Dumb Interview: The Flophouse
The Flophouse is a hilarious weekly podcast in which Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington and Elliott Kalan discuss some of the dumbest and worst movies out there. Some
of the stinkers they have savaged have been the Dustin Hoffman
bomb "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium," the filmed knockoff of the whorish children's
toy line, "Bratz," and M. Night Shyamalan's eco-horror flop, "The Happening." (Full disclosure: they've even let me sit in once or twice!) In honor of
the savaging that the new Anne Hathaway/Kate Hudson film "Bride Wars" received last
week from the critics, we invited the guys
from the Flophouse to find out just what makes a movie dumb.
First off, who are you guys?
Dan: I’m a comedian and writer in New York. My co-hosts are Stuart, who somehow makes twice as much money as I do, by selling toy soldiers for strategy gaming (seriously), and Elliott, who writes for some cable program called “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” If the subtext to your question is, “Where do you get off making fun of people who’ve made big Hollywood movies, when you’re just three dudes in a living room?” Well, then, we turn it right back on you, saying, “Where do you get off making us cry?”
What's your gripe with bad movies?
Stuart: Honestly, I love bad movies. The feeling I get from watching a crap movie is similar the joy you feel when you are shown the artwork of a talentless child or see a grown man get hit in the balls. It’s a little hard to explain, and I think it makes me a bad person.
What's the difference between a movie that is "so bad it's good," and a movie that is "just plain bad?"
Elliott: In a word: boredom. There's a certain joy to be found in a really amateurishly-made movie, but if it's just boring, it stops being fun and starts being painful. What keeps it from being boring? Craziness and energy. Without those elements, you get something like "10,000 B.C.," which is deadly dull to the point that your brain refuses to register its existence after a few minutes. When craziness and energy are in abundance, you can create something enthralling, sublime and genuinely beautiful, like "Tango & Cash."
Are there particular elements that you look for when considering a film to discuss on the Flophouse?
Dan: We look for something short. A short movie usually indicates that a filmmaker didn’t have much to say in the first place, so they added a bunch of scenes of, say, Jessica Alba in a bikini, searching for underwater treasure. Also, horror, sci/fi and thrillers tend to make better bad movies than comedies. It’s like the old saying: if you’re watching a bad drama then at least you can laugh at it. If you’re watching a bad comedy you’re just gonna get disgusted by Dan Aykroyd in a giant mutant baby costume.
Are you concerned you might hurt someone's feelings?
Stuart: Nope. I think that everyone involved would rather have us rent their stupid movie, spend a delightful evening getting drunk and giving them free advertising on our tiny podcast, than letting their steaming pile sit forgotten in cinematic purgatory. Most of the time, the movies that we choose to review are the products of large movie studios, with way too many people and too much money involved to have any excuse for why their movie is terrible.
The critics have savaged “Bride Wars” with particular glee. Have you seen it? Do you need to have seen it to know what you think?
Elliott: We haven't seen "Bride Wars" yet. Really it's unfair to judge any film without having seen it in full. But merely by looking at the poster, you can see that it's a movie about women, which means one of two things: it's either a soulful look at the problems of women in our society or it's a whiny shrew-fest that reinforces every negative stereotype about women as controlling, ball-busting, manipulative, materialistic, violent, whiny harpies. Which will it turn out to be? Come on, it's called "Bride Wars." Plus it's got Candice Bergen in it, and she has apparently been afflicted with a life-threatening allergy to being in good movies.
It seems that “Bride Wars” is one of those films that has attracted a level of abuse from critics that transcends criticism, and becomes just pure rancor for it's own sake. Why does this happen? Do some films deserve this treatment?
Dan: If they’re being mocked by Gene Shalit, then I’ll say yes, because it probably involves some sort of awesome pun.
What advice would you give to filmmakers or producers to avoid being discussed on the Flophouse?
Dan: Try to avoid being a late-period Nicholas Cage film, or an any-period Hayden Christensen film. Don’t be a PG-13 remake of an Asian horror movie. Don’t include flashbacks to things we saw ten minutes ago. Try and make movies that the Ben Kingsley of “Sexy Beast” and “Schindler’s” List would want to star in, not the Ben Kingsley of “BloodRayne” and “A Sound of Thunder.” Basically have a compelling reason to exist.
What is the dumbest movie you have ever discussed on your show? Why?
Elliott: That would probably be "Wild Hogs" the all-star family film made up mostly of jokes about homophobia. It felt like someone realized Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy and Ray Liotta all had the same week off, so why not write a biker movie for them? And while you're at it, remove any trace of human personality from the film. Our DVD copy of it broke during the ending, probably because it realized the only honorable way out was seppuku.
Who is the ultimate bad movie actor? What is the ultimate bad movie?
Stuart: F. Murray Abraham is the ultimate bad movie actor. He looks like a shriveled old wizard. Kind of like a liche, a necromancer who has placed his soul into a phylactery in pursuit of immortality. He’s great. Best worst film? “Road House.” It has babes, Swayze, and strangely erotic fight scenes.
Dan: Also a guy gets crushed by a bear.
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