The Flop House Movie Minute #35 - Best Picture Decimal System

Dan McCoy

[0:00] It's the Flophouse Movie Minute.

[0:06] Hey everyone and welcome to Flophouse Movie Minute.

[0:09] I know that we said that we weren't going to do many of these anymore.

[0:12] We lied.

[0:13] But, you know, occasionally.

[0:16] We can't stop ourselves tonight.

[0:17] Yeah, we can't stop ourselves.

[0:18] We're bursting.

[0:18] We're on fire.

[0:20] And the subject that has us on fire is the Best Picture nominees.

[0:24] You're almost like a Dan on fire.

Elliott Kalan

[0:27] Starring Danzel washing Dan.

[0:30] And Dan Coda Danning.

[0:32] Directed by Danny Datt.

[0:34] Okay.

[0:35] Was it a Tony Scott film?

[0:37] Yes.

[0:37] Okay, there you go. Danny Datt.

[0:38] It was like all yellow.

Dan McCoy

[0:41] Every Tony Scott movie is like nothing but yellow.

[0:43] Oh, like Dan and O.

[0:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] Or Plunkett and McLean.

Dan McCoy

[0:47] That's not a Tony Scott movie.

[0:49] Who was that?

[0:50] Some other asshole.

[0:51] It was another Scott, I thought.

[0:53] Ridley Scott, probably.

Elliott Kalan

[0:54] No, no, the other one.

[0:56] Scott Paper Towels.

[0:57] What were we talking about?

[0:58] The fucking Best Picture nominees.

[0:59] The Best Picture nominees.

[1:00] This is the year they expanded it.

[1:03] No longer just five nominees for Best Picture.

[1:04] How many?

[1:05] Ten nominees.

Dan McCoy

[1:06] No kidding.

[1:07] They doubled it.

[1:08] That's a fuckload of movies.

[1:09] Twice as many.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10] Uh-huh.

[1:10] 50% more nominees.

[1:12] And you know why they did it.

[1:13] That means tons of good movies are going to be in there.

[1:14] Well, here's the thing.

[1:16] Okay.

[1:16] Flashback when they first announced this, my reaction was...

[1:19] To Warm Nights I almost left behind.

[1:22] Yes.

[1:23] Suitcase of memories.

[1:25] My reaction was, great.

[1:27] So they can nominate five more crappy movies because this was a crappy year for movies.

[1:31] Great.

[1:32] They're going to waste it.

[1:33] Because the reason is so that five more movies can call themselves Best Picture nominees and

[1:37] then make more money off of that.

[1:38] Yeah.

[1:39] More DVD boxes say Best Picture nominee.

[1:41] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42] Now...

[1:42] Or Blu-ray desks.

[1:44] Or Blu-ray...

[1:45] And emerging technology.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47] I'm still calling them DVDs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49] Or PSP downloads.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50] Still calling them...

[1:51] Well, that I don't know.

[1:52] PSP downloads.

[1:54] I'm still calling Blu-rays DVDs.

[1:55] I'm still going to call them that.

[1:58] Flash forward to now.

[2:00] The Best Picture nominees are...

[2:02] 2010.

[2:04] 2010.

[2:05] The year is 2010.

[2:07] Washington, D.C. is a smoking crater.

[2:09] After the attack by the Martians.

Dan McCoy

[2:12] Want to read more?

[2:14] Well, then buy my screenplay.

Elliott Kalan

[2:17] It's called 2010.

[2:18] The year that was now.

[2:21] That sounds awesome.

[2:22] They expanded ten nominees and I felt like...

[2:24] I don't know what your guys' opinion on.

[2:26] I felt like they did a pretty good job of using those extra slots to recognize movies that

[2:31] would not have been recognized.

Dan McCoy

[2:32] Other than the blind side, which I admit I've not seen.

Elliott Kalan

[2:34] Well, here's the thing.

[2:36] If there were only five nominees, here are the movies that would have been nominated.

[2:39] Okay.

[2:39] And then I will laugh in disgust when you name them.

[2:42] The Blind Side.

[2:44] I haven't seen it.

[2:45] Up in the Air.

[2:47] Avatar.

[2:48] The Hurt Locker.

[2:49] And Precious.

[2:49] Those would have been the five nominees for this picture.

Dan McCoy

[2:52] You really think those would have been the five?

[2:53] Yes.

[2:53] You're not just going...

[2:54] See, I would go with the people who were nominated for Best Director and assume that

[2:59] those would have been the nominees.

[3:01] Most of those were nominated for Best...

Elliott Kalan

[3:02] Well, Avatar.

[3:03] The Hurt Locker.

[3:04] I'm saying, but if there were just five, I would...

[3:05] End up in the Air.

Dan McCoy

[3:07] Right?

[3:07] Yes.

[3:07] But I'm saying if there were just five, I would guess that there were the five nominees.

[3:11] It doesn't always happen.

Elliott Kalan

[3:12] That's the thing.

[3:13] But the thing is, instead, in addition to those kind of middle-of-the-road movies, you had

[3:21] movies like District 9 was nominated, Up was nominated, Inglourious Bastards, A Serious

[3:28] Man, and In Education were the other five movies, if I'm remembering correctly.

[3:31] And the fact that A Serious Man, which is a difficult movie in a lot of ways, but I think

[3:37] is a great film, got nominated is a good sign.

[3:40] That Inglourious Bastards, which is awesome, got nominated.

[3:43] That Up, which literally was the best movie of the year, got nominated is great.

[3:49] And District 9, a movie where lots of dudes get hit by lightning bolts and explode.

[3:53] Yeah.

[3:54] The fact that of the movies that nominated, it now means out of ten Best Picture nominees,

[3:58] two are about aliens.

[4:00] One is a cartoon, and there are a couple of movies that are period movies, but are not...

[4:05] And one is basically a cartoon about Nazis.

[4:08] One is...

[4:09] Well, one is Inglourious Bastards, which is an insane movie, which is a brilliant movie in

[4:13] a lot of ways, but is insane, and fits... does not really fit well into categories.

[4:18] Any category.

[4:19] And two movies, In Education and A Serious Man, which are period films, but are not costume

[4:23] period films.

[4:24] They're not Elizabeth, which I recently saw for the first time and was kind of disappointed

[4:28] in.

[4:28] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[4:29] Yeah, no, I actually think that this is a fine thing that they've done.

Elliott Kalan

[4:35] It's not like the people in the It's a Good Life episode of the Twilight Zone.

[4:39] It's a fine thing you've done.

[4:41] No, no.

Dan McCoy

[4:41] It's good that you expanded the category for ten nominees.

[4:46] Please don't wish me into the cornfield.

[4:48] No, I guess that was just the short story.

[4:52] That wasn't really in the...

[4:53] Anyway.

[4:54] No, it's in the...

[4:54] The cornfield is in the show.

[4:55] It's in the show.

[4:56] So, no, but I think it was good because, like, people who are objecting to this...

[5:01] Like me.

[5:03] Are...

[5:03] tend to be the people who are like...

[5:06] Sass mouths.

[5:07] They've got, like, this weird...

[5:09] Whoa, whoa.

Elliott Kalan

[5:10] Enough of the jargon, doctor.

[5:12] Enough of the technical talk, professor.

Dan McCoy

[5:14] They've got this weird conservative streak, but it's like a wrong-headed conservative streak

[5:18] because they don't realize that it wasn't always five nominees.

Elliott Kalan

[5:22] Yeah, and they...

[5:23] I mean, originally there were no limits on nominees for any of the categories, really,

[5:26] if I'm remembering correctly.

Dan McCoy

[5:27] History is actually on the side of, you know, having more nominees if they want to have more

[5:32] nominees.

[5:33] So, to argue against it and be like, oh, man, I can't believe they're making this change.

[5:38] Like, well, it's not really a change.

[5:40] It's going to make our Oscar for a lot harder, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[5:43] It is going to make Oscar guessing harder.

[5:44] Yeah.

[5:45] It used to be the movie that made the most money or the movie that made the least money

[5:51] was going to be Best Picture.

[5:53] Okay.

[5:54] Now, who knows?

[5:55] It's anybody's game.

[5:56] I still think Avatar will win because it made the most money, but who knows?

Stuart Wellington

[5:59] And it has the most blue aliens.

Elliott Kalan

[6:01] Yes.

[6:01] That's usually...

[6:02] I mean, that's...

[6:03] On the blue alien meter.

Stuart Wellington

[6:04] The thing is...

[6:05] It has the most ponytails stuck in animal orifices.

Elliott Kalan

[6:08] And going back in the old days, that's how they judged Best Picture, was by blue aliens.

Dan McCoy

[6:13] Yeah.

[6:13] It has the most blue butts in it.

[6:16] There are blue butts.

[6:18] Don't spoil it for Elliot.

[6:19] He hasn't seen it.

[6:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:20] Am I doing a podcast with, like, a couple of six-year-olds?

[6:22] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[6:23] He said butts weird.

[6:25] In your defense there, you should have called him out on it.

Elliott Kalan

[6:29] But, uh...

[6:29] There's a big...

[6:30] There's a lot of butts in that movie.

[6:31] But I thought this was going to work out the way that it did when multiplexes were first

[6:35] introduced, where they said, if we have ten screens, then the little movies won't get

[6:41] pushed out of the theaters.

[6:42] We can show, like, blockbusters on a couple screens, and then the rest of the screens will

[6:46] be the smaller movies, and the blockbusters will pay for those.

[6:49] But instead, what happened was, they were like, we're going to make a shitload more money

[6:51] if we show Transformers on five screens, and we show G.I. Joe on the other five screens,

[6:56] you know, instead of showing little movies.

[6:58] So I figured that would happen this time.

Dan McCoy

[6:59] They've already seen Transformers.

[7:01] They have G.I. Joe's.

[7:02] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[7:03] So the...

[7:04] Well, they...

[7:05] Instead, they...

Dan McCoy

[7:05] They've already seen The Revenge of the Fallen.

[7:08] Now they want to see The Rise of Cobra.

[7:10] Yeah.

[7:10] They've had enough of Falling.

[7:12] Time for Rising.

[7:13] Mm-hmm.

[7:14] And they will not be disappointed by that movie at all.

[7:17] And after they see both of those movies, they go and see Sideways.

[7:22] Huh?

[7:23] Huh?

[7:24] Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[7:25] I don't see why they would enjoy Sideways.

[7:27] I mean, it's significantly slower and more of a slice of life type of...

Elliott Kalan

[7:31] I mean, there is a car crash.

[7:32] Rising and following it.

[7:33] I think there's a dude's wang in it.

[7:35] Sideways?

[7:35] Yeah, there is a dude's wang at one point.

[7:37] So...

[7:38] I mean, a man does get hit in the face with a motorcycle helmet, though.

Dan McCoy

[7:40] Yeah, I mean, I guess that's pretty cool.

[7:42] Yeah.

[7:43] To sum up, Sideways was great.

[7:46] So I will say to the Academy, I still don't like you.

[7:49] Kudos to you, sir.

Elliott Kalan

[7:50] But kudos for doing something I agree with, to a point.

Dan McCoy

[7:54] Good work, Mr. Academy.

Elliott Kalan

[7:57] I still...

[7:57] I don't know what the...

[7:58] I haven't seen The Blind Side either, so I don't know what the hubbub is about it.

[8:01] Everybody loves The Blind Side.

Dan McCoy

[8:02] Is somebody blind in it?

[8:03] It's about...

[8:05] It's a deal.

[8:06] There's a...

[8:07] There's a...

[8:08] African-American football player.

[8:11] Whoa, was this science fiction?

[8:12] Who is it?

[8:13] Dropped in by a Christian Southern family and turned into a sports phenom, from what I understand.

Elliott Kalan

[8:21] Oh, like the hit TV show Phenom of the same name with Judith Light.

Dan McCoy

[8:26] So, and Sandra Bullock is in it.

[8:29] It seems like...

Stuart Wellington

[8:30] Being a little Sandra Bullock-y.

[8:31] But nobody's blind?

[8:32] No.

[8:33] Blind Side...

[8:33] I think that's a football term.

[8:34] It's a football term.

[8:35] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[8:36] But, uh...

[8:37] So maybe that movie will win.

[8:38] But just the fact that they nominated some more stranger films or difficult films, I think,

[8:45] is a nice sign for the future.

[8:46] Yeah, totally.

[8:48] And then they'll give the award to, like, whatever kind of bland, middle-of-the-road thing.

[8:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:52] Gets the votes.

[8:53] Gladiator 2.

[8:56] Rise of...

[8:56] Forrest Gump battles Gladiator.

Elliott Kalan

[8:59] See, well, that sounds like a great movie, though.

[9:02] I've always wanted them to do sequel mashups like that.

[9:04] I've been trying to get Terminator 5, Short Circuit 3 off the ground for a while.

[9:09] And, of course, the dream would be Rocky 7, Rambo 5.

[9:14] That'd be totally crazy.

[9:15] Yeah.

[9:16] Would it take place in a boxing ring?

[9:19] Boxing ring.

[9:20] But the boxing ring would be in Southeast Asia or Africa or something.

[9:23] Like Guadalajara or something.

[9:24] Yeah.

[9:25] It'll be in Xanadu.

Stuart Wellington

[9:26] It would be in Xanadu.

[9:29] Somewhere deep in Samuel Coleridge's dreaming mind.

[9:32] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[9:33] That would be the perfect way to start a Rocky Rambo movie.

[9:36] It would be Samuel Coleridge taking a puff of his opium pipe.

[9:40] And then the camera zooms into his eye as the pupil widens.

[9:44] And suddenly we're in a war-torn valley where Rocky Balboa is fighting a match.

Dan McCoy

[9:49] And then at the very end of the film, right at the climax where Rocky's about to punch the guy,

[9:54] all of a sudden Samuel Coleridge gets a knock at the door.

[9:57] He's awoken.

[9:58] And we never know what happens.

Stuart Wellington

[9:59] The knock at the door is the members of Rush showed up there hanging out with him.

Dan McCoy

[10:04] It'd be an interesting twist.

[10:06] All right.

[10:06] I think we found the screenplay that we're all collaborating on.

[10:08] Oh, cool.

Elliott Kalan

[10:09] It reminds me of the joke I still am trying to put in something where it starts,

[10:12] it's like a regular drama or romantic comedy,

[10:15] and it starts with dinosaurs fighting each other,

[10:17] and then it just says 65 million years later.

[10:19] And then the movie starts.

[10:21] I would love that.

[10:23] I think I want to do that still.

Stuart Wellington

[10:24] I don't know what our Rocky IV, Rambo VII, wait, did I mix that up?

[10:28] Rambo IV, Rocky VII.

Elliott Kalan

[10:29] Rambo, no, Rocky VII, Rambo IV.

[10:31] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[10:31] Rambo V.

[10:33] I don't know what our title would be,

[10:35] but I know the poster would say,

[10:36] Xana don't.

[10:39] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[10:41] No, to sum up, guys, the Oscars.

Elliott Kalan

[10:45] Yeah.

[10:46] Nice work.

[10:47] Coming on soon.

The Flop House Movie Minute #35 - Best Picture Decimal System

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