The Flop House: Episode #108 - Passion Play

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

[0:06] Action play!

[0:31] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:36] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:38] This voice should be associated with the name Elliot Kalin, for that is my name and this is my voice.

[0:43] But you're talking weird.

[0:45] What do you mean, Stuart? I always talk like this.

[0:48] So, hey.

[0:51] Welcome.

[0:52] Hey, what's going on?

[0:53] Welcome to our podcast home.

[0:54] Established. Welcome.

[0:56] Let's move on to step two, doing the podcast.

[0:59] Step one, welcoming the listeners, has been achieved.

[1:02] Great work, everybody.

[1:04] Ten out of ten.

[1:05] 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.

[1:20] Well, this is a podcast where we watch a movie called The Flophouse.

[1:24] Yeah.

[1:25] A bad movie.

[1:26] A movie called The Flophouse?

[1:27] No, wait.

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

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

[1:31] The Flophouse podcast.

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

[1:34] And we chat about it.

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

[1:38] Yes.

[1:39] That's what happened earlier.

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

[1:55] Not to be confused.

[1:56] P-P-P-Passion Play.

[1:57] Yep.

[1:58] P-P-P-Passion Play.

[1:59] Not to be confused with the centuries-old Christian tradition of the same name.

[2:03] Yeah.

[2:04] This movie stars Michael Rourke.

[2:06] No.

[2:07] Known affectionately as Mickey.

[2:09] Yeah, Mickey Rourke.

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

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

[2:16] Meg Fox?

[2:17] Or Megan Fox.

[2:18] You know her really well?

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

[2:21] We're learning something.

[2:23] It was Anne Hathaway and Meg Fox when I was growing up.

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

[2:29] What?

[2:30] I never said that.

[2:31] Well, because they were friends, so he could call her something funny.

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

[2:39] Sure.

[2:40] So I used to call her that.

[2:41] She called me Gem, which is Meg backwards.

[2:43] That's weird.

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

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

[2:49] Oh, I get it.

[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 Iphans is also in this movie.

[2:57] Yeah.

[2:58] Playing an evil carny bard.

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

[3:00] Yeah, Riz Iphans.

[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.

[3:15] Yeah.

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

[3:20] Yeah, he barely shows up in it.

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

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

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

[3:28] Yeah.

[3:29] I'll be playing the role of Mickey Rourke.

[3:31] Okay, wait, are we acting it out?

[3:33] You can be Megan Fox, and you can be Riz Iphans.

[3:36] No one's playing Bill Murray, the villain?

[3:38] No, not today.

[3:40] So should we say what this movie's about?

[3:42] Sure.

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

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

[3:47] Passion play has, 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.

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

[4:07] That are also terrible.

[4:09] Yeah, so you get a sense, you get a baseline for what this movie might be like.

[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 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,

[4:35] and then given a stringy wig and a hat, who is a jazz trumpet player who's down on his luck.

[4:41] He's a recovering junkie, and he's in bed with a local gangster named Happy.

[4:45] A gangster named Happy? Now I've heard everything.

[4:49] Before, Happy was just the name of a son in Death of a Salesman, but now a gangster?

[4:55] He's taken out into the desert to be killed, I assume for pissing off this gangster.

[5:01] 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.

[5:12] I mean, that's the gangster's fault. You don't take a guy out into the desert and not expect to get killed by Kung Fu Indians.

[5:17] Well, if you take him to Injun territory, yes. And if you take him to Kung Fu Injun territory, yeah, exactly.

[5:21] Double yes. There's a 50% encounter chance.

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

[5:32] 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.

[5:40] And he finds Megan Fox, an angel woman or bird girl, who has real wings on her back.

[5:47] What's the difference between an angel woman and a bird girl?

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

[5:53] Okay. And that makes sense. I mean, she looks like an angel. With her smile and her eyes.

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

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

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

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

[6:12] Yeah.

[6:13] Hashtag a monster.

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

[6:20] The podcast where we insult all of Hollywood's top stars.

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

[6:28] He's going to come over and grab us with those weird hands of his.

[6:31] With those fingernails that are too big for his stumpy fingers.

[6:34] Yeah.

[6:35] And he's going to shake us.

[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 going to kind of trade her to the gangster, Bill Murray, in exchange for his own life.

[6:52] But he falls in love with her and feels bad about doing that.

[6:55] And is going to repent.

[6:56] But then the gangster comes along and kidnaps the girl.

[6:59] Takes her to his house and forces her to watch the movie Brute Force with Burt Lancaster.

[7:04] Which is a fantastic movie.

[7:06] She was hating it.

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

[7:08] Mickey Rourke comes by and says, come with me, blah, blah, blah.

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

[7:15] And it's clear that she's giving up her life to save his life.

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

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

[7:23] He resolves to get her back.

[7:25] And eventually does.

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

[7:33] Bill Murray lives with her in a hotel for a little bit.

[7:35] Until RZA fans comes by and tries 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 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.

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

[7:55] Just kind of look on.

[7:56] They escape to the roof of a building.

[7:58] And Megan Fox has established by now that she can float when the wind hits her just right.

[8:02] But she can't fly.

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

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

[8:05] Don't get lady wings.

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

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

[8:10] Yeah, you're big manly wings.

[8:13] You're a regular hawk man.

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

[8:17] That's what I was trying to do was draw attention to me having wings by making fun of her.

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

[8:23] It was out of line.

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

[8:26] Mm-hmm.

[8:27] So, and Mickey Rourke to, I guess, force her.

[8:32] It's a Dumbo moment to force her to believe in herself.

[8:34] He jumps off the roof.

[8:36] Megan Fox dives after him and catches him and manages to fly.

[8:40] Oh, my God.

[8:41] It's amazing.

[8:42] She's flying.

[8:43] And they fly over deserts, and he looks down and sees his own dead body.

[8:47] It turns out he was dead the whole time, and he dreamed the whole thing.

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

[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.

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

[9:03] Or a terrible movie that you have to watch for a while, and then you're redeemed at the end.

[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] There's a lot of scenes where characters just kind of murmur for a long time with each other.

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

[9:21] Not exactly.

[9:22] I thought I was the sarcastic one.

[9:25] Are we going to have to re-hand out personas?

[9:29] Yeah, yeah.

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

[9:33] Stuart's now the know-it-all, and I am the boring guy.

[9:35] Um, excuse me.

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

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

[9:39] Um, Ambrose beers.

[9:41] Okay.

[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.

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

[9:53] Okay, we're back.

[9:56] So no, it's actually a terrible-looking movie, which is weird considering...

[10:00] The it was shot by Christopher Doyle who is an amazing cinematographer

[10:04] Works with Wong Kar-wai and a lot of movies, but I saw in the mood for love, especially it's a beautiful movie

[10:10] This is however a terrible looking movie and that's like you would think it'd be easy with such such beautiful subjects like Mickey

[10:17] Rourke's face Mickey Rourke's face Bill Murray's face

[10:21] shitty sets a lot of green screens

[10:23] There's a lot of if you were anyone here

[10:25] Listening a scene in the room where every time they go up on the roof

[10:28] It's green screen of the San Francisco skyline those green screens are a little bit better than the ones in this movie

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

[10:37] Yeah, this is this movie is a series of

[10:40] unflattering flatly lit close-ups in

[10:43] hotel rooms and

[10:45] empty stadiums and

[10:48] restaurants

[10:50] Like a like a museum, but yeah sort of

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

[10:58] I had his beautiful chest and and his weird a hairless round torso also gets a fair amount of screenplay

[11:06] And I this is a movie that was written 20 years ago with Mickey Rourke in mind

[11:11] I think at the time so like you could 20 years ago

[11:14] You could buy Mickey Rourke as like a down-on-his-luck, but still sexually attractive jazz musician 20 years later

[11:21] I mean, he's got the world at his feet

[11:31] Yeah, now he is just the apex certainly more of him now, yeah more than the love

[11:37] Making fun of Mickey Rourke's physical appearance. All right. What do you think of his performance Dan? I

[11:43] You know, I mean this is where Elliot and I differ

[11:45] I mean like he certainly was mumbly we can both agree Ellie and I can both agree on that

[11:49] No, I mean, it's I assume that before every take he put a bag of marbles

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

[11:58] Yeah, do you assume the directors like the directors assuming that Mickey Rourke's gonna mumble?

[12:03] You don't get Mickey Rourke and you're like, hey enunciate man. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point

[12:07] I think good points like a scorpion stop stinging me. You can't expect that

[12:11] He's really like I think that the Mickey Rourke as crazy as a scorpion fucking movie was

[12:15] I thought you meant the Mortal Kombat character because he doesn't sting you. He kills you with uppercuts. Yeah

[12:20] That's the sting of man

[12:23] Fucking movie was and as much as Mickey Rourke bad-mouthed it afterwards. I felt like

[12:29] During like I watch him in the movie. I was like, okay. Well, he believes what he's doing

[12:33] His movies terrible, but he believes what he's doing just like he does he doesn't sleepwalk through the role

[12:38] That's true

[12:38] And I thought that my mother stumbles his way through but he believes in this stupid character though

[12:43] Murray also put in the best performance. He could under the circumstances and

[12:47] Megan Fox is not a good actress, but she is trying I can tell like she thinks she's in something

[12:53] I don't think a job of imagining. She has wings. Yeah, that's true

[12:57] Yeah, I don't think that any of the actors are at fault for this movie like this movie is fault

[13:02] Entirely lies. It's a writer-director

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

[13:08] very slow and there's a lot of scenes of characters just kind of looking around or

[13:13] Mumbling to each other. There's that weird moment about 15 minutes into the movie or maybe 20 minutes into the movie where that female character?

[13:20] Whose role I don't remember

[13:23] Basically just recounts everything that has happened up until that point Kelly Lynch's character. Yeah. Yeah. He was Mickey Rourke's kind of confidant

[13:30] Yeah, and she figures into the movie not at all like there's no plot purpose for her

[13:34] I mean she shows up later to wake him up from a heroin-induced. She's she's the help

[13:39] She's the Watson to Mickey Rourke Sherlock who gets the story told to her

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

[13:48] but uh the

[13:51] Well, I had something to say and I know

[13:53] We can all agree that this is a story that needed to be told right? Oh certainly

[13:57] Well, here's the thing here's what I was gonna say in any movie that's attempting to reach a kind of sublime quality

[14:03] The director or writer is taking a huge risk because if it isn't balanced, right?

[14:07] It comes off looking stupid or ridiculous and like a movie that I've mentioned many times on this podcast

[14:13] The fall is a movie that I think achieves that but takes a big risk in a certain

[14:18] Naivete that you need to achieve like that real sublime quality

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

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

[14:35] Still I wish that he had like not done it

[14:38] Yeah, I mean he'd like the people making this movie to take a big risk and fail utterly, you know

[14:44] Well, there's there's a he kind of expects you to care for the Mickey Rourke character a lot more than yeah

[14:50] You're ever given a reason to do make it supposed to be like a charismatic rogue, but instead he is a mumbly sack

[14:56] but also as I was complaining during the movie like I think that everything that

[15:00] The villain played by Bill Murray says is valid like he explains to Megan Fox like oh, yeah, this guy traded

[15:07] your life for his and

[15:09] that's not wrong and but for some reason we're supposed to like Mickey Rourke just because

[15:16] We've been with him for the first part of the movie, I guess

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

[15:24] I'm just like yeah, you can fall in love with someone and still treat them like shit. It's like that happens all the time

[15:30] Yeah, she's Megan Fox and she's got wings. I mean, come on. The other thing is that amazing. Yeah

[15:36] What more what more do you want? I mean the only thing that make me Fox better would be if she had huge bird wings

[15:41] Yeah, I'm a little every man one. Maybe like a bird's head

[15:50] Any woman gets gets an extra beautiful point from Stewart if she's holding a giant pizza, of course, you got a beautiful babe beautiful pizza

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

[16:04] Can't handle it. Okay. Okay. You're getting red in the face. This is turning into like a Red Shoe Diaries type thing, right?

[16:09] Well you there was something you mentioned

[16:11] While we're watching the movie story, which is that this is what his almond King production looks like with no sex scenes in it

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

[16:21] But it feels like the second worst sex scene featuring a feather

[16:25] I've ever seen and what would the first one be the 40 days and 40 nights where Josh Hartnett makes Shannon's awesome on

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

[16:34] It's just that easy it's just that easy to make a woman climb she was aching for it, but no I can for it

[16:47] She's achy breaking

[16:49] That was I think the most trenchant criticism of this movie because it is exactly like a movie you would see on Cinemax late at

[16:56] Night with all the sex excise, so it's got the same like sex eyes weird likes draggy like

[17:04] Cheap

[17:05] Locations. Yeah, it's a lot of scenes of characters doing something to get to the next scene or killing time until the next scene starts

[17:12] And in a in a software movie, that would be a sex scene, but here it's not so you go to another scene

[17:16] Of Mickey Rourke lying around mumbling to somebody or Bill Murray saying something kind of funny

[17:22] But or if somebody was trying to make a parody of a David Lynch movie and just forgot to make it funny

[17:27] That would be kind of what this movie. It feels very much like someone who who was trying for that David Lynch style of like

[17:34] weirdness that affects you and

[17:36] doesn't didn't get it like the like the freak show that just seems to be like a bunch of people doing stuff in a tent and

[17:42] They let the people just walk around people

[17:45] It's like a freak like show Expo for like the freak industry

[17:48] There's a lot of platforms freaks doing their stuff and then you have the other exhibitors just wandering around like oh, yeah, that's good

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

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

[17:59] freaks

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

[18:07] Castle freak

[18:09] That's pretty good, all right speaking

[18:11] This is gonna be a digression, but I got it takes to I got it takes to the test for something

[18:16] Is this related to passion play the film of the same name?

[18:19] No, it's not but if this podcast is about nothing if it's not about digressions

[18:25] And I recently saw the film Castle Freak. Okay, that sounds sounds like you had a good afternoon

[18:31] I I had a client

[18:34] That's a 2 p.m. Movie

[18:37] Problem I have to have I I'm gonna

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

[18:43] That substitutes for a vagina. No, you eat a hot pocket and at 2 p.m. Right?

[18:48] It's like a lunchtime thing. No, I I everyone has a hot pocket at 2 p.m.

[19:01] So

[19:02] We had a letter a while back about it was I think it was titled ding-dong gate about

[19:10] That's what brought down Richard

[19:14] Complaining that there wasn't in fact, no ding-dong ripping. Yep in Castle Creek and I have to confirm this

[19:21] The only frame by frame the titular the titular Castle Freak

[19:26] Has no ding-dong it's been ripped off at some point but that happens off-screen that's happens prior to the

[19:32] All these years that Stewart is promising somebody ripping their own ding-dong off now there

[19:38] Hold on. There's 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 and the missing ding-dong of the Castle Freak

[19:51] Into the Castle Creek

[19:53] Columbo are you putting yourself into one more things do it when I first saw Castle, please?

[20:00] years ago

[20:01] i'm asking that your drunk and stupid probably full of hormones or whatever i

[20:05] was

[20:06] uh... really like holy shit that guy just ripped his own ding dong off

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

[20:15] so are you saying that now i have to make some kind of letter of apology to all those dudes who

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

[20:23] freak on the basis of a ding dong? hey i heard that this guy ripped a ding dong off and his friends were like

[20:28] that sounds really awesome well i think that if you don't apologize to him we have a

[20:31] potential class action suit on our hands

[20:33] from who? fucking full moon pictures?

[20:36] a bunch of flop house listeners with all the money i spent on their fucking action figures?

[20:40] all those puppet master dolls that you bought? all those flop house listeners out there who've

[20:44] spent the money to rent castle freak

[20:47] based on the ding dong ripping where can you rent castle freak at?

[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, gives you a reel of film, you trade that in on a nightclub to a giant spider

[21:02] the spider scurries away, gets a videotape, you watch the videotape

[21:06] then you get a phone call

[21:07] tells you in a week

[21:09] there's going to be a ghost girl in a location tbd, you go there, you give her

[21:13] ten dollars in pennies

[21:15] in panties? pennies, but in a girl's panty

[21:19] she hits you twice on both sides of the face

[21:23] with a fish

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

[21:27] castle freak, that's the only way to see it

[21:29] i mean i got it from netflix so i don't know what

[21:32] maybe you didn't see the right version

[21:34] you're probably right

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

[21:38] you have to see it at two p.m., that unlocks the thing you see

[21:42] i looked up the unrated version on imdb, there's no ding dong ripping in that

[21:47] there are differences

[21:48] was one of the keywords not ding dong ripping?

[21:51] on the trivia it said

[21:53] stewart wellington falsely claims there's a ding dong ripped off

[21:57] star jeffrey combs disagrees

[22:00] all right well uh... to get back to the movie

[22:03] i guess viewers you're going to have to watch castle freak yourself and the

[22:06] unrated version to see who's right in the battle of the cast

[22:10] stewart or dan, are you cool like stewart or

[22:14] like a grouchy dude like dan, stewart wellington the raging cajun and dan

[22:18] mccoy

[22:19] the blanth band

[22:20] together again for one show only, i don't know about the grouchy part but i don't know about the blanth

[22:26] the slouchy grouch

[22:27] the slouchy grouch, i'll take it

[22:29] so patch and play

[22:30] so patch and play, there's not a lot to say about it except that it's crazy

[22:34] there's that great moment where reese ifans, it's rizz? the rizza ifans, where he pours a

[22:39] fifty dollar drink before slapping it right out of his hand

[22:43] that was pretty great, this is a movie where no

[22:46] no lie, this is a movie about a woman with wings and a gangster tracking down a jazz

[22:50] musician

[22:51] the best part of the movie, the best thing about it

[22:54] is that one point there's a glimpse of a bottle of liquor

[22:57] and the label says gordon shumway

[23:00] and for those who don't remember, gordon shumway is alf's real name

[23:04] so this is alf from the television show alf, thanks for clarifying

[23:09] to the people who are listening to this podcast, he said alf really fast so i just want to clarify

[23:14] the alien, the alien like gordon shumway, oh you're mad at me, i thought you were mad at dan

[23:19] both, i'm mad at both of you right now, you're just mad that the ding dong ripping never happened

[23:25] while this dumb story about a woman with wings is going on

[23:28] alf is running a distillery somewhere in that universe and we are not seeing that

[23:33] story, so do you think that's small batch gin, do you think that's craft gin

[23:37] i think it started that way but i think it got way big, he's long sold out

[23:41] and he's just making mass produced gin, we haven't heard a lot from alf recently, well he had that talk show for a little bit

[23:46] that's true, i don't know how long ago that was

[23:48] uh... and maybe

[23:50] i'd say he went back to melmac but everyone knows that was destroyed, he's kind of like a dan ackroyd figure

[23:54] he's mainly in booze now, and he keeps promising ghostbusters 3

[24:01] speaking of which, as stuart said during the movie

[24:03] uh... bill murray is not going to make ghostbusters 3

[24:06] but he's going to make this film, he's going to make passion play, i'll tell you what

[24:10] every fan of ghostbusters rent passion play and get really mad about it

[24:14] if making passion play stops ashton kutcher from becoming a ghostbuster, then i'm all for it

[24:19] wait, ashton kutcher is going to be a ghostbuster?

[24:22] ivan reitman kept saying like, oh yeah, we want a new generation of ghostbusters

[24:27] like ashton kutcher

[24:29] and i don't know who else he said

[24:31] stop saying that, it hurts my brain, seth green

[24:34] every time

[24:36] you say it

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

[24:39] uh... you're talking about... it's not like a next generation of goonies

[24:44] what do you mean the next generation of goonies? i thought they were going to make another goonies movie

[24:49] and do it with goonies kids

[24:50] goonies junior?

[24:51] yeah, the little goonies

[24:55] the goonies were supposed to have grown up

[24:59] and then uh... their kids were the next generation of goonies. and when was this going to happen?

[25:03] i don't know, they were talking about... because you can do that with

[25:05] any movie

[25:06] Casablanca 2, the characters have grown up, now the kids are in trouble with the nazis

[25:11] well, i don't know

[25:12] Schindler's List 2, the characters have grown up, now the kids are in trouble with the nazis

[25:17] you might want to look into when the nazis happened and how long they've been there

[25:21] they can be space nazis. von rhein's express 2, von rhein's an old man, now his kids are in trouble with the nazis

[25:26] sure

[25:26] hogan's heroes

[25:29] let's just let LA keep naming things. the thing is, there are a lot of movies with nazis as the villains

[25:33] uh... no, you're talking about a movie that seeks transcendence

[25:37] part of the problem with this movie is

[25:40] 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... that's a twist? when she can fly? no, no, no, that he's been dead

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

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

[25:59] wait a minute, uh oh, uh oh, i feel the mirrors coming on

[26:03] wait, he was dead?

[26:05] that's why they see his body at the end when they fly away

[26:07] i thought that was just a weird shot, like he was tired after

[26:10] after floating around

[26:12] wait, so he was resting in himself? so wait, that's why he had such a weird look on his face when she was flying him around?

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

[26:19] okay

[26:20] wait, really?

[26:21] yeah, or... so how'd he die? he was shot at the beginning of the movie

[26:25] 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? he was dead from the moment that guy brought him to the desert

[26:38] and was about to shoot him. so who saved the girl with the wings from the last film? she never existed

[26:43] i mean, she might be an angel

[26:45] oh, we forgot to mention the scene where megan fox goes to a plastic surgeon to get her wings removed

[26:49] and uh...

[26:51] and the guy looks like roger sterling? he's like a poor man's roger sterling

[26:54] and mickey rourke comes in and says

[26:56] don't do this and takes her out. and he's like

[26:58] she can't live a normal life with wings like this

[27:01] which is what any doctor would say. and mickey rourke says

[27:04] so what's so good about normal?

[27:06] moral, which... we had to pause the movie and look at each other and agree with him

[27:11] let it sink in, yeah

[27:12] uh... not since lucas have i been hit so hard with that lesson

[27:15] there's like a scene on x3, the last stand, or what's the third x-men movie?

[27:20] i don't know, that angel in it

[27:23] someone with wings!

[27:25] there you go

[27:26] no, but like, to freight so much meaning

[27:31] on what is essentially a stupid, it was all a dream ending

[27:35] but also along the way, 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

[27:43] inspired that by the end, when she proves she can fly, like along the way

[27:46] you're supposed to be

[27:47] getting little epiphanies, except they all fall totally flat

[27:52] if it was like a purgatory type thing, what did he really accomplish?

[27:57] he didn't really do that much other than take a weird chick with tattoos home and get

[28:01] stuck with a heroin needle. oh, we didn't mention that part. he saved her

[28:04] the circus ring leader's revenge is that

[28:08] he has a girl seduce

[28:10] seduce mickey rourke. 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?

[28:20] mickey rourke walks into a bar, stop me if you've heard this one, mickey rourke walks into a bar

[28:25] and sees a lady at the other end and takes

[28:27] lemons out of a basket because this is one of those bars where lemons are provided

[28:31] 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

[28:36] tiny car or like

[28:37] there's a little mouse under there, like i just made a mouse, he put a napkin on a lemon

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

[28:45] here's a lemon, i'm putting it on the bar, i'm putting a napkin on it, it's going to disappear

[28:49] and he just nudges it towards her, and it almost falls off at one point

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

[28:56] and she is delighted by this, and of course it's because she was sent there to

[29:01] seduce him and get him heroined up

[29:03] but once again, it should have been assigned to the audience that this is a setup

[29:06] because no woman falls for that, i've tried it, falls for the old lemon under the napkin

[29:10] trick, have you tried it? i've tried it, it doesn't work, they just get up and walk away

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

[29:19] and now all the ladies know, you mean the game

[29:22] wait, the game, the secret is about wishing away your wife

[29:26] that book about wishing your way into a woman's pants, right?

[29:31] the secret garden, i think that's what that's called

[29:34] so, secret garden, i think this movie is going to be summed up in two scenes

[29:38] three scenes, three scenes can sum this movie up

[29:41] one is megan fox with poorly cgi'd

[29:44] 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 and then

[29:58] there's just a gratuitous shot of

[30:00] Mickey Rourke getting up out of the booth that they're in and it is not a

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

[30:08] takes her a minute and she has to kind of brace her arm against the side of the

[30:11] car and it takes her about three tries to get her leg out all the way. That's a

[30:15] little bit what it's like but it's Mickey Rourke the hero of the movie.

[30:18] Just like how is he gonna defeat Bill Murray he can barely defeat this booth.

[30:22] He can barely defeat a table. Yeah like who's the who's the the set joker who's

[30:28] the guy who set up the set. That's set Batman's villain the set joker. So tell me I hear you're a real

[30:35] Batman on the set. I bet you did a lot of pranks. But there's yeah there's this a

[30:43] movie the character nothing is I mean. Characters aren't welcome in this movie.

[30:47] Unlike USA Network. It's it's supposed to be kind of unbelievable because it's

[30:52] supposed to be dreamlike but nothing the characters do is believable.

[30:55] Fantasmagoric. Mickey Rourke who looks like I mean we've already said enough

[30:59] about his appearance but he looks like a monster. Talks his way into Megan Fox's

[31:03] trailer and then it's just like characters being doing things that like

[31:08] it's hard you know that scene doesn't make sense you don't believe it you

[31:11] don't believe they have a relationship you don't believe. His first conversation

[31:14] with the the Carnie ringmaster guy where the ringmaster's like who like where can

[31:20] she go who would like who would take her in like everyone would take her in she's

[31:23] a beautiful girl with wings she'll be fine. Like people think she's an angel or

[31:27] something. Yeah she could start her own religion. She'll be super famous. Yeah it's a it's a

[31:31] movie that is you know not it there's a lot of things going on that you can't

[31:36] buy and when you pile up too much on it. And he has the idea that he's gonna trade

[31:40] like trade this girl for his life like why doesn't he just go to a different

[31:44] city that he'd be fine. He'd be fine. 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

[31:52] Craigslist and it takes him about 20 minutes of touching the trumpet case

[31:57] before he eventually gives it up. But he seeks he takes the mouthpiece. Yeah.

[32:00] Because I guess he blows wistfully into. He doesn't want the new owner to get his

[32:04] herpes I guess. By the way. Single herpes. It is a tiny criticism but the least. Isn't that that Lena Dunham movie tiny criticism. The least convincing fake

[32:15] trumpet playing from Mickey Rourke. There's a scene where he plays trumpet because damn Megan Fox

[32:19] I know what it looks like when someone plays trumpet. There's a lot of eyebrow movement right.

[32:25] No. A lot of dancing. Your gums start just bleeding. There's no like there like you

[32:34] watch someone who plays the trumpet they're puffing their cheeks out like

[32:37] crazy. I mean you see pictures of Louis Armstrong he might as well be a bullfrog

[32:40] with the amount of like cheek action that goes on. There's a limit to how much

[32:45] Mickey Rourke's cheeks can blow out by the way. Don't move at all. I think there's not a lot of slack left in those cheeks. He's like whistling. He's whistling into the trumpet. He thinks he played like he played kazoo. Yeah. But here's the that's also a scene

[32:58] that's problem that's problematic. Mickey Rourke walks into the hotel room he

[33:02] sits he's sharing Megan Fox and he says put on your best dress we're going out.

[33:06] Which she has like no clothes. She was standing by the way in front of a bunch of empty clothes racks. Megan Fox is standing in front of a clothes rack with nothing but

[33:14] empty hangers on it. Instead of the joke we were all expecting which is like I don't have any other clothes. She's like why. Of course turning out that she does have a really nice dress. She does have a really nice dress. And Mickey Rourke takes her to an empty theater. How he got there who he knows and you know to set it up. Power of love Elliot. And yeah it is a it is a curious thing. Make one man weep. Make one man weep and make another man get into an empty theater at night.

[33:42] They he sets up so I guess he has a set of keys. He sets up two chairs on the stage and they look at a painted backdrop of the ocean because of or a shoreline because earlier she's never said she's never seen the ocean and they just kind of sit there for a while and then he takes out his trumpet and plays it. And do they dance like that's kind of you know the camera just spins around them for a long time. Yeah. Much longer than you think a camera spin would last. But it's this whole scene every every

[34:11] next step in the scene you're like wait what. Like is this really where we're going with this. Come on movie. OK. And I didn't know it was going to be your pants. And then again are your results. That's true. But he managed to bag that bird.

[34:26] Mickey Rourke in that bird. That's the secret. That's the porn sequel to follow that bird. Sesame Street movie. That's the one where what. Big Bird has sex with somebody. With everybody. Not just somebody.

[34:39] Title. Title nine on my catch that kid from our previous Ghost Rider. Catch that kid. Last episode movie. Sure. So bagging the bird. So we did get a sex scene. We did get a sex scene. There was you know some kissing. And a sex scene.

[34:55] Where the wires bunny Colvin plays the saxophone. Yep. And a sex scene. The whole movie.

[35:01] But yeah he meets up with with him with the wire saxophone player in a laundromat and they just kind of talk for a while. What's what are we talking about is a final judgment. You win movie. You got a really good bad movie. A bad bad movie or a movie you kind of liked to tease this one out.

[35:22] This is clearly a bad bad movie. I mean I think there's elements of it that are almost good bad enough. And you know what. If you're going to watch if you and your buddies won't watch a shitty movie and you've already seen The Room you've already seen Troll 2 and you want another shitty movie. Hey pop this one and you'll probably be delighted. I don't know. It's very dull. I'd say get Birdemic.

[35:44] OK. So Elliot says watch Birdemic. Yeah. That's a bad bad for you Elliot. I would also say a bad bad. I would say it's I while I admire the ambition of the people behind it. I do not admire the incompetent execution. And also the concept is bad. So bad bad movie. It's it's it's not it's not fun or entertaining in any way to sit through. I am going to go out on a limb give it a marginal good bad. Kind of what I just did. Yeah.

[36:13] Yeah. Because we're open about it. It's it's so weird. And there's so much miscalculation. I mean it is a little too dull to be a classic good bad movie. There's not there's not that like wait what. Like every second that like a good good bad movie. Where did that cigarette come from. It's more like there is one scene like that where Mickey Rourke is on the phone and then suddenly he's just ringed with smoke as he's smoking a cigarette. I don't think we saw him light.

[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 it's an intriguing bad movie. Yeah. Yeah. They were trying for something. It didn't happen. But Megan Fox learned to soar at the end. But unfortunately Passion Play fell to the ground. But we learned to snore at the end. All right. Well I went for poetry and you went for the Jean Chalet rhyme. So I guess highbrow lowbrow. That's what you get. That's what you get on the flop house.

[37:09] So we range from the heights of poetic excess to the lows of Burma shave jingle writing. Okay. So what's our next segment. So we finish the talk about the movie phase. Now we move into what full phase. What part of the human centipede is this. Yes. This is full sequence. Full sequence. Oh yes. Sequence that phase.

[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 and make fun of each other a little bit. And sometimes they ask us questions about movie stuff and we answer it. And sometimes I sing a song like this letters from the flop house. No no no letters to the flop house. There you go. That's what we're gonna read. That's what we're gonna talk about letters to the flop. That's from you and you and you and you letters to the flop house from you and you and you and him letters to the flop house from you and me.

[38:03] Letters to the flop house from you. What about me and you. So now they've just turned their podcast off mute. Are you kidding me. Can you do that. Someone literally just held their podcast player up to the phone and said you know that new sound you've been looking for. Well here it is for you. The letters were more controlled. Yeah it was tight comparatively before we get into letters.

[38:31] I want to thank P. Bracken and B. Skinner for donations. B.S. Skinner the famed psychologist. I can only assume. And I want to acknowledge also that on the Web site. Thanks to both of those people. We appreciate it. In the comments section someone pointed out that we made a mistake. The character from Ghostbusters 2 was not named Milos. His name was of course Janos. Oh yeah. How did we get that one wrong.

[38:58] It's a shameful. It's a shameful day when we get a Ghostbusters 2 reference. Oh my God. Yeah. But we should just give up. You know let's throw in the towel because I'm just wearing a towel right now.

[39:08] This letter is from Steve. Last name withheld. And he says Dearest Flophouse. I was intrigued as Stewart was as to how far you can stretch a naming convention like One for the Money. Apparently quite far. Oh yeah. Although terrible plump puns were used as filler. And he sent a link to a list of One for the Money. Janet. Janet Ivanovich. Janet Ivanovich books. Titles. All read by Elliot. I'm going to run these down. Read out loud of course. Unpaudable. Yeah.

[39:38] We got one for the money. Two for the dough. Three to get deadly. Oh I like that one. Four to score. What. High five. Hot six. Seven up. Hard eight. Visions of sugar plums. Wait what. Wait hold on. Visions of sugar plums. Parentheses. Between the numbers holiday novella.

[40:00] To the nines. Ten big ones. Eleven on top. I don't know what that is.

[40:05] Twelve on the bottom. Twelve sharp.

[40:07] Right at the thirteenth.

[40:09] That's just you naming things. Let's move on.

[40:12] Plum lovin'. Again, between the numbers, holidays, novella.

[40:17] Lean mean thirteen. Plum lucky.

[40:21] You're really going to go through all these?

[40:22] Between the numbers, holidays, novella.

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

[40:26] He was fourteen.

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

[40:31] Plum spooky. Between the numbers, novella.

[40:34] Finger lickin' fifteen. I don't know.

[40:37] That's another way of saying San Quentin quail. You know, like a young girl.

[40:41] Sizzlin' sixteen.

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

[40:44] Smokin' seventeen. Again, yes.

[40:46] Explosive eighteen.

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

[40:51] Naughty nineteen. Twenty twenty. And twenty twenty-one again.

[40:56] He says,

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

[41:01] instead of the significantly more time a bad book does.

[41:04] Keep up 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,

[41:15] I look forward to the opportunity that this will give Elliot to put on a British accent.

[41:19] What accent would that be? Says Daniel Craig.

[41:23] Well, hello. Daniel Craig is here with me.

[41:26] Generic British man.

[41:28] Well, I suppose I'll get on the lorry and drive to my flat,

[41:32] 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? 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

[41:53] Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know this at the time.

[41:55] Steve and Clive Owen over here.

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

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

[42:01] No, they just was.

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

[42:06] Oh.

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

[42:11] Mr. Kaplan, please.

[42:13] Must we?

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

[42:19] Well, the old English man is here as well.

[42:24] I wish I had known Steve as a Flophouse fan when I was in England.

[42:28] Not until about a month ago.

[42:30] I looked him up.

[42:31] Maybe next time, pal. Thanks for listening. Appreciate it.

[42:35] I always like it when we have international listeners,

[42:37] but I like it when we have American listeners, too.

[42:39] So this next...

[42:41] Not a joke.

[42:42] You know what? I like all of them.

[42:45] I apologize to this next writer.

[42:48] I appear to have cut off his name, so I don't know who this is from.

[42:51] Oh, I also want to mention, of those Stephanie Plum, Janet Evonovich novels,

[42:55] I probably have bought two-thirds of them for my mother as birthday presents at one point or another.

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

[43:01] No, she doesn't listen to this.

[43:03] Wait, your mom doesn't listen to this every week?

[43:04] No.

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

[43:07] Well, she listens to the episode a second time, so she catches all the nuances.

[43:10] I believe that my parents listen to this podcast, which disturbs me greatly.

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

[43:15] Because your parents are weirdos.

[43:17] What? Voters?

[43:20] 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.

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

[43:36] Yeah, it says,

[43:37] Hey, Floppity-Doo-Dahs!

[43:38] Cue Elliot singing.

[43:40] Every now and then.

[43:41] Floppity-Doo-Dah!

[43:42] Floppity-Yay!

[43:44] My, oh, my, what a floppity day!

[43:47] Floppin' up here and floppin' down there!

[43:50] Floppin' around and everywhere!

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

[43:55] Anyway, every now and then, a present is given to me.

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

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

[44:04] 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] No, 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, Q House cat.

[44:33] Number two, jacked-up...

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

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

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

[44:47] Number three, verbal cliches thrown around like an early 90s thriller.

[44:51] It's got to be two to three guys to pull this off.

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

[44:56] I'm fascinated by Payne.

[44:58] He's ex-military, judging by his tactics.

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

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

[45:06] What's the money to pay? 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] Wasn't that Tyler last night with the film?

[45:16] ...thrown around like CSI...

[45:18] Visual cliches thrown around like CSA Miami candy.

[45:22] CSA?

[45:23] Serial 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.

[45:34] I think this is just an E.E. Cummings poem now.

[45:37] Number five, this catchphrase.

[45:40] Don't ever cross Alex Cross.

[45:43] Number six, Flophouse fave Eddie Burns.

[45:46] Number seven, and lastly, scuba gear.

[45:48] I think my head might explode.

[45:50] Wasn't that that dog that solved crimes underwater?

[45:52] Scuba gear?

[45:53] Yeah.

[45:54] So he says enjoy, and my recommendation for a Flophouse theater excursion.

[45:59] Okay, well thanks to the producers of Alex Cross

[46:02] for advertising on our podcast.

[46:04] I think that's a legitimate...

[46:05] What's illegitimate about that?

[46:07] I mean, they're talking about a trailer that looks crazy.

[46:10] Legitimate? Yeah, you're right, okay.

[46:13] I thought this was the podcast where we watch a bad movie

[46:15] and then we talk about it,

[46:16] not the write to us about your favorite trailers podcast.

[46:19] No offense, no name withheld.

[46:20] It's just, I appreciate your writing in.

[46:23] Now I feel better about cutting this guy's name off

[46:26] if Elliot is going to rip him a new one.

[46:28] Oh yeah, tore him a whole new one.

[46:30] Yeah, a whole new thing.

[46:32] Yeah, he doesn't have to buy one

[46:33] because Elliot just ripped him one.

[46:35] Why would you buy one?

[46:37] Wait, wait, what's...

[46:39] It's certainly not Elliot's handing him out.

[46:41] Yeah, that's a thing.

[46:42] You're right, I'm giving these things away for free

[46:44] when I could be charging.

[46:45] All right.

[46:46] So...

[46:47] Well, if you didn't like that,

[46:48] here's a much more concise letter.

[46:49] I'm not saying I didn't like it,

[46:50] I'm just questioning the appropriateness.

[46:52] It's about a bad movie, theoretically.

[46:56] So this is from...

[46:57] Joke's on you guys

[46:58] because that Alex Cross movie is going to be awesome.

[47:00] This is from someone called Collision.

[47:03] That's, okay.

[47:05] It might be an insurance company.

[47:06] It's titled...

[47:07] It's titled,

[47:08] Lower Rates for Your Auto Insurance.

[47:10] I think you printed out the wrong email.

[47:13] Dear Flophouse, Mr. House,

[47:15] are you looking for lower rates for your auto insurance?

[47:19] Okay.

[47:20] It's titled,

[47:21] Flophouse Found in the Boonies.

[47:23] My girlfriend and I went camping last weekend.

[47:26] This is compiled in actual...

[47:27] Okay.

[47:28] And out of the middle of nowhere,

[47:29] in the Eldorado National Forest,

[47:31] stopping for gas slash food

[47:33] slash world-class shitty cup of coffee

[47:36] at the checkout counter we encountered

[47:38] a quick pile of three DVDs.

[47:41] Desperado on top,

[47:42] then Vantage Point,

[47:43] then Twelve Rounds.

[47:46] Whoa.

[47:47] So I'm not quite sure

[47:48] how you're getting your movies from a truck stop

[47:50] way the hell out in the middle of California.

[47:52] And I look forward to you handling Desperado.

[47:54] And oh my God,

[47:55] you're selling your DVDs to that store,

[47:56] and I must know why.

[47:58] So why?

[47:59] Are you desperate to send floppers

[48:00] in the Eldorado National Forest?

[48:04] Why?

[48:05] I think a real question is

[48:06] why people don't write more letters

[48:08] that are hard for Dan to pronounce.

[48:09] Yeah.

[48:10] I like them.

[48:13] Well, I think he's found our secret movie source,

[48:16] which is the cafe at the Eldorado National Forest.

[48:20] It's very expensive to fly out there

[48:22] every couple of weeks.

[48:24] And then keeping the DVDs

[48:26] in some kind of a freezer tank,

[48:28] some pressurized tank,

[48:29] so that they don't get ruined.

[48:31] So that they survive the trip, yeah.

[48:34] I'm still not sure

[48:35] that that's an expenditure we really need to...

[48:37] I've run the numbers.

[48:38] It's the only way to do it.

[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.

[48:44] With the double sidecars, of course.

[48:45] Double sidecars is, of course, yeah.

[48:47] A double sidecar?

[48:48] No, no.

[48:49] Not a devil sidecar.

[48:50] A double sidecar,

[48:51] attached with double-sided tape.

[48:53] Now, you would imagine

[48:54] that that would be a sidecar

[48:56] on each side of the motorcycle.

[48:57] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[48:58] One of the sidecars has its own sidecar.

[49:00] Any 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

[49:06] on top of the motorcycle.

[49:07] Yeah, because if I was in charge of the driving, then...

[49:10] The motorcycle drives itself.

[49:11] It's magic.

[49:13] Yeah, and speaks with a bird's eye view.

[49:14] And speaks with a bird's eye 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.

[49:28] You've got to be taking firm hand

[49:30] 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...

[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...

[49:58] See, the problem is, like, you sing...

[50:00] The problem with your songs is you sing, I take a drink, I don't know when your song is going to end.

[50:07] Hey, I don't know when the song is going to end either, the song tells me.

[50:09] Yeah, dude, we want people to imagine that Elliot's practicing this shit with us.

[50:13] Yeah, with a full orchestra.

[50:14] So this last email is titled, Pervozoid Number Two, from Stephen Last Name With Hell.

[50:22] Whoa, someone attempting to gain the throne, Pervozoid Number Two?

[50:25] Well, listen, you'll learn.

[50:26] Wouldn't that be your long lost son?

[50:28] Stephen Last Name With Hell says, Dearest Floppers and House Cat,

[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.

[50:37] It's been a disappointing week.

[50:40] I've been working my way through the archives, at least every episode with Elliot.

[50:45] I find episodes without him to be intolerable.

[50:47] Yeah.

[50:48] 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, I don't know.

[50:58] Now that doesn't make any sense.

[51:00] Anyway.

[51:01] I'm always working on the Blackbird.

[51:03] That's true.

[51:04] You are always working on the Blackbird or fighting the adversary.

[51:07] Anyway, I was wondering why...

[51:08] With your ill-defined Indian powers.

[51:10] It says, Anyway, I was wondering why Dan is often referred to as Pervozoid Number One,

[51:15] when it seems clear that Stuart is the pervious flopper.

[51:19] Dan, can you write another fucking email?

[51:21] Maybe, 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, last name with L.

[51:28] Oh, man, I think I've got a fucking enemy over here.

[51:31] I think Owl Madrigal wrote this one.

[51:34] Owl Madrigal, who lives in a tree.

[51:37] Well, thanks, Stephen, if you exist.

[51:39] Allow me to explain why I think Dan is Pervozoid Number One.

[51:43] Stuart is so open with his sexuality that it's almost...

[51:46] I'm too mad right now to talk about it.

[51:48] That was a very Cam from Modern Family type of line.

[51:53] Stuart is so open with his sexuality and so innocent that there's something adorable about it.

[51:57] You're saying I'm not open? I'm talking about it all the time.

[52:00] It's like when a three-year-old grabs a woman's boob.

[52:04] How can you get mad? It's adorable.

[52:06] Dan, on the other hand, is...

[52:08] It's like an 80-year-old man grabbing a woman's boob.

[52:10] Well, I do it. It's like Rodney Dangerfield saying something awesome.

[52:13] Exactly.

[52:14] But with Dan, it's like if there was a guy in a suit with a briefcase who was just on the subway,

[52:19] and then he just turned to a woman and was like, tits, and then turned away.

[52:22] Creepy. Super creepy.

[52:24] Stuart opens up his briefcase and it's filled with Sherry Magazine.

[52:28] What I'm hearing...

[52:30] You know those phone book sizings?

[52:32] All I'm hearing is that I'm being punished for being an upstanding member of society most of the time.

[52:37] And then I let you guys in. I let my hair down.

[52:40] I have a moment of honesty, and all of a sudden I'm slapped down.

[52:43] I'm slapped down by you assholes. That's what I'm hearing.

[52:46] So now you're mad.

[52:48] Why is everyone mad all of a sudden?

[52:50] Because of these letters.

[52:52] These letters are tearing us apart, guys.

[52:54] Our fans are getting in between us.

[52:56] Let's not let these letters destroy us, okay?

[52:58] You can both be pervazoid number one.

[53:00] L.A.'s just excited right now because nobody's calling him out on anything.

[53:03] Actually, I have a revelation to make to both of you.

[53:07] What's that?

[53:08] The fact is, the reason I know that Dan is pervazoid number one is because I am pervazoid number two.

[53:14] I am the second in the pervazoid sequence.

[53:17] I'm just better at hiding it than Dan and far less creepy.

[53:20] See, clever listeners of this episode will realize that Elliot's family doesn't listen to this podcast, nor does his wife.

[53:27] So he's okay to say whatever he wants.

[53:29] Listen to the clues of previous episodes, and 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 revealed, guys.

[53:44] Yeah, that was magic's greatest secret.

[53:47] Houdini is turning in his grave now that I revealed that one.

[53:50] All right.

[53:51] Well, you did.

[53:52] 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 that we worked on.

[54:00] That was for my day job.

[54:01] I was being paid to do that.

[54:02] You were being paid to touch dildos.

[54:04] I was being paid to touch dildos on television.

[54:06] He can control himself.

[54:07] He can wait to touch dildos at home until it doesn't impede in his podcast.

[54:11] It's like David Cross's old stand-up joke about how they sell porn at the airport and how 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 adorable.

[54:24] Dan would do it on a plane under a blanket, and everyone would be like, oh, what is he doing?

[54:29] Whereas I would wait until I got home, close the door, and then go crazy.

[54:33] I would come out of the bathroom and announce that I just made it to the Mile High Club and start giving out high fives.

[54:38] With toilet paper trailing off your sneaker and just holding a Playboy with the centerfold hanging open in your other hand.

[54:45] Everyone would be like, oh, it's the original party animal.

[54:50] Meanwhile, Dan is furtively just glancing at the person sitting next to him while he does that under a blanket.

[54:55] He's watching the movie Bug on his laptop.

[54:57] Why don't they love me?

[54:58] Why don't they love me like they love him?

[55:00] And I'm just sitting there going, get me off this plane.

[55:05] All right.

[55:06] Well, we've somehow managed to talk about passion play for a long time, so we should speedily...

[55:12] We must have been passionate about it, guys.

[55:14] Yeah, we should...

[55:15] High five that one.

[55:16] I hope you heard that high five.

[55:17] We should speedily give our recommendations for movies that we actually like and think people should go out and watch.

[55:25] Go watch them now.

[55:26] Okay, I'm going to start.

[55:27] I'm going to recommend a little movie called Castle Break.

[55:30] No.

[55:31] No.

[55:32] How did I know?

[55:33] You saw it.

[55:34] It's a great movie.

[55:35] Does it have a scene where a guy rips his own ding dong off?

[55:37] 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] It's ripped off.

[55:46] Okay, Dan, your turn.

[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 the movie...

[55:54] You should take home.

[55:55] And I can rip off his ding dong, too.

[55:58] 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.

[56:05] And eyes.

[56:07] Yeah, well, and a viewing implement, streaming.

[56:10] But I watched a movie called Dead End Drive-In.

[56:13] And this is a...

[56:15] Dead End Drive-In?

[56:16] Dead End Drive-In.

[56:18] Dead End Drive-In.

[56:19] Yeah.

[56:20] This is an Aussie film from the early 80s.

[56:24] 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] Including Dark Knight Rises, obviously, included in that bunch.

[56:50] And 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 camp.

[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.

[57:42] If you're listening to this podcast, you probably know.

[57:45] It might be a little niche, but it hit all my sweet spots.

[57:49] It's a beautiful-looking movie.

[57:51] It's got weird...

[57:53] And if you love drive-ins, it's got great loving shots of weird neon drive-ins and people just hanging out in this half-party, half-prison.

[58:05] And it's a really fun movie.

[58:06] So that's my recommendation.

[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, 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.

[58:34] But he doesn't really want to, and he wants more out of life and realizes he can't have it.

[58:38] It's passed him by.

[58:39] It's a really short but brisk thriller.

[58:44] Short but brisk?

[58:45] Well, you know.

[58:46] Well, Passion Play was short but deadly long and boring.

[58:49] That's true.

[58:50] But it moves quickly.

[58:51] Sapped every ounce of will to live from us.

[58:54] And 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.

[59:19] Yeah.

[59:20] So three for Castle Pre.

[59:22] No.

[59:23] Yep.

[59:24] That was Passion Play, guys.

[59:25] Hooray.

[59:26] We're done.

[59:27] We did it.

[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 Willington.

[59:35] And let me check.

[59:37] Elliot Kalin.

[59:38] That's me.

[59:39] Well, I don't know why you reached into your pants to figure that out.

[59:41] That's where I have it written.

[59:42] Okay.

[59:43] Yeah.

[59:44] Good night, everyone.

[59:45] Boom.

[59:46] We did it.

[59:47] We did it.

[1:00:00] It's true, you're the one who makes me laugh when I listen to it, and Dan, you're right too.

[1:00:04] And Elliot, you're the best. Thanks, Elliot.

[1:00:07] Who?

[1:00:08] Elliot.

[1:00:09] I'm not familiar.

[1:00:10] I'm not the evil version of you, Elliot?

[1:00:12] No.

[1:00:13] He's got to go to you.

[1:00:14] Or the smelly version of me, Smelly-It.

[1:00:16] Or the one who's jellin', Jell-It.

[1:00:19] Elliot, the Bell-It.

[1:00:20] Kaylin, I think you called yourself that.

[1:00:22] I called myself that once, because I was making it up as I went along.

The Flop House: Episode #108 - Passion Play

Transcript

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