The Flop House: Episode #112 - The Raven

[0:00] In tonight's episode, we discuss The Raven from the makers of That's So Raven.

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

[0:40] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:42] And I'm Elliot Kalin again.

[0:44] Um, you may notice that my voice sounds a little different. I have a cold.

[0:49] That's right, Dan's going through the change.

[0:51] So, uh, guys, how much sexier does my voice sound right now? Like 40%?

[0:55] Well, for people who find sickness sexy...

[0:58] Well, when you're staring at me like you are right now, it's like a million percent.

[1:02] Hey, hey guys, how you doing?

[1:04] It's good now, lean closer, yep.

[1:07] Flophouse, come into your ear holes.

[1:10] Mess up your hair a little bit more.

[1:12] So for anyone who has a contamination fetish, Dan sounds sexier to you right now.

[1:17] Uh, but my cold cannot dampen my spirits, because you know what? It's my favorite time of the year.

[1:22] What time is that, Dan?

[1:23] Fourth of July? Sukkot!

[1:25] Which is right now! Well, it just ended. Sorry, Dan.

[1:28] What did you do for Sukkot Torah?

[1:29] No, that's not it.

[1:31] It's Shocktober, everyone.

[1:33] Woo! Chain rattles. Ha ha ha.

[1:37] Lightning. Skeleton bones.

[1:39] Boogin, boogin, boogins.

[1:41] It's the holiest month on the Flophouse calendar.

[1:45] The only month, as far as I'm concerned, on the Flophouse calendar.

[1:48] That's the month that we watch a slightly higher percentage of horror movies than we would in a normal month.

[1:54] Yep.

[1:55] It's like, it's the one month of the year that the sun is actually shining for me.

[1:59] Every other month, 11 months of the year, it's dim and cloudy and the leaves are rattling against the windows.

[2:05] That sounds like Shocktober to me.

[2:07] Yeah, that sounds like what October is for everybody else.

[2:10] Um, but tonight we watched a movie, I wouldn't call it a horror movie per se, but it has horror themes.

[2:15] I would call it a suspense thriller.

[2:18] Like a classy horror movie.

[2:20] With literary overtones.

[2:22] Yeah, a macabre touch.

[2:24] And that movie...

[2:25] Yep, Macorn on the Macabre.

[2:27] That's a good one, dude.

[2:28] Thank you.

[2:29] AV Club, put it up top.

[2:31] Macorn on the Macabre.

[2:33] Old Elliott Quotables Kaelin over here.

[2:36] It's his notable quotable for tonight.

[2:39] Oh, there'll be more.

[2:40] Uh, this movie was called The Raven, after the Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name.

[2:47] Not the bird of the same name?

[2:49] So it was just, what, like a film adaptation of a story?

[2:52] Uh, no.

[2:53] A film adaptation of many Edgar Allen Poe stories.

[2:56] Like a mash-em-up?

[2:57] Filtered through the laziest possible way to tell a story about a historical figure.

[3:02] Have them solve a series of crimes.

[3:04] Okay.

[3:05] Yeah.

[3:06] So yeah, this was a...

[3:07] That's probably been done before a lot, right?

[3:09] Yeah, George Washington, P.I., Abraham Lincoln, crook finder, Martin Van Buren, crime stopper.

[3:17] A lot of president stories.

[3:18] Let's not forget.

[3:19] Let's not forget Detective Napoleon.

[3:24] And, of course...

[3:25] Just one more question.

[3:26] And, of course, Edison and Chimp.

[3:27] The one where he taught a chimp how to solve crimes with him.

[3:32] Was this an electronic chimp?

[3:33] No, no.

[3:34] It was just regular Edison, regular chimp.

[3:36] Jack Klugman played Edison.

[3:38] Tony Randall played the chimp.

[3:39] It was their follow-up to The Odd Couple.

[3:42] So the basic premise of this movie is that somebody is committing murders in Baltimore in the late 1840s.

[3:50] Nobody has ever committed a murder in Baltimore.

[3:52] That's the thing.

[3:53] Well, he started it.

[3:54] He started it.

[3:55] So everyone who enjoyed The Wire, you're welcome.

[3:57] You can thank this movie for starting the trend of murders in Baltimore.

[4:00] The Baltimore murder fad that continues to this day.

[4:04] But here's what makes the murders different than your regular gangbanging.

[4:11] Each murder, it takes the form of a play on a different Edgar Allan Poe story.

[4:17] And so Edgar Allan Poe is forced to investigate.

[4:20] You would think to clear his name, but that gets dropped pretty quickly.

[4:23] No one really thinks he did it.

[4:25] But he and a very...

[4:26] He's too much of a weakling drunkard.

[4:28] Yes.

[4:29] He is a drunk, crazy person, except he's really only drunk and crazy in one scene to establish that.

[4:34] And then he's pretty sedate for most of it.

[4:37] He makes a deal with a police detective.

[4:40] I'm going to help you solve these crimes.

[4:41] Then his fiancée is kidnapped.

[4:43] Bum, bum, bum.

[4:44] What?

[4:45] He gets a note from the murderer, and it says,

[4:47] You have to solve these crimes and write original Edgar Allan Poe stories around each new murder,

[4:53] or else I will kill your fiancée.

[4:55] And at the end of it, I'll reveal her location or whatever.

[4:57] Talk about a killer fan, huh?

[4:59] Except for all the guys.

[5:01] Boom.

[5:02] Yeah.

[5:03] Put Stuart up on the quotes board.

[5:04] That's one for Elliot, one for Stuart, zero for Dale.

[5:07] It's nice, Elliot.

[5:09] You can change that, Dale.

[5:10] Except all of the murders that the murderer does are already based on Edgar Allan Poe's stories.

[5:15] So the stories that Poe writes are stories that are based on murders that are based on his stories.

[5:21] That's the problem with being an artist, is people just want you to keep turning out the same shit.

[5:25] They don't want you to push the envelope.

[5:27] Exactly.

[5:28] Like The Raven 2 coming, I assume, next fall.

[5:31] I don't think so.

[5:33] It's actually based in historical fact.

[5:35] Near the end of his life, Edgar Allan Poe released special editions of each of his stories.

[5:39] So it was like instead of the Telltale Heart, it was the Telltale Heart with little robots flying around in the background.

[5:44] Shitloads of CGI.

[5:45] And there was the one where Fortunato tried to wall up Montressor first.

[5:52] Yeah, exactly.

[5:53] And the one where the Mask of the Red Death went, no!

[6:01] Actually, I guess that wasn't a special edition.

[6:03] That was just a prequel.

[6:04] It was pretty special.

[6:06] I mean he really wanted the heart and the Telltale Heart to be like squirting blood right into your eyeballs.

[6:11] But they didn't have the technology to do that in the story at the time.

[6:14] So he had to release the Telltale Heart, the special edition.

[6:17] Sure.

[6:19] Then they put back in the scene where the guy who kills his mentor in the Telltale Heart talks to Jabba the Hutt using the old footage.

[6:26] And it was tough because at that point he would have stepped on Jabba the Hutt's tail.

[6:29] They had to write it in.

[6:31] They had to write it in.

[6:32] With some awesome eye-bulging out effects.

[6:35] So basically what we have is a race against time as Edgar Allan Poe and this very bland captain police inspector guy.

[6:46] Who is that guy from Luke Evans?

[6:49] He was one of the musketeers.

[6:51] Stuart recognized him from Three Musketeers.

[6:53] Another literary classic made better by including crazy stuff that didn't exist at the time.

[6:59] This is another one of those movies where it's the 1840s, but the policeman knows all about forensics and is all CSI all over everything.

[7:08] But it's a race against time, and if they were the audience, they would know pretty early on who the killer was.

[7:15] But they're not the audience.

[7:16] They're the movie.

[7:17] So it takes them a while to figure it out.

[7:20] Should I go into more detail about the different murders?

[7:23] Or just say the end of the movie?

[7:26] I mean we can get back to the murders.

[7:28] I guess just skip to the end.

[7:30] Well, you get to the end and you think for a second that Edgar Allan Poe thinks that the murderer was his newspaper editor.

[7:37] Which would make sense.

[7:38] His newspaper editor is the closest to having a motive.

[7:41] Because sales have gone up since these stories have started.

[7:44] And it's a good red herring.

[7:45] That's a fine red herring.

[7:46] And Edgar Allan Poe discovers the editor's body sitting at the editor's desk with his wrists just kind of skeletonized.

[7:53] I didn't really quite understand what happened to him there.

[7:55] It was like someone had slashed his wrists and they just kept going until there was this twine connecting his hand and his arm.

[8:01] And then it turns out that the villain was the typesetter who you saw in the background of a couple shots.

[8:08] I totally knew it.

[8:09] I called it, right?

[8:10] I don't remember you calling it.

[8:12] Maybe.

[8:13] You actually thought it was his fiancee's dad's manservant.

[8:16] He has a really sinister mustache.

[8:20] But there's so many mustaches in the movie.

[8:22] This is where the stereotype of the bloodthirsty typesetter comes from.

[8:25] And frankly, as a member of the typesetter anti-defamation league, I'm tired of it.

[8:30] For too long, typesetters have been typecast as murderers.

[8:34] When fully 25% of typesetters are not murderers.

[8:39] So for that one quarter of typesetters who have never tasted human blood or quenched their thirst to worship the Ebon goddess.

[8:47] Unlike the raccoon that Edgar Allen Poe's character keeps.

[8:52] Edgar Allen Poe also has a pet raccoon who at one point he's dissecting a human heart on his desk.

[8:56] And I guess the raccoon is just nibbling at it or whatever.

[8:59] So that raccoon you have to assume is –

[9:01] You don't eat the whole thing.

[9:02] It takes a while.

[9:03] It's such thick tissue.

[9:05] And then also Poe tosses him like a quarter of that heart to eat.

[9:09] He's like, well, I have this heart.

[9:11] Yeah, only a quarter though.

[9:13] The rest is for later.

[9:14] It was the taste of that hideous heart.

[9:17] You take it, raccoon.

[9:18] Turned out the raccoon was the killer at the end.

[9:21] That would have been great.

[9:22] Well, well, Edgar Allen Poe, I'm tired of living as your pet.

[9:25] Now you've been mine.

[9:27] Game of cat and mouse, or rather raccoon and man.

[9:31] Maybe they were expecting an orangutan to be the murderer.

[9:35] Orangutan.

[9:36] There's no G at the end of orangutan.

[9:38] Wow.

[9:39] Who would have thought that two flophouses in a row we would have a legitimate reason for saying orangutan?

[9:46] Yeah.

[9:47] I only hope that Shocktober continues in this fashion and we watch next the orangutan murders.

[9:52] Someone is killing orangutans.

[9:55] And it's up to a kid and a magic bike to find out who.

[9:59] Turns out it's the –

[10:00] Bonobo, we could always watch the recently released every which way but loose, right? Yeah, that's true

[10:06] I mean geologically it was very recently released. It's an eye blink on the geologic scale

[10:13] Man, so there's a bunch of murders and he catches the murder

[10:17] Well the murderer he in his last story

[10:19] He said to the murderer the hero of that story offers his life in exchange for his his beloved's and the murderer accepts it and

[10:26] The typesetter goes no you can't know which is a pretty good way to tip off that

[10:31] He's the murderer

[10:32] Edgar Allen Poe goes back to the newspaper office finds out as the typesetter the typesetter says well

[10:36] Isn't that the offer your life for hers and gives it ground post some poison to drink?

[10:40] Poe drinks it the murderer leaves and Poe finds that there's a trapdoor in the floor of the publishing house

[10:47] Which leads to telltale heart style telltale heart style TTHS which leads to an evidence dungeon?

[10:53] In which they're in the floor

[10:59] Yeah, there's a plaque there from the

[11:03] historic Preservation Committee

[11:05] The first stupid serial killer was here

[11:09] Until this point serial killers scattered their evidence all over the place so that they wouldn't get caught

[11:14] But then Reynolds decided to change that collect it all for a policeman to find or perhaps an author

[11:21] And

[11:22] Edgar Allen Poe finds his fiancee saves her but then

[11:25] Dies before being able to fully communicate the identity of the killer to the police detective and the he dies in a fashion fitting

[11:33] Historical evidence. Well, I mean he dies sitting on a park bench in the cold, which is not so different

[11:38] I mean the story dying like a ditch the story I heard was that he was found in a gutter

[11:42] And what in some kind of stupor and was taken to the hospital and died?

[11:47] But uh, you know if there's a couple different conflicting stories, I remember which one is totally true or poor guy poor drunk

[11:53] Yeah, poor drunky McPoe, but uh, and but then the typesetter had said have you heard of this new writer in Paris Jules Verne?

[12:01] He's pretty good

[12:03] So the next last scene is the typesetter gets off his train in Paris gets off his ship in Paris

[12:09] And we're an audience like oh, here we go. Here comes the sequel

[12:14] The Raven to the Nautilus and

[12:17] He ran and the criminal gets into a stagecoach

[12:21] The detective is there and shoots him because the detective I guess it's more of a handsome cab than a stagecoach

[12:27] I mean we are in Paris, you know

[12:31] Jumps toward the detective cut the black

[12:34] the rings out and the bullet hits a pane of glass for some reason and then there's a

[12:39] Yeah

[12:41] Shattering glass themed end credit sequence

[12:46] Well, but that's because that's I remember I think high fidelity another John Cusack movie was the first one

[12:50] I remember seeing this in where they had a full end credit sequence

[12:54] After the movie that looked like it was meant to be the opening credit sequence and they just decided

[12:59] It's just gonna take up time why bother we'll put at the end and now you almost never see or not almost never but you

[13:05] Very rarely see elaborate opening credit sequences like on the Bond movies you do but often you will see elaborate closing credit sequences

[13:12] and like I don't understand what and when you do see it, it seems to be it's

[13:16] Cause for concern or whatever. What do you see at the beginning? Yeah. Yeah, like well the girl the dragon tattoo had a really elaborate

[13:23] Oh, I didn't I just thought it made that and you know

[13:27] Yeah, like Casino Royale is a really elaborate opening

[13:31] I

[13:39] Think it's funny though as you pointed out like the typesetter is like Jules Verne his works remind me a little bit of yours

[13:46] Mr. Poe, it's like how

[13:54] That's the thing if he had said they reminded me of yours not your more famous murder stories

[13:58] But you're less famous

[14:00] ballooning and science fiction hoaxes

[14:02] Cuz I ground Poe did write like he'd wrote a story called I think a month in a balloon or something like that

[14:07] Or maybe that's the Verne one

[14:08] He wrote a story about a balloonist a lot of a ground post stories were like the telltale balloon

[14:13] It's helpful. It's called the balloons the room work

[14:16] a lot of his stories were like

[14:18] hoaxes that could be considered very early science fiction that you would print in the newspaper kind of

[14:23] Pretending if they were real or not

[14:24] So in a way this the theme of like him printing stories based on real murders in the newspaper is a clever one

[14:31] But they don't do it well enough. But yeah, it's just like the killer

[14:36] Being fixated on Poe makes sense as it's written

[14:39] But then I'm being fixated on Jules Verne doesn't make sense like I'm gonna go and I'm gonna carry out some steampunk murder

[14:46] Yeah

[14:48] France it's almost like they were like maybe this movie will make a lot of money who have a sequel with steampunk murders

[14:53] Nah, we'll just hail him at the end. So what have you heard of this?

[14:57] Charlie Dickens

[14:58] So do you think the movie could have been any better if they'd made an effort to just have it be like there's a guy

[15:03] murdering people in

[15:05] Baltimore and

[15:07] Graylin at ground Poe gets wrapped up in it because you know, he writes, you know murder stories or whatever

[15:13] Instead of murders that are specifically about stories. He's written

[15:16] Well, I would I mean I like the idea of I think they should have kept not that the murders are based on stories

[15:23] He's written but maybe that he still has to write. He still gets the challenge to write stories based on him

[15:27] I like yeah a killer who is a fan of the author

[15:30] But and wants to inspire his his hero to write new stories because his heroes writers block

[15:37] But it's still just such a lazy thing to like. Oh, well, it ground pose life was really fascinating

[15:42] He was dogged by depression and melancholy

[15:44] He came up with some of the most frightening and original visions in American weird literature

[15:50] We'll have him solve some crimes like we'll just have him fight a serial killer or some shit

[15:54] and well, but also having him solve these crimes that are based on his

[15:59] murders late or his his tales like it plays into that

[16:04] laid out trope of the serial killer who is

[16:07] So super powerful that he can arrange all these crazy

[16:11] Yeah mouse games like if he was just like if it was just a regular klutzy serial killer

[16:16] Let's make a mistakes getting his foot caught in a chamber pot

[16:20] Like was obsessed with Poe, that's one thing

[16:23] But if he's gonna like set up a huge fucking pendulum with a razor on it

[16:32] We should talk about we had this forest we should talk about the murders

[16:36] But I will say I'm glad they didn't go

[16:38] I'm glad they didn't go the route of like a Shakespeare in love type thing where it's like

[16:42] These are the real-life murders that inspired Poe's greatest tales, you know

[16:47] And they've been hidden from people's view for all this time or some nonsense

[16:51] But uh, okay, but no, you're right would have been shittier. Let's talk. Let's talk the murders

[16:56] So the first murders based on murder in the room org

[16:59] There's a lady with her throat cut and another lady who's dead stuffed in a chimney

[17:02] Just like in murder in the room org makes you think there's gonna be a rent in orangutan. There isn't

[17:07] Disappointed I'm already kind of mad next murder. Is that the pendulum one? Yeah, it is an enormous crazy

[17:15] Sherlock Holmes movie pendulum like it's a Wild Wild West giant gears pen. Yeah

[17:20] He he like fucking built built the like archway for the pendulum with with bricks and stuff like it's totally crazy

[17:28] But the pendulum scene is kind of fun because they really it slashes through that guy's belly a lot

[17:32] Yeah, like it goes it goes through the belly more times than you would expect I think blood splatters all over the camera

[17:38] You'd expect it go through his belly like two times

[17:41] Maybe three but it goes through at least five and he's been slashed in half a couple times. He's not still like

[17:52] And one of the reasons one of the reasons they think Poe's involved is some ways because the second victim is

[17:58] A literary critic that Poe had a rivalry with through the newspapers

[18:02] So it's not like they there's a very brief moment when the police think maybe Poe did this

[18:07] But then they just they meet him and they're like, he's kind of a turd probably didn't do it

[18:11] He's kind of a weakling then there's one that's going to be based on the mask of the red death

[18:16] But that's a that's a red herring to cover up the kidnapping of Elizabeth the his his fiance Elizabeth

[18:23] her father throws a big masked ball and

[18:26] The guy everyone is Harlequins and such her father played by

[18:32] Brendan Gleeson using probably the hokiest Balmer accent

[18:36] I've ever heard all the accents are all over the place in this movie and I'm glad not everybody did an English accent

[18:41] But since like by the 1840s people didn't really in America didn't had different accents

[18:46] Yeah, but Cusack is definitely doing like a half English thing. I don't know. I think he's doing a more

[18:52] Old-timey, yeah, and that one thing that is irritating is as there's like a bar fight and as soon as it starts up

[19:00] Cue that Irish fiddle music. It's the 19th century

[19:03] There's no music that exists except Irish fiddle and look I like Irish fiddle music. I like fiddle music in general

[19:09] It's fast-paced. It gives a lot of energy to a scene, but it's good for a brawl

[19:14] but every 19th century thing you see it's shot in the same color palette of like of

[19:19] Like dank greens and golden browns and it has Irish fiddle music

[19:24] Well, that was they didn't have bouncers back then

[19:26] All they knew is that music had charms to soothe the savage beast

[19:29] So it's like there's a fight break it out quick play that fiddle exactly. Actually, it's pretty accurate

[19:33] That probably is the kind of thing

[19:34] I think I think in the original version of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where there's the bar room brawl

[19:40] They use Irish fiddle music as well. It's like for a while

[19:43] The the go-to music for a brawl was banjo music and then it was like the band

[19:47] They were like, let's retire the banjo lift it up into the rafters

[19:51] We'll bring down the Irish fiddle and then someday they'll they'll retire that they'll bring in like an accordion or a man

[20:00] The ring just a snare drum

[20:03] That'll be the new brawl music. Yes

[20:07] It also is used for chase scenes

[20:09] But then there were a couple of murders. Oh, so the mask of the Red Death no actual murder lesser-known

[20:18] Well, there's one that's based on that makes reference to Casca de Monteado where one is later on but later on but before that

[20:26] There's a story called the case of M

[20:28] Voldemort right where a character is in half. He's not dead yet, but it's through

[20:34] Some kind of like hypnosis he is halfway between life and death and he can still speak

[20:38] Okay, and they kind of reference that by hat by having the serial killer leave a cut-out tongue for a gremlin poda find. Yeah

[20:46] then they find

[20:48] Then there's the mask of the the Casca de Monteado. Yeah, and

[20:52] Are there other ones? I don't know. I think there are any more murders

[20:56] I think there'd be like a hot frog one where they they

[20:59] Cover someone in pitch and put feathers on them and they don't really do a telltale heart one necessarily except that it turns out

[21:06] She's buried under the floor, you know

[21:08] Yeah, so Poe. Yeah post stories

[21:13] Dating as entertaining today as they were 160 years ago. Yeah, I have anything the movie reminded us of something we liked

[21:20] That's true and it was like a at times it was like a weak retread of like from hell

[21:27] But at other times it was like, oh, yeah, this does remind me of a gremlin

[21:31] Oh, yeah, I like that. We were we were a little disappointed because in the first scene I would describe

[21:37] I said that that John Cusack's performance was kind of like

[21:43] Nicholas Cage doing Robert Downey jr. In the Sherlock Holmes movies like it was at at that pitch

[21:49] I very high pitch later on it calmed down and I was disappointed that it calmed down to the degree that it did

[21:55] Yeah, it's too bad because it's probably in some well to really get a good Poe

[22:00] he should have been swinging wildly between manic and

[22:04] and depressive like really quiet and calmed down and sad and then like

[22:09] Yelling at people and drunk like that would have been more fun not in real life

[22:13] obviously Poe was a handful very hard to deal with but

[22:16] But I had the stories I could tell you about Poe. Oh me and Poe the times I had with Poe

[22:22] me and EAP, but uh, he's called Wyatt EAP, but uh

[22:27] the

[22:31] Yeah, like if I was if I called him up on his phone

[22:34] Yeah, we had those next tells it was like chur chur Wyatt EAP, where you at and it's a good friend

[22:41] I am at the liquor house. I'll meet you there. I'll meet you there Holmes

[22:47] Poe has become the mayor of the liquor house

[22:50] Yeah, he was big on Foursquare. Yeah

[22:53] But uh, he was but for most the movie a girl a ground Poe feels will be John Cusack. It's just really yeah became

[22:59] Became

[23:02] It's like it's like a more mannered Lloyd Dobler in a goatee like he's not that

[23:08] Exciting or interesting and he's fairly

[23:12] Acting is what you're saying. Yeah, Dick Van Dyke was doing all the acting

[23:15] No, but it did feel like John Cusack

[23:18] Did a little bit of like sleepwalking through the movie, you know, which is too bad because that first scene you're like

[23:23] This is gonna be good. Oh boy. This is vampires kiss level acting

[23:27] He's gonna be the splash of color and and otherwise completely drab

[23:30] No, there was very drab movie cuz I love Brendan Gleeson. He's boring except for his wacky accent every once in a while

[23:37] Luke Evans just like in Three Musketeers is basically a cardboard cutout

[23:42] Yeah, the lady was pretty but she was stuck in a box most of the movie and while I do like pretty ladies stuck in

[23:48] boxes

[23:51] But mostly because you think it's about Helen of Troy becoming a boxer which is not you've seen it many times

[23:57] Every time I trick myself

[24:00] How can they punch that beautiful face

[24:04] So as you win, but yeah, everyone's got well everyone's at that

[24:07] low level of

[24:09] non energy that you find in a lot of movies nowadays where it's like

[24:12] It feels like more like look we've got the concept

[24:16] Let's just go through the motions and we'll be done with it and there are a couple of neat

[24:20] There are a couple of images in the movie. I actually kind of liked they said they find a body that has its

[24:26] mouth sewn up and they have to cut the threads and then they pull a

[24:30] Pocket watch out and the pocket watches hands are set to like a longitude that is on a map somewhere

[24:36] Sure, but I like that image of them pulling the watch out of the corpse's mouth. And then at one point

[24:41] The fiance is buried alive in a coffin, but there's like a hole in the wood

[24:45] she's managed to dig a little bit of the dirt out and

[24:48] the kidnapper

[24:49] Puts his mouth up to the hole and it's just kind of like

[24:52] Whispering something but you can't at least with undance TV

[24:55] I couldn't quite make out what it was and there's something very creepy about just this disembodied mouth

[25:00] Just whispering something incomprehensible from the other side of a wall

[25:04] Mm-hmm, but other than that like those brief moments are not are not born aloft by the structure between

[25:10] betwixt them

[25:13] Yeah, I mean like this movie

[25:16] It it puts together a lot of things that I find irritating in modern movie

[25:21] which is the the juxtaposition of the modern and the old and the idea of like

[25:28] Let's take a figure that existed, you know

[25:31] Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter style and sure him in this adventure and like let's have a serial killer who has all these

[25:38] Basically magical powers to predict what's gonna happen and unlimited resources to set up his little cat-and-mouse game

[25:44] Yeah, he is he's not just two steps ahead of the the police

[25:47] He's like 80 steps ahead of the police like every point any one of those things is a cliche

[25:53] But could be forgivable in a movie if the movie is good

[25:56] Otherwise, but when you put them all together you you've created a movie that only exists in movie world

[26:00] Yeah, but let's look at some of the positives a lot of funny hats a lot of funny mustaches

[26:04] Yeah, especially the the fire and fire chief

[26:08] Chief fire. Yes, those munch up muster. Yeah daring the fire to burn them off

[26:14] There's a part where John Cusack's house is burned down by the killer

[26:16] And yeah, and there's a fire chief who has a big mustache

[26:19] What I like is that his raccoon clearly survived survives the blaze and I would have liked to see that story

[26:26] How the raccoon escaped? Well, that's the other thing is Edgar Allan Poe

[26:30] basically moves in with the police detective because his house is burned down brings his cage with a raccoon in it and we never see

[26:36] Like a scene of the detective frustrated with his new messy roommate having to do it like detective waking up in bed

[26:42] There's a raccoon on his face like they you know, play up the odd couplers detective on that raccoon

[26:47] Now is that you have a trained raccoon Baltimore law? Yeah, he's dead. You have a trained raccoon

[26:52] You gotta you gotta use it. You know, that's gold. That's movie gold. Just like the hit film over the hedge

[26:59] one of the few movies about a raccoon

[27:02] But yeah, I think what was happening with the screenwriters like let's get poor raccoon

[27:08] Possible I wonder if was that a real thing. I don't remember. I don't know. Maybe he did have a pet raccoon

[27:12] I don't remember

[27:14] Email us and tell us whether or not there's a real thing Baltimore Ravens are named after a gun by Ellen Poe's poem

[27:19] So maybe my brother knows what if he had a pet raccoon, but the yeah

[27:23] It's it does seem like a weird thing to do do

[27:26] To like humanize Edgar Allan Poe by giving him this silly pet and then not doing anything with it

[27:31] like having the raccoon go

[27:34] When something crazy happens, yeah

[27:36] Bandit bandit find Elizabeth

[27:38] Find him. I would love that sniffer out girl. I don't think his name was bandit

[27:45] King of the hill I think

[27:48] Yeah, because they've got a mask yeah a little mask maybe a handkerchief around its neck

[27:53] That's the way it raccoons always accessorize

[27:56] dangly earring maybe a bouffant wig

[27:59] I

[28:03] Like this cross-dressing cool raccoon we got

[28:07] Maybe rocket raccoon or whatever. What is your superhero? No rocket raccoon is a marvel

[28:15] He'll be in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie in theaters 2015

[28:19] I

[28:21] Run around the world of tomorrow the hit film that features mainly mainly just a Carla Gugino and Gina Gershon nude

[28:28] But also, it's the future

[28:30] And it's weird because like the title would suggest a children's movie

[28:37] It was sky captain a children's movie now, what's it nudity and I assume lesbian themes? Oh, I mean they go beyond themes

[28:46] It's not subtext it's text

[28:49] Yeah, it's like like that female Ian where they trick kids like aliens people of aliens. They love kids love females

[28:56] This will be a good

[29:00] Who want to be aliens

[29:03] There's I don't know if there's a word for a female kid

[29:06] But

[29:08] Oils and female kids girls who want to grow up to be aliens

[29:14] Look, we can't be species. Let's be she's the only role model for them. Not a positive role model also a very breast-based

[29:22] female

[29:23] Species we what I'm wait. Have you ever seen a female alien a movie that didn't have breasts?

[29:28] Come on, there's a real life force to also very nude. Yeah

[29:32] Yeah

[29:34] Just turn into Dan's catalog of nude female aliens

[29:42] Species brought up rocket crocodile

[29:45] Of course, I brought a rocket crocodile. So it's my fault. We're not talking about nude female aliens

[29:51] I was talking about species more because species 2 is really weird where the male species

[29:56] Goes around and keeps baying chicks and they immediately explode

[30:00] with a baby. It's really gross.

[30:02] That was super fucked up.

[30:04] Even the ginger scales.

[30:06] Totally unfair. It's super fucked up and gross.

[30:10] Well, so Species 2 was the movie we watched.

[30:13] So I guess what we're saying is,

[30:15] The Raven 2, more raccoon.

[30:18] Less police inspector, more raccoon.

[30:21] I think that's...

[30:22] I mean, anything that has a raccoon and a police inspector in it,

[30:25] that's the note I would give.

[30:26] Is more raccoon?

[30:27] Yeah.

[30:27] What if the raccoon was the police inspector?

[30:30] Brilliant. Can I write you a check for a million dollars right now?

[30:32] I'm not stopping you.

[30:34] You might want to wait about a hundred years to cash it.

[30:39] I'm going to post-date this check to after the heat death of the universe.

[30:43] But then go ahead and cash it.

[30:45] And spend it on whatever thing with no energy there is left in the universe.

[30:50] Spend it on, I don't know, dark matter?

[30:53] Oh, that's going to be very cheap at the time.

[30:54] I could buy a lot of dark matter.

[30:56] So that's probably...

[30:58] So, raccoons?

[30:59] Oh, here's the thing I'll mention.

[31:01] Okay.

[31:03] I will give it this.

[31:05] It's more...

[31:06] It was a movie.

[31:07] It's a movie.

[31:07] That was filmed.

[31:08] It is more based on Edgar Allen Poe...

[31:09] It wasn't two hours longer.

[31:11] It wasn't longer than two hours.

[31:12] It was slightly shorter than two hours.

[31:15] It justifies its connection to Edgar Allen Poe much better than the 30s movie, The Raven,

[31:20] which stars Bela Lugosi and Bars Karloff.

[31:22] Bela Lugosi is just a mad killer who likes Edgar Allen Poe, but doesn't like...

[31:27] He just happens to talk about how much he likes Edgar Allen Poe.

[31:30] Otherwise, it's not connected.

[31:31] But that movie better than this one.

[31:33] So, I don't know what to tell you.

[31:35] I think it's time to give our final judgments on The Raven.

[31:40] Is this a good bet?

[31:42] Wait, hold on.

[31:42] What?

[31:43] It's Shocktober, Dan.

[31:44] What the fuck?

[31:45] What are you doing with these other 11 months of the year ratings that you're about to go into?

[31:48] We can start all the way over.

[31:50] It's Shocktober.

[31:51] So, we have to say if it's spookily good, bad, scarily horrifying...

[31:55] No, I've got the Shocktober categories.

[31:58] If it's frighteningly farty...

[31:59] What's this?

[32:00] What's this movie?

[32:01] Frighteningly farty?

[32:03] Totally scarifying.

[32:06] Okay, scarifying.

[32:07] Was it frighteningly funny or was it totally snorifying?

[32:13] Every movie fits into one of those three categories.

[32:15] Every movie ever made in history.

[32:17] I think I can have a say, Chuck.

[32:18] I can have a say, Casablanca was totally scarifying.

[32:22] And I think, I'm going to say, let's see.

[32:25] Well, Schindler's List wasn't really frighteningly funny.

[32:27] But it was spookily good, bad.

[32:30] I think, yeah, spookily good, bad.

[32:33] Horrifyingly not so good.

[32:34] Totally scarifying.

[32:37] Frighteningly funny.

[32:38] Or nightmarishly, eh.

[32:40] Totally snorifying.

[32:43] Which one?

[32:43] Stuart, you go first.

[32:46] Man, I'm on the spot.

[32:47] I'm going to say snorifying.

[32:49] That's one of them, right?

[32:50] Yeah, that's one of them.

[32:50] He just said it.

[32:51] It was super snorifying.

[32:55] Yeah, I mean, there was no life in this movie.

[33:01] And all the blood was CGI and there weren't enough babes.

[33:05] So not enough blood, not enough babes.

[33:07] That's two Bs that we're missing for Stuart.

[33:10] I'm going to say that, like, for me.

[33:11] What's weird is Stuart's other B is bagels.

[33:14] Yeah.

[33:14] Which is optional.

[33:15] For me, this was two-thirds snorifying,

[33:17] one-third scarifying.

[33:19] Because I got to say, like, I'm grading this

[33:22] on the Flophouse curve, which we've watched so many movies

[33:26] that any small piece of joy is amplified.

[33:31] But I wasn't bored by this movie the way

[33:33] I normally am by movies we watch.

[33:36] I thought that it had certain qualities that were enjoyable.

[33:40] I liked some of the Poe references.

[33:42] I thought that the direction was not bad.

[33:44] But by and large, it was pretty stupid.

[33:48] Yeah, I think I'm going to give it not one-third to two-third,

[33:50] but maybe 90% snorifying, 10% scarifying,

[33:54] if I can mix it that way.

[33:55] Like, yeah, it was pretty lifeless and stilted

[33:59] and uninspired.

[34:01] But it was, like, entertaining in fits and starts.

[34:04] And it passed the time a little better

[34:06] than some of the other garbage that we've

[34:07] watched for this podcast.

[34:10] And we haven't even brought this up,

[34:12] but this is probably the most Nicolas Cage-y role played

[34:17] by a non-Nicolas Cage we've ever seen.

[34:20] If that had been Nicolas Cage in that movie,

[34:21] it would instantly rock it up to at least frighteningly funny,

[34:25] if not totally scarifying.

[34:26] Because John Cusack, like, the Lord love him.

[34:28] But he can't bring the crazy luck out of it.

[34:31] He doesn't have the energy.

[34:32] That's part of the problem.

[34:33] He's great for a movie like Gross Point Blank,

[34:35] where he's kind of a laid-back character.

[34:36] Sure.

[34:37] But for a movie like The Ravens.

[34:38] And when he was the high-fidelity guy.

[34:41] His name was High H-Y Fidelity.

[34:43] Sure.

[34:44] High M Fidelity.

[34:45] Oh, god.

[34:46] I didn't know he was Jewish.

[34:47] Fidelowitz.

[34:48] They changed to Ellis Island when they bought a record store.

[34:52] So this is the bit where we talk about new possible bits,

[34:56] right, where we.

[34:57] No, this is the part of the podcast.

[34:57] Yeah, actually, I have a great idea for a new bit.

[34:59] It's called, If This Movie Was Starring Clowns.

[35:02] And we talk about, how would the movie

[35:04] be different if clowns were the stars?

[35:06] Like professional clowns?

[35:07] Yeah, like the best professional clowns.

[35:10] Probably French, right?

[35:11] What?

[35:12] They'd probably be French, though, right?

[35:12] Some of them.

[35:13] I mean, Marcel Marceau, if you consider him a clown,

[35:15] miming is kind of a different art than clowning.

[35:17] OK, thanks.

[35:18] That guy who was with the Ringling Brothers Circus,

[35:20] I think his name was Balto or Beppo or something.

[35:23] So how would this movie be different if it was clowns?

[35:25] Probably funnier, right?

[35:26] That's, yeah, that's a good bit.

[35:27] I was going to pitch a bit where we just

[35:29] play the movie, specific scenes, and we

[35:33] remember parts of the movie.

[35:35] We go, remember that part?

[35:37] You know, the audience would really get a kick out of it.

[35:39] Remembering the things we just saw.

[35:40] Because they'd remember it through us.

[35:42] Because you know what?

[35:43] I forget half the shit when we do these things.

[35:45] Yeah, we can tell.

[35:46] I'm drinking and checking my phone the whole time,

[35:48] so I don't really know what's going on.

[35:49] I'm going to pitch a bit where what we do next

[35:51] is we read letters from listeners,

[35:53] and we react to them.

[35:54] That one's all right, but what about this?

[35:56] It's a bit called If John Cusack Was a Bear.

[35:59] Imagine the scene of Say Anything

[36:00] where he holds up the boombox if a bear had been doing it.

[36:03] Frightening.

[36:04] They would have shot him, if only

[36:05] to save the life of the boombox.

[36:08] This letter is titled.

[36:11] Are we on the letters segment now?

[36:12] Yeah, we are.

[36:13] This letter's titled Wushu slash John Hurt.

[36:17] And it's from Kevin, last name withheld.

[36:20] He says, dear Flophouse, I just started listening,

[36:23] and I love the show.

[36:23] However, two topics.

[36:24] Thanks, Kevin.

[36:26] Two topics keep coming up.

[36:27] Wushu and John Hurt.

[36:28] John Hurt, parentheses, Spaceballs, and Wushu.

[36:33] Best known for his cameo in Spaceballs.

[36:35] That's a reference to another movie he's in.

[36:37] Sir John Hurt of Spaceballs.

[36:40] Sir John Hurt, for your excellent work in Spaceballs,

[36:44] I make thee a knight of the realm.

[36:46] Arise, Sir John Hurt.

[36:49] And Wushu fighting.

[36:50] Arise, Sir Spaceballs.

[36:54] John Hurt, and Wushu fighting, parentheses,

[36:57] The Three Musketeers.

[36:58] Since I was so disappointed with the finale of The Lost

[37:01] Experience, I'm excited to see that you're giving us

[37:03] these clues to follow to find out the answers to Flophouse

[37:06] mysteries you won't have time to address on the show proper.

[37:08] Yep, an orangutan will be involved, too.

[37:11] John Hurt plus Wushu fighting clearly has something

[37:13] to do with V for Vendetta, but I don't know how that

[37:16] connects to the Flophouse.

[37:17] I await the next clue.

[37:18] That's from Kevin Lastango.

[37:20] Well, this movie, The Raven, was directed by the man who

[37:22] directed V for Vendetta.

[37:24] James McTeague, yeah.

[37:25] So put that puzzle piece in the puzzle box.

[37:27] So if you want to build an empire of turds,

[37:30] he's doing a pretty good job, right?

[37:32] Yes, if you want to make a series of stilted, slow,

[37:35] boring movies that should be much more exciting and much

[37:38] faster paced.

[37:39] And shittier than their source material.

[37:40] Yeah.

[37:41] I mean, the source material for this would be what?

[37:43] Like all the works of Edgar Allen Poe?

[37:44] Yeah, probably, right?

[37:45] Yeah, I guess so.

[37:46] It'd be hard to make a movie as good as that.

[37:49] Dan?

[37:49] Go on.

[37:51] Letra numero dos.

[37:54] This letter's titled Sight and Sound Lists plus Emmys.

[37:58] It's from Michael, last name withheld.

[38:00] Hey, Michael.

[38:01] Thanks for writing in.

[38:01] Hey, man.

[38:02] He said, I was wondering what your guy's take was

[38:04] on Vertigo topping Citizen Kane on the Sight and Sound list.

[38:07] Also, as a Flophouse superfan, I'd

[38:09] like to wish you guys luck in the Emmys.

[38:11] Although it seems you won't need much luck.

[38:13] The Daily Show seems to own that category yearly.

[38:15] Well, I want to say thank you for the luck.

[38:18] I'm still working on my Emmy.

[38:20] I haven't got it yet.

[38:21] But you know, I'm fucking due at this point.

[38:23] You will.

[38:24] And this letter obviously predates our Emmy wins.

[38:26] Yeah.

[38:28] I wanted to mention that in part because.

[38:30] It took a long time to ship.

[38:31] Postage was rough, I don't know.

[38:34] I just want to call out to some folks who

[38:36] were saying that they didn't see us on the Emmys,

[38:39] or they thought they saw us on the Emmys.

[38:40] We were not there.

[38:41] We were not at the Primetime Emmys.

[38:43] Our writing category was in the Creative Arts non-televised

[38:47] this year.

[38:48] Well, it was televised on the Reels channel.

[38:50] On the Reels channel that if you get a premium movie package,

[38:56] you might have Reels.

[38:57] It might get bundled in.

[39:00] Our category was not in the Primetime Emmys this year due

[39:02] to a agreement between our union and the producers of the Emmys

[39:07] that we won't get into right now.

[39:08] But regardless, I can say it is a stupid agreement

[39:11] that I don't support.

[39:12] Wow.

[39:13] Wow.

[39:13] Deal with it, specials writers.

[39:17] But thank you for the congratulations.

[39:18] We had a lot of fun.

[39:19] Dan won his first Emmy and got a little bit of press about it.

[39:22] Yeah, it was a daily variety.

[39:23] It was a lot of fun.

[39:25] I'm looking at it right now.

[39:26] Daily variety.

[39:27] Right over there.

[39:28] And I'm trying to think if there's any exciting.

[39:30] We passed by Mindy Kaling on the plane as we walked on with our Emmys.

[39:35] And she tweeted about us.

[39:37] Yeah.

[39:38] Star of the Mindy Project.

[39:40] Among other things, yeah.

[39:41] Well, you're best known for that, though, right?

[39:43] Well, she will be 10 seasons from now.

[39:46] More importantly, though, the sight and sound question.

[39:48] Well, I will point people, if I can take a moment,

[39:51] to the Flophouse Facebook page where there was quite a back and forth

[39:55] discussion of the sight and sound list.

[39:56] About hamburgers and steaks?

[39:58] No, it was not a hamburger and steak.

[40:00] The hamburger or the steak should top the science time list for best piece of meat.

[40:04] We had a long discussion about it that I thought was very helpful for anyone who's interested in it.

[40:11] But I will say, speaking for myself, I have no problem at all with Vertigo topping the list.

[40:15] I love Siz and Kane. I love Vertigo. They're both great.

[40:18] Vertigo is almost as perfect as a movie can get in my opinion.

[40:22] It's just beautiful in almost every way and haunting as well in a way that you would not be able to do the same story quite as well in another medium.

[40:29] I mean they both do different things. I mean I think that Vertigo might have like a little more unity as a film.

[40:37] It has this weird swell of a romantic emotion but Siz and Kane takes advantage of all the components of being a film in a way that was…

[40:50] Well, except for CGI 3D effects.

[40:52] In a way that was obviously very new.

[40:54] Someday. Someday we'll get there.

[40:56] No, I mean yeah. I mean there was Siz and Kane special edition when there's more little robots floating around.

[41:01] No, they're both amazing movies but like there are some movies that if they had become the – like Tokyo Story is a very good movie but if that had been made number one and that's always a sight and sound top ten list favorite, I would have been very surprised and not agree with it.

[41:15] But Vertigo is hard to take issue with. It's just a beautiful movie.

[41:18] I've seen it I don't know how many times now, many double digits and each time, it's just like rapturous.

[41:26] Yeah, what you guys said. I mean you guys all know my stance on movies.

[41:31] Yeah, I know.

[41:32] Castle Freak.

[41:33] Invisible Maniac.

[41:34] Head of the Family.

[41:35] Which one of those is the best?

[41:36] Big Trouble in China.

[41:37] That's for the gods.

[41:39] I would love if Sight and Sound contacted just Stuart to submit his top ten list and that was like just the vote needed to nudge Invisible Maniac into the top ten.

[41:49] Sorry rules of the game. You fell out. Invisible Maniac is in.

[41:54] We finally learned which had the bigger part, the greater part in Stuart's heart though, Castle Freak or the Invisible Maniac.

[42:01] He would just write them all in at number one.

[42:03] This letter is titled Theme Songs from Laurence's Last Name With Hell.

[42:10] Probably a request to sing one Ellie.

[42:12] I would think so.

[42:13] Flophouse time. It's Flophouse time. Don't commit a crime because it's Flophouse time. Wait till it's over then commit that crime.

[42:22] Cut us in for a half of the take. We'll provide an alibi. Flophouse, just say you were listening to the Flophouse.

[42:29] We're recording this.

[42:30] The judge will let you off the charges but again, give us half. Make that 60%.

[42:35] We're literally leaving evidence right now.

[42:37] Flophouse time tonight.

[42:38] You're recording this as evidence.

[42:41] Not evidence.

[42:43] I wasn't even here. I've got an alibi.

[42:45] He writes, Dear Autocraters Floppericanicus, I recently became addicted to your podcast and buzzsawed my way through your back catalog in about a week.

[42:55] However, I have one complaint.

[42:57] Five years of work in one week.

[43:03] Although your podcast itself has a fairly jaunty theme, the individual floppers don't have their own theme songs.

[43:10] Opening up Pandora's box are you, Lawrence?

[43:12] Cue guitar squeal, Dan.

[43:15] Come on.

[43:16] Depriving you of a valuable opportunity for some WWF style showmanship as you triumphantly enter the room, run around the edges of the table working the crowd, then triumphantly take your seats before your microphones.

[43:28] Here are my suggestions.

[43:29] I will mention the crowd you're referring to is Dan's cat who would really like it if we would just shut up and not bother her.

[43:35] She would be confused.

[43:37] She usually runs out of the room before watching a movie that's too loud.

[43:42] But he says, Here are my suggestions and their justifications.

[43:45] Dan, Godzilla's theme.

[43:48] Love it, yes.

[43:49] The best flopper gets the best song.

[43:54] What?

[43:55] Somebody wrote that into the letter, I guess.

[43:58] A testament to his majesty, determination, and immense destructive power.

[44:03] It's true.

[44:04] Elliot.

[44:05] Your breath certainly is radioactive.

[44:07] Elliot.

[44:08] High five.

[44:09] Mommy, can I go out and kill tonight?

[44:11] Love it, love it.

[44:12] Because of his reedy voice and obsessive nature that remind me of a serial killer.

[44:17] Wait a minute.

[44:18] Stuart.

[44:19] Turbo Lover by Judas Priest.

[44:21] Love it.

[44:22] These are all great choices.

[44:23] In honor of Naked Sundays and his reportedly enormous penis.

[44:26] The Flophouse House Cat.

[44:29] Party all night by Quiet Riot.

[44:31] Not a fan.

[44:32] This one is so obvious it doesn't require an explanation.

[44:34] I hope this keeps up the energy levels and creates a closer bond between you and your fans.

[44:37] Yours, Laura's Last Name with Hell.

[44:39] Well, those are all mostly good choices.

[44:41] How come when the idea of a theme song for Dan came to me, I immediately was thinking of like the sound of one of, like a peanuts teacher talking like an adult.

[44:50] I mean, that's not a song, but yeah, that's kind of what it sounds like.

[44:53] I mean, it's musical, though.

[44:54] I mean, the instrumental of Christmas Time is here would not be bad.

[44:57] It would capture my melancholy.

[44:58] Yeah, that, what the, do, do, do.

[45:00] Yeah, sure.

[45:01] That one.

[45:02] I think.

[45:03] But that's not really, you can't run around Dan's living room dancing to that.

[45:07] He would shuffle around looking at the floor moping about.

[45:10] Gesticulating in front of the cat.

[45:12] I think maybe fish heads would work for you, Dan?

[45:14] What about the title theme from Big Trouble in Little China?

[45:18] Big Trouble.

[45:19] Well, that's.

[45:20] We run.

[45:21] I think you're wishing on a star right now.

[45:22] Run into the mystic night.

[45:23] It's pretty good.

[45:24] I gotta say, those are pretty good choices.

[45:27] I think if we, I think the next time.

[45:29] I think if you wanted to choose something for yourselves, rather than, I mean, like,

[45:32] these are all good choices, but I have to open it up.

[45:34] If you wanted to choose something else.

[45:35] I would say some, like, some, like, classy jazz or something for an Easter.

[45:38] No, I would, I would want either Exciter by Judas Priest.

[45:43] Sure.

[45:44] Or.

[45:45] Ace of Spades.

[45:46] Or Ace of Spades by Motorhead, pretty much.

[45:48] Or the, my, the theme song I used to use when I used to do a one-man show in the city a

[45:52] couple times a month was the Quantum Leap theme.

[45:56] And I would act out my emotions during the, during the song.

[45:59] It's pretty good.

[46:01] But, but Ace of Spades would be pretty sweet.

[46:03] I mean, for me, anything, like, just give me some Eddie Van Halen noodling on your guitar.

[46:08] Something I can do some karate kicks to.

[46:10] Sure.

[46:11] Something I can, like, try and tear at my clothing.

[46:14] I mean, Turbo Lover would be pretty good for that.

[46:16] Turbo, yeah, yeah.

[46:17] I mean, it's.

[46:18] Takes a little bit to start up.

[46:19] Tough to mess with success, you know.

[46:20] And Dan, what would you like besides the Peanuts theme?

[46:23] Or the Peanuts Christmas time theme?

[46:24] Or the Big Trouble, Little China?

[46:26] Oh, right, Big Trouble, Little China.

[46:27] I think, I think we've covered it.

[46:28] Do you want to go again?

[46:29] I mean.

[46:30] We can just keep ranting.

[46:31] I think maybe the Ninja Turtles theme.

[46:33] Instead of Turtles, they say Elliot.

[46:35] Yeah, just me, Mr. Belvedere theme, you know.

[46:39] And I think for Dan, the two of us, you and me, Stuart, would do an acapella version of

[46:43] the Saved by the Bell theme.

[46:44] Yeah.

[46:45] Or maybe my two dads.

[46:47] I think when we do a live show, we have to enter to these songs now.

[46:51] I think that's a pretty good idea.

[46:52] Yeah.

[46:53] Speaking of which, we should plug our live show.

[46:54] Yeah, November 2nd, I believe.

[46:56] November 2nd.

[46:57] Friday night, 8 p.m., 92i Tribeca.

[46:59] Friday night in New York City, New York.

[47:02] New York City, New York, Manhattan, 92i Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street.

[47:06] Us, the I Love Bad Movies crew.

[47:08] It's like 8 o'clock, right?

[47:09] We'll be showing you the movie Bratz.

[47:12] You've heard about it.

[47:13] You've seen about it.

[47:14] You've smelled about it.

[47:15] You've loved about it.

[47:17] Bratz, the movie that is the apex of flop house movie ratings.

[47:22] Although Journey to the Center of the Mysterious Magnificent Island is pretty good.

[47:26] But yeah, we'll be showing Bratz with commentary by us, presentation by Matt Ksenia from I

[47:31] Love Bad Movies, Meowvies, and it'll be 8 o'clock, Friday, November 2nd.

[47:39] So don't tell any paparazzos.

[47:42] Yeah.

[47:43] Just you come.

[47:44] Don't bring the paparazzos.

[47:45] The plural of paparazzo is paparazzi.

[47:47] It's paparazzidi.

[47:49] And also, if this is coming up, is this being put up this weekend, this episode?

[47:54] Yes.

[47:55] Then you'll have one more chance to see my sketch show at 92i Tribeca, Thursday, October

[47:59] 18th, with special guest Al Madrigal, 9 p.m.

[48:03] Enemy guest.

[48:06] Letter is titled IMDb Notes for Castle Freak.

[48:10] Matt last name withheld.

[48:11] He says, hey, floppers.

[48:12] Hey, Matt.

[48:13] On IMDb, under the parent's guide page, the only mention of the titular castle freak and

[48:18] his junk is as follows.

[48:20] There's a full funnel male nudity from the castle freak throughout the final third of

[48:24] the movie, although it's all fake and he has no penis.

[48:28] I was unaware that there needed to be a delineation between the nudity being fake and the freak

[48:33] has no penis.

[48:34] But these are the rules the IMDb governs.

[48:36] Why don't you hire a guy with no penis to play the part?

[48:39] Also, under the frightening slash intense scenes tab, there is this other gem.

[48:44] A character is blind and there are several scenes when she's unaware that the castle

[48:48] freak is in the same room as her.

[48:50] Somehow the intensity of the scene isn't given justice by this IMDb description.

[48:55] I mean, that just sounds like horrible.

[48:56] Matt last name withheld.

[48:57] So nothing about ding dong ripping?

[49:00] I think my original comment stands.

[49:04] Well, to that point, I would like to read our last letter of the night.

[49:08] Oh, does the castle freak debate continue?

[49:10] It's from Jordan last name withheld.

[49:13] Stuart Gordon, last name withheld.

[49:16] Stuart Gordon, last name withheld.

[49:19] I know there is no ding dong ripping scene, but I can't believe Stuart guessed my intention.

[49:24] Unfortunately, the scene was cut from the original script due to budget considerations.

[49:28] We could not afford the ding dong prosthetic that would be ripped off in place of his real ding dong.

[49:33] Sometimes I wish my parents had named me after Stuart Gordon, even though there's no way they would have.

[49:38] No.

[49:40] Sometimes I wish my parents had named me ding dong prosthetic.

[49:46] This last letter of the evening is titled Ding Dong Gate.

[49:51] It says, Dear Floppers, I was horrified to hear about Ding Dong Gate while listening to the Passion Play episode of The Flophouse,

[49:58] so I took it upon myself to help redeem Stuart Gordon.

[50:00] to work by delving into my own collection of horrible vhs movies from

[50:03] the eighties

[50:04] and on earth night of the demon

[50:06] i got off a film about bigfoot killing a bunch of hapless idiots in plaid shirts

[50:10] luckily for stewart

[50:12] night of the dvd contains one scene where bigfoot rips off a bike is ding

[50:15] dong

[50:16] as you know you're in a bush

[50:18] so now stuart can recommend night of the demon

[50:20] this is go to do you think that we're going to do it i don't think it's the

[50:23] same thing to rip off his own decision for what i've said

[50:27] i've included a link to the aforementioned scene i'll put that up on the site

[50:31] please do love the show great work warmest regards jordan last name with

[50:34] hell thanks jordan i read that

[50:36] just to uh... dispel a myth that

[50:39] we are specifically

[50:40] seeking out

[50:42] ding dong movie? ding dong ripping

[50:46] because i'm sure there's any number of south korean or japanese movies we could watch

[50:50] i'm pretty sure in street trash there's a scene where ding dong gets ripped off and they play

[50:54] keep away with it and of course there's the immortal scene in snakes on a plane

[50:57] where the snake bites the guy's ding dong

[50:59] and he delivers the best line in cinema history

[51:02] but get off my dick

[51:04] but this myth that we are somehow

[51:05] cataloging ding dong rippings

[51:08] and only giving our highest ratings to fill the ding dong room

[51:12] yeah just me

[51:13] i think i take the blame i think it's stewart is so confident in his own ding

[51:18] dong

[51:18] that he can enjoy a scene of a ding dong being ripped off where many men would find it

[51:22] he has no castration anxiety is what you're saying? nope because stewart has multiple penises

[51:27] my ding dong would bite that snake back if it attacked me

[51:29] even if it was like a cobra or i don't know a manaconda or a cobra commander even

[51:33] a manaconda

[51:35] i thought that was what you called yours no i don't call it that at all

[51:40] so

[51:41] yeah i mean we're not

[51:43] our podcast is not some kind of a like repository for

[51:47] clips

[51:48] of movies where penises get torn off of bodies

[51:51] nor is it a place where you should send your slash fiction featuring us

[51:55] so that's two things this podcast is not but otherwise it's everything we appreciate the

[51:59] former we don't like it necessarily appreciate the latter if you want to write fan fiction

[52:04] about us have us like be doing just cool stuff like stop being a serial killer

[52:08] stop being a serial killer being friends and just hanging out maybe just like skateboarding around

[52:13] solving crimes yeah like protecting a rec center from an evil zombie overlord yeah

[52:17] or there was one time that stewart and dan and i had sex just write a story about that

[52:20] no that's no stop oh is that the type you were talking oh that's right yeah

[52:24] uh oh yeah have a story where we go travel in time and meet our favorite historical figures

[52:27] it cheapens the sex we had

[52:29] it cheapens it to air our dirty laundry that way

[52:32] why no flophouse in space stories why no flophouse in the time of the pharaohs stories

[52:37] what about the flophouse rock band that we have yeah come on what if penny met the

[52:41] flophouse i love all these questions been asked who's going to provide the stories

[52:45] who will tell these stories to our children some kind of an oral tradition i would hope

[52:50] i want to see a flophouse story with an ironic oh henry s ending

[52:55] yeah how about this in honor of this why do your yellow creek bridge did it all along

[53:03] that done it and one more thing alfred bridge you said that the man escaped and made it back to his

[53:11] but uh isn't that the man dangling from you right now

[53:15] case closed columbo solved the case of the owl creek bridge murders ambrose beers take them away

[53:24] he's like the duty officer or something uh so how about how about in honor of this movie if

[53:30] anyone wants to write flophouse fan fiction maybe we're in a macabre edgar allen post

[53:34] isle story i think everyone here would be more comfortable with the story where we died

[53:38] than the story where we had sex with each other and leave all the sexist subtext

[53:43] uh so this is the part of the podcast where we talk about good movies that we've seen

[53:51] the ding dong ripping is done the ding dong ripper a stroke again

[53:56] is that a new character you're working on or yeah yeah he's called jack off the ripper

[54:01] just workshop and it's for my one man show about the neighborhood i grew up in

[54:07] where i play seven different neighborhood characters all different accents it's crazy

[54:12] so cosmopolitan

[54:17] part of the show when we talk about movies that we would like to recommend

[54:22] uh rather than tear down we want to build up steward is there a film that you saw recently

[54:27] that you'd like to uh discuss uh yeah i actually i watched a shitload of movies lately um

[54:34] i saw looper which was great and it's getting a lot of good press so it doesn't need me to

[54:38] stand up for it um looper that's the time the time travel action movie with bruce willis and

[54:43] joseph johnson directed two can't sam goes back in time for looper yeah yeah it's good um but i

[54:49] was going to recommend a movie called the tall man a jessica biel starring horror thriller which

[54:57] you immediately think that sounds terrible well i think it sounds like a phantasm movie

[55:02] and uh yeah that's the thing like everybody knows i'm a fan of tall men in their various forms uh

[55:09] but it's it's a movie it's a it's a horror movie set in the pacific northwest and it is by a

[55:15] director who directed martyrs which is a french uh yeah it's ultra ultra gore movie yeah and um

[55:22] it it's hard to really talk about the movie too much without kind of talking about a relatively

[55:28] important twist to it but he turns out he's short that's the thing you would never have

[55:33] guessed it but uh i think as other reviewers have said this is easily the best performance

[55:39] you're ever going to see uh of jessica biel and not that many people are going to see it but it's

[55:43] uh it's great it's very atmospheric and i recommend it the tall man uh i saw two movies that i

[55:52] enjoyed fairly well recently i watched uh wanderlust which was written by uh ken marino

[55:59] and david wayne and directed by david wayne he loves those guys uh yeah i like them guys

[56:05] started paul rudd and jennifer anderson you got a bunch of deal breaker uh which one all of them

[56:12] you don't like paul rudd no he's fine and jennifer anderson's fine uh and it's got uh

[56:16] i guess the deal wasn't broken it's got a lot of uh you know like supporting actors that you know

[56:21] from comedy you got your uh joe letruglio also the state also ken marino has a small part in it

[56:28] state uh kerry kinney states from the state uh malin ackerman uh watchman alan alan alda is in

[56:36] the state uh key and peel have parts in it can't feel lauren ambrose um the state anyway

[56:46] but uh it's a movie that uh loses its way a little bit in the middle like it once it starts

[56:51] getting it wanders a little well once once it starts getting into plot machinations it gets

[56:58] a little less interesting the first 30 minutes of it i was convinced i was watching you know

[57:04] like a really great comedy that had just somehow slipped through the cracks like the way that

[57:09] wet hot american summer got a bunch of bad reviews when it came out but was amazing

[57:14] and i would say that the first 30 minutes are really good and then the rest of it is just

[57:19] an acceptable comedy but it's a lot of fun it's better than the media reviews would suggest

[57:24] if you like the state people at all i would suggest checking it out uh and i also actually

[57:30] saw dread and i uh was surprised to find that i enjoyed that movie not surprised at all it uh

[57:38] it it felt like a bit of an early john carpenter movie or maybe a walter hill film it it uh it was

[57:46] a just a solid straight ahead uh science fiction action film that the advantage of it was it kept

[57:54] the focus very small it was about uh judge dread and his trainee uh being trapped judy

[58:01] yes being trapped in this one building and having to make their way through the floors of that

[58:07] building uh a la the raid colon redemption yeah i hear that i hear it's a very similar plot line

[58:13] but uh but keeping the focus very small i think made it into a focused science fiction b movie

[58:19] the kind that you don't necessarily see as opposed to the judge dread sylvester sloan movie which is

[58:22] like a sprawling over overblown type of thing yeah a beautiful epic so i enjoyed both it's a

[58:29] chronicle of riddick liked them both you know what i'll continue the theme of recommending two movies

[58:34] but i'll do it quick uh one is if the raven has interested you in me in seeing a an edgar

[58:41] allen poe related movie don't go see the raven instead i would recommend the mask of the red

[58:46] death the roger corman vincent price film i would go out on a limb and say the best of roger

[58:51] corman's movies i'd maybe put it up there i'd maybe tie it with bucket of blood uh in my opinion

[58:57] and the best of the edgar allen poem movies they made together by far there are times when it

[59:01] reaches a sort of poetic beauty and there are also some really ridiculous moments that are stupid

[59:06] that are kind of fun but overall it's really good and embedded in the movie is an adaptation of hot

[59:12] frog the story dan was hoping to see in the raven but didn't so the mask of the red death with

[59:17] vincent price i would very highly recommend and also uh i just saw this past week a classic of

[59:22] world cinema that had passed me by for some reason uh hertzog's aguirre the wrath of god which i

[59:28] realized i'd never actually seen so i watched it and it was really good i liked it a lot and i like

[59:32] the mask of the red death a lot so i'd recommend both of those so guys shocktober halfway done

[59:39] it's too soon oh and and we halfway done it with the raven man i want to see some fucking ghosts

[59:46] or some like backwoods cannibals or something scary stuff come on let's do some scary movie

[59:52] next enough of this highbrow shit you know like the raven enough of this highbrow highbrow garbage

[59:58] like edgar allen post-op

[1:00:00] serial killer let's just stay tuned till next time maybe you'll be totally

[1:00:05] scarified are you holding out hope and I don't know if you're hitting on me but

[1:00:11] yes I'm cool with it so well until next time I've been Dan McCoy and I've been

[1:00:21] Stuart Wellington and I've been Elliot totally scarifying Kaelin but not really

[1:00:29] scarifying just you know friendly pleasant nice to be around don't be

[1:00:32] scared please don't run no no this hideous visit Oh separating me from the

[1:00:38] rest of humanity god damn them all I'll destroy them there's a bit of acting

[1:00:43] still part of your one-man show yeah well it lived on the same block as a mad

[1:00:47] scientist with a disfigured face didn't have an accent oh that was weird no well

[1:00:51] I have to workshop the accent he was also Irish and Australian a little bit of

[1:00:57] Japanese in there good night moonblood good then huh good fright Dan good

[1:01:04] fright

[1:01:09] yeah so you guys are gonna you guys are gonna be there for the midnight show

[1:01:12] with me right don't think so you fucking turds know why we're turds cuz we're not

[1:01:19] gonna go see the Hobbit at midnight with you it's gonna be super fun we're gonna

[1:01:23] get up we're gonna wear our PJs and get more wine I mean we can get wine too

[1:01:30] dude if that's the first thing you do is you take a Gatorade bottle okay if you

[1:01:38] pour that shit out pour it all over the street then you fill that shit you fill

[1:01:42] the bottle the plastic bottle with a bunch of wine Carlo Rossi I probably

[1:01:46] recommend cuz you can get a shitload of it then what's the drinking game when do

[1:01:49] you drink whenever you see what a hobbit no you just drink it cuz it's

[1:01:53] good and you're watching an awesome movie called The Hobbit

The Flop House: Episode #112 - The Raven

Transcript

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