The Flop House - FH Mini 135 - The Movieboys of Summer

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

Stuart takes us on a tour of the biggest summer releases of the past couple of decades.See The Flop House LIVE IN CHICAGO this November!And, if you prefer to watch us from the comfort of your own home: Tickets for Flop TV Season 3 are ON SALE!Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!

Hey, it's Dan. These pre-rolls can get boring quickly, so I'll be fast. Flop TV is back this September, 2025 through February 26, with all new streaming live shows that you can also see video on demand if you can't make it live. Individual tickets and season passes are available at theflophouse.com. That's ticks spelled tix, as well as all the info that is too much to say here. Now the show. Hey folks, it's me, Stuart Wellington, of the Flop House podcast. And welcome to another installment of a Flop House mini. That is our off-week episodes where instead of watching a bad movie and talking about it, we kind of do whatever we want. We've done some silly ones. We've done some scary ones.

And we've done some serious ones. And today what we're going to be doing is closer to the serious ones where I am mainly using this as an opportunity to hang out and talk with my two friends. friends. Today we're talking about a weird thing here for the flop house. We're talking about movies. So, real quick, if this is your first time listening to the flop house, I am one of the hosts. And joining me, as always, are Dan McCoy. And Elliot Kalin. I didn't know if Dan was going to say and or not. L.A. L.A. was pausing to scroll through his phone for a second. I just needed to look through the context to remember what my name is. Yeah. How do I pronounce that

again. L.A. It? I am running for mayor of Los Angeles as we established in a previous episode. So L.A. It's canon now. We've, uh, we've, uh, we're taking it. How strong is Dan? Very strong. That's also canon now. Uh-huh. Chalk it up. Um, so, yeah, put it on the whiteboard. So today we're talking about movies and now, uh, there's been a fair amount of talk about lists lately. As always, if you follow the internet, You remember years ago, everyone was talking about shindlers. That was one of them. Now that the naked guns out,

everyone wants to revisit Liam Neeson's other comedy work. Yikes. I'm just goofing. We don't mean it, everybody. We don't mean it. It's just a joke. So what we're talking about, specifically, I wanted to mention,

the New York Times recently had a 100 best movies of the last 25 years. And that encouraged a fair amount of debate on the Internet. And they even encourage folks to put together a list of, like, their 10 favorite movies from the last 25 years, which, of course, meant I did it quickly without thinking. Yeah. But did you guys, are you familiar with this? Did you read the list or anything? I didn't read the list because I am in a fight with the New York Times over their increasingly bad coverage of the world.

Well, also that one newsboy keeps waking you up when he throws the newspaper against the door. Yeah. But I did also, I felt FOMO, I wanted to play. So I did make my own letterbox list of what I would put in that thing. I saw that they were doing this and I deliberately did not read it because I think I thought it would only, also FOMO, it only reminds me of all the movies I've not had a chance to see because of my busy chaotic life. And so I was like, I bet I'm not even going to have seen half of these.

It's just going to make me feel like I'm missing out. So I'm not even going to look at it. And I didn't read. the list, but I did use it as an opportunity to come up a list of 10 favorites of mine, with the additional rules, because you know, why not put more rules on it?

You love rules, you're a gamester. No more than one entry from any one director, because otherwise it would just be all Lord of the Rings movies and Luca Guadigino movies. That's exactly what I've guessed. It would be all Peter Jackson and Luke Guadino, and that's it. That's the whole list. The two sides

of Stewart. A sensitive guy. I'm basically Samwise, right? A sensitive guy likes going on adventures But kind of doesn't like going on adventures And Dan is the, he's the Frodo He's the leader who also like He's pretty complaining about having to be on this adventure Yeah

Yeah Well, I mean, you know, why me, man? Yeah Just because I'm nice enough to be able to hold a ring Like, oh my uncle stole a ring Now I've got to go to a volcano, you know what the hell is this? Mm-hmm And I'm of course Marion Pippin smashed into one person, yeah

That's actually that tracks I'm glad that that's Before any listeners Quickly write in and say Elliot's Gallum That's not fair Only physically Only as I age

Am I becoming Gallum Yeah We're all becoming Gallum You're coughing up hairballs He's got no hair What are you talking about? Golm is like At least hairy character in the movie

Yeah but he's always caught Like that's kind of what inspired Andy Circus is like Gallum like cough thing Those hair balls Which is kind of crazy If you think about it Maybe he got it from like

eating things with hair? Yeah, I guess yeah, he's eating little mammals. I just assumed he always had like fish bones in his throat, yeah. Yeah, he's always coughing up fish bones. Because the band's fishbone wandered into the caverns

and he ate them, yeah. Yeah, I love it. So, so funky. Okay, so what we're going to talk about today, so we're not going to talk about our favorite movies of the last 25 years.

Oh, okay. That's a mystery. It's part of the setup, which is going to take roughly half the podcast. Oh. Oh, cool. So this is like the games

that you play, too. Uh-huh, yep. We're still in character creation, boys. We got to fine-tune our character's appearance. So we are also recording this kind of in, like, the middle of summer. One would call it the dog days of summer. Would you call it that, Dan? It's not a phrase I usually use in my day-to-day, no.

Cool, okay. I would use it, but I would spell days D, A, Z. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. So I don't know about you guys, but one thing that I always think about during the summer is going to big summer movies. And that's what we're talking about is we're going to be talking about the big summer movies of the last 25 years. Now, one of the reasons is because I don't know about you guys, but when I was growing up, I have very fun, like part of what made me love movies was as a kid going to see, I specifically remember. at a friend's Lake Cottage going to see the first Batman.

I mean, it wasn't my late cottage, it was a friend. My dad would never splurge on the extravagance like a late cottage. And they, I remember going to see the Tim Burton Batman movie at the like old-timey like big movie house, like the,

not, you know, a modern multiplex, but like a big grand show house, like a movie palace. Exactly. And I remember seeing, I remember seeing Batman there and it had like imprinted in my memory that feeling and the excitement of going to the movies and uh you were like nicole kidman in that moment exactly heartbreak from seeing the jokester finally get his meet his end felt good in a place like that uh do you guys have any fond memories of uh going to the movies obviously i know ellie is going to say seeing Jurassic park like

10 times in the summer of 93 days in a row i saw it at i went to when it i went to an 1130 screening the before it officially opened, and then I went to see it after school the next day. So, yeah, that's a big part of it. Can groan, like, if childhood Elliott, who had seen Jurassic Park two days in a row, found out that older Elliott does not have time to see Jurassic Park two days in a row, how upset would young Elliot be? He'd be very upset. There's a lot of things that young Elliot would be excited that older Elliot is doing,

and a lot of things that he'd be disappointed older, Elder Elliott is not doing. But Younger Elliott also just would see anything in theaters. I also saw Robin Hood Men in Tights two days in a row twice. Oh, wow. So, like, I had a lot of time on my hands to go to see movies. I saw, I remember seeing Last of the Mohicans twice in the same day. Oh, wow. I went to, like, a birthday party during, in the, like, early part of the day, which is kind of a weird birthday party.

And then being like, this movie fucking rocks. I need to see that shit again. And I just went again at night. Since it was brought up, I have a specific Men in Tites memory, which is that. Oh, wow. This is Dan's regular segment, Mennon Tite's memories. It's often a little disturbing, but this is a good memory, which is, yeah, my church youth group did a thing one time where they're like, we're going to do a marathon of movies in the theater. We want you to learn about Judaism, so we're going to go see Raman Hood, Manantyx.

We're going to time it out So, you know, like we can go from movie to movie to movie And we'll see three in a row in the theater Which is like Christmas for me Because we never saw movies when I was growing up Let me interject That's the kind of thing my family would do a fair amount Is my mom would do that would time it

So we would see two or three movies in one day We just spend the day at the movies But she would pay for tickets for each Whereas my dad was the kind of guy who There was a multiplex near us eventually and he would, as a movie was ending, he would sneak out and go to the other theaters to see what was starting and scout ahead.

And I remember going to see a simple plan with him and he snuck back in the theater and goes, a bug's life is just about to start. Let's go see that. And I was like, I don't know, that might be too much tonal to adjust to position for me. I don't know. Well, I'm going to, because you said,

I'm going to take a break from this anecdote and go to another brief interstitial anecdote, which is like, my... This is a regular Dan McCoy segment called auxiliary anecdote. He interrupts one anecdote for another, yeah. No, it's just my family, my parents, when I was growing up, were never going to spend the money or the time on taking us out to the movies.

They got three rowdy boys. Yeah, although both of these. Didn't you guys used to wrestle under the name of the Rowdy Boys? Yeah. I mean, Rowdy Boy McCoys. My brothers are 10 and 13 years older than me, so they were gone most of my youth. But, you know, by that time,

I don't know. They just got into, like, we're not going to take people out for movies. But the one time that I would get to see movies is, because I was a movie mad youth as I am a movie mad adult, I would, for my birthday, and I had a summer birthday, I would want my, like, hey, let's all go out and see a movie. Like, my friends, you know, a few of my friends and I would go out and see me. So I saw Grimlins to the new batch on my birthday. That's a party. I saw, what about Bob? I saw Maverick.

These are all movies that I remember associated with. That rocks. But that was, you know, a special treat. We normally would not see movies. But I remember this youth group thing where it was a, we saw first Robin Hood Men in Tights,

followed by the fugitive, followed by, so I married an axed murder. Has his charms? Yeah, I mean, there's a great, I mean, it's the weakest of the three. I would go with Men and Tides, personally. I don't think that's a, I don't know.

It's fine. It was fun. You're talking about a movie. Elliot saw it twice. I feel like if Mel Brooks's other movies, other better movies did not exist, people would have lost their shit over men and tights. Maybe, maybe. But in a world with blazing saddles and young Frankenstein,

men and tights is a lesser work, certainly. But it's funny to me that like... In space balls. Every day I... Space balls, I don't know so. I don't know so much. Every day I do the box office game online inspired by our friends over at Blank Check there's an online version of the box office game

where you try and remember what was on specific weekends at the box office and whenever I reveal the fugitive and this has happened a few times I immediately try and blind guests men and tights and so I married an axe murder because I know for a fact I saw them at the same time

and this strategy has never paid off I always lose points I guess they were in and out of the theater so much faster than the fugitive that I have to get the exact right weekend. The Dan McCoy technique doesn't always pay on. It does not work. But he never stops.

That's persistence. They say insanity is not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yeah. Now, I have a follow-up question. When you... Actually, you did bring up What About Bob, and I think my favorite thing about what about Bob

is going to see it and being like, this is great. I love this movie, this Bill Murray guy. great, he's from Ghostbusters, and coming home to tell my parents about it. And my mom was like, don't talk about it. Your dad hates Richard Dreyfus. I'm like, okay.

And at the time, I'm like, why? But now I'm like, oh, it's because he's an asshole. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a policy that makes more sense now. That was during the time, like, had your dad had a lot of personal encounters with Richard Dreyfus? No, he just hated him for a... He probably played like a bad guy in a movie.

It's like my parents both hate Paul Reiser because of aliens. I mean, have you explained the difference between a character and an actor to them yet? I was a child at the time. I didn't even understand it. But also to hate and pay Paul Reiser for a role that is such an outlier in the rest of his acting career is funny to me. So what about Bob came out during the period when my dad most looked like Richard Dreyfus. And the joke that we had in our family was that you couldn't tell my dad and Richard Dreyfus apart. And for his birthday that year, my sister made like, oh no, it was for a family project.

We had a family project. Did he ever use that to like pull off a heist? No, unfortunately no. Or if he did, I didn't see any of the money. But we had a family project and my sister did a thing about how my dad looks like Richard Dreyfus. And she just cut the faces of Richard Dreyfus from the back of the What About Bob VHS box out and was like, can you tell the difference between my dad and Richard Dreyfus? And people were like, I think your dad. That's him, right?

Like they really thought he was one of them. But for his, for my dad's 70th birthday, I made like a PowerPoint for him and a big chunk of it was about his double life as Richard Dreyfus. in the 1970s and 80s. I was like, you don't see, you don't see Richard Dreyfusson movies that much anymore. Well, my dad's been pretty busy. But anyway, so I can't help thinking about, what about Bob without thinking about my dad too?

Now, talking about going to the movies, I remember, Dan, you know, your family with three boys, and maybe that factored into your parents not wanting to take you all out to movies. Expensive, yeah. I remember my close friend, who I'm sure I've mentioned on the podcast before,

who was also my college roommate, Casey Crow was the eldest of four brothers. And any time I would go with them to the movies, their mother would pack every book would like pre-pop popcorn for everyone and we would sneak our own popcorn in, which was not something my family did. And I think part of it is because, you know, you got to feed three, four hungry boys plus a Stewart.

And I was a hungry boy back then. That's five boys. Did your, did you guys sneak, like Elliot mentioned, sneaking into other movies or buying a ticket to other. movies. Did you bring in your outside snacks? There's no cops are going to drag you away. I think the statute of limitations is over, yeah. I don't recall ever doing it. We definitely would never buy snacks because that would be too expensive, but I don't remember us either sneaking them in because we're a family of rule followers

and that would not be allowed. We were the opposite. We're a family of criminals and ganniffs, and so almost every movie my dad would be like, pop a bag of popcorn. Put it under your coat and I would say can I have a soda and he goes I already brought some soda and he'd pull out like a warm diet coke in a can like grace once we wanted candy there's a bag in my pants once he goes it's okay I brought some candy from a meeting I had earlier today and he had like a couple warm dove chocolates that they must have had in a bowl in whatever place he was he was pitching a marketing campaign too so we were we were very much a sneak your your food into the type of family or he'd take this is like this is like a paul giamati character in the story of

Kelly, it's life. He'd take us to a drugstore ahead of time so we could get bigger candy bars for less money than the ones at the movie theater. And he'd always be like, see, look at the price difference. You shouldn't have to pay that much of the theater. You just pick something up ahead of time. And the way I've responded to this is that whenever I take my boys to the movie theater, we always buy the biggest possible popcorn.

You know, it's like, take that dad, I'm going to spend the money. You wouldn't spend. And then we eat too much and our tummy's hurt. Yeah, you get a galactus popcorn carrier that you have to, I don't know, get shipped back to your home. That's the thing. I never splurge for the collectible bucket, but more just because I know it's going to just hang around my house until eventually my wife throws

it out. Like it's not going to get put on a shelf as a trophy or anything like that. It's not going to be one of those things that like 10 years from now your sons are going to be like, I found this thing. It's incredible. Yeah, I don't think so, yeah. I remember like... You see this popcorn bucket. It's got these weird spines on it. You could put your penis into it.

Oh, that's a Dune popcorn bucket. Don't put your penis in that. I had saved one of these recent Ghostbusters cups to give to Elliot and then I said oh sorry I forgot I'd saved this cup and he's like that's fine I don't want it would just junk up the house I'm like okay well we can't already we have too many cups for our cupboard our cup board is too is overflowing with cups you know uh you might as well just throw out some of those cups and keep the one dan gave you but that's um my two cents that was stewart's interstitial segment yeah it's called my two cents it's always a surprise

segment he doesn't announce it till after he's already done it yeah so we've talked a little bit about nostalgia and i feel like when we talk about some of these big movies i feel like nostalgia is going to play a large part nostalgia and sequels and the disney company um but i have compiled a list uh using the internet of uh the the the number one summer movie of each year of the last 24-ish years I did put the criteria that this is movies that came out

between Memorial Day to Labor Day, right? So not including the like summer kickoff movie which in many cases was a bigger release than the big summer movies of these years.

I'll give you an opportunity to guess some of these. We're going to start way back in 2001 and we'll do a couple of those maybe and then jump forward. So can you guys, Can you guys guess at what the number, like the big, this is just in terms of box office performance,

the number one summer movie of 2001 is? You're starting exactly at the point where like my memory of these things starts falling off because it was much more important to me in childhood or like looms larger in my memory than like when I started actually going to the movies more often myself. I mean also you were having. sex by that point, Dan. So you had other things on your mind then?

In 2001? Well, maybe not 2001, but certainly by 2014. Excuse me. Yes, I was. Thank you. Okay, if you say so, but... I mean, there's no... Dan, you haven't provided any proof,

so I just have to take your word for it. I think I need to see some receipts here. I think that kicked off in 97, if I recall correctly. Cool, okay. Well, let's check the tape. You were taping me? Yeah. Yep.

Okay. Can you got, you want to give a guess, or do you just want me to blow your minds? Yeah, blow my mind. Yeah, give us a big mind blow. This is a sequel, and it stars a beloved long-time action star and a somewhat beloved, beloved comedy performer. Oh, see, this is, I think we need, yeah, hands. I need some information.

Well, I know it's not Judge Dred, which starts Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider. It's not Speed 2 Cruise Control. No, but you are very close to the. both theme of the title and the sequel number. So close to two or is it two? Is that giving away too much? I guess I'll say too much is correct.

It is two, yeah. So it's the second movie. Let's see. But you were close with speed. It's not the Matrix, right? Because there's no comedian in that. Nope. I'm going to jump right in here, guys.

We're talking rush hour two Was the big summer movie Honestly, I have forgotten The Rush Hour franchise And that is on me They were huge movies I saw them in the theaters If you asked me to name

Action comedies of the early 2000s I think I would have forgotten The Rush Hour movies Yeah And in fact, if you are to stream them I would remember Shanghai Knights Possibly over In Shanghai noon over Rush Hour

If only because the titles are more memorable I think if you, I don't know if it's both But I can't remember Which streaming platform Has the rights right now But before the movie, there's a disclaimer about, like, hey, there's some jokes in here that are fucked off.

Really? Yeah. Because there are. Having, I think, recently rewatched them for, I don't know, reasons because they were on. It's entertainment. Yeah, for entertainment reasons. The summer kickoff movie, the big summer kickoff movie, of course, Dan's favorite animated movie of all time. That's right.

Shrek. Shrek crushed it. That was the biggest. movie the year, I think, right? Trek? No, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the next movie of the year. But Trek must have been number two, right? Yes, number two, followed by Monsters Inc.

And then Rush Hour 2. And then the other big summer movie, well, this is a pre-summer movie, the mummy returns. Oh, yeah. Okay. He did do that. He did return. He's back again. Let's jump over.

Don't let them in. Let's jump to the next year. We got 2002. Of course, the big summer kickoff movie, we had two huge. That's the summer kickoff movies. That's the summer of Spider-Man, right? That first is the summer of Spider-Man. Yep, early May, we have Spider-Man

followed closely by Attack of the Clones. Oh. But the big summer release, like actually in summer release, is an outlier. This is also Walt Disney Studios. It is a... Is a movie with some P-Rats in it? No.

Oh, okay. That's close. You're close. Okay. It is a director who has been featured on the flop house multiple times. Okay. Neil Breen. So what movie did Neil Breen make for the Disney Studios?

Yeah. There's been so many repeat offenders. Is it a Robert Zemeckis movie? No. There is aliens in it. They're aliens. Is it, um... And this is a movie that did well?

It was the number four movie of the year and the biggest movie in the actual summertime. Oh, wow. 2002. Oh. Guys, you're not reading the signs. Oh, yeah. It was signs, baby.

Signs, yeah. That was a huge movie. I forget how big that movie was. But also, obviously, as you said, yeah, the summer kickoff movies were huge between Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones. In a year where Spider-Man and Attack the Clones came out, It's hard to remember that signs also did well.

And also, I feel like there was probably, with those two movies coming out, there was a little bit of like, whoa, okay, let's push some shit. Yes, I think you're very exactly right. But it is kind of interesting that this is Disney's first entry in the list where they will be dominating basically the rest of the next 25 years. Yeah, I would not have known that was a Disney picture. Even though Mickey Mouse is in it? The number five movie of that year,

which was also a spring release from IFC films My Big Fat Greek Wedding Huge hit Huge hit. Huge hit. Yeah, just sustained for weeks and weeks and weeks. Yeah. Okay, let's go to 2003

And yep, we got a double dose of delicious Disney action. Oh, wow. Elliot was already on board with one. Can you guess the other one? Also, aquatic. Okay, so we know the first one was P of the C, C of the BP.

The number two movie of the year. Yeah. Wait, so is it Finding Nemo? It is Finding Nemo. Oh, good one, Dan. Man, that's a big summer for Disney. For the ocean. Yeah, they beat out, they beat out the Matrix.

Huge back then. They beat out The Matrix Reloaded. Uh-huh. They beat out Return of the King. They beat out Bruce Almighty, Dan. He is almighty, except on this list. He literally has the power of a god, but not the power to rule the box office. An X-2, X-Men United.

Yeah, a movie that despite, like, even seeing it in the very front row and having to crane my neck up, didn't spoil it for me. I still enjoyed it very much. Shock to say that though this did not, this movie was obviously in the shadow of those first two, Bad Boys 2 gave a pretty good representation in the summer at number 10. It's hard for a movie like Bad Boys 2 to match the box office a movie like Finding Emo because there's a large segment of the movie -oing population that is not going to Bad Boys 2.

Because they don't want to see two rat puppets having sex, Elliot? Exactly. In my memory, Bad Boys 2 came out so much later than X2. This is, it's not interesting. It just always boggles my mind the way that... Is this something you think about a lot is the Order of the X-Men and Bad Boys movies? Yeah.

Now, in relation to one another, where were they? Where do the matrices intertwine? Hi, is this Archer? Yes, hello. Who is this? Hi, this is Tom Lum from Let's Learn Everything. I'm calling about your maximum fund membership's extended warranty. Do you have a few seconds to talk about that?

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Also, I have to read, hold on, I have to read this. It says, we at Maximum Fun apologize. You ended up with the worst host of the three, and as consolation, you'll be getting those. Why is that included? I don't remember that being there for the other. Okay, I can settle. It's fine. Maximum members are the best. Become a MaxFund member now at maximum fun.org

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And that'll redirect you to where you can buy some tickets. 2004, the big summer movie ends up at number two in the list because the summer was already kicked off by a little movie called Shrek 2. More Shrek. Yeah, more Shrek, but the big summer movie Too Shrek, too Furious, yeah. The big summer movie was also a sequel of a movie we've already talked about. Already talked about it.

Another Pirates movie? The next year? That'd be pretty fast. Oh, well, I didn't remember. It came out pretty quick. It wasn't Spider-Man 2, right? It is Spider-Man 2. Still, arguably, the best superhero movie

of all time. Strong argument. Very strong argument for that. It's great. And then number three movie that year came out in February. Unfortunately, we're talking Passion of the Christ.

We don't have to for long. I mean, he's a superhero in his own way, yeah? In a way. And there was some other big movies, obviously, Harry Potter. The Incredibles came out in the fall. Day after tomorrow was a big...

That was the big Memorial Day. Memorial Day release. A movie I still have never seen. Never see the day after tomorrow. I've also never seen the day after tomorrow. Are we missing out, Dan? I mean, it is one of my favorite dumb disaster movies.

Like, it is... Is that Jake Gyllenha? Yeah, it is really silly. Like, there's a scene where he, like, outruns cold as it goes down the hall. That's the scene I've heard about. But I feel like after moonfall, there's such a high bar for silly dumb disaster movies.

Well, this one has less, you know, sucking Elon Musk's dick in it, so... Oh, yeah, fair. That's an advantage. Oh, man. A unpleasant image conjured by Dan's words. Okay, we got 2005 here, folks, and our big summer movie.

This one is not a sequel. That's, it's an outlier. Most of these are going to be sequels. And this is from Paramount Pictures. It does star one of the last remaining movie stars. And it does have... a, let's say, a notable director who knows a thing or two about blockbusters.

So let's start, wait, from the beginning. It is a, it is a sequel or not a sequel? Not a sequel. Not a sequel. Has an old school movie star in it. Is it a Tom Hanks picture? No, but you have one of the names correct. Is it a Tom Cruise picture?

Okay. Geez, what did he make that was in a sequel in this? In 2005. Does he make movies that aren't sequels? A war of the world. It's War of the Worlds, guys. Number three movie that year. Have you seen it?

It's good, right? Anything sound design-wise, it's incredible. I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters, but I remember two things about seeing it. If I remember me correctly, I went with our friend of the show, she's never been on the show, but friend of two of us, Lauren Sarver.

And I remember both getting really pissed that someone in front of me spilled their soda and it got all over my backpack, which is on the floor. But also, watching it in New York, only a few years after September 11th, I was like, this movie is really capturing how scary it felt to be

in a place that's under attack on a certain day. That's a scary movie. I was just amazed that World Worlds is a genuinely scary movie, which I did not expect. So, yeah, it's really good. The ending is silly. The ending is very silly,

where he manages to find the one place that the aliens didn't bother to go and everyone's fine, but, you know. Now, most of this list in 2005, this is the top movies of the year. It's filled with your regular friends, franchise stuff, sequels, et cetera. But then at number five, we get one of the last big theatrical comedy successes, Dan's

favorite movie, Wedding Crashers. But this was like that like heyday of like the like big screen. Yeah. And I, you know, I did find that movie very funny at the time, but I think it probably has not aged particularly low. Well, you especially liked that John McCain was appearing in a movie, right? That's right. finally. Let's get that charisma on the big screen.

I mean, I think it succeeds in large part to the charisma of John McCain and also Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Yeah. Okay, so that was 2005. Let's go to 2006 guys. We don't, we're not, we'll jump ahead in a second. We got, this is another, there's another big double whammy for Disney, the top two movies. And also, it bears a fair amount in resemblance to a couple of years ago where they had the top two, where one's in animated and one is not animated. Can you guess what those two movies were? Is one of them a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel?

You're correct. Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest. Dead Man's Chest? I cannot remember what order they go in. Arguably a high watermark in digital animation. Oh, is that the one with Davy Jones? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's amazing. It's incredible. That's so amazing. Yeah. And Stell and Scar's Guard insisting on being in full prosthetics instead of being a digital character. And he's the only one. Is the other one a toy story sequel?

Nope. Is it a sequel or not a sequel? Not a sequel? Oh, I thought you said the other one was an animated sequel, sorry. It's an animated film. Animated film from Disney, huge hit. Rattahooey. Guys, Elliot, you, I hope your family doesn't listen to this podcast because it's Cars.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I will say my boys are not as enamored of the Cars series as they once were. They used to be obsessed with it. At one point, yeah. Yeah, that's too bad. It's too bad that they've given up on cars and trucks and whatnot. We'll send you a Condolence card. Condolence card.

Yeah. I mean, they found other things that I don't enjoy that much that they can put their interest into. Like sports. Yeah, for the older one, yeah, very much so. We are going to, I would say, we're going to jump ahead to 2020. Okay. But we can't because there was no summer releases, I guess what, like 1917? I don't know what...

Oh, right. What would have been the big 2020-some release? I remember that year. That was a bad year. I don't know if I think we collectively forgot. Tenet was in there. I mean, Tenet was that was the movie that was supposed to bring back people, right? Yeah.

Or was it the last one before it shut down? I can't remember. No, it came, no, it was, like, one of the first ones that you could see in theaters if you were going to risk doing so. I eventually saw it. later because I did not see it at the time and for a while it was the gaping

missing piece in the Christopher Nolan filmography that I had not seen and I finally saw it and I was like hmm well I'm glad I didn't risk death to see this movie yeah yeah I will say

I saw it you know like it went pretty quickly to HBO for obvious reasons I saw it in HBO I'm like no thank you Christopher Nolan this is you've gone too far for me this time and then I did actually see

the re-release when, like, they put it back into theaters. I bet it's better in a theater. It's so much better. Like, I really actually did enjoy it in that context while still being like, yeah, people are right. Like, this is better the less you think about it. But on a sheer, like, weird spectacle and it's enjoyable.

I like it a lot. It's grown on me quite a bit. When I first watched it, we, I think we rented it. And that was the day where Charlene and I'd been working so much. And we're like, you know what? Let's just take a day. watch this, like, dumb big movie that Stewart's been willing to watch, and we will turn our, we'll put our phones in the other room, and we'll actually just watch a movie.

And unfortunately, that day was January 6th. Oh, wow. And so it was a complicated day. So it kind of tweaked my opinion of Tenet. I do love, every time I watch it, few lines in a big action movie have made me laugh as hard as when they're describing the consequences of what could happen. and if they keep messing around with all this time crap. And they're like, it could just cause, I don't know,

the complete destruction of the universe. And Elizabeth DeBickey's like, including my son. It's so fucking funny. By the way, I do think that the movie should have been called time crap. I mean, no. That would be better, yeah. But it's not a palindrome.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the top movies of 2020 were bad boys for life. Okay. Finally on top, even though bad boys, too. You couldn't cut it. Even though that was, I would say, the high water market of franchise. No, there are no family movies stealing that money pie from that point. Yeah, 1917.

And then Sonic the Hedgehog and Jumanji the next level. And Rise of Skywalker's in here, too, unfortunately. Birds of Prey is number six. Do Little. Oh, wow. I didn't know Birds of Prey did that well. Yeah. I like that movie.

Little women did pretty well. Unfortunately, any movie that stars women has to make 700 times its budget to be considered a success. So that's why they didn't make any more of those, yeah. So in a, looking through this list, there's a ton of franchise things and there's a ton of sequels. We do have a, we do have an outlier in 2023.

I feel like you guys should be able to guess this pretty easily. Do you know what the biggest summer blockbuster success was of 2023? Was that? Two years ago. What do I remember from then? Oh, yeah. You know this, guys. I feel like...

And it's not a sequel? It's not a sequel. So it's not like Avatar. It's Barbie. Oh, Barbie. Barbie, huge movie. And now... Now that you guys are screenwriters,

I'm sure you know that all you have to do is pitch auteur-driven versions of, I don't know, products. It's based on products. I'm a screenwriter? Yeah, you're a screenwriter. I mean, you don't need to be paid to be a screenwriter. You just have to call yourself a screenwriter.

Yeah, I'm aspiring. Um, yeah. No, you're not aspiring. You're a screenwriter. I don't know what aspiring, but they what a spirer does. A spiring? Yeah, that's what the Madam Webb screenwriter calls themselves. So you're saying, so, so all you need, um, you can have a big hit based on, that's an original non-franchised movie, as long as it's based on a pre-existing IP that everybody already knows about.

Yeah. That also was, uh, based, you know, tied in with some fairly successful viral marketing. Yeah. Oh, they did a great job marketing. Yeah, and then the rest of this, well, like, just glancing through these, we got, you know, there's a couple of Transformers movies on here,

one and two, the Dark Night, Dark Night Rises. Yeah. Despicable Me, too. Have you watched, I haven't watched a single Despicable Me related thing. I watched the first one. Those are the movies that my kids,

they love the minions. They like the grew-based, Despicable Me ones well enough. I've only seen, I've like seen some of the first one and I've seen the sequels that I took the boys to go see but they're now at the

they're now at the place where if we let them pick the music we're going to listen to in the car they want to hear the Minions versions of other songs which... Minions Bob? What is this called?

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

listen to comedy cassette tapes that were not too far from that. Yeah, I mean, that's probably pretty true. Like what sounds like Perfect Day by Lou Reed or? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. A lot of it. Yeah, comfortably.

Yeah, Lela. Yeah, a lot of Captain Beefheart. Yeah, a couple of these I haven't actually seen Jurassic Worlds on here. I never actually got around to seeing that one. Well, I will damn it with a faint praise that of the world movies, it's the best one. Okay, did you see the most recent? I mean, that's pretty high phrase

because almost all movies take place in this world. Yeah, thanks. I did not see the most reason of it. I'm amazed at how little interest I have. We got Finding Dory is on the list. I haven't seen that one. It's okay.

It's all right. I really liked Finding Dory, but I may have mentioned this on the podcast before. I can't remember. I found it very meaningful to me because I saw it sort of shortly after my divorce and felt like, you know, it's a movie about someone who feels like, you know,

like they can't survive out in the world alone, striking out on their own and learning that they can figure out how to make it work. And so I found it meaningful in a personal way that, like, hit me surprisingly hard. So it's almost like finding Danny. Wow. I was here all along. And then there's a bunch of things. The end of the movie, it's, it's, it's, it's, I've got to find Danny.

And then you look at yourself in the mirror and you go, Dan, I was here all the wrong. Is that what happens in finding door? Don't pull out, don't spell it, don't say anything. Shut up, shut up. We got Wonder Woman for 2017. I never finished watching Wonder Woman. Should I finish it at any point? Danny Houston's the bad guy.

I mean, I saw some of the Danny Houston stuff, but I kind of went halfway through it. Also, David Fulis is the other bad guy. I feel like the very end of it is kind of the weakest part. So you probably saw it. I do love that they're like, we're going to put David Fulis in here as just a guy. And I'm like, no, he's not just a guy. It's never going to happen.

But is this the island of Dr. Moreau? The only way he's just a guy is if he's surrounded by a hyena man. Incredibles 2. It's a fun movie. It's a fun one. Dan, you said you had opinions about the mom's butt. Not that I would put in a sort of a national magazine. Yeah, I'm assuming it's success was due to what?

Rex Reit? Who wrote that? Anthony Lane. Anthony Lane, sorry. Orne on Maine, Anthony Lane. 2019, we had, and I think this ties in with a recent flomp-house movie. The Lion King, this is the digital remake. A movie I utterly forget exists.

Like, I talked about the box office game earlier. Like, that's one of those ones where I'm like, oh, yeah, when it shows up as a huge movie. uh 2021 we got black widow i think everyone's like just give me a marvel or something after 2020 had nothing and then 22 i'm surprised that 2021 was was they're saying that that was the highest grossing movie of the summer black widow of the summer summer because that was the movie that literally scarlet johansson sued disney saying this movie should have made more money but you released it on disney plus at the same time it went out in theaters yeah but i mean it was just i mean there was that was a particularly another bad year of the box office but Luckily, 2022, it was saved.

Movies are back, baby. Can you guys guess what the big movie of the summer was? 2022. Movies are back. You've got to go to the theater for this. Give us a hint. You got to give us a summer. Well, it stars a bona fide movie star.

Is it Top Gun Maverick? It is Top Gun Maverick. And then we're going to close this out. 2024 was another Pixar sequel inside out to another movie I've not seen. Should I? Even further inside out. Insider outer. It's all right.

Nah. I mean, like, it's fine. I don't know. Like, as someone who respects the original Inside Out more than I actually think it's one of the top Pixar movies, like this one is shading the same beats. Like the Pixar movie from recent years that I really loved was turning red, which of It's great. Just got dumped to Disney Plus.

But it's great. Yeah. Still, still of the best original, like fake pop songs in a movie are the, what, four town or five town? What is it? Fourtown, with five guys? Inside Out, too. If you like Inside Out, you'll get more of that in Inside Out, too.

But the highest praise I've heard about it really was from my older son when we went to see it. Raffirtsy said, there was a lot more hockey in that movie than I expected. I like that. I feel like looking through this. list it looks like obviously one of the big things is that I seem to care less about the big summer movies than I used to whether it's the quality or that my life is different and I'm a grown-up man I think it's probably a little bit of both I think there's something less we it is less

we have much more important things to think about so it's harder to use as much brain space on summer movies but also like just looking back at I mean there were plenty of sequels in what you started talking about back then but there was still like a lot more kind of like different things going on. The fact that I'm not the biggest fan of my Big Fat Greek wedding particularly, but the fact that that was like a huge hit movie just knowing, it's like that's exciting to me that like

that's not, I mean eventually they turn that into a franchise too, but like it's such a different thing than as much as I have heard good things about Superman and Fantastic Four I haven't seen them yet. Like it's the same, it's more more of that stuff. Yeah. I mean, as much as when we were growing up, you know,

the critics would decry like oh, big blockbuster and empty. culture. Like we, it was the golden age for that kind of like, the summer movie season. Like, you could like map out like, oh, these three big releases are on the same weekend. And then that's going to happen and keep happening through the... You'd pull up your entertainment weekly. Exactly.

You'd circle things that you wanted to see. You get your entertainment weekly VHS tape of the trailers for the big summer releases and you'd watch it over and over again. Yeah. But now, yeah, it's like, it's mostly. superhero films or animated children things like the same

might be over and over again and fewer Re-reduce Yeah Is that a big thing? I mean they are doing a new Highlander movie

with Henry Cavill I think Nice Who's he gonna play I think he's gonna play I don't know Probably Connor McLeod Duncan McLeod

I can't remember which McLeod Scott McLeod The author of Scott McLeod Of understanding comics. Yeah. Okay, so that was kind of it.

Do you guys have any parting comments or thoughts about the summer movie season? I mean, I do. Do you have any favorites from this summer, Dan? This summer? I mean, I guess in terms of... You've seen every movie, Dan. So don't pretend you don't know what they are. No, in terms of like the traditional blockbuster type of thing, you know, Superman delivered for me.

Man's great, yeah. And Fantastic Four, you see that one? Yeah, that was fine. You know, it suffers from like late period. Marvel sort of not being that exciting, but it's fine. I think here's something that I don't get the same rush about summer movies as I used to, but I think it's partly more from growing up in the summer, not meaning what it used to to me. When you're a kid, and even when you're in college still, the summer is like a different, substantially distinct part of the year that is special.

it's different. It feels like your responsibilities are less. You have more time to have fun. And now as an adult, I don't know if you guys feel the same way. It just feels like the whole year is just one slurry. Like it's August 1st and it still kind of feels like it's April, you know? And as soon it's going to be November and it's just going to be all the same shit for 365 days.

And then it's not even 2026 is just going to feel like 2025, just kind of like slopped over into another number. So maybe that's what I miss more is like the feeling of time. being split up into discrete different interesting sections. You miss the feeling of hope. Yeah, and there's exciting things

to look forward to. Yeah. It hadn't been beaten out of you. It's too. When we were, I feel like maybe this was just being young, but maybe it was a cultural thing. I feel like when the summer came,

it was like, ooh, exciting. Or when a new year started. Oh, what's going to happen? And now I just feel like it's how, oh boy, here's another, here's more time for something bad to happen, you know, so. Continues the cavalcade of,

miseries that were subjected to. So did I manage to end the episode on a high note? I love it. So we've been talking about summer movie memories. And if you're listening, why don't you head over to the Flop House Instagram account and on the post for this episode, why don't you throw in one of your favorite memories into the comments and I will try and read it on a future episode, my favorites, not all of them, just my favorites.

And then we don't get any in your like, correction, I will now read all of them, And if we get none, I'll just make something up. Probably about farting in a movie theater and everybody barfing over it or something, right? That's a good story. Nobody can seal that. TM, I just wrote that. Okay, just wrote that.

Okay, so this is a... Let's see AI come up with something that good. This has been a mini episode of the Flop House podcast. We are produced by Alexander Smith, under the moniker Howell Doughty. You can find him on Twitch. You can find him on band camp. You can find him on probably Blue Sky and on Instagram.

He's the best in the biz. Hire him for your podcast, maybe. Or just support him in whatever ways you can. We're also on the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. There's tons of great shows there. That's how you can support us. And you can support other cool community-owned podcasting networks, worker-owned podcasting networks, collectives.

Okay, I've been rambling too much. I've been Stuart Wellington for the Flop House. I've been Dan McCoy. And I've been Elliot Kalen. Okay. See you. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network.

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