The Flop House

No, it's not a biopic about Jim Poolman, former insurance commissioner of North Dakota. It's a comic sunshine noir about an actual pool-maintaining Poolman, played (and written/directed) by fave Chris (Pine), who finds himself tangled in a criminal conspiracy... or maybe he's just whacked-out and paranoid? We're joined in this pool party by one of our most beloved returning guests, Mr. Josh Gondelman -- check out his new stand-up s...

Ah, here he comes, that son of a gun, that cat, that Garfield, that gigantic thing -- except... There's something different about him. It's weird. He just doesn't seem very... Garfield-y? Anyway, in honor of the birthday of one of our great Americans, Garfield the cat, and also maybe one other guy, we take on 2024's The Garfield Movie.

Wikipedia page for The Garfield Movie

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Dan: The Thief and the Cobbler "R...

With The Fantastic Four: First Steps coming to theaters soon, listener Andrew asked the question "Galactus and The Silver Surfer -- what's their deal, man?" and Elliott gladly stepped up to answer.

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Aura has a great deal for Father’s Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $30 off on their best-selling Carver Mat  frame. Promo code FL...

Love DOES hurt. For instance, we love and only want the best for Everything Everywhere All at Once comeback king Ke Huy Quan, but then we have to witness him struggle through a movie like Love Hurts. Fortunately he comes off all right. The movie itself? Not so much. But hey, looks like he's got Zootopia 2 and a movie from the guy who made Rare Exports coming up. Maybe those will be good!

Wikipedia page for Love Hurts

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The Flop House is headed to Summer Camp! A few weeks of sun, swimming, hiking, crafts -- we're gonna make each other SO MANY FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS that our circulation is gonna cut off! We're gonna have so much fu-- what? It's just a movie? But... it stars Diane Keaton, Alfre Woodard, and Kathy Bates, so with those actors it's gotta be at least a little fun, righ-- it's not? Oh, poop.

Wikipedia page for Summer Camp

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Robbie Williams is a chimp. That's not an insult, just an accurate description of Better Man, from the director of past Flop House subject, The Greatest Showman. This one's the rare FH movie that was a critical success while being a financial flop -- will we agree with the critics? Oh, and we buried the lede: HALLIE'S BACK!

Wikipedia page for Better Man

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Dan: Ninja 3: The Domination (1984)

Stu: Sinners (2025...

We're joined by longtime friend of the show (but first time on mic!) Alejandro Arbona, a 20-year veteran of comics editing and a comics writer himself, to discuss everyone's favorite extravagantly-perverse Italian thriller genre -- GIALLO. We discuss what defines a giallo and differentiates it from other sub-genres (and the slasher films it helped inspire), and then Alejandro runs us through a little giallo title quiz. It's so jam-...

We flashback to discuss a movie that was much-requested when it was first released, but just didn't fit into our schedule -- Jerry Seinfeld's baffling paean to the Pop Tart, Unfrosted, a film that throws an astounding cavalcade of comedy talent at ideas that seem (apologies) a bit undercooked. Also, we were blessed by the rare in-studio presence of our beloved producer, Alex Smith, who hadn't actually seen the movie, which made exp...

What's the deal with Netflix's The Electric State? Well, for one thing we know that IT'S ELECTRIC... boogie woogie woogie. But also, it's a movie arguing for the primacy of real-life connection that feels utterly algorithmically designed, what with its Chris Pratts and Millies Bobby Brown and cute robot pals, and it cost... $320 million?? That can't be right. There must be a smudge on these accounting sheets. Anyway, we talk about ...

Elliott puts on his greasy overalls to look under the filmic hood, as we figure out what makes a good "robot movie," ask why Heartbeeps was a bad one, and see if we can pull out the robot defibrillator to restore its cinematic heartbeep.

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Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to www.squarespace.com/FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website o...

We tie a bow around Max Fun Drive 2025 and our “Movies Without Spider-Man” series with (?) Paul Schrader's (?) magnum opus, Heartbeeps. It's the classic tale of a guy robot and a girl robot in love and also there's a bad stand-up comic robot and a mean cop robot and a baby robot and Andy Kaufman does one of the world's most irritating voices and what the fuck is this thing?

Wikipedia page for Heartbeeps

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Da...

“Movies Without Spider-Man” Max Fun drive continues (please consider supporting our show!) with the thrilling (?) conclusion (??) of the Venom saga -- Venom: The Last Dance, the touching story of a boy and the black sentient goo he wears on his body that sometimes eats people's heads.

There's one more week of Max Fun Drive — check out our event calendar!

Wikipedia page for Venom: The Last Dance

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Dan: Windy D...

Here's a little taste of what's awaiting Max Fun members in the member bonus feed -- an all-new roleplaying adventure from gamemaster Stuart!

In this edition, Dan, Elliott, and fan favorite guest Zhubin Parang play beachfront restaurant staff, on the first night of summer, trying to make it through a busy shift... but CHAOS is on the menu!

If you'd like to listen to this, a whole heck of a lot of other bonus content from all the Max ...