The Flop House_ Episode #56 - Whiteout

[0:00] In this episode, we discuss White Out, the film invented by Mike Nesmith's mother.

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

[0:35] I'm Elliot Kalin, in the number two seat this time.

[0:38] And I'm Amanda Melson, special guest announcing myself.

[0:41] Wow.

[0:43] Um, Amanda, welcome back.

[0:46] Thank you.

[0:47] You were here once before when Stuart was here.

[0:49] That's true.

[0:50] And now you're back when Elliot's here.

[0:53] Elliot, who's much more of a gentleman than Stuart.

[0:56] That's true.

[0:57] I wouldn't say that. I'm a gentleman, but he's a ladies' man.

[1:01] So, he has a way of charm about him, whereas I merely have a base level of politeness.

[1:07] Yep.

[1:08] I'm glad that that's the only thing you base the way you treat me on.

[1:13] It's just your level, how you treat all women also applies to me.

[1:18] It's exactly the same.

[1:21] With a professional courtesy.

[1:23] Thank you.

[1:24] The way I treat you, the way I treat my fiancé, the way I treat my mother.

[1:27] Despite the fact that you actually have known Amanda for quite some time,

[1:32] unlike Stuart, who was just meeting Amanda when we did a podcast together.

[1:36] That's true. We've all known each other for a while.

[1:38] That's true.

[1:39] You know what? Guys, let's not talk about a movie.

[1:40] Let's just reminisce about Sarah Schaefer's Obsessed With You.

[1:43] Ah, good old times.

[1:44] And the days of Juvie Hall Theater.

[1:46] Let's reminisce about a failed New York alternative comedy theater.

[1:51] It only failed because it didn't make money, Dan.

[1:54] Yeah, that's not a failure.

[1:55] Creatively, it was a hit, except with the audiences.

[1:58] Well, on those standards, it's just as successful as any alternative New York comedy theater ever.

[2:03] There you go.

[2:04] Even the successful New York comedy theaters lose money on their actual shows.

[2:11] The only way that they make any money is by charging people to learn how to do comedy.

[2:17] Oh, we should have done that.

[2:20] I know, and those people become a source of free labor, too.

[2:22] If any people had come to see any shows at that theater, we could have enticed them into learning how we did it.

[2:31] Yeah, taught them lessons in comedy stuff.

[2:35] Yep, the first lesson we would teach them would be taking their money.

[2:39] Here's your money. Say goodbye to it. Come back next week with more money.

[2:45] That's going to be the next 10 to 20 years of your comedy career.

[2:49] Anyway.

[2:50] Really, 20 years.

[2:52] You're saying the average comedian works for 20 years without making a profit.

[2:56] Profit? Yes, probably.

[2:59] I've been at it for eight, so I'm just giving myself a wide margin.

[3:03] 20 more years to go, and then the money's going to come in.

[3:06] Yep.

[3:07] By the time you're in your mid-50s, you should be making upwards of $26,000 a year.

[3:12] That's when you get your pension.

[3:14] Your comedy pension, that's true.

[3:16] Once that kicks in, you're sitting pretty.

[3:19] I've been paying in every year.

[3:22] To who?

[3:23] Some guy.

[3:25] Gilbert Gottfried?

[3:27] The voice of the Shudini?

[3:30] Have you seen?

[3:32] I know he's the voice of the Affleck Duck.

[3:34] No more. He may not be.

[3:36] I know he's the voice of Iago in Aladdin.

[3:38] Well, that will be forever.

[3:41] They can't change that.

[3:43] I saw an ad for the Shudini, which is a device that old people use to put their shoes on.

[3:49] I assume it's some sort of wish-granting shoe.

[3:52] It's like a stick with a little pincher at the end of it,

[4:00] so that you can just pinch the back of your shoe and slip it onto your foot without bending over.

[4:06] So basically, it's like a version of those things that have plastic sharks and other creatures.

[4:11] Or dinosaur heads on them, or robot arms.

[4:14] But it's like, do you need help putting on your shoes?

[4:18] So, Gilbert Gottfried is in a production of My Fair Lady.

[4:22] That was my best Gottfried.

[4:25] And it's named after Houdini, who of course is famous for putting his shoes on.

[4:33] Without bending over.

[4:35] People used to come from miles around to see how he put his shoes on.

[4:40] Well, in the 80s, Gilbert Gottfried specialized in introducing things where women took their tops off.

[4:47] And now he's specializing in ways that old people can put their shoes on.

[4:51] I suppose an old person could take their top off with a Shudini.

[4:55] They could doff their top.

[4:58] So that's all a long way around to saying that we watched a movie tonight that was called Whiteout.

[5:05] Whiteout.

[5:08] Do do do do do.

[5:11] Well, not the way you're doing it, actually.

[5:14] Do do do do do.

[5:21] Everyone's watching to see what you will do.

[5:24] Right? That's the song?

[5:27] Right.

[5:28] I don't know.

[5:30] That's that Whiteout song?

[5:31] That's twice the royalties.

[5:33] That you have to pay. Cha-ching!

[5:36] You're welcome, asscap.

[5:38] So, Kate Beckinsale was in this film.

[5:42] Yes.

[5:43] Everyone, America's sweetheart, Kate Beckinsale.

[5:45] America's English rose sweetheart.

[5:47] The actress that Amanda turned to us and said,

[5:51] what else has she been in?

[5:53] Well, to be fair, most, many of her movies,

[5:56] lately, most of her movies have involved vampires and werewolves.

[5:58] Yeah, well, you're married to a guy who co-wrote a book about werewolves,

[6:02] so you should be more familiar with Kate Beckinsale than either of us.

[6:06] If you took any interest in your husband's life.

[6:09] Obviously, she doesn't.

[6:10] Yeah, like, all I know is she wasn't in Twilight or Twilight New Moon.

[6:20] But that could describe the vast majority of actors.

[6:23] A very small percentage of actors.

[6:26] All actors fall into two categories.

[6:28] In Twilight or Twilight New Moon or not.

[6:31] You're saying that if you watch any vampire and werewolf movies,

[6:37] you'll know who Kate Beckinsale is.

[6:39] I'm saying I've watched two of those movies.

[6:43] Good point.

[6:44] And she wasn't in either of those, so.

[6:46] Fair enough.

[6:47] I don't know what it takes to smoke Kate Beckinsale out of her home.

[6:52] You've got to go to more than two vampire and werewolf movies.

[6:58] What has she been in, seriously?

[7:00] She's been in the Underworld series.

[7:01] Never heard of it.

[7:02] She was in Van Helsing.

[7:04] Nope.

[7:05] Earlier in her career.

[7:06] Which also has vampires and werewolves in it.

[7:08] Yeah, she was in Cold Comfort Farm, which has no vampires or werewolves.

[7:11] Haven't seen it.

[7:12] It's a fun movie.

[7:13] Serendipity with John Cusack.

[7:15] Oh, I saw that!

[7:17] You know what that is?

[7:18] That's when fate has a sense of humor.

[7:21] When fate is stupid.

[7:23] I saw that movie.

[7:25] It's one of those movies where the screenwriter decided to have the characters

[7:29] throw huge roadblocks in the way of their own happiness.

[7:32] It's a movie loosely based on a dessert restaurant.

[7:35] Loosely based?

[7:37] I mean, they go there in it.

[7:38] 50% of the film is their famous frozen hot chocolate.

[7:46] So it's an hour and a half film, 45 minutes of the running time.

[7:50] So I'm more interested in how frozen hot chocolate is physically possible

[7:54] than I am in anything that happened in Whiteout.

[7:57] Serendipity, Dan.

[7:58] You know, there was a bit of foreshadowing in Serendipity.

[8:03] Foreshadowing for the movie Whiteout.

[8:06] Explosion as wind plays a part?

[8:08] Because the important thing about Serendipity is that

[8:11] When fate has a sense of humor.

[8:14] She loses a glove.

[8:17] And John Cusack finds her glove and gives it to her.

[8:21] And you know when she could have used a glove?

[8:24] When she was out in Antarctica in Whiteout.

[8:26] In the movie Whiteout.

[8:27] Because she lost her gloves and she ended up losing two fingers as a result.

[8:33] Should we tell the little story there is to this stupid film?

[8:36] Yes, please.

[8:38] Not to be biased or anything.

[8:39] Whiteout tells the tale of Kate Beckinsale, whose name I don't remember in the movie.

[8:43] So we will call her Kate Beckinsale.

[8:44] Who is the U.S. Marshal who is stationed at the Antarctica Research Center.

[8:49] I guess in case there is a crime that takes place in Antarctica.

[8:53] She is just about to leave.

[8:55] She is a day away from leaving for somewhere else.

[8:57] And the reason she was at Antarctica is because she had some trauma in her past

[9:02] involving arrests she made in Miami.

[9:04] Also involving a cute vest and sleeveless top.

[9:08] Yes.

[9:10] And when you have a traumatic experience in a place known for a certain type of weather.

[9:15] You have to go to a place that has the exact opposite type of weather.

[9:18] The exact opposite type of weather, exactly.

[9:24] So she is about to leave.

[9:25] Her only real friend there is Doc, played by Tom Skerritt, who is a doctor.

[9:30] And uh-oh, a body is found out in the middle of nowhere.

[9:34] How could it have gotten there?

[9:35] And it was a murder.

[9:37] And this discovery leads her on a trail of intrigue and adventure.

[9:42] And eventually it turns out it is like a diamond smuggling operation.

[9:47] Yes.

[9:48] Oh, and along the way she is attacked by a man with an ice axe.

[9:51] And she has to open up the door of a place when it is really cold and her gloves aren't on.

[9:56] And she loses her fingers as a result.

[9:58] Now Elliot, is it a diamond smuggler?

[10:00] ...operation or is it that this has something to do with the prologue where it happens in

[10:09] 1957 and there's a Soviet plane that someone starts shooting on it for reasons that are

[10:16] not apparent at the time and the plane crashes.

[10:18] Reasons that are never apparent.

[10:19] It's never apparent.

[10:20] There's a Soviet plane that's carrying diamonds over Antarctica for God knows what reason

[10:24] and one of the guys starts, I guess the pilots have decided to steal the diamonds, so they

[10:29] start shooting up the plane, everyone dies and the plane crashes and then 50 years later

[10:35] these diamonds are rediscovered by somebody and someone else gets them and then some people

[10:41] decide to do something with them somewhere and this somehow leads to other people dying

[10:46] and something ends up going on and Cape Beckinsale wanders around in the snow for a long time

[10:52] and then it turns out it was Doc and Doc kills himself.

[10:56] So you would call these diamonds the MacGuffin.

[10:59] I would call them the Macrappin.

[11:02] This is not a good movie.

[11:05] So yeah, it's your typical whodunit set on Antarctica.

[11:11] Sort of, except there's a lot of who cares whodunit.

[11:17] How so?

[11:19] Amanda.

[11:20] A body mysteriously appears, I guess, in Antarctica, but I don't know.

[11:28] They don't build up a lot of suspense.

[11:29] You don't really care.

[11:30] Well, part of the problem with this movie, and I don't know whether it was because DVDs

[11:38] are mixed in a weird way or my sound system is weird, but they put a lot more emphasis

[11:44] on making sure you could hear the wind than any of the dialogue that actually transpired.

[11:50] Just as in the final scene of the film, they put more emphasis on the fact that there was

[11:54] a blinding white snowstorm.

[11:57] As opposed to telling you which of the snowsuit-clad figures is who when they're all fighting.

[12:04] The ones you can dimly see as gray shapes through the snow.

[12:08] I think they really thought people were excited about snow, and I think they missed their

[12:14] chance because this year, snow was very big.

[12:16] Yes.

[12:17] Maybe that's part of the problem, actually.

[12:20] Maybe if we had seen this movie in October, we would have thought it was amazing.

[12:26] Look at them!

[12:28] Three identical figures in the park that we can barely see through some snow.

[12:35] It's not a well-made movie, and the emphasis seems to be on keeping the audience from understanding

[12:41] what is going on at any given point.

[12:46] There's a character who is in grave danger who calls Cape Becken Sail from an alternate...

[12:55] There's another area that was a Russian camp, a research camp, and there are some geologists

[12:59] who are there who are pulling ice samples out of Antarctica.

[13:03] One of them calls Cape Becken Sail and says,

[13:06] Come over here and you'll understand everything.

[13:08] She's like, What's going on?

[13:10] Just tell me.

[13:11] He's like, No, you have to come over.

[13:13] And she says, No, really?

[13:15] I would have to go through a whiteout blizzard on the South Pole to get to you.

[13:21] And he says, No, you have to come over.

[13:23] And then she comes over and he's dead.

[13:24] And there's a guy with an ice axe who tries to get him.

[13:27] Why wouldn't he just tell her?

[13:29] Oh, there's a murder.

[13:30] Well, man, the diamonds are something you really need to see to understand.

[13:34] Yeah, they're forever.

[13:35] You know...

[13:36] It could physically be in the presence of the thing that's...

[13:40] And those were big diamonds when we see them, they're uncut.

[13:42] Do you know how many two-month salaries it would take to buy all those?

[13:45] A lot.

[13:46] So many.

[13:47] Yeah.

[13:48] You know, a lot of kisses are going to begin there.

[13:53] Yeah.

[13:54] Inside that dead guy's sewn-together calf.

[13:57] Full of diamonds.

[13:58] Every kiss begins there.

[14:00] Yeah.

[14:01] And also, Elizabeth Taylor would point out that these have always given me luck.

[14:05] Meaning white diamonds, of course.

[14:08] Whiteout diamonds.

[14:09] She would pull them from her own ear.

[14:12] Because, you see, Doc, Tom Skerritt had been sewing uncut diamonds into dead people's flesh.

[14:19] Bags of them.

[14:20] Yeah.

[14:21] In order to smuggle them out somehow, maybe, I don't know.

[14:24] Yeah.

[14:25] The whole thing...

[14:26] The movie is very uninterested in the movie.

[14:29] Yes.

[14:30] And it's almost like it's trying to lull you to...

[14:33] It's like an action movie that's trying to lull you to sleep.

[14:36] To see if it can defeat you.

[14:38] You know?

[14:39] Yeah.

[14:40] It's like staying awake is a challenge that the movie has thrown...

[14:42] A gauntlet the movie's thrown down.

[14:44] Well, it takes a long time for the parka-clad ski mask...

[14:52] Parka and recreations clad.

[14:54] The ski mask wearing killer with his ice hammer or whatever.

[15:01] It's like an ice axe, I think.

[15:03] Yeah.

[15:04] So he's like the slasher in this film.

[15:06] It takes a long time for him to actually show up in the movie.

[15:10] He's really only in like two scenes.

[15:11] And then they use him very sparingly.

[15:13] Yeah.

[15:14] And then he's almost immediately unmasked as being this goofy Australian guy...

[15:19] Yeah.

[15:20] Who is completely non-threatening without the mask and axe.

[15:23] What was he doing there?

[15:24] How did he get there?

[15:25] These are things you would think we...

[15:26] He's one of the pilots who works at the research station.

[15:29] So he was just flying around.

[15:30] And how did he know about the diamonds?

[15:31] Oh, I don't know.

[15:32] Oh, he was with the group that found the Russian plane that had the diamonds in it, I think.

[15:36] So if a group of geologists sees a bunch of diamonds...

[15:40] They immediately go apeshit and start murdering each other with ice axe.

[15:44] Yes.

[15:45] Well, that's the thing.

[15:46] I was almost wondering if like the Russians were carrying like a meteor that drives people crazy or something like that.

[15:51] Yeah.

[15:52] Because it seemed whenever people got around it, they started...

[15:55] They would go into like a murderous rage of some kind, which almost makes like more sense...

[15:59] It makes more sense to me that we'd be watching a movie about a rock that brainwashes people

[16:03] and makes them go crazy than about diamonds where everyone is just like,

[16:07] Ah! Diamonds!

[16:08] Ah!

[16:09] Well, that's sort of what I'm saying.

[16:11] Like everything ends up being less interesting than it is.

[16:15] Like, you know, you're introduced to this axe-wielding figure

[16:20] and then he's almost immediately demystified as a goofy Australian.

[16:24] Yeah.

[16:25] You know, like you think that maybe there'd be some crazy explanation.

[16:27] Like, no, it's just uncut diamonds.

[16:29] And then at the end, I kind of admire that the movie doesn't have like a big stupid action ending.

[16:36] Yeah, there's no explosions.

[16:37] But still, at the end, it's kind of like, well, we've uncovered that it's Doc, Tom Skerritt.

[16:44] Now Tom Skerritt is going to do the noble thing and walk into the blizzard and die.

[16:49] It's just like the end of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.

[16:52] The Alan Moore Superman story.

[16:54] Sure it is.

[16:55] Is that...

[16:56] Where he literally walks out of his base on Antarctica, seemingly to his doom,

[17:02] as punishment for killing Mr. Mixipiddly.

[17:05] Yeah.

[17:06] Except for he doesn't kill himself.

[17:09] No, but he's exposed himself to kryptonite that supposedly would kill him.

[17:13] That supposedly he doesn't have his powers, so he'd die in the cold.

[17:16] Really, that's not what happens.

[17:17] I'd rather see that movie.

[17:18] Well, it's a really good comic.

[17:19] I recommend it.

[17:20] Oh, it's a comic.

[17:21] Drawn by Kurt Swan, I think.

[17:22] I'm not going to read a comic.

[17:24] You're married to a guy who wrote a book about werewolves.

[17:26] No, look, I still have sex.

[17:29] All right?

[17:30] I'm not going to start reading comic books.

[17:33] By the way, when my husband...

[17:35] It's true.

[17:36] We don't reproduce.

[17:37] We don't...

[17:38] No.

[17:39] When my husband proposed to me and offered me the diamond that's currently on my finger,

[17:45] I immediately swung at him with an ice axe.

[17:48] Wow, no.

[17:49] That's the effect diamonds have on people.

[17:51] Anytime you're around diamonds.

[17:53] And he also...

[17:54] You could be a mild-mannered geologist.

[17:55] He handed you a man's calf, and you opened it and found a diamond ring inside.

[18:00] Yes.

[18:01] Yep.

[18:02] Here's something that I wanted to talk about a little bit.

[18:04] I said this during the movie itself that I feel there's two obvious ways you would go

[18:10] with this story.

[18:11] You would not do it.

[18:12] You would say, no, I'm Kate Beckinsale.

[18:15] Show me a better script.

[18:17] One where I raise my voice at least once.

[18:20] One where I don't spend the movie flying from one place to another through snow.

[18:24] Kate Beckinsale, by the way, not complaining, but introduced in a movie about wearing a

[18:29] lot of clothes, slowly taking her clothes off, and then taking a shower.

[18:33] Yeah.

[18:34] Well, there should have been more of that.

[18:36] Yeah.

[18:37] Yeah.

[18:38] That's the exploitation instinct that this movie unfortunately suppressed for the rest

[18:42] of the film.

[18:43] It's almost like they thought they were making a classy movie, but really they were making

[18:47] a piece of garbage.

[18:48] Yeah.

[18:49] So they were like, listen, we'll make it really atmospheric, real quiet.

[18:53] We're not going to draw attention to the unseemly elements of this movie about murders over

[18:58] a diamond robbery.

[19:00] But instead they should have done that.

[19:02] But no, the two ways that I'm talking about is if you're going to have a film about a

[19:07] U.S. Marshal solving a crime in Antarctica-

[19:11] And why wouldn't you have that?

[19:13] It's not a bad setup.

[19:14] It's an interesting setup.

[19:15] No, no.

[19:16] Well, tell the two ways you would do it.

[19:17] I would either do it by there's no law force down in Antarctica, because why would there

[19:23] be?

[19:24] It's like the Wild West.

[19:25] There probably is, and that's where they based this on.

[19:27] They probably, like someone heard, oh, like Antarctica has a U.S. Marshal for some reason.

[19:31] Let's set a mystery there.

[19:32] But most people would think, like, of course there's no police down there, so let's have

[19:36] a murder happen down there, and then we have to send someone who's not used to being in

[19:40] Antarctica-

[19:41] So it's like insomnia.

[19:42] To solve this crime.

[19:43] Exactly.

[19:44] Or you go the other way, and you have a cop who works there because, you know, maybe they're

[19:51] a scientist, maybe they don't want a really, like, taxing job.

[19:54] Scientist cop.

[19:55] Yeah.

[19:56] I like it.

[19:57] Science cop.

[19:58] But he's not actually-

[19:59] Yeah.

[20:00] the cop. He's not like a gritty street cop. She doesn't use science to solve the crime.

[20:04] She looks up a series of printouts that say science on them. Yeah. And then she. They

[20:08] have X's right next to them. If X's. She looks up the words that don't have X's next to them

[20:13] and the word is science and she uses that to find the bodies with the diamonds. It makes

[20:16] as much sense as what I've just said. And then she compares the sutures on the bodies

[20:22] to the sutures on her three fingered hand. Yeah. Because she, Tom's carrot just chopped

[20:27] off two of her fingers. He was in Top Gun. And Alien. So you were saying Dan. No, I was

[20:34] saying that like you would have a cop who is not used to actual crime because they're

[20:38] a cop in Antarctica. You'd either have someone who's not used to Antarctica and is dealing

[20:41] with that or a cop who's out of their league because they're not used to solving crime.

[20:45] Right. It's what. You know what? You're screening. They're taking a Pelham 1-2-3 tomorrow. Too

[20:50] late for the people. On Wednesday. Well, maybe if you put this up today. I'm not putting

[20:55] it up. We'll put it up tomorrow. Well, it goes up on the weekend like it always does.

[20:59] It will have screened on Wednesday. It will have screened. But the point is like. Go back

[21:02] in time and see it. You have Walter Matthau there is someone who's a transit cop who's

[21:06] not used to dealing with terrorists. Yeah. And that's what makes it. He doesn't know

[21:10] how to negotiate. Interesting. Yeah. You know, like a guy who's above his head but is dogged

[21:16] and intelligent and makes it, you know, like solves the case. As opposed to someone who's

[21:21] brought in murderers before, but is boring and stupid and also has been living in Antarctica

[21:27] for, I don't know, 80 years by this point. Yeah. She has. She has trauma because she

[21:32] keeps flashing back to her last case back on the mainland where she was in Miami. Bienvenidos.

[21:39] That's how they say it. And she and her partner captured a criminal of some kind. They never

[21:46] explained what he did or who he was. Well, he did have a threatening goatee. Yes. And

[21:51] he looked vaguely Hispanic. And her partner said drugs is what you're saying. I have to

[21:57] assume so. And her she was attacked by the criminal because her partner had been bribed

[22:02] to let him escape and possibly kill her in the ensuing madness. Right. And but she has

[22:09] managed to she subdues the criminal and her partner pulls a gun and she shoots him so

[22:13] that he falls out of an open window. Well, but let's let's not gloss over this. This

[22:17] was what was really funny to me is the the bad guy bribes the other partner to to let

[22:24] him go. And then the bad guy goes into the bathroom alone to slam her face into a mirror

[22:31] and Kate Beckinsale is over is able to overpower him. And then she exits to find the her partner

[22:38] talking on the phone like officer down like the partner didn't go in to the bathroom to

[22:42] make sure that this went down correctly, like didn't go into check to make sure that

[22:46] she was actually dead when she was supposed to. Well, the way you do it, too, is that

[22:50] you have the person beat you up and then he escapes and you say, like, oh, I couldn't

[22:55] stop him. He took, you know, I turned away for a second, you know, so there's an alibi

[23:00] or not an alibi so that your your other partner doesn't get killed or have the shit beat out

[23:05] of her. So while you're sitting there with a walkie talkie, you went, oh, no, he escaped.

[23:12] And then when you buy a new car or a big screen TV, there's that much less suspicion

[23:16] on you. Right. You bought it. But she every time she sees like a bullet wound or anything,

[23:22] she flashes back to this event. And there's a scene where she's sleeping. She's just she's

[23:28] just fought off the guy with the ice axe for the first time. And she manages to get back

[23:32] inside. They're fighting in the snow. She gets back inside, shuts the door so he can't

[23:36] make it in and passes out. And then she flashes back to Miami and to the fight she just had

[23:42] seconds ago. And we see it in brief, you know, all in brief flashes again while she is in

[23:48] bed doing the fight. So nice. They showed it twice, but not even like spaced apart.

[23:54] Yeah. Immediately afterwards, we get a recap of what just happened. But interspersed or

[23:59] intercut with her Miami fight or Miami event so that we understand, oh, she's not that

[24:06] good at being a U.S. marshal. There's a reason they sent her to Antarctica. Yeah. Yeah. Never

[24:12] had to do anything. Yeah. And then also there's a scene where the this where's that guy from

[24:19] the nice guy? No, no, no. He's from the U.N. The U.N. is like, well, you know, I'm here

[24:24] investigating because, you know, we've never had a murder in Antarctica before. This could

[24:30] become an international incident as somehow as if like. All of a sudden they're going to be

[24:36] tons of murders and it's like, well, Antarctica is a really bad neighborhood now. Oh, yeah.

[24:43] Well, per capita per capita. Right. Right. Right. Right. Terrible. But and the it was like

[24:48] genocide. I'm not surprised they sent the U.S. marshal to who doesn't is very good at the

[24:53] station because the research station doesn't seem to be very good at being a research station.

[24:57] Everyone we constantly see people just kind of hanging out. There's a band in Hawaiian shirts

[25:02] that's always playing in the hallway of the research station. It's like an episode of

[25:05] Scrubs. They pour a bunch of booze into glasses, getting most of it on the floor. Yeah. Yeah.

[25:11] Really? Like she always bothers me in movies, by the way. I'm like, well, it's perfectly good

[25:15] alcohol that you're just tossing around because you're showing that we're party animals. Yeah.

[25:19] We're in that scene. You'd be like, no, licking the floor. I'd be crying. Yeah. And and they're

[25:25] they're using ice samples for the ice in the glass. Million year old ice sample. They're like

[25:30] serving chips out of a mastodon. Yeah. Well, that happens. Well, it's like people who found a

[25:36] mastodon. They ate it. Well, it's like how I don't think it was very good. It's like how New York

[25:43] tap water is supposed to be good because of all the tiny crustaceans of them. Is that what does

[25:48] it? Because it is great. Yeah. Is the best tasting water in the world. So there you go. Same thing.

[25:54] Delicious. Old ice. Oh, yeah. Old ice is full of crustaceans. But it's just like it's it's where

[26:00] it's supposed to be a research station, but it's like full of weird computer displays that don't

[26:04] show you just show you nothing but maps or like really old fashioned, like green on black type.

[26:11] And then there's people just hanging around in shorts and T-shirts partying. Like in the beginning,

[26:16] there's a group of streakers for no reason. Yeah. Through the middle of Antarctica. Yeah. And it's

[26:21] like there's a scene where Tom scared is trying to teach these guys how to survive in the cold,

[26:25] and they're not wearing enough coats. And he's like, oh, your core temperature is dropped by

[26:29] 97 degrees by now. You're losing motor functions like you're going to die in a little bit. I'm

[26:35] going to teach you how to survive. But we've just seen like a bunch of guys run naked through

[26:38] three Antarctica. So it's like, wait a minute there. How could they do it? You know, well,

[26:43] they're pros, Elliot. I guess so. Yeah, they've got a tough outer shell of skin that keeps the

[26:48] warmth in. I will say that Tom scared is pretty good in this movie. He's very quiet. I always like

[26:54] to see Tom scared at work. Yeah. So we can good work white out. Thank you for giving Tom scared

[26:59] a paycheck. Did we have any other stupid things? We're talking about how like you brought it up a

[27:06] little bit with the computers, like how all the computers in the movie either seem to be like,

[27:13] you know, like old like Commodore 64 style, green on black or whatever. Or it's like the,

[27:21] at the end, Kate Beckinsale sends an email. And after she sends it, there's a big green

[27:26] check mark that covers about a third of the screen that says sent. And I don't, you know,

[27:32] do filmmakers not realize that there are personal computers in every house these days?

[27:37] Maybe that's an email program that we just don't, maybe that's how net zero works. Yeah,

[27:43] or like Fios. Yeah. It's like Juno, Juno.com. It might be like large print email for people

[27:50] with bad eyes. Or like Antarctica mail. That's true. You said that as if it was fun, but there

[27:56] was no fun. No, there was nothing. It wasn't even two words combined into one. It was both

[28:00] words. In the wrong place. But it's, you do, I mean, you see the movies a lot like, or like in,

[28:08] I remember it when I Know Who Killed Me, when we watched that, like, it showed that you're

[28:13] using a web search in like, in a way that doesn't make sense. And with the way computers don't work,

[28:17] like, it's almost like, yeah, they don't trust people to know. Yeah, there was a scene in,

[28:22] um, what was it? Dragon Ball? No, not Dragon Ball. Dragon Wars? Shoot, which one was it?

[28:29] Chun-Li. Oh, Street Fighter, the Legend of Chun-Li. Street Fighter, the Legend of Chun-Li. It would have been a very different movie. Instead of Chun-Li, it's Chun-Li.

[28:39] There's a scene where they don't know someone's name, but they do a search for her, apparently,

[28:44] via her face. Well, there are some apps that can do that now. Yeah, but if they didn't have, like,

[28:49] a photo of her, like, I don't know, like, where did they get the photo in the first place? Yeah,

[28:53] that's true. It seemed to have been that they remembered what her face looks like,

[28:56] and they did a search off of that. Wow. They did a description of her. Can you just draw a sketch

[29:00] into your computer and have it look up that face? I guess so. It would be pretty cool. It would be

[29:05] good. You'd find a rapist right away. Much better than the current way, where they don't find them.

[29:11] What a grim application for the technology you immediately went to. That's a good application

[29:16] for it. No, it is a good application. It doesn't just be rapists, it can be any criminal. That's

[29:21] true. Good point. Yeah, so there's that. That's the kind of courtesy that Elliot shows all women.

[29:28] Listen, I know women aren't just victims of rape. They're victims of other crimes. Theft,

[29:35] murder, assault. Now, let's see. Intellectual property rights. Dog mapping. I mean,

[29:45] the woman isn't the victim, the dog is. Well, the woman's feelings are the victim. I mean,

[29:53] we don't know that the dog mapper isn't treating that dog well. Can I take this moment to bring

[29:58] up another problem I had? Sure.

[30:00] With the film Whiteout?

[30:02] Yeah, we should talk about Whiteout.

[30:04] If I had another kind of problem, I'd just draw a face into rapistfine.com.

[30:08] Wow, she has a name already.

[30:11] She's going to be approaching venture capitalists after the podcast.

[30:15] It's called rapistfine.com. I think it's the next chat roulette.

[30:18] It's going to be really big.

[30:22] Actually, that's probably a horrible porn site.

[30:26] Nobody look into it. Nobody type that into their computer.

[30:29] Don't.

[30:31] It's happening right now.

[30:33] No, don't do it.

[30:35] It's happening in the future when people are listening to us.

[30:37] Well, right now for them.

[30:39] God.

[30:41] It's so weird that we're recording this now and yet in a week when people listen to it, we could all be dead.

[30:45] Wow, you're grim too.

[30:47] Yeah, well, I had to go to Amanda's level.

[30:50] I'm trying to get the spirit of this podcast up.

[30:53] Let's draw the faces of the people we think might murder us.

[30:58] Who has wronged us over this past year.

[31:00] So, what was your problem with the movie Whiteout?

[31:02] So, there's this climactic fight.

[31:05] I told Dan that I like to picture Whiteout as a movie about an addiction to liquid paper corrector starring Edie McClurg's character from Ferris Bueller.

[31:18] That would be a great movie.

[31:20] Whiteout.

[31:21] Ed.

[31:22] Oh, Ed.

[31:23] We're all out of Whiteout.

[31:26] We've got to order more.

[31:28] Oh, I've murdered someone with an ice axe.

[31:33] Oh, I shouldn't have done that.

[31:35] That's a pretty good yet obscure impression you've got there, Amanda.

[31:40] You know, I had to do it.

[31:41] I don't want to brag to everybody on the internet, but I work in advertising.

[31:45] Advertising.

[31:47] One campaign I was working on.

[31:49] They're like, we need an Edie McClurg type.

[31:52] Yes, I was like, but I was the one who said that.

[31:55] It was for that cereal, Clurgies?

[31:57] It was.

[31:58] Or Clurgos, I guess.

[32:02] That Kevin Smith movie, Clurgs?

[32:08] That's the kind of shoes that they wear in Holland.

[32:10] Oh, you won't believe what just happened in the bathroom.

[32:13] But I wanted one of our talking sponges in our talking sponge campaign to sound like Edie McClurg.

[32:20] And I demonstrated the voice for a group of executives.

[32:23] And all they could say was, it's a good Edie McClurg.

[32:26] They could probably get Edie McClurg for that role.

[32:28] That's what I was hoping.

[32:30] The thing is, now Edie McClurg is listening to this podcast.

[32:33] Oh, yeah, she is.

[32:34] She's bemoaning the paycheck she missed out on.

[32:36] I'm sorry, Edie.

[32:37] Yeah, Edie's been a big fan of this podcast for a while.

[32:40] She never misses a cast.

[32:42] Oh, I think the Flophouse is a righteous dude.

[32:46] See, that's our next promo.

[32:48] We'll probably have to pay her.

[32:51] And the estate of John Hughes, a lot of money for that.

[32:53] Probably.

[32:54] There's an estate called John Hughes?

[32:56] When did we make John Hughes an estate?

[32:58] We got 50 of them.

[32:59] We don't need a 50-verse.

[33:02] Puerto Rico's been waiting for so long.

[33:04] Give them a shot.

[33:05] It's just outside of Chicago.

[33:07] It's just one high school in Chicago.

[33:09] And they're their own state.

[33:10] Wow.

[33:11] But wait, okay, so my problem was, so there's this big fight.

[33:16] Big fight.

[33:17] And it's between...

[33:19] Three people in identical parkas in a thick coating of snow.

[33:27] So we don't know who is who.

[33:28] We just don't know.

[33:30] Why couldn't someone have been wearing...

[33:34] A red parka.

[33:35] Like a red parka.

[33:36] Or a hat.

[33:37] Yeah, a hat.

[33:38] Or like a scarf that's blowing out behind them.

[33:42] Or like a name tag on the back of their parka.

[33:46] Give one of them a beard.

[33:48] Like that flows out over the parka.

[33:50] Let's make it Santa.

[33:51] It's like watching any fight scene in one of the Transformers movies.

[33:54] You're like, well, there are two robots fighting.

[33:57] I don't know which one is which or why I should care.

[34:00] But it sure is happening.

[34:03] The other problem with all the fight scenes is they all take place along one of these ropes.

[34:08] Guide ropes.

[34:09] These guide ropes, which it could be cool if it was done differently.

[34:12] Yeah, well.

[34:14] I just kept watching it thinking like, okay, well, all of these buildings are close enough to each other.

[34:21] I feel like if you were in a life or death situation, you would let go of the rope.

[34:26] You wouldn't take the time to actually buckle yourself to the rope.

[34:29] But if you let go of the rope, you get blown away.

[34:31] In the...

[34:33] Whiteout.

[34:34] You were supposed to do the...

[34:35] Oh.

[34:36] Wow!

[34:37] Whiteout.

[34:38] Do, do, do, do, do, do.

[34:39] I don't want to work.

[34:41] I just want to bang on the...

[34:43] That's how it goes, right?

[34:44] I didn't think so.

[34:45] Three songs.

[34:46] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[34:47] R-O-C-K in the USA.

[34:49] R-O...

[34:50] I haven't said that one in a while.

[34:51] Okay.

[34:52] That was my catchphrase briefly.

[34:54] By briefly, I mean for about seven months.

[34:57] Everyone was saying it.

[34:59] All the Flophouse.

[35:00] Oh, yeah.

[35:01] The Flophouse message boards lit up with people quoting it.

[35:03] The Flophouse talking dolls that we released.

[35:05] Mine said that.

[35:06] Yours said...

[35:07] You pulled the string and went...

[35:10] And when you pulled Stuart's string, it was his penis.

[35:14] Wow.

[35:19] Watch it, dude.

[35:21] Something like that, yeah.

[35:23] Yep.

[35:24] So, if you want to buy one of those Flophouse talking dolls...

[35:27] If you want to buy one of those...

[35:28] Manufactured.

[35:30] And then sell it to yourself.

[35:31] Give us a cut.

[35:33] I hate talking dolls where you pull the string and then you realize it's Stuart's penis.

[35:37] That's the way it works.

[35:39] You should be able to figure that out before you pull it.

[35:42] The only thing the doll can do is be up front with you.

[35:44] Yeah.

[35:45] I know.

[35:46] It reminds me of the heyday of, for some reason, of Freddy Krueger

[35:50] when there was a Freddy Krueger talking doll for children.

[35:53] And no one seemed to think that the character of a hideously disfigured child molester

[35:59] who murders children might not be the best character to make a talking doll for seven-year-olds.

[36:04] What did he say?

[36:05] It was like, sweet dreams, you know, and like, Freddy is here, you know.

[36:09] I'm going to molest you.

[36:12] I'm a victim of mob justice.

[36:15] I had a temp job once where I worked...

[36:18] At Freddy's office?

[36:19] Yes.

[36:20] Wow.

[36:21] That was the worst.

[36:22] Awkward.

[36:23] Collating dreams?

[36:27] Collating dreams.

[36:29] That's the next Oprah's book was.

[36:33] What was the temp job?

[36:34] I was working at Discovery Toys.

[36:37] But I was working for the people who decided which toys the Discovery Channel would be selling or whatever.

[36:44] Wow.

[36:45] So they had a closet of all their Steve Irwin dolls.

[36:47] This was before he died.

[36:49] Oh, okay.

[36:50] And they were like, Amanda, we don't know what we have,

[36:53] so we need you to go into the closet and press the button on each and every Steve Irwin doll

[37:01] and catalog what they're saying.

[37:04] It was like...

[37:05] So I had to go into this closet by myself and like, good day, mate.

[37:10] Ah, that's a feisty Sheila.

[37:13] Just, you know.

[37:14] Wow.

[37:15] Writing it down.

[37:16] That's the most amazing job I've ever heard of.

[37:17] That sounds great.

[37:18] Yep.

[37:21] I wouldn't do that if I were you.

[37:23] Not one time did I pull something and find a Steve Irwin's penis.

[37:27] Well, that's good.

[37:28] Not one time.

[37:29] Just imagine you press dozens of Steve Irwin dolls that are normal

[37:32] and one that's possessed by a killer spirit, and it says scary things,

[37:36] but then you're like, watch out for stingrays.

[37:39] Oh, Steve Irwin doll.

[37:41] Oh.

[37:42] How prescient.

[37:43] Yep.

[37:44] Yep.

[37:45] So guys...

[37:46] When you said Steve Irwin doll, what I thought at first was Steve Urkel doll,

[37:50] I was like, why did Discovery Channel have all these Steve Urkel dolls?

[37:53] Well, he made the Urkel bot.

[37:55] That's true.

[37:56] And the jet pack, the miniaturization ray, the time machine.

[38:00] He was quite an amazing scientist.

[38:02] Yeah, the machine that turned him into Stefan Urkel, the cool version.

[38:05] He was a very good scientist.

[38:07] Yeah, he was way ahead of any technology we actually have today.

[38:10] If only he could have turned his studies to curing cancer,

[38:14] as opposed to building a robot of himself that could work at a convenience store.

[38:19] Did he have that realization and look within and say,

[38:24] did I do that?

[38:27] Necessity is the mother of invention.

[38:30] No, Frank Zappa is the mother of invention.

[38:33] Well, I learned something new.

[38:36] So you're saying, wait, that he needed a robot of himself.

[38:40] He needed someone to cover his shift.

[38:43] Because I can imagine, like, Urkel is in the lab and he goes,

[38:46] at last, another one of perfect beauty like me.

[38:51] My perfect form reproduced in metal.

[38:55] If he was diagnosed with a terrible disease, he would have probably cured it.

[38:58] That's how we could have saved things,

[39:00] if we could have found some way of giving Urkel a disease.

[39:03] I think this discussion would have been more pertinent if we had watched surrogates.

[39:08] Yeah, we should have watched surrogates.

[39:10] Less snow.

[39:12] All right, well, I think it's time to put a cap on this discussion of Whiteout.

[39:18] Cap on the Whiteout, I get it.

[39:20] Well, yeah, because it's the thing you put on the bottle of the thing.

[39:25] Whiteout.

[39:26] And do our final judgments on it.

[39:29] Very quickly, because I don't think we have much to say.

[39:31] But the categories, as always, are, was this a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,

[39:36] or a movie that you actually kind of liked in some way?

[39:38] Amanda, go.

[39:40] Oh, my God.

[39:42] Terrible.

[39:43] I thought this movie was boring and terrible.

[39:47] They should have marketed it as a movie about diamonds.

[39:52] A sequel to Blood Diamonds.

[39:54] Yeah, Snow Diamonds.

[39:55] Really cold, leg diamonds.

[39:57] It's a sequel to Blood Diamonds and Snow Diamonds.

[40:00] They pull a bag of diamonds out of someone's leg, and at no point do we yell out,

[40:07] legs, diamonds.

[40:08] That's a good point.

[40:10] Oh, do over.

[40:12] We better watch the movie again.

[40:13] Yep.

[40:14] Okay.

[40:15] I had it for 24 hours, guys.

[40:16] Oh, good.

[40:17] Oh, that is 24 hours too much.

[40:20] I would call it a bad, bad movie.

[40:23] I think this is, this was for me, I think, the most boring movie we've watched.

[40:27] More than 10,000 BC or Seven Pounds, which I actually had less trouble watching than you guys did.

[40:35] Right.

[40:36] Early on, when I was watching this movie, I'm like, hey, you know what, this might not be so bad.

[40:41] It's got Tom Skerritt in it.

[40:43] I don't think that Kate Beckinsale has, like, good choices in movies, but she's certainly a pretty woman, a good-looking woman.

[40:51] And it opened with her stripping down to her underpants.

[40:53] Yeah, that was a good sign.

[40:54] Sports bra.

[40:56] Well, but very small briefs, though.

[40:59] She was very fetching in her panties and sports bra.

[41:05] That should be a greeting card.

[41:06] You were very fetching in your panties and sports bra.

[41:11] And the premise, I thought.

[41:12] Happy First Communion.

[41:16] Is that inappropriate?

[41:17] If you ever get that card, run.

[41:19] Let me explain to you the way of the Gentiles, Elliot.

[41:22] I assume that's something that old people do.

[41:26] Yeah, but the premise, too, not bad.

[41:28] You know, like, someone is going to have to solve a murder at Antarctica.

[41:33] The idea of a murder on Antarctica is not bad, but everything else is terrible.

[41:37] But then the movie slowed way down, and all the mysteries were solved way too quickly, and it was just boring.

[41:44] It felt like watching a particularly bad point-and-click video game, where it's like, uh-oh, now you have to go to the other base.

[41:51] Fly there.

[41:52] You found an object.

[41:54] It's an ice axe.

[41:55] Oh!

[41:56] You know.

[41:57] What will you do with it?

[41:59] Use on door.

[42:00] You know, stuff like that.

[42:03] Maybe you've discovered the way that they can make back a little money on this property.

[42:08] With the whiteout.

[42:09] The whiteout.

[42:10] Adventure game.

[42:11] Hey, remember that movie no one liked from a couple years ago?

[42:13] Well, now here's a video game based on it.

[42:15] They could go back in time and get Sierra to put it out.

[42:19] Except in every scene in the video game, Kate Beckinsale would be in her panties and sports bra.

[42:25] Oh, of course.

[42:26] For no reason.

[42:27] No, for very good reason.

[42:28] And she'd have all of her fingers.

[42:30] Yeah, well, maybe if you make a wrong choice, you lose the fingers.

[42:33] It is, I mean, there is something ballsy about a movie starring a beautiful woman where at a certain point, she loses two of her fingers, and they're just gone.

[42:42] Like, they don't come back, you know.

[42:44] She has no lizard DNA.

[42:47] She's not Kurt Connors, yeah.

[42:49] But it doesn't make a good movie.

[42:51] It's just an interesting choice for them to go through with.

[42:54] Well, that was by far the most effective scene, when she had to have her fingers amputated.

[42:58] Yeah.

[42:59] So, I guess watch that scene.

[43:02] We know what Dan likes in movies is women in their underpants and women getting their fingers cut off.

[43:07] I'm the guy from Saw.

[43:09] Anyway, so we have one letter to read.

[43:14] Just one? I like letters.

[43:16] Yeah, this is from my internet love, Ashley, a woman who wrote in to reassure me that you and Stuart weren't the only...

[43:28] The only flop studs? That's very nice.

[43:31] This is an entry in my Give Dan a Hook contest.

[43:36] Oh, okay.

[43:37] It says, Hook enclosed.

[43:40] Dan, how is there even a question of your hook?

[43:43] Obviously, it's those mournful sighs.

[43:46] Funny, because it's true. Keep going.

[43:48] Just like you said about my doll, my flop house doll.

[43:51] When Stuart says something grotesque, when you're trying to get the conversation back on track,

[43:57] or just when the full realization of how terrible the movie was sets in,

[44:01] it's trademark Dan, don't fight it, embrace it.

[44:05] It's either that or conduct all future podcasts as Michael Caine.

[44:08] I can see that.

[44:09] So you're Dan McCoy's sigh guy.

[44:12] Let's hear one.

[44:17] It's pretty good. I really believed you were unhappy with your life and the way it's going.

[44:21] Well, it's a constant baseline of displeasure that I'm able to draw on. It's like a superpower.

[44:28] The sighs are a part of you. If you were a Broadway show, you'd be Miss Saigon.

[44:32] Oh, God. You're just trying to draw them out of me now.

[44:38] I think Dan should be a psychiatrist.

[44:40] Yeah, that's pretty good. If he was a singer at Jabba the Hutt's barge, he would be Psy Snoodles.

[44:46] Keep them coming. Come on.

[44:49] If E-Way was a movie of a retro futuristic film, it would be Psy Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

[44:56] If he was going to measure earthquakes, well, he would just be a seismologist.

[45:03] I didn't really bring a lot to that one. I'm sorry.

[45:05] If he was from what the ancient Romans called Gaul, he would be a packet of French sighs instead of French fries.

[45:13] All right.

[45:14] And if he was a pig, he would live in a pig sigh.

[45:17] Well, that was a whole lot of nothing. Anyway, let's move on.

[45:24] I appreciate the hook, though, even though it makes me out to be even sadder than before.

[45:29] Let's move on to the final.

[45:32] So is that hook contest still open?

[45:34] Well, we haven't talked about how we're going to decide the winner, so I guess it is by default.

[45:41] Here's a terrible truth about the Flophouse.

[45:44] We don't discuss the mechanics of these things off the air because we forget to.

[45:49] Yep. Well, we're busy people.

[45:51] Me with my Emmy winning career and you guys with whatever it is you do.

[45:55] Wow.

[45:57] Then my new hook is I'm a jerk.

[45:59] Name dropping jerk.

[46:01] I dropped the name of an award.

[46:03] I know, but earlier before when we were not recording, you mentioned Anne Hathaway.

[46:08] No, I didn't, though.

[46:09] Dan mentioned her.

[46:11] As your best friend.

[46:12] No, not at all. Barely know her.

[46:14] Okay.

[46:15] Not going to drop names.

[46:17] Okay.

[46:18] Not that name, anyway.

[46:19] Yeah, but I think that we should keep it open one more round just because we haven't figured that out entirely.

[46:28] Would that be seven rounds or 12 rounds, like the movie 12 Rounds?

[46:33] I want a hook. If I had a hook on the show, it would be that I live nearby.

[46:39] Yeah.

[46:40] And I am available at the last minute.

[46:43] I conveniently live very close to Dan.

[46:46] No, you know.

[46:48] No, you don't have to figure it out.

[46:50] Okay.

[46:52] I was going to, for the benefit of the audience who doesn't know you, you're a stand-up of many years, and you've written.

[46:59] I'm an old stand-up.

[47:01] I'm a really wizened, old.

[47:04] Shriveled old lady.

[47:06] Yes.

[47:07] And you've written for various television programs.

[47:10] You can't say that.

[47:11] Like Sid Caesar.

[47:13] I wrote for Sid Caesar.

[47:15] Yeah, wrote for Burton Allen.

[47:17] Psy and the Family Stone.

[47:19] I just wanted to get that one out.

[47:21] Psy and the Family Stone, that's pretty good.

[47:24] Cyclops.

[47:26] Yeah, well, you're the Cyclops of the group.

[47:28] Kind of boring, the leader.

[47:29] Holds it all together, but no one likes him.

[47:31] He's no one's favorite.

[47:32] Really? Is that what Cyclops is known for?

[47:34] I thought it was just a one-eyed thing.

[47:36] No, he is known for being the X-Man no one cares that much about.

[47:40] He's the Leonardo of the group, as we always say.

[47:44] Another one, everyone's least favorite Ninja Turtle.

[47:46] Gotcha.

[47:47] The Luke Skywalker, if you will.

[47:50] Yeah, that's pretty good.

[47:52] All right, so let's move on.

[47:53] You're the James Madison of the group, if we were the founding fathers.

[47:57] Very important, but no one really cares for him.

[48:01] So let's move on to the final segment of the show,

[48:05] which is where we recommend things that we actually liked.

[48:08] Impossible.

[48:09] In order to take the bitter taste of failure out of all of your mouths.

[48:15] So I'll start for once.

[48:18] I saw the movie In the Loop recently, which is not a movie that I feel like needs my critical support

[48:27] because it is an Oscar-nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay film,

[48:33] and it was on a lot of 10 Best of the Year lists, but it's extremely funny.

[48:41] Also, for the first half of the movie, it's one of the funniest comedies I've seen in years.

[48:47] Then for the next quarter, it turns into almost like a political thriller,

[48:52] and then it's just devastatingly depressing while still being funny.

[48:57] But it's one of these movies where I had it from Netflix,

[48:59] and I sort of immediately wished I owned it because the density of jokes in it is so great,

[49:06] and many of them are just sort of thrown away and tossed off,

[49:09] and you could rewatch it, I feel like, multiple times and still get a lot out of it.

[49:14] Sounds pretty good.

[49:15] So that's my recommendation.

[49:16] I'd like to see that movie.

[49:17] Amanda, do you have anything racked up?

[49:20] Oh, yeah.

[49:21] I recently rented Coco Before Chanel, which I would recommend.

[49:29] It's the story of Coco Chanel.

[49:32] Is that the one with Audrey Tattoo, or is that someone else?

[49:35] Audrey Tattoo is adorable, and pretty much everyone could just look at her for a couple hours,

[49:43] and it just so happens that while you're looking at her, she's acting out the story of Coco Chanel.

[49:50] She's not just lying around reading a magazine and cooking an egg.

[49:53] No. I mean, part of the time she is, but it's Coco Chanel reading a magazine.

[49:57] Oh, I see.

[50:00] I recommend it even though I'm not sure if it's pronounced biopic or biopic.

[50:05] Is it just biopic?

[50:07] I say biopic, but other people say biopic.

[50:11] Biopic sounds to me like myopic.

[50:12] Yeah, it sounds like there's two opics.

[50:13] Yeah, two opics, exactly.

[50:14] Whereas biopic, it's like, oh, it's a moving picture that's a biography.

[50:15] Because you don't say, well, no.

[50:16] You do say that.

[50:17] I was trying to say...

[50:18] Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda's having an argument with herself inside her own brain.

[50:19] It's just like the movie Identity.

[50:32] That really plays well over the internet radio, internal conversations.

[50:38] Yeah, quiet.

[50:39] Quiet does.

[50:40] That's sort of the whiteout of radio commentary.

[50:43] It makes the listener lean in as if they can hear your thoughts.

[50:47] And turn the volume up.

[50:49] Because they think it's broken.

[50:50] What is it?

[50:51] What happened to Amanda?

[50:52] She's their neighbor.

[50:54] She's very old.

[50:55] Nice that they let that old neighbor join them.

[50:56] That'll be their next contest.

[50:57] Solve the mystery of what happened to Amanda.

[50:58] She was about to recommend Coco before Chanel, and then...

[50:59] The lights went out.

[51:00] And then they turned on again, and she was gone.

[51:01] She was found sewn inside a dead body's calf.

[51:02] That's how small I am.

[51:03] I didn't mention.

[51:04] I didn't mention.

[51:05] I'm a little bit of a...

[51:13] Anyway, Elliott...

[51:14] I think I will make this

[51:15] an international recommendations session.

[51:16] Your movie's from England, right?

[51:17] Coco before Chanel's a French film, right?

[51:18] Oh yes, it's in French.

[51:19] I forgot to mention.

[51:20] And has anyone recommended Thirst on the show yet?

[51:21] No.

[51:22] I don't think so.

[51:23] I saw it on the set,

[51:24] then I saw it on the series.

[51:25] And I think it was,

[51:26] I think it was,

[51:27] I think it was,

[51:28] it was a really good one.

[51:29] Because it was a pretty good movie.

[51:30] You know,

[51:31] I think it was great.

[51:32] And I think it was great.

[51:34] And we'll have to put that together.

[51:35] But I think it was good.

[51:36] I think it was great.

[51:42] And I saw recently,

[51:44] Thirst,

[51:45] Chan Wook Park's vampire film.

[51:49] Which I didn't think was perfect.

[51:51] It's a little too long,

[51:52] It's a little too long,

[51:53] and it kind of takes a while

[51:54] to get where it's going.

[51:55] But there's a lot of really good scenes to it.

[51:57] And it's almost less of a vampire horror movie

[52:00] than a kind of weird film noir

[52:03] involving vampire powers.

[52:06] Like, it's much more a story about a man

[52:08] who falls afoul of a femme fatale.

[52:11] And he happens to be a vampire

[52:13] and she wants to become one.

[52:15] Than it is about Twilight type stuff.

[52:19] But there are a lot of really good gross scenes in it.

[52:22] And I liked the ending of it a lot.

[52:25] And while it wasn't my favorite of his films,

[52:28] he also did Oldboy,

[52:30] and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,

[52:32] and Lady Vengeance.

[52:34] I thought it was an interesting twist

[52:36] on the normal vampires stuff.

[52:39] Well, I literally have that

[52:41] in a Netflix envelope on my shelf right now.

[52:44] So I will look forward to watching that.

[52:46] I'll be interested to see what you think of it afterwards.

[52:48] I've been putting it off because

[52:50] I haven't had enough time to sit down

[52:53] and pay attention to something that has subtitles

[52:55] where I actually have to look at the screen

[52:57] for the full movie.

[52:58] Yeah, it's a little...

[52:59] It's over two hours too,

[53:00] which is...

[53:01] It's a little long,

[53:02] but there's some good blood scenes

[53:04] and things like that.

[53:05] Alright, good blood scenes.

[53:07] I know Amanda likes that.

[53:09] Yeah, fewer of those in Coco before Chanel.

[53:12] But there's still some.

[53:13] I mean, it reveals how Chanel used to

[53:15] kidnap people and put them in a torture chamber

[53:17] and make them make hard decisions.

[53:19] Well, she's like Lady Bathory.

[53:21] That's how her cosmetics keep you young.

[53:25] Blood of Virgins.

[53:27] Like in that movie that...

[53:29] It was an Uwe Boll movie, right?

[53:31] Uwe Boll?

[53:32] Uwe Boll.

[53:33] Was it called Blood Reign or something?

[53:35] Oh, yeah.

[53:36] It's a lot like that.

[53:37] Blood Bath?

[53:38] She uses the blood of virgins to make tasteful suits.

[53:41] Wow.

[53:42] Really?

[53:43] Yeah.

[53:44] Well, that's very nice.

[53:45] And little dresses, right?

[53:46] Yeah.

[53:48] And...

[53:49] So forth.

[53:50] Murder.

[53:52] Well, guys.

[53:54] We gotta wrap it up on that sort of

[53:56] weak,

[53:58] desultory note.

[54:00] But...

[54:01] Jeez.

[54:02] Be ever confident, Dan McCoy.

[54:04] It's a lot.

[54:05] Buy us out of this one, huh?

[54:06] Yeah.

[54:07] We're running out of time.

[54:08] Cy Masterson.

[54:09] Nice.

[54:10] There you go.

[54:11] You saved it at the last minute.

[54:12] Good work.

[54:13] Barely.

[54:14] So, uh, for the Flophouse,

[54:16] I've been Dan McCoy.

[54:17] I've been Amanda Melson.

[54:19] And I will continue to be Elliot Kalin.

[54:21] Good night!

[54:26] And three.

[54:30] He says, and three.

[54:31] And instead of saying two,

[54:32] he takes a sip of water.

[54:35] We'll have to wait for those numbers, I guess.

[54:39] You know who never gets to do the countdown?

[54:41] His Kate Beckinsale's character.

[54:43] Oh.

[54:44] Oh, she can count down from three.

[54:47] Two.

[54:48] One.

The Flop House_ Episode #56 - Whiteout

Transcript

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