The Flop House: Episode #150 - Grudge Match

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the Sylvester Stallone-Robert De Niro boxing movie grudge match,

[0:06] which is only slightly more interesting than watching two non-famous elderly people fight.

[0:30] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Strega Nana.

[0:42] Hey!

[0:43] Oh man, right off the top, we got jokes.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] Call back to the last episode of your baffling pasta confusion.

[0:50] Which foreign witch was it who liked pasta? Was it the Russian one?

Stuart Wellington

[0:55] Probably. Russians are known for their spaghetti-based meals.

Elliott Kalan

[0:58] Perhaps it was some sort of Japanese fox spirit.

[1:02] Nope, Strega Nana.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04] They sound similar enough.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05] That's true. So who are you really?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:08] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09] And this is Elliot Kalin talking right now.

[1:11] Hey, and the Flophouse house cat.

[1:14] That's him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16] So I apologize to everybody.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17] He's passing mine his way to the bathroom with a magazine under his arm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19] Did he say Hail Hydra?

Elliott Kalan

[1:22] No.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24] I think so.

[1:24] Spoiler?

[1:25] It would be weird though because he doesn't like comic book movies.

[1:28] No, he hates them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30] Ever since Phantom failed to live up to his expectations.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34] Just don't tell him the road to perdition is based on a comic book.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] He'd be really pissed off.

[1:37] Oh, he'd be so mad.

[1:37] Or History of Violence.

[1:38] That house cat.

[1:39] Rip his own face off.

[1:41] House cat walked into the Phantom and was like,

[1:43] I was expecting him to smash evil,

[1:45] but he just kind of lightly brushed evil.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47] It would be weird for him to expect to smash evil since the tagline of the movie was slam evil.

[1:51] Oh, boy.

[1:52] And I think you'll find evil was thoroughly slammed.

[1:55] Yeah.

[1:56] Just like you've just been, idiot.

Dan McCoy

[1:59] He was slammed like a Mountain Dew Code Red.

Stuart Wellington

[2:02] Yeah.

[2:02] So just put those Flophouse house keys on the desk, I guess.

[2:05] Sorry.

[2:05] Counter.

[2:06] Yep, you're fired.

Elliott Kalan

[2:06] Give me your badge and your gun.

[2:09] Did I say gun?

[2:10] I meant gum.

[2:10] Can I have some?

Dan McCoy

[2:12] So we have thoroughly alienated any new listeners.

[2:18] All we've alienated is Billy Zane.

[2:19] By starting out, one, with a callback, and then two, with a bunch of nonsense.

[2:24] Striking those nonsense.

[2:25] Let's set up this podcast.

[2:27] This podcast is a bad movie podcast where we watch a bad movie,

[2:31] and then we talk about it.

[2:33] Do we ever.

[2:34] And in this case, we watched a movie called Grudge Match.

[2:38] Grudge Match.

Stuart Wellington

[2:39] See, I always thought it was called, I always thought,

[2:42] because this has been a long time.

[2:43] Because this movie's been running back.

[2:44] My whole entire life.

[2:46] I thought it was called Stallone versus De Niro.

Elliott Kalan

[2:49] I thought it was called Rocky versus the Bull.

Dan McCoy

[2:52] Okay.

[2:53] Yeah, this is a movie that plays on our knowledge.

Stuart Wellington

[2:56] But like the posters just said Stallone versus De Niro way big.

[2:59] But then they said Grudge Match.

[2:59] But in like little letters.

[3:01] Well, because you're selling it.

[3:02] Like little baby letters.

Elliott Kalan

[3:03] These little baby little tiny letters that are like,

[3:06] wah, wah, wah, change my letter diapers.

Dan McCoy

[3:09] But this is definitely a movie that plays entirely.

[3:11] It is definitely a movie.

[3:12] You're right, Dan.

[3:13] On our knowledge of other movies.

Elliott Kalan

[3:14] Yeah, this is.

[3:15] So the movie, it's this starred Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro as ex-boxers

[3:19] who had a famous rivalry 30 years ago.

[3:22] And now they're going to get their chance to settle their differences.

[3:25] Is this the summary already?

[3:26] Is it your summary?

[3:26] My first summary.

[3:28] Oh, okay.

[3:29] Settle their differences in the ring as old men.

[3:32] Cue jokes.

Dan McCoy

[3:34] Yeah, about being old.

Elliott Kalan

[3:36] But you're right.

[3:36] This movie is meaningless without the existence of Rocky and Rachel.

Dan McCoy

[3:40] Without the knowledge that these actors have appeared in other boxing movies.

[3:45] Well, beloved boxing movies.

Elliott Kalan

[3:47] Like Boxing Helena.

[3:49] And The Boxer.

[3:51] Both of which are beloved.

Dan McCoy

[3:52] Yeah.

[3:53] And the movie Beloved.

[3:54] Which is about boxing as well.

[3:57] It's about boxing sort of the negative spirit of slavery.

[4:02] Sure.

[4:02] Tony Morrison boxed the shit out of it.

[4:04] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[4:05] She boxed it up and made a little big package.

[4:08] Mailed it to fucking Abu Dhabi.

[4:09] Mailed it to readers.

[4:11] Because it's normal represented slavery.

[4:14] Garfield is a freedom fighter.

[4:20] So, yeah.

[4:21] Go back where you belong to the backwards land of Abu Dhabi.

[4:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[4:25] So, we watched this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[4:27] And now it's going to...

[4:28] Wait.

[4:29] Here's a grudge of mine.

[4:30] Speaking grudges.

[4:31] The totally random collection of characteristics that Garfield has.

[4:35] In that he hates Mondays.

[4:37] Which is a cat you should not understand.

[4:40] Sure.

[4:40] And he loves lasagna.

[4:41] Neither of these is organic from a cat.

[4:43] Also hates spiders.

[4:44] I don't know.

[4:45] That's kind of cat-ish.

Stuart Wellington

[4:45] Like, I have a cat and it likes kind of wet, moist food.

[4:48] And I think lasagna is kind of...

[4:50] What about Mondays?

Elliott Kalan

[4:51] How does Muscles feel about Mondays?

Stuart Wellington

[4:53] I mean, it's the same.

[4:55] Every day is a day of playing and bothering me.

[4:58] It's not like he's got a good job.

[4:59] It's like Sunday.

Elliott Kalan

[5:00] Yeah.

[5:01] Some sunny day.

[5:03] So, grudge match, shall we?

[5:04] But that's the depth in the character.

Dan McCoy

[5:06] You know, you got very divergent things, man.

Elliott Kalan

[5:08] Yes.

[5:08] Character Diamond is hates Mondays, loves lasagna.

[5:11] Fat cat.

[5:12] Yeah.

[5:13] Males cat.

[5:13] Other cat to Abu Dhabi.

[5:15] Exactly.

[5:16] So, grudge match.

Dan McCoy

[5:18] And from that, 35 years of gold.

[5:21] Grudge match is a movie about two fighters.

[5:25] One of them.

[5:25] You just described what it was about.

[5:26] I already said what it was about.

Stuart Wellington

[5:27] So, the movie begins way back in ye olden days.

[5:30] Yeah, the 1980s.

[5:30] Where two CGI battlers are punching the shit out of each other.

Elliott Kalan

[5:33] So, we're supposed to be watching young Stallone and young De Niro fighting each other.

[5:36] Two dinosaurs fighting.

[5:38] I wish we stopped motion dinosaurs in boxing trunks.

[5:43] It looks more like a jib jab animation where they just put the faces.

[5:47] They do some CGI faces of young Stallone and young De Niro.

[5:51] And it looks terrible.

Stuart Wellington

[5:52] If you thought the CGI face of Arnold on the robot in Terminator Salvation was terrible,

[5:58] that happened right?

[5:59] Or did I make that out?

[6:00] I didn't see Terminator Salvation.

[6:01] Okay, good.

[6:01] You are a lucky one.

[6:03] Unlike the people killed by robots in the, you know, Robot Apocalypse.

[6:08] Robocalypse.

[6:08] Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[6:09] Yeah, yeah.

[6:10] Mrs. Robocalypse.

[6:12] But anyway, it's the 1980s.

[6:16] And they like, what?

[6:18] Each win one fighting match against each other or something?

[6:20] It's called a boxing match.

[6:21] Punch.

[6:22] And there's this gladiatorial tournament.

Dan McCoy

[6:27] One's got more punchos than the other.

Elliott Kalan

[6:30] Yeah, one guy's punch meter was up higher, right?

[6:32] Yeah.

[6:33] And so he gets more super punches.

[6:34] He has more stars, yeah.

[6:35] And he does this special finishing move, which is a punch.

[6:37] Yeah, he sparkles and then he punches a guy.

[6:41] So they're supposed to have a rematch, but then Sylvester Stallone's character, Henry Razor Sharp.

[6:46] So Sylvester Stallone is Razor and Robert De Niro is Billy the Kid McDonough.

[6:50] And so let's call him Razor and the Kid, which is a good title for a better movie, Razor and the Kid.

[6:55] Which would be about, I guess, a skateboarding gang?

Dan McCoy

[6:58] Yeah, one guy, but one of them is a razor scooter.

Elliott Kalan

[7:01] Yeah, so that's the nerd.

[7:02] And the Kid is actually an old man.

[7:04] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[7:05] But he still knows how to shred on a skateboard.

Elliott Kalan

[7:07] Oh, yeah.

[7:08] And on a guitar, because that old man is Dick Dale.

[7:10] What?

[7:12] Razor and the Kid starring Dick Dale.

[7:14] And let's say Miles from Murphy Brown as the guy on the razor scooter.

[7:19] Why not?

Stuart Wellington

[7:20] The guy I always confuse with, IRS the wrestler from WWF, Irwin R. Shyster.

Elliott Kalan

[7:26] Yeah, I can see why you do that.

[7:27] Sure.

[7:28] Kind of anti-Semitic.

[7:29] But anyway, so.

Stuart Wellington

[7:30] I'm not.

[7:31] The wrestling match is.

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] So Razor announces his retirement.

[7:34] It's the system.

[7:35] And Razor announces his retirement and the match is called off.

[7:38] And somehow this ruins De Niro's career as well.

[7:41] All right.

[7:42] Now we flash forward to 30 years.

[7:45] Razor is working at a kind of shipping yard or place where sparks are made.

[7:51] Stallone is.

[7:52] Stallone.

[7:53] Yeah, Razor.

[7:54] Yeah.

[7:54] Yeah, Razor Stallone is working at a factory where sparks fly at people.

[7:59] And there's a sign that says, caution where I wear, but nobody's wearing eyewear.

[8:03] So they're asking for a spark in the eye.

[8:05] Never happens.

[8:06] De Niro owns his own restaurant called Knockouts.

[8:09] And he does a kind of cabaret show there with a boxing puppet.

[8:12] It is, he is totally strip mining Raging Bull for everything he can get from it.

[8:18] And he's strip mined Rocky too later.

[8:19] So Esther Stallone will, they do a joke about him possibly punching a side of meat.

[8:24] Drinking a bunch of raw eggs.

Stuart Wellington

[8:26] Running around behind a guy on a motorized wheelchair just like in Rocky.

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] Yep, yep.

[8:31] Telling a long monologue about a turtle to Talia Shire.

[8:35] And losing to Apollo Creed.

[8:38] Having a robot butler.

[8:40] That's Rocky.

[8:40] All these things.

[8:41] Rocky didn't have the same.

[8:42] That's a runaway story.

[8:43] That was Paulie.

[8:44] Same character.

[8:45] Same, alright.

[8:46] Not the same character.

[8:47] Different character.

[8:48] He lives in the same universe.

[8:49] The same franchise, yeah.

[8:51] Yeah.

[8:51] We all live in the same universe, Dan.

[8:53] It's not like Rocky's somewhere in the multiverse.

[8:58] Are you sure?

[8:59] Somewhere in the nth dimensional membrane system of the universe.

Dan McCoy

[9:03] Like ever since Superboy punched the walls of this reality, I can't keep track of all the multiverses.

Elliott Kalan

[9:08] That's a surprisingly recent comic reference to you, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[9:10] Yeah, well, I've read that fucking Superman book.

[9:14] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] Anyway, then who walks into, and so Alan Arkin, who is Sylvester Stallone's old trainer and

[9:22] plays his usual Alan Arkin part of sassy old man, a foxy grandpa.

[9:28] Besweathered old man.

[9:29] Yeah, it's like, this character description says, wears hat, cranky sassy old man, Alan Arkin

[9:36] type.

[9:36] And Alan Arkin was like, I heard my name said.

[9:38] I'm here.

[9:39] I'm on the set.

[9:40] Just whatever.

[9:40] I can be an Alan Arkin type.

[9:42] Used to have a lot of range, Alan Arkin.

[9:44] Yeah, mostly focusing on the sassy old man roles.

[9:48] Alan Arkin is being too sassy and is getting kicked out of his nursing home.

[9:52] Sylvester Stallone, as a way of thanking him for always standing by him, has been paying

[9:56] his bills.

[9:57] He's running out of money, though, because there's only so much money you can make at the

[10:00] Sparks plant.

[10:02] Then, who should walk into his life but Kevin Hart, the son of his old boxing promoter,

[10:08] who wants to hire him to provide the motion capture animation and sound effects for a boxing

[10:13] video game.

[10:14] Now, you may remember if you saw Rocky Balboa, that is also a movie starring Sylvester Stallone

[10:18] in which an old boxer gets roped back into the fighting game by a digital simulation of him

[10:24] fighting.

[10:25] So I guess what I'm saying is, one more, and it's officially a genre.

[10:28] The old boxers who are inspired by CGI versions of themselves.

[10:33] Played by Stallone.

[10:34] Played by Stallone, yeah.

[10:35] But in this case, it would be like, I guess, Cobra, Cobretti became a boxer and then retired.

[10:41] It has to be a Stallone character, you know.

[10:43] Maybe it's his character from I See You, that movie that went direct to video.

[10:48] Yeah.

[10:49] Or the Italian Stallion, the porno that he made.

[10:51] Sure.

[10:52] Which I think was called, what, like a party at Kitty's Place or something like that?

Dan McCoy

[10:55] He's got a wide-ranging and varied filmography, is what you're saying?

Elliott Kalan

[10:58] Yeah, yeah.

[10:59] From directing Staying Alive to...

[11:01] To being in porn.

[11:03] To Spy Kids 3D.

[11:04] He was in the Get Carter remake.

[11:06] He was in the...

[11:07] Yeah.

[11:08] Was it called Get Carter or just Carter?

[11:10] I think...

[11:10] I don't...

[11:11] I don't remember.

[11:11] Michael Caine was in that too.

Dan McCoy

[11:13] As a bartender.

[11:14] As old Carter.

[11:16] As, hey, remember, this is a remake.

Elliott Kalan

[11:19] Anyway, we're not too far into the movie yet.

[11:21] But Kevin Hart gets him, he says, I'll do it...

Stuart Wellington

[11:24] So Kevin Hart was thrown in there to add, like, some fast pace to what is otherwise a snail's

[11:29] pace of a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[11:30] Not to be racist, but he is very much the Chris Tucker of the movie.

[11:34] Yeah.

[11:34] He is the fast-talking black guy who slings out the jokes, gets the white people to do

[11:39] what they, you know, to do things that they don't always want to do, and is like our sassy

[11:44] comic relief.

Stuart Wellington

[11:44] And he's also, like, an actor who's currently successful in comedy roles.

[11:49] Oh, yeah.

[11:49] And as a stand-up, he's hugely successful.

Elliott Kalan

[11:52] Yeah.

[11:52] Like, he...

[11:53] It's kind of weird that it seems like Kevin Hart felt like to make his big movie break,

[11:57] he needed to latch on to two old movie stars.

[12:00] But...

[12:01] What are you doing?

[12:02] Or maybe just hang out with those two guys.

[12:03] I mean...

[12:04] When he should...

[12:05] Instead, he should have done a remake of Heart to Heart.

Dan McCoy

[12:07] No, that's what I was just...

[12:08] I was literally just imagining that.

Elliott Kalan

[12:09] But were you going to say that it was Kevin Hart teaming with Bret Hart, the Western writer?

[12:13] Oh, not Bret Hart, the Hitman Hart?

[12:15] It could be Bret the Hitman Hart, too.

[12:16] It's both of them.

[12:17] Forget Kevin Hart.

[12:18] He's not in anymore.

[12:19] It's Bret Hart, the Western writer, and Bret the Hitman Hart, the wrestler.

[12:22] And it's called Heart to Heart.

[12:23] No, forget it.

[12:24] It's called Western Wrestle.

Dan McCoy

[12:27] That's amazing.

[12:27] I was literally imagining a scenario where he was pitching, like, I'm going to do a remake

[12:31] of Heart to Heart.

[12:32] And they're like, Kevin, you don't need to do a movie that just has your name in it.

[12:37] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[12:37] Okay.

[12:37] What about Love Beeps?

[12:39] We'll call it Heart Beeps.

[12:40] I don't...

[12:41] I think it must call Heart Beeps, actually.

[12:42] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[12:43] What about Music for the Heart?

[12:44] No.

[12:44] What about Untamed Heart?

[12:46] I can pretend to have a monkey heart.

Elliott Kalan

[12:47] I could do it.

[12:48] I swear I could do it.

[12:49] Kevin, I don't think you understand what movies are.

[12:51] Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken.

[12:52] I'm a diving horse, and a girl rides me.

[12:58] Kevin, you know what?

[12:59] Why don't you just leave?

[13:00] You just want a girl to ride you, like a horse.

[13:02] Lucky Number Kevin.

[13:02] I do.

[13:03] We'll call it Lucky Number Kevin.

[13:04] It's a remake of Lucky Number Slevin.

[13:07] It's about a guy with a name that no one has.

[13:08] Okay.

[13:09] What about Kevin?

[13:10] It's a remake of Seven.

[13:11] But instead of Seven Sins-Based Crime, they're Kevin Hart Stand-Up Bit-Based Crimes.

Dan McCoy

[13:15] What about We Need to Talk About Kevin?

[13:17] That's a really recent movie to remake.

[13:19] Yeah, well, we're rebooting it to start the franchise over again.

[13:23] A new generation.

[13:24] There are people who have been born in the last two years who never saw that movie.

Elliott Kalan

[13:28] But all the toddlers who haven't seen me have to talk about Kevin.

[13:32] Okay.

[13:32] What about...

[13:33] We should just keep going, I guess.

[13:38] So, Sylvester Stallone needs the money to support Alan Arkin, so he says, yes, I'll do it.

[13:42] As long as I don't have to see Robert De Niro.

[13:44] I don't want to see that guy.

[13:45] Yeah.

[13:46] So, Sylvester Stallone...

[13:47] Understandable.

[13:47] Now, let's get one of those straight.

[13:49] Like you guys mentioned, this is a shaggy, slow-moving movie.

[13:53] So, there's a lot of incidents and many scenes of characters just talking or just hanging out and restating things.

[14:01] Yeah.

[14:01] Now...

[14:02] At length.

[14:03] Sylvester Stallone goes, there's some hilarious jokes about him wearing a motion capture suit.

[14:07] He starts acting it out.

[14:08] And then, who should show up but Bobby De Niro, also in a motion capture suit.

[14:13] Do the two of them get along?

[14:13] They don't.

[14:14] They get in a big fight.

[14:15] They wreck all the state-of-the-art electronics.

[14:17] Luckily, someone very unprofessional at the recording studio records the whole thing on his phone,

[14:23] puts it on YouTube, it gets a million hits before the end of the afternoon.

[14:27] And suddenly, it's viral and all over the news, even though Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro

[14:31] haven't been bailed out of jail yet for this fight that wrecked all this stuff.

[14:35] The internet works, man.

[14:36] I also want to say...

Dan McCoy

[14:36] Speedlight.

[14:37] Happens instantly.

[14:38] The movie makes not one but two jokes about someone saying,

[14:43] hey, you look like...

[14:45] What's this...

[14:46] What was it from Toy Story?

[14:48] You're up and down.

[14:49] Buzz about it.

[14:49] Dan, this is something...

Elliott Kalan

[14:51] I don't know why this is your cross to bear.

[14:53] You're a hill to die on.

[14:54] Your axe to grind.

Dan McCoy

[14:55] Because the movie thinks it's...

[14:56] That was some good cliches we just threw in there.

[14:58] They're wearing normal mo-cap suits, which is like green suits.

[15:02] Yeah, made of mo-hair.

[15:03] Yeah, thanks for using industry terms.

Elliott Kalan

[15:05] Yeah, we're not all in the television biz, Mr. Mo-Cap.

[15:08] They're fucking green suits.

[15:09] Hey, mo-cap mo-problems, right?

[15:10] Sure.

[15:11] With a bunch of dots.

[15:11] You get a load of this asshole?

[15:12] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[15:14] They're wearing green suits covered in...

[15:16] Green suits with a bunch of dots over it, and two people say,

[15:18] hey, you look like Buzz Lightyear.

[15:19] The movie thinks that's a good enough joke to make twice.

[15:21] Buzz Lightyear with a camel toe.

[15:22] Buzz Lightyear, a guy who's in a white astronaut suit with wings.

Elliott Kalan

[15:26] They're clearly talking about Buzz Lightyear out of the astronaut.

[15:28] There's green elements.

[15:30] And his inner suit.

[15:30] He has green elements on his suit.

Dan McCoy

[15:31] Looks like Godzilla with chicken pox.

[15:34] Oh, see, that's good shit.

Elliott Kalan

[15:35] You should be writing movies like this.

[15:37] You should be writing for Kevin Hart.

[15:38] All right.

[15:38] You're wasting yourself on Jon Stewart.

[15:39] You'll be writing Kevin Hart jokes.

Dan McCoy

[15:41] Yeah, I'm going to start...

[15:42] I'm going to get on his facts list.

[15:43] I'm going to send those in.

Elliott Kalan

[15:44] His facts list?

[15:45] Like facts about Kevin Hart?

[15:46] They're just in a list?

[15:48] Fact, Kevin Hart is 5.7.

Dan McCoy

[15:50] It's called an F-A-K.

[15:52] It's Frequently Asked Kevin Hart Questions.

Elliott Kalan

[15:54] Fact, Kevin Hart has a heart.

Stuart Wellington

[15:58] He actually has two hearts, Elliot.

[16:01] One in his name and one in his body.

Dan McCoy

[16:03] Fact, unlike a cow, Kevin Hart has only one stomach.

[16:06] Oh, that's a good fact.

[16:07] That's a good fact, yep.

[16:08] Let's check that.

[16:09] Let's double-cum-report that.

[16:10] Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[16:10] Can the Flophouse fact checker get on that?

[16:13] The Flophouse ombudsman?

Dan McCoy

[16:14] The Flophouse fact cat?

Elliott Kalan

[16:15] Fact cat.

[16:16] The house cat picks on the fact cat all the time.

[16:20] Oh, what a nerdy cat the Flophouse fact cat is.

[16:25] The fact cat is allergic to cats.

[16:27] That's the sad thing.

[16:27] Oh, that is so sad.

[16:29] Well, he and I can sympathize together about that.

[16:30] Anyway, so he gets an offer to do a big fight between Razor and the Kid with him as the promoter

[16:37] that he calls Grudge Match or Grudgement Day, he also calls it.

[16:41] And they accept on the basis that they're going to get a lot of money.

[16:45] And because Sylvester Stallone learns he's been laid off from the factory.

[16:49] Yeah, nobody needs Sparks anymore.

[16:51] No, Sparks are all, now it's all digital.

[16:53] Sure.

[16:54] Just like the publishing industry, the internet has really destroyed the Sparks industry.

[16:58] Yeah.

[16:59] People have their apps that just make the image of Sparks, you know, that kind of stuff.

[17:03] So they accept the offer.

[17:04] There's a press conference at a sparsely attended ballroom in which they just generally gabble

[17:11] at each other and they say a lot of, they insult each other a lot.

Dan McCoy

[17:14] Yeah, but Kim Basinger shows up.

Elliott Kalan

[17:16] Kim Basinger shows up.

[17:17] Now, Kim Basinger, it turns out.

[17:19] Bassinger?

[17:19] Bassmaster.

[17:20] Kim Bassmaster.

[17:22] Kim Big Mouth Billy Bass.

[17:23] Fosinger.

[17:24] Bowfinger.

[17:25] Kim Bowfinger.

Stuart Wellington

[17:27] Academy Award winner, Kim Basinger.

Elliott Kalan

[17:28] Academy Award.

[17:29] Now, there are three Academy Award winners in this cast.

[17:32] Sylvester Stallone for best screenplay for Rocky.

[17:36] Yeah.

[17:37] Kim Basinger for LA Confidential.

[17:39] Robert De Niro for a couple different movies.

[17:42] And then Alan Arkin is an Academy Award winner too.

[17:44] This is a huge cast in this stupid movie.

[17:47] This shaggy dog movie that takes forever to go anywhere has an amazing cast.

[17:52] It's kind of like, what, Food Fight?

[17:57] What was the movie that we were talking about?

[17:58] An amazing cast.

Dan McCoy

[18:00] Skidoo.

Elliott Kalan

[18:01] Skidoo.

[18:01] Yeah, it was Skidoo.

[18:02] Yeah, Groucho Marx is there.

[18:04] Jackie Gleason.

[18:04] Carol Channing.

[18:06] All sorts of people.

[18:07] Anyway, Kim Basinger shows up.

[18:09] She was Sylvester Stallone's girlfriend 30 years ago, but she got mad at him and cheated

[18:14] on him with Robert De Niro and got totes preggers.

[18:17] Yeah.

[18:18] Sure.

[18:18] And that's why they walked away from the-

[18:21] Old world style.

Stuart Wellington

[18:21] He knocked her out with a baby.

Elliott Kalan

[18:25] Knocked her out of the dating game, that is.

[18:27] By punching a baby into her with his penis fist.

[18:30] And he didn't wear a glove or else she wouldn't have gotten pregnant.

Stuart Wellington

[18:33] Which we also call a man condom.

Elliott Kalan

[18:37] It sounds like a villain in a penthouse comics strip.

[18:43] Face the fear of man condom.

[18:45] He makes it feel worse.

[18:48] Well, it takes away son's sensation.

[18:50] It'd feel worse.

Dan McCoy

[18:52] Some might say it makes you last longer?

Elliott Kalan

[18:56] I mean, if you need that sort of thing.

[18:57] If you're like, you know, one and out kind of guy.

[19:00] But, you know.

Dan McCoy

[19:00] Dan, we can talk about your problems later.

[19:03] But the point of this-

Elliott Kalan

[19:04] The point of this is, so she wants to get back-

Dan McCoy

[19:06] She was the reason that-

Elliott Kalan

[19:08] It's because she cheated on him with Robert De Niro that Sylvester Stallone said,

[19:12] I want to take away from De Niro the one thing he loves the most, which is this fight

[19:15] and his chance to prove he can beat me.

[19:17] I'm going to take that away and he'll never have it and it'll bother him for 30 years.

[19:21] And it does.

[19:21] De Niro is very eager to get back in the ring because for 30 years he's been aching over

[19:26] the chance to punch out the razor.

Dan McCoy

[19:28] Well, this is one of those movies where, like, people are haunted by one event that happened

[19:33] in them- happened to them in their youth.

[19:36] And I'm not saying that that doesn't happen, but it happens a lot more in the movies.

[19:39] Yeah, because it's dramatic.

Stuart Wellington

[19:40] Yeah, like, and I know what you did last summer and-

Dan McCoy

[19:43] I also know what you did last summer.

[19:45] But this is the basis of, say, like, all those movies where people go back to their high

[19:50] school reunions and, like, recreate the prom or whatever.

[19:53] Gross boy blank.

[19:53] As if that was something that they did not get over immediately upon leaving high school.

Elliott Kalan

[20:00] Carrie is a high school reunion, but everyone's dead, including her.

[20:03] Just Amy Irving in an empty jail.

Dan McCoy

[20:04] Carrie's there, like, I thought more people would show up.

[20:07] And yeah, Amy Irving's like, you killed them all.

[20:09] What are you talking about?

[20:10] And then you died.

Elliott Kalan

[20:11] Why are you here?

[20:12] I wanted to see what everyone was up to.

[20:14] I wanted to see who got fat.

Dan McCoy

[20:16] Well, no one got fat, Carrie.

Elliott Kalan

[20:18] They all got dead.

[20:19] They're very thin now because they're bones.

[20:21] Yeah.

[20:21] Well, what about that nice teacher who was nice to me?

[20:23] You slammed her in half with a basketball hoop.

[20:26] That doesn't sound like something I'd do.

[20:29] Was I drunk?

[20:30] You do this all the time.

[20:31] Come on, Carrie.

[20:32] And Carrie gets so mad, she kills Amy Irving.

[20:34] Yeah.

[20:36] A lot smaller body count because there's only one other person alive in my graduating class.

[20:40] Yeah.

[20:40] But a very cheap movie to make.

[20:42] Carrie died before graduation, but she got her GED in hell, so.

[20:47] It is a cheap movie, yeah.

[20:49] Because there's one person and it's Amy Irving who's not doing a lot of work these days.

[20:52] What is she up to these days?

[20:54] Aside from being married to her husband, Julius Irving.

[20:56] I think that, I mean, this is a while back.

[20:59] Owner of the Orange Julius franchise.

[21:00] I think she was in Julius when that was the show.

[21:02] I think that she was on that.

[21:03] Oh, really?

[21:04] Yeah.

[21:04] Well, viewers, write in.

[21:06] Amy Irving, if you're listening, write into Flophouse, care of, where's Amy Irving these days?

[21:10] P.O. Box Amy Irving, Irving, California, United States of America.

[21:15] And while you're at that, stop writing in about Strega Nona.

[21:18] We get it.

[21:19] Dan meant Strega Nona.

[21:21] Anyway, so Kim Basinger wants to tell him, I want to be back in your life and I don't want you to do this fight because you'll get hurt.

[21:28] Meanwhile, he starts up with his old coach, Alan Arkin, to get back in shape.

[21:33] Sylvester Stallone.

Stuart Wellington

[21:33] Who is doing amazing for a guy who just got taken out of a nursing home.

Elliott Kalan

[21:37] A guy who apparently needed nursing care really badly is now, yeah, doing great, just living with Sylvester Stallone.

Dan McCoy

[21:42] Who is complaining that he needed a man to wash his balls is now, yeah.

[21:46] Sure.

[21:47] It's one of those movies where he gets...

Stuart Wellington

[21:48] Which has to look like some kind of parachute with a couple of eggs in it by now.

Elliott Kalan

[21:56] Yeah.

[21:57] Just some marbles and a deflated balloon.

[22:00] Yeah.

[22:04] Gross.

[22:05] Two grapes and a reused piece of aluminum foil.

Stuart Wellington

[22:10] You guys are making it weird, Zadon.

Elliott Kalan

[22:13] I mean, yeah, you started off...

[22:15] I was just saying, he's probably got a really long Balzac.

[22:19] I was making the reasonable point.

[22:21] What Stuart meant was that Alan Arkin has a long shelf of Balzac novels.

[22:25] For anyone who might be offended.

[22:27] Because he loves to read.

[22:28] Actually, he loves watching TV.

[22:30] And one of Alan Arkin's funniest lines in the movie.

[22:31] And he does, eventually...

[22:33] Here's the thing.

[22:34] Maybe we just got Stockholm Syndrome.

[22:35] But this movie, after a certain point, starts being funny.

[22:38] Because the characters are literally just hanging around, quipping at each other.

[22:41] And just kind of being lazily, casually funny.

[22:44] Yeah.

[22:44] In a way that...

[22:45] The movie is very forced when it does.

[22:47] So, they start training.

[22:48] Sylvester Sloan...

[22:49] Or Rob De Niro wants to train with LL Cool J, who's a famous fight promoter who has a

[22:53] trainer who has a reality show about him in this universe.

Dan McCoy

[22:56] I think his dad trained with him.

[22:57] That was the thing.

[22:58] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[22:58] Oh, he trained with his...

[23:00] Yeah.

[23:00] LL Cool J's dad trained...

[23:01] Or whatever.

[23:02] But anyway, but LL Cool J...

[23:03] Won't do it.

[23:04] He hangs...

[23:05] He hooks him up with a guy who's not paying attention to him.

[23:08] And that's when Robert De Niro's son, BJ, steps in.

[23:11] BJ starts to be his trainer after being won over about the dad he always hated.

[23:16] And then, BJ brings his son in, who's a little kid.

[23:19] So, the cast is just metastasizing wildly.

[23:23] Yeah.

[23:23] As more and more characters are dumped in this thing like a fucking Dickens novel.

[23:26] But the point is, there's so many characters eventually that it's like the movie is just

[23:31] trying to mix and match them in different scenes.

Dan McCoy

[23:33] Yeah, let's throw fucking Jonathan Lipnicki in with one of these old characters.

Elliott Kalan

[23:37] Or there's just a scene of Kevin Hart apparently does all of his business on his phone while

[23:40] lying on the hood of his car in a motel parking lot.

[23:42] There's just a scene of him yelling at some prostitutes that hang out at the motel.

[23:46] Presumed prostitutes.

[23:47] Presumed...

[23:47] No, they're just dressed like prostitutes and hanging at a hotel, you know.

[23:50] Yeah.

[23:50] Or motel, rather.

[23:52] But there's a lot of scenes of just Alan Arkin saying goofy stuff.

[23:55] Characters just kind of interacting.

[23:58] And in a better movie, like in an Altman movie, in a Robert Altman...

[24:02] Not an Altman movie.

[24:03] In a Robert...

[24:03] You know, like...

[24:05] Like, they're all hanging out and then a Hells Angel stabs somebody.

[24:08] In a Robert Altman movie, there'd be something kind of vibrant about seeing these characters

[24:12] interact.

[24:12] But here it's just kind of like lazy actors lazing around and occasionally saying funny stuff.

[24:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:18] You were gonna...

[24:18] Like the...

[24:19] What was the line?

[24:20] They were getting to...

[24:21] Oh, he's talking about...

Elliott Kalan

[24:22] He's like...

[24:22] He goes to Sebastian Sloan's house.

[24:23] Sebastian Sloan doesn't have a TV.

[24:24] And Alan Arkin's like,

[24:25] I can't believe you don't have a TV.

[24:26] I could be watching Dancing with the Stars right now.

Dan McCoy

[24:29] I'm old.

[24:29] I should be watching Dancing with the Stars.

Elliott Kalan

[24:31] But the way he says, like, I'm old.

[24:33] I should be watching Dancing with the Stars.

[24:34] Like, his delivery is fine.

[24:36] I mean, he's an old pro.

[24:36] No, you guys do justice.

[24:39] Yeah.

[24:39] Yeah, yeah.

[24:39] Yeah.

[24:40] Steel justice.

[24:41] So they...

Stuart Wellington

[24:42] However, whatever goodwill he builds up, I think he loses a lot of it when he does that weird

[24:48] Humpty Dance thing.

[24:49] When Sebastian Sloan's on the phone with your face.

Dan McCoy

[24:51] To be fair, that was his chance to do the hump.

[24:53] Yeah, that's true.

[24:55] You would say...

[24:55] He gets so few chances to do the hump.

[24:57] In this life...

[24:58] Yeah.

[24:58] When the Humpty Dance comes around...

[25:00] You gotta catch it.

Elliott Kalan

[25:01] You gotta jump on it.

[25:02] It's just like a beautiful woman.

[25:04] Mm-hmm.

[25:04] You don't get a shot like this every day.

[25:06] No.

[25:06] You gotta go for it.

[25:08] Yeah.

[25:08] Just like that scene in It's a Wonderful Life.

[25:10] Oh, would you just do the Humpty Dance instead of talking it to death?

Dan McCoy

[25:14] Anyway.

[25:14] Truth is wasted on the young.

Elliott Kalan

[25:17] Uh...

[25:18] Someday I wanna just pull down the moon and swallow it up and the light'll shine out of

[25:23] your fingers and we'll do the Humpty Dance.

[25:25] It's a Wonderful Hump is the name of that movie.

Stuart Wellington

[25:26] It's a Sean Connery monologue, huh?

Elliott Kalan

[25:29] Yeah, that was...

[25:29] When I was in It's a Wonderful Life playing Jimmy Stewart.

[25:33] I also played Clarence the Angel.

[25:36] What actor was that?

[25:37] I don't remember his name, but it was me.

[25:39] He was also in Shadow of a Doubt and The Invisible Man.

[25:41] I also played those roles.

[25:43] You played The Invisible Man and you played Shadow of a Doubt?

[25:45] Yes, I played S-H Doubt.

[25:47] Shadow Hover Doubt.

[25:50] Okay.

[25:51] Uh, Mr. Connery, you're gonna have to take your meds.

[25:53] I don't think so.

[25:54] I think I already took them.

[25:56] Look over there.

[25:57] Sean Connery jumps out window, runs away from old folks home.

Dan McCoy

[26:00] I played the meds and then I swallowed them.

Elliott Kalan

[26:03] I lost them.

[26:04] Like you lost your keys.

[26:06] All right.

[26:07] Got any keys?

[26:08] Sounds like my catchphrase, got any cheese, when I played Steve Urkel on Family Matters.

[26:14] I also played Carl Winslow in the role of Reginald Bell Johnson.

[26:18] I think you have that mixed up.

[26:19] You have the actor's name as the role and it doesn't matter.

[26:21] I played it all.

[26:22] It was Sean Connery.

[26:24] Anyway, that's an old bit.

[26:25] But the movie is occasionally funny when it's just the characters talking, which is too

[26:31] much of the movie, frankly.

[26:33] My complaint to the best, it's one of those movies where...

Stuart Wellington

[26:35] Too much of it was somebody talking a lot.

[26:38] Well, no.

[26:38] My complaint...

[26:38] Elliot won't stand for it.

Elliott Kalan

[26:40] It's weird.

[26:40] This movie is bloated and overlong and shaggy and there are a lot of scenes you don't need

[26:44] where the characters are hanging out.

[26:46] But occasionally those are the best moments in a very mediocre to poor movie.

[26:51] It's just like the characters interacting occasionally brings up

[26:54] some kind of jewel of a moment.

[26:56] But usually it's just boring.

[26:58] But then when they do these big set pieces to promote the fight,

[27:01] Stallone and De Niro skydive out of a plane and then get into a fist fight.

[27:06] And it's like...

Dan McCoy

[27:06] Yeah, then it turns into sub old dogs.

Elliott Kalan

[27:09] Yeah.

[27:09] It's really terrible.

[27:11] The scenes where they put a lot of effort in are really bad.

[27:13] And it reminds me of what I call the Caddyshack boat principle.

[27:18] Those familiar with Caddyshack may remember the boat chase scene where they wreck a bunch

[27:22] of boats by far the least funny scene in the movie.

[27:25] And you could slide that scene right out of the movie and it would not harm it at all.

[27:29] But you can also tell that that has to be the scene they put the most work into.

[27:33] There's stunts in it.

[27:34] They're breaking boats.

[27:35] The best scenes in the movie are when Bill Murray is just making shit up off the top of

[27:38] his head.

[27:39] And yet the worst scenes in the movie is the one where you know they put the most effort

[27:43] into it.

Stuart Wellington

[27:43] Nobody's like sitting around quoting breaking boats with their frat brothers or nothing.

[27:49] But everyone's saying that Dalai Lama part, you know.

Dan McCoy

[27:51] But it makes sense though.

[27:52] I mean like because the thing is, you know, De Niro and Stallone and Alan Arkin are all charming

[27:58] actors.

[27:59] So to just have them hanging out, like that's going to be a lot more fun than trying to

[28:03] shove them into these contrived situations.

Stuart Wellington

[28:07] Yeah.

[28:07] Do you think the director's like, do whatever you want, just make sure at some point you

[28:10] say geriatric or make some joke about being old.

Elliott Kalan

[28:12] There are a few too many jokes about being old.

[28:14] You're like, I get it.

[28:15] They're old.

[28:17] Oh, God.

[28:18] Stop it with reminding me.

[28:20] They look old.

[28:20] They're wrinkled hags.

[28:21] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[28:22] Their shirts are off.

[28:23] It's crazy gross.

Dan McCoy

[28:24] Yeah.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:25] But I mean, they're in really good shape.

Stuart Wellington

[28:26] They're in really good shape for like being 60 or whatever.

[28:28] But I mean, if that's what I have to look forward to, kill me now, Dan.

[28:31] Okay.

[28:32] What's weird is that.

[28:33] How do you choose to die?

[28:36] Knife?

[28:37] Gun?

[28:37] Poison?

[28:37] Death by chocolate.

[28:38] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[28:39] This is going to take a lot of chocolate.

[28:41] So you're going to drown in the chocolate?

[28:42] Yeah.

[28:42] Start smearing it on my body.

[28:43] Stabbed with a chocolate knife?

Stuart Wellington

[28:45] A chocolate dagger?

Elliott Kalan

[28:46] I'm going to smear it on your body.

Stuart Wellington

[28:47] That only exists in India, Elliot.

[28:49] Hold on.

[28:50] From the tuggy cult.

[28:52] You're going to die.

[28:52] The fudgy cult.

Elliott Kalan

[28:55] They worship death by chocolate.

Stuart Wellington

[28:58] Awesome.

[28:59] I can't believe I walked into that.

[29:00] Yeah.

[29:01] Walked into that dagger.

Dan McCoy

[29:03] Made a chocolate.

[29:04] I'm going to smear it on your body and you're going to die through absorbing the chocolate

[29:07] through your pores.

Elliott Kalan

[29:08] It'll be like in Goldfinger, but it would be like Chocolatefinger.

[29:11] Yeah.

[29:11] There's a Bond villain.

[29:13] And he wants to break into the U.S. Chocolate Reserve and steal all the chocolate to eat it.

[29:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:18] He's coming to Hershey's, Pennsylvania.

[29:20] For sure.

Elliott Kalan

[29:20] What a low red Bond movie that would be.

[29:23] James, there's been a thread on Hershey's, Pennsylvania.

[29:26] When I make the chocolate, I'm on the case.

[29:29] I mean, you don't usually say I'm on the case.

[29:31] That's...

[29:31] You're not a policeman or a...

[29:33] The game's afoot.

[29:35] Wait, that's not your...

[29:35] That's what you say.

[29:36] May the force be with you.

[29:38] I said that in the Star Wars movies.

[29:41] Episode 1, Casino Royale.

Dan McCoy

[29:43] It's not...

[29:44] No.

[29:44] You weren't even in those movies.

Elliott Kalan

[29:47] And Casino Royale wasn't even your first Bond film.

[29:50] That doesn't make sense.

[29:51] But it was the first one made for American television.

[29:54] Okay, well, that's true, but...

[29:55] You didn't play Bond.

[29:56] You didn't play that.

[29:57] He was an American in that version.

[30:00] Anyway.

[30:00] Anyway, Zardoz.

Dan McCoy

[30:01] So...

[30:02] Bond trivia.

Elliott Kalan

[30:02] It turns out...

[30:03] So, Sylvester Stallone starts to get back together with Kim Basinger.

[30:06] They go on a date.

[30:07] A date which includes, for no reason, a moment of a white guy using black slang in a stilted way.

[30:14] It's like a little bit of baps.

[30:16] He gets a phone call from Kevin Hart.

[30:17] A little baps in all of us.

[30:18] I guess Mater D?

[30:20] Walks over and says, sir, you have a phone call from a Kevin Hart.

[30:23] I don't remember his character's name.

[30:25] He goes, he says...

[30:26] It says it's mad crazy and shit is about to get real.

[30:30] It's like, oh, God.

[30:32] It's like the movie just stuck a dagger in my ear, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[30:35] Do you feel that Alan Arkin was fulfilling the role of, like, sass-talking granny?

Elliott Kalan

[30:39] Yes, but grampy.

[30:40] Okay.

[30:42] So he was playing the Foxy Grandpa character.

Stuart Wellington

[30:44] So we have the two comedic tropes you like the most.

Elliott Kalan

[30:47] Foxy Grandpa is a real comic.

[30:49] I know it existed before.

[30:50] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:51] So your two favorite comedic tropes are used, right?

Elliott Kalan

[30:53] My two favorite comedic tropes are a white guy saying black slang and an old man who's

[30:57] super, super wants sex and is real frisky and says crazy things.

[31:02] But the second one I like a little more if only because there's more room for it.

[31:06] You can do different types of sassy old man jokes.

[31:08] There's only one type of white guy.

Dan McCoy

[31:09] Yeah, and sometimes the old man turns out to be a monster or like a demon.

Elliott Kalan

[31:12] Yes, occasionally.

[31:13] There's two kinds of white guys who are in black slang jokes.

[31:16] There's when the white guy is really into it and the joke is, what a poser.

[31:21] And there's the times when it's like an English butler who's quoting something that he heard.

[31:24] Yeah, like stodgy and stuck up.

[31:27] Exactly.

[31:28] But anyway, they're on a date.

[31:29] They get back into a car and Sylvester Stallone is blindsided by another driver.

[31:33] It turns out...

Dan McCoy

[31:34] In a horrifyingly realistic accident scene actually for this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[31:37] In which almost no one is hurt.

[31:38] Where Kim Basinger gets a star...

Stuart Wellington

[31:39] Horrifyingly realistic with a beautiful green screen.

Elliott Kalan

[31:42] Yeah.

[31:43] I mean, if you ignore that it looks like 30s rear projection on the green screen.

[31:46] All right.

Dan McCoy

[31:47] I just like...

[31:48] It's not...

[31:48] It breaks the tone of the movie a little bit.

[31:50] Like, I'm like, wait, did Kim Basinger just get killed?

Elliott Kalan

[31:52] It's not adaptation level where...

[31:55] Those were the two scariest car crashes I've ever seen in a movie, I think.

[31:59] That first one in adaptation is ridiculously scary.

[32:03] But it comes out of nowhere and you don't see Kim Basinger for a couple seconds.

[32:07] So you think, yeah, was she killed?

[32:09] Like, what just happened?

[32:09] Is this going to be the fuel that fuels the grudge match?

[32:12] That he's just reconnecting with this woman that De Niro stole from him and now she's been taken away?

[32:16] Sebastelone beats De Niro to death in the ring?

[32:19] Yeah, but no, she's fine.

[32:20] That was just to reveal to us...

[32:21] It was pretty funny, Dan.

[32:23] The movie turned so dark out of nowhere.

[32:26] It's like an audition level tonal shift.

[32:28] Sure.

[32:29] But it just revealed to us that Sebastelone is blind in one eye, which he never told anybody.

[32:33] And if Robert De Niro learned that...

Dan McCoy

[32:35] Probably got a bunch of sparks in it.

[32:36] Yeah, yeah.

[32:37] Wasn't wearing protective eye gear.

[32:39] He was eaten by the monster alone.

Elliott Kalan

[32:41] What?

[32:42] It's a spark song.

[32:43] Oh, yeah, that's right, yeah.

[32:45] I thought...

[32:45] I was thinking of the Gangster of Love.

[32:47] The talking head song.

[32:48] And of course, the...

[32:50] What's the...

[32:51] In Space Cowboy, what does he call himself?

[32:53] The Gangster of Love.

[32:54] Gangster of Love, okay.

Dan McCoy

[32:55] Some people call him Maurice.

Elliott Kalan

[32:57] Yeah, I don't know.

[32:58] Well, it's because he's singing about Maurice Evans from the Planet of the Apes movies.

[33:02] Anyways...

[33:03] Jerry, do you want to speak of the Papadus of Love or can we move on?

[33:06] So that's the...

[33:08] Go on, I'll allow it.

[33:10] That's the Sylvester Stallone setback.

[33:12] The De Niro setback is that he's reconnecting with his son and grandson, takes his grandson

[33:16] for the day, and instead of taking him to the movies like he promised, takes him to his

[33:19] bar where they hang out with a bunch of floozies.

[33:22] And De Niro sneaks away to the backseat of his car.

[33:25] The kid decides to drive home.

[33:28] Puts...

[33:28] Sits on a case of beer and starts putting the car into neutral to drive away.

[33:33] And almost crashes that car while De Niro is having sex in the back.

Stuart Wellington

[33:37] Luckily, there's a police officer to arrest the floozy and I guess the kid.

Elliott Kalan

[33:42] It's a little weird because a police officer...

[33:45] The car literally inches out of a driveway and then stops.

[33:48] And then you hear a siren and go,

[33:49] Beow!

[33:50] And the car has done nothing.

Stuart Wellington

[33:52] Welcome to the police station.

[33:53] Well, well, well.

Elliott Kalan

[33:54] What have we got here?

Stuart Wellington

[33:55] Fucking sentinels are here.

Elliott Kalan

[33:57] Somebody took their car out of the driveway and then stopped.

[34:01] A precog saw that you would slightly back your car out of a driveway.

[34:06] Go get ready for a minority report jail.

[34:09] Freeze them up.

[34:10] Take their brains out.

[34:11] Whatever it is they do there.

[34:14] BJ, the son, is mad.

[34:15] He says, I'm not going to train you anymore.

[34:17] But eventually they get back together.

[34:19] De Niro reveals that he has a scrapbook full of BJ moments.

[34:23] BJ's the son.

[34:24] That scrapbook full of Robert De Niro getting blowjobs.

[34:27] And that wins him back over.

[34:29] Sylvester Stallone tells Alan Arkin,

[34:30] I just won't tell Robert De Niro that I'm blind to one eye.

[34:33] So the grudge match arrives.

[34:35] They're back in fighting shape.

[34:37] And they fight for a while.

[34:39] And then the kid knows about,

[34:41] he doesn't know about the blind spot.

[34:45] Yeah.

[34:45] And is beating the crap out of Razor.

[34:47] But then he learns that Razor's blind to one eye.

[34:49] And he says, hey, this isn't a fair fight.

[34:52] He lifts De Niro up off,

[34:53] lifts Stallone up off his feet so they can fight fair.

[34:56] Yeah.

[34:56] And they fight for a while.

[34:59] And then...

[34:59] And the tables have turned.

[35:01] The tables turn.

[35:01] They turn back.

[35:02] They turn again.

[35:03] Stallone lifts De Niro up off the canvas.

[35:06] They do the thing that happens in boxing movies

[35:07] where the two people just stand and punch each other

[35:09] without really moving very much.

[35:11] Yeah.

[35:11] Which is maybe my favorite moment in Rocky Balboa

[35:14] when Rocky and Mason Dixon, the younger fighter,

[35:17] Rocky is being battered so hard

[35:19] and he's having these flashbacks to Adrian's grade.

[35:23] To Rambo.

[35:26] Teresa Rambo.

[35:27] He's flashing back to other Sylvester Stallone roles.

[35:29] He's like, I can't believe I made that porno.

[35:31] I know it was early in my career, but still.

Stuart Wellington

[35:32] Man, you keep going back to that one,

[35:34] but you haven't talked about I See You that much.

Elliott Kalan

[35:36] Not that much.

[35:37] Or rhinestone or Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead,

[35:39] which he wasn't in, but sounds like Stopper My Mom Will Shoot.

[35:42] And I think it's time for a crossover between the two.

[35:44] Don't tell mom my babysitter's shooting.

Stuart Wellington

[35:48] I got a question, Elliot.

[35:49] How come the movie Oscar wasn't nominated for an Oscar?

[35:51] It seems like it was Oscar 8.

Elliott Kalan

[35:53] It was not very good.

[35:54] That's why.

[35:55] Oscar was the first time I remember seeing a commercial for a movie

[35:58] where they had people in the theater talking about the movie

[36:01] and then they would cut to a line of dialogue from the movie

[36:04] as if that was a response to what the person was saying.

[36:08] Someone was like, I like Stallone more for comedy than action.

[36:11] And it cuts to Stallone being like, well, how about that?

[36:14] As if he was having a conversation through the movie screen.

[36:17] Like it's Purple Rose of Oscar or something like that.

[36:20] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[36:20] I was imagining people in the audience,

[36:22] the commercial had people in the audience speaking,

[36:24] it was okay, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[36:26] I mean, I don't want my money back.

Dan McCoy

[36:29] We had to pay for a babysitter, but it was a nice night out.

Elliott Kalan

[36:32] But in Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone's getting beat up

[36:35] and then it's like, oh, but we got to finish this thing.

[36:37] And Mason Dixon's like, yeah, let's finish it.

[36:39] And then there's a wide shot of the two of them just standing,

[36:41] feet planted on the ground, just swinging their hands at each other

[36:44] like rock'em, sock'em robots.

[36:46] And anyway, that ends like that.

[36:48] And in a split decision based on points, Sylvester Stallone wins.

[36:52] There's no climactic knockout.

[36:54] It's just Sylvester Stallone gets named the winner.

[36:57] Everybody is happy.

[36:58] Yeah, everyone's learned a lesson.

[36:59] Sylvester Stallone and De Niro are friends again.

[37:01] I mean, they weren't before, but they're kind of friendly now.

[37:03] And there are.

[37:04] And Alan Arkin is like, we were robbed.

[37:08] We were robbed.

[37:08] Someone brought the judges.

[37:09] There's a long-running joke that his hearing aid doesn't work well.

[37:13] And Stallone's like, no, no, fix your hearing aid.

[37:14] We won.

[37:15] And Alan Arkin's like, we won.

[37:16] Damn hearing aid.

[37:18] Smash cut to credits.

[37:20] And then there are two post-credit scenes.

[37:22] In one, Razor and Kevin Hart and Alan Arkin are watching as Robert De Niro is on Dancing

[37:29] with the Stars.

[37:30] And then Sylvester Stallone leaves to go hang out with his girlfriend.

[37:35] And then there's a second post-credit scene where Kevin Hart is trying to convince Mike Tyson

[37:40] and Evander Holyfield to get back into the ring together.

[37:43] Yeah.

[37:44] And there's some ear jokes.

[37:45] There's some ear jokes and a hangover joke.

[37:48] And it is weird to see Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson together because they both look

[37:52] really old.

Stuart Wellington

[37:54] And it puts a lot of pressure on Kevin Hart to keep energy in that scene, which he's, for

[38:01] an energetic guy, it is still difficult to watch.

Dan McCoy

[38:04] So I guess what I'd say about this movie is, it is a long road to nowhere.

[38:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:08] And if this movie was an hour and ten minutes, it might have been a fun, overlong, super-sized

[38:15] episode of a sitcom about two aging former boxers.

[38:20] But instead, it's supposed to be a movie.

[38:21] And it's nearly two hours long.

[38:24] Yeah.

[38:24] And it's not quite a drama.

[38:25] And it's not funny enough, really, to be a comedy.

[38:27] So I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[38:28] It's not quite a drama.

[38:30] And it's not quite a comedy.

[38:32] But boy.

[38:33] Yeah.

[38:34] I got nothing else.

Elliott Kalan

[38:35] So that was a Homer paraphrase?

[38:36] Yeah, it was.

[38:39] They're not quite mops.

[38:40] They're not quite puppets.

[38:42] But boy, can they.

[38:44] So to answer your question, I don't know.

[38:45] Yeah.

[38:48] On that note.

[38:49] I was very excited to watch this movie because I'm a big fan of Stallone.

[38:53] I'm a big fan of De Niro.

[38:54] I like stupid things.

[38:56] And I wanted to.

[38:57] This movie idea was so dumb to me.

[38:59] And yet it was just so like.

Dan McCoy

[39:00] And boxing movies.

[39:01] I mean, for a sport that even as a person who doesn't like sports, I find extremely boring.

[39:08] Boxing movies usually are good.

Elliott Kalan

[39:11] It's very dull.

[39:11] But in movies, it's very cinematic.

[39:13] Yeah.

[39:13] Because there's few things movies do better than two guys punching the shit out of each other.

[39:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:18] Yeah.

[39:18] It's a very literal conflict between two people where they just come together at the end and punch each other.

[39:25] But I don't know.

[39:26] I actually wasn't that excited about it because it felt so phoned in.

[39:30] Just like hearing the premise, seeing the trailer, seeing the posters.

[39:34] It felt like the blandest.

[39:36] Like, we basically made this movie so we could make a poster.

[39:40] Yeah.

[39:40] You're going to pay money for it, dummy.

Dan McCoy

[39:41] You would rather see four elderly people go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party is what you're saying.

[39:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:47] But it would have to be their last time going to Las Vegas.

[39:50] Sure.

[39:51] You know?

Elliott Kalan

[39:51] It would be like Las Vegas.

[39:52] Yeah.

[39:53] Like a six-string samurai.

[39:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:55] Where it's post-apocalyptic.

[39:56] These old people are not just old.

[39:58] They're from the past.

Elliott Kalan

[39:59] And these old guys want to get laid.

Stuart Wellington

[40:00] They need to get laid to repopulate the earth.

Elliott Kalan

[40:04] And to generate the sex energy that powers their erotic time machines.

[40:07] Exactly.

[40:09] Otherwise, it would be...

[40:10] Time Zeppelin.

[40:10] I think here's why I wanted to...

[40:13] Part of the reason I wanted to see this was because it seemed like a total stupid cash

[40:16] grab for these two guys.

[40:18] And in the end, they kind of put more effort into it than I thought, but not enough to make

[40:22] it...

[40:23] Oh, get it over that hurdle.

[40:24] But I also like that it's similar to how a band that used to play stadiums now will have

[40:29] to team up with another band to play large festivals.

[40:32] This felt like Stallone can't open a movie anymore.

[40:35] De Niro can't open a movie anymore.

[40:36] So we'll do the monsters of boxing movies.

[40:39] And we'll have Stallone and De Niro in one movie.

[40:41] Yeah.

[40:42] Like when Iron Maiden and Megadeth are on a bill together.

[40:45] They can't totally do it themselves.

[40:48] Sure.

[40:49] They're going to do it together.

Stuart Wellington

[40:50] Yeah.

[40:51] Cooperation.

[40:52] Yeah, exactly.

[40:53] And then they had to bring in the powerhouse Kim Basinger.

Elliott Kalan

[40:56] Yeah.

[40:57] Yeah, because you need a babe.

[40:59] Yeah.

[41:00] Basinger.

[41:00] A little bit of arm candy.

[41:02] And to bring in Kevin Hart, of course, for the youth vote.

[41:05] Yeah.

[41:05] And then to bring in Alan Arkin for the dead vote.

[41:08] Oh, boy.

[41:09] There's so many jokes about Alan Arkin.

[41:11] It's weird because there's...

[41:12] It's like Grumpy Old Men where Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were old and then Burgess Meredith

[41:16] was very old.

[41:18] So it's like there's two levels of old jokes.

[41:20] There's I'm in my 70s old and there's I'm in my 80s old.

Stuart Wellington

[41:23] Speaking of an old man grudge match...

[41:25] Or 60s old.

[41:25] Grumpy Old Men.

[41:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:27] Okay.

[41:28] It's a way better movie.

[41:29] But there's a movie where they were like, okay, this is Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.

[41:33] They've worked together many times before.

[41:36] Odd Couple, Fortune Cookie, etc.

[41:38] They are going to...

[41:39] They're both good at small scale comedy.

[41:42] And we're going to do this as a small scale comedy.

[41:44] There aren't going to be any jumping at a plane.

[41:46] Yeah, that's the thing.

Dan McCoy

[41:46] That movie deliberately was just like, no plot.

[41:49] They're just going to hang out together for a while.

Elliott Kalan

[41:51] But, I mean, they were fighting for the love of a woman.

Dan McCoy

[41:53] No, no.

[41:54] But that was the minimal plot necessary to make a film.

[41:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:57] Well, you used to be able to make a movie like that.

[41:59] Now you need bigger stuff.

[42:00] Yep.

[42:00] Whiz bang.

[42:02] Jazz mups.

Dan McCoy

[42:04] Jazz mups.

[42:05] Let's move to final judgments quickly.

[42:08] Whether this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked.

[42:11] Elliot, what do you got to say?

Elliott Kalan

[42:12] I think it lives outside of our system.

[42:14] Yeah.

[42:15] It wasn't good bad.

[42:16] It wasn't bad enough to be bad bad, but it wasn't good enough to be kind of liked.

Dan McCoy

[42:19] Yeah.

[42:19] I'm going to say, I'm going to take a lead from this movie.

[42:23] It's a split decision on points.

[42:26] It came close to being a movie I kind of liked, but ultimately it was a bad, bad movie.

[42:30] Okay.

[42:31] Elliot, what do you...

[42:31] I mean, I'm Elliot.

[42:32] I'm talking to Elliot.

[42:33] Yeah, Elliot, what do you think, buddy?

[42:34] You're looking at Stuart.

[42:35] Dan, have you gone person blind?

[42:38] I'm person blind in one eye.

Stuart Wellington

[42:42] Yeah, I'm going to stick with bad, bad.

[42:44] All right.

[42:44] Yeah.

[42:45] There was just not enough zazz or zing or pep.

[42:49] Moxie.

[42:50] Moxie.

[42:50] Absolutely no moxie.

[42:52] Not enough jazam.

Dan McCoy

[42:54] That means the same thing, right?

[42:55] That's super gross.

[42:58] Before we move on, some quick plugs on behalf of our network of podcast friends, all things comedy.

[43:08] First of all, if you like comedy podcasts, why not check out My Dumb Friends, in which New York-based comics Dan St. Germain and Sean Donnelly talk to their friends about the dumbest shit they've ever done.

[43:20] Topics range from selling candy to pay for a girlfriend's abortion to...

[43:26] I'm not going to say that next thing.

[43:27] Past guests include Kirk Brownhuller, Nikki Glacier.

[43:34] Not going to say that name, are you?

[43:35] And most recently the girls from Broad City, Alana Glacier and Abby Jacobson.

[43:40] That's a funny group of people.

[43:42] Dan St. Germain has an album, Bad at the Good Times, that will be out on June the 10th.

[43:48] And speaking of comedy albums, just a reminder, Jackie Cation's album, This Will Make an Excellent Horcrux, is now on iTunes.

[43:56] But moving on to Flophouse-specific announcements.

Elliott Kalan

[44:00] Oh.

[44:00] I've got two of them.

[44:02] One, if you have a white sedan, your lights are on.

[44:07] With a license plate, FLPHSE.

Dan McCoy

[44:11] First of all, Flophouse crossover event.

[44:14] On the last Tuesday in April, that's April 29th, our fellow bad movie podcasters over at We Hate Movies will be doing a podcast on the Clint Eastwood and a Chimp classic, Every Which Way But Loose.

[44:27] I thought it was an orangutan.

[44:29] A orangutan.

[44:29] It is an orangutan.

[44:30] It is an orangutan.

[44:30] You are correct.

[44:32] A orangutan.

[44:33] I apologize.

[44:35] I mixed up my great apes.

[44:36] But moving on.

Elliott Kalan

[44:39] Apologize to the apes, Dan.

[44:40] They're right here.

[44:41] The first set.

[44:42] Apologize to Clyde.

[44:43] I'm sorry.

[44:44] I'm sorry, Clyde.

[44:45] Don't rip my face off.

[44:46] That's what chimps do.

[44:48] Dan, you are an ape racist.

Stuart Wellington

[44:50] Orangutans arm wrestle you to death.

Elliott Kalan

[44:51] No, orangutans sneak through the chimney with a razor and then they slash your throat.

[44:57] All right.

Dan McCoy

[44:57] The point is, on April 29th, We Hate Movies are going to put out a podcast on Every Which Way But Loose.

[45:04] And then the first Saturday in May, that is May 3rd, we here at the Flophouse will drop an episode about the sequel, Any Which Way You Can.

Stuart Wellington

[45:13] That's so much chimps, right, Dan?

[45:15] Too many chimps.

Dan McCoy

[45:17] Orangutans.

[45:18] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[45:19] We're going ape around here in New York in podcast land.

[45:23] Oh, fuck it.

[45:24] Just keep going.

[45:25] We have another exciting announcement, right?

[45:27] Moving on.

Dan McCoy

[45:27] On May the 10th in beautiful Yonkers, New York, we will be doing our first live show since the untimely passing of the 92Y Tribeca.

[45:37] At the Yonkers branch of the Alamo Drafthouse, we will be screening the 1992 film Sleepwalkers.

[45:43] Stephen King's Sleepwalkers.

Stuart Wellington

[45:44] Just in time for Mother's Day.

Dan McCoy

[45:46] Yeah, it's about a mother-son team of incestuous werecats.

[45:50] As always, we'll have...

[45:52] That's not a joke.

[45:53] That's the entirety of the plot.

[45:54] Yeah, that's what the movie's about.

[45:56] There's also a hero cat in it.

[45:57] Don't worry.

[45:58] We'll have an intro by friends at the I Love Bad Movies zine.

[46:02] And we will provide running commentary and riffs during the film.

Elliott Kalan

[46:06] We're going to talk through the whole film.

[46:07] If you've been to one of our live events, you know it's not to be missed.

[46:10] If you've missed our live events, now's your chance to not miss it.

Dan McCoy

[46:14] And by the time this posts, there will be a link to buy tickets up at the Alamo Drafthouse

[46:20] Yonkers site.

[46:21] And we will provide...

[46:21] And let's put a link on our site, too.

[46:23] A link on our site.

[46:25] FlophousePodcast.com.

Elliott Kalan

[46:25] And Alamo Drafthouse, if you haven't been there before, you can order food and drinks during

[46:29] the movie.

[46:29] What?

[46:30] But you cannot talk during the movie.

[46:32] That's only for us.

[46:33] Yeah.

[46:33] It's our thing.

[46:34] You can use your cell phone, right?

[46:35] No, you cannot use your cell phone.

[46:36] What?

[46:37] But it's a nice theater.

[46:39] But moving on.

[46:40] And what movie was it?

[46:41] Sleepwalkers?

[46:43] Sleepwalkers.

[46:44] Not Sleepwalk With Me, the Mike Babilia movie.

[46:46] No.

[46:47] We'll be talking over that, too.

Dan McCoy

[46:48] If you want to hear that story, listen to any episode of This American Life.

[46:53] Boom!

Elliott Kalan

[46:54] Slam!

[46:55] So, what was it?

[46:55] May 10th.

[46:56] Yeah, May 10th.

[46:57] Yonkers, Alamo Drafthouse, The Flophouse, live, Sleepwalkers, May 10th.

Dan McCoy

[47:01] So, moving on to letters.

[47:04] We have a letter here.

[47:06] It's titled Letters.

Elliott Kalan

[47:09] Is that the new fragrance from Calvin Klein, Letters?

Dan McCoy

[47:12] No song, but a creepy whisper.

[47:14] Letters.

[47:14] I don't have a song in me right now.

[47:16] Yeah.

[47:17] That's good.

[47:18] We're running long.

[47:19] Running long.

Elliott Kalan

[47:21] Running on empty.

[47:23] Running long.

[47:25] Running with letters.

Dan McCoy

[47:27] First off, we have a letter titled Dream Recommendations.

[47:31] It's from Josh.

Elliott Kalan

[47:32] I recommend good dreams.

[47:33] Last name withheld.

[47:34] Maybe sexy ones.

Dan McCoy

[47:35] Hey, Floppers.

[47:36] Tommy Chong movie?

[47:37] No.

[47:38] Recent listener, but I've been binging over the last week.

[47:42] I've been binging over the last week, and it's infiltrated my dreams.

[47:46] I dreamt I was listening to a podcast where a cast of comedians were offering their summer

[47:50] movie recommendations.

[47:52] The Floppers were there, of course.

[47:53] And while I don't remember all of their recommendations, I do remember that Stuart recommended One Direction,

[47:58] This Is Us, which I found hilarious.

[48:02] Keep up the good work.

Elliott Kalan

[48:04] So, Stuart, you really liked that movie, huh?

[48:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:07] Yeah.

[48:07] I think somebody goes crazy and, I don't know, rips off a ding dong?

[48:12] Sounds about right.

[48:14] Walka, walka.

Dan McCoy

[48:16] Yep.

[48:16] Just keep going.

[48:17] That's our Stuart.

[48:19] Wonka, wonka.

[48:20] So, moving on.

[48:23] It's on the Muppets Chocolate Factory.

[48:25] This email is titled, Flops for Everyone.

[48:29] Hey, Floppers, I just want to tell you how I came to be a fan of your podcast and to ask

[48:32] you a favor.

[48:33] I was introduced to the podcast in the same way that most of your fans probably are.

[48:37] In a dream.

[48:38] By my mom.

[48:40] What?

[48:41] More specifically.

[48:41] Record scratch.

Elliott Kalan

[48:42] Ow!

[48:43] I feel good.

[48:44] Na-na-na-na-na-na-na.

Dan McCoy

[48:46] More specifically, by my very conservative and very religious mom.

[48:50] Apparently, the first episode she listened to was, quote, not too bad.

[48:54] I.e., not full of references to ding-dongs being ripped off or to Adventures of the Great

[48:59] Bikini Sword.

[49:01] But since then, I think she's come to regret suggesting the podcast to her daughter and

[49:06] conservative and religious friends.

Elliott Kalan

[49:08] Oh, I'm sorry.

[49:09] She still listens, though, to all the new ones and the back catalog.

[49:13] I feel bad I curse so much in this episode now.

Dan McCoy

[49:15] I think your words that sound like other words and letter songs are enough to make her overlook

[49:19] any ding-dong references.

[49:21] Oh, we didn't even do a song.

[49:22] So, you're cool.

Stuart Wellington

[49:23] Me, not so much.

[49:24] Nope.

[49:24] I'm the bad boy.

Dan McCoy

[49:26] The bad boy of podcasting.

[49:28] She says, now my favor.

[49:29] Karate kick.

[49:30] My mother's birthday is on April the 29th.

[49:33] I know you want to say happy birthday to her.

[49:35] I don't have much to offer you in exchange for this request other than to make you aware

[49:39] of a new demographic, 49-year-old moms who have a good sense of humor.

[49:44] Keep on flopping.

[49:45] Elizabeth, that's first and last name withheld.

[49:48] Oh, so not even the real first name.

[49:49] If there's a mother out there with a birthday on April 29th with a daughter whose, I guess,

Elliott Kalan

[49:54] middle name is Elizabeth?

[49:57] Happy birthday.

[49:57] And thanks for listening.

[49:58] Happy birthday.

[49:59] Thanks for listening.

[49:59] And thanks for recommending us.

[50:00] Thanks for recommending us to people.

[50:02] Yeah.

[50:02] Sorry that we are not the wholesome podcast that you thought we would be.

Stuart Wellington

[50:08] It's, I think it's the drinking, Elliot.

[50:12] Well, I mean, me and Dan.

[50:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:14] I just drink water.

[50:15] We have.

[50:15] And chicken juice.

Stuart Wellington

[50:16] We have devil water inside of us.

[50:18] Yeah.

[50:18] You strain chicken juice into some kind of carafe that you sip from.

[50:23] That's how you get all the powers of a chicken.

Elliott Kalan

[50:24] It's a chicken.

[50:25] It's how I peck at things.

[50:27] And I can count and win at Tic-Tac-Toe.

[50:29] Yep.

[50:30] And I can do that Strozek dance.

Dan McCoy

[50:32] Yep.

[50:33] You're really good at eating small pebbles that help you digest.

[50:36] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[50:37] Yep.

[50:37] For my gizzard.

[50:38] And if your head's chopped off, you'll probably be okay for a little while, right?

Elliott Kalan

[50:41] Yeah.

[50:42] Yeah.

[50:42] About five to ten minutes.

[50:44] And you don't want to be sleeping next to me when this one comes up.

[50:46] You will be awoken.

[50:48] The point is, happy birthday.

Dan McCoy

[50:51] Happy birthday, mom, to another person.

[50:53] So, moving on, yet on the same theme.

[50:57] Subject of moms.

[50:58] This letter is titled, Stockholm Syndrome.

[51:01] Dear flop men, when my grandson first introduced me to your podcast, I hated it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:09] I am surprised that people are trying to reach out.

Stuart Wellington

[51:12] Is this the grandma doesn't understand guy all over again?

Dan McCoy

[51:15] Being 74 years old and not really the best driver, my grandson had to help me move houses

[51:24] from one English county to another.

[51:26] That was nice of him to do.

[51:27] In this roughly four hour drive, I was subject to the incessant ramblings of the three madmen

[51:32] about even madder films.

[51:35] It was hell.

[51:36] Elliot reminded me of an obnoxious seven year old who wouldn't shut up.

[51:40] And Stuart, well, I didn't think he was quite the gentleman.

Elliott Kalan

[51:44] You were wrong.

[51:45] He is quite the distinguished gentleman.

[51:47] Eddie Murphy.

Dan McCoy

[51:48] I felt indifferent towards Dan.

[51:50] However, as time went by, I began to find Elliot Slater's songs charming and adorable.

[51:59] People love my songs.

[52:00] Stuart's odd deep voice endearing.

[52:03] And Dan, well, now he reminds me of my old college boyfriend.

[52:06] I think I've developed Stockholm Syndrome for your podcast.

[52:09] It is the only podcast I listen to.

[52:11] And even when I try to listen to others, I can't.

[52:13] They pale in comparison.

[52:14] You remind me of my sons and make lonely nights away from my family more entertaining.

[52:18] Oh, that's very sweet.

[52:19] So with grannies like me in mind, what are your favorite movies about or featuring elderly

[52:24] people?

[52:24] With love, Margaret Lastname withheld.

[52:26] P.S.

[52:27] I recently adopted a cat and have named her Flop.

[52:30] Keep making great podcasts.

Elliott Kalan

[52:31] That's very sweet.

[52:32] Thank you for listening.

[52:33] I'm glad you overcame your initial disgust.

[52:37] It continued.

[52:38] Well, movies about old people.

[52:39] Well, there's a movie called Grudge Match.

[52:41] I don't know if you're familiar.

Stuart Wellington

[52:43] Elderly people, I think, is a tough thing to determine.

[52:46] I mean, like, Nebraska was great with Bruce Dern.

Elliott Kalan

[52:49] I mean, we mentioned Grumpy Old Men.

[52:51] Like, that's a movie I genuinely enjoy a lot.

[52:54] I mean, it's hard to go wrong with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

Dan McCoy

[52:57] Tokyo Story is a classic.

[52:58] That's a pretty sad movie.

Elliott Kalan

[52:59] I mean, like, yeah, Make Way for Tomorrow, again, is also classic, but also sad.

[53:03] The problem is, a lot of movies about old people fall into one of two categories.

[53:06] Either sad movies, or like Away From Her, you know.

[53:11] Or, like, goofy movies about old people feeling their oats again and doing young people stuff.

Dan McCoy

[53:17] But you also got your Clint Eastwood movies about, like, fuck you, young people.

[53:23] I'm tough.

Elliott Kalan

[53:24] Yeah, like Gran Torino, that kind of thing.

Dan McCoy

[53:25] Yeah, but also, you know, like your absolute powers or whatever, whereas, like.

[53:30] Yeah, your blood works.

[53:31] Your space cowboys.

[53:32] An elderly gentleman still kicking ass.

[53:35] Yeah.

[53:35] I don't know if I would.

[53:36] And forgetting names.

Stuart Wellington

[53:37] I don't know if I'd classify him as, like, elderly, but I think an older man, like.

[53:41] With Terrence Stamp, what is that?

[53:44] The Limey?

[53:44] The Limey, yeah.

[53:45] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:46] That's a good.

[53:47] It's certainly a very good.

Stuart Wellington

[53:48] I mean, there are a lot of.

[53:48] And it's two actors who were bigger in the 70s.

Elliott Kalan

[53:53] Yeah.

[53:53] I mean, the Limey uses scenes from his older movie in it.

Stuart Wellington

[53:57] Yeah.

[53:57] And it has a good Peter Fonda performance.

Dan McCoy

[53:59] And there's certainly, like, a lot of good movies about aging out there.

[54:02] I mean, like, they weren't.

[54:03] They were at most late middle age when they made this movie.

[54:07] But a movie that I recommended before that I really enjoyed, Robin and Marion, was sort

[54:12] of a movie about an older version.

[54:13] I just saw that recently for the first time.

Elliott Kalan

[54:15] Yeah.

[54:15] And that's an interesting movie.

[54:16] That's a movie with a weird tone to it.

[54:19] Because it feels like they wanted it to be a comedy, and then it stopped being a comedy

[54:23] at a certain point in the production.

[54:25] And it has maybe the saddest action scene I've ever seen, where Robin and Little John have

[54:31] a kind of pathetic fist fight with a couple of guys on top of a wall.

[54:34] And it takes them forever to climb up a wall.

[54:36] But there's something, like, more real about it.

[54:39] Like, yeah, it would take these guys a long time, and they're not as tough as they once

[54:42] were, and they're all disillusioned.

[54:44] The stuff with King Richard in that is fantastic.

[54:46] Yeah.

[54:47] But, I mean, so I guess there are a number of good movies about older folk.

[54:53] There's a 30s movie called Star Witness that I'm a fan of, but I don't know if you'll

[54:57] be able to find it somewhere, about an old man who is going to testify against the mob

[55:01] even though it puts his family at risk.

[55:03] And the old man is a Civil War veteran.

[55:06] And the movie's from the early 30s, and there's just something amazing to me about that.

Dan McCoy

[55:10] Thank you for listening.

[55:13] I'm surprised that you're still listening, but thank you.

[55:15] Thank you.

[55:16] We appreciate it.

[55:16] But the last letter of the evening is titled, Podcast 147 Devils Something.

[55:26] I just wanted to tell you that I so enjoyed myself at exercise with earphones and iPhone,

[55:30] listening to the one about the young people on a quest to Russia to find out what happened

[55:34] to a previous group of dead explorers.

[55:36] I was indeed laughing out loud, disturbing other senior exercisers.

Elliott Kalan

[55:40] This is a lot of themes to these letters.

Dan McCoy

[55:42] I think Elliot has missed his calling as a jingle writer, but not a jingle singer.

[55:46] Oh, wow.

[55:47] This letter's from Shelly, last name withheld, Stewart's mom.

Stuart Wellington

[55:51] Burn.

[55:52] Oh, man.

[55:53] Good one, mom.

[55:54] I got burned by Mrs. Wellington.

[55:56] Well, I didn't even...

[55:58] I only had to write her like three emails to get her to write it.

[56:02] And I noticed she didn't mention her son at all, so...

Elliott Kalan

[56:04] No, she doesn't care that much.

[56:09] I think it's fair to say that my voice is not one of my top talents.

Dan McCoy

[56:13] Yeah.

[56:14] But I'm glad that...

[56:15] I'm glad that we were getting it through senior exercise.

Elliott Kalan

[56:18] Did you know we were going to do grudge match when you put together this almost entirely

[56:22] senior-themed letters column?

Dan McCoy

[56:24] There's a little thing called Kismet, Elliot, and it happened tonight.

[56:27] Kissing Mr. Met?

[56:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:29] So it was an older bag of letters written on parchment paper.

[56:33] Yeah, with little pens.

[56:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[56:36] It was in cuneiform.

[56:39] They went to CUNY?

[56:40] It was in the City University of New York.

[56:43] So those are letters.

[56:45] They're a thing that people write to us.

[56:47] We're done with that segment.

[56:47] Yeah.

[56:48] Why are you still talking about it?

Elliott Kalan

[56:49] The past is past, Dan.

[56:50] We move on.

[56:51] We're about the future now.

[56:52] Space letters.

[56:53] Written in space by aliens on space paper.

Stuart Wellington

[56:57] They look like hieroglyphics because they're the guawool from Stargate.

[57:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[57:02] So far, we've been able to translate that this letter, it's a cookbook.

Dan McCoy

[57:08] It says, humans are delicious.

[57:12] Signed, cookbook guy.

[57:13] I was hoping you would say the next segment is recommendations.

Elliott Kalan

[57:18] Is that the next segment, Dan?

[57:20] Yeah, there is.

[57:20] Is this where we recommend movies we actually enjoyed?

Dan McCoy

[57:22] This is that segment.

Stuart Wellington

[57:24] Now, we just recommend some oldster movies.

[57:27] Oldster?

Stuart Wellington

[57:27] Let's recommend some not-so-oldster movies.

[57:29] I mean, the movie I would recommend is old.

[57:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[57:32] It's not old-so-what is that movie?

[57:35] I'll start.

[57:36] So, considering this was a boxing movie, I thought I'd recommend a better boxing movie.

[57:40] So, I wanted to recommend a noir from 1949 called The Setup, directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Ryan.

[57:49] And it's a movie that is told in real time, before that was a kind of taken up too much by other people as a gimmick, about a boxer who is a constant loser.

[58:01] And his manager has basically taken money for a fix, but not told him, because he's so sure that Robert Ryan's going to lose this fight.

[58:11] And, unfortunately, things go a little better for Robert Ryan, which means they're going to go a lot worse for Robert Ryan.

[58:17] And he's going to become a victim of this setup.

[58:19] And it's a taut, tight little, less, I think, around an hour and 15 minute movie told in real time about a boxer going into a match, not knowing what trouble he's about to enter into and the repercussions thereof.

[58:32] And it's a nice little movie from when Robert Wise was making kind of short, tight, thriller-type movies before he started making stuff like The Sound of Music.

Dan McCoy

[58:44] The setup.

[58:46] I'd like to recommend a movie that I saw.

[58:49] It's in theaters now.

[58:51] It's called Under the Skin.

[58:54] It's directed by Jonathan Glazier, who made Sexy Beast and Birth, both of which are, you know, interesting, good movies to one degree or another.

[59:03] But I think neither really measures up to Under the Skin, which I think is kind of an amazing movie.

[59:11] I don't want to say too much about it.

[59:13] No spoilers, dude.

[59:15] It stars Scarlett Johansson.

Elliott Kalan

[59:16] It's based on a Stephen King book about a town that gets trapped under the skin.

[59:21] Under an enormous skin.

Stuart Wellington

[59:22] It's terrifying.

[59:23] I imagine the ending will be stupid.

Dan McCoy

[59:25] No, it's...

[59:26] I think that it's out there enough that it's not spoilers enough.

[59:30] It's not really spoilers to say that Scarlett Johansson is not a human character in it.

[59:38] She's a robot.

Stuart Wellington

[59:40] A bicentennial woman.

Dan McCoy

[59:42] You see...

[59:43] It's kind of a character study where you see humanity through non-human eyes and you feel how alien it must seem to an alien presence.

Elliott Kalan

[59:55] So it's like an artsy version of Fumalian.

Dan McCoy

[59:57] Or...

[59:58] Yeah.

[59:58] That's basically species, dude.

[1:00:01] Except Fumalian didn't kill people.

[1:00:03] Honestly, it feels like kind of like a horror movie version of Upstream Color.

[1:00:08] Although that doesn't even really sell it either.

[1:00:11] Because to call it a horror movie, I think...

[1:00:14] Pigeonholes it?

[1:00:15] Pigeonholes it a little bit.

[1:00:17] But it is genuinely disquieting.

[1:00:19] It's a movie that does not...

[1:00:20] What's the body count?

[1:00:21] ...fully explain everything that goes on in it.

[1:00:24] Although...

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:24] As Joe Bob Briggs would say, what kind of foos are in it?

[1:00:27] Chicken foo, blender foo?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:29] I mean, you can understand everything that goes on in the movie pretty easily, but the movie doesn't feed anything to you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:38] So if you're hungry, don't go see the movie.

[1:00:40] Yeah.

[1:00:42] Get a hamburger, then go see Under the Skin.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:44] But I think the movie does sort of make you view humanity kind of in a different light.

[1:00:50] Like, from an outsider's light, it makes you think about what it is to be a person.

[1:00:56] It makes you think about, like, the differences between men and women.

[1:00:59] Like, it's very hypnotic in a way that is not boring.

[1:01:04] It's kind of freighted with meaning.

[1:01:06] Like, there's a bunch of kind of blank spaces in the movie that aren't blank because you're really filling them

[1:01:11] with your own sort of thoughts about various things.

[1:01:15] I will warn people that, as I said, it is a disquieting movie.

[1:01:19] And there are a couple things that could upset people.

[1:01:22] There's an attempted rape scene in the movie.

[1:01:24] There's a scene where...

[1:01:26] That involves a kind of casual, everyday horror of something going very wrong very quickly

[1:01:35] that involves a baby.

[1:01:39] So if either of those things seem like something that would upset you greatly,

[1:01:43] maybe you wouldn't want to go see the movie.

[1:01:46] Maybe go see the Lego movie.

[1:01:47] Yeah.

[1:01:47] But it's a very good movie.

[1:01:48] So I recommend it.

[1:01:49] The Lego movie is a very good movie.

[1:01:51] I'm not saying that's a bad choice.

[1:01:52] No, no, no.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:54] So I'm going to stick with this theme of boxing and aliens.

[1:01:59] A movie called Boxing Aliens.

[1:02:00] It's called...

[1:02:01] Just fucking with you.

[1:02:02] I'm going to recommend a movie called The Raid 2, the sequel to an earlier Stuart recommendation

[1:02:08] of The Raid.

[1:02:09] This one's directed by Gareth Evans again.

[1:02:11] It is a continuation of the story of the...

[1:02:16] Which there was very little.

[1:02:17] Of the first movie.

[1:02:18] The story of a guy who wanted to punch everyone.

[1:02:22] But this movie continues the story, but it takes it outside of the strict confines of the housing block.

[1:02:30] The hero of the first movie, Rama, in a way switches roles in that he is basically pushed into going undercover.

[1:02:40] And it leads to a shitload of fights.

[1:02:44] There are bad guys known only as Baseball Batman and Hammer Girl and The Assassin.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:51] And like a backup dancer for Hammer.

[1:02:53] And exactly.

[1:02:54] Like the Baseball Fury is an old boy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:56] There is.

[1:02:59] This movie is shockingly violent.

[1:03:02] It is very gory.

[1:03:04] Just like the first one.

[1:03:05] But more so, you're saying.

[1:03:06] More so.

[1:03:07] And it's also very long.

[1:03:09] It's, I think, two and a half hours long.

[1:03:11] But it is, I mean, the action is just so well done.

[1:03:15] And it's so intense that by the end of the movie, you, just like the first one, are going to feel exhausted.

[1:03:21] And it's just beautifully shot and well acted.

[1:03:25] It's awesome.

[1:03:25] So go see it.

[1:03:26] I don't know where it's, it's only playing a couple places around the U.S. right now.

[1:03:29] But I think it's going to be.

[1:03:31] Get a wider release than DVD.

[1:03:32] Yeah.

[1:03:33] I don't know where it's playing.

[1:03:35] I don't give a shit.

[1:03:35] Just watch it when it comes into your eyes.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:37] Make a wish.

[1:03:38] Close your eyes and maybe it'll show up.

[1:03:41] Dust off that monkey's ball.

[1:03:43] You probably got a finger or two.

[1:03:44] I didn't know it was our responsibility to direct people to specific theaters.

[1:03:47] Let me open up the list.

[1:03:49] Hold on.

[1:03:50] Let's see.

[1:03:51] Fucking Elliot's.

[1:03:51] You have to take a fucking Delorean back in time to watch.

[1:03:53] You just get a DVD, dude.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:54] You got to use one of those sex-powered time machines we talked about.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:58] Yeah.

[1:03:58] You got to make love in the fucking engine room to power that Zeppelin.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:04] All right.

[1:04:04] I guess there is an engine room in a Zeppelin.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:07] I don't know.

[1:04:07] Anything that has a, you know, anything with a large engine has an engine room.

[1:04:11] Are you saying that Emmanuel was lying to me?

[1:04:13] They don't have one of those?

[1:04:14] Yeah.

[1:04:14] When Emmanuel in a Zeppelin was made.

[1:04:17] They go down to that room that has a bunch of, like, tubes that twist around.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:21] When they did that, Emmanuel through time.

[1:04:23] Tubes that twist around and shit.

[1:04:24] It's like Brazil.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:24] It's a time series and they did Emmanuel's erotic Hindenburg.

[1:04:28] Yeah.

[1:04:28] Turns out when crashed, it was sex.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:30] Oh, the humanity.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:33] Anyway.

[1:04:34] I hurt myself.

[1:04:35] Sorry.

[1:04:35] I apologize to the seniors listening to this.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:37] Before we wrap up, I want to do a quick plug.

[1:04:41] For people in New York and Brooklyn, if you have a chance on May 4th, it's a Sunday night,

[1:04:46] please come down to Charlene's Bar where they are celebrating their fifth anniversary.

[1:04:52] And I will be drinking there.

[1:04:54] I'm sure I'll probably convince at least one other flopper to be there drinking.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:58] Probably the one who doesn't have a baby.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:59] Yeah.

[1:05:00] Probably the non-baby haver, Dan.

[1:05:02] So come on down, Charlene's Bar, fifth anniversary.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:05] And if I can have a plug, coming out the day we recorded this, but this episode won't air

[1:05:10] for another little bit, I have a story in a comic book called Superior Foes of Spider-Man

[1:05:16] number 11.

[1:05:17] I have an eight-page story in there about the looter, everyone's favorite Spider-Man villain

[1:05:22] who gets his strength from meteor gas.

[1:05:25] I don't think there's a lot of crossover between Flophouse listeners and comic book purchasers.

[1:05:29] No, not a big amount.

[1:05:30] So the Superior Foes of Spider-Man number 11, check it out.

[1:05:33] I wrote some of it.

[1:05:34] That's awesome.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:35] That's awesome, guys.

[1:05:36] Glad we all got stuff going on.

[1:05:38] Yeah, we're busy dudes.

[1:05:40] Well, I mean, we do.

[1:05:40] You don't have anything.

[1:05:41] I mean, I got that thing that we're all doing together.

[1:05:44] Yeah, but that doesn't count.

[1:05:44] We cancel each other out on that.

[1:05:46] Okay.

[1:05:49] I'm making a lot of bread recently.

[1:05:51] Yeah, you're working your way through the bread alphabet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:53] Maybe let's end this Flophouse before we have to talk more about Dan's alphabet bread obsession.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:00] I'm not fucking baking bread in the shape of all the letters.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:04] Yeah, I can't wait to see the fucking evidence dungeon that's left behind after that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:08] All the way from aardvark loaf to zebra slices.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:13] Every bread in the bread alphabet.

[1:06:15] All right.

[1:06:17] Well, thanks, guys.

[1:06:18] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:06:22] I'm still Stuart Wellington.

[1:06:24] And I will always be Elliot Kalin, no matter how hard I try.

[1:06:27] Good night, everyone.

[1:06:28] Hey.

[1:06:29] You're worth it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:31] Thanks, buddy.

[1:06:41] Are we ready to do this?

[1:06:43] I'm ready, man.

[1:06:44] You want to mumble some more?

[1:06:45] What's going on?

[1:06:45] Well, obviously you're not, Sipio.

[1:06:47] Put your drink down and start talking.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:52] Roman General Sipio.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:54] Always wasting time sipping drinks.

[1:06:56] Three, two, one.

The Flop House: Episode #150 - Grudge Match

Transcript

In this episode

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