The Flop House: Episode #108 - Passion Play

Dan McCoy

[0:00] In this episode, we discuss the movie where Megan Fox has wings, possibly due to Red Bull abuse.

[0:06] Passion Play.

Elliott Kalan

[0:30] Passion Play.

[1:00] Step one, welcoming the listeners, has been achieved.

[1:02] Great work, everybody.

[1:03] Ten out of ten.

[1:04] Let's move on.

[1:06] Are you sure?

[1:07] I mean, were there any accidents during that time?

[1:09] Should we flip over the sign?

[1:11] Nope, nothing.

[1:12] Nothing worth talking about, so let's just keep it moving.

[1:15] Let's just get on to the next stage, doing the podcast.

[1:19] All right.

Dan McCoy

[1:19] Well, this is a podcast where we watch a movie.

[1:23] Called The Flophouse.

[1:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25] A bad movie.

[1:25] The movie's called The Flophouse?

[1:26] No, the, wait.

[1:28] No, the podcast's called The Flophouse.

[1:29] I'm sure that they know that if they download it.

[1:31] The Flophouse podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32] We watch a movie that is a flop in some way.

[1:34] And we chat about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] So we've already watched the movie.

[1:38] Yes.

[1:38] Okay.

[1:38] That's what happened earlier.

[1:39] Okay.

[1:40] Those were those series of pictures.

[1:42] That was the proto step.

[1:43] That were in front of your eyes earlier in the night, Stuart.

[1:46] And now we're on to the part where you talk about the thing that you saw.

[1:50] And the thing we saw today was a movie called Passion Play.

Elliott Kalan

[1:54] Not to be confused.

[1:55] P-p-p-p Passion Play.

[1:57] Yep.

[1:57] P-p-p-p Passion Play.

[1:58] Not to be confused with the centuries-old Christian tradition of the same name.

[2:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[2:03] This movie stars Michael Rourke.

[2:06] No.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07] Known affectionately as Mickey.

[2:09] Yeah.

[2:09] Mickey Rourke.

[2:10] Also William Murray, also called Bill.

[2:12] And Meganathan Fox, also known as Meg Fox.

[2:16] Meg Fox?

[2:17] Or Megan Fox.

[2:18] I mean, what?

[2:18] You know her really well?

Dan McCoy

[2:19] I mean, I don't know really well.

[2:21] Well, we're learning something.

[2:22] Like, it was Anne Hathaway and Meg Fox when I was growing up.

[2:27] Well, we were both.

[2:27] Well, he knows her as Blant Hathaway.

Stuart Wellington

[2:29] What?

[2:29] Well, I never said that.

[2:30] Well, because they were friends, so we could call her something funny.

Elliott Kalan

[2:33] Well, me and Meg Fox were just huge fans of Peter Benchley's book, Meg, about the giant sea monster.

[2:39] So I used to call her that.

[2:40] She called me Gem, which is Meg backwards.

Dan McCoy

[2:43] That's weird.

[2:44] Why would she call you by her name backwards?

Elliott Kalan

[2:46] No, it's because we were both fans of the book Meg.

[2:48] Oh, I get it.

[2:50] Ugh.

[2:50] Well, you know what?

[2:51] Let's just forget I ever said I was friends with Megan Fox, okay?

[2:54] And move on.

[2:55] Riz Ifans is also in this movie.

[2:57] Yeah.

[2:58] Playing an evil carny barker.

[2:59] That's who that was.

[3:00] Yeah, Riz Ifans.

Dan McCoy

[3:01] You may know him as...

[3:03] Notting Hill.

[3:04] You may know him as, yeah, weird guy from Notting Hill.

[3:08] You may know him as Balloon Crazy Guy from Enduring Love.

[3:14] Or the Ape Man from Human Nature.

[3:16] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:16] I don't know why we're talking a lot about him, since he has one of the smaller parts in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[3:19] Yeah.

[3:20] He barely shows up in it.

Elliott Kalan

[3:22] This is really the story of...

[3:23] It's really a three-person playlet.

[3:25] Yes.

[3:26] And passion play, if you will.

[3:28] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:28] I'll be playing the role of Mickey Rourke.

[3:31] You can be...

[3:31] Okay.

[3:32] Wait, are we acting it out?

[3:33] You can be Megan Fox.

[3:33] And you can be Riz Ifans.

[3:36] Wait, wait.

[3:36] Who's playing Bill Murray, the villain?

[3:38] No.

[3:39] Not today.

Elliott Kalan

[3:40] So, should we...

[3:41] Can we say what this movie's about?

[3:42] Sure.

[3:42] If anyone doesn't know...

Stuart Wellington

[3:43] Wait, why don't we stop and start over?

[3:45] No, let's not do that.

Elliott Kalan

[3:46] Passion Play has...

[3:48] I think it came out relatively recently, but it's become a little notorious already for being a bizarre and stupid movie.

[3:55] Mickey Rourke apologized for it, right?

[3:57] Before it came out, Mickey Rourke actually said in an interview that sometimes you make stinkers, like this one.

Dan McCoy

[4:03] Well, and there have been several movies that Mickey Rourke has been in that he hasn't apologized for.

Elliott Kalan

[4:07] That are even...

[4:07] That are also terrible.

Dan McCoy

[4:08] Yeah, so you get a sense.

[4:10] You get a baseline for what this movie might be like.

Elliott Kalan

[4:13] This movie was written and directed by Mitch Glazer, who also co-wrote Scrooged, among other things.

[4:19] And this was a project, a passion project of his own.

[4:22] He was trying to get off the ground for about 20 years, starring friends of his.

[4:27] And it's really the story of young Mickelson Rourke, who plays a pile of mashed potatoes molded into a human form,

[4:34] and then given a stringy wig and a hat, who is a jazz trumpet player who's down on his luck.

[4:40] He's a recovering junkie, and he's in bed with a local gangster named Happy.

Dan McCoy

[4:46] A gangster named Happy?

[4:47] Now I've heard everything.

Elliott Kalan

[4:50] Before, Happy was just the name of a son and death of a salesman, but now a gangster?

[4:55] All right.

[4:56] He's taken out into the desert to be killed, I assume, for pissing off this gangster.

[5:00] But a band of random Indians in karate garb shoot the bad guy, and Mickey Rourke gets away.

[5:07] He wanders through the desert and comes upon a strange sideshow circus in the middle of the desert.

Stuart Wellington

[5:11] I mean, that's a gangster's fault.

[5:12] Like, you don't take a guy out into the desert and not expect to get killed by Kung Fu Indians.

Elliott Kalan

[5:17] Well, if you take him to Injun territory, yes.

[5:18] And if you take him to Kung Fu Injun territory, yeah, exactly.

[5:21] Double yes.

[5:22] Double yes.

[5:22] There's a 50% encounter chance.

[5:24] There's like an 85% encounter chance.

[5:26] Okay.

[5:26] 15% chance of rain.

[5:28] Which is also going to ruin your assassination, which is because you're going to get your shoes wet.

[5:31] Yeah.

[5:32] So anyway, he stumbles on this circus sideshow run by Riz Ifans as a filthy, stringy-haired fellow.

[5:38] Almost everyone in the movie has stringy hair.

[5:41] And he finds Megan Fox, an angel woman or bird girl, who has real wings on her back.

Stuart Wellington

[5:46] What's the difference between an angel woman and a bird girl?

Elliott Kalan

[5:49] Bird girl is kind of a derogatory racist term against, they prefer to be called angel women.

Stuart Wellington

[5:53] Okay.

[5:53] Yeah.

[5:54] And that makes sense.

[5:54] I mean, she looks like an angel.

[5:56] Uh, well, like...

[5:56] With her smile on her eyes.

Elliott Kalan

[5:58] I don't know about that.

[5:59] Silky hair.

Dan McCoy

[6:00] You know, just being the perfect figure of womanhood.

Elliott Kalan

[6:04] It looks more like a robot designed by an alien trying to lure a human man into a spaceship.

Stuart Wellington

[6:10] And in this case, succeeded by luring Mickey Rourke.

[6:13] Yeah, so...

[6:13] A potato monster.

Elliott Kalan

[6:14] So he meant to get a man and he accidentally got a food golem.

Dan McCoy

[6:21] A Flophouse, the podcast where we insult all of the people.

[6:23] All of Hollywood's top stars.

Elliott Kalan

[6:25] Yeah, top stars like Mickey Rourke.

Stuart Wellington

[6:28] So, uh...

[6:29] He's gonna come over and grab us with those weird hands of his with those fingernails that

[6:32] are too big for his stumpy fingers.

[6:34] Yeah.

[6:34] And he's gonna shake us.

Elliott Kalan

[6:36] Shake us so hard.

[6:38] Long story short, Mickey Rourke falls in love with the bird girl.

[6:41] But first, he kind of cons her into leaving the circus and joining him.

[6:45] But his plan is he's gonna kind of trade her to the gangster, Bill Murray, in exchange for

[6:51] his own life.

[6:51] But he falls in love with her and feels bad about doing that and is gonna repent.

[6:56] But then the gangster comes along and kidnaps the girl, takes her to his house and forces

[7:02] her to watch the movie Brute Force with Burt Lancaster, which is a fantastic movie.

[7:05] She was hating it.

[7:07] She did not seem to like it very much.

[7:09] Mickey Rourke comes by and says, come with me.

[7:13] And she says, no, I'm staying.

[7:14] And it's clear that she's giving up her life to save his life.

Dan McCoy

[7:18] Yeah, clear to everyone but Mickey Rourke.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] But Mickey Rourke, who is dumb as a bag of rocks.

[7:22] He resolves to get her back and eventually does.

[7:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[7:27] Well, I mean, she's on display as like sort of an art object in a weird like...

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] Bill Murray lives with her in a hotel for a little bit until Rizifanz comes by and tries

[7:38] to get her back.

[7:39] Bill Murray shoots him in the chest and then decides, I guess, it's time to put this girl

[7:42] on display.

[7:43] So she's standing in a glass box covering her boobs, wearing just underpants.

[7:48] And Mickey Rourke comes by, smashes the glass box, saves her.

Stuart Wellington

[7:51] Well, local rich people and debutantes stare at her.

Elliott Kalan

[7:55] Just kind of look on.

[7:56] They escape to the roof of a building and Megan Fox has established by now that she can float

[8:00] when the wind hits her just right, but she can't fly.

[8:03] Because her wings are fucking tiny.

[8:04] They're not big enough.

[8:06] But Mickey Rourke...

Dan McCoy

[8:06] Delicate lady wings.

[8:07] Yeah, but I mean, she's a human body.

[8:09] Not like big bodies like you have.

Elliott Kalan

[8:11] Yeah, you're big manly wings.

[8:13] You're a regular Hawkman.

[8:14] That's what I was trying to do.

[8:15] You're like Duran Duran from Barbarella.

Stuart Wellington

[8:18] That's what I was trying to do, is draw attention to me having wings by making fun of her.

[8:22] I'm sorry, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[8:23] It was all right.

[8:24] You're a regular Brian Blessed from Flash Gordon.

[8:26] So, and Mickey Rourke to, I guess, force her, it's a Dumbo moment, to force her to believe in herself.

[8:35] He jumps off the roof.

[8:37] Megan Fox dives after him and catches him and manages to fly.

[8:40] Oh my God, it's amazing.

[8:41] She's flying.

[8:42] And they fly over deserts and he looks down and sees his own dead body.

[8:46] It turns out he was dead the whole time and he dreamed the whole thing.

[8:49] It's a real Ambrose Bierce.

Dan McCoy

[8:51] Well, I mean, did he dream the whole thing?

[8:53] Or this is like, maybe he was in sort of a purgatory and now he's redeemed.

[8:57] Okay, that's another way to say it.

Elliott Kalan

[8:58] Purgatory is a series of shitty jazz clubs, laundromats, and circuses.

Dan McCoy

[9:02] Or a terrible movie that you have to watch for a while and then you're redeemed at the end.

[9:07] And it ends.

Elliott Kalan

[9:08] And that's the end of the movie.

[9:10] So, this is an hour and a half movie with almost no plot in it.

[9:14] A lot of scenes where characters just kind of murmur for a long time with each other.

Dan McCoy

[9:17] But just like a gorgeous film, just beautiful to look at.

[9:21] Not exactly.

[9:23] I thought I was the sarcastic one.

[9:26] Are we going to have to re-hand out personas?

[9:29] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[9:30] Yeah, so now, Dan's now the sarcastic one.

[9:33] Stuart's now the know-it-all.

[9:34] And I am the boring guy.

[9:35] Um, excuse me.

[9:37] I'm adjusting my glass.

[9:38] You can't see that.

Stuart Wellington

[9:39] Um, Ambrose Bierce.

[9:41] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[9:42] Let's just do this right, okay, guys?

[9:45] Wow.

[9:46] Wow, I don't like this.

[9:47] Let's switch back.

[9:48] I don't care for anything.

Elliott Kalan

[9:49] Okay, let's touch that magic skull in the middle of the table and get our personalities back.

[9:55] Okay, we're back.

[9:56] So, no, it's actually a terrible looking movie.

[9:58] Which is weird considering that it was shot by Christopher Doyle, who is an amazing cinematographer.

[10:04] Works with Wong Kar Wai in a lot of movies.

[10:06] Okay.

[10:06] For anyone who saw In the Mood for Love, especially.

[10:09] It's a beautiful movie.

[10:10] This is, however, a terrible looking movie.

Stuart Wellington

[10:12] And that's, like, you would think it'd be easy with such beautiful subjects like Mickey Rourke's face.

[10:17] Like Mickey Rourke's face.

[10:19] Bill Murray's face.

[10:21] Shitty sets.

[10:22] A lot of green screens.

[10:23] Well, that's the way.

[10:23] I mean...

Elliott Kalan

[10:24] There's a lot of...

[10:24] If you've ever...

[10:25] Anyone listening has seen The Room, where every time they go up on the roof, it's green screen of the San Francisco skyline.

[10:31] Those green screens are a little bit better than the ones in this movie.

[10:34] It's terrible green screen work.

Dan McCoy

[10:37] Yeah, this movie is a series of unflattering, flatly lit close-ups in hotel rooms and empty stadiums and...

[10:47] Empty restaurants.

[10:48] Empty restaurants.

[10:49] Empty theaters.

[10:51] Like a museum that's sort of blandly...

Elliott Kalan

[10:55] Mainly of Mickey Rourke's face gets a lot of screen time.

Dan McCoy

[10:58] And his beautiful chest.

Elliott Kalan

[11:00] And his weird hairless round torso also gets a fair amount of screenplay.

[11:06] And I...

[11:07] This is a movie that was written 20 years ago with Mickey Rourke in mind, I think, at the time.

[11:12] So, like, you could...

[11:13] 20 years ago, you could buy Mickey Rourke as, like, a down-on-his-luck, but still sexually attractive jazz musician.

Stuart Wellington

[11:20] 20 years later, I mean, he's got the world at his feet.

Elliott Kalan

[11:24] I don't know if that's exactly the way.

Dan McCoy

[11:25] I don't think I was aware he was going with that...

[11:28] I mean...

[11:29] An Adamus.

[11:31] Yeah, now he's just the apex of human perfection.

[11:33] There's certainly more of him now.

[11:35] Yeah.

[11:35] More of him to love.

Stuart Wellington

[11:37] Making fun of Mickey Rourke's physical appearance aside, what do you think of his performance, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[11:42] I mean, this is where Elliot and I differ.

[11:45] I mean, like, he certainly was mumbly.

[11:47] We can both agree...

[11:48] Elliot and I can both agree on that.

[11:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[11:49] No, I mean, I assume that before every take, he put a bag of marbles in his mouth.

Dan McCoy

[11:52] I think that he put in as good a performance as he could with this material.

Stuart Wellington

[11:58] Yeah, do you assume the director's like...

[11:59] The director's assuming that Mickey Rourke's going to mumble.

[12:03] You don't get Mickey Rourke and you're like, hey, enunciate, man.

[12:05] Yeah, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[12:06] That's a good point.

[12:07] That's a good point.

Stuart Wellington

[12:08] It's like, hey, Scorpion, stop stinging me.

Dan McCoy

[12:10] You can't expect that.

[12:11] I think that Mickey Rourke, as crazy as this fucking movie was...

Stuart Wellington

[12:16] I thought you meant the Mortal Kombat character.

[12:17] Because he doesn't sting you, he kills you with uppercuts.

[12:19] Yeah.

[12:21] That's the sting of man.

Dan McCoy

[12:22] The uppercuts.

[12:23] As crazy as this fucking movie was, and as much as Mickey Rourke bad-mouthed afterwards,

[12:27] I felt like during...

[12:29] I watch him in the movie.

[12:31] I was like, okay, well, he believes what he's doing.

[12:34] This movie's terrible, but he believes what he's doing.

Elliott Kalan

[12:36] He doesn't sleepwalk through the role.

[12:38] That's true.

[12:38] And I thought that Bill Murray...

[12:39] He mumbles and stumbles his way through, but he believes in this stupid character.

Dan McCoy

[12:42] Bill Murray also put in the best performance he could under the circumstances.

[12:46] And Megan Fox is not a good actress, but she is trying, I can tell.

[12:51] She thinks she's in something.

[12:54] She does a pretty good job of imagining she has wings.

[12:57] That's true, yeah.

[12:58] I don't think that any of the actors are at fault for this movie.

[13:00] This movie's fault entirely lies on the writer-director.

Elliott Kalan

[13:05] It's not a very good story, and it's poorly paced and very slow,

[13:09] and there's a lot of scenes of characters just kind of looking around or mumbling to each other.

Stuart Wellington

[13:14] There's that weird moment about 15 minutes into the movie, or maybe 20 minutes into the movie,

[13:19] where that female character, whose role I don't remember,

[13:22] basically just recounts everything that has happened up until that point.

Elliott Kalan

[13:26] Oh, Kelly Lynch's character.

[13:27] Yeah.

[13:27] Who's Mickey Rourke's kind of confidant.

Dan McCoy

[13:30] Yeah, and she figures into the movie not at all.

[13:33] Like, there's no plot purpose for her.

Elliott Kalan

[13:35] She shows up later to wake him up from a heroin-induced super.

[13:38] She's the Watson to Mickey Rourke's Sherlock, who gets the story told to her, I guess,

[13:43] and also her husband wrote and directed the movie, so that's also why she's in it.

[13:49] But the...

[13:51] Well, I had something to say, and I don't know.

[13:52] But we can all agree that this is a story that needed to be told, right?

[13:56] Oh, certainly.

[13:57] Well, here's the thing.

[13:58] Here's what I was going to say.

[13:59] In any movie that's attempting to reach a kind of sublime quality,

[14:04] the director or writer is taking a huge risk,

[14:06] because if it isn't balanced right, it comes off looking stupid or ridiculous.

[14:10] And, like, a movie that I've mentioned many times on this podcast, The Fall,

[14:14] is a movie that I think achieves that,

[14:16] but takes a big risk in a certain naivete that you need to achieve,

[14:20] like, that real sublime quality.

[14:22] This movie does not achieve it, and it falls flat on its face.

[14:25] And I admire...

[14:26] It feels like the writer-director, like, put his soul into the movie,

[14:29] and I admire that, but he did such a crappy job of it,

[14:32] and the story is so non-existent and boring that I still...

[14:36] I wish that he had, like, not done it, you know?

[14:38] Yeah, I mean, part of...

[14:39] The people making this movie take a big risk and fail utterly, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[14:44] Well, there's...

[14:45] He kind of expects you to care for the Mickey Rourke character a lot more

[14:49] than I think you're ever given a reason to do.

Elliott Kalan

[14:52] Mickey Rourke is supposed to be, like, a charismatic rogue,

[14:54] but instead he is a mumbly sack.

Dan McCoy

[14:56] But also, as I was complaining during the movie,

[14:58] like, I think that everything that the villain,

[15:01] played by Bill Murray, says is valid.

[15:03] Like, he explains to Megan Fox, like,

[15:05] oh, yeah, this guy traded your life for his,

[15:09] and that's not wrong,

[15:11] but for some reason we're supposed to like Mickey Rourke

[15:15] just because we've been with him for the first part of the movie, I guess?

[15:20] Like, or, like, just because he's fallen in love with Megan Fox,

[15:24] and it's like, yeah, you can fall in love with someone

[15:26] and still treat them like shit.

[15:28] Like, that happens all the time.

[15:29] Like, that doesn't make you a good guy.

Stuart Wellington

[15:31] Yeah.

[15:31] She's Megan Fox and she's got wings.

[15:33] I mean, come on.

[15:33] The other thing is that...

[15:35] It's amazing.

Dan McCoy

[15:36] What more?

[15:37] What more do you want?

[15:37] I mean, the only thing that would make Megan Fox better

[15:39] would be if she had huge bird wings.

[15:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[15:42] That's what every man wants.

[15:43] Maybe, like, a bird's head, too.

[15:44] Or maybe if she was holding, like, a giant pizza or something.

[15:47] Then you get everything.

[15:48] I like to believe that any woman gets an extra beautiful point

[15:52] from Stuart if she's holding a giant pizza.

Stuart Wellington

[15:54] Yeah, of course.

[15:56] You got a beautiful babe, beautiful pizza.

[15:58] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[15:58] What if she had a pizza in one hand and, like, a beer in the other hand?

Stuart Wellington

[16:01] Oh, my God, Elliot, stop it.

[16:04] Can't handle it.

[16:05] Okay.

[16:06] You're getting red in the face.

[16:07] This is turning into, like, a Red Shoe Diaries type thing, right?

Elliott Kalan

[16:10] Well, there was something you mentioned while we were watching the movie, Stuart,

[16:13] which is that this is what a Zalman King production looks like

[16:15] with no sex scenes in it.

[16:16] Mm-hmm.

[16:17] And there's one sex scene between Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox,

[16:19] which is horrifying.

[16:21] But it feels like that.

Stuart Wellington

[16:22] It's the second worst sex scene featuring a feather I've ever seen.

[16:26] And what would the first one be?

[16:27] The 40 Days and 40 Nights,

[16:28] where Josh Hartnett makes Shannon Sossman climax

[16:30] by blowing a feather on her belly.

[16:32] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[16:33] It's just that easy.

[16:36] It's just that easy to make a woman climax.

[16:38] She was aching for it.

[16:39] She was clay aching for it.

[16:41] I think that was sad.

Elliott Kalan

[16:46] That was...

Dan McCoy

[16:48] That was, I think, the most trenchant criticism of this movie

[16:53] because it is exactly like a movie you would see on Cinemax late at night

[16:56] with all the sex ex-sized.

[16:58] So it's got the same weird draggy series of cheap locations.

Elliott Kalan

[17:06] Yeah, it's a lot of scenes of characters doing something to get to the next scene

[17:10] or killing time until the next scene starts.

[17:12] And in a softcore movie, that would be a sex scene.

[17:14] But here it's not.

[17:15] So you go to another scene of Mickey Rourke lying around mumbling to somebody

[17:19] or Bill Murray saying something kind of funny, but...

Stuart Wellington

[17:23] Or if somebody was trying to make a parody of a David Lynch movie

[17:26] and just forgot to make it funny.

[17:28] That would be kind of what this movie is.

Elliott Kalan

[17:29] It feels very much like someone who was trying for that David Lynch style

[17:33] of, like, weirdness that affects you and didn't get it.

Stuart Wellington

[17:37] Like the freak show that just seems to be like a bunch of people doing stuff in a tent

[17:41] and they let the people just walk around, people nailing stuff into their heads.

Elliott Kalan

[17:45] It looked like a freak show expo for, like, the freak industry

[17:48] where there's just a lot of platforms for the freaks doing their stuff

[17:51] and then you have the other exhibitors just wandering around like,

[17:54] Oh, yeah, that's good.

[17:55] Oh, what are they doing?

[17:55] Game tags on lanyards.

[17:57] What are they doing with their bearded lady?

[17:58] Oh, nice, long-bearded lady.

[17:59] If you want one of these new 2012 freaks, you've got to...

[18:01] And, like, there's a raffle to win a freak, that kind of thing.

Dan McCoy

[18:07] Castle freak.

Elliott Kalan

[18:08] No.

[18:09] No.

[18:10] That's a castle freak expo.

Dan McCoy

[18:11] All right, speaking of...

[18:11] This is going to be a digression, but I've got to take Stu...

[18:14] I've got to take Stu to task or something.

Elliott Kalan

[18:16] Is this related to Passion Play, the film of the same name?

Dan McCoy

[18:19] No, it's not.

[18:20] But this podcast is about nothing if it's not about digressions.

[18:25] Okay.

[18:26] And I recently saw the film Castle Freak.

[18:28] Okay, that sounds like you had a good afternoon.

[18:31] I had a fine afternoon.

[18:32] You watched it in the early afternoon.

[18:35] That's a 2 p.m. movie.

[18:37] The problem I have to have, I'm going to confirm...

[18:39] Get your hot pocket out of the oven.

Elliott Kalan

[18:41] Wait, like, is that a thing that...

[18:43] That substitutes for a vagina?

Stuart Wellington

[18:46] No, you eat a hot pocket at 2 p.m., right?

[18:49] It's like a lunch time thing, right?

Dan McCoy

[18:50] No, I...

[18:51] Everyone has a hot pocket at 2 p.m.?

[18:53] No, but I mean, that could be a lunch thing.

Stuart Wellington

[18:56] I'm not saying...

[18:56] You're eating lunch at 2 p.m.?

[18:57] Why are you thinking something gross?

[18:58] I was talking about...

Dan McCoy

[18:59] Because you're talking about it.

[19:00] Okay, Danny.

[19:01] Cool.

[19:01] So, we had a letter a while back about...

[19:05] It was...

[19:06] I think it was titled Ding Dong Gate.

[19:09] About...

[19:10] A letter from...

[19:11] Yep, that's what brought down Richard Dixon.

[19:12] A listener complaining that there was, in fact, no Ding Dong ripping...

[19:18] Yep.

[19:19] ...in Castle Freak.

[19:19] And I have to confirm this.

[19:21] Somebody frame by frame did it.

[19:23] The titular...

[19:24] The titular Castle Freak has no Ding Dong.

[19:28] It's been ripped off at some point.

[19:29] But that happens off screen.

[19:31] That happens prior to the movie's chronology.

Elliott Kalan

[19:33] So, you're saying all these years that Stuart is promising somebody ripping their own Ding Dong off.

Dan McCoy

[19:37] Now, there is a scene...

[19:38] Hold on.

[19:39] There is a scene where the Castle Freak bites off a prostitute's nipple.

[19:44] So, I imagine that in your mind, you conflated the biting off of the prostitute's nipple

[19:48] and the missing Ding Dong of the Castle Freak into the Castle Freak ripping his own...

[19:53] It's like an episode of Columbo.

[19:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:54] Are you putting yourself into my shoes...

Stuart Wellington

[19:57] Just one more thing, Stuart.

[19:58] When I first saw Castle Freak 15 years ago, imagining that you're drunk and stupid

[20:03] and probably full of hormones or whatever I was.

[20:06] Holy shit, that guy just ripped his own Ding Dong off.

[20:09] Yep.

[20:10] Or maybe one of my drunk or high buddies said that and I just went along with it.

[20:15] Yeah, pretty weird.

[20:16] So, are you saying I now have to make some kind of letter of apology to all those dudes

[20:19] who listen to my podcast and have managed to talk their friends into watching

[20:23] Castle Freak?

[20:23] On the basis of a Ding Dong riffing.

Dan McCoy

[20:24] Hey, I heard this guy ripped the Ding Dong off.

Stuart Wellington

[20:27] His friends were like, that sounds really awesome.

Dan McCoy

[20:29] Well, I think that if you don't apologize to him, we have a potential class action suit on

[20:32] our hands.

[20:33] From who?

[20:34] Fucking Full Moon Pictures?

[20:35] From a bunch of Flophouse listeners.

Elliott Kalan

[20:37] With all the money I spent on their fucking action figures?

Dan McCoy

[20:40] No, no.

[20:40] All those Puppet Master dolls that you bought?

[20:42] All those Flophouse listeners out there who have spent the money to rent Castle Freak based

[20:47] on the Ding Dong riffing.

[20:49] Where can you rent Castle Freak at?

Elliott Kalan

[20:52] I don't know.

[20:52] The only way to see Castle Freak is to say Castle Freak three times in a blind alley.

[20:57] A tiny gnome appears.

[20:58] Gives you a reel of film.

[21:00] You trade that in on a nightclub to a giant spider.

[21:02] The spider scurries away, gets a videotape.

[21:05] You watch the videotape.

[21:06] Then you get a phone call.

[21:07] Tells you in a week there's going to be a ghost girl in a location.

[21:11] TBD.

[21:11] Sounds right.

[21:12] You go there, you give her $10 in panties.

[21:15] In panties?

[21:16] Panties.

[21:17] Okay.

[21:18] But in a girl's panty.

[21:19] Okay.

[21:19] She hits you twice on both sides of the face with a fish.

[21:24] And then you fall asleep and when you wake up you have a memory of having seen Castle Freak.

[21:28] Well, I mean sure.

[21:28] That's the only way to see it.

Dan McCoy

[21:29] I mean, I got it from Netflix, so I don't know what.

Elliott Kalan

[21:32] Maybe you didn't see the right version there.

Dan McCoy

[21:33] Okay, you're probably right.

[21:35] I think this is the way you see the unrated version.

[21:37] Alright.

Elliott Kalan

[21:38] Yeah, you have to see it at 2pm.

[21:39] Yeah, maybe I saw the unrated version.

Dan McCoy

[21:41] I looked up the unrated version on IMDb.

[21:45] There's no ding-dong ripping in that.

[21:47] There are differences.

Stuart Wellington

[21:48] Was one of the keywords not ding-dong rip?

[21:51] Under trivia it said, Stuart Wellington falsely claims there's a ding-dong rip dog.

[21:57] Do not believe him.

[21:57] Star Jeffrey Combs disagrees.

Dan McCoy

[22:00] Alright, well, to get back to the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[22:02] So, passion play.

[22:02] So, anyway, I guess, viewers, you're going to have to watch Castle Freak yourself and the unrated version to see who's right.

[22:07] Decide for yourself.

Stuart Wellington

[22:08] In the battle of the casts, Stuart or Dan.

[22:11] Are you cool like Stuart or like a grouchy dude like Dan?

Elliott Kalan

[22:15] Stuart Wellington, the raging Cajun.

[22:17] And Dan McCoy, the bland band.

[22:21] Together again for one show only.

Dan McCoy

[22:23] I was on board with the grouchy part, but I don't know about the bland.

[22:26] The slouchy grouch?

[22:27] Slouchy grouch, I'll take it.

Elliott Kalan

[22:31] There's not a lot to say about it except that it's crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[22:32] There's that great moment where Reese if ands.

[22:35] Riz if ands.

[22:36] It's Riz?

[22:37] The Riz-a if ands.

[22:38] Okay, where he pours Victor Gordon's drink before slapping it right out of his hand.

Elliott Kalan

[22:43] That was pretty great.

[22:44] There's a, the best, this is a movie where, no, no lie.

[22:47] This is a movie about a woman with wings and a gangster tracking down a jazz musician.

[22:51] The best part of the movie, the best thing about it, is at one point there's a glimpse of a bottle of liquor and the label says Gordon Shumway's.

[23:00] And for those who don't remember, Gordon Shumway is Al's real name.

[23:04] So, this is a world.

[23:05] Al from the television show Al.

Dan McCoy

[23:07] Thanks for clarifying to the people who are listening to this podcast.

[23:11] He said Al really fast, so I just want to clarify.

[23:14] The alien.

[23:14] The alien life form.

[23:16] Gordon Shumway is.

[23:16] Oh, you're mad at me.

[23:17] I thought you were mad at Dan.

[23:19] Both.

[23:20] I'm mad at both of you right now.

[23:22] So, while this.

[23:23] You're just mad that the ding dong ripping never happens.

Elliott Kalan

[23:25] While this dumb story about a woman with wings is going on, Alf is running a distillery somewhere in that universe.

[23:31] And we are not seeing that story.

[23:33] So, do you think that's small batch gin?

Dan McCoy

[23:35] Like, do you think that's craft gin that Alf is?

Elliott Kalan

[23:37] I think it started that way, but I think it got way big.

[23:39] He's since, he's long sold out.

[23:41] And he's just making mass produced gin.

[23:42] I mean, we haven't heard a lot from Alf recently.

Dan McCoy

[23:44] He's probably.

Elliott Kalan

[23:45] Well, he had that talk show for a little bit.

[23:46] I don't know how long ago that was.

[23:49] And maybe.

[23:50] I'd say he went back to Melmac, but everyone knows that was destroyed.

Dan McCoy

[23:53] He's kind of like a Dan Aykroyd figure.

[23:54] He's mainly in booze now.

Elliott Kalan

[23:56] And he keeps promising Ghostbusters 3.

Dan McCoy

[24:01] Speaking of which, as Stuart said during the movie, Bill Murray is not going to make Ghostbusters 3.

Elliott Kalan

[24:06] But he's going to make this film.

[24:08] He's going to make Passion Play.

[24:09] I'll tell you what.

Stuart Wellington

[24:10] Every fan of Ghostbusters rent Passion Play and get really mad about it.

Elliott Kalan

[24:14] If making Passion Play stops Ashton Kutcher from becoming a Ghostbuster, then I'm all for it.

Stuart Wellington

[24:19] Wait, Ashton Kutcher is going to be a Ghostbuster?

Elliott Kalan

[24:21] After they, Ivan Reitman kept saying like, oh yeah, we want, it's going to be a new generation of Ghostbusters.

[24:28] Like Ashton Kutcher and I don't know who else he said.

[24:31] Stop saying that.

[24:31] Hurts my brain.

[24:32] Seth Green.

Dan McCoy

[24:34] Every time you say it.

[24:37] Here's a problem with this movie.

[24:39] Okay.

[24:39] You're talking about.

[24:41] Because this movie is flawless.

[24:41] Is that like a next generation of Goonies?

[24:44] Like.

Stuart Wellington

[24:44] What do you mean the next generation of Goonies?

[24:46] I thought they were going to make another Goonies movie and do it with Goonies kids.

[24:50] Goonies Junior?

[24:51] Yeah.

[24:52] Little Goonies.

[24:53] No, that was the thing.

[24:54] Yeah, like with a little baby slob.

Dan McCoy

[24:56] The Goonies were supposed to have grown up and then their kids were the next generation of Goonies.

[25:01] And when was this going to happen?

Elliott Kalan

[25:04] Because you can do that with any movie.

[25:06] Casablanca 2.

[25:07] Yeah.

[25:08] The characters have grown up, now their kids are in trouble with the Nazis.

[25:11] Well, I don't know.

[25:12] Schindler's List 2.

Dan McCoy

[25:13] Historically.

[25:14] The characters have grown up, now their kids are in trouble with the Nazis.

[25:17] You might want to look into when the Nazis happened and like how long.

[25:20] It can be space Nazis.

Elliott Kalan

[25:22] Von Ryan's Express 2.

[25:23] Von Ryan's an old man, now his kids are in trouble with the Nazis.

[25:26] Sure.

[25:26] Hogan's Heroes.

[25:27] Let's be sure it's 2.

Stuart Wellington

[25:29] Let's just let L.A. keep naming things.

Elliott Kalan

[25:30] I'm saying there are a lot of movies with Nazis as the villains.

Dan McCoy

[25:33] No, you were talking about a movie that seeks transcendence.

[25:36] Part of the problem with this movie is like all the transcendence it's seeking is dependent on the ending of the film.

[25:45] But the ending of the film is like a shitty twist.

[25:48] Like for...

[25:49] That's a twist when she can fly?

[25:51] No, no, no.

[25:51] That he's been dead.

[25:52] That he's been dead the whole time.

[25:53] Oh.

[25:54] Like if all of the meaning of the film is weighted on...

[25:58] Wait a minute.

Elliott Kalan

[25:59] Uh-oh.

[26:00] Uh-oh.

[26:00] I feel a mirror is coming on.

[26:01] It's happening again.

[26:03] Wait, he was dead?

[26:04] Yeah.

[26:04] That's why they see his body at the end when they fly away.

Stuart Wellington

[26:07] I thought that was just like a weird shot like he was tired after flown around.

Elliott Kalan

[26:12] Wait.

[26:12] So he was looking at himself.

Stuart Wellington

[26:13] So wait, that's why he had such a weird look on his face when she was flying him around?

Elliott Kalan

[26:17] Because he realized he was dead and he was about to go to heaven.

[26:19] Okay.

[26:20] Wait, really?

Stuart Wellington

[26:21] Yeah.

[26:22] Or...

[26:22] So how did he die?

[26:23] He was shot.

[26:24] At the beginning of the movie.

[26:25] So wait, they had ninjas and the...

Elliott Kalan

[26:27] He wasn't saved by the ninja engines.

[26:29] The ninja engines failed to save him.

[26:32] Wait.

[26:33] Okay, so he was dead the whole time.

[26:35] He was dead from the moment that guy brought him to the desert and was about to shoot him.

Stuart Wellington

[26:39] So who saved the girl with the wings?

Elliott Kalan

[26:41] She never existed.

[26:42] With the wings.

[26:43] Okay.

[26:43] I mean, she might be an angel, but...

[26:45] Oh, we forgot to mention the scene where Megan Fox goes to a plastic surgeon to get her wings removed.

[26:50] And, uh...

Stuart Wellington

[26:51] And the guy looks like Roger Sterling.

Elliott Kalan

[26:53] He's like a poor man's Roger Sterling.

[26:54] And Mickey Rourke comes in and says, don't do this, and takes her out.

Stuart Wellington

[26:57] And he's like, she can't live a normal life with wings like this, which is what any doctor would say.

Elliott Kalan

[27:03] And Mickey Rourke says, so what's so good about normal?

[27:06] Mm-hmm.

[27:06] Moral.

[27:07] Moral.

[27:07] Which...

Stuart Wellington

[27:08] We had to pause the movie and look at each other and agree with him.

Elliott Kalan

[27:11] And just let it sink in, yeah.

[27:12] Ugh, not since Lucas have I been hit so hard with that lesson.

Stuart Wellington

[27:15] It was like a scene on X3, The Last Stand.

[27:19] What's the third X-Men movie?

[27:21] That angel in it.

Dan McCoy

[27:23] Yeah, that's the important part.

[27:23] Someone with wings.

[27:25] Yeah.

[27:25] There you go.

[27:26] No, but like, to freight so much meaning on what is essentially a stupid, it was all a dream ending.

Elliott Kalan

[27:34] But also along the way, like, I think you're supposed to find the imagery of the woman with wings beautiful.

[27:39] You're supposed to find their love story touching.

[27:41] Like, you're supposed to be inspired that by the end when she proves she can fly.

[27:45] Like, along the way, you're supposed to be getting little epiphanies, except they all fall totally flat.

Stuart Wellington

[27:51] So wait, if it was like a purgatory type thing, what did he really accomplish?

[27:56] Like, he didn't really do that much other than, like, take a weird chick with tattoos home and get stuck with a heroin needle.

Elliott Kalan

[28:02] Oh, we didn't mention that part.

[28:03] He saved her.

[28:04] As part of the circus ringleader's revenge is that he has a girl seduce Mickey Rourke.

[28:11] He should have known something was wrong right away.

[28:13] And she gets him hooked on the junk again.

[28:16] By the way, how did he seduce this lady?

[28:19] Well, Mickey Rourke walks into a bar.

[28:22] Stop if you've heard this one.

[28:23] Mickey Rourke walks into a bar and sees a lady at the other end and takes lemons out of a basket,

[28:28] because this is one of those bars where lemons are provided in a basket.

[28:31] Yeah, you get to make your own garnish.

[28:32] And puts a lemon under a napkin and then just kind of rolls it over to her as if it's a tiny car or, like, there's a little mouse under there.

[28:39] Like, I just made a mouse.

Dan McCoy

[28:40] You put a napkin on a lemon.

[28:41] It seems at first like he's going to do a magic trick.

[28:44] He's like, here's the lemon.

[28:46] I'm putting it on the bar.

[28:47] I'm putting a napkin under it.

[28:48] It's going to disappear.

[28:49] And then he just nudges it towards her.

[28:50] He nudges it towards her.

[28:51] And it almost falls off at one point.

[28:53] And he has to, like, reset it in the middle of the bar.

[28:55] And she is delighted by this.

[28:58] She's not more charming.

Elliott Kalan

[28:59] Of course, it's because she was sent there to seduce him and get him heroined up.

Stuart Wellington

[29:03] Once again, it should have been a sign to the audience that this is a senate.

[29:06] Yeah.

[29:07] Because no woman falls for that.

[29:08] I've tried it.

[29:09] Falls for the old lemon under the napkin trick.

[29:11] Have you tried it?

[29:11] I've tried it.

[29:12] It doesn't work.

[29:13] They just get up and walk away.

Dan McCoy

[29:16] I think that's mainly because it was put in the secret.

[29:19] And now all the ladies know.

[29:20] You mean the game.

[29:21] Wait.

[29:22] Wait, the game.

Elliott Kalan

[29:23] The secret is about wishing for what you want.

[29:24] It's put in the secret.

[29:26] That book about wishing your way in a woman's pants.

[29:28] Right?

[29:28] That's what that was.

[29:29] Yeah, the secret game.

[29:30] The secret garden.

[29:31] I think that's what that's called.

[29:34] So, secret garden.

[29:35] So, this movie, I think, can be summed up in two scenes.

[29:38] Three scenes.

[29:39] Three scenes can sum this movie up.

[29:40] One is Megan Fox with poorly CGI'd bird wings in front of a poorly green screened vista.

[29:47] Two is Mickey Rourke attracting a woman by nudging a lemon under a napkin across a bar.

[29:53] And the third is Mickey Rourke meeting with Bill Murray in a restaurant.

[29:57] And then there's just a gratuitous shot of Mickey Rourke getting up out of the booth that they're in.

[30:02] And it is not a flattering shot.

Stuart Wellington

[30:03] Have you ever seen an old lady try and get out of a car that she parked?

[30:07] And it takes her a minute.

[30:09] And she has to kind of brace her arm against the side of the car.

[30:12] And it takes her about three tries to get her leg out all the way.

Elliott Kalan

[30:14] That's a little bit what it's like when it's Mickey Rourke, the hero of the movie.

[30:18] It's just like, how is he going to defeat Bill Murray?

[30:20] He can barely defeat this booth.

[30:22] He can barely defeat a table.

Stuart Wellington

[30:25] Yeah, like, who's the set joker?

[30:27] Who's the guy who set up the set so it looks hard for him to get up?

Elliott Kalan

[30:31] That's set Batman's villain, the set joker.

[30:34] So, tell me, I hear you're a real Batman on the set.

[30:39] I bet you did a lot of pranks.

[30:41] But there's, yeah, this is a movie that character, nothing is, I mean, it's supposed to.

[30:45] Characters aren't welcome in this movie.

[30:47] Unlike USA.

[30:47] Unlike USA Network.

[30:49] It's supposed to be kind of unbelievable because it's supposed to be dreamlike.

[30:53] But nothing the characters do is really believable.

[30:55] Yeah, it's phantasmagoric.

[30:56] Mickey Rourke, who looks like, I mean, we've already said enough about his appearance, but he looks like a monster.

[31:01] Talks his way into Megan Fox's trailer.

[31:04] And then it's just like characters doing things that, like, it's hard, that scene doesn't make sense.

[31:10] You don't believe it.

[31:11] You don't believe they have a relationship.

[31:13] You don't believe anything happens.

Stuart Wellington

[31:13] Well, his first conversation with the Carney ringmaster guy, where the ringmaster's like,

[31:18] who, like, where can she go?

[31:20] Who would, like, who would take her in?

[31:22] Like, everyone would take her in.

[31:23] She's a beautiful girl with wings.

[31:24] She'll be fine.

[31:25] Like, people think she's an angel or something.

[31:27] Yeah, she could start her own religion.

[31:28] She'll be super famous.

[31:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[31:30] It's a movie that is, you know, not, there's a lot of things going on that you can't buy.

[31:37] And when you pile up too much on it.

Stuart Wellington

[31:38] And he has the idea that he's going to trade, like, trade this girl for his life.

[31:43] Like, why doesn't he just go to a different city?

[31:45] He'd be fine.

[31:47] He could play his trumpet or jazz trumpet.

[31:49] There's that great scene where he has to sell his jazz trumpet, I'm guessing, on Craigslist.

[31:53] And it takes him about 20 minutes of touching the trumpet case before he eventually gives it up.

[31:58] But he takes the mouthpiece.

[32:00] Yeah.

[32:01] Because I guess he doesn't...

Dan McCoy

[32:01] Which he blows wistfully into.

[32:03] He doesn't want the new owner to get his herpy, I guess.

[32:05] By the way...

[32:06] A single herpy.

[32:07] I mean, this is a tiny criticism, but the least...

Elliott Kalan

[32:10] Isn't that that Lena Dunham movie, Tiny Criticism?

Dan McCoy

[32:13] This is the least convincing fake trumpet playing from Mickey Rourke.

[32:17] There's a scene where he plays trumpet.

[32:18] I mean, because damn, Megan Fox.

[32:19] There's a master of fake trumpet playing.

[32:20] Let's set the scene.

[32:21] I know what it looks like when someone plays trumpet, though.

[32:23] There's a lot of eyebrow movement, right?

[32:25] Mickey Rourke.

[32:26] Yeah, a lot of dancing.

[32:27] A lot of hell you looked at it.

Elliott Kalan

[32:30] Your gums start just bleeding.

Dan McCoy

[32:32] There's no...

[32:33] Like, you watch someone who plays the trumpet, they're puffing their cheeks out like crazy.

[32:37] I mean, you see pictures of Louis Armstrong.

[32:39] He might as well be a bullfrog with the amount of, like, cheek action that goes on.

[32:43] There's a limit to how much Mickey Rourke's cheeks can blow out, by the way.

[32:47] Mickey Rourke's cheeks don't move at all.

[32:48] I think there's not a lot of slack legs in those cheeks.

Elliott Kalan

[32:52] He's, like, whistling into his trumpet.

[32:54] He thinks he played like you played kazoo.

[32:56] Yeah.

[32:56] But here's the...

[32:57] That's also a scene that's problematic.

[33:00] Mickey Rourke walks into the hotel room.

[33:02] He's sharing with Megan Fox, and he says,

[33:05] Put on your best dress.

[33:06] We're going out.

Dan McCoy

[33:07] Which she has, like, no clothes.

[33:09] She was standing, by the way, in front of a bunch of empty clothes.

Elliott Kalan

[33:11] Megan Fox is standing in front of a clothes rack with nothing but empty hangers on it.

Stuart Wellington

[33:15] And instead of the joke we were all expecting, which is, like, I don't have any other clothes,

[33:19] she's like, why?

[33:21] Of course, turning out that she does have a really nice dress.

[33:24] She does have a really nice dress.

Elliott Kalan

[33:25] And Mickey Rourke takes her to an empty theater.

[33:29] How he got there, who he knows, and, you know, to set it up.

[33:32] Power of love, Elliot.

[33:34] And, yeah, it is a curious thing.

[33:37] Make one man weak.

[33:38] Make one man weak and make another man get into an empty theater at night.

Stuart Wellington

[33:42] So I guess he has a set of keys?

Elliott Kalan

[33:44] He sets up two chairs on the stage, and they look at a painted backdrop of the ocean,

[33:50] or a shoreline, because earlier she said she's never seen the ocean.

[33:54] And they just kind of sit there for a while, and then he takes out his trumpet and plays it.

[33:59] And do they dance?

[34:01] Like, that's kind of it.

Dan McCoy

[34:02] No, the camera just spins around them for a long time.

[34:05] Yeah.

[34:06] Much longer than you think a camera spin would last.

Elliott Kalan

[34:09] But it's this whole scene.

[34:10] Every next step in the scene, you're like, wait, what?

[34:14] Like, is this really where we're going with this?

[34:16] Come on.

[34:17] Movie.

[34:18] Okay, movie.

[34:18] And I didn't know it was going to be a romance at that point.

[34:19] But he got into her pants.

Dan McCoy

[34:20] And then he can't argue with the results.

Elliott Kalan

[34:23] But he managed to bag that bird.

[34:26] Mickey Rourke in.

[34:27] Bag that bird.

[34:28] That's the porn sequel to Follow That Bird.

[34:31] The Sesame Street movie.

Stuart Wellington

[34:33] That's the one where, what, Big Bird has sex with somebody?

Dan McCoy

[34:36] Yeah, with everybody.

[34:37] With everybody.

[34:37] Not just somebody.

[34:39] In title nine, I'm like, Catch That Kid from our previous.

Elliott Kalan

[34:42] Oh, you mean Ghost Rider?

[34:43] Catch That Kid?

Stuart Wellington

[34:44] Yeah.

[34:44] Last episode of the movie?

[34:45] Sure.

[34:47] So, Bag and the Bird.

[34:49] So, we did get a sex scene.

[34:50] We did get a sex scene.

[34:51] There was, you know, some kissing.

[34:53] And a sax scene.

[34:54] A sax.

[34:54] Yep.

[34:55] Where the Wire's Bunny Colvin plays a saxophone.

Elliott Kalan

[34:58] Yep.

[34:59] And a sex scene.

[35:00] The whole movie.

[35:01] Good one.

[35:02] But yeah, he meets up with the Wire saxophone player in a laundromat.

[35:07] And they just kind of talk for a while.

Stuart Wellington

[35:08] Yeah, what's...

[35:08] Why are we talking about this anymore?

Dan McCoy

[35:11] Okay, let's move on to final judgments.

[35:13] Was this...

Stuart Wellington

[35:13] You win, movie.

[35:14] You got me.

[35:15] You really won.

[35:15] Was this a good movie?

Dan McCoy

[35:16] Was this a good bad movie?

[35:17] A bad bad movie?

[35:18] Or a movie you kind of liked?

[35:20] Stuart.

[35:20] Let's tease this one out.

Stuart Wellington

[35:21] This is clearly a bad bad movie.

[35:24] I mean, I think there's elements of it that are almost good bad enough.

[35:28] And you know what?

[35:28] If you're going to watch...

[35:30] If you and your buddies want to watch a shitty movie, and you've already seen The Room,

[35:33] you've already seen Troll 2, and you want another shitty movie, hey, pop this one in.

[35:39] You'll probably be delighted.

Elliott Kalan

[35:42] It's very dull.

[35:43] I'd say get Birdemic, but...

Stuart Wellington

[35:44] Okay, so Elliot says watch Birdemic?

[35:47] Yeah.

[35:48] So that's a bad bad for you, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[35:49] I would also say a bad bad.

[35:51] I would say it's...

[35:52] While I admire the ambition of the people behind it, I do not admire the incompetent execution.

[36:01] And also, the concept is bad.

[36:03] So, bad bad movie.

[36:05] It's not fun or entertaining in any way to sit through.

Dan McCoy

[36:08] I am going to go out on a limb and give it a marginal good bad.

[36:11] Kind of what I just did.

[36:12] Yeah.

[36:13] Yeah, but he's more open about it.

[36:14] It's so weird, and there's so much miscalculation.

[36:20] I mean, it is a little too dull to be a classic good bad movie.

[36:24] There's not that, like, wait, what?

[36:27] Like, every second that, like, a good good bad movie...

[36:30] Where did that cigarette come from?

Elliott Kalan

[36:31] It's more like, well, there is one scene like that, where Mickey Rourke is on the phone,

[36:35] and then suddenly he's just ringed with smoke as he's smoking a cigarette.

[36:38] I don't think we saw him light.

Dan McCoy

[36:39] But, I mean, like, this is that kind of dramatic failure that I feel you don't see in movies as much as...

[36:47] It's an intriguing bad movie.

[36:48] Yeah.

[36:48] I like that.

[36:49] Yeah, they were trying for something.

[36:51] It didn't happen, but...

Elliott Kalan

[36:53] Hey, look, Megan Fox learned to soar at the end, but unfortunately, passion play fell to the ground.

Dan McCoy

[36:57] But we learned to snore at the end.

Elliott Kalan

[37:00] All right, well, I went for poetry, and you went for a more of a Jean-Shallot rhyme.

[37:06] So I guess highbrow, lowbrow, that's what you get on the Flophouse.

[37:09] We range from the heights of poetic excess to the lows of Burma-Shave jingle writing.

[37:20] Okay, so...

[37:21] So what's our next segment?

[37:24] So we finish the talking about the movie phase.

[37:26] Now we move into, what, full phase?

[37:28] What part of the human centipede is this?

Dan McCoy

[37:30] Yes, this is full sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[37:31] Full sequence.

[37:32] Oh, yeah, sequence, not phase.

Stuart Wellington

[37:33] This is the moment where we read letters from people that tell us how great we are, and then we agree with them.

[37:39] Yeah.

[37:40] And make fun of each other a little bit at the same time.

[37:41] A little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[37:42] And sometimes they ask us questions about movie stuff, and we answer it.

[37:46] And sometimes I sing a song like this.

[37:48] Letters from the Flophouse.

[37:49] No, no, no.

[37:51] Letters to the Flophouse.

[37:52] There you go.

[37:54] That's what we're going to read.

[37:55] That's what we're going to talk about.

[37:57] Letters to the Flophouse from you, and you, and you, and you.

[38:00] Letters to the Flophouse from you, and you, and you, and him.

[38:03] Letters to the Flophouse from you, what about me, and you?

Stuart Wellington

[38:06] So now they've just turned their podcast off mute.

Elliott Kalan

[38:09] Are you kidding?

[38:10] Wait, can you do that?

[38:11] Someone literally just held their podcast player up to the phone and said,

[38:15] You know that new sound you've been looking for?

[38:18] Well, here it is.

Dan McCoy

[38:22] Before we get into letters.

[38:23] That was one of my more controlled songs.

[38:25] Yeah.

[38:26] It was tight, comparatively.

[38:29] Before we get into letters, I want to thank P. Bracken and B. Skinner for donations.

[38:35] B. F. Skinner, the famed psychologist.

[38:36] I can only assume.

[38:39] And I want to acknowledge also that on the website.

[38:42] Thanks to both of those people.

[38:43] We appreciate it.

[38:44] In the comments section, someone pointed out that the character from Ghostbusters 2 was not named Milos.

[38:51] His name was, of course, Janos.

[38:54] Oh!

Elliott Kalan

[38:56] How did we get that one wrong?

Dan McCoy

[38:58] It's a shameful day when we get a Ghostbusters 2 reference.

[39:01] Oh my god.

[39:02] Yeah.

[39:03] I guess we should just give up.

Elliott Kalan

[39:05] You know what?

[39:05] Let's throw in the towel.

[39:07] Because I'm just wearing a towel right now.

Dan McCoy

[39:10] This letter is from Steve, last name withheld, and he says,

[39:13] Dearest Flophouse, I was intrigued, as Stuart was, as to how far you can stretch a naming convention like One for the Money.

[39:21] Apparently quite far.

[39:22] Oh, yeah.

[39:23] Although terrible plum puns were used as filler.

[39:26] And he sent a link to a list of One for the Money.

[39:30] Janet Ivanovich.

[39:31] Janet Ivanovich books.

[39:32] Titles.

[39:33] All read by Elliot.

[39:34] I'm going to run these down.

[39:35] Read out loud.

[39:36] Read out loud, of course.

[39:37] On Audible.

[39:38] Yeah.

[39:38] We got One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, Four to Score, High Five, Hot Six, Seven Up, Hard Eight, Visions of Sugar Plums.

[39:53] Wait, what?

[39:54] Wait, hold on.

[39:54] Visions of Sugar Plums, parentheses, Between the Numbers Holiday Novella, To the Nines, Ten Big Ones, Eleven on Top, I don't know what that is.

[40:05] Twelve on the bottom.

[40:06] Twelve sharp.

[40:07] Friday the Thirteen.

[40:08] Now it's just you naming things.

[40:10] Let's move on.

[40:12] Plum Lovin'.

[40:13] Wait.

[40:14] Again, Between the Numbers Holiday Novella.

[40:17] Lean Mean Thirteen.

[40:20] Plum Lucky.

[40:21] Are we really going to go through all these?

[40:22] Between the Numbers Holiday Novella.

[40:24] So this is not...

Elliott Kalan

[40:26] It was fourteen.

[40:29] That's not even a pun or a phrase or anything.

Dan McCoy

[40:31] Plum Spooky.

[40:32] Between the Numbers Novel.

[40:34] Finger Lick in Fifteen.

[40:37] Finger Lick in Fifteen.

Elliott Kalan

[40:37] That's another way of saying San Quentin Quayle.

[40:39] You know, like a young girl.

[40:41] Sizzlin' sixteen.

[40:43] That's another way of saying that.

Dan McCoy

[40:44] Smokin' seventeen.

[40:45] Again, yes.

[40:47] Explosive eighteen.

[40:48] Oh.

[40:48] Yeah, that just gets lazy after a little while.

[40:51] Naughty nineteen.

Elliott Kalan

[40:52] No.

[40:52] Twitty twenty.

[40:54] And twitty twenty-one again.

Dan McCoy

[40:56] He says,

[40:57] You should all consider yourself fortunate that a bad, bad movie might take two to three

[41:00] hours from your usual life instead of the significantly more time the bad book does.

[41:04] Keep up the excellent look.

[41:06] Sorry, the excellent work.

[41:07] Thank you.

[41:08] The laugh out loud laughter you provide is worth the angry glare I get on London's tube.

[41:13] If this gets read on the podcast, I look forward to the opportunity that this will give Elliot

[41:18] to put on a British accent.

Elliott Kalan

[41:19] What accent would that be, says Daniel Craig?

[41:23] Well, hello.

[41:24] Daniel Craig is here with me.

[41:26] Generic British man.

[41:29] Well, I suppose I'll get on the lorry and drive to my flat, then put on my braces.

[41:34] Fish and chips, of course.

[41:35] The Queen, Parliament, Big Ben Thames.

[41:38] Merry old England, and so forth.

[41:41] What's all this then?

Dan McCoy

[41:42] He goes on to say,

[41:43] Or a return of Dan's eerily perfect Michael Caine.

[41:47] You'll be happy to know that there are at least two British Flophouse fans.

[41:51] And that's from Steve, last name with Tom.

[41:53] Oh, I'm sorry.

[41:53] I didn't know this ahead of time.

Stuart Wellington

[41:54] Steve and Clive Owen over here.

[41:58] Clive Owen and Daniel Craig sound a lot alike.

[41:59] I know.

[42:00] It's weird, right?

[42:01] How they just lost?

Elliott Kalan

[42:03] James Mason is here as well.

[42:06] Oh.

[42:07] And also the Joseph A. Banks guy.

[42:10] Mr. Kaplan, please.

[42:12] Games, must we?

[42:13] Oh, Kalen.

[42:14] My grandfather changed it to Kalen in the early 50s.

[42:17] Oh, well.

Stuart Wellington

[42:20] The old English man is here as well.

Elliott Kalan

[42:24] I wish I had known Steve as a Flophouse fan when I was in England, not too about a month ago.

[42:30] I looked him up.

[42:31] Maybe next time, pal.

[42:32] Thanks for listening.

[42:33] Appreciate it.

[42:34] I always like it when we have international listeners, but I like it when we have American listeners too.

[42:39] So this next...

[42:40] Not a joke.

[42:41] Don't add a little in there.

[42:42] I like that.

[42:43] You know what?

[42:43] I like all of them.

Dan McCoy

[42:44] I apologize to this next writer.

[42:47] I appear to have cut off his name, so I don't know who this is from.

Elliott Kalan

[42:50] Oh, I also want to mention, of those Stephanie Plum, Janet Ivanovich novels, I probably have bought two-thirds of them for my mother as birthday presents at one point or another.

Stuart Wellington

[42:59] Is she going to listen to this podcast and be upset?

[43:01] She doesn't listen to this.

[43:02] Wait, your mom doesn't listen to this every week?

[43:04] No.

[43:05] We don't even put it out every week.

[43:06] Well, she listens to the episode a second time.

[43:08] So she catches all the nuances.

Dan McCoy

[43:09] You know, oddly enough, my parents listened to this podcast, which disturbed me greatly.

Elliott Kalan

[43:13] Yeah, it disturbed me too.

[43:15] Because your parents are weirdos.

[43:16] What?

[43:18] Booners?

Dan McCoy

[43:19] So, again, I apologize to the writer of this next letter.

[43:26] No, I was saying this and then Elliot cut me off.

[43:29] I apologize for not having the name attached to this email.

Elliott Kalan

[43:34] So we'll just assume Dan wrote it himself.

Dan McCoy

[43:36] Yeah.

[43:36] It says, hey, floppity-doo-dahs, cue Elliot singing.

[43:40] Every now and then.

Elliott Kalan

[43:41] Floppity-doo-dah, floppity-ay.

[43:43] It's probably not Dan Reyes.

[43:44] Oh, my, what a floppity-day.

[43:47] Flopping up here and flopping down there.

[43:50] Flopping around and everywhere.

[43:53] There's a flopper on my flopper.

[43:54] Anyway, every now and then a present is given me.

Dan McCoy

[43:59] Every flop is floppy-ploppable.

[44:01] By the great old ones of cyberspace.

[44:03] So today was Christmas come early when I found the trailer for Alex Cross.

[44:08] The phrase, best movie in history of everything, is thrown out a lot.

[44:12] But the trailer for Alex Cross.

[44:14] Can't say I've ever heard that.

[44:15] Shows this to be an apropos phrase for this stunning masterpiece.

[44:18] Let's count the reasons for genius.

[44:20] Number one, Tyler Perry is an action cop, serial killer hunter, FBI profiler, or something.

[44:27] If you didn't read that right, this is the famous cross-dresser Tyler Perry, cue house cat.

[44:33] Number two, jacked up.

[44:35] This guy really has this wrapped around his finger.

[44:37] Number two, jacked up, shaved head, MMA fighting albino over an unsating ex-military serial killer.

[44:43] Played by Matthew Fox from the great and should have been flopcasted Speed Racer.

[44:48] Number three, verbal cliches thrown around like an early 90s thriller.

[44:52] It's got to be two to three guys to pull this off.

[44:54] No, it's one guy.

[44:57] I'm fascinated by pain.

[44:59] He's ex-military, judging by his tactics.

Elliott Kalan

[45:01] Did someone write in just with a review of the Alex Cross trailer?

Dan McCoy

[45:04] What does this have to do with us?

[45:05] What's the money to pay?

[45:07] What's the world to suffer?

[45:08] I think this is viral marketing for the Alex Cross movie.

[45:11] Number four, visual cliches thrown around like...

[45:14] Like Tyler last day with Phil.

[45:16] Thrown around like CSI...

[45:18] Visual cliches thrown around like CSA Miami candy.

[45:22] CSA?

[45:23] Cereal killer pasting a newspaper clipping to a mirror.

[45:27] Running down a dark tunnel.

[45:29] Wife in peril.

[45:30] Daughter slow-mo piano playing.

[45:32] Rocket launcher blowing up government trucks.

Elliott Kalan

[45:34] I think this is just an E.E. Cummings poem now.

Dan McCoy

[45:37] Number five, this catchphrase.

[45:40] Don't ever cross, Alex Cross.

[45:44] Number six, Flophouse fave Eddie Burns.

[45:46] Number seven, and lastly, scuba gear.

[45:48] I think my head might explode.

Elliott Kalan

[45:50] Wasn't that that dog that solved crimes underwater?

[45:52] Scuba gear?

[45:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:54] So he says, enjoy, and my recommendation for a Flophouse theater excursion.

Elliott Kalan

[45:59] Okay, well thanks the producers of Alex Cross for advertising on our podcast.

Dan McCoy

[46:04] I think that's illegitimate.

[46:05] What's illegitimate about that?

[46:07] Is that a, I mean, you're talking about a trailer that looks crazy?

[46:11] Legitimate?

[46:11] Yeah, you're right.

[46:12] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[46:13] I thought this was the podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[46:16] Not the, write to us about your favorite trailers podcast.

[46:18] No offense, no name withheld.

[46:20] It's just, I appreciate your writing in.

Dan McCoy

[46:23] Now I feel better about cutting this guy's name off if Elliot was going to rip him a new one.

[46:27] Oh yeah, tore him a whole new one.

[46:29] Yeah.

[46:29] A whole new thing.

Stuart Wellington

[46:31] Yeah, he doesn't have to buy one because Elliot just ripped him one.

Elliott Kalan

[46:35] Why would you buy one?

Stuart Wellington

[46:37] Wait, wait.

[46:38] What's...

[46:38] I'm certainly talking about Elliot's handing them out.

[46:40] Yeah, that's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[46:42] You're right.

[46:42] I'm giving these things away for free when I could be charging.

Dan McCoy

[46:45] All right.

[46:45] So...

[46:46] Well, if you didn't like that, here's a much more concise letter.

[46:49] I'm not saying I didn't like it.

[46:49] I'm just questioning the appropriateness.

[46:51] It's about a bad movie, theoretically.

Elliott Kalan

[46:55] So this is from...

[46:56] Jokes on you guys because that Alex Cross movie is going to be awesome.

[47:00] This is from someone called Collision.

[47:03] That's...

[47:03] Okay.

[47:04] It might be an insurance company.

[47:05] It's titled...

[47:06] It's titled Lower Rates for Your Auto Insurance.

Stuart Wellington

[47:10] I think you printed off the wrong email.

Elliott Kalan

[47:12] Dear Flop House, Mr. House,

[47:15] are you looking for lower rates for your auto insurance?

Dan McCoy

[47:18] Okay.

[47:19] It's titled Flop House Found in the Boonies.

[47:23] My girlfriend and I went camping last weekend.

[47:25] So it's about an actual...

[47:26] Okay.

[47:27] And out of the middle of nowhere,

[47:29] in the El Dorado National Forest,

[47:31] stopping for gas slash food slash world-class shitty cup of coffee

[47:35] at the checkout counter we encountered.

[47:37] A quick pile of three DVDs.

[47:40] Desperado on top,

[47:41] then Vantage Point,

[47:43] then 12 rounds.

[47:45] Whoa.

[47:46] So I'm not quite sure why you're getting your movies from a truck stop

[47:49] way the hell out in the middle of California.

[47:51] We are.

[47:51] And I look forward to you handling Desperado.

[47:54] And oh my God,

[47:54] you're selling your DVDs to that store

[47:56] and I must know why.

[47:57] So why?

[47:58] Are you desperate to send floppers

[48:00] in the El Dorado National Forest?

[48:03] Why?

Stuart Wellington

[48:04] I think a real question is why people don't write more letters

[48:07] that are hard for Dan to pronounce.

Elliott Kalan

[48:09] Yeah, I like them.

[48:12] Well, I think he's found our secret movie source.

[48:15] Yep.

[48:16] Which is the cafe at the El Dorado National Forest.

Stuart Wellington

[48:19] It's getting expensive to fly out there every couple of weeks.

[48:23] And then keeping the DVDs in some kind of a freezer tank.

[48:27] Yeah.

[48:28] Some pressurized tank so that they don't get ruined.

[48:31] So that they survive the trip.

[48:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[48:33] I'm still not sure that that's an expenditure we really need to...

[48:37] I brought the numbers.

Elliott Kalan

[48:38] It's the only way to do it.

Stuart Wellington

[48:39] Most of the time we're on a motorbike.

[48:41] And that doesn't use that much gas, right?

[48:43] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[48:43] With the double sidecars, of course.

Elliott Kalan

[48:45] Double sidecars is, of course, yeah.

[48:47] A double sidecar?

[48:48] No, no, no.

[48:49] Not a devil sidecar.

[48:50] A double sidecar attached with double-sided tape.

Dan McCoy

[48:53] Now, you would imagine that that would be a sidecar on each side of the motorcycle.

[48:57] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[48:59] One of the sidecars has its own sidecar.

Elliott Kalan

[49:00] Mini sidecar.

[49:01] I sit in that one.

[49:02] Stuart sits in the big sidecar.

[49:04] And Dan actually sits in a sidecar on top of the motorcycle.

Stuart Wellington

[49:07] Yeah, because if I was in charge of the driving, then...

Elliott Kalan

[49:10] The motorcycle drives itself.

[49:12] It's magic.

[49:13] Yeah, and speaks with a Brooklyn accent.

[49:15] It's a robo-cycle.

[49:16] It's a magic Brooklyn robo-cycle.

[49:18] It's like the skateboard kid.

[49:19] Where are you guys going to today?

[49:21] Just take us to El Dorado, bikey.

[49:23] Aw, I want to see some other national parks.

[49:26] You shut up.

[49:27] You take us there.

Dan McCoy

[49:29] You've got to be taken firm hands with these robo-cycles.

[49:31] They will roll all over you.

[49:33] Oh, yeah, with their sidecars and everything.

[49:35] Jerks.

[49:36] Anyway, this last letter is titled Purpzoid.

Elliott Kalan

[49:40] Last letter of the night.

[49:42] Only one more letter.

[49:44] Let's do it right.

[49:46] One last letter to make it last.

[49:49] Don't go fast.

[49:50] It's the last one tonight.

[49:54] Last letter.

[49:55] Dan, you have the floor.

[49:57] It's titled...

Dan McCoy

[49:58] See, the problem is like, you sing...

[49:59] The problem with your songs is you sing.

[50:03] I take a drink.

[50:04] I don't know when your song's going to end.

[50:06] Hey, I don't know when the song's going to end either.

[50:08] The song tells me...

[50:09] I'm doing it, dude.

Stuart Wellington

[50:10] We want people to imagine that Elliot's practicing this shit with us.

[50:13] Yeah, with a full orchestra.

Dan McCoy

[50:14] So this last email is titled Purpzoid number two.

[50:20] From Stephen Lastname withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[50:21] Whoa, is someone attempting to gain the throne Purpzoid number two?

Dan McCoy

[50:25] Well, listen, you'll learn.

Elliott Kalan

[50:26] Wouldn't that be your long lost son?

Dan McCoy

[50:28] Stephen Lastname withheld says,

[50:29] Dearest Floppers and Housecat,

[50:31] A couple weeks ago, I was recommended that I listen to your podcast.

[50:34] In the time since, I've been working my way through the archives.

[50:36] It's been a disappointing week.

[50:40] I've been working my way through the archives,

[50:43] at least every episode with Elliot.

[50:45] I find episodes without him to be intolerable.

[50:47] Because just as Dan is the essential boring Leonardo or Cyclops,

[50:51] Elliot brings the rogue element of a Raphael or a Gambit.

[50:55] And I guess Stuart is Donatello or Forge?

Elliott Kalan

[50:57] Now that doesn't make any sense.

[50:59] Anyway.

[51:00] I'm always working on the Blackbird.

[51:03] You are always working on the Blackbird or fighting the adversary.

[51:06] Anyway, I was wondering why.

[51:07] With your ill-defined Indian powers.

Dan McCoy

[51:10] He says,

[51:10] Anyway, I was wondering why Dan is often referred to as Purpzoid number one.

[51:15] When it seems clear that Stuart is the Purviest Flopper.

[51:18] What the fuck?

Dan McCoy

[51:18] Did you write another fucking email?

[51:20] Maybe.

[51:21] I haven't heard the specific episode yet where all this becomes clear.

[51:24] But this mystery has eluded me so far.

[51:26] Keep on flopping.

[51:27] Stephen Lastname withheld.

[51:28] Oh, man.

[51:29] I think I got a fucking enemy over here.

Stuart Wellington

[51:30] No, no.

[51:31] Owl Magical is your enemy.

[51:32] I think Owl Madrigal wrote this one.

Elliott Kalan

[51:34] Owl Madrigal who lives in a tree.

[51:37] Well, thanks, Stephen.

[51:38] If you exist.

[51:39] Allow me to explain why I think Dan is Purpzoid number one.

[51:43] Stuart is so open with his sexuality that it's almost...

[51:46] And I'm too mad right now to talk about it.

[51:48] That was a very Cam from Modern Family type of line.

[51:52] Stuart is so open with his sexuality.

[51:54] And so innocent that there's something adorable about it.

[51:57] You're saying I'm not open?

[51:58] I'm talking about it all the time.

[52:00] It's like when a baby grabs...

[52:01] It's like when a three-year-old grabs a woman's boob.

[52:03] Like, how can you get mad?

[52:04] It's adorable.

[52:05] Dan, on the other hand, is...

[52:07] It's like an 80-year-old man grabbing a woman.

[52:09] Well, I do it.

[52:10] It's like Rodney Dangerfield saying something awesome.

Stuart Wellington

[52:13] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[52:13] But with Dan, it's like if there's a guy in a suit with a briefcase who is just on the

[52:18] subway and then suddenly he just turned to a woman and was like, tits, and then turned

[52:21] away.

[52:22] Creepy.

Stuart Wellington

[52:22] Super creepy.

[52:23] So he opens up his briefcase and it's filled with, like, Sherry and Nancy.

[52:27] What I'm hearing...

[52:27] Sherry and Nancy.

[52:29] You know those phone book side things?

Dan McCoy

[52:32] All I'm hearing is that I'm being punished for being an upstanding member of society most

[52:36] of the time.

[52:37] And then I let you guys in.

[52:38] I let my hair down.

[52:39] I have a moment of honesty and all of a sudden I'm slapped down.

[52:43] I'm slapped down by you assholes.

[52:44] That's what I'm hearing.

[52:45] So now you're mad.

[52:47] Yeah.

[52:47] Why is everyone mad all of a sudden?

[52:49] Because of these letters.

Elliott Kalan

[52:51] These letters are tearing us apart, guys.

[52:53] Guys, okay.

[52:54] Our fans are getting in between us.

[52:55] Let's not let these letters destroy us, okay?

[52:58] You can both be purposefully number one.

Stuart Wellington

[53:00] L.A.'s just excited right now because nobody's calling him out or anything.

Elliott Kalan

[53:03] Actually, I have a revelation to make to both of you.

[53:06] What's that?

[53:07] The fact is, the reason I know that Dan is pervizoid number one is because I am pervizoid

[53:13] number two.

[53:13] Oh, my God.

[53:14] I am the second in the pervizoid sequence.

[53:16] I'm just better at hiding it than Dan and far less creepy.

Stuart Wellington

[53:20] See, clever listeners of this episode will realize that not Elliot's family doesn't listen

[53:24] to this podcast, nor does his wife.

[53:27] So he is okay to say whatever he wants.

[53:29] Listen to the clues of previous episodes.

Elliott Kalan

[53:30] You'll see I'm also attracted to women's boobs.

[53:34] And I'm just as perverted as Stuart and Dan.

[53:37] But instead I talk about old movies as a way of not revealing it.

[53:41] Magic's greatest secret was revealed, guys.

[53:43] Yeah, that was magic's greatest secret.

[53:46] Houdini is turning in his grave now that I revealed that one.

Dan McCoy

[53:50] All right.

[53:50] Well, you did.

[53:51] Call Penn and Teller because I'm revealing magic.

[53:54] You were late to the podcast tonight because you had to fondle some dildos for the show

[53:58] that we worked on.

Elliott Kalan

[53:59] That was for my day job.

[54:01] I was being paid to do that.

[54:01] You were being paid to touch dildos.

Stuart Wellington

[54:04] I was being paid to touch dildos on television.

[54:05] He can control himself.

[54:06] He can wait to touch dildos at home until it doesn't impede in his podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[54:11] It's like David Cross's old stand-up joke about how they sell porn at the airport and how

[54:15] he can wait until he gets home to masturbate.

[54:18] He doesn't need to do it on a plane.

[54:19] I feel like Stuart would do it on a plane, but in a way that people would be like, that's

[54:23] adorable.

[54:24] Dan would do it on a plane under a blanket and everyone would be like, oh, what is he doing?

[54:28] Whereas I would wait until I got home, close the door, and then go crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[54:33] I would come out of the bathroom and announce that I just made it to the Mile High Club and

[54:36] start giving out high fives.

[54:37] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[54:38] With toilet paper railing off your sneaker and just holding a Playboy with the centerfold

[54:43] hanging open in your other hand.

[54:45] And people would be like, oh, it's the original party animal.

[54:50] That's weird.

[54:50] And meanwhile, Dan is furtively just glancing at the person sitting next to him while he

[54:54] comes at it under a blanket.

Dan McCoy

[54:55] He's watching the movie Bug on his lunch.

[54:57] Why don't they love me?

[54:58] Why don't they love me like they love him?

Elliott Kalan

[55:00] Well, and I'm just sitting there going, get me off this plane.

Dan McCoy

[55:06] All right.

[55:06] Well, we've somehow managed to talk about Passion Play for a long time, so we should speedily...

[55:13] We must have been passionate about it, guys.

[55:15] Yeah, we should...

[55:15] High five that one.

[55:16] Oh, God.

[55:16] I hope you heard that high five.

[55:18] We should speedily give our recommendations for movies that we actually like and think

[55:23] people should go out and watch.

[55:25] Go watch them now.

Stuart Wellington

[55:27] Okay, I'm going to start.

[55:28] I'm going to recommend a little movie called Castle Freak.

[55:30] No.

[55:31] No.

[55:31] How did I know?

[55:32] No.

[55:32] How did I know?

[55:33] You son of a...

[55:34] It's a great movie.

[55:35] Does it have a scene where a guy rips his...

[55:36] Well, he's a freak, so it's cool.

[55:40] But he just rips it right off.

[55:42] Like, it was there for a second, then all of a sudden it's gone.

[55:45] Ripped off.

[55:45] Okay, Dan, your turn.

Elliott Kalan

[55:47] I think that brings it up to 99 Castle Freak recommendations.

[55:51] At 100, you get a free Castle Freak.

[55:53] I watched a movie...

[55:54] To take home.

Stuart Wellington

[55:55] And I can rip off his ding-dong, too.

Dan McCoy

[55:57] I watched a movie just two nights ago.

[56:00] It's on Netflix Watch Instant, so it's available for all of you people out there who have Netflix.

[56:06] And Eyes.

[56:07] Yeah.

[56:07] Well, and a viewing, streaming.

[56:10] But I watched a movie called Dead End Drive-In, and this is a...

[56:15] Dead End Drive-In?

[56:16] Dead End Drive-In.

Elliott Kalan

[56:17] Dead End Drive-In.

Dan McCoy

[56:19] Yeah.

[56:19] This is an Aussie film from the early 80s.

[56:23] It was actually featured briefly in that Ausploitation documentary, not quite Hollywood.

[56:30] The guy who directed it, the most famous film he directed was BMX Bandits.

[56:37] But I looked it up on IMDb.

[56:39] The editor of this movie actually went on to edit a lot of famous movies, including Christopher Nolan's last five movies.

[56:45] Huh.

[56:45] Included...

[56:45] Dark Knight Rises, obviously, included in that bunch.

[56:49] And it's a movie about...

[56:51] It's a post-apocalyptic movie about this sort of car culture.

[56:57] It's a bit of a post-Mad Max knockoff in that it's car-centered, although there's not as much chase scenes in it.

[57:06] But it's about how the government has found a way to get rid of undesirables by turning this drive-in into a weird internment cab.

[57:18] Like, these car punks go into this drive-in and then they get locked in and they've got no way to get out.

[57:25] And so they have to live in this prison and the main character needs to figure out a way to break out of this drive-in.

[57:31] And it's actually really beautifully shot.

[57:33] If you like 1980s-style post-apocalyptic films, it's...

[57:40] That's a little niche, but that's okay.

[57:41] If you're listening to this podcast, you probably don't.

[57:43] It's...

[57:43] It's a...

[57:44] You know, it might be a little niche, but it hits all...

[57:47] It hit all my sweet spots.

[57:48] Whoa.

[57:49] It's a beautiful-looking movie.

[57:51] It's got, like, weird...

[57:52] And if you love drive-ins, it's got great loving shots of weird, like, neon drive-in and, like, people just hanging out in this half-party, half-prison.

[58:04] And it's a really fun movie.

[58:06] So that's my recommendation.

Elliott Kalan

[58:08] I'm going to recommend very quickly a movie called Blast of Silence, which is available on the Criterion Collection on digital video disc.

[58:17] And it is a low-budget film noir crime thriller from the very early 60s, late 50s.

[58:23] I think it's around 60, 61.

[58:25] About a man who is a killer for hire, who goes to New York City on a job and has some trouble accomplishing the job but has to go through with it.

[58:33] But he doesn't really want to, and he wants more out of life and realizes he can't have it.

[58:37] It's passed him by.

[58:39] It's a really short but brisk thriller that...

[58:44] Short but brisk?

[58:45] Well, you know, Passion Play was short but deadly long and boring.

[58:49] But it moves quickly.

Stuart Wellington

[58:50] It's sapped every ounce of will to live from us.

Elliott Kalan

[58:54] And another one of these movies that was shot on location with a small budget.

[58:59] So there's a lot of great shots of what New York looked like around that time period.

[59:03] And there's a voiceover going through it that is equal parts kind of great film noir philosophizing and purple prose nonsense and is really fantastic.

[59:13] So I recommend that as a real nice, bleak noir movie that you may not have seen.

[59:18] Blast of Silence.

[59:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[59:20] So three for Castle Free.

[59:22] No.

[59:23] Yep.

[59:23] That was Passion Play, guys.

[59:25] Hooray.

[59:26] We're done.

[59:26] We did it.

Dan McCoy

[59:27] Yeah.

[59:28] Let us out of this drive-in.

[59:29] All right.

[59:30] So for The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[59:33] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[59:35] And let me check.

[59:36] Elliot Kalin.

[59:37] That's me.

[59:38] Well, I don't know why you reached into your parents to figure that out.

Elliott Kalan

[59:40] That's where I have it written.

[59:41] Okay.

[59:43] Yeah.

[59:44] Good night, everyone.

[59:46] Boom.

[59:47] Did it.

[1:00:00] Stuart, you're the one who makes me laugh when I listen to it.

[1:00:02] And Dan, you're right, too.

[1:00:04] And Elliot, you're the best.

[1:00:05] Thanks, Elliot.

[1:00:07] Who?

[1:00:08] Elliot.

[1:00:09] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:09] I'm not familiar.

[1:00:10] I'm not the evil version of you, Elliot.

[1:00:12] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:12] He's got a goatee.

[1:00:13] Or the smelly version of me, Smelliet.

[1:00:15] Mm-hmm.

[1:00:16] Or the one who's gelling.

[1:00:17] Jelliet.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:19] Elliot.

[1:00:20] The Belliet.

[1:00:20] Kalin, as you called yourself once.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:21] I called myself once, because I was making it up as I went along.

[1:00:24] Yeah.

The Flop House: Episode #108 - Passion Play

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