FH Mini #121 - Hi, Resolutions!

Hi, floppers.

Before we start this episode, I just wanted to remind you: we are in the middle of Flop TV Season 2.

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Just go to theflophouse.simpletics.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new flophouse TV stuff.

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This time, it's personal.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to another Flophouse Mini.

That's right, here at the Flophouse Podcast, we often watch a bad movie and then talk about it, but every other week, we do other stuff, sometimes movie-related, sometimes not movie-related.

Which kind is it this week?

I guess you'll have to listen.

to find out.

My name is Elliot Kalen, and I want to apologize if the audio that you're hearing from me me is not great.

As talked about in our previous episode, Joker Follier Ducks,

I am currently not at my home because of the Los Angeles fire situation.

I am safe.

My family is safe.

Thank you very much.

If you would like to donate to any of the organizations that are taking care of people who are affected by the fires, please do so.

I will not see that money because I don't need it.

Thankfully, knock on wood.

I'm very lucky in this case, but Other people need it.

So please do that.

But let's talk about other things this time because it's two weeks, hopefully, after those fires when you're listening to this.

And I'm joined by two great guys, one for each of those weeks.

Guys, why not introduce yourselves?

I'm Dan McCoy.

And for the second week, I'm Stuart Wellington.

Great.

I actually met the guys behind you, but we can do it with you.

Yeah, that's fine.

We can do it with you.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, no.

Dan and Stewart are the great guys I'm talking about.

And you know what?

I should be more

sincere in my appreciation of them because that's the kind of thing you might make a New Year's resolution about is to express to the people you love that you do love them rather than just making mean jokes about them, which is another way to show love sometimes, but they have to know that that's the case.

And I mentioned New Year's Resolutions because

like a roast.

You've seen a roast, right?

It's delicious.

You literally love

a long time.

You got to.

You got to.

Just like a roast joke.

It has to take a very long time to tell it.

And then the last one.

That one guy, Jeff, what's his name, shows up and eats it because he's the Roastmaster General.

Yeah.

That one guy, Jeff.

I know that Jeffrey Ross.

So I'm talking about New Year's resolutions because it is January.

I think when this episode is coming out, maybe it's not anymore.

I don't care.

It's January when we're recording it.

And I'm talking about New Year's resolutions today.

The start of the year when everyone decides to do something to make themselves better.

Or...

as is often the case nowadays, the world decides what it's going to do to make itself worse throughout the year.

Guys, let's talk about positive New Year's resolutions.

Do you have any New Year's resolutions this year uh well here's a thing that i heard recently that i agree with which is

it's probably like new year's resolutions are a good way to set yourself up for failure if you're like oh i'm going to do like this whole new thing i'm going to change my life yeah it's not going to happen that way i'm going to pray i'm going to love this year

three things which is too many things for one year choose one The thing that I

had suggested heard suggested, and I think maybe this was like a New York Times well in this thing, who who knows where I got this but it was like double down on like the things you've identified that you think are positive that you've started to do so I'm going to double down on like I'm going to try keep up going to yoga I'm going to try keep avoiding uh reading the the internet when it's making me

sad and angry at the world dane real quick can you stretch your arms out super long yet or is that not the stage you have

i'm not there quite yet but his teacher dulceem Dulceem, says that he's getting there.

Oh, wow.

I'm going to continue to read more and I'm going to continue to like figure out strategies to

make myself more organized, like set deadlines for myself,

make more lists, etc.

Those are kind of the things I'm going to double down on.

That sounds great, Stuart.

What about you?

What are you going to double down on?

I mean,

I didn't know that I thought this was a resolutions thing, not a double-down thing.

Okay, what are you going to resolve it?

It's a double-dare thing.

Well, let's see.

I got a hand in this nose.

You You gotta pull a flag out of those motors.

Yeah.

I think that

let's see.

I, I mean, the big thing for me is I,

the start of the year has been really stressful for work-related reasons.

So I'm hoping that I can get on top of that a little better.

And,

and also I've been struggling with some upper respiratory stuff.

And that between those two things, it's kind of messed up my gym schedule.

And I'd like to get back into a consistent,

get my gym schedule back on track.

Not for any reason other than it just makes my brain feel better.

How's your tanning and laundry doing?

Oh,

oh, Dan, my laundry game's on point.

Tanning, I haven't been to a tanning,

I went to a tanning booth a couple times before I went to Australia last year, and I still have a tan line from

like a little like bikini-sized tan line.

I would have a a doctor look at that does it sound right uh-huh i don't know i mean uh a lot of people look at it but they have to pay a premium price for that

i wouldn't be surprised if you went to a tanning booth and they're like oh we don't know how to tan just tattoo this line on him and then you have a tattoo of a tan line you don't know yeah

um but the the other thing is i have a i have a goal that i'd i'd like to take my mom on a vacation oh that's very swinging nice uh my for new year's this year uh my goal is to try to work less, to make work less the core of my life, to make things like my family and taking care of my health more the core of my life, because too often in the choice between getting work done or being, or taking care of myself, I choose the work one, and

it's not good for me.

That being said, this is a podcast about movies, guys.

It's not like a wellness podcast.

And so I want, it's not even a Road to Wellville podcast.

Which is a Wellington podcast.

That's true.

That's true.

It is a Wellington podcast.

At least a third of it.

And then we always talk about that guy, that crazy general who took Napoleon down.

Yeah.

I have a good name.

I could be like a wellness fucking guru, right?

Yeah, you should.

Yeah, wellness ones.

You should do that.

All I have to do is

I just have to be really confident when I make my social media, my forward-facing social media videos.

Yeah, that's the main problem with your videos.

Not enough confidence.

Oh, man.

Apparently, I'm taking some of the heat that he was previously directing at Elliot.

Everyone gets a turn.

Yeah,

Dan is like

the wheel of fate.

I got some fucking splash damage on that one.

I was trying to think if there are any movies about New Year's resolutions.

And at the time I was putting this together, I was in the middle of fleeing from a natural disaster, so I wasn't able to do much research.

And so I was trying to think the only one that came to mind, and I can't remember if it's a New Year's movie or not, is what Yes Man with Jim Carrey, the one where he says yes to everything.

But that might not be a New Year's resolution.

That might just be a thing that he decides.

Yeah, that he decides to do.

What about the mask?

Is that a New Year's resolution that he's going to wear the mask more?

I have to be zanier.

Yeah, but it's dumb and dumber a New Year's movie.

They're like, we need to be not just dumb, but dumber.

What about that movie?

Is it Resolution, the one where they're at like a dinner party for New Year's and a comet's passing super close or a meteor's passing close?

And they like...

Oh,

I think you're thinking of, is that coherence?

Coherence.

The one with the ultra resolution Resolution

is a movie, but I'm not sure what it is.

Maybe a movie about photography.

I don't, does the movie, we never did New Year's Eve for the podcast, which surprised me when looking back recently that we didn't do it.

I think we didn't do it on purpose because none of us wanted to watch it, but we probably should have done it.

Yeah.

Oh, no.

I think I recommended this one.

Resolution is from

the Benson and Justin Benson Aaron Moorhead.

It's their movie about a friend

basically tying tying another friend up in a cabin in the woods so that they'll clean.

I saw the movie that came after that that sort of was related, but I didn't see that one.

I don't think I've seen any of those movies.

So those are not New Year's resolution movies though.

No, no.

Okay.

Well, we have done no research.

We haven't come up with any.

We could easily look now on the computer, but I think instead I'd like to talk about something else, which is New Year's resolutions for things related to movies.

So not movies about New Year's Resolutions.

We've failed abysmally at that.

And for next year, our resolution can be to learn a couple movies that involve New Year's resolutions.

There's got to be a rom-com with a New Year's resolution.

There's got to be.

Either where...

Hey, listeners, write in.

Write in, Dan.

2-3 Flop Street.

We are too lazy to do the work ourselves.

You write in.

Just write to Dan's home address.

Let me get it right here.

Hold on.

Which is.

So let's think about some New Year's resolutions for movie franchises.

These movie franchises, they have their ups, they have their downs.

They're kind of like self-aware, sentient people at this time, and they could really have some restarts right now.

So if we were one of these New Year's resolutions, one of these movie franchises, what would the New Year's resolution for that franchise be?

That's something I want to talk about with you today on an episode of the Flophouse I'm calling the American Resolution.

Oh, okay.

The Resolutionary War.

Oh, yeah, that's even better.

You know what?

Let's call it, except I don't like that war aspect of it.

Let's call it the Resolutionary Peace.

Is that a thing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

You know, let's call it dance, dance, resolutions.

It's called dance, dance resolutions.

You know, so let's start with the biggest franchise of them all.

It's got three letters.

Gimme an M, give me a C, give me a U.

That spells McQ, which is the name of the Marvel universe.

And so what would, what would the MCU's New Year's resolution be?

I mean, probably to release a movie.

They haven't done one in a while, right?

When was their last movie?

I do feel, well, I feel like they are holding firm to the thing that would have been the

resolution I recommend.

Which is do less stuff.

Do less stuff.

Yes.

Because I know they've got that Captain America movie coming up.

I thought

you were saying more Kang.

You did say, Dan, you did say Moor Kang, but only if a specific actor was playing it.

You know who it was.

No.

Paul Giamatti.

Kevin Spacey?

we went two different directions there stu

yeah it was paul giamati yeah well i do feel like how

great would paul giamati be as kang so fucking good he would be fantastic as kang you know bringing up kang sort of points to the the thing that i probably oh the catherine epford movie bringing up kang

uh

I think that they tried to jump right into the idea of like, let's

rebuild another

giant arc with a giant villain.

And like, look, you know, I'll be interested in whether they can pull that off again, maybe in the future, but I don't think that that's the right move right after going through

in game and Infinity War and whatnot.

Like, I would like to see a few more things that just kind of exist on their own that aren't so heavily interconnected.

I really enjoyed the Agathal long series because I felt like it stood on its own feet.

Even though, wasn't that like, didn't that come out of

Wanda Villa Vision, but it wasn't Wanda Villain and WandaVision, yeah.

It doesn't feel like it necessarily has a lot to do with other MCUs.

I know I saw billboards, so I know there's like a new Captain America movie came out where someone is punching his shield, but I don't know anything else about it.

I think it's a Red Hulk.

Aaron Ford,

it's going to be a Red Hulk.

I heard it was a Red Hulk.

I do not like that the

lag time between something being introduced in the comics and it being in the movies and TV shows has gotten so short in a way that is uncomfortable to me, where it used to be like only the most famous superheroes got movies.

They had to be around for decades.

And then suddenly you got Red Hulks showing up and things.

That's irrelevant.

That's in this Red Hulk Hulk.

I mean, like 10 years ago still, but you know, it's something like that.

It's really important to Elliot that the established hierarchy of things stays in place.

Yes, thank you.

Where is my Dark Hawk movie?

He was around for way more years than Red Hulk.

Dark Hawk and Sleepwalker?

Yeah, please.

The rookies of 1991, I think it was.

Where's my New Warriors movie?

Come on, give me that.

I mean, they tried to make a New Warriors TV show and it didn't.

And if you want to make something

for adults, do the old Warriors first.

Yeah, dude, like Johnny Blaze and the Rise of the Midnight Suns or whatever.

Come on.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

I mean, they're doing Blade.

That's a perfect time to get some more Midnight Suns in there.

I thought.

I mean, they did Morbius.

I feel like they keep pushing it.

Blade is the

Blade movie's so easy.

Like, you do a vampire rave.

Yes.

You give them a sick-ass katana and a trench coat.

It's a movie.

It's a movie.

I feel like Mahursha Ali, being like, I want to do Blade kind of cursed it just because, I mean, like, I think it would be great.

I would love it.

He's a great actor, but I think that suddenly they got the yips and they're like, oh, it's got to be classy now, you know?

Whereas like a Blade movie doesn't need to be classy.

When I bet, I bet you he doesn't want it to be that classy.

If I'm him, he wants, he does.

It's like there's when you see, sometimes there's actors who do like a big action movie or a dumb action movie, and people are like, oh look at them slumming and it's like i don't know i bet there's a part of kate blanchett that loves the idea of being a movie where she's like shooting robots and and bounty hunters and stuff like that like it's when there was that scene in um um in uh in return of the jedi when luke skywalker's in the rancor's fist and i read something where luke skywalk skywalker was luke skywalker was like where mark hamill was like that's why you do these like that's what i've always wanted to do is do a scene where i'm in a giant monster's fist and again

Not to bring up Paul Giamatti again, but it's like the conversation he had with his agent when he was in the Planet of the Apes movie.

And his agent's like, like, shouldn't you be a character that you can see their face?

And he's like, Rick Baker is doing these makeup apes.

He's like, if I'm a Plan of the Apes movie, I want to be an ape.

Just like the Nirvana song, Ape Me, My Friends.

Your friend in that case is Rick Baker.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

What I wouldn't give.

So the MCU, they're already living out the resolution, which is slow it down, maybe not so much stuff.

Now, what about the DCU or Diku, which is

the detective comics universe, so-called because it relies on detective stories and mysteries mostly?

Detective Chimp, Slam Bradley, all the big detective characters they've made movies of.

Bruce or Gold's detective, right?

What about the question?

The question is kind of a detective, although he's really more of

an Anne Randian figure.

What about Zatana?

Is that her name?

What's her name?

She is not a detective.

She's a magician, yeah.

So she says magician with the most easily crackable magic code, which is just saying saying things backwards.

What would be your new year's resolution for the DCU and the people in charge thereof?

They got that new Superman movie coming out.

My resolution would have been make a movie that just has one character in it.

They've already broken that because there's a ton of other characters in the Superman movie, you know.

I mean, I think that...

By which I mean super-powered characters.

Obviously, I don't want a Superman movie where it's just one character, Superman, by himself in space talking to himself.

I mean, I want non-powered characters in there, you know.

I don't want crap's last tape starring Superman.

That's not what I'm looking for.

Well, what a, what a, yeah, I feel like even the right actor could pull it off.

Yeah.

It's it's hard.

Jefferson.

Look, if Jefferson is going to do a Superman movie, then it should just be him.

I saw him in I'm My Own Wife.

He was amazing.

Yeah.

It's hard to know what to recommend because, you know, the DCU's sort of under new management now.

You don't know where it's going quite yet to even make a recommendation.

But I would say,

I

like James Gunn a lot.

Like,

I liked him before before he did Guardians of the Galaxy.

You know, I liked Slither.

I liked Tromeo and Juliet.

You know, I enjoy his stuff.

And I think he certainly probably has a wider range than he has shown.

I mean, the man wrote a Scooby-Doo movie, or maybe both of them.

I'm not sure.

And it looks like Superman chose that range, but I am a little nervous.

Like, you know, for DCU, he's done Suicide suicide squad peacemaker creature commandos like which are all kind of in that same vibe I just you know I guess my resolution is make sure that the vibe shifts that the Superman vibe should not be the same as the Suicide Squad vibe yeah yeah yeah

for DC I don't know the DC stable that well but there's a character that

There's something, there's a character I really liked.

Power Girl, I think.

I wonder what it is about Power Girl that draws the

attention.

All Lobo stuff.

You're like, I want DC to start cranking out their hit characters.

Lobo, Power Girl, Etragan, Commande.

Man, yeah, heck yeah.

There was, yeah, I mean, I like, like, I'm a sucker for all the weirdo DC characters.

I like all the weird characters, and I also

who's the oh, I like all-star Superman.

So if there's Superman movies like All-Star Superman, I'll be and that's my assumption is that it's going to be more like All-Star Superman, but because that was a great book, but what if what if they went the opposite way?

What if TC like took the took the blind, took the

parent, you know, protect search off to save search and made a Joker movie that was like really twisted?

Like what if they made a joker movie that was like all about how life sucks and everything's bad and Batman's not in it and it's just super dark and grim.

But it's a musical.

But it's a musical eventually.

That makes it even Twisteder.

Yeah, so much.

Just like that movie, Twisteders, starring Glenn Powell.

What if they're imagine

someone who is not the world's biggest Twisted Sister fan falls into a coma right before the movie Twister comes out.

They wake up right before the movie Twisters come out and they assume it's about Twisted Sister and they're so disappointed when they go to see it.

Like, you can't even put them on the soundtrack.

Yeah, an hour in, he's like, I'm not going to take take this anymore.

Speaking of soundtracks, we didn't talk about this on our Joker part two episode, but

it's pretty fucked up with all the songs.

They didn't put

The Joker by the Steve Miller band in there.

Yes, you'd expect it to be in there.

Well, he's not a midnight toker, you know.

He would have crushed it, you know.

He would have been.

Yeah.

Let's go through these a little bit.

In the middle of the day, like a toasted douche.

Let's do two more.

And then

I just want to mention Flop TV again.

And then we'll do this quick because Dan has dinner dinner plans.

So

let's think about it.

Here is, Alex, you might want to edit out that tummy rumbling sound that's having on Dan's mic.

Turn up the ball-busting gain on Elliot.

I'm just worried that Dan's going to look at Stewart and Stewart's going to turn into a turkey leg.

And I'll be like, what?

I don't understand.

Why are you licking your lips at me?

So, the Fast and the Furious franchise, what's your New Year's resolution for the Fast and the Furious franchise?

Usually, a New Year's resolution would be spend more time with my family, but they've got that covered.

So what should they do this year?

Yeah.

They got to go.

So they started off pretty small, right?

Not in size, but like in scope.

And then the last one they were in outer space, they had to go back in time or something.

They've got to do a time travel one.

I would say, as much as part of me would be like different dimensions, I feel like that's been overdone lately.

Nobody's into multiverses.

Go back in time again.

That's my, what I keep hearing from people when I ask them what they they think is next in the series is they go, Vin Diesel's got to go back in time and see Paul Walker again.

Like the Donic Toretto of now has to go back and see the hymn of back then and see his best friend again.

It's got to happen.

You know, one of those cars goes through a fucking time tunnel, ends up on the foggy old streets of London Town, and he runs over Jack the Ripper.

Or, I mean, this can be finally the Fast and Furious Back to the Future.

They call it Back to the Furious or something like that.

We got a new mechanic working in the shop, and and it's Doc Brown.

Oh,

your cars.

They got to go to 88 miles per hour.

And he's like, yeah, we do that all the time.

I feel like this one's hard because I feel like the things I like about Fast and Fury.

Streets of London.

Yeah.

Then it becomes not,

the mystery of the Ripper Hurrs becomes taken over the mystery of what happened to the man who was hit by some kind of fast-moving object.

Yeah.

I feel like the things I like about it are different than what other people like about it.

Yeah, you're a cool girl.

Other, well, I mean,

no, I just don't understand.

I don't understand the series the way that like the real fans do.

Cause I guess they, the mo the, the series hit some exact right level of goofiness for them at a certain point.

And now that, now in the most recent one, they're like, too goofy.

I'm like, this is not that much different than what's come before.

I don't see the difference that you're seeing.

You're like, you saw the one with Charlize Laurent with cornrows, right?

Or whatever you

braids.

And also, like, all the stuff about family, I'm like, I guess this is heartfelt for like the fans, but for me, this seems like total tacked on nonsense.

So I say, kill half the family.

There's such a cast extension, so much cast creep.

I just got to focus on some core members.

The family love to me in those movies is similar to the the montage climax music from a saw movie and something that i'm like, this has to be here.

This is very essential to this movie.

Yeah.

So

it just like, yeah, the yeah, there's just some kind of connection that I need to have.

Otherwise, what is what does everything else matter?

You need to have that.

So Stewart's newest resolution for Fast Furious is time travel danz is kill half the cast.

All right.

Or you have to kill him, like send him off somewhere, like split it off, like have them on two different adventures.

So it's like the blue and gold teams of X-Men in the early 90s.

Or the two different Pokemon games you could buy at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Sure, sure.

Okay, next, we're going to go to a quick spot for Flop TV, but first, the New York Mets.

What's your new use resolution for the New York Mets?

That's a franchise.

I guess just do it better than

before.

They did pretty good, but they didn't do as good as Los Angeles.

Yes, that's true.

So maybe they should watch how Los Angeles did and maybe do that.

Just do exactly that.

Okay.

Yeah.

You heard it here first new york mets do that uh i'm gonna take a quick moment just to remind people about flop tv uh flop tv the last episode of the season uh is coming up on february 1st that's right february 1st the first saturday in february we will be talking about ninja turtles 2 secret of the use on flop tv the tv version of the flop house go to theflophouse.simpletics.com.

Did you miss the whole season?

Did you?

Really?

That's okay.

If you get a season pass now, which is six shows for the price of five, you will get access to the videos for all those shows.

And this was a really fun season.

We've had a great time talking about movie sequels, doing crazy presentations, doing even crazier videos.

This has been super fun.

It's been a blast.

A great season.

Season 2 of Flop TV.

Go to theflophouse.simpletics.com.

Again, that's theflophouse.simpletics.com, where you can get season passes or I guess individual tickets for the individual recordings.

Again, I don't know why you'd want to do that unless you're like, I only want to hear them talk about about Highlander 2 the quickening and I do not want to hear them talk about other movies.

But we hope you can join us on February 1st, the first Saturday in February, 9 p.m.

Eastern, 6 p.m.

Pacific, theflophouse.simpletex.com.

And then it'll be time to put those flop episodes into the flophouse vault after February.

Those videos will be up all the way through the month of February.

So even if you miss that program, you can still get a season pass to watch all those shows.

But remember, February is the shortest month of the year.

So you don't have as much time as in other months.

It's a good public service announcement.

Yeah, thank you.

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Okay, back to New Year's resolutions.

Okay,

now another franchise that just had a new release was Lord of the Rings with their War of the Roror Rim Rim Rim Romrim Rim.

The Rora Rora Rim.

Stuart, what's your rim?

Look, I like characters and franchises with real names like Kang.

I don't know what a Rorim is, but

what should the Lord of the Rings resolve for this new year?

Oh, damn.

Oh, damn, dog.

Here's what

I think if you've got limited source material and you've essentially used it all by now, you got one of two two paths that you can take.

Okay.

One is make the most expensive television show in the history of television.

One is, hey, maybe just stop.

Just stop now.

You don't got to do more.

We got it.

You can stop.

Don't squeeze that orange anymore.

All the juice is out of there.

Or you do something vastly different within that world that's genuinely creative and different

rather than just sort of like so something like bright, you're saying, where it's like Lord of the Rings, but nowadays?

Maybe I can eat the lemon the orange peel of from that previous metaphor now i wonder if they could do something like so this is something i just saw so we were in it we were in a target yesterday stocking up on on clothes since we're we you know we had to leave our house but uh i saw there are toys now that are ninja turtles he-man crossover toys where it's a ninja turtles character come merged with a he-man character and there's also a like a Masters of the Universe Stranger Things like double toy set.

So should they do something like that with Lord of the Rings, Stuart, where they like mesh it with Stranger Things or ninch turtles or something like that?

I'm just thinking how badly we need Griffin Newman to weigh on this.

Yeah, we do.

What I would say, yeah, of course.

For his April Ork O'Neill character.

Yeah.

I feel like you're right.

A crossover is always a good idea.

But you know what?

What I think they should really do, I think it's time for just a silly one, you know?

A goofy one, you know.

Do do their own.

Do their own, do their own space balls, but for Lord of the Rings.

I mean, that's kind of like the plan at one point for Jaws 3 when it was going to be Jaws 3, People Zero, and National Lampoon was going to be the ones that made it.

That fell apart because

I listened to a podcast, an episode of The Greatest Movies Never Made, where they went through the script for it, and they're like, there's not a lot of shark in this parody of Jaws.

But I would love to see a funny Lord of the Rings movie.

I mean, that'd be very, that'd be very funny.

One thing that I feel like Peter Jackson has not gone back to his roots of being like a funny, funny dude, a funny filmmaker.

You want the Peter Jackson of Bad Taste and meet the feebles and so forth to do a lord of the rings movie uh yeah dead alive aka braindead yeah uh even the frighteners frighteners and the frighteners is a funny movie that i mean i stewart would be mad at me i think that might be my favorite peter jackson movie is the frighteners but i don't know okay it's a real fun house ride of a of a movie it's such a it's such a bonkers movie it's really fun you have to see john esten as a as the ghost of a cowboy who has sex with a mummy that's great jeffrey combs has a bunch of scar films

he's all scarred out yeah because wait his body's a roadmap of pain?

I believe so, yeah.

So here's in the similar to Lord of the Rings, this is another movie trilogy franchise.

And I was wondering, what's your news resolution for the before trilogy?

You know, before sunrise, before midnight, before sunset?

Probably fine new times of the day.

Before lunchtime, something like that.

Yeah.

I mean, I feel like.

Before primetime.

I feel like they could definitely like hang out and talk more.

Okay.

I mean, I feel like that was kind of the point of the last movie was they had stopped hanging out and talking and it hurt their relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But they did in Greece.

I think they could go to another beautiful location and walk around and talk.

Guys, I still haven't seen the third one and part of it's because I don't want to see them argue.

I understand that.

That feels fucking fair.

That's fair, but it's a great movie.

It's really great.

It feels really real.

Yeah.

There is definitely a scene where they are like kind of arguing while partially clothed where I'm like, this is the most real shit I've ever seen.

Yeah, well, well, it's like that scene in that 50 Shades of Grey movie where they're arguing while getting dressed.

I'm like, Yeah, this is what happens.

You know, like, it's

shortcuts, we're shortcuts, yeah, nude arguments, or in um, in uh, in is it in uh, don't look now when he they he's he's brushing his teeth with no clothes on, and I'm like, Yeah, that happens.

Sometimes you're brushing your teeth and no clothes, or like, or like, in later on, you're like, What's this on my piece?

It's his toothpaste, Dan.

How'd that get down there?

Yeah, it's a killer dwarf, Dan.

Get off of me.

It's just like in snakes on a plane, yeah.

So let's go on to

another franchise.

This is a beloved one for Dan.

The Muppets, Dan.

What's your New Year's resolution for the Muppets franchise?

Look,

I've liked a couple things post Jim Henson

that the Muppets have done.

But personally, he says kill half the cast.

I'm going to be

pissed.

Well, being bunny, sure.

We can all do without him.

Yeah.

Send them to the Grey Havens or whatever, you know.

Okay, you brought me back.

Okay, now Muppet's Lord of the Rings.

That's the thing that they should make.

Yeah.

Honestly.

Gonzo is Gandalf.

You know it.

Yeah.

And so, but is it going to be...

Yeah, and I guess Kermit would have to be...

No, Kermit's fucking Aragorn.

Kermit is Aragorn.

Yeah, so, and then you pump up Arwen's part, and that's Miss Piggy.

Oh, because I was going to say Miss Piggy is Aragorn.

Do you just do Miss Piggy as

that's you're right?

I'm being gender-specific, and that's stupid.

Sam the Eagle.

Sam the Eagle would be a great Saruman.

Yeah,

I guess Fozzie could be Gandalf too, but Fozzie would be a great Sam Gamgee.

Like, he's basically the same.

Yeah, he's a Sam.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Gonzo was.

When I fill out those quizzes that tell me what Muppet I am, they always say, Fozzie.

I'm having trouble casting Gollum, though.

That's the

animal?

I don't know.

Gonzo is Gollum.

Oh, Gonzo.

Yeah, actually, Gonzo should be Gollum.

You're right.

The Muppets always tell me that I'm Lou Zealand, and so I don't know what that means.

Well, he throws the fish and then they come back to him.

Who would Animal be?

Because Animal could be Gollum, too.

Animal could also be Gollum.

Yeah, that's true.

Maybe there's two Gollums.

Wait, what if

crazy idea?

What if Animal is Aragorn?

That is a crazy idea.

That is a crazy.

Yeah.

You know what?

No, I think we've solved both of these franchises.

We got to do Muppets, Lord of the Rings.

That'd be wonderful.

Okay, now another franchise, Kellogg's.

Kellogg's characters, you got Tony the Tiger, Snapcrackle Pop.

I know for a fact that Kellogg's is trying to get these characters into the TV and film business.

What would you say to Kellogg's as their news resolution?

I mean, before I was saying with the MC, you maybe don't share universes so much crossovers, but here, more crossovers.

You know, so far, they've just been restricted to their own cereal boxes for the most part.

Yeah.

I want to see, you know, a tiger chasing them elves around.

Yeah, like Snap, Crackle, Toucan, Sam.

Yeah.

Let's do that.

Yeah.

Like, normally I associate these characters with food, but what are their like hopes and dreams and shit, guys?

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, let's hear their backstories.

Yeah.

More of like on my dinner with Andre sort of with these characters.

Yeah, yeah.

Dan's just bringing up that we just recently saw Wallace Sean in the flesh.

Oh, where'd you see him?

I've seen him in the flesh a couple times, recently.

So we were lucky enough to get invited to the New York Film Critics Circle Awards here in New York City.

criticism bona fides, but because we knew it.

I mean, had a friend.

You faked it until you maked it, Dan.

Our friend Matt Singer had some extra tickets, and he invited us.

I think it was because he MC'd last year, so he had a very good table, and he was right next to this year's MC, Mr.

David Sims, who also brought along a few of his own podcasters

yeah um so yeah we were seeing we got to see man let's go down the celebs we saw dan are you excited let's see

flophouse on the red carpet yeah we were seated right next to a table with kieran kulkin and claire daines right next to them were adrian brody and guy pierce uh we got to see wallace sean we got to see john chaturo carol kane mike lee dan yeah mike lee i'm very excited about hearing about mike lee and carol kane john chaturo and and wallace sean are the only ones those that i've seen in real life.

Wallace Sean I've seen in many restaurants and theater audiences.

And John Chaturu I've seen just walking around the street whistling to himself very loudly.

And they introduced Carol Kane, and it was very sweet.

Like he sort of helped her down from the stage afterwards and took her hand all the way back.

And I was like on the verge of tears just because it seems so sweet.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste was there.

She was great.

The director and cinematographer of Nickel Boys were there.

And

the best picture winner was introduced by Mr.

Robert Pattensim himself.

Unfortunately, not doing his Mickey 17 voice, which bummed me out.

So let's move.

It sounds like you guys had a great time.

I've been having fun lately, too.

I've been doing lots of great stuff lately.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we sent you pictures and we're like, wish you were here.

Yeah.

And you sent me pictures and then you kept texting me being like, what?

Why didn't you, why didn't you heart these?

What's your problem, dude?

I actually sent Elliot a message about how bad I felt that we weren't living it up while he was having

stuff here.

While I was tucking into food that was, as I would describe, very fancy P.F.

Changs, I was thinking, Elliot would want me to live it up.

I would.

I would want you both to live it up.

Elliot would want me to take advantage of this open bar.

Exactly.

And thank you again.

Mansinger for being kind enough to let us

their party.

He is great.

He's great.

Okay, we've got two franchises left, and then we'll wrap up this episode.

Okay, the first is the second biggest franchise in entertainment.

And the last one we're going to talk about is the biggest franchise in entertainment.

So the second biggest franchise in entertainment, Star Wars.

What's the year's resolution for Star Wars?

They've got that skeleton crew show.

The acolyte did not go the way that they thought it would.

And that people were not as happy with it as they hoped, or rather, diehard fans.

And I don't mean fans of diehard.

I mean diehard fans of Star Wars.

Maybe fans of diehard weren't into it too.

Maybe they were.

I don't know.

They were like, maybe John McLean is in this one.

Oh, he's not still.

He's not.

Yeah.

What should Star Wars do?

I mean, it depends.

I feel like the fan base of Star Wars wants it to

atrophy.

Well, they would argue that they want it to grow up with them.

And by that, they mean they want to see lightsabers chopping dudes in half.

Yeah.

I could be wrong.

I don't know how to do that.

They'll be where that happens.

But like way more.

Possibly blood everywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolute fucking mayhem.

It's on the poster.

Absolute fucking mayhem.

But it was an ad for absolute vodka.

And it's just people hitting each other over the heads with those bottles.

It's absolute mayhem.

Yeah.

Come on.

Do you guys remember?

Wait, do you guys remember when absolute vodka ads were like the coolest things in the world and people were putting them on the walls of their bedrooms?

Was this only an East Coast thing?

Or did this happen when you guys grew up?

Did you have absolute vodka

in the middle of the country?

Or was that just a sophisticated coastal thing?

No, we had it.

The ads were in like Rolling Stone magazine or something.

Yeah, and they all had like...

I remember like my cousin and my sister, like they would put these ads on the walls of their room.

It was like, I remember there was a Kurt Vonnegut one, and it was like, oh, he's finally cool again.

Kurt Vonnegut

is in this absolute vodka ad.

What was that all about?

Yeah, Dan, what was that all about?

He probably, you know, they offered him money to do that.

No, I mean, never mind.

I'm at the absolute vodka craze.

But anyway, Star Wars, you're saying, Stuart, you think they should grow up and have lightsabers chopping people up?

I mean, I think that's what people, that's what the audience wants.

So, not like Skeleton Crew, which is the exact opposite, which is

kids for me.

I thought people wanted The Last Jedi, but I was

very wrong.

Yeah, we can't have nice things.

I look,

if it was just me, again, it would be sort of like, well,

do we have to keep doing this?

Would be my resolution.

Like, look, you've somehow managed to take uh a

movie franchise that was at one point in my life like the most important entertainment thing maybe to me like the thing that I was just that just blew my mind and expanded uh my world and I loved it now it's hard to get to Hawaii

yeah now I'm in the Sederis first

no but now not the David Sedaris or Amy Sedaris first do I need although they have opinions I'd imagine

do I need more of this?

Like, the only thing I've enjoyed was what the Andor thing.

That's the name of the show, the Andor thing.

The Andor thing.

And I think, I mean, like, if we're gonna, if we're not gonna be that negative about it, I would say Andor does something that these other things haven't as effectively done, which is find find something within that storytelling that I haven't seen, which is like

what is like,

let's take the idea of a political rebellion seriously, like on the ground level.

Like, what does this look like in this universe?

So I would like even further out of the box new things to happen in that world.

You want to finally understand how the Trade Federation handled trade.

Well, I just don't.

I don't, you know, like.

I don't need to have every minor character get their own series because we know them already.

You know,

a whole bunch of things.

But it is funny that the one one you held up was Andor, which is a minor character from one of the movies.

Yeah, from that spin-offs, yeah.

But it's a minor character from like a new spin-off.

It's not like, okay, well, you know, everyone loves the Clone War cartoon, so what we have to do is go to that rather than like there are whole movies where new characters are introduced to us.

And we're not like, this isn't someone I know before.

I've never seen any.

Well, you say that, Dan, but what about this?

What if my solution was Muppet Star Wars?

Kerman is Luke Skywalker.

Miss Piggy is probably Princess Leia.

Fozzie is Chewbacca.

Gonzo is Darth Favorite.

I feel like this has happened already.

Oh, yeah, Fozzie is Shua.

Yeah.

No, I don't know.

Okay, Fozzie is Lando Calrissian.

What are you talking about?

No, no, no, no.

I didn't.

I thought you were talking about someone else for a second.

Which of the two, Fozzie or Chewbacca?

Who do you think I was talking about somebody else?

I don't know.

Well, guys, we talked about Star Wars.

That's the biggest franchise in entertainment.

Time to talk, or the second biggest franchise in entertainment.

Time to talk about the biggest franchise in entertainment.

Yes.

What do they do next?

You know the one I'm talking about.

That's right.

Let's say it all together.

Property brothers.

What do the Property Brothers do in 2025?

Biggest franchise in entertainment.

Probably a property.

All I know is,

is one of them still with Zoe Deschanel?

I feel like

you're really up on celebrity goss.

Yeah, I believe so, but that's kind of the past and it's happened already.

So the resolution can't be marry Zoe Deschanel because I think that happened already um zoe bechamel is not a real person but you know they could they could try to make that happen so they're they're brothers and they do something with property dan this is the probably the biggest show on television i don't anything that has to do with real estate in like entertainment i'm like this stresses me out in life like i don't I don't own any real estate, but the mere like idea of like looking at listings whenever we have to move is the worst thing in the world to me.

So So I don't want to.

So once again, Dan's resolution is stop doing the thing that you're doing.

Just stop.

Well, no, just don't show it to me.

Other people can enjoy it.

Okay, okay.

And

this is not.

You just don't want to put your thumb on the scale of a thing you don't give a shit about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, so I think we've got a lot of good options for everybody.

Dan's go-to of don't do this stuff anymore.

Kill half the cash.

I'm like, but there's only two brothers.

It's not property brothers if there's just one of them.

It's just property guy, you know.

Bro.

Property bro.

And I mean, although the brothers, I don't know how well they get along.

Every time I see the show, it always seems like

I used to watch it sometimes because I thought it was funny that they seemed to very arbitrarily pick that one wears a suit and one wears kind of like construction clothes.

And it seemed at a certain point that just as professional wrestlers would come to really dislike each other when the storyline says that they have to, like they'll come to feel that, it felt like the property brothers at a certain point did have that divide of like, well, you don't understand.

You don't work with your hands.

Well, I'm the one running this business.

Anyway, but I think the other solutions.

It's a lot like the flop ass, honestly.

Yeah, Stewards have a lot of nuanced solutions, but I think, honestly, the best solution we've come up with, the best resolution, and you can't spell resolution without solution.

It's literally the re-solutioning of something.

Just throw the Muppets and stuff.

Yeah, like the thing is.

Muppet, Fast, and the Furious.

Yes, please.

If the internet is in agreement with us on anything, it's that.

Why isn't the MCU the Muppet cinematic universe?

Why not, man?

Come on.

Why not?

Because it really hasn't been a very successful franchise since the death of Vinson.

Oh, all right.

Okay.

Well,

the one time.

And guys, I guess we should go.

I just want to see also, there's just one other media figure who I feel like dominates the media landscape.

This is an individual person, not a franchise.

And I just wondered, do you have a New Year's resolution for them?

Someone who I feel like you can't talk about the modern media landscape without

this person being a little bit more like a major

rug pole here coming up.

As I keep winding it up and building like this, list.

Floor, tentatively stepping out on the ice, willing to trust again.

Awesome.

And so we're all saying it.

Flo from Progressive.

What does she do in 2025?

It's a good question, Dan.

How do you feel about Florida?

I feel like the internet should get even hornier for Flo.

I mean, that's the Internet's resolution.

It's not really for Flo.

That's true.

I mean, Flo should keep giving them stuff to feel about.

Yeah.

I would say.

Or nothing, because apparently it doesn't really take anything.

It's just Flo being Flows.

I would say branch off into kind of like a cool hip-hop career.

Okay.

Cool.

Yeah.

All right.

But sure, I'm all for it.

Yeah, I feel like it's time for her to really take the voice that she has and add, you know, add a little bit of extra spice.

Sounds good.

Okay, well, you heard it here first, 2025.

We know you've got a lot of bad stuff in store for us, but you know what?

You could also give us some good stuff.

Warm Uppits.

Kill half the characters in pretty much any franchise.

And also, flow, get hip-hopping, I guess.

Yeah, that's the term.

Thanks for joining me on this little journey through what people should be doing this year.

I am, of course, Elliot Kalen, joined by Damcoin Story Wellington.

I'd like to tell you, real quick, that we are a podcast on the Maximum Fund Network.

Please check out the other Maximum Fund podcasts.

There's a lot of great ones on there, and I think you'll like them.

If you like this one, you'll probably like them.

If you didn't like this one, try another episode.

This one's out of the ordinary.

I'd like to thank our producer, Alex Smith.

You can find him online performing music under the name Howell Dotty.

If you'd like to give us a review, a positive review, I hope, on one of your podcast apps, that would be wonderful.

Or maybe just tell somebody about the Flophouse if you liked it.

Help us spread the word, you know?

It's been great.

And as I said before, if you can find it in your budget to help out those who've been affected by the fires in my hometown of Los Angeles, I would greatly appreciate it.

There's a lot of people in need and you can.

help change things and make things better for them.

Even just a little bit of money at a time, every little bit helps.

For the Flophouse, again, I have been Elliot Kalen, and my resolution is to give more credit and more talking time to my co-hosts, Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington.

All right, that's enough talking time.

Bye.

Bye.

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