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The Flop House: Episode #37 - Seven Pounds

main Episode #63 May 17, 2009 00:40:04
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Transcript

[0:00] In this episode, we struggle to find three ounces of things to say about seven pounds.
[0:31] Hey everyone and welcome to The Flop House, the podcast where we watch a bad movie and then chat about it a little bit.
[0:39] I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kalin.
[0:43] Oh, Stuart, why's the glum chum? I don't know. We just watched Seven Pounds, Dan.
[0:49] Hmm, that sounds like seven pounds of fun. It weighed heavily on my soul.
[0:54] How much weight? Seven pounds.
[0:57] Sounds about right.
[0:59] Did we ever find out why this movie was called Seven Pounds?
[1:02] If they ever explained it, we were talking and didn't notice.
[1:05] I think we were trying to play the theme song to some television show using only fart noises from our mouth.
[1:11] That's possible. We were also living the episode of the Batman TV show we wish we could write with the villain Seven Pounds.
[1:18] Yeah, we did that a lot.
[1:20] The Seven Pounds obsessed villain.
[1:22] So, we watched the movie Seven Pounds. Who starred in this movie, Dan?
[1:25] One, William Smith.
[1:27] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Big Willie style.
[1:30] One, Rose Ario Dawson.
[1:32] Brose Ario awesome.
[1:34] Woody, son of Harold.
[1:37] Wood's son of Harold was also in it briefly.
[1:41] And what, Barry Pepper, is that his name?
[1:44] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:45] Peppered Barry.
[1:46] Yeah, so we have the cast. We have the name.
[1:50] Paint us a picture, Dan. Give us a little background on this feature.
[1:53] Okay, well, basically…
[1:56] As if you wrote it.
[1:59] Pitch it to the listener.
[2:01] Okay, my pitch is you're going to watch one hour of Will Smith going around doing things that seem completely inexplicable and disconnected.
[2:09] And then right at the midpoint, you're going to have a pretty good idea of what might be going on.
[2:15] But you're going to expect something different.
[2:17] And then it's going to go on for another hour, and then you're going to get confirmed in what you thought was happening.
[2:22] Tell me…
[2:23] There's like a love story, though, right?
[2:25] Yes.
[2:26] Yeah, can we get a romance into this?
[2:27] Will Smith and Rose Ario Dawson will fall in semi-chaste love.
[2:33] Is there any way we can get like an antique printing press involved?
[2:36] I don't know. It seems like it wouldn't have anything to do with the story at all.
[2:39] Well, what if Rose Ario Dawson was like a printer or engraver?
[2:42] She has a garage full of antique printing presses.
[2:44] I have no idea why that would be part of it.
[2:46] And like Will Smith to prove his love fixes one of them.
[2:48] I guess if you really needed it.
[2:50] And how can we get like a jellyfish involved?
[2:52] I think you're just throwing out random things now.
[2:55] Random things that were in the film Seven Pounds.
[2:58] Can we get a scene where one of the main characters runs through the rain and either howls at an uncaring god or calls all the people who hate him cowards or something like that?
[3:11] Can we get a scene where the hero of the movie calls a blind man on the phone and harasses him and calls him a coward and a virgin?
[3:17] Uh, sure. I mean if only to see Will Smith do that.
[3:21] If you've ever wanted to see Will Smith act like a real dick to a blind guy, this is your movie.
[3:27] Within the first few minutes of the film.
[3:29] Turn it off after that.
[3:31] What else did this director make, Dan?
[3:33] He made The Pursuit of Happiness, also with Mr. William Smith.
[3:37] Hey, hey, hey guys, hey, hey, hey, get this, hey, hey.
[3:40] This movie was more like The Pursuit of Crappiness.
[3:44] R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.
[3:49] Oh, man. I don't know where we can go with that.
[3:52] She's got Betty Davis.
[3:54] So can we explain what this, should we reveal, should we spoil the plot of the film?
[3:58] Yeah, please.
[3:59] For those viewers at home.
[4:00] Yeah, it's pretty simple.
[4:01] This is a movie that-
[4:02] It won't take that long.
[4:03] Wait, wait, wait, he's not a ghost though, right?
[4:04] No, we all thought he might be a ghost or an angel.
[4:06] The way the movie's set up, it's like very mysterious.
[4:09] He must have some bizarre secret that we need to figure out.
[4:12] Why is he helping these people or hurting people or feeling guilty?
[4:15] He's got like a superpower, right?
[4:16] Nope.
[4:17] Does he speak Spanish?
[4:18] He does speak Spanish. That's not a superpower.
[4:19] Millions of people do it.
[4:20] I don't know. I can't do that.
[4:22] Well, okay, it's a superpower to you.
[4:24] He went to MIT.
[4:26] He went to MIT.
[4:27] You get these very brief, mysterious flashbacks.
[4:29] He was married at some point.
[4:31] He was in the aerospace industry, but now he says he works for the Treasury Department.
[4:35] Huh? What?
[4:36] A car skidding on the road?
[4:37] What happened?
[4:38] Maybe he came back from the dead.
[4:40] Maybe he had a visitation from an angel.
[4:42] He's like the crow.
[4:43] Eric Draven, the crow?
[4:45] Yeah, he's like the crow.
[4:47] He got shot halfway through filming.
[4:49] Yeah, and they made him out of CGI.
[4:51] It had to be something like that because certainly it can't be as simple as he caused a car crash that killed some people and now feels guilty and wants to save people's lives in return.
[5:00] No.
[5:01] You can't make a whole movie out of that.
[5:03] No, that's too simple.
[5:04] That's too simple.
[5:05] How about this?
[5:06] How about if we do the movie, though, and because it's such a simple plot with no twists, we just don't tell anyone what's going on for, like, the first three quarters of the film?
[5:15] Why doesn't the lead character just do a bunch of mysterious stuff?
[5:19] Yeah, and he loves a jellyfish for some reason.
[5:21] Yeah, good stuff, though.
[5:23] Well, except for being a dick to a blind guy.
[5:25] Well, he's, like, mean to people sometimes, but it's not like he's, like, mean mean.
[5:28] It's not like he, like, steals money from people.
[5:31] No, he's testing people through verbal hostility.
[5:33] Yeah, that's the thing.
[5:35] I don't consider that to be that mean.
[5:37] His lips don't hurt, Dan.
[5:38] I have to say, though.
[5:39] He'll drop by his friend while his friend's playing golf and say something like, it's time soon.
[5:44] Yeah, and his friend falls down on his knees and he's like, no!
[5:49] Dan, what were you going to say?
[5:50] Well, I just don't know about his method of testing people because, for instance, I think I'm not a bad guy.
[5:55] You're wrong by his method of reasoning.
[5:59] That's what I'm saying.
[6:00] If someone was verbally abusive to me on the phone, if I was blind and someone started saying, hey, blindy, what color is the ocean?
[6:07] I'm like, oh, you're a coward.
[6:08] I bet you're a virgin blind guy.
[6:10] I'd be like, fuck you, guy.
[6:13] He probably did it with a fat girl.
[6:15] I mean, it's not like he's, like, ugly or anything.
[6:18] He's Will Harrelson.
[6:19] He's a movie star.
[6:20] Will Smith is like, before I donate you my eyeballs, I have to make sure that you're not going to get mad at me over the phone.
[6:27] So his way of testing what's in people's souls is the same as the TV show Boiling Point, where you pretend to be irritating and see how long someone will hold out.
[6:34] Well, it's similar to, like, the opposite of the movie Body Parts.
[6:40] It's similar to the opposite of the movie Body Parts.
[6:44] The Bizarro World version of the movie Body Parts.
[6:48] You know that photo-negative version of Basket Case where the brothers are good friends and neither one of them is deformed?
[6:54] The anti-matter version of the DVD.
[6:56] Imagine instead of a movie.
[6:57] You know that version of A League of Their Own where it's guys instead of girls?
[7:01] This is okay, Ellie.
[7:03] You know that Ghostbusters one where the ghosts bust people?
[7:07] That's what happens in Soviet Russia.
[7:10] According to Yakov, that would be great if Yakov Smirnoff was trying to make a lot of Ghostbusters-based jokes because the movie was very big.
[7:17] In Russia, the ghosts bust you.
[7:20] Anyway, you were saying, Stuart.
[7:21] The bloodline waits for you.
[7:24] No, what I was going to say is in the movie Body Parts where Jeff Fahey, man, he gets fucked up in a car accident, and then he gets a serial killer's donated, like, body part.
[7:35] We're familiar with the plot.
[7:37] Or see the advert song, Gary Gilmore's Eyes.
[7:40] Yeah, so, like, what is it?
[7:42] Is Will Smith's character really concerned that he's going to give his eyes to somebody who's then just going to, like, fuck him up?
[7:47] Who's going to waste them.
[7:48] Somebody who's going to look at porn.
[7:50] Now that I got my eyeballs, I'm going to play Internet Scrabble all day.
[7:55] What's the same?
[7:56] Like, when Jerry Orbach died, he also donated his eyes, and I like to imagine Jerry Orbach also tested people in this way when he knew he was dying.
[8:06] Okay, I'm going to name some artists.
[8:08] You tell me if you like their work.
[8:10] Peter Max.
[8:12] Okay, this is good.
[8:13] David Hockney.
[8:15] Leroy Neiman.
[8:17] Forget it.
[8:18] Hang up.
[8:19] Get his name off the list.
[8:21] He's not getting my eyes.
[8:23] Yeah.
[8:24] Yeah, I mean, I guess if I was going to commit suicide with jellyfish.
[8:28] Oh, we haven't talked about that yet.
[8:30] Okay, if I was going to do something that I didn't just say.
[8:33] Well, we can talk about it.
[8:34] Like, I'd really want to know what people are going to do with my body parts.
[8:38] Well, Will Smith.
[8:39] Especially your schlong.
[8:40] Yeah, exactly.
[8:41] They usually don't.
[8:42] They just use pieces of that for extensions sometimes.
[8:45] They should dry it out and use it as a dog treat, like a bully stick.
[8:48] It's in Stuart's will.
[8:49] Why would you do that?
[8:51] That's how they make those dog treats.
[8:54] Yeah, but not out of human penises.
[8:57] That's horrifying.
[8:59] That's really horrifying.
[9:01] That I want my dog to eat my dried phallus?
[9:04] It's terrible.
[9:05] Your poor three-legged dog.
[9:07] He'd probably eat it, though.
[9:09] Yeah, well, it's because your dog is crazy.
[9:11] Well, I think it's because he's a carnivore.
[9:13] Unlike the dog in the movie,
[9:16] where Rosario Dawson is clearly forcing to be a vegetarian.
[9:19] That reminds me of when I saw The Incredible Shrieking Mad.
[9:22] I was like, or hate mail, I guess it would be.
[9:25] Angry fan of, I like your show so much!
[9:29] After I saw The Incredible Shrieking Mad,
[9:31] man, it genuinely made me sad to think about, like,
[9:33] oh, you know what?
[9:34] If I shrank down, my cat would eat me without a second thought.
[9:37] No matter how much I love my cat.
[9:39] I think your cat would eat you now without a second thought.
[9:42] I'll tell you what, Dan.
[9:43] We'll test it.
[9:44] I'll kill you.
[9:45] Don't tell anyone the body's here.
[9:46] We'll see what the cat does.
[9:48] Your wife is going to win an all-expenses-paid vacation for a week,
[9:53] so that she doesn't bury you.
[9:55] You should donate your shit to other people,
[9:57] like your eyeballs, your asses.
[9:59] Yeah, your liver, your intestines.
[10:00] and your your fingernails glasses did you say
[10:04] my dvd copy of the monster squad you should donate that to me
[10:07] when you die well with anyway the jellyfish he's obsessed with jellyfish
[10:11] yes it's the most deadly fish in the is a tank in his room he says the most
[10:15] deadly animal in the world i think that's probably true
[10:18] I don't know I what about a what about a samurai
[10:22] that's not an animal that's a type of are humans are animals
[10:26] yeah right right through all right you got me there
[10:29] you got me there dictionary I'd rather go up against a jellyfish that is Sam
[10:33] you're I
[10:34] let me get out my biology textbook than a samurai
[10:38] which is a room alright I
[10:41] I'm surprised that they never did a kid's cartoon called shamu rye
[10:45] where it's a shame with the whales and probably couldn't afford the rights
[10:48] that's a good point or shamu the whale just drinking rye
[10:52] yeah he's a drunk but anyway he has a see as a jellyfish in his tank in a fish
[10:56] tank
[10:57] in his motel room because Will Smith has given his house away
[11:00] to a Mexican-American woman with who has an
[11:03] abusive boyfriend so she can escape and instead of calling the cops
[11:08] yeah it seems like a simpler solution and one that would
[11:11] all get him off the streets let's say yeah get this abusive boyfriend off the
[11:15] streets
[11:16] but okay help more people so he's got a jellyfish he like you
[11:21] procure one he's obsessed with it because it's the deadliest animal in the
[11:25] world his dad told him that
[11:26] and probably had to go through a black market jellyfish dealer
[11:29] yeah probably and then his his plan is
[11:34] and why we should we just give away the ending of the movie
[11:37] please do he okay fills his bathtub with ice
[11:42] sure then he gets in it and it's very cold so he takes his time
[11:45] like everything in this movie it takes its time and then he tips over his
[11:49] bucket with the jellyfish in it
[11:51] the jellyfish of course being as you said a rapacious predator
[11:54] clamps onto his arm immediately
[11:58] and kills him and his organs go to the people he's deemed
[12:01] worthy of it but this that's the thing Danny just put your finger on the
[12:04] on the pulse of this one this movie could be what you think a tenth of the
[12:08] length
[12:09] well yeah I mean the listener at home a play a little game
[12:12] as a movie about a guy who accidentally kill some people in a car crash
[12:18] then decides to kill himself he was looking at his blackberry Dan
[12:21] I think yeah it's a real message more like a crackberry he's addicted to that thing
[12:26] yeah but so he's a snackberry
[12:29] more like a lackberry because there's no berries in that thing yeah
[12:32] but he wants to make it up to the world so he's gonna kill himself and donate
[12:36] more like a Zackberry
[12:37] because if they made Save the Bell Now Zack Morris would have one of those instead of one of those
[12:41] big phones
[12:42] yeah that's what he used to call the pizzeria to deliver
[12:46] pizzas to Mr. Belding yeah exactly you know when he stops time or call his teachers to
[12:50] pretend to be sick
[12:51] alright when he'd stop time I was in the middle of something he'd call a pizzeria
[12:55] no he wouldn't stop he couldn't do anything when time was stopped
[12:58] that was his that was his subjective expo because he was insane
[13:01] he was insane and thought he was being watched at all points so he would stop
[13:05] time by the bell cast
[13:06] okay so I wish it was I wish the cast of Saved by the Bell was right here
[13:11] Dustin Diamond, Lark Voorhees
[13:14] I think Dan was saying something about Saved by the Bell what were you talking about?
[13:18] the entire plot of this film is that a guy
[13:20] Saved by the Bell, Honeymoon in Vegas, actually kills a bunch of people and then
[13:24] he wants to kill himself and donate his organs to make up for it
[13:28] he wants to balance the sheet
[13:30] yeah if you can't deal with the regret listener at home how long do you think that that story
[13:35] would take to tell? 2 hours 10 minutes
[13:39] I'm guessing that the audience at home probably is saying 45 seconds
[13:43] you could maybe do I just told it in that amount of time you could do a
[13:46] Verizon ad that explains more but that was because you interrupted with the
[13:49] Saved by the Bell stuff
[13:50] that was the best material I think we've had in the episode so far
[13:54] but yeah how long did it take about an hour and 50 minutes
[13:58] it was a two-hour film it wasn't completely two hours
[14:01] I think it was I was looking at the counter the movie
[14:05] you do have glasses in my dump so clearly it's a 200
[14:09] it's my area of expertise you have plus two division yes
[14:12] it's a 125 minute film so really
[14:16] there's no way I think that's counting credits well yeah it's counting credits
[14:20] philosophers are going to argue this point for generations let's just leave it at that
[14:25] the exact length of seven pounds but yeah I think the movie was seven pounds
[14:29] how long will seven pounds dance on the head of a pin
[14:35] that's what they'll say yeah that is what they'll say when they're quoting you
[14:38] but yeah every shot when I'm famous in the future
[14:41] Elliot every when when some houses after the bomb society has come to worship you
[14:47] in the recordings that's been all that survived of the
[14:50] before the Great Reckoning was a your
[14:53] your blog and these podcasts these aphorisms don't make any sense
[14:57] but and they worship Dan McCoy the man with the voice and
[15:00] and hate Stuart and Elliot who bedeviled Dan
[15:03] in his work as Lord yeah
[15:07] yeah understandably I can dream
[15:10] but yeah every this the movie every shot the movie was like five times longer than
[15:15] it needed to be every scene was much too long
[15:18] it was like the director told the actors like listen
[15:21] if they're too long for what there might be people who for what they're getting
[15:25] across like if there might be people in the audience to tell a story or to
[15:28] make a movie a long movie to increase to make the audience interested in what was
[15:32] going on in every shot was like
[15:34] it was like he was saying to the actors people in the audience might be coughing
[15:38] so we need to have enough space between your words so that they can cough
[15:42] not miss any of the dialogue we want people to be able to get up
[15:45] go take a leisurely stroll to the bathroom take a pee pick up some popcorn
[15:49] squirt some butter on that shit maybe they want to check their email
[15:52] and not miss the end of the scene call their grandma
[15:56] I thought that maybe it was like a directorial choice where like every shot is like the end of the
[16:00] the graduate where Mike Nichols was like I'm just gonna let this camera roll and
[16:04] just like
[16:05] let their faces relax or the end of Michael Clayton yeah
[16:09] which I've heard, did I talk to you guys about this? I don't remember who I heard it
[16:13] from that
[16:13] when they were shooting that that there were guys because they were in a car
[16:16] driving to New York
[16:17] that the cars next to that would be like hey George Clooney
[16:20] and he just had to ignore it and stare into the camera
[16:25] oh man that would have been awesome
[16:28] I hope that's on the behind the scenes on the blu-ray disc
[16:33] I hope yeah the camera turning every now and then and seeing people honking their
[16:36] horns
[16:37] George! George boy! Leatherheads!
[16:42] the beast maker! good night good luck
[16:46] good night good luck I love it good night good luck good stuff
[16:49] three kings guys shouting at him from different cars
[16:54] Siriana! Amazing!
[16:57] it really brought the past to life guys shouting at him from
[17:01] 1940s films good night good luck
[17:05] so it sounded like Andy Capp
[17:08] Andy Capp has a voice?
[17:12] come on it's so vividly written that you can hear his voice in your head
[17:16] when you read it but so this movie was very long and boring
[17:20] yeah it was super long and boring Rosario Dawson was in it and she looked haggard
[17:25] she looks very sickly but she was playing a woman with a serious heart defect
[17:29] I'm not saying that like hey Rosario Dawson go eat a sandwich or something
[17:32] but no she should she looks very sick well she should have in the movie like I
[17:35] don't know how she looks right now she's not like here or anything
[17:38] from what I've seen looks pretty good not not bad not bad
[17:41] okay so yeah I guess
[17:45] Rosario Dawson was in the movie what was Barry Pepper supposed to be doing
[17:50] he's like Will Smith's best friend who I guess is his
[17:53] accomplice in finding people or
[17:56] or he's the executor of the estate yeah probably that
[18:00] he handles organ distribution that sounds like
[18:04] Will Smith's company
[18:07] executor of the state that sounds like a terrible sitcom
[18:11] yeah where he's like trying to deal with this guy's estate all the time
[18:15] I got this when this week on executor of the state
[18:19] all these clowns died at once and I've gotta figure out their wills
[18:23] that's tonight on executor of the state
[18:26] that and Debbie has a new boyfriend sproing
[18:30] that's tonight at 830 that's sproing
[18:33] sproing is the show that follows after an all new golden girls
[18:36] not a new sproing all new? BR just died dude
[18:40] it's impossible it's golden girls the college years
[18:45] it's a pretty surprise it's golden girls 2010 where they're all going to space university
[18:49] it's golden girls in space
[18:53] it's just like galaxy high
[18:57] it's just like Laverne and Shirley in space when they had a talking dog
[19:01] alien sidekick
[19:02] oh wow seven pounds huh
[19:06] I guess we'll have to look up on Wikipedia why it was called seven
[19:10] pounds
[19:11] maybe that's how much it's heart weighed that might be it or like how much is
[19:14] he gave his heart to Rosario Dawson
[19:16] yeah which is very romantic literally and I think figuratively
[19:19] oh symbolism I think figuratively before literally
[19:23] I don't know I mean they just did it once yeah
[19:27] you don't have to love somebody to fuck them no but they were crying and they were
[19:31] like singing songs to each other
[19:33] and she was just like hold me do it slow yeah make it last all night
[19:37] just I want to feel you bust inside me
[19:42] you said that in the movie right?
[19:45] you're a sweet talker let me take off all your clothes and hook the phone so nobody knows
[19:50] I'll make love to you like you want me to and I'll hold you tight baby all through
[19:56] the night
[19:57] yeah ladies yeah this guy
[20:00] I can, I can, I know snatches of any, of all sorts of songs, you know.
[20:05] You almost said snog.
[20:06] I did, yeah. I'm somehow drunk on seven pounds.
[20:09] Yeah, understandably.
[20:11] The sheer, the sheer joy I got from seeing you two.
[20:13] Man, that was a good movie.
[20:14] The joy I got from seeing you two not enjoy this movie was priceless.
[20:18] I got up and paced a fair amount.
[20:20] Elliot was the one who suggested that we watch this one.
[20:22] And I've suggested a couple movies in the past that I was disappointed in our ability to verbalize why we didn't like them,
[20:29] but this one, I think, it was just seeing how much you guys didn't like it.
[20:33] I didn't like it either.
[20:34] But just seeing your physical revulsion was fun for me.
[20:38] The story I want to see is the story of the fucking guy who runs the motel who was like,
[20:41] hey, you're not supposed to bring that fucking dog in here.
[20:44] You can't bring a jellyfish in.
[20:45] You can't bring a fucking jellyfish in here.
[20:47] So you're not saying it in a borderline racist Mexican accent like the character did.
[20:51] As the character did.
[20:52] I'm, I'm, I'm, I actually am legally not allowed to do my racist Mexican accent anymore.
[20:57] So the cops go up to him.
[20:58] They're like, hey, buddy, what the fuck?
[21:00] This dude killed himself with a jellyfish.
[21:02] And the guy's like, oh, my God, regrets.
[21:05] Let me see.
[21:06] Let me check the newspaper.
[21:07] Okay.
[21:08] This guy, he lost his arm.
[21:10] This guy needs eyeballs.
[21:12] Boom.
[21:13] Killed myself.
[21:14] This guy can have my arm and this guy has my eyeballs.
[21:15] So you're saying it's a pay it forward type thing.
[21:17] Yeah.
[21:18] Everyone keeps killing themselves to give away their organs.
[21:19] Absolutely.
[21:20] It's until nobody's left.
[21:23] I feel like the last guy would probably not.
[21:26] He'd be a huge monster made out of other people's organs.
[21:29] At first it's heartwarming and it gets more and more horrifying.
[21:32] It was never heartwarming.
[21:33] Yeah.
[21:34] Like it's like a horrifying Ponzi scheme.
[21:36] Yep.
[21:37] But a backwards Ponzi scheme.
[21:39] That's the movie I want to see.
[21:41] This terrible, sad movie.
[21:43] All the pain.
[21:44] You saw it.
[21:45] It was called Seven Pounds.
[21:46] No, that movie was really good.
[21:48] Right, guys?
[21:49] Well, let's talk about whether it was good or not.
[21:51] Everything in the movie was shot in golden time.
[21:53] It's not...
[21:54] Yeah, and you know what?
[21:56] I hate to sound like a classist, but any movie that opens with...
[22:03] I can't wait to hear where the sentence is going.
[22:07] Any movie that opens with a really rich, clearly fit guy, attractive guy,
[22:14] I don't really care if he hits hard times.
[22:17] Hmm.
[22:18] Oh, I thought it was going to be like, I don't want to sound like a classist,
[22:21] but why was he helping those poor people?
[22:23] No.
[22:24] They're not working hard enough.
[22:25] I don't care that much when rich people have trouble.
[22:27] No, no, of course.
[22:28] It's hard.
[22:30] Hollywood movies seem to think that you're going to feel worse for a guy who had it all
[22:34] and then lost it than for a guy who never had it.
[22:37] Yeah, and it's not like...
[22:38] You're always going to feel...
[22:39] You're always going to want to be more sympathetic to a guy who was never happy
[22:43] than a guy who would like, I'm rich.
[22:45] I got a beautiful wife.
[22:46] This is great.
[22:47] Ah, now it's gone.
[22:48] Oh, I accidentally killed my wife and other people by driving while using my Blackberry.
[22:54] Yeah, which is on dead man's curve in the middle of the night when it was raining.
[22:58] Yeah, like what the fuck?
[23:00] Like I guess they didn't teach him how to drive at MIT?
[23:03] Whoa.
[23:05] I mean, come on.
[23:06] He went to MIT.
[23:07] Yeah, but they make a point to say that.
[23:09] I don't care.
[23:11] Well, they talk about MIT as if it's – I mean, I guess it's a really –
[23:14] it's a great school for smart people.
[23:16] But they throw that out there like, hey, audience.
[23:19] It's a great school for smart people.
[23:21] No, no, but it's not like – we're not – I feel like we're not living in an age where it's like,
[23:25] you went to MIT?
[23:27] Fuck, you could write your ticket to anywhere in the world.
[23:31] But that's what it's like.
[23:32] MIT, they only take like two –
[23:33] It's like you're going to the Jedi Academy.
[23:34] They only take like two students a year, and those students have super brains.
[23:38] Like it's – she's just amazingly impressive.
[23:40] Those students are baby geniuses.
[23:43] They take them at age four and teach them to be philosopher kings so that they can rig our elections
[23:49] and run our republic.
[23:51] Wow.
[23:52] This podcast just turned into like Paranoid Ramblings.
[23:56] That's straight from Plato.
[23:57] Yeah, no, I totally agree with you.
[23:58] Straight from Plato.
[23:59] It's – they threw that in there exclusively to be like –
[24:01] They beam things into my brain from their moon base.
[24:05] But they threw it in to make him even that much more perfect before the fall.
[24:09] Hey, guys, he is really smart.
[24:12] But it felt like when –
[24:13] That's like when somebody is like, hey, this character wrote the most important book of our century.
[24:18] You're thinking of Lady and the Water specifically.
[24:20] For instance.
[24:21] Or like this guy is the funniest comedian in the universe.
[24:25] Aliens actually send him fan mail, like that kind of bullshit.
[24:28] Any movie where they tell you how great the main character is,
[24:31] but they give you no reason to think he's that great.
[24:34] Because he's clearly not that smart because he fucking killed himself because he accidentally killed some people.
[24:39] Well, he also thinks the best way to test someone's nobility is to call them up on the phone and harass them at work.
[24:43] And the smartest way to kill himself and not fuck up the organs is have a fucking jellyfish kill him,
[24:48] which somebody is going to fucking write me an email that's like,
[24:50] actually, jellyfish poison dissipates after the human body dies.
[24:54] I don't know why they'd write that to you.
[24:55] You didn't write this movie.
[24:57] They should write it to the writer of Seven Pounds.
[24:59] But it's me complaining that clearly, like, that heart he just gave her is fucking stuffed full of jellyfish poison at this point.
[25:05] Yeah, maybe.
[25:06] It would hit the bloodstream and go right into his heart and then she's toast.
[25:09] I mean, I guess it would ruin the supposed surprise of this film that everyone predicts halfway through it.
[25:16] But I feel like there should be something in there where he's like,
[25:22] hmm, what's the least harmful way to kill someone?
[25:25] Yeah.
[25:26] Ah, jellyfish.
[25:27] It would make more sense than if he was just obsessed with jellyfish since he was a kid.
[25:31] Because it's just such a weird, oddball way to kill himself, and nothing else in the film is oddball at all.
[25:38] It's all, like, very strict realism.
[25:39] If he was like a Paul Dano character, it would make more sense for him to choose such a crazy way.
[25:44] Anyway.
[25:46] Speaking of could guess where the movie was going halfway through,
[25:50] if I could speak for a minute about A.O. Scott, the New York Times movie reviewer,
[25:55] who in his review for Seven Pounds talked about it as if he could not fathom what was going on in the film.
[26:01] He couldn't comprehend it, which seemed like in the beginning we were like, what's going on?
[26:06] But then it became pretty clear at a certain point.
[26:08] Yeah, but that's like the first 15 minutes.
[26:10] So I guess what I'm saying is I don't know how old A.O. Scott is, but he's an old man with dementia
[26:13] and he should no longer be writing film reviews.
[26:15] Whoa, wow.
[26:16] His review for Shoot Him Up was like this grim, ill-humored thing.
[26:21] You know, like at one point someone actually said, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but he like didn't get that it was a joke.
[26:26] So he's like at some point he actually says, what's up, Doc?
[26:29] Like not catching the parallel between Shoot Him Up and a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
[26:34] Anyway, that's my anti-New York Times film review rant of the day.
[26:38] And that's after Tune In Tomorrow.
[26:42] Yeah.
[26:43] The crazy paranoid rant was not real.
[26:44] That I didn't believe in.
[26:46] Or do I?
[26:47] You're deluding yourself.
[26:48] Flophouse fans, write in.
[26:50] Weigh in on this subject.
[26:51] Am I crazy paranoid?
[26:52] The Flophouse podcast at gmail.com.
[26:55] Is Elliot crazy?
[26:56] That's another vague contest from the floppers.
[27:00] No rules, no prizes.
[27:03] Okay, so what's next, dude?
[27:05] Let's make our final judgments on this film.
[27:07] Final judgments.
[27:10] So is this a movie that was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie that you actually liked in some way?
[27:16] Elliot, go.
[27:17] Bad bad movie.
[27:18] But I did like in some way, and by which I mean liked completely, seeing you guys not enjoy it.
[27:24] Okay, wait, Dan, can you tell me those categories again?
[27:27] Good bad, no.
[27:29] Movie you kind of like, no.
[27:32] Bad bad.
[27:33] Yes, it was a bad bad movie.
[27:35] It was a terrible movie.
[27:36] It was fucking really long and boring.
[27:37] I'll let you vote in a second, Dan.
[27:40] I'm not even going to talk about how crazy the fucking morality of this movie is.
[27:45] Yeah, but it's the kind of movie where you can't believe that at no stage during the production of it, people were like, wait, what?
[27:54] Wait, we're making this?
[27:55] I just realized this movie is shit.
[27:57] Like, why are we making this?
[27:58] Anyway, Dan, what did you think?
[28:00] Did you like it?
[28:01] As Stuart might say, big fucking surprise.
[28:04] Bad bad.
[28:06] It's just long, slow.
[28:09] It's not wacky in any way other than the jellyfish.
[28:13] Yeah, and even that, they de-wack as much as possible until the end.
[28:17] There could have been him farting while in the bath as he dies.
[28:21] I don't know how that really helps.
[28:24] That would have been a little wacky.
[28:26] What about like a cartoon rabbit that chases after him?
[28:29] Please, don't kill yourself.
[28:31] Yeah, like a sidekick.
[28:33] Or a wisecracking cartoon taxicab baby.
[28:38] I wanted to know, give you a lift, buddy.
[28:42] I wanted to know what that great Dane was thinking through a lot of the movie.
[28:45] That was the most charismatic character in the whole film.
[28:48] It was the dog.
[28:49] Let's move on.
[28:50] Wait, not Barry Pepper?
[28:52] Everyone in the movie looked haggard and tired and old and underfed.
[28:56] Barry Pepper looked rough.
[28:57] Yeah, he looked very rough.
[28:59] Considering he looked healthier in Battlefield Earth when he's living in the future
[29:03] when cyclos have enslaved the human rat animals or whatever.
[29:07] I forgot what they call them.
[29:09] Was Barry Pepper in Paparazzi?
[29:11] I never saw Paparazzi.
[29:12] Was he the main character, are you asking?
[29:14] He's not the main character.
[29:18] I don't think so.
[29:19] Paparazzi is, what's his name, Kohlhauser?
[29:21] Kohlhauser as like Duke McClane or something.
[29:25] No, Beau Laramie is the character's name.
[29:28] Speaking of bad movies, that is a great bad movie.
[29:32] If you're looking for a bad movie, that's hilarious.
[29:35] Don't watch Seven Pounds.
[29:36] Yeah, watch Paparazzi.
[29:38] I've never seen Paparazzi.
[29:39] We'll talk about it later.
[29:40] Fantastic.
[29:41] I just know Kohlhauser's in it.
[29:42] As good as a film directed by Mel Gibson's hairdresser you would think it would be.
[29:50] Let's talk about movies that we actually saw recently and enjoyed.
[29:55] I don't know, I'm just so haunted by Seven Pounds I can't get it out of my mind.
[30:00] Yeah, I'll go first. I actually watched this a little while ago
[30:04] It's on the Netflix watch instantly
[30:07] So you guys pull open your web browser go over to your instant queue and get ready to queue up the movie
[30:15] Tell no one
[30:17] It's a it's a friend. Are we supposed to tell no one about the movies titled?
[30:23] How are you supposed to know what the title is if you won't tell us?
[30:26] Okay, guys joke times over
[30:30] Tell no one and it's a French thriller about a guy joke time
[30:36] Well, there's a time and place so yeah joke time this French guy, right
[30:41] He his wife gets his wife gets killed and then eight years later. I got the sakura blur
[30:47] exactly
[30:48] He gets an email from her. Is that allures?
[30:52] Exactly. Like what would you do? And well, that's what that the movie answers. No, so Mark Summers hosts it. It's
[30:59] It's it's really good so totally check it out just
[31:04] take
[31:05] Tell no one drag it over into your queue box and release
[31:10] Click and good
[31:15] Just just drag and click it thrust it into your view box
[31:19] Yeah, Elliot looks like you're you've watched a lot of movies lately. I have so what do you want to recommend?
[31:25] I haven't seen too much lately that I really loved
[31:30] Star Trek, I haven't seen yet
[31:33] But origins Wolverine's that that I didn't see probably not gonna see it until it we watch it for the flophouse
[31:39] I think I did. I don't know remember if I recommended real life and in this podcast yet. I
[31:46] Yes
[31:47] Did I wait? No you you recommended a modern romance? Okay
[31:52] Well, I saw it real life for the first time about a month ago
[31:55] I guess I'd never seen it because I'm filling in the holes my Albert Brooks good era films and
[32:00] That was very funny and I recommended it
[32:02] The ending is kind of a kind of it kind of falls flat at the end
[32:06] But there are a lot of very funny scenes with the Albert Brooks and Charles Grodin
[32:10] Albert Brooks playing himself as a documentary filmmaker making a movie about an average American family
[32:17] and
[32:18] Basically destroying their lives and it's a loose parody of the American family TV miniseries that was on PBS in the 70s
[32:26] in which they like just kind of stuck around a family and
[32:30] It just happened to coincide with that family falling apart at the seams
[32:35] the son coming out of the closet to the family's consternation the husband wife divorcing so that and
[32:41] The fact that they were being filmed for television made everything worse. So real life is a joke version of that and it was very funny
[32:49] Recommend it
[32:50] so, um, I
[32:53] haven't watched that much recently I
[32:56] I was watching Marx Brothers movies lately or
[33:01] The other way they have a new one out. Yeah. Oh my god, so prolific the Judd Apatow
[33:10] Now I guess now I guess I guess that would be right now. Yeah anyway, um, I watched at the circus
[33:17] Which is not as good as I remembered
[33:19] so I'm not recommending at the circus if you will if like me you watched at the circus as a child and thought oh
[33:26] This is a pretty good marks for this movie and then wanted to revisit it as an adult do not do that
[33:31] you'll be disappointed or just fast forward to the scene where they're in a
[33:35] midgets house and it's a small house and they're ducking over at the whole time and
[33:41] There's some shenanigans with cigars
[33:44] Instead I recommend the lesser Marx Brothers film
[33:49] monkey business, okay a
[33:51] lot of
[33:53] You know, I I figure if you're a mark for this fan you you've watched duck soup
[33:58] You've watched a night at the opera. You've watched animal crackers. Wait, Dario Argento's opera
[34:04] Yes, Dario Argento's the Marx Brothers is a night at the opera
[34:08] Dario Argento's Marx Brothers movie in which the plot makes no sense and Chico gets his throat cut
[34:14] And there's a lot of bold colors and people think it's great because it's not in English
[34:18] But I like the dubbed version which is in English
[34:21] But monkey business is good and it's 77 minutes long. So if you want to watch something that's short and funny
[34:29] So I got 11 11 7 pounds is yeah
[34:33] I recommend monkey business
[34:36] Seven pounds so
[34:39] So why do you think you're seven pounds? So seven pounds is the hit of the year?
[34:44] It's like
[34:46] It's amazing that this slow
[34:49] depressing
[34:51] Confusing movie never wasn't wasn't a big hit. So yeah, you think like I mean, it's got a big star
[34:57] It's one of the biggest
[34:58] Okay. Well Barry Pepper is liked by people
[35:02] But yeah, you were saying something about Will Smith Will Smith, he's one of the biggest stars in the world
[35:06] Yeah, he was in that Hancock movie. Yeah that among other things. That was the most recent blockbuster
[35:12] He was probably in some other stuff, right? He was on that show the Fresh Prince. Yeah, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air
[35:20] He hasn't really done too much in between yeah fresh Prince and Hancock
[35:24] I think I think Will Smith just got suckered in by the original script of this film
[35:30] Which was what an action thriller named 112 ounces and he was just really liked it
[35:37] It makes more sense. Maybe
[35:39] No, I have no idea
[35:41] It's just like this
[35:42] I don't see any reason why it just doesn't make sense why he'd want to make this movie or anyone would want to watch it
[35:48] Although here's one reason to watch it to watch your friends. It's not enjoying it even more than you do
[35:54] Why don't you out there in listener land, why don't you call up your friends and be like hey
[35:59] I got a great movie to show you guys. This is gonna be so you're gonna love it
[36:03] We're gonna have a great movie night. We're gonna pop some popcorn have some beers Will Smith's in it
[36:07] It's probably like Bad Boys 3. I hear it's really campy
[36:10] And then and then excuse yourself to go to the restroom and go hide behind your one-way mirror to it
[36:17] Yeah, it would be weird
[36:20] Find your one-way mirror and just stare at the backing because you can't see through it
[36:25] And just imagine what it's like in that room with them not enjoying themselves
[36:31] Occasionally giggling to yourself then got in your hands
[36:34] Like a scheming wiser in a different story then go over to your portrait with the cutout eyes
[36:41] And look from side to side so the audience at home could tell you're looking through the occasionally accidentally knocking over a beer bottle
[36:47] This scenario you you have some sort of
[36:50] Phobia or mental problem that causes you to hide behind the mirror because that's the only way you feel comfortable
[36:56] Well, you think you're in mirror land at that point with Kiefer Sutherland's. Yeah
[37:02] Seven pounds seven pounds it was like seven pounds of crap in a two-pound bag
[37:07] Yeah, I even don't even know what that would look like
[37:11] Well, like most bags are way less than the stuff they're carrying I imagine this bag is made out of like Kevlar so
[37:20] Or like a bag that's designed to carry only two pounds of crap, well, that's usually what the saying means
[37:28] Usually like what do you hear that saying all the time? Come on check your
[37:35] Don't use the check your band the door excuse
[37:38] Anything else do we have any letters from readers?
[37:41] No, we don't we don't seven pounds has been so crappy that we're talking for less time than usual
[37:46] So yeah, sign off listeners. Send us some letters. Tell us what you think. What's that address again?
[37:52] Great Elliot for not letting us watch Beverly
[37:55] We can watch it next
[38:00] Why do you want to watch Beverly Hills to all was so badly
[38:07] I bet he gets into adventures scrapes and and dog-based comedies are always funny. No, they're
[38:14] Beethoven's second
[38:16] The comic Marmaduke. Yeah, Benji the hunted
[38:21] The grit and what was that? Oh heavenly dog. What was that journey movie heaven the one Milo Milo and Otis
[38:29] All these things Fox in the hound
[38:32] Snoop Dogg's girls gone wild. Yep
[38:35] Hilarious Oh man bites dog hilarious hilarious film
[38:40] dogville
[38:42] Those old shorts where it was uh, the dud they would dress dogs up with in costumes and have them pretend to do scenes from movies
[38:50] hilarious
[38:51] William Wegman's work
[38:54] Those aren't movies. Those are still photos. Okay, so
[38:58] Yeah, well I've been Stuart my life as a dog I've been Dan McCoy, I'm Ellie Kaelin good night and remain so Ellie Kaelin
[39:05] Good night
[39:09] You know something interesting guys this happened today at work a guy brought in two pasta bread bowls from Domino's
[39:17] Oh, man, so we could try them
[39:20] One of the dogs in the audience sniffed around it and walked away
[39:24] I did not recognize the pasta bread bowl as a source of food
[39:29] It is and every time the dog would approach it. We'd be like, ah, and then she just turn her head
[39:38] Why was there a dog in the audience didn't know in the office? Oh, why was there dog?
[39:43] We have oh, sorry. We have I might have said audience. Is it a staff rider? Yes. Yeah
[39:49] No, we have to let's get let's get a dog's opinion on this
[39:53] Perspective only a dog can provide we have no female writers, but we do have to doll print paw print paw print
[40:00] What?
[40:01] You've done it again!

Description

0:00 - 0:31 - Introduction and theme0:34 -  27:04 - Will Smith.  Rosario Dawson.  A Jellyfish.  The formula for a blockbuster smash?  We discuss Seven Pounds.27:05 - 29:50 - Final judgments29:51 - 34:38 - The sad bastards recommend34:39 - 40:04 - Some last minute bitching and moaning about Seven Pounds, followed by goodbyes, theme and outtakes.

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