The Flop House: Episode 54 - Gamer

[0:00] In this episode, we ask the question, can the filmmakers who brought us the Hong Kong

[0:05] Cocktail really deliver a boring movie?

[0:08] We discuss Gamer.

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

[0:40] I'm Elliot Kaelin.

[0:41] And I'm Matt Coff.

[0:43] Yes, Stewart's away, he just got a promotion at work.

[0:48] Congratulations Stewart, you did it, you're living the dream.

[0:50] Yeah, I'm sure he's doing something relating to that.

[0:54] Going to strip clubs, getting very drunk with other managers, which is, as I understand

[1:00] it, what his job entails.

[1:01] Well, he's the guy who entertains the clients when they're in town.

[1:04] Takes them to strip clubs, whorehouses, snuff films, places where you can kill people for

[1:10] money, underwater casinos, space brothels, places where you can use a flamethrower on

[1:17] a bear.

[1:18] That's his dream, yeah, someday he'll open that place and it'll be shut down instantly.

[1:22] Not in Germany.

[1:23] Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[1:26] So we replaced Stewart with another deep-voiced Lothario.

[1:29] Hello.

[1:30] I actually don't know how, my voice isn't that deep.

[1:35] Compared to mine it is, I'm like a slide whistle.

[1:38] The top end of the slide whistle.

[1:40] I feel like Dan is Mr. Deep.

[1:42] You've got sort of a sleepy voice though, like Stewart did.

[1:46] Okay, I'll be the sleepy guy.

[1:48] Yeah, you won't say much.

[1:51] My favorite Jonathan Silverman sitcom.

[1:55] The sleepy guy.

[1:56] Matt already has a more memorable hook than I do.

[1:59] Yeah, I was listening to that the other day, how we were trying to think of a hook for

[2:02] you and one of the ones I suggested was, I'm so sleepy.

[2:06] So Matt is running all the way to the bank with it and I think he's doing great.

[2:10] Awesome.

[2:11] I don't know why you didn't take that one.

[2:12] You still need a hook.

[2:13] I'm sorry, guys.

[2:14] A doctor hook, if you will.

[2:16] Well, that may be brought up again during our letters section.

[2:20] I don't know what you're talking about, but sounds good.

[2:23] One, two, three, foreshadowing.

[2:26] Trying out new catchphrases.

[2:29] That's good.

[2:30] Because ROCK in the USA was getting a little old.

[2:32] Okay.

[2:33] Yeah, that's a keeper.

[2:35] So the film that we watched tonight was titled Gamer.

[2:41] You speak the truth.

[2:42] And it starred Gerard Butler.

[2:45] I don't speak French.

[2:46] What's weird is that he's an actor because it seems pretty clear he was born to be a Butler.

[2:50] I don't know if he's played a Butler in a single film yet.

[2:53] Yeah.

[2:54] He'd be good as a Butler.

[2:55] So for those unfamiliar with Gerard Butler, imagine a less doughy Russell Crowe without the charisma.

[3:04] Wow.

[3:05] Gerard Butler's going to cry when he hears that you said that.

[3:07] Well, look.

[3:08] It's true, though.

[3:09] I liked him fine in 300.

[3:11] I did not like the movie that much, but I thought, okay, this guy's solidly holding down the center of this film.

[3:17] But he could not be more absent in this movie.

[3:19] This one, I don't think he was involved in it the way he was involved in 300 where I believe he was also writer, director, executive producer of the film and makeup artist.

[3:28] Sure.

[3:29] But he wasn't.

[3:30] But, yeah, I liked 300, and in it I felt he provided the right level of, like, brio and gusto.

[3:36] And in this he just seems very – I mean, sleepy is the right way to put it from what we were talking about before.

[3:44] He just seems like he's walking through it, sleepwalking through the movie, not really that interested in being there.

[3:49] I'm not – don't blame him because it's not a particularly good movie.

[3:52] Well, Ellie, do you think that he was doing that for character reasons?

[3:56] Do you think he was doing that because he plays a video game character who is under the control of a third party or second party, actually?

[4:06] When he's released from the control of the third party – and we'll get to that when we do our plot summary – if anything, he is more sleepier and less invested in the film.

[4:16] Did I say more sleepier?

[4:17] Yeah.

[4:18] Well, whatever.

[4:19] Anyway, his performance rivals that of Raymond Burr in Godzilla, King of the Monsters for energy level.

[4:27] And he's, like, punching people and shooting guns and stuff, but it seems like he's just not interested in it.

[4:32] So this movie, basically The Running Man, but updated for our Second Life, World of Warcraft, modern lifestyle.

[4:42] Running Man is just about TV, but this is about video games.

[4:45] Allow me to explain.

[4:47] I didn't get to do the plot summary in an earlier episode.

[4:50] You missed it.

[4:51] Yeah, I know.

[4:52] We're in a dystopian future.

[4:54] As it says in the very beginning in text, it's, what does it say, the far future from this moment or something?

[5:00] Or many years from this exact moment?

[5:02] Yeah, something like that.

[5:03] And it is the dystopian future.

[5:06] Everyone in the world is obsessed with these two video games that are owned entirely by Michael C. Hall, playing the character of Castle.

[5:15] Not Castle the crime writer from the TV show Castle.

[5:19] And not Frank Castle the Punisher from Marvel Comics, title of the same name.

[5:23] Right.

[5:24] I thought both of those things were true, actually.

[5:26] Oh, no.

[5:27] That clears up a lot of things for me.

[5:28] You were very confused during the course of this movie.

[5:30] Yeah.

[5:31] I thought he was an actual castle.

[5:33] I was like, why does he look like a human?

[5:36] Why is he talking and moving?

[5:38] Yeah.

[5:39] He should be protecting a princess.

[5:40] Yeah, exactly.

[5:41] I don't know.

[5:42] Well, anyway, Castle owns two huge video games, Society and Slayer.

[5:50] And in them, what's so amazing about them is that you're not controlling a video game character.

[5:57] Get this.

[5:58] You're controlling a real live person.

[6:01] What?

[6:02] Who has tiny nano cells in their brain which control their actions.

[6:05] And there's a lot of made-up science to explain why they have nano cells that take over their brains so you can control them.

[6:10] Society is kind of a second-life type world where everyone stands around in crazy revealing outfits and just kind of dances in a public park and then has sex.

[6:19] Yeah.

[6:20] Or like they hate each other.

[6:21] And even though they are real-life people in a real-life environment, they still move around like they're in a Sims game.

[6:30] Like a herky-jerky way.

[6:31] Yeah.

[6:33] And Society is basically about seeing women's breasts and having dance parties.

[6:39] And having dance parties, yeah.

[6:40] It's people dancing and women exposing their breasts and making out with each other.

[6:44] And also one guy dressed as like a priest running around with a bunch of balloons for some reason.

[6:52] I want to know who's controlling that character, balloon priest.

[6:56] And this game did not seem appealing.

[6:58] But one thing that won me over at first and which didn't last is that they have balloons popped up next to everybody so you can see what the names of their characters are.

[7:06] And one of them, a guy in a suit riding a Vespa, I think.

[7:09] And it might have been the same guy who had a pig nose on later for no reason.

[7:13] His character name is My Balls Hurt, which strikes me as a name that someone might give to their avatar character in one of those games.

[7:21] The other game, Slayer, is kind of a death race slash running man type thing.

[7:27] These are all death row inmates.

[7:29] And they are in a fight to the death on some sort of abandoned city landscape.

[7:36] And they're being controlled by players at home.

[7:39] But if the prisoner survives 30 rounds of this game, then he is supposedly free and he can go back into Society.

[7:47] It doesn't make sense because he's not really doing anything.

[7:50] The gamer is controlling him.

[7:52] The whole thing is kind of screwed up.

[7:54] But anyway, Gerard Butler is Cable, the most popular Slayer character.

[7:59] He survived 27 rounds being controlled by this kid whose name I don't remember.

[8:03] And he's not important.

[8:05] He's not really that important.

[8:07] I hated him.

[8:08] He was very unlikable.

[8:09] He was really annoying.

[8:11] And he's got a wife and a daughter on the outside.

[8:15] And the wife is a Society character who's controlled by a ludicrously fat man.

[8:21] Although, I mean, it's a real guy.

[8:23] But she, for some reason, is reserved by a shut-in who is enormously overweight and is meant to be disgusting.

[8:30] He is meant to repulse the viewer.

[8:32] We first get introduced to him.

[8:35] He has some waffles that he's eating.

[8:37] And he has a little bowl of maple syrup that he dips the waffles in and sops it up.

[8:44] And the maple syrup is the consistency of motor oil.

[8:47] And you see close-ups of his double chin as he puts this in his mouth.

[8:53] And he's also a pervert who makes the character do terrible things.

[8:56] Yeah.

[8:57] I mean, these people in Society are basically forced into prostitution or murder.

[9:03] Or dance party.

[9:04] Or dance party.

[9:05] Or, you know, balloons.

[9:06] The clergy in balloons.

[9:08] Gerard Butler has some sort of information.

[9:11] Castle doesn't want him to escape.

[9:12] They're going to try to rig it so that he dies.

[9:14] But he has some kind of information in his head that people need to know or something.

[9:18] And his gamer unlocks his control so that Gerard Butler can escape from the game, find his wife and daughter, and reveal this big secret.

[9:29] And if any of that sounded exciting to you, it is not.

[9:33] It is super dull.

[9:34] And the movie ends with one of those things where it's like the ending is broadcast all over the world.

[9:41] It seems to be a world of the future where you're either playing Society, playing Slayer,

[9:45] or you spend your life milling around in the streets waiting for the giant TV screens to show you what's happening in Society or Slayer.

[9:52] And also, for as dystopian as these video games are, everything else in Society pretty much just looks like it does today.

[10:00] Everything's the same except there's more neon and people have more piercings and wear more latex.

[10:04] The whole thing is, and this is something I was talking about when we were watching the movie,

[10:07] it's a very, like, 1990s vision of what the dystopian future would look like.

[10:12] Like a very Strange Days, Johnny Mnemonic type of...

[10:15] Virtuality.

[10:17] Virtuality. It felt a lot like Johnny Mnemonic.

[10:19] Like the scene where they go into the club and Udo Kier is there.

[10:22] And it's like, in the future everyone's decadent and they have piercings and they lick each other.

[10:26] Like, that's what happens in the future.

[10:28] And everything's lit with neon lights and you've got an underground of people who are fighting somebody.

[10:32] That sounds great, Elliot. That future that you just described.

[10:35] No, it's terrible.

[10:36] I don't want it to arrive.

[10:37] Like this idea that in the future everything is fetish porn of the most latexy sort.

[10:43] And that, and the sound, and it wasn't held by the fact that the soundtrack,

[10:48] twice they play Marilyn Manson's cover of The Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These, the rhythmic song.

[10:53] It's like, it feels like a movie that was made in 1996 and they locked it in a time capsule and they released it now, you know.

[11:00] And somehow Gerard Butler of today was able to star in it.

[11:04] Oh, and also the internet is a big room now.

[11:08] It's not just like on the screen.

[11:10] Oh no, you're in a room and the screen is all around you on the walls.

[11:13] And you lie on a beanbag chair or something.

[11:16] Wow, it seems a lot less convenient than the current internet.

[11:19] Oh, which is portable? Yes.

[11:22] I gotta go home and go on the internet.

[11:24] Since now you have to be in a big room and you literally have to turn around to see parts of the screen, yes, it is inconvenient.

[11:31] But it's a movie that the first couple minutes had a little bit of promise in them and then it quickly ran out of anything to say or do.

[11:39] Well, it's written and directed by Neville Dean and Taylor.

[11:43] By Woody Allen, strangely enough.

[11:46] By David Mamet.

[11:47] This is the script that Woody Allen, David Mamet, and Ingmar Bergman worked on before Bergman died.

[11:52] No, Mark Neville Dean and something Taylor, I don't know.

[11:56] But they're the guys who did Crank and Crank 2.

[12:01] And they also did a little scene thriller called Pathology about med students who are killing people

[12:09] and then challenging each other to figure out how they killed them.

[12:13] And that's the little morbid game they play, which was basically dismissed by critics, but I kind of liked it.

[12:19] And I really like the Crank movies. I think they're stupid in a really fun way.

[12:24] And so I'm like, oh, maybe this movie will be stupid in a fun way as well.

[12:29] And at the beginning, you know, it seemed like it was just that same sort of amped up trash.

[12:34] Very hyperactive, yeah.

[12:35] Yeah, like, okay, they're not shying away from a bunch of sex and violence, which is certainly true throughout the film.

[12:40] But it's done in such a just dispiriting way after a while that it's a wall of noise.

[12:46] It starts out very tongue in cheek and you expect it to settle down into like, okay, then we'll watch the movie.

[12:51] But then it just keeps up like that and it stops being tongue in cheek.

[12:54] And it felt like they had there are certain movies that have the right balance between, you know, the commentary on society.

[13:02] In the future, life is cheap, but also like this is wrong.

[13:05] But we're still going to provide you with like the cheap thrills that you want in this kind of movie.

[13:09] Some movies strike that balance well and this one does not.

[13:12] Well, Matt, I was not interested in anything that this movie had to say.

[13:17] I know. It could have just been like a fun future romp.

[13:20] You know what I mean?

[13:22] I haven't seen the Craig movies, but yeah, it's like trash, right?

[13:25] It's like I'm going to go see some people die.

[13:27] It's going to be great.

[13:29] There are going to be colors.

[13:30] It's going to be awesome.

[13:32] Well, Matt, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but you can see colors just all around you.

[13:35] I can't see colors.

[13:37] We'll talk about that later.

[13:39] You can see them when you go to see the movies?

[13:41] Yes.

[13:42] That's why I love the movies.

[13:44] We'll do that after this.

[13:46] We do a vision psychosomaticism podcast and we'll talk about that later.

[13:50] That's why I'm here.

[13:52] Yeah, I was going to ask you.

[13:54] I mean you guessed it once before, but you came in and you saw one third of the movie.

[14:00] Jumper.

[14:01] Yeah, you saw the last third of Jumper.

[14:04] Wow.

[14:05] There are movies that are related to cables.

[14:07] Yeah, that too.

[14:08] Jumper and get it?

[14:10] And the main character is named Cable.

[14:12] I am the award-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

[14:17] And I just made a joke about Jumper Cables.

[14:19] No, but I was curious, you know, not being used to watching bad movies at the rapid clip that we do.

[14:27] Yeah, I try to watch good movies generally.

[14:30] That's an interesting way to approach life.

[14:32] Shouldn't live that way.

[14:33] Actually, I had a similar talk with somebody recently where I feel like they're watching too many bad movies and not enough good ones.

[14:39] And I want to form an intervention for him because he's like,

[14:42] Oh, I've been watching so many Luke Gossett Jr. action movies lately.

[14:45] I'm like, no, you should watch things that you will enjoy legitimately.

[14:49] Was this person's name, did it rhyme with Blewart Blellington?

[14:53] No, no, this was a different person.

[14:56] But no, I was going to ask, how does it feel like coming in on such an assaultive movie for your first full flop house experience?

[15:05] I feel like a victim.

[15:07] I feel violated.

[15:09] That's the thing, it's just boring.

[15:11] It's just like, you know what I mean?

[15:13] Less is more, dude.

[15:15] Neville Dean.

[15:16] Neville Dean.

[15:17] First of all, look, anytime that there's a director and you only see one name for a guy, like Mick G.

[15:26] It says written by Neville Dean slash Taylor, directed by Neville Dean slash Taylor.

[15:32] They don't use their names.

[15:33] I know, and I'm like, is that one person?

[15:37] Is it a law firm?

[15:38] Yeah, which if it was, I could forgive this movie.

[15:42] Because they don't know what they're doing.

[15:44] No, film is not their specialty.

[15:46] No, no, personal injury.

[15:48] Yeah, exactly.

[15:49] Torts.

[15:51] Malicious torts.

[15:54] Living torts.

[15:56] If I'm not interested at the beginning, it's just not going to get any better for me.

[16:01] I mean, I'm not going to say this movie was, I liked Michael C. Hall.

[16:06] Well, Michael C. Hall's performance was the one bright spot in the movie.

[16:10] He went so over the top.

[16:13] For no reason had a heavy, weird southern accent.

[16:17] He's unfortunately not in enough of the movie.

[16:21] He's this very enjoyably flamboyant, just completely evil character with no gloss of even pretending not to be evil.

[16:31] He's really only in, what, three scenes when he cuts down to it?

[16:35] Yeah.

[16:36] Like a couple of sprinkled moments.

[16:38] He knows what movie he's in.

[16:40] And by the way, Michael C. Hall, an alum of my school, my college.

[16:45] Hey, really?

[16:46] Really, I didn't know that.

[16:47] I think the only famous actor to come out of my college.

[16:51] What other kind of famous people have come out of the college?

[16:56] So when you said famous actor, you meant one famous person.

[16:59] I think cult leader Jim Jones had something to do with my college.

[17:03] That counts. Hey, that counts.

[17:05] I don't know the specifics.

[17:07] He founded it.

[17:09] Jeffrey Jones.

[17:10] Jeffrey Jones.

[17:11] He went through college, right?

[17:12] Cult leader Jeffrey Jones.

[17:16] Of the mom and dad save the world cult.

[17:19] It's dangerous, that cult.

[17:23] You said, Ellie, that this movie is one of these movies where the rebellion is more powerful than the government.

[17:30] They managed to hack into the system.

[17:33] They managed to set this guy loose.

[17:35] There's just four of them, too.

[17:37] By the way, the rebellion, the weirdest conglomeration of people.

[17:42] Ludacris is the leader.

[17:44] Then you've got Alison Lohman in Dreadlocks.

[17:49] She rides a motorcycle.

[17:50] White girl Dreadlocks.

[17:52] That's the future.

[17:53] Then Keira Sedgwick, who is introduced to us as a TV anchor.

[17:58] She's not part of the underground.

[18:00] Yeah, but she sort of comes into it.

[18:02] Yeah, she joins it by the end.

[18:03] You can tell because she wears a hoodie over her regular clothes instead of the bright yellow Dick Tracy raincoat that she's wearing through the rest of the movie.

[18:12] There's a young Asian guy whose name I didn't get.

[18:15] Yeah, he got shot pretty quick.

[18:18] These four guys, four people, and I think there was one extra that we saw for a moment playing an arcade game in their headquarters.

[18:25] Yeah, they've got a bunch of old arcade games to show that they're old school hackers.

[18:29] They've got Galaga in the background.

[18:30] I wish that they had gone with that more.

[18:33] I wish that it was less.

[18:34] They gave the speech about if everyone's controlled by these things, then we're all slaves to the system.

[18:40] But I really wish that it was more like they were angry that the purity of games had been.

[18:45] I feel like maybe if Stewart had written this movie, that would have been the main thrust.

[18:50] These new games aren't real games.

[18:52] What happened to the purity and the beauty of the old arcade games?

[18:55] Let me show you.

[18:56] Games like BurgerTime and the Popeye games.

[18:59] The Popeye games.

[19:00] And the E.T. for Atari.

[19:04] These games are about working within limits to get to a set goal and overcoming those limits.

[19:09] These new games are like I wish that had been their philosophical bent instead of in the future that everyone loses control of their lives.

[19:17] Great, that's what happens.

[19:19] Well, that seems like a big theme lately.

[19:20] The dystopian future.

[19:21] You know, this was one of three movies that came out last year just off the top of my head that I can think of about avatars.

[19:29] Well, Avatar.

[19:30] Yeah.

[19:31] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[19:32] There was that one.

[19:33] And Bravada.

[19:34] And there was this one.

[19:36] And Avanti with Jack Lemmon.

[19:40] And Irma LaDuce.

[19:42] So Avatar, this one.

[19:44] And Surrogates.

[19:45] Surrogates.

[19:46] Which we also talked about maybe watching tonight.

[19:48] And I still kind of maybe want to watch those.

[19:50] I think we could still do Surrogates with Bob House.

[19:52] Yeah.

[19:53] But obviously this is in the zeitgeist.

[19:57] Well, people are jumping on the second line.

[20:00] a World of Warcraft bandwagon, and what it's done, it's the thing though of, and the Simpsons

[20:05] World of Warcraft episode bugged me with this, where it's like, oh my god, people are spending

[20:10] so much time in this game, they're creating their whole other world, and then they extrapolate

[20:16] that to a video game that is far more lifelike and realistic and all-consuming than any of

[20:21] the games that that's actually happening with are, and it's like, and I know that they're

[20:25] exaggerating it for dramatic effect, but it gets to a point where it's like, how would

[20:30] you run a game like this, like, how are these people paying for it, like, if they're spending

[20:35] this much time in it, like, how do they have jobs to get money to pay for their subscription

[20:39] rates, you know?

[20:41] Which is not, I mean...

[20:42] It reminds me, it reminds me of when we did, uh, was it Untraceable a long time ago?

[20:45] Right.

[20:46] Where it was like, this guy has a snuff film website, and he's getting 40 million hits,

[20:50] 40 million viewers watching people dying on his site, and it's like, that's crazy, who

[20:55] what, well, one, how is the server holding up to all this traffic, but at the other,

[20:59] but on top of that, like, really, 40 million people are sitting at their computers right

[21:02] now watching someone being murdered, like, it's an unrealistic number.

[21:06] It's a dark commentary on human nature anyway.

[21:08] A dark commentary on crappy writing.

[21:11] And well, but also, to say nothing of the fact that, as you said, this, um, Second Life,

[21:17] the society game, is basically just a bunch of people hanging out in a plaza, dancing,

[21:22] so...

[21:23] You gotta really love that.

[21:25] They put so much work into this, um, this video game, but apparently the parameters

[21:31] of it are just like a bunch, it's just a boring party, you know?

[21:36] I can understand the appeal of a game like Slayer, I mean, it's, I wouldn't, you wouldn't

[21:40] want to really play a game where real people were being murdered, but video games, most

[21:45] of them are about killing things, so you can at least understand the appeal of an action

[21:49] game, but society, I mean, I guess people spend a lot of time on Second Life just wandering

[21:52] around.

[21:53] Well, and likewise, like, The Sims, which is much even, you know, smaller scale, but

[21:58] still, to have a real life video game and not have these people just sort of wandering

[22:04] around doing anything you can imagine, you know, like, I don't know, it just looks like

[22:09] they're in an episode of MTV's The Grind for the whole thing.

[22:12] Yeah, yeah.

[22:13] Like, if you bought that video game, you'd be like, this video game sucks, nothing's

[22:17] happening in this video game.

[22:18] Like, I'm, yeah, well, I mean, unless you just want to watch your character have sex

[22:21] with other characters, which they did a lot of, I guess the implication was that maybe

[22:26] they're, it's just people watching people having sex, but like.

[22:29] But is that like.

[22:30] I don't know that you need a game for that, it's the, and also, there's pornography.

[22:32] Yeah, there's live video.

[22:33] All over the, inside the movie, there's pornography everywhere that's being broadcast all the

[22:37] time, so.

[22:38] So is this like the first video game that has sex?

[22:43] You know what I mean?

[22:44] Well, I.

[22:45] Like, in this, in this universe?

[22:46] I guess this is an alternate world where Leisure Suit Larry was never developed.

[22:48] All right.

[22:49] I guess that's what it is.

[22:50] Yeah.

[22:51] The monsters' revenge never happened.

[22:52] That would have been, that would, see, they could have made this movie so much better

[22:55] if there was a, if there was a prologue where the man who designed Leisure Suit Larry games

[23:01] is murdered before he's able to make the first game, and that is what diverges this universe

[23:06] from our own.

[23:07] It's an alternate time, it's like Lost.

[23:09] It's like Lost.

[23:10] It's an alternate timeline.

[23:11] Spoiler alert.

[23:12] Sorry.

[23:13] Uh oh.

[23:14] I didn't watch the season premiere yet, or any of the preceding seasons.

[23:15] Oh man, we totally effed it up for you.

[23:18] Yeah.

[23:19] Do you guys curse on this?

[23:21] No, we fucking curse all the fucking time.

[23:22] Oh my god.

[23:23] All right.

[23:24] This just opened up a whole world of communication for you.

[23:25] We have an alternate timeline where you curse.

[23:29] There's the clean version of a flophouse in a separate timeline.

[23:34] In the world where cursing has been outlawed by the government.

[23:36] In the world where Stuart fell into a pond as a small child.

[23:43] This is a movie, it's a movie also that, uh, the villain at the end, his plan is, is like

[23:48] super villain-ish, it turns out, that he's going to use these nano-cells to basically

[23:54] take over the minds of everybody in the world.

[23:58] And so the movie jumps from implausibly futuristic to insanely implausibly, you know, just silly.

[24:07] But I mean, I kind of liked that that leap happened.

[24:10] I don't know, ultimately there's like better stakes in the sense of the idea of like, okay,

[24:16] this person has this nanotechnology that, taken to its logical limit, could mind-control

[24:22] anyone they wanted.

[24:24] And that's a little more interesting than just another retread of Death Race.

[24:28] However, once that leap was made, you don't believe that one really burly dude is going

[24:36] to be able to take him down, you know?

[24:38] Like, okay, well, he has mind-control powers over pretty much anyone.

[24:41] I mean, at the end of the movie, the climax basically comes down to, oh my god, his willpower

[24:46] is greater than I assumed.

[24:48] But it also, the twist, this last thing comes so late in the movie, it's like within the

[24:53] last like eight or nine minutes, I feel like.

[24:55] So it's almost like, the movie's like, this guy's got to get back to his wife and child,

[24:59] got to get back to his wife and child.

[25:00] And then the last time, it's like, uh, you don't really care if he gets his wife and

[25:03] child, do you?

[25:04] Oh, well, he's going to take over the world, uh-oh, Cable's our last hope.

[25:08] Yeah.

[25:09] I mean, and also, it was one of these situations where, I mean, it's half his willpower and

[25:14] half like, oh, we got to have some reason that that kid was involved in the movie earlier

[25:19] on.

[25:20] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[25:21] And so, uh.

[25:22] He does some hacking.

[25:23] He hacks back in with the aid of, uh, Kira Sedgwick and, uh, what's-her-face, drag me

[25:28] down, Alison Lohman, who appear to be helping him hack from, I don't know, an ATM somewhere.

[25:34] It's just a computer kiosk on the street somewhere.

[25:36] But it's also, it's one of those movies also where hacking consists of pressing a button

[25:40] that says upload.

[25:42] And that somehow infects the system.

[25:44] And at the end, it's such an anticlimactic ending that, like, Michael C. Hall's employees

[25:50] are watching him fighting Cable, and Cable kills him, and then Cable turns to the employees

[25:54] as they're filing out of the basketball court where this took place.

[25:57] And he says to them, turn it off.

[26:00] Turn off the nanocells.

[26:01] And they go, okay.

[26:02] And then they shut them off, and they walk, and they go, well played.

[26:05] And then they walk out like he's outwitted them by asking them to do it.

[26:11] Didn't see that one coming.

[26:12] Yeah.

[26:13] I would expect you to ask us politely.

[26:14] Actually, either at that point, you have to, it has to go one of either ways.

[26:19] You know, like, those people have to be, you know, people that Michael C. Hall has had

[26:24] under his control.

[26:25] And that's the reason why they are willing to, you know, go with Gerard Butler after

[26:31] Michael C. Hall's out of the picture.

[26:32] Like, oh, you've set us free.

[26:34] Now we're going to set everyone free.

[26:36] Or they have to be, you know, consumed with the desire to rule the earth themselves and

[26:43] have to be an actual threat rather than being like, oh, okay.

[26:46] Sure, you told us to, you told us to turn it off, Mr. Butler.

[26:50] We'll do it.

[26:51] Well, it's almost like, they don't even seem scared.

[26:53] They just sit, like, it's like, these are his henchmen of the villain.

[26:56] He sends them out to kill people.

[26:58] They know he's going to take over the world.

[27:00] And then when he's killed, they're like, eh, I guess that happens.

[27:03] Can you turn this stuff off?

[27:04] Yeah, I guess so.

[27:05] Anyway.

[27:06] I guess you won the game.

[27:08] Yeah.

[27:09] It's like, guess I'll go pack up my stuff now.

[27:12] Like, they seem to have, even, like, the henchmen of the villain seem to have no stake in what

[27:16] happens to the villain.

[27:17] What are they going to go do now?

[27:18] Yeah, at the very least, they're unemployed now.

[27:21] I doubt Slayer is going to keep running.

[27:23] Or society.

[27:24] Yeah, Cable, Cable, can you give us a job?

[27:26] We helped you out with the turning off the nanomites.

[27:29] It feels a little, and also, like, the underpinning of civilization now is these two video games,

[27:33] and they're both over.

[27:35] And it's like, at the end of Escape from L.A., where Snake Plissken shuts off all electronic

[27:41] equipment in the entire world, it's as if that happened, but nobody minded that much.

[27:46] You know, like, all of society is back to basics.

[27:49] All right, okay, I guess we'll just make do without, you know.

[27:52] Go get a beer.

[27:54] I'm hungry.

[27:55] Man, let's get a bite, huh?

[27:58] The one thing I actually liked at the ending, and I said it at the time, was it comes down

[28:02] to this thing where they're fighting over a knife, and Michael C. Hall has his, like,

[28:07] nanomites in Gerard Butler's head.

[28:09] Oh, and Michael C. Hall has special ones in his head which allow him to use his mind to

[28:13] control other people's minds.

[28:14] Yeah, so basically anyone who's infected with this technology, he theoretically has control

[28:18] over.

[28:19] And he makes them do a dance number at one point, too, a cover of How Good You Are With

[28:24] My Skin.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:26] I say cover, but it's not like any...

[28:27] Michael C. Hall was covering it.

[28:29] I guess Frank Sinatra's is the definitive version, I would think, but maybe not.

[28:32] But, um, so...

[28:33] From his Songs for Swinging Lovers album.

[28:35] Yeah.

[28:36] Michael C. Hall is...

[28:37] Arranged by Nelson Riddle.

[28:38] He's trying to get...

[28:39] That's all I know about it.

[28:40] Gerard Butler to stab himself, and Gerard Butler is resisting a little, you know, a

[28:46] little bit because he has someone hacking in, and he also has the willpower, but ultimately

[28:50] what makes him able to stab Michael C. Hall is he says to Michael C. Hall, don't think

[28:55] about me stabbing you with this knife.

[28:57] I thought he said, think about me stabbing you.

[28:59] Yeah, or think about me, and I thought that was kind of clever as far as it goes.

[29:06] Once he's implanted that ideal via Michael C. Hall's head, he can't not think of it,

[29:10] and so it gives him the edge to...

[29:12] It makes it happen.

[29:13] Yeah.

[29:14] I wish...

[29:15] It's kind of a clever twist way to destroy that villain, but I wish they had...

[29:19] They just did it in such an anticlimactic way.

[29:22] It was like, think about me putting the knife in your chest.

[29:25] Make it happen.

[29:26] Oh, it's in my chest!

[29:28] I'm dead now.

[29:29] Yay!

[29:30] And then everyone watching, cheers!

[29:32] Like...

[29:33] Everyone on the streets.

[29:35] Everyone watching on the jumbotron.

[29:37] Because they hate the guy who runs the game they love.

[29:40] It really...

[29:41] It's one of those...

[29:42] It reminded me of V for Vendetta in a way, where a lot of V for Vendetta is people in

[29:45] England watching TV and living under an oppressive government, but anytime someone on TV says

[29:51] the government is bad, they're like, yeah, yeah, he's right.

[29:55] All right, why the fuck do you live under this government?

[29:58] Like, what's...

[29:59] It doesn't make sense that you have an oppressive government.

[30:00] rest of government with that

[30:01] there's five policemen and everyone in the country hates them

[30:04] and yet

[30:05] they are completely unstoppable anyway that's my problem i don't know that's one

[30:08] of my several problems with people and uh...

[30:11] that's another podcast that's a podcast for a different story

[30:14] we have set up at the start of the

[30:17] but they had a lot and now you know the rest of the part of it

[30:21] now i'd like to pitch my ending to gamer which i'd like to uh...

[30:25] dan and matt royer maybe you guys tell me

[30:28] but i didn't get the opportunity and you buy it this time

[30:31] he's defeated michael c hall

[30:33] he's hungry

[30:34] his family go out for a nice steak dinner or maybe he gets a lamb

[30:39] you know some kind of meat

[30:41] and the waiter delivers the food they start eating

[30:45] waiter comes back and says

[30:46] sir how is your

[30:48] how is your meal

[30:49] and

[30:50] javar butler turns to him

[30:52] and says it's a little

[30:54] and then he turns to the camera and winks

[30:56] gamey and then the title gamey comes up right afterwards and then

[31:02] directed by whoever did it

[31:03] and then written by these guys and the audience is sitting in the theater

[31:07] thinking

[31:07] was it the movie named gamer?

[31:10] i wish the movie had the guts to change its title by the end of the film

[31:16] and then you open it up for a sequel where he starts a restaurant

[31:21] yeah

[31:22] it's like the old mystery science theater three thousand thing with santa

[31:25] claus cockers the margins

[31:27] wait a minute there

[31:28] they're spelling santa claus but they're saying sandy claus

[31:33] or the brain that wouldn't die at the end when the title comes up it's the head that

[31:36] wouldn't die

[31:40] wow is that really? yeah the title was wrong

[31:44] that's a much worse title than the brain that wouldn't die

[31:47] but it's more accurate

[31:49] it's a full head

[31:50] and it won't die

[31:52] okay

[31:52] he just refuses to

[31:55] fine

[31:55] that's a good point nope not gonna do it not gonna die

[31:59] but yeah gamer it felt like it was a going through the motions movie

[32:03] and maybe that was the larger feel of these characters are being controlled by

[32:06] outside forces but

[32:08] it was a movie where i felt like half the time

[32:10] we could guess what the next line of dialogue was going to be in any given scene

[32:15] and a guy you know there's this other killer

[32:18] who is in the game with gerard butler who

[32:20] no one's controlling him he's just a crazy psycho i guess

[32:24] he says

[32:25] he goes there's no one controlling me

[32:27] i've got no strings and then he starts singing

[32:30] the song from Pinocchio about he's got no strings and it's like

[32:33] seriously you're gonna go there?

[32:35] that was my idea of a joke that you would then start singing that song

[32:40] or like you know that there's a fight

[32:42] set to there's a fight scene out of a dance number that's set to

[32:46] i've got you under my skin and it's like

[32:48] get it

[32:49] it's a violent scene but it's not violent music

[32:53] that's the thing

[32:54] that we do

[32:56] in movies

[32:58] juxtapose

[32:59] yeah i remember thinking

[33:01] when i was twelve

[33:03] you know i'd be like oh when i write a movie

[33:05] it's gonna have a violent scene

[33:07] with some

[33:08] like somewhere over the rainbow and it's gonna be so clever because

[33:14] it doesn't go together

[33:16] and then that happened in faceoff yeah i don't know

[33:19] maybe i had just seen faceoff

[33:22] maybe the writers of faceoff had just seen you

[33:25] oh my god

[33:26] holy crap i think that idea really has only worked once which is maybe

[33:31] twice

[33:32] in cloppercarns when he's singing singing in the rain

[33:35] and maybe in reservoir dogs when he cuts his ear off

[33:39] and they're playing the stuck in the middle with you song

[33:42] i think that's our signal

[33:44] yay

[33:45] to give final judgments on the movie final judgments

[33:49] i had to do both parts because stewart's not here

[33:51] so uh... usually he does the

[33:55] to sum up i'll get the symbols this time

[33:58] to sum up the uh...

[34:00] categories for this

[34:01] podcast star

[34:03] this is a good bad movie

[34:05] a bad bad movie

[34:07] or a movie that you actually liked

[34:10] so uh...

[34:11] i'm gonna go to elliot first

[34:15] for his judgment on this film

[34:17] i'm going to say this was a bad bad movie

[34:20] it had the potential to be a good bad movie or even

[34:23] like a movie i actually liked

[34:26] even if it wasn't

[34:27] like even if it was likeable trash like you're seeing in the crank movies but in the

[34:31] end it just didn't

[34:32] have it didn't have it

[34:34] didn't have the potential it didn't have the thing

[34:38] what uh...

[34:39] what people in the industry call

[34:42] the thing factor

[34:46] matt what do you think

[34:47] uh... i'm going to say this is a bad bad movie

[34:50] and if there's something worse than that

[34:52] can i have that can i say that oh young padawan learner yeah there's so many worse

[34:57] movies that we've watched oh we've barely scratched the surface here

[35:01] no i agree that no i'm not saying this is the worst movie ever you just did

[35:05] i heard it rewind the podcast no no no

[35:08] but i mean is there ever like a

[35:11] can i say this is a bad bad bad movie

[35:13] well you can breaking all the rules look i'm gonna

[35:16] i'm gonna go off the edge on the spectrum of the movies we watched this is actually near

[35:20] the top i mean i'd still rather watch this in ten thousand bc

[35:25] yeah i gotta say that this movie

[35:27] it cranked it cranked

[35:29] it cranked

[35:31] my expectations up

[35:33] at the beginning i'm glad you said it three times i wouldn't have gotten it the once

[35:38] i still don't get it but then uh... but then those expectations uh...

[35:42] didn't

[35:43] stay

[35:45] uh...

[35:46] that doesn't make sense on

[35:50] the first level mark no but uh... speaking of statham like i feel like

[35:54] as we were

[35:56] maybe if jason statham was the star of this movie like that would be enough to put it

[36:00] over the top into something that i would have enjoyed maybe although i mean like i

[36:03] don't know if you did you see death race the remake of that

[36:06] i liked death race more than you did yeah i didn't really care for it

[36:09] i think if he i don't think he was so good in that but i think

[36:12] if you had someone like that in this

[36:15] in in a way like both took it more seriously and took it less seriously

[36:19] then it would it would it would have been much better

[36:23] yeah the movie around uh... gerard butler

[36:26] seems to have a sense of humor and gerard butler doesn't seem to have any sense of humor

[36:30] in the role and i don't know that that's necessarily his fault he may have been

[36:34] asked to sort of anchor the movie

[36:37] but uh... because i mean he's a comic genius in his other films

[36:40] he's america's favorite clown

[36:43] he's like the jim carrey of hollywood

[36:45] yeah i guess the jim carrey of the legitimate stage

[36:50] exactly

[36:51] of broadway

[36:52] yeah i thought it was going to be a movie that i actually enjoyed

[36:56] and it quickly plummeted to bad film

[37:01] territory

[37:02] i don't

[37:04] i think that gerard butler

[37:06] like as far as i'm concerned they could have just taken an extra or like

[37:10] you know like a production hand and just like put him

[37:13] in the center of the movie

[37:14] because that's how bad he was

[37:16] i think wow

[37:17] like he was just nothing it wasn't even that he was bad he was just literally nothing

[37:21] he was like a vortex of

[37:23] of energy

[37:24] yeah he did suck a lot of energy out of the movie

[37:26] gerard butler is going to come and beat the shit out of him have you seen how ripped that guy is

[37:31] he also seems really tired

[37:33] as soon as he starts punching you he might be really worn out and just fall asleep

[37:38] yeah exactly

[37:39] and i think that's what's going to happen

[37:41] yeah wake up you're beating me up

[37:45] really you want to wake him up and remind him

[37:49] well matt doesn't want to feel neglected

[37:51] yeah come on

[37:52] you came all the way here

[37:54] that's what you start gerard butler

[37:57] so uh...

[37:58] before we go on to our recommendations

[38:01] uh... i have a

[38:02] firestorm of letters firestorm so many that i'm going to save

[38:07] no letters now

[38:09] i'm going to save some letters for uh... the next show steward storm

[38:14] but um...

[38:16] i have a nice message here from

[38:18] uh... guardo from the hot cakes podcast which you so kindly mentioned in the

[38:22] hannah montana episode of the flop house

[38:25] while listening to the listener letter portion of the latest episode i was

[38:27] feeling sheepish remembering my failure to recall your name during my recording

[38:31] don't be i often forget dan's name

[38:34] after you're finished reading the lovely young lady's letter

[38:37] i was shocked and surprised that the semi-private shame was directly

[38:40] referenced

[38:41] i pledge to you on my copy of the room

[38:44] that i will never forget the name of donut dan the militiaman mccoy

[38:49] i think that's your new hook

[38:50] so there you go

[38:52] that was very nice of him

[38:54] yeah i foreshadowed that uh... we'll be discussing the issue of my lack of

[38:58] memorableness and we have

[39:00] uh... no i i i don't know that that's what your new hook you're a donut guy

[39:05] and you hate the federal government one sort of militia we talked about this in

[39:08] the previous episode i don't like the second one i feel like that's going to get

[39:12] put on tape

[39:13] and it's not true and then there's going to be ATF uh... people outside of the

[39:18] apartment there's going to be FBI

[39:20] i'm going to be shot down in some sort of failed raid and no one will ever

[39:23] forget you

[39:25] i don't want to be not forgotten you'll finally be famous but was it worth it

[39:29] that's the question i'll ask in my eulogy

[39:31] in the words of woody allen

[39:36] i don't want to achieve immortality through my work

[39:38] i want to achieve it through not dying

[39:40] that's good

[39:42] anyway well-placed

[39:45] uh... i got one here

[39:50] i want to assure him that uh... i was more touched

[39:55] that he had kind words to say about the podcast than i was

[39:58] angered that he forgot my name

[40:00] I disagree, on your behalf.

[40:02] The shards of broken vases in the apartments say otherwise.

[40:05] Yeah, really.

[40:06] They tell their own tale.

[40:08] Vase smasher McCoy.

[40:09] Yeah, and you're cutting yourself with it right now.

[40:13] That's kind of weird.

[40:14] That's to feel.

[40:16] This one's called Powder Blue.

[40:18] It's from Selena Last Name Withheld.

[40:22] And it says,

[40:24] On the latest podcast, you mentioned Powder Blue, but said that as a straight-to-DVD release,

[40:29] it doesn't really fall under your purview.

[40:32] And Elliot mentioned something about its turgidity.

[40:35] Sounds like a word I might use.

[40:38] I'm begging you, please floppitize Powder Blue.

[40:42] I've had the most fortune to sit through this travesty of a film, and I have to tell you, it is turgid.

[40:46] But there's so much to work with.

[40:48] Naked Jessica Biel, a character named Qwerty, Ray Liotta's ridiculous death,

[40:53] bright blue snow falling on Los Angeles.

[40:56] Plus, it's Patrick Swayze's last movie.

[41:00] I'm not just writing you this letter so that maybe you'll say my name in the Flophouse,

[41:04] although that would be a sweet bonus.

[41:06] I'm writing you this letter because I think the world needs your thoughtful and hilarious commentary on Powder Blue.

[41:12] Also, I'm not actually some nut, in case the tone of this letter suggests I am, just so you know.

[41:17] I hadn't thought of it, but you know what makes you...

[41:20] Nothing says, I'm a nut.

[41:23] Well, maybe we'll do Powder Blue sometime, I don't know.

[41:25] I didn't realize Ray Liotta was in it.

[41:27] We've had two requests for it now.

[41:30] I think we should at least put it under consideration.

[41:33] We won't table this one.

[41:35] Guys, I say we're doing it.

[41:39] All right.

[41:41] Wow.

[41:42] I'm taking over this joint.

[41:45] Matt is large and in charge.

[41:48] Those words rhyme for a reason.

[41:51] I have an e-mail that I will quickly run through because it is the most inside e-mail that you could get, possibly.

[41:58] It's from my own liver.

[42:01] Does it get more inside than that?

[42:04] It says, Dear Pancreas.

[42:07] I'm totally lost.

[42:08] Stay on your side.

[42:11] I drew a line down the middle of Dan's insides for a reason.

[42:16] This is from, I will say his full name, but I will probably mispronounce the last name.

[42:21] It's from John Siracusa, and I'll say that name because he's a tech writer of some note on the Internet,

[42:30] and he was kind enough to tweet about our podcast.

[42:33] Oh, that's very cool.

[42:35] But he's also familiar with my brother, and he writes to say...

[42:40] In a biblical sense.

[42:42] Wait, what?

[42:43] It's not even the phrase.

[42:45] He writes to ask, Dear Dan, in what way are you not identical to your brother, John?

[42:51] I've known John for many years and have just started listening to The Flophouse.

[42:55] From the very first episode, I was struck by how alike you two are in all possible ways.

[43:00] Every thought, every phrase, every mannerism is identical.

[43:04] Your literary and pop culture references are the same.

[43:07] Your voices even sound alike right down to the accent, chemicals, tints, etc.

[43:14] He has a heavy French accent.

[43:16] I was not aware that I said chemicals and tints in an odd way, but apparently I do.

[43:21] You do a little bit, yeah.

[43:23] Were John to secretly replace you on the show, I probably would not notice. It's unnerving.

[43:27] We would, though. No, we wouldn't.

[43:29] You may take this question as an opportunity to distance yourself from John,

[43:33] disparaging him in a form where he has no ability to reply,

[43:36] which, to be honest, is probably where I'm going to go after this email is done.

[43:40] He's standing right behind you.

[43:43] If you could consider this letter a compliment and answer my question

[43:45] by affirming the similarities between yourself and your brother,

[43:48] I heard that you're looking for a hook for your character on the show.

[43:51] This could be it.

[43:52] You could go evil twin, good twin, partially formed twin brother inside the brain,

[43:56] like the dark half, paternal psychic connection, childhood shared brutal martial arts training, etc.

[44:03] So that's from John.

[44:07] I like this new hook. I don't know.

[44:09] It might even be better than your hatred of the government and wish to overthrow it.

[44:13] Oh, God. Yeah, ways in which I'm different.

[44:16] My brother, again, this is so inside that I'll just run through it.

[44:19] I'm taller.

[44:21] Take that.

[44:22] Thinner and younger.

[44:24] Take that, short, fat, old brother of Dan.

[44:26] So I'm clearly the improved second generation version.

[44:31] McCoy 2.0.

[44:34] My brother John is ten years older than me and took a very strong interest in my raising,

[44:39] and thus I have a lot of similarities with him to the degree that he often chats me on things,

[44:46] assuming that I know exactly what he's talking about and have the exact same interests as him,

[44:52] and I don't know what he's saying sometimes.

[44:55] Do you and him ever switch places so that your wives don't know that you're using each other's wives?

[45:00] Again, I'm taller, thinner, and younger than my brother.

[45:04] Is that a yes or a no?

[45:05] Yeah, you also have the opportunity since the two of you are gynecologists together.

[45:09] Yeah.

[45:10] I mean, he has been going a little crazy.

[45:12] I will say that my brother is a math genius, which I am not,

[45:16] although he did not do anything with that math genius.

[45:19] Wasted potential.

[45:20] Yep, that's something that I do have in common with my brother.

[45:23] How do you know you're not a math genius?

[45:27] 14?

[45:28] He did it.

[45:29] Times two, times two.

[45:30] Times two.

[45:31] 14.

[45:32] Well, there you go.

[45:33] I thought you said seven times two.

[45:35] No.

[45:36] Wow.

[45:37] Anyway, let's keep going.

[45:38] Can your brother come and co-host this with us?

[45:41] What does he do if he's not a mathematician?

[45:44] He works at Boston College, and he has a freelance design and illustration thing on the side.

[45:52] He did the 9amMeeting website, which is something that…

[45:55] You mean 9amMeeting.com?

[45:57] Yeah.

[45:58] Something that Matt Coff and I…

[45:59] You mean N-I-N-E-A-M-Meeting.com?

[46:02] No.

[46:03] That's it.

[46:04] I mean the numeral nine.

[46:05] Okay.

[46:06] The letters A-M.

[46:07] This is the kind of thing you need to make clear.

[46:08] The word meeting.

[46:09] Yeah, really.

[46:10] That's…

[46:11] Is this some kind of porn site?

[46:13] Yes, it is.

[46:15] Everyone rush there.

[46:17] Early morning office-based porn.

[46:19] You've got to see this porn.

[46:21] It'll get you up in the porning.

[46:24] Oh, wow.

[46:25] Come on.

[46:26] Anyone?

[46:27] Okay.

[46:28] Well, so this is…

[46:29] I liked it.

[46:32] Thank you.

[46:33] Lastly, this email is titled Dan's Hook, and it's from Marina, and she says,

[46:40] I think Dan's hook should be that he drinks Tuscan whole milk.

[46:46] You could reference it now and again,

[46:48] especially as we occasionally hear the glass clinking in the background.

[46:51] Hmm, what good Tuscan whole milk?

[46:55] Or perhaps you need your own beverage instead of relying on old cultural references,

[46:58] like another drink perhaps.

[47:00] Ah, how I like to drink a trusty Tom Collins.

[47:04] Sort of like Bond's trademark, shaken not stirred.

[47:07] The drink that's already taken is the pina colada, the pina colada song,

[47:11] but maybe something like a Manhattan that identifies you as a New Yorker.

[47:14] I'll give you my final judgment just as soon as I pour myself another Manhattan.

[47:20] You can see how it would go.

[47:22] So that's from Marina.

[47:24] It's an interesting hook.

[47:26] It's pretty good. I do enjoy a cocktail.

[47:29] So let's see, what are the choices so far?

[47:31] And I think the viewers at home should vote on this, and you have to follow their dictates.

[47:34] No, I think that we can milk a few more choices for a hook.

[47:37] Okay, well, anyone who has any other ideas for Dan's hook, please write them in.

[47:42] So far the suggestions have been very specific beverage preferences.

[47:46] Yeah, I like that one.

[47:48] Evil twin.

[47:49] Yeah.

[47:50] I like the good ones that we already had of so sleepy, loves donuts,

[47:54] hates the government, wants to overthrow it, establishes his own secession village

[47:58] where he practices free love with his multiple child wives.

[48:01] It seems to be longer.

[48:03] Oh, and also it ends in a bloodbath.

[48:06] And what were the other hooks?

[48:10] I mean, it's your hook, man.

[48:12] No, I think that's pretty much it so far.

[48:15] So which one jumps out at you?

[48:16] So keep them coming.

[48:17] I think he might need more options.

[48:18] Well, right now I like the drinks.

[48:21] What about a guy with glasses?

[48:23] I don't think that would really translate to the listeners.

[48:26] Especially since at the moment all three of us are wearing glasses.

[48:29] One steward's back.

[48:31] Then the glasses quotient will drop to only two-thirds of the posts.

[48:34] All right, well, we're contacts, and there we go.

[48:37] All right, so that done.

[48:39] We should rapidly run through our recommendations of movies that we've seen recently

[48:44] and actually did enjoy.

[48:47] I'll go quickly first.

[48:49] Speaking of Alison Lohman, I saw Night of the Demon,

[48:53] a.k.a. Curse of the Demon, depending on whether you're in America or Great Britain.

[48:58] That's not an Alison Lohman movie.

[49:00] No, but Drag Me to Hell was loosely based on that film

[49:06] in that there's a curse that is transmitted by the giving of some sort of token item to the person,

[49:14] and they have to get rid of the item or pass it on to pass the curse along,

[49:19] and there's also a seance scene.

[49:21] It's not a very close retelling, but it is an inspiration for Drag Me to Hell.

[49:27] It's directed by Jack Turner, who did I Walk with a Zombie and Cat People.

[49:35] My main problem with it is I thought that Dana Andrews as the protagonist was pretty dull.

[49:40] It's a movie where the main character has to spend 90% of the time in the film

[49:48] denying that anything supernatural is going on

[49:50] when the audience knows that something supernatural is going on,

[49:53] and so that can quickly become boring and irritating for the audience watching the film.

[50:00] and you need a really charismatic person to carry that off.

[50:03] And Dana Andrews is your typical square-jawed, kind of dull, fifties and sixties protagonist.

[50:11] So that's not very good.

[50:13] They need a Gerard Butler, that would have done it.

[50:17] They need someone with that sweet Gerard Butler, that effect.

[50:21] I hate Gerard Butler.

[50:25] Wow.

[50:26] Was he really good in 300?

[50:28] He was fine.

[50:29] All right.

[50:31] But that movie was bad, right?

[50:33] I didn't care for it that much, but many people did.

[50:36] All right.

[50:37] So, Matt, what do you have to say about that movie that you enjoyed?

[50:42] Well, look, I'll be honest with you.

[50:45] The only movie I've been watching lately is The Room.

[50:48] Have you talked about The Room?

[50:49] I'd be surprised if people hadn't mentioned it on this podcast already.

[50:53] It might have been mentioned in passing.

[50:55] All right, well, that's my recommendation.

[50:57] The Room is a horrible movie, but it's my favorite horrible movie ever.

[51:03] You know, that's the thing.

[51:05] It's different from Gamer because, well, Gamer sucks the life out of The Room.

[51:11] I mean, the room that you're in while you're watching it.

[51:14] The Room is just, you know, it's inadvertently entertaining.

[51:18] And every time I watch it with a group of people, everybody loves it.

[51:23] I don't want to give away anything about The Room, but go and see it.

[51:27] And there are screenings like in New York and L.A.,

[51:31] but I recommend seeing it with a tight-knit group of friends first

[51:36] because if you go and see it in a theater, you won't be able to hear anything

[51:42] because everyone shouts like a maniac and throws plastic spoons at the screen.

[51:46] Okay.

[51:48] Well, Elliot has had to leap out the window.

[51:52] Elliot also recommends The Room.

[51:55] Yeah, Elliot loves The Room.

[51:58] So, for The Flophouse, I'm Dan McCoy.

[52:02] I'm Matt Coff.

[52:04] And I remain Elliot Carlin.

[52:07] Good night.

[52:08] Good night.

[52:11] If they aren't Mega Man 2 levels, then I'm not interested.

[52:14] Seriously, great game.

[52:16] Much better than the one we saw in this movie.

[52:18] Capcom Classic.

[52:19] Oh, that was the game they were playing, Mega Man 2.

[52:21] Yeah, it was the far-future dystopian version of Mega Man 2.

[52:24] That's why when he killed guys, he got their leaf shields and bubble makers and whatnot.

[52:29] That explains a lot.

[52:31] That's why George Butler was called Rockman in Japan.

The Flop House: Episode 54 - Gamer

Transcript

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