The Flop House: Episode #110 - Battleship

Dan McCoy

[0:00] In this episode, we discuss the based-on-a-board-game movie that ruined Clue's good name, Battleship.

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

[0:35] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:36] And hey to the third, I'm Elliot Kalin, the third.

[0:40] How you guys doing?

[0:40] Actually the second.

[0:41] Good, I missed you guys. You guys were on the trail.

[0:43] Yeah, we were away for a couple weeks.

[0:45] I don't want to reveal too much, but we're out of town.

[0:47] Reveal too much.

[0:48] We work for a television show that was very publicly at the political conventions.

Elliott Kalan

[0:51] That's true.

[0:52] But yeah, so I didn't get a lot of Dan and Elliot time, huh?

[0:56] Yeah, sorry about this. And we missed our Stuart time.

[0:58] We did hang out together while watching Seth Rogen movies.

[1:01] We figured that was the closest we could get.

Dan McCoy

[1:02] Yeah, I mean, it's basically the same thing.

[1:05] We put your face on a trash can.

[1:09] We put a tape recorder inside of it.

[1:12] That went, hurrah!

Stuart Wellington

[1:13] That's the right reverb.

[1:16] Sounds a lot like me.

Dan McCoy

[1:17] Yeah, but now we're all back together.

[1:19] Yep.

[1:19] For one brief shining moment.

[1:21] Before we're torn ascent.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23] I mean, it's not that brief. The movie we were watching was pretty long.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27] Yeah, that was one of the longer movies we watched for this thing, if not the longest.

Dan McCoy

[1:30] Yeah, well, let's set this up.

[1:31] This is the Flophouse, a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we chat about it afterwards.

[1:36] And tonight we watched a movie that was a trim two hours and 11 minutes long.

[1:42] Oof, yeah.

[1:42] A short 131 minutes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44] They couldn't cut a single minute from this movie.

[1:46] No, it was lean.

[1:47] It cut to the bone.

Dan McCoy

[1:48] No fat on this thing.

[1:49] Magnum Opus, and I do mean Magnum Battleship.

[1:54] Why Magnum?

[1:55] I don't know.

[1:55] Was that a pun?

[1:56] Magnum means large in the sense that a Magnum condom is a large gentleman.

Elliott Kalan

[2:02] I thought Magnum condom was like regular size.

[2:05] Like Magnum P.I.

[2:06] You know, guys like me.

[2:08] A giant private investigator.

[2:09] A giant PI, yeah.

[2:10] And Magnum Force, the Dirty Harry movie, is about an enormous cop.

[2:14] Yeah.

[2:16] I thought it was just a big force.

[2:17] An army of 10,000 cops.

[2:19] A big force.

[2:20] Yeah, there's just a lot of the guys.

Dan McCoy

[2:21] It's about the strong cosmic force, yeah.

[2:24] But this movie, Battleship.

[2:26] Battleship.

[2:27] Was about battleships, right?

[2:28] Not really.

Stuart Wellington

[2:29] It was about the sales of the Hasbro game, the same name, right?

Elliott Kalan

[2:32] This movie, Battleship, was about how far can a studio go to license a pre-existing property

[2:38] and try to craft a story around it.

[2:40] That is also, as much as possible, the story of the movie Transformers.

[2:44] Should we talk about it?

[2:46] I mean...

Dan McCoy

[2:46] It's probably what we usually do.

[2:48] Should we talk about something else?

[2:50] We could.

[2:51] We would probably be using our time much more wisely if we didn't talk about Battleship.

[2:56] Well, we already wasted over two hours watching it.

[2:58] Yeah, I mean, I miss you guys.

[2:59] Maybe we could just talk about what you meant to.

Elliott Kalan

[3:01] Should we go through the plot briefly of Battleship?

[3:04] Please, let's do that.

[3:05] Well, let's just go over what the opening scenes of Battleship are like.

[3:09] Elliot, for once, wrote the story.

[3:10] I started writing them down because I was like...

[3:11] On the back of a receipt.

[3:12] I was like, I'm going to want to remember these.

[3:14] And then a couple scenes in, I was like, well, I don't want to remember any of this.

[3:17] Okay, we start off with a bunch of scientists telling a bunch of reporters and other scientists

[3:22] that they're going to beam a message into space to look for aliens.

[3:26] Seems like a pretty, you know, concept we're all familiar with.

[3:30] Yeah.

[3:30] But they go on about it for a while.

[3:32] This movie treats you as if you don't know anything about space.

[3:35] You've never seen a movie about aliens.

[3:36] What's an alien?

[3:37] Exactly.

[3:38] They're like, there are planets like Earth that...

[3:39] So it's guys halving for our jobs, right?

[3:42] No, you're thinking of immigrants.

[3:45] Build the fence, everyone.

Elliott Kalan

[3:45] Oh, okay.

[3:45] Build the space fence.

[3:47] Let's finish the dang space fence to keep the aliens out from stealing our killing people

[3:51] and taking over the world jobs.

[3:53] So they explain for a while that a message is going to be beamed into space, and then they

[3:57] do just that.

[3:57] Cut to Taylor Kitsch, star of the show Friday Night Dreyfus, the show about Richard Dreyfus,

[4:04] is with his brother, who it turns out later is named Stone.

Stuart Wellington

[4:07] Yeah, we found that out in...

[4:09] Wait.

Dan McCoy

[4:10] During the credits.

[4:10] During the credits, yeah.

[4:11] Oh, no, it was the last scene.

[4:12] Spoiler alert.

[4:13] So Taylor Kitsch's last name is Hopper, by the way.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] So his brother's name is Stone Hopper.

[4:17] Stone Hopper, which is not a name.

[4:19] And Stone Hopper is talking to his brother about how his brother something Hopper, Sam

[4:24] Hopper, Alex Hopper, Dennis Hopper.

[4:25] The main character of the movie.

[4:27] We don't know his fucking name.

[4:28] Everyone calls him Hopper, including his girlfriend.

[4:30] But they're at a bar.

[4:31] Hopper's just turned 20-something, and he is a total, you know, loser.

[4:36] A screw-up.

Dan McCoy

[4:37] He is a total goofball.

[4:38] He's got nothing going for him.

[4:39] I mean, I wouldn't say he's a goofball.

[4:40] He's pretty serious.

[4:41] In a slobs versus snobs comedy, he would be cast as one of the slobs.

[4:45] Oh, certainly.

Elliott Kalan

[4:46] Like a young Rodney Dangerfield.

Dan McCoy

[4:48] Not exactly.

[4:49] Sure.

[4:50] Well, I mean, he does not get no respect.

Elliott Kalan

[4:52] He's more like the same age Andrew W.K. with his long hair and his partying hard.

[4:57] Okay.

[4:57] So a pretty girl walks up to the bar, and she wants to order a chicken burrito, since apparently

[5:03] this is one of those bars that has that.

[5:04] The bartender refuses to serve it to her.

[5:07] Of course.

Dan McCoy

[5:07] She's wasted.

[5:09] The bartender says, the kitchen is closed, and he closed the microwave door.

[5:13] Which is a funny joke.

[5:14] Yeah, it's a funny joke.

[5:15] But then, like, that doesn't mean that the woman then afterwards is like, oh, that's what

[5:19] the chicken burrito is?

[5:20] No, thank you.

[5:21] That seems to redouble her thirst for a chicken burrito.

[5:24] Hey, look.

Dan McCoy

[5:24] She's a cool gal.

Elliott Kalan

[5:25] She likes crapsie.

[5:26] She saw that microwave.

[5:27] It was immaculate.

[5:28] Yeah.

[5:28] It was spotless.

[5:29] Almost as if they had just bought it for a film shoot, and it had never been used.

[5:33] So he says, Taylor Kitt is trying to hit on her, and he says, if you give me five minutes,

[5:37] I'll get you that chicken burrito.

[5:39] And she says, okay, you've got five minutes.

[5:40] Because that's impossible.

Stuart Wellington

[5:41] Five minutes to make a chicken burrito.

Elliott Kalan

[5:43] He doesn't have the supplies.

[5:45] He doesn't have the skills.

[5:47] He's got to go to cooking school in five minutes, then grow the chicken.

[5:51] Sure.

[5:51] He doesn't know how it works.

[5:52] He's planting eggs in the ground.

[5:54] Planting eggs in the ground to grow chicken trees.

[5:57] He doesn't know what he's doing.

[5:58] He runs across the street to a convenience store, which is closing.

[6:01] Uh-oh, they won't let him in.

[6:02] So the next scene, literally to the Pink Panther theme, is him breaking into the convenience store.

Dan McCoy

[6:07] Not a sound-alike to the Pink Panther theme.

[6:09] They bought the Pink Panther theme.

Elliott Kalan

[6:10] Henry Mancini's Pink Panther theme.

[6:13] And he breaks into a convenience store, falls through the ceiling, gets his chicken burrito,

[6:17] falls through the ceiling again.

[6:19] He pays for that burrito.

[6:19] He leaves some money on the counter.

[6:21] The cops are waiting for him outside, and he runs past the cops, is tased as he hands the burrito to the girl.

[6:27] Okay.

[6:28] This is a movie about space battleships.

[6:30] We don't know that yet.

[6:31] All we know is space exists, and this guy went to great lengths to get a burrito.

[6:35] This is still the fun portion of the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[6:36] Yeah, maybe we were taken to the movie with a blindfold on, not told what movie we were watching.

[6:41] We would think it was called Burrito Ship.

[6:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:44] Burrito Thief.

[6:46] Burrito Thief.

[6:47] The movie.

[6:48] Based on the Hasbro board game, Burrito Thief.

[6:53] Archibald Burritoton III has his burrito safe wide open, but you're up against three other burrito thieves who want to steal that burrito.

Dan McCoy

[7:00] I believe that Colonel Mustard thiebed that burrito in the convenience store with his hands.

[7:06] Wait.

[7:07] You can get a mustard burrito?

[7:09] Only a Colonel Mustard burrito.

[7:11] It's got to have corn kernels in it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:13] Okay.

[7:13] I mean, that sounds pretty good.

[7:14] That's a lot of starch, though.

[7:15] And the next day, his brother says, Taylor Kitsch wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, which leads me to believe his brother stole his kidney.

[7:24] Yes.

[7:24] And his brother, Stonehopper, says, that's it.

[7:27] You're a screw-up.

[7:28] You're joining me in the Navy.

[7:29] And he goes, huh?

[7:31] Cut to the ocean.

[7:32] Battleship title.

[7:34] And suddenly, it's the Japan versus U.S. Navy soccer game.

[7:38] Taylor Kitsch is cleaned up.

[7:39] He's either the captain of the team or something.

[7:42] And one of the Japanese players kicks him in the face by accident.

[7:45] They get into a fight, and he misses a very easy penalty shot.

[7:49] And you're like, all right, this movie's kind of funny.

Stuart Wellington

[7:52] Proving that he can't handle the pressure of performing in front of a crowd of Japanese people.

[7:56] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[7:56] I mean, none of us can't accept geishas, and they've been trained for that.

[7:59] Yeah.

[8:01] So, by this point, you think this is a movie about a screw-up who's joined the Navy, and they're going to teach him how to be a man.

[8:07] This could be a very fun movie.

[8:09] Yeah.

[8:09] So, you're like, okay, you know what?

[8:11] This movie sounded stupid.

[8:12] It's based on a board game.

[8:13] I don't expect much, but I'm being entertained.

[8:15] Let's go.

[8:16] All right, movie, show me what you've got next.

[8:18] And what you've got next is two hours of the most boring movie maybe ever.

[8:25] And it is, this is like, you know, an Andy Warhol movie level of boring.

Stuart Wellington

[8:31] There's a brief moment later on that gets exciting when they introduce a bunch of geezers.

[8:37] That's true.

Dan McCoy

[8:37] Okay.

[8:37] Until that point, though.

[8:39] What are you talking about, Elliot?

[8:40] There's a bunch of explosions in that movie.

[8:42] Oh, but they're so boring.

[8:43] Explosions are always exciting.

[8:44] No, they're not, apparently.

[8:45] Explosions.

[8:46] Sound effects.

[8:47] Robot effects.

[8:48] I'll give you one thing.

[8:48] Sound robot effects.

[8:49] So, aliens look like the Halo guys.

Elliott Kalan

[8:51] To make a long story short, aliens got our message.

[8:54] They come back.

[8:55] Everybody repeats over and over again the most basic facts about alien invasions as if you've

[9:00] never seen a movie about alien invasions.

Stuart Wellington

[9:02] Then-

[9:02] Like, Peter Berg, the director, is obsessed with the idea like, oh, I've seen a million alien

[9:07] invasion movies.

[9:08] I'm going to do it right this time.

[9:10] So, no one will ever have to go back and watch those movies that they probably already

[9:14] watched.

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] Basically, yeah.

[9:16] So, there's a lot of like, there are five shapes coming towards us.

[9:20] I've been working on that impression for a while.

[9:22] Yeah.

[9:22] I've been working on that.

[9:23] Peter Berg impression.

[9:23] There are five shapes coming towards us.

[9:26] They're in formation.

[9:27] Oh, my God.

[9:28] It looks like they're being piloted.

[9:30] They're sending back a message.

[9:32] Where from?

[9:33] What are these things?

[9:34] Uh-oh.

[9:34] Now they're, it's like, they're alien spaceships.

[9:36] They're probably sending that message back to space where you sent the message to the

[9:40] first place to the audience.

[9:40] You sent out a message to attract aliens.

[9:42] Now, aliens are here and you're like, what's going on?

[9:44] I don't understand.

[9:46] So, aliens land.

[9:47] One of the ships hits a satellite and crashes and destroys Hong Kong.

[9:51] The other ships just start shooting away at Navy boats.

[9:55] Sure, why not?

[9:56] We're in the middle of a US-Japan joint naval exercise.

[10:00] The aliens land.

[10:01] They seal off a force field around some of the battleships and hang around for a while.

Dan McCoy

[10:06] They put this force field dome over it and it seems like they've got no interest in going

[10:10] anywhere.

[10:11] Like, they just came down, just hang out in the water, shoot anything that's under this

[10:16] dome, this impregnable dome they've got.

Elliott Kalan

[10:18] Except they somehow get past the force field.

[10:22] The force field seems to change size between small enough to cover three spaceships and a couple

[10:27] of battleships and big enough, or a couple of, I don't know what they are, maybe they're

[10:31] not battleships, maybe they're destroyers.

[10:32] And big enough to cover the island of Oahu.

[10:35] Because that's where this relay station is that's shooting messages into space.

[10:39] And they have these spinning chain wheels that can just kind of roll through anything and

[10:43] cause lots of destruction.

[10:45] Yeah.

[10:45] But the Navy can't seem to figure out how to get in to stop them, even though, I don't

[10:49] know, they must have other ships in the air.

[10:51] Like, the geography of the whole thing is really crazy.

Dan McCoy

[10:53] They've got these chain wheels that are like, if you took Ghost Rider, the Tasmanian Devil,

[11:00] and like a robot and mixed them all up together.

[11:02] And a little bit of Pac-Man.

[11:02] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:03] Wait, the Tasmanian Devil isn't a robot in this world.

[11:06] He's an actual Tasmanian Devil.

Elliott Kalan

[11:08] I mean, he's not a robot in the cartoons either.

Stuart Wellington

[11:10] He's not a robot.

[11:11] No.

[11:12] But how does he do that thing where he spins around and shoots laser beams at people?

Elliott Kalan

[11:15] No laser beams.

[11:16] No lasers.

[11:17] He just spins around.

[11:18] You're thinking of the wheel from this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[11:20] Am I thinking of Gizmoduck?

Elliott Kalan

[11:22] I think you are thinking of Gizmoduck when he presses all the buttons at once and goes battle

[11:27] crazy.

[11:28] The ancient...

[11:29] It's his blood prince.

[11:31] He's a berserker.

[11:32] That's what people don't know about Gizmoduck, is he's from a long line of Scandinavian berserkers.

[11:36] He's the best at what he does.

[11:36] He wears the bear shirt.

[11:37] And what he does isn't very nice.

[11:39] Underneath his armor, he's wearing the bear shirt.

[11:40] Yeah.

[11:41] He becomes more animal than man on the battlefield.

[11:45] More duck than robot.

[11:47] No, he's already a duck.

[11:49] What?

[11:49] They're all ducks.

[11:51] Okay.

[11:51] More robot than duck.

Stuart Wellington

[11:52] He dons a...

[11:54] Like a duck animal spirit?

[11:55] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[11:56] But he's already a duck.

[11:58] I guess it's their ancient ancestor.

[12:00] The spirit of a cave duck gets into him.

[12:02] Much like that one Ghostbusters episode where they call back...

[12:06] You're talking about the real Ghostbusters.

[12:07] The real Ghostbusters, yes.

[12:09] Where they call back Winston's ancient African ancestor to defeat a spell or something.

[12:13] Wait, what?

[12:14] You don't remember that one?

Stuart Wellington

[12:15] Wow.

[12:16] Was that with the boogeyman?

[12:17] There's a part...

[12:18] They're going...

Elliott Kalan

[12:18] No, it's not.

[12:19] I think I want...

[12:20] Did that co-star LeVar Burton?

[12:21] No, it didn't.

[12:22] All right.

[12:22] But it does...

[12:23] It's interesting because they're going past...

[12:25] They're going through his past and he turns into a sharecropper very briefly and eventually

[12:29] turns into an African tribesman and it's like, huh, they really crammed a lot of the African

[12:33] American experience into this couple seconds of the real Ghostbusters.

[12:37] I want to say it's the episode where they're in the Museum of Natural History and the skeletons

[12:40] come to life, but I don't know that it is.

Dan McCoy

[12:43] Well, okay.

[12:44] The world may never know.

Elliott Kalan

[12:45] But J. Michael Straczynski probably wrote that episode.

[12:47] But anyway...

[12:48] So anyway, the aliens want to send a message back to their planet that's probably along

[12:53] the lines of like, let's blow this place up.

[12:55] Because we're bad for some reason.

[12:57] We're bad for some reason and we...

[12:58] Send more cops, etc.

[12:59] And we periodically attack things and sometimes don't.

[13:03] They attack...

[13:05] They get...

[13:06] I don't even remember why they get into a battle with the ships, but during it they kill

[13:10] Stonehopper.

Stuart Wellington

[13:10] There's a couple ships in the fucking bubble and they blow up two of them.

[13:14] And then just forget about the third one.

Elliott Kalan

[13:16] Yeah, and Stonehopper is killed and so his brother, our star Taylor Kitsch, who apparently

[13:22] is the next most senior officer on board, becomes captain of the ship.

[13:25] Even though he's a screw-up.

[13:26] Everyone knows he's a hothead screw-up.

[13:28] He's a total goofball.

[13:30] And not very good at soccer.

[13:31] And not very good at soccer.

[13:32] And also the Japanese captain is on the ship with him and they do not get along.

[13:36] Because of soccer.

Stuart Wellington

[13:38] And he also is dating the daughter of the Admiral, right?

Elliott Kalan

[13:41] Played by Liam Neeson who has basically a cameo.

[13:44] If you cut together all of Liam Neeson's scenes, I'd be surprised if it was more than six

[13:49] minutes.

Dan McCoy

[13:49] Yeah, if you saw the trailer to Battleship, you'd think, oh, this is a Liam Neeson vehicle.

[13:53] Yeah.

[13:53] This is like Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson.

[13:55] The Neeson Mobile.

[13:56] He's going to be the young hothead.

[13:57] It's for a tall man.

[13:58] That would be a Liam Neeson.

[13:59] Not the tall man.

[14:00] That would be a father figure.

Elliott Kalan

[14:01] If I can describe my Liam Neeson vehicle, the Neeson Mobile.

[14:04] Okay.

[14:04] Sorry.

[14:05] Okay.

[14:05] It's like the truck in Maximum Overdrive.

[14:07] Instead of the Green Goblin's face, it's Liam Neeson's face.

[14:10] Okay.

[14:10] It also shoots out blades.

[14:12] Like young?

Dan McCoy

[14:12] Or with a beard?

Elliott Kalan

[14:14] Currently, like the gray Liam Neeson.

[14:15] Beard, kind of haggard.

[14:16] A little bit of blood.

[14:17] And it shoots out tiny little cocktail bottles from airplanes, like in the gray.

[14:21] Okay.

[14:22] And it fights wolves, like in the gray.

[14:24] I mean cars fight wolves anyway.

[14:26] He bought it when he made the gray.

Dan McCoy

[14:28] Yeah.

[14:28] It used to be based around the gray, mainly.

Elliott Kalan

[14:30] But there's also the other Neeson stuff in, like you can change the face in the front,

[14:33] like in Dark Man.

[14:34] Okay.

[14:35] And also it saves Jews, like in Schindler's List.

[14:37] Sure.

[14:37] The Neeson Mobile.

[14:39] All right.

[14:39] From Nissan.

[14:41] The Nissan Neeson Mobile.

[14:42] It's a Liam Neeson vehicle.

[14:44] But you would have thought that this was a Liam Neeson joint.

[14:47] They advertise this as starring Liam Neeson and Rihanna.

[14:51] Yeah.

[14:51] And Rihanna has a fairly sizable role.

[14:53] I don't even remember if they put...

[14:55] She has a lot of attitude.

[14:57] She's got a lot of sass.

[14:58] She's a sass mobile.

Stuart Wellington

[14:59] And there's a lot of shots of her reacting to things with water on her face.

[15:03] That's because they're all getting wet, because they're in the ocean.

[15:05] Oh, that makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[15:06] So anyway, this...

[15:07] But really, the Japanese guy is the second lead in this film.

[15:11] He's the hero of the movie, basically.

[15:12] Yeah.

[15:12] I mean, he's the competent one.

Elliott Kalan

[15:13] So basically, this ragtag...

[15:15] So it's like Big Trouble in Little China.

[15:17] Exactly.

[15:18] There's two ragtag crews.

[15:19] It's Big Trouble in Little Hawaii.

[15:22] I mean, yeah, I guess it's not on the Bing Island, so it is Little Hawaii.

[15:25] There's two ragtag crews that have to save the world.

[15:28] One is Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, some other guy from Friday Night Lights that I didn't recognize.

[15:32] Jesse Plemons.

[15:33] Yeah, Landry.

[15:34] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[15:35] And Captain Nagata, who's a Japanese guy.

[15:37] And the other ragtag crew is Brooklyn Decker playing...

[15:42] Is that who that was?

[15:43] Yeah.

[15:43] Some kind of a busty blonde.

[15:44] Busty blonde playing Taylor Kitsch's girlfriend, who's also the daughter of Liam Neeson.

[15:49] A double amputee army veteran, played by a real double amputee army veteran.

[15:53] So show some fucking respect, guys, please.

[15:55] Okay.

[15:55] And a very irritating, like, overly neurotic...

[15:59] Nerd.

[16:00] Nerd.

[16:00] Computer scientist.

[16:01] Space nerd.

[16:02] Jeff Goldblum type.

[16:03] Except, like, Jeff Goldblum...

[16:05] But without the sexiness.

[16:06] Jeff Goldblum to the power of Jay Baruchel.

[16:08] Okay.

[16:09] Right.

[16:10] And they have to stop the aliens from sending out a message.

[16:13] These two ragtag crews each have their thing.

[16:15] Now, the aliens blow stuff up by shooting bombs that look like giant pegs, and then stick

[16:21] into the ships and blow them up.

[16:23] That's one of the two battleships...

[16:23] Wait a minute.

Elliott Kalan

[16:23] That reminds me of something...

Dan McCoy

[16:25] Oh, oh.

[16:25] Like a game that I once played.

[16:27] What was the name of that game?

[16:28] Snakes and Ladders.

Elliott Kalan

[16:29] No, it wasn't Snakes and Ladders.

[16:30] Try again.

[16:31] It wasn't Mousetrap either, because that game sucked.

[16:33] It wasn't Mousetrap.

[16:34] It was a different sucky game.

[16:35] Cribbage.

[16:36] That has pegs.

[16:36] No, not Cribbage.

[16:38] And not...

Stuart Wellington

[16:39] What's that peg game you do in Cracker Barrel?

Dan McCoy

[16:42] Oh, like the jump thing with the jump pegs.

[16:44] No, and it wasn't Mastermind.

Elliott Kalan

[16:46] That's another game with pegs.

[16:47] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[16:48] It wasn't Life where you put the pegs in your car.

[16:50] Was it the Married with Children board game with Peg Bundy?

Stuart Wellington

[16:53] No, it wasn't.

[16:55] Is that like a trivia game?

[16:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:56] I have to assume so.

[16:59] You get a little extra bonus whenever you're in the toilet flush.

[17:01] What does No Man stand for?

[17:03] Go.

[17:03] No Man.

[17:04] Yeah, you know.

[17:05] No Man is an organization.

[17:06] So you already lost...

Elliott Kalan

[17:06] He turned into a church that one time, so he didn't have to pay taxes on it.

[17:09] No, I lose.

[17:11] What does it stand for, Stuart?

[17:12] I don't remember.

[17:13] You have defeated the Quizmaster.

[17:15] It was a bluff.

[17:17] The rare double bluff.

[17:18] Answer me these questions three about Married with Children.

[17:21] Warning, I don't know the answers.

[17:23] That's why I'm asking you.

Stuart Wellington

[17:25] I'm trying to fill out this questionnaire.

Elliott Kalan

[17:27] This Married with Children questionnaire.

[17:31] So anyway, the other thing that's like Battleship is that eventually, after a ton of boring explosions

[17:36] and a lot of yelling, we're revealed what the aliens look like, which is they look like

Dan McCoy

[17:41] just dudes.

[17:42] They look like humans with weird sea anemones on their beards.

[17:45] Yeah, space beards.

Elliott Kalan

[17:45] They look space beards that basically look like a bunch of toothpicks that are stuck on their

[17:48] chin.

[17:49] Yeah.

[17:49] They have four fingers on their hands and they have eyes like a lizard.

[17:52] And one of the guys on the ship notices he has a pet lizard and that pet lizard doesn't

[17:57] like sunlight very much.

[17:58] So I guess aliens don't like sunlight either.

[18:00] Yeah.

[18:00] So that's a weakness they learn.

[18:02] It's great logic.

[18:03] But they basically just dress up like armor like the guys in the Halo video game.

[18:07] It's the least imaginative alien design you could think of.

[18:11] And I'm sure they spent hours designing it.

[18:13] Much like the aliens in Cowboys and Aliens, which they spent hours designing, but looked incredibly

[18:17] boring.

[18:19] A lot of boring explosions.

[18:21] So the other thing that's like the game Battleship, and this is where Captain Nagata really

[18:25] shines, is instead of using their radar, because the alien ships don't show up on radar because

[18:29] of their bullshit technology that is really great until the ships need to lose at the

[18:33] end.

[18:33] And it stops being powerful.

[18:35] Yeah.

[18:35] They use the frequency of different, like what, electro radio buoys in the water.

[18:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[18:42] And they see where.

Dan McCoy

[18:43] They're like anti-tsunami like weather buoys.

[18:46] Is that what they are?

[18:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:47] And they look at where there are blank shapes where the ships are distorting the electromagnetic

[18:52] field.

[18:53] And then.

[18:54] And they go A-12.

[18:55] Basically, they're like Romeo, 29.

[18:58] And then they fire a torpedo.

[19:00] And if it hits, they go hit.

[19:02] And if it doesn't, they go miss.

[19:03] And this goes on for probably like seven minutes, but it feels like it's an hour.

Stuart Wellington

[19:07] There's a lot of people, shots of people looking at screens.

[19:10] A lot of.

Elliott Kalan

[19:10] Yeah.

[19:11] And Rihanna looking at screens, especially.

[19:13] But like if there was ever a game.

Dan McCoy

[19:15] Man, I could watch Rihanna look at a phone book.

[19:17] Am I right, guys?

[19:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:19] Really?

[19:19] It sounds boring.

[19:20] I got to tell you, Battleship is a boring game.

[19:23] Like yellow pages?

Dan McCoy

[19:24] White pages, blue pages, any pages, man.

Elliott Kalan

[19:27] That's all the pages.

[19:29] Battleship is a boring game to play, but it is an especially boring game to watch someone

[19:33] play.

[19:34] Oh, wow.

[19:34] Gloves come off.

[19:35] Gloves come off.

[19:35] I've never liked Battleship.

[19:36] It's a boring game.

[19:37] Fuck you, Battleship.

[19:38] Fuck you, Hasbro.

[19:39] The game is basically, guess some numbers.

[19:43] The only way to make the game interesting is if you cheat by moving your ships between

[19:47] turns or having the ships, they hang off the board a little bit.

[19:50] So there's part of them that's not within the field of play.

[19:52] Only way to make it interesting.

[19:54] So watching these people basically play Battleship is super boring.

[19:57] But they blow up a bunch of the alien spaceships because we've reached that.

[20:00] This is about an hour and 40 minutes into the movie where it's like, okay, the humans

[20:05] need to start winning.

[20:06] So the aliens need to stop being invincible and start being total pushovers.

Dan McCoy

[20:10] For some reason, we can blow them up now.

Elliott Kalan

[20:12] Yeah.

[20:12] To the point that these aliens that have crazy, like, rotating metal blades on their hands

[20:18] can be beaten up by a man with no legs.

[20:21] Yeah.

[20:22] That's something that happens.

Dan McCoy

[20:24] A double amputee gets into a fist fight with an alien in their hands.

[20:27] Knocks his teeth out.

Stuart Wellington

[20:28] Yeah, he slow motion knocks his teeth out.

[20:29] Bullets.

[20:30] They have the same teeth as us.

Elliott Kalan

[20:31] Bullets, which so far they do have the same teeth as us.

[20:34] That's convergent evolution.

[20:35] We're not so different, you and I.

[20:36] Clearly, if we could have bonded over our teeth.

[20:38] And beards.

[20:40] Yeah.

[20:40] Well, our beards are different, though.

[20:42] They have toothpick beards.

[20:43] We have hair beards.

[20:43] Oh, that makes sense.

[20:44] Yeah, you're right.

[20:46] Bullets, which didn't seem to affect the alien ships before, now do a ton of damage to

[20:50] them.

[20:50] Oh, man, yeah.

[20:51] But I skipped over.

[20:52] And then their ship gets blown up, right?

[20:54] They give away their position.

[20:55] Their ship gets blown up.

[20:56] They've got to get...

[20:57] After they, like, smoke three alien ships, they've got to get...

[20:59] Three alien ships.

[21:00] Yeah.

[21:01] They've got to find a new ship.

[21:03] Where do they find this ship?

[21:04] Well, in the beginning, we saw Liam Neeson commemorate a former World War II or Korean War era

[21:10] battleship as a floating museum.

[21:13] It's time to go to the USS Missouri.

[21:15] So they go there.

[21:16] But they don't know how to...

[21:17] This ship is 60, 70 years old.

[21:20] They don't know how to use it.

[21:21] There's no computers on it.

[21:22] How are they going to learn to shoot this ship?

Stuart Wellington

[21:25] Step one.

[21:26] Turn on some ACDC.

[21:28] Step one.

[21:29] Turn on Thunderstruck by ACDC.

[21:31] There's already probably some old fucking veterans hanging around.

[21:34] Because what else are they going to do?

[21:34] Well, you're in luck.

[21:36] There are so many old veterans on this ship.

Elliott Kalan

[21:38] There are about...

[21:38] It's like they're haunting.

[21:40] There's suddenly...

[21:41] He looks up and suddenly there's just, like, old veterans hanging around the ship like the

[21:45] birds on the playground in the birds.

[21:47] It's like, are they ghosts?

[21:49] What happened?

[21:49] And then a big crew of veterans walks up.

[21:52] I must have missed the part where they sent out an APB all alert to call in Navy veterans

[21:57] because they're just suddenly there.

[21:58] We heard there's some aliens who need their asses kicked.

Stuart Wellington

[22:01] It's like somebody pulled off the tinfoil from a buffet and all these guys come wandering

[22:08] up.

Elliott Kalan

[22:09] They heard that Denny's was starting 30 minutes early for the early bird.

[22:14] Or I missed the line at the beginning where they're like, now this battleship, instead

[22:18] of fighting for war, will be a museum of peace.

[22:20] And also housing for all these homeless Navy veterans because they're just there hanging

[22:25] around.

Stuart Wellington

[22:26] Now, luckily, despite the fact that they brought some, I guess, like toys or like video...

[22:32] What the fuck did they bring?

[22:33] Like a crane where you can grab out...

[22:35] Well, there's like carnival games on the ship.

[22:37] Yeah, carnival games.

[22:38] Because they've turned into a museum.

[22:39] They did not in any way remove all of the exploding munitions.

[22:42] No.

Elliott Kalan

[22:42] They left all that shit.

[22:43] This was now a public place to go to, but it's still full of active shells.

[22:46] Live ammunition.

[22:47] Live ammo.

Stuart Wellington

[22:48] I mean, what are you going to do with it?

[22:49] You can't just toss it in the water anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[22:51] No, of course.

[22:51] That's against the law.

[22:52] Sharks get pissed.

[22:53] Can't shoot it into space because the aliens will find it.

[22:56] They'll use it against you.

[22:57] Yeah.

[22:57] You can't eat it.

[22:58] It's not edible.

Dan McCoy

[22:59] You can't give it away as gifts.

[23:01] It's dangerous.

[23:02] Leave it be.

[23:03] Just leave it on the boat.

Elliott Kalan

[23:04] Leave it there for anyone to hit it with a hammer.

[23:06] Leave it for the old specters to play with.

[23:09] And so they refit this ship in about 30 seconds.

Stuart Wellington

[23:14] So you like grizzly faces.

[23:16] You like mustaches.

[23:18] This is the movie for you guys.

Elliott Kalan

[23:19] And this was the one moment after the soccer game and the giant metal wheel that just burst

[23:25] through things that this suddenly was like, all right, this is a goofy movie again.

[23:29] Here's some fun.

[23:30] It's just like a lot of old guys.

[23:32] It's basically like Navy Cowboys, you know?

[23:35] Old people who have to come out of retirement to save the world.

[23:39] To fight aliens.

[23:40] And like, have there been any old people versus aliens movies?

[23:43] There have to have been, right?

[23:44] There's old people and aliens are friends.

[23:47] It's cocoon.

[23:47] I mean, yeah.

[23:48] And Bubba Hotep is old people versus a mummy.

[23:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:52] I mean, mummies could be from outer space, though.

[23:55] I don't care for that Stargate.

[23:57] Yeah, that's the thing, dude.

[23:58] He's probably a guauld.

Elliott Kalan

[24:00] It's true.

[24:00] He's probably, yeah, that.

[24:03] So anyway.

[24:03] It's a guauld.

[24:04] That's what they're called.

[24:05] What?

[24:05] Space mummies?

[24:06] Yeah.

[24:07] Space mummies.

[24:08] Space mummies.

[24:10] Let's see.

[24:10] If the movie was Mars Needs Mummies, I think we would have been eager to help them.

[24:15] Mars Needs Moms, we need those moms.

[24:16] Mars Needs Mummies, we just got these dusty mummies lying around.

[24:19] You need to steal your breath.

[24:21] Do whatever you want.

[24:21] Grind them up to make aphrodisiac or something.

[24:23] I don't know, Mars.

[24:24] Do what you want with mummies.

[24:25] There's only so many mummy dicks.

[24:26] Look, we don't need them opening their mouths and having hordes

[24:29] of bees or whatever come out.

[24:31] Let's just send them to Mars.

[24:32] They're scared of beetles, dude.

[24:34] Well, whatever they are.

[24:35] Mars could use them for something.

[24:37] Grind them up into aphrodisiac powder.

[24:39] That's all I know what to do with them.

Stuart Wellington

[24:40] You can only do that with a mummy dick, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[24:42] So what are we going to do with the rest of the mummy?

[24:44] Shoot it up to Mars.

[24:45] Mars Needs Mummies.

Dan McCoy

[24:47] Battleship.

[24:48] Scouring pads.

[24:49] Scouring pads.

[24:49] Make scouring pads out of those.

[24:51] What are they wrapping?

Elliott Kalan

[24:52] If we're lucky, they're wrapped in random lines from like a missing Aristophanes classic.

[24:58] Yeah.

[24:58] You know, maybe if we're lucky.

[25:00] But otherwise, send it to Mars, dude.

[25:02] Just put it on a rover.

[25:03] Ship it up there.

[25:04] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:06] Yeah.

[25:06] Get some good shots of them driving the rover around.

Elliott Kalan

[25:08] Yeah.

[25:09] It's hilarious.

[25:09] Talk about seven minutes of terror.

[25:11] A mummy at loose on the surface of Mars.

[25:13] There's a movie.

[25:14] Mars Mummy.

Dan McCoy

[25:14] The point is, at the end, Taylor Kitsch all of a sudden understands how to be an army guy.

[25:22] Navy.

[25:22] Navy guy.

[25:23] Yeah, whatever.

[25:23] Do not make that mistake.

Elliott Kalan

[25:24] They do not like it.

[25:25] They play a football game against each other every year, and they act as if they're going

[25:29] to kill each other.

[25:30] But he becomes a great...

[25:32] He harnesses the intelligence and the wiliness that have so far been hidden under layers of

[25:37] goofball screw-up-ness, and manages to outsmart the aliens.

[25:41] He uses these old armaments to blow them up, because I guess the lesson is, the Navy stopped

[25:46] making good stuff a while back, and now has just a lot of weak stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[25:49] And also, I guess these alien ships degrade rapidly when they're on the planet, because

[25:55] they fight this giant ship in the end, and they destroy it.

[25:58] They just hammer it so hard.

[26:01] It shoots their ship once, and they're like, oh, whatever.

Dan McCoy

[26:03] They blow up the array, which leaves them vulnerable, but by then, they've gotten rid of the force

[26:09] field.

Elliott Kalan

[26:09] Yeah, and their other ragtag group has so far failed to do anything.

[26:14] But they use the last shell on the ship to blow up the satellite array.

[26:20] This knocks out the force field somehow, even though the force field was independent of the

[26:23] satellite array earlier.

[26:25] And Liam Neeson goes, get all these jets in the air, and the fighter jets save them.

Stuart Wellington

[26:29] No, they'd already knocked out the force field, then they blew up the air.

[26:34] Look, they blew up so many satellite dishes, I don't remember.

[26:37] And the JV squad, which was Brooklyn Decker, the guy without legs, and the annoying guy,

[26:41] they did do something.

[26:43] They managed to knock the teeth out of one alien.

Elliott Kalan

[26:45] They delayed.

[26:46] They didn't delay.

[26:47] They delayed one alien from doing nothing.

Stuart Wellington

[26:49] The rest of the guys were like, fuck it, let's just keep working.

Elliott Kalan

[26:52] Let's just keep working.

[26:53] Look, we got a quota to meet.

[26:54] We got blades on our arms.

Stuart Wellington

[26:56] They're probably going to fuck that.

[26:57] He's going to fuck those guys up.

Elliott Kalan

[26:58] That guy was always a dick.

[26:59] Let's let him get his teeth knocked out.

[27:00] He's so proud of his perfect teeth.

[27:02] Let's let that guy knock his teeth out.

[27:04] You know what?

[27:05] I'm tired of hearing Gleep Glorp.

[27:06] I'm just tired of hearing Gleep Glorp brag about his space teeth.

[27:11] We get it.

[27:12] He's got beautiful choppers.

[27:14] Not so pretty now, are they, Gleep Glorp?

[27:15] Have a taste of your own medicine, tooth asshole.

[27:19] Yeah, these shaved monkeys really knock their shit out of your teeth.

[27:23] But I wanted to mention that Taylor Kitsch and the Japanese guy use sniper rifles to shoot

[27:29] out the windows of the command deck of the alien ship.

[27:32] And the sunlight blinds them.

[27:33] Blinds the aliens.

[27:34] Which is one of those things where it's like, wow, that space glass is pretty weak.

[27:37] So it made it through the atmosphere, I guess, okay.

[27:40] But you can shoot it out with a regular sniper rifle.

Dan McCoy

[27:41] Just like regular sheets of glass there.

[27:44] And also, it's apparently tinted glass.

[27:46] Because that's how they shoot it out and then they can kill them vampire style.

[27:49] Well, they are because their helmets have tinted glass.

[27:51] They establish that.

[27:52] But I guess it's a...

Stuart Wellington

[27:53] And they also don't...

[27:54] It's like sugar glass.

[27:54] They don't want people outside seeing them inside.

[27:57] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:57] They could be having sex in there.

[27:58] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[27:59] Probably.

Elliott Kalan

[28:00] That's what you do in tinted glass cars, right?

[28:03] Yeah.

[28:04] What do they do with their space beards?

[28:05] Yeah, they rub space beards together.

[28:07] Sure.

[28:08] So they've saved the day.

[28:10] We've learned the valuable lesson that Americans...

Stuart Wellington

[28:12] So the climax is over, like, super fast, right?

[28:15] Yes.

[28:16] All of a sudden, we're just like...

[28:16] Yeah, after a bunch of fucking delay.

[28:18] Well, after...

Elliott Kalan

[28:19] Yeah, after...

[28:19] It takes a while to...

[28:20] Two hours of nonsense.

[28:21] Well, they...

[28:21] Oh, that's what...

[28:22] They blow up the last chip and that's...

[28:24] It's over.

[28:25] Yeah, it just cuts to metal ceremony.

[28:27] Yep.

[28:28] Chewbacca's...

[28:29] Chewbacca finally gets his metal.

[28:31] R2-D2's.

Dan McCoy

[28:31] R2-D2, you know, rocks back and forth again.

Elliott Kalan

[28:33] We've learned the valuable lesson that Americans and Japanese people can work together.

[28:37] We don't have to be enemies.

[28:38] Even though the movie opens with a joint U.S.-Japanese Navy exercise,

[28:42] it takes the main characters of home to realize...

[28:44] You mean Rimpak?

[28:45] Rimpak, yeah.

[28:46] The specific rim command.

[28:49] Rimpak.

[28:50] Rimpak.

[28:51] Yeah.

[28:52] Finally, the characters in the end.

[28:53] We're not so different when you compare us to aliens.

[28:56] Well, you have human teeth, not space teeth.

[28:58] And the aliens are pretty similar.

Stuart Wellington

[28:59] Except for their weird hands and their eyeballs.

Elliott Kalan

[29:01] Yeah, I mean, they're really boring.

[29:02] They just look like old men.

Stuart Wellington

[29:03] And their sea urchin beards.

[29:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:06] The aforementioned space beards.

[29:07] They get medals.

[29:09] They give a shout out to Stonehopper for dying in the line of duty.

[29:13] That's where we learned his name.

[29:14] No mention is made of all the other people who died in the line of duty.

[29:17] They're not cool.

[29:17] You fuck those guys.

Dan McCoy

[29:18] They didn't have a cool name like Stonehopper.

Elliott Kalan

[29:20] Yeah.

[29:20] Taylor Kitchhopper gets the silver star.

[29:22] And finally, this is the moment.

[29:24] All the movie, he's been trying to work up the courage to ask Liam Neeson for his daughter's hand in marriage.

[29:30] But he keeps screwing the moment up.

[29:32] Finally, and he gets the courage.

Dan McCoy

[29:33] Now's the time.

[29:34] Shirley, as the savior of the human race.

Elliott Kalan

[29:36] Shirley, he's just saved the world from aliens.

[29:37] And he says, I'd like to ask permission to marry your daughter, which is not how you do it.

[29:43] I don't know if you guys called up your wife's father.

[29:45] I did not.

[29:46] I did not use the word permission.

[29:47] I said, I'd like to request your daughter's hand in marriage.

[29:50] And my father-in-law said, well, what would you do if I said no?

[29:54] And I said, probably marry her anyway.

[29:56] And he had a hearty laugh.

[29:58] And you said that and then lit a match on your cheek.

[30:01] Lit a match, threw it in the background.

[30:03] Gas station exploded.

[30:04] I walked away slowly.

[30:06] And then Liam Neeson says, no.

[30:09] And then they have a laugh about it.

[30:10] And they go off to eat a chicken burrito.

[30:12] Remember that?

[30:14] Callback.

[30:15] Then there's the end credits.

[30:16] And then there's a post-credits scene where some kids in Scotland find a big lump of space junk.

[30:22] And they burn it open.

[30:24] And then an alien hand comes out at the end.

[30:26] Yeah.

[30:26] And it takes –

Stuart Wellington

[30:27] Oh, so that alien junk turns out that there's an actual alien in it that we kind of assumed as soon as we saw it there.

[30:34] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[30:34] And we're supposed to be scared that one alien is there even though thousands of aliens it seems or at least dozens have just been destroyed.

Stuart Wellington

[30:42] Yeah.

[30:42] And the one guy without legs totally fucked up that one alien.

[30:46] Yeah.

[30:46] And that was like a big –

[30:47] That was a big alien.

Elliott Kalan

[30:49] Yeah.

[30:49] That was –

[30:49] It was not like a whole game boss but definitely like a level boss.

[30:53] Yeah, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[30:54] So, Stuart, what made this movie so amazing?

Elliott Kalan

[30:58] I will say there was one – there were a couple lines I liked in it.

[31:01] One line at the – they're talking about the art of war.

[31:03] And Taylor Kitch is like, I read that.

[31:05] It doesn't make any sense.

[31:06] Attack your enemy where he's not.

[31:07] How do you explain that?

[31:08] And Captain Nagata goes, that's Chinese book, not Japanese.

[31:11] And at the end, he does a stupid trick on the aliens and he goes, attack the enemy where they're not.

[31:17] I get it.

[31:17] It suddenly just clicked.

[31:18] And Captain Nagata says, that's not what that means.

[31:21] That's completely different.

[31:22] And he goes, what?

[31:23] And we're like, really?

[31:25] And that's the end of that scene.

[31:26] But anyway, you're saying, Stuart, what made the movie amazing?

[31:29] Yeah, I don't know, man.

[31:29] Because you loved it, right?

[31:30] No, I loved it.

[31:31] I was clapping my hands.

Stuart Wellington

[31:32] Cheering, going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:34] It was a lot of good –

[31:35] I like the part where they show that they fished an alien – a dead alien body out of the ocean.

[31:41] And they're looking at it for a while.

[31:43] And then the alien – oh, no, wow, it's alive.

[31:45] And it starts wrestling with them.

[31:46] And then the wall explodes and a bunch of aliens show up, take their buddy, and just leave.

[31:52] Just vemos.

Dan McCoy

[31:53] I mean, like that leads into an interesting middle part of the –

[31:55] Well, you never leave an alien behind.

[31:56] Yeah.

[31:57] There's like a middle part of the movie.

[31:58] I'd like to hear their story.

Stuart Wellington

[32:00] Alien Team 6 or whatever?

Dan McCoy

[32:02] Alien Team Glorp.

[32:04] There's a whole like middle section of the movie where the aliens have decided that Taylor Kitsch's battleship is not worth fucking with.

Elliott Kalan

[32:11] Yeah, they target it, and then he like turns the ship around.

Dan McCoy

[32:14] Yeah, he turns the ship around, like turns the guns off or whatever.

[32:17] And they're like, okay, well, not a threat anymore.

[32:19] But then later on they like send in like individual aliens to cause chaos on a ship.

[32:24] It's like, why not just shoot the fucker down if you're going to do this?

[32:26] They're toying with him.

Elliott Kalan

[32:27] It's a game of cat and alien.

[32:29] I guess alien and mouse.

[32:30] But also the alien –

[32:31] No, I think cat and alien.

[32:32] Cat and alien?

[32:32] Aliens eat cats, right?

[32:34] Yeah, Alf did.

[32:35] That's true.

[32:35] Good point.

[32:36] Very good point.

[32:36] Alf.

[32:37] Can you – who?

[32:39] Are you not familiar with Gordon Shumway, the alien life form?

[32:41] Yeah, alien.

[32:42] Oh, okay.

[32:42] That makes sense.

[32:43] We'll talk about that later.

[32:44] The cat-eating, rock-and-roll-loving party animal alien whose alcoholism was so harsh in the first season that they dialed it back for later episodes.

[32:53] It's like a book?

Stuart Wellington

[32:54] Like a series of novels?

Elliott Kalan

[32:55] It's like a book you watch on television.

[32:57] We call it a television show.

[32:58] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[33:00] It's on nowadays, right?

[33:01] On Lifetime?

Elliott Kalan

[33:02] No, it's been off the air for about 20 years.

[33:04] On Lifetime.

[33:05] It is a story for women.

[33:07] It's on what?

[33:08] The Oxygen Network?

[33:09] Yeah.

[33:10] History Channel?

Dan McCoy

[33:11] It's about an abusive alien husband.

Elliott Kalan

[33:14] It's called the burning bed on the spaceship.

[33:17] Mother, may I sleep with aliens.

[33:19] Ancient aliens?

[33:21] So, the aliens, when they look at things, they have kind of like a Terminator targeting array that differentiates between organic and non-organic materials.

[33:30] Because they'll look at a person and they'll see it has eyes, it has that heart, lungs, not worth our trouble.

[33:35] Then it'll look at like a wall or a wire and that will come up red on the display and they're like, we'll attack that.

[33:41] Yeah, the spinning death balls do that.

[33:43] Yeah, it didn't attack people, but it would attack guns, cars, helicopters, highway ramps.

Stuart Wellington

[33:49] I like the bit where the spinning death ball, it looks like it just barely misses the helicopter and then it lashes out its chain tail and rips the helicopter in half.

[33:58] And then it pauses just long enough to like wink at the camera before driving off to kill more shit.

Elliott Kalan

[34:03] That chain ball had more personality than most of the characters in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[34:08] What are you talking about?

[34:09] You got Taylor.

[34:10] But that guy was a veteran of, you know, wars, man.

[34:15] That chain wheel?

[34:16] No, the other guy, the guy that you're making fun of.

[34:18] The guy without his legs.

[34:19] He's a veteran.

[34:20] He had personality.

[34:21] I'm not talking about him.

[34:24] I'm talking about like, here are the personalities you have.

Dan McCoy

[34:25] Or Rihanna.

[34:26] I mean, she's out of her element here.

[34:28] Well, here's the thing.

[34:29] She's normally a singer.

[34:30] She's normally a...

[34:30] And now she's fighting aliens.

Elliott Kalan

[34:33] That's out of her element.

[34:34] It's rare that a singer gets to do that.

[34:36] Basically, Debbie Gibson and Pat Benatar and that's it.

[34:40] David Bowie was an alien.

[34:42] Yeah, that was the alien they were fighting.

Stuart Wellington

[34:44] So I guess maybe he was...

[34:45] I mean, to him, humans are aliens and he was always fighting humans, right?

[34:48] Yeah, that's true.

[34:49] With lasers.

Elliott Kalan

[34:49] Well, he was a spider from Mars.

[34:51] He came to Earth to get mummies.

[34:53] Okay.

[34:54] We thought he was saying mummies.

[34:55] We don't want to give up our moms.

[34:56] No, we've agreed that.

[34:57] So we sent him packing.

[34:58] Yeah.

[34:59] Then he did that terrible dance in the streets cover with that crazy video with Mick Jagger.

[35:03] It all makes sense now.

[35:04] The pieces are falling into place.

[35:06] And then he turned into Tilda Swinton.

[35:08] Now, here's the other thing about this movie.

[35:11] Something we were talking about while watching it was that the movie Aliens, Jim Cameron's Aliens, great movie, does such a good job of introducing these military characters, giving them character that is both down-to-earth and believable, also interesting and charismatic, and then setting them up to fight aliens.

[35:31] They try to do that in this movie, and they fail so totally, and I can't put my finger on why exactly they fail.

Stuart Wellington

[35:36] And they take a million years to do it.

Elliott Kalan

[35:38] Yeah, and it takes forever to set these guys up.

[35:41] Dan, why do you think these characters come from alive?

Dan McCoy

[35:44] I do not know, but I will say, like, you're right in that they spend 40 minutes in this movie before aliens show up.

[35:53] And it's not like, this is not, you know, building suspense.

[35:57] This is not careful world-building 40 minutes.

[36:00] Like, oh, when these aliens show up, it's going to blow the audience's mind.

[36:03] This is 40 minutes wasted on thieving burritos and soccer games.

[36:10] That is probably the best part.

Elliott Kalan

[36:11] No, but there are, but it's not telling you anything about these characters.

[36:13] If it was a movie about burrito thieving with explosions in the background, I would have loved it.

[36:17] It would have been much better.

[36:18] If it was called Burrito Thief based on the game, it would have been much better.

[36:21] But that's the thing, is the scenes that come to life in this movie are the scenes that are so inessential that if they got cut, you really wouldn't notice.

[36:29] Except that the movie would be less enjoyable.

[36:30] But, like, they take so long to explain the concept of aliens attacking Earth.

[36:36] Something that they've been making movies about for, I mean, it's been in a staple of literature for,

[36:40] a hundred years at least.

[36:41] When did War of the Worlds come out, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[36:43] It's one of those big ensemble action movies where they have all these characters and they need to make sure that all these characters have about one or two,

[36:53] like, five or ten minute character moments to lead up to them, I guess, fighting an alien.

Elliott Kalan

[36:59] Dying or not dying, basically.

Stuart Wellington

[37:01] And it just makes it so, like, it just becomes so bloated and unnecessary.

[37:06] That's how it reaches two hours and eleven minutes.

Elliott Kalan

[37:09] But even those character moments are usually just kind of like, they're two types.

[37:12] Either a character is a total goof or they're really sassy.

[37:16] Yeah.

[37:17] And that's about it.

Stuart Wellington

[37:18] No, I mean, they're not actual character moments.

[37:20] It's not like we're watching fucking USA or something.

Elliott Kalan

[37:23] Mm-hmm.

[37:23] We're characters are welcome.

[37:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[37:26] We're watching a guy, like, berate his co-worker for not giving him information in the fashion that he likes it or something.

[37:33] Like, it's not important.

[37:35] They could cut this scene out.

Dan McCoy

[37:37] Yeah, I think we should move on to our final judgments on this movie, whether it was a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, a movie we kind of liked.

[37:43] Elliot, what do you have to say?

Elliott Kalan

[37:44] A movie we kind of liked, obviously.

[37:46] Me first.

Elliott Kalan

[37:46] Four stars out of a hundred.

[37:48] Okay.

[37:49] No, it's a movie that...

[37:50] Unusual rating system.

[37:51] I'm going to this movie.

[37:52] It was like, did I have any hope I was going to like it?

[37:54] No, of course not.

[37:55] It's Battleship the movie.

[37:56] It's another stupid alien invasion movie.

[37:58] I like alien stories.

[37:59] This one looked no good.

[38:01] But the first...

[38:03] Looked no good.

[38:04] The first couple scenes had the promise that it could be a good, bad movie because it was, like, silly.

[38:09] It didn't take itself too seriously.

[38:11] The characters did crazy stuff.

[38:12] And then it just went downhill and became so dull.

[38:15] So I'm going to have to say, bad, bad movie.

[38:17] Sorry, Peter Berg.

[38:19] What about you, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[38:20] Yeah, I'll agree with you.

[38:21] I think if they had chopped about an hour out of it.

[38:26] They chopped two hours out of this movie?

[38:28] I mean, it has the problem that a lot of these big movies have where just there's this huge middle section that doesn't, like, the action sequences don't make up for it.

[38:37] It's the same problem that we had with Cowboys and Aliens, right?

[38:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:41] Let's get this serious, guys.

[38:42] This is Cowboys and Aliens bad, right?

[38:44] Yeah, yeah.

[38:45] Which means had potential but didn't live up to it and was boring.

[38:49] This had a ton of potential.

[38:51] It's a great game.

[38:52] Burrito Thief is a huge seller.

[38:55] Here's the potential that Battleship had.

[38:57] It's been a long time since we've seen a naval warfare movie.

[39:00] I would say when was the last time they really did one that was not a pirate movie.

[39:05] 20, 30 years?

[39:06] Yeah.

[39:06] At least.

[39:07] Easy.

[39:08] It would be a lot of fun to see, like, a really well-made World War II naval battle movie or even a modern-day naval battle movie.

[39:14] But instead they had to bring aliens and shit into it and transforming stuff because they're working off of that Transformers template that is currently ruining the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie while we speak in production now.

[39:25] Absolutely.

[39:25] Or in pre-production.

[39:26] But it's just like –

[39:28] Alien Turtles?

[39:29] No, thank you.

[39:31] But it definitely could have lost at least 30 minutes out of the movie.

[39:35] Cowboys and Aliens could have lost, like, 20, 25.

[39:38] This could have lost anywhere from 30 to 40, you know?

Dan McCoy

[39:41] Yeah, I would say that if this movie was only the first 40 minutes and the last 20, it might be a good, bad movie.

[39:47] I mean, then it would be an hour long.

[39:48] Yeah, and that would be a great length for this story.

[39:51] Perfect.

[39:52] But otherwise, yeah, it was a bad, bad movie.

[39:55] It bored me.

[39:56] Yeah, just make it into an episode of Amazing Stories.

Stuart Wellington

[40:00] There's a lot of money in that, right?

[40:02] No.

[40:03] High-budget Amazing Stories episodes.

Dan McCoy

[40:05] Amazing Stories episodes that cost $200 million each.

[40:08] Before we get into letters, I think that we should maybe –

[40:11] Gah?

[40:12] We should maybe briefly get into the big announcement that's coming up in the Flophouse world.

[40:16] Is it time to make that announcement?

[40:19] I think we're clear to at least make reference to it.

[40:22] Well, you're the boss.

Stuart Wellington

[40:22] So our big announcement is we're doing a live show next week in Williamsburg.

Elliott Kalan

[40:26] That is a big announcement, though.

[40:27] September 19th, we are doing a live discussion show.

[40:31] We won't be screening a movie, but we're doing a panel within coordination and also appearing on the panel.

[40:35] Xenia and Matt of I Love Bad Movies, our favorite zine.

[40:38] Yeah.

[40:38] That's September 19th at Free Assembly in Williamsburg.

Dan McCoy

[40:41] Yeah, if you go to www.flophousepodcast.com.

[40:47] There's links, I feel like.

[40:48] And it is a free event, right?

[40:49] Yeah, it's totally free.

[40:50] And we're going to be doing another –

[40:51] 21 plus, guys, 21 plus.

[40:52] 21 plus only because they serve beer there.

[40:54] Sorry, 21 minuses.

Stuart Wellington

[40:54] Dan doesn't want to get tricked into oogling the wrong girls.

[40:57] He oogles the wrong girls.

[40:58] I'll go them, but I just don't –

Dan McCoy

[41:00] He doesn't want to get tricked into sleeping with them.

Elliott Kalan

[41:02] Yeah.

[41:02] She told me she was 21 plus.

[41:04] Some kind of a gaslighting where they trick him out of his inheritance.

[41:08] And we are going to do a screening later in the year too.

[41:10] Yes.

[41:10] But we will announce that.

Dan McCoy

[41:12] No, but because this is midway through September and there's a big announcement of this launch

[41:17] October 1st, it seems like –

[41:19] Oh, should we wait until October 1st then?

Stuart Wellington

[41:21] Yeah, that makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[41:24] But once that happens, we're part of the thing.

[41:27] We can't edit this out.

[41:28] Yeah, but if we're – this may be something to edit out.

[41:31] If we're part of a thing and they're announcing it on October 1st, they might not want us to

[41:34] step on their announcement.

[41:36] Maybe let's get in touch with them and see if it's okay to announce it ahead of time because

[41:40] we're recording again the week after next.

[41:42] All right.

[41:43] Well, there's a mysterious thing.

[41:45] I think you could probably cut all this section out.

[41:47] No, no, no.

[41:47] Except for the part about September 19th.

[41:50] No, no.

Stuart Wellington

[41:50] Boner, boner, racist thing.

Dan McCoy

[41:52] No, we're cutting nothing.

[41:55] There will be something –

[41:56] I don't have time to cut this, Elliot.

[41:57] We're going to go to –

[41:58] We're going live.

[41:59] We're going to Colorado and then LA this weekend.

[42:01] Oh, that's true.

[42:02] I'm traveling.

Elliott Kalan

[42:02] Well, we will have a big announcement that's in coordination with some other folks, so we're

[42:06] going to check with them and see if it's okay to announce it yet, but we do have a

[42:10] big announcement coming up.

[42:11] Mm-hmm.

[42:12] And it's not –

[42:12] That's right.

[42:13] Really going to change anything.

[42:14] Stuart Wellington is getting married.

[42:16] It's also exciting.

[42:17] It is an exciting announcement.

[42:20] But until then, tide yourself over on September 19th with our discussion show at Public Assembly

[42:26] in Williamsburg.

[42:27] Where we won't be talking about our big announcement.

[42:29] Where we won't be talking about our big announcement.

[42:30] We will be having fun with you, the listener.

Dan McCoy

[42:34] So now it's time to move on to the Flophouse Mailbag.

[42:37] This is the part where we read letters that you sent us in and make fun of you, maybe.

[42:41] Normally, I would sing a song about it, but we're running out of time, so let's do this

[42:43] thing.

[42:44] So this one's titled Name Dropping for Fun and Profit, and it's from Patrick, last name

[42:48] withheld.

[42:49] Oh, we're not going to drop that name, huh, Patrick?

[42:51] He says, Dear Floppers, I can't help noticing the value you all place on name dropping.

[42:56] For instance, Elliot can't stop talking about his high school girlfriend, Anne Hathaway.

[43:00] I never talk about her.

[43:01] It was not my girlfriend.

[43:03] So I think it's only appropriate that I do a little name dropping in order to get a mention

[43:08] on a podcast with upwards of hundreds of listeners.

[43:10] We have plenty of listeners.

[43:12] Elliot, especially prepare to meet your heart out.

[43:13] Eat your heart out.

[43:15] I am the grandson of mildly famous actor, Eddie Bracken.

[43:19] Oh, I'm a big fan of Eddie Bracken.

[43:21] Yes, that Eddie Bracken from Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Hail the Conquering Hero, and most importantly,

[43:27] not most importantly, National Lampoon's Vacation.

Elliott Kalan

[43:30] I saw him on stage in a production of Carousel at the Paper and Roll Playhouse years ago.

[43:34] I was very excited.

[43:35] I'm a big fan of Eddie Bracken.

[43:36] Nice to meet you, Patrick Bracken.

[43:38] Maybe.

[43:40] Question mark.

Dan McCoy

[43:40] He says, I'm sure you're interested in the hours of

[43:43] in-depth, behind-the-scenes.

Elliott Kalan

[43:44] He lived in New Jersey, not far from where I grew up, and I kick myself all the time that

[43:49] I was too old.

[43:51] It wasn't until I was, when I was old enough to think of like going and trying to get in

[43:55] touch with him, he was too old and he had passed away at that point.

[43:58] But sad, really.

[43:59] I wish I'd gotten to know Eddie Bracken.

Dan McCoy

[44:01] Well, you were about to through the miracle of this email.

[44:04] The miracle of this Morgans Creek email?

[44:05] He says, I'm sure you're interested in the hours of in-depth, behind-the-scenes anecdotes

[44:11] I could share.

[44:12] Yeah.

[44:12] Unfortunately, I was foolishly more interested in proving to my grandfather that I loved him

[44:16] for who he was, not for his profession.

[44:18] So I failed to ask him much about his Hollywood life.

[44:22] There are, however, some tidbits I can share with you.

[44:24] That was a weird moment.

[44:26] I'm sure you will find these fascinating.

[44:28] Number one, Judy Garland was not always sober.

[44:33] Number two, Mickey Rooney was kind of a womanizer.

[44:38] Number three, Betty Davis was a bitch.

[44:41] You're welcome, floppers.

[44:42] Keep up the great work.

[44:43] Wait a minute.

Elliott Kalan

[44:44] So there you go.

[44:45] So Eddie Bracken told you the most famous things about those people.

[44:48] Is it possible he didn't know anything?

[44:51] That Eddie Bracken didn't know any Eddie Bracken stories?

Stuart Wellington

[44:54] I don't think he's actually related to Eddie Bracken.

[44:56] He just looked on the internet for him.

Elliott Kalan

[44:57] I'd be so, I would be so, so betrayed if someone claimed to be Eddie Bracken's grandson and

[45:02] was not.

[45:03] I'm such a big Eddie Bracken fan.

[45:06] So you should, if you're, if you're snacking on Bracken.

[45:09] I don't know what that means.

[45:11] That was, that was when he came out with the Bracken bar.

[45:13] It was, it was chocolate around peanut and then there was some of his own skin in the

[45:18] center.

[45:18] Oh, that's delicious.

[45:19] And that came out around World War II when nougat was really highly rationed.

[45:24] They couldn't get nougat so they replaced it with Eddie Bracken's skin cells.

[45:26] Sure.

[45:27] It was the Bracken bar and he would say, you're snacking on Bracken.

Stuart Wellington

[45:30] Who would he say that to?

[45:31] Just people in the street?

[45:33] Advertisements.

[45:33] Oh, okay.

[45:33] You know, it was newsreels or people in the streets.

[45:35] Sure.

[45:35] I mean, that's free advertising.

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] He did live on Cannibal Island so he'd say that to people there too.

[45:40] Is that in New Jersey?

[45:42] Yes.

[45:42] Cannibal Island.

[45:43] It's not actually an island.

Dan McCoy

[45:45] So, Eddie Bracken.

[45:48] This one is titled, What Are You Guys Doing?

[45:51] It's from David Last Name Withheld.

[45:52] Doing a podcast, huh?

[45:54] Come on, Einstein.

[45:56] Real observant, Sherlock.

[45:57] Answer that one.

[45:58] And next letter.

Elliott Kalan

[46:00] Way to observe reality, Sir Francis Bacon.

Dan McCoy

[46:03] This one is from David Last Name Withheld.

[46:05] He says,

[46:05] It's not my brother, is it?

[46:06] Dear Eloquent Elliot, Salacious Stu, and Dashing Dan.

[46:10] I was re-listening to some older episodes of the Flophouse and I noticed a disturbing trend

[46:15] over the past few years.

[46:17] Lately, when you need a guest host, Dan or Elliot grab another writer from The Daily Show

[46:21] and bring them on for the podcast.

[46:23] But it's a different writer every time.

[46:25] None of them seems willing or able to return for a second guest host outing.

[46:30] Are the movies just too much for them?

[46:32] Is Dan's apartment such a horror show that they won't return?

[46:34] Yes.

[46:35] Are you guys driving them off with your obscene behavior and tuxedo speedos?

[46:38] Possibly.

[46:39] Or is there something more sinister occurring as you work your way through Daily Show Writers

[46:43] one by one?

[46:45] That's from David.

[46:47] Last Name Withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[46:47] So is he implying that we are murdering my coworkers and your coworkers?

Stuart Wellington

[46:51] It's like a body snatchers thing.

[46:53] Body snatchers?

[46:54] Yeah, they're coming over and we're like turning them into fucking mummies or something

[46:57] and sending them back out.

[46:59] And we're keeping their original bodies.

[47:01] I don't know, for food or something?

[47:03] Well, it makes sense to me.

[47:05] Officers, arrest us.

Dan McCoy

[47:10] I mean, we have...

[47:11] Yeah, I don't know.

[47:11] We like to mix it up, you know?

[47:13] Yeah, the simple answer is we try and cast a wide net.

[47:17] Yeah.

[47:17] I mean...

Elliott Kalan

[47:18] Not everyone wants to come and watch a bad movie and then talk about it more than once.

[47:22] And also, there's, I mean...

[47:24] And it's a weeknight.

[47:24] It's like a school night.

[47:25] It's usually a weeknight.

[47:26] And we've been trying to schedule it lately so all three of us are available so we don't

[47:30] have to get subs.

[47:31] Yeah, not to get into like the boring, like actual nuts and bolts.

Dan McCoy

[47:34] Too late.

[47:35] Not...

[47:35] You asked for it, David.

[47:37] Here's the not joke answer.

[47:40] Which is, number one, that we have had repeat people.

[47:43] We had Jubin on twice.

[47:44] And number two, we've asked people on as a repeat person.

[47:47] We asked Hallie back.

[47:48] But she's been busy.

[47:49] Other people have lives.

[47:50] They're not just raring to go for the flop house.

Elliott Kalan

[47:53] Mm-hmm.

[47:54] Me?

[47:55] I'm raring.

[47:56] But Stuart's always raring to go.

[47:57] Whether it's to go to the flop house or go to the park, we're actually taking him to

[48:00] the vet.

[48:01] But he thinks he's going to the park.

[48:04] Hey, Stu.

[48:05] Shaking your leash.

[48:06] Okay.

[48:06] Where are we going?

[48:07] The park.

[48:08] Oh, that's cool.

[48:08] Actually, the vet.

Stuart Wellington

[48:09] Should I bring my bag of toys with me?

Elliott Kalan

[48:11] Or...

[48:12] No.

[48:13] Leave my toys.

[48:14] Bring your rectum and make sure it's thermometer or vulva.

Stuart Wellington

[48:17] Okay.

[48:17] I'll get some baby wipes and clean it out.

[48:20] He's going to the vet.

Elliott Kalan

[48:22] Anyway, Dan, you're saying?

Stuart Wellington

[48:23] A little bit of improv comedy.

[48:25] For you, Dan?

[48:26] We did that one for you?

[48:29] Sorry.

[48:30] Whose line is the name, guys?

[48:32] That's what that was.

Elliott Kalan

[48:33] Give us another suggestion, Dan, so we can improv a scene off it.

[48:37] Okay.

[48:38] Well, this suggestion is titled Boring.

[48:41] Oh, so they saw Battleship, too.

[48:43] Boom.

[48:44] Yeah.

[48:45] That's a high five for you guys.

[48:47] Take that.

[48:47] The kids who are doing it.

[48:48] Take that to thousands of people who worked on Battleship.

Dan McCoy

[48:51] This one's from Joel, last name withheld.

[48:54] And he says,

[48:54] Hi, Floppers.

[48:55] I've enjoyed listening to the podcast.

[48:57] I've observed that your final judgments can be boiled down to one criterion.

[49:02] If it's boring, it's bad.

[49:04] A movie can be ineptly plotted, insultingly directed, and the actors can be either wooden

[49:08] or Nick Cage-ian.

[49:09] And you guys will give it a pass, or at least consider it.

[49:13] But if there's a moment of dullness in the approximately 82-minute running time, that's the kiss of death.

[49:18] This thing was 132 minutes.

[49:19] Not that I disagree.

[49:22] A boring movie usually does suck.

[49:23] I'm just pointing out that your final judgment is really, is this boring?

[49:27] Which leads me to my movie nerd question.

[49:30] Can you name some dull movies that you actually like?

[49:33] I'd hold up things like Bergman's Winter Light or The Passion of Joan of Arc as films that are objectively dull,

[49:38] but I like them a lot.

[49:40] On a wholly unrelated note, have any of you seen Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,

[49:43] a rare film that's a horror comedy satire that's genuinely funny?

[49:46] I'll answer the second question first.

[49:49] I saw that movie.

[49:50] I enjoyed it.

[49:51] Not quite as much as I would like, but it's solid.

[49:54] Because you really like to enjoy things.

[49:57] I do like to enjoy things.

Elliott Kalan

[49:58] Yeah, Dan hates to not enjoy stuff.

[50:00] He hates sighing.

[50:01] This podcast has taught us anything.

[50:04] It's how much I like to enjoy stuff.

[50:06] I haven't seen that yet, but I'd like to.

[50:07] It's on my Netflix queue.

[50:09] So dull movies.

[50:10] Like what?

[50:11] Like Spaceballs?

[50:11] I think he's right.

[50:12] There are definitely dull movies that I like.

[50:14] I mean, I enjoy a lot of the Craymaster movies, which are deathly dull.

[50:18] Those are incredibly boring, but interesting.

Dan McCoy

[50:21] I mean, but that's the question.

[50:23] Like there's a difference between dull and slow, like or dull and uneventful.

Elliott Kalan

[50:27] There is, but those movies at many times are boring.

[50:30] But there's a kind of boring movie that accumulates over time to the point where even if it's dull for a moment,

[50:38] the end result is you feel like you've experienced something.

[50:41] Tree of Life, for instance, was a movie I enjoyed a lot.

[50:44] And there were a lot of moments in it that I thought were incredibly powerful.

[50:47] But there are also moments that felt necessary to the movie that were very boring.

[50:51] And at the end of the movie, I felt like I had been through this experience.

[50:54] But there were definitely points during it where I found it dull.

[50:57] But dull for a reason.

[50:58] But then there are movies like Battleship where it's both boring and at the end of it, I have gained nothing.

Dan McCoy

[51:03] But, I mean, there's like a certain deliberateness to movies that doesn't necessarily mean dullness.

[51:10] Like it means that they are...

[51:12] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:12] But sometimes it means it's dull.

[51:14] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[51:15] I would argue, I guess, with the point of there's a slowness that can be, you know, like it's not exciting.

[51:25] But you understand what the movie is doing.

[51:29] Like why that is happening.

[51:30] Yeah.

[51:31] Like, I don't know.

[51:33] Like people talk about...

[51:34] Like dull versus deliberate.

Elliott Kalan

[51:36] You can't spell deliberate without dull.

[51:38] Oh, they're kidding.

Dan McCoy

[51:39] Dull-iberate.

[51:40] Like Tokyo Story by Ozu, for instance, is like an acknowledged classic that is a slow movie where not a lot happens in the traditional plot sense.

[51:51] It's built up of incident.

[51:52] I guess that's true.

[51:53] But...

Elliott Kalan

[51:54] Well, like he mentioned Passion of Joan of Arc, which I do not find dull at all.

[51:57] Like that's an exciting movie to me.

[51:59] This woman is in constant anxiety and trauma through the whole movie.

[52:04] And then, you know, she gets burned to death at the end.

[52:06] Spoiler alert.

[52:07] They don't save Joan of Arc at the end of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[52:09] Well, that's too bad.

[52:10] But I think that when we talk about dullness, often what we're talking about when we talk about dullness is we're watching a movie that is making no interesting choices throughout the film.

[52:20] Like it is making, at every step, the choice that we have seen in other movies before.

[52:27] Maybe.

[52:27] Yeah.

[52:28] That's a factor to it.

[52:30] I mean, just taking like Battleship today as a case study, like the stuff we liked at the beginning, we enjoyed.

[52:40] Just because it was unexpected.

[52:42] We did not expect there to be a lot about stealing a chicken burrito at the beginning of an intergalactic war movie.

[52:50] And then in the middle of the movie, it was just a bunch of explosions.

[52:53] And there was no reason to sympathize with any of the characters.

[52:56] Like nothing.

[52:58] There was only the most perfunctory personality building of all that.

[53:02] So it was just like, okay, well, this is one choice after another that I've seen in alien invasion movies before.

[53:08] And maybe if I was watching this movie in 1930, I'd be thrilled.

[53:12] But now it's just dull.

[53:13] Well, you'd just be amazed that the movie is in color.

Elliott Kalan

[53:15] Yeah.

[53:16] All those special effects.

[53:18] You've just seen it.

[53:19] 1930, King Kong isn't even out yet.

Stuart Wellington

[53:21] 1930, you would be amazed that hip-hop R&B star Rihanna is starring in a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[53:27] Really?

[53:27] She's moving into film, huh?

[53:30] Not that Umbrella song.

[53:31] Umbrella, Ella, Ella.

[53:33] My umbrella.

[53:34] Yep.

[53:35] Hit star Rihanna.

[53:37] That's my 1930s guy who's a fan of Rihanna.

Stuart Wellington

[53:39] Oh, that's what you were doing.

[53:41] That makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[53:42] She's my favorite Negress singer.

Stuart Wellington

[53:44] It's the 30s.

[53:45] They're racist then.

[53:46] Yeah, no.

[53:46] Uncomfortable.

[53:48] Yeah, I don't know.

[53:49] I like slow movies.

[53:51] But, yeah, I think you're right.

[53:53] There's a difference between slow and dull.

Elliott Kalan

[53:55] I think there is, but sometimes movies are dull.

[53:58] But not always.

[53:59] And a lot of the ones we watch are dull.

[54:00] But the ones we watch are dull in the bad way, yeah.

[54:03] Yeah.

[54:03] Like, Battleship is not necessarily a slow movie.

[54:06] There's always something happening.

[54:07] There's always something happening.

[54:08] The camera's always cutting.

[54:09] There's always explosions or guys given one-liners.

[54:12] The soundtrack keeps changing.

[54:14] They play most of the song Thunderstruck, which is an exciting song.

[54:18] But it's put together in a boring way.

Dan McCoy

[54:21] But that's why I argue that dullness is actually an uninteresting choice being made.

[54:26] Like, if we're seeing something new on screen, something that is not the typical...

[54:32] Like, if someone acts unexpected and human...

[54:34] You've become desensitized to most things.

[54:36] Yeah, I have.

[54:36] I've seen so many movies that, like, everything seems so diagrammatic.

[54:41] And dull to me means, like, okay, this is just, like, fucking...

[54:45] This is a spare parts movie.

[54:46] They went to the junkyard of movies and they put together a bunch of pieces.

[54:50] I think I saw that when I watched Real Steel.

Elliott Kalan

[54:52] I guess, but there's still...

[54:53] There's still movies that I've seen where they make interest...

[54:56] They make not the choices I would expect, but it's still boring.

[55:01] Well, like, Days of Heaven is a movie like that.

[55:03] Where it's...

[55:04] The choice for most directors would be to focus on the story.

[55:08] Whereas his choice there is to pay as little attention to the plot of his movie as possible.

[55:12] The plot's still going on in the background, but he's not interested.

[55:15] And it's beautiful, but it's very boring.

Dan McCoy

[55:16] Whereas I would argue that Days of Heaven is not boring.

[55:19] No, I find it so boring.

[55:20] I like that movie.

[55:21] And I'm not a fan.

Stuart Wellington

[55:22] Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

[55:24] It's a movie.

Dan McCoy

[55:26] What is it, a movie?

[55:27] Days of Thunder?

[55:28] What?

[55:28] Let's move on, in that case, to our final...

[55:31] Or not final judgments.

[55:32] We just did that.

[55:33] We all said, great, great movie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:35] We all loved it.

[55:36] We said, it's our pick of the year.

[55:37] We said, best picture, Battleship.

[55:40] Second runner-up, Norbit, again.

[55:43] Came out years ago.

[55:45] Well, we just keep voting for it, I guess.

[55:46] Number three, meet Dave.

[55:48] And number four.

[55:50] A thousand words.

[55:51] A thousand words.

[55:51] Eddie Murphy has swept all over the top spot.

[55:53] Eddie Murphy, three P.

Dan McCoy

[55:56] This is the part of the podcast where we talk about movies that we've seen that we would recommend.

[56:01] That we genuinely liked.

[56:03] In some way.

[56:04] Stuart, what do you have to say for yourself?

[56:06] Bum, bum, bum.

Stuart Wellington

[56:07] Well, the other day, guys, I was watching a movie about robots fighting.

[56:13] Was it called Robot Jocks?

[56:14] It was called Robot Jocks.

[56:15] I'm recommending Robot Jocks, everybody.

[56:17] Stuart Gordon's Robot Jocks.

[56:19] Amazing movie.

[56:19] Recommending Robot Jocks.

[56:20] Telegraph that one, huh, Dave?

[56:21] Yeah.

[56:22] Okay, go, Elliot.

[56:23] Wow, there's nothing you want to say about Robot Jocks.

Dan McCoy

[56:25] You don't want to explain why you're recommending Robot Jocks.

[56:27] So good about Robot Jocks other than robots fighting, which is a pretty convincing argument.

[56:31] Well, I mean, that's pretty great.

Elliott Kalan

[56:31] Except we just saw a movie that, at its basic core, was people fighting robots.

[56:35] They were aliens, but they looked like robots.

[56:37] Yeah, but I didn't recommend that one.

Stuart Wellington

[56:38] I'm recommending this one.

Elliott Kalan

[56:40] But I'm just saying.

Stuart Wellington

[56:40] They should take it on the strength of my recommendation alone.

[56:43] I mean, there's already been controversy.

[56:44] I've never lied to anybody, ever.

Elliott Kalan

[56:45] There's been controversy about some of your recommendations.

[56:47] Okay, fine.

[56:48] Who gives a shit?

[56:48] Watch Castle Freak then.

Stuart Wellington

[56:51] Okay.

[56:52] So to summarize, watch one of two different Stuart Gordon movies.

[56:55] Either Robot Jocks, which was his big budget smash.

[56:59] Either Robert Jocks.

Elliott Kalan

[57:02] Or Castle Freak.

[57:03] That was a non-big budget, non-smash.

[57:06] Yeah, Robot Jocks.

[57:07] Probably a bigger budget than he's used to working with.

[57:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:11] As Elliot alluded to earlier in the podcast, we've been on the road for two weeks.

[57:17] Yep, just living life, chasing the American dream.

[57:20] No, not doing that.

[57:22] Just going through town, solving people's problems.

[57:24] Working for, you know, 12 hours a day.

[57:26] Like Quantum Leap?

[57:28] Yeah, like Quantum Leap.

[57:29] Like a lot of...

[57:30] Except if you were traveling in space, not time.

[57:33] It was mostly being in hotels and then being in big rooms, cement rooms, writing, and then

[57:39] being back in hotels.

Elliott Kalan

[57:40] Yeah, watching speeches by politicians.

Dan McCoy

[57:43] Yeah.

[57:43] So I haven't had a lot of chance to watch new movies.

[57:47] So this is going to be a qualified recommendation for me.

[57:51] I...

Stuart Wellington

[57:51] A Dan, watch it on a plane if you have to recommendation?

[57:56] Wow.

[57:56] I think that's a fair thing to say.

Elliott Kalan

[57:58] This is a movie I think would be better than having your nuts crushed by a sledgehammer.

[58:02] That's Dan's recommendation.

[58:03] Dan's seal of nut approval.

[58:06] I watched...

[58:07] If you had a choice between being blinded with a hot poker and watching this movie, consider

[58:11] the movie.

Dan McCoy

[58:12] Piranha 2 or just the nut smash?

[58:13] Just the nut smash.

[58:14] Oh, okay.

[58:15] When I returned to Brooklyn, I watched a little movie called Piranha 2, colon, The Spawning.

[58:22] Okay.

[58:22] Which is a movie I've been curious about for a while, mainly because it was...

[58:27] It's listed as James Cameron's, I think, earliest film.

[58:31] However, he was replaced, from what I understand, you know, a week or two into filming by the

[58:36] producer of the movie.

[58:37] So I don't know how much of the film was actually directed...

[58:41] His vision?

[58:41] By James Cameron.

[58:42] Well, does anyone turn into liquid metal?

[58:43] No, but Lance Henriksen is in it, so...

[58:45] Okay.

[58:47] At least the casting, I assume, was overseen by Mr. Jim Cameron himself.

[58:51] But this is a fun B-movie about flying piranha that fly around...

[58:57] Like, not only do they fly, they're not like flying fish flying piranha, they're like hummingbirds.

[59:01] They can, like, hover around people and, like, chew off their neck.

[59:05] While hovering, that sounds awesome.

[59:07] Yeah.

[59:08] So it's set up like a classic disaster movie.

[59:11] You run into a bunch of goofy types who are at this resort community.

[59:18] And it's got Lance Henriksen, as I said, as a police chief.

[59:22] So he's not one of the piranhas.

Elliott Kalan

[59:24] No.

[59:25] He's young.

[59:25] It would have been great if he was in a big piranha costume.

[59:27] They have a tiny piranha when there's another actor, but then they cut to close-ups of the piranha and clearly Lance Henriksen in the costume.

[59:34] I'm gonna bite ya!

[59:35] I'm a piranha!

Stuart Wellington

[59:36] Jim Cameron.

[59:37] Jim Cameron's amazing at special effects, man.

[59:40] Yeah.

[59:41] I'm sure he could make it work.

[59:41] He could do anything.

[59:42] He could make the man behind Millennium look like a piranha.

Elliott Kalan

[59:45] No, it's weird to see...

[59:47] Not the man behind Millennium.

[59:48] The man on Millennium.

[59:50] The TV show.

[59:50] Chris Carter was the man behind Millennium.

[59:52] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[59:52] It's weird to see a young Lance Henriksen and realize that while he looks younger, he never did not look weathered.

[59:59] Yeah.

[59:59] Like, as a young man, he was still a weathered...

[1:00:02] A boyhood accident.

[1:00:04] A boyhood accident at a glue factory and a tanning lamp.

[1:00:08] But there, I mean, like, there's some slow parts, but if you want, like, a sleazy B-movie with, like, flying piranhas that eat people and topple ladies around...

[1:00:16] Then really there's only one movie to see.

[1:00:18] Then watch Piranha 2.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:20] I like you qualifying it when you get to the point where if you want to see a movie with flying piranhas, there's only one movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:24] With Lance Henriksen where he pilots a helicopter out in the middle of the ocean to save people from flying piranhas.

[1:00:32] Then this is the one...

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:33] Oh, no.

[1:00:34] See, I've seen you use this trick before.

[1:00:37] The trick of just describe the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:39] If you want to see a movie where an aging Hollywood star hires a screenwriter for her big comeback and they become lovers and then she shoots him, Sunset Boulevard is the movie for you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:51] Not Piranha 2, The Spawning.

[1:00:53] Not Piranha 2, The Spawning.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:54] Or any other movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:54] That sounds like Piranha 2, The Spawning from what Dave just said.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:56] If you want to see a movie where a bunch of crazy guys in New York are busting ghosts, Piranha 2, The Movie is not the movie for you.

[1:01:04] You've got two options for that movie.

[1:01:05] We've got some solid recommendations, Ellie.

[1:01:07] In conclusion, you guys are a bunch of assholes.

[1:01:09] In conclusion, I have a recommendation.

[1:01:12] I'll quickly recommend two movies I saw recently.

[1:01:15] This may still be in the theaters when you hear this.

[1:01:17] A movie called Premium Rush with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

[1:01:20] Oh, yeah.

[1:01:20] I enjoyed that.

[1:01:20] A bike messenger that gets his hands on an item that other people want and is being chased.

[1:01:27] Who's the guy who plays the cop?

[1:01:28] Michael Shannon.

[1:01:29] Michael Shannon plays a great –

[1:01:30] Crazy face.

[1:01:31] Crazy face.

[1:01:31] Crazy face Shannon plays the man who looks like a Dick Tracy villain.

[1:01:35] He's hilarious in Premium Rush.

[1:01:36] He's in a comedy role.

[1:01:37] He's very funny and it's a kind of low-scale, small-scale comedy.

[1:01:43] I would – like not thriller but thrill ride.

[1:01:45] There's a lot of scenes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt biking through traffic.

[1:01:49] Yeah, there's a lot of good chase scenes.

[1:01:51] It's a fun B comedy chase movie.

[1:01:54] I enjoyed it a lot and I would recommend it.

[1:01:57] Here's my classic film recommendation to balance out Robot Jocks and Piranha 2 The Spawning.

[1:02:03] One of Claude Chabral's early films, a thing called Les Bonnes Femmes, The Good Girls or The Good Time Girls.

[1:02:11] And it is a very early French New Wave movie who is about a bunch of girls who work at a shop together and kind of each one is yearning in a different way for a more exciting life than they have.

[1:02:23] One sleeps around.

[1:02:24] One has stage dreams.

[1:02:26] And another one is in love with a man from afar.

[1:02:30] And the tone of the movie changes very quickly from scene to scene in a way that is sometimes disorienting, like what?

[1:02:37] And is sometimes very exciting and it goes to places you don't necessarily expect it to go to.

[1:02:42] And there's a lot of just kind of very lively French New Wave characters experiencing a situation scenes.

[1:02:48] And the girls in it, some are very cute and you see them in bathing suits in one scene.

[1:02:51] Oh, that's good.

[1:02:52] Yeah.

[1:02:53] So three recommendations for Battleship.

[1:02:54] No.

[1:02:56] All recommendations for Battleship and Les Bonnes Femmes.

[1:02:59] Hey, guys.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:01] What's up?

[1:03:01] It's been beautiful seeing you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:02] Oh, yeah.

[1:03:03] We're all done, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:03:04] It's just been a treat.

[1:03:06] Yeah, I missed you guys.

[1:03:06] Before we leave, let's remind people again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:08] September 19th, Williamsburg Public Assembly.

[1:03:11] We're going to be doing a show with the I Love Bad Movie people.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:14] Maybe do some callback yucks.

[1:03:16] Some callback yucks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:17] There'll be trivia contest questions.

[1:03:19] I thought you were going to say, before we leave, let's all promise to meet back here.

[1:03:23] Let's meet back here in one year.

[1:03:25] On this date, in the same place, and do another podcast.

[1:03:28] Then we'll catch that kid.

[1:03:29] We'll get married, but we'll catch that kid, bag that bird, all the things we wanted, all

[1:03:33] the callbacks.

[1:03:34] The whole time.

[1:03:35] And we'll have a big announcement, maybe for the next episode, possibly.

[1:03:38] Meowby.

[1:03:39] Just tantalize him.

[1:03:42] Just tease a little bit.

[1:03:42] Just give him a tease.

[1:03:43] Yeah, show him your bra strap.

[1:03:45] And until then, September 19th.

[1:03:46] It's amazing when I was a kid, how hot a bra strap would make me.

[1:03:50] And now, it does not have any effect on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:52] Yeah, you start pulling at the earth.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:55] I would turn into a Tex Avery wolf.

[1:03:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:57] Now you would not believe the sick shit it takes to turn Elliot on.

[1:04:01] Exactly.

[1:04:01] Are you kidding?

[1:04:02] Come on.

[1:04:02] It's not even legal.

[1:04:04] All right.

[1:04:05] Well, on that creepy note.

[1:04:06] It's barely legal.

[1:04:08] Just barely.

[1:04:09] Let's sign this thing off.

[1:04:12] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:04:15] Yeah, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:04:16] And unless I'm legally culpable, I'm Elliot Kamen.

[1:04:20] Good night, everyone.

[1:04:21] Boom.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:23] You really lost energy there, Stuart.

[1:04:25] Yeah, it got me.

[1:04:26] The Bud Light got to me.

[1:04:34] I mean, come on.

[1:04:35] She can't help it.

[1:04:36] Check one for me.

[1:04:37] Check two for me.

[1:04:38] And this is for Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:41] Checkity check.

[1:04:44] Checkarino.

[1:04:45] Checks?

[1:04:46] Check Republic.

[1:04:47] All right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:47] Well, let's fucking get this shit underway.

[1:04:51] Yeah, let's do it to it.

[1:04:52] Mm-hmm.

[1:04:53] Glue it.

The Flop House: Episode #110 - Battleship

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