I love bad movies. My friends consider it a character flaw, but I consider it character enrichment. I love watching bad movies, love talking about them, love joking about them. And I love, love, love hearing other people’s opinions of them.
Oh, and I also love podcasts.
The Flop House combines these two things I adore (and spend most of my time on) and saves me time every two weeks. It’s hosted by podcast network Maximum Fun, which is home to podcasts such as My Brother, My Brother, and Me, Can I Pet Your Dog, and Judge John Hodgeman.
Hosted by friends Elliott Kalan, Stuart Wellington, and Dan McCoy, The Flop House rests within my favorite genre of podcast– people sitting and chatting about life– but it also has a specific format. In their words they simply “watch a bad movie and talk about it.” And, really, that’s all it is. They summarize the plot, joke about dialogue, or shots, or bad writing, and then they say whether they think it’s a good-bad movie, a bad-bad movie, or a movie they kind of liked.
It feels a lot like sitting in on a conversation between friends. Better put: it feels like sitting in on a conversation I could have with my own friends if they hadn’t all given up on watching movies with me.
The movies they discuss range from new releases (One of their more recent episodes is about Cats, because of course it is) to older films (Godzilla comes to mind). The only requirement is that the movie “flopped” which, by their definition, means tanked at the box office or critically.
Even if I haven’t listened to all 305 (as of writing) episodes, I like to scroll through and see what’s available. Sometimes I’ll see a movie I remember from my childhood (Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, anyone?) and I’ll click faster than I can think about it. Sometimes, it will be a movie I’ve seen and recognized as bad (The Last Airbender). And, sometimes It’s a movie I’ve never even heard of but I know I’ll want to hear them talk about (Christian Mingle).
The formula of the show including room for enjoying the film is one of the things I love best about the podcast. It has the opportunity to be both forgiving and ruthless. It allows for the expression of fondness for a movie despite (or rather, because) of its flaws, but it also allows the ugly parts of a movie to be put on display.
It’s for this reason that I think The Flop House handles its films better than most bad-movie-review podcasts.
The Flop House is also rarely technical or filled with jargon that would go over the head of a casual movie-goer. They don’t flaunt their knowledge despite the fact that Kalan and McCoy had more than enough experience to rub it in (in 2015, they won an Emmy for their writing work on The Daily Show).
Over the years that I’ve listened to it, The Flop House has become an integral part of my life. When I see a movie that’s bad I find myself thinking I can’t wait for the Flop House episode on this.
Kalan, McCoy and Wellington’s contagious sense of humor are what earned The Flop House a seat of honor in my podcast rotation beside shows like Podcast: The Ride, My Brother, My Brother, and Me, and Ear Biscuits. They’re all podcasts that are, at the very core, celebrations of the relationships between friends (or brothers), and the things that bind them together.
So, if you like bad movies, or friendship, or casual conversation podcasts I recommend The Flop House. And even if you don’t like any of those things, maybe give it a try. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or you can find it on Maximumfun.org.
Feature image from Maximumfun.org
