FH Mini 138 - In the Pantheon

Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flop House.

This is a Flop House mini.

What is that?

You say to yourself,

because you're confused.

You're confused and alone.

The Flop House normally is a podcast where we talk about bad movies, but every other week we go a little off model.

We do what we like, mostly still movie-related because, you know,

there's a brand.

And in this case, I am in charge, but it is inspired by our guest,

Sean Malin, who wrote the podcast pantheon.

I'm holding it up for the camera that we have here, but not that you see.

101 podcasts that change how we listen,

which, you know, risks people scoffing at it by including the flop house in that 101.

We're the one, right?

Yeah, we're the one.

We just made it, but we're honored.

Welcome, Sean.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'll face whatever challenges shall come our way from that.

It was worth it.

It's well worth it.

So no one but me knows what we're actually doing today,

which is the way that we enjoy playing these minis, sort of springing things on one another.

And I know that...

Sean has said that this book, the podcast Pantheon, was sort of inspired by the review books of yesteryear that attempted to set or start conversations about what the canonical works in various media are like rolling stones a 500 greatest album guide etc and it got me thinking about uh lists in general the big lists of canonical films and so for this i'm gonna run through some of the the big lists in film criticism some of the titles found there and because we're iconoclasts here at the flop house i'm gonna have us discuss which title, if we had to pick, if we had to, which title we would kick off

these lists.

We would boot into the outer darkness.

And I'm going to start off with judge, jury, and executioner.

That's right.

Okay, I can do that.

I'm going to start off with, now, don't worry.

You're going to hear the number 100.

I'm not going to do all 100 movies.

Oh.

It's going to be the top five.

If you can't handle it, go for it.

Let's do this.

He does like it when a movie stretches a bit super long for comedy's sake.

So maybe we'd do it.

I mean, I did, I think he referred to in our previous episode the egg dying sequence in an Easter Bunny Puppy as his pick for a tour de force sequence of the year, even though it wasn't even a new movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, this is, of course, AFI's 100 Years, 100 movies list.

One of the sort of lists that was sort of put out in the world to drum up interest in the movies in general.

AFI stands for Alien Ant Farm Institute.

What?

Yeah, that first A is really doing double duty.

It's two different A's, two different words.

Yeah, I see.

You just pronounce it once.

Yeah.

No, of course.

No, no, it's actually

ALF Financial Instruments.

These are new innovative financial instruments that Wall Street is playing with that are based around ALF, that lovable alien, Gordon Shumway from Melmac.

Alpha's back again.

You can't get rid of him.

Lock up your cats, everybody.

He's hungry for cinema.

Why haven't they done an Alf Reboot yet, guys?

They've done a lot of

several Alf reboots.

Really?

They tried to make him into a talk show?

I'm a show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Get the Disney team that did Lion King and everything on there.

But do shot-for-shot remakes.

I was thinking like a Mufasa, like an Alf Mufasa.

Okay, yeah.

I made this story.

To be honest, Mufasa would have been a much better movie if Alf had played Mufasa in that movie.

Yeah, or if he's riding Mufasa around for a while, he's like, I'm your best friend, right, Mufasa?

Hey, Tomon and Pumba, nice to meet you.

Wait, I've got something here.

What is this?

Alfasa.

Yeah,

Alfasa.

Yeah.

Okay.

Alfa Romeo, which is, of course, the Italian Alf.

Oh, boy.

This is,

of course, the American Film Institute.

Oh, you know.

Never mind.

So the Alf stuff was not relevant at all.

No, no.

I'm sure we can cut off.

Yeah.

Alex, if you do, I will be so mad.

Alf.

What if Alf was our producer, Alex?

Yeah.

That would be also very fun.

Although I would, again, have to keep my cats far away.

Yeah.

100 years, 100 movies.

The top five on that list.

But he doesn't actually ever eat a cat, right?

So it's really,

yeah, it's all smoke, no fire, right?

He kills me off camera.

There's a lot of blood.

Man, I just don't remember that.

It gets all caked into his fur, and then Willie has to shampoo him in the tub.

Yeah, that's why he and Willie are so close, right?

It's because Willie's seen everything.

Yeah, exactly.

Willie, you've got to help me hide the evidence.

Okay, so they're less close than bound together by blood.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Well, anyway, knowing what I know about you, you've got to help me.

So, wait, Willie also has done something?

Yeah.

Why else do you think he's how else do you think he wrapped up in threat of seduction and deceit?

Come on.

Okay.

So

what we've got here at the top, we've got.

I've got pictures, Willie.

That kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

We've got Citizen Kane.

Oh, yeah.

The Godfather.

Very little out content.

Casablanca,

Raging Bull,

and Singing in the Rain.

You can stop there.

Just knock them all off.

Who cares?

Just get rid of them.

So tell me those movies.

And so what are we doing, Dan?

We're going to knock one off.

We're going to knock one off, not because we don't like it.

No, no, no, it's not going to be a good one.

And name it again.

Name these again.

Name these movies again.

Citizen Kane.

You got it.

The Godfather.

Ooh, what a movie.

Casablanca.

Sure.

Love it.

Raging Bull.

That guy was so ragey.

And Singing in the Rain.

It was so rainy.

Who's going to go first?

I came up with this infernal plan.

I'm ready to

court some ridicule.

I'm just jumping in front of some bullshit.

Because I've got my answer, too.

But if you want to go first, Dan, I'm happy to let you go.

Obviously, they're all great movies.

I'm not saying that any of them are not.

I've never been, despite being a male of a certain age, I've never been a godfather guy.

I'm like, yeah, okay, the godfather.

Like, maybe I just don't.

Do you have a problem with the length?

Is that what Elliot was saying earlier?

No, it's not the length.

I just like,

I don't feel the same, like, romance about the mom.

Dan doesn't understand the concept of family.

I understand that it's a metaphor for like what it takes to get ahead in America, sort of, but

I don't know as mom movies go I've always been a good fellas guy so so I'm surprised because for me the one that I would knock off of that list is a different Italian American director from the

60s 70s new Hollywood era and that is Raging Bull I think is a beautifully made movie it's always left me a little cold when I finish it I'm like I don't know why what the purpose is of telling that story Like, I don't know what I, I feel that guy's rage and his pain and his and his frustration and the downfall and everything.

But I'm always like,

this seems like the story of like

an asshole who

is not, whereas, whereas Godfather to me is about trying to

about how America operates, about avoiding the sins of the past and things you have to do to protect your family, but that they also drag you down and consequences.

I find Godfather to be such a beautiful movie.

So it's interesting, but we can disagree.

That's fine.

Sometimes movies can just be about a character and also a type of character.

I think it is, I think, Raging Bull is illuminating about

someone who feels so many emotions, but feels them on like sort of an almost animal level and does not have the skills to do anything positive with them.

And because, you know, I think it's a great movie.

It was part of, listeners will know that it did appear in my top 10 meet on film.

movies for the part where his wife

burns a steak and he gets mad.

Yeah.

What about you guys?

Sean, Stewart, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just going to chime in with Elliot.

I would say of those, I think I have the least affection for Raging Bull.

And also, similar to something Dan mentioned earlier about how Goodfellows is for him the mafia movie, I feel like it's really hard not to look at the rest of Scorsese's film

career and see films that I have a deeper connection with.

Yes, I agree.

If you had put Goodfellows in that list, Dan, the list you put together while you were working at the AFI.

Not me.

At the Alien Ann Farm Institute.

I think Goodfellas still would have been the movie that I would have pushed off the list, but I think it would have been much harder for me than Raging Bull.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

Like the gap seems so wide between Raging Bull and Goodfellas to me.

Like I see them with such, like I love Raging Bull and I like Goodfellas a lot.

But

I hate to like,

Am I allowed to say that Singing in the Rain is like, I love Singing in the Rain.

I love all of them, but am I allowed allowed to say that it's just like soft shit?

Like, like the other movie

guy, but I'm like, you can say anything you want.

Those four other movies, I'm like, whoa, those are like hardcore.

And then I'm like, Singing the Rain.

Oh, nice.

You make an interesting point.

I think that in terms of criticism and in terms of scholarship, the hard and the grim often gets elevated over the joyful.

And I think what Singing in the Rain does is so beautiful and so hard to pull off, which is such a joy all the way through.

The same way that there's no, it baffles me that Wizard of Oz is not in that top five.

When I think Wizard of Oz is maybe the most amazing movie that ever got made, it's so beautiful and it's so like magical.

And the fact that it is now the number one attraction at the sphere, I don't know exactly how to feel about that, but I feel kind of happy about it, even though they mangled the movie to make it that way.

But that I think the, it's very easy to be like, raging bull, it's the inner torment of a man.

And it's easy to kind of push aside Singing the Ring because it is ultimately kind of like fluff in a way, like the fact that it's about this like traumatic moment in movie production history when a lot of people's livelihoods disappeared as silent and sound, but it's done in like a real fun way, like real fun way.

And the best part of it is literally the dude just dancing in the rain and singing in the rain, like the title of the movie pays off.

That guy does sing in the rain, you know.

But I think that's a really good point.

Like, it's so, I feel like I am, I am so like I experience like rage and sadness in films that like like moments of genuine joy are so rare that I like cling to them, whether it's like the moment in, what was that, Hustlers, when Usher shows up at the strip club and they like all run out there and I'm like, I feel like I could punch a hole through Gog right now.

But also like Stuart made the this motion earlier.

And when I see movies about movies, I'm like, that's what I think of immediately.

Like I love Singing in the Rain and I love being shown it in film class, but I'm also like, how many times do I have to see movies that celebrate the art of movies before I'm like, who gives a fiddly fuck?

Like, who, it doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Wow.

Loki roasting.

For our listeners at home and also me who was looking away, what motion was this?

Do we want to describe it?

It's a very human motion.

Yeah.

The most human motion.

It's the classic jerking off a horse.

Also a monkey motion.

Yeah.

Monkey of monkeys also love that motion.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, you know, sorry, raging bull.

you got the most votes.

You're out of here.

Okay.

It's no longer a movie.

Yeah.

It's been, it's now no longer a movie and it gets thrown away forever.

Yeah.

No one's allowed to watch it.

And I want to reiterate.

You've been canceled, Raging Bull, for us not liking quite as much, a couple of us.

I want to reiterate for our listeners that this is a completely silly exercise, that these are all great movies.

And we're just doing this that we're putting together for LARFs.

Guys, I just pulled up Just Watch and it says Raging Bull isn't available anywhere now.

Oh, no.

we've erased it from existence.

I mean, to be honest,

with today's streaming licensing things, it wouldn't surprise me if at some point Raging Bull was just unavailable somewhere.

You'd be like, this movie, no one can see it.

They'd be like, sorry, the company decided it was a better tax benefit to just never show it to anyone ever again.

I mean, like, as I've mentioned this before, but for the longest time, To Live and Die in LA wasn't available digitally anywhere until like Amazon just put it on Prime.

And I'm like,

thank you, I guess.

Yeah.

The only way to like get it back is to put David Zazlov in it and then put him in.

Oh, man.

That's what they did.

Isn't that what they did with

Wizard of Oz for this video?

David Zazlov shows up in it.

He's incredible in it.

Amazing performance.

Yeah, yeah.

He's the tin man now.

Yeah, yeah.

Sticking with the AFI, there's another list here that I think.

Is this going to be 100 years, 100 laughs?

Yes, indeed, it is.

Wait,

did they put David Zaslov at like the beginning, like a Michael Eisner, or like when that Pixar guy's like, hey, here's a Miyazaki movie?

And I'm like, yeah, just show me the movie.

I don't need to see you.

No, it's not like an introduction.

I think they use computers to insert him and the guy who owns the sphere into the background of a scene.

Weird.

Which, you know what?

Whatever.

That's the smallest thing.

I don't like it.

It's like Space Jam, where the Droogs are like...

Exactly.

The Droogs and Baby Jane are just watching this basketball game, loving it.

I think the thing that bothers me less about the sphere mangling of Wizard of Oz, where they cut it down and they change the framing stuff is that like you can only see it at the sphere it's not like it's not like uh george lucas where he's like boom there's only one version of star wars now and it's not as good it's like uh you're not gonna it's not like you're gonna buy a dv of wizard of oz and it's gonna be the sphere version yeah it's extremely easy to avoid this terrible version of this movie can you buy the sphere version well you can buy the movie sphere and you can edit the scenes in with the movie wizard of oz cool so dustin hoffman is dreaming everything in oz yeah hey speaking of dustin hoffman 100 years 100 elapsed don't you do not

tootsie is off the list right off the bat, Dave.

Tootsie's on there, kick it off that list right now.

Okay.

We've got

some like it hot.

Oh, you know what?

I was too quick to jump on Tootsie, maybe.

I don't know.

Tootsie?

Wait, is this the wait?

What numbers are these in the list?

These are the top two.

So apparently

the funniest thing in the world is, yes, is drag.

Now I can't trust anything on this list.

Doctor Strangelove or How I Stopped Learning.

Learned.

How I Learned to Stop Learning.

They're making this tough for me.

That's a movie I love.

A A movie I love that I don't find very funny.

Yeah.

Yeah, but you don't have to judge it on the yeah, it's only called 100 years, 100 laughs.

That's the list, man.

We're talking about what movie we want to get ready for.

I think it's just one laugh per movie.

If you laughed at that,

we guarantee you one laugh per movie.

It's the part where George C.

Scott falls down because he's so excited.

Annie Hall

and Duck Soup.

Those are the top five there.

Elliot, you've already started talking.

Do we get to throw them all out or we just throw out one?

Wait, what throw them all out there's i will say this is a tough one for i shouldn't you know what dan and sean stewart i apologize that i'm monopolizing the one on this one i just assumed tootsie would be on there and i got mad but some like it hot one of my less favorite billy wilder movies and i love billy wilder and he has such funnier movies and it's it's amazing to me the top two movies are both drag movies that's really bonking i saw i saw the recent uh stage production of some like it hot and uh it was really fun i'm gonna jump in here here and say it was modernizing.

Here's what I'll say about Some Like It Hot.

Actually, I would push off Tootsie.

Some Like It Hot, the problem I have with it is it is timed for watching with a theatrical audience.

And so there are pauses in the rhythm of the movie that really slow it down when you're watching it at home, but which work, I'm sure, very well in a theatrical setting.

Because I know they were literally like that whole scene where he likes Jack Lemon says a joke and then dances with Maracas.

They were doing that partly because they're like, People are going to laugh.

We need to give them room to laugh.

And so it probably works better with an audience.

Elliot, I want to say that I share your your general meh-ness about both Some Like It Hot and Tootsie, but I would push Tootsie off as well because there's stuff in Some Like It Hot that I find funny, mostly the Carrie Grant impression.

That's what I thought you were going to say.

Yeah, Tony Curse's Carrie Grant impression.

I mean, there's funny stuff in it.

Marilyn Monroe's really good in it.

You know what?

Some Like It Hot, I don't, I wouldn't put it at number one, right?

But Tootsie is a movie I find just, I don't like it at all, you know.

It's not even the number one Billy Wilder, which is strange, but like I have to lose it because I worked at the Hotel Dell in Coronado Island and they used to have

like you'd the employees would walk under a little

hallway that had wires, hundreds and hundreds of wires completely open and dangling over your head.

You just thought you were going to die in

fire, 1920s fire.

So I'm going to lose it because it's like triggering.

Oh, yeah.

Otherwise, I love the movie.

George, do you ever thought about this?

Yeah, I mean, I would probably say Tootsie for me.

I think of the movies listed, that's the one I like the least.

All right.

I mean, clearly, I think Duck Soup, Annie Hall, let's not get into a controversy about it, and Doctor Strange Lover, I think were all better movies than the first two on those lists.

But Tootsie is the only one.

I remember it was like a few years ago.

My wife and I were like, you know what?

We haven't watched Tootsie in a long time.

And I'm like, that was the one my professor's always told me.

If you want to write a classic comedy, watch Tootsie.

And we watched it, not one laugh the entire time, except for some of Omara's lines, I guess.

But it was just the way he treats Terry Gar is so mean.

And I know it's supposed to be like, oh, he learned to be a better man, but it's like, he's still a pretty bad dude at the end.

And it's just inexcusable.

But use Terry Gar.

Save the president from people who kidnapped him.

Was that?

Because he said he's a bad dude.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, like the video game bad dudes.

Yeah.

I was like, was that the plot of Tootsie 2?

Was that he was going to have to get and drag again to save the president from kidnappers?

Let us move on to.

The sight and sound list.

Here we're going to get into some interesting trouble because there are a couple movies here at the top that I haven't seen.

But the sight and sound list, and I'm, I'm both not good with French pronunciation despite having taken it for years, and I'm not going to try and do the numbers in French.

But we've got up top, we've got Jean Dielman,

23 Croix du Commence,

1080 Bruxelle.

I don't know.

Vertigo.

You pronounced it perfectly.

Thank you.

Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, and and In the Mood for Love.

And

I have never seen either John Dielman or In the Mood for Love.

Oh, wow.

In the Mood for Love rocks.

I believe there's a 4K restoration in

rep screenings now.

I'd like to go out and see it.

John Dielman's great, too.

Tell me again, what are the all of them?

John Dielman, John Dielman.

Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, and In the Mood for Love.

I'm going to toss myself off a bridge instead of kill any of these.

I love these movies.

What a great list.

Sight and sound.

I'm like, wow, really bringing it out.

Yeah.

That's the hardest one of the three so far, I think.

I agree.

That's a great list.

So whatever movie I toss off, I'm going to feel bad about.

Exactly.

I think I've only seen Vertigo, Citizen Kane, and In the Mood for Love.

I've never seen Tokyo Story or Jean Dielman.

So I can't, I'm not going to throw out movies I've never seen.

So that's really tough.

I don't know which one to pick.

Yeah, they all rock so hard.

I'm going to feel bad about about it i think i might throw off tokyo story because there are ozu movies that i like a little more than tokyo story but not doesn't not because tokyo story is not great you know uh yeah i mean i think the idea is that for the most part these lists are going to be challenging to pick

the 100 years 100 last one was pretty easy yeah that was pretty easy if we're going to force ourselves uh i you know like stewart i'm not comfortable tossing something off i haven't seen so of what i've seen using your rubric there, Elliot, there are Hitchcock movies I like more than Vertigo.

So I guess I got to get rid of Vertigo.

I was going to say, of the three on that list that I've seen, I think the one I have like the least connection to is Citizen Kane.

So, I mean, it's not a bad movie, obviously, but I like Vertigo and In the Mood for Love More.

Yeah, I feel this one was a hard one.

Sight and Sound hurt us by forcing us to do this.

Wait a minute.

Sight and Sound didn't force us.

It was Dan that forced us to do this.

I'm the insidious game master here.

He's the torturer.

Painful.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to get rid of.

I like all these movies very much, and I like them equally.

I'm going to

have to get rid of Vertigo just as like another punishment for the Brits for all they've done to us, the pain.

Very good.

Very good point.

When they taxed our T.

That was rough.

That pissed me off.

It's hard for me to toss Vertigo because I love it.

Yeah, that really growled on creditors.

So good.

That's a tough one.

Those are all good movies.

Yeah.

I would recommend any of them, unless you want to sit and watch a woman cut a potato up for a while, in which case, Gene Dominion is really the only option you have on them.

Right before we take a short break, I'm going to do another equally important, equally respected list.

And of course, it is the list of nominees for the Oscar Stand-Up and Cheer moment.

Did they only do that the one year?

Once.

And everyone made so much fun of them, they stopped immediately.

That's so lame that they didn't just do it again.

Do you think that they're like,

didn't it happen the same year as Will Smith slapped Chris Rock?

Are they like doing a false equivalency there?

Like a false correlation?

I don't remember.

I don't remember.

I don't think so.

I think the problem was that the next year, there were no movies where people stood up and cheered.

So just nothing was eligible for the price.

Well, a bunch of ushers were like, don't do that.

And they're like, oh, right, we shouldn't do that.

Yeah, the ushers were like, don't do that.

Yeah, the nervous went to the hustlers and people were like, yeah, that's the thing.

Yeah, they said, yeah, because that's one of his fucking songs.

That's a song, yeah.

So of course, of course, we all remember.

We all remember what's on this list.

All our refresh our memory.

All our memories.

Yeah, for the audience.

For the audience, we should, of course, mention

they might have forgotten that when Flash entered the Speed Force, that was a big sanitary moment.

I don't remember any of the others.

We've got Spider-Man, No Way Home, the Spider-Man team-up.

Now, we're just talking about the movies, but of course, I'll tell you what the

moments are.

It's just the moment, yeah.

The Matrix, Neo-Dodging bullets dream girls and i am telling you i'm not leaving or going

you were cheering so hard you couldn't even hear the lyrics i couldn't hear the lyrics i was just

uh avengers in game avengers a symbol

and of course the winner Zack Snyder's Justice League Flash enters the speed force.

I feel like when that happened in the theater, Dan, you stood up so fast you got a headache and passed out.

Yeah, I thought I had entered the speed force.

And the popcorn bucket that was on your lap fell off of you.

And so you just passed out covered in popcorn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With a rapidly deflating bone.

Yeah, sticking through the bottom of the popcorn bucket.

Yeah, of course.

Not that rapidly deflating.

Dan was alone in the theater.

That's the strange thing.

Yeah.

Stewart made himself laugh so much that he put his head down.

That was my own Santa Vanjira moment.

Yeah.

It's crazy how divorced these are from like what the Oscars actually awarded.

Like the only one that they care about is Dream Girls.

Like, what are they trying to do with it?

Yeah.

I mean, the other ones are all like, yeah, they're all just like, yeah, this movie made a bunch of movies.

I mean, it feels like it is there.

I remember when

around the time that the, like that, I think Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture or whatever, where people were like, what is this?

They never nominate the movies that people care about.

And so this, I think, was their, they're being like, well, we're going to give some kind of BS award.

I mean, they're all the Oscars are BS awards.

So we're going to give some BS award for like.

big popcorn movies, but they can't all be just superhero action movies.

So we got to put something from Dream Girls on there.

uh but also they're like all from different years right like it's such a it's such a weird it's it's a weird idea for them to do it feels very like they didn't put a lot of work into it um okay so we got to pick one to kick off yeah man

probably the one the feet speed force one because what's all the other movies i like

it's the worst movie by far yeah funnelist All the other ones, you could legitimately say people did have a strong reaction in the theater.

He doesn't usually stand up and cheer.

It was like, whoa, or like, I remember seeing Dream Girls in the theater, and people loved, there was applause in the theater after I'm not going.

Yeah.

And they, the,

but I didn't see, I didn't see Justice League in the theaters, but I have to assume people were not like, if there was any moment even that they were cheering in that, it was not necessarily entering the speed.

Like, it feels like they just picked a random person.

There's the credits.

It was the credits at the end.

They're like, oh.

They said it's over.

Thank goodness.

When all those Avengers were coming out at the end of Avengers Game, people were cheering in the game.

People were talking crazy.

Which I thought was funny also because it's like, you guys know this was planned ahead of time, right?

This is not happening spontaneously right now.

I'm not sure they did know that.

We gotta get escorted out.

Yeah,

he's like, because this is a live stream, right?

From what, Avengers Headquarters?

Well, let's take a short break and then we'll be back with more of this useless exercise.

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Well, it is.

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Tune in every other Thursday to the podcast that's dedicated to helping black people feel more seen.

Find black people love paramore on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, Flophouse listeners.

If you live in the Chicago area and have no plans for the evening of Sunday, November 16, we have added a late show,

a late live show after our first show sold out.

We will be talking about K9 starring Jim Belushi, known worldwide as one of the two Belushi options.

The show is at Sleeping Village at 9.30 p.m.

And if you go to the events page at flophousepodcast.com, you'll find a link to get tickets.

Also, the flop TV season is in full swing, but you can still get individual tickets or a season pass and not miss anything because all of the episodes will be available on demand through February of 2026.

But if you want to join us live, those shows are on the first Saturday of every month.

It's a video stream where we're covering film flops starting in the 2000s and going all the way back to the 1950s with additional presentations, pre-tapes, questions from the live chat.

So if you want to see those shows, go to theflophouse.simpletics.com, that is T-I-X for ticks, for tickets and more info.

That's theflophouse.simpletics.com.

Now back to the show.

And we are back.

And of course, we are kicking off movies off of lists of top films because why not?

What better thing can we do on this Saturday afternoon when we're recording this?

And the next esteemed list that we'll be talking about is, of course, Elliot Kalin's top four on Letterboxd.

What do we got here?

We got the taking of Pelham 123.

Seeing it.

This is

the recent one, right?

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

The original one.

We have Shadow of a Doubt, The Alfred Alfred Hitchcock picture, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek by Preston Sturges, and Closely Watched Trains, a gem of the Czech new wave.

I'm pretty sure.

The shining jewel in the crown of the Czech New Wave.

Yeah.

Wow.

Fireman's Ball attacked.

Fireman's Ball is great.

Fireman's Ball is great.

It's no closely watched trains.

So what do we got here?

Yeah, just like looking at that list, I think I've only seen one of the four movies taking a Pelum 123.

So I'm going to kick that one off because I want to see the others.

Okay, that's fair.

That's fair.

Because I trust Elliott's opinion.

And if you put these other movies on there, they got to be great.

And I don't want to kick them off before I see them.

Like all right-thinking people and New Yorkers in particular, I love Taking a Pelum 123.

I love Hitchcock in general.

I love Shadow of a Doubt.

I also love Preston Sturgis, but Miracle of Morgan's Creek is not one of my favorites, so I have to go with that one.

Like, there are at least two or three Sturgis movies I like.

What are you going to put on The Lady Eve?

No, thank you.

Hey, we can disagree on these.

I mean, I like The Lady Eve, but I just don't like it as much.

I'll tell you why.

I've also never seen the Sturgis film.

And it's interesting because, like,

these are, I like this top four just because they're not the first movies I would think of for any of the filmmakers that you've chosen.

But, like.

I don't know.

Yeah, I like Stewart's criteria.

Like, let's just eliminate the one, you know, if you've seen it, take it off so I also have to lose Pelham even though it's a I watched it recently for the first time in the during COVID and it's a pretty unbelievable movie I do have to say but

it's gone it's dead to me I mean I hate myself

canceled canceled yeah Elliot

just put a bullet in the back of its head yeah which of your film children do you like the least

one for you the thing that I think is the saving grace of this list is that I'm not saying these are the greatest movies ever made and I'm not saying that these are the top, top movies, but these are my favorite movies.

And but I actually, I think I'm going to have to read, I haven't been on Letterbox just so long because my life does not give me time to do recreational things.

Too busy.

Yeah.

Too busy.

Yeah.

Too B, too, too busy.

And I think

honestly, I might have to take off, closely watch trains because lately, I think because it was at, I'm thinking about Wizard of Oz the Sphere, I've been thinking about how much I love The Wizard of Oz and like how special that movie is to me.

And it should be on that list.

I might even bump it up a little bit and bump some of the other movies down.

Like Taking Pelvin 23, that's always going to be in the number one spot.

Shadow of a Doubt, I just love it particularly.

And it has a, it's, it was shot in the town kind of next over from my wife's hometown.

So I've been to a lot of the site set, the places that it was set, shot, and I'm really excited about that.

But also

Miracle Morgan's Creek, that was the second.

Sturgis movie I ever saw.

My grandmother took me to see a double bill at film forum years and years ago of Unfaithfully Yours Yours and Miracle Morgan's Creek.

And Unfaithfully Yours is pretty good, but seeing Miracle Miracle Morgan Creek, I'm like,

I don't think I'd ever seen an old movie that silly, you know,

in some ways.

But Closely Watch Trains, I love, but I think I might have to take it off and slot Wizard of Oz in that slot and then put CWT right afterwards, you know.

Okay.

Well, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to let myself get off the hook.

The next list is Dan McCoy's top four on Letterbucks.

Uh-oh.

So we got here.

Bikini Car Wash Company.

Manual in space.

It's got everything.

It's got a manual.

It's got space.

What more do you want?

Manual's got to be in something.

Why not space?

Them's the rules.

North by Northwest,

Animal Crackers, the Marx Brothers picture, The Third Man,

and The Thing.

John Carpenter's The Thing.

It's a good list.

This is tough.

This is a toughie.

I'll go last on this one just because it's my own.

Can you repeat them?

Do the four again?

North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock's film, Animal Crackers with the Marx Brothers, The Third Man,

and The Thing.

I guess if you're going to, if I'm going to have to pick, because I think these are all great, but I would.

I guess I just am not the biggest Marx Brothers fan.

And so I would probably put

Animal Crackers of those four I

you know again I think it's good yeah

thank you Stuart for being very thoughtful about my feelings no but I mean just in general like I don't know like no I don't care about your feelings I'm just important yeah I mean I do care about your feelings

you know in the third man when they go up in the big uh it's like what is it like a

ferris wheel and it's uh it's really high up that scared me so i'm taking that one out uh And the Zither is super annoying, too.

I love that one.

Wow, wow, shots fired shots.

Introduce a Zither into your score.

I can't, I don't know.

And his name is Lime.

That's a fruit.

That's messed up, man.

You have to find random criteria if you can't do it.

Otherwise, I can't, at the merit of these films, it's a perfect list.

I can't really do.

Animal Crackers is a snack that I don't like that much.

Exactly.

I think it's going to be, this is a tough one because it's a very good list.

I think I would either push off, I think it's going to have to be North by Northwest under the criteria of not my favorite Hitchcock.

A

wonderful movie, but not my favorite of his.

Whereas the thing, although the thing is not my favorite John Carpenter movie, it's his best movie, but it's your favorite.

In the Mouth of Madness, which is not his best, but which I just, I love how much weird stuff is crammed into that movie and how the movie, like, at the end, there's like two fake endings because it's almost like the movie is like wait wait wait wait wait i've got more movie to show you i got more stuff to throw at you

but what if this is it you know um

but the uh

yeah so i think no i think i'll i'll unfortunately push off north midthwest if only because also we've talked about hitchcock before in other lists we got vertigo on one list we got shadow down on mine and the thing feels like a real uh newcomer you know yeah and it's so well done you know it's like got such a great score it's almost as good a score as the third man

and the thing is probably the only one.

The thing is the only one on that list that Roger Ebert was like, stinker.

Roger Ebert also said, he also said, like, Blue Velvet was a stinker.

You know, he was

a graduate had to apologize for knocking the Simon and Garfunkel score for the graduate.

He was like, dude, he literally wrote in his review, like, these songs are immemorable.

I'm like, that's exactly the word I would use.

Elliot, I would like to thank you for pointing the way for me, where, as you say, these are uh favorite movies, not necessarily the best movies.

And so, even though it is arguably the best movie on my list, I have the least personal sentimental affection for the third man.

So, I guess I'll have to lose that.

I love that one.

That's one I used to watch a lot when I was like a teenager.

That's an amazing movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

I'm curious how you have, do you just find Animal Crackers the funniest of the Runster movies?

It's my vote for the funniest.

And

I remember

at the Daily Show, I was like

writing

lambasted for loving Animal Crackers.

No, no,

I was writing a Larry Wilmore piece with

Jason Ross.

And Jason, of course, was mostly writing it because he was more senior to me by far.

That's what it's supposed to like when you're working with Jason Ross.

This is a writer that, this is a comedy writer who the,

I would say to people sometimes that writing with him was a little bit like going on a long car ride with your dad, where like he's just kind of silently writing it.

And every now and then, you, you say something, and you kind of see if he's going to react to it or not.

No, great guy.

I love him, and he's a great writer.

But, you know, Larry's a student of comedy and loves the Marx Brothers.

And

the most bonding that occurred was me saying that, oh, I love Animal Factors.

And he's like, yes, yes, that's my favorite one.

It's got the most good bits.

No higher authority than Larry Wilmore also agrees.

He knows what he's talking about.

I would disagree, but he knows what he's talking about.

I think the funniest one is H-feathers.

You don't have enough time to say the full sign.

I don't have enough time to say horse.

Well, I did a little research on our guest.

I don't know if his top four is up to you.

I was worried about this.

Sean Malin's top four on Letterboxd.

We've got Being There.

We've got Being John Malkovich.

We have have the unbearable lightness of being.

So the being trilogy.

What is going on with all the beings?

And then Mr.

Being.

And then the pleasure of being robbed.

Another being.

It's a gag.

I mean, I mess with my Letterbox, my top four all the time because, you know, I'm a professional working critic.

Like, I'm not going to give free shit to Letterbox.

Like, that's just like dumb thoughts that I have.

I don't put like professional shit there.

So I...

I mess around all the time.

I used to have the American, you know, American Pie, American Maid, blah, blah, blah.

Those are definitely not my top four.

I just thought they were four funny movies to like represent a wide swath of things.

I do like all four of those movies.

But we are locked in.

So we're locked in.

We've got to eliminate one.

Wait, which one's Being There?

Being there is Peter.

Right.

It's a Hal Ashby movie.

And honestly, that's my pick for what I

haven't seen the last one mentioned the pleasure of being robbed.

Yeah, it's a safety movie.

It's their a super early movie around the same era as uh daddy longlegs, and I would immediately eliminate that because it's a good movie, but yeah, I mean, it's very it was made cheaply, it's got a kind of intensity to it, but it's like you know, it didn't change film history, it opened up the safeties to what they are, but it's not like an hour and a half tummy ache type movie, right?

Yeah, you're just I mean, that's what there are movies.

No, I know, I just think it's pretty cool.

It's dallying with poverty, that kind of thing.

It's a very like hardcore, gritty New York shit.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I'll trust you on that, but I haven't seen it.

So I'm going to go with Being There, which I always found a little facile in its satire, a little 70s, like, oh, look at this, you know,

take down the, I'm showing how society is really, you know, I don't know.

I love that you're like mad at a movie for going, look at this.

Where it's like, most of it, most of the experience of a movie is looking at.

Yeah, most of them are like, hey, look.

Like I said, they're books for your eyes.

Yeah.

to uh i'm gonna have to kick off being john malkovich because i find john cusack's ponytail unpleasant

although again i'll tell this story every time i talk about this movie i took my mom to see uh that in the theater and this was back when my mom was drinking so she was a lot of fun and uh she fell asleep uh in the middle of the movie uh before that though when he first got to that office that's you know in the what 33 and a half floor or whatever the one or something my mom loudly said to the entire theater, what a terrible place to work.

And I'm like,

you're not wrong.

And then she fell asleep and then woke up during the final chase.

And I'm like, I wonder what she thinks is happening.

This is, that reminds me of when the same grandmother that took me to the Preston Surgery movies, we went to see the movie Courage Under Fire when that came out.

And around the time that one of the characters commits suicide by driving straight into a train because he's so ashamed of what happened in the mission where Meg Ryan's character is killed, my grandmother just turns to me and very loudly goes, this is a very serious movie

it's like what did you expect grandma you think it was like a comedy called courage under fire

uh family yeah um i'm going to

what are you kicking

sean pick pleasure being robbed yeah

i'm gonna go i'm gonna follow your lead sean i'm also gonna say the pleasure of being robbed it's good but it's i've never seen the unbearable lightness of being maybe i'll see it at some point so i can't kick it off according to the made-up rules that we have um and that means those are personal rules.

You can make up any rule you want for your own.

Oh, and I'll kick them all off and put movies I like.

Take a palette one, two, three.

Shadow of a doubt.

But being there for all that Dan doesn't like it, I really love.

And being John Malkovich, I really love.

That was one that hit me really hard when I was a freshman in college when it first came out.

And it was just very exciting.

And it felt like, oh, I'm seeing, it felt for the first time like I'm seeing the new movies

of what like my generation of moviegoers are going to be really excited about.

And And it's not Magnolia, the other movie that came out, I think, the same year where someone I knew

went and saw it like 10 times in the theater because he couldn't get enough of it.

I'm like, that's not the one for me.

Being Jum Nago is the one for me.

But being there, I really love.

There's a, I think it's, I think it does hit that satirical point.

I find it very beautiful at the end.

But, you know, Dan, you can, you can poo-poo it because of all the great movies you've made.

Oh, wait a second, huh?

What's this?

Oh, man.

He's got you there, Dan.

All right.

Tend to lights.

Lock him up.

Give me several million dollars and I'll make a movie to prove you wrong.

All right.

You're on.

Oh, I got Sean.

Do you have several million dollars on the home?

Yes, this now.

I do.

And I'm happy to loan them out to you.

That'd be wonderful.

That'd be great.

Well, if Stuart didn't see where this was headed already, he's also sitting right next to me, so he can literally see.

Now, Stuart,

the iconoclast that Stuart is, only has.

When they came for Elliot Kalen and the sight and sound list, I said nothing.

Stuart,

being an iconoclast, of course, only has three movies on his top four.

And those movies are.

We can't force him to pick a fourth movie.

Castle Freak, Head of the Family, and The Invisible Maniac.

Now, I just want to say up front,

you know, we've talked about movies being kind of our favorites, but I think in this case, I've chosen what I would say objectively are the best movies ever made.

I don't think I chose any of the three.

What are they?

Whoa.

Yeah, Castle Freak.

for castle freak head of the family and the invisible maniac now for listeners who have joined us relatively recently and don't get the bit

this was uh for a long time the holy trinity of of stewart's movies uh films that he would recommend over and over during the recommendation segments of the podcast i would recommend these movies every other week uh rotating specifically i recommended castle freak and was talking about how the titular freak rips his own ding-dong off.

And then people started writing letters into me.

And then people were tweeting at the director, Stuart Gordon, and he was like, no, that didn't happen.

It was a real mess, but I still think I'm right.

It was often a fallback, I think, when you maybe forgot that you were going to have to recommend something and hadn't seen something.

Or I just thought it would be funny to do

R.I.P.

Stuart Gordon.

Yeah, R.I.P.

to a master.

I feel like

the height of this bit was when someone tweeted at him,

did the castle freak rip his own ding tongue off?

And Stuart Gordon just tweeted back, no.

But also, if you went on Amazon and looked up any of these movies, it would say, customers also purchase head of the family and invisible maniac.

So people are really getting these flops.

The flophouse influence.

Yep, the floppy house.

Never before

he crushed me with two letters before.

And Stuart Gordon just saying no.

But on the upside, you eventually got to meet Giorgio the Castle Freak when we hosted Jonathan Fuller, yeah.

Castle Freak Screaming at Almo Yonkers.

And it's weird.

The Glossy, the 8x10 Glossy he signed, it did say I ripped it off myself.

So I don't know.

I guess that's canon.

I guess the Glossy's the Canon now.

Who do we believe?

The director of the film or the Glossy?

Of these films, while it is fun to talk about, there's more assault in The Invisible Maniac.

So I guess I'm going to get rid of that.

I mean,

they're all full of assault.

There's not movies that have respect for the human body or the female body in the way that perhaps we would like to believe we have.

But again, they're movies.

You know, they're meant to horrify.

And I guess Invisible Maniac is more to titillate, I guess.

But these are to horrify, yeah.

Yeah, so I think they're all good.

I left one off for a reason because there can only be three.

I don't know.

I would say of those three,

all jokes aside, I would say, yeah, I mean, I feel like the Invisible Maniac, though it does feature a guy being killed with a submarine sandwich and another guy being killed with a Mario stomp on the head,

I would say The Invisible Maniac has the most gross stuff in it.

It's probably, well, I think it's also kind of the weakest of the three.

Like Head of the Family, I think, is a very silly movie that is kind of, it's that like fun in a way, a full moon kind of way.

And I think Castle Freak's great because it's a Stuart Gordon movie.

I'm going to add Citizen Kane since we've seen it on a bunch of lists and then take it off of your

just to put Orson in his place fully yeah he's had it too easy for too long yeah that's what I've been yeah if anyone had an easy time I actually have a panel

for you guys

well I get but good news for Orson this made me this made me mad the other day where they go this company is like as an AI experiment we're gonna have it recreate the magnificent amber sons I'm like come on don't do that

the last 45 minutes of the magnificent amber sons they're gonna put into a large language learning model and see what it spits out it's just gonna be a very large Orson Welles Welles, like late in his life.

Yeah.

It's going to be 45 minutes of him talking about wine, French wines.

And yeah, but that made me very mad.

But yeah, which one am I going to take off this list?

I don't know.

That was a smooth move, adding a movie and then taking it off.

That really sidestepped the, that was, that was very clever.

That was Outsmart a Demon in a Folktale.

Clever.

I didn't know we were recording with John Constantine.

I don't know.

I think I might remove, even though Invisible Maniac, I think, has some, is a little more questionable.

I might remove head of the family just for variety.

You're going to mess with the head, then, you said.

I am going to mess with the head and see if I can.

Don't mess with the head.

That's the one thing you're not supposed to do.

Oh, no, I did it.

Well, that was the end of my silliness.

Sean,

before we sign off, is there something, is there more you want to say about the podcast banning or anything?

I didn't really give you a skill.

Does anybody on your show know that you're in the book?

Do they know that you guys earned your spot by being one of the most important podcasts ever released?

I've done a little promotion.

Yeah.

Please do.

We're getting better at owning our successes.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's taken a lot of therapy for me to do the same.

Like the book is coming out and I have to be like, oh, yes, I'm proud of what I've done.

But I don't know.

I mean, the three of you are in the book.

You say shit in it that you've never said on the air.

There's exclusives in there.

Exclusive Stuart Wellington content.

Full color.

Man, photos of us in the book.

You're early too, right?

You're like in the early days.

I think because you put it in order of best.

So we're number one or two, right?

Something like that.

Yeah.

And I was, I was joking about how,

I was joking about how it kind of starts off like.

You know, this podcast started off with some questionable stuff, but then it got good.

But honestly.

though.

But honestly, like, if anyone's coming to our podcast, they probably should know that.

Like, maybe don't start at the very beginning.

No.

Start once we got good at doing it.

I don't know.

I think I love the podcast because I heard that stuff and like watched the growth.

I don't know.

You know, people can do what they want, but you should at least embrace the fact that

in this book, you are

among the funniest chapters.

I mean, like, the chapter is funny.

Like, it's just enjoyable to read.

It's, I don't know if it's as good as an episode, but I think if people like you, they'll giggle.

And you don't get that in a lot of books now.

They're, they're all very like,

you know, everything's so serious.

Yeah.

But also, like, I mean, I, you know, as a podcast listener, I

respect the

editorial voice of the, like I, the, the, the, the ones that I'm familiar with, I'm like, yeah, yeah, these are good podcasts.

So I'm excited to then use it as it's intended to be used and be like, I'll check out some of these other things I don't know about.

It's also quite an honor just flipping through seeing some of the other shows on there because there's some really great podcasts in this book.

Were there, did you, were there any interviews that you really want to do, but weren't able to do?

Like, were you like, I want to talk to Obama?

And he's like, no way.

Tons.

Yeah.

And in a second edition or expanded edition in success, we have a lot more that we would add to this, like 101 plus another 101.

Because there's so many amazing podcasts out there, not that there wasn't like a big selection process.

You know, it took months and months and months to whittle down.

But

yeah, there were a lot of people who were just not available or

chose not to participate.

And I basically said,

fuck you, you're dead to me.

Take them off the list.

Yeah, you're not the cannon.

No, yes, there were people that I wanted to talk to and it just didn't happen on time.

You know, we,

you have a schedule to publish.

So was there anyone that you were surprised that you were able to interview?

Anybody who you were like, oh my gosh.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, Conan O'Brien is amazing in the book.

He wrote pages of material for the book.

I'm like, why?

Why?

Yeah.

The office ladies, I thought were going to be impossible to reach because they're so like

world famous, you know, even before their podcast, but they were really helpful.

And they talk about like eating cheese of the book, like, their whole schedule is mentioned.

That was pretty.

And then there are people who are like, it, you know, uh, pseudonymous people, like Marlo Mack, who has the podcast, How to Be a Girl.

Like, Marlo doesn't give a lot of interviews to protect her daughter, who's trans, but she agreed to speak with me, you know, over email, pseudonymously, but still pretty rare.

Um, that was cool.

You guys were pretty accessible, I have to say.

Yeah, we're neither,

hard.

Which is not as not as impressive nor as surprising.

We were running after you like, hey, hey, hey.

But you are on Facebook, which I think is weird.

People don't know.

Yeah, they don't know how to put that out.

These are characters we play.

All the details we give about our real lives are completely fabricated.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it ends up being having any cats.

Oh my God, really?

No.

You guys were so nice to be in the book and Max Fun for providing all the licenses and stuff.

Like, it's just awesome.

I was so excited.

And I've been listening to you guys for a decade.

It was fun.

It was nice.

You were easy to work with.

It was simple.

And you have a couple of

like book launch events coming up.

There's going to be one next week.

I don't.

Yeah, I don't think this is going to be out in time.

Do we know when it's coming out, Dan?

Let me, I was not prepared for this, but I'll figure it out.

I should have been.

I don't think Sean's surprised that we weren't prepared to know offhand what date it is.

I believe we have no expectations.

I believe this should be coming out on October 4th.

Yeah, okay.

So if you're listening to it on October 4th, we have an event at Book Passage in San Francisco.

We're going to have a bunch of famous podcasters.

Glenn Washington from Snap, Judgment, and Spook will be there.

The Ear Hustle folks, Erlon Woods and Nigel Poore, and then Vanessa Lowe of Nocturne.

Oh, it's going to be an amazing event at Book Passage, 3 p.m.

in San Francisco.

And then in Austin, I'll be at Book People,

which is really exciting.

That's my old hometown

bookstore.

And then in November, I'll be at the Miami Book Fair with Dan Lee Bertard and Stu Gotts from the Dan Lee Bertard Show with Stu Gotts, if you could believe that.

Yeah, there will be events all over.

And I'm sure the four of us will do something down the line as well.

I don't know when or where, but we'll have virtual events all throughout the end of the year and then early into next year.

And of course, when the if and when the book does well,

maybe there will be a second thing and there will be more.

Yeah, like the movie version we'll play play ourselves.

Yeah, sure.

I do think there should be a film adaptation

or five.

Yep.

I think so.

Let's figure it out.

It's a big book.

Yes.

At least get to a third one so you can do the podcast Pan 3 on.

Oh.

Wonderful.

Yes.

You know, I'm available for writing a copy if you need to write a title

for putting numbers.

We're in a room together.

Yeah.

And I have to put a number in this title but nobody knows how to do it one guy one guy with a rhyming dictionary

knows how to do it you mean

by the way dan

you can cut all of this promotional out i just wanted you to like celebrate the fact that you're in the book oh no no no

no we'll we'll keep it in and double it we know how the game is played we know how to scratch scratch backs yeah yeah

Yes, that's what it is.

No, no, no.

Listen to Back Scratch Fever.

Yeah.

It's because we're deeply honored by being in the book.

And we want to say thank you to Sean for joining us for the silliness.

We wanted to say thank you for putting us in the book in such great company.

And as long as we're thanking people and entities, let's thank our network, Maximum Fun.

I'll mention that

there are other Max Fun podcasts in the book.

Bullseye is one i know i'm forgetting another at least that's in there um query with cameron esposito is also in there oh awesome uh so uh so thank you to our network check out the other great podcasts including ones in the podcast pantheon and thank you to alex smith our producer who goes by the name howl dotty on the internet check his work out as well but For now, that's the end of this show

for the Flop Pass podcast.

I've been Dan McCoy.

I've been Stuart Wellington.

I've been Ellie Kalen.

And we were joined by Sean Malin.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

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