The Flop House: Episode #143 - Battle of the Year

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we step up to the B-Boy dance competition movie, Battle of the Year.

[0:30] Hey everybody, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:35] Hey, thanks for coming to the Flophouse. I'm Stuart Wellington.

Hallie Haglund

[0:38] And I, hey, thanks for coming to the Flophouse. I'm Hallie Haglund.

Dan McCoy

[0:44] What the? Hallie Haglund?

Hallie Haglund

[0:48] That's right, boys.

Dan McCoy

[0:51] Ladies are doing it for themselves. Coming through.

[0:58] In case you're wondering where the reedy tones of Elliot Gillen are, he left the Flophouse forever and is never coming back?

[1:06] No, not true. Elliot is on paternity leave.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11] We call that sabbatical here at the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:13] Yeah, he's going to be gone through the month of January.

[1:16] So tune back in in February.

Hallie Haglund

[1:20] His baby will be fully grown by February.

Dan McCoy

[1:23] Off to college.

[1:27] Studying, I don't know, nerd stuff.

[1:28] We call that Doogie Housering.

[1:31] That's what that show is about, right?

[1:32] A baby who grew up really fast.

[1:35] A baby doctor.

[1:37] No, Elliot decided to keep the fact that he was expecting, and by he, I mean his wife, was expecting under wraps.

[1:47] Because he doesn't like spoilers.

[1:48] Well, he wanted to keep a tiny part of his life private from you vultures.

[1:52] That tiny being a tiny baby.

[1:54] Very tiny.

[1:55] But now, now that the cat is out of the bag, or the baby's out of the vagina.

Stuart Wellington

[2:02] Baby's out of the womb.

[2:03] I try to keep it PG, Dan, thanks.

[2:05] But Jack is totally a PG-13 word, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[2:09] We can tell you that he's on a brief paternity leave for a couple of episodes.

[2:14] But he promises that he will be back, in spite of having a new baby and a new job, as head writer of The Daily Show.

[2:21] Which we can say now, too, because that cat is also out of the bag.

Stuart Wellington

[2:25] Everything's coming up, Kalen.

Dan McCoy

[2:28] Meanwhile, the three of us, stuck here.

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] So if this is your first time tuning into the Flop House, we talk about this guy, Elliot, for a while.

[2:37] And then we talk about a movie we just watched.

Dan McCoy

[2:39] Yeah.

[2:39] Okay.

Hallie Haglund

[2:40] And we talk about what Elliot would think of the movie we just watched.

Dan McCoy

[2:43] This is primarily not an Elliot Kalen podcast.

[2:46] It is, most of the time, a bad movie podcast.

[2:50] Or potentially great movie, right?

[2:51] Some of the time, it's an Elliot Kalen podcast.

[2:53] Yes.

[2:53] Based on the amount of time he spends talking.

[2:55] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[2:56] Elliot Byrne in absentia.

Dan McCoy

[2:58] But we watch a bad movie, and then we talk about it.

[3:01] And tonight, we watch a little movie called Battle of the Year.

Stuart Wellington

[3:05] Oh, Battle of the Year.

[3:06] That sounds great.

[3:07] Is it about orcs and hill dwarves and fire giants?

Hallie Haglund

[3:11] Battle of the Year.

Dan McCoy

[3:15] Yep.

[3:16] It's about Vincent Van Gogh.

Hallie Haglund

[3:18] It's a hearing contest.

Stuart Wellington

[3:21] Yes, the untold story of Vincent Van Gogh and his ear.

Dan McCoy

[3:25] It's very Evil Dead 2.

[3:27] It's like over the top, but it's about hearing.

Hallie Haglund

[3:31] See, you've heard Vincent Van Gogh's side, but you've never heard the ears side.

[3:36] Heard?

Dan McCoy

[3:38] Because that's what ears do.

[3:39] They hear things.

[3:40] Who truly won in that battle?

[3:42] Was it Van Gogh or was it the ear?

[3:44] Who's finally free of his prison.

Stuart Wellington

[3:48] So he can pursue his dream of being a famous painter, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[3:52] This is a dance movie.

[3:55] It's about B-boy.

[3:58] Singing in the rain.

[4:00] What's dance?

[4:01] Dancing in the rain.

[4:02] It's like, you know, when you hear a song and your body moves.

Stuart Wellington

[4:07] No, I wasn't asking what dancing is.

[4:08] Okay.

[4:09] I said, is it like singing in the rain?

[4:11] Isn't that Gene Kelly's dance movie?

[4:13] Yeah, that's Gene Kelly's dance movie.

[4:16] Singing in the rain.

[4:18] Popular B-boy, Gene Kelly.

Dan McCoy

[4:22] Personally, I found the story behind the movie more interesting than the story in that...

[4:28] What's the story of the movie, Dan?

[4:30] I can't.

Stuart Wellington

[4:31] I can't.

[4:32] Dan spent most of the movie being dinner detective, tracking down his dinner order.

[4:36] Not just my dinner order.

Hallie Haglund

[4:38] Which is why he finds the Wikipedia entry about this movie more interesting than the movie.

[4:42] Because you didn't see the most riveting parts.

[4:44] I loved this movie.

Dan McCoy

[4:46] I was also tracking down Hallie's dinner order.

[4:49] It wasn't just me, man.

[4:50] You're a regular Prince Valley.

Stuart Wellington

[4:51] I took the fucking bullet for all of us except for you.

[4:54] Yeah, no, I already brought my dinner order.

[4:55] Two thirds.

[4:56] So let me summarize this movie.

[5:00] Strap in.

[5:01] This is going to be a bumpy ride.

[5:03] So, smash cut.

[5:05] Wait.

[5:06] Josh Halloway for lost.

[5:08] Smash cut?

[5:09] So the movie opens with, I think, a bunch of guys dancing.

[5:12] We cut to an entrepreneur played by somebody named something who wants to sponsor the American dance crew.

[5:22] Like breakdance crew.

[5:25] It's something they do on TV sometimes.

[5:26] B-boy crew.

[5:27] Yeah, B-boying.

Dan McCoy

[5:28] Yeah, I'm not necessarily sure.

[5:31] Like, there was a lot of talk of Stuart's new cat and showing of pictures of Stuart's new kitten to Hallie.

[5:38] So I'm not really sure who this entrepreneur was.

Hallie Haglund

[5:40] I think he, like, runs B-boy magazine.

[5:42] My new kitten runs B-boy magazine?

[5:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:46] He should really be contributing to the household a little bit more.

Stuart Wellington

[5:49] Yeah, well, it helps because cat food is expensive.

[5:52] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[5:54] But the point is there's a contest called Battle of the Year, which is based on a real contest called Battle of the Year.

[6:00] Or Bodie.

[6:01] Mm-hmm.

[6:02] Where B-boys from all over the globe.

Stuart Wellington

[6:05] B-boys battle each other.

[6:06] Mm-hmm.

[6:07] With...

[6:08] What?

[6:09] Why don't they...

[6:10] Better dancing.

Hallie Haglund

[6:11] Just body.

[6:12] Body?

[6:13] Wouldn't that be...

[6:14] What?

[6:14] B-O-D-Y?

Stuart Wellington

[6:16] Yeah.

[6:17] No, but wait, that would be Battle of the Year.

Hallie Haglund

[6:19] But you're not saying B-A-T-Y, are you?

[6:22] B-A-T-Y?

Dan McCoy

[6:23] I don't know.

Hallie Haglund

[6:24] They omit the T entirely.

Dan McCoy

[6:27] I mean, B-A-T-Y does sound like your...

[6:29] Like, does baby want his body?

[6:32] That's where...

[6:34] Yes.

[6:34] Yes, you're right.

[6:36] Which is what Elliot's saying right now.

[6:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[6:39] So, this thing's called Battle of the Year.

[6:43] This entrepreneur needs to bring in a new coach because the United States team has not won in 15 years, which is true, right, Dan?

[6:51] You fact-checked that?

Dan McCoy

[6:51] Yeah, I did fact-check that in the actual Battle of the Year, according to Wikipedia.

[6:56] 100% accurate.

[6:57] What was it, like, 96?

[7:00] 98?

[7:00] Yeah, 96.

Stuart Wellington

[7:01] Actually, 15 years ago.

[7:03] Okay.

[7:04] So, they bring in...

[7:04] I don't know math.

[7:05] From out of retirement, grunken head coach.

[7:08] As of 2013.

[7:08] 98.

[7:08] Josh Halloway from the TV show Lost.

[7:11] Hit show Lost.

[7:12] Mm-hmm.

[7:13] And...

Dan McCoy

[7:13] Or the new show, Intelligence, where I guess his brain can access the internet?

[7:18] Is that what?

Stuart Wellington

[7:18] He's super smart, like a Johnny Mnemonic.

[7:21] And so, Josh Halloway's brought in...

[7:23] Is he like a Jake 2.0 in that show?

[7:25] He is.

[7:25] He's like an almost human.

[7:27] Is he a Chuck?

[7:29] He's like a Sliders.

[7:30] Okay.

[7:31] So, Josh Halloway is brought in.

[7:33] He's got a drinking problem.

[7:34] He drinks out of a flask.

[7:36] He never has to fill up that flask, so I guess it's magic.

[7:40] So, Josh Halloway...

[7:41] He got it from Gollum.

[7:46] He did bring it from Gollum.

[7:48] Hallie, if you didn't know, Gollum is...

[7:50] Whoa.

[7:50] We're not talking about the Jewish folklore monster.

[7:53] We're talking about the character from the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit trilogy.

Hallie Haglund

[7:56] Yeah, that's what I thought that.

Stuart Wellington

[7:58] You weren't thinking of the Jewish monster from folklore?

[8:01] No.

[8:01] I thought that's Gollum.

[8:04] Yeah, you're right.

[8:06] Hallie fact-checked you.

[8:08] Okay.

[8:09] So, Josh Halloway's got a drinking problem because his wife and apparently 15-year-old son died

[8:15] in a car accident.

Hallie Haglund

[8:16] Oh, by the way, according to his pictures, like a baby.

[8:20] So, we afforded a lot more sympathy for him for most of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[8:24] Yeah, this was...

[8:25] Stuart at the end was like, what the fuck?

[8:27] He was 15 when he died?

[8:29] As if that was not a tragedy.

[8:31] That's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[8:32] Like, if you see...

Dan McCoy

[8:34] You know, he probably kissed a girl by that time.

[8:36] He lived a rich, full life.

Stuart Wellington

[8:37] Yeah, exactly.

[8:38] He probably had gotten his first job.

[8:40] He knew what it was like to be human before he passed away.

[8:43] He's probably going on to heaven or hell appropriately, not stuck in some weird purgatory.

[8:47] Okay.

[8:49] Yeah, fair enough.

[8:50] So, he is grieving over the loss of these family members.

[8:54] He is pulled into the job of coaching the United States team.

Hallie Haglund

[8:59] Because he was like a young talent.

[9:02] Yeah, he's...

[9:02] Nicknamed WB.

Stuart Wellington

[9:05] Yep, he's named after the Warner Brothers TV channel.

Dan McCoy

[9:09] But he was like a...

[9:10] He was a basketball coach, right?

[9:12] That was the thing.

Hallie Haglund

[9:13] No, that came after.

[9:14] Oh, okay.

[9:15] Because he was this incredible B-boy.

[9:17] And they said he went from white bread...

[9:20] He was the only white guy on the team.

[9:22] And he went from white bread to wonder bread.

[9:24] Which is why his nickname is WB.

Dan McCoy

[9:27] I missed this whole thing.

[9:29] I thought that the guy literally came in and was just like, well, we need someone who can whip this team into shape.

[9:35] You, basketball coach.

[9:37] You're good at coaching things.

[9:38] Do it.

Hallie Haglund

[9:39] No, but then he had to do right by his girlfriend who he got pregnant.

[9:43] So, like, he took the championship basketball coaching job as, like, a concession.

Stuart Wellington

[9:48] Well, he took a basketball coaching job that became a championship team.

[9:51] So...

[9:52] Because he succeeds at everything he does.

[9:53] Yeah.

[9:54] Except for keeping his wife and child alive.

Dan McCoy

[9:56] So, you're saying that the girlfriend, later wife, who entrapped him, died.

[10:01] Yeah.

[10:02] So, really, there shouldn't be any sympathy there, either.

[10:05] Like, it's really...

[10:06] Like, he just liked drinking is basically what happened.

Stuart Wellington

[10:09] Yeah.

[10:09] I mean, he probably was drunk.

[10:11] He forgot to put on a condom.

[10:12] It happens, I guess.

[10:14] And then he had a child.

[10:15] I guess that's not that funny.

[10:16] So, he is brought in to coach the team.

[10:21] His assistant coach is played by Josh Peck from Flaphouse Faves, Red Dawn, and...

[10:28] What was the other one?

[10:29] I can't remember either.

[10:31] It's that droopy face kid that we don't like.

[10:33] Droopy...

[10:34] He's on the Mindy Project.

[10:35] He's on the Mindy Project, yep.

[10:37] Hold on, I'll look it up while you keep talking.

[10:38] ATM.

Stuart Wellington

[10:38] He's an ATM.

[10:39] Yeah, he was ATM.

[10:39] He was the asshole.

[10:40] I think he's the one who decides they should murder that stranger for some reason.

[10:44] He's the guy who's like, let's park...

Dan McCoy

[10:47] Let's go to the ATM.

Stuart Wellington

[10:50] Yep, he's the guy who...

[10:51] He says the name of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[10:53] He's like, hey, you know what would be fun?

Stuart Wellington

[10:55] Let's go to an ATM and get some money out.

[10:57] He plays the Jewish character who claims that he lost his ability to dance along with the

[11:02] tip of his penis, I guess, when he was circumcised.

[11:04] Yeah.

[11:05] Because that's what happens, right?

[11:05] They chop it off.

Dan McCoy

[11:06] And like the first ten minutes, there's at least four jokes about how Jews can't dance.

Stuart Wellington

[11:11] Yeah, I feel like he has this type five that he's been working on.

[11:15] He just managed to get it all out.

[11:18] So, at this point, Josh Holloway sees the American team.

[11:22] He thinks they're tired.

[11:23] He fires them all.

[11:25] And then he comes up with a great idea.

[11:27] Let's do basically a casting call of the best B-boys.

[11:32] B-boy stands for badass dancers, I think.

[11:34] Yeah.

[11:36] From around the United States and basically do a giant reality show where they all come

[11:40] in and try out and then he picks a bunch.

[11:43] And then one gets eliminated every week.

[11:45] Yeah, exactly.

[11:46] Like a reality show.

[11:47] Yeah.

[11:47] And it all happens at a former juvenile detention center.

[11:51] Once again, like a reality show.

[11:53] Except one of those contestants is played by actor Chris Brown.

[11:57] Actor and puncher Chris Brown.

[11:59] He is a famous puncher of people.

[12:01] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[12:04] You got some thoughts on that?

[12:06] No, I'm wondering how far we can go down this road while not alienating our audience.

Stuart Wellington

[12:13] See, Chris Brown, you might not know the fact that Chris Brown punched Flaphouse fave Rihanna,

[12:18] star of Battleship.

[12:20] Oh, yeah.

[12:21] Yeah, former Flaphouse movie.

[12:22] It all comes back together.

[12:24] I guess, yeah.

[12:26] The puzzle's complete.

[12:27] Lammer Shan's box is done.

[12:29] Pinhead pops out and kills us.

Dan McCoy

[12:31] It's the end of Usual Suspects.

[12:34] It's all coming together.

[12:37] No, I just want to back up in a second and just point out that Josh Holloway's-

[12:40] That he's a really good guy.

[12:42] Yeah.

[12:43] I've hung out with him.

[12:45] We go to brunch together.

Stuart Wellington

[12:47] He's just trying to do right.

[12:48] Yeah, man.

[12:49] He shaves sometimes in the movie, but he always has a fun punch shadow.

[12:51] Don't judge him until you've punched a mile in his shoes.

[12:55] Wait.

[12:56] Wait.

[12:56] Josh Holloway or Chris Brown?

[12:57] I don't know.

[12:59] You just wanted to stand up and say, you don't care who knows it.

[13:04] You think Chris Brown is a great dancer.

[13:05] And you're right.

[13:06] He is a great dancer.

Hallie Haglund

[13:06] He is a great dancer.

Stuart Wellington

[13:08] Yeah.

[13:09] And he's also about two feet taller than all the other dancers on this team.

[13:12] Yeah.

[13:14] If I want to watch a movie with 13 indistinguishable characters, I'm going to watch Hobbit, An

[13:18] Unexpected Journey.

[13:19] Boom.

Dan McCoy

[13:20] Take that, Peter Jackson.

Stuart Wellington

[13:22] I'm just joking.

[13:23] Successful as a director.

[13:25] Who we like.

Dan McCoy

[13:27] No, I just wanted to back up and point out that Josh Holloway's brilliant idea to win

[13:32] His game-changing idea is like, hey, let's put together a dream team.

Stuart Wellington

[13:36] Yeah.

[13:36] And no one apparently had thought of that before.

[13:38] Yeah.

[13:39] And he even gets a little pushback from the guy who hired him.

[13:41] He's like, I don't know about that.

[13:42] Why don't we just...

[13:43] I had these guys training for a while.

[13:45] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[13:46] No.

[13:46] Let's get All-Stars in here.

[13:48] Like, no, I don't think All-Stars will star enough.

Stuart Wellington

[13:50] Just a regular team of guys.

[13:51] What about our team that keeps losing?

Hallie Haglund

[13:54] They have potential?

Stuart Wellington

[13:56] Yeah, they're two.

[13:57] They've lost for 15 years in a row.

[13:59] I've got a lot of emotions wrapped up in there.

Hallie Haglund

[14:01] We're playing the odds here.

Stuart Wellington

[14:04] So he brings in this team of All-Stars.

[14:08] He takes them all to this juvenile detention center.

[14:10] He wears a cap.

[14:13] He does wear a cap.

[14:15] Cap, like a boxing trainer.

[14:17] Looks like a longshoreman.

[14:19] He wears a hoodie.

[14:20] He wears a hoodie.

[14:21] He forces them...

Hallie Haglund

[14:21] And nothing else.

[14:22] What?

Stuart Wellington

[14:24] Wait, really?

[14:26] I didn't say that part.

Hallie Haglund

[14:27] You were too caught up in the dancing, Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[14:30] I was caught up in Dan's dinner problem.

[14:33] You missed the raw eroticism.

[14:36] So then we have a little bit of dancing

[14:39] and a lot of dancing actors kind of fighting each other.

[14:44] There's a homosexual dancer who explains that, you know,

[14:48] that's Little Adonis.

[14:49] Little Adonis.

[14:50] Yeah.

[14:51] None of the characters, none of the dancers have names.

[14:54] They all have, like, taglines.

[14:55] Yeah.

[14:56] So you have, like, Little Adonis.

[14:56] Chris Brown is rooster.

[14:58] Rooster.

[14:59] Sniper is a former Afghanistan war veteran.

Hallie Haglund

[15:03] There's a guy.

[15:04] Wait, is that what he was?

Stuart Wellington

[15:07] Yeah, he said after Afghanistan, this is what I need to do.

[15:10] Oh, God.

Hallie Haglund

[15:11] I didn't miss that.

[15:12] I was like, why is he so...

Stuart Wellington

[15:13] Southeast from South Boston, right?

[15:16] That's an accent.

Dan McCoy

[15:17] Yeah.

[15:18] There's the guy whose nickname is Dance Real Good.

Stuart Wellington

[15:21] Oh, wow.

[15:21] Is that all one word?

[15:22] We didn't separate by hyphens.

Hallie Haglund

[15:23] I just got it.

[15:24] Chris Brown's nickname is rooster.

[15:27] Roost.

[15:28] Roost.

[15:29] Her.

[15:30] I don't understand.

[15:31] Wait a minute.

Dan McCoy

[15:32] Hold on.

[15:33] Back up.

Hallie Haglund

[15:33] Like, beat a woman.

[15:35] Roost.

Stuart Wellington

[15:36] Roost.

[15:36] Wait.

[15:37] Her.

[15:37] I don't think roost means what you think it means.

[15:42] I don't understand.

[15:43] I assumed it was because he was so cocky.

[15:45] No.

[15:48] I've been wrong before.

[15:50] Roost.

[15:50] Her.

[15:51] I think if you say it slower, I might get it.

[15:54] Let me blur my eyes and step back for a minute.

[15:56] All right.

Dan McCoy

[15:57] I see it.

[15:57] It's a sailboat.

[16:00] So, there's a bunch of split screens.

Stuart Wellington

[16:04] Yeah.

[16:05] There's a lot of De Palma-esque split screens.

Dan McCoy

[16:07] Chris Brown and another guy are mad at each other because they got...

Stuart Wellington

[16:10] Another guy whose main character trait is he likes hats.

[16:13] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:14] I couldn't...

[16:14] All kinds of hats.

[16:15] He wears a lot of hats on the team.

[16:17] It was some sort of like...

[16:18] They had like a Twitter war over a girl or something.

[16:21] I can't remember.

Hallie Haglund

[16:22] I think the Twitter war thing might have been a joke.

[16:24] Okay.

[16:24] But they were over a girl.

[16:26] Over a girl.

[16:27] Yeah.

[16:27] But it turns out that Chris Brown's thing was over two months before the other guy got

[16:34] with her.

Stuart Wellington

[16:34] That was in the big review.

[16:35] Which is the big review.

[16:35] Yeah.

[16:38] There's also a character who keeps sneaking out.

[16:40] The homosexual character has kind of a beef with the military character because I guess

[16:46] the military guy is...

[16:47] Has a beef with him.

Dan McCoy

[16:48] Yeah.

[16:48] I guess you're right.

[16:49] Yeah.

[16:50] I was stuck on the fact that like the resolution of that was just like, hey bro, it was over

[16:56] for two months before we got together.

[16:58] It's just like, okay, first of all, you shouldn't have been angry in the first place.

[17:02] Like you're like commoditizing this woman.

[17:04] It's like, no, that was mine.

[17:06] But now it's not...

[17:06] But then like apparently it's fine if it didn't overlap.

[17:10] Like that was the problem there.

[17:12] It was just like, okay, this is a commodity that can be traded.

[17:17] It's each other's business.

Stuart Wellington

[17:18] Yeah.

[17:19] It's fine.

[17:21] Great.

[17:22] That makes sense.

Hallie Haglund

[17:23] I guess they both...

[17:25] You're a real poet.

[17:26] Rooster.

Dan McCoy

[17:30] Oh man, you're blowing my mind.

Stuart Wellington

[17:33] It works in so many levels.

[17:37] So one by one, guys are given bus tickets to go back home from this weird deaf camp of dancing.

[17:44] Oh yeah.

[17:44] And then like halfway through the movie...

Hallie Haglund

[17:45] But they don't want them.

[17:46] Yeah, they don't want those tickets.

Stuart Wellington

[17:48] Yeah.

[17:48] Sometimes they try and convince Josh Holloway that they're not deserving of a ticket.

Hallie Haglund

[17:52] First, you guys should know that the best B-boy on the whole team was the first guy to get sent back.

[17:57] That doesn't make any sense at all.

Stuart Wellington

[17:58] Hallie, explain.

Hallie Haglund

[18:00] Because there's no I in team.

[18:02] And it was all about him.

[18:02] That makes a lot more sense.

[18:03] Yeah.

[18:04] His code name was I.

[18:07] So it wasn't even his fault.

Stuart Wellington

[18:09] You shouldn't have even asked him to come in the first place.

[18:12] They brought him along just to make a message.

[18:15] Yeah.

[18:17] So people are slowly sent home.

[18:19] Josh Peck, a.k.a.

[18:20] Franklin with a Y, I guess, doesn't really do anything.

[18:24] He kind of acts as Josh Holloway's conscience.

[18:28] They bring in a female character, which Hallie was very excited by because before it was a total sausage fest.

[18:33] It was halfway through the movie before a lady shows up.

Hallie Haglund

[18:35] You see two women in this whole movie, and one doesn't have any lines.

[18:40] And one has, like, two.

[18:42] And I kept thinking, like, oh.

[18:43] What is this?

Stuart Wellington

[18:43] Star Trek into darkness?

[18:45] Boom.

[18:46] Light them up.

[18:48] Topical.

[18:49] Okay, continue.

Hallie Haglund

[18:50] But the girl couldn't even dance.

[18:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[18:54] The one who was supposed to be the choreographer.

[18:57] Yeah.

[18:57] Oh, well, there was three babies.

[18:59] There was three girls.

[19:00] Three babies.

Stuart Wellington

[19:01] Three sweet babies.

[19:02] Wait a minute, I only saw one baby.

[19:04] Where were the other two babies?

[19:04] But she was a girl.

[19:05] That's what I'm saying.

Hallie Haglund

[19:06] She was a baby girl?

[19:07] So there were three girls.

[19:08] Yeah.

[19:08] Okay.

[19:09] Yeah, that's true.

[19:11] And there was that picture of the wife who died.

[19:14] So four.

Stuart Wellington

[19:15] There were four women in this movie.

[19:16] Her performance, amazing.

Dan McCoy

[19:18] So wait, there's the wife who died.

[19:20] There's a choreographer.

[19:21] There's the wife of the one guy who kept sneaking out to see his wife.

[19:25] Yeah.

[19:26] And their baby.

[19:27] Spoiler alert, the guy who kept sneaking out.

[19:28] He was sneaking out to see his wife and his new baby.

Hallie Haglund

[19:30] And guess what?

[19:32] The coach follows him, goes to his hotel room.

[19:35] He's like, what are you doing?

[19:36] The guy comes out of the bathroom.

[19:37] He's like, I'm keeping my baby in this hotel bathroom.

[19:40] And he's like, let me swaddle your baby.

[19:42] And then wraps the baby up and the baby stops crying.

Stuart Wellington

[19:44] Swaddling clothes and lays them in a manger.

[19:46] I think we all know babies are basically get out of jail free cards.

[19:50] Yeah.

[19:52] He's keeping his baby.

Hallie Haglund

[19:53] Which is why so many people have them.

Stuart Wellington

[19:55] That's why so many people have babies and then use those babies as excuses not to do things.

[19:59] Yep.

Hallie Haglund

[20:00] Burn.

[20:01] That's why so many people have babies in jail.

Dan McCoy

[20:07] So after a while, they're whittled down.

Stuart Wellington

[20:11] Chris Brown tries to do this crazy dance stunt and hurts his leg.

[20:14] He's off the team.

[20:15] Screw that guy.

[20:16] The rest of the guys go to France.

Dan McCoy

[20:17] I couldn't tell whether he broke his leg or maybe he had a knee injury.

[20:20] Don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[20:21] I mean, the weird thing is after he hurt his knee, he wore a hat that was a very Dan McCoy style hat.

[20:26] Do you guys get those when you hurt your knees?

[20:28] Yeah.

[20:29] Like a little paper boy cat?

[20:31] Yeah.

[20:31] They're handed out at the hospital for special surgery.

Hallie Haglund

[20:34] Did you guys ever meet each other in PT?

Stuart Wellington

[20:37] Yep.

[20:38] That's me and Rooster.

[20:39] That's physical therapy.

[20:40] Mm-hmm.

[20:41] Thanks.

[20:42] Not personal therapy.

[20:43] Mm-hmm.

[20:43] Although he could probably use it from all of his punching therapy.

[20:49] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[20:50] He goes to BBPT, which is B-Boy PT.

[20:53] Okay.

[20:54] Sometimes.

[20:54] You go to a completely different office across town.

[20:55] I go to RGPT, regular guy PT.

Stuart Wellington

[20:59] So, the rest of the B-Boys get on a plane.

[21:02] They shoot some shots of them, like, clowning around in an airport.

Dan McCoy

[21:05] Yeah, it's like fucking Richard Lester from Hard Day's Night takes over the camera for a second.

[21:10] She's like, let's fast motion a bunch of people walking across the street in a funny way.

Stuart Wellington

[21:14] In France, of all places.

[21:15] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[21:16] It was a great time.

[21:18] They climbed on some statues.

[21:19] They marched across the Arc de Triomphe like they were soldiers.

[21:25] Yeah.

[21:25] Very quickly.

Stuart Wellington

[21:26] Did a little skateboarding around.

[21:28] Yeah.

[21:28] They are clowning around.

Hallie Haglund

[21:29] It was just nice to see them enjoying each other.

Stuart Wellington

[21:31] The best part is that they're doing a lot of dancing and clowning around, which is exactly

[21:35] what Chris Brown did moments before he hurt himself.

[21:38] Yeah.

[21:38] So, any one of them could have ruined the United States team's chances, and I was a little disappointed

[21:44] with their performance.

Dan McCoy

[21:45] So, it's the night before the first round, and they go to a bar, and immediately I'm like,

[21:51] okay, this is the scene in the movie where they go to a bar and they get into a fist fight.

[21:54] And I thought, oh, it'll take a little while before they get into the fist fight.

[21:58] But it is immediate.

Stuart Wellington

[22:01] Yeah.

[22:01] Like, normally movies like this, which is movies about dancing B-boys, they introduce like

[22:08] a rival team where the rival team.

[22:10] As opposed to like B-boys who are like, you know, like Doctors Without Borders.

[22:17] Doctors Without Borders.

[22:18] Yeah.

[22:20] So, usually they introduce a rival team that is super cocky, and it's like, oh, United States

[22:27] guys, you are total assholes.

[22:29] That's the French team.

[22:31] But they didn't do that.

[22:32] They just had the homosexual B-boy, Little Adonis, of course.

Hallie Haglund

[22:35] Well, they did lay some groundwork at the very beginning when the coach first got hired,

[22:41] and he was made to watch all these videos, and he had one line that said, man, the Koreans

[22:45] are really good.

Stuart Wellington

[22:47] Yeah, basically.

[22:48] So, that was, he just set the watermark, like the line.

[22:51] That's what everybody has to hit.

[22:53] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[22:54] Don't miss that line, you guys.

[22:56] It's going to be important.

Stuart Wellington

[22:57] The little Adonis gets into a scrap with some guy with a beard.

[23:03] He is defended by Sniper, who, as you'll remember from our earlier comments, was the homophobic

[23:09] character.

[23:11] His personal growth.

[23:13] The drink spilled fellow's buddies start a fist fight.

[23:17] There's no homophobing team.

[23:18] And after a very brief and uninteresting punching and kicking spell, we find out that Sniper might

[23:27] be removed from the team on grounds of disqualification for starting a fight.

[23:31] For being gay.

[23:32] Yeah.

[23:33] Sniper was gay, too.

[23:34] That's the irony.

[23:35] That's why he's so mad.

Dan McCoy

[23:35] And by the way, meanwhile, Josh Holloway is off with the lady choreographer, and it looks

[23:39] like, oh, we're finally going to get a romantic subplot in this movie, and that never really

[23:43] comes to fruition.

Stuart Wellington

[23:44] I could have used something to get over his pain.

Dan McCoy

[23:46] Yeah.

[23:47] Well, I mean, you know, Stuart, if there's one thing you like in a movie, it's a little

[23:51] smooching.

[23:52] Yeah.

[23:52] You didn't even get any.

Stuart Wellington

[23:53] Just a little bit of kissing.

[23:56] Some hugging and a kissing.

[23:57] He needs something to get over the loss of his 15-year-old son.

Dan McCoy

[24:01] Which is kissing.

Stuart Wellington

[24:05] He hasn't kissed anybody since he kissed the forehead of his 15-year-old son before strapping

[24:10] him into a car seat.

Dan McCoy

[24:12] That's what I tell parents who've lost a child.

[24:16] Go out there and get some.

[24:18] Just get some.

Hallie Haglund

[24:19] Have you ever considered kissing?

Stuart Wellington

[24:21] Yeah, I think somebody says that to Llewyn Davis at Inside Llewyn Davis, right?

[24:25] You can get over the loss of your friend by kissing somebody.

Dan McCoy

[24:28] Yeah.

[24:28] Kiss him good.

Stuart Wellington

[24:31] So he didn't, by the way.

Hallie Haglund

[24:34] Spoiler.

Stuart Wellington

[24:35] No kissing happened in this movie.

[24:36] There's no love.

[24:37] There's no love.

[24:38] No love in B-Boy.

[24:40] Yes.

[24:41] And if you were wondering, at no point does Josh Holloway do any dancing, even though it's

[24:46] alluded that his character had danced at some point in the past.

[24:49] Right.

Hallie Haglund

[24:49] And at no point does Gregory Peck, what's his name?

[24:52] Gregory Peck?

[24:55] Gregory Peck does not.

[25:00] Just so you guys don't get your hopes up.

[25:02] Gregory Peck does not dance in this movie, okay?

Stuart Wellington

[25:05] Yeah, I mean, their hopes probably were not before you said his name, but now they got

[25:08] excited.

Hallie Haglund

[25:09] But also Joshua.

[25:11] Joshua Peck, yep.

[25:12] Josh.

[25:12] Old droopy face.

[25:13] I refer to him as Joshua.

[25:15] Yeah.

[25:16] They, like, I feel like there was some heavy foreshadowing to, like, this is going to be,

[25:21] someone's going to get eliminated and he's actually going to prove to be an unnaturally talented

[25:27] B-Boy and take this team to the top.

Stuart Wellington

[25:30] Yeah.

[25:30] I think the moment when Josh Holloway goes off to talk to the judges to try and convince

[25:35] them not to disqualify Sniper, they literally, I think he literally went off screen.

[25:40] They're like, yeah, that guy actually can't dance.

[25:42] He can't get Josh Peck to dance.

[25:44] And he's like, oh, okay.

[25:45] It's in his contract.

[25:45] Oh, Sniper, you're not disqualified.

[25:46] They're like, what about Gregory Peck?

[25:49] Like, sir, he's a ghost.

[25:51] I don't know how well that would work out.

[25:52] We don't have choreography for a ghost.

Dan McCoy

[25:54] What about Walter Peck?

[25:57] Ghostbusters.

[25:58] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[25:58] Walter Peck from Ghostbusters.

[25:59] He doesn't have a dick, so he probably can move pretty well.

[26:02] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[26:03] What about a peck?

[26:04] No kissing in this movie.

[26:08] Not allowed.

Dan McCoy

[26:10] Dancing and kissing do not mix.

[26:14] We do not con to that around here.

Stuart Wellington

[26:17] So, I guess, fast forward to the actual Battle of the Year United States team.

[26:23] We see snippets of other countries performing and dancing.

[26:28] Apparently, the Koreans do really well.

[26:30] And then the United States team performs, and they do really well, including an amazing

[26:35] blindfold routine.

Dan McCoy

[26:37] Yeah.

[26:37] How can you dance where you can't see?

Stuart Wellington

[26:39] Mm-hmm.

[26:39] It's like the forbidden dance.

[26:42] So, then they do an announcement of the top four teams.

[26:47] Korea, of course, takes number one because they're the best at everything in the world

[26:50] forever.

[26:52] And the United States comes in number four, which means they're in the top four.

[26:55] That's a pretty big deal, Dan, right?

Hallie Haglund

[26:57] Germany and France also among the winners.

[27:00] Yeah, of all.

[27:01] Not winners.

[27:02] Finalists.

Stuart Wellington

[27:03] Semi-finalists?

[27:04] I guess, yeah, it would be semi-finalists.

Dan McCoy

[27:07] You can really remember the different seeds in this fictional competition.

[27:13] I was riveted.

[27:14] This real competition that has been fictionalized.

Stuart Wellington

[27:16] The competition then gets pretty intense because rather than just doing a solo dance, they're

[27:20] doing like a dance battle where they do moves and then the other team does moves.

[27:24] There's some kind of a scoring system that I have no understanding of.

[27:27] I don't know if you get more points for jumping higher or spinning around more or doing better

[27:32] like sassy hand movements.

[27:34] Jumping sideways looks pretty amazing.

[27:35] That seems really hard.

[27:36] There's a lot of that, right?

[27:37] Yeah.

[27:37] A lot of spinning around on the ground or bouncing on a hand.

[27:40] A lot of head spinning.

Hallie Haglund

[27:41] You know what looks really hard, especially when they jump really fast in the air, but then

[27:45] they slow down as they land.

Stuart Wellington

[27:48] Yeah.

[27:48] I like it when they act like they're a movie reel that's being sped up or slowed down.

[27:53] Yeah.

[27:54] What did you like, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[27:56] I like when the feet moved good.

[28:01] Sure, yeah.

[28:02] That's exactly right.

Stuart Wellington

[28:04] Dan was kind of riveted to the knees most of the time, right?

Hallie Haglund

[28:09] Dan didn't watch a lot of the movies because he was mostly just dancing.

[28:13] Yeah, he was practicing those moves.

[28:14] He felt, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[28:15] I mean, I feel the beat of the rhythm of the night, guys.

[28:18] Okay.

[28:19] And I'm a dance machine.

[28:24] Oh, okay.

[28:26] Original B-boy.

[28:29] Dan McCoy, original B-boy.

[28:31] Yeah, that's why I'm so bad at it.

[28:32] I was the first one.

Stuart Wellington

[28:34] Yeah, but people say that they're way into your moves, but you're kind of like a Model

[28:38] T car.

[28:39] Like, nobody's going to drive it.

Dan McCoy

[28:41] Yeah, I'm like how people are like, oh, you know who's really good?

[28:44] Those really old blues magicians?

[28:46] And you listen to it, and you're like, this is not, I don't like this.

Stuart Wellington

[28:49] Yeah, blues magicians are the weirdest ones.

[28:52] Because they're really sad when they're doing it.

[28:56] No, they'll pull out, instead of pulling a rabbit out of that, they'll pull out like a picture

[29:00] frame of their ex-wife or something.

[29:06] Yeah, B-blues magicians.

Hallie Haglund

[29:09] I was confusing.

[29:12] I was imagining blues magicians, B-boy people.

Stuart Wellington

[29:17] Sometimes Dan just says completely weird words, Halle.

[29:20] The trick is you've got to latch on to them and make fun of them.

Hallie Haglund

[29:24] I want to meet the Renaissance.

Stuart Wellington

[29:28] B-boy magician and blues musician.

[29:33] It's a real, what they call in the business a triple threat.

Hallie Haglund

[29:36] I know you're out there.

[29:38] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[29:39] Send your letter to the Flop House podcast at internet.gov.

[29:46] So, after doing a bunch of flips and twirls, the United States makes it to the finals with

[29:52] South, or no, regular Korea.

[29:54] Regular Korea.

[29:55] Regular Korea.

[29:56] Original flavor.

Hallie Haglund

[29:58] There is no regular Korea.

[30:01] But they don't go as anything else.

[30:02] They're South Korea.

[30:03] Are they South Korea?

[30:04] I don't think they're North Korea.

Stuart Wellington

[30:05] They keep calling themselves the Seoul Assassins.

[30:08] I'm assuming after the city Seoul, not for the thing in your body.

Dan McCoy

[30:13] No, they're naming it after the movie Seoul Survivors.

Stuart Wellington

[30:19] Not the song Seoul Survivors.

[30:20] No.

[30:21] So, the United States battles Korea and...

[30:26] Just like Red Dawn.

[30:28] Yeah, it's just like Red Dawn.

[30:29] Josh Peck is on the edge of his seat, and it is tense, and they all get together, and

[30:37] there's the final scoring, and the United States loses by one point.

[30:41] Total bummer.

[30:42] It's like Rocky.

[30:43] It's a moral victory.

[30:45] It comes in second.

[30:45] Allie, you look sad.

[30:47] Did you just realize that the United States didn't win?

Hallie Haglund

[30:50] I just realized, like, the thing about this movie...

Stuart Wellington

[30:52] I just realized, we're all gonna die someday, guys.

[30:56] No, but...

Hallie Haglund

[30:57] I could predict this movie at every turn, for the most part, except expecting the Gregory

[31:02] Peck part.

[31:05] But...

[31:05] Except I thought, you know, like, clockwork, they would win.

[31:10] And then they really threw me for a loop.

[31:12] So, what was a good movie became a great movie.

Stuart Wellington

[31:19] That's how you elevate a piece of art.

Dan McCoy

[31:21] I do want to say that, like, this movie is very predictable, but the one thing that was

[31:25] unpredictable about it was, like, the timing of when certain predictable elements came

[31:30] in.

[31:30] Yeah.

[31:31] Like, the fact that the lady choreographer came in, like, halfway through the movie.

[31:36] Or the fact that the end of the movie, the very end, when they came in second, was when

[31:40] Josh Holloway, like, made a big speech to all his dancers, being like, hey, my wife and

[31:45] kid died.

[31:46] And that's inspirational somehow.

[31:48] Oh, he made it after they lost.

[31:48] He would have been 15.

[31:50] Yeah, that's what I was...

[31:50] Like, after they lost.

[31:51] Like, it came at the end of the movie.

[31:53] Like, I feel like that's the sort of thing that comes in the middle of the movie, where

[31:55] it's just like, you guys gotta straighten up, because...

[31:58] Yeah, well...

[31:58] My wife and kid died.

Stuart Wellington

[31:59] Yeah, it normally comes in the middle of the movie when the rest of the team's like,

[32:02] why is this guy such an asshole?

[32:04] Yeah.

[32:04] It's like, that guy's not an asshole.

[32:06] That guy's a widower.

Dan McCoy

[32:07] Yeah, that guy's got emotional issues.

[32:11] He's soulful.

[32:13] He's got depth.

Stuart Wellington

[32:15] Yep.

[32:16] He's not drinking liquor out of that flask.

[32:18] He's drinking sadness tears.

[32:22] Sadness tears.

[32:24] Not happiness tears.

[32:25] Yeah, I'm not...

[32:25] He would be super pumped if he was drinking happiness tears.

Dan McCoy

[32:27] I'm not collecting my happiness tears and filtering them into this flask to drink later.

[32:33] Only sadness.

Stuart Wellington

[32:36] Yeah, so the United States gets second place, but there's an upside, because there's probably

[32:41] going to be another battle of the year, right?

Hallie Haglund

[32:44] And guess who gets to be in it?

Stuart Wellington

[32:46] Rooster.

[32:47] Rooster.

[32:48] Er.

[32:49] Oh, I get it now.

[32:51] Okay.

[32:53] And then they're like, everybody laughs at the end of the movie.

[32:56] Yeah, they fucking put a cake in Josh Holloway's face.

[32:58] They'll smash a cake into his face, and he's like, guys?

Hallie Haglund

[33:02] And just so you're wondering, the choreographer and the coach never got together.

Stuart Wellington

[33:07] Or they might have, they just didn't show that part, because we weren't interested in anything

[33:11] other than dance moves.

[33:12] Battle of the year two, guys.

[33:13] That's battle of the year two.

[33:14] When they're going to have a baby.

[33:15] You think they're going to be?

Dan McCoy

[33:16] Yeah.

[33:16] Battle of the year two, colon, boning down.

[33:19] That's what it's going to be called.

[33:21] Okay.

[33:21] Josh Holloway and that choreographer.

Stuart Wellington

[33:23] First off, I'm glad you fit both colon and boning into the same sentence.

Dan McCoy

[33:28] They're going to be getting it on.

Stuart Wellington

[33:30] So, yeah.

[33:31] Battle of the year, guys.

[33:32] I was a little impressed.

[33:34] They never really touched on how all these seemingly grown dancers can just go away and

[33:40] live in a jail for a while.

[33:42] Like, they have to take a sabbatical from work.

[33:46] Are they sponsored?

Hallie Haglund

[33:50] Oh, heavy advertising.

[33:53] There is some heavy advertising from Braun.

[33:55] Braun.

[33:56] It comes up initially when you see Holloway shaving, even though he always has a five o'clock

[34:04] shadow.

[34:04] A little bit of scruff, right?

[34:05] And yet, as he's shaving, he still has that.

Stuart Wellington

[34:07] I mean, because girls like that.

[34:08] Girls like it.

[34:09] It's not a little bit of a shrub.

[34:10] They like the feel of a rasp against their skin.

[34:13] He always looks like a longshoreman.

Hallie Haglund

[34:18] And then the whole...

Stuart Wellington

[34:19] It takes a lot of work to look like that, you know?

Hallie Haglund

[34:21] I guess so.

Stuart Wellington

[34:27] What?

[34:27] Yeah, what?

[34:28] Come on.

Hallie Haglund

[34:29] No.

[34:30] I was going to pretend like I grew a beard and I was going to say, it takes a lot of work

[34:35] not to look like that.

[34:37] But I...

[34:39] People can't see me.

[34:39] You guys haven't seen me, but just so you know, I don't have a beard.

[34:45] So concerned.

[34:46] Now.

[34:47] Thanks to Braun.

Stuart Wellington

[34:48] Thanks to Braun.

[34:50] This podcast brought to you by Braun.

[34:52] So, yeah.

[34:54] So, I guess they don't have to work or anything like that.

[34:57] No, they're just fucking B-boys.

[34:58] They speak through all the plot points.

[34:59] The plot points.

[35:01] Oh, no.

[35:02] I made a Dan McCoy sound mistake.

[35:04] They speak through all the plot points.

[35:05] Like you said, the fight in the bar.

[35:08] I think I'm shocked that there's no rival team.

[35:11] Like, they don't...

[35:12] Well, you guys made the point of, like...

Dan McCoy

[35:14] There's not really, like, a whole lot of stakes in this movie.

[35:17] Like, Hallie, what did you say about it?

[35:19] It's like...

[35:20] Oh, they...

Hallie Haglund

[35:20] They all have, like, a nice hobby.

Dan McCoy

[35:23] Yeah.

[35:24] Their hobby is B-boying.

Stuart Wellington

[35:26] That's nice.

[35:26] And they're all moderately successful.

[35:28] I mean, they're very successful.

[35:30] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[35:30] They can take a...

Stuart Wellington

[35:31] Second best team in the world.

[35:31] You know, they can take a few...

Hallie Haglund

[35:32] It's like you have a good job and then you take some cooking classes.

Stuart Wellington

[35:39] Nothing really bad happens to anybody except for Rooster's injury, which I'm assuming is paid for by...

[35:44] Braun.

[35:45] Yeah, paid for by Braun's very good health insurance plan.

Dan McCoy

[35:49] I do want to get this in there.

[35:50] Like, the backstory to this movie that I was mentioning before was just, like, according to Wikipedia,

[35:56] at least, like, this is based on a documentary by the same director, which I believe is called

[36:02] Planet B-Boy, which is, I think, referenced in the movie.

[36:05] Yeah, they show a lot of that documentary.

[36:08] It's like, oh, man, if you want to learn about B-Boy, you got to watch this Planet B-Boy.

Hallie Haglund

[36:11] So, I think that was actually the point, because you're wondering the whole time what the point

[36:15] of Josh Peck's character is.

[36:18] Yeah.

[36:18] And I think that Josh Peck is supposed to represent the actual maker of the film.

[36:24] The director?

[36:24] Yeah.

[36:25] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[36:26] Uh, I think it's a little masochistic for the director to represent himself by a guy with

[36:32] that droopy of a face.

Dan McCoy

[36:33] Mm-hmm.

[36:34] Droopy dog?

[36:35] Like, live-action droopy dog?

Stuart Wellington

[36:37] I want to be a B-Boy.

Dan McCoy

[36:40] Um...

Stuart Wellington

[36:41] Come on, you can do a way better droopy dog impression than me.

[36:44] Oh.

[36:45] I can't.

[36:47] So, and, yeah, so the idea that Josh Holloway is falling asleep nightly watching the Planet

[36:55] B-Boy documentary, I think is a pretty good advertisement for both Braun and the movie, the other

[37:03] movie that directed.

Dan McCoy

[37:03] The thrills that are available within.

[37:06] Um, I think that we've, uh, talked this movie out a fair amount.

[37:10] Yeah, it's pretty light.

[37:12] I mean, it's not really that much there.

[37:13] It's pretty good.

[37:15] Well, that brings us to our, uh, next, uh, segment, which is Final Judgments.

[37:20] Was this a good, bad movie?

[37:21] A bad, bad movie?

[37:22] Or a movie you kind of liked?

[37:23] Hallie, what do you have to say about it?

Hallie Haglund

[37:25] Um, have you ever watched, uh, America's Next Dance Crew?

[37:31] B-Boy?

[37:32] No.

[37:33] On the edge of your seat, a marathon, and been like, uh, I, I wish this didn't have Mario

[37:41] Lopez in it, because I hear he's, like, really mean to his, uh, wife.

[37:46] Uh, well, you're not gonna get that, because, like, Chris Brown basically takes place, but

[37:52] it's just like, um, that kind of marathon.

[37:54] It's just standing, yeah.

[37:55] Yeah, uh, so it's a lot of fun dancing.

[37:58] I was really invested in the competition.

[38:00] They do all these flips, and sometimes you're like, are they gonna injure themselves?

[38:04] And sometimes they do!

[38:06] And, you know what?

[38:08] I would say, this kept my attention.

[38:11] I, for a bad movie...

[38:13] That's your rating.

[38:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[38:14] This kept my attention.

Stuart Wellington

[38:16] So, where does that fall within the spectrum that we usually use, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[38:19] Look, this is, this is on the same level as flashing lights and jangling keys.

[38:24] I would say, um, to me, this is somewhere between, uh, a bad, uh, uh, sorry, a good bad movie

[38:34] and a movie I kinda liked.

[38:36] But, like, I didn't, like, the thing is, like, I didn't really like anything about it particularly

[38:41] much, but there's nothing I disliked about it.

Stuart Wellington

[38:44] What about the dancing?

[38:44] You didn't like that?

Dan McCoy

[38:45] Well, that's the thing, like, I find that we watch these movies with dancing, and it's

[38:49] hard to dislike them.

[38:50] There's, like, something about just the fact that the dancing exists that, like, entertains

[38:54] you, and you're, and as stupid as the story is, you get into that part of it.

[39:00] My one problem with the dancing is I do feel like...

[39:03] You could do better.

[39:05] Yeah.

[39:07] Yeah.

[39:07] I'm gonna throw down.

[39:09] Come on, rooster.

[39:10] We're gonna do this.

[39:11] No, I just, like, it's cut all to hell.

[39:13] Like, the editing is really, like...

[39:15] Rooster.

[39:15] Her.

[39:16] Oh.

[39:17] I get it now.

[39:19] Thank you, Stuart, finally, for clarifying what Hallie was trying to say.

Stuart Wellington

[39:22] The dancing is all cut together.

[39:24] It's like the opposite of...

[39:25] But it wasn't so much.

Hallie Haglund

[39:25] I mean, they had, they had solid...

[39:28] It didn't seem totally manufactured.

[39:30] Like, the actors were bad enough that you had to believe that they were really good at

Dan McCoy

[39:34] I didn't think it was manufactured.

[39:35] It was more like, I just wish that they'd locked the camera down a little bit and shown

[39:39] you, like, a full move, like, with, like, a camera that wasn't moving or, like, cutting

[39:44] away.

[39:45] I totally believe that the actors were doing these amazing tricks.

[39:49] I just wanted to see it a little more fully.

[39:51] Like, I think a good dance movie usually just, like, gets out of the way and lets the dancers

[39:59] do the work.

[39:59] And that's what I was missing.

[40:01] But, you know, I didn't mind this movie.

[40:03] It was kind of fun in a stupid way.

Stuart Wellington

[40:04] I would say after, I guess, the last movie we watched for the show, Getaway, which was

[40:09] a perfect example of taking something awesome, car chases, and ruining it by, like, overcutting,

[40:15] I felt the cutting for the dance moves wasn't that bad.

[40:19] All right.

[40:19] Comparatively.

[40:20] And I guess that indicates what was fun about the movie.

[40:23] I would say it, I would consider this almost like a good, bad movie because it's pretty

[40:28] fun to watch with your friends.

[40:29] It's a pretty straightforward, by-the-numbers plot.

[40:32] And it basically, like, it's very, very trim.

[40:37] They cut out every bit of drama or stakes that a movie would normally need.

[40:42] Some of the acting is pretty crappy.

[40:45] But these guys are amazing.

[40:46] Some of it is great.

[40:47] These guys are amazing dancers.

Hallie Haglund

[40:49] And if you played a drinking game where every time they said the word battle, you had to

[40:53] drink.

Stuart Wellington

[40:54] Yeah.

[40:54] Battled or B-boy.

[40:55] You would get drunk.

[40:56] Yeah.

[40:57] You would probably get drunk, which is the point of the exercise.

[40:59] Yeah.

[41:00] So, similar to them, you would be a winner with your hobby of drinking.

[41:05] But you would only be in second place.

[41:07] Second place.

[41:07] Somebody else drank way more than you.

[41:09] Yeah.

[41:09] His name's Dan.

Dan McCoy

[41:10] Thanks.

[41:11] Before we get on to the letter segment, I just want to take a quick moment to say that the

[41:16] winner of the Flophouse Housecat Video Contest did get back in touch with us.

[41:24] The movie he selected was BAPS.

[41:27] Okay.

[41:27] The Halle Berry film.

[41:32] I believe Martin Landau was also in that movie.

Stuart Wellington

[41:34] Oh, so it's a Martin Landau film.

Dan McCoy

[41:36] Yeah.

[41:37] We probably won't get to that until sometime in February.

[41:43] We do want to wait until Elliot's back.

Stuart Wellington

[41:46] It's our first part of Black History Month?

Dan McCoy

[41:47] Yeah.

[41:49] We all remember.

[41:50] Let's take a minute to remember BAPS.

[41:55] I mean, like, Black History, it's not fair to only remember the high points of Black History.

[42:01] You also have to remember BAPS.

[42:04] But, sure, sure.

[42:06] Eli Whitney.

[42:07] But also BAPS.

[42:10] But, no, we're going to do that.

[42:12] Thank you for making the video.

[42:14] Thank you for choosing BAPS.

[42:18] We'll get to that.

[42:18] Thanks for getting back to us.

[42:20] Yeah.

[42:22] BAPS.

[42:25] BAPS.

[42:26] BAPS.

[42:27] Her.

[42:29] But, um, so I guess that was all I wanted to say about that was, uh, was a message received.

[42:38] We'll be getting to that as soon as we can.

[42:41] But now.

Stuart Wellington

[42:43] So, what are we doing now?

[42:44] We're doing, uh, what's the next part of the Flop House podcast?

Dan McCoy

[42:45] Letters from listeners.

Stuart Wellington

[42:49] That's, wait.

[42:50] I'm not, what?

[42:51] Uh, am I supposed to sing a song?

[42:52] Or is Elliot?

[42:52] Oh.

Hallie Haglund

[42:55] Elliot, Caitlin.

[42:57] We miss your voice, Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[43:01] That's pretty good.

[43:01] Thanks.

[43:02] I mean, that's basically the same.

Dan McCoy

[43:03] So, uh, this first letter is from Jeremy, last name withheld.

[43:07] Thanks, Jeremy.

[43:07] It's titled.

Stuart Wellington

[43:08] That's a weird last name.

Dan McCoy

[43:10] Die Hard Sequel Pitches.

[43:12] Hey, Flop friends.

[43:12] Love the podcast.

[43:14] Let me cut to the chase.

[43:15] The Die Hard series has grown stale and is in need of fresh ideas.

[43:19] Thankfully, I've taken it upon myself to come up with seven idiom-appropriate titles that promise to push this tired franchise into fertile new ground.

[43:30] Live and let die hard.

[43:32] John McClane finds himself across the pond teaming up with rival super agent James Bond to stop an eccentric genius from taking over the world in this long overdue crossover smash.

[43:41] Live each day as if you will die hard tomorrow.

[43:44] After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, John McClane travels the country checking off items on his bucket list and making things right with all the people he has harmed in his life in this heartwarming tale of redemption and self-discovery.

Stuart Wellington

[43:56] Only the good die hard young.

Dan McCoy

[44:01] After Billy Joel's bass player sprains his wrist, John McClane is hired as an unlikely sideman.

[44:07] Live hard by the sword.

[44:08] Die hard by the sword.

[44:10] After being sent back in time via demonic portal, John McClane and wisecracking Moore's sidekick, parentheses Chris Tucker, partner up to take down a brutal feudal lord.

[44:26] I do or die hard.

[44:27] John McClane races against the clock to make it to the altar after his bachelor party gets out of hand in this riotous comedy.

[44:34] To die hard for.

[44:35] To die hard for.

[44:36] John McClane is seduced by a famous Hollywood actress who persuades him to murder her religious nut actor husband so she can cash in on his life insurance policy.

[44:45] And lastly, curl up and die hard.

[44:48] Hilarity ensues as John McClane is enlisted to coach the Jamaican Olympic curling team in this vaguely racist Disney comedy.

[44:55] What do you think Jeremy Lastang was held?

[44:58] So are you going to fund any of these movies, Stuart?

[45:01] What are they on?

Stuart Wellington

[45:01] Indiegogo or Kickstarter or some shit?

Dan McCoy

[45:04] Your vast Wellington fortune.

Stuart Wellington

[45:06] Yeah, the Wellington fortune based on Wellington, New Zealand.

Dan McCoy

[45:09] Are you keeping your money, babe?

Stuart Wellington

[45:11] Yeah, I keep all my, what dollars?

[45:14] What are these?

[45:15] Yeah, I think those are some great ideas.

[45:18] I think Hallie seemed particularly interested in the curling one, being that you're way into curling, right?

Hallie Haglund

[45:24] Oh, yeah, but I was confused.

[45:26] I thought they were maybe talking about cool running.

[45:30] Something about Jamaica, right?

Dan McCoy

[45:32] No, that's the reference, I believe, that was being made.

[45:35] You successfully identified.

Hallie Haglund

[45:37] Right, so I wish that I didn't, I thought they would have a pun.

Dan McCoy

[45:40] You just want to watch Cool Runnings again is what I'm getting off of this.

Hallie Haglund

[45:45] Are we going to?

[45:47] Yeah.

[45:47] No, I liked all the good, die hard young.

[45:54] I would love to see a movie.

Stuart Wellington

[45:56] You're going to be quizzed on the name of every single pitch.

Hallie Haglund

[45:59] About Billy Jules.

[46:01] Yeah.

[46:01] Basis spraining his wrist.

Dan McCoy

[46:02] Because you know that other former Flophouse guest host, Jubin Parang, would be there opening weekend.

[46:10] Sobbing.

[46:11] Yeah, little known fact about Jubin Parang.

[46:13] Big Billy Jules fan.

[46:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:15] Okay.

[46:16] So put that in here.

[46:18] Gift idea.

[46:19] Jersey Boys.

[46:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[46:21] Thanks.

[46:23] This next letter is titled, Dear the Flophouse.

[46:27] It's from Brian, last name withheld.

[46:28] Hey, Brian.

[46:29] How are you?

Hallie Haglund

[46:30] I guess everyone's so ashamed of their last names.

Dan McCoy

[46:32] How are you?

[46:33] I am fine.

[46:35] In a recent episode, you discussed the-

Hallie Haglund

[46:37] Is that your answer?

[46:38] Or was that his answer?

Dan McCoy

[46:39] No, that's his answer.

[46:39] Did you ask?

[46:41] No, no.

[46:41] I think he was saying, how are you?

[46:44] And then to reassure us, he was just saying-

[46:46] In case we asked him back, which-

[46:48] We didn't.

[46:49] We don't care.

[46:51] To be honest, Brian.

Hallie Haglund

[46:52] Just saying-

Dan McCoy

[46:53] Yeah, JK.

[46:54] JK.

[46:55] But not really.

[46:56] JK.

[46:57] Rowling.

[46:57] In a recent episode, you discussed the classic illustrations and the scary stories to tell

[47:01] in the dark series.

[47:02] And I thought I could shed some light on the subject.

[47:05] The illustrations were by-

[47:06] Which is much better.

Stuart Wellington

[47:07] Because it's so much better than being in the dark.

Dan McCoy

[47:09] Too scary in the dark.

[47:11] The illustrations were by Stephen Gamal, and they were indeed terrifying.

[47:15] For my own part, I could not go to sleep without putting several books on top of the scary

[47:20] stories book to make sure the pictures could not escape.

[47:24] I know this was stupid.

[47:25] I do not care.

[47:26] They are terrifying and upsetting.

[47:28] This is indeed why the illustrations were changed in the new editions.

[47:32] Basically, the publishers noticed that every single comment on the books was about how

[47:35] scary the pictures were, with about half of those comments being explicitly negative.

[47:40] For anniversary editions, they commissioned new illustrations by a series of unfortunate

[47:45] events artists, Brett Helquist, which are designed to complement the stories rather

[47:51] than supplant them in the child's mind with soul-scarring nightmare visions.

[47:55] They're pretty good.

[47:56] For a fun bonus, check out The Relatives Came.

[47:59] A fun romp about scary togetherness and love, illustrated by Gamal in roughly the same

[48:02] style as the illustrated scary stories books.

[48:05] It's bizarre.

[48:05] You keep expecting kindly Uncle Fred to pull a decomposing foot out of the picnic basket

[48:10] or something.

[48:11] Yours excited or Brian's last name withheld.

Hallie Haglund

[48:14] What were you going to say, Hallie?

[48:15] I was also read by my babysitter the entirety of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

[48:25] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[48:26] She should have been fired.

Hallie Haglund

[48:27] I had to sleep on my parents' floor for four months.

[48:32] But I...

[48:32] As a punishment?

[48:33] No, because I was so scared I couldn't sleep in my own room.

[48:36] But I think that made it awesome.

[48:38] Like, I get so pissed when I have to read...

[48:41] Well, I don't have to do this, but maybe...

[48:43] When the lamestream media waters stuff down.

[48:46] Yeah.

[48:47] When I used to babysit and I was like, you think this is scary?

[48:51] You're a little bitch, baby.

[48:54] Because this isn't scary.

Dan McCoy

[48:56] Let me tell you how things were when I was a kid.

[49:00] There was this guy who illustrated a fucking sewer rat chinchilla.

[49:06] And it was the worst thing.

[49:10] There was a scarecrow that would kill you.

Hallie Haglund

[49:12] There was a trunk that you could open.

[49:15] And there was a skeleton in it.

[49:16] Because she was a bride and she hid in there.

[49:18] And it was the saddest thing.

Dan McCoy

[49:19] It was her wedding day.

[49:21] They're playing hide and seek.

[49:22] Because that's what you do on your wedding day.

Stuart Wellington

[49:24] And there were stories that just had random drawings of weird skulls floating.

[49:28] And some kind of hairy meter verse.

[49:31] Or like, wasn't there a hand hanging in the closet?

Dan McCoy

[49:31] It was just a hand hanging.

[49:33] Yeah.

[49:34] I mean, the worst to me of those were always the section that was the urban legend section.

[49:39] Because, you know, I mean, the thing about urban legend is they're...

[49:42] It's totally true.

[49:43] Well, no, but they're plausible.

[49:45] They're semi-plausible compared to the other stuff.

[49:48] And so, yeah, that was always the...

Stuart Wellington

[49:50] It's possible for somebody in the same house as you to be calling your house's phone.

[49:54] Yeah.

[49:55] That is possible.

[49:56] No, but like...

Dan McCoy

[49:57] Yeah, like the wedding one, for instance, was one that stuck with me for years.

[50:01] Because that's so upsetting.

[50:03] The idea that it's...

[50:04] And there's like no real...

[50:05] Right.

Stuart Wellington

[50:06] That was her best day of her life.

Dan McCoy

[50:08] The best day of her life.

[50:09] But she gets locked in a trunk and dies.

Hallie Haglund

[50:11] And there's no real bad guy.

[50:13] It's not about evil.

[50:15] It's just about like, shit can happen, people.

[50:18] Yeah, there's no...

[50:19] Wake up.

Stuart Wellington

[50:20] There's no like Tony Todd figure to explain the death is coming for you.

[50:24] Yeah.

[50:26] So, I think we all agree that those original illustrations were awesome.

[50:30] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[50:31] So, I'm going to check out...

[50:32] What was the name of the book he recommended that was also illustrated by him?

[50:36] The same illustration.

Dan McCoy

[50:37] The Relatives Came.

Hallie Haglund

[50:38] The Relatives Came.

Dan McCoy

[50:40] Mm-hmm.

[50:40] Okay.

[50:41] Also...

Hallie Haglund

[50:41] That's that Mr. Last Name withheld.

[50:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[50:45] So, this last letter...

[50:48] It goes a little something like this.

[50:49] It goes...

[50:50] Dear Floppers.

[50:52] Long time co-host.

[50:53] First time caller Elliot here.

[50:55] Oh, hey, Elliot.

[50:56] To express my regret that I'll be taking a short absence from the Flophouse.

[51:00] But first, a special letter song.

[51:01] Just for this letter.

[51:03] Elliot's letter to the Flophouse.

[51:06] It's Elliot's letter to the Flophouse.

[51:09] No need to grouse.

[51:11] Don't run off to Taos.

[51:13] Because it's Elliot's letter to the Flophouse.

[51:16] Elliot Kalin.

[51:18] That lovable scamp.

[51:19] Like the tramp half.

[51:20] The lady and the tramp.

[51:22] Not the lady part.

[51:23] He has no lady parts.

[51:25] If he did, he wouldn't be absent from the Flophouse.

[51:29] But no, he has a penis.

[51:31] And that penis made a baby.

[51:33] Not on its own, of course.

[51:34] But then again, maybe.

[51:36] That's called parthogenesis.

[51:39] At least I think that's what that is.

[51:41] But the point is, I'm riding to the Flophouse today.

[51:47] As I was saying, I'm riding to apologize to our listeners for what will hopefully not be too prolonged an absence.

[51:55] The fact is, I'm on podcasting paternity leave.

[52:00] Drink noises.

[52:01] Drink noises.

[52:02] Clink, clink.

[52:04] Jane rattle.

[52:05] Jane rattle.

[52:07] Ghosts.

[52:08] On January 1st, I was blessed to become the father of a beautiful baby boy who already has better hair than Nicolas Cage.

[52:15] Is a better actor than Gerard Butler.

[52:17] And as the tall man would say, plays a good game, boy.

[52:22] He would say that.

[52:22] His name is Sammy Lincoln Kalin.

[52:25] Though I briefly considered naming him Dan Stewart Kalin before realizing that would be weird.

[52:30] Rest assured, this is only a temporary stay-cai for my role as a flopper.

[52:34] Gross.

[52:35] Recording the Flophouse, hanging with Stewart and Dan, and entertaining you wonderful fans are the brightest part of each week.

[52:42] I would only give them up in the face of something as important as literally making sure the human race continues into the next generation

[52:48] with the proper knowledge of Busby Berkeley, American history, and pay cable original softcore programming.

[52:55] And honestly, part of me is excited to rediscover what it's like to be a listener to this stupid podcast,

[53:01] totally unprepared for whatever nonsense the hosts come up with.

[53:04] So I'll be back home, I'll be back on the podcast, rather, sometime after January.

[53:10] Until then, be nice to Hallie.

[53:13] She means well, and she's living with a crippling soccer addiction.

Stuart Wellington

[53:16] Dan, be good to your...

[53:18] His name is Gremlin Battler.

Dan McCoy

[53:20] Dan, be good to your knee, and remember the doctor said the best medicine was for you to keep talking about it.

[53:26] And Stewart, keep handing out the boners, wormy and otherwise.

[53:32] But adieu for now, as I return to grooming the next era of Flophouse hosts,

[53:36] that somehow, someday future listeners yet unborn,

[53:39] will enjoy the slightly drunken ramblings of Samuel Lincoln Kalen,

[53:43] Cage McDuck McCoy,

[53:45] and the Wellington twins.

[53:47] Invisible freak, and castle maniac.

[53:50] Signed, Elliot, last name withheld.

[53:53] Guys, did you guys know Elliot was married?

Stuart Wellington

[53:59] I didn't know Elliot could write.

Hallie Haglund

[54:00] I think he might be raising the baby on his own.

[54:04] Just kidding, he's not.

[54:05] He has a beautiful wife, Danielle.

[54:07] Don't worry, she doesn't listen to the show.

[54:08] He did much more work than he did.

[54:09] She does not listen to the show.

Stuart Wellington

[54:11] Probably less likely to listen to it now.

[54:15] So, yeah.

[54:16] Now what do we do, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[54:17] So thank you, first time listener Elliot,

[54:20] last name withheld,

[54:22] for writing in.

[54:25] But the last segment on the show,

[54:27] the one I know most of you probably skip over,

[54:31] is the recommendations.

[54:33] Movies that we actually kind of liked,

[54:36] that we would recommend you run out and see,

[54:40] before perhaps watching Battle of the Year.

Stuart Wellington

[54:43] Okay, that seems crazy.

[54:44] I wouldn't go that far.

[54:45] I'll start.

[54:46] I'm going to take lead on this one.

[54:48] This is a recommendation.

[54:50] Based on a recommendation

[54:51] that I got from the Flophouse Facebook page,

[54:54] if you're not a member,

[54:55] you should, I don't know,

[54:57] ask to join our,

[54:58] I don't know how you do it,

[54:59] ask to join it?

[55:00] I don't know, fucking look it up on.

[55:02] If, like, we get a million sex bots

[55:04] trying to ask to join our fucking Facebook page.

[55:06] It's true.

[55:06] That's the thing.

[55:07] Always telling us we should fucking

[55:08] buy Ray-Ban sunglasses.

[55:10] It's a super good deal.

Dan McCoy

[55:11] Every time someone asks to join the Flophouse page,

[55:14] I have to check and make sure

[55:15] that they're not, like,

[55:16] they don't have,

[55:17] their photo isn't a hot Asian lady,

[55:19] and their name isn't two, like,

[55:21] random words just slammed together.

[55:23] I have to click on their name

[55:24] and be like,

[55:25] okay, you were,

[55:26] were you born in 2013?

[55:29] Yes.

[55:30] No, I have to block you.

[55:31] Because, yeah,

[55:32] you're going to try and sell us sunglasses or shoes.

Stuart Wellington

[55:35] That's weird,

[55:36] because every time I am the moderator at that point,

[55:38] I'm like,

[55:39] wow, it's a hot Asian lady

[55:40] who likes the Flophouse,

[55:42] and her name's weird.

[55:43] A baby!

[55:45] Click yes.

[55:47] So, this was a recommendation

[55:48] that I got off of the Flophouse Facebook page,

[55:51] so thank you.

[55:52] I watched Ninja colon Shadow of a Tear,

[55:56] which is a direct-to-video action movie adventure,

[56:00] and it stars Scott Adkins from...

[56:04] Scott Adsit from 30 Rock?

[56:08] Scott Adkins from another one of my recommendations,

[56:12] which was Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning.

[56:16] It's a, like,

[56:17] it's a very much feels like a,

[56:19] like a distillation of everything that was great about 80s,

[56:23] like ninja and,

[56:24] like,

[56:25] white guy kung fu movies.

[56:27] It's a very basic story about a dude who works in a dojo or something,

[56:35] and his wife,

[56:36] who is pregnant,

[56:37] gets murdered,

[56:38] and he has to go on a trail of revenge into the Myanmar jungle.

[56:43] It does feature a small role.

[56:46] In a small role is the bad guy from Only God Forgives.

[56:50] So, for all you guys who loved Only God Forgives,

[56:52] you can watch that.

[56:55] Yeah, so if you like watching a martial arts movie

[56:58] that has some really awesome action,

[57:00] and actually some decent performances, I guess,

[57:02] watch Ninja colon Shadow of a Tear.

Dan McCoy

[57:06] I'm going to very quickly recommend two movies,

[57:08] both of which were some of my favorites, actually,

[57:11] I saw this year.

[57:13] And they're both critically acclaimed,

[57:15] so it's not a surprise that I'm recommending them necessarily,

[57:18] but number one,

[57:20] The Wolf of Wall Street,

[57:21] which I saw over Christmas break.

Stuart Wellington

[57:23] You're standing up for the little guy here,

Dan McCoy

[57:25] Martin Scorsese.

[57:25] Yeah, sure.

[57:26] I thought it was maybe the most entertaining movie I saw this year.

[57:30] It's three hours,

[57:31] but I thought it was super entertaining throughout the entire thing.

[57:35] I do not agree with any of the criticisms or controversy about it,

[57:40] about how this glorifies the behavior.

[57:43] I think that it takes you inside the mind of this character,

[57:47] and I think that to understand the shitty behavior of a crazy,

[57:53] profit-obsessed Wall Street guy,

[57:55] you have to kind of be in that insular world.

[57:58] And a lot of people are sort of complaining,

[58:00] like, oh, there's no obvious punishment for him at the end.

[58:02] I was like, yeah,

[58:03] like, there's ever any obvious punishment for rich wrongdoers in current America.

[58:12] I mean, I don't think that that...

[58:14] I feel like that's a very strange criticism of the film.

[58:17] Like, we need a very obvious moral comeuppance for this character.

[58:22] But it's very entertaining.

[58:24] Obviously, Martin Scorsese is a great director.

[58:27] But also, I wanted to...

[58:28] I saw, finally, on Netflix streaming, Francis Ha,

[58:32] which is a movie that I was curious about,

[58:35] but I was kind of maybe a little leery of,

[58:38] because I thought, you know, like, I live in Brooklyn.

[58:41] You hate Noah Baumbach.

[58:42] Well, no, I actually don't.

[58:44] A lot of people do.

[58:45] But I live in Brooklyn.

[58:46] I kind of was like,

[58:47] this might be too much of that.

[58:51] I don't know if I need...

[58:52] I might be in this.

[58:53] But, like, it's an interesting movie,

[58:57] because the first 30 minutes are kind of the movie you expect it to be,

[59:03] or maybe a little longer.

[59:05] And just when you're getting a little tired of that,

[59:07] just when you're like,

[59:08] okay, well, this is an episode of Girls that is running long,

[59:11] it turns into something different.

[59:14] A murder mystery.

[59:16] Like, audition.

[59:18] It turns into, like, a series...

Hallie Haglund

[59:20] A dance crew movie.

[59:22] B-boys.

[59:23] Come out.

Stuart Wellington

[59:24] In this case, B stands for Brooklyn.

Dan McCoy

[59:27] It turns into a series of kind of unexpected vignettes.

[59:29] Like, Greta Gerwig's character, Francis, goes home,

[59:34] and it's kind of one of the most sort of sad and bittersweet,

[59:40] like, beautiful, like, depictions of what it is like to go home

[59:43] and visit your parents when you're an adult.

[59:48] There's a vignette where she goes to Paris,

[59:51] and it doesn't go quite the way it might be planned.

[59:54] There's a vignette where she's a waitress working an event at her old college

[1:00:01] that turns into kind of a semi-little, like, self-contained farce.

[1:00:05] Like, the movie keeps taking turns that you don't necessarily expect it to,

[1:00:09] and that's one of the reasons why I really enjoyed it.

[1:00:12] And it's a movie about someone growing as a person,

[1:00:16] but in a very incremental, realistic way,

[1:00:20] where, like, just showing a very tiny amount of, like, self-improvement

[1:00:26] counts as a big sort of triumph by the end of the movie.

[1:00:29] And it's a lot of fun.

[1:00:31] It's funny.

[1:00:32] Hallie?

Hallie Haglund

[1:00:35] I am going to recommend a movie I saw last weekend in theaters.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:41] Ooh.

Hallie Haglund

[1:00:42] In theaters.

[1:00:44] In theaters now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:45] Instead of dirty Netflix movies.

Hallie Haglund

[1:00:48] It's called The Great Beauty.

[1:00:51] It's an Italian film.

[1:00:53] And the only reason why I went to see it

[1:00:55] is because I wanted to do something cultured.

[1:01:00] And the Mo...

[1:01:01] I tried to go to the MoMA,

[1:01:03] but apparently the line to go to MoMA on Saturday is really long.

[1:01:07] You're saying MoMA weird.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:09] MoMA?

Hallie Haglund

[1:01:11] MoMA Mo problems?

[1:01:12] It's like there's more of somebody's mother.

[1:01:16] So I was like, fuck this.

[1:01:17] I guess I'll try to go to a movie.

[1:01:20] Fuck this noise.

[1:01:21] So I went to this movie because it was Italian.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:23] And Frozen was sold out, so you went to the Italian movie.

Hallie Haglund

[1:01:28] And it is this really heartbreaking movie about...

[1:01:39] It's sort of about what it feels like to...

[1:01:43] And I know a lot about this.

[1:01:46] What it feels like to have a lot of potential.

[1:01:49] No.

[1:01:50] But no.

[1:01:51] It's just sort of about not realize...

[1:01:56] You know, always thinking that you're going to realize your potential,

[1:02:01] but you have all these distractions,

[1:02:03] and then coming to an older age and realizing,

[1:02:06] oh, I actually have to be in control of this.

[1:02:09] But there are a lot more layers that are sort of like

[1:02:12] specifically Italian and political and religious.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:16] There's a lot of marinara sauce.

Hallie Haglund

[1:02:18] I mean, no.

[1:02:19] It's just like pretty...

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:20] That's more southern Italian cinema.

Hallie Haglund

[1:02:22] It's just pretty amazing how many things are going on at once.

[1:02:26] And also, even if you're not interested in those things,

[1:02:29] just how visually beautiful it is.

[1:02:31] It does go on for like 20 more minutes than I wanted it to,

[1:02:35] which made me really angry at the time.

[1:02:36] It was like a 70-minute movie.

[1:02:38] I mean...

[1:02:38] Come on.

[1:02:40] No.

[1:02:41] But if you like old people...

[1:02:43] Being in class.

[1:02:44] Being in class.

[1:02:45] Being in class, did you say?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:48] I said being in class.

[1:02:49] No.

Hallie Haglund

[1:02:50] No.

[1:02:51] If you like old people being really hedonistic,

[1:02:55] and you like giraffes,

[1:02:58] you might like this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:02] You totally sold me.

[1:03:04] The cross section.

Hallie Haglund

[1:03:06] It's really good.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:08] So, we've recommended

[1:03:10] Old People and Giraffes,

[1:03:13] a.k.a. The Great Beauty,

[1:03:15] Francis Ha,

[1:03:17] and Wolf of Wall Street,

[1:03:18] and Ninja 2,

[1:03:19] Shadow of a Tear.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:21] A real cross section.

[1:03:25] But, yeah.

[1:03:27] Now's the sad time where I have to...

[1:03:29] Oh, we gotta sign off?

[1:03:30] We gotta take our leave.

[1:03:31] Oh, that's too bad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:32] It's been really great.

[1:03:33] This is actually kind of a big deal,

[1:03:35] because this is the last show

[1:03:36] in our old studio.

[1:03:40] In our...

[1:03:40] Yeah, our old studio

Dan McCoy

[1:03:41] being my apartment.

[1:03:42] I'm moving to a different apartment.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:45] So, legions of paparazzos.

[1:03:48] You'll have to go stalk us somewhere else.

[1:03:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:51] Elliot's baby is...

[1:03:53] means that he's not here

[1:03:55] for either the last episode

[1:03:57] in my old apartment

[1:03:59] or the first episode

[1:04:00] coming up in our new apartment.

[1:04:02] Hallie will be here

[1:04:03] for these historic episodes.

[1:04:05] Setting a new tone

[1:04:06] for 2014.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:08] More positive tone.

[1:04:10] Yeah.

[1:04:10] Fuck that guy.

[1:04:11] Whoa.

[1:04:12] Yeah, fuck that guy.

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:13] Just...

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:14] Boss.

[1:04:14] Fuck that guy boss,

[1:04:15] I believe.

[1:04:16] I'm sorry.

[1:04:16] I was supposed to say.

[1:04:17] Sorry, sir.

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:17] Elliot.

[1:04:18] Yeah.

[1:04:20] I can come dressed as Elliot

[1:04:21] for the next show

[1:04:22] if you want.

[1:04:23] I do want that.

[1:04:24] So, in like kind of

[1:04:25] a western shirt.

[1:04:27] Yeah.

[1:04:28] Or a shirt with a dinosaur on it.

[1:04:30] Yeah.

[1:04:32] We miss you, Elliot.

[1:04:33] We really do.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:34] Shadow looms large.

[1:04:35] So,

[1:04:36] I guess this is where

[1:04:37] we sign off.

[1:04:38] For the Flophouse,

[1:04:39] I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:41] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:04:42] I'm Hallie Haglund.

[1:04:44] Good night, everyone.

[1:04:48] Okay.

[1:04:53] Hanging out with a baby

[1:04:55] or something?

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:56] I think he's babysitting.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:57] Yeah.

[1:04:58] I don't know.

[1:04:58] He wrote an email.

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:59] He needed a second job.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:03] He got a big promotion

[1:05:04] to babysitter of his own baby.

[1:05:07] He's head babysitter.

[1:05:10] Meaning he sits on the head

[1:05:11] of a baby.

[1:05:13] And I don't know

[1:05:13] how to finish this.

[1:05:14] Gross.

The Flop House: Episode #143 - Battle of the Year

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