Top Plug of the Week

Tomorrow night (2/1) is the last LIVE chance to see a season two episode of FlopTV. We’re going out with a bang, discussing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. What’s in that ooze?!? I gotta know! Tickets are still available but if you can’t watch live a season pass gets you access to this episode and ALL of the previous FTVS2 episodes through the end of February 2025! I (Dan) will be bringing us home with my presentation, and here’s a preview to whet your appetite.

I Dunno, Maaaan

Sometimes the world seems terrifying, your outlook is glum, and mental energy is low. Those are the times it’s good to have refillable newsletter bits, to make life just a tad easier. Bits like…

LAST CHANCE MAILBAG!

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a movie open to fair criticism, but elevated by a devastating score.
Steven Spielberg understands the value of good music; I've sometimes found myself experiencing emotions during his movies that I don't feel the film has earned, because the score is so well-crafted.
Are there any movies you feel are held up, to a great extent, by a score? Would Star Wars have had the same impact with a forgettable soundtrack? Or if you prefer: are there any movies that really deserved a much better score?

Yours ipis undun
Kasra

It’s interesting you mention Spielberg, because he’s claimed that half of the success of Jaws is its iconic score. I wouldn’t say the film is “held up” by the score, because it’s such a tremendous piece of work that it would probably only be ruined by deliberate sabotage — like scoring it with Carl Stalling Looney Tunes music or something — but it’s true that the score is integral to the movie’s success, especially given the famous technical issues they had with their animatronic shark. The “title role”* is, for most of the movie, essentially “played” by the theme music, and that theme music works magic.

*Yes, I know that the shark isn’t “named” Jaws. Pedants.

In a similar “making already-classic-movies into STONE COLD classics” vein, Bernard Herrmann’s scores for Hitchcock are incredibly valuable to those pictures — particularly the famous music for Psycho, which brought a new level of jarring discord to its shocks, and Vertigo, which would never cast the same dreamy spell without that music. (It’s ess integral to the movie’s success, but my personal favorite Herrmann/Hitchcock theme is the North by Northwest main title overture.)

A less-classic example that springs to mind is the score for Tron: Legacy. Much like the original, T:L isn’t much of a movie at the screenplay level, but (to sound old by adopting the language of the young) the vibes are immaculate. Tron: Legacy is a neon-soaked synthwave dream best appreciated in an open frame of mind, or with substances (if the use of such things isn’t a health/emotional issue for you), and the Daft Punk score is a HUGE part of that.

But — despite loving movies and having a bunch of soundtrack albums, I’m not actually the film score nerd that I know a lot of listeners are, so I’d love to open this up to the Flop Secrets readership. Send some suggestions for either of Kasra’s questions, and maybe we’ll follow up with “Last LAST Chance Mailbag!”

Next on the Podcast:

Hear ye on main!

2/1 - I know it’s part of our job to be hype men for ourselves, but we’re pretty bad at it. We know that not every episode can be a winner, but THIS NEXT EPISODE IS A WINNER, if I can judge by how much we laughed doing it. We improbably had a ball talking about the kidlit desecration Harold and the Purple Crayon, so DON’T MISS THIS ONE.

2/8 - And that goofy joy spilled over into our next mini, where Stu asks for our thoughts on how best to modernize the classic Universal Monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolf man, “and the rest.” Elliott and Dan were asked their opinions on monsters. Were they as happy as a pigs in slop, or a gill-man in a lagoon? You better believe it.

Boys on the Side

We were fortunate enough to take a break from our regularly-scheduled lives (and the fires in Elliott’s home city; give if you’re able) to attend San Francisco Sketchfest a couple of weekends back (the festival ends this coming Sunday, but you still have time to catch friends of the show Griffin Newman or John Hodgman & Jesse Thorn).

The show was a ton of fun, thanks to everyone who came out! (SPOTTED: Roman Mars guffawing at three idiots talking about Cutthroat Island.) I think it was a much needed refresh for us, and a wonderful way to meet listeners — and to get to hang out a bit with the boys from Hello from the Magic Tavern, who are some of the nicest folks you’d hope to meet.

When will the CUTTHROAT ISLAND live show show up in the podcast feed? Not sure yet (a peek behind the curtain: we tend to save these live shows “in case of emergency” so we have something in the vault to put out as needed), but it WILL eventually be available for all of our listeners, and thank you again to Sketchfest for having us.

You Made it to the End!

Here’s a San Francisco/Sketchfest collage!