The Flop House: Episode Eleven - Awards Floptacular

[0:00] Tonight on the first annual Flophouse Floptacular, we discuss the Academy Awards and the Razzies.

[0:30] So this is our award show slash year in review Floptacular.

[0:41] Yeah, I like that name.

[0:43] Okay, so for the Floptacular we have me, Dan McCoy.

[0:49] Me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:51] Myself, Elliot Kalin.

[0:53] Yes, Elliot, now two guest hosting appearances, is officially our favorite guest host.

[0:58] Yeah!

[0:59] Oh my god, he's like Jessica Biel.

[1:01] He is like Jessica Biel.

[1:02] I'm a recurring character now.

[1:04] Yep.

[1:05] Now his acting ability is questionable, but his body's hot.

[1:09] Jessica Biel all over.

[1:11] Um, and I gotta say, there's a particular reason aside from us liking Elliot so much

[1:18] and him enjoying doing the podcast that we wanted him for this episode.

[1:21] Ow!

[1:22] Because Elliot has had some direct experience with the Oscars.

[1:26] Ow!

[1:27] Um, you work for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

[1:30] Your boss, Jon Stewart, is hosting the Oscars.

[1:33] Yes.

[1:34] He's like a cat.

[1:35] Like a cat got trapped somewhere.

[1:36] That's true.

[1:37] I was gonna yell, ow!

[1:38] I'll just go, meow!

[1:39] Right.

[1:40] I think you might confuse the cat who's on the table and then she'll start attacking

[1:43] the podcast.

[1:44] Let's set the scene.

[1:45] She'll be attacking the podcast?

[1:46] Yeah.

[1:47] In French.

[1:49] It'll be just like Freakazoid.

[1:50] She'll enter into the internet.

[1:52] On her blog.

[1:53] Yep.

[1:54] On her blog.

[1:55] On dancecat.blogspot.com.

[1:58] Yeah.

[1:59] Meow, meow, meow.

[2:00] The Fluff House sucks.

[2:02] Intrigue.

[2:03] But no, I wanted to say, um, Jon Stewart hosted again this year.

[2:06] I don't want to get into any awkward areas, any conflicts of interest.

[2:10] Yeah, I have to recuse myself from that.

[2:12] How do you think your boss did?

[2:13] I thought he did a very solid job.

[2:16] The job of the Oscar host is to get the show moving along and not irritate people and provide

[2:22] some light moments.

[2:23] He certainly did all of those.

[2:25] Yeah, I'll tell you what.

[2:26] I'm always, I guess, in the minority when it comes to, you know, Oscar hosts.

[2:30] Like, who I feel does a good job.

[2:32] Like, whenever I feel someone has done a good job, inevitably I open up the newspaper the

[2:36] next day, you know, so-and-so bombed at the Oscars.

[2:40] Well, I know you loved Whoopi that one year.

[2:42] No.

[2:43] The costume changes were wonderful.

[2:45] I'm thinking specifically of, like, when Letterman hosted.

[2:47] I thought Letterman did some very funny things.

[2:49] Like, he's, like, the most hated host in recent Oscar memory.

[2:53] Letterman did some very funny things if he was hosting Letterman's show.

[2:57] If he was hosting the Oscars.

[2:59] As wrong and stupid and fake as the Oscars are, there is the image of this is the night

[3:06] for Hollywood and let's play it by Hollywood's rules, which he did not.

[3:10] Right.

[3:11] Speaking with the flip side of that, certainly the biggest laugh, I think, at my Oscar party,

[3:16] I held an Oscar party, and if you hear us eating at any point, that's the remains of

[3:20] the Oscar party.

[3:21] That ambient noise is sort of give you the feel as if you were at our Oscar party.

[3:25] The remains of the guests at the Oscar party.

[3:28] The people who lost the Oscar pool have been slow-cooked and barbecue sauce.

[3:33] I'm still wearing the dress I wore at Oscars.

[3:38] That's starting to smell.

[3:39] Yeah, that's happening.

[3:40] It's getting a little dirty.

[3:42] Charles Dickens model.

[3:46] But the biggest laugh at the party was his slam in Norbit, which was certainly a moment

[3:53] where he did not play by the Oscar rules.

[3:55] Well, there's this unwritten rule that on Oscar night, there are no losers.

[3:59] There are losers, and they know there are losers because they didn't win the award,

[4:03] but the idea that Hollywood makes no mistakes.

[4:06] This is a celebration of Hollywood, and movies are great, and we're great at it.

[4:11] Just like the same way that Jack Nicholson did his intro to the Best Picture winners.

[4:17] He said, there are many movies, but only 79 have been named best.

[4:21] Really?

[4:22] Seriously?

[4:23] Jackson Nicholson?

[4:24] Does anyone in the room think that these are the best movies ever made?

[4:28] And yet, you have to pretend they are, or else Oscar is meaningless.

[4:32] I was going to bring this up a little later, but you are famously the writer, or famously to me.

[4:38] Famously to my friends.

[4:40] This is one of the first points of contact between you and me,

[4:47] was when I talked to you about your blog, The Oscars Are Always Wrong.

[4:51] Speaking of which, what year are you up to on that?

[4:53] For about two years now, I've been up to 1961.

[4:58] Actually, I've lost most of those files.

[5:01] The site that was hosting it was shut down by my former roommate who was hosting the site.

[5:06] It was on his blog on that server.

[5:08] He had not written anything for two or three years before he decided to do it.

[5:12] That's very upsetting.

[5:13] I foolishly did not save those entries.

[5:16] He might have them saved somewhere.

[5:18] When are you going to restart?

[5:21] You know what, I might take some time before I do that.

[5:26] I think the last one I did was 1961.

[5:30] I said the apartment was one of the few correct choices.

[5:33] Well, now that you've let me know that that's happened,

[5:35] I'll have to take The Oscars Are Always Wrong off my blog reader.

[5:38] I've been painfully hoping that it will be updated someday.

[5:42] Well, I think that people have just sent to a 404 forbidden page.

[5:47] I apologize that your blog role has been hilariously antiquated.

[5:51] I'm sure you don't want a cheesecake.

[5:53] I've ordered a square of cheesecake, but I'm already eating fudge.

[5:56] Please, it's the Oscars.

[5:59] It's a night for Oscars.

[6:02] My main point was that the Academy Awards are almost always completely wrong.

[6:09] Both in Best Picture and then the other awards.

[6:13] Well, maybe we should start at the top and then work backwards to the less interesting discussions.

[6:20] In that spirit, did you think that the Best Picture choice was wrong this year?

[6:25] I mean, it was wrong in the way that they didn't nominate the best, in my opinion,

[6:30] the best movie of the year was, which we can get into later.

[6:33] All right, yeah, that's true.

[6:35] I think you were going to bring that up when we gave out our own awards.

[6:38] Yes, but this year, I mean, a few of the movies they nominated weren't bad.

[6:43] Even my least favorite of the ones that I saw, I saw all of them except Atonement,

[6:47] which looked, from commercial one, like a movie that was designed to win Best Picture,

[6:51] which, man, I probably wouldn't like.

[6:53] But even Juno, which I had major problems with and ultimately am not happy with,

[6:59] it was not a terrible movie.

[7:01] In the way that, say, Around the World in 80 Days won Best Picture,

[7:05] it's a shitty movie.

[7:07] It's not good, and it's really boring, and it's like 100 hours long.

[7:10] But it exists to have cameos.

[7:13] Now you can say that Constant Flass and John Paul Belmondo were the same movie.

[7:18] Great.

[7:19] Finally, thank you for this David Niven-hosted party.

[7:25] I would love to go to a David Niven-hosted party, by the way.

[7:28] I imagine there'd be a lot of really well-mixed cocktails and some mascots.

[7:34] But, like, there will be blood and no control.

[7:39] They're both good movies.

[7:40] Michael Clayton is a mediocre film with a good movie style.

[7:45] It's not a bad movie.

[7:47] These were acceptable movies to me.

[7:50] Yeah, I saw five of them.

[7:52] That's very impressive.

[7:53] It is very impressive.

[7:54] I saw four of them just before the nominees were announced.

[7:58] And then, at that point, I was like, well, might as well go see Atonement.

[8:02] It was like a week before the Oscars.

[8:04] The thing is, like, I realize that the Oscars are completely insignificant.

[8:08] Now, wait, wait, wait.

[8:09] Did you go see Atonement just so you could be at your Oscar party and be like,

[8:13] I saw all the movies.

[8:14] I saw all five of these movies.

[8:16] I was going to lord it over people in a smarmy way, but yeah.

[8:19] Here's the thing.

[8:20] The Oscars, to me, I agree with what Elliot's saying.

[8:23] However, for some reason, for some crazy reason, I love them.

[8:27] And I think, I've been thinking about it recently.

[8:29] You can't write a blog about something, writing in detail why it's wrong in

[8:33] every particular, without loving it a little bit.

[8:36] That's the thing.

[8:37] It's like, as much as I hate it, I love it.

[8:39] There's something about it that is very attractive and very magical.

[8:44] It might just be 80 years of society pretending it's magical,

[8:48] eventually building up to, yeah, there is a certain magicalness.

[8:51] Glamour.

[8:52] And at one point, it was, even though they gave out the wrong choices,

[8:55] it was all bought by the studios and paid for.

[8:59] There was a glamour to it.

[9:00] These are the biggest stars in Hollywood.

[9:03] Coming out to shine.

[9:04] Coming out.

[9:05] More stars than in the heavens at the Academy Awards.

[9:09] I just think, for me, part of it is the

[9:11] Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

[9:12] I couldn't care less about sports, but I understand what it feels to people

[9:16] about the Super Bowl because they're like, okay, this is one sports event

[9:21] that we can all share.

[9:22] Likewise, the Oscars, movies are what I care about.

[9:27] For a month every year, everyone agrees to talk about movies a lot.

[9:32] And I'm really happy about that.

[9:33] Yeah, that's fair.

[9:34] It's the purpose of the Oscars.

[9:35] The Oscars are a commercial for movies.

[9:38] So they're doing their job.

[9:40] And from what I can see, they're working.

[9:43] People go to those movies.

[9:45] That's true.

[9:46] Which, by the way, was my least favorite of the five.

[9:50] What was your most favorite?

[9:51] I think there will be blood.

[9:52] It's tough between that and No Temper for Cool Men.

[9:54] I love both of those movies.

[9:55] Juno was right in the middle.

[9:57] I had problems with some of the writing.

[10:00] Oh, whoa!

[10:02] I know. I was the winner.

[10:04] Yeah.

[10:06] Dan, I don't know if you understand.

[10:08] That won Best Original Screenplay.

[10:10] It is the most original and best screenplay of the year.

[10:12] I know. I know.

[10:14] She was a stripper-turned-blogger.

[10:16] I don't know if you heard that.

[10:18] Not a real stripper.

[10:20] I don't know if you heard that 100 times.

[10:22] Not a real stripper.

[10:24] She stripped for a year, then wrote a book about it.

[10:26] There are people who strip for many years.

[10:28] I was a coal miner for a year, then wrote a book about it.

[10:30] I'm a coal miner-turned-writer.

[10:32] There are people who die of coal mining.

[10:34] Or die of stripping.

[10:36] Yeah, exactly.

[10:38] Have you ever seen a movie on Cinemax?

[10:40] You know that stripping is a dangerous career.

[10:42] You can easily die of stripping.

[10:44] You can get your hand and foot removed by a serial killer.

[10:46] By some sort of blue-peen serial killer.

[10:48] I want to say, though,

[10:50] as your friend and mine, Laura Buchholz,

[10:52] said to me,

[10:54] by the way,

[10:56] she has a weird public radio name dropping.

[10:58] I didn't know that.

[11:00] She's in Minnesota doing that.

[11:02] She's reading Babel Cody's book,

[11:04] A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.

[11:06] And Laura said,

[11:08] what's unlikely about it?

[11:10] If you're stripping, I think that makes you a stripper.

[11:12] Not better than all these other strippers.

[11:14] What would make it unlikely, I think,

[11:16] is if she was an amputee.

[11:18] Or something like,

[11:20] she's now going to make it as a stripper.

[11:22] She doesn't have a body.

[11:24] I'm going to shoot all of you!

[11:26] I may be paralyzed from the neck down,

[11:28] but I'm going to strip, damn it.

[11:30] That would be an unlikely stripper.

[11:32] Someone remove my clothes, woman.

[11:34] Well, fair enough.

[11:36] Oh, Diablo.

[11:38] You've been burned, Laura,

[11:40] if you're listening to this podcast.

[11:42] Buchholz, you've been burned.

[11:44] I agree.

[11:46] Michael Clayton, I enjoyed,

[11:48] but I thought, actually,

[11:50] one of the things where it fell down for me

[11:52] was that there were that many thrills.

[11:54] It was just like,

[11:56] we're going to make a respectable thriller,

[11:58] and we're going to do that by taking out everything exciting.

[12:00] I call that road to perdition.

[12:02] To make something respectable,

[12:04] you take out everything thrilling,

[12:06] or visceral, or surprising,

[12:08] or vulgar about it, in a way.

[12:10] Road to Perdition is a gangster movie

[12:12] with shoot-em-ups, which is slow

[12:14] and boring and not exciting.

[12:16] I don't even want to talk about it.

[12:18] Do you like it?

[12:20] Oh, okay.

[12:22] They said, look, this is an anti-violence movie.

[12:24] We don't want to make the violence exciting.

[12:26] Well, okay.

[12:28] I'm going to sound like a nerd now,

[12:30] but let's base it on

[12:32] a graphic novel,

[12:34] which is based on the fucking Japanese

[12:36] graphic novel,

[12:38] Lone Wolf and Cub,

[12:40] which in no way, shape, or form

[12:42] is anti-violent.

[12:44] Let's westernize something

[12:46] and take everything that's cool about it

[12:48] and just throw it out the window and make it really boring.

[12:50] It looks good, though.

[12:52] Well, it looks like it.

[12:54] It does have a very eccentric

[12:56] Jude Law performance.

[12:58] That's the best part of the movie.

[13:00] I wish it was about him.

[13:02] I wish it was called Photo Killer.

[13:04] One of my favorite movies is called Peeping Tom.

[13:06] That's true.

[13:08] Or Shutterbug.

[13:12] Or Snap,

[13:14] the story of a killer.

[13:16] Shutterbug's pretty good.

[13:18] Cheese.

[13:20] So what you're saying is that

[13:22] Michael Clayton

[13:24] is the thrillers,

[13:26] what Sports Night is the comedies.

[13:28] Wow.

[13:30] Yeah, perhaps.

[13:32] Well, I don't have a problem with Sports Night.

[13:34] No, it's not funny.

[13:36] It's certainly not.

[13:38] Well, there's a laugh track.

[13:40] Which is the best part, in my opinion.

[13:42] The problem also with Michael Clayton

[13:44] Wait, Michael Clayton has a laugh track?

[13:46] I haven't even seen it.

[13:48] Michael Clayton has a laugh track.

[13:50] It's a classic three-camera set-up.

[13:52] And at the end of the movie,

[13:54] the credits roll over

[13:56] images from the film.

[13:58] Michael Clayton was filmed before a live studio audience.

[14:00] And then you see Stephen J. Connell

[14:02] pull a piece of paper out of his typewriter

[14:04] and throw it onto a stack of papers.

[14:06] And Mary Telemore's cat meows.

[14:08] Stephen J. Connell was not very good

[14:10] at collating paper.

[14:12] After he was done,

[14:14] he really had to spend a lot of time

[14:16] putting his script back into order.

[14:18] The main problem I had

[14:20] with Michael Clayton was that

[14:22] it's a movie that starts off throwing you off-balance.

[14:24] For the first three short scenes,

[14:26] you don't know what's going on.

[14:28] You don't know what it's about, really.

[14:30] And you're like, this must be full of twists.

[14:32] And there were zero twists.

[14:34] It was like, uh-oh.

[14:36] It looks like this corporation is trying to win this lawsuit.

[14:38] But it's gotta be something more insidious than that.

[14:40] Oh, no, I guess that was it.

[14:42] Spoiler alert.

[14:44] Funnily enough, for a movie that was...

[14:46] No ghosts?

[14:48] No women that turn out to be men?

[14:50] Even with Tilda Swinton in it?

[14:52] It was a movie that was directed

[14:54] by a screenwriter.

[14:56] And the screenplay was

[14:58] nominated for an Academy Award.

[15:00] But the screenplay is the least interesting thing about it.

[15:02] It's beautifully shot.

[15:04] It's very well-directed.

[15:06] Tom Wilkinson's in it, right?

[15:08] He's in it, and he's good.

[15:10] And Tilda Swinton, who is great in it,

[15:12] I thought she was exactly the right choice.

[15:14] She won Best Supporting Actress.

[15:16] And in my opinion, she deserved it completely.

[15:18] She gives an amazing performance as this...

[15:20] As a human.

[15:22] Well, as a human.

[15:24] But as this brittle, vulnerable woman

[15:26] who is put into a position

[15:28] where she has to do something terrible

[15:30] to protect herself.

[15:32] And it's the wrong thing to do.

[15:34] But in her few scenes by herself,

[15:36] she creates such a more interesting

[15:38] and convincing, lovable character.

[15:40] Lovable in the way that's pitiable.

[15:42] Than Michael Clayton himself,

[15:44] where it's like, yeah, your rich job

[15:46] is pretty bad, handsome George Clooney.

[15:48] I feel bad for you,

[15:50] sexiest man alive.

[15:52] But I didn't want her to win the Oscar,

[15:54] because she's just going to take that Oscar back to fairyland.

[15:56] We're never going to see it again.

[15:58] She's going to replace the Oscar with a fairy child.

[16:02] And maybe when she wins again

[16:04] she'll play Ziggy Stardust.

[16:06] That's my joke I've been telling her

[16:08] the past week.

[16:10] Thirty minutes of Till the Swinton joke later.

[16:12] That's my A-Till the Swinton material.

[16:14] That she's always prepping

[16:16] for the role of Ziggy Stardust.

[16:18] Oh, Till.

[16:20] We've hit the big categories,

[16:22] and now I feel like...

[16:24] We can backtrack.

[16:26] We didn't talk about directing or anything.

[16:28] Through the magic of editing,

[16:30] you can also change what goes around in this podcast.

[16:32] I think this should be your Steven Soderbergh podcast

[16:34] where it jumps backwards and forwards in time.

[16:36] This is your liming.

[16:38] Yeah, entire sections could be played backwards.

[16:42] And different fonts.

[16:44] And there needs to be a fucking twist.

[16:46] A twist at the end.

[16:48] Elliot Cailin had died four days before the podcast.

[16:50] How did he arrive?

[16:52] Authorities are baffled.

[16:54] The end.

[16:56] That's the text at the end of the podcast.

[16:58] Eight years on screen.

[17:00] Unbreakable.

[17:02] In the spirit of also stealing other people's jokes,

[17:04] I have to mention the biggest laugh

[17:06] during our Oscar party

[17:08] was when we were talking about

[17:10] the In Memoriam montage

[17:12] and how the beginning and end dates

[17:14] meant that Roy Scheider was in it.

[17:16] Our friend Dave Weinberg said

[17:18] they would have needed

[17:20] a longer Oscar montage.

[17:22] Yep.

[17:24] To go to Roy Scheider reference.

[17:26] The thing I wonder about that is

[17:28] that the montage was loaded with executives and agents.

[17:30] I wonder if that was part of the deal

[17:32] with the writer's bill.

[17:34] Was, we'll give you those residuals,

[17:36] but we're going to get some executives into that fucking Oscar.

[17:38] That's true, because everyone was saying

[17:40] how Brad Rentfro was not in the...

[17:42] Yeah, who was not a major actor,

[17:44] but who was a well-known actor

[17:46] who died, tragically.

[17:48] And you know that they stretched the dates

[17:50] to just include Heath Ledger.

[17:52] There was no way they would not...

[17:54] It was very strange.

[17:56] And they specifically...

[17:58] No one's seen the montage with Heath Ledger in it.

[18:00] They put the dates on screen.

[18:02] Oh!

[18:04] I feel bad for them.

[18:06] Can you hear it?

[18:08] I think that's true.

[18:10] Beneath all that dirt.

[18:12] But they put the dates on screen

[18:14] specifically, I think, so people would know.

[18:16] This is why Roy...

[18:18] Instead of taking the effort to

[18:20] literally edit the clip of Roy Scheider saying

[18:22] we're going to need a bigger boat, which would take minutes,

[18:24] they went to the trouble of putting text

[18:26] on the screen that said the dates of the

[18:28] memorial. Or they could have done it

[18:30] before Roy Scheider died and just said

[18:32] listen, if anyone dies after this point

[18:34] we're not putting it in the memorial.

[18:36] Right, and that always happens. People are always like

[18:38] why wasn't this person in?

[18:40] Even if it happened the day before the Oscars,

[18:42] people are always like

[18:44] where was this guy?

[18:46] Where was Nicole Smith?

[18:48] Or Skyscraper, or whatever the fuck her name is.

[18:51] Yeah, she made Skyscraper.

[18:53] Yeah, Gun 33 and 3rd, dude.

[18:55] That was a movie.

[18:57] And Miss Cole Smith's Fantasies.

[18:59] I think it was called Anna Nicole Smith Exposed.

[19:01] Oh, yeah.

[19:03] Possibly showing on Showtime.

[19:05] But Joey Bishop was not in.

[19:07] Wow.

[19:09] And he's not, again, not a movie star.

[19:11] Yeah, but everyone knows that name.

[19:13] Like the Rat Pack.

[19:15] And yet you had all these executives and they didn't put up

[19:17] even the titles of the movies

[19:20] We had no context.

[19:22] We didn't know the studios they were in.

[19:24] It was just

[19:26] oh, okay, these guys.

[19:28] Well, he was an executive, I guess.

[19:30] That was the one part of the Oscars where it felt

[19:32] this night isn't about you, America.

[19:34] This is about us.

[19:36] This agent died. Here's a picture of him

[19:38] in his striped shirt on vacation.

[19:40] Like, couldn't find a nicer picture of that guy?

[19:42] What's going on?

[19:44] I guess everyone just remembered that shirt they needed to have in the picture.

[19:46] You don't realize,

[19:49] that was why he was such a good agent.

[19:51] Because he was memorable.

[19:53] But then on the other hand you had

[19:55] Robert Boyle winning Lifetime Achievement Award

[19:57] which was

[19:59] very memorable.

[20:00] well-deserved, not a name that people would talk to him. I had trouble remembering his

[20:05] credits. And they explained who he is, they explained what he did, they gave him time

[20:08] to speak. He's a 98-year-old man, they didn't try to cut him off and rush him off stage.

[20:13] And they treated him very respectfully. The Inn Memoriam almost felt slapdash.

[20:18] They've been going more obscure for the lifetime. I mean, these aren't obscure people, obviously,

[20:23] it's just they're not trotting out huge, famous actors or directors.

[20:29] Correct. I mean, last year was Ennio Morricone, and I mean, everyone who knows film music

[20:36] knows him, but he's not gonna be a marquee name for the Oscars. Like, you gotta tune

[20:40] in this year and see Ennio Morricone get his Oscar.

[20:43] But at the same time, is there anyone who deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award more

[20:47] than Ennio Morricone? He's written, like, over 400 movie scores. He wrote what is possibly

[20:53] the best song ever written for a movie, which I would say is Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

[20:58] It's either that or the Ghostbusters song. I don't know, I would have gone with Bobby

[21:02] Brown's song from Ghostbusters 2. It's all about Viggo, the master of evil.

[21:08] I saw that painting in person, on my tour of Industrial Light and Magic that I took

[21:13] last Thanksgiving. Paint a picture with your words about saying

[21:17] a picture that was painted for Ghostbusters 2.

[21:20] I saw Viggo's portrait. I saw the Scolari Brothers' ghosts that come back.

[21:25] I saw them in the chair! I saw them in the chair!

[21:28] Oh, that was a great tour. Favorite exposition ever.

[21:31] If anyone ever has a chance to take a private tour of Industrial Light and Magic, please

[21:36] do so, because it is wonderful. Well, I wasn't going to until you said it.

[21:41] Yeah. But anyway, what were we talking about?

[21:43] I don't know. Paintings. Oh, music for movies. I'm gonna argue my favorite piece of music

[21:49] ever written for a movie, Dream Warriors by Dokken.

[21:53] Or Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3, Dream Warriors. You know the one with the kid in the wheelchair?

[21:58] Yeah. Yeah, that one's really awesome.

[22:00] Perhaps my favorite of the Nightmare on Elm Street.

[22:03] Yeah, the kid in the wheelchair. Yeah, well, he's also a dungeon master.

[22:08] He's also a dungeon master. That makes it kind of sad.

[22:12] I apologize for this tan. This is as irrelevant as any conversation

[22:17] could be for the subject matter. Come on, Oscar-winning Nightmare on Elm Street

[22:21] Part 3. Come on, Oscar!

[22:24] That would have been great news. Oscar for most awesome Elm Street film.

[22:28] Michael Caine walks out, and the Best Picture award goes, and the Best Picture of, I don't

[22:33] remember what year it was, 1986, 1985. 1985 is a Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors.

[22:40] And Robert Englund goes up and gets the award, and picks up the award. Oh, he won Best Actor

[22:45] that year, I assume. No, I'd like to think of myself as a Dream Warrior.

[22:50] A warrior of dreams. I suppose it's all Dream Warriors.

[22:55] And Cher is the Best Actor. Robert Englund for Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors.

[23:02] I'd like to thank a guy named Freddy. I wouldn't be getting this award without him. Thanks,

[23:07] buddy. Here's to another award next year to go with the three I now have.

[23:13] You win it every year. Just as this year's Oscars telecast was the lowest rated, people

[23:21] are turning off this podcast to watch North America.

[23:25] If he'd be wearing the glove, would he go accept the award? Because he knew he was getting

[23:29] it, right? Yeah, of course he'd be wearing the glove. And the audience would go fucking

[23:33] insane. You would have Fay Wray and Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney just jumping out

[23:39] of their seats. It would be a shot of The Jack with his sunglasses laughing. You've

[23:45] still got it. I think it would be dangerous for him to wear the glove. I mean, Freddy

[23:50] might cross over in the real world like he did in New Nightmare. Yeah, that's true. We

[23:54] can only hope. Yeah, that's my favorite. Good semi-homoerotic movies.

[24:00] Heather Langenkamp. Awfully cute. So, Oscars, speaking of. So, Oscars. Is there anything

[24:08] that stuck out to you, Elliot? About what? Oscars. What are you talking about? Okay.

[24:13] I don't actually, I haven't actually seen a lot of the movies or performances. The one

[24:17] I'm on at Oscar like, Pole? What's that pole called? Pole? Pool? Pool, yeah. A lot of the

[24:23] shit was at the Oscars. The Oscar pole. Most of it was like gay Oscar porn. You know? Oscars

[24:30] pole. Starring Sylvester Stallone. Early in his career. You needed the money. Hollywood

[24:37] nights hadn't come out yet. I haven't actually seen a lot of the movies. So, a lot of it

[24:42] was guests. So, I don't actually really care about talking about the movies. What I did

[24:48] want to say was that the French girl who won the Best Actress, very attractive. Yeah, that's

[24:56] true. Nice dress. Not when she's in makeup. No, I'm not going to see her. I'm not going

[25:01] to see her. But, I'll check out IMDB, see if she's got a back catalog. She's made about

[25:08] 40 movies. Well, and the thing is that porn movies, I'm going to let you guys in on a

[25:13] secret. Porn movies often feature a shitload of porn movies. I don't think so. I would

[25:18] have heard about that. Well, I'll just take it from me, guys. In the modern world of the

[25:24] internet. European delights. Tell me more. Because, I think in France it's called le

[25:31] internet. They have tons of these foreign movies featuring naked chick boobies. That's

[25:41] the whole movie. The only thing you have to watch out for is that they don't have the

[25:44] same filter that we have about filtering out all the uggos. Oh, I see. So, I'll just let

[25:51] Like in a movie that, actually, I want to talk about. I'm jumping in. In a little while

[25:58] we're going to be talking about our own Oscar picks. And my Oscar pick for the best scene

[26:04] with full frontal peel nudity goes to a porn movie. The Black Book, the Clark Barrow film.

[26:12] The big fat guy stumbled into that. It's going to be awesome. So, that's an example of them

[26:20] not using their filter. Porn movies, nudity. So, your turn. I'm going to learn something

[26:27] here tonight. Porn movies are just thrown off by all the uncircumcised members. It's

[26:32] like some sort of bizarre universe that I don't understand. What stuck out to me a lot

[26:37] was that the Coen brothers won for best adapted screenplay. They had previously won best original

[26:42] screenplay for Fargo. They won best director and they won best picture. They should have

[26:47] won them, in my opinion. They should have won best director several times over. They

[26:51] should have won best picture for Fargo. But they had this look on their faces like they

[26:57] were very displeased to be winning the Academy Awards. And they would cut back to Frances

[27:01] McForman who could not have been happier. Her husband and her husband's brother were

[27:06] winning these major awards. And the Coen brothers, on the other hand, and part of me thinks it's

[27:10] just that they're naturally shy guys. They don't like being up on stage. They don't like

[27:14] being part of the Hollywood establishment. I'm not sure. Something like that. But at

[27:18] the same time, No Country for Old Men is a very well put together movie. It's a fantastic

[27:24] movie in a lot of ways. But to me it feels like maybe their least personal movie since

[27:30] after Intolerable Cruelty. Yeah, Intolerable Cruelty is definitely... Which feels like

[27:34] they didn't direct it with their eyes closed and asleep. And they didn't write that one.

[27:39] That was the one that they didn't write. But even beyond that, they wrote, they adapted

[27:43] No Country for Old Men. They directed it. They spent a lot of time on it. They did an

[27:46] amazing job. But at the same time, it didn't feel like their souls were invested in it.

[27:51] I wonder if up there they said to themselves, well, this is what they want us to make. They

[27:56] don't want us to make The Man Who Wasn't There. They want us to make The Big Lebowski. They

[28:00] want us to make Martin Kane. The movies that you can tell they wrote because these were

[28:07] stories that sprung out of their minds that they had to tell. No one makes The Big Lebowski

[28:13] to try and court mainstream success. But at the same time, if there's any movie that goes

[28:18] to the heart of their feelings about film or humanity, I think it's that one movie,

[28:23] The Big Lebowski, for many reasons. I'll recommend the BFI Film Classics volume of The Big Lebowski,

[28:28] which is fantastic. But they said to themselves, well, this is what we have to do to get recognition.

[28:34] Very slick, violent, kind of a little soulless thrillers that tell the story efficiently

[28:44] and then get the fuck out of there. It had very few of the tangents and the kind of loopiness

[28:49] that gives their movies the character.

[28:51] It is definitely an adaptation. However, the way you're talking about it, I know this is

[28:57] not what you're saying, but the way you're talking about it almost makes it seem like

[29:00] a sellout of some kind.

[29:01] Which it's not.

[29:02] But, I mean, certainly...

[29:03] But to a certain extent.

[29:04] But the ending of that film, which a lot of people didn't like, I mean, that they kept

[29:10] faithful to Cormac McCarthy's ending, where they're like, you know what, you want a climax?

[29:15] Well, to hell with you.

[29:16] At the same time, that was taken directly.

[29:20] Right, and that's why, even though I really liked Smith Cumberford and Old Men, ultimately

[29:24] I enjoyed There Will Be Blood more, because I felt like that was a very personal movie.

[29:28] Yeah, well, There Will Be Blood was almost the opposite. It felt much more personal and

[29:32] much more like Paul Thomas Anderson put himself into it. But at the end of the day, it almost

[29:37] wasn't. He didn't step back far enough to make a movie that ultimately, you know, made

[29:43] sense as a story, in a way. It made sense as a dream, but not that stuff with his brother

[29:49] that ultimately isn't...

[29:51] Oh, okay, so that was a commercial break for a while. That was the intermission.

[29:56] Both movies don't give you what you're looking for exactly.

[30:00] and there's they have good reasons for doing that and it's rewarding almost that they don't do that

[30:04] no country old man doesn't give you that shootout at the end that you really want to see

[30:08] and there will be blood does not give you the straightforward arc of man and son man against

[30:14] creature boy that you want instead it kind of loops around itself and it takes its detours and

[30:20] it gets it commits the main fight between the father and son that i assume happens at some

[30:26] and it's almost like the movie is sort of richer and poorer but it is totally crazy that's what

[30:34] i love about it i like movies that feel like that are very personal but then

[30:38] also have just this like shaggy dog quality to it's like it definitely is a shaggy dog

[30:44] like that last scene is beautiful everything about it is brilliant the the final moment

[30:50] going into the credits with the music playing which frankly does feel like the end of a woody

[30:54] is great but that's the thing the reviews made it sound like it was this

[30:58] bizarre fever dream of a movie that like nothing made sense oh but it made me i was like you ruined

[31:04] it oh but i went in expecting like el topo you know the magic mountain something that where i

[31:11] was gonna be like what the hell is going on but instead it was just a story that ran on its own

[31:16] logic i i agree that i agree with the whole magazine release specifically which i like

[31:26] but i did like at the same time it's a very coen brothers movie is the thing that i like

[31:31] like it reminded me so much of blood symbol yeah it is very it's it is very much like their past

[31:36] films it's almost like there's just like a like a fifth element if you will missing from it speaking

[31:43] of my favoritest movies of all time this is not all about the oscars so let's move on from that

[31:49] although i do want to mention one last thing i know you maybe you can't talk about this i don't

[31:54] know how much you can talk about but i'm going to mention it elliot last time uh john hosted the

[32:00] oscars you actually had some part in doing and producing the oscar telecast or part of it if i

[32:06] can be humble i was one of the producers on the best part of that oscars yeah and possibly the

[32:11] best part of any oscar and i know that i know that people don't people who work on these sorts

[32:16] of things don't get individual uh credit for it often so i want you to take this opportunity

[32:23] blow your own horn oh thanks well yeah just uh when we hosted it two years ago just just

[32:31] snatch credit for something that happened a couple years back i was part of an elite three-man team

[32:36] of which i did most of the work except for something of what was what we called the gay

[32:41] cowboy montage i think kind of got known by that briefly in the mass media i believe it was

[32:48] a single death of the times but the brokeback mountain was the theme of that year that's the

[32:54] kind of problem with this year's oscars is there was nothing that dominated that way that it was

[32:58] the idea that westerns have always been fairly homoerotic we were putting together you know

[33:04] homoerotic tension moments from those movies it took about a month of watching westerns a couple

[33:10] weeks vetting them together we watched about 40 films in total i think i watched 25 to 30 of them

[33:16] and weren't many of these from your private uh yes and that's the thing this year we rented all

[33:21] these dvds one of the guys that were like oh are we gonna get blu-ray discs because we want

[33:25] these to look the best and i said oh oh how naive that's adorable because when we did this other one

[33:31] i assumed i brought in my own tapes many of them take off television and i assumed that we were

[33:37] going to be getting dvds of these or that the academy would spring for so what you're saying

[33:41] from prints is that the academy is taking part in piracy it is breaking copyright law i think so

[33:47] maybe but again but then they said nope and uh so it ended up looking fine i mean many of these

[33:53] movies were old so we weren't going to get christine print something anyway but it was like oh okay i

[33:59] guess i'll bring in my copy of the big country and we'll just take up we'll just take the clips

[34:02] off of that and also it shows you how slapdash those shows are because we spent a very long time

[34:07] working on it's the music for it and the editor we were working with graham frazier it was me it

[34:12] was a three-man team was me rory albany is the other producer on it and he was one of the main

[34:17] producers of the oscar this year for the daily show and graham frazier was the editor and grant

[34:25] so much time working on the sound bed and making sure everything flowed seamlessly

[34:29] because you had the music we were putting on with the music that was already on those scenes

[34:32] sometimes we need lines of dialogue songs had to flow together just the right moments

[34:37] it came out beautifully and then the academy awards guys were like oh we need a couple seconds

[34:41] of time we gotta we gotta shorten the montage they just chop the chunk out of the middle there's

[34:47] this abrupt skip in the music from one song to another it's like come on guys the academy awards

[34:52] what are you doing well i checked and this is on youtube uh the academy has not taken it because

[34:58] they pulled it off it kept pulling it off for a while it's back up again i mean you know now that

[35:03] we've won the bag on the flop house i'll tell you the bet actually the best thing about we kept

[35:09] worrying that we would get a group and get sued by wayne enterprises which is john wayne's son's

[35:14] company and it's also the name of bruce wayne's company in the batman comics wayne enterprises is

[35:20] john wayne's son's company that's set up to protect the image and legacy of john wayne

[35:25] and we were like really they're like they're gonna have trouble being enterprises we're making john

[35:30] wayne look like a gay guy we at one point we had john wayne i'll have he says i'll have you spread

[35:34] eagled on a wagon wheel you know it means it's gonna do a guy at the butt or something like

[35:40] this is and this is john wayne this is the duke and we were like uh-oh this is gonna be trouble

[35:45] and then we also we had a lot of other big stars and there's a part with gary cooper there's a part

[35:49] with alan lad from shane where he he and another guy pull a stump out of the ground and fall over

[35:54] it's spent and sweaty and then there was a it ended with a scene with gregory peck and charlton

[36:00] hesson and john wayne and wayne enterprises their response was well you pay us for the use of that

[36:06] footage we don't care what you're doing so the academy paid them but gregory peck's widow did

[36:12] not want his image didn't want the implication that he was a homosexual nothing at all so the

[36:17] president of the academy and the producer of the kent words went out and basically went to her

[36:21] house and talked to her about it and had to make a personal call to convince her that it was okay

[36:26] to include this snippet because it was the end clip and it was so good in the big country and

[36:31] it's uh charlton heston is half undressed he's just wearing his long underwear pants and he's

[36:37] sitting on his bed and gregory peck uh walks in to us and says i don't know why you thought you

[36:43] had to say goodbye gregory peck it was not even goodbye i was interested it was going to take a

[36:47] little bit more room and then it's your charlton hesson just stares at him and then starts getting

[36:51] up off the bed and then we cut out there it was such a great ending and so they you know i guess

[36:57] wanting to find her and she eventually well you know what it what it is is gregory peck's widow

[37:03] still a little sensitive by that incident with him and ron hudson wow i'm not even gonna get

[37:09] say that gregory peck is going to sue us so uh shit that's because i uh if it's still up on

[37:16] youtube i will embed that on the clubhouse blog that would be awesome and then i need to start a

[37:22] wheel so i can put it on but that one that was one of the one of the great thrills was doing that and

[37:28] then watching the oscars we had an oscar party with the show that everyone went to and uh watching

[37:34] the oscars in this bar that we rented out and that came on and then there was this moment of

[37:40] oh okay the oscars are fake if i was involved with this nobody then it must be not real this

[37:47] is a closed circuit camera that like john is doing this in the back room and this is not a real

[37:52] broadcast but eventually that went away yeah this i could i guess that i had i could not imagine that

[37:59] was involved in something that high public i understand that feeling of this this location

[38:03] because i mean i have never been involved with anything as uh as exciting uh as the daily show

[38:11] oh well i don't want to give other than the clubhouse clubhouse is far more exciting i did

[38:16] a comedy show where uh we had like uh it was a sarah chafer show where we had lisa lovon as the

[38:22] like musical guest and she was out there we like i brought her like a cheese plate back in the back

[38:27] and then she was out there in the front like singing uh stay and i had this moment where i'm

[38:32] like i fucking like i listened to this song on like mtv in high school and i was like yeah i was

[38:39] like who's the cute girl in the glasses i like smart looking girls and then years later there

[38:46] she was wait did she still look smart or did she look kind of like a little beat up no she looked

[38:52] the same like she was she was ready to rock yeah she i remember i was one of the people working

[38:59] cameras i remember very well and i don't like that song so and i'm not a huge fan of hers but

[39:05] hearing her play it right here like a very emotional but it was because it was like i don't

[39:10] like this song but i heard it every day for a week for like two years and at a time when i was

[39:16] growing up and all those memories came from they don't like it yeah but it was like but it was a

[39:22] very thrilling all the personal uh enough interesting things self-aggrandization i don't

[39:30] talk shit about movies sure yeah let's move on to the razzies they're like the anti-oscars they're

[39:35] like if the what's great about the razzies and the oscars is that neither of them really mean

[39:40] anything but the razzies know it so um we saw the razzie winner we saw like actually you were the

[39:46] guest star i was i remember i was very happy when it swept the razzies because i had seen

[39:51] yeah and it was bad i know who killed me it was better on the worst picture who matters i think

[39:56] dan gave a you should still watch this yeah

[40:00] I like it a lot but I don't think that was it. I don't remember it quite that well.

[40:05] It was bad but it was still fun. I thought it was funny. I thought it was really funny how weird it was.

[40:10] Sure. I don't know about that. I think I like it a little more than you like mine.

[40:15] He likes watching movies where strippers don't take their clothes off and then their fingers fall off.

[40:20] He did have a stripper with a robot hand. How can you argue with a movie that has a stripper with a robot hand?

[40:25] That hand should have gotten a special achievement. From the Razzies.

[40:28] Lindsay Lohan did tie with herself for worst actress because if you recall the film, she had a split personality where she played two roles.

[40:36] Played two characters.

[40:37] And both of them won worst actress.

[40:39] Two very different characters.

[40:41] As well as worst screen couple. Actually, I believe I Know Who Killed Me is the highest Razzie winner in history with eight Razzies.

[40:49] That's a shit load of fucking Razzies, dude.

[40:51] It's the Titanic and Ben-Hur of Razzies.

[40:53] I feel like the problem with doing a segment on the Razzies is we have to keep saying Razzie.

[40:57] It makes me feel kind of like a child.

[41:00] It's like when people wanted to say Super Duper Tuesday. I'm like, fuck that.

[41:05] It reminds me when news anchors say bling or diss about television. Blow up.

[41:13] I am watching News 4 Kids. N-E-W-Z. The number four of K-I-D-Z.

[41:19] It's on for three minutes from 4.57pm to 5pm on PBS Channel.

[41:23] You're reading News 4 Kids and Highlights 4 Kids.

[41:28] Yes, I read Weekly Reader. That's where I get my news.

[41:31] Ranger Rick.

[41:33] Ranger Rick.

[41:34] This just in. Fucking koala bears are cute.

[41:39] We're getting extra.

[41:41] I'm surprised that's breaking news. I've been at it for a while.

[41:45] It's self-evident.

[41:47] Developing story. Otters clean their food.

[41:55] This will be the best flophouse for people to listen to if they want to listen to the three of us laughing.

[42:02] So, Razzies. They really didn't fucking like I Know Who Killed Me.

[42:06] They didn't like Norbit either.

[42:08] Yeah, I'd like to point out that Norbit is the only film nominated for both a Razzie and an Oscar.

[42:12] So, there's got to be something there.

[42:14] I didn't suggest for a brief moment that in preparation for this show we should watch Norbit.

[42:21] And Elliot said, no, I don't want to watch Norbit.

[42:24] And the other thing is, frankly, after watching Good Luck Chuck, I don't know if we have another shitty comedy in us.

[42:32] I think it'll kill me.

[42:33] That's the thing. A bad horror movie, a bad drama, a bad romance, any day of the week.

[42:37] But a bad comedy is...

[42:39] It's fucking work, man.

[42:40] Yeah, it's work.

[42:41] Just to sit there, you kind of want to get up and leave.

[42:43] You want to look around and make sure nobody knows you're watching.

[42:46] There's nothing worse than watching a bad comedy.

[42:49] Except maybe I don't like it.

[42:51] Like watching your children get run over by a car.

[42:53] Yeah, that's probably worse.

[42:54] It's probably about the same, but it depends. There's more cleanup with the children.

[42:59] But if they're getting run over while Dane Cook is pulling bases in the truck, then yeah, that's worse.

[43:06] Oh, that is worse.

[43:07] This is sort of interesting. Only three movies that won Razzies.

[43:11] Good year for film, huh, Norbit?

[43:14] And Daddy Day Camp got one.

[43:16] This is a solid year for movies. The fact that those movies sweeped the Razzies.

[43:21] But also that the movies not in for Academy Awards, for the most part, were not bad movies.

[43:25] No, I couldn't argue with any of them.

[43:27] There was no crash in this round.

[43:30] There was no crash. There was no...

[43:32] I mean, no of the English patient, which is an OK movie.

[43:35] There was no one-two Russell Crowe punch of Gladiator and A Beautiful Morning.

[43:39] Exactly. I feel like none of the acting awards this year could be argued with.

[43:44] I haven't seen La Vie en Rose, so I don't know for sure.

[43:47] I mean, Phyllis Winton was solid. Daniel Day-Lewis was amazing.

[43:51] People were like, he's chewing the scenery.

[43:54] And it's like, yeah, and he's doing it fantastically well.

[43:57] He's creating a human being who chews the scenery.

[44:00] And he had the best voice in movies.

[44:02] And the best mustache.

[44:04] And Javier Bardem was fantastic.

[44:07] These were solid actors.

[44:10] There were no Hilary Swanks or Charlize Theron.

[44:15] Now, how many times during the Oscars, my whole thing,

[44:19] did they make comments slash jokes about Javier Bardem's haircut?

[44:23] Too many times.

[44:24] It was shocking.

[44:26] And it's also like, yeah, he's got a silly haircut.

[44:29] Like, it's set in the 80s and he's playing the meanest man in the world.

[44:33] Like, why shouldn't he have a distinct haircut?

[44:36] That was the thing. I thought his character was incredibly mean.

[44:40] We should say really hurtful to him.

[44:43] Unkind.

[44:45] He wouldn't share.

[44:47] So, we've talked a little bit about the Razzies.

[44:50] I don't know that there's actually a lot to say about it,

[44:53] but as a bad movie podcast, I thought we should touch on it.

[44:56] Yeah, I mean, I think they got a little overzealous with their hatred for

[45:00] Yeah, they should have spread the love around.

[45:02] I mean, if it matters, frankly, having watched Good Luck Chuck,

[45:08] I don't know if it's fair to not do something to make sure that

[45:12] It's the worst film.

[45:13] Yeah, it is worse.

[45:14] But also, in a year where there's so many of those, like,

[45:16] meet the Spartans, epic movie type movies,

[45:18] I feel like it's strange that none of those would match up.

[45:21] They're like a pox.

[45:23] It makes me want to cut my eyeballs out of my head.

[45:26] And then fill my eye sockets with fucking bees or something.

[45:31] With bees who are fucking.

[45:33] Yeah, fucking bees.

[45:35] I like that you often go to, like, bees or scorpions

[45:39] when you're going for, like, some sort of, you know,

[45:42] extravagant metaphor or simile.

[45:45] Undeadly abrasive.

[45:47] Okay, they killed my father.

[45:49] That said, pass.

[45:51] At this point in the show, our raw audio went over time,

[45:54] and we were forced to start a new file,

[45:56] which we were going to release as a second part of this podcast,

[45:59] the Flophouse Year in Review.

[46:01] However, that second file has been lost,

[46:04] thanks to the evil gnome that lives inside my computer.

[46:07] We mourn its passing.

[46:09] But we will be back in two weeks

[46:11] with another regular episode of The Flophouse.

[46:13] Also, visit theflophouse.blogspot.com

[46:17] to post on our all-new Flophouse forums,

[46:20] or drop us a line at theflophouseatgmail.com.

[46:24] Also, if you have the time,

[46:26] take a moment to vote for us at Podcast Alley

[46:29] or write a review on iTunes.

[46:31] So for my co-host, Stuart Wellington,

[46:34] Elliot Kalin,

[46:35] and me, Dan McCoy,

[46:37] thanks for listening to The Flophouse.

[46:39] Good night.

[47:04] The rest of the year, he likes sportswear.

[47:06] I'm just impressed that you knew it.

[47:09] You know.

[47:10] Impressed you've heard of it.

[47:11] Or a Gentile.

[47:12] I'm in comedy.

The Flop House: Episode Eleven - Awards Floptacular

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