FH Mini 135 - The Movieboys of Summer

Hey, it's Dan.

These pre-rolls can get boring quickly, so I'll be fast.

Flop TV is back this September 2025 through February 2026 with all new streaming live shows that you can also see video on demand if you can't make it live.

Individual tickets and season passes are available at theflophouse.simpletics.com.

That's ticks spelled TIX,

as well as all the info that is too much to say here.

Now, the show.

Hey folks, it's me, Stuart Wellington of the Flophouse Podcast, and welcome to another installment of a Flophouse mini.

That is our off-week episodes where instead of watching a bad movie and talking about it, we kind of do whatever we want.

We've done some silly ones, we've done some scary ones, and we've done some serious ones.

And today, what we're going to be doing is closer to the serious ones where I am mainly using this as an opportunity to hang out and talk with my two friends.

Today, we're talking about a weird thing here for the Flophouse.

We're talking about movies.

So, real quick, if this is your first time listening to the Flophouse, I am one of the hosts, and joining me, as always, are Dan McCoy

and Elliot Kalen.

I didn't know if Dan was going to say and or not.

Elliot was pausing to scroll through his phone for a second.

I just needed to look through the context to remember what my name is.

Yeah.

How do I pronounce that again?

Ella?

L-A-I it.

I am running for mayor of Los Angeles, as we established in a previous episode.

So L-A-It, Kaylin.

That's Canon now.

We've

put that Cannon down.

Oh, wow.

He's carrying it.

How strong is Dan?

Very strong.

That's also Canon now.

Chalk it up.

So, yeah, put it on the whiteboard.

So today we're talking about movies, and now there's been a fair amount of talk about lists lately.

As always, if you follow the internet, you remember years ago, everyone was talking about Schindlers.

That was one of them.

Now that the naked gun's out, everyone wants to revisit Liam Neeson's other comedy work.

The uh,

I'm just goofing.

It's

we don't mean it, everybody.

We don't mean it.

It's just a joke.

So, what we're talking about specifically, I wanted to mention the New York Times recently had a 100 best movies of the last 25 years.

And that encouraged a fair amount of debate on the internet.

And they even encouraged folks to put together a list of like their 10 favorite movies from the last 25 years, which, of course, meant I did it quickly without thinking.

But did you guys, do you guys, are you familiar with this?

Did you read the list or anything?

I didn't read the list because I am in a fight with the New York Times over their

increasingly bad coverage of the world.

Also, that one newsboy keeps waking you up when he throws the newspaper against the door.

Yeah, but I did also, I felt FOMO.

I wanted to play.

So I did make my own letterbox list of what I would put in that

thing.

I saw that they were doing this and I deliberately did not read it because I think I thought it would only also FOMO, it only reminds me of all the movies I have not had a chance to see because of my busy, chaotic life.

And so I was like, I bet I'm not even going to have seen half of these.

It's going to make me feel like I'm missing out.

So I'm not even going to look at it.

And I didn't read the list, but I did use it as an opportunity to come up with a list of 10 favorites of mine with the additional rules because, you know, why not put more rules on it?

You love rules.

You're a gamester.

No more than one

entry from any one director because otherwise it would just be all Lord of the Rings movies and Luca Guadalgino movies.

That's exactly what I've guessed.

It would be all Peter Jackson and Luca, and that's it.

That's the whole thing.

Yeah, that's the two sides of Stewart.

A sensitive guy.

I'm basically Sam Wise, right?

I like it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You are Sam Wise.

I'm a sensitive guy who likes going on adventures, but kind of doesn't like going on adventures.

And Dan is the Frodo.

He's the leader who also is pretty complainy about having to be on this adventure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, why me, man?

Just because I'm nice enough to be able to hold a ring.

My uncle stole a ring.

Now I've got to go to a volcano.

What the hell is this?

And I'm, of course, Marion Pippin smashed into one person.

Yeah.

That's actually that tracks.

I'm glad that that's

before any listeners quickly write in and say, Elliot's gollom, that's not fair.

Only physically.

Only as I age am I becoming gollum.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We're all becoming gollum.

You're coughing up hairballs.

He's got no hair.

What are you talking about?

Gollum is like the least hairy character in the movie.

Yeah, but he's always coughing.

Like, that's kind of what inspired Andy Serkis' golem-like cough thing.

Was that?

Those hairballs, which is kind of crazy if you think about it.

Maybe he got it from eating things with hair.

Yeah, I guess, yeah, he's eating little mammals with coughing.

I just assumed he always had fish bones in his throat.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's always coughing.

Because the band Fishbone wandered into the caverns and he ate them.

Yeah, I love it.

So, so funky.

Okay, so what we're going to talk about today.

So we're not going to talk about our favorite movies of the last 25 years.

Oh, that's

a misdirect.

It's part of the setup, which is going to take roughly half the podcast.

Oh, cool.

So is this like the games that you play, Stu?

Uh-huh.

Yep.

We're still in character creation, boys.

We got to fine-tune our characters' appearance.

So we are also recording this kind of in like the middle of summer.

One would call it the dog days of summer.

Would you call it that, Dan?

It's not a phrase I usually use in my day-to-day.

No, quit.

Cool.

Okay.

I would use it, but I would spell days D-A-Z.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Cool way.

So I don't know about you guys, but one thing that I always think about during the summer is going to big summer movies.

And that's what we're talking about: we're going to be talking about the big summer movies of the last 25 years.

Now, one of the reasons is because I don't know about you guys, but when I was growing up,

I have very fond, like part of what made me love movies was as a kid, going to see, I specifically remember at a friend's

Lake Cottage, going to see the first Batman.

I mean, it wasn't my Lake Cottage.

It was a friend's.

My dad would never splurge on an extravagance like a lake cottage.

And they, I remember going to see the, the Tim Burton Batman movie at the like, like old-timey, like big movie house, like the, not, you know, a modern multiplex, but like.

Like a big grand show house, like a movie palace.

Exactly.

And I remember seeing, I remember seeing Batman there, and it had like...

imprinted in my memory that feeling and the excitement of going to the movies.

you were like Nicole Kidman in that moment.

Exactly.

Heartbreak from seeing the jokester finally get his meet his end felt good in a place like that.

Do you guys have any fond memories of going to the movies?

Obviously, I know Ellie's going to say seeing Jurassic Park like 10 times in the summer of 1990.

I saw it three days in a row.

I saw it at, I went to when it went to an 11:30 screening the night before it officially opened, and then I went to see it after school the next day.

So, yeah, that's a big part of it.

Can grown, like, if

childhood Elliott, who had seen Jurassic Park two days in a row, found out that older Elliot does not have time to see Jurassic Park two days in a row, how upset would young Elliott?

Very upset.

There's a lot of things that young Elliot would be excited that older Elliot is doing and a lot of things that he'd be disappointed older Elliot is not doing.

But younger Elliot also just would see anything at theaters.

I also saw Robin Hood Men in Tights two days in a row, twice.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow.

So like, I had a lot of time on my hands to go to see movies.

So I saw, I remember seeing Last of the Mohicans twice in the same day.

Oh, wow.

I went to like a birthday party during the early part of the day, which is a kind of a weird birthday party.

And then being like, this movie fucking rocks.

I need to see that shit again.

And I just went again at night.

Since it was brought up, I have a specific men and tights memory, which is that

this is Dan's regular segment, Men and Tits Memories.

It's

often a little disturbing, but this is a good memory, which is,

yeah,

my

church youth group

did a thing one time where they're like, we're going to do a marathon of movies.

We want you to learn about Judaism.

So we're going to go see Robin Hood, Man, and Dice.

We're going to time it out.

So,

you know, like we can go from movie to movie to movie and we'll see three in a row in the theater, which is like Christmas for me because we never saw movies when I was was growing up.

Let me interject.

That's the kind of thing my family would do a fair amount is my mom would do that, would time it.

So we would see two or three movies in one day.

We just spend the day at the movies, but she would pay for tickets for each, whereas my dad was the kind of guy who, there was a multiplex near us eventually.

And he would, as a movie was ending, he would sneak out and go to the other theaters to see what was starting and scout ahead.

And I remember going to see a simple plan with him.

And he snuck back in the theater and goes, a bug's life is just about to start.

Let's go see that.

And I was like, I don't know.

That might be too much tonal,

too, tonal digestion for me.

I don't know.

Well, I'm going to, because you said that, I'm going to take a break from this anecdote and go to another brief interstitial anecdote, which is like.

This is a regular Dan McCoy segment called Auxiliary Anecdote.

He interrupts one anecdote for another.

Yeah.

No, it's just my family, my parents, when I was growing up, were

never going to spend the money or the time on taking us out to the movies.

They got three rowdy boys.

Yeah, although both.

Didn't you guys used used to wrestle under the name the rowdy boys?

Yeah.

Rowdy boy McCoy's.

My brothers are 10 and 13 years older than me, so they were gone most of my

youth.

But, you know, by that time, I don't know, they just got into like, we're not going to take people out for movies.

But the one time that I would get to see movies is because I was a movie mad youth, as I am a movie mad adult, I would for my birthday, and I had a summer birthday, I would want my like party to be like, hey, let's all go out and see a movie.

Like, my friends, you know, a few of my friends and I would go out and see.

So, I saw

Gremlins 2, The New Batch on my birthday.

That's a party.

I saw What About Bob.

I saw Maverick.

These are all movies that I remember associated with.

That rocks.

But,

but that was, you know, a special treat.

We normally would not see movies, but I remember this youth group thing where it was, we saw first Robin Hood Men in Tights,

followed by the fugitive great followed by so I married an axe murderer has his charms yeah I mean it was a great it was a I mean it's the weakest of the three uh I would go with men in tights personally I don't think that's a I don't know it's it's it's fine it was fun uh but you're talking about a movie elliott saw twice

I feel like if if Mel Brooks's other movies other better movies did not exist people would have been would have lost their shit over men in tights but I think maybe maybe but in a world with blazing saddles and you know Frankenstein men in tights is a lesser work certainly but yeah it's funny to me that like

every every day

i don't know so i don't know so much every day i do the box office game online inspired by uh the our friends over at blank check there's a you know an online version of the box office game where you try and remember what was uh on specific weekends at the box office and

Whenever I reveal the fugitive, and this has happened a few times, I immediately try and blind guess men in tights.

And so I married an axe murderer because I know for a fact I saw them at the same time.

And this strategy has never paid off.

I always lose points.

I guess they were in and out of the theater so much faster than the fugitive that I have to get the exact right weekend.

The Dan McCoy technique doesn't always pay off.

It does not work.

But he never stops.

That's persistence.

You know, they say insanity is not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Yeah.

Now,

I have a follow-up question.

When you actually, you did bring up What About Bob.

And I think my favorite thing about What About Bob is going to see it and being like, this is great.

I love this movie.

This Bill Murray guy is great.

He's from Ghostbusters.

And coming home to tell my parents about it.

And my mom was like, don't talk about it.

Your dad hates Richard Dreyfus.

I'm like, okay.

And at the time, I'm like, why?

But now I'm like, oh, it's because he's an asshole.

Yeah.

I mean,

that's a policy that makes more sense now.

That was during the time, like, Dad, your dad had a lot of personal encounters with Richard Dreyfus.

No, he just hated him for something.

He probably played like a bad guy in a movie.

It's like my parents both hate Paul Reiser because of aliens.

That's so funny.

Have you explained the difference between a character and an actor them yet?

I was a child at the time.

I didn't even understand it.

But also to

pay Paul Riser for a role that is such an outlier in the rest of his acting career is really funny to me.

But

there's so what about Bob came out during the period when my dad most looked like Richard Dreyfus.

And the joke that we had in our family was that you couldn't tell my dad and Richard Dreyfus apart.

And for his birthday that year, my sister made like, oh no, it was for a family project.

We had a family project.

Did he ever use that to like pull off a heist?

No, unfortunately, no.

Or if he did, I didn't see any of the money.

But we had a family project and my sister did a thing about how my dad looks like Richard Dreyfus.

And she just cut the faces of Richard Dreyfus from the back of the What About Bob VHS box out and was like, can you tell the difference between my dad and Richard Dreyfus?

And people were like, I think you're dad, dad, that's him, right?

Like they really thought he was, he was one of them.

But that for his, for my dad's 70th birthday, I made like a PowerPoint for him and a big chunk of it was about his double life as Richard Dreyfus in the 1970s and 80s.

I was like, you don't see, you don't see Richard Dreyfus in movies that much anymore.

Well, my dad's been pretty busy, but

anyway, so I can't help thinking about what about Bob without thinking about my dad too.

Now, talking about going to the movies, I remember, Dan, you know, your family with three boys, and maybe your, maybe that that factored into your parents not wanting to take you all out to movies.

That's it.

I remember my close friend, who I'm sure I've mentioned on the podcast before, who was also my college roommate, Casey Crow, was the eldest of four brothers.

And anytime I would go with them to the movies, their mother would pack everybody, would like pre-pop popcorn for everyone, and we would sneak our own popcorn in, which was not something my family did.

And I think part of it is because, you know, you got to feed four hungry boys plus a Stewart.

And I was a hungry boy back then.

That's five boys.

Did you guys sneak,

like Elliot mentioned, sneaking into other movies or buying a ticket to other movies?

Did you bring in your outside snacks?

There's no cop, no cops are going to drag you away.

I think the statute of limitations is over.

Yeah.

I don't recall ever doing it.

We definitely would never buy snacks because that would be too expensive, but I don't remember us either sneaking them in because we're a family of rule followers and that would not be

allowed.

We were the opposite.

We're a family of criminals and goniffs.

And so almost every movie, my dad would be like, pop a bag of popcorn, put it under your coat.

And I would say, can I have a soda?

And he goes, I already brought some soda.

And he'd pull out like a warm diet Coke in a can.

I'd be like, great.

Once we wanted candy, he goes bag in my pants.

He goes, it's okay.

I brought some candy from a meeting I had earlier today.

And he had like a couple warm dove chocolates that they must have had in a bowl in whatever place he was pitching in a marketing campaign to.

So we were very much a sneaker food into the theater type of family.

He'd take us to the drugstore.

This is like a Paul Giamatti character in the story of Elliott's life.

He'd take us to a drugstore ahead of time so we could get bigger candy bars for less money than the ones at the movie theater.

And he'd always be like, see, look at the price difference.

You shouldn't have to pay that much to the theater.

You just pick something up ahead of time.

And the way I've responded to this is that whenever I take my boys to the movie theater, we always buy the biggest possible popcorn.

You know, it's like, take that, dad.

I'm going going to spend the money you wouldn't spend.

And then we eat too much and our tummies hurt.

Yeah, you get a collectus popcorn carrier that you have to, I don't know, get shipped back to your home.

That's the thing.

I never splurge for the collectible bucket, but more just because I know it's going to just hang around my house until eventually my wife throws it out.

Like it's not, it's not going to get put on a shelf as a trophy or anything like that.

It's not going to be one of those things that like 10 years from now, your sons are going to be like, I found this thing.

It's incredible.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Yeah.

I remember.

You see this popcorn bucket?

It's got these weird spines on it.

You could put your penis into it.

Oh, that's a Dune popcorn bucket.

Don't put your penis in that.

I had saved one of these recent Ghostbusters

cups to give to Elliot.

And then I said, oh, sorry, I forgot.

I'd saved this cup.

He's like, that's fine.

I don't want it.

It would just junk up the house.

We can't already, we have too many cups for our cupboard.

Our cupboard is overflowing with cups.

You might as well just throw out some of those cups and keep the one Dan gave you, but that's my two cents.

That was Stuart's interstitial segment.

Yeah, it's called my two cents.

It's always a surprise segment.

He doesn't announce it till after he's already done it.

Yeah.

So we've talked a little bit about nostalgia, and I feel like when we talk about some of these big movies, I feel like nostalgia is going to play a large part, nostalgia, and sequels and the Disney company.

But I have compiled a list

using the internet of

the number one summer movie of each year of the last 24-ish years.

I did put the criteria that this is movies that came out between Memorial Day to Labor Day, right?

So,

not including the

summer kickoff movie, which in many cases was a bigger release than the big summer movies of these years.

I'll give you an opportunity to guess some of these.

We're going to start way back in 2001, and we'll do a couple of those, maybe and then jump forward.

So

can you guys guess at what the number, like the big,

this isn't just in terms of box office performance, the number one summer movie of 2001 is?

You're starting exactly at the point where like my memory of these things starts falling off because it was much more important to me.

in childhood or more or like looms larger in my memory than like when I started actually going to the movies more often myself.

I mean, also, you were having sex by that point, Dan.

So you had other things on your mind then.

In 2001?

Well, maybe not 2001, but certainly by 2008.

Excuse me.

Yes.

I was.

Thank you.

Okay, if you say so, but I mean, there's no, Dan, you haven't provided any proof, so I'll just have to take your word for it.

I think it sees some receivers.

I think that kicked off in 97, if I recall correctly.

Cool.

Okay.

Well, let's check the tapes.

You were taping me?

Yeah.

Yep.

Okay.

Can you guys, do you want to give a guess or do you just want me to blow your minds?

Yeah, blow my minds.

Yeah, yeah.

Give us our big mindset.

This is a sequel, and it stars a beloved longtime action star and a somewhat

beloved comedy performer.

See, this is, I think we need, yeah.

We need some information.

Well, I know it's not Judge Dredd.

Which starred Sylvester Salon as Bob Schneider.

It's not Speed 2 Cruise Control.

No, but you are very close to the both theme of the title and the sequel number.

So close to two or is it two?

Is that giving away too much?

I guess I'll say too much is correct.

It is two, yeah.

So second movie.

Let's see.

2020.

But you were close with speed.

It's not the Matrix, right?

Because there's no comedian in that.

Nope.

I'm going to to jump right in here, guys.

We're talking Rush Hour 2.

It was the big summer movie.

Honestly, I have forgotten the Rush Hour franchise, and that is on me.

They were huge movies.

I saw them in the theaters.

If you asked me to name action comedies of the early 2000s, I think I would have forgotten the Rush Hour movies.

In fact, if you are to streamline Shanghai Nights possibly over, and Shanghai Noon over Rush Hour, if only because the titles are more memorable.

I think if you, I don't know if it's both, but I can't remember which streaming platform has the rights right now.

but before the movie there's a disclaimer about like hey there's some jokes in here that are

really

yeah uh because there are yeah um

having having i think recently re-watched them uh for i don't know reasons because they were on this entertainment yeah for entertainment reasons the summer kickoff movie the big summer kickoff movie of course Dan's favorite animated movie of all time.

That's right.

Shrek.

Shrek crushed it.

That was the biggest movie of the year, I think, right?

Shrek?

No.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the biggest movie of the year.

But Shrek was a number two, right?

Yes, number two, followed by Monsters Inc, and then Rush Hour 2, and then the other big summer movie.

Well, this is a pre-summer movie, The Mummy Returns.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

He did do that.

He did return.

He's back again.

Let's jump.

Let's jump to the next year.

We got 2002.

Of course, the big summer kickoff movie, we had two huge summer kickoffs.

That's the summer of Spider-Man, right?

That first movie is a movie.

That is the summer of Spider-Man.

Yep,

early May, we have Spider-Man followed closely by Attack of the Clones.

But the big summer release, like actually in summer release, is

an outlier.

This is also Walt Disney Studios.

It is

a movie with some P-rats in it.

No.

Oh, okay.

That's close.

You're close.

It is a director who has been featured on the Flophouse multiple times.

Okay, Neil Breen.

So what movie did Neil Breen make for the Disney Studios?

Yeah.

There's been so many repeat offenders.

Is it a Robert Simekis movie?

No, there is aliens in it.

They're aliens.

Is it.

And this is a movie that did well.

It was the number four movie of the year and the biggest movie in the actual summertime.

Oh, wow.

2002.

Oh.

Guys, if you're not reading the signs,

it was signs, baby.

Signs, yeah.

That was a huge movie.

I forget how big that movie was.

But also, obviously, as you said, yeah, the summer kickoff movies were huge between Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones.

In a year where Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones came out, it's hard to remember that Signs also did well.

And also, I feel like there was probably, with those two movies coming out, there was a little bit of like, whoa, okay, let's push some shit.

Yes, I think you're very exactly.

But it is kind of interesting that this is that this is Disney's first entry in the list where they will be dominating basically the rest of the next 24 years.

I would not have known that was a Disney picture.

The number five.

And then the Monkey Mouse is in it?

The number five movie of that year, which was also also a spring release from ifc films my big fat greek wedding huge hit yeah yeah huge hit

huge hit yeah just for good reasoned for weeks and weeks and weeks yeah

uh okay let's go to 2003 and yep we got a double dose of delicious disney action oh wow elliot was already on on board with one can you guess the other one also aquatic okay so we know the first one was he of the sea sea of the baby

the number two movie of the year.

Yeah.

Wait, what?

So is it Finding Nemo?

It is Finding Nemo.

That's a double.

Man, that's a big summer for Disney.

For the ocean.

Yeah,

they beat out the movie.

The ocean was huge back then.

Huge.

They beat out The Matrix Reloaded.

They beat out Return of the King.

They beat out Bruce Almighty, Dan.

He is Almighty, except on this list.

He literally has the power of a god, but not the power to rule the box office.

And X2 X-Men United.

Oh, yeah.

A movie that, despite even seeing it in the very front row and having to crane my neck up, didn't spoil it for me.

I still enjoyed it very much.

Shocked to say that

though

this movie was obviously in the shadow of those first two.

Bad Boys 2 gave a pretty good representation in the summer at number 10.

It's hard for a movie like Bad Boys 2 to match the box office of a movie like Finding Emo because there's a large segment of the movie-wing population that is not going to Bad Boys 2 because they don't want to see two rap puppets having sex, Elliot.

Exactly.

In my memory, Bad Boys 2 came out so much later than X2.

This is

always

not interesting.

It just always boggles my mind the way.

Is this something you think about a lot?

Is the Order of the X-Men and Bad Boys movies?

Yeah.

Now, in relation to one another, where were they?

Where do the matrices intertwine?

Hi, is this Archer?

Yes, hello.

Who is this?

Hi, this is Tom Lum from Let's Learn Everything.

I'm calling about your Maximum Fund memberships extended warranty.

Do you have a few seconds to talk about that?

I think I have to go.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're going to be so mad at me.

Okay, fine.

Did you know that as a part of your maximum memberships extended warranty, you've been picked as the member of the month, which is wild.

And we're so excited to have you.

And so exciting.

Thank you.

So as our member of the month, you will also be getting a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fund store, a special member of the month bumper sticker, a special priority parking spot at Max Fun HQ in Los Angeles, California, just for you.

Also, I have to read, hold on, I have to read this.

It says, we at Maximum Fund apologize, you ended up with the worst host of the three, and as consolation, you'll be getting those.

Why is that included?

I don't remember that being there for the other.

It's okay.

I can settle.

It's fine.

Max Fun members are the best become a max fun member now at maximum fun.org slash join

say you like video games and who doesn't i mean some people probably don't okay but a lot of people do so say you're one of those people and you feel like you don't really have anyone to talk to about the games that you like well you should get some better friends okay yes you should you could get some better friends but you could also listen to triple click a weekly podcast about video games hosted by me kirk hamilton me maddie

and me, Jason Schreier.

We talk about new releases, old classics, industry news, and whatever, really.

We'll show you new things to love about games and maybe even help you find new friends to talk to about them.

Triple click.

It's kind of like we're your friends.

Find us at maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

A quick live show plug.

The Flop House is coming to Chicago.

On November 16 at 7 p.m., we will be at Sleeping Village in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago with our usual shenanigans of some comedy presentations, followed by discussion of the 1990 comedy Taking Care of Business, starring Chicago's own Jim Belushi.

If you've never seen us in person, since we've tended to mostly do shows on the coasts, now is your chance.

So go to tinyurl.com slash slash Chicago Flop to get your tickets now.

That's tinyurl.com slash Chicago Flop, and that'll redirect you to where you can buy some tickets.

2004, the Big Summer movie ends up at number two in the list because the summer was already kicked off by a little movie called Shrek 2.

Do you know?

More Shrek.

Yeah, more Shrek.

But

the Big Summer movie...

Shrek 2 Furious.

The Big Summer movie was also a sequel of a movie we've already talked about.

Already talked about.

Was that

another pirates movie?

The next year?

That'd be pretty fast.

Pretty fast.

It came out pretty quick.

It wasn't Spider-Man 2, right?

It is Spider-Man 2.

Still, arguably the best superhero movie of all time.

Strong argument.

Very strong argument for that.

It's great.

And then number three movie that year came out in February.

Unfortunately, we're talking Passion of the Christ.

We don't have to for long.

I mean, he's a superhero in his own way.

Yeah.

In a way.

And there are some other big movies.

Obviously, Harry Potter, The Incredibles came out in the fall.

Day After Tomorrow was a big, that was the big

Memorial Day release.

A movie I still have never seen.

I've never seen the Day After Tom.

I've also never seen The Day After Tomorrow.

Are we missing out, Dan?

I mean, it is one of my favorite dumb disaster movies.

Like, it is.

Is that Jake Jillenholm?

Yeah, it is really silly.

Like, there's a scene where he outruns cold as it goes down the hall.

That's the scene I've heard about.

But I feel like after Moonfall, there's such a high bar for silly, dumb disaster movies.

Well, this one has less, you know, sucking Elon Musk's dick in it.

Oh, yeah, fair enough.

That's an advantage.

Oh, man.

A unpleasant image conjured by Dan's words.

Okay, we got 2005 here, folks.

And our our big summer movie.

This one is not a sequel.

It's an outlier.

Most of these are going to be sequels.

And this is from Paramount Pictures.

It does star

one of the last remaining movie stars.

And it does have

a, let's say, a notable director who knows a thing or two about blockbusters.

So let's start.

Wait, from the beginning.

It is a sequel or not a sequel?

Not a sequel.

Not a sequel.

It has an old school movie star in it.

Is it a Tom Hanks picture?

No, but you have one of the names correct.

Is it a Tom Cruise picture?

Okay.

Geez, what did he make that wasn't a sequel?

Does he make movies that aren't sequels?

A War of the Worlds.

It's War of the Worlds, guys.

Number three movie of that year.

That's a great movie.

I've seen it.

It's good, right?

I mean,

sound design-wise, it's incredible.

I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters, but

I remember two things about seeing it.

I went, if I'm remembering correctly, I went with our friend of the show, she's never been on the show, but friend of two of us, Lauren Sarver.

And I remember both getting really pissed that someone in front of me spilled their soda and it got all over my backpack, which is on the floor, but also watching it in New York only a few years after September 11th.

I was like, this movie is really capturing how scary.

it felt to be in a place that's under attack on a certain day.

That's a scary movie.

Like, I was just amazed that World of Worlds is a genuinely scary movie, which I did not expect.

So, yeah, it's really good.

The ending is silly.

The ending is very silly, where he manages to find the one place that the aliens didn't bother to go, and everyone's fine.

But, you know.

Now, most of this list in 2005,

this is the top movies of the year.

It's filled with your regular franchise stuff, sequels, et cetera.

But then at number five, we get one of the last big theatrical comedy successes.

Dan's favorite movie, Wedding Crashers.

But this was like that, like heyday of

the big screen.

Yeah.

And I, you know,

I did find that movie very funny at the time, but I think it probably has not aged particularly well.

You especially liked that John McCain was appearing in a movie, right?

That's right.

Finally, let's get that charisma on the big screen.

I mean, I think it succeeds in large part to the charisma of John McCain and also Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson.

Yeah.

Okay, so that was 2005.

Let's go to 2006, guys.

We'll jump ahead in a second.

This is another big double whammy for Disney, the top two movies.

And also, it bears a fair amount of resemblance to a couple of years ago where they had the top two, where one's unanimated and one is not animated.

Can you guess what those two movies were?

Is one of them a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel?

You're correct.

Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest.

Dead Man's Chest.

I cannot

order they go in.

Arguably a high watermark in digital animation.

Oh, is that the one with Davey Jones?

Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that's amazing.

Incredible.

That's still amazing.

Yeah.

And Stellan Scarsgaard insisting on being in full prosthetics instead of being a digital character.

And he's the only one.

Is the other one a Toy Story sequel?

Nope.

But is it a sequel or not a sequel?

Not a sequel.

Oh, I thought you said the other one was an animated sequel.

Sorry.

It's an animated film.

Animated film from Disney.

Huge hit.

Show me.

Guys, Elliot,

I hope your family doesn't listen to this podcast because it's cars.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I will say, my boys are not as enamored of the cars series as they once were.

They used to be obsessed with it at one point.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's too bad.

It's too bad they've given up on cars and trucks to do that.

And do a condolence card.

A condolence car?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, they found other things that I don't enjoy that much that they can put their interest into.

Like sports.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, for the older one, yeah, very much so.

We are going to, I would say we're going to jump ahead to 2020.

Okay.

But we can't because there was no summer releases.

I guess, what, like 1917?

I don't know what.

Oh, right.

What would have been the big 2020 summer release?

I remember that year.

That was a bad year.

I don't know if

Tennetti forgot that.

Tenant was in there.

Yeah, I mean, Tenet was that that was the movie that was supposed to bring back people, right?

Yeah.

Or was it the last one before it shut down?

I can't remember.

No, it came, no, it was, it was like one of the first ones that you could see in theaters if you were

going to risk doing so.

I eventually saw it later, yeah,

because I did not see theaters at the time, and for a while, it was the gaping, uh, missing piece in the Christopher Nolan filmography that I had not seen.

And I finally saw it, and I was like, hmm, well, I'm glad I didn't risk death to see this movie.

Yeah, I will say I saw it, um, you know, like it went pretty quickly to HBO because for obvious reasons.

I saw it in HBO.

I'm like, no, thank you, Christopher Nolan.

This is, you've gone too far for me this time.

And then I did actually see the re-release when like they put it back into theaters.

I bet it's better in a theater.

It's so much better.

Like I really actually did enjoy it in that context while still being like, yeah, people are right.

Like this is better the less you think about it.

But on a sure, as sheer like weird spectacle, it's enjoyable.

I like it a lot, it's grown on me quite a bit.

Uh, when I first watched it, we uh I think we rented it, and uh, that was the day where Charlene and I had been working so much.

And we're like, you know what, let's just take a day, watch this like dumb big movie that Stuart's been willing to watch, and we will turn our, we'll put our phones in the other room, and we'll actually just watch a movie.

And unfortunately, that day was January 6th.

And so it was a complicated, it was a complicated day, So it kind of tweaked my opinion of Tenet.

I do love every time I watch it, few lines in a big action movie have made me laugh as hard as when they're describing the consequences of what could happen if they keep messing around with all this time crap.

And they're like, it could just cause, I don't know, the complete destruction of the universe.

And Elizabeth DeBicky's like, including my son.

It's so fucking funny.

By the way, I do think that that the movie should have been called Time Crap.

I mean, no.

That would have been better, but it's not a palindrome.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the top movies of 2020 were Bad Boys for Life.

Okay.

Finally on Top, even though Bad Boys 2 couldn't cut it, even though that was, I would say, the high watermark of the franchise.

There are no family movies stealing that money pie from that book.

Yeah, 1917 and then Sonic the Hedgehog and Jumanji the Next Level.

And Rise of Skywalkers in here, too, unfortunately.

Birds of Prey is number six.

Do Little.

Wow.

I didn't know Birds of Prey did that well.

Yeah.

Little Women.

Little Women did pretty well.

Unfortunately,

any movie that stars women has to make 700 times its budget to be considered a success.

So that's why they didn't make any more of those.

Yeah.

So in a looking through this list, there's a ton of franchise things and there's a ton of sequels.

We do have an outlier in

2023.

I feel like you guys should be able to guess this pretty easily.

Do you know what the biggest summer blockbuster success was of 2023?

It was two years ago.

What do I remember from then?

Oh, yeah.

You know this, guys.

And it's not a sequel?

It's not a sequel.

So it's not

when Barbie came out.

It's Barbie.

Barbie, right?

Barbie, huge movie.

Now that you guys are screenwriters, I'm sure you know that all you have to do is pitch

auteur-driven versions of, I don't know, products, movies based on products.

I'm a screenwriter?

No, you're a screenwriter.

I've read it.

I mean, you don't need to be paid to be a screenwriter.

You just have to call yourself a screenwriter.

Yeah, I'm aspiring.

Yeah.

No, you're not aspiring.

You're a screenwriter.

I don't know what spiring, but what a spirer does.

As spiring?

Yeah, that's what the Madden Webb screenwriter calls themselves.

So you're saying, so

you need,

you can have a big hit based on, that's an original non-franchise movie, as long long as it is based on a pre-existing IP that everybody already knows about.

Yeah.

That also was based, you know, tied in with some fairly successful viral marketing.

Yeah.

Oh, they did a great job marketing that.

Yeah, and then the rest of this, well, like just glancing through these, we got,

you know, there's a couple of Transformers movies on here.

One is two, The Dark Knight.

Dark Knight Rises.

Yeah.

Despicable Me Too.

Have you watched?

I haven't watched a single Despicable Me

thing.

The first one.

Those are the movies that my kids,

they love the minions.

They like the groove-based Despicable Me ones well enough.

I've only seen, I've like seen some of the first one and I've seen the sequels that I took the boys to go see.

But

they're now at the place where if we let them pick the music we're going to listen to in the car, they want to hear the minions versions of other songs, which...

This minions, Bob?

What is this called?

I don't know what exactly we call it, but it's like, you know, they, they, it's just them saying the word banana or whatever in the, in the to the tune of other songs, you know.

Uh,

I mean, that I feel like you probably listen to comedy cassette tapes that were not too far from that.

Yeah, I mean, that's probably pretty true.

Like what, what songs, like Perfect Day by Lou Reed, or yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of it, yeah, comfortable,

uh,

yeah, a lot, a lot of uh, a lot of Captain Beefheart, Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, a couple of these I haven't actually seen.

Jurassic Worlds on here.

I never actually got around to seeing that one.

Well, I will damn it with a faint praise that of the world movies, it's the best one.

Okay, did you see the most recent one?

I mean, that's pretty high phrase because almost all movies take place in this world.

Yeah, thanks.

I did not see the most recent one.

I'm amazed at how little interest.

We got Finding Dory is on the list.

I haven't seen that one.

I'm assuming.

It's okay.

It's underrated.

I really liked Finding Dory, but I may have mentioned this on the podcast before.

I can't remember.

I found it very meaningful to me because I saw it

sort of shortly after

my divorce and felt like, you know, it's a movie about someone who feels like,

you know, like they can't survive out in the world alone, striking out.

on their own and learning that they can figure out how to make it work.

And so I found it meaningful in a personal way that like hit me surprisingly hard.

So it's almost like finding Danny.

Wow.

I was here all along.

And then there's a bunch of other things.

I've got to find Danny.

And then you look at yourself in the mirror and you go, Dan, I was here all along.

Is that what happens when Finding Door?

Don't spoil it.

Don't spoil it.

Don't spoil it.

Shut up.

Shut up.

We got Wonder Woman for 2017.

I never finished watching Wonder Woman.

Should I finish it at any point?

Danny Houston's the bad guy.

I mean, I saw some of the Danny Houston stuff, but I kind of wanted to

say that.

David Thulis is the other bad guy.

I feel like David Thuston.

The very end of it is kind of the weakest part.

So you probably saw that.

I do love that they're like, we're going to put David Thulis in here as just a guy.

And I'm like, no, he's not.

It's never going to happen.

But is this the island of Dr.

Moreau?

The only way he's just a guy is if he's surrounded by a hyena men.

Incredibles 2.

It's a fun movie.

It's a fun one.

Dan, you said you had opinions about the mom's butt.

Not that I would put in a sort of a national magazine.

Yeah, certainly its success was due to what?

Rex Reed?

Who wrote that?

Anthony Lane.

Anthony Lane.

Sorry.

Ordeon Maine, Anthony Lane.

2019, we had, and I think this ties in with a recent flop house movie,

The Lion King.

This is the digital remake.

A movie I utterly forget exists.

I talked about the box office game earlier.

Like, that's one of those ones where I'm like, oh, yeah, when it shows up as a huge movie.

2021, we got Black Widow.

I think everyone's like, just give me a Marvel or something after 2020 had nothing.

And then 2022.

I'm surprised that 2021 was that they're saying that that was the highest grossing movie of the summer, Black Widow?

Of the summer, something.

Because that was the movie that literally, Scarlett Johansson sued Disney, saying this movie should have made more money, but you released it on Disney Plus at the same time it went out in theaters.

Yeah, but I mean, it was just, I mean, there was, that was a particularly another bad year of the box office.

But luckily, 2022, it was saved.

Movies are back, baby.

Can you guys guess what the big movie of the summer was?

2022.

Movies are back.

You got to go to the theater for this.

Give us a hint.

You got to give us some.

Well, it stars a bona fide movie star.

Is is it top gun maverick it is top gun maverick yeah

and then we're gonna close this out 2024 was another pixar sequel inside out to another movie i've not seen yeah should i even further inside out

insider outer it's called it's all right yeah i mean like it's fine i don't know like as someone who respects the original inside out more than i actually think it's one of the top pixar movies like this one is hitting the same beats Like the Pixar movie from recent years that I really loved was Turning Red, which of course

just got dumped to Disney ⁇ .

But it's great.

Yeah.

Still some of the best original

fake pop songs in a movie.

The what, Four Town or Five Town?

What is it?

Four Town with Five Guys?

In Inside Out 2, if you like Inside Out, you'll get more of that.

in Inside Out too.

But the highest praise I've heard about it really was from my older son when we went to see it.

Raphaels, he said, huh, there was a lot more hockey in that movie than I expected.

I like that.

I feel like looking through this list, it looks like

obviously one of the big things is that I seem to care less about the big summer movies than I used to, whether it's the quality or that my life is different and I'm a grown-up man.

I think it's probably a little bit of both.

I think there's something less.

It is less, we have much more important things to think about.

So it's harder to use as much brain space on summer movies.

But also like, just looking back at, I mean, there were plenty of sequels in in what you started talking about back then, but there was still like a lot more kind of like different things going on.

The fact that I'm not the biggest fan of my Big Fat Greek wedding, particularly, but the fact that that was like a huge hit movie, just knowing it's like that's exciting to me that like that's not, I mean, eventually they turn that into a franchise too, but like it's such a different thing than

as much as I have heard good things about Superman and Fantastic Four, I haven't seen them yet.

Like,

it's more, more of that stuff.

Yeah, I mean, as much as when we were growing up, you know, the critics would decry, like, oh, big blockbuster, empty culture.

Like, we,

it was the golden age for that kind of like the summer movie season.

Like, you could, like, map out, like, oh, these three big releases are on the same weekend, and then that's going to happen and keep happening through the you'd pull up your entertainment weekly

circle things that you wanted to see.

You'd get your entertainment weekly VHS tape of the trailers for the big summer releases, and you'd watch it over over and over again.

Yeah.

But now, yeah, it's like it's mostly superhero films or

animated children things.

Like, the same might be over and over again.

Highlander.

Yeah.

Is that a big thing?

I mean, they are doing a new Highlander movie with Henry Cavill, I think.

Nice.

I think he's going to play, I don't know, probably Connor McCloud.

Duncan McLeod.

I can't remember which McLeod was playing.

Scott McLeod, the author of Scott McLeod of Understanding Comics.

Okay, so

that was kind of it.

Do you guys have any parting comments or thoughts about the summer movie season?

I mean, I do.

Do you have any favorites from this summer, Dan?

This summer?

I mean, I guess in terms of...

I've seen every movie, Dan.

So don't pretend you don't know what they are.

No,

in terms of like the traditional blockbuster type of thing, I, you know, Superman delivered from Superman's great, yeah.

And Fantastic Four, you see that one?

Yeah, that was fine.

You know, it's, it suffers from like late period Marvel sort of not being that exciting, but it's fine.

I think here's something that I don't get the same rush about summer movies as I used to, but I think it's partly more from growing up and the summer not meaning what it used to to me.

When you're a kid, and even when you're in college still, the summer is like a a different, substantially distinct part of the year that is special.

It's different.

It feels like your responsibilities are less.

You have more time to have fun.

And now, as an adult, I don't know if you guys feel the same way.

It just feels like the whole year is just one slurry.

Like it's August 1st, and it still kind of feels like it's April, you know?

And when it gets, soon it's going to be November, and it's just going to be all the same shit for 365 days.

And then it's not even, even 2026 is just going to feel like 2025 just kind of like slopped over into another number.

So maybe that's what I miss more is like the feeling of time being split up into discrete, different, interesting sections.

You know, the feeling of hope.

Yeah, and there's

exciting things to look forward to.

Yeah.

It hadn't been beaten out of you yet.

I feel like maybe this was just being young, but maybe it's a cultural thing.

I feel like when the summer came, it was like, ooh, exciting.

Or when a new year started, ooh, what's going to happen?

And now I just feel like it's how, oh boy, here's another, here's more time for something bad to happen.

You know,

continues the cavalcade of miseries that we're subjected to.

So did I manage to end the episode on a high note?

I love it.

So

we've been talking about, we've been talking about summer movie memories.

And if you're listening, why don't you head over to the Flophouse Instagram account?

And on the post for this episode, why don't you throw in one of your favorite memories into the comments?

And I will try and read it on a future episode.

My favorites, not all of them, just my favorites.

And then we don't get any and you're like, correction.

I will now read all of them.

All of them you read.

And if we get none, I'll just make something up.

Probably about farting in a movie theater and everybody barfing over it or something, right?

That's a good story.

Nobody can steal that.

TM, I still, I just wrote that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Just

wrote that.

Okay.

So this is.

Let's see AI come up with something that good.

This has been a mini episode of the the Flop House podcast.

We are produced by Alexander Smith under the moniker Howell Daughty.

You can find him on Twitch.

You can find him on Bandcamp.

You can find him on probably Blue Sky and on Instagram.

He's the best in the biz.

Hire him for your podcast, maybe.

Or just support him in whatever ways you can.

I, for, uh, we're also on the Maximum Fun podcast network.

There's tons of great shows there.

That's how you can support us.

And you can support other cool

community community-owned podcasting networks, worker-owned podcasting networks, collectives.

Okay, I've been rambling too much.

I've been Stuart Wellington for the Flophouse.

I've been Dan McCoy, and I've been Elliot Kalen.

Okay, see you

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows supported directly by you.