The Flop House Movie Minute #27 - Oscar Double Down

Dan McCoy

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

[0:09] So, uh, Elliot.

[0:11] Yes?

[0:12] There's big movie news.

[0:15] There is. They just announced, what, yesterday?

[0:17] Yeah. And it's not the death of Michael Jackson, star of, uh...

[0:21] Moonwalker.

[0:21] Guys, guys, I'm in the dark. What are we talking about?

Elliott Kalan

[0:25] Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a.k.a. We Hate Movies,

[0:29] has announced... I'm just kidding. They're an industry group that wants to make money.

[0:34] That has announced they're going to expand the Best Picture category from five nominees,

[0:39] which it is now, to ten nominees, which it was...

[0:42] What?

[0:43] ...in the 30s and up to the early 40s.

Dan McCoy

[0:45] Oh, I didn't know this historical, uh...

Elliott Kalan

[0:47] Yeah, when the Oscars started, I don't... I actually don't know that there was a limit

[0:50] on how many Best Picture nominees there could be.

[0:52] So you would have these long lists, and, like, 1939, there were something like ten nominees,

[0:57] and most of them were great movies.

[0:59] Uh, the problem is now, Hollywood doesn't make that many great movies anymore.

[1:03] Right.

[1:04] So the question is, this could go either good or bad.

Dan McCoy

[1:07] So, five nominees to ten nominees, which means that...

[1:10] To ten nominees.

[1:10] ...still just one winner.

[1:11] Transformers 2, the Revenge of the Fallen, has now doubled its chances to be a Best Picture nominee.

[1:16] Well, here's the thing.

[1:16] Absolutely.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17] The reason they did it is so that...

S3

[1:18] Can the same movie be nominated twice?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21] No.

[1:21] The reason they did it is so that the studios can now...

[1:26] There are now more movies that they can promote by saying nominated for Best Picture.

[1:29] But the thing is, are they going to use these extra slots to shovel in more crap, or are they

[1:36] going to use it to recognize movies that normally get shut out of Best Picture?

[1:39] Smaller movies, comedies, stuff like last year, like WALL-E or Dark Knight.

[1:45] Like, the main reason they've done this seems to have been Dark Knight, among other things.

[1:49] That it was this big movie that was a huge success.

[1:52] Critically as well as financially.

[1:53] Critically as well as financially.

[1:54] It wasn't nominated for Best Picture.

[1:56] There were no, like...

[1:57] I guess the biggest hit that was nominated for Best Picture was maybe Slumdog Millionaire.

[2:01] Yeah.

[2:01] But even that was not a Dark Knight-sized hit.

[2:04] And they want to bring in people...

[2:05] Wait, really?

[2:06] Yes, really.

[2:07] They want to bring...

[2:08] I don't see that many Slumdog Millionaire t-shirts.

[2:10] I know, that's what I'm saying.

[2:11] Oh, okay.

[2:12] They want to bring in more viewers, so the thought is always, if we have more audience-friendly

[2:17] films nominated, more people will watch.

[2:19] Which makes it sad that, like, Frost Nixon or Benjamin Button or, you know, these other

[2:25] movies or the reader, like, really mediocre, not great movies are not audience-friendly

[2:30] enough.

[2:30] Like, there's this huge chasm between great movies and shit that people watch.

Dan McCoy

[2:34] Yeah, you have to wonder whether this is just going to mean that there will be five more

[2:39] mediocre, middle-brow, Oscar-bait films that are nominated.

Elliott Kalan

[2:44] Or huge action movies that people like.

[2:47] The thing is, when I was talking about...

Dan McCoy

[2:48] I would not be averse to there being a couple huge action films nominated.

[2:52] If they were good movies.

[2:53] Yeah, exactly.

[2:53] If they're good movies.

[2:54] Like, the upcoming G.I.

[2:56] Joe Rise of Cobra films.

Elliott Kalan

[2:58] Here's the thing.

[2:58] Like, I was talking to somebody about this earlier today, and I said it was like when multiplexes

[3:03] first came in, and the idea was, if we've got 12 screens, we can show the four big Hollywood

[3:09] blockbusters.

[3:09] But then we can show like four or five smaller movies.

[3:13] We can show foreign films.

[3:14] Now that we've got all these screens, we can show more movies.

Dan McCoy

[3:17] Yeah, and that's why when the multiplexes come out, there was such an explosion of film

[3:22] love with independent films and foreign films sweeping the nation.

Elliott Kalan

[3:27] What's happened now is you've got 12 screens, five of them are Transformers, you know, four

[3:32] of them are going to be G.I.

[3:33] Joe, and then three will be like the romantic comedies that girls want to see.

[3:38] Well, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[3:38] There are trailers for Thundercats before them.

Elliott Kalan

[3:41] Just over and over again.

Dan McCoy

[3:42] Megan Fox's sex appeal is so big, it needs five screens to contain it.

Elliott Kalan

[3:46] I do not like her, but I guess so.

[3:48] She seems like a sex robot that was just like, we've created the perfect woman using science.

[3:56] It's like, yeah, but she seems inhuman.

[3:57] And the things she says seem like calculated to attract a certain type of guy to see her

[4:02] movies.

[4:03] When she's like, yeah, I love to drink beer and watch sports.

[4:05] And also, I'm a bisexual.

[4:07] Yeah.

[4:08] Come see my movie.

[4:09] La, la, la, la.

[4:10] You know.

Dan McCoy

[4:11] Oh, you read her Maxim interview, huh?

[4:13] Of course I did.

[4:14] We had it at work.

[4:14] Come on.

[4:15] Of course, Stuart seems to be, you know, really considering the advantages of a sex robot

[4:20] right now.

[4:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:21] But anyway, so.

Dan McCoy

[4:22] I don't have to strangle her afterwards.

[4:24] What?

[4:25] Jesus Christ.

[4:26] It's really horrifying.

[4:27] That's the worst.

[4:28] Then cut her hands and feet off.

Elliott Kalan

[4:29] Of the many horrible things that you've said.

[4:32] Wow.

[4:33] Wait, what?

[4:33] Anyway, so this Best Picture thing could go either way is what I'm saying.

[4:38] If it means that Wally could have been nominated for Best Picture last year, then it's a good

[4:42] thing.

[4:42] But if it means that, like, Cinderella Man was nominated for Best Picture the year it

[4:48] came out, that's a bad thing, you know?

[4:50] But what it also means is.

[4:51] Or Body of Lies.

[4:52] Or.

[4:53] Yeah.

[4:53] Body of Lies.

[4:54] Or like.

[4:54] Or Body of Evidence.

[4:56] Siriana.

[4:57] Was that nominated for Best Picture?

[4:58] I don't think so, right?

[4:59] Which I'm watching right now and is really not that good.

[5:01] No, it really isn't.

[5:03] The.

[5:03] It's one of the.

[5:04] But it also means that a movie will need fewer votes to be named Best Picture.

[5:08] So it's possible that a movie that isn't like Slumdog Millionaire, a very easy choice because,

[5:16] oh, you feel good afterwards.

[5:18] And oh, it's a crazy place, Mumbai.

[5:21] Oh, all the dancing at the end.

[5:23] There's dancing and it's so colorful.

[5:25] Like, that might not be the easy ticket to Best Picture done that it once was.

Dan McCoy

[5:30] Yeah.

[5:31] More films like Teen Wolf can make it onto the ballot.

[5:33] Oh, yeah.

[5:33] Which they're going to remake.

[5:35] Yeah.

[5:35] They're working on that.

Elliott Kalan

[5:36] They're remaking all the movies that I watched as a child or like.

[5:41] Videodrome and Teen Wolf.

[5:43] Videodrome, Teen Wolf, Bride of Frankenstein they announced they're going to remake.

[5:45] For the July weekend.

[5:46] And the guy who they hired to write and direct Bride of Frankenstein, or at least write it,

[5:51] the man behind The Illusionist.

[5:53] Oh, good.

Dan McCoy

[5:54] Okay.

[5:55] Let's wrap this up.

[5:56] I don't want to be sad all night.

Elliott Kalan

[5:57] Sorry.

[5:58] Well, do you guys have any thoughts about this?

[5:59] I feel like I did most of the talking.

Dan McCoy

[6:00] I'm just sad that the next time I go to a fucking Oscar party I'm going to have to sit through

[6:04] ten fucking little like shenanigans about fucking movies that mostly aren't that interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[6:10] The Vietnam War was a time that tested America's unity.

[6:14] Yep.

[6:15] Men in Green tells the story of these men.

[6:18] You know, like.

[6:19] Mel Gibson brings to life what it's like to be a Vietnam War veteran.

[6:23] Now it'll be like, in the future, man is on the run.

[6:28] Terminator Salvation tells the tale of John Connor.

[6:31] You know, that kind of stuff.

Dan McCoy

[6:33] Ron Howard's unique vision of both angels and demons battling using lasers and flying

[6:39] cars.

[6:39] Whoa.

[6:40] Whoa.

[6:40] Your version of angels and demons is way more exciting than the one.

Elliott Kalan

[6:43] The real one is like.

[6:44] Ron Howard takes his ongoing experiments in mediocrity to a new level.

Dan McCoy

[6:49] Imagine taking a thriller and removing all the thrills.

[6:52] Angels and demons.

[6:54] Rated R.

Elliott Kalan

[6:55] So, uh.

[6:56] Starring Pauly Shore.

Dan McCoy

[6:58] So that new Pauly Shore picture is looking pretty good.

The Flop House Movie Minute #27 - Oscar Double Down

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