The Good, The Pod and The Ugly: Recent Episodes
Ken and Jack Koral
Long-running film podcast featuring incisive career-spanning series' on select cinema icons. Father and son, Ken & Jack, are joined by co-host Thomas and guests in season six to discuss Steven Spielberg; his ups, downs, what-have-you. Spielberg is an odd fellow who has made some great movies along with a number of head scratchers. We'll sort it out for you. We try to make each other laugh while also being incisive about the films and artists we cover, usually failing on both counts.
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RESURRECTION
Season 17 of the TGTPTU enters the final half of its 1x1 coverage with a flick picked by host Ryan that might count as five films: RESURRECTION (2025) written and directed by Chinese auteur Bi Gan.
Covering the Buddhist classification of six senses (with the wrapping narrative doubling as vision and mind), the anthology movie occurs under the pretense of a man’s dream lasting a hundred years, a comp for cinema, especially apparent when in its opening silent film sequence an opium-addicted Nosferatu-esque man’s hunchback gets loaded with a film reel (don’t worry, it doesn’t make a lot of literal sense in the film either). That dreaming, dying junkie deliriant (don’t worry, this term is explained in the film (although your mileage from its definition might vary)) will become a variety of ages and male characters within his dream, all portrayed by the same actor, one Jackson Yee apparently of former boy band fame. These disparate characters include someone pursued by an intelligence agent in a detective story trying to get the bottom of a musician’s murder (hearing), a hungry looter cum amateur dentist inside a Buddhist temple (taste), a con artist magician who brings on a girl accomplice (smell), and a virginal thug on NYE 1999 in love with a vampire (taste).
Ryan was stoked for the film’s release, and both he and Ken bullish on Bi Gan after watching the allegedly amazing Long Day’s Journey into Night (as unrelated to the Eugene O’Neill play as Bobby Drake’s brief foray into porn is to O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh). And while Resurrection’s opaque anthology style has its detractors, it too contains an amazing long-take during its NYE 1999 sequence.
This ep, host Thomas beefs with Multnomah County Library and offers a rare peek before the curtain for how he curates the commonalities between film pairings; host Ken does the plot summary and, later, his noir voice (removed by editor); and host Ryan’s non-host cat joins the pod.
Next week, The Cranberry’s/Erik Van Der Wolf’s/Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (or Zombi 2 or Zombie Flesh-Eaters) as S17 draws to a merciful close.
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I do say, it’s been a week of Sundays since last we here at The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly last heard from our fairer counterparts, but don’t you worry your pretty little head holes, listener, Season 17’s concluding 1x1s will remedy this sad misfortune with a movie celebrating all the major Christian holidays of the South along with its beauty parlor culture, that is, to let the proverbial cat out the bag or to shoot a literal arrow strapped with fireworks into a tree, STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989) to be commented on by pod regulars without one ounce of Y-chromosome in either of their bodies: Andi and Meg.
Joined by regular host Thomas after his first-time watch, these three explore the teased up big and modishly short hair of the movie’s six main ladies who span the three generations of womanhood, and determine whom among their present friend group fits to each character. There’s the two-time Academy Award-winning Sally Field as M’Lynn, mother to then-nearly-unknown Juila Roberts’ diabetic but baby-crazy character Shelby whose relationship will provide the main drama. But also in M’Lynn’s and Shelby’s respective age brackets, Dolly Parton as the salon owner and logistically-challenged Easter egg mogul Truvy and her young new hire, the desperately abandoned-turned-holly-roller convert Annelle played by a two-eyed, samurai-swordless, and purposely figureless Daryl Hannah who will also get herself hitched and preggers after Shelby’s corresponding life milestones during the flick. And rounding out the six, as the matriarchs, the feisty friends Clairee and Ouiser (not to be confused with the homophonous California rock band Weezer), the former who cares about Olympia Dukakis when we can talk about how Shirley MacLaine who played the latter didn’t wear makeup for the role in order to appear more age appropriate and how the playwright who adapted his play for the screen said he was afraid the locals from his hometown upon which this mildly fictionalize account derives (his diabetic sister died from ongoing complications after childbirth) would identify and be upset when in fact many of the older women vied to claim herself as the basis for the Ouiser character.
The film is directed by someone who got his start as a Broadway choreographer and, reportedly, was less than gentlemanly toward the actresses in the movie. It was shot on location by John A. Alonzo, the lenser of such greats as Harold and Maude, Scarface, The Bad News Bears, and Chinatown.
This episode is no lead petunia. Our two guest-hosting, real-life Southern belles this week explain the movie’s title, the phenomena of home churches, and the veracity of a groom’s cake; take the listener on a food tour of the movie; spill tea from the town where the events of the play and later film occured; and overquote the movie from memory, all this after Meg gives the shortest plot summary of this, and perhaps any prior, season.
Spoiler, there might be cannibalism in Fried Green Tomatoes.
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Friendly greetings, pod listener and follower of the TGTPTU. Stay excite: Season 17’s concluding 1x1s of very special one-off movies cultivated by show regulars continues this week with host Tom’s pick of a fellow Tom’s directorial debut, that being distant relative of Al Green and the rapper, the writer, the MTV’s late-90’s darling with a hit show and #1 single, the Tom of all trades, Ontario Canada’s very own (and once Drew Barrymore’s very own before she made what has to be the greatest regret of her life, I mean, even more than dancing on David Letterman’s desk or falling for the two killers in Scream or being Steven Spielberg’s goddaughter or in that third Adam Sandler movie, even if it meant she could later date Justin Long, that regret being her amicable divorce from…) Tom Green and his co-written and lead role in his romantic-inspirational-comedy magnus opus, FREDDY GOT FINGERED (2001).
The film that help give rise to the American indie wave of small-budget (under $15M) studio comedies at whose crest would launch the careers of such luminaries as Todd Phillips, Adam McKay, and David Gordon Green (no known relation to Tom) follows the trials and tribulations of a misunderstood, aspiring cartoonist Gordon “Gord” Brody (played by Tom Green) as he, through increasingly charming and absurd antics, reconnects with this father (played by Academy Award-winner Rip Torn), re-earns the love of his paraplegic girlfriend (played by Marisa Coughlan), and, by believing in himself and his slanted view of the world so strongly, wins over the head of an animation studio head (played Anthony Michael Hall) with a marginally fictionalized version of his life experiences and thereby elevates himself out of the grind of service industry and factory work and is able to vacay with his daddy.
This seminal and often overlooked work of the early 00s was the wellspring for new types of movie humor and visual storytelling. It is alleged that Al-Qaeda delayed their deadly attacks until after film had its worldwide release so they could catch it as an inflight movie. They had rightly suspected that their attacks on 9/11, originally commissioned by the Bush Administration for 4/11 (MIHOP), would shut down theaters and movie exports. Unfortunately, these same attacks would irrevocably change the face of comedy in the 00s, altering the tenor of the humor landscape, as discuss this episode. Given its highly personal nature of the film and its excellent cinematography by the great Mark Irwin, it’s little wonder that Freddy Got Fingered would appear as #2 on American-born auteur and skateboarding enthusiast Stanley Kubrick’s Sight & Sound list for the Year 2001, a year that he and best-selling author Arthur C. Clarke co-invented.
This ep, Xennial host Ryan explains TRL (and pre-streaming television) to Thomas; Thomas comes dangerously close to almost nearly agreeing partially with Ryan; and Ken makes a Seinfeld comparison (take a drink), concurs that Tom Green is the Pavement (a popular 90s band) of moviemaking, and does in fact want some sausages.
As mentioned during the show, Netflix (as DVD.com) shipped hard media even after the two world-shattering events of early 2020: start of the global COVID-19 pandemic and of TGTPTU: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-dvd-the-final-season
Japan4.
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FREEBIE AND THE BEAN
Despite a brief detour off The Odyssey overpass, TGTPTU’s back on the case with Season 17’s concluding four 1x1’s. To kick off this celebration of films we’d otherwise not investigate during another season, the 70’s anti-establishment comedy that arguably might have spawned the buddy-cop genre FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974).
Made by (un)celebrated creative Richard Rush, the bewildering director of such films as the Academy Award for Best Director-nominated comedy The Stunt Man (1980) starring Peter O'Toole and the Golden Raspberry Worst Film-winning erotic thriller Color of Night (1994) starring Bruce Willis, Freebie and the Bean stars James Caan as the titular Freebie for whom the Intelligence Squad beat is a grift to gain gratis goods and, as his partner, Alan Arkin who despite not being Chicano plays the titular roles’ pejorative half as a cop who is closer to by-the-book and who suspects his wife (played by Valerie Harper) of cheating on him. Set in San Franscisco as determined by what could easily be the third character in the movie for as much screentime as the iconic Transamerica Pyramid gets, Freebie and Bean must more-or-less reenact the plot of Bullitt with more car crashes and a less deceased person under protection in this situational comedy occurring the weekend of the Super Bowl with the wild and crazy premise of cops being bad at their jobs.
The film was good enough, or late-70s TV bad enough, to garner a one-season TV series.
This episode, we discover Ryan is an easy laugh, Ryan stumps Thomas who struggles to come up with a 70s comedy he likes, and Ken, whose 1x1 pick this movie was, has advertising trivia deets and clowns on the Temu SouperBolls branding.
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ODYSSEY
The tales of our quartet of heroic hacks hath concluded, and alas Season 17’s continued voyage to cover a single work otherwise shunned by the codes of TGTPTU would have to wait another day as the movie theater houses of IMAX and lesser film abodes have brought to the weary masses a film of epic proportions and grand length. That motion picture would be THE ODYSSEY (2026), and the man of Briton to foregather the talents of the camera-wielding Double Hoyte and the Talented Mr. Damon harkens back to adventures during TGTPTU’s Season 12 and is no other than Sir (IRL!) Christopher Edward Nolan.
As your humble scribe is no soothsayer, he cannot in good faith foretell how the film will deviate from the classic work of Homer (blind and of Ancient Grecian fame, not Simpson of Springfield). Nor can yours truly hint at the reactions the hosts Ryan, Ken, or he, himself, Thomas will have, nor may he here throw his customary shade and poison the reader of such unnecessarily ramose sentences as herein contained toward his views on the film.
Will adapting an oral tale later committed to archaic languages befall the fate of Aronofsky’s Noah (2014, covered in Season 11)? Will Travis Scott with his role as The Bard for Nolan surpass his previous acting credit in Harmony Korine’s Aggro Dr1ft (2023)? Will Jon Bernthal battle Robert Pattinson in a clash between the comic book titans The Punisher and The Batman? Will Bill Irwin’s cyclops surpass both his previous Nolan role as robot and that of whoever was the cyclops in Krull (1983, covered earlier this season)? Will the film contain or be structured so that the beginning and end meet in the middle, again cribbing TGTPTU’s patented pincer movement and leading to further litigation? Will there be an Iliad prequel?
Of all this and more, I am humbly ignorant. But I will wager anyone a Way of the Gun DVD with postage paid that Irwin’s cyclops will rival that of James Marsden’s or Tye Sheridan’s. You can @ me using the contacts below.
In two weeks, a homecoming as the 1x1’s begin and Season 17 draws to a close.
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This week, the Italians are coming! For the final lap of TGTPTU’s 16 rounds of episodes this 4x4, we cover hack director Peter Yates’s heartfelt, heartland sports underdog working class summer coming of age bicycle story BREAKING AWAY (1979).
Guest Shannon returns despite no possible book report, the film instead being an original work by author Steve Tesich who would win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this melding of two prior scripts based on his college years in Indiana and his bicycling teammate local to the area who’d become the basis for the movie’s lead character Dave Stohler (although he’d prefer to go by Enrico Gismondi for the first half of the film). Dave is portrayed by Dennis Christopher, although the script gives substantial time to each of his three friends who will enter the local bicycle race with him (and even do a few laps themselves): Mike played by a ripped Dennis Quaid; a lanky, goofy Daniel Stern plays Cyril; and actor Jackie Earle Haley of Bad News Bears fame (the one without Billy Bob Thornton) as the vertically challenged Moocher.
In one of the best depictions of a 1970s dad in cinema, Paul Dooley plays Dave’s father, a used car salesman and former cutter (of stones, not self or lines) who doesn’t understand his eccentric son, while Barbara Barrie plays Dave’s mom who encourages his Italophilia and passions, a role she’ll reprise in the short-lived TV prequel series along with Haley.
This week, hear about the state of fridges in AZ along with Republican-bashing by Tobias; Shannon explains the 80s TV show Punky Brewster; Ken identifies with Breaking Away’s dad character and conceives of this film as a bridge to the 1980s; and Thomas reveals the name of Roy Scheider’s (not Rob Schneider’s) wife. By the end of the ep, it is still undecided, although they go around in circles, whether Shannon or Thomas won their off-air bet regarding Ryan’s reaction to the film.
While the hosts might be done with Hacks as their focus, the season continues. Next episode, we’ll be taking the high road in our feud with Chris Nolan over the rights to the temporal pincer movement™️ to test the waters of his new release before wrapping with a return to the 1x1’s to end the 17th Season of the first podcast to record from the PDX airport bathroom and raise former prime minister Margaret Thatcher from hell.
Ciao!
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THE HOT ROCK
Season 17’s 4x4 Hacks continues with Peter Yates’s return to directorial form and TGTPTU’s return to contentious split takes among its hosts with the heist caper THE HOT ROCK (1972).
Based on acclaimed crime writer Donald E. Westlake’s 1970 novel of the same name as covered in this week’s special book report coverage by guest Shannon and regular Tom, and the first of Westlake’s comedic Dortmunder series, the film stars—three years after playing the Sundance Kid—Robert Redford as the lead character John Dortmunder, a recently released (paroled in the book) criminal with, it’ll turn out, stomach problems (not in the book) and a brother-in-law (unrelated to Dortmunder in the book) fellow criminal Andy Kelp, played by George Segal.
Kelp ropes Dortmunder into a plan to heist a valuable diamond (an emerald in the book) for The Doctor (called The Major in the book) played Moses Gunn, a gem (the diamond, not Gunn, although many are fans of his work on stage and small and large screens) of great wealth and disputed ownership between two African countries, which doesn’t really matter much as Gunn’s character won’t get the treatment he does in the book. Mastermind Dortmunder and locksmith Kelp recruit two other thieves, the wheels who’s really into vehicles and likely can pilot a helicopter and the explosives expert who’s also the baby of the group who’ll turn out to be the son of a shyster lawyer (unrelated in the book) portrayed by Zero Mostel and his legendary eyebrows in a plot nicely summed by the flick’s British release title: How to Steal a Diamond in Four Uneasy Lessons.
Adapted for the screen by pod fav writer William Goldman, the film excises a fifth heist (or sixth, depending on its additional double-cross book ending at an airport) from the book, which, okay, it’s not the book. The book is mid, and the movie its Temu version for those who’ve read the book.
For the two hosts who haven’t read the book, the movie plays like an early draft of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven or TGTPTU’s previously covered masterpiece Sneakers, which Ken and Ryan bait the youthful Thomas with The Hot Rock being a better film than Sneakers. Thomas bites and snaps hard. Meanwhile, also having read the book prior to watching Yates’ efforts at humor, guest Shannon fears the film takes so long getting started with Redford’s Dortmunder leaving prison that the movie might run out of filmstock before reaching its end.
As mentioned at the end of the preceding Krull episode, Sleater-Kinney’s 1999 album of the same name took its inspiration from this movie.
Toot! Toot!
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Hear ye, hear ye! Gather round fair people of podland and lend the bold knaves and jesters of TGTPTU your ears for Episode Two-Beyond-a-Dozen of Season Seven-and-Ten. Hark, forthwith the trio tell tale of the Atari-level ren faire, chopped Star Wars glory that is KRULL (1983).
This second selection by host Ken to bookend the career of hack director Peter Yates, a two-time Oscar-nominated director (in 1979 for Breaking Away covered next ep and for his other film in 1983 The Dresser), Krull was an international production with a James Horner score and a young Liam Neesom and an as-young-as-he-maybe-ever-got Robbie Coltrane in supporting roles, although it should be noted the latter was redubbed by a Brit. Krull is a scifi-ish fantasy movie that opens with voiceover prophecies for events that will not occur during the film and closes with more of the same. It has a young prince who becomes king, lovers with the powers of fire on water, a merry band of criminals turned good, a cyclops, flying horses, a shapeshifter, a kid, a puppy, baddies with medieval weapons that shoot lasers unless the fight is within melee proximity, quicksand death, a legendary weapon of +2 spinning, the black void, and a giant head to be attacked and defeated Contra-style. What it lacked (NOTE: following list not exhaustive) was a convincing lead actor, coherent worldbuilding, box office success, and artistic merit.
Beyond this, Krull belies both description and explanation.
But listen anyway this week as the hosts try to find some rhyme or reason for its being while also competing to find the best worst-thing about the film, with Thomas accusing Ken of Krull and unusual punishment for his film selection.
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BULLITT
Right in time for Father’s Day, TGTPTU with special guest Erik W. Van Der Wolf introduce their fourth of four directors for Season 17’s 4x4 HACKS with director Peter Yates entry into the Dad Film canon: BULLITT (1968).
Starring the coolest Caucasian cat to strut the silver screen, the American Great Escapee himself, Steve McQueen (no, Zoomer, not that Steve McQueen, he’s Black and a director, British and alive) plays the titular SFPD Lt. Frank Bullitt responsible for protecting against organized crime the DA’s witness who, no spoilers if it’s in the first act, gets got in his safehouse hotel room. Bullitt’s partner also gets the gat and instead of a this-time-it’s-personal, Yates plays the action procedural as Bullitt keeps his gun(s) holstered and his artist-architect girlfriend groovy and there’s that car chase action sequence we all know and love. Robert Vaughn plays the DA whose actions not villainous but smarmy all the same; Jacqueline Bisset plays the girlfriend whose uncertain whether Bullitt’s dark world and hers of hope and peace and beauty can coexist; and Don Gordon plays his normal role (as he would later in Papillon and The Towering Inferno) as second fiddle to whomever McQueen (again, Zoomer, the White dude who raced cars and defied death in his spare time and might have had dyslexia, not the enfant terrible of British designer fashion) plays. Also, Robert Duvall plays a taxi driver. Scored by Lalo Schifrin, the West Coast jazz sound really swings to make a film that vibes like few others.
This week, host Ken goes deep on McQueen, Ryan on Quentin Tarantino, Erik mansplains Dad Films to Thomas, and together guest and Zoomer develop a working dichotomy of Vietnam vs. WWII Dad-Films. We also learn !!!EXCLUSIVE!!! that Steve McQueen faked his death.
That McQueen’s one hep cat, daddy-o.
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As prefunk to next week's first Peter Yates episode, BULLITT, for his HACKS 4X4, we re-present our first Yates film, covered last year, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE. Coyle is so good and co-host Ken's befuddlement so severe that Yates also directed KRULL is what eventually led to this season of HACKS. Below is the sadly prescient original show notes for our Coyle episode written by show note genius, Thomas:
- The second 1x1 feature rounding out Season 14 and, chosen by Jack, the film is THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973). Directed by Peter Yates, whose career TGTPTU is unlikely to cover in a future 4x4 despite having Krull and Bullitt in his credits, TFOEC is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ inaugural novel and notable as a unromanticized depiction of crime in artistic response to The Godfather, the Puzo book and Coppola film each preceding, respectively, the book and movie versions of TFOEC by one year.
- Higgins would take issue with the book as his debut novel. The former deputy assistant attorney general claimed to have written and burned 14 novels over 17 years prior to TFOEC and would go on to author over 30 books, both fiction and nonfiction before his fatal heart attack in 1999, but none with the impact of his first. As seasonal guest host Jack points out, nearly all the dialogue in the film is as it is on the page, and the pages are dripping with dialogue that creates the setting and action for this ironic story of “friends” who double-cross and live less than glamorous lives as Irish mobsters and criminals in Boston.
- Yates populates the film with faces, faces that we don’t see much anymore, distinct faces and every one telling a story, from the titular Coyle plated by Robert Mitchum who earlier in this life reluctantly left the assembly line to be an actor to actor Alex Rocco who starred as Moe Greene in The Godfather and helped Mitchum meet some of his old criminal friends whom Rocco had to leave behind after he (the actor Alex Rocco) was held for questioning in relation to the murder that kicked off the Boston Irish Gang War of the 1960s to James Tolkan before he’d lost his hair a decade prior to portraying Principal Strickland in the Back to the Future movies and Detective Hugh Lubic in the Cannon Films classic Masters of the Universe.
- For this episode, everyone did research: Jack and Thomas pair off for book report; Ryan covers the career of Mitchum; and Ken covers Yates and laments how now Hollywood lacks hacks as well as provides a new shaggy dog with The Pals of Charlie Brown.
- Make sure to wipe your prints clean on this one before listening with a friend.
NEXT WEEK: Peter Yates, HACK, Episode #1: BULLITT.
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Season 17 of TGTPTU calls a wrap on its third of four directors in its 4x4 this week with Ron Howard’s THE DA VINCI CODE (2006).
Starring Tom Hanks, father of musician and male model Chet Hanks but also known for leading roles in such earlier Howard films not covered on this podcast as Splash (1984) and Apollo 13 (1995), with a grotesque haircut as supersleuth symbiologist Robert Langdon from Dan Brown’s 2003 best-selling page-turner of the same name, the movie is a bunch of nonsense that got some Catholics upset for suggesting Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the disputed son of a disputed desert deity, had children, likely through consensual intercourse unlike the legend of his siring. Howard’s The Da Vinci Code also has great French actors used poorly in this flick mostly set in France and at least one Jellicle cat, one Sony Spiderman villain, and one Avenger (MCU, not BBC) actor of British lineage to help out the American Langdon in his quest for an ultimate truth that could rock the world to its core assuming it’s not flat (see Revelation 7:1 and Isaiah 11:12, ya heathens).
Holy host Ryan goes above and beyond in his research for this ep; the son Jack passes the season’s assignment; the father Ken is unimpressed by the chase scenes; and Doubting Thomas in real time processes that the female lead is the same actress as the titular Amélie (2001).
If you like anagrams and unstimulating action sequences, this might be the movie for you.
Skcus eivom siht.
P.S. You know that I am Opus Dei.
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TGTPTU’s olds take a break from handing out shiny nickels and Werther’s Originals warm from their pockets and yelling at clouds to join Gen Z cohosts Thomas and Jack for the latter’s third pick from Ron Howard, the child star turned hack director’s big studio, Industrial Light & Magic, four-quadrant blockbuster COCOON (1985).
Chosen due to nightmares it’d given to, and an insane plot retelling by, Jack’s friend, this first-time watch for him is remembered fondly as a family outing and rewatch by Gen X cohosts Ken and Ryan. That friend’s plot summary of extraterrestrials passing in human skinsuits abducting retirement home residents after seducing them with youthful lives of breakdancing and sexual congress does sound terrifying, but the film filters much of this through an all-star cast of Golden Age Hollywood actors (including this film’s Oscar-winning Best Supporting Actor Don Ameche and his four-out-of-four-star gams) and the youthful innocence of child actor Barret Oliver from The NeverEnding Story (1984) and the titular Daryl in D.A.R.Y.L. (1985). The flick also has a mid-twenties Steve Guttenberg in short shorts. Who likes the Gute in short shorts? We like the Gute in short shorts.
Exclusive to listeners of this episode, Ryan reveals the location of Atlantis; Thomas considers sex as an and/or with elderly person(s); Jack reveals his childhood-trauma-by-proxy; and Ken is unimpressed by the chase scenes but very into Gwen Verdon’s legs. Meanwhile, John Ritter’s testicle enters the chat.
This episode is, to borrow a phrase, “blue steel; a cat couldn’t scratch it.”
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TGTPTU’s good ol’ boys continue their binge with another director-hack four-pack, this time with that pilsner of directors, Richie Cunningham himself (Ron Howard) as we funnel a second watery intoxicant down our gullets and try not to puke with HILLBILLY ELEGY (2020).
Labeled a drama/comedy, this Netflix original is light on the latter, despite the normally exceptional screenwriter Vanessa Taylor being credited with the dramatization/adaptation of the 2016 autobiographical bestseller by the couch-copulating and at the time relatively unknown, already Peter Thiel-influenced, yet-to-be politician J. D. Vance. And also despite being lensed by pod-fav Maryse Alberti both initially and last discussed during Season 11’s The Wrestler when Aronofsky took a break from Libatique as cinematographer (S11, E2, Airdate 2/17/24).
Set primarily in two timelines (though no promises that a flashback did not have its own flashback or flashforward within), in one storyline the middle-school-aged J. D. spends most of his time in Ohio (FYI: Ohio is not part of Appalachia) with his manic mother before her mother (his grandmother) takes him as her charge and forces him to get some learning. The second timeline occurs over a few days as college-aged J. D. is a fish out of water at fancy, multi-fork dinner functions and must lean on his fiancée and an unlimited minutes cell phone plan to navigate the high society waters of Yale Law School (where she also attends). These two timelines thematically converge when J. D. must return to his Ohioan roots to confront his mother’s drug addiction, maxing out credit cards for gasoline and treatment, and teaching us a lesson that need-based college handouts and credit card debt are terrible things for other poor folks but if you’re the protagonist of a Ron Howard, triple Golden Raspberry nominated film, they’re what you need to be a best-selling writer and presidential lapdog.
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Season 17’s halfway to the finish line, and the TGTPTU boys are back from break revving their engines, ready for the next four in their “hack” director line-up. Jack’s pick coming in third is Ron Howard, starting with his first film in the big chair, the “smash-‘em-up” smash success (for a Roger Corman feature) GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977).
Howard’s only feature to co-write or to co-star in as director, the then-Happy Days star cut his teeth on GTA (no relation to the videogame) coming off the success as leading man-boy in the preceding Corman car chase flick Eat My Dust (1976). As part of Howard’s deal with Corman, the success of EMD put the boy who once played Opie Taylor in TV’s The Andy Griffith’s Show in charge of first and second units, stunt coordinators, helicopters, and his kin/fellow actors brother Clint Howard and father Rance Howard—all this on the day after Ron’s 23rd birthday.
GTA’s plot follows young elopers played by Howard and Nacy Morgan (who might be best known as John Ritter’s first wife), who’ve stolen Morgan’s father’s Rolls-Royce to avoid the pressure of her pseudo-arranged marriage to a rich dweeb. This theft leads Morgan’s father, a prominent citizen about to run for major office, to have his security detail retrieve his car (and daughter). Morgan’s jilted dweeb upon learning he’s not to be betrothed assumes she’s been kidnapped and calls a local radio station to put a bounty on her safe return before stealing a car to give chase himself, causing his wealthy mother to call the same station to offer a separate bounty for her son’s safe return. From there, cars go crash, clang, boom, and pow.
Start peeling off your lead paint and start snacking on its sweet goodness to revel in this 70’s film concept of comedy during what the hosts generally agree is a second-screener.
This ep, Ryan turns his head cold to his advantage as a radio announcer; Jack reveals this and Solo (2018) are the only Howard movies he’s seen prior; and Thomas and Ken recommend (re)listening to the Any Which Way You Can episode and dunk hard on regular Howard collaborating producer Brian Grazer’s hair.
CORRECTION: Jonathan Demme’s film for Roger Corman wasn’t Handle with Care (nor was it Woody Allen’s Radio Days) but Caged Heat (followed by Crazy Momma) when Demme was giving Howard some Corman-related advice.
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Season 17’s second four from a hack director concludes this week with the final film by Edward Dmytryk under discussion, a color saddles-and-stirrups flick WARLOCK (1959).
Arguably a better title of ≪L'Homme aux colts d'or≫ in its French-language release, Warlock as a two-hander Western covers the entry into the unincorporated community of Warlock by Henry Fonda’s Clay Blaisedell, a legendary gunslinger who owns a pair of golden six-shooters and, separately, the evolution of Richard Widmark’s Johnny Gannon from reluctant outlaw cowpuncher to sheriff of Warlock whose prominent citizens earlier lacking a sheriff had contracted Blaisedell to clean up. Homoerotic tensions arise between Blaisedell and Anthony Quinn’s Tom Morgan when Blaisedell decides to pursue romance with a significantly younger woman in lieu of their money-making vigilante partnering ways. Sheriff Gannon’s character also finds a love interest as the movie builds toward <
This week, Thomas expands on a list of movies whose misleading titles lead to disappointment; Ken expresses he’s not fonda Fonda in this film; and Ryan soft-shoes the homoerotic tension.
We’re taking a week off before shifting gears and entering the demolition derby that will be our next four in the 4x4 starting with Ron Howard’s debut film Grand Theft Auto.
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It’s calm seas and second helpings of strawberries this week as the TGTPTU boys cover their third of four curated Edward Dmytryk films, the multiple Oscar-nominated picture THE CAINE MUTINY (1954).
Saving its then “issues” producer (and subsequent to this movie an issues director) Stanley Kramer’s bacon, Dmytryk delivered a bona fide hit picture adapting the already popular book by Herman Wouk about a fictional mutiny during WWII among American seaman upon the titular Caine. Deviating from the Broadway courtroom play starring Henry Fonda (who’ll show up in next week’s Dmytryk film), the movie hews closer to the novel depicting on screen and in glorious Technicolor events aboard the ship leading to the mutiny, leaving the theatrical adaptation’s courtroom drama for the third act. The movie would also add Yosemite National Park as a romantic getaway between its Ivy League, very mid, blonde protagonist and POV character Ensign Willie Keith played by a now relatively unknown Robert Francis who died tragically at age 25 after a plane crash and his character’s fiancée May Wynn played by May Wynn who changed her stage name to that of her character on the recommendation of Kramer. And for more on the plot, there’s IMDB, Wikipedia, and further resources on the World Wide Web if you don’t have a great-grandpa around to ask.
The film would have seven Academy Awards nominations and no wins, with Bogart losing out to Brando (and Kramer to Spiegel) for On the Waterfront.
This episode Ken and his metaphor get sweaty towards the ep’s end; Ryan reveals the thuggish life of Joan Didion; and Gen Z’ers Jack and Thomas settle the TGTPTU style guide dispute over how to pronounce “gif.”
And now for an important announcement:
Despite what your lying ears have heard, there has never been a recorded mutiny on TGTPTU. The truths of each episode lie not in their incidents, but in the way these three hosts in the battle for the Pacific Northwest meet the crisis of their lives. Now sound the Star Trek Original Series whistle, we’re coming onboard.
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Mirage
Season 17’s Hacks continues with MIRAGE (1965), the latest selection from Edward Dmytryk’s filmography curated by cohost Ryan phoning in from Arizona for his second of four flicks picked in this season’s 4x4. And another black-and-white noirish mystery loosely adapting a novel.
Dmytryk’s reworking of the uncredited print material (the 1952 novel Fallen Angel) created a film that exploits the conventions of the genre to obscure the film’s conceit and twist reveal, which is <
Non-spoiling: The editing in this film is amazeballs. And its jazz-inspired score is by Quincy Jones.
This week, experience relative deprivation as Peck’s car purchase for his screenwriter has Ken disappointed in Spielberg’s gifting as discussed back in Season 6; Ryan covers the second half of Dmytryk’s life and career during and post-HUAC; Jack takes another bye week; and Thomas dives back into his recent 70’s disaster film watches to provide unrelated information. Also, Ken has a surprise that might presage a pattern for hosts and films this 4x4 season.
To borrow from the Futurama episode “Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television”:
“When I grow up, I’m gonna have so much amnesia!”
“Me too. I mean, I have it now, but I forgot.”
This episode is dedicated to The Greater Good. May your best days be before you still.
Now where was I? Seems like I was just on SE Fry St where it intersects with Bender Blvd.
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TGTPTU goes Old Hollywood this week with Ryan’s pick for his Season 17’s Hacks 4x4 director: Edward Dmytryk.
As we learn this ep, the former Canadian, former movie editor, former son (California courts would emancipate him from an alcoholic father) Dmytryk would rise through the studio system starting off as a messenger in his teens to become a talkies director by age 31. At age 36, he’d dust off old studio rights to a previously adapted Raymond Chandler novel Farewell, My Lovely to make the first and earliest of the four films we’ll be covering this season: MURDER, MY SWEET (1944).
Normally, we’d summarize a bit of the film in this paragraph. A typical cakewalk for yours truly, the task is not so simple this week. Despite various changes in plot (yet in keeping to the spirit of the book), the film’s casual, causal sequences of events and coincidences make little sense. In brief and in the famed detective’s first time appearing as named in film, Philip Marlowe is hired to do one thing, then another; the second thing is related to the first in a reveal at the end of the movie’s extended flashback. Notably, this structure of a bookend opening with the protagonist telling it as it was would become a staple in the noir genre.
This week, Ken does extra research weighing in on Gay Lawrence adaptation; Jack reveals the perfect way to watch the movie while reading its Chandler source material; Thomas wonders if all Canadian directors know each other; and Ryan contributes remotely. Subsequently, tinny microphone subs in for fan fav squeaky chair who is on hiatus for this pincered pairing.
WARNING: Episode contains hot takes on Reese’s peanut butter cups.
BEHIND THE PAYWALL: Unprofessional tax advice for the 2025 Tax Year followed by a breezy seventy-nine-minute primer explaining baseball followed by a lengthier discussion for our platinum tier members.
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THE BODYGUARD
TGTPTU’s first set of four Hack 4x4s concludes this week with THE BODYGUARD (1992), director Mick Jackson’s sleeper hit starring peak Kevin Costner and top shelf Whitney Houston.
Allegedly offered to Jackson the day after the L.A. Story premiere, the plot of The Bodyguard is bigger than you remember or would expect, so if you haven’t seen it or not in a while, do so. Just know the script started with JFK’s assassination as a Steve McQueen + Diana Ross vehicle and, after 67 rejections over 2 years, went through 12 rewrites by Lawrence Kasdan until it landed with Kostner who wanted Whitney Houston and Kasdan wanted out of directing. Hence, Jackson steps in as premium hack. It would become the second highest grossing film of 1992.
This ep, Jack stays scarce, Andi returns bringing Dolly Pardon facts, Ken reminds us Costner would later direct The Postman, Ryan flexes his family’s wealth, and Gen Z Thomas reveals a dark secret of how unamerican (or age-appropriate) his cartoon movie habits are having not seen a single Peanuts movie (NOTE: content may be edited or become exclusive behind the paywall) or 1999’s Oscar-sweeping American Beauty.
Mick Jackson, if we should stay, we’d only be in your way. So we’ll go, but you know, we’ll think of you every step of the way…
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Season 17’s Hack 4x4 continues as predictable as the weather in the City of Angels (no relationship to the previously covered film, and host Ken’s favorite motion picture remake, see S4,E4 for more on the Nicholas Cage movie with this sobriquet for a title) with this week’s third entry in the Mick Jackon canon: L.A. STORY (1991).
Written by and starring Steve Martin at the arguable pinnacle of his comedic film stardom (Father of the Bride would be released the same year), L.A. Story is the flick that immigrated Jackson to the States after Martin had seen Jackson’s acclaimed British dramatic television series subsequent to the success of Threads (S17,E1). Jackson, who had no background in nor ever directed a comedy, initially declined the offer, believing the script too good and having too little knowledge of Los Angeles (and likely the SoCal, California, U.S., & North America regions). Yet Martin and his producer believed Jackson’s latter objection an asset; he’d have an outsider’s perspective on what’s been described as a satirical love-letter to the eccentricities of L.A.
The comedy follows Martin in the role of a wacky bachelor weatherman in a zany Los Angeles full of neon and plastic surgery, and this was the extent of the movie that Thomas (who picked the director and his four for the 4x4) knew prior to this, his first watch. Between its mixture of Zucker Brothers’ and Mel Brooks’s absurdist and sight gag humor with the occasional Groucho Marx-level clever wordplay is a love story between Martin’s weatherman (((“meteorologist”))) and Victoria Tennant’s first-time visiting L.A. British reporter (((“journalist”))) as Martin shows Tennant’s character around L.A., guided by a sentient variable message highway traffic sign (((“WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT”))). As this romantic comedy proceeds with Shakespeare references, including an appearance of the sexiest man to ever grace the screen Rick Moranis as a Hamlet-esque gravedigger, but also a rapping waiter, Martin roller-skating through art museums, and a very bouncy Sarah Jessica Parker as SanDeE* (((“Big s, small a, small n, big d, small e, big e, and there’s a little star at the end.”))), Martin’s and Tennant’s characters learn no easy lessons or manifest grand revelations. Rather than have their characters evolve and develop and expiate, the movie has instead adults fairly realistically portrayed with Richard E. Grant as Tennant’s ex-husband wanting to rekindle the flame and a casual take on monogamy.
This episode, no Jack, but guest Andi drops in to mix up her Micks, Thomas his Sarahs, and Ryan his quotes from next episode’s The Bodyguard. Meanwhile Ken quietly reflects on the last Thanksgiving he spent with his cohosts and Kevin Spacey reenters the chat. Before the end of the ep, Ryan and Andi harmonize on a 90s rap classic on their way to a Mick Jackson theme song. Fans of the pod will learn Andi likes a break in them, Thomas isn’t big on this comedy, Ken surprised its comedy’s not cringe, and Ryan’s people once migrated in the summers to L.A. to rollerblade.
That sounds good. We’ll also have a twist of lemon.
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VOLCANO
Expatriated British director Mick Jackson erupts on screen and sets Los Angeles on fire with his latest (to be covered in Season 17 Hacks) blockbuster film VOLCANO (1997).
Suffering from a release date only weeks after another volcano disaster movie hit American movie theaters (Dante’s Peak), Jackson’s big-budget disaster movie flips the script on Threads (covered last week) with competency porn performed by seasoned actors at or some nearing the pinnacle of their career, including Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche and Keith David, as well as up-and-coming stars and character actors, most notably Don Cheadle, in this ensemble film reminiscent of the 70s disaster flicks.
The primary focus is Jones’ Mike Roark, a divorced workaholic dad saddled at the start of the movie with a vacation and a tween daughter who, by the end of the film, will be unburdened by both when lava erupts and flows the streets of L.A. This surprising disaster leads Jone’s Roark as the head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management along with his number one Cheadle as the bureau’s assistant director and someone named Gator who likely works with them and might have teleportation abilities to team up with the egghead and infrequent glasses-wearing Heche character to divert the lava flow into the ocean with the help of a second-act David as a police lieutenant and a racist 90’s LAPD cop (not redundant in this film’s world), the LAPD’s demolition team, and a self-proclaimed “volcano version of Rodney King” (and no help from the White kid named Tommy). In the process, the city solves racism.
This week, Jack’s away. Thomas provides alternative tag lines for the film; Ken uncovers information on the 86’ed sequel; and Ryan’s left to speculate.
Spoiler:
We love it!
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THREADS
A new 4x4 starts with a bang (and a lot of whimpers) as the gang begins their Season 17 coverage of hacks (i.e., directors for hire) with THREADS (1984), director Mick Jackson’s pseudo-documentary but fully anti-nuke made-for-TV movie.
Cohost Thomas’s pick of directors to launch the season of hacks, Jackson got his start in film with the BBC in the late-60s as an editor. He saw an opportunity in the early 80s to express his anti-nuclear sentiments through a wry documentary in the guise of a consumer report for the BBC’s science series Q.E.D. (1982 - 1999) on the efficacy—or inefficacy—of fallout shelters and other measures disseminated by the British government for civilian response to a nuclear attack. Jackson sought a use for excess material on the horrors of a nuclear attack, including a chance to popularize a then little-known theory of nuclear winter. When the U.S. television film The Day After (1983) screwed the pooch with its competency of officials and heroic hopefulness (in Jackson’s estimation), he recommitted to his dark vision and the meaning behind the slogan that “No one wins a nuclear war” with Threads.
Made during the highest Cold War tensions since the Cuba Missile Crisis, Jackson’s film shows the thin weave of society unraveling after the British city of Sheffield is nuked as a result of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in a battle over Iran, developments simmering in the background over radio and preparative actions by the local government during its first 45 minutes. While a range of characters will be killed immediately or die slowly, the central focus of the story is Ruth, a young woman who becomes pregnant by her boyfriend, later fiancé, whom she’ll become estranged from after the blast. Ruth, unlike most, will survive afterwards for over a decade, migrating, scavenging, subsistence farming, selling her body, and trading with the sorry survivors. Her teenage daughter Jane born into the new, post-apocalyptic world survives Ruth only to herself become pregnant and the horror of what leaves her vaginal cavity is what ends this dark tale.
This episode, the Ghost of Maggie Thatcher threatens return; Thomas seethes; Jack puts a cohost on blast (pun intended) for passing notes during recording; Ken talks sidewalk cuisine; and Ryan requests more dance numbers.
Next week, through the temporal pincer movement™️ Threads matches with 1997’s Volcano, a pairing Ken, feeling his oats, entitles “Ash-to-Ash.”
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With Episode 8, our hosts put their Gray Days behind them, wrapping the short Season 16 with THE IMMIGRANT (2013), or as it was a.k.a.’ed during its short development and prior to its delayed release “Low Life” and “The Nightingale.”
James Gray teams back up with cowriter Richard Menello to write a period drama role explicitly for Marion Cotillard whom Gray met through her then-partner director Guillaume Canet during their work together on the oft-mentioned Blood Ties also released in 2013. The story follows the hard luck of Cotillard’s titular immigrant as her likewise Polish emigre sister is confined to a medical ward on Ellis Island during immigration while Cotillard’s Ewa Cybulska is offered an opportunity to remain in the States through the kindness of Joaquin Phoenix playing a pimp and former child immigrant named Bruno Weiss in the actor’s fourth and to-date final Gray film role. Cotillard’s immigrant forms a brief love triangle with Jeremy Renner’s magician and brother-to-Bruno character Orlando The Magician until he SPOILER runs off to Iraq to defuse bombs as one of the Avengers who just shoots arrows or something. J/k. It’s a Gray film. You know someone is going to die. Maybe it’s the magician. Maybe it’s the sister. Maybe both. Stay awake to find out, or give this episode a listen.
This episode, Harvey Weinstein returns; Ken tries renaming the podcast; Ryan and Thomas are spot on in their estimation of the film; and our boys rank the eight-film oeuvre on The Gray Scale.
Next week, we’re on smoko but will return with Hacks (mild pun intended; Surgeon General’s warning: do not consume the first episode of Season 17 if you’re preggers).
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TWO LOVERS (2008)
For Season 16, Episode 7, writer-director James Gray gets geometric with TWO LOVERS (2008), his third of four collabs with Joaquin Phoenix whom he puts into a love triangle with Gray’s only film to-date starring Gwyneth Paltrow or Vinessa Shaw.
Gray leaves his crime trilogy behind with this contemporary piece focusing on the family and loves of Phoenix’s Leonard Kraditor, a manic-depressive pixie dream boy working for and living with his parents after a suicide attempt. Leonard finds himself caught between his id (depicted by Paltrow’s equally pixie Michelle Rausch) and superego (depicted by Shaw’s Sandra Cohen). Isabella Rossellini in a relatively (slight pun intended) quiet performance plays Leonard’s mother while Israeli actor Moni Moshonov reprises his father-figure role from We Own the Night to play Leonard’s father.
For those enjoying the home version this season, the following Gray Bingo squares may be covered: 1) silent opening, 2) NYC, 3) Jewish family, 4) bare breast, 5) club scene, and 6) failed plan to escape to warmer climates.
Guest Andi joins to betray her Southern roots by speaking when she has nothing polite to say as she ranks the half of Gray’s filmography she’s watched. Host Ken this episode does extra credit, having not only watched two prior film adaptations of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story “White Nights” but also researches cowriter Richard Menello and charts multiple love triangles in this film and throughout the films TGTPTU has covered. Cohost Ryan reveals his odd sense of humor. And cohost Thomas provides a list of terms defining people and what they love.
These four on mic this week are split in half for their enjoyment of the film.
Next ep, the stunning conclusion to Going Gray (working title) and the genre reveal of Season 17.
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THE LOST CITY OF Z
Before James Gray hung Brad Pitt on wires and took him to space, he first brought a different blonde to the Amazon (the rainforest) to encounter snakes, torrential rains, and an insect extracted from his ear during the shooting of he writer-director’s first Amazon (the company) Studios distributed film THE LOST CITY OF Z (2016).
Charlie Hunnam is that blonde, the -e is intentional as that’s the more common British spelling and despite an American accent convincing enough to fool Gray, a man of many impersonations, Charlie’s a bloke. His Percy Fawcett protagonist is joined by fellow Brit and future Batman Robert Pattinson as the pair of British explorers (and WWI soldiers) map out the Bolivia-Brazil border in an adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller of the same name (although the Americans, per its author, say the final word-letter as “zee” instead of “zed”). Also cast and a contemporaneous Spiderman is Tom Holland as Fawcett’s son Jack Fawcett, who will take the place of Pattinson’s composite character Henry Costin in Percy’s final voyage back into the jungle to seek the titular lost city.
For this sixth of eight Gray episodes, guest Shannon returns, host Ken stays ill, co-host Ryan gushes, and the lone Gen Zedder Thomas has read the book. Opinions are mixed this week, with guest Shannon believing the proper title of the film should be The Lost City of Zzz (snooze sound) while Ryan’s been Zed-pilled into believing it an amazing film.
Next episode, potentially a very special guest who might have watched that week’s film.
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We Own the Night
For Season 16 Episode 5, TGTPTU dives deep into what writer-director James Gray considers the conclusion of his NYC crime trilogy WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007) while also starting the first of two planned sizzurp episodes with host Ken sick and sipping on some strong cold medicine. And joining this top to the third temporal pincer™️ pairing is special guest and inveterate bookworm Shannon.
For his third film, and second time being booed at Cannes (Harvey Scissorhands’ cut of The Yards being the occasion for his first), Gray after seven years in development had his first financial success with his unique, untrademarked combination of family drama, crime, and Greek tragedy. Together again but reversing roles from The Yards, Mark Wahlberg plays supporting as Cpt Joe Grusinsky while Joaquin Phoenix takes the lead as night club manager Bobby Green/Grusinsky. That slash becomes important as Bobby has adopted his dead mother’s surname prior to the start of the movie to distance himself from his brother Joe and their Deputy Chief cop daddy Burt Grusinsky, played by Robert Duvall. When Brother Captain Joe’s pursuit of a drug smuggler leads to his family being targeted by the Russian Mob who are also owners of Bobby’s club and his surrogate family, Bobby’s different last name comes in handy as he goes undercover for the po-po.
Oh, and it’s a period piece occurring in the late-80s set in NYC, so cover those squares on your Gray bingo card.
This ep, guest Shannon bumps on overwritten cop dialogue culled from Gray’s NYPD ride-alongs; former co-host Jack weighs in off-mic on Gray’s best use of CGI for rain during the car chase scene; Ryan suggests this is the last Phoenix role before he became too fussy, and Ken suggests it's the last of Wahlberg actually being interesting while effectively suppressing a cough; Ryan questions the merits of the temporal pincer movement being applied to Gray’s filmography; and Thomas considers it his favorite Gray film of the five he’s watched.
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As if the fourth in a horror film series, this week TGTPTU goes to space! In Season 16, Ep 4 of Gray Matter (working title), Ken, Thomas, and Ryan discuss writer-director James Gray’s AD ASTRA (2019) as their unpatented pincer movement continues along the auteur’s eight-movie filmography.
Cowritten with a television writer of meager IMDB credits, Gray’s highest budget film to date sends astronaut and resting heart rate champion Roy Richard McBride (Brad Pitt) to the furthest reaches of the explored solar system in order to present him jump scares and (un)excusable homicides on his journey in a near future to retrieve his father played by Tommy Lee Jones who apparently can’t get enough being in outer space (see Season 2, Ep 8 for our Space Cowboys coverage). Because this is a Gray joint, you know daddy and son are gonna have some emotional reckoning. What you might not be expecting are a moon car chase, falling from near orbit to Earth, or kickflipping a shuttle’s flotsam while grinding a wicked rail of an asteroid belt (at least one of these happens, no further spoilers).
Like last week’s ep, Gray did not have final cut (i.e., the film rights; he might have had the professional, high-performance video editing software designed by Apple for macOS and iPadOS, although there is a strong possibility he had neither), which allowed for surprise research revelations by Ken, Tom, and Ryan and a wish for a hard media release of the Director’s Cut audio track.
Chris Nolan’s late-career cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (listen back to Season 12 for more on the lenser so nice they named him twice) shoots this beautiful film. Ad Astra garnered Gray’s first and to date only Academy nomination for Best Sound Mixing, which host Ken is in real time appalled by what films received Academy noms for Best Special Effects to the exclusion of this film’s many practical VFX. Also, Ken struggles to name Robert McKee to really land a movie reference despite covering Adaptation in both the pod’s Nicolas Cage (Season 3) and Meryl Streep (Season 8) coverage; Ryan has galaxy brain generational conflict ideas about the movie’s themes; and Tom tries placing the flick among the good space movies of the past decade.
Factoid: The film was released in France under the tile “Ad Astra,” which means “to the stars” in Latin and in Finland as “Ad Astra,” which also means “to the stars” in Latin.
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The Yards
A family crime drama set in New York City with a sick mother, ambivalently abusive father figure, and nudity along with a role for Domenick Lombardozzi (The Wire’s Herc)? Get out your James Gray bingo cards, because Season 16 Gray Poop On (working title) persists with TGTPTU continuing in Episode 3 its temporal pincer movement covering the auteur’s second film THE YARDS (2000).
Filmed on film in the spring and summer of 1998 but due to studio delays and reshoots not released until the fall of 2000, The Yards stars the still up-and-coming Mark Walburg as Leo Handler just out of jail and being led back into a life of crime by Joaquin Phoenix as Willie Gutierrez, the guy dating and soon betrothed to Leo’s cousin and possible love interest Erica Soltz played by a pre-Monster Charlize Theron. This trio of rising stars is supported by a trio of 70s hall of famers (James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, and Faye Dunaway) in a story about NYC train maintenance, government corruption, family loyalties, and the need for proper bannisters.
Cowritten with Matt Reeves (opinions vary) and shot with multiple POV characters, Gray would find the story in the editing room (and subsequent reshoots) by winnowing it down to Walburg’s singular perspective only to have that story mollified (or straight-up mauled from Gray’s perspective) by a studio-noted happier ending.
This ep, you won’t be getting Ken’s half-hour discussion with Ryan about Theron’s surprising nude scene, but Thomas will provide context for international and homeschool listeners in the U.S., Myanmar, and Liberia.
Thank you for choo-choo-choosing to listen.
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Armageddon Time
This week in Season 16’s Going Gray (working title), Episode 2 will cover the writer-director’s 2022 autobiographical film about his Jewish American assimilative upbringing and formative childhood events slightly beyond his ken that will have the potential to lead him to become the legendary director we know today, that same director whose film we are—
Wait, no, you’ve not heard TGTPTU cover this one. Seriously, no, sorry to contradict, but you’re wrong. TGTPTU is not redux-ing the previously covered The Fabelmans (that was Season 14’s gimmick). This is Season 16, if you’ll let your no-so-humble scribe finish, which covers the directorial work of Gen X filmmaker James Gray, including his deeply personal film that was a stupendous box office failure ARMAGEDDON TIME (2022).
Gray’s most recent film is somehow even more personal than his first (just covered in the season’s inaugural episode as part of TGTPU’s temporal pincer movement), with Armageddon Time set historically in 1980 in time for the election of Ronald Reagan to the U.S. presidency, which may or may not factor more largely into the narrative. With a few noted exceptions by the pod’s purist contingent, Gray’s focus remains with his POV character Paul. Played by child actor Banks Repeta who, along with Jaylin Webb as his friend Johnny, brings an amazing performance alongside heavyweights Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, and Anthony Hopkins as Paul’s mother, father, and grandfather respectively and who each will, in their own ways, help the sixth-grade Paul’s insights into social inequity and struggles.
Note: Despite its MPAA R rating and the many similarities in plot as raised during the podcast, Gray’s most recent film is not a Requiem for a Dream retelling and there is zero ass-to-ass.
This week, Ken has all the feels and appears, despite his graphic novel’s striking similarity to Gray’s film, to not be pursuing the Harlan Ellison legal route for residuals; Tom’s lukewarm; and Ryan’s meh. Discussion of these disparate reactions leads to comparison with and exploration of The Fabelmans (2022), Mid90s (2018), and other nostalgic, coming-of-age films by writer-directors in recent years.
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LITTLE ODESSA (1994)
A new season (Season 16) in a new year (2026 CE), and The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly returns to its roots with its unpatented temporal pincer movement covering the directorial filmography of American auteur James Gray. And in keeping with this homecoming, we begin our Touch of Gray Season with the Gen X filmmaker’s first feature endeavor LITTLE ODESSA (1994).
Made at the unripened age of twenty-three after being recruited out of USC film school, Gray’s inaugural film is a mixture of the highly personal (reflecting his own mother’s terminal brain cancer, father’s temper, and family’s Slavic Jewish émigré origins) with trappings of the crime genre (hitman with ice cold blood in his veins returns to the one place he promised never to return, viz. New York City, i.e. Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach a.k.a. Little Odessa), each and together building to a profoundly unhappy ending.
Thanks to Brit producer Paul Webster who recruited Gray for this first film, Gray was able to bring on Tim Roth fresh from his acclaimed performance in Reservoir Dogs who was able to attract Edward Furlong, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, and Moira Kelly. Gray and team worked around losing a week to a record-setting blizzard in NYC, some days with only four hours to shoot, to create this two-hander crime+family (but not “crime family”) drama with the dominant hand played by Roth as the older brother hitman and other hand by Furlong as the younger brother under his father’s thumb and regularly truant from school. Redgrave and Schell play their parents. Kelly, two years removed from The Cutting Edge and Fire Walk with Me, plays Roth’s love interest. And fewer of these characters will be alive by the end of this film than you might expect outside of a Greek tragedy.
This week, additional research by Ken who watched the film within the film (Vengeance Valley, 1951), Ryan who explored Jewish funeral rites, and Thomas who on mic clarifies the actual size of Little Odessa.
Oh, and in a callback to the preceding Season 15, there are some satisfyingly strong squibs.
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PASSION OF THE CHRIST
“And in the ending days of two-thousand, twenty-five in the Year of our Bloodied Lord (R.I.P.), the three unwise men of TGTPTU shall gather and in their folly alloweth the unholy host Thomas to select the season’s Christmas-adjacent movie. And there will be great wailing and weeping and gnashing of ill-cared for teeth by his selection. Yet the episode shall not be mid. The hosts shall bloody nail it. And there shall be great rejoicing in one accord upon its record.”
-The Book of Ryan (or on its cover) 5:16-17, Revised New King Jim Edition
Yes, ho-ho-humbug, it’s our annual cross to bear: The Christmas-adjacent movie to end the year. In a rare moment of collective (fatigue / wisdom / pure awesomeness / mental constipation / fugue ß strike as appropriate), The Good The Pod and The Ugly hosts Ken and Ryan have allowed Thomas to pick the flick this season. He took a chance on a film he’d always wanted to but hadn’t seen, and that cinema selection took them to church! Tom picked the Mel Gibson co-written, co-produced, and solely(soul-ly?)-directed, Jesus story spoiler: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004).
To their eternal credit, the hosts with no loyalty to any of the major- or bush-league Christian denominations managed to keep civil and polite, if not to each other then to the source material and Gibson’s passionate release. Ryan’s Catholic upbringing comes in handy for this, his third viewing, as he explains the church’s different classifications of visions and what parts of the film pull from scripture and which are attributable to a 19th century fever dream.
This ep, Ken talks sexy Satan, Ryan talks sexy Jesus, guest Jack has an unsexy hot take takeoff and landing, and his fellow Gen Z’er Tom sticks it to the olds after mis-Clarking. Skip to the end of the ep for a brief year-end recap of the best and worst first-watched and re-watched films covered in 2025 or skip further for spoilers from Ken as he shares his bulk-pricing Christmas presents for his fellow hosts.
In the new year, TGTPTU takes a Graycation (or is Going Gray or lets its Gray Pride shine) with the start of Season 16, tentatively titled By the Powers of (James) Gray’s Skull. And that’s the gospel truth.
Answer to the question raised during the episode: We’re Not Going to Take It.
Keith Moon wept.
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bRyan’s Song
While the squib portion has ended with a bang (and some whimpers), Season 15 continues to stretch to the end of Year 2025. This ep we celebrate the contributions to the pod from one of TGTPTU’s three hosts: Ryan. Exceptionally written show notes rarely get noticed by listeners and editing is the art of concealment, so given the injustices of the universe, hosts Thomas and Ken interview the pod’s newest host and its six-time theme song writer-and-performer Ryan regarding his compositions, his process, and his Swiftie fandom along with what to do when a musician knocks on your front door.
The human jukebox with self-described photographic(?) memory for songs regales listeners with tales like his childhood stardom on the California circuit before the Super Bowl sold out(?), but don’t worry, we interrupt Ryan to replay the bangers you’ve come to love between all the yabber.
Some might call this a filler episode. What’s wrong with filler? It makes otherwise fish-lipped host Thomas’s teeth flaps luscious and his butt badonkadonk. Also, it’s a free podcast, you ingrates. You get what you pay for except when it comes to these theme songs as they’re worth so much more than what we commissioned them from Ryan for. Some appreciators of dad humor might even say TGTPTU got them for a song.
So shut up and listen back over the years with your hosts.
Next week is a bye week, and we’re likely on smoko the week after that, but join us in mid-December for the final ep of the season and a seasonal holiday tradition as TGTPTU covers a Christmas adjacent film.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
TGTPTU books its final perp in the 20-movie-long shooting spree of Season 15 – Squib Games with—dead or alive, you’re coming with me—ROBOCOP (1987), a pod favorite.
Like last week’s film Walker (played by Ed Harris and not Peter Weller), this week’s movie concerns a man caught up in the machinery of his time, except Officer Alex Murphy (played by Peter Weller and not Ed Harris) is a character at least moderately sympathetic, despite his chosen profession. Similarly but instead of returning to the past to satire the violence of American imperialism, this week’s feature directed by Paul Verhoeven (his first American film) occurs in the Reagan-esque future of the 1990s to satire the violence of American corporatism. And while the commonalities between this season’s final pairing continue, the word count for these show notes is limited.
Jack is out this week. Filling his guest host spot is pod regular Erik W. Van Der Wolf from the Blood and Popcorn podcast.
This ep—while host Ken reveals the origin of his large-frame eyeglasses fetish, host Thomas introduces his replacement for regulating future seasons’ discussions, and host Ryan does research and independently comes to the wrong conclusion that RoboCop’s action scenes aren’t very good—guest Erik weighs in on matters of substance and industry with a slide deck and laser light/hologram show and talking points on how modern filmmaking trends might get in the way of the “lightning in a bottle” confluence of unexpected events that creates an amazing film like Verhoeven’s RoboCop and likely prevents another good RoboCop today, a problem not just of franchises but of the modern movie condition of IP and rebootquels. The 3D animation between slides is remarkable; the interactive hologram of Erik as a helmetless RoboCop, Ken as Cain, Ryan as the jetpack, and Thomas as the toxic sludge kill are all mind-blowing. Unfortunate that this is an audio medium. And there are licensing issues. And lawyers.
A special thanks segment and a limited version of our end-of-season film rankings conclude the episode. Also, Season 16’s director is announced.
I’d buy that for a dollar!
(The revivified, cybernetic remains of SF legend Harlan Ellison approach with hand extended to accept your dollar.)
((Post-postscript: There will be two more eps released this season (and calendar year) as i. sometimes you’ve got to sing for your dinner and ii. our three unwise men will finally be putting the Christ back into Christmas with 2025’s Winter Holidays episode.))
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
TGTPTU enters its final pairing of Squib Games (Season 15) with the 1850s (and 1980s) invasion of Nicaragua with WALKER (1987), a film by Alex Cox.
Beset with difficulties filming, beloved by many a cineast, bewildering to divers critics of its day, Walker tells the story of the titular William Walker, a filibuster (also known as a “freebooter”) who prior to the American Civil War took private troops to Nicaragua and toppled its aristocratic government under the principles of Americanism and Manifest Destiny before setting himself up as dictator. Written by Rudy Wurlitzer whose novel Nog got comparisons to and favorable praise from podfav scribbler Thomas Pynchon, the movie’s plot follows the structure of a biopic only to undercut its titular antihero’s self-(righteous/delusion/destructive ß strike as appropriate) bravado and speechifying with montages both of actual conditions caused by his actions and of anachronisms culminating in a helicopter airlift—a direct reference to the American intervention supporting the Contras—as the acid western melts guest host Jack’s mind.
What is arguably Alex Cox’s final feature film (although IMDB will credit him with allegedly ten or eleven films made afterwards), Walker (the film) was a triumph of determination and workarounds. The director and lead actor Ed Harris (not to be confused with next week’s film lead Peter Weller) took pay cuts and invested their own money into the passion project when political interference arose. Despite Cox possibly believing his Rated R anarchistic movie would be a hit with wide audience appeal, the movie was dumped in early December against populist cinema hits of that year with critics and audiences not a fan of a film about an unredeemable man like Walker (nor was at least one TGTPTU host).
Full of slow motion and juicy squibs, the Joe Strummer-scored film brings a punk rock sensibility pokes a finger in the eye of the historical biopic and leaves American nationalism blinking.
Now forgive us while we betray every principle we’ve ever had and those who supported us. (To paraphrase Walker, the movie not the character or historical figure.)
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Halloween
TGTPTU hosts take a breather from the ongoing eternal damnation that is Squib Season, but also from the big screen, to celebrate the season of spook with coverage of the six-episode BBC series: GARTH MARENGHI’S DARKPLACE(2004). A mainstay of the Koral Clan (original hosts Ken and Jack along with regular guest and songstress Andi) and frequently quoted over these fifteen seasons of the pod, the British mockumentary-slash-homage-to-bad-TV series defies easy summation, but your humble narrator of staggering talent will try:
The conceit of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is that you’re watching a never-before-aired in Britain (it had a brief run in Peru), early-1990s, low-budget fright-of-the-week television series set in Darkplace Hospital (over the very Gates of Hell) and revolving around its main character Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D., a man more perfect and humble than yours truly if one can imagine such a fictional character existing. What adds a layer of complexity is that this main character Dag is played by the fictional author-dream weaver-visionary-plus actor (eagle-eared listener, did someone say Season 10 of TGTPTU early title confusion before settling on Side Hustle?), the pulp horror novelist Garth Marenghi who is actually played by actor Matthew Holness, the series co-creator along with the estimable real life author-actor-director-comedian Richard Ayoade who plays Dean Lerner, the series’ fictional producer and first-time actor portraying Thornton Reed, the Darkplace Hospital’s administrator and Dag’s boss. These two are joined in the show by Dag’s best friend and fellow M.D. Dr. Lucien Sanchez portrayed by fictional actor Todd Rivers as played by BAFTA-winner and What We Do in the Shadows (2019 spin-off TV series) vamp Matt Berry along with new hire Dr. Liz Asher, woman-emotions and psychic prone as fictionally scripted by the fictional Marenghi for fictional actress Madeleine Wool (IRL: Alice Lowe), the only one of the four fictional actors to not appear in the fictional actors’ commentary segments that intercut episodes of the show.
Fun fact: Three of the four main actors have gone on to write and direct movies of their own.
This episode Jack pops in; his pops Ken brings deep research on the cause célèbre, Holness’s inspiration for the Marenghi character, and Thatcher-contemporary: Gareth Morenghi; host Ryan doesn’t pop off; and Thomas can almost pronounce Richard Ayoade’s first and last name correctly (consistently getting at least half his name correct). Andi, originally slated to appear this ep, is nowhere to be found, presumed dead, but she was always like a candle in the wind: unreliable.
Well done, fellas and Liz.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Finally, Squib Season (Season 15 of TGTPTU) returns to massive gunplay! This week the hosts repel into the 1980’s sci-fi quasi-horror bro-action all-muscle (except maybe Shane Black and/or Elpidia Carrillo) high-octane totally-bitchin’ jungle of some unnamed Latin American country to encounter PREDATOR (1987).
Director John McTiernan’s follow-up to his 1986 freshman feature film (maybe named “Nomads” who knows? Pierce Brosnan and perhaps supportive family members, maybe the film’s producers, and apparently the up-and-coming action star Arnold Schwarzenegger had heard of and/or watched the moody low-budget flick), Predator would launch the moviemaker into the firmament and keep him in Hollywood’s heavens following up this constrained-budget film with every film dad’s favorite Christmas movie and then their favorite Russian seamen film (before making Medicine Man and Last Action Hero and falling to earth).
If you don’t know the plot, why spoil it and who the heck are you anyway and why are you reading the show notes to a movie podcast? Seriously, let us know: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com. (Unless you’re AI, in which case, thanks for helping edit this episode!).
This ep, dive deep into the production (teasers: James Cameron on a plane inspired the alien’s design + the Predator’s vision not shot on thermographic cameras + stunt-simian monkey + JCVD + Montezuma’s revenge + mods were made to the M134 Minigun to make Old Painless work on film) with hosts Ken and Thomas, shallowly with host Ryan, and enjoy some good ol’ action fun along with guest host Jack. And if you love butchered quotes and impersonations, this is the ep for you.
Now, Ken, get to the choppa-block and edit this episode, you one ugly motherf--ker. You ain’t got time to read.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Your TGTPTU hosts jump right into the Squib Season episode this week eager to discuss MONA LISA (1986), a neo-noir that’ll get squibby towards its end (or its original, comedic intro with its criminally bad British accents attempted in a reenactment of a forgettable moment from the film confiscated and presently being used as evidence by Scotland Yard).
Co-written and singly-directed by Neil Jordan six years before The Crying Game, the film stars Bob Hoskins (five years before Spielberg’s Hook) as George, a role originally intended for Michael Caine (also in the film but in a significantly smaller and more sinister role as George’s crime boss Mortwell) but rewritten for Hoskins to bring in his comedic background and general warmth, even when playing a working-class British bigot. Playing opposite Hoskins as the film’s femme fatale is first-time screen actress Cathy Tyson as the high-end call girl Simone on the hunt for her missing friend and former coworker mixed up in drugs and the streetwalking and larger sex industry that affords them. Also starring Rubeus Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies (Robbie Coltrane) as Thomas (people in the film don’t get last names unless they’re of Caine’s character’s stature, in which case they don’t need Christian names), George’s best mate and collector of weird objects.
The hosts do their darnedest not to bring up and discuss The Crying Game, instead focusing on amazing parts of the film at hand, including an elevated action elevator sequence and Hoskins’ acting. Also, how Jordan working on a tight budget reworked the London landscape to create a mood and show a side of London not typically captured on film. And in perhaps an episode first, sometimes provisional host Ryan does research!!! and is wrong about a music fact!?!
And then, before you know where you are
You’re sayin’ goodbye
-Boy George
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Yo, put the da bomb rap-rock mix CD on the Walkman, brush off your fly three-button boxy suit, and get your pre-9/1l cool on fo’ shizzle, home skillet, as TGTPTU breaks with its patent-pending temporal pincer movement to cover THE WAY OF THE GUN (2000).
Before he (strike as appropriate: ruined / renewed / continued) the Mission Impossible film franchise but after winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for 1995’s The Usual Suspects, Christopher McQuarrie would write and direct this (strike as appropriate: possible war crime / secret masterpiece / neo-Western action-thriller satire), and land in director jail. Unlike a highly successful sequel he’d write and produce two decades later also with “gun” in the title, McQuarrie’s directorial debut was not “top,” nor would it receive any Academy noms for Orig Screenplay or Best Pic. Instead, it would be twelve years before McQuarrie would direct again when he’d write and direct Jack Reacher (the one ((strike as appropriate: starring / miscast)) with Tom Cruise).
The Way of the Gun was purportedly McQuarrie’s attempt to unmake the antihero criminal movie popular by the late-90s by going further than other films had in making its felonious buddy protagonists not just unlikeable but reprehensible. Selected for the job, after many turned down the role, Ryan Phillippe who got a haircut and adopted a voice for the role of Parker (no relation to the Richard Stark series) and the always magnetic Benicio del Toro as Longbaugh. These two petty but also not-so-petty criminals happen upon a scheme during their brief road trip’s peeing in bottles, punching women, and distributing sperm to banks for quick cash, a plan involving kidnapping for ransom a surrogate mother named Robin (played by Juliette Lewis) who SPOILER ALERT whose baby doctor is her baby daddy who, despite having a different last name, is SPOILER the son of the expected father of the embryo that didn’t take and the plot gets (strike as appropriate: purposively complex / even dumber / more twisted / majorly buggin’) from there. Another Lewis, pod favorite and Juliette’s father Geoffrey, is introduced (strike as appropriate: losing / winning) at a complex variation of Russian roulette as part of James Caan’s Members-only posse who mount up for the film’s squibbiest moment, a finale at a Mexican cantina and whorehouse.
O.G. host Ken casts Jonah Hill as Jonah Hex in a McG remake of the film while hosts Thomas and Ryan introduce Natural Born Killers into the chat, wondering if it not The Friends of Eddie Coyle for the 90s. Guest host Jack defends the movie’s inclusion in Season 15 as all that and a bag of chips and not wiggity wiggity wack.
Next week is Robocop. Psych! My bad. That’s in the pairing after next. Follow and subscribe if you want the 411. Also, send an electronic mail down the information superhighway to thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com if you want Thomas’s copy on DVD. We outtie.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
What’s the rumpus? This week TGTPTU gives the Coen Brothers movie classic MILLER’S CROSSING (1990) the treatment as part of its Squib Season, see.
Lensed by Barry Sonnenfeld in his last frolic as the brothers’ cinematographer, Ethan Coen told the man with a golden eye that Miller’s Crossing should be a handsome film about men in hats, and Sonnenfeld delivers the goods with one spectacularly shot period piece from the Prohibition Era.
The picture stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, the hard-drinking, harder-gambling Irish consigliere who knows all the angles, who’s having an affair with his boss’s skirt Verna Bernbaum (played by Marcia Gay Harden, who shortly after filming would originate the role of Harper Pitt in Tony Kushner’s two-part play Angels in America, see Season 7 of TGTPTU for more!).
Pod favorite John Turturro plays her brother Bernie, a conniving low-life crook who causes the friction in the ranks and can turn on the waterworks when needed. Jon Polito plays a loving dad allergic to the high-hat and with his right-hand J. E. Freeman playing the Dane (same year he’d star in Wild at Heart, see Season 4) they plan to take over the town from Albert Finney in one of his two roles as Tom’s boss Leo (the other appearance uncredited, spoilers during the episode for this Easter egg). Also, director and occasional second-unit-for-the-Coens-director Sam Raimi (and, can you believe it, brother of actor Ted Raimi from Hard Target covered earlier this Squib Games season!) shows up to plug a speakeasy patron grabbing air before himself getting gatted. And if you still haven’t had your fill, at this buffet of talent we even get a smattering of Steve Buscemi delivering ratatat dialogue for a scene.
This ep, Jack brings the book report, Thomas the Danish facts, Ken reenacts the experience of watching Miller’s Crossing with him by dropping movie quotes throughout the episode, Ryan brings up Gabriel Byrne’s acting chops, and all four hosts harmonize on the greater good.
Now get outta here. You’re stinking up the joint.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Squib Games Season (S15) continues with an 80’s cable classic and special effects extravaganza, the eponymous F/X (1986).
Director Robert Mandel best known for his 1992 drama School Ties had no major studio film to his credit when he was hired to direct the two top tiered Bryans: Aussie sexpot Bryan Brown as the Hollywood special effects guru Roland “Rollie” Tyler, an immigrant framed by crooked law enforcement in an intricate double-fake out murder leaving him a marked man, and Brian Dennehy (returning to the action genre, see First Blood from earlier this season) as Detective Leo McCarthy who plays by his own rulebook and likely soon up for retirement who suspects Rollie might be innocent. Pod favs Diane Venora (Bird, Heat, The Insider) has a minor role as the aspiring actress love interest and Tom Noonan (Manhunter this same year) plays a tall goon. Surprisingly for an action-intrigue movie set in the 1980s, there are a pleasant number of professional women getting the job done, although those who pop most on screen are Rollie’s and Det. McCarthy’s respective sidekicks.
Mixing reveals on how effects are done in real life with FX in the reality of the movie’s world provides a great primer for this season’s gun play as well as lets the movie’s hero exact lethal revenge without having to hold a gun. Such a fun concept, the premise spawned a sequel five years later starring the two Bryans and five years after that a forty-episode, two-season Canadian TV series starring neither Bry/i/an.
The hosts this ep spitball alternate castings for turning F/X from a action-thriller into a b-movie gorefest; Ken’s feels safe to share his big glasses frame fetish; Ryan’s presents a theory on why straight women wore out copies of their VHS’s; and Thomas gets the opportunity to mention both The Rage: Carrie 2 and Psycho III in nearly the same breath.
Jack, this season’s visiting guest host and inspiration for Squib Season, is off again this week on some continental op but will return for next episode with the book report for Miller’s Crossing.
Fun final fact: F/X is the first movie since TGTPTU Season 4’s Cage/Uncaged to have a forward slash (or a “stroke” for our speakers of British English) in its title. That prior movie, of course, was our first John Woo film covered.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
This week TGTPTU covers the film Elephant, no not the 2000s school-shooter mood piece by Gus Van Sant filmed in Portland, OR and covered previously and paired with Scarface (1983, not the earlier, black-and-white 1932 Howard Hawkes version) in Episode 8 of this Squib Season (it’s Season 15 after all, not Season 14’s Redux where the hosts covered films already covered) but, rather, the 39-minute, made-for-British-TV short film directed by Alan Clarke also entitled ELEPHANT (1989).
Chosen by host Thomas for its un-celebratory violence, the film tracks with Clarke’s influential, wide-angle following shots (camera, not bullet) people who shoot other people (with bullets, not cameras) in mostly silent milieus but for environmental sounds, mostly very bloody. (As mentioned by cohost Ken, and for more on this camera placement and its effects and influence on Van Sant, see this video essay on the Film & Media Studies’ YouTubeTM channel: https://youtu.be/Z5B8_IDhJQo.)
Produced and defended by Danny Boyle, Elephant’s unspoken (again, mostly silent with dialogue barely heard in just one scene between four blokes kicking around the football toward the middle of the flick) subject is The Troubles in the UK. In what is either bravery or foolery (callers into the network after this movie aired were split), working class and Brit-born Clarke--by then a celebrated veteran of the medium of the British TV issues film--stripped the original screenplay of dialogue when making the film in order to focus on the act of gun murder as was then currently occurring.
Elephant would be Clarke’s penultimate work, with The Firm (no, not the adaption of the John Grisham novel that gave Holly Hunter the nom for Best Supporting Actress the same year she won Best Actress for The Piano as The Firm you’re thinking of is by Sydney Pollack) also shot for British television and aired in 1989 as his final. Clarke would cross the pond to see if he could sell out in America (according to Ken) and die in 1990 at the age of 54.
The film resoundingly fails the Bechdel test.
Host Ryan calls Clarke a coward.
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This week, TGTPTU again interrupts its Season 15’s Squib Game coverage for something unique, a return to Year 1998 through film and to Scarf Season 11 with the new wide release from Darren Aronofsky CAUGHT STEALING (2025).
According to one summary (to be read in the voice of Roger Ebert):
In late-1990s New York City a former baseball player whose career was cut short by a tragic accident has his life turned upside down when his neighbor asks him to watch his cat while he is out of town. Austin Butler plays the ex-baseball player, and the stakes rise fast with a host of violent and quirky characters all after what the neighbor left behind. It is directed by Darren Aronofsky in what is a clear break from his previous films we covered last year. It’s CAUGHT STEALING on The Good, The Pod and The Ugly.
This ep, host Ken talks screenplay writing’s twists, payoffs, and literally saving the cat; host Thomas brings up Clifford actor Martin Short and his (Thomas’s) disdain for late-90s three-button suits; and host Ryan fills in again as the human jukebox.
One thumbs up, one thumbs down, and one thumb pointed hitching a ride for reasons covered by spoilers in the latter half of the ep.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WHICH WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
TGTPTU returns to its regularly scheduled Squib Games (S15) with the earlier of its latest temporal pincer movement pairing, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA (1985).
Directed by William Friedkin, this is another Big Willie movie but not a Wyler: the second William has the credited surname of Peterson and this is his first film. William Peterson was so new to film acting that he called his fellow Chicagoan thespian buddy John Malkovich to see what he should quote as his asking price to play the lead character of Richard Chance, a thrill-seeking Secret Service agent who’ll lose his partner only days from retirement (red-shirted partner’s, not Chance’s) and will get a new partner in John Pankow’s Agent John Vukovich to pervert in his (Chance’s) vengeful pursuit of a counterfeiter played by Willem Dafoe. (Next year Peterson would play another officer of the law in Manhunter as covered during TGTPTU’s Mann Aged Season {S5,E5}; as an EPISODE CORRECTION Pankow did not portray Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus but had done so at the Broadhurst Theatre, replacing Tim Curry.)
Because it’s a Friedkin flick, there’s an epic car chase meant to top The French Connection; because it’s shot from a Friedkin script (adapted from a novel by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, who receives a cowriting credit), there was a lot of improvisation on set driven by the actors, with both the ending and opening scenes re/written during shooting. Mentioning actors, the film is stacked with supporting roles by Dean Stockwell, John Turturro (who’ll get more mention later in Season 15), and the Michael Mann-created film noir for television Crime Story’s very own Darlanne Fluegel (listen back to S5,E6 for insights on this TV series).
TGTPTU hosts become split on the merits of the film. Thomas describes the movie as The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) on neon cocaine, but—no spoilers—you’ll have to listen to the ep for whether he believes this is a good thing. Also, Jack lets out the three-legged dog and Ryan, while finding it impossible to resist singing the title, has issue with William Pederson. Ken convinces everyone to Wang Chung tonight.
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TWO HUNDRED EPISODES AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS 200TH EPISODE
The Good, the Pod, and the Ugly boys take a break from their ongoing Squib Season to commemorate the pod’s 200th episode. With over 400 movies covered across 14.5 seasons, this also marks a great entry point for new listeners as hosts Ken, Thomas, and Ryan reveal the three films they consider as the most influential to their cineast lives.
Exclusive to this episode: Chapter breaks to conveniently skip or relisten to your favorite host’s/s’ divulgences.
Bo-Bo-Bonus: The three hosts (two of which are put on the spot) throw in three influential musical artists and writers.
Extra bonus material: Ken reveals previous host Jack’s top three.
Another fun episode to skip unless you’re a former prime minister of Britian enjoying her time in hell, the creepreditor (portmanteau of “creep + creator+ director”) of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movie franchise, the listener from the end of time, or any of the pod’s legend and bits mentioned throughout this bicentennial ep. In that case, mbe listen.
Cut from this celebratory episode are the hosts’ selection of their three horniest movies (i)“Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (ii)“Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” & (iii)“Hillbilly Elegy”; (i)“Cats”; (ii)“The Dark Crystal,” ¶ “Chicken Little”; and (i)“Incredible Shrinking Woman,” (ii)“9 to 5” & (iii)“The Late Show,” attribution not needed.
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This week’s moving picture was selected by guest host (and Season 15’s Squib Games curator/raison d'être) Jack, canonically a Ted Kaczynski stan, as confirmed by his pick CLEARCUT (1991).
And so the pod returns to Canada (a.k.a. America’s sombrero) and Canadian lore with another émigré director’s first North America feature-length film (see Hard Targét ep from two weeks ago for our prior), this time with a story originally told in the Canadian novelist M. T. Kelly’s A Dream Like Mine about Canadian First Nations people fighting to maintain the sanctity of their land against industry and classified in the movie’s hard media BluRay release as “folk horror” by Sevrin in its 15-disc All the Haunts Be Ours collection. Cold War Polish-famous director Ryszard Bugajski was chosen for his political provocateur Polish pictures (after a stint directing Canadian TV) and modifies the 1987 novel, moving it from mercury poisoning and mining to the timber industry after the recent Oka standoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis) and hence finding a title, which at least one host this ep finds oxymoronic. Bugajski also credits himself with cutting a lot of the dialogue from the screenplay to let the film visually provide exposition.
The film stars Graham Greene--which is why host Ryan’s grandfather saw the limited release film that by the 2000’s had only two extant prints (one copy was about to be disposed and why the transfer on the BluRay and streaming has 35mm film’s cue marks, a.k.a. cigarette burns)--as a trickster spirit or actual human person (depending on whether lead actor or director was asked) who challenges the film’s White protagonist and lawyer played by Ron Lea who’s failed to protect the land against mill owner Bud Rickets played by Battlestar Galactica’s (the newer, good one) own Michael Hogan (not to be confused with Jack Nance who concurrently white haired and sporting a moustache by a river was at this time portraying Pete in Twin Peaks, you know, “Wrapped in plastic.” and “There was a fish in the perculator.”). Greene’s Arthur (no last name like Cher or Prince) as either/both/neither water spirit or direct-action First Nations radical coerces the lawyer to kidnap the mill owner, which leads to a few deaths and some skin peeled off Rickets’ leg. The film is lensed by François Protat, who’d shot Weekend and Bernie’s two years prior for First Blood director (and Canadian for sneeze sound effect) Ted Kotcheff. The entire folk horror or eco terror or supernatural revenge or suspense film resolves with an expected but undelivered whip pan to Rod Serling smoking a cigarette whilst giving an enigmatic, summative moral of events witnessed.
This ep goes big on host Tall Ken trivia as he finds his notepad; reveals his chainsaw approach to episode editing; sees in Greene’s jeans and sneakers attire the spirit of Jerry Seinfeld (contemporaneous character, rather than actor or comedian or present-day Netflix movie director); and explains how he identifies people and sizes them up. Additionally, Ryan, Thomas, and Jack have sane things to say.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
This week TGTPTU guns down the second half of our Lance Henriksen double feature with an episode recorded in the past and sent to the listener in the future as a digital file encoding the three core hosts’ discussion of writer Harlan Ellison’s (please, no more legal action, ATTN: Ellison’s Estate) sci-fi/80’s action/quasi-horror flick THE TERMINATOR (1984).
Director James Cameron (and co-writer Gale Anne Heard) broke onto the cinema scene with this low-/mid-budget, high octane film and its titular, iconic creation. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the killer robot (technically an android but called a cyborg) Terminator sent from the future to eliminate Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor but followed by scrappy future soldier Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn, and you know the deal having seen T2 (1991); this first film is when Connor gets preggers and has awesome 80’s style and learns of the future badass she must, and does, become.
Future fellow Cameron android player Lance Henriksen plays a cop, who may or may not die in the film, when Schwarzenegger’s T-800 delivers on his iconic promise to the precinct’s desk officer that he will return. (Schwarzenegger, as we learn this episode, did not want to deliver Cameron’s line as written as the English word “I’ll” was difficult for the bodybuilding immigrant.)
The hosts this week (no Jack, no special guest Shannon) speculate on Cameron’s CB sexy talk when he was a truck driver, discover where Jack got his fashion sense, and express awe as how stripped down and fast-paced the story is. Ken fondly remembers the short-lived TV series Manimal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manimal), Ryan reveals the film to secretly be an 80’s slasher, and Thomas, bummed, reacts with atemporal microaggression by introducing earlier into the pod the concept of Roko's basilisk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk but don’t click!). A least one Cameron shows up while a confused former prime minister of England makes a brief off-mic appearance. Harlan Ellison also enters the chat, and the listener owes us $1.
Hasta la vista, absent special guest Shannon Connor. May your mission down Mexico way to find and protect Chaplain Amy be met with success.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
This week, a pleasant return to cinema gun violence (after last week’s entry of Gus Van Sant’s school shooter film Elephant) as TGTPTU covers John Woo’s American directorial début HARD TARGÈT (1993). The pod’s temporal pincer movement again gets fudged this pairing to bring to you a Lance Henriksen double feature (next week’s The Terminator), skipping the late- and mid90s (good film, btw, but Jonah Hill uses no squibs in his 2018 directorial début so it won’t be covered during Season 15) and Way of the Gun (covered in a future pairing and now’s not the time or place for reactions).
Hard Targét features Jean-Claude Van Damme in the rôle of Chance Boudreaux, a spicy Cajun seamen stranded and out of work needing $$$ so he can pay dues to ship out again and a former military badass and nephew to Coonass bootlegger Uncle Clarence Douvée played by Wilford Brimley who enters over halfway through the film in an almost surprise cameo appearance that outstays its welcome until the happy ending in a Mardi Gras float storage facility deep in the bayou where the final standoff between gooddée JCVD against baddée Henriksen (playing an inflammable globetrotting businessman in the business of orchestrating homeless veteran hunts) results in his (Brimley’s) seeming death only to be saved by his flask (yay!) but loses the last of his final stills batch (sad!) before the abrupt conclusion of the film. Oh, and there’s a woman character played by Yancy Butler looking for her daddée, whom we learned was homeless and we learn was played by the writer of the film in its opening manhunting scene. If you haven’t surmised, the plot is basically “The Most Dangerous Game” minus the island and Cossack and charm of the short story and adding in Woo’s vision of a Western and JCVD’s kicks (but, sadly, no splits).
The majority of Henrickson’s performance in what was written and shot to be a two-hander was cut out (just like 70% of the digressions and Frenchifications in this week’s Show Notes), allegedly, by JCVD who worked with his own editor because, at the fin de la journée, this is a JCVD film and il est “aware.” (For Francophiles, please search the video interview of JCVD entitled “Jean-Claude Van Damme ‘Aware’”.)
Listen this week to hear if host and Brimley fan Ryan will remained un-Woo’ed after seeing his Quaker Oats forever old riding a horse; see how easily host Tom is derailed by mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and find out if any of Ken’s conspiracy theories are what have gotten this podcast shadow banned yet again.
Core hosts (les deux daddées et un Zoomer) only this week as Jacque is with his stepmom and her Nugget League of Mayhem adding glitter bombs and confetti to their Mardi Gras float this week.
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ELEPHANT (1st)
SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Episode 8 of TGTPTU’s Squib Games (Season 15) is a meditation on the film ELEPHANT (2003) written (in scare quotes) and directed by former Portland, OR native Gus Van Sant. Guest host Jack returns to discuss with Tom and Ken, each a generation on either side of the Columbine H.S. shootings, the 1999 impetus for this Van Sant slow cinema film.
Originally conceived as a HBO documentary and titled in misunderstanding as an homage to Alan Clarke’s film of the same name (to be covered later this season), Van Sant’s Elephant concerns a single day cut short by a school shooting as it follows different high school characters’ lives leading up to the active shooting event that will conclude the film.
The picture was shot at and edited in a studio built inside a Portland, OR public school, now demolished, along host Ken’s former running trail. Ken also brings to the ep extracurricular watches of the preceding JERRY (2002) and first quarter or so (more than most people can get through) of LAST DAYS (2005), the trio of which form Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy,” an improvised set of mumblecore-adjacent films based on real events and made outside of the Hollywood system, all lensed by Harris Savides whose scarf in his Wikipedia profile rivals any neck covering worn by legendary scarf enthusiast and Season 11’s subject Darren Aronofsky.
Follow us on the socials! Ken will follow you back, as we learn this episode that he likes to follow people. And not creepy at all! As promised in ep, Wikipedia strangely uses a photo of Ken in one of his gray suits as an image link for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBTQ_people_from_Portland,_Oregon.
Host Ryan is off this week playing piano and videogames but will return for 1993’s Hard Target.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
Season 15’s temporal pincer movement is inverted with this week’s pairing to present its earlier film first. So, one week early, we present to you SCARFACE (1983) with returning guest Erik Van Der Wolf from the Blood & Popcorn podcast filling in for Jack who had a boat to catch.
After last week’s meager showing with First Blood, we return to the blood-filled squib in full force in a movie whose violent reputation Erik disputes, taking a chainsaw to arguments by contemporary critics and noting the various cutaways and reaction shows in lieu of direct onscreen violence. He also makes a case that director Brian De Palma shows uncharacteristic restraint in camera flourishes. What’s unrestrained— agreed then and now—is the profanity, clocked at 1.32/minute “f’s” given, timed by some film nerd and diligently regurgitated by one of your chin beard hosts who watched the Blu-ray commentary.
Typically, we make a halfhearted attempt here in the show notes for a plot recap, but we all know the story of Scarface who’s got his word and his balls. This 1980’s remake marks a rare confluence of film and actual contemporary events as its Scarface, aka cocaine cowboy Tony Montana played by Al Pacino, is a Cuban refugee, mapping the original immigrant story of the 1932 movie onto real Florida violence. The film is also credited as giving Michelle Pfiefer her breakout role (if one discounts Grease II) in portraying coke whore arm candy. And actual Cuban immigrant and total hottie Steven Bauer plays Montana’s bestie (and friend’s sister-fucker) Manny Ray.
Blood packets explode during a hotel drug deal gone wrong and again when Montana promotes himself over his boss’s dead body and then again when given cocaine super powers at the end of the film as Scarface holds off a mercenary army of hitmen, but surprising no squib explodes when Montana shoots Ray in a fit of rage for what could be interpreted as incestual cockblocking. But you knew the plot already.
Listen as adult boys who grew up in the VHS era (and Thomas) discuss a film that guest Erik loves and the others find a lesser entry in the De Palma 80s filmography. Guest Erik brings a reread of the Oliver Stone screenplay and filmic muscle memory to recite scenes from the formative flick; Ryan stays bullish on the original black and white gangster picture (and on the film Two of a Kind, the 1983 feature that reunited John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John after Grease I), mainly wishing the De Palma film was closer to the original film’s runtime; Ken warms to the film and to Erik; and Thomas might have an opinion after his first watch but is more interested in the sequel videogame for the PS2 and prequel novels by comic book and erotic vampire author L.A. Banks.
Next week, Jack returns to discuss the school shooter film Elephant.
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FIRST BLOOD
SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
FIRST BLOOD (1982), a.k.a. Rambo I! Surely the best possible pick for TGTPTU’s Season 15 – Squib Season. An‘80s action flick, special forces, small town cops, a M60 machine rifle capable of firing 600 rounds a minute… Unless… Perhaps… Could it be the sequels changed the original movie, that actually the Rambo series starts not as the rah-rah patriotic killer of anonymous foreign brown peoples with knife, machine gun, and explosive-tipped arrows?
Affirmative. (Yes.)
After years in development hell trying to adapt an early 70s anti-war novel about a young returning soldier-drifter (perhaps even younger than pod host Thomas and season guest Jack) with PSTD from his time as an elite killer in Vietnam, the movie First Blood went through three production companies and eighteen screenplays--including pod fav and former 4x4 season director John Frankenheimer attached at one point and Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Steve McQueen (who liked the jailbreak+motorcycle chase), Eastwood, DeNiro, Nolte, and Michael Douglas all considered for the role--as a nearly a decade passed from the actions of the undeclared war in ‘Nam contemporary with the novel and the protagonist subsequently aged up in the movie’s contemporary Regan-era world. Other elements in adapting the book for the screen included giving Rambo a first name (John); omitting alternating storylines between Rambo and Sheriff Teasle; reducing the vet’s body count from intentional dozens killed in the forest and back in town to one confirmed death falling from a helicopter after John Rambo throws a rock (with three additional possible from a vehicle wreck and gunshot wound), and giving Rambo a good cry at the film’s end.
But while changes made, one thing unfortunate for the pod was maintained adapting the book into movie: Neither has blood squibs.
While a tree gets shot and a wall explodes in simulated gunfire, few people get plugged on screen in this action film, and those who do are sans exploded condoms of red liquid and juicy matter. Despite the franchise reputation to be parodied in pod fav Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), this initial entry in the Rambo film pentalogy is relatively bloodless. (Here might be a good place for a parenthetical on how this film was selected by bookworm Thomas who’s expressed subversive reservations about the violence inherent in this season of the pod.)
This ep: Jack returns to the pod, Thomas presents the book report, Ken postulates that shooting the picture during an unexpectedly cold Canadian autumn might be why the sequels take place in warmer climes, Ryan continues his disgusting habit of recommending other film podcasts, and Sidney Poitier’s Ghost Dad (1990) reenters the chat.
Note: Former presidential candidate Ross Perot’s involvement with Vietnam War POW/MIA in the 80s, playability reviews of the NES and arcade Rambo video games, and episode-by-episode recaps of the 1986 Saturday morning Rambo cartoon series were all cut for brevity.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.
After five years, a ban has been lifted—momentarily. For this single episode, the pod’s ironclad rule against discussing a Quentin Tarantino film that has divided our hosts is broken. The director is set free. And Jack goes fugitive this week as TGTPTU discusses the all-so-deliciously-squibby DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012).
Set just a few years before the Civil War to allow Tarantino to have his favorite racial epithet spoken a stunning 110 times—yikes!—juicy bloody condoms burst all across the faux climax of this Neo-Spaghetti Western as Django (the “d” is silent, played by Jamie Foxx) takes his revenge on the Francophile plantation owner, phenology enthusiastic, and curator of the ahistorical bloodsport of Mandingo fighting viz. “Monsieur” Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) for the death of immigrant German dentist+bounty-hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) all lensed by regular QT collaborator Robert Richardson.
This ep, Ken takes issue with the treatment and ambiguity of sexual violence (not?) portrayed in the film, its lazy writing, and that the picture was made after and is not Inglorious Basterds; Thomas, who claims to be both a Boomer and German this episode, brings irrelevant and irreverent German Facts (an unused example: “‘Gesundheit’ is a German’s way of saying: How tall is your gay son?”); and Ryan violates the unspoken rule of keeping talk of Quentin Tarantino on the QT. At least all three hosts agree the triple-threat Actor+Writer+Director Tarantino is best as a just double threat.
So tune in for an episode that answers the age-old question: What if TGTPTU hosts finally take on Quentin Tarantino—and no one does an impression?
Next week Jack returns.
Content Warning: Django Unchained not merely contains but is brimming with a specific racial slur using a hard-r by characters of various races and classes as directed (and written) to do so by a White filmmaker. Django Unchained also contains, and glosses over, sexual violence.
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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY WILL CELEBRATE THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. REAL WORLD VIOLENCE IS NOT TOLERATED AND IS RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT DISTURBS SOME LISTENERS. SQUIBS CAN BE ART
BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat
About the third night
They're invited to fight by a
Sub gun's rat-a-tat
Some day they'll go down together
They'll bury them side by side
To few, it will be grief, to the law a relief
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde
- Bonnie & Clyde - Serge Gainsbourg
All I need in this life of sin is me and my girlfriend
(Me and my girlfriend)
Down to ride 'til the very end, is me and my boyfriend
(Me and my boyfriend, that's right)
All I need in this life of sin is me and my girlfriend
(Me and my girlfriend, look for me)
Down to ride 'til the very end, is me and my boyfriend
(Me and my boyfriend, talk to 'em, B)
- '03 Bonnie & Clyde, Jay-Z, Beyoncé
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JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2 (2017)
SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY WILL CELEBRATE THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. REAL WORLD VIOLENCE IS NOT TOLERATED AND IS RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT DISTURBS SOME LISTENERS. SQUIBS CAN BE ART
A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM GUEST EDITOR TERRENCE MALICK!*
Where was I? Oh yes, The ephemeral and elusive act of capturing memory. It has vexed me so the last 60 years as a filmmaker. How do you capture the furtive nature of memory in film? What happened is in the past and dead. All that has meaning is the here and now.
So it is I was contacted by this podcast to listen to raw, uncorrupted and truthful audio of a discussion of John Wick Chapter Two (2017) and edit it into a fine, pleasant and informative podcast. "Jaunty" they say they wanted and, naturally, they thought of me.
I have a tattoo of John Wick saying "I are thought I back" on my right calf so people see it from behind when I am at the gym on the treadmill wearing corduroy athletic shorts. I mention this to let you know I am a super fan of the series and when I listened to the raw, unfiltered audio and thought about the task of editing out co-host Ken's laugh and heavy breathing or Ryan's "Ums" or Zoomer Jack's ToikTok inspired chortles, I realized their special guest Patrick, who runs a record store in Portland, Oregon called "Tomorrow Records" and which I am assured by my vinyl brothers and sisters is a mecca for music, simply did not fit my idea of the episode or, indeed, the film itself.
So I cut him out.
Adrien Brody has won two - TWO - Oscars since I cut him out as the main character of The Thin Red Line. I feel the same fate will befall to Patrick once the sting of my removal has dimmed. What remains is as much a perfect podcast about John Wick 2 as can humanly be achieved.
Please enjoy.
(I have an edit in which the remaining hosts are also removed but I was told an hour of silence would not cut it outside of Apple Exclusive mindfulness podcasts.)
TM - June, 2025
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Content Warning: Filmic violence is and will often be celebrated throughout Season 15 – Squib Season.
Second in the series and keeping to their unpatented temporal pincer movement, the enlisted four of TGTPTU storm the beachheads of Season 15 this week to liberate Squib Season’s earliest covered picture, the black-and-white WWII movie HELL TO ETERNITY (1960). (Not to be confused with To Hell from Eternity, which does not exist; To Hell and Back, which does and preceded in Technicolor this week’s talkie by five years; or From Hell to Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, which is actually the combined titles of two vastly different films released, respectively, 41 years and 35 years after this week’s feature.)
In Hell to Eternity, the 6’0”-tall, New Orleans-born Caucasian actor Jeffrey Hunter (yes, yes, nerds, we know he’s Captain Chistopher Pike, listen back to our The Searchers 4x4 episode but also listen to this week’s for an irony behind Hunter’s being replaced on Star Trek TOS by actor Sean Kenney in Season 1’s clips episode two-parter “The Menagerie”), then age 34, plays war hero and protagonist Guy Gabaldon in this biopic based on the real life events of the 5’4”-foot tall Latino Los Angelean of the same name when he was 18.
As in the movie, Gabaldon was raised by adoptive Japanese parents, learning their first language (and presumably, as in the movie, their stories about fish and love), and enlisted after Pearl Harbor as a translator. It’s with his language skills that Gabaldon was able to, as depicted at the end of the film, convince over 800 Japanese soldiers and civilians to surrender, although further research would be required by the author of these show notes to know whether real-life Gabaldon adopted/stole a Japanese child to be his son as implied at the end of the film (IMDB Trivia does claim Gabaldon named one of his sons after Hunter as he was enamored by his portrayal of him, implying Gabaldon had more than one son) or if the eighteen-year-old short king had swell times in swinging Hawaii as shown in the film’s contentious, extended party sequence containing not just one but two apartment burlesque routines.
The film is lensed by Burnett Guffey who will go on to shoot (on film) our next earliest entry, i.e., BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) for which he’d earn his second Academy Award. His first Oscar win was for another flick whose title lends itself to easy confusion with this week’s, namely FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953). Also involved, Lieutenant (later Captain) Sulu (or the actor and activist who originally played the helmsman/fencing expert in Star Trek TOS). Also, hundreds of Japanese Imperial Army veterans and active-duty U.S. Marines who reenacted events from the Battle of Saipan on the adjacent island of Okinawa for the cameras commanded by Guffrey. And some squibs.
This episode, hear Ryan explain both what squibs are and, later, how a man got his start as a boy. Jack, subsequent to the latter, loses his mind. Tom spoils the surprise appearance by a famous and long-deceased sports announcer. And Ken, as impossible as it might seem, might actually change his opinion on mic, specifically about the seemingly endless Hawaii party scene.
Subscribe and listen as the Good Pod Boys give a 21-gun salute to this forgotten classic.
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REVENGE
Major Content Warning: Plot-related sexual assault is mentioned throughout this episode.
Minor Content Warning: Filmic violence is and will often celebrated throughout Season 15.
Salut! and welcome to TGTPTU’s long-awaited SQUIB SEASON (Season 15) and a return to the pod’s unpatented temporal pincer movement with the series’ first film covered being the most recent release: REVENGE (2017).
Distributed en Francais in France and Quebec as Revenge, the identically English-titled Revenge is Parisian auteur Coralie Fargeat’s premier feature film; her second was last year’s thrice Oscar-nominated THE SUBSTANCE, a.k.a. in Francophone countries as LA SUBSTANCE.
Fargeat’s début film follows a familiar rape-revenge plot to tell a deliciously violence-laden story. Its deviations from predecessors such as I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) (and presumably its little-watched 2010s redux quadrilogy) are smart, sans salacious depictions of the abuse, and put the emphasis on survival rather than on its title as Italian model and actress Matilda Lutz shows no merci, pardon, no “mercy” upon her assailant, her murderer, or either crime’s bystander (a character renamed Jacque this episode for a passing resemblance to the French-Canadian skizzbag of Twin Peaks universe) when she’s backed into a figurative corner of a barren desert.
As host Jacque’s (“Jack” in American) pick, the film is no faux pas to start the season with. Its style possesses a je ne sais quoi freshness, lensed by regular Adil & Bilall collaborator Robrecht Heyvaert and scored by Caen-native ROB (né Robin Coudert).
Listen this episode as “squibs” is defined; Ken confuses his birds; and Ryan expresses a great liking for the picture’s ass shots while Ken and Jack like its shots through the head and Thomas is nonchalant. Also, Ken tries out a few bits for seasonal stickiness; enfant terrible Thomas ends up putting a chapeau on a chapeau by trying out a French accent; and although they’ve not yet reached their second episode to pair the oldest to-boe-covered with this most recent, the entire seasonal start this episode has a sense of déjà vu.
Bon appétit et au revoir!
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MYSTERY ROAD
It’s the end of the road for Season 14 as TGTPTU’s four White fellas travel across the world to the land down under for host Ken’s 1x1 flick pick and this season’s final film: MYSTERY ROAD (2013), sponsored this week by the Criminal Island’s very own Hoppy Joe Beer (Get Your Hop On!).
Directed by (and written by and lensed by and edited by and music with sound design by) Ivan Sen, this Aussie neo noir film that will launch a sequel and multiple standalone seasons of a TV season is the Australian filmmaker’s first genre film. Sen’s work is made with considerations to the conditions of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (a.k.a. First Peoples, a.k.a. First Nations, a.k.a. Indigenous Australians), and when news of his making a crime fiction film spread, an all-star cast of Oz acting talent lined up to join, beginning with Australian Broadcasting Corporation mainstay Aaron Pedersen, for whom Sen wrote the part of the film’s protagonist Detective Jay Swan, with second cast Hugo Weaving whose star power from the past two decades of Hollywood IP films subsequent to serving the Matrix franchise as Agent Smith helped draw in Ryan Kwanten, Bruce Spence, and an early appearance by Samara Weaving, a pod fav who made an appearance in an early TGTPTU Halloween episode.
Plot: A local First Nations girl is found murdered, and Detective Swan freshly back in his hometown from time away catches his first homicide case and must reckon with his family left behind as investigating the homicide brings him into the town’s underworld of drugs and prostitution, a world not unknown to his estranged wife and daughter. Pedersen’s character also encounters alcoholics (it’s Australia after all) drinking themselves to death; a mysterious death of a rookie officer and, separately, a senile man’s pet; aspiring cop-killer children on bicycles; mutant dogs; fast barefoot humans; overt and covert racism; Chinese food; and two crack shots in H. Weaving’s and Kwanten’s characters.
This week Ken and Jack recover from a week-long cold; Thomas brings his comedic A (short for "Australia") game; and Ryan offers background on the growth of media by First Nations peoples in Australia and later demos next season’s theme song--all on this special, concluding, evening-record episode of TGTPTU. “Is that a fact?”
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RISKY
Sometimes you gotta say, “What the Fuck” to research, make your move. This week Season 14’s penultimate 1x1 is co-host Ryan’s pick: RISKY BUSINESS (1983). His reason: TGTPTU normally pairs filmographies of a single director or actor, and the writer-director on this film was so triggered by the experience of having his written, shot, and edited original ending replaced in the final cut that he never directed another film again… or at least not until his second film in 1990 (WTF, Ryan?).
This film that would go on to become part of 1980s iconography by first-time director Paul Brickman, who had previously written the Michael Pressman-directed The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) and the Jonathan Demme-directed Handle with Care (1977) and would later be one of three credited writers on Clint Eastwood’s True Crime (alternately known as Speed Zoo) (1999), Risky Business as dark teen comedy and potential Reagon-era satire stars a number of early roles by actors who’d become comedy stars of the 1980s, including as the protagonist Joel’s fellow yuppie North Shore friends and entrepreneuring high school seniors in their first film appearances Curtis Armstrong (also known as Booger in the 1980s) and Bronson Pinchot (aka Balki in the 80s). It costars Rebecca De Mornay (later in the 90s known for her roles as a terrible nanny and as Milady de Winter) as the business-savvy prostitute, and has an early movie appearance by Joey Pants (known in the late-90s for taking the blue pill, Ralphie Cifaretto in the 00s, and a Bad Boy 4 life) as Guido the pimp.
Oh, and it’s also the first time that actor born Thomas Mapother IV, better known later in life by his stage name Tom Cruise, stars in the leading role in a film (but not the first time he danced in his underwear or kissed a female person, if DVD commentary tracks are to be believed).
Behind the camera, you have two cinematographers: Eastwood’s 70s and early-80s collaborator Bruce Surtees as well as regular Hollywood comedy lenser Reynaldo Villalobos. Pod-favorite Tangerine Dream scores. And the film scores big with first watches by host Tom and guest host Jack and with the Gen X’ers Ken and Ryan.
It’s a wild ride, so mind your parking brake. In this episode Ryan explains the economic milieu behind the 80’s yuppie culture to the two young hosts while drawing comparisons to American Psycho (2000); the two Zoomers discover how to shorten future episodes; and Broom Hilda’s creator, whose life strangely overlaps with Ken’s past and present, drops by studio.
Our podcast is The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly. We deal in human fulfillment. We grossed over eight thousand listeners in one night. An hour of your life, huh, kid?
FURTHER NOTES
Thomas requested we share the following Wikipedia links for those who’d like to perform additional research or to simply follow along:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker%27s_marathon_speech
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Detroit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_Rock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Renegades
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Friends of Eddie
The second 1x1 feature rounding out Season 14 and, chosen by Jack, the film is THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973). Directed by Peter Yates, whose career TGTPTU is unlikely to cover in a future 4x4 despite having Krull and Bullitt in his credits, TFOEC is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ inaugural novel and notable as a unromanticized depiction of crime in artistic response to The Godfather, the Puzo book and Coppola film each preceding, respectively, the book and movie versions of TFOEC by one year.
Higgins would take issue with the book as his debut novel. The former deputy assistant attorney general claimed to have written and burned 14 novels over 17 years prior to TFOEC and would go on to author over 30 books, both fiction and nonfiction before his fatal heart attack in 1999, but none with the impact of his first. As seasonal guest host Jack points out, nearly all the dialogue in the film is as it is on the page, and the pages are dripping with dialogue that creates the setting and action for this ironic story of “friends” who double-cross and live less than glamorous lives as Irish mobsters and criminals in Boston.
Yates populates the film with faces, faces that we don’t see much anymore, distinct faces and every one telling a story, from the titular Coyle plated by Robert Mitchum who earlier in this life reluctantly left the assembly line to be an actor to actor Alex Rocco who starred as Moe Greene in The Godfather and helped Mitchum meet some of his old criminal friends whom Rocco had to leave behind after he (the actor Alex Rocco) was held for questioning in relation to the murder that kicked off the Boston Irish Gang War of the 1960s to James Tolkan before he’d lost his hair a decade prior to portraying Principal Strickland in the Back to the Future movies and Detective Hugh Lubic in the Cannon Films classic Masters of the Universe.
For this episode, everyone did research: Jack and Thomas pair off for book report; Ryan covers the career of Mitchum; and Ken covers Yates and laments how now Hollywood lacks hacks as well as provides a new shaggy dog with The Pals of Charlie Brown.
Make sure to wipe your prints clean on this one before listening with a friend.
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HEDWIG
Before we say auf wiedersehen to Season 14 with its eight revamps of the previously covered during the show’s first five years, the boys of TGTPTU reveal their unexpected special little packages: 1x1’s, wherein each host shall choose a single film by its merits of discussion and unlikelihood to be exposed on a future 4x4, creator, or thematic season. The first of these darlings is Thomas’s: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001).
Adapted from the rock musical of the same name that started as the collaboration between frontman of the NYC-based band Cheater (performing on stage as Hedwig’s band) Stephen Trask and then actor later turned actor-director with this debut film John Cameron Mitchell. Hedwig’s story, on stage told in song and monologue, of male-to-female surgery so as to marry an American GI and leave East Berlin originated from Mitchell’s own experiences as a military brat in Germany and Kansas trailer parks while the jealousy and newer betrayal Hedwig expresses toward her protégé and superstar success/successor Tommy Gnosis (also played by Mitchell in the play but embodied by Early Aughts indie film darling and pod-contentious actor Michael Pitt) is elevated by Trask’s music and lyrics and is expanded and enriched with animation, locations, and added characters (most notably Andrea Martin as the band’s manager) for the silver screen.
Learn more about the progression from stage to screen from Thomas on research; jam out to Rock Facts with Ryan (sorry, mineralogists, but we’re talking glam and punk rock here); former host Jack on vibes in the rhythm section wakes up mid-episode to like the film and dig the hand-drawn animation; and Ken lands his rimshot, getting to tell his joke that calls back to TGTPTU’s Nolan coverage (Season 12).
Spoiler: You’ll be hearing from four Hed heads.
Reminder: You don’t put a bra in a dryer!
CONTENT WARNING: At least once during the episode the “f” word (“Ferengi”) is used. For those allergic to Star Trek and nerdom, our sincerest apologies. My you live long and prosper.
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AMERICAN SNIPER
The once distant end of Season 14’s curated rewatched flicks is now in our sights as the TGTPTU crew pulls the trigger on their final movie of the eight enlisted pairs mustering their Redux Season, taking aim at Clint Eastwood’s highest grossing film: AMERICAN SNIPER (2014).
Originally covered early in the pod’s first season (S1, E5 in Year 2020) and chosen by host Thomas who’d never seen, this American Sniper revisit offers new insight into the film the original hosting duo of Ken and Jack ranked as the worst of any Eastwood-starring or -directed picture in their Season 3 final rankings episode that concluded the Eastwood run of the show.
Frequent guest Erik Van Der Wolf provides the episode’s cold open; bookworm and host Thomas read almost half the Chris Kyle’s titular book; host Ken takes aim with some advice to filmmakers regarding a pre-shooting watch of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace; former host Jack, aka last episode’s Judas, sticks to his guns; and host Ryan joins Thomas to geek out about a Buffy the Vampire connection.
Listen to the end of the episode for season rankings of the eight films re-covered to see if American Sniper maintains its title as the worst Eastwood for Ken and Jack and for new hosts Ryan and Thomas as well as for the surprise announcement of the season’s four-film extension.
Next ep: The start of the one-offs.
Well done, fellas and Liz.
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WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART
Episode 7, and you can feel the excitement of the hunt this episode, the first of TGTPTU’s final paired rewatches of the Redux Season (Season 14) and another double Eastwood starting with a bang with WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART (1990, originally covered by TGTPTU during Season 3, Episode 9).
As flick curator extraordinaire Ken’s second rewatch pick, the o.g. host hopes to sway opinion his way, believing this adaptation by Peter Viertel of his autobiographical roman à clef dramatizing his work and consternation with John Huston during preproduction on The African Queen to be a masterpiece, approaching Unforgiven in its use of Eastwood’s (playing director John Wilson, a thinly veiled Huston) Hollywood persona. And Ken might just have an adherent in new host Ryan, who has a take(s) about Eastwood and the 1990’s cinema scene and auteur theory and potential deeper meanings of this film. And Thomas offers insight into his own autobiography’s veracity in the chapters that have him inventing snowboarding and fighting ninjas. Meanwhile, host Jack read was able to read 0% of the book to prepare for the ep and takes the brunt of Ken’s anger upon relistening to the original episode.
On that episode nearly a half-decade ago, Jack had opined the film mid. Fellow Gen Z’er Thomas who’d guested on that original episode with Ken and Jack also found the movie somewhere between. But a rewatch with new pairings and fresh eyes outside the marathon of covering every Eastwood film during the first three seasons has surprises in store! Someone is called a Judas, and someone sticks to his elephant guns. Listen to find out who.
And if you ever wondered why the voice in the recent seasons’ intro songs is “not supposed to fight with the guests, Mr. Wilson,” then you might just understand after listening, you yellow bastard.
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The 15:17 to Paris
Episode 6, all aboard! TGTPTU rides the Season 14 train to the end of the line of this third pairing of the season. Another rewatch of an Eastwood-directed film, this car was originally hitched to Season 1, Episode 3’s engine and nearly derailed the podcast as it left the station back in the Year 2020, and that movie running again on time and Ken’s first flick pick to redux is THE 15:17 TO PARIS (2018).
For a fuller recap of the plot and production of this film that stars comedic actors cast in serious roles and the three friends and heroes who aborted the mass shooting cast as themselves, listen to the original episode. But if you want to change tracks and discover the original cohosts Ken and Jack’s sense of how the film has held up over time and for the two new-timers Ryan and Thomas’s reactions of their first watch, along with re-imaginings of the film with Roseanne Barr and/or a Bob Dylan needle drop, this is your ep.
Jack throws shade Tom Cruise’s way at the top of the show while Thomas compares the movie to the book upon which it is based and which he’d recently read. Ryan has things to say about Christian rock and how to watch this film. Ken finds both relief in not having his fellow cohosts wrestle him to the ground and hogtie him for his pick and his shirt in the bathroom, which he puts back on.
While the shortest runtime of Eastwood’s directorial oeuvre, the boys find the experience of watching this film warps time and space, perhaps even transcending the realm of movie, as Ryan and Jack claim, to a spiritual plane for motion pictures.
Next week, Tom and Ken’s final rewatch picks are announced and paired. Spoiler: Both are Eastwoods with, like the third pairing, Eastwood directing and starring in a book adaptation for Ken’s pick while the latter pick of Tom’s also an adaption of book’s true events. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, bang-bang.
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HONKYTONK MAN
TGTPTU continues to play its old hits with Episode 5 of Season 14, its redux series season celebrating five years and
Originally discussed toward the end of the epic run covering all of Clint Eastwood’s filmography (Season 3, Episode 12), founding cohosts Ken and Jack invite the show’s newer hosts Ryan and Thomas in to session with fresh ears and silver tongues on this adaptation of the Dust Bowl era, vaguely veiled retelling of the final years of country wester legend Jimmie Rodgers novel by Clancy Carlile adapted by him and Eastwood into a semi-comedic bildungsroman road trip movie.
Two years prior to the creation of the PG-13 rating by the MPA (né MPAA), this Eastwood-directed and starring flick brings in Eastwood’s own son Kyle, roughly 14 years of age at the time, to play the nephew of a singer/songwriter who gets into all kinds of trouble with his honkytonk uncle man, from underage driving to poultry theft to jailbreaking and whoring (procured, not proffered) and contact marijuana highs and hit song composing between f-bombs and s-words and statutory rape.
Original ep guest Patrick drops in with some words of encouragement before the gents figure out on mic that this movie was Ryan’s other rewatch flick pick and the show gets on the road with recently promoted host Ryan having things to say about the music scoring; Thomas checking facts like a hockey enforcer checks bodies on the ice; Ken having a spell during which he actively hallucinates Eastwood wearing his hat backwards and suppresses coughs; and Jack, staying mostly awake for this retirement home movie that borders on a “lead paint flick” designation, brings the low energy by the bushel. Also of interest, pod fav Tracey Walter appears “right chair” in the movie and “black pill” is the word of the day.
Find out what these four have to say now that the dust has settled and chickens come home to roost and learn why this Depression Era coming-of-age and one final hurrah adult-teen road trip movie with musical act interludes might be one of the least watched of Clint Eastwood’s films.
CONTENT WARNING: The hosts say the titular “h word” a lot.
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THE WHALE
It’s the fourth episode of Season 14, and our hungry boys are still going for seconds with their rewatch of the recently covered THE WHALE (2022), original episode from TGTPTU’s initial pairing that started the epic scarf/Darren Aronofsky season (S11, E2, Airdate 2/17/24).
Jack sits out this first of host Ryan’s two redux picks, leaving Ken and Thomas to rehash the original episode. That episode marked an early, and soon to be recurring, appearance by Ryan (this was before he was made a provisional host, which was before his becoming a host and now teetering again on provisional status).
As a gentlemen’s agreement between Ryan and Thomas, Season 14 was premised on Ryan agreeing to have The Whale be one of his picks and to actually watch the movie being discussed this second time around, watching the movie being something he was reluctant to and didn’t do the first time around as our guest caller at the top of the ep points out. And it wasn’t just the caller who got upset by that original episode released just over a year ago: Ken, too, related how he regularly wanted to destroy his device during his relisten. Meanwhile, Thomas repeatedly repeats himself to say again and again how he was impressed by his ability to keep calm during that original episode, if he hadn’t mentioned it before.
TGTPTU retreads old ground in covering the adapted play’s script and the re-viewing experience (second time for Ken, third time for Thomas). With greater time elapsed, hosts are able to speak more on lead actor Fraser’s “Brenaissance,” or lack thereof, and to find new insight into the family dynamics and semiology. A deeper consideration and attention is given to Ellie, the teenage daughter role played Sadie Sink.
So what did Ryan think upon fully watching the film he’s reviewing? Wait, did he watch it before recording this episode? No spoilers!
Instead, know that Ken continues to support listening to the podcast at 1.5x speed and recommends getting insurance or at least the extended warranty on your phone in case the temptation to throw it against a wall in rage or smash it under your heel is too great. Thomas, if he hadn’t said so, was really impressed by his restraint that initial episode. And Ryan gets personal with addiction while Thomas is a little less calm and Ken gets mileage out of how often someone if coming, going, or knocking on the movie apartment’s door.
So find an old Zune in your junk drawer or an iPod or phone you won’t mind destroying, put your earbuds in, and come and knock on our door. (Three’s company too.)
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PIG
Season 14 continues serving up second helpings of movies previously covered on TGTPTU with PIG (2021). Jack’s flick picked this week pulls from his, Ken’s, and then recently added host Thomas’s post-Eastwood season CAGE UNCAGED (S4, air date 7/23/21).
As established in the original episode, the Nicolas Cage movie is set and shot in Portland, Oregon prior to it burning to the ground just shortly after shooting wrapped; while the city remains in rubble, the movie is remembered by the original hosts (Ken, Jack, Thomas) fondly as a film they returned to theaters post-C19 to watch in-person and honor the memory of the city that was, a place of underground restro markets and fight clubs. Now, nearly 3-1/2 years later, the hosts reconsider their predictions for Cage’s career and their responses to the film after watching again at-home.
Enjoy Ken, doubled-up NyQuil, and his takes on the flick, including recasting as a Charles Bronson movie, and his quoting Twin Peaks Season 3 (Lynch - rest in power); listen as Jack Letterboxd-checks Ryan about where he was the Summer of 2021; hear for the first time what Portland-area transplant TGTPTU’s new and increasingly provisional host Ryan thought of the quiet film; and celebrate with Thomas finding the secret snore-track on the DVD from Multnomah County Library.
Bon Appétit.
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DEATH BECOMES HER (1992)
For the second episode in TGTPTU’s Season 14 redux series, the film choice was Thomas’s. As he explains at the top of the ep, he wanted to do a Streep rewatch with recent co-host Ryan, specifically and especially a comedy. His first choice of Adaptation got nixed as it had previously been covered twice, first during the Cage and then again in the Streep season. So paired with the previous episode’s High Plains Driver, this week TGTPTU (re)presents SHE-DEVIL (1986), the laugh-out-loud revenge story featuring Roseanne Barr as—
Oh, apologies. We just lost half of our hosts and all of our listeners.
Okay, let’s try again.
For the second in our Season 14 redux series, the choice is Thomas’s and I guess we’ll go with DEATH BECOMES HER (1992), originally recorded in 2023 as Season 8, Episode 12. And although during that Streeps of Fire season surprise special guests and Jack recorded an excellent episode in all but audio quality, none of the three current hosts (Ken, Thomas, or Ryan) were on to talk Robert Zemeckis’s special effects comedy starring the co-billed Streep, Hawn, and Willis.
So grabs some fresh takes on the film (e.g., Death Becomes Her structured a TV dinner) as Ken beefs with writer David Koepp; Ryan with Zemeckis; Thomas with olds telling youngs how to spend money on food; and Jack with the ghost of Maggie Thatcher. Thomas also puts Jack on blast for not watching films he mentioned going to watch during the original episode’s recording while, don’t worry, She-Devil receives plenty of mentions throughout. And if that’s not enough ep for you ingrates, cohost throughout Season 8 and the voice singing the first three seasons’ intro songs, the illustrious and always opinionated Andi drops in briefly to say some unkind words of demotivation to the boys. Stay flaccid, y’all.
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High Plains Drifter (1973)
TRIGGER WARNING: HPD features sexual assault as a plot point.
Season 14, a new season with a hefty helping of old, comes to town as the TGTPTU hosts return to movies they undervalued and/or missed over the thirteen seasons, beginning with Jack’s pick to rewatch HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973). In that original episode released as S2, E6 in 2020, then hosts Ken and Jack were joined by a special guest, and now ongoing host, Thomas.
High Plains Drifter, Eastwood’s second directed film, left a bad taste in Jack’s mouth five years ago when the Eastwood character appears celebrated early in the film during a rape scene, one of arguably multiple instances of sexual violence in the film. As TPTPTU-celebrated director Alex Cox shares in a commentary track on the HPD Blu-ray, while such things were common in and to be judged as of their time, “It is hard to discuss these scenes in an enthusiastic way.”
Now five years older and perhaps some the wiser, Jack returns as a guest to weigh in on his rewatch and is joined by new and ever-so-provisional host Ryan who contractually has to relate any and all films shot in the early 70s to ‘Nam. This one is no exception.
Hear the frustration as Jack gets his head stuck in plastic bag and how half a decade can change one’s take on a movie.
Season 8 guest Maggie Thatcher also drops in to offer her two pence.
So paint the town red and get the pigshit outta your ears: it’s time to go full Western gothic with Malpaso Productions’ giants Eastwood, Geoffrey Lewis, and Buddy Van Horn.
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BOSS OF IT ALL (2006)
Well, as the famous playwright Antonio Gambini once wrote: All good things (and Season 13 of TGTPTU) must come to a close. And what better stage for which our four hosts to give their final thoughts and review of the four directors covered this 4x4 season, as well as their general opinions of Lars von Trier, than with LvT’s office comedy THE BOSS OF IT ALL (2006)? (Sorry, we can’t hear you response. This isn’t a radio show, and you’re not live on the air and it was a rhetorical question as The House that Jack Built would have been better, your author of the Show Notes knows, but the movie was banned from discussion by the TGTPTU’s boss of it all.)
Before LvT’s crippling depression set in (see previous episode covering 2009’s Antichrist), while mainly dealing with anxiety, and in-between his second and still unmade third installment of his America Trilogy, the enfant terrible and Cannes darling challenged himself with a genre he’d yet to, and hasn’t returned to, film: a comedy. While edited using his Dogme 95-influenced time-cut style, instead of hand-held camerawork by LvT himself The Boss of It All was another- first-and-only for the filmmaker in using Automavision. This LvT invented technique let a computer decide focus and movement as replacement for a cameraperson. Allowing the blame to be put on the computer instead of himself, LvT symbolically repeats the conceit of his comedy where the character of Ravn hires an amateur actor and playwright Gambini stan Kristoffer, played by Jens Albinus (mentioned previous ep), to pretend to be The Boss of It All, an absentee owner that Ravn created to pretend he did not own the company and to shunt unpopular decisions but now needs Kristoffer to pretend to be in order to sell the company. Hilarity ensues.
Join the fearsome foursome for their collective explorations of neoliberal capitalism while, individually, Ken predicts beyond the new year into the near future by betting LvT has sent drones back in time to shoot the comedy that will be Year 2025; Thomas nearly learns Danish; Ryan reveals he hates the look of a $20k engine inside a Datsun; and Jack stays awake for the entire film.
And keep listening past the wrap of our fourth movie by our fourth director to enjoy a surprise visit from a musical guest--the Boss himself--who introduces hosts’ LvT four-film rankings and Season 13 reflections.
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4X4: Lars von Trier #3
Breaking our own arbitrary rules just like Lars von Trier, the enfant terrible final director of Season 13’s 4x4, the TGTPTU crew for our final pairing breaks with release date order
From the throes of depression, LVT emerged to sink the world into his vision of grief, anxiety, and madness with the horror story of a couple (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg), their gendered power dynamics, and a totally normal depiction of married sex life. Not only are these two main husband-wife characters unnamed (something host Jack hates), with the exception their child who won’t survive the movie’s Prologue, all other characters are extras who appear with faces blurred, maintaining the isolation and focus on the archetypes of a controlling male and a woman who cannot find herself in the narratives of motherhood. Or, that’s one interpretation of many readings Antichrist allows as it questions, potentially: whether human nature is good or evil, if there is a different nature for women than men, how nature influences nurture, and if nature itself can be framed in terms of good or evil. Also left to questioning: the crew on this film as to whether LVT would finish the movie as his struggle with depression persisted.
But what is not open to question is how visually arresting the film is. In combination with the Dogme 95-inspired handheld camerawork complemented by the time-cut style discussed last episode with Dancer in the Dark (also with no preproduction rehearsals for actors), LVT introduces two visual styles new to his filmography. The first, shot in a repetitive extreme close-ups, is a sequence reminiscent of Aronofsky’s hip-hop montage (see Season 11) and 2024’s Cuckoo (see future Season 19 Singer vs. Singer) that captures the feelings of anxiety experienced, initially, by the wife. The second stylist tone, and the one that opens the tragedy of their neglected child falling from a window while they are having black-and-white penetrative sex, uses high resolution slow motion for gorgeously crisp imagery that later is repeated but spectrally layered as if in a dream.
From the hosts this week: Thomas demonstrates effectively totally knows what sex is; Ryan goes Cartesian; Jack receives a visit from the Sight and Sound people about putting Audition on his list; and Ken is a grump who wants LA to burn to the ground. Join one pair of hosts in praising the film or perhaps pose the question as a reporter for the Daily Mail did at Cannes (available on the Blu-ray) to LVT: “Would you please, for my benefit, explain and justify why you made this movie?”
What does it really matter? Chaos reigns.
Content Note: While a forest retreat where Dafoe’s character discovers a mommy deer, a helpful crow, and a talking fox might sound like a family-friend animated film, the genital mutilation in the film definitely veers toward adult content. So CONTENT WARNING: while you might enjoy this film as two TGTPTU hosts did, you’re not going to leave this film content.
Final Note: At the release of this episode (late-January 2025), Bob’s Big Boy in LA has been booked solid and the front of the building covered with flowers, but at the time of this episode’s recording David Lynch had yet to slip into the ether.
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DANCER IN THE DARK (2000)
Broadcasting live from 1964, and entirely in song, this week’s very special episode of TGTPTU covers Lars von Trier’s sixth film (but only our second of his covered this 4x4): DANCER IN THE DARK (2000).
It’s been over a hundred episodes, since Season 1’s Paint Yer Hereafter ep during our Clint Eastwood coverage, that TGTPTU has covered a musical. Dancer in the Dark, the third entry into Lars von Trier’s Golden Heart trilogy, follows LVT’s preceding two film both in being shot à la the Dane’s handheld style developed during TV show The Kingdom and in their general plot of a woman who sacrifices more than most would believe conscionable. And starring in Dancer as that woman, an immigrant named Selma with diminishing eyesight who takes on extra shifts at the factory and side work to finance her son’s secret surgery and slips into worlds of musical fantasy, is Björk.
At perhaps the height of her stardom (and somehow choosing to be in a relationship with TGTPTU’s previously discussed avant-garde director Matthew Barney), Björk in her first major movie role had a stake in the production and her own interpretation of Selma, which caused friction on set with the notoriously controlling Danish director, but likely contributed to her winning Best Actress at Cannes and the film the Palme d’Or. That friction may have been caused by her taking on an emotionally fraught role, especially in the second half of the film as Selma faces execution for a murder she did not intend for reasons she cannot share or else risk the wellbeing of her son. The situation onset may have also not been helped by alleged events that came out during the #MeToo, which while referenced in the episode can be found more fully here:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/bjork-lends-voice-metoo-campaign-detail-sexual-harassment-hands-danish-director-lars-von-trier-2150898
As to that handheld camera style, often held by LVT himself, its digital video and potentially jarring, anti-Hollywood time cuts are complimented with a second camera aesthetic reserved for the musical moments, called “100 cameras.” This technique involved using a hundred stationary DV cameras of lesser quality than the one used for handheld footage. The hope for this multitude of cameras was for them to capture a single take of a performance without different setups. These cameras were remotely operated on ten monitors hardwired with a toggle switch inside a special construction trailer hidden in the background of the shot. Alas, this hope, unrealized, for the capture of movement to allow smoother cutting than the time cuts LVT used for the handhold was not to be. Yet the hundred camera experiment would still allow for a different feel and aesthetic from the handheld footage, especially when their transfer to film used cathode ray tube (verses the sharper laser transfer for main handheld DV camera).
So tune in on your home system or your crystal radio on the a.m. dial, close your eyes, and let the dulcet voices of our four hosts’ song set against industrial percussion transport you up through your ceiling and into cinema heaven.
Clang! Bang! Clatter, crash, clack!
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ELEMENT
Welcome to a new year and a new director as TGTPTU’s latest 4x4 reaches its fourth of four directors: Lars Von Trier. We start with his first wide-release feature THE ELEMENT OF CRIME (1984). And so begins our wrap-up of Season 13 with water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…
Set in a post-catastrophe Europe (as will the Dane’s next two films forming his first thematic trilogy: Europa), The Element of Crime follows the memories under hypnotism of an investigator named Fisher who employs the methodology of his now disgraced mentor, namely, the-now-clichéd-but-then-fairly-metafictionally-fresh-idea-of-following-in-a-psychopathic-criminal’s-footsteps, to enter their thinking. And so begins a degeneration and headaches and sex atop the hood of a vehicle in order to track down the Lotto Killer, a serial murderer who targets young girls who sell lotto tickets and who might be closer than Fisher realizes.
Paired with next week’s Dancer in the Dark (the final film of LVT’s second trilogy) which will utilize an entirely different cinematic language, The Element of Crime is beautifully shot as it follows Fisher throughout the flooded landscapes of Europe lit by sodium light that create a sepia tone (and, in some cases, LVT will cheat by shooting in black-and-white and colorizing). The script originally focused on three encounters Fisher has with the fascistic police chief Kramer played by Jerold Wells, a British actor perhaps best known for his work with Terry Gilliam ending with Time Bandits (Gilliam’s Brazil with its own pneumatic tube future will come out the following year), but the world was expanded as LVT and his team of two Thomas’s (cinematographer Tom Elling, and editor and possible horse murderer Tómas Gislason) found new locations such as sewers and dilapidated buildings to expand Fisher’s search as he finds himself inside the pattern to the killings.
Listen in and get the skinny on LVT’s challenge to Steven Spielberg and masturbating monkeys from Thomas; hear about Ken’s beef with a German post-punk band ruining his joke; and scream along silently with Jack in frustration about the ongoing technical issues the once-and-future provisional co-host Ryan reliably brings to being unreliable.
The host unanimously agree: a beautifully shot movie with an amazing final image. Are you there? You can wake me up now. Are you there?...
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JUROR #2
It’s late-December and, foregoing our usual Christmas-adjacent movie watch, this year TGTPTU has a very special treat for the holidays. That’s right, listener, we bring to you our hot takes on what may prove to be Clint Eastwood’s final film--and even more likely his final theatrically-released film--JUROR #2 (2024) in time for its MAX streaming release so that you might celebrate with us and have yourself a very Merry Clint-mas.
Eastwood’s latest film with Warner Brothers continues what was a trend (excepting Cry Macho and The Mule) of not starring the star of the 70’s ape comedies and the Dirty Harry series, instead keeping Eastwood off camera and bringing in a murderer’s row (some pun intended) of character actors, including Nicholas Hoult from multiple Bryan Singer flicks as the titular Juror #2; Toni Collette from The Sixth Sense as Assistant DA Faith Killebrew who may put her career on the line to explore whether the person she put away for murder is guilty; J.K. Simmons from Postal (and likely some other films) as a former detective on the jury who also has suspicions of innocence; Cedric Yarbrough from Reno 911! as juror out for justice; Kiefer Sutherland from multiple Joel Schumacher flicks as Juror #2’s AA sponsor and lawyer confidant; and even one of Eastwood’s many children--Francesca Eastwood--giving the double bird in multiple, retold scenes Rashomon-style playing the once-and-future corpse.
From The Mule & Richard Jewell, cinematographer Yves Bélanger is back with Mark Mancina returning from Cry Macho for the score. And surprisingly and, as discussed, perhaps as a first for Eastwood as a director, the man who addressed an empty chair at the RNC and practices TM actually worked with the film’s writer to GASP! rewrite the script, an act host Ken who has seen and reported back on every Eastwood film takes to mean Juror #2 is the 94-year-old director’s swan song.
And the song is good! While the hosts conflict on where the movie lands politically in its cynicism and realism, all four of the folx talking in your earholes believe the moving picture a solid mid-budget thriller that harkens back to a time/era of pre-streaming moviegoing. Speaking of an era ending, Warner Brothers appears to believe the Time of Eastwood is done, releasing this latest film from the long-time collaborator in under 50 theaters seven scheduled weeks before releasing it for streaming on MAX.
So get your spoilers here, and listen to the end of the p for what starts as a rant against WB’s treatment of Eastwood and becomes men complaining about previews and ads before films that eventually ends with the four hosts recapping their 2024 movie-going experiences before awarding their best films of the year.
Also fun: Evidence is presented throughout by hosts Ken and Thomas for whether provisional cohost Ryan should be promoted to a full-time host. Congrats, newly fully-fledged host Ryan. Don’t rush to mess this up.
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4X4X3: WILLIAM WYLER CONCLUSION: THE COLLECTOR
TGTPTU wraps its third director of Season 13’s 4x4 with a discussion of a fourth and final William Wyler film THE COLLECTOR (1965).
Like The Big Country, its paired film from last week, The Collector began as a book, this one penned by John Fowles, author whose adapted novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman was covered by TGTPTU during our Meryl Streep season. The Collector was Fowles’ first published book, and Wyler took liberties with its epistolary structure to refocus the movie as, mentioned later below, a “love story.” And like last week’s western picture, The Collector is shot in glorious color, interestingly unlike Wyler’s preceding The Children’s Hour (problematic treatment of lesbianism? who knows? not your hosts, not in time for this ep, but maybe TGTPTU’s loquacious critic Annabel with offer their opinion on a future ep?) whose black-and-white film stock marked a departure from Wyler’s two preceding films The Big Country and Ben-Hur where in the latter someone may have died filming the chariot race and was also a book adaptation.
But as for The Collector, which was very provisional cohost Ryan’s ringer of a movie, that is, the one he pitched when he was sandboxing his 4x4 choice of directors because he was sure it would score, our final Wyler film under discussion misses the post leaving the hosts wonder whether it’s close enough to count as Wyler-essential (horseshoe puns aren’t part of The Collector, just your show note writer’s indulgence).
While a dark tale of sexual abduction and obsession, Terrence Stamp--the titular collector of butterflies but also of at least one woman in his dungeon--was told by Wyler that they were secretly shooting a love story and while Wyler utilized his old-Hollywood directing style by shutting out on set the relative novice actress Samantha Eggar in the role of abducted in this two-hander movie (a cast of seemingly four credited actors) so that she would feel the isolation her character locked away lost in the British countryside, the direction and acting can’t seem to overcome a rather flat script.
But stay tuned to the end to hear the boys rank their Willies, including from the first movie pairing how they prefer their dicks and for all four flicks hear them consider their manhood as Willy exposes it. Throughout the ep, listen for the tension in Ken’s voice as the other three hosts conspire to stretch the recording session into kickoff time with Ryan sharing stories from the streets and country clubs and Thomas striving for an episode parental advisory warning. And laugh alone as the hosts skip right past Ken’s allusion to The Sound of Music.
Next episode: A very special Clint-mas Ep for the wintertime, then back in the new year with the fourth of our four directors, the Danish Darling also known as Lars von Trier.
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4X4: WILLIAM WYLER. #3: THE BIG COUNTRY
(Note: Don't skip the theme song this week)
TGTPTU Host Ryan’s Willie gets a glow-up with THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), the third in our cultivated William Wyler collection.
Shot in glorious Technicolor on large-format Technorama to set it apart from the glut of midcentury black-and-white television Westerns, the big-budget film was not a financial success despite winning one, after being nominated for two, Academy Awards and starring at the time four-time Oscar nominee Gregory Peck in the lead role of James McKay, a stranger who comes into town (thanks, Ken! 50-50 odds on this plot by your own estimation), who reunites with his fiancée out on the American frontier only to be hazed by her father’s foreman Steve Leech played by Charlton Heston (no Oscar noms at the time but a big win the next year on Wyler’s next film Ben-Hur, which, btw, did you hear someone died filming the chariot race?) and later to fall in love/respect/mutual ownership of property with school teacher and Big Muddy landowner Julie Maragon played by Oscar-nominated Jean Simmons (not that one, it’s spelled differently, Thomas). The voice and the eyebrows, the legendary singer and thanks to this film an Oscar-winner, Burl Ives plays Rufus Hannassey, the patriarch of a rival company of cowpunchers who also uses the Big Muddy and gets into a scuffle with Peck character’s father-in-law-to-be. This spat spirals out of control, Peck’s character presents the view with a confident pacificist, and there’s a good plot summary on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
What you can’t get elsewhere is Ryan’s special intro with lyrics and deep cuts even more deeply researched for you cineasts, Thomas’s pun on seamen, re-ranking the Major, a Hal Ashby connection, and a surprise new ghost guest added to the pod’s lore and collection when Charlton Heston’s noncorporeal agent visits the studio. The four hosts on this 4x4 do their best to discuss performative masculinity and the connection to war while ensuring they get their f*cking auto-assigned EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING from their AI censors.
“Now tell me, you: what did we prove?"
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WILLIAM WYLER: PART 2 OF 4: THE DESPERATE HOURS
Paired with last week’s Detective Story, TGTPTU’s Big Willie Winter continues with THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955), another black-and-white film adaptation by William Wyler and a rare feature from the director to not earn a single Academy Award nomination.
Perhaps first home invasion picture, The Desperate Hours was adapted from a book that itself was inspired by tragic, real events (bonus fact: Richard Nixon would become involved in a lawsuit defending Time Magazine against the real-life victims who hadn’t agreed to a photo shoot in questionable taste at their former family home). Playing the lead heavy, Humphrey Bogart who with his character’s younger brother (played by Dewey Martin who, fun fact, was first married to a woman from Portland, Oregon and subsequently singer Peggy Lee) and a lug with more muscle than smarts on the lam take over a suburban home (bonus fact: the fictional house where the story takes place would later be used for the television show Leave It to Beaver) and soon butt heads with head-of-the household Daniel Hilliard, played by Fredric March, after seeing a bicycle left outside, a key indicator of a family with kids or, as those on the run know, prime hostage material. Wyler shows his mastery as a director getting an amazing performance from a child actor playing March’s son and providing depth and gravitas to all the characters.
Oddly cast from the script and the book, Bogart at age 56 was significantly older than the original story would have his Glenn Griffin (Paul Newman, who would play the role on stage before the film was released, was only 30 years old). But the performance is nuanced, perhaps measured by Bogart’s at the time being diagnosed with the cancer that would soon kill him.
During the course of The Desperate Hours (bonus snark: perhaps more accurately entitled The Desperate Afternoon Leading into that Night and on into Late the Next Day), Wyler ties in his recurring themes of pacifism, masculinity as performance, and the dangers of the police state in this film that, while feeling set-bound, it should be recalled that the play was written and performed after. All the same, a truck flips, a person is run over, and March has to pretend he’s drunk to disgust a visiting schoolteacher and save his family. Good stuff.
So give up sixtyish minutes for respite, ours will discuss it: flowers for Wyler, service ages for WWII vets, the elusive reality that started the Boomer Generation, and perhaps try a Bogart impersonation or two.
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DETECTIVE STORY
Season 13’s 4x4 has reached its 1/2way point with our 9th of 16 movies and a new director, provisional co-host Ryan’s pick of the 15-time Academy Award-nominated, 3-time Oscar-winning director William Wyler. This week, we cover the first of Ryan’s four curated Wyler flicks DETECTIVE STORY (1951).
Up for four Academy Awards, including Best Director, but winning none, Detective Story was Wyler’s 22nd talkie and his earliest we’re covering the for the pod (the directorial powerhouse also shot about thirty silent films prior the talkies and two documentaries during WWII when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces). Like many of Wyler’s works, the picture was adapted from a successful contemporary play and stars Kirk Douglas (Spartacus nine years later) in the main role of Detective Jim McLeod with stage roles reprised both by Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No eleven years later) as a booked burglar who goes (SPOILER) for a gun and by Lee Grant (featured on TGTPTU seventy-two years later and amazing always) as a flighty shoplifter in a performance that would win her Best Actress at Cannes.
As a play adaptation, Detective Story is staged almost as a bottle movie, escaping its second-floor New York City precinct set only to introduce main characters in the opening minutes and for an aborted car ride. Speaking of abortion, the film’s creative team couldn’t under the Hays Code. This silencing through censorship changed a major component of the play when adapted, namely when Detective McLeod who sees in black-and-white (morally, not just because of the film stock) confronts the messiness of the gray world in his pursuit of a doctor’s medical malpractice manslaughter during a birth gone bad and, subsequently, upon learning of his wife’s secret life prior to knowing him when she’d used the same doctor’s services for...
So join the boys as they kick off Big Willy Winter with Ryan parodying the Fresh Prince lyrics; Ken maps Inspector Harold Francis Callahan (a.k.a. “Dirty Harry”) onto Det. McLeod; Tom gets thirsty for Lee Grant; and Jack stays awake. And keep subscribing and following for next week’s pairing with The Desperate Hours.
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4X4 III: TSAI MING-LIANG 4: DAYS
TGTPTU’s back to finish (cough) the job handily (cough) with a happy ending (oh boy) for our coverage of director Tsai Ming-liang, coming together (really, dude?) to get every ounce our four gents have to offer, pulling and tugging (grow up) on each’s points and hot takes for this fourth and final 4x4 film of Jack’s offering (was that a pun?) called, in its English release (are you serious?), DAYS (2020).
If you like washing your vegetables in your bathroom or the feel of burning paper during your non-erotic electroshock massage sessions and also like to take things slow, boy-howdy do we have a film for you. Or if you like your massage erotic, well, this possibly sad, possible love story might be up your rainy, post-apocalyptic Bangkok alley (or busy street). And for fans of the previously covered Goodbye, Dragon Inn who enjoyed its minimal subtitles due to its paucity of dialogue, get excite: There is even less talk and zero subtitles in this latest Tsai Ming-liang joint.
Naturally, actor and muse Lee Kang-sheng returns. Also billed, Anong Houngheuangsy in his debut film. Lee Kang-sheng plays an older dude who goes to the city for an obscure medical treatment for his back. Anong Houngheuangsy plays a younger guy on his grind (and occasionally Grinder?). About an hour into the film, these two hook up, a gift is exchanged, and the two have a quiet, postcoital meal outside a restaurant. Then they return their separate, silent ways after about forty-five minutes of shared screentime. And with just minutes to spare in this movie just over two hours long, we watch Anong Houngheuangsy’s character at a bus stop as he sits and waits and waits and waits until, wait for it, what appears in BMI and skin tones to be a herd of Americans passes by.
Listen along as the foursome wraps up (and Thomas declines to rank) Tsai Ming-liang’s four covered movies. EPISODE SPOILER: Ken reveals for perhaps the first time to English-speaking audiences the sitcom origins of Tsai Ming-liang’s films.
Next ep, we begin the first pairing of the four William Wyler films chosen by Ryan: Detective Story (1951) and The Desperate Hours (1955).
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**2024 HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!
NOTE: Approximately 35 punk rock band names are concealed in these show notes. Play along!**
It’s the end of October, which means the four misfits of TGTPTU are back with a special Birth-/ Halloween/Election Day episode, interrupting their regular Season 13 4x4 programming to bring you a tale fitting this celebratory trifecta: auteur director Jeremy Saulnier’s punk-horror-antifascist classic GREEN ROOM (2015).
As a low budget, mostly practical, minimally computer effects (dare one say “NoFX”?) horror/suspense movie, Green Room follows a gang of four bouncing souls in the fictional band the Ain't Rights as they tour by van the Pacific Northwest, stealing fuel and perhaps sick of it all when they find themselves less than jake at the end of their bankroll. In desperation, they take on as the replacements a gig at a club full of laces and braces.
Unlike the typical band road trip setup where their fan base may begin to lag, wagon might break down, or they become pennywise and pound foolish, the members of the Ain’t Rights’ world turns upside-down after playing for that crass, bad religion of white supremacy, i.e., those subhumans we call skinheads, when, post-show gathering their gear, the green day of these four adolescents turns rancid upon discovering a murdered young woman in the titular green room.
Like World War II’s Op Ivy, Ain’t Rights’ members no doubt scheme and raise a black flag of no surrender to escape the compound, but these youths prove only a minor threat and their plan all fugazi when it encounters the racists’ experienced violence. Even when these four self-ascribed “misfits” are helped by a violent femme (played by Imogen Poots, friend the one found murdered), the stooges are outclassed and outsmarted.
Soon the joy division occurs, rending the group who has bandmembers played by Anton Yelchin (rest in power), Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, and Callum Turner come face to face with real murderers and violence, including a skinhead band’s strung out lead singer but also a stone-cold bearded Patrick Stewart in charge who has attack dogs sic viciously the youths with a sloppy, realistic violence unlike one sees on the television. The clash is epic as the Ain’t Rights soon accept without fear suicidal tendencies to try to get out of the jam.
And unlike other movies in the horror genre, these youth of today are lack raging hormones (a.k.a. “ramones”?). Yes, Saulneir’s, a.k.a. Jay Dawg’s, film lacks onscreen intercourse. But while no sex, pistols and violence galore. And for those sensitive to cussing, little guttermouth language is used.
So join us, if not for Halloween, then for Birthday XXI of descendent/offspring Jack and/or Election Day (R.I.P. all the dead Kennedys) for our discussion of this film not part of an AFI list.
Also throughout the ep, Ken, Jack, Thomas, and Ryan explore themes of coming of age and of guilt for accepting money/work/recognition in the face fascism, but describing these are harder for yours truly to conceal punk band names here within show notes, except perhaps to say it’s one big, repeated love fest for the flick, or, hmm, might one be permitted to say “circle jerks”?
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This week’s Season 13 4x4 entry is GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2003), the third of four films curated by guest host Jack to represent the filmography of director Tsai Ming-liang. The original TPTGTU boys are reunited this ep with the return of host Thomas but divided in their appreciation for what is billed as Tsai Ming-liang’s comedy-drama.
As promised in last episode, this third film by the Taiwanese slow cinema director takes on a lighter tone than his previously discussed movies, a tone that at times even borders on, or some might and do argue achieves, comedy. It’s a movie that allows the viewer to watch others watch a movie, to question the dimensions and positioning of moviegoers in this old Taiwanese movie theater showing its final film before closing, or to observe with mirth a Japanese tourist subtly cruise other males by switching seats and wandering the theater’s halls and bathrooms, or to observe a woman with a limp bring her coworker a bun to eat after cleaning out urinals and stalls.
For those who do not speak Mandarin and are uninterested in reading subtitles, good news! There are only about a dozen lines of dialogue, mostly at the end between one of the elderly actors who starred in the titular 1967 martial arts movie Dragon Inn and some other movie patron lingering in the theater lobby after the movie’s final showing.
Actor Lee Kang-sheng, a.k.a. Tsai Ming-liang’s heterosexual muse, returns as the movie’s film projectionist in a role with no lines but in one climatic (sarcasm) scene determines with the help of fortune teller machine whether he is a Cold Fish or a Casanova (for you Simpson’s fans).
Is this film a comedic experience playing off cinematic expectations garnered from Western films? An endurance test? An homage to earlier cinema? A reminder to all filmmakers to not show a better film in their film? Or some awkward chimera of the above? Listen as the hosts take up positions awkwardly close to each other for long periods of time with their wee-wees out.
Unfortunately, the pod’s best film critic ceded their seat at the table to Thomas back from his Western European tour. You are missed, Annabel.
WARNING I: Do not approach this film expecting laugh tracks or comedic buttons.
WARNING II: Do not operate heavy equipment while watching Tsai Ming-liang films.
WARNING III: Do not allow the dissenting voice to write an episode’s show notes.
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4X4 2: TSAI MING-LIANG and "STRAY DOGS"
Our four film investigation into slow cinema master Tsai Miang-liang tackles his 2013 masterpiece STRAY DOGS.
If you can vibe to a five minute opening static shot of a woman brushing her hair while her children sleep beside her in a charred husk of as bedroom where even the sheets on the bed look like ruin before cutting to a nearly ten minute long shot of a depressed homeless man in the lashing rain of Tai Pei holding a sign at a busy intersection, we have the movie for you! It also includes: cabbage desecration, alcoholism, abandonment of buildings and humans, and a house built inside of a nightmare's nightmare (this is NOT a comedy).
Joined by guest Annabel once again, Ken, Jack and Ryan get into a fairly dense and deep convo about Stray Dogs. Co-host Thomas is once again absent due to his covert foreign work as a CIA super spy (who we just outed?) and he is missed.
Slow Cinema is an important part of international film and we are delighted to discuss one of the contemporary greats this month.
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4X4 III: TSAI MING-LIANG: REBELS OF THE NEON GOD
It's the beginning of our four film dive into Queer Asian New Wave master Tsai Ming-liang. Released in 1992 and made shortly after Taiwan's "quiet revolution" from a dictatorship to democracy, Rebels of the Neon God stars the director's muse, Lee Kang-sheng (who would go onto being in every one of his films and the two live together in... interesting circumstances) as a Cram Student who becomes obsessed with a small time hood after a brief act of violence in the street, who drives around on a scooter in Tai Pei, smoking cigarettes, playing video games, walking around his partially flooded apartment and being on the outside of polite society. It sounds like a crime film but, trust us, it is not. Tsai Ming-liang has the eye of an artist and the patience of Rip Van Winkle in holding some of his compositions - something he will go deeper into as his career grows.
Picked by S13 guest host Jack, we get a tutorial on Taiwan, Tsai Ming-liang's career and antecedents to his slow cinema masterpiece before next week's STRAY DOGS.
WARNING: Due to the difficulty of being able to see Rebels by a few hosts, we do talk about access to foreign or obscure films in the streaming era (spoiler: we are not fans).
WARNING II: Co-host Thomas is not on this episode because he was in Europe legally watching Matthew Barney films at the Louvre when we recorded. He will return in two weeks.
Special guest Annabel also shows up and slow cinemas us all.
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THE LONGEST YARD
This week, the TGTPTU boys return to prison for more fun and games, this time stopping this 4x4 season’s first round drafted director Robert Aldrich’s run with inches to go. For the final film of the first four and to cap the Aldrich coverage, Ken drafted THE LONGEST YARD (1974).
Following Ryan’s fumbling the intro and benched as provisional cohost, this season’s four host run the tape back to explore Aldich’s plays in prototyping the sports underdog movie and somehow manage to avoid speaking too ill of the Sandler 2005 remake.
The first of the four initial films of Season 13 not to be based on a novel, The Longest Yard was a smashing success and a standout in an era of cinema that defined both the sports underdog and spirited prisoner genres. As Ken and Thomas cover this ep, Aldrich needed the win after the failure of Aldrich Studios (introed last episode).
For your amusement this episode, Ken spits fresh lyrics during his Burt Reynolds Rap (hopefully not censored by the parole board) before providing summations on Aldrich’s career and films accompanied by odd ambient squeaks this week provided by Thomas’s dog.
Note that next week will not be the start of four films by Lars von Trier but will instead be Rebels of the Neon God (1992), Tsai Ming-liang’s feature film directorial debut.
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THE DIRTY DOZEN
Season 13’s 4x4 marches on with the most ill-mannered, ill-disciplined hosts that it’s ever been you’re your displeasure to meet, sergeant. That’s right, the dirtiest voices in the TGTPTU’s army are getting filthier covering Robert Aldrich’s THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967).
It’s a story of twelve convicted army men, who don’t bath, until they do and the man chosen to whip them into shape: Corporal Lee Marvin fresh off an Oscar win in the role of Major Lee Marvin a.k.a. Major Alcohol a.k.a Major John Reisman. Their mission: to kill Nazi officers, women, and, if you got them, children and cute puppy German Shepherds too.
The WWII picture was immensely successful for Aldrich. Wade through episode commentary and takes about the movie’s plot structure and whether this is secretly a sports movie and how Aldrich recast around actors who were leaving the film and declining scenes to get to a teaser at the end of the episode for a further discussion of Aldrich Studios, the endeavor this film allowed Robert Aldrich financially when he sold his stake in The Dirty Dozen for an endeavor that will run (and run into the ground, spoiler!) in the interval between, and be cause for, next week’s film, The Longest Yard. And then wait a week for more information. (Or use the internet, ya geek. Or get a book from your local library {shout out}!)
For those familiar with the bit, famously Francophobic Jack takes exception to the line “free the French, kill the Germans.” Meanwhile, the boys snicker and make references to Ernest Borgnine’s secret to eternal youth (available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I_PeLNzxNQ). And for major stans of the cast, Ken pulls back the curtain to reveal the pre-record ritual rhyme the hosts chant as a mnemonic to execute a perfect show.
And where is Donald Duck?
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What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
TGTPTU Season 13’s 4x4 continues with the second half of its first Robert Aldrich pairing, WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962).
Like last week’s entry, WEH2BJ is another black-and-white film adaptation of a novel, this one truer to the source material, at least to cohost Thomas who read Henry Farrell’s 1960 novel of the same title (in other words no changing out a briefcase of drugs for a nuclear weapon or the star of your book series an unlikeable asshole as had happened in Aldrich’s adaptation of Kiss Me Deadly). Outside minor changes in date and storytelling, both novel and film follow the story of the two sisters in their autumn years: Jane Hudson, a child actress of stage fame whose star dimmed well before her sister Blanche Hudson’s movie career was on its meteoric (to keep with astronomical idioms) ascent until a car accident with a drunk Jane driving left Blanche in a wheelchair and in her sister’s care. While acrimonious, their relationship turns horrific when reruns of Blanche’s films lead to fan mail and her sottish sister Jane to exact a lifetime’s worth of revenge on her housebound sibling.
Yet the meta story of the film separates it inexorably from its source material as Aldrich casts, and to his credit completes a film, with both divas alive with both eyes, most their hair, and out of jail: Bette Davis as the nostalgic Jane and Joan Crawford as Blanche. TGTPTU hosts cover the Oscar shenanigans and personas of these two great ladies of early cinema. Speaking of, WEH2BJ was nominated for five Academy Awards. This was Davis’s tenth nom, and at the time she would have had the most Oscar wins for Best Actress if the picture had won her her third. Unfortunately, the film won only for an obsolete category (Best Costume Design, Black-and-White). And (strikethrough as appropriate one of the subsequent adverbs after listening to the discussion) deservedly/somehow garnered Victor Buono a nomination as Best Supporting Actor.
Stans of the pod are forewarned that a Season 1-3 bit returns thanks to the evils of Davis’s character’s choice of dishes to feed her sister. Other listeners are forewarned that there will be much discussion of the can’t-believe-it-exists films Trog (1970) and Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1972).
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Kiss Me Deadly
Welcome back to TGTPTU, and welcome back in Season 13 to both former cohost Jack and to the 4x4, the latter making its third season appearance! For TGTPTU stans reading this, able to recite the following explanation by heart, go ahead and save yourself half-a-minute and skip the rest of this paragraph. But for you sad majority of population Earth, a 4x4 is where the crew of TGTPTU covers four films (two pairings) by four different creatives. Simple. And with the return of Jack and the recent promotion of (although still provisional) cohost Ryan, for this season each host will be selecting one director to (strike as appropriate: introduce to / impose upon / reunite / endear) the other three hosts (to / with).
This third iteration of the 4x4 kicks off with Ken’s choice of director Robert Aldrich, pairing this episode’s KISS ME DEADLY (1955) with next week’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (whatever happened to our style guide? should I end this sentence with a second punctuation mark after the question mark? when did “what ever” become one word? Ken, cut all this out. Thanks, buddy. Editor of the Year.).
Liberally adapted from the Mike Hammer novel of identical title by A.I. Bezzerides (yes, AI was writing fiction before ChatGPT) that doesn’t even include a nuclear device, Aldrich’s version of KMD helped put the nail in the noir era’s coffin by giving the viewing public an unsympathetic protagonist driven by greed and the need to break things. This film relatively early in Aldrich’s career would earn the respect of, and help inspire, Aldrich’s contemporaries in the French New Wave, although the all-American, not-quite-nepo baby Aldrich would balk at their reasoning why the film he made was important.
Listen to this inaugural episode’s rough start as last season’s bits are retired, Thomas confronts Ryan on his pronunciation of “noir,” Ken remembers fondly when this talkie came out while Jack finishes watching the film during mic check, and Ryan lists off an impressive amount of homages to KMD before the foursome debate whether the “h” is silent.
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PAPRIKA
For the final episode of Season 12 Nolan Void, the TGTPTU gents get timey-wimy as they repeat last season finale with another film from anime director Satoshi Kon also allegedly plagiarized by the season’s director, this time Kon’s final flick PAPRIKA (2006) and Nolan’s Inception rather than Black Swan stealing from Perfect Blue (Kon’s first film, almost as if TGTPTU were considering a temporal pincer movement on the Japanese director who tragically died far too young after only four films).
This week, rookie host Ryan tries his hand at his first 60-second summary of this simple, straight-forward, extremely grounded plot of Paprika based on the 1993 novel of the same name. In short, the film takes place in an unexplained near future with technology that allows its cast of characters to share dreams and their experience therein blurs the waking world with a plot involving corporate espionage and a Japanese CEO, but in all the ways that Nolan’s Inception does not.
After their PAPRIKA discussion finding no merit in the accusations of Sir Chris ripping off Kon, TGTPTU roundtables to rank Nolan’s dozen flicks from folly to finest (although all four find all twelve quite good). Former host Jack returns from hammer murder accusations to join in the fun, counterbalancing fellow aspiring-Zoomer Thomas’s rankings with an alt take for their entire generation. Ken has the boys contemplate future Nolan franchises, Ryan offers an astute comparison between Miami Vice vs Heat for two of Nolan’s films, and we get the first mention of Mike, Thomas’s side piece. And if that weren’t enough, the “you may know us from other podcasts” bit gets officially retired.
Oh, and there’s more: Weird AI presents its original Oppenheimer composition two weeks past deadline and the next season of the pod is announced (which, if no one promises to listen, will cover Bryan Singer’s oeuvre; otherwise, we’ll return later in the summer for another 4x4).
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**The One With The Dream Stuff Inside Oppenheimer
INCEPTION**
This week TGTPTU reaches the timey-wimey center of Season 12 as the Nolan Void temporal pincer pairing movement ends with INCEPTION (2010), Sir Chris’s studio-backed super-successful non-supes cinema experience and his first Oscar nom for Best Picture--and finally winning pod-fav Wally Pfister his Best Cinematography trophy after being nominated for his previous three Nolan flicks.
Inception tells the story of blah-blah-blah, some (too many?) rules, not really all that dreamy, but hella cool. And to tell that story, Nolan brought in no one. Just himself, his first (and his second Oscar-nominated) solo screenplay since Memento and, since guerilla shooting on the mean (and friendly) streets of London for Following, his first property that’s entirely original (not based on another’s idea, unless the late-80s, two-season TV series Freddy’s Nightmares counts).
Fall asleep with cohosts Ken and Ryan as Thomas’s synopsis goes too long, wake up with their proposed needle-drops, trace when DiCaprio’s Dom isn’t wearing a wedding band, and wonder at the terror posed by the children’s song with the eternal question of Row-Row-Row-Your-Boat: What if life is but a dream?
Just like Dom’s ageless kids, we’ll be lurking around for a dramatic conclusion next week, which we welcome you to join us for discussion of Paprika as we wrap Season 12 like we did Season 11.
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TGTPTU reaches the beginning of the end of Season 12 as the team covers THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), the penultimate NOLAN VOID film in our temporal pincer pairing movement.
Rebounding from the only moderate success of The Prestige, Sir Chris creates a mega-blockbuster with The Dark Knight, his follow-up to Batman Begins and a film that compresses at minimum two movie’s worth of story into one film in order to prevent promising Warner Brothers another sequel. (Spoiler for last week’s episode, Nolan makes a third Batman film that 75% of TGTPTU hosts think is great.) The Dark Knight is also a film that changed how the Academy compiled its Best Picture Oscar category.
Oddly, this season’s final pairing matches last season’s release years for Aronofsky’s pincered final middle pairing with The Wrestler released the same year as The Dark Knight and Black Swan the same as Inception. (No comment back from Darren’s people on his feelings for having developed so much of Batman Year One for the Warners only to be led into making his The Fountain for the Bros in 2006.)
Unfortunately, further research this episode was stymied by Jack stuck in France fighting extradition back to the States and unable to make our final The Dark Knight trilogy episode. Fortunately, our three consistent hosts are pretty good about guessing facts about flicks, like this pairing the first the entire season both shot by the great Wally Pfister (what? hardly even know her) with The Dark Knight being Nolan’s first film with scenes shot on Imax (but ignore Thomas’s misinformation about Inception also being shot on Imax; he’s like a dog chasing a car or a British colonialist burning down a jungle or brunch.)
Listen close, take lots of notes, and discover what words The Joker finds funny; how to make visual art summaries for an auditory medium; and why TGTPTU remains the Pacific Northwest’s still least listened to film podcast.
Why so serious?
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This week, the TGTPTU’s untrademarked “temporal pincer movement” catches up with the boys as THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012), Sir Christopher Nolan’s conclusion to his Batman trilogy, gets covered before his penultimate The Dark Knight. Sir Chris has been quoted as saying, “There are no good third sequels, basically—Rocky III maybe,” and this week Ken, Ryan, and returning former host and editor Jack gang up to defend the film against Thomas’s lackluster appreciation for the film that ends the Nolan franchise.
Additional to Sir Nolan and Dame Emma Thomas expressing feelings that they were content with where and how The Dark Knight ended, production of a sequel was complicated by the death of Heath Ledger as Joker, a major draw of the preceding film and the basis for a rough idea Sir Nolan had if he decided to make a third film. Instead of whatever might have been, the Brothers Nolan wrote a movie about Batman’s retirement inspired by the French Revolution as told by Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities that brought us Nolan-versions of Catwoman (Anne Hathaway who will star in Interstellar, Nolan’s next film and part of TGTPTU’s previously pairing) and Robin (Joseph Gordon-Levitt who had starred in Inception, Nolan’s previous film covered in TGTPTU’s next and final pairing).
It’s a race against the calendar clock as Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has to heal himself from a back broken by big baddy Bane (Tom Hardy) in order to escape an underground prison-hole in the desert by making a leap of faith and back to Gotham before an atomic bomb set to explode in a mere five months can go off and destroy the city he’s sworn to protect, a city with the majority of its police squad trapped underground, a city judicially administered by a kangaroo court presided over by Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) while Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is laid up in a hospital bed working with the Boy Wonder who consults the Gotham permitting office and discovers Bane’s nefarious plan. Or, as Jack suggests, the plot is simply a proper British gentleman with stiff upper lip seated cross-legged on the plush carpet of his country manor smashing action figures together.
Listen for technical difficulties band-aided on mic by the show’s former editor Jack; to Ken lose his cohosts with American football jokes; and bat scrotum. Also for your ears’ pleasure, each host cycles through their impersonation, allowing the listener to judge who does the best Bane impression… for you.
See you next week for the exciting concluding pincered pair of Dark Knight and Inception. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
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TGTPTU Book Club returns this week with Sir Christopher Nolan’s first and only adaption, i.e., THE PRESTIGE (2006), with bookworm and repeat guest Shannon joining from The Bunker.
Post-Batman Begins, Sir Nolan returned to his love of puzzle-box stories to bring to life the work of another Chris (Christopher Priest) while casting a third Chris (Christian Bale) as a rival magician to a non-Chris (Hugh Jackman) to make one of top three magician rivalry movies wide-released in 2006.
Sir Nolan omits the present-day framing story around Priest’s novel to focus on the period and the rivalry between magicians Angier (Jackman) and Borden (Bale) as the former seeks revenge on the latter for his wife’s death (yes, it’s another rare Nolan movie with a dead wife but
Uncontroversially, Scarlett Johansson is poorly used as the rivalling magicians’ assistants while David Bowie gets one of the best entrances in cinema history portraying Nicholas Tesla, a man with his own bitter professional rivalry and a last name that is impossible to say 18 years after this movie premiered without thinking of the car, much like what once beset my great-grandmother Edsel and our uncle PT “Cruiser” Koral.
Listen along as Jason Statham pops in, award-winning thespian Michael Caine is put on blast by our special guest, and the hosts break down why this might be the most “Nolan-y” Nolan film Sir Chris has made.
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INTERSTELLAR
In this week’s episode of TGTPTU, director-writer-producer Sir Christopher Nolan adds space to his repertoire of time-bending narratives as we venture deeper into The Nolan Void with INTERSTELLAR (2014).
The Nolan brothers return with cowriting credits, Nathan Crowley on production design, and Lee Smith as editor on this tale of global dust bowl devastation and human hope through American derring-do as the U.S.’s secret space program saves the planet (or at least itself, or perhaps only some of its elite, it’s not clearly defined) by reaching again for the stars (celestial bodies, not celebrities). But new this time to the Nolan crew (at least in this entropy-forward timeline of your hosts’ dimension, that being the same in which these notes are composed), the making of Interstellar brings on a new cinematographer, replacing pod fav Wally Pfister who’d been part of the creative team since Memento with the bear of a man and no slouch himself: Double Hoyte (aka Hoyte van Hoytema). Hoyte will stick with Nolan from this film on through the remainder of the later films already covered this season (again, frame of reference being an entropy-forward continuum) and who’ll provide this week’s Nolan innovation to shooting on IMAX when he lifts the somewhere just short of 100 lb (45 kilo) camera to film handheld.
With Interstellar, Sir Nolan becomes the marketing of the flick and a multidimensional threat as he joins hard-ish science fiction with his timey-wimey narratives. His rewrite of Jonah’s script, which was owned by Paramount and originally set to be directed by Steven Spielberg (a notable, still-living, Boomer American director; see our Season Six for further info on this influential movie brat), introduced into the story sacrifices of duty and fatherhood, the vagaries of time, and Matt Damon and omitted the original version’s People’s Republic of China robots and the discovery of fractal alien creatures who absorb sunlight to instead have its protagonist Cooper return to his daughter (and their farmhouse rebuilt as a museum on a spaceship playing unused Ken Burn’s documentary footage, it’s a whole thing) as a man-out-of-time with his robot (actually, Sir Nolan prefers the term “machine”) ex-soldier buddy TARS. Oh, and possible predestination with interdimensional book-nudging and coded dust.
Special for this week’s ep, listen to hear first-time pod guest Champlain Amy’s hot takes before they’re censored by the alphabet soup of the deep state; host Ken’s longest Tarantino rant to date; other host Ryan fake it ‘til he makes it; and third host Thomas stump hard for CASE in that ongoing, friendship-ending, family-shattering, international debate between Team CASE or Team TARS.
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BATMAN BEGINS
Cast aside your Batnipples! As a certain Patrick Bateman lookalike once said, “Well, a guy who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues,” and this week, TGTPTU tackles these issues in Sir Christopher Nolan’s entry into the franchise that would define his middle career with BATMAN BEGINS (2005). Former cohost Jack returns from France to talk Bat and comics with a Gen Z take. Meanwhile, Ken, Thomas, and Ryan grapple and claw and melee in difficult to parse action sequences to control the mic and effuse about this first of the three Batman films covered this season of NOLAN VOID.
After Insomnia, Sir Nolan’s efforts to get his and Jim Carrey’s project (a Howard Hughes’ late-in-life insanity film) off the ground (or out the hotel penthouse) were stymied by Michael Mann developing The Aviator, a film that would take off with Scorsese as captain. Without a script of his own or film in development, Nolan would meet with the Warner Bros (and maybe their sister Dot) to launch a “reboot” of the Batman franchise with Hollywood’s resident comic book aficionado David S. Goyer.
Together with production designer Nathan Crowley who’d worked with him on Insomnia for Warner Brothers, Sir Nolan worked to create a realism beyond what had come before in comic book films. In fact, per Nolan, “Everything we did was about being in massive denial that there was such a thing as [a comic book movie].”
Casting Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne (Batman takes nearly an hour to appear onscreen) and making use of his split persona from American Psycho, Bale is joined by a series of heavy hitters, including Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Rutger Hauer, pod-fav Ken Watanabe, the estimable Mark Boone Jr (back from Memento), and, perhaps oddly cast and not-to-return to the franchise, Katie Holmes.
Exclusive this week! Hear the Batman Baggins summary delivered by Ken but written by our guest director, someone really famous and from New Zealand and whose name rhymes with Jeter Packson, who may have confused Nolan’s film with his own take on rebooting the Dark Knight as so many directors took a stab at the reboot post-Schumacher Schumacher Schumacher (hopefully you weren’t reading this aloud before a mirror). Also, enjoy this week an experimental sound mix to cover for Thomas’s brief absence from the mike as he deals with a dog releasing mind-altering gas.
So listen and continue to download and listen through the remainder of Nolan Void, for there will be a Batman in the pairing for all remaining episodes. What, you ask? Will the hosts this season get caught by their very own temporal pincer movement by reviewing The Dark Knight Rises before The Dark Knight? Stay tuned to upcoming and exciting (perhaps, anything’s possible, but most at least one of the following four episodes will be moderately amusing) episodes to find out.
Now please forgive us. We have to return some videotapes. D-FENS.
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NOLAN VOID 3.5: WET 'N WILD WWII
Join TGTPTU for an hour, a day, a week—the approximate runtime of, how long it feels listening to us talk for, and the delay in releasing the episode due to internet issues, respectively—as we respectfully cover Sir Christopher Nolan’s DUNKIRK (2017) as part two of our third pairing in our NOLAN VOID season.
Surprisingly his shortest major release film, Sir Chris employs his time bending chops to retell the heroic(question mark) story of England’s bravely running away, away, bravely turning their tails and fleeing from the Nazis and the French through three intercut and overlapping tales with a cast strictly from the British Isles: young WWII soldiers played by mostly unknowns (with one notable Millennial icon exception) over a presumable span of a week try evacuating the French beach; cutie Barry Keoghan on a civilian boat sent to help evacuate Dunkirk over a day tries surviving a head wound caused by shell-shocked Cillian Murphy while Mark Rylance keeps a stiff upper lip and carries on; and, finally, over an hour of flight due to leaking fuel, Tom Hardy (Bane on a plane) provides air support shooting his machine gun from his Spitfire: pew-pew-pew (and if the movie feels like a run-on sentence, then perhaps this verbose paragraph is justified).
At approximately half the cost of INTERSTELLAR (preceding film yet to be discussed this season), Dame Thomas considers this a low-budget production of only $100M that used real equipment from the era for an air of verisimilitude. As mentioned last episode, experiences gained shooting on water will prepare the Nolan team for the wet work in TENET (subsequent film already discussed). Despite or because of this historical piece’s bending the war genre with little dialogue and absence of enemy combatants (Germans) portrayed, Dunkirk earned Sir Big Daddy Time his first Oscar nom for director but (spoiler for our second episode) not his last.
TGTPTU recommendation: Dunkirk is best watched in IMAX if you’re gonna.
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NOLANVOID FIVE!
For the first in our third set of NOLAN VOID pairings this week, TGTPTU hosts Ken and Thomas take on the surprisingly linear INSOMNIA (2002) with newly appointed co-host Ryan to introduce a new drinking game guaranteed to kill any participant: take a dose of an alcohol every time Kenneth says something about not wanting to compare Nolan’s adaption to the 1997 Stellan Skarsgård-starring Norwegian original… and then does exactly that.
Perhaps one reason for the linearity of Nolan film starring three previous Oscar-award winners (Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank) was it has the unique distinction of being his only film without a screenplay credit by. Rather, scripting the adapted Insomnia was the work of Hillary Seitz who is also credited with writing a grand total of three movies: a never-released dark comedy Early Bird Special (small role with Jon Hamm), Eagle Eye (starring Indiana Jones’ son later of Transformers fame), and, in 2021, The Unforgivable (starring Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Vincent D’onfrio who we all know as Thor in Adventures in Babysitting), which received limited release and was Netflix top film for two weeks before being bumped by a film starring Mother!, Margaret Thatcher, Madea, Willy Wonka, Howard Hughes, and Hellboy (yes, of course, we’re mentioning the unmentionable Don’t Look Up).
Returning from Memento are both Wally Pfister as cinematographer (and will stay with Sir Chris until DK Rises) and Dody Dorn as editor (who leaves for Ridley Scott flicks after this) while old-timer David Julyan scores again (having done so previously for both Following and Memento).
This week, along with Ken gripes regularly comparing Nolan’s to the original, in a surprising twist Ryan and Thomas find themselves aligned in enjoying this Americanized thriller.
That Chris Nolan, don’t sleep on him.
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This week TGTPTU goes deeper into Season 12’s NOLAN VOID with TENET (2020), a title spelled the same forward and backward, and the progenitor of TGTPTU’s “temporal pincer movement” description of our podcast’s episode pairing methodology.
Instead of spoiling the episode with notes, here’s a transcript spoiling cohost Thomas’ plot summary:
We’re following one main person, played by John David Washington, who gets his guy but when he returns to get rid of bombs, he himself is saved by someone who is not from his crew nor the police nor of the terrorists but has a noticeable red charm like for identifying airport luggage on his pack.
Unfortunately when he gets back to the van, Washington’s undercover character appears to have been made, and so he’s getting his teeth pulled out at a train depot and is unable to take his cyanide pill but his buddy is able to slip him his and our protagonist is not dead but awakens with new teeth and has passed his test as the suicide pill was not real. Instead, it was all test; he’s now considered dead and can pursue a deeper danger that is only known as “Tenet” (and interlocking fingers).
Because of arms dealing or something, Protagonist meets his handler Neil (Robert Pattinson) who knows all about Protagonist, including that he prefers cola to soda water. They slingshot themselves onto an impenetrable building to meet an arms dealer who informs Protagonist the real baddie is a Russian oligarch who’s getting info from the future.
Protagonist travels to brunch with Michael Caine who plays Michael Caine to inform Protagonist that his entry point to the oligarch is his wife Katherine “Kat” Barton (Elizabeth Debicki) who had an art scam she’s being blackmailed for by her husband, so she meets Protagonist for dinner and husband oligarch (still unseen) isn’t happy and his goons arrive to take Protagonist into the kitchen to rough him up but instead get the business end of a cheese grater from Protagonist.
So now we’re at like Minute 40 and it’s a two-and-half-hour movie.
Oh, Branaugh’s got a fitness tracker, the radioactive material from heist is really the final piece from the future’s doomsday device that might not be set off in the future as Branaugh now has all the pieces and that fitness tracker is a deadman’s switch so Washington’s Protagonist and an army with turnstyle technology on a boat and Pattinson’s Neil get divided into two teams (one going forward, one backward) to raid the facility with the device while Debicki’s Kat is on a yacht with Branaugh to keep him from suiciding, although she wants to kill him.
Neil swaps sides between forward and backwards during the attack to save the day and, after saving the day because it hasn’t happened yet from one timeline maybe, needs to go back to the past—and his likely death (although Protagonist keeps this information compartmentalized).
Neil lets Protagonist know they will be friends in the future because that’s where he’s from and Protagonist notices a red doohickey we saw from the Opera scene. Movie continues because there was a cell phone and we find out that Protagonist appears to have mastered timey-wimey things because he saves Kat from being killed by the arms dealer from earlier to protect the Tenet secret by killing the arms dealer first, and everything’s fine and there are no repercussions. Yay!
Oh, spoilers. But you already knew that. Or you will.
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MEMENTO
Our Nolan Void Season continues with the first of our second pairing MEMENTO (2000). Many of you might suspect we would try writing these show notes in reverse, but, as that’d be too meta for us, we’ll leave that to some other aspiring writer with memory problems we know.
Speaking of self-referential memory problems, Memento was actually the film that couldn’t find distribution that Steven Soderberg claimed could be the bellwether of the death of the 90’s indie cinema wave (see our erroneous show notes for FOLLOWING, Season 12, Episode 1).
Listen past the awesome intro song for a surprise guest giving the plot synopsis this week, dogs barking not on command, and, to the eagle-eared listener, the return of the squeaky chair.
Sir Nolan upon reflection stated there was a greater leap between his first feature Following and Memento than any between project. He had to trust another behind the camera (Wally Pfister, who’d shoot this and the next six Nolan films and win an Academy Award for INCEPTION) and had union rules and budgeted shooting schedules (losing some days when relocated from Canada to the States). Eventual Dame Emma Thomas would not be the executive producer as she was working at a different company. Memento also would star professional actors, a stellar lineup perhaps thanks to the early interest of Brad Pitt in the role of the Leonard instead played by the amazing Guy Pearce and costarring two actors hot off the success of the MATRIX: Carrie-Anne Moss and Joey Pants.
Written concurrently with his younger brother (no “Sir”) Jonathan Nolan who’d develop his premise into a short story “Memento Mori” published in Esquire, the movie Memento follows an amnesiac and heavily tattooed protagonist Leonard (the former attribute part of but latter absent from the short story) as he pursues seeking revenge on his wife’s mysterious killer, having himself somehow contracted a condition similar to Sammy Jenkins, a man who allegedly retain all of his memories up to a specific moment of trauma but afterwards could form no new memories. But is there more similarities between Jenkins and Leonard than his memory triggered by the tattoo “Remember Sammy Jenkins” allows?
To unravel this story told backwards and to find a deeper understanding as its paired with next week’s TENET, cohosts Ken and Thomas are again joined by the provisional host Ryan, who also recorded the intro/outro music.
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Season 12, Episode 2 continues TGTPTU’s paired exploration of the films of Sir Christopher Nolan with his most recent film OPPENHEIMER (2023).
Running the risk of being considered by critics a “bomb,” Sir Nolan boldly moves away from genre pictures for his first biopic of a man who’ll/’d (pardon the time-wimey-ness) get mention in Sir Nolan’s preceding film (and anteceding in our season of NOLAN VOID coverage), namely, TENT: Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) who led the development of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos but also may have stolen a fellow professor’s alcoholic wife (Emily Blunt) and had an affair with a murdered Communist (Florence Pugh) all the while really getting caught in the craw (as they say in New Mexico) of Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). This cast is supported by a murderers’ row of actors, including Matt Damon, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke, Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Gary Oldman, and over a dozen other familiar faces.
Having left Warner Brothers, his home since INSOMNIA, after its handling of the release of Tenet, Sir Nolan’s first and only subsequent feature was released in the Summer of 2023 during the cultural portmanteau phenomena of BARBENHEIMER. Continuing a tradition that has not yet started in the podcast’s coverage (due to the nature of its temporal pincer movement), the film was shot largely (in dual senses of the term) on Imax, which because of the noise associated with these massive cameras meant Nolan would pull again from his experiences of his first film FOLLOWING to record dialogue separately at the time of the shoot. For flashback scenes of Strauss, special black and white Imax film stock had to be created.
Listen as in real time host Ken finds effective storytelling tips, co-host Thomas discovers his new drag name, and provisional host Ryan learns how to engage the mute button.
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CHRISTOPHER NOLAN SZN!
FOLLOWING SEASON PREMIERE
For Season 12 Nolan Void, TGTPTU continues its iconic practice of pairing bookended movies from a director’s filmography, first and last until we pair the middlemost. This season we cover the twelve movies of the granddaddy/infant son of the temporal pincer movement himself Christopher Nolan, starting with his inaugural feature: the independently-made, London-shot B&W film FOLLOWING (1998)
Initiating a series of noir films leading to greater projects, the technically-minded Nolan leans into his budget limitations, writing a script whose three timelines will allow him to edit around missing or unusable footage filmed on weekends with novice actors (excepting his uncle and future Wayne Enterprises board member professional British actor John Nolan) and crew from University College, London where young Nolan studied English Literature (and met his future wife). Aside from working fulltime for a commercial film agency creating corporate videos, the other reason for weekend shoots was the self-financing pool of limited funds available after each paycheck to purchase and develop more 16mm B&W film with Nolan operating the camera and his wife Emma Thomas serving as an extra in addition to her professional role as producer. Sensitive to budget and realism, Nolan states in Criterion Collection commentary that the choice of a hammer instead of gun was due to fake guns when wielded in indie films often looked fake but a fake hammer has right weight.
Nolan would end up moving to the States to enter Following into festivals where it received much buzz but no distributors, leading Steven Soderbergh at the time to comment: “And I watched it and came out of there thinking ‘That’s it. When a movie this good can’t get released, the [the 1990’s independent movie wave is] over.”
Special thanks this week to Ryan for returning to the podcast to discuss this film (and less so for its paired OPPENHEIMER coming next week) as well as extra editing by co-host Ken for splicing back into linearity other co-host Thomas’s bit of jumbling up his commentary into three styles of slurred speech: his normal, as he’s increasingly intoxicated, and after biting (literally) his tongue while making a “Stop, Hammer time” joke.
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Our Darren Ssarfinale!
Season 11 of The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly concludes on an odd note, both mathematically and colloquially, as the boys wrap up their Darren Aronofsky season with Episode 9 covering PERFECT BLUE (1997), joined by frequent guest Ryan.
The debut film of famed anime and short-lived director Satoshi Kon released one year prior to Aronofsky’s debut (PI), Perfect Blue is an adaptation of an edgy YA thriller novel popular in Japan. Taking liberties with plot, Kon deepens the twists of the source material, adding in his own layers of the nascent internet anxieties and troubling the idea of identity visually and thematically, and in so doing turns what was meant as a Japanese OVA into a feature released worldwide.
TGTPTU takes on directly the movie scuttlebutt sites posting slander since Requiem for a Dream (with a resurgence after Black Swan) and claims Kon himself on occasion supported (although he would die at age 46 months prior to Black Swan’s release), that The Scarf lifted shots and scenarios directly from Kon’s first masterpiece, and the strident conclusions the hosts and guest reach are definitely not going to stun and probably won’t impress you, our listener.
But stay tuned afterward for Ken, Thomas, and Ryan’s rankings of Aronofsky’s eight-film filmography, a teaser for next season, and this season’s bestowal of the much-coveted Squeaky Chair Award.
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DARREN ARONOFSKY CH. 4 E2: THERE'S A LITTLE BLACK SWAN ON THE SUN TODAY
Season 11’s temporal pincer movement by The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly draws to a close with tricky reflections on BLACK SWAN (2010). Listen to our opinions double, pirouette, and morph during Chapter 4, Episode 2, covering our final Darren Aronofsky movie but not our season’s finale, with No-Longer-Special Guest Ryan and his squeaky chair understudy.
Long-time Aronofsky collaborator and pod-fav cinematographer Matthew Libatique returns to shoot this tale that’d be like if Dostoevsky’s “The Double” mated with Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake” and their kid was kept in a Barbie-pink child’s room as her mother painted her portrait and put mittens on them to keep them from scratching at the feathers erupting from their skin when they won the part of Odette and Odile.
Reality fractures (as do opinions during the pod) for Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers in her Oscar-winning performance, causing consternation for one host and glee for others. Ambiguities extend and multiple as Aronofsky claims the ending tragic while Portman believes it triumphant and Host Thomas in front of a car. Is this a story about womanhood and autonomy? The dangers of obsession? The need for a well-balanced meal?
Trigger warning for hangnails and those who have allergies to shattered glass.
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SCARF SEASON: ARONOFSKY 7
Alright, brother. It’s the smackdown, drag-out matchup you’ve been waiting for all season long as THE WRESTLER (2008) jumps into the ring with The Good, The Pod, and the Ugly for Chapter 4, Episode 1. In this final chapter, we watch with teeth and sphincters clenched tight on the edge of our folding chair seats as the subject of Season 11, director Darren Aronofsky, make his comeback with a comeback star.
For the first and only time in his professional career, Darren “The Scarf” Aronofsky tags in a new camera partner, cinéma vérité cinematographer Maryse Alberti. The Scarf also sets aside pen and paper, giving the writing credit to another while allowing for script punch-ups from his main star, the long thought retired leading man, the ex-professional boxer, the small dog aficionado, the one, the only, Mickey “Whiplash” Rourke.
But Aronofsky’s not done building his veteran team of newbies. For the wrestler’s love interest, he’ll recruit Marisa “My Cousin” Tomei, a former winner of the big belt (the Academy Award), garnering her a nom again as well as Rourke. And starring as Rourke’s estranged daughter, Evan “Once & Again” Rachel Wood.
And just you wait, all you wrestling fans, all you who appreciate watching performers go a little crazy, who want to see athletes going to the mat and love the choreography of the ring, for The Wrestler is only Part 1 of this final chapter. Next week, it’ll go head-to-head, round-after-round with pod fav: Black Goose.
Are you ready to rumble?!!!!!!
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ARONOFSKY SEASON! NOAH
Chapter 3, Episode 2: So the Voice of Kenneth spake unto The Good, The Pod, and the Ugly, and it sayeth: Let there be NOAH (2014); and all the peoples then of the world rejoiced for Darren Aronofsky for his blockbuster that bringeth forth He of the Scarf his firsteth and onlyeth picture to be No. 1 opening weekend at the box office.
As the temporal pincer movement winds down, guest Ryan returns with an extra squeaky chair to discuss this bold and big-budget entry into the Aronofsky canon. According to research by Thomas, Paramount’s marketing budget for Noah was over $100M, nearly as much as it cost to shoot the film, airing advertisements during commercial breaks in the Super Bowl and the 2014 Winter Olympics. This Easter weekend release would also have YA and graphic novel tie-ins.
Russell Crowe, who as offered the lead role of The Fountain, plays the titular Noah, Anthony Hopkins plays his grandfather Methuselah, and Logan Lerman is a joke to Ken’s begats for some reason.
Ari Handel returns to produce and puts quill to parchment with Aronofsky for their second corroborative writing credit (their first being Chapter 3, Episode from last week’s The Fountain), Matthew Libatique shoots, and Mark Margolis plays a Watcher (a stone angel fallen from Heaven during the Creation that lusted for Earthly women and would father the Nephilim because—you know what? not worth your time reading). And Jennifer Connelly returns (last seen in Requiem for a Dream).
Listen closely for the glee in Thomas’s voice as the hosts comb through repetitious verses of Genesis desperate for the dry ground of understanding after being flooded with Lord of the Rings-style imagery for 2 hours and 18 minutes. Stay awake for when his dogs reacting to Ken’s fond desire to adopt an armadillo dog. And hear Ryan suggest that Tubal-Cain had some good ideas.
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THE FOUNTAIN
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and no one expected Darren Aronofsky to follow up the success of Requiem for a Dream with a genre-breaking, scyfy-romantic-period-spiritual-medical drama (kinda? maybe?) entitled THE FOUNTAIN (2006). Join your hosts Ken and Thomas along with returning guest Ryan for Season 11, Chapter III, Part A as they drink from The Fountain, a movie garnering no award nominations and would, after wrapping, temporarily break up Aronofsky’s partnership with cinematographer Matthew Libatique.
Aronofsky’s biggest (and only) flop to date, The Fountain concerns three timelines. These intercut stories are populated by then-girlfriend Rachel Weisz and then-between-Wolverines-and-musicals Hugh Jackman (in three iterations of the name “Thomas”) where they play Spanish queen and her loyal conquistador servant, a terminally ill wife and super-science primate neurologist, and a tree (or apparition) and hairless yoga enthusiast in a bubble travelling to an exploding star. These past and future timelines may or may not exist, perhaps part of a pretentiously hand-written, leather-bound manuscript by the dying Weisz-wife character, who left the final chapter incomplete for Dr. Tommy to compose after her death.
Pod-favorite actors Mark Margolis returns as a priest and Ellen Burstyn returns as Dr. Tommy’s boss and tree/cemetery owner, while Clint Mansell returns to score the film. The movie also marks the beginning of Aronofsky’s ongoing writing partnership with Ari Handel.
Join the hate watch as our three cineastes yell in unison from across timelines: “Finish it!”
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SCARF SEASON #4: GARDEN OF EDITS: mother!
Rejoin Ken and Thomas along with guest Shannon in the rebirth of Season 11, Chapter II as they tackle (figuratively) Darren Aronofsky’s MOTHER! (the 2017 film, not the parent of Darren!).
After the big budget success of NOAH, and having not made a movie with a female lead with whom he was romantically involved in well over seven years (if rumors about Black Swan are true), Aronofsky returns to lower budget filmmaking with a bottle story about JudeoChristian terror or the inherent evils of humanity or perhaps a home improvement show gone terribly wrong, casting Jennifer Lawrence as the titular Mother.
SPOILER! ALERT! Mother defends the house she’s rebuilding for Him (not a pronoun but the name given in the credits to the unnamed Javier Bardem), her romantic partner in a tasteful callback to late-90s Eastwood film in age discrepancy! Him’s house was badly burned and Him is a poet. All is idyllic except Him can’t write. When “man” played by Ed Harris intrudes upon their remote home mistaking it for a B&B and then man’s wife “woman” played by Michelle Pfeiffer shows up looking for her smoking doctor husband and gives Mother a hard time for not being a mother and not being a drunk like her and Mother wants them out of the house.
SPOILER! ALERT! CONTINUES! Mother eventually gets her wish and, after being ignored, has angry staircase sex with Him, which results in a wanted pregnancy and his ability to complete the poem. Soon, visitors arrive, as it turns out that Him has quite the cult following, including his publicist played by Kristen Wiig in a very unfunny role. Eventually, Mother gives birth, her baby is ripped to shreds, and she is burned alive and harvested as a crystal before it all starts over again. Hey, we warned you there’d be spoilers!
So follow along as the three mortals recover from REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and unpack Aronofsky’s latest (but earliest discussed by Ken and Thomas as Season 11 matches the first with last films moving inward in a temporal pincer movement) allegory, Shannon gives a new title to BLACK SWAN, Thomas pointlessly cites passages from critical theory books, and Ken sings the 1988 Danzig classic.
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DARREN ARONOFSKY CHAPTER TWO, PART ONE:
Deuce by you! Deuce by you! Whoa #2! REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000), Darren Aronofsky’s second film, follows these three simple rules for success:
#1 Adapt a novel you love. – As a college student, Aronofsky fell in love with Hubert Selby, Jr.’s LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN (1964). He’d owned a copy of Requiem but hadn’t finished it until he lent it to his producer (Eric Watson) wanting something to read while on vacation who said they had to make it into a movie. Talk about worst beach read ever!
#2 Reuse successful techniques of your first film. – Experience the return of the Snoricam and hip-hop montage but now in color! Experience Clint Mansell’s movie score, but with strings! And bring back your actors from Pi: the concerned neighbor (Samia Shoaib) now cast as a nurse, your less concerned neighbor (Ajay Naidu) as a mailman, the retired math professor (Mark Margolis) as the pawn shop owner, your conspiratorial Hasid (Ben Shenkman) now as an admitting psychiatric doctor, the weird singing man on the train (Stanley Herman) your “ass-to-ass” man at a disturbing orgy scene, and the star of your first film (Sean Gullette) as a sleazeball psychologist paying his patient to sleep with him.
#3 The third thing? Well, that’s a Tappy Tibbons secret. Be excited, be-be excited!
Hear returning guest Shannon’s take on the first 2/3rds of the novel. Hear the ache in Thomas’s voice for the lapsed runner’s high after ankle injury. Hear Ken howl in desperation and grind his teeth for his 49’ers come Super Bowl Sunday.
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SCARF SEASON CONTINUES WITH THE WHALE!
Thar she blows, Part II of our initial Darren Aronofsky pairing for Season 11 of TGTPTU: THE WHALE (2023). Special guest Ryan returns to continue cohosts Ken and Thomas’ temporal pincer movement of working our way from first and last films sequentially inward and he provides a dissident and dissonant voice to the cohosts’ The Whale love song.
Aronofsky’s showy editing techniques and techno score of his first film PI take a backburner in his latest film, a bottle story adapted by and from Idahoan Samuel D. Hunter’s play of the same title. Central to the story and the subject of heated discussion is the extreme obesity of its gay protagonist played by a straight man in a fat suit, the marketing of which could be problematic.
The film would gain Hong Chau an Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Liz, a nurse/bff/sister-not-quite-in-law to Charlie, played by Brendan Fraser, his first time nominated for and his first Academy Award win (Best Actor), kicking off talk of a Brenaissance. And for the makeup transforming Fraser into the shut-in, online college literature professor Charlie estranged from his daughter played by Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame, the film would receive a second Oscar for Makeup and Hairstyling.
Additional Note: The Oregon coast is cold.
Final Note:
This episode stinks.
This parody is so dumb.
You’ll love/hate our takes.
(Hey, that’s a haiku!)
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Aronofsky Chapter One Pt. One: Pi
TGTPU SEASON 11 returns to form with our classic (or outdated) temporal pincer movement to cover the entirety of (yes, all eight) wide release films of director Darren Aronofsky.
Hosts Ken and Thomas with guest Ryan - pause, pop pills, make a note - kick off the inaugural episode of the new season with Aronofsky’s first feature film, PI (1998), a black-and-white low-budget masterpiece clocking in at an economical 1hour 23minutes & 45seconds.
Pioneering an editing technique Aronofsky coined “hip-hop montage,” the film - pause, pop pills, make note - scored by Clint Mansell and shot by Matthew Libatique, both of whom will collaborate with Aronofsky on five later (75% of Aronofsky’s) films, follows the obsessive life of Max Cohen, a super anxious math genius, played by Sean Gullette bearing a strong resemblance to the lead singer of Live once he shaves his head who - pause, pop pills, make note - may have uncovered a secret pattern to the universe. Getting pressure from both Wall Street in an effort to game the system with a new super microchip and a cabal of Hasidic Jews looking for mathematical meaning in the Torah - pause, take pills, see wild and crazy stuff that may not be real, make note - Max and the viewer are left to wonder: Is the pattern he finds is a gift from God or a curse? All this cultivates in, well, among this week’s three hosts, an argument on how the movie ends, the merits of trepanning, which of Aronofsky’s scarves is the best, and if this first film to allow for internet downloading might have also originated crowdsourcing.
Also note is our new format: TGTPTU will be releasing episodes discussing just one movie (instead of having both movies of our pairings released in a single episode). We welcome feedback.
Also note (before drilling your skull): this summary’s precisely 314 words.
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SEASON FINALE! SIDE HUSTLE 15: WARREN BEATTY! SHAMPOO and DICK TRACY!
Our epic tenth season comes to a close in a flurry of bug hair, blow dryers, primary colors and the horror of Madonna acting with Hollywood legend Warren Beatty. Most legendary actor/directors we might talk about from his era (Beatty was born in 1937) need a separate Wikipedia page for their filmography and biography but not Beatty! He has one of the most carefully selected filmographies of any star of his era. Why is that?
First up, as actor (and co-writer and producer and probably somewhat directing), the classic SHAMPOO (1975). Directed by Hal Ashby and curiously taking place on election day 1968 (which has an interesting, less thematic reason than we thought going in), about a philandering haridresser played by Beatty, who beds more than a few ladies (including previous Side Hustle director Lee Grant, who won an Oscar for her role here) while running around LA trying to get the money together for his own place. It's kind of like one of those gambling movies where the dude is running around making bets to cover losses and trying to avoid the guys he owes money to while maintaining some kind of stable relationship. Surprise! It's 1975 and, as funny as some of the material is, it ends very 1975 (and not the band. Sorry). This is one of the definitive Beatty films and performances and we go deep on the behind the scenes and what it all may be about.
As director we could have gone Reds, but we really wanted to watch and talk DICK TRACY (1990), which is bananas. What's the deal with this movie? It's the one where all the adult male actors have hideous prosthetic makeup except Beatty and features Madonna - we love Madonna but whew, her acting! Yikes. One of the most interesting comic strip films of the era. Does it hold up? Was it good to begin with? Take a listen.
BONUS: Season 10 quiz; we talk the Beatty-starring disaster Ishtar (which both hosts like) and other Beatty tidbits. Ken and Thomas come to some controversial opinions about the Beatty mystique.
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THE COLOR OF MONEY and SEA OF LOVE
Directors with a day job for season 10? What about the most important person behind the scenes NOT the director? The writer.
RICHARD PRICE was a renowned author before trying his hand at screenwriting, which resulted in a "calling card" script that everyone loved but no one wanted to make into a movie. Classic Hollywood. As we discuss going over Price's career, he eventually ended up adapting the novel The Color of Money (1986), the sequel to The Hustler. Director Martin Scorsese (what ever happened to that guy?) and Price ended up chucking Walter Tevis' source novel and what we see onscreen is mostly Price, a pool hall road trip with Tom Cruise, Paul Newman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (no joke, what happened to her?). How the writing of this film informed Price as an author is almost as fascinating as the movie itself. We get into it.
In 1989 Price's script for Sea of Love was an immensely important film for star Al Pacino, who'd been in actor jail since the disastrous Revolution (1985), which was preceded by a number of financial disappointments . Pacino has since cemented himself as one of the all time greats but in 1989 a lot of people thought he was washed - going through the motions and box office poison. Sea of Love reestablished Pacino for the big screen and still stands as one of his best roles and maybe sexiest? Has Pacino ever been sexy? Price's script is so good it almost seems embarrassed to have a serial killer plot and we get into that dynamic.
Screenwriter and frequent guest Erik and Ken geek out over both films and Price in general. We talk a lot about directors on this show (many would say too much) so it is fitting we give a little love to the lonely art of writing and the weird art of writing for film.
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CHRISTMAS ADJACENT 4: QUADRUPLING DOWN ON OUR LEAST POPULAR SPECIALS!
Happy Holidays from all of us at The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly! We bring you three films that reference Christmas a few times but are in no way "Christmas Movies" filled with the spirit of the season and all that shot. Nope. It's "Christmas Adjacent" and, given our downloads for these, no one likes them but us!
#1 (LUMP OF COAL): INVASION USA. Conceived by, and starring, Chuck Norris as the only man who can fight off a US invasion completely centered in Florida (take it, please!). This is a nasty, sadistic film that, in 1985, broke with Norris' normally whitebread heroism and suffered a bit initially because of it. It didn't do too much in theaters but, we Americans and our love of being scared by any sort of Other about to take away our liberty knows no bounds and it became one of the best-selling VHS tapes ever as a result. It has a guy who kills dudes by jamming his gun down the front of their pants. A highwater mark for cinema! Ken brought this to the office Christmas party because he is a sadist.
#2 (YOU WERE GOOD THIS YEAR!): SNEAKERS (1992). A smart, purely entertaining ensemble techno-heist classic that holds up! Redford, Straitharn, Poitier, Phoenix, Akroyd, Kingsley, McDonnell are all part of one of the best-oiled team movies ever made. It is ridiculous how fun this is. When films like this go off like clockwork it makes you wish all films would spend as much time as this one did in development cracking the plot. Thomas brought this one to the Christmas potluck and is a champ for it.
#3 (A FEW LOSING SCRATCH-OFF LOTTERY TICKETS FROM UNCLE PHIL): LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996), which breaks our "no Shane Black" rule but that is ok. We did Dial Code Santa last year which pretty much broke our other rules. As the song in I Think You Should Leave says, There's No Rules. Made from a script that someone paid FOUR MILLION DOLLARS for. If you thought a female-centered action movie starring the beautiful Geena Davis (who hadn't and still hasn't ever opened a movie) and Samuel L Jackson directed by a Finnish man who, yeah, directed Cliffhanger, but also Die Hard 2 and The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine, curiously cribbed from Robert Ludlum and cheap paperbacks by a depressed Shane Black, would be a resounding success off a 90 million dollar budget, pack your bags and move to Hollywood! A studio somewhere needs you to fail big with the crap you greenlight and receive a golden parachute when it is sold to Pepsi. Erik brought this one to the community caroling event and makes a few arguments in its favor.
Happy Holidays in whichever way you celebrate. And if you don't, they are Christmas adjacent so these are right up your alley because they don't have much to do with Christmas other than what time of year they take place (spoiler: December).
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SIDE HUSTLE 13. Norman Mailer: TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE and CREMASTER 2
Every ranking must have its worst, and this week’s episode aims to shoot to the bottom of the Season X bucket with Norman Mailer as our chosen actor-director. TGTPTU welcomes back its junior cohost Jack after a long hiatus to join us on this atrocity to good sense as we cover two unwatchable films: the first, TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE (1987), nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards and seven Golden Raspberries and unwatchable for its wildly shifting tones throughout melodramatic flashbacks within flashbacks, and the second, CREMASTER 2 (1999), the gorgeously shot fourth entry in artist Matthew Barney’s five-part Cremaster Cycle unwatchable as its viewing restricted to art museums and its limited series DVDs selling for $100k.
Shot on location in Provincetown, the occasionally great Ryan O'Neal (Barry Lyndon, Paper Moon) plays Tim Madden in the Mailer written and directed, Golan-Globus production of Tough Guys Don’t Dance. The 80’s fever dream makes both St. Elmo's Fire and The Bonfire of the Vanities feel rewatchable as protagonist Tim Madden parades through amnesia, flashbacks, adultery, and homophobic reactions in a convoluted plot involving alcohol, triple-crosses, swingers, murder, cocaine, psychics, swingers, alcohol, cocaine, tattoos, cocaine, and swingers with a little sex and booze and Columbian marching powder sprinkled in. While Mailer had directed three improvisational movies in the 1960s (including that one where Mailer bit off a piece of Rip Torn’s ear), Tough Guys Don’t Dance demonstrates why it was Mailer’s first and only narrative film to direct.
Also bypassing narrative conventions, Björk’s ex- (their breakup the subject of her 2015 album Vulnicura) a.k.a. artist/director Matthey Barney’s filmic work traverses worlds alchemic and ordinary and was well worth the plane ticket to bring TGTPTU’s three hosts back together for a screening of the film at the museum where it was showing that one time around when the recording happened and definitely not a pirated copy of this impossible to rent or purchase film. Follow our hosts’ dulcet voices as we recount the film’s nearly wordless journey from séance to bees covering in a woman in a plexiglass corset penetrated by a large phallus to a death metal drummer covered in bees on the phone with a gas station attendant the latter of whom will be killed by Gary Gilmore (played by Barney, subject of Mailer’s Executioner Song) before the camera heads to a chanting city and a rodeo before heading into a warehouse for a magic show. Norman Mailer plays Harry Houdini and his performance, well, we’d normally ask you to judge for yourself but there’s no way in hell you’re ever seeing this film, so your loss.
So listen along as we describe one film you don’t want to—and another you can’t—watch. This week’s show will leave you yelling heavenwards alongside Tim Madden in Tough Guys Don’t Dance after he discovers his wife is having an affair: “Oh Man! Oh God! Oh Man! Oh God! Oh Man! Oh God! Oh Man! Oh God! Oh Man! Oh God!”
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SIDE HUSTLE 12: RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH AIN'T NO DUMMY
Only four episodes left in our epic season ten, talking side hustles. While we mostly have discussed directors better known as actors, this week we talk Richard Attenborough, who, if not for Jurassic Park, would probably be better known as a director today. But he was a great actor! And not just when playing billionaire softy grandpas that accidentally upturn the biological order of an entire planet because he wanted his grandkids to have cuddly raptors. He was legitimately a great actor.
BRIGHTON ROCK (1948) is the first of two movies based on books with scripts credited to the author of the books themselves, and not some schmuck (this one is by Graham Greene. Directed by John Boulting, Rock has Attenborough in one of his greatest roles as Pinkie Brown, a nasty hood on the rise in the titular town of Brighton between world wars. It's a fairly grim film with Attenborough seething malice at nearly every turn. He's so good!
MAGIC (1978) was a bit of a breather for Attenborough, the director, as he worked to get his passion project, a tiny indie film no one ever saw called GANDHI, made and re-teamed with producer Joseph E. Levine and author/screenwriter William Goldman, both of whom worked with Attenborough on 1977's epic A BRIDGE TOO FAR, for something quite small by comparison, a thriller about a magician who mysteriously rises to fame once he brings a dummy, named Fats, into his act and then decamps to his old hometown right before his big breakthrough to stalk a high school crush. The magician, Corky, is played by Anthony Hopkins and the crush by a dressed down Ann-Margret. Fats generally steals the show as things go from creepy to violent. It's great! Co-host Ken read the book and spills on all the changes made from page to screen (spoiler: not much). Ken and Thomas discuss the rest of Attenborough's career as one of the few great actors who moved away successfully from acting to be full time great directors.
Bonus: Fats joins us!
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SIDE HUSTLE XI: Tom Savini, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Night of the Living Dead (1990).
Spooky season episode! We are joined once again by screenwriter and horror expert Erik to talk some Tom Savini, an icon to generations of horror fans for his legendary makeup work along with his larger-than-life persona that has made him and his mustache instantly recognizable.
We chose two films that both need parentheticals because they were either remade or were remakes themselves. The movie business, amirite?
DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) is one of the great horror films. Top ten... probably top five... easily top three all time! Oft imitated, never matched; the Citizen Kane of zombie movies. We talk a lot about that film’s genesis along how it came to be by its brilliant writer/director, George Romero. We’re fans.
Then the remake of Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead, Savini’s film directorial debut in 1990.
There is a story behind this film. A sad one. Maybe a cautionary tale. Ken and Thomas chew on the bones of this one while our guest Erik slowly shambles away.
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SEASON X EPISODE X: SIDE HUSTLE: UNDER THE CHERRY MOON and TRUE STORIES.
Kierkegaard said: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Such is the tale of Prince, hot off the heels of starring in Purple Rain (1984), taking directorial duties on UNDER THE CHERRY MOON (1986) a black and white historical musical romance that must be seen to be believed. We are joined by songwriter, podcast theme writer Ryan and Streep season veteran Andi to discuss one of the most deliciously disastrous directorial debuts of all time! Prince is one of the great singer/songwriter/performers of the the last century and he proves conclusively that being a great musician in no way translates to any skill behind a movie camera. Cherry Moon is a buffet for lovers of creative implosions. Prince, as Kierkegaard would have possibly hoped, moved forward as fast as he could from this film and ignored any understanding from its making other than never making another film again.
Then Andi taps out for regular co-host Ken for TRUE STORIES (also 1986), Talking Heads lead David Byrne's peculiar musical mosaic about life in a small Texas town. Ken, Ryan and Thomas are all big Talking Heads fans (no surprise) and put this in perspective of his entire career. It's a fun movie. John Goodman lip syncs and dances. Shut up.
SPECIAL NOTE: This was recorded the week before the Talking Heads announced they were appearing together in a discussion on stage in Toronto for a remastered showing of their seminal concert film Stop Making Sense (1984). We won't say we had any influence on the band finally agreeing to appear together but the timing lines up.
We go deep into the discography of both musicians as well as tear apart and build up their respective films.
Big Suit vs Purple Sequins.
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SIDE HUSTLE 9: FARMER HOGGETT’S VOYAGE HOME
Travel across the cosmos and back in time this week with TGTPTU and the crews of two starships Enterprise. Special guest Martin Harries from the Film vs Film podcast joins Capt. Ken and his number one Thomas this week to boldly go where numerous podcasting Trekkies have gone before as they explore two Academy (Starfleet) Award-winning actor-directors:
STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986) starring and directed by Leonard Nimoy in his second directorial contribution to the Star Trek movie franchise. Nimoy would subsequently direct the top-grossing film of the following year, Three Men and Baby, but first he got the opportunity to give his vision to the Trek franchise. The Voyage Home was a hit with the general public, promoting an environmental message of deep concern to Nimoy who didn’t want violence if he was going to direct what most fans consider the end of an internal Trek trilogy that began with Wrath of Khan.
STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996) starring and directed by Jonathan Frakes in his feature debut as a director in this eighth Star Trek franchise film and the second for The Next Generation crew. Lighter on humor (but surprisingly also featuring a nuclear wessel), portions of First Contact are shot like a horror movie as The Borg (The Next Generation’s eternal alien enemy) travel(s) back in time and infect(s) the crew aboard the Enterprise while the away team shakes a tail feather and drinks moonshine with the yet-to-be-legendary Zefram Cochrane portrayed by James Cromwell one year after playing Farmer Hoggett in Babe.
“But what of Shatner?” serious nerds of film and fiends of the franchise might ask. Look, nerd/fiend, the ‘final frontier’ might be a destination to boldly go, but it’s a shit flick and gives credence to the cursed “odd number” Trek movies. We’d prefer to listen to 106 minutes of remixed whale song than suffer again through the trauma of Star Trek V: The Favored Nations Clause in Kirk’s Contract (1989). So, in short, double dumbass on you.
Now set headphones to stun and ready and prepare yourself for yammering speed and jettisoned opinions. May the force be with you.
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SALMA HAYEK: ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO & THE MALDONADO MIRACLE
Salma Hayek is a justifiably iconic actress, personality, celebrity and turned it all into getting hitched to a soulless billionaire. Good for her! But there was a time where she was an up and coming hyphenate pursuing passion projects like Frieda and balancing those with commercial films.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (2003) is not exactly a passion project nor a commercial film. She is barely in it! This is the nominally third part of Robert Rodriguez' El Mariachi films. If the barely legible plot sounds like something made up as they went along, incorrect! But it sure shambles along like it. Hayek has been loyal to Rodriguez, maybe to a fault, but that is a valued thing to have in modern moviemaking. We think.
Around this time Hayek also dabbled in directing, making the Maldonado Miracle (2003). A small fable of a film with a few pleasant performances by Peter Fonda, Mare Winngingham and podcast fave Reubén Blades, it's about an illegal child who hides out in a church and bleeds on a statue of Christ so the small town, the titular Maldonado, goes nuts for the miracle. It has some surprisingly good character bits and gentle satire while providing a slice of down-on-their-luck lifestyles not normally given much screen time in modern movies. Hayek does well with the slight story and actors. Should she have continued as director instead of marrying someone so entrenched in a class that has essentially made towns like Maldonado exist? Thomas and Ken discuss at length along with the rest of her career.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Our editing issues have been resolved and our bank of multiple episodes we've recorded will commence being released weekly.
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SIDE HUSTLE 7: LEE GRANT. FROM INGENUE STAR TO BLACKLISTED RED TO A SECOND LIFE WHERE SHE WON AN ACTING OSCAR AND THEN A THIRD LIFE AS AN OSCAR-WINNING DOCUMENTARIAN.
Who is Lee Grant? Read the all-caps above! One of the most remarkable people we've covered this, or any season. We are joined by Charlie to discuss Grant's work as actor and director this week!
Born on Halloween in an undetermined year in the mid 1920s (she is still with us!) Grant was raised to be in the arts and was well on her way as a classically trained ballerina and Broadway understudy. She was destined for stardom after nabbing an Oscar nomination for her FIRST film (Detective Story). Following her name appearing in newsletter called Red Channels she was blacklisted as a communist - yes, it was that capricious back in the early 50s to be on the wrong side of fear mongering. Your name in a newsletter put out by a few bums and suddenly you are on the outs.
Losing a decade plus in what was, essentially, what she was raised to do, Grant eventually returned in supporting roles and an extended role on Peyton Place.
Hey, we know she won an Oscar for Shampoo, the climax of her triumphant return to the town that had so pathetically abandoned her, but we may do a Beatty run some day so we are saving it. We are instead talking the second Columbo ever, RANSOM FOR A DEAD MAN (1971), where Grant friend - and future not-friend - Peter Falk was still figuring out his character in what was a second pilot TV film. Grant and Falk, when they are given classic Columbo scenes together, are positively combustible. The story itself may not be prime Columbo but it is a beautifully shot little oddity that would be followed up by the first aired series episode, directed by Steven Spielberg (which we talked about during our Spielberg season and is still the best Columbo ever).
Grant got into directing film in the early 80s, moving into documentary soon after. In 1983 she directed the legendary groundbreaking documentary WHAT SEX AM I? (1983) which tracks the stories of a group people that feels years ahead of its time in its empathy and presentation of their struggles. Grant would win an Oscar for her documentary, DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA (1986), another film about people the camera usually shies away from during the dark economic side of the 1980s. Grant has a laser focus on people in America normally passed by in representation on film and her work should be heralded more, in front of and behind the camera.
Grant is a damn unsung hero in film so sit down and we'll tell you about her career and these two projects.
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SIDE HUSTLE 6: JAMES FRANCO: WE KNOW HE IS CANCELLED, STOP TEXTING US ABOUT IT
We live in an era where men are being held accountable for being awful (not nearly enough of them but it's a start). This is a good thing. Most of these men are older, however, and in the creative sphere most are past their Best By date. So it is unusual to have someone like James Franco, literally at the apex of his skills both as actor and director, undone by his own destructive impulses. It offers a fascinating "what if" to a career that will more than likely never be now.
As actor we begin with PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008), the first mainstream feature directed by David Gordon Green (we talked about his brilliant "Joe" during our Cage Uncaged season, still worth a watch!) and featuring a near-future murderers row of comedic actors. Like most films written by Seth Rogen and longtime co-writer Evan Goldberg, Express eventually boils down to a story about male friendship. This time between Rogen and Franco's sweet, open-hearted stoner Saul. It is a classic performance in a classic stoner comedy.
Franco has directed a lot in a short time and our "side hustle" film of his is THE DISASTER ARTIST (2017) detailing the, uh, male friendship between real life Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero. No, this was not written by Rogen and Goldberg. Instead we have a true life story about the man behind one of the best worst movies ever made, The Room, who spends a lot of time, money and effort in order to not have to say "I love you" to his best bud (who is played by Franco's own brother, not-cancelled Mr. Allison Brie, Dave). Both a singular performance that strives to go beyond imitation and directing makes this the most Franco of movies. It shouldn't work but does.
An amazing career most likely cut short in mainstream cinema with no one else to blame but himself. Maybe he can play himself in the eventual film version.
Ken and Thomas are joined by Leigh to sort it all out.
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SIDE HUSTLE V: Charlie's Brother, Martin's Sane Son - REPO MAN and MEN AT WORK
Nepo-babies are not new! Tell your crazy uncle, who thinks they are ruining Hollywood, that they have been around since he wore crop-tops and had a mullet.
And so we put the spotlight on 1980s Short King, Emilio Estevez. First we talk about one of the all time great cult films of the 1980s, 1984's nearly indescribable (but we try) masterpiece, Repo Man. Estevez breaks out big as Otto Maddox in this surreal, anarchic satire that might stand the test of time? Does it hold up? We'll let you know. The behind-the-scenes of this are worthy of the film itself. A year later Estevez would find massive mainstream fame in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire (directed by podcast favorite Joel Schumacher), furthering his early image as a brooding young loner with the heart of a damaged poet.
His second film as director, Men at Work (1990), was made a scant few years later but it already feels like Estevez has gone through multiple iterations, ups and downs, both professional and personal as actor and star (maybe it was the cocaine). He writes, directs, and acts here alongside his brother (Charlie Sheen, known winner) in a decidedly 80's comedy that maybe came out a few years too late. Garbage men, mistaken identities, toxic waste, farcical nonsense and one shockingly brilliant turn by Keith David. Overall a fascinating mixed bag.
Ken and Thomas bitterly failed to secure a guest for this episode and are left to sift through the peculiar career of Estevez on their own.
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SIDE HUSTLE IV: DeGOOD, DeBAD & DeVITO
Danny Devito is a beloved actor and, in 2023, a justifiably beloved American institution. Mostly known as a comedic actor from Taxi onward, DeVito turned success as a pinch-hitting comedic character actor into a brief, but stellar, time as an A-list film director.
Speaking of director's, Ivan Reitman certainly has numerous screen credits to his name as one! He made a few classics featuring Bill Murray and... he made other movies, some of which made a lot of money. One of which is TWINS (1988), which Danny DeVito co-starts as a twin to... wait for it, oh man, it is too funny! He is the twin of Arnold Schwarzenegger! The big muscle guy with the accent? If you need to take a break from that high concept to wipe your eyes, this movie is for you! It made a ton of money and does have a certain late 80's lazy "they'll watch anything" charm to it as its stakes are minor. Devito and Schwarzenegger do have good enough chemistry that they reunited with the same director where... are you sitting down? The big muscle guy gets pregnant. The crew, joined by ace guest Shannon, have disagreement over the merits of this one (Shannon doesn't get to write the show notes, though).
Then we go back in time (not in a John Connor way) to 1987 for DeVito's classic box office breakthrough as director/star for Throw Momma From The Train, a film with moderate aspirations that nevertheless goes full bore in succeeding in almost every case. It's brief, it's funny, it has fabulously comic performances, and is dark in a way many movies of the era screwed up (hello, She-Devil).
Ken, Thomas and Shannon all discuss the actor, the director, the legend, Danny DeVito.
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SIDE HUSTLE III: C IS FOR COSTNER, GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME: UNTOUCHABLES AND THE POSTMAN
Kevin Costner had a special run of films in the 80s and 90s. If you weren't there, trust us! He did. He turned small roles into leading roles and used all of the cachet to make Dances With Wolves, which grew so out of hand that trades referred to it as Kevin's Gate. It made a gajillion dollars and won all the Oscars so he showed them! His peculiar mix of straight-forward American decency and rascally antiauthoritarian streak made him truly unique as a baby boomer superstar and then as an Oscar-winning director.
We start this week's episode with fave guest Erik, of the Blood & Popcorn podcast, to talk 1987's UNTOUCHABLES, directed by Brian DePalma from a script by David Mamet. Costner's breakthrough as Elliott Ness. Erik also takes us through a little of Costner's renaissance withYellowstone along with his latest passion project as star-director, HORIZON. Which began life as a single movie and now may be... FOUR? Costner has never shied away from ambition, even when it lays him low.
Speaking of... with a shelf of awards and a lifetime of "Haha I did a better movie than Goodfellas" Christmas cards addressed to Scorsese, Costner embarked on his proper follow-up as director to Dances With Wolves in 1997 when he released the 3 hour post-apocalyptic THE POSTMAN, a movie so earnest you almost feel bad for thinking it is terrible. Then years go by and you think "maybe it has aged well now that we are in a CGI IP-laden hellscape."
Nope, it is still one of the mind-meltingest bad studio films to ever come out. Ever. But you know what? If not for its "your butt has fused to your couch, here is a couch toilet toilet" length, it could be one of the all time great bad movies. Some of the creative choices are so wrong one imagines Scorsese sending Costner a lifetime of Christmas cards saying "at least I didn't direct The Postman" because of it.
Not shockingly, Erik taps out after the brilliant Untouchables and lets Ken and Thomas marvel at the beauty of The Postman on their lonesome.
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SIDE HUSTLE II: BANKS SHOT
Celebrities! They are just like us! Except when they get the urge to try something new, they get studios or shady global investors to give them millions to make movies! That's their side hustle.
This week we talk the lovely, hilarious and brilliant Elizabeth Banks.
Her main gig as an actor starts us off with WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER (2001), where she appears in one of her first film roles, in one of the best comedy ensembles ever. Featuring one of the best montages ever (Go to town!) and the best double take ever (Paul Rudd), Summer is written by David Wain and Michael Showalter, who also directs, of The State. If you have not seen Wet Hot American Summer before listening, please do. It's short and it has become a stone cold cult classic that had a prequel AND sequel series on Netflix (both of which are also great).
As director we could have gone Charlie's Angels but we decided on COCAINE BEAR (2023) instead, because we rarely talk about new movies. What is Cocaine Bear? It's in the title. THE SAME SONG OPENS BOTH MOVIES, FYI, clearly intentional on Banks' part. One of the best marketing plans in recent film but how is the actual movie? It can't be as good as the trailers, right? Listen and find out.
We are joined once again by Southern Belle and Streep Mega-Fan Andi for both films.
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SEASON X PREMIERE SIDE HUSTLES AND HYPHENAUTS #1: BEN AFFLECK
Celebrities! They are just like us! Except when they get the urge to try something new, it isn't the new taco truck up the street, it's getting studios and money-men to invest millions of dollars in a movie they feel the urge to direct. This has resulted in many an actor finding second creative life as important directors - our podcast began in covering the greatest of this group, Clint Eastwood. Not all were as successful as Eastwood, creatively or box office-wise. These are the men and women we will be talking about all season long. We will talk one movie from their main gig, usually as actor, then pick a movie they directed.
First up, alphabetically, anyway, is Ben Affleck. Described as a "geek" by Michael Bay, Affleck had an ascendent leading man career in the late 90s and early 00s. Almost better known for all of the famous ladies he dated, his film career had a classic record scratch in the early aughts that derailed him in the public eye and creatively for years.
The nadir of this patch is, arguably, Daredevil (2003), Mark Steven Johnson's insanely wrong-headed and rock dumb superhero film that was PRODUCED BY KEVIN FEIGE (in case you thought this current MCU creative drought was unprecedented). Affleck met Jennifer Garner on it and they had three children together so, for them, this is a special movie. For the rest of us, maybe special in the urban dictionary sense of the word.
Four years later Affleck directed GONE, BABY, GONE (2007), his first released film as director and, to this date, the only one he has directed in which he does not appear. Lead status is granted to his problematic brother Casey, who plays Dennis Lehane's angry, sarcastic PI Patrick Kenzie in an adaptation of the best known book of that series.
A murderer's row is cast here and Affleck shows a true affinity for the people and places in Lehane's Boston. Affleck, and co-screenwriter Aaron Stockard, do an admirable job taking a typically expansive hardboiled detective plot and pare down the characters and the tangents, leaving a fairly lean and engrossing thriller. Affleck is better with actors than Affleck's previous directors were with actors and directs the movie's key set pieces and moral dilemmas as well as could be hoped for. Is this his best movie as director? He won an Oscar for a film whose main cultural impact is the phrase "Ar-go fuck yourself" so we may be on good standing if that's what it boils down to. Does it? Listen to the damn epsidoe and find out!
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4X4: SERGIO MARTINO II: TORSO AND THE SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR W/ERIK VANDERWOLF
In part two of two on Italian filmmaker Sergio Martino, we are joined once again by Screenwriter Erik Vanderwolf as he picks two 1970s classics (?) that show a little of Martino's range.
TRIGGER WARNING: BOTH FILMS CONTAIN SCENES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND IT IS DISCUSSED
TORSO (1973), is, to Erik's mind, the first "slasher" film as American audiences would come to know them. You know what? He makes a solid argument despite thinking it may be seen as a controversial idea. What begins as a fairly standard giallo with murders, sex and red herrings, shifts locations to the isolated countryside and very nearly becomes a different (and much better) film for its final third, one of the great sustained sequences of suspense in the genre. Is it the first slasher film? Did Martino invent one of the sturdiest genres of the last 50 years here? Listen and find out.
THE SUPISCIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR (1975) Is, we're pretty sure, a gritty cop thriller about a Detective Germi hunting down a kidnapper and killer. It may also be a comedy. We aren't completely 100% sure. The plot is outrageous, the location work sublime - it's fun! A unique fourth film in Martino's extremely long filmography that also serves as a canary in the coal mine about where the Italian film industry was headed at the time. Erik gives us all the dirt.
BONUS: A Martino quiz and a fond farewell to Season Nine of the Podcast, 4X4 II was a good one. We'll do it again someday.
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4X4 II: SERGIO MARTINO 2: THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH & YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY W/ERIK VANDERWOLF!In part one of two on Italian filmmaker Sergio Martino, we are joined once again by Screenwriter Erik Vanderwolf, an avowed Giallo superfan and he picks two classics in the genre starring all-time great Edwige Fenech to get things started.
TRIGGER WARNING: BOTH FILMS CONTAIN SCENES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND IT IS DISCUSSED
THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, 1971, has all the hallmarks of classic Giallo of the era: straight razors, bizarre plots with a central mystery whose solving makes little sense, sex, masked killers, turtlenecks, along with extremely attractive men and women who all get a red herring scene where they might be the killer, or a scene where they are killed. Sometimes both! Also in keeping with Giallo films of the era, this one had about seventeen alternate titles depending where it was released or re-released.
YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972) is a title taken from a note delivered to Mrs. Wardh in the previous film but has nothing to do with the previous film - except the director Martino and genre superstar Edwige Fenech. This one is based on an Edgar Allen Poe story? Maybe? All we know is there is plenty of J&B product placements, sex, amorality, dirt bike racing, a cat meowing and so many reversals and reveals good luck keeping track.
Next week on part two we tackle a few later, non-Fenech, Martinos.
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PAUL WS PART DEUX: THE THREE EVILS/FAREWELL TO JACK
In part one of our Paul WS Anderson two parter, we discussed two early classics that offered two very different paths young WS could take: The silly and bombastic effects-laden video game adaptation Mortal Kombat or the grim space-horror classic Event Horizon.
Kombat was successful and Horizon was not and so, four years after Anderson's grim and lifeless Soldier flopped spectacularly, he returned to video games adaptations with Resident Evil in 2002 and has generally stayed in that lane since, mostly working with wife Milla Jovovich.
One exception is his 2011 adaptation/version/fever dream of Alexander Dumas' 1844 novel The Three Musketeers but with, as Wikipedia informs us, "clock-punk" elements. Beloved by co-host Jack and his sister Annabel (who chose Anderson and these four films despite being in Italy and unable to record with us), it is quite nuts with the surprisingly great cast of Matthew Macfayden (Tom in Succession!), Ray Stevenson, Milla, Mads Mikkelsen and Christolph Waltz. Dang. Besides this great cast, it also has James Corden! Please listen for how truly odd, but strangely engaging, this bizarro film is before we move onto...
Resident Evil 5: Retribution (2012), the second of Anderson's trilogy to end the franchise (its 4th, 5th and 6th films). Besides Jovovich early on in a wig being a dead ringer for Taylor Swift, there is very little of interest here if you aren't a hardcore series fans. There are a few sequences when Anderson recaptures a bit of his technical bravado from his Mortal Kombat days but it is mostly bad CGI and overhead shots of ladies doing flips over bad guys they then shoot with a bunch of actors cast from flipping through an issue of Vogue while waiting at the dentist.
BONUS: We have a very special Paul WS Anderson quiz to end the episode that almost killed Ken and Jack while recording.
Speaking of Jack, we bid him adieu as co-host for the time being before his extended trip to France to join the Musketeers.
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4X4 2: PAUL WS ANDERSON PT. 1: MORTAL KOMBAT & EVENT HORIZON
It's the OTHER Paul Anderson in the spotlight for our third 4X4 this season. This is the guy that's married to, and works with, Milla Jovovich, not the guy who has kids in some kind of common law deal with Maya Rudolph and made a few of the best movies of the last two decades.
We start with two early bangers from WS.
Mortal Kombat (1995) literally makes no sense but - BUT - is ridiculously entertaining nonetheless. It is only Anderson's second film but the first to embrace the crazy genre enthusiasm that would define him. If you haven't seen it in a while, here is a spoiler: it is still unintelligibly plotted and acted but Goro still rules hard as a true marvel of practical effects.
On the heels of Kombat's box office success, Anderson's next film, the Lovecraftian space horror film EVENT HORIZON (1997) was a box office disaster. That its reputation has only grown since as a cult favorite makes it a fascinating turning point in young WS's career as a kind of "what could have been" on his artistic trajectory. What do we think, though? (it's pretty good). Anderson was able to make his unappealing version of David Webb People's legendary Solider script before Event Horizon was released and the box office failure of both films put him in director jail for four years until he went back to the well adapting video games with Resident Evil. More on that in part two.
BONUS: This is also part one of two of Jack's swan song before leaving America. Good times.
DOUBLE BONUS: Ken and Jack watched Event Horizon on VHS. This is not an official VHS episode, however, because no one seems to like those (shhh).
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4x4 JOHN FORD PART TWO: THE SEARCHERS & THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE W/RICK PATT
Last week we talked about a few seminal Ford films that weren’t westerns (The Informer and Grapes of Wrath). This week, get them saddles secure and oil them there spurs (??) because we have two of Ford’s most famous collabs with John Wayne (the actor, not the airport).
Their most enduring of 17 films together, THE SEARCHERS (1956) is a visual reminder of the power of film. You know the story: racist dude visits his brother, who lives in an inhospitable - but lovely piece - in Monument Valley. A band of Native Americans kills the family and kidnaps Natalie Wood, resulting into an obsessive years-long hunt by Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter. It’s a difficult film, thematically, but Ford uses Wayne and his by-then sanctified screen persona to explore knotty issues in a visual way that has earned The Searchers its place at the top of the film pantheon.
Speaking of doing interesting things with Wayne’s screen persona, how about THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962)? Wayne did the film as a favor to Ford, who was well past his sell-by date in Hollywood by this point. Wayne plays a total a-hole against Jimmy Stewart, who plays a kind of harbinger of modernity in a western town with Wayne as one of them violent western tamers no longer needed. Between them (besides a way too young Vera Miles) is hothead Lee Marvin as the titular Liberty Valance, a scourge of anarchy, both a reminder of the violent recent past and a promise of what always tags along with prosperity and the illusion of safety in a society. Ford’s themes of community, violence and the intersection of a violent past and a bright future are in full display here.
A couple good ones.
Again Rick Patt curates this mini Ford fest and walks us through these films.
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JOHN FORD: THE INFORMER & GRAPES OF WRATH W/RICK PATT!
Our two-part John Ford series begins with Ford fan and podcast pal Rick Patt joining us and curating the films!
For part one we watched two Oscar winning award-winning Ford films made before he and John Wayne became entwined in their classic western collaborations (that's next week).
THE INFORMER (1935) won Ford a Best Director Oscar! It features an Oscar-winning performance by Victor McLagen as a large, dim brute "Gypo" Nolan in the latter days of the Irish civil war in 1925. When the opportunity comes to turn in an old chum with a reward on his head, Gypo does the unthinkable and does just that. With the money he can now sail to America with his sweetheart! Sweet, right? However, a night of drunkenness leads Gypo into the unthinkable as the money spills away in drink and debauchery. A claustrophobic, smokey nightmare that, not surprisingly, ends poorly for our lad. McLagen gives a brilliant old-school performance of big gestures and confused morals and Ford shoots in an unsparing bravura style
GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) won Ford another Best Director Oscar and is one of his best remembered for good reason. A dynamite script and a cast to die for brings John Steinbeck's Pulitzer and National Book Award winning depression-era road trip classic about the Joads making their way from Oklahoma to California into a stirring reminder of both resilience and how crappy some folks can be. Top five all-time cinematographer Gregg Toland shoots the living hell out of this in one of the best-looking black and white films in the era known for the best-looking black and white films. We go into the adaptation, and some controversy about the novel itself on.
Two of the earliest films we have ever dived into.
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OSAMA BIN WAITIN' FOR NEW YEARS: STRANGE DAYS and ZERO DARK THIRTY W/ BIGELOW CURATOR RYAN!
We conclude our four film sweep through the filmography of Kathryn Bigelow with one of her notorious failures and one of her triumphs. 1995's STRANGE DAYS was a big budget summer movie that took place in the far-flung future of (checks notes) 1999! It's mix of contemporary social outrage and little bald caps that can record anyone's feelings and what they are seeing is a tough mix. Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett are as pretty as they have ever been on film wallowing around in a semi-futuristic hellscape where only terrible music is available. There are some sharp disagreements on this one, which was unavailable for streaming forever until HBO Max decided to flush it onto their platform as it was stinking up their vaults.
Then 2012's ZERO DARK THIRTY! Bigelow and co-screenwriter Mark Boal had written an entirely different film about the battle of Tora Bora when Osama Bin Laden had the temerity to be killed by a team of Navy Seals. They scrapped the existing script and quickly changed direction to tell the decade-long manhunt for the man responsible for immense pain and suffering (but also had nothing to do with Iraq). A fascinating character study of persistence and value judgements, it is one of Bigelow's knottiest films and makes for a knotty discussion between Big Bigelow fan Ryan and Ken, Jack and Thomas which, like the film itself, has no easy answers.
Stick for the Bigelow Quiz to make sure you were paying attention the last two episodes.
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LEATHER & WAX: BIGELOW'S THE LOVELESS and POINT BREAK with Kathryn Bigelow Scholar Ryan.
FOUR FILMS BY FOUR DIRECTORS PICKED BY FOUR GUESTS 4X4 II
IT'S THE EPISODE THAT ALMOST DIDN'T HAPPEN!
DOUBLE THEME SONG! Due to losing an audio file (thanks, zencastr!) ace host and engineer Jack was able to, uh, re-do his part on half the episode. A feat that has to be heard to be believed. Podcasting is a rough business.
1981's The Loveless (credited with Monty Montgomery) was Bigelow's debut. It charts a fateful day in the 1950s when a small Georgia town has a gang of leather-clad motorcyclists rolling through and then... hanging out. Willem Dafoe makes his screen debut as Vance. It's a mood piece, all right, and a pretty good one we have a lot to say about (shocking).
1991's Point Break has become Bigelow's most beloved film. For good reason - it is amazing. Lightning in a bottle casting with a borderline absurd script and strange deification of surfer bros but it works perfectly. The main character in named Johnny Utah and the film is NOT a parody. It is one of the best action movies of an era comprising some of the best action movies ever. A treat start to finish, we show it a lot of love.
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BACK TO SPIELBERG, BACK TO THE RED CARPET
THE FABELMANS (2022) is Steven Spielbergs cinematic memoir but with different names and the person playing him does not wear glasses. A story of a marriage slowly falling apart while a young man slowly figures out who and what he is through the art of filmmaking. The-artist-as-myth with Steven Spielberg being the artist.
Last year we did an entire season covering Steven Spielberg's filmography promising to never return. But, we did. They pulled us back in. Ken read the script (by Spiels and podcast favorite Tony Kushner). Resident Spielberg hater Jack then joined Ken to see the movie on the big screen (on a tightwad Tuesday; podcasting does not pay well). What are their thoughts? Be seated for the most shocking episode in The Good, The Pod and The Ugly history! No one could have predicted this.
Then stay tuned as Thomas joins in for a second helping of TERRIBLE OSCAR PICKS. We have no clue about most of these nominations, people. Zero. But we pick them anyway! Then it turns out none of us are even watching the Oscars this year, anyway.
100% Expert Opinions you can use to bet on in FanDuel or wherever.
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VHS SPECIAL: PRETTY WOMAN & THE SCREENPLAY "THREE THOUSAND"
Ken and Jack dust off the VHS player for another trip back in time where you have to rewind.
PRETTY WOMAN. 1990 was a perfect era for VHS. The film transfers were all pristine so we no longer have the grainy, crappy transfers that marked so many classics from the 1970s (three of which, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, FAT CITY, & SCARECROW, were lovingly covered in our first three VHS episodes).
The most popular romantic comedy of all time and the film that supernova'd Julia Roberts from little known supporting actress to one of the biggest stars in the world, Pretty woman began life as a gritty drama entitled THREE THOUSAND, by JF Lawton (Under Siege). The script went on to be a strong calling card for Lawton's writing and went through a few production companies wanting to make it before landing at Touchstone, the grown-up arm of Disney at the time. Jeffrey Katzneberg saw the dark, economic reality-embracing script as a warm, romantic fable and work began to turn Lawton's script into just that. Again, this is a movie made by Disney about a prostitute and a corporate raider falling in love directed by the creator of Happy Days and Mork & Mindy. And it's a comedy. And it made almost half a billion dollars at the box office - well over a BILLION adjusted for inflation. WHAT? Could this be made today? Could it have been made in 1985 or even 1995? The mind reels at how strangely this project came together and how thin the line is in filmmaking between creative and financial disaster and timeless classic.
How they did it and what actually changed is one of the most instructive bits of Hollywood tinkering and magic as you will ever hear. Ken read the original script and goes into some detail at what changed and, remarkably, what didn't.
VHS is a special medium. Sometimes the grain or noise and the hum of the machine is like time travel in 2023. Pretty Woman is a classic for a lot of reasons and seeing it the way home viewers did 30 years ago proves a rare treat for our hosts.
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SEASON FINALE! MAMMA MIA & MAMMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN!
We have watched Meryl Streep movies for nearly six months. Did we learn anything? Great question! Listen and find out with our season finale featuring ALL of your favorite ABBA songs X2 along with songs you probably weren't familiar with in the second Mamma Mia film.
MAMMA MIA (2008) is a jukebox musical adapted from the stage production of the same name. Phyllidia Lloyd directs, as she did on stage (and will direct Streep again to an Oscar a few years later in The Iron Lady, covered on our season premiere). It's a vacation movie, it's a movie meant to make people smile. It's pretty silly but it works for most of the hosts. One of our hosts hates musicals, however, and hated this movie. Which one? Grumple McSourpuss!
MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN (2018) took a decade to get made because they couldn't figure out a tenuous narrative on which they could hang a bunch of songs onto until screenwriter Richard Curtis' daughter told him they should do The Godfather II plot; a child and their parent at the same time in their lives. A prequel and a sequel all in one! It also means that Meryl Streep's character is dead when the sequel begins - cool or yuck?Amanda Seyfried as Streep's daughter takes over in the sequel portion and Lily James plays young Streep, whose eyes apparently change color like a puppy between the olden times and the 2008 original. Ol Parker directs and that is apparently his real name unless Ol is his middle name and Good is his first. Do we like it? Is it possibly better than the original?
STREEP WRAP-UP: Favorite lists, least favorite lists, a re-litigation on the lack of any merits whatsoever on She-Devil and much, much more. Ken, Jack and Thomas talk about Streep one last time with season-long guest Andi, the best, who bids farewell to ever talking movies with us again this episode.
Laughter. Tears. Fade Out. The End (until the next episode).
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THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN and OUT OF AFRICA
This week: Two films released four years apart do as much to delineate Streep's meteoric rise to being one of the all-time great film actors as anything.
FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (1981) is an adaptation of John Fowles' post-modern 1969 novel, which addresses directly the construction and themes of the "Victorian Novel". In Karel Resz' film of legendary playwright Harold Pinter's screenplay, instead of historical fact checking within the narrative and three different endings, they opt for a meta-narrative of a film shoot romance mirroring the plot of a film-with-the-film called The French Lieutenant's Woman. It's an odd choice we chew on quite a bit. But how is Streep? To be fair, there is a lot going on here and she is playing a character playing a character in a near-parody of old school melodramas and her choices in that are choices made by the modern actress she is also playing. Head spinning. Her performance earned her an Oscar nomination but this is not the Streep we see four short years later.
OUT OF AFRICA (1985), directed by Sydney Pollack from a script by Karl Luedtke adapted from the memoir by Isak Dinesen and two Dinesen biographies. It's the story of a wealthy Danish woman going to Africa to live on a coffee farm with her cheating husband. While there she meets individualist ivory hunter (Robert Redford, playing an Englishman with an American accent who embodies the white man's burden of protecting land they conquered from people just like them, much like Kevin Costner in Yellowstone) and falls in love. It's a classic sweeping epic (unfortunately not shot anamorphic as Pollack usually did) that charts ugly bouts of colonization. Streep and Redford do speak to that within the film, but it is generally while doing the things they fear more people will come and do (hunting, treating the natives like second class citizens, getting in fights with other white imperialists, driving big cars over the Savanna, etc). It's tough to take at points but the sweep, the romance, the music and the performances can make you squint enough to get a ton of value out of it as an old school Hollywood melodrama. In particular, Streep's performance. As in Sophie's Choice, she is clearly completely in control of her character and with full knowledge of how the camera captures her performance. She is nearly flawless. Pairing this with French Lieutenant's Woman was a brilliant idea to illustrate where and how someone makes the jump from good to great to GOAT. She did not win Best Actress this year because Hollywood was already tiring of her brilliant performances year after year, however. That perception would lead to Streep's turn to comedy later in the decade with the execrable She-Devil.
Ken. Thomas and Andi will tell you all about both films. It's a must-listen for any fan of Streep.
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FOREVER YOUNG! WITH GUESTS: MEG, LEIGH and JOHN!The fourth film in a row in Streep's remarkable late 80's, early 90's turn to comedy, DEATH BECOMES HER (1992) is the most successful of the bunch. DBH co-stars Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis, who were bigger box office draws at the time (crazy!). It is directed by Robert Zemeckis, who was one film away from completing one of the all-time great runs in contemporary mainstream films (in 10 years he released: Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Back to the Future 2&3, Death Becomes Her and Forrest Gump).
Written by podcast pariah David Koepp, it's a wink-wink farce about the vain and superficial, their obsession with their looks and not wanting to get old. It is a deeply silly film with a gleeful use of early CGI that is both clunky and somehow endearing. At many point you could mistake it for an episode of REAL HOUSEWIVES OF __________ but, we assure, it is not.
Thomas and Ken were not allowed on this episode. Instead we have co-host Andi with favorite guests Meg and Leigh. Then Jack brings back F/X expert John to talk the film and Zemeckis.
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STREEPS OF FIRE: SOPHIE'S CHOICE & DOUBT
TRIGGER WARNING: Doubt's central plot is whether or not a priest had inappropriate relations with a child and that is discussed.
Two of the best performances of Streep's career from two different decades. This is the episode where we truly extol Streep's brilliance in drama in two of her very best.
SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982) was Streep's coming out party. Released months after the middling STILL OF THE NIGHT, covered a few episodes ago, Choice would begin six years of dominance for Streep as our greatest "serious" actress. Based on William Styron's award winning novel, Sophie's Choice also features what may be Kevin Kline's best performance ever. Alan J. Pakula (Klute, Parallax View, All The President's Men) directs and adapted the novel. A lovely adaptation. This is a heavy film with weighty themes but, dang it, the acting is so damn good. We have a lot to dig into.
DOUBT (2008) is the screen version of John Patrick Shanley's (Moonstruck) pulitzer-prize winning play of the same name, adapted and directed by Shanley himself. It's set in the early 1960s with Amy Adams playing Sister James at a catholic elementary school. She brings concerns about Philip Seymour Hoffman's kindly priest, Father Flynn, and his unusual relationship with an African American student to Streep's Sister Aloysius, who has seen this kind of thing happen before. It goes down, y'all! Big time actors acting in scenes so well-written you'll wonder why you put up with so many badly written movies. Three of the best actors around in a film geared to cause conversation. Did he or didn't he? What is the nature of doubt? Is doubt a more noble trait than certainty? A lot to chew on. Hoffman is dearly missed and gives a brilliantly cagey performance while Streep is as good as she has ever been on film.
The whole Streep gang, Ken, Jack, Thomas and Andi are here this week to talk these landmark heavy duty Streep films and performances.
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STREEPS OF FIRE: THE RIVER WILD (1994) WITH BLOOD AND POPCORN'S ERIK!
Following Streep's break from heavy roles after 1988's A CRY IN THE DARK, 4 out of 5 of Streep's next movies were sharp-ish turns to comedy (SHE-DEVIL, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE & DEATH BECOMES HER), with one prestige drama (THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS) before she decided it was time for becoming an... action hero?
We are still in the midst of Streep's most fascinating period (she would next romance Clint Eastwood in the brilliant BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY). Curtis Hanson (director of LA CONFIDENTIAL) was a master of the mid-budget studio thriller at the time of The River Wild. Once Streep was on board with Hanson, a crack cast around her quickly followed (Kevin Bacon, John C. Reilly, David Strathairn, that one kid from Jurassic Park, a heroic dog, and Benjamin Bratt). It all makes for a relatively satisfying early 90s mid-budget studio thriller about a couple of convicts taking a river guide (Streep) and her family hostage on a river-bound getaway through some gnarly rapids she has a deadly history with. It IS a ridiculous premise but Hanson, to his credit, along with Streep giving more than a script like this deserves, make it work.
The River Wild was filmed in a few different location but most of the sedate or passable rapid river scenes were shot in Southern Oregon on the wild and scenic portion of the Rogue River. Co-host Ken and special guest Erik (of the pod Blood and Popcorn) lived in the area at the time and discuss both the river and working at a movie theater when the film was being made AND having most of the stars come through at one point or another. It is always a peculiar thing when Hollywood invades a small town.
There is also a quiz about the movie!
Usually we do two movies in an episode but we didn't have any Streep-as-action-hero movies to pair this with. We all eagerly await Streep to show up as Commander Azmatron Eleven (first introduced in the classic Kree-Skrull War, Avengers Annual #6 to be exact) in the MCU so she can be in another action movie and we can have a Streep action figure!*
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*there is no such character and we all pray Streep never steps into a green closet to shoot a cameo in a shitty superhero movie, It would tarnish her crown
**CHRISTMAS ADJACENT #3!
ROCKY (1976)
DIAL CODE OF SANTA/GAME OVER/PIERE NOEL/DEADLY GAMES/3615 DIAL CODE FATHER CHRISTMAS (1989)
THE WORLD OF KANAKO (2014)
TRIGGER WARNING: The World of Kanako features scenes of sexual assault that are discussed.**Four our third year in a row we are doing a Christmas episode that, despite very few people being interested in, we are doing AGAIN. This time... it's with Thomas.
Christmas Adjacent is described in countless dictionaries as a "Non-Shane Black film that is not Christmas-themed or exclusively takes place on Christmas but happens to have Christmas in one or two scenes that could just as well be any holiday." In year one Ken chose LA Confidential while Jack chose In Bruges. GREAT DOUBLE FEATURE! Year two had Ken choosing Trading Places and Jack choosing The Hunt. Also a great double bill.
This year Ken chose the original Rocky, from 1976. Though it barely has Christmas in it at all, there is that one scene where Paulie comes home drunk and kicks Adrienne out of their crappy house on Christmas. Rocky works as a beautiful American Christmas fable and may be the most traditional Christmas-type movie we've watched in this series. We have a great time going over how accidental so may indelible scenes are in Rocky. Even Scrooge would pump his fist when that theme starts up.
Next, Thomas completely fails in the "adjacent" part of the rules and picked a full-on Christmas movie. But that is ok because Dial Code Santa (1989) or whatever name you happen to catch it under, rules. René Manzor's bonkers tale of a little kid living in a mansion who is both a super genius and full throat believer in Santa Claus who has to fight for his life. When a crazed man bent on murder, dressed as Santa, breaks into the mansion he is in with his diabetic grandfather, a lot happens! If you have never seen this before, please watch before listening. It is an instant classic to nearly everyone who sees it for the first time. Note: it came out well before Home Alone and Manzor sued over the similarities between the two. This one is so much better.
Finally, Jack picks The World of Kanako (2014) Tetsuya Nakashima's very extreme tale of a violent ex-cop looking for his estranged daughter, who may be more of a chip off the old crazy block than dad ever knew. Violent, lurid, depressing, transgressive at almost every turn, The World of Kanako may ruin Christmas forever. We have some disagreements on this one. Thomas Vinterberg's amazing The Hunt that Jack chose last year should have stood as the most depressing movie in this series but Jack said "hold my beer" this year. Kanako is a visual and narrative buzzsaw.
Happy Holidays! See/talk to y'all again in 2023!
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STREEPS OF FIRE: STILL OF THE NIGHT and A CRY IN THE DARK/EVIL ANGELS
Join Ken, Jack, Thomas and Andi for two very important pieces in the Streep mosaic.
Streep in the 1980s was a marvel of A-list perfection, starring in drama after drama, garnering awards like crazy and generally gathering a reputation as a highbrow accent technician. This week we start with the last movie Streep made before ascending to the A-list as the finest actress of her generation, 1982's STILL OF THE NIGHT, which came out months before SOPHIE'S CHOICE. Reuniting with Robert Benton, who directed Streep to her first Oscar in Kramer vs. Kramer, Night is a clear Hitchcock pastiche/homage with Roy Scheider as a shrink who gets in over his head with the mistress of a dead patient, played by Streep, who may be a murder. As we learn in the episode, Streep was not a fan of the genre or the movie itself, doing it mostly on the fumes of her wonderful experience on Kramer (even replicating getting to write her character's monologue late in the film, like her courtroom speech in Kramer). After Sophie's Choice Streep would star in a string of dramas, until...
1988's A CRY IN THE DARK/EVIL ANGELS, the infamous Australian true story of a woman who claimed a dingo ate her baby and started off a public and social firestorm that still resonates today. This is a fine movie and a bookend with Still of the Night as Streep would purposely go on after this to broaden her reputation with comedies and, years later, even action movies. It's not that Dark's failure at the box office (not because it isn't good) but she was in a rut and becoming typecast in somber dramas. The next 4 years would see her in She-Devil, Postcards From The Edge, Defending Your Life and Death Becomes Her, a string of very purposeful comedies (of varying degrees of success). Streep's turn from A-list Drama Lady to comedienne after A Cry in the Dark was remarkable at the time and still is today. Streep knew what she needed and went for it. Note: Wed do explain the two titles for this film in the podcast.
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STREEPS OF FIRE: THEY WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED in MANHATTAN and SHE-DEVIL!
We here at The Good, The Pod and The Ugly, like all serious fans of the four arts, struggle with separating the Art from the Artist these days. It's not easy when great works come from noxious, odious people who are later cancelled because of that stuff becoming public. Meryl Streep has worked steadily in film for nearly 50 years (!!!!) so it stands to reason she has made a few movies with people who are, today, persona non grata in popular culture. We have paired two of them for this week's episode.
MANHATTAN (1979) was Woody Allen's follow-up to his Oscar-winning smash ANNIE HALL. Paired with one of the best scores ever to jaw-dropping black and white visuals supplied by Gordon Willis (one of the all time best who considers Manhattan his best), the film nevertheless boils down to, er, Allen, here playing a thinly-veiled version himself at 42, dating a 17-year-old girl and coming to accept he is in love with her. Super cool... if you squint hard enough and focus solely on the visuals and the score. It wasn't a great conceit in 1979, despite that plot point being gravely overlooked by critics, but in 2023? Nope.
Streep was shooting Kramer vs. Kramer at the same time and would sometimes shuttle between sets, playing an ex to two different small men she had a son with (in the films). She is great in her few scenes here, no surprise. Ken, Jack, Thomas and Andi go all-in tearing the morality of the film down to the ground nevertheless. Manhattan truthers, you have been warned. Manhattan may have shown us the real Allen a good decade before it got extremely public. Allen has announced his retirement to making films earlier this year to which many of us film fans asked, "He's still making movies?"
NOTE: Andre Previn did NOT compose any of the music in the film as stated on the episode. It was in an article on the film and we did not get secondary sourcing on that info. Apologies.
Is SHE-DEVIL (1989) the worst film we've EVER watched for the podcast? That is a hot discussion and quite an honor given some of the crap we have watched. Filmed after Roseanne Barr had finished her first season of the legendary ROSEANNE series, Streep plays a successful romance novelist who steals (why?) Ed Begley Jr. away from Barr's mole-y housewife character, who then gets rid of her kids (baby boomer conceit right there) and focuses on a truly moronic revenge scheme. Is it really that bad? It's 80s kitsch, right? It's Susan Seideleman's follow-up to Desperately Seeking Susan, which was... kinda good, right? Find out all about it on the episode!
Roseanne has, since '89, had a tumultuous personal and professional life, briefly back on top with a reboot of her seminal Roseanne series in 2018. She went off the rails not long after, spewing racist tweets/statements, then doubling down when confronted about them. It was an ugly scene. She was removed from her own show (her character was sent to space or something) and it has gone on successfully without her. Hey, she has a comedy special coming in 2023 that will air on checks notes the Fox Nation streaming service. So, um, yeah.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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Streeps of Fire SPECIAL EPISODE: MERYL WEARS PRADA
Yes, we understand that this is technically our 102nd episode. Have you ever heard of a "soft opening" prior to a Grand Opening? That's what we're going with. THIS is our mammoth 100th episode!!
We decided to cook up something a little different for this landmark episode. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA was the Streep movie a ton of our friends wanted to talk about so we have a number of Prada segments this episode.
SEGMENT ONE 00:55: Our Season 8 Crew (Ken, Jack, Thomas and Andi) introduce things and do a little Streep Bingo before we move onto our amazing guests.
SEGMENT TWO 15:16: THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA BOOK REPORT W/THOMAS and SHANNON. Neither had seen the movie but they read the book and try to suss out what will change and what might change in the adaptation.
SEGMENT THREE 44:12: SCOTTLYN W/ANDI AND KEN. The Devil Wears Prada is a fantastic movie for a young lady to watch. There are no negative stereotypes, women are shown as figures of awe, respect and hard work, men don't save the day and Meryl rules with almost insane levels of competency. What does a teenager think? Scottlyn is one and she will tell us!
SEGMENT FOUR 1:09:01: BOOK REPORT PART TWO: After Thomas and Shannon watch the movie, a discussion of what surprised them about the adaptation.
SEGMENT FIVE 1:27:52: SIBLINGS. Jack is joined by longtime favorite guest (and sibling) Annabel for a freewheeling, White Claw-fueled discussion of the movie.
SEGMENT SIX 2:01:50: MEG AND LEIGH. Two of our favorites, Leigh and Meg, have a lively discussion on the film with a few surprising takes.
SEGMENT SEVEN 2:17:35: Our regular hosts get into it about the movie. Plus Margaret Thatcher along with Sand & Sandal movies.
We had so much fun preparing this episode and it took a ridiculous amount of scheduling to get to talk to everyone for the deepest Devil Wears Prada talk you will ever need. Seriously, why does everyone love this movie so much?
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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MANN AGGED: HEAT 2 BY MICHAEL MANN AND MEG GARDINER
Criss-cross apple sauce everyone and gather round as Thomas and Ken discuss HEAT 2, Michael Mann's first novel, published a few months ago, which acts both as a prequel AND sequel to his 1995 film masterwork.
We get Hanna and McCauley in Chicago years before the events in Heat. We get Chris in South America after the events of Heat with Hanna on his trail. We get Mann and Gardiner clearly writing Hanna as Al Pacino with all his weird dialogue and it is kind of awesome.
Important note: Both Ken and Thomas had copies of the book but Ken didn't get through the initial section because of "reasons" explained on the podcast. What results is a treat for all of us Thomas fans: Thomas gets to recount the entire plot of the book and give his thoughts on its merits. Major spoilers and all that. Mann has spoken of wanting to turn this into a giant movie (needing a recast of a few iconic actors) so this is a great opportunity to see what it's all about before the movie gets made and not having to read the book!
This is a unique episode, our first ever Book Report!
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I. (Ft. Sam Peckinpah)
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STREEPS OF FIRE #3: JULIE & JULIA and KRAMER VS. KRAMER
SPECIAL NOTE: This episode was recorded before the untimely and sad death of Julie Powell, who wrote the book, and is the lead character, in Julie & Julia, played in the film by Amy Adams. Condolences.
Streep thirty years apart!
Travel back to 1979 and the proto-men's movement galvanizer, Kramer vs Kramer! Streep co-stars with Dustin Hoffman (who was once approached by Mike Nichols in the late 70s to play John Rambo so he will alway be Rambo to us) as a divorcing couple unsure with how to split one of their prized possessions, their son. Hoffman was the bigger star at the time but Streep holds her own and pocketed her first Oscar for it. We talk a lot about how Hoffman wasn't the coolest dude to a still-grieving Streep during filming. A box office smash and Oscar sweeper. does it hold up 43 years later?
JULIE & JULIA in 2009 reunites Streep with screenwriter Nora Ephorn (who Streep played a fictional version of in Heartburn) and also pairs her with director Nora Ephron (meh). Most importantly, we cover another movie with Amy Adams, last seen in season one and Trouble With The Curve with Clint Eastwood and cursed manchild blight Justin Timberlake. Julie Powell's blog-turned-book is turned into a movie about a plucky young woman starting a blog about making every recipe in Julia Child's legendary Art of French Cooking doorstop. The film also adapts Julia Child's own memoir about her early days learning to cook in France and being a possible spy (sadly a neglected plot point in the movie). Streep in reunited with her Devil Wears Prada co-star Stanley Tucci as an impossibly smitten and encouraging spouse (and, again, probable spy, a plot line not in the movie). Ephorn had the cast eat actual, five-star prepared food in the movie so all of their reactions (and weight gain) are legit. Kind of a cool to ditch the spit buckets on set. Ephron's early work was as a food writer. So it's one movie that meshes two completely different books together. Does it work? Find out. Ken and Jack are joined once again by Streep super stan, Andi.
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SPECIAL EPISODE: DENNIS HOPPER'S PAYCHECK ERA IN HORROR
Note: We apologize for the title "Hopperween".
Earlier in 2022 we released an episode called HOPPED UP covering Dennis Hopper's "madman" period as director, covering Easy Rider, American Movie, The Last Movie and, finally, early 80s masterpiece Out of the Blue. For some reason it has become our most popular episode so when contemplating a Halloween episode this year we decided to make a disappointing sequel!
Horror expert and screenwriter Erik joins us for THREE horror movies featuring our favorite reformed madman, Dennis Hopper! Hell yeah.
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE II from 1986 starts us off. Now a cult classic that guest Erik can quote at length. But it was a sharp turn from the grim, somber original that hints at gore it never really shows. For this sequel, returning director Tobe Hooper decides on a... slightly different approach. He also claims the original was funny (ok, yeah...) but that didn't come through so he made sure it was at the forefront here. What results is a bizarre artifact of the 80s, part day-glo, part coke-fueled insanity. Hopper does not look happy here as Lefty but he wields three chainsaws at one point so maybe it evens out?
CROW: WICKER PRAYER, or CR4W as we call it, from 2005 is Lance Mungia's follow-up to no-budget cult classic SIX-STRING SAMURAI. Other than what amounts to a cameo by Hopper, the film features Edward Furlong, David Boreanz, Danny Trejo and podcast legend, Tara Reid. If those actors give you pause about getting within 4,000 feet of this toxic turd, you are correct! This film on the roster almost broke the podcast. If the worst movies make for the best content on our pod, then this may be the greatest segment we have ever recorded.
LAND OF THE DEAD, also from 2005 but filmed a few years after CR4W but released a few weeks afterwards, is George Romero's return to the cinematic world of zombies. Class struggles are sadly evergreen in modern society and, sadly, nothing seems to change after the zombie apocalypse. Hopper plays a man Large and in Charge of Fiddler's Green, a Pittsburgh, PA closed-society surrounded by zombies. Romero's patented satire is in full force in what amounts to a minor zombie film in his filmography. How does it hold up 17 years later?
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY & ADAPTATION - STREEPEAT
A first for our podcast! Join us as we rewatch two movies we originally talked about during seasons focussed on Clint Eastwood and Nicolas Cage (boo, patriarchy!) but wisely shift our focus to Meryl Streep. We are joined by Shannon this week to discuss the books both movies were based on!
1995's BRIDGE'S OF MADISON COUNTY co-stars and was directed by Clint Eastwood, covered at length in S1-S3. This was during Eastwood's 1990s streak of great movies and Bridges is up there with his best. Streep, at 45, was deemed too old by the studio to play romantic lead with Eastwood, WHO WAS 65 at the time (boo, patriarchy!!). Luckily Eastwood was able to get her on board and, together, make one of the quietest, devastating romances of the time. Eastwood wisely cut out a lot of his big moments and lets the film, and viewers, fall in love with Streep's character and the low key easy rhythms of an isolated farm house in the 1960s. Streep owns the movie and you can feel Eastwood, the director, being 100% okay with it.
In 2002's ADAPTATION (originally covered in our S4 premiere of Cage Uncaged) Streep plays real-life author Susan Orlean, whose article-then-book THE ORCHID THIEF is given to screenwriter Charlie Kauffman to adapt. Meta antics ensue. It's hard not to focus on Cage playing identical twins or Chris Cooper in an even showier role, but Streep grounds the movie in a way it might not succeed had Orlean been played by an actress with less finesse. We all get a ton of background on what in the book was not used and, what, surprisingly, was in the book, by Shannon.
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**SEASON 8 PREMIERE: STREEPS OF FIRE!
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE & THE IRON LADY**
Our Streep season begins! In 2022 Streep is an untouchable icon, as beloved as any actor in the modern era. You know what? To get there it took a whole lot of work in a whole lot of movies. Streep was once (we're talking the 1980s here) seen as a too-serious actress, good with accents, dismissed for solely making hoity-toity films with awards aspirations. The cultural movement of the 1980s toward stupid stuff gave her that silly reputation for a minute. Crazy, right? Streep kept following the roles that interested her with filmmakers she wanted to work with and, slowly, built as varied a filmography of either straight-up good films or, at the very least, films that looked good on paper, as any actor the last fifty years. And she did it all while continuously working through middle age and beyond when Hollywood generally tends to toss out actresses for younger models. Hopefully her career will be a beacon to change all of that. She is one of a kind.
In THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004) Streep plays a senator who's son may become president through slightly unorthodox means in Jonathan Demme's ill-advised remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 paranoid classic (covered on our season 7 premiere!). Denzel Washington plays a PTSD-ridden veteran who thinks Streep's son (played by a baby-faced Liev Schrieber) is not the war hero he remembers and may be part of a scheme of a large company to install a puppet president (thank goodness this kind of thing never happens in real life). Streep has the daunting task of filling the late Angela Landsbury's legendary shoes in a role heavily changed to reflect the early 2000s along with being expanded to suit someone of Streep's stature. Does it work? Listen and find out!
THE IRON LADY (2011) is Streep's turn as controversial UK PM Margaret Thatcher. Streep disappears into the role as one would expect, and won an Oscar, as was deserved. But the film itself? It's timey-wimey with a fascinating structure and framing device. It has a less-than-stellar reputation and we'll discuss that between marveling at Streep's effortless, beautiful, and nuanced performance that almost makes you forget who she is playing.
BONUS: Super Streep fan Andi is joining us all season to quickly strike down any negative Streep talk.
BONUS 2: We begin a new feature this season: WHAT WOULD MARGARET THATCHER THINK OF THIS MOVIE? Prepare to roll your eyes so hard they get stuck.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I. (ft. Sam Peckinpah)
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**THE FINAL FILM IN AN EPIC VHS JOURNEY TO THE EARLY 1970s
TRIGGER WARNING: SCARECROW CONTAINS A SCENE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT**
VHS, in its heyday, was the best way to watch movies. They opened up a generation to movies previously impossible to see if they weren't circulating in movie theaters years and decades after release. You could argue our current nerd culture, where everybody has seen everything, was kickstarted by GEN X getting their hands on previously obscure movies. A lot of transfers of older movies to VHS were crappy. Available film prints were Paleolithic, compression was an issue, and, frankly, studios did not care how they looked when monetizing their libraries; Too dark, pan-and-scanned, color resolution sometimes bordering monochromatic. But in 2022 it IS a visual aesthetic filmmakers try to replicate to give their films a grimy, unwashed and somehow dangerous feel.
Our impromptu trilogy of films we watched on VHS comes to a close with Jerry Schatzberg's sadly neglected vagabond road trip masterwork, SCARECROW (1973), with GENE FCKING HACKMAN and AL GDDAMN PACINO in their primes. Like our previous two films in this series (BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA and FAT CITY), Scarecrow was made at a time when studios (in this case, Warner Brothers) had no idea what the kids wanted to see. A riff on the themes in super successful films Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy, featuring two of the biggest stars of the time actually sounds like a no-brainer.
Scarecrow is about two vagabonds with big plans that team up to drift from California to Pittsburgh (with a detour in Detroit). Hackman has never been so lived-in with a role that he always considered a favorite and Pacino is a revelation of warmth and humor, also in a role he often cites as a favorite. We get into the plot on the episode and discuss what happened to this film to have two of the biggest stars of the era, be a great movie, and all but disappear. It is so good its cult status is understandable but why did it fail upon its release?
Director Jerry Schatzberg was a highly regarded photographer in the 1960s that became an even more highly regarded fashion and celebrity portrait photographer before trying his hand at film. He'd worked with Pacino in Panic at Needle Park a few years earlier with Pacino (a street-level heroin addiction drama adapted by... JOAN DIDION and JOHN GREGORY DUNNE.
So we watched three movies on VHS released between 1972 and 1974. What was in the water? What changed in movies that have made all three cult favorites rather than films we see on cinema montages? We'll get into that and the great era of 70s studio filmmaking that was gone almost before it started,
Another grimy, gorgeously depressing early 1970s film perfect for rewatch on VHS. Whoever invented pan-and-scan for VHS owes everyone involved with Scarecrow an apology.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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VHS SPECIAL: FAT CITY FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
Listener, you can count on us.**
VHS, in its heyday, was the best way to watch movies. They opened up a generation to movies previously impossible to see if they weren't circulating in movie theaters years and decades after release. You could argue our current nerd culture, where everybody has seen everything, was kickstarted by GEN X getting their hands on previously obscure movies. A lot of transfers of older movies to VHS were crappy. Available film prints were Paleolithic, compression was an issue, and, frankly, studios did not care how they looked when monetizing their libraries; Too dark, pan-and-scanned, color resolution sometimes bordering monochromatic. But in 2022 it IS a visual aesthetic filmmakers try to replicate to give their films a grimy, unwashed and somehow dangerous feel.
1972's FAT CITY was John Huston's first film shot in the US in over a decade and signaled a return to form after a string of disasters and financial disappointments. His previous film ended with him either being fired or walking off, depending who you ask. Going small and character-driven with a main character on the ropes, his best days far in the past, was exactly what Huston needed at the time.
Jack and Thomas both read Leonard Gardner's 1969 novel of the same name and bring a treasure trove of changes made between the book and Gardner's own adaptation. Gardner suffered through a number of rewrites and changes during a production that somehow ended up taking the film back to being closer to the book.
Taking place in resort wonderland, Stockton, California, the book and film follows drunken, onetime boxing contender Billy Tully (played by Stacy Keach in a career highlight), who keeps talking of getting back in shape and back into boxing in tragic repetition momentarily paused when he actually does get back into boxing after meeting a very young Jeff Bridges, who boxes as a lark but may have something special in his form - or may be replicating Tully's own narrative life journey. These are folks who supplement what meager finances they have by picking onions and nuts in the sweltering heat of California's unyielding breadbasket. Tully spends his $ on booze, Bridge's character has a pregnant girlfriend. They are all on the margins, where so many great 1970s movies founds its people. We are fortunate to live in a gilded age where there is little financial anxiety or people living on the ragged margins of society (according to the movies we get from studios, anyway.) Tully takes up residence with Oma, a barfly of an undetermined age played by Susan Tyrrell in one of the great performances of the era. You will swear they hired her from an actual dive bar in Stockton. She got an Oscar nom for all the trouble she had butting heads with Huston on the set. We all love her performance here as something special and possibly iconic.
Another sweaty, grimy, gorgeously depressing early 1970s film perfect for rewatch on VHS. Damn, those 1980s transfers of old movies was complete ass and it serves FAT CITY well.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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**VHS EPISODE: BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA
TRIGGER WARNING THIS FILM HAS A SCENE OF ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT WHICH IS ADDRESSED ON THE EPISODE**
VHS, in its heyday, was the best way to watch movies. They opened up a generation to movies previously impossible to see if they weren't circulating in movie theaters years and decades after release. You could argue our current nerd culture, where everybody has seen everything, was kickstarted by GEN X getting their hands on previously obscure movies (they definitely gave us Tarantino, anyway; a lot to answer for!) But the technology, compared to our current 8K restored and improved versions was not the best (BETA also kicked its ass). A lot of transfers of older movies to VHS were crappy. Too dark, pan-and-scanned, compressed, color resolution sometimes bordering monochromatic. But in 2022 it IS a visual aesthetic filmmakers try to recreate to give their films a grimy, unwashed and somehow dangerous feel.
BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (1974) was Sam Peckinpah at his most exhausted. Fresh off the disappointing studio theft of PAT GARETT AND BILLY THE KID, always drunk, high or hungover, he decamped to Mexico to make the one movie he would later say was the only one the studios didn't butcher. It was the movie he set out to make. Old comrade Warren Oates plays what is known to be a clear impersonation of Peckinpah himself, down to even wearing Peckinpah's own dark-as-a-black-hole sunglasses. Sounds great, right?
Garcia stands as one of the grimiest, nihilistic movies of the 1970s, itself a decade filled with grimy nihilistic films borne of social unrest, disgust at our institutions and a studio system that had no idea what movies people wanted to see. One of the miracle movies of the decade. Desperate people desperately trying to escape their desperate situations.
Jack had never see it before and Ken's memories of the film are so entwined with the look of the 1988 VHS version, it makes for a hopping episode. Garcia may be a film of extreme moral exhaustion and of clear-eyed cynicism of human nature but there is sweetness buried under the muck. We think? Jack and Ken discuss the making of the film, its legacy, and, most importantly, how the primitive technology of VHS might improve the effect this movie has!
Sam Peckinpah is who opens every episode now on our theme song so we had to get one of his movies on here at some point.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I. (ft. Sam Peckinpah)
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4X4: MIKE NICHOLS PT. 4 of 4: "SNOW COHN" ANGELS IN AMERICA w/Anna Kline
We have reached the end of both season 7 and our delightful 4x4 of directors and films (John Frankenheimer, Harmony Korine, Uwe Boll and Mike Nichols). We end with a late-career triumph by Nichols, his 2003 6-part adaptation of Tony Kushner’s masterpiece of mystery, heart and spiritualism at the end of the Reagan era. ANGELS IN AMERICA has been produced enough times that most people are familiar with it on some level . It is a play that has continually remained a bit of an enigma even as its central themes and core characters appear fairly clear. We’ll talk about the play, Kushner’s constant tweaking for subsequent productions, and the six hour film Nichols made from Kushner’s script. It won 3 million Emmy’s, one of the most celebrated series of all time. How does it hold up nearly 20 years later? Is it Nichols' Magnum Opus, as he would later say?
We are joined by singer Anna Kline of Swift Silver who shares a song about Nichols she wrote based on Mark Harris' essential Nichols biography MIKE NICHOLS, A LIFE, on Ben Arthur's brilliant Song Writer Podcast! She knows her Nichols and shares her song PICTURE SHOW!
BONUS; Ken, Jack and Thomas all rank our Season Seven films. How do you rank an Uwe Boll against a Frankenheimer? Is that wise? Caution is tossed into the wind and we give it a shot.
**ANNA KLINE and SWIFT SILVER Instagram: @swiftsilvermusic Twitter: @swiftsilverband
SONG WRITER PODCAST: Instagram: @songwriterpodcast Twitter: @snogwriter Website: SongWrtiterPodcast.com**
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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4X4: MIKE NICHOLS PT. 3: THE DESIGNATED MOURNER
In 1996 Mike Nichols did something extraordinary after a friendly table reading of Wallace Shawn's new play, THE DESIGNATED MOURNER, he agreed to play the main part of JACK for a theatrical run in London. Previously Nichols' only acting credit was an abbreviated run of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF with Elaine May in 1980, (he was also a savvy stage veteran due to his legendary comedy career, also with May). Working with noted playwright and director (theater and film) David Hare along with co-stars MIRANDA RICHARDSON (who will always be Queenie from Blackadder II to us), and David de Keyser, the run had critics and actors looking for words to describe Nichols' one-of-a-kind performance. Luckily, at the end of the run they decided to commemorate this run and went to Pinewood Studios to shoot a film version in three days.
A harrowing series of monologues details the slow crumbling of an unnamed nation. Is the government cracking down or are rebels taking over? Yes? The result is a culling of what the play calls "high brow" culture. The three characters are either talking as ghosts or as the last person remaining to remember what things used to be (A Designated Mourner).
We came across this oddity in our research and the praise Nichols received in his performance, and our general love of all things Wallace Shawn, made us hunt down a copy of this criminally unavailable film. Nichols quite simply gives one of the most seductive, brutal and impossibly off-the-cuff-seeming performance that it is too late once he has you sucked in. We have seen hundreds of movies during thus podcast and his performance may be the greatest of them all. Seriously. It sneaks up to you with a smile and leads you along until it crushes your heart.
So why is it so damn hard to find? We bought an original DVD from its initial release in 1997 off of ebay. The BBC owns it and the story of why it is so difficult to find, despite its legendary status among those who know, is a mystery we try to unravel.
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4X4 MIKE NICHOLS PT. 2 OF 4: MEDIOCRE, SHE WROTE
HEART BURN & POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGEMeryl Streep and Jack Nicholson playing fictional versions of Nora Ephorn and Carl Bernstein, written by one of the funniest women on the planet at the time? Directed by Nichols? SIGN US UP, right? Gosh, there is a lot to unpack on this episode.
HEART BURN (1986) When Mike Nichols collaborated with Ephron to adapt her thinly-veiled bombshell of a memoir about her marriage and divorce from Carl Bernstein, it seemed like a perfect match! The urbane and witty Nichols paired with the urbane and witty Ephron. It could not miss! But it kinda does. Why? We go over a lot of the issues plaguing this production as it made its way to screen.
Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine playing fictional versions of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds? In a zippy Hollywood comedy about substance abuse directed by Nichols, written by one of the funniest women on numerous planets at the time,? Made at the dazed hangover end of Hollywood's legendary cocaine-period of the 1980s? SIGN US UP, right?
Please see the Heart Burn paragraph and and replace "Nora" and "Ephron" with "Carrie" and "Fisher" and you may notice a theme, when we talk POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (1990). Why Nichols elected to focus on a nearly-nonexistent plot in Fisher's memoir is a mystery we try to unravel as much of her brilliant book are simply not in the movie.
Everything theoretical about these movies is fantastic, making them seem, on paper, as must-see productions. So what goes wrong? We are joined by saucy songstress Andi again to once again investigate.
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4X4: MIKE NICHOLS PT 1: SILKWOOD (and early days).
Mike Nichols (1931-2014) was a stage sensation early in life with unprecedented success as performer and director. His first two films, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (1966) and THE GRADUATE (1967), which won him an Oscar at age 36 began what looked like a world-beating career as a singular film talent with impeccably urbane taste, brilliant facility with actors and a strong cinema visual flair. A series of film disappointments (covered in the pod) followed until Nichols retreated from filmmaking for nearly a decade. Why? We talk about that mystery before diving into his comeback film, SILKWOOD (1983), his first of four collaborations with Dame Queen Galactic Benefactor Meryl Streep (the four projects we are covering for Nichols’ 4X4). In retrospect one of the all time great casts,
Nichols would subsequently split time between the stage and film until his death. Were his later films able to cash-in creatively on the promise of his first two films? Stay tuned the next few weeks. Songstress and super Streep fan Andi joins us.
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UWE BOLL PART TWO: HOW TO TRADE YOUR DRAGON
IN THE NAME OF THE KING 3: THE LAST MISSION and ATTACK ON WALL STREETThis week join three of your favorite podcasting boys to duke it out in the proverbial ring as we discuss the famed Deutschland Destroyer himself- Uwe Boll for his second week as featured director extraordinaire! We’ve watched two of his most popular films- In the “Name of the King 3: The Last Mission,” paired up against the anti-capitalist, wholly American classic “Assault on Wall Street.” Watch Dominic Purcell (Boll’s muse) stalk hunkilly through our podcast as we pick apart these films shot by shot- and discuss further topics and podcast lore- such as: whatever happened to Thomas’s car? What non-alcoholic beverage brand names can we censor (legally) this week? And what REALLY happened to Osama bin Laden? Was his corpse fake?
Uwe Boll may be ending his (Blood)reign as our featured 4x4 director- but he will never end his place as a director close to our hearts.
(Write-up by Jack)
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4X4: UWE BOLL PT. 1 OF 2: TRAMP STAMP
ALONE OF THE DARK and POSTAL
Is Uwe Boll a transgressive genius who has consistently subverted conventional film language and genre expectations time and time again over the course of his career? Is he an angry hack who churns out straight to video mud pies twice (on average) a year? Is he both- or maybe all three? Join the boys (Ken, Jack, and Thomas) this episode as we overcome obstacles such as hip replacement surgery, broken AC, and being trapped in the Portland International Airport bathroom to come together and crack open the bald skull of our third director in the 4x4 series and study what exactly goes on in his brain… Drunk Tara Reid, an army of monkeys, and even the end of the world won’t stop us from doing what we love most- arguing about movies.
Listening to The Good, the Pod, and the Ugly can’t be good for you- but you’ll feel great.
(Write-up by Jack)
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4X4: HARMONY KORINE PT. 2 OF 2: HARM FLORIDA
LOOK AT MY SHIT
FLORIDA MAN, SHARK, WOMEN, ALIEN
SPRING BREAKERS & THE BEACH BUM
Spr-ee-ee-ee-ing Br-ea-ea-ea-ea-k. The three little chickies hatching this week’s mayhem are not your regular indica blend of calm when host Ken taps out and frequent guest to the show Ryan, the original Arizona Man, rejoins Jack and a well(whisky)-hung(over) Thomas to discuss Harmony Korine’s Florida duology (SPRINGBREAKERS and BEACH BUM). In an episode originally intended to litigate Ryan’s Letterboxd review of previous episode’s Julien Donkey-Boy, the tables turn like in kitchen wrestling when Ryan slips out Jack’s hug & Thomas’ chokehold to pin both to the courtroom’s mat when he uncovers during the episode Jack and Thomas’ stark disagreement on the merits of Korine’s two most recent works. Also, bonus lessons from Ryan’s big galaxy brain on American desegregation history and Florida geography.
Discover the lyricism of SPRING BREAKERS (2012/2013), edited and scored for what Harmony calls his “liquid narrative,” the film that earned more in its opening weekend than all previous Korine films’ total box offices combined. Listen as Jack complains about the film that earned more in its opening weekend than all previous Korine films’ total box offices combined’s repetitiveness while Thomas defends its structure, excesses, and the repetitive “liquid narrative” against Jack’s complaints about the editing and repetitiveness of this first of two Korine films with Korine’s Florida aesthetic on full display in these two Florida films shot on location in Florida by Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie, best known for his work on features including Irréversible (2002) and, as mentioned in the show, Enter the Void (2009).
Afterwards, chill not with Gary Oldman for whom the script was written but Matthew McConaughey, man, as Moondog for our final Korine 4x4 film THE BEACH BUM (2019) as this blocked poet plagiarist gets (pot/Parrot)head-y in the Florida Keys. Speaking of head, observe a new spiritual level of love and stoned cunnilingus between Moondog and exorbitantly wealthy wife Minnie, played Isla Fisher, as they reconcile. Chill with triple-threats Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. and James William Buffett--playing, respectively, Snoop Dogg as Lingerie and Jimmy Buffet as himself--along with a cast of half-dozens, including WTF live-action cartoon performances by Jonah Hill and Martin Lawrence, on the way to (entitle/enlighten)ment. Alright, alright, alright.
(episode write-up by Thomas)
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4X4: HARMONY KORINE PT. 1 OF 2: BEAUTIFUL LOSERS
PEANUT BUTTER SISTER F*CKER
GUMMO & JULIEN DONKEY-BOY
You must out-plastic them this episode: Jack “The Jammin' Jabber” along with regional chair-wrestling champion Ken join Thomas (it’s just Thomas) for the second director in our 4x4 series Harmony Korine (1973 – 4ever) covering not just why angels ain’t got no hooves but Korine’s first two films GUMMO (1997) and JULIEN DONKEY-BOY (1999).
Auteur of “mistakist art” and partially raised by circus folks before his buddy got his head cut off in this park in Nashville—Harmony Korine—yes, we could cover more of the life of this enfant terrible in these show notes but if you invite Hitler into your home make sure you have ground rules about eating titties.
TOP 100 SECRETS KNOWN TO THE ILLUMINATI THAT MAY HAVE KILLED BOB HOPE
#62 – The connection between Meryl Streep and Harmony Korine
GUMMO – Fictionally located and originally meant to be shot in Xeno, OH, home of Alien World Skateboards and many devastating tornadoes (instead shot in Harmony’s hometown of Nashville, TN), this premiere film reintroduced to the world Nick Sutton (in the role of Tummler), previously unseen since his appearance on the Sally Jessy Raphael episode “My Child Died From Sniffing Paint” and Linda Mantz back onscreen after 16 years as mother to Nick’s friend, fellow entrepreneur, and occasional narrator Solomon. Layering of images and sound and little rooster goes cock-a-doodle-doo-doo-la-doo-la-doo and blurring the line between script and fiction and the lives of those the camera normally doesn’t see and sure, sure, nothing new for trash like you.
JULIEN DONKEY-BOY – Invited to make the first film in the U.S. under Dogme 95 rules (which it’d break and be the second American film to do so), Korine chose to induce schizophrenia in viewers through digital cameras, editing, and a titular character based on his uncle who would have been cast in the film but failed to receive institutional release. With blind ice skaters, armless drummer, and a cast of non-professional actors, this film in 2022 remains ranked in the Top 20 films of all times starring a Black albino straight from Alabama. Plus, Werner Herzog as Julien’s father holds court at the dinner table, recounting a scene from Dirty Harry.
Sit back with a brown paper bag of your favorite brand of huffing glue (or vintage cough syrup and house slipper if that’s your poison) and enjoy the careening visual lyricism that is Harmony.
(episode write-up by Thomas)
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**JOHN FRANKENHEIMER PT. 2 OF 2: DRINKER BANKER SOLDIER SPY
SECONDS & RONIN
John Frankenheimer (1930-2002)** was one of the hardest working A-list directors of his generation. Sometimes referred to as a "technical director", Frankenheimer's skill in drama is occasionally undervalued. From early work at the forefront of the golden age of live TV to a series of classic films in the 1960s, he continued working through the 1970s and 1980s with up-and-down box office success, box office disappointments, some head-scratchers and a much-diminished star in the auteur pantheon. Then a surprising return to TV in the early 90s made him a multi-Emmy-winning wunderkind in his 60s and led to one last masterpiece in his return to the big screen (which we watch this episode). Co-host Ken chose Frankenheimer for his 4x4 director and chose the four films we'd watch.
PART TWO
SECONDS (1966) and RONIN (1998)
After The Train (1964) Frankenheimer was offered every action picture around but felt the need to prove he was more than just a technical director of thrills. He chose Seconds, a nightmarish fable about middle age malaise and man's inability to truly change. James Wong Howe lends an air of German Expressionism and neo realism to help keep the look as unsettling as the story. In casting Rock Hudson, not his first choice, Frankenheimer sometimes struggled with the limits of Hudson's talent, going so far as getting him drunk for a scene where his character has to "let go." It works. Thomas read the book and lets us in on how close the film follows the book and what the film gets right by excising. Seconds is freakishly good so watch it if you've never seen it before listening.
JOHN FRANKENHEIMER 1966-1998
Before jumping way into the future we will briefly discuss the 20+ projects between Seconds and Ronin, a truly up and down assortment of projects that veer from lost masterpieces, large-scale and small, to movies made for hire while he struggled with alcohol abuse. Frankenheimer found himself without prospects, a journeyman, before returning to TV in the early 1990s in stunning, award-winning, fashion and being welcomed back into features before his last, great film, RONIN (1998). Frankenheimer's incomparable run in the 60s perfectly positioned him to make an action film with more vigor and verisimilitude than any other director of the time, at age 67! In addition to Frankenheimer's detailed planning of the film and location work we also talk the infamous David Mamet script he took his name off of after the WGA would not give him full credit and the incredible stunt work it took to pull everything off. There was also a critic at the time that thought the amazing Paris car chase went on "too long." We'll roast that dumb-dumb. It is a top tier all time great car chase.
So listen and hopefully our few hours talking about four of his movies gets you interested in checking out more of Frankenheimer's work. It's worth it. Our 4X4 series is meant to be an overview, a sampler plate with our favorites, but a director like Frankenheimer has a deep bench worth exploring.
(in this episode Chuck Norris is mentioned when the actor in question was, in fact, the great Chuck Connors. Apologies to the family of Chuck Connors)
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**JOHN FRANKENHEIMER PT. 1 OF 2: TRAINWASHING (or TRAIN CONTROL; or LOCO-MOTIVE)
SEASON PREMIERE!
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE & THE TRAIN
John Frankenheimer (1930-2002)** was one of the hardest working A-list directors of his generation. From early work at the forefront of the golden age of live TV to a series of classic films in the 1960s, he continued working through the 1970s and 1980s with up-and-down box office success, box office disappointments, some head-scratchers and a much-diminished star in the auteur pantheon he once seemed poised to be a permanent addition. Then a surprising return to TV in the early 90s made him a multi-Emmy-winning wunderkind in his 60s and led to one last masterpiece in his return to the big screen (which we watch next episode). Co-host Ken chose Frankenheimer for his 4x4 director and chose the four films we'd watch and why. Anything missing, blame Ken.
PART ONE
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and The Train (1964) start our 4xFrankenheimers off with a bang or two.
The Manchurian Candidate was a feature Frankenheimer was deeply involved with from the get-go and his still-startling visuals resonate sixty years later. That brainwashing sequence! The press conference! The deep focus! The kiss! It's all so impossibly good. Generally regarded as his masterpiece, our next feature may have a word or two about that.
The Train was a film Frankenheimer was brought into late, after its original director was fired following the first day of shooting (harsh). Frankenheimer reworked the script considerably and designed an action movie of such uniquely powerful verisimilitude, it stands as a towering achievement as the best black and white action movie ever made (according to Ken, who won't shut up about this movie).
Ken, Jack and Thomas all bring their A game this week (sorry, other weeks) in one of the best pairing we've ever had on the pod!
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A BIGGER BOAT: LINCOLN SPIELBERG FINALE
For the last two years co-host Jack has insisted that LINCOLN is the worst movie ever made and Spielberg is the worst director of all time. What began as a joke, "let's do a Spielberg season just so we can make Jack watch Lincoln again, hur hur," slowly became the impetus for our strangest season yet. Here we are, the finale, where Jack watches Lincoln again, with a ton of Spielberg as pre-gaming the last three months.
Thomas read the Doris Kearns Goodwin book TEAM OF RIVALS, which is the loose inspiration for Tony, Pulitzer, and Emmy-winning legend Tony Kushner's screenplay, which Ken read (none of those awards were for Lincoln). We came into this hardcore prepared, y'all.
Will Jack reassess or is it still the worst movie ever made? How successful were Spielberg and Kushner in adapting Kearns' award-winning book? Will Jack think differently about Spielberg as a director after having had to watch his legitimate classics alongside his Always' and Hooks? What are Jack's final ranking of the Spielbergs he watched this season? Will Spielberg gift Jack a 1989 Mazda Miata for having made it to the finish line? So many questions. Just listen and find out, okay? It's all here.
**THEME SONG: WEIRD A.I.
LINCOLN: 7:24
JACK'S EPIC SPIELBERG COUNTDOWN: 1:19:33**
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A BIGGER BOAT: CLOSE EMPIRES OF THE THIRD SUN
Theme song maestro and cinema expert Ryan joins us to talk two of his favorite Spielbergs. One is about a man willingly leaving his family and the other is about a kid unwillingly leaving his family.
1977's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was Spielberg's big swing after the cachet JAWS bought him. After numerous versions of a script were commissioned (including one by pod fave Paul Schrader) Spielberg eventually Dick Cheney'd the whole thing and ended up as the sole screenwriter (one of two times in his career he would have this credit). Spielberg loved Kubrick and 2001 and so he enlisted Douglas Trumbull to do the FX for Close Encounters - FX that still cooks more than 40 years later. Despite going way over budget and shooting schedule, all of the effort is on the screen with some of Spielberg's most beautiful shooting of his career on display. The story has its hiccups, to be sure, but the essential nature of the film, searching for meaning and connection, still resonates.
1987's EMPIRE OF THE SUN was based on the memoir by JG Ballard and adapted by podcast fave Tom Stoppard. Young Bruce Wayne learns about life the hard way as an English boy in a Japanese internment camp. Some of Spielberg's strongest-ever sequences, filled with beautiful narrative and visual austerity are mixed with his penchant for explicitly telling you what is happening and how you should feel. It's an odd tension, some of his best with his flaws also on bold display. Still, as Ryan tells us, it is one of Spielberg's very best.
Two good films this week in our penultimate Spielberg episode!
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A BIGGER BOAT: SPIELBERG AND SPECIAL EFFECTS
Digital artist John Blalock joins Jack to discuss Spileberg's evolving use of state-of-the-art special effects; from Bruce-the-robot in JAWS to the groundbreaking digital work in JURASSIC PARK to the stifling airless digital environs of READY PLAYER ONE, to everything in-between. Spielberg has always utilized technology, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and we'll chart that evolution. Has Spielberg affected FX technology or is it the other way around? Find out in this lively episode!
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A BIGGER BOAT: MUNICH, MUNICH & WAR HORSE
MUNICH was to be Spielberg's winter Oscar film to 2005's WAR OF THE WORLD's Jurassic Park-level summer even film. It didn't really work out that way but the one for them/one for me summer/winter dynamic may have worked as well in '05 as any other time Beardo did it, other than Jurassic Park/Schindler's List in '93. He would later refer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a sweet reward for filmgoers who endured the "bitter herbs" used in making Munich. Does Spielberg understand metaphor or are actors on his sets literally covered in food?
WAR HORSE has been the punchline to many of Jack's jokes dating back to our Eastwood era. Finally, we made him actually watch it! And? Is it worthy of all his scorn? Did it make him cry? Is he a reborn War Horse truther now???
In a change of pace for this episode, JACK, KEN and ANDI all talk Munich solo before JACK, THOMAS and LEIGH all talk Munich AND THEN this second trio talks Jack's favorite punchline, WAR HORSE. Everyone wanted to talk Munich this season so the pod abides.
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A BIGGER BOAT: THE COLOR PURPLE AND INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE
THE COLOR PURPLE (1985) was Spielberg's first big swing at the legitimacy he so desperately craved after a series of certified sensations (plus 1941). Adapted from Alice Walker's best seller, the legendary cast of future all-stars was a middling critical and commercial success. In 1985 you could have a movie based on a book by a black woman about specific black experiences, directed by a white guy from Arizona and adapted by a white guy from checks notes, um, The Netherlands, and it would garner only minor criticism. Not exactly the "good old days". Allen Daviau (who also lensed E.T. and Empire of the Sun) shoots one of Spielberg's best-looking movies but... is this really the story to make abject poverty and abuse look like a banking ad with sunsets and gently fluttering spores? A lot of the material is maybe mismatched with the way the movie is made and scored. It's a cosmic gumbo, for sure. How does it hold up in 2022?
Then 1989's INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, Spielberg's final Indiana Jones adventure (don't argue) and beloved by many fans. Connery plays dad to Harrison Ford. Do you need a roadmap why this works? A delightful send-off to a fine trilogy of films (don't argue).
This week Jack and Thomas are joined by Shannon to work out why both of these films stand out in Spielberg's decade of dominance, for better or worse.
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A BIGGER BOAT: BROKEN ROBOTS
Co-host Ken is joined this episode by saucy songstress Andi to talk her favorite and least favorite Spielberg.
JAWS (1974) is about a broken robot shark hungry for love. You all know the story. Spielberg was in full-on genius mode as a twelve-year-old (sourcing needed) directing JAWS and is famous for a broken mechanical shark necessitating making it unseen for most of the movie.
A.I. (2001) is about a broken robot boy hungry for love. Spielberg mopped up after the greatest filmmaker of all time, Stanley Kubrick, developed A.I. for decades. Spielberg got full screenwriting credit despite much of certain sections being verbatim from Kubrick's and Ian Watson's written work prior to Kubrick's untimely, tragic, something-cinema-may-never-recover-from, death in 1999. Hey, Spielberg cut out all the robot sex scenes - because OF COURSE he did.
Kubrick's films are often better 20 years later than upon their initial release. They age extremely well. How does Spielberg's version of Kubrick handle a two-decade reappraisal? Spoiler: Not well.
Side note: Andi performed all three Clint Eastwood theme songs for seasons 1-3 and married Ken to get out of having to do any more!
THEME SONG: WEIRD A.I.
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A BIGGER BOAT: E.T.
E.T. was made for children so why would you want to hear adults discussing it? You don't and we agree!
Jack is joined by this week's special guest, his 8-year-old cousin Cadence, all the way from Mississippi, to discuss the little film that toppled Star Wars as the highest grossing film of all time, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Released in 1982, ET may be the one 1980s film Spielberg actually directed that solidified the Spielberg-associated style of children protagonists, wonder, humor, etc. All of his other 1980s movies, other than Empire of the Sun, have adult protagonists so it is telling how closely Spielberg is tied to this particular brand.
120 million people bought tickets to it in its original U.S. release, on its way to making $792 million worldwide - in 2022 adjusted $ that would be TWO BILLION DOLLARS! That's a lot of Reese's Pieces. If made today it would cost a measly 30 million dollars to make, adjusted for inflation, and they would 100% use a candy made without peanuts to avoid a kid somewhere with peanut allergies feeling left out.
Unabashedly for children (in contrast to modern blockbusters which are also for children but marketed, and weirdly enjoyed, by adults), how does ET hold up for modern children? Cadence will answer all.
Note: Cadence turned 9 this week so she may be embarrassed by her younger self talking at length about Spielberg's mise-en-scène . Be nice.
Note 2: This is our shortest episode ever.
THEME SONG: WEIRD A.I. (Thank you, Ryan! Missed a thanks on this episode!)
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SPECIAL CAGE UNCAGED THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT
The CAGE UNCAGED FINALE we deserve. We return to the subject of our fourth season, with THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT, a very-2022 movie where Nic Cage plays Nick Cage and stuff happens because he is a crazy actor people love, including drug lords! The guys who made it love Cage as much as the next podcast and parlayed it into a feature film! Is is fanfiction writ large or a flighty delight? Listen and find out with our expert opinions. Pedro Pascal co-stars as a wealthy Spaniard who pays Cage to fly over for his birthday. Hijinks with the CIA and acid trips ensue.
On our first Cage Uncaged episode (S4 E1) we covered ADAPTATION, the Citizen Kane of 21st century meta films. We also covered VAMPIRE'S KISS. Not to spoil Unbearable Weight but Cage's exact hair in Kiss makes a comeback. Everything comes full circle.
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS
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**A BIGGER BOAT: HOOK
Q: IF STAR TREK FANS ARE TREKKERS, WHAT ARE HOOK FANS?**
Hook! Spielberg's 1991 fantasy/antiworkaganda-fest is one, in Spielberg's own estimation, that does not work. Fam, this is the guy who once said "there is time to be human and have an opinion and a time to sell cars" about his movies. I don't think he even said anything bad about Minority Report and his only reservations about War of the Worlds was Tom Cruise jumping on a couch so the dude generally keeps his human opinions about his own work to himself.
Ken, Jack and Thomas all bleach their eyeballs after having watched Hook and live to talk about it.
Happy 75th EPISODE PARTY!
A: FEW
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A BIGGER BOAT: DUEL & CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
We are joined once again by podcast fave Rick Patt to discuss Spielberg's two chase movies made at two very different points in his career.
1971's TV movie DUEL effectively served as Spielberg's calling card. Written by Richard Matheson from his own short story, Duel is the deceptively simple story of an everyman from the city mysterious besieged by a demonic semi truck in the lonely high desert highways of Southern California. Often called the greatest TV movie ever made (The Jericho Mile would like a word with you there) DUEL had scenes added following its initial airing so it could be released theatrically in Europe. It led to Spielberg being considered for Jaws and the rest is history.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. By 2002 Beardo had already won two best director Oscars and could make almost any movie he wanted. Taking the truth-contested autobiography of Frank Abegnale Jr, a project he had intended to produce with directors like Gore Verbinski and David Fincher briefly attached, Spielberg guided the tale of a teenage conman into a tale of a boy who could not handle the fact his parents divorced. On paper that sounds a bit too much, given Spielberg's background. But in screenwriter Jeff Nathanson's hands (a rare instance in this era where Spielberg didn't doctor a script out) and with a cast featuring too many great actors to name off, Spielberg infuses the story of a teenage savant with more energy and joy than any of his movies since Raiders. It may be his best work of the 21st century.
Two good movies this episode!
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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MANN AGED SPECIAL TOKYO VICE PILOT
We return to Michael Mann and our completist review of his directorial works with a discussion of his brand-new HBO Max program, TOKYO VICE, which premiered on on 4/7/22. Mannexecutive produces the series and directed the pilot, his first directorial credit since the criminally underrated Blackhat from 2015.
Based on the 2009 memoir of the same name, it's about journalist Jake Adelstein and his 12 years as the first non-Japanese reporter at Yomiuri Shimbum, a large, conservative national newspaper, in the late 1990s. Hoo boy! He reported the crime beat and got up into a lot trouble in that time. Baby Driver stars along with ALL TIME acting legend and podcast fave Ken Wattanabe.
In our MANN-USCRIPT section, co-host Thomas will go into a little more detail about the book before we dive into the pilot.
Mann's last pilot for an HBO series was LUCK, which was not very good and was cancelled after an abbreviated single, unsatisfying, season. Is this a TV course correction or nah? HBO Max is releasing the entire series in big weekly Thursday chunks rather than their usual weekly single episode rollout. Why? Is it not considered "prestige" despite its pedigree and star power? Are they messing with us or simply dumping Vice? Tune in and find out.
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A BIGGER BOAT #6: THE SPIELBERG MYSTERY HOUR
With his contract at Universal yielding uneven results (Spielberg was not asked back to the series' he directed episodes for because he did not stick to the visual style they'd established), Spielberg was tasked with directing one of the first episodes of Columbo after it became a series. MURDER BY THE BOOK (1971) was filmed second in the full series order but aired first. Creators Richard Levinson and William Link encouraged Spielberg to be more cinematic and not less. The result stands as one of the best episodes of Columbo's long run. The plot? Co-authors Ken and Jim break up badly. Ken is a jerk who does none of the work and kills Jim. In real life, co-host Ken has a twin brother named Jim. For reals. Irony!
MINORITY REPORT (2002) had a long, winding road to the big screen and was almost made by Spielberg years earlier before he went with AI. Loosely based on a Phillip K Dick short story and featuring a typically Maximum Effort Tom Cruise performance, the film features a rather well-thought out mystery. Not without its holes but, for this sort of thing, well-crafted. So why is this one of Spielberg's worst films? Listen and find out!
Recorded on Valentine's Day 2022, we love bomb Spielberg's Columbo like all new loves. Then we disparage and vilify Minority Report like a long-time marriage gone sour. Great times! Ken and Jack (not to be confused with Ken and Jim from the Columbo) tackle the mystery.
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A BIGGER BOAT: POLTERGEIST & ALWAYS
Jack and Thomas are joined by Ryan to discuss Spielberg and two seemingly opposing views on the afterlife.
In 1982s POLTERGEIST (credited director: Tobe Hooper) Spielberg was so hands-on with the story and film rumors have followed since that he, in fact, directed a fair portion. But so what? It's a classic with his fingerprints all over it as he was seemingly everywhere in the 1980s. Poltergeist is about the terror of the family unit being torn apart in suburbia but with ghosts and scary TVs as inciting elements instead of the spouse-swapping, drugs and financial stress that haunts real family life. Good metaphor, fellas!
Then ALWAYS (1989), Spielberg's attempt at romantic comedy and death! Not exactly mixing chocolate and peanut butter there, beardo. Adapted from 1943's A GUY NAMED JOE, Spielberg fave Richard Dryfuss plays a checks notes * firefighter that dies and then as a ghost tries to get Holly Hunter laid* or... something. Man, this is not a good one. John Goodman and Audrey Hepburn show up as comic relief and an alarmingly skinny angel (guess who plays which!).
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A BIGGER BOAT E4: WEST SIDE STORY AND OSCAR PICKS
Jack and Ken watched West Side Story, Spielberg's 2021 passion project and ode to the "conservative" musicals of his youth (not in the political sense). It flopped! Big time! Why? Because it is terrible? Or is it good and simply failed to connect in the current theatrical market of multiverses and reboots? Ken and Jack both went in dubious about WSS - how did it turn out? Surprises guaranteed!
Then special guest Annabel, an actual honest to gosh dancer, pipes in to discuss the dancing in West Side Story (she skipped through the talking parts).
Finally we are joined by co-host Thomas (who opted out of watching West Side Story) as we make our Oscar picks. Listen to this episode before the Oscars to compare our (100% uneducated) picks or listen afterwards to laugh at how bad we did.
**WEST SIDE STORY: 0:00
THE DANCE OF WSS: 28:50
POD SQUAD OSCAR PICKS: 43:13**
THEME SONG: WEIRD A.I.
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A BIGGER BOAT: DO NOT TRUST YOUR AUDIENCE
For this week's episode we talk to film expert, screenwriter and 80s connoisseur Erik Van Der Wolf about Spielberg's growing cultural impact as the predominant name director on the planet. We talk his filmography from 1981's Raiders to 1989's Always along with his extensive executive producing and imprimatur-bestowing to a variety of projects and directors. His creative journey from a guy wanting to make people happy with savant-level skill at staging and craft to a guy in desperate need for artistic validation takes root in this decade.
Two things you can expect from studio film-making in the 1980's (besides cocaine): Spielberg and bad hair.
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A BIGGER BOAT: THE ERAS OF BEARDO
We are joined once again by cinema expert Rick Patt to discuss Spielberg's three eras, along with the successes and errors within each.
1. ASCENDENT: 1971-1993. DUEL - SCHINDLER'S LIST
Spielberg's blatant need to be respected and lauded had a lot of speed bumps in the 1980s and early 1990s but Jurassic Park AND Schindler's List in the same year, 1993? Perhaps the greatest year financially, artistically and critically of any director ever. Our favorite guy-with-a-beard finally made it to the top!
2. RESPECTABLY RELEVANT: 1997-2008 LOST WORLD - CRYSTAL SKULL
In this second era we find Spielberg almost desperately trying to recreate the alchemic balance of '93 with varying results. Some of his most adventurous material is nestled within in the 00s.
3. RESPECTABLY IRRELEVENT: 2011-2022 TINTIN - THE FABLEMANS
In the third era, Spielberg, having made that hugely successful fourthquel to Raiders of the Lost Ark, simultaneously lost credibility and cachet with longtime fans. Like a balloon popped. We ghosted him and moved onto the Nolans, Reeves', Peeles, PTAs and Marvel nonsense of the mainstream film world. From there he has made stately dramas for the retirement home set or attempted to make the kinds of films he was known for decades ago (Tin Tin, Ready Player One) with, again, widely varying results. Longtime fans no longer talk of him reverently and rarely do his films tap into any sort of zeitgeist, a zeitgeist he at one time owned. With the promise of an autobiographical film later this year, he is not going anywhere, mining the mid 20th century like it was somehow in danger of being forgotten (Narrator: It wasn't).
Rick helps us track it all.
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S6 PREMIERE OF "A BIGGER BOAT"
Season six will focus on the SSCU, the Steven Spielberg Cinematic Universe. Spielberg, a director who once reigned over Hollywood but has since directed himself into respectable obsolescence has had as many cinematic lives as Batman, a new version trotted out every so often with mixed results. Our guests will walk us through their experiences with Beardo's films and what Spielberg meant then and what he means now.
Co-host Ken picked this inaugural episode consisting of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) and KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) as his best and worst Spielbergs.
Raiders is both one of the most enduring and best-looking films of Spielberg's long career. Paired with the misbegotten, foul-looking Crystal Skull (which made more than any other Indiana Jones movie - people, c'mon!), is a stunning double bill. We'll chart how the mighty king of popular culture has fallen from the tippy top of Devils Tower to whatever the hell was happening in Ready Player One with some surprising theories.
Jack and Thomas moderate a lively convo to kick this season off!
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ONE IN THE HOPPER - DENNIS HOPPER'S MADMAN ERA
Between 1969 and 1980 Dennis Hopper directed three movies he also starred in. The first, EASY RIDER (1969), is one of the great Hollywood success stories. Made for peanuts by a studio who didn't know what kids wanted, it tapped into the zeitgeist and remains one of the all-time great road movies and soundtracks with indelible characters tripping toward an iconic ending.
Hopper was given complete control over his next film, THE LAST MOVIE (1971), which was a long-simmering idea Hopper had hatched in the sixties and was very nearly made before Rider. The film shoot in Peru was fraught with drug-use, improvisation and stunning Laslo Kovacs' cinematography at 12k feet. Then Hopper retreated to edit and it kept getting delayed and... delayed. During this time LM Kit Carson and Lawrence Schiller made a documentary about Hopper editing The Last Movie in New Mexico called THE AMERICAN DREAMER (1971) and, folks, some of it may be performative but it is a gonzo portrait of epic indulgence. So much that the final result of The Last Movie makes more sense.
The failure of The Last Movie sent Hopper into movie jail for the next decade, periodically popping up as a bit character or appearing in low budget or European films to bring an unnerving sense of real danger (Mad Dog Morgan, Tracks, The American Friend, Apocalypse Now, etc.) until he was cast in a sedate Canadian family film called CeBe. Hopper took over a troubled early production, reimagined the entire film as a nihilistic spiritual sequel to Easy Rider over a weekend - literally basing the new narrative on the titular Neil Young song - and swooped in as director and made one of the greatest, darkest films of the still-nascent 1980s, OUT OF THE BLUE.
If you have not seen Out of the Blue, we highly recommend you do so before listening to this portion of this episode.
Hopper went into rehab in '83. He would direct four more movies but they were yeoman, journeyman works of a pro, not his legendarily transgressive earlier work. For his family, friends and loved ones, his relative health and financial stability the next three decades brought was a blessing, of course, we would never say otherwise. For cinema fans, however, the unhinged genius that made Rider, Movie and Blue... was never seen again.
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NEON & SHADOWS
We have reached the endpoint in Season Five! We have watched every Michael Mann project he directed. We even watched his episodes of Police Woman and Crime Story so you know we went further than those other podcasts, who just covered the stuff they found on one random list on Letterboxed. Amateurs!
We end with LA TAKEDOWN (1989), the retooled TV Pilot for HANNA, a proposed TV program about police detective Vincent Hanna, played here by the late Scott Plank, not Al Pacino. Mann had been working on HEAT for nearly a decade and repurposed about half of what would become his landmark 1995 crime saga here on TV six years earlier. A true curiosity for any true Mann fan. It's roughly the same plot as Heat with a few scenes exactly the same but... for TV and on a clearly limited budget.
Then we talk to fellow Mann-Sized Big Mann Fans, podcast all stars Erik, Ryan, Rick and Patrick about their thoughts on Mann's filmogrpahy (or Mannography, if you will).
We end with Ken, Jack and Thomas all counting down Mann's work, all 16, from worst to best. Spoiler: We all have the same film as #1.
This is a big episode and it is recommended to consume in at least three servings, maybe more! Fantastic season!
**CH. 1 LA TAKEDOWN
CH. 2 THE WORLD OF MANN W/GUESTS:
49:30 ERIK
1:18:45: RYAN
2:01:48: RICK
2:36:30: PATRICK
CH. 3: COUNTDOWN OF MANN’S WORST TO BEST & FINAL THOUGHTS: 3:25:06
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BROTHER, YOU ARE GOING DOWN
The one where they talk about Heat.
HEAT (1995) is about two middle-aged men looking for something to give their lives meaning. They have their conflicts, of course, buts pend one special night in a diner. You want to see them as partners having adventures after the movie ends. Maybe solving crimes on the open road in an RV with dogs named Val and Caan.
That is not to be because of The Job. The action is the juice and the juice is the action, as the Jamba Juice slogan and Tom Sizemore tell us.
One of the best American crime films ever and worthy of the worship. Can we find something new to say about a movie that has had more podcast talk spilled over it than any other movie possibly ever? Probably not but you won't know unless you listen! Thomas, Ken and Jack are joined by theme song maestro Ryan to discuss.
BONUS: A special HEAT summary by Annabel, who has never seen the movie.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN HO-HO-HO
We take a break from Michael Mann to present our 2nd Annual Christmas-Adjacent Episode with Jack and Ken.
THE RULES:
A film that has Christmas in it but is not a classic "changed by the season" film using Christmas as a crutch for facile change in facile characters that was initially released during the Christmas season. No Santa unless he is a deranged murderer or has salmon in his pocket. DIE HARD can't be used because it is too obvious and we already watch it Christmas Eve, well after we recorded the episode. NO SHANE BLACK FILMS. They all take place during Christmas and it's a bit boring by this point. C'mon, Shane, there are 11 other months in which to set stories. Other than that, anything goes.
Last year Ken chose LA Confidential, which has a brutal murder on Chritstmas,and Jack chose In Bruges, which has numerous brutal murders around Christmas. Two GREAT movies that capture the true meaning of the season! What will they choose this year??
HINTS:
KEN'S: The John Landis comedy made after his disastrous and fatal Twilight Zone shoot but before his equally disastrous conception of Max Landis.
JACK'S: A depressing Danish drama from the director of last year's best movie . It stars Mads Michelob (sp?) and is about a tight-knit community being torn apart by a lie.
INTRO: SPECIAL GUEST!
DANNY DAY-LEWIS AND THE NEWS
Pt. Two: Russell Crowe was still a year from being a worldwide superstar starring as Maximus in Gladiator when he puffed up and got gray hair for The Insider (1999). It's about tobacco and old-world journalism (based on an epic piece in Vanity Fair) without a mention of clicks, blogs or website banners. One of Mann's most critically praised film with his most Oscar noms. Al Pacino plays Johnny 60-Minutes trying to get Crowe (as Johnny Tobacco) to, well, crow about big tobacco in what would be a watershed monent in America after a lot of hemming and hawing about the truth and corproate timidity/complicity. Crowe wears a convincing wig, by the way, it ain't real. Christopher Plummer swoops in and steals the show as Mike Wallce, grinning a lot like Timothy Dalton in Hot Fuzz, weirdly. Big time disagreement on this one, folks. Again, a fight almost ensues.
Theme Song by: WEIRD A.I.
DANNY DAY-LEWIS AND THE NEWS
Pt. One: After Manunter and a number of false-start projects, Michael Mann swerved hard from modern crime and neon into the historical epic LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992). Daniel Day-Lewis built a time machine to go back in time to 1757 to research his role as Hawkeye (not the M.A.S.H. character or the superhero) and it shows! Between Mann's notorious attention to detail and Day Lewis's hardcore method acting prep, Mohicans still stands out as a stone cold period piece classic that is also the most effectively romantic of Mann's films.
Pt. Two: Russell Crowe was still a year from being a worldwide superstar starring as Maximus in Gladiator when he puffed up and got gray hair for The Insider (1999). It's about tobacco and old-world journalism (based on an epic piece in Vanity Fair) without a mention of clicks, blogs or website banners. One of Mann's most critically praised film with his most Oscar noms. Al Pacino plays Johnny 60 Minutes trying to get Crowe to, well, crow about big tobacco in what would be a watershed monent in America after a lot of hemming and hawing about the truth and corproate timidity/complicity. Crowe wears a convincing wig. Christopher Plummer swoops in and steals the show as Mike Wallce.
Theme Song by: WEIRD A.I.
MANN AGED E6: RUMBLE IN THE MCU
Michael Mann is from Chicago and it has featured prominently in a number of projects. CRIME STORY (1986-1988) was a series that began IN Chicago, 1963, and was an early precursor to the serialized TV we have today. Dennis Farina and his mustache goes toe-to-toe with Anthony Denison as sadistic criminal Ray Luca, whose violent rise from Chicago hood to Las Vegas mogul is chronicled in S1. Mann directs the penultimate episode of season one, TOP OF THE WORLD, where Farina and his squad finally get enough juice to take down Luca. We talk the episode and the series itself and how important it is in not only Mann's subsequent work, but for TV in general.
ALI was Mann's intense collaboration with Will Smith as the legendary boxer and his most turbulent era ('64-'74) as he slowly actualizes himself as a person. Ali was a muted failure upon its 2001 release and Mann has returned to it with an immediate home video director's cut and a definitive, new cut in 2017, shortly after Ali's death. It's a difficult movie to wrap your head around, thematically and narratively but the 2017 cut may fix those issues. may. We get into an argument about this one.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
MANN AGED E5: INNA GADDA DA XENU1986'S MANHUNTER, made after two years serving as the showrunner for Miami Vice, was little-seen upon its release but, arguably is Mann's most lasting genre effort. It created a template that has been repurposed approximately five million times: serial killer, profiler, victim in trouble, all leading to an explosive climax. Is William Peterson the Citizen Kane of film FBI profilers? The first, oft-imitated, but never topped? Brian Cox as Hannibal Lektor along with the limp Ratner remake RED DRAGON (2002) will also be discussed. Mann continues an unparalleled streak of casting here and it was clear, even in 1986, he knew how to make actors at the fore and the background pop like few other directors.
Then we talk COLLATERAL (2004), Mann's attempt at taking a fun blockbuster-type concept (stony hitman in a cab driven around LA by a meek cabdriver that has to learn how to be a man) and infusing it with his masterful visuals, knotty themes about life with brooding, violent characters. Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx bring every ounce of movie star charisma and bravado to this odd marriage of a movie. Is this a good match? Ken, Jack and Thomas almost get into a fistfight disagreeing about this one. Is the pod over as a result? Find out!
Also: we receive a voicemail complaint from an anonymous film director about Jack's harangues against just about everyone. What will he learn about being a Man this week?
Them song by: WEIRD A.I.
MANN AGED E4: DAS GO-FAST BOOT
This week we discuss two divisive Michael Mann epics. 1983's THE KEEP saw Mann take a der leften turn from his focus on the gritty crime and law enforcement settings of his TV work and feature debut to supernatural Nazi horror. As we will see later, Mann pivoting hard will yield a masterpiece in Last of The Mohicans but does it work here? Well, they ran out of money, the author of the source novel hates it, and Mann doesn't like talking about it - which sounds like a bad marriage or a bad movie (maybe all three). We'll take a look and let you know.
Then the film that has gone through the most intense re-appraisal in Mann's storied career, his film version of MIAMI VICE. Vilified upon its release for being muddy, obtuse and a disappointing slog (by one of our co-hosts!), it has since become one of the favorite films in Mann's career. Why? That is two questions: 1) why did no one like it back in 2006 and 2) why, 15 years later, does everyone with a twitter come en masse to say it is a masterpiece? Is it the salsa dancing? The non-stop police and crime jargon? Making Miami look menacing with digital photography? What is its secret? Jack, Ken and Thomas are joined by theme song maestro Ryan to figure it out. We also check in with pod friend Erik, who is also a huge fan of Vice (the movie).
This is gonna be a fun one. 85% guarantee. Also: Co-host Jack gets harassed by the cops - what he has learned from watching Michael Mann movies.
THEME SONG: WEIRD A.I.
MANN AGED E3: HEAD & SHOULDERS
In our earnest and sincere desire to give lessons the Jack about being a man by watching Michael Mann movies we've reached dodgy ground as both our our Mann movies this week feature protagonists who are criminals. Criminals who find brief succor in the arms of a woman, but cannot escape their nature (which is stealing shit).
PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) is Mann's first all-digital project and features Jack Sparrow as John Dillinger and Batman as Melvin Purvis, the dogged Bureau of Investigation agent trying to capture him. Too long a list of a great actors support both these fellas as one robs and the other tracks. A dynamic not unlike Mann's masterpiece Heat which, at times, feels like this is remaking taking place in 1933. Any good? Any life lessons about being a man?
Then Mann's theatrical debut, 1981's THIEF, starring James Caan along with James Caan's shoulders, which prove so wide they got separate billing (that is a fact, check it out on IMDBPro, our new sponsor!*). One of Mann's most enduring films for the Mann Fans, does it teach us anything about being a man other than stealing is a viable enterprise right up until it really isn't? Listen and find out!
Between the two films, made nearly 30 years apart, we can definitely trace the lines of Mann's preoccupations with men lost to the primacy of their "jobs" and inability to find peace in what we think of as "the real world," try as they might. A couple bangers as we begin covering the more notable films in his filmography.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
*we don't have a sponsor
MANN AGED E2: TEN TO LIFE ODDS
In 1979 Michael Mann made what amounts to a statement of purpose in THE JERICHO MILE, a TV movie about a Folsom prison inmate who finds succor in running and attracts the eye of both professional trainers, the Olympics, and every racially segregated gang inside. Peter Strauss stars as Lickety Split in a performance so good you'll wonder why he didn't become a household name in the 1980s. The supporting cast begins what will be a Mann strong suit in the decades to come: crack supporting actors at every level and some real life prisoners sprinkled in there for verisimilitude. This is a gem and definite must-see for any Mann fan.
In 2011 David Milch and Mann collaborated on one of the biggest swings-and-miss series of the golden age of premium TV. LUCK lasted one season with 9 episodes (because Milch couldn't finish the script for #10 on time). Cancelled early in production of S2 in 2012 after three horses died, we can consider it a mercy killing of a very troubled dynamic offscreen. Despite the fascinating mosaic of horse racing with great character actors along with two aging stars in Nick Nolte and Dustin Hoffman, this thing simply did not work.
Mann directed the pilot, which we talk about here.
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
MANN AGED E1: THORMAN BATES
What does it take to be a man? We have no clue. One of our hosts, Jack, is young enough he can still figure it out so we ware watching all of Michael Mann's directorial efforts to assist. In our first episode we will watch and dissect Mann's mainstream directorial debut in Police Woman S4 E6, The Buttercup Killer, 1977 and 2015's BLACKHAT, his most recent effort starring THOR-BEFORE-HE-WAS-FUNNY and shot on iPhone 6s! The hosts watched different versions of Blackhat and it turns out there are tons of differences. In both Young Thor plays a hacker recruited to stop a different hacker from manipulating world events to make a buck. Also in both versions: mood for days and Thor with his shirt off (contractual, we believe). Police Woman was a television series that ran for four season between 1974-1978. Mann had worked in the writing ranks for earlier series' such as the gritty anthology Police Story and Starsky and Hutch before he was given the chance to direct The Buttercup Killer episode of Police Woman in S4. While he did not write the episode, it bears some of his later flourishes, despite being a perfunctory TV procedural with little to remember other than his name in the credits. The story concerns a mysterious nun killing Greeks who have dark family secrets. Guess the twist based on the title of our episode!
Join us on this journey to the Aisle of Mann in the Podcast Store.
THEME SONG BY: Weird A.I.
BONUS EPISODE
October, 2021 is special for the GPU hosts! Later this month standout joke-maker, divisive lightning rod Jack is turning 18! Also later in the month sad sack Ken is getting MARRIED! Not only that but Jack is his best man AND third cohost, smooth criminal Thomas, is officiating the ceremony. Furthermore Ken is marrying Andi, who sang the theme song for season's 1-3. It's all a bit... like the royal family, if you know what we mean. Basically Ken has zero friends other than this podcast is what you should glean from all of this.
To celebrate we are watching a birthday movie and a wedding movie!
BIRTHDAY: PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991) - this is Thomas' choice, a movie he claims is PERFECT. Is there a birthday in it? There better be! We'll find out!
WEDDING: READY OR NOT (2019)- Jack's choice. It's the one where a new bride has to kill of all her in-laws. Is it a documentary from Ken's future? Find out!
PRISONER OF SATURN FILMS!
We return briefly to our Cage project to talk about his latest bid for midnight movie supremacy, PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021). Directed by Sion Sono, Prisoners is a neo-western with samurais, cowboys, zombies and end time whackos from a Road Warrior test reel. Cage is tasked with finding the Governor's "daughter" who tried to escape but ended up in Ghostland, which is basically Burning Man with a giant clock. Cage is a prisoner to begin with and has bombs on joints and his balls if he messes up. This sounds pretty good.
Sono directs his first American film and it is important to note he did not write Ghostland.
The posters all quote Cage himself as this being the wildest movie he has ever made. Quite a claim, Mr. Cage! This all SOUNDS like bonkos movie mayhem the way we say we want it but... does it work?
Ken, Jack and Thomas all return to Cage Uncaged to figure it out.
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS.
S3 E16 - ROOSTER ROAD TRIP
A VERY special return to our Eastwood project! After watching every Eastwood for season's 1-3, Ken and Jack are back to talk about what may be Eastwood's swaniest swan song yet! Eastwood is 91 and probably working on half a dozen new projects but, mathematically, we gotta treat this like it may be his last, right? We are realists, not fatalists, and Eastwood would tip his hat to that, we hope.
CRY MACHO (2021) is based on the novel of the same name by N. Richard Nash, a screenwriter in the mid 1970s who wrote it as a script first and then, when he couldn't sell it, turned it into a novel that then became a hot screen property that has bounced around with some interesting names ever since. That sounds great.... until you hear Nick Schenk of Gran Torino and The Mule did a polish. We love us some Torino but The Mule is badly written by any objective estimation. Eastwood says he had to wait until he was old enough to play the main character but... the dude in the book is almost sixty years younger than him. Anyway, it's great story to remind us he said the same thing about his unassailable masterpiece, UNFORGIVEN. Is Cry Macho a return to form after the sloppy and missed opportunity of THE MULE? Is this the potential send-off we've been waiting for of the greatest screen legend of all time? Yes, all time. Fight us. Or... is it more late era Eastwood where you wish it was good and 65 years of goodwill makes you give it a pass? We are the reigning podcast experts on Eastwood and will let you know!
THEME SONG: ANDI AGNEW.
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Fork Fangs
Superstar guest Annabel has moved to the other side of this crumbling planet and, as a final binge before she left, she requested we all watch the Twilight movies and then do an episode talking about it. Actually she agreed on the first film in the series but somehow we ended up watching all of them.
Ken, Jack, Annabel. Thomas and Ryan discuss all five Twilight films, the first of which was practically shot in our backyard here in Portland, OR, and its ongoing legacy on cinema in general, particularly the affection Gen Z has for the series (is it ironic? genuine?!?).
A modern model of decompression, the ten+ hours of the Twilight movies tell a story about a human girl and a vampire boy who wants her so badly it physically makes him ill. There are also werewolves and vampire dandies and... Peter Murphy?? They all end up fighting and there is a weird baby an adult man sincerely falls in love with. We nimbly discuss the series' meteoric rise and equally precipitous fall and rise again. It's pretty much Citizen Kane but with more brooding, really fast running and pieces of exploded jorts all over the forest.
Vampires in the sun do look like Sour Patch Kids, FYI.
THEME SONG BY EDWARD AND THE DIAMOND DOGSEmail: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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THE END OF CAGE UNCAGED!
In our landmark 50th episode we bid a fond farewell to the films of Nicolas Cage. It has been fun, frustrating, illuminating and occasionally educational, but it is time to move on.
We end with a brief dive into 2021's Willy's Wonderland, which has been a bit of a cult favorite in certain circles. Why, Certain Circles, why?!?!?
Then Jack, Ken and Thomas go over our top five films, performances, hair, car crashes and much more, also listing our least favorites because we are nerds.
BONUS: Special guests talk about their favorite Cage moments.
**BONUS: SEASON FIVE DISCUSSED!
REMAINING CAGE FILMS: NONE - we started with 20 Cage films and ended up watching 26. So there, daddy-o.
GREATEST THEME SONG OF ALL TIME, "EVERY NIC HAS HIS CAGE" by HOWLING FANTODS
CHAPTERS:
THOMAS & LEIGH: 01:06
INTRO/WILLY'S WONDERLAND: 08:17
THINGS WE MISSED: 36:01
CAGE LIST-O-RAMA: 40:05
THOMAS & MEG: 1:43:41
KEN & ANDI: 1:53:07
KEN & ERIK: 2:03:09**
CAGE UNCAGED PENULTIMATE EPISODE: PIG
PIG (2021) was filmed in Portland, Oregon! Our podcast is based in Portland! Will we see anything we recognize resulting in that Leonardo DiCaprio meme from Once Upon a Time In Hollywood? That would be annoying. Nevertheless, a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE! Made in Portland! Our very first new* movie!
Cage plays a hermit with a pig that finds valuable truffles buried in the fertile dirt carpeting their secluded paradise. We are not 100% sure what a truffle actually is even after seeing this movie but the pig? Amazing. Then truffle in paradise as a brutal pignapping separates Cage and his pig. What follows is a somber tale of Cage's search for the missing pig, which leads him back to Portland. Along with his truffle manager (agent? dealer?) played by Alex Wolff,* Cage's journey goes from the violent depths to the cruel heights of the hilariously edgy cinematic Portland restaurant scene.
SPECIAL NOTE: Shortly after this film was made Portland erupted in riots that destroyed the entire city. It is rubble now so cancel any visiting or moving plans you may have had. Trust us. Don't look at google for confirmation. Portland is uninhabitable so visit or move to St. Louis, which we hear is totally like Portland was in 2012 when it was cool.
**REMAINING CAGE UNCAGED: WILLY'S WONDERLAND AND FINAL THOUGHTS
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS**
THROUGH A RED FILTER
Super-guest and theme song wizard Ryan of HOWLING FANTODS rejoins the GBU team to discuss Cage's unlikely late-career masterpiece MANDY (2018). As bracing and indelibly stunning a film as any in Cage's deep filmography, Panos Cosmatos' sophomore effort delivers as much mood, style, nerve and bravado as any film this century. This late in almost any actor's career almost nothing they do should come as revelation but Cage approaches that here with a wild performance equally as restrained as it is unrestrained. It is a marvel he matches the material at every step. CAGE UNCAGED would not exist if not for MANDY!
In 2011 Cosmatos released his debut feature, BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW, which stylistically serves as dress-rehearsal for Mandy. Equally as moody and stylish, Rainbow takes cues from early 1980s sci-fi with more a Cronenberg chill than Mandy's raging grindhouse revenge aesthetic. Cosmatos financed Rainbow with residuals from Tombstone, which his late father, George P., directed. Made for a little over a million dollars, Cosmatos' clear vision is here from the start; He likes 1983, red filters, cults, and soundtracks that firmly plant you into his unique universe. One of a kind x2 this week!
BONUS: Our #RestoreThe AviVerse campaign succeeds in bringing back our favorite versions of classic marvel superheroes! EXCLUSIVE CASTING ANNOUNCEMENT!
**REMAINING CAGE UNCAGED FILMS:
E14 PIG
E15 WILLY'S WONDERLAND AND FINAL THOUGHTS ON CAGE
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS**
THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY SEASON 5: ?
"WHAT YODEL KNOW (CAN KILL YOU)"
In order to properly assess one of Cage's earliest and most indelible roles in Joel and Ethan Coens second film, RAISING ARIZONA (1987), we are pairing it with BLOOD SIMPLE (1984), their first feature. Blood Simple is one of the great directorial debuts in film history and the two followed it up with one of the most beloved comedies of all time, not only avoiding a sophomore slump but eradicating the very idea such a concept exists.
All three of us are huge fans of the brothers so if you are looking for us to dunk on either movie, sorry.
Blood Simple has been called the most auspicious film debut since Citizen Kane and the greatest independent film of all time. Is that hype? I mean, geez, take it down a notch, fellas, breathe into a paper bag or something.
Raising Arizona was NOT as well received at the time of its release. Critics thought it too stylized, affected, self-aware and even mean-spirited toward its characters. Maybe it's hindsight but those critics were dead wrong - Raising Arizona is not even close to being a Wes Anderson movie. Cage has never been better and the Coens have rarely been quite as warm hearted. Movies can be magic and Raising Arizona is proof.
**REMAINING CAGE UNCAGED EPSIODES:
-
BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW & MANDY
-
PIG
-
WILLY'S WONDERLAND & FINAL THOUGHTS/CAGEMATION
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS**
CAGE UNCAGED: FILM FLAM FATALE
*BONUS EPISODE*
Another bonus episode covering a corner of Cage's career that has been under-represented thus far in Cage Uncaged!
This week we tackle the fertile cinematic era between Moonstruck (1987) and Leaving Las Vegas (1995), when Cage would appear as often in quirky indies as studio fare before he became a superstar Oscar Winner. This week we look into a few so-called neo noirs, a popular trend at the time before Tarrantino came along and made every crime story ironic and referential. The trend may have begun nine years earlier with the film debut of the Coen Bros., BLOOD SIMPLE (which we will cover as a double bill with Raising Arizona next episode!).
RED ROCK WEST (1993) is directed by John Dahl from a script by Dahl and his brother (or a guy with the same last name). Cage plays an everyman drifter with a bum knee who is mistaken for a hired killer in a speed bump of a town in rural Wyoming. Twists and turns ensue with Dennis Hopper showing up with a knife and fork ready to cut up and chew scenery. Lara Flynn Boyle, JT Walsh and Dwight Yoakam round out a small, but crack, cast that ooze a definitive sense of early 90s style.
Two years later in Barbet Schroeder's remake of KISS OF DEATH (1995), Cage plays the villain to David Caruso's career as Caruso haplessly attempted to be a legitimate A-list leading man. With a screenplay by pod fave Richard Price and a supporting cast that includes Helen Hunt, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Rappaport, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Corrigan, Hope Davis, Phillip Baker-Hall, and all-time fave Cage costar Ving Rhames, this movie had the look of a brilliantly cast, high end studio classic. But... it has since disappeared so deep into the memory hole that certain members of the pod may have had to resort to pirating it to even be able to watch it in 2021. Pirating hurts artists, don't forget. Was it the movie itself or did 1995 audiences get it wrong? How can we blame Tarrantino? Find out! We actually disagree a LOT on this movie.
**REMAINING CAGE FILMS: PIG, RAISING ARIZONA, WILLY'S WONDERLAND, MANDY.
DEEP BACKGROUND FILMS: BLOOD SIMPLE, UNDER THE BLACK RAINBOW.
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS.**
CAGE UNCAGED BONUS EPISODE: RAD COSMIC DADS
On our last episode it was decided late-era Cage, despite being filled with missteps and perplexing DTV fare, was under represented. In order to fully understand THE CAGE, we needed to face this era full on. Jack and Thomas were tasked with picking a Cage released in the last ten years.
GHOST RIDER: SPIRITS OF VENGENANCE (released late 2011 for Oscar consideration, 2012 wide release) is Thomas' pick. It's the sequel to Ghost Rider (2007) which is as bad as you remember it. But the sequel has real spirit to it! From the fellas who brought us the Palme D'or Winning Crank series so you know it's got depth and meaning.
Chosen by Jack, COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2019), was the last film of 2020 Jack and Ken saw together before everything closed down. Richard Stanley is back after decades in Director Jail to adapt an HP Lovecraft classic. Lovecraft and Stanley are tough sells in 2021! Can we separate the art from the artists?
SPECIAL GUESTS: RYAN AND JASON, MEMBERS OF THEME SONG GENIUSES HOWLING FANTODS!
**FINAL CAGE MATCH: RASING ARIZONA & MANDY
UNDERCARD FOR THE FINAL CAGE MATCH: BLOOD SIMPLE and BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW
PREMIERE CAGEMATCH: PIG!
CAGE UNCAGED EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND and FINAL CAGE THOUGHTS
THEM SONG BY: HOWLING FANTODS**
WOOING THE BUNNY
***It's the Con/Off of Cage Uncaged!
TRIGGER WARNING: Con Air does include potential sexual assault as a story element that we discuss.***
1997 featured Cage's most impressive box office feat when CON AIR and FACE/OFF were released within weeks of each other, turning the summer into an all-out action battle between Cage, dinosaur sequels directed by pod fave Stevie Lost World, Smith and Jones 4EVA, Bat Nipples and President Indiana Solo v. Winston Churchill.
We're calling the fight, 24 years later, for Cage. Not even close. Who watches that other crap anymore?
(Fine, Men In Black still slaps. Don't write in angry.)
CON AIR was written by Scott Rosenberg, directed by Simon West and produced by longtime Cage collaborator Jerry Bruckheimer, a group of creators that, frankly, aren't that good! And yet Con Air remains one of the singularly alchemic blockbusters of the era. Why? Start with the once-a-decade ensemble cast with prime Cage at its center and go from there.
FACE/OFF is within the exact same genre as Con Air, the over-the-top action movie with comedy that was so pervasive in the 90s. John Woo is given free reign to direct a script so ludicrous it is impossible to imagine it getting made today the way it was made then. Does it hold up?
BONUS: A very special programming note meaning a few more Cage Uncaged!
**CON AIR: 5:21
FACE/OFF: 1:10:22
REMAINING MASTER LIST FILMS:
RAISING ARIZONA and MANDY
Theme Song: Howling Fantods**
DEUS EX MACHINE-GUNNA
LORD OF WAR (2004) has Cage give his all in a movie that looks great on paper: The Kiwi Idea Man of Truman Show and Gattaca, Andrew Niccol, writing and directing an epic, Scorsese-like film about the rise and fall of an arms dealer taking place from the 80s through the 00s? With era-appropriate songs? Cage narration? With future Oscar winner/publicity lightening rod Jared Leto as a substance-abusing partner/brother to Cage along with Ethan Flippin' Hawke as a globe-trotting Interpol Customs Agent with a grudge? Ian Flippin' Holm, BILBO BAGGINS y'all, as an older, international arms dealer ALSO WITH A GRUDGE??? The violent son of an African dictator obsessed with Rambo's gun??? Cage using a calculator while sitting on a fallen statue of Lenin??? Time-lapsed plane demolition in Africa?? BORSCHT??? SIGN US THE HELL UP! It sounds so far up our collective podcast alley it's practically on the other side of the street (?).
But, as we know, what looks good on paper... does not always translate. Or does it? We'll tell you.
Then, the nadir of Cage's career, the late aughts and teens, hits hard with LEFT BEHIND (2014). It's the one on a plane where people get raptured, based on the 300 page best selling novel that got off the plane before page 40. You know the drill - Cage spends most of the movie in a plane, but not in a bitchin' Con Air sort of way. More of a disaster movie, second rate Twilight Zone kind of way. Thomas read the book and watched the Kirk Cameron film version as prep. Does that make the Cage version more or less appealing? Listeners of The Good, The Pod and The Ugly get Free Rapture Passes after listening to this episode! Be a jerk and still get to heaven! email us @ thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com for your Rapture Pass today! Seriously. If you email us we will send you a pass.
**LORD OF WAR: 5:27
LEFT BEHIND: 56:38**
Our FINAL FOUR Cage Films:
**Con Air, Face/Off, Mandy, Raising Arizona
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods.**
IN DE PALMA DA HAND, A TRACH
Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma were best buddies in the free wheelin' 1970s who, by the late 1990s, were Hollywood legends with instantly recognizable cinematic styles. Cage was in his box office prime in in 1998 and 1999 with De Palma's SNAKE EYES and Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Two old timers whose kinetic stylish flourishes met their match in big studio era Cage? Perfect, right?
Snake Eyes has energy to spare behind and in front of the camera but is it empty calories? It's a follow-up to director De Palma and screenwriter David Koepp's 1996 smash hit Mission: Impossible, which similarly uses deep-pocketed studio resources to go all-indulgence with obsessively elaborate set pieces. It begins with a 15-minute tracking shot! Yay, cinema!Bringing Out the Deadreunites Scorsese with Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader and composer Elmer Bernstein. Can the old guys recapture the magic of their 1976 masterpiece while adding Robert Richardson's halo-centric lighting and a crack supporting cast? Cage plays an NYC EMT who can't sleep and sees ghosts. Whoa!
Our six remaining Cage Films:
**Con Air, Face/Off, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, Raising Arizona
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods.
SNAKE EYES: 00:08:57
BRINGING OUT THE DEAD 00:48:51**
CAGE OF CONSENT AND THE TEMPLE OF DUMB
Sometimes to past is refuge, as with PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, 1986, one of Cage's earliest mainstream breakout films, directed by his Uncle Frankie, Francis Ford Coppola. Kathleen Turner goes back in time 25 years to high school and engages in, well, morally dubious behavior. Cage plays her husband in 1986 and her aspiring singer boyfriend 25 years earlier. This was the third and last Coppola film our maximalist hero was in (after Rumble Fish and Cotton Club). Nicolas Cage was reportedly a bit much on set in Peggy Sue, as we discuss, and it resulted in Coppola casting Andy Garcia in Godfather III and Keanu Reeves in Dracula instead of Cage, roles he wanted. What coulda been! Heck, Cage taking Sofia Coppola's place would have made a world of difference in Godfather III.
Other times the past is prologue to a current crisis, which resembles a global-sized escape room, as with National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007). The second of the epic National Treasure duology, Cage must clear his family name as it is smeared by being associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Everyone from the first film still alive returns and pretty much does the exact same thing. For fans of location work and practical effects in this depressing age of green screens, this one does have its merits!
Two movies about time from wildly different Cage eras; one right before he broke big and the other right before he broke small. We may talk hair for a bit.
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED: 00:06:17
NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS: 00:52:49
Our eight remaining Cage Films:
**Bringing Out The Dead, Con Air, Face/Off, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods.**
ROMANCING THE CAGE.
Cage gets romantic! And... suicidal?
MOONSTRUCK was one of Cage's early mainstream breakthroughs. Directed by Hollywood journeyman Norman Jewison and heralding the arrival of writer John Patrick Shanley from Broadway to film. This is the one Cher won an Oscar for because she slaps Cage and tells him to snap out of it. The late Olympia Dukakis also won a much deserved Oscar for her portrayal as Cher's mother.
Speaking of Oscar... Leaving Las Vegas is the moment Cage went from cult legend to mainstream Hollywood box office star. He won an Oscar, made The Rock, then became a dependable box office draw that lasted a solid ten years. Cage stars as a Hollywood alcoholic who goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death while hanging out with Elizabeth Shue.
Do both of these Oscar -winning films hold up decades later? What clues do they offer as to the growing legend of Cage and his revolutionary Maximalist acting style?
**LEAVING LAS VEGAS: 00:07:39
MOONSTRUCK: 00:51:00**
**Theme Song by: Howling Fantods
Our ten remaining Cage Films:
Bringing Out The Dead, Con Air, Face/Off, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, National Treasure II, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND**
**CAGE UNCAGED: THAT DOG IS A ANGEL
City of Angels (1998) is Brad Siberling's decidedly American take on Wim Wenders masterpiece Wings of Desire (1987). Where Wenders went philosophical and spiritual, Angels goes purely romantic. Cage plays Seth Plate, an Angel (though they never say "Angel" EVEN IF IT'S IN THE TITLE) who can hear people's thoughts and take dead people to heaven like the grim reaper. He falls in love with a heart surgeon played by Meg Ryan**. Somehow he can also visit her and can physically do things as an angel but can't "experience" touch? We have no clue about these Angel Rules in this movie.
Then we have JOE (2013) directed by David Gordon Green. None of us had seen this film but co-host Ken was in a barber shop recently discussing Cage and one of the other barbers said Joe was terrible and the most depressing movie he had ever seen. Sounds great! We here at GPU love us some depressing movies. Based on the novel by Larry Brown (which Thomas read for this episode!) it features Cage as Joe who runs a crew of tree-poisoners in rural Texas, befriending Tye Sheridan as a 15-year-old with a violent, spiraling-out-of-control drunk of a father. Cage and Sheridan are the only professional actors in the film. Does that work or is it too awkward?
Was Ken's barber right? Is this one of the worst movies ever made or a little-seen gem?
**CITY OF ANGELS: 00:07:02
JOE: 00:51:01
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods
Our twelve remaining Cage Films:
Bringing Out The Dead, Con Air, Face/Off, Leaving Las Vegas, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, Moonstruck, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND**
CAGE UNCAGED CAGE MATCH: WILD AT HEART & 8MM
"The Difficult Follow-Up".
Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the textbook for cool, edgy nihilists (teenaged and otherwise) with 1995's SE7EN, directed by pod fave, overexposing messiah David Fincher. For fans, Walker's spiritual and numerical follow-up, 1999's 8MM was something of an event! Nicolas Cage as a PI hunting down the origins of a bonafide snuff film? Sign us up with a gallon of hand sanitizer and five needed showers with NIN blaring afterwards! Then the studio and director, Joel Schumacher, as fascicle as ever, got involved making significant changes and, 21 years later, Walker hates this movie and wants it remade. Walker was paid 1.75 million (dollars!) for the script and that didn't make things a wee bit better? Can Cage elevate the uneven material like he has so many times before (and after)?
David Lynch was a cult figure in the 80s, given carte blanche by producer Dino De Laurentiis after the infamous Dune (1984) debacle. Lynch made 1986's Blue Velvet as a result, one of the greatest films of the decade and one that found him fully in control of his own distinct style. Then Twin Peaks exploded in 1990 and his weirdness reached full zeitgeist in the mainstream for a few months.
So his film follow-up to Blue Velvet, 1990's Wild at Heart, based on Barry Gifford's slender novel of the same name, with Nicolas Cage as leading man along with Laura Dern on a sexy, crazy road trip? The anticipation (amongst fans of a certain age) was unbearable! Then it came out and fans (of a certain age) were all "Huh? What's with the Wizard of Oz stuff?" How does it look thirty years later? Is Cage the greatest actor Lynch has ever worked with? One of the legendary directing stylists ever paired with our favorite actor! Then what makes this so difficult a follow-up? Listen and find out. Maybe it isn't!
Explore the breadth of Cage in the 1990's as he goes from cult icon coveted by great directors in 1990 to full-fledged Oscar winning leading man by 1999 coveted by bland corporate studios for blander blockbusters. Does Cage keep his credibility intact?
**WILD AT HEART: 00:04:04
8MM: 00:50:00
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods
Our fourteen remaining Cage Films:
Bringing Out The Dead, City of Angels, Con Air, Face/Off, Leaving Las Vegas, Joe, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, Moonstruck, National Treasure II, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND**
CAGE UNCAGED: ACAB (ALL CAGE AND BEES)
CAGE COP!
This week Ken, Thomas and Jack talk the pairing of WICKER MAN (2006) and BAD LIEUTENTANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009). Neil Labute and Werner Herzog both made excessive... um, well, sequels/sidequels/remakes/whut here. We may be at Peak Cage of the 00's in both films but are they any good? This match-up is Jack's winner from our last episode and both feature Cage as a pill-popping cop who suffers trauma in the first reel. Any other comps? Probably! Listen and find out.
Everyone loves Herzog, an international filmmaking legend. But how does everyone feel about the prickly Labute, who is a filmmaker and playwright with a troubled reputation (particularly with women)?
Both films are more recent than Cage Match 1 (Vampire's Kiss and Adaptation). How has Cage's acting evolved? Or has it? Hairline Tracking has also commenced.
Please follow us on Instagram (thegoodthepodandtheugly) to see our complete lists of Cage films!
THE CAGE COP CAGE MATCH IS ON!
WICKER MAN: 00:04:14
**BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS: 00:36:23
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods
Our 16 remaining Cage Films:
8mm, Bringing Out The Dead, City of Angels, Con Air, Face/Off, Leaving Las Vegas, Joe, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, Moonstruck, National Treasure II, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes, Wild at Heart
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND**
CAGE MATCH: F*CK FANGS
The Good, The Pod and The Ugly will trace the historic and maximalist acting career of Nicolas Cage through 20 of his films over the course of 10 episodes. How the 20 films were picked is simple: We argued about them. Two films will be paired from our master list based on theme and each episode we'll present our latest Cage Match.
For week one it is from Thomas, LITERARY NICOLAS CAGE as we cover Vampire's Kiss (1989) and Adaptation (2002). Cage plays a writer or an editor in each. Well, he technically plays TWO writers in Adaptation. Anyway, writing plays a part in each. Also Chris Cooper's teeth!!In Kiss Cage plays the quintessential 1980s yuppie, a Manhattan literary editor, whose life starts unraveling as he kinda sorta transforms into a vampire. Flashdance is in this movie, either as a vampire or an ex. We aren't entirely sure.
In Adaptation he plays Charlie and Donald Kauffman. Charlie is hired to adapt a book about orchids but ends up making the script - and movie - about Charlie Kauffman. Alternate title: CHARLIE TWITTER.
Ken and Jack will be joined ALL SEASON by fan favorite Thomas, who is an expert in all things Cage.
Please follow us on Instagram (thegoodthepodandtheugly) to see our complete lists of Cage films!
VAMPIRE'S KISS: 00:06:58
**ADAPTATION :00:38:39
Theme Song by: Howling Fantods
Our 18 remaining Cage Films:
8mm, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Bringing Out The Dead, City of Angels, Con Air, Face/Off, Leaving Las Vegas, Joe, Left Behind, Lord of War, Mandy, Moonstruck, National Treasure II, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes, Wicker Man, Wild at Heart
EPILOGUE: WILLY'S WONDERLAND**
S3 E15 THE END OF EASTWOOD TRIGGER WARNING: Tightrope's central plot is about a serial rapist.
Hell of a thing, startin' a pod covering every Eastwood movie. You talk about every movie he made, and, someday, it ends.
Today is that day.
63 Eastwood movies and the first episode of Rawhide down. We watched and talked about them all. Now we wrap up season three and the Eastwoods with reflection, tears, a few jeers and a few beers.
TIGHTROPE from 1984 is the last on our list. Richard Tuggle wrote Escape From Alcatraz (S3 E8), one of our favorites from the late 70's early 80s era we have covered in this final season. This is one of Tuggle's few credits after Alcatraz and it has been long rumored Eastwood himself directed much of it without credit due to... The Eastwood Rule put in place by the DGA following Phillip Kauffman being removed from The Outlaw Josey Wales (S3 E1) and being replaced by... Clint Eastwood. Wales was covered in our season three premier so everything comes full circle!
We'll talk about the movie, Eastwood's lasting legacy as an actor and director and we will both announce our rankings for every Eastwood film we have covered. All 64.
It has been a hell of ride with some epic peaks and some depressing valleys watching all of Eastwood's films. Did we learn anything? What will we do next? What are our plans for 2021's CRY MACHO, Eastwood's latest film? Is THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY over? WHAT ABOUT CRY MACHO (2021)? Listen and find out!
**TIGHTROPE: 00:05:26
EASTWOOD RECAP, COUNTDOWN 64-1 FROM JACK AND KEN: 00:34:46**
S3 E 14 PALE HEAT
1985's PALE RIDER is Eastwood's first western in nine years and the third of four he would direct (High Plains Drifter, Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven). A play off the classic SHANE template, Eastwood stars as a mysterious stranger named Preacher who helps a small town against unscrupulous miners. He's like a ghost but we swear it is different than High Plains Drifter.
1984's CITY HEAT is Clint's one and only collab with fellow box office star (of the era) Burt Reynolds. Their careers went in vastly different directions after this movie, which we will talks about with our friend Rick.
THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY began by watching Eastwood's latest (Richard Jewell, S1 E1) and his earliest (RETURN OF THE CREATURE, S1 E1). We then watched one movie moving forward and one moving back, initially separated by SIXTY-FOUR YEARS, until... THIS EPISODE where we are watching and talking two movies that came out within a year of each other.**PALE RIDER: 00:03:10
CITY HEAT: 00:48:46**
S3 E13 SUDDEN HEARTBREAK
TRIGGER WARNING: One of the films covered in this episode, Sudden Impact, has a major plot point concerning sexual assault.
1983's Dirty Harry epic SUDDEN IMPACT, is Eastwood's only film in the series as director. Made after personal project Honkytonk Man (S3 E12) in 1982, Clint is in clear "one for them, one for me" mode here, casting Sondra Locke (her 6th and final Eastwood film) as a vengeful woman whose tactics are not dissimilar to Harry's. But they are illegal. But if they are, then aren't his? Potentially intriguing themes but is Locke the key that makes it work or is there a reason they never made a movie together again? This is the most financially successful Dirty Harry movie ever. Good, right? "Go ahead, make my day," is one of the top five most memorable quotes in film history, according to this one poll on the internet we saw! The Enforcer (S3 E2) was supposed to be Clint's final Dirty Harry movie, having ended with Harry walking off, once again, after the system being a failure (also once again). A few tough breaks at the box office (Bronco Billy, Honkytonk Man) along with smaller films Clint needed studio backing for and he was pulled back in to the old shoulder holster (and banked a reported THIRTY MILLION for his efforts). For good or nah? The Dead Pool (S3 E12) would follow and end the Dirty Harry series five years later.
1986's Heartbreak Ridge ends (spoiler) with the invasion of Grenada. Clint plays a guy named Thomas Highway. He trains a group of ragtag marine youths - RECON!! - with discipline problems. Does he get them ready to invade Grenada? What's Clint getting at with this odd little character piece, anyway? It's either boldly enigmatic and unknowable or... something else. Mario Van Peebles plays the ultimate 80s supporting character: Stitch Jones, the Marine Recon rock and roll front man who sings, among other classics, "I love you (but I ain't stupid)."
American Hero and Iraq veteran Larry returns to help us figure it all out and see what Ridge got right and got wrong.
DISASTER IN THE STUDIO: As resident plot recapper, who keeps every episode nominally moving, Ken takes copious notes when watching every Eastwood movie to use when recapping plots when we record. KEN LOST HIS NOTEBOOK SHORTLY BEFORE RECORDING THIS EPISODE! Can the crew survive without his notes? He has no idea who the heck is in these movies! Will we even know what movie we are talking about?
SUDDEN IMPACT 00:03:02
HEARTBREAK RIDGE 00:49:13
S3 E12 HONKYTONK DEADPOOL
DEADPOOL, the wise-cracking meta-superhero is not the same as THE DEAD POOL, from 1988, the final Dirty Harry film; running on thin enough fumes that podcast fave Buddy Van Horn (S3 E10) was called in to nominally direct a script written by a trio of antioxidant advocates with zero film experience (none of whom would ever work on a film again). Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey are both in it, pre-fame, so it has that going for it. When a remote control car chase is a major selling point, you may be looking up at the bottom of the barrel. Or is The Dead Pool a misunderstood masterpiece that turns genre convention into meta-commentary for next level satire?
Then 1982's Honkytonk Man, a little seen labor of love for Eastwood and an early stretch as director. It's a road movie about a Depression-era singer with TB (not Tom Brady but tuberculosis) and his nephew going to the Grand Old Opry. If "depression-era " and "tuberculosis" are on your vision board as things you want in a movie, this may be your pot of gold! Our pal Patrick, a DJ and record store proprietor, joins us once again to tell us the value of this movie if it were a vintage LP.
THE DEAD POOL 00:03:12
HONKYTONK MAN 00:41:45
S3 E11 FIREBIRD!
1982's FIREFOX was not about a future web browser but about a Soviet plane during the Cold War that you can fly with your brain or eyes or showtunes. Just go with it - Brain Plane. Eastwood plays the only man that can sneak into Soviet Russia and steal the plane and take it home so America can use it to bomb them. Lotsa spycraft-type hijinks ensue before he can try and steal the plane. Does he? Are there accents in this movie? Does Eastwood attempt speaking Russian?!?!?
1988's BIRD, the first film of Eastwood's directorial career he did not star in since podcast fave BREEZY in 1973 (S2 E7)! He would not direct another he did not star in again until 1995's less-than-good Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (S2 E10). A passion project about troubled jazz legend Charlie Parker, Bird was a major turning point for Eastwood as a director and how critics viewed him. But is it any good or is it one riff too many with excessive improvisation gumming up the story? (we don't understand Jazz so we hope that reference works for jazz fanatics). Celebrity chef/screenwriter Erik joins us once again on tenor sax!
FIREFOX 00:03:24
BIRD 00:39:11
S3 E10 HORNY PINK APE.
Buddy Van Horn was a legendary stuntman (doubled for Eastwood numerous times) and stunt coordinator (Million Dollar Baby, baby!) but he also directed what may be the least essential of films in Eastwood's 65 year filmography. This week we coincidentally get two of those films, 1980's ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN and 1989's PINK CADILLAC.
Any Which Way You Can brings the whole gang back from Every Which Way But Loose and sets them on another comedic adventure not at all dissimilar to the first one except maybe with even less on its mind. Clyde is in it so you know what's what. Enjoy as Jack, who slept through 90% of this movie, clearly thinks Ken is making up the plot up as they go along. But, nope, there is some weird stuff in this thing. Also there is a lot of camera punching. We love Clint punching the camera. Where is THAT supercut, YouTube?
Then marvel at the sizzling hot synopsis of the never-made third Which Way film, Either Which Way You Go, which would have also been directed by Van Horn in '85 had Ruth Gordon not sadly passed away.
Pink Cadillac, on the other hand, is not dissimilar to podcast not-fave The Gauntlet, right down to the Nevada setting. A comedy-adventure about a mismatched couple with a group of bad guys trying to get them. But Caddy has Bernadette Peters instead of Sondra Locke. There is that. Who doesn't like Bernadette Peters? Simply adorable and an American icon! Is that enough to keep things afloat? What is the signature Buddy Van Horn shot, anyway? Find out in this episode!
Ken and Jack are joined by NO ONE this episode because we couldn't find any guests who wanted to sit through these two cinematic sensations.
**ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN 00:03:12
EITHER WHICH WAY YOU GO 00:35:25
PINK CADILLAC 00:41:48**
S3 E9 WHITE BRONCO, BILLY'S HEART
One of Clint's most ambitious films prior to Unforgiven, 1990's WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART is covered here in detail. A roman a clef about John Huston prepping The African Queen, toxic masculinity, white imperialism, and malignant narcissism all fuel Eastwood's studied take on Huston's patrician airs. Jeff Fahey appears as foil to Clint's destructive spiral in trying to bag an Elephant. Possibly Clint's most daring role as an actor his entire career. Is his aim true or is he gored by hubris?
1980's Bronco Billy was a gentle turn from Eastwood's until-then screen persona of cynical loner tough guy. Here he plays a... well, a loner tough guy, yeah, granted, but NOT a cynic. He plays the title role - a captain or king or head ramrod - of a band of misfits putting on western shows in Idaho/Montana. It collects so many actors from Eastwood's 70's output it is as close to The Avengers as Clint will ever get. Co-star/paramour Sondra Locke's performance does the film few favors, but it remains well-regarded by most Eastwood enthusiasts. But who cares about them? WHAT DO WE THINK? We are joined by podcast fave Thomas to get to it.
A few major disagreements this episode. Does anyone cry as a result?
Big tusker energy this episode!
BRONCO BILLY 00:03:46
WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART 00:40:52
S3 E8 ESCAPE FROM CHARLIE SHEEN'S POOL HOUSE
1979's ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, directed by podcast fave Don Donald Siegel (Coogan's Bluff, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, Two Mules For Sister Sara), remains one of Clint's most memorable films. Turning down the laffs and winks that dominated a good portion of his 70's output, Eastwood is as taut here as Siegel's film detailing the heist-like planning and execution of... well, it's in the title. Ken saw it in theaters in 1979 and for years remembered it as being in black and white. Guess what, young Ken? It isn't! How does it hold up compared with the 639 other Eastwood films we have covered? Find out!
Then 1990's THE ROOKIE, co-starring Charlie Sheen as a man who killed his brother (no, Emilio!!!) as a child or... something? They jump off a roof we think? Then, even though he is rich, he becomes THE ROOKIE to Clint's grizzled old pro of a donut-chomping, cigar-smoking cop. Also featuring Raul Julia and Sonia Braga as, um, German car thieves?!?! We think? Yeah, we have no idea either. What the heck is going on here? We will talk about the infamous scene between Clint and Braga, so don't worry or... worry. A lot. It's one of a kind, we will give it that. Eastwood made this for Warner Bros to pay back them after financing the little-seen White Hunter, Black Heart earlier in 1990 and The Rookie subsequently bombed as well. Go figure. When Lara Flynn Boyle is a beacon of good sense and tranquility in your movie, you are in trouble. Jack Green's reliably crisp and dark cinematography slaps so it is not all confounding.
Unforgiven was two years away so this story ends well but Clint was stumbling bigly at this point, both artistically and at the box office. Huge turning point in his career looking back. But does that make it worth watching? Listen and find out!
**ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ: 00:03:30
THE ROOKIE 00:43:05**
S3 E7 THEY GOT A SIGN ON THE POD? OUTSIDE OF GREELY'S?
We conclude our lovingly epic discussion of 1992's Unforgiven by talking with a number of our friends. We speak with Erik, Larry, Andi, Leigh, Thomas and Rick about their experiences with Unforgiven, both when they first saw it and in re-watching it in 2020 for this show.
This is the best movie Eastwood has ever made and we could probably talk about it for ten episodes. Alas, our tribute ends with two episodes and four and a half total hours of yakkity yak about it.
Every pod's got it comin, kid.
Guests:
**ANDI: 01:46
ERIK FIXING HIS CONNECTION WITH A GIN & TONIC RECIPE: 17:52
ERIK & UNFORGIVEN: 23:16
RICK: 57:54
ANDI & LEIGH: 1:34:58
LARRY: 1:56:08
THOMAS: 2:26:16**
S3 E6 NO FORGIVENESS!
UNFORGIVEN, 1992.
The only reason there is a Clint Eastwood podcast (incidentally called The Good, The Pod and The Ugly) and that is because we love this movie and wanted to watch everything Eastwood made before and after it like some kind of sun holding all the others in orbit. It's not only the best movie of Clint Eastwood's storied career but one of the greatest films of all time. Yes, all time, and we will fight anyone who says otherwise.
We'll dig into the amazingly dense David Webb People's screenplay, the long road from script to screen to one of the morally darkest films in Eastwood's catalogue also serving as a potent cultural counterpoint to the screen violence Eastwood doled out casually for decades.
We have a lot of fun and shower a lot of love on the film and its plot here in part one of our Unforgiven coverage. Next episode will include the thoughts of all our friends and film luminaries.
S3 E5 We take a much-earned break from the epic (and endless) filmography of the World's Greatest Movie Star/Director, Clinton Eastwood Jr., for the Holidays!
Ken and Jack have each chosen a "Christmas Adjacent" movie to screen. We don't know what they are until they start. The only rule is it cannot be a standard Christmas Genre movie where the season reminds someone of food and family, truey meanings and all that. And it can't be a Shane Black movie because that would be too easy. They are just movies that happen to have Christmas in them, either as a setting or even one scene (e.g. Eastwood's own True Crime, not a Christmas movie at all, ends with the main character Christmas shopping). Kinda dumb, yeah, but also a lot of fun the think about if you are a seriously ridiculous movie fan.
If you listen to us regularly you know we will have a lot to say with very little substance.
WHAT ARE OUR TWO CHRISTMAS ADJACENT MOVIES??? Listen and find out. Did we pick movies you'd pick? Let us know!
NOTE: Our next episode is Unforgiven. Please remember Unforgiven is one of the best films ever made!
(If you have read this far, the two Christmas Adjacent movies we picked are In Bruges and LA Confidential).
**IN BRUGES: 00:01:46
LA CONFIDENTIAL: 00:36:43**
S3 E4 JOHN MALKOVICH VERSUS THE APE.
In the Line of Fire (1993) was Clint's victory lap film following Unforgiven. Directed by Wolfgang Peterson, this is one of two films Clint has been in since 1990 he did not direct. If you know the other film you win a prize (the prize is watching Amy Adams!). Clint plays a confident - yet haunted - secret service agent who engages in a cat & mouse game with a would-be presidential killer played by John Malkovich, who is by turns sadistic, over the top and beguiling. Running afoul of bureaucrats, Clint must impose his will on a broken system filled with yes-men who value good press over real crime fighting in order to find this maniac... wait a dang second, is this Dirty Harry? It sounds like Dirty Harry. Anyway, Renee Russo plays a female agent 24 years years Eastwood's junior so you know there won't be any romance there because that is a sizeable age difference (wink-wink).
Then we get to one of the strangest and most enduring films Eastwood ever made, 1978's Every Which Way But Loose. It's the one with the orangutan! And bikers! And Sondra Locke. You betcha, Tim Tom Jim James Fargo (1976's The Enforcer) returns to direct another Eastwood epic. This movie made a lot of money and was the first Eastwood film Ken ever saw in theaters back when he was mumble-mumble years old! He liked it then but... HISTORY FACTS, he was a dumb kid with a runny nose so let's wait and see what OLD Ken, Jack and superstar podcast guest Thomas think.
**EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE: 00:04:21
IN THE LINE OF FIRE: 00:42:05**
S3 E3 A PERFECT, BULLET-RIDDEN GAUNTLET.
1977's The Gauntlet is the first vehicle specifically for Clint and then-muse, Sondra Locke. She was nominated for an Oscar years prior and Eastwood claimed she would be again for this film. Was she? The Gauntlet is a road movie with a mismatched couple who start off not liking each other but... through adversity somehow find love. Also 16,000 bullets are fired in this movie. That is a lot and no one seems to be able to hit a tire on a moving bus. The Gauntlet was also Clint's directorial follow-up to the masterpiece Outlaw Josey Wales after letting someone else direct 1976's The Enforcer.
Clint's follow-up directorial effort following his masterpiece Unforgiven (after taking a victory lap with someone else directing for In The Line of Fire) is 1993's A Perfect World, a road movie featuring Kevin Costner on the run with a little kid in tow while Clint, Jurassic Park and West Wing guy are in pursuit in 1963. Following In The Line of Fire, this is the second consecutive 1993 Eastwood film in which 1963 plays an integral role - a fact only interesting to a select few.
Ken and Jack navigate biker gangs, corrupt cops and escaped convicts, and are joined by superstar dancer and cultural influencer Annabel!
**THE GAUNTLET: 00:04:09
A PERFECT WORLD: 00:28:31**
S3 E2 THE ENFORCER OF MADISON COUNTY.
DIRTY HARRY IS BACK! And he is shooting some... bad bridges in.... Iowa?
Sadly, no. In 1976's The Enforcer, Harry Callahan returns in his third outing, where he drops pretense of political ambiguity of the first two installments and goes full on law & order with society crumbling while he teaches Tyne Daley how to be an Inspector and she teaches him to find his heart before everyone dies on Alcatraz. Then he walks away again but will eventually be back with the SFPD because the donuts are great. (Spoilers)
Then we cover The Bridges of Madison County, from 1995, Clint's most directly romantic movie until the amazing J. Edgar (it's true!). Meryl Streep brings out something special in Eastwood as they portray two lost souls over four days in rural Iowa in 1965. Clint does shoot bridges here, but not Jeff Bridges and not with a .44 Magnum. He plays a photographer shooting the bridges in the title with his sweet camera set up. Meryl Streep plays a woman who takes a bath in the tub Eastwood just showered in but it's not as weird as that sounds. It's good! We are joined by podcast superstar Meg to figure it all out and leave a very special google review of our own.
**THE ENFORCER: 00:04:21
BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY: 00:24:22**
S3 E1 ABSOLUTE PRESIDENT OUTLAW.
Clint Eastwood's Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976, inspired The Eastwood Rule in the DGA. What is it? Why is it? Does it limit squints per film? Generally considered Clint's first masterpiece as director, Wales also features the first of six pairings with Sondra Locke, whose contentious offscreen relationship with him will form a behind-the-scenes story that will stretch well into 1996. We will be covering the other five films later this season. This is pretty much the Sondra Locke season. You have been warned.
Then 1997's ABSOLUTE POWER reunites Clint with Gene Hackman, who plays a president who seeks to wield... well, it's in the title. Clint plays a hamburglar who comes for a Big Mac but leaves with a whole mess of trouble! This is the first of two movies Clint would release in 1997, the second is the execrable Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, as covered in our S2 finale. Clint had a busy time off-camera and kept his film crew family working so it's hard to get too angry at his '97 output. Unless you had to sit through them, anyway.
Ken and Jack are joined once again by a fave guest! Screenwriter, host and film scholar, Erik!
**THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES: 00:03:36
ABSOLUTE POWER: 00:35:40**
S2 E10 THE GOOD AND EVIL SANCTION.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is Eastwood's second movie in 1997 (preceded by next episode's Absolute Power). Based on the blockbuster true crime (the title of a film in LAST week's episode) novel of the same name by John Berendt. John Cusack has the unenviable job of acting alongside the director's daughter, Allison Eastwood, as he meets wacky southern characters and future problematic poster boy Kevin Spacey, in full "Ah say Ah say" mode. There is a murder trial and a garden but not a murder trial inside a garden where the tomatoes throw themselves at a lying witness - it's the movie we need, not the movie we want.
1975's The Eiger Sanction is also based on a blockbuster novel of the same name by the mysterious Trevanian (kind of a 1970s satiric thriller version of QAnon but clearly labeled as fiction). Clint trained his ass off to prep for this movie about spies, assassins, mountain climbing and George Kennedy. He plays a retired assassin called back into the game because... it's personal. Duh. Someone is going to kill someone on a big mountain and... it doesn't make a lot of sense but plays into Eastwood's natural affinity for rugged, physical filmmaking. Ken and Jack are joined by famed songstress and beauty Andi to discuss both films. Then a rundown of season two favorites and least favorites. Probably some google reviews. Maybe a marriage or a birth or a shooting to get y'all to come back for S3.
**THE EIGER SANCTION: 00:02:54
MIDNIGHT IN THR GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL: 00:29:00
S2 WRAP UP: 01:00:02**
S2 E9 TRUEFOOT AND CRIMEBOLT.
Penultimate S2 episode! We are rejoined by super guest Thomas to discuss 1974's Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, written and directed by the late Michael Cimino, co-starring The Dude. Cimino would go on to direct The Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate but shows more restraint in scenes of people dancing or celebrating here and focuses instead on quirks and a kickass bank heist by a crew of marginally skilled thieves. Cimno would win an Oscar in four years for the Deer Hunter and a Razzie two years after that for Heaven's Gate. Combined this is called a RAZCAR, which is like an EGOT but far more prestigious.
Then we FINALLY get to the 20th century in our modern half of this cinematic journey with 1999's True Crime. Ken saw True Crime when it was released in 1999 and, like everyone else who has ever seen it, still remembers Speed Zoo and nothing else. Something else worth remembering? James Woods is in it and it is based on a book by Andrew Klavan. Since this movie both men have gone bonkos with rightwing conspiracies and public frothing of the mouth. Is this movie why? Is it cursed? We're looking for angles here, folks. That may be as good as we get so don't judge. Also: We leave our own Google reviews for both movies!
Double bonus! Semi-breaking news on Eastwood's larest project!
**THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT: 00:06:03
TRUE CRIME: 00:34:51**
S2 E8 XL MAGNUM COWBOYS FORCE.
2000's Space Cowboys finally brings us to the end of Eastwood's films released this century (he has released 3847 movies since 2000 as well as one avant garde stage piece where he talks to a chair). Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner and Verna herself, Marcia Gay Harden, join Eastwood for one of the best high concepts Eastwood ever got his hands on; only a group of old guys can go into space and fix a satellite. Perfect concept! How is the execution?
Then we dig into 1973's Magnum Force, the first of numerous and unnecessary sequels to the brilliant Dirty Harry. Does having a bunch of uniformed cops taking the law into their own hands absolve Harry of his actions in Dirty Harry? Or does it weirdly confirm the unfair fascist complaints of the original while trying to undo them? TV journeyman Ted Post directs with some juicy conflict behind the scenes. Special guest Larry gets us into shape to get the hell out of here into space and discuss the two films in depth-ish. Plus we leave our OWN Google reviews. Hot content alert!
This episode also has a ridiculously stupid cold open!
**MAGNUM FORCE: 00:03:46
SPACE COWBOYS: 00:38:08**
S2 E7 MANIC PIXIE BLOOD BREEZE.
AN INSTANT AND INFAMOUS CLASSIC! One of our best epsiodes for two films no one has even seen. 1973's Breezy has gone virtually unseen by anyone for nearly 50 years. Unearthed forgotten masterpiece or... not quite? It is a rare, early Eastwood directorial effort in which he does not appear and features William Holden at 53 in a relationship with a free spirited girl in her late teens named Breezy. What's the deal with that? It has to be some kind of... mentor/friend thing, right??? Because otherwise it'd be less a May/December thing and more of a Paleozoic/Cenzoic thing. Is it as creepy as it sounds or is it something sweet? Jack and Ken find out along with chatting about 2002's Blood Work, which is Eastwood's last role as a member of the law and his first collab with podcast fave Tom Stern as DP. Based on the Michael Connelly book of the same name, Eastwood's character gets a heart transplant and later the sister of the heart donor comes and asks him to solve the mystery of how/why her sister died. Then the legendary serial killer THE CODE BREAKER comes back ready to leave some clues only a dumb kid can solve! Full of heart or a lot of work to sit through?
BONUS: Ken and Jack leave their own google reviews for each film.
**BLOOD WORK: 00:03:34
BREEZY: 00:36:59**
**S2 E6 MYSTIC DRIFTER
TRIGGER WARNING: One of the films discussed in this episode, High Plains Drifter, includes scenes of sexual assault by the protagonist as a plot point.**
2003's Mystic River is not a movie about pizza. It's about childhood friends who grow into Hollywood stars Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins, that play cops, criminals and grocery store owners in this Oscar-winning adaptation of the novel-of-the-same-name by the amazing Dennis Lehane. River also features a crack supporting cast with Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Laurence Fishburne and Emmy Rossum. Pretty good list! High Plains Drifter (1973) is about hell. It's Eastwood's first western as director and is often cited as the most sadistic film in his filmography. Hey, we sat through Hereafter so be careful how you toss around phrases like "most sadistic film". Special guest Thomas helps us paint the town red.
**HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER: 00:03:27
MYSTIC RIVER: 00:36:16**
S2 E5 MILLION DOLLAR KIDD
Eastwood directed two films that won Best Picture and Director Oscars. One was his masterwork, Unforgiven (1992) and the other was Million Dollar Baby (2004), which we cover in detail this week. We also dive into Joe Kidd, 1972, Eastwood's last western directed by someone other than himself. Featuring Robert Duvall, Don Stroud, and John Saxon, with John Sturges directing an Elmore Leonard script. Frequent collaborators Lalo Schifrin and Bruce Surtees are also along for the ride. Sounds great! But... is it? Special guest Meg helps us discern.
**MILLION DOLLAR BABY: 00:03:25
JOE KIDD: 00:42:30**
S2 E4 PLAY MISTY FOR OUR FATHERS
1971's PLAY MISTY FOR ME is the first of Clint's 8000 films he directed so dissecting it is a landmark for our podcast. In it, Clint plays DJ Lank'n $quinty and gets in over his head with obsessive fan, and future Bluth, Jessica Walter. Then in 2006's FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, we learn why objective masterpiece Letters From Iwo Jima (covered in S2 E3) was rushed into theaters in late 2006 for Oscar eligibility, when Flags was originally seen as the surefire Oscar Bait film earlier the same year with the same director. Flags has a great pedigree of bestseller, screenwriters, producers and director. Why did it fall flat on the sticky floors of American multiplexes and not billow majestically in the wind? We find out and are joined by an honest-to-god DJ, Patrick, who also runs a record store and refuses to play Misty for us.
**PLAY MISTY FOR ME: 00:03:33
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS: 00:31:20**
S2 E3 LETTERS FROM DIRTY HARRY
We have been waiting for this match-up for months and the result is our biggest episode yet.
1971's Dirty Harry, directed by Don Donald Siegel is the problematic masterpiece that started an entire genre (maybe two!?!). Curious how its allegedly fascist leanings hold up under 2020 scrutiny? Us too!
Then 2006's Letters From Iwo Jima, the only foreign language film Eastwood has made, a gory account of Japanese soldiers on the titular island's devastating WWII battle. Ken cried in 2006 when he saw it! Does he cry again? It's okay if he does so please don't make fun of his sensitive spirit.
**LETTER'S FROM IWO JIMA: 00:02:26
DIRTY HARRY: 00:50:25**
S2 E2 THE BEGUILED CHANGELING
Eastwood and "Donald" "Don" Siegel team up for their third collaboration with their odd, Southern Gothic detour, 1971's The Beguiled. Then 2008's Changeling with Angelina Jolie, which is, sadly, not a remake of the 1980 horror movie The Changeling but a true crime drama that takes place in 1928 and features some spiffy hats! Jolie's kid goes missing and when he returns she suspects he is actually not her real kid (spoiler: it's then-husband Brad Pitt de-aged via CGI Benjamin Button-style!). Ken and Jack ponder and discuss each film and are joined by special guest Alicia, who also ponders and discusses.**THE BEGUILED: 00:03:53
CHANGELING: 00:39:18**
S2 E1 GRAN THEFT KELLY
Season 2 premiere! Eastwood's 2008 Cranksterpiece Gran Torino paired with 1970's Kelly's Heroes, a WWII action-comedy which reunites Clint and director Brian Hutton, who made the cool-eyed WWII action masterpiece Where Eagles Dare with Clint and Richard Burton a few years earlier. Where Eagles Dare was our favorite movie in S1! Will the follow-up match up? Don Rickles is in it and he (all due respect) is no Richard Burton. Does Gran Torino hold up 12 years later? It was kind of a big deal back in 2008. Ken and Jack discuss with returning film historian, screenwriter and celebrity chef Erik.
**KELLY'S HEROES: 00:03:07
GRAN TORINO: 00:33:07**
S1 E10 TWO MULES FOR SISTER INVICTUS SEASON FINALE
For our tenth episode we finally get into the 1970s with Two Mules for Sister Sara, the second of Eastwood's five films with director Don "Donald" Siegel, co-starring the lovely Shirley MacLaine, who channeled her previous life as a deadly wasp spider in 19th century Mexico for the role. Then 2009's Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as a leathery rugby egg. Jack, Ken and special guest Andi break it all down and explain the word "Invictus", which sounds like a Jack Kirby cosmic villain but is, sadly, not. Ken and Jack also fondly look back at the first 20 (!!!) movies watched in this Season One Finale. Favorites? Least favorites? Cringiest moment? Get out your scorecards! Please give us credit if you name your death metal band **Sister Invictus.
TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA: 00:04:11
INVICTUS: 00:26:22
S1 WRAP UP: 00:52:56**
S1 E9 PAINT YER HEREAFTER
Eastwood’s HEREAFTER, 2010, which IMDB halfway accurately labels Drama/Disaster, is chock full of actors you recognize from better movies saying words in storylines about what happens after people die. Everyone who has seen Hereafter can attest death feels like watching this movie. In 1969’s PAINT YOUR WAGON, the musical (!!!) with Clint, Jean Seberg and Lee-frickin-Marvin, we learn they had to paint the wagon because the first coat melted off after watching this insane movie. Ken and Jack suffer from the law of averages and discuss both at length.
**HEREAFTER: 00:02:10
PAINT YOUR WAGON: 00:25:33**
S1 E8 WHERE EDGARS DARE.
Clint takes a supporting role to Richard Burton in the Men on a Mission WWII action classic Where Eagles Dare, directed by Brian Hutton, from 1969. And then... Leonardo DiCaprio. Is. J. Edgar. From 2011, J. Edgar is one of Eastwood's more surprising late-career projects, quite unlike anything else we have seen so far - is that a good thing? Jack and Ken go the heights of a mountainous Nazi fortress to the depths of Hoover's sock drawer in an epic discussion replete with heavily desaturated flashbacks. Spoiler: Two of our favorite movies so far!
**WHERE EAGLES DARE: 00:01:45
J. EDGAR: 00:33:06**
S1 E7 COOGAN'S CURVE
Trouble With the Curve, from 2012, is NOT directed by Eastwood and neither is Coogan's Bluff from 1968. Coogan is directed by Don Siegel in the first of five classic collabs with Eastwood. Curve is directed by guy we had never heard of (Robert Lorenz) who is undoubtedly a talented individual! After all, he made a movie with Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams! Not too shabby!
Jack and Ken play catch in the yard to discuss both films but it turns out Ken isn't there and feels bad later.
(Coogan's Bluff has zero relation to Cogan's Trade, the 1974 George V, Higgins crime novel which was made into Killing Them Softly in 2012 with Brad Pitt)
**COOGAN'S BLUFF: 00:05:18
TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE: 00:24:04**
S1 E6 HANG 'EM BOYS
Eastwood's long-sought leading man debut in a Hollywood motion picture, Hang 'Em High, from 1968, along with his 2014 musical, Jersey Boys. Top 40 for both? Or are they both for the noose?
As they say in Jersey, "Yo, those are definitely two films you are discussing." Film scholar, screenwriter and celebrity chef Erik joins us.
**HANG 'EM HIGH: 00:04:07
JERSEY BOYS: 00:25:07**
S1 E5 The Good, The Sniper and The UglyEastwood completes the Dollars Trilogy (Dollar Bill, Dollar Sign) with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (WE NAMED OUR PODCAST AFTER IT!!!!). We also watch his biggest box office success, Amercan Sniper, starring Cradley Booper as Johnny A. Sniper. Ken and Jack talk about both with special guest, Larry.
**THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: 00:02:19
AMERICAN SNIPER: 00:28:14**Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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Ken: Ken Koral
Jack: jackk1096
S1 E3 A FISTFUL TO PARISEastwood's epic entry into superstardom in A Fistful of Dollars. Paired with it is the epic entry of three non-actors playing themselves in a 90 minute studio film called The 15:17 to Paris about that one time they did something heroic while on a sweet European vacay. Pam from the office is in it! Ken and Jack come to terms with both films in decidedly unheroic fashion. **A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS: 00:02:06
15:17 TO PARIS: 00:18:34**Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
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S1 E4 FOR A FEW SULLY'S MORE
Eastwood in the second of theDollars Trilogy, (Dollar Tree, Dollar General), For a Few Dollars More, paired with Aaron Eckhart's mustache in Sully, a 90 minute studio film about a three minute incident on an airplane sponsored by a certain hotel chain. Ken and Jack fail to stick the landing discussing both.
**FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE: 00:02:38
SULLY: 00:20:37**Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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S1 E1 The Revenge of the Richard
Clint Eastwood’s latest film paired with his first screen appearance! Richard Jewell and Revenge of the Creature. Parallel themes across 65 years? Fascinating behind the scenes anecdotes? Incisive commentary? Maybe, but maybe not! Ken and Jack do a deep dive on each film.
**REVENGE OF THE CREATURE 00:01:53
RICHARD JEWELL 00:21:03**Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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S1 E2 HIDE THE MULE
Ken and Jack dissect Eastwood’s first appearance on the TV classic Rawhide, which made him a star, and his (probable) acting swan song in The Mule. Surprises follow as one has a donkey in it and the other one doesn’t!
Just remember: Unforgiven is one of the greatest movies ever made!
**RAWHIDE E1: 00:03:23
THE MULE: 00:18:02**Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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