The Flop House Movie Minute #27 - Oscar Double Down

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

[0:09] So uh, Elliot.

[0:10] Yes?

[0:11] There's big movie news.

[0:15] There is.

[0:16] They just announced, what, yesterday?

[0:17] Yeah.

[0:18] And it's not the death of Michael Jackson, star of, uh...

[0:21] Moonwalker.

[0:22] Guys.

[0:23] Guys.

[0:24] I'm in the dark.

[0:25] What are we talking about?

[0:26] Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, aka We Hate Movies, has announced...

[0:31] I'm just kidding.

[0:32] They're an industry group that wants to make money.

[0:35] 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 in the 30s and up to the early 40s.

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

[0:48] When the Oscars started, I actually don't know that there was a limit on how many Best

[0:51] Picture nominees there could be, so you would have these long lists, and like 1939 there

[0:55] were something like ten nominees, and most of them were great movies.

[1:00] The problem is now, Hollywood doesn't make that many great movies anymore.

[1:04] Right.

[1:05] So the question is, this could go either good or bad.

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

[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

[1:15] nominee.

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

[1:17] Absolutely.

[1:18] The reason they did it is so that...

[1:19] Can the same movie be nominated twice?

[1:21] No.

[1:22] 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.

[1:30] But the thing is, are they going to use these extra slots to shovel in more crap, or are

[1:35] they going to use it to recognize movies that normally get shut out of Best Picture?

[1:40] Smaller movies, comedies, stuff like last year, like WALL-E or Dark Knight.

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

[1:50] 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...

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

[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.

[2:11] That's what I'm saying.

[2:12] Oh, okay.

[2:13] They want to bring in more viewers.

[2:14] So the thought is always, if we have more audience-friendly films nominated, more people

[2:19] will watch.

[2:20] 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.

[2:31] Like, there's this huge chasm between great movies and shit that people watch.

[2:35] Yeah, you have to wonder whether this is just going to mean that there will be five more

[2:40] mediocre middle-brow Oscar-bait films that are nominated.

[2:45] Or huge action movies that people like.

[2:47] The thing is...

[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.

[2:54] If they're good movies.

[2:55] Like, the upcoming G.I.

[2:56] Joe Rise of Cobra films.

[2:57] No.

[2:58] Here's the thing.

[2:59] Like, I was talking to somebody about this earlier today, and I said it was like when

[3:02] multiplexes first came in, and the idea was, if we've got 12 screens, we can show the four

[3:08] big Hollywood blockbusters, but then we can show, like, four or five smaller movies.

[3:13] We can show foreign films.

[3:15] Now that we've got all these screens, we can show more movies.

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

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

[3:27] But 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...

[3:39] They have trailers for Thundercats before them.

[3:41] Just over and over again.

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

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

[3:49] 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, and the things she says seem like calculated to

[4:00] attract a certain type of guy to see her movies.

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

[4:08] Come see my movie.

[4:09] You know.

[4:10] Oh, you read her Maxim interview, huh?

[4:13] Of course I did.

[4:14] We had it at work.

[4:15] Come on.

[4:16] Stuart seems to be, you know, really considering the advantages of a sex robot right now.

[4:21] But anyway, so...

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

[4:24] What?

[4:25] Jesus Christ.

[4:26] So I guess that's really horrifying.

[4:27] That's the worst.

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

[4:29] Put her in a trunk somewhere.

[4:30] Of the many horrible things that you've said.

[4:32] Wow.

[4:33] Wait, what?

[4:34] 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.

[4:43] But if it means that, like, Cinderella Man was nominated for Best Picture the year it

[4:47] 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, Body of Lies, or like...

[4:55] Or Body of Evidence.

[4:56] ...Syriana.

[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 it's really not that good.

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

[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

[5:15] because, oh, you feel good afterwards, and oh, it's a crazy place, Mumbai, ooh, you know.

[5:21] 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 than it once was.

[5:30] Yeah.

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

[5:33] Oh yeah, which they're gonna remake.

[5:35] Yeah.

[5:36] They're working on that.

[5:37] I assume.

[5:38] They're gonna remake movies that I watched as a child or like.

[5:40] Videodrome and Teen Wolf.

[5:42] Videodrome, Teen Wolf, Bride of Frankenstein they announced they're gonna remake.

[5:45] For the July weekend.

[5:47] 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.

[5:54] Okay, let's wrap this up.

[5:55] I don't want to be sad all night.

[5:56] Sorry.

[5:57] Well, do you guys have any thoughts about this?

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

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

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

[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.

[6:19] 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.

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

[6:40] Whoa, whoa, your version of Angels and Demons is way more exciting than the one...

[6:43] It's the real one is like, Ron Howard takes his ongoing experiments and mediocrity to

[6:48] a new level.

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

[6:53] Angels and Demons.

[6:54] Rated R.

[6:55] So, uh...

[6:56] Starring Pauly Shore.

[6:57] So that new Pauly Shore picture is looking pretty good.

[7:03] Yeah.

[7:04] Yeah.

[7:05] Yeah.

[7:06] Yeah.

The Flop House Movie Minute #27 - Oscar Double Down

Transcript

Description