The Flop House: Episode #125 - Smiley

Dan McCoy

[0:00] I have to admit, we did it for the lols. We discussed Smiley.

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

[0:34] Hello, Stuart Wellington.

[0:36] Back to that, huh?

[0:37] How are you?

Stuart Wellington

[0:38] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:40] Thank you.

[0:41] And I'm great.

Elliott Kalan

[0:43] And who are you to my left?

[0:45] My name is Elliot Kalin.

[0:47] Oh, pleased to meet you, Elliot.

[0:49] We are not meeting for the first time. We've known each other for many years now.

[0:52] We're here for the Flophouse podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[0:55] A podcast.

[0:56] Cue a crowd sound effect.

[0:58] Cheer?

[0:59] Yeah, like a cheer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00] Applause, applause, applause, applause.

[1:04] This is a podcast called the Flophouse, where we watch a bad movie, and then we talk around it.

[1:12] Just near it.

[1:13] Just near it.

[1:13] Sometimes talk of the movie means talk of a hunchback detective solving crimes on the Battlestar Galactica.

[1:20] Sometimes it doesn't.

[1:21] Sometimes it doesn't.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22] Most of the time it's, I don't know, cartoons or like kids' sandwiches.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28] Yeah, we discuss kids' sandwiches a lot, what the kids are eating, what the kids are wearing.

[1:32] Yeah.

[1:32] What kind of sandwiches the kids are wearing these days.

Dan McCoy

[1:35] Frequent listeners may notice that Elliot has taken over part of my introduction.

[1:39] I can only assume that's because I'm moving slowly because of my weird allergy attack that seems to have come on.

[1:46] Yeah.

[1:46] What are you allergic to?

[1:47] Is it dad movies?

[1:48] Lack of sympathy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51] I'm allergic to not getting any letters about my knee.

[1:57] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[1:58] You guys just...

[1:59] Wah, wah.

[2:00] It's a vision circle.

[2:01] I'm baby boy Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:03] I whine and cry all the time.

Stuart Wellington

[2:06] Oh, man.

[2:07] Is his diaper wet from pee or tears?

[2:09] Who knows?

[2:09] Both.

Dan McCoy

[2:11] You're making me wonder why I keep doing this.

[2:14] I just created a new...

Stuart Wellington

[2:15] The only baby who uses a cane.

[2:18] Well, other than Baby Millionaire.

Dan McCoy

[2:20] Old man baby.

[2:22] Baby Millionaire just does it as an affectation.

[2:25] Oh, yeah, of course.

Elliott Kalan

[2:25] He's such an ill-tempered baby.

[2:28] He never gives any money to Hobo Baby.

Dan McCoy

[2:32] That's the thing.

[2:33] He doesn't need the cane to walk.

[2:35] He needs it to beat Hobo Baby as he walks by him.

Elliott Kalan

[2:38] Yeah, to smack him.

[2:38] He's just lucky that he has the motor skills to do that.

[2:41] He's just a baby.

Stuart Wellington

[2:43] How did Millionaire Baby get his money?

[2:46] I think he inherited it when he inherited the castle from the never-created cartoon show

[2:51] Castle Babies.

Elliott Kalan

[2:53] Was that the Castle Freak animated series?

[2:55] Were there babies?

Stuart Wellington

[2:56] I mean, there's probably a freak somewhere, but that's a season two plot line that I never

[3:01] realized.

[3:02] This is not Stuart Gordon's Castle Babies.

[3:05] It's Stuart Wellington's Castle Babies.

Dan McCoy

[3:09] So, tonight's bad movie...

Stuart Wellington

[3:11] It is sponsored by, what is it, that Gordon's Fishsticks?

[3:15] Yeah, Gordon's Fisherman Fishsticks.

Dan McCoy

[3:17] Yeah.

[3:18] If you want fishsticks that taste like they're prepared by a Castle Freak, make them Gordons.

Elliott Kalan

[3:24] If you want a fishstick that might be a ripped off ding-dong, but probably isn't, try Stuart

[3:31] Gordon's Castle Freak Fishsticks.

[3:33] Make mine Gordons.

Stuart Wellington

[3:35] So, normally we actually talk about a movie instead of just random gibberish, right?

Elliott Kalan

[3:39] Not really, but what movie did we watch tonight, Dan?

[3:41] Well, we watched a...

[3:43] Piece of crap did we watch tonight.

[3:46] We watched a film called Smiley.

[3:49] And now you use the word film only in the loosest sense to mean that we watched moving images

[3:54] with sound attached.

[3:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:56] Well, this was a horror film.

[3:57] In a rough narrative.

[3:59] This was a bit of a Shocktober and April, if you will.

[4:03] Everyone's familiar, of course, of Christmas in July.

[4:06] We're indulging ourselves in a little holiday spirit.

[4:09] One of Preston Sturgis' lesser films.

[4:11] Yeah.

[4:12] It's pretty good still.

[4:13] It's all right.

Stuart Wellington

[4:14] Halloween in April?

Dan McCoy

[4:15] Mm-hmm.

[4:16] Halloween in April.

[4:17] Yes, that's right.

[4:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[4:17] Shock-lo-ween.

[4:18] Wait.

[4:19] Wait.

[4:20] I fucked this up.

[4:21] And then I'll rewind it.

[4:22] This is my girlfriend.

Elliott Kalan

[4:26] I call her Shockey.

[4:28] So this is a movie called Smiley.

[4:30] Smiley.

[4:31] Now, it seems to be a movie.

[4:32] This movie was apparently made by a lot of people who had a lot of experience making videos

[4:36] for YouTube.

[4:37] Mm-hmm.

[4:37] And this was their first film.

[4:40] It was a YouTube sketch channel of some kind.

[4:44] But the movie, it starts out with a, it's not a great premise, but it's an interesting

[4:49] concept at least, that this is a horror movie based around internet culture.

[4:55] You know, message board culture and chat roulette and things like that.

[4:58] Subjects that usually when horror movies touch on them, they do it in kind of a goofy, we

[5:02] don't really know what we're talking about kind of way.

[5:04] Except for fear.com.

[5:05] That was totally 100%.

[5:07] And Dee Snider's Strangeland.

[5:11] But usually, the internet in horror movies is like, we saw the movie Untraceable for the

[5:16] Flophouse a while back, where this guy had a snuff film website that was racking up

[5:20] literally tens of millions of views, which is crazy.

[5:23] I mean, the problem is, he was untraceable.

[5:26] How are you going to take down a criminal?

[5:28] Who's untraceable?

Stuart Wellington

[5:29] You need somebody who's limitless.

Elliott Kalan

[5:31] Wow.

[5:32] Now, if the movie, if they made a sequel called Limitless vs. Untraceable, and the movie was

[5:37] made as like kind of a Hong Kong action type thing, that'd be pretty great.

Dan McCoy

[5:41] That's like one of those, how many angels can dance on a head of a pen things.

[5:45] Is there anyone out there so limitless who can find someone who's untraceable?

Elliott Kalan

[5:52] That's the only way to ask.

[5:53] And of course, X and Sever are going to get involved.

[5:56] Because X vs. Sever, am I right?

[5:58] Ballistic.

Stuart Wellington

[6:01] Were you answering your own question?

Dan McCoy

[6:03] You bet I was.

[6:04] Those two to get together.

[6:06] Ballistic.

Elliott Kalan

[6:07] Colon ballistic.

[6:09] And the problem is that this movie, it feels like, it just basically throws a lot of internet

[6:13] talk at you all the time and explains it a lot.

[6:17] It feels like it's...

Stuart Wellington

[6:17] Which for me is good, because I don't know what the fuck they're talking about most of

[6:20] the time.

Elliott Kalan

[6:21] Well, it felt, watching this with Stuart was like watching this...

[6:23] You're an analog guy in a digital world.

[6:25] It felt like watching...

[6:25] Watching Smiley with Stuart was like watching The Matrix with my dad.

[6:30] When I had to explain everything to him.

[6:32] But this is like, the things I'm explaining to Stuart are like what lulls are, what 4chan is.

[6:38] I mean, come on.

Stuart Wellington

[6:38] And what are lulls?

Elliott Kalan

[6:40] Well, lulls postulate that laughter is a unit of currency which can be exchanged for various

[6:47] extreme acts.

[6:48] Yeah.

[6:49] And this is explained many times in the movie.

[6:51] The movie uses the word lulls more times.

[6:53] I'm just going to make this claim right now.

Stuart Wellington

[6:55] The movie has a great opening.

[6:56] It's, as we put it, it's the classic reverse Candyman or...

[7:00] It's a classic reverse Candyman situation.

Elliott Kalan

[7:03] It's a double ring.

[7:05] So the movie opens, it's your basic scream type open where...

[7:08] A character gets killed by the main killer.

Stuart Wellington

[7:10] Some girl in, I guess, booty shorts?

[7:13] Is that right?

[7:13] I think it's fair to call them booty shorts.

Elliott Kalan

[7:14] A girl in very short shorts.

[7:16] Yeah.

[7:17] In the main...

Dan McCoy

[7:18] She's a struggling babysitter who can't afford to afford the bottoms of her shorts.

[7:22] There are three great performances.

[7:24] Squarely framed for the audience.

Elliott Kalan

[7:25] There are three acceptable performances in this movie and one of them is by her shorts.

[7:28] Yeah.

[7:30] But she is a babysitter.

Stuart Wellington

[7:31] The premise of the movie is explained by a wizened old child.

Elliott Kalan

[7:36] And a lot of times these movies, the urban legend or the folklore is explained by an old person.

[7:40] Like a gypsy or something.

[7:41] Yeah, a gypsy or the old crazy man in the neighborhood who knows all neighborhood lore.

[7:45] But this is the internet.

[7:46] It's what kids know about.

[7:47] Yeah.

[7:47] So this girl is babysitting for a girl who seems like she's old enough.

[7:51] Like a 12-year-old kid or something.

[7:52] She doesn't need a babysitter.

[7:53] Yeah.

[7:53] But she and the girl explains to her the legend of Smiley.

[7:57] But as she says it, you know, the urban legend about Smiley.

Dan McCoy

[8:00] Yeah, she explains it's an urban legend.

[8:01] She's familiar with Jan Harold Brunvand's collections of urban legends.

[8:07] She's on top of this.

Stuart Wellington

[8:09] I'm going to fast forward to the end.

Elliott Kalan

[8:10] Wait, no.

[8:11] Hold on.

[8:11] So let's explain what Smiley is, shall we?

[8:13] Yeah.

[8:14] So there's a chat roulette-like site called like Chat and Chew or something like that.

[8:20] Or, you know.

[8:20] Chat and Spittle.

[8:22] I don't know.

[8:22] Chat and Spittle.

[8:23] Click and Talk.

[8:24] Yeah.

[8:24] Whatever.

[8:25] Click and Talk.

[8:26] The Tag of the Brothers.

[8:27] Click and Clack.

[8:28] And so you go on it and you're just talking to random strangers.

[8:31] Who knows what connections you're going to meet.

[8:33] That sounds like fun.

[8:34] Unless.

[8:35] Well, you can do that on the computer.

[8:36] Chat roulette.

[8:38] One might even say.

[8:39] I mentioned chat roulette before.

Stuart Wellington

[8:40] Some sort of chat roulette.

[8:42] Does that come with that?

[8:43] Does that come with that AOL CD that I got in the mail?

Elliott Kalan

[8:46] It does.

[8:47] The one that gives you 400,000 free hours that expire in a week.

Dan McCoy

[8:50] Yeah, you plug in your copy serve.

[8:51] And you get on your angel fire and you can do one of those chat roulette.

Elliott Kalan

[8:53] Now, you're going to want to wait to hear the modem make a lot of beeps and crackles.

[8:56] And that's how you'll know you're on the internet.

[8:58] You beep and boop it up.

[9:01] Now, there's an urban legend about this guy, Smiley.

[9:06] It seems if you type three times into this chat program, I did it for the lulls, then Smiley

[9:13] appears behind the person you're talking to and kills them.

[9:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:18] And that's what makes it a reverse Candyman.

[9:20] You're not invoking Candyman to yourself.

[9:22] To kill yourself for some stupid reason.

[9:24] Yeah, you're sicking him on someone else.

Elliott Kalan

[9:25] Did you guys have a local Candyman?

[9:27] Because we did.

[9:29] I assume you guys have heard of Bloody Mary.

[9:31] His name was Jeff.

[9:32] He sold Candy to everybody.

[9:33] I wasn't sure if Bloody Mary was like a regional thing or not.

[9:36] No, no.

Dan McCoy

[9:36] Bloody Mary is sort of a general thing.

Elliott Kalan

[9:38] Because I made a movie about it.

[9:39] Because I grew up with two different Bloody Marys.

[9:41] Yeah, there's Bloody Mary Urban Legends.

[9:43] And The Drink.

[9:44] No, there was the Bloody Mary that if you said her name a couple times, she appeared.

[9:48] But also at my summer camp, there was the local Bloody Mary figure who supposedly had

[9:53] worked in the cafeteria and had ground her hand up in a meat grinder by accident and now

[9:58] ran around with a hook on her hand killing kids.

[10:00] And she was called Grindy Joan.

[10:02] Yep.

[10:02] I met her once.

[10:04] She was pretty nice.

[10:05] Yep.

[10:06] And Grindy Joan.

Stuart Wellington

[10:08] Why Joan?

[10:08] Did she kill kids with like a hook or with the hook of her hand or like with a gun?

[10:12] She had a gun.

[10:13] It's weird.

Elliott Kalan

[10:13] She actually had a gun.

[10:15] But no.

[10:16] So I was wondering if you guys had any regional horror figures.

Dan McCoy

[10:20] No.

[10:21] No.

[10:21] We had one house in town that was both purported to be a stop on the Underground Railroad

[10:27] and purported to be haunted.

[10:28] And that's the closest thing to a local scare story I had growing up.

[10:35] But that's disappointing.

Stuart Wellington

[10:36] Yeah, we had this guy, Frederick Kruger.

Elliott Kalan

[10:40] Frederick Kruger who owned Kruger's hardware?

[10:42] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[10:43] He was not a child murderer.

[10:45] No.

Elliott Kalan

[10:46] So anyway, we've gone a long time without talking anything about the movie.

[10:51] So this woman, she's talking to someone on Chet Roulette and he says, hey, too bad I have

[10:55] to kill you and types in I did it for the lulz three times and Smiley appears and stabs

[11:00] her.

[11:00] Cut to our heroine who is going off.

[11:04] We got a guitar squeal.

[11:05] We get the title of the movie at this point.

[11:07] Yep.

[11:07] Says Smiley.

[11:08] And Smiley has a kind of grotesque face which, if anything, seems like a fat man's belly

[11:13] with eyes and a mouth carved into it and then sewn up.

[11:17] Yeah.

[11:17] It's pretty gross.

[11:18] That's accurate.

[11:19] So our main character whose name was what?

[11:22] Stacey?

[11:22] No, Stacey was the first girl.

[11:24] Allison?

[11:25] Ashley?

[11:26] She's like a-

[11:26] Ashley.

[11:27] Ashley.

[11:28] Yeah.

[11:28] Ashley is starting off at college and she has a single father.

[11:31] Her mother passed at some point but her mother was also crazy and maybe took her own life.

[11:36] I don't remember.

[11:37] And so that's enough to set up that Ashley can be driven insane if necessary.

[11:42] Yeah.

[11:42] That her mom had mental problems of some kind.

[11:46] She goes to school.

[11:47] She's living in a house off campus.

[11:49] Even though she's a freshman.

[11:50] Even though she's a freshman.

[11:51] With her new roommate whose name is Proxy.

[11:53] That's her internet handle.

[11:55] But I think that's all that they call her.

[11:56] Yeah, of course.

[11:57] And Proxy inducts her into the strange world of internet people by going to a party at a

[12:04] guy's house.

[12:04] The guy, Zane, a kind of-

[12:07] Wait, Zane of Zane's Sex Chronicles?

[12:09] No, not of Zane's Sex Chronicles.

[12:11] Not urban erotica author Zane.

[12:14] Not Zane Gray the cowboy author.

[12:16] And unfortunately not Billy Zane.

[12:18] Star of The Roommate and Billy Zane's Sex Chronicles.

Dan McCoy

[12:23] Which is just videos he took of himself and Kelly Brook.

[12:26] Yeah.

[12:27] Good show.

[12:28] But Zane is just like kind of an internet dick.

Elliott Kalan

[12:32] He's a douche.

[12:33] And his friends are all douches.

[12:34] And they, and he refers, he tells them that his interests are the strange and retarded.

[12:39] In that he has a bookcase full of books with names like, what, like ancient aliens and stuff like that.

[12:45] And, you know, Bigfoot goes to town.

Stuart Wellington

[12:48] The type of things a douche in college would have on his bookshelf.

[12:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:51] The anarchist cookbook and your, you know, the Illuminatus trilogy and all that nonsense.

[12:56] Yeah.

[12:56] Zen and the art of et cetera.

[12:58] Zen and the art of et cetera.

[13:00] Perhaps the most Zen title ever.

Stuart Wellington

[13:02] The laziest of all the Zen and the art of books.

Elliott Kalan

[13:05] Well, we all knew where I was going.

[13:06] Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Dan McCoy

[13:09] So, they.

[13:11] But they have this, they have the lousiest party ever.

Elliott Kalan

[13:14] There's like six people there.

[13:15] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:15] And they get.

[13:16] The lights are on the whole time.

Elliott Kalan

[13:18] They're hanging out looking at the computer.

[13:19] But what they do on the computer.

Stuart Wellington

[13:20] This is a summer session, right?

[13:22] Because there's no one hanging around the school.

[13:24] Probably.

Elliott Kalan

[13:25] But they go on this chat thing and it's revealed that this is how the first girl got killed.

[13:29] Is that she was chatting with one of the guys at the party.

[13:32] And he called up Smiley to kill her.

[13:35] Not a flashback.

[13:35] I mean, it's like the movie Go.

[13:37] Where the storyline is going to overlap a little bit.

[13:39] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[13:40] Like Magnolia?

Elliott Kalan

[13:41] Yeah.

[13:41] Exactly.

[13:42] Kind of.

[13:42] But in time.

[13:43] Chronologically too.

[13:45] So, she is freaked out.

[13:47] But they're like, hey, whatever.

[13:49] It's just a crazy prank.

[13:50] It's a party.

[13:51] Let's get drunk.

[13:52] She's high on weed, I think.

[13:53] Oh, yeah.

[13:53] Also, they got high.

[13:54] By this point, they've walked across campus.

[13:57] And her roommate has explained to her.

[13:59] What LOLs are.

[14:00] 4chan.

[14:01] The internet.

[14:02] Computers.

[14:03] Alan Turing.

[14:04] Everything.

[14:05] Yeah.

[14:05] Digital.

[14:06] Electricity.

[14:07] Benjamin Franklin.

[14:09] How fireworks.

[14:10] You know, that kind of thing.

[14:11] How fireworks work.

[14:13] And how the movie Fireworks, directed by Takeshi Kitano, goes.

Dan McCoy

[14:18] Elliot made the point that the movie starts out as if it's a Christian film that was made

[14:24] to illustrate the evils of the internet.

Elliott Kalan

[14:26] It has the same kind of weird stilted acting and directing.

[14:29] And the scene where a character goes, come on.

[14:34] I did it for the LOLs.

[14:35] You don't know what that means?

[14:37] Yeah.

[14:37] Well, on the internet, LOLs.

[14:38] Like, it's.

[14:39] Let's explain what the internet is to you.

[14:41] It's the scene.

[14:42] Which was pretty helpful.

[14:46] How do you not know these things, Stuart?

[14:48] It's the scene in every anti-drug TV show where someone goes, what?

[14:52] You never smoked pot?

[14:53] Well, let me tell you what it's like.

[14:55] First you do this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[14:57] It's the expository scene describing the dangers.

[15:01] Feelings of euphoria.

Dan McCoy

[15:03] And let me also say that I think it bears saying that this is the cheapest looking film since,

[15:10] speaking of Billy Zane, memory from the very early days of the Flophouse podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[15:15] It's even cheaper looking than other internet horror movie, Fireproof.

Dan McCoy

[15:21] Fireproof?

[15:21] Was that the legitimate Christian one?

[15:25] Yeah, that was the one.

[15:25] Yeah, that was in a horror movie.

Stuart Wellington

[15:27] It wasn't.

[15:27] I thought it was if you look at the internet enough, your house is going to burn down or something.

Elliott Kalan

[15:30] No, it was if you look at internet porn enough, your marriage is going to suffer.

Stuart Wellington

[15:33] That's pretty horrifying.

Elliott Kalan

[15:35] In a way, it's horrifying, yeah.

[15:36] It's like Synecdoche, New York.

[15:39] Not at all.

[15:40] In no way is it like that.

[15:42] They're both horror stories, just for a different point of view.

Dan McCoy

[15:45] Kind of a horror story, yeah.

[15:47] I mean, it's a horror story in the sense that it forces you to confront your own mortality.

Elliott Kalan

[15:50] I'd call it existential horror, but Fireproof is not a horror story.

Stuart Wellington

[15:54] Okay, I think you're getting a sidetracked.

Elliott Kalan

[15:56] Smiley.

[15:57] Smiley.

[15:57] So Ashley goes to class, and her teacher is played by Tony winner Roger Bart,

[16:02] who I saw in his Tony winning role as Snoopy in Your Good Man Charlie Brown on Broadway.

[16:06] Fantastic performance.

[16:08] Kind of sad to see him in the movie Smiley.

[16:10] But he channels a little bit of that.

[16:11] He's the professor for seemingly the only class she has, which is kind of rudimentary basics of philosophy, reason, and ethics.

[16:21] And he's the method that the movie uses to get deep ideas into the film.

[16:25] Yeah.

[16:26] Mostly by having him declaim them.

[16:28] Just tell them.

Stuart Wellington

[16:29] And those classroom scenes are great because it just shows a lot of just random kids with their mouths half open.

Elliott Kalan

[16:35] There's a lot of shots, close-ups of just college students listening, looking like real college students.

[16:40] Like they don't want to be there.

[16:41] They don't know what's going on.

[16:42] They're not paying attention.

Dan McCoy

[16:43] And Roger Bart is blowing their minds.

[16:45] Yeah.

[16:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[16:46] He says at one point, you guys want your minds blown?

[16:49] And he totally does it.

[16:50] He blows their minds.

[16:51] Blows their minds.

[16:52] Anyway, to make a long story short, there are a bunch of other characters.

[16:58] And Ashley gets deeper and deeper into the Smiley mythos.

[17:02] Is he real?

[17:02] Is he not real?

[17:03] And actually kills someone using Smiley herself.

[17:07] Yeah.

[17:07] She feels really guilty and she goes...

Dan McCoy

[17:09] Well, let's slow down a little bit.

[17:11] She goes into this chat roulette-esque thing.

[17:13] She sees a guy expose his wang to her and her roommate.

Stuart Wellington

[17:20] Wang meaning penis.

Dan McCoy

[17:21] And the roommate's like, let's do it.

[17:23] Let's fucking smile at this guy.

[17:25] Let's smile him up.

[17:27] And it's like, you gotta really, but you gotta really wish him dead.

[17:30] And she's like, okay, I got it.

[17:31] I got it.

[17:32] I'm wishing him dead.

[17:33] I did it all for the lulz.

[17:34] Types it in three times and bang.

[17:37] Smiley shows up.

[17:38] Stabs him.

[17:38] Yeah.

[17:39] She feels guilty.

Elliott Kalan

[17:40] She feels guilty and she goes into a crazy spiral where she is hallucinating Smiley everywhere.

[17:46] He's chasing after her.

[17:48] He's in her dreams.

[17:49] He's all up in her head.

[17:50] He's in her kitchen.

[17:51] He's just, you know, all up around her.

[17:52] It's total flatliners.

[17:53] It's basically flatliners.

Dan McCoy

[17:55] There's something like five scenes where Smiley's attacking her and then she wakes up.

[18:01] She spends most of the movie asleep.

Elliott Kalan

[18:04] Dreaming about Smiley.

[18:05] I think she spent more time asleep than the main character in the movie, Awake.

Dan McCoy

[18:09] She may be in love with Smiley the amount of time she spends dreaming about him.

Stuart Wellington

[18:13] If this was romantic comedy, she and Smiley would be in love.

[18:15] Yeah.

[18:15] And there's so many fake kills.

[18:17] Like, if you get killed enough times in your dreams, does it equal one kill for real?

[18:22] If only.

Elliott Kalan

[18:24] I think for that you'd have to talk to, I guess, some kind of sleep doctor.

[18:29] Okay.

[18:29] Or perhaps a murder doctor.

[18:31] Sure.

[18:33] Played by Roger Bart.

Dan McCoy

[18:35] In an award-winning role.

[18:36] Roger Bart in Murder Doctor on Broadway.

Elliott Kalan

[18:39] Murder Doctor!

[18:41] Exclamation point.

Stuart Wellington

[18:42] Sleep doctor?

[18:43] Question mark.

Elliott Kalan

[18:44] The opening song is called Killing in the City.

[18:47] There's a big New York City backdrop.

[18:49] It's nighttime.

[18:50] You see your local New York characters.

[18:51] There's the cop, the hobo, the prostitute, the three-card Monty guy.

[18:56] And a couple rushing home from the theater.

[18:59] Oh, we better get home.

[19:00] It's dark out.

[19:00] You know what happens in the city after dark.

[19:02] A shadowy figure stabs them both.

[19:04] Takes off the mask.

[19:05] It's Roger Bart.

[19:06] Audience goes crazy.

[19:07] Applauds.

[19:08] And he sings the opening song, Killing After Dark in the City.

[19:12] The song is four hours long.

[19:14] What?

[19:14] Okay.

[19:15] There's 18 songs in the show.

[19:17] Each one is no less than two and a half hours.

Dan McCoy

[19:21] So this is like the Cremaster cycle almost.

[19:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:24] Matthew Barney wrote the whole thing.

[19:26] Wow.

[19:26] And Bjork did the music.

[19:28] Are they still together?

Dan McCoy

[19:29] Matthew Barney and Bjork?

[19:30] Yeah.

[19:31] If those two crazy kids can't make it work, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Elliott Kalan

[19:35] They're literally the only people I can think of where the phrase crazy kids accurately describes them.

[19:40] Matthew Barney and Bjork.

[19:41] Or as they're known by their celebrity couple name, Bjornie.

[19:47] Oh, Bjornie was sighted out at Lascala.

[19:49] And then once they have a kid, it's baby Bjornie.

[19:54] Oh, Bjornie.

[19:55] Anyway, so with your swan dresses and your gelatinous sculptures.

[20:02] So anyway, she's in a depression spiral and a crazy spiral.

[20:06] She keeps dreaming Smiley's coming after her.

[20:08] She doesn't know who to trust.

[20:09] And one by one, Zane's gang of misfits and douches are being killed online.

[20:14] Smiley is...

[20:14] That doesn't sound that bad.

[20:16] Not really.

[20:17] She goes to the police and for one beautiful scene, Keith David is there as a policeman who doesn't believe her.

[20:23] Because there's a YouTube video of her smashing a computer at the library when she thinks Smiley is on it.

[20:29] So everyone thinks she's not so cuckoo crazy.

[20:31] She goes to a psychiatrist, gets a prescription for something.

Dan McCoy

[20:34] A psychologist played by Paris from TV's Gilmore Girls.

Elliott Kalan

[20:37] Paris.

[20:38] You may know him from the Iliad.

[20:40] Her.

[20:41] Sure.

[20:41] He gave a golden apple to the goddesses, thus angering them.

[20:46] I don't remember how.

[20:47] And then stole Helen of Troy.

[20:49] Later on.

[20:50] A face that launched a thousand shits.

[20:54] I may have misheard that.

Dan McCoy

[21:00] Later on became capital of France, of course.

Elliott Kalan

[21:03] Yeah.

[21:04] He's had a long and rich career and now he's in Smiley.

[21:07] So anyway, everyone thinks...

[21:09] They can't win a wall.

[21:11] Playing a woman.

[21:12] Everyone thinks it was the role he was born to play, except that he wasn't.

[21:17] Because he was born a man.

[21:18] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[21:19] And then he Orlando'd into this woman, I guess.

[21:21] He totally Orlando'd it up.

Elliott Kalan

[21:24] He said, for this role, I really got into the part.

[21:26] I Orlando'd.

[21:28] I ladied it down and ladied it all around.

[21:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[21:32] People talk about Daniel Day-Lewis, but has he ever Orlando'd for a part?

Elliott Kalan

[21:35] Never.

[21:36] He has not.

[21:36] Not yet.

[21:37] Maybe.

[21:38] In the future, perhaps.

[21:39] If he's going to play Harriet Tubman, he's going to have to both Orlando and, you know,

[21:45] become a black person.

[21:46] All right.

Dan McCoy

[21:47] You're trying to think of a non-racist way.

[21:49] Yeah.

[21:50] Well, what it basically is, I came up with nothing.

Elliott Kalan

[21:52] So he's going to have to blow Orlando.

[21:54] Yeah.

[21:56] Anyway.

[21:56] That's the black exploitation.

[21:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:00] Virginia Woolf's Blur Lando.

Elliott Kalan

[22:04] Yeah.

[22:05] So if someone make a poster for that.

[22:07] Pam Greer and Richard Roundtree.

[22:10] Pam Greer and Richard Roundtree with Rudy Ray Moore as Tiresias.

[22:17] Oh.

[22:18] Has there ever been a greater contrast between a high culture and low culture joke that has

[22:22] been made on this podcast?

[22:25] But somebody better make a poster for Virginia Woolf's Blur Lando.

[22:28] He's a she, sucker.

[22:32] That's the tagline.

[22:34] Anyway.

[22:35] So she, everyone thinks she's crazy, Cloud Cuckoo Land.

[22:38] They, and basically that's the movie, is her going crazy.

[22:42] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:42] And she walks around, she imagines this guy with a bottle is actually a smiley.

[22:46] This guy who touches her on the shoulder is actually a smiley.

[22:49] Smiley.

Elliott Kalan

[22:49] The guy, the computer nerd that works in the library that she has a flirtation with.

[22:55] Binder?

[22:55] His name is Binder.

[22:56] Yeah.

[22:57] Because he was named after the first office product his mom saw when he was born.

Dan McCoy

[23:02] Yeah.

[23:02] I like to think that, like, she, she was, she was on the run and, but she didn't realize

[23:08] that her child didn't also need to have, like, an alias.

Elliott Kalan

[23:11] Yeah, it's my boy, uh, Binder.

[23:13] Binder.

[23:14] Binder.

[23:14] His name was almost Industrial Three Hole Punch.

[23:18] So it cuts, basically that happens for an hour and a half with increasingly creepy scenes

[23:23] with Roger Bart.

[23:24] And there's one scene.

[23:25] And the phrase, I did it all for the lulls.

[23:26] And you hear the scene by everyone.

[23:28] Like, 50 times.

[23:29] You know those commercials?

[23:30] I hate them.

[23:31] For movies where they have a lot of different characters saying the main character's name.

[23:34] So it's like, you know, Mumford?

[23:37] Mumford?

[23:38] Mumford?

[23:39] Who is Mumford?

[23:40] That kind of garbage.

[23:40] Everybody asks that.

[23:41] Yeah.

[23:42] They could have done that ad with this with people saying, I did it for the lulls.

[23:45] Because every character says it.

[23:47] Keith David says it.

[23:48] Roger Bart says it.

[23:49] It was in their contract.

[23:50] It was in their contract that they had to say it?

[23:51] Yeah, I read that somewhere.

Stuart Wellington

[23:53] Where did you?

[23:53] On the internet.

[23:55] Ah!

Elliott Kalan

[23:55] That's where Smiley lives!

[23:57] Yep.

[23:57] And even Roger Bart's character says it, which doesn't make sense because he's not, anyway,

[24:02] he's not part of the plot that emerges, really.

[24:04] He's just a red herring.

[24:05] Isn't he?

[24:05] Or, as they would say...

Dan McCoy

[24:06] And Roger Bart has never done anything for the lull.

Elliott Kalan

[24:08] As they would say in Spanish, a herring o rojo.

[24:12] So, they basically, by the end, she says, you know what?

[24:16] So, they think Smiley's killed everybody.

[24:18] She walks into Zane's house.

[24:20] Zane's dead on the floor.

[24:21] She goes, I'm gonna have to take out Smiley.

[24:23] So, she sets it up so that she and her roommate, Proxy, are on the chat roulette site.

[24:28] She says, type it in three times.

[24:29] She's got a gun she took from Zane's house.

[24:32] Because Zane was just waving a gun around.

Stuart Wellington

[24:34] Part of me was hoping she was gonna travel into, like, the weird Hellraiser universe and go try and murder Hellraiser, like, at the end of Hellraiser Part 2.

[24:40] Mm-hmm.

[24:41] But she doesn't do that.

[24:42] Sure, we all remember that.

Elliott Kalan

[24:43] Or she'd lawnmower man up and go into the cyberspace.

[24:45] That would be awesome, too.

[24:46] But neither of those two things happened.

[24:48] No, nobody neuromanced in this.

[24:50] So, there's a knock on the door.

[24:52] She thinks it's Smiley.

[24:53] She opens.

[24:54] Fires.

[24:54] No, it's Binder.

[24:56] Oh, no.

[24:56] She shot him.

[24:57] This is terrible.

[24:58] She goes, you're gonna be okay.

[24:59] You're gonna be okay.

[25:00] Smiley...

Stuart Wellington

[25:00] Immediately shot directly in the heart.

Elliott Kalan

[25:02] In the heart.

[25:03] He's not gonna be okay.

[25:03] Smiley jumps up.

[25:04] Cuts Binder's throat.

[25:05] Which seems like overkill since he's just been shot.

[25:07] Insult injury.

[25:08] She goes, ah, ah, runs in the house.

[25:11] Another Smiley pops out.

[25:12] Ah, ah, runs to the bedroom.

[25:14] Another Smiley.

[25:16] Ah.

[25:16] So many Smilies.

Stuart Wellington

[25:17] It was like a room full of Smilies.

Elliott Kalan

[25:18] Miles of smiles coming at her.

[25:21] And the only way out is the window.

[25:24] So, she leaps out the window to her death.

[25:27] Which is when all the Smilies turn on the lights, take off their masks.

[25:30] Hey, it's the whole gang.

[25:32] Zane.

Stuart Wellington

[25:33] After we cut in...

[25:34] It's everyone that we saw in the movie.

[25:35] Almost every character.

[25:36] After we cut in a monologue from the professor, though.

[25:39] Like, explaining, like, why is it that people do what they do?

[25:42] Yeah.

[25:43] So that you're like, oh, I guess the movie's over.

[25:44] She's dead.

[25:45] Smiley killed her.

[25:46] Who cares?

Elliott Kalan

[25:46] And before this, Roger Bart has also given a speech where he talks about how humanity is just...

[25:52] Or the next...

[25:52] Has created the next step of evolution, which is some kind of computer internet consciousness.

[25:58] Taking the form, we assume, of Smiley, which is stupid.

[26:01] Because why would a computer take the form of some kind of sewn up fat man belly?

[26:05] Who stabs people?

[26:07] Why was I born?

[26:09] Oh.

[26:10] But so...

[26:11] But so...

[26:11] Why was...

Dan McCoy

[26:12] Why was I created with eyes and a mouth that were then sewn up immediately?

[26:16] I don't have a nose.

Elliott Kalan

[26:18] Why am I smiling?

[26:19] I have no mouth, but I'm a smile.

Stuart Wellington

[26:22] And why does he use a knife?

[26:24] I mean, you would think the internet would use lasers or...

[26:27] Electricity.

[26:27] A virus.

[26:28] Fucking cats or something.

Elliott Kalan

[26:31] Nanobots.

[26:31] Nanobots, yeah.

[26:32] Nanobots, yeah.

[26:33] A nanocat of some kind.

[26:36] Some sort of nanocat.

[26:37] Some kind of molecule-sized cat.

[26:38] Who must have his cheeseburger.

[26:40] Must have a tiny atomic cheeseburger.

[26:44] Now, for a movie about lulls, lull cats were not mentioned once, which is a disappointment.

[26:49] But anyway, so they...

[26:50] Like Stewart said, they cut together Roger Bart giving a speech about why do people do evil things.

[26:55] So the way that bad movies do when it's the end of the movie and they want to tie a moral into the last scene.

[26:59] And all the smileys just kind of stand around for a while and talk about how great what they just did was.

[27:06] Is she dead?

[27:07] Yeah, she's dead.

[27:08] We killed her.

[27:09] Awesome.

[27:10] But is she dead?

[27:10] Yeah, she's totally dead.

Dan McCoy

[27:12] I'm so glad we did this.

[27:13] Why did we do it?

[27:14] Because she's dead now.

[27:16] We did it for the lulls.

[27:17] And we're part of Anonymous, the hacker group.

[27:19] But not really, because that would be weird.

[27:21] There's a weird...

[27:21] If we actually claimed that we're part of Anonymous, an actual hacker group that exists in the world.

Elliott Kalan

[27:25] There's a weird bit where they're like, yeah, this is for Anonymous.

[27:28] And they're like, well, wouldn't Anonymous not be happy with us doing this?

[27:31] Hey, who's to say who's part of Anonymous?

[27:33] And it's like, shouldn't the movie be over by now?

[27:36] Like, why are we discussing your Anonymous manifesto?

Dan McCoy

[27:39] Hello?

[27:40] By the way, we hid a bunch of smiley masks in other colleges all around the world.

Elliott Kalan

[27:44] They say there's boxes of smiley masks all over in 20 different colleges.

[27:48] It's the first viral serial killer.

[27:50] Except that, since she jumped out of a window to her death, the serial killer can't take credit for that.

[27:56] The Zodiac killer didn't scare people out of windows.

[27:59] It's not like Jeffrey Dahmer was just going...

[28:01] Scared the bullets into people.

[28:02] ...jumping out of people and going, boo.

[28:03] So they fell out of windows so he could eat them.

[28:05] It's not what serial killers do.

[28:08] That's how he felt better about eating them.

[28:09] It's like, well, it's not my fault.

[28:11] They didn't.

[28:11] Look, man.

[28:13] I gave them an out.

[28:14] If they can't stand up.

[28:15] They can't stand up.

[28:17] That's not my problem.

[28:18] If they can't keep themselves from falling out of windows, then who's the real bad guy?

Dan McCoy

[28:23] I would just be wasting meat if I didn't need them at this point.

Stuart Wellington

[28:26] Now, can you help me?

[28:28] And I guess, so their goal is probably to turn Smiley into some kind of urban legend.

[28:34] Yeah, they're going to create the next sort of urban legend.

[28:35] At the very beginning of the movie, the girl already explains that Smiley's already an urban legend.

[28:41] So what are they trying to do?

Elliott Kalan

[28:42] But then, so Zane is talking to Proxy over the computer.

[28:46] As kids do.

[28:47] And even the girl that they killed in the first scene, Stacy, the babysitter, she is there.

[28:53] She's part of Smiley Comm.

[28:54] She's part of Smiley Core.

[28:56] It's the guy they incorporated, I guess.

[28:58] And he's like, oh, man.

[29:01] I got a boner.

[29:02] Is that weird?

[29:02] And she's like, come on.

[29:04] Is she really dead?

[29:05] And he's like, yeah, she's dead.

[29:07] And they're like, Smiley's so great.

[29:09] Yeah, we love Smiley.

[29:10] And as a joke, he types in, I did it for the lulz to her.

[29:13] And she's like, oh, stop it.

[29:15] And then Smiley pops up behind her.

[29:17] But his face isn't a mask.

[29:18] It's really like a fat man's belly in a head.

[29:23] And then kills her, stabs her in the eye.

[29:25] And then waves goodbye at Zane.

[29:28] And then breaks the webcam.

[29:30] And that's the end of the movie.

[29:32] Credits roll.

[29:32] And then there's an after credits scene where Ashley, who's been lying dead on the pavement,

[29:37] opens her eyes and goes, oh, so I guess they didn't kill her.

[29:41] I got a real problem with this.

[29:43] Either Smiley then is a real thing.

Dan McCoy

[29:46] Hold up.

[29:47] So they've called into existence.

[29:49] It's just like what's there.

[29:49] Or Ashley's still alive.

[29:51] You can't have both.

Elliott Kalan

[29:52] No, because now Smiley's got to come back to finish the job for real.

[29:56] He's pissed at them that they killed someone.

[29:57] They fucked it up.

[29:58] Yeah.

[29:59] But it's their version of the first Nightmare.

[30:02] No, I don't mind.

[30:02] The first Friday the 13th ending where it was Jason Voorhees' mom the whole time.

[30:06] But then at the end, Monster Jason comes out of the river and kills that woman.

[30:11] You know, this is their, Smiley's real?

[30:13] Huh?

[30:14] Can't wait for Smiley 2, the real-ing.

[30:16] Yeah, but they doubled up on it.

Dan McCoy

[30:17] Like, I would be fine if, like, Smiley's real.

[30:20] It would be like it.

[30:20] Or, like, Ashley came back and was like,

[30:22] now I'm going to become Smiley and kill all these bastards.

[30:25] It would be like if the original Friday the 13th,

Stuart Wellington

[30:30] after that ending where Jason shows up and pulls the woman in the water,

[30:33] at the end of the credits, Jason's mom, like, wakes up.

Elliott Kalan

[30:37] That would be heartwarming.

[30:38] She goes to the river, she picks up baby gross Jason, and then takes him off.

Stuart Wellington

[30:42] Like, smooshes her head back onto her body.

[30:45] That's how bodies work.

[30:46] Yeah, the two of them are like,

Dan McCoy

[30:46] oh, now we don't need to kill anyone else at Crystal Lake.

[30:48] We just live together happily.

[30:50] Yeah.

[30:51] And then they play that song.

Elliott Kalan

[30:52] Hey, let me tell you about my best friend.

[30:55] And they just have, there's like a montage of them playing in the park.

Stuart Wellington

[30:58] Wow, he didn't even sing the whole thing.

Elliott Kalan

[31:00] I don't know all the words to that song.

[31:01] It's not like the Golden Girls theme.

[31:03] I don't want to have to ask that.

Dan McCoy

[31:05] We don't want to.

Elliott Kalan

[31:06] That's the company that makes hats that you put on your butt.

[31:09] Ask cap?

[31:09] Yeah, ask cap.

[31:11] I don't know if they really, you can't sit down or you crush your hat.

[31:14] That's the problem.

[31:15] Yeah, it seems like a waste of a hat.

[31:16] Yeah, you got to take it off every time you sit down.

Dan McCoy

[31:18] Yeah.

[31:19] Danny Houston in Stolen was going to wear an ass cap, but they thought it was too crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[31:23] No, so instead he wore a hat hat.

[31:24] A head hat.

[31:25] A regular hat.

[31:26] That's what they're called.

[31:27] Regular.

[31:29] Regular old head hat.

[31:32] Whereas they're also known hats.

[31:35] Hat is actually a portmanteau for head hat.

[31:40] It's the H from head and the at from hat.

[31:44] So the end of the movie, so have they called Smiley into existence?

[31:49] Did Smiley always exist?

[31:51] Who knows?

[31:51] We'll have to wait for the sequel, which will hopefully never be made.

Dan McCoy

[31:56] The sequel, which will star another Tony winner in a depressing turn of events.

Elliott Kalan

[32:00] It'll be Patti LuPone in Smiley 2.

[32:02] You know, guys, we've laughed a lot talking about this movie.

Dan McCoy

[32:06] Norbert Leo Butts will be Smiley.

Elliott Kalan

[32:08] So many Tony winners.

[32:10] And Keith David always comes back for one scene.

Stuart Wellington

[32:13] We've laughed a lot, but people shouldn't watch this movie under any circumstance.

Elliott Kalan

[32:17] No, it is a very poorly made, low budget, badly, and there's some, I mean.

[32:22] Wait, are you skipping the final judgments?

[32:23] I don't even know.

Stuart Wellington

[32:24] You should, if it shows up on your screen, either through like a Netflix thing or some

[32:29] direct TV or something, just scratch your screen so you can't see it anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[32:35] Just break your TV and then scratch your corneas so that you never see anything ever again.

Dan McCoy

[32:40] Just type, I did it all for the lulz, into your computer three times.

[32:44] And then break your computer.

Elliott Kalan

[32:46] Hope that Smiley comes up and kills you so you can watch Smiley.

[32:49] Because there are no lulz in this movie.

[32:51] I'll give you this.

[32:51] There's three performances I thought were good.

[32:54] How many lulz were there?

[32:56] Zero lulz.

[32:57] Keith David has, his scene is kind of fun because he's pretty tongue-in-cheek and he's just Keith David hamming it up.

Dan McCoy

[33:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:05] Roger Bart gives it way more than he should because he's a professional.

Dan McCoy

[33:08] And that girl's shorts in the first scene don't totally cover her butt.

[33:11] So what you're saying is you would like to see a movie called Roger Bart, Keith David, and Short Shorts.

Elliott Kalan

[33:17] It would be called, it would be called.

[33:20] Beach Police.

[33:21] It would be called.

[33:22] Roger Bart and Keith David and Beach Police.

[33:25] It would be called Shorts That Don't Cover a Girl's Butt All the Way in the Roger Bart, Keith David Adventure.

[33:32] And now Roger Bart and Keith David have been kidnapped by the Scarlet Skull.

[33:36] He's not the Red Skull.

[33:37] We don't want to get sued.

[33:38] It's the Scarlet Skull.

[33:40] Sure.

[33:40] And he's kidnapped them.

[33:41] So they get a lot of scenes where they're tied up in a chair and they just banter back and forth.

[33:46] Right on.

[33:46] And the girl whose shorts don't cover her butt all the way has a series of clothes-losing adventures to save them.

[33:53] Yeah.

[33:54] All right.

[33:54] And she has a magical sidekick who is a talking nude girl.

[34:01] Wait, a nude girl who talks?

[34:03] Who talks.

[34:04] And she has the magic power of not wearing clothes.

Stuart Wellington

[34:06] She's not animated.

[34:08] She's real life, right?

[34:09] Yeah.

[34:10] Like 3D.

Elliott Kalan

[34:11] No, yeah.

[34:11] Real live action.

[34:12] Live action.

[34:13] It's motion capture.

[34:14] I like to call it real life.

[34:14] In that they just have a person moving with a camera pointed at them.

Stuart Wellington

[34:17] I mean, Andy Serkis did it, right?

Elliott Kalan

[34:19] No.

[34:20] Andy Serkis, I think, trained them and had to move like they were really nude.

Stuart Wellington

[34:24] But is Andy Serkis nude in the movie?

[34:26] No.

[34:26] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[34:26] Because it turns out at the end he's the Scarlet Skull and he's totally nude.

[34:32] That's in the unrated Blu-ray though.

Dan McCoy

[34:34] Sure.

[34:35] Not safe.

[34:36] I would like to invest in your movie, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[34:38] Okay.

[34:39] But this is a poorly took and go feel free.

[34:42] $700,000 is the price.

Stuart Wellington

[34:44] It's on Kickstarter.

[34:46] We only need one backer.

[34:48] $700,000.

[34:49] And then we're done.

[34:50] You get a t-shirt.

[34:51] And your prize is a t-shirt.

Elliott Kalan

[34:53] Not a t-shirt of the movie.

[34:55] Just a shirt that I own.

Dan McCoy

[34:57] Your prize is a t-shirt and a nude picture of Harry Andy Serkis.

[35:02] He could shave for the picture if you want.

Elliott Kalan

[35:04] No.

[35:05] Harry Anderson Serkis.

[35:07] The Harry Anderson Serkis would be great.

[35:08] A lot of close-up magic.

[35:10] Comedy.

[35:11] John Larry Kett stops by.

[35:13] I'd love the Harry Anderson Serkis.

[35:15] Mel Torme.

[35:16] So anyway, here's some problems with the movie.

[35:18] It's poorly made.

[35:19] It's shot in a very – it's shot in the way that, okay, you know what would make every shot look good?

[35:24] If characters were just in the center of the frame looking at the camera.

[35:27] Yeah, staring straight into it.

[35:29] Hey, Wes Anderson does it.

[35:29] It's like a webcam, dude.

[35:30] Webcam.

[35:31] I mean it does look like it was shot on a webcam, which is – in a better movie would have taken advantage of that.

[35:36] Like a better movie – if ever there was an excuse for a found footage movie made up of like webcam footage, this is an okay concept for that.

[35:44] And I like that it's a concept that it's so easy to do a horror movie that ignores cell phones on the internet because they kind of fuck up horror stories.

[35:52] Because it's so easy to look up help, figure out a mystery, or get in touch with somebody.

[35:56] It's hard to be totally alone and helpless when you have a cell phone.

[36:00] And so here it's like, well, let's work that out.

[36:03] But they do it so poorly and like – now that I think about it, they barely use cell phones in the movie.

[36:07] Like even that they don't do well.

Stuart Wellington

[36:09] I think the first scene with a cell phone, she ends up slapping it out of a window.

Elliott Kalan

[36:14] Because she thinks Smiley is calling her.

[36:16] Yeah, and then her roommate's downstairs like, hey, you threw a phone at me?

[36:21] I do.

[36:21] There was a moment when Stuart invented Smiley's voice, which I thought was a pretty fantastic voice for the character.

Stuart Wellington

[36:27] Hey, it's me.

[36:29] Where do you want those lols?

Elliott Kalan

[36:32] Oh, you heard you wanted to deliver some lols?

[36:34] I'm here for the lols delivery.

[36:36] Should I just put them in the bag?

[36:38] Unfortunately, Smiley does not sound like a Hanna-Barbera character in the movie.

[36:41] He has no voice because he's not real until the very end.

[36:44] But this movie feels like a movie made by a bunch of college kids who were doing it for a school project and they got an F on it.

Dan McCoy

[36:52] Yeah, let's move on to our final judgments.

[36:54] Is this a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of like?

[36:57] Elliot, what do you have to say?

Elliott Kalan

[36:58] Considering we've said nothing but bad things and we almost didn't get to the movie because we had nothing to say about it.

[37:06] It's a bad bad movie.

[37:07] It shows that it was made by people who don't really know how a movie is put together in a lot of ways.

[37:14] Instead of using its low budgetness and its kind of thrown together raggedness as a virtue, it tries to be kind of a slick, stylish movie without any style or slickness and it fails.

Dan McCoy

[37:27] Yeah, I would say this is almost a good bad movie in that it is so incompetent in a way that we don't...

[37:34] It is incompetent.

[37:35] We don't normally see on this show, actually.

[37:37] Like, we actually, because of the format, we see a lot of mediocre films rather than crazy films.

[37:44] And I almost want to reward it for being as bad as it was.

Elliott Kalan

[37:48] Compared to this, That's My Boy is Ron.

[37:50] Yeah.

[37:51] Like, that's the difference.

Dan McCoy

[37:52] But I do have to say that it doesn't have enough story for it to be a good bad movie.

[37:57] Like, it has about 30 minutes of story for a 90-minute film and I was too bored for me to go full, like, good bad.

Elliott Kalan

[38:04] It feels like this could have been an episode of, like, Tales from the Dark Side or Monsters, you know, one of those shows.

[38:10] Tales from the Crypt 2.0.

[38:12] Mm-hmm.

[38:13] If they should do, they should do, like...

[38:14] Do an internet Tales from the Crypt.

[38:15] They should do an internet for Tales from the Crypt called, like, Crypt Keeper's blog.

[38:18] And the Crypt Keeper opens it up as a vlog each time and then it goes to the story and the story's kind of set nowadays.

Dan McCoy

[38:24] I mean, that's a terrible idea, but I could also see it actually working as a show.

Elliott Kalan

[38:26] I mean, you wouldn't call it the Crypt Keeper's blog.

[38:28] You'd call it, like, Tales from the Internet or something.

Stuart Wellington

[38:32] That's not that good either.

Elliott Kalan

[38:35] Look, the title's not great, but it's a good idea.

Stuart Wellington

[38:38] What do you say?

[38:39] I think it was amazing.

[38:40] No, of course.

[38:40] It was terrible.

[38:42] This is a movie where none of the characters' motivations ever seem to make sense.

[38:47] For a movie that already feels stretched, it feels like there's missing scenes that explains why people are acting the way they're acting.

Elliott Kalan

[38:55] Yeah, it's both full of filler and full of bizarre shifts in character tone.

Stuart Wellington

[38:59] And a lot of the scenes feel like they have been just lifted out of other horror movies that the director's seen.

[39:06] Which I guess isn't surprising from people who make, I guess, very short internet films that are probably, I don't know, don't require a long narrative.

[39:15] Yeah, it's terrible.

[39:16] Don't ever watch this.

Dan McCoy

[39:18] So you loved it.

[39:19] I loved it.

Stuart Wellington

[39:21] Like when Smiley's barfing blood all over.

[39:23] Great.

Dan McCoy

[39:25] Before we move on to our next segment, I just want to quickly say to listeners, why don't you go over and check out allthingscomedy.com.

[39:33] We have a, there's been a facelift.

[39:36] There's a redesign.

[39:36] Websites all new and all different.

Elliott Kalan

[39:39] All better.

[39:40] Don't be frightened of the internet.

Stuart Wellington

[39:42] Yeah.

[39:42] Smiley might have scared you away.

Elliott Kalan

[39:44] There is no interface for Smiley to get at you through all things comedy.

Dan McCoy

[39:47] There's no place for you to type in, I did it all for the walls.

[39:50] What about like the search?

[39:52] You could type that in there.

[39:54] Yeah, you type it in once, but then there would be no results.

Elliott Kalan

[39:57] And I got to tell you, I listened to Smiley's podcast on all things comedy.

[40:00] It's pretty good.

[40:01] Pretty funny.

Dan McCoy

[40:01] It's hilarious.

[40:02] It's called Doing It Lol Style.

Elliott Kalan

[40:05] It's him and Billy Connolly.

[40:08] Oh, really?

[40:08] Yeah, big get.

[40:09] Very big get.

[40:11] He's got a charming accent.

[40:12] Not the comedian Billy Connolly.

[40:14] Oh, okay.

[40:14] No.

[40:15] Just a guy.

[40:16] No, William J. Connolly.

[40:17] He's a real estate agent.

[40:18] Okay.

[40:19] It's a comedy and real estate podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[40:21] You can also listen to us on TuneIn now, right?

[40:24] Yeah.

[40:24] All Things Comedy is now on TuneIn.

Elliott Kalan

[40:27] The TuneIn app is some kind of internet radio app.

[40:29] I shouldn't have said some kind of, so it sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

[40:34] But All Things Comedy is now on TuneIn, so go through the All Things Comedy website, go

[40:38] through TuneIn, or just listen on iTunes to All Things Comedy podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[40:41] Yeah, if you prefer to listen to your podcasts streaming rather than downloading them to your

[40:46] device.

[40:47] Taking up memory space.

Stuart Wellington

[40:47] Yeah.

[40:48] You can listen to us through TuneIn.

Dan McCoy

[40:51] But now is the segment on the podcast.

[40:52] Winter of our discontent.

[40:54] On the podcast.

[40:54] Made Glorious Summer by Smiley.

[40:56] No.

[40:57] Richard III, no.

[40:58] It was the best of times.

Elliott Kalan

[40:59] It was the smiliest of times.

[41:01] Now you're Dickens.

[41:02] Call me Smish Smile.

[41:04] Ish Smiley.

Dan McCoy

[41:05] Melville, you are jumping from genre to genre.

[41:09] Era to era.

[41:10] Yep.

[41:10] I'm like Smiley Orlando.

[41:11] Too many genres.

[41:12] Unlike Bloorlando.

[41:14] But this is the time on the podcast where we answer letters from listeners in the Flophouse

[41:19] movie mailbag.

[41:20] Today's letter, R.

[41:22] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[41:23] Thank you, Sesame Street.

[41:24] Wow.

[41:24] We got this far and you finally made that joke?

Elliott Kalan

[41:26] Yep.

[41:27] Well, I've been writing songs, but nobody likes that.

[41:29] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[41:31] So this first letter is titled The Flopford Wives.

[41:35] Oh.

[41:36] Dear the Flophouse from Joe.

[41:39] I'm guessing Elliot either said Pesci, Piscopo, or Six Pack.

[41:44] He didn't even give his typical joke.

[41:45] I didn't.

[41:45] He didn't.

[41:45] Typical joke.

Elliott Kalan

[41:46] I was going to say a different Joe, but then I realized it was someone who was a friend

[41:49] of mine and not a reference.

Dan McCoy

[41:52] Seeing as you're all married and being in a relationship myself with somebody who prefers

[41:58] watching television series to movies.

[42:00] It's pretty great, right?

[42:01] I was wondering, seeing as it is the season, if you could share some films that you and

[42:08] Mrs. Flophouse like to watch together.

[42:10] Like films we've made that other people aren't supposed to see?

[42:14] No, no.

[42:15] Films that exist in the world.

Elliott Kalan

[42:17] Oh, oh.

[42:18] Well, I mean, this exists in the world.

[42:19] There's one copy.

[42:20] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[42:21] Also, I was wondering, being in a long-term relationship can take up most of one's free

[42:25] time.

[42:25] That's for sure.

[42:26] And I can imagine with Dan's acting role as Provozoid number one.

[42:29] It's safe.

[42:31] Elliot's job of categorizing every word that sounds like another word, and Stewart's

[42:35] repeated daily marathons of Castle Freak and Invisible Maniac, there doesn't seem

[42:39] like a lot of time for new films.

[42:40] So my question is, how do you find the time to watch these films that you recommend each

[42:45] week?

[42:45] I can only believe that each of you have the Superman-esque ability to reverse time.

[42:50] But instead of doing something heroic like saving a bus full of children, you spend the

[42:53] time catching up on your Netflix queue.

[42:55] Yep.

[42:56] Either that, or you stay up until all hours of the night, your wives asleep long ago,

[43:00] your eyes sunken and bloodshot.

[43:01] You're trying to wipe the Cheeto dust from your shirt, but it's caked onto your fingers,

[43:05] and it only makes it worse.

[43:07] You go to the bathroom to clean up, only to be greeted with the haggard face staring back

[43:11] at you, lost and confused, as if to say, what have I become?

Stuart Wellington

[43:15] Either way, keep up with the good work.

[43:18] So, two questions.

Dan McCoy

[43:19] Man, what an indictment.

[43:21] Two questions.

[43:22] What movies do we enjoy watching with our wives, and how do we have time to watch movies

[43:26] without our wives?

[43:28] So, Elliot, what do you have to say for yourself?

Stuart Wellington

[43:31] You're in the hot seat, starring Dan McCoy as the seat.

Elliott Kalan

[43:37] And Sir Wellington as Jamie Hott.

[43:39] Wait, is Elliot sitting on you?

[43:41] Time to turn up the heat, guys.

[43:42] Let me see.

[43:42] I crushed my ass cap because I was sitting on you.

[43:45] That's a comedy callback.

[43:47] Comedy callback, hat on your butt.

[43:48] Anyway.

[43:49] Trademark.

[43:50] Trademark and CO Elliot Kalin.

[43:52] The CO stands for copyright, okay?

[43:58] So, movies that I watch.

[43:59] Well, my wife and I actually, we have a couple movies we watch kind of regularly.

[44:03] We watch, we end up watching Filler on the Roof about twice a year during Jewish holiday

[44:08] times.

[44:08] It's just kind of a traditional thing for us and a story that means a lot to us.

[44:14] Other than that, I mean, lots of different types of movies.

[44:17] It's not like we get together around the Yule log and watch the same movie all the time.

[44:21] Yeah.

[44:22] Except for Filler on the Roof, I guess.

[44:23] But, you know.

Dan McCoy

[44:23] It would be weird if you got together around the Yule log since you're Jewish.

Elliott Kalan

[44:26] Yeah.

[44:27] Well, you know, it's a Jewish Yule log.

[44:29] It's not Levin.

[44:30] A Jewel log.

[44:31] It's a log made out of Jules.

[44:34] I mean, Up and WALL-E are both favorites of me and my wife that we watch every now and

[44:39] then.

[44:40] But really, Fiddler on the Roof is the main one for us.

Dan McCoy

[44:41] I mean, I know the answer to how you watch more movies, too, is that you get up in the

[44:46] morning and you watch movies.

[44:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:48] I get up a little earlier than I need to in the morning when I'm getting ready for work

[44:52] and I watch.

[44:53] I almost never get to watch a movie all the way through, but I watch about a half hour

[44:57] of a movie in the morning.

[44:59] And then at night when I'm doing the dishes, I watch a movie then.

[45:01] I watch about 20, 30 minutes.

[45:03] So it takes me more than a day to finish most of these movies, but I found that dish washing

[45:08] time and getting ready in the morning time are good movie washing times.

[45:12] That's when I watch movies that I know Danielle won't want to see because they have lots of

[45:15] blood or are Japanese.

Dan McCoy

[45:17] Yeah, that's what I would say.

[45:18] When it comes to movies that I watch with my wife, my wife likes good movies.

[45:25] She enjoys things that are good.

[45:27] I just try most of the time to steer her away from the movies that I watch that are crazy,

[45:34] violent, or weird, like exploitation obscurities.

[45:37] That being said, this last weekend, myself and Mrs. Purphozoid number one watched Prana 3DD.

[45:48] Sure.

[45:48] And enjoyed it thoroughly.

[45:50] Was it double as much fun as the first one?

[45:52] No.

[45:53] The Prana 3DD is fantastic, but...

[45:56] That's the movie to see on your wedding day.

[45:58] A piece of trivia, Mrs. Purphozoid number one, a big fan of Prana 3DD.

[46:04] I don't know why, but for some reason...

Stuart Wellington

[46:07] Okay, I would have gotten that wrong in the last trivia challenge I was in.

Dan McCoy

[46:11] Really dug it.

[46:12] And in terms of like...

[46:13] When do you watch movies?

[46:14] When do I have time to see movies?

[46:16] Like, I think it's just a question of what your priorities are.

[46:19] And my priorities are not doing things that are active or useful, but instead spending the time when my wife's not around catching up on films,

[46:31] though I might be interested.

Elliott Kalan

[46:32] That's when...

[46:33] If my wife happens to be away for the weekend, I usually spend that time just sitting around watching movies.

[46:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:40] Yeah, I usually get to watch movies late at night after a bar shift, so at like 2 or 3 in the morning, on nights that my wife has already fallen asleep.

[46:49] So you're just like the guy in the letter.

[46:52] Yeah, I'm exactly like the guy in the letter with extra Cheeto dust or Cool Ranch Dorito crumbs.

[46:58] And I also get to watch stuff during the day because I usually work nights, so when my wife is off working during the day, I am cracking open another Hellraiser episode.

[47:09] Episode!

[47:10] Finding out what's happening with that cube of his.

Elliott Kalan

[47:14] What's going on with Pennyhead these days?

Stuart Wellington

[47:16] And, of course, my wife does not want to watch anything with too much blood or, I don't know, if it's too long or slow.

[47:23] We watch a lot of romantic comedies together.

[47:26] If it's a romantic comedy with Katherine Heigl that I haven't watched for the Flophouse, I probably watched it at home with my wife.

[47:32] Love ya, honey!

Elliott Kalan

[47:34] But that's the thing.

[47:35] My wife doesn't like really bloody movies either, but I can watch those movies with you guys.

[47:40] But there are movies I watch with my wife that are more like 30s romance movies that my friends are not going to want to watch with me.

Dan McCoy

[47:47] Yeah.

[47:48] It balances.

[47:49] This next email is titled, Our Long National Nightmare Is Finally Over.

[47:54] And it's from Sta, last name with Held.

[47:58] Last name is Log17.

[48:00] Sta, I don't know.

[48:01] He, she writes, gentlemen.

[48:03] Well.

[48:05] Gentlemen, ladies, Elliot Byrne.

[48:09] Whoa.

[48:09] On the lady?

[48:10] Yeah, apparently.

[48:11] I write to you with news of the utmost importance.

[48:14] The ceaseless horror of our lives has finally ended.

[48:18] And our existence has some purpose.

[48:20] For as you can see, The Invisible Maniac has finally been released on DVD.

[48:24] For a mere $19, Amazon will burn you your very own copy.

[48:28] This means that Stewart's recommendations are no longer cruel tauntings designed to highlight the unattainable pleasure of, quote,

[48:35] a dude murdering another guy with a submarine sandwich.

[48:39] So it explodes like a pumpkin.

[48:41] And also there are lots and lots of boobs.

[48:44] Also, on the subject of Amazon, the bundle deal for head of the family is Castle Freak.

[48:50] Either somebody at Amazon likes the Flophouse or Stewart has a bizarre and uncanny ability to alter the fabric of reality slash the internet through repeated Dan and Elliot irritating suggestions.

Elliott Kalan

[49:01] It's just like the lay the heaven that way.

Dan McCoy

[49:03] So, I mean, yeah, no, we should address this.

[49:09] I'm aware of...

[49:10] Of the combo pack?

[49:12] Of Invisible...

[49:12] Well, I was going to say of The Invisible Maniac being available.

[49:15] Yeah, you bought a copy for Stewart.

[49:16] I bought a copy for Stewart for his birthday.

[49:19] Now, this is...

Elliott Kalan

[49:20] And I, lamely like a lame-o, only got him The Avengers.

[49:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[49:24] This is not necessarily an official copy of The Invisible Maniac because I don't think such a thing exists.

[49:30] This is...

[49:31] Not on DVD.

[49:31] The Invisible Maniac has entered the public domain and someone has decided to put it out on DVD.

[49:37] I thought it was on Blu-ray, Dan.

[49:39] No, I don't think that.

Elliott Kalan

[49:40] I believe the original film elements are lost.

[49:43] I don't think we can remaster them into Blu-ray quality.

Dan McCoy

[49:46] I do think that the Castle Freak slash Head of the Family thing is a direct from the South of the Flophouse.

[49:51] How would it have happened?

[49:52] I can only imagine...

Elliott Kalan

[49:53] Would people be buying the two of them from listening to the podcast?

[49:56] I can only imagine that that's what's going on.

[49:58] Because they're not made by the same people.

[50:00] There's no other reason why this would be happening.

[50:02] It's not the same company that released them, right?

Stuart Wellington

[50:04] I'm smiling knowingly right now.

Elliott Kalan

[50:06] Because he ordered 700 bundles.

Dan McCoy

[50:10] We are, at this point, tastemakers.

[50:13] We are making tastes.

Stuart Wellington

[50:16] How about like...

[50:17] And it tastes like submarine sandwiches and ding-dongs.

Dan McCoy

[50:22] Yeah, so we are shaping the reality.

Elliott Kalan

[50:28] So whose fortunes are going to make or break this time?

[50:31] Smiley, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[50:32] Yeah.

[50:35] This letter...

[50:37] Okay.

[50:38] ...is from...

[50:38] Yes.

[50:39] David.

[50:40] Anytime.

[50:41] No.

[50:41] Last name withheld.

[50:42] Okay, thank goodness.

[50:44] Elliot's brother.

[50:44] No!

[50:45] No!

[50:46] And it's titled...

[50:47] No!

[50:48] It's titled Brookline High School.

[50:49] He says,

[50:50] Howdy, Floppers.

[50:51] I know it's been a while, and I'm sure you were feeling a void in all of your lives.

[50:55] No.

[50:55] Maybe not Elliot.

[50:56] No.

[50:56] But he's had to deal with me almost 28 years now, so he's earned a break.

[50:59] I guess.

[51:00] I wanted to bring to your attention a video you may have seen, since it's making the rounds

[51:04] of the internet, but perhaps you haven't.

[51:07] If there's one thing I've noticed...

Stuart Wellington

[51:08] The trailer for Man of Steel, and it finally really gives you a sense of Superman.

Dan McCoy

[51:14] If I've noticed one thing listening to this podcast, it's your deep affection for the

[51:18] fine work of Nicolas Cage, but there may be a group of movie fans who like him just a

Stuart Wellington

[51:23] bit more than you.

[51:24] Impossible.

Dan McCoy

[51:24] As you can see in this YouTube video that was posted recently on filmdrunk.com.

Elliott Kalan

[51:28] Oh, is this about the people who posted pictures of him all over that school?

Dan McCoy

[51:31] It says, it's a clip from a local Boston area high school quiz show.

[51:36] Oh, no, it's not.

[51:36] In which the team from Brookline, when asked about their favorite movies, all make a point

[51:41] to snarkily pick some movie by Nicolas Cage.

[51:45] Some fun facts about Brookline High School, since you were wondering, its alumni include

[51:48] my good friend Louisa.

[51:50] That's not a fact.

Elliott Kalan

[51:51] That's not a fact, nor is it fun.

Dan McCoy

[51:54] Who was at Elliot's 30th birthday party.

[51:56] Doesn't make it any better.

[51:58] Nope.

[51:58] As well as Conan O'Brien, adorably non-threatening former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis,

[52:04] Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, and Elliot's buddy, John Hodgman.

[52:08] Oh, okay.

[52:08] No good save.

[52:09] Yeah.

[52:10] Wondering why I haven't mentioned sports yet?

[52:12] Nope.

[52:12] The alumni also included New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and former Boston Red Sox

[52:19] general manager and current president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs, Theo Epstein.

[52:25] Want a movie connection?

[52:27] It's also the alma mater of famous documentarians Albert and David Maisels.

[52:32] So, now that I've gotten through all that bulky exposition.

Elliott Kalan

[52:36] What expo?

[52:36] That's, I mean, that's literally just random nonsense trivia.

[52:40] It's not exposition.

[52:41] This plot is not going to hinge on what he just told us.

Dan McCoy

[52:44] My question is this.

[52:45] Do you think this foursome has a strong love-hate relationship with Nick Cage as you do?

[52:51] And for the hell of it, which Nicolas Cage movie that you've all watched at the Flophouse

[52:55] do you think was the worst?

[52:57] I look forward to your serious answers to this question.

[52:59] Bangkok Dangerous.

Elliott Kalan

[53:00] Yeah, I was going to say Bangkok Dangerous also.

Dan McCoy

[53:02] I look forward to your serious answers to this question, which Stuart will surely not answer

[53:05] because he'll be too busy, feigning disgust that I wrote in.

[53:09] Wrong again, David.

[53:10] Showed you, David.

Elliott Kalan

[53:11] Showed you.

[53:12] He can be disgusted and answer your stupid question.

[53:14] I thought he was going to write about, there was a college where these people photoshopped

[53:18] like 700 or 800 different pictures of Nicolas Cage's face on other photos or paintings

[53:25] and put them up in different classrooms so that they were all over the place.

[53:29] And I thought that was a pretty good Nicolas Cage prank.

Dan McCoy

[53:31] I did think we should read this because of last week's episode or last, not last week,

[53:36] but the previous episode.

[53:37] Because it was Cage Miss in April?

[53:39] Yeah.

[53:40] And I would say, I agree with you that the worst Cage movie we've seen was Bangkok Dangerous.

[53:47] Terrible.

[53:47] The best worst movie was probably Trespass.

[53:51] Oh yeah.

[53:51] I know Stuart was not there for that.

[53:53] Stolen was pretty good too.

[53:54] Next was really good though.

Elliott Kalan

[53:56] Next was also pretty great in how stupid it was.

[54:00] What was the one knowing?

[54:02] What was the one?

[54:03] That one wasn't very good.

[54:04] No, that one wasn't.

[54:05] The one where he knew stuff.

[54:07] He totally knew stuff in that movie.

[54:08] But Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance had some stupid good fun things in it.

[54:11] Drive Angry 3D Rated R.

[54:13] Drive Angry 3D Rated R NC-17 playing now at a theater near you.

[54:19] You have selected, etc.

[54:22] That was okay in terms of good badness.

[54:24] It tried a little too hard.

[54:26] I mean the thing is, when Nicolas Cage...

[54:26] And I didn't like that there was a scene in the beginning where a clothed woman beat up a naked woman.

[54:31] That was weird.

[54:32] I didn't like it.

[54:32] With Nicolas Cage, it's hard to go wrong.

[54:33] And the scene where Nicolas Cage used a nude woman he was having sex with as a human shield.

Stuart Wellington

[54:36] Though I did like that he had sex fully clothed while she was nude.

Elliott Kalan

[54:40] With his sunglasses still on too.

[54:41] Of course he had his sunglasses on.

[54:43] He's so un-naked even his eyes can't be seen.

[54:46] But yeah, I don't think those kids can possibly like Nicolas Cage as much as we do.

Stuart Wellington

[54:50] Yep, let's see if their podcast has Nicolas Cage on as a guest star.

Elliott Kalan

[54:54] Spoiler alert!

[54:56] I mean that's not gonna happen.

Stuart Wellington

[54:56] I mean I'm trying to summon him.

Elliott Kalan

[54:59] Yes, I did it for the cage.

[55:01] I did it for the cage.

[55:03] Then he jumps out and he puts a wig on you.

Dan McCoy

[55:07] This final letter of the evening...

[55:10] Pardon me.

[55:11] My allergies are flaring up.

[55:13] Spinal letter...

Elliott Kalan

[55:14] Are you allergic to crangs with boobs?

[55:16] Hold on.

Stuart Wellington

[55:17] Because one time before our last letter had one of those in it.

Elliott Kalan

[55:20] Gesundheit.

[55:21] Gesundheit.

[55:22] Are you sure you're not allergic to lulz?

[55:24] I may be allergic to lulz.

[55:25] I think you have an aller...

Stuart Wellington

[55:26] If you say that word one more time I'm gonna rip my own face off.

Elliott Kalan

[55:31] Just like Nicolas Cage.

[55:32] No!

Dan McCoy

[55:33] This finer letter is from Chris' last name.

[55:35] This is a finer letter than the ones before.

Elliott Kalan

[55:37] Much finer.

[55:38] But everyone, thanks for writing in.

[55:40] Except David.

[55:41] Don't write in anymore.

[55:42] And everybody, thanks for listening.

Dan McCoy

[55:43] We appreciate it.

[55:44] This letter's from Chris' last name withheld.

[55:46] He writes a letter titled, Honor Roger Ebert by Dishonoring Rob Schneider.

[55:53] Dearest Dan, Stu, and Elle.

[55:56] It has been some time since you guys instigated...

[55:58] I'm taking the familiar with you, huh?

[56:00] Yeah, I don't know this guy.

[56:01] I think...

[56:01] Sometimes since you guys instigated one of your famed contests,

[56:04] wherein the winner gets to choose a movie for you guys to take to task on the podcast.

[56:08] You should do another one of those.

[56:09] However, why let one contest winner rule like a tyrant over us all?

[56:14] Because that's how contests work.

[56:15] Democracy reign for once in your miserable lives.

[56:19] Wow.

[56:20] Recently...

[56:21] Sweet song, this is...

[56:21] Cheeto stained lives.

[56:23] Recently, but maybe not recently by the time you get around to this email,

[56:26] Roger Ebert passed away.

[56:28] As people reflected upon his death,

[56:29] many of his famed barbed critiques of movies he despised were trotted out.

[56:35] My proposal was this.

[56:36] Take a handful of the movies Ebert had particularly harsh words for

[56:39] and let the Flophouse fans vote on which one they want you to cover on the podcast.

[56:44] Let us select the likes of Deuce Bigelow, European Gigolo, North, and Freddy Got Fingered.

[56:50] There has to be some way for you guys to get a poll up

[56:52] poll up on the internet that would make this easy for you and for the listeners.

[56:58] Or you guys could hold a contest where listeners have to come up with the best way for you guys

[57:02] to let fans pick a movie for you to watch, in which case I surely win.

[57:06] Chris Lasseny withheld.

[57:07] That's a good...

[57:08] I mean, because of our recording schedule, we did let Roger Ebert's passing pass without comment, unfortunately.

[57:18] I know that he personally meant a lot to me, movie-wise, and I think that you guys feel similarly.

[57:27] Yeah.

[57:28] And I think this is a pretty good idea.

[57:30] I have to say, Freddy Got Fingers is a movie I kind of like.

Elliott Kalan

[57:34] And I haven't...

[57:35] I mean, I haven't seen North since it was in the theaters when I was a kid, and I also

[57:39] kind of liked it when I was a kid, I have to admit.

[57:41] But it was a...

Stuart Wellington

[57:42] And I laughed at least one joke at Deuce Bigelow, European Gigolo.

[57:45] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[57:45] So we are all history's greatest monsters.

Dan McCoy

[57:48] I do think that...

[57:50] I think it's a good idea that maybe I could take a gander at the movies that made up Roger Ebert's

[57:57] I hated, hated, hated this movie.

[57:59] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[58:00] White can blue velvet win?

[58:01] Because I think that's in that book.

[58:03] And that's a great movie.

Dan McCoy

[58:05] I can put up a few selected ones in a poll on the website.

[58:10] Okay.

[58:10] What are we really doing, this, guys?

[58:12] Yeah.

[58:12] Yeah, why not?

[58:13] Then let the fans...

[58:14] Let's do it.

Elliott Kalan

[58:14] Let's let the people decide so that we can crush them.

[58:17] Choose a movie that we review.

Stuart Wellington

[58:18] Okay, chill out.

[58:19] Don't put this much pressure on me.

[58:21] You guys are both looking to be weird.

[58:23] I don't think there's a lot of pressure.

Elliott Kalan

[58:23] Literally zero pressure on you.

[58:25] You have been asked to do nothing but what you already do.

Dan McCoy

[58:27] So I would say, yeah, I'll take a look at what movies might make their way into such a

[58:35] pull, and then I'll put it up on the website, www.flophousepodcast.com.

[58:43] And let's say by the end of, I don't know, June?

[58:49] Is that too long?

[58:50] That's pretty long.

[58:51] Let's say the end of May.

[58:53] The end of May.

Elliott Kalan

[58:55] Whatever gets...

[58:56] We'll give you a month.

[58:57] Yeah.

[58:57] We'll give you weirdos a month to vote on it.

Dan McCoy

[58:59] Whatever gets decided upon will be the movie that we take a look at.

Elliott Kalan

[59:05] We're going to watch it, and then we'll talk about it, and then we'll see if Roger...

[59:11] See if the late Roger Ebert was right.

[59:13] Yeah.

[59:13] And if he was wrong...

[59:15] He won't be able to argue with us.

[59:16] Nope.

[59:17] That's the best thing about arguing with a person who's passed away, is they can't argue with

[59:21] you unless they come back as a g-g-g-ghost.

[59:25] What?

Dan McCoy

[59:27] Wait, are we going to do a bit about this, or...?

Elliott Kalan

[59:30] I don't think so.

[59:31] Probably good.

[59:31] I mean, I thought we were pretty much done until Dan made that stupid noise.

Dan McCoy

[59:34] Because I genuinely...

[59:35] I'm genuinely sad about his passing.

[59:38] Yeah, yeah.

[59:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[59:40] It cracked through your cold, robot, heartless exterior to the one human organ beating General

[59:48] Grievous-like within your inhuman metal shell.

[59:52] Yeah.

[59:53] And that's why you're coughing and sneezing.

[59:55] Yeah.

[59:55] Because you're like General Grievous.

[59:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[59:57] I've got an allergy to human emotion.

[1:00:00] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:00] And Jedi's.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:03] So, uh...

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:04] That's what it was?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:05] His Jedi allergy was acting like...

[1:00:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:00:07] It's weird, because he carries like a million lightsabers, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:10] Yeah, you think he knows.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:11] Yeah, Jedi fever.

[1:00:15] Said that kind of weird.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:16] Yeah.

[1:00:17] Said it as if it was like a sexy thing.

[1:00:18] Okay, so what do we do now, Dan?

[1:00:19] This is the final segment of the podcast, where we make a recommendation.

[1:00:23] A movie that we actually enjoyed, that listeners might want to check out.

[1:00:29] Stuart, do you have anything you want to recommend?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:30] Well, I'm going to dig deep into the Stuart's recommendation.

[1:00:34] Dig deep to one of the three movies.

[1:00:36] I'm going to recommend the movie Blood Diner, directed by Jackie Kong.

[1:00:43] Blood Diamond.

[1:00:44] Blood Diner.

[1:00:46] Wait, wait, what'd I say?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:48] You said Blood Diamond.

[1:00:50] No, you said Blood Diner.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:51] Well, I'm going to recommend Blood Diner, directed by Jackie Kong.

[1:00:54] Originally envisioned, I guess, to be a sequel to Blood Feast.

[1:00:59] And it kind of...

[1:01:00] Commercial Gordon Lewis film?

[1:01:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:01:01] And it kind of went off in its own direction.

[1:01:04] And it is a crazy horror movie about two brothers who, in an attempt to raise a, like an Egyptian goddess or something,

[1:01:14] they open up this vegetarian restaurant, but they're just actually cooking humans and feeding people human meat.

[1:01:22] And it's very over the top.

[1:01:23] There's a lot of nudity.

[1:01:25] A naked woman with a very hairy bush performs karate on people.

[1:01:30] At least one person gets their head deep fried and then, I think, knocked off.

[1:01:35] Wait, so it's still on their body when it's fried?

[1:01:37] Yeah, of course.

[1:01:38] It turns into like a giant hush puppy.

[1:01:40] So if you haven't seen it, it is a crazy person's movie.

[1:01:44] And yeah, you should watch it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:46] You can't spell crazy person without S-T-U-A-R-T-W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-U-A.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:51] So watch it with your parents.

[1:01:52] Watch it with your wife.

[1:01:53] Who gives a shit?

[1:01:54] I don't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:54] Watch it with your wife's parents.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:57] I would like to recommend...

[1:01:59] Here's a connection.

[1:02:02] Smiley was a movie I did not enjoy that was a horror movie that had Roger Barton in it.

[1:02:06] I'm going to recommend a movie that I did enjoy that was a horror movie that also had Roger Barton in it.

[1:02:11] It's called Smiley.

[1:02:13] It's called Excision.

[1:02:15] It stars Annalyn McCord, who you may know from the 90210 remake.

[1:02:22] And it has an interesting cast.

[1:02:24] It has Tracy Lords.

[1:02:25] It has Ariel Winter, who plays the nerdy child on Modern Family.

[1:02:31] The aforementioned Roger Bart.

[1:02:33] It has John Waters, Malcolm McDowell, Marlee Matlin.

[1:02:38] Michael McDonald?

[1:02:39] Ray Wise, isn't it?

[1:02:41] Ray Wise.

[1:02:41] That's the proper plural.

[1:02:45] But Annalyn McCord plays a nerdy teen who has weird sort of disturbing sexual fantasies that involve blood and surgery and similar things.

[1:03:02] And it's a film that is kind of a horror movie, but it's more of kind of a dark teen comedy in the heathers mold, except for even more dark, I would say.

[1:03:20] Except for maybe the last sort of five to ten minutes of it, which turn abruptly into a horror movie that's genuinely sort of disquieting and disturbing.

[1:03:32] But also I would say about it is that you don't normally see a movie about non-traditional female sexuality unless it's a horror movie.

[1:03:47] Or a porno.

[1:03:49] Yeah.

[1:03:49] But I don't want to get into like a whole like weird like feminist discussion about why that is, but it's kind of interesting to see.

[1:03:55] Excision is a movie that sort of until the end sympathetically presents this character who is a like awkward teen girl who has like a non-traditional sexuality.

[1:04:08] And that's something that you don't...

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:09] What about Poison Ivy 2?

[1:04:11] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:12] I guess...

[1:04:13] No, you're right, Stuart.

[1:04:14] You're right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:14] Poison Ivy 2, the new batch?

Dan McCoy

[1:04:16] You're right.

[1:04:17] I back off of my assertion.

[1:04:18] Or is that Poison Ivy 2, the secret of the ooze?

[1:04:20] I back off of my assertion.

[1:04:21] So I'm recommending Poison Ivy 2.

[1:04:24] The secret of the ooze.

[1:04:25] Yeah.

[1:04:26] Ellie, what's that?

[1:04:27] So Excision, that was the name of your movie?

[1:04:28] Excision.

[1:04:29] Excision.

[1:04:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:29] I'm going to recommend two.

[1:04:30] Sounds great.

[1:04:31] Two, two, two movies in one, actually two.

[1:04:35] Very quickly, one is called Union Station.

[1:04:38] It's a noir from 1950 with William Holden and Nancy Olsen and Irishman Barry Fitzgerald.

[1:04:45] And it's a movie that the first 20 minutes or so are a little slow and feel like a kind

[1:04:52] of rote crime movie.

[1:04:54] And I would say stick with it because at that point it becomes a much more brutal movie than

[1:04:58] you expect it to be.

[1:04:58] It's about a kidnapping that takes place in a train station.

[1:05:02] And the train station detective has to look into it, played by William Holden.

[1:05:05] And it becomes surprisingly kind of rough and violent for a movie from 1950 and surprisingly

[1:05:11] dark.

[1:05:12] And the guy who directed it, Rudolf Mate, worked as an assistant with Karl Dreyer and was

[1:05:19] cinematographer on a bunch of great movies.

[1:05:20] So it looks really great.

[1:05:21] And the longer it gets, the darker it gets.

[1:05:23] But it's a short movie.

[1:05:24] It's probably about an hour and a half, 80 minutes long.

[1:05:27] So that's Union Station.

[1:05:28] The other movie I saw recently that I liked a lot was a Japanese movie called Kurotokage,

[1:05:33] which means Black Lizard.

[1:05:35] This is not, there are two versions from the 60s of Black Lizard.

[1:05:39] Oh, which one?

[1:05:40] I'm talking about the 1962 one, not the 1968 one.

[1:05:45] And the way you know is if Black Lizard, the mastermind female jewel thief, is being played

[1:05:51] by a male female impersonator, that's the 68 one.

[1:05:54] I haven't seen that.

[1:05:55] I've only read about it.

[1:05:56] But the 62 one, where a woman plays the woman character, is this kind of very fun but surprisingly

[1:06:03] sad at the end crime musical where this mastermind female jewel thief keeps kidnapping the daughter

[1:06:10] of a jeweler who has this jewel that she wants a lot.

[1:06:14] And she matches wits with Kogoro Akechi, the Sherlock Holmes of Japan.

[1:06:18] And they pretty much fall in love while they're matching wits with each other.

[1:06:22] And there are a number of great musical numbers in it.

[1:06:25] There's a lot of good dancing.

[1:06:27] And there's a scene where Black Lizard, the jewel thief mastermind, tells a sofa how she

[1:06:33] feels about it because Akechi is sewn inside of it.

[1:06:37] That was his hiding place to get to her hideout, was inside of a sofa.

[1:06:40] And it turns out she collects taxidermied human beings.

[1:06:47] And so they really have to get the daughter away from her.

[1:06:50] And I liked it.

[1:06:51] It's a movie that's pretty weird and goofy, but I found very touching at the same time.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:56] Nice.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:57] Yeah, I'm going to rush out to the theater for that one.

[1:06:59] It's called Koro Togage.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:01] We've all recommended movies that people have never heard of and probably won't watch.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:05] Or be able to see.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:07] I mean, I saw mine on television.

[1:07:09] You know, it was on Turner Classic.

[1:07:10] Both of these, I think, were Turner Classic movies.

[1:07:12] I saw mine on a VHS tape.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:14] In my parents' basement.

[1:07:17] Like 15 years ago.

[1:07:19] Well, Union Station is...

[1:07:20] It might appear to me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:22] I might have made mine up.

[1:07:25] Union Station is currently streaming on Netflix and is also available on DVD.

[1:07:29] Koro Togage.

[1:07:30] I don't know if it's on DVD, but they might show on Turner Classic movies again.

[1:07:34] All right.

[1:07:35] Well, guys.

[1:07:36] Another...

[1:07:37] Knocked it out of the park.

[1:07:38] Another successful episode.

[1:07:39] Another successful overlong episode where we barely talked about the movie.

[1:07:42] Flophouse!

[1:07:43] Woo!

[1:07:43] So, Dan, we left on kind of a cliffhanger in the last episode that you had left to join

[1:07:47] another podcast.

[1:07:48] What happened with that?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:50] It was sort of one of those renewal situations where I was trying to make sure that the network...

[1:07:58] Like BMG?

[1:07:59] You were hard bargaining with yourself.

[1:08:00] Yeah.

[1:08:01] Exactly.

[1:08:02] I was driving a hard bargain with myself about how much money I was going to allot for

[1:08:07] the Flophouse.

[1:08:08] Ah, I see.

[1:08:09] Before, I was allotting no money, and now I have bargained us up to $2.

[1:08:15] Yeah!

[1:08:15] We did it!

[1:08:17] What are we going to do with all that money?

[1:08:18] Season 12 of the Flophouse.

[1:08:20] Here's a go, guys.

[1:08:22] Season 12?

[1:08:23] Yeah.

[1:08:24] We're doing two and a half seasons a year?

[1:08:28] Podcast seasons are weird.

[1:08:29] We'll talk about it off air.

[1:08:31] But in the meantime, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:08:35] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:37] I think I'm still Elliot Kalin, but I'm going to check as soon as we're done.

[1:08:41] Good night, everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:43] So, I think Smiley drove me to drink tonight.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:49] This is your Is This a Bit for this episode.

[1:08:51] Is this for the lulz?

[1:08:52] Wait.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:54] Don't tell me what bit I do.

[1:08:56] I make them up as I go, and they're usually pretty crappy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:00] Guys, is this for the lulz?

[1:09:01] Wait, what?

[1:09:02] Okay.

[1:09:03] Come on.

[1:09:04] What's lulz again?

[1:09:06] How many times are we going to have to explain to you during the recording what a lulz is?

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:11] Thor?

[1:09:12] Chan?

[1:09:13] Let's do this.

[1:09:14] Set it off.

[1:09:15] This stupid thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:16] Set it off with Queen Latifah.

[1:09:18] Yeah, let's taxi.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:21] Let's bring down the house.

[1:09:23] You got me straight tripping, lulz.

The Flop House: Episode #125 - Smiley

Transcript

In this episode

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