighty, except on this list.

[24:55] He literally has the power of a god, but not the power to rule the box office.

[24:58] And X2, X-Men United.

[25:01] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:02] A movie that, despite, like, even seeing it in the very front row and having to crane my neck up, didn't spoil it for me.

[25:10] Mm-hmm.

[25:10] Enjoyed it very much.

Stuart Wellington

[25:12] Shocked to say that, though this did not, this movie was obviously in the shadow of those first two.

[25:21] Bad Boys 2 gave a pretty good representation in the summer at number 10.

Elliott Kalan

[25:27] It's hard for a movie like Bad Boys 2 to match the box office of a movie like Finding Nemo.

[25:31] Because there's a large segment of the movie-wing population that is not going to Bad Boys 2.

Stuart Wellington

[25:36] Because they don't want to see two rat puppets having sex, Elliot.

[25:39] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[25:40] In my memory, Bad Boys 2 came out so much later than X2.

[25:43] This is, it always, it's not interesting.

[25:46] It just always boggles my mind the way that.

Elliott Kalan

[25:48] Is this something you think about a lot, is the order of the X-Men and Bad Boys movies?

[25:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:53] Now, in relation to one another, where were they?

[25:56] Where do the matrices intertwine?

S4

[26:04] Hi, is this Archer?

[26:05] Yes, hello, who is this?

[26:06] Hi, this is Tom Lum from Let's Learn Everything.

[26:08] I'm calling about your Maximum Fund Membership's extended warranty.

[26:11] Do you have a few seconds to talk about that?

[26:13] I think I have to go.

[26:14] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[26:15] Oh, no, they're going to be so mad at me.

[26:16] Okay, fine.

[26:16] Did you know that as a part of your Maximum Fund Membership's extended warranty,

[26:21] you've been picked as the member of the month, which is wild.

[26:24] And we're so excited to have you.

[26:25] It's so exciting.

[26:26] Thank you.

[26:27] So as our member of the month, you will also be getting a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fund store,

[26:34] a special member of the month bumper sticker,

[26:36] a special priority parking spot at Max Fund HQ in Los Angeles, California, just for you.

[26:41] Also, I have to read, hold on, I have to read this.

[26:44] It says, we at Maximum Fund apologize you ended up with the worst host of the three,

[26:49] and as consolation, you'll be getting those.

[26:52] Why is that included?

[26:53] I don't remember that being there for the other.

S5

[26:55] It's okay.

[26:56] I can settle.

[26:56] It's fine.

S4

[26:59] Maximum members are the best.

[27:01] Become a Max Fund member now at MaximumFun.org slash join.

S5

[27:06] Say you like video games.

S4

[27:08] And who doesn't?

[27:09] I mean, some people probably don't.

S5

[27:11] Okay, but a lot of people do.

[27:12] So say you're one of those people, and you feel like you don't really have anyone to talk to about the games that you like.

[27:18] Well, you should get some better friends.

[27:20] Yes, you should get some better friends, but you could also listen to Triple Click, a weekly podcast about video games hosted by me, Kirk Hamilton.

Stuart Wellington

[27:29] Me, Maddie Myers.

S4

[27:30] And me, Jason Schreier.

[27:31] We talk about new releases, old classics, industry news, and whatever, really.

[27:36] We'll show you new things to love about games, and maybe even help you find new friends to talk to you about them.

[27:42] Triple Click.

S5

[27:43] It's kind of like we're your friends.

[27:45] Find us at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[27:50] A quick live show plug.

[27:52] The Flophouse is coming to Chicago on November 16 at 7 p.m.

[27:56] We will be at Sleeping Village in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago with our usual shenanigans of some comedy presentations,

[28:05] followed by discussion of the 1990 comedy Taking Care of Business starring Chicago's own Jim Belushi.

[28:13] If you've never seen us in person, since we've tended to mostly do shows on the coasts, now is your chance.

[28:19] So go to tinyurl.com slash Chicago Flop to get your tickets now.

[28:27] That's tinyurl.com slash Chicago Flop, and that'll redirect you to where you can buy some tickets.

Stuart Wellington

[28:36] 2004, the big summer movie ends up at number two in the list because the summer was already kicked off by a little movie called Shrek 2.

[28:47] More Shrek.

[28:48] Yeah, more Shrek.

[28:50] Still Shrek-ing.

[28:50] But the big summer movie was...

[28:52] Two Shrek, two Furious, yeah.

[28:53] The big summer movie was also a sequel of a movie we've already talked about.

[28:59] Already talked about.

[28:59] What was that?

[29:03] Another Pirates movie?

Elliott Kalan

[29:05] No.

[29:06] The next year?

[29:07] That'd be pretty fast.

[29:08] Pretty faster.

[29:08] Oh, well, I didn't remember.

[29:09] It came out pretty quick.

Stuart Wellington

[29:11] It wasn't Spider-Man 2, right?

[29:12] It is Spider-Man 2, still arguably the best superhero movie of all time.

[29:18] Strong argument.

[29:19] Very strong argument for that.

[29:20] It's great.

[29:21] And then number three movie that year came out in February.

[29:26] Unfortunately, we're talking Passion of the Christ.

[29:30] We don't have to for long.

[29:32] I mean, he's a superhero in his own way, yeah.

[29:35] In a way.

[29:36] And there were some other big movies, obviously.

[29:39] Harry Potter, The Incredibles came out in the fall.

[29:42] Day After Tomorrow was a big, that was the big Memorial Day release.

[29:48] A movie I still have never seen.

[29:51] Never seen The Day After Tomorrow?

Elliott Kalan

[29:52] I've also never seen The Day After Tomorrow.

[29:53] Are we missing out, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[29:55] I mean, it is one of my favorite dumb disaster movies.

[30:00] Like, it is.

[30:00] Is that Jake Gyllenhaal?

[30:01] Yeah.

[30:02] It is really silly.

[30:03] Like, there's a scene where he, like, outruns cold as it goes down the hall.

[30:07] That's the scene I've heard about.

Elliott Kalan

[30:08] But I feel like after Moonfall, there's such a high bar for silly, dumb disaster movies.

Dan McCoy

[30:14] Well, this one has less, you know, sucking Elon Musk's dick in it.

Stuart Wellington

[30:19] Oh, yeah.

[30:20] Fair.

[30:20] That's an advantage.

[30:21] Oh, man.

[30:22] An unpleasant image conjured by Dan's words.

[30:25] Okay.

[30:26] We got 2005 here, folks, and our big summer movie.

[30:31] This one is not a sequel.

[30:34] It's an outlier.

[30:35] Most of these are going to be sequels.

[30:36] And this is from Paramount Pictures.

[30:39] It does star one of the last remaining movie stars.

[30:45] And it does have a, let's say, a notable director who knows a thing or two about blockbusters.

[30:52] So, let's start, wait, from the beginning.

Elliott Kalan

[30:55] It is a sequel or not a sequel?

[30:57] Not a sequel.

[30:58] Has an old school movie star in it.

Dan McCoy

[31:01] Is it a Tom Hanks picture?

Stuart Wellington

[31:03] No, but you have one of the names correct.

[31:06] Is it a Tom Cruise picture?

[31:08] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[31:11] Jeez, what did he make that wasn't a sequel in this?

[31:13] Does he make movies that aren't sequels?

Stuart Wellington

[31:16] A War of the Worlds.

[31:17] It's War of the Worlds, guys.

[31:19] Number three movie of that year.

[31:20] That's a great movie.

[31:21] Have you seen it?

[31:22] It's good, right?

[31:23] I mean, I haven't seen it.

Elliott Kalan

[31:24] Anything sound design-wise, it's incredible.

[31:26] Great.

[31:26] I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters.

[31:28] But I remember very, I remember two things about seeing it.

[31:31] I went, if I remember correctly, I went with our friend of the show.

[31:35] She's never been on the show, but friend of two of us, Lauren Sarver.

[31:38] And I remember both getting really pissed that someone in front of me spilled their soda

[31:42] and it got all over my backpack, which was on the floor.

[31:44] But also, watching it in New York, only a few years after September 11th,

[31:49] I was like, this movie is really capturing how scary it felt to be in a place that's under attack on a certain day.

[31:56] That's a scary movie.

[31:56] I was just amazed that War of the Worlds is a genuinely scary movie, which I did not expect.

[32:01] So, yeah.

[32:02] It's really good.

[32:03] The ending is silly.

[32:04] The ending is very silly.

[32:05] He manages to find the one place that the aliens didn't bother to go and everyone's fine.

[32:09] But, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[32:11] Now, most of this list in 2005, these are the top movies of the year.

[32:15] It's filled with your regular franchise stuff, sequels, etc.

[32:18] But then at number five, we get one of the last big theatrical comedy successes.

[32:24] Dan's favorite movie, Wedding Crashers.

[32:26] But this was like that heyday of the big screen.

Dan McCoy

[32:34] Yeah.

[32:34] And I did find that movie very funny at the time, but I think it probably has not aged particularly low.

Elliott Kalan

[32:41] You especially liked that John McCain was appearing in a movie, right?

Dan McCoy

[32:45] Finally.

[32:45] Let's get that charisma on the big screen.

Stuart Wellington

[32:48] I mean, I think it succeeds in large part to the charisma of John McCain and also Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

[32:56] Yeah.

[32:58] Okay.

[32:58] So, that was 2005.

[33:00] Let's go to 2006, guys.

[33:01] We'll jump ahead in a second.

[33:04] This is another big double whammy for Disney.

[33:08] The top two movies.

[33:09] And also, it bears a fair amount in resemblance to a couple years ago where they had the top two where one's unanimated and one is not animated.

[33:18] Can you guess what those two movies were?

[33:20] Is one of them a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel?

[33:23] You're correct.

[33:24] Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest.

Elliott Kalan

[33:26] Dead Man's Chest.

[33:26] I cannot remember what order they go in.

Stuart Wellington

[33:28] Arguably a high watermark in digital animation.

Elliott Kalan

[33:32] Oh, is that the one with Davy Jones?

[33:34] Yes.

[33:34] Yeah, yeah.

[33:35] Yeah, that's amazing.

[33:36] It's incredible.

[33:36] That's still amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[33:36] Yeah.

[33:37] And Stellan Skarsgård insisting on being in full prosthetics instead of being a digital character.

[33:42] And he's the only one.

Dan McCoy

[33:44] Is the other one a Toy Story sequel?

[33:46] Nope.

[33:47] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[33:47] Is it a sequel or not a sequel?

Dan McCoy

[33:50] Not a sequel.

[33:51] Oh, I thought you said the other one was an animated sequel.

[33:53] Sorry.

[33:53] It's an animated film.

Elliott Kalan

[33:54] Okay.

[33:55] Animated film from Disney.

[33:57] Huge hit.

Stuart Wellington

[33:58] Show me Pocahontas.

[34:01] Guys, Elliot, I hope your family doesn't listen to this podcast because it's Cars.

Elliott Kalan

[34:06] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[34:08] I will say my boys are not as enamored of the Cars series as they once were.

[34:12] They used to be obsessed with it at one point.

[34:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:15] Yeah, that's too bad.

[34:16] It's too bad that they've given up on cars and trucks and whatnot.

[34:19] They'll send you a condolence card.

Elliott Kalan

[34:22] A condolence card?

[34:23] Yeah.

[34:24] Okay.

[34:25] I mean, they found other things that I don't enjoy that much that they can put their interest into.

[34:29] Like sports.

Stuart Wellington

[34:31] Yeah.

[34:31] For the older one, yeah, very much so.

[34:34] We are going to, I would say, we're going to jump ahead to 2020.

[34:38] Okay.

[34:39] But we can't because there was no summer releases.

[34:42] I guess, what, like 1917?

[34:44] I don't know what would have been the big 2020 summer release.

[34:47] I remember that year.

[34:48] That was a bad year.

[34:50] I think we collectively forgot.

Elliott Kalan

[34:52] Tenet was in there.

[34:53] Yeah.

[34:53] I mean, Tenet was the, that was the movie that was supposed to bring back people, right?

[34:57] Yeah.

[34:58] Or was it the last one before it shut down?

[35:00] I can't remember.

Dan McCoy

[35:01] No, it came, no, it was, it was.

[35:04] Like one of the first ones that you could see in theaters if you were.

[35:09] September 3rd.

[35:09] Going to risk doing so.

Elliott Kalan

[35:11] I eventually saw it later.

[35:14] Yeah.

[35:14] Because I did not see it at the time.

[35:16] And for a while it was the gaping missing piece in the Christopher Nolan filmography that I had not seen.

[35:22] And I finally saw it and I was like, hmm, well, I'm glad I didn't risk death to see this movie.

[35:26] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[35:27] Yeah.

[35:27] I, I will say I saw it, you know, like it went pretty quickly to HBO because for obvious reasons.

[35:34] I saw it on HBO, I'm like, no, thank you, Christopher Nolan.

[35:38] This is, you've gone too far for me this time.

[35:40] And then I did actually see the re-release when like they put it back into theaters.

[35:45] I bet it's better in a theater.

[35:47] It's so much better.

[35:48] Like I really actually did enjoy it in that context while still being like, yeah, people are right.

[35:53] Like this is better the less you think about it.

[35:56] But on a sheer, like weird spectacle.

[36:00] Yeah.

[36:00] It's enjoyable.

Stuart Wellington

[36:01] I like it a lot.

[36:02] It's grown on me quite a bit.

[36:03] When I first watched it, we, I think we rented it.

[36:07] And that was the day where Charlene and I had been working so much.

[36:10] And we're like, you know what?

[36:11] Let's just take a day, watch this like dumb big movie that Stuart's been willing to watch.

[36:16] And we will turn our, we'll put our phones in the other room and we'll actually just watch a movie.

[36:22] And unfortunately that day was January 6th.

[36:25] Oh, wow.

[36:27] So it was a complicated, it was a complicated day.

[36:30] So it kind of tweaked my opinion of Tenet.

[36:33] I do love every time I watch it, few lines in a big action movie have made me laugh as hard

[36:39] as when they're describing the consequences of what could happen if they keep messing around with all this time crap.

[36:45] And Elizabeth, and they're like, it could just cause, I don't know, the complete destruction of the universe.

[36:50] And, and Elizabeth Debicki's like, including my son.

[36:55] It's so fucking funny.

Dan McCoy

[36:58] By the way, I do think that the movie should have been called Time Crap.

Stuart Wellington

[37:02] I know.

[37:03] That would have been better.

[37:04] Yeah, but it's not, it's not a palindrome.

[37:05] Yeah.

[37:06] Yeah.

[37:06] I mean, the top, the top movies of 2020 were Bad Boys for Life.

[37:10] Okay.

[37:11] Finally on top, even though Bad Boys 2 couldn't cut it.

[37:13] Even though that was, I would say, the high water market of franchise.

[37:16] No, there are no family movies.

Elliott Kalan

[37:17] Stealing that money pie from Bad Boys.

[37:19] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[37:19] 1917.

[37:20] And then Sonic the Hedgehog and Jumanji the Next Level.

[37:24] And Rise of Skywalker's in here too, unfortunately.

[37:27] Birds of Prey is number six.

[37:29] Do Little.

[37:30] Oh, wow.

[37:30] I didn't know Birds of Prey did that well.

[37:32] Yeah.

[37:33] I like that movie.

Elliott Kalan

[37:34] Little Women did pretty well.

[37:35] Unfortunately, any movie that stars women has to make 700 times its budget.

[37:41] Yeah.

[37:41] It would be considered a success.

[37:42] So that's why they didn't make any more of those.

[37:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[37:45] So looking through this list, there's a ton of franchise things and there's a ton of sequels.

[37:52] We do have an outlier in 2023.

[37:59] I feel like you guys should be able to guess this pretty easily.

[38:01] Do you know what the biggest summer blockbuster success was of 2023?

[38:06] It was two years ago.

Elliott Kalan

[38:07] What do I remember from then?

Stuart Wellington

[38:10] Oh, yeah.

[38:11] You know this, guys.

[38:13] Was it?

[38:13] And it's not a sequel?

[38:15] It's not a sequel.

[38:17] So it's not like Avatar.

[38:18] Oh, was that when Barbie came out?

[38:20] It's Barbie.

[38:21] Oh, Barbie, right.

[38:22] Barbie, huge movie.

[38:23] That's enormous.

[38:24] Now that you guys are screenwriters, I'm sure you know that all you have to do is pitch

[38:28] auteur-driven versions of, I don't know, products.

[38:34] Movies based on products.

[38:35] I'm a screenwriter?

[38:36] Yeah, you're a screenwriter.

[38:37] I've read your screenplay.

[38:38] You don't need to be paid to be a screenwriter.

Dan McCoy

[38:39] You just have to call yourself a screenwriter.

[38:41] Yeah, I'm aspiring.

[38:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:44] No, you're not aspiring.

[38:45] You're a screenwriter.

[38:46] I don't know what aspiring, what a spirer does.

[38:49] A spidering?

Dan McCoy

[38:50] Yeah, that's what the Madden Web screenwriter calls themselves.

Elliott Kalan

[38:54] So you can have a big hit that's an original non-franchise movie as long as it's based on a pre-existing

[39:01] IP that everybody already knows about.

Stuart Wellington

[39:03] That also was tied in with some fairly successful viral marketing.

[39:09] Yeah.

[39:10] Oh, they did a great job marketing.

[39:12] Yeah, and then the rest of this, well, like just glancing through these, we got, you know,

[39:17] there's a couple of Transformers movies on here.

[39:20] One is two.

[39:21] The Dark Knight.

[39:22] Dark Knight Rises.

[39:24] Yeah.

[39:25] Despicable Me 2.

[39:26] Have you watched?

[39:27] I haven't watched a single Despicable Me related thing.

Dan McCoy

[39:30] I watched the first one.

Elliott Kalan

[39:32] Those are the movies that my kids, they love the Minions.

[39:37] They like the Gru based Despicable Me ones well enough.

[39:40] I've only seen, I've like seen some of the first one and I've seen the sequels that I took the boys to go see.

[39:46] But they're now at the place where if we let them pick the music we're going to listen to in the car,

[39:52] they want to hear the Minions versions of other songs, which...

Dan McCoy

[39:56] Minions, Bob?

[39:57] What is this called?

Elliott Kalan

[39:58] I don't know what exactly we'd call it, but it's like, you know, it's just them saying the word banana or whatever to the tune of other songs, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[40:07] I mean, I feel like you probably listened to comedy cassette tapes that were not too far from that when you were a kid.

[40:14] Yeah, I mean, that's probably pretty true.

Dan McCoy

[40:15] Like what songs, like Perfect Day by Lou Reed or...

[40:19] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[40:19] Yeah, yeah.

[40:20] Yeah, yeah.

[40:20] A lot of it.

Elliott Kalan

[40:21] Yeah, Comfortably Numb.

[40:22] Yeah, Layla.

[40:26] Yeah, a lot of Captain Beefheart.

[40:30] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:30] Yeah, a couple of these I haven't actually seen.

[40:34] Jurassic World's on here.

[40:35] I never actually got around to seeing that one.

Dan McCoy

[40:37] Well, I will damn it with the faint praise that of the world movies, it's the best one.

[40:42] Okay, did you see the most recent?

Elliott Kalan

[40:43] I mean, that's pretty high phrase because almost all movies take place in this world.

Dan McCoy

[40:47] Yeah, thanks.

[40:48] I did not see the most recent one.

[40:50] I'm amazed at how little interest I have.

Stuart Wellington

[40:53] We got Finding Dory is on the list.

[40:56] I haven't seen that one.

[40:57] It's okay.

[40:58] It's under water.

Dan McCoy

[40:59] I really liked Finding Dory, but I may have mentioned this on the podcast before.

[41:03] I can't remember.

[41:04] I found it very meaningful to me because I saw it sort of shortly after my divorce and felt like, you know,

[41:14] it's a movie about someone who feels like they can't survive out in the world alone striking out on their own and learning that they can figure out how to make it work.

[41:27] And so I found it meaningful in a personal way that like hit me surprisingly hard.

Stuart Wellington

[41:32] So it's almost like Finding Danny.

[41:35] Mm-hmm.

[41:36] Wow.

[41:37] I was here all along.

Elliott Kalan

[41:39] And then there's a bunch of other stuff.

[41:41] It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I've got to find Danny.

[41:44] And then you look at yourself in the mirror and you go, Dan, I was here all along.

[41:47] There he is.

[41:48] Is that what happens in Finding Dory?

[41:49] Don't spoil it.

Stuart Wellington

[41:50] Don't spoil it.

[41:50] Don't say anything.

[41:51] Yeah, yeah.

[41:51] Shut up.

[41:52] Shut up.

[41:52] Uh, we got Wonder Woman for 2017.

[41:56] I never finished watching Wonder Woman.

Elliott Kalan

[41:58] Should I finish it at any point?

Stuart Wellington

[41:59] Danny Houston's the bad guy.

[42:01] Um, I mean, I saw some of the Danny Houston stuff.

[42:03] I kind of went halfway through it.

[42:04] Also, uh, David Thulis is the other bad guy.

Dan McCoy

[42:06] I feel like the very end of it is kind of the weakest part.

[42:10] So you probably saw.

Stuart Wellington

[42:11] I do love that they, they're like, we're going to put David Thulis in here as just a guy.

[42:16] And I'm like, no, he's not just a guy.

[42:18] It's never going to happen.

Elliott Kalan

[42:20] What is this?

[42:20] The Island of Dr. Moreau?

[42:22] The only way he's just a guy is if he's surrounded by hyena men.

Stuart Wellington

[42:27] Uh, Incredibles 2.

[42:29] Uh, you know.

[42:30] It's a fun movie.

[42:31] It's a fun one.

[42:31] It's all right.

[42:32] Uh, Dan, you said you had opinions about the mom's butt.

Dan McCoy

[42:37] Not that I would put in a sort of a national magazine.

Stuart Wellington

[42:40] Yeah, but something at success was due to what?

[42:42] Rex Reet?

[42:43] Who wrote that?

[42:43] Anthony Lane.

[42:45] Sorry.

[42:47] Oregon, Maine.

[42:49] 2019, we had, and I think this ties in with a record.

[42:52] A recent Flophouse movie.

[42:53] Uh, The Lion King.

[42:55] This is the digital remake.

Dan McCoy

[42:57] A movie I utterly forget exists.

[42:59] Like, I talked about the box office game earlier.

[43:01] Like, that's one of those ones where I'm like, oh, yeah.

[43:05] When it shows up as a huge movie.

Stuart Wellington

[43:07] Uh, 2021, we got Black Widow.

[43:10] I think everyone's like, just give me a Marvel or something.

[43:12] After 2020 had nothing.

[43:15] And then 2022.

Elliott Kalan

[43:16] I'm surprised that 2021 was, was, they're saying that that was the highest grossing movie of the summer?

[43:21] Black Widow?

[43:21] Of the summer.

[43:22] Summer.

[43:22] Because that was the movie that literally Scarlett Johansson sued Disney saying, this movie should have made more money, but you released it on Disney Plus at the same time it went out in theaters.

Stuart Wellington

[43:31] Yeah, but I mean, it was just, I mean, there was, that was a particularly, another bad year of the box office.

[43:37] But luckily, 2022, it was saved.

[43:40] Movies are back, baby.

[43:41] Can you guys guess what the big movie of the summer was?

[43:45] 2022.

[43:46] Mm.

[43:46] Movies are back.

[43:49] You gotta go to the theater for this.

[43:50] Ugh.

Dan McCoy

[43:52] Give us a hint.

[43:53] You gotta give us something.

Stuart Wellington

[43:53] Well, it stars a bona fide movie star.

[43:57] Mm.

[43:58] Is it a, is it a, is it Top Gun Maverick?

[44:01] It is Top Gun Maverick.

[44:02] Oh, yeah.

[44:03] And then we're gonna close this out.

[44:05] 2024 was another Pixar sequel, Inside Out 2, another movie I have not seen.

[44:11] Yeah.

[44:11] Should I?

Dan McCoy

[44:12] Even further, Inside Out.

Stuart Wellington

[44:14] Inside or outer.

Dan McCoy

[44:15] It's all right.

[44:16] Nah.

[44:17] I mean, like, it's fine.

[44:19] Like, as someone who respects the original Inside Out more than I actually think it's

[44:25] one of the top Pixar movies, like, this one is hitting the same beats.

[44:29] Like, it, like, the Pixar movie from recent years that I really loved was Turning Red, which,

[44:35] of course.

[44:35] It's great.

[44:36] Just got dumped to Disney+.

[44:37] But it's great.

[44:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[44:38] Still some of the best original, like, fake pop songs in a movie.

[44:44] Yes.

[44:44] Are the, what, Four Town or Five Town?

[44:46] What is it?

[44:46] Four Town with five guys?

Elliott Kalan

[44:47] In Inside Out 2.

[44:48] If you like Inside Out, you'll get more of that in Inside Out 2.

[44:52] But the highest praise I've heard about it really was from my older son when we went to

[44:57] see it.

[44:57] Rafferty said, wow, there was a lot more hockey in that movie than I expected.

[45:00] I like that.

Stuart Wellington

[45:03] I feel like looking through this list, it looks like, obviously, one of the big things is

[45:09] that I seem to care less about the big summer movies than I used to, whether it's the quality

[45:14] or that my life is different and I'm a grown-up man.

[45:17] I think it's probably a little bit of both.

Elliott Kalan

[45:19] I think there's something less, we, it is less, we have much more important things to

[45:23] think about.

[45:23] So it's harder to use as much brain space on summer movies.

[45:26] But also, like, just looking back at, I mean, there were plenty of sequels in what you started

[45:30] talking about back then.

[45:32] Yeah.

[45:32] There was still, like, a lot more kind of, like, different things going on.

[45:37] The fact that I'm not the biggest fan of my Big Fat Greek Wedding particularly, but the

[45:41] fact that that was, like, a huge hit movie, just knowing, it's like, that's exciting to

[45:44] me that, like, that's not, I mean, eventually they turned that into a franchise too.

[45:48] But, like, it's such a different thing than, as much as I have heard good things about Superman

[45:52] and Fantastic Four, I haven't seen them yet.

[45:54] Like, it's more of that stuff.

Dan McCoy

[45:57] Yeah.

[45:57] I mean, as much as when we were growing up, you know, the critics would decry, like, oh,

[46:03] big blockbuster, empty culture.

[46:06] Like, we, it was the golden age for that kind of, like, the summer movie season.

[46:12] Like, you could, like, map out, like, oh, these three big releases are on the same weekend

[46:17] and then that's going to happen and keep happening through the.

Elliott Kalan

[46:20] You'd pull up your Entertainment Weekly.

[46:22] Exactly.

[46:22] You'd circle things.

Dan McCoy

[46:24] You wanted to see.

Elliott Kalan

[46:24] You'd get your Entertainment Weekly VHS tape of the trailers for the big summer releases

[46:28] and you'd watch it over and over again.

[46:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[46:31] But now, yeah, it's, like, it's mostly superhero films or animated children things.

[46:40] Like, the same IP over and over again.

Stuart Wellington

[46:43] Highlander re-dos.

[46:45] Yeah.

[46:46] Is that a big thing?

[46:48] I mean, they are doing a new Highlander movie with Henry Cavill, I think.

[46:53] Nice.

[46:53] Who's going to play in it?

[46:55] I think he's going to play, I don't know, probably Connor McCloud.

[47:00] Oh, okay.

[47:00] Duncan McCloud.

[47:01] I can't remember which McCloud.

[47:02] Scott McCloud, the author of.

[47:04] Scott McCloud.

[47:05] Yeah.

[47:05] Love of Understanding Comics.

[47:06] Yeah.

[47:08] Okay, so that was kind of it.

[47:10] Do you guys have any parting comments or thoughts about the summer movie season?

Dan McCoy

[47:16] I mean, I do.

[47:18] Do you have any favorites from this summer, Dan?

[47:21] This summer?

[47:22] I mean, I guess in terms of.

[47:24] I've seen every movie, Dan.

Stuart Wellington

[47:25] So don't pretend you don't know what they are.

Dan McCoy

[47:26] No.

[47:27] In terms of like the traditional blockbuster type of thing, I, you know, Superman delivered

[47:34] for me.

Stuart Wellington

[47:35] Superman's great, yeah.

[47:36] And Fantastic Four, you see that one?

Dan McCoy

[47:38] Yeah, that was fine.

[47:39] You know, it's, it suffers from like late period Marvel sort of not being that exciting,

[47:46] but it's fine.

Elliott Kalan

[47:47] I think here's something that I don't get the same rush about summer movies as I used

[47:52] to, but I think it's partly more from growing up in the summer, not meaning what it used to

[47:56] to me.

[47:56] When you're a kid, and even when you're in college still, the summer is like a different,

[48:00] substantially distinct part of the year that is special.

[48:04] It's different.

[48:05] It feels like your responsibilities are less.

[48:08] You have more time to have fun.

[48:10] And now as an adult, I don't know if you guys feel the same way.

[48:12] It just feels like the whole year is just one slurry.

[48:14] Like it's August 1st and it still kind of feels like it's April, you know?

[48:18] And when it, as soon as it's going to be November and it's just going to be all the same shit

[48:22] for 365 days, then it's not even, even 2026 is just going to feel like 2025 just kind of

[48:28] like slopped over into another number.

[48:31] So maybe that's what I miss more is like the feeling of time being split up into discrete,

[48:36] different, interesting sections.

[48:38] You miss the feeling of hope.

Stuart Wellington

[48:39] Yeah.

[48:40] And there's exciting things to look forward to.

[48:43] Yeah.

[48:44] It hadn't been beaten out of you.

[48:45] Yeah.

[48:45] Well, that's-

Elliott Kalan

[48:46] When we were, I feel like maybe this was just being young, but maybe it's a cultural thing.

[48:49] I feel like when the summer came, it was like, ooh, exciting.

[48:52] Or when a new year started, ooh, what's going to happen?

[48:54] And now I just feel like it's how, oh boy, here's another, here's more time for something

[48:59] bad to happen, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[49:01] Yeah.

[49:01] So.

[49:02] Continues the cavalcade of miseries that we're subjected to.

Elliott Kalan

[49:06] So did I manage to end the episode on a high note?

Stuart Wellington

[49:07] I love it.

[49:08] So we've been talking about, we've been talking about summer movie memories.

[49:13] And if you're listening, why don't you head over to the Flophouse Instagram account and

[49:18] on the post for this episode, why don't you throw in one of your favorite memories into

[49:23] the comments and I will try and read it on a future episode.

[49:26] My favorites, not all of them, just my favorites.

[49:30] And then we don't get any and you're like, correction, I will now read all of them.

[49:33] All of them you read.

[49:36] And if we get none, I'll just make something up.

[49:39] Probably about farting in a movie theater and everybody barfing over it or something,

[49:43] right?

[49:43] That's a good story.

[49:45] Nobody can steal that.

[49:46] TM.

[49:47] I still, I just wrote that.

[49:48] Okay.

[49:49] Yeah.

[49:49] Just wrote that.

[49:50] Just wrote that.

[49:53] Okay.

[49:53] So this is.

[49:55] Let's see AI come up with something that good.

[49:58] This has been a mini episode of the Flophouse podcast.

[50:01] We are produced by Alexander Smith under the moniker Howell Doughty.

[50:06] You can find him on Twitch.

[50:07] You can find him on Bandcamp.

[50:09] You can find him on probably Blue Sky and on Instagram.

[50:12] He's the best in the biz.

[50:14] Hire him for your podcast maybe.

[50:17] Or just support him in whatever ways you can.

[50:22] We're also on the Maximum Fun Podcast Network.

[50:24] There's tons of great shows there.

[50:25] That's how you can support us.

[50:26] And you can support other cool community-owned podcasting networks, worker-owned podcasting

[50:33] networks, collectives.

[50:34] Okay.

[50:35] I've been rambling too much.

[50:37] I've been Stuart Wellington for the Flophouse.

[50:39] I've been Dan McCoy.

[50:40] And I've been Elliot Kalin.

[50:42] Okay.

[50:43] See you.

[50:49] Maximum Fun.

S4

[50:50] A worker-owned network.

[50:52] Of artists-owned shows.

[50:54] Supported.

[50:54] Directly.

[50:55] By you.

FH Mini 135 - The Movieboys of Summer

Transcript

In this episode

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