The Flop House: Episode #149 - Paranoia

[0:00] On this episode we discuss paranoia for no reason. What are you trying to say?

[0:06] Why are you looking at me like that?

[0:30] Hey everyone and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:39] Chicken sound. I'm Elliot Kaler. You gotta learn how to brand yourself like this guy.

[0:46] I've branded myself and it hurt. Not sexy. Not at all.

[0:51] Not like when cows get those sexy brands on them?

[0:55] Come over here. Let me massage you like you're Kobe beef.

[1:02] Let me get some Aquaphor and smear it on that brand so it heals better.

[1:08] You wouldn't know it from that intro. That was one of the shorter off-topic intros recently.

[1:13] But Dan, what do we do here at the Flophouse?

[1:15] We watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:19] And tonight we watched a movie called Paranoia.

[1:24] That's what it was called.

[1:26] Let's define our terms. This is only a movie in the most basic of terms.

[1:35] It meets the minimum standard of having been shot with actors on some sort of film-like substance.

[1:42] It was in a movie theater, right?

[1:44] It was in a movie theater, which boggles my mind.

[1:46] It was in a movie theater.

[1:48] America was on fire with talk of... what was the movie's name again?

[1:52] Paranoia.

[1:53] Paranoia.

[1:54] It's easy to misplace that name in your brain because...

[2:00] It's so generic.

[2:01] But also I feel like with a title like that you expect it to be like...

[2:04] About paranoia?

[2:06] Yeah, like it's Rowan Polanski, The Tenant, Repulsion style.

[2:13] Yeah.

[2:14] Or like a Giallo movie with close-ups on the eyes constantly.

[2:19] Or like a Shock Carter type 60s kind of chibi thriller, B-movie type thing.

[2:26] And it was none of those things. It was a generic...

[2:30] It could have just been called movie and been just as appropriate.

[2:33] It should have been called Let's Not Make This.

[2:35] And it would have been better.

[2:36] Sure.

[2:37] If they had called this movie off, that would have been the best thing.

[2:41] Yep.

[2:42] If it was Paranoia, subtitle Do Not Make, test script.

[2:48] But no, Liam Hemsworth needed his star-making vehicle.

[2:52] And unfortunately this was not it.

[2:54] They're going to make him a star.

[2:55] They're going to have to shoot him into space and blow him up

[2:58] so that his light can warm a tiny planetoid.

[3:02] The light from his brawny shoulders.

[3:04] His shoulders made of paper towels.

[3:06] Brawny, oiled shoulders.

[3:11] Dan drank a bunch of Robitussin before recording this episode.

[3:14] Before recording this, Dan hit himself in the head a bunch of times,

[3:17] drank a bottle of Robitussin, and then literally counted a thousand sheep.

[3:22] I'm distracted by the mixer on this thing.

[3:25] Blinking lights, knobs.

[3:27] Yeah, that's why we need a producer.

[3:31] Maybe we could get...

[3:33] What's his face?

[3:34] You're on fire. Stop it.

[3:36] The kid stays in the picture.

[3:38] We could get Robert Evans to be our producer.

[3:41] Dan, do you want to lie down a little bit?

[3:43] No, no, no. If he lies down, he won't ever wake up.

[3:46] No, that's true. We've got to keep him awake.

[3:48] Walk him around the room.

[3:49] Feed him black coffee.

[3:50] Put a bunch of peas under his mattress.

[3:54] Like a shitload of them.

[3:55] He's a fairytale princess.

[3:57] Thank you for noticing, guys.

[3:58] Pea under his mattress. The smell will keep him awake.

[4:01] So, we watched this movie, and now we're about to talk about it.

[4:05] Elliot is about to give a plot summary.

[4:08] Go, Elliot.

[4:09] And starting in 3, 2, 1...

[4:12] Liam Hemsworth plays Adam Cassidy,

[4:15] a guy who we're supposed to believe is kind of a tech know-it-all

[4:19] who works on a project for a big multinational phone company

[4:25] called Wyatt Mobile.

[4:27] Because what's an imposing rich guy's name?

[4:30] How about Wyatt?

[4:31] Yeah, Nick Wyatt.

[4:33] And played by Gary Oldman.

[4:35] Played by Wyatt Sinek.

[4:37] That would have been great. He would have been great in that role.

[4:39] That would have made it so much better.

[4:41] Instead, we get Gary Oldman doing his fucking chimney-sweep impression.

[4:46] Dan thought it was supposed to be an Australian accent,

[4:49] but I wasn't sure.

[4:50] I thought it was more of a Mary Poppins-y Cockney accent.

[4:52] No, I came around. It was a Cockney accent.

[4:55] But it's too...

[4:57] I think it says a little something about Gary Oldman's voice work

[5:00] that it took a while to figure out what was going on.

[5:04] It says something about Gary Oldman's devotion to the project.

[5:06] Yeah.

[5:07] Let's just say he gave a better performance in Red Riding Hood.

[5:11] Mm-hmm.

[5:12] Yeah, that's not even under debate.

[5:14] He burns a guy alive inside of a giant iron elephant.

[5:18] And when someone asks...

[5:20] Who is it?

[5:21] Someone asks if they can touch his sword.

[5:23] Josh Lucas or somebody?

[5:24] Asks if they can touch his sword.

[5:27] He goes, no.

[5:29] It's perfect line reading.

[5:31] Anyway, Liam Hemsworth and his friend,

[5:36] who is supposed to be a nerd also,

[5:38] except he's also played by a handsome guy,

[5:41] and it's a sign of how glossy stupid this movie is

[5:44] that even the guy who's supposed to be the nerdy,

[5:47] girls-don't-want-to-date-him computer geek guy

[5:50] is still just a handsome guy with a thick neck and a chin butt.

[5:53] He just has glasses on.

[5:55] Wait, he's got a chin butt?

[5:57] No, he has a cleft in his chin.

[5:59] It's not like he has a chin butt.

[6:02] He wears glasses.

[6:04] You can't do both, usually, but he does.

[6:07] They work for Gary Oldman on a project.

[6:09] They try to get into an exclusive club

[6:11] that nobody else seems to be that interested in

[6:13] because there's no line to get in,

[6:14] but they can't get in because they're losers.

[6:16] Well, the nerdy friend would have been a better choice

[6:18] to be the star of the movie.

[6:19] Anyone would have been a better choice to be the star of the movie.

[6:21] Liam Hemsworth is terrible at this.

[6:23] Because Liam Hemsworth begins the movie looking like a preppy asshole,

[6:27] and they don't have to do like a...

[6:29] Actually, the movie opens on a voiceover while he is jogging.

[6:33] A voiceover is always a sure sign that the movie is going to be good.

[6:35] Oh, yeah.

[6:36] Any movie that starts with a voiceover is automatic.

[6:38] Box office gold.

[6:39] It's going to be the best thing you ever saw, heard, tasted, smelled, touched.

[6:43] Every sense will be glorified by this voiceover movie.

[6:47] Liam Hemsworth does a voiceover about how his generation was robbed.

[6:52] They were supposed to have the success,

[6:54] and instead it was taken away from them.

[6:56] And it really feels like this VO was just put on as an afterthought

[7:00] to try to make it relevant in some way.

[7:02] Oh, yeah.

[7:03] Shit, there was a financial collapse.

[7:05] Can we stick something in there about that?

[7:08] Otherwise, what you have is not even a fantasy of rich person life.

[7:14] You know, kind of boilerplate.

[7:16] Two twists in the whole thing.

[7:18] Like Dan said while we were watching it,

[7:19] it was like an episode of like a one-hour CBS police procedural drama.

[7:24] Like it has that kind of plotting and twisting.

[7:26] But significantly longer.

[7:28] An hour and 15 minutes.

[7:29] Almost twice the length and also half the charisma.

[7:32] Now, anyway, we're barely into this stupid movie that has almost no plot.

[7:36] But so they get fired from their job

[7:40] after he gives an impertinent presentation to Gary Oldman

[7:43] about a product that they are working on.

[7:45] It was shots of Gary Oldman naked in the Scarlet Letter.

[7:48] It was the presentation.

[7:50] Look at that.

[7:51] Check that out.

[7:52] Looking for funding for a hall of fame of little penises.

[7:55] A not impressively sized penis hall of fame.

[7:59] Exhibit one, Gary Oldman in the Scarlet Letter.

[8:02] Exhibit two, Dan McCoy in these pictures that I took.

[8:06] Look, I was not aroused.

[8:09] I don't think you're getting a full impression of what I'm thinking.

[8:12] It's probably forced perspective like in The Hobbit.

[8:14] When they shoot all those penises.

[8:16] That's a good point.

[8:17] I shot it in forced perspective and used computers to make it look small.

[8:20] So that a penis the size of John Riz Davies

[8:23] instead looked like a midget.

[8:26] Anyway, so they get fired,

[8:28] but they still have their corporate credit cards.

[8:32] They take it and go to that club.

[8:34] It's them and the two women who work with them.

[8:36] They drink shots after shots.

[8:38] They're just having crazy fun as young people.

[8:40] They are incredibly irritating.

[8:42] They're living life.

[8:44] Yellow.

[8:45] I hate young people.

[8:46] I could be cleaning my son's diaper right now

[8:48] rather than watching this.

[8:50] Sure.

[8:51] Hold on.

[8:52] Oh, man.

[8:53] Your son is the youngest person, though.

[8:56] Oh, no, you're right.

[8:57] I can't hate young people

[8:58] because my son is younger than any of them.

[9:02] You know what?

[9:03] Eventually he'll get to a point where I find him irritating.

[9:05] Anyway, so...

[9:07] He's not going to clubs here.

[9:08] Got it.

[9:09] No, he's only going to...

[9:10] I mean, he'd probably be pretty irritating in a club.

[9:12] He's only going to baby clubs.

[9:13] Club Goo Goo.

[9:14] Pants Oilers.

[9:16] I'm sorry I started this.

[9:17] Rattles.

[9:19] The Teething Room.

[9:22] And he has...

[9:25] Now you see him now you don't.

[9:26] That's a peek-a-boo themed club.

[9:28] He has a regular table at Fuzzy Head

[9:31] but not a lot of hair yet.

[9:33] Sure.

[9:34] The Club.

[9:35] That's a very descriptive long name.

[9:37] It sounds kind of like Harrison Ford in this movie, too.

[9:40] Yep, yep.

[9:41] While at the club, Liam Hemsworth locks eyes across the room with Amber Heard.

[9:45] They dance together, cut to the next morning.

[9:47] They've had sex.

[9:48] And she's kicking him out of her apartment

[9:50] because she's a high-powered executive

[9:52] and he's just bridge and tunnel trash.

[9:54] And he goes,

[9:55] I don't even know your name!

[9:56] Which means that they spent the whole night together

[9:58] without ever exchanging names.

[10:00] Yeah, that's what kids do nowadays, dude.

[10:01] Take your clothes off, you.

[10:03] Girlie, let's do this.

[10:05] You got it, boy.

[10:06] Boy.

[10:08] You sex a good game, boy, but now you leave.

[10:14] He is confronted by Gary Oldman.

[10:19] Gary Oldman sends his kind of all-around hitman enforcer

[10:23] to pick him up.

[10:24] And Gary Oldman says, do you think?

[10:25] Julian McMahon?

[10:26] Yeah.

[10:26] Julian McMahon?

[10:27] Yeah.

[10:28] McMahon?

[10:29] Terrible Dr. Doom himself.

[10:32] And they say, look, you just spent $16,000

[10:35] at that club of our money, which is crazy.

[10:38] I think they bought some Swarovski crystal online

[10:41] while they were at the club and then

[10:43] rented a car for a couple weeks.

[10:46] Well, they got bottle service, but it was just

[10:48] bottle service that they were like,

[10:49] they threw it up in the air and they practiced shooting it.

[10:52] So they got a bunch of bottles.

[10:53] OK.

[10:54] I mean, it's the real way of service.

[10:56] $16,000 a bottle.

[10:57] We shot 16 bottles.

[10:59] Well, that's not bad.

[11:00] How many bottles did they throw?

[11:01] Like, 24?

[11:02] No, I mean, yeah, they threw 30 up in the air,

[11:06] but they only shot 16.

[11:07] I mean, that's still pretty good.

[11:08] That's over half.

[11:09] But Gary Oldman says, here's what you're going to do.

[11:12] Either we press charges or you're

[11:14] going to become our corporate spy.

[11:16] My assistant is going to train you

[11:20] to become the perfect corporate gentleman.

[11:23] You're going to infiltrate my old boss, Harrison Ford's

[11:26] company.

[11:26] Gary Oldman used to work for Harrison Ford in this.

[11:29] His old boss, Jock Goddard, which

[11:32] is kind of a stupid name.

[11:34] Jock?

[11:35] Jock.

[11:36] And you're going to use.

[11:37] It's not Jacques?

[11:38] No, not Jacques.

[11:39] Jock.

[11:40] Like J-O-C-K?

[11:41] Like the kind of guy who would beat me up.

[11:43] OK.

[11:44] You're going to go and steal this new prototype phone

[11:46] from him so that we can use it, I guess.

[11:50] Yeah.

[11:51] And so Adam goes in.

[11:53] He meets with, it turns out, Amber Heard

[11:55] works for Jock Goddard, but he impresses this other guy.

[11:57] So this other guy named Lundgren,

[11:59] which made me wish I was watching

[12:01] Rocky IV the whole time.

[12:03] Even Red Scorpion, whatever.

[12:05] And.

[12:06] Or Universal Soldier.

[12:07] Yeah, sure, yeah.

[12:09] Or even, you know what, Planetary Soldier.

[12:11] He didn't get promoted to Universal yet.

[12:14] He impresses them enough that he wheels his way in.

[12:16] He's given an assignment.

[12:18] You have 72 hours to figure out how

[12:20] we can use this technology we developed that doesn't work.

[12:23] And do you know what he does?

[12:24] He talks to his nerdy friend at the bar

[12:26] that his girlfriend works at now.

[12:28] The nerdy friend's girlfriend.

[12:30] And he discovers that, I guess, soldiers can

[12:33] use it to keep tabs on each other.

[12:35] Yeah, well, the problem was it's a GPS thing for the phone,

[12:38] but it's too heavy, and it drains too much battery.

[12:41] So actual regular phone users wouldn't want to use it.

[12:44] And it's too specific, and it's too powerful, right?

[12:47] Yeah.

[12:48] You can pinpoint where someone is by floor on a building.

[12:51] Yeah, and serial killers wouldn't want to use that.

[12:53] Yeah, it's kind of like a bat radar, basically.

[12:56] But it's perfect to give to the military

[13:00] to prevent friendly fire, so all people in a unit

[13:03] know exactly where the other person is at the same time.

[13:05] And as we all know, technology usually

[13:07] goes from the private industry into the military.

[13:10] Yeah.

[13:11] Now, you're making a joke, because that's not true.

[13:13] It's actually not true, no.

[13:14] The military does use it.

[13:15] It's not so much a joke as a use of irony.

[13:17] The military does perhaps, yeah, not a joke at all,

[13:19] in that it wasn't funny, and there was no punch line.

[13:22] It was like when you can't do that on television,

[13:25] would do the opposite sketches, where the joke was just

[13:27] that they did the opposite of what's real.

[13:29] Exactly.

[13:29] And then somebody would get green slime on their head,

[13:31] because they said, I don't know.

[13:32] Uh-oh, I said it.

[13:33] Splorch, green slime on my head.

[13:36] That was way better than your chickens.

[13:38] Thanks, Canada.

[13:39] Well, I learned how to do sound effects

[13:41] from Don Martin cartoons.

[13:42] So splorch, flip flop, all that stuff, I can do pretty well.

[13:45] Flerg.

[13:46] Flerg, phone bone, and so forth.

[13:48] I didn't do a lot of chicken-based cartoons.

[13:51] They're so impressed that they give him like a billion dollar

[13:54] job or something.

[13:56] And also, I should have mentioned

[13:58] that the entirety of training and turning

[14:01] this bridge and tunnel kind of rough-edged guy

[14:04] into a super slick corporate shark

[14:06] is giving him a fancy watch, a new suit, a new apartment,

[14:10] and telling him, hey, don't always

[14:12] say what you're thinking.

[14:13] Well, and he didn't even get a fucking haircut.

[14:15] No, well, because his hair looks great.

[14:16] I mean, he looks amazing, dude.

[14:19] And let's not gloss over the fact

[14:21] that Gary Oldman, instead of getting

[14:25] a guy who knows a lot about industrial espionage

[14:29] or corporate espionage, just was like, oh, well, I

[14:32] have leverage over this guy, so I guess he's my spy now.

[14:36] Over this idiot douchebag who spent $16,000 at a club.

[14:39] So our hero who's coping with his father's imminent death

[14:44] spends a shitload of money on booze

[14:47] instead of helping his father.

[14:49] He can't afford his dad's health insurance

[14:51] because he lost his job or got back or something like that.

[14:55] His dad, played by Richard Dreyfuss.

[14:56] So somehow, this small Jewish man

[15:04] gave birth to a huge Gentile.

[15:08] We don't know who his mom was.

[15:10] He could have been married to Bridget Nielsen or something.

[15:13] But Richard Dreyfuss.

[15:14] He's very charming and has baseball caps on.

[15:17] He has a baseball cap with a presidential seal.

[15:19] I wonder if it was in Richard Dreyfuss's contract,

[15:21] I'm only going to do two scenes where I'm not

[15:23] sitting in a Lazy Boy, because he spends most of the movie

[15:25] just sitting in a Lazy Boy.

[15:28] And it's implied that-

[15:29] If this is going to be an outdoor scene,

[15:30] we're going to need to figure out a way

[15:31] to get a Lazy Boy out there.

[15:34] So Adam infiltrates Jock's company, Harrison Ford's

[15:39] company, almost instantly.

[15:41] He's invited to a garden party at Harrison Ford's house,

[15:43] and the two bond over that they've

[15:45] both lost family members.

[15:47] He and Amber Heard bond over having parents.

[15:51] And he's very handsome.

[15:52] And it's like within a day, he is

[15:55] the golden boy of the company, and Amber Heard

[15:57] is his girlfriend.

[15:58] Even though when she's taking a suspiciously long shower,

[16:01] he steals some files from her computer.

[16:04] Yeah, she's got to clean the musk off of her.

[16:07] And it was literally, you're seeing-

[16:09] Hemsworth musk.

[16:11] Hems musk.

[16:12] You're seeing the progress bar on the computer,

[16:15] and then it's cutting to the shower door,

[16:16] back to the progress bar, shower door,

[16:18] and then shower water turns off.

[16:20] She reaches out to get a towel, pulls it into the shower.

[16:23] At which point Dan groans.

[16:26] Yeah, because he thought this PG-13 movie

[16:28] might have some nudity in it.

[16:30] I mean, if it's not sexual, maybe they could just-

[16:33] Look, if it was 1985, yeah, a PG-13 movie

[16:35] would have some nudity in it.

[16:37] It's like classic artwork, too.

[16:38] Sheena would be bathing in a lake for like five minutes.

[16:42] Yep, but we live in primer times.

[16:45] No, but I was mostly, but like, it is ridiculous.

[16:47] Like, she pulls, as you say, the towel

[16:49] into the shower to dry off.

[16:51] To buy some time.

[16:52] And she's got to dom off the fucking faucet or whatever.

[16:55] Instead of exiting into her own bathroom

[16:57] in front of a man she just had sex with.

[17:00] I would, like, I wish they had drawn it out more,

[17:02] and it was like, you heard the shower turn off,

[17:05] heard the shower door open and close,

[17:06] and Hemsworth's like, uh, looks to the progress bar,

[17:09] still moving slowly.

[17:10] Then you hear peeing.

[17:11] Looks to the progress bar, still moving slowly.

[17:13] The peeing stops.

[17:14] Then it starts again.

[17:14] Progress bar, still moving slow.

[17:16] Teeth brushing.

[17:17] Then the toilet flush.

[17:18] Oh, God, come on, progress bar, come on.

[17:20] Toilet, you know, then tooth brushing.

[17:21] And then, come on, progress bar.

[17:23] Pooping.

[17:24] After the pooping, the shower again.

[17:26] The shower again.

[17:28] And then she says, you know what?

[17:29] I'll just watch TV in my shower TV.

[17:31] Your TV in the shower.

[17:34] I'll watch The Last Emperor.

[17:35] That's a nice, long movie.

[17:37] Progress bar, still moving slowly.

[17:38] We dissolve to the final bars of the score

[17:41] for The Last Emperor.

[17:42] You know what?

[17:43] I haven't seen 1900 either.

[17:45] That's another Bertolucci movie I should really watch.

[17:48] I'm getting pretty pruney, but I'll stay here for a while.

[17:52] Yeah, I'm into that, babe.

[17:53] Getting super pruney.

[17:55] I love old ladies, yeah.

[17:57] You wanna come join me?

[17:58] I'm what's called a prune chaser.

[18:03] I'm kind of a, you know, I like PBW,

[18:06] prune beautiful women.

[18:07] I think I was probably watching

[18:08] too many California Raisins commercial when I was a kid.

[18:11] So I got in my head and screwed me all up.

[18:13] I'm really into prunes.

[18:14] I can't drink prune juice

[18:15] because it's like I'm drinking liquid man.

[18:16] So I got you these purple underpants and some sunglasses.

[18:20] Do you know how these Motown hits?

[18:23] Look, you know what really turned me on?

[18:26] Is if you're wearing just gloves,

[18:27] high top sneakers, sunglasses,

[18:29] and saying, thanks for the delivery.

[18:31] Can you move in a more jerky way?

[18:36] Like you're a claymation figure.

[18:38] Oh yeah, that's hot, super hot.

[18:40] Is there any way you can make your skin ripple

[18:42] as if fingers are manipulating your skin

[18:45] over a process of several frames?

[18:47] Okay, now mention that you brought it,

[18:49] brought to us by the Raisin Council.

[18:52] Oh yeah, that's good stuff.

[18:54] Oh, I'm so hot.

[18:55] Come on, bar, come on, speed up.

[18:57] I'm almost done downloading these files.

[18:58] Yeah, yeah, no, no, keep saying Motown hits.

[19:01] Yeah, yeah, heard it through the grapevine, that's good.

[19:03] Come on, progress bar, let's go.

[19:09] This or that should have happened, right?

[19:11] It should have been called Prunanoia.

[19:14] And that should have been the main scene,

[19:15] the centerpiece, if you will.

[19:17] Yeah.

[19:18] Anyway, he goes to, let's do it real short.

[19:21] Adam finds out he's being watched by cameras

[19:23] by Gary Oldman.

[19:24] Gary Oldman threatens his dad.

[19:26] There's a great scene where we see Gary Oldman's

[19:29] just watching Richard Dreyfuss sit in a easy chair.

[19:31] On an iPad, he's just got his Dreyfuss cam up,

[19:34] his 24-hour Dreyfuss cam

[19:37] from the San Diego Zoo's Dreyfuss exhibit.

[19:40] They, in order to threaten him even more,

[19:42] they run over his nerd friend with a car

[19:46] right in the middle of the street.

[19:47] So Adam goes to steal this phone using,

[19:51] he doesn't have the right fingerprints

[19:53] to get into the vault where the prototype is kept.

[19:55] So off of a spoon, he steals Amber Heard's fingerprint

[19:59] and makes a.

[20:00] Silicon fingerprint mask?

[20:02] I don't know, using an iPad or something?

[20:04] No, what the fuck, you can do it.

[20:06] He's using his spy pad.

[20:08] He stole Tom Cruise's mask-making machine or whatever.

[20:11] What, from Mission Impossible 2?

[20:14] The thing that makes masks and doves fly out of your coat?

[20:18] That was his David Copperfield machine, made doves fly out of his coat.

[20:21] But he has, and there's a scene, he's running through the building and the guards know it's him.

[20:27] They're like, it's Adam Cassidy, go get him, go get him.

[20:30] And there are endless scenes of two slightly out-of-shape guards running through red-lidded hallways,

[20:35] just looking for him. He's not in here, he's not in here.

[20:38] Yeah, it's like the last episode of fucking Twin Peaks.

[20:41] Yeah, they're looking for Bob the whole time.

[20:45] But there are two security guards in what must be like a 40-story building at least.

[20:51] More than that, I don't know.

[20:53] And then we learn, though, also that there was no reason for the security guards to be chasing me anyway,

[20:57] because it was all a set-up.

[20:59] Because it was all a trap.

[21:00] After he twice fails to get his fingerprint read by the scanner,

[21:03] and then kind of presses the edges of his fingerprint mask a little bit more,

[21:08] he gets in, he steals the phone, and there's a message on it.

[21:11] Once a thief, always a thief.

[21:13] He looks around. Harrison Ford's right there.

[21:16] And the phone looks stupid. I mean, it looks like a piece of paper.

[21:20] What I've been told is it's like a phone that you use for everything,

[21:23] and you have it on you or something.

[21:25] And you can fold it, hell yeah.

[21:27] It's a foldable phone, it's a fold phone.

[21:29] Oh, like a flip phone?

[21:31] No shit, they make those still?

[21:33] This whole movie is about cutting-edge phone technology,

[21:36] but it seems to not have seen a phone recently.

[21:39] So, like, when the guy who's supposed to be the biggest phone tech guy in the world,

[21:43] Adam Cassidy, when he gets texts, his phone will say,

[21:47] and they'll just pop up one on top of another in a random tiling fashion.

[21:51] Yeah, like you're going on to some, like, crazy website, and there's a number there.

[21:56] I think you mean sensible website.

[21:59] I think you mean sensual website.

[22:02] And so it's like, yeah, I guess all the old phones,

[22:05] you would just have the ability to scroll through text messages

[22:08] and read whatever one you wanted, but in this weirdly cutting-edge future phone,

[22:11] you have to close every message to get to the next one.

[22:15] It's like a Matryoshka doll series of text messages.

[22:19] Matryoshka?

[22:20] Matryoshka?

[22:21] Matryoshka.

[22:22] It's perhaps Perestroika.

[22:24] A Matryoshka doll.

[22:27] So Baba Yaga, write us a letter and tell us how to say it properly.

[22:30] Each text message conceals another text message until the end.

[22:34] Baba Yaga, write us a letter made out of spaghetti.

[22:40] What?

[22:41] I have no idea what you're talking about.

[22:43] I don't either, but I want to hear more about this Russian folktale.

[22:47] This spaghetti-based Russian folktale.

[22:53] I mean, it wouldn't have been spaghetti.

[22:55] We all know the story of the great bear who lives in the sky and eats pizza.

[22:58] It's an old Russian tale.

[23:01] Let's not forget that the old Russian story of the time Stalin was tricked by a meatball.

[23:07] It's all here in my book of Italian-Russian folktales.

[23:13] The trick was the meatball was made out of turkey instead of beef, and so it was healthy.

[23:19] He was tricked into having lower fat content.

[23:22] All right, it wasn't spaghetti, obviously.

[23:25] I have no idea what you're talking about.

[23:28] Wasn't the Baba Yaga one of the most famous tales?

[23:32] There's noodles that wouldn't stop coming out of her noodle pie.

[23:37] Noodle pie.

[23:43] Ryan.

[23:44] Yeah, somebody write in.

[23:46] Noodle fans.

[23:48] Fans, if you're a fan of noodles, witches, noodle pots, or chicken leg houses,

[23:56] if you're Russian, if you're Italian, if your name's Noodles,

[23:59] and you're from the movie Once Upon a Time in America,

[24:02] write in and tell Dan what are you talking about.

[24:06] Or we can have one of our contests.

[24:08] What am I talking about?

[24:10] No, not a contest.

[24:11] Look, it just makes me realize how much I wish this was called Para Noodles.

[24:15] It was about people trying to get the newest noodle technology.

[24:18] But a pair of them because a single noodle is worthless.

[24:20] Oh, come on.

[24:21] Who would want to eat one noodle, but two noodles you got your way towards a meal.

[24:24] The idea that Harrison Ford is working on the new cutting-edge noodle.

[24:30] The noodle can fold.

[24:32] It's a shape no one's ever attempted before.

[24:35] A noodle-shaped noodle.

[24:38] It's a meta-noodle.

[24:41] Man, when we found out that the NSA was collecting all of our meta-noodles,

[24:46] I can't believe the government was doing that.

[24:48] What the fuck was it?

[24:49] Okay, so where were we?

[24:50] So Harrison, it was a trick.

[24:51] Harrison Ford confronts him.

[24:52] He says, I've got all this evidence that you and Gary Oldman are doing this together.

[24:56] Now either he's going to go to jail or he's going to sell me his company,

[25:00] which he wants for some reason.

[25:02] And Adam Cassidy is, I'm in trouble.

[25:06] He goes to Gary Oldman.

[25:07] Gary Oldman tries to have him killed by Julian McMahon.

[25:13] Yeah, there's a chase scene that's not very good where they're running through the alleyways of Philadelphia

[25:17] in lieu of New York.

[25:19] But he's going to turn the tables, right?

[25:22] His girlfriend gets mad because he was lying to her.

[25:26] And so Adam recruits his old buddy, the nerd, to help him stop them.

[25:31] And so what he does is he has a meeting with –

[25:34] The most obvious thing.

[25:36] Yeah.

[25:37] First he meets with Gary Oldman, and he records their –

[25:40] actually, he just ambushes Gary Oldman while Gary Oldman is eating an egg at a restaurant with his assistant.

[25:45] He reveals the assistant has been working –

[25:47] His assistant is played by M. Beth Davids.

[25:51] From Army of Darkness.

[25:52] Yeah.

[25:53] Which, man, you know, when I first saw Army of Darkness, I'm like,

[25:56] oh, I kind of feel bad that she's in this movie, and she seems kind of serious about shit.

[26:00] And now I'm like, wow, Army of Darkness was great.

[26:04] Yeah.

[26:05] We've talked on the podcast before about how Army of Darkness was a real ahead-of-its-time influential movie.

[26:10] And it's so much better than this movie starring Han Solo and the naked guy from Scarlet Letter.

[26:17] Really, Commissioner Gordon wasn't the first thing that came to your mind, Sid Vicious?

[26:21] Any of those?

[26:22] Dracula.

[26:23] Dracula, yeah.

[26:24] Guy from Romeo's Bleeding.

[26:25] Romeo?

[26:26] Was his name Romeo?

[26:27] I don't think his name was Romeo.

[26:29] The guy from Gary Oldman the movie.

[26:33] It's a one-man show in which Gary Oldman plays himself.

[26:36] It's not actually –

[26:37] He goes from Oldman to Old Man.

[26:39] Yeah, he plays him – he starts out as Gary Oldbaby.

[26:43] He goes all the way to Gary Oldman, stopping –

[26:46] Not Babyman?

[26:47] No, stopping along the way as Gary Oldboy.

[26:51] Which is an amazing hammer fight scene.

[26:54] And what a great twist, right?

[26:56] Yeah, and it turns out he was – well, let's not ruin it for our listeners.

[27:01] They haven't seen Oldboy somehow.

[27:04] Anyway, he records – he reveals that Gary Oldman's assistant has been working for Harrison Ford.

[27:10] He reveals this by taking her phone off the table, looking up her recent calls,

[27:14] and they are all to Harrison Ford's character.

[27:18] She walks out and is never seen again.

[27:20] Her reaction is just total shock.

[27:22] Yeah, her reaction is surprise.

[27:24] Like, what was I doing?

[27:26] Why would you take my phone that I left in front of you?

[27:30] It's crazy that they let him just walk up and talk to them.

[27:34] Yeah, well, not as crazy as the next thing that happens.

[27:37] Well, Gary Oldman – he then records Gary Oldman revealing that they were in on this corporate sabotage plot.

[27:43] Then Gary Oldman meets with Harrison Ford.

[27:45] Adam Cassidy is there for some reason.

[27:47] Well, that's the thing that baffles me.

[27:49] Adam Cassidy, yeah, like they record – again, it's just like the classic like,

[27:55] oh, I'm wearing a wire way of resolving everything that's wrong in a movie.

[27:59] Yeah, it's like – what was the one with George Clooney?

[28:02] Michael Clayton.

[28:03] Michael Clayton, yeah, where it's just like, how am I going to get out of this predicament?

[28:07] I'll record them, reveal it, confessing that they committed a crime.

[28:11] Yeah, but that at least made sense because the real people who are acting in the conspiracy were talking to each other,

[28:17] whereas in this case, our hero, there's no reason why he would still have access to these two people.

[28:22] Our hero walks up to Gary Oldman and goes, you're complicit in this, and Gary Oldman goes,

[28:26] I paid you with money I never touched.

[28:28] No one has ever seen us together.

[28:30] There's no way you can prove I did this because I did it so well to hide that I did it.

[28:36] Like, okay, great.

[28:37] I mean you could have just said, I don't know who you are.

[28:40] But also at this point in the movie, like, or I could have like a goon keep you from even walking up to my table.

[28:45] Both Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford at this point in the movie are just like, don't you get it?

[28:48] You've been a pawn this whole time.

[28:50] It's like, yeah, he has been a pawn, so why the fuck does he still have access to you two people?

[28:55] Like, just toss him away, man.

[28:58] That's what you do with a pawn.

[29:00] You throw it in the garbage.

[29:02] You say, fuck you, pawn.

[29:04] You could have been a queen.

[29:05] But no thanks.

[29:08] That's not how that game works.

[29:10] I mean, they can become queens if they reach the other end of the board.

[29:13] Fuck you and your diagonal attacks.

[29:16] Bullshit.

[29:17] Wait, that's how that happens?

[29:18] You really hate pawns?

[29:21] Weakness disgusts me, Elliot.

[29:22] I believe there are no pawn stars.

[29:24] All pawns are losers.

[29:27] So just to tie this movie up in a shitty bow of shit.

[29:31] Similar to the bow tie Gary Oldman wore at the beginning of the movie.

[29:35] As you said, rich people tie their ties in a fancy bow as if their necks are presents.

[29:42] Now, Harrison Ford takes the phone that has the bug in it and throws it in a pitcher of water in a fit of pique.

[29:49] But then the nerd comes up with a different way to record him, and they do.

[29:53] Well, it all relates back to the phone GPS thing.

[29:57] It's totally dumb.

[29:59] It's one of those things.

[30:00] It's like if I plant something here, and it comes up later in the movie, that's good writing.

[30:04] But it's so totally arbitrary and ridiculous that it's not good writing.

[30:08] Gary Oldman is devastated, tricked into selling his company to Harrison Ford for 40 cents on the dollar,

[30:13] as he makes clear more than once. Then the FBI arrests Gary Oldman.

[30:18] Josh Holloway comes in. He's like, I got a computer in my brain. You're all under arrest.

[30:21] The FBI arrests Harrison Ford. And in voiceover, it's revealed that he cut a deal with the feds,

[30:26] Adam Cassidy, Liam Hemsworth, and he started a new company with all his friends.

[30:31] He took his dad for a spin in a fancy car that he rented.

[30:35] Yeah, you know, he's not going to take things for granted.

[30:36] He's going to start from the bottom with a company he just made, I guess.

[30:40] A company he just founded with money he got I don't know where in a fancy building.

[30:44] And Amber Scheuer just happens to show up at this point.

[30:46] The movie is over. The movie is over.

[30:49] Well, the movie is over before he took Richard Dreyfuss to see a ballgame in a fancy car.

[30:54] That's true. The movie is over. He's beaten the bad guys.

[30:57] Then he takes Richard Dreyfuss to a game. It could have been over when the fucking FBI bust in.

[31:00] And Harrison Ford gives like a spit take and that's the end of the movie.

[31:03] He reestablished his... Yeah, freeze on spit take.

[31:06] And then he goes... Freeze on spit take and then...

[31:15] But then... Harrison Ford died on the way to prison.

[31:18] What? Why?

[31:23] It just ends like Unbreakable where they just throw a bunch of captions on the screen.

[31:27] Oh, by the way, Mr. Glassman... Like a fucking short story hits the screen at that point.

[31:33] So, the movie is over.

[31:36] But now we've got to see him patch up his relationship with his dad.

[31:38] Great. Okay, movie is over, right?

[31:40] No, we got to see him start a company and hire all his old friends.

[31:43] Movie is over, right?

[31:45] No, Amber Heard walks in because we're supposed to give a shit whether their relationship continues.

[31:50] But no... Movie is over, right?

[31:51] They patch it up and they kiss in the lobby.

[31:54] Movie is over, right?

[31:54] No, we see them walking down a walkway forever.

[31:59] And you see them... It's like a minute long shot of them walking towards the camera.

[32:02] It's like the end of fucking The Third Man.

[32:05] Like you're just watching them walk down the street for a long time.

[32:09] And then finally, you're sitting there like...

[32:11] Credits? Did we forget some credits here?

[32:13] Like we got to get to the credits?

[32:14] Is this one of those movies that doesn't have credits? Is there a button that you push that starts the credits

[32:18] and someone forgot to push that button?

[32:21] Does this happen in real time?

[32:23] Did they forget to edit this part of the movie?

[32:26] The editor is so in love with Amber Heard. I just want to look at her.

[32:30] They left the camera running.

[32:31] Well, Liam Hemsworth, I mean, he is gorgeous.

[32:33] Liam Hemsworth is a very handsome... He's a very handsome, untalented man.

[32:38] And then the movie is finally, blessedly over.

[32:41] Oh, terrible.

[32:42] But so, here, let's catalogue the major flaws of the movie.

[32:46] Liam Hemsworth, the lead, is bad.

[32:47] Yeah.

[32:48] The main character is a douche nozzle who...

[32:51] Who has no moral strength and finds no moral strength.

[32:55] And he has no talent. He has no skill.

[32:57] No special skill, no charisma.

[32:59] There's no reason that he is the one who's given this task or gets mixed up in this story.

[33:03] Three, all the other characters are boring.

[33:06] Four, for a movie called Paranoia that's supposed to be a tense thriller,

[33:09] there are almost no twists or suspense scenes.

[33:11] And nobody is paranoid.

[33:13] If the two villains were paranoid even a little bit,

[33:17] they wouldn't have gotten caught up in a simple, like, a bug.

[33:21] Liam Hemsworth becomes paranoid when he realizes he's always being watched and he's in danger.

[33:25] And there's a scene where he is smashing up his house

[33:28] because he's trying to find all the hidden cameras.

[33:30] It's the shortest scene in this movie.

[33:31] And all it did was make me think, like,

[33:34] remember the part at the end of the conversation

[33:36] when Gene Hackman is destroying his apartment looking for bugs,

[33:39] and it's so tragic and painful because he realizes that the thing he does to other people that he's done so

[33:45] semi-casually has been done to him and now he understands what it's like.

[33:49] And he sees the Virgin Mary statuette and he realizes there could be a bug in there.

[33:54] If I tear that thing apart, I'm letting my fear overcome my faith in God.

[33:58] Can I do that? And he has to.

[34:00] He's too afraid and he tears open the statue and in that moment

[34:03] realizes that his own fear and paranoia has become his God

[34:07] and that he must worship at the alter of it forever because his life is no longer his own.

[34:12] And all he can do is sit sadly in the ruins of his own apartment

[34:15] trying to find some solace in playing the saxophone.

[34:18] But even that which once soothed his troubled conscience is now powerless.

[34:23] Powerless to save him from the world he created, the world which has now destroyed him.

[34:27] And it's like, oh, what a good movie that was.

[34:30] Well, Paranoia is nothing like that.

[34:32] I'm watching this thick-necked, bald-chested idiot

[34:36] just breaking stuff for a couple seconds while Richard Dreyfuss sits in a Lazy Boy.

[34:39] And talk about the other plot, like talk about a thin plot.

[34:43] Like it's a movie about corporate espionage

[34:46] where I guess the twist is that both of the people engaging in it are bad, which is not a surprise.

[34:53] I really thought there were going to be more twists

[34:55] and he was going to be playing the sides off each other more.

[34:58] Like that there was going to be a real who can I trust throughout the film.

[35:01] I remember seeing the trailer and it felt like it was going to be a little bit of that

[35:06] where it's like two guys are waging war against each other,

[35:09] but this third guy, oh, wow, he's a player.

[35:12] Yeah, but no.

[35:14] It's like they wanted to make a luxury power fantasy

[35:17] about suddenly being picked to enter this rich world.

[35:21] The firm.

[35:22] Kind of, yeah.

[35:23] Even that, they didn't bother to build this world of luxury that we were supposed to live in

[35:28] other than showing us a fancy apartment, a fancy house.

[35:31] I could have used a montage.

[35:33] A fancy Amber Heard.

[35:34] A fancy Amber Heard.

[35:36] I could have used a montage or two of him enjoying this new lifestyle

[35:40] to actually give you a reason to be like,

[35:42] oh, I could see why I wouldn't want to give all that up.

[35:44] I could see how you could so easily be seduced by the E's and the decadence.

[35:47] The trappings of power.

[35:48] Exactly.

[35:49] But instead it's just like.

[35:50] Like, what's that one with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves?

[35:55] Keanu Reeves.

[35:57] Keanu Reeves.

[35:59] What do you have at Keanu Reeves?

[36:00] He's in Punt Break.

[36:05] The Australian rules football movie.

[36:10] And Johnny Marsupialnomic.

[36:15] Now, let's talk about that for a minute.

[36:18] How much more interesting would it be to see Keanu Reeves as a kangaroo in his own movies?

[36:27] Let's look at kangaroos on film.

[36:29] What is there so far?

[36:30] Kangaroo Jack.

[36:31] Kangaroo Jack.

[36:32] There's a movie that was sold on the lie that it was starring a rapping kangaroo.

[36:35] There's Tank Girl.

[36:36] Yeah, sure.

[36:37] You've got Wake and Fright where they go hunting kangaroos.

[36:40] That's about it.

[36:41] Crocodile Dundee.

[36:42] But they're not letting any kangaroo characters in that.

[36:45] I mean, they're being hunted.

[36:46] You've got Winnie the Pooh.

[36:47] You've got Kanga.

[36:48] Kanga.

[36:49] Ant Brew.

[36:50] You've got Kongo, which is a giant gorilla, not a kangaroo.

[36:52] Sure.

[36:53] So that's something different.

[36:55] So, I guess what I'm saying is.

[36:57] There's that kangaroo that Bugs Bunny fights.

[36:59] Yeah, Hippity Hopper.

[37:00] Yeah.

[37:01] I mentioned Sylvester.

[37:03] Because when his son goes, my own father afraid of a mouse.

[37:07] Oh, the shame.

[37:09] Now that I'm a dad, I really understand Sylvester's pain in those cartoons.

[37:13] When I know that my son will someday be ashamed that I can't beat up a kangaroo.

[37:21] We really need to go to final judgments.

[37:23] But I do want to say one thing.

[37:25] Which is my sadness.

[37:26] Like earlier today, I was legitimately kind of excited to watch Paranoia.

[37:31] Let me set the scene.

[37:32] I had a very tight deadline.

[37:33] Dan walks into my office and says,

[37:35] Hey, I'm thinking tonight.

[37:38] And I'm like, yeah?

[37:39] Yes?

[37:40] What?

[37:41] And he's so excited he can barely get the words out.

[37:42] And meanwhile, TikTok.

[37:43] I have a deadline.

[37:44] Because I have a job to do.

[37:45] And Dan goes, I'm thinking tonight we'll watch Paranoia.

[37:48] And I was like, okay, fine.

[37:50] He goes, I think this one's going to be really crazy and good.

[37:52] Okay.

[37:53] First of all, I saw that you were surfing the internet at that time.

[37:56] I was researching something.

[37:59] But no, I was excited.

[38:00] Bangbus.com, Elliot.

[38:01] I was writing a headline about buses that I have banging on them.

[38:05] Well, if I had seen you in our script software, I would not have done that.

[38:09] But I was excited.

[38:11] But he was shaking with excitement.

[38:14] Basically, because.

[38:15] He had a smile on his face you'd normally see only on a little child who's just heard the word balloon.

[38:21] But basically, I was excited about this for one reason.

[38:25] And that reason was Harrison Ford.

[38:27] And you would think that at this late date.

[38:29] You'd know that he only makes bad movies.

[38:31] I would have been burned so many times.

[38:33] But you've got to remember that when I was a kid, Harrison Ford was my favorite actor.

[38:37] The first time you saw What Lies Beneath, you were like.

[38:40] I was not under the illusion that he was.

[38:42] You and Dan just watched Regarding Henry over and over again as a kid.

[38:45] You've got to understand, when I first saw Working Girl.

[38:48] Yeah, Dan what?

[38:49] No, we all loved Harrison Ford when we were kids.

[38:51] He was Indiana Jones.

[38:52] He was Hunt Solo.

[38:53] I was under no illusion that he was the best actor.

[38:55] But he was my favorite actor.

[38:58] And then the last two decades of my life, at least.

[39:02] When I was a kid, I think my favorite actor was Bryce from Gremlins.

[39:08] Couldn't get enough of that guy.

[39:10] Why didn't you make any other movies?

[39:12] He had a cocaine problem.

[39:14] Oh, that's terrible.

[39:15] So you were obsessed with Harrison. Harrison Ford was your favorite.

[39:18] And year after year, every new movie comes out.

[39:21] I'm like, maybe this will be the one.

[39:23] No, because he doesn't care anymore.

[39:25] He stopped caring a lot.

[39:26] Here's the thing.

[39:27] Harrison Ford in all his movies never cares.

[39:29] And that's his charm.

[39:30] But when you're a young guy and you just don't care, that's charming.

[39:33] When you're an old man who doesn't care, it's lazy.

[39:37] I'm still trying to think of my favorite actor as a kid.

[39:40] I think it's Yvette from Clue.

[39:42] The sexy maid?

[39:44] Cullen Camp?

[39:45] Cullen Camp from Clue, yeah.

[39:47] So, quickly.

[39:49] Final judgments.

[39:50] Is this a good, bad movie?

[39:51] A bad, bad movie?

[39:52] Or a movie you kind of like, Stuart?

[39:54] The suspense.

[39:55] Real thinker.

[39:56] Real thinker this time.

[39:57] Let's hold on to your...

[40:00] your seats and your hats. No, this was a bad, bad movie.

[40:03] Yeah, there's just not much there.

[40:06] I can't really say anything else about it. Yeah, when it started out, I thought it

[40:10] might be

[40:11] a movie I kind of liked, because it's very glossy and I was still like,

[40:15] hey, there's a lot of people I like in this movie, but

[40:18] it's, yeah, it's just The Drife. I kind of want Angry 3D.

[40:22] Old Man. I was hoping it was going to be like a Limitless.

[40:26] I was also hoping this should have been like Limitless.

[40:29] A movie that looked really stupid, but was like fun stupid.

[40:32] Where it was like super high-energy, like that was a movie where you really believed,

[40:37] okay, this guy has gotten to enter a world of crazy privilege and fun.

[40:41] And now he's licking up blood to make himself Limitless.

[40:44] Now he's drinking another man's blood so he can think of a way to escape killers.

[40:49] And then at the end, he wills himself not a drug addict anymore.

[40:53] I think that's a bad, bad from you, right?

[40:55] Certainly a bad, bad. All right.

[40:58] So moving on, before we get to letters, just a quick

[41:02] message from our friends at All Things Comedy.

[41:05] They're more than friends, Dan. They're like family at this point.

[41:08] Just a note that Tom Segura's

[41:13] comedy special is now available on Netflix.

[41:16] It's a one-hour special called Completely Normal,

[41:19] and the album of the same name is available for purchase on iTunes.

[41:24] So check that out if you're a fan of comedy,

[41:28] particularly of the stand-up variety.

[41:31] Sitting down, not so much for you, Stuart.

[41:35] Yeah, what, like Bill Cosby shows? Like he sits down and does comedy.

[41:39] But moving on, I mean, he's great, but I'm sure he listens to him.

[41:43] When Stephen Hawking does a comedy show.

[41:46] So moving on, let's get to letters.

[41:48] What?

[41:49] To letters. I know it's ironic that I'm writing a letter to a letter,

[41:53] but still, we've gotten so much joy out of you, letters,

[41:57] that I thought it was time to recognize you and how great you've been.

[42:00] And so letters, take yourself out tonight on me,

[42:04] to a fancy restaurant, maybe just to a movie.

[42:06] Take a walk in the park, rent a car and take a spin.

[42:09] Like in the movie Paranoia, rated PG-13.

[42:13] Except it's not, it's on Netflix streaming.

[42:15] It's like a talk song or something.

[42:18] Anyway, letters, I guess I'm running a little long, but I've got to let you go.

[42:21] So just keep on lettering and keep on keeping on.

[42:25] Like a bit of spoken word.

[42:26] So that's a letter.

[42:27] Your obedient servant, Elliot Kalin.

[42:29] P.S., those are two letters.

[42:32] That's a letter that we did not receive, but on to letters.

[42:35] I was writing it to letters.

[42:37] That's why it ended with my name.

[42:38] Sure. This one, Elliot, last name without a name.

[42:42] This one comes from Chad, last name withheld.

[42:44] It starts off, Dear Flop Housing Ins.

[42:47] Wow, Elliot, great song there.

[42:49] I especially like the part where you scattered the entire theme of the Brady Bunch.

[42:52] Wow, the one time you did not actually sing a song.

[42:54] You know, because I zig when people think I'm going to zag.

[42:57] By zig, I mean zaggy.

[42:59] When people think I'm going to zaggy.

[43:03] Zaggy is like zaggy the, like, 90s attempt to have him wear his clothes backwards, like crisscross.

[43:09] He was cool. He was zaggy, yeah.

[43:12] Anyway, Chad continues, Sadly, I have a few things I currently rent from Rent-A-Center,

[43:17] and I go in every Saturday to pay my bill.

[43:20] Every Saturday that I walk in, I'm greeted by Journey 2, The Mysterious Island,

[43:24] playing on all 30 flat screen TVs in the store.

[43:29] I always thought it was sort of funny, and now I've seen that full movie

[43:31] probably three times from all the segments I've watched.

[43:35] This was all fine and dandy, until three or four weeks ago

[43:38] when I walk in and on half the TVs, Marmaduke was playing.

[43:43] Coincidence? I think not.

[43:45] Someone there either loves your podcast or loves torturing customers.

[43:48] I just had to write in about this, and since it's my first time writing,

[43:51] I want to say thank you for creating a superior podcast to all other bad movie podcasts.

[43:55] I can listen to past episodes over and over, and they never get old.

[43:59] Dan, I've got some questions if you want to ask them on the podcast.

[44:02] Sure, why not?

[44:03] Elliot, when are you going to be on TV again? Make it happen.

[44:07] I mean, I'll do my best. I have no idea.

[44:09] Dan, if you were able to choose to be one Ninja Turtle, which one would you choose?

[44:14] Oh, wow.

[44:14] I personally prefer Donatello. I, too, prefer Donatello.

[44:18] In a similar way that if I was choosing a Ghostbuster,

[44:23] you know, we all would love to be Vinkman, but in my heart,

[44:26] I know I would have to be Egon.

[44:27] I think you're right.

[44:29] Thank you.

[44:30] Like in the cartoon Egon, where he's got the awesome hair,

[44:32] or normal Harold Ramis Egon?

[44:36] Normal, normally.

[44:38] Not cartoon Egon.

[44:39] Stuart.

[44:40] Egon Scheele, the artist.

[44:42] I mean, he paints some beautiful yet tortured figures.

[44:47] Stuart, do you currently have a mustache as an avid facial hair grower?

[44:50] I hope the answer is yes.

[44:52] I've got to disappoint you.

[44:53] I had a little bit of scruff earlier this week,

[44:55] and I had to shave it off for intimate time with the missus.

[45:00] Wow, okay.

[45:00] I don't want to hear that.

[45:03] She just likes to pet Stuart's bare upper lip.

[45:06] You've had full mustaches before.

[45:08] What do you do for intimate time in post-credits?

[45:11] I do not want to tell you, Dan.

[45:13] I'll tell you after we're done recording.

[45:16] Sorry.

[45:17] It involves a tuning fork and another dimension.

[45:20] And a portal to a dimension where there's little dwarf slaves.

[45:23] Shoot.

[45:24] Because in bed, Stuart plays a good game boy.

[45:28] Two of them in one episode.

[45:29] Now, why wasn't-

[45:30] Fantastic Five has driven us mad.

[45:32] Why wasn't the tall man a spokesman for Game Boy?

[45:36] That's what I don't understand.

[45:37] Look at the results.

[45:37] You play with Game Boy with Tetris, Super Mario Land,

[45:42] and other packaged cartridges.

[45:46] So, moving on.

[45:48] I mean, that's an amazing question.

[45:49] Angus Scrimm for Game for Nintendo.

[45:53] Well, he's promoting his latest movie, Line of Scrimmage.

[45:58] Scrimmshaw.

[46:00] It's his one-man show where he does the best George Bernard Shaw.

[46:04] I thought it was a video game where you carve onto whale bones.

[46:09] Yeah, yeah, that's him.

[46:11] So, this is Chris' last name withheld.

[46:14] He writes, greetings, floppers.

[46:15] I'll cut through the bullshit and cut right to the chase.

[46:18] Thank you.

[46:18] Finally.

[46:19] Chris, I thought you'd never get to it.

[46:20] I'm a simple man with a simple request.

[46:22] Would any of you, or if I dare to dream, all of you,

[46:26] sing Leslie Gore's It's My Party in the guise of the Crypt Keeper?

[46:30] I know you guys don't do a ton of voices or singing, but I figured

[46:35] it was worth asking.

[46:36] Look, we don't live at your whim, Chris.

[46:40] Yeah, come on.

[46:42] It's my party in the voice of the Crypt Keeper.

[46:43] That's so specific that I have to assume you would be sexually

[46:47] aroused by it in a very specific fetish, so I'm going to say no.

[46:52] While I appreciate that idea, yeah, I

[46:56] don't know if I'd need a lyric sheet, I'd need a tuning fork,

[47:00] and a planet with dwarves.

[47:02] I mean, certainly, yes, it's an appropriate song.

[47:04] Leslie Gore, you can do It's My Party, and I'd die if I want to.

[47:08] It seems like the Crypt Keeper would be announcing it as a DJ.

[47:11] Yeah.

[47:12] The D stands for dead.

[47:14] A dead jockey.

[47:16] And his radio station, WRIP, in Skincinetti.

[47:27] Could also be the porno version of Cincinnati.

[47:29] Yeah, that's true.

[47:30] WRIP.

[47:31] That'd be W-X-X-X in Skincinetti.

[47:34] So I hope that the word picture that was just painted

[47:38] softens some of the blow.

[47:40] Of our not wanting to do that thing.

[47:43] But moving on, this is from Jay, last name withheld.

[47:47] It's titled, An Invisible Mania.

[47:50] Dear The Flophouse, I think this one's for you, Elliot.

[47:52] I thought you would be pleased, as I was, to discover that,

[47:55] as of this writing, the top two comments

[47:57] on the YouTube full movie upload of The Invisible Maniac

[48:00] are as follows.

[48:02] One, quote, there was this movie about a freak

[48:06] who lived in a castle.

[48:07] Anyone remember the name of it?

[48:10] And two, quote, is this the movie

[48:13] where someone's ding dong gets ripped off?

[48:16] Which suggests that the denizens of Flophouse Nation

[48:19] are out there wandering the highways and byways

[48:21] of the internet, leaving hobo-style markings

[48:24] for the delight of the initiated and the bafflement of the hoi

[48:26] polloid.

[48:27] Additionally, you will notice that I've

[48:29] written this entire message as a single sentence

[48:31] with a series of dependent clauses in the certainty

[48:34] that Dan will find it nearly impossible to read smoothly.

[48:39] He says, in the certainty that Dan

[48:40] will find it nearly impossible to read smoothly.

[48:42] Meanwhile, I remain yours sincerely, Jay.

[48:44] Well, you did it.

[48:45] You proved him wrong, Dan.

[48:46] I proved you wrong.

[48:47] You practiced for hours today instead of doing work.

[48:50] I said, a proper cup of coffee from a proper copper coffee

[48:53] pot, red leather, yellow leather.

[48:56] What to do to die today.

[48:59] Yep.

[48:59] Anyway, that reminds me of the moment Dan pointed out to me

[49:03] that, and this is when I knew The Flophouse had really

[49:05] become a tastemaker.

[49:07] When Dan pointed out to me that when you looked up

[49:10] Castlefreak on Amazon.com, it said,

[49:12] customers also bought Head of the Family.

[49:15] So either it was just the one time

[49:16] Stuart bought both of them.

[49:20] The one time.

[49:22] So I had to buy them on DVD, of course.

[49:24] And then later on, when Castlefreak came out on Blu-ray,

[49:26] I had to buy it from the Full Moon Pictures booth

[49:29] at Comic-Con.

[49:29] Yeah, they got you.

[49:30] They're always making you buy Castlefreak in the new formats.

[49:34] You got the LaserDisc, the Betamax.

[49:36] Yeah, you got to go frame by frame.

[49:37] I need the better transfer.

[49:38] And the 8-track of it.

[49:39] He's got that 16-millimeter condensed version

[49:42] that they released in the 50s.

[49:44] I keep sending letters to Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Gomes

[49:47] to find out for sure if Giorgio rips off his own ding-dong

[49:50] in any scene.

[49:51] You've got the 100-year-old Castlefreak zoetrope.

[49:55] You spin it around and look through the slot,

[49:57] and you see him ripping his ding-dong off.

[49:59] So Dan, what do we do?

[50:00] I've got one more letter, but I realized that for some reason I've cut off the name of whoever sent this.

[50:12] So I'm desperately trying to find out.

[50:15] Scintillating podcasting. Dan looking at his phone.

[50:18] You're going to have to peek behind the curtain.

[50:20] Although, frankly, Dan looking at his phone is most of the preparation for the podcast.

[50:24] And he doesn't pay attention to the movie.

[50:26] You're wanting to watch Paranoia so very, very badly.

[50:29] He checked out almost instantly.

[50:32] Yeah, I can't find it. So my apologies to whomever wrote this email.

[50:35] Let's just say the name is Lorenzo Lamas.

[50:37] Sure.

[50:39] The TV's renegade.

[50:41] I'll put it on the website if I recall.

[50:43] It goes, hey guys, love the show.

[50:45] So I'm looking for future tattoo ideas when I come across what may quite possibly...

[50:50] Tattoos of the future?

[50:51] Yes.

[50:52] Like a computer you tattoo on?

[50:53] Like neon or some shit. Or they change or something.

[50:55] It's like the fucking loom in Wanted or whatever.

[50:58] But when I come across what may quite possibly be the most mind-meltingly ding-dong...

[51:03] Tattoos of the Master Chief from Halo?

[51:07] I'm sorry.

[51:09] This guy says, I'm looking for future tattoo ideas when I come across what may quite possibly be the most mind-meltingly,

[51:14] ding-dong dismemberingly, atrociously awesome tattoo that has ever existed.

[51:19] Not safe for work due to the tall man from Phantasm peering from a man's exploded chest cavity.

[51:26] Unless you work in a mausoleum containing interplanetary portals.

[51:30] Then possibly safe for work.

[51:32] I present this delicate snowflake to Stuart, and solely Stuart,

[51:35] as the final arbiter in whether it deserves such a high distinction.

[51:40] Your associates' opinions are welcome, of course.

[51:42] However, I feel they lack the requisite background in ding-dong dismembering to qualify as a judge in this area.

[51:48] And so here's the picture of, you can see the tall man.

[51:52] Yeah, I can see quite clearly that's Angus Grimm playing the character, the tall man.

[51:58] Yeah, looking out from somebody's ripped-open body.

[52:01] The problem is, I think in a way, that movie, that tattoo is terrible.

[52:06] Because what it does is it invalidates the rest of the art form.

[52:09] Never again will there ever be a tattoo that ever reaches that quality.

[52:13] It's reached the pinnacle, so why bother from now on?

[52:15] Exactly.

[52:16] So is the tall man just hanging outside this guy's body?

[52:20] He clearly just killed him, or maybe he's renting the place.

[52:23] Sure, maybe he opened a portal inside that guy's body,

[52:26] or maybe he's looking through somebody's body and the hole is so deep that it goes all the way through his body.

[52:31] He lives in that guy's body.

[52:33] Okay, that makes sense.

[52:34] But he went on vacation.

[52:35] You don't even have to explain it anymore, I totally believe you.

[52:38] He just came back to find that his house, this guy's body, has been robbed,

[52:41] and a hole left in the wall where the robber came in.

[52:44] There's a bunch of raccoons inside that guy.

[52:46] Yeah, it's all just garbage everywhere because a homeless man's been living in there for a while.

[52:50] That's why he's making that face, right?

[52:51] All the copper wiring for that guy's body is gone.

[52:53] No, it's stripped. It's totally stripped.

[52:55] So, yeah, pretty good tattoo, I think.

[52:57] That's a good tattoo.

[52:58] Thanks for saying that, Mr. Question Mark.

[53:01] Yep. Anonymous me, no name.

[53:03] Wait, he's the Riddler?

[53:05] Edward Nygma, sure.

[53:07] Yeah, Mr. Nygma is the Riddler.

[53:09] All right, thanks.

[53:11] And Mr. Smegma is a Batman villain you don't see too much these days.

[53:16] More of a Buttman villain, actually.

[53:18] Wait, you're saying he's more of a Silver Age character?

[53:20] Yeah, back in the days when Batman would get caught in a space zoo.

[53:27] Occasionally he'd have to fight Mr. Smegma, yeah.

[53:30] So let's move on to the final...

[53:32] Back in the Robert Kennegar-edited days of Batman.

[53:35] Final segment of the podcast where we recommend movies that we've seen and enjoyed

[53:40] unlike paranoia.

[53:43] Elliot, why don't you go first because I know that you're going to recommend a movie that I also saw and enjoyed.

[53:49] I have another option if you want to recommend it.

[53:51] No, no, no. I've got...

[53:52] You'll chime in?

[53:53] I also have another option.

[53:54] Because I will recommend the other movie in addition.

[53:56] Okay.

[53:57] But my main recommendation is The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson's new movie.

[54:00] It's possible a lot of flop fans have seen it already,

[54:02] but I went to the extreme notion, extreme length of having my mother come in from New Jersey to babysit my son

[54:11] so my wife and I could go see this movie, and it was totally worth it.

[54:14] It was really great. I enjoyed it a lot.

[54:16] It's more of a fast-paced caper adventure than Wes Anderson usually does,

[54:22] and I found it not as emotionally rich as Moonrise Kingdom, but I really enjoyed it a lot.

[54:27] It was from moment one to the last moment I was having fun and enjoyed it through the whole thing.

[54:32] But I think that the...

[54:33] I think it's one of his most obviously blatantly funny movies.

[54:38] I mean, that's true, but then I found that at the end, the actual...

[54:43] The very end of the movie hit me emotionally very hard,

[54:46] and I think it hit me all the harder because it was so lighthearted through most of the movie.

[54:51] And I realize there's been a lot of discussion on the Flop House Facebook page.

[54:56] I know there are a lot of people out there who don't like Wes Anderson that much.

[54:59] They just don't connect with his style, and I understand if a style doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you,

[55:05] but I kind of realized thinking about Wes Anderson's movies recently

[55:10] that I think part of why he works so well for me is that all of his movies are about people

[55:16] who are very sensitive emotionally but aren't very good at expressing it,

[55:23] are holding everything inside themselves.

[55:26] Just like a certain guy sitting at this table right now, Stuart Wellington.

[55:29] No, I'm just kidding.

[55:30] Just like you do.

[55:31] No, I'm saying it connects with me because I feel like it's the same thing.

[55:34] I'm kind of an emotional live wire who deals with that by keeping the world at bay,

[55:40] but all of his movies have a moment of catharsis at the end where a lot of emotions come out.

[55:45] Have you ever had a ski chase down a mountain?

[55:47] I did. I was chasing Willem Dafoe down a mountain.

[55:50] Spoiler alert.

[55:51] This is one of those movies that would be a fantastic all-ages adventure film

[55:56] if not for a couple moments of nudity and a ton of swearing.

[56:00] Ray Fiennes' character is like this very classy, refined, elegant hotel concierge

[56:09] who also swears all the time.

[56:11] And there's some surprising violence in it for a Wes Anderson movie.

[56:15] Yeah, that's true, but it's still kind of cartoony.

[56:17] Yeah.

[56:19] But I really enjoyed it a lot, and I think, you know what?

[56:21] I'm going to say this.

[56:23] Every time we bring up Wes Anderson, one of us feels the need to say,

[56:26] now I know some people don't like him.

[56:28] Let's stop doing that.

[56:30] He's just a movie director.

[56:31] There's nothing special about his movies that's not like other movies.

[56:34] Some people don't like other movies.

[56:35] That's fine.

[56:36] You love Brian De Palma.

[56:37] I'm not such a huge fan, but every time you bring it up, you don't go,

[56:40] you know, some people don't like Brian De Palma, but I think…

[56:43] So let's just say I'm recommending this Wes Anderson movie because I liked it.

[56:47] No apologies, no defense.

[56:49] I just say that because when I say I like Brian De Palma, the Internet,

[56:54] and by that I mean our Facebook group, does not erupt with a bunch of people

[56:58] feeling the need to come out of the woodwork to make fun of Brian De Palma.

[57:01] Well, I'll say to those guys who feel the need to erupt

[57:03] and come out against Wes Anderson, don't see his movies, dude.

[57:05] Yeah.

[57:06] Go watch something you like.

[57:07] Yeah, I mean, we all like Prometheus, and people didn't,

[57:09] the world didn't explode or nothing, right?

[57:10] Yeah, exactly.

[57:11] Wes Anderson's Prometheus.

[57:13] I would love to see that.

[57:14] Yeah, I'd love to see.

[57:16] And I wanted to recommend…

[57:17] I would love to see Wes Anderson make a 3D movie.

[57:19] His movies are almost 3D already.

[57:21] Except he has such complete control and, like,

[57:25] narrow focus on the picture plane a lot.

[57:27] Sure.

[57:28] I think, I bet he could do something really cool with 3D,

[57:31] but I feel like he might not want to, there's such a flatness,

[57:35] even with the three dimensions in his movies.

[57:37] Yeah.

[57:38] He composes his movies a lot…

[57:39] Like dioramas.

[57:40] Yeah, yeah.

[57:41] Now, another movie I want to mention real quick is

[57:44] one that might be a little harder to find than Grand Budapest Hotel,

[57:47] but I enjoyed it.

[57:48] It's called Repentance, and it is a Georgian film from the 80s

[57:52] about a Soviet dictator who dies,

[57:56] and mysteriously his body of each night is dug up

[57:59] and placed on the patio of his old house.

[58:02] And it turns, and the person who's doing it is put on trial

[58:06] and tells the story of why she thinks this Soviet dictator's soul should never rest.

[58:11] And it's both very grim at times and also very goofy at times.

[58:15] And there's a scene where the dictator and his two henchmen

[58:18] stop by an artist's apartment to intimidate him

[58:23] through singing to him as guests set his house

[58:26] and putting on an impromptu, like, a cappella concert

[58:29] that is very Terry Gilliam-esque.

[58:31] So, Repentance, if you have an interest in seeing

[58:33] kind of a pre-end-of-the-Cold-War satire type movie.

[58:39] I'd like to recommend a movie that just happens to be

[58:43] the movie that The Dissolve is talking about this week

[58:46] when we're recording this, the website The Dissolve.

[58:49] But I just watched it because I got the Blu-ray at Christmas

[58:53] and hadn't had a chance to see it, and I wanted to show it to my wife,

[58:56] which is The Sweet Spell of Success by Alexander McKendrick.

[59:01] It was written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odette.

[59:06] Ernest Lehman, you may know, possibly most famous

[59:10] as a screenwriter for writing North by Northwest,

[59:12] although this is a much more bitter movie than North by Northwest.

[59:17] Alexander McKendrick also directed Lady Killers.

[59:19] Yeah.

[59:21] It's a movie that stars Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster,

[59:25] and it's about the gossip columnist sort of culture of the 50s.

[59:32] I mean, it's based on Walter Winchell pretty much,

[59:37] and it's just beautifully shot.

[59:41] It's got a great Elmer Bernstein jazz score.

[59:44] It's a film noir movie but about the gossip column business,

[59:51] and it's very funny.

[59:54] It's very bitter.

[59:56] It's really, like, every fascination.

[1:00:00] it is super kind of dramatically presented, but in a wonderful way rather

[1:00:06] than an overbearing way. And I quickly want to also say, Flophouse book

[1:00:11] recommendations. I was on vacation last week and during that vacation I read

[1:00:18] a couple books I think that Flophouse listeners would

[1:00:23] particularly enjoy. They're both linked in that they're

[1:00:27] both kind of cultural. What a shocking ending. Stay to the last five pages of

[1:00:36] Everyone Poops. Don't tell your friends the shocking surprise ending of

[1:00:42] Everyone Poops. Surely some people don't poop. Don't forget to tune in after the

[1:00:49] credits for a shocking twist. For a teaser for Captain America the Pooping Soldier. Nick Fury will show up and he will poop all over. We need you. It's called the Defecators Initiative. No, the movies, the books I

[1:01:07] wanted to recommend, they're both linked in that they're kind of both cultural

[1:01:10] histories. One is called Five Came Back by Mark Harris and it's about five

[1:01:17] directors who were part of the war effort. John Ford, John Huston, George

[1:01:21] Stevens, William Wyler, Frank Capra. And the other was Superman the

[1:01:29] Unauthorized Biography by Glenn Weldon, which sort of traces Superman in all his

[1:01:38] incarnations from when he was invented to the present and showing how he

[1:01:44] reflected the changing times he was in. Obviously Five Came Back, dealing with

[1:01:50] the real events of World War II, carries a lot more emotional weight than the

[1:01:55] Superman book, but they're both very enjoyable. So I recommend those two.

[1:01:59] Stuart? I'm going to recommend a movie that I actually received as a gift from

[1:02:07] Flophouse listener Alex, last name withheld. It's a movie from 1979.

[1:02:15] Ooh, that's Elliot and Dan territory. I guess so, I don't know. It's old. I refer to the Friends of Eddie Coyle in the last episode as a more recent movie, or a more modern movie that's 40 years old. The movie I'm going to recommend has

[1:02:29] recently been released on Blu-ray. It's a movie called The Visitor. It's a movie

[1:02:33] that was made in collaboration with Richard Jenkins. No, 1979. It's not Visitor Q.

[1:02:38] No, I guess I'll recommend that in a later episode. No, this movie does feature a

[1:02:47] hot young actor, Mr. Lance Henriksen himself, cover of Tiger Beat, for most

[1:02:59] wrinkly. Then the cover line is loopy over Lance. Before he lost that bet with a

[1:03:04] pumpkin head. We love his pottery, now we love his acting. So this is a crazy

[1:03:15] movie, and I'm recommending this as a movie to watch with friends, or maybe by

[1:03:21] yourself. According to its IMDb description, and I guess like the back

[1:03:27] of the box too, it's basically about a little girl who has the soul of some

[1:03:33] kind of evil intergalactic entity named Sateen, which is very much like Satan.

[1:03:39] Your off-brand, generic, store-brand version of Satan. She's in a struggle

[1:03:47] with this entity of good, played by John Huston in one of his

[1:03:56] later roles, and Lance Henriksen plays a shifty owner of a basketball team.

[1:04:05] This is a movie that features a police detective getting his eyes plucked out by a crow,

[1:04:09] or I guess eagle. I don't don't write it. It's really easy to tell the difference between the two.

[1:04:14] Yeah, this description, the more you say about the movie, the less I understand

[1:04:19] what it is. If you like movies, this movie has all the elements of Italian cinema,

[1:04:25] that I hate, which is lots of close-ups on the eyes, lots of weird cuts, lots of

[1:04:33] weird like intermingling of shots, bad dubbing, exactly, terrible dubbing, but at

[1:04:39] the same time I found it weirdly charming in this case, and really

[1:04:42] interesting musical cues that do not relate to what's going on on screen.

[1:04:46] So if you want to watch a really strange movie, so that policeman getting his eyes

[1:04:50] plucked out is like, boing!

[1:04:52] Boop-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de!

[1:04:54] Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa!

[1:04:56] Pop!

[1:04:58] So yeah, The Visitor, check it out. And thanks again to Alex, last name withheld.

[1:05:02] Alright guys, well, once again, I feel like perhaps we've, like Rumpelstiltskin,

[1:05:10] we've spun the shitty yarn of paranoia into gold.

[1:05:16] Uh, you know it wasn't yarn that he was spinning into gold, it was straw.

[1:05:20] Whatever.

[1:05:22] I mean, it would still be quite a feat to spin yarn into gold, but that's not the story.

[1:05:25] He spun spaghetti into gold, just like Baba Yaga.

[1:05:28] No! No!

[1:05:31] So, for The Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:05:35] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:05:37] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:05:39] Goodnight, everyone.

[1:05:42] And this one was called... oh man, okay, let's just...

[1:05:46] Let's just dig into this fucking meat sandwich.

[1:05:48] Let's talk about this stupid movie, huh?

[1:05:50] Yeah, man.

[1:05:52] Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[1:05:55] Ah, model up that energy, Dan.

[1:05:58] Elliot, you'll make a mint.

[1:06:00] Uh, let's do it, guys.

[1:06:03] Ha ha ha ha ha!

[1:06:05] Dan, you are the worst warm-up comic.

[1:06:09] Hey!

[1:06:11] Check out this guy, where are you from?

[1:06:13] Ha ha ha ha ha!

[1:06:15] Ah, forget it. That place is probably not very good.

[1:06:18] Well, he knows the material.

The Flop House: Episode #149 - Paranoia

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