The Flop House: Episode #29 - Step Up 2: The Streets

[0:00] In this episode, we discuss the dance film Step Up 2, The Streets.

[0:31] Hey everyone, welcome back to the Flophouse.

[0:35] And I say back because we've been gone for two weeks.

[0:38] How you doing? Stuart's here. Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] Hey, what's up? This is me, Stuart.

[0:43] Elliot Kalin.

[0:44] There's a lot of Elliot Kalin in your ear right now.

[0:46] And me, Dan McCoy.

[0:47] And is this the first Flophouse of 2009 AD?

[0:50] Yeah, it is.

[0:51] You know, we took two weeks off, and I know that you over at The Daily Show also took two weeks off.

[0:56] We took three weeks off.

[0:57] And you can get away with that, being a popular, beloved program.

[1:02] Yes.

[1:03] Do you think that we can get away with that?

[1:05] It's possible our fans have forgotten we exist.

[1:07] All right. What's The Daily Show? I've forgotten.

[1:11] Well, it's hosted by golfer John Daly.

[1:13] Okay.

[1:14] And as all of my dad and mom's friends think when they ask me about it.

[1:18] Sounds good.

[1:20] They're like, how's your golf game these days?

[1:22] No, they go, how's the John Daly show?

[1:24] Gun down a par?

[1:27] I'm assuming that you're currently above par.

[1:30] Far above par.

[1:31] Yeah.

[1:32] Par is a dream.

[1:34] Yeah.

[1:35] Like on a mini golf course or?

[1:37] Any kind. Mini golf, maxi golf.

[1:39] Mini golf isn't that hard.

[1:40] Regular golf.

[1:41] Okay.

[1:42] Mario golf.

[1:43] Sure.

[1:44] Wii golf.

[1:45] Wii golf.

[1:46] That's what's called Wii golf.

[1:47] Nintendo Wii golf and also WEE golf, which is smaller than mini golf.

[1:50] Okay. I didn't know that existed.

[1:52] Well, it doesn't yet, but I'm patenting it.

[1:54] Okay.

[1:55] But we didn't watch a golfing movie.

[1:58] No, sir.

[1:59] We watched a much more active pastime.

[2:01] Okay.

[2:02] That's dance.

[2:03] The world of dance.

[2:04] The magic of dance.

[2:05] Absolutely.

[2:06] We watched American Primitive, the Martha Graham story.

[2:09] We watched the Catherine Wheel, directed by Twyla Tharp.

[2:13] No.

[2:14] The Company, directed by Robert Altman.

[2:16] It was just called Company.

[2:18] We watched Step Up to the Streets.

[2:20] That's Step Up to the digit two.

[2:23] The number two.

[2:24] It's like it was called Untitled Dance Project,

[2:27] and then the writer texted the title to one of the producers,

[2:32] assuming they'd know that it wouldn't be the number two in real life.

[2:35] He texted it on his sidekick.

[2:36] Yeah, exactly, on his sidekick.

[2:37] And they were like, oh, okay, Step Up, number two, the streets.

[2:41] Yeah.

[2:42] Well, I mean, you may think that Prince named the movie,

[2:45] but it's actually a sequel.

[2:47] It's a sequel, as I gather, to the film Step Up.

[2:51] So, wait, this screenplay wasn't, like, kicking around Hollywood for years?

[2:55] No, it's not like the Unforgiven screenplay, where it took 20 years to make it.

[2:58] Well, you know, it may have been, because –

[3:00] This is an old Robert Towne screenplay from the beginning of his career.

[3:03] Paul Schrader took a pass on it.

[3:05] As far as I'm able to gather via IMDb,

[3:08] none of the characters from the original Step Up are, you know, reprised in this film.

[3:13] They don't reappear.

[3:15] I was really disappointed by that.

[3:17] Yeah, it has the same –

[3:18] Maybe it's in this breakdancing tradition with Breakin' and Breakin' 2, Electric Boogaloo,

[3:23] where there's no carryover between the stories.

[3:27] It's like Carry and Carry 2.

[3:29] The Rage Carry 2.

[3:30] Sorry, yeah, the Rage Carry 2.

[3:32] But that's more of, like –

[3:33] The Rage Carry 2 is more like Evil Dead 2, where they're just like,

[3:36] you know what, let's make a sequel, but let's just remake it.

[3:38] Yeah, I guess so.

[3:39] But where would you place this movie on the dance meter?

[3:42] Zero meaning no dancing and ten meaning too much dancing.

[3:47] So it's just the amount of dancing we're talking, not the quality of dancing.

[3:50] So what are you saying?

[3:51] I would put this at like an 8.5.

[3:53] On your scale, ten actually exceeds how much you'd actually want to have.

[3:57] Yeah, you'd want to see like a nine.

[3:59] Ten is like a little bit too much.

[4:01] Nine is like a big, good dinner, and ten is like, uh-oh, I ate too much.

[4:06] It's like you get an A+, thus you're irritating.

[4:08] Exactly.

[4:09] Okay, that makes sense.

[4:10] As opposed to an A-, the coolest of the grades.

[4:13] Sure.

[4:14] Yeah.

[4:15] It's like, I'm good, but I'm not so good that I can't relate to you still.

[4:18] Or maybe I don't need to try too hard.

[4:20] Yeah, that's the other one.

[4:21] I'm okay with passing by in the top level, but not the top, top level.

[4:25] So you think that Step Up to the Streets is an 8 out of a 10 meter of dancing.

[4:33] Yeah, around there.

[4:34] So it wasn't irritating.

[4:36] It was almost perfect.

[4:37] In terms of amount of dancing?

[4:39] Just the amount of dancing.

[4:40] Just amount.

[4:41] We're not talking about quality yet.

[4:42] Yeah, in terms of amount of dancing, that's actually about the number of dances

[4:47] and length of dances I would expect out of a dance film.

[4:50] Can you compare it to another movie that features, I would imagine, a lot of dancing

[4:54] so that our listeners can understand?

[4:58] Like a Moulin Rouge sort of thing?

[5:00] That Chicago thing?

[5:01] Yeah, it's kind of Chicago-y.

[5:03] Not as much dancing as Chicago, where there's almost every scene is a dance scene,

[5:07] it feels like, if I'm remembering it correctly.

[5:09] I'm not.

[5:10] In amount of dancing and only in amount of dancing, I would say that this ranks above

[5:17] Singing in the Rain, because Singing in the Rain ends with a huge, long ballet dance

[5:23] that I don't want to see.

[5:24] It doesn't end with it.

[5:26] That's just a chunk.

[5:27] You're thinking of an American in Paris.

[5:28] Yeah, that's right.

[5:29] There's a big chunk in the middle.

[5:31] Is it like the end of the Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi movie, where all of a sudden

[5:36] everybody breaks into a dance?

[5:37] That's just one dance scene.

[5:39] It's more dancing than Singing in the Rain, but less dancing than Invitation to the Dance,

[5:43] the all-dance movie that Gene Kelly did.

[5:45] I haven't seen those movies.

[5:47] You haven't seen Singing in the Rain?

[5:49] Not that I can remember.

[5:51] What am I missing?

[5:53] Like pure fun.

[5:55] But anyway, should we talk about what was in this movie?

[5:57] Let's please talk about the plot, because Elliot has been informed by friends

[6:00] that we do not clarify the plot enough up top.

[6:03] People think it's too much of a mystery, what we're talking about when we talk about

[6:08] 27 dresses.

[6:10] I didn't understand what was going on in the movie with all the dresses and everything.

[6:14] You didn't cover it well enough.

[6:15] So who wants to summarize?

[6:17] I'll do it.

[6:18] So there's this girl.

[6:20] Her name's Andy.

[6:22] It is? I never caught that once.

[6:24] Her name's Andy, but her friends call her Dee.

[6:28] It's only my girlfriend's nickname.

[6:30] So she's part of a dance crew in inner-city Baltimore,

[6:34] and they do all kinds of wacky dance stunts.

[6:37] The movie opens with them prank dancing on a subway car,

[6:41] where member after member of this dance crew takes off their everyday person costume

[6:47] and does annoying dancing that irritates people who are just trying to get home from a hard day at work.

[6:52] Mainly people just seem surprised.

[6:54] It's not like when people are dancing on the subway when I'm on the subway,

[6:57] and I just try and lift up my book or magazine and try and read it.

[7:00] To pretend you can't see them?

[7:02] We're already defeating the purpose of summarizing.

[7:05] Well, no, we're explaining this scene.

[7:07] So she's part of this dance crew, right?

[7:09] And apparently they are public enemies number one because of the fucking news.

[7:16] It's a wave of dancing.

[7:17] It's a wave of dance crime.

[7:19] That never really got picked up again, that dance crime storyline.

[7:23] And her mom's dead.

[7:27] So this is her mom's best friend.

[7:28] Yes.

[7:29] It's her guardian.

[7:30] And she's like, well, if you don't shave up, I'm going to make you move to Texas,

[7:34] where there's no dancing.

[7:36] Yeah, there's no dancing at all.

[7:37] Except for the boot scooting boogie, and she does not want to do that.

[7:40] She made that pretty clear early on in the film.

[7:42] So one of her friends is like, yo, if I beat you in a dance battle,

[7:46] then you're going to have to go to the Maryland School of Arts.

[7:49] And she's like, F that, dog.

[7:51] That's what tough dancers are always trying to get people to do.

[7:55] They're like, I'm going to trick you into higher education.

[7:58] You got served.

[8:00] So after a few servings, she ends up enrolled in the Maryland School of Arts,

[8:06] where, of course, the teachers frown upon her street styles.

[8:12] And then somehow she gets kicked out of her old dance crew.

[8:15] She forms a new dance crew with the nerdy kids at her school,

[8:18] including some of the rich white kids at her school.

[8:21] Who are all amazing dancers.

[8:22] Who are all amazing dancers in their own kind of special way.

[8:25] And then when they try to enter the world of underground street dancing,

[8:29] they get frowned upon and they get served pretty hardcore.

[8:33] And then they end up breaking up because she gets kicked out of school.

[8:38] And then somehow they all come back together for the big final dance off

[8:41] and then win the day.

[8:42] And then there's making out.

[8:43] And they convince the head of the school who stops by

[8:46] and watches them dance in the rain for a crowd of thousands, it seems,

[8:50] that she should be let back into the school.

[8:53] And he originally goes to the dance competition to put a stop to this.

[8:59] Which, of course, he doesn't.

[9:01] It's a dangerous dance competition.

[9:03] He is maybe the whitest character I've ever seen in a film.

[9:05] Yeah, he finds a spot in his heart for street dancing.

[9:09] And, once again, just in time for all the characters

[9:12] to pretty much start making out in the rain,

[9:14] which is just how I like all movies to end.

[9:17] Well, there are two strands of modern dance movies.

[9:20] I honestly think that every dance movie made post-1980

[9:25] is either one or the other plot.

[9:27] And they haven't discovered how to work dancing into other plots.

[9:30] And that's the Footloose plot, where dancing is not allowed,

[9:35] but some rebel just has to dance.

[9:38] And often this rebel has been sent there from some place

[9:41] where there is a lot of dancing.

[9:43] Sure.

[9:44] And so they want to continue their dancing ways.

[9:46] Dance-ylvania, if you will.

[9:47] And, you know, this movie starts out, you think it's going to be that one,

[9:49] because there's talk of her being sent to, you know, Texas.

[9:52] Texas. That's a red herring, though.

[9:54] And then there's the Flashdance school,

[9:57] where someone uses their street dance.

[10:00] Dancing or unconventional dance skills to shake up the stuffy world of dance, and that's definitely what this film is

[10:06] Okay, they what I'm what I'm glad about is that they're finally showing that a breakdancing can be

[10:13] Culturally acceptable dancing to a mere 20 years after that case had been made to the general public already

[10:19] What I what I like is that it shows it's like it's like a movie where like a rock star proves to a classical music

[10:25] That rock music can be music too, and it's like oh, okay

[10:29] I mean, I thought that it was like 35 years ago

[10:31] But it's not just that it's also music or also an acceptable art form, but in many ways. It's better

[10:37] That's well. That's the unspoken assumption that I hate in these movies where it's like old culture

[10:43] Boring this is the new stuff and there it is evolved into this yeah

[10:47] Well, and you know what in this sort of like strain of dance film. There's usually that that thing where oh

[10:52] I can use ballet in my breakdancing. Yeah, that will improve it

[10:57] That's like that that's there like SOP to that idea that other arts are valid

[11:02] Maybe the entirety of human history until this point isn't completely useless

[11:06] Yeah, if it can help me in my breakdancing and this film breakdancing trumps it all mm-hmm

[11:10] It reminds me a lot of the movie Flatliners where the I can't wait to hear this parallel

[11:16] Where the med students decide to figure out a way to you know?

[11:20] Beat death using their their own brand of new science

[11:25] and how old

[11:28] Kevin Bacon

[11:30] Kevin Bacon's about to be kicked out of school that movie that movie

[11:33] Stops being interesting about halfway through because it's like we're gonna stop our hearts and then start them up again like that's kind of an

[11:39] interesting to see what happens

[11:41] But the ghosts of the people you wronged in the past come and get you is not really a lot

[11:46] Also, it's one of the really boring way to in a really boring way

[11:50] Yeah, it was always where the the antagonist ultimately is shown to be trying to help

[11:56] Like this is my least favorite type of horror music. Oh, I shouldn't have been scared all along

[12:01] That's your problem with the sixth sense is wait a minute

[12:04] There was no danger ever at any point ever that ghost was just trying to show me the giant hoard of treasure under the house

[12:11] I

[12:15] Can finally fund my unrealistic business idea time to build a ghost mansion

[12:22] Wait a minute this ghost just wanted to be famous. Let's invite other people to our ghost house

[12:29] That sounds great. That's the story of the haunted mansion, and so that's kind of what I learned about

[12:34] That's kind of what I learned from watching step up to the streets

[12:38] was that

[12:40] New dancing is way better than old fuddy-duddy ballet dancing. Ho hum

[12:45] Well now we've given me as the kids would say ho hum

[12:50] We can circle back and get a little more detail in and certainly it's a very strange as we said

[12:57] beginning where the guys serves the girl into

[13:02] The Maryland School of the Arts. I'm just impressed there and he disappears from the film

[13:06] Pulls his hood on his hoodie back up over his head and walks away like a

[13:11] What I like let's we have all talked about the main the main location of this movie

[13:16] Which is a club called the streets which represents the streets?

[13:20] If this was if I was doing the play sets for this film there would be three of them

[13:24] There would be Andy's house where she argues with her mom mom and sister figure come with that set who by the way is

[13:31] Played by keema that or the actress who played keema in the wire, which is funny because this movie takes place in Baltimore

[13:37] So I like to think

[13:39] Keema's job is is you know still a cop charm city

[13:43] Then the second setting would of course be the school school play set

[13:47] Which would come with like ballet accessories and the third would be this club the streets and what's amazing about it

[13:52] Is they had the foresight to have a floor with removable panels and underneath our trampolines?

[13:57] For debt for double awesome dance moves and you I know what you're thinking at home, too

[14:02] You're like a dance with trampolines. That sounds awesome

[14:06] I'm gonna run out and rent step out to the step up to the streets step out to the streets step out to

[14:13] Step out to a show. Why don't we step out to the street?

[14:19] To the streets, let's step out to the streets. Hey Billy, where you going? I hear the streets is pretty good

[14:26] You know the thing about the the the trampoline dance is that it could have been accomplished if they just put mattresses on the floor

[14:33] It's not like they know it's not an exciting dance

[14:35] And it kind of would have been cooler with mattresses because it would have been like they would have been a homemade

[14:40] Aspect to it like sure. Oh, okay. They brought these old mattresses that they found to this warehouse site and that's the club

[14:46] It's like a junk band that plays

[14:48] Like an old

[14:52] The base is just a string on it on a broomstick attached to a bucket

[14:56] Well, you don't realize is that they they actually built the club on an abandoned trampoline

[15:02] They discovered they were tearing up the floor. Like oh, man, there's a trampler. We didn't just leave ancient Indian moonwalk bounce

[15:10] graveyard

[15:11] Those trampolines are actually dream catchers

[15:15] Dream bouncers. Yeah, I don't like this dream send it away boy

[15:20] And then they use hip-hop music to take the dream up into the stars where the angels create them now

[15:26] Let's now the plot itself. This movie is pretty pro forma. I think what it comes down to is the dancing

[15:32] That's why you watch this thing a lot of or classic musicals your Stair Rogers or Gene Kelly

[15:37] Like the reason you go see them is the dancing in a lot of ways more than the movie

[15:42] Like if the movie around the dancing is good. It's kind of a bonus

[15:44] It's like a martial arts film

[15:46] Exactly or martial arts film you go for the fighting or a Marx Brothers movie where you don't care about the romantic leads

[15:51] Well, that's I would call that would say that's a little different

[15:54] What you're going there for the Marx Brothers and then there are all these scenes of but in theory that movie is mostly Marx Brothers

[16:01] Like in theory like the romantic leads are in addition. They're not yeah

[16:06] I think what we're talking about is this movie is like a martial arts movie in that every

[16:09] Every scene you can imagine the screenwriters like, okay, how can I get get everybody to start dancing?

[16:22] Chocolate inside of this big the candy shell but the candy shell here doesn't matter

[16:26] It's it's what I'm guessing the high school musical movies are like, but I haven't watched those yet

[16:30] High school musical movies are actually much more like a classic

[16:34] Musical I saw the first one because I was like Sarah my wife and I were curious

[16:40] What is this high school musical that's sweeping the nation and

[16:44] And tweens I don't get it all you tween listeners to the clubhouse

[16:49] Right in and explain high school music if there are any and also explain right in and make us feel weird about having tween

[16:55] Let's why does why in Hannah Montana is Miley Cyrus the alter-ego of Hannah Montana rock-and-roll superstar

[17:01] But her dad is Billy Ray Cyrus country music superstar

[17:05] Why does she have to hide her identity? Yep, and

[17:09] Twilight, what's the deal? Yeah. Why are is wait? Are they are they of age?

[17:15] They're not their high school students. They're high school students. So they are not last time. I checked vampires

[17:20] It was better when they had sex with people. Yeah, let me just tell you that. Yeah enough said

[17:26] Can you imagine the movie The Hunger with no sex in it I can't or

[17:32] Embrace the vampire or embrace wait embrace the vampire. Yeah the embracement with a lot of you're saying and

[17:38] Jennifer Tilly for a second. I thought you meant a shadow of the vampire

[17:43] No sex in it

[17:46] I gotta see them. That's a movie. I haven't seen a long time

[17:52] The dancing and this was not it is very subpar like my golfing should be if I practice more now

[17:59] One might think through Elliot's, uh, you know name-checking of Gene Kelly and

[18:06] Rogers that he is Ruby Keillor is simply an old before his time

[18:12] Crank and you'd be right you'd be 80% right but as someone who with his wife

[18:18] watches and unironically enjoys

[18:21] So you think you can dance?

[18:23] Only partly because it has a lot of hot women and tights. This is not good dancing

[18:28] You could see better dancing on any episode of the aforementioned show

[18:32] Then you were a wire or America's

[18:34] Sort of the wire you would see better dancing on this

[18:38] Popping and locking all over the place krumpin

[18:41] That's the type of dancing. I think here's the problem with with a lot of the dancing and jump up to the streets

[18:47] second edition sure is uh, it's like

[18:52] Wow, did I

[18:54] Keep going

[18:59] Okay, no one will notice the is that the dance like the dancing is not

[19:03] Enjoy, it's like almost not enjoyable to watch. It's not very fluid

[19:06] It says and that might be just this style of dancing workman like yeah workman like or it seems like you're watching stop-motion animation

[19:14] Not a lot of care was put into

[19:17] That style dancing it's hard the style dancing the purpose of it is to show that you can't show how much control you have over

[19:24] Each individual part of your body as opposed to like that can be using yourself amazing

[19:28] But like they don't really give it a time to like feel like oh, man

[19:32] My breath is being taken away, but what the human body can do

[19:35] Yeah, I actually cannot cannot apply any kind of judgment to the quality of the dancing

[19:41] Other than it was awesome

[19:44] The other thing about this dancing the reason that she gets kicked out of her dance crew is because she keeps missing

[19:51] Rehearsals and things like that and at a certain point you're like wow

[19:54] These young kids are putting a lot of work into their dancing really organized. It's really organized

[20:00] has been really strict and doesn't seem like fun to see it's like

[20:03] a movie about like a young kid were like

[20:05] sports is the only way he's gonna get out of the inner city so everyday

[20:08] he's out there playing even when he doesn't want to like that's how it feels

[20:11] about dance right but it doesn't seem to be building towards any goal now

[20:15] they're not going to get work as dancers you know where

[20:18] was it's not unlike her and her stepmom or whatever's like i'm gonna send you to

[20:22] texas is not like

[20:23] she's been like sitting around her sweatpants like smoking weed or some

[20:26] no she's been practicing dancing day and night she dances all the time like it's

[20:30] dance is going to get you into trouble someday exactly that's a gateway drug to

[20:33] other movements she's going to dance her way into the prison or something

[20:37] but it feels like once you dance your way into prison the guards close the

[20:41] door and you can't get back out there's one scene where

[20:44] one of the one of the music school kids is beaten up by the old

[20:47] dance crew and if it wasn't for that scene

[20:50] you'd think this movie took place in a universe where violence was

[20:53] entirely through dance

[20:55] like people only fought and killed each other in dancing and gang

[20:58] in baltimore no less in baltimore the murder capital of america

[21:03] but it seems like even them beating him up

[21:05] felt a little bit like they were dancing like there was a little too much like hopping

[21:08] around they snuck a little dancing into that

[21:11] but also without the beating up scene you'd be kind of like

[21:14] huh this is a strange formula for a movie

[21:16] where we're asked to cheer on the

[21:18] snobs from the rich art school

[21:21] versus the street dancers yes the message was very much that our school

[21:24] students are

[21:25] are oppressed as opposed to minorities who i guess they're only outlet is dance

[21:30] right i mean the only way that they made selling heroin on the street

[21:33] the only way they made that work that's really an outlet

[21:36] is to have like the leader of the dance crew just be a total dick

[21:40] like he's like what

[21:42] you've been going to the maryland school of the arts behind our back

[21:45] you're out of the crew

[21:46] and then he's just a jerk every time he shows up in the movies

[21:50] it's amazing how on

[21:51] congratulatory her friends were about her getting into a prestigious academy

[21:56] and maybe making a career out of her

[21:58] you know her one talent

[22:00] well you know that because it was an acting

[22:02] go

[22:03] ah

[22:04] gee

[22:05] ooh

[22:06] muh

[22:07] and so forth

[22:08] other comedy sound effects

[22:09] etc

[22:10] hey what was that uh what was that movie with eminem in it

[22:14] eight mile

[22:15] yeah that's what this movie was a lot like

[22:17] it was a dance except for eight mile was

[22:20] directed by curtis hansen so it was a lot better than it had a director of

[22:24] payback

[22:25] well he didn't direct payback somebody else directed payback

[22:28] who directed payback

[22:29] oh jeez i don't remember his name but i just watched uh the director's

[22:32] brian hagel and i think oh

[22:34] you're totally right i watched the i watched the director's cut of that and

[22:37] it was a really crappy

[22:40] so earn on you brian hagel and mel gibson made a better movie

[22:44] you know writer of la confidential

[22:47] oh that's why i got it mixed up because of the la confidential yeah

[22:50] right right right right right right right but eight mile is like a rap

[22:54] version of this yeah that's what i was trying to say right

[22:57] and just like he they're always working on their dance moves on the subway he's

[23:00] always working on his rhymes on the bus

[23:02] what just like heat no i didn't say that okay is it just like they're always

[23:06] oh okay that makes more sense i don't know how heat it is a lot like heat

[23:09] though

[23:10] i was maybe because the scene where they finally the two teams finally meet up is

[23:12] just like when al pacino and robert de niro finally sit down together

[23:15] yeah and there's that big uh automatic weapon bank robbery in the middle of

[23:20] this movie that was surprising yeah most entertaining part of it though and

[23:24] it was like 30 minutes long or something 40 minutes

[23:28] exciting electric so yeah there's uh there weren't nearly enough montages in

[23:32] this movie i was expecting i think they're only about

[23:34] only about three i was really disappointed there wasn't when the um

[23:38] when the rival uh you know the actual inner city dance crew

[23:41] shows up and uh as as payback for there's payback again oh weird

[23:46] as payback for the art students the art school students

[23:50] like burn on them by like putting an old fish in that one guy's apartment

[23:55] they uh they they try to get back at the art school students by just like fucking

[23:59] up their uh their dance studio spray paint everywhere

[24:03] i was really really hoping there was going to be a montage cleaning up montage

[24:06] yeah because they had like because they're there's their teachers like i

[24:10] expect you guys all to clean this up yeah like that's weird that's when

[24:14] everyone from the neighborhood should pitch in yeah absolutely

[24:16] just like in sister act yeah or that that one the the main character's one

[24:21] inner city friend who doesn't really go to the school but she seems to hang out

[24:24] with them a lot i think she's auditing classes yeah she should be there too and

[24:27] helping yeah she is part of the problem now stewart

[24:30] mentioned uh some dead fish a moment ago this bears uh circling back and

[24:35] explaining um after they get served pretty good job

[24:39] actually you didn't explain it at all actually

[24:43] after the uh the rich kids get served good guys get served

[24:47] they learn that the only way to uh say challenge

[24:51] these uh these guys to another dance to get their rep back

[24:56] is to prank them on video on video and by putting it on the internet

[25:00] where it will of course immediately get back to um spread like wildfire i think

[25:04] his name was tuck the biggest viral videos are the dance

[25:07] viral videos the ones i always look at on the internet

[25:11] yeah and they immediately it appeared to get back to them

[25:15] and within like the afternoon once they post it well it was probably like on the

[25:18] on the dance message board yeah but what happened the video clip was right next

[25:22] to the one where the monkey pees in its own mouth

[25:26] you know show like the hamster eating popcorn on the piano

[25:28] panda but um it was called omg check out this prank dance

[25:35] prnk and the prank was done by putting on

[25:38] odd costumes and dancing behind the guy while he obliviously went about his

[25:42] business yeah and then they broke into his house

[25:46] and uh just put a couple fish in i think just one fish the air ducts

[25:50] couple i think is that's hyperbole dude yeah there were two of them

[25:53] i think there's just one yeah maybe maybe your glasses were maybe they

[25:56] double edited it you might be confused by the fact that fish is both singular

[26:00] and plural that's it uh i was reading the movie

[26:04] what's the problem they also danced a bunch in this guy's

[26:07] apartment in his house apartment it's really a it's one of those

[26:11] baltimore bro they really seemed comfortable in the space

[26:14] but they must have really planned this one out yeah as soon as the guy saw the

[26:17] uh video he angrily overturned his commute

[26:21] computer smashing it and then went over to the air duct to

[26:24] confirm that they were in fact fishing it he didn't smell the fish

[26:27] at that point he walks in when he walks into his apartment he says this place

[26:30] smells terrible i believe he says it smells like funyuns

[26:34] and armpits or fungus something like that i think he said funyuns i'm gonna

[26:37] imagine he said funyuns in my in my opinion the real hero is

[26:41] our funyun sponsorship uh i love funyuns the real hero of this

[26:46] movie uh is the director of the academy who seems to be about 30 years old and

[26:51] yet is the director of an arts academy and a dance professor maybe just the

[26:55] director of the dance program but the and uh his family i guess founded

[26:59] the school but just the fact that he fought his way to that position at such

[27:02] a young age i find really impressive even if he is

[27:05] the stern you know ultra white and he's like the brother of our romantic lead

[27:09] yeah it's so lonely at that at that point you know like

[27:12] he has nobody in his life exactly he spends all his time at the school he's

[27:15] always devoted to everything exactly his whole life and he's gonna die

[27:19] alone and they're gonna just put a bust of him up in the hallway or something

[27:22] he has some sort of indeterminate uh european accent

[27:26] i think it's just snoot which uh but his brother doesn't have it

[27:30] because his brother is of the people i say they're separated at birth i guess

[27:34] sure it's like uh double impact

[27:38] well double impact is basically the van damme prince and the pauper so yeah

[27:43] i think that that just told us a lot about both of you right there

[27:46] what your minds went to right away so yes

[27:50] double impact the dance version features the one brother who's of the

[27:54] people of the streets and then the other brother who's

[27:56] kind of snooty um he would be the fbi agent character he'd be

[28:01] he'd be tango he'd be rey tango absolutely thank you for

[28:04] vocalizing that for me i knew it's what you were thinking almost immediately so

[28:08] he would be sylvester just alone in tango yeah um

[28:12] so yeah and he's got nothing like you mentioned a bust of him

[28:15] like if he does die like if he dies going to a street dancing competition

[28:19] get stabbed there's going to be a portrait of him

[28:22] in the hallway it'll be like um trivialized like the bust of

[28:25] uh john voight's character in the brats film well they see that was a symbol of

[28:29] his own vanity that was unearned yeah and smashed wrong that's why it

[28:34] was so easy to smash because they were trying to tell us that all vanity is

[28:37] hollow yeah and to live is to live for others and

[28:40] not for oneself that was the motto of the brats movie

[28:44] i shouldn't have brought up the brats movie it's derailing i was trying to

[28:48] explain to uh somebody recently why the brats movie is on the

[28:51] top of our scale and i couldn't quite get it across in a way that they

[28:54] understood but oh there are two okay there are two things i

[28:57] wanted to bring up one was uh our main character heroine she rallies

[29:02] the other people at the streets warehouse to her side with an inspiring

[29:06] speech about how dance is about bringing

[29:09] together all of what you got and coming together

[29:12] with other people which seems the exact opposite the the

[29:14] point of dance in the movie seemed to be to show off and make other people

[29:17] impressed at your talents and i know that it's a movie um

[29:21] cliche uh so i shouldn't harp on it too much but

[29:24] she does manage to turn the audience from jeering loudly at her

[29:28] to applauding for her and following her into the rain

[29:32] and following her into the rain outside to watch her

[29:35] dance yeah she says that um excuse franklin

[29:38] she says uh it's really hot in there oh if they're not gonna let us dance in

[29:42] here we're gonna go outside and dance in the

[29:45] rain but by that time she's won over the entire crowd so they really could

[29:48] have stayed inside you know yeah i think that was really

[29:51] calculated a puppet master res yeah

[29:55] i knew that was that white shirt should only help their cause

[30:00] at half-shirts. Yes, she never wore a full shirt.

[30:04] The shirts she was wearing, to a certain extent, would shrink.

[30:08] It was like the top and the bottom were going in and trying to meet each other in the middle.

[30:12] It's almost like a set of eyebrows. The more serious she is,

[30:16] the smaller that top is, that tube top.

[30:20] A lot of cleavage and a lot of belly. Yeah, and by cleavage, I mean, she's a

[30:24] dancer, so... No, she had a fair amount of... I think a lot of that

[30:28] was CGI or something. Alright, let's not linger on the leading

[30:32] ladies. But that's the movie poster, dude!

[30:36] The movie poster is just a close-up of her cleavage.

[30:40] It's called National Lampoon, Step Up to the Street.

[30:44] The other thing was, looking back on it, the one

[30:48] scene that seemed like it could have been in a much better movie was, they

[30:52] go to the girl, her friend who's in the old dance crew, and comes

[30:56] and helps them out, is Hispanic, and they go to her family's house for

[31:00] a barbecue, and it's just them kind of interacting. There's very little dialogue.

[31:04] There's them just interacting with her family in the backyard of this barbecue.

[31:08] That was the one scene where I was like, I'd like to

[31:12] see an actual version of this scene that isn't just dancing, where it's

[31:16] them meeting people from... A little fish-out-of-water element. Exactly.

[31:20] But also, maybe they're wary of each other at first. The snooty kids

[31:24] have never eaten spicy food, maybe, and then the mom

[31:28] dances with this other kid. Like, for meals? Spice. It's a pork dish. Spice. So ethnic.

[31:32] Yeah, this isn't bland. What are you serving?

[31:36] Jane, you brought this up while we were watching the movie, but I think what's funny about it, and I think a little bit telling about

[31:40] this movie, is that the most sympathetic character, and the character that

[31:44] I like the most, clearly, is the ex-girlfriend

[31:48] of the romantic lead. Who's set up to be a bitch at first.

[31:52] Yeah, who's set up to be a bitch, but nothing she does in the entire movie

[31:56] is anything other than totally normal and

[32:00] understandable. If she wasn't supposed to be the bitch, because she's the ex-girlfriend,

[32:04] she would come across as the outsider girl who's trying to be supportive and make

[32:08] new friends, and tags along and ultimately gets into the group.

[32:12] The nice girl who's pretty, that isn't very good in social

[32:16] situations, but she's up for it. Yeah, exactly.

[32:20] She ends up making out with the dork. First of all, she ends up making out with the dork before

[32:24] the two romantic leads end up kissing, which I think is interesting

[32:28] as well. Normally, they do your hero and heroine kiss,

[32:32] and then they're like, hey, let's get a laugh from the dork and some other chick.

[32:36] The dork and the hot girl kiss. I assume the hero and heroine were always supposed to kiss as the final beat

[32:40] in the movie. The screenwriter laid out his three-act outline.

[32:44] He's like, act one, we gotta see them dancing on a subway car,

[32:48] and then somewhere in the middle of act two, she gets kicked out of school, and then in act three at the end, they kiss.

[32:52] And I'll just fill in the rest, man. With dance.

[32:56] I want to see the script, because I imagine it just says, insert dance scene.

[33:00] Or like, they dance their differences apart.

[33:04] So, for step up three, that girl and the dork. Step up three, the streets.

[33:08] I would think it'd be something else. Step up three, the avenues.

[33:12] There's no pun there. Step up three

[33:16] would be you and me.

[33:20] Step up three, the secret of the eaves.

[33:24] That was TMNT too, also. Three was turtles in time.

[33:28] Notice how easy it came to me that I said TMNT

[33:32] instead of saying the full title out loud.

[33:36] Oh, those movies ruined Eastman and Laird's original vision.

[33:40] Well, they'd already been bastardized by the cartoon and the Archie comic.

[33:44] Their vision of getting rich quickly off of characters they created.

[33:48] That's a noble goal.

[33:52] So let's just go ahead and give this movie our final judgment and move on.

[33:56] Final judgment!

[34:00] My current affair sound effect.

[34:04] I think it's improved over the vacation.

[34:08] So what are our categories again? Is this a movie that is a bad, bad movie?

[34:12] There's no merit. A good, bad movie, you enjoy it because

[34:16] it's humorously bad. Or a movie that you like in some way.

[34:20] Stuart, turn to you. Yeah, this is a bad, bad movie.

[34:24] There's really nothing very exciting about it. The dancing was

[34:28] subpar. It wasn't that great.

[34:32] Yeah, I was on the verge of giving it a good, bad just because it sort of moves along

[34:36] at a good clip. That's true. Like your dance movies do.

[34:40] The dancing isn't good. There's a lot more energy in it.

[34:44] I don't know. It makes the cliched elements more enjoyable.

[34:48] But a really good, bad dance film is

[34:52] Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo. Yeah, I was going to say, it's no Breakin' 2.

[34:56] That's the gold standard. When they bring a man back to life in the hospital through dance.

[35:00] If you haven't seen Breakin' 2 and only know it through thousands of

[35:04] electric boogaloo jokes. Do yourself a favor and see it.

[35:08] That's my recommendation. Is that a Golan Globus film?

[35:12] What? Is that from the Golan Globus company?

[35:16] Oh, I don't know. If it is, it's the best movie they ever made, except for Jim Cotter.

[35:20] I think I'm going to agree with you guys. I kind of want to give it a better grade because

[35:24] it means well and it didn't take up too much of our time.

[35:28] There are better versions of it, so I have to say it's a bad, bad movie.

[35:32] There wasn't anything that is going to live past this moment of us talking about it.

[35:36] I will not remember it.

[35:40] When historians write the story of the Flophouse.

[35:44] When we do the oral history of the Flophouse.

[35:48] When James Lipton mentions this episode to us.

[35:52] Far in the post-apocalyptic future where skalds sit around the fire

[35:56] singing tales of the Flophouse to the younglings.

[36:00] Skalds? Skalds.

[36:04] I was imagining skalds.

[36:08] When animated robot skalds sit around the fire.

[36:12] Trash can fire.

[36:16] When the movie The Skalds sits around a fire and Joshua Jackson tells stories of the Flophouse.

[36:20] And Craig T. Nelson shows up to be a bad guy again.

[36:24] Oh, what a career Craig T. Nelson's had from Action Jackson to Flesh Gordon

[36:28] to Coach to The Skalds.

[36:32] To the Pixar films.

[36:36] Before we get on to our recommendations.

[36:40] Our special, this episode, recommendations segment.

[36:44] Our New Year's recommendations.

[36:48] I have some emails.

[36:52] We get letters, we get lots and lots of letters.

[36:56] Are you going to get sued by Paul Schechter again?

[37:00] The first one, actually, is completely just waxing our own car.

[37:04] This is from Alex, last name withheld.

[37:08] We're helping to keep it safe from water damage.

[37:12] It says, just wanted to say thanks for all your work on the podcast.

[37:16] I absolutely love the show and look forward to every episode.

[37:20] Ziggy Link brought me in. A Ziggy Link.

[37:24] Which Ziggy Link, huh? Like we've done so many Ziggy things.

[37:28] The best already is the Ziggy podcast.

[37:32] I'm getting so angry at someone who wrote a nice letter to us.

[37:36] I think you're more mad at Dan.

[37:40] And I've never left. I'll try to keep spreading the word, voting on podcasts, etc.

[37:44] Thanks again and please keep it up. The show is really the best hour of comedy out there, not including The View.

[37:48] Those bitches.

[37:52] What do we have to do to take them down?

[37:56] I hope so.

[38:00] We were a brief zig-sation.

[38:04] Elliot was a zig-sation.

[38:08] He took the world by the storm.

[38:12] I want to say they mentioned all the work you do.

[38:16] I want to briefly make sure the audience knows that Dan does basically all of the work.

[38:20] When it comes to making this. He owns the recording equipment.

[38:24] He gets the movies for us to watch and he edits this and uploads it.

[38:28] Sometimes he throws away my empty beer cans.

[38:32] Stuart just brings his wit and I bring the spark and the publicity value that brings people to us through Ziggy Links.

[38:36] I think wit is what I bring.

[38:40] And his mustache.

[38:44] He also has an inexplicable charm that the ladies like.

[38:48] I think inexplicable is the best term.

[38:52] All of the female fan mail seems to center around Stuart.

[38:56] What about that girl who likes Elliot?

[39:00] We'll talk about that later.

[39:08] Thanks, Lorax.

[39:12] I am the Lorax. I keep my secrets from the public.

[39:16] From Matt, last name withheld.

[39:20] What do you guys ever think about doing a live show where you comment on a movie MST3K style?

[39:24] I'd see it.

[39:28] So that's one audience member we'd have. Maybe he can rent us a theater.

[39:32] Sure. If he wants to produce that show and publicize it.

[39:36] And pay any copyright.

[39:40] All we have to do is say we have to do what Eric did and call it a class instead of a show.

[39:44] And people pay tuition and then it's okay.

[39:48] We shouldn't be talking about this on air.

[39:52] That's why he called it that.

[39:56] What actually happened was it was so small scale that it was not worth the trouble.

[40:00] that was along the same lines, a live theater show.

[40:05] But no one came to that, so I doubt you'll see a live Flophouse anytime soon.

[40:09] Probably not.

[40:10] Well, but thanks for the suggestion. Gotta be positive.

[40:13] Jameson, last name withheld, said,

[40:15] I had to go to Germany for work and they had these same in-flight movies

[40:19] on my departing and returning flights.

[40:21] That's the story of why I watched Meet Dave starring Eddie Murphy.

[40:25] Ouch.

[40:26] It would be perfect for review on some future episode of the Flophouse.

[40:28] I swear, 75% of the film is shot on a set that looks like a bad mouthwash-slash-toothpaste ad.

[40:34] This movie is a real gem and a mind-blower.

[40:36] We might have to do that one, then.

[40:38] It's an Eddie Murphy movie, though.

[40:40] I don't know.

[40:41] Well, we managed to skip Norbit, so we may have to do Meet Dave.

[40:46] I'm putting it on my list with Seven Pounds and Underworld Rise of the Lycans.

[40:52] On our must-do list.

[40:54] I don't want to think about that.

[40:57] Spirit, certainly.

[40:58] So this is actually from my sister-in-law and sort of my brother, Marina and John, last name withheld.

[41:06] I think you can probably guess the last name.

[41:08] The way you said that, it was as if she was your sister-in-law and kind of your brother, the same person.

[41:15] She wrote the email.

[41:17] I don't know that my brother actually had any hand in the writing of the email.

[41:21] But it says, Dear Floppers, you asked for a gift for the holidays, and since your gift to us is free, so is ours to you.

[41:28] Now, she's going to make a correction in this email, but then she makes an error shortly thereafter.

[41:33] So let's see if you can pick up on the error that she makes.

[41:36] And you at home, you'll play this game, too.

[41:38] Elliot mentioned in last week's podcast that Hans Conrad was a star in Casablanca.

[41:43] Of course, I imagine that Elliot meant Paul Henreid, not Hans Conrad.

[41:49] Conrad Veidt is also in that film.

[41:51] That's why I got it mixed up.

[41:52] Idiot.

[41:53] However, it got us thinking that Hans Conrad, perhaps best known for playing Captain Hook's voice in Disney's Peter Pan

[41:58] and narrating the Grinch movie, might have been an excellent choice in the film as Lazlo or even Rick.

[42:03] And here she does a little playlet that I won't read because it would require me to do the voice of Hans Conrad, which I don't know if I can do.

[42:11] But that's her little correction.

[42:13] Now, did you get the error that she made?

[42:15] I totally didn't, but I wasn't paying attention.

[42:18] That's right.

[42:19] I was busy flagellating myself for getting the names mixed up.

[42:22] That's right.

[42:23] Boris Karloff was the narrator for How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

[42:28] Now, it's possible she was talking about Halloween is Grinch Night, which was narrated by Hans Conrad.

[42:34] She mentioned the Grinch in that letter?

[42:35] Let me read that email.

[42:36] She says the Grinch movie.

[42:39] Now, she may be referring to the Ron Howard movie, but I don't believe that that had a narrator, and I don't believe it was Hans Conrad.

[42:45] Maybe.

[42:46] Was Jim Carrey in that?

[42:48] So thanks for the correction.

[42:51] However, we can turn it right back on you and say that you were thinking of Boris Karloff.

[42:55] That's true, and he won a Grammy for that.

[42:57] Yeah.

[42:58] And I apologize to everybody.

[43:00] I've been getting a lot of names wrong.

[43:01] Yeah.

[43:02] This one I got too.

[43:03] I need more sleep.

[43:04] You got to pull it together, dude.

[43:06] This turns into a flop prevention.

[43:10] You're making us look like shit.

[43:12] Sorry.

[43:13] Well, thank you for knowing the difference between Hans Conrad and Paul Henreid.

[43:16] Yeah.

[43:17] But Conrad Veidt is in that movie.

[43:19] Let's just move on.

[43:20] Yeah.

[43:21] Let's gloss over Elliot's shame.

[43:22] Wow.

[43:23] His glaring shortcomings.

[43:25] Sure.

[43:26] We're going to do, instead of our usual recommendations, because it is a new year, we're going to talk about our five favorite movies we saw that came out in the past year.

[43:37] And before we get into it, I just want to give the caveat that we're not professional critics, and so we have not seen, by any stretch, all of the major films that were released this year.

[43:49] Let alone the minor films.

[43:50] So these lists are basically worthless.

[43:53] Yeah.

[43:54] They're worth what we put into them.

[43:56] Yeah.

[43:57] Yeah.

[43:58] It's not a lot.

[43:59] They're a picture into our worlds.

[44:00] Yeah.

[44:01] Exactly.

[44:02] A window, if you will.

[44:03] Of the films that we did see.

[44:04] As sad or great as they might be.

[44:05] Which we liked.

[44:06] Does anyone want to step up to the streets?

[44:08] And be the first to...

[44:09] Wow.

[44:10] What a segue.

[44:11] And no.

[44:12] Conveniently, after this movie, I had to amend my list.

[44:15] Yeah.

[44:16] To add step up to the streets at it.

[44:17] Yeah.

[44:18] That's true.

[44:19] At number one.

[44:20] Wait.

[44:21] I'll go.

[44:22] Okay.

[44:23] I'll go first.

[44:24] You guys are looking at me.

[44:25] Yeah.

[44:26] As Dan said, I have not actually seen that many movies.

[44:27] So if there's something that I forget, don't slap your forehead and go, oh, God, he forgot that, because I probably just haven't seen it.

[44:33] These are in no particular order.

[44:36] So I put WALL-E on there, because it's great.

[44:40] Yeah.

[44:41] I don't think I have to explain why WALL-E is really good.

[44:44] I put THE DARK KNIGHT on there.

[44:46] DARK KNIGHT is really good.

[44:48] Once again.

[44:49] Well thought out.

[44:50] Descriptive.

[44:51] I mean, I don't...

[44:52] It's one of those things where I thought it was kind of a no brainer.

[44:54] Yeah.

[44:55] I didn't really have to go into...

[44:56] Sure.

[44:57] It was the most popular film of the year.

[44:58] Yeah.

[44:59] And the second highest grossing film ever.

[45:01] Now I'm getting into...

[45:02] It was the first highest grossing.

[45:03] SPIDER-MAN 3?

[45:04] It's still TITANIC.

[45:05] Really?

[45:06] Highest grossing.

[45:07] Yeah.

[45:08] That's a disappointment.

[45:09] That's disappointing.

[45:10] I want it to change every year.

[45:11] Yeah.

[45:12] So maybe we should do something about that.

[45:13] Let's go see DARK KNIGHT a million times.

[45:17] Well, that's past that, because it's a new year, right?

[45:21] Although it's being re-released in IMAX.

[45:24] No, I'm saying the total.

[45:25] The highest grossing...

[45:26] Oh, OK.

[45:27] Let's go see that shit in IMAX.

[45:28] Overall.

[45:29] If you really wanted to...

[45:30] It'll blow our minds.

[45:31] If you really wanted to roll up another $12 on that, you could.

[45:36] Or $12 million.

[45:38] Yeah, we're going to have to see it a million times.

[45:40] $12 million is not going to change that record.

[45:42] We're going to have to see it 20 million times each.

[45:44] OK.

[45:45] And that might not even do it.

[45:46] Jesus, I'm going to be busy.

[45:48] I don't know if I have enough time to do that.

[45:50] You better make time.

[45:51] OK.

[45:52] Do you care about this?

[45:53] Or maybe I could run out the entire IMAX movie theater a million times.

[45:57] That would be a time-saving measure.

[45:59] Yeah.

[46:00] Yeah, and it would also be fun because I could run around.

[46:02] It would be like a Toys R Us shopping spree.

[46:05] Yeah, like when Nickelodeon used to do that?

[46:07] Yeah, absolutely.

[46:08] OK, guys, stop interrupting.

[46:13] Now, actually, the next couple probably need a little bit of explanation.

[46:16] The next one is Funny Games, the remake of the German original.

[46:21] I mainly put that on there because I really enjoyed it.

[46:24] And because I watched a lot of movies this year like Them and The Strangers

[46:31] and a couple others that I thought were very similar,

[46:34] but Funny Games managed to accomplish like a creepiness

[46:38] and also a voyeurism feel that I think the others weren't really capable of.

[46:43] So Funny Games, great.

[46:45] I picked Let the Right One In, which has got a little bit of buzz nowadays.

[46:52] It's a great genre movie.

[46:54] And, you know, I just really love vampires, so I picked that one.

[46:58] And finally, I'll just say number one movie of the year for me was Pineapple Express.

[47:05] Maybe it's because I heart Seth Rogen or something,

[47:09] but it was goofy and action movie enough.

[47:14] Yeah, I just really liked it.

[47:16] I still haven't seen it yet.

[47:18] It's really good.

[47:19] It just came out on DVD today, and I haven't bought it yet.

[47:21] Oh, wait, I just dated our podcast.

[47:23] Yeah, when people listen to this in 20 years, they won't be able to get over that.

[47:27] We've been thinking about posterity a lot in this podcast.

[47:30] I know.

[47:31] So, yeah, I have a top five that is basically, I would say, a three-way tie for first

[47:39] and then a couple other movies I like.

[47:41] And so the other movies I liked were –

[47:44] Are you going backwards?

[47:46] Yes.

[47:47] You start at the bottom and work your way up.

[47:48] Oh, I didn't do that.

[47:49] Okay.

[47:50] Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I thought that that was a very –

[47:53] it did pretty well at the box office, but it was sort of overlooked, I felt like, at the time.

[47:58] It sort of felt like an also-ran comedy.

[48:01] I think people were kind of apatowed out.

[48:04] Yeah, but I think it's actually one of the better ones.

[48:07] There's certainly more penis in it.

[48:09] Sure.

[48:10] McCoy, stamp of approval.

[48:13] You've got to thank for doughy, tall guys' penises.

[48:17] Ease up, dude.

[48:19] He probably works out more than me.

[48:21] I can guarantee that.

[48:24] He's a doughy guy.

[48:25] He's also much more successful than me, so I think he'll take that.

[48:28] Okay.

[48:29] Burn After Reading, again, a film that I thought people sort of just dismissed,

[48:35] but I really laughed at that movie a lot.

[48:38] That, I think, will find its audience someday, but it hasn't yet.

[48:41] And then the three-way tie for first, WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and Rachel Getting Married.

[48:49] Not really surprising.

[48:51] All films have got a fair amount of critical acclaim.

[48:54] Obviously, two were blockbusters, but if you haven't seen Rachel Getting Married.

[48:57] Yeah, Rachel Getting Married is, what, like the second-highest-grossing movie of all time now?

[49:02] After Titanic?

[49:03] That's true, yeah.

[49:04] We're going to have to rent out an IMAX theater to get that over the top.

[49:07] 20 zillion IMAX theaters.

[49:09] Rosemary DeWitt is now America's biggest star.

[49:13] But I also just wanted to quickly run down, not saying anything about them,

[49:17] a bunch of sort of honorable mentions.

[49:19] Also rants.

[49:20] And that's Teeth, In Bruges, Be Kind, Rewind, The Signal, The Bank Job, Doomsday, Iron Man, Red Belt,

[49:31] Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Slumdog Millionaire, Quantum of Solace, and Milk.

[49:37] So you're just making a mockery of the entire idea of a top five list.

[49:41] I didn't say anything about that.

[49:42] No, it's just a list of movies you like as well.

[49:44] I would have made a much more extensive list then.

[49:47] Oh, he says the guy who has actually six in his top five, not to spoil anything.

[49:52] Yeah, that's true.

[49:53] I'm going to go from the top down.

[49:56] Starting with number one.

[49:58] Yeah, although these are not...

[49:59] Elliot has no conception of success.

[50:00] These are not really in any particular order per se.

[50:03] The ones at the bottom are really more the ones that are in a specific order, so that's

[50:06] what I want to get at.

[50:07] Okay.

[50:08] So 12 Hours.

[50:09] A couple of these are movies that I've mentioned on the podcast before.

[50:12] The Fall, which I watched more times than any other movie this year and really loved

[50:17] it, and I've talked about it in another podcast, so I won't go on about it again.

[50:21] Synecdoche, New York, which was one of the few movies I saw this year that really felt

[50:26] like it was a personal vision that was put on screen, and I thought there were some very

[50:31] funny moments in it and some very good scenes in it.

[50:33] And it was a movie where, when I left the theater, everyone else was depressed and I

[50:39] felt great, which is an awesome feeling.

[50:43] Then WALL-E, in no particular order, because as you guys implied, it's basically perfect.

[50:50] There's almost nothing you can complain about about WALL-E until the end credits roll and

[50:54] that Peter Gabriel song starts.

[50:56] And then it becomes the worst movie ever made, but until that moment, it's like 100%.

[51:02] And even the short that comes with it, which is called Presto, is fantastic, and it's such

[51:08] an improvement over Boundin', the short before The Incredibles, which is terrible.

[51:13] Wait, I didn't watch the short.

[51:16] Oh, the short Presto about the rabbit and the hat, it's really good.

[51:19] The thing about that Peter Gabriel credits sequence is that it made me think of the Aborigine

[51:26] children in Beyond Thunderdome, like the stories of them telling about Max the Wanderer.

[51:33] That makes sense, but Pixar seems to be the only people in Hollywood who know how to do

[51:38] solid story structure and characters develop through action instead of exposition.

[51:43] I wish they could hold a seminar for everyone in Hollywood to go to.

[51:46] Yeah, you would think, right?

[51:47] I would imagine in Hollywood, a bunch of dudes should be calling them and saying,

[51:51] hey, how do you actually make a movie?

[51:53] I don't know.

[51:54] And Disney, they made that thing like, Pixar is always successful.

[51:58] It must be because kids don't want to see 2D animation no more.

[52:01] And it's like, no, it's because they tell the best stories in the world.

[52:06] Disney was also run by the little rascals.

[52:10] It was the Bowery Boys.

[52:11] Hey, guys, we got to get more like Pixar.

[52:14] Oh, boy, some guys could live like this.

[52:18] Number four here, I have a tie between Milk and The Dark Knight.

[52:23] They were both...

[52:24] So similar.

[52:25] Well, they're both movies that were really well done and really well made and kind of

[52:30] embody this art, somewhat timeless, but also embody this kind of political moment in some

[52:35] ways.

[52:36] And they both have their flaws in structure and length, but they have one amazing performance

[52:43] that kind of ties them together.

[52:45] And Milk, there's two, actually.

[52:46] There's Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, who matures so believably throughout the film, and Josh

[52:52] Brolin as Dan White, which is an amazing performance.

[52:57] The way they handle him is so complicated and so rich when they could have very easily

[53:03] made him like a very cardboard, crazy guy bigot.

[53:07] And it's really, to the movie's credit, makes it a better movie.

[53:10] And The Dark Knight, of course, is Heath Ledger, who, when he died, people were like,

[53:13] he played the Joker and it made him crazy.

[53:15] And it was like, I don't think so.

[53:17] And then I saw his performance.

[53:18] I was like, yeah, that's exactly what happened, is he played the Joker and he went crazy and

[53:22] took drugs to go to sleep and died.

[53:24] It's just such a fantastic performance, and I like it a lot.

[53:29] And my fifth final one is Guy Madden's movie, My Winnipeg, which came out this year and

[53:33] is a very small scale movie, even for him, who makes movies in warehouses, basically.

[53:40] And it starts off being this kind of like almost like a John Hodgman movie, like the

[53:45] form of fact, but entirely made up with tiny bits of reality tied with like these made

[53:52] like these huge jokes and like bizarre situations.

[53:55] And it takes a strange turn into a very personal kind of attack on the NHL, which Guy Madden

[54:02] seems to see as responsible in some ways, symbolically at least, for the relegation

[54:08] of Winnipeg to like a boondock city and kind of the end of his father's career in hockey

[54:13] as the manager of the local Winnipeg Maroons.

[54:16] And it becomes it gets very emotional from that point.

[54:18] I like it a lot.

[54:19] So Guy Madden is accused a lot of too many levels of irony between himself and the work.

[54:25] And here, I think he you can't really accuse him of that.

[54:28] So those are my five and a half favorites, because I had six on there.

[54:32] Nice.

[54:33] All right.

[54:34] Well, we've all had a good laugh tonight.

[54:36] But every delightful episode of the Flophouse must sometime come to an end.

[54:42] Like now.

[54:43] Yeah.

[54:44] It abruptly cuts off.

[54:45] Yeah.

[54:46] So, yeah, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[54:52] I've been Dan McCoy.

[54:54] And I will always be Elliot Kaelin.

[54:55] Good night, fools.

[54:57] Thanks.

[54:58] You know, Charles A. Stutton with no hair, as he always never had.

[55:11] But that's that.

[55:12] But even that.

[55:13] What?

[55:14] But I still don't love aliens.

[55:15] He had no hair.

[55:16] I am also talking about things, you know, he got, you know, he got arrested for manslaughter.

[55:20] Well, that's where he he became an actor after he spent time in jail for manslaughter.

[55:23] I wonder what type of person he had to slaughter.

[55:26] Well, it sounded like it from what I've read of it.

[55:28] It sounds like he was it was like a drunk fight that went wrong and he accidentally

[55:32] killed some.

[55:33] I mean, that's why his manslaughter was an accident.

[55:35] And that's why he as punishment, he had to star in Mimic with Mira Sorvino, a Guillermo

[55:39] del Toro movie.

[55:40] Yeah.

[55:41] Actually, it's not as bad as I think.

[55:42] You know what?

[55:43] No, I think Guillermo del Toro had to direct it for community service for something.

The Flop House: Episode #29 - Step Up 2: The Streets

Transcript

Description