The Flop House: Episode Two - Memory

[0:00] Tonight in the Flophouse, we examine the Billy Zane vehicle of memory.

[0:05] Surely the best Billy Zane movie since the last one.

[0:31] Since we spent a lot of time at the beginning of the first episode

[0:35] simply going over the synopsis, we're going to start this episode

[0:39] with the Wikipedia synopsis of memory.

[0:43] While lecturing in Brazil, Dr. Taylor Briggs, Billy Zane,

[0:47] an American authority on memory, consults on a patient found deep in the Amazon.

[0:52] During the exam, Taylor is accidentally exposed to a mysterious substance

[0:58] which unlocks a series of memories in his brain.

[1:02] Memories that are not his.

[1:05] The memory of a killer who committed crimes before Taylor was even born.

[1:09] A killer who is closer than you think.

[1:12] The mystery will rip open Taylor Briggs' well-crafted life,

[1:15] estranging his relationship with his best friend, Dr. Deepa Ching,

[1:18] leading him into romance with a beautiful enigmatic painter,

[1:22] Stephanie Jacobs, played by Tricia Helfer,

[1:25] straining his relationship with his mom's best friend, Carol, Ann-Margret,

[1:30] causing him to question the surrogate father figure in his life,

[1:34] Dr. Max Lichtenstein.

[1:36] And now we join the others in The Flophouse.

[1:40] Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

[1:43] Simon's laughing because I'm putting my radio on.

[1:46] Yeah, he is. He's like,

[1:48] Hello! Welcome to The Flophouse.

[1:52] The show where we discuss movies that aren't that good.

[1:56] It sucks so bad. It makes me die inside.

[1:59] Tonight we talk about the movie Memory, starring Billy Zane.

[2:03] I think, up front, the Billy Zane issue.

[2:07] Okay, well, and I think it's fair to call it an issue.

[2:10] What are your feelings on Billy Zane?

[2:12] I hate Billy Zane. I really do.

[2:14] Yeah? Yeah, I really do.

[2:15] In all scenes, he constantly has a smug look on his face.

[2:18] No matter what line he's delivering or what the emotional context is,

[2:21] he's always got this kind of like,

[2:23] Whatever, man. I don't care.

[2:25] I have to admit, a sneaking fondness for Billy Zane.

[2:29] It's stupid.

[2:30] He looks like a fucking rapist.

[2:32] He looks like he would probably rape you. That's the thing.

[2:34] He might, but he wouldn't.

[2:36] Wishful thinking?

[2:37] Oh, man!

[2:39] Oh, man!

[2:40] Like, if Billy Zane raped you, he would do it with sort of a sly, understated humor.

[2:45] No, there's a brutish, thug-like quality to him that makes him very unlikable.

[2:51] I find his smugness somehow sort of charming.

[2:55] Endearing? Sure. No, I don't think so.

[2:57] I've had a really complex relationship with Billy Zane.

[2:59] Explain.

[3:00] I watched Late Consequence, the Zalman King movie, when I was pretty young,

[3:04] and it was really erotic.

[3:06] Sure.

[3:07] So I always just kind of attribute...

[3:09] Like a pretty association thing.

[3:11] Was it erotic because of Billy Zane, though, or was it just...

[3:14] Well, I think the problem is that he was just post-pubescent-like,

[3:19] so that shit's all wrapped up in his brain now, it's all twisted together,

[3:22] and he doesn't know where the Billy Zane ends and the eroticism begins.

[3:25] And then he gets aroused whenever he sees Billy Zane.

[3:27] Well, again, not necessarily.

[3:29] I think the two are twisted together.

[3:31] I actually think Dane's close to the mark here, guys.

[3:35] It wasn't June Severance.

[3:37] I like the fact that, you know, I watched Billy Zane in this movie,

[3:40] and I feel like Billy Zane believes he is in some sort of light comedy.

[3:44] Billy Zane believes he's in a light comedy in every movie he's in,

[3:47] because he's constantly smirking or sneering at everyone,

[3:52] and he wears a shitload of turtlenecks in this movie.

[3:54] Well, all I'm going to say is that some of his...

[3:56] Turtlenecks, a lot of burgundy sweaters, fine light sweaters.

[4:01] I'm not saying that we shouldn't address his wardrobe,

[4:03] because this movie was clearly sponsored by L.L. Bean.

[4:08] He's either wearing a bean neck or he's wearing a turtleneck,

[4:10] and it's like burgundy...

[4:12] Very gentle colors, like a nice maroon or like a tobacco color,

[4:16] you know, like a nice chocolatey brown.

[4:18] Yeah. Now, this movie and exposition wasn't there very much.

[4:24] Literally, if it's possible for there to be 200% exposition in a movie,

[4:30] this movie had 200% exposition.

[4:32] It was all exposition.

[4:34] Really?

[4:35] Yes, absolutely.

[4:36] I agree with you, sir.

[4:38] We are of a mind.

[4:40] A key example, I would say, probably the point in which

[4:44] there's a to-do list that fills the entire screen,

[4:47] and one of the things on the to-do list is pick up scuba gear,

[4:51] and then later, lo and behold in the movie,

[4:53] what skill does Billy Zane have that he needs to call upon to solve the mystery,

[4:58] but his scuba diving.

[5:00] He has scuba diving abilities, sure.

[5:02] Maybe I'm a little harsh,

[5:04] but I really think that he needed to be able to scuba dive.

[5:07] Like, do you really feel that, like, if that scene wasn't in the movie,

[5:11] you wouldn't have known what was going on?

[5:13] My favorite exposition moment was when he and his Asian friend with the weird mustache.

[5:19] Why do you have to bring up these Asians?

[5:20] Well, it's because that was his friend.

[5:21] He's a friend.

[5:22] Okay, fine, his friend.

[5:23] He only has literally one friend in the movie.

[5:26] His mustachioed friend.

[5:28] In any case, his friend and he, they're at that bar,

[5:32] and they're talking, and his friend's talking about, like,

[5:35] you can't worry about whether or not you yourself will get Alzheimer's someday,

[5:38] like your mom who has Alzheimer's.

[5:40] And, like, they go in this conversation that's like,

[5:42] oh, so he's not only a good guy and really smart,

[5:45] but also really into Alzheimer's research.

[5:47] Got it.

[5:48] Which brings up another problem I have with this goddamn movie.

[5:51] The fucking movie was about memories,

[5:53] so they made the character an Alzheimer's researcher.

[5:56] Had nothing to do with the plot.

[5:57] It just seems really fitting.

[5:59] Simon, that's good scrutiny.

[6:00] No, it's not good screenwriting.

[6:01] There's nothing that makes that good.

[6:03] What makes that good?

[6:04] You give the character,

[6:05] you seem to give the character a personal problem

[6:07] that relates to the theme of the movie,

[6:10] and the theme is memory,

[6:11] as exemplified by the title of the film, Memory,

[6:14] which is explained to us,

[6:16] the first shot of the film is a dictionary definition of memory

[6:20] for all of the non-English speakers in the audience.

[6:23] Frankly, to tell you the truth,

[6:24] fucking for the first hour and a half,

[6:26] I had no fucking idea what was going on.

[6:28] Literally no idea whatsoever.

[6:30] I'd been drinking,

[6:31] and I was texting somebody most of the time,

[6:33] but to tell you the truth, no idea.

[6:36] I just saw Billy Zane smirking most of the time.

[6:38] I would say it would be fair to call it a slow-starting movie.

[6:42] Well, I wouldn't even say that it was slow-starting,

[6:44] so much as it was like a weird series of tableaus

[6:47] that didn't really have anything to do with each other,

[6:49] like Billy Zane researching Alzheimer's,

[6:52] Billy Zane in Brazil,

[6:54] Billy Zane tooling around town.

[6:57] Let's address this a little bit.

[6:59] The thrust of the film is

[7:01] Billy Zane starts getting memories that aren't his,

[7:04] and that leads him into this mystery.

[7:06] It's a mystery.

[7:07] And these memories are like these memories

[7:09] that some family member had that he's remembering.

[7:12] I really liked all the bits where

[7:14] all of a sudden he would close his eyes,

[7:16] and then he would be in a memory.

[7:18] Yeah, that was really interesting.

[7:19] Because it was really true to life.

[7:21] Sure, that's the way I experience memory.

[7:23] Well, that was the best part about it,

[7:24] is that instead of...

[7:25] It wasn't just that he had his parents' memories.

[7:27] He experienced them in like a living way.

[7:30] Like he would live the memory in his waking life.

[7:33] Well, whenever I have a memory,

[7:34] it's like an epileptic seizure.

[7:36] I literally...

[7:37] Oh, well, now remember those.

[7:39] I disengage from life as it is,

[7:41] and then it's like a blackout.

[7:43] So that's why I try not to remember things in day-to-day life.

[7:46] Sure.

[7:47] But the reason he starts having these mysteries...

[7:49] The film starts out in Sao Paulo,

[7:52] where he gets exposed to this dust.

[7:55] Which has been used in religious ceremonies

[7:57] the world over for 2,000 years,

[7:59] as the movie explains.

[8:00] 2 million.

[8:01] No, it wasn't 2 million.

[8:02] It was 2 million.

[8:03] No way it was 2 million.

[8:04] It was totally 2 million.

[8:05] They said 2 million.

[8:06] Are you sure they didn't say 2,000?

[8:07] Civilized societies for 2 million years

[8:09] have been using this dust.

[8:11] 2 million years.

[8:12] The world over.

[8:13] Weirdly enough, without any form of communication.

[8:16] It's called red ochre.

[8:18] But anyway, he goes back to the United States,

[8:22] and literally, the whole opening is just a plot device

[8:25] for some reason that he would experience someone else's memories.

[8:30] We don't return to Brazil.

[8:32] He doesn't encounter some sort of Brazilian cult operating in America.

[8:37] Much like memory monsters or some shit.

[8:40] You know what, here's the thing about this movie that pisses me off so much.

[8:42] Like, oh god, I can't handle these twist movies.

[8:46] Some kid found out that he was adopted by a serial killer,

[8:50] and his real dad was the cop who was hunting the serial killer.

[8:53] It seems like if anyone comes up with a bullshit idea,

[8:56] I need to make a movie around this retarded thing.

[8:58] Wouldn't that be weird if that happened?

[9:00] So they make him go to Brazil, where he actually touches powder

[9:03] that makes you experience your parents' memories.

[9:06] Later it turns out that's a fucking lucky break,

[9:09] because one of his parents is a murderer.

[9:11] Fucking pretty nice.

[9:13] And this all becomes clear in the last five minutes of the movie

[9:16] when he stumbles upon a dungeon of evidence.

[9:20] Let's call it a dungeon!

[9:21] It's a dungeon of evidence.

[9:23] I like to call it an evidence dungeon.

[9:26] Well in any case, it's certainly not a basement, it's a dungeon.

[9:29] It's far too...

[9:30] Strangely, in the course of defeating the old woman

[9:33] that Billy Zane is luckily able to overpower,

[9:37] he manages to destroy all the evidence.

[9:40] Case closed. Billy Zane is exonerated.

[9:43] The nightmare is over.

[9:45] I like to call that the Tango and Cash ending.

[9:47] Yep, where everything explodes, and then job well done.

[9:50] Way to go, Moz.

[9:51] By the way, two episodes, two Tango and Cash mentions.

[9:54] We're only two episodes in this podcast,

[9:56] and we've already mentioned Tango and Cash twice.

[9:58] But if you recall,

[10:00] the cash blow-up jack palaces uh... evil compound and all of the evidence that

[10:06] would not have been a little easier it's what

[10:09] to do in case of billy zane and subject palsy

[10:12] and margaret

[10:13] and i think at the point of

[10:16] passed out when it exploded

[10:18] uh... we don't know if she was passed out or if maybe there have been some

[10:21] like horrible

[10:22] poison

[10:23] she's there was a rich and it was a knockout thing i don't know maybe she

[10:26] was on top of the poison or she was burned to death

[10:29] uh... he beat up an elderly woman who turns out uh... well spoiler alert

[10:33] uh... turns out that anne margaret is his fucking real mom

[10:36] through a retarded series of things that aren't worth discussing

[10:39] and she's a murderer

[10:40] and she bases her murdering on an angel

[10:45] uh... part of the lesser known like i don't know if that's part of the

[10:47] tetragrammaton or not i don't know where you'd find that

[10:50] wait did you just say tetragrammaton yes

[10:52] yes the four major books of the jewish religion

[10:56] i don't know if it comes from folklore or what

[10:58] now simon you said something about

[11:01] uh... a really cool angel

[11:02] what was she based on?

[11:04] uh... what do you mean kefzeel?

[11:06] yeah kefzeel the angel

[11:08] the angel of dead children

[11:11] now if i recall she used that

[11:13] name kefzeel yes she did when she went on the internet to find girls yeah she used that as an

[11:18] i am handle yep we would call her handle in this internet age

[11:23] the whole myspace stalking age that we live in

[11:27] uh... she would stalk young girls via instant messenger

[11:30] and she used the name

[11:32] kefzeel

[11:33] but she printed backwards

[11:36] uh... which i find weird because presumably all the little girls she's trying to kidnap

[11:40] are not familiar with hebrew folklore

[11:42] i don't know maybe the parents are otherwise they'd read the name and be like

[11:46] wait a minute my daughter's being IM'd by someone named kefzeel

[11:50] that's the angel of dead children well i mean either way what this movie has taught me is that

[11:55] she's able to IM little girls without knowing them with a view of each other

[12:01] i think what dan's going for is more like

[12:03] what did you just start typing in random little girl sounding names like

[12:07] um... daddy's little girl or um... baby princess just like

[12:11] shit i'm not coming up with anything spoiled rotten 24 or even just trying names like

[12:17] janie anderson

[12:19] janie anderson 12 why not

[12:21] and like so janie is that 12 just like a random number or are you 12 years old like perfect

[12:26] i'll soon be kidnapping you

[12:28] it's me your new friend lefkezeb or whatever the fuck it is backwards

[12:33] and janie anderson 12 years old of course is like

[12:36] oh lefkezeb

[12:37] my new favorite internet friend

[12:39] i will meet you in the mysterious forest

[12:43] where you will surely not kidnap me thanks for sending me that really cool

[12:47] fly to the concords video clip for me to watch

[12:51] it's weird uh...

[12:52] i do like having tea parties with life size little girl dolls

[12:57] yeah that was a really creepy part of the movie where uh...

[13:00] apparently kefzeel in addition to murdering little girls

[13:03] what she does is she kidnaps them and then makes like a plaster mold of their face

[13:06] and then makes a wax mask of it

[13:08] puts the wax mask on a doll

[13:11] and she then seats that doll at a really big long table for a tea party

[13:15] then presumably later on she kills the little girl

[13:18] and then when new little girls get kidnapped they all enjoy a super creepy tea party

[13:23] with all the beautiful little girls

[13:25] all my little babies

[13:28] you know

[13:29] that's my anne margaret impression by the way

[13:32] dolls are naturally scary that's true

[13:34] uh... somebody figured this out in hollywood and now

[13:38] that man's name is billy zane

[13:39] now uh...

[13:40] speaking of which by the way

[13:42] uh... if i could go back in time

[13:44] and i had let's say a high school improv uh... troupe

[13:49] i would name them the billy zanies

[13:52] i would prefer that

[13:53] the not the zaniacs

[13:55] the billy zaniacs

[13:56] the billy zanies

[13:57] the billy and zaniacs

[13:58] funster chucklehuts

[14:00] you mean the zaniac of funster

[14:02] yup the billy zane of funster chucklehuts

[14:11] well if you'll remember there was a part where billy zane was having one of the

[14:16] memories and he said that

[14:17] the abductor doesn't seem

[14:20] as fixated on

[14:21] killing the children

[14:23] as wanting to protect them

[14:25] however the girls the little girls did die that's worth mentioning

[14:29] so kefziel not that great of a protector

[14:33] well girls get scared when forced to endure a creepy tea party

[14:37] i think

[14:38] uh... if you're gonna like choose kefziel as your like tagline

[14:42] your animus

[14:44] i think you're kind of setting yourself up for failure if your goal is not to

[14:49] lead the dead children yeah

[14:50] as the angel of dead children specifically you might want to go with i don't know

[14:55] more gentleman of the road angel

[14:57] angel of the living children let's say

[15:00] so the uh... evidence dungeon at the end i thought it was really cool that there was

[15:05] like a really weakly whole that was the fucking weirdest part

[15:08] now so i mean obviously she has her room

[15:10] where

[15:11] she does all her like

[15:13] uh... abductee research like her notes like

[15:16] uh... things to do today abduct more girls underline like highlighter like what the fuck

[15:21] like i don't do that

[15:22] and i'm smart i'm not a murderer

[15:26] the idea being that like

[15:27] it's the kind of to-do list that someone would write who doesn't normally write to-do lists

[15:31] it's like you know what

[15:32] i'm gonna write a to-do list

[15:34] seven o'clock wake up

[15:36] eight o'clock go to work

[15:39] you know you don't have to write that shit out because you're going to do it

[15:42] so as an abductor

[15:44] you don't have to write out like today

[15:46] must remember to abduct more girls! exclamation point

[15:50] ten o'clock

[15:52] execute abduction

[15:53] eleven o'clock enjoy abduction

[15:56] enjoy fruits of abduction

[15:59] so there's that room

[16:00] however the adjoining room

[16:03] was a really twisty hall

[16:05] almost like a funhouse hallway

[16:07] with a bunch of weird like

[16:08] crazy person words and phrases written everywhere yeah it was like the hall that you would walk

[16:13] down if you went to like some churches like haunted house sure or really like i don't know

[16:18] like a like a funhouse somewhere jc's haunted house i don't know where she got it and it says

[16:23] things like abortions bad or something i don't know abortion rules or something i don't know what's scary

[16:28] i guess if it was a church and they were trying to be scary they would probably say

[16:32] abortion rules

[16:34] yeah you're right because that would make it scary because otherwise it would be a house of horrors

[16:38] it would be a house of truth

[16:40] in any case

[16:41] i remember seeing the hallway and wondering

[16:44] whether or not she was a carpenter

[16:46] how she explained that construction of the drywall installers

[16:49] like i don't know like a really twisty hall that a crazy person might have

[16:54] you know if i was crazy

[16:55] but then though let's not forget that at the end of that crazy hallway

[16:59] was the room of ultimate clues like the ultimate shits

[17:04] after traveling through that twisted

[17:06] the twisted mind

[17:08] he gets to like

[17:10] the reasons

[17:11] the answers which featured a really big picture of her a gigantic like blown up

[17:16] photograph of

[17:18] a contemporary photograph

[17:20] of hann margaret

[17:21] in the middle of the wall in the middle like a giant spider in the middle of a web

[17:25] it's a seems kind of weird fair it did not have murderous written on it

[17:30] anything

[17:31] you know

[17:31] sure like a lot of eyes that you've heard her question mark

[17:35] but then it was surrounded with like for instance apparently when you get

[17:37] discharged from a mental hospital

[17:39] they give you your own report

[17:41] well here's a while you're crazy

[17:43] which she had

[17:45] the wall

[17:46] along with a bunch of photos and other damn evidence is a

[17:49] has a little bit of support

[17:51] now i'd like to point out that the uh...

[17:54] co-writer director of the film based his screenplay and i'm assuming part of his

[18:00] directorial cues

[18:02] on

[18:03] the novel

[18:04] of the same name memory short which they mentioned uh...

[18:08] in the opening credits

[18:09] and the way to do they mention them in the closing credits closing credits

[18:13] first credit is

[18:14] please go by my book please

[18:17] now having watched the movie

[18:22] i will go by this book because it's obviously very good yes

[18:26] well i would say that it seems like it's probably a tremendous novel

[18:30] i only want to buy it

[18:31] wants it's adapted into a graphic novel

[18:33] sure that's fair

[18:35] too many words are really annoying

[18:37] i want that uh... i want there to be a novelization

[18:40] of the film based on the novel preferably written by alan dean foster

[18:45] and then i want that

[18:46] david foster wallace

[18:47] yes

[18:48] david foster wallace

[18:50] i would like to be writing the novelization of the movie memory based on the novel memory

[18:54] based on an original graphic novel

[18:56] and i would like a graphic novel

[18:58] based on one of david foster wallace's footnotes based on david foster wallace

[19:02] about him reading the book memory

[19:04] it would be a supposedly fun memory i'll never rent again

[19:07] sure a great memory

[19:09] so i'd like to introduce a new segment that we're going to have in this podcast

[19:15] chill the chavess

[19:17] be careful

[19:18] you know don't worry about it i got this one

[19:20] uh... it's called memories of memory

[19:23] what is uh... literally your favorite moment in the movie memory daniel

[19:28] i mean i may be stealing it

[19:29] from you i don't know what you're thinking of

[19:32] uh... i know that you made us watch it a couple times there was a moment at which

[19:35] mustache friend scientist said hey

[19:38] remember that dust we happened to feed it to these mice

[19:42] and you know what happened and uh... billy zane reacted in a way that he's like

[19:46] yeah i remember

[19:48] what he says is he's like

[19:50] do you remember those rats that i fed the powder to billy zane's reaction with a

[19:55] slightly arched eyebrows to say

[19:57] yeah

[19:59] he says it

[20:00] Really weird and like, yeah, I remember, that was some good shit.

[20:04] It's really fucking weird.

[20:05] His response is as if he was saying, remember when we got those two tie bookers?

[20:11] So that's a pretty good memory.

[20:12] My favorite memory is, okay, there's this awesome part where Billy Zane's walking down the street.

[20:17] And he sees a painting that's very reminiscent of the image he's been having from these memories.

[20:24] He then goes to where the artist has her studio.

[20:27] Walks up to her and says, I'm interested in buying one of your paintings.

[20:30] Her reaction is to say rather snidely, would you buy a lot of art?

[20:35] Which was kind of weird.

[20:37] He handles it as best as he's able.

[20:40] And then she asked him out on a date to drink some hot chocolate.

[20:44] During said date, they had no point talking about the painting they'd like to purchase.

[20:47] They pretty much just talk about their lives, get to know one another.

[20:50] And then she probably leaves as she has another class to teach.

[20:53] And you know what?

[20:54] He doesn't end up buying the painting.

[20:56] Whole thing.

[20:56] I think that part's really fucking weird.

[20:58] Now, my memory.

[21:00] You know, if this movie taught me anything, it's that memories are fickle beasts.

[21:04] They're creatures that you can't really, you can't trap into a little box.

[21:08] But I think the thing that I'm going to carry with me forever probably, till I die,

[21:14] is the end of the film when Billy Zane realizes that the girl that he's in love with,

[21:21] his love interest that Simon just mentioned, Stephanie Jacobs, that was her name,

[21:24] was actually the girl that was kidnapped,

[21:27] that he was seeing in the memories of his dad or mom.

[21:30] I don't actually remember.

[21:31] No, it was his mom.

[21:32] It was his mom and Margaret.

[21:33] The ultimate murderer angel comes out.

[21:37] Nonetheless, it was just really touching.

[21:41] Sure it was.

[21:41] And I think it was an excellent dating moment.

[21:44] Sure.

[21:45] Can we take a moment just to talk about, I mean, other than Billy Zane.

[21:48] Sometimes the memory is a nightmare.

[21:51] For a film that does not, you know, not a big movie.

[21:57] No.

[21:59] But a great movie.

[22:01] There's some name actors in this movie.

[22:02] Sure there are.

[22:03] Billy Zane, for instance.

[22:05] Other than Billy Zane.

[22:07] Dennis Hopper is in this movie.

[22:08] He is.

[22:09] Dennis Hopper is.

[22:09] As we've mentioned.

[22:10] Never made a bad movie.

[22:11] Unbelievable.

[22:11] Anne Margaret in this movie.

[22:14] Less well known, but his love interest, Trisha Helper from the new Battlestar Galactica.

[22:21] Kind of an interesting cast.

[22:23] No.

[22:24] Sorry, I got over-replied to my text message.

[22:27] Stuart is getting a text message in the middle of this podcast.

[22:30] Maybe it's a text message from his memories!

[22:33] From Capsule!

[22:34] Hey, Stu!

[22:36] Time to get murdered, dude!

[22:40] But.

[22:41] Yeah, Dennis Hopper is in it.

[22:42] That's true.

[22:43] Also, that chick from Battlestar Galactica, Dan's dad.

[22:45] Are you suggesting that sometimes, I would say, Oscar caliber actors are put in a position

[22:50] where they can make either, like...

[22:53] An exquisite film.

[22:54] Well, like a big money movie.

[22:56] Or just kind of like small, like, you know, like character piece.

[22:58] Well, let's just, let's, let's call it like, just like a really cerebral movie, you know?

[23:02] Like, it's a thinking man's movie.

[23:03] Because it's about, like, memories and shit.

[23:07] Uh, dude, I totally can note the sarcasm in your voice.

[23:11] And I think you're doing this movie an injustice.

[23:13] It's a retarded movie.

[23:14] It made me sad.

[23:15] The whole time I watched it, I kept wishing that I had died.

[23:18] I wasn't watching it anymore.

[23:19] Yeah, their agent's really good.

[23:21] There's this movie about a memorologist.

[23:23] Sure, a master memoryist.

[23:25] Here's, making that character an Alzheimer's researcher in a movie about memories is like

[23:31] in Ghost Rider, how the main character's last name was Blaze.

[23:34] What a great-ass coincidence that his last name informs the fact that he will later be

[23:37] on fire.

[23:38] It's not good script writing.

[23:39] It's his name in the comics.

[23:40] Yeah, and that's stupid too, then.

[23:43] We discussed this in the last podcast, but I had to cut it out for time purposes.

[23:49] The reason why we selected this film, which was, uh, we saw the trailer for it in front

[23:56] of the Korean horror movie, The Host, and there was a huge response in the theater when

[24:01] we saw this trailer.

[24:03] Huge, huge response of laughter.

[24:06] More laughter than I've ever seen for a supposedly serious trailer.

[24:10] It was the weirdest phenomenon I've ever seen.

[24:12] It was a trailer that very, that clearly took itself very seriously and was very earnest

[24:17] about, like, memory, and the nightmare of memories, and sometimes memories about murderers

[24:22] are scary, and right when it finished, the entire theater cracked up.

[24:28] Well, and it was also a trailer that clearly was edited on an iMac.

[24:32] Like, someone had an iMovie.

[24:35] Well, it's a great tool.

[24:36] There was no money left over to make a trailer after getting big stars like Billy Zane.

[24:40] True.

[24:41] Deep pockets.

[24:42] That shit don't come free.

[24:47] Oh, shit.

[24:53] Um, well, The Flophouse.

[24:55] Check it out.

[24:57] That sucked.

[24:58] That was the worst bumper ever.

[25:06] So, I think that we're probably ready to make a judgment on this movie.

[25:11] Now, let me remind you of the official Flophouse category.

[25:15] Which I would like to know that.

[25:18] There's number one.

[25:20] Oh, that's right.

[25:20] I remember this.

[25:21] Number one, a movie that you would not recommend to anyone.

[25:23] That's right, because I'm a goddamn curmudgeon.

[25:25] I remember that.

[25:26] Number two.

[25:28] There's the movie that you would recommend to someone because it's bad in a way that you

[25:35] find funny, like a fun, bad movie.

[25:38] And number three, a movie that you secretly kind of like.

[25:40] Mm-hmm, sure.

[25:41] So, Simon, what category would you put this in?

[25:44] Well, as Stu so steadily pointed out, a lot of what I said tonight was dripping with sarcasm.

[25:51] Really?

[25:52] Yeah, no fake.

[25:52] Remember, you said that a minute ago, remember?

[25:55] Okay.

[25:55] Um, I thought this movie was retarded.

[25:59] Now, that said, I hate this movie.

[26:02] And, um, like I said, I wished I was dead.

[26:05] I might recommend it to other people to watch because it's so bad.

[26:10] With the caveat, though, that you have to watch it with, I mean,

[26:14] with a large group of people.

[26:15] Because it's the kind of movie where if you watch it, like, with one other person,

[26:18] and you're both just actually sitting down to watch it, have a good watch.

[26:21] Sure.

[26:22] You're, you're gonna wanna, you're gonna wanna, I don't know, chop your own legs off.

[26:25] All right, Stuart, what do you say?

[26:27] The thing is, uh, I'd totally recommend it.

[26:30] Uh, it was awesome.

[26:32] You are a goddamn liar.

[26:33] No, I'm not lying.

[26:34] You are a goddamn liar.

[26:35] Dude.

[26:36] You watched a third of it.

[26:39] Here's the thing.

[26:40] I got exactly what I wanted out of this movie.

[26:42] Stealth, not so much.

[26:44] Stealth kind of sucked my dong.

[26:46] Not in a good way.

[26:47] Like, you kind of nibbled on it.

[26:48] Yeah, I would say that I would recommend it to people.

[26:52] You're both insane.

[26:53] No, no, I recommend it on the grounds of it being bad.

[26:57] But it is bad in a really fascinating way.

[26:59] Like, like I said, Billy Zane has some really offbeat line readings that just don't make

[27:04] Which are fucking weird.

[27:06] Any sense at all.

[27:07] It has the craziest plot device in the world.

[27:11] Like, like they start out in Brazil and they're like, you know what?

[27:15] We're going to give you the power to have, uh, your parents' memories.

[27:18] Accidentally touch a powder that makes you have memories that your parents had before

[27:21] you were born.

[27:22] Yeah, and as you say, uh, it's very convenient that one of his parents happens to be a murderer.

[27:26] It's not like

[27:28] Really fucking works out nicely.

[27:29] That way it's not a bunch of trite or mundane memories.

[27:33] Like that was my first, I don't know, ice cream social I ever went to.

[27:36] Creepy.

[27:37] I'm reliving the memory of my parents fucking for the first time.

[27:41] My parents going to a fucking really good soccer.

[27:44] Yep, a fucking box social.

[27:48] It would almost be like they also had given him the last name.

[27:50] Like Dr. Jeremiah Memory is having a bunch of weird ass memories.

[27:54] Like it's so stupid.

[27:56] Um, and a world full of memories.

[27:58] Jeremiah Memory has to unravel two new memories.

[28:01] You know, it's just that kind of Dr. Jeremiah Memory, by the way, it's copyrighted.

[28:05] The thing is, my religious beliefs in this world, there are no coincidences, dude.

[28:10] So I prefer that sarcasm.

[28:13] No, too bad.

[28:14] Everything happens for a reason sometimes.

[28:15] Nope, go to hell.

[28:16] Everything happens for a reason.

[28:17] No, it doesn't.

[28:18] All right.

[28:19] Well, let's put memory behind us.

[28:21] Sure, let's forget it.

[28:23] Let's forget that memory if we can.

[28:25] Memory, I said.

[28:28] I said memory.

[28:32] Dan's losing his shit.

[28:35] Someone else is going to have to plow this shit.

[28:37] Hold on, what are you guys doing?

[28:39] No, what do you got?

[28:41] I think Dan wants to talk about other movies that we might have seen other than Memory.

[28:45] Sure, that we would recommend.

[28:46] Yes, sincerely.

[28:48] Simon, you go first.

[28:49] Sure, um, kind of an obvious one.

[28:53] I think I'm gonna steal a lot of people's thunder on this one, but I saw Superbad the

[28:57] other day and it was hilarious.

[28:59] It was an incredibly hilarious, great, hilarious movie.

[29:04] Uh, I just totally watched a couple episodes from the second season of Rome and they were

[29:09] really good.

[29:10] Does that count as a movie?

[29:11] Dan, your thoughts.

[29:12] Does that count as a movie?

[29:14] I don't, you know, it's undefined what we're recommending.

[29:17] Okay, okay, then let me pull this back.

[29:21] Instead of watching a TV show, I totally saw another trailer for a movie called Good Luck

[29:28] Chuck and every time I think about that movie, I want to beat myself to death with a hammer.

[29:33] So, if you want me to beat myself to death with a hammer, you should make me watch trailers

[29:37] for Good Luck Chuck.

[29:38] I asked Stewart on Tick Stewart out on a nice date to go see Good Luck Chuck.

[29:42] On a trailer, just a trailer.

[29:43] I don't want to see the movie.

[29:45] Now again, uh, again, you know, two episodes in, I think we're already seeing some trends

[29:50] here.

[29:50] Sure.

[29:51] One of them being that Stewart doesn't necessarily understand the purpose of this segment.

[29:56] Like, this segment is recommend a movie you recently saw.

[29:58] Stewart's recommending a movie you recently saw.

[30:00] Two episodes of a DVD TV show, and a really annoying trailer he watched.

[30:05] A trailer that he does not want to see.

[30:08] A trailer for a movie that he really doesn't want to see.

[30:11] A TRAILER, by the way.

[30:14] Be like, hey, still, what's a great movie you saw recently?

[30:17] Like, uh, I read a really cool magazine article the other day that I want to check out.

[30:22] Movie! What movie did you see recently that's really good?

[30:25] Shut the fuck up!

[30:28] Shut up!

[30:29] Actually, okay, okay, cool, everybody's cool.

[30:33] Okay, I watched Disturbia the other day.

[30:36] That's true, we did watch Disturbia.

[30:38] Well, we didn't really pay attention when we first watched it.

[30:40] I watched it again.

[30:41] Okay.

[30:42] Pretty good.

[30:43] Shia LaBeouf, not bad.

[30:45] Like the guy.

[30:46] Kind of weird love interest element.

[30:48] Um, and kind of the, like, the thing that kind of pushes him to battling the murderer is kind of weird.

[30:55] But, uh, pretty good.

[30:58] Right there, nicely done, Steve.

[31:00] Luckily, um, this podcast, much like baseball, you only get three strikes, but you knocked it out of the park with that last one.

[31:06] Thanks, buddy.

[31:07] I tried.

[31:08] Daniel, what do you got for us?

[31:10] Uh, I watched a movie recently called, uh, The Silent Partner.

[31:14] It sounds boring.

[31:16] But it wasn't, it was from the late 70s.

[31:20] Sounds more boring.

[31:22] It's a thriller.

[31:24] Basically, the premise is...

[31:26] Holy shit! Three strikes, three strikes!

[31:28] Pull out, Dan!

[31:30] Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[31:31] Alright.

[31:32] The premise is a thriller?

[31:33] Yes.

[31:34] It's like a third...

[31:35] Yeah, that's a strike.

[31:36] What else you got?

[31:37] Alright.

[31:38] The premise of The Silent Partner is there's a bank teller who realizes that a guy is going to rob the bank.

[31:45] And he sort of has an idea of when this bank robbery is going to occur.

[31:49] And on that day, he puts some of the money in his lunchbox.

[31:54] And knowing that, once the bank has been robbed, the police are going to think, okay, that money was just part of what was stolen.

[32:01] However, the bank robber hears him talking about the robbery on the news and realizes that the money that's been reported stolen is larger than the money that he has.

[32:13] So he's then going after the guy for the extra money.

[32:17] For the remainder.

[32:18] It's got Christopher Plummer in it as the bad guy.

[32:21] Interesting.

[32:22] The screenplay was written by Curtis Hanson, who went on to direct L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys.

[32:27] And it stars Elliot Gould.

[32:30] And you know what? I love that there was a time in our history when Elliot Gould was a big fucking movie star.

[32:36] I agree with that. I think that's fair.

[32:37] You know? It's pretty awesome that there was a period where they're like, you know what? This kind of goofy guy is going to be our star.

[32:45] He's a major star.

[32:46] He was a really good dad on Friends.

[32:51] He was also really good in the Oceans movie.

[32:53] But now it's time to say a fond farewell.

[32:56] Yes, it is.

[32:57] It's the saddest part of the show.

[32:59] I'd like to thank you for checking into the flop house.

[33:02] That's a catchphrase I'm trying out.

[33:06] Which is what? Repeat it one more time.

[33:07] I'd like to thank you for checking into the flop house.

[33:10] Well, wouldn't we say, okay, sure. Checking out.

[33:13] Or checking out.

[33:14] And renting a room.

[33:15] Renting a room.

[33:16] Yes, that's, you know, that's better.

[33:18] Because we wouldn't want to thank them for checking out.

[33:20] I'd like to thank you.

[33:21] All the time.

[33:22] I'd like to thank you listeners for renting a room in the flop house.

[33:25] Nice. There it is.

[33:26] Look at that. That's called brainstorming.

[33:28] But it's time to check out for this installment.

[33:31] Okay. Taking the middle of the bar, sure.

[33:34] But next time you can drop off a deposit for a room.

[33:38] Next time we'll be examining the film A Sound of Thunder.

[33:42] Oh, that's right. We will. Shit.

[33:44] And Simon's looking forward to it.

[33:47] For this episode, I'm Dan McCoy.

[33:50] I'm Simon Fisher.

[33:51] And I'm Stuart Wellington.

[33:53] Good night.

[33:55] Salud.

[34:01] I was dead.

[34:02] The thing, though, is, son of a bitch.

[34:04] Jesus Christ, turn it off.

[34:06] The, um...

[34:07] What? What? No.

[34:08] I'm sincerely interested at this point.

[34:11] Let's take a moment.

[34:13] Who is texting you that you can't turn the fucking phone off?

[34:17] Who is it?

[34:18] What big-breasted woman is texting you?

[34:22] It's certainly very mysterious.

[34:24] Medium-sized breasts.

The Flop House: Episode Two - Memory

Transcript

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