The Flop House: Episode Twelve - Awake

[0:00] In this episode of the Flophouse, we do our best to stay conscious while watching Awake.

[0:31] Good evening, or good morrow to you.

[0:35] This is the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:38] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:39] My name is Elliot Kalin.

[0:40] As you might be able to hear from your ears, or...

[0:47] Unless there are problems with you, you're hearing through something else.

[0:51] Or if for some reason you're listening to the podcast in reverse order and you're listening to the outtakes first,

[0:57] you probably know by now that we have extra microphones, so hopefully the podcast...

[1:04] Please keep your excitement to a minimum.

[1:06] Well, no, but you can actually hear things, unlike, say, last episode when you, Elliot, were completely inaudible.

[1:12] I heard about that, yeah.

[1:13] Oh, you don't listen to the show. I understand. That's fine.

[1:16] I rushed home to listen to my own voice, and then as soon as I heard that I wasn't audible, I stopped.

[1:23] You're making me feel kind of bad about listening to the podcast at work.

[1:27] Yeah, the thing is...

[1:29] I hope your boss makes you feel bad about that.

[1:32] So wait, are you guys saying that when you listen to it, you don't just put it on and listen to your friends talking about stuff,

[1:39] and you're like, oh, Dan and Elliot are in the room with me, yay!

[1:42] Also, I don't know if you're aware of this, Elliot, I'm not a segment producer on The Daily Show.

[1:47] I file things for a living, so I can pretty much do that while listening to a podcast.

[1:52] You're telling me you can sit for more than five minutes at a time at your desk without having to go do something.

[1:58] That's exactly what I'm saying.

[1:59] You're kind of a carte blanche when it comes to what you're allowed to listen to.

[2:02] Yeah, that is, I would say, the one perk of my job. Well, no, two perks.

[2:08] Listen, listen, it's not a perfect job, but I can't control your ears.

[2:12] You listen to whatever you want to listen to. I'm not the boss of your ears. I'm just the boss of you, McCoy.

[2:18] To sum up, if you work in an admissions office, you spend a lot of time opening the mail and putting that mail into Manila envelopes.

[2:27] To sum up, microphones.

[2:29] I was just going to say that you're slowly painting a picture of who Dan McCoy is.

[2:34] Like, I work in an admissions office. I have a cat. I like movies.

[2:40] There's a Harvey P. Carr element to this.

[2:42] Sure.

[2:44] Tell us about your trip to the bank the other day.

[2:46] You know what? Let's just cut out the whole movie element of this podcast.

[2:50] Now that we've got three microphones, I feel like we can get a lot more intimate with callers.

[2:54] Sure. With callers, I think I hear one coming.

[2:58] First time, long time.

[3:01] Dracula.

[3:02] I'm listening to your podcast right now. Can you hear me? No, we can't hear you.

[3:06] This was recorded. If you're calling in now, I don't know who you're talking to.

[3:09] Okay. Well, I guess I'll call in next time. Don't. It's going to be recorded again.

[3:13] Yeah. I don't even know how you know what this person is saying.

[3:17] I don't know.

[3:18] I apparently called a dummy number somewhere.

[3:20] That's actually a more exciting movie than the movie we just watched.

[3:26] Yeah. Wow. That's very true.

[3:28] We watched the movie Awake, starring Hayden Christensen.

[3:32] Can't make a bad film.

[3:33] Flophouse favorites.

[3:36] I have to say I just want to get – this might start controversy and get us off track.

[3:40] I don't have the same blind worship for Jessica Alba that many have it seems.

[3:44] I don't think she's all that attractive when it comes down to it.

[3:46] What about her acting ability?

[3:48] She's an amazing actress.

[3:50] No, I mean she's a Vanessa Redgrave type, can play anything.

[3:55] I don't have the blind worship that a lot of people seem to, but I have the same feeling.

[4:01] I have the same feeling.

[4:02] I think we discussed this with Jessica Biel before.

[4:04] Not a woman that personally I find attractive, but objectively I'm like that is an amazing body.

[4:11] See, Jessica Biel I do find attractive.

[4:13] Even with Alba, it's just I don't –

[4:15] It's not an issue of whether or not I find her really attractive or anything.

[4:19] It's that simply it's one more step along my goal to see literally every woman alive naked at some point in my life.

[4:26] That is a lofty ambition.

[4:30] I'm allowed to shoot high.

[4:32] How are you doing?

[4:33] I'm guessing you're doing infinitely poorly.

[4:37] That's the thing.

[4:38] That's only if you're counting people who died before he had the chance to start this quest.

[4:41] I guess it was every woman alive.

[4:43] You're never going to –

[4:44] It's not infinitely poor.

[4:45] I'm probably in the billions poorly though.

[4:47] The problem is I have to admit a lot of the ones I've seen naked are already dead.

[4:52] Wow, that's –

[4:53] It's kind of to blame.

[4:55] You're the voyeuristic grave digger.

[4:58] It's so much harder to keep this conversation on track when there are three microphones, isn't it, Dan?

[5:03] Editing this will be a nightmare now that you've instituted this three-microphone system.

[5:08] Seems so good.

[5:10] What a godsend.

[5:11] I'm so shocked that apparently Stuart's the heavy in a late-night Cinemax film.

[5:18] Like the guy from Kindergarten Cop and –

[5:22] Late-night Cinemax film is like Kindergarten Cop.

[5:25] No, I'm saying the bad guy in Kindergarten Cop who is the romantic lead in Two Moon Junction, the Zalman King movie.

[5:32] Oh, okay.

[5:33] So Awake, huh?

[5:35] Yes, Awake.

[5:36] Shouldn't you be keeping us on track, Dan?

[5:38] Do you want to do any summary or lead-in?

[5:40] Of what?

[5:41] Awake?

[5:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[5:43] I was trying to.

[5:44] I was saying that Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba starred in it, which –

[5:47] Chemistry.

[5:48] A lot of chemistry.

[5:50] Well, it was – the chemistry was just a little less powerful than like a baking soda and vinegar volcano.

[5:56] Sure, that's fair.

[5:57] But a little more powerful than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman in the Star Wars films.

[6:03] Yeah.

[6:05] Star Wars films?

[6:07] Oh, that's right.

[6:09] I forgot.

[6:10] You had that lobotomy.

[6:12] Yeah.

[6:13] Films?

[6:14] But do you want to go over what happens in this movie or should we just get into talking about the most passive protagonist in films?

[6:20] Well, I think that my introduction will sort of seg into that because –

[6:24] Segway into that.

[6:25] Oh, Jesus.

[6:27] Sedantic.

[6:28] All I'm saying – you said seg instead of segway.

[6:30] The last time I watched a movie, the guys, you said Lohan instead of Lohan.

[6:35] You have a way of pronouncing things all your own.

[6:37] Yeah.

[6:38] Well, anyway, let's keep moving.

[6:41] And I was going to say that the movie starts with – there's some very serious text up on the screen saying this many people get anesthesia every year, some large number.

[6:53] And out of those people who are anesthetized –

[6:56] Very nice.

[6:57] A smaller number of them have this horrible thing happen where they are awake in mind and they can feel the pain but they can't move.

[7:07] And this is apparently – I remember when this movie came out, what little attention there was about it focused on the fact that this is something that happens to people, although more rarely than the movie would suggest.

[7:20] And you remember since the movie came out, there's been a huge increase in attention paid to this problem.

[7:25] It's basically an issue film.

[7:27] This film was a flashpoint for social change.

[7:30] It's just like all those movies that are about like killer crocodiles or something.

[7:34] They open the movie with a text that's like every year, 10,000 people go into the bayou or hang out.

[7:42] 2,000 come back.

[7:44] 2,000 come back.

[7:45] A bunch never come back.

[7:47] After the John Sayles scripted alligator, the number of alligators that were flushed down the toilet went dramatically down because they were afraid that they would grow giants and Robert Forster would not be there to save them.

[8:00] I don't care for John Sayles.

[8:03] That's a conversation for another day.

[8:05] It is.

[8:06] Okay, yeah, it is.

[8:07] That's for when we watch Casa de los Babies on the flop house.

[8:11] It didn't do that well theatrically.

[8:14] Technically a flop.

[8:17] Silver City.

[8:19] But to go back to this movie, which apparently we have no interest in discussing.

[8:23] Well, this is of the times I've watched movies with you guys, which I think is two now.

[8:29] What about all the times we've watched movies for other reasons?

[8:32] No, yeah, but even when we've watched bad movies to make fun of them in the past, like this is the least paying attention I think we've ever been to.

[8:41] We just were not engaged in this film.

[8:43] It was boring from start to finish with small moments of weirdness.

[8:47] But for the most part, it was shot in a static way.

[8:50] It was acted in a static way.

[8:52] The music was static.

[8:53] The story was static in that the main character, if you don't mind me going into the plot a little bit.

[8:58] The main character is wealthy.

[9:00] His mother disagrees with his choice of bride.

[9:03] He goes in for a heart surgery because he has a weak heart, even though he's a young man.

[9:07] It turns out everyone in the world is conspiring to murder him.

[9:11] His mother sacrifices her life to save him, and he does basically nothing the entire movie except lie there and complain and does not help in any way or accomplish anything.

[9:22] What does he really have to live for?

[9:24] I mean, he doesn't have any friends.

[9:25] I mean, his best man is the doctor who tried to kill him, and so is his fucking wife.

[9:29] And the only other friend we see of his is very briefly a man dressed as Dracula at a costume party that he throws in his office.

[9:36] Who initially – in one of the deleted scenes, I think, recommends that they go out and look at strippers, which obviously paints him as a negative influence in his life.

[9:45] Right.

[9:46] Wait.

[9:47] Before I forget, this is something that we brought up while we were watching the movie.

[9:50] Directors out there, if you're making a movie that requires a scene with a lot of big exposition in it, please don't set that scene at a Halloween costume party.

[10:00] Because as we were watching this, Hayden Christensen is talking about the business he's doing with these Japanese business people,

[10:06] and it seems like it's important to the movie. It's not, but it seems like it is.

[10:10] And then a guy in a bear suit wanders by in the background, and Dracula is there.

[10:14] And you just can't help but pay more attention to the bear.

[10:17] It seems like maybe they watched that scene in Indiana Jones.

[10:21] A literal monster match.

[10:23] The director watched that scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where Spielberg was like,

[10:27] all right, I gotta do a lot of exposition about the Tuggy cult.

[10:31] I'll have this dinner scene, and exposition will happen, and then also there'll be a bunch of gags about crazy, gross food.

[10:38] But in that case, he went back and forth between the two, rather than having zany food being brought out.

[10:45] Rather than having two people having a very serious conversation,

[10:47] and then a monkey with the top of its head chopped off just walked by in the background,

[10:52] leading the audience to think, oh, what the hell, what is that all about?

[10:55] Why am I not looking at that?

[10:57] That monkey's gotta come back in a play.

[10:58] What's that story about that monkey?

[11:00] If I see a monkey with the top of its head cut off in Act 1, I know it's gonna go off in Act 3.

[11:05] Is that monkey under anesthesia? I wonder.

[11:08] It's crying, oh no!

[11:11] We're all getting too far ahead of ourselves, but the thing is, the thing about that anesthesia plot is,

[11:16] and we were discussing this, as my lovely wife pointed out, it has no bearing on anything.

[11:22] Yeah, it's completely unrelated to the rest of the film.

[11:24] It's one of the most interesting ideas in the movie, this idea of, like, it would be truly horrific if you were, you know,

[11:30] completely paralyzed, you could feel everything, but were going under the knife for, like, major heart surgery.

[11:36] However, that basically does not play into anything.

[11:40] There's only about six minutes of that in, what is it, an 81-minute film?

[11:43] Right, and he doesn't even seem to be going through that much pain.

[11:46] He immediately goes into that sort of Wesley and the Princess Bride thing,

[11:50] where he's like, I'm gonna put my brain in another happier place, and thus the pain will not affect me,

[11:55] and so you're not engaged at all.

[11:58] He seems really focused on astral projecting and running around like he's fucking Doctor Strange or something,

[12:04] trying to solve the mystery by going back in time.

[12:07] But that's the thing, while he basically just goes back into his memories and either relives them or mopes around,

[12:12] while he's dicking around in his subconscious, his mom is uncovering a murder ring and doing all sorts of exciting things.

[12:19] His subconscious dicking around, as you say, solves things for us, the audience,

[12:25] but it doesn't actually do anything to affect the action of the film.

[12:29] Basically, not to spoil anything, but Hayden Christensen is completely paralyzed for the movie,

[12:35] and then he dies temporarily.

[12:37] Meanwhile, his mom, Lena Olin, played by hot mom Lena Olin...

[12:42] Who we've been led to believe in the beginning is a monster, basically.

[12:46] Right.

[12:47] Doesn't want her son to talk to anybody, disapproves of his wife.

[12:49] I'm a momzilla.

[12:50] Yeah, exactly, thank you.

[12:53] But it's basically the mom of the Manchurian Candidate, like a monster.

[12:56] Yeah, but then we discover that she's just really passionate about her son.

[13:00] I think passionate is the right word, with some of the weird vibes you get from it.

[13:04] But she also turns into this super detective, and she puts everything together

[13:10] in time to kill herself so that her son can have her heart.

[13:14] So she solves everything and saves him while he's completely just lying on the table.

[13:20] He's literally the most passive protagonist in the movie ever.

[13:25] But Fisher Stevens goes to jail at the end.

[13:28] Yeah.

[13:28] Yeah, spoiler alert.

[13:30] Yeah, in case anyone was watching it just for Fisher Stevens' part.

[13:33] Probably just Fisher Stevens would watch that part.

[13:36] Well, Fisher Stevens is on Lost recently.

[13:40] Well, yeah, one episode.

[13:41] One episode.

[13:41] Well, the thing was they made a movie.

[13:43] Spoiler alert.

[13:43] Fisher Stevens, if you're watching that episode of Lost, you died.

[13:47] Sorry if you're behind on Lost, if you're watching it on DVD.

[13:49] But say how he died.

[13:51] I didn't say it was like the Stroke Monster or something.

[13:53] But it was funny, because there was a lot of press around Fisher Stevens being on Lost.

[13:56] True.

[13:57] I seem to have missed that.

[13:59] You haven't been reading Big Bopper or Teen Beat.

[14:02] This is talking to someone who spent a good amount of time today while I was working,

[14:06] looking at Rene Averge-Wanara, how do you pronounce his last name's webpage,

[14:10] and remembering that, oh, yeah, he did play Odo in Deep Space Nine.

[14:13] I forgot about that.

[14:14] I know him better from his work with Robert Altman.

[14:16] I forgot he was on Benson, you know.

[14:19] But they played up, oh, Fisher Stevens is going to be on Lost,

[14:22] as if everyone was supposed to be like, oh, big name, big name star,

[14:27] Fisher Stevens is going to be on Lost.

[14:29] And then everyone, you know, and then you're disappointed.

[14:32] You're disappointed that he dies in one episode.

[14:35] And, you know, granted.

[14:36] Oh, what a death.

[14:37] I was excited that Fisher Stevens was on Lost,

[14:39] but I think that's mainly because I remember him fondly as Ben from Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2.

[14:45] Wasn't he, I remember him as the bad guy in the movie Hackers.

[14:49] Yeah, he was that.

[14:50] He rides a skateboard, I think.

[14:52] Well, that was back when people didn't know a lot about Hackers.

[14:56] Unlike nowadays.

[14:58] They're really trying to sell us on the whole cyberpunk concept.

[15:02] Like, I bet these people who are really good at computers are going to be really cool, too.

[15:06] They do a lot of extreme sports.

[15:08] I watched Live Free Die Hard recently.

[15:13] Yeah, I still haven't seen that.

[15:14] There's a lot of hackers in that, so be prepared.

[15:20] Okay, consider everybody warned.

[15:24] But unlike in Short Circuit, Fisher Stevens was not playing an Indian man.

[15:28] A likably caricatured Indian man.

[15:30] Yeah, his head's getting bigger.

[15:32] And his neck's getting smaller.

[15:33] It's strange.

[15:34] He's like a turtle who's had his shell removed.

[15:37] That's pretty much Fisher Stevens out in a nutshell, but out of a shell.

[15:40] He's got a weird haircut, too.

[15:41] If there's a movie where they need to cast someone who's a turtle,

[15:44] like that's on the casting breakdown, turtle with shell removed.

[15:47] Like, if there's a Ninja Turtles movie where there's an old turtle whose shell has fallen apart over the years,

[15:52] Fisher Stevens is the guy to cast in that role.

[15:54] So, Fisher Stevens, if you're listening, and I know you are.

[15:58] Patchwork shell? Like, what the fuck?

[16:00] Is it like a Ninja Turtle hobo character?

[16:03] He's hundreds of years old. Turtles live a long time.

[16:07] Now, the thing is, both Fisher Stevens and that character actor that played the anesthesiologist.

[16:14] Christopher McDonald.

[16:15] Yeah, the two of those guys have such iconic hairdos.

[16:18] Like, do you think that they've been going to the same barber for, like, years?

[16:23] Like, I'm talking about fucking years.

[16:25] Just to keep that, like, iconic.

[16:27] No, I mean, they might just have a photo that they bring to the barber and, like, make it look like this.

[16:31] Which is what many people do.

[16:32] Don't you think they already have that photo, like, posted on the wall that's, like, signed?

[16:36] Yeah.

[16:37] Make it look like my autographed hedgehog.

[16:39] So, when people go to that, like, salon, they're like,

[16:42] Oh, shit, Fisher Stevens? Really?

[16:44] Can I get that?

[16:46] No, no, that's only for Mr. Stevens.

[16:48] No, no.

[16:49] Hey, Gino, how's it going?

[16:51] I'm Fisher!

[16:53] We gotta get a chair!

[16:55] I don't know that they're, I don't, I'm not, I mean, I guess that they're

[16:58] Those do an Italian barber, I see.

[17:00] I haven't actually encountered an Italian barber outside of, like, a gangster film.

[17:06] I have to say, I've had one Italian barber, this, and, uh, but I, you're right,

[17:10] most of the barbers I've had have been Greek, or my current one is Russian, who hires Israelis.

[17:14] Yeah, I would say that, I mean, in New York, at least.

[17:16] I will not get my hair cut by a native-born American.

[17:18] They don't do as good a job.

[17:19] This is, this is a fascinating topic related to the movie Awake.

[17:24] An archaeological study of barbers in New York City.

[17:28] I, uh, I cut my own hair, guys.

[17:30] Well, it looks fantastic.

[17:32] Thanks.

[17:33] I wish that this was a video podcast.

[17:35] So we could see the hair, yeah.

[17:36] Just how good it looks.

[17:37] That's weird.

[17:38] But, yeah, Awake.

[17:39] Let's talk about the length of this movie.

[17:40] This movie was 80 minutes long.

[17:42] And felt padded at that.

[17:44] Yeah.

[17:45] As, uh, they don't get into the action until, like, what, 40 minutes in?

[17:49] Yeah.

[17:50] He doesn't go under the knife until, yeah, like 40, 45 minutes into the movie.

[17:53] They do a lot of setting up, uh, how Hayden Christensen's company works, which is forgotten

[18:05] as soon as he gets to the hospital.

[18:07] Right.

[18:08] There's really no reason for us to know.

[18:09] There's, what, isn't there, there's a moment where the TV mentions something about mobsters,

[18:13] right, or something like that?

[18:14] Yeah, there's a lot of red herrings.

[18:15] Well, as my friends, uh, Matt and Jeff, uh, say, this was a handsome length for a movie.

[18:21] Like, as I get older, I find that I've got a little less attention span for movies, and

[18:25] I appreciate, I appreciate older movies, for instance.

[18:27] A lot of older movies, 80 minutes long.

[18:30] You know, a lot of the universal horror films.

[18:32] Yeah.

[18:33] Less than 90 minutes.

[18:34] An hour, maybe, even.

[18:35] And I appreciate that brevity.

[18:37] This film spent a half an hour setting up the idea that, one, Hayden Christensen is

[18:42] rich.

[18:43] Two, he's gonna marry Jessica Alba, but he's keeping that from his mom.

[18:47] And, uh, three, he has a heart problem, and he's gonna go under the knife for it.

[18:50] Now, a talented screenwriter would be able to get all this information out within the

[18:53] first scene of the film, I feel like.

[18:55] Right.

[18:56] Yeah.

[18:57] Pan from heart pills on bedside table.

[18:59] Pan to Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba in bed.

[19:02] Uh, maybe one is hugging the other one, and...

[19:05] She reaches over and turns down a picture of his mom.

[19:08] Or, like, that's pretty economicalized.

[19:10] I was thinking more like, they wake up and they kiss.

[19:12] Hey, how's it going?

[19:13] Only three more weeks until we're married.

[19:15] Eh, oh no, that's my mom.

[19:17] You gotta get out of here.

[19:18] She doesn't approve of our relationship.

[19:20] Then you have a little bit of comedy as she leaves through the fire escape.

[19:23] Exactly.

[19:24] Then get him to the hospital.

[19:25] Right.

[19:26] Done.

[19:27] Maybe tripping over a penguin.

[19:28] Done.

[19:29] Let's rewrite the script.

[19:30] It felt like this was a movie...

[19:31] Let's rewrite it into a 30-minute episode of Tales from the Internet.

[19:33] I feel like, if we digitized this movie, we could probably edit it down right now to 22

[19:39] minutes with commercial breaks.

[19:40] A tight 22.

[19:42] A tight 22.

[19:43] This could easily, like, it felt like a throwback to an era of half-hour anthology television

[19:47] shows.

[19:48] But they went, oh, this – like someone dusted off – we were talking about it felt like

[19:52] an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode.

[19:53] I think it was like – it was cribbed from that, right?

[19:56] Yeah.

[19:57] And then they're like, hey, let's take three murder mysteries and –

[20:00] Just smash it in here as well.

[20:01] It was like an old man, an old TV writer, like Richard Matheson had this script lying

[20:06] around his home and blew some dust off it and went, oh, I meant this for Rod, Rod Serling

[20:11] of course.

[20:12] Rod Serling of course.

[20:13] You know what, I could probably bump this up into a feature if I throw some murder mystery

[20:16] in there.

[20:17] Then I'll write another book.

[20:19] It was the classic paralyzed guy can't tell people, you know, what's going on concept.

[20:25] But then also there's a whole subplot, very small subplot, but significant ultimately

[20:31] about his father who had died, but he couldn't remember much about him except for like he

[20:35] died on Christmas.

[20:36] He'd fallen down off the stairs wearing like a Santa Claus suit and in the end it turns

[20:41] out that his mom had killed him, but because he was an abusive husband and father.

[20:47] And again, the Santa Claus like murder element feels like another Alfred Hitchcock presents

[20:51] that they just like, they took 75% of one script and 25% of another and put them together.

[20:57] And I mean, having recently rewatched Silent Night, Deadly Night, which is also a movie

[21:01] about an abusive person dressed up in a Santa Claus outfit.

[21:04] A better movie, frankly.

[21:05] Yes.

[21:06] At least in that movie, the guy grows up to be a crazy murdering Santa Claus instead of

[21:12] a crazy boring heart problem having guy.

[21:15] I got to say that costume party was the, which was probably a whim on the part of the screen

[21:21] or other set to see the costume party.

[21:22] The moment you see Hayden Christensen dressed as an admiral or as some sort of a soldier.

[21:28] I thought he was a Jedi.

[21:30] He's wearing a dress uniform with a, or maybe he's a Marine actually, and a ton of medals.

[21:34] You're like, this movie just got a little bit more interesting.

[21:36] Oh, it's a Halloween costume.

[21:38] Nevermind.

[21:39] Like the fact that the one Halloween costume he wears has more plot potential than most

[21:43] of the film.

[21:44] I think we should institute, by the way, something on the flop house called like the quirk alert

[21:50] because I think often...

[21:51] Okay, it's a good name.

[21:53] Do you have anything to back it up?

[21:54] Is there a sound effect?

[21:55] It has to be something like, boing, boing, boing, or something like that.

[21:58] Excellent.

[21:59] I'll work on it.

[22:00] But the quirk, I mean, we've talked about it in a lot of previous episodes.

[22:03] So we're going to be watching Juno is what you're saying.

[22:05] No, I'm saying that often in these...

[22:08] I can read the tears.

[22:12] Aye, aye, aye, aye.

[22:14] Often in these movies, we call out something that clearly the screenwriter threw in.

[22:19] It's like, hmm, something interesting, some sort of interesting character trait or something

[22:23] wacky needs to be a part of this film.

[22:26] And in this movie, Hayden Christensen and Terrence Howard, what they do together is

[22:30] they fish in the East River.

[22:32] They go fishing in the East River together.

[22:35] Terrence Howard was also an amateur photographer.

[22:37] So he had a lot of hobbies, this doctor.

[22:40] Well, it's cool.

[22:41] He barely has time for all his doctoring.

[22:44] I wonder if...

[22:45] Oh, and that's the other thing.

[22:46] He goes to the hospital.

[22:48] The choices of doctor for his heart surgery are his best friend and best man at the wedding,

[22:53] another doctor he knows well, and his mom's semi-boyfriend, I guess, who's a famous doctor

[22:58] who says, and this is the best line in the entire movie, I've had my hands inside presidents.

[23:03] Or my hands have been inside...

[23:05] But like, what hospital lets someone be...

[23:07] Let's have a surgeon who knows the patient well working on them.

[23:10] It doesn't make sense.

[23:11] Yeah.

[23:12] I don't actually know.

[23:14] Hospital procedure.

[23:15] I'm going to assume you're right, though.

[23:16] Well, we don't realize...

[23:17] I'm pretty sure.

[23:18] He's a philanthropist.

[23:19] He built a hospital inside his house.

[23:22] So that's why they all know him.

[23:24] That makes more sense.

[23:25] That makes a lot of sense.

[23:27] The thing, as far as the fishing in the East River, it totally felt when I was watching

[23:31] that the screenwriter-director, Joby something or other...

[23:37] I think he was like, fuck.

[23:39] I don't know how to set the scene.

[23:41] What do I do?

[23:42] And then he's like, ring, ring, ring.

[23:43] Oh, who's that on the phone?

[23:44] Nicholas Cage?

[23:46] Hey, Nicholas Cage.

[23:48] What should I have these characters do?

[23:50] No, they can't eat Skittles and talk about the Carpenters.

[23:54] Fish in the East River?

[23:56] Absolutely.

[23:57] Hot dog.

[23:58] Talk to you later, buddy.

[23:59] Yeah, yeah, we'll go to Buffalo Wild Wings later.

[24:02] Okay, peace.

[24:03] That's what it felt like.

[24:04] I just imagined that scene.

[24:06] That's the scene of the life of Joby, what's his name, and Nicholas Cage, script doctor.

[24:16] Nicholas Cage is full of great ideas for character traits that are totally unrelated to the character

[24:21] or action of the film.

[24:23] So I feel like we don't have a lot of juice to talk about this movie.

[24:27] But I do want to, before we start winding down, another thing that was kind of odd about

[24:32] this movie is one of these movies where while the guy is dying or comatose or whatever,

[24:38] he does, as you say, he has his out-of-body experiences, and he wanders around,

[24:42] and he then has conversations, say, with his mom who has killed herself.

[24:50] So that he may live.

[24:51] Yeah, and at the end, they're losing him.

[24:54] He doesn't want to come back because he's talking to his mom.

[24:57] And then once they finish that conversation, he can come back.

[25:02] I'm sorry.

[25:03] You having heart problems?

[25:04] Getting choked up.

[25:05] Getting choked up.

[25:06] It's a sad scene.

[25:07] Suddenly the movie hit him.

[25:08] He could relate.

[25:09] Wait, I get it now.

[25:10] It was beautiful.

[25:12] But no, once he decides to live again, obviously then the heart monitor starts up again.

[25:17] And that always pisses me off in movies because that's not the way life works.

[25:22] Oh, my God, he's doing it.

[25:24] He's made the decision to live in this metaphysical conversation he may or may not be having.

[25:30] Now his heart starts beating again.

[25:32] My least favorite one of those is also from another Hayden Christensen movie,

[25:36] Star Wars Episode III, in which a robot, a thing without emotions that can only see

[25:43] because it should only be able to understand facts, says as what's her name?

[25:47] Luke and Leia's mom.

[25:48] Padme.

[25:49] Padme, thank you.

[25:50] I forgot her made-up bullshit name that George Lucas came up with.

[25:53] I like the real name of Luke and Leia.

[25:56] Those are real names.

[25:57] Skywalker.

[25:59] And that's pretty dumb.

[26:01] You want to hide the most evil man in the universe's sun,

[26:05] but you don't bother to change his last name from Skywalker.

[26:08] That's illegal in the future.

[26:10] Skywalker must be like Smith.

[26:13] But Luke and Leia's mother delivers the babies and then dies,

[26:16] and the robot says it's as if she lost the will to live.

[26:21] Really?

[26:22] Nurse Medi-Robot?

[26:23] Is that your professional opinion, that she willed herself into dying?

[26:27] Look, they understand medicine better in the past with their midichlorians and such.

[26:33] Yes.

[26:34] But this was kind of like that where it's like...

[26:36] Gay robots.

[26:38] The message seems to be like,

[26:40] Listen, dead people, you should have tried harder or else you'd still be alive.

[26:44] Burn.

[26:45] It's really weird.

[26:46] Now, if in the future Hayden Christensen's character in Awake,

[26:51] like later on, okay, this is years down the road, Jessica Alba's in prison.

[26:56] Later on he joins the New Republic.

[26:58] He starts fabricating stories.

[27:00] No.

[27:01] That was actually an okay movie.

[27:03] That's the best Hayden Christensen film.

[27:05] Maybe he falls in love with a new girl.

[27:07] He has his mom's heart.

[27:09] Does that make it a lesbian romance?

[27:11] Dan, answer me.

[27:13] Wow.

[27:14] If I'm forced to imagine Hayden Christensen having sex with a woman

[27:17] and Lena Olin having sex with a woman,

[27:19] I will go with a lesbian romance.

[27:21] I like the idea more that he has his mom's heart in him now,

[27:24] so out of nowhere he starts drinking a lot of martinis,

[27:27] smoking Virginia Slims, wearing Supportos.

[27:29] That would be awesome.

[27:30] He has a lot of hot flashes.

[27:31] He doesn't know what's going on.

[27:33] Reading Red Book all the time.

[27:36] Ever since I got my mom's heart,

[27:38] I've been so much more interested in watching Lifetime.

[27:40] I don't understand.

[27:41] He acts like weirdly possessed, maybe talks with a slight weird accent.

[27:45] Where the heck is she from, dude?

[27:47] I like your understanding, Elliot, of what middle-aged women do.

[27:50] They read Red Book and they have hot flashes and they smoke Virginia Slims.

[27:54] That's what they do.

[27:55] Maybe she tapes Guiding Light, something like that, and watches it.

[27:59] Falls asleep watching TV.

[28:02] Oh wait, that's my mom.

[28:05] Drunk in the recliner.

[28:07] That's my mom.

[28:09] Okay.

[28:11] So awkward.

[28:13] My mom's listening.

[28:15] So, Awake.

[28:17] It was pretty good.

[28:18] It was pretty scary.

[28:20] He's talking about how terrible and boring it is,

[28:22] and then you're like, so Awake, thumbs up.

[28:25] Ten out of ten.

[28:27] I don't like that you throw the word masterpiece around a lot.

[28:31] It's what earns it.

[28:33] We haven't done this in a while because, you know,

[28:35] last week we had our awards floptacular.

[28:38] Not last week, but the last full show.

[28:41] And then before that, Good Luck Chuck,

[28:44] which was so bad that we totally discarded the idea of rating it.

[28:48] Sure.

[28:49] But now we've returned to the patented flophouse of ratings.

[28:52] By the way, I will say, having listened to the podcast for Good Luck Chuck,

[28:56] and you were talking about how strangely explicit the sex scenes were,

[29:00] I said, surely they weren't that bad.

[29:02] And we did the trouble of looking on the Internet for research photos of these scenes.

[29:06] They were really surprising in the amount of explicit quality that was in that film.

[29:11] Yeah.

[29:12] So you guys were right.

[29:13] So, you know.

[29:15] Hear that?

[29:16] Hear that?

[29:17] If for some reason you want to see Dane Cook having sex with a bunch of women.

[29:22] I was blind for seven minutes after I saw those pictures.

[29:25] Good luck, Chuck, on the Internet because that has everything.

[29:30] Like podcasts such as popular bad movie podcasts or unpopular ones.

[29:38] But to get on to our final judgment on Awake.

[29:43] So would you say that this is a movie that you didn't like at all,

[29:46] a movie that you thought was a good movie as a bad movie,

[29:50] or a movie that you actually kind of liked a bit?

[29:53] So I'm going to go to Elliot with this question because he's currently rubbing his nose.

[30:00] Now that I'm blowing my nose, it's the best time to talk.

[30:04] I will say that I guess it's so much of a non-movie

[30:07] that it almost falls outside of the normal rating system.

[30:11] I didn't enjoy it at all,

[30:12] but it almost wasn't bad enough to raise my ire.

[30:16] You know, if I was eating,

[30:17] it's like if I'm sitting down and eating Cheerios

[30:20] as a snack, it's like, all right.

[30:22] I mean, this is not really particularly that delicious,

[30:24] but yeah, it's not like it tastes terrible.

[30:29] It's like eating cardboard.

[30:30] So, you know, this is like watching a cardboard movie.

[30:33] Yeah, what do you think?

[30:35] Yeah, that's a pretty good summary.

[30:36] Like, I didn't like it

[30:37] and I don't want other people to watch it,

[30:41] but it's not to the point that I'm like,

[30:43] like I'm mad and I want to punch them in the eyes

[30:45] so they can't watch the movie, you know?

[30:47] Wait, you would take that anger out

[30:48] on the person watching the movie, not on the filmmaker.

[30:51] That's the thing, like, I can't do it.

[30:52] I can't stop them.

[30:53] They've already made the movie,

[30:55] but I can't stop people from watching it.

[30:57] Yeah, we are in perfect agreement

[31:00] about the non-qualities of this film

[31:02] because I don't think it's a bad enough,

[31:05] like it's nowhere near funny in its badness.

[31:08] Can I just restate this?

[31:09] I mean, I don't know how objective we are right now,

[31:13] but arguably this podcast is either,

[31:15] A, longer than the movie

[31:17] or B, significantly more interesting.

[31:19] There's been more twists in this fucking podcast

[31:21] than there were in the fucking movie.

[31:23] Yeah, I got, you know, one thing I will say,

[31:25] I mean, there's a good movie in there somewhere.

[31:28] Find the silver lining.

[31:29] Like when Lena Olin discovers what the plot was,

[31:32] I have to say, you know, I turned to you guys

[31:34] and I was like, you know what?

[31:35] The clues that she's putting together

[31:37] were scattered through the movie.

[31:39] They weren't like obvious.

[31:40] There's no point at which I'm like,

[31:41] that's gonna become significant later, but then-

[31:44] The clues were well hidden and-

[31:46] And they made sense.

[31:47] Yeah, you did say that.

[31:47] And they made sense, but the thing is almost like

[31:49] to the point of, oh, yeah, those were clues, huh?

[31:52] Well, there was no moment of like,

[31:54] of course, I didn't even notice.

[31:56] It was like, oh, yeah, clues.

[31:58] What are you gonna do?

[31:59] Yeah.

[32:00] I guess it happens.

[32:03] She was trying to kill him, huh?

[32:05] But there's like, for a movie with a double twist,

[32:08] this is, but it was almost like-

[32:10] Yeah, it did not raise the blood pressure at any point.

[32:13] But also the idea of a woman killing herself

[32:15] so her son who shares her rare blood type

[32:18] can receive a heart transplant is,

[32:20] after she sheltered him to a certain extent his whole life,

[32:23] is an interesting one.

[32:25] Like, even considering how super melodramatic that is.

[32:28] But like, even that kind of came off as,

[32:30] there's something about woman kills self

[32:32] so son can have heart that should be like, what?

[32:35] That is like, either that's really dramatic

[32:37] or that's insane.

[32:39] But here it's like, hmm, yeah.

[32:40] Yeah, that's what I would do in that situation.

[32:43] That's the rational solution.

[32:45] My favorite bit is nobody at no point addresses

[32:47] that she did that.

[32:48] Like, the doctor who looks like Ben Kingsley's

[32:50] weird low-rent brother shows up and he's like,

[32:53] oh, I guess she's dead.

[32:54] Prep the surgery room.

[32:56] Yeah, no one puts two and two together.

[32:57] They're not like, oh my God, she died to kill herself.

[33:00] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[33:01] I fucked that one up.

[33:02] She died to save her son.

[33:04] Well, apparently he puts two and two together

[33:06] enough that immediately, immediately after realizing

[33:10] that she's beyond resuscitation, he's like,

[33:13] well, better get this heart out and put it in the other guy.

[33:15] Because I'll tell you, because that's a good doctor.

[33:17] His hands have been inside the president's.

[33:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah, next surgeon general.

[33:20] The next surgeon general, he says at one point.

[33:22] I want my surgeon general to be able to read those signs.

[33:24] It felt like that kind of stuff should have been exciting,

[33:28] but I can imagine the director doing 20, 25 takes

[33:31] to bleed the energy out of these actors

[33:33] and like, prep the surgery.

[33:35] We've only got so much time.

[33:36] Whoa, whoa, get Ben's brother.

[33:38] Take it down a notch.

[33:39] Take it down a couple notches.

[33:41] It was like if like Antonioni had made

[33:44] a medical thriller for television, you know?

[33:47] We're not getting the ennui out of this murder situation.

[33:50] I said during the movie that I-

[33:51] It was pretty damn classy of me to mention Antonioni.

[33:53] Yeah, good job, dude.

[33:54] I mean, I read a book.

[33:55] Raised the tenor of this podcast significantly.

[33:58] Yes.

[33:59] But I would have liked it, I think I said during,

[34:01] if Lena Olin had figured out what was going on

[34:04] and then decided to kill Jessica Alba and steal her heart.

[34:07] That would have been awesome.

[34:08] That would have been exciting.

[34:09] Or if she killed herself just enough to turn into a ghost

[34:13] to talk to Hayden Christensen to find out the plan

[34:16] and then come back to do that.

[34:17] Came back.

[34:19] You need to bring me back from the dead in five minutes.

[34:22] That basically happens in The Frighteners, doesn't it?

[34:24] Yeah.

[34:25] Okay, what I'm trying to say is

[34:26] I'd rather watch The Frighteners.

[34:28] Yeah, well, that's the sentiment I think we can all agree with.

[34:32] Peter Jackson's best movie.

[34:33] Jake Beasley.

[34:34] She used her power cosmic to commune

[34:39] with Hayden Christensen's ghost

[34:40] and teach him how to kill Jessica Alba.

[34:42] If there was a fucking like medicine man or something.

[34:47] There were doctors in the film.

[34:49] Technically those are medicine men.

[34:50] No, but I mean.

[34:51] The men of medicine.

[34:52] But you mean like a shaman or something.

[34:54] Yeah, I was playing cranium this weekend.

[35:00] And it was.

[35:01] I like where this story's going.

[35:02] The question was like something like

[35:04] Native American god or something.

[35:06] And I'm looking at like the, you know,

[35:08] it's like fill in the blanks or some shit.

[35:10] And I'm like, wait, does that say great spirit?

[35:13] That's really a god, like that's really stupid sounding.

[35:15] But apparently I was right.

[35:16] So it was great spirit.

[35:18] So medicine men, great spirit.

[35:20] It was just a really weird situation.

[35:22] And okay.

[35:23] Medicine man starring Sean Connery and Lorraine Brackett.

[35:25] Not a weird situation.

[35:27] I discovered the cure for cancer and then I lost it.

[35:31] That's the best line in a commercial ever.

[35:33] It's in the trailer.

[35:34] And then in the trailer.

[35:35] It's in the Amazon somewhere.

[35:36] The best thing was.

[35:36] Hold on.

[35:37] Like you lose your keys.

[35:39] And it's like.

[35:39] He says this as if it's a perfectly fine explanation

[35:42] for how it happened.

[35:43] That's the best movie about finding the cure for cancer

[35:46] that also involves swinging around from trees.

[35:50] I think you could just say best movie

[35:51] about finding a cure for cancer.

[35:53] I wonder when they pitched that movie

[35:54] if they're like poster has Sean Connery

[35:57] with a ponytail and his shirt's open.

[35:59] Enough said.

[36:00] 100 mil of the big weekend.

[36:03] I remember very well as a fifth grader at school,

[36:06] my teacher coming in one day and saying,

[36:08] saw medicine man this weekend.

[36:10] It was very disappointing.

[36:11] If they'd focused on the Amazonian tribes more

[36:14] and less on the plot,

[36:15] it would have been a better movie.

[36:17] And as a kid saying,

[36:18] how did, why did you expect them to make a movie

[36:20] about Amazonian tribes?

[36:21] I wanna commend it though for a brave,

[36:25] taking a brave anti-deforestation pro-curing cancer stance.

[36:30] Not a lot of movies are willing to go off on that ledge.

[36:33] Yeah.

[36:33] It's a tough call.

[36:34] Oh man.

[36:35] Let's talk about.

[36:37] Someone mentioned an anti-war movie once to me.

[36:40] I forget which one it was.

[36:41] And they were like, wow.

[36:43] And it was like, really?

[36:44] They took that brave stance.

[36:45] Like the person was really in all of this anti-war film.

[36:47] They were like, hmm, they came out against war.

[36:49] Okay, well.

[36:50] It's like a sappy rock song

[36:53] about why you shouldn't beat up your wife.

[36:55] How it's bad.

[36:56] Like no shit, really?

[36:58] Thanks, third eye blind or I don't know.

[37:01] Nickelback, Nickelback.

[37:03] I think that's a better band.

[37:04] I believe it's the same band with different names.

[37:07] It's like Chris Gaines and Garth Brooks.

[37:09] Matchbox 20.

[37:11] That's a band, right?

[37:12] Yeah.

[37:13] It is, Dane.

[37:14] Good job.

[37:15] All right.

[37:15] You're confused about a band

[37:16] that's been around for about 13 years.

[37:18] Let me check the internet.

[37:21] I'm just getting ready for being an old man.

[37:23] I think you're there.

[37:25] I think you've gotten ready.

[37:26] There's someone.

[37:27] I stopped by your house once

[37:28] when I was walking in the neighborhood.

[37:29] It was about three o'clock on a Sunday

[37:31] and you were in your pajamas.

[37:34] I don't know if that's old man stuff.

[37:36] I mean like a responsible adult

[37:39] who would have been up since 6 a.m.

[37:40] accomplishing many things.

[37:42] Whereas I was busy putting CDs on my iPod.

[37:46] I'm watching Medicine Man.

[37:50] This is the best work after Zardoz.

[37:54] What about the Avengers?

[37:55] The Avengers, he does good work in also

[37:57] and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[37:59] Sure.

[38:00] Yep.

[38:01] Those are all bad movies.

[38:02] With Sean Connery in them.

[38:04] We're good at listing bad Sean Connery films.

[38:07] Entrapment.

[38:08] Entrapment.

[38:09] Entrapment's one of the few movies

[38:11] that was sold on the,

[38:12] that are implying in the commercials,

[38:14] you'll get to see Catherine Zeta-Jones' butt

[38:16] with pants on.

[38:20] It was sold on one shot of her butt.

[38:22] I don't think they were implying that.

[38:23] I think they were expressly saying it.

[38:25] It was never implied like,

[38:26] she might get naked in this movie.

[38:27] It was just, look at this.

[38:29] See what you can see in the movie again, but bigger.

[38:32] She's gonna be sneaking under a laser.

[38:35] Wish she'd be sneaking under your laser, son.

[38:38] Hey, buddy.

[38:40] Hey, that was a successful ad campaign.

[38:42] It was a very successful ad campaign.

[38:45] Entrapment, that's police talk.

[38:47] You should have said blackmail.

[38:48] No, entrapment is a term people use all the time.

[38:51] You're gonna get sued by whoever

[38:53] writes those Sean Connery movies.

[38:57] All right, come on.

[38:58] Let's talk about good movies.

[39:00] Movies that we want to recommend.

[39:02] Does anyone want to volunteer

[39:03] to talk about a good movie first?

[39:05] I've got a couple this week, actually.

[39:07] Maybe you should go first then, I don't know.

[39:09] Well, one movie I saw,

[39:11] and this was at the recommendation,

[39:12] I'll give a shout out.

[39:14] This was a recommendation of Matt Bird.

[39:17] He was talking about how he discovered,

[39:20] he discovered that he,

[39:23] Stuart and Matt often spar about movies.

[39:26] They don't have the same tastes.

[39:28] I like it when you say,

[39:28] if you describe it as them sparring,

[39:30] I imagine at some point that's the phrase,

[39:32] Avast ye, said during the.

[39:34] I think you would enjoy this movie, Stuart.

[39:37] He discovered that they have the Fox Movie Channel.

[39:40] That's a good channel.

[39:41] Which is something that I had known for some time,

[39:43] but he was talking about.

[39:44] That's a channel where you can say in the afternoon,

[39:46] you know what?

[39:47] I would like to see The Ghost and Mrs. Muir again.

[39:49] And then Porky's Revenge.

[39:51] Oh, they're back to back?

[39:52] This is great.

[39:54] And Porky's Revenge is also back to back

[39:56] with Porky's Two the next day.

[39:58] That's the other side.

[39:59] If you want to see two Porky's.

[40:00] was in a row and then porky's to the next is a direct with all quiet on the

[40:03] western fronts because it was like oh this is a great movie from the thirties

[40:06] twelve

[40:07] okay one eighty-two just one of the guys is up next

[40:11] uh... this

[40:13] through enough but i was watching a he recommended uh... the laughing policeman

[40:17] starring walter mathau

[40:19] uh... you know what's math out known mainly for comedy but during the

[40:22] seventies people are like what's the water math outs

[40:25] some thrillers

[40:26] and you know he made some great thrillers the taking a pound one two

[40:29] three which i have a stick movies

[40:31] that's a reviewer one of the one of

[40:33] the best most awesomest movies uh...

[40:35] i can't what's the other one the one where he was uh... we got a thief i

[40:39] how are you think charlie barack charlie barack and i was a which is and not as

[40:42] good as still pretty good still very nicely that's the one where

[40:45] he's like catnip to women

[40:47] women can't get enough of all for math and charlie barack and it's so weird

[40:51] because he doesn't do anything different he's the same guy

[40:54] the women love him

[40:55] uh... he's in the long period of time

[40:58] the laughing policeman is is a movie i've never seen that i've wanted to say

[41:01] that's very good it's not as good

[41:03] i think is either of those two movies

[41:06] it's still very good in the fight it like it's him and it's bruce durden

[41:10] you know for those who is really

[41:11] when but in the nineteen seventies with a delay

[41:14] it's not a thriller let's make the two leads at walter mathau and bruce durden

[41:19] except the seventies would they make a movie and say let's make the two leads

[41:22] at walter mathau and bruce durden this was an era when elliott gould could open a movie

[41:26] successfully

[41:28] yeah and it's so good i mean

[41:29] you know and it's uh... the director is the guy who did uh... cool hand luke

[41:33] and it's it's long on atmosphere

[41:36] and long on sort of uh...

[41:38] the mundane police procedural stuff

[41:41] but it's also

[41:42] the most nineteen seventies movie you can imagine it's got lewis gossett junior

[41:46] every scene starts with him holding up a newspaper

[41:49] and saying look at that date

[41:52] december fourteen nineteen seventy-two aside from mathau and an extravagantly

[41:57] president nixon really

[41:59] i'm gonna vote for mcgovern

[42:00] aside from mathau and an extravagantly mustachioed bruce durden

[42:04] i can't wait till star wars comes out

[42:07] and they have lewis gossett junior

[42:09] putting the smackdown on a uh... jive talking pimp

[42:12] uh...

[42:14] there's a scene there's like an inexplicable scene in the middle where

[42:16] they go to talk to the hell's angels who

[42:19] are there like connection for what weapons analysis is really great i mean

[42:23] not a great movie to watch if you are offended by uh... the nineteen seventies

[42:29] views on homosexuality

[42:31] it won't win any glad awards but if you can put your mind to those noted on a

[42:36] good use of trash bags in the movie

[42:37] i'm just saying that you know that it glad anyway you're saying

[42:41] who

[42:42] a material was my aim it's it's

[42:45] i'm gonna stop talking with the movie you know when that was uh... right

[42:49] but you say it's good it's good and also i want to mention i watched uh... my wife

[42:53] box

[42:54] at a her company had a uh... a sale where a bunch of among other things that

[42:59] wasn't really cheap dvds on sales you picked up

[43:02] the peter sellers box set like two bucks

[43:04] and uh... you know what the peter sellers box set

[43:07] made up of not great yourself it's got uh... what's new pussycat casino royale

[43:13] uh... known for being a not very good and very awful

[43:17] uh... to those

[43:18] the pink panther

[43:19] probably actually one of the lesser pink panther

[43:22] the original pink panther

[43:25] but also i watched uh... the party which i enjoyed quite a lot despite

[43:29] outside of short circuits

[43:31] being maybe the most stereotypical portrayal of a indian person by white

[43:35] actor

[43:36] but also had a lot of fun you know it was a good

[43:39] sound era throwback to silent films and it felt like the laughing policeman

[43:44] completely of its time

[43:46] we're totally nineteen sixties films

[43:48] considering uh... it involves a party at a hollywood mansion

[43:52] which is broken up by hippies parading a painted elephant

[43:57] pretty sixties yeah yeah

[43:59] now use some footage from that today or also constant uh... mancini uh...

[44:04] yet look at it for this thing about

[44:06] the orgy that uh...

[44:07] that uh... governor spitzer's gonna throw before you get tickets and all

[44:10] that this does not count as a daily show spoiler because there is a world aired

[44:14] long before this podcast i think that they will actually air in about six

[44:17] minutes maybe less what's up the podcast and watch it show now let's let's not

[44:22] let's not right let's go on anyone else have a recommendation

[44:27] i don't know if i'd say it's super recommend either of these but i watched

[44:30] two movies recently

[44:31] uh... hotel

[44:33] earlier

[44:34] a uh... so i watched a live free die hard

[44:38] and there was a lot of explosions

[44:40] and the internet was really important

[44:42] and uh... and uh...

[44:46] the the thing that i was obsessed with the movie the thing that i just couldn't

[44:49] get over is the fact that there's a point where to the only from the bad guy

[44:53] started

[44:54] yeah he uh... he like

[44:57] tells them like jet fighter like f sixteen jeff jet fighter that like

[45:01] this in my truck that bruce willis is driving is a terrorist and so they

[45:04] should blow it up

[45:06] and this working at sixteen do you like the guy driving this fucking jet fighter

[45:09] is the craziest hot dog i've ever seen what he's like he's like a going

[45:13] underneath looking overpasses and shit on the highway and like

[45:17] he gets the whole thing is this working jet exploded because he's like looking

[45:21] like ten feet away from the satellite trailer underneath an overpass

[45:25] and a big chunk of concrete falls in the jet turbine and blows it up and i just

[45:28] can't imagine this guy thinking as he ejects like

[45:31] who mission accomplished

[45:34] that's what makes america's air force great

[45:38] so uh... yeah that was a really good uh...

[45:41] the uh... and then last night i watched a movie that i'm not quite sure how i

[45:45] feel about and that was uh... the william friedkin uh... thriller bug

[45:49] uh... i've heard

[45:50] uh... that's a movie that

[45:51] looked so stupid and then it got really good reviews and i was surprised by it

[45:55] yeah it's um... i wouldn't necessarily say it's stupid it's also not like

[45:59] amazing it's just

[46:00] kinda like it's it's got some atmosphere it's kind of creepy and uh... there's not

[46:05] a lot like

[46:06] like actually judd doesn't look that hot in it even though she's naked and i think

[46:09] you see her bush

[46:11] so they should have called the movie bush and it would have done a lot better

[46:15] business you're always good for a nude scene report stewart yeah well that's important

[46:20] oh live free die hard took me a while but i figured out the girl who plays uh...

[46:24] john mcclain's daughter is uh... the guy is one of the girls from uh... the the

[46:28] death proof segment of grinders

[46:30] mary elizabeth winstead which one is that

[46:33] uh... the cute one of the cheerleader outfit

[46:36] as opposed to all the ugly ones as opposed to the hideous women in it

[46:41] i've got a thing for big eyed dark eyed

[46:45] brunettes

[46:47] dressed like cheerleaders

[46:50] in quentin tarantino's films

[46:52] very specific well that's why i have to pay uh... fifty five hundred dollars for

[46:57] a prostitute

[46:59] topical

[47:00] it won't be by the time this podcast comes out

[47:02] this podcast is ripped from last week's headlines

[47:06] as a summary then

[47:07] live free die hard

[47:10] bug

[47:10] ehh

[47:13] that's the best rating system ever

[47:16] we should switch up the whole rating system to that

[47:19] to that

[47:20] it's like a completely inflection based rating system

[47:30] ehh

[47:31] ehh

[47:33] okay elliot the pressure is on

[47:36] the pressure is on let me tell you

[47:38] oh i've watched a ton of movies the problem is i watch so many movies that i

[47:41] forget them almost as soon as i watch them

[47:43] but i can name two that i watched recently that i liked

[47:46] that i can recommend to different type of people one

[47:48] was the uh... barbara stanwyck henry fonda

[47:52] murder mystery comedy the mad miss manton

[47:54] which is now is not as well it's not as well known i guess as it should be

[47:59] because i was really funny

[48:00] and there's one scene in particular that's very sexy and very intimate

[48:04] between the two of them

[48:05] in the middle of this really funny just kind of slapsticky crazy movie or

[48:08] barbara stanwyck is basically a rich airhead

[48:11] who gets into trouble

[48:13] and witnesses a murder and no one believes her because she's famous for

[48:16] causing

[48:16] shenanigans

[48:17] as rich people did in the thirties

[48:19] and she and her

[48:20] group of airhead rich women have to solve this murder and henry fonda is a

[48:24] reporter who first

[48:25] the thing that usually means movies the woman is in love with the man the man

[48:28] like get away from me a crazy in the woman wins about wins them over

[48:32] in this one henry fonda hates her

[48:34] then abruptly turns in his life i'd love this woman i'm gonna marry her

[48:38] and she wants nothing to do with him

[48:39] and it is these great moments where he is all about

[48:42] we're gonna get married this is great i love you forever just like i don't even

[48:45] know you that well what just really

[48:47] it's funny the way they do it

[48:49] but uh... i'm not selling it really

[48:51] but there's one scene where

[48:53] she's lying in bed

[48:54] in a hospital i think and he's come to visit her

[48:57] and he lights a cigarette that's in her mouth and it's all very sweet and then

[49:00] he's looking out a window and they just have this conversation that has jokes in

[49:04] it

[49:04] but the way they deliver it is very natural and it's like this nice

[49:07] funny moment but it's not like funny like

[49:09] that's the way it happened

[49:12] but it's funny like

[49:14] all these sounds like jokes that could be delivered from one person to another

[49:16] across a hospital room and the other movie i'm actually near the end right

[49:20] now of uh... robert altman's kansas city

[49:23] i'm watching movies in pieces

[49:24] and i have to say that i am not enjoying it as much as i would have liked a

[49:28] robert altman movie set in the thirties

[49:31] which involves gangsters and jazz music

[49:33] and a kidnapping and jennifer jason lee

[49:35] talking like this yeah

[49:37] hey get over there palooka

[49:38] well let's go you know i thought

[49:41] it's very much a movie that

[49:44] robert altman seems to be not interested in it's obviously wanted to make a movie

[49:47] about the gingerbread man

[49:49] he wanted to make a movie about jazz musicians and was like i guess i need a

[49:53] plot for this movie about jazz musicians so i'll have a kidnapping but no one

[49:57] really seems to worry about it that much and then there's a lot of scenes

[50:00] What struck me is that this came out I guess in the mid-90s and it's with tons of period

[50:06] cars, period outfits, all the buildings are from the period.

[50:09] So it's like, is this the last big-budget movie Robert Altman made?

[50:13] Like this is post the player and the only movies I can think of after that besides Ginger

[50:18] Red Man are like Cookies Fortune or Dr. T and the Women, the company, like very small

[50:24] scale films.

[50:25] Even –

[50:26] Gosford Park.

[50:27] Gosford Park.

[50:28] It's a little bigger budget I guess.

[50:29] But even that, like they don't need that many sets, it just takes place in the one

[50:31] house.

[50:32] Like Robert Altman, did you throw away your last big budget on this movie that you didn't

[50:36] seem to care that much about?

[50:38] So the ghost of Robert Altman.

[50:39] So I'd have to say –

[50:40] What were you thinking?

[50:41] Using this new rating system, Kansas City, eh, Mavis Mountain, eh.

[50:45] You're getting it.

[50:46] That's pretty good.

[50:47] Well –

[50:48] A couple more podcasts and then you'll be right.

[50:49] A couple more podcasts and this will sweep the nation.

[50:53] Nice.

[50:54] I want to –

[50:55] You'll see –

[50:56] I'm on the water cooler.

[50:57] I want to see reviews that's in big letters like eh, and then like parentheses, in a good

[51:01] way.

[51:02] The flop house.

[51:03] At the water cooler, people will be like, did you see – I don't know.

[51:06] What's that game show with the briefcases?

[51:08] Deal or no deal?

[51:09] Yeah, they'll be like, did you see Deal or No Deal?

[51:15] Just like that.

[51:16] They're like, well, I thought it was more of an eh.

[51:19] You get it.

[51:20] Oh, I thought of another movie.

[51:21] I saw the movie Far From Heaven, the Todd Haynes film and I guess it gets across the

[51:26] point really well that the 1950s were not a great time for black people or gay people.

[51:30] So if you were under the impression it were –

[51:32] Another moral that we really needed to –

[51:34] Go see that movie.

[51:35] I'm glad I took a stand on that one.

[51:38] I'm boldly taking a stand against gay people and black people being oppressed in the 50s.

[51:42] I don't want us to go over time again because last time it resulted in us losing some more

[51:47] audio file.

[51:48] Some fucking choice shit.

[51:49] Ironically, that was the Good podcast.

[51:50] Yeah, yeah.

[51:51] Oh, man.

[51:52] You can only have heard that.

[51:53] Oh.

[51:54] I got to cut it out.

[51:55] It's reminding me too much of the home improvement sound effects made by Tim Allen.

[51:56] Quickly, I want to run down the business and then we can get out of here.

[51:57] Get out of the internet.

[51:58] I want to say visit theflophousepodcast.blogspot.com.

[51:59] Once you're there, you will notice that we have a new logo courtesy of my brother

[52:00] John who designed it.

[52:01] Thank you, John, for letting me take advantage of you and not put you on the spot.

[52:02] Thank you.

[52:03] Thank you.

[52:04] Thank you.

[52:05] Thank you.

[52:06] Thank you.

[52:07] Thank you.

[52:08] Thank you.

[52:09] Thank you.

[52:10] Thank you.

[52:11] Thank you.

[52:12] Thank you.

[52:13] Thank you.

[52:14] Thank you.

[52:15] Thank you.

[52:16] Thank you.

[52:17] Thank you.

[52:18] Thank you.

[52:19] Thank you.

[52:20] Thank you.

[53:24] Thank you.

[53:25] Thank you.

[53:26] Thank you.

[53:27] Thank you.

[53:28] Thank you.

[53:29] Thank you.

[53:30] Thank you.

[53:31] Thank you.

[53:32] Thank you.

[53:33] Thank you.

[53:34] Thank you.

[53:35] Thank you.

[53:36] Thank you.

[53:38] Thank you.

[53:39] Thank you.

[53:40] Thank you.

[53:41] Thank you.

[53:42] Thank you.

[53:43] Thank you.

[53:44] Thank you.

[53:45] Thank you, gentlemen.

[53:46] Thank you.

[53:47] Thank you again.

[53:48] Thank you.

[53:49] Thank you.

[53:50] Thank you.

[53:51] Thank you.

[53:52] Thank you.

[53:53] Thank you.

[53:54] Thank you.

[53:55] Thank you.

[53:56] Thank you.

[53:57] Thank you.

[53:58] Thank you.

[53:59] Thank you.

[54:00] Thank you.

[54:01] Thank you.

[54:02] Thank you.

[54:03] Thank you.

[54:04] Thank you.

[54:05] Thank you.

[54:06] Thank you.

[54:07] Thank you.

[54:08] Thank you.

[54:09] Thank you.

[54:10] Thank you.

[54:11] Thank you.

[54:12] Thank you.

[55:43] I continue to be Elliot Kalen.

[55:45] Thanks for listening to the flop house.

[55:47] Good night.

[55:48] Bop-ba-da-bop-ba-da-bop.

[55:49] Bop-ba-da-bop-ba-da-ba.

[55:50] Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-da-ba-da.

[55:51] Da-ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-da.

[55:52] Da-da-ba-ba-da-ba-da-da.

[55:53] So a few things I'd like to say now that we've got these extra microphones, number

[55:56] one is the check.

[55:59] Check, check, check, check, check.

[56:02] I want to say that a lot.

[56:06] Sibilants.

[56:07] Yeah, check.

[56:08] I would...

[56:09] Check.

[56:10] Check.

[56:11] ...recommend number one putting your drink in a good place, and we have one more to go.

[56:12] Putting your drink on the floor or some other place.

[56:15] Or in your belly.

[56:16] It's not that much harder to pick it up from the floor.

[56:17] I'm fucking with you.

[56:18] Number two...

[56:19] I'm fucking with you.

[56:20] We'll still work.

The Flop House: Episode Twelve - Awake

Transcript

Description