The Flop House - FH Mini 59 - Missed That Movie: Virtual Obsession

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

It may SOUND like a Cinemax film from the 90s, but Virtual Obsession was actually a 3-hour ABC television EVENT, starring Peter "Caterpillar Brow" Gallagher, Mimi Rogers, and Bridgette Wilson, and directed by Mick "I Know Stephen King" Garris. Will Dan be able to convince Stu and Elliott that they're sad they missed it?Ever tried Microdosing? Visit Microdose.com and use FLOP for 30% off + Free Shipping.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the flop house. I am Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliott Kaelin. Thanks for pointing to me, Dan. I just had to gamble and that where I was pointing was actually where you would be on the Zoom call. But, hey, hey guys, this is a podcast called The Flop House. It's about movies that were critical or commercial flops. And normally we all watch the movies. And off weeks though, we do some flop house minis that are free form a lot of the time, but this one is movie based. I think it's the first time I have done one of these missed that movies.

I'm not sure. I think it might be the first time. Do not write in incorrect if he's wrong. Do not write. I think he's still about that stuff. That much also. Well, if you did, we'll cover it in a future mini episode where the segment is Miss That Manie.

Yeah. I mean, I thought you were. I think he's going Maniac of New York. Actually, Dan, I think I have a real time correction. Didn't you do a miss that movie about Get of In or Get Even? Oh, I did. I did. So listeners really don't write in because I already corrected Dan.

Don't write in. Please don't write in. I feel like when Ringo Starr, years ago, Ringo Starr told us to do it. Ringo Starr. Ringo Starr. You got to go to her Ringo store. Look, Ringo Starr's Ringo storeingo store, where you buy your Ringo stuff. Uh, Ringo star, he told his fans, do not write me anymore letters.

And it was a very funny video message. He goes, peace and love, peace and love. Don't be right me anymore letters. I will not reply. Peace and love was anyway. That's how I feel like right now listeners. I'm the Ringo of this group, as I guess what I'm saying. Come on down to my store, Dan.

This is a awesome way to open this podcast, It's just really, it's really engaging for the new listeners. Thank you. New listeners. I thought this was the best buddy's house where three best buddies just talk and nobody listens. Stuart, when you were like, if you have done one before, we will cover and you said cover it on it another many, but I thought you were going to say we will cover it up. We'll, we'll, we'll delete that one. We'll re-number everything that happens afterwards. We'll cast light people. You never heard that, man.

It never happened. It seems way easier just fix this one, but I guess not. No, no, no. That's it's the same way that Sinbad convinced the world he didn't play a genie in a movie, you know, the only way to do it. So the theme for this mini is Miss that movie. If you haven't caught previous minis that are under this title that Stu coined, it is what we do when one of us has seen a movie that the others haven't necessarily seen. I mean, like, I don't know. You guys may have seen this. I haven't asked. Is it ET? Is it Avengers endgame? It's neither of those movies. Both movies be sharing aliens, Elliot.

Mm-hmm. Good point. Thank you for bringing that up. What if they met? I think it would go a little something like this. E.T. not understand. I could just double all the resources in the universe. That's a little criticism of the' motivation and Avengers Infinity War that people are waiting for.

Yeah, but man, you know if they're the full whole of time and tweet it. I mean, if only you could sit that maniac down that alien, maniac murderer down and explain it to him, he'd be like, oh man, my motivation's all wrong. My bad, my bad. Up till now, I've been a totally rational logical reasonable being. You're right. I just keep pulling whoopsies.

That's, it was originally called Avengers, pulling whoopsies. Sorry. And you may still be able to get on eBay some of the very rare original release, Thanos Talking Dolls, where you pull the thread into here. Josh Brolin say, I just keep pulling whoopsies. And then of course they pulled those from the market when that line was removed from

them. They had to change it. Jim Starlin was suing them for taking this catchphrase. Because Jim Starlin, whenever, yeah, Jim Starlin says that in his personal life, Jim Starlin creator of Thanos, of course. Guys, the listeners now primed and ready. They're in such suspense over what movie. Yeah. Is it ET? Is it Avengers Endgame? That's not a God. We're caught in a loop. Um, uh, folder whoopsie, that's called a loopsy whoopsie. Have, have, have you, uh, gentlemen seen a movie called virtual obsession starring Peter Gallagher? It's

possible you have. I don't think so. I don't believe so. You said Peter Gallagher's in it. Who's that? Who's that in it? Yeah. It stars Mimi Rogers and 90s starlet, Brigitte Wilson. Is this any of this ringing a bell for you? No, I'm looking up the fact this movie came out in 1998 when I would have thought a movie like called Virtual Obsession would have come out in and star like Shannon Schwede. Yeah, no, I thought this was, uh, this was shown, uh, to me, and some friends by, uh, who are two friends of tell us, don't protect their in an, in an event. They're shown to me by showtime late at night. I showed you my friend C in a max. I was told to my friend, C in a max.

No, it was screened by a friend of the flop house. She's loaned us some gear for live shows back in the day, Wendy Mays, Naomi's on Twitter. As part of a series of Peter Gallagher movies she was screening under the title Gal pals. Peter Gallagher movies she was screening under the title Gal pals. Oh, not Galagher's 2000. No. I don't know. I think Gal pals is stronger, but we can work together.

All right. I'm fair. So this is a movie that was actually a television presentation directed by Mick Harris. I'm seeing right now. Don't get over. Don't. Sorry. Sorry. Elliott, you close that page. All winners, Mick Harris. Yeah. Mick Harris, Steven King's favorite director because he will not change a word that Stephen King wrote, which is the one thing Stephen King looks for in adaptations of his work. A very good, a very good horror podcast host, I will say. He's good.

He seems like a real lover of horror. He personally seems like a nice gentleman who is, he did Masters of Horror largely because he could toss some directing work to genuine Masters of horror as the title says. And for that, I have a fondness for him, but his films are not necessarily the greatest. We did sleepwalkers back in the day for one of our live shows. Yeah. Not on the feed.

It was a it was a it was a riff show. So don't go looking for that. But Mick cares has a flop house history as all I'm saying. I mean, it was a broadcast over three hours, eight to 11 PM on ABC back on Thursday, February 26th, 1998. What else happened that day, Dan, in history? Yeah, I should have looked it up. I that would have been a better segment.

Here, I'm going to look at that. I'm going to see. I'm going to see. We were in 2006, 1998. Super tight. Now there's a disputed runtime online. Oh, it's the day, Dan, that was the same day that JT Walsh died. Hopefully, not until after he got to finish watching

the movie. He was so shocked by the end of virtual obsession. Yeah. And of course, also, we'll all remember that's the sad day when Steven M. Gluckster and completed the sale of the New York Islanders. Guys, today, I just today, I learned that Oliver Reed died after arm wrestling somebody in a bar. Did you know this?

That when he was taking a break from film in Gladiator and he got an arm wrestling match in a bar and immediately afterwards died in the bar, did you know this? That squares with the story I had heard about him was always that he would just, he had tattoos on his penis and would just full it out and show it to people.

Yes. That you're gonna use up all your energy at the top. There's a long synopsis to get like, the more bullshit now, the tire you're gonna be later. I will also also mention, so on that day, there was a total solar eclipse in Venezuela. So if you're in Venezuela, you had the choice between seeing the ballet of the heavens

or watching, what was it called, the terminal obsession? Virtual obsession. Virtual obsession. That's what I, that's honestly, that's what I wanted to say before though. That's better working title for only fans. Wait, guys, I, I, I, I buried the lead. That was also the day Oprah Winfrey was found not guilty in the beef defamation trial.

Where he was sued for saying beef was something she wasn't needing right now. Okay. So Dan, tell us more. I also thought when I first heard this title, how could this not be a showtime or a cinematics of the late night movie? It is not, as I said, broadcast on ABC. The runtime online is disputed

various places, surprisingly, not that many people care enough about virtual sessions to correct the record. Because like a lot of places say it's a three hour runtime. It was in a three hour time slot. There's no way that the runtime they had to have ads in there. Yeah, yeah. This is ABC. Two hours. It's not dry my car. No, but it is longer than a movie movie, which is shocking when you watch it because you're like, wait, this movie is still going on. Great. It's based on the novel Host by Peter James, which is a title that is also a rerun on cable TV under.

Not the host. No, just host. Not the perfect host. No, not that host either. Not the host that you take in communion. You're like a host. No, none of those things. Is this host with the most? No, I don't know. It's not the ghost for the most because that would be Beatles. Don't say it anymore times.

Guys, we can say it one more time safely. I feel like the word just push it. Look, that's just tempting. So this as we mentioned, directed by Mick Garrus, who has done a lot of mostly TV, Stephen King adaptations, although sleepwalkers was the major mode on picture. Yeah, he did.

He did the second. It's two. Yeah, Chris to one of the best movies ever made. was the major. Major. Picture. He did. He did the second. He did critters to one of the best movies ever made. Critters to it's right on the side. Don't wait. It's sight and sound list says it.

Don't blame us. Sight and sound list of the 10 best movies. I mean, you can you can fucking blame me. Come over here and tell me this. I've given I've given make care. It's a bit of a hard time. I'll tell you, Critters 2 is probably my favorite of the series.

It's a fucking banger. You did a good job there. Critter, a big critter rolls over somebody in terms of a skeleton. It is the way I want to die. All right, you got to shut up though, because this next fact is great. Okay, sure. Co-written by Mick Garrus and the son of Preston Sturgis who is also named Preston Sturgis. No, not Preston Sturgis. So if you see it, you see the, it says written by Mick Garrus and Preston Sturgis and like

your mind reels and you're like, was this based on a previous work by yeah master of Hollywood comedy Preston Sturgis, but it's no, it's his son who only wrote like three things. Anyway, so let's get into this movie. As I said, stars Peter Gallagher, who you may know from his eyebrows. Yep. And he's a scientist. So a glitch occurs. So you would probably know him best from the arrival of guys and dolls that I saw as a

kid that that changed my life and in making me a Broadway fan. Yeah, probably from Elliot's memory is how you know it's really a real gal. Yeah, because we've been strange days and Elliot's memories. Yeah. So Salt Lake City is where this is that we're all great stories are set. Salt Lake City is where all great stories are set. Salt Lake City, there's a computer program that controls everything electrical for the city, the power, and some sort of glitch causes accidents. And this lands Dr. Joe Messenger in some minor hot water because he controls it. He doesn't have enough hot water because he controls. This is hot water heater breaks. He doesn't have enough hot water.

Because he's Peter Gallagher and he controls the program that controls the city. Oh. He's like, oh, this is this we'll figure it out. It won't happen again. The the colleague Peter Gallagher's colleague, says that their system has been hacked. I don't know whether this has ever resolved what happened. Another character who comes in, maybe they did it, I don't know. But that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, loose ends and then things in this movie that I'm like, I'm not sure whether the movie just didn't do a great job. I mean, Dan could have gotten up to go to the concession stand.

I mean, there's a very convincing advertisement before the main feature. I have a bunch of mangoes and the other one is not. Oh, Dan is mangoes. Siren's on. There's no movie, no movie that Dan can't be pulled away from by the song of two person Mango cutting. Yeah. So, so their system is run by this holographic artificial intelligence named Albert who as you might suspect is manifested as Albert Einstein or sort of like a party celebrity

impersonator Albert Einstein. So they didn't actually get Einstein for the role. No, they didn't. He's a tough to get up Albert Einstein. So they're developing his consciousness basically by feeding him. He's like, where are the roles aren't coming in? I do believe my agent is playing Dyson with my career. Yeah, he was turned down for IQ. He was like, how are they going to get to what is it? Walter Mathau to do it. He says, he says, he's in the script and Einstein types. There's no, I'm stinty types at me. I'm him. So Albert, Albert, baby, look, we got you a role. We got your role. Yeah. Yeah.

In a dog food commercial, you just see my feet. Look, you should be living off of the residuals from that poster of you sticking your tongue out. Now you tell me, and I should have copyrighted the equals MZ square. And I'd be a million and now. So Albert learns like all good AI by, you know, taking in information from the world around it. I've seen virtualized. I understand a. I mean, also how organisms learn things.

Yeah, he's got cameras. He's got, you know, he records sound. He has like smell sensors. That seems unnecessary. And apparently also we need the AI to know when we're farting in the office. Peter Gallagher slash Joe Messenger, his house has surveillance cameras all over. So Albert can learn from him, which is apparently a turn off to his wife Mimi Rogers when Peter Galger was like, maybe let's leave the cameras on tonight, baby. And what's the tell, what's your thing? Yeah. So, um, what? Me equals MC screwed. No.

And she said, no, you're sleeping on the couch tonight. So, uh, enter Joe's new research assistant played by Brigitte Wilson. Uh, Brigitte Wilson is Sampress, I learned, married Pete Sampress, played Sonia Blade and Mortal Kombat, was the female breaksaniac. One of the people in House on Haunted Hill anyway. So this is a computer expert. She's named Juliet Spring. Yeah, that's a name, sure. Okay. And Juliet also does AI stuff,

but her work is more like, I'm creating the singularity. She wants to download consciousness into the computer and shows her computer program where she's gonna download a rat's brain into a computer. No, that poor rat. I don't know how you necessarily test

that what's in there is a rat brain. Will you shove a bunch of cheese into the disk drive and you see if it is? But, yeah, well you ask it first it first off, you put the computer in an amaze and you see if it can finish it. Despite, uh, Mimi Rogers, uh, being at home, uh, and being a very understanding wife through most of the beginning of this movie, uh, Peter Gallagher is flattered by the interests of this young research,

uh, assistant. And they flirt a bit, they have dinner. Meanwhile Mimi is playing this exactly right. She's like, she can see he's got a crust, but like at first she's just like, okay, whatever, do it, you know, like, it's fine. But then, you know, as things go on and he's more of an asshole, of course, she's not having it. And we learned that Juliet has an inoperable brain and he-errism and will have mere months to live. Okay. So she better so where she wear a downloader shit quick, right? Yeah, we've set up a bunch of dominoes. Now,

they're going to have to use check-offs, brain downloading computer. Yeah, it's really funny. I like, pardon me, I was thinking watching the first half of this movie, like, it'd be great if they kept talking about how many like cameras and automated things were in their house. And then that never paid off in any way. Just the biggest red herring. So Juliet and Joe go on a picnic and he goes with her and he forgets that he was supposed to have lunch with his wife.

So are they co-workers or they're just having a fail? Yeah, well, what's going on? It's hard, like, well, she's this lab assistant, but she's also working on like a different kind of related experiment, I guess. Like, that's the part that is kind of confusing, but the other co-workers, and they share a kiss, you know, Joe, you know, backs off at this point,

he's like, no, I can no, I can't do this. And it seems like, I don't know, maybe he's not gonna stray, but especially because after a motion, we're straying at this point already. He's just, indeed, indeed, indeed. And Mimi Rogers, I keep going to call her Roberts, but that's not her name. No, I'll just call her Mimi.

Know that that's not a lack of respect. It's just my brain being unable to distinguish between two similar names. Yeah, let's just put this, let's put that warning up top at the very beginning. Yeah, warning that someone, anyone who's triggered by people slightly misremembering maybe Roger's name for a moment. You might want to skip this episode. Sorry. I'm getting lost in the weeds. I'm going to the point is, Mimi is worried about their marriage that go out to dinner together. And things are just ruptured though because who's there? But Juliet. Okay. I made this out of the Elvenons. Yeah. She's like, dolled up, like she's got all these glamour lights on her. She kind

of slides across the floor. And she makes all these kind of like vague pointed insinuations in front of Joe's wife. And Mimi knows that now is this happening at Joe's apartment because then there would be wise cracking cockroaches. There would be so many cockroaches now that would be you said dolled up. Do you think people also use that term to describe somebody who's dressed up like Dalson from Street Fighter? Oh, I totally thought you were going to talk about Dollman. Or, just like, Dollman. Well, that'd be Doll's down, right? Because he's little.

Yeah. Any dresses are kind of shabby. So back to the science. Okay. Joe Juliet and Tom hook up a rat and try to download that rat. Like it. Like there's no man playing the Age of Napster being like, I want to listen to a rat right now. They're downloading it. You wouldn't download a rat.

Yeah. And there's a big noise. Computer stream goes dark and the rat is dead. And they realize that rats inside Albert somewhere. Okay. So it's all good. The idea that Albert Einstein has a rat somewhere inside it. You know, inside every man is just one download of one rat one rat and one slice of pizza inside every person. Well, that's why you put the two bears inside to catch the rat. No, no, no, no, but then how do you stop the bears down? We got to send in a couple terminators. One of them is going to be a neutral terminator

though. I wish I had no feelings on rats. Okay, well, Julia apologized about how she's been acting toward Karen. You know, seems like she's gonna be backing off. But when Joe goes on a business trip, she shows up and they make love. Wait, wait, wait way, way real quick. Juliet and Mimi make love. No, no, no, no. It's more interesting.

But Joe and Juliet finally do it. OK. And Juliet reveals what we have already assumed is her in-game to download her consciousness before she dies. And also, like, basically her argument is like, hey, I'm gonna die soon. Are you gonna deny me this? And I just thought it would be really fun.

Pretty good argument. I mean, on one level, I guess, I was just imagining going back to Mimi, be like, honey, it would be cruel not to. I guess I was just imagining going back to Mimi, be like, honey, it would be cruel not to. And somewhere in this part where she's like, oh, we're gonna have to part now. As I die, she gives him a terrible poem

that I wish I could, I had written down or could find online, but I was not able to. So if someone wants to send me the poem from virtual obsession I promise I'll find a place to pay this off later Did you write to the Library of Congress to see if they had it in their archives? I wrote to one of those Geoboxes that they showed me on TV to get

It's 12 CDs, but I only have to pay for one of them. Oh, Dan, no, Dan, I think you're, I think you're misunderstanding something about this deal. What? The problem is you only have to pay for one of the CDs, but all the CDs are jerky boys. Oh, how so cut it off? You have tricked me again. What a monkey's paw. Hey, listen, uh of goods and services, the flop has some sponsors. And as a thank you, we're honestly not even a thank you. That's the whole point of that with monsters. No, in exchange for money they gave us. We're now going to talk about their products. There's no thank you. Yeah, it all works. Well, I would thank you, Elliot, to shut up. So Stuart can tell us the other part.

I've been thinking, Elliot, for shutting up all night. So, you know what, tonight we're listening to a flop house, Manny, that's right. It's shorter than a regular episodes. It's almost like a microdose of the flop house. So, you know what, I'm gonna be talking about one of our sponsors today, that's right. We are sponsored by

microdose gummies. Microdose gummies deliver perfect entry level doses of THC that help you feel just the right amount of good. You know, as a user, I enjoy this product. It is not so much THC that I am super high. It's just enough to chill me out and help me wind down at the end of the day. I think they are great. And they certainly help me sleep, which is great, because I don't know about you, but normally I'm up all night fighting my demons.

So, microdoses of global nationwide. To learn more about microdosing THC, go to microdose.com and use code flop to get free shipping and 30% off your first order links can be found in our show notes so once again that's microdose.com code flop. Hey that's not the only sponsor we've got that was one sponsor and now there's another sponsor. Hey guys, this movie has really made me think about the internet and computers, and how all of our brains should be on them all the time.

We all need our place on the internet. We all need our place on the internet, whether you were a computer scientist with a deadly brain aneurysm or a rat, who was just trying to do whatever rats are doing when they were hooked up to a computer. But there's an easier way to get online and make a presence there than being a rat that gets hooked up to a computer.

And that's Squarespace. That's right, Squarespace is all about empowering individuals to create their online web presence or launch their passion project. I know I've got passion projects, I'm sure you do too. And Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that will help you build your brand and grow your business, or maybe just your pleasure online. Stand out. Pleasure to hold somebody. You can have a beautiful website, you can engage with your audience, you can sell anything legally. Your products, your content that you create, even your time, you can sell it all. Look, Squarespace, they've been

sponsoring this for a long time, and I do thank them for that. Squarespace, you've been doing a great job. You help people make websites. It's super exciting how in this day and age of the digital era, anyone with an idea or a passion can go online and just plant their flag in that cyber firma and say, this is where I stand. I go no farther or I will go farther, but they'll remember that I was here. And if you think it's gonna go away, that Space Jam website from like 1996

is still bopping around online. So Squarespace can help you build that kind of legacy. So many great things, yep. Hey, Elliot, I have an idea for a website. Do you think Squarespace can help me with it? No, I don't know. What's your idea for a website? So I was thinking about setting up this website

where instead of like going into a store to buy books, I would have a website that sells books online and people can buy those. And eventually, after selling books to a bunch of people, I would then start selling other products. And then I would find a way to grift other people to sell their products under my banner. And I'd accumulate a lot of money. I would turn myself into pit bull. I'd throw myself in outer space. And I'd also like try and kill cable TV. And then basically serve out the same kind of garbage to people. And all the while, I think I could fix a lot of the problems

in the world, but instead I'm not gonna do that. I am just going to keep giving myself stuff. What do you think? Do you think this website will work? I think so and I'll tell you why because Squarespace helps you create a community on your Squarespace website. You're talking about a community of customers,

fully integrating a comment system, it supports threaded comments, replies and likes. Look, you can sell products on an online store. That's exactly what you're talking about, whether physical or digital products or both as you seem to exactly what you're talking about, whether physical or digital products, or both as you seem to be implying, talking about content and physical content. Squarespace has the tools to be-

So right to bring you down loaded. Yeah, and all websites are optimized for mobile. The content automatically adjusts. So your site looks great whether you're looking at on a phone or a rat's brain. It could be any of those. Stu, up it says the only thing is, your logo needs to look like a bent penis.

Can you do that? I ideally, because that represents the way that I shaft my workers. Yeah, so if you could just have trucks, delivery trucks, with your products, with huge bent penises on them, that just drive around, reminding people that the workers there are treated terribly. As my son says, whenever we drive by the Amazon, I'm just gonna pull K-Fave on this one. I'm just gonna say, it's an Amazon joke.

Whenever I can throw like a lightsaber sound effect over that shit. Whenever we drive by the Amazon warehouse, as my son always goes, looks like a prison. It is, son, it is. And then I high-tail it away from there. Anyway, go over to Squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial. This could be your way to break out of the prison of the

larger capitalist world and instead become your own jailer in the larger capitalist world. No, that's not. You could just have your own website. Squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10%. Of your first purchase of a website or domain, whether like Stewart, you want to become an active, evil billionaire distorting the world. Or just like me, you just want to place online where you can talk about the prisoner, the TV show, Squarespace can handle it all. Thank you, Dan, those are our sponsors. I'm not saying I disagree with anything that just happened.

I'm just saying it'll be interesting to see if Squarespace wants to continue adverts. Oh, Squarespace, Squarespace, they're great. They help people achieve their dreams online. They're not, Squarespace is not making people pee into a bottle while they work at an assembly line. In the briefest time, I feel like we got to know each other. Bro, I appreciate you so much for that. Do you read minds or what? It's really a very sacred space you've created here. Bolesie!

You've hit the bolesie, baby! Bolesie! Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know from MaximumFun.org at NPR. Hey, where are you a reader as a kid? Like maybe you read a lot of fantasy novels. Or horse girl books? We know how it is. But now you're an adult and you miss reading.

You're so busy that you can't figure out how to get back into books. We're reading glasses, and we're here to help. Yeah, we'll give you advice. We have figure out what books you love, or learn to stop reading books you don't even like. We're really big proponents of dumping that book. Dump that book.

But most importantly, we'll help you fall back in love with reading. Reading glasses every Thursday on maximum fun. Hey, let's go back to the movie. Now, if you recall, the last thing that happened is a love poem was given. And then what was Dan? Terrible. It was a terrible poem.

Oh, but you don't remember the any of the words. And it'll probably it'll probably show up on the flop house official Twitter account. You should start following it now. That's at flop house official. No, at the flop house pod. I have. Damn. I like that. You're experienced with that poem is much like Samuel Taylor Cole ridges when well, he dreamed the beginning of Kubla Khan. Yeah. His beautiful poem that begins in Zanadu, did Kubla come to visit her? He was interrupted by his interview.

And he's in the rough by visitor and has no memory of where the rest of the poem should go. He only knows it was an effortly beautiful. It seems like that's your experience with the poem here is you don't remember it. Yes, exactly. Well, yeah, that that lesson is at least was accurate. So Juliet calls Peter Gallagher in some distress and he leaves his wife's party. He's insisted that he is, you know, broken things off with her, but he is still concerned about this dying girl. We all know that he's not being honest with himself, but

he leaves his wife party to go to find her and she is dead. She has killed herself after downloading her brain into the computer. And also, along with her downloading her mind, she has arranged to have herself cryogenically preserved. She's gonna get frozen. Wait, that seems like, she's killed herself, you said. No, I think that the idea is, she's downloaded her consciousness, she's killed herself. Oh, so she can have her consciousness put back in the body when they've been taken back in the body?

Yeah, once they fix brains. Yeah. What Dan says, kill herself doesn't mean she like strapped herself to a giant barrel of TNT and explode it or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then she goes, the problem is I can only do it once.

No. And she or her ghost dresses a devil ascends to heaven. So yeah, she wants to be preserved. And she had gotten Joe swear that he will make sure that that happens after she dies. But he's been honest with every character up to this point. Well, no, he, so he wants to make this happen, but her very religious father shows up, who wants a normal burial, burial and none of this scientific

mabo jumbo. I don't want you burying her in a computer box full of packing peanuts and letting them be your. You're going to have to bury her in the old pets cemetery by my house. That's your fashion way to bring her back. God has called her home already. So who, you know, it's not up to the refrigerator to bring your back. And also, there.

And I mentioned him hitting the refrigerator with a cane, saying, give me back my daughter and the refrigerator being like, I'm just doing my job, dude. Look, I just work here. And the judge, you know, who's able to determine what happens to the body after death, the judge Judge Ryan Holt says, yeah, Judge Ryan Holt says that she would prefer that, you know, the wishes be followed, but there seems to be something about the death certificate that has been tampered with. So that triggers an automatic autopsy.

This is definitely a loose end as far as I was able to see. I don't think we know what this tampered with that certificate shit is. But that's a great name for a punk band automatic autopsy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But meanwhile, the judge dies by falling down an empty elevator shaft. What?

And the father dies, I think, on an escalator. And it's someone is controlling all of the trip. The up and down transporting devices. It's like, so then yeah, the something. And then a treadmill picks up a gun and shoot speeder Gallagher. Yeah On the team and drop at cedar point So it seems pretty clear that I guess everything's fine I'll just step on to the great American screen machine and forget my troubles

It seems clear that Juliet's murdering people through technology, her consciousness in the system. But meanwhile, to honor her wishes, Joe goes to a cryo facility and they're like, hmm, they don't need her head for the autopsy, so they take the head. And they're going to save that to be frozen at least in the hopes that whatever future that can fix the brain aneurysm can also fix being it to captivated. So please tell me that he delivers the head, but with a bounce pass, like it's a basketball. Oh, well, so they drive home. Joe drives home with her head in a special liquid nitrogen storage chamber, like a canister. And he has to keep the head. He has to keep the head because it's all, we're gonna leave it. This is all the death of the cryogenic facility.

All right. Because of the ruling, like, you know, he has to steal our head. So he puts in a double bag for seven other heads. He stows it. He never seems to look for her head here in this double bag full of heads. Then Joe Pesci picks it up. David Spades there. Yeah.

He stows it in his basement, but it's malfunctioning. So he has to get a replacement tank. And the meantime, he wraps up the head, puts it in their chest style freezer in the basement. Then midnight snack Mimi comes down with the well welcome first of ice cream and in his absence. As he's going out to get the cancer Mimi comes home with their son who I haven't mentioned before because he doesn't really figure into the plot, but he is played by Jake Lloyd. Oh, wow.

The movie's Anakin Skywalker. Yeah. Um, and this is before this is before a pandemic. So right? Yeah, because it's 99 I think this is probably what Luke saw. Like give me the kid from virtual obsession. No, Karen does come home. You used to get something out of the deep freeze. Uh oh, what's there? It's Juliet's head. Yeah. Joe comes back and Karen is sitting at the table with this wrapped bundle in front of her. Justifiably angry that his dead girlfriend's head is in her freezer. And I, this is a, this is the one quote on IMTV that I was able to find. Where Mimi says, what's the matter, Joe?

Huh? You couldn't stand life with that a little help from your little Juliet. How many of our neighbors keep their girlfriends heads and their freezers, Joe? How many do you think? So, uh, Joe, Joe, Joe tried to get that wall clamping in between each line. Joe tries to get the head back. How many of our neighbors have kept?

Now, this is the one part of the movie that is possible that you have seen at some point in your life on the internet. Okay. Okay. I don't know. Joe wants the head back. She takes it outside. She runs to the front yard.

She's yelling at him. And she throws it into the street where the nitrogen frozen head shatters into a bunch of red ice head shards. No, I have not seen that scene. Now I'm going to look it up. So, okay, Julie's out of the picture, right wrong. Albert is acting strange. He's gotten weirdly poetic as if someone who writes bad poetry is corrupting him. And, and Julius in there somewhere. The Tom and Joe trying to figure out a time they can shut the computer down so they can do a scan and find Juliet and Peter Gallagher was like We'll do it at 3 a.m. Like there won't be any surgeries then and barely any planes in the air and I'm like no

Even at 3 a.m. You're gonna cause havoc by shutting down the power grid This is this is like a screenwriter's like, I don't want to look it up. Three hand, that'd be fine. And they try this, but they're only able to delete what turns out to be a rat. And just go squeeeeeee. Yeah. Joe has a confrontation with Juliet who finally shows up in hologram form. And do we ever see Albert Einstein again? Yes. I think so. I don't know. This is not important. I mean, I just he seems like he's already the most charismatic character in the whole movie and we're never going to see him again. And Juliet spout some like, I'm an evil computer now stuff, you know, but also like, you know, I love you.

And Joe is, Joe at this point is finally woken up and he's like, you're nothing like the real Julio at. She had a great beauty and a kindness in her, at which point the audience is like, you're nothing like the real Julio at. She had a great beauty and a kindness in her, at which point the audience is like, what? Joe, Julio at the rest of the movie has been, like you've been a terrible person. You're like, on the, don't get me wrong, you're the worst. But Julio has not had a great kindness in her.

She has been erratic the entire time. So, but Peter Gallagher says that she's different now. And this comes to the thesis statement of the movie, which is that mind and body cannot be pulled apart without a great harm being done. And there's kind of this like sci-fi idea, also, that's sort of fainted at that. You know, time moves much slower for, much faster for like her once she's computerized, like because everything else seems so slow to her, like, it's like she's

been there, you know, going through iterations of herself and corrupting herself. And this will be totally contradicted in a second. But that's less wine. Great. So much time setting up this idea. Juliet is defeated, not because Joe does anything active as a protagonist, but it turns out that when she scanned her brain, the aneurysm went along with. Yeah, so she had a minute. That's not how things work. She got a virtual hemorrhage.

I love that you're quite so. I love that you're quite soft. And then Tom, who I didn't mention earlier, he mentioned it briefly. Well, no, no, Kelly, I'm not at the end of the sentence, who I didn't mention earlier is quadriplegic. Oh, no. Because of a vague accident that has never, it was never really gotten into, download it is consciousness into the computer. And the thing that honestly seems sort of ableist

and insulting where he's like, oh, I just saw that this was a horrible thing, but I want to like holographically walk again. So I'm going to be a computer, computer boy. But anyway, um, point is all that shit about the computer turning evil. Forget about it. Tom is glowing like a saint. He seems to be the still the nice guy we knew back in real life. And then the movie ends after about two and a half hours. Oh, okay. So we got that kind of non-sequitur code at the end about saying, I guess the computer lobby was like hold on, hold on, equal time, equal time. Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna have an evil computer,

you need a good computer in there too. See the only way. So after the categories as I recall them, after all that, are you glad you missed it? Uh huh. Are you sad you missed it? Or you think you had to not miss it? Yeah, that's, those are the categories I made.

Um, I'm gonna jump in. I honestly am kind of sad missed it. I was just googling to see if I could find this head explosion scene couldn't find an A. Where so now to see the whole movie. I should have gone to the Galpale screening. Yeah. Yeah. Elliot, what do you got to say? I'm going to say, uh, honestly, I'm glad I missed it. I feel like this movie sounds very long for what it delivers. I will tell you, it is very long.

I may have, I may have ruined it for the viewers out there. Potential viewers out there by describing it. It would have been a transcendent experience. Well, no, I think that one of the beauties of it being long, honestly, as someone who's set through all of it is it keeps cycling through various movies it could possibly be. And it just keeps expanding in scope and silliness beyond what you expected. And I mean, it does not, it never hits quite the heights of me, Roger's being outraged that the frozen head of her husband's mistress in the chest downstairs, but it's all pretty

good. But so could you imagine me catching that shit on prime time television in 1990? Yeah. Yeah. What if that had been a huge hit, though? Yeah. Think about the water cooler talk the next day. This is the future.

This is the future is original science fiction thriller material. Yeah. Not series, just movies. Yeah, yeah, with heads exploding. With heads exploding. You know, heads got to explode. Yeah. Or else it's not going to be a hit.

Yeah. That's what William Goldman said. I don't think we would have had Dr. House MD if that in that alternate universe, because people would be too busy making these movies instead of making shows like house. Yeah. If this had been a huge hit, we probably wouldn't have, we would have never had the rise of reality television. And Donald Trump never would have been fucking president. And man, if only, this is the sliding doors moment I want to go back to.

Yeah. So you're saying you lay this all at the feet of Mick Harris for not making a good enough TV movie about a woman putting her conscious. I'm not saying it's not good enough. I'm saying I need to go back in time and find a way to rig all the Nielsen boxes. Yeah. Let's fix the past guys. So two action items for listeners. Number one, if you have the poem, send it to me.

Number two, first one. That's the first one. First part of your year. If you have a time machine or access to a wormhole or again, a portal of time, let us know so you can go back to the stats for this. And make this make this a huge TV sensation. Yeah. Change is the future for the better.

Yeah. All right. Well, until then we go back then we go back and do it. And then we go back to the modern day and Peter Gallagher is like a Hitler-esque dictator. No. And he said, into the education camps and things.

And he's like, and now I'll send the first wave of space conquerors out. Yeah. And then you're sending wave after wave of people in eyebrow-shaped spaceships just to make the civilization. And everybody in the resistance shaves their eyebrows. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everybody in the resistance shaves their eyebrows.

Yeah. Exactly. Eyebrows are the flesh. All of those followers wear huge fake eyebrows to hang down from hand to hand. Nobody can name their kids Peter anymore. And you know, but you know who's the leader of the resistance? Who's that? Gallagher. Oh, until he's betrayed, of course, by Gallagher too. Yeah. I, you know, from what I hear, this is at least as good as some of the post Frank Herbert Dune books. So wow, harsh. I haven't read them. I don't know. I'm just making a joke. Hey, guys, it's been a blast, but I'm tired. This is a podcast that we do every week. Check it out next week when it's a little more structured

than this. If you like this one, great. We do stupid shit too. But for the flop house, I'd like to, well, thank you, Alex, our producer, Hal Doddy on Twitter. Yep. And now I will say goodbye. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. And I'm virtually Elliott Caelin, and also in real life, too.

Bye, best buddies. Huh? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Whoopsie. Well... ...whoopsie!